This week was not one of our best. SP got in a heap of trouble for wearing her Glibs gear to Show And Tell, and I had to spend a great deal of time with her teacher and principal. “But it’s a family friendly site, suitable for all ages!” Nonetheless, I had to do some fancy dancing to explain away the Hat and Hair theme…
Anyway, let’s cast our usual cynical eyes on the news. First, from the always-peaceful Middle East, there’s people who actually want war and aren’t satisfied that they’re getting enough. And there’s some weirdly familiar themes.
Kilis, a town with a population of fewer than 100,000, has swelled to 130,000 with the influx of refugees, and although the Syrians have been widely accepted, there is local resentment, especially over economic resources. Turkey has spent billions on the refugees, noted Mr. Emir, the barber, whose shop was empty. “If the government had given that money to the Turkish population there would not be any poor people left,” he said.
I know, let’s get involved! What could possibly go wrong?
“Bang! Bang! Hahaha, just kidding, Joe, you can get up off the floor now.”
If you feel like you don’t have enough meaningless things to fret about, here’s one for you. Know what I fret about? That Scientific American used to be an excellent and educational publication, and now it’s all about politics, FUD, and fourth-rate bloggers. The enstupidation of America continues apace.
I swear, this was a sub-plot in The Sum of All Fears.
As much as we complain about the legacy news media, they still have the capacity to entertain. I’m reminded of the Three Stooges short where their boat sprang a leak and started sinking, so Curly drilled holes in the bottom to let the water out.
The Dutch have spoken: in a contest to determine the Showpiece of the Netherlands, the finalists included Rembrandt’s Night Watch, Leeuwenhouk’s microscope, and Escher’s Sky and Water. The winner? The Plakkaat Van Verlatinghe, their version of the Declaration of Independence from 1581; in their case, the independence was from the Spanish king. It’s worth a read.
It wouldn’t be a Saturday morning without Old Guy Music. This one is a special edition in honor of Glib Fit. If you’re old like me, you might have nightmarish memories of phys ed class with this stupid thing blaring at you, a relic of JFK’s version of Michelle Obama do-gooding. For the children, of course. When Robert Preston died, I had a little celebration.
Could you translate that Dutch stroy into Pidgin.
Barber turns chair around: How’s that?
<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-speech-response/in-step-to-national-stage-a-young-kennedy-to-rebut-trump-address-idUSKBN1FF0FZ"Joe: No. I wanted it look like him before the convertible ride.
Darnit. At least Hype saved my SF from being first.
The enstupidation of America continues apace.
Circling the drain.
but think of the purity of the night sky
The third comment to that blog pretty much eviscerated it.
And he is wrong. There are satellites that are deliberately place in geosynchronous orbits so they don’t move (much — there is usually a little wobble) in relation to earth. Stacking images won’t get rid of those. Plus you would have to use stacking with some sort of algorithm (thet exist already)to only use data that shows up on all the images … which means you might lose data of value, such as a short term variable star.
All this is solvable, but it takes more time to do.
The big thing about light pollution, other than brightening the night sky, is that is so wasteful. In order to light up some part of the ground or area under the light, they shine an awful lot of light up, wasting power and money.
In order to light up some part of the ground or area under the light, they shine an awful lot of light up, wasting power and money.
Is there a solution to this, other than to make the ground less reflective? It’s not exactly intentional.
Indeed there is – different light design. There’s a new generation of LED streetlights that are supposed to be more directional and efficient.
Some lights don’t just point to the ground. The “old timey” streetlights in my town don’t have tops so as much light goes up as down. Stupido but that is the look someone wanted.
There is a whole organization dedicated to light pollution, the International Dark Sky Association. They have links to sky friendly lighting.
OK, it seems like I misunderstood. The issue isn’t light being reflected off the ground. It’s light not being directed to the ground.
As lunch was winding down Wednesday in the Los Angeles Times cafeteria, Bruce Upbin, one of several newly hired but as-yet-unannounced assistant managing editors, sat alone at a table speaking a little too loudly into his headphone mic.
Upbin was a mystery to much of the newspaper’s staff, which had just voted to unionize the week before. He was one of several similarly unannounced middle-manager types who had come aboard in recent weeks. Although he and the others were listed in the Times’ human resources software as having editorial titles, they were reporting to Rob Angel, the Times’ chief business development officer. These new L.A. managers had also been working on the second floor, despite the newsroom being on the third. And, of course, there was the bizarre fact that they had yet to be introduced to any of the actual newsroom staff of about 400.
It’s like a Dashiell Hammett story. He’ll be dead in a stairwell by page ten.
Can we all agree that scab is a horrible name still in use by the left?
It has always been projection with them.
Listen up bitches.
Caption contest.
Trump addresses Davos while shitting on golden toilet.
And Leon is getting larrrrger
I can make a hat. Or a brooch. Or a pterodactyl.
I’m going to make Lilliput huge! The best ever. Giant.
His O face.
Klaus, we’re bigger than U.S. steel.
Big Brother is pooping, and you’re watching!
“He’s Yuge!”
#metoo
“I will crush you so greatly you’ll be sick of all the crushing.”
See! My hands are the same size as yours!
“The newsroom has basically become a large-scale intelligence operation to figure out what the fuck our managers are up to,” one current employee explained.
Or, maybe, you could just focus on doing the work assigned to you and stop being such a bunch of whiny pantswetters.
It’s worth a try.
Yeah. Why not get a quote from one of those managers? It would probably go like this:
“They’re wasting their time trying to figure out what the people who sign their paychecks are doing rather than, you know, reporting the news? Well now you know why we’ve been hired to fix this shitshow.”
We’re trying to do our job. The previous manager tried to change the way we do our job and production fell off a cliff. Management tried to blame us.
I hope to hell Tronc hires somebody for the sole purpose of doing a modified for a newsroom version of the Blake speech to the newsroom staff.
And then putting it on YouTube and/or Fox News.
It would be the greatest thing ever.
Sloopy: Let’s talk about something important! (to Christina Bellantoni) Put that coffee down!! Coffee’s for writers only. (Bellantoni scoffs) Do you think I’m fucking with you? I am not fucking with you. I’m here from downtown. I’m here from Tronc. And I’m here on a mission of mercy. Your name’s Bellantoni?
Bellantoni: Yeah.
Sloopy: You call yourself a writer, you stupid whore?
David Lauter: I don’t have to listen to this shit.
Sloopy: You certainly don’t pal. ‘Cause the good news is — you’re fired. The bad news is you’ve got, all you got, just one week to regain your jobs, starting tonight. Starting with tonights deadline. Oh, have I got your attention now? Good. ‘Cause we’re adding a little something to this months writing contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anyone want to see second prize? Second prize’s a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired. You get the picture? You’re laughing now? You got leads. Tronc paid good money. Get their quotes in print! You can’t write from the leads you’re given, you can’t write shit, you ARE shit, hit the bricks pal and beat it ’cause you are going out!!!
Bellantoni: The leads are weak.
Sloopy: ‘The leads are weak.’ Fucking leads are weak? You’re weak. I’ve been in this business fifteen years.
Lauter: What’s your name?
Sloopy: FUCK YOU, that’s my name!! You know why, Mister? ‘Cause you drove a Smart Car to get here tonight, I drove a eighty thousand dollar BMW. That’s my name!! (to Bellantoni) And your name is “you’re wanting.” And you can’t play in a man’s game. You can’t write them. (at a near whisper) And you go home and tell your partner your troubles. (to everyone again) Because only one thing counts in the newspaper business! Get them to quote it and say that you wrote it! You hear me, you fucking faggots?
The best acting comes when you get to play yourself.
What would you say… you do here?
You can watch Kennedy give his response all you want. I’ll be watching some stand-up comedy.
I just hope she starts with a rousing rendition of Living In America, complete with a boxing ring coming out of the floor with an Apollo Creed look-alike and an exhibition boxing match after.
Holy shit. I just realized Rocky and Creed wore Hugo Boss in that scene. You know who else wore Hugo Boss?
“Living in America” should be our national anthem.
That is the link I was going to post. There is going to be comedy gold in that one.
‘Peachment is not a crimnal process its plitical process and Imo peach fawty fauv’
irst, from the always-peaceful Middle East, there’s people who actually want war and aren’t satisfied that they’re getting enough. – War. what is it good for? power money and getting shiny medals.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article196985709.html
No party affiliation anywhere. Must be a Libertarian like Hihn.
James Franco pulled from Vanity Fair’s Hollywood issue
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/26/entertainment/james-franco-vanity-fair/index.htmlI found the so called allegation against Franco as nothing much tbh
Is it true that he’s been replaced by a five-legged, seven-armed Oprah Winfrey?
Russia scoffs at our feeble attempts at memory-holing.
Peterson is getting a lot of attention these days, some of it is functionally illiterate.
http://digg.com/2018/jordan-peterson-book-review
The author is supposedly a news editor.
Peterson argues that boiler-plate hate crime and anti-discrimination laws could create a slippery slope to prosecutions based simply on misgendering someone
Hefty fines are fine, though.
Peterson argues that boiler-plate hate crime and anti-discrimination laws could create a slippery slope to prosecutions based simply on misgendering someone
It’s not a hypothetical.
News editor indeed….
“a logical milestone in Peterson’s trajectory from a YouTube academic known for his lectures that fused a diverse array of topics (psychology, philosophy, history and religion) to a vocal cultural critic and self-help figure”
And what purpose do the four mentioned topics serve if they don’t teach people how to live and act.
Heh. Peterson is ruffling progs up real good.
First of all, that wasn’t a review at all. He basically writes as if Peterson is reinventing science and biology when it’s the other side (whoever they are anymore, let’s call them SJW retards) mocking the facts of biology.
He made no substantial point except, SURPRISE! , to write in condescension.
“Peterson’s philosophies spilled into the world of policy when he began to fight against human rights legislation in Canada aimed at protecting people from discrimination based on gender identity or expression in September 2016. In a video that’s gained over 200,000 views since September, Peterson argues that boiler-plate hate crime and anti-discrimination laws could create a slippery slope to prosecutions based simply on misgendering someone — despite there being no concrete examples of this ever happening, and frequent examples of the use of hate crime laws to bring violent offenders to justice.”
