Posts Tagged ‘culture war’

Under the Fedora Thoughts Mac can’t win, Missing an Opportunity, The Bodies are Piling up, What a difference less than 20 years makes, Missing the Biggest lede of the year

Posted: December 28, 2022 by datechguy in baseball, Blame Biden Administration, covid, culture, nfl, official oppression, war
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Mac Jones can’t win.

Last week he was pilloried by Patriots greats on the air for not doing all he could to stop Las Vegas (had to stop myself from typing “Oakland”) from scoring on that last play that cost New England a game they should have won.

Now a week late he makes a desperate attempt to stop Germaine Pratt from scoring a touchdown on a recovered fumble that if not for the Dolphins falling apart might have ended their playoff hopes and he’s attacked for it and fined by the NFL.

It may or may not be fair but I think that Mac is in a no-win position. He can’t be Brady and will never be Brady.

At least the Redsox Went from the greatest hitter of all time (Williams), to an all time great HOF (Yaz) to a power hitting Hall of Famer (Rice) to a pretty good outfielder (Greenwell) over 25 years easing the blow. No such luck for spoiled Pats fans.

There was a time before Tom Brady when the Redsox ruled this town. Even in the days of Russell, Havlicek and Bird it was a baseball town. Tom Brady made the difference and while David Ortiz kept the flame alive Brady’s timeless success wrenched the city away from the bats and balls and delivered it to the pigskin.

Right now the Patriots are in the lowest point that they’ve been and if the Red Sox ownership was smart they would take this moment to invest heavily to grab back the hearts of the fans from the gridiron and back to the diamond.

The current strategy may be penny wise but it’s pound foolish. The Pats are giving the Sox a huge opening which a wise ownership should drive right through.

However I suspect they are not all that wise.

Just four years ago you didn’t have stories of people “dying suddenly” at young ages. Now it’s so common that if a week passes without such an event it’s a miracle.

The worst of it is that now we have more studies from every inhabited continent that show Ivermectin (.02 a pill) to be effective against COVID. as noted “100% of these have shown positive results.” at the same time the Twitter files have revealed a concerted effort to suppress information and/or opinions from medical experts contrary to the sanctioned positions of the Biden Administration.

These people and those who submitted to their will have a lot of bodies to answer for and they are very lucky that it is no longer considered fashionable for those who have had husbands ,wives, children and parents die from their despicable acts to take personal revenge. It it was, none of those bastards would last a week.

It has been less than twenty years since the Massachusetts Supreme Court by a 4-3 vote legalized gay marriage in the state and then governor Mitt Romney did all he could to keep it off the ballot in order to advance his presidential ambitions.

Now twenty years later we see the results as summarized in a single tweet

All this is by design, the next generation of Jeffrey Epstien’s and the next generation of Prince Andrews and the like who they will serve need to get their fodder from somewhere.

Incidentally I suspect there are more than a few Epsteins out there still serving the same customer base that Ms. Maxwell keeps in her head. Jeffrey just happens to be the one that was caught which makes him the exception.

Finally the single most significant story of the day is likely this one. The drone war in Ukraine and Russia:

In interviews in the United States, Europe and the Middle East, a range of intelligence, military and national security officials have described an expanding U.S. program that aims to choke off Iran’s ability to manufacture the drones, make it harder for the Russians to launch the unmanned “kamikaze” aircraft and — if all else fails — to provide the Ukrainians with the defenses necessary to shoot them out of the sky.

The shift to drones by both sides is a incredibly significant change to the war. The story continues

In fact, one of the Iranian companies named by Britain, France and Germany as a key manufacturer of one of the two types of drones being bought by the Russians, Qods Aviation, has appeared for years on the United Nations’ lists of suppliers to Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. The company, which is owned by Iran’s military, has expanded its line of drones despite waves of sanctions.

The administration’s scramble to deal with the Iranian-supplied drones comes at a significant moment in the war, just as Ukraine is using its own drones to strike deep into Russia, including an attack this week on a base housing some of the country’s strategic bombers.

The widespread use of drones in warfare and the Islamic state of Iran’s ability to produce “Kamikaze” drones should be of great worry to us as that is likely going to be the next tool of international terrorism and it goes without saying the next phase of warfare in general. After all consider the cost of maintaining a single destroyer vs the cost of a drone that can be programed to hit a specific geographical location.

