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Archive for July, 2008

Even Suburban Guerrilla Girls Get The Blues

Posted by scott on July 31st, 2008

Susie Madrak is enjoying the benefits of a robust free market healthcare system where you, the Consumer, are empowered to make your own choices, such as choosing to forgo life-saving surgery because you don’t have insurance, rather than endure the humiliation of waiting a few weeks for treatment like those socialist sheep in Canada.  However, when confronted with the need for three operations (including one to correct double vision, a serious condition which, if left untreated, can lead to even worse Foreigner albums, such as Head Games, or Unusual Heat), the rugged individualist will get proactive and demonstrate that Can-Do American attitude.  In this case, she’s politely accepting donations, so if you Can, please Do.  Click here for the details and, in Paul Harvey fashion, the rest of the story.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince:

Oh, btw: Happy Birthday JK Rowling (and Harry Potter)

Concerned Woman-Man Wants To Slip You His Whopper

Posted by scott on July 30th, 2008

Concerned Woman Matt Barber doesn’t claim to be anybody special.  He’s just another dogface drafted into the Culture War, hunkered down in a foxhole, rinsing his socks out in his helmet and dreamin’ about home.  Just minding his own business minding other peoples’ business; then suddenly, he felt a STAB in the back!  Matt reached behind, and sure enough, pulled a knife from between his shoulder blades.  A gruesome stiletto that could’ve come from only one place:

A Happy Meal.

Hard to believe, but Private Barber has the bloody proof that McDonalds has violated the Neutrality Act and been trading with the enemy — married homosexuals.  But let Matt tell you in his own words, which I should point out are mostly free of gay undertones or inadvertent double entendres:

In an apparent effort to pierce the hyper-demanding good graces of the radical homosexual lobby, these clowns (pun intended) have thrown the vast majority of potential Mickey D’s customers, worldwide, under the bus. Because of this colossal corporate blunder, the hamburger giant is now facing an embarrassing and ever-growing international boycott.

Well, “international” in that they have a petition up on the World Wide Web, which makes it slightly less international than International-Harvester, but slightly more than IHoP.

McDonald’s self-inflicted woes started back in March, when the company paid $20,000 to have Richard Ellis, McDonald’s “out and proud” homosexual vice president of communications, placed on the board of the innocuously tagged “National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.” NGLCC is an extremist, “gay” activist organization that lobbies for leftist causes, such as “gay marriage,” and pushes for other policies that would grant special privileges to certain individuals who define themselves based upon unhealthy, traditionally immoral and changeable sexual behaviors.

I suppose you could argue which is less healthy, gay sex or eating at McDonalds.  But as I get older, I find myself increasingly appalled by the newfangled, ever-changing immorality of today’s on-the-go youth, and yearning for the more sedate, traditional immorality of my parents’ and grandparents’ generations.  So I’ve got to agree with Matt there.  As for “changeable sexual behaviors,” though, I’ll be happy to take Matt’s word for it as soon as he decides to switch his polarity, buy some decent shoes, and start doing two shows nightly at Aunt Charlie’s.

For example, under communist-tested, McDonald’s-approved “hate speech” legislation, such as the so-called Employment Non-Discrimination Act, Christians and other business owners with traditional values would be forced – under penalty of law – to abandon sincerely held religious beliefs and adopt McDonald’s own secular-humanist, moral-relativist view of right and wrong.

Yes, as we learned from Janet Folger, America is the new Roman Empire, where it is now a capital offense to profess faith in Christ.  But at least in ancient Rome you could choose an alternate god from a pretty cool pantheon, while here the government forces you to worship Ronald McDonald.

But perhaps most damaging is that McDonald’s is now publicly supporting counterfeit “same-sex marriage,”

I admit, I bought one of those knock-off gay marriages from Hong Kong and it stopped working within a week.

As far as bad business decisions go, this one’s a real whopper (sorry for the mixed metaphor). This has, no doubt, made shareholders grimace … (OK, I’ll stop).

Oh you and your puckish sense of whimsy.

Still, same-sex marriage is a contradiction in terms. It’s a bizarre bastardization of legitimate marriage. It both mocks and undermines the genuine article.

Even worse, it softens your hands while you do the dishes!

Marriage is a fundamental building block to any healthy society. If you introduce counterfeit money into commerce, the dollar is devalued. If you introduce counterfeit marriage into society, true marriage is devalued and society is harmed.

