This is from a click-bait article about how AI pictures couples in every state. I refuse to click. But I love this Arkansas couple in the ad. They remind me of the hot dog couple from The Happening (played by Frank Collison and Victoria Clark), "You know hot dogs get a bad rap! They got a cool shape, they got protein. You like hot dogs, right?" They are the best thing in the movie. I've never had such a high opinion of Arkansas before!

Fun fact: I used to have a girlfriend whose cat's name was "Psycho." So I used to sing to him, "Psycho kitty. Qu'est-ce que c'est! Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow..." Dorky but true!

This is interesting. Republicans' opinions on the state of the economy are almost entirely based on the answer to the question, "Is a Republican in the White House?" There is some partisan effect of Democrats' opinions but it is mostly driven by the actual state of the economy. How do you change opinions when half the nation is 90% resistent to fact?

The Onion: Conservatives Explain Why They Love 'Rich Men North Of Richmond' Singer Oliver Anthony

"If Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh like it, you know it’s a real working-class anthem."

Slide 14 is dark and brilliant

https://www.theonion.com/conservatives-explain-why-they-love-rich-men-north-of-r-1850752276

@Coctaanatis Good to know! So I guess the framing is meant to say "south good; north bad"?

Jamelle Bouie on Oliver Anthony and his song "Rich Men North of Richmond":

"I can’t help but think there’s something ironic about the fact that, despite sitting close to [where the biracial Readjuster movement was formed], the latest populist voice to come out of the commonwealth has chosen, in the end, to give comfort to those with the boot on his neck and scorn to those who might try to help lift it."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/19/opinion/rich-men-north-of-richmond-history.html

Excellent analysis by Matt Binder on Elon Musk's fake Twitter followers. Here's the most shocking finding, "The median number of followers for all 153 million accounts following Musk is just one (1) single follower."

https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-x-twitter-follower-data

I've been watching the Sister Boniface Mysteries and it led me to the sketch comedy show Watson & Oliver. This is very amusing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBRBNm9fTPg

I just discovered a wonderful film out of the UK, Paul Dood's Deadly Lunch Break (2021). It's a revenge comedy but absolutely joyous and sweet. Of course, it has a bit of gore including a head being crushed. It's available free with commercials on Tubi. I can't recommend it enough -- but remember who's saying that!

https://tubitv.com/movies/100002101

NCAA has video commercials with audio that start automatically on all their web pages. The NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, MLS, and MLR all manage to avoid this *and pay their players*. Truly amazing!

I finished Creepshow (1982). It was really well made and largely presented the experience of reading EC horror. (I'm not that old. I discovered them in the 70s with the reprints.) I did think the first story was a bit off because I remember the stories all featuring people getting their due. But even it was good. Anyway, it's free on Archive. Volume is kind of low so you will need to crank it. It's also free on Kanopy if you have a library card.

https://archive.org/details/creepshow-1982-stephen-king-hd-1080p-blu-ray-full-movie

This is a shot from Creepshow (1982) that's only on the screen for a second or two. It's probably in the comic book. It's pretty funny...

Really nice Paul Reubens obituary here.

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/31/1191104833/pee-wee-herman-dead-paul-reubens

I just watched the first 45 minutes of Ant-Man (2015). I can't take any more. Even by Marvel standards, it's tedious. It's like it's written by an AI trained to pick the best next cliche at every moment.

I just spent a bit discussing the Billy Wilder film The Spirit of St Louis (1957) with ChatGPT. It had a hard time understanding my question about why Wilder made the film. He was successful enough to refuse. He fled the Nazis in the early 1930s. He had close family that died in the Holocaust. Why would he make this film that puffs up a well-known antisemite and Nazi sympathizer? I still don't know.

I just saw an ad for The Epoch Times. Normally, it's all the most vile stuff -- conspiracy theories and anti-trans propaganda. But this was for an upcoming Social Security COLA -- as a good thing. And it shows how wrong people like DeSantis and Scott and Haley are being by talking about cutting the program. Their base may love the bigotry but they do not like talk of cutting Social Security.

The World's Greatest Athlete was a 1973 live-action Disney film starring John Amos and Tim Conway with Roscoe Lee Browne and Jan-Michael Vincent in the title role. Parts of it are cringey and ethnocentric. But I was struck by how this 50-year-old film would make conservatives today cry, "Woke!" It's a funny and sweet film. Free to watch without commercials here:

https://archive.org/details/the-worlds-greatest-athlete_202109

I just learned a word: Elongelical.

I don't think I need to define it...

A handicapper friend sent me this from a sportsbook. There are 4 ways to bet on Donald Trump's legal future. Interesting that there is much more money on Trump to fail in the docs case than the hush money case (makes sense). I'm not a betting man, but the other two bets seem like easy money betting against Trump.

Zorro is the only superhero that I really like. And there is no film that touches the 1975 Italian Zorro starring Alain Delon and Stanley Baker. Here's an okay print of it.

https://archive.org/details/zorrowesternstarringalaindelonfullmovieenglishfreeclassicfeaturefilmyoutubemovies