Day 4 of the cold that won’t fuck off.
Today is birthdays we have George Mason, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, gold digger John Kerry, and actress Teri
Garr.
Trump to meet with Democrats about border wall/ government shutdown.
DOJ requesting to keep reason for raid on Clinton Foundation whistle blower a secret.
Steph Curry doesn’t believe in the moon landing.
I really need to read this one day.
When will ya’ll figure out that he does this shit on purpose so it gains more traction and exposure?
CNN writing masturbatory wish casting articles for its increasingly stupid base.
Possible plea deal in case against alleged Russian agent.
That’s all I got for today. I’m off to get my girls out the door and me to DayQuil. I’ll leave you a song for the day.
Steph Curry doesn’t believe in the moon landing
He’s woke though, so it’s cutely eccentric rather than evidence of the mental impairment of himself, his family, and everyone like him.
^First.
Or it’s a way to get attention and publicity.
Remember the stupid kids when you were in grade school? They’re adults now.
Hey, now!
It’s about proving the narrative from the marxists that the US is a fake utopia and needs to be replaced by the real one only they can deliver (when the right people are in charge of the right marxist system).
I don’t know if people in general have noticed that the left’s campaign to tear down each and every great accomplishment of western civilization, but especially anything the US did, allowing the marxists to successfully make their case it is all null and void because anything that survives their historical rewrite still is the product of a patriarchal evil system that only benefits white men. A evil and failed system, they tell us, is in dire need of being replaced with an “intellectual oligarchy” – of credentialed idiots spouting marxist shit like them, of course – as the sole cure to all these evils they have manufactured and/or exaggerated.
This is some down right evil & stupid shit.
I think he is hiding the fact that he is an alien like those fellas from Space Jam
It’s too quiet in here.
Where is everybody?
Not working, that is for sure.
You’re god damn right.
Well, I had a lot of things I had to get done at work this morning, but now I am going to take a break and fuck off for a little bit.
I actually took the day off to burn some excess vacation time. I will be spending it in my lab being a hopeless geek.
You have a lab at home?
You don’t?
Of course. I do audio electronics for a hobby, so have a rather, umm, extensive set of test and measurement gear as well as parts and tools for construction.
I meant chemistry. I don’t call my bench a lab.
When I mess with audio, it’s a workbench. When OMWC messes with audio, it’s a lab. Trust me.
Damn your nimble fingers.
No, I’m wary of doing chemistry at home. There’s a lot of legal jeopardy attached to it.
When I had a generator, scope, and soldering iron, it was a “bench.” With a full Audio Precision setup, network analyzer, and acoustic test chamber, it got promoted to “lab.”
No, I’m wary of doing chemistry at home. There’s a lot of legal jeopardy attached to it.
I like that it is the potential legal danger rather than physical danger that dissuades you. I am now imagining that you are the type of person who would have your own basement nuclear reactor if it were not for all the red tape.
/tries to look innocent
That is because you never stand over your bench yelling “
It’sShe’s alive!”Do you have to also be furiously spanking your monkey?
Why would you waste it when you are literally one lightning strike away from Lolitastein?
You’re right. I have never done that
*whistles nonchalantly*
So, an iPad is now a ‘bench’?
I have 15 days of excess vacation this year but am not decided what to do… I have until march 31st to decide
BEHIND YOU!
One of my more brilliant friends doesn’t believe in the moon landing. He also believes a lot of other shit.
I’m convinced he does it to be quirky, but lord knows he doesn’t need it. Man effortlessly takes down more high quality poon than anyone I’ve ever met. But he actually believes it.
He also wears one white and one black sock as part of his style. So I don’t know. Maybe I should take up more conspiracy theories.
*Unravels tin foil meth pipe. Fashions hat*
Smart does not equal sane or wise.
Well there was that italian guy that said that fools are found at every level in similar number
Smart also doesn’t mean you will win a debate.
Check out Joe Rogan debating Phil Plait about the moon landing. Rogan mops the floor with Plait who is a big time astronomer.
It is also a great lesson in how climate change debate is done. We aren’t listening to smart people who actually study the problem. We listen to Leo DiCaprio and George Clooney instead.
We live in a society where “experts” are just the people with enough name recognition to sway the usually unwashed and uninformed masses.
+1 Apple expert Meryl Streep.
Oh, these types often are in Hollywood or in academia, but in fields that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject they are presented as experts on. It seems that peddling marxism is the only requirement for someone to be labeled an “expert” by these asshats. See AGW and look at the people they tell you are “experts”.
One of my more brilliant friends doesn’t believe in the moon landing.
To me this is one of the weirder beliefs. It can be demonstrated mathematically/scientifically that it is entirely possible to do what they did. They made a video recording of the event that they broadcast live to the world. They were in competition with another entity that had an extensive spy network and every incentive to prove that it was faked but didn’t. Where’s the shadow of doubt?
I can accept people believing in all manner of strange, silly, and false things, in areas were there is some doubt. But the moon-landing-is-fake and the earth-is-flat conspiracy theories are too much. I can’t really take someone seriously if they buy into one of those.
In order to believe those conspiracies, two things need to happen…
1) you have to become very distrustful of the information you’re being fed from any number of a variety of sources (MSM, textbooks, etc.)
2) you have to latch onto some sort of insanely lucrative motive for the lies to be widely spread. Y’know, something that would override Occam’s razor.
This is why I think the moon hoax is the more interesting of the two conspiracies. What the hell would anybody gain from convincing the world that the earth is round? Meager funding for NASA? At least with the moon landing hoaxers, the motive is pretty lucrative. They think that the US was losing the cold War and that the moon landings were staged to bait the soviets into dumping tons of cash into developing their own space program.
It’s all nonsense, of course, but at least there is an effort to “tick all the boxes” with the moon hoax conspiracy. The same can’t be said for most of the other popular conspiracy theories.
That’s a good point, as it is indeed true that the US had motive. But when people buy that for the moon landing, they also have to buy that the same country that was unable to protect its secrets about how to build the most powerful weapon in the world was somehow able to protect its secrets about staging the moon landing. As you say, it’s all nonsense.
Incidentally, I haven’t gone to sleep without taking two of these in probably close to a year and a half. They work pretty well for an OTC. Ambien will knock you out quicker, but all it does for me is give me a full night of wakeful dreaming and I wake up feeling worse than if I hadn’t slept at all.
I find the very idea of sleeping pills more horrifying than my insomnia. Even before side effects, I end up with the concerns of not being able to wake up A: on time, B: in an emergency, or C: at all.
I use earplugs and sleeping pills and still come a foot off the bed every time a loud truck goes by my house.
When I was a kid I slept like the dead. My family and friends used to make fun of me for it. Adulthood is awesome.
Insomnia and apnea, now that’s living.
Try going for more than 40 years without being able to sleep for more than 3 hours a night if you are lucky, and often needing chemical aids to get a nights sleep when you go for two or three nights without sleep….
I guess I will do some real good sleeping when I die.
One time I woke up in the morning (18 at the time) and the rest of the platoon looked completely ragged out – none of them had slept a wink. I had not one clue. I had to ask Patterson, the other Marine on the top bunk above me, what was going on. “You mean you slept through that?” “What?” – I replied. “The artillery battery blasting away for 2 hours over there – before the thunderstorm rolled in with thunder and lightning for hours after that?” I slept through the entire thing.
These days I am balancing probable alcoholism against getting just enough booze in me to be able to drift off and sleep until morning.
“These days I am balancing probable alcoholism against getting just enough booze in me to be able to drift off and sleep until morning.”
I did that for a long time, then I started waking up after 3-4 hours of not real good sleep so I’d have another drink (or two). I finally stopped drinking for my health, ’cause my wife said she’d kill me if I didn’t. Three weeks later I was sleeping like a baby. Rarely now I have an hour or two of insomnia but more often I’m getting 8 1/2 hours sleep with a few short walks of exercise, figure as long as I’m up might as well use the time to solve a problem. Oh yeah, the problem was the reason I had to get up. Seems like it attacks many of us guys sometime in later adult hood.
Yeah, I have been rejecting the idea of having a couple more when I wake up long before I need to be up. That seems to be a red line for me.
The bottle’s claim that diphenhydramine is “non-habit forming” is bullshit. Plenty of people are hooked on that stuff.
It works well but careful: a higher lifetime cumulative dose of anticholinergic drugs has been found to be correlated with dementia later in life. It’s OK on occasion but long term is probably not a good idea.
Diphenhydramine HCL is just an antihistamine (Benadryl) with the side effect of inducing drowsiness.
They use its anticholinergic effects to treat Parkinsonism in people who can’t tolerate stronger anticholinergics. It has a powerful AC effect and should be avoided in the long term unless there are no alternatives (there are plenty of alts for sleep but it can be frustrating finding one that works, believe me I know).
It’s in the anticholinergic class of drugs.
At this point lack of sleep will probably kill me before dementia does though. If not that then heart disease or cancer.
Ever try Remeron off label? That stuff will lay you out like nobody’s business. It’ll also make you eat like a horse but if you’re a thin guy like me that’s not really an issue.
Haven’t heard of that one before, I’ll read up.
It’s an anticholinergic. So even though it has the effect of inducing drowsiness, it inhibits parasympathetic nervous system at the same time.
I have sleeping issues too, comrade. Usually sleep okay during the weekend, but the working weeks gets my nerves going. And I have a hard time falling asleep. And wake up a lot.
Getting a good drink or two in the evening helps, but no guarantee.
I usually do a blend of Unisom and Melatonin but it’s more of a helper than anything else. And again, no guarantee I’ll get any decent sleep. The only thing that gives me good sleep is to be bone-tired, usually from the crappy night of sleep from the day before. Trazadone also works but the after-effects are horrible; an all-day grogginess.
So it’s a curse that I just suffer through, and hampers some working days. Warmer days aren’t so bad since I can get a lunchtime power nap in the car. Winter though? Nowhere to go unless I want to keep the car running.
A couple weeks ago I found at least a partial solution for me. Make what you want of it.
From my years in uniform, running patrols where I would end up off in the side of a trail, sleeping with my rifle as it was part of my anatomy. From that I learned something of human instincts. To be a male in a band of armed males. Being armed is something that is a comfort.
Recently I had been finding myself awake for hours and not able to go back to sleep. I found that arming myself – in this case just a good blade ( a Cold Steel Trailmaster) – I find it comforting enough to be able to sleep again once I wake up at 02:00 AM.
So, a teddy knife?
I kid. right by my bedside is a 9mm Beretta Px4. Yeah, it’s a comfort.
Yup. I went to this solution because I was having limited success imagining I was holding a 1911 or a FN FAL – neither of which is an option here in Japan – so I tried the BFK as a substitute and found it really helped.
It’s like you guys don’t even cannabis indica. Get a vape pen and something with the word purple in the strain name, and this problem is solved for you.
Trump to meet with Democrats about border wall/ government shutdown.
“Government shutdown” means “closing parks to tourists” and “paying for the time off for government workers who get a free extra vacation.”
The latter explains why Democrats like shutdowns so much.
Oh, absolutely. They get to posture and end up throwing a bone (paid for by us, the tax cattle) to their major contributors.
^This.
Actually – no pay IIRC – at least via Sequestration. Not sure about the “typical” gov’t paydown – but I didn’t get paid when I showed up to drill and got sent home early last year.
That’s because you’re military, not a bureaucrat, so paying you for work missed due to the shutdown is far less likely to reward a Democrat voter, volunteer, and public sector union member.
..and being military there is the strong possibility that they will send you somewhere which ends up in all future benefits being canceled. For them that’s feature, not bug.
(recently retired reservist)
Sequestration rules for the military are — if you’re on orders (Active duty or mobilized/ADOS) you continue to serve and will (eventually ) get paid for it.
All TDY and drills get cancelled.
Our org. wasted money because someone TDY in VA had to come home and then be sent right back when the budget was extended.
PAying for quick turn around plane tickets.
What spqr said. If you’re in the union, you will NEVER be denied pay.
Correct, but don’t believe for a minute that the union and management don’t claim THIS time Congress won’t approve back-pay (free vacation, whatever you want to call it) to keep the ‘crats whipped up.
I’ve got two stories associated with shutdowns:
1) When the Clinton/Congress shutdown loomed in 93 or 94. NPR ran a sob story about how a 17 year veteran of the IRS didn’t know how he was going to put Christmas presents under the tree because his pay was going to be delayed by a couple of weeks. It was a formative moment in my politics.