On the bright side, you can now pay for your gay marriage license with a three dollar bill. But enough of these vague innuendos and unsupported arguments.  Let’s see Matt engage McDonalds position, in a clear, direct, point by point manner.

“At McDonald’s we respect and value everyone … blah, blah, blah … Diversity … blah, blah … Inclusion … yada, yada … We have a long and proud history of leadership … blah, blah, (gag!)” You know the drill.

Okay, maybe Matt should reconsider changing his sexual behaviors.  With a gag reflect that sensitive he’s not likely to be very popular.

When Jeff G. announced his retirement, many people wondered what obligation or opportunity had convinced him to abandon a successful blog with a devoted following.  As it turns out, Jeff has apparently become a sort of self-serve bounty hunter, searching the land for people who have besmirched his honor with their anonymous comments on the internet, and making a violent citizen’s arrest before sentencing the perpetrators to his own personal penile system.

Now, I seem to remember conservative bloggers mocking the sensitivies of Arabs who claimed that Israeli Occupation forces, or Coalition troops in Iraq had “humiliated” them, but I can certainly sympathize with the urge to lash out.  However, if you’re going into business as a two-fisted duellist, you might want to make sure that your methodology for indentifying and locating your detractors is pretty air-tight; otherwise, the inevitable arraignment hearing might prove even more awkard than anticipated.

Case in point.  In this post we noted Jeff’s announced departure (delayed, apparently, due to an ever-growing backlog of honor killings).  Jeff’s response was to appear in the comments and demand satisfaction for a hateful remark someone had left on his own site.  When it became obvious I hadn’t posted the comment in question, he and his enablers began a frantic tag-team Googlequest to unmask the culprit, and were last seen combing through trash dumpsters in suburban Pennsylvania.

All well and good.  But now some other pseudonym has left a comment apparently wishing cancer on Jeff, who acted quickly and deduced the guilty party by throwing a dart at Atrios’ blogroll. Today’s winner?  Steve at No More Mister Nice Blog.  As with me, the honor came as a complete surprise to Steve, since he hadn’t made the comment at Protein Wisdom (and had signed those few he’s made in the past).  But unlike the state Lotto, with Jeff’s own Shirley Jackson-style Lottery, you don’t actually have to be “in it to win it.”

Anyway, it’s suddenly clear why Goldstein resigned from blogging (”I may be back at some later date, but for now, I just don’t have the time”) — there’s only so many hours in the day, and he’s got to devote the daylight ones to tracking down his imaginary enemies while the trail is still fresh.  Fortunately, he’s got his PW Irregulars keeping him supplied with a steady stream of utterly random candidates for assault; athough, I’m sorry, but anyone who begins their recruiting drive for lynch mob members with the words, “I crave a boon,” should really be kept in a cool, dry place for their own safety.

Do Androids Dream Of Plastic Ponies?

Posted by scott on July 29th, 2008

My sister was visiting friends in a upscale enclave in San Diego county, and snapped this picture while perambulating:

Fauxfillies.jpg

She wrote: Can you see what’s wrong with this picture?  Taken on a walk near the grounds of La Costa.  And there are two more pulse-challenged fillies to the right of these little beauties, not in the photo.  Seriously people?  2 million dollar home and not enough coin left for the real thing?  Not zoned for livestock and making a political statement?  Just plain wacko??  Thank God there was no lawn jockey!

We can only hope the economy improves before rich people start dressing up their life-size Nativity scene figures like illegal immigrants and posing them in the yard with leaf blowers and Weed Whackers just to keep up appearances.

BAGHDAD (AP) — An Iraqi military commander says a new U.S.-backed operation has begun in the volatile Diyala province northeast of Baghdad.

Gen. Ali Ghaidan says the operation began Tuesday and is aimed at clearing al-Qaida in Iraq militants from what’s considered the last major insurgent stronghold near the capital.

The U.S. military in northern Iraq confirms that the offensive is under way.

The operation has been dubbed “Omens of Prosperity.” It is the latest in a series of efforts to control the largely rural area.

But U.S. and Iraqi commanders have said they’re more optimistic this one can work because more troops will be involved and Iraqi security forces are better prepared.