BY CRIMINALIZING PEOPLE. He’s one special of idiot if he thinks there won’t be abuse of this monstrous law. The law just went into place, someone will get pinched. Peterson opposes being mandated to speak a certain way. How about he produces a single act of ‘violent offenders’ against them in Canada.
Peterson was 100% correct and if you listened to the clowns in the Liberal party sell the law, you’d be embarrassed at the low-level intellectual quality of their musings. The whole law HAS NO BASIS WHATSOEVER in fact.
He’s an idiot this guy. What else is new with progressives?
Police investigate assault with pineapple in Butler school
well if I don’t post the monty python someone else will
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U90dnUbZMmM
Time for common sense pineapple control.
I support that. Make it illegal. I hate pineapple
dead to me.
Ditto. That doesn’t compute.
How the hell can someone hate pineapple? It’s the juiciest, most delicious fruit out there.
Teenage girls can be bitches? Now that’s breaking news.
This one’s for you, sloop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vmVnYBfaFI
??
I still haven’t seen him.
We had him do a living room show for us. Much fun. He’s a delightful person, aside from his politics. He might even say the same about SP and me.
Please let them all be named Heather.
Still, though the current editorial staff has fluctuated somewhere between misery and terror, the recent landslide union victory has offered some consolation. “People have zero confidence in top management,” said one current employee. “Nobody believes a word that comes out of Lewis’ mouth. They’re pushing a business plan from 10 years ago. And yet people are banding together, and we are still doing what we’ve done since 1881, which is putting out the goddamn paper every day.”
Go start your own goddam newspaper.
In Oxford Research Encyclopedias, one can learn about how whites are complicit in racism
https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/957028083772641280
Meanwhile, Oxford is giving longer times for exams. As I note below, our Idiocracy is being delivered to us from the top.
Is it true that he’s been replaced by a five-legged, seven-armed Oprah Winfrey?
*puts two and two together*
Oprah was the boss in Monsters, Inc!
No equality in the honours: two-thirds of Australia Day awards go to men
First rule of life: NEVER trust anyone named Spicer.
This is wisdom.
From the HuffPo “Things I don’t Give a Fuck About” desk-
Jmele Hill is Leaving ‘Sportscenter’ To Write About Race And Culture
Good for her.
Jmele Hill is Leaving ‘Sportscenter’
Sufficient description
There you go.
Now she can go and write the great American SJW novel.
Revolutionary Gun Grip Created by Vets Aims to Make Operators Deadlier
Looks like a knob on a tac rail to me. Also, they probably could have picked a better city for the debut…
Thank goodness I’ll never need to call directory assistance again.
It’s at the SHOT show in Vegas. With that said, if no one wants to talk about October then fuck it let’s have a gun convention
Well fuck. If the Feds and the local police want to treat the incident and investigation like it never happened, then why should tht gun manufacturers move their show?
Seriously, the media blackout of the investigation (especially with a total lack of video in a building where every square foot of public space has a camera on it) coupled with the occasional release of something like “the house where the dude lived got broken into a couple days after the shooting while the House was in the custody of the FBI, but trustnus when we say nothing was taken” has really made me believe this was an intel op gone wrong.
Yeehaw! Another video of a vehicle going airborne into a house.
http://www.wfmz.com/news/southeastern-pa/security-cam-catches-incredible-footage-of-car-flying-into-home/691966911
Fired ‘Tonight Show’ staffers accuse Roots bandleader Questlove of racial discrimination in $2 million lawsuit
Gilmore’d
::no edit faerie available, so Sloopy steps in and does the dirty work::
Going from “Heaven’s Gate” to being a stagehand. What a step down.
Waste, fraud and abuse
Air Force One is primed to receive an upgrade that will include new refrigerators expected to cost American taxpayers nearly $24 million.
The US Air Force awarded Boeing a $23.6 million contract in December to replace two of the five “cold chiller units” aboard the aircraft used by President Donald Trump.
“The current rear lower lobe cold chiller units being replaced are the original commercial equipment delivered with the aircraft in 1990. The units were based on the technology at the time and designed for short-term food storage,” Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek told CNN.
“Although serviced on a regular basis, reliability has decreased with failures increasing, especially in hot/humid environments. The units are unable to effectively support mission requirements for food storage,” she said.
Another Trump scandal. Impeachment looms.
Ummmmm
1. Go to Sears
2. Buy some combination of refrigerators that will maximize the available space
3. Get ratchet straps from Home Depot.
4. Install on the plane, plug in, and strap it down.
5. Don’t forget the 3 year warranty plan…
Whatever, had this occurred during the Anointed One’s tenure, they would have been gushing about how he’s modernizing government,
Trump should say they are not going to do this wasteful upgrade because it won’t be needed once he kicks the press off the plane. Everybody else can bring a cooler/lunch box and or hit McD’s before any flight.
I’d pay good money to see that.
He should do that, throw the press off, replace them by installing twitter on the plane. Winning!
Apparently, these aren’t drop in replacements requiring structural modification of the aircraft with all the attendant analysis, testing and documentation. So yeah, I believe the $23.6 million number.
I seem to remember that Trump scrapped plans for a brand new Air Force One (is it ‘really’ Air Force One? I always thought that strictly speaking, it was the flight plan that was filed for presidential aircraft that was what actually constituted ‘Air Force One’) – at a ticket price of over half a billion dollars.
I don’t begrudge Trump a properly chilled soda when he wants one. $24 million is an awful lot to pay for a passel of fitted SubZeros, but it’s better than the alternatives.
“Congressman Kennedy profoundly understands the challenges facing hard-working men and women across the country,” U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi”
Good God. I dont even know what to say to that.
If ever someone had the odds stacked against them for #MeToo it’s this guy.
He probably understands the unemployable drunks pretty well.
He does understand how someone can be born into immense wealth and privilege and still be white trash. That much he profoundly understands.
Celebrity bitchfight
NBC News is scrambling days after Megyn Kelly’s remarkable denunciation of Hollywood icon Jane Fonda, with blame flying around 30 Rockefeller Plaza over who allowed the spat between stars to escalate so dramatically.
————
Kelly — apparently stung by Fonda’s comments to Variety that she was “not that good an interviewer” – decided to address what she called Fonda’s “poor me” routine. She called Fonda “a woman whose name is synonymous with outrage” and said many veterans of the Vietnam War still refer to her as “Hanoi Jane,” recalling Fonda’s disastrous trip to North Vietnam in 1972 when she was photographed on an anti-aircraft gun used to shoot down American pilots. Fonda has long since apologized for the incident.
What resulted was a flurry of criticism directed at Kelly from a myriad of celebrities and journalists, including women on ABC’s “The View,” CNN’s Bill Weir and talk show host Wendy Williams.
Fascinating. I didn’t even know Jane Fonda was still alive.
Kelly’s mistake was torpedoing her backlog of celebrities to interview by going after Fonda. They’re fundamentally chickenshit slaves to popular opinion and won’t take the risk of appearing on her show now.
Fonda has long since apologized for the incident.
Oh, no biggie then.
Has she, actually? I thought the best she gave was “I’m sorry you saw it that way” not “I’m sorry I gave aid and comfort to the enemy”.
Fucking stupid asshole Jane Fonda.
Every damn time I watch “Fun With Dick And Jane” and laugh my ass off, I end up weeping because she’s such an awful human being. Why couldn’t she have just stfu and acted?
Fonda didn’t repent enough for what she did in my opinion.
Atrociously treacherous.
/spits on the floor at her feet.
I thought Jane Fonda was reviled by both sides of the political spectrum since she did the tomahawk chop with Ted Turner.
America’s Constitution is terrible. Let’s throw it out and start over.
Wow. Hey Ryan, you didn’t even hear that loud whooshing noise over your head, did you?
What a maroon.
Yeah, it’s quite simple to replace. There are even mechanisms written into the document to follow, asshole.
But somehow I think this Ryan Cooper dickhole is itching for a bloody revolution.
Repeal the 17th amendment which allows the large metropolitan areas to pretty much elect a states Senators. I do not know the history of why that was changed, but who ever pushed it is a dick.
The only thing that allows a lawless imperial presidency is a spineless group of fuckwit Congrassholes who have given up their constitutional duties to the executive.
How can it be argued that the constitution is flawed when we don’t really follow it anymore?
I do not know the history of why that was changed, but who ever pushed it is a dick.
During the Progressive Era the senate was slimed as an “undemocratic” institution on account of the senators were elected by the state legislatures rather than reflecting the true will of the people.
Ya, that was the point wasn’t it? The house was to be the democratically elected side of the equation, and the Senate was there to protect states rights. At least that is my understanding of the set up. If the Senate had actually been doing their job and limiting federal powers to those enumerated maybe the fed gov would not be the huge liberty stomping monstrosity it is today and people would not be writing articles how the constitution we don’t follow is an outdated document.
You’ve got it. The entire original purpose and construction of the senate was obliterated with the 17th Amendment. And now you have the same retards using the same arguments to argue for its abolition entirely.
The entire original purpose and construction of the senate was obliterated with the 17th Amendment
I think this goes too far. The Senate still represents states. It just doesn’t represent state governments any more, instead representing state populations.
It is also worth noting that since SCOTUS gutted state bicameralism in the 1960s, the repeal of the 17th which was passed well before then would have odd effects. We can’t return to pre-17A operation since the underlying selection mechanism has also been altered.
Doesn’t know the history? How could he ever find out? I mean, really, no one ever wrote about why that was changed.
I havn’t got around to that yet. It is on the to do list but I get side tracked easily.
I suspect this is about tweaking the noses of people who care about patriotism and such.
That being said, if the constitution were ever thrown in the dustbin, women and minorities really would be the hardest hit.
Wow. Quite the dullard.
“… basic structure of government, or eventually it will fall to pieces.”
I’ll equate the usefulness of this to ‘we have to do something about climate change or else England will sink’.
Translation: We’re still butthurt about Trump ergo democracy is dead and the Constitution needs a U-Haul to transport it into the 21st century where it can be mangled and shat upon by an assortment of Democrats, SJW, and Marxist fifth-rate faux-intellectual jerk offs with a remedial grasp of history and human nature.
Not even in their most beautiful dreams can they ever come up with the eloquence of Jefferson or come near touching his brilliance.
And here’s the kicker: Those men, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin etc.- overthrew tyranny. REAL tyranny to create what became the greatest nation in human history.