2) During one of the Obama shutdowns, he made a point of closing the parks. The head ranger for the Colonial Parkway in Williamsburg decided to shut the parkway down as a fuck you to all of the locals purportedly because there wouldn’t be any rangers to patrol the road and write tickets. The parkway is a significant method of access for those of us who live in the area. This also happens to be the same ranger who got run out of a park up in NOVA because of embezzlement shenanigans.
My favorite part is that they shut down the so-called “non-essential” things. Well, if they aren’t essential, why is the government doing them in the first place?
Stop hating America
That’s what I was told when I pointed out to a screaming leftist asshat that I wish any entity that was part of a government shutdown was immediately abolished as unneeded. Nothing pisses these marxist cunts more than you pointing out the wasteful nature of the nanny state.
I’ve had some kind of cold for over a week now. I would say I’m better but my nose still runs like a faucet when the decongestants wear off.
Your body likely already fought off the cold (you still have a fever?) and what you are dealing with is the clearing of the smegma from your system. If you are still running a fever after a week, you might want to check on that cold of yours. It may be something else.
I’m not saying it’s the plague, but…
Re Trump impeachment from CNN. I remember seeing that title on Obama in The National Enquirer a few years back.
“do the research on Stanley Kubrick,”
Athletes are so fricken stupid.
Ummm, Frank Ryan.
When you have to go back almost half a century for your counter example it may not be a convincing argument.
OK, how about John Urschel?
Damn it. I make an obnoxious joke and give you the chance to shine a good light on a Raven.
Kubrick’s 2001 moon was dying as he made the movie. Kubrick filmed his scenes using the “sharp edge” model of the lunar surface (minimal erosion because no atmosphere). Meanwhile the US was landing the Surveyor craft and the photos and data returned showed the “round edge” model was correct and that the surface could bear the weight of a man. It turns out that eons of micrometeorites and heat/cooling did round off the edges.
Let’s go with post 2016 athletes, m’kay?
Of course, I generalize but Curry has been one helluva cheerleader for the spread of TDS.
Ryan Fitzpatrick
1580 SAT scores, 48 put of 50 on the Wonderlic test and Graduated from Harvard with an Economics degree
So, a nobody.
You wouldn’t say that if you saw what he wore to a post-game press conference this year.
Fitzmagic vs Fitztragic.
That press conference was epic.
“The chest hair is mine.”
YEH BUT WHAT’S HIS STANCE ON TRUMP!?
We totally broke the Whistleblower protection laws and intimidated a witness to Clinton (and Mueller’s) crimes. But we would like to hush the whole thing up and make sure none of the guilty are punished.
Trump really needs to order those documents unsealed today and fire everyone involved tomorrow.
bwhahhahah
Tell me another joke Drake!
We may joke about this, but I am suspecting that the left’s 24/7/365 campaign demanding Trump impeachment is there precisely to prevent him from getting the criminal activities of the Obama administration related to the Clinton or Obama crime syndicates out to the people. I suspect that the level of abuse and criminal behavior by the US government during the Obama administration, as he weaponized it to be another of the dnc’s levers of power, would stun most Americans and shame most banana republics with how much shit the corrupt and criminal Obama administration got away with.
Don’t you know? Holding those fuckers accountable to the actual law would be obstruction of justice and grounds for impeachment!
The pigs are the law. And a a Federal District Courst Judge with no gag reflex and too lazy to wipe the cum off her lip will back the FBI
Young Scruffy agreed with von Fronkensteen
#metoo
Old Tundra still agrees.
Wouldn’t you have loved to party with this trio.
You might have died from cocaine poisoning, but you would have died happy.
Yes, who is the one on the left.
Amy Irving, model/actress. Married briefly to Spielberg.
A hottie for sure.
Amy Irving
I was 15 at the time so I probably would have splooged just from sitting among them.
Two nuns admit embezzling cash for Vegas gambling trips
Is this sad event better or worse than the priests diddling little kids? Let’s discuss…
In the spectrum of evil acts, buggery > thievery, so I’m going with “better”
Embezzled funds can theoretically be repaid. Other damages can’t be fixed.
Two nuns who worked at a Catholic school in California have admitted embezzling about $500,000 (£396,000) and using it to gamble in Las Vegas.
That just screams “buddy comedy”. These nuns should shop the film rights to their capers and use the money to pay back the school.
Starring Whoopi Goldberg?
Only if Ted Danson plays the other nun….
I like the way you think.
Quick question for gifting – I thought Amazon Prime was shifting to a tiered approach (basically normal folks subsidizing lower rates for some folks – ie. lower income) – Looking at options for my folks who are retired and on a smaller fixed income – but the only alternative level I see is “student”. Anyone have a link or info to other things – or did Amazon modify their plans after the initial announcement?
I think they only offer the reduced rate Prime membership to Medicaid and/or SNAP recipients.
Why would they do that?
They take food stamps?
To encourage an increase in the number of poor people? Same as every other idea from the left.
Is there a link to it though? Don’t think they’re that “limited” – and I’ll probably just gift them a full thing, but didn’t see any info on the site.
Here’s a link to the page for the Medicaid/EBT program.
Gracias.
I don’t believe in Steph Curry. Big deal.
Nobody wants staph in their curry.
I assume all indian food comes with the risk of diarrhea?
I’m thoroughly ignorant on the subject of the business cycle, but numerous Austrian economists are looking at things like interest rates and various auguries and are predicting another downturn in the near future. Do you agree and what steps do you take to protect your personal finances if so?
I predict more downturns and upturns in the future.
Markets will fluctuate.
Debt loads are astronomical. A recession in the near term is almost unavoidable.
Stay in liquid assets and don’t go long on anything.
Weening the market off a decade of 0% effective interest will be painful, particularly for the resultant equity bubble. Don’t count on the Fed’s resolve lasting longer than the 2020 election though. If Trump loses rates go negative and equities get to be happy again. If he wins, they stabilize for a while. Unless you’re retiring in the next 5 years just leave your money where it is.
“Weening the market off a decade of 0% effective interest will be painful, particularly for the resultant equity bubble.”
With the debt we have today, letting interests go higher 1% would cripple the US government’s ability to allocate a large proportion of the money they fleece the productive segment for every year to vote buying schemes and scams. Heck, the US interest payment segment of the annual budget would end up higher than what we spend on the military and become even larger than the vote buying portion of the budget. There is no way that the powers that be – the ones that want to continue to tax and spend so government retains the power to pick winners & losers – were happy with the Trump economy and allowing it to persist. Obama was right when he told people to get used to shitty annual growth to the GDP, because that was the only allowable scenario that would not implode the over leveraged collectivist nanny state western world’s economic system. you know, the wholly collectivist shitshow that they claim is capitalism but has nothing in common with capitalism and is just another variant of the fascist system where government colludes with the business world to decide who wins and who loses.
Investing is the one field where diversity really is a strength. I have a mix of stocks and mutual funds that are spread throughout equities, bonds, real estate trusts and precious metals. I review my portfolio once a year and tend to invest in out of favor funds with my new money but sell very little of what I own unless it just makes zero sense anymore (Kodak anyone?).
Extremely low load Vanguard stock mutual funds reflecting the broad market, and real estate.
And then not selling because the stock market had a bad day or week or month. Just buy and forget.
Buy at the bottom of the downturn.
Figuring where that is is the trick.
I guessed well on PG&E and made a quick 1500. Probably should have waited another 2 days to sell.
Why are they still publically traded? I mean they’re effectively a government agency at this point, just have a merger already.
I keep seeing commercials for the Fidelity zero expense funds. They seem to be pushing Vanguard for the low cost leader.
Diversification is job one: holdings and markets. The problem there is security versus liquidity: a pretty acre just outside of Raleigh is very stable, but it’s hard to cash in or trade for bait, bullets, or beer. Securities and cash are much more liquid but much more volatile. The idea is to own assets that don’t all crash at the same time; of course, they won’t all rise at the same time, either. I don’t believe in any plan that doesn’t have a mix of pretty much everything.
If you think this is a short-run dip, then it’s just a way to dollar-cost-average.
If you think a deep adjustment is coming, you can hedge. Think of a put as an insurance policy that pays off if an asset falls far enough; like car insurance, though, if you don’t have a wreck, it’s just money down the crawdad hole for a bit of peace. Options must necessarily lose some of their value most of the time: you’re writing and buy a lot of paper, a great deal of which never gets used: this is not a game for the faint of heart.
The biggest lie people tell themselves is that they can pick stocks or time the market. We’ve known for a long time that we can’t,, and your question is, and I write this as a friend, another way of saying “there’s this change in the wind that everyone knows about but somehow it’s not reflected in the prices today; miraculously, I in my housecoat will divine the proper valuation before anyone else based on a swirl of rumors, make all the right trades, and position myself ahead of all the experts in the world who have all the data and are expert in optimizing the transactions involved. Later, when the world realizes how smart I am = profit.”
The things that are known are priced in; things unknown are unknowable. The choice is between calm investing or wild speculation; if your family made money on the tulip rush, maybe you have the right speculating gene; I’m ScotsIrish, and my people have been making very bad guesses for centuries.
I understand your rebuke and its implications, but I’m young and don’t really have any significant money invested. Rather than “how do I profit?” I’m worrying about “how do I make sure I don’t lose my job or house?” when things go bad. I will read and educate myself on your links as soon as I finish this afternoon hike and am thankful for your response.
1) set a long term goal – “I want to retire at 57 with $1.8M in my retirement accounts and no debt”
2) identify and ameliorate your risks – what’s the worst that happens during a downturn? Maybe you lose your job for 6 months. Do you have enough to cover your living expenses for 6 months? Could you save up enough to cover your expenses within a reasonable time frame? If not, are there costs to reduce (debt payments, for example)?
3) just keep contributing – stock prices are literal prices… The cost to purchase a good. You know another name for a bear market? A fire sale! Take advantage.
The FBI is just a criminal gang with the cover of law. Fuck those cocksuckers. And for the poor FBI counterintelligence mole stuck reading these pages, I just want to say that your wife swallows for me
It was not just the IRS & DOJ thatwere unleashed on the enemies of the dnc. The Obama admin weaponized the entire US government in the hopes of turning a corrupt and evil machine over to Hillary to wield against the enemies of the democratic party. The US intelligence apparatus leadership was replaced with sycophants and political hacks that would serve the democrats and their deep state. They spied on her political opposition and rigged the election for Hillary only to somehow have Trump win that rigged election, and have been in damage control and punish the plebes & Trump people mode ever since that happened. The fact that Obama and Hillary got away with real criminal activities while Trump is constantly accused of shit the left did or is doing, should leave every American worried about our country being a tyrannical banana republic. The left has no problems with this sort of evil and corrupt tyranny – as the fascist and communist movements that killed close to 180 million people and held 3 billion hostage to evil masters, proves in spades – as long as they are the ones in power.
Ebola cases are taking off at spectacular rate in the Congo. Nobody seems to want to talk about it.
I heard they made it to a signficiant city/regional hub.
As for the actual point. It’s the Congo. At this point the rape, murder, cannibalism, genocide, and hemmoraghic fevers are all part of the background noise, like hippo attacks.
Just imagine if they had exclusive access to a magic metal from outer space and kept out the colonists.
They’d be living in a monarchy and dressing like jungle animals?
What are Warlords but monarchs by another title?
It is all self-inflicted.
Ebola is self-inflicted?
Lack of sanitation, eating “bush-meat”, burning down clinics and stealing the medicine…
“eating “bush-meat””
Is that a euphemism for fish tacos?
“Steph Curry doesn’t believe in the moon landing.”
Who?
“Trump concerned about being impeached, sees it as a ‘real possibility,’ source says”
Source says. According to Jim Acosta. Sounds legit. *eye roll*
Although it wouldn’t surprise me if Trump were to actually say this to encourage impeachment talk to spur the Dems to higher levels of crazy, which only benefits Trump.
4d chess.
Who? – the second best point guard in the NBA, although he and Lozo are neck and neck
He and….who?
I dont watch bouncy-ball.
Are you actually LaVar Ball?
I’m irritated, if not troubled, by this new development on the left where they assert certain people are anti-semites.
With McInnes in the process of being, well, eradicated from the online world, The Daily Beast claimed he was an alleged anti-semite and white supremacist.
And they claim this is not fake news? He’s neither. Yet, there they are flat out lying.
