Middle of the week and I feel like I’ve already done 50 hours of work with no end in sight. Ugh. Well at least I am not affiliated with the Arizona Diamondbacks. They’ve had a longer week than me so far. And yes, that means they lost to the Cubs…who shared the winning yesterday with: Toronto, New York (AL), Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, the MINNESOOOOOODA TWIIIIIINS!, Washington, St Louis, Cincinnati, Tampa Bay, Anaheim, Los Angeles, San Francisco and the world champion Houston Astros.
Nice win!
UCL got off to a rousing start as Liverpool took down PSG 3-2. Elsewhere, Inter beat Spurs and the other winners were Barca, Athletico, Borussia Dortmund, and Galatasary. Red Star Belgrade and Naples drew, as did Schalke and Porto. Another slate of games today with the two Manchester teams in action as well as Juve, Real, and Bayern. Enjoy.
I also started noticing preseason hockey scores this morning. Holy shit, this offseason has flown by.
Give that man a hand for a great career and life.
Today’s famous birthdays are: Lord Of The Flies author William Golding, baseball player Duke Snider, overly-dramatic James Lipton, Batman actor Adam West, Beatles manager Brian Epstein, singer Cass Elliot, Reds legend Joe Morgan, actor Jeremy Irons, “Innocence Project” founder (and here) Barry Scheck, rocker Lita Ford, “comedian” Jimmy Fallon, playmate of the year Victoria Silverstead, and inspirational one-handed MLB pitcher Jim Abbott.
Major shit that went down on this date include: George Washington gave his presidential farewell address, the first carpet sweeper was patented, the San Siro opened with a match between AC and Inter, Charlie Chaplin was barred re-entry to the United States, Juan Peron fled Argentina, Disneyland told Nikita Khrushchev to fuck off, The Mary Tyler Moore show hit the small screen, Fawlty Towers (which couldn’t be made today) also premiered, “Goodfellas” hit the big screen, and the Unabomber’s manifesto was published by the NYT and Washington Post.
Ok, on to…the links!
You might want to sit this one out, you old hag.
I’ve heard tone-deaf statements before. We all have. But this, my fellow Glibs, might take the award for most tone-deaf statement ever made. Oh yeah, she went there. Also, a Senator said men need to shut up and do the right thing. And by “right thing”, she means do what Team Blue wants them to do without any evidence to support the position of this eleventh hour accusation that was sat on for months. Meanwhile, the Senator who released the accusation said she’s not even sure the woman is telling the truth. Oh yeah, and the accuser wants an FBI probe (into what is not a federal crime) before she even agrees to testify. TL/DR: its a shitshow of social signaling.
Los Angeles is home to tens of thousands of homeless, has a serious problem with affordable housing, has cops that treat people like shit with impunity, carries unsustainable public debt, and has a host of other problems because of over-regulation. But give them credit for tackling the most important issues. Christ, what a bunch of assholes.
Looks like the Catholic Church is starting to acknowledge their massive failings when it comes to exposing kids to rapists. I hope these payments continue until the Church starts to understand their mission and responsibilities again. And I hope they come out on the other side a lot more humble.
Move along, people. There’s nothing to see here. Huh, I guess WaPo and the NYT took that seriously since they didn’t report on this at all. Democracy dies in darkness, my ass.
San Francisco would rather there be a bum shitting in the street than for these people to make what the market will bear.
Wait a minute. According to the left, this kind of thing never happens. Well, if it does, it only happens to greedy 1%ers who deserve it.
Looks like Van Dyke’s lawyers have found their defense strategy. If it works, you can go ahead and completely kiss equal justice away in Chicago. Not that its really existed in a while but you can kiss it away for good. And you can go ahead and plan for the National Guard to be needed for the riots that will come.
You know, there’s a simple way to avoid these kinds of lawsuits. Stop letting government pick winners and losers and allow the market to flourish. Too bad that never occurs to busybody progressives who think the top men are better at planning our lives and choices than we are.
Florida Man needs to learn to selectively tell the truth. Or to tell people what he’s doing is none of their goddamn business. Also, his kid is now disqualified from ever serving on the Supreme Court as a GOP-nominated jurist.
You know how when cops arrest someone they tend to overcharge them and pile on extra shit? Well, here is the opposite happening. See if you can guess why.
Here’s the song for the day. God, music used to be so good.
Go have a great middle of your week, friends!
I’ve heard tone-deaf statements before. We all have. But this, my fellow Glibs, might take the award for most tone-deaf statement ever made.
Goddamn I hope she runs again.
Yeah, a bitterly contested primary fight between her and Liawatha will be epic.
Also, a Senator said men need to shut up and do the right thing. – make money fuck bitches?
Because they know if she is questioned seriously the whole thing falls apart. So she can’t be questioned, because women never lie about these things.
Joe DiGenova agrees:
Christine Ford Won’t Testify Because “She’s Going to Look Like the Loon That She Is”
I…I will consider that course of action.
Oh wait–you’re supposed to do *both*?
[slaps forehead]
I got it backwards when I came into some cash.
“make money fuck bitches”
I’m gonna get that made into a bumper sticker.
Lets try this one: “senator Human said women need to get back in the kitchen and leave man work to men”
Needs more “shut up”.
Acquire currency, disregard harlots.
Move along, people. There’s nothing to see here.
Hurrr editing durrr context hurrrrrrr James O’Keefe
Of course O’Keefe always releases the complete recordings, but yeah.
Mitchell’s son reportedly told the officer that he and his girlfriend were “just smokin’ and f–kin’.”
I’m Old Man With Candy and I approve of this message.
I had a cop tell me, “not getting arrested for trafficking is easy” and then listed off of laundry list of things you had to do to make sure you weren’t pulled over. It didn’t seem easy to me.
That’s assuming you actually do one of those list items. Usually they just make shit up so they can meet their quota.
He did say, it doesn’t matter we will find a reason…
“Have an FOP sticker on the car”
I hear the stickers you get for making a donation doesn’t help with tickets. I guess they look at it like a bribe that is beneath them.
I meant a Lodge Member sticker…
>>Los Angeles takes step toward banning sale of fur products
No way lefties want to be in charge of every aspect of your life. nosirree.
In the comments of the article:
*shaves*
/LA prostitute
STEVE SMITH NO GO TO LA!
What about the Hasids and shtreimels?
You think freedom of religion is still a thing. Dozens of cake bakers and religious employers have found out about that the hard way.
The Gabor Lobby couldn’t get the votes.
Maybe it’s a generational thing, or maybe I’m just a weirdo, but when I was 15 I wouldn’t have been caught dead having my dad drive me to a hookup. Kids these days…
Back when I was a teenager I used to carry a blanket in my little Nissan pickup truck. I was doing a very early AM paper route and sometimes it got chilly enough at night so I would sit on the blanket in the back of the truck as I folded papers.
My dad, in his brusque way, accused me of using to bang chicks in parks, etc.
Me: I wish!
Your Dad had confidence in you!
So, what were you using to bang chicks in parks?
a penis?
we also would have accepted “in her vagina”, Thanks For Playing!
chloroform?
Exactly
“before she even agrees to testify”
I’m suspicious of people who are willing to accuse but not testify. The whole accused being confronted by their accusers and what not. It’s old fashioned I know.
She’s hoping the FBI can help her put together a believable story.
They can’t.
Shouldn’t that be the ALC Division champion Indians?
Of course, if our division wasn’t so weak, we may be just hoping for a wild card spot.
Gloating about your ALC Division championship is like parading around with your Special Olympics medal. You might be proud, but everyone else is snickering at you.
It’s all we’ve got until the Browns get a kicker, and an offense, and a quarterback, and..
We would never laugh at you, Neph.
Jimbo didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.
/looks at my beer
/looks at my GABF tickets
Meh. I’m good. If i couldn’t laugh at myself and my city, I would have to feel bad about laughing at Detroit.
Don’t put words in my mouth.
And your medal looks purdy.
I think if the Indians had any pressure on them this season, they would have a better record.
This week, on a very special episode of SJWednesday, we ask the important question:
WHY DO THE COPS KEEP PROTECTING WHITE SUPREMACISTS?
Fucking cops breaking up peaceful lynch mobs. It’s like Jim Crow all over again.
Supposedly the cops protect life and property. Doesn’t matter which side.
If the cops didn’t protect protestors… then they would start carrying guns. Do you even logic, bro?
I hate cops, but this is a bit ludicrous. To say that antifa rioters are better than peacefuly protesting Nazis, is to be all in on the partisan train. You both suck and can go fuck off, but the two moments you are describing are categorically different. So yeah, if you were peaceful and Nazis came to disrupt you, you could get police protecting too.
Who’s initiating the violence? If it’s Antifa they’re worse than the Nazis regardless of why they claim they’re doing it.
1. They aren’t Nazis
2. If there was a rally where people knew the cops were not going to show up, it would be open season on Antifa.
Ah yes, the people walking around with swastikas and tiki torches aren’t Nazis…
Were the people participating in Unite the Right 2 rally in Washington, D.C. wearing/carrying swastikas?
Were the people participating in Resist Marxism in Boston wearing/carrying swastikas?
Because if they were that would indicate they are Nazis, if not then maybe they are not actually Nazis, unless you have more to go on.
There are precious few actual NeoNazis. But the crazies get the attention because news media is dishonest.
https://www.google.com/search?q=unite+the+right&client=ms-android-blu-rev2&prmd=nvi&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiU87ONkMfdAhXFFjQIHQTNBagQ_AUIEygD&biw=360&bih=592#imgrc=HGOGTLUr-pDUlM:
Looking don’t like throwing the Nazi word around. And certainly not everyone on the Alt-right is a Nazi, but let’s be clear. There are Nazis in the alt-right. I don’t see why we should cut them any slack.
The only images I see with the an actual Nazi flag were from Charlottesville.
I see one idiot carrying a Nazi swastika flag. I don’t think that justifies tarring everyone there as Nazis.
