In the annals of lack of self-awareness, I offer you this from Teen Machine alum Nick Gillespie
I’m sure I’m not alone among sentient beings in being put off by Lena Dunham’s “First Time” pitch for Barack Obama. I’m not offended or disturbed that she likens voting to sex; it’s that she participates in a pretty creepy cult of personality thing.
Ayn Rand. No additional comment necessary.
Obligatory Jon Rogers quote:
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”
That never gets old.
Chris
Rand? You jest! Try Reagan!
Wag
Oops. Never mind.
Mnemosyne
Nicky’s just upset because the president dissed his heroine:
ranchandsyrup
Glibertarians. Expressly state that they are not republicans but get to take advantage of IOKIYAR.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
You’re right, that quote never gets old. I laugh every time and then I jump up and read it to my wife and she makes a face. I think she’s going to throw something at me next time.
El Cruzado
Damn it’s almost as if they didn’t remember GW Bush, circa 2003.
The Bearded Blogger
When wingtards latch on to silly shit like this, I feel relieved. It means they have nothing, and are latching on to anything.
Tim C
My question is why don’t the Republican’s just ignore this kind of thing? So what if some fifth tier woman makes a video that likens voting to sex? it’s not that funny, it’s only going to be viewed by partisans and it’s basically nothing. The proper response for them should be that they haven’t seen it or they don’t care. Instead they go all Sandra Fluke….. I don’t get them at all.
geg6
Ah, the Fonz. So not self aware. The shallowest assholes in the world are all, to a person (usually a man), libertarians, and more specifically, objectivists.
Yutsano
@ranchandsyrup: All of the benefits, none of the Kool Kidz points lost.
Chyron HR
@El Cruzado:
No, silly, George H.W. Bush was President from 1989-1992. Surely if anyone else named Bush had ever been President, the GOP would occasionally mention him in their advertisements or at their convention.
Reklam
@geg6: Exactly. Coming from the Fonzie of Freedom this is too ridiculous.
GregB
Creepy cult of personality antics are the sole domain of raving leftists and brainless Obots.
Ask this guy.
ranchandsyrup
@Yutsano: Plus they get to play, “I’m not an objectivist but I support all of the tenets of objectivism!” Someone said on here a couple of days ago that many of the worst people they know self identify as libertarian. I fucking concur.
WereBear
Cult of Personality is only wrong when Democrats do it. Only, we aren’t doing it.
We have this silly liberal thing where we admire actual accomplishments.
cathyx
I can honestly say that I never heard of Atlas Shrugged when I was a teen. If it wasn’t a classic romance novel set in the 1800’s, I wasn’t interested.
Keith G
Cole, How is your dad doing? Have you typed and update?
MikeJ
The proof that it’s a cult of personality is that Obama is a Democrat. Nobody could possibly prefer the Democratic position on healthcare, or war in the middle east, or the proper way to balance the budget. Ergo, cult of personality.
Realist
All I know is that woman in the Obambi ad is quite possibly one of the ugliest women I have ever seen.
Lurking Canadian
Even by libertarian standards, the Fonz is a douchebag.
geg6
@Realist:
And yet, young people think she’s smart and sexy, which she is. She’s also fabulously successful for her age. Bet you can’t say the same.
Realist
@Lurking Canadian:
Even by Canadian standards, you’re passive-aggressive.
hildebrand
@Realist: And yet, she still wouldn’t have you if you were the last mammal on earth.
Spaghetti Lee
“Libertarians are immature? Well, you suck! Haw haw!”
? Martin
So, upwards of 75% of South Carolina residents had their social security numbers snagged from their IRS department – plus tens to hundreds of thousands of credit card numbers.
Anyone who has filed a tax return in the state since 1998 can get a year of free identity theft protection from Experian. So much for Republican leadership in the executive branch. Maybe we don’t want South Carolina running their own health care exchange after all.
And there’s a 10th amendment joke in here somewhere.
Wrye
That Rogers quote gets thrown around so often (as it should) without attribution (which it shouldn’t) that I’d forgotten it *was* a Rogers quote. Dude is almost a best kept secret.
Realist
@hildebrand:
That is a “she”? You could have fooled me. Five dollars says there used to be a dick between her legs.
WereBear
@hildebrand: I’m still laughing over that one.
Still.
Shakespeare
I don’t know Dunham’s work, but from the RW freakout I was expecting this video to show her servicing a 14″ ebony DP dildo with “Barry” emblazoned on the shaft.
Jesus H Christ, what I saw was a rather disarmingly sweet, unself-conscious young woman saucily but not salaciously analogizing first-time voting to first-time sex.
I hadn’t heard the analogy before, but it’s cute, clever, and kinda fun.
What the fuck is wrong with the right-wingers?
Just Some Fuckhead
@? Martin: I knew this was gonna happen when South Carolina got a modem.
JPL
@geg6: It’s back… the perfect repub… someone talking about mother’s cancer, rave about your candidate pulling the plug. It’s an it and needs to be ignored.
geg6
@hildebrand:
He knows that. That’s why he hates her so much.
