FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

(How'd I miss The Dirtbombs all these years? Thanks Sherri!)

•   MRA promoter The Ole Perfesser has steered his readers to this Andrew Klavan video explaining #GamerGate to older conservatives. Klavan gives viewers a little background: "For decades left-wingers have dominated the arts, using movies, television, novels, and critical articles (!!- Ed.) to sell idiot notions like 'America is oppressive,'  'capitalism is evil,' 'gender difference is bigotry,' and 'God is dead'..." The upshot is that wingnuts own gaming and from this cultural redoubt can counter the lies of "left-wing game journalists" with the help of "honest journalists such as Milo Yiannopoulos, of Breitbart.com" (Yeah I know but that's an actual quote) to promote conservative ideas such as Eat Me, Bitch. No mention at all of the appalling harassment visited upon uncooperative females by these knight-like dorks, but lots of tit jokes.  Klavan's approach hasn't changed much since this 2009 Democrats are Like Rapists video, but at least his references move with the times: He refers throughout to "Hashtag-Gamergate," and if the geezers in his audience can figure out what it means they should be stalking Anita Sarkeesian in no time.

•   Speaking of hashtags, thanks, Simon Maloy, for reminding me of this:

Now that gas prices are plummeting, looking at those old #250Gas tweets is fun -- and so is reading Megan McArdle's unusually brief, tight-lipped post on the drop; as you might expect from an acolyte of the oil-dependent Koch Brothers she sounds nervous about it: "Texas, North Dakota and other places in the U.S. will suffer as oil prices decline and some of the high-paid jobs in oil production go away," she writes. Well, that's capitalism, comrade; I wonder if those absurd boomtown prices North Dakota oil workers are paying for their apartments will go down in response. I'm guessing not, 'cause that's capitalism, too, these days. You can also read Joseph Curl at the Washington Times: "Cheap gas prices? Obama’ll fix that" -- 'cause he'll eventually kill the good times with regulations to fix the so-called "environment," just you wait. Sigh, some people are never satisfied.

•   You can always count on Jonah Goldberg:

Reasonable people can disagree on whether racism was involved in the tragic death of Eric Garner. My own suspicion is that this misfortune could have transpired just as easily with a white man resisting arrest and/or a black cop choking him... 

But you know what reasonable people can’t dispute? New York’s cigarette taxes are partly to blame for Eric Garner’s death.

Racism? In America? Meh, Jonah doesn't see it; when he goes "WHAT IT IS" to the black guy at the deli, he doesn't get any static, man. But that cigarette taxes killed Garner -- that's indisputable!

Everyone agrees: No one should die for selling bootleg cigarettes. But if you pass and enforce a law against such things, you increase the chances things might go wrong. That’s a fact, whether it sounds callous to delicate ears or not

Just like how stop signs cause rear-end collisions! Goldberg also compares taxing cigarettes to the drug war, though for some reason he doesn't cite thousands of other cigarette-tax-enforcement deaths, or any, that would support this analogy. Here's my favorite part of this mess:

When you pass a law, you authorize law enforcement to enforce it. That’s actually why they’re called 'law enforcement.' Google it.

This mind-blanking stupidity is wonderful enough, but the supercilious tone is just so Goldberg.

•   Goldberg's traditional reign as the permanent author of the stupidest thing ever written is being challenged by the Cato Institute's David Boaz:

The violent death of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia set off the Arab Spring. Could the killing of Eric Garner lead to a springtime of police reform – and regulatory reform -- in the United States? 

Bouazizi was a street vendor, selling fruits and vegetables from a cart...

Yes, Garner's problem was that he just wanted to run his little cig biz, just like Bouazizi, but the statists wouldn't let him, so he set himself on fire was choked to death by a white cop. Unlike Goldberg (who probably couldn't help himself) Boaz studiously ignores the subject of race:

Eric Garner's death has also set off protests, not just in New York but in Boston, Chicago, Washington, and other places. Many protesters held signs reading "I can't breathe" and "This stops now." They should add "I'm minding my business. Just leave me alone."

Maybe Boaz should make this plea directly to the protesters: "You people are diluting the free-market message of Garner! Here's a script, I'll be at this steakhouse over here." I imagine years hence, after the neo-feudal conversion of America is complete, conservatives will toast Eric Garner's role in normalizing the no-benefits workplace.

GOTV.

Election season has brought the usual crop of conservatives telling you that too many people vote so you filthy paupers should desist and to leave the franchise to your betters. In the last ditch, knowing that you won't vote Republican, they may try and steer you toward their deceptive niche brand. But by and large they'd rather you just gave up.

National Review legacy pledge Jonah Goldberg has been doing this routine for years but never gets any better at it. Perhaps sensing his audience has become jaded, this year he's added a hook designed to excite them:

They just can't quit Lena Dunham, see; she's like the anti-Fox Fembot and her very existence, even on the fringes of popular art, enrages them. (I understand Goldberg's second choice was "Why Obama's birth certificate shouldn't be allowed to vote.") National Review even has an actual editorial about Dunham, as if she were ISIS or the Cyprus question.

Back to Goldberg: How's the content? Bet you're sorry you asked:

Dunham says that "voting is kind of a gateway drug to 'getting involved.'" 

This is a widely held view and, as far as I can tell, there is absolutely no truth to it. But even if voting boosted civic participation, the very idea puts the cart before the horse. It is like saying you should buy a car because that way you might learn to drive or take the test and then study for it.

Similarly, it's like reading a book to become smart, which is backwards; everybody knows that only smart people with Van Dykes and designer specs can read books cuz they've been properly educated in liberal fasciology -- try and read without that, and you might learn the wrong things.

Anyway, you know how they feel about you voting -- and in America's redder precincts on Election Day, their message is spread by deeds rather than words. So let's go ahead and vote, then, if only because it pisses off the idiots.

UPDATE. So, when's the impeachment start?

WATCH YOUR BACK, GOLDBERG.

Betsy Woodruff of National Review on how Macklemore won a Grammy because homos:

Far be it from me to assume there’s any rhyme or reason behind who wins Grammys (ha! not doing that).

The very next goddamn sentence:

But it’s hard not to look at this situation and wonder if the Grammys put politics before music.

This breathtaking display of self-unawareness, along with her ridiculous Lena Dunham columns, makes Woodruff the front-runner to replace Jonah Goldberg as the Corporal Agarn of NR's culture war troops.

Anyway I don't know what she's complaining about; one might as easily argue that Daft Punk's big night is a victory for the Singularity.

UPDATE. Hear hear, M. Krebs in comments: "Actually it's hard not to wonder if there's anything the Grammys don't put before music."

Plus, Formerly_Nom_De_Plume:

I won’t be talking about Ryan Lewis at all here because first, I don’t know anything about him 

lost out to someone named Ariana Grande about whom I know nothing 

Someone with a better grasp of hip-hop history than I (read: someone with any grasp of it at all, really) 

(And if this piece already exists, can someone send it to me?)

Her training is complete. Jonah watch his back? More like congratulate himself on a job well done.