Wednesday (Valentine’s Day!) Morning Links

Its Valentine’s Day in Glibertopia. That means…well, what exactly does that mean to each of you?  It means for me to tell Banjos that I love her very much and that I’m so happy she’s my wife and has given me three wonderful children.  What does it mean to the rest of you? (Hint: here’s the chance to tell someone how much you love them and perhaps give the site a few extra hits when you tell them to take a look.) 

That red font is a little too much for me, so the opening is abbreviated.  Besides, I wanted to talk about the 4-0 thrashing Man City put on Basel in the Champions League yesterday.  My, what a fortunate draw that was. Elsewhere, Spurs drew Juventus 2-2 in Woplandia. The two away goals are looking pretty good, but they can’t afford to rest, as Juve will look for the outright win in the second leg.

Back in America, land of the free and home of the brave, Kansas won and Texas Tech beat Oklahoma, who are in a freefall, aTm lost to Mizzou, Rhode Island, Michigan State, Tennessee and the top ranked team in the country Virginia Cavaliers beat Miami.

Psychotic bitch and media heartthrob, Kim

In Olympic hockey, the Japs beat the Koreans, which probably means that death stare the lovely diplomat Ms Kim gave the losers came with a message (although she is so lovely, isn’t she? Why, Lester Holt was fapping to her all night.). Actually, I can’t back that up. Are the Korean men using Norks as well, or is that just the women?  Either way, you can bet your ass there’s a family of Norks being tortured or murdered by that woman’s brother and she couldn’t possibly care less.  And neither could the idiots at NBC. The USA takes on Canada tonight, which will actually be tomorrow there. I think.  Which means our Asian contingent can tell us who won shortly.  IS that right? I’m not too sure. Either way, U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Oh yeah, there was some big time hockey played on this side of the Pacific too.  A dozen games at that!  The winners were: Boston, Buffalo, Columbus, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, Carolina, Detroit, Nashville, The Winnipeg J-E-T-S, Phoenix, Army (over the hapless Blackhawks) and the MINNESOOOOODA WIIIIIIIIIILD! Congratulations to the winners.

I WANT YOU (to stop being such partisan assholes)!

OK, ready for the news? Here’s what I dredged up for…the links!

Looks like Bill Murray is announcing his retirement from acting. But at least when he dies, on his deathbed, he will receive total consciousness. So he’s got that going for himself. Which is nice.

I’ve got a question: why in the ever-loving fuck is this an issue? I’m reminded of the South Park flag episode where everybody is trying to signal their absolute lack of racism while the kids are completely oblivious to the races of anybody involved.  Also, we’re not anywhere near Halloween, so this should be doubly unnecessary for at least 8 months.

Christ, what an asshole. At least break into someone’s home up there while they’re out losing a Super Bowl, not at a wake you prick.

Talk about luck! After all, its California. If the thing had ended up being endangered, the state would have sued the shit out of the kid for destroying its natural habitat and effectively killing it.

I swear to tell the truth, the wh-…well some of it anyway. I’m with the FBI, I can get away with that.

Wray says … nothing of substance … in Senate panel inquiry. At least he acknowledged that its the President’s prerogative to declassify stupid shit that has no business being classified in the first place.

Face charges? Hell, he’ll probably get a medal. Seriously, in what civilized world is doing a PIT maneuver on a minivan full of people doing 100 mph ever considered a good idea?  Especially a minivan full of kids.  This is wrong on so many levels its ridiculous.

Gymnast (((Aly Raisman))) is tired of being objectified. And this is her way of fighting it? Well, I and the rest of America wholeheartedly approve.  You go girl!  Show those men you aren’t a piece of meat. In fact, you should get a couple of your teammates from 2016 and do it together.  You know, for empowerment and shit.

This most definitely is not advice for (((Ms Raisman)))

Have a great Valentine’s Day, friends. Go get a little.

Comments

661 responses to “Wednesday (Valentine’s Day!) Morning Links”

  1. ElspethFlashman

    Gunga, gunga lunga.

    1. Private Chipperbot

      Big hitter, the Lama.

        1. I will teach you the meaning of the word “respect”.

          1. And what it means to you?

          2. In the immortal words of Jean Paul Sartre, ‘Au revoir, gopher UCS’.

    2. Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know.

  2. Have a great Valentine’s Day, friends. Go get a little.

    Whoops – forgot all about it. But I’ve never been a big fan of this holiday; which was created to keep Hallmark and Fannie May candy stores open.

    1. Nephilium

      At least it’s better then Sweetest day. Stupid American Greetings and their made up holidays.

      1. Whiskeyjack

        Alabama celebrates that by beating Tennessee.

  3. I Went to ‘Camp’ For 5 Days to Learn How to Be a Better Feminist

    During the second week of January, I spent nine hours a day—for five consecutive days—trudging around the streets of New York City and Brooklyn with a group of 21 strangers in the name of feminism. Our eclectic cohort included 14 college students, three working women, two renowned feminists, one program co-director, one grad student, and a Glamour editor (me). We were all part of something called Feminist Camp, an initiative started by activists Amy Richards and Jennifer Baumgardner after touring college campuses as speakers and noticing that the way schools taught feminism was far behind what was actually going on within the movement. And like most camps, we followed a itinerary—but this one included a mix of engaging with thought leaders, screening documentaries, and participating in workshops about things like reproductive rights and ethical fundraising.

    STEVE SMITH VISIT CAMPS AT NIGHT. EXPLORE ISSUES WITH HIKERS.

    1. So the church has started doing revivial retreats now?

      1. Mojeaux

        HEAL!

      2. Slammer

        Grab some rattlesnakes and drink some strychnine, ladies!

    2. PieInTheSKy

      Were there sandwiches offered?

      1. Slammer

        Food trucks. It was Manhattan and Brooklyn

    3. Slammer

      noticing that the way schools taught feminism was far behind what was actually going on within the movement

      College Campuses are not Radical enough for us

      1. ElspethFlashman

        Yes, I’d call this “camp” more like brain-washing/indoctrination than anything else. . .

        1. Hyperion

          “thought leaders”

          You could be right.

      2. Scruffy Nerfherder

        The reeducation camps must be reeducated.

        1. AlexinCT

          Not gulagy enough?

    4. PBRstreetgang

      Does these camp goers have jobs?

    5. antisthenes

      So, thanks to Trump’s America, we’re putting feminists in camps now? #winning

    6. “We learned about the harmful side of philanthropy from the Third Wave Funs… Some of the discussions and workshops reminded me of being back in a college course—throwing around academic terms like “philanthropic industrial complex” and looking at a PowerPoint littered with disheartening statistics”

      Why do I get the feeling this translates to “private charity evil, need moar government running everything”

      1. Akira

        That mentality really exists. Someone told me that it’s a terrible thing that some people are using GoFundMe and similar sites to ask for money for healthcare expenses because “they’re relying on this shoddy panhandling network instead of a real healthcare system“. We argued about this at length, and he didn’t explicitly state that the practice should be banned, but I’m pretty sure that’s what he wanted to happen.

        It’s unfortunate that people trust government “welfare” agencies more than private charity because you can always find data showing that something like 1 in 5 dollars allocated for these programs actually makes it to the beneficiaries. Much of it is probably gobbled up by bureacratic waste, inflated union salaries, and lord knows what other kind of outright graft is going on. Of course, there are some private charities that are grifters too, but at least there are also many private charities that do a much better job. Some of them even have a huge endowment which is used to pay all overhead, and 100 percent of the donations go to the beneficiaries.

        1. C. Anacreon

          Being very immersed in the healthcare world myself, I constantly wish people like the person you argued with would have the slightest idea what would happen if they were in a single-payer (socialized) system. They no doubt have some illusion that everything good about US care would remain, only I guess all would be free for everyone. Change to an only single-payer system, the dream of so many Berniebots, and say goodbye to access, choice, timeliness, quality, and the opportunity to have most treatments, because it will be decided that it’s too expensive, you are too old or too sick to waste care on. And then they’ll wish they could pay for themselves through crowdfunding, but it will be against the law to go outside the system.

          The average whiner about healthcare in this country doesn’t realize we truly have the most advanced and innovative healthcare available, and no one is ever turned away for being unable to pay. When I’ve been overseas, though, people I’ve talked to said they were always informed that we let all our poor people die homeless in the streets. Thanks media!

          1. Akira

            I’ve driven myself completely fucking mad trying to explain to people that American healthcare is not a radical laissez-faire free market system. It’s best described as a hodgepodge of Mussolini-style corporatism and socialism with little pockets of free market areas.

  4. Morning folks. I’ve managed to turn a story about a book of magic into a legal quibble about abandoned property. Yay.

    I keed. The uncertainty of the legal issue is what motivates someone to try to steal it.

    1. Note to anyone who was on the thread last night – this is a different story and has nothing to do with superhero lairs in Florida. This instead has to do with the fate of the books found late in Shadowrealm.

  5. Private Chipperbot

    Jimmy Kimmel ‘targeted’ by street artist again.

    On Tuesday, though, an additional, very official-looking street sign was added to the post so that underneath “Right Turn Only” drivers are also reading: “This Includes Idiot Comedians.”

    The Hollywood Reporter has learned that the phony traffic sign is the work of Sabo, a conservative artist who often lampoons liberal entertainers.

    Sabo said he is picking on Kimmel because of a recent comment he made on a podcast. “Pretty much every late-night talk show (host) is a liberal. And that’s because it requires a measure of intelligence,” Kimmel quipped a week ago on Pod Save America.

    1. Kimmel huffs his own farts

      1. AlexinCT

        He is a Prius driver?

    2. Rufus the Monocled

      I just love how he’s so clueless and disconnected to think he to say ‘conservatives are not smart enough’ to be a fucken talk show host.

      Talk show host. This is proof you’re smart to Kimmel.