Some jack off named Lloyd Grove.
But here’s the thing. It’s the progressive LEFT that are infamous for their anti-semitism. They know this which is why the MUST paint Gavin as a WS first because that usually accompanies being an AS.
Also.
CRTV and The Blaze merge. Over/under it works.
It’s always projection on the left. Whatever they accuse others of, they are actually doing ten times over.
Is that an assessment or an inquiry of our opinons?
Opinion!
I’m irritated, if not troubled, by this new development on the left where they assert certain people are anti-semites.
It wouldn’t be quite so bad except that the only sizeable population of legitimate anti-Semites left in this country are on the left and in the halls of academia.
Also, Nation of Islam.
Well the patreon thing with Sargon is absolutely nuts – kicked off with no explanation (initially) – despite not actually violating anything – because things/statements taken out of context from a discussion in a youtube video on someone else’s channel over 10 months ago – no connection whatsoever to the actual channel/creator/etc.
Nice to see Jordan Peterson and other folks standing up for him – but this is getting absolutely nuts – when there are virtually no alternative options – or they keep getting shut down by providers, etc.
On the bright side Titania is back on the twits
The left is always and everywhere the same. Same principles, same ideas, same behavior. Despite their rhetoric turning this country into 1930’s Germany is a wet dream for them.
It seems like McInnes and Benjamin and others are so popular they will wind up somewhere they’re appreciated.
Personally I don’t really agree with him politically much (I’m more of a Kmele Foster guy for that), but find McInnes incredibly entertaining.
Holy crap- you’re Gary Johnson?
That whooshed over my head. No, I definitely know what a Leppo is.
Know why they claim he’s a WS?
Because he says things like ‘The West is the Best’.
The Daily Beast claimed he was an alleged anti-semite and white supremacist.
And I hope McInnes sues them so many ways from next Tuesday that Tina Brown is reduced to providing him anal access to pay off the judgement.
I’m not sure how ‘new’ that development is.
They might be stepping it up, but that shit has been going on for a long time.
“Sources say” Trump is a witch.
BURN HIM!
But is he lighter than a duck?
Drown him first, and if he survives that, then hang and burn him!
You forgot the shoot, stab, and poison
/Rasputin
Glad you’re feeling better, Banjos.
Thanks, Tonio.
CRTV and The Blaze merge.
*blank look*
Tard Tuesday: IT’S HAPPENING
*Pssst – don’t mention the $125 Million sent to Hillary via the Clinton Foundation*
Or that Mueller was the bag man.
Yeah, Mueller’s investigation is only designed to distract from the actual criminality by the Dems and the other deep state assholes to prevent investigation of their malfeasance at any cost.
“Once again, DU was way ahead of the curve on this. Like months ahead when we knew their campaign coffers had been pumped with rubles.”
That’s solid-gold retarded.
Actually it is mostly projection. The left loves to accuse the other side of the real wrong, evil, criminal, or combination of all three shit they are always doing.
It’s not evil, criminal, or wrong if The Right People are doing it — and by Right, they mean Left.
That’s why we keep getting tyrannical shit happening – close to 200 million corpses and billions under the yoke of miserable and evil marxism – and it has all been leftists movements, even thought they desperately pretended fascists is right wing (it is socialism).
Will be interesting to see if the Rooskie gets a wrist slap like the one Imran Awan got.
Maybe if she has dirt on DSW?
I didn’t realize how much power Big Shoe wielded in politics.
Mostly because you can bribe them by as much as 50% off what you would normally need for a big lobbying group.
The typos sent #SmockingGun shooting up the trending chart as Twitter users delighted in references to smocks, apron-like garments usually worn to keep people clean while making artwork.
How odd. I immediately assumed it was derivative of “mocking” as in *subjecting to derision and ridicule*
Shows what I know.
“When will ya’ll figure out that he does this shit on purpose so it gains more traction and exposure?”
I don’t know… i could see it being genuine.
But it defiantly shows what kind of culture we live in where the ‘worst’ thing you can do is misspell a word. Then everyone on the internet has the right to display how much more intelligent they are than you because they can spell words correctly. It allows the otherwise unintelligent and drone like masses to exhibit superiority to everyone else.
It does annoy me that knowledge so often gets conflated with intelligence. Although I will admit I have used this to my advantage on many occasions – “I’m not smarter than you just because I know something you don’t, but I’m not going to correct you if you think that way”.
A Long Island father is going out on a limb to save his kids’ tree house.
FDNY firefighter John Lepper, 45, is battling the town of Babylon in federal court for ordering him to rip down the structure — which he built out of wood reclaimed from a boat wrecked by Hurricane Sandy, according to a notice of claim filed Monday.
“It’s bigger than the tree house. It’s about my constitutional rights,” Lepper said Monday. “I did everything I need to be in compliance, but yet it’s still a problem.”
“I built the tree house to keep my kids safe,” Lepper told The Post.
But later that month, building inspector Stephen Fellman told Lepper he may need a permit. Village code states that any playground larger than 90 square feet requires a permit.
Lepper, who worked as a contractor and went to drafting school, says the tree house is only 86 square feet, but he still submitted a permit application in May, according to court papers.
He claims the town never reviewed the application.
https://nypost.com/2018/12/11/long-island-firefighter-battling-court-to-keep-family-tree-house/
When you live in a society you cannot just build stuff willy-nilly
Were this a sane world, the court would strike down zoning laws and permit requirements as an uncompensated taking of property value by the government.
“Were this a sane world, the court would strike down zoning laws and permit requirements as an uncompensated taking of property value by the government.”
Perhaps, but couldn’t the same things be achieved by placing covenants on the titles?
Title covenants are as unconscionable as a will in perpetuity. It is attempting to both trasnfer and retain control at the same time.
nit pick, TRUST in perpetuity. and non nitpick. If the limitation is accepted by the purchaser it is no different than buying property subject to an easement. You bought a property that you knew had limitations on your use.
I happen to agree. I dislike HOA’s but when you buy a property you are made aware of the easements and covenants on them, and agree to them as part of the purchase.
Question for our leagal types: Is there anyway to get a covenant removed? eg: say a developer puts a rule on a title to ensure the land stays “zoned” for residential housing. But in 100 years the development patterns of the area make little sense for the area to be zoned for residential housing but for commercial districts, what would be the process for eliminating a covenant on a title, if any.
My first thought was “Well, with kelo, a connected person could get the local government to seize the property from them for them, stripping out any unfortunate riders on the title” But that’s not likely the process you mean.
Your intuition is on point, yes that is not the ideal process.
A court can always void a covenant if it no longer serves a purpose, has been substantially ignored for an extended period or is against public policy (racial restrictions for example).
I am not a legal type, so I don’t know how it actually works, but I think that in an ideal world it would works such that when one party to the contract becomes deceased the contract is voided. So if your contract/covenant was with an individual it will become null when the individual dies, if with an entity (HOA, company, government) it will become null when the entity is dissolved. So an HOA’s restrictions would cease to exist if the HOA’s members voted to dissolve the HOA. But again, that’s just how I think it should work, not how it actually works (which I do not know).
HOA modify their covenants all the time. The methods of doing so are part of the bylaws. Times change (for example, normal people drive trucks now), and the bylaws were usually written for the benefit of the developers instead of long-term residents (quorum requirements); these issues aren’t necessarily hard to deal with.
I’m treasurer of my HOA, the second board I’ve sat on. We function very well: just had a successful annual meeting. But I’m sure many of the others don’t.
I am sorry but I disagree.
First in much of the country it is literally impossible to purchase a home which is not riddled with covenants.
Second it is often the case that those covenants were placed at the direction of local government because they will not license the builder unless they agree to include those covenants.
Third I do not believe that it is possible for an individual to actually give informed consent to a perpetual contract. Forever is simply far too long a time span for a human to calculate and understand the risks and rewards of any action forget one as complex as a real estate purchase contract with it’s hundreds of pages of documents
I’m torn. As somebody who isn’t a radical individualist, I see the benefit in the original landowner putting restrictions on the usage of the property, even as it’s being carved up and sold off. No roosters in a 1/4 acre subdivision is a good restriction, and I don’t want that restriction to expire arbitrarily. The community was planned with a certain aesthetic and usage in mind, and part of the allure of living in such a community is that your neighbors are held accountable for deviating from the community’s purpose. Sure, it’s stupid when an HOA punishes you for using the wrong shade of beige, but your cookie cutter neighborhood is gonna look beige for the next 50 years! Some people want that, because their house’s property value is tied up in how tidy the neighborhood is. Why? Because there are 15 of that exact model for sale within a 10 mile radius.
On the other hand, I really hate the pressure local governments put on the builders to include these restrictions. I refuse to live in an HOA controlled neighborhood, and my pickings are becoming slimmer and slimmer with each passing day. Hell, there are 10 acre communities near me with highly restrictive HOAs. Congrats, you just signed up for meticulously maintaining the landscaping of 10 acres in perpetuity!!
You live in Suffolk County and you don’t realize the town is going to fuck you with a spiked dildo? Naive man.
“#SmockingGun sounds like an arts and crafts shop in Texas where kids build their own AR-15s,” wrote comedian Marie Connor.
That’s “alleged comedian” to you.
Tard Tuesday: Ponder the irony of a Dailykos writer musing on the meaning of 12 Angry Men in the Age of Social Media Crucifixions
We don’t discuss tax policy, social security, or even health care on a nuts and bolts basis anymore – I assume nuts and bolts means increase taxes and spending
Your assumption would be accurate when you hear this kind of talk from the usual marxist elements.
And “compassionate and right” means “stealing from and abridging the freedoms of icky bad people who aren’t far-left like me”
Compassionate is just a buzz word to provide a veneer of legitimacy to criminality.
The most tragic bit about democracy and group dynamics is that it’s always much easier to stand in front of a group and be strong and wrong, than be compassionate and right.
Makes it a lot easier when you’re neither strong or compassionate and still manage to be wrong.
We don’t discuss tax policy, social security, or even health care on a nuts and bolts basis anymore.
That’s because we don’t accept your premises, which means that we have no framework with which to discuss your nuts and bolts.
Very true: it’s much easier to see a man in need and say to a third party “steal someone else’s money and give it to this man” than it is to actually bother to meet the man’s needs of your own efforts.
OT: made it to the second level for an interview . . . assistant corporate counsel for a large local non-profit.
Fingers crossed I make it to the “panel” style interview. If it had been up to the second interviewer, I think I’d be in. Oddly enough, he and I started in law school the same term, and he sat down the row from me in class. The “small world” coincidence shouldn’t hurt.
re: panel interviews: why? People, just make your decision, don’t wait for the rest of the world to wipe its ass while you make the decisions together….
Unless it’s an audition for Flashdance, panel interviews are for the interviewers to strut in front of each other.
A troubling trend in IT hiring has been to have “tests” where a candidate has to talk through a program with a few other developers.
When I was hiring, I was completely against them (and still am). Too many times the tests are full of esoteric questions that have no bearing on how real development is done. It is completely because the other developers are channeling their inner Nick the Computer Guy and want to show off about how they knew all that shit.
When I was looking for a gig last year I had an interview at two places on the same day. At one the test was all crazy scope questions that were all based on tricks of formatting and closures. The interviewers were all young developers who wanted to strut their stuff. The other interview was with managers who gave me a problem and told me to use a laptop to look up anything I wanted and then gave me a general problem. I don’t think I even finished with the actual pseudo code for them. Instead we talked about the process and the issues to consider.
180 degree difference. Even sillier is that neither of these companies are what I would call “hard core” dev shops.
I have repeatedly told people what you need to look for is a willingness to keep learning new things and a hardcore self motivated streak to finish work in potential employees. Not people that interview well and can go through these prepared idiotic interviews. In practice we have had trouble with all but a few of the candidates that got hired by the people using these “tests” as entry level barriers.
My question for the panelists after the interview: Would you want to sit in the cube next to him for the next year?
Technical stuff can be taught. If you are honest you will admit that every shop has its own way of doing things and there is nothing worse than getting some prima donna who won’t change their ways to fit in.
No. I get along better with people the more empty cubes there are between me and them.
And that is something I agree with you Jimbo is the most important reason to look at the employees ability to be flexible and learn how to do things the way you require it to be: willingness to learn how to do the work – the way your shop expects it to be done – is far more important than having a real knowledgeable individual that actually will be irked you have these expectations.
