Howard Dean's scream?
Edward Muskie's tears?
The media has a lot to answer for.
George Romney's brainwashing?
Except for the pornstar aspect, this scandal sounds a lot like an ordinary affair. They apparently met at some public event, not on site or whatever.
The only notable aspect of of the Daniels scandal is the hypocrisy on the right. It's not a new low, though.
Scream is a good one.
An preceded by "controversy" that his practicing doctor wife did not accompany him on the campaign trail.
Douglas Ginsburg's nomination for the Supreme Court was withdrawn primarily because he admitted to having smoked marijuana. But that was all part of God's plan to legalize gay marriage.
3,5: Well there is the hush money. (And per the post the behavior of the dogass press.)
Edward Muskie's tears?
Nice.
It didn't wreck his political career but, "I didn't inhale" deserves mention.
I think the Dean Scream isn't a scandal, exactly, which means I'd call Ginsberg's pot smoking a winner.
Eliot Spitzer having to resign as Governor of New York for having sex with a prostitute is certainly a bigger deal than that, but looks pretty paltry next to Trump.
Shirley Sherrod? I guess she was just a government employee not a politician.
5- And the $130k hush money.
10.1: Good point. The several "didn't pay SS (or taxes) for domestic help" ones are up there. (I forget the actual details).
3.2: "Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a porn star."
The oddest thing about the Stormy Daniels thing is that the press insists on the euphemism "affair" when it is near-certain that what Trump was doing was paying for sex. Not that it makes much or any difference but I feel like the financial transaction aspect makes "affair" feel like a super weird word. "Oh yes I had a brief affair at the rent-by-the-hour motel."
I'd call Ginsberg's pot smoking a winner.
The 80's were a weird time.
Maybe I'm a prude, but the "while your wife is pregnant" aspect of the "affair" adds an extra layer of ick to it all.
A colleague of mine once said "I'm really ashamed of it, but I had sex with another woman while my wife was giving birth ... Of course it's a thing that all men do."
And at that moment a hashtag was born, or at least conceived. Or a mummy hashtag and a daddy hashtag held hands and loved each other very very much, even if the results wouldn't be visible for another 30 years.
What was that one around 1992 about Congressional Democrats? Something to do with how they used funds that in retrospect was literally nothing?
Maybe I'm thinking of the House banking scandal, not sure.
Related to scandals, this anatomy of a Twitter blowup is pretty funny.
I lost it at "Buckle up, because it's time for some Bayesian inference" and "kompromat" written in Cyrillic.
14
The oddest thing about the Stormy Daniels thing is that the press insists on the euphemism "affair" when it is near-certain that what Trump was doing was paying for sex. Not that it makes much or any difference but I feel like the financial transaction aspect makes "affair" feel like a super weird word. "Oh yes I had a brief affair at the rent-by-the-hour motel."
From this article, it seems that's not the case.
"I actually don't even remember why I did it but I do remember while we were having sex, I was like, 'Please don't try to pay me,'" Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, said in the 2011 interview. "And then I remember thinking, 'But I bet if he did, it would be a lot.'"
Apparently that was just the start of a relationship, but I don't see anyone else alleging that it started out of lust (or whatever emotions we want to ascribe to these people) and later turned into something transactional. Maybe it was paying for sex in the sense that all rich old mens' affairs with young conventionally attractive women are, and some people would describe all that as paying for sex, but I don't think it's standard.
"$20 or a .2% increase in my odds of being a network TV star, same as in town."
The oddest thing about the Stormy Daniels thing is that the press insists on the euphemism "affair" when it is near-certain that what Trump was doing was paying for sex. Not that it makes much or any difference but I feel like the financial transaction aspect makes "affair" feel like a super weird word. "Oh yes I had a brief affair at the rent-by-the-hour motel."
Like in the incident where the woman destroyed the guy's art at his house, on what was described as a "first date". Ah yes the famous "first date" between a belligerent, seemingly drug-addled young woman and a married "SuperLawyer"/local celebrity/high-profile Texas A&M booster, at his house. Surely this was not transactional in the least.
You could have just as easily written, "Doesn't Al Franken grab anybody?"
26:
1. Low-hanging fruit much?
2. If you're being serious, I don't think his story was a minuscule non-scandal. The first incident where the woman was in the flak jacket, maybe. The following dozen or so women, I think we had a legitimate scandal.
I had dinner with a friend who was still OUTRAGED at the lack of DUE PROCESS for Al Franken and this was THE REASON WHY DEMOCRATS LOSE and I COULD NEVER CAST A VOTE FOR GILLIBRAND AFTER WHAT SHE DID. I liked Franken but thought his departure was both necessary and done as smoothly as possible and figured basically everyone would more or less agree in the end so I had no idea that this was an issue that was still riling people up.
Yeah, if it really was transactional, I'd think differently, but it surprisingly sounds like there was no payment until the cover up, and that was only before the election. If she wasn't in porn, this would probably not get more attention than the generic Trump sex scandal (non-assault, only adults involved category).
