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Black Strap Molasses (song)

The song's lyrics discuss popular health foods of the time. The verses make "absurd" claims about the supposed benefits of these foods, and the chorus runs:

Black strap molasses and the wheat germ bread
Makes you live so long you wish you were dead
You add a little yogurt and you'll be well fed
On the black strap molasses and the wheat germ bread.

One contemporary review interpreted the lyrics as referring specifically to the "Live Longer" diet advocated by nutritionist Gayelord Hauser. Hauser, labeled a "quack" by the American Medical Association, gained widespread popularity in the mid-twentieth century promoting "wonder foods" including blackstrap molasses, wheat germ, and yogurt, as well as brewer's yeast and powdered milk. He was known as a nutrition guru to many Hollywood celebrities.

Molasses.

I purchased a book through Amazon. No big deal, I have a couple dozen ebooks that I purchased through Amazon. I checked my email a little bit ago, and found this:

"Some Old Guy, did 'A State of Disobedience' meet your expectations? Review it on Amazon"

Ehhh, I liked the story, and was prepared to write a review on it. So, I clicked the link. Odd - the link loaded, and they asked to send me a code to verify that I'm me. Didn't ask for my password or anything like that. I approved the code thing, then pasted that code into their form. The next page to load told me:

To submit reviews, customers must make a minimum number of valid debit or credit card purchases. Prime subscriptions and promotional discounts don't qualify towards the purchase minimum. For more information, see our Customer Review Guidelines.

Now, that seems pretty screwed up. I didn't exactly volunteer to spend my time doing book reviews for Amazon. They asked me, not the other way around. FFS, they know that I don't spend thousands of dollars per year on their products. Why bother to send me an invite, if they didn't intend to honor the invitation?

Just more stupid shit from a big corporation. Fek Amazon, and double-plus double-good double-fek Jeff. I'll probably spend even less money at Amazon after this.

Previously: NYT: #MeToo Leader/Victim Settled With Her Own Accuser

Just some further developments.

Italian Filmmaker Wears "Weinstein is Innocent" Shirt on 'Suspiria' Red Carpet

Her father directed the original film. The article discusses Italian attitudes towards #MeToo.

Asia Argento's Episodes on Parts Unknown No Longer Streaming After She's Accused of Sexual Assault

CNN has stopped streaming episodes of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown that include Asia Argento after a sexual assault allegation was made against her.

“In light of the recent news reports about Asia Argento, CNN will discontinue airing past episodes of Parts Unknown that included her, until further notice,” a CNN spokesperson tells PEOPLE.

Argento, 42, appeared in the Rome and Southern Italy episodes of the show and directed a Hong Kong episode, during which Bourdain said, “To fall in love with Asia is one thing. To fall in love in Asia is another. Both have happened to me.”

A Buenos Aires episode, which did not feature Argento, was also removed from CNN Go for unspecified reasons, according to BuzzFeed News which was first to report.

Leah McSweeney and Asia Argento’s war of words could escalate

When Penthouse columnist Leah McSweeney lambasted Asia Argento last month in a column called “Can We Talk About Toxic Femininity?,” she was hit with an angry legal letter from Argento’s team, she said.

McSweeney posted the letter on Instagram after she wrote in the opinion column that Argento, who has accused Harvey Weinstein of rape, instead “had a sexual relationship with Weinstein, which resulted in a transactional, consensual union, because — let’s be honest — that’s how Hollywood works.”

Rose McGowan Says Asia Argento Admitted to Sleeping With Young Actor

Rose McGowan, one of the leading voices of the #MeToo movement, said Monday that her partner had exchanged text messages with the actress and director Asia Argento in which Ms. Argento said that she had indeed slept with the actor Jimmy Bennett — an act that Ms. Argento recently denied.

In a lengthy statement, Ms. McGowan also said that her partner — the model Rain Dove — told her that in text messages, Ms. Argento had said that she had been receiving unsolicited nude photos of Mr. Bennett since the time he was 12 years old and had not informed the authorities or told him to stop sending the photos.

