Yeah I don't know about this.

I'm not sure why, but werewolf movies almost never work and almost never make money. You can bring up An American Werewolf in London, sure, but that was, seriously, could it be this long? That was over thirty years ago.

I'll admit that I liked the Jack Nicholson/James Spader werewolf movie Wolf a bit more than I probably should have. (And that was probably because it was less a werewolf movie than a superhero movie.) But almost no one else liked that movie.

And that was... twenty years ago.

And since then, what? They got to be the second-string Monster Boyfriends in the Twilight movies, but they weren't the stars. I think people claimed to be on "Team Jacob" (or whoever) just to be nice and to pretend along that there was some actual conflict in these movies.

They tried to remake The Wolfman, with Benecio Del Toro if I'm remembering right, and all I remember about that movie was terrible CGI and a convoluted plot that I cannot recall at all and then fast forwarding to the climax, because I was bored and figured I should at least see the Bad CGI Finale.

Will "Wolfcop" change all that, and bring a new respect to the overlooked, underappreciated lycanthrope movie?

Answer: No.

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Posted by: Ace at 12:30 PM | Comments (279)
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The Weekly Standard's Jay Cost joins Ace, Gabe, John and Andy for a lively discussion of the end of the republic.

Intro/Outro: R.E.M.-What's The Frequency, Kenneth? / The Bravery-Time Won't Let Me Go

Questions & comments here: Ask the Blog

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Open thread in the comments.

Posted by: andy at 01:43 PM | Comments (145)
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Indeed.

“Gun rights have become a metaphor for something larger: a feeling, this sense of something that’s slipping away, a yearning for individual rights.”

...

“We’re at a precipice in this country. I know every one of you feels it. These next two and a half years are going to determine how things go for the rest of our lives. I have never seen it on edge the way it is now."

There's a little bit more at the Corner; I didn't want to swipe all of Geraghty's post. I think he's at the NRA convention (along with Andy, John, and BenK).

And what is that thing that's being lost?

I think it's social/cultural pluralism. There have always, of course, been forces for social/cultural conformity, on both the left and right. And dissidents and counter-cultural types have always been pressured to join the "default" American culture.

But something has changed-- there is an insistence now, like never before, that those who dispute the consensus culture of the New Class -- which dominates our media and idea-propagating institutions -- must adapt or die.

I think this is caused by a shift in the New Class' political/cultural cache. Whereas previously they were not in such a dominant position, they tended to argue in favor of pluralism (what we once called "liberalism"). This stance was self-serving for the New Class, as many in that class were themselves dissident for what would, if not checked, be a hegemonic culture they found distasteful (traditionalism, religiosity, "American values," patriotism, etc.).

Thus, by defending pluralism, the New Class really was defending its own cultural prerogatives.

But the New Class is feeling its oats now -- it feels empowered (by Obama, by government's increasing grandeur, by a complete domination of the news-gathering apparatus) and thus no longer feels it has to argue defensively against a hegemonic culture it despises.

Rather, it senses that if it fights offensively for its own cultural preferences, it can win.

The New Class has moved from thinking it had to champion cultural pluralism in order to maintain social space for itself to fighting against cultural pluralism, for they now believe they have the power to force their culture on the entire nation.

Why content yourself with your culture merely being permitted and tolerated when you have the power to make it governmentally favored and socially mandated?

Mollie Hemingway wrote a few weeks ago about the end of American pluralism. I quote her quoting Vaclev Havel, about the End Game.

Whether you view McCarthyism as a freedom-crushing outrage or as a sound tactic for bringing dissidents into conformity will often (sadly) turn on whether or not you feel you have the power to employ McCarthyite tactics fruitfully, or if those tactics are likely to be used mostly against you -- whether you believe The Mob is with you, or against you.

The New Class has felt a shift in its own fortunes, and is better able to direct The Mob for its own purposes, and have thus gone from decrying McCarthyism to zealously practicing it. (Well, the New Class isn't quite so honest as that -- they continue to decry McCarthyism, while zealously practicing it. They just say "It's not McCarthyism when we do it because we're right" or the like.)

“The Power of the Powerless,” written under a communist regime in 1978, is his landmark essay about dissent. It’s a wonderful read, no matter your political persuasion. It asks everyone to look at how they contribute to totalitarian systems, with no exceptions. It specifically says its message is “a kind of warning to the West,” revealing our own latent tendencies to set aside our moral integrity. Reading it again after the Eich dismissal, I couldn’t help but think of how it applies to our current situation in the States.