And, thus, you have the entire motivation of wingnuts. They know they aren’t good enough and it infuriates them.
Davis X. Machina
@ Martin: This is the party that wants to run government like a business — so long as the business is selling aluminum siding, or helping the widows of Nigerian businessmen repatriate their inheritances.
The Bearded Blogger
@Shakespeare: I know, the video is so freaking mild!
Realist
@geg6:
“Sexy”
Ahahahahahahhah! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH! Good one.
The Dangerman
@Shakespeare:
It was Ebony; if it was Ivory, she’d be the best thing ever.
Davis X. Machina
@Shakespeare:
I’m not sure you’ve got that kind of time.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Shakespeare:
They think voting should be more like rape.
JPL
@Just Some Fuckhead: Just wait until a repub gives them vouchers for schools. It is important for landlords in the south to have a well stocked minimum wage crew.
Spatula
@geg6:
Oh please. Who are these “young people” you polled?
Check her background. Lena Dunham is yet another poster child for NY/Hollywood nepotism.
She’s no smarter than a million other young women, she’s less smart than a million more, and she is anything but sexy.
You’re already aware of that but are pretending it’s otherwise in a desperate attempt to be hip. Give it up.
Realist
She looks like a tranny dyke. I’d wouldn’t fuck her with John Cole’s dick.
Allen
That line never fails to crack me up.
The Bearded Blogger
@Realist: You know, you are really passionate about politics for your age. I bet you’ll be really excited in six years or so when you are old enough to vote.
Realist
@Spatula:
This.
Yutsano
@hildebrand: Not even the last slime mold on the planet.
scav
Looks like all they’ve got in their UNLIMITED RESERVES is RUDENESS, LYING, ABUSE, and FEIGNED OUTRAGE! As observed, totes adorb. As above, so below.
SiubhanDuinne
You know, if I didn’t have one of the worst cases of trypanophobia on the whole fucking planet, I would have this entire quotation tattooed on my back.
The Dangerman
@Realist:
Lousy job? This I can agree with wholeheartedly.
Donald G
Based on his rhetoric, I’m beginning to buy into the hypothesis that “realist” is really the Unskewed Polls studmuffin, recently pictured at TBogg’s site.
Realist
@scav:
What we have is MOMENTUM. The undecideds are breaking our way…
Spatula
@scav:
Why are you talking about BJ Kool Kids in the third person?
Schlemizel
You know what I hate most about elections? Tiny dick brain-dead douche nozzles show up here and try to be clever and provocative and oh so trollish. Its tiresome and tedious. The only good part is knowing that on November 7th they won’t be here to accept out derision.
geg6
Heh. Troll has lost his shit. He knows he’s not good enough and he really doesn’t like it being pointed out. I’m so tempted to just poke him with a stick some more. But I’ll be good now.
cathyx
Wow, what a high level of discourse on this topic.
SiubhanDuinne
Oh wow, my totes fave Python routine.
Percysowner
I am among the people who have never read The Fountainhead. I think I picked up a copy one day when I was a teen volunteering at a hospital. I read about one chapter and decided it wasn’t my thing.
Spatula
@Schlemizel:
Poor, delicate thing. I’m here year round now, for seven years running…try the veal.
Schlemizel
Oh, and I forgot the most annoying stunt – when they produce a second sock puppet to appear as if they have support
Chyron HR
@Spatula:
@Realist:
Congratulations on finally finding a friend who shares your deeply held liberal views, Tim.
Michael
@Spatula: I wasn’t polled, but me and all my young people friends pretty much agree with that comment.
Spatula
@Schlemizel:
Sweetie…try to relax. You’re entirely too invested in your pretend BJ community membership.
It’s a blog, not a life.
Realist
@Schlemizel:
Yes, I am a Green Party sockpuppet. Because we all know that outside OBAMA there is no Left!
ranchandsyrup
sensitive trolls are sensitive.
Donald G
@Realist:
359 Electoral votes for Romney, right?
Schlemizel
Interesting they automatically assumed I was talking about them.
Realist
Don’t be pissed at me that Spatula has decided to join the Patriotic Left rather than join you losers at the Altar of The O.
Spatula
@Chyron HR:
Little Realist here is rather cute and he’s right…she’s not “sexy.”
She’s very plain, but her parents’ wealth and influence have succeeded in putting her in a position where you feel it is in your best interest to play along, all the better to appear to be with it, as the kids say.
Carry on then…
beltane
It must be a sad thing, having nothing to do on a Friday evening but troll a blog full of middle-aged animal lovers.
Lurking Canadian
@Realist: I think you were wearing your wrong troll hat when you posted this one. Your Realist persona shouldn’t care about the fine distinctions on the left.
Realist
@Donald G:
Actually about 300 to 320.
magurakurin
@Spatula:
dude, you have issues.
Michael
When you are getting a “hear hear” from the pathetic UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH troll, and derision from everyone else, it maybe just might be time to rethink your position.
