Monday Morning Links

I think sloopy got abducted by aliens. I got kind of a garbled request for assistance this morning, followed by “not the rectal probe!”… Or, maybe, he ran into some podunk sheriff’s department just off the Interstate that is searching for CONTRABANDZ. Either way, you are still getting your Links this morning, and liking it!

We’re going to need a bigger boat

 

Sports… Baseball panic or false euphoria has started for [INSERT FAVORITE TEAM HERE]. NCAA Basketball concludes tonight – not that I will bother watching two teams I could care less about. NHL playoffs start soon…I don’t want to talk about it.

Birthdays…let us see here:

Charlemagne (742), Hans Christian Andersen (1805), Emile Zola (1840), Buddy Ebsen (1908), Alec Guinness (1914), Marvin Gaye (1939), Camille Paglia (1947) and Michael Fassbender (1977)… I think Charlemagne could take ’em all on… Was Buddy Ebsen ever any good with a great axe?

So, Links then:

  • Oh, this should be fun. By fun, I mean, this is going to suck. Porfirio Diaz may have been a dictatorial dirt bag, but “Poor Mexicoso far from God, so close to the United States” still rings true.
  • Upstate NY, Great Plains and Upper Midwest Glibs laugh at Britain. Oh noes!
  • Boring! No “I woke up and found half a Chinese Space Station in my back yard” stories. Feh.
  • Florida Man just tryin’ to keep a pet?

OK, now get back to work, or day drinking or whatever you need to do today.

Comments

385 responses to “Monday Morning Links”

  1. PieInTheSKy

    Upstate NY, Great Plains and Upper Midwest Glibs laugh at Britain. Oh noes! – it was a -pretty nice weekend in Bucharest. Sunny and 20 degrees

    1. You mean 68 degrees, right?

      1. No, he likes frozen toes.

    2. Pope Jimbo

      The weatherman is promising us 9″ by tomorrow night.

      How the fuck am I going to keep my wife from being disappointed? Does that asshole weatherman even think of that shit before he spouts off?

      1. Yeah, no kidding…guy sounds like a braggart to me.

      2. Brett L

        May you get the same 9″ she gets.

        1. Pope Jimbo

          The only way my wife is going to get 9″ is if I can do it 3 times (and I’m not a young man anymore).

          1. Bobarian LMD

            Just measure from the base.

            of your spine.

  2. leonadasiv

    “Upstate NY, Great Plains and Upper Midwest Glibs laugh at Britain. Oh noes!”

    See what climate change hath wraught!!!

  3. PieInTheSKy

    Oh, this should be fun. By fun, I mean, this is going to suck. Porfirio Diaz may have been a dictatorial dirt bag, but “ “Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States” still rings true. – hey maybe they will decide to build a wall and save the US the trouble

    1. Leftie governments in Mexico make a lot of anti-US noise, and then go and make conditions suck, so lots of their people leave for the US. It is ironic and stupid. I want our neighbors and trading partners to be fat and happy, not feeling the urge to imitate Venezuela.

      1. PieInTheSKy

        But maybe this is the time when leftist government will work. Maybe in 10 years Americans will try to sneak in a much more prosperous Mexico. You never know (sometimes yo do though….)

      2. Homple

        I wish Mexico was a fat and happy trading partner. Alas, it’s a kleptocracy heading toward narcostatehood and no Mexican politician I’m aware of is interested in fixing any of that. If anybody knows of one capable of doing that and willing to try, please let me know. It would cheer me up.

        1. mexican sharpshooter

          We could try to reanimate Santa Anna’s corpse?

          1. Need someone to launch a coup against himself?

          2. One of his wooden legs is in the Illinois State Military Museum.

            https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/18808

        2. The Last American Hero

          Mexico pisses me off. They have every advantage a nation could want – lots of arable land, a big moat, beautiful coasts, a shit ton of oil, and the world’s greatest military-industrial complex sharing their only real border. And rather than their neighbor to the north wanting to conquer them and take their cool shit, they want free trade and offer tons of financial assistance and military protection. And Mexico still manages to cock it up.

          Fuck Mexico.

    2. leonadasiv

      Hmmm, build a wall… Mexico pay… Perhaps Trump, and therefore the Russians are behind this.

  4. Ayn Random Variation

    Calling a movie too cliche when you’re watching it 40 years after it came out is the dumbest comment ever on here.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      Who called what cliche in this fine thread?

      1. Ayn Random Variation

        I just read the Jaws Wars from yesterday’s thread, and felt that I had to comment on the ‘ too cliche’ comment.

        1. PieInTheSKy

          well that was random

          1. Pope Jimbo

            I don’t know. I feel like it should be OK to comment on weekend threads in the Monday links.

            For example, I would have loved to comment on the STEVE SMITH thread yesterday, but I was off doing other things.

            My comment was about how Sasquatch has 57 words for rape, but 0 words for consent.

          2. straffinrun

            I thought “Uffda” was consent.

          3. Actually they have no word for ‘rape’, only intercourse. Without a concept of consent, there is no way to express a difference between consenting and nonconsenting partners.

          4. JaimeRoberto

            They have two words for consent: “No” and “Stop”.

      2. robc

        I said it about The Godfather, sarcastically.

        1. Ayn Random Variation

          Ha, I didn’t see that. “Watch, now they’re gonna eat some pasta”

  5. Florida Man just tryin’ to keep a pet?

    Not a pet, he was trying to start a gator farm.

    1. Mr Lizard

      Or it’s just notable because the story didn’t fall on a Tuesday

      1. Is Monday night your cousin’s barhopping time?

        1. Mr Lizard

          Actually yes, he prefers the loose women found at service industry night

  6. leonadasiv

    “Florida Man just tryin’ to keep a pet?”

    Or maybe a clever way to keep the neighbor kids out of your pool.

  7. The Late P Brooks

    How the fuck am I supposed to ski if it won’t stop snowing?

    Still too dark to get a good idea how much. Winter has my permission to leave, but it won’t.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      I though April was forecast very cold in US. I hear lots snow will come over the next fortnight

      1. Ver cold? It’s 29 degrees here. That’s not cold.

        1. PieInTheSKy

          Well cold for April. As in less then the long term average.

      2. Rhywun

        It never snows in NYC in April. WTF, winter?

      3. mexican sharpshooter

        Fortnight? What is this, 1870?

        1. Hey! It’s still a useful word, especially for those of us who are paid fortnightly.

    2. leonadasiv

      Winter is like the party guest you have to invite, shows up early, and overstays their welcome.

      1. straffinrun

        That would make me the winter solstice. Who’s up for karaoke?

      2. The Elite Elite

        It’s impossible for winter to overstay its welcome. Why, Friday it was already 100 degrees out. I say winter should stay as long as it wants.

        1. leonadasiv

          For me winter can start in October and go until May, so yes it can overstay it’s welcome.

          1. The Elite Elite

            October until May? That sounds glorious. I wish it was winter from July to July.

    3. PieInTheSKy

      If I were to found libertopia I would pick the Azores. Perfect climate.

        1. PieInTheSKy

          Bit to hot

          1. dbleagle

            Hawaii in “Nation that walked on the moon degrees” temps.
            Summer high 90 Low 78
            Winter high 85 Low 73

            If it hits 70 for a low, its women in leather knee high boots and sweaters with men in light jackets and everybody using the car heater and heated seats.

        2. PieInTheSKy

          Probably better bitches on the beaches

          1. Jerms

            Out on Long Island we have 5″ already. Remember the old WWF wrestler Jake the Snake?After giving you a DDT and knocking you unconscious and winning the fight, he would leave the ring and come back in and dump his giant python on your head.
            This snow is like god dropping a big snake on our heads right now.

      1. Be careful what you ask for. I spent two years on the Azores. Hot and wet, cold and clammy. The wind would routinely hit 100MPH in the winter. Had to continuously wash the walls with bleach to hold back the mold.

        Beautiful place, wonderful people, lousy climate.

        … Hobbit

  8. Grumbletarian

    There’s no way Charlemagne could take out a Jedi master.

  9. straffinrun

    Happy, I mean, you know, this, this, we all knew back in the 70’s, this you know, um, Happy Birthday, Paglia.

  10. PieInTheSKy

    First it was Confederate monuments. Now statues offensive to Native Americans are poised to topple across the U.S.

    http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-native-american-statue-removal-20180401-story.html

    Honestly just ban statues in public places. It would be easier.

    1. I’d rather ban iconoclasm.

      1. leonadasiv

        It wasn’t until a few months ago that I realized that ‘iconoclasm’ meant the exact opposite of what I thought it did. I got that part of history all mixed up.

    2. Atanarjuat

      It’s my understanding that Mt Rushmore is the most offensive of all. I wouldn’t mind seeing the faces dynamited.

      Also needing to be changed: anything in your town named after Jackson.

      1. robc

        Do the Dems stil have the Jefferson/Jackson dinner?

      2. Rasilio

        Err my oldest’s name is Jackson.

        Course that was because my wife was a huge Nightmare Before Christmas and Jackson Pollak fan. Had nothing to do with the genocidal maniac ex president

      3. dbleagle

        What do people have against William Jackson the frontier photographer?

        1. With a name that white? Please.

    3. Grumbletarian

      The target is an 8½-foot bronze likeness of William McKinley, who was president at the turn of the last century and stands accused of directing the slaughter of Native peoples in the U.S. and abroad.

      Native peoples abroad are foreigners. So that means ripping down statues of most presidents.