And why shouldn’t they be more optimistic?  This time they’ve got Omens of Prosperity, so there’s every reason to believe that this offensive will prove far more successful than last week’s “Operation Portent of Doom.”  Rather disappointing, that one.

But it does make me suspect that whatever computer program is generating these names, it’s deliberately making us sound as stupid as possible, then laughing behind our backs and bad-mouthing us to the Freecell game.  Still, I’m looking forward to the beginning of August, when the military is scheduled to execute “Operation Favorable Entrails,” followed by a mopping-up action in Nineweh code-named “Operation Necromancer’s Delight.”

Mamma Mia That’s A Spicy Moron

Posted by scott on July 27th, 2008

With so many wingnuts fixated on the George Bush as Batman theme, we wondered who was left to denounce the subversive dancing queens defiling the other half of our multiplex screens this weekend.  Fortunately, Debbie Schlussel has risen to the challenge, and revealed the startling truth that a disco-infused piece of musical theater may be guilty of harboring secret gay undertones.  Even better, our friend Bill S. has also seen both Mamma Mia! and The Dark Knight, and with the recent retirement of Roger Ebert, this seemed like a good time to revive that old “bickering, but loveable opposites attract” formula that once made Ebert and Gene Siskel such a critical powerhouse.  So take it away, Bill!

The plot to Mamma Mia! is utterly (and probably intentionally) silly. But hey, it’s a jukebox musical in which the characters break out into ABBA songs, so if you were looking for complexity, you’d be a blame fool. Meryl Streep sings sweetly, Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper are cute as the young lovers, and overall, it’s as light as the other movie is dark. Of  course, if you have a low tolerance for ABBA’s music, you won’t want to see it, but otherwise, it’s a sweet, good-natured comedy.

In short, I pretty much enjoyed them both. I don’t know what that says about my taste in movies, but I will say part of my enjoyment came from the fact that I didn’t look for any political agenda in either of them. Doing that tends to suck the joy out of going to the movies, which hasn’t stopped wingnuts from doing it. As we learned from two previous Wo’C posts, The Dark Knight is a movie that champions conservative values. And now, in a recent column, Little Debbie Crabcakes warns us that Mamma Mia! is pushing the agenda of the Slutty Homo Commies:

‘MAMMA MIA’? MORE LIKE HOMO MIA: FORMER JAMES BOND FALLS FAR IN PAINFUL MOVIE AIMED AT GAYS, WOMEN; FEMINIST ATTACK ON BATMAN

Did you know that feminists are trying to turn this weekend’s box office take into a battle of the sexes?

No, but’s that’s just stupid enough a theory for some wingnut to seize upon.

They are, and in this “Mamma Mia!” versus “The Dark Knight contest, it’s really no contest. They’re gonna lose.

‘Cause girls are weak, y’know. Well, “The Dark Knight” did, in fact, open at #1 at the box office, but “Mamma Mia!” came in a respectable second, with the highest grossing opening weekend for any musical. It also raked in nearly twice as much as the movie that came in third.

When the “Sex & the City” movie came out earlier this year, I wrote that it was a national IQ test for women. If you liked it, you failed.

I have a similar test when it comes to the writings of Debbie Schlussel.

What i didn’t realize was that it was a two-part test.

The second part debuted at midnight last night. It’s “Mamma Mia!” More like Homo Mia!…an ode to slutdom and what gay men want to project onto straight women and their relationships.

The director’s a woman, the book was written by a woman, and the score was written by two heterosexual men. But other than that, there are no holes in that theory.

The three middle-aged, haggish, oversexed women at the center of it all–Meryl Streep, Christine Baranski, and some chick with a butch haircut and an English accent, whose name I don’t care to know–

I don’t know the name of the haircut and accent, but the actress in question is Julie Walters, a well-respected British comedienne with 30 films, two Oscar Nominations and an OBE to her credit. Oh, and her name’s clearly displayed on all the posters, including the one featured with Schlussel’s review.

-are the “Sex & the City” women in ten years. Blechhh! Who wants to see and hear three dirty old women simultaneously having hot flashes and yearning for orgasms, set to music now played only in gay dance clubs?

Who wants to read the rantings of a gibbering loon? I wonder how she knows what’s getting played in gay dance clubs? Does she sneak in on “drag night”?

Yesterday, I arrived late to the screening of the movie, and I went to a midnight showing to see the beginning I had missed.