Spatula
@Michael:
Yes, uh huh. I’m sure that’s true.
magurakurin
wow, is the troll talking to itself now?
fuckin’ sad. And I thought I needed to buy a life…
Realist
@Lurking Canadian:
I think you should go back to eating poutine, playing ice hockey, engaging in smug passive-aggressive behavior and getting used to another decade of Prime Minister Harper.
Mnemosyne
@Tim C:
Are you kidding? Their entire schtick is based on seizing on the fifth tier and promoting the hell out of it. Who knew who the hell Ward Churchill was until the right wing dug him up and trumpeted him as the spokesperson for the entire left after 9/11?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@cathyx: Orwell, Twain, Vonnegut, Hunter S Thompson, Sylvia Plath, Hemingway, Stephen King. I have no recollection of anyone reading Rand, but I didn’t get the political connection until many years later.
As to ‘cult of personality’, Peggy Noonan once wrote of, and published, in public, her desire to steal Ronald Reagan’s shoe.
Michael
@Spatula: Which part do you think is a lie? That I’m friends with “young people”? That they don’t love her? Think she’s smart/sexy?
Here’s a hint: the smart & funny parts greatly inform the “sexy” part. There’s more to being attractive than looking good in a bikini.
Spatula
@magurakurin:
Oh well…don’t we all…
…but even thru my issues and tissues I can see that Lena Dunham is a homely thing thrust upon us by her parents’ wealth and influence in the industry.
You probably believe Melanie Griffith to be a great and talented actress.
The Bearded Blogger
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Shoe? That’s one fucked up fetish.
@magurakurin: Troll has time today, it’s not a school night.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT: Romneymentum is so strong, he and his running mate are in North Carolina.
scav
Theres an insane intersection near me where I love to watch the VIP drivers all jam themselves into iton stale lights as they assert their rights. On a good day, I managed to see it totally in a standstill with cars parked pointing in more directions than there were streets leading into it. I think this thread is in a similar condition with troll (lanes).
Realist
@Michael:
No there isn’t.
The Lodger
@GregB: Obviously this guy was attacked by Mormons outside his hotel room.
Was the “R” forwards or backwards?
GregB
Romney has Shmoementum. All of the moronic rubes are buying the idiotic media narrative about a totally close horse race.
Of course the media wants to ring every penny out of Mitt and his army of plutocratic grey faced men.
SiubhanDuinne
@Percysowner:
Howard Roark laughed.
Jewish Steel
Why won’t Blingee weigh in?
Tokyokie
@Percysowner:
After my oldest brother went off to college, I found the copies of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead that he left behind in his bedroom. “What are these,” I thought. “Look awfully thick.” I flipped one of them open and read a couple of pages and found them unreadable.
Only 14, and I was already a critic. And I never have seen any reason to revisit them.
geg6
@Michael:
Yes. I find this generation of college kids to be much less hung up on looks and much more on smarts and fun. Lena Dunham also happens to be pretty cute in a real girl kind of way. She is someone the youngs like a lot.
bemused
Holy crap, I had only seen a photo of Meatloaf singing for Mitt but I just saw a clip of it on tv.
That is indescribable.
beltane
@GregB: The media must have wrung too much money out of Mitt. The troll is bitter today, like the Romney campaign forgot to pay him this week.
gogol's wife
@bemused:
It’s very sad.
SFAW
SurRealist seems to have found a new term: “passive-aggressive.” Unfortunately for her, she doesn’t appear to know what the term really means.
Kinda like MOMENTUM! !
Uses it a lot, has no clue what it means.
Mark B.
@geg6: I think she’s really cute, but all of the ink elicits a ‘get off my lawn’ response. But I’m just an old fogey, so what I think about that hardly matters. It’s a really good spot, and anyone who gets upset about it has some real issues they probably need to talk to someone about.
Mnemosyne
@Spatula:
Uh, dude, aren’t you gay? I’m not quite sure how that qualifies you to declare whether or not a woman is sexy.
bemused
@gogol’s wife:
Yes, but I did enjoy watching Mitt trying to act like he was enjoying it.
magurakurin
@Spatula:
maybe I would…if I knew who the fuck she was. I don’t know who the woman in the video is either. Nor do I really care.
smoke some pot, dude. take the edge off. If that doesn’t work, try LSD. Works wonders, opens doors and such.
Mnemosyne
@Tokyokie:
I have to say, for all of my Reagan-worshipping older brother’s faults, I don’t think he read any Ayn Rand while he was in high school. If he did, I must have passed it over for James Bond and the Oxford Reader while I was raiding his bookshelves.
SFAW
@Mnemosyne:
Fucking liberal
racistsexist.Lurking Canadian
@SFAW:
I was thinking the same thing. I’m glad it’s not just me. I didn’t want to ask it what it meant, lest…well you know the one about wrestling with pigs.
scav
@beltane:
(Poem #196) In the desert
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said: “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter-bitter,” he answered;
“But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart.”
