Supongo que me ofrecí para los enlaces del miércoles por la mañana.

Its  late.  You’re early, but links are to be had.

Where do I begin?

Up first! A nice breakdown of Mexico’s newly sworn in presidente’s challenges upon entering office.

 

Cuba now has 3G.

To take advantage of the new service, Cubans will need to pay the equivalent of $7 for 600 megabytes of data, $10 for 1 gigabyte and $30 for 4 gigabytes, according to the state-run Granma news agency.

The cost of access poses a steep barrier in a country where nearly 60 percent of the population lives on $100 or less per month

Which is all well and good except here phones fit for 5G are being put to market.  I bet more than six people will be able to afford them.

Did you know there was a protest at the G20 Summit? Me neither.  I thought Trump just showed Xi his ass and told him to bring a ladder so he could kiss it.

Meh,  I’d have ditched him too.  *shudders* Argentines.

In local news the Diamondbacks throw in the towel.

Need some tunes?  Heres a good one.

Comments

538 responses to “Supongo que me ofrecí para los enlaces del miércoles por la mañana.”

  1. PieInTheSky

    To take advantage of the new service, Cubans will need to pay the equivalent of $7 for 600 megabytes of data, $10 for 1 gigabyte and $30 for 4 gigabytes, according to the state-run Granma news agency.

    Tilelo tenise res tosi ide. Mamie ece giv ca ito ebipohor le navin gutitar areleto. Sie tine asoc erar sane her terisi la tisiror: Udupitug ni peh lol ter piritol agalenec cehinun. Capa iyaka ihata gupehe ogegies sep se; lasirin tate cetape abetican rohan ce elu hig: Lir heped ho ace remipie relutev vicedo; fibinis soya wo. Tal tar epaset eqi rete yebesi, te ena radev mi cegewi inupi rugo bisamie ra. Fi cac sihe bece cur oduy le? Maqanen sucied los onemotal hadepa limecet yar; amigarip tum todanie nikaw imisena yem. Barawa furimi ielago fetar conime xat cutapa. Dipit ofietitex go elirorip ena. He pus ufatie hudo.

    1. leon

      :Blinks:

      Maybe I’m getting up to early these days.

      1. Up to early what?

        1. Not Adahn

          to early two correctly use 2.

          1. but you know you want too.

    2. AlexinCT

      Say what?

      1. Tonio

        Yo, Al – That was an interesting comment you left yesterday about getting mugged in SF by a street person, then again mugged by their police department for having the temerity to defend yourself. Please consider turning this into a full-length piece for Glibs.

        1. AlexinCT

          Tonio, at this point I have passed this all off to my lawyer whom told me to stay mum on the subject as not to have the SFPD decide they need to make an example of me whether they find a reason to fuck me over or not, but I will consider this request.

          Suffice it to say that, as my parting comment for now, I want to stress that as someone that was blessed with the opportunity to live in numerous countries across this blue globe, this unbelievable experience brings me back to things I saw happening in some of the worst and most totalitarian shitholes on the planet. It pains me that I am experiencing this in our country. I would never have believed we could fall this low and lose this much sanity/freedom.

          1. Suthenboy

            In other words, authoritarian shitbags are the same everywhere and always.

          2. Tonio

            The legal implications of my request occurred to me after I posted.

            You could always change the city location and post this anonymously. Or have another glib interview you. Or inverse ghost-write it. I’m here to help.

          3. Jarflax

            Don’t do any of this until you and your attorney have everything fully handled. Our curiosity is not worth getting yourself in trouble. One of the problems I see with America today is that many of us who hold liberty dear still think we are fighting a holding action preserving liberty when in fact we live in a police state which still gives lip service to liberty. Yes, we still have the first amendment right to speak, but that just means they won’t come after you directly for speaking. They have multiple other approaches and proving that their prosecution of you for some other offense was retaliation for speech is not easy.

          4. AlexinCT

            Your advice sounds awfully close to what my own view of the situation is now Jarflax. It saddens me to admit the fight is lost and things like this are even possible. I feel guilty because I can’t shake the feeling I just sat by and let it happen.

          5. Florida Man

            The time of Kings and warlords was more simple. You knew who’s boot was on your neck and if you wanted to do something about it, you could. Now with the deep state and ever changing overlords combined with the slow boil, who do you go after?

          6. invisible finger

            Take a shit on the sidewalk and you’ll feel better.

          7. Tonio

            But unlike most people, you actually defended yourself. And that served as a deterrent.

          8. Mr. Mister

            Write it down and save it for later, if and when it’s safe to publicize.

    3. mexican sharpshooter

      Como say what?

    4. WTF

      Well, that pretty much baffled Google Translate.

    5. I’m sorry, I don’t speak foreign.

    6. MikeS

      Guten Morgen!

        1. MikeS

          Mein Hund hat sie gegessen

          1. *narrows gaze*

            Ve are not amused.

          2. Sean

            Mein Hund hat sie gegessen

            I know a little German.

    7. VAMPIRE LANGUAGE!

      1. PieInTheSky

        It is not my fault online Spanish gibberish generators work poorly.

        1. Old Man With Candy

          Romanian is a Spanish gibberish generator.

          1. PieInTheSky

            Have you considered a career in comedy?

          2. Old Man With Candy

            No, it’s rare for a comedian to be a Jew.

          3. Jarflax

            Right only (((comedians))) can be.

          4. Florida Man

            You know I don’t usually care when a celebrity dies, but when Mel Brooks goes, I’m going to need a day of mourning.

          5. AlexinCT

            Seinfeld wants to kick your ass!

          6. Gadfly

            You know I don’t usually care when a celebrity dies, but when Mel Brooks goes, I’m going to need a day of mourning.

            I hope he’s written his own obituary, so he can get in one last laugh on the way out.

    8. Me no speako Dago.

  2. leon

    The quickest way to get rich? Buy an Argentine for what he’s worth and sell him for what he thinks he’s worth.

    1. AlexinCT

      I think this would apply to many different people from countries that when we properly categorize them as shitholes usually result in accusations of racism or some other marxist trope to shut down discussions that might undermine the whole progressive trope.

      1. leon

        The sad thing is the Argentina is only a “shithole” bqa.ecause of government. In 1900s it was top 20 for economy in the world.

        1. AlexinCT

          I would make the case that every shithole is that way because of their government. Be they a third world banana republic in South/Central America, Asia, Africa, France, or California.

          1. The Last American Hero

            It an Iron Law. Look at Mexico – tremendous natural resources, beautiful coastlines, great ports, no enemies, richest country in the world next door that wants free trade with them rather than to conquer them (and has shoveled billions in foreign aid to them over the last century) – and its a corrupt shithole that has people paying drug lords to smuggle them out of the fucking country.

          2. AlexinCT

            My favorite example is the USSR. Because of its vast size it sat on the world’s richest deposits of everything that had enormous value and was critical to the ennoblement and creation of a modern technological society. From oil/natural gas, to gold and rare metals, they had it all, and in such abundance that they should have basically been able to build the most advanced society ever if that was their goal. Instead they always produced mendacious shit, focused primarily on creating military crap to the point that it strained their GDP, and because of central planning and the idiocy of the belief that diktats from above could overcome human and natural laws, produced misery and pain. Lets not even go into the death camps.

          3. Gustave Lytton

            Well, trade with them now. There has been one or two invasions (in both directions) before that.

          4. Pershing’s punitive expedition was not highly disruptive, nor was Poncho Villa’s raid north. They were symptoms of the problems in Mexico rather than causes.

  3. PieInTheSky

    Which is all well and good except here phones fit for 5G are being put to market. I bet more than six people will be able to afford them. – no one needs more than 3G. If you get 5G some poor sob get 1G or even no G at all, and that just aint right

    1. leon

      It makes no sense to have more than one choice for president when kids are starving.

  4. WTF

    Cuba now has 3G.

    “Nobody needs more than 3Gs!!”
    – Bernie Sanders

    1. leon

      Rappers have a sad.

      1. Evan from Evansville

        Humor.

      2. Atanarjuat

        So do fighter planes.

    2. PieInTheSky

      Hmmmm good point

    3. AlexinCT

      And Bernie loves the idea that they can also pick & choose what the serfs can see with that 3G service.

      1. MikeS

        Nobody needs 3 Jaws movies!

        1. mexican sharpshooter

          True. We need 6.

        2. Lets see… “The Spy Who Loved Me”, “Moonraker”, and… I can’t think of a third Jaws movie.

          1. MikeS

            Happy Gilmore

          2. How so? I was answering you.

            Or are you admitting to have missed the blatantly obvious reference?

          3. mexican sharpshooter

            YOU are missign the reference to YOUR own pun.

          4. Evan from Evansville

            Not sure if joking, or if a large whoosh just made a sounding just now.

          5. mexican sharpshooter

            Richard Kiel had a small, but pivotal role in Happy Gilmore.

            https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OOwpXT0J-yA

          6. We here at the ministry of truth corrected some items for accuracy. Among them, the entire catalog of work product by certain ‘comedic’ ‘actors’.

          7. Richard Kiel had a small, but pivotal role in Happy Gilmore.

            Commenters’ personal lives ar etheir own affair.

          8. mexican sharpshooter

            If I didn’t explain it, I’m not sure anybody else would.

          9. MikeS

            I think UCS is drunk. Or high on modeling glue.

          10. LIES!

            I’m sleep-deprived.

          11. Jarflax

            UCS with the own gooooooooooaaaaaaaaaalllll.

          12. Oh there’s your problem, you think we’re playing soccer. We’re actually playing Calvinball. So I think we both lost.

        3. Suthenboy

          “Nobody needs 3 Jaws movies!”

          Finally, a socialist trope I can agree with.
          Speaking of which, I see ‘Rocky XXVII’ is being released.

          1. MikeS

            I checked and there were actually 4 Jaws movies. So I need to edit:

            No one needs 3 Jaws movies…and we sure as hell don’t need 4!

          2. Old Man With Candy

            Or any, for that matter. We also don’t need any Adam Sandler movies.

          3. AlexinCT

            THEM IS FIGHTING WORDS!

            Mama says! MAMA SAYS!

          4. I half agree with OMWC, we don’t need any movies by the unperson.

          5. Old Man With Candy

            Rubber fish and profoundly unfunny soi-disant comedians are a waste of celluloid.

          6. Jarflax

            How do you feel about remakes of Lolita?

          7. Old Man With Candy

            Hopefully, she hasn’t aged.

          8. The Last American Hero

            Didn’t the 4th one have Samuel L Jackson in it with a bunch of chicks in wet T shirts?

    4. straffinrun

      Considering “Ji” means “Hemorrhoid”, I agree.

      1. Sensei

        Didn’t we go through this last night my time?

  5. PieInTheSky

    Just as it became unacceptable to use racist, homophobic, or ableist language, phrases that trivialise cruelty to books will vanish as more people appreciate books for what they are.

    https://twitter.com/WaterstonesTCR/status/1070358817483956229

    1. Tonio

      Hopefully some type of weird limey joke, but probably not.

      1. PieInTheSky

        Making fun of the Peta tweet linked yesterday (by me before the evening links)

      2. leon

        I thought it was a joke about PETA

      3. Tonio

        Look, I just got up and just started coffee.

    2. Count Potato

      LOL

  6. AlexinCT

    Next time you hear one of the woke people demand a change to the tax law passed and signed by Trump a year or so back, check their tax bracket. Democrats and their usual cadre of operatives hated this tax law because it really impacted the ultra-rich asshats that donated to the dnc and peddled it’s marxist pablum, as this story points out.

    1. mexican sharpshooter

      As Goldstein points out, a third of NFL players make the league minimum, which this year is $480,000, and the average NFL career is only about three years. Plus many pros are in the minor leagues, where they can make less than minimum wage. But admittedly the tax hits mentioned in this article are largely an issue for “the 1%.”

      Um…$480K/year puts you in the 1%.

      1. AlexinCT

        Funny how many people in that 1% (or even .01%) are desperate to virtue signal and pretend they are not. I really wonder if it isn’t that whole “play nice with the alligator in the hope it eats me last” that drives this insane shit. Then again, the progressive movement today is a 1%er globalist marxist movement.

      2. The Last American Hero

        The NFL’s minor leagues are the D-1 Universities. I’d hardly call getting a scholarship to a college, along with fame and more jersey chasers than you can shake a stick at “unacceptable working conditions”.

    2. PieInTheSky

      I mean I am against income taxes as much as the next libertarian but the following

      “One of my players makes $2 million a year, and it will cost him $80,000 more now because he can’t deduct state taxes, agent fees, workout clothes, meals and entertainment, and his cellphone,” says Steven Goldstein, a CPA with Grassi and Co. in New York who works with over a dozen professional athletes and celebrities.