If that doesn’t put a shudder in your spine nothing will.

Mike Myers’ Netflix debacle, The Pentaverate, attacks good taste and conservatives

Posted: May 15, 2022 by John Ruberry in comedy, culture, doctor who, entertainment
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By John Ruberry

After a long day at work earlier this month I clicked on the “Surprise Me” feature on Netflix. What popped up was Mike Myers’ new vehicle, The Pentaverate.

“Well,” I said to myself, “this might be pretty good.” 

In fact, The Pentaverate doesn’t even measure up to “pretty bad.” The six episode limited series is one of the worst shows I’ve suffered through. Oh, somehow I managed to view a couple episodes of The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer. I know about awful.

Warning: There are numerous spoilers and some rather disgusting things that I will mention in my review of this Netflix series.

The origin of The Pentaverate dates back to a throwaway line from Myers’ second film, So I Married an Axe Murderer, where the father of Myers’ lead character, also played by Myers, claims that a secret society, the Pentaverate, a five-man cabal, which at one time included Colonel Sanders as a member, rules the world. In this series narrator Jeremy Irons tells us, the original members of the Pentaverate discovered in 1347, contrary to the belief of the Catholic Church, it was fleas that spread the bubonic plague. 

As the first episode begins, the newest member of the group of five, Dr. Hobart Clark (Keegan-Michael Key), a scientist, is accepted into the Pentaverate after he is kidnapped. Apparently, he is the first non-white fellow of the all-male group, replacing a member who mysteriously died. The other members are played by Myers. Lord Lordington, an elderly Englishman, Bruce Baldwin, an Australian media mogul, who of course is based on Rupert Murdoch, Shep Gordon, a manager of various rock acts, a real person who is the subject of a documentary directed by Myers, and Mishu Ivanov, a Russian oligarch and Vladimir Putin crony.

Warning! Not-safe-for-work language in the trailer.

But Myers isn’t done with his roles. The lead character of The Pentaverate is Ken Scarborough, a television reporter who wears plaid sportscoats; he is a quirky throwback from the 1970s who does man-on-the-street interviews of other oddballs, while overshadowing them. Scarborough works for, wait for it, Toronto-based CACA news. Yep, caca. 

The other four Pentaverate members manufacture a story that Dr. Clark, who was invited into the secret society because they believe he can reverse climate change, is dead. Clark’s phony passing occurs while attempting to mimic an internet video fad–kissing your own anus. Clark’s room at Pentaverate headquarters is guarded by a sasquatch, who immediately defecates outside the scientist’s door. 

In addition to a Shrek cameo, Myers plays two other characters, internet personality Rex Smith, a stand-in for Alex Jones, and Anthony Lansdowne, a conspiracy theorist from New Hampshire. 

Besides being an assault on good taste, The Pentaverate is an attack on right-wingers, with the implied message that all conservatives are conspiracy whackos like Lansdowne. He is a believer, or has been a believer, in QAnon, Pizzagate, and the Illuminati. His last words as he falls to his death is, “But what about her emails?” 

Lansdowne, in his bumper-sticker laden van, which not surprisingly has a malfunctioning portable toilet, drives Scarborough and his pre-woke Doctor Who-like young female companion, Reilly Clayton (Lydia West) to New York City, which looks nothing like today’s NYC, but more like your standard Doctor Who “future metropolis.” Scarborough, recently fired by CACA, is convinced by Clayton and Lansdowne to infiltrate Pentaverate headquarters, and he does so after a painful penis tug initiation. 

Clark, following an intimate evening with the Pentaverate’s executive assistant Patty Davis (Debi Mazar) in the Moon Room studio–did the Pentaverate fake the moon landings?–suddenly dies, this time for real. He is promptly replaced by casino billionaire Skip Cho (Ken Jeong). Oh, I have never thought Jeong was funny. Jeong recently showed his true political colors after childishly storming off the set of The Masked Singer after Rudy Giuliani was revealed as a contestant.

Myers seemingly hasn’t emotionally moved on from being an 11-year-old. Flatulence jokes are among the things that ruined his cinema take on Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat, a children’s film, by the way. Scatological so-called humor also undermined another Myers movie bomb, The Love Guru. 