      Quite the dullard that Kimmel. He may have got the gig but his buddy Carolla is vastly more intelligent.

    3. Rebel Scum

      “Pretty much every late-night talk show (host) is a liberal. And that’s because it requires a measure of intelligence,” Kimmel quipped a week ago on Pod Save America.

      True. A very low level.

      1. pan fried wylie

        *a very small measure

        Moran.

        1. Pope Jimbo

          YOUR A MORON

    4. Akira

      “Pretty much every late-night talk show (host) is a liberal. And that’s because it requires a measure of intelligence,”

      Um, I’m pretty sure a trained ape could be a late night talk show host. This dumb fuck just wants to think he’s some kind of intellectual.

      1. Hyperion

        Leaning left or voting for democrats instantly makes you an elite intellectual. Just ask any of them.

        1. Akira

          Oh right, I forgot – Obama said that Democrats are the Party of Science™.

          Note: Science can be dismissed as Koch-funded propaganda if it relates to biological sex, the effectiveness of gun control, or otherwise conflicts with the political positions of the Democrat Party.

      2. JW

        I miss the days where the worst and most extreme political talk you could expect from a late night host, was a bad joke about Nixon/Ford/Carter/Reagan from Carson in the opening monologue.

  6. Rrrrrrruffles have rrrrridges

  7. Rebel Scum

    What does it mean to the rest of you?

    Candlelit dinner, rose pedals and love-making.

    1. rose pedals….like on a parade float made of rose petals?

      1. pan fried wylie

        they dont just yabbadabbado those things?

    2. Galt1138

      My wife picked the place for dinner with no pressure from me:
      http://www.wolfcreekbrewingco.com/dining.html

      I married a great lady.

      Not very fancy. But, good food and good beer.

      Oh, and no rose pedals, just love-making.

  8. Rebel Scum

    What does it mean to the rest of you?

    Candlelit dinner, rose pedals and love-making.

    1. Sexy squirrels

        1. Slammer

          Sexy Squirrel? That’s the Glory Hole from Hell

          1. Pope Jimbo

            I thought you were supposed to put your dick through a glory hole. In this setup, I would think that nuts would be involved.

        2. That’s not sexy, that’s a daffy tree rat!

          1. You meant a Screwy Squirrel, right?

          2. PBRstreetgang

            “Hey baby, got some nuts upstairs…”

          3. AlexinCT

            No white van involved?

    2. Private Chipperbot

      Woo hoo. Twice in a night!

      1. Rebel Scum

        That’s how I roll.

      2. Galt1138

        “Wow, 18 years of nothing, and now twice in one day! What a place.”

  9. PieInTheSKy

    I’ve got a question: why in the ever-loving fuck is this an issue? – because everything is racist, everything is sexist and everything is problematic. As such everything is an issue. Get with the times old man.

    1. Private Chipperbot

      I just saw a blurb that you can get Vodka in Romania packaged in the equivalent of U.S. juice boxes. Complete with straw.

      1. PieInTheSKy

        I may have seen than once but not recently.

      2. Nephilium

        At the last beer show I was at, there was a company marketing “single use growlers” that were essentially foil pouches with a straw attached. So Capri-Sun for grown-ups is available right here in the grand ole’ US of A.

        1. Isn’t the whole point of the growler the ability to refill?

          1. Nephilium

            The whole point of the growler is to get fresh beer from the source. The ability to refill is a happy coincidence that most early containers were made of glass. The ability to refill (or even fill a growler) is also dependent on your state alcohol laws (and federal laws) regarding labeling and take away sales.

            These were more designed to be able to sneak alcohol into places where alcohol isn’t permitted, with a low cost so that confiscation of the package wouldn’t be a huge loss (minus the alcohol in it).

      3. The Last American Hero

        I can’t imagine it’s that hard to drink with fangs, is it?

    2. straffinrun

      Wakanda sounds like a shithole country.

      1. Florida Man

        They never had contact with the industrialized world, so of course they have advanced technology…

        1. That’s because it never got stolen by tricknology, duh.

        2. spqr2008

          Well, it is a comic book movie, which has a plot based on comics written by Ta Neshi Coates.

          1. Bobarian LMD

            I understood it to be more based on Christopher Priest’s run on the book… Which isn’t so SJW.

        3. spqr2008

          This is one of those movies I really hope is actually good, because the premise could be pretty good, but I think the media has likely overblown the hell out of it. The reason that most movies that release in February release in February is because they are expected to be bad.

          1. It will disappoint.

            That’s not a claim that it will be bad. But the very nature of the pumped-up hype means it will invariably fall short of expectations.

          2. Florida Man

            True. I’ve enjoyed some bad movies because I had no expectations of them being good. Others weren’t horrible, but disappointed due to hype.

          3. C. Anacreon

            I’m willing to bet that even if it’s terrible, all the critics will praise it, because of what it means to our society!

          4. Waterfall Insurance

            It’s a February movie because it’s black history month, this is the we was kings event of the year.

  10. Carnality and consent: how to navigate sex in the modern world

    She is in her late 30s and it is younger men she goes for now, guys who are more relaxed about rapidly evolving sexual politics and about what she does for a living. For Tillman is a dating coach, who as well as helping clients find love runs relationship workshops and courses for college students on the nature of consent.

    “I tend to date younger guys, because it’s not a battle for them to understand this stuff. For older guys, it can be a problem,” she says. “People older than me are more: ‘The world is changing, this isn’t how it used to be.’” While she used to think heavy subjects such as politics were best avoided on a first date, these days her advice is that it is better to know early if one of you is a card-carrying liberal and the other considers men the victims of a feminist witch-hunt. “I’ve been on a few dates in the last few weeks with new people and on the first date I tell them I’m writing a book on the #MeToo movement. If that makes them nervous, well, that’s a good thing to know. It’s important in the current climate to be as upfront as possible.”

    Welcome to dating in the post-Harvey Weinstein era.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      how to navigate sex in the modern world – pay the escort upfront as to not have any problems? Also do not bring to much money with you, you may get robbed.

      1. If you pay up front, you have no leverage to guarantee good service.

        1. PieInTheSKy

          that is what tipping is for …

          1. You don’t tip independant contractors.

          2. The hell you don’t.

          3. If I’m paying you directly for you services, why would you not bake the total required cost into your price?

          4. Festus

            Always grease the palm for a contractor that does an exemplary job and tell your friends, too. Not a euphemism.

          5. I’ve given bonuses to independent contractors for work on more than one occasion. It ensures when I call them for something in the future, I go to the front of the line and/or I get better than anticipated service.

            I’ll also negotiate the work rate to lower than I am willing to pay in expectation that if they exceed expectations, I can bring the payment up to what I originally budgeted for and they’ll view it as a bonus.

            It serves me well both personally and professionally.

          6. PieInTheSKy

            I did tip generously a plumber who did a good job. Never know when you need one on a Sunday.

          7. That makes no sense.If you’ve already hassled them into agreeing to too low a price, why would they ever do an above average job?

          8. If they agreed to it, it’s not too low.

            But don’t take what I say seriously. I just spend every single day of my professional life negotiating with people so that I maximize my profitability while ensuring I keep my customers happy in an ultra-competitive marketplace.

            What do I know?

          9. If this is your persuasion technique, I’m shocked you’re still in business.

          10. What do you mean?
            I’m not trying to pursuade anybody here.

            Ask anybody that negotiates for a living if they’ll negotiate a lower price than they’re willing to pay and will then slip someone a bonus for a job well done. My guess is that a majority have done so in the past.

            But what the hell do I know, right?

          11. I’m shocked you’re still in business.

            What the hell, UCS? That’s a low blow.

          12. You are trying to persuade me of your correctness in a manner that increases intractability.

          13. Tundra

            Or is he just sharing a technique that is used by businesspeople across the globe every fucking day?

            C’mon, man.

          14. I’m not trying to persuade you if anything. I just explained why, a couple people shared similar experiences, and you proceeded to tell us we are idiots. Oh, then you insulted me.

          15. The passive-agressive response to the “that makes no sense” led to an increased defensiveness.

            I’m sorry I insulted your business acumen, but I still can’t see why anyone who got lowballed would ever do more than “good enough”.

          16. Tundra

            Dude. They did not get lowballed, they accepted a number lower than Sloop was ultimately willing to pay. The idea of a lowball when there is no firearm pointed at the guy’s head is laughable.

            It’s negotiation. That’s all.

          17. Suthenboy

            Operating exactly the way Sloopy just described I can assure everyone that if I get a roof leak, a plumbing problem, run out of firewood or have a broken down car on a Sunday evening I can have someone here within an hour to fix the problem.

            It is good advice. Take it or leave it.

          18. So where do you find these people who, after being talked down on price, don’t skimp on effort?

          19. Having someone negotiate your asking price down isn’t getting lowballed. It’s called being negotiated down. It happens in almost every single transaction I engage in where there’s not a price tag or a bar code on an item, personally and professionally. It’s just how I am.

            I’ve never forced someone to work for less. I’ve never made them accept a “lowball” offer. It’s always been a free and fair negotiation. Sometimes I get the better end of it and sometimes I don’t.

            No offense, but you might be a little out of the element here and perhaps could learn something from the part of this group who negotiate regularly instead of telling us what we are doing is stupid. I know that’s how I’d react if I brought up an IT issue and someone with a wealth of experience told me a common professional way of solving the problem. I sure wouldn’t tell them they’re a bad programmer.

          20. TK

            Businessman vs. Author fight about business strategy. I wonder who will win this one?

          21. My last question was honest. Where do you find them? I clearly have not had any success in that area.

          22. So where do you find these people who, after being talked down on price, don’t skimp on effort?

            Um, everywhere I look.

