Yachts are the symbol of the neoliberal predation of the world… We are all impregnated by [neoliberalism’s] hegemony.

1. No mass shootings.
2. 230 arrests.
3. Hundreds of injuries.
4. NO MASS SHOOTINGS!
5. Thousands of drunks puking in the ocean, revving their engines, playing screamingly loud music, injuring themselves and each other, endangering an army of police, frightening and disgusting the locals.
6. NOT ONE SINGLE MASS SHOOTING

Like his buddy Hitch he was charismatic, sexy, unruly, hilarious. Also intensely and sensitively literary. Here are all my Martin Amis posts.

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Parul Sehgal on her love of Amis:

Amis’s saw-toothed sentences seized me by the scruff and carried me off for good. The insolence of the novels, the high silliness, the shame, the jokes: “After a while, marriage is a sibling relationship — marked by occasional, and rather regrettable, episodes of incest.”

Judge orders Rudy Giuliani to detail finances in election defamation suit – POLITICO

(Click on the link for a photo.)

See if I can steady myself here. Check hair dye. Time was I could put my penis no questions asked in those hot jeans behind me now I’m practically impotent marrying a new wife every few years for the same reason Rupert does make the world think we’re still getting it up don’t think we’re fooling anyone. Look at me miserable old hunching holding myself steady against a trash bin outside another courtroom yada same old same old. Every day I’m in court getting sued. Wonder if the statement I just made about the fascist state going after me cuz of Don was a smart move did I sound like a hippie or something fascist state fascist state don’t know. Does that black policeman on the other side know the two women I defamed are black hope not. Anyway he doesn’t look friendly look what’s come of my life. Hero 9/11 now sloppy perv just trying to get some while fourteen ex-wives, fourteen strangers, forty ex-staffers, and the federal government go after me with everything they’ve got. Fuck ’em all I’ll die and then let’s see ’em recover any of my money. Fuck ’em. I know at least Andrew will be at my deathbed forget Caroline she hates me none of my wives will show up who cares born alone die alone money goes to Andrew if there’s any left after the fascists go after my estate fuck Don I guess he’s the reason all this happened where can I hide my assets what’s the name Credit Suisse I’ll go there God I’m tired

Free speech martyr Salman Rushdie makes a surprise appearance at a PEN event last night. Read all about it.

‘That this kind of weapon is a favorite of school shooters, and these are schoolchildren, only adds to the disgusting character of the events here. Carrying a gun like this in the public square is a way to constantly communicate the threat of deadly force to those around you. A gun like this exists for two purposes: to maim and kill, and to communicate the threat thereof…

 [R]ight-wingers [routinely] show up heavily armed to statehouses in an explicit communication of the threat of deadly force if they do not get their way on matters of public policy. This is not normal political expression…’

This happened in Severn, Maryland, not far from UD‘s ‘thesda.

 ‘From 2011 to 2020, people [dying] at the hands of firearms in Tennessee increased by 48%.’

California’s governor notes Disney’s cancellation of a one billion dollar, 2,000 job Florida project.

It’s all part of Ron DeSantis’ Don’t Say ‘Stay’ policy. Good on ya, Ron, for being too arrogant to deal with Disney like an adult.

… in UD’s garden.

Just when folks on the Escambia Florida school board thought they had solved their penguinal poofter problem, along come Penguin (the publishing house Penguin), PEN America, and a waddle of other perverts — to sue them!

This year’s Templeton Prize winner is an African woman who has made it her life’s work to destroy this scourge. Her against-all-odds life story is every bit as inspirational as you’d imagine. At age 85, she’s busy training hundreds of midwives at the hospital she founded.

Stung by taunts from rival strongman Donald Trump about the DeSantis candidate’s recent loss in the Jacksonville mayoral race, the Florida governor, in a show of force, is reportedly readying a battery of six hypersonic KH-47M2 Kinzhal (“Dagger”) air-launched missiles for deployment Thursday at the New College alternative commencement.

The New College students’ $131,000 war chest has apparently been significantly enhanced by Bob Iger, who sources report has been reassuring close associates that every possible defensive weapon, including Patriot air defense interceptors, is being made available to the commencement. “It will certainly get bumpy on Thursday,” said one of the organizers; “but our main worry is that a desperate DeSantis will turn to nuclear weapons.”

University Diaries mainstay, Philip Esformes, who was convicted of running the “largest single criminal health-care fraud [scheme]” in the history of the Dept of Justice (he got twenty years), and who soon after was miraculously pardoned by Donald Trump, is on UD‘s mind this morning. Everyone’s talking about the increasingly plausible claim that DT and R. Giuliani sold pardons for two million dollars apiece.

Did they? Did Esformes, a way-pious orthodox Jew (I’ve already told you how much I love shout-out-loud hypocrisy!), shell out the bucks? Can’t wait to find out.

Meanwhile, right after Esformes got sprung, the pissed off feds filed another big criminal case against him (when you’re a world-historical crook, the pickins ain’t slim) so that was maybe two million down the crapper but thanks to tens of thousands of dead and dying old people (nursing homes were Phil’s MO) Esformes has TONS of money so don’t worry.

Matthew 19:16-18.

[Sing it.]

If you’re young and armed.

For it’s hard with your skills

To resist random kills
If you’re young and armed
You can go to extremes
With big massacre schemes

You can laugh when your dead
Have a hole for their head
And life gets more exciting
With each passing day
And hate is either in your heart

Or on its way
Don’t you know that it’s worth
Every treasure on earth
To be young and armed
For as rich as you are
It’s much better by far
To be young and armed

And if you should survive to 105
Look at all you’ll destroy
You adorable boy
And here is the best part
You’ve had a head start
If you are among the very
Young and armed