      And players who make tens of millions of dollars a year will potentially pay hundreds of thousands more a year in taxes.

      is going to be met with derision by most of the population. Boohoo cry me a river. A lot of these fuckers support socialism.

      1. leon

        The abolishment of the state tax deduction was the big thing I didn’t like. But the way the GOP crafted it and how the Dems have opposed it was not a winning strategy. They have tried to fenagle a way to essentially make sure the richest people don’t pay more in taxes. I’m fine with that, but don’t moralize to me about how the rich need to pay. You really want the middle class to pay.

        1. The abolishment of the state tax deduction was the big thing I didn’t like.

          Why? The existance of it incentivizes the states to increase their taxes knowing taxpawyers in other states will end up footing the bill, and thus incentivizes local profligacy.

          1. AlexinCT

            ^^^THIS^^^

            I think that this implementation was brilliant. It hit all these blue tax states right where it hurts, and defanged the usual 1%ers the tax-and-spend marxist trot up to defend high taxes by hitting them where it hurts the most: their pockets.

            The democrats were/are furious about this brilliant change to cap the deduction to fed-taxes to $10K because it would further encourage the ultra rich that had so far been getting a huge pass – by being able to deduct the full amount of the ultra-high state taxes from their fed taxes, and thus not really incurring the burden most people that are not ultra-rich did by having to pay these insane state taxes – to leave these high tax blue states for greener, less taxed, pastures, and at the same time not impact the middle class one bit.

            The People’s Republic of Connecticut, along with practically every one of the N.E. blue states that have been profiting from the rich living there and getting a major pass because of the fed-tax deduction not being capped, went bonkers when they realized they would not only lose the support of these 1%ers that come out to peddle the higher taxes trope for them (because they are minimally impacted anyway), but lose the big dollars they were collecting in taxes from them, when the ultra-rich suddenly realize they better move to a low or no state tax state if they want to be able to continue to keep a huge chunk of their money.

            And in case anyone missed it, the progressive’s main qualm with this new tax structure is that the rich – which also happen to be the main donors to the dnc and the ones they trot out to tell us how we should all love higher taxes (while said rich people use armies of accountants and loopholes like the old uncapped fed-tax deduction to avoid taxes) – actually now have to pay more.

          2. leon

            “Why?”

            Because Morally Theft is Theft. There is nothing saying the Feds Have to tax us at x-rate because the State Governments are already taxing at another rate. One dollar paid less in taxes by someone else does not mean you pay more. But now those people do have to pay more in taxes. I don’t care if their politics are bad, that is still theft and it is more directly theft than you could say is happening the other way.

          3. So you would accept the obfuscation of the thievery and a reduced possibility of redress?

          4. leon

            The Redress is to lower Federal and state taxes and Federal and State spending. Making up some bullshit reason for why team blue bastards should get the knife is inconsistent and hypocritical. Nothing in the federal code says that because California taxes at 40% the Federal government has to raise taxes to 50%. Let the states fuck their own populations, but that isn’t a good argument to raise those individuals Federal Tax Liabilities, which is all you are arguing.

          5. I’m actually an advocate for removing deductions and simplifying the code because it’s being used for social engineering instead of simple revenue. Subsidizing local waste is also not a valid function of the federal government or the tax code and should be done away with. Yes this will result in higher liabilities, But the argument should be over rates and not slipping in this or that deduction for one’s own ox.

          6. R C Dean

            But now those people do have to pay more in taxes.

            They are paying closer to the same in federal taxes as their peers in other states. Why should your federal tax burden go up or down depending on where you live?

            If their total tax burden is higher because of where they live, its because of high state and local taxes. If they don’t like having a higher total tax burden because of where they live, they should be pushing to get their state and local taxes reduced.

            Not every deduction is a good thing simply because it results in less taxes paid. Deductions are incentives, and you get more of what you reward. A deduction for state and local taxes is an incentive for state and local taxes.

          7. leon

            I’ll admit that, that argument (the same UCS makes in his last reply to my comment), does appeal to me, and i can get it, removing deductions to limit the impact the tax has in social engineering would be good. But i don’t buy into the argument that someone paying less in federal taxes due to more in state taxes is somehow stealing from me. And i don’t like that some (not saying you guys in particular), make the same arguments that the “soak-the-rich” left seem to make, re: blue states.

          8. R C Dean

            But i don’t buy into the argument that someone paying less in federal taxes due to more in state taxes is somehow stealing from me.

            It would be pretty indirect: Less federal tax revenue -> higher federal debt -> higher taxes later and/or devaluation of your financial assets via inflation later.

          9. A Leap at the Wheel

            Read more French history and Bastiat. Special tax privileges are very bad for the polity. And that’s what this is – before, States with high income tax + state tax credits were mathematically isomorphic with everyone having the same federal taxes but some special states got to earmark a portion for local use, while everyone else had to contribute to the general fund.

        2. invisible finger

          They really want the middle class to stop existing.

          1. AlexinCT

            Collectivist systems of government can only work as long as they are two tier. The oligarchy or ruling class and the serfs/plebes. Collectivism can ONLY deliver equality of outcome by lowering the standards for everyone.

        3. invisible finger

          Anybody remember that year Roger Clemens signed with Houston and only wanted to play home games? I always thought it was brilliant that he kept his mouth shut about the real reason which was not having to pay taxes in all the other states and Canada. I don’t think he was a smart guy, but he likely got a pretty hard lesson in taxation the two years he played for Toronto.

        4. WTF

          It wasn’t abolished, you still get to deduct up to $10,000. So it really hits the wealthier, mostly Democrat contributors, in blue high-tax states.

          1. Gadfly

            In other words, it makes people put their money where their mouth is. I’m fine with it.

        5. Not Adahn

          Yeah, the existence of the SALT exemption never made sense to me. Why should New Yorkers and Californians pay less federal tax than Texans or Floridians?

    3. invisible finger

      The Democrats have a chance in the House to introduce legislation to eliminate the SALT deduction cap. My guess is they’ll do no such thing, a la the GOP and Obamacare.

      1. I thought the GOP *did* introduce such legislation, but that scumbag McCain torpedoed it.

  7. Glibertarians for the Promotion of Prostate Health (GPPH) presents Thot Thursday!

    http://archive.is/iCNfn

    1, 21, 29, 63, 71, 90.

    1. prolefeed

      28. Amazing hair and eyes.

      69 is super sexy, too.

    2. prolefeed

      You really like blond hair, yeah?

      1. Yurp. I am a proponent of B^4: blonde, blue, big boobs.

        1. I have a higher affinity for redheads, and properly proportional parts.

          1. Enough About Palin

            I used to as well, that is until I dated three of them. Everyone of them bat-shit crazy. Never again.

  8. Suthenboy

    “…a range of concerns, from workers’ rights to climate change.”

    “The G20”

    I dont know why he bothered showing up in the first place. I’m glad he walked off of the stage but I would not have bothered showing up in the first place.

    1. mexican sharpshooter

      Its as convenient a place as any for Trump to befowl the social norms of the world elite. I say he did us a favor, otherwise he’d have to fly to all 20 of these countries individually to do that. Here he did it all at once.

      1. Atanarjuat

        Yeah, when it comes to conforming to elitist groupthink, Trump really doesn’t give a cluck.

        1. commodious spittoon

          He’s just ruffling feathers.

          1. MikeS

            He doesn’t need us egging him on.

        2. None of that!

          *narrows gaze*

    2. Florida Man

      https://youtu.be/gJwayalLpYY

      You’ve probably seen this already, but I wish all debates were this informative and civil.

  9. PieInTheSky

    Bad jokes about bad jokes

    https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/1070475827119357953

    This excellent parliamentary report on Islamophobia highlights the need to criminalise anyone who says that Muhammad was a paedophile.

    1. Criminalize people attempting to criminalize words.

    2. Atanarjuat

      That’s pretty funny.

      Ok, the “prophet” Muhammad isn’t a pedo, he’s a Minor-Attracted Person.

      1. Jarflax

        Old Mohammed With Candy?

        1. “Ancient Prophet With Bahklava”

  10. The Late P Brooks

    The cost of access poses a steep barrier in a country where nearly 60 percent of the population lives on $100 or less per month

    “They don’t have bills, in Russia Cuba. Everything’s free.”

  11. AAUP haz many sadz that the public is starting to get wise to the fact that “gender studies” and other content-free courses of study are Marxist propaganda machines.

    https://www.aaup.org/assault-gender-and-gender-studies

    Ladies and gentlemen, the people charged with “educating” the “best and the brightest”!

    1. Bonus:

      “Both the Trump and the Orbán administrations insist upon a biological basis for gender that has been thoroughly discredited by over fifty years of feminist, trans, queer, and critical race research and by lived experience.”

      I started writing a trenchant rebuttal to this, but why waste my effort? The assertion is so retarded I don’t feel any need.

      1. Tonio

        It’s a sticky trap.

        1. Count Potato

          I see what you did there.

      2. Scruffy Nerfherder

        “fifty years of feminist, trans, queer, and critical race research ”

        I do more valuable research when examining my feces.

        1. Do you keep a log?

          1. Scruffy Nerfherder

            I usually flush them

          2. MikeS

            These puns are corny.

          3. invisible finger

            Ordure-narily I’d agree with you.

          4. ElspethFlashman

            Eww! /teenage girl

          5. Et tu, Lord H?

            *narrows gaze*

      3. WTF

        Someone doesn’t know what “discredited” means. Or “research”.

        1. “Look, I said you were discredited, so just go away already! It’s not like I actually have to prove you wrong, my word salad says so.”

          1. Rebel Scum

            We laugh, But I have had exactly such an encounter. I provided an assertion supported by evidence and was promptly “dismissed” by a self-described “academic”.

          2. AlexinCT

            Where do you think the snowflakes learned to “debate” by dismissal?

        2. PieInTheSky

          Research in its purest form is is when you do an auto-ethnography of your lived experiences.

      4. Michael

        …fifty years of feminist, trans, queer, and critical race research…

        https://www.theonion.com/toddler-scientists-finally-determine-number-of-peas-tha-1820347088

      5. R C Dean

        Both the Trump and the Orbán administrations insist upon a biological basis for gender that has been thoroughly discredited by over fifty years of feminist, trans, queer, and critical race research and by lived experience.

        Don’t know about Orban, but what Trump has done is insist on a biological basis for sex, not gender, in connection with US laws that outlaw sex discrimination but make no mention (zip, zero, nada) of gender discrimination.

        The question in my mind is this: is this person intentionally lying, or are they just too stupid to know what is supposed to be the foundation of the whole “gender” thing – that your gender has nothing to do with your sex?

        1. Count Potato

          “supposed to be the foundation of the whole “gender” thing – that your gender has nothing to do with your sex”

          That isn’t the foundation of it, and I can’t think of anyone serious who says gender has nothing to do with sex.

          1. R C Dean

            Sex is biological. Gender is subjective self-perception. The whole trans movement is based on the belief that your subjective self-perception is not dictated by your sex. “Nothing to do with” may have been an overstatement, but I think my initial point stands. Trans activists deny that your gender (how you perceive yourself and consequently should be treated by society) is not biological.

            Trump has said nothing about gender being biologically based, as far as I know. What he has said is that laws that prohibit sex discrimination should be applied based on sex, not gender.

          2. R C Dean

            Trans activists deny that your gender (how you perceive yourself and consequently should be treated by society) is not biological.

            Dammit.

          3. Count Potato

            Gender isn’t subjective self-perception, it’s constructed by society. Wearing a dress is considered feminine because in our culture only women generally wear dresses. That pink is for girls, and blue is for boys, has little basis in biology.

            The biological basis of gender dysphoria is neurological dimorphism. Admittedly, there are language issues. The term “transsexual” was not accurate, and its replacement “transgender” is overly inclusive.

          4. R C Dean

            Gender isn’t subjective self-perception, it’s constructed by society.

            I think the formula is that your gender is whatever you say it is (subjective self-perception), and that gender expression is constructed by society (e.g., dresses are for chicks is a societal norm).

            So, if I think I’m a chick, I should be celebrated for doing chick gender expression things (unless I am a biological woman, in which case the societal norms for women are oppressive patriarchy).

            Something like that. It all descends into incoherent gibberish at some point.

          5. Count Potato

            “I think the formula is that your gender is whatever you say it is (subjective self-perception)”

            I think that’s just silly. Although, apparently in some places it’s the law (eg. Lauren Southern is a man in Canada only because she went to the motor vehicle department and said she was).

          6. A Leap at the Wheel

            “I can’t think of anyone serious who says gender has nothing to do with sex.”

            Get out more. Expand the circle of people you talk with. While this is a minority opinion, its a substantial minority.

          7. Rasilio

            Actually that is pretty much the basis of the Gender Studies types, that sex and gender are disassociated.

