Fantastic piece by Claire Berlinski on the hysterical moral panic over sex.

https://twitter.com/amyalkon/status/938658420856459264

Love this tweet:

https://twitter.com/SikhProf/status/938124018363830279

Random thought:

https://twitter.com/amyalkon/status/938668461827297280

On a Southwest flight a couple of years ago, a very green flight attendant got on the horn to warn us that 'conjugating' near the restroom in the front by the plane was forbidden by law. That hurt: As a groomed bachelor seated in 2A, I'd have taken my chances.

You're right, that Berlinski piece is really strong. She's done some VG stuff over the years, but this is particularly strong.

And I bet she has a great rack.

Well, Franken has an announcement today, which will likely be his resignation, with so many calling for it.

So, the lying, hypocritical tramp has achieved her goal.

Conan and Crid, can you kindly spare me your stumbling apologetics this time? I'm really not interested in hearing you make all kinds of benevolent assumptions on behalf of Lying, Hypocritical Tramp and company because women. You aren't objective, or even close, and it's absolutely cringeworthy to watch.

Why apologize? You're goofy & wrong.

If you think "tramp" is a thoughtful characterization of another human being, you're really going to hate life after Junior High graduation.

Well, in looking at the USO show, I find myself wondering why LHT was even there in the first place. I mean, does she even have a talent, or is her only skill placing her hands, lips and buttocks on apparently unsuspecting men? Then hypocritically claim to feel violated when a man pantomime gropes her?

I mean, I realize that directors of USO shows can do whatever they want. I just want to know what justifies her presence on a stage in the first place. I mean, isn't that reserved for performance artists with some kind of talent?

Hmm.. Kinda makes you wonder who could benefit from making life miserable for these independent stores *cough711cough*

Kim's family has run the deli, which sells soda, snacks, meals and beer by the can, for 20 years. He says the glass went up after a shooting and claims it saved his mother-in-law from a knife attack. Now, he may be forced to take some of the barrier down.

http://www.fox29.com/news/politics/controversial-bulletproof-glass-bill-passes-committee

"If you think "tramp" is a thoughtful characterization of another human being,..."

Ah. If you think that was a "thoughtful characterization"... well, no, you made that up. I thought you'd know better. You and Patrick have been here for ~13 years.

He's being clear this time while you signal virtue. That's all. Carry on!

So, the lying, hypocritical tramp has achieved her goal.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/sen-al-frankens-accusers-accusations-made/story?id=51406862

Well, it seems that for the Senate Dems that 8 was one too many for them to continue to circle the wagons around Senator Gropey McGroper (D-Tongue). They had been waiting on an ethics probe. Is that no longer good enough? And it looks like Moore will win in Bama on Tuesday, and just as suddenly they're willing to throw under the bus.

Wait till they start rewriting recent history. We've always been at war with Eastasia, errr, predatory men and not giving them multiple passes so long as their checks don't bounce.

Do note they haven't thrown Senator Menendez (D-Pedophile Island) under the bus. Yet, I guess.

Kinda makes you wonder who could benefit from making life miserable for these independent stores *cough711cough*

This. I need to remember to look at legislation that looks odd to see whom it benefits most. You, opportunities for graft and such.

Does it provide a barrier to entry in a market
Does it favor a given vendor over their competitors?
Who is writing checks/providing in-kind donations to politicians?

Conan and Crid, can you kindly spare me your stumbling apologetics this time? I'm really not interested in hearing you make all kinds of benevolent assumptions on behalf of Lying, Hypocritical Tramp and company because women. You aren't objective, or even close, and it's absolutely cringeworthy to watch.. ~ Patrick at December 7, 2017 5:39 AM

You mean you don't like it when you're wrong and people call you on it. You backed the wrong horse in this race and now you're being pissy about it.

Leann Tweeden may be hypocritical and she may be a tramp (I've never met her), but she apparently wasn't lying. Eight women so far have accused Franken of being a grabby-handed perv.

So much for the Senator you sanctimoniously characterized earlier as "so reserved in his public demeanor that you might think him asexual."

