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NIMBY

Elections, Politics

…which stands for “Not In My Backyard”.  The expression is usually reserved for people like the Kennedys who are all cool about wind power as long as the turbines aren’t located off the Kennedy rat’s nest compound in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

Today, however, we look at the term in its more positive sense.  Over at The American Thinker, Bill Gensert talks about the coming political violence when Trump gets reelected to POTUS in the 2020 election.  While what he says is quite plausible, he does utter a basic truth:

Notice there were no Antifa at Trump’s Texas rally [last week].  I wonder why?  I’m joking, I know why.  It’s because Antifa is comprised of cowardly children playing dress-up and preying on the weak.  For those with sociopathic tendencies, it’s fun to punch people who won’t punch, back but unlike in Minneapolis, Ilhan Omar’s stronghold, Texas would have slaughtered them.

Yup.  Some dweeb was arrested while wearing body armor and carrying bear spray, but word is that he was there just in case anyone from the Pantifa Brigade showed up.

It is, as they say, to LOL.  Trump’s audience at the rally was massive — people waited for over a day just to be able to get into the venue — but what was really impressive was that at least twice that number of people stayed outside the arena to hear what he was saying via loudspeakers.

I have absolutely no idea of the truth of this, but I wonder just how many of them were (legally) carrying guns?  Hours before Trump even touched down at DFW, all the local radio hosts were telling people that the place was already full;  so people knew they wouldn’t be getting into the arena but showed up anyway.  I’m willing to bet that a goodly number of the crowd outside were armed, knowing that they wouldn’t have to go through security in the streets outside.

But no Pantifa showed up in Dallas.  I don’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

The 100

Music

Let’s face it:  Rolling Stone  magazine was always awful.  I think it was them Frank Zappa was talking about when he characterized their writing as “people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, aimed at people who can’t read.”  (I still miss Frank, a lot, as much for his intellect as for his music.)

RS‘s latest attempt at a “greatest” list (of singers) is a typical example:  muddled, ignorant and open to ridicule.

The muddle is easy:  they attempted to combine several genres of singing — rock, r&B, blues etc. — but while there may be some crossover in those particular ones, it falls completely on its face if you try to include people like Sinatra and Mel Torme, especially when it comes to ranking  the singers.  The muddle is also ignorant of actual vocal quality — and even worse if one tries to include “iconic” as part of it.  There are singers of extraordinary quality (such as Paul Rodgers of Free/Bad Company) who don’t have iconic tonality, and “ordinary” singers of limited range (like Ozzy Osbourne) who almost define an entire genre.  You can’t attempt to rank Rodgers and Ozzy against each other because they are two totally different singers, albeit in more or less similar genres of music.  Now rank Rodgers against Aretha Franklin, which the hapless Stoners did.  It is, as they say, to laugh.  (And by the way:  any compendium list of 100 singers which does not include Ian Gillan of Deep Purple or Steve Marriot of Humble Pie — to name just a couple which caught, or rather didn’t catch my eye —  is fatally flawed.)

Each genre of music requires a different kind of voice, and very few singers can cross over without failing.  And a singer’s inclusion in whatever genre is horribly personal, in any event.  (In the “jazz crooners” club, for example, Harry Connick Jr. is an infinitely-better singer than Sinatra, but without Sinatra there would likely be  no jazz crooners club.  YMMV.)

So Rolling Stone should have broken up the list into genres, just for starters, with the first being the aforementioned “iconic”voices — those which defined the genre — and then some attempt at vocal quality if they’re to be ranked at all.

I’m not going to do that, at least, not today.  But here’s an example of ten of my favorite Rock vocalists in no special order, just as I think of them:

Robert Plant (Zep)
Joe Cocker
Paul Rodgers (Free, Bad Company)
Cilla Black
Graham Bonnet (Marbles, Rainbow)
Stephen Stills
David Bowie
Freddie Mercury
Ann Wilson (Heart)
Ian Gillan (Deep Purple)

And just for the hell of it, ten from R&B/soul, likewise unranked:  

Otis Redding
Wilson Pickett
Aretha Franklin
Joe Tex
Tina Turner (who could equally have been classified under Rock)
Al Green
Ella Fitzgerald
Sam Moore
Lionel Ritchie
Etta James

And both lists could change tomorrow.

Not Found Here

Bad News, Technology

In another bulletin from the so-called “Internet of Things” comes this shocker:

Amazon and Google unwittingly approved smart-speaker apps designed to eavesdrop on users and steal their passwords

“Unwittingly.”  Uh huh.

I’m rapidly getting to the stage where the prefix “smart-” is becoming equivalent to “socialist” or “Democrat”.

And the day I say something to an appliance (e.g. a Bad Word) and it talks back to me is the day it gets fed some .357 Magnum FMJ bullets till it shuts up.

(I’m not saying that’s also true of socialists or Democrats;  but the way they’re going, anything’s possible.)

The Old And The New

Funny Stuff, Men & Women

…or maybe, the old & the young:

Dennis Quaid, 65, is ‘ENGAGED to PhD student girlfriend Laura Savoie, 26’ just five months after going public

And a pic of the loving couple explains it all:

“HOW CAN SHE DO IT?” is the wail.

Oh, please.  In the first place, ol’ Dennis is rich, famous and, to be honest, not at all bad for 65.  (Jeez, I’m 65 and I wish I looked half  as good.)  As for why he wants to hook up with her… do I really have to explain that?

Go, Dennis, go!   Every old fart in the world is on your side, dude.  Even if we’re as jealous as hell.

Their Loss

Bad News, LGBTOSTFU

Looks like the LGBTOSTFU crowd has managed to get Chick-fil-A to close its first and only restaurant in Britishland.

As I pointed out to Mr. Free Market, The Englishman and Mrs. Sor in my email to them (entitled Homos 1, Good Guys 0), all this means is that the Brits (and especially the Sorensons, who live in Reading) will be denied probably the world’s best fried chicken.  Because, according to the freaks & loonies, the chain does eeevil and nasty stuff:

Reading Pride charged that the fast food chain’s charitable foundation “still supports questionable charities.” In particular, the LGBT activist group faulted the WinShape Foundation for donating $1.6 million to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and $150,000 to the Salvation Army in 2017.
Reading Pride quoted the Fellowship of Christian Athletes’ statement of faith: “We believe God’s design for sexual intimacy is to be expressed only within the context of marriage. God instituted marriage between one man and one woman as the foundation of the family and the basic structure of human society. For this reason, we believe that marriage is exclusively the union of one man and one woman.”

As everyone knows, I am no Christian.  Nevertheless, I think I’ll go and get some nuggets — probably a double order, to make up for their losses in the UK — at the Chick-fil-A up the road, just in sympathy.

And then I’ll be off to the range.  Do thou the same, O My Readers.

Buh-Bye

Culture

City Journal puts men’s magazines under the microscope, and doesn’t like what it sees:

In a tough media environment, men’s magazines are suffering more than most. Some—notably, Playboy and Esquire—appear to have decided that appealing primarily to men is no longer the best way forward.

Yeah, good luck with that, assholes, and watch your readership (and business) disappear.  Good-bye and good riddance.

Come to think of it, this humble website  offers more to men than any of the glossy so-called “men’s” magazines.  On these electronic pages can be found pictorials of topics wanted by men:  guns, cars, women, food, booze and articles including straightforward political discussion, cultural content — such as the occasional review of movies, music and fine art — and even historical analysis, all on a daily (not monthly or quarterly) basis.  Oh, and no ads.

And it’s free, except for voluntary contributions (thankee).