            The person who lists their work for the minimum they’ll accept for full effort is not somebody I want to do business with. First off, why would anyone ever accept less than they’re willing to work for? Second, why would anybody not always do their best in the day and age of internet reviews being worth their weight in gold to future customers?

            Serious question: Have you never gotten a quote and couteroffered the guy?

          23. Serious answer – With a contractor – no. I have also been fortunate to not have to engage one more than once.

            Every other attempted transaction, even in realms where haggling has lingered (real estate) resulted in both parties walking away from the table. (The seller was insisting on more than the property was worth, and a better property was gotten for less from another seller).

          24. Negroni Please

            I used to be a logistics dude for a defense contractor and I spent millions of taxpayer dollars every year for a variety of goods and services. I’ve negotiated lower prices and faster turn around times a million times. It’s not particularly difficult. And even in an industry where I can’t legally pay them a bonus there are many ways to repay a vendor that did an excellent job.
            The easiest is just recommending them to other buyers and putting them in contact with potential new clients. Hell, I even warned vendors when they weren’t charging me enough, because I didn’t want a good vendor to take a loss on my project.

            Business is like anything in life. Be an honest person, treat people like they’re people, pay them what they’re worth, and then everything tends to go smoothly. You also tend to get special treatment when you fuck up and need to make it right in a hurry so you have a rush job on a project that can’t afford rush prices.

            Game theory: All transactions should be treated as an iterative game rather than a one off. You never know when you’ll be playing again.

          25. You’re a statistical outlier, then. I honestly don’t know anybody that’s never negotiated for a better rate from a contractor.

            Here’s why I do: i have a budget of $5000 to build my deck.* Now, if there’s some jackleg deck builder and he comes and quotes me a price of $4000 to build a deck and another guy quotes me $5000. I’ll try to negotiate the latter down to $4k. He has a better grasp of the value of his work. And if he accepts the $4k, I can still expect him to do the same job he’d have done for $5k. BUT I can tell him “I’ll throw in another $1k if you build a storage bench on one side of the deck and a raised bar on another side”. Dude agrees and I get more work for the same money and he’s also happy now. Or I can pay him the $4k we agreed and give him an extra $500 as I’m telling him I’ll probably want a bench built in a couple months and for him to take care of me on that price. Either way, I will have received more than I would have at the initial offer and it will have been done by someone who better understands the value of their labor than the guy who only thought it was worth $4k.

            *I know what materials for this job cost and can estimate the man hours of work it should take

          26. ElspethFlashman

            I get lowballed every once in a while, and still take the business. And I still do a plenty fine job, same as I ever would, because I have professionalism. Yesterday I cut $500 off a legal fee to keep the client, who was a referral of a former client. Today I am making sure that I visit him in jail, same as I would for other clients.

          27. I honestly don’t know anybody that’s never negotiated for a better rate from a contractor.

            I can’t recall a single time someone has tried to negotiate with me in the way you explain. I have had people balk at the price and ask if there are ways to bring the cost down i.e. simplify design, change materials, etc…But never just “can you do the same job for less”. And I honestly don’t think I would ever agree to, even though I add some wiggle room and some ‘cover my ass cash’ in my bids. I have on occasion ‘thrown in’ some extras if a job goes as planned and there were no surprises. On the last kitchen remodel, the owner took care of some debris removal unexpectedly and saved me some time and money so I didn’t charge for the under cabinet lights that weren’t in the original bid, I either broke even or might have lost a bit on that trade, but the customer has already called me back to look at his bathroom and a possible addition.

          28. But never just “can you do the same job for less”.

            I charge my book rate for about half of what I do. The rest is discounted based on negotiation. It’s a bitch, but there are plenty of people out there ready to drop their rate. Sometimes you just have to match it but give superior service.

            And yes, at some point I stand firm. That point is different for each customer and based on the negotiation. But I’m always willing to do a job for less if it’s in my best interest.

          29. Warty

            independant

            ACKSHUALLY

          30. Los Doyers

            Ever tried negotiating with a Southie? They’ll lowball you right off the spectrum.

          31. Which spectrum? Do you stop being Autistic? or do you lose your gender?

          32. Los Doyers

            Yes

      2. Slammer

        You don’t pay them for sex, you pay them to leave when you’re done

        1. AlexinCT

          ^^^THIS^^^

        2. This reminds me of a time I got kicked out of a titty bar because my buddy tried to pay for a lap dance in advance by swiping his credit card in the dancer’s butt crack.

      3. Hyperion

        You see what happens, there was a topic about consent in these modern days and you shitlords immediately turn it into a debate about how to pay hookers. Ya’ll ain’t woke.

    2. Dear miss – I think it’s more along the lines of the horny 20-somethings are more of a “yeah, sure, whatever, are you down?” mentality rather than actually giving a damn about your hangups, while the perople your own age don’t have time for your shit anymore.

      1. Not Adahn

        Hush, you. Her preference for college jocks is purely a matter of ethics and righteousness.

        1. Women need a reason, men just need a place.

      2. Drake

        That’s it exactly. I would have zero patience for her bullshit now.

        The author is going to be a lonely crazy cat lady in a few years when the young guys lose interest.

    3. I’ll see your sex in the modern era and raise you sex in the future: making sure you plug the sex bot in to charge before you go to bed.

      1. Not Adahn

        Wireless charging is going to be needed to avoid LOTO issues.

        1. tarran

          This is what happens when you mess up and replace the hyperlink text with the alt text by accident.

    4. The Other Kevin

      My method of navigating sex in the modern world was to get married in 1999. And that decision looks better and better every day when I see shit like this.

      1. kinnath

        1976

          1. The Last American Hero

            +1 Olivia D’Abo as Chanel 6

  11. PieInTheSKy

    RECONSTRUCTION OF MONEY SUPPLY OVER THE LONG RUN: THE CASE OF ENGLAND, 1270-1870

    https://ehsthelongrun.net/2018/02/06/reconstruction-of-money-supply-over-the-long-run-the-case-of-england-1270-1870/

    There is basically a graph so no need to read anything …

    1. I just sent that to my best friend…who is an economics professor, and specializes in economics-history. Thanks, Pie!

  12. These fine ladies will be your digital Valentine, and Lord knows a bunch of rejects like us need it.

    http://archive.is/FaKRC

    9, 17, 19, 20, 25, 26, 32, 40.

    1. DEG

      a bunch of rejects like us need it

      Damn straight.

      #3 excluded from the orgy due to stupid piercings.

  13. Slammer

    Bill Murray is not funny

    1. Not 100% of the time, but he has done good work.

      1. Slammer

        Please don’t say Caddyshack. I love that movie, but Bill Murray is awful.

        1. Festus

          The secondary characters were all woefully miscast.

          1. Private Chipperbot

            They did a good job with Lacey Underalls.

          2. Festus

            I was gonna except her but I’ve been awake too long and just got lazy. Good catch, Chipper!

          3. Oh, Madonna with meatballs.

    2. straffinrun

      He was in Kingpin.

      1. He was excellent in Kingpin.

      2. Slammer

        Another great movie costarring the awful Bill Murray

        1. Not Adahn

          Bill Murray banged your mom, didn’t he?

          1. Chipwooder

            Sometimes, when I wake up in the morning, Mr. McCracken is already there!

      3. Private Chipperbot
        1. straffinrun

          Look at that form!

    3. ::spit take::

      Now that’s funny!

      1. JW

        Yeah, that sort of statement tells me all I need to know about a person.

    4. PieInTheSKy

      I like Groundhog day. So there

      1. “You little brat! You have never thanked me! See you tomorrow! Maybe!”

    5. Rebel Scum

      Bill Murray is not funny

      What about Bob?

    6. Not Adahn

      You will roast forever the the depths of the slor!

      1. Tundra

        +2 willingness to learn

    7. Nephilium

      Best. Cameo. Ever.

    8. Scruffy Nerfherder

      BLASPHEMER

  14. Rebel Scum

    why in the ever-loving fuck is this an issue?

    It, of course, shouldn’t be. But lets apply their standard universally. No non-Caucasian people are allowed to dress as super-heroes that happen to be Caucasian.

    1. No, see, racism is power+priviledge, so non-whites dressing as white superheroes is empowering and challenging societal norms, while the inverse is the definition of racist cultural appropriation

      1. I am sick of that fucking lie.

        I know you’re using it in the mocking manner this site is known for. A glib manner if you will. But it still pisses me off to hear it knowing bigots spew it in all seriousness to try to cover themselves.

        1. Akira

          What irks me the most about that is the whole “collective punishment” mentality: the idea that all wypipo or all males have no right to complain about a discriminatory situation because of what happened decades ago; what happened before many of these people were even born.

          When have *I* ever oppressed a woman or a minority? Well, never. I’ve spent my entire life just trying to make ends meet. But according to these dipshits, I have no right to point out that anything is unfair because “men had it easy for centuries by oppressing women” or “blacks were enslaved for 400 years”. Neither of those things have anything to do with me as an individual, but the Lefties would still tell me that I have to put up with any discrimination that might occur.

          1. Number.6

            I dunno about your ethnicity, but you can always make the claim I do (in my case, truthfully) – that for 100 years, your ancestors fought and gave their lives to defeat the slave trade and if anything, you deserve every black person you meet in America’s gratitude.

            If, by an amazing quirk of fate, your family name is Wilberforce, you can really twist the shiv.

          2. trshmnstr

            “half my family were undesirables who migrated to the US in the 20th century. The other half were abolitionist frontiersmen who settled in the Midwest. Get fucked with your racialism.”

          3. Akira

            My dad’s side of the family is from Japan, and they were put in a concentration camp by Democrat Party hero FDR during WWII. My mom’s side is wypipo (mostly Irish) but they came here in the late 1800s after slavery had already ended.

            I guess I have an odd mixture of grievances and privilege; I need to consult the intersectionality table to see where I am situated.

