Con-Artist Anna Sorokin (Another Unlikable Woman - With A Fan Club)

 

"I can do whatever I want."

 

We Don't Let Some Other Cults Do Whatever They Want

"What's the difference between Scientology and a cult?" 

"Um, I can't think of any."

Only Your Friends Will Tell You: Pajamas Media

To say TMR has a love/hate relationship with Pajamas Media would be an understatement (as our frequent comments about Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit make clear - more on that in a minute). But, by far, the strongest voice in their conservative empire is Bill Whittle (above) with his scorecard for the first half of President Obama's time in office being a(nother) fine example why they matter so much to us.

On the other hand, it seems that no matter what they do, they always have a tendency for screwing it up - a charge we're sure Professor Reynolds would throw back at us in a heartbeat - and the video, above, is a perfect example of what we mean:

Hey, folks, what the hell happened to Afterburner?



Whittle's work is still outstanding, but that dramatic 21st century opening to Bill Whittle's commentary - which closed with a single arresting fading synth tone - was perfection for what he does. So why the name change (to Firewall) and those cheesy-looking flame thrower graphics?

They did the same thing (minus the name change) to Andrew Klavan's Klaven On The Culture. Here's the old opening, with the program's multi-televisioned theme, which was brilliant:



And here's the new idea - featuring Klavan's signature - which is boring and, basically, sucks:



Why, guys? Don't you realize, like any painter would, that when you get something right you're supposed to stop painting? Do you see 60 Minutes (which these two PJTV segments remind us of) abandoning the stop watch?

And - if you're going to tinker with anything - why can't you get the boss, Roger L. Simon, to get rid of that damned hat? Aren't you all in this together? What's the matter with you?

And what happened to Alfonzo Rachel (AKA Zo/Macho Sauce)? He started off as smart, street, funny, angry, content-laden and ultraconservative, only to go to PJTV and become this:



The Rolling Stones? Are you kidding? There go the majority of black viewers. And his stuff has never really recovered.

Speaking of black viewers, we have no problem - yet - with either:

Sonja Schmidt,...

...or Joe Hicks' segments, though we miss "The Hicks File", which seems to have been replaced by the "Minority Report". Can't PJTV just have two winning segments by Joe?

The segments that aren't working are Trifecta (boring) Kruiser Control (not funny) Ed Driscoll (too funny looking and with a bizarre speaking voice) and yes, our ol' pal, Mr. Deer-In-The-Headlights himself, Glenn Reynolds (told you we'd get there - read on:)

Believe it or not, we love Glenn Reynolds. We think Instapundit provides an invaluable public service and deserves to be the catalyst/gathering spot for the Tea Party Movement that it is. As we've said many times, we've been honored when he's linked to our pieces, and been awed by the power he welds online. But,...but,...but,..

Awww, for once, no "buts" - like Pajamas Media itself, we find Reynolds frustrating because he's so good. Not always to our taste, but still damned good.

May he, and everyone at Pajamas Media, carry on for a long, long time.

Well: The Rolling Stone Gathers Moss After All

Here's how the people who broke up their marriages, determined to change the world, spent the last ten years - and take note of how the word "we" is used:

Remember the '90s, when we all thought we were crazy? Everyone ran out and got a shrink (New Yorkers got analysts — not just for Woody Allen anymore!). Couples' therapy became a widely chosen ritualistic precursor to divorce, aimed at clarifying for each party exactly when and how their spouse became reprehensible. The middle-aged departed on healing retreats en masse to learn about centering and recovering their inner child. The most fragile souls wound up in stuffy hotel conference rooms under the banner of Werner Erhard's Forum, where an authoritarian patriarch urged them to simply sweep away their "rackets" like so many dust bunnies.

And here they are now - their inner child still insisting on some ethically-challenged, organic, recyclable, utopia of nonsense - hoping someone will feel sorry for them after all the trouble they've caused, the money they've thrown away ("I was a shopaholic") and the lives they've destroyed:



Beating the homeless guy to "the good stuff"?

As Bob Dylan asked, how does it feeeeeel?

What Obama And Gates Don't Understand Yet

The only way to get enlightenment is to speak with someone who is truly enlightened,...but, unfortunately, since we Mr. Know-It-Alls will probably not be P.C. about dissing the imbecilic cultural ideas, and institutions, the majority (including the questioner) holds dear - like thinking jawing about race will eliminate race, or NewAge nonsense can make sense - the response will probably be that which I receive daily on TMR:

Anger and/or sarcasm.

So, simply put, just like the only way to get enlightenment is to speak with someone who is truly enlightened, the only way to stay stupid is to insist on staying stupid - because of how the answers are handed to you. Are you listening Mr. President? Professor Gates? Anybody?

Consensus? Groupthink? "Cult" (Fewer Letters)

"It's like Henry Ford's line that you could buy any color car you wanted, as long as you wanted black. Obama is interested in any idea, as long as its peddler starts from the same 'non-ideological' assumption that government experts know best.

There is a huge consensus around the notion that government must do, well, something -- something big,...

It's the consensus that scares me. Chin-stroking moderates and passionate centrists often glorify consensus to the point where they sound like it's better to be wrong in a group than to be right alone -- an example of ideological dogmatism as bad as any.

Obviously, consensus can be good. But it also can lead to dangerous groupthink. Everyone knew that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Everyone at "60 Minutes" knew that those memos about George W. Bush and the Texas Air National Guard had to be right. Everyone knows everything is right, until everything goes wrong. If that's not one of the great lessons of the financial collapse of 2008, I don't know what is."

-- Jonah Goldberg, ruining the party (by being dumb enough to agree with TMR) in The Los Angeles Times.