Category: News

Stop calling every celebrity’s bad day a “meltdown”

Lazy sensationalist writers are overusing and improperly applying a word that should mean something.

The phrase “meltdown” should be reserved for mental breakdowns where a person loses control of their behavior in a fit of confusion, rage or sadness. That’s what a meltdown is. It comes from the informal phrase used to refer to a nuclear power core being damaged from severe overheating, referred to as a “nuclear meltdown”. A human meltdown should be similarly explosive and a result of their core systems being overtaxed. Then it would be accurate.

Britney, courtesy Splash News

A “meltdown” is not being annoyed with an assistant and saying snippy things. It is not a misunderstanding that is handled with less patience than one might expect. It’s a flip out. A tantrum as a result of stress and anxiety. Not just a person being awkward or angry.

You would think poor Jessica Simpson was made of wax, looking at the constant headlines about her alleged “meltdowns”.

Knock it off. These aren’t meltdowns. They’re bad days. Lots of people have legit meltdowns you can point to if you’re not so lazy. Find and highlight those. Leave formerly-hot-currently-fat actresses and other celebrities whose success you’re jealous of, alone.

Poll Dancing: with 6 months to go, Romney leads Obama but there’s a “But…”

The latest Gallup Tracking Poll looks like my ex-girlfriends legs after one fourth of one beer:

Obama Romney; Romney Lead
15-Apr 45 47 2
16-Apr 43 48 5

Pew polls also confirm that as of now at least, it’s down to the wire.

As the general election campaign gets underway, Obama’s slim 49% to 45% edge over Mitt Romney is based on his continued support among women, college graduates, blacks, Latinos and lower-income voters. Obama leads Romney by 13 points among women, which is identical to his victory margin over McCain among women four years ago, according to National Election Pool exit polls. Men, who split their vote between Obama (49%) and McCain (48%), are leaning slightly toward Romney today, by a 50% to 44% margin…

Obama has lost support among several groups: Obama carried the independent vote by a margin of 52% to 44% in 2008. Today, 42% of independents favor him, while 48% back Romney. Obama also is faring worse among lower-income voters and those with less education than he did in 2008.

The problem here that it seems no one but me is either aware of or willing to talk about is the racial minority vote and the emotional appeals the Obama campaign uses to drive that voter turnout. Sorry, but a majority of Barack Obama’s appeal as a politician is race-based and that shiz translates to votes. Romney can counter if, and only if he puts the brakes on that appeal by choosing a non-white-male running mate. My pick is son-of-Cuban immigrants, Florida Senator Marco Rubio but there are plenty of acceptable options. This is an issue of marketing and optics. The point is not that the Repbulicans should play the same bogus identity-politics game that the Democrats are but rather merely to slow the dishonest attacks on their own brand. In other words: the strategy in my plan is not to try and get Republican votes by making people say of someone on the voting ticket “they are just like me regarding ethnic or racial makeup and I would like to have what I ignorantly feel is ‘one of my own’ in positions of power” in the way that skyrocketed black votes for Obama in 2008 to 96% which became 13% of the voting electorate (and my pick of Rubio should be evidence of that, since Cuban Americans are already solid Republican voting blocks and have little to no ethnic identity crossover appeal to Blacks or other Latino segments) – but rather its merely to debunk that very notion. Obama is going to try to win not by ideas and arguments and honest appraisals of Republican policies and how they may or may not benefit society – he’s going to try to win with smearing his opponents as elitists that don’t understand or care about the struggle of the underclass, which is to many minority voters, a dog whistle for “the other side is racist and you can’t trust them”. Romney can’t merely rely on his life history of helping those in need to end the effectiveness of those attacks. He needs a running mate that can show the key demographic of voters (of all races and ethnicities) that don’t follow the specifics of politics and aren’t terribly informed on policy, that he and his party are not the stuffy white-guys coming in to take down the first half-black President of the nation and, unfortunately, the only way to earn the listenership of that demographic is to match the optics of the opponent in some way and then make the argument from there. The argument will be made regardless, obviously, but if that argument comes from 2 white guys against a half-black guy and old white guy, the team with the half-black guy will get enough votes from non-politic followers across the board and especially in racial minority demographics and it will be enough to tip the election.

