The question is quite simple: Which is the worst band with the hottest female lead?
I’m going to limit the question to girl-fronted bands, not all-girl bands, not female singers with mostly anonymous session players backing them, or duos. Female lead singer, dudes in the rest of the band. And the question has a double axis: attractiveness of the lead singer and the general shittiness of the band as a whole, so a super-hot leader of a merely mediocre band doesn’t cut it. And I’m going to try judge both the girl and the band at what is generally considered their peak.
Some contenders:
Paramore / Hayley Williams
It’s hard to define Paramore’s sound, such as it is. They occupy a strange interzone of emo and pop that is, thankfully, almost completely dead as a sub-genre.
Pros: They seem fairly competent with their instruments, none of the boys feel the need to sing.
Con: The sound of the band is homogenized like 1% milk, first signed as essentially a gimmick band because the lead singer was 13 and the drummer was 12.
Least Believable Part of Their Wikipedia Page: “According to Williams, the name ‘Paramore’ came from the maiden name of the mother of one of their first bass players.”
Hayley Williams
She can actually sing, which is a relief from AutoTune. She’s a tiny little thing and flings herself around while the band plays. Her defining style is that she doesn’t really have one, going through hair colors and haircuts like the rest band does hair gel.
Pros: Slim and fit, a spinner at 5′ 2″, married at 26 (so someone must be able to put up with her.)
Cons: Practically boobless based on leaked nude, face gets less pretty the longer you look at it, wears thick makeup to hide Olmos-level bad skin, is straight edge and married to an older guy (also straight edge) who wouldn’t have passed the half-your-age+7 years test when they started dating.
Band Name: Misspelled. This will come up again.
BONUS OUTRAGE: Seems to be biting Poppy’s style lately!
Evanescence / Amy Lee
Formed at church camp, Amy Lee and Ben Moody’s Evanescence is frothy goth-pop for the Hot Topic set, with some very, very, very unfortunate nü-metal undertones.
Sharp-eared fans of crap will recognize this as their original contribution to the Ben Affleck Daredevil soundtrack…
Once again, it’s kind of a shame that Amy Lee can actually sing. The unresolved tension between (what one can assume) is Lee’s urge toward the operatic and the gothic and (what one can assume) is Moody’s desire to set the record straight about Fred Durst being an unheralded musical genius, has the unfortunate effect of making the band’s music into syphilitic ear mush.
Pros: Lee’s singing. That’s it.
Cons: see: syphilitic ear mush; favorite of Twilight fans everywhere
Possible Disqualifying Factor: Evanescence maybe a duo, despite the rest of the band, which seems to change around often.
Amy Lee
Pros: Those eyes, those boobs, dresses like the day manager of a Hot Topic
Cons: Weight seems to fluctuate often, married at 19 to a therapist who might have been 30 at the time (there are various birth years floating around the internet,) has a giant head, dresses like the day manager of a Hot Topic
Band Name: Not misspelled, just an archaic word, but it makes the band sound like a brand of flavored sparkling water.
The Pretty Reckless / Taylor Momsen
Sub-feckless Sheryl Crowe? Joni Mitchell and Axl Rose’s secret abortion? VH1 implosion? I really don’t know how to describe this crap.
A band that only exists because the lead singer was on a TV show, and got kicked off it for being a drunk mess at 15. She’s a Bret Easton Ellis short story come to life.
Pros: It might keep the kids off the H for a few months.
Cons: Listen to it.
Break It Down For Me: Three creepy old guys start a band with a jailbait TV actress. Somehow they still exist 7 years later.
Taylor Momsen
Pros: Hotter than the fires of a thousand dying suns, would be the girl worth it to get herpes from
Cons: Would definitely give you herpes, would require you to support her terrible music career, has more baggage than JFK at Christmas, probably stabby, inevitable relapse, will fuck your friends behind your back, possible suicide risk when she doesn’t get a call for the Gossip Girl Netflix reunion show
Band Name: An ironic comment on the lead singer. I like it.
Chvrches / Lauren Mayberry
The Scottish synth-pop band that autocorrect loves to hate.
Mayberry is not a very good singer and the music is the same sort of degraded synth-pop being pedaled since EMD invaded the clubs where white people dance.
Pros: It doesn’t go out of its way to be actively horrible, except for when they had the misplaced temerity to cover Bauhaus.
Cons: Pretty forgettable, like the soundtrack for a hip Danish airport terminal
Lauren Mayberry
Pros: Holy shit, she’s cute AF
Cons: Vegan, might actually be a magical wood elf, vegan, sounds dumber than Wynona Ryder in interviews (no mean feat), vegan, occasionally does this shit to her face, vegan, police would question you if you were out with her in public, vegan, might uncomfortably remind some of their favorite 12-year-old niece, vegan, is annoyingly woke, vegan
Bonus: Mention finding her hot to women in their 30s for an epic rant about the evils of “manic pixie dream girls.”
Band Name: Spell shit right, people. It was never cute.
Suggest more in the comments and please show your work.
Comments
332 responses to “Wondering Wednesday: A Question About Girl-Fronted Bands”
OT:
I want to know why this isn’t a bigger story. I did see it on TV news (Fox I think) but it should be front page news everywhere.
The only explanation I have is who the bad guy is.
Is this the new Oregon man?
Would definitely give you herpes, would require you to support her terrible music career, has more baggage than JFK at Christmas, probably stabby, inevitable relapse, will fuck your friends behind your back, possible suicide risk when she doesn’t get a call for the Gossip Girl Netflix reunion show
Oh to be 35 again.
I don’t know the answer to SugarFree’s question, but the girl-fronted band with the most bizarre name would have to be Brenda and the Tabulations.
But Brenda can’t dance to this.
Say what you want about Amy Lee but that bitch could sing the windows out of Notre Dame (the church not the school).
Yeah, I don’t see why she is even in consideration. Amy Lee isn’t particularly attractive and Evanescence isn’t particularly terrible.
Cranberries, The Pretenders. WTF SugarFree?
Sneaker pimps as well.
Oh, and Blondie?!?
Blondie is a generally shitty band?
You shut your whore mouth.
Note the question mark. I was pointing out that SF wanted bands where the woman was smokin’ hot (Debbie Harry was back in the day) but the music shitty, and Blondie’s music is most definitely not shitty.
This song is spectacularly shitty, but I don’t know that I’d call the singer hot.
Even more spectacularly shitty.
Apologies Ted, missed the “?”. Seem to be missing alot of stuff today. Maybe I do need to report to Warty’s dungeon. Terror sharpens the mind like nothing else.
The least metal band whose name is a reference to Nietzsche EVAR.
All good bands. Double axis question, yo.
Apologies SugarFree. Missed the big bold statement at top about “shittiest band with the hottest female lead”. I will report to Warty’s dungeon for discipline.
You don’t have to go that far.
But as for just hottest female lead, Deborah Harry. Debbie all day.
Your a sport SF. And yeah, especially young Debbie. Spend many nights in the bunk as a young man thinking of her.
Oh, and wouldn’t would would would.
Seconded. In the following order: 4, 2, 3.
Veruca Salt? I don’t know, I’m drawing a blank on this category.
I could be wrong but I think they had 2 girls singing. And…not that hot?
Wouldn’t wouldn’t wouldn’t would would.
Some people would put ABBA in this category.
Such people would, of course, be totally wrong.
Some people need to get the most awesome thing out of Scandinavia the fuck out of their whore mouths.