I see three stars and bars, two Gadsdens, and a Nazi flag. Why are we going with “They’re Nazis” and not “They’re Neo-Confederates”? Sure, to some extent potato, potahto, but I don’t like tarring people with the same brush unless it’s legitimate. However you feel about the alt-right, there isn’t a central membership registry where you apply to join. If you’re a neo-Nazi and show up at an alt-right march, who’s in charge of telling you to leave?
Too many syllables, overflows their memory buffer. So the ‘Nazi’ mnemonic trigger is used instead.
Because, as twisted as it may be, National Socialism has a moral center and ethical laws whereas communism does not.
“Nazi front group”
Anyone to the right of Marx.
Your avatar indicates you are also a Nazi.
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
Hooggannn!!!
And isn’t your avatar a German Shepherd – like the ones that patrolled the camp fences?
Oh, shit!! I’m outed!!!
And he patrolled the fences in out back yard. And his name was Gunther!
Oh God, NAZI!!!!!!!!
Actually Klink wasn’t a Nazi. He regularly shit-talked Major Hochstetter and gestapo.
Also, Werner Klemperer was a Jewish refugee. And Robert Clary’s parents were killed in a concentration camp, IIRC.
Most importantly – he wore a monocle. Even though it was Sergeant Schultz who was the rich capitalist in civilian life, not Klink.
I know nothing!
John Banner (Schultz) was an Austo-Hungarian Jew who served in the U.S. Air Force and lost a lot of family who stayed in the old country.
And, of course, Conrad Veidt, who played Major Strasser of the Gestapo in Casablanca, fled the Third Reich because his wife was Jewish.
Hogan’s Heroes reruns are shown on German tv. Dubbed with lines changed and apparently hugely popular.
Humor doesn’t translate well, so they made the jokes fit better to the audience.
So, in Germany, it’s a drama.
Might have something to do with the opposing* groups, like Pro-Fa, showing up with the intention of committing acts of violence against people.
*They are really just all different flavors of socialist.
No way lefties want to be in charge of every aspect of your life. nosirree.
You’re using the wrong definition of “freedom”. This is the 21st century.
I mean, there can’t be one set of rules for Democrats and one set of rules for Republicans. – Clinton
Good lord…She just doesn’t know when to stop.
What about your private server, you absolute moron?
This is worse than her tweet yesterday trying to get people to give money to a guy who was so important to her campaign so he could get cancer treatment. And her daughter replying to her and saying she hopes people help him (or something like that) because he’s such a great guy and means so much to their family.
Her name was not listed as a donor on his gofundme page.
Gee, you’d think the Clinton Foundation would have the means to help the guy out.
I suspect the foundation isn’t quite as flush with cash as it once was.
Bundles of dollar bills makes a terrible building material when dealing with groundwater.
Of course they would donate anonymously. They don’t want any attention.
BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!
*opera applause*
Hillary Clinton adviser: We didn’t recognize ‘full scope’ of Russian interference on social media
I always enjoy the difference between the lefty derp articles that Yahoo posts and the comment section.
weaponize the information
By making it available…
They exposed what the Democrats were really doing!
The horror, the horror…
That’s the funny truth at the bottom of all this bullshit.
Gillette is coming out with a heated razor.
A little pricey, but I’m interested.
I hope this doesn’t come off as spamming.
Just buy a Merkur safety razor. And use hot water with your soap.
Always do
Don’t waste your money.
There’s no way a heated razor is going to soften the hair while shaving. You need to apply moist heat for several minutes prior to shaving.
I always use the hot washcloth for about a minute or two before I start shaving
…go on.
PT Barnum would be a Schick or Gillette executive today. Or he’d be running the “99 cent shave club” tocindercut the dollar shave club.
Double-edge safety razor, olive oil and hot water FTW!
I prefer castor oil with a little bit of eucalyptus myself.
I use lasers.
It’s like a turtle shell down there.
Smooth as eggs!
An oldie but a goodie from The Onion, back when they were good:
https://www.theonion.com/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-blades-1819584036
Shave in the shower where it’s already hot.
And that’s what the Republicans should be doing right now, from the White House down Pennsylvania avenue to the Senate, give the benefit of the doubt to the court and the country.
“And that means have an investigation that will then lead to a hearing that will then lead to a vote if appropriate. And instead, they are playing the hardest of hardballs to try to pack the court with, you know, another nominee, regardless of the questions. Remember, Rachel, there were lots of questions raised in the hearing itself about some of his testimony, some of the statements he had made when he was first confirmed for the circuit court, and then additional statements. So there were already reasons to doubt the testimony and the positions that he was taking as well as substantive issues that are fair game for senators to explore.”
Doublespeak. We haz it.
Well if you remember 1984 was a cautionary tale of not believing our superiors. So doublespeak is good.
They are going to play this fabricated victim crap out with every card. I doubt it will work other than to smear Kavanaugh for life as a rapist.
It’s striking how quickly they moved from allegations of sexual assault to basically accusing him of rape. I believe that the allegation, in the abstract, is a serious one that should have been taken seriously (by Feinstein as much as anyone else). Independently of that judgment, it appears that the left is trying to set up, with its usual dishonesty, a secondary system of justice.
There’s to be no differentiation between types of offence, due process is to be replaced by the (politically motivated) feelings of celebrities and parti pris hacks, and, as Norm Macdonald noted, there’s no concept of forgiveness or repentance.
When I was growing up (and I’m only 32), to be a liberal typically involved believing in things like Blackstone’s formulation and in the judicial process as being about reformation, not vengeance. The modern left has abandoned this without any consideration at all – for its pet issues at least.
Many systems need well thought out reform. If someone knowledgeable tells me that alleged victims need more support within the process I wouldn’t reject their view. But the situation we have here is part of the hard left’s assault on enlightenment values. They have way too much support in their efforts from useful idiots who think that destroying hard won legal freedoms is being ‘nice’.
Power is the end, not the means. They have made clear that they will do anything in the pursuit of power.
I think cable news and the various chatterbox talkshows have a lot to do with this. It starts off with the allegations of sexual assault, but with every re-telling the broadcaster has to make it a little more salacious in order to keep people’s attention, and before you know it Kavanaugh gang-raped this woman with the entire varsity football team and a mule. Twice. And to people who either can’t be bothered to listen with a critical ear or who are going in with an opinion, they just accept each unfounded escalation as fact and roll with it.
“Walsh consistently said the video, filmed from behind McDonald, did not show what he and Van Dyke saw.”
Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin eyes?
The cameras need a “feared for my life filter”
I would have loved to have conducted cross-examination.
“And that is how he stood when the first shot was fired? What was his stance when the second shot was fired? What was his stance when the third shot was fired? What was his stance when the fourth shot was fired? What was his stance when the fifth shot was fired? What was his stance when the sixth shot was fired? What was his stance when the seventh shot was fired? What was his stance when the eighth shot was fired? What was his stance when the ninth shot was fired? What was his stance when the tenth shot was fired? What was his stance when the eleventh shot was fired? What was his stance when the twelfth shot was fired? What was his stance when the thirteenth shot was fired? What was his stance when the fourteenth shot was fired? What was his stance when the fifteenth shot was fired? …and what was his stance when the sixteenth shot was fired?”
It would have been a bit of a downer on his portrayal.
“Our training g teaches us to fire until we believe the threat is neutralized. I believe my partner actedas he was trained to act. Sometimes that’s the only way we are able to return home to our families every night.”
“I did not ask you about your training. You claimed to accurately know the victim’s stance throughout the incident and I am only asking for complete descriptions for the record. Please answer the questions.”
::courtroom full of officers in uniform alternates staring at individuals in jury box::
“We find the defendant guilty, and we find the audience guilty of jury tampering”
Sounds like a fine way to get yourself mysteriously shot.
16 times.
I avoid Chicago.
Hockey off season was just long enough! I was starting to have withdrawals
My prediction for this season…
I hope the bruins made the right changes to get closer to the cup.
Didn’t like seeing them trade McQuaid. Time with tell. They’re playing right now in China.
They may have a spot for you.
Swiss, if that is a depiction of Chief Blackhawk, I’d agree with you.
It is….and me as well.
Apple pays off its $15.4 billion Irish tax bill
I wonder if the EU will assert control over corporation tax in its member states by degrees or in one go?
The O’Lannister’s always, um, something.
Drink their pints?
The allegations against Brett Kavanaugh are not simply a ‘he said, she said’ situation
“First, there is corroboration. Ford’s therapist’s notes in 2012, provided to The Washington Post, generally record her account of the attack. To believe that this is a made-up tale to prevent Kavanaugh’s confirmation, Ford would have had to plant the seeds of this story in 2012. That makes no sense.”
She never mentioned Kavanaugh in those notes. Has anyone actually confirmed a therapist wrote these notes?
“Second, while not determinative, the fact that Ford passed a polygraph administered by a former FBI agent lends credence to her claims. Polygraph exams are inadmissible in court because they are not always reliable, but the FBI and other law enforcement agencies frequently use polygraph tests to assess the credibility of witnesses and defendants.”
Umm what?
If polygraphs worked, and she passed, all it would prove is that she believed her own story
It doesn’t even have that quality of evidence. It is seriously as reliable as tarot cards.
Someone doesn’t know what “corroboration” means.
They know what it means. They’re hoping the readers don’t.
BINGO!
First, there is corroboration. Ford’s therapist’s notes in 2012, provided to The Washington Post, generally record her account of the attack.
It must be true, because all the people she told about it remember her telling them about it.
This!!!! It takes a special stupid to think that the notes are independently sourced bits of information.
Hah! I had a student tell me once that I’d graded one of his answers wrong because the answer he gave was the same as the lecture notes he’d written.
“Logic is hard!”
So that’s why people keep trying to fuck with it?
They just try to pretend it doesn’t apply.
“She never mentioned Kavanaugh in those notes. Has anyone actually confirmed a therapist wrote these notes?”
It doesn’t really matter if a therapist wrote them or not. When it comes to information the important part is sourcing. And the source of the information in those notes would be… Oh yeah her, since she had to tell him about it. So yeah it is a he said she said thing.
If Kavanaugh did everything she says he did, would that preclude him from becoming a SC Justice?