            They are wrong, but that is what they believe

        2. A Leap at the Wheel

          Could also be a reference to the bathroom thing. Of course, the friction there is that 99.99% of people think bathrooms aught to be discriminant on sex, while (some of) the feminist*, trans, queer, and critical race research assumes bathrooms are discriminant on gender.

          *Go ask a second wave feminist** if they want to have a person with a penis in their locker room.

          **OR A FIRST!

          1. R C Dean

            (some of) the feminist*, trans, queer, and critical race research assumes bathrooms are discriminant on gender.

            I find it interesting that the word “sex” has been almost entirely supplanted by the word “gender”. Most people just parrot what they hear, so I suspect a lot of people who think bathrooms discriminate based on gender are too stupid to realize that they discriminate based on sex, and always have.

          2. Not Adahn

            Prudishness and euphemism that has resulted in politically convenient conflation.

    2. AlexinCT

      Ladies and gentlemen, the people charged with “educating” the “best and the brightest”!

      I am hoping that at some point the morons that hawked their future and incurred tens of thousands, if not a couple of hundred thousand in too many cases, of student debt to get one of these useless degrees will get angry that they can neither get the debt discharged or foisted on other people, and then decide to sue the shit out of these schools that ripped them off. And then i hope that not only does it turn into an avalanche of suits, but that they actually start winning and the schools end up being forced to pay the debt and damages. That is the only way that these fucking asshats and their evil marxist propaganda machines will get terminated properly.

      1. commodious spittoon

        Maybe this is painting with too broad a brush, but I suspect most people graduating from these programs are pretty dim and wouldn’t have survived a program with much more rigor than fifth grade math. So they’re struggling against the fundamentals, and against years of victimhood indoctrination. That’s a perfect stew for producing graduates with no capacity for self-reflection and a strong interest in keeping it that way.

  12. Evan from Evansville

    As a Cubs fan, I am not happy about the Goldschmidt trade. The man is very good at his job, and I don’t relish facing him 18 games this season.

    The ten year, historic stretch that Albert Pujols ripped off was particularly damaging to my psyche. Also–Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds (who did play for us for a bit) are criminally underrated.

    Fun fact: Scott Rolen was born in Evansville. My dad was a sportswriter for about ten years before he got his own column. For a story he got to call an inning on the loudspeaker for some high school or something. He introduced Rolen for his at bat. It really tickled him later when he found MLB success.

    1. mexican sharpshooter

      Sadly St. Louis is that one team that kinda is one guy away…I guess it’ll work out for them assuming they can pay him.

      Nobody pitches to him in April because nobody wants to be the ine to get him started. Consequently he will draw nothing but walks until May.

    2. invisible finger

      The Cubs did let Fowler go to STL where he continued to help the Cubs.

      1. Don Escaped Texas

        Right; and CHC has Heyward22 now (although I will always think of him as a Brave).

        After growing into an 850OPS guy, STL got nothing from Fowler25 in 2018. Athletes are made of special stuff, but I don’t know how anyone is ever right again after breaking a bone in the foot.

    3. Don Escaped Texas

      Greetings: These are informed, high-integrity observations from the North Side; the beauty of baseball is the close season, the timeless and accessible universality of the sport, the nearly even odds that one’s team will lose on any given day, and the fair chance to assess players to the same standard (batting) that yield a broad, informed, and generous spirit to players and watchers (almost always former players in our own little spheres). Cub opinions are always welcome.

      So one roots for the home team first, but everyone remains a fan of The Game. As a fourth generation fan of STL as are commonly found across the deep South, nothing is more important to me than the happy rivalry with CHC. FWIW, my favorite player, Lou Brock, was a Cub first; my favorite Cub was Ivan deJesus; nobody ever played with more generous elan and sportsmanship than Ernie Banks; and I made a special trip to Wrigley a few years ago (not for the Old Style) to see it one last time before it was renovated from the old configuration I had watched on WGN since cable TV made it to our humble home. With this history, it is easy to watch a Cub make a world-class play, even if it costs the Cards dearly on a give day, and give him the standing ovation he deserves as if he made it before his home crowd. It’s yin and yang; one can’t really be a good Cards fan without knowing the Cubs well, and, obviously, the reverse is true.

      Pujols ranks amongst the GOATs, so I think we won’t be revisiting that stratum. PG44 is only one guy bringing a WAR a tick over 5: even though his OPS for the past five years has never dipped lower than 899, there’s only so much that one guy with four appearances a day can do for any team. Carpenter13 is not a sound 3B; the resulting infield will be only average despite Wong16’s epic leather (he really had a better year than Gold Glover LeMahieu9 and would be a league favorite if the had the flash and smile of Báez9).

      The largest risk in all of the NL Central is not the coming of a big bomber but the imminent leaving of Molina4. Another GOAT defensively behind the plate, he is not only the heart and brain of the team: he simply has the highest game IQ of anyone playing today. STL has a little time to figure out who their next backstop will be (Kelly19 having just been dealt to ARI) and how they will retain the Brain and mind-meld him into the team from bench.

      I don’t want to talk MIL. They are to be congratulated for their outfield, a murderer’s row of bats. But those bastards need to be sent back to the AL where they belong. I remain unreconciled to any brand of baseball from MIL that doesn’t feature Aaron44. And, while we’re on the subject, HOU is an NL town and should be returned to Us, the deniers of the diminished game (the DH was invented by Yankees for the enjoyment of the sort of children that go to car races for the wrecks).

      Pitchers and catchers report in 17 days, 14 hours, and some 30 or 31 minutes.

      1. The Last American Hero

        And Don has already sketched out plans to mow down his cornfield and put in a baseball diamond.

        1. Don Escaped Texas

          I’m maybe a B+ fan of the game, driven mostly by nostalgia and a love of the mental side (literally: game theory). I score over 100 games a year longhand because that sort of measuring and documenting is how I think about almost everything.

          After the NL goes DH, though, MLB will go on the ash pile with all my other old girlfriends: sweet memories, potential squandered, nice while it lasted. I don’t care about launch angles and home runs (although they have their place); I care about working a small roster (25 guys) carefully with the smart odds as long as it works and desperate substitutions when it doesn’t.

          1. Evan from Evansville

            The DH is literally worse than Hitler.

            I always try to go to games when I’m in the States–last game I think was 2014. I always score the game. I’m always by far the youngest person (an Evan old) doing such a thing, and I only rarely see others scoring.

            There’s something profoundly special about a scorecard. You can read the game back like a novel whenever it comes up. Off the top of my head, only chess has something similar (and it’s actually far more precise, for obvious reasons).

            This was a rough year for me. We had lots of problems, but we *still* won 95 games. Always onwards to the next season.

            You make a very good point about the inherent parity in baseball. The worst team can expect to beat the best 40% of the time. Anything can happen.

            Hitting a baseball is also–by far–the single hardest thing to do in sports. Hands down. Bar none.

            The anticipation is killing me. I hope it lasts.

      2. whiz

        I agree, moving Carp away from 1B is going to hurt their defense. Getting PG’s bat is nice though.

  13. The Late P Brooks

    “Both the Trump and the Orbán administrations insist upon a biological basis for gender that has been thoroughly discredited by over fifty years of feminist, trans, queer, and critical race research and by lived experience.”

    And people say comedy is dead.

  14. ‘See ya later, race traitor’: British Neo Nazi group calls for Prince Harry’s assassination for marrying mixed-race Meghan

    A British version of a violent American neo-Nazi group has called for Prince Harry to be shot because he is a ‘race traitor’ for marrying Meghan Markle.

    The Atomwaffen Division was founded in the US around 2013 with the aim of destroying civilisation in order to build a national socialist state, and has been linked to five murders.

    Its UK offshoot is known as the Sonnenkrieg Division, which a BBC investigation claims was set up by university student Andrew Dymock. The 21-year-old, who is the son of a dentistry professor from Bath, denies this or any other wrongdoing.

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Idiots against diversity in welfare recipients?

    2. Atanarjuat

      A British dentistry professor’s son… I think I see the problem.

      1. MikeS

        So I can’t decide if that would be a good gig or not. On the one hand, dentists make good coin and never work Fridays. On the other hand, if you only have 5 patients, does the high pay matter?

    3. straffinrun

      “Mr Koczorowski appeared at the door of his home in a hoodie emblazoned with the Atomwaffen Division logo. He did not respond to the allegations.”

      Can’t even be a Nazi in your own home these days. Geez.

    4. Pope Jimbo

      Uffda. Hope this doesn’t catch on. Some of us race traitors don’t deserve such treatment.

      1. A Leap at the Wheel

        Hilariously, some white nationalists are totally fine with white men marrying Asian women because (in their mind) white progressive women make terrible wives while (again, in their minds) Asian women know how to be submissive and listen to their husbands.

        Which, I assume, is exactly how you would describe Korean women, right?

        1. Tundra

          Lol. He’ll have to go ask his wife.

          1. Fourscore

            Wait, I’ll ask Mrs Fourscore for a second opinion.

    5. The Last American Hero

      A younger Harry would have shot back “Like you wouldn’t.”

  15. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Welp, I’m rolling the dice today. Got to drive 500 miles back to home with foamy transmission fluid in a 96 Suburban. What are the odds I’ll make it?

    1. Evan from Evansville

      foamy transmission fluid

      Dude. Just use a sock.

      A while ago people were talking about their favorite road. I pick US 41. It’s a really shitty stretch from Evansville to Terre Haute (which is a disgusting town that smells of tires and soybean farts). However, it is long, relatively deserted, and arrow straight–perfect territory to crank one out for the road on a lonely 90 minute drive.

      *shrugs* Gotta get that on-board entertainment somehow through the agricultural monotony.

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        Not the advice I was expecting, but I’ll take it.

      2. robc

        I used to live just off US 41- but in Atlanta.

        Required music when 41 is mentioned:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUTORC4eoGc

        Worst road: I-64, every damn inch of it. I have driven it all and every single bit of it sucks hard.

      3. The Last American Hero

        Wrong. It’s NF-D 25, especially if your car has good handling.

      4. B.P.

        I was born in Terre Haute.

        *hangs head*

    2. straffinrun

      Partly depends on the route. Is it downhill or uphill?

      1. Well, back in the day it was uphill both ways, and snowy.

        1. Evan from Evansville

          ON A ROLL!

          1. commodious spittoon

            Hoagie?

    3. DrOtto

      Make sure the radiator is topped, this will help keep the transmission cooled, steady state driving at 65mph with light throttle and brake inputs would be the ideal, this keep the torque converter locked up which is less stress on trans fluid/clutch packs. Where/if you are going to fail is 1st or 2nd gear, so light acceleration from any necessary stops is also important. Keep it in 4th and you’ll be fine. I did a similar trip a few years ago with the same transmission. Got home, but couldn’t get it into my mildly inclined driveway.

  16. Principles aside and without igniting yet another flame over immigration, keep in mind that open borders policies are designed to accomplish this for the whole nation.

    https://pjmedia.com/election/california-gop-is-it-too-late-to-save-this-elephant-from-extinction/

    No matter how much contempt we all may have for the GOP, I’ll still take their dysfunction over absolute, one-party rule by the Dems.

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      It’s funny that my hysterical prog friend from California contacted me recently, shrieking about psycho Republicans. My response was “What Republicans? they don’t exist in your state”

      1. AlexinCT

        Well done.

        1. dbleagle

          The Cali GOP is in great health compared to the Hawaii state GOP. The state house is 9% (5 of 51) GOP and the state senate doubled the number of GOP members in the last election from zero to one (1 of 25).

    2. Chipwooder

      But GOP strategist John Weaver said that not only did the Trump presidency wreck the California Republican Party’s 2018 chances, he warned the Trump brand doomed the GOP for the foreseeable future.

      John Weaver? Really? Cmon…..what he says is probably true, but that guy is the last person I’d go to for advice.

      1. invisible finger

        Schwarzenegger probably ruined the GOP in California more than Trump did.

    3. Drake

      I lived there in the 90’s when they passed that anti-illegal-immigration ballot question with 60% of the vote. A liberal Federal Judge waived the whole thing away and doomed the state.

      1. AlexinCT

        I see it as getting the destructive results that their idiotic policies deserved. Sorry for the people that knew better and still got fucked over, but the only way that this shit stands a chance of being done away with is for it to be allowed to cause the suffering it indubitably will lead to to enough people and then causes them to change their minds. I might be pipe dreaming that people that sucked up to marxist shit will learn the lesson, but that is unfortunately what needs to happen to make a difference.

    4. Chipwooder

      Also, the notion that Trump is the reason the GOP is dead in California is laughable, as if they were viable before 2016. They have been in free fall there for at least a decade, probably closer to two decades.

  17. The Late P Brooks

    foamy transmission fluid in a 96 Suburban. What are the odds I’ll make it?

    What does it smell like? Does it have that horrible burnt ATF stench, yet? Is it slipping?