Outside of Myers’ fading fame, why did Netflix greenlight this debacle? Could it be that woke Netflix executives fell in love with The Pentaverate’s snide attacks on conservatives, who they probably believe are personified by Smith and Lansdowne? I have liberal friends. Really, I do. And many of them insist that I take marching orders from Alex Jones.

Here’s a tip for Netflix and Myers: the first rule of comedy is that comedies need to be funny.

Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022. Its stock value plummeted 35-percent last month. Yes, when you go woke you go broke. And I can’t think of a single Netflix dramatic series that is aimed at conservatives. Longmire was the closest show I can think of, but production of it ended in 2017, and Longmire was originally an A&E offering. And as I wrote in last week’s review of Ozark, that otherwise quite enjoyable show contorted itself to find ways to attack Republicans.

Over 70 million Americans voted for Donald Trump in 2020. That’s a lot of viewers, Netflix. We don’t live in vans with clogged toilets. We own televisions. 

Cloying use of easter eggs, that is, references to other works that do nothing to advance the story or add laughs–assuming of course there is even one laugh in The Pentaverate–is also another problem here. Winks to other Myers’ works, along with yet another tired replay of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, as well as Game of Thrones, are simply annoying. Rob Lowe, a veteran of several Myers movies, makes an unnecessary appearance.

Myers’ acting, outside of his sympathetic portrayal of Scarborough, is subpar. In his review of The Cat in the Hat, Roger Ebert noticed that at times Myers sounded a bit like his Linda Richman “Coffee Talk” character from SNL. The use of convincing accents is supposed to be one of Myers’ strengths, but his Lansdowne character’s accent, rather than sounding like what you’ll hear from a rustic New Englander, varies from a Canadian to a New Yorker style of speech–that is, when Lansdowne isn’t coming across like Wayne Campbell from Wayne’s World.

Oh, when there is a crack within the five members of the Pentaverate, who do you think is behind it? Why of course! It’s the casino billionaire and the Murdoch stand-in. 

I hated The Pentaverate. Hated, hated, hated. If you have any sense of taste or decency, you will hate it too. 

You have been warned. 

Oh, if you think I am just a grumpy old man with a minority opinion on this actual sh*t show, as of May 15, the average critic score on Rotten Tomatoes is just 20 percent. Only once in the last week have I noticed The Pentaverate ranking as a top-ten most viewed program on Netflix. And based on the CGI and the A-List (to some people) cast, I imagine Netflix wasted a lot of money on this fiasco.

The Pentaverate is rated TV-MA for full frontal (possibly with use of prosthetics) nudity, animals engaged in sex, violence, suicide, adult situations, foul language, and scatological references. Well, at least no one smokes in it. 

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Only to the Boomers is this a Revelation

Posted: September 2, 2019 by datechguy in culture, Uncategorized
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A man’s got to die of something.

DaTechGuy

There are some pieces that just make one’s jaw drop this one dropped mine:

Behold the killing fields that lie before us: Bob Dylan (78 years old); Paul McCartney (77); Paul Simon (77) and Art Garfunkel (77); Carole King (77); Brian Wilson (77); Mick Jagger (76) and Keith Richards (75); Joni Mitchell (75); Jimmy Page (75) and Robert Plant (71); Ray Davies (75); Roger Daltrey (75) and Pete Townshend (74); Roger Waters (75) and David Gilmour (73); Rod Stewart (74); Eric Clapton (74); Debbie Harry (74); Neil Young (73); Van Morrison (73); Bryan Ferry (73); Elton John (72); Don Henley (72); James Taylor (71); Jackson Browne (70); Billy Joel (70); and Bruce Springsteen (69, but turning 70 next month).

A few of these legends might manage to live into their 90s, despite all the … wear and tear to which they’ve subjected their bodies over the decades. But most of them will not.

This will force us not only to endure their passing, but to confront our own mortality as well.

Until the rise of the Boomers and the 60’s generation the idea that life is finite was a simple norm that was a steadying and centering influence in culture.

But in this post Christian era there is a half of the culture that this piece for whom this piece will be a revelation.

And it is that fact that drops my jaw to the floor.