Yeah, what is the ABBA hate nowadays? That is solid pop band.
ISIS even killed them.
By the way, I mentioned this book in the first Poppy post. It’s all set (and plotted sort of) to ABBA.
I wanted to make a meaningful contribution to this thread, but I don’t listen to many female-fronted pop bands– certainly none that appeal to the tweens, and the few female fronted bands I do like are good because I like them.
So based on SF’s band bios, are there no females over 14 fronting bands these days? I mean, don’t get me wrong, having 15 yr old daughter I’m sometimes in the presence of large numbers of under-aged girls and while I would never mention this in public, but only on the internet, in any random group of 30 14-15 yr old girls, one manages to look 28 and that’s all I’ll say about that. But none of those are represented here. Well, except for our Hot Topic day manager above who gets the nod from me.
Since we’re on this subject, I am going to be simultaneously esoteric and nerdy AF. Casey Lee Williams does the singing for the RWBY soundtrack, and despite the music being a bit rough around the edges I think she has some real potential.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkdj1CyRB-k
I consider this song to be one of the better ones for showcasing her abilities:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmDYu5KI5XI
That’s a trick. Its not a band, its a pretentious barbershop
I suddenly had a flash of inspiration: any K-crap group with a female lead and male musicians would work. My first thought was Koyote, but apparently one of the guys does vocals too.
Some of them are so hot that I’d watch them even if they were singing Rage’s lyrics.
But the genre is just so awful. And the boy bands with the men wearing so much TV makeup as to look androgynous….
No Poison?
Fronted by Brittany Michaels?
You mean the 90’s version of Journey?
The sound of the band is homogenized like 1% milk, first signed as essentially a gimmick band
That’s not a gimmick band.
Babymetal is a gimmick band.
WTF was THAT!?! Did i die for a minute and enter the 9th circle of Hell? Did one of you miscreants dose me? NOT cool!
Yes.
Is this the 9th Circle of Hell, or did the Cubs win?
Holy fuck my penis is confused right now.
You’re in luck Vhyrus, they were 14 in that video and the age of consent in Japan is 13, so your penis will not be arrested.
Im pretty sure they rotate them out when theyre too old
Is it really that low? Hey OMWC wanna come with me to Japan?
Most j-pop and k-pop seems like a deranged gimmick to me. It’s like they take our pop culture, weaponize it, and then fire it back at us.
The Mother of All Bombs
*Ahem*
Can’t tell if SF buys his CDs from the 「No Music, No Idol?」section of Tower Records or not.
But I wub j-pop.
Have they done any anime intros? Because if not I think this is a serious wasted opportunity.
Here’s a stereotype gimmick.
As much as it pains me to say, Mr. B’s flow is superior to Professor Elemental.
Needs moar spats and monocles.
Dude this group is scheduled to open for Korn next month. I might need to go to see that just to watch the crowd reaction.
I hate you
True fact: The lead singer of the band Alice Cooper was originally a woman named Gladys Schmidt.
She hasn’t aged well. oh, sorry = “He”
Holy Shit, he looks worse than Keith Richards! That which is dead can not die.
Well no shit! That was my mom!
You didn’t mention Heart? Granted Bonnie Raitt at this point is less desirable than a catcher’s mtt…
Extra girl in the band.
Is there? They’re way before my time.
Would mentioning that No Doubt exists get me banned?
Wait. My bad, we’re looking for the worst. They might be in the running for that without the female vocalist as a qualifyer.
It was a sister duo, Ann and Nancy Wilson, with various back-ups for touring.
Brain dropping: Ann and Nancy were not original members of the band.
Missing Halestorm? or pretty much any Psychobilly band? Seriously (Creepshow, Kitty in a Casket, HorrorPops, etc).
Never mind. You said “worst”. That’s what happens when I misread the question completely.
Vanity, Whale, Belly, The Runaways?
Oh god, I remember this being on the college radio station my junior year.
You forgot Missing Persons (“Walking in LA”)
Vanity is out because she is really a solo act with a back-up band.
Whale is a good suggestion. (And reminded me of Aqua, of “Barbie Girl” infamy.)
Belly had two girls (and I liked their music.)
The Runaways were an all-girl group.
Fair enough. It’s not easy outside of pop music. Do co-singers count?
We could try some.
By the way, nice to see another 242 fan hanging around.
I got a new phone number yesterday and I couldn’t carry over the number from my company phone so I was assigned a random number. I got a little thrill that the exchange is “242”.
They were my intro to all things industrial. I have cold metallic tone in my heart for them.
I need some ear bleach after all the crap I had to listen to in this thread.
Sweet
I still have some of their hits on my iPod… good stuff. It’s hard to believe there was a time when MTV was overflowing with decent music like that.
Yeah, those few years when they let 120 Minutes play most of the day.
+1 well fed tree
You’re just jelly because of Belly.
See Charo’s marriage to Xavier Cugat.
19? Then I guess I can’t use my joke about “therapist” being made up of two words…
+1 Apetit
“It’s greater than keen….. It’s Cugat!”
Bonus points if you know what movie that comes from.
I nominate Touchstone/Aggie Figurska.
Pros: (Very charitably) described as “a combination of the prog sensibilities of Yes with the hard rocking aptitudes of Van Halen” according to Wikipedia.
Cons: Dull and stagnant, they stole my friend’s terrible band name.
Aggie Figurska:
Pros: She purdy.
Cons: So obscure I can’t find interviews or articles on the internet where she says dumb stuff.
What about Hole? Or are they in a league of their own at this point?
Who thinks Courtney Love is hot? I mean, Rule 34, of course, but in general?
Kurt Cobain?
Yeah, I don’t get that shit at all, man.
Besides, that first Hole album that Cobain wrote wasn’t terrible.
Is the rest of the band supposed to be male only, or mixed for this exercise?
Courtney Love was hot? (I never paid attention. I have no idea what she looked like. I just imagine Janis Joplin-level drugged out.)
Is Courtney Love hot? And I do have to admit that I like them alot. But Courtney is a train-wreck skank of the highest order.
She looks like the bloated corpse of a hooker pulled out of the East River.
Nico Vega?
Music’s not the absolute worst I’ve ever heard but it’s pretty grating.
Oh, that’s terrible.
Syd Duran of the “metal” band Valora.
They suck. But she’s smokin
http://www.revolvermag.com/sites/default/files/public/Valora-Publicity-Photo_1.jpg
WINNER, WINNER. Jeebus that chick is HOT. Who cares if she can sing or her band sucks. Turn off the sound like Baywatch.
Yowza!
Without lighting and thigh high high heel boots, meh.
Never heard of them. First search result on google not metal archives. In fact they don’t even seem to be on there at all. But there is a huge contingent of Nightwish-wannabe bands trading under the label “symphonic metal” that fit the bill. When I see the words “symphonic metal” my brain replaces it with “pretty girl in corset in front of shit EUPM” and my brain is usually correct. Guess they can’t all be Floor Jansen. It doesn’t always come across in still images, but in motion she’s down right intoxicating. And you know, can actually sing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUb1p8fm7Ag).
WAKE ME UP
Before we go-go?
CAN’T WAKE UP
No Doubt? I don’t know if there was more than one chick in that one.
Then their name is blatant false advertising.
Are you bad-mouthing the band that gave us “Hella Good?”
She did teach me to spell “banana” so I guess they’re not all bad…
god I hate that song
They definitely suck enough, but Gwen Stefani is hanging onto the bottom edge of hot.