Um, how to put this. Why would she be screwing him other than on some level for money? At the time, he was already elderly and gross, and while she's a porn actress rather than a prostitute, the fact that she is some variety of professional sex worker seems to make the possibility of transactional sex salient.
I don't think you need to rule out that she had sex with Trump to advance her material interests if you say it wasn't transactional sex. Even leaving aside how she viewed the line between prostitute and porn star in terms of ethnics and self-esteem, if she wanted to use a relationship to achieve fame, then being paid with actual money for sex would hurt her cause.
If the "don't try to pay me" quote is being passed on correctly, I'd bet it was meant as "I absolutely expect payment, but don't give it except in the form of gifts and favors."
Scream is a good one.
Disagree. It was stupid reporting, of course, but it had a negligible impact on the race -- he was already screwed because of the result in Iowa.
he was already elderly and gross
Elderly and gross to you, charismatic and with a fully charged battery to others.
My understanding is that most "porn stars"in fact earn the bulk of their money from (non-filmed) prostitution with rich people, although probably some don't. Given Trump's disgustitude it seems unlikely that this was not the deal here. I find it hard to believe that there was not some clear expectation of financial reward. Likely, Trump didn't pay his share, hence the "settlement." In fact, there would have had to have been some at least surface non-extortion reason for him to pay her money -- a simple threat to reveal the sex unless Trump pays is plain criminal extortion, and the payoff went through a lawyer's account so it seems fairly unlikely they were that blatant about it. I assume the lawyer's letter making the demand contains something like "Trump promised to provide my client with a gift of $250,000 as a downpayment on a house and she moved out of her apartment as a result; Trump never paid and so we will sue over this in a public court of law unless you pay $250,000 by Friday." How this kind of promissory estoppel "gift" differs from prostitution is in the eye of the beholder but I've seen similar claims made against other rich folk.
Sorry, I meant transactional in the purely monetary prostitution sense. It does sound like he made "promises" about things like the Apprentice, but again I don't think that's out of the ordinary for Trump, except she was in porn.
I'm not saying it's not bad or a nonscandal, just that it doesn't sound different than what he might have done had he met someone else at the same event who fit a similar physical description.
Likely, Trump didn't pay his share, hence the "settlement."
Huh. Makes a lot of sense - I never made this connection, but it would be absolutely in character, given his track record of leaving contractors unpaid, stealing philanthropic credit, etc. A population of courtesans for the wealthy where payment relies on unspoken understandings? He would exploit like crazy.
35 I think the scream media explosion prevented Dean from coming back in NH, after which no one can guess what would have happened. Kerry probably still would have won the thing.
He should never have let expectations get so out of control in Iowa, a state that really wasn't a natural for him. Oh well.
So, this Levinsohn guy sounds like a real peach. Angelenos, what's going to happen here?
40.last: I utterly loathe the fact the outsized role the earnest Filed of Dreams gooberfucks of Iowa have had (and will continue to have) on the selection of the presidential candidate of my party. My loathing is doubled by the specter of the gruesome sight of the national political media stomping around out there. Hideous.
Some new alleged Stormy details:
The campaign consultant who wrote the email to Dubé tells Mother Jones that Daniels said the spanking came during a series of sexual and romantic encounters with Trump and that it involved a copy of Forbes with Trump on the cover. A fall 2006 cover of Forbes does feature Trump and two of his children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka.Also from the article, something I now vaguely recall, from her proposed run against David Vitter: "Stormy Daniels: Screwing people honestly."
Oh god. "In several tweets in 2013, Trump expressed strong views on sharks" is now relevant corroborating evidence.
I've seen a number of people criticize the media for letting this scandal just casually drift by in the ordinary news cycle, but at this point I'm not sure what else they could or should do differently. I get the sense that the media has a strong collective sense of resignation about Trump scandals--they've been reported and reported and reported and no one cares. (Or rather, people who care all already hate Trump, and it's unclear what if any new scandal could cause any of his supporters to turn.) Individually many of his scandals have received a lot less attention than would similar scandals from other politicians, but that's primarily because there are too many and they come to fast to give any proper attention. And that can lead to a sense that Trump's scandals are receiving less coverage than they should--but I'm not really sure that's fair. The volume of scandals being reported makes up for the lack of depth in reporting on any particular one. I don't think anyone paying attention to mass media is unaware that Trump is almost comically scandal-plagued. So this story really is just sort of more of the same. It should get coverage anyway, of course, but keeping it in the news cycle as if it's an IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENT that's going to inform people of something new about Trump--in a way that would cause them to adjust their priors--seems basically unrealistic. And the media knows it.
Yeah, this still doesn't top his verbal and physical lechery at his daughter, for example.