“The post-totalitarian system demands conformity, uniformity, and discipline,” Havel wrote, using the term he preferred over “dictatorship” for the complex system of social control experienced in Czechoslovakia. We also have a system that is demanding conformity, uniformity and discipline.
...

To explain how dissent works, Havel introduced the manager of a hypothetical fruit-and-vegetable shop who places in his window, among the onions and carrots, the slogan: “Workers of the world, unite!” He’s not actually enthusiastic about the sign’s message. It’s just one of the things that people in a post-totalitarian system do even if they “never think about” what it means. He does it because everyone does it. It’s what you do to get along in life and live “in harmony with society.”

...

The subtext of the grocer’s sign is “I do what I must do. I behave in the manner expected of me.” It protects him from supervisors above and informants below.

Havel is skeptical of ideology. He says that dictatorships can just use raw power, but “the more complex the mechanisms of power become, the larger and more stratified the society they embrace, and the longer they have operated historically … the greater the importance attached to the ideological excuse.” We don’t have a dictatorship, obviously, but we do have complex mechanisms of power and larger and more stratified society.

In any case, individuals need not believe the lies of an ideology so much as behave as though they do, or at least tolerate them in silence or get along with those who work with them. “For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system,” Havel says.

And that's what I think the gun rights are, basically. Gun rights are, to the New Class, one of the two foulest expressions of a culture they do not approve of (gay stuff is the other one, though who knows what the tremulous Neopuritans will be on about next year), and they're fighting on gun rights not really because of any particular belief that this or that measure will do anything to improve "safety," but because they are The People Who Don't Like Guns, and they are also The People With Hegemonic Cultural Power in This Country, and damnit, they're going to use that hegemonic cultural power to make it official government policy as well as official approved social coding that Guns Are Bad and The Gun People Are Bad Too.

Some of the New Class, of course, are cruder and more florid in their denunciations and otherizations than most.

Posted by: Ace at 11:31 AM | Comments (310)
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She told a joke, and now it's being demanded that she "apologize" for having done so.

She said "No."

While promoting their WEtv reality series "Joan and Melissa: Joan Knows Best," the mother and daughter duo were asked what it was like living together. The elder Rivers has been residing at Melissa's home in Malibu, Calif., during the taping of the series.

"Those women in the basement in Cleveland had more space," Rivers said.

Gabe mentioned this story on the podcast. It's not a "Too Soon" joke, I don't think, as this story is a year old. I didn't even know what "women in the basement in Cleveland" she meant when Gabe quoted the joke.

Following outrage on social media...

Of course.

...and calls from two of the victims' attorneys to apologize...

Of course. Their attorneys. People whose income relies upon conflict.

...Rivers remains defiant.

"I'm a comedienne," she told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "I know what those girls went through. It was a little, stupid joke. There is nothing to apologize for. I made a joke. That's what I do. Calm down. Calm f------ down. I'm a comedienne. They're free, so let's move on."

The only people in the whole world who even have something close to a right to ask for an apology are the affected women, not the ten million bored, empty sh*t-for-brains who do nothing but link Outragey stuff on FaceBook and Twitter all day.

We've expanded the concept of an "apology" from a personal regret about visiting a wrong on someone, delivered to that person personally, to this sad state of fake rage and emo Sadness Theater, in which ten thousand bored, empty outrage junkies take offense on someone else's behalf and then go into ridiculous Power Tripping mode where the mob demands appeasement to prove they haven't actually wasted all of their free time on the Internet this week.

See, Dad? I did something this week. I got the #ApologizeJoan hashtag trending and then I got coverage of it. And I think that's a little more important than looking for a job, don't you?

I'm glad Joan Rivers is telling them "No," and without being mealy-mouthed about it.

My rule would be she actually should apologize to the women, personally, in a phone call, and not on Twitter or the media, if they really want such a thing.

If it's just their lawyers "advising" them to be offended, then, no.

But if they're really upset, then they should probably be willing to take a three minute apology phone call.

Either way, this shouldn't be on Anti-Social Media. The whole reason people want this on Anti-Social Media is so that they can have closure for these little stupid mob-power-trip psychodramas they create to distract themselves from the yawning voids of their own lives. They want to see the end of this little stupid movie they're creating.

And they should be denied that. If this really is a cause for offense, it should be dealt with as an offense, and that means private discussions.

Not in the public Twitter Playhouse Theater format the drama-lovers prefer.

I don't know if the women really want an apology, of course.

And I don't know if Rivers would actually even be willing to do that.

And I support her for not be willing to do that, actually. When I say she would owe them an apology, I mean kind of... barely, if she wanted to fulfill all of her low-level social obligations.

If she doesn't, then that's kind of fine too.