Franken was a bully and, apparently, a hypocrite. Women should be believed, at least until they accuse Al Franken of being grabby, then it's all about "who you gonna believe, Al or the lying hypocritical tramp?"

"I’ve realized that the disappointing responses women often face when they go public both embolden harassers and encourage victims to stay silent." ~ Al Franken

Disappointing responses? Like being called a "hypocritical lying tramp?"

________________________________________

Hmm.. Kinda makes you wonder who could benefit from making life miserable for these independent stores *cough711cough* ~ Sixclaws at December 7, 2017 7:36 AM

Um, Six, wrong thread.

"signal virtue" / "hypocritical lying tramp"

Tell Casper hi, but tell him also that he's too fey.

Tell Wile E. Coyote I'll be calling the office in early January to discuss a project... The money's in place.

Conan, you're entitled to your biases. We all have them, and I couldn't dispossess you of them anyway, or punish you until you get rid of them.

I just noted, rather disappointingly, that you seem to think Franken is guilty. Not because of any persuasive evidence (because there is none), but because seven women have come forward with accusations.

When last I checked, there were seven accusers in all, so let's put my position on this issue in the simplest possible terms:

zero evidence x 7 = zero evidence

No, I don't believe these women, so I don't know what you think I was wrong about. I see a photo of Al Franken posing with a constituent. Fine. Since no one has come forward with any persuasive arguments that this is a shopped photo, I accept that as proof that this constituent met Franken. It is not, however, proof that Franken ever groped her.

LHT claimed that Franken groped her. Even if I accepted the photo as real, it does not prove that Franken ever slid his tongue down her throat.

Your position seems to be:

no evidence x 7 = persuasive evidence

Never sit on a jury. Never.

There is this idealistic mindset going around that rape and sexual assault are magical crimes, somehow. People can lie about assault, murder, any crime imaginable. But somehow, we're all turning into blinking Bambi-eyed morons who peep in childlike tones, "Oh, but women would never, ever, ever lie about rape or sexual assault. It's just too horrible to lie about."

Now hear this: human beings can lie about anything. There is no vengeful god in the heavens that lets you lie about every object under the sun, except sex crimes. Because if you lie about those, the vengeful god will strike you dead with a bolt of lightning and laugh sadistically as a gaping chasm opens beneath your charred, inert body and swallows you to the deepest layer of hell.

I think I could find, in a country of 330 million, seven women willing to produce fabricated nonsense to bring down a Senator I didn't like.

And because Franken was dumb enough to signal his accord with Hillary's mind-blowingly asinine statement (considering she's a lawyer), "You have a right to be believed," he's a good target. And one that the Republicans would love to get rid of.

No, I don't believe Franken groped these women. I think he's being dogpiled and because he insisted that we must believe these women who come forward; therefore, he can't adequately defend himself without accusing these women of lying.

We had evidence for Anthony Weiner. We even have something more persuasive to accuse Roy Moore and Donald Trump. But we have nothing on Franken.

Moore will be seated, Trump will remain in office, and Franken is getting thrown under the bus.

So, I don't know what you think I was wrong about. Or what you're so right about. You have no proof.

The standard is "innocent until proven guilty," "not innocent until proven guilty unless a whole bunch of people come forward with unproven allegations."

Yes, I know we're not talking about a court of law, but shouldn't our laws be based upon our values as a society? If our law doesn't condemn people without evidence against them, isn't that supposed to be because we, as a society don't believe in condemning people without evidence against them?

The way Franken tried to shift the focus to Trump during his own resignation was absolutely surreal.

Interesting and shrot read about the goings-on in Saudi Arabia. Keep "MbS" in mind in the coming months, and perhaps years, if the crown prince can keep his own head.

Natural gas from fracking has displaced oil as the fuel of the Western economy, with the result that OPEC (and, less critically, Russian oil) can no longer hold anybody’s economy hostage. For the Saudi government, moreover, no longer can cartel-inflated oil revenues pay for the gigantic welfare state that supports so much of the population in non–working, gilded, state dependency. What can’t go on, won’t, said economist Herb Stein sagely; and MbS, as the new crown prince is called, saw this reality and stepped in to take precautionary measures before a rapidly collapsing economic order sparked social anarchy, with an outcome no government could foresee or control.

https://www.city-journal.org/html/saudi-arabias-earth-shaking-coup-15592.html

"Natural gas from fracking has displaced oil as the fuel of the Western economy"

I wonder why the author provided no evidence to support this assertion. Otherwise that's one of the feel-good articles of the year.