Off topic, but interesting – all the dudes from No Doubt got together with Davey Havok from AFI, and started a New Wave revival band. It’s pretty good. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSX8OYysPE1mtRdDut9uXg
I’m behind and not going to make any of the normal links threads in a timely manner tomorrow so I’ll just drop this here:
Re: some of the discussions from this morning I missed:
My folks sent me this article a few years back. Interesting to read the fruits of my labor as I actually did some part-time work one semester in 2001 or 2003 as a research assistant for Bob helping him collate historical data based on archival records and geographic borders. Using the atlas he references and a number of other texts.
The short version is that protestant missionaries had a vastly disproportionately positive impact on the regions they visited (in contrast to Catholic missionaries or regions with no missionaries).
Paper referenced in the article available for reading.
From p. 248:
“Moreover, the religious context influenced whether Enlightenment-linked revolutions gave birth to stable democracy. The Protestant English and Scottish Enlightenments were not anti-Christian, and where they spread, democracy flourished. The “Catholic” French Enlightenment was virulently anti-Christian (particularly anti-Catholic), and where it spread, stable democracy did not. The French Revolution devolved into violence and inspired both totalitarianism and democracy(Talmon 1970). Similarly, anticlerical Enlightenment governments formed in virtually every independent Catholic country in Europe and Latin America, but did not lead to stable democracy (at least not with-out many decades of instability; Helmstadter 1997). Some anticlerical Enlightenment governments clung to power for almost a century before democratizing (e.g.,Mexico, Uruguay). Similarly, Freemasons promoted Enlightenment ideas and spread in most colonies, but remained elitist allies of imperialism and did not disperse power to nonwhites or the poor (Daughton2006,87–97; Fredrickson 2002; Harland-Jacobs 2007; Rich1991). Even in independent Latin America—where Masons fought old hierarchies—membership in the Masons was limited to men with property and “honorable” professions, hampering powerdispersion (Solano 1990).”
One of his key definitions at the beginning really puts it in perspective:
There’s this in Footnote 6 (p. 246):
“Throughout the text, Iapply the words “Protestant” and “Catholic” to countries, colonizers, Enlightenment movements and so on. These appellations should always be understood as having quotation marks around them. For example, “Catholic” colonizers are colonizingc ountries that have disproportionately been influenced by Catholicism; the government is not necessarily inherently tied to a religion and may at times be very anti-clerical.”
(I like his swipe at the Masons, by the way – though in the US – because of the religious-competition effects which I think the author discuses – we have Masons running hospitals and being charitable)
Just skimming to the conclusion:
“the Catholic Church provided far more education and created more organizational civil society in countries where it competed with CPs (e.g.,the United States, Ireland, and India), than in places it historically could block competition (e.g., Mexico,Spain, and Italy). As in Mexico, CPs did not always provide more educational and political resources to non-elites than did dominant religious groups. Yet CP initiatives consistently threatened dominant religious groups and triggered these groups to transfer resources to non-elites.”
So when they have a monopoly, clerics get fat and lazy, but when they have to compete to win souls, they get off their butts.
Very interesting stuff; I’m trying to remember the NY Times headline when this came out…
I question whether it has to do with missionaries instead of the fact that in general there was simply less of a focus on conversion and greater focus on business and economic development in Protestant global expansion. Japan, for example, would only trade with the Dutch and later the English for the Edo period because Protestants were seen as being more interested in trade than conversion, in contrast to the Portuguese and Spanish who nearly caused a civil war.
He digs into a lot of the accompanying factors for statistical purposes. Worth reading the whole paper (second link) even if the numbers make my eyes bleed.
Japan is also a unique outlier – the initial Catholic conversions took off like wildfire – very broad spread in elites and lower classes – before being literally burnt to the ground with a few exceptions – when they locked the gate for a couple of centuries.
I still need to watch Silence, but I did a paper on Shogunate persecution of Christians in my Medieval Japanese history class – mind-blowing stuff.
I’ll take a look at it later but I threw Japan out there as the most obvious answer, but there’s definitely a pattern in Protestant colonialism that had advantages over the Catholic. Take Amerindian-European relations in early North America. French and Spanish Catholics mostly refuse trade Indians important goods like firearms unless they converted to Christianity. The Dutch and English had significantly less qualms about just selling whatever they could. Indian groups end up going to war with each other either due to tribal reasons or alliances with European powers, and Protestant allied Indians tended to stomp their Catholic-backed opponents.
Again, he addresses a lot of your comments in the full paper (vice the CT article).
Where the corporate interests were involved, it was easier for the missionaries to go in and get involved – educating, converting, etc – compared to closed borders. In some cases they preceded corporate interests, in others not.
Note that British East India Corporation formal charter was denied due to “issues” until several concessions were made including free access for missionaries, non-BEIC independent traders, etc.
Hands-down Chvrches FTW if only because the music is so, so bad.
If you’re gonna put on music to twerk, always stretch first
The girl from Flyleaf was (is?) cute.
omg flyleaf I totally forgot about them! Add in the nauseating jesus thumping and I think you might have a winner.
So, the Jesus-thumping makes you sick, you might say?
I don’t mind them. I’m not going to buy their album but I won’t change the channel immediately like I do Weezer.
Sub-feckless Sheryl Crowe?
What does that mean exactly? Yes, English is my first language. I tried to search a meaning, but the first link was to here. NO HELP. More uncaring/careless? less uncaring/careless?
I had a thing for Sheryl Crow in the late 90’s. They always played her in the smokey dark stinky sticky floored shithole bars I used to drink in on Sunday afternoons before I went home and wallowed in the misery and despair that was my life at the time.
Somehow sinking lower into fecklessness than even Sheryl Crowe, who I find feckless musically.
I’m using it more in the lacking initiative or strength of character sense.
She bagged a tour de france winner. (until he wasn’t a winner) That is some initiative there.
I don’t mind her, I just find her music lazy and uninspired.
Lazy and uninspired is right. For trying to be edgy, Pretty Reckless is some of the most corporate sounding music I’ve heard.
I nominate Djerv and Agnete Kjolsrud.
Nope.
Pros: Decent metal/pop. More scary than hot..
Cons: Inferior Scandy genes. Kinda pasteurized and bland.
Also, the Interrupters with Aimee Interrupter
YAAASSSS!!!
Pros: Incredibly danceable ska/punk. AFAIK, does not possess inferior Scandy genes. Cute as a button. Short. Has low standards.
Cons: apparently hangs out with weird Cali triplet yabbos. Has low standards.
Nuts. Links didn’t work.
GOODBYE PROSTATE CANCER!
Hurrah!
LOL
I think it’s good news not funny news.
I think this is in re: an earlier thread about ejaculation keeping the prostate healthy. If not…congrats Warren. That shit is a bitch and her mother.
If it was a joke, then lol, if it was serious, then congrats.
That covers my bases, I hope.
A couple more links I’m very surprised not to see covered today:
1. Suspected suicide bombers kill 3 police officers, wound 10 in Jakarta
They’ve rounded up a lot of the major bomb-makers, but I guess it only takes 1 (or 2 in this specific case) when you’re doing it this way.
The Raid was a documentary
Die Antword with
The anti Poppy,
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8bdeizHM9OU
Co-singer, could be hot, but closer to creepy.
2. Over-reaction? The Police were only trying to serve a warrant.
Rodrigo Duterte’s martial-law declaration appears to fulfill some of his previous ominous declarations
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to try to escalate jihad against that crazy motherfucker.
