A few baselines to comprehend whatever the Virginia gubernatorial election results turn out as–

The last time he won. Media reports have the line that his competition was more easily portrayed as a far right wing crank than his opponent this time out. So we can check this as a “no Republican statewide victory in the last decade” streak against the new bell-weather tonight.

2013 Virginia Governor’s race

Democratic Party Terry McAuliffe 47.8 percent
Republican Ken Cuccinelli 45.2 percent
Libertarian Robert Sarvis 6.5 percent

The count re-election results that swept Bob McConnell to massive victory four years prior was overturned, and I guess that itself helped solidify a 2.6 percent victory as signifying a new “blue state”.

Next up to show the mettle of the Democratic stronghold state against the harsh climes of a bad national environment — 2014 and a popular incumbent versus… Erm… Republican Insider writ large.

Democratic Mark Warner 49.15 percent
Republican Ed Gillespie 48.34 percent
Libertarian Robert Sarvis 2.43 percent

(Blink) (Rub eyes.)

2021 sees a “Liberation” candidate of “Princess Branding”, good for point two percent points — currently a darling of conservative web sites.

But sure — Biden won by double digits. But, see, Biden was running against Trump. I guess so is McAuliffe, but therein lies the accidental genius of Youngkin — who (er) is running locally. It may get him to the percentage range Cuccinelli plus Sarvis or Gillespie plus Sarvis got to in this last decade.

It is a little easy to slumber through an off off year election, a jibber of jabber of localized election contests which theoretically should proffer nothing beyond their localized focal points but which pundits wrap around into an extended narrative.

Virginia forces a discomfitting question: I thought we defeated Clinton and their political apparatus in 2008 with Obama’s primary. And whatever the resultant effects, 2016’s general election provided an end point. And, okay, maybe the 2014 – 2018 gubernatorial service of Terry Mcauliffe had its virtues — I admit in checking in from afar I was moderately impressed by of focal on working to promote some rather unsexy industries — seemingly a good step away from the trappings of party line political fights — but we are still stuck on the echoes of staring at Bill Clinton’s unsavory money holder — which one can look away from with help from one of Virginia’s electoral quirks: no re-elections… a quirk which has the definite virtue of allowing politicians’ weaknesses to slide away, because what does it matter? — S/he’ll be out before they matter. McAuliffe served his time. Why is he back again? Virginia Democrats are left asking the state electorate to throw away the biggest asset they have built into their election system (Notwithstanding however it has played out historically — in undemocratic terms basically a long standing US Senator Harry Byrd plugging in a new no name governor each four year increment to squad any unionization and uphold segregation).

The finale of this election campaign leaves an ugly taste. Sure, “it’s politics”. The Republican makes hay of a parent complaining that their smart kid is reading a Toni Morrison book that has sex in it — you mark this to the problem of something I heard from Steven Pinker that one ought practice the opposite of setting up straw men in arguing and, if you want to get at rational meaning in discourse build up the most solid argument in the opposition and argue against / with that — Here, there lay reasonable public policy problems Youngkn’s end, but damned if he isn’t here gratifying the problem of a parent flummoxed by an advanced student asked to read advanced literature.

Meanwhile, there is a linguistic problem inherent in some media coverage of (sigh) when a bunch of activists with the “Lincoln Project” showed up donning the khakis of the “tiki torch” Charlottesville riot mob to “endorse” Youngkin. The conservative media and twittering goblets label this stunt a “hoax”. It is not a hoax — from my vantage point the members of this greeting never had any intention for this set-up to be mistaken for the actual item of Richard Spencer and crew. We note that there is an actualBlack man in the picture. No — this is roughly analogous to the man dressed in a chicken who followed George Bush on the campaign in 1992. Or perhaps more closely the organization ” Billionaires for Bush and Gore” who refactoring worked on behalf of Nader in 2000, making themselves pests at Bush and Gore campaign functions, before refashioning themselves as “Billionaires for Bush” and chasing after Nader in 2004. The problem with this group and this stunt that they are stuck in a bit of an enclosed bubble, and assume their message will automatically signify to the casual observer. Something like… We must defeat Trump again, and Trump means the Charlottesville marchers — a message which may get Macaulife to victory (though not this stunt), but is necessarily weakened by its very definitions — degrees of separation do indeed exist whether you admit it or not. The other problem is it is hard to take costumed . We land in a land of hypocrisy — the very same partisans complaining that Republicans like Senator Cruz are defending people at school board meetings throwing Nazi salutes (a crude sarcastic political message) are positioned to defend dressing as white supremacists. In a perfect world, they would lose no matter who wins the gubernatorial race.