I’m confused. She said earlier that the first show started at midnight (which doesn’t sound right), but now she’s saying there was an earlier show?

Amidst a cinema multiplex filled with males attending several sold-out showings of the excellent-but-violent Batman flick “The Dark Knight”, the theatre also had the midnight showing of “MM!” thinking that women would flock to see it, while their husbands and boyfriends saw Batman.

I had no idea that movie theatres could think. How does she know that, at a multiplex, they were going to see “The Dark Knight” and not something else? Were those the ONLY two movies that had a midnight screening?

No such “luck”.

Once again wingnuts can’t resist gratuitous scare quotes.

In the empty theatre along with me were three middle-aged women and a gay guy.

So it wasn’t actually empty.

In his effeminate voice, he said to me, “I’m not a Batman guy, I’m a Mamma Mia guy”. No kidding.

Seeing as how he was, y’know, at the screening of “Mamma Mia”.

(Except maybe for the “guy” part.)

Oh, that’s what she meant.

There’s some sort of weird feminist anti-Batman backlash hype the press is trying to generate against “The dark Knight” in favor of “MM!”

There is? Why have I missed that? It must be stealth hype.

And this weekend, NOW–the National Orginization for (Ugly) Women–

Would that be NO(U)W?

–is billing its three day conference in Bethesda, Maryland, with this theme:
NO CAPES, NO MASKS, NO BOUNDARIES: FEMINIST SUPER-WOMEN UNITE!
Uh, no thanks. “Super Women”? There’s a reason no–one uses “Wonder Woman” and “NOW” together in the same sentence.

Yeah, what a bunch of losers! Here’s a few of the speakers at this thing:  Barbara Hillary, who became the first African-American woman to reach the North Pole-at age 75, no less. Lily Ledbetter was an “average” hardworking woman, until she spoke out against wage discrimination, igniting a fierce battle that reached the U.S. Supreme Court and the Halls of Congress…Irshad Manji is a writer who has been called “Osama Bin Laden’s worst nightmare” for her efforts to promote Muslin reform.

Remind me again, what has Debbie Schlussel accomplished?

Since It’s a musical, you have to wonder why they cast Pierce Brosnan as one of the male costars.

Well, he’s not going to make anyone forget Paulo Szot, but, as BAD singers go, he’s no worse than, say Bruce Willis, who got a deal with Motown before anyone heard his voice.

It’s truly embarrassing to see the fall of the formerly suave James Bond now forced into singing, karaoke-style, the playlist of an Elton John-George Michael soiree, while wearing–as he does in the conclusion–a fluorescent, tight jumpsuit and platform high-heeled boots. How do you say “007″ in fruity-speak?

I don’t know. How do you say “misogynist, homophobic cretinous jackass” in wingnut-speak?

Meryl Streep plays a single mother hippie whose daughter is getting married. The daughter doesn’t know who her real dad is and surreptitiously read mom’s diary to find out. During the time she was conceived her mother slept with three different men, so she invites all of them to her wedding. The tripartite family values of being a slut, I guess.

I read that last sentence a dozen times and I still have no idea what she’s trying to say

In the meantime, Streep is trying to dissuade her daughter from getting married and push her toward pursuing her career instead, which…is what she ultimately does. And all the while, Streep’s two slutty, middle-aged friends in heat are desperately hitting on anything in pants.

Considering this movie has a plot a 10-year-old could follow, it’s amazing how many things she got wrong. Streep’s character, Donna, is supportive of her daughter Sophie’s marriage — it’s the girl’s fiance who wants to postpone it. Later, Donna’s ex, Sam (Brosnan) suggests that Sophie pursue a career before getting tied down. Donna’s friends are seen mostly propping her up and trying to smooth out her anxieties about Sophie growing up. In fact, Christine Baranski’s character rejects the advances of a hunky young man who’s smitten with her.

Embarrassing and classless.

Said the woman whose site features a cleavage-bearing photo of herself that was clearly taken several years ago, instead of a more recent-and dignified-photo.

The “jokes” in this movie are so bad, it’s not funny.

There aren’t enough side-splitters like “Homo Mia!”, “National Orginization for (Ugly) Women” and “Except for the ‘guy’ part”.

It’s not that I don’t like musicals–one of my favorite movies is the classic “Showboat.” And last year’s “Sweeney Todd” was cool.