      1. PieInTheSKy

        Replace them all with statues of Hillary, The One That Could Have Been

        Would be fun a Mount Rushmore with 4 Clinton heads on it

        1. Grumbletarian

          Each with a different appalling expression. If vomit were to ever become a valuable resource, the government could probably pay off the national debt in a couple of years.

        2. SugarFree

          But which four of her heads to choose?

          1. Not Adahn

            Federal Neoclassical style would say the four that face in the cardinal directions.

          2. SugarFree

            OK, so none of the lower ones or the ones that have to be extruded from a pouch, lesion or other concavity.

          3. Not Adahn

            Of course not. That would be like sculpting David with his foreskin retracted.

      2. WTF

        They’re mad because he won the Spanish-American war?

    4. Rebel Scum

      Take them to their logical conclusion, all of history must be wiped out because everyone was an a-hole of some form or another.

      1. Atanarjuat

        Like all of their other initiatives, it will somehow coincidentally be enforced only against their political enemies.

        1. Number.6

          They’d better hope their political enemies don’t gain the upper hand then.

  11. straffinrun

    It was originally planned to be decommissioned in 2013 but its mission was repeatedly extended.

    Betcha it doesn’t fall as far as their QE backed housing market.

  12. PieInTheSKy

    Deutsche Post defends voter microtargeting data practice
    Deutsche Post has denied selling personal data to political parties, insisting that it follows data protection laws. Newspaper Bild had made the claims on Sunday, implicating two major parties, the CDU and the FDP.

    http://www.dw.com/en/deutsche-post-defends-voter-microtargeting-data-practice/a-43223747

    1. Rhywun

      Wild guess: it was perfectly OK when the SPD did the same thing four years ago.

  13. The Late P Brooks

    I want our neighbors and trading partners to be fat and happy

    Only an alt-right hate monger would say something like that. You’re probably the sort of neoliberal who thinks everybody benefits from trade, when everybody knows it’s really just an excuse for the plutocrats to plunder the poor.

    1. “Trade makes everyone poorer becuse no one would ever pay full price, and no one would ever sell for less that it’s worth”

      /ignoring marginal utility

      1. leonadasiv

        I did have to explain that to a friend at work. He said, “well in general, someone is getting a bad deal and someone is getting a good deal”. I said, “no in a growing economy, wealth is created, so in general, everyone gets a good deal.”

        I could tell he had to think about it.

        1. robc

          People think there is some “absolute value” that is the same for everyone. Once you realize that different people have different values, trade helping everyone makes much more sense.

          1. Akira

            People think there is some “absolute value” that is the same for everyone.

            That’s the origin of a lot of Leftist thought errors. They think their emotions are a reliable guide for what the price of X should be. It’s the “Feelings Theory of Value”.

          2. Badolph Hilter

            the “Feelings Theory of Value”.

            Love it.

    2. leonadasiv

      Trade = plunder, taxation and redistribution = the way society ought to work. It is known by those who are learned.

  14. straffinrun

    Torrential rain and snow is making it a miserable Easter Monday as thousands of Britons head home after the four-day weekend.

    The Sleety Slut Walk home. Good luck gals.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      Probably Putin is to blame.

    2. Brett L

      They may be ugly, but I respect the strength of their ankles to walk home on icy cobbles in fuck-me pumps.

  15. PieInTheSKy

    Scientists find mini gastrointestinal tract growing inside tumor

    https://www.statnews.com/2018/03/29/cancer-tumor-mini-gut/

    1. Not as bad as the tumors full of teeth they sometimes find.

    2. straffinrun

      I’m imagining little Bernie Polyps insides Hillary’s large intestine.

      1. Number.6

        Kuato is her wingman.

        1. That pro-global warming zealot?

          He advocated for destroying the natural Martian Ecology!

          1. straffinrun

            It is the Red Planet.

  16. straffinrun

    “Sacred Wear, Endless War: The Hijab and Turban Under Imperial Visuality,” Balbir K. Singh – CWGS Assistant Professor Job Talk

    In the wake of renewed attacks on Muslim and Muslim-adjacent communities, the hijab and turban continue to be enveloped as important material objects in the racialization of Muslim and Sikh bodies. Analyzing contemporary visual culture as both testament and counter-archive to a geopolitical project of Islamophobia, “Sacred Wear, Endless War” moves to both assemble and update how we apprehend these unsettling figures.

    1. leonadasiv

      “racialization of Muslim and Sikh bodies. ”

      Gah!!! Not everything bad is about race! The left have a serious 1960’s hangup.

      1. The problem exposed herein is a hangup on cargo cult academia. There is this belief that if they put on the airs of being learned, and use the right buzzwords, they will be the intellectual they feel they should be. It results in theses that could be easily replaced with word salad from an algorithm and no actual thought or understanding by the practicioner. However, the rot is such that they become accepted into the priesthoods of academia for having spoken the correct shibboleths.

        1. leonadasiv

          Bam. That is a perfect explanation. Modern academics had become a big cargo cult.

      2. Rebel Scum

        Not everything bad is about race!

        That’s where you are wrong. It’s the current year so everything is about race and if you think it is not you are a vile racist. It is known.

    2. PieInTheSKy

      who is attacking these Muslim-adjacent communities?

      1. leonadasiv

        “look islamaphobe, sometimes the worst violence is what we say, not who we blow up”/prog

      2. Mohammed, his brother Mohammed, and his other brother Mohammed, and their friend, Mo.

        1. straffinrun

          Newhart of the Islamic world.

          1. Rhywun

            If only the last hundred years or so was all just a dream.

    3. Gadfly

      It’s interesting that that fellow would group together Sikhs and Muslims. I know that some unlearned folk confuse the two, but you’d think someone in the know would recognize that not only are they very different, they have a very antagonistic history. At one point the Sikhs even formed their own country in India when they had had enough of being ruled over by intolerant Muslim governors, who had martyred several of the Sikh’s holy men and desecrated their holy places.

      1. Number.6

        There are very few ways to piss a Sikh off that are more effective than mistaking them for a Muslim.

        While the Sikhs are not unknown for certain acts of separatist barbarity, they’re not particularly dedicated to blowing people up and making utterly irrational claims in support of subjugating the whole world to a murderous and illiberal regime.

  17. Private Chipperbot

    Hart family crash appears intentional.

    The crash that killed a Washington couple and at least three of their six children when their SUV plunged off a cliff in a remote stretch of the Mendocino Coast appears to have been intentional, authorities said.

    The two women were found dead inside the car. The bodies of three children were outside the vehicle. Those pulled from the wreckage were identified as Markis Hart, 19; Jeremiah Hart, 14; and Abigail Hart, 14.

    One of the missing children, 15-year-old Devonte Hart, had a moment of fame in 2014, after he was photographed hugging a Portland, Ore., police sergeant at a protest related to unrest in Ferguson, Mo. Missing along with Devonte are Hannah Hart, 16; and Sierra Hart, 12.

    The Washington State Department of Social and Health Services said child welfare authorities received a complaint of potential child abuse or neglect on March 23, three days before the crash.

    1. Badolph Hilter

      Jesus Fuck. I hadn’t heard about this event until now, and now I wish that I still hadn’t heard about it.

  18. The Elite Elite

    More plans for teachers to whine about their pay.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      Well they should be paid a lot more. Why are professional athletes payed more than teacher I ask you?

      1. It takes a lot more work to peform at that level, and they bring an (inexplicable but undianable) entertainment value to a large number of people. Teachers simply fail society thirty kids at a time.

        1. PieInTheSKy

          No one works harder than a teacher.

          1. Just goes to show the adage “work smarter, not harder” isn’t just a cliche.

          2. Akira

            They do work quite hard at grifting the taxpayers with the aid of their immensely powerful union.

      2. WTF

        Supply and demand?

        1. PieInTheSKy

          Supply and demand just shows the market does not work and people don’t know whats good for them. Prices should be decided by experts.

          1. Badolph Hilter

            Pie’s really got his prog on this morning.

          2. *pssst* He’s funnin’ ya.

            And it is working too.

        2. There are a lot of people who want to be professional athletes, but very little openings, you’d think their wages would be lower…

          /ignoring the locus of competition in the industry.

          1. commodious spittoon

            Competition is just a buzzword used by Ayn Rand Kochtards to cover up oppression. Real freedom means having everything provided by government.

        3. straffinrun

          That and they don’t force me or my kids to attend NFL games at gun point or get extorted.

          1. PieInTheSKy

            No, just to pay for stadiums

          2. straffinrun

            Small price not to watch the NFL.

    2. Rhywun

      Oh please do continue to overstep any “good will” you think you have with the voters.

      1. Gadfly

        I was so happy the last election in my town where the voters narrowly voted down a property tax increase to pay more money to the schools. The good will definitely has a limit.

        1. Badolph Hilter

          Wish I could say the same. “We” just passed a property tax increase last year to increase funding for special-needs students and oh-by-the-way-also-the-sherriffs-dept. For the children.

          1. Gadfly

            Putting the special-needs kids front and center is another level of devious. That might have put the tax over the top in my town if the tax-and-spenders had thought of that, instead of just pimping the regular kids.

    3. Rebel Scum

      Tens of thousands of teachers planning massive rallies and classroom walkouts

      For the children, of course.

      I have said it before and I’ll say it again, these people need to be fired on the spot, with prejudice.

  19. But the focus was mostly on silver-haired Lopez Obrador, who struck a more nationalistic tone in his speech in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, demanding respect from U.S. President Donald Trump.

    Want respect? Refuse to cooperate with the imperialist American pigs’ War on Drugs, cabrón.

