Monday, August 31, 2015

South Coast Cinemas in Laguna Beach Closing Its Doors

End of an era.

At the O.C. Register, "Landmark theater closes in Laguna Beach":
...the theater opened as the Lynn Theatre in 1923 at a cost of $12,000. It was erected three years before the Coast Highway and was dedicated by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. It still has a stage and an orchestra pit.
Sad to see it go, but amazing that it stayed open so long.

Dick and Liz Cheney on CBS 'This Morning'

The Cheneys' new book's out tomorrow, Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America.



Miley Cyrus Flashed Bare Nipple to the Camera Before Appearing on Stage at MTV Video Music Awards

Hey, this is the culture nowadays.

At Truth Revolt, "Miley Cyrus Flashes Camera at MTV Video Awards."

Also at PuffHo, "Miley Cyrus Comes Out as Pansexual."

Robert Stacy McCain Blogs 'Tinder Is the Night'

Following-up, "The Tinder Hookup Culture and the End of Dating."

At the Other McCain, "‘Hit-It-and-Quit-It on Tinder’."



Good Morning!

This photo popped up in the links from my eXTReMe Tracker.

Jordan Carver? She's nice.

More at Pirate's Cove, "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup."

Simple, Free Image and File Hosting at MediaFire

The Mystery of Islamic State

And essay from "Anonymous," at the New York Review, "The Mystery of ISIS."

It's an interesting piece.

Reviewed there are Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, and Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger, ISIS: The State of Terror.

The Tinder Hookup Culture and the End of Dating

"Tinder is the night."

Heh.

At Vanity Fair, "Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”":
Mobile dating went mainstream about five years ago; by 2012 it was overtaking online dating. In February, one study reported there were nearly 100 million people—perhaps 50 million on Tinder alone—using their phones as a sort of all-day, every-day, handheld singles club, where they might find a sex partner as easily as they’d find a cheap flight to Florida. “It’s like ordering Seamless,” says Dan, the investment banker, referring to the online food-delivery service. “But you’re ordering a person.”

The comparison to online shopping seems an apt one. Dating apps are the free-market economy come to sex. The innovation of Tinder was the swipe—the flick of a finger on a picture, no more elaborate profiles necessary and no more fear of rejection; users only know whether they’ve been approved, never when they’ve been discarded. OkCupid soon adopted the function. Hinge, which allows for more information about a match’s circle of friends through Facebook, and Happn, which enables G.P.S. tracking to show whether matches have recently “crossed paths,” use it too. It’s telling that swiping has been jocularly incorporated into advertisements for various products, a nod to the notion that, online, the act of choosing consumer brands and sex partners has become interchangeable.

“It’s instant gratification,” says Jason, 26, a Brooklyn photographer, “and a validation of your own attractiveness by just, like, swiping your thumb on an app. You see some pretty girl and you swipe and it’s, like, oh, she thinks you’re attractive too, so it’s really addicting, and you just find yourself mindlessly doing it.” “Sex has become so easy,” says John, 26, a marketing executive in New York. “I can go on my phone right now and no doubt I can find someone I can have sex with this evening, probably before midnight.”

And is this “good for women”? Since the emergence of flappers and “moderns” in the 1920s, the debate about what is lost and gained for women in casual sex has been raging, and is raging still—particularly among women. Some, like Atlantic writer Hanna Rosin, see hookup culture as a boon: “The hookup culture is … bound up with everything that’s fabulous about being a young woman in 2012—the freedom, the confidence.” But others lament the way the extreme casualness of sex in the age of Tinder leaves many women feeling de-valued. “It’s rare for a woman of our generation to meet a man who treats her like a priority instead of an option,” wrote Erica Gordon on the Gen Y Web site Elite Daily, in 2014.

It is the very abundance of options provided by online dating which may be making men less inclined to treat any particular woman as a “priority,” according to David Buss, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin who specializes in the evolution of human sexuality. “Apps like Tinder and OkCupid give people the impression that there are thousands or millions of potential mates out there,” Buss says. “One dimension of this is the impact it has on men’s psychology. When there is a surplus of women, or a perceived surplus of women, the whole mating system tends to shift towards short-term dating. Marriages become unstable. Divorces increase. Men don’t have to commit, so they pursue a short-term mating strategy. Men are making that shift, and women are forced to go along with it in order to mate at all.”

Now hold on there a minute. “Short-term mating strategies” seem to work for plenty of women too; some don’t want to be in committed relationships, either, particularly those in their 20s who are focusing on their education and launching careers. Alex the Wall Streeter is overly optimistic when he assumes that every woman he sleeps with would “turn the tables” and date him seriously if she could. And yet, his assumption may be a sign of the more “sinister” thing he references, the big fish swimming underneath the ice: “For young women the problem in navigating sexuality and relationships is still gender inequality,” says Elizabeth Armstrong, a professor of sociology at the University of Michigan who specializes in sexuality and gender. “Young women complain that young men still have the power to decide when something is going to be serious and when something is not—they can go, ‘She’s girlfriend material, she’s hookup material.’ … There is still a pervasive double standard. We need to puzzle out why women have made more strides in the public arena than in the private arena.”
Sorry. Not buying it.