BUT LET’S FOCUS ON THE FLAWS. And let’s destroy it all based on that rather than just adjust it with reason and rationalism. Isn’t that what the amendment formula is all about? To give people the chance to make changes to the ebb and flow of human nature?
If you ask me, the document holds up pretty damn well for one simple reason: at its core, aside from its belief in God’s authority, it preserves once and for all the basic universal principle of LIBERTY easily applied to all mankind.
Now go suck a lemon Cooper.
I also suspect that like the other low information people butthurt over Trump’s victory, he probably thinks that it’s easy to just throw out the constitution, like it is to overturn the electoral system. These people are not even adults. A bunch of whiny little toddlers who need a spanking and sent to their room without supper.
Notice how all these people know is destruction and deconstruction; always negative and never positive.
And I posit the reason they do it is not borne out of any real or substantial set of principles or ideals but rooted in a faulty perception of the world around them. They’re condemned to forever chasing ghosts and punching shadows.
Smash the system. These types think Russia 1917 is something to emulate.
And I posit the reason they do it is not borne out of any real or substantial set of principles or ideals but rooted in a faulty perception of the world around them.
They don’t want to understand. Understanding requires empathy, and despite their insistence that they’re the empathetic ones, they refuse to empathize with people they consider political enemies.
“When written, the Constitution made a morally hideous compromise with slavery”
*Goes to look for slavery clause in Constitution* Do these people ever do any research before writing stuff and putting it on the intertoobz? How embarrassing.
There are a couple of failures in the constitution and subsequent amendments:
1. Slavery being allowed is a stain on our nation’s history
2. Prohibition
3. The 17th Amendment
4. Upholding the Apportionment Act of 1911 rather than strictly and permanently using Article 1, Sec 2, Clause 3 and having better local and broader representation.
Idiots like this guy can’t see even to, let alone beyond, first order effects. His resentment is that it isn’t possible for a majority to push through its political agenda in its entirety, no matter how much the minority may not like that agenda. The Founding Fathers understood that this was absolutely necessary if you were going to have a representative government on a continent-wide basis. Cooper’s outcome creates the very situation that has made our politics so toxic, as things stand – the stakes of winning make compromise tantamount to suicide. It’s impossible to hold a country together like that indefinitely and maintain a representative government. The only alternative to “victory or suicide” becomes secession and the only way to stop that is through empire.
This genius knows that the filibuster is a Senate rule and not something in the Constitution right?
While that’s true, it could be forbidden by Constitutional amendment (e.g. “the Senate shall pass laws on the basis of simple majority alone”).
Wait, is that praise for snap elections? I thought everyone knew it was a way for the party in power to consolidate more power before a difficult vote. And the limeys got rid of it for that very reason.
We did something for a good reason?
WTF?
MIND … BLOWN
It’s NEWS PROFESSIONALS, all the way down.
Kelly’s televised attack on Fonda was carefully prepared, with her producers airing stills of a young Jane Fonda peering through the sights of an anti-aircraft gun when Kelly mentioned the notorious epithet “Hanoi Jane.” NBC also dug up various clips of Fonda discussing plastic surgery on other talk shows.
NBC Boss Andy Lack was not in the loop, however, and was not amused, NBC sources told Fox News. He was also displeased by Holt’s North Korea coverage, which was widely denounced as credulous and gullible. The NBC sources told Fox News that Lack angrily recalled Holt and Oppenheim to New York early, cutting short their Asia jaunt.
Maybe they should send Lester to Caracas, to do some grocery shopping at the store where Maduro gets his food. “This store is clean, and well stocked. I don’t see any hardship or starvation.”
The more things change…
Letters to the Local Rag: Election Fairness Edition
This is in reference to a state rep election tiebreaker that was decided by a random drawing,
Oh, so Yancey ended up winning? I forgot to go follow up.
Not that it matters. The governor blocks everything that comes across his desk unless it’s domething that grows the government.
Where my commonwealth gone, dammit?
The video of Simonds losing is a classic. Simonds looks like she’s going to lose it like a Clintonista when Trump won.
Oh man. Thanks for linking that. That’s some salty ham tears-level shit right there.
I. Am. Amused.
And she sure is ugly. Which was scientifically likely.
I wonder if that simply correlated to self-confidence that conservatives usually have more of.
I can’t help but think the letter wouldn’t have been written if the other candidate’s name had been pulled out of the bowl.
The author quoted Cicero, dude. They’re totes impartial and edumacated.
This prog is particularly stupid because Yancey was the incumbent. So you only have to look back to the last election, in 2015, where he beat the same challenger but had 57% of the vote.
BUT MUH SHATTERED DEMOCRACY!!!!
He did not win the vote, he won the raffle.
Oh well. His opponent didn’t win the vote either. If one candidate wants to avoid the raffle, then they have to pull in more votes than their opponent(s). As long as you want to keep the underlying method of election (first past the post), then what does it matter how ties are broken, as long as the mechanism is unbiased? Shall we just keep holding elections until you get the result you want?
“Look, Jane, nobody likes getting old, but there aren’t enough plastic surgeons in the universe to turn you back into Barbarella. Just give it up.”
The major problem with America’s Constitution is that it creates a system in which elections generally do not produce functioning governments
Feature, not bug.
“Feature, not bug.”
Yes. thus my joke about him missing the whooshing noise. He doesnt understand the principles or reasons for the constitution being what it is. He also makes the claim that it has failed and for the reasons others failed. He doesnt mention that it is the oldest constitution still being used today.
You mean the government had to work together to get things done rather than steamroll people. I also think progressives overestimate how often popular opinion is on their side. If we had snap elections to replace representatives, there is no way Obamacare would have passed.
Oh for fuck’s sake, what a pathetic mass of flaccid moaning complaint. “Muh static sciences. Muh telescopes.”
Honestly, my first reaction after I was half into this piece is “what kind of incredible applied mathematical and physical instrumentation techniques will be employed to overcome the minor inconveniences brought along with enormous increases in quality of life?”
For fuck’s sake.
Hillary Clinton ‘refused to fire adviser who was accused of sexual assault’ during 2008 presidential campaign
#HerToo?
And Hillary has released a statement praising the female colleague but did not mention or explain why she failed to punish in any way the alleged harasser.
Well, she didn’t punish him because of the vast right-wing conspiracy. And Russia. And the electoral college. And Bernie Sanders. And deplorables. And she was totally going to but Comey sent a letter to congress the day before and ruined it.
Just goes to show you that for every woman that looks like Arwen there’s a guy tired of fucking Arwen.
I always heard that one as
So what did they do?
Could easily be retaliation against a whistleblower. What kind of idiot attorney would characterize that as “appropriate” without showing that it was a promotion, a position the staffer preferred, something?
I read in USA Today that Strider, even though not fired, was docked several weeks of pay and placed in a sensitivity program.
He had hell to pay when Arwen found out about it though.
There is a medical condition called exertional rhabdomyolysis, which means muscles dying from overuse.
Critics of CrossFit claim the program is likely to cause this condition.
A CrossFit enthusiast responded with a cartoon clown called Uncle Rhabdo.
***
The “Uncle Rhabdo” cartoon depicts an exhausted, yet well-muscled clown, connected to a dialysis machine standing next to some workout equipment. Concernedly, his kidney has fallen out and lies on the floor underneath him, along with some portion of his bowel. He’s left a pool of blood on the floor below him, but it’s not clear if this is from the disembowelment, the kidney’s arterial supply, or the collection of fasciotomies he appears to have endured. Uncle Rhabdo, of course, has Rhabdomyolysis.
***
https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/rhabdo.jpg?quality=90&strip=all
Exercise should not lead to injuries.
Thank you for your fresh links.
NO PAIN NO GAIN!
I think people take that a little too literal.
I prefer the idea of ‘chi va piano, va lontano’.
My biggest beef with CrossFit is the de-emphasis on proper form. You can look up all kinds of videos of people doing these sloppy power cleans where their spines are bent backwards at an angle that makes my back hurt from just looking at it. That’s a great way to permanently end your weightlifting days and possibly end up with lifelong pain.
Proper form ALWAYS comes first when you’re weight lifting. Telling people to lift without drilling proper form into their heads is like teaching someone to shoot a gun by drawing and mag dumping as quickly as possible without worrying about silly things like “laser rule” and “target awareness”.
My biggest beef with CrossFit is the de-emphasis on proper form.
Mrs. Dean does CrossFit, and her trainers and gyms have been obsessed with form. They seem to grok that good form = good performance.
I suspect this varies by gym, and is not endemic to CrossFit.
Form and technique is key in any sport.
For example, It’s painful to watch people play tennis. They may get the ball across the net but the technique is atrocious (ie using a bent arm as opposed to the forearm/wrist movement).
Same thing in soccer. The one year I coached I had to deprogram a couple of decent playing kids who would kick with their point and didn’t know the proper passing technique with the foot. I had to cut through ‘but I score a lot this way’ and explain the second the quality of defensemen improves you ain’t going anywhere.
So I would run drills – in C league (basically the forgotten kids) – because they deserved better. My balls, my cones, my time.
When I quit a few parents came to me and asked if I would stay. The reason? No one ever took the time to respect their kids in this manner and tech them soccer. Poor things. They didn’t even know how to head pass or chest down a ball.
A couple of ideas for merch . . .
How ’bout some family friendly, STEVE SMITH branded, condoms?
They should have ribs and studs, come with extra lubrication (for when they’re playing hard to get), and preferably should only range in size from XL to XXXL.
How ’bout a Zardoz themed, weenie hatin’ hat?
The kind you’d wear to the gun range or on a last date.
STEVE SMITH USED USE 30 GALLON HEFTY GARBAGE BAG FOR CONDOM BUT NOW NO USE CONDOM MORE BECAUSE WANT MANY LITTLE STEVE SMITHS RUNNING AROUND AND BY RUNNING MEAN RAPE.
Lube? Wouldn’t STEVE SMITH rubbers be coated with glue to prevent his dates from escaping?
Americans were less tolerant of LGBT people in 2017
Destroying a few more people’s livelihoods with lawsuits ought to fix those numbers right up.
Maybe they should stop the most extreme among them from attempting to represent all of them.
^^^ This. I don’t think this has a lot to do with LGBT, but the “you have to have sex with a transgender person or your a bigot” crowd who then claim to represent LGBT and more.