Corollary to 45: the only really interesting thing about the Stormy Daniels story is that several media outlets had the story before the election and decided not to run with it. Although I think that's likely a manifestation of the same phenomenon--I understand they believed it to be questionably sourced at the time, and so where they might have run with the story if Trump were otherwise an ordinary "clean" politician, they didn't, because why run with a questionably sourced story when they already had more credibly-sourced scandals than they could even properly report on? I'm not sure that was the right decision but it's certainly an understandable one.
I mean, the Access Hollywood tape was genuinely outrageous. And it was very heavily covered. If that didn't bother you, why would this?
I disagree. Those same media outlets spent far more time on Hillaryz Emailz!1!1 than on pussygate. They perhaps could have mentioned Daniels and harped on it a tad.
It's true that there's a bed-of-nails phenomenon with Trump scandals, but in general, the media often does manufacture frenzies where there is none, and they sure as hell can manufacture one with their breathless talking heads when there is actually a corrupt monster who has won the nomination of the Republican party.
Its hard to say she didn't receive money for sex when she was, in fact, paid $130,000.
Stormy Daniels story is that several media outlets had the story before the election and decided not to run with it.
In fairness, I'm sure that if the media had the opportunity to publish rumors that Hillary had paid off some jiggalo she'd been boning, they would have likewise sat on the story pending further confirmation.
But in the end it all adds up to a pitifully low bar for Trump.
For instance per 49 here is primo NYT fuckwit Nick Confessore being a primo fuckwit when challenged by Zeynep Tufekci on the much greater Clinton email coverage vs. Trump business conflicts. (Was precipitated by a deep dive by the NYTimes on Trump business conflicts published several weeks after the election.)
I'm not sure why you think it self evident that these two topics should have yielded proportional news coverage.
Stormy Daniels story is that several media outlets had the story before the election and decided not to run with it.
Part of this must be because SD was known to the media as a wacky publicity hound, e.g. pretending to run for Senate against David Vitter as cited earlier in the thread.
42 It makes some sense to have the first few contests in smaller markets in different parts of the country. If you started in California, or a bunch of states that together approximated the size of California, then whoever raised the most money in the prior year would be a prohibitive favorite (even more so than now), and the chances that someone on the outside could either (a) win or (b) influence the debate even if they don't win, would be greatly diminished.
Obama taking his NH concession speech and making the Yes We Can video was genius. And it only worked because the race wasn't over.
It'll be interesting to see how the Unity Commission proposals, if adopted, affect both the reality and the perception of the Iowa caucuses.
52: Elsewhere in that thread he basically admits they are just waiting at the bottom of the puke funnel to see what comes out to determine their coverage:
I'm thinking of the private server specifically: FBI probe, congressional investigations, court ordered weekly e-mail dumps. vs. Trump's business empire. Worthy of high scrutiny, and got it, but by nature "enterprise" reporting, not news-driven.
Useless fuckheads.
54: Understand that but the fetishization of the ridiculous clusterfuck of Iowa caucuses is egregious. (and yes, maybe a symptom not a cause).
Particularly for the Dems now that Iowa is trending Herrenvolk.
53: We will not deploy a wacky publicity hound to besmirch a wacky (and very dangerous) publicity hound.
I can't read the whole thing because WSJ paywall, but apparently Cohen created a Delaware LLC to pay Daniels from.
I keep feeling like I'm missing something, but to me the Stormy Daniels thing is honestly, truly at least 4,000th on the list of Trump transgressions that I care about. In particular because I have no sense that she was harmed by the interaction (as far as I can glean from headlines; I haven't actually read any articles) and I can't think of how anyone else was, except for Melania.
Cheating while your wife is postpartum is really scummy, but by itself it's not something I am particularly invested in seeing politicians punished for, except in the polling booth (assuming people care enough).
Is there some public angle that I'm missing here? It's not like we think SD was a Russian agent or something, right?
""In several tweets in 2013, Trump expressed strong views on sharks"
God I hate Trump. He even ruins sharks.
"In several tweets in 2013, Trump expressed strong views on sharks"
Was he pro- or anti-shark? I'm guessing pro-, except near Mar-a-Lago.
I'm kinda surprised how low the payment is. I would've that that during a campaign she could have gotten more than that.
If Halford's right about the sex having been high-dollar prostitution that he reneged on paying for, possibly she was honorably collecting the negotiated price he hadn't paid rather than blackmailing him for whatever she could get. I don't know what's likely, of course -- the amount seems very high for prostitution, but I have no real idea.
Back in the day, in the era of High Blogging, Nick Confessore pumped me for information about Viktor Bout at considerable length and never credited me in the final story, so I'm not surprised he's being an arsehole.
Have t read the previous comments and may be pwned.
The all time most minuscule sex scandal was in the 2004 Illinois senate race. The republican candidate dropped out after he won the primary because he was credibly accused of wanting to consensually fuck his own wife. It was undisputed he hadn't fucked her at the time in question. He was not a religious right kind of republican.