Romney is halfway there…

Obama trails Romney by a wide margin among white voters (54% Romney, 39% Obama), though that is little changed from 2008. But Obama has lost ground among certain groups of white voters. In 2008, whites with household incomes under $50,000 favored McCain over Obama by a slim 51% to 47% margin. Today, lower-income whites favor Romney over Obama by a 16-point margin (54% to 38%).

To sow up a victory in November, it all hinges on this decision.

Disney’s Goofy says Justin Beiber is a jerk

Did you know that Goofy is an evil liar? I know…I was shocked too. but there is no other explanation for this tale of whoah. Heartbreak of the year… A reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) user who makes his living as Goofy in Disneyworld, had the pleasure of working with the most Charming Prince in all the land, but tragically…does not have good things to report…

I have met a ton of celebrities and a few times I was filmed for an interview where I had to interact with the celebrity. My best story would be when I had to work with Justin Beiber during the filming of the Disney 2011 Christmas Parade aired on Christmas day. There were a couple of Goofys working with him that day but here is me with him. He is an absolute asshole and a punk ass bitch. He kept saying the word “fag” or “faggot” at least once every sentence when I had to wait with him for his manager. He has no pride in his work as a performer and entertainer. He is not humble and the entire time I was hanging out with him, he was on his cell phone texting and barking orders at people in the most disrespectful way.

Itching for more punishment? Bill Nye the Science Guy is an elitist jerk as well:

Pretty much. I remember meeting Bill Nye while working an event and off stage he was pretty brusque and unfriendly. People always seem shocked that entertainers are busy, impatient, and short tempered just like anyone else…maybe more so since they have to deal with their on-stage/camera persona the rest of the time.

Prompting this reply:

My uncle is an astronomer who met Bill Nye after a TED conference once.He told me all about how much of a dick he can be offstage. Says he was probably one of the rudest people he’d ever met, thinking he was the most important person who was talking at the conference.Makes me sad, really. I lost so much respect for Mr. Nye when he told me that story.

Which got this reply:

I was Bill Nye’s banker a very long time ago. Without question, he was one of the biggest assholes I have ever had the displeasure to meet. Worst part is: I love what he does for science awareness.

EDIT: Here is my ‘best’ Bill Nye the Asshole Guy story:

I am a young banker, he walks up to my desk (we’d met several times before) hands me several blank deposit slips and says “fill these out for me, I need to make some deposits.”
I say, “Of course,” and begin doing as he asked even though he’s the only person I’ve ever had who was unwilling to write out his own deposit slips…whatever – he’s Bill Nye and I’m happy to help.
I was apparently taking too long, so he says, “You wanna hurry it up? We got a dollar waiting on a dime here.”

I apologize and tell him I am almost finished.
He then says, “In case you couldn’t figure it out: I’m the dollar. You’re the dime.”
I say, “Yes, I understood you,” and continue finishing up.
As I hand him his paperwork he looks me dead in the eye and says, “Because I am worth a lot more than you, get it?”
Literally snatched the deposits out of my hand and walked to the teller window.

Ideology means very little in elections

I’ve been saying this in various forms for over 10 years but John Ziegler has said it so well in this column that i’m angry at not articulating my own version better before he beat me to it. Regardless, he nails it in the following in his list of the Six Dirty Secrets of Presidential Politics in 2012.

Issues/Ideology Mean Very Little

Thanks to “dirty little secret” number one, I find it almost hilarious that so many political commentators still desperately hang on to the delusion that voters (at least the ones who matter) make their decisions the same way that said commentators do.  This reminds of me of the identical fallacy which occurs when a woman interprets the actions of a man based on the erroneous belief that his brain works like hers does.

These ignorant voters don’t delve deeply into the candidates’ record/positions to decide which one is closest to their views.  They have no real ideology.  Instead, they make their choices based mostly on feeling, and often that doesn’t even mean a sense about each of the candidates.

Instead, these people tend to vote based on which decision will make them feel better about themselves.  Ironically, that usually means which side will make these “stupid” people feel as if they have made the “smart” selection.

A glance at recent history proves this point.  In 2008, there was no doubt that the media had convinced the “middle third” that Obama was the “wise” choice.  In 2004, despite the media’s best efforts, the middle third felt like Bush 43 would keep us safer in a post-9/11 world.  In 2000, there was no real sense as to which candidate was the “wise” option, and it basically ended in a tie.  In 1996, thanks to the economy being good, they deemed Bill Clinton worthy of a second term.  In 1992, thanks to a misperception of the economy, they simply felt like three straight Republican terms was enough.