You have no idea how many hours I have wasted talking to recent hires that refuse to accept that the way they want to do it, while technically feasible/right, will not suffice for our shop and is why they are stuck and unable to proceed. In the end you have to get misdeal, tell them to do what you want or else, and that is never fun.
I notice in the solid modeling of products (on the platforms with which I’m familiar) there are any number of approaches to that will render a technically accurate model suitable for export to the client or for tooling, but there are only a couple of ways that result in a model that is easy to later modify. Of those couple of ways, a company needs to stick to one for consistently rapid changes. New, creative guys have got to learn these ropes or they’ll create a lot of problems.
There’s a lot of shops with some REALLY STUPID “ways” though.
Case in point: My previous boss’ #1 rule was “Never check in commented-out code. Don’t leave in what is no good anymore.” My current boss’ #1 rule is “Never ever delete a line of code – comment it out.” And he will review every source object and compare with the previous version to make sure the rule is followed.
Here’s the reality: I think I’ve probably re-instated commented-out code about 0.001% of the time. Every time it was an entire section of code that was replaced with an experiment that a higher-up insisted be done despite everyone else insisting that it was a half-assed idea or just plain stupid to begin with.
Conclusion: the current boss’ rule is stupid. Archive your code if you’re that worried about non-functioning code suddenly becoming valuable. I think I’ve looked at a code archive about 5 times in the last 25 years, and each time it was because a higher up flat-out lied about “the way it used to work” and I called them on their shit.
We had a coworker who refused to throw away data and had ‘backups of backups of things we didn’t use anymore’. when he went to another agency, we cleared up terabytes of disk space.
If his time is so worthless he can do this, his position should be eliminated.
Ironically, he’s actually a good guy. But he got thrown into leading a project that is doomed and he knows he has to cover his ass when the thing eventually gets shitcanned. He was sort of last man standing when more experienced people all left in quick succession and he got a huge raise to stay. I’m sure he’s regretting it and probably looking to move on, but sometimes it’s hard to risk the urge to take that pay increase and responsibility increase as a learning experience that will personally help in in the long run.
Also, he has to deal with two dozen off-shored consultants and I think he’s been burned by that in the past and probably spent weeks going through archived code to undo their mistakes.
Most shop rules are governed by experience but they need to be revisited from time to time or they become a bureaucratic excuse.
Crap, I only got 1/2 of those traits.
This is why we dinged you for your constant over estimation of a situation and unfounded optimism.
I had something like that happen to me last week, but it wasn’t because of a pissing contest. I was interviewing for a technical job, and four suitable principals were involved (includes president), but the interview got a little crazy when the president saw me and went diving back into my resume: I was clearly the pearl missing from his sales necklace, and the tech job could wait for some other day to go to some guy in khakis.
So there I am pitching for a job on the other side of the universe from the one I was invited to interview for, and the panel is kibbitzing between themselves over what they think. What this has in common with your comment is that I had to interrupt and almost talk over them: I’ve got an hour or so to make the case for myself, and I can’t let people who aren’t prepared well for the situation stop me from shaping the conversation and showcasing the right points from my career. . . half of which aren’t on the resume they have because it’s not remotely tuned for the new goal at hand. This leaves me a bit scrambling, talking a bit faster than I think makes for warm chat, machine-gunning through milestones; I carefully wrapped up by laughing with them about the stream-of-consciousness ride, a humble brag since I knew I had put on a pretty good show, taken it to the edge, and got the job done.
Anywho, I go back Thursday.
Good luck. I hate this whole thing.
I am morally opposed to “non-profit” entities.
The incentives are all skewed wrong.
SP, who has a lot of experience in that area, says, “Non-profit does not mean non-money. It’s purely a tax arrangement.”
Which is why I don’t trust them and stand morally opposed.
No more sensible than being “opposed” to an LLC or a C corp. Morality is irrelevant, it’s just one of many ways to structure for taxes and liability. Some people have a weird idea that non-profits have some sort of moral superiority, which is just as weird of a belief.
Don’t you work for the government?
It makes me acutely aware of how skewed incentives can get.
We used panel interviews effectively to deliberately stress candidates. We would always pre-arrange question order to make the candidate change direction constantly. Yes, that’s pretty asshole-ish, but working in industrial product development is a stressful way to make a living, and it’s best to screen out those who can’t relax and enjoy themselves.
Best of luck on snagging the job!
Of course I can’t relax, the one thing between me and the job is people playing terrible mind games.
Though if that’s regarded as acceptable, it sounds like a rather toxic environment. Are you sure you want to work there?
I don’t, but it’s not because of the interview process (mine was actually pretty easy). Our group’s environment is the furthest thing from toxic, but that because we screened for people who don’t get nasty or break down under pressure. It’s some very smart people who accomplish some (IMO) amazing things.
I’m just teasing.
My real problem with interviews is my tendency to not speak to a person until I’ve figured out how they will react to what I am going to say. Since that is a protracted process, it really hampers first impressions.
I had a law school friend who made it through a big law interview. One day was filled with interviews with different people, some who he’d report to, others were co-workers. One of the potential co-workers ignored the guy -once the interview began – for 20 minutes. Talk about mind games.
I like that kind of stuff. It let’s me know exactly who the fuckheads are.
We do panels allegedly to save time for both interviewer and candidates. Not sure if it works, but that is the stated cause.
That’s silly. Each additional person added to a meeting of any sort multiplies the duration by some fraction larger than one that varies by the individual. It’s liable to either run overlong or to be truncated before all the relevant topics can be addressed.
Largely, although not entirely because government makes the prospect of removing someone who isn’t working out so dangerous and potentially expensive.
Good luck.
Related: I’ve been interviewing people recently (I hate it). Though I’ve managed to hire several new people in the past couple weeks.
I’d hate giving the interviews as well.
I hated not being able to ask “Are you ever going to actually answer one of the questions, or are you just going to keep reading from the first google result on the keywords?”
Local View: Putin Republicans outed by Cohen’s testimony
Certainly nothing wrong with the logic.
And these people accuse people like Alex Jones and other conspiracy theorists of being crazy without seeing the irony I bet.
” the FBI are the tools to ensure fundamental rights”
This person is a prime example of the “unintelligent masses” that I was talking about above. Let’s pretend to be superior because we don’t make spelling mistakes, but then spout out things that show incredible historical ignorance.
The official counts are in on all those miraculous come-from-behind Democrat victories in Orange county. One precinct had 120% turnout.
I would be suspicious if I had not been assured there was no such thing as voter fraud.
Yeah, this shit is why I am skeptical of the “blue wave” talk. Although if they get away with this now, look for even more of it in 2020.
Didn’t you hear? Voter fraud has been found, and it was only the Republicans doing it. They were making the false accusations this whole time to throw everyone off the scent.
I remember one district in Philadelphia had a 100%+ turnout and every single vote, every one of them, were cast for Obama. Not long after that one of the writers at TOS (Bailey?) called us nuts for believing there is voter fraud. It was laughable.
If the Republicans don’t fight the ballot harvesting law — the one allowing the chain of custody for ballots to be broken — all the way to SCOTUS, they deserve it when 100% of congressional seats in CA go to Ds next year.
This was a practice run.
I’ll admit up front, this next story is just to yank Tundra’s chain.
Behold the wisdom of a City Council member of Minneapolis.
I’m not Tundra, and I’m annoyed.
Fuck me.
Remember the other day when i claimed that the new zoning laws were lipstick on a pig? I’ll say it again: welcome to Detroit-on-the-Mississippi.
Making it useless as a form of ID.
^This^
If they start forcing businesses to accept this, expect all the banks to flee the city limits. Minneapolis will become the capital of fraud.
I’m wondering how long before TSA is forced to accept the ID’s issued by sanctuary cities for air travel. I actually hope so. I can use that instead of the new RealID driver’s license they want to give me.
He has it all backwards. It is easier just to require the wrong kinds of people to wear some kind of mark on their clothing. Maybe like a gold star or something.
If it’s anything like NY’s, it will serve mostly as a means to identify illegal immigrants and shower benefits on them.
Clyde Bellecourt, the guy who ordered the murder of Anna Mae Aquash. What a community treasure.
https://youtu.be/yNx1i8Gx3hM
A student club at the University of London is requiring that all comedians sign a “behavioral agreement” as a condition of performing at a January comedy night.
According to emails reviewed by PJ Media, the UNICEF on Campus chapter at the University of London sent five local comedians — including Russian-born free speech advocate Konstantin Kisin — a request to perform.
“Attached is a short behavioural agreement form that we will ask for you to sign on the day to avoid problems,” wrote Fisayo Eniolorunda, the club’s event organizer, in an email to Kisin and four other comedians sent Sunday.
“This comedy night… aims to provide a safe space for everyone to share and listen to Comedy,” states the behavioral agreement form. “This contract has been written to ensure an environment where joy, love, and acceptance are reciprocated by all.”
“By signing this contract, you are agreeing to our no tolerance policy with regards to racism, sexism, classism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia or anti-religion or anti-atheism.”
https://pjmedia.com/trending/students-demand-comedian-sign-safe-space-contract-ahead-of-charity-event/
So… what is left to tell jokes about? Hey kids how about those peanuts hahahahah
I chose not to share that story because they have this annoying ‘click to see more’ setup instead of just loading the whole darn story.
You know what comedy is without racism, sexism, classism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia or anti-religion or anti-atheism? A campus lecture hall.
To be clear, it is more of what can some snowflake decide to interpret as those things than those things in themselves
The real joke will be when comedians who are dedicated to their art sign that contract, and then do a set entirely composed of the banned jokes, perhaps by prefacing them with “here is the sort of joke that is banned …”
“Hey kids how about those peanuts hahahahah”
That’s insensitive to the over 40% of people with a peanut allergy!!!! KILL
HIMZER!And “other” students with peanut allergies? You’re a monster.
Yep. I can’t image one of them making me crack a smile unless he fell off the stage.
“Did you hear the one about the fascist university administration? Yeah, neither did anybody else.”
To avoid problems. By problems he means ‘jokes’.
What self-respecting person would sign that? They need to tell them to grow up and/or fuck off.
I snickered as a I signed a petition for Johns Hopkins grad students to receive health benefits as part of their compensation. JHU is responsible for a large portion of the public health experts advocating for more socialized health initiatives. Figure they should get a taste of their own medicine.
RE: Topic of kids and smartphones/tech. (I hope this isn’t as long as I fear it will be.)
I very infrequently have Get Off My Lawn moments….but I absolutely believe that it’s inherently unhealthy to give screen tech to kids. Many to most of my kids are straight up, no shit addicted to their phones. They caress them in a distinctly Gollum-esque way. I make them put them down and they–without thinking–have them back in their hands, eyes buried at the screen, within seconds.
When I then take them away they frequently wig out. Again, as if you’re taking away the One Ring. They get agitated and squirm and fidget further.
Granted, Korean kids are boring, but when they go on vacation I’ll ask them what they liked. I would say over 90% of them say that staying in the hotel (they fucking LOVE hotels) and playing phone games was hands-down the best thing that they did. Fucking. Losers.
I also think at young ages it fundamentally alters their very understanding of the world. In Singapore I had a 5-year-old student. Very bright. I showed them a globe.The girl touched the it and tried to zoom in with her fingers. She was shocked that nothing happened.
I’m a strong proponent of You Can’t Break the Rules Until You Master Them. These kids, on a neuronal level, are being fed faulty inputs that they have no ability to discern from reality. Actual Allegory of the Cave shit. I always tell the (very few) kids that don’t have phones or just a flip phone that I really respect their parents. Anecdotally, those kids tend to be much better adjusted.
This is why I’m not worried about Korean competition. An eleven year old was doodling math equations on his notebook absentmindedly. I saw the quadratic formula and the one to calculate the volume of a sphere. He is a brilliant factory worker that has no ability to think for himself or create.
Twelve more days.
I’ve never seen a kid freak out as much as when you take their touchscreen away, though after a minute long total meltdown they usually move on to something else in the physical realm.
But it also turns them into neurotic twits obsessed with pleasing the in-group and othering the out-group, which will come in handy in college, so there’s that.
I’m a strong proponent of You Can’t Break the Rules Until You Master Them.
I second this. And the reason so: mastering the rules is what enables you to break them wisely instead of foolishly.