Attractive women have tremendous power. And frankly, if this story's any clue, looks like you're getting a lot of skanky people of both sexes on Tinder. Perhaps there's a few classy babes using the apps (or some real together dudes), but if you're hot and single, it's not like the chances for hooking up were all that bad before all these dating gizmos. Maybe the quantity has gone up, but not the quality. And for some people, that's not going to be an improvement. (But then, what do I know? I'm a fifty-something happily married man in the process of losing a few pounds, heh. I'm not on any dating market, which is kind of a relief.)

But keep reading. It's a kind of juicy piece, heh.

The Circuitous Routes Foreigners Take to Syria and Iraq

At the Wall Street Journal, "Jihadi Trails."

Via Julia Ioffe, "This WSJ project showing the paths of 10 foreign #ISIS recruits is just wow."

Black 'Activist' Podcast Calling for Killing of Cops Gets Pulled After Publicity

Update from the left's race war.

At Weasel Zippers.

New York Post Reporter Goes Undercover as Topless Street Performer

And Instapundit quips, "Under cover? More like uncovered."

More at the Mirror UK, "New York mayor Bill de Blasio to ban 'near naked' ladies from Times Square."

Leftists Blame the Gun, Not the Homo

Heh.

From Anna Maria Perez, on Twitter:


Sunday, August 30, 2015

Taylor Swift and Scott Eastwood in 'Wildest Dreams' Music Video

The video just dropped, to coincide with tonight's VMAs.

And I noted, "Scott Eastwood is a dead ringer for his dad, damn."

Watch: "Taylor Swift - Wildest Dreams."

And at Us Magazine, "Taylor Swift, Scott Eastwood Gush About 'Wildest Dreams' Music Video."

My oldest boy's at the show, so he'll be telling me all about it later, heh.

Dear Feminists: You Think Too Much

At the Other McCain, "Third-wave feminism requires that males be 'vestigial,' because women must be so 'empowered' that men are either peripheral characters — clowns and tagalongs — or else sinister villains representing the Oppressive Patriarchy..."

Sarah Palin Interviews Donald Trump for One America News Network (VIDEO)

This is why the network's website crashed the other day.

Watch, at One America News Network, "'On Point' with Gov. Sarah Palin and Donald Trump."

BONUS: At Telegraph UK, "Could Sarah Palin join the Donald Trump ticket?"

Plus, more at Memeorandum.

Blonde Bombshell Rachel Mortenson on Horseback

Hmm... This is delightfully unusual.

At Egotastic!, "RACHEL MORTENSON SPILLING CLEAVAGE ON A HORSE."

Mission Beach Bikini Girl

Here's a nice summer video for you.

At SoCal Beaches Magazine, "Swimsuit Model Summer in Mission Beach 'Mission Beach Girl'."

Shooting at Venice Beach Boardwalk Leaves One Dead, One Injured (VIDEO)

The suspect's described as an "Hispanic male," and is apparently still at large. A 20-year-old black man by the name of "Shakespeare" has died.

At LAist, "One Man Killed In Early Morning Shooting On Venice Beach."

And watch, at CBS News 2 Los Angeles, "Man In His 20s Killed In Shooting on Venice Beach Boardwalk, 2nd Man Wounded."

The #BlackLivesMatter Revolution Will Be Televised

From Matthew Vadum at FrontPage Magazine, "Reporters' lives don't matter to a double-minority shooter trying to foment racial violence":

Simple, Free Image and File Hosting at MediaFire
Hoping to start a bloody "race war," a black, gay, in-your-face Obama-supporting former TV reporter horrified Southwest Virginia TV viewers yesterday when he stalked and coolly murdered two white former TV station colleagues and wounded a white interview subject during a live broadcast.

The shooter, Vester Lee Flanagan II, 41, apparently a registered Democrat and former prostitute, said he attacked the three white people during the "standup" report about local tourism from the marina at Smith Mountain Lake as racial payback for white-supremacist Dylann Storm Roof's June 17 attack in Charleston, S.C. that left nine black churchgoers dead. Roof, who reportedly confessed, also said he wanted to start a race war by committing acts of violence.

Flanagan, who used the name Bryce Williams professionally, left behind a lengthy, rambling, written rant explaining his explicitly race-based motive for the murders. Although the full document was sent to ABC News, it has not yet found its way online. Media outlets have provided highlights. ABC News reports that "A man claiming to be Bryce Williams called ABC News over the last few weeks, saying he wanted to pitch a story and wanted to fax information. He never told ABC News what the story was."

Well, now we know.