So she did the deed, but little Jimmy may have been thirstier than he remembers.

Rain Dove speaks out about Asia Argento allegations

Argento complained, Dove told CNN, that she was being extorted for money by Bennett and initially denied having sex with him. Argento later contradicted herself in an alleged text exchange with Dove, which Dove shared with CNN.

"The Public knows nothing, only what the NYT wrote. Which is one sided. The shakedown letter. The horny kid jumped me...," an alleged text from Argento read.

"So it was rape? Or an attempted sexual action?" Rain Dove replied in a text viewed by CNN.

"I had sex with him it felt weird. I didn't know he was a minor until the shakedown letter," Argento allegedly wrote in response.

2013 photo, with comments

Damage control:

The future of #MeToo: 'The movement is bigger than Asia Argento'

And finally, some real cheese.

Agents Tried to Flip Russian Oligarchs. The Fallout Spread to Trump. (archive)

In the estimation of American officials, Oleg V. Deripaska, a Russian oligarch with close ties to the Kremlin, has faced credible accusations of extortion, bribery and even murder.

They also thought he might make a good source.

Between 2014 and 2016, the F.B.I. and the Justice Department unsuccessfully tried to turn Mr. Deripaska into an informant. They signaled that they might provide help with his trouble in getting visas for the United States or even explore other steps to address his legal problems. In exchange, they were hoping for information on Russian organized crime and, later, on possible Russian aid to President Trump’s 2016 campaign, according to current and former officials and associates of Mr. Deripaska. In one dramatic encounter, F.B.I. agents appeared unannounced and uninvited at a home Mr. Deripaska maintains in New York and pressed him on whether Paul Manafort, a former business partner of his who went on to become chairman of Mr. Trump’s campaign, had served as a link between the campaign and the Kremlin.

The attempt to flip Mr. Deripaska was part of a broader, clandestine American effort to gauge the possibility of gaining cooperation from roughly a half-dozen of Russia’s richest men, nearly all of whom, like Mr. Deripaska, depend on President Vladimir V. Putin to maintain their wealth, the officials said.

Two of the players in the effort were Bruce G. Ohr, the Justice Department official who has recently become a target of attacks by Mr. Trump, and Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled a dossier of purported links between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The systematic effort to win the cooperation of the oligarchs, which has not previously been revealed, does not appear to have scored any successes. And in Mr. Deripaska’s case, he told the American investigators that he disagreed with their theories about Russian organized crime and Kremlin collusion in the campaign, a person familiar with the exchanges said. The person added that Mr. Deripaska even notified the Kremlin about the American efforts to cultivate him.

"Thanks, but no thanks."

How McCain Got the Last Word Against Trump (archive)

By the time he died on Saturday, Mr. McCain had carefully stage-managed a four-day celebration of his life — but what was also an unmistakable rebuke to President Trump and his agenda. For years, Mr. Trump had used Twitter and the presidential bully pulpit to mock and condemn the senator. In death, Mr. McCain found a way to have the last word, even quietly making it clear through friends that Mr. Trump was not welcome at the services.

“I think it’s fair to say that they have a very different view of this country and what this country means, here and abroad,” said Mark Salter, the senator’s longtime friend and co-author who sat with Mr. McCain — often with a lump in his throat — during the many discussions about his looming death. “His overall message was: ‘It doesn’t have to be this shitty.’”

The series of events honoring Mr. McCain is the kind of grandiose spectacle that is normally reserved for someone who became president, not someone who twice failed to do so. Friends said that Mr. McCain was surprised by the level of interest in his death even as he planned it.

When advisers suggested that his coffin should lie in state at the Arizona Capitol, Mr. McCain said he believed the legislature would never approve such a rare honor for him, recalled Rick Davis, who had been at Mr. McCain’s side for decades and served as his 2008 campaign chairman. “Every inch of the way, he underestimated what he thought this would be about,” Mr. Davis said.

The memorial events this week began in Arizona on Wednesday, when Mr. McCain’s body was taken to the Capitol, and will continue Thursday at a service at North Phoenix Baptist Church. The procession will then shift to the nation’s capital, when Mr. McCain’s coffin will arrive at an air base outside Washington as the president holds one of his raucous campaign-style rallies for supporters in Indiana.