I think they’re conflating hating the bull shit with actual hate of LBGT people.
Leftists always conflate policies with people.
If you don’t support mandatory gay wedding cakes and tranny bathrooms, it means you hate LGBTQAIXYZ123 people.
If you don’t support unrestricted migration and deliberate importation of people from war-torn shitholes, it means you’re racist against Hispanics and Middle Easterners.
If you disagree with the studies on how the climate has changed or has not changed, it means you hate scientists and the very idea of science.
If you don’t support gun confiscation, it means you want children to die.
I am glad that Davos is branching out into issues that matter, and what better way to get down to brass tacks than with a survey.
We’ve gone from Davos being a scary conglomeration of true global elites to manipulate mankind to it visibly being a third-rate dorm room bull session.
From 53% to 49%. Doesn’t that fall within the margin of error? “Acceptance of LGBT people remains unchanged” would be just as accurate.
would be MORE accurate
It would certainly be within the margin of error for accuracy.
Let’s base policy on polls since polls have been so accurate as of late.
After four recounts, Ms. Simond’s and Mr. Yancey’s vote totals were the same, hence, the name out of the bowl. I would ask Mr. Yancey to change his party affiliation to that of an independent if he truly wants to represent his district. He did not win the vote, he won the raffle.
That’s a dumb way to choose. Lock them in a room with a claw hammer, a twelve inch cast iron frying pan, and a pair of tin snips. Two candidate enter, one candidate leave.
Zero candidates leaving would be even better.
But then you wouldn’t be able to have the representative from the local museum appear on C-SPAN to explain the artistic and cultural significance of the bowl.
That part of it made me get a breakfast beer. As I age sometimes I fear I have wasted much of my life and then I see people like that and thank god I have not wasted it that much.
“That Scientific American used to be an excellent and educational publication”
Well, considering that this shiny metal thing was shot up there on something shaped like a giant penis, it can only be seen as the evil eye of the patriarchy. Until we can make rockets that look like pink pussy hats, we can’t achieve equality. What, they won’t fly you say? Then we have to stop sending stuff into space. Science!
Ambulance used in Kabul suicide bombing that killed at least 95, officials say
***
The Taliban orchestrated a suicide car bombing that claimed the lives of at least 95 people and wounded 158 others on Saturday in Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul, authorities said.
The bombing was the deadliest insurgent attack in the country so far this year.
Wahid Majroh, a spokesman for the public health ministry, said that the toll might still rise, because reports from the hospital show many of the wounded appear to be in critical condition.
The attacker used an ambulance filled with explosives to pass through a security checkpoint, telling police he was transporting a patient to a nearby hospital, said Nasrat Rahimi, deputy spokesperson for the Interior Ministry.
The attacker then detonated the explosives at a second checkpoint.
“The majority of the dead in the attack are civilians, but of course we have military casualties as well,” Rahimi said. He said four suspects had been arrested and were being questioned but he didn’t elaborate.
***
If only there was some way to know what motivates these people. Are they angry about poverty, corruption, or unemployment? Perhaps they are just mentally ill.
The answer may forever remain a mystery.
https://vimeo.com/231610462
Keep in mind that a religion is a product of the culture that produces it. Things didn’t get worse with the emergence of Islam.
Better for some, worse for others.
Some things got better, allegedly. Infanticide was supposedly widespread in Pre-Islamic Arabia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_pre-Islamic_Arabia#Female_infanticide
For a few hundred years, Islam brought relative peace, prosperity, tolerance, and learning to the Middle East.
I’ve read it argued that it’s over-spill from Pakistan, leftover rage going back to the injustice of partition–and 4 million Muslims living under Indian domination in the 95% Muslim Kashmir valley doesn’t help matters.
I maintain that the same sorts of things happen under those conditions regardless of religion.
I read a book once about the Mayan war in the Yucatan between 1848 and the Mexican revolution–about as nasty a race war as there has ever been, with both sides massacring each others’ women and children.
Oppression breeds revolt. The revolt typically finds its way to violence through religion, like rainwater using the path of least resistance to the sea, and it doesn’t seem to matter what the religion is. Even the religion of “turn the other cheek” has been bent to “slaughter our enemies”. No question religion in the area of Afghanistan has become especially violent. The question is why. Show me a place where people live under oppression, and I’ll show you a place where the local religion has become more supportive of violence.
This is an excellent post, Ken.
Wasn’t that the plot of The Kingdom?
He doesnt understand the principles or reasons for the constitution being what it is.
Most people have no objection to mob rule, because they delude themselves into assuming their mob will be in charge.
Know what I fret about? That Scientific American used to be an excellent and educational publication, and now it’s all about politics, FUD, and fourth-rate bloggers.
Lending credence to my theory that, the predictions of Idiocracy aside, our enstupidation (great term by the way. Can I use it?) is a top-down, rather bottom-up process. Our lower-intelligence population hasn’t grown or grown stupider. Actually, if anything , they seem to be improving. The reduction in intelligence is from the population that reads Scientific American. Our high intelligence population really does seem to have gone to pot.
This is something I blame on the funnelling of ever-increasing portions of our population into higher education. Instead of turning out more and more intelligent, educated, people, it’s watered down education itself.
People are more intelligent. It’s the media that enstupidated.
Last I checked, this was illegal
I haven’t heard any confirmations on that yet but if true it is straight-up sedition.
Let me get this straight… Kerry is attempting to act as some sort of proxy for the Palestinians? A foreign entity? Is that legal?
He is attempting to undermine Trump’s legitimate foreign policy agenda.
Let’s ask Mueller.
It’s on the hairy edge of legal/illegal. It’s certainly completely out of line and represents a fundamental disrespect for the orderly transition of power from one administration to another. If I were Trump, I’d be looking at exactly what would constitute a breach of law and have the AG pay Kerry a visit.
You’re making a large and (IMO) unwarranted assumption: that the news story is true. This one has all the hallmarks of not being quite accurate (anonymous sourcing, no way to confirm). Never, ever, ever trust stories like that, even when printed in one of (((our))) newspapers. Maybe especially then, since there’s a few axes to grind.
No, I’m not making that assumption. I’m just commenting on the story as is. I forgot the obligatory ‘IF this is true’.
Sigh, I’m getting old, there’s only so many characters in my typing day left. I can’t spare many.
Also, that’s why I phrased those sentences as questions and began with ‘Let me get this straight’.
Sigh, I’m getting old, there’s only so many characters in my typing day left. I can’t spare many.
Don’t worry. Ken Shultz will use them.
(I keed! I keed! Sort of.)
I like the Wall o’ Ken posts. He puts some meat on the bones, gives you some of the detail of how he gets where he is.
This being the intertoobz, of course, that means more to nitpick.
I think Ken is well-written and provocative. I enjoy his posts.
I just felt like breaking his balls.
If he’s acting as a private citizen, I have no problem with this. If he’s sharing anything related to his government work, including any access to classified information, he needs to be charged with offering aid and comfort to our enemies.
Well, they’re enemies according to their officials.
The Logan Act?
This is Trump’s transition team meeting with the Russian ambassador, only with different principals.
Well, the transition team met wit foreign dignitaries ahead of the inauguration with the express purpose of efficiently facilitating the transition of power and so that they were up to speed on day one.
This is pretty much the exact opposite of that.
Yeah, anonymously sourced. I had to chuckle at this, though:
Agha is one of Abbas’s closest associates and one of the veteran peacemakers with Israel.
I was unaware that there was peace between Israel and the Palis.
Lawyer: in it’s entire history only two people have ever been indicted and none convicted of violating the Logan act.
Kerry: hold my beer.
“, it turns out that the previous administration has maintained contact with PA officials.”
What previous administration? They don’t exist anymore. So now it is a bunch of private individuals acting as if they run the country.
Yeah, but Trump cheated, so he’s not really the president He’s illegitimate so it’s OK, they have to do something.
Why, just why?
Who could replace the Marlboro Man?
Why, just why?
Because the entertainment industry is devoid of any new ideas, has absolutely no idea what captivates real people outside of their bubble, and have to rely on nostalgia to put asses in the seats.
Except, I think the only people nostalgic for Cagney and Lacey are people inside their bubble. And Magnum? I remember the show well. Their remake will only destroy whatever nostalgia I have for the original.
Their remake will only destroy whatever nostalgia I have for the original.
Only if you watch it. So don’t do that.
And it’s not like we’re the target audience. Other than the names it won’t bear any resemblance to the original.
I hope they cast Hillary as one of the leads in the reboot of Cagney and Lacey.
According to Kerry, Trump will not remain in office for a long time. It was reported that Kerry said that within a year there was a good chance that Trump would not be in the White House.
I assume Kerry had a nice sit-down with the Secret Service afterwards.
*morose laugh*
An oldy but a goldy
After Stalin died, Khrushchev gave a secret speech to denounce him. As he was listing Stalin’s crimes, a voice came from the audience: so why didn’t you do anything to stop him?
Khrushchev stopped and angrily asked “who said that?” Silence. Then Khrushchev said: Well, you have your answer now, whoever you are. The position you are in now is the position I was in then.
Harvard’s drag troupe lets women audition following boycott threat by celebrity
https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/41367/
***
Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals, known for its burlesque drag shows, has featured an all-male cast since its beginning in 1844.
The troupe itself is coed, however: The current president is a woman, and women serve in every noncast role.
Women who have auditioned for the cast in a bid to shame the organization have griped that this system isn’t fair, and sought to force a change. But it took a threat from a celebrity known for bawdy female comedies to convince the troupe to go coed.
The Harvard Crimson reports that the troupe announced at its Thursday roast for Woman of the Year that it will accept women as cast members starting this fall.
Mila Kunis, who played a spoiled teenager on That ’70s Show and a libertine mother in the Bad Moms movies, had threatened to be a no-show for her own award:
Kunis, speaking at a press conference after the roast, said her decision to attend the day’s celebrations was contingent on the Pudding’s choice to go co-ed.
“I’m here,” she said. “I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
***
4 yrs at Harvard costs about $250k.
Harvard is an intellectually dead institution.
It looks to me like all of the ivy league schools have shot themselves in the dick.