In a sane world? No.
In a world of REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE? yes.
YOU SHUT YOUR FILTHY WHORE MOUTH!!!
It would for me. Sexual assault is sexual assault. And I don’t care if a person was 17 or 47. They’re old enough to know right from wrong and what he’s been accused of doing steps over a line.
Again, just me. But if my daughter called me from school and told me that somebody did exactly what she accused him of doing, I’d be on my way to the baseball bat aisle of Academy Sports then I’d be heading to Stephenville to have a word wit someone about boundaries.
Yeah, i agree. And I can also see it being a very traumatic situation for someone to be touched unwantedly.
So you’d give him the ol’ Armstrong’s Mailbox treatment?
I’d sit him down and hear what he has to say for himself. Then I’d give him his options.
I don’t tolerate shit being done to my family members. Especially the females. And I have a long memory.
I would consider the inclusion of alcohol and possibility of mixed signals.
So, not a “nation of laws” then.
Well, I’m happy to give the law it’s chance. But the Nation of Naptown shares sovereignty with the nation of laws when it comes to my family and reserves the right to address injuries and seek redress against violations of its own codes and principles on its own terms.
I’ve made the mistake of believing my family members when I shouldn’t have. Wishing you better luck.
To be fair, I’m the case study of why it’s important to have a dispassionate legal system rather than angry people with torches and pitchforks.
Don’t misunderstand me. The bat is for self defense.
And I was answering the question “if he did what he is accused of”, not “if your daughter made a similar accusation”.
So yes, if someone sexually assaulted my daughter, I would take a baseball bat to meet with them and discuss their options. If my daughter merely accused someone of it, I would be having a different conversation.
But if my daughter called me from school and told me that somebody did exactly what she accused him of doing
I guess I missed her actual accusations, because all I’ve heard sounded like two drunk kids getting gropey at a high school kegger.
“…if my daughter called me from school and told me that somebody did exactly what she accused him of doing…”
Called you right from school is one thing. If she called you 36 years later, well, there we have a problem.
The polygraph means absolutely nothing as they’re pseudoscience voodoo bullshit.
As an interrogation device, there is some efficacy, because you can see stressors, but they are definitely not lie detectors.
“FBI and other law enforcement agencies frequently use polygraph tests to assess the credibility of witnesses and defendants”
Yeah… That’s why… Not to scare people into a confession… They would never do that.
To me it’s a funny justification. “See the worst people and organizations in our society? They use polygraphs, so they must be good”
Basically, the machine is a prop for interrogation. It’s what’s said that is important. All of the “interpretation” is post-hoc. Note that the polygraph traces are never interpreted double-blind as any valid procedure would demand.
I’ve heard that it’s a lot like palm-reading or Ouija; you take observable physical responses to external stimuli and manipulate them by altering the stimuli. You guide people towards the reaction you want them to give you, deliberately or no.
Kavanaugh should sue her for defamation – then all this would be considered “discovery”.
The fact that he hasn’t is proof that the accusations are true.
The allegations against Brett Kavanaugh are not simply a ‘he said, she said’ situation
No, that is not correct. It is literally hearsay.
She vaguely remembers / imagines something…?
This whole Kavanaugh thing has made me realize I’m a mark. If some person told me that someone else had assaulted them, I would believe them. Only through repeated cases proving that people will lie about anything for any numerous reasons have I discovered I’m not a great judge of human character, because I’m too trusting.
“Ford’s therapist’s notes in 2012, provided to The Washington Post, generally record her account of the attack. To believe that this is a made-up tale to prevent Kavanaugh’s confirmation, Ford would have had to plant the seeds of this story in 2012. That makes no sense.””
Yes, yes it does make sense.
2012 is also the year that Mitt Romney was running for president and had indicated Kavanaugh as a potential SC nomination. Interesting coincidence.
Having the ability to confront and question your accuser is un-American, I guess.
“While Dr. Ford’s life was being turned upside down, you and your staff scheduled a public hearing for her to testify at the same table as Judge Kavanaugh in front of two dozen U.S. senators on national television to relive this traumatic and harrowing incident,” the authors allege.
A couple of spokesmen for Grassley rejected that claim.
Poor Dr Ford. Her life has been turned upside down. It happened sometime in the fall of 2016, I reckon.
~~~edit fairy~~~
Oops.
Way to monkey it up.
>> Creeque Alley – The Mamas & The Papas
If you like the Mamas & the Papas, make sure to check out John Phillips solo album – The Wolfking of LA. One of my favorite “forgotten gems” from 1970. There was a time where I played this album every day for a year.
Mr. Karaffa says on camera he wants to “f—k sh-t up.”
“I have nothing to lose. It’s impossible to fire federal employees,” he says, as he talks about doing political work at his cubicle.
Wanna bet? I would so love Trump to get wind of this and can his ass publicly and with extreme prejudice.
I think there should be a rule where saying “It’s impossible to fire federal employees”as an excuse for your behavior add federal employee, results in instant termination. At least to keep them from recognizing it verbally.
Unfortunately he’s pretty much right. If they began proceedings today they’d be lucky to have him out of his job by the end Trump’s term, and that’s if the administrative law judge who would be hearing his union appeal would even allow it.
That horrible sharpie is an abyss of contempt for humans.
harpie.
fricken auto spell.
I like the idea of an abyssal sharpie.
I’m assuming it’s betentacled, and writes only in impossible colors
Super fucking interesting.
Reminds me a bit of this.
Articles written by people who stumbled on the article for imaginary numbers while high are the best articles.
McDonald’s workers across US stage #MeToo protests
“hundreds of McDonald’s employees across the US ”
I’m sure McDees is shaking in their oversized clown shoes.
I guess “Fight for Fifteen” is sooo yesterday.
Shut the fuck up and make my filet-o-fish.
You are on a tear this morning! Im also not surprised that your go to is the filet-fish, the most cultured of McDonald’s food
Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that this is union astroturf?
Maybe because it’s union AstroTurf?
I just found out she’s the founder of metoo:
http://time.com/collection/most-influential-people-2018/5217577/tarana-burke/
I need to buy some stock in the companies that make hamburger making robots. I dont even know who they are but I need to find out.
“Hold your burgers, hold your fries. Keep your hands off my thighs.”
Does McDonalds even sell thighs?
+1 Solyent Green
20 nuggets for 5 dollars!
No, you are thinking of KFC.
“We sell thighs, we sell wings, but we don’t sell any spleens! “
Fortunately for them, it is next to impossible for McDonald’s to replace such highly skilled…..oh, wait, never mind.
I can’t imagine anyone so depraved as to sexually harass the people I see working at McDonald’s.
STEVE SMITH NOT DISCRIMINATE.
Any port in a storm.
Have you actually seen someone ‘work’ at McDonalds?
OK, OK…
I can’t imagine anyone so depraved as to sexually harass the people I see dressed as employees at McDonald’s.
19 year old college student — assistant manager — working late with 16 year old high school student. Yes, the assistant manager puts the moves on the working girl.
Did you consider it to be work?
The EU is to drop its litigation against Apple over its cosy tax relationship with Ireland now that the iPhone-maker has paid back 13.2 billion Euros ($15.4 billion) in back taxes, plus interest of 1.2 billion Euros ($1.4 billion).
I guess Apple sent a team of master thieves to break into the Irish treasury and pull off the heist of the century. They stole that money from the Irish government, meaning the EU didn’t get their cut.
Don’t change know. Government has 30% ownership of all business.
Morning Glibs
https://fee.org/articles/california-poised-to-place-authoritarian-restrictions-on-speech/
I wonder if even the ninth circuit will uphold this one?
Something something public interest.
Ah, yes, the secret invisible ink part of the constitution that nullifies the Bill of Rights.
Emanating from the penumbra.
Too bad the second amendment doesn’t seem to have penumbras and emanations.
These are the same people who want to make sure government regulates internet providers so that ISPs don’t censor competition.
No memes but no daylight savings…
https://m.dw.com/en/eu-to-stop-changing-the-clocks-in-2019/a-45495680
Damn. Another way the Euros are getting ahead of us, for half the year.
We should abandon the daylight savings bullshit, too. And move Boston to the Atlantic time zone.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/18/us/politics/us-migrant-children-whereabouts-.html#click=https://t.co/5WhUD35v4b
And yet at the same time they are not to be subject to any detainment, nor are the relatives with whom they are placed to be subjected to any legal scrutiny.
That wouldn’t create a market where you buy kids as immigrants…
*mops brow*
Whatever could you mean?!
Why would I want buy them as immigrants?
That’s not what I’m gonna use them for.
The D’s position on immigration is to import as many commie votes as possible by any means necessary.
Any day now
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/18/manafort-deal-pardon-mueller-trump-827898
Mueller is possibly the most evil man alive.
A true threat to democracy, eh?
The agreement also says prosecutors can come after the five identified homes or apartments, three bank accounts and a life insurance policy now or at any point in the future “without regard to the status of his criminal conviction.”
I’d be fairly surprised if that’s actually legal.
Why is this shitweasel still working for the govt?
Because Sessions is an incompetent boob and/or a deep state swamp creature.
Sony gets in on the retro console craze with PlayStation Classic
Sony plans to release a revamped model of the iconic gaming console, called PlayStation Classic on December 3, Sony announced Wednesday.
The company said the game system will retail for $99.99.
The new version is 45% smaller than the original and ditches CDs in favor of 20 pre-loaded games, including “Final Fantasy VII,” “Tekken 3” and “Wild Arms.” A complete roster of games will be announced soon, including more “fan favorites,” according to the release.
The console will be shipped in its classic packaging with two replica controllers and slightly enhanced graphics compared to the original version.
$100 for 20 games!? Jesus, look around on craigslist and find a working PS2 that is backwards compatible and will still play ps1 games. Or even some of the first gen ps3s.
Right? I’ve still got my play station on and two. The ps1 still works and I occasionally spin a disk out of nostalgia
I replayed PS1 version of The Legacy of Kain recently – great game.
