Talking about this utter and complete bullshit, J.D. Rucker saith:
“Whenever I see a story that invokes Ivy League scientists finding a solution to anything, I brace myself for the worst idea ever. Once again, they didn’t disappoint.”
Keep reminding yourself of the observation: “Your suggestion is so stupid, so devoid of commonsense and logic that it could only have been made by an academic or intellectual.”
Most of the time, you will not be misled.
There’s this rather foul old aristocratic trot in Britishland who, at age 69, has declared that she has no interest in making whoopee with a man her own age, but would be quite willing to do the nasty with someone close to half that.
Granted, she was quite a looker in her heyday (around the time of the Normandy landings, that is):
…but alas, she is no fine French wine and has not aged well at all. Like most once-beautiful women, she’s carried the arrogance of beauty way past its sell-by date and now she’s just pathetic.
I have to ask myself a few things: firstly, what kind of 35-year-old man would even consider paging through the wrinkles to find her rather cobwebby Garden Of Delight; secondly, what narcissism allows her to think that she could set that demand and have it fulfilled, and thirdly, why doesn’t she get called a “dirty old devil” as an old man most certainly would if he announced that he was only only interested in jumping a college coed?
Ah fuck it, I know the answers to all three questions, and they’re profoundly depressing.
Most depressing of all, though, is that the old harridan has no shame in announcing all this to the entire nation on TV. One would hope that someone of her generation would have more manners, modesty or class, but I suppose that as the titled old bat has probably had more pricks than a pin cushion, she probably doesn’t care.
Fach.
Actually, the reason she wouldn’t bonk a man of her age is that most of us would see through her bullshit and decline the offer, whereas some younger fool would be taken in by her title, celebrity and whatever other reasons why young fools bonk someone of their Nana’s age.
Yeah, well…
Would-Be Missionary Gets The Full San Sebastian Treatment
Read the whole thing to get the full flavor of this man’s stupidity, naïveté and (dare I say) arrogance. Darwin shakes his head, and says “I told you so.”
I guess they have a kind of Castle Doctrine on North Sentinel Island, too. Good for them.
Update: I just got an email from Reader Bart J. suggesting that we should implement the Sentinelese immigration control at our own southern border. It’s moments like this that make me appreciate my Readers. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and clean the gin from my screen.
I’ve never been involved in the movie business at all, so I’m not really qualified to comment on this story (not that this has ever stopped me before):
Alexa Chung has revealed how she was once ordered to strip by a movie producer while being auditioned for a role. In a worrying #MeToo moment, the model was told to remove her clothes so that the exec could see what she looked like naked.
Addressing the Oxford Union, Alexa said: ‘He told me to strip because he needed to see what I looked like naked for a scene that required it.’
Okay, let’s all accept the fact that the whole casting thing could just turn into an opportunity for men to catch a free look at naked women. (In other news, Gen. Custer seems to be having some difficulties with the Sioux.) And yeah yeah, that’s just awful and terrible etc. etc.
I have some parallel thoughts, however: if you are auditioning for a part where you’re going to be filmed in the nude, don’t be shocked when you’re asked to show what you look like naked. If you’re Julia Roberts, for example, you can turn down such demands because you’re going to get a body double anyway — they’re casting the face, not your ironing-board body. But if you’re a nobody, you can’t really turn it down because appearing or performing in the nude is one of the reasons you’re being cast at all and if we’re going to be blunt about it, if you have some blemish (e.g. saggy boobs or a large birthmark), the producer is not going to hire a body double for a nobody.
The other thought is that the director has to be sure that when he films a scene — any scene, let alone a nude one — he has to be sure that viewers concentrate on what he’s trying to show, not on the fact that Second Actress From The Left has one breast considerably larger than the other.
So while I can sympathize with this Alexa Chung (whoever she is) because of the voyeur thing, I can also see things from the other side of the desk, so to speak. I should also point out that this woman is an ex-model, and didn’t seem to have too many qualms about being naked anyway:
And here’s another thought: a producer asking to see what you look like on the nude is not a Harvey Weinstein/#MeToo moment; a producer wanting you to fuck him to get the part, is.
We can also talk about why nude modelling or nude scenes in movies are necessary at all, but that’s a topic for another post.
Black Friday fever spreads across the world: Carnage breaks out in stores as shoppers clamber over each other to get a bargain
Response (from Reader Old Texan):
“If you get up early and go out to spend money you don’t have, on crap
you don’t need, just because it is marked down oh so low, you’re an idiot.”
This bullshit started in the United States because the Friday after Thanksgiving supposedly marks the beginning of the Christmas* shopping season. Now even countries who don’t celebrate Thanksgiving (i.e. every country not the United States) are in thrall to this hysteria. What a bloody shambles.
*and yes, it’s Christmas, not the fucking “holidays”.
Sometimes I fear for us all. In an otherwise-interesting article on the world’s “vanishing countries” which talks about how China’s population growth is slowing, we also see examples of foolishness such as this:
China is relaxing its one-child policy — but it may be too late. In addition to lacking workers, a fifth of China’s homes are empty, reported Bloomberg news — more than 50 million apartments and houses have no inhabitants.
Fertile countries have a far brighter future. They are a good place to invest your money, said Hans Rosling, a Swedish professor and demographic “prophet” who died in February.
“You will find an emerging China in Africa,” he told the BBC in a final interview. “Go there to invest if you want to earn money, if you want to have nice pensions when you retire, place part of your capital there because there you will see fast growth.”
Clearly, Rosling never set foot on the African continent, where there’s never been a shortage of workers, only a shortage of honest government. Allow me to revise his statement for you:
“Go invest in African countries if you want to lose money, if you want to have no pensions when you retire, and place part of your capital there if you want to see fast growth in African politicians’ bank accounts and not in yours, and to see no tangible results from your investment.”
That’s the reality of investing in Africa.
It reminds me of that old, withering observation: “Your suggestion is so stupid, so devoid of commonsense and logic that it could only have been made by an academic or intellectual.” (Note that the latter two are not synonymous.)
And these are the people who are regarded as the intelligent ones, who advise governments and tell us how to run our lives.