I’m not sure you can count them. Sting is a dude.
Dengue Fever
Don’t know much about ’em but She’s pretty enough (ignore the knees) and if those douche-bag looking hipsters can make good music I’ll eat my hat.
I like these guys for a female vocalist. But I’m old and probably not cool anymore and all that.
Nightwish
Yeah.
I was also going to say Arch Enemy, but Angela Gossow isnt with them anymore
By the way, the worst band with the ugliest lead singer is such a no brainer I couldn’t even come up with a contender.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tune-Yards
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ1LI-NTa2s
Dig the ‘stache, bro.
4AD has really gone downhill.
*watches part of the video again in horror*
I don’t think I could make anything as painful to watch or listen to if I tried. A remarkable feat.
And by the way, where are the “cultural appropriation” screeching fuckheads? Couldn’t they used their powers for good just once?
And she plays a prepared ukulele.
Yikes!
I think Romeo Void is at least a strong contender if not the de-facto victor
I would definitely not like her better if we’d slept together. Or rather, i’d drink until the memory was gone.
oh, right. *worst* band. I mean, its a matter of taste.
if i had to choose between Romeo void and the thing you linked to, i’d probably say RV was ‘better’, but certainly still uglier. I’m torn. I’m listening to the Tuneyards other stuff and i can’t tell if its universally terrible or just ‘failing to be anything good’. This helped me hate them more.
I’m not convinced that this band isn’t some sort of elaborate practical joke.
Ok, she’s not attractive and the video is goofy, but I like this song. Is it so wrong to want to listen to something different? It feels like a sub-genre of rock, especially punk, like a video someone posted in an earlier thread, and the ska band a few posts up, haven’t changed in the last 20-30 years. It’s nice to hear someone taking a different approach.
While we’re on the topic, Chvrches first album wasn’t that bad. Their new stuff sounds more mainstream and boring.
I guess if you guys hate them, I will nominate the Ting Tings and The Sounds
I like The Sounds quite a lot. You don’t like melody, do you?
I’m not sure if it came through, but I like The Ting Tings and The Sounds, too. I just thought they might be out there enough that people here would call them terrible.
I appreciate a wide variety of music. I just like things that sound outside the norm, too. Maybe I just get bored easily. Of course, I learned a while back not to worry too much when no one else likes the music I do. No one else in my middle school listen to The Jesus Lizard, either.
You say “herpes” like it’s a bad thing.
Obviously the only objective way to answer this question is a KY jelly Royal Rumble between all the singers.
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Are you confusing “between” and “among”?
Betwixt?
I don’t really know, it’s complicated, but fascinating.
Anyway, carry on with whatever you were discussing.
I submit for consideration about 40% of Napalm Records’ lineup.
Farmer Faces $2.8 Million Fine For Plowing His Own Field
Don’t have time now, but NR had an article earlier this week reflecting on the initial case from the depression re: interstate commerce (Sticker (sp?)) – needing to be between actual commercial issues – re: the guy having issues burning brush because of the frogs on his property (a non-commercial issue).
Hopefully we’ll see that and some other things re-addressed with the new court.
“re: the guy having issues burning brush because of the frogs on his property”
Moses?
Nope, this guy.
Here’s one of the affected frogs
…and here’s another one
Look, you anarchist, you guys think that you can just plow anywhere you want to anytime you want, don’t you?
This brings back one of the moments that led to me being a libertarian. It was in 2006, the year before I discovered that I’m a rare critter called a libertarian.
Where I lived then, it seemed to be a pretty live and let live sort of place. Mostly rural. Almost everyone I knew then, including myself, owned acres of land. One day I was talking to a guy I knew and he seemed to be angry as hell. Never saw the guy like that before. Turned out, he had let the government designate part of his land as a ‘protected wetland’ in order to get a big tax break. I then actually remembered him a couple of years before bragging about this secret and special ‘one trick’ you can use. I didn’t think anything of it.
So the guy went on to explain that his wife had awoken him early in the morning a couple of days before and telling him there were a bunch of guys down near their creek doing ‘something’. So the guy looks out and sees these ‘guys’, heads out and finds out they are ripping up trees and shrubbery he had planted years before near this creek flowing through his property. So he confronts them and asked what the hell they are doing. So they tell him to settle the fuck down and go back to what he was doing because this is a protected wetland and an endangered frog needs to be protected. I guess he got angry and told them ‘this is my fucking land, get out!’. And they told him ‘this is a protected wetland, you’re going to be arrested if you don’t settle down and clear the area so we can finish our work.’ LOL, your tax dollars at work.
I guess what the guy was actually doing is planting trees and shrubs along ‘his’ creek to prevent erosion of one side of the creek, along with adding interesting plants for the view out their main room window. So when he tried to appeal it, he found out that no type of intervention with the natural habitat of the frog being protected was allowed. So they uprooted and tore out, burned, and sprayed with herbicides thousands of dollars worth of vegetation he has worked for years to install and maintain. Our beloved government at work.
My parents always made sure that ANYTHING they did relating to improving our land was done with private money for exactly this reason. We’d get neighbors constantly telling us we ought to get some of the ag subsidies for irrigation equipment, but thankfully, my dad never did.
I was going to nominate Garbage / Shirley Manson on the singer hotness scale, but I actually like some of their music so I guess they don’t qualify on the worst band scale.
And – I actually saw Paramore open for Garbage. Or, it could have been the other way around. I don’t remember really.
yes, how dare you even THINK about nominating my girl Shirley for worst ANYTHING? hmpf
Same here. Love Shirley Manson, she was gorgeous and could really sing, but just didn’t like Garbage’s songs. I know a lot of people would disagree on that.
Chvrches / Lauren Mayberry
You are dead to me. The Bones of What You Believe was AOTY 2013. And the /mu/ vs Lauren Mayberry feud is one of the best things ever produced by the internet.
Actually went to one of their shows at Brooklyn Bowl a year or two ago. The opener was Wolf Alice, which could also go on this list.
Also, Mayberry covered Killing In The Name with her old band. You can thank me later.
Is it really a cover if it’s not even reminiscent of the original? Do they only need the same lyrics to be the same song? I kind of doubt it’s the same chord structure, though I really don’t know.
The girl from Wolf Alice is quite fetching, but I like their quietLOUDquiet 90s throwback.
But I just can’t get on board the Chvrches train.
Their 2nd album was worse than the first (Chvrches, that is). I no-shit really liked The Bones of What You Believe though. But then I like a lot of the neo-synthpop stuff. Within that genre, Crystal Castles and Purity Ring might qualify for this list, depending on your taste for the frontwomen.
After checking Wikipedia, Crystal Castles and Purity Ring are both duos, actually. So nevermind.
Also, the elder producer of Chvrches is Iain Cook, who was in Aereogramme back in the ’90s. They did an interesting brand of Scottish alt rock.
Wolf Alice muy bueno.
Of 2013? The best-ever year for music? (I kid, but only slightly.) Nonsense.
These New Puritans’ “Field of Reeds” is the correct answer.
The only cool bands are the uncool ones because the cool bands become popular and then it’s not cool to like them because it doesn’t demonstrate the uniqueness of my cool tastes. The only exception is the bands that become so popular that everyone says they’re not cool, then those bands become cool.
as seen on Instapundit =
Oregon Burrito Truck Accused of Cultural Appropriation
(raises fist)
speaking of the term, “people of color”…. remeber when calling someone ‘colored’ was considered offensive? It was a long time ago. why is ‘colored’ offensive, but ‘person of color’ is supposed to be polite?