I was at my parents’ house last month. The kids fired up the old PS2 and I was reminded how much those games sucked.
Whaddaya, nuts? The PS2 was the best! Granted, it was the PS3 that had Red Dead Redemption, perhaps my favorite game ever.
Or download one of the half dozen FOSS PS emulators, spend 10 bucks on a USB PS gamepad, and download every game ROM they released for the system.
it would be wrong to suggest that people go look at the Retropi distribution for the RaspberryPi platform for this purpose, so I won’t.
No wargames: defcon 1?
Pass.
I’ve been playing a lot of my old games in the last couple of years, and I gotta say, the early polygon games do not hold up at all. I would much prefer to play a sprite-based game from that era now, like Suikoden 2, Symphony of the Night, and Metal Slug. My kid won’t touch anything with polygons on PS1.
Side-scrolling sprites, I’m fine. But “2.5D” sprites like the original Doom, and I get headaches bad.
With poly games, I go back to an older title and all I can think about is how ugly it all looks. I recently tried to replay MechWarrior 4 Mercenaries, just because I’d finally gotten the darn thing to run, and my only reaction was “How did I manage to spend so much time playing this all those ywars ago?” And it isn’t even that old a title.
Yeah, fuck 2.5D
The only thing I found impressive or interesting is the mo-cap on Virtua Fighter. The combination of smooth animation on meshes that have literally dozens of triangles is interesting in its own way. But not, you know, “good.”
b-b-but ocarina of time is The Best!!!
(snark, Link To The Past or GTFO)
Heh right?!
Ocarina of time is a great game, so is Link to the Past. 1a and 1b?
It’s HDMI.
If I may….I was watching the sports highlights of the night. The #1 play? Firmino’s goal for Liverpool. Which wasn’t anything remotely close to being the play of the night. It finished ahead of Messi’s goal. Worse, Icardi’s goal didn’t even make the eight plays selected!
Anyone, and I mean anyone, who knows the damn game of soccer knows Icardi’s strike is just about as good as it gets. From accuracy to power to elegance.
How can I possibly take these people seriously?
Vent over.
Meh, the Inter game wasn’t on in English here so it might as well not have happened.
Just go look up the goal. You won’t regret it.
I’m going to guess the goal is communism. It’s always communism with these euro types.
Ugh, Icardi.
/stupid man who follows stupid team that always shits their pants.
lol. But that goal was brilliant.
And try doing it without hurting your ankle! Happened to me when I was 15. I took a shot very much like his but I mistimed it and got it on the wrong part of my foot. The pain was unbearable.
Kind of weird report coming out of Italy: https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/45566113
Interesting.
US Senate passes bill modernizing music licensing and payouts
There are few things quite as fucky as the way music publishing and licensing works, and this doesn’t seem to address anything of substance.
It’s hatch, so don’t be surprised that there is no substance. I’m glad he’s retiring. Sad that Mittens has carpet bagged his way into the seat.
Without looking at it, my first thought was “Does this make it better or worse?”
I assumed the latter, but the music stuff is so screwed up, I thought it actually might be possible for the government to improve things.
*squints suspiciously*
Maybe if the government would just keep its friggin’ hands off, there just might be some equitable arrangements between producers and distributors. But that’s too much to expect.
In other astonishing news, headlines say the Emmys got “record low” viewership. I guess people were just too busy cleaning their toilets and rearranging their spice drawers.
It’s like the Academy Awards with all the virtue signalling and politics – and none of the famous people getting awards for shows people saw.
Of course they know the remedy to sinking ratings is to just PROG HARDER!
Telling people they suck and then wondering why they wont vote for you or watch your show seems to be all the rage with the left these days. Sounds like a winning strategy to me.
‘And the best supporting diversity hire in the ‘Resist Trump’ category passing off as a sitcom is….!’
The problem is that the television industry has gotten convinced that they’re owed viewership. They’re selling a product. If people aren’t buying their product, they need to adjust to the market. And they haven’t. Instead, they’re making their product even less desirable to their customer base than previously. Instead, they’re making product targeted to appealing to others in the industry. That’s not a vibrant industry. That’s a museum. You’d think someone would raise their hand.
Well that was close. THE U of M almost closed a daycare so they could do something frivolous like use the space for a research program.
What was going through the brains of those administrators at a land grant university? Research over childcare?
Oh, I see. It was welfare for the faculty and staff.
It’s not like they can possibly afford child care on the slave wages we pay to our university educators in Trump’s America.
I was confused for a minute there. Michigan isn’t a lang grant university.
the university wanted to move its childhood development research program into the building
Missed opportunity, two birds with one stone.
Americans must break with Trump
old man shouts at clouds
Yours sincerely,
Michael Hihn
BULLY!
Anyone who pimps out that ‘4229’ figure as proof can safely be ignored. I can’t believe anyone would suspend their ability to reason to think that.
It’s on par with ‘97% consensus’.
So wait, his problem is Trump is a liar…has this guy seen pretty much 99% of politicians during the 80 long years of his life?
Yeah, but he views them through his partisan-colored spectacles.
Ah, the shit-colored ones.
“I’m old enough to remember Jews being murdered in concentration camps. That was a cakewalk compared to what is happening now!”
More like Old man lies at clouds.
More and more I am seeing the left’s bullshit being met with scorn by a majority of people. It gives me hope.
So I look at the Glasser article and she lists no examples of these lies, she gets her numbers from…*drum roll*….The Washington Post. I tried to look at that article and I see no examples, just numbers. Before I finish fully investigating I get paywalled. I am not giving the WaPo a penny, but my suspicion is that they just make those numbers up.
Unbelievable.
just make those numbers up
Or inflate it by counting insignificant, passing comments.
If you go to outline.com and enter the web address, it will go around the paywall and remove all ads . I use it for WSJ all the time.
He is doing his best to tear it apart.
He routinely disparages the voters by talking down to them and calling them names? Or is that someone else?
Big shoutout to CPRM for the latest Hat and Hair animated episode. Brilliant plot twist.
re: Manafort plea deal
A spokesman for Mueller’s office declined to comment on the provisions in the Manafort deal or to say whether they have appeared in other plea deals in the past.
However, some attorneys said they don’t think the language in the plea agreement is far from what the Justice Department has done in other cases where defendants are asked to waive numerous rights.
“It always feels like if they’re not overreaching, they’re heavy-handed, but it’s to my sense standard-issue heavy-handed,” said Ohio State University law professor Doug Berman.
No biggie. Just your standard-issue boot stamping on a face. The proles must be made to OBEY.
‘Sex with an alien was the most pleasure I ever had’ ET lover reveals in new book
STEVE SMITH SAYS HUMANS FALL FOR THIS ONE SIMPLE TRICK.
“If I touch you here, what happens? And here? How about here? Here?’
This is why we haven’t been contacted. Too many pervs will try to screw them.
Uffda. Minneapolis’ mayor has come up with quite the deal of a plan. Too bad not everyone is on board with it
Move a camp full of homeless heroin addicts into a vacant lot next to two schools. What could possibly go wrong?
No way this would happen to public schools. Maybe those scab teachers in the charter schools should join a union.
IBM launches tool aimed at detecting AI bias
Two years later:
“IBM launches tool aimed at detecting bias in tool aimed at detecting AI bias.”
They WILL force the AI to prefer social justice over reality and logic!
Do you want
antsmurderous, insane AI? Cause this is how you getantsmurderous, insane AI.No, I Will Not Debate You
Civility will never defeat fascism, no matter what The Economist thinks.
So he didn’t want to get his ass kicked all over the stage again.
Yup.
To speak personally, my opposition to Bannon’s place at this conference has nothing to do with wishing to see him silenced — that would be infeasible as well as illiberal.
I just don’t want him to ever be heard speaking publicly because his ideas are far too scary.
And because my ideas can’t hold up to an actual debate.
And, in any sane world, that would be the humiliating part. If you actually think the guy is a Nazi, and you are afraid his ideas will gain credibility by debating them, what you’re fundamentally saying is that you don’t have a better argument than a Nazi. You’re saying your arguments are so weak and inane, that they can’t hold water against an ideology responsible for 20 million deaths.
Their ideas were responsible for over 100 million deaths. So they had a disadvantage there.
Depends on how you want to keep score?
“Laura Bates and Ally Fogg”
Laura Bates is a 32 year old Guardian columnist who founded the Everyday Sexism project, which tendentiously lumps together incidents of sexual violence with genuinely unpleasant things people have said to women and the sort of trivial incident the left refers to as ‘microaggressions’. The pretext for this abandonment of perspective is that society as a whole is sexist and therefore these issues are all part of the same thing. This misogynistic society awarded La Bates the British Empire Medal (amazed she accepted) and made her a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Nopity nope nope nope. If Steve Bannon is making real Fascist arguments, and you can’t defeat those arguments, you’re not as committed to your supposedly liberal ideals as you think. And, quite frankly, the Progressive left and their fellow travelers have leaned on the “volume instead of sense” strategy for several years now, so to make this argument is disingenuous in the extreme not to mention deeply ironic.
I wonder if she realizes that the point of the debate is not to change Steve Bannon’s mind.
Of course not. If you see videos of what they are calling “Debates” in college these days, they seem to be under the impression that the point of a debate is to bombard the other participant with buzzwords faster than a micromachines advert until they capitulate.
In her defense, she may be committed and just lack the mental faculties to make the argument in a persuasive way. Which doesn’t reflect badly upon her as a person.
What’s that? One second
*aid whispers in his ear that she wants to be paid to speak in public in defense of these ideas.*
On second though, fuck that dumb shithead.
Yeah, I mean, it’s perfectly fine if someone isn’t a gifted public speaker, or can’t be bothered (or isn’t very good at) having a public debate against someone, and yet still believe certain things. No problem; get off the field. But I can’t say with any integrity that I’m a successful professional fighter if only get in the ring with my sparring partner.
“there is a very small minority of cases in which it is justified to refuse to participate on a platform alongside a person because they explicitly and deliberately advocate hatred and harm to groups of people on the basis of their race, sex, religion or other characteristics.”