Gog, this may help out. Scroll down to figure 1. I was surprised the article is fully available until I noticed "Open Access funded by VSNU Under a Creative Commons license". Bully!

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421517301027

Two clear trends can be detected in Fig. 1: (1) cumulative production of shale gas has increased exponentially over the past decade, and (2) the wellhead price of natural gas has significantly decreased since about 2007, roughly by a factor of two.

This is a tad more recent: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/14/us-shale-oil-output-to-top-6-million-barrels-a-day.html

U.S. shale drillers will keep posting strong gains in August and September, with production from shale regions topping 6 million barrels a day, the Department of Energy projected.

The department's Energy Information Administration projected output in several key oil producing regions will grow by 117,000 barrels a day to 6.15 million barrels a day in September. The region's output is seen topping 6 million barrels a day in August.

I've seen reports that KSA was producing a mere 10 billion barrels/day.

Here's a nice overview of the Saudi production over the last 5 years.

https://ycharts.com/indicators/saudi_arabia_crude_oil_production

Yes, Running Is a Trivial Pursuit, But Not in the Way You Think

Daaaaaaaaammmnnnn!

Photographer and filmmaker Dustin Farrell spent the summer chasing lightning with a $110,000 Phantom Flex4K high-speed camera. What resulted was this 4K short film, titled “Transient,” that shows the epic beauty of lightning in 1,000fps slow motion.

https://petapixel.com/2017/12/04/epic-4k-film-captures-beauty-lightning-1000fps/

Shot in raw mode, it took 10 terabytes of space to create the video. Wonder how long to render the final product?

Additionally, let me say thunderstorms that rotate are bad mothers and he captures a couple, and I thought I saw a transformer blow. There's a strike, and then at a small distance away to the left there is sudden bright flare.

In two interviews with HuffPost, the woman alleged that Ford engaged in harassment, intimidation, and forcibly grabbed her one evening in Manhattan, leading her to seek aid from a building security guard. The incident took place several years ago when Ford and the woman were supposed to be meeting for professional reasons. Ford continued to contact her after the encounter until she wrote an email asking him to cease contact.

The email, which was reviewed by HuffPost, shows that the woman emailed Ford after he repeatedly asked her to drinks. She asked him not to contact her anymore, citing his inappropriate conduct the evening where he forcibly grabbed and harassed her.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/harold-ford-fired-morgan-stanley_us_5a29743ee4b0b185e53a0ce6

Would Patrick say the same of the dozens, quite literally dozens, of women who've accused Weinstein without offering evidence?

A few weeks ago, you (unbidden) presented us with your own (unrequested) narrative of assault. Because it was Patrick at his most Patrickian, I didn't read it. We are not here to balm each other's youthful hurts, and sometimes blogs are too annoying to even scan closely.

But now I'm wondering if that little just-so story included "evidence."

I DO NOT CARE ENOUGH TO GO BACK AND LOOK IT UP, and doubt anyone else does, either.

Because adulthood. Bad things happen to all of us, don't they. I don't need to know how strangers got their scars.

Meanwhile, look at Franken's resignation comments, and compare them to the reasoning in the excellent Berlinski article. To Hell with him.

I want color, to run Photoshop.

The youngest readers here might live to see it.

Are there any younger readers here?

More Hollywood.

What Trump’s Decision on Jerusalem Means for Israel and the Middle East

WaPo:

Al Franken began his rise as a Democratic politician nine years ago by reluctantly apologizing to women for things he had said and written, enabling him to put his career as a bawdy comedian behind him and win a U.S. Senate seat.

You could argue that he never really got the hang of contrition. On Thursday, Franken stood in the Senate chamber after a string of half-apologies had failed to end a weeks-long groping scandal, and announced that he will resign his seat without so much as an “I'm sorry.”