— Stephen Crane
The Bearded Blogger
@bemused: What’s with has-beens and the GOP? You got Dennis Miller, the kid from growing pains, Chuck Norris… If this was 1985 the Gop’d be pretty hip.
Mark B.
I’m kind of surprised that Sununu gets away with naked racism and nobody is calling for Romney to kick him off his team. They fact that Romney is keeping Sununu on his staff means he’s OK with his racism.
geg6
@bemused:
Yeah, totally embarrassing for all involved.
Meanwhile, Springsteen is playing a free concert (before his big sold out show at the Consol Center) at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial in Pittsburgh tomorrow. All you had to do was be one of the first to get the limited tickets at your local Obama HQ. The guy from Soldiers and Sailors said they got 24 hours notice. It’s not Meatloaf, but I hear he puts on a good show.
Mnemosyne
@SFAW:
After all, if anyone is qualified to say what straight men find sexy in a woman, it’s a gay man. Because gay men are all about wanting to have sex with women, amirite?
redshirt
@Mark B.: IOKIYAAR!
hildebrand
@Realist: Even if that were true, he still wouldn’t do you.
beltane
@scav: Perfect.
PurpleGirl
Look in[to] My Eyes, What Do You See?
Eyeballs.
@geg6: Springsteen must be a much better show…
Tokyokie
@Mnemosyne:
Pretty sure it was just a phase with my brother. That’s why he didn’t take the Rand books with him.
bemused
@The Bearded Blogger:
The good talent won’t have anything to do with the GOP? Just a guess, heh.
Mitt has to be totally pissed off having to campaign day after day, year after year mingling among “those people”, Donald Trump and now Meatloaf. He can’t become president. He is going to take all this humiliation out on us with a vengeance.
SFAW
@scav:
Two vast and clueless heads of stone
Spammed in this desert of a blog.
Hear them … half drunk, their shattered brains,
their clownish (wingtip) shoes, and a sneer of
utter cluelessness.
.
.
.
My name is Realistula, dink of dinks.
Look on my works, ye Obots/Libtards, and
laugh your fucking asses off.
geg6
@PurpleGirl:
Oh yeah. This will be the 11th time I’ve seen him. Great live performer. Maybe, IMHO, one the greatest ever.
Mike Dixon
From the comments at the link
Keith G
@Mnemosyne:
Hmmm…..Not one of the brighter things typed on the interwebs today.
JPL
@Mark B.: The news media appears to be also. In 2008 they covered Michelle’s fist bump more than Sununu’s comment.
Donald G
@Realist:
Interesting, Baghdad Bob. Unskrewed Polls has recently revised his estimate for Romney’s electoral vote count down to 321.
Meanwhile, Sam Wang now estimates 297 EV for Obama and Silver estimates 295 for Obama by their respective forecast models.
SFAW
@Mnemosyne:
You nailed it.
Besides, when Rethug men have sex with other men, they’re not homosexuals, as we have been repeatedly told over the last 10 years. Only liberals are gay, OK? Got it?
Kane
It seems like only yesterday that republican pundits and their followers were stroking themselves over Sarah Palin.
Mnemosyne
@Keith G:
Really? Since I’m not a guy, maybe I don’t know. Maybe gay men really are better qualified to judge which women are sexy than straight men since they’re able to ignore the whole “wanting to have sex with them” part of the equation and judge it objectively.
Because, as we all know, there’s nothing more objective than deciding who is and is not sexually attractive.
Donald G
@Mike Dixon:
Would “The Stag” be Reason financial supporter John Stagliano, who directs gonzo porn as Buttman? I think the last thing I read at Reason was their coverage of Stagliano’s obscenity trial and the dismissal of the case against him.
scav
@SFAW: We really need to have more awards around here. We’re running out if Internets! (looks like you made it before the final rush. Congrats!)
Spaghetti Lee
@Spatula:
Almost, but not quite as bad as your buddy’s “LOL UGLY DYKE” shtick are you moral scolds who go “Everything in life either SUBVERTS or ENFORCES the corporatist class structure and all TRUE liberals will decide what and what not to like based on that and THAT ALONE! All else is treason!” Saints preserve us from the ideological culture police.
And before you start swordfighting with imaginary hipsters again, I’ll say that I don’t really care one way or the other about Lena Dunham and have never seen her show. I also did not, in a fit of pique, delete all the Meat Loaf songs from my music library yesterday. And this goes for everyone: It’s OK to like what you like and not keep an obsessive political checklist about it.
SFAW
@Donald G:
SurRealist says: Romney will get 543 EV! Guaranteed! The Undecideds, Dems, Independents, Greens, and Slightly Silly Party members are all breaking for Romney!
Suck it, libtards
Tonal Crow
That’s technically correct, but Atlas Shrugged animates a whole lot of Orcs.
SFAW
@scav:
Thanks, but it really wasn’t that good. And I wouldna done it without the Crane poem to start things off.