          4. You have wypipo and Asians, who are the white people of minorities, so you’re the shitlord.

          5. Hyperion

            You’re totally on the shitlord list I’m afraid to tell you. Japanese, they white people of yellow people. Do not pass go, do not collect one privilege.

          6. Number.6

            Late 1800’s Irish, particularly if Catholic, get some grievance points too.

            Personally, if I had to make up some shit about my heritage to fight back at these racists, I’d do it, even though I’m the huwhitest of white you could imagine.

          7. Are you a diehard prog? If not, you’re an oppressor and automatically lose all intersectionality points.

  15. straffinrun

    Email to self: I totally didn’t bang that chick I met at the bar two weeks ago. In fact, I’m not even sure what I’m talking about.

    *Leaves computer on for wife to find*

    1. Email to straffin on account left open: Good news, I managed to purge the pictures from your phone and computer so thoroughly that even the foresnics guys wouldn’t be able to recover them. You really dodged a bullet there.

      1. straffinrun

        By the book, Unciv. By the book.

      2. “Mr. Straff, this is your doctor. I’m afraid you do have syphilis. I have a prescription for antibiotics for you to pick up right away.”

        1. Drake

          Good news on that front – New antibiotic family discovered in dirt.

          1. TK

            This is actually pretty exciting news!

    2. Festus

      See? See? Unassailable proof! I did not have sexual relations with that woman1

  16. Festus

    Ugh, that snail story. I have nightmares like that. Did SF sub in for that link?

    1. SugarFree

      I was still asleep, brah.

  17. Slammer

    My job as an NYPD officer made me obese

    A morbidly obese city cop got a hefty pension when he retired on disability at age 43, but he’s still hungry for more dough — so he’s suing the NYPD, claiming the job left him corpulent.

    “The job is like a tyrant,’’ said ex-NYPD Officer Jose Vega, who is 5-foot-10 and tips the scales at 360 pounds.

    “My goal was to become a first-grade detective and homicide detective,’’ he said.

    But “they brainwashed you. ‘Go out and make arrests.’ The job would emphasize arrests without concern for any officer’s heath,’’ said the former cop, who worked in the Bronx’s 42nd Precinct.

    Vega said that as the stress — and his weight — soared, he finally called it quits in 2014, retiring on a $4,000-a-month disability pension.

    The next year, he applied for three-quarters disability — or a $6,200-a-month pension — arguing that his debilitating condition was caused by his police work.

    1. This should both be laughed out of court and have his “disability” downgraded to “not disabled, just fat”

      1. TK

        ^This^

    2. WTF

      Well, from what I understand donut-scarfing is a job requirement…

    3. PieInTheSKy

      You get the doughnut chip implanted in your brain during Academy

    4. Spartacus

      first-grade detective
      Is that like a kindergarten cop?

      1. Private Chipperbot

        It’s not a tumaaa!

    5. Juvenile Bluster

      Does he wash himself with a rag on a stick?

  18. Study: Sea level rise is accelerating and its rate could double in next century

    Before this study was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists had suspected sea level rise was accelerating but didn’t have the data yet to prove it.

    Satellite data showed a rise in sea level over the last 25 years of 2.7 inches (7 cm) or happening at a rate of roughly 0.12 inches (0.3 cm) per year. Over this short time period, the rate of sea level rise waxed and wane and it was difficult to tease out whether its pace was steady or picking up.

    But it was only a matter of time before an accelerating trend would become clear, scientists thought. “A detectable acceleration is likely to emerge from the noise of internal climate variability in the coming decade,” a study concluded in 2016.

    Monday’s study now suggests enough data is now available to confirm that sea level rise is in fact speeding up. Their analysis, which took into account cyclical changes in the ocean’s temperatures and measurement uncertainty, found that the chance that sea level rise is not accelerating is less than one percent.

    1. If the rate of rise doubles over the next century, at its fastest you get .24 inches a year. Even if it were to have risen at that rate for the entire century (not what they claimed, but worse) we’d have to add all of two feet to our sea walls and levees.

    2. PieInTheSKy

      chance that sea level rise is not accelerating is less than one percent. – huh? what was it before and what is it now?

      “So far, the difficulty in measuring sea level has made detecting acceleration very hard,” said Joseph Majkut, climate scientist at the Niskanen Center, a pro-climate action libertarian think tank. “This new paper seems to have done it.” – if you look for something hard enough you may find it. color me skeptical of bias in this one.

      1. WTF

        Yeah, I’m skeptical that the global sea level can actually be measured with that level of precision.

        1. Even if you are the most generous and say that it can – their own numbers say it’s not a problem. Less than two feet over a century is not a matter of concern, as it’s easily adapted to.

      2. Scruffy Nerfherder

        It has to be performed from satellite using synthetic aperture radar. I actually studied this stuff years ago, but I’m pretty certain my knowledge base is well past its half-life.

        Suffice it to say, there is a lot of averaging going on over a long period of time.

        1. I figured it was the result of reading a trend curve, but I didn’t even get into the weeds on methodology because their own stated results say we have nothing to worry about, so if they try to use it to push policy, you just throw their own study back in their face and say “Less than two feet in a century.”

        2. Number.6

          IIRC, one of the limitations of SAR was that like just about every other method, you have to establish a datum, which isn’t at all easy to do, given that (1) a specific point on the crust is not necessarily static with relation to other points on the crust, (2) sea-floor tectonic activity perturbs ocean levels constantly and (3) the Earth isn’t a rigid, oblate spheroid (which is one of the reasons (1) and (2) occur).

          The mistake made by a huge number of (even earnest) researchers is that you can model a closed dynamic system like the Earth as though you had a bunch of petri dishes in the basement.

        3. AlexinCT

          Suffice it to say, there is a lot of averaging going on over a long period of time.

          And if we look at the “averaging” going on with temps, I bet it is all in the same direction: the one that produces the results the watermelons need to peddle their marxist shit.

      3. Psycho Effer

        “Niskanen Center, a pro-climate action libertarian think tank.”

        No.

    3. Tundra

      Oh, really? Tell me more!

      /Venetian gondolier

      1. Venice is rising faster than the water!

        /climate scaremonger

    4. Suthenboy

      I vaguely remember a Bailey article over at TOS that referenced a study showing the acceleration in sea level rise to be 0.3mm per year.
      Absurd.

      1. Yusef drives a Kia

        Get out a ruler, and tell me Anyone can measure an Ocean with that kind of precision, OTOH don’t, I don’t want to laugh at you

      2. Hyperion

        It is rising. One morning I went down to the ocean and was walking on the beach. I went back to the same spot that afternoon and it was all under water! We’re doomed!

    5. Raven Nation

      It’s horrible: it will lay waste golf and cricket in the UK: http://www.bbc.com/sport/42936199

    6. Brett L

      “nothin’…. double the nothin’… carry the nothin’… Oh! Its nothing!”

  19. PieInTheSKy

    What students know that experts don’t: School is all about signaling, not skill-building

    http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-caplan-education-credentials-20180211-story.html

    I sort of mostly agree with this though not fully.

    1. Negroni Please

      Bryan Caplan is a fucking badass. What do you disagree with here?

      1. PieInTheSKy

        First he seems to put all education in the same bucked and it is not. Engineering and medicine students who want to work after really need to learn something in school, for example. And there are plenty of students who do not cheat and try to learn. Also in University beyond the diploma I learned how to learn all sorts of things fast. And some problem solving.

        1. Negroni Please

          He’s not saying no one learns anything. He’s saying that the primary monetary value of an education lies in credentials rather than knowledge.

          He’s quite right in pointing out that a student who audits 4 years of MIT engineering has a zero percent chance of being employed as an engineer despite having a top shelf education.

          Also I think that the engineers around here tend to have a higher opinion of engineering school than they should. Elite students are elite whatever they study. Smart people work hard and learn a lot. The fact that we have a bunch of engineers who are very intelligent around here is due to them being smart and hard workers and nothing magical about engineering programs themselves.

          I used to work with more than a couple of engineers that were fucking retarded. I also had student interns with high gpa’s from UT (a top ten engineering school) that were brain dead with no analytical or problem solving ability. Furthermore, my wife is a Mech. E. professor and has an unbelievable number of complete fucking idiots in her classes.

          1. Brett L

            My world is divided into those who passed Quantum Theory or PChem and those who didn’t. But I do agree that I had some absolute idiot savants who could do all the math in the world, but couldn’t figure out how to define and solve a real problem. I

          2. AlexinCT

            He’s not saying no one learns anything. He’s saying that the primary monetary value of an education lies in credentials rather than knowledge.

            Outside of the hard sciences, engineering, computer tech, economics, medicine, and other such disciplines where progtardation can’t override or ignore the laws of nature or physics, this is a definite. IMO, most of today’s liberal arts ed, and definitely all those studies degrees, amount to basically highway robbery. What students pay for this education, and then, receive in return, is just outright criminal. I can’t imagine paying insane amounts of money to end up with a degree that only allows me to ask people if they want fries with that or what kind of crap they need added to their latte.

          3. A Leap at the Wheel

            Also I think that the engineers around here tend to have a higher opinion of engineering school than they should.

            Checking in. But there’s a reason for that. Its very rare to find anyone who successful teaches them self differential equations, FFTs, or like Brett says quantum theory or pchem on their own. Its comparatively much easier to find people who have learned about history, communications, or psychology.

            “Law school doesn’t teach you how to be a lawyer, you don’t begin to learn how to do that until you pass the bar,” says every successful lawyer.
            “College doesn’t teach you how to be a chemist, you don’t begin to learn how to do that until you start working as a chemist,” says no successful chemist ever.