The sad part is that the nation is going to be flooded with young, inexperienced people with worthless degrees, but who all believe that they are about to embark on some great career as professional whiners. The hard slap in the face by reality is going to be very harsh indeed. So effectively we will have a very large population of emotionally broken, unemployable people. A big win for Democrats who will argue that we now have to support these people who have no hope, and it’s Republicans’s fault.
That is the goal of demoralization: gum up society with dysfunctional people until society becomes dysfunctional. I have a photo seared into my memory – two germans walking down a street in Berlin circa 1926 carrying poles with a banner stretched between them. The banner read “What Germany needs now is a strong man!”
Fuck things up badly enough and people demand someone step in and clean it up.
I think “a zombie institution” is more accurate. It will continue to thrive for a while off of reputation, network, and accumulated endowment. But, I agree, it’s long-term prognosis isn’t good.
So, are men supposed to dress up like women, or not? I haz a confuse.
Hey Alexa, you cunt, make me a sammich
I can’t remember if that’s the same Kennedy who lauded Venezuela providing free gas to poor Americans a few years ago. Ah yes, here it is. Youtube remembers.
Enh, they’re all interchangeable, I suppose.
So why was he going against The One’s great plan? ‘Under my plan, energy costs will necessarily skyrocket’. These people are walking contradictions. Either you want cheap energy, or you don’t.
That’s who that is!?
Is that the guy who would be on PBS going around houses in NE giving free oil back in the 80s and/or 90s? My memory is foggy but it’s funny you mention it because I was thinking of that guy the other day.
So, is Patrick Kennedy, the punchable face drug warrior, his brother or cousin? I can’t keep up with all this royal white trash.
Racist trees in CA must be cut down, says activist
In the 1950s, some trees were planted by a golf course in Palm Springs, supposedly to block black housing from view. So now the trees must go. Also, the trees are hurting property values.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phJz6yPHLaM
I have to ask. Isn’t seeing a bunch of whitey playing golf, more racist than the trees? So what next, bulldoze the golf course and put up a ghetto? Will that fix it?
Behold the glory of Senator Collins’ Talking Stick
https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180123084914-collins-talking-stick-exlarge-169.jpg
That ain’t a woman, that’s a man baby! Well, someone must have beat her with a talking stick!
“That ain’t a woman, that’s a man baby!”
Allow me to introduce you to Oakland councilperson Rebecca Kaplan
***
She is a bisexual,[6] and has been identified as a lesbian in the press.[7]
***
What an incredible shock.
She can work at our local Starbucks, they’re down to only one Pat now. She’ll be hired on the spot and if she can paint her hair green and pink, I believe there’s a bonus for that.
Pretty sure Schumer’s are bigger.
So, do you think Schmoobz calls his upper undergarment a Bro or the Manzier?
It’s peculiar.
Yes. And yet wondrously provocative.
I found Q’s custom AR lower.
http://orion-arms.s3.amazonaws.com/stories/custom_designs/samples-064.jpg?javer=1801270335
?
I just hope its a double stack.
Lol
Wow.
What was that about the usurpation of Congress’ rightful authority?
The attorney general has vowed to uphold federal law, so some of his allies are wondering if he’s pointing out the hypocrisy of lawmakers in both parties who have failed to take up marijuana legislation even as the states have revealed a groundswell of support for cannabis.
“I’ll contemplate the possibility that he’s crazy like a fox,” Representative Tom Garrett (R-VA), who served as a prosecutor for nearly a decade, tells Rolling Stone. “We’ve got laws on the books and this is certainly the case here, but we’ve got others, where we just won’t enforce them uniformly. And that’s a miscarriage of justice on its face. Justice is blind or else it’s not justice.”
Garrett’s quietly pressuring party leaders to bring marijuana legislation to the floor as a standalone bill. While there are many options he could likely support, he’s sponsoring a bill that’s also endorsed by Independent Senator Bernie Sanders that would remove marijuana from the list of controlled substances. That would end the prohibition on pot and put it in the same category as the likes of alcohol and tobacco. Garrett says their bill is in line with what Sessions has said should happen.
“On the front end he said, ‘If you don’t like the law change it,'” Garrett says. “We’ve looked the other way on enforcement for a decade. And that’s because there’s no public will to enforce this law, which should hasten action from Congress. Why aren’t we acting? We lack political courage?”
So- Congress can seize control of this issue by rolling up their sleeves and doing their fucking job? By all means, get on it.
Why do I suspect Rolling Stone would have been outraged by a Congressional mutiny against Obama’s pen-and-phone powers?
“Senator Bernie Sanders that would remove marijuana from the list of controlled substances”
No, he wouldn’t.
So, in the last week
Trump totally obstructed justice by not firing meuller but we know he thought about it
Trump is having an affair with Nikki Haley
Kerry is actively undermining the administrations foreign policy efforts
Jordan Peterson is a Nazi
The flurry of insanity since November 2016 is really hard to keep up with. It was obvious to me that they were hitting the ground running when I saw the ‘Donnie Two Scoops’ story. They are obviously in a panic and increasingly flailing around desperately.
My prediction: 2020 the dems will push identity politics along the lines of the tranny bathroom debacle and deride half of the population
Trump runs on ‘Are you better off now?’, more jobs, higher pay, greater prosperity and security for the country.
Trump crushes the dems. Unless the democrats can produce a sane candidate they will lose in 2024 also.
Gosh, I thought a president’s sexual conduct is irrelevant to the job he does as president? “It’s just a blowjob”, right?
All of these accusations might help Trump with the women’s vote. Chicks dig an alpha.
*Ponders negging as a campaign strategy*
Yesterday when that story first broke someone here commented
“And just when I thought Trump’s stock couldn’t get any higher”
Yeah, that’s this crowd but I suspect that view is more common in the wider population than not.
I’m also looking for Trump to get a lot more Latino votes as they really dig a macho guy who don’t take no shit.
Plus their unemployment rate is taking a nose dive.
Black dudes too, for similar reasons. Obama got 87% of the black vote. Herself got 80%. If he peels off even another 5% of the black vote it could seriously fuck up the Dems electoral chances.
Plus the economy. Black unemployment being the lowest they have ever measured it at…..that’s something that could really quietly move some needles.
Trump is forcing black people to work at jobs… That’s literally the same as slavery!!!
/sarcasm, but probably not too far off
That rumor would be a lot more damaging if Nikki wasn’t a total milf.
Would
Totes. You can throw Sarah Huckabee on that pile, too.
So you wanted a strongman who would steal from the rich and give to you. Hope you really like him. Won’t stop the left from sucking up to the next one.
https://hotair.com/archives/2018/01/27/shocking-not-shocking-venezuela-will-bar-opposition-parties-upcoming-election/
“Venezuela Will Bar Opposition Parties From Upcoming “Election”
To be fair, it’s the only way to stop getting someone like Trump. Democrats should run with this.
Isnt there a story upthread doing just that? Wasn’t there a story yesterday about single party rule – destroying the GOP?
They already are.
Where I live, they don’t have to bother.
Democracy Dies in Wisconsin
The gerrymandering in Wisconsin, which experts call among the most extreme in U.S. history, is but one part of Republicans’ stealth plan to stay in office. Since Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican Legislature took power, they’ve also introduced some of the country’s harshest voting restrictions, passing laws that make it harder for Democratic-leaning constituencies to register to vote and cast ballots. At the same time, the state has become the “Wild West of dark money,” according to Lisa Graves, a senior fellow at the Madison-based Center for Media and Democracy, with Republican politicians like Walker raising unprecedented sums from billionaire donors to finance their campaigns.
“All three of these things have to be seen as part of a whole,” says Eric Holder, Barack Obama’s attorney general, who founded the National Democratic Redistricting Committee in 2016 to challenge Republican gerrymandering efforts. “Unregulated dark money combined with these voter-ID laws combined with gerrymandering is inconsistent with how our nation’s system is supposed to be set up. American citizens ought to be concerned about the state of our democracy. We could end up with a system where a well-financed minority that has views inconsistent with the vast majority of the American people runs this country.”
Long, tedious sob story about Republican gerrymanderers silencing the voices of Democrats in city centers, who used to be able to silence the voices of suburban Republicans. It’s a goddam travesty of justice.
“they’ve also introduced some of the country’s harshest voting restrictions, passing laws that make it harder for Democratic-leaning constituencies to register to vote and cast ballots.”
How so? I keep seeing the left throw out these wild assertions, but never even a feeble attempt at pointing to an example or a simple explanation, let alone corresponding evidence.
“they’ve also introduced some of the country’s harshest voting restrictions, passing laws that make it harder for Democratic-leaning constituencies to register to vote and cast ballots.”
Does the writer even politic, bro?
I just want to see how that works, because I don’t think anyone can tell us.
No – but people forget politics are a game and one side is trying to win as much as possible. They are deluding into thinking politicians (at least theirs) are some kind of angelic creatures.
I cant find it now but there is a video of some activist asking blacks in the hood if they know anyone incapable of getting a driver’s license. Many of them took offense.
I got yo’ back, fam. Its Ami Horowitz:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrBxZGWCdgs
We could end up with a system where a well-financed minority that has views inconsistent with the vast majority of the American people runs this country.
Huh.
Also, let’s talk about ID requirements to exercise other constitutional rights such as acquiring a firearm or to enter a federal building to petition for a redress of grievances. Or travel generally.
They should issue IDs at the next election to those who show up but don’t have one. It doesn’t take a lot of equipment anymore, just a digital camera and a color printer.
Someone shows up to vote and doesn’t have an ID, take their picture and issue one right there, and tell them this is their one bite of the apple. Next election, no ID no vote.
But enough about government sector unions…
I was going to bring up the subject of the John Doe investigations (the progs used an obscure law to run shadow investigations on a bunch of conservatives in Wisconsin), and I ran into this depressing story.
Recently the legislature voted to deny the nomination of one of the people who ran the agency in charge of the John Doe shit to the Elections Commission. The Election Commission decided that the Wisconsin legislature were a bunch of punks and voted themselves to retain one of the guys who’s nomination had just been rejected.
Yup. If I was on the Elections Commission, I would definitely want to keep the services of a guy who at his previous job had run swat raids on his political opponents. And also leaked all the information that was illegally obtained in those raids to sympathetic reporters.
RE: The Kennedy rebuttal to Trump.
He should completely steal the thunder by just mailing the letter.
