Click here for Part 1

I love The 40 Year-Old Virgin for the same reason Shoshanna Shapiro quickly became my favorite character on Girls: not because of her personal virginphobia, but because in a world threatened with terrorism, hunger, and the pending threat of Obamacare, virginity remains one of the greatest crises of our time.

Thanks to the goddess feminist revolt of the sexy sixties, bedroom activities have risen to the top of the pops when it comes to ratings-driven conversation. As a result, virgins have become stigmatized as uncool goods. It’s no wonder, then, that pop culture-obsessed Shoshanna is neurotic enough to spend an entire season trying her best to lose her virginity so she can catch up to her “adventurous” female counterparts like Jessa (who came to the states for an abortion) and Hannah (who has recently been diagnosed with HPV).

How did feminism come to embrace promiscuity as a form of empowerment? Is the “adventurous” woman treating her HPV really happier than the biblical feminist who resisted the culture and waited until marriage to have sex?

The top story right now at TMZ is about Michael Jackson’s daughter:

Note the particular ad that TMZ decided to follow it, minus the cropped photo of female breasts used to grab attention to the left of the text:

Any relationship between the two? Isn’t that kind of strange — the insistence on sex and death at the same time?

Check out the previous installments in Becky Graebner’s dissection of House of Cards. Spoiler Warning!

May 8: 3 Washington D.C. Stereotypes House of Cards Hits Too Close for Comfort

May 15: The House of Cards Vision of Infidelity: More Fact than Fiction

May 22: Seduce Your Way to the Top? Meet The Anne Boleyns of Washington, D.C.

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Politicians… we love to hate them. And sometimes we love them more than they deserve.

Politicians have a tough rap in Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, many citizens have come to associate public office with corruption. Thanks to the media, it has become the norm to see “scandal” written all over the papers, and these frequent scandals have exposed some of our leaders as immoral, untrustworthy frauds.

Playing with our already preconceived perceptions of politicians in Washington, D.C., House of Cards portrays almost all of its political characters as being corrupt.  I shiver to think that there are politicians running around D.C., killing their mentees, but sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.  A lot of the activities seen in HoC are things that our beloved senators, congressmen, and presidents have been caught doing. What’s even more shocking is that the public seems to take them back. Are we so jaded that bad behavior has become the norm?  Not quite — but I do blame Disney.

When my (millennial) editor suggested I write about my favorite (fellow) Generation X-ers, it took me four days to think of one name.

Then the rest of the week to come up with the rest.

For someone who is as cohort-sensitive as I am, who rages constantly about “kids these days,” and who feels most comfortable socializing almost exclusively with other X-ers, I found this assignment surprisingly daunting.

I used a HighLowBrow post about Gen-Xers to try to kickstart my brain.

That site calls us “Recons” and counts those born between 1964-1973 as members of that generation.

The article features a labor-of-love list of famous Recons/X-ers that was invaluable in helping me put together this column.

Predictably, I take issue with their chosen start date, however.

It’s a weird definition of “Generation X” that excludes the guy who popularized the phrase (Douglas Coupland, 1961) or the fellow who wrote our “national anthem” (Gordon Gano, 1963):

As a general rule, it’s all fine and good for a comedian to be funny-looking. Zach Galifianakis is not only funny-looking, he’s hilarious-looking: He could be the lonely love child of Chewbacca and Rosie O’Donnell. But Zach G’s big problem is that, after four years in the spotlight as one of Hollywood’s most sought-after comedy stars, he still has nothing else going for him but the way he looks.

Here are five reasons it’s time to stick a fork in this meatball of an actor.

1) He Keeps Doing the Same Shtick.

Galifianakis is forever playing the same strange, foolhardy egomaniac whether in the three Hangover movies, Due Date,or The Campaign. In the completely unnecessary sequel The Hangover Part III he takes over starring duties as Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms step aside. But a little of Zach goes a long way.

Among his big moments are the one where the dudes are looking at a doll house modeled after the real house they’re about to break into to steal $20 million worth of gold and Galifianakis says, “We’re not gonna break into this house, right? This house is too small.” No one is that stupid, sorry.

