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The men of GLoP (that’s Jonah Goldberg, Rob Long, and John Podhoretz) return with another romp through pop culture and politics. This week, some thoughts upon the sunset of the primary season, the folks at Facebook are not our friends, of course some “Game of Thrones” commentary, a fond look back at the Steven Baldwin-Tom Berenger classic Cutaway, and should you write or watch something for free? A GLoP investigation. Finally, a farewell to a beloved friend.
Music from this week’s episode: “Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime” by The Korgis
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It’s nice to hear so many people agree with the point that a political party isn’t owed allegiance despite personal feelings.
However I feel this sense will be forgotten, immediately and without reflection, with the first non-Trump Republican presidential candidate.
Let me just add that Gregor Clegane was not dead. He was dying, and Qyburn used some questionable techniques to keep him alive. He did not use magic in the sense that Melisandre used magic ( and this magic does not always work) to bring someone back to life. No mortal on the show has the ability to bring someone back from the dead at will.
Haven’t listened to this yet, but with all the ridiculous “Game of Thrones” commentary happening on this site of late, I’m longing for the good old days when Rob would just sit back and make fun of the guys for watching the stupid show in the first place.
Rob, can you stop watching, just for the sake of those of us who think GoT is a giant waste of time, and have far better things to do than listen to our favorite political pundits wax philosophical about low-brow nonsense?
(thanks in advance)
… and what in the bloody heck was that clip at the beginning??
And ROB: wildland firefighters (and anyone else who cuts down trees) use chaps for chainsaw work, and they are not made of leather. Some of them (the super good ones) are, I think, even made of kevlar. Only cowboy and variety show chaps are leather.
I used to wear those chaps every day, and have made many a joke about posing “nude” with just the chaps, the Hawthorne boots, and a pulaski in my hand… for the record, that picture never happened, but I did know a guy who actually submitted one almost exactly like it (adding the firefighter helmet) to “playgirl.” It got published, but I never did see it.
The clip is from The Social Network.
Ok, that’s what I thought, but it sounded like a parody. I figured, for such a big movie, it couldn’t have been quite that horrible. I’ve never been more reassured in my collective decisions to a) virtually never watch movies, and b) never touch facebook.
Rob Long: “… all chaps are leather or suede! They have to be.”
Oh?
https://www.coloradochaps.com/
http://www.stihlusa.com/products/protective-and-work-wear/chain-saw-protective-apparel/aprnchap/
http://www.cabelas.com/product/CABELAS-UPLAND-TRADITIONS-CHAP/1803142.uts?productVariantId=3834236&WT.tsrc=PPC&WT.mc_id=GoogleProductAds&WT.z_mc_id1=03867666&rid=20&gclid=CNaqsoud58wCFcYfhgod8M4GjQ&gclsrc=aw.ds
(Poop! I see RyanM beat me to it.)
I feel like it has become fashionable to say “The last two books we awful”. I’ll have you know the moment you say that you disqualify yourself in my mind. They aren’t bad. They just aren’t. Or if you area going to say they are bad tell us why. Cite specifics.
You’re missing a surprisingly good flick. Fincher doesn’t make a lot of mistakes.
Can we please retire the talking point that the Republican Congress has done everything possible to stop Obama, and asking it to have done any more was asking the impossible?
The Constitution was designed to make Congress the most powerful branch by giving it the power of the purse. Yet Obama has vetoed the fewest bills since Harding, and Warren G. only had one term. Congress has essentially ceded any power it had by waving through Obama’s spending.
The other annoying talking point is the alleged failure to acknowledge Republican “victories” in the last few years. This is to mistake the absence of defeats for victories. Yes, Obama has not been able to impose new, radically transformative legislation like Obamacare since Republicans took control of Congress. He doesn’t have to. He knew that Presidents generally have the greatest impact in their first two years, and he rammed through Obamacare even though it was highly unpopular, risking the loss of Congress. Since then he’s only had to play defense on the legislative front and continue his transformative agenda through executive orders – which Congress could fight by defunding the agencies through which he pursues this, but has no will to do so.
Voting through Obama’s spending, and then patting yourself on the back at the cocktail party because you didn’t vote through some massive carbon tax is not a “victory.” It’s just not a defeat as catastrophic as usual.
Kudos to Rob for openly stating that he’ll do anything for money, and specifically avoids doing things for free.
RINO status: REVOKED
It’s been interesting (i.e., bizarre) listening to John over the last 10 months trying to make sense of the world, stumbling from one incoherent explanation to the next. He must be on some very, very strong medication to be so affected.
Does that sound enough like something John would say?
One term cut short, no less.
I think the victories discussed were the electoral victories (2010, 2014, and the countless state and local victories) rather than governing victories. John seizes on these to bemoan them being thrown away by the people bemoaning no victories.