WereBear
Watching Advise and Consent (1962) on TCM tonight. Lots of wonderful performances.
But gee, it just doesn’t seem like the Senate without someone jumping up and yelling “Thar’s deeeemons in thar!” and gesturing with a Bible.
How far we have slid.
Spatula
@Mnemosyne:
Wow. That is just, uh…really stupid.
Gay men know sexy better than sexy knows itself.
Plus, also, too, there’s the fact that I’ve conjugated with quite a few women in my time despite teh gey, and I know sexy from both sides now, from in and out, and still somehow…
Lena Dunham is homely.
As ABL would say: Full stop.
SFAW
@Mnemosyne:
(Original comment in moderation, apparently)
You nailed it.
Besides, when Rethug men have sex with other men, they’re not homosexuals, as we have been repeatedly told over the last 10 years. Only liberals are gay, OK? Got it?
Spatula
PEOPLE, will you at least be honest about one eensy thing: If Lena Dunham had done the exact same spot in support of Mittens, you would all be yakking about what a homely toad she is, and how poorly done the spot.
Agreed?
YellowJournalism
@Spatula: Great actress? Perhaps not. Talented? Something Wild, Nobody’s Fool, Crazy in Alabama, and my personal fav Working Girl would lead me to “Yes.” Like most actors, she’s done a lot of shit, and like Dunham, she probably got more chances to use her talent because of her mom being Hitchcock’s girl.
It’s just like you. You have talent and have made some pieces that people genuinely admire. But you’re no Warhol. And unfortunately the closest you’ll get to a leg up in your industry at this point is Cole. We all might not like nepotism, but it doesn’t demoniac the fact that some of these people do have talent, although it may not float our boat.
I don’t really like Dunham’s show. Found it boring. Still recognize the talent behind it and see the appeal of it for others. I am not touching the sex appeal issue for similar reasons and think attacking her beauty/sexiness has nothing to do wih the issues behind the outrage over this ad.
I don’t have much of a point here. Just didn’t like Melanie Griffith being singled out. I really so love the movie Working Girl that much, I guess!
BruinKid
Don’t forget the cult of personality that is Ron Paul.
patrick II
@bemused:
Meatloaf got his moniker in high school for allowing the front wheel of a volkswagon beetle to be pushed over his head. That is now the second dumbest thing he has ever done.
Raven
@Spatula: You’re a fucking disgrace to the idea of gay.
SFAW
@Spatula:
Wow, arrogant and wrong in politics AND in life, quite the combination. Now THAT is sexy. If by “sexy,” one means “major turnoff.”
Robin
My brother (3 years younger than me) ardently recommended Atlas shrugged to me when I was about 18. I don’t think I completed the 1st chapter, decided it was utter crap, not worth reading. My brother is a wingnut rightist to this day… thinks Bush was a great president, I’m so far to the left, I’m going to have to hold my nose to cast a vote for Obama, and am only willing to do so because I’m in a swing state, where my vote might actually make a difference.
Not certain if you’ve ever said John, but was your rightist phase ever informed by Rand? Were you the 17 year old who grew out of her when you matured, or were you, as I suspect, never that into her?
P.S. As someone said earlier, we all want to know how your Dad is doing.
scav
@SFAW: Timing is important, and hunger is the best sauce. It hit the spot when needed. Take your tuubz while some are still available in the warehouse.
Keith G
@Mnemosyne:Well think about what you typed and broaden it out.
Can straight women tell if another women is “sexy”? (granted, a term with many slippery meanings).
How can stylists and designers work with genders they are not attracted to?
Aren’t all of us carpet bombed by media, outlining in exquisite (or excruciating) detail what it means to be sexy?
magurakurin
get help, man. and fast.
bemused
@patrick II:
That might explain a few things! I paid no attention to Meatloaf…his music didn’t interest at all.
Spatula
@SFAW:
LOL
Me, me! Now write one about MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Mnemosyne
@Spatula:
Uh-huh. And yet you managed to turn your back on all of those temptresses and have sex with men instead, because women were just too irresistibly sexy for you to actually have sex with them.
What’s next, gay men telling women that they shouldn’t have abortions because they’re better judges of whether or not a pregnancy should be continued than women are? Sorry, that slot’s already been filled.
Raven
@magurakurin: man? shit
SFAW
@Spatula:
No, not really. Most of the libtards I know don’t really play the “looks” card, vis-a-vis someone’s argument/thesis.
Svensker
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, and occasionally let’s his disgust at female ickiness shine through.
scav
@Mnemosyne: ahh! Song lyrics! Conjunction Junction, What’s your Function?
trollhattan
@Realist:
I am enjoying your blog, nao that TBogg has informed me of it. Congrats!
http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2012/10/26/unskewed-studmuffin-dean-chambers-does-not-care-for-nate-silvers-dickless-polling/
gex
@? Martin: Man this bugs me so much. We shouldn’t need identity protection. Identity theft only works because lenders don’t want to work very hard to give out loans, i.e. make sure they are giving the money to the person under whose SSN the application was filed.