I keep seeing the left throw out these wild assertions, but never even a feeble attempt at pointing to an example or a simple explanation, let alone corresponding evidence.
Look- asking to be able to verify that a person who intends to vote is an enfranchised citizen who lives in the voting district is a completely unreasonable burden.
I like how requiring ID is a civil right’s violation. Getting an ID at your local DMV is an unreasonable requirement, yet I cannot get on a plane without ID. Are there any other countries that allow voting without an ID? To me, all this is about is ‘I want illegal aliens to vote’. This is just another example of what I’m talking about ‘You’re denying citizens rights to vote!’. No explanation.
We could end up with a system where a well-financed minority that has views inconsistent with the vast majority of the American people runs this country.
This would not be in any way problematic if Hillary Clinton had won the election.
a system where a well-financed minority that has views inconsistent with the vast majority of the people runs this country…
Isn’t that most countries- today and throughout history?
Well, going back to our DNA show and tell from the other day, I got my results back finally, and I know how excited you are to hear them! I mean, you’re not, but unlike the people in real life you have no way of avoiding me inflicting them on you: 35% Europe South (which would be Italy in my case), 24% Great Britain, 20% Ireland/Scotland, 17% Scandanavia, which came as a surprise. I guess it reflects many generations of Viking rapes.
My mom got one of those tests and it reported that she is 1% Ashkenazi Jewish, which makes me 0.5%. I guess I’m one of (((them))) now.
“Ashkenazi Jewish”
Yeah, I see what’s going on here, nothing gets past Glibs.
So, 100% privileged shitlord. Here on Glibs? I’m shocked I tell you!
I’m 102% northern European with a 2% margin of error. According to the map, most of my ancestors lived within 100 miles of each other.
I tan like an ice cream cone, causing my body to cry out for potatoes and beer.
Thanks for sharing your privilege, you white, cis-het shitlord.
-the left
35% Europe South (which would be Italy in my case), 24% Great Britain, 20% Ireland/Scotland,
So a wop with bad teeth?
And red hair.
Pretty much, yeah
Despite knowing that my DNA is likely recorded as part of some DoD database due to my military service, aint no way Im voluntarily mailing my double-helixes off for someone to potentially sell off. That being said, I can easily (mainly church records) trace my family back to the tribe of inbred anabaptists in Alsace-Lorraine that all of us here sprang from. There’s even a castle over there that bears the family name. Doubt they’d invite me in, though.
The “Waco” series that started on Paramount Network didn’t get good reviews. After only watching the first episode, the reason doesn’t seem to be that it’s poorly written or poorly acted. However, it does do some awful things.
It makes Randy Weaver look like a victim.
It makes David Koresh look like a human being.
It makes the Branch Davidians look like human beings.
It makes the ATF look like the bad guys.
It makes the FBI look like the bad guys.
How could they give good reviews to a show that makes anti-government, pro-constitutional rights people look human, and makes the federal government look bad. Especially in this day and age, when support for Donald Trump is threatening the very fabric of the progressive experiment, how profoundly irresponsible to make a series that shows these people as anything less than the outrageous characterizations of anti-government people that we know they really are!
P.S. The series was produced by the Weinsteins.
Did it make Janet Reno look like the next person to gain Sainthood?
She wasn’t in the first episode.
You can watch it online on Parmount’s website.
As somebody who followed all these events in real time, I have to say . . .
A balanced report would have to show that Randy Weaver’s family were the victims, the Branch Davidians were human beings, the ATF and the FBI were the bad guys, . . .
Janet Reno offered her resignation to Clinton after Waco. They rejected her resignation, presumably because they thought that might make it look like they’d done something wrong.
There was a moment in the first episode, where a reported is asking about Weaver, presumably whether he’s a white nationalist, etc., and she says straight into the camera, “Yeah, he has some different ideas, but isn’t that what America is supposed to be about–free speech and all that?”
These kinds of ideas are heresy to progressives!
I’m surprised how balanced it was. I expected them to make it all progressive as could be–and the series is still young. But it would be unreasonable to expect them to have done better than they did in the first episode.
I saw an interview with the local sheriff in Waco. What I remember is that the sheriff said more or less when the FBI showed up looking to get Koresh ” Look, I know the guy. He goes jogging outside of the compound every morning. I can drive over there and pick him up no problem and bring him here to you.”
FBI – “You stay out of our way. We’ll take care of this”
Personally I think they went down there to make an example of the Koreshians. They were rumored to have been stockpiling automatic weapons and ammo. They went there to kill.
Some of LSD‘s acquaintances at college are from Waco. Too young to remember themselves, they’ll no doubt get a good idea of how the older generation review the series. If I hear anything interesting I’ll report back.
Regarding the way the standoff was managed, I didn’t think anyone who had looked at the event could come to any other reasonable conclusion than the feds wanting to make an example of the Branch Davidians. Lots of people break federal firerarms laws and there are negligible consequences (Ferris’ Law, yet again), and yet this happens.
If the claim that Reno offered to resign is true, I’d like to modify my opinion of her and upgrade her to “piece of shit human” from something a lot worse.
Bill Clinton personally made the call to end the siege by force. That came out later but was barely reported and today the sheriff’s interview and the fact that Bill personally gave the order have gone down the memory hole.
He read the reports of the terrible child-abuse going on in there and, being a dutiful and generally wonderful father, his lip began to quiver and he said, this must stop. Stop the horror going on there. Save those children.
THAT is why the compound was stormed. The children had to be burned alive in order to save them.
And we’re the ones called antisocial assholes.
Just for the record . . .
—-Chicago Tribune 1996
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-07-12/news/9607120219_1_waco-raid-gop-report-gen-janet-reno
It’s funny but everything that happened before the internet became a consumer force, you still pretty much have to rely on memory or third party references to the event. In other words, there was no live unfolding of these events on the internet as they were happening to Google. You can watch news reports, read about what was going on, but it’s not like real time events on the internet afterwards, where you can experience them pretty much as they happened online.
I’d date the change to around 1994–when 1) Netscape went public, 2) AOL started charging a monthly fee instead of by the hour, and 3) the release of Windows 95.
The things that happened before then didn’t happen online.
The LA Riots and Waco are like that. They happened on TV, in the newspaper, or real life. News events now are from something like a first person perspective. You see it for yourself in real time. Try searching for what you remember from before 1994 or so, and a) there aren’t many direct references and b) they’re probably something you read in a newspaper after they happened.
Before Google, being knowledgeable was more important than it is now. Whatever criticisms you had of a news story had to come from tour own brain back then. How could you argue with what the paper or TV was telling you otherwise?
They absolutely went there to kill.
When you fire machine guns into a building of civilians, you are there to kill. When you fire pyrotechnic grenades into a dry wood building on a windy day, and then prevent the fire department from moving to the building, you are there to kill. When you knock down the walls of a building full of civilians with armored vehicles, you are there to kill.
The first episode made it look like the ATF was trying to justify their budget in Waco after they’d been handed all the blame for Ruby Ridge.
It’s hard to remember what it was like when people could talk about this stuff on TV and in public and the media would cover it in a relatively unbiased way–so that public opinion was against the ATF, the FBI, and the Clinton administration for going after gun rights, after white nationalists, and for burning 80 people in a fire.
The public acceptance for that kind of tolerance seems to have blown up with the Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
Obama era identity politics made it even worse.
I think Reno also got a pass because the Clintons didn’t want to go through the hassle of trying to find another woman to be the AG.
And the main stream media didn’t really want to collect the scalp of the first female AG.
Clinton Rule #1 – Never admit a mistake.
Clinton Rule #2 – Never admit a mistake.
Couldn’t Reno simply have quit? Just stop showing up to work?
Within 72 hours her lifeless body would have been found in Georgetown, the victim of an unknown, unidentified mugger who just happened to leave all the money in her purse and all her trinkets installed.
Did it make Janet Reno look like
the next person to gain Sainthooda dude?FIFY!
Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Cause Janet Reno is her dad!
(also works with Web Hubbell)
Why would Janet Reno fucking Hillary make Web Hubbell ugly? I don’t get it.
If I have to explain the joke…..oh, nevermind.
The ATF and FBI were fundamentally wrong in their approach, good intentions or not. Impatience and a desire for a show of power set in and the result was a bunch of dead kids. I don’t care if it took them two years to get those kids out, they should have waited. That blame lies with them and them alone, regardless of Koresh’s alleged misconduct.
“good intentions or not” is incompatible with “show of power” unless you’re outside the wire in a foreign country with which you’re at war, and you happen to be military personnel.
And sometimes, not even then.
Also, from that Rolling Stone article:
Voter fraud is a very small problem in Wisconsin, and nationally. According to one major study, from 2000 to 2014, there were only 31 cases of voter impersonation out of more than 1 billion votes cast. “Studies show that the kind of fraud that these laws are supposedly enacted to prevent happens less frequently than Americans being struck by lightning,” says Ho.
A “major study” is referenced . That settles it.
If voting doesn’t require ID, how would they know?
It’s kind of like the “study” cited by feminists claiming that “only 5 to 10 percent of rape allegations are false“.
Was that the “major study” that every blue state refused to participate in because Trump?
Switzerland denies citizenship to welfare recipients
They have to pay back the money before they can apply for citizenship.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahhx7Sjg_IM
Greetings from Gasparila you puny mammals!!!!
Gasparila isn’t a real place.
Gasparilla is though; I grew up there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasparilla_Island
Still not real.
So You Have a Liberal Arts Degree and Expect a Job?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obpWwFa742Q
“Comments are disabled for this video.”
Of course they are.
World needs ditch diggers too. And why does someone need to be paid to log license plates? Isn’t there software to handle that?
“World needs ditch diggers too.”
Yes, but do they need college degrees for that?
Well, at least the gov’t got down to tackling the real issues:
https://www.news8000.com/news/wisconsin-assembly-passes-bill-legalizing-lemonade-stands/689974534
More like, UNWOKE-a Flocka, amirite?
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/waka-flocka-stopped-vegan-scary-article-1.3776057
I’m guessing Mr. Flocka had a recent break-up.
-1 Big Kahuna burger
https://youtu.be/dBP0Mbc7VFw?t=12
So, if you go from being Woke to Unwoke, is that count going back to sleep?