But as J Climacus points out, the folks who threw away the victories are those (especially congressional leadership) who refused to leverage those victories. And commentators like John who think such behavior was smart politics have their own share of the blame.
The notion that the GOP Congress has been very successful is ludicrous to the point of being borderline delusional. These guys sound like parents that gave their child a broken toy, and when the child complains they go “It works! It works! Why can’t you be happy with what you have?”.
This is just my opinion, so feel free to tear me apart, but it is my belief that Trump is now the presumptive candidate due to one issue; immigration. Jeb Bush, in his infamous “act of love” speech, broke the camel’s back of Republican constituent’s patience. Not only did he cause his own immolation, but also unwittingly sabotaged the prospects of the other candidates, tearing open a giant hole in voter’s sympathies for Trump to waltz through.
I’m not a “never Trump” guy. If my state (California) is in play, I can bring myself to pull the lever for Trump due to two reasons; judicial nominations and the Second Amendment. Otherwise I’ll either vote Gary Johnson, or leave that part of the ballot blank. Still, I blame Jeb and much of the GOP for this state of affairs. If they had relented and gotten on board with immigration enforcement, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.
Why read the recaps? Because I want to know what happened on the show, don’t get HBO, and the DVD won’t be available in the library for almost a year.
I am beginning to find John basically impossible to listen to on some pop culture topics.
Both on Game of Thrones and the Marvel movies John’s complaints are all based on the fact he has no idea what is going on.
Confusing the Red Wedding for Melisandre’s assassination of Renly is insane and borderline disqualifying from participating in a GoT discussion ever again.
And then during discussions (I’ve seen elsewhere) of Captain America he doesn’t know who any of the Avengers are, who Bucky is and is confused by Black Panther’s perfectly logical introduction. My God man, if you can’t keep the characters of a serialized story straight, stick to one shots. I follow a dozen long serial stories, and would stop if I ever became so disconnected from any that I forgot who the characters are.
Finally, all the hue and cry over Jon Snow’s “magic” resurrection all seems to based around the idea that the Red Priests could do this all the time and should have been. That implies that the power comes from them, and not their Fire God. Any religious person knows, just because you pray for the miracle, doesn’t mean it comes. Asking “Why don’t they bring everyone back?” is like asking “Why don’t tornadoes always miss churches?”.
I think this is a badge of honor in John’s favor.
You know, it’s usually the child who breaks the toy.
“It’s like Point Break with parachutes.”
Eh?
The point of serial fiction is that you keep up with an ongoing story. If you don’t keep up, it’s nonsense blame the creators for that fact.
You know which books were truly awful? The last three in the Dark Tower series. Blech! Truly disappointing after decades of a wonderful buildup – it’s like Stephen King simply didn’t know where to take it so he just pounded out some story to wrap it up.
Yes, please.
It’s funny how the explanation for the other guy’s errors seem to center around stupid (e.g. cult of personality, cult of unity, don’t understand how government works, don’t understand how anything works), emotional (e.g. angry populists), or evil. When it comes to self assessment, however, nothing but reasonable, sober, and good intentions solidly grounded in nothing but fact.
I don’t receive the tweets, emails, and feedback that any of the GLoPpers receive and I recognize that Ricochet isn’t the same as the general population, but based on my Ricochet experience these assessments of cults expecting the impossible are simply incorrect.
Sorry but in my view, he makes plenty. Then again, I know I’m in the minority on David Fincher. SOCIAL NETWORK was one of the few movies he made after SEVEN that didn’t feel bloated to me. Nobody walked out of GONE GIRL wishing it was longer, and the last 25 minutes of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO are so extraneous to the main story as to be unforgivable. Yes, I know he was being faithful to the book, but fidelity to one’s source material is no excuse when you’re doing an adaptation; if the material doesn’t serve the movie, you cut it out (see JAWS).
ZODIAC fails to satisfy, and the less said about BENJAMIN BUTTON, the better.
To me, Fincher’s most successful movies are his most disciplined: SOCIAL NETWORK and, believe it or not, PANIC ROOM.
But once again, I’m in the minority on Fincher.
Any chance to have Whit Stillman on to talk film making and art from a conservative point of view? I have loved his films, and have read he is a conservative (although I don’t know in what sense of the word it is meant for Stillman.)
I don’t want to know how GoT ends; I don’t want to watch the episodes; I just want people to stop talking about it.
We don’t book guests on GLoP, but we’ll look into having him on another show.
If you don’t want to watch the show, then don’t. (I stopped watching the show a few years ago.) But to demand that people stop talking about it seems unrealistic. Why should other people conform to your desires?
Have to agree on Love and Friendship, enjoyed it greatly. It features one of the greatest dumb characters since Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda.
Oh, just venting – we had a couple Dellingpoles that were all Thrones, I get to GLoP, and here we go again.