    1. Tundra

      Also, are you trying to keep this vehicle? If it’s a death march I guess you could roll the dice…

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        I’m torn. It’s starting to become a money hole. The age alone is catching up to it.

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Top gear is slightly slipping going uphill. Too cold this morning to smell it yet. I’ll check it later after it’s warmer.

  18. PieInTheSky

    Man beaten, drugged and tortured for coin

    https://sowetourban.co.za/55082/man-beaten-drugged-tortured-coin/

    The internet already found the webcomic which predicted this

    https://xkcd.com/538/

    Not that it was difficult to predict,.

    1. MikeS

      Someone posted that comic here just yesterday.

      *narrows gaze at Glibertariat*

    2. Suthenboy

      “After meeting a man on Facebook”

      I am guessing that there is more to this story than we are being told.

      1. AlexinCT

        Ayup.

  19. The Woman Who Outruns the Men, 200 Miles at a Time
    Courtney Dauwalter specializes in extremely long races. But her success in winning them has opened a debate about how men’s innate strength advantages apply to endurance sports.

    This much is clear: As the distance lengthens, the biological advantages that men have grow smaller.

    In 2017, Dauwalter won the inaugural Moab 240, a 238-mile race that zigzags along the Colorado River. She completed the route in a little less than 58 hours and beat the next competitor, a man, by 10 hours, or 20 miles. She said a one-minute nap on the side of the trail the second night of the race revived her and pushed her to the finish.

    “We know that men are simply bigger and have more muscle mass and are more powerful and faster,” said Heather Heying, an evolutionary biologist. But, she added, “This is about stamina, and stamina is some combination of yes, strength, but also psychological will. It begs the question, is there something going on for women perhaps given our very long evolutionary history as mammals who spent a long time gestating and then giving birth, that gives us a psychological edge in extremely long-term endurance events?”

    1. Tundra

      deadhead will be in his bunk.

    2. PieInTheSky

      Goddamit I was not careful and clicked a new york times link.

      Also is she consistently winning against men or beating some men? Also is one outlier worth drawing conclusions?

      That being said I find long distance running awfully silly, but good luck to her.

    3. This reminds me of the article posted here a few months back about people v. horses running marathons. Essentially, horses are significantly faster over shorter distances because they are bigger and stronger, but at the marathon distance the human endurance evens out the advantage.

      1. WTF

        Actually at a distance of 22 miles it’s about an even race. But at 26 miles the humans have the advantage.

        1. Nephilium

          Not quite that even. 22 miles still seems to give the advantage to the horse.

          1. Well thar’s your problem, those look like Welsh and English names on the human list. Run some Kenyans.

          2. Atanarjuat

            And, to be fair, make the humans carry a rider.

          3. AlexinCT

            Now we are talking!

          4. Don Escaped Texas

            Bushmen run antelopes to death: three or four guys just keep herding and moving them until they drop of exhaustion.

          5. It’s called endurance hunting.

            I think our evolutionary trait is bloody-mindedness. “We just spent the past five thousand years failing to fly, but by golly, we’ll get it right one of these centuries!”

          6. AlexinCT

            It’s called endurance hunting.

            Sounds like my dating strategy as of late…

          7. R C Dean

            I have read that there is a type of deer hunting in Maine (and probably other states with lots of snow) that involves picking up a deer track in the snow and just following it. The deer will stay ahead of you for awhile, but can’t shake you because the snow makes its track unmissable. Eventually, the deer is exhausted and just goes down, and you walk up to it and kill it.

          8. AlexinCT

            Before or after you do all sorts of nasty stuff to the deer?

    4. Florida Man

      This is a silly “gotcha”. Other than real misogynists, men don’t think women are inferior in every way. The complaint that most men have is claiming their is no difference between men and women, which is false on its face. Especially when government claims women can do anything men can do, then proceeds to set the standards lower for women. I’m completely for women being legally allowed to do anything they want, but they must be ABLE to do it.

      1. straffinrun

        They are unable to do it if they aren’t able to do it. It’s not a tautology if it isn’t a tautology.

      2. Rufus the Monocled

        She’s an outlier. That’s what they do. Find outliers and try to show ‘see, just as good as men!’

        That’s how much respect they have for the intelligence of people. And the NYT readers eat that shit up. Mum, mum, mum.

        1. Psycho Effer

          It would be a different matter if half the entrants in the race were male and half female and all the top 10 finishers were of one sex. We need to see the demographic makeup of all participants, and their finishes, to gain any useful information.

    5. WTF

      Good, then distance and endurance events in the Olympics don’t need to be segregated by sex.

    6. Evan from Evansville

      I am greatly disturbed by the “Moab 240” being 238 miles long. That is very stupid.

      I do not like it Sam I am
      I scant see reason for this scam
      That big dumb square called Utah
      Silliest place I ever saw!

    7. Suthenboy

      I see ‘New York Times’ and immediately I think ” I am not buying that”

    8. l0b0t

      238 miles in 58 hours; was she carrying another person on her back? My unit was quite often seconded to the 9th Infantry Reg. (Manchu) as their air defense element so we got to participate in a couple of their 100 mile road marches (The 1st one was out at NTC, Ft. Irwin… what a treat!) and my roommate and I did those in around 25 -28 hours and we had rucks, rifles, PRC-77 radio, and took turns carrying the Stinger missile. As my wife’s students say when a girl gets an answer wrong in class – “Miss! Miss! She slow as fuck!

    9. The next year, she started the Bigfoot 200, a 206-mile race that traverses the Cascade Mountains in Washington State. In 2017, she added the Moab 240, the race in which Dauwalter obliterated the competition. This year, more than 600 people ran one of the three ultraraces Burt organized.

      STEVE SMITH LIKE TARGET RICH EN-VIRO-MEANT

      1. WTF

        STEVE SMITH ADMINISTER MOAB – MOTHER OF ALL BONINGS!!!!

        1. commodious spittoon

          BOTH GOOD FOR OBLITERATING SUBSURFACE TUNNELS.

    10. “Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge set a new world record for men of 2:01:39 on September 16, 2018, at the 2018 Berlin Marathon.”

      “The IAAF recognizes two world records for women, a time of 2:15:25 set by Paula Radcliffe on April 13, 2003 during the London Marathon which was contested by men and women together, and a “Women Only” record of 2:17:01, set by Mary Keitany, on April 23, 2017 at the London Marathon for women only.”

      Not sure if a marathon is considered “endurance”, and the women’s times are definitely impressive, but they still lost by 15 minutes.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_world_record_progression

      1. R C Dean

        Not sure if a marathon is considered “endurance”

        Pretty sure it is.

    11. Annoyed Nomad

      Maybe the men let her run ahead so they don’t have to listen to her for 200 miles?

    12. JaimeRoberto, Public Intellectual

      A number of women have done very well in ultramarathons against men. My brother in law did a few of these, and he believes that the extra fat that women have works to their advantage over these long distances. It gives them a buffer of energy to draw on.

    13. Rhywun

      opened a debate

      I’ve been hearing the “women are better at endurance” thing most of my life. This isn’t a “debate”, it’s just an opportunity for the NYT to prattle on about grrl-power some more.

  20. straffinrun

    US border agent who killed four sex workers in ‘cold, callous and calculating way’ facing death penalty

    Mr Alaniz said Ortiz, 35, believed law enforcement did not do enough to curb prostitution, so he was “doing a service” by killing the women.

    1. AlexinCT

      What an asshole.. Depriving people looking for a good time and willing to make a financial exchange to get it in the process.

  21. The ‘stache speaks:

    Stossel: The creepy line

    This morning Google told me that it would not allow my YouTube video “Socialism Leads to Violence” to be viewed by young people. It violates “community guidelines,” said the company in a computer-generated email.

    Anti-capitalist bias? Or just an algorithm shielding children from disturbing violence in Venezuela? I don’t know.

    But a new documentary, “The Creepy Line,” argues that companies like Google and Facebook lean left and have power they shouldn’t have.

    The title “Creepy Line” refers to a comment by former Google chairman Eric Schmidt, who said when it comes to issues like privacy, Google policy “is to get right up to the creepy line but not cross it.”

    But the documentary argues that Google crosses that creepy line every day.

    1. straffinrun

      Well isn’t that, unfortunately, not ironic at all.

    2. PieInTheSky

      Companies like Google and Facebook lean more authoritarian asshole really. So not libertarian. Which flavor of the rest is unimportant.

    3. Just Say’n

      All hail the ‘stache!

    4. Suthenboy

      Google doesnt have any power that we dont give them.

      Stop using google.

      1. ^^^^^THIIIIIIIS!!!!

        1. R C Dean

          *googles “search engines”*

    5. Rufus the Monocled

      Do you guys, given how much asshole is concentrated in those companies, think Google has way too much power and should be broken up?

      They killed competitors off by being better fair and square but if they’re going to be shitheads like this….it’s ether a competitor has to mount a challenge or….?

      1. Suthenboy

        Broken up? No. A free market will sort it out. Govt intervention never results in improvement.

        1. Count Potato

          Except it isn’t a free market. It’s a market distorted by the government to favor Google.

          1. AlexinCT

            You can only have social justice when government picks the winners and losers!

          2. JaimeRoberto, Public Intellectual

            Can you give some examples of that in regards to Google?

  22. The Late P Brooks

    Top gear is slightly slipping going uphill.

    Top gear, as in overdrive? Pull it down to “D” and I think it will improve your chances.

    1. invisible finger

      Look who drives a CVT.

      1. Florida Man

        I learned Leonardo Da Vinci invented the CVT the other day. Never compare your life to Da Vinci’s.

        1. AlmightyJB

          He was from the future so not that that impressive.

  23. The Late P Brooks

    Look who drives a CVT.

    I rode a snowmobile, once.

    1. PieInTheSky

      Is that a weird euphemism>?

  24. PieInTheSky

    US makes preparations to sail warship into Black Sea amid Russia-Ukraine tensions.

    https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/05/politics/us-navy-black-sea-russia-ukraine/index.html

    Just make sure Romania is not made unsafe by this business. We are the kind of allies best suited for cheering from the sidelines rather than suiting up

    1. Not even going to lend us some ghouls?

    2. Just Say’n

      The most predictable war ever

      “We are the kind of allies best suited for cheering from the sidelines rather than suiting up”

      You just described all of Europe. NATO is super important, though.

      1. PieInTheSky

        For Romania it is indeed super important

      2. Just Say’n

        Just a reminder that the Russia Fever crowd, who also find it necessary to exalt how much they totally hate Nazis on a daily basis, are literally supporting Nazis in Ukraine against Russia.

        https://therealnews.com/stories/max-blumenthal-us-is-arming-neo-nazis-in-ukraine

        There are so many Nazis that the US is funding in Ukraine that the Russia Fever crowd has to downplay the number.

        https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-many-neo-nazis-is-the-us-backing-in-ukraine

        FTA: “Not all the members of the Ukrainian ultranationalist militias the U.S. is training have SS tattoos, and not all espouse fascism.”

        This shit is beyond parody now

        1. They’re starting bogged down on the Eastern Front, so they won’t manage to invade France through the Ardennes.

        2. Ah, I could not remember who was the apologist for Russian colonial expansion that was left here…thanks! “BUT NAZIS!!!” “Near abroad” indeed. Next up, the rest of Georgia, the Baltics, Belorus and Ukraine…. RESTORE THE EMPIRE! YER AFTER THEM, UPPITY FINNS!

          1. Just Say’n

            Not sure if saying that the US should not be involved in foreign conflicts is being a “Russian apologist”. But, I guess it makes sense. I use to be called a “Saddam apologist”. Fair enough, I guess

          2. Just Say’n

            Not true. I was an “Assad apologist” last because I noted that the US was arming ISIS. But, yeah, that’s not ad hominem.

          3. I don’t want the US in either, but cheering Russia on is appalling.

            When should they stop tearing up their neighbors? Holdomor them? Winter War them? L’VIV MUST RETURN TO MOTHER RUSSIA!

          4. “Russian Apologist” (Formerly “Assad Apologist”)

            Who is “cheering on” Russia? Noting that the US was arming ISIS against Assad was not “cheering on” Assad either.

            Russia is bad. Assad is bad. US involvement and cooperation with other bad actors does not make the situation any better.

          5. “Russian Apologist” (Formerly “Assad Apologist”)

            In hindsight, the West probably shouldn’t have orchestrated the overthrow of Ukraine’s duly elected president (who was, no doubt, a Russian stooge).

            Regardless, this is Europe’s problem and they seem less concerned with it than us.

          6. There, that wasn’t so hard was it? Now, do you think Russia should not have torn half of Ukraine off? Should they give it back?

          7. Who said anything about Assad, other than you?

            Also, if you can show a single word of me advocating any involvement in any of these places, I’d be grateful.