(Full story, taken from divorce documents: he took her to a Paris sex club, said he wanted to fuck her there, she didn't want to, and they didn't. Also the wife was a star in a Star Trek series and hott).
And that, boys and girls, is how Barack Obama got elected to the senate.
Wanting to have sex with your wife in public is a bit bigger of a sex scandal than minuscule.
67: And if not for that, Barack Obama might not have become Senator! It goes SO DEEP. [/abrəmson]
Meanwhile as the last 2 weeks have been consumed by news about Trump saying mean things, Trump getting a physical, Trump's advisors saying mean things about Trump in a book, and Trump banging hot babes, his approval rating rises. When the news is about Republicans' disastrous policies and how they are also Trump's disastrous policies, it goes down.
It's almost like we should complain about the 2016 media pretending Trump had new and exciting not-exactly-Republican policies (the peace candidate? the friend of the factory worker? seriously?), instead of complaining about the 2016 media not covering Trump's scandals enough.
Jesus Christ, three more years of this? Or, taking into account the danger that the Democrats will see 2018 and 2020 as "divide the spoils" elections and not stop fighting among themselves until after the registration deadlines have passed, seven?
Amalgamated Fisting and Prostate Massage.
The republican candidate dropped out after he won the primary because he was credibly accused of wanting to consensually fuck his own wife. It was undisputed he hadn't fucked her at the time in question.
That seems like a creepy way to frame the story. The complaint was that he had pressured her to engage in sexual activity that she didn't want. The fact that he did back down doesn't negate the fact that the pressure was (a) unwanted and (b) repeated.
74 is right.
Also, Golden Phallus, LLC.
"I Can't Believe It's Not Incest", PLLC.
It's almost like we should complain about the 2016 media pretending Trump had new and exciting not-exactly-Republican policies (the peace candidate? the friend of the factory worker? seriously?), instead of complaining about the 2016 media not covering Trump's scandals enough.
That's probably true. Although Trump did say things that differed policy-wise from bog-Republicans during the campaign, because he's a fucking goldfish who says whatever billboard flashes across his brain at that moment.
He's not a goldfish. If he were, he'd say something not shitty to somebody not white every now and then just by chance.
74
Oh, FFS. Man pressures wife to do something she doesn't want to do but backs down happens 82039104832957024210840 times in a typical marriage. Why should I care about this one?
I mean, are you saying that "man pressures woman to have dinner ready when he gets home, but relents" or "man pressures woman for more time with his male friends but comes home on time anyway" would have generated the same result?
"Jeri Ryan, who starred in the TV shows "Boston Public" and "Star Trek: Voyager," also issued a conciliatory statement, saying that she now considers her ex-husband "a friend" and has "no doubt that he will make an excellent senator."
While not addressing the sex club allegations directly in her statement, she said that "there was never any physical abuse in our marriage -- either to myself or to our son -- nor, to my knowledge, was he ever unfaithful to me."
"Jack is a good man, a loving father, and he shares a strong bond with our son. I wish him all the best," she said."
I think that asking for public sex in a sex club is the kind of that you just shouldn't mention for the first time in the sex club, especially when you never said you were going to a sex club. It's not physical abuse, but certainly I would think it grounds for divorce, especially the second time around.
It's not like we think SD was a Russian agent or something, right?
According to IMDB, she took part in two code named operations while the alleged affair was going on: Desert Stormy and Tropical Stormy.
Hm. When's the last time someone resigned for uncomplicated adultery? (Not counting anyone who laid low and then returned like Sanford.)
The bit where your president can be blackmailed into giving valuable things away seems ... very scandalous, no matter the underlying issue.
The scandal that brought down ACORN is the stupidest one I can remember.
The IRS/Tea Party scandal was a giant fraud perpetrated by Fox News et. al. They totally got away with it too.
84: Probably happens but nobody would announce "I'm resigning in order to commit adultery."
Edward VIII lost his crown because he married a divorced lady.
The several "didn't pay SS (or taxes) for domestic help" ones are up there.
With special distinction to Clinton's brief nominee for AG Kimba Wood, who not only *did* pay all of the taxes for her nanny, but had employed the woman entirely prior to the '86 law that made hiring undocumented immigrants illegal. But she had spent five days training as a Playboy bunny in London back in the 60s, so there was that.
Former Dem. AL Governor Don Siegelman was convicted of appointing a campaign donor to an appointive office, and spent years in prison, some of it in solitary. Over one hundred former Attorneys General of various states, many of them Republican, filed briefs with the court stating that Siegelman's behavior was not criminal, and was in fact routine for every elected executive.
This railroading was brought to you by Karl Rove, corrupt US attorneys Canary and Martin, and corrupt judge Fuller.
A fine documentary (with, IMHO, a dumb title) has been made of the story.
Atticus vs. the Architect
It's showing in fits and starts in various AL cities.
You can stream it from Amazon.