She doesn’t say which version of “Showboat” she likes, but I’m guessing it’s the 1951 version that toned down the racial issues and boldly cast Ava Gardner as a mulatto.

And I don’t dislike some of ABBA’s hits either. It’s just that the ’70s called, and they want their songs back.

The ’90s called and they want their jokes back. But yeah, who wants to hear a bunch of old stuff? Debbie prefers to rock out to Oscar Hammerstein, or the cool sounds of a Stephen Sondheim musical that originally opened in, um…1979.

But if you’re a guy whose wife or girlfriend wants to drag you to see “Mamma Mia,” take it from me, kill yourself first. You’ll thank me from your man cave in Heaven.

Omigod! I just realized with that last sentence: Debbie Schlussel is actually Doug Giles in drag. That explains so much about both of them.

Keep your manhood-and your sanity–intact, and go see “The Dark Knight,” instead.

Yeah! Prove your manhood by watching the stars of The Velvet Goldmine and Brokeback Mountain playing a handsome bachelor who runs around town in a latex bodysuit and a guy who wears makeup throughout the film, at one point dressing up as a woman!

The only ABBA song that truly fits here is “S.O.S.”

The only ABBA song that truly fits Debbie Schlussel is “”

Debbie concludes by rating the movie “Three Marxes”. I have no idea what this movie has to do with Karl Marx, but then again, I also had no idea what “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry” had to do with Marxism either.

She gave “The Dark Knight” three “Reagans”. She said she’d have rated it higher but for the excessive violence, which is, I take it, inconsitant with the Great Communicater’s pacifist values.

-Bill S.

Thanks Bill!  Actor212 has more on another right wing pearl-clutcher who went to Mamma Mia! expecting sort of Robert Bly drum circle.

Please Baby Pleasebaby Baby Baby Please

Posted by scott on July 27th, 2008

According to Mona Charon, the real tragedy of George W. Bush is that his memory will be forever linked to the War on Terror, when what he really ought to go down in the history books for is a smokin’ hot case of Jungle Fever:

a poignant aspect of this president’s two terms is his unrequited love for blacks and other minorities.

Like Erik in Phantom of the Opera, Bush pours out his yearning heart in song to the naive and nubile Christine.  But in the end, she will reject him for her own kind, and Bush, crazed with torment, will drop a chandelier on Iran.  But perhaps the saddest aspect of the President’s heartbreak is that it need not have been.  For like Desdemona in Othello, Bush’s pure and faithful love has been unjustly maligned by men of fell intent:

George W. Bush was painted as the devil by many black leaders. It’s remarkable that this was so, considering Mr. Bush’s steadfast and unwavering interest in the poor and minorities, but there it is. When no other opportunity for tarring President Bush presented itself, his detractors seized upon Hurricane Katrina as the catch basin for all the free-floating bile against the president.

I remember those days; sometimes the bile was so thick it was hard to see all the free-floating bodies. But in retrospect it’s clear that minority leaders were trying to break up Bush and blacks by spreading wild rumors and somehow making it seem like Katrina was the President’s fault, until the two lovers were helplessly entangled in a simple, but wacky misunderstanding, much like Gary Collins and Mary Ann Mobley in the Love American Style episode, “Love and the Sex Survey.”

Remember the way George W. Bush first campaigned? He was the “compassionate conservative.”  He visited so many black churches he could have applied for membership in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He telegraphed early and often that if elected he’d choose Colin Powell for Secretary of State (and that was only the beginning of his promotion of blacks and Hispanics to high office — he might as well have believed in affirmative action).

Because he certainly didn’t hire Condi Rice for her mind.

He boasted (en Espanol) of his excellent record winning the votes of Hispanics in Texas. He lamented the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”

He obediently mouthed other catch-phrases his speechwriters had coined for him, just like the ardent Christian in Cyrano.  But he wasn’t all talk; Daddy showered his baby with promises of expensive baubles in the afterlife, too, like…

[T]he faith-based initiative that was aimed at helping all of those who for one reason or another fall into economic or psychic woe. As his former speechwriter Michael Gerson recalled, “He [wa]s deeply committed to the idea of helping the poor through community and faith-based institutions.”