          8. Jarflax

            Now, do you think Russia should not have torn half of Ukraine off? Should they give it back?

            I don’t. Crimea is ethnically and traditionally Russian not Ukrainian. A majority of the residents wanted to leave Ukraine and join Russia.

            If a region wants to leave kleptocracy 1 and join kleptocracy 2 with which it feels more kinship I believe that is their natural right.

          9. “Russian Apologist” (Formerly “Assad Apologist”)

            These are not cut and dry issues. There are separatists in eastern Ukraine, as well as those who want to remain part of Ukraine, as much as there are separatists in the Baque region of Spain, as well as those who want to remain part of Ukraine.

            A CATO analysts did a pretty good write-up on the messy endeavor that we are engaging in.

            https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/ukraine-doesnt-deserve-americas-blind-support/

            Above all, my only concern is with the actions of the US.

            I know that you don’t like me, but why do you find it necessary to assume bad faith on my position on the issue? I’ve never praised Putin, nor the Russian state, ever.

            Russia is an aggressive state. What more do I have to say?

          10. “Russian Apologist” (Formerly “Assad Apologist”)

            “Also, if you can show a single word of me advocating any involvement in any of these places, I’d be grateful.”

            I ask the same with regards to me defending Russia. Noting that we are arming bad actors does not mean that I think that the opposing actor is good.

            That’s the worst part about American foreign policy. Our adversaries are not “good actors”, but I have no opinion on the rest of the world other than the actions of the country that claims to act on my behalf with my taxes and sending my countrymen to fight their complex and ill conceived conflicts abroad.

          11. Mojeaux

            Noting that we are arming bad actors does not mean that I think that the opposing actor is good.

            That’s the worst part about American foreign policy. Our adversaries are not “good actors”,

            I confess, I have never understood U.S. foreign policy or why we do what we do because of this. I could never trust my innate feeling that arming one side did not make them “good.” So I always defaulted back to the position of “Why are we there?” because it required less effort to dissect it all (especially when I couldn’t get good information).

    3. WTF

      The US regularly sails warships into the Black Sea. This is not a unique event.

      1. Surprise, it was actually a ruse to retake Byzantium.

        1. PieInTheSky

          You mean Constantinople?

          1. I’m not going to give that pretender to the Imperial Throne the satisfaction.

    4. Jarflax

      Don’t suit up, just impale 20,000 or so like you did before.

  25. The Late P Brooks

    Companies like Google and Facebook lean more authoritarian asshole really.

    To be honest, I don’t think they’re sufficiently self-aware to be “authoritarian”. They are just children, trapped in their own miasma of raw emotion and envy, who cannot appreciate the distinction between being different and being evil. They’re definitely assholes.

    *Your definition of authoritarian may differ

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Is that a weird euphemism>?

    I said “snowmobile” not “moped”. Come on, Transylvanian.

    1. AlexinCT

      You will forgive him for thinking you might have been talking about ridding fat chicks…

  27. Just Say’n

    This article should give a few of you stiffies:

    “The Bigotry Inherent in American Progressivism”

    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-bigotry-inherent-in-american-progressivism/

    Take some time out of your day to piss on Woodrow Wilson’s grave again.

    FTA:

    “The progressives did not just target American Indians though. They also hated (and that word is not too strong) black Americans, Jewish Americans, and Catholic Americans. As Woodrow Wilson’s supporters put it, they wanted to “yank the hyphen” out of hyphenated Americans. He called the hyphen a dagger, ever ready to be wielded against the nation. Should it surprise anyone, therefore, that President Wilson not only segregated the U.S. Navy (it had always been desegregated, even in colonial days), but that he also segregated all federal offices and bureaucracies in Washington, D.C.?

    Tellingly, it is impossible to separate Progressivism from racial and religious bigotry, especially in the United States. Eugenics and social engineering come directly from America’s progressives, who firmly believed in a lily white, Protestant America. One of progressivism’s most famous scholars—a man who supported and received the support of Teddy Roosevelt as well as Woodrow Wilson—was Edward Alsworth Ross, author of the wretched The Old World in the New (1914). “In this sense it is fair to say that the blood now being injected into the veins of our people is ‘sub–common,’” Ross asserted. “To one accustomed to the aspect of the normal American population, the Caliban type shows up with a frequency that is startling.”

    1. Drake

      Bad Popp made it more entertaining.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbvU8LmOd-4

    2. Gadfly

      As Woodrow Wilson’s supporters put it, they wanted to “yank the hyphen” out of hyphenated Americans. … Should it surprise anyone, therefore, that President Wilson not only segregated the U.S. Navy (it had always been desegregated, even in colonial days), but that he also segregated all federal offices and bureaucracies in Washington, D.C.?

      Actually, it should be surprising, as those two goals are at cross-purposes. The movement against “hyphenated Americans” was a movement for assimilation, not separation.

  28. Rufus the Monocled

    That BBC clip of Trump leaving the Argie leader in the lurch was pure……FUCKEN GOLD.

  29. Tonio

    Somewhat related to LH’s Stossel/FB post above – Tumblr is kicking all the porn (and “porn”) off the site on Dec 17. That’s annoying AF to me since bear pictures on Tumblr are my spank bank (sorry, Q). I had been building up a catalog of fat hairy old guy selfies and was planning to go live with my site in January. They say they will continue to allow “artistic” poses, which most of my work would fall into – basically I re-create classic men’s underwear ads but deliberately include “printing” which was airbrushed out by Sears, Penney’s etc.

    Tumblr created this mess for themselves. They allowed their site to be invaded by pornbots, some of which were posting pictures of underage people. So rather than address this problem, they went after the legit content producers in the most heavy-handed way possible. There is an online petition asking Tumblr to reverse this, but I’m not participating – they cave once, they’ll cave again.

    I’ve cancelled my plans for my Tumblr site since I want to spend my time creating, not fighting. Looking to see where other similarly-situated people end up.

    1. Suthenboy

      I have never looked at Tumblr. I have no idea what it is.

      1. It is one of the incubators for the crazy that gets absorbed into the progrssive forward fringe.

        Now that they’ve abolished the porn, it has no other function.

        1. Suthenboy

          Ah. Well I was going to look at it but no point in that.
          You would think that if everything someone touched turned to shit they would get wise, but with progs that never seems to happen.

          1. Tonio

            “Ah. Well I was going to look at it but no point in that.”

            One finds fans in the oddest places. /KIDDING

          2. Suthenboy

            I’m slow sometimes. Is it just a gay thing?

          3. Count Potato

            Tumblr isn’t a gay thing. It was whatever people wanted to post, but it was engineered to promote attention-whoring.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m-e4PgiVfM

        2. Tonio

          Yeah, it was annoying to fire up the app wanting to get my bear on and see some Bo-level stupid political rant pushed at me by Tumblr.

          1. AlexinCT

            I remember when we were being warned that the socons would ban everything fun and make us all live in a puritanical hell. Now here we are, and while the socons gave up the fight it seems they won and are dragging us all into that puritanical hell by outsourcing their work to the progressive marxist movement. Go figure…

          2. Tonio

            And those warnings were not necessarily invalid, but puritanism comes in many forms and there are always those Baptist/bootlegger alliances.

    2. Not Adahn

      Pornhub ARIA is making a pitch for the tumblrites to migrate there.

    3. A Leap at the Wheel

      Good luck Tonio. I don’t have any particular interest in your particular aesthetic, but I hope you find a home for it. Its shitty when service providers act more like blue noses and less like commodity traders.

      1. Tonio

        Thanks. It’s a niche market, but a fairly well-established one.

    4. Have you considered montages and putting them up on tube sites (pornhub, xnxx, etc.)?

      1. Tonio

        Let’s just say I’m exploring all options.

        1. Jarflax

          By this he means he has them all chained in his basement. “It rubs the Rogaine on its chest. It does this now or else it gets the hose again. Yes it does.”

          1. AlexinCT

            Silence of the Bears?

  30. The Late P Brooks

    So here’s what I have been pondering lately, on the Tree of Woe:

    We keep seeing a growing obsession with the national popular vote; all those stories about how Democrats nationally killed it in the aggregate midterm total, but stupid petty loopholes like Senators being elected only by the residents of the states they represent has prevented a thirty vote Democratic majority in the Senate, and that means “democracy” has been usurped….

    How long will it be (2020? later?) until our activist progressive friends decide to “save democracy” by encouraging their faithful followers to apply for absentee ballots of states like Wyoming and North Dakota, in order to rectify this travesty of justice?

    1. AlexinCT

      I am more worried they might just decide to abolish the US constitution…

      1. The Last American Hero

        Why bother when they already ignore the bits they don’t like.

        1. AlexinCT

          Well, it keeps getting in the way pf them taking control of everything still. And it is, like, and old document, yo…

      2. Gadfly

        I am more worried they might just decide to abolish the US constitution…

        I welcome this, not because I want the constitution abolished but because bold, dramatic gestures are easier to oppose than the incremental path.

  31. Drake

    Escaped convict invades South Carolina woman’s house, gets ventilated.

    “This was a big guy. If she hadn’t had a weapon there’s no telling what would have happened,” the sheriff said. “I gave her a big hug. I told her how proud I was of her.”

    (Sheriff) Clark said the incident was “a shining example” of why owning and knowing how to properly use a gun is important.

    1. Did she then tell the guy that Trump got impeached so he could die happy?

      1. Psycho Effer

        She ventilated his thinking machine so I don’t think he would have had time to hear it.

        1. It was getting repeated so often I thought it was related to the older story.

  32. Don Escaped Texas

    How do you feel about remakes of Lolita?

    Who is the greatest writer in English for whom English is a second language?

    I always said Conrad, but a friend argues Nabokov.

    1. Tundra

      PieInThe Sky

      1. PieInTheSky

        I see you too are a man of culture

    2. Evan from Evansville

      Mesker Park Zoo in Evansville is mentioned in Lolita, references the pirate ship enclosure that monkeys populate in the entrance.

      AHA! I remain relevant!

    3. robc

      Rand?

      *ducks*

      1. wdalasio

        You know, I think Rand gets a raw deal. Yes, she can drone on well beyond the sell-by date and some of her heroes are sort of cardboard cutouts. But, she also knew how to craft a situation where reading a speech can elicit an emotional reaction. That isn’t exactly a trivial thing.

        1. Mojeaux

          where reading a speech can elicit an emotional reaction

          Except for that 63-page monster in the last bit of Atlas Shrugged.

          1. wdalasio

            Agreed. Like I said, she does have a tendency to drone on and on.

            But, now take the Rearden court speech. Or the Thanksgiving day speech. Or the Francisco D’Anconia money speech.

            I remember reading them and giving a fist pump.

          2. Mojeaux

            the Rearden court speech

            That one makes me feel all warm and melty inside.

            Of course, I have a huge crush on Rearden anyway, so it probably follows.

          3. wdalasio

            Understood. But, that’s almost the point. If someone can write a character so that someone could develop a crush on them, I don’t think you can say they’re a terrible writer.

          4. Mojeaux

            I don’s think she’s a terrible writer. She is certainly a brilliant storyteller (there’s a difference). There are legions (millions?) of fans and you don’t get that being a bad storyteller.

            Do I think she could use better editing? Possibly, but she has enough fans that love the book as it is that I could argue for or against. It may not have the emotional impact it does if some of it were edited out.

            By contrast, let’s take Stephen King’s Darktower, which, I am told, needs serious editing. I don’t see legions of his *known* fans waxing poetic over it, and in fact, see them talking about it quite often as a let-down. So King is a good storyteller, but it is *noticed* when he’s not well edited.

            My real point was that big giant speech by Galt wasn’t really necessary, and I don’t think its length added to the story, but the storytelling is good so readers might gripe, but they still love the story.

        2. Don Escaped Texas

          I lack the fortitude necessary to read Rand further, but I stand by what I wrote of her yesterday:

          . . .the lousy devices Rand uses in Atlas to make her case: painting everyone in the most extreme colors and presenting no other reasonable alternatives so as to render her preferred narrative as the only plausible one; when progs do this, we rightly point and laugh.

          Is there a name for that . . . the opposite of a meta strawman? I’m not saying that industrialists have nothing to learn from Russian sociologists, but we with skins on the wall will always note that it’s easier to fantasize about foundries and railroads than it is to build and run them.

          I’m barely literate, a man with a technical education, but Atlas aroused a literary indignation in me that had lain quiet since I read Last of the Mohicans as a child: in both cases, the rickety effort barely served its purpose and along the way painted the most ridiculous scenes.

          Related: The thrill of my literary life came when I stumbled up Twain’s Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses. It is a must-read for any Glib, anyone who proposes leaving anything in English for sane posterity; it is the most pleasant indictment I have ever read. Yes, young Don, you’re okay; the unease with Mohicans you felt in your school days stemmed simply from Cooper’s idiocy. Rand’s thinking might add up better than Cooper’s, but the foils and antagonists she renders in Atlas remind me exactly of Twain’s demolishing of the same in Mohicans:

          No, other Indians would have noticed these things, but Cooper’s Indian’s never notice anything.