By the weekend, when virtually all of official Washington — Democrats and Republicans alike — gathers at the National Cathedral for a nationally televised farewell, Mr. Trump is expected to have retreated to Camp David, where White House aides hope he will contain his anger at the attention being lavished on Mr. McCain.

[...] Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian activist who survived two poisoning attempts for his opposition to the government of President Vladimir V. Putin, said that Mr. McCain, who was widely seen as one of the Russian leader’s fiercest detractors, had also asked him in April to be a pallbearer. “He spoke the truth regardless of party or political situations,” Mr. Kara-Murza said. “That was his defining characteristic.”

In Washington, a town where Mr. Trump has given Mr. Putin an open invitation to visit, Mr. Kara-Murza said that Mr. McCain’s choice of a Russian pallbearer — one repeatedly brought to the brink of death for challenging his country’s authoritarian brand of politics — was “actually pretty symbolic.”

John McCain: Sarah Palin 'excluded from his funeral'

Camerota asked Sununu about the Washington Post’s report that the president personally rejected plans for a White House statement to honor McCain.

“That was printed in the Washington Post,” Sununu said. “And I have to be honest with you, I don’t give much credence to what I read –”

Camerota interjected — noting that CNN confirmed the information.

“We also have that reporting,” she said.

Sununu scoffed at this.

“Yeah, well, same thing applies, Alisyn.”

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2018/08/27/cnns-sununu-torches-cnns-camerota-for-trying-to-turn-mccain-tribute-into-a-trump-bashing-event-n2513452

I remember Sununu from years past. I never liked him, or disliked him. He seemed like the average politcian - probably dirty, but not terribly dirty. He did stuff that needed to be done, and no one really had to take notice of him, I guess.

Today, I have to salute him. He says that WaPo lacks credibility - as well as CNN. WAY TO GO JOHN!!!

I'm about sick of CNN. At work, they've recently put television in the break room. I don't know why - I guess they have their reasons. I spend VERY little time in the break room, but I'm finding that it's too much time. All I have to do is walk through, and I hear disgusting crap, all tilted far left. Trump this, Trump that, and "Did you hear what Trump did now?" FFS, it's tiresome. (Is this the first "resistance" in history to bore the opposition to tears?)

This skank, Camerota, was purpotedly there to talk about McCain. I never thought highly of McCain, but that's beside the point. The purpose of the interview is to honor the dead guy. Camerota, instead, insists on stabbing at Trump. She dirties the name of the dead guy, to win points against Trump. "We have excellent reporters". Bullshit. You stupid bitch, reporters REPORT THE NEWS!! They don't insist on shaping the news, or creating the news, or even telling you what the news means. Just report the news!!

Sununu definitely got the better of this skanky wannabe.

Aaaaaargh. This is going to be news to precisely no one who knows a woman or is one, but I'm gonna say it again anyway: womens' clothing SUCKS.

First, and biggest problem: they all assume that if you're a given size in one measurement, the rest of you matches up too. This couldn't be further from the truth. According to a standard size chart, I have the waist of a 12, the hips of a 14 or 16, and the bust of a 16. This makes finding anything with a proper fit basically impossible. You *have* to go with the larger measurements, which means 1) high-rise and mid-rise jeans are too big around the middle and 2) there is simply no way I can wear a dress or other one-piece clothing item without alterations.

Second: why the bloody hell do sizes *differ* from manufacturer to manufacturer?! In some brands I'm a 12 waist, in some a 10, in one a 14 (wtf), and of course everything else varies as well. This varies brand by brand, even if you're shopping in the same store. If you wonder why we take eleventy hojillion items to the dressing room and spend so much time trying stuff on, THIS is why.