What is it about the word “art”? Pronounce it, and the IQ of susceptible folk is instantly halved. (I’ve seen cases where it is diminished by 87 percent.) Normally sensible people who do not, as a rule, appreciate being being made fools of stand idly by as someone tells them that a video of some charlatan climbing naked up a scaffolding while applying vaseline to sensitive parts of his body is “the most important American artist of his generation.” Instead of throwing something soft and rotting at such mountebanks, they nod solemnly and reach for their wallets. They are only too eager, when a stiffy arrives from the Museum of Modern Art or some similar establishment, to don the soup and fish and buzz round to the super exclusive evening event where scores of beautiful people line up to sip the shampoo and admire a tank full of formaldehyde and a dead tiger shark.

What is it about the word “art” that endows it with this mind-and-character-wrecking property? Why does it induce incontinent gibbering, not to mention mind-boggling extravagance, among normally hard-headed souls? A full answer would take us deep into the pathology of our time. It has something to do with what I’ve called elsewhere the institutionalization of the avant-garde, the contradictory project whereby the tics and outré attitudes of the avant-garde go mainstream. The half-comic, half-contemptible result is that ordinary bourgeois adults find themselves in the embarrassing position of celebrating the juvenile, anti-bourgeois antics of people who detest them.

Our misuse of the word “art” also has something to do with our age’s tendency to look to art for spiritual satisfactions traditionally afforded by religion. “In the absence of a belief in God,” Wallace Stevens observed, “poetry is that essence which takes its place as life’s redemption.”

That, anyway, is the idea, though exactly what sort of “redemption” may be had from much that goes by the name of “art” today is another question. Consider, to take an example I read about just a couple of days ago, Millie Brown. This 26-year-old deep thinker drinks tinted milk and then regurgitates it over a canvas. That’s her claim to immortality. And good news! The Daily Mail reports that Brown’s “unique vomit-art canvases will be available for purchase.” Act quickly! “Many maintain that now is a great time to invest in this hotly tipped artist.” Who knows? The Mail also reports that one of Millie’s most avid fans is the pop singer Lady Gaga, “who personally chose the artist to feature in her own performance video,” in which “Millie can be seen vomiting shimmering turquoise liquid over the singer.” The paper compares Millie Brown to Jackson Pollock. People — not art people — used to say contemptuously that their child of five could paint something indiscernible from a Jackson Pollock painting. Perhaps so. Millie has gone a step further: her creations are indiscernible from the “creations” of one year olds, whose canvases are the products not of their hands but of other organs.

As an early teen in the early ’80s, it was just about impossible not to like Michael Jackson’s music. It was certainly impossible to avoid it. With Thriller, Jackson and producer Quincy Jones set out to make the ultimate crossover album — one that would gain black and white audiences in equal measure. And equal airplay, too, back when radio stations were even more racially targeted than they are today.

And boy, did they succeed.

But Michael Jackson the person? It was pretty obvious even then that he was one strange dude. What happened though is what happens to too many child performers: The weirdness went up and up, while the quality of the performances went down and down. By the time Dangerous came out in 1991, the magic was pretty much gone. It sold in the millions, yet nobody was buying it. And by that I mean, nobody was buying Jackson’s pseudo tough/tender/ladies man act anymore. The weird was just too weird.

Then came the obligatory-yet-somehow-disappointing greatest hits collection, the horrifying-yet-believable stories about his sleepover parties with kids…

I shudder even to think about it. His last studio album, ironically named Invincible, came out after years of delays and way over budget — and to a tepid response.

It was around this time he was dangling babies off balconies and looking like a bad drag queen version of Elizabeth Taylor. Oh, and he’d somehow managed to go broke buying giraffes and rollercoasters and stuff. The music had hit bottom and the weird was at the top of the charts.

The amazingly talented and abused little boy who never had a childhood, never really had an adulthood, either. There’s so much blame to go around, you barely know where to start.