          1. Mojeaux

            Is there a name for that . . . the opposite of a meta strawman?

            I think “morality tale” would work.

            I read her work as fairy tales and take them on that basis. The fact that she demoted the most interesting and (relatively) realistic character in Atlas Shrugged (Rearden) to the beta cuck really sticks in my craw.

          2. Don Escaped Texas

            Of course: morality tale.

            Along that line, Mohicans is almost a fable, but instead of fox versus crow it’s cowboys and Indians . . . and I have no idea what the moral of the story is.

            In this fresh light, I’m starting to remember Atlas as a sort of Jack and the Beanstalk.

          3. Mojeaux

            I’m starting to remember Atlas as a sort of Jack and the Beanstalk.

            Apt.

            I know it sometimes comes across like I hated the book, but I loved it on the basis of its morality/cautionary fable-ness.

            At first, I thought one could live one’s life this way, but people in her books are not messy. Real people are messy and you can’t expect them to stick to the script.

            Then I had kids and realized you just can’t live this way if you do. It makes household life chaotic and you end up with entitled kids.

      2. Tonio

        “Anthem” is a completely solid work and tightly crafted. That’s the only work of hers I’ve read; the excerpts from the other works have dissuaded me from trying to slog through.

        1. Mojeaux

          Yes, and it is very self-aware about its fable-ness.

    4. Jarflax

      Conrad wins this hands down. He’s top 10 even without the condition.

      1. Rhywun

        I had no idea he was a Polack.

        /lit was never really my jazz

      2. Don Escaped Texas

        Conrad is hard to beat: The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’ (1897), Heart of Darkness (1899) (I’m also a shameless Apocalypse Now fan), Lord Jim (1900).

        Nabokov includes: (1955) Lolita and (1957) Pnin.

        Conrad appeals to my manly, hands-on side at war with the elements, a full rank or two above my own experiences. Nabokov mirrors my soul-searching as professional, intellect (of some caliber), and lover, almost too close to home.

  33. Tundra

    Here’s A Simple Way To Fix That Notoriously Bad Concert Sound

    I tend to agree with him. It’s why I prefer smaller venues that are music-first places.

    1. I went to a small local venue to see one of my favorite groups – Alcest. The sound was so fucking loud and nearly unlistenable. The bar was selling earplugs… but you know, they could have just _turned_ the volume down.

      In my college days I used to go to Club Soda – which always had horrible PA to the point where my ears would be ringing for three days. I thought it was the equipment they were using, but when I saw The Young Gods play, they brought their own sound guy. And that was some of the best live sound I’ve ever heard.

      When I finally got a chance to do PA around here, I always was proud that the vocals were listenable. And everything was well-balanced. And I had a pretty basic rig, not expensive at all.

      1. Chipwooder

        I saw Jawbox at a small club in Charlottesville on their last tour before they broke up. I didn’t get my hearing completely back for about a week.

        If I could go back in time but only do one thing differently, taking care of my ears would be it. My hearing was already going to be a bit worse than average because of all the ear infections I had as a small child, but years and years of incredibly loud music and working near jet aircraft gave me tinnitus on top of that. I can’t carry on conversations for shit when there’s any kind of background noise – the words people say to me just blur all together in those situations. I’m not deaf, I can hear what they’re saying – I just can’t understand it.

        1. Tundra

          Yes, I totally agree.

          I’ve had some issues, particularly in my left ear. I recently went through a battery of tests (including an MRI) to try to figure out wtf was going on. Guess what? They had no idea. My doc said a virus probably did me in. Basically, I just have to live with the mother fucking tinnitus and the fact that I can’t understand shit if there is too much background noise.

          Or a hearing aid, I guess.

          1. R C Dean

            I’m deaf in one ear, and have tinnitus in the other. I can hear well enough in reasonably quiet situations, but with a noisy background I am worse than useless.

            I have hearing aids (they transmit sound from my deaf ear to my working ear, and bump up the high end that I have lost). They help, but actually make noisy backgrounds harder to function in.

          2. Tundra

            I’ve hear that from a lot of people. A guy at the office pretty much stopped wearing his top-of-the-line, technology-choked hearing aids because they were only marginally better in very narrow situations.

            It sucks.

          3. R C Dean

            If it wasn’t for the way they help with single-sided deafness, I don’t think I’d use them.

            Hearing is very subjective. I think I have to ask people to repeat themselves less; Mrs. Dean seems to think they help (a more objective observer), and for that reason alone I wear them pretty consistently.

          4. Left ear hears midrange and high frequency a bit better than my right. Drives me crazy since it tilts the sound slightly to my left when listening to the stereo. Which means fiddling with the balance knob; which still doesn’t make it sound right because the imbalance isn’t all frequencies. So its better if I just sit a bit more to the right.

            I’ve been a lot more careful with my hearing – since my 30s and 40s. Don’t play the stereo as loudly, etc. But I can definitely tell my high frequency hearing has degraded a lot over the years. Lucky to hear 13-14k tones, more like 12k. It does make the world less annoying though without hearing as much high freq trash from lights, computers, etc.

            The old man – at 77 – is pretty much deaf; wears two hearing aids (when he wants to). Years of running chain saws to keep his house heated didn’t help.

          5. Private Chipperbot

            My dad fired howitzers in the Marines. He can’t hear at the level that fire alarms usually make. We had to install alarms with flashing lights in their RV.

            And, Club Soda. That does bring back college days and GR girlfriends. Holy moly.

        2. Drake

          I’m there too. Loud music (Dio and Twisted Sister were the worst), machine guns, the day we fired full-auto and I lost my earplugs, and that fucking tank that fired it’s main gun while I was standing right next to it.

          Now I really have to focus to follow a conversation.

    2. dorvinion

      Because of how sound diminishes over distance, I rather expect those standing by the stage will always hear a different show than those in the nosebleed section.

    3. The Last American Hero

      Amen. Ginger Baker went on a similar rant some time ago.

    4. Dr Mossy Lawn

      It is correct in general, the volume is too loud because they are trying to cover up problems with the PA and the EQ.

      I do amateur sound and lighting work for Con’s and this is the largest facility I have worked.

      http://bellcotheatre.com/general-info/seating-chart

      The house tech’s had a reasonable system, and acoustics.

      We have also run our own rig here:

      https://www.signatureboston.com/hynes

      Which sounds and looks like a bathtub, and has horrible acoustics.

      I’ve been at venues where the music sounded better outside than inside.

      On other items the writer is wrong, you can’t do surround sound. Propagation delay requires that the main sound source be at/in front of/ the stage, and by design you put it high so it can throw forward and down and that the audience doesn’t get in the way and attenuate the sound. The line array systems (the large hanging chains of speakers) attempt to convert the speakers from point sources to planar sources that direct the energy forward and don’t distort it to the sides.

      You can put in delayed fill speakers in a long hall, but they too must be high, you can’t just sprinkle them around the venue, they need to reenforce a single sound field.

      Club venues have the added problem that the patrons get drunk and louder as the night goes on. The mixing tech just keeps pushing the sliders up.. and the people talk louder.. Operational clarity, a good mix, and emphasis on the midrange and microphones (get good feedback eliminators, and other design issues) will allow you to keep the total volume down. Even a 5 band parametric EQ can do wonders to crappy sources.

      I’ve also heard the Ramones at ground zero, and the pit was too loud for comprehension, but the mix was fine in the rest of the venue.

      1. I was never a fan of surround sound unless it’s a movie, and for live PA I mixed mono anyways. Loud enough and clean – but mostly I did small basement sized venues so usually just PA’d the vocals. The worst was doing an acoustic show at a large beer hall. That was waay trickier than the guitar amp/drums.

  34. Just Say’n

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/12/in-praise-of-the-gilets-jaunes/

    “In praise of the Gilets jaunes”

    Brendan O’Neill writes another good one.

    FTA:

    “These people on the periphery of French society — truck drivers, provincial plumbers, builders, deliverymen, teachers, parents — have rocked up to the centre of French society in their tens of thousands three times in recent weeks, their message the same every time: ‘Enough is enough. Stop making our lives harder.’

    It is a perfect snapshot of the most important divide in 21st-century Europe: that between a blinkered elite and ordinary people who’ve had as much bossing about, tax rises, paternalism and disdain as they can take. So from his presidential palace in Paris, Macron decrees that the little people of the nation must pay a kind of penance for the eco-crime of driving diesel-fuelled cars, like a modern-day Marie Antoinette deciding with a wave of the hand what is good for the plebs. It’s little wonder that the graffiti left behind following the latest uprising in Paris at the weekend compared Macron to Louis XVI and demanded that he resign.”

    1. Just Say’n

      The petit-bourgeoisie shall overthrow King Charles X, yet! (And then replace him with yet another king)

      1. Suthenboy

        ^This^

        They all hate our guts for being successful and cant see that all they have to do is go down the same road we did to get to the same place we are at.
        They are herd animals because they are weak. The herd comforts them and they need a strong man to look them in the eye and say “I will take care of you, now give me all of your stuff”. So they give him all of their stuff. The idiots then complain that they have no stuff and when the shit hits the fan Mr. ‘Take Care of You’ is nowhere in sight.

        1. Mojeaux

          But we are also going back down that road, knowing it, watching it, and doing…what?

          1. Tundra

            Bitching on the internet, of course!

            What? Is there another way?!?

          2. Mojeaux

            *blinks* Why…no. No, there isn’t!

          3. WTF

            “To the Bastille!!”

      2. PieInTheSky

        I blame facebook

    2. A Leap at the Wheel

      If a society is truly organized such that the “truck drivers, provincial plumbers, builders, deliverymen, teachers, parents” are the “periphery,” that society is well and truly fucked.

      1. Drake

        That was my reaction too. Who are the middle? The bureaucrats, middle-management HR NPCs?

        1. “Russian Apologist”

          In France, the bureaucrats are indeed the upper middle class

          1. AlexinCT

            I would surmise this is the case in practically every European country, and not far from the truth for even the US. Our FedGov top people certainly are the existing American aristocracy.

    3. PieInTheSky

      I know it does not really apply but this popped into mind

      Jim: You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.

      1. AlexinCT

        The new and appropriate name is deplorables, isn’t it?

  35. The Late P Brooks

    like a modern-day Marie Antoinette deciding with a wave of the hand what is good for the plebs.

    The global elite deserve a better class of pleb.

    1. AlexinCT

      Especially after all they have done for those ingrates!

  36. Tundra

    Rare Rides: An Absolutely Beautiful Peugeot 504 From 1975

    I had a 1979 with the automatic. Yes, it had a lot of nice features (particularly for the time), but the auto was slow as fuck, the thing broke with some regularity and the parts were absurdly expensive (particularly for a teenager). It finally blew up while I was away at college – my little brother wasn’t aware of ‘dieseling’. Still, I paid $250 for the thing, so it was by far the lowest cost per mile of any car I’ve ever owned.

    1. I see that car around in Italian / British / French flicks from the 70s…

    2. ElspethFlashman

      I’d totally drive that.

      1. Tundra

        Occasionally, anyway.

      2. PieInTheSky

        I would probably;y not drive something that old. think of the safety

        1. Nephilium

          That old? What about these? I’ll try to take more pictures at the Viva car show next year for the rest of you.

    3. Count Potato

      “I had a 1979 with the automatic.”

      #metoo

    4. Chipwooder

      When I was a kid, my best friend’s father had a Peugeot 505. Only person I’ve ever known to own a French car. His mom had a hideous orange Volare wagon. Really odd combination of vehicles.

  37. The Late P Brooks

    Random sighting at the googlenooz:

    “Don Lemon says he wouildn’t have shaken Trump’s hand at funeral.”

    I’m sure Trumpitler cried himself to sleep when he heard that.

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      He’s such a brave man taking a hypothetical moral stand like that.

    2. wdalasio

      I think he flatters himself that he’d have been invited.

  38. Rebel Scum

    Trump on Coming Debt Crisis: ‘I Won’t Be Here’ When It Blows Up

    The president thinks the balancing of the nation’s books is going to, ultimately, be a future president’s problem.

    I’m behind because work is busy, but saw this in yesterdays thread. Trump is (as some others said) actually, if accidentally, transparent because he can’t refrain from mouthing off. And this is shaping up to be the most *actually* transparent administration of at least my lifetime. (I say ‘actually’ because we all know about the previous admin…)

    And this:

    Yet another example of how the antipathy to Trump is driven in large part by aesthetics and not reality.

    Exactly. It’s feelz > reals and image > substance.

    1. Juvenile Bluster

      The honesty is indeed refreshing.