I thought the whole problem with the “color” thing was that it made the default, ‘normal’ condition ‘being white’ – and anything ‘other’ was Colored: iow, “non-white”. The solution to this was to *be more specific* and reference people by their ‘nation of origin/specific ethnicity’ whenever possible.
now i’m hungry.
“coming back to Portland”
…that may turn out to be their biggest mistake.
The author’s Twitter feed
I find ‘people of color’ to be othering to speakers of the Queen’s English.
Seriously? Its not like Mexican food as interpreted by most Americams is anything close to what actual Mexicans eat. Sort of like Chinese, Italian or nearly any cusine from prominent nationalities.
These people need therapy.
I’m sure it every bit as relevant as a Chinese place saying the have “authentic” American cheeseburgers. There 5 million ways to make them and none of them are any more authentic than the other. I’m sure that “authenticity” is a bullshit buzzword that’s merely gobbled up by retards too stupid to realize that an entire country does not, and never has shared the same recipe.
I actually hear this shit all the time. My wife is Korean so she can make x, or Mexican so she can make y. As if recipes are genetic. Anyone can follow a recipe. Doing it in broken English doesn’t make it taste different. Most of the people claiming this are American born anyway just following a recipe they heard like everyone else.
‘Authentic’ is a marketing gimmick in the same way as ‘tactical,’ ‘dolphin safe,’ ‘high-tech,’ ‘small batch,’ and ‘artisanal.’
I use all those words when marketing my semen.
true story =
in 1992 i spent the summer getting drunk and roaming around eastern europe with a buddy. our budget was mostly devoted to alcohol, so we didn’t eat very well. Plus, tourism was relatively new behind the former iron curtain, and there weren’t exactly Micky D’s + Pizza hut on every corner. Basically the most common food we ate was either bread+cheese, or the goulash that street vendors sold. no red meat since we arrived, nothing tasting anything like “america”
one night while very very drunk in prague, i saw a glowing light on a stand across the square. i thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. Could it be?! I approached: praise be, it said, “HAMBURGER” I was beside myself. I gleefully gave the guy money and ran to my buddy to share the news. I was delirious with the thought of a fresh grilled meat-sandwich. As i was jumping up and down in anticipation, my buddy uses his powers of observation: “why isn’t there any smoke coming from the stand” As i begin to scrutinize closer myself the proprietor slides 2 plates across to us = 2 dusty rolls with a thick slice of Spam, and a tab of butter. Cold.
My reaction
Spending a summer roaming around Eastern Europe sounds glorious.
There was not very much to do. the communists had not installed much in the way of waterslides and porn-theaters.
some of the notable places i remember visiting were =
– the largest salt mine in Poland (*actually it was fucking cool)
– former death camps
– the tallest church tower in west bohemia (i urinated from it)
– a natural-hot-spring turkish bath built by the Ottomans in the 1600s, where i blistered my ass sitting on a bench (all the men carried soggy newspapers which they sat on)
– breweries
– a lot of churches
Sounds like there’s more now, though I’d be content with hiking through the Sudetes and wandering through old cities. Apparently, the people there are pretty friendly as well, so I’ve heard.
The czechs, yes. croatians, it depended. there was a war going on at the time. the poles at the time… definitely not. they were angry and sullen and dead-broke. basically everyone who was over 30 had lost their jobs and felt like they had no future. kids were far friendlier, tho mostly in the “buy us vodka and we won’t kick your ass” sort of friendly. Hungarians… same sort of split. We made friends with young people, hookers, and foreign-exchange students. but adult locals tended to resent and hate the wealthy-teenager-americans who were always drunk. i’m sure it was mostly due to the post-soviet environment. i’m sure they’re far more congenial now, definitely moreso than say, the french.
I’ve heard from people who’ve visited recently, that the Czechs love Americans, the Poles do as well, at least the younger, optimistic generation who grew up in a market economy. Apparently the older folk are still suspicious of foreigners.
No idea about the other countries though.
I was in Budapest in, oh, ’86? Anyhow, late-ish 80s. And then again in ’98. The difference was almost indescribable. The second time around it was just a fantastic place – Western Europe but with third world prices.
You’ve told that story before. Which is ok, I’m just amazed that i remember it.
yes. my hamburger story. I like it and will tell it whenever given the opportunity.
What hamburger story?
Yeah, that’s not true. I lived along the border for a few years. Tex-Mex isn’t like the great seafood you’ll get further south, but it’s absolutely the same as the Mexican food you get right across the border in northern Mexico.
Also, you wanna BBQ some Mexican? Get a disco. (Google it, I’m not your link slave)
Ok, I guess it’s “discada”, and screw you, here’s a link http://www.southwestdisk.com/
Originally, they were made from plow discs, so there should be a hole in the center to let the grease run into the fire. These are gas powered and don’t have that. I have never used them, am not endorsing the beans, etc. Just the first thing on my Google results that fit.
Now, please get off of my lawn.
*brand not beans. Jfc
That’s cool, my family hails form a border town. Its not the same. For one thing, border towns are every part American as they are Mexican, and Texas is an entity that nobody but Texas claims.
Want to know what actual Mexicans eat? Lengua. Thats the cow’s tongue. Cabeza, which is the cow’s head. Tripas? Well, you probably had that. There are parts of Mexico where you can find Iguana on the menu. My grandfather took me out once to show me which soecies of cactus were edible. Ever see The Scout, where Albert Brooks looks in disbelief at the guy watching baseball, eating a pickled pig foot? They sell what they sell in Juarez because thats what you’re comfortable eating in El Paso, cowboy.
Mexicans are poor compared to Americans, their diet reflects that.
The only thing POC are doing lately is causing people to notice how tribalistic, racist, and stupid they are compared to whitey. Richard Spencer should thank them for referring a few more people.
Apparently my game is weak and Soave was all over this piece of crucial news already.
He drops some science on the author of the OG piece right here.
All I see is her twitter feed in the link.
White people be making me enact labor on their behalf and shit
OT
http://nypost.com/2017/05/23/japans-hottest-porn-sensation-is-just-3-feet-tall/?link=TD_heatst_articles.47942&utm_source=heatst_articles.47942&utm_campaign=circular&utm_medium=NYPOST
Japan can’t get enough of this little porn star
***
Nishi, 24, looks like a little boy — but earns a fully adult living by getting it on with ladies who look old enough to be his mother.
Formerly a computer programmer, the adult film actor and director got his entree to the porn world through a drinking buddy, who introduced him to Japanese porn mogul Ganari Takahashi, Vice reports.
…
That he can’t stand on his own feet for more than five minutes or open a bottle without assistance does not turn off fans. They are even accepting of his films’ ridiculously unwieldy titles such as “Having Sex in the Magic Mirror Box Car with a Female College Student with F-Cup Breasts Who Wants to Be a Kindergarten Teacher.”
As far as Nishi is concerned, his line of work particularly suits somebody with his condition: an incurable disease known as mucopolysaccharidosis, which halts growth and leaves him vulnerable to spinal cord injuries.
“Usually porn shoots are done while I am on a bed, so I have no problem with it,” he told Vice.
He added, however, that he faces at least one challenge that plagues all porn actors: “Although it has nothing to do with my disabilities, it’s very difficult to get an erection when you are surrounded by many people and directing your shooting crew.”