There’s nothing that makes Hollywood more nervous than portraying Islamist terror. As far back as 1994, James Cameron’s True Lies was denounced as racially insensitive for imagining a chillingly plausible Islamist terror threat involving nuclear weapons. Cameron, anticipating accusations of unfairly linking terrorism with Islam and Arabs, took care to try for “balance” by placing an Arab-American character on the good guys’ side (the actor who played him, Grant Heslov, this year won an Oscar as one of the producers of Argo). Yet the advocacy group the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) slammed the film anyway. The hysterical 1998 movie The Siege imagined that, in an overreaction to a terrorist attack, Brooklyn would be placed under martial law and all young Muslim men would be interned in Yankee Stadium. Ridiculous.

Since 2001, of course, Hollywood has almost completely avoided showing any Muslim involved in terror, changing the bad guys in 2002’s The Sum of All Fears from Palestinians to neo-Nazis. The 2005 Jodie Foster movie Flightplan, about an abduction on an airplane, used a hint that Arabs might be responsible as a red herring. The actual villain: an all-American air marshal played by Peter Sarsgaard. Several Middle East themed movies like Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies essentially saw a moral equivalence between the U.S. and the Islamists, saying both sides were up to comparably nasty stuff in the War on Terror.

Vice President Joe Biden drew parallels with the movie Deliverance while addressing a benefit dinner for a volunteer legal group that helps domestic violence survivors.

Biden’s daughter-in-law, Kathleen Biden, is a co-chair of the group. Calling him “Pop,” she introduced the veep to the crowd packed with even more Bidens.

According to the White House pool report, he peppered his speech with family stories and told the audience that his granddaughter implores him to stop referring to them as his daughters in public because “people will think something’s wrong.”

“All you women out there: Daughters are wonderful. Granddaughters are better,” Biden said. ”When they’re 12 to 14, a dad puts his beautiful little daughter to bed. And then the next morning, there’s a snake in the bed.”

Biden talked about his work in Congress on the Violence Against Women Act when he brought up the Deliverance reference.

“After those guys tied that one guy to the tree and raped him, man-raped him in the film, why didn’t the guy go the sheriff?” Biden asked. “They don’t want to get raped again by the system.”

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Cross-posted from the PJ Tatler

In The Company You Keep, Robert Redford stars in as well as directs a story of an ex-Weather Underground radical who has been living quietly as a public-interest lawyer in upstate New York for more than 30 years. His true identity is discovered by an annoying reporter (Shia LaBeouf) after the apprehension of one of his co-conspirators (Susan Sarandon), who was one of four terrorists who robbed a bank and murdered several security guards in the process.

Redford, that noted “liberal activist,” shows where his sympathies truly are. This is a movie that argues:

1. The Weathermen were fighting for peace.

The Company You Keep begins with a montage of real news clips (and a fake one) edited together to tell the story that the Weather Underground grew out of the antiwar group Students for a Democratic Society and that its activities were meant to end the Vietnam War by “bringing the war home.” Nonsense. The Weathermen loved war and wanted more of it. They were a murderous group of Black Power and Marxist revolutionaries bent on the violent overthrow of the United States. After the 1970 accidental explosion that killed several terrorists who blew themselves up with their own bombs in a downtown New York City townhouse, the true intent of the bombs was revealed: They were meant to be used to blow up a library on the campus of Columbia University. Not exactly a military target.

Comic Jim Carrey takes to the august pixels of the Sideboob Gazette to hit back, again, at those of us who don’t care much for people who make their livings pretending to be other people lecturing us about reality.

For those who say I’m a hypocrite because I have an armed bodyguard, lets make one thing clear: No one in my employ is allowed to carry a large magazine and NO ONE IS ASKING ANYONE TO GIVE UP THEIR RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS, though it is in the vested interests of those who profit by gun sales to make it seem so.

Alrighty then. So if you happen to get into a shootout with Jim Carrey’s bodyguards, you can just wait them out.

Next up, Carrey compares himself to Ronaldus Magnus.