  20. The Late P Brooks

    It’s always about race.

    A few years ago, The Atlantic published a story detailing all the ways racial disparities in “transformative assets” chip away at black millennials’ ability to build wealth. This generation has been forced to forgo buying homes and investing in favor of contributing to their parents’ bills and paying off college loans.

    Now, a new study on race and economic opportunity has revealed that black boys who are raised in wealthy families are more likely to become poor as adults than they are to remain wealthy.

    The explanation was obvious: racism, and the continuous price African-Americans pay for it, from generation to generation.

    ———–

    African-American parents can’t stop demanding equality, but perhaps we need to start dreaming of a different kind of success: a hybrid of the life my father led as a child (while appallingly unjust, segregation made the black community self-reliant, assuring that African-Americans traded in goods and services among themselves) mixed with the expectations he had for me (success in corporate America). Maybe the challenge we should pass along to black children now is to never be afraid of avoiding the shackles of corporate America and creating their own businesses — businesses that also serve our community.

    And maybe it’s time for us to redefine success altogether. Doing “better than me” could be about our babies growing up to be healthier, happier and more passionate about the things that matter to them — hard workers, yes, with the cash they need, sure, but also pioneers of a new paradigm that lets go of the all-too-elusive American dream.

    Or is it?

    And that last part, about not letting other people define your goals, applies to anybody. Also, the part about selling yourself into college debt bondage is good advice for anybody. I have reached the point where I think the overwhelming majority of kids should spend at least a year working before they enroll in college. But if they did that, they wouldn’t be so docile.

    1. Semi-Spartan Dad

      Now, a new study on race and economic opportunity has revealed that black boys who are raised in wealthy families are more likely to become poor as adults than they are to remain wealthy.

      What claptrap, this is true across the board for all races. The children of the wealthy are more likely to become wealthy as adults than children of the poor, but they’re still more likely to lose that wealth than keep it.

      So many of my friends from childhood could have taken over their families’ extremely lucrative businesses, but instead chose to go after useless degrees and jobs that don’t support their accustomed lifestyle, requiring regular cash infusions from Mom and Dad. The ride will eventually end one day.

      1. l0b0t

        Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.

    2. Rhywun

      The explanation was obvious: racism

      Obvious. Why, it’s not even worth contemplating anything else.

      1. WTF

        Hell, it’s not even worth explaining exactly how it was definitively caused by racism.

    3. Rebel Scum

      The explanation was obvious: racism

      Also obvious, this person is a maroon. People are constantly moving among income/wealth (we must distinguish the two) brackets. But I do wonder how they come to this conclusion. Are whites or non-blacks stealing from blacks or something? I can’t be bothered to read the rest of that drivel.

  21. PieInTheSKy

    Oldest Human Footprints in North America Discovered: Here’s What They Reveal

    https://www.livescience.com/62153-oldest-human-footprints-in-north-america.html#undefined.uxfs

    About 13,000 years ago, two shoeless adults and a child squished their bare feet through wet clay near the water’s edge, leaving footprints that still exist today.

    The footprints, recently unearthed by anthropologists on an island in British Columbia, Canada, are the oldest known human track marks in North America, according to a new study, and provide more evidence that humans were thriving on the Pacific Coast of Canada at the end of the last ice age, said study lead researcher Duncan McLaren, an anthropologist at the Hakai Institute and the University of Victoria, in Canada.

    1. Rhywun

      “HUMAN” FOOTPRINTS… STEVE SMITH IN HAPPIER TIMES HAD WOMAN AND JUNIOR STEVE. BEEN ROAMING NW EVER SINCE LOOKING MAKE NEW FAMILY.

    2. F. Stupidity Jr.

      About 13,000 years ago, two shoeless adults and a child squished their bare feet through wet clay near the water’s edge, leaving footprints that still exist today.

      Thus saddling mankind with a terrible poem.

      1. two shoeless adults and a child

        See, before westerners came, the poverty was such that they didn’t even have shoes!

  22. Pope Jimbo

    Potential job opportunity for any Rhode Island Glibs!

    The Providence Journal reports Dyer Woods Nudist Campgrounds’ help wanted notice for a lifeguard this summer says qualified candidates must have “excellent communication skills” and the ability to “work as part of a team.” (Presumably good swimming skills, too.)

    Campground president Jim Johnson says the lifeguard can wear a swimsuit but it’s not necessary.

    1. Mr Lizard

      STEVE SMITH BEEN GETTING LESSONS FROM SEA SMITH

    2. straffinrun

      Do you know mouth to …..

      1. Never go mouth to SEA SMITH!

    3. PieInTheSKy

      Well if the lifeguards wear swimsuits people will ask themselves what are they hiding.

    4. Nudists are always the people you would prefer remain clothed at all times.

      1. straffinrun

        Schrödinger’s Pussy?

    5. Pope Jimbo

      Maybe if that scene at the beach in Jaws was filmed at this resort and all those little kids were naked, OMWC might change his opinion?

  23. straffinrun

    VW storing around 300,000 diesels at 37 facilities around U.S.

    Volkswagen has 37 secure storage facilities around the United States housing nearly 300,000 vehicles, the filing from the program’s independent administrator said. The lots include a shuttered suburban Detroit football stadium, a former Minnesota paper mill and a sun-bleached desert graveyard near Victorville, California.

    Cash for Der Klunkers.

    1. Rhywun

      Die Klunkers. Sheesh.

      1. robc

        The Bart The.

    2. Badolph Hilter

      Silverdome FTW!

      1. Private Chipperbot

        Queues up ‘One Shining Moment’….

    3. B.P.

      There’s one in Colorado Springs at the Pikes Peak International Raceway. It’s a sight to behold.

    4. Mad Scientist

      They have to verify their emissions fixes for each and every one, so it takes quite some time to get them retrofitted and back on the road. Interestingly, they’re selling almost immediately after getting to dealers and at nearly new car prices.

      1. Plinker762

        And then being reprogrammed to the old firmware for the better power and economy?

    5. mexican sharpshooter

      Why can’t they just sell them back to states that have less restrictive emissions standards for dirt cheap? I’ll take a TDI.

      …oh, right, that makes them dirty, evil capitalists.

  24. Rebel Scum

    Listening to the Dave Hogg link from the open post yesterday and it seems like at one point he is reciting lines and being coached. Is that how normal interviews are conducted? 0_o

    1. Rebel Scum

      He also goes on about “togetherness”, “respect”, “supporting the second amendment” and such. He does the opposite of all of those things. What a fucking shitstain.

  25. Pope Jimbo

    Uffda. House GOP wants $50 million for school safety, $0 for gun control

    I can’t be the only one cynical enough to think that some of us Minnesoda Glibs should start a consulting group to help schools spend this money. All our group would do is fly the important decision makers to conferences to hear about how to protect their schools. The conferences would be in Phoenix, Honolulu, Miami, etc. Of course our consulting group would collect a fee for arranging all of this.

    We’d just bet that there would be zero school shootings.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      what’s with you and the weird Uffda stuff?

      1. He’s trying to hard to convince people he’s a native of a snowy central region of the northern United States when he’s actually posting from a Russian IP address.

        1. Pope Jimbo

          Nyet! Nyet! Nyet!

          I mean, uffda that is quite the theory you have there UCS.

      2. Do you even Norway, brah?

      3. Pope Jimbo

        Uffda isn’t weird.

        OK, it isn’t weird in Minnesoda. Ok, ok, it isn’t weird in certain parts of Minnesoda.

        It is just part of my plan to bring Minnesoda into the main stream.

        Step 1: Get everyone on board with spelling it correctly (Minnesoda).
        Step 2: Get everyone using Uffda whenever they need a short word to express some emotion.
        Step 3: Get everyone on board with the correct usage of borrow and loan (hint: a loan is always a noun. If you think you need to use loan as a verb, just use borrow instead ‘Uffda. Can you borrow me $20 until payday?’)

        1. #3 is flat wrong. In the example sentence the person being spoken to should end up confused as to why the speaker wants to loan them $20 unprompted.

          #2 is silly. The plethora of options available in modern American vernacular is much more colorful than trying to standardize.

          #1 is… apathy. I don’t really care.

          1. hayeksplosives

            It’s all the Norwegians’ fault.

            #2 Uffda is an actual Norske word, not just an expression.
            #3 is also a holdover from Scandahoovian immigrants. In Swedish and Norwegian, the word for borrow and lend is the same, so you figure it out from context.
            #4 My personal least favorite Scandyism: “I’m going to the store. Do you want to come with?” Never “with me?” just “come with?” Drives me bonkers but originates in the immigrants’ language.

            Now that I’m in San Diego, I don’t have to know that anymore so I can reclaim those brain cells for brushing up on Spanish.

          2. Learn Polish instead. Really confuse the locals.

          3. Pope Jimbo

            ::raises hand guiltily::

            #4 is used not only by me, but I have taught my immigrant wife from Korea to use it as “normal” too.

          4. F. Stupidity Jr.

            I always assumed “come with” was just part of casual slang: “Dude – goin’ to the arches, wanna come with?”

          5. westernsloper

            Speaking the regional dialect around these parts that sentence is spoken: “Gweat McD’s?”

            Short and to the point.

          6. Gustave Lytton

            Re #3: Buy and sell in Mandarin use the same pronunciation, just a difference in tone. The characters are also very similar

          7. Pope Jimbo

            Your condemnation of #3 is just your privilege showing UCS.