Third: pockets. Full stop. Yes, this is getting better, but it's hard to find pants that have the number and size pockets mens' pants do. I know, I know, we're supposed to splash out several hundred dollars on some ruinously expensive branded handbag. Screw that. I don't have the money, and even if I did it wouldn't be spent on a handbag. And good grief are they ugly, with their diamond patterns or repeated monograms or whatever. No, my messenger bag does fine for all my carry-stuff-around needs, and you can't fit a laptop in a $400 Gucci handbag. I may be femme but I'm not stupid, or lipstick for that matter.

In my opinion, the lack of pockets is something more cynical and sinister than just a ploy to get women to buy handbags: it's a deliberate removal of our agency. And false pockets, the ones that are just sewn-on seams with no actual depth, can DIAF.

Fourth: Quality and price. Mens' clothing seems a lot more substantial and I wear what pieces of it I can for that reason. It's also cheaper, aside from suits and formalwear. I can get a men's size L t-shirt (flaps on me like a tent but the M won't fit my chest...) for something like $5 at Shopko. I have *never* seen a womens' shirt for that price outside a very low-end thrift store, and the equivalents are smaller, thinner, made of less-durable materials, and MORE expensive.

Fifth: too much of our clothing is basically candy wrappers. What I mean by this is it exists mostly to imply what's under it, either by showing a lot of skin or, less greasily, indicating by color or pattern that "the person wearing this is demure, defenseless, meek, quiet, and perfectly happy to be basically an object." I really think sometimes that all the pink and floral pattern stuff is some sort of salve to mens' fragile egos, or at the very least a way of firmly separating the two sexes by clothing and letting all concerned know who stands where in the power dynamic.

Now yes, I'm aware 2/3 of the time men are not looking at our clothes specifically. And yes, I am very much aware most of this stuff is done to compete with *other women,* which is another game I flat-out refuse to play. It still pisses me off, and many a time I've been standing in the changing room thinking to myself "Madokami have mercy, WHAT does a girl need to do to get something functional, well-fitting, and decently-priced that *doesn't* tell the world I'm a simpering moron with no aims in life other than to lasso a guy?!"

There's way too much politics surrounding clothing, is what this boils down to. Politics, and something a level or two under it, also. I'm very aware that by not "playing the game" I'm shut out of many social interactions, and for interviews I do the "pretend to be perfectly normal" game with light makeup and the "appropriate" clothes, but what a crock. Do men worry about this stuff? It doesn't seem like it.

Have we just seen ghosts of black holes from another universe?

Evidence that Universe has infinite cycle of Big Bangs from very early black holes

Separately:

Physicists Say They've Come Up With a Mathematical Model For a Viable Time Machine

All you need is the same exotic matter that powers your Alcubierre drive. What? You don't have one of those?

The thing is is that...

No! The thing is not is that! What the thing is is that the thing is that!

Sorry. It really gets my goat. It's used by those who should know better.

The other idiom I can't stand is:

Have you got a pen?

No I don't.

Right, you don't have got a pen!

I don't expect everyone to have perfect grammar but I do expect those who work in the media, politics and other high profile roles with an emphasis on formal communication to at least use logical forms of accepted modern English.

Let the flaming commence!

Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer for the Trump Organization, was one of the executives who helped arrange $420,000 in payments to longtime Trump attorney Michael Cohen to help reimburse him for hush money he paid an adult-film star.

Weisslberg was granted immunity by federal investigators in New York in exchange for his truthful testimony about his role in the payments, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Weisselberg is the person identified in court filings as “Executive-1,” who prosecutors said helped authorize $420,000 in payments to Cohen, one person said. He testified before a grand jury investigating Cohen last month

Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg, who allegedly helped arrange hush-money reimbursement to Cohen, granted immunity

Federal prosecutors reached an immunity deal with the tabloid executive David J. Pecker, a key witness in their monthslong investigation into payments during the 2016 campaign to two women who said they had affairs with Donald J. Trump, according to two people familiar with the investigation.

Mr. Pecker is the chairman of American Media Inc., the nation’s biggest tabloid news publisher, which was involved in the payments, which prosecutors have identified as illegal contributions made in violation of campaign finance law.

David Pecker, Chief of National Enquirer’s Publisher, Is Said to Get Immunity in Trump Inquiry