Your position seems to be

You telling me what my position is? After hissy fit you pitch whenever anyone dares to interpret your position in a way you don't like.

I've reserved judgement on Franken and only criticized you for your unabashed fan boy worship of the "so reserved" senator from Minnesota.

I defended Clarence Thomas in conversation based on the fact that all Anita Hill had were decades old accusations. And I defended Franken on the fact that when that photo was taken, he was a comedian, not a senator and simulated grope was not beyond the pale in such a profession in the '90s.

But seven more women came along and accused the "so reserved" senator of inappropriate conduct, when he was a senator and such conduct was beyond the pale. And Franken's petulant resignation speech was a picture perfect temper tantrum of self-righteous indignation.

Like the Clinton defenders, the Franken defenders were made fools of by the sheer weight of the accusations coming at them. And they'd finally had enough. They deserted him en masse with the eighth accusation.

And, Patrick, if you are ready to throw the book at Weinstein based on the number of unsubstantiated accusations against him, you cannot then insist the accusations against Franken, with no less proof offered, are uniquely spurious.

Al Franken is a bully and a sanctimonious prick, but even he should not be forced out on the basis of unsubstantiated accusations. His conduct in other matters should be re-examined in light of the number of accusations and his usefulness as a senator re-evaluated. But his future as a senator from Minnesota is for the voters of Minnesota to decide, as I said before).

Nonetheless, his usefulness as a senator was definitely compromised. He'd never again have been able to sponsor a bill or to get one beyond committee. That's something Roy Moore will discover if he manages to win his election.

And, Patrick, I've served on juries, eight times so far. If you ever find yourself arrested and on trial for your life, you'd better pray you get a juror like me.

An HOUR ago, 58 minutes actually, we hear Franks is going to resign.

And now we know why.

God-oh-God-oh-Yeahbaby, I love the electric speed of the internet during this unprecedented season of scandal.

The elegant French

fries.

I want color, to run Photoshop. ~ Crid at December 7, 2017 2:13 PM

Books are going to be so different in the future. With pictures and moving maps. Imagine reading about the Battle of Gettysburg using a live map that shows the hour-by-hour movements of Meade and Lee.

Imagine reading a mystery in which the characters' actions at the scene of the crime can be mapped out and shown rather than painstakingly described in excruciating detail that still leaves you lost as to who was standing by the fireplace with the poker and who was across the street with binoculars.

Or a book where a simple touch on a word takes you to an explanation of that item or character. If you're confused about or don't remember a character, simply touch that character's name and be taken to a description consistent with your progress thus far in the narrative.

And that's just the incoming side of the experience. Imagine composing your work on such a thing.

fries. ~ Crid at December 7, 2017 4:01 PM

Pommes Frites

Five Guys on the Champs-Elysées? Shouldn't that be Cinq Gars?

And that's just the incoming side of the experience. Imagine composing your work on such a thing. ~ Crid at December 7, 2017 4:19 PM

✔︎

Video of the year:

https://twitter.com/BobMenery/status/938828909797412864

You know, she does have a point

https://twitter.com/PrincessRizu/status/938239949429792769

Oh, this is sooooo gonna get them to elect Doug Jones!

Mediaite Editor: It’s Time to ‘Look Down Our Nose at the Constituents of Alabama’

Crid:

Would Patrick say the same of the dozens, quite literally dozens, of women who've accused Weinstein without offering evidence?

Hello, Crid. Since you seem to be civil in this question, I'll answer civilly. To answer, I would point out that there are corroborating circumstances surrounding these accusations on Weinstein that, if not evidence, lends considerable credibility to them.

For example, an unidentified source claims that in 1995, Brad Pitt threatened Weinstein with violence, for harassing his then-girlfriend Gwyneth Paltrow.

So, assuming this anonymous source is neither Paltrow nor Pitt, I would say that, if Paltrow is making these allegations against Weinstein right now, she waited 22 years to play her hand. That's a very impressive biding of time.

Yes, there is the possibility that the anonymous source is in cahoots with Pitt and Paltrow, but I doubt that they would plot something this elaborate.