Switching topics, she went on to say that men need to shut up and do what’s right.
I’m watching an old Tales of the Gun episode on Browning from back when the History Channel was good. The youtube video still has the commercials. There was a spot for Lethal Weapon 4, which came out in ’98, but it was to watch it on HBO, so I date the taping at 1999 or so. I was 12.
The ads are really striking in showing how much technology has changed. There was a guy in a movie theater frantically trying to get out because his cell phone was ringing and people were getting pissed. The cool guy with the hot date in the theater had no such problem! He had a Skytel pager which would convert the phone message into text. He cooly looked at the message–“Boss loved the new idea! No need to call.”–his business acumen confirmed, he continues to eat with his hot lady.
It’s also striking that the show is so good. Very simple, but a detailed overview of Browning’s life and his inventions. John Milius is one of the commenters–who are actually allowed to speak in full paragraphs. I was born in ’87 and didn’t get Windows 3.1 until I was 8. I grew up with the massive changes in tech but still remember the Old Days, as they were. (Sorry, fourscore!)
I was showing a 5 year old student in Singapore a globe one time. She no-shit used two fingers to try and swipe and magnify the image. I weep for society knowing that people now literally have never known anything else. I strongly suspect that it’s led to all this soyboy bullshit.
The tagline for the History Channel show is actually sane!
“The gun has played a critical role in history. An invention which has been praised and denounced, served her and villain alike…and carries with it moral responsibility. To understand the gun is to better understand history.”
GODDAMMIT.
*hero
trying to disarm women, shitlord!
My first gaming platform was an Atari 2600 that my dad bought us in 1979/1980. My first computer – Commodore PET – had 16kb of memory. Cell phones were something that only the rich could afford – and you were tied to the car when using them.
The first time I saw a “windows like” experience was with an original black and white display MacIntosh computer.
Now get off my lawn!
Far too often, I realize me and Humungus are the same person.
Except for the Commodore PET.
That was actually a summer loaner from the public school. I had a Commodore 64 not long after that. My friend jumped the gun and got a VIC-20, which was inferior to my mighty 38k of usable memory.
We had a green-screen “IBM” XT made by… Sun Microsystems.
There was also a Commodore 64, but we had no long-term storage, so it lost out to the XT withthe 5 1/2″ floppy disk drives in how much it got used.
Disk drive was separate – model 1541 – or you could use a cassette tape drive. I had the latter first. Loading times took 20-30 minutes for a game.
We didn’t own any. So we’d have to key it all in by hand, and it all got lost when the power was turned off.
I prefered being able to save my work.
From a 1972 episode of Cannon: https://metvcdn.metv.com/AGnUL-1502380083-9326-list_items-carphone_cannon.gif
I didn’t get my 2600 until the early 80’s, and the first computer was a TRS-80 color computer II. With 64 k of RAM.
Exactly what my Mom gave me because she didn’t get it, Basic!
-Atari 7800
-IBM PS/2 286, first family computer
-used Sparc IPX, first computer purchase with my first real paycheck
Granpas! (goes back to discovering first grey hairs)
I used to watch that show.
And that’s about all I specifically remember about it.
Technology will change so much in that 5 year olds lifetime that she will be posting (telephathically?) the same kind of comments in 30 years.
I’m of similar vintage and run into the same thing a lot. It’s kind of a strange sweet spot. We were born just on the cusp of the information age, just enough to have working memories of the way things used to be even though we’ve lived most of our lives in the web era. When we get old it’s going to be like the people who were born right before the country got wired for electricity. Only no one will give a fuck about our unique perspective because it will have no meme potential.
I was born in the sweet spot where man had walked on the moon already and would again in the future.
Space exploration wasn’t crazy sci-fi, yet most of the big tech advances were still to come. I remember the VHS/Betamax war!
My older brother bought one of the first stereo VCRs in 1986-ish? It was $300 in 1986 dollars and it played back in stereo! instead of mono.
I was early CD adopter in 84/85. The number of CDs available were in the ten’s…
My first CD player cost almost as much as my entire Fisher Studio quality 200 watt component system with huge speakers.
The CD player was piece of shit that I had to take apart and clean the lens regularly and ended up stuffing a small piece of paper in the feed tray to keep it feeding straight.
First console — Intellivision.
First Computer I worked on – Terak with 8″ floppy, programming in turbo-pascal.
Here is my theory: Before our generation (and we really are the last gen that didn’t have the internet in our homes at some point. I even used a card catalog–ONCE–in my life for a 2nd grade paper on scorpions) people had life-changing advancements maybe a couple of times in their life, and the older you go back the longer the gap between them. Middle aged people could literally just be baffled by new technology and be cognitively incapable of understanding what has changed.
Old people getting:
Trains. Fast long distance travel?!
Telegraphs. WTF? Instant communication!?
Radio, TV, internet. The gap shortens.
The difference is that we are (mathematically speaking) a derivative generation. The machines that we were trained to use *were always changing.* We were trained to understand, expect and predict these sudden improvements and alterations. We’ve gone through so much of it in our lifetimes that it’s normal. Hopefully that means that more-or-less we will always be able to keep up.
I do predict some neural-connectivity and I can see that perhaps being needed to be installed as a child. When that happens we too will be adrift, left only with our barren yards and clouds in good need of a’shakin’.
Radio, TV, internet. The gap shortens.
While the rise of the internet and personal computer have been transformative, I’d argue that the pace of technological advancement is not increasing. The period of 1900-1950 was far more technologically transformative than 1950-2000, and so far 2000-2050 is looking even less transformative still. Perhaps there will be some earth-shattering development just over the horizon, but as of right now it seems that the man born in 1900 will have experienced more change in his life than the man born in 2000.
The difference between 1900 and 2000 are so different, they aren’t apples to oranges. They are like comparing apples to a meditation on the inherent contradictions and paradoxes of a three-part Godhead.
In the 1900-about 1970’s or 1980, the frontier of technological advancement was in the production of commodities. The advancements were a question of how to make the largest number of identical copies of one item. This really started with the Model T, of which the joke goes “you can get it in any color you want, as long as you want it in black.”
Electrification existed, but getting it into every home was the problem being tackled. Washing machines existed, but getting them in every middle-class then poor home was the challenge. Ditto all sorts of things.
Yes, there were revolutionary new technologies, but the frontier of the economy was on scale and driving down costs on things that used to be luxury goods.
These days, since the late 80’s or early 90’s, the frontier of technology is on personalization, beautification, and disintermediation. This is how we’ve replaced a pool of young ladies working as typists and secretaries in Mad Men with an email client and calendar application. We’ve replaced ugly beige boxes with beautiful slates that have a UI so intuitive an infant can use it. Its how we’ve replaced ‘you can get it in any color you want, as long as you want black’ with one-off printed cell phone covers with a picture of your kids.
You can see this in the wars we fight. In WWII, the defining economic factor was probably the # of tons of steel produced in the Axis cities vs the Allied cities. If the US and China went to war tomorrow, do you think that would even be in the top 10 in the consideration? No, we go to war with Stuxnet and highly-trained special operations teams, not Big Bertha and drafts that ensnare double digit percentages of the population.
FIFY
While personalization, beautification, and disintermediation are nice and all, in my view they are less transformative advancements. Going from no car to car is more transformative than from cars in black only to cars in your choice of color. The period of 1900-1950 saw mass electrification (and the accompanying panoply of time saving devices), mass adoption of the radio, mass adoption of the telephone, mass adoption of recorded media (audio/visual), mass adoption of the automobile, the invention and widespread adoption of air conditioning, the invention and widespread adoption of air travel, and the invention of television, rocketry, and the computer. All that, collectively, is the greatest technological transformation of society in history. The internet and personal computer have been transformative in making it much easier to distribute and obtain information, but that strikes me as less transformative in scale than the collective developments of the previous era. And I would quibble with the contention that current technology is focused on disintermediation, as from my POV it just seems to be changing who the intermediaries are, not removing them. If the internet survives the current surge of censorship I will concede that point, but the jury is still out.
Pretty much where I am. IT has been “transformational” in a handful of industries, really, mostly entertainment, media, etc. In other industries, it has allowed, at best, an incremental improvement in efficiency. I think IT has been massively overhyped, frankly, since the 90s bubble (bubbles are driven by hype) and the Y2K semi-hysteria (more hype).
What strikes me as surprising is that the advances in information technology and analytics haven’t produced any real scientific breakthroughs that I can think of, with the possible exception of genetics.
We have all of the previous tech-cycle to judge it by. We are in the middle of this one. Let a generation or two be raised with a library at their fingertips that contains, basically, everything every written, recorded, or directed. Let a few more decades of businesses with no physical assets and 3rd party service contracts for everything foment. Lets see what personalized medicine does (or does not) shake out and actually work.
But even once we do that, I still don’t think we can ever make a clear measure of magnitude or rate of change on either, because the parameters change meaning over time. (Same reason we can’t do reliable macroeconomic comparisons across large time duration. Inflation doesn’t mean much if the basket of goods doesn’t change, but it doesn’t remain an objective measure if it does.)
My first supervisor here made the point that the biggest gains from automation were made during the transition from a peper process to an electronic one. Now everyone is looking for an equal or bigger gain when the margins don’t exist with what we’ve got to work with.
I think that there are really only inventions in a few fields, that I haven’t really narrowed down fully.
Transportation, communication, medicine, food-storage and warfare probably take up 85% of innovative works.
The Internet is the new printing press. That availability of easily-accessible knowledge is I do think a really revolutionary step for how humans live their life. The constant ability to have the sum of all human knowledge in your pocket is (duh, and I don’t at all think you’re arguing against this) an insane leap, and happened over 20-30 years. I know that radio/TV changed shit, but I’m not sure that it altered the lives of people an in-kind amount that Gutenburg and the Internet fundamentally transformed the spread of knowledge for the average person.
I think it’s more interesting that the Mother of Necessity only births inventions to 5-7 fields that define how we live our lives. Everything can be derived from just a few universal needs and wants. It’s fun being at the forefront of that.