Random person A says they are random person B and asks the bank for a loan. The bank doesn’t want to have someone come in and show ID, oh no. They can’t churn through loans that way. Then random person B WHO WAS NEVER INVOLVED IN THE TRANSACTION has all the hassle and pain of fixing their credit rating. A credit rating they got from a company that couldn’t be bothered to do their due diligence.
We seriously need to make the LENDERS who give money to unverified people over the Internet responsible. Making us pay to to review our credit to make sure they aren’t screwing up is total bullshit.
/end rant
Spatula
@Raven:
LOL
If you say so, Raven, you big stud.
Johnny Coelacanth
Spatula and Realist, glad you finally found each other. It looks like true love to me.
Spatula
@SFAW:
Jeez…lighten up, Francis.
Keith G
@Raven:
That may, or may not, be the case. I am, however, curious as to how that determination is tallied up.
Lurking Canadian
@WereBear: Things haven’t changed that much. I’m guessing a gay Mormon Senator from Utah would still have a tough go of it.
Mnemosyne
@Keith G:
Straight women are very poor judges of what straight men do and don’t find sexy. Hell, Jane Austen knew this:
“It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little the heart of a man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire… Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for it. Neatness and fashion are enough for the former, and a something of shabbiness or impropriety will be most endearing to the latter.”
Because they’re making people look fashionable, not necessarily sexually attractive. Fashion =/= sexual attractiveness. Most straight men say they don’t find anorexic models sexually attractive, but they parade down the runways because they make good hangers for fashionable clothes.
And yet not everyone finds the same things, or the same people, sexy. I, for one, have never found Brad Pitt particularly attractive, but I swooned for David Duchovny. Tom Cruise leaves me cold, but Matt “Dr. Who” Smith is Teh Hawt.
You are conflating “sexually attractive” with “fashionable,” and they are by no means the same thing.
SiubhanDuinne
@bemused:
Inorite? That was the bestest part.
SFAW
@Spatula:
It’s not like I was being especially subtle, you know. Or did you think “Realistula” was just a misspelling, because I’m a dumbshit? Especially after the “two heads” thing.
Maybe I should have started it with “It was a dark and stormy night …”
Odie Hugh Manatee
The Fonzi of Freedumb has the intellectual heft of a damp sponge that was used to clean up after a puppy wee’d on the floor. He ought to thank his wealthy benefactors that they allow him to mentally remain a child and for giving him a sandbox to play in.
All he had to do is sell what little soul and maturity he had.
Spatula
@SFAW:
You’re either lying or deep in denial. I’ve heard wingnuts of both sexes insulted and mocked for their looks right here on BJ.
At least acknowledge the hypocrisy, which amounts to “we will all agree to pretend that Lena is attractive and sexy because she pulls for our team.”
Was that so hard?
andy
@Tim C: Their problem is that she is the type of cool gal that would never ever sleep with them willingly. And they hate that.
bemused
@SiubhanDuinne:
Oh yeah! Mitt must be having nightmares, if he has any ability to be embarrassed.
Joel
Are Spatula and Realist the same person?
Spatula
@SFAW:
Went right over my head, to tell the truth…just thought Realistula had a nice ring to it, like pustulant or pestilent. :D :P
Now you can talk about how dumb I am.
Raven
@Joel: I don’t thing either of them fit the definition.
bemused
@Joel:
That’s what I thought…I mean, how do you tell them apart?
trollhattan
Watching last night’s TDS and Stewart is simply demolishing Willard and li’l Paulie. Bam.
Spatula
@Joel:
Yes. Absolutely.
You may call us/me Spatulist or Realistula.
Spatula
@andy:
she is the type of cool gal
COOL GAL? wtf What?…are you 90 years old?
SFAW
@Spatula:
Oooh! Was that an “I know you are, but what am I?”, or an “I’m rubber, you’re glue” response?
So hard to tell.
Sorry for hurting your fee-fees, though.
Spaghetti Lee
Good God this thread is moronic.
Mnem, Raven, you’re usually prety smart but you’ve been putting forth some pretty dumb arguments. Spat, you may be a smarmy asshole but you’re a damn fine troll.
Raven
@SFAW: You’re setting yourself up for an “anger” lecture.
SiubhanDuinne
@bemused:
UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH! should be able to afford the software upgrade to make this happen.
SFAW
@Spatula:
No need to, apparently.
Spatula
@Spaghetti Lee:
OH THANK YOU…THANK YOU! YOU LIKE ME! YOU REALLY, REALLY LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKE ME!
Also too: I just checked my hole and it remains smarm-free as it has been since my treatment this morning.
Johnny Coelacanth
“Now you can talk about how dumb I am.”