 

The True “Phobias” in “Transphobia”

Posted: July 24, 2014 by datechguy in culture
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The 4th  Doctor : “You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.”

Doctor Who:  The Face of Evil Episode Four

Stan:  I want you all to call me “Loretta”

Monty Python’s Life of Brian 1979

In the course of my reading yesterday I came across this piece at The Other McCain concerning the ongoing war between Radical feminists and Transgender activists.

I wish Brennan and her radical feminist allies could be strategic enough to realize that there is a huge majority of people who would be willing to support them on this one point — that “woman” is a biological category, not a “gender identity” — if only they realized how important this issue is. The fact that the people being targeted now are my ideological antagonists is not irrelevant to my concern. If hardcore feminists can be targeted this way, what do you think is going to happen when the Tranny Totalitarians target conservatives?

While I find the fight between this em “interesting” groups of people quite amusing there was a rather clarifying moment within this post.    This was a tweet from a “transgender” person by the name of Sophia Banks and a response by a person who goes under “SugarPuss”  that neatly encapsulates the actual reality here:

Actually, umm, no. pic.twitter.com/ovvD0pQ2BJ

— Sugarpuss (@SugarpussFTW) July 18, 2014

Now before we comment on this tweet there is one thing that needs to be clarified. There is, in fact, a tiny amount of people who are  born with the sexual organs of both sexes and or an abnormal production of hormones.  If a person is in such a situation one should respect whatever decision said person makes at the age of decision in terms of choosing to define oneself as either (or no) sex. None of what follows applies to a person with said medical condition.

Now back to that tweets, The bottom line is with the exception I just noted above there is a simple fact that can not be disputed:

Women do not have penises.

Or as Nursie once explained in Black Adder Series 2

Women do not have penises, Women have never had penises and baring an incredible advance in genetic modification and manipulation or transplant surgery women never will have penises any more than men will have wombs.

Now there are a statistically insignificant amount of men and women who have for whatever reason chosen to have their bodies physically altered, via surgery and or hormone treatments to resemble the opposite sex and who have chosen to live as such. The recognized term used for such a person is “Transgender”. In some countries such alteration is recognized by law, however this doesn’t change the actual reality any more than laws claiming a woman’s testimony is worth half of a man’s under sharia describes an actual mathematical ratio of eyewitness validity.

Now if that tweet said “Transgender woman” rather than simply “woman” I would have no problem with it as it acknowledges the objective reality of a person choosing to physically or chemically altering themselves in a way recognized by law. Nor do I have a problem with a person such as Sophia Banks choosing to live as a woman, function as a woman etc etc etc. Whatever my opinion of the wisdom or sanity of such a decision it’s not my life and therefore not my business. Nor would I have a problem is a person meeting “Sophia” chooses to use female pronouns in discussion, particularly if they had no acquaintance with Sophia before the alternation. Two of the three “transgender” people I know I only met after their “transformation” therefore I find it convenient to use feminine pronouns particularly if they do not wish their previous status disclosed.

However a line is crossed from amused disinterest line to outright defiance if any attempt is made to compel me to acknowledge this delusion as “fact” or if one wishes to force such an acknowledgement by law. At that point this goes from a delusion that only harms the deluded to an attempt to impose a blatant falsehood as truth which is wrong. A great parallel to this would be the group of “catholic” women who ordain themselves & others as catholic “priests”. It’s one thing for them to live this delusion, it’s quite another if they demand the actual Catholic Church to recognize the validity of their make-believe orders.

Or think of the character of Teddy Brewster in the Movie Arsenic & Old Lace.

 As long as Teddy is simply blowing his bugle and just talking to neighbors his delusion is not a problem or at most a minor annoyance, but the moment he demands secret service protection as an Ex President and insists on attending international conferences being acknowledged as Theodore Roosevelt and takes legal action to secure and compel it, then one would be compelled to remind him of objective reality.

And that brings us to this tweet I put out in response to Stacy’s post that caused so much fuss yesterday. 

Not our biz if @sophiaphotos wants to take hormones to play Gidget. That chances if he wants to compel us to play by law @rsmccain #tcot #p2 — Peter Ingemi (@DaTechGuyblog) July 23, 2014

(note typo in tweet should have said “changes” rather than “chances”)

I’ve tweeted a lot over the years and I’ve never seen more uproar and quicker response from any tweet I’ve ever sent out and believe me I’ve sent out some provocative tweets in my time.