            I’ve learned about art, history, politics, religion, economics, philosophy, the law, negotiation, leadership, communication, etc etc etc from life experience, a library card, and an internet connection. I learned diff eqs, FFTs, and quantum theory in college and I don’t think I could have done that on my own if you paid me (sorry Brett, never took more than the minimum chem required to graduate).

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder

      One of the most glaring perversities of the modern labor market is credential inflation. While the education workers need to do a job is quite stable, the education they need to get a job has skyrocketed since the 1940s. Sure, the average job is more intellectually demanding than it once was, but researchers find that only explains 20% of the workforce’s rising education. What explains the remaining 80%? Employers’ expectations have risen across the board. Waiter, bartender, cashier, security guard: These are now common jobs for those with bachelor’s degrees.

      When the bubble pops, it’s going to be epic.

      1. Well, when you can’t test actual job skills because of disparity of outcome…

  20. “what exactly does that mean to each of you?”

    Respectfully…

    NUNYUHBIDNESS.

    1. Banjos

      Real Doll?

  21. “Gymnast (((Aly Raisman))) is tired of being objectified.”

    I do find it amusing that the SI *Swimsuit* Issue increasingly has women that are nude.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      tired of being objectified – well that ain’t up to you. It is my basic human right to objectify who I want. Also I am tired of not enough women objectifying me.

    2. Not Adahn

      Best way to swim, really.

      1. Festus

        Barracudas and Pike need to eat too! No fucking thanks.

      2. Scruffy Nerfherder

        Yeah, no

    3. Certified Public Asshat

      I thought her biggest complaint was she did not want to be felt up but a perverted doctor while she is underage (or of age for that matter). That seems very reasonable to me, and it still allows some room for provocative photo shoots.

      1. Festus

        “Look at me!” “Don’t look at me!”

      2. invisible finger

        “I want to be sexually provocative and then blame the person that I’ve provoked.”

        1. Certified Public Asshat

          What am I missing here, she was abused by Nassar when she was 15.

          1. Don’t harsh the narrative man!

  22. Libertarianism Is Still a Mess

    It’s the least of wonders why Johnson received only 3% of the popular vote in an election year featuring two historically unpopular major party candidates. The man embodied everything wrong with libertarianism: its puritan devotion to abstract concepts, the male-exclusive creepiness, a childlike love of pot. He also lacked its most ennobling traits: bookish brilliance, a sardonic disposition toward politics, and any kind of sophisticated understanding of economics.

    It’s not little ol’ Gary’s fault he fumbled his way into failure. The Libertarian Party, despite being organized enough to have a spot on the presidential ballot in all 50 states, is a shambolic organization, complete with overweight men stripping on stage at the national convention. The party leaders don’t seem to understand the first intuitive rule in politics: never say what you really think.

    Arvin Vohra, vice chairman of the Libertarian National Committee (LNC), recently faced a storm of criticism for reciting libertarian dogma. In a heady Facebook post that would make good fodder for a college discussion group thick in the haze of marijuana smoke, Vohra went full libertarian. From calling U.S. soldiers bought-and-paid-for killers to likening public school teachers to S.S.-Totenkopfverbände, nothing in Vohra’s hyperbolic comparisons is surprising to anyone who’s read the daily headlines of LewRockwell.com.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      Libertarianism != libertarian party

      1. Festus

        I’m more of a”Party-Party” sort. You’ll have to cast your net a little wider, Libertarian apparatchiks.

    2. “The Libertarian Party […] is a shambolic organization”

      You can say that again.

      1. Yusef drives a Kia

        I thought it was a Gambolic Organization?

    3. Rebel Scum

      Gary “bake the cake, or else” Johnson only got 3% of the vote because he demonstrated a lack of principle and his running mate could not stop fellating Her Shrillness.

    4. Hyperion

      Look, libertarianism is well on it’s way to the libertarian moment, just needz moar naked fat dancing guys.

      1. A Leap at the Wheel

        And food trucks!

    5. Gadfly

      The party leaders don’t seem to understand the first intuitive rule in politics: never say what you really think.

      Actually, the first rule of politics is this: the largest/strongest coalition wins. That is the real reason the L’s always lose.

  23. For the big day.

    https://images.iherb.com/l/PMF-00053-7.jpg

    Take 2 about 1-2 hours before the big show.

    1. Negroni Please

      Take how many? I’ve tried it and found it underwhelming. Perhaps I’m not taking enough? I’m a huge dude (245 lb powerlifter) but I’ve been hesitant to up dosage as I don’t want horrible side effects.

      1. Probably not taking enough for a guy your size.

        Try taking two about 2 hours before hand, then crack open a third maybe a half hour before the deed and put the powder under your tongue. If you’re still not getting anywhere, just increase from two to three 2 hours beforehand. Keep increasing until you get somewhere.

        Side effects are not bad unless you take way too much (like 5x effective dose); about like having a couple too many cups of coffee. I’ve never had an effective experience without at least a touch of side effects, but to me it’s worth it. Also make sure you’re using Yohimbine HCL, *not* Yohimbe. Yohimbe is the tree bark and Yohimbine is an extract of the active ingredient; with Yohimbe, you never really know what you’re getting.

        1. Negroni Please

          Thanks Q I’ll give it a shot. I’ve tried one about 30 minutes prior several times, but I’ll try two about 2 hours before hand this time and see how it goes.

          I’m using the exact brand you linked to.

          1. OK good. Like I said, if that doesn’t work just keep upping it bit by bit. I’m 190 and 1.5 is good for me (I break a capsule open), 2 is still ok if I really wanna turn it up to 11.

    2. Endless Mike

      Does this actually work? Viagra is %&^* expensive…
      Uhhhhh.. asking for a friend.

        1. Also:

          www (dot) reliablerxpharmacy (dot) com for Viagra/Cialis etc.

          1. Unreconstructed

            Those guys are good. Getting the first order in is…cumbersome, but worth it in the end.

  24. PieInTheSKy

    Black Living Standards in South Africa before Democracy: New Evidence From Heights

    https://nephist.wordpress.com/2018/02/01/black-living-standards-in-south-africa-before-democracy/

    1. Suthenboy

      I see no mention in the abstract of everyone from middle class up fleeing the country in droves.

    2. Drake

      South Africa’s looking great. Not reverting to a shit hole or anything.

  25. Private Chipperbot

    We just closed on a deal to use new software for the business I do with my company. It’s going to let me use data analytics to improve some of our processes. I was just told they didn’t negotiate for enough volume to be able to include our largest growing line of business. I’m going to be banging my head on my desk for a few.

    1. AlexinCT

      This sounds like the typical shit that happens when the people procuring are more concerned with the $$ than with getting what works…

  26. Rebel Scum

    Authorities have not released full details of the pursuit but say the vehicles were going an estimated 100 mph when Motsinger performed a PIT maneuver to stop the van.

    He thought this was a good idea to do to a van? Christ, what an asshole.

  27. Rebel Scum

    FBI Director Christopher Wray said he won’t discuss the Russian investigation with President Donald Trump.

    “I am not going to discuss the investigation in question with the president, much less provide information from that investigation to him,” Wray said at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Tuesday.

    It’s not like you work for the president or anything…

    1. Festus

      This right here is obstruction of justice. If I go in to work tomorrow and tell my boss that he can’t see what’s in my suspiciously clanking lunchbag I’d be fired on the spot. That fucker serves at the beck and call of the Executive Branch, right?

    2. Hyperion

      We’re living in a day where some lower court can demand that an executive order from a previous president cannot expire when it expires. There’s almost a total breakdown of law at this point.

      1. AlexinCT

        What do you mean at this point? There was a total breakdown some 8 years ago, we became a banana republic where politics defined the legal action, and now, the people that did this, are rebelling because they don’t want to follow the law.

  28. straffinrun

    Stopped off on the way home and the gal at the dive bar had a starter kit ready for me on Valentine’s Day.

  29. Thicc….

    Brazilian man caught trying to smuggle kilo of cocaine in large fake arse

    A Brazilian man attempting to travel through Lisbon Airport in Portugal was detained by police for allegedly carrying 1kg of cocaine in a fake bum. The unnamed 32-year-old was travelling into the city from Belém do Pará, in northern Brazil.

    A second man, aged 40, was arrested at a train station in the city on suspicion of being the intended recipient of the drug haul.

    Police did not release an estimated street value in their statement (which is in Portuguese).

    1. Festus

      Ass coke. The best coke!

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Never use a fake ass, always smuggle using your real ass.

      *advice from a friend*

  30. libertarianjoe

    “Army”

    Oh, you mean the first place Las Vegas Golden Knights?

    I went to my first hockey game recently to watch the Knights beat D.C. It was awesome

    1. Festus

      NHL level hockey is awesome live. Television does not do it justice. I used to play and the speed of those guys is awe inspiring.

      1. libertarianjoe

        Yeah it’s really awesome. We were in like the 16th row, so much closer than the TV view

        1. Tundra

          I like to be in the corner, just above the glass. It’s the best place to see the plays unfold and still get a sense of the speed. The other thing to watch is how the guys use their feet. One of the biggest differences in the bigs is how adept they are at handling bad passes. You can throw one into their skates as they are at full stride and somehow they play it to their stick without slowing down. Amazing.

          1. libertarianjoe

            Yeah, that’s exactly where we were, in the corner. It’s almost like intuition the way they seem to know exactly where the puck is going to be and where their teammates will be, while skating at full speed

        2. I once got tickets for the local AHL team (or is it IHL now?) for the first row, right behind the penalty box. From that location it was impossible to get any sense of what the hell was going on. It was just speed, and the occasional fight.

          I used to be part of a group that bought season tickets for the same team. The seats were right on the red line, second row on the top tier. Great view from up there, giving a great sense of the passing and setups.

          1. libertarianjoe

            I’m pretty sure it’s the AHL. Sitting that close, I feel like you wouldn’t be able to see anything at all when the puck is on the boards.