Deal! Your mother tried to bury you and keep the afterbirth… wait, that’s about looks, huh? Ok, you are as stupid as something that is very, very stupid. Your moderate artistic talent is outweighed by your unpleasant self-righteousness… wait, that’s about your distasteful personality. Ok, you make Snooki look like a Rhodes Scholar. If you were as tall as you were dumb, you’d have to sleep in a bowling alley. When God was handing out brains, you thought they said “rain” and ran off to get an umbrella… etc.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’ve just been called for the third time in two days by the RNC’s GOTV effort. Early voting has been very heavy and is skewing Dem. Nifty stat: of ~350K early votes cast in the first two days, ~42K were previously unregistered voters. (I’m guessing that means same-day registration.)
SFAW
@Raven:
Thanks for the heads-up.
(Although, I guess, in keeping with the spirit of the lecture-to-be-received, I should have responded “Fuck you.” But you deserve better than that.)
Raven
@Spaghetti Lee: And here you are.
Spaghetti Lee
Also, what’s the deal with this fucking Ilivid pop-up? It’s been happening to me all day and only at BJ.
Johnny Coelacanth
‘Spat, you may be a smarmy asshole…’
“May be”?
Emma
@Realist: Well, she might have had one at one time but you never have — in any sense of the verb. So, she wins on points.
Spaghetti Lee
@Raven:
What is the “idea of gay” exactly? That one threw me for a loop.
Raven
@Spaghetti Lee: Ask your pal.
bemused
@SiubhanDuinne:
Ha. We know he has the ability to feel intense anxiety, we all saw the profuse sweat in the last debate so nightmares would be feasible. I hope there are nightmares, horrendous nightmares, he deserves them.
Honus
@geg6: Springsteen did the same thing here Tuesday before his show at the UVA basketball arena. He played that free set at 3pm and then did a three hour show at 8 that night. The dude is 63 and doing two shows a day so he can help Obama. The man is tough and dedicated.
Raven
@Honus: 63, NO. It’s amazing he can even walk.
BGinCHI
This has probably been mentioned in another thread, but the Chicago Tribune endorsed Obama. Not that I give a rat’s ass what that rag thinks, but it’s indicative of the cold feet GOP organs have about Romney’s chances.
Anybody’s hometown paper have a good endorsement? Do any of these ever say anything interesting?
geg6
@Honus:
That’s why he is the Boss, right?
NonyNony
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Are you kidding? Our house got called five times on Wednesday night alone on behalf of the Romney campaign. Three times by robocalls to go out and vote that seemed like national calls, once by the local county office (also a robocall) and once by some obnoxious robocall that seemed to be just an excuse to call the president names (possibly it was also GOTV, I couldn’t tell because it was so damn stupid).
And that was just Wednesday. We got three more robocalls to go out and vote on Thursday and there was another one on the machine when I got home tonight.
I don’t know what the hell is going on with the Romney campaign – I haven’t been a registered Republican since the mid 90s (long before we even had this phone number) and my wife registered Republican once to vote against a particularly odious Republican candidate in a state-level primary and switched it back at the next election. And that’s it – do they just assume that since we still have a land line we must be old people who hate the black president or something?
Yutsano
@Honus: He’s about the damn sexiest 63 year old man I know of in existence. This seems germane to the thread, if tangental.
Jamey
@Just Some Fuckhead: @Just Some Fuckhead: Not surprising, given how they act like they conquered a country every time they manage to win an election.
Raven
@Yutsano: That’s cuz you haven’t met me. Course I still have a couple of days before I’m 63.
BGinCHI
Italian rich motherfucker and all around neo-fascist asshole Silvio Berlusconi sentenced to the big house for tax fraud.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/26/us-berlusconi-mediaset-idUSBRE89P0PZ20121026
My guess is he’ll just buy a jail and get sentenced to his own place.
Jamey
@bemused: Guess we know what kind of wine goes with Meatloaf: ALL of it.
Honus
@Spatula: Yeah. Sorta like you are Mr. Gay Arbiter of Sex Appeal.
Thing is she’s cute and attractive to hetero men and Bruce Springsteen is infinitely more intelligent and talented than Meatloaf. Also more sober. These are facts.
Johnny Coelacanth
@Honus: Yeah, she’s a cutie. To be all sexist and looksist and whatsist, I don’t know a hetero man who wouldn’t think so.
aimai
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Profoundly true.
aimai
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@NonyNony: All three of the recent RNC calls have included the address of the nearest early voting site.
Wednesday was when the extra early voting places opened here in Wake County. (Eight sites opened on the 18th, another eight opened on the 24th.) Tuesday, the local races started calling. I lost track of who called when in all that. The local Republican Party was knocking on doors earlier, Americans for
PovertyProsperity has been ringing my phone off the hook for a month, Tim D’Annunzio has left two messages, I’ve heard from at least four different judgeship candidates. I have a coworker who answers his home phone with “I’m not voting for Romney.”It’s enough to drive you sane.
Keith G
@Mnemosyne: I guess my lack of bullet-point clarity is allowing you to pick and chose my meanings as you see fit. Briefly:
Clearly, both genders are able to recognize those appearances and behaviors commonly held as sexy – even in the gender that is not the target of their attraction. To be generally “able” does not mean that all do.