      Overall, if he could keep his mouth shut and stay off Twitter, he’d be a halfway decent President.

      1. leon

        Honestly it’s the only reason he isn’t hailed as a great President. Because he says icky things. His policy is all retarded Blue-dog democrat nonsense.

        1. A Leap at the Wheel

          Bill Clinton 3.0

      2. robc

        I think the exact opposite. The only think that makes him halfway decent is opening his mouth and tweeting.

      3. AlexinCT

        The honesty is indeed refreshing.

        The fact that people making hay about this turn a blind eye to the reality this is precisely the strategy that the nanny stater tax-and-spenders have operated under, for decades now, suddenly finding a cause to oppose it – all so they can help the tax-and-spenders again increase the tax burden on the productive so they can go back to pretending the end result will not be the collapse of the system – galls me.

        It’s disgusting that they act as if the problem is of Trump’s making and not the result of our massive shift to enabling a welfare state to benefit the progressivism peddling party.

    2. R C Dean

      I saw that article. Its the usual bullshit anonymous sourcing. Trump may well believe that, but based on that article we have no reason to think he does.

      1. Heroic Mulatto

        Ok, but even before this latest furor, I’ve continued to ask just what Trump is doing to tackle the debt exactly?

        1. R C Dean

          Nothing meaningful at all. I think he’s letting some of the agencies shrink via attrition, which saves a few bucks, but not even enough to consider the savings decimal dust.

          1. Heroic Mulatto

            Even worse, those savings are counteracted by him allowing the LAW ‘N ORDER sections of the government to spend like drunken sailors on leave.

          2. Rebel Scum

            A hatchet need to be taken to entitlement spending. There is no constitutional justification for the government to operate such systems anyway (not that anyone cares…)

  39. leon

    https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2018/12/05/utah-its-insurance/

    State employee steals 1 million, gets two years. Accounting firm that didn’t catch the opportunity in there audit: sued for 800k

    1. I’m going to gues the state employee was not rank and file.

      *clicks link*

      She was a longtime public employee, the top assistant to former UCA director Steven Proctor.

      Took me a while to find out what job she held before being caught.

      1. AlexinCT

        Hiding that sort of stuff is key in keeping the shitshow running…

        1. I never left the Salt Lake Tribune site, and if they were journalists, that information would have been more readily located. It was on the third article about the case I read.

          1. leon

            The SL tribune is in a funny position. They lean pretty heavily left. In a State Like UT that generally puts them at odds with the Government, but they still have to protect the ‘good’ people in government.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    All aboard the Identity Politics Express! Next stop, Hell.

    “I encourage our party leaders to be more aggressive in seeking out and helping younger candidates, female candidates and candidates of color,” said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who is retiring. “We have to step up our game or risk having the nation look upon us as the political party of the grandparents.”

    “Wake up, dudes,” she added.

    Some GOP women are even vowing to go on their own missions to bring female candidates and voters back into the arms of the party next year.

    Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who led recruitment efforts for the House GOP’s campaign arm this cycle, made waves this week when she announced plans to get involved in primary races to help more Republican women get elected to Congress.

    Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), the chairman-elect of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), called the idea a “mistake.”

    “NEWSFLASH I wasn’t asking for permission,” Stefanik fired back in a tweet. “I will continue speaking out [about] the crisis level of GOP women in Congress & will try to lead and change that by supporting strong GOP women candidates through my leadership PAC.”

    Tensions have started to spill out into public view in the wake of a slow-moving blue wave that handed the House back to Democrats for the first time since 2010. And Republican women suffered a stinging blow, with their ranks poised to shrink from 23 down to 13 next year.

    Here’s an idea. Focus on the philosophical basis of your party’s representatives, and put forth a coherent message about economic and personal freedom. It’s crazy, but it might work.

    1. wdalasio

      NEWSFLASH I wasn’t asking for permission

      Question, do women think things like this make the rest of us take them more seriously? The guy didn’t say she needed his permission. He said it was a mistake. And “NEWSFLASH”? What the fuck is this, high school?

    2. Gadfly

      It’s crazy, but it might work.

      Actually, you have it exactly backwards. It’s not crazy, and it won’t work. Philosophy takes a back seat to bread and butter, and while ideas definitely have their place in politics they have to be expressed simply and with positive spin. In representative politics style often wins over substance, so the best strategy is to have both.

    3. R C Dean

      If the Repubs want to win more elections, part of the recipe absolutely should be election integrity.

      It doesn’t matter how good your candidates are, or what identity group they front for, when the elections are crooked.

    4. AlexinCT

      Here’s an idea. Focus on the philosophical basis of your party’s representatives, and put forth a coherent message about economic and personal freedom. It’s crazy, but it might work.

      Especially if you don’t just pay lip service to it so you can raise campaign funds and get votes. The thing that pisses me most about team red is the fact that they love to play spoiler but when push comes to shove, they fold like a cheap card trick. Case in point the whole shitshow around Obamacare’s repeal and replacement…

    5. “put forth a coherent message about economic and personal freedom”

      That’s not the problem. They’re great at putting forth that message during campaigns, what they suck at is actually following through on their promises. They had the executive/legislative trifecta and they couldn’t even manage to get rid of Zerocare, something they promised for almost a decade.

      Other things they failed on:

      1) A real budget.
      2) Immigration.
      3) Entitlement reform.

      If they had done these things, I think they would have been reelected. Sure they gave us a tax cut (a temporary one that did nothing to address spending) and some originalist judges (probably the only unambiguously good thing this session) but beyond that they acted as if they were in the minority.

    6. Rhywun

      Meh, I don’t have any problem if it’s something like “encouraging Republican women to run”. It becomes a problem if and when it turns into quotas or similar nonsense of the kind that the left pulls.

    7. Dr. Fronkensteen

      No it won’t work. Free minds and free markets hasn’t beaten free stuff and is apparently racist.

      If you insist that you are treating African-Americans like adults, thinking they can choose what education for their children, that they can be armed, that they don’t need affirmative action to succeed, and they can get a photo I.D. that means you don’t understand the issues that blacks face in our country.

    8. Suthenboy

      They are indeed the stupid party. They didn’t lose the house because they dont have enough women. they lost it because the didn’t deliver on the promises they made and because despite having the house, the senate and the presidency they did jack shit with it. Fucking useless cowards.

      1. Mojeaux

        they lost it because the didn’t deliver on the promises they made and because despite having the house, the senate and the presidency they did jack shit with it.

        That.

    9. Rebel Scum

      candidates of color

      So they are cool with Der Drumpenfuhrer and his bad spray-tan?

  41. Count Potato

    “‘This is your ”Christian” evangelical president’: Trump is slammed for not reciting The Apostles’ Creed during George H.W. Bush’s funeral”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6465129/Trump-fire-not-reciting-Apostles-Creed-George-H-W-Bushs-funeral.html

    1. leon

      “This is your ”Christian” evangelical president”

      Isn’t this the essence of a strawman. I don’t think anyone has seriously considered Trump to be a good Christian rolemodel. It’s just that the Evangelical Right decided to hold their noses and vote for him.

      1. Because Hillary would have been worse… bakers and nuns learned all about the heavy hand of the government.

      2. Raven Nation

        “Evangelical Right decided to hold their noses and vote for him”

        Sadly, for some of evangelical friends, it went further than that: many twisted themselves into knots to give him a ringing endorsement on social media for being ready to uphold Christian values.

      3. Gadfly

        Exactly. While there are some people who have tried to spin it to make it look like Trump’s a good Christian, most people who voted for him are well aware that he is not. But when the choices are vote for someone who hates you versus vote for someone who doesn’t, it doesn’t matter how little you have in common with the latter person.

        1. Mojeaux

          I have to say, my mom was in spiritual agony over whom to vote for, like on her knees praying for guidance agony. She ended up voting for Trump, but she couldn’t vote for Hillary.

    2. WTF

      I thought Ivan Drago killed Apostles Creed?

      1. AlexinCT

        WOAH!

    3. Heroic Mulatto

      I’m actually more upset at Ivanka reciting it.

    4. Rhywun

      he ran on the base of being devout evangelical Christian

      Wait… what?

    1. “Russian Apologist” (Formerly “Assad Apologist”)

      Hollywood lesbianism has certainly improved from the era when Rosie O’Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres were their sole representatives

    2. Drake

      As long as it’s fashionable.

    3. PieInTheSky

      maybe all chicks are bi or something

    4. The real question here is are they “real” lesbians, or just situational ones open to the occasional threesome with me?

      1. AlexinCT

        Always asking the important questions Q!

    5. Suthenboy

      I worked a bit in the movie industry. One of the things I learned is that everything, absolutely every single thing that you hear about ‘movie stars’ is concocted by their PR agents to raise their popularity. That goes for their marriages, the scandals, the photo shoots of their vacations, the gossip, etc. Everything. It is all phony.

      1. Gadfly

        It is all phony.

        What?!?!? I’m shocked that people who lie for a living (i.e. act) are a bunch of phonies.

  42. The front room is finished – Pic 1 and Pic 2

    1. Not sure if I should move the Orange Ball Chair here, replacing the blue circular chair.

    2. R C Dean

      That looks really nice. Tough call on the orange v blue chairs. I’d probably leave it as is, on the “it ain’t broke” principle.

      1. Tundra

        Seconded. I’d leave the blue as well.

    3. wdalasio

      Very nice!

  43. Christ, can Max Boot get any worse.

    https://twitter.com/MaxBoot/status/1070514679607451649

    WTF does this guy stand for exactly? He at one time claimed to be libertarian, then neocon and now what? Is he just a straight run-of-the mill prog? An actual tankie? What?

    1. “Russian Apologist” (Formerly “Assad Apologist”)

      FTA:

      “Saudi dissident Omar Abdulaziz, who lives in Canada, has filed a lawsuit against an Israeli technology company called the NSO Group accusing it of providing the Saudi government with the surveillance software to spy on him and his friends — including Jamal Khashoggi.”

      By Boot’s tortured logic, would that then mean that the US is to blame for Google providing technology to the Chinese to better surveil their citizens?

      1. Stinky Wizzleteats

        Nah, I’m sure he’d try to rationalize his way out of that.

        1. “Russian Apologist” (Formerly “Assad Apologist”)

          The principaled stand

    2. Count Potato

      I think he is just an asshole.

    3. Chipwooder

      He’s a sad little man desperate for someone, anyone, to take him seriously as a “public intellectual”.

  44. Important question: which sucks more, Camden or East St. Louis?

    https://reason.com/blog/2018/12/05/taxpayers-will-pay-1-million-to-tear-dow

    TW: TOS.

  45. The Late P Brooks

    Nice pad, Humungus.

    1. Heroic Mulatto

      Indeed. Mid-century Modern done right.

      1. R C Dean

        If I hear one more hipster refer to it as “Mid-Mod”, I may just have to punch someone.

        1. Mojeaux

          “MCM” Better? I admit I use it because I am lazy AF.

          1. R C Dean

            A TLA? I try to avoid them, but seem to use them constantly anyway.

          2. Why do you need so many Temporary Lease Agreements?

  46. The Late P Brooks

    Not sure if I should move the Orange Ball Chair here

    You’ll have to change your handle to Number Two.

  47. Tres Cool

    Update on news thats too local .
    tl;dr version: cop drunk at work, crashes cruiser, charged with a couple felonies, gets slapped on his pee-pee and avoids jail.

    TW: annoying autoplay

  48. The Late P Brooks

    Ok, but even before this latest furor, I’ve continued to ask just what Trump is doing to tackle the debt exactly?

    He pressuring the Fed to keep interest rates low. He may be the only President in living memory who actually knows what happens to cash flow when interest rates go up.

    Spoiler Alert: Debt service may become untenble.

    1. leon

      “He pressuring the Fed to keep interest rates low”

      So he propped up the asset price bubble.

    2. Heroic Mulatto

      And where we are now, that and a dollar gets you a cup of coffee.

  49. The Late P Brooks

    So he propped up the asset price bubble.

    He’s going to make us all rich!

    *just like his predecessors

    1. Dr. Fronkensteen

      I’m assuming we’ll all be rich if we have enough cash on hand to take advantage when the shiller p/e ratio goes down to a normal level to buy up all of the stocks that have been dumped.

  50. The Late P Brooks

    Cans were kicked.

  51. AlexinCT

    I would like to see this question answered…

    What are the odds I will get a truthful answer?

    1. Rufus the Monocled

      i invoke Occam’s Razor:

      To take Trump down. Nothing to do with justice.

    2. “Russian Apologist” (Formerly “Assad Apologist”)

      Sounds like the narrative of a Russian apologist

      1. The butthurt is strong in this one.

        Feel the freedom of admitting you want Russia to finish Ukraine off…because Nazi tattoos.

        1. “Russian Apologist” (Formerly “Assad Apologist”)

          Yes, that is exactly what I’ve said. Except for the fact that I’ve never said anything of the sort.