            Maybe if you understood that I grew up with Uffbonics and I use “borrow” correctly with that in mind. You come down to the icy streets of the Minnesoda hood and start using loan as a verb and people are going to make fun of you.

          8. hayeksplosives

            I’d make fun of people using “loan” as a verb too, since the proper verb form is “lend.”

            /grammar Nazi

        2. Gustave Lytton

          I’m going to be working with some Minnesoda folks today & tomorrow. I’ll be slurring my words by the end of the day without even touching a drop. Fer shure.

    2. robc

      Stop trying to make fetch happen.

  26. PieInTheSKy

    Placebo in sports nutrition: a proof-of-principle study involving caffeine supplementation.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27882605

    thinking they were on caffeine had a greater positive effect on performance than actually being on caffeine.

    1. *grunts, refills coffee mug*

  27. Rebel Scum

    No “I woke up and found half a Chinese Space Station in my back yard” stories.

    Yea news people were alarmed about this last week. I figured an ocean crash was most likely. How terribly unsatisfying. ///ThatsWhatSheSaidButNotToMe

  28. The Late P Brooks

    First it was Confederate monuments. Now statues offensive to Native Americans are poised to topple across the U.S.

    We’ll have to ban obelisks, next. Too phallic.

    1. Number.6

      We’re not far away from banning any kind of human image anywhere. Expect to see products like Land-O-Lakes Dairy products, Argo Corn Starch, and Aunt Jemima food containers replaced with nice comforting geometric designs on their labels.

      Lucky Charms Leprechaun and Morton Salt Girl will have to stay exploited though, because of their white privilege.

      1. Rhywun

        The Morton gal will have to wear a hijab.

      2. kinnath

        OMWC still mourns the loss of the Coppertone Girl.

    2. In our new cultural outreach initiative, we have decided to build a string of pyramid complexes along the southern border. On these pyramids we will honor the mesoamerican pantheon with daily blood sacrifices chosen from among the community of expatriates who have volunteered by crossing the border so enthusiastically that they forgot to file for permission. Then we will line up all the skulls on racks in the time honored tradition of their putative ancestors, placing them in prominant positions along the border so that all of them can see how much we honor their heritage.

    3. Pope Jimbo

      Shoot, what about the pyramids? Talk about being monuments to the mack daddies of slave holders.

  29. Rebel Scum

    11-foot alligator pulled from Florida family’s pool

    Florida is the Australia of the US.

  30. straffinrun

    Alright, I’m off to watch the Walking Dead. Bad, bad, not bad, bad, very good, bad, WTF, bad, pretty good. Pretty much the way that series is going.

    1. straffinrun

      And an “atta boy” to Swiss for stepping in for Sloopy.

    2. Private Chipperbot

      I was a huge fan and stopped watching a few seasons ago when they went man vs. man violence porn instead of a zombie show.

      1. Pope Jimbo

        ^This^

        As soon as they started the intertribal warfare shit, I was out.

      2. Suthenboy

        Not to worry. Last night’s episode was an hour of panning faces as everyone had existential crisis’. Exciting stuff.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    Listening to the Dave Hogg link from the open post yesterday and it seems like at one point he is reciting lines and being coached.

    There was an “interview” with a group of students on some show, (maybe Meet the Press) and the kids pretty much all (one girl in particular) sounded like they were reciting their Catechisms. They had the Bloomberg-approved list of talking points down cold. Even the phrasing was suspiciously similar.

  32. Pope Jimbo

    I bet service will improve dramatically at Surly’s taproom in Minnesoda.

    Surly Brewing has agreed to settle a multi-million dollar class action lawsuit stemming from its policy on pooling employee’s tips.

    Surly employees sued the Minneapolis based brewery, beer hall and restaurant, accusing the company of illegally forcing them to pool tips.

    Surly’s never skimmed the tip pool. They just used it to include the busers, bar backs and hosts in the tips. Not sure why this is illegal (go figure the professional Journalist never answered that).

    1. robc

      It is legal if voluntary.

      My suggestion is to stop tipping altogether but put a “commission” on each bill, that the house can split amongst workers as it sees fit.

      1. Pope Jimbo

        Sorry, I was thinking that if you owned a business you could set any rules you wanted and people would be free to either work there or not.

        I hope that the bar back for the asshole who started this lawsuit acts accordingly when he doesn’t get a cut of tips anymore. “Yeah, I’ll get right on bringing up the clean glasses right after my mandated break.”

        1. robc

          owned a business

          You didn’t build that.

    2. Badolph Hilter

      Huh, I had no idea that was, or even might be, illegal.

      I think tip-pooling sucks. The whole point is to motivate and reward excellent service.

      When I bussed tables in junior high, the waitresses were smart enough to tip their support staff out of their own tips. Same principal applied — some were stingier than others but if you busted ass you generally got rewarded for it.

      1. pistoffnick

        I bussed tables at an upscale Mexican restaurant . Bussing for 2-4 watrons on a Friday or Saturday night would net me between $150 and $250 in 1988 money. And I KNEW some of the waitrons weren’t giving me the full 10%. That was pretty damn good money for a highschool boy.

  33. Number.6

    Time to ban battery-powered angle grinders.

    Spoiler. More criminality in my old manor, squire.

    1. Suthenboy

      What was the crime rate like pre-gun ban?

      That is a rhetorical question in case you were wondering.

    2. A shot fired into the air after the first time and there would be no 2nd or 3rd attempt.

      Oh wait, England. : (

    3. Number.6

      Well, just to be a dummy and answer a rhetorical question, crimes of violence were lower, but really, not that much lower.

      Just like the US, there have been places you just didn’t go, because you knew it was dangerous. Where those places were moved with time as districts became gentrified while others slumped into decline. Gun crime was always lower, in part because the culture didn’t “support” it.

      The old idea that the “coppers aren’t armed” had been untrue since the 60’s. Few uniformed cops were armed, but a Chief Constable could (and regularly would have) authorized qualified officers to draw a weapon from the armorer, up to shotguns and bolt action rifles.

      Special Branch (Fraud, Bunco, Narcotics, Organized Crime) were routinely armed, but there was at least a remnant of the “It’s a fair cop” mentality, at least while Britain was … ahem … somewhat more culturally homogenous.

      1. Number.6

        Whoops. Special Branch =/= Fraud Squad, the description above was primarily “Fraud Squad”. Special Branch is more “internal security/anti-terror”.

  34. The Late P Brooks

    Expect to see products like Land-O-Lakes Dairy products, Argo Corn Starch, and Aunt Jemima food containers replaced with nice comforting geometric designs on their labels.

    They have definitely de-tuned Uncle Ben over the years.

  35. Rufus the Monocled

    18 point plan….to failure. and then hell.

  36. Mr Lizard

    Time again to play FloridaMan adlibs

    In today’s episode FloridaMan __________ from deputies while riding a _______ then returns and yells ___________

    http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/Drunk-Florida-man-yells-come-and-get-me-to-deputies-is-arrested_166837227

    1. Brett L

      I was rooting for lawn-mower.

    2. commodious spittoon

      God broke the mold when He made Florida Man, but that didn’t stop Him.

    3. Flees. Manatee. METH!!!!

  37. The Late P Brooks

    Here’s a shovel. Jump in that hole and start digging.

    I didn’t attend the local rally against gun violence on March 24, though more than 10,000 Nashvillians did. The march was planned by Abby Brafman, a Vanderbilt University freshman and 2017 graduate of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. I had out-of-town family visiting, so my husband, a high school English teacher, marched alone. A few minutes after he got to the rally, he texted me a photo he’d taken of himself standing in front of another marcher’s sign. It read, “Am I next?” For just a second, I couldn’t breathe.

    I had a similar reaction last summer when our oldest son, a new middle school math teacher, took me to see his first classroom. “Just look at all these beautiful windows!” I said. “Not exactly great for an active-shooter situation,” he pointed out. His words turned my heart to ice.

    Not only am I married to a schoolteacher, and the mother of one, I also have two younger sons in college. Not a single day goes by when I don’t worry about whether they will all be safe in their classrooms.

    Every parent in this country knows we’re taking a calculated risk when we send our children to school, to a concert, to a movie.

    She’s worried sick.

    1. I read that as “Abby Barfman”, did anyone else?

      1. So *that’s* where Barfman has been!

      2. invisible finger

        Yes. Also, Nashvillains.

    2. Pope Jimbo

      Maybe that is a good excuse to not arm teachers?

      How long until the teachers start popping students and then getting off scot free because “I feared for my life”? Sure it turns out the kid only had a suspiciously nibbled on pop tart, but the important thing is that these “heroes” go home safely.

      1. invisible finger

        Are truancy officers armed?

        1. pistoffnick

          In Minnesota they are.

        2. pistoffnick

          Well “School Resource Officers” are anyway.

    3. Rebel Scum

      Every parent in this country knows we’re taking a calculated risk when we send our children to school, to a concert, to a movie.

      Statistically speaking, your kids are relatively safe at schools and it is highly unlikely that there will be a shooting. Also, news flash, life can be dangerous. No one gets out alive.

      1. WTF

        Of course the biggest risk statistically is the time they are in transit in a car to any of those places, but don’t let facts get in the way of your feelz.

        1. Akira

          Other activities that are statistically more likely to result in your child’s premature death than gunfire:
          – Playing football
          – Swimming in the backyard pool

    4. Just look at all these beautiful windows!” I said. “Not exactly great for an active-shooter situation,”

      Actually perfect for such a situation if they are breakable and allow students in rooms to flee because the shooter will most likely be inside.