***
It sounds like a horrible disease to have…but then, what about the fans who like this stuff?
Wait, it’s Japan.
Of course, the definition of “incurable” may shift with the progress of medical science, who knows?
You’re missing an even bigger point:
This guy is an excellent argument against aborting in case of severe disease/birth defects.
That’s actually a good point.
Midget porn isn’t exactly non-existent in the West (although it’s overwhelmingly midget women rather men).
OK, thank you for shining some light into the vast abyss of my ignorance.
Just getting everyone ready for the Midget War.
OMG you’re not exaggerating
“Having Sex in the Magic Mirror Box Car with a Female College Student with F-Cup Breasts Who Wants to Be a Kindergarten Teacher.”
Will be the name of my first album if I ever start a band.
“Although it has nothing to do with my disabilities, it’s very difficult to get an erection when you are surrounded by many people and directing your shooting crew.”
I thought all the porn stars were injecting Viagra directly into their dicks or something a while back? The government was considering getting involved, IIRC.
cool mountain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitz_Roy
I saw a mountain on the way to Lake Tahoe that looked like the one the Grinch lived on. Sadly, there was no good place to take a picture of it.
fun fact: the language of the minions from Despicable Me is based on Indonesian
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/06/19/minions-speak-indonesian.html
***
Utterances including terima kasih (thank you), kemari (come here) and Paduka Raja (Your Highness) can be heard throughout the movie, which was released on Wednesday.
…
Coffin, the director of Despicable Me ( 2010 ) and Despicable Me 2 ( 2013 ), is the son of Indonesian novelist Nurhayati Sriharini Siti Nukatin, better known by her pen name NH Dini.
***
I’d recognize bits and pieces here and there, but it is mostly gibberish.
And a lot of those phrases are actually shared with malay (the mother tongue that the Dutch used to “build” Bahasa Indonesia from as a trade language) and sometimes even tagalog.
Fun fact….more people in Indonesia speak Javanese than Bahasa. I think we talked about densely populated islands yesterday….Java’s not the worst, but cramming 100 million on that one tends to get a little crowded…then when Suharto force-migrated them to other islands – that’s how you spread political islam and set things up for many, many ethno/religious conflicts.
The ace of base.
I actually like their (older) music, but School of Seven Bells could be a contender if its not your bag.
It was originally fronted by two sisters, but one of them left, so it counts on a technicality.
This wasn’t supposed to be a reply…
There’s two women in Ace of Base. One’s preference between the two was significant back in the ’90s.
Late to the party as usual, but my votes go for Lacuna Coil and Arch Enemy. Lacuna Coil has always been bland, and Arch Enemy got even worse with their newest singer.
UK Now Has Its First Ever ‘Gender-Fluid’ Cop Who Switches Between Male and Female Names
https://heatst.com/world/uk-now-has-its-first-ever-gender-fluid-cop/
***
A transgender police officer in London has become the UK’s first gender-fluid cop and is allowed to use separate male and female identities while at work.
The officer has two warrant cards – one in their male name, Callum, and the other in their female name, Abi.
It’s been allowed as part of a Metropolitan Police diversity scheme encouraging officers to “be themselves” at work.
The situation was announced in an internal message to the force’s 43,607 police and civilian staff last week, titled “Bring Your Whole Self to Work”.
Callum/Abi spent 13 years working as a male officer.
The Sun quoted them, saying: “The first time I walked into a Met building as Abi, I was hyperventilating so much I almost passed out. I’ve done it a handful of times since and felt so happy that I got to be me at work. Abi is a part of me that exists and I want that part to be recognised and validated. But I’m still me. I’m still the same person whether I’m presenting as Callum or Abi.”
Recently retired Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville said the scheme was a waste of public money.
He told the paper: “Senior officers constantly complain about lack of funding. But there will always be enough to fill a diversity unit to run crazy schemes like this. Little wonder the public lose faith in the police.”
***
fluid cop
I feel with Paramore they have a decent core, but their songs are always weirdly unfinished sounding. The lyrics especially seem like they need another pass.
also, IIRC Amy Lee broke from Evanescence several years ago and had some kind of nasty dispute with the label. It is/was a mess, so she was off the scene for quite awhile.
Athena manages to be the only person to have paid attention to Evanescence since 2004.
Goofy’s rendition of Wake Me Up is good for a laugh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czLYl4fM8yk
It’s not stalking if you love the person…
HOW DARE U
it’s not my fault I know too much about industry bullshit.
Davidson College students furious after they’re tricked into rejecting socialist ideal
-they signed a petition against GPA redistribution
https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/32762/
***
Many students refused to sign the petition, saying it wasn’t fair for a variety of reasons, including that people who earned their As should keep their As, and that students who are given good grades without hard work might not be inspired to improve.
But after students discovered later the petition was a hoax played on them by conservative students in an attempt to illustrate the unfairness of wealth distribution, they hastily called a teach-in at the campus union at which they denounced the effort and vented their frustration.
Some students said the fake petition made them struggle with feelings that they do not belong at Davidson, while others aggressively attacked the video, calling it “oppressive,” “illegally filmed,” and “inflammatory bullsh*t,” according to a video of the April 27 teach-in on Facebook.
Multiple students at the teach-in also made comments supporting both income redistribution and GPA redistribution, saying “life wasn’t always fair” and it’s “the right thing to do.” Others suggested that not forcibly redistributing income would give rich people the power to decide who lives and dies based off their charitable donation whims.
***
Supporting income redistribution, and declaring that ‘life wasn’t always fair’. There’s a word for when you hold two completely conflicting ideas that contradict each other, I wonder what it is…
There’s a word for when you hold two completely conflicting ideas that contradict each other, I wonder what it is…
Hitler?
Tricked into using logic.
Well, they’re certainly not going to find it on their own.
Because logic wasn’t invented by white people to make POC look stupid. Or maybe by the rich people, or Jews, or men. I forget. Either way, when it comes time to even, I can’t.
The conservative students are conceding too much, I think.
Grades are (theoretically) designed by human beings (faculty members) to reflect merit. If a grade is unearned, the college has done something wrong.
Whereas if someone has more money than someone else, it doesn’t automatically mean the government has wrongly “awarded” the wealth to that person.
What if the wealth was acquired lawfully, honestly, and without governmental favoritism? Then it’s not the government’s job to decide if it was duly “earned” or not, in the sense that grades are earned. The wealth could be inherited, a gift, or otherwise “unearned.”
The government’s job is to support its basic functions by equitable taxes – the purpose isn’t to equalize people, but to get the money needed for cops, troops, roadz, etc.
Some things need to be equalized, like, say, access to justice – and of course the govt hasn’t even done *that.*
Really, look at how unequally the government operates – the govt court system is unequal, the govt schools are unequal, etc. – they should look to their own operations before dictating equality to the private sector.
And I’m sorry to eddie up the thread, but here’s another point:
Why focus just on the individual and whether that specific person earned their wealth?
A family accumulating wealth over generations can be a good thing depending on how the wealth is used.
Certainly one incentive for someone to earn wealth and save it (rather than blowing it on whiskey and midget porn) is the thought that “I can give my kids and grandkids a leg up in life if I work hard and put the money away – just so long as I teach similar good attitudes to the kids.”
Imagine the effect on incentives if the government actually (shudder) discovers a way to “redistribute” the wealth in each generation.
We’ll end up with less wealth, because Grandpa isn’t going to put in those extra hours (and save the money) just so the Commissar of Equality can grab all his stuff when he dies and give it to other people.
