Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner has died at age 91.
Conservatives will decry Hefner for debasing the culture while libertarians will celebrate his role in unleashing the sexual revolution, but neither view is particularly accurate. Pornography predated Playboy by decades, and various cultural and technological forces (not least of which was the widespread adoption of the automobile, ensuring people could decamp to less restrictive environs at will) were always going to bring about the sexual revolution. Hefner was a canny businessman who understood that he could marry nude pictures of women to an upscale lifestyle magazine. The business model worked, and for many years Playboy paid writers some of the top rates in the field.
Those same cultural and technological forces were also going to render Playboy obsolete, as the profit centers in the skin trade quickly moved first to video and then to the Internet.
Today, most attacks on pornography seem to come from the anti-sex feminist left than the religious right.
Hefner lived long enough to see himself transformed into a media icon, and for his flagship magazine to become culturally irrelevant.
“Sure, fine, but what if I won? Do you hate me so much?”
Someone has to take a bullet for the team. Besides, think of all the blogging opportunities! You’d finally be able to report on the graft from the inside!
“Alabama Republicans on Tuesday voted decisively to nominate Roy Moore, a former state Supreme Court judge, for a U.S. Senate seat, delivering a rebuke to President Donald Trump and the GOP establishment that supported his rival. ”
I wasn’t following this race closely, so enjoy some brief Takes of Elevated Temperature:
All politics is local.
Alabama remains a very conservative state, and Moore was widely seen as more conservative than his opponent Luther Strange.
Mitch McConnell and the Washington Republican establishment’s endorsement is so toxic not even Trump’s endorsement can remove the taint for Republican primary voters.
Edited to add: Gracious (verily, even Presidential) tweet from President Trump following Moore’s win:
Congratulations to Roy Moore on his Republican Primary win in Alabama. Luther Strange started way back & ran a good race. Roy, WIN in Dec!
That’s the New York Post headline, and who are we to improve on the experts?
The disgraced ex-congressman broke down crying as he was sentenced to 21 months in prison Monday for convincing a high school student to undress and touch herself via Skype in 2016.
“This was a serious crime. It’s a serious crime that deserves serious punishment,” Manhattan federal Judge Denise Cote said as the convicted sext fiend dropped his head into his hand and wept.
After the courtroom cleared, Weiner sat crying in his chair with his lawyers patting him on the back. His mom also sat crying on the bench behind him, sitting next to Weiner’s brother Jason and Weiner’s dad.
Far be it for me to kick a man while he’s down—
Ha! Just kidding! It’s Anthony Weiner we’re talking about here! He deserves to be kicked.
Repeatedly.
What sort of sex fiend brings his mother to sit next to him at his sentencing hearing? And crying, when he went in knowing he had already been convicted, when he’s getting only a fraction of the sentence he could have gotten, just bespeaks what a pathetic little weasel he is.
It would be best for the nation for Weiner to do his time and then disappear from sight. It would be best for the Republican Party for Weiner to immediately announce he’s running for office again upon his release (or even before). But I suspect Democrats will simply have to find a way to lose elections without having Weiner in the public spotlight.
Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union once again won the majority of votes in German federal elections. However, it got the smallest share of any of Merkel’s victories, and the “far right” Euroskeptic Alternative for Germany (AfD) entered the Bundestag with 12.7% of the vote, making it the third largest party. The “far right” and “populist” tags don’t take into account that the party was originally formed by economists skeptical of deeper European economic integration. They catch the most heat for a position that’s extremely popular: that Merkel’s inviting millions of Islamic “refugees” to Germany was a big mistake that should be reversed and that border controls should be implemented. They also believe that multiculturalism does not work.
This, of course, is deeply unacceptable to the European ruling class, which is why they describe AfD in ways that make it sound like they’re about to break out singing the Horst Wessel song.
The actual AfD manifesto can be read in English here, assuming you’re up for 96 pages of European party positions. It includes a mix of populist, Euroskeptic, conservative and libertarian positions. (Germany’s fourth largest party, the Free Democratic Party, bills itself as a fusions of liberalism and “classical liberalism,” is generally considered center-right, but is markedly more internationalist than AfD, and have frequently played the parliamentary swing-party role the Liberal Democrats have in the UK.)
As in America, the German ruling class have decided that some issues (in Germany’s case, Greek bailouts and Muslim refugees) are too sensitive to let mere voters have their say in them, with the result that more and more, voters are looking to alternatives, “respectable” or otherwise.
Keep in mind all the caveats of corporate-produced weapon test videos (if a test run was a failure, you wouldn’t be seeing that video), and don’t expect these to be deployed in the battlefield anytime soon. But it’s still promising.