See also: Music, drumming in my case. Especially jazz, but that’s not really what I’m about. I’m mostly a rock/funk/punk drummer. Though I did start playing jazz. That’s how you get good. Don’t you dare try to bend time or syncopate until you absolutely fucking know what you’re doing. Stay in the pocket until you’re good enough to have a voice.
However, I’ve got a jazzy show this Friday with an insanely talented violinist who is going to be touring Spain/Europe in a few weeks, and an encyclopedic pianist who can play anything. The latter of whom I’ve written a bunch of music with.
I’m thrilled to be able to be able to hold my own with them. It takes a lot of work before you can even risk trying to get funky, and people who try too soon are going to embarrass themselves.
Cosby put it very well.
On the road to socialism: What a people’s economics might look like
Seems more of the same nonsense
Their ideas are over 100 years old and just keep getting repackaged.
Yes, decoupling labor from the demand for goods and services is certainly the path forward. Somebody get this man a grant application.
Or a one way ticket to Pyongyang accompanied by a petition to work in Nork for five years to see, in perpetuity, what this compassionate socialism leads to.
I wouldn’t put it past the Norks to set up a potemkin village for these sorts of arrivals to delude them into thinking it’s all great and wonderful in the hermit kingdom.
“What a people’s economy might look like”
We know what it looks like. There are a few of them around right now.
Because i want to, lets Break this down:
Assertion and thesis:Private companies don’t serve the public good -> Therefore -> Execs won’t employ people at a loss to the company (Paraphrasing but i think still inline with their argument)
They then support that by stating; “Their obligation is to create value for shareholders..”. This is true, this is both the fiduciary and moral obligation of officers and managers of companies. then they continue: ” not serve the well-being of Americans who have served them and created their wealth.” This is just not true on a multitude of ways. First it treats the groups of “Labor” and “Shareholders” as if they are different and exclusive. In other words you cannot be one and be the other. But this is not the case. Any laborer who has any semblance of a retirement account is a shareholder. So immediately this would include any laborer in a Union, or Public Sector employee. I’m fairly certain by the tenor of this argument that these people are not the ones the author wanted to deride.
But perhaps the author meant the statement in a more narrow way, that the laborer is not included in the benefits of the company that they work for. If the company has a stellar year, they don’t (automatically, let’s ignore bonuses for the moment) get a share of the benefit. But that ignores the nature of that laborers relationship to the company. Simply the laborer is another vendor to the company, particularly one who sells his labor to the company. So to say they are not being served for creating the wealth makes as much sense as saying that the company doesn’t take into account the other vendors when it makes it’s production decisions. And why should it, the company is the one taking the risk. To go back, if the company has a poor year, the laborer still get’s paid for the work he sold to the company. He shares no losses, so why should he share in the profits? Furthermore, continuing to operate with unneeded labor would result in depressed wages for the employees. And Laborers do not serve the public good, and paying them less to ensure constant employment would not encourage them to ignore the laws of capitalism and seek higher paying jobs elsewhere. Their obligation is to create value and wealth for themselves and their families, not serve the well-being of laborers who work with them and create the wealth from which they are paid.
Hey now, the soviets worked out great.
In the end, most socialist arguments amount to a poor abstraction/modeling of the economy. If private companies have no incentive for the “public good”, then the private laborers would most assuredly have no incentive to work towards the “public good”.
Capitalism has the benefit of utilizing the baser portions of human nature for the betterment of all.
Yeah, but where is the mechanism that allows the top men to pick what/who should be rewarded and what/who should be punished, huh? How can you have social justice when the reward or punishment is arbitrary? Shit, the wrong people might get rich and get power, while the ones that deserve equality of outcome (don’t ask why they deserve it, just accept that they do), get shafted….
“Social Justice” is not about actual justice.
Well DUH!
It’s about making sure only the right people are getting their due, and the wrong people get punished!
“Social justice” is just a euphemism for collective punishment, based on race, sex, and/or religion.
And SJWs think they hold the high ground.
Socialism is about imposing an impossible reality – because of the laws of nature and human nature – on the real reality. Be said reality economic, history, science, or anything else, in the name of the creation of heaven on earth. At least the old time religions were smart enough to promise heaven (or hell) after life ended, so nobody could verify it could be delivered or not. With socialism – despite 100 years of atrocities, close to 200 million bodies, billions living in misery, and the world heading off a precipice because of the tax & spend vote buying policies of the socialists – these people keep telling us they can create heaven on earth, but constantly deliver hell.
The handful of shares an employee might have in their 401k does not factor in to their relationship with the company with regards to their pay for services rendered. Until you get into roles where stock options and their value make a significant amount of the remunderation, it also doesn’t factor into the working relationship between employee and company when providing said services. So for the purposes of examining the relationships between the pair, shareholders and laborers can be regarded as separate classes, even if there are people who fall into both.
Read my second paragraph.
I did, I read it all.
You ramble a lot and don’t seem to have a singular point you were aiming at.
*Ken Schultz hardest hit*
Dammit Jim I’m a commenter, not a Doctor.
But precisely, my second paragraph does address the fact that laborers are rarely shareholders of the company the actually work for. But i get that you don’t want to admit that your entire comment was a lengthy bit of irrelevant information to what i was actually writing about.
Since when does relevence have anything to do with it?
fair enough 😉
Greed is to economics what air resistance is to physics. If you ignore them as a factor, you can easily prove a lot of things with some elegant math. Unfortunately the clever solution on the chalkboard never pans out in real life when those factors actually come back into play.
That’s a great analogy. I’m going to play the socialist and “borrow” it, for the good of the people.
Their intent was to cap government spending so there’d be less need for local, state, and federal taxes. This was also when wealth grew more concentrated in the U.S. As wealthy contributors enjoyed the flow of wealth to top income tiers, more capital was invested in political schemes to limit representation and rights and to influence policy.
This is a popular new talking point. Wealth concentration has killed democracy. We’re all serfs, now; laboring solely for the benefit of our plutocratic oppressors.
Meh, it’s not entirely without merit. A relative handful of politically-connected and politically-activist companies control enough of the economic resources that they are effectively policymakers.
democracy = rule by truckdrivers
The same folks who want to legislate how you live can’t even merge from an on-ramp. Your doctor, your plumber, the judge who wrote the custody holdings of your divorce decree, and the bitch who put mayo on your brat were all on the interstate last night proving that they can’t be trusted with the simplest acts of community. Democracy is believing that people become useful the moment they park their cars.
Similar to the saying, “To see what the churchgoers actually believe, listen to them in the parking lot after church gets out.” This holds more true if the priest did a longer sermon, and the game is about to start.
chrissakes, I didn’t post that within three miles of the comment I had wished to reply to.
That is the best one I have heard in a long time Don.
Trump to meet with Democrats about border wall/ government shutdown.
Pelosi has already stated that the wall is off the table because bipartisan compromise or something.
Titty Tuesday brings joy into your otherwise colorless life.
http://archive.is/PViwd
1, 10, 11R, 26.
Quite a nice selection. 3, 16, 24, 27.
22 seems like she is literally anorexic.
1, 26, 30
With assistance from James Buchanan of George Mason University, Koch and friends gradually influenced the election of GOP candidates, using wealth to select candidates who sounded like Libertarians.
And all this time I thought they hated James Buchanan because he pulled back the curtain on Public Choice Theory.
Seems the same democracy in chains bullshit repeated
Facebook patents tech that can guess where you’re going next
This sounds like stuff nerds come up with when they get bored. A bunch of guys were like, “Hey, look what we can do! We should make something with this!” and it became a feature.
A relative handful of politically-connected and politically-activist companies control enough of the economic resources that they are effectively policymakers.
The part where they pretend politicians are some sort of hapless unsuspecting victims is what galls me.
Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn & the Gulag Archipelago. It’s a slog. I started it some years ago and “took a break” about 1/4 in. Read “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” instead. Same idea, different-shorter-format. I assign it to my freshman class and most of them enjoy it.
Second this. One day is a good story. Archipelago is a slog.
But details matter.
Do those freshmen draw some relevant conclusions about the socialism they likely favor?
To some extent. And, during lectures, I beat them over the head with Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc. and emphasize the economic arguments of socialism.
And yet, while capitalist economics is a problem, to be sure, which can only be solved through radical overhaul, a big part of the problem is also an entrenched capitalist cultural mentality which focuses on the wealthy rather than the workers as key driver of economic health.
If that focus were shifted, turned around, to focus on workers and their well-being, even from the perspective of capitalist economics, we would have a healthier and more humane economy.
Save the buggy whip makers!
…a big part of the problem is also an entrenched capitalist cultural mentality which focuses on the wealthy rather than the workers as key driver of economic health.
There’s a reason for that. Most workers are, bluntly, not terribly important to the health of a company or an economy. A great many are replaceable with little or no effect on a company’s bottom line. For most firms, there’s a small group of people whose presence or absence might alter the company’s fortunes on an ongoing basis.
It’s an ugly truth. One that should be pretty humbling for most of us. But, ignoring it leaves us with idiocy like this.
Yep – I’m just a cog in the machine. If I left or got fired/laid off, there would be many short term repercussions, and a few long-term ones. But the company would hire someone else, outsource my work to consultants, or get by with a prayer. It would cost them $$$ and time but not enough to cause bankruptcy.
And that’s the truth for pretty much most people (myself included). A healthy organization should be able to get by if any one of it’s members were to be removed. That doesn’t mean that the company should be able to get by without them for no cost (there will almost always be a cost), but they should be able to absorb it.
Just because you’re necessary doesn’t mean you’re important.
There’s the workers whose output is vital to the company, but where a replacement worker can be fairly readily hired, the workers whose output is not only vital but so creative and individualized that they can’t be replaced (workers like Steve Jobs, say), and then there’s the deadwood whose firing would have a positive impact. The latter is who the author of this article wants protected from firing.
Apparently Krugman is starting a school. As in people are gonna pay for shit like this:
https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1072120074650181632
“Paul Krugman Retweeted Greg Sargent
There’s a new axis of evil: Russia, Saudi Arabia — and the United States”
I’ve located his first student.
Meet Pedro:
Pedro José Rivera Rivera
“This is not just a petty “disagreement”, these actions against the planet are a frontal attack on life, on a planetary scale, that will indeed result in annihilation. There’s no better definition of evil than precisely that.”
Vote for Pedro.
Only if Napoleon tells Uncle Rico he is an asshat for claiming he once threw a football right over some mountains man.
If Trump is this Hitlerian despot then why are these people not dead? I would think the defining characteristic of a despot is killing critics.
Because the Resistance is just too brave and noble to be killed off by a punk like Trump.
Because for marxists, true evil is not a function of the body count or collectivized misery produced by their ideology, as much as it is a function of the problem that they are not in power and making the choices of who wins and who loses.
classic
Congrats King County – you get to pay a motorcyclist $65k for the actions of a crazy cop AND keep paying that cop’s salary and benefits.
The cop was suspended for 5 days without pay? That’s the cop equivalent of someone spending like 30 years in prison.
Would have been funny of an actual traffic cop saw it and shot the out-of-uniform gun-waving douche.
Apparently, Times has named “the Guardians of Truth” as person(s) of the year.
*You know, “journalists”. Yeah, I laughed, too.
Guardians of the Truth in the sense that prison guards are Guardians of the Convicts.
That’s similar to how the Academy loves them some movies about the movie industry.
Quite limber to be able to suck their own cocks like that.
France’s rioting Deplorables.
https://www.city-journal.org/police-handling-of-paris-riots?fbclid=IwAR1aSi_0OLHCjkMaCi5H10cXMmkKawmT8h71GCsAwIejdUcwdXtbi2XF3Cg
No way things can go sideways according to glowing review of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. They are one election away from being able to purge those dastardly middle of the roaders from the Democratic party.
By the way, notice that Minnesoda gal Ilhan Omar was elected whip of the CPC, while party girl Ocasio-Cortez got nuthin’.
Karla Marx ticked off Pelosi by opposing her for leader. That’s why she got shafted.
Goodness me, they’re publishing that pile of ass-kissing as straight news?! The NYT isn’t that brazen.
Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night, I guess.
Maybe when the Democrats held the House and Senate for 26 straight years they could’ve claimed a mandate. But no party has been able to hold both houses of Congress for more than 6 years since the early 1990s. Winning one election is not a mandate.
They had to pretend it’s a mandate, or all that voter fraud will have been for nothing!
Not to mention that, while the Dems have indeed moved farther to the left as a whole, I think the progressive fringe are fooling themselves if they believe they’re the “soul” of the party. When she says “we”, I’m taking that to refer to her and her far-left buddies.