Imagine the effect on incentives if the government actually (shudder) discovers a way to “redistribute” the wealth in each generation.
The estate tax and AMT already exist.
Anyway, I think you’re reading too much into the experiment. Their statement on the video said it was intended to “serve as an analogy, not an equivalency.” You can delve into the deeper philosophical aspects of property once you’ve extracted the concession that what you earn should belong to you.
Certainly, but it invites the prog counterattack that inheriting money is *unfair* because you didn’t earn your inheritance, therefore you can’t be allowed to leave money to “undeserving” heirs.
And, yes, I know there are supposedly estate taxes and so on, but there are also loopholes, and any rich dude worth his salt can find legal angles to get money into his kids’ hands if that’s what he wants to do.
Now, when you get right down to it, the best way to “redistribute” money away from a wealthy family is to have the kids spoiled rotten so they blow their inheritance on whiskey and midget porn, or become so unreliable that their parents don’t leave them stuff.
I’ve heard the *devastating* argument that so-and-so didn’t earn his money, he inherited it, ergo he deserves to have the money taxed away from him.
My response is (roughly) “the question is whether the government deserves the money *more* than the person who inherited it. Unless (as is generally the case) you’re just talking about the government as a giant ‘us’ or a God-substitute.”
So that’s what I mean by “conceding too much.” It starts with the premise that the government can and should take money from undeserving individuals, specifically taking away whatever they haven’t personally earned.
I would rather stop them before they get out of the gate by saying “what do you mean do they deserve it? Who’s asking – the tax collector? What did the tax collector do to earn that money?”
I get what you mean, but I think Derpetologist is right in that most of the people this is aimed at have never considered the issue that deeply in the first place. So sure, it concedes too much, but one of the rules of evangelism is that you have to meet people where they are.
And I can imagine an opposite stunt, with progs asking conservative students to sign a petition giving some students an arbitrary bonus on grades based on birth, etc., then showing the conservative students refusing to sign, then saying “but these same students support an economic system where blah blah blah.”
So these fake surveys can cut both ways.
When we start thinking in terms of what should *we* do about people getting stuff they don’t deserve, then I want to know who “we” is, and by what authority this “we” gets to decide who’s “undeserving” and take their stuff.
It’s a heck of a concession to make just to establish a point, and it can backfire.
I agree, Eddie. Those were my first thoughts as well.
You have already put more thought into this than most progs ever will.
If they were capable of understanding these things, they wouldn’t be progs and places like Zimbabwe and Venezuela would not be the way they are.
I really wish there was a better way to get people to understand, but pain is the best teacher.
As Yuri Bezemenov said, when a military boot crushes their balls, then and only then will they understand, and not before.
AND DONE!
19 times in a day means I’m immune to prostate cancer forever, right? Admittedly I didn’t read the thread closely.
Celebrating my immortal health with Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy!
OK, so it was a joke.
I’m glad you’re not actually cancerous, so I guess that’s good news.
Believe me, if I went on about my double-deviated septum I sure as hell would have been all up in Glibs’ grills with cancer.
Taylor Momsen is the worst looking of every girl in the post don’t @ me
I have the problem of never being able to unsee her as Cindy Lou Who.
I’ll just keep her for myself, then.
How about a god-awful female band with 3 ugly as sin members?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLGFyxAP0QE
LOL
Le Tigre? Its Le Tigre, isn’t it.
“I’m With Her”
Perfect.
I remember a track or two on From the Desk of Mr. Lady that I liked. That came out in… 2001, though. Man, the turn of the millennium was such a different time. You could be an outspoken libertarian and folks in the college LGBT community (at least in my experience) would just accept you as fellow Bush opposition instead of identity politics being an all-consuming fire.
I’m not going to defend that Hillary endorsement, though. That people can’t or won’t see her for what she is is depressing.
The most 90s thing to ever exist.
Looks like the related videos is probably how I’m going to spend the next couple hours…
An all female band which has the distinction of being consistently ranked as the one of the worst bands of all time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQqK1CjE9bA
Shit, I was sure it was going to be 4 Non Blondes.
The town hall live performance video is an amazing time-capsule of the horrors of 1972.
I genuinely love The Shaggs. Better than the Beatles
Playing The Shaggs in the car is how I punish my girlfriend when she’s been naughty.
(I know, I know, I’m doing it wrong.)
Avril Lavigne was pretty cute and her music was awful. Does she count, or is being a solo artist disqualifying?
Heh, for some value of “solo”. But her bands are just touring and session musicians, so yeah, don’t think it counts.
Flashback: She was once married to the guy from Sum 41, and now he looks like this.
He’s just another casualty of society.
What, no love for the Indigo Girls? No way those are two women.
Current Affairs continues to be a rich mine of derp:
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/05/blight-at-the-museum
***
The same museum paid for its Hall of Human Origins with a $15 million grant from David Koch. The exhibit strongly implies that climate change may not be man-made, and reminds visitors that the earth is cooler now than it was ten thousand years ago. According to the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, a game at the exhibit suggested that humans could simply evolve to deal with climate change by building “underground cities” and developing “short, compact bodies” or “curved spines,” so that “moving around in tight spaces will be no problem.”
***
Things That Never Happened for $800, Alex
***
Thus, there was no pretense whatsoever that the exhibit would be neutral on the question of whether American capitalism had been good for the world. This was to be a celebratory showcase of business’s positive achievements. Innovation, growth, and entrepreneurship were the watchwords; anyone expecting a Hall of American Labor Struggles, about the grinding exploitation and violence perpetrated on American workers (from slavery to the Ludlow Massacre to contemporary Florida orange groves) was in for disappointment.
***
This is the whole article in a nutshell: isn’t it just awful that a museum is teaching that capitalism is *good*?
And… that’s as far as I care to read.
It still amazes me that so many people have absolutely no fricking idea how their lifestyle is possible. They are rich and safe beyond all of previous human history.
It’s a trick. The Morlocks still need to feed.
I thought I had the winner until I re-read this qualification:
Here’s my entry: Traci Lords
Ugh, noted fabulist Brian Williams is jerking himself off on TV about being a brave journalist standing up against Trump, with additional horseshit about how Trump had branded “journalists such as him” as enemies of the people. Now, I expect this kind of garbage from MSNBC, but what also comes to mind is a Reason piece from a few months ago, which was intellectually dishonest pantshitting about how Trump calling fake news outlets fake news was a direct attack on freedom of speech.
It was probably Trump that shot down his helicopter in Iraq.
Still boggles the mind that any news org can blather about “fake news” when they put that admitted serial liar back on the air.
The actual quote was: “A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people, and they are — they are the enemy of the people”.
But the dumb as dirt journos heard that and went HURR DURR HIM CALLS US ENEMIES LIKE DICTATOR, HIM DICTATOR!
Reason piece from a few months ago, which was intellectually dishonest pantshitting about how Trump calling fake news outlets fake news was a direct attack on freedom of speech.
Journalists will rally around the journalism tribe. Remember all the screeching at Reason over the completely justified Hogan lawsuit against Gawker? They’ll support their own even if it means ignoring the reality of the case.
I wonder why these guys don’t just change their site’s name to Voice of the Worker and put a hammer and sickle on it.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/05/how-the-economist-thinks
***
Fallows also reveals the core flaw of the magazine’s actual reportage: thanks to its reflexive belief in the superiority of free markets, it is an unreliable guide to the subjects on which it reports.