Not a new idea, but one that I really like to simplify in my own head.
Dean – how would you know? Respectfully, you work as an attorney in a hospital, don’t you? Outside of government buildings, that has to be the most calcified technological environment I can think of.
You may think IT is massively overhyped from where you are. But ask a serial entrepreneur what its like starting up a business these days. Its a wildly different process now. You can and probably should do it without an office, without support staff, without your own physical infrastructure, and with a data infrastructure that comes down to a solid network connection and a bunch of cloud-based services.
Most technological advances are, and are intended to be, hidden from the end user. Things just “work better.” You as a car owner don’t need to know about how the pieces in your car are subjected to finite element analysis and genetic algorithms, you just might wake up one day and realize you haven’t had a car that’s had a break-down on the road side in the last decade.
The advances in behavioral studies (IE economics, psychology, etc) are substantial, ubiquitous, and transparent. We understand human bias much, much, much better than we did 20 years ago, to the point that we can increase the utility of products by accounting for it. And its all a product of information technology and analytics being applied to theoretical work started in the 60’s and 70’s. But it didn’t take off until data-density reached the point where it could be applied.
Last thing I’ll point to is retail. Logistics technology have radically revolutionized everything about how products come to market. Wal-Mart killing K-Mart, Amazon killing Barns and Noble, and Fast Fashion killing Macy’s are all the result of IT innovations, and only Wal-Mart can really be called a product of the 90’s (Amazon was around then, but they are a very different beast now.) These are all transparent to the end user. Most people, I would bet, don’t even know what fast fashion is, or how it differs from a department store. They just know that they can get comparable-quality clothing that looks better and costs half as much as a mall department store at these other new places.
What is missing, and maybe your point, is that these are not discontinuities the way that KDKA going on the air was, or the way that the Model T was. And yeah, no argument there. What I’m proposing is that the recent wave of innovation is a smooth trend instead of a saw-toothed curve. (And BTW, one insight from behavioral psych – human’s tendency toward hedonic adaptation means that we don’t notice smooth improvements in living standard nearly as well as we notice discontinuities)
Dean – how would you know?
I’ve admitted its impressionistic.
But ask a serial entrepreneur what its like starting up a business these days.
Ease of starting a business is not transformational in people’s daily lives, which is what I was getting at. But even on this metric, new business and small businesses are flatlined to declining. IT hasn’t really transformed the economy even in that sense.
Most technological advances are, and are intended to be, hidden from the end user. Things just “work better.”
Absolutely, there has been incremental improvement, which I acknowledged. I would put the improvements in the retail logistics chain in the same bucket.
What is missing, and maybe your point, is that these are not discontinuities the way that KDKA going on the air was, or the way that the Model T was.
That was my point. Thirty years ago, I had a car, could travel by plane, could order stuff and have it delivered to my house, could watch entertainment on a screen, etc. That all works better now, but its just a better version of what I’ve had for a generation – incremental, not transformational. What’s striking to me is, on those occasions when I am truly off the network and IT plays no role in my day-to-day: I don’t really notice it or miss it very much after the first day or two.
Respectfully, you work as an attorney in a hospital, don’t you? Outside of government buildings, that has to be the most calcified technological environment I can think of.
But it is an environment that has been dramatically impacted by IT – not just in the computerized equipment the providers use, but fundamentally in the adoption of electronic health records. My skepticism about the hype of IT probably goes off my experience with EHRs – hugely expensive, massively hyped, requiring that every workflow in the organization be changed, and they have not really made that much of a difference. Healthcare has been on the IT train for years and years now, and has probably invested as much and been affected as much as any industry, but it turns out to have been mostly motion, not much progress, and certainly has not driven any kind of quantum leap in quality or outcomes. Again, some incremental improvements, but not nearly what you would expect based on the hype and the investment.
If we went to real war with China, it would open up with stuxnet and spec-ops, but it would quickly turn into tons of steel and # of bombs being the priority.
I believe that a modern, first-rate power can have its desire to continue war eliminated using only Stuxnet-and-spec-ops weapons, and tons of steel and bombs will never bee needed. So if we are talking about that kind of war, I don’t think I’d agree.
If we are talking about a modern, first-rate power that is intent on eliminating the entire infrastructure and population of another modern, first-rate power, then I would agree.
The only way to end a war is to end the capacity of the opponant to continue the war. Complete debillation requires a roman peace – make them a wasteland.
I miss the days when the History channel was about history. My parents wouldn’t let me play video games when I stayed home sick, so I watched the history channel. It contributed to my love for history. I could sit for hours and watch old documentaries.
This ^^^. So many WW2 and WoD documentaries, then there was also Mail Call and Shootout! I miss those days so damn much.
It has been noted by others that, while there’s no history on History Channel or learning on TLC, at least there are still foxes on Fox News.
But fewer than there were.
Some are getting a little long in the tooth.
Ah yes, the ol’ Hitler Channel days, when the evening’s programming was routinely occupied entirely by shows about Nazi Germany.
Not that I minded, of course, being the WWII fanatic I am.
Everyone has a pet era. My date is maybe 1928: carburetor, compass, pistol, leather, 1894 Winchester lever, 1897 Winchester pump; plumbing in at least some houses; sulpha drugs; the idea of enjoying the tricks of that time appeal to me, and everything newer seems lame (eg: lasik surgery, automatic transmissions, GPS, telescopic sights on a rifle).
Every generation discovers sex, drugs, and, finally, nostalgia.
My preferred time frame hasn’t arrived yet.
^^This is truly the most UCS statement of all time.
+1 Time Frame Gloves
And a great time to try your hand at the stock market.
yes: I’m dodging something there and enjoying automotive progress up until that stall
and opting out of WW2 where after the individual would not much matter
The SEC proctologists are knocking on Tesla’s door
To prove criminal securities fraud, prosecutors would have to show not only that Musk’s statements were false, but that they were made willfully. That would require establishing that Musk purposely planned to inappropriately drive the shares higher or prevent them from going lower.
One area investigators would look for such evidence is in emails or other internal documents, according to former federal prosecutors.
Musk has often vented his frustrations with short sellers on social media. In May, Musk tweeted that he was expecting the “short burn of the century” and suggested that investors who were betting against the company start “tiptoeing quietly to the exit …”
The “funding secured” tweet did in fact trip up bearish sellers when the company’s shares rallied more than 10 percent. Government investigators will be trying to determine whether there was any connection to that statement and his desire to hurt short sellers.
I do not believe that was intentional stock manipulation. I think it was an entrepreneur running off at the mouth. I actually respect Musk for what he has been able to do, but he is Exhibit A for the need for a professional management team as part of the going-public process. They should take away his phone and lock him in
a dungeonan underground research facility.The “funding secured” tweet is fraud if it isn’t true, period, full stop. A lie that moves the market is fraud; I suppose the fact that you lied solves the “intent” problem.
So, does he have funding to take Tesla private? This would be a huge deal, but I haven’t heard anybody confirm it, which makes me doubt its true. Of course, its possible that its been confirmed and I just didn’t hear it.
No, and apparently the Saudis were pissed about being outed as the potential source.
And invested in an emerging competitor.
Nothing left to cut.
Minnesoda Dept. of Health rolls out new web site to help employers help employees with opioid addictions.
Our state can’t roll out a web site to manage vehicle licensing (even after spending north of $100M on it), but somehow we put together this site of wisdom?
The Fairness 360 Kit will also scan for signs of bias and recommend adjustments.
“Hey, this pod bay door won’t open!”
At the airport bar. One of three places i can think of where you can order a beer at 0900 and no one looks at you strangely.
Or liquor drinks…
“Make it a double for $1.00?”
The second being onboard the plane. Where’s the third?
retirement?
once I lay down my slide rule, I can’t imagine (on days when I don’t plan to shoot or golf) how early I’ll drink
Careful Don, it’s an easy trap to fall into.
/voice of experience
Yeah, I stick to a pretty strict rule. No drinking until after work, of course, but on non-work days, no drinking before 3:00 pm, with the possible exception of a beer with lunch.
The second being Vegas, and the third being any bar that serves as a third shift workers
I was going to say, man aren’t you from Cleveland? If there’s a city that warranted day drinking, its [insert any city in the Ohio Valley.]
psst: Lake Erie
Is Cleveland still in the Ohio Valley?
Exactly how far north does it extend? I would think somewhere past Columbus, the creeks would be flowing to the Great Lakes instead of south to the Ohio.
Come on down to Cleveland-town, everyone
Come and look at both of our buildings
Its not a part of the watershed of the Ohio River, but when I lived there I called it part of the Ohio Valley. There is certainly a cultural clustering of Pittsburgh – Cleveland – Akron etc that is distinct from East Coast, the Scotch-Irish part of Appalachia, or Kentucky.
I like that idea (red-bearded hillbilly that I am), but Cincy almost qualifies…. and CLE and PIT don’t.
A Southerner’s opinion may not county, but MKE, ORD, DTW, CLE all smell the same to me. They’re not I-95; they’re Great Lakes. That’s good stuff up there in certain, very limited ways.
But ’tain’t Appalachian.
I think of Ohio Valley as Cincinnati, southern Indiana, southern Illinois and all of KY. And technically, Nashville.
You gotta give Nashville a pass since it’s got two of its own rivers, and they join the MS essentially at the same place (Paducah) as the OH (Cairo).
Nope. Paducah is Ohio river.
Now, Fulton County is Mississippi River, so I will give it a pass. But I am claiming the Cumberland River as a KY river that just happens to flow into TN for a bit.
I have travelled extensively in my life, especially for someone as youngish as me. (I’m reminded of the Carlin bit on bullshitting yourself. “You don’t tell yourself you’re getting old! I started bullshitting myself in my 40s! I looked and the mirror and said…’You look….*older!*'”)
The trick to airports is twofold–Don’t worry about money (unless you really don’t have it). No one likes being there. Get whatever you want to eat. Fuck it. And also–get loaded. Get on the plane, fall asleep and disappear 8 hours of your flight.