The Psychology of Memory and the 2016 Election
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2018/12/09/memory-2016-election/#.XA-p–KxVaQ
“Keep in mind that Ocasio-Cortez was an honors graduate of Boston University.”
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/12/ocasio-cortez-watch.php
So I think BU should have its accreditation pulled.
University degrees in the non-hard sciences are worthless when used as a predictor of intelligence.
I felt a lot dumber having bought one. At least it wasn’t my own money.
But you should expect them to have at least a passing knowledge of the subject matter, which Ocasio-Cortez obviously lacks.
She has a degree in economics. While one can make the argument that economics is not as hard of a science as Math, Physics, Chemistry, or even engineering disciplines (not social engineering however), it still is based on and governed by some science. That we have a whole school of economics that has chosen to ignore reality and actually peddles marxism, is not the fault of economics in general.
‘Blindingly stupid’ is a wonderful phrase.
French protesters show up with guillotine. Lol.
https://hotair.com/archives/2018/12/11/full-macron-cave-wage-increases-tax-relief/
Who’s the “Florida Women” in that picture?
Virginia high school teacher fired for refusing to use transgender student’s new pronouns
This is local to me and the school system is under pressure to reverse the decision from their constituents. However I doubt it will happen because of the threat of lawsuits from national advocacy groups.
I hope this teacher has some pro bono offer to take this school to the cleaner. Compelled speech, especially by government entities, is just downright tyrannical, and not something we should allow to take any ground ever.
Compelled speech, especially by government entities, is just downright tyrannical, and not something we should allow to take any ground ever.
This is one of those sticky circumstances where the only answer that doesn’t feel dirty is “abolish public schools”
Compelled speech as a condition of employment feels less dirty than calling the kid unwanted names in a cumpulsory schooling setting.
Why do you hate Protestants?
Do you want a Bible war? Because this is how you get a Bible war!
From the story,
It seems to me that the issue could be chalked up to disparate treatment, and thus discrimination. However, if Vlaming had not used any pronouns for any student (an admittedly rather difficult task), would it still be discriminatory?
Also,
Heh. I guess even PC Principal can’t keep it all straight. And I’m pretty sure there are far worse ways to treat a child, even in the realm of hyperbole. That doesn’t even get into the question of a child getting to tell an adult what to do.
It took me awhile to figure out why the teacher had to use any pronouns to refer to students. “You” is gender-neutral in English. And why would a teacher use “he” or “she” to refer to a student present in the classroom? Other than “he/she” and “his/her” nothing else reveals gender in the English grammar.
But then I saw that it was a French teacher. It’s way harder to stay “gender-neutral” while speaking French.
And that’s King William County, a middle of nowhere rural county.
And this is how speech codes become mainstreamed and then expanded in the US
But, isn’t that exactly what said pupil wants? If you’re known to be biologically female and have a woman’s name, but you expect people to pretend that you’re actually a man named Steve, you’re asking for different treatment. I’m not passing judgment on that, I’m just pointing out that it’s disingenuous for people who wanted to be treated differently than everyone else to claim that they’re just looking for equal treatment.
telling Vlaming he could not treat his transgender pupil differently than he treats others.
He calls everyone by the pronoun appropriate to their sex. Sounds like equal treatment to me.
That’s not actually what happened. The issue is rather that he stopped calling this student by any pronouns (“slip-ups” notwithstanding).
I see you are correct.
So it wasn’t “Don’t call me by the ‘wrong’ pronoun”, since that wasn’t happening. It was “I demand that you refer to me by ‘right’ pronoun”.
Once again, not doing the wrong thing (tolerance) isn’t enough. We must be forced to do the right thing (celebration, or submission, take your choice).
That whole “banality of evil” thing work here, too.
I don’t disagree, but unfortunately by virtue of treating this student differently than others, he opened himself up to a discrimination claim. The district had adopted a policy of nondiscrimination on the basis of gender identity prior to this term.
Oddly enough, this is exactly the sort of thing that teachers’ unions are supposed to be there for. While I wouldn’t endorse the union even if it had stood up for him, the fact that it isn’t is kind of telling.
This morning, the Bloombergers were all aflutter about Rooshun planes landing in Venezuela. Something about “Military!” planes of some sort, and a large passenger plane.
Barring the possibility that the passenger plane was full of shock troops, I can’t help thinking maybe they have decided to evacuate their people from that shithole.
Rooshun planes – roosh v had an airforce?
No, he had Planes.
Wolverines!!
a ninth-grade student who had undergone a gender transition.
What does that mean, exactly? She stopped wearing dresses?
In this case, that’s pretty much it. That, and requiring everyone else to participate in xer’s fantasy.
The pathetic thing about the whole matter is that what is being done is immoral for precisely the same reason that it would be immoral to force these kids to suppress their urges. If someone believes they are the opposite sex from what they are, it would be wrong to demand that they deny their own mind and senses. But, demanding that everyone indulge the “gender transition” is immoral for precisely the same reason. You’re telling everyone else, that they must deny their own mind and senses.
But this amounts to verbal abuse, if the child cannot believe something without those beliefs being constantly called into question, what freedom does he or she have to live by their own mind and senses.
hmm… this argument sounds familiar…
Not everyone, tax-payer-funded government functionaries who work as part of a compulsory-attendance organization. This teacher isn’t being fired for off-the-job speech, this he is being fired for what he is saying as a government actor.
The choice comes down to who decides how this private citizen is being addressed – either the private citizen, or the government’s force-wielding compulsory attendance organ.
You might find gender transitions distasteful, but I find government force used to make a person feel degraded even more distasteful.
Just to rock the boat – Couldn’t you make the same argument to get rid of any teacher who teaches ideas that are not in vogue? Saying communists were murderous charlatans certainly could meet the standard of “degrading a person”.
You mean like creationism vs. evolution?
Yes – following rules designed to prevent terrible things sometimes means that there are uncomfortable corner cases
See, the important point here is that we aren’t talking about post-secondary research-teacher hybrids that teach at non-compulsory institutions. Those people can and should be protected with tenure protections.
Here, we are talking about government functionaries – you either send your kid here, pay a second time out of pocket for a private school, or you go to jail. To the extent that we are going to have compulsory-attendance state-actors being teachers, they should damn well stick to whatever the official rules of conduct and curriculum the political process produces.
If the official rules are bad, the solution is that the teacher and/or families should use the political process to fix them, not go rogue. You might applaud a rogue anti-commie, but what do you do with a rogue health teacher who wants to teach that all penetrative sex is rape, a rogue econ teacher that wants to teach the labor value of money, or a rogue gym teacher that thinks baseball is a worthwhile sport that anyone should spend time on?
Its not that this is a good solution, its that the alternatives are worse.
A good solution would be removal of the state from the provision of education services. In a true market-based choice environment, the school is not the state and the schools can work to find the spot on the teacher-freedom/conformity axis that works for them. And if a trans kid (and their family) doesn’t like it, they can go to a different school.
Tenure itself strikes me as a bad idea.
I keep trying to articulate a better system, but it all hinges on getting rid of the junk administrators and assessing instructors based upon how well the students actually learn – highly difficult questions which encourage such avoidance strategies as ‘teaching to the test’.
Like Baddie said – vouchers. Families have always been able to tell if their kids are learning. They have every incentive to make sure they are.
“See, the important point here is that we aren’t talking about post-secondary research-teacher hybrids that teach at non-compulsory institutions. Those people can and should be protected with tenure protections.”
But, they haven’t been.
https://hotair.com/archives/2018/11/25/professor-ohio-sues-transgender-pronoun-flap/
Like I said, those kind of professors should protected to conduct their classes, research, and academic inquiry in whatever manor they see fit.
Its not a crazy distinction. We hold cops and private security guards to a different standard. It isn’t too crazy to expand it to other situations with similar differences.
Look how that turns out most of the time.
You’re absolutely right, Leap. I’m not disagreeing that there is a different between a local school district and a university, but the same original sin exists: none of them should be entities of the state and people should not be forced to support them.
“Yes – following rules designed to prevent terrible things sometimes means that there are uncomfortable corner cases”
Maybe i’m crazy but i’d say that the case where the transgender kid being missgendered is an uncomfortable corner case. I see such a rule being used to eliminate “Bad Thought”, much more likely.
“See, the important point here is that we aren’t talking about post-secondary research-teacher hybrids that teach at non-compulsory institutions. Those people can and should be protected with tenure protections.”
A good chunk of those teachers are at state run institutions, and are state employes, so this sounds like special pleading.
“To the extent that we are going to have compulsory-attendance state-actors being teachers, they should damn well stick to whatever the official rules of conduct and curriculum the political process produces.”
I get the “Compulsory attendance” argument and i won’t argue against it.
“A good solution would be removal of the state from the provision of education services. In a true market-based choice environment, the school is not the state and the schools can work to find the spot on the teacher-freedom/conformity axis that works for them. And if a trans kid (and their family) doesn’t like it, they can go to a different school.”
I’d agree to that.
A good chunk of those teachers are at state run institutions, and are state employes, so this sounds like special pleading.
No, the distinction here is is not about state payment (which both the high school teacher and the state uni prof get.) Like you imply, there is no distinction on this parameter.
The distinction is “Who is the state forcing me to lock my child up with for 30 hours a week?”
Given that the answer is “one, but not the other,” there is a legitimate concern over democratic control of the on-the-job statements of “one, but not the other.”
the case where the transgender kid being missgendered
Isn’t the kid misgendering herself?
Depends – do you think gender is statically coupled with sex, or do you think gender is defined exclusively by sex?
“The distinction is “Who is the state forcing me to lock my child up with for 30 hours a week?””
I see that, but downthread you said, “Yes, being an agent of the government is different than being employed in private industry. That woman should have either done her job and issued the licenses, or found employment that isn’t backed up by men with gun and QI.” In this case i don’t see the mandatory component. No one is being forced to get married (as opposed to compulsory school attendance). I know “The government has a monopoly on issuing Marriage licenses”, but that is different than being forced to by one. You don’t have to have one to live with someone and form a relationship. And if you go the route of “special benefits” confered on being married, i’d say that there are special benefits from being college educated. State school professors are agents of the government, and so i don’t see the fact that college is not obligatory as being a sufficient case (under the grounds you are arguing) to eliminate them from this rule.
Marriage, or more particularly, the ability to form a family unit entitled to the full scope of features of any family unit, is a civil right. Selective permissions by the government was wrong when it was withheld from gay couples. It remains wrong now while it is withheld from some other forms of government.
You can go there, but the strain of this poor analogy demonstrates the error in your logic. College is a market with consumer choice. Marriage censurer
“We are going to monopolize this formerly private section of the economy and then exclude disfavored people” is the textbook definition of civil rights violation, even when it is done for honestly held Christian beliefs.
they should damn well stick to whatever the official rules of conduct and curriculum the political process produces
While watching the American school system circle the drain is mildly entertaining to my blackened libertarian heart, I don’t agree with this notion. The “political process” has become a farce, a construction of the allegedly apolitical judicial branch foisted upon the people in contravention of their own written constitutions. Every day, the range of allowable opinions its participants can hold is narrowed, while the scope of its powers and reach of its authority approaches the plenary. It is a vehicle for enriching entrenched interests that are connected to it and increasing bears little resemblance to the people it allegedly represents.
(What, exactly, this means for Vlaming and the issue at hand is another matter)
The “political process” has become a farce, a construction of the allegedly apolitical judicial branch foisted upon the people in contravention of their own written constitutions.
You can’t fix broken laws by judicial fiat. If people are ignoring their constitutions, you have 3 choices:
1) submit
2) vote them out
3) remove them from power with force
The court can’t reestablish the rule of law, no matter how hard it tries.
The court can, however, upend the rule of law. To my point, things like redrawing districts based upon arbitrary and inconsistently applied rules, or decreeing that “one man, one vote” means you can’t have a state legislative house organized like the U.S. Senate, or preventing many attempts from ensuring that one person actually got exactly one vote, etc. have all contributed to the dysfunction of the “political process”. There’s also the problem that the courts generally ratchet power upward, away from the people to government, away from local governments to the state, and away from the states to the Federal government. While many of these actions have political support at the time they are decreed, by virtue of precedence, the courts tend never to revisit bad decisions of the past, and the legislatures have increasingly followed suit.