That’s what this headline implies. The truth is a little less dramatic: Raqqa is on the edge of full liberation and the Islamic State is in retreat everywhere else.
Static lines of control that held for months in northern Raqqa have collapsed, as seen in this Syria Livemap screen cap:
Compare that to this map from September 5:
Islamic State fighters are running out of territory in Raqqa to defend.
SDF also say they have captured Syria’s largest oilfield from the Islamic State near Deir ez-Zor.
Elsewhere in the theater, “Iraqi Security Forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces have cleared ISIS out of about 50,000 square miles and liberated more than 6 million people who were living under Islamic State occupation.”
Here’s a map of Iraqi forces collapsing the pocket of Islamic State forces to the southwest of Kirkuk that have been cut off from the rest of the Islamic State at least since the investment of Mosul.
Everywhere within it’s supposed caliphate, the Islamic State is in retreat, and nowhere is it counterattacking successfully. But it still holds a lot of territory, and there’s a lot more fighting left before declaring it dead.
Bonus video: Royal Air Force drone stops Islamic State public execution:
100% of Puerto Rico is without power following Hurricane Maria.
Obama Administration official Samantha Power asked for over 260 unmaskings of American citizens. “She continued to seek identifying information about Americans caught up in incidental surveillance right up to President Trump’s inauguration.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
“House IT Worker At Center Of Scandal Allegedly Abused Three Muslim Women.” “Multiple women in relationships with Imran Awan, the indicted former IT aide for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, have recently called Virginia law enforcement and alleged being abused by him, police reports obtained under Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act show.”
“The mainstream media failed to see the rise of Donald Trump in 2016. Now it’s overlooking another grassroots movement that may soon be of equal significance— the growing number of liberals “taking the red pill.” People of all ages and ethnicities are posting YouTube videos describing “red pill moments”—personal awakenings that have caused them to reject leftist narratives imbibed since childhood from friends, teachers, and the news and entertainment media.”
“Evergreen State College has settled a tort claim against it from embattled Professor Bret Weinstein and his wife, Professor Heather Heying, for $500,000, according to an email sent to faculty Friday evening.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Article on the decline of NFL ratings offers and explanation in the comments section: “One after another, cogent, thoughtful comments clearly stating the exact reason that life long NFL fans have turned off the TV, dropped their cable subscription, and moved on.” Sample: “There will be no NFL at my house until the employment of players that disrespect our flag and anthem is terminated.”
“Scientists create world’s first ‘molecular robot’ capable of building molecules.” No indication these 150-atom “robots” can contain programming or self-replicate, so we’re still a long way from K. Eric Drexler’s nanotechnology…
Having been busy with Stuff and Things, Dwight beat me to the punch on the last news on the upcoming corruption trial against State Democratic Representative Dawnna Dukes. But the latest revelation is a doozy:
As they prepare for state Rep. Dawnna Dukes’ corruption trial next month, Travis County prosecutors are prepared to present evidence that she showed up to work at the Capitol impaired, hid a cellphone from investigators and spent more than $51,000 on an online psychic.
At least with regular graft, you can understand how the corrupt pol benefits. Blowing $51 grand of taxpayer money on Miss Cleao just adds insult to idiocy.
More of Dukes’ Greatest Hits:
In other “extraneous acts” listed in the filing, prosecutors say Dukes:
Was absent for roll call 65 percent of the time during the 2017 legislative regular session, and 36 percent of the time in the special session.
Responded to a search warrant for her cellphone by providing investigators a phone that did not match the identification number on the phone they had requested
Was noticeably impaired while trying to perform legislative duties at the Capitol and showed up late to a House Appropriations Committee hearing on March 29, stating, “I know I’m talking a lot. I’m full of morphine and will be headed out of here soon.”
Agreed to a contract with the Austin school district for her company, DM Dukes and Associates, to provide business evaluations but subcontracted the work to a consulting firm. The district paid Dukes $514,224 from May 2015 to March 2016.
Arrived late to court settings on June 30 and Aug. 21. Judge Brad Urrutia threatened to hold Dukes in contempt if she does it again.
Failed to submit in a timely fashion both a campaign finance report before the 2016 election and a 2017 personal financial statement. She was fined $1,000.
It’s a veritable buffet of bad behavior, and I look forward to Dukes appearing on Most Shocking: Legislators Out of Control.
I’ve gone ahead and added Judicial Watch to the Blogroll under Think Tanks/Etc. Judicial Watch carried out a crucial role in uncovering several aspects of Hillary Clitnon’s Emailgate scandal, and continue to discover and document misdeeds by public officials through targeted Freedom of Information Act requests. Indeed, their work was so valuable, I signed up as a donating member.