Can the lawyers in the room explain how hush money is supposed to work? This isn't like an NDA about an employer's trade secrets or a legal settlement--she can't say, "I'm not at liberty to discuss that matter," because that's tantamount to admitting the agreement exists and it seems, at least, like part of the agreement is not acknowledging the agreement. She can refuse to go on the record with journalists, but is she really contractually obligated to lie to every random person who asks her if she slept with Trump? What's his recourse if she burns him? He can't very well sue her for his hush money back without disclosing the agreement and tacitly admitting the underlying facts! The whole thing makes my brain hurt, but it seems like he has pretty good sleazy lawyers who ought to have this figured out.
It works because once you take his money you become economically dependent on him not taking it back. I don't know what porn actress salaries are these days, but not likely high enough that suddenly loosing $130,000 wouldn't be a huge financial blow. Especially if that money's already been spent.
Yes but: "He can't very well sue her for his hush money back without disclosing the agreement and tacitly admitting the underlying facts!" Getting the money back would be pyrrhic (not that that would stop Trump).
Of course that's true, but the fear still exists.
Anyway it turns out that our head of government has also been keeping a secret for the last three months: she's expecting!
Sorry. We're very wholesome here.
If she tells the secret, then it's out, and there no impediment to filing suit.
Which probably has an arbitration clause anyway.
"In several tweets in 2013, Trump expressed strong views on sharks"
Gorilla channel.
I think there's an important difference between scandals that reveal or transform perception of character, and those that merely confirm it. Of course Trump had himself spanked with an image of himself and paid hush money to keep it quiet! What could possibly be more like Donald Trump?
89 wasn't really a scandal though. He wanted to do something that was incompatible with keeping his job, so he decided to give up his job. It's no .pre a scandal than a civil servant deciding he wants to run for parliament and accordingly leaving the civil service.
Edward VIII lost his crown because he married a divorced lady.
Common mistake. He lost his crown because:
1. He was screwing a divorced lady who was still married to her second husband;
2. His late father had made it abundantly clear to all his acquaintance that his eldest son was a hopeless prat and that if anything could be done to prevent his succession in favour of the Duke of York, he would appreciate it being done.
Wasn't he also pretty much backing the other side in a war that everybody knew was about to start?
Apparently Stomy Daniels is appearing at a Strip club in Greenville SC this weekend for anyone wanting to do in-person research.
104: Not sure that was a point against at the time.
79-81: How about this: what if the scandal is:
...
going to a sex club
||
In case you haven't heard it.
|>
109 - yes, 79-81 are taking a really quite odd view of things. No, F, there really is a distinct difference between repeatedly trying to persuade your wife to cook you dinner, and repeatedly trying to persuade your wife to have sex with you in public in front of a load of French people.
57 - speaking of wacky publicity hounds, Omarosa might have recordings. (Which only makes sense, as she's the only current or former member of the Trump admin (as far as I know) with reality television experience).
99 - would a shark or a gorilla win, if it was in shallow enough water that the gorilla could stand?
Like waist-deep water or up to the neck?
Which only makes sense, as she's the only current or former member of the Trump admin (as far as I know) with reality television experience).
I mean, the White House is basically a reality TV show these days, so technically all of them do.
If she tells the secret, then it's out, and there no impediment to filing suit.
I'm splitting shame-hairs in the Palace of Shamelessness, but an alternative is to deny everything and say she's a liar, rather than confirming the underlying facts by bringing a suit. Here's the thing: the hush money is the scandal, not the affair. Trump can't get himself out of the scandal by whinging that she stole his hush money. (Reminds me of the hippie in my wife's Northern CA hometown, long pre-legalization, who went to the local cops because the high school kids were stealing his marijuana plants.)
Waist-deep if standing upright, which of course gorillas hardly ever do.
I wonder if the super asshole guy from the first season of Survivor has been approached for any kind of role in this admin.
Waist-deep I'm giving it to the gorilla or at least a draw.
117 to 111
Of course, it's different if they're eg Lithuanian people.
119: He was gay if I'm remembering correctly. I think that answers the question.
In the Republican Party, gay people can be accepted if they are horrible enough to women and minorities. Like Milo Whatever.
I guess, unlike heterosexuals, they can't be pedophiles. But that's a pretty low bar.
Also depends on the shark. Are we talking a Great White or a dogfish?
In this context "shark" means "Great White".
127 Yeah, I took that as given. Tiger shark also acceptable.
130: Roman Polanski is attached to the script.
127: In the context of the Trump administration, everything is Great White.
The more interesting question is what is the depth of water at which the fight outcome inverts. (In an inch of water the gorilla wins easily. In water that's too deep the shark wins easily.) Honestly if we are talking about a great white, I think the shark wins at any water level in which it can swim freely. But that's already reasonably deep.
When we say "waist deep", are we referring to the waist of the shark or the waist of the gorilla?
The size of the shark also matters. And, I think, how well the gorilla was trained. If you started it out on smaller sharks so I could learn where you can grab a shark without losing a hand, it would do better than if you just threw it in with a shark big enough to bite off an arm.