      1. Gustave Lytton

        50 meter popups were easier to hit than the 300m ones.

  38. DOOMco

    Just bought some 30 rounders and one 40, just to say FYTW to VT.
    Magpul already took my idea from last week, on Saturday they handed out 1200 30 round mags to anyone who wanted one in front of the state house.
    Scott should be signing the bill this week.
    I hope a 19 year old sues the state for not being able to defend themselves.

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      So, is this being rammed down the majority’s throat against their will or are most Vermonters for this? It’s a shame to see Vermont go from being great on guns to pretty bad in such a short time.

      1. DOOMco

        I think it’s probably 50/50.
        Half being “ban all guns” and the other “repeal the nfa”

  39. Gadfly

    •Upstate NY, Great Plains and Upper Midwest Glibs laugh at Britain. Oh noes!

    OK, so what’s up with the Daily Mail mixing units?

    Up to six inches of snow is forecast for much of Wales, northern England and northern Ireland, while southern areas of England are being lashed by heavy rain.

    Some parts of the country could see as much as 70mm of rain and drivers returning home have been told to expect treacherous conditions on the roads.

    (emphasis added)

    Does anyone know if it is common in the UK to mix systems of measurement, or is the Mail just screwy?

    1. hayeksplosives

      When I lived in Stockholm and watched a bunch of BBC weather reports, the maps always showed cm of precipitation and degrees celsius, but the weathermen always talked of inches and Fahrenheit. Same with British units of weight, including the mysterious “stone”. Really? 14 lbs? Not 12?

      1. DOOMco

        Yeah, stone is weird. But it makes everything seem lower. I only weigh 10 stone!

        1. Akira

          People on a certain fitness forum used to get in stupid US vs UK dick-measuring contests. The UK people would constantly boast about how super-duper rational the metric system is, but in practice, they’d use oddball shit like “stone”. Hey, I thought “kilos” was ultra-scientific and stuff; why don’t you use it??

          1. Number.6

            “Hey, Brah, how’s the lifting going?

            “Oh, it’s great. I can expect to put on about 1/3 stone per fortnight, increasing my lifts by 5 pound increments”

      2. Gadfly

        Interesting. So there must be some tension there between what units to use. If they actually pull the trigger on Brexit, they should abandon the French SI and come back to Imperial units with us Americans.

        1. hayeksplosives

          Amen, Gadfly.

        2. robc

          Except our units are different too.

          An Imperial pint is 20 ounces, for example. But it is really only about 19 US ounces, as the Imperial ounce is smaller than the American ounce.

        3. Pope Jimbo

          The difference between metric and imperial measurements illustrated.

          There are only two kinds of countries. Those who use metric and those who have sent a man to the moon.

    2. Number.6

      A combination of reasons. It’s bad enough that the UK does mix units, but the Mail uses stringers all around the world who phone their articles in where they’re transcribed (by machines, I think) so the errors can be funny in their own right, and temperatures particularly can get muddled. Combine that with what looks like zero editorial oversight and Robert is your mother’s brother.

      1. hayeksplosives

        ~snort~!

        “Robert is your mother’s brother” took me a sec, but I get it.

        1. trshmnstr

          When I was a little kid I was confused what my uncle Bob had to do with anything.

        2. Rhywun

          I had to look it up. Never heard that before.

      2. Gadfly

        That makes sense, and also goes a long way towards explaining why some people call them the “Daily Fail”.

      3. Number.6

        I have to admit, I’d love to inspect the code for the fashion module of the Fail’s content management system.

        How does it analyze some brief copy about Lena Dunham, and convert it into ‘effortlessly stylish’, ‘toned body’ or ‘plunging decolletage’?

        1. Number.6

          … let alone ‘pert derrière’?

        2. Atanarjuat

          What kind of monster are you?

    3. Evan from Evansville

      Stephen Fry said on QI that Brits use Celsius for cold temps and Fahrenheit for hot because the exaggeration of the number used was more powerful or on point.

      Meh. As long as it’s within the level of normal weather I can go back and forth. But I sure as fuck can’t cook off the top of my head with C.

  40. Gadfly

    •Oh, this should be fun. By fun, I mean, this is going to suck. Porfirio Diaz may have been a dictatorial dirt bag, but “Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States” still rings true.

    That’s unfortunate. The PRI was moving in a more centrist direction, and then the Mexicans go and throw their support behind an unreformed leftist. The Mexican people are their own worst enemy.

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      It’ll totally work this time, amigo.

  41. The Late P Brooks

    Not a fishing expedition

    Republican strategist Alex Castellanos on Sunday warned President Trump to “get good legal help now.”

    Castellanos said during a panel on ABC’s “This Week” that it is hard to believe that special counsel Robert Mueller “is not going to dig up something in Trump’s complicated financial history to say ‘Look, the president of the United States did this and it was wrong.’ ”

    “And it’s hard to believe then that when Republicans lose the House in 2018, maybe by 40 or 50 seats, that House is not going to impeach him,” he said.

    Just keep looking until you find something you can hang him with, because that’s how justice works.

    1. Rhywun

      The GOP wants everything to go back to the way it was so badly. I wonder why that is.

      1. They hate having responsibility and being accountable to their Deplorable base. Possibly the only people that hate Middle America more than the Dems are the GOPe. It’s much easier to be in the minority and raise a ruckus every now again to get some funding, then go back to the University Club and the cocktail parties.

        1. R C Dean

          Possibly the only people that hate Middle America more than the Dems are the GOPe.

          This is true.

          (a) Back when the Tea Party was a real threat to the establishment, Repub operators in Texas (granted, in Austin, but still) were quite clear in private conversation about how they loathed the TPers. And the national party has thrown more than one election because they would rather have a Dem than a Tea Party candidate.

          (b) I suspect this is because GOP establishment types are culturally identical/identified with the liberal coastal elite culture, so they naturally have disdain for their base. However, mix this with the fact that they need the people they have disdain for, and you get a loathing as a psychological defense mechanism.

          1. trshmnstr

            I’m watching the Austin Petersen election in MO. It’s the bellwether for whether the GOP has learned any lessons from the 2016 election.

    2. kinnath

      And it’s hard to believe then that when Republicans lose the House in 2018, maybe by 40 or 50 seats, . . . .

      The economy is improving. The vast majority of blue collar workers will see bigger paychecks from the tax cuts. Democrats are tripling down on identity politics.

      How are the Democrats going to take the House? Yes, the party in power loses seats in the mid term elections. I don’t see things going hard over for the Democrats though.

      1. commodious spittoon

        How are the Democrats going to take the House?

        Because they’re winning seats from Republicans.

      2. TK

        More importantly: The democrats telling everyone they want to repeal the 2nd amendment. That alone will be the biggest driver of turn-out on the right.

      3. The Pubs are doing their level best to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (as usual). They failed on Zero-care, that fact alone will convince a lot of the Base to stay home. They passed an Omnibus bill that would have made Obama grin (a bill that fully funded PP and included no funding for the Wall; again two key things of interest to the Base). They’re wasting their time talking about gun control instead of dealing with immigration.

        Yes, the tax cut was good; but I seriously think that their failure to get rid of Zero-care sealed their fate. After that spectacular embarrassment, lots of the Base just tuned out.

        1. trshmnstr

          Q is spot on. They generated all of this goodwill that they quickly and efficiently eroded from all angles. The SoCons are pissed because of PP. The economic conservatives are pissed about Ocare and tariffs. The culture warriors are pissed that the wall is taking so long and that Trump is caving on DACA. The libertarians are pissed because of all of the spending.

          1. R C Dean

            Trump has taken DACA off the table again.

            Yes, the Repubs have a golden opportunity to paper over their manifest failures because the Dems have gone full clownshow on gun control. Sadly, so have many Repubs, so yet another opportunity wasted.

            I genuinely believe the Repubs prefer being in the minority. Its just easier for them that way – no responsibility, really, but the fundraising opportunities are just as good.

        2. kinnath

          Everyone hates politicians, but everyone also votes over and over for their own incumbents.

          Incumbents win 95% or more of all elections in the House.

          https://pressgallery.house.gov/member-data/party-breakdown

          Republicans 238 seats; Democrats 192; Vacancies 5 (3 Republican seats, 2 Democratic seat).

          The Democrats need to pick up about 25 seats to break even in the house. They might get there.

          I can’t imagine they can go 40 to 50 seats ahead. There aren’t that many purple districts available.

          1. R C Dean

            There’s probably 60 districts that are genuinely in play. For the Dems to pick up 2/3 they would need something like a perfect storm – good Dem candidates across the board, bad Repub candidates across the board, and something that gets swing voters mad at Repubs. I’m not seeing it, just now.

            Because the Repubs have a desperate love affair with being the minority, I think its about 60/40 the Dems win the House.

      4. Gadfly

        Yeah, the Democrats clearly have the advantage, but considering they are still below 50% on the generic ballot I don’t see a wave building. One could still form, clearly, but it hasn’t formed yet and if the Ds rest on their laurels now they will be having a pity party in November.

    3. Suthenboy

      so they openly admit that they aren’t looking for evidence, they are looking for a crime. Banana republic monkeys. I wonder what they think the deplorables will do if they manage to get Trump out.

  42. creech

    More reasons to wave “bye bye” to America as we wished it to be: the Supreme Court is being asked to weigh in on a lawsuit brought by folks who think medicine droppers dispense too much liquid, thus wasting some of one’s eyedrop medicine. Apparently, in the wings, are suits concerning the design of toothpaste tubes and peanut butter jars that cause left-over product to be wasted. Meanwhile, the Chinese are busy stealing all IP worth anything and watching America fritter away its wealth intervening all over the world, blow its education dollars on meaningless degrees, and pearl clutch about unaccompanied third graders having to walk 500 yards to their school.