            I’m definitely going upper deck next game i go too. Still a great view, and half the price of what I paid

          2. Tundra

            Yes, if he’s referring to the Griffins, they are the Red Wing’s AHL affiliate.

          3. Raven Nation

            Yeah, IHL went belly up in 2007 when they thought it would be a good idea to expand into NHL markets.

      2. WTF

        Yeah, nothing more exciting than watching an NHL game live.

      3. Chipwooder

        Hands down the best live spectator sport.

    2. Tundra

      The hockey season is too fucking long. The veterans don’t even start to skate until mid February. Jets and Preds are both deep, formidable teams.

      What I’m saying is I hope y’all enjoyed your stint at the top.

      1. libertarianjoe

        yeah, we’ll see about that haha. People have been saying the same thing about the Knights since like October

        1. Tundra

          I would be thrilled to be proven wrong. Eric Haula is a favorite of mine.

      2. Chipwooder

        Thanks for the loss last night, by the way. The tank proceeds apace!

        1. Tundra

          Hey, we did everything we could to keep you in it. There is some good talent there, man.

    3. Raston Bot

      I was at that game. Knights are fast. Smith had a great game. I didn’t think Grubauer played too badly.. more blame for the Caps defense giving it away in their own zone so much.

  31. straffinrun

    Starter kit waiting for me at the bar. Love this off the grid bar and the gal bartender.

  32. Rufus the Monocled

    From the Black Panther article:

    “As parents, or even as the people creating costumes, we need to be very aware of what that says,” said Brigitte Vittrup, an associate professor of early childhood development and education at Texas Woman’s University. “There’s not a whole lot of black superheroes, so this is a really important thing, especially for black kids growing.”up.”

    I don’t even….I can’t…..this is…..

    “For a white kid to be so open and judge based on the character’s story and the personality and history, I think that’s what’s important,” she said. “But on the flip side, I think it’s also great to have a black superhero you can identify and connect to.”

    Better. And no. Connect? To a comic? Because they’re black?

    “Kids are not colorblind,” she said. “There’s a lot of structural inequality in our society, and kids are noticing that. By not mentioning it, by not talking about it, we’re essentially preserving the status quo.”

    Evidently. ‘Structural inequality.’ Spot the Marxist jargon!

    Kids don’t give really a shit until it’s pointed out. Some do I’m sure but the vast majority, I bet, don’t. It’s the adults that are acting like assholes.

    These people are miserable. This kind of thinking ensures they will always be wallowing in racial misery

    1. WTF

      There’s a lot of structural inequality in our society…

      Please define your term and provide examples.

      1. People have different outcomes, and since everyone is the same, it must be discrimination!

        /progic

        1. Hyperion

          “progic”

          I’m stealing that.

          1. Go right ahead. I think this is the second or third time I’ve used it.

    2. Nephilium

      That’s right… there’s no Black Superheroes.

      Even if we just go with recent movies and TV shows you’ve got:

      Luke Cage
      Misty Knight
      Nick Fury
      Black Lightning
      Guardian
      Black Panther
      Falcon
      Storm
      Cyborg
      Valkyrie
      Firestorm (half of him anyways)

      That’s without the current batch of cartoons, which I’m sure would add even more to that list.

      1. spqr2008

        And you missed some of the CW ones too.

        1. Nephilium

          I realized that after I posted, and wondered how long it would be before someone pointed that out (11 minutes).

          But that just bolsters my point. You want to grab some pop culture to criticize for not giving you options, comic books (and movies) are not the right target.

      2. Rebel Scum

        Hancock.

      3. TK

        I was told that electing Obama was the end to racial tension in this country. Little did I know we were actually waiting for Black Panther to deliver us from evil. Who woulda thought??

        1. Hyperion

          Wait, Obama’s not Black Panther?

          1. No, Obama had the support of the Black Panther Party in blocking polling places. Trust me, it’s different.

      4. Rufus the Monocled

        Lucius Fox, while not a superhero, was instrumental in the evolution of Bruce Wayne into Bat-Man as were Commissioner Gordon and Alfred.

        Those three helped make Bat-Man.

        To me that’s an important part of the tale.

      5. Hyperion

        But, is they all woke?

    3. Rebel Scum

      I think it’s also great to have a black superhero you can identify and connect to

      Isn’t the dude some kind of African King or something like an African Bruce Wayne? We can all identify and relate to that…

      Also, the people that pedal this shite are exactly the racists they claim to hate.

      1. Tundra

        …pedal this shite…

        Where do you sit?

        Seriously, RS, you are on a roll today! 😉

        1. Rebel Scum

          Peddle, even. I have to type fast while waiting for CAD to save. //grammarnazi

      2. Number.6

        We was kangz an’ sheit!

    4. “Kids are not colorblind”

      That is the biggest load of horseshit I’ve ever heard. Of everyone on planet Earth, kids care the *least* about race, sex etc. etc. etc. Bigots learn to be bigots. Not that there are even 0.001% of real bigots in the world that the Left thinks there is.

      1. commodious spittoon

        There are, they just happen to be the Left.

      2. When I was a wee lad, I had a next-door neighbor named John. We did typical kid stuff, played together and went to school. On Martin Luther King jr. day I learned something really important at school, and when I got home I shared it with my mom: “Mom, did you know John is black?” It had never even occured to me that this was important until I was told it was important.

        Kids percieve what things were like growing up as normal. If you raise them color-blind, that will be their normal, and racism aberrant. Alternatively, if you hyper-focus race and gender being important, you’ll get racist-sexist kids, even if it’s White Man’s Burden racism (also, it’s a really easy jump from WMBR to alt-right racism)

        1. Pope Jimbo

          When I was in grade school we had exactly one black kid in our town. He and I were pretty good buddies and one year we went trick or treating together. We lived way out in the country back then, so my father drove us into town to go get our candy.

          When we picked up my buddy his costume was a sheet with eye holes cut out. My dad said, “Nice ghost costume.” My buddy replied “I’m not a ghost, I’m a spook. Spooks are way scarier.”

          My dad laughed so hard I thought he was going to crash the car. My buddy and I had no idea why he was laughing so hard.

          1. Hyperion

            When I was really young, I’m talking among my earliest memories, I had never seen a black person before. We were going to church and my mom and her sister were talking about how there was going to be some colored people there because of some reunion they were having. When it was time to go I was hiding in the closet because I was afraid of these ‘colored people’. I imagined them being like some sort of monster, all green and orange and all sorts of colors. I mean if they’re colored, that’s not just one color, right? So when they found me, I was crying ‘no I don’t want to see the colored people!’. I was maybe 4 years old at the time.

          2. Once a racist always a racist, ammirite?

            😉

          3. Hyperion

            When I was in the first grade of elementary school, one of my best friends was Chinese. I only found out recently that this event did not stop me from being a racist, since Asians don’t count as POC. Oh well, I tried, sigh…

          4. Hyperion

            Oh yeah, and then I even married a Latina, only to find out she’s a white Latina. I can’t win.

          5. Number.6

            I had an acquaintance at college (today, we;’d consider her a 24k SJQ) who explained to her boyfriend that the one-night-stand she had with a (black) guy was that she wanted to find out what color his cock was. At the time, I thought that was just dissembling. Turns out that really was the reason why.

            This was back when only the smartest 15% of kids were meant to go to college.

            /facepalm.

          6. Hyperion

            When I was a teenager, some wise guy was telling me that he had slept with an Asian girl and that Asian girls have their pussy crossways on their belly unlike other women. I really didn’t know if this was true or not since I’d never seen an Asian woman nekked. They were for whatever reason, missing from the girly mags.

      3. Hyperion

        This is true up to a certain age when the kids start to notice that some of the kids are ‘different’. That’s when the boys and the girls start forming their own little tribes to figure out what to do about the other tribe who are icky and stuff.

        1. trshmnstr

          Baby trshmnstr goes through phases of being scared of dark skinned people or being enamored with them. She acts differently around them than around paler strangers.

          It’s not like dark skinned people are a novelty, she’s around them regularly, but she still acts differently around them. Obviously I’m raising a Nazi.

          1. commodious spittoon

            That dingbat Congresswoman who accosted a colleague and startled his young child still goads me. “Don’t raise such a racist, brah,” or something to that effect. Bitch, you scared a child. Don’t be such a psycho.

          2. People who get into the habit of playing the race card end up with it being the only thing in their deck.

          3. Galt1138

            Excellent observation, and a great way to put it.

          4. R C Dean

            Most dogs react differently to men and women. I’ve had dogs that either loved them some Mexicans (the current Dean beasts) or did not like them at all. I’ve also known dogs that really didn’t like black people, or black men. Do they pick that up from their owners? No idea, but the fact that I’ve had dogs with different reactions to different sexes or ethnicities makes me think, not always.

            Recognizing someone as different and the “other” in some sense is bone deep in pack animals, which includes humans. I wouldn’t be surprised if small children do it.

          5. Number.6

            Our dog hates guys in hats with beards, and we didn’t even teach him to.

          6. How much facial hair sets them off?

            Will removing the hat placate them?

          7. Number.6

            It’s primarily the beard, anything beyond a pretty small mustache and he’ll be doing his best Cujo impression.

            At 80lb, he’s pretty terrifying.

          8. Well, shit. I’m not visiting Casa Numero 6.

            /5oclock shadow at 10am.

          9. Number.6

            Yeah, you turn up looking like Bluto and you’d be dead meat.

            Having said that, he’s never actually bitten anyone, but he’ll pin you in a corner and go full warg on you.

          10. CampingInYourPark

            Being scared/suspicious of things or other beings that look different than what one is accustomed is an obvious means of survival in almost every species on the planet. Don’t understand why that’s so hard for some people(not implying you) to grasp.

    5. invisible finger

      “I think it’s also great to have a black superhero you can identify and connect to.”

