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Ever since Trump went toe-to-toe with the parents of a dead Muslim veteran, the Republican Party has been in crisis mode.

Pence breaks with Trump, endorses Ryan

Pence: Trump 'strongly encouraged me to endorse Paul Ryan'

Paul Ryan is expected to win, so as irritating as the Trump non-endorsement may be to Party leaders, it might have a limited shelf life.

This fact is also amusing:

The GOP's Donald Trump freak-out

A GOP source told CNN's Dana Bash that Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus was especially frustrated because Paul Ryan and Priebus, both from Wisconsin, are very close. The source said Trump refusing to endorse Ryan in his re-election primary was "personal" especially since Priebus has "taken on a lot of water" for Trump. "He takes this very personally," said the source. Priebus "does want to show his support" for Ryan, a source tells CNN.

The chairman has been the main point of contact between Trump and the Republican Party, on which the billionaire has been relying heavily since he lacks the political infrastructure of a conventional political candidate. Priebus, who was said by the source to be incredibly upset with Trump's behavior, had expressed his disappointment and frustration to several leading members of Trump's entourage, the source said.

Is it all for naught?

A knowledgeable Republican source told CNN Tuesday that some of Trump's campaign staff -- even campaign chairman Paul Manafort -- "feel like they are wasting their time," given their boss's recent comments. But Manafort insisted to CNN Wednesaday that isn't true and any frustration centers on the media.

Los Angeles Gang Tour Puts A Twist On Drive-Bys

2010 article I found for crutchy on IRC.

Spoilers ahead!

I couldn't resist so I skipped through a camrip. (I'm sure the Correct the Record AC will come out of the woodwork and flame me for missing the brilliance of this film because I was skipping scenes.)

If this were any other bad movie (say for example Terminator: Genisys), I would have been happy just deleting the torrent and moving on. I'm putting this here so I can lay out exactly why I'm a big womyn-hating racist misogynerd that “can't get laid” who had the audacity to dislike this film and link it when the topic comes up instead of writing a mini-review every time. Also note this is a review, not a plot analysis.

The ending is a real WTF clusterfuck. The whole film tries too hard. It's not bad…. It had poor pacing—they spend too much time in academia—and a weak final boss that's a drawn-out, pointless CGI sequence that I'm sure will thrill kindergartners. There was also this weird frenemy thing going on between Gilbert and Yates.

Here's one concrete contrast between this film and the original. In the original, we have 3 chums who get unceremoniously evicted from academia in the first, what?, 15 minutes of the film, and they take it in stride.

In this film, we have a serious professor (Gilbert) who's about to become tenured (and close to discovering a Grand Unified Theory) whose career is in question because some book she wrote with the other protagonist (Yates) many moons ago goes viral on the internet, which is a gaping plot hole in unto itself. It just goes viral, for reasons. Then a Youtube video published presumably by Yates or maybe Holtzmann ends Gilbert's academic career. And we spend at least half the film moping about this. GET ON WITH IT!

There is one scene in particular where Gilbert petulantly stomps off campus that demonstrates this contast perfectly. I felt that scene did a lot of damage to her character.

It was trying, really trying to establish that all men hate women Ghostbusters. And that's its major problem. It's not four women taking on a supernatural evil using science!. The bad guy isn't even supernatural. He's just some dweeb with inadequacy issues that can summon ghosts with… a machine.

So let's talk about Kevin, played by Thor, who is played by incredible hunk Chris Hemsworth. First of all, there needed to be some scenes where he doesn't have a shirt on! But wait… that's not who Janine was at all. Kevin is a complete space case. He attempts to design a logo for the Ghostbusters and completely fails. He fails at being a receptionist—as in he doesn't even realize he's supposed to answer the phone. Then he disappears. Then he reappears during the exciting conclusion going “I wanna be a Ghostbuster!” only to be possessed by the aforementioned dweeb. Then we explore aforementioned dweeb's inadequacy issues with some inane comment about how much he likes that body better. Gah! See why we needed some scenes with him shirtless? There is no reason for this character to even exist!

So, why do we even have a sex object (and a delicious one at that) when the closest the original film gets to having eye candy like that is Zuul/Dana. (I forget, do I put the name of the possessing entity first with these things?) Of course, in that case, Zuul, being the Gatekeeper (along with Vinz Clortho the Keymaster), is a literal sex object. Literally! How was the original a kids movie?! They bring Gozer to New York by fucking!

