Today's Takes: Friday, October 1

Good morning, everyone.

Today's issue marks the 100th Pamphleteer newsletter that we've published! Many thanks to everyone who's been with us since the beginning. We have a bunch of exciting new things planned over the next few weeks that we're excited to share.

Now...

There's an infamous clip of Jon Stewart going on Tucker Carlson's old CNN show, Crossfire, in 2004 wherein Stewart berates Carlson and his co-host Paul Begala for being a part of the "problem media". According to Stewart, Carlson and Begala were producing theater when they should've been producing debate. In short, he claimed they were misleading their audiences.

Not that Stewart had any room to talk. Stewart's own show was devoted to mocking the entirety of American politics up until the 2000 election when it took a decidedly liberal turn. George W. Bush became persona non grata numero uno in the Stewart political universe. What's odd is that Stewarts' show received the same kind of complaints. The Daily Show conflated entertainment and news, and this was a "problem".

Fast-forward to today and Tucker Carlson has the most watched show on television and Jon Stewart, embarking on what's become a kind liberal rite of passage for aging TV personalities, hosts a new, important seeming, and decidedly more mature show called The Problem with Jon Stewart on which he promises to "listen more".

Lots of things have changed since Stewart's 2004 confrontation, most notably the complete disappearance of humor and vital confrontation that characterized both Crossfire and The Daily Show. The current iteration of The Daily Show involves the oafish and unfunny Trevor Noah video conferencing in from his house wearing a sweatshirt. Carlson's own show, as engaging as it is to watch, has taken on a darker, more apocalyptic tone.

The Pamphleteer strives to inject some of that "old school" irreverence and humor found in the early days of Jon Stewart before he became addicted to talking about George Bush and Carlson's bowtie wearing days playing the assertive WASP.

More to come, but in the meantime, thanks for reading.

Missives

🧫 What Ails Ye, Fair Diplomat? Come. Let Down Your Load And Tell Of Your Troubles.

The "Believe the Science" crew responsible for the COVID-19 disaster now want you to believe that US diplomats in foreign countries ranging from Austria, Germany, and Russia to Vietnam, Taiwan, Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, and Cuba suffer from a condition known as Havana Syndrome. The culprit? Microwave weapons. Demonic possession seems the most likely explanation, but have they tried suggesting these diplomats wear tin-foil hats?

Reputable outlets from the NY Times to the BBC to the Wall Street Journal to the New Yorker have all openly opined about the existence of "secret" microwave weapons trained at US Diplomats by Russian agents attempting to steal information from their phones. Now that's the kind of sentence that Clive Cussler pumps out on the reg, but open any of those links, and you too can come to the sudden realization that truth can be stranger than fiction—if it's true. Recently, two alleged incidents of Havana Syndrome delayed Kamala Harris' trip from Singapore to Vietnam.

A side-effect of these omnipotent, information-sucking beams of energy is that they give victims headaches, nausea, fatigue, anxiety, and ultimately, drive them out of whatever country they're in. The victims should be thankful these beams don't disassemble their bodies and materialize them in some parallel universe where they have to do meaningful work. That would be infinitely more stressful.

🏛 From the Hill

After successfully passing a spending bill early yesterday morning to evade a government shut down, a vote was set for the Bipartistan Infrastructure Bill (BIF) until Nancy Pelosi pulled the plug, bowing to the demands of the Progessive wing of the Democrat party concerned they will not get their pet issues taken care of in the $3.5T End-all-pain-and-suffering Bill. It appears that Biden's agenda is, yet again, on the rocks.

• Senate passes stopgap spending bill to avert government shutdown (NY Post)
• Dianne Feinstein (88 y.o.) Unveils Bill to Mandate Coronavirus Vaccine or Testing for Domestic Flights (Breitbart)

🌅 Some Exciting Inventions on Our Horizon

• The smart toilet era is here! Are you ready to share your a** ***e with big tech? (Guardian) Need more screens in your house? Fear not.
• Leaked Documents Show How Amazon's Astro Robot Tracks Everything You Do (Vice) ...and fails miserably at it.
• Flying Microchips The Size Of A Sand Grain Could Be Used For Population Surveillance (NPR) Probably nothing.
• The Scientist and the A.I.-Assisted, Remote-Control Killing Machine (NYT) A machine gun without a body.

Nashville News

• 🎥 How frost forms in the Midstate (WSMV)

Nashville Development

• Gunmaker Smith & Wesson moving to Tennessee (TNJ)
• Built Technologies raises $125 million, reaches unicorn status at $1.5 billion valuation (Biz Journal)
• Row site eyed for luxury condos sells for $875K (Post)
• Chicago firm buys former United Methodist Publishing House HQ, plans renovations (Biz Journal)

Nashville Lifestyle

🎞 The Nashville Film Festival runs this whole weekend at Rocketown. There's a wide variety of movies playing across all genres (Info)

Friday
🎸 Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats @ FirstBank Amphitheater, 6:45p (Info)
🍻 Nashville Brew Fest @ First Horizon Park, 7p, $45 (Info)

Saturday
🐲 Celebrate Hillsboro Village @ Hillsboro Village, 10a-5p (Info )
🛣 Crooked Road Songs ft. Billy Prine, Jon Byrd, and the Dinallos @ Dee's Country Cocktail Lounge, 8p (Info)

Sunday
🍯 Tennessee Honey Festival @ First Horizon Park, 10a-5p (Info )

Other

• Mercy Lounge, sister venues to close at Cannery, will relocate (Read)
• A Cut Above: Porter Road Is Changing How We Get Our Meat (Read)

Around the Web

👓 The importance of repression Philip Rieff predicted that therapy culture would end in barbarism

🌸 Boomers: A Review Helen Andrews’ “Boomers: The Men and Women Who Promised Freedom and Delivered Disaster”: A Review

🥛 Milking It Or why plant-based milk is silly.

You Might Also Like

🚴‍♀️ Stanford students are more likely to wear masks on bicycles than helmets A student at Stanford documented Stanford bicyclists choice of whether to wear a helmet, a mask, both, or neither by noting the attire of 400 bicyclists over an hour on Stanford's campus:

49% (195): No mask, no helmet
34% (134): Mask, no helmet
10% (42): Helmet, no mask
7% (29): Mask and helmet

Science has been replaced by mental illness.

Have a great weekend!