If people are ignoring their constitutions, you have 3 choices:
1) submit
2) vote them out
3) remove them from power with force
I think part of the problem with 2 is that people would sooner fight each other than the government. It’s more important to put “our” politician in that seat than it is to question whether the legislature should have all that power in the first place. So this looks like a trichotomy when it’s really more of a continuum of choices.
trshmnstr: Not sure if you’ll see this as the thread slowly dies, but your statement is similar to an old quote:
That’s a fair point. I wonder if there are some similarities between this and the woman who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples in Kentucky a while back. On one level you have rights as a person that you don’t lose by simply working for one employer over another, but on another level when you’re acting as an agent of the government you have responsibilities to the people whose taxes ultimately pay your salary. It’s not as cut-and-dry as being an elected or even appointed official, but a teacher is a public employee as much as a cop.
Yes, being an agent of the government is different than being employed in private industry. That woman should have either done her job and issued the licenses, or found employment that isn’t backed up by men with gun and QI.
If we go all the way up the chain of authority, Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump disagree.
Thankfully, the fed gov is not the head of state educational bureaucracies. Yet.
There was a time not all that long ago when, at least in many states, the state wasn’t the head of the education system, either. However, in many cases driven by Federal incentives, most states now run their “local” school systems.
Sure. But, some people take offense to people not standing for the pledge of allegiance (a stupid argument, but it’s made). At what point is the government in the business of guarding against hurt feelings or promoting ideology? This seems like a pretty clear point where the government is more interested in promoting ideology and hiding behind the notion of hurt feelings
Either way, the correct answer is “vouchers”
No, the government will always be in the business of pushing one ideology or another. The question is, which organ in the government? The rogue teacher uncountable to anyone and locked in a room with my kid for 30 hours a week? Or the minimally accountable educational bureaucracy. Given those choices, its obviously the minimally accountable bureaucracy instead of the wholly unaccountable rogue actor.
Both those are bad and worse. The question is, how do we make it better?
I see your point and allow me to virtue signal that I am willing to use anyone’s preferred pronoun and I had a transgender acquaintance (lest some think that I take issue with this due to animus for the transgender community).
It is a complicated issue, but it is primarily due to federal regulation that forced this accommodation on local school districts. And I really think that this is just the backdoor way in which speech codes become mainstreamed and then expanded in the general public. And to be frank, people who actually defend free speech without caveats is an extremely small and maligned group, so this is definitely going to happen.
That’s what I like about first principals. The issues keep getting more complicated, but the first principals stay the same.
Yeah, agreed.
the first principals stay the same
Yup. Principals are government employees; can’t get rid of ’em.
Untrue. If properly documented, you can fire a government employee.
Most managers just can’t be arsed to document.
1) When you start paying my freelance rate, I’ll start proofreading my posts. For gratis work, you get rough drafts.
2) We’ve managed to get two principals removed over the last 5 years in our school. Neither were fired, but both were demoted and moved into shitty jobs. One took the hint and found gainful employment elsewhere. The other is forcing the superintendent to document her failures to comply with improvement plans. PS new principal is great.
TLDR – Xmas miracles do happen.
For gratis work, you get rough drafts.
Just yankin’ ya, Leap. Ain’t nobody around here got clean hands when it comes to typos.
I know 😀
Your proposed rules would completely eliminate diversity of opinion in the classroom. I deny that there is any value gained by allowing ‘democratically elected’ bodies to dictate the opinions that may be expressed by teachers. By all means argue for eliminating compulsory public education, or even all public education, but don’t tell me that principle mandates uniform indoctrination.
Primary school in American has always and everywhere been about indoctrination in the most rigorous sense of the word – the instilling of a particular doctrine or another in the students. There is no such thing as an education that doesn’t aim to instill a doctrine – it is inseparable from the act of learning.
I generally argue for a change so radical most people consider it elimination (but I don’t.)
Depending on what is meant here, you may or may not say I do.
I’m telling you there is no education without indoctrination. The only question is who picks the doctrines?
So, teaching evolution is right out because it makes fundie kids feel degraded?
I didn’t even get that far, I’m still wondering how making everyone terrified of making a verbal misstep and having their lives ruined is not itself also degrading.
It is, but when there is zero-sum game between a child forced to participate in a government program and a government functionary running the program, I put a heavy thumb on the child’s side of the scale.
No, its not right out. Understanding evolution is a requirement for understanding the modern world, so I want it to be part of the doctrine that schools use. But I find it really distasteful that it has to be done.
That’s why I’ve lead Bible studies on how to reconcile science (in general) with (one very flawed interpretation of) the Bible. I usually leave out the parts in () when I’m selling it though.
Releasing the raid’s justification would “seriously jeopardize the integrity of the ongoing investigation,” Hur wrote in his eight-page letter. “Making this type of information public while this investigation is ongoing could harm the government’s ability to find additional relevant evidence.”
IOW “Fuck you, that’s why.”
When will ya’ll figure out that he does this shit on purpose so it gains more traction and exposure?
They won’t. But I find it amusing because, purposeful or not, the end result is that his core message is spread far and wide by people that despise him.
My life in sex: ‘An enormous penis isn’t without complications’
:narrows-gaze:
Worst humble brag ever.
It’s not something that you can really brag about or bring up at dinner parties
I beg to differ.
You have no class. A true gentleman never talks about his genitalia at a dinner party. He simply unzips and uses his cock to stir his after dinner drink.
Jimbo, the Doctor already told you, washing it off in alcohol isn’t going to make the sores go away.
Yeah, but that was OMWC’s doctor. Can I trust his opinion? After all what does a pediatrician really know about venereal disease?
If its OMWC’s pediatrician, probably quite a bit.
Bring a woman along that will tell her friends about it. that’s how I do it.
He didn’t say he’d talk about it, he said he’d “bring it up”.
It’s part of his magic act.
A DJ that used to hang out in my nightclub liked to tell a joke that is appropriate (for a given value of appropriate) here:
The best thing about being a pedo is how big it makes your dick look.
Amen brother!
*looks around shiftily*
STEVE SMITH DISAGREE. PEN-A-TRAYTIVE INTER-CORSE ONLY REASON TO LIVE
you mean “inter-corpse” /amiright?
If you have an enormous penis, and want the equivalent of full penetrative sex, date or marry a woman with an enormous booty and do her prone doggystyle.
That is all.
cafe hayek always pulls great quotations from books, here is todays:
— Randy Holcombe
I don’t see any Irony. The progressives who promote those ideas want power. It is a bad idea to give progressives that power. Therefore, progressives should want the decision to grant power to be made by those who make bad decisions.
This is exactly what I mean by democracy = rule by truck-drivers.
The internet war on sex is here
No sex, please, we’re beholden to our advertisers.
Bring it on why not
You can ban pepe and FA Hayek and MAGA and Proud Boys, but when you start going after porn you’re pissing on the third rail.
True
pissing on the third rail
That’s banned too.
pissing on the third rail
Quality album name.
Nothing to see, here
“I lead this company without political bias and work to ensure that our products continue to operate that way. To do otherwise would go against our core principles and our business interests,” Pichai is expected to say.
“We are a company that provides platforms for diverse perspectives and opinions — and we have no shortage of them among our own employees,” he will add.
A Google executive told CNN Business that Pichai will show lawmakers “his willingness to roll up his sleeves” and work with them.
Okay, then. Thank you for your time. Leave your campaign donation in the basket, on your way out.
We are a company that provides platforms for diverse perspectives and opinions
Why, yes, they allow provide for the opinions of Marxists and Leninists.
And we don’t Ice Pick the Trotskyites.
… yet.
“We are a platform that works closely with the Chinese government that has gulags for its eastern Muslim minority. But, please do continue to view us as a private company as we continue to work closely with foreign and domestic intelligence services”
Thick Tuesday — Prolefeed Heaven edition (Warning — mildly NSFW, and all black or latina):
https://www.imagefap.com/photo/781837891/#0
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/53/f7/6f/53f76ff14a3b9ec46629db1a1c3ae2d4.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/9b/cc/37/9bcc37c1d15197c5488d012c4b9a55e3.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/59/94/c9/5994c9a79a1694a53a901b53fceea86b.jpg
http://2tjw4q91d0l28y4cikuolv14.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/01/a35e1fb3ef935e368dd739195304ade1.jpg
https://68.media.tumblr.com/b50944c6edaf27d2c24f8bc54302c096/tumblr_ok9b8kS7N71v3vaggo1_1280.jpg
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mRiQOwcR0gs/T87sZY1DO7I/AAAAAAAABWY/5fChSUF-Pe4/s1600/Bria-Myles-ass-02.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/95/5b/6c/955b6cb7225ad30e1f8d6667eab3fc71.jpg
Has anyone watched Netflix’s new Polish show, 1983? It looked interesting, about a Poland in 2003 where the Iron Curtain never fell. Also it seemed to piss at least one Prog off for not being in the #resistance https://newrepublic.com/article/152581/trouble-netflixs-new-cold-war-thriller
Nope. Especially not with their management and writing direction. I’m not funding that.
Poland is an endless source of butt hurt for progs
Netflix’ Outlaw/King was badass.
I did enjoy that. Only problem was I felt like it would have worked better as a miniseries. 2 hours felt way too condensed for the scope of the story they wanted to tell.
I really enjoyed Narcos: Mexico though. That spun a damn good yarn.
agreed. definitely felt too rushed in two hours. acting was top notch though and apparently wardrobe, customs, etc are very accurate to the period.
I don’t think it needed to be a miniseries, but it definitely would have benefited from being as long as “Braveheart”.
I enjoyed it too. It seems ripe for a sequel since they could move on to the Battle of Bannockburn.
So, what’s this bond’s complaint?
Well, the horrors of life in Eastern Bloc Poland are pretty well known. What, pray tell, are the horrors of our own moment of which she speaks?
ZOMG, IT’S WORSE THAN THE COLD WAR!!1!
Supposed to be “bint’s complaint”….fuckin autocorrect
You know, if you follow Marxist doctrine, mention of “The Party” and “Moscow” probably bring warm fuzzy feelings instead of chills.
It’s all horrors, all the time with these people. I suspect the horrors are the presence of conservatives anywhere. And by conservatives I mean anyone right of Trotsky.
There are exactly zero center-left or left-wing members of Poland’s parliament. That’s the real complaint here- their ideology has been thoroughly denounced in a country that long suffered under the Soviets. Which is not to say that all of the alternative parties in parliament are somehow good.
The trailer looks interesting, but trailers are like dating site profile pics.
Eh, I mean, worst comes to worst, you lose an hour or less on the first episode.
Also, the director of the entire season is directing the Gareth Jones film about the Holodomor, which I’m looking forward too.
I was unaware of this movie. Awesome.
https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/what-we-do/news-stories/news/drc-countrys-worst-ebola-epidemic-continues-spread
this is basically a funding plea for Doctors Without Borders but apparently ebola has reached Butembo which has a million inhabitants.
If I recall from the last ebola apocalypse their funeral and burial practices were what was spreading the bug around. They had a similar problem in Madagascar right about the same time.
In writing my current work, I keep wanting to include a scene where the blind man speaks to the gorgon, but my narrator is sighted and really shouldn’t be anywhere near that meeting. Though if I did include it, I wouldn’t have to describe the creature itself, just the fear and the sound.
Do you even third person omniscient, brah?
Do you even write?
I did just now
But, seriously, do you ever employ third person omniscient or strictly third person narrative?
Yes.
See “Lucid Blue” and most of the stories in that volume (except “Omnirunner” and “Ranger Roy the Rocket Rider”). But this book is the recollection of an explorer trying to correct the popular narrative about his voyages. So it’s in the first person perspective.
You should submit a short story.
Something like this?
Man, I’m sorry I missed that one. I’ll read it now.
Thanks
burn
Have the narrator hiding behind a column… maybe using a polished shield or mirror to view the conversation? Or is that too close to the legend?
It’s not the logistics of him not getting stoned*, but the chorus of “Don’t be stupid, Dug” the rest of the cast is liable to have to shout at him. Though this wouldn’t be the first reckless thing he’s done so far. He wouldn’t even be on that continent if he’d been playing it safe.
*literally
Do the blind man and the narrator meet after at any point after this conversation? If so, the narrator could just be relating the story as it was told to him. If not, he could just be passing along the rumors of what happened in the conversation.
The blind man is a character who joined halfway through the first book and continued in his company. He is also prone to being secretive and making jokes rather than relaying stories. If the narrator were not there, all he’d get was a few quips and a curt “I got the information we need”.