Many designers, stylists, personal shoppers, and many others make their bank helping others to look, behave, and even ooze a heightened sexual attractiveness. This can be quite different from fashion as you are using the term.
In this case, you did not even try to argue against my point. You just side stepped it.
The fact that we are all likely to nurture a “personal taste” of what is attractive, appealing, and even sexy does not negate the reality that there is a multi billion dollar industry that is telling us what the markers are should we decide to care.
Finally, I am a big fan of Jane Austen. One of the things I love about her work is how different her world was/is from our own.
Honus
@geg6: My 22 year old asked me this week why they call him The Boss. I said we called him that when I first saw him back in 1974.
When I saw Bruce in 2009 I remember thinking after watching him and Miami Steve and Nils run around on stage “those guys must have some comfortable shoes”
Mnemosyne
@Keith G:
Okay, this is part of Feminism 101, which may be the communication problem here, but the generally agreed-on societal standard of attractiveness as dictated by the mass media =/= sexual attractiveness. You can say, if you like, that Leah Dunham does not fit the current fashion for how women are supposed to look, but that’s not the same thing as saying that she’s automatically unattractive. That is, unless your standards of attractiveness are dictated by Vogue and Maxim to the point where you are unable to break away from what the mass media tells you are the acceptable parameters for what an attractive woman looks like.
It’s not nearly as different as you seem to think. The hourglass figure has only been popular post-WWII — before that, small breasts were the standard for beauty for hundreds of years. And the reason for the change was … fashion, particularly the “New Look” that Christian Dior came up with.
Again, you are conflating fashion and sexual attractiveness and assuming that the “look” that is currently in fashion is automatically sexually attractive, and any deviation from the prescribed look is automatically less sexually attractive.
In your world, Ann Coulter is clearly far more sexually attractive to all straight men than Leah Dunham. Coulter is tall, thin, blonde and blue-eyed, while Dunham is short, chubby, dark-haired and dark-eyed. And yet you will see men on this very website saying that they find Coulter to be unattractive and Dunham attractive. Are they lying? Suppressing their own need to find blonde hair and blue eyes attractive so they can be as PC as possible?
Really? We now live in a world where straight men are deeply interested in what the women in their lives wear and always notice any change in their clothing, hairstyle, makeup, etc., unlike Austen’s world where men didn’t take much notice of it?
Shrillhouse
I had never heard of Lena Dunham before seeing that video this morning. She’s absolutely gorgeous.
Another Halocene Human
@BGinCHI: Italian rich motherfucker and all around neo-fascist asshole Silvio Berlusconi sentenced to the big house for tax fraud.
Ooo, baby.
Pass that joint. I think I need to quit my job and become a pot smoker. Oh, yeah.
Another Halocene Human
@Spatula: PEOPLE, will you at least be honest about one eensy thing: If Lena Dunham had done the exact same spot in support of Mittens, you would all be yakking about what a homely toad she is, and how poorly done the spot.
We can test this thesis, because some dumb young Republicans did an “Obama, I’m just not that into you ad,” released it around the time of the RNC, and got mocked right here on this blog.
As I recall, there was little comment on her appearance (bland, I think it’s the Lady GOPper makeup effect) and a lot of comment on how condescending and frankly clumsy the ad was. Also, I believe it featured a cardboard Obama, but maybe I’m just confusing my stupid PAC ads.
the salamander
I love that she has something to say …
and that she says it ….
pr
@Mnemosyne: In your world, Ann Coulter is clearly far more sexually attractive to all straight men than Leah Dunham. Coulter is tall, thin, blonde and blue-eyed, while Dunham is short, chubby, dark-haired and dark-eyed. And yet you will see men on this very website saying that they find Coulter to be unattractive and Dunham attractive. Are they lying? Suppressing their own need to find blonde hair and blue eyes attractive so they can be as PC as possible?
J R in WV
@Spatula:
Only a gay without taste would think the woman unattractive.
Is there anything sadder than a gay republican’t without taste? Maybe a gay republican’t pol who lost his last chance to be President election! Now that’s sad!
But think how happy the progressives and liberals will all be! It’s almost enough to make me grateful the republican’ts nominated the Rmoney. But not quite!
Mnemosyne
@Another Halocene Human:
There’s also the fact that, for most people, what a person does or says can make them more attractive or less attractive to you. There have been actors I have developed crushes on (*cough*AdrianPaul*cough*) until I saw them in interviews and realized that they were as dumb as a stump, which immediately made them much less attractive to me even though they had not physically changed one bit.
So, yes, it seems some of the straight men here find Dunham more attractive because of her support for Obama, which is only surprising to people who have never actually interacted with other humans.
J R in WV
@Shrillhouse:
I agree totally. Never heard of her or any of her shows. But beautiful and very attractive.
Kerry Reid
Lena Dunham’s ad is so perniciously evil, it went back in time and retroactively impregnated that nice upstanding Palin daughter.