I definitely did not think the gorilla had been trained to fight sharks. That would obviously change the calculus.
136 gets it right. I feel like a GWS wins every time against an inexperienced gorilla at any water depth unless the gorilla runs away and lets the GWS die in a half inch of water.
At least you'd have to let it get used to moving in the water. It's not something they have experience with and they might lose just from fear of drowning in water they can stand in.
137: the dictionary is suggesting that technically only humans have waists. But sharks have pelvic fins, and that good enough for me.
It think its only fair that the shark get some training against gorillas, too. Maybe start off putting monkeys in the tank.
It's not something they have experience with . . .
Have you considered the aquatic ape hypothesis?
I'm pretty sure they'd have some rocky starts, but then become fast friends when they saw how much more they could achieve united. And then it turns out they have a mutual enemy (ekranoplan? plankton? ekranoplankton obv.) or maybe a mutual meal. Stay tuned!
What is the largest shark that a gorilla could beat in shoulder-depth water?
139: Surely you'd have an arena for this with walls that would prevent the gorilla from escaping or moving to shallower water.
I think the gorilla could successfully avoid a shark in a half-inch of water even in an arena. No matter how small the arena.
Let's be real: a shark isn't going to benefit much from training, but teach a gorilla how to induce tonic immobility and you have a shallow water shark-fighting machine.
Shoulder depth? Maybe a little leopard shark or something harmless. Honestly I don't see that even an experienced gorilla fares much better than a human would in a vs shark encounter, probably worse (can gorillas swim?). Basically the only strategy is to throw the shark out of the water and let it die; anything that looks like a real battle with a maneater level shark, gorilla loses every time.
Have you considered the aquatic ape hypothesis?
The Okavango Delta does sound like a good neutral ground for the fight to take place.
142: That seems needlessly cruel to the monkeys. Besides, human beings are more appropriately sized, and I can think of a number of them in the Trump administration who wouldn't be missed.
Now I'm picturing a shadowy underworld of shark vs gorilla fighting, with events attended by Trump style billionaires gambling enormous sums on each match.
I feel like the gorilla loses vs hammerhead everytime at any depth where the hammerhead can breathe.
Now a BETTER African mammal v shark contest would be shark v hippo. Feel like a bull hippo can take down even the most top-tier sharks.
I think you are overestimating hammerheads. I even think I might be able to take on a hammerhead if we were in water shallow enough for me to stand. (Of course we're talking about a single shark, not a school.)
People, can we be serious? Our clown-child president seduced a porn star, who spanked him with a copy of Forbes, which he only reads for the pictures, and you're making shark jokes.
I don't know, the hammerhead has got vulnerabilities that other sharks don't. The gorilla could grab it by the hammer, wear-as with, say, a tiger shark, its difficult to get a good purchase.
Yes but the hammer is used to smash things down and make them easy to eat. One smush of the hammer against a gorilla (or Urple) and the gorilla (or Urple) is lying down in a pool of water with a gnawed leg.
Re hush money, the not-yet scandal is where the $130,000 came from. "Donald Trump'spersonal bank account" is the only non-scandalous answer, but seems quite unlikely. If is was from the campaign fund, that's one kind of crime; if it was from one or more wealthy friends, that's an unreported and illegal campaign contribution (ask John Edwards); if it was from an overseas buddy . . .
Possibly but not necessarily a scandal, why was it $130,000? Probably because Stormy wanted $100,000, and she also owed a share to a lawyer or agent who handled negotiations. Future scandal depends on the identity of that individual and whether he (pretty sure it wasn't she) got a job in the administration.
155.2 I completely agree a hippo would win but this is the Trump administration and we're trying to be serious here so it's down to gorillas and sharks.
Re hush money, the not-yet scandal is where the $130,000 came from.
Russia, obviously.
160 just cheered me up greatly as I had been assuming the storm would blow over.
160: the money came from the Trump Foundation.
Well, at least the Trump Foundation wasn't as corrupt as the Clinton Foundation, which spent all sorts of money on starving orphans and the like.
I mean, who pays money to starve orphans? Hillary, that's who.
Right. The Clintons did shady things like get rich people together and ask them to help solve world hunger. Trump just charges rich people a $100K cover to attend a party at his house.
Is there any way we can get Fox & Friends to do a report on how eating Tide Pods makes you great and strong and so very manly?
81 is really amazing to me. Beyond appalling. Had the rest of you heard of it?
81 is really amazing to me. Beyond appalling. Had the rest of you heard of it?
What is "beyond appalling" about that?
Back on the OT, it's good to know that Trump asked Ben Roethlisberger to walk Stormy Daniels back to her hotel room. He's always getting the best person for the job.
I cannot bring myself to google whether 171 is true. Every time I think absolutely nothing can surprise me about this administration, something else does.
160 is indeed cheering. Thanks, unimaginative.
