Hip, Hip, Hooray for the Hackers!
Until now, I had regarded computer hackers as evil incarnate. That’s because I thought of them as jerks sitting in their parents’ basement screwing with our computers just for the heck of it. But, I have recently had reason to modify my position, at least so long as they limit the activity to telling us the truth that the NY Times either can’t or, far more likely, refuses to reveal. Starting with the hacking of the DNC files, exposing the fact that the Party big wigs really were stacking the deck against Bernie Sanders, exactly the way he claimed, I have found myself depending on the hackers for my news. Best of all, unlike Fox News, they don’t pretend to be fair and balanced, so I don’t have to put up with Juan Williams, Alan Colmes or Kirsten Powers.
Until now, I had regarded computer hackers as evil incarnate. That’s because I thought of them as jerks sitting in their parents’ basement screwing with our computers just for the heck of it. But, I have recently had reason to modify my position, at least so long as they limit the activity to telling us the truth that the NY Times either can’t or, far more likely, refuses to reveal.
Starting with the hacking of the DNC files, exposing the fact that the Party big wigs really were stacking the deck against Bernie Sanders, exactly the way he claimed, I have found myself depending on the hackers for my news. Best of all, unlike Fox News, they don’t pretend to be fair and balanced, so I don’t have to put up with Juan Williams, Alan Colmes or Kirsten Powers.
I understand that the Democrats prefer focusing on who is doing the hacking rather than on the information disclosed, and who can blame them? After all, for months now, Mrs. Clinton has tried to dismiss her own wrongdoing by insisting that former Secretary of State Colin Powell also used a private server. Thanks to a recent hacking of Mr. Powell’s emails, we now learn that he kept telling her staff to stop trying to drag him into her mess, and that, unlike her, he only used a secure government server for State business.
He went on to call Mrs. Clinton “a national disgrace and an international pariah.” He also felt she had run a racist campaign against Barack Obama in 2008.
He went on to say “She is a 70-year-old person with a long track record, unbridled ambition, greedy, not transformational, and with a husband still dicking bimbos at home.”
He also admitted, “I would rather not have to vote for her, although she is a friend I respect.”
If Mr. Powell could still respect her in spite of that litany of insults, it does make you wonder about all those friends he doesn’t respect.
When every time I turned on the TV, I heard someone referring to Mrs. Clinton’s physician, Dr. Lisa Bardack, I became curious about this formerly anonymous M.D. from Mt. Kisco, New York. After all, if the most famous woman in the world uses her instead of some high-falutin’ medic on Park Avenue, one assumes that millionaires and foreign potentates will soon be schlepping to upper state New York to have themselves treated for everything from ingrown toenails to gonorrhea.
When I looked up Dr. Bardack on my computer, I found that 41 reviews had been posted by her patients. She fared better than the Dr. Mangela-like surgeon who worked on my wrist, but not that much better.
On a scale of 1-5, with 5 being excellent, she hovered between 2.3 and 3.1, on everything from promptness and bedside manner to follow-up and the accuracy of her diagnosis. In fact, her own scores topped out at 2.7. It was the courtesy of her staff that got her that 3.1.
Of course, I expect that when you’re Hillary Clinton, you get 5.0 treatment up and down the line. Still, if I had a doctor whose diagnostic ability was rated 2.4, I might want a second opinion when it comes to pneumonia.
I would also seek a second opinion of any doctor who declared that Mrs. Clinton is in excellent shape mentally, unless, of course, such matters are graded on the curve. I mean if the standard used is based on the mental capacity of Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Elizabeth Warren, Valerie Jarrett, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Loretta Lynch, I suppose a case could be made for Mrs. Clinton’s mental acuity.
Someone sent me an item that perfectly summed up Hillary Clinton to my satisfaction. The caption to her photo read: “Why can’t you people understand that the medical problems I don’t have are the reason I can’t remember the criminal acts I didn’t commit.”
I understand people who don’t vote, particularly if they’re Democrats who long for the days when a Harry Truman, a John Kennedy or a Henry “Scoop” Jackson, were able to be Democrats without having to sign on to every nutty policy that came down the pike from the left-wing fringe.