….
Here, then, is the problem with the magazine: readers are consistently given the impression, regardless of whether it is true, that unrestricted free market capitalism is a Thoroughly Good Thing, and that sensible and pragmatic British intellectuals have vouched for this position.
,,,
Why, then, have a “Death to The Economist” bumper sticker? Because The Economist would justify any horror perpetrated in the name of the market and Western Enlightenment values, even to the extent of rationalizing the original great and brutal crime on which our prosperity was founded.
***
“the original great and brutal crime on which our prosperity was founded.”
Bad girl bands?
Wait, I’m going to guess slavery.
Yup.
“As [Edward Baptist] wrote: “If slavery was profitable—and it was—then it creates an unforgiving paradox for the moral authority of markets—and market fundamentalists. What else, today, might be immoral and yet profitable?””
I don’t know – Hitler?
Inflated public-sector pensions?
Inflated government contracts?
Abortion?
Well, markets have no moral authority, so there’s that. Markets are amoral in the same way that the weather is. It’s a description of how people make transactions, not a prescription of what is right and wrong. He’s mistaken individualism as an ethical system for “the market”. “The market” exists under any and all circumstances. Pretending it doesn’t exist doesn’t make it go away. Stalinist Russia had a thriving market in bourgeois immorality despite it being punishable by death or indefinite imprisonment.
Except that slavery existed for hundreds of thousands of years before anything resembling what were call a market economy existed.
And, guess what? If people hadn’t built up a more modern market economy, it’s doubtful that mechanical engines would have ever been invented, this insuring that slavery would still be in use in most of the world.
Interestingly, the Romans understood steam power, even had little toys that used it. But steam power was never seriously utilized by any of the classical civilizations. Imagine if the roads that moved the armies that kept the empire together had been replaced by rail road tracks?
Bad optics. Pretending to be a neutral or ‘moderate’ position has been the central policy of the Western left since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The opposite is in fact the case. The economist is the ultimate neoliberal journal = its not about ‘free market capitalism’; its about celebrating technocracy = about glorifying ‘experts’ who help the markets in the right way. Yes, market forces are the engine of everything good – but the tinkerers, the economists and the analysts and the govt regulators whom they serve, they are the steering and the suspension. The Economist has never put any particular faith in truly-free markets; they’re keynsians to the bone, and they often flipped sides on whether the European faux-‘Austerity’ griefing was rightful or misguided. In any case they often said, “more govt spending please”.
I like the Economist, but they’re not ‘journalism’ nor are they academic economic analysis. The real criticism of the Economist is that it is “Newsweek for Pretentious Businessmen” = it provides short glosses on all sorts of stuff that helps give people the impression that they now know something about what’s happening in the world. That’s all. I think as far as magazines go they are more worthwhile than, say, the Atlantic these days. They at least impart some knowledge of facts, while commentary-journals like the Atlantic (or Current Affairs) mostly confine themselves to whining about things other people write.
I like it as well but only because they have snippets of business stuff from all over the world. I fnd out about interesting things and I like that. But that’s the same for Forbes, Fortune, Bloomberg Business Weekly and so forth so The Economist isn’t really anything special.
And every issue has some long story about how this or that politician needs to be the one to lead his/her nation to some important goal as if that is even possible or desired. It gets tiresome.
Yeah. It’s the quintessential mainstream neoclassical synthesis economic analysis that was pretty much universally embraced from the post-war period til about 10 years ago. If the fucking Economist seems like pro-market extremism to you, it’s only because you’re a retard who knows nothing about economics. Nothing published in The Economist in my entire lifetime would be considered outside of the mainstream consensus of academic left, right and labor economists.
I like the magazine for their completely tone-deaf and sometimes very disconnected-from-reality editorials (and letters), but I think their real value now is in the Economist Intelligence Unit (available for pricey subscription).
It gives pretty good month to month or quarter to quarter (depending on countries) – bullet point forecasts, summaries of pol/mil/econ changes, GDP/labor/etc graphs.
If your company or org has access to it, definitely worth reviewing.
I’ll toss in Flyleaf / Lacey Sturm.
https://lastfm-img2.akamaized.net/i/u/ar0/d731a56edb0d4c619d949ef453e84eb6.jpg
Pros – the rest of the band is (mostly) technically competent, Lacey has some pretty compelling abuse-victim gravel in her voice.
Cons – Christian Metal. Wrote and released a song on their first album about the Columbine massacre, which may be the worst song ever written. Lacey is *much* less hot in person, even ignoring the bad tattoos. Since leaving the band, Lacey has been trying her hand at writing self-help books.
Christian Metal is fine as long as it’s good metal. All too often ‘Christian metal’ translates to ‘shitty metal’ which is more reflective of the band’s lack of talent than the material. Freaking Alice Cooper has always been a Christian but he still produces quality stuff. If Christopher Lee can make sick moderately Christian metal in his 80s (and terrible music videos) you have no excuse.
I’m still of the opinion that Faith +1 produced the greatest Christian music the world has ever seen.
I found a all-female punk bad called Fabulous Disaster. Gals who wrote a song called “Rich Bitches in Volvos” can’t be all bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kXBwTmacmo
Feminism: The Musical
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbs7q5E5mHE
youtube comment gold:
This looks like a very organized mental institution run out of tranquilizer
feminist rap: 2 awful things that are even worse together
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmW7mmiI9aY
“You’re not making feminism better, you’re making rap worse.”
Ok, I made it to the end of the comments; nobody post anything else, ok?
Okay
+1
Thanks, i appreciate it. Anybody can be first, it takes a lot of dedication to be last, and knowing that you guys are supporting… Hey, wait a minute
Mars Argo
Bonus: Band contains Titanic Sinclair, who we all know is not a cult leader. Poppy told us so.
Fine, then I’m going to bed, too.
So glad to see they weren’t listed (which allows me to link):
Kidneythieves/Free Dominguez
No one would include NG Resonance in this matter.
Would they?
Do they have to be rock bands? I present: The Band Perry
Pros/Cons: It’s country, so I have no real insight. But their breakthrough song, “If I Die Young”, is so bad it’s basically Hillary Clinton given music form. The fact that they are mainstream Nashville country doesn’t bode well. Also: The Band Perry?? Did we finally run out of decent band names?
Lead Singer: Kimberly Perry
Pros: She’s got a classic blonde hair/blue eyed look. Good head of hair, nice skin. And she’s got some guns on her, if that’s your bag.
Cons: If you looked at my GIS, do have the same impression I do? Same face in nearly every picture? A little young to have a face palsied by botox, isn’t she? And maybe her look is too classic – my sense is, she could suddenly pop in at a FOX News anchor desk and no one would notice anything was amiss. Plus, one of her google links was titled “weight loss”. Doesn’t bother me, but in that regard I’m sort of in the John camp.
For your perusal. And what am I still doing up? DON’T I WORK??
I mean, i would, of course, but even if she meets all the criteria, she’s not the winner.
So did you leave out the Yeah Yeah Yeahs because their music is good or because http://img.wennermedia.com/article-leads-horizontal/rs-13543-112113-yeah-yeah-yeahs-1800-1385055153.jpg
I want to mention this singer/band because I love the singer and have yet to encounter anyone else who has heard of her/them.
Queen Adreena’s KatieJane Garside. Super slutty heroin chic I guess.
https://youtu.be/82P40PnMNmQ
Her version of Jolene, uh, moves me.
https://youtu.be/xSx5IWSjL_0