It's really none of my business, as it's no one's business, except for the four people directly involved.

Posted by: Ace at 09:47 AM | Comments (623)
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For those of you who want to talk politics, here's a story that should generate some discussion, courtesy of @Will_Antonin's tweeter feed:

A prospective student at the Community College of Baltimore County sued school officials in federal court this week, contending that he was denied admission to an academic program based on an expression of his religious beliefs.

Brandon Jenkins, who is being represented by the Washington-based American Center for Law and Justice, said in the lawsuit that when asked what was most important to him during an interview with CCBC officials as part of the application process last spring, he responded: "My God."

Make sure to read the whole article (which is short) at The Baltimore Sun.

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:17 AM | Comments (167)
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Someone with content will be along shortly, in the meantime...

IKEA Developing a 'Lower-Carbon' Swedish Meatball

"IKEA is a responsible company, and we believe that we can play an important role in the move towards a more sustainable society," the company announced on April 22, Earth Day.

"We will continue to sell the regular meatballs that our customers enjoy every day at IKEA. However we will also provide lower carbon alternatives; a chicken meatball and a vegetarian meatball are under development and will complement our meatball offer in 2015."

Environmentalists hailed the move away from meat: "This is one of the first times a major retailer has introduced a meatless menu item explicitly to combat climate change," said the Center for Biological Diversity.

And the cows rejoiced at the glorious news.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 08:57 AM | Comments (375)
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See, the only reason we are using fossil fuels according to Chris Hayes (writing in The Nation, not blathering on MSNBC) is because the one-percent are making so much money from them, kind of like the rich did in the 19th century from owning salves.

Tim Cavanaugh writing at NRO took the time to read this nonsense so we don't have to and finds one potential problem (which it turns out isn't actually a problem from...a certain perspective) with Hayes' idea, it would kill a lot of people.

There are many more moderate suggestions than Hayes’s on the carbon-cap continuum. But his goofy idea makes clear that all of these involve some diminution in human life: less health, less longevity, fewer opportunities to pursue happiness. At some level that translates into fewer people — a consummation many warmists might devoutly wish, though few would admit that. (As green panics go, overpopulation is long over; global warming is merely on its way out.)

Lefties really don't like people. Certainly not "the wrong kind" and are happy to devise ways to shuffle the undesirables off the planet. From Nazi Germany, to Soviet Russia and Mao's China, whenever the hard-left gets control of state sanctioned violence, the death toll is enormous.

Eliminating carbon based fuel by fiat (as opposed to true technological innovation that makes economic sense) is simply a friendlier way to bring about the inevitable leftists end-game.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:42 AM | Comments (569)
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Happy Friday.

I'm pre-coffee at the moment and lack headlines for ya. You'll have to settle for a video cover. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:49 AM | Comments (488)
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McCain: It's a Stain on America's Honor That We Haven't Passed Amnesty Yet

So foreign citizens snuck into America and live here in violation of our current immigration laws instead of becoming residents through legal channels like all previous immigrants have done and this is all somehow a stain on our honor?

What the fuck, McCain? It's one thing to disagree on an issue but now you're making it personal. And making me okay with the prospect of a future Democrat senator from Arizona who won't gratuitously insult me.

Cliven Bundy Loses the PR War

Well he never had a legal leg to stand on so his position as an sympathetic public emblem of the government bullying of ranchers was really all he had. But now after his racist rant he's PR poison.

Now of course just saying racist things doesn't invalidate your legal claims but then Bundy has already lost in court multiple times. And his claims of longtime family rights to the BLM land don't hold up to scrutiny. And now the left is warming up to him for his pro-amnesty views. Time to move on from this one folks. 

George Clooney Will Not Stand For the Mocking of Mikhail Gorbachev

Or the dissing of his 'personal friend' Barrack Obama.

But he told the paper that Clooney first got upset at the dinner when one of the CAA execs told a joke about former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.

Clooney threw "a hissy fit" about that, Wynn told the paper, then started talking about the ACA, or Obamacare. When Wynn, a frequent critic of Obamacare, spoke up, Clooney got mad about that, too, Wynn said.

"He called the president an (expletive deleted) ... that is a fact ..." Clooney said in a statement issued by his publicist. "I said the president was my longtime friend and then he said 'your friend is an (expletive deleted).' ... At that point I told Steve that HE was an (expletive deleted) and I wasn't going to sit at his table while he was being such a jackass."

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:40 PM | Comments (714)
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It's been a long day and the sun is setting. It's time to kick back and exhale.

While Sara Smile is my favorite song and this is perhaps my favorite version, the video below doesn't suck.

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:48 PM | Comments (409)
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