Moreover, how would we ever get the visuals of the gorgon’s garden and statue collection? Without the setting, the scene loses its weight.
Could you use the Gorgon’s POV?
“All is stone.”
the end.
A drone would be the modern equivalent of using the shiny side of your shield.
It is only the direct gaze of the gorgon that is deadly.
So… Blind man can make direct contact while protagonist views from afar.
Who said anything about modern?
Having ruminated on the matter, I do believe the narrator would accompany the blind man to and from the gorgon’s lair. I also thought of a few moments I want to include in addition to the plot relevent ones.
I actually think writing the sounds, sensations and emotions would make that an interesting writing study and, if effective, would be very powerful on the reader.
Everyone would respond differently based on their own fears and experiences. A sound we both find menacing might be imagined very differently on the page.
PS: Your Palm Coast suite should be reaching you in an hour or so.
Thank you, sir. I fear I won’t see it until I get home, which is at least five or six hours from now.
https://twitter.com/Ahmadinejad1956/status/1072468813667540994
You may be “woke”, but are you Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “woke”?
Serious question: why is antisemitism so en vogue now? And how can you criticize the Saudis (rightly so) while playing footsie with the Iranians?
Serious question: why is antisemitism so en vogue now?
Anti-semitism has been en vogue since 1300.
Please, since at least 70 AD
What was Moses, chopped liver?
That was Aaron.
Abraham started this shit.
Not so much in the US (at least not in comparison to other Western countries), General Grant’s order in Kentucky notwithstanding
^ ^ This.
You know who else was en vogue when it came to antisemitism….
Linda Sarsour, until about five minutes ago when the left realized she was more of a liability than an asset?
Banned from Twitter … oh wait nevermind.
Theresa May Can’t even exit a car
Crunch Talks? Is that Captain Crunch talks because I would think that having Captain Crunch in your mouth whilst talking would hurt.
wtf?
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/nih-awards-4-9m-to-study-firearm-injuries-in-children.html
In the wake of recent mass shootings, the National Institutes of Health has established the largest grant to fund firearm research awarded in the last 30 years, according to Science.
hey! we’re not biased! SCIENCE!
1. Rebecca Cunningham, MD, professor of emergency medicine at Ann Arbor, Mich.-based University of Michigan Medical School, will co-direct a study with Marc Zimmerman, PhD, UM public health professor.
2. Dr. Cunningham told Science she witnessed the abuse of her mother by her father as a child and is convinced her mother would have been killed by him if there had been a gun in their household. After her mom put her dad out of the house and sent two siblings to live elsewhere, she bought a handgun to protect the two of them from her father. Dr. Cunningham said she often wonders if having the gun in the house made her and her mom safer after her dad was put out. Research on questions such as these has been inconclusive.
fair enough. i see no conflict or bias so far.
3. The grant amounts to $4.9 million from the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for a five-year project building capacity for researching firearm injuries in kids.
this is important! it’s for the “kids”. now about those “kids”.
4. Guns are the second leading cause of pediatric deaths in the U.S. after motor vehicle crashes as of the most recent data published in 2016. In 2016, guns killed 3,150 people from the ages of 1 to 19, according to the CDC.
1 to 19-year olds, dude.
Uhhh, I’m going to guess gun deaths in that group are heavily weighted toward the 19-y/o end of the spectrum… and heavily weighted toward certain populations in certain parts of the country.
1-19 is the standard definition of pediatrics used by CDC data, though they often do break it down into age groups like 1-4, 5-9, etc.
But number 4 is just wrong. Firearm deaths and injuries are so rare, that the CDC can’t even provide numbers with much confidence.
19 years old. Pediatric. Well done, CDC. I wonder if they’re counting soldiers killed in action as pediatric deaths caused by guns. Jesus H. Christ.
You left out the best part:
They’re spending $5 million now so they can justify spending $50 million later.
first question that needs answering: why are 0-19 considered “children”?
“You’re right, it should be 0-24.”-Democrat
We Are All Children
0-26; you aren’t an adult until your get off your parents’ insurance.
Relevant
Because expanded scope = expanded funding.
Dr. Cunningham said she often wonders if having the gun in the house made her and her mom safer after her dad was put out.
Christ, what an idiot.
(1) Nobody was ever hurt by that gun. It had zero safety downside.
(2) Nobody was ever hurt again by her father after her mother got the gun. How much or whether the gun contributed to that, nobody knows, but at a minimum it has at least some (potential) safety upside.
This is where their previously poor research feeds into their loop. More guns in the house equal more injuries. It’s common sense! Therefore, her mom having that gun made her less safe.
Speaking of vacuous platitudes and hollow self serving rhetoric
During our service in the Senate, at times we were allies and at other times opponents, but never enemies. We all took an oath swearing allegiance to the Constitution. Whatever united or divided us, we did not veer from our unwavering and shared commitment to placing our country, democracy and national interest above all else.
At other critical moments in our history, when constitutional crises have threatened our foundations, it has been the Senate that has stood in defense of our democracy. Today is once again such a time.
Regardless of party affiliation, ideological leanings or geography, as former members of this great body, we urge current and future senators to be steadfast and zealous guardians of our democracy by ensuring that partisanship or self-interest not replace national interest.
Yes, yes, of course. Do the right thing. Save democracy from the bad orange man.
“Whatever united or divided us, we did not veer from our unwavering and shared commitment to placing our country, democracy and national interest above all else.”
Shouldn’t this have been written when half of the Senate was trying to accuse a man of being a serial rapist without a shred of evidence?
I mean, sure, she gave inconsistent and vague testimony, had to amend prior statements, couldn’t recall a whole lot, and chose to spring this farce in the closing days of a months-long process, and even then only after she and her handlers could delay no longer, but she was so brave while she did it.
“Compelling” is a synonym for convenient, right?
Never forget or believe a “boofing truther” again
our service in the Senate
Were you held in bondage to the Senate for your term of office? No.
Were you bound by the UCMJ in the Senate? No.
Was your time in the Senate uncompensated? No.
Were you, at any time, called upon to make a great personal sacrifice for the Senate? No.
Were your actions genuinely answerable to anyone, in between election days? No.
So no, you did not “serve” in the Senate.
We the Internet has a great take on people losing gigs over #metoo.
You SF’d the link, bro.
+1 “I meant to do that”
Take Two, since original wound up in endless moderation queue:
Thick Tuesday — Prolefeed Heaven edition (Warning — mildly NSFW, and all black or latina):
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/53/f7/6f/53f76ff14a3b9ec46629db1a1c3ae2d4.jpg
https://glibertarians.com/2018/12/tuesday-morning-links-73/#comment-820972
Number two:
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/9b/cc/37/9bcc37c1d15197c5488d012c4b9a55e3.jpg
Number three:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/59/94/c9/5994c9a79a1694a53a901b53fceea86b.jpg
Number four:
http://2tjw4q91d0l28y4cikuolv14.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/01/a35e1fb3ef935e368dd739195304ade1.jpg
Number five:
https://media.tumblr.com/b50944c6edaf27d2c24f8bc54302c096/tumblr_ok9b8kS7N71v3vaggo1_1280.jpg
Number six:
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mRiQOwcR0gs/T87sZY1DO7I/AAAAAAAABWY/5fChSUF-Pe4/s1600/Bria-Myles-ass-02.jpg
Number seven and last:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/95/5b/6c/955b6cb7225ad30e1f8d6667eab3fc71.jpg
I think I just had a stroke.
Only one? You’re a fast finisher.
Would get behind this one. Eagerly.
I like small cuties. Face almost always overrides all. I like something delicate to break.
*swoon*
I’d be torn between number 3, who looks a little bit like a much younger and skinnier version of my fiancee, and number 5, who does that “black woman who at first glance looks white” thing really well.
I’m so glad I’m sitting down right now.
I’ll be in my bunk.
*promptly falls asleep*
https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2018/12/mcconnell-well-take-criminal-justice-reform-year/
Mitch McConnell is going to allow a vote on criminal justice reform in the Senate.
This is exactly what Putin wants. Don’t you get it? McConnell is complicit!
We gotta ram this bipartisan bill through before it becomes even easier to pass bipartisan bills.
Hmm… Bipartisan is usually code for “Both stupid and evil”.
Do you honestly believe that Democrats in the House would allow Trump to sign a bill on criminal justice reform? That would mean that politicians are principled, which is pretty hilarious to consider
Maybe?
Nixon was poised to pass universal healthcare. Senator Kennedy refused to work with the Nixon administration on the legislation, because he was convinced that Nixon would be brought down by Watergate and they could get a Democratic president in to sign the bill.
Thankfully, Kennedy was wrong and he missed out on his last chance to pass universal healthcare
It really just depends on how much credit they can take for it.
I haven’t looked at it though. Does it suck or is it actually decent?
I haven’t looked at it. I haven’t heard any complaints from Rand Paul or Massie or Amash, but that was before the amendments that have been mentioned.
My guess is that the House Democrats would wait until the next election, hoping to get a Democrat for a president, then steal the bill as theirs.
The killing would most likely happen in conference committee, where dammit, we didn’t get our differences resolved before adjournment.
So why the rush to get that bill through? Are the Dems mostly against it and it will die in the next Congress? Does the GOP want the credit (not a bad idea, actually)?
The Dems could be pushing for an even worse bill of some kind (from a Repub perspective, anyway). Passing this bill now takes the wind out of the sails of whatever the Dems have in the pipeline.
following improvements to the legislation that have been secured by several members
So, after it has been gutted of its substance and left as soulless husk of a bill that actively undermines its stated purpose?
Also known as, business as usual.
I’m seeing more articles about the GOP’s need to get into the urban areas and address the concerns of minority communities. Is this a play along those lines? Of course, bring security and wear body armor if you plan to canvas or hold a rally anywhere near an Antefa college. Those blue-haired tranny goths and homeless make a psychotic mix.
If the GOP or LP, for that matter, ever visited any minority area and campaigned there, they would learn that most of these voters really don’t agree with Democrats on much. They vote Democrat because they are the only ones that campaign in their areas.
Colleges are a lost cause, though.
I really wonder what % would be convinced. But then I read about Orange County and realize that there’s no way campaigning will beat a good ol’ ballot harvest.
They vote Democrat because they are the only ones that campaign in their areas.
That, and their social circles vote Democrat. Some liberals vote GOP in the sticks for the same reason.
That having been said, breaking into the cities is a nontrivial endeavor. You can get away with petty political campaigning as long as it is ineffectual, but if you actually started to make headway, you would discover just what the term “political machine” really means.
Like that kid in NY who had people who never signed his access petition revoking their signatures.
Chicago. And when they got two-thousands more revocation affadavits than he had signatures, you know he’s telling the truth. (There were only 181 overlaps between the two sets of names)
that is a depressing lesson in machine politics
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-met-chicago-13th-ward-alderman-race-kass-20181206-story.html?fbclid=IwAR3-64vHHHuJMyCLylvhJ6Efj_k27nZua1xZ0RgOgXu15c0cZzGyhAsGVBg
“We turned in 1,703 signatures. We compared them to the 2,796 revocations, and found only 187 matches, meaning only 187 people who signed David’s petitions filed revocations,” Dorf said. “So, what about the 2,609 people who didn’t sign for David but who filed revocations? That’s fraud. That’s perjury. That’s felony.”
Dorf said that he will ask the elections board next week to refer the matter to Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.
But Foxx, a Democrat, won’t want to anger the Boss.
Neither will incoming Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, who famously said he would not “go fishing” for corruption, and who also received a million dollars in Madigan political money.
And current Illinois Attorney General, Lisa Madigan, is the Boss’ daughter.
Kids fighting it too. His lawyer has balls.
I’m guessing they’ll both be dead in a few weeks.
Maybe with Latinos. Pretty much all my AA future in-laws wouldn’t dream of voting for an evil Repub, no matter how much they might agree on some issues.
Hey, finally some good news for privacy this time from Australia:
https://www.engadget.com/2018/12/07/australia-access-assistance-bill-now-a-law/
Ha, suckers! There’s no good news on this front.
Apparently the word “liberal” is just as debased in Australia as it is here.
Well done! You’ve just destroyed the Australian economy.
Redebunking old canards. this time from a weed-riddled school!
All I see is “female workers earn $0.89 on the male-worker dollar”. Patriarchy!
/idiot feminist prog