The Chicago–Seoul flight, which I think doesn’t exist anymore, was a fucking slog. Ugh–but it was better than flying into Detroit to get a flight to Indy. Ugh. Ain’t no one got time for that mess.
On the other hand, Cincy to Louisville is the dumbest flight I ever took. [It was Madison to Cincinnati to Louisville, the first half on an American Eagle prop plane in a snowstorm and the latter on a 727].
That is, indeed, shockingly dumb.
That’s…like a 15 minute flight. SMDH
I honestly think the plane just taxied down I-71.
Flint to Detroit to get to Atlanta. On a MD88. I don’t think they bothered pulling the landing gear up.
Flying into O’Hare to get to Louisville is the worst thing ever.
Seems like it always ends up taking longer than driving back from Chicago.
Police sergeant among 24 alleged child predators arrested in sting operation in New Jersey
Odds that his defense is that he was conducting an investigation?
No Catholic priests?
1. Why do morons keep falling for this.
2. I still question the legality of these stings. There is no actual minor involved. Essentially they are prosecuting people for thought crimes.
It’s so much easier than waiting around for a real crime then trying to solve it.
It does sound an awful lot like entrapment, doesn’t it? But the optics of, “I wouldn’t normally meet a 15-year-old for sex but she was really, really persuasive,” are kind of shit. If nothing else, it certainly reinforces the wisdom of just not talking to minors to begin with.
“Why do morons keep falling for this?”
It is compulsive behavior. I have first hand experience with pedophiles. It’s like their brain just turns off. They become completely irrational.
Best defense: Claim to have a fetish for male cops pretending to be underage girls.
“I always wanted to meet Chris Hanson in person!”
Completely relevant.
Good news everybody! The child that was kidnapped by Minnesoda CPS has been returned.
Although the news is good, the story still has a bunch of infuriating points.
So the judge found as fact that the nurse lied about the kid. Why don’t we know the nurse’s name? Or the social worker who went along with this nonsense?
I trust the nurse has lost her license to practice after this, right?
This would be the same county whose CPS have been repeatedly fucking with this woman and her family for months?
‘Wild West’ Bitcoin ‘should be regulated’
For whomever was looking for libertarian friendly children’s books yesterday. An old coworker of mine wrote two libertarian childrens books called Libertania. I never read them, but they are on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Libertania-Country-Prohibition-Brian-Lobb/dp/1497548896
You know what other political movement created children books…
Random House?
Usborne?
THE FUCKING CIA MAN. THEY JUST WANT TO DESENSITIZE YOU TO UBIQUITOUS SURVAILANCE!!
tl;dr Laura Ingalls Wilder
That was me. Thank you. I will have a look.
Sounds tedious from the description. I would go with Mojeaux’s suggestion instead.
This book seems to be the flip side of the lefty leaning proggy books that get published. They are so transparent on the idea they are trying to push I have a hard time even reading the words out loud.
Yeesh, that’s some bad writing right there. I made it two paragraphs couldn’t go on.
Also, I would count Rainbow Fish and The Giving Tree as two of the least libertarian books ever written. My kid was gifted those two books, I read them, and promptly donated them (I couldn’t bear to throw them in the trash).
I was told TGT is a metaphor for parenthood, but that seems like all the more reason to get rid of it. No you fucking won’t cut me down to a stump to please yourself, you brat.
Whoever told you that was too cynical regarding children.
Yes, I know what it’s supposed to be; the Tree was not a good “parent” for letting its “owner” run roughshod over it. Way to teach personal responsibility, Tree.
I know a woman who’s like that. She’s now raising her grandchildren, who are developing into maladjusted hellions, and fetching ciggies for her deadbeat thug children.
TGT, if it is a metaphor for parenthood, was written by a shitty, narcissist parent a martyr-complex to be sold to shitty, narcissistic parents with budding martyr-complexes. But given that it was written by Shel Silverstein and sold like hotcakes in 1964, this goes without saying.
If you spin the Giving Tree correctly it’s a example of what will happen if you keep enabling a junkie, they’ll take and take and take until it kills you.
True. But my kid was 2, and I just told her that’s not how a loving child treats his parent.
The Kavanaugh’s have revealed themselves to not be true libertarians.
Instead reacting properly – with screams of “get off my lawn” and brandishing weapons – Mrs. Kavanaugh handed out brownies to press camped out around her house.
BROWNIES MADE WITH RAPED WOMAN PARTS!!!
STEVE SMITH ALWAYS HAVE ROOM FOT DESSERT
Brandish weapons? Simply switch the turrets to “Purge” and head into the bunker.
That’s great.
I’m sorry, we were looking for “releasing the hounds” or “detonating the claymores”.
The hounds patrol the antechambers for any who escape the turrets and make it inside the perimeter.
Cupcakes aren’t brownies. Cupcakes are objectively inferior to brownies. I was promised brownies!
Sorry – got my confections confused.
All I’m saying is, a woman who hands out cupcakes instead of brownies while her husband’s under a cloud of suspicion–maybe she’s not an unimpeachable witness to his character.
Oh, we needed to make sure the dosage was right, and the brownies didn’t allow tuning to the estimated body mass of the people.
Pedo
There’d better be lemonade.
Jesus H. Christ, these people are beyond help.
https://twitter.com/SenhorRaposa/status/1042175840937803776
I’m sure I’m probably the last one to find out, but Instapundit had a link to a blog post at a site called Eric Peters Autos. Tagline: “Automobiles, Motorcycles, and Libertarian Politics”. Lotta good reads on there, I’ll be going back for sure.
Jesus, I’m struggling today. Working link….hopefully
Instead reacting properly – with screams of “get off my lawn” and brandishing weapons – Mrs. Kavanaugh handed out brownies to press camped out around her house.
No sprinklers? I am disappoint.
Stupid fingers
Thanks, edit fairy!
Muzzling
Lithuanian officials said Tuesday Walmart will no longer sell clothing featuring Soviet Union logos after Baltic countries asked the retail giant to remove USSR-emblazoned apparel.
The Associated Press reported that Lithuania’s foreign ministry “received a letter from Walmart this week confirming that these items would be removed from sales.” A spokeswoman for the ministry added that the country intends to ask Amazon.com take down apparel featuring Soviet symbols as well.
————
Lawmakers from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania sent a letter to Walmart executives earlier this month asking them to “demonstrate their corporate responsibility” and stop the sale of items with Soviet imagery.
The officials argued that carrying the items meant Walmart was participating in “promotion, among its customers worldwide, of totalitarianism, human rights abuse and suppression of freedom and democracy, the values that allowed such corporations as Walmart to grow and prosper.”
“Horrific crimes were done under the Soviet symbols of a sickle and hammer. The promotion of such symbols resonates with a big pain for many centuries,” Lithuania’s ambassador to the U.S., Rolandas Krisciunas, wrote in a separate letter.
They very helpfully provide no examples of this alleged imagery.
I am disturbed by the rise of censorship.
[insert sld]
I own a few Soviet brand polo shirts. They’re quite nice. Italian brand actually.
https://www.soviet.com/customerservices/otherinformation/aboutus
My preferred time frame hasn’t arrived yet.
The good ol’ days just ain’t what the usedta be.
So what’s the over-under on another woman or two coming out this weekend with similar but similarly unspecific and unfalsifiable claims about Kavanaugh? Ford’s smear is somewhat neutered by her unwillingness to testify, but the point was never to give details, simply to derail the process. Another couple accusers with coached recollections would seal it.
C’mon, the Democrats aren’t that dishonest.
*chuckles to self at bad joke*
As I explained to somebody this morning: How would you regard an allegation with teh following history:
(1) Anonymous accusation lacking much detail.
(2) Accuser is outed, and refuses to be questioned.
In any rational setting, that accusation is promptly and immediately shitcanned. The reason for declining to be questioned doesn’t really matter, but in this case its ludicrous – she wants an investigation before she is questioned. No, the investigation starts with the accuser being questioned.
If I was Grassley, I’d tell Flake he got his shot at another hearing, but the accuser is refusing to appear, which makes the hearing pointless, so I’m cancelling it. Seriously, how do you go forward with a session called for the sole purpose of hearing the accuser in person when they won’t appear?
I’d tell him I am scheduling a committee meeting tomorrow, with strict controls on who is allowed in, to hold the fucking vote. If he says he is voting against Kavanaugh anyway, I remove him from the committee and appoint a new Republican member who is not a fucking idiot (short list, I know).
I don’t think you cancel the hearing. I think you bring your own witnesses; dozens of women testifying to how awesome Kavanaugh is, and how shitty it is that he’s getting another high-tech lynching.
WOOD
The first Ferrari I have actually lusted in heart for in a very long time.
The Asymmetry in the shots wihtout a passenger seat makes my OCPD tweak out.
Must… fix… symmetry.
yes, yes, yes
must have symmetry.
Look at it as hero and sidekick. They’re never symmetrical.
like Ace and Gary
We’re designing bathrooms for our project building in class this week. A couple people balked at my design, which broke symmetry to give more area to the women’s room. But urinals need half the space that stalls do. And it’s not like anyone but we would ever see it in plan view anyway.
Stalls have greater functionality. And if it is an even 2:1 ratio, put in two urinals for every stall you remove.
I would, but apparently chicks refuse to use ’em.
With that attitude, you’ll never get hired by any woke building owner. If you won’t ignore people’s lifetime of social learning and try to control their behavior by removing beneficial features and making them feel guilty about it, what kind of
new soviet manplanner are you?What’s this nonsense about separate bathrooms for “men” and “women”, anyway?
No windshield? That’s swell that they designed it to funnel air around the driver without having the glass, but what happens when a dump truck on the highway kicks up a piece of gravel in your face?
That’s what the $600,000 ferrari-branded helmet is for.
Yeah. Whoever designed that has not seen the bugs we have down here.
Guys, the people who buy cars like that don’t actually drive them.
They park them next to their other cars and pretend to love them. It’s sick, really.
But… what’s the point of owning a car if not to drive it?
Collectors cars too “expensive” to drive – they’re like the guy who buys the sealed comic book and never opens the bag to read it.