You know what would be scary as shit? A gorilla with a shark's head. That's right: Sharkrilla
Somebody played that song with the video with the little girl in the bee costume.
I spent two hours today fucking with R to make a graph and Amazon sends me a push to buy an R graphics book. Fucking narcs.
Nine hours of SAS and they don't send me emails to buy a SAS book. SAS believes in itself.
I'm at the bar so I can't link
Pennsylvania liquor laws are weird.
170: Typo. I meant to type 91. The guy who got imprisoned for appointing a campaign donor. With solitary. Appalling.
OT: Apparently, "the police think I killed somebody" is a great pick-up line for women in Wales.
You know what would be scary as shit? A gorilla with a shark's head. That's right: Sharkrilla
The leftover pieces forming the Gork - not nearly so intimidating.
180: ladies love a man with accomplishments to his name.
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Late to this but NMM to Joe Frank's baritone voice telling weird noirish tales on the radio.
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My understanding is that most "porn stars"in fact earn the bulk of their money from (non-filmed) prostitution with rich people, although probably some don't.
Setting aside the lack of sourcing on this "understanding," she is not (as my partner pointed out, because he's a feminist) just a porn star. She's also a screenwriter, director, and producer.
I just watch them for the credits, I swear!
I wondered if there was a NMM* to Joe Frank here yet.
I knew he had been in poor health for a long time and I haven't actually listened to anything of his for years but this still made me sad. There was nothing else like him and I definitely had a Joe Frank phase for a while when I was younger.
On the Media had a segment about him that spent a lot of time lamenting his obscurity. I don't know if it's true that hardly anybody knows his work anymore but I felt weirdly pleased to think that there could be any niche popular culture left that I was actually in on.
*Although if you were ever in the habit of masturbating to Joe Frank, wow.
She's also a screenwriter, director, and producer.
So, not just a porn star, but a full-fledged pornographer. Why does the left hate small businesses?
So, a strip club in South Carolina is getting a $20 cover charge see Daniels do a set. I read that on Buzzfeed, but I'm going to pretend I just happened to be going to a strip club in South Carolina because I don't want to admit to reading Buzzfeed.
OT rather than go back and find the old thread: I think there is good reason to doubt that a Senator Manning would be a reliable Democrat. Source: a South Carolina strip club.
Setting aside the lack of sourcing on this "understanding,"
I've seen this mentioned in interviews with people in the industry. Basically that pirating/pornhub etc has fucked with the revenue stream to performers so where once upon a time maybe 20 percent of the girls were escorting it's now more like 80 percent with a lot of them getting into the business specifically to get the name recognition that commands the crazy high escort fees.
It's like disappointing my mother, but with a woman from the TV.
Yes, 192 is my understanding of the business since roughly 2010. Most understanding I have about the porn industry (including that one) comes from an acquaintance who is one of the very few porn industry lawyers; we had an active case at the same time in front of the same judge a year ago so had multiple long boring occasions for him to talk about the business (which was apparently a reasonably OK way to make a living when he started, not that he was rich -- as the business went off a cliff his business collapsed and he was trying to look for new work). Basically while the size of the porn "industry" was always massively overestimated it now almost doesn't exist. We also represent (in cases that have nothing to do with pornography) a famous pornographer who now (I understand) earns essentially nothing from the production of porn -- it is all from licensing the brand name and some real estate investments and casinos.
Collapsed because amateur content, or what? I'm confused because a month or so ago Pornhub offered to pick up Sens8 after Netflix canned it, which would be apparently an $80-100m commitment.
Pornhub might have money without the performers getting much.
191: Certainly eyebrow raising, though there is some question as to what exactly she was doing there.
If she was indeed going there as a protest, I guess thats ok, but why go there at all and bring attention to their looser party? I'm hoping it was a rookie fuck-up.
It's plausible that the internet platforms are making money -- there's still a lot of porn being distributed, obviously, though is it really something people will subscribe for? And advertising everywhere has taken a dive, not to mention that most manor advertisers won't do porn sites, so I don't actually know how the porn platforms make money (or, truthfully, anything else about them -- I just don't know). But production costs are near-zero and there's no money trickling down to the producers/actors, so there's no longer a porn "industry" in a meaningful sense. It's like the music industry if everyone preferred free 30 second youtube clips of your friend's neighbor's mediocre garage band recorded in an iphone for which youtube paid $.25 total.
Major advertisers, not manor. If you're advertising a manor, maybe you do want to advertise on porn sites.
Hypothesis: Musical talent is less widely distributed than ability to have sex.
But are there more musicians who want an audience or people who can have sex and want an audience?
The audience is fine, it's when they all stand up and wave their lighters that gets unnerving.
I think it was a former commenter here who once said a problem with understanding the porn industry is it's seen so outside the bounds of normal study most people don't look at it that closely. I mean, it was nearly impossible to type just that sentence without an entendre, so imagine what it would be like to do a longitudinal study of how long a particular studio or site was able to last.