Paul Feig suffers from a serious case of white knight-itis and needs to show how sympathetic he is that hunnies face such adversity from evil misogynerds who can't get laid (unlike him who I'm sure is such a Big Man)… and to be completely fucking honest, Gilbert, Yates, Holtzmann, and Tolan don't fucking need a white knight. There were so, so many scenes that were forced solely to show how disrespectful ALL men are to women. You can tell that the actresses didn't enjoy those scenes. The scenes where the Ghostbusters shine are absolutely brilliant and demonstrate that yes, women can be funny; yes, women can do slapstick; and yes, women can be Ghostbusters even if they have a shit sandwich of a script and characters that are written to be wilting flowers.

It lacks gravitas not because of Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, or Leslie Jones; it lacks gravitas in spite of them. It almost feels like this is a new genre of film: (wo)man vs. writer. These actresses aren't held back by some vast misogynerd conspiracy on the internet. They're held back by a writer/director who felt the need to create four hunnies who are sooo victimized and sooo disadvantaged by being women. When he's not forcing yet another stupid scene about how unfair the world is to these women and how victimized they are and how it's not fair! (insert teenage Jennifer Connelly), Feig is throwing in gaudy, tacky references to the first film that are just distractions. Why is the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man here? What's the fucking point of the slimers? Yes, I suppose if you're a braindead idiot Ghostbusters is nothing more than Slimer and Stay Puft.

It's simply disrespectful to put this film in the same category as Mad Max: Fury Road. As a whole, Ghostbusters simply has. no. class.

I'm sure there's a detail here and there I missed, maybe a mention of Tobin's Spirit Guide and the Spates Catalog. After all, those were just mentions in the original film too. I also don't know how much input the actresses had with the writing.

There's obviously going to be a sequel based on the post-credits scene. It illustrates how superficial this film is. Zuul comes up. Why Zuul? Because braindead idiots will remember the voice in the fridge saying Zuul. Everybody knows that scene. It's the scene you reference when you want to telegraph that you've seen the original film but that you're not an icky nerd. Zuul was the bad guy of the original film, amirite? I mean, this isn't a major problem for me, but why not flat out Gozer if they wanted to be obvious? Why not go for obscure like the rectification of the Vuldronaii or Meketrex Supplicants or a giant sloar? (I'll fess up, I had the help of the Ghostbusters Wikia article on Vinz Clortho to get the spelling right.)

In so many ways, this film should have been maybe 40 minutes tops. I hope that they boot Feig off this franchise. Somebody else needs to give our new Ghostbusters something decent to work with. Here's a protip, Hollywood. You love your trilogies. I love trilogies! You don't make a good trilogy by taking the first 40 minutes of a great movie, stretching it to 116 minutes, and then releasing it as its own film.

It was a pretty good quality camrip. I'll probably rewatch it at some point as a drinking game to make sure I didn't miss scene 24, a smashing scene with some lovely acting that will completely change my generally negative opinion of this film. I'm not sure I could watch this film in its entirety while sober. There are just too many… cringeworthy… moments.

NVIDIA Announces “NVIDIA Titan X” Video Card: $1200, Available August 2nd

Move Over GTX 1080, There’s A New Titan X In Town

Meaningless for anybody who doesn't want the general compute features. It's $200 more expensive than its predecessor, probably to avoid cannibalizing sales of more expensive Pascal GPUs intended for businesses.

The billion-dollar RNC question: What is Peter Thiel doing there?

Fun for everyone.

Not a big enough deal to get an article. Prices start at $460-$535, significantly more than 8 TB drives which can be bought for $200 on sale.

Seagate Announces 10TB Consumer HDD Lineup With Five Year Warranty

Seagate's New 'Guardian Series' Portfolio Brings 10TB Helium HDDs to Consumers

Seagate BarraCuda Pro 10TB Helium HDD Capsule Review

Melania Trump speech appears to plagiarize Michelle Obama's 2008 Democratic convention address

Watch Melania Trump Plagiarize Michelle Obama's 2008 Democratic Convention Speech

Pakistani QT killed by brother for what would be usual vanity stuff for Westerners on social media:

Qandeel Baloch: Pakistani social media star strangled by her brother

Qandeel Baloch, one of Pakistan's most famous and controversial social media stars, has been strangled to death in what police are calling a case of so called "honor" killing in the city of Multan in the country's province of Punjab. Azhar Akram, Multan's chief police officer, told CNN that Baloch was killed by her brother in her family's home after he had protested at the "kind of pictures she had been posting online."