  43. The Late P Brooks

    And this-

    The comments come as Mueller continues his investigation into Russia’s election interference and possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

    They don’t even bother to try, anymore. “Something, somewhere, in Trump’s finances will give us a reason to impeach him. We’ll use this ‘Russian election hack’ as an excuse to look under every rock and behind every tree until we find it.”

  44. Derpetologist

    Pro-liberty Muslim’s ‘ills of Islamism’ talk protested by Muslim Students Association: ‘makes students unsafe’
    https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/43523/

    ***
    A liberty-minded American Muslim is slated to speak April 2 at Duke University on the “ills of Islamism,” and the Muslim Students Association there is furious about it, saying the speaker’s words will “harm us” and “makes students on this campus unsafe.”

    Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a medical doctor, is founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, which describes itself as “a think tank dedicated to protecting American national security against the global threat of Islamism.” Jasser is also author of “A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot’s Fight to Save His Faith,” as well as founder of Take Back Islam and co-founder of the Muslim Reform Movement.

    Jasser’s talk has generated heated protest from Duke’s Muslim Students Association, which has denounced the Muslim reformer and his planned speech.
    ***

    [head desk]

    1. I don’t believe in putting people on lists or anything like that, but I kind of feel like anyone in the MSA who feels that way is someone I’d pay particular attention to if they, say, are wearing a backpack that smells like chemicals or is anywhere near anything that could cause severe injury to people.

      1. Derpetologist

        Unfortunately, that kind of common sense thinking is now smeared as “racism” and “profiling”.

  45. At long last, a wonderful new work week is upon us! Time to go to work and bask in the wonderfulness of sitting a cube for a minimum of 8 hours.

    http://archive.is/EuMdZ

    1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 16, 20, 23, 24, 37, 39, 44, 45, 46, 48.

  46. The Late P Brooks

    A liberty-minded American Muslim is slated to speak April 2 at Duke University on the “ills of Islamism,” and the Muslim Students Association there is furious about it, saying the speaker’s words will “harm us” and “makes students on this campus unsafe.”

    Introspection is suicide.

    1. Unless he’s scheduled to say, “Hey everybody, Muslims have special privilege and are responsible for everything wrong in your life. Now what are we gonna do about it???” they have no reason to feel unsafe.

  47. KibbledKristen

    Waiting for the locksmith. It was a long, long weekend, and not in a good way. Still haven’t talked to the erstwhile squeeze. Just want to get the locks taken care of first.

    1. F. Stupidity Jr.

      “Who are you? How’d you get in here?”

      “I’m a locksmith. And I’m a locksmith.”

      1. You can imagine what happens next.

        He fixes the cable?

    2. KibbledKristen

      Locksmith is here…email to squeeze sent. Here we go!

      1. Number.6

        Good luck, KK.

        Fairfield Co. Representin’

        1. KibbledKristen

          And now I live in Fairfax!

          *throws soccer mom gang sign*

      2. Trolleric the Goth

        you’re dumping someone via email? not even a text? damn

        1. KibbledKristen

          Because the woman he has been living with for the past year, who has been paying for his phone, had his phone turned off.

          Capisce?

          1. Trolleric the Goth

            so you could have had that been the last text he’d be able to get then!

          2. Getting off with an email is gettin’ off light in that case. Sorry to hear it, but it sounds like this is a good thing in the long run.

          3. commodious spittoon
          4. Number.6

            That elevator scene is a really bad greenscreen shot.

          5. commodious spittoon

            Deliberately, I have to think, because in other episodes they have Conan on set (in scenes that totally break the canon of that scene, no less).

            Conan canon.

    3. KibbledKristen

      Here’s something fun – this web site offers anonymous STD notifications, and I just got one! Is it from this other woman, or from him? Who knows? But I am still apparently under siege.

      1. Trolleric the Goth

        I really need to read the backstory on this, which links contain it?

        1. KibbledKristen

          I think Friday? Not sure if a.m. or p.m.

          Basically a woman contacted me with some info about the boyfriend. She contacted me on multiple platforms. At least some of what she said was true (the part about paying for his phone and having it cut off), because he emailed me rather than text, which he never does.

          One thing about me is I like a quiet life. I don’t do drama, and anyone who invites that into my life gets cut off.

          Shit’s getting ridiculous up in here.

          1. Trolleric the Goth

            Wow, that is some pure shitbaggery

            prior to that, did you have any clue? (it’s the afternoon links too, thx)

          2. KibbledKristen

            Given his job (rigger), I was realistic about life on the road. But this is beyond the pale. Casual sex is one thing – but living with someone?? Sponging off people? Fuckin-a.

            But the worst part is his actions inviting this drama into my life. Feeling unsafe in my home? Fuck no. That shit don’t fly.

      2. commodious spittoon

        Fucking hell, K. Is it time to round up a posse?

      3. Not Adahn

        I had no idea Glibertarians.com provided such a useful service. I guess it’s a liability reduction effort by the founders, what with all of the SMITHs around.

    4. Tonio

      I’m so sorry to hear that, KK. Big hugs, hon.

  48. robc

    Thought brought up by the Walking Dead subthread:

    I want a Lucifer’s Hammer netflix show.

    1. Nephilium

      I think Niven and Pournelle have been overlooked for a while on the sci-fi show/movie scene. Off the top of my head, Niven had one short story adapted for a Star Trek Animated Series episode, and that’s it. They’ve got the Moties, the Grendels, Oath of Fealty, Footfall, etc.

      1. robc

        Yeah, I own virtually everything Niven wrote, solo or with Pournelle (and others).

        I want a Legacy of Heorot series too.

        I previously said that if I owned the Sci-Fi network that I would:

        1. Change its name back to that
        2. Buy the rights to everything Niven and Pournelle have written (together or separately.
        3. Give Joss Whedon a no-network-interference contract (but I wouldnt let him touch the stuff from #2).

        Also, a Deepness in the Sky miniseries using 3 different directors:
        1. Flashback (Nuwen’s life pre-mission)
        2. Current – human focus
        3. Spiders (this will be cartoon/CGI – [spoiler deleted])

        1. spqr2008

          Hell, I’d even throw the leftists in Hollywierd a bone (although today’s left wouldn’t see it that way), and launch a pilot of the “1632” series.

          1. robc

            That too.

        2. Nephilium

          There’s a story of a Ringworld series being developed by Amazon. The only other adaptations in development I’m currently really hopeful for are Good Omens and the BBC Discworld series.

          1. commodious spittoon

            Snow Crash? Oy. I wonder whether they’ll load it up with PC garbage about government, immigrants, unfettered capitalism, and diversity.

        3. tarran

          Give Joss Whedon a no-network-interference contract (but I wouldnt let him touch the stuff from #2).

          You misspelled Tim Minear

          1. robc

            Probably.

            Although he needs to rewrite the first 1/3 of the spec script for Mistress.

      2. Jarflax

        Hmm conservative leaning writers who tell stories with rational heroes succeeding, often against violent opposition from the feelz crowd, don’t get books made into movies? Who’d a thunk it!

    2. Rasilio

      I’ve said for years that Lucifers Hammer is the perfect thing to be adapted to a Game of Thrones TV series, Footfall as well. Both feature large casts a fair amount of sex, and relatively tame special effects budgets. You could easily spend 3 seasons telling the story of both. Season 1, initial discovery up to Hammerfall/First Contact. Season 2, the scramble for Safety/the Jayhawk War ending with Footfall. Season 3 The rise of hope and the Cannibal war/ The construction and launch of Orion

  49. Derpetologist

    if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

    ***
    The Ford program is intended to create replacements for the current Nimitz-class supercarriers. The older carriers rely heavily on steam-powered systems to launch and recover aircraft. The Ford class design incorporates the Navy’s new all-electric ships concept, in which most of the major components on a vessel are powered by electricity rather than steam or hydraulics.

    All of the Ford’s major systems use electricity rather than steam for power. The Navy has had to completely redesign those major systems—which includes the aircraft catapults and arresting systems—and they have so far demonstrated poor reliability in testing. DOT&E concludes that the current catapult design stands only a nine-percent chance of completing a four-day combat-tempo operation without a critical failure.

    The ship’s electric advanced arresting gear is supposed to be able to go 16,500 landings between mission failures. So far, the best it can do is 19. The problems with these systems are bad enough that Pres. Donald Trump, in slightly more colorful language, has called for the Navy to return to steam-powered systems.
    ***

    http://warisboring.com/51261-2/

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Thirteen billion dollars per ship…fucking hell.

      1. The Last American Hero

        For that price it should be able to turn into a giant robot.

    2. Pope Jimbo

      Has anyone considered the possibility of not even wanting human piloted planes on these carriers?

      How many drones could you fly off a carrier? Think how much cheaper it would be to have a carrier that is just a launch platform for drones. Fuck recovering them. All of them would be one way trips to bomb shit. The operators could probably be housed in Utah or somewhere like that.

      Of course, there would be a shit ton of consternation at the Pentagon as a lot of pilots got real nervous about their jobs (and their career track of leading squadrons of pilots).

      1. Grumbletarian

        A friend of mine had a conversation about future automated warplanes almost fifteen years ago now, and how they’d be piloted by kids who were growing up playing video games. You’d have some grizzled colonel in a room full of junior officers at flight-sim stations with callsigns like “Super Saiyan” and “N00bkilla”.