The responses I got varied from the simple vulgar expletive:

Fuck You @DaTechGuyblog @rsmccain

— Sophia Banks (@sophiaphotos) July 23, 2014

to tweets calling me “transphobic”:

@DaTechGuyblog Uh huh, ask me the same question I asked you, clever. I’m literally just calling you out on your transphobia. — MicJPM (@Mic_jpm) July 23, 2014

to those suggesting I should be removed from the radio:

@sophiaphotos @DaTechGuyblog @rsmccain usually radio guys get booted for talking like that – with enough complaints

— #AnyoneBUTFord2014 (@itsgottobegood) July 23, 2014

I found it all quite amusing and returned tweets for a bit until actual “life” trumped my amusement but as of this writing angry responses continue to enter my timeline. I’m not inclined to block them because I’m a first amendment guy & I generally don’t block an account unless it’s a phony troll one. Contrary to their totalitarian impulses crazy uncles/aunts have the right to their opinion just as I have and I further am confident in the wisdom of my followers.

While flogging this reaction might be good for traffic & DaTipJar there is a more interesting phenom to note in term of both psychology & the net that I’d like to discuss.

Five years ago (have I really been doing this that long?) I wrote a piece called “The Empowerment of Crazy Uncles” where I talked about how the internet empowers the 1% of people who are, shall we say reality challenged.

The problem is with the internet and social networking and the like that crazy 1% or 1/10 of one percent is suddenly empowered. Instead of the crazy uncle at the family gathering that you can ignore, suddenly he has 1000 friends that he can text to rebut and counter rebut all night. He is affirmed and empowered and boy is he motivated, because now there are thousands of people telling him he’s been right all along and is MUCH smarter than everyone thought.

300,000-3,000,000 crazy uncles as individuals isn’t a big deal, but get them all writing e-mails or making phone calls and most importantly AFFIRMING themselves and suddenly you have a potent economic and or political force. Suddenly there is a huge market for a book or 10,000 people willing to pay $20 for a DVD. That’s a fair amount of change and a person can make a good living off of it.

While the net empowers these crazy uncles there is one limiting effect upon them. While they make up a considerable niche market and an excellent activist base in reality they are a rounding error when compared to the actual population. That means if you have constructed your psychological identity based entirely on an illusion and have spent thousands of dollars and years of your time reinforcing said illusion via  surgical & chemical alteration the one thing you dread above all else is the person who,  without fear, is willing to deny your illusion , to pull back the curtain of the Wizard, or point to the procession and say “but the Emperor has nothing on!”

And if such a person is in any way a public person that might encourage others to do the same the carefully built lie that is one’s life becomes as fragile as a block of flats put up by hypnosis:

You want to talk phobia THAT’s phobia.

But it’s not just those deluded and fearful of reality who are endangered, it’s the people who make their living supporting and enabling such delusions. The expensive treatments, the bestselling books, the political machines who can count on shock troops, the ability to exploit these people financially & politically for their own gain is never more in danger than when people are willing to stand up and bluntly say the truth. And the truth is this:

When your identity & belief system in your life can be summed up neatly in a 3 minute gag from a Monty Python movie.

Then it’s likely a wise move to re-examine that system closely.

It’s one thing to lose a cherished delusion, it’s quite another to lose the gravy train that those people illusions finance.  That demands a loud, immediate and even a totalitarian response. That’s the real fear on display for the world to see here, if they did not have this fear they would have ignored me as just some guy on twitter to block.

Two things in closing: None of this nonsense removes the inherent dignity owed a person by virtue of humanity. Furthermore said person remains a child of God and thus the proper subject for prayer as required.  Those are the rules.

If one’s goal is to intimidate and silence that last thing you want to see is this:

The amusing & irrational tweets from those outraged by my homage to reality will be the subject of my lead post tomorow. @rsmccain #tcot #p2 — Peter Ingemi (@DaTechGuyblog) July 24, 2014

retweeted by Instapundit

heh

As a wise man once said:  ” Heh, indeed.”   *

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