What I don’t understand are those single-issue voters who, like the rest of us, are living in a militarily-depleted America surrounded by existential foes in Europe, Asia and the Middle-East; an economy that is barely surviving, mainly thanks to a Federal Reserve system that is keeping interest rates at rock bottom; an education system that is run by and for the teachers unions, the kids be damned; and a media that is so corrupt that the most venal politicians can only look on in admiration; and these one-track yahoos only care about abortions on demand, legalizing marijuana or allowing freaks to decide which bathrooms they wish to use.
I know that some Republicans are offended if I point out the various problems I have with Donald Trump, no matter how many times I promise to vote for him. I find this troubling because I like to think that, unlike Democrats, we don’t pretend that our politicians are godlike individuals.
As a rule, we on the Right have a pretty healthy skepticism when it comes to the political class. We are only too aware of the shortcomings of those with an (R) after their name. We don’t confuse them with saints; we simply accept that even the shoddiest of them can occasionally find himself on the conservative side of an issue, which makes them immeasurably better than their liberal cohorts.
One of my readers reminded me that the satanic deal we cut with Iran allows us to inspect their nuclear facilities, but that the problem is that we have to give them so much advance notice that they’d have ample time to conceal the evidence.
I tried to set him straight by pointing out that that Iran will never allow inspectors to set foot in their country. Why should they go to the trouble of hiding anything? Obama won’t even allow our pilots to shoot down the Russian planes taunting them in international air space or give our Navy free rein to blow the Iranian boats that are bedeviling our warships out of the water.
Is it any wonder that every tinhorn despot on the face of the earth is convinced that Uncle Sam is now wearing lace on his drawers?
A friend and I recently exchanged emails regarding our favorite movies, with the determining factor being that we had seen them on numerous occasions and still enjoyed them.
Even though some of you have let me know that you have no use for movies, I thought it might be worth sharing not my entire list, which would stretch through tomorrow if I included dramas and musicals, but the comedies that have held up for me even after multiple viewings.
I have always felt that the most difficult movie to bring off was a comedy, and because the second time around, comedies tend to seem stale, I am astonished whenever a writer, director and cast, team up to pull off a cinematic miracle.
Sometimes, I confess, I have been surprised when a comedy that I initially liked seems like an entirely different product the second time around. One of those was “Arthur,” which starred Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli. The second time I tried to watch it, I got so bored, I gave up after the first 15 minutes.
While I can’t presume to know if your taste in comedy jibes with mine, here are the ones that have stood the test of time and continued to entertain me down through the decades (in chronological order, beginning in 1923): “Safety Last,” “City Lights,” “My Man Godfrey,” “Ninotchka,” “Bachelor Mother,” “My Favorite Wife,” “Shop Around the Corner,” “The Devil and Miss Jones,” “Ball of Fire,” “The Lady Eve,” “The Palm Beach Story,” “Woman of the Year,” “Gold Rush,” “Major & the Minor,” “The More the Merrier,” “Hail the Conquering Hero,” “The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek,” “A Foreign Affair,” “Apartment for Peggy,” “The Ladykillers,” “Desk Set,” “The Horse’s Mouth,” “Some Like it Hot,” “School for Scoundrels,” “The World of Henry Orient,” “Support Your Local Sheriff,” “A New Leaf,” “The Heartbreak Kid,” “The Goodbye Girl,” “House Calls,” “The In-Laws,” “A Christmas Story,” “Broadway Danny Rose,” “The Woman in Red,” “Murphy’s Romance,” “Lost in America,” “The Princess Bride,” “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” “Moonstruck,” “Midnight Run,” “The Tall Guy,” “Defending Your Life,” “My Cousin Vinny,” “Housesitter,” “Groundhog Day,” “Swingers” and “Galaxy Quest.”
Forty-seven may seem like a lot of movies, but perhaps not so many when you realize it covers 93 years’ worth. Because some of these movies were unfortunately re-made by lesser talents, in every case I am referring to the original.
Although my amazing friend, Billy Wilder, either wrote or wrote and directed five of the movies, he took over 20 years to get the job done. More remarkably, Preston Sturges has four movies on my list and he wrote and directed them all between 1941 and 1944.
It is said that war often brings out the very best in men. It was certainly true in the case of Preston Sturges, even though the only action he ever saw took place at Paramount Studios.