      2. Don Escaped Texas

        I’m just now seeing your update: dying laughing.

        Not taking sides, still love everybody, but that’s funny.

    3. grrizzly

      What was the real point of the Mueller investigation?

      To implement the “insurance police” against President Trump: prevent him from controlling the DOJ, cover up illegal spying on him and his campaign, protect the Deep State, allow Dem partisans to keep believing that the Democrat loss in November 2016 was caused by “aliens” and not by the awfulness of their party.

      1. grrizzly

        insurance policy

    1. AlexinCT

      IT WILL TURN THE FROGS GAY!

  52. The unholy union of RadFems and SoCons ushers in the new puritanism.

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/these-college-guys-are-trying-to-ban-porn-on-campus

    1. AlexinCT

      Someone should check the level of mercury in these guys…..

      1. commodious spittoon

        Considering Tonio was complaining gaysplaining about the Tumblr ban on porn, I don’t think homosexuality is to blame here.

        1. AlexinCT

          Touche!

    2. As a connoisseur of porn for at least the past 20 years, I have never beaten up or raped a woman, it has not caused my sex life with real women to be dysfunctional or non-existent and it has not given me ED or PE. While I do post an inordinate amount of boobs, I don’t sit at home all day everyday glued to a screen with my cock in my hand. Maybe I’m an exception but all the hysteria over porn is comical to me, mostly because I can’t think of a more Quixotic battle to fight. Banning porn will be even less successful than banning drugs.

      1. Heroic Mulatto

        I don’t sit at home all day everyday glued to a screen with my cock in my hand.

        Extraordinary claims require sufficient evidence.

          1. Tundra

            Had to be Miracle Whip.

          2. Heroic Mulatto

            Nice to see that you get out from time to time.

      2. AlexinCT

        While I do post an inordinate amount of boobs, I don’t sit at home all day everyday glued to a screen with my cock in my hand.

        SF asked me to tell you that you are doing it wrong man…

        1. commodious spittoon

          He has to work, which is where he’s glued to his cock with a screen in his hand.

    3. “Russian Apologist” (Formerly “Assad Apologist”)

      “Northern Illinois University attempted a similar ban in 2014, according to the Northern Star, but later revised it to cover only employees.”

      If it was applied to students, I wonder if a First Amendment challenge could be sustained against a public university?

    4. Rhywun

      Martinson said he was shocked by the amount of support for a digital barrier

      Um… colleges have been turning young people into authoritarian assholes for decades.

  53. Count Potato

    “Reports: Chinese researcher who claimed to have gene-edited babies goes missing”

    https://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Jiankui-he-missing-gene-editing-arrest-twins-dna-13440552.php

    He must have known something about the Clintons.

    1. Dr. Fronkensteen

      So let’s say you find a way to stop aging. Would you share it with the world or would you keep it to yourself and be the one eyed man in the kingdom of the blind?

      1. commodious spittoon

        Enoch Root would like a word.

  54. The Late P Brooks

    Meh, I don’t have any problem if it’s something like “encouraging Republican women to run”. It becomes a problem if and when it turns into quotas or similar nonsense of the kind that the left pulls.

    I agree completely. I would love to see *principled* freedom loving capitalists who are black, or female, or hispanic or [insert ethnicity/sex(ual preference)].

    That article reads as if any random anti freedom “do-somethingist” soccer mom should be pushed in front of the electorate, just so the RNC can claim they are “inclusive”.

    1. Dr. Fronkensteen

      Pours one out for Mia Love.

    2. “Russian Apologist” (Formerly “Assad Apologist”)

      “I would love to see *principled* freedom loving capitalists who are black, or female, or hispanic or [insert ethnicity/sex(ual preference)].”

      If they are running as Republicans, it’s unlikely that they’ll have these qualities. Although there are three exceptions in Congress

      1. “Russian Apologist” (Formerly “Assad Apologist”)

        Everclear and soccer moms.

        The most 90’s post ever

        1. The greatest decade…

          1. Chipwooder

            Thefirst half of it was

      2. Count Potato

        HAWT

  55. An exceptional dump is better than a mediocre sexual encounter.

    Fight me.

    1. Dr. Fronkensteen

      Drops gloves.

    2. AlexinCT

      Not doing that!

    3. commodious spittoon

      The amount of capsicum involved matters a great deal in both cases.

      1. I’ve related my hot pepper pussy story before so I shant again, but the dump wins in that scenario too.

    4. Heroic Mulatto

      Here is Q with another one of his false dichotomies.

    5. Rasilio

      Why not both?

      1. JaimeRoberto, Public Intellectual

        You must be German.

      2. AlexinCT

        I suspect there are people into this sort of fucking shit…

    6. JaimeRoberto, Public Intellectual

      It might last longer too.

  56. Count Potato

    “California Democrats plan to extend Medicaid to illegal immigrants

    A California lawmaker has pledged to re-introduce a bill that would allow adults who live in the state illegally to receive medical care paid for by the government.

    State Assembly member Joaquin Arambula, a Democrat and a doctor, announced the plans Monday as the legislature convened at the state capitol, according to the Los Angeles Times.

    Should the bill advance, California would become the first state to extend Medicaid coverage regardless of immigration status. State projections for last year’s bill found that 1.8 million people in California are uninsured and reside there illegally; roughly 1.2 million would qualify for Medi-Cal, the name of the state’s Medicaid program.

    The legislation is being introduced ahead of a new governor entering office. Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom initially had vowed to seek a single-payer healthcare system for the state, but tamped down his rhetoric later in the campaign, focusing instead on extending coverage to the uninsured. Single-payer systems refer to one source of payment for all medical services, usually the government.”

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/healthcare/california-democrats-plan-to-extend-medicaid-to-illegal-immigrants

    1. Well, I guess California is doing the rest of the country a solid by trying to attract all the illegals from around the nation there.

      1. Heroic Mulatto

        Immigration should be left up to the individual states anyway.

        1. “Russian Apologist” (Formerly “Assad Apologist”)

          Why should we have state borders if we shouldn’t have national borders?

    2. commodious spittoon

      Isn’t this merely streamlining the process? Hospitals already bill Medicaid for unrecoverable emergency room and urgent care fees, I thought.

      1. “Russian Apologist” (Formerly “Assad Apologist”)

        They don’t bill Medicaid, they usually eat the cost (or rather pass it on to consumers) and claim “charity care”, which is a vague requirement imposed by state governments in order for hospitals to remain “tax exempt” and avoid property taxes along with income tax exemption

        1. commodious spittoon

          So, similar to SALT, putting them on Medicaid would push state-based costs onto federal taxpayers.

          1. “Russian Apologist” (Formerly “Assad Apologist”)

            Federal Medicaid reimbursement rates bar participation by illegal immigrants. The State would have to swallow all of the cost (in theory). CA is currently reimbursed 50% for every dollar they spend on Medicaid, but in theory, illegal immigrant participants would not be eligible for the federal government to reimburse the state.

          2. commodious spittoon

            That’s good to know. I can’t help but feel there’s bound to be the same pretense that lets PP claim federal grants don’t pay for abortions, and I assume federal Medicaid bureaucrats are sympathetic to California’s efforts.

          3. “Russian Apologist” (Formerly “Assad Apologist”)

            That’s why I add the qualifier “theoretically”

      2. R C Dean

        Hospitals already bill Medicaid for unrecoverable emergency room and urgent care fees, I thought.

        Nope. We get paid by Medicaid for services provided to identified Medicaid patients.

    3. “Russian Apologist” (Formerly “Assad Apologist”)

      CA really wants to run bigger deficits

    4. Rhywun

      Pretty sure NYC has a program or six to address exactly this. Not all of the thousands of dollars I fork over to them every year goes (directly) into pubsec workers’ pockets.

    5. Raston Bot

      diabolical. get the lion’s share of the homeless, illegals, and progs in one place just before The Big One sinks it into the ocean.

    6. R C Dean

      That’s gonna be interesting, because (outside of a few tiny programs, I think) you can’t get the Medicaid federal matching funds for illegals (although because a lot of illegals have false IDs, the feds do in fact give matching funds for them). I have a hard time believing there are actually 1.2mm illegals in California who would qualify for Medicaid if they weren’t illegal, but aren’t actually on Medicaid anyway because they have false IDs.

      But by making it official state policy, California is going to have to identify the illegals that are covered by Medi-Cal, so it can back their care out of its bill to the feds for matching funds. CA is going to have to create a database of known and identified illegals. When by policy you don’t give Medicaid to illegals, you can just bill the feds for everything. When you do, you have can only bill the feds for the subset of Medicaid patients who are legal.

  57. wdalasio

    State projections for last year’s bill found that 1.8 million people in California are uninsured and reside there illegally; roughly 1.2 million would qualify for
    Medi-Cal, the name of the state’s Medicaid program.

    But, I’m sure Shika will be explaining to everyone that those 1.2 million won’t really be taking government services.

    1. R C Dean

      “The health care services are provided by private sector doctors and hospitals, so these poor downtrodden undocumented mothers and children won’t be taking government services at all. Even though its stupid that we don’t give them all the full benefits of citizenship.”

  58. Stinky Wizzleteats

    I’m stuck here at the local hibachi place listening to the Heorge Bush funeral. Chuck that warmonger in the ground already.

  59. The Late P Brooks

    I have a confession-

    It pains me to say this, but at the time, I thought GHWBooooosh might actually be a good competent President, specifically due to his extensive experience in the FedGov and the CIA.

    Haha, what a sucker I was. But I got better.

    *Feel free to imagine me wearing a dunce cap and a “Kick Me, I’m Stoopid” sign.

    1. Rasilio

      I still say he was infinitely better than Dukakis would have been

      1. Chipwooder

        Well, yes, that goes without saying. Republicans suck, Democrats suck much worse.

        1. “Russian Apologist” (Formerly “Assad Apologist”)

          Disagree. They each suck in their own unique way. The only saving grace for Republicans is that Amash, Massie, and Paul are within their caucus.

          1. commodious spittoon

            But Democrats have Mazie Hirono, who’s going to smartsplain to you all the ways your inferior intellect simply can’t fathom the deeper truths and superior planes her mind explores on your behalf.

          2. Chipwooder

            Democrats want to destroy the 2A, thus they suck much much more.

  60. The Late P Brooks

    The fact that she demoted the most interesting and (relatively) realistic character in Atlas Shrugged (Rearden) to the beta cuck really sticks in my craw.

    Huh. When I watched the movie, recently, I found myself asking the air, “Wait. What the fuck happened to Rearden? Where did he get off to?”

    I didn’t just imagine that? It wasn’t some weird trick pulled off in the adaptation?

    1. Mojeaux

      No. Dagny unceremoniously dumped his ass the second she found Galt and then Rearden sent her a note that said, “I’ve met him; I don’t blame you.”

      I can appreciate the larger story and despise that.

      1. Jarflax

        That always infuriated me. Galt is not remotely as impressive as Reardon. Galt’s big claim to fame (other than inventing a perpetual motion machine) is recognizing self ownership, which Reardon also recognizes. Reardon is the real hero of the book and the whole Dagny path from Francisco to Reardon to Galt is Rand justifying her own infidelities. “Oh no I am not cheating I am moving to the more impressive person who deserves my love by virtue of my wanting to do it.”

        1. Mojeaux

          Boom. Exactly.

          1. Don Escaped Texas

            There is no greater acknowledgement than the Mojeaux boom. I’ve rated exactly one so far and am plotting to deserve more.

          2. Mojeaux

            In my head you have received “exactly”s, albeit without the boom.

        2. R C Dean

          justifying her own infidelities

          Now why would Ayn Rand do that?

    1. R C Dean

      TW: NYT

    2. Rhywun

      “Worries Abound”

      I hate to inform the NYT but nobody gives a shit anymore.

  61. The Late P Brooks

    But by making it official state policy, California is going to have to identify the illegals that are covered by Medi-Cal, so it can back their care out of its bill to the feds for matching funds. CA is going to have to create a database of known and identified illegals. When by policy you don’t give Medicaid to illegals, you can just bill the feds for everything. When you do, you have can only bill the feds for the subset of Medicaid patients who are legal.

    You and your double entry tricknology.

    1. Rhywun

      You know they will try to insert some policy of not tracking illegals into it. The ensuing fraud case should be popcorn-worthy.

      1. Unreconstructed

        Seems to me that the appropriate agency should refuse to pay the bill without evidence for *every single claim*. Tie the Federal reimbursement up for years…

  62. The Late P Brooks

    Democrats want to destroy the 2A, thus they suck much much more.

    Speaking of which, there are a few stories out there this morning about how the Demos are rallying the troops for another assault on that hill.

    1. AlexinCT

      Cannon fodder seems to abound for those mendacious cunts..