Using online accounts created only recently, Flanagan promoted the political murders he committed as well as any team of seasoned, high-priced publicists could have. In the process he demonstrated his diabolical mastery of social media for the world to see. He shot his victims early in the morning and made the morning news. He sent out a horrifying video of the cold-blooded killings and caught the noonday news. He died in the afternoon in time to make the evening news. All the saturation coverage on cable TV news and news-on-dead-tree exposure is a bonus, a sort of contribution-in-kind that media outlets are providing to his cause.

Emulating the cost-conscious Muslim terrorists who flew airplanes into buildings on 9/11, Flanagan got perhaps tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in free media worldwide for his evil cause on what must have been a shoestring budget. Perhaps radical leftist public relations outfits Fenton Communications or SKDKnickerbocker of Anita Dunn fame will teach Flanagan's techniques to incoming employees.

In the empowering age of the Internet, fomenting civil unrest and violent revolution is becoming more affordable. Not that the George Soros-funded Black Lives Matter movement needs the money.

The black-nationalist mobs and leftover Occupy Wall Street goons wreaking havoc in Baltimore and other big cities with the encouragement of the Obama administration believe now is the time for decisive action against the country they hate. The desire to concoct a massive racial conflagration in America has been on the Left's laundry list for decades.

Starting a race war in which blacks violently rise up against whites has long been the goal of unrepentant terrorist and Obama pal Bill Ayers and was the reason mass-murderer Charles Manson and his followers went on a homicidal rampage in 1969. Leaders of the racist and increasingly violent Black Lives Matter movement nowadays are also calling for "war." President Obama hasn't called for race-based hostilities specifically but he has helped to craft the Left's false narrative that racist whites kill innocent blacks all the time. Obama, a Marxist community organizer by profession, wants racial groups and everyone else to be at each other's throats because, as the familiar leftist adage goes, "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste."

Flanagan can be seen in his own homemade video he later posted online holding a handgun in front of him as he walked unnoticed towards reporter Alison Parker, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, and interviewee Vicki Gardner, executive director of the Smith Mountain Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Ward's video camera recorded the 6:45 a.m. attack and captured the shooter's image after Ward dropped the still-functioning machine and the live feed from it made it to the airwaves. The perpetrator's hand can be seen in his own video as he takes his time aiming at Parker and then opening fire. Parker, who can be heard screaming in both videos, and Ward succumbed to their wounds at the site of the shooting. Ward was engaged to be married and yesterday was to be his final day at Roanoke-based WDBJ-7 before he started a new job in Charlotte, N.C. Parker had recently moved in with her boyfriend, an anchor at the station. Gardner was in stable condition in hospital at press time.

Flanagan fled the scene and shortly before 8:30 a.m. reportedly faxed a hateful 23-page manifesto to ABC News. He reportedly told ABC that the police are “after me” and “all over the place,” before hurriedly ending the telephone call. Tweeting as Bryce Williams, Flanagan complained "Adam went to hr [human resources] on me after working with me one time!!!" and "Alison made racist comments[.]" He also boasted "I filmed the shooting see Facebook[.]"

His rental vehicle was later spotted by Virginia State Police who gave chase. Flanagan's car ran off the road on Interstate 66 in Fauquier County and he shot himself at 11:30 a.m. He died in hospital about two hours later.

NBC-4 in the national's capital reports that employees of WDBJ-7 were cautioned about Flanagan two years ago when his employment was terminated. Management was so concerned about his behavior that employees were reportedly made to clear the room as he cleaned out his desk. After he left workers were instructed to "call 911 immediately" if they spotted the former employee on company property.

Flanagan, Parker, and Ward had worked together at the CBS affiliate "[b]ut when Flanagan was fired in February 2013, a 911 call summoned police to remove him from the premises." The report continues...
Keep reading.

Europe's Migration Crisis: Hungary Builds Barbed-Wire Fence as Immigrant Siege Continues (VIDEO)

This is becoming one of the more fascinating spectacles of European politics that I can remember, even more amazing than the recent financial crises.

Watch, via Telegraph UK:



And see Elizabeth Price Foley, at Instapundit, "EUROPE’S BORDER CRISIS: Hundreds of thousands of “refugees” from the Middle East and Africa are crossing the Mediterranean, seeking a better life in Europe."

BONUS: From last week at the New York Times, "Migrants Race North as Hungary Builds a Border Fence," and "Europe's Halting Response to Migrant Crisis Draws Criticism as Toll Mounts."

Socialist Bernie Sanders Slams Iraq War as 'One of the Worst Foreign Policy Blunders' in History' (VIDEO)

Well, at least he voted against it.

Hillary voted for it, so if he's going to ramp up attacks on the Iraq war as basically getting us into the mess we're in now in the Middle East, he's going to have to take it to the former senator for New York, who voted along with the rest of her Democrat Party colleagues to approve the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002.

At ABC News, via Memeorandum, "‘This Week’ Transcript: Sen. Bernie Sanders and Gov. Bobby Jindal."

And Martha Raddatz has Sanders on the hot seat a bit here. It doesn't look like the dude has a clear personal criteria for the use of force. Watch: