Unbecoming a lady
Bob Tur is probably the most famous helicopter newsman ever, thanks to two events. He’s the guy who hovered while Reginald Denny was beaten to a whiteman smoothie during the LA riots of 1992 and he was also the guy who followed OJ’s white Ford Bronco two years later, during the world’s slowest police chase.
Half a year ago, I read a long article in Los Angeles Magazine about Tur flying to Thailand for a sex change op. It’s a sympathetic article and makes Tur sound frightened and shy. Because I read too much lefty journalism and I guess I’m super susceptible to Stockholm syndrome, I caught myself thinking, “awww, that’s nice.”
Bob Tur is also the guy in the video above (screw calling him “Zoey” or using his preferred pronouns, for reasons that will be clear in a moment). You may have seen it linked around the web over the weekend, but you may not have wanted to sit through it to the relevant bit. And you’ve probably been misled about the relevant bit.
Well, weasel to the wescue. The full clip is from some dreadful HLNtv(?) panel show called Dr Drew, the usual seven lefties and one designated righty whipping boy — in this case, Ben Shapiro.
The topic: whether Bruce Jenner deserves the Whooptido Award for Whatever. Shapiro explains that no operation can change the fact every cell in Jenner’s body still says he’s male. At this point, Tor leans in, puts his hand on the back of Shapiro’s neck and says, “you cut that out now, or you’ll go home in an ambulance.”
Click here to download the relevant eight seconds as an avi, if you care.
The point is, the leftosphere is all about how very, very much Shapiro provoked Tor. With basic biological facts. I guess. And I’m over here, like, that is the most stereotypically hyper-masculine overreaction on TV since William Buckely threatened to punch Gore Vidal in his goddamned face.
Woman’s brain in a man’s body? Ehhhh…not so much.
July 20, 2015 — 6:23 pm
Comments: 20
Toilet paper, bro? Really?
If I’m going to give the authorities a clear photo of me participating in a massive riot, I’m going to want to get an Xbox or a flat screen TV out of it. What say, Baltimore?
Pringles and sweet tea? Doritos? Diapers? Toilet paper? What is that, boxes of YooHoo? Six packs of cigarettes?
Okay, to be fair, cigarettes are pretty expensive.
They all look so happy, though, don’t they?
April 28, 2015 — 9:33 pm
Comments: 25
PICTURED: Rudely shaped carrot grown in allotment in Lower Belvedere
Actual headline. For the blind, this helpful description is provided:
It bears a resemblance to two human legs, with a growth between them that leaves little to the imagination.
It leaves everything to the imagination. It’s a flipping carrot.
Also discussed, a strawberry shaped like a penis and a carrot shaped like a foot that “caused a social media sensation.”
This isn’t the Sheep Testicle Gazette out here in the ass-end of nowhere. That’s a London paper that somehow found room for this snuggled between the muggings and burglaries.
A hard people to understand, at times.
Anyway, I broke my good camera this Summer, so Uncle B loaned me his one and I’ve now broken that too. Down-twinkles. I’m cameraless. That leaves me at the mercy of any old rude vegetable I can dig up until I buy a new one.
March 16, 2015 — 10:24 pm
Comments: 23
A masterful troll
Oh, well played, Rupert Murdoch’s Sun. Well played.
To be fair, they didn’t actually say they were shutting down Page 3, but they strongly suggested such. Then they went all modest (if underthings and bikinis can be called modest) for a couple of days. And now, the titties are back! (Link does not go to titties. Link goes to a Telegraph sister getting her knickers in a twist. I told you the Telegraph had gone downhill).
It’s been dee-lightful to watch this play out all day.
First the howling shrews of the Perpetually Offended Brigade were all like WE WON! And then they were all like, we won, I guess, but it doesn’t feel that satisfying, really. And now they’re all like WTF! WE DIDN’T WIN!?
The sweetest part? Today’s titties ran under the headline CLARIFICATIONS AND CORRECTIONS. I wouldn’t have realized this if Uncle B hadn’t told me: that’s the header from the ultra-lefty Guardian‘s correction column.
Sweet troll.
January 22, 2015 — 9:45 pm
Comments: 21
Journalistic standards
So the headline in the Telegraph is Man grows new nose in his arm. Must click, right? And it’s illustrated with…a picture of the professor supervising the experiment.
Oh, come on, Daily Telegraph: you wrote that headline, don’t go all bashful and coy on us now. Show us the fucking nose!
I had to drop the doctor’s name into Google and paddle around until I found the Daily Mail take on it, from last May. Yes, they sent a photographer to the lab and got a picture of the fucking nose. Yes, that thing up there is the fucking nose.
Y’all may remember I have a hate on for the Mail. It’s a bottom-feeding, shit-stirring hyperventilating rag. It’s all trout pouts and baby bumps and catching some reality TV actress with her eyes half closed and calling her drunk(?) (the question mark confers legitimacy). But, hey, at least they have the minimal journalistic chops when they’re making an astonishing claim about a nose to show me the fucking nose.
Oh. Yes. That growing a nose in your arm thing is pretty cool, too. Here’s a more recent Mail article that better illustrates how they’re doing it.
Have a good weekend, folks. Don’t grow any noses in awkward places! (But if you do — pictures!).
January 25, 2013 — 10:18 pm
Comments: 27
Whoa, hang on
All this talk about re-examining our mental health policy in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting is making me real uneasy. Sure, there’s lots wrong with our current mental health policy and we can talk about that sometime, if you like, but it doesn’t look like Adam Lanza even had a firm, official diagnosis or much of a psychiatric history at all. Only his mother could suspect what was going on in his head, and even she probably had no idea how fast he was sliding away until he emptied a clip in her face.
Without even thinking hard, I can come up with six people in my circle of acquaintance who show at least as much mental disorder as it appears Lanza did before he came unstrung.
Some have a psychiatric history, some don’t. I don’t think any of them have a police history. They all did well in school. They all have held jobs (if not for long, sometimes). Same for personal relationships. They can all drive a car, shop for groceries, pay a light bill. Some still live with their families, some are entirely independent. Several have easy access to guns.
They’re also, clearly, barking. They make my spidey sense jingle-jangle-jingle. I wouldn’t be surprised if they all lived out their lives — if not entirely smoothly, at least without dramatic incident. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see any of them on the news some day for a very bad reason.
But what do you do? They’re (mostly) functional adults. “He gives everybody the jim-jams” is not a diagnosis. There is no medication for “something ain’t right with that boy, but I can’t put my finger on it.” You can’t lock somebody up or take away her civil rights because she gives you the creeps.
By far the best take on the whole thing so far was in, believe it or not, the Daily Beast.
Feh. I hope we can get around to being all Christmassy some time this week.
December 17, 2012 — 11:33 pm
Comments: 31
Noticed anything…weird about the Daily Mail lately?
So the U.K. Daily Mail beat out the NY Times to become the world’s the most visited online news site.
And then this happened. It’s a screen grab of today’s Mail. It’s like that all the way down. It’s like that every day. It’s been that way for weeks. It’s been driving me mad.
The UK’s most popular newspaper IS ALL ABOUT THE USA.
It hasn’t always been this way, and I’ll bet the print version isn’t. If I were a proper journalist, I’d buy one and compare. But I’m not. I’m a lazy weasel impersonator on a Friday night and, anyway, I only read that filthy rag when somebody leaves it on the lunch counter.
Yeah. Not a fan. I know it’s a supposed to be right-wing, but it’s really just the Shit-Stirrer’s Gazette. I know, I know – all newspapers are bad, but the Mail is something special.
More than usually mendacious. Less than usually accurate. They specialize in running snapshots of Angelina Jolie with a bit of toilet paper on her shoe under the head “Not so classy now!”
Feh.
But the good capitalist in me is torn. On the one hand, the Mail has apparently identified its actual user base and is providing them the services they want. So, good.
On the other hand, a British newspaper that’s all about America? How weird is that?
Good weekend, all.
Oh. Hey. Mono the Elderish has cobbled together a discussion forum. In case you’re not wasting NEARLY enough time on the internet, there you go.