      Connecting to a superhero is retarded, especially considering their entire purpose is government propaganda.

      1. Perhaps I could interest you in a different take on the genre.

        The first sentence of the whole series is “Bureaucracy.”

    6. Akira

      Kids don’t give really a shit until it’s pointed out

      Indeed. I grew up in a suburb playing with white, black, Pakistani, and Japanese kids, and we all ran around pretending to be Batman and Robin or whoever the fuck without giving a shit if they were the same race as us or not.

      1. Galt1138

        Exactly! My neighborhood was very similar, and my best friend growing up was mixed. I didn’t even think to ask why his dad was black and his mom white, because to even think it as foreign to me (whoops!).

        Although, some years later, when my friend’s parents divorced, I did notice his dad only dated white women. True story: at Thanksgiving, his girlfriend at the time complained that most of the dark meat was being taken him and us boys. My buddy’s dad didn’t miss a beat, “You’ll get your dark meat tonight.”

    7. pan fried wylie

      “As parents, or even as the people creating costumes, we need to be very aware of what that says,” said Brigitte Vittrup

      Brigitte Vittrup needs to leave some t’s for the rest of us.

  33. Speaking of the Director of the FBI:

    REDS UNDER YOUR BED!

    The director of the FBI says the whole of Chinese society is a threat to the US — and Americans must step up as a society to defend themselves

    FBI director Christopher Wray reiterated a commonly held view on Tuesday that China is seeking to become a global superpower through unconventional means — but framed the threat China poses to the US as not just a governmental one, but as a societal one, too.

    Speaking before the Senate Intelligence Committee alongside the heads of other US intelligence agencies, Wray told Senators that China is using a host of methods to undermine American military, economic, cultural, and informational power across the globe that rely on more than just China’s state institutions.

    “One of the things we’re trying to do is view the China threat as not just a whole of government threat, but a whole of society threat on their end,” Wray said, “and I think it’s going to take a whole-of-society response by us.”

    1. Suthenboy

      Valentine’s day, anniversary…meh. For 20 years the wife and I have used them as excuses to go out and eat crawfish. Yum.

    2. Chipwooder

      Bring back the Non-Partisan Anti-Chinese League!

      1. Number.6

        No love for the Red-Headed League?

    3. Hyperion

      Damn yellow menace, I tell you!

    4. Galt1138

      Are you fucking kidding me!? THIS is what the FBI is concerned about? The Chinese? Christ, this guy needs to be fired for that idiocy alone.

  34. Tonio

    Happy Valentines Day, fellow Glibs.

    My boyfriend and I don’t celebrate this as a holiday. Every day is a celebration for us.

    Yeah, about the boyfriend – we met last Spring and things are going well.

    1. Tundra

      Mrs. Tundra and I have been together for more than 30 years and steadfastly ignore this one.

      Beware the people that freak out about it.

      1. Tundra

        Oh, and congrats! I wish you both much happiness!

      2. Raven Nation

        Mrs. Nation & I got engaged on Valentine’s Day so we celebrate that.

    2. Tonio

      Congratulations, Tundra.

      And thanks.

      1. Tonio

        Oh, we do, Slammer, we do. We just do that on birthdays and hopefully on our anniversary when restaurants not so crazy.

    3. Slammer

      Thanks, Tonio! And congrats for you and your boyfriend!

      1. Tonio

        Oops.

    4. “Every day is a celebration for us.”

      Sometimes it’s nice to have an excuse to go nuts though 😉 .

      1. R C Dean

        AND BY “GO NUTS”, MEAN . . .

        Oh, is this not the right time for a STEVE SMITH joke?

        1. pan fried wylie

          STEVE SMITH LIKE WHEN HIKERS BRING ALONG MIXED NUTS FOR POST-RAPE SNACK

    5. SugarFree

      Boyfriend? But Tonio is a boy’s name. This doesn’t make any sense.

      1. It’s the 3rd pillar of Reason* libertarianism, right up there with Mexicans and Weed.

        *Note to Tonio: pleases do not take this the wrong way. I am not saying gay men are the Nick Gillespies of libertarians

        1. Just Say’n

          Nick Gillespie is the Nick Gillespie of libertarians. Gay men are one of its central pillars (and lesbians, because that’s hot).

          Happy Valentines Day, Tonio and all those that inadvertently celebrate a Christian holiday appropriated from pagan tradition

      2. Tonio

        Aw, you guys…

    6. Galt1138

      Good to hear things are going well!

  35. straffinrun

    Posts not going through. Can’t post pics from Imgur.

    1. R C Dean

      Is your internet down?

  36. Via TOS. Probably one of the best things about the Trump admin, especially now that we’ve seen what kind of damage activist judges can do.

    http://reason.com/volokh/2018/02/13/the-judicial-nomination-train-keeps-roll

    1. Just Say’n

      That’s a lot of left-wing bitching. I like Bari Weiss being on the Post opinion page. Even though she is an undying neocon, the fact that she upsets the readers of the Democratic Party house publication cheers my cold black heart. Kind of like how Bret Stephens so triggers the readers of the NYT. Not a fan of Stephens’ foreign policy or most of his positions, but the fact that he upsets the NYT’s rich white liberal readership makes me giddy.

      1. Just Say’n

        Just realized Weiss and Stephens are both (((Jews))) (redundant?). Is it a coincidence that they so upset progressives? Maybe and maybe not

        1. Scruffy Nerfherder

          Only because they’re off the reservation

  37. Just Say’n

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/can-jim-mattis-check-an-impulsive-president-and-still-retain-his-trust/2018/02/07/289297a2-0814-11e8-8777-2a059f168dd2_story.html?utm_term=.ce3687eca7dd

    You may or may not have read this article before, but it is disturbing on so many levels. The whole article tries to portray Mattis as the sage adult ensuring that Trump doesn’t jeopardize American foreign policy, but all the examples they give is Mattis and McMaster steering Trump to double down on our wars and to escalate others.

    This is a revealing exchange:

    “You guys want me to send troops everywhere,” Trump said, according to officials in the Situation Room meeting. “What’s the justification?”

    “Sir, we’re doing it to prevent a bomb from going off in Times Square,” Mattis replied.

    The response angered Trump, who insisted that Mattis could make the same argument about almost any country on the planet.

    Attorney General Jeff Sessions echoed Trump’s concerns, asking whether winning was even possible in a place such as Afghanistan or Somalia.

    It was Mattis who made the argument that would, for the moment at least, sway Trump to embrace the status quo — which has held for the past two presidents.”

    This is the Washington Post- the house organ of the Democratic Party. They are applauding an American general in the administration that is ensuring that war never ends overseas.

    1. Tundra

      It was Mattis who made the argument that would, for the moment at least, sway Trump to embrace the status quo — which has held for the past two presidents.”

      I’m picturing a Swamp Thing reboot starring Mad Dog.

      Fuck that guy. Status quo is for losers.

      1. Just Say’n

        The more things change- the more they stay the same.

        1. Yusef drives a Kia

          Laughed at by Time,
          Tricked by Circumstances

    2. WTF

      An American general with the nickname “Mad Dog Mattis”.

    3. TK

      But, also:

      For weeks, Mattis had been resisting requests from the White House to provide military options for Iran. Now Trump made clear that he wanted the Pentagon to deliver a range of plans that included striking Iranian ballistic missile factories or hitting Iranian speedboats that routinely harassed U.S. Navy vessels.

      “Why can’t we sink them?” Trump would sometimes ask about the boats.

      National security adviser H.R. McMaster and his staff laid out the president’s request for Mattis in a conference call, but the defense secretary refused, according to several U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations. At that point, McMaster took Mattis off speakerphone, cleared his staff from the room and continued the conversation.

      “It was clear that the call was not going well,” one official said. In the weeks that followed, the options never arrived.

      If this is true (and who knows, the WaPo is not exactly a shining beacon of truth), than I can understand saying that Mattis might be a somewhat good influence sometimes. I wouldn’t be super happy if Trump is seriously asking why can’t we just sink Iran’s ships all nilly-willy. I’m not really happy with the idea of continuing to spill American blood and borrowed Chinese treasure on shitholes (gasp) like Afghanistan, but I’m a lot more adverse to going to war with Iran.

      1. Just Say’n

        True. What is weird is that they also mention in the article that Mattis was ignored in the Obama administration for being too hawkish on Iran. Whatever is going on in that administration is not good and it seems like the default position is the status quo

        1. Given the Obama Administration’s attitudes towards Iran “Too Hawkish” could have been “lets not let them take our sailors hostage while paying them huge sums of cash and failing to prevent them from acquiring nuclear bombs”

  38. Retired priest who fought against child sex abuse arrested for child pornography

    A retired Idaho priest who fought against child sex abuse in the Catholic church was arrested Friday for possession of child pornography and drug charges, the Idaho Statesman reported.

    Authorities had received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and obtained a warrant to search Fr. W. Thomas Faucher’s home, the Statesman reported.

    Authorities found images of young children subjected to sexual acts on Faucher’s computer, prosecutors said at a probable cause hearing Monday morning. In email and chat conversations viewed by investigators, Faucher expressed of his desire to “rape and kill children,” another proesutor said.

    1. Just Say’n

      You post this on Ash Wednesday. For shame, Lord

      1. commodious spittoon

        I thought it’s Ass Wednesday.

        1. Private Chipperbot

          The mark on your forehead must look different than mine on this day.

  39. Festus

    Good Night/Morning, Glibs. On the West coast it’s time to “slip into the arms of Morpheus”. The only time I can real-time with you guys is if I over-drink and stay up too late (goes to bed grumbling and sulky).

