ombelico

My favorite part about the Japanese crowd is how they wave flags for each skater's country, to make them feel more at home. I don't think I've ever seen another crowd do that.

http://www.espn.com/espnw/sports/article/26322939/ucla-gymnast-katelyn-ohashi-new-floor-routine-viral-star-removes-michael-jackson-music-leaving-neverland

The hair and makeup are one thing, and even the voice is admittedly weird, but for me it's the bugging out eyes and the unblinking stare that are the most profoundly bizarre aspects of her appearance. Coupled with the description of her sleeping 4 hours a night, I would not be shocked at all if she was on cocaine or some other stimulant.

Fair point but the reason I'm not willing to let her (or the media) off here is that it was framed as "this revolutionary idea she came up with in her Stanford dorm room, led her to drop out of college, and create a multimillion dollar company." When a scientific finding or device moves from academia to industry, there are at least some publications or other form of evidence that the effect/tool is real, but needs the larger amounts of private/industry funding to refine the machine/tool, move the drug to clinical trials, and so on. All she ever sold was the idea, and she never had any scientific basis for what she was saying. This was what Dr. Phyllis Gardner was getting at - Holmes would get these "ideas" but they were misinformed and not scientifically sound, but Holmes wouldn't care and would go on to bulldoze anyone who didn't agree with her. There's a reason she focused on getting financial support from non-scientists - they wouldn't be able to see through the fraud. Right - she sold it as her idea and "vision", and even though she hired scientists to implement it, when they would come back and tell her it wouldn't work, she didn't take their expertise and experience into account, she just narcissistically said that they weren't committed enough to the "vision" and fired them. She had/has no real respect for science and technology, but she wanted to be seen as the Steve Jobs of biomedical research.

When he said that I immediately said, "And you would know!" I think I first heard about Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos story when she was profiled in Fortune, or thereabouts. Immediately something didn't about the story didn't pass the smell test - a college dropout (don't care if it was from Stanford) working in biomedical "research" with no qualifications, no peer-reviewed publications, but able to start a multi-million (eventually billion) dollar company? When real scientists spend years, decades even, toiling away in courses, lab research, publishing papers, writing grants, and defending their work to a perpetually skeptical field of experts? And the idea that you could run hundreds of tests on such a small amount of blood? One test, I could maybe buy, but not that many. But I still wouldn't have conceived of the level of sociopathy and fraud involved in the story. She never had a new technology! Ever! This is really a story for the ages. Dr. Phyllis Gardner is fantastic. I just want to travel around with her and hear her snark on pseudoscience and charlatans all day long.

I've been thinking about the extent to which the recalcitrance to acknowledge and accept that MJ was a true pedophile stems from his original start as a beloved and adorable child star. It's so easy to think of pedophiles as being so out there, so weird, so "other," that it just brings a lot of cognitive dissonance to see that little kid singing "A-B-C" and think that he grew up to be a pedophile. But acknowledging what appears to be the truth in this case is actually a good illustration of the fact that these people have to come from somewhere. MJ's story is obviously an extreme in so many aspects, unlikely to be duplicated again (fortunately), but I think there are also lessons in there about the cycle of abuse, the problems when family members and associates bury their heads in the sand, and the danger of not listening to your gut instinct and thinking "so-and-so would never do that."

The thing that really guts me about this Luke Perry/Mick Jagger re-air is that you can see that Mick Jagger already looked ancient way back in 1993, but the reason it's getting aired is because the young vibrant guy is the one who died, from a stroke no less. (Not that I want Mick Jagger to die any time soon, but you know what I mean.) "Mick, you ignorant slut!"

Although I enjoyed the conceit that Leslie refused to be on first-name terms with Che, I can't really believe that there is a real personal reason why she did this bit with him instead of Colin. It might have been that because discussing her funeral was a bit dark it worked better with Che so she could leave out the sexual flirting without making an issue of it in the bit. I think it was just a camera blocking issue. Pete was on Colin's side when he was on (and I think he usually is when on WU), so it was more expedient to put Leslie on Che's side when she came on soon after.

One of the things I thought was very telling in terms of how Robson and Safechuck describe what they experienced is that they both used the phrases "have sex," "perform sexual acts," "our sexual relationship," and so on, rather than (accurately) saying "Michael raped me." It just shows how hard it has been for them to come to grips with the fact that it what MJ did to them was abuse, assault, and rape. And how hard it is for all survivors of child sexual abuse.

Lara Flynn Boyle?

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/02/friendship-files-great-british-bake-offs-selasi-and-val/581578/

And now we have QUEEN Dolly showing up to her own tribute to show these young'uns how it's done.

I wonder if they expected Gaga to win this category too, and hadn't planned for the event that one of the nominees who isn't there actually won. (But I'm thrilled "This is America" won!)

I refuse to click on the link and give them more page views, but I'm sure that any (pseudo)analysis of Meghan's handwriting is complete rubbish especially given that she has worked as a calligrapher in the past, and all other evidence when she has signed her name in visitor books, written on bananas (really), etc. indicates that she has lovely handwriting. These parasites are just jealous.