I finally slogged my way through that Rolling Stone article. What a monstrous steaming pile of unsupported assertion, innuendo and outright nonsense. And I suspect the wokester collegians who read it will never question a word, but accept it as incontrovertible fact.
Which article? Enh, it doesn’t matter.
“Although Twitter states just 3% of Tweets that used the #DNCLeak hash tag were “potentially Russian linked” (meaning, having a Cyrillic name, ever Tweeted in Russian, ever used a Russian proxy, ever Tweeted from Russia) Twitter censored half of everyone’s Tweets.”
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/957225460714344450
After the last Twit outrage that the #ReleaseTheMemo was being pushed by Russian bots I wanted to join the hashtag push followed by “I’m not Russian I live in CO you Twit censor retard” in Cyrillic just to fuck with them. Alas I was too lazy to follow through.
I always knew thechive was (((thechive))).
http://archive.is/pPA5E
12, 14, 20, 23, 41, 43, 54.
#3
#15 is Eva Green.
Some of them look a bit young to include in an orgy.
10 or 34.
Q, I posted this up thread…it’s yours isn’t it?
http://orion-arms.s3.amazonaws.com/stories/custom_designs/samples-064.jpg?javer=1801270335
Which article? Enh, it doesn’t matter.
My “Wisconsin” link, above.
Oh, I knew. All their articles are like that.
Back from Silicon Valley. Things I learned:
1) Employees really do fall into two categories: scientists and engineers that are predominantly male and predominantly slobs and soft-skills, right-brained stuff that is predominantly female, with many very attractive women. Why this is a problem that needs to be fixed I don’t know.
2) I doubt any employer would pay me what it would take to get me to move there. Pros: scenery, professional opportunity. Cons: traffic, wokeness, crowded, Kalifornia’s shitty laws and regs.
3) Terrible land use laws and regs have driven property values to beyond ridiculous levels. This, I think, more than anything is going to hurt these companies finding good talent. Even with the high salaries they pay, most entry-level and junior employees can’t afford to live without roommates. Why take a job there, when you could take a tech-y job elsewhere and live more or less like a king.
I keep hearing that Silicon Valleys are popping up in other cities with more business-friendly environments like Texas and Nashville, TN. I’m interested to see how much longer these tech companies will put up with California’s bullshit.
The companies? Quite a while.
The non-executive talent that drives much of the company’s innovation? Maybe a lot less.
I work in Santa Clara and agree with everything you said. The weather and opportunities really do make up for the rest of the crap, though.
Sorry I missed you while you were here. I would have taken you out for lunch or something, given the fine work you do for mammary sciences.
Intellectual titan Tom Friedman explains the problems in Iran- it’s environmental, you see.
Short version: top men plan big and fail
***
After violent protests recently exploded across Iran, President Trump vowed to differentiate himself from President Barack Obama by openly tweeting his support for the demonstrators. It had no effect, though. One reason is that Trump could never send the really killer tweets — the ones that might have gone viral across Iran and rattled the regime.
What would those have said? Something like:
@realDonaldTrump “America stands with Iranian demonstrators!!! Why are so many from the countryside??? Because Iranian Revolutionary Guards mismanaged Iran’s water supply for decades. Stole all the water for their companies, cronies, pistachio farms and stupid dams!!! And now climate change and droughts are making it all worse, forcing Iranians off their land. Unfair!! Sad!!”
The Iran protests were clearly fed by many streams — The Times told a harrowing tale last weekend of how corruption and Ponzi schemes at banks owned by Iran’s clerical regime and its allies had defrauded thousands of savers, and brought some into the streets. But environmental corruption was also a cause of anger.
The Islamic regime and the Revolutionary Guards had ripped off the country’s natural wealth the same way they’d ripped off savers’ wealth. And now climate change is amplifying many of the worst impacts.
That’s not something an American president who thinks climate change is a hoax can tweet about — but it is a key reason the street demonstrations were particularly intense in regions hard hit by a whirlwind of drought, extreme weather events and reckless water use practices imposed by Iran’s clerical rulers.
“When people lose their lands they lose everything, and that means they aren’t scared of anything,” explained Nikahang Kowsar, an Iranian exile geologist, and son of a watershed scientist, who grew up in southern Iran. “The water crisis is real and killing the country today. We are getting less precipitation, and the population is rising. There’s bad agricultural policies and bad water governance. It is like a time bomb.” Officials predict that millions of Iranians could be forced to flee their country before the end of the century.
Here’s why: Since the revolution in 1979, Iran has built a crazy number of hydroelectric dams. According to a March 2015 report from Iran in The Financial Times, “Over the past three decades, Iran has built 600 dams — an average of 20 a year — to irrigate farms and provide power. It is unclear how much has been spent on these projects, though it is believed to be second only to gas and oil … and much of the money has been channeled through contractors linked to the Revolutionary Guard. Poor planning and 14 years of drought have rendered many of them useless and, in some cases, they have contributed to environmental damage in the semi-arid country, experts say.”
Once some farmers found they no longer had water for their crops — because aquifers had been overused, or water had been diverted to big agribusinesses tied to the regime, or too many dams had been built and then warmer temperatures shrank the lakes behind them and nearby wetlands — many of the farmers migrated to the margins of cities in search of employment, food and water.
“The government is not giving the exact number of Iranians who fled the countryside and are now living in shanty towns, but it should well be over 16 million, up from 11 million in 2013,” added Kowsar, who, besides his water/geology expertise, is one of Iran’s most followed political cartoonists, which is what got him exiled. “These cities, where employment is scarce, have become hot spots of unrest,” particularly as the government cut back subsidies.
“When the current president, Hassan Rouhani, signaled that he would reduce those benefits, enraged Iranians across the nation’s arid countryside joined the wave of protests. ‘You have climate change, shortage of water, they can’t grow their crops, and now they’re getting their cash handouts taken away,’ said Handjani. ‘It’s a panoply of issues coming together at once.’”
The Los Angeles Times reported from Iran on Jan. 17: “In the mountains of western Iran, the province of Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari is known for mile-high lagoons, flowing rivers and wetlands that attract thousands of species of migratory birds. But years of diminishing rainfall have shriveled water sources. Conditions worsened, residents say, after Iranian authorities began funneling water 60 miles away to the lowland city of Esfahan, sparking protests as far back as 2014. On Dec. 30 of last year, about 200 people gathered in front of the provincial governor’s office to protest the water transfer project. Their slogans soon morphed into chants of ‘Death to the dictator.’”
The Tehran Times reported on Jan. 8 that, according to the head of drought and crisis management at Iran’s Meteorological Organization, “nearly 96 percent of Iran’s total area is suffering from different levels of prolonged drought.”
Lake Urmia was once a giant saline lake, 87 miles wide, in northwest Iran. Beginning in the 1990s, though, Hashemi Rafsanjani, the president at the time, started building lots of dams around the lake, an initiative followed by his successors, constricting the water flowing into Urmia. And because of those dams, a group of people — Revolutionary Guards contractors, people close to the Ministry of Energy and large agribusinesses that siphoned off the water — “got very rich,” explained Kowsar.
As National Geographic put it in an August 2015, essay: “Now the lake, once one of the largest in the Middle East, looks more like a gigantic crime scene.” Its dried salts now mix with sand, fueling toxic wind storms.
The Iran story is repeating itself across the Middle East — environmental stresses mixing with resentment over corruption and misgovernance, sparking uprisings. And it is only going to get worse.
Between 2006 and 2011, some 60 percent of Syria’s landmass was ravaged by the worst drought in the country’s modern history. It came after years of overpumping of aquifers by cronies of the regime. That drought forced 800,000 to one million Syrian farmers and herders to abandon their land and livestock and move to the edges of Syrian cities and towns, where they had to scrounge for work. The Assad regime did nothing for them, and they were among the first to join the revolution against it.
The first Arab Spring uprising in Tunisia in late 2010, followed quickly by Egypt’s in early 2011, happened as world food prices were hitting record highs, largely because of a coincidence of extreme weather events: Droughts, wildfires and flooding in China, Russia, Ukraine, Australia and the U.S. sharply constricted their wheat exports. It was not an accident that the chant in the Egyptian revolution was: “Bread. Freedom. Dignity.”
So, kids, if you want to understand the politics of the Middle East today, study Arabic and Farsi, Hebrew and Turkish — but most of all, study environmental science.
***
This left me wishing for another Ken Shultz posting …
I actually know a guy with a Ph.D in environmental science, and judging from some offhand comments (“Obama is a fucking asshole”) he seems to lean a bit to the right. I want to ask him what he makes of the whole climate change thing. It would be interesting to know someone in person who invalidates the CONSENSSSUSSSSS on evil global warming.
You probably already do.
There really are only two consitituencies that can move the needle on the topic. On one hand, the scientists who can understand the complexities of the whole system and recognize that as a result, climate models with any predictive ability are not going to be around for a long time, and on the other, those scientists whose careers rely on funding committees pretending that current models have predictive ability and that enhancements of those models are merely ‘tuning’.
The yuge elephant in the room of course is that the details of climate models are largely irrelevant. One of the most valuable contributions the scientific community could make is in critiquing the baseline datasets that have been used as the foundations of all subsequent models. Climate models are generally (and legitimately) acknowledged to be highly sensitive, with many degrees of freedom and are – as we know – considered to be key to mankind’s future on Earth. It behooves us to make policy decisions based on the very best predictions delivered by such models, but you can’t drive models like that without the highest-quality, data available.
And that’s where it all falls apart. The baseline data, used for calibration, is shit. It doesn’t take an Environmental Scientist, let alone a PgD to recognize that. Incidentally, and no insult intended to your friend, in the same way that adding ‘social’ to a topic inverts the resulting proscriptions (the relationship of ‘justice’ to ‘social justice’), any discipline that has to add ‘science’ to its title probably isn’t a science. (“Materials Science”, which is a worthy and valuable field of endeavor, isn’t so much ‘science’ as ‘technology’)
any discipline that has to add ‘science’ to its title probably isn’t a science.
Being someone employed in the Science of Facilities Maintenance I feel insulted by that statement.
Sir, I take humbrage. My degrees are in Chymical Science and Physikal Science.
A man of your age would be more Alchemist and Natural Philosopher, I’d think.