Which is why I would rather have a Mustang / Camaro / WRX / etc than a Porsche / Lambo / Ferrari.
That still doesn’t answer what the point is, as you are deliberately excluding the soul of the item you’ve acquired.
Watch early episodes of Storage Wars and one of the bidders named Barry. He drives all sorts of weird shit. They’re collectors’ items, but he’s a collector’s collector.
The point is, you have something others don’t and that makes you better than them. It’s almost as if you don’t understand signaling. The collectors don’t care about the ‘soul’, they just want to have something no one else does.
That’s really sad, basing your enjoyment of your stuff on other people.
Oh, he has a whole page dedicated to his cars. He’s driven most of these on the show.
I like the look of the ’46 Caddy.
Only tangentially related… KDW had a piece up last week bemoaning the elitist war on e-cigs: smoking is a poor person’s vice, and because modern elites define themselves largely in opposition to whatever the benighted classes are doing, they oppose their children taking up even a harmless habit simply because it resembles, however superficially, a habit of the dumb, thuggish underclass.
The only reason I bring it up is because he noted in his run-up the habit of the techy rich to signal their status differently. They no longer buy ostentatiously luxurious cars, they buy socially conscious cars which happen to be ostentatiously expensive. The poor, dumb brutes drive cars that combust energy locally, while they, smarter and more virtuous by far, combust their energy at exotic, far-off locales unheard of by the common ruffian.
Mojeaux, that’s a car guy. Completely different animal. Some guys (and girls) buy expensive cars and enjoy them on the roads and tracks. Just as God intended.
Honestly, I couldn’t care less what people do with their personal property. I do, though, love to see really expensive cars parked in the lot at the hardware store or wherever.
Don’t forget that true collector cars are investments that will depreciate if they are not kept pristine. Driving is not the friend of maintaining value in any car.
Do you own any books that you don’t read?
I may have books I’ve forgotten about, but when they turn up I go “Oh, hey, I want to read that.”
At the speeds you drive that car, that little wind flap forward of the driver actually does a pretty good job of keeping the main blast away from the driver.
You’d still wear a helmet and eye-protection though (with the obligatory silk scarf).
No thanks. It looks like a money pit.
“Victoria Silverstead”
I loathe fake tits.
SLUTS. (NTTAWWT)
http://archive.is/MNRwM
17 Lord have mercy.
Holy shit, that chick has thighs like Earl Campbell’s.
Heir to the great soup fortune?
Heir to the Tennessee Titans.
Some of those shorts appear to have shrunk in the wash — several times!
Good morning Glibertopia! I am covered in grease and oil from changing out a motor and gear reducer for the local radar. Feels good to be back on equipment after 6mos. playing boss. Back at it tomorrow to field repair some cables that are shot to shit and not energizing the solenoid on the reducer. See not all FedGovs are lazy assholes…but most are.
Yep. My experience working for govt is that about 5% of the employees are the ones getting things done. The other 95% are dead weight.
Great choice! Love M&P.
I guess WaPo and the NYT took that seriously since they didn’t report on this at all
I’ve read the story twice and am not seeing the big deal, some low-level bureaucrat brags about using his work computer to send out Democratic Underground memes? Not really breaking news there.
Especially given the fact that only the fringiest elements out themselves proudly. The rest just vote that way.
Apparently it’s illegal though.
I get that, and the dude should lose his job, I just don’t see this as a good example of The Media™ not covering something because of their liberal bias. Seems more likely they aren’t covering it because it’s not newsworthy.
Not to go all whatabout, but do you seriously believe it would have gotten zero coverage if a DOJ employee was sending fringey alt-right shit on company time during Obama?
I imagine it would get the DailyKo/Huffpo crowd screeching, like this will get BB/WND going. Neither story would be newsworthy in my book. And even if The Media™ elevated and pushed one un-newsworthy story the newsworthiness of this one remains the same, very close to nada.
Unexpected
To some people, the YIMBY platform will sound painfully obvious. But YIMBYs face enormous opposition from self-styled progressives who flatly dismiss the idea that adding new market-rate housing to a city will improve housing affordability. Sometimes these activists go even further and argue that adding market-rate housing to cities actively hurts the poor (on the grounds that expensive apartments attract wealthier residents who bid up rents). Such activists will fiercely oppose even new market-rate buildings that include subsidized units.
They end up allying themselves with NIMBY (“Not in My Back Yard”) homeowners who oppose all new construction in their neighborhoods. Working together, the two groups help choke off new construction that could ease housing prices.
Call this attitude “Left NIMBYism.” Left NIMBYism not only flatly contradicts the logic of supply and demand but also flies in the face of empirical studies of what happens when cities see new construction. In its stubborn rejection of empirical reality, the Left NIMBYist view of housing markets shares characteristics of ideologically motivated refusals to accept evidence in other contexts, such as climate change or the safety of vaccines.
———
How on Earth did this get published in the Washington Post? Must be that nefarious capitalist Bezos’ fault.
Worth reading in full.
Anti-nimbyism has become very popular among the progressive set in the last five to ten years. Medium is full of YIMBY essays written with the language of the oppressor-oppressed axis.
“In its stubborn rejection of empirical reality, the Left NIMBYist view of housing markets shares characteristics of ideologically motivated refusals to accept evidence in other contexts, such as climate change or the safety of vaccines.”
One of these is not like the others.
It’s interesting how many of these types will claim Jane Jacobs as an inspiration apparently without having read her most famous work, which made this exact argument about “filtering” almost sixty years ago.
Anyway, the unholy alliance between NIMBY’s who agitate for higher housing costs and progs who claim to be advocating for lower housing costs brings to mind a certain American political party that pits its various bases against each other, doesn’t it.
I am pathetic today. Another try.
To some people, the YIMBY platform will sound painfully obvious. But YIMBYs face enormous opposition from self-styled progressives who flatly dismiss the idea that adding new market-rate housing to a city will improve housing affordability. Sometimes these activists go even further and argue that adding market-rate housing to cities actively hurts the poor (on the grounds that expensive apartments attract wealthier residents who bid up rents). Such activists will fiercely oppose even new market-rate buildings that include subsidized units.
They end up allying themselves with NIMBY (“Not in My Back Yard”) homeowners who oppose all new construction in their neighborhoods. Working together, the two groups help choke off new construction that could ease housing prices.
Call this attitude “Left NIMBYism.” Left NIMBYism not only flatly contradicts the logic of supply and demand but also flies in the face of empirical studies of what happens when cities see new construction. In its stubborn rejection of empirical reality, the Left NIMBYist view of housing markets shares characteristics of ideologically motivated refusals to accept evidence in other contexts, such as climate change or the safety of vaccines.
——–
In short, excluding new market-rate housing by means of stringent zoning regulation keeps wealthy households in existing units that might otherwise open up to lower-income households.
What do anti-market housing activists say against this body of evidence? They pretty much just plug their ears, asserting that housing markets defy economic laws that govern other commodities.
“Let’s talk about California, and specifically our region,” Zelda Bronstein, a former Berkeley planning commissioner, wrote in 2016. “Here the textbook theory of supply-and-demand — prices fall as supply increases — doesn’t apply.”
These are the inhabitants of the reality-based community who fucking love science and want to control everybody else’s decisions.
the insanity in the comments is staggering..
Affordability issues are caused when those excluded from valuable land aren’t compensated for their loss of opportunity. This transfers incomes from those that own little/no land by value, relative to the taxes they currently pay, to those whom the opposite is true. This net transfer then being capitalised into the selling price of land and therefore houseprices.
A 100% tax on the rental value of land ends that net transfer, increasing the disposable incomes of the poorest and typical working households in doing so reducing the selling price of land to zero.
Such a tax also allows for optimal market allocation, eliminating excessive vacancy and under occupation.
And there’s no better petri dish for these batshit tax schemes than the Bay. Godspeed, you glorious madmen.
The problem is, the diseases cultured there invariable spread, because there’s no quarantine time to view the actual terminal stages of the plans.
I would like to subscribe to that person’s newsletter.
I’m sure it’s not affordable.
robc made this comment?
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the author does not own any of this valuable land.
Most land tax advocates don’t believe it will effect them.
A few mistakenly think it will lower their payments.
Some are just plain batshit.
I am of the theory that the current property tax structure augments NIMBYism.
If I allow my neighbors to improve their property, say better shops, golf course etc. which normally would improve my life amount X but you then raise the property tax X+10%, I am worse off. Assessed land values are based on adjacency to capital, other people’s capital. A tax that I have to pay that is proportional to the value of other people’s capital, means that I have an aim to reduce their value.
It is properly strategic for me to at best keep development to a standstill, or to sabotage area properties to lower their value.
This is probably a secondary effect, the main one you see everywhere is the bundling of school taxes with property taxes. Given that you cannot allow any development of properties below the mean without affecting the money available to the school system, you are locked into either only approving new development above the mean, or a decline in per student allocations.
what’s the point of owning a car if not to drive it?
Apparently, while he was still alive, Enzo Ferrari was infuriated by the “investors” who bought old Ferraris and never drove them.
thicc?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-6184481/Demi-Rose-shows-incredible-curves-skimpy-swimsuit.html
“Kylie Jenner reveals trying cereal with milk for the first time was ‘life changing'”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-6185119/Kylie-Jenner-reveals-recently-trying-cereal-milk-time-life-changing.html
I can’t wait until she tries butter on toast. The suspense is killing me.
Kylie Jenner exposed as a white supremacist.
One commenter:
“Milk as opposed to what? The blood of poor people?”
Worth reposting:
“YouTube’s ‘alternative influence network’ breeds rightwing radicalisation, report finds ”
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/sep/18/report-youtubes-alternative-influence-network-breeds-rightwing-radicalisation
“This bullshit politically charged and biased to all hell report about right-wing YouTubers is a thing you can read ”
https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1042110709969104896
New program on US Fox News to be Children’s show in which angry children yell at adults and exult in devotion to Libertarian Death Cult. pic.twitter.com/6dUC3veOnP
— DPRK News Service (@DPRK_News) September 18, 2018