<litella>Never mind.</litella> As Carl points out in the comments, my default Mail URL points to /ushome/. Why that should be — my IP says I’m in Maidstone or some such — I do not know. The Mail still sucks, though.
March 2, 2012 — 11:55 pm
Comments: 23
It’s Crazy Bitch Friday!
Did you see this thing on Drudge? A baby doll that says something that sounds remarkably like “hey, crazy bitch!”
It does, too — but the story is a bit of a put-up job. They play it to shoppers and ask them if they’re outrageously outraged, which the dutifully try to pretend to be for the camera. Except this lady right at the end, who is clearly the crazy bitch they’re talking about.
Many years ago, there was a Po the Teletubby doll that said something suspiciously like unto “bite my butt!” Closest I’ve ever come to soiling myself in public, I was in a department store in downtown London, gave Po a poke, and sure enough…
Oh, also…film has surfaced of the guy who took a couple of shots at the White House. It was taken back in September and he’s wangling for a spot on Oprah. He claims to be Jesus and all kinds of crazy shit, but — funny thing — he doesn’t peg my crazy meter. Usually I have pretty good schitz-dar. I wonder if he’s more Hinckley than M’Naghten.
Oh, also, there’s this crazy dude, who forges works of art and then gives them to museums for free. Just a garden variety crazy dude, apparently.
And finally, from those crazy bitches at the European Food Standards Authority: EU bans claim that water can prevent dehydration. They picked a bad time to land themselves on the front page doing something retarded again.
Good weekend, all!
November 18, 2011 — 9:09 pm
Comments: 51
Happy St Patrick’s Day!
Not an Irish bone in my body, but I do drink. So yay!
Changing the subject, if I’m reading this WSJ article right, the New York Times‘ second go at a paywall isn’t as retarded as it sounds.
They’re making around $100 million per annum on advertising (not too shabby!). They didn’t want to screw that up, so they looked at the numbers and worked out that 85% of their readers read 20 articles or fewer in a month.
That’s where they put the cutoff. Free front page and 20 articles a month. Print subscribers get full digital access, so they’re really just trying to squeeze a little juice out of whatever slice of the 15% heavy users aren’t already covered.
They’re asking stupid money, but they’re asking true believers. Non-story, really.
Not like the poor old Times of London. If Murdoch’s paywall was supposed to stop the bleeding, it failed: print circulation of the Times has dropped almost 15% this year. Pretty much on par with everyone else. Plus, their online readership (and the lovely advertising moolah that goes with) has dropped from 20 million uniques a month to to 50,000 subscribers.
Ow.
March 17, 2011 — 11:09 pm
Comments: 35
You are…nowhere near here, lucky you
Lumme some maps. I follow international tragedies through maps. The reportage on the Japan earthquake/tsunami thing is more than usually fucked up, map-wise. Stuff changing names and moving all around. When they bother to name places at all.
I understand translation is difficult — especially with languages that don’t use the Roman alphabet — but couldn’t we agree on some conventions before the shit hits the fan?
Okay, well, nobody died and made me Gaia — I got these placements from eyeballing Google maps. But, near as I can figure it, this is the lay of the land.
Sendai is the biggest town in the path of destruction. Downtown is on higher ground and survived okay, but they lost their port. This is one of the places where bodies have been washing up.
Kamaishi is the setting of that amateur video of the wave; the one shot from high ground. The one shot in Kesennuma at street level is even scarier.
Reports about the damaged nukes are alllll over the place, but I’m pretty sure these are the three we’ve been hearing about. Of these three, the bottom one is of most concern (which is called either Fukushima II or III, so I went with Fukushima Daini. I don’t know what that means, but it sounds all Japanese and shit. Babelfish says it means “Daini”).
Despite the all the spectacular images and news overload, the devastation is confined along this fairly small portion of the Japanese coastline. The quake was huge, but the tsunami did the damage.
Still, this would be an pretty good time for Gamera to turn up.
March 14, 2011 — 10:54 pm
Comments: 43