The Los Angeles Times reported from Iran on Jan. 17: “In the mountains of western Iran, the province of Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari is known for mile-high lagoons, flowing rivers and wetlands that attract thousands of species of migratory birds. But years of diminishing rainfall have shriveled water sources. Conditions worsened, residents say, after Iranian authorities began funneling water 60 miles away to the lowland city of Esfahan, sparking protests as far back as 2014. On Dec. 30 of last year, about 200 people gathered in front of the provincial governor’s office to protest the water transfer project. Their slogans soon morphed into chants of ‘Death to the dictator.’”
Owens Valley sez “Hi!”. Also, bonus points for pulling it out of the LA Times.
“And now climate change is amplifying many of the worst impacts.”
I would like to point out that there is no temperature change, storm strength or frequency, droughts or floods that are statistically abnormal. There is no climate change. Out of one side of their mouth they say climate change is looming in the near future and out of the other they say it is already here.
You forgot to say “The quote is gibberish” …
“*NEW VIDEO* Science proves it. Conservatives are hot. Leftists are ugly.”
https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet/status/956986105647288320
More amusing than scientific.
great moments in central planning
Denver is requiring rooftop gardens to mitigate the urban heat island effect.
https://www.denverpost.com/2017/12/31/denver-green-roof-law/
Some problems
1. If successful, wouldn’t that make the city colder in the winter?
2. Won’t those gardens require a lot of water? It doesn’t rain much in Denver.
3. Many buildings were not built to withstand extra weight on the roofs.
Have no fear- our top men will fix it.
The collapsed roofs will just create more jobs for construction workers who have to come in and fix it! Jeez, true genius is never fully appreciated…
We got so fed up just fixing all the broken windows, plus, with modern tools and techniques, it isn’t that profitable …
The city cant plant trees?
The dearth of arborialists, who all changed careers into growing dope, is the problem.
Their reflex is always to force the individual. Mandates for the private sector to spend money and effort. It probably hasn’t even occurred to them to plant medium sized shade trees along the streets themselves. There would be no knuckles to crack, no heads to bash and where is the fun in that.
I think I see where they went astray.
1. If successful, wouldn’t that make the city colder in the winter?
2. Won’t those gardens require a lot of water? It doesn’t rain much in Denver.
3. Many buildings were not built to withstand extra weight on the roofs.
1. Probably, but they can just adjust the temp records to whatever they want as it is so no big deal.
2. No problemo, they will just put in a plan to steal more from the Western slope thus changing the climate in more regions including California which is a win win for the cause.
3. They have roof load codes for snow and it doesn’t snow anymore due to climate change so may as well load them up with dirt.
Why adjunct professors are struggling to make ends meet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz4pK8UP4PM
no wonder they’re all marxists
*Grinds teeth*
I will not unload on these idiots, I will not unload on these idiots, I will not unload on these idiots…
These are the same schools paying six digit salaries to six diversity officers per each classroom teacher? Academia is one fucked up world.
Swedish meatballs tonight. It’s rainy and miserable all day here so we are just keeping the fire going, still dressed in pajamas and I think the wife is watching Sheena Queen of the Jungle on TV. I got restless and made the meatballs and sauce too early but I have to brag – I think that is some of the best sauce I have ever made. Damn, I could just sit and eat the sauce with a spoon.
Blonde roux, beef stock, sour cream, salt, white pepper and sweet basil. Simple but damned delicious. I went heavy on the sour cream. You can never have too much sour cream.
Nice. I’m starting the marinade for some chicken, which will eventually be made into a curry with coconut milk.
Sounds good.
I picked up 2 t-bone steaks today. Each one is just over 1.5 lbs. They’re gonna be grilled for dinner tonight.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/05/my-secret-shame/476415/
whine, whine, whine
***
I never figured that I wouldn’t earn enough. Few of us do. I thought I’d done most of the right things. I went to college; got a graduate degree; taught for a while; got a book contract; moved to a small, inexpensive, rent-controlled apartment in Little Italy to write; got married; and bumped along until I landed a job on television (those of you with elephant memories may remember that for three years, I was one of the replacements for Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert on the PBS movie-review show Sneak Previews). Then my wife and I bought a small co‑op apartment in Brooklyn, which we could afford, and had our two daughters. My wife continued to work, and we managed to scrape by, though child care and then private schools crimped our finances. No, we didn’t have to send our girls to private schools. We could have sent them to the public school in our neighborhood, except that it wasn’t very good, and we resolved to sacrifice our own comforts to give our daughters theirs. Some economists attribute the need for credit and the drive to spend with the “keeping up with the Joneses” syndrome, which is so prevalent in America. I never wanted to keep up with the Joneses. But, like many Americans, I wanted my children to keep up with the Joneses’ children, because I knew how easily my girls could be marginalized in a society where nearly all the rewards go to a small, well-educated elite. (All right, I wanted them to be winners.)
Still, we moved to the tip of Long Island, in East Hampton, where we wouldn’t have to pay that exorbitant private-school tuition and where my wife could eventually quit her job as a film executive to be with the children, the loss of her income offset a little by not having to pay for child care. (When people look at me admiringly after I tell them I live in the Hamptons, I always add, “We live there full-time like the poor people, not only in the summer like the rich people.”) We rented a house and made a go of it.
***
“I live in the Hamptons, send my 2 daughters to an expensive private school, and work sporadically as a freelance writer. Why am I poor?”
Presumably because you didn’t want to live in perfidy and shame by moving to Yaphank, Farmingville, Patchogue or Ronkonkoma – all of which have an easier, cheaper commute to the city.
You can never have too much sour cream.
Truer words were never spoken.
I think I may have reached derp saturation with this dreck.
Why Don’t Americans Save More Money?
Maybe the only way to make people richer in the long run is to take their money away from them.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/why-dont-americans-save-money/478929/
***
What’s made America uniquely bad at saving? Perhaps America’s mix of wealth and diversity, the very staple of the American identity, is the culprit of its spending habits. In 2008, several researchers studied the stereotype that minorities spend more than whites on “visible goods”—like clothes, shoes, jewelry, watches, salons, health clubs, and car parts. They discovered that, even after controlling for income, minorities save less than whites and spend more on such conspicuous consumption goods. But the story wasn’t just about race. White people in poor U.S. states spent more of their income on visible goods than whites in higher income states.
…
But the poor can save more money, and it’s not offensive to suggest so. It’s clear that millions of lower-income people can collectively devote tens of billions of dollars to an investment vehicle that holds the promise of future wealth. They already do: The lottery is a $70 billion government-financing initiative disproportionately funded by the poor. This is politically vile, but it is also an indication that low-income people see lotteries as a kind of savings vehicle. Rather than put $200 per year away in a low-risk, low-reward savings account, some put $200 into high-risk, high-reward lottery tickets.
…
It is crude yet important to point out that if America’s middle-class and poor were cheaper with their money, they would be richer. One fine policy would be to ban state lotteries. Another straightforward way to raise savings is to raise incomes, for example, by advocating for and enforcing a higher minimum wage.
…
In a world obsessed with the wizardry of behavioral nudges, perhaps policymakers should consider putting away the magic wand and just do the paternalistic thing: Force people to save more, by expanding Social Security or by creating new forced savings policies.
…
It sounds counterintuitive and nearly paradoxical, but maybe the only way to make Americans richer in the long run is to take more money away from them.
***
[head desk]
>Social Security
>saving
HAHAAHAHHAHAHHHA
“Force people to…”
It always comes down to the fist with them, doesnt it?
***
Washington state has the highest minimum wage in the nation at $9.32. Can the state’s low-wage workers can meet their basic needs without assistance? Economics correspondent Paul Solman explores the quality of life for a baggage handler at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport and an employee of McDonald’s.
***
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a0k68ZJEQU
“I’m a high school drop-out, have a criminal record for shoplifting, and am a single mom with 2 kids. Why am I poor?”
Republicans in the Mist
Inside the mind of white America – BBC News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dykgtGv8ozs
It sounds counterintuitive and nearly paradoxical, but maybe the only way to make Americans richer in the long run is to take more money away from them.
We must break them to the yoke of the State.
Because an excellent way to become wealthy is to let the government get its hands on your money.
I do know what has made poor people in this country orders of magnitude wealthier than they were one, two, three generations ago: the creation of wealth by the private sector. This moron doesnt know what money or wealth are.
KMW from the Before Place talks immigration with Tucker Carlson and beclowns herself.
“U.S. Citizens DON’T Deserve Priority??” Tucker vs Delusional DACA Supporters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7aqJrOn274
It would be “awesome” if the US had a billion people? Great. Then we’d just like India and China: much poorer, more polluted, and less free.
Well, we DO have a party whose members frequently make remarks about how much easier it is to “get things done” with China’s system of government.
Really? Is that the Democrat party? Because tomorrow’s Doonesbury uses the autocrat theme and ties it to the Trumpers.
Those Youtube comments are cancerous.
There was a lunch for past Reason Foundation contributors right in my city. David Nott and The Jacket were there, along with 18 local contributors. Adapted from my longer Reasonoids post, here’s an interesting tidbit on immigration.
Nott asked an open-ended “what’s concerning you most” question, and various topics were raised. Immigration came up, and one woman mentioned something about the UK. I shamelessly used that as a springboard. I said the UK was an interesting case, particularly the Rotherham scandal, with the powers that be bending themselves into knots to avoid sounding anti-immigrant. I said that made questioning completely open borders looks like a fair and rational thing to do, and that I felt that Reason’s editorial position tended toward strawmanning opponents as racist or nativist. Nick seemed to actually take that seriously; he said he would take it up with the editors, and he referred back to my comment several times, including copping to attacking the strawmen because it’s easier than honestly engaging the tinmen.
I have no idea if that means anything, but it seems to have touched a nerve. I was thinking mostly of Shikha but apparently KMW has decided SD’s immigration blather is just the bee’s knees.
Huh. I just went to H&R for the first time in a few weeks and it appears Shikha’s approach is the official stance now, given KMW’s position.
Main page has “The Nativist Plan to Criminalize Dreamers: New at Reason”. The linked article is titled
Republicans Who Think Trump Has Gone Soft Have a Plan: Criminalize Dreamers, Slash Legal Immigration, and Invade Americans’ Privacy and subtitled “The Securing America’s Future Act is a nativist nightmare.”
It’s by one David Bier. Not sure I have the fortitude to read it.