        1. commodious spittoon
      2. But, but, where are we supposed to train our airline pilots?

        Actually the main advantage of a proper carrier isn’t the strike capability, it’s the mobile forward base for things like AWACs and other big service craft. The Brits found out the hard way with their little harrier carriers during the Falklands that the lack of AWACs cover cost them dearly.

      3. trshmnstr

        How many drones could you fly off a carrier? Think how much cheaper it would be to have a carrier that is just a launch platform for drones. Fuck recovering them. All of them would be one way trips to bomb shit. The operators could probably be housed in Utah or somewhere like that.

        This exists already.

        1. And tamahawks cost less than half as much as predators, and probably a tenth of the “Next-Gen Kamikazi Drone”

  50. Well Glibs, I had my professional certification exam yesterday and passed.

    I am now certified by the Data Science Council of America as a Senior Data Scientist. I still can’t quite figure out what exactly a data scientist is: I just run data through statistical models and MBA types end up thinking it’s magic. Oh well, my company paid for it and maybe I can parlay this into more money that the government will steal from me.

    1. Number.6

      Congrats.

      Will this result in better boobage posts?

    2. Pope Jimbo

      I think that Big Data (and data scientists) are where IoT was 10 years ago. No one really knows what it is, so it means everything to everyone. As a data scientist you can bamboozle clients with tales of potential wonderful things that Big Data can do for them.

      As projects are kicked off, people will eventually understand what Big Data can really do and what problems are still out there. Eventually Big Data will be subjected to the same ROI questions that IoT is now (finally) being subjected to before a project kicks off.

      Make hay while you can Q. Don’t be one of those jack asses who limits their profits by trying to keep expectations in check. Promise them the moon, and get an open ended budget for your proof of concept projects.

    3. Akira

      Wasn’t there already a word for “data science” – statistics?

      1. Pretty much. Who am I to argue with my corporate overlords though? Go search salaries and realize that someone with title “data scientist” makes ~$30k more than a “statistician” even though they do essentially the same job.

    4. Atanarjuat

      It sounds like you could make a pretty lucrative career out of something climate model-related. Maybe write a propaganda book.

      1. That’s just the beginning: I could torture economic data to prove that Socialism works, I could torture medical data to prove that single payer is the TEH GRATESTEST, I could torture salary data to show that women actually make only 65 cents on the dollar (the problem is worse than we thought!). I could clean up at some Soros funded mafia enterprise.

        I do have a tiny sliver of pride left though.

    5. Semi-Spartan Dad

      Congrats Q, that’s awesome.

      I work with data and statistics also, and no one at my company really knows what to call my role.

    6. Demand a raise.

      1. Then if not, smack them with a glove and demand satisfaction.

  51. For some reason, this site is blocked at my day job…

  52. The Late P Brooks

    DOT&E concludes that the current catapult design stands only a nine-percent chance of completing a four-day combat-tempo operation without a critical failure.

    The ship’s electric advanced arresting gear is supposed to be able to go 16,500 landings between mission failures. So far, the best it can do is 19.

    I don’t understand it. It works great in the simulator.

    1. Number.6

      In theory, theory and practice are the same.

      In practice, they aren’t.

    2. Pope Jimbo

      When I was in the Marine Corps I was trained in pretty advanced electronic component repair. We were trained to troubleshoot air traffic control equipment down to the chip level. It was a mixture of “this is the theory” and “this is what you will see in real life” sort of training.

      Later when I went back to college I ended up in Electrical Engineering classes and all of it was pure theory. No one ever thought of telling the students about how things work in real life. You designed your filters and circuits and put the math in your simulator and if it worked, you passed. Labs were completely glossed over for the most part.

      Yeah, I’m pretty sure that these systems all went into simulators and passed and everyone high fived each other and went home happy. Meanwhile some poor petty officer is stuck at sea trying to figure out where in all those miles of wire something went bad.

    3. Number.6

      The advantage of the steam systems is that you heat water up, make steam under pressure, open a valve and it pushes a piston.

      It’s an absurdly simple system, even if it is a chore running a bank of boilers/heat exchangers.

      1. Akira

        I think that otherwise intelligent people can fall victim to the “more complex and more electronics = better” line of thinking.

        1. Number.6

          One of my more pragmatic lecturers at college called that “Huffing your own farts Syndrome”

        2. Gadfly

          Proving the eternal value in the idiom: “Keep it Simple, Stupid”.

      2. Trolleric the Goth

        It seems simpler, but it many cases it isn’t. Big steam systems have tons of mechanical elements that need quite a bit of maintenance due to the high heat and erosive nature of steam. For just the boiler side, there’s the feedwater pump, feedwater control valves, pump bypass control valve, condensate pump/control valve, de-aerator pump/control valve, makeup pump/control valve and then a de-superheater sprayer/control valve.

        all of these need somewhat frequent parts and maintenance, not so much with electric components

        they do, however, generally work as expected…

        1. Number.6

          Sure, the devil’s in the details and the ancillary systems ain’t trivial either, but it’s a technology that is well understood and debugged.

          What I understand of the newer “electronic” systems is that you’re shunting huge currents around to actuate the catapults, and that’s hardly maintenance free either.

    1. Akira

      The ‘Condom Snorting Challenge’ is every parent’s worst nightmare

      Um, no, I don’t think it is…

    2. commodious spittoon

      Big deal. I had a teacher who would do this with dental floss. I think she wanted to gross us out as punishment. It worked.

    3. Darwinism in action.

      1. And BTW, when I first saw the title my immediate thought was “these kids are snorting the contents of used condoms?!??!”

    4. Spartacus

      I saw a guy snort a raw oyster once.
      Alcohol was involved.

      1. l0b0t

        Oysters are close enough to mucous that he was likely fine.

      2. commodious spittoon

        Some people even eat them, if you can believe that.

        1. Spartacus

          I like oysters, but I prefer them steamed. We used to get a bag of oysters and put them on the grill at low heat. When the shell splits open, they’re done.
          Just add horseradish and eat.

          1. commodious spittoon

            Have to try that someday. I eat ’em raw or smoked. Mmm… smoked oysters. I’ll never eat another fried clam, though. Tasted like athlete’s foot smells.

          2. Spartacus

            Back in my college days in the mid-80s, Apalachicola oysters were cheap and plentiful. There was a place just off-campus where you could get a bushel of oysters and a keg of beer for under $50. *sigh*
            OK, back to work.

  53. The Late P Brooks

    Go search salaries and realize that someone with title “data scientist” makes ~$30k more than a “statistician” even though they do essentially the same job.

    Whatever you do, don’t tell them you’re an actuary.

    1. commodious spittoon

      Was she more Indira Gandhi or Imelda Marcos?

      1. Number.6

        More like Robert Mugabe really.

      2. Number.6

        More color.

        I have heard it said that Mandela’s thugs were the original developers of “necklacing”, but I’m not persuaded, even though there is relatively good evidence that the Mandela Football Club used the technique on multiple occasions.

        I had friends who were very sympathetic to the abolition of Apartheid who lived out in Joberg back in those times. There’s no way Mandela’s crew killed as few as is claimed in the lawsuits.

        1. commodious spittoon

          Wakanda they ain’t, eh.

          I sometimes have drinks with a former South African (white) whose mother and cousins still live on their farm near Swaziland. He takes it as granted that someday they’ll be murdered there. He’s heatedly anticommunist, hates Mugabe, hates the ANC, if you can believe that.

  54. Ayn Random Variation

    I caught a local NYC morning show interview with the City Council President. The main topic was congestion pricing, which involves all sorts of penaltaxes for driving in Manhattan.
    The hosts were obviously all in, but one lady kept playing the devil’s advocate by pointing out the downsides. The City Council President’s every response to that was “But we need the money “.
    The devil’s advocate lady then brought up the increase in City Council’s budget from 67 to 81 mil (response: ” we need to invest in the city council to match the power the Mayor has”) and the new proposed programs he wants to impose due to the “opiate epidemic”.
    Then ofcourse it became about more money for trains like in Europe.

    No mention at all about cutting spending. I bet eliminating the City Council would cover a good portion of what the guy wants done.

    1. Ayn Random Variation

      Oh, the whole time I was thinking about the one way wratchet thing. Mayor has too much power? No thought of reducing that. 81 mil a year for city council? No thought of cutting that to pay for his wish list, which also included reduced subway fare for the poor.

      Put me in a rotten mood right off the bat. Cutting spending or reducing the power of the govt didn’t even cross the mind of devil’s advocate lady.

      1. Ayn Random Variation

        And I don’t have to tell you how expensive it is, and what a nightmare it is, to work in Manhattan with all the taxes you already have to pay. What do these people think businesses are going to do if you’re gonna charge them more for, or eliminate altogether, deliveries during business hours?

        How many years til NYC is Detroit?

      2. Akira

        Mayor has too much power? No thought of reducing that.

        The idea of ever reducing government power has been skillfully bred out of the population by the government-run schools, the media, and the government-sector labor unions that rake in astronomical profits from the number of government employees. In the “progressive” worldview, a gigantic government is not just a means but also an end in itself. Reducing (or even holding at the same size) any component of the government is an icky ReThugliKKKan idea (even though they don’t actually do much of that).

        Their solution is never to look back at what government policies might be creating the problem; their only idea is to give the government more authority and hope that this fixes it. And if it doesn’t, that’s because the government simply wasn’t given enough power.