Nothing else is on the list of great elections. There is a curious and familiar intersectional trip wire in Seattle’s mayoral race worth digesting — you get the feeling a Hail Mary Pass by the “Progressive, Stranger’s pick” Gonzalez blew up in her face. The real question is what is everyone to do to shovelling tax incentive favors and kick-backs to get the Sonics back in town?

Our politics are dumb, but everyone already knew that. And I am stuck on a “pox on every damnedable house that is about”. More the Republicans than the Democrats? Maybe. More the Democrats than the two Democrats that every Democrat hates right about now? Possibly.

When you have a bill that is best described as a “Whole Pile of Things Act”, you cannot single out a popular item with “cross partisan support” to bludgeon an opponent or compromiser when it topples over. Joe Manchin killed Paid Family Leave, as the bill gets scaled back to meet his budgetary threshold, and his and Sinema’s revenue (taxing) restrictions — you say — and this a measure that has the support of basically everyone to the left of Ayn Rand? Great! Whip up the bill and pass it then.

I myself am a fan of paid family leave. Less so another popular measure tacked into the “Whole Pile of Things Act” — the make or break bill for President Joe Biden — universal pre-school. Maybe I ought love it — expanding formal schooling a couple of grades. Maybe I need to put myself into the three, four year olds’ shoes and admire the facts of the ground — damned if the paste don’t taste good and there’s plenty of playdo available to munch on! — But all this vets drowned out in my memories of the early educational experience — the teachers always had the worst taste in kiddie literature and movies. But now they insist that we expand the mixed horror of it all a couple years.

Nonetheless, despite these differences I have to come to President Biden’s defense — and sticking at this fox news headline — Biden briefly ‘stumbles’ during speech at McAuliffe rally, critics seize. The stumble? “In fact, we’re taking a page from Terry’s book when he was governor and when he’d be governor next time,” Biden said. “We’re emerging from this pandemic…we want to expand pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds — millions of [inaudible] students.”. The Republican National Committee posted a 15-second clip of the video and wrote, “Huh?”. It strikes me as completely coherent in this transcript form. Am I missing something here? I guess I have to understood — it is kind of an auto script working — excerpt any and all long pauses and claim incoherence where there is none.

Dipping into the gubernatorial race in Virginia — and some offshoots of Virginia politics into the national scene of Republican Senators yelling at Attorney General Merrick Garland — it becomes immediately apparent a lot of hogwash gets floated from a single statement from Terry MacAuliffe. Narrowly speaking, the parent is complaining that an Advanced Placement Senior English class is reading a Toni Morrison book. It is difficult not to slip into a bit of derision at this parent. So goes the current MacAuliffe campaign — Obama in tow… Biden cause he is obliged to throw him in somehow or the optics would be off-kilter, but we will be a little more quiet on that one… Of dumping free copies with an anti- Youngkin bookmark marking him (fallaciously, but these things get thrown about a lot ) as a “book banner”.

Still, it would indeed be political malpractice for Youngkin not to campaign against that quotation. And broader issues are brought to bear that are not as simply defined as “one good, the other bad” — even as… One stands next to chuckling yahoos. I guess the good news is I can skip away from the line on Ted Cruz — where we have headlines that “(Gasp!) Cruz defines Nazi Salutes thrown at council meetings!” and move to Ben Sasse, who I have already established I think is a decent enough Republican Senator — and bark that… actually, the issue here is in making the Nazi saluting “you’re a fascist!” yelling Hotheads a federal case, with the new side issue in the knowingly false suggestion that these particular cases are Nazis being defended by Cruz and Sasse…

… The Cultural Wars proceed apace…

Yes, I suppose the thing marks bigger issues beyond the specific case. It is the tricky matter that… The role of a parent in their child’s curriculum is necessarily going to be about notta if they are (for instance) arguing that the science curriculum needs to be covering Creationism. You have more subjectivity in the Arts and Literature department, but damned if you are not coming across as a philistine fool in complaining about about upper level smart kids tackling real literature with real issues in them… complexity becomes R-rated. But feel free to storm about and find what graphic novels with more explicit than you would like gay sex referenced in ’em are available for one and all in school libraries.

All right, seeing what everyone has a tizzy over these days. Hm. Revenge fantasy...lobbed up in a Twix commercial… Yeah, an anti evil lying message framed in the guise of a proxy school shooting from the Pagan outcast. Seems to be what Twix is selling there. Odd.

And… Hm…

I am left a tad puzzled by how this one is fed at us. The article seems to be describing some hypocrisy — Where Netflix changed their algorithm on a film that could perceivably be viewed in a noxious way by pedophiles so it would not be seen by peoples looking for “steamy” material. Good for them, unless I am reading the article wrong. Yet… This is brought to bear against the current Dave Chapelle controversy, which… I do not know what the argument is or is supposed to be. Understand, whatever algorithm I have here threw me a bunch of clips from his special the other day. About what you would expect from him on Jussie Smollett’s hoax and Caitlyn Jenner being named a “Woman if the Year”. So I gather the issue had is by people who want to bury it, plain and simply… But… the implication for how the problematic but defendable “Cuties” was marketed on the fly (away from people looking for titillation) against that for this straight ahead all on his sleeve bloviating show from Chapelle is supposed to be… What?

Following a marketing dictum of meeting the customer / audience where they are — in virtual space one where at the start of the oughts you realize that a message board is pointless, and maybe you fumble about with a blog before not finding any monetizing technique and throwing it away so in the mid-oughts you move to a MySpace page before moving to Facebook before going to a batch of platforms — probably still facebook, but Twitter and YouTube are more useful —

Well, maybe the time will come when everyone needs a pornhub account.

A Taiwanese math expert who goes by Changhsu has found the ideal venue for teaching audiences calculus, and that venue is, of course, Pornhub. To date, the teacher has uploaded 226 videos, none of which feature anything more erotic than the smashing together of numbers. […]

Though his online presence was already solid, Changhsu started his Pornhub channel last year since, in his words, “very few people teach math on adult video platforms.”

I guess that may change sometime soon… or late.

Going to his site, I see a wide discrepancy on “thumbs up” percentages for his videos. I hasten to guess the differences between those getting 30 percentages and those getting ninety percentages.

Now that I was at pornhub scanning math tutorials, I typed “portland” into the search function — and was tossed back to … That time a top less woman walked by, and I was left speculating there was a hidden camera. For pretty good reason as — yep! There she is, with a bunch of videos posted at pornhub — probably elsewhere too. Clicking about a couple of this exhibitionist salesjob, I half think I recognize someone walking by — but he resembles any number of people so this is only a “half think”. I imagine if you look through enough of this — I guess it is not actually porn — you may find me, or someone you know — never given permission — at pornhub.

A little weird that I accurately the set-up.

All Kinds of amusing. The ideology of forged opposition — against all ramifications of a, quote -inquire “Deep State”, gets the Trump Conspiratorial minded frontline rearguard fighters in legal strategy trouble. The dilemma may be, though, that it hardly matters. You fight on a higher plane than your public defenders’ quest to spring you from jail — that higher plane that will notice judicial chicanery — Enter the the Gold Fringe flag defense or declarations of sovereign citizens.

At best there may be someone there as smart as Ammon Bundy in understanding nuances of sympathies in dealing with a jury. Though, precisely how you maneuver from his “Sadesbrush Rebellion” trope to their keeping divisive partisan control, I can not say. In the days of their Mahueur stand-off, I read them or some spokesperson from them interviewed arguing a cross -ideological “everyone mad” motif at central power. Makes some sense in a world where these right wing activists are not tied to one political party of power (move on to a surreal and grating to some observers post verdict shared lunch with some blm activists) — but here, a jury pool runs right up against the reality that the self defender is just trying to keep his guy in power.

But a self defense and guilty verdict makes for good self-matrydom… Even as they search the courtroom to see if it happens to be waving the gold fringe.

More amusement follows when you cram them together to… Explore the dilemmas of the gold fringes.

There are headlines in which I have to decide if I care to dip into the details, and where the details will provide some nuance on what I think of this headline, which not knowing gives the advantage of leaving the story in the abstract so I can stick to considering the abstract values — or splitting the differences in parallel stories. Or, if I knew there is a strong possibility there just isn’t a story.