Longer, if they think about baseball.
205 -Right. One of the things I learned from my acquaintance was that (at least back in the DVD era, when there was still enough money to justify treating some movies like real business) each porn film would have two kinds of contracts-- one kind used for all real money deals, with the title and the actors and everything else made to look as bland as possible and absolutely not refer to anything sexual whatsoever, so a judge could read the contract withour snickering, and another separate contract specific to the sex acts being agreed to by the performers.
A paper about streaming video on the web that's ostensibly about mlb tv but with porn sites as a reference point.
And advertising everywhere has taken a dive, not to mention that most manor advertisers won't do porn sites, so I don't actually know how the porn platforms make money
Porn is the gateway to the sex industry, there is money to be had somewhere. I would speculate that a fair bit is being made selling access to private naked chat-rooms, and the like. That appears to be a growth industry, judging by the trend in advertisements one sees in the "computer gigs" section of Craigslist.
In a private browsing session, to avoid contaminating my browser history, I just scrolled through the news page of Adult Video News. It's an odd mix of release announcments (products, films), award mentions, and legal/business news. Like, there's a long analysis of section 2257 recordkeeping requirements, which turn out to be about recordkeeping and age/identity verification.
Anyway, I haven't seen a story about the death of the industry, although apparently Penthouse is heading for Chapter 11 (for a reorganization, they say).
That's a really long letter, I've never seen them go past a couple chapters.
200 Especially if it has a sex grotto.
If you're advertising a manor, maybe you do want to advertise on porn sites.
Given that the entire industry is apparently sliding into genteel poverty because of technological and social changes that it is powerless to oppose, they sound like exactly the sort of people who'd be in the manor market. (Not to mention shared fondness for elaborate interior decor.) Synergies!
Also suggests an HBO-friendly remake of "Downton Abbey" about a failing porn studio...
180 et seq:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1240/1240-h/1240-h.htm
I had a friend who slept with somebody who wrote the encounter up for Penthouse Letters. She was the letter was 50% true. So now you know.
214.last Likewise with a large part of the plot revolving around the arcane niceties of entailment.
215: I was finishing up Hinterland.
217: The Unpleasantness at the Playboy Club.
Wimsey bent down over Mr. Hefner and drew the centerfold gently away from the gnarled old hands, which lay clasped over the thin chest. He touched the shoulder--put his hand under the white head huddled against the side of the chair. The Colonel watched him anxiously. Then, with a quick jerk, Wimsey lifted the quiet figure. It came up all of a piece, stiff as a wooden doll.
Fentiman laughed. Peal after hysterical peal shook his throat. All round the room, scandalised bunnies tottered upright, shocked by the unmannerly noise.
'Take him away!' said Fentiman, 'take him away. He's been dead two days! So are you! So am I! We're all dead and we never noticed it!'
It is really odd -- you get the impression generally that porn has become much, much more mainstream as entertainment since (handwaving vaguely) the internet. People sort of generally assume that all men and lots of women use porn, and so on. You'd think that would turn into normalizing it enough that it'd be more, rather than less, professionalized. Like, what Halford says here seems to be true, but also kind of inexplicable:
It's like the music industry if everyone preferred free 30 second youtube clips of your friend's neighbor's mediocre garage band recorded in an iphone for which youtube paid $.25 total.
I think porn is like punk rock -- people crave "authenticity". And since almost all people are able to rise to the Iggy Pop level of performance when it comes to sex, the supply is immense.
But that's odd in itself -- authenticity is valued to a certain extent in other forms of entertainment, but never enough to drive everything else out of the market. Punk never had a hope of killing off pop. How come with porn do people want 'authenticity' over production values?
Possibly the non-authenticity-oriented part of the market is satisfied with media that isn't usually considered porn in the strictest sense (e.g. less explicit but still erotic movies).
Is that really happening? I don't go to the movies much, but I don't have the impression that there are more mainstream movies that anyone would be likely to watch for straightforward erotic gratification than there ever were.
(Probably is happening in the field of romance novels -- that is, professional published romances include some that are closer to straightforward porn than they used to.)
Oh, come to think, not theatrical movies but prestige TV -- Game of Thrones and so on? Maybe that's it.
Plus, graphic novels and various types of animation.
And we all take a moment to fondly recall Stephen den Beste.
Basically that pirating/pornhub etc has fucked with the revenue stream to performers so where once upon a time maybe 20 percent of the girls were escorting it's now more like 80 percent with a lot of them getting into the business specifically to get the name recognition that commands the crazy high escort fees.
That sounds about right. If I see someone talking about his favorite 21st century porn star it's always followed by a lament that she "retired" after 18 months or something. Retired to full-time escorting and touring strip clubs is the goal I suppose.
Congrats to KDrum on the headline "Stormygate Continues to Move Forward, Inches at a Time". I didn't know he... had it in him.