[...] She had nearly 750,000 followers on Facebook, where her videos went viral but were also the subject of much debate and discomfort. In recent weeks, several of her posts encouraged her audience to challenge old practices of Pakistani society. In a July 14 post, Baloch referred to herself as a "modern day feminist."
Hamna Zubair, the culture editor of Pakistani newspaper Dawn, told CNN that she had received much criticism for carrying pieces on Baloch. One commentator asked her if she would be "reporting from a brothel" next.
Baloch tightly controlled her narrative in the media. She shared little about her personal life and was something of an enigma; nobody really knew which city she was based in.

She found fame and slipped into the national consciousness after declaring that she would perform a live strip tease online if Pakistan won a cricket match against arch rival India.
As her media profile grew, Zubair said Baloch became aware "of her power to deliver a certain message about being female in Pakistan," and that she had become a "burgeoning activist for increasing women's visibility" in the country. She made more headlines after posting selfies on her Instagram account with Mufti Abdul Qavi, a senior member of the clergy. The bizarre pairing led to frenzied media coverage and resulted in Qavis's suspension from his post on one of Pakistan's religious committees. After news of Baloch's death, while waiting to go on air on a local channel, Qavi told CNN that "her death should be a lesson for all those who point fingers at someone's honor."

[...] A couple of days ago, local media reported that Qandeel Baloch had married at 17 and left her husband about a year later. After the reports were published, she confirmed that her legal name was Fouzia Azeem and that she had been using an alias for safety reasons. Earlier this week Baloch had stirred up more controversy by releasing a kitschy music video on YouTube called "Ban," which mocked some of the restrictions that she had been subjected to. Behind the scenes, however, things were a bit different. Hassan Chaoudhry, a reporter for local paper Express Tribune, told CNN he had spoken to Baloch on the phone just two days ago, saying she was sobbing and "feared for her life." On the morning she was murdered, Qandeel had shared a picture of herself staring defiantly into the camera, wearing a pair of leopard print pants and a black tank top. She had written that she was a fighter. "I will bounce back," she said, adding she wanted to inspire women who have been "treated badly and dominated by society."

I would be writing Mac OS X security software. That is, if I get the job.

A recruiter contacted me on LinkedIn quite a long time ago. I don't check LinkedIn very much at all. I apologized for my late response then asked her to email me. She and I spoke on the phone a few days ago, then I emailed her my resume this morning.

The manager responded just one hour after she submitted me. She said he was very enthusiastic.

She called to ask when I could interview on-site. I said "anytime". She must now ask the manager when he wants to see me, but she expects it will be late next week.

Happily I just bought a new dress shirt at Nordstrom Rack. It looks really sharp with a tie. I'm going to wear blue jeans with the dress shirt and tie; I used to have a suit, a really nice one that I enjoyed wearing, but I donated it to a thrift store because I got the impression that no one believed I was really a coder.

Real coders don't wear suits, see.

My shoes are thrashed. I'm hoping saddle soap and shoe polish will make it less apparent that I live in poverty.

My new apartment is working out well. Happily it is close to the best bus line in Vancouver. I can stay out late in Portland, then get home at one in the morning.

I've developed a problem with sleeping excessively. I'll be up for one day, sleep round the clock the next day, up for one day then round the clock again. In part it's because I have no commitments of any sort, in part it's because the bus doesn't run during the early morning.

If I go out after waking up, I have no problem staying awake, but if the bus isn't running there's no where to go. Eventually I go back to bed.

A friend is going to lend me a bicycle. That would enable me to go to a 24-hour restaurant if I wake up early in the morning.

I don't know yet but the kind of work I'd be doing, I expect they'd be cool with me working at night. It's uncommon that employers object to that, but sometimes they do.

I have grown weary of eating rice and beans.

This is a story that can only be found on NextBigFuture and wire services:

Super controversial Brilliant light Power aka blacklight power claims to be generating bursts of megawatt power and claim independent validation

Wikipedia article.