Quinn Hillyer, like a lot of the rest of us, is tired of listening to sore losers whining.

[T]here was Ben Carson calling a press conference to complain about Cruz’s somewhat misleading email to caucus captains that could be read, between the lines, to be suggesting Carson would soon withdraw from the race. But once he got into the presser, Carson tried to make it sound as if he wanted to move on, but that it was the media trying to pit candidates against each other like gladiators in an arena. Neat trick: Call a press conference to complain while saying you’re not the one complaining.

But of course, nobody could top Donald Trump for over-the-top sour-grapeness. The surprise loser of the Iowa evening went so far as to demand a re-vote vote in the Hawkeye State or, barring that, a disqualification of all Cruz’s votes, on the grounds that Cruz supposedly “stole” the election. “If you think about it, I really finished first,” Trump claimed to a crowd in Little Rock.

Yeah, right — and when Muhammad Ali knocked Sonny Liston to the canvas, it was really Liston who was the victor.

All of this is a sorry spectacle. It contrasts with the dignified exits of candidates Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul and Rick Santorum, with Santorum also offering an entirely positive endorsement for Rubio with nary a bad word about anybody. While Republicans should of course want candidates who don’t like to lose, they surely don’t want candidates who don’t know how to take a loss.

Forgive the old-fashioned use of gender images, but there was a time when real men would move on from a loss with gracious fortitude. Think of golfer Jack Nicklaus smilingly congratulating rivals Lee Trevino and Tom Watson when they broke his heart with unlikely chip-ins, and you get the picture of how setbacks ought to be handled.

From the Onion.

In this period, Alfa Romeo produced bespoke cars for the wealthy with bodies by Touring of Milan and Pinin Farina.

“When I see an Alfa Romeo go by, I tip my hat.” –Henry Ford.

Hat tip to Eliza Vasileva Pavlov.

Guitarplayer.com has a story not very complimentary to Quentin Tarantino.

The makers of Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight never told Martin Guitars how a historic acoustic guitar on loan from its museum came to be destroyed on the set of the 2015 film.

Dick Boak of C.F. Martin said the company did not learn that the instrument was smashed by actor Kurt Russell until the incident was reported on Tuesday by Reverb.com, an online marketplace for gear. That story was itself based on an interview with the film’s sound mixer, Mark Ulano, that ran on SSNInsider.com.

Boak, director of the museum, archives and special projects for C.F. Martin & Co, said the company was initially told the guitar had been damaged in an accident on the set. “We assumed that a scaffolding or something fell on it,” Boak told Reverb.com, in response to its story.

The film’s script included a scene, shown below, in which Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character, Daisy Domergue, plays the Martin guitar before Russell’s character, John Ruth, smashes it against a beam. A prop guitar was supposed to have been substituted at the last moment. According to Ulano, Russell was not told of the swap and proceeded to destroy the Martin, an act that is retained in the film’s release. …

According to the SSNInsider interview, upon learning of the guitar’s destruction, Martin reps asked, “Do you need another one and can we please have all the pieces to display in our museum?”

While the pieces were returned to Martin for examination, Boak said restoration is impossible.

“We want to make sure that people know that the incident was very distressing to us,” Boak says. “We can’t believe that it happened.”

As a result of the incident, Boak said Martin will no longer loan guitars to movies “under any circumstances.”

Hat tip to John Brewer.

Kurt Schlichter imagines what it would be like to wake up in January next year looking a Trump presidency.

So, Donald Trump pulled it off, and though he would never, ever admit it, no one was more surprised than he to be shivering in the January cold with his hand on the Bible taking the oath of office from a grim Chief Justice Roberts. Vice-President Marco Rubio looked on, his own thoughts concealed behind the same bland smile that had been pasted on his face since the “Republican Unity Ticket” was announced in Cleveland in July. Ted Cruz, at home in Texas, was re-watching John Wayne in “The Searchers.” Sarah Palin was invited but could not make it; one of her family members had a court appearance.

The decisive defeat of Hillary Clinton in November was the greatest humiliation in a life marked by serial humiliations – failing the District of Columbia Bar Exam, being cuckolded by Bill while he was in office, losing to Barack Obama, and now being beaten by Donald Trump. She ignored her advisors at the first debate; so certain was she in her own moral and intellectual superiority that she tried to take him head-on. All America remembered about that debate was her look of utter mortification as The Donald dismissed her as a “doormat who Putin and the mullahs are gonna step all over just like Bill did.” She pulled out of the remaining debates because of his “sexism” even as she was greeted at every public campaign event (until she stopped having them) with hordes of Trump fans waving doormats with her face emblazoned upon them.

Read the whole thing.

Ex Sofadra:

John Smith was an ardent Trump supporter since the billionaire first threw his hat in the ring. However, that might change after the local ironworker was shot by Trump on 5th avenue this weekend.

Sitting in his hospital bed, John ran through the reasons why he might have to switch his vote. “I just dunno anymore. I mean, one second I’m just walking across 5th avenue during my lunch hour and the next second, Donald comes up to me, says something about ‘it’s going to be huge’, and shoots me in the gut.”

“However, I don’t know who else I can vote for,” he added. “None of the other candidates really excite me the way Trump does. He’s the only guy who is willing to build that wall and stand up for American workers like…oh… Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Could you call the nurse?”

This is not John’s first encounter with a presidential candidate. The week before, he was courted by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who clubbed him on the back of the head and stole his wallet, and this past Monday, he was kicked in the shins by former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley.

Coin Toss