And to the bullies who will try to marginalize and discredit me by saying, “Shut up, you’re just an actor,” while they brag about what a great president the ACTOR Ronald Reagan was, who threaten me with the demise of my acting career and much worse, I say SO BE IT!

Reagan was also a union leader and successful governor who spent decades formulating ideas and plans to dismantle the Soviet Union. Carrey has spent decades turning his face into rubber.

Don’t read these two lines and then call Jim Carrey a hypocrite, though.

These horrific events are also an invitation for us to become more civilized and to deal with our addiction and entitlement to violence.

Later in the same piece…

These thugs, though menacing, are a minority but they will have their way if good people don’t step forward now and make a difference.

It’s as if Carrey knows words, and knows how to put them together into a sentence, but does not know what the words actually mean.

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Cross-posted from PJ Tatler

My latest parody video is up. Don’t worry, no vapid, ignorant celebrities were injured during the filming of this parody — at least not physically. Their fragile egos may have taken a beating, though. Enjoy!

Hat tip: JW

*Updated: Video has apparently been pulled, when a new one can be found it will be replaced, in the mean time, a link to the story:

via Jamie Foxx calls Barack Obama ‘our lord and savior’ – Spokane Conservative | Examiner.com.

Appearing on Sunday night’s Soul Train awards in Las Vegas, Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx called Barack Obama “our lord and savior.”

“It’s like church over here. It’s like church in here. First of all, give an honor to God and our lord and savior Barack Obama. Barack Obama,” he said.

Since the 2008 election, several have attempted to deify Barack Obama.

ABC’s Jake Tapper noticed the messianic tone of Obama’s first presidential campaign and wrote: “It’s as if Tom Daschle descended from on high saying, ‘Be not afraid; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people: for there is born to you this day in the city of Chicago a Savior, who is Barack the Democrat.’”

Updated: Another embed of the clip found and updated.

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Related:

Why Black Jesus Wears a Hoodie Today 

8 Ways Blacks Perpetuate Racism and the Only Way to Thwart It

The Waiting for ‘Superman’ of the New Atheists

Why is Identity Politics Evil?

via Lady Gaga Has Even More Weird Thoughts On What It Means To Be A Feminist | The Jane Dough.

You know what’s so funny is, I actually think there’s a new feminism that is completely different and I don’t think either is better or worse. Any kind of feminist has valid views for herself about what it means to be a feminist, but, as a new-age feminist, I would say I quite like the transference of strength I feel by submitting to a man – being under him. I actually wrote a song about it on my album, it’s called GUY and it stands for Go Under You. So wearing make-up, smelling delicious and having suckable, kissable, edible things between your limbs is something I find strengthening because I know that when I pick the right guy, I can let him have it. Some women feel oppressed by make-up and clothing, and here’s to them, they have every right to feel that way as well.

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Related at PJ Lifestyle:

How Today’s Young Women Learned To Sing The Truth About Hookup Culture

‘Feminist Progress Right Now Largely Depends on the Existence of the Hookup Culture.’

via Rosie O’Donnell Wants to Buy Honey Boo Boo’s Family a House | OK! Magazine.

Just last week Rosie O’Donnell talked about the heart attack that gave her a second lease on life and now the comedian’s back on track with her comments about Honey Boo Boo.

The 50 year-old told People she’s a fan of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. “I love Mama June. I love Sugar Bear. I love Chubbs. I love ‘em all.”

Apparently so! Rosie even compares Alana Thompson to the famous child actress, Shirley Temple. “She has a presence and an intellect that goes way beyond her years.”

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Related at PJ Media:

Former Staffers Say Working for Rosie O’Donnell was an Epic Nightmare

Related at PJ Lifestyle:

7 Laws for Public Decency When I Rule the World

via  Nick Cassavetes — Incest Comments Will NOT Affect My Career | TMZ.com.

Director Nick Cassavetes tells TMZ, he isnt a politician … hes an artist who makes movies — and thats why his comments about brother-sister lovin wont have a damned effect on his career.As we previously reported, Nick recently spoke out in defense of ALL kinds of relationships while promoting his new film in Toronto this weekend — gay, straight, incestuous, whatever — saying, “Who gives a st if people judge you? Im not saying this is an absolute but in a way, if youre not having kids — who gives a damn?”

via Hollywood Star Embraces Incest – Ben Shapiro – [page].