  40. The Late P Brooks

    Rub some dirt on it

    “Every place you step, there’s 10,000 bacteria, most of which we’ve never seen,” said Brady, an associate professor at Rockefeller University in New York. Many of these bacteria behave in ways that aren’t yet understood and produce molecules that haven’t been seen before.

    “Our idea is, there’s this reservoir of antibiotics out in the environment we haven’t accessed yet,” Brady said.

    That idea is beginning to pay off: In a study published Monday in the journal Nature Microbiology, he and his colleagues report the discovery of a new class of antibiotic extracted from unknown microorganisms living in the soil. This class, which they call malacidins, kills several superbugs — including the dreaded methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) — without engendering resistance.

    Sounds promising. God FDA willing, we might see a practical application before the next millenium.

    1. robc

      Of course, that will probably lead to a super-MRSA in a few decades.

      1. AlexinCT

        Speaking MRSA, I just got diagnosed with that shit a few weeks ago and am riding the antibiotic train. Seems getting any kind of staph infection now results in people getting MRSA, even if they take antibiotics according to my doctor. That is some scary shit. I guess you do need to be careful at the gym to make sure you don’t pick up rogue critters.

  41. The Late P Brooks

    In email and chat conversations viewed by investigators, Faucher expressed of his desire to “rape and kill children,” another proesutor said.

    Anybody who hates children and dogs can’t be all bad.

  42. The Late P Brooks

    “You guys want me to send troops everywhere,” Trump said, according to officials in the Situation Room meeting. “What’s the justification?”

    There’s your smoking gun. Let the impeachment commence.

  43. PieInTheSKy

    Mills, cranes, and the great divergence: the use of immovable capital goods in western Europe and the Middle East, ninth to sixteenth centuries†

    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ehr.12571/full

    This article contributes to the ongoing debate on the causes of the great divergence by comparing the use of expensive labour-saving capital goods—water-mills, windmills, and cranes—in medieval western Europe and the Middle East. Using novel ways of measuring, we find that whereas the use of these goods increased in Europe, in the Middle East their prevalence decreased, or they were not used at all. We investigate several possible explanations and reject most of them, including religion, geography, technological knowledge, and disparities in wages and cost of capital. Our analysis shows that differences in lordship systems and the security of property rights best explain the patterns found.

    1. Drake

      The differences in lordship systems and the security of property rights was at least partially due to religious differences. Society and climate also played their roles.

    1. ruled against Long Island developer Jerry Wolkoff, who had permitted the “artwork” on his property,

      There’s the problem. There was an agreement between the artist and the landowner. They should have hashed out who owned the resultant work, and thus who had the right to destroy it.

      1. The artists bolstered their case against Wolkoff by citing the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, which permits artists “to prevent any destruction of a work of recognized stature, and any intentional or grossly negligent destruction of that work”

        That law needs to go. An artist’s interest in the object ends when it is sold, either through work for hire or by direct post-production sale. If the new owner decides to have a canvas bonfire, that is their perogative.

      2. C. Anacreon

        Did Howard Roark speak for the plaintiff? This story sounds similar to one I read in the past.

    2. Drake

      He sued a Long Island developer and isn’t wearing concrete shoes in the Atlantic? I’m disappointed.

      1. R C Dean

        Well, I’m made sure the right somebodies got to wet their beaks on the payout.

        1. Drake

          I feel better imagining that scene.

        2. “wet their beaks”

          Hey, it’s Valentine’s Day, everyone deserves a little beak moisture.

        1. Just Say’n

          Wait a second. These are songs- without any girly pics. Have you gotten soft, Q?

          1. commodious spittoon

            He’s just tired.

        2. The Other Kevin

          If he’s gotten soft, there’s a link up thread that can help with that.

  44. Nephilium

    Just got an update on the interview I had yesterday. I did well enough to move onto the next level of interviews, so I get to be put through the wringer again sometime tomorrow.

    1. Tundra

      Congrats. Go take it!

    2. DEG

      Congratulations!

    3. Semi-Spartan Dad

      Congrats, good luck at the next one

    4. TK

      Nice! Best of luck on the 2nd round. (I hate multi-round interviews, I had to do 3 for my current job… 5 (!!!) for my previous job)

      1. Nephilium

        2nd round? This is round 3. One with the recruiter, one with the technical team, and the next one with the VP and customer manger. So far all telephone interviews.

        Same basic work I’m doing now, but for a company that focuses on setting up call centers and doing implementations. This role is in house support for one of their clients, but there’s the opportunity to move up in to the implementation team in the future. As opposed to my current role, which has no advancement opportunities at all.

        And I do appreciate the thoughts from you lot.

    5. Scruffy Nerfherder

      It’s time to close the deal. Show up in your underwear and a tie.

      Good luck!

      1. Naked and flopping the manhood on the desk. Works every time.

        1. Private Chipperbot

          “What can we do to get this on my own desk here?”

    6. Whatever they offer you in compensation, just take it.
      /sarc

      1. I thought I was supposed to give that advice.

        1. “Didn’t mean to steal your thunder,” he said half-jokingly.

    7. Galt1138

      Congrats! And, good luck in the next phase.

  45. DOOMco

    Happy Valentines day!
    Remember to buy chocolate tomorrow!

  46. DEG

    Gymnast (((Aly Raisman))) is tired of being objectified. And this is her way of fighting it? Well, I and the rest of America wholeheartedly approve. You go girl! Show those men you aren’t a piece of meat. In fact, you should get a couple of your teammates from 2016 and do it together. You know, for empowerment and shit.

    I think Aly Raisman is good looking, but I don’t know. I have my limits.

    1. Yusef drives a Kia

      Meh, Wifey and I will be married 30 years come April, I’ll still take Her over Ali whatserface

  47. Rufus the Monocled

    Good job USA in hockey today.

    Not.

    1. Just Say’n

      Said a……Canadian

    2. Tundra

      Goddamit, Rufus.

      /angry yeti

    3. DOOMco

      lol

  48. Warty

    Something…um…topical from the old site.

    1. Yusef drives a Kia

      You can’t fool me, That’s Gilmore!

    2. Just Say’n

      I think torrents would explain libertarianism much better. There is a lot of casual “fuck off, slaver” always thrown about

    3. PieInTheSKy

      That was talked about yesterday. I remember because, as usual, I had the best comment

      1. Warty

        NOBODY FUCKING CARES ABOUT YESTERDAY

        1. Yusef drives a Kia

          Those who do not Care about Yesterday are doomed to repeat it

          1. commodious spittoon

            Are we still talking about Bill Murray

        2. Negroni Please

          #zenlife

    4. Scruffy Nerfherder

      MacLean is cashing in on the anti-libertarian circuit. She saw how Naomi Klein made good money by helping the progs justify their hatred of libertarianism and said to herself “I can do that too.”

      1. C. Anacreon

        Progs must really fear libertarianism these days, or they would just be ignoring it like they did in the past. (me to someone: ‘oh, I’m a libertarian’. dumbfuck yuppie who only social signals: ‘I don’t know much about that, I think I knew someone in college who was a libraterrian’.)

        I think progs are concerned that when you explain the simple basics of libertarian philosophy to people, it makes a ton of sense, and you might change some minds. And progs can’t really simplify what they want and make it sound good (“everyone should make the same wage no matter how talented they are or how hard they work” doesn’t resonate with most people). So instead progs create absurd straw men about libertarians to discourage anyone from taking them seriously, because they can only win on emotions, never logic.

        1. commodious spittoon

          I agree, but I still like this tweet about the 2016 Libertarian Convention (I think): If we just explained libertarianism better, we’d have fewer libertarians.

        2. Suthenboy

          I dont know why they bother. There is always someone around calling themselves a libertarian who makes the word synonymous with ‘asshat’.

          See: Gary Johnson and Weld, Stripper dude, jerks like Bill Maher, etc.

          Not to mention that open borders doesnt sell very well, and by not very well I mean people turn it off the instant they hear the phrase.

    5. commodious spittoon

      What I really want from my political overlords is empathy when they’re giving me the Marcellus Wallace in the pawn shop treatment.

    6. Chipwooder

      Hey, she stole her hairstyle from the guy in Gilmore’s avatar.

    7. wdalasio

      Here’s the thing I don’t get. Does she still expect to be taken seriously as an academic when she pretty much blows herself up as an unprincipled hack?

      1. Academia does not regard that as a fault anymore.

    8. Akira

      That whole “libertarians are autistic” thing was very interesting to me… The stereotype of autistic people is that they’re socially awkward or inept but incredibly smart and analytical. I don’t see why that’s a bad thing. That’s exactly the kind of person I would want to address a question like, “how should the society be ordered so as to maximize the utilization of all resources including human labor?

      Furthermore, it’s not actually true that libertarians lack emotion. People on this site have emotional empathy over for all kinds of people: people (and dogs) murdered by police, small business owners who get their dreams strangled by regulation, people who can’t afford healthcare in the government-created cartel, people who are priced out of the market by minimum wage laws, etc.

      Finally, she seems to be using “autistic” as a insult, which I’d imagine is a bit hurtful to autistic people. Way to showcase that Leftist compassion and tolerance, Nancy.

      1. R C Dean

        Mrs. Dean and I saw a story on Sunday Morning about Microsoft specifically hiring autistic people. Some of the other tech companies, too. The ones they interviewed struck me as pretty typical (to stereotypical) “IT nerds”. I can think of at least two of our IT people who present pretty much exactly like the two autistic people they featured.

  49. The Late P Brooks

    You’re either with us, or you’re deplorable

    Last month, Mollie Hemingway, the Fox News contributor and senior editor at The Federalist, declared herself a Donald Trump supporter for the first time. “I wasn’t a Trump supporter,” the headline of her Washington Post op-ed stated. “I am now.”

    She cited his actions on judicial nominees, climate policy, regulatory reform, tax cuts, guidelines on how colleges should adjudicate sexual assault, and foreign policy.

    