        And if that doesn’t work, it’s because the government still wasn’t given enough power.
        And if that doesn’t work, it’s because the government still wasn’t given enough power.
        And if that doesn’t work, it’s because the government still wasn’t given enough power.
        … And so on.

  55. The Late P Brooks

    Rape epidemic!

    In the past month the National Science Foundation and a bipartisan group of U.S. senators both introduced measures that would require higher education leaders to review and report cases of sexual assault and harassment on their campuses.

    While these initiatives represent a good first step, they do not go far enough to eliminate the problem. That goal falls to college and university leaders who have the will to rid their campuses of the long-standing problem of sexual harassment and sexual assault.

    ———–

    Statistics on sexual assault and harassment on campus show the need for change. For instance, 1 in 5 women and 1 in 16 men are sexually assaulted while in college. For graduate students, 38 percent of females and nearly 1 in 4 males reported sexual harassment from faculty or staff. Roughly half of all such instances included multiple victims of the same faculty member.

    About 40 percent of female faculty members and 30 percent of female non-faculty staff members experience sexual harassment.

    Those bullshit claims are harder to kill than that guy in the hockey mask.

    1. Number.6

      That’s terrible. There should be people who are specially trained in investigating these horrible events whose purpose it is to prepare evidence that could be used in some kind of publically acceptable forum.

      We could give them special uniforms, and grant them powers of arrest. Arming them might be a good idea, provided they had adequate training. Then when one of these terrible events happen, the college could call these specialists, and they’d deal with it.

      This would free up campus administration from the onerous responsibility of convening kangaroo courts and designing processes to administer justice.

      1. Grumbletarian

        Can we do that while still making sure that the accused is always found guilty?

        1. Number.6

          Fer Sure!

          /NOPD

        2. trshmnstr

          Lol, I posted the DS9 clip about Cardassian in an unrelated conversation up thread, but it fits just as perfectly right here.

    2. Ayn Random Variation

      Thanks to these assholes there are a lot of lonely people who just say fuck it and rely on porn and call girls for sexual gratification.
      Umm, heard this from a friend.

    3. Rebel Scum

      1 in 5 women

      This is bs. But if anyone really believes this why the hell would they send their kids to the rapeville that is college?

      1. Remember, sexual harassment is not just rape, but a random guy saying “nice tits” once to someone over the 4 year period. There’s your 1 in 5.

  56. Derpetologist

    There’s a deployment coming up and they asked for volunteers. I put my name on the list. Don’t know where, when, or for how long.

    I’m pumped.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU3dvLy249Q

    1. Number.6

      Joke’s on you. They’ll post you to Detroit.

      1. commodious spittoon

        Translating jive?

    2. F. Stupidity Jr.

      Tarriff Enforcement? Border wall construction? Cofveve retrieval unit?

  57. Nephilium

    Week 4 of the new job, still no credentials for the company I’m supposed to be supporting. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll get the credentials before my vacation (starting 4/18, I’ll once again be in Vegas if anyone wants to meet up there).

  58. Derpetologist

    CNN mocked for glorifying JFKs ‘legendary’ infidelity after harping on sex allegations against Trump
    http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2018/04/02/cnn-mocked-for-glorifying-jfks-legendary-infidelity-after-harping-on-sex-allegations-against-trump.html

    ***
    CNN was slammed for hypocrisy over the weekend when the network glorified President John F. Kennedy’s many infidelities after spending significant coverage painting President Trump as a monster for an alleged affair that occurred prior to his political career.

    While promoting “The Kennedys,” CNN hailed the 35th president’s “legendary love life,” before asking, “Did one of his affairs connect him with the mob?” The tweet featured video detailing JFK’s relationship with actress Judy Campbell, who was allegedly intimate with the head of the Chicago mafia while also having an affair with the president.

    “But was JFK’s love life really legendary? In actuality, JFK was an awful person in the bedroom who certainly would have been labeled a sexual predator in this #MeToo moment,” Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro wrote, linking to a 2012 Daily Mail story detailing the time Kennedy forced an intern to publicly perform oral sex on his assistant in the White House pool.

    “Remember, this is the same network currently shellacking President Trump for bedding a porn star while married, and hosting her on the air to ask about Trump’s condom use,” Shapiro added.

    Mediaite columnist Joseph Wulfsohn asked, “If CNN thinks JFK’s love life was “legendary,” does that make Trump’s alleged affair with Stormy Daniels “legendary” as well? Because their coverage isn’t exactly favorable.”
    ***

    1. And here I always thought people cheating on their spouses was a bad thing. Apparently if you’re sufficiently powerful and promiscuous it turns you into a legend, not just a scumbag horndog.

      1. Don’t forget “of the right tribe”

      2. Derpetologist

        the military frowns upon adultery

        ***
        The military penalty remains pretty harsh: up to a year in confinement plus a dishonorable discharge, which entails the forfeiture of all retirement pay.
        ***

      3. commodious spittoon

        IT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE REASONS.

        I wonder how many of the people feigning vapors over Trump’s libertinism are no-shit cucks.

        1. Derpetologist

          here ya go

          Cuckolding can be positive for some couples, study says
          https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/25/health/cuckolding-sex-kerner/index.html

          1. commodious spittoon

            Heh. That brought up a full-page ad with Anderson Cooper’s gormless mug and the question, “Do you want to cut straight to the facts?” but I read it as “cuck” and instantly thought Yeah, that sounds about right.

          2. commodious spittoon

            Also: Jesus Christ almighty, no. I would go single for life rather than take part in that happy horseshit.

  59. The Late P Brooks

    Reading the tea leaves

    Cities are naturally more Democratic than suburbs or rural areas, but the Amazon finalists are more so, voting for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump by 57 percent to 38 percent, according to Echelon Insights, a research and analytics firm. Other Top 50 markets favored Clinton by just three points.

    Once Amazon selects a second headquarters, employees (including some Seattle employees who presumably will help set up the new campus) will usher in an unabashed Urbanism. They will demand non-car transportation options and prompt a big spike in housing costs. Seattle is often ranked as the nation’s fastest growing city, boasting, if that is the right word, rapidly rising housing and rental prices.

    Over time, growth politics become all-consuming, pitting old-timers (you know, those with perhaps five years of residency) against newcomers in battles over density and traffic.

    ———-

    New York University marketing professor Scott Galloway thinks all the speculation about the new site is moot at this point.

    “The cake is baked,” he said, and the winner is one of three D.C.-area sites. After all, D.C. is where Bezos recently acquired a huge house, where he and his family might want to spend time, where the political action is, where decisions will be made about the company’s future. And given that President Donald Trump has expressed special animus for Amazon, wouldn’t it be better to be a player where the decisions are made?

    D C probably deserves to have that sort of disruption inflicted on them. Amazon will leave a big muddy footprint on whatever landscape to chooses for HQ2. Some good, some bad. I’m not sure the “progressivism” of the work force is as guaranteed as many people believe, but I suspect the locals will learn to despise them in short order.

    1. I would just *love* it if they actually put it in the District proper. It would snarl things up so badly traffic and COL-wise that the NIMBY’s would be begging for mercy.

      1. trshmnstr

        I hope they buy up my neighborhood, bulldoze it and put it right on top. They’d probably be able to get enough land for less than $30M, and I’d be able to get the hell out of dodge.

    2. commodious spittoon

      Over time, growth politics become all-consuming, pitting old-timers (you know, those with perhaps five years of residency) against newcomers in battles over density and traffic.

      Hey, I remember back when lefties thought gentrification was a bad thing. It must be like segregation, opinions change over time.

  60. Oldie but goodie.

    https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2016/02/how-a-generation-lost-its-common-culture/

    Almost as if the miseducation of these students was intentional.

    1. commodious spittoon

      At best, they possess accidental knowledge

      And with a little tweaking, the Google algorithms will eliminate even that.

  61. Suthenboy

    “I think that otherwise intelligent people can fall victim to the “more complex and more electronics = better” line of thinking.”

    I think I have used this language a hundred times in the last month – “chickenshit, mickey mouse bullshit” to describe some overly complicated, flimsy part or piece of shit that I was having to repair. Everything from my refrigerator to a lawnmower to a car to a door lockset. I am convinced that the designers of most mechanical things have never used or repaired said junk. Chickenshit motherfuckers.

  62. A Fuggin White Male

    Ok, so what in the hell is going on with this Sinclair Broadcasting shit I keep hearing about? Should I care????

  63. The Late P Brooks

    They respect diversity (without having the slightest clue what diversity is) and they are experts in the arts of non-judgmentalism (at least publically). They are the cream of their generation, the masters of the universe, a generation-in-waiting to run America and the world.

    Why did I read that as, “a generation-in-waiting to ruin America”?

  64. The Late P Brooks

    Hmmmmm

    Police say that the driver of a SUV carrying a family with several adopted children may have intentionally plunged off a cliff along California’s scenic coast last month, according to local news reports.

    The family from Woodland, Wash. — Sarah and Jennifer Hart, who were married, and at least three of the couple’s six adopted children — was in the vehicle on California’s scenic Highway 1 near the city of Westport when it accelerated rapidly off the cliff and fell 100 feet to the rocky shore.

    Believe it or not, this proves exactly nothing about gay marriage, adoption, interracial adoption, or any interrelationships among those phenomena. But I cannot help thinking there are people saddling their hobby horses and preparing to ride into battle. On both teams

    1. We all know that US1 is a product of the Patriarchy.

      Women and minorities hardest hit, literally.