Now, if one candidate is perceived as being ideologically outside the mainstream (which, thanks to a media-created matrix, can really happen only to Republicans), then that perception will very likely impact the way that the “middle third” decides which candidate is the “wise” pick.  But this usually won’t be because of the candidate’s actual views, but instead because of the narrative that his or her ideology creates (for instance, Rick Santorum would get crushed not because most people disagree with him about gay rights, but rather because his misunderstood views on the issue would create the impression that he was outside the mainstream and therefore not the “wise” alternative).

The bottom line as this relates to 2012 is that the notion that Mitt Romney would be at a disadvantage against President Obama because he is supposedly a “right-leaning moderate” going up against a “left-leaning moderate” is just silly.  As long as there is no conservative third-party candidate, Obama himself will single-handily produce a near-100% conservative voter turnout for Romney, regardless of how his ideology is perceived.

This is also why Newt Gingrich is so unelectable, especially against Obama.  All these voters would ever really know about him is that he is a fat, old, angry white male, with two ex-wives, who resigned as speaker of the House because he got Clinton impeached while he himself was having an affair.  Game, set, match.

Persian Permanent ink Causes Permanently Petrified Penis

“You’d think somebody repeatedly sticking a needle in your penis would be a little off-putting” starts this report about an Iranian guy who got a tattoo on his wiener for his girlfriend and it resulted in a permanent erection. Ya ya, whatever – but Iranian? in Iran? Not Iranian-American? That’s what it says. What the H, dude? I thought you couldn’t even say the word “penis” there. or get tattoos. or have “girlfriends” that you weren’t a day away from marrying. or DEFINITELY not get tattoos on your penis “for” your girlfriend.

The 21-year-old wanted a Persian script reading borow be salaamat (good luck on your journeys), and the first initial of his girlfriend’s last name (“M”) permanently inked on his dong for some reason and then he couldnt not have a boner. nice.

The penis is essentially a blood sock and when we get aroused, we’re redirecting blood into the muscles to harden them up and make sex possible. The theory that the doctors treating this guy gave was:

The tattooist punctured too-deep holes that damaged vessels in the penis, resulting in fistulas, and then a pseudoaneurysm, a pooling of blood outside a vessel wall. They recommended he see a specialist to have the blood removed, but he rejected that idea and saw another doctor to have a shunt procedure performed. It didn’t work.

Since the fellow is still able to have sex, and achieve a more-or-less normal erection, he’s rejected any more treatments, even the one his urologists recommended in the first place.

In one of those statements you’d think nobody would actually have to make, the Iranian doctors wrote “based on our unique case, we discourage penile tattooing.”

Since there’s no picture of the guys dick to share with you, here’s a girl with a Dali-long-legs Elephant on her back:

Poor people dance for tourists

The report from the Guardian says that “Andaman Islanders ‘forced to dance’ for tourists” but I don’t see any forcing going on here. Unless I’m missing details about this that aren’t present below, it seems to me that any outrage over this is due to guilty-racism (the type of racism a person has but feels guilty about). If these were poor Russian boys and girls dressed in their regional garb dancing for tourists I don’t think there would be any outrage.

The Jarawa tribe have lived in peace in the Andaman Islands for thousands of years. Now tour companies run safaris through their jungle every day and wealthy tourists pay police to make the women – usually naked – dance for their amusement. This footage, filmed by a tourist, shows Jarawa women being told to dance by an off-camera police officer

Newt Gingrich brings down the Elephant-hizouse on Welfare remarks

“Only the elites despise earning money.”

I almost scurried away by just linking to this video in other places but that wouldn’t be fair. Since I’ve given Newt a lot of grief on this site, I should spotlight when he hits one out of the park. Here is former Speaker Gingrich’s response to Fox News analyst Juan Williams (the first time any of these debates has let a Democrat question the Republicans in a debate) on Obama as the “food-stamp president”:

This is a good exchange and illustrates what I’ve always said about Gingrich: he’s very smart, very sharp, has interesting ideas and can articulate them pretty well…and must never be a nominee for president. Well, shouldn’t this time, anyway. Not when there are better alternatives to deliver the same message. And not because he’s not those things I just mentioned, but because he needs to be in a position where he can be marketing and proclaiming ideas like this – not managing the country. The dude just doesnt have the diplomacy for the job that is required.