“It wasn’t just a cynical way to seem sensitive to poor minority communities while funneling payoffs to the white evangelicals who’d gotten out the vote.  No, baby, you know me better than that.  Baby I’m deeply committed to the idea of somebody else helping you out sometime.”

Perhaps we’d all have been better off if Black America had just given Bush a pity fuck and let him get it out of his system.  Instead, he’s running up debts and selling off parcels of the family estate just to buy trinkets for this saucy and elusive coquette:

When President Clinton traveled to Africa, black Americans rejoiced at the recognition. Poor President Bush practically bankrupted the treasury by spending on AIDS treatment in Africa.

We could have won the the war in Iraq already if Bush hadn’t blown the Federal wad by flooding the Third World with life-saving drugs and condoms.

The excitement at the prospect of the first African-American president is natural and understandable. But the total contempt shown by the African-American community toward this president is a staggering injustice.

Because no President since Thomas Jefferson has loved blacks more.  Or at least tried to.

In honor of Jeff Goldstein’s retirement from blogging, all cocks at Protein Wisdom have been lowered to half-mast; the surviving co-bloggers, feeling bereft and rudderless, offer their own bittersweet tribute by linking to a YouTube video of the hippie anthem One Tin Soldier (Rides Away).  Is this kitsch?  Irony?  The Fourth Stage of grief?  Alas, there is no one left behind to perform the necessary semiotic analysis.

Yeah, Whatever Happened To That…?

Posted by scott on July 25th, 2008

In the comments to this post (“Deflater Mouse” should win some sort of title for titles) over at Sadly, No!, J– says, “Goldberg’s grudge is an old one. He and his editor have adjusted it to fit the current political conjuncture.”  I followed the link to this January 1999 article of Jonah’s and was reminded yet again why the National Review Online was the epicenter of principled political criticism during the Clinton Administration:  because they held themselves to the same exacting, even unforgiving, standards of truth and accuracy that they demanded of their ideological foes.

CORRECTIONS, AS PROMISED
In keeping with my New Year’s Resolutions every Friday I will be running corrections. First, in my resolutions I got the quote from Caddyshack slightly off. Bill Murray doesn’t say “so I got that going for me, which is good.” He says “which is nice.” In my reference to the Pataveret from So I Married an Axe Murderer I substituted the Rockefellers for the Rothschilds. Many of you caught this and I even got a memo from Zog. I used the word Christendom in a way that some of you thought was inaccurate. I meant it to mean a geographical area rather than a community of believers, which isn’t quite right. But I should point out that what I said was still accurate considering Christians do revere the Ten Commandments. A while back I quoted Conan — Crush your enemy, see him driven before you etc. — and a number of you claim that quote actually comes from Ghengis Khan and others say its from Sun Tsu. I don’t really care. Movies often plagerize from, what do you call it? Oh yeah: life. Some die-hard Conan defenders were VERY upset that I said that Oliver Stone wrote Conan, instead of John Millius. Well, they both have writing credits. But Millius did direct. And in my Monday column I failed to make any pop culture reference whatsoever. I should also point out that nobody got the Animal House reference about “double secret probation.” That really surprised me.

And as History shows, this same rigorous devotion to intellectual honesty resulted in a work of scholarship we’ve all come to know and respect:

libfash.jpg

UDATE:  Actor212 says in comments:

I don’t really care. Movies often plagerize from, what do you call it? Oh yeah: life.

But this is central to his point!

Which actually — sadly — reminds me that I used to view Jonah much more with amusement than disgust (reversing the old Elvis Costello Method).  Back during the Clinton years, he was a prolific, largely uncritical kitsch vacuum who paid the rent spitting his Mother’s second-hand venom, but was just as likely to interrupt a virtual lynching on The Corner to pursue an obscure point of Star Trek arcana.  And occasionally, unlike the older kids in the clubhouse, he would retract a stupid remark, or even admit to a mistake.  Usually about something breathtakingly trivial, but still, it was a glimmer of embryonic honesty in a sub-culture where humility is just a synonym for weakness.  But with a Book on the shelves, Jonah’s actually convinced himself that he’s an Authority.  An eminence grease.  And now that his expertise is his fortune, he can no longer afford to admit that he’s wrong.  It shakes investor confidence in the stock.  Now, every mistake, evasion, or flat-out lie merely strengthens his point.

He’s gone from putz to asshole so fast that telling him to go fuck himself would be redundant.