I could point out other factors in the case of Weinstein that, again, if not evidence, lends a certain degree of credibility to the accusations against Weinstein that Franken's accusers don't have.

Crid:

A few weeks ago, you (unbidden) presented us with your own (unrequested) narrative of assault. Because it was Patrick at his most Patrickian, I didn't read it. We are not here to balm each other's youthful hurts, and sometimes blogs are too annoying to even scan closely.

It wasn't weeks ago. It wasn't even one week ago.

You didn't read it, yet you know the nature of the event described, you assess it at being "Patrickian" (someday I might ask you to define that term) and you know it happened when I was young.

As for balming each other, I wouldn't expect that from you. Over the years that we have posted together, I've come to realize that you're probably without empathy. And that's okay. It wasn't something you did to yourself. When empathy was supposed to be attached in utero, the dice came up snake eyes for you.

The DSM 5 tells us that around 1% of the nation is psychotic. That might sound terrifying, but anti-social personality disorder is not a synonym for "stupid." It might not give a psychotic any psychic feedback to knock off the guy who's occupying the job you want, but even a person without empathy can realize that the law frowns on such conduct, and will do bad things to you in response.

Crid:

But now I'm wondering if that little just-so story included "evidence."

You didn't read it, but you rate it as just-so.

I could, if I wanted to, put you in contact with at least two of the perps who would confirm my narrative, along with several innocent bystanders. Such is the wonder of Facebook. Unfortunately, these contacts would have to be online and you would be well within your rights to doubt them. You don't know them; why should you believe they are who they say they are online?

But I would point something else out: I'm not out to force the resignation of Senators (or bring anyone down in any way). My only objective was to entertain, and point out the double-standards that existed then and still exist today. Apparently, in your case, I failed. Bummer.

Welcome news:

GOP Lawmakers Confront Trump Over EPA’s Unworkable Biofuels Mandate

> You didn't read it, yet you
> know the nature

> You didn't read it, but you
> rate it

Right. I scan stuff. Not every comment or commenter deserves our closest attention.

Across a teenage lifetime now, you've composed messages here with a presumption that strangers are intimately fascinated with the moistest components of your interior life. That ain't correct, so it's unpleasant to read your stuff... Like, maybe you'll grow out of this emotional incontinence someday, but who could want to be bothered in meantime? I tell you I don't care, and you offer to put me "in contact with at least two of the perps who would confirm [the] narrative."

These are blog comments, not psychotherapy.

See? It was only after responding that I noticed that no, you don't offer "evidence." I can't imagine why two others vouching for you would mean more than multiple similar accusations against a senator.

Planet Earth exceeds your emotional scope.

Emotional incontinence! That’s a great description.

I stole it from somewhere, but it turns out it's a thing.

So now both Conyers and Franken are gone, something that I admit I didn't think would happen. What effect might this have on Roy Moore? Five Thirty Eight seems to think it's a tossup, although they caution wisely about several factors: this is an off-cycle special election at an odd time of year, and there is nothing else on the ballot in most districts, so that makes turnout hard to predict. Weather could also be a factor. It's unclear how many minds might have been changed by this week's events, or how many of those will actually vote.

Meanwhile, we have silly stunts.

At least a few people have said that instead of demanding that Franken resign, the Democrats should have demanded that Trump resign first. Otherwise, they're just making things easier for the Republicans - and Moore is still likely to win.

Just saying.

"You two kids are cartoon thinkers sharing a cartoon planet."

Nope, not about me. You tried to brand ordinary comment as "thoughtful characterization", and then proceeded as if it was. You've known him here over a decade and still do this? Why?

A too-common feature of a Crid post is the reassignment of values and definitions.

If any commenter here is cartoonish, it is you, the master of prose but not of logic - regardless of how others may apply it.

That was mean.

So, what about Beverly Nelson, a Moore accuser, forging the entry in her yearbook? What thoughtful characterization applies to her?

PS: Crid, you are the master of prose here. So there's that. I can't claim that.

Figure it out, little fella... I'd hate to "reassign your values."