This week, writer-director Nick Cassavetes released his new movie, “Yellow,” about a woman having an affair with her brother. “I have no experience with incest,” says Cassavetes. “We started thinking about that. We had heard a few stories where brothers and sisters were completely, absolutely in love with one another. You know what? This whole movie is about judgment, and lack of it, and doing what you want.”

But Cassavetes wasn’t done: “Who gives a s— if people judge you? I’m not saying this is an absolute, but in a way, if you’re not having kids, who gives a damn? Love who you want. Isn’t that what we say? Gay marriage — love who you want? If it’s your brother or sister, it’s super weird, but if you look at it, you’re not hurting anybody except every single person who freaks out because you’re in love with one another.”

Here’s the thing: Cassavetes is exactly correct.

There are those who say that gay marriage is a slippery slope toward incest. It isn’t. The gay marriage and incest lie are justified by precisely the same moral argument: the argument that love defines an acceptable relationship. Sexual urges are, according to the left, their own moral justification — what is biological is justifiable. If gays and lesbians are “born this way,” why not incestuous duos? If consent is the highest value and two siblings consent, what’s the problem?

[...]

Incest isn’t the final stopping point for the sexual left. The final stopping point is pedophilia. All it takes is for the left to declare that children have the ability to make rational decisions about their own sexuality. Then the final string tethering Western society to her Judeo-Christian moral roots will be severed. And Hollywood will celebrate.

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Related at PJ Lifestyle:

‘Feminist Progress Right Now Largely Depends on the Existence of the Hookup Culture.’

The Sex Bots Have Arrived

Wayne Brady: Bill Maher Likes His Black Men Violent and His Black Women Prostitutes

7 Reasons Why The Right Should Not Seek to Convert The Left

In certain lighting and following a reasonably stiff drink, strangers start to inform me that I look like that actor who had erotic relations with an apple pie. This has resulted in a few evenings of fun for me over the years, as when we notice people whispering “is that the guy?” and pointing in dark restaurants, my wife and I pretend to be having an emotional conversation about a wayward friend named “Stifler”.

After last night’s performance, this is not a person I ever wish to be associated with, even mistakenly. He revealed himself to be a classic jerk, a careless, dehumanizing, misogynist bigot pushing the worst sort of Leftist demonization. Twitchy has compiled the filth to read; I’d rather not repost it here. But you should see it, if only for a glimpse at what a Hollywood Leftist feels he can safely get away with if the target is conservatives or Christians.

My guess is even Hollywood will respond negatively to this — but only for the misogyny. Perhaps Biggs will be needing a new agent by this evening. I’ll be at home, dyeing my hair.

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Cross-posted from the PJ Tatler

via Ghouls: Jim Carrey wants to ‘revise’ Second Amendment; Other celebs politicize Empire State Building shooting | Twitchy.

Details regarding this morning’s tragic Empire State Building shooting are still emerging. The blood isn’t even dry, but as always, that’s not stopping the opportunistic gun control ghouls like Mayor Bloomberg from politicizing the shooting.

A 41-year-old is dead, several more people are injured, and shameless Smarter Than You™ celebrities are more than happy to build their gun-grabbing case on the backs of the victims. As Twitchy already reported, Kim Kardashian is calling for Americans to “rethink gun laws.” And actor Jim Carrey wants to “revise” the Second Amendment.

Jim Carrey✔

@JimCarrey

No semi auto guns!Every 2 wks now, another mass shooting.AMERICA allowing this behavior is beneath us!Revise the second ammendment. ;^\

24 Aug 12

So, Jim Carrey has no use for the Bill of Rights? What exactly is keeping him here in America, eh?

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More on Jim Carrey at PJ Lifestyle:

Thank You: Jim Carrey Abandons Dumb and Dumber 2 Due to ‘Lack of Enthusiasm’ From Studio