So, I do not know what is up with The Rolling Stones dropping “Brown Sugar” from their playlist. As a matter of course I approve. As a matter of course I would approve if they left it in their concerts. By now we all know that The Rolling Stones have amassed a large collection of songs to draw from, and the disappearance of any one can hardly be thought of as maybe even noticeable. Go ahead — you can listen to “Brown Sugar” right this instant if need be — I and no one else is stopping you! But therein lay the problem, and splintered realities. How did this come to light? If it were a press release, delivered I would go ahead and blast Mic Jagger and company (this “Blues Cover Band”, and there Paul McCartney is just amusing himself in good natured ribbing of a rival band he never really had truck with in the first place) as engaging in “virtue signaling”. And maybe there are worse things in the world, bigger faults, then deciphering an audience and playing to it — probably badly as I can not imagine Generation Zoomers rolling into a Rolling Stones concert checking off a list of objectionable materials in song lyrics, or of the famous ” woke mob” detouring from a Dave Chapelle protest to concern themselves with a Legacy Rock Act playing their old time music.

. The matter might get a little more wearisome if this were an answer to an interview, and there I would have to look and see what it is the aging rock star says — and to what question… And if the questions were the focus point for any interviewing. Like, if the media outlet called up the PR flacks for a “we want to interview your opinion on ‘cancel culture’ and shifting cultural awareness”, and Jagger said “yes, my thoughts are that is exactly what is needed!” — I guess I would a little less of Jagger.

And why do I not look into this? If I knew the matter would be settled, and it will likely show up as not in any way interesting.

On a cliche as far back as 1988 (though, in his shirtlessness “Grandpa Randy” more resembles Iggy Pop than the usually shirted Rolling Stones.) Archie generally lagging — so this motif could probably be set by the late 1970s. (Worth noting, the latest edition of ‘Betty and Veronica Jumbo Digest’ includes a reprint from 1960 where Betty “introduces” the term “frenemy”, apparently a use which prompted an Internet comics site q and a column A year back — Cold War terminology in the 1950s put it in print, or an upper class snob constellation of Socialites bandied about in the 1940s so, I guess, it could peter down to the lower class pieces at the end of century — sure, but that does not answer the question — was it midwifed here in 1960 by the hands of Frank Doyle? Nay. I do gather there is probably a direct correlation between this online column and Archie Comics reprinting it, claim partial ownership of interest.)

I scratch my head round about here-parts — Oh, this tweet from Progressive Messaging Inc blasting the media for the public’s understanding of that which is “Build Back Better” —

GOP: BBB is costly! media: BBB is costly! Dems: it’s filled w/ popular stuff! media: it’s costly!

I see in the conservative sphere the contention from this premise, apparently barked out by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi — that the media is falling down on the job in-game as the Republican outlets see her words as them not promoting it right as opposed to the partisan belief belief that it isn’t getting explained right –. And surely we have seen in the past that claim when Republican causes come to the same “public would be for it if they just had our framing in place and the media is not telling the truth that our framing is right!” gist —

Well, it would be easier for the premise of “Popular thing! Popular Thing! Popular Thing!” as opposed to “Bunch of Stuff” if the bill were not basically identifiable as the “Bunch of Stuff Act of 2021.”

Off of this we have a “Presidency in Peril”. Supposedly. And maybe we do — maybe the expectations fight for the partisans backing him can not be won. The problem comes in an opposition laying ugly undemocratic grounds, and maybe this is just a sales job, or maybe this is setting up a disastrous self-fulfilling storyline:

“I tell Democrats: Donald Trump is desperate for a win here,” McAuliffe said. “If Glenn Youngkin wins, it’s a win for Donald Trump, and you’re going to begin his political comeback.”

I saw basically the same premise told by a Democratic aligned pollster or pundit, and would prefer to quote him. The problem is there is plenty to dislike from McAuliffe, and the vote will always be viewed as a referendum on anything and everything. Everything comes to equate to nothing. Currently he is getting dubbed by Education policy, with the problem that that his partisans view themselves as so in the right as to have no brokering room to semi skeptics in semi opposition. The policy difference will become “Trumpist” in the eyes…

… On a gubernatorial seat that until Obama’s second term, the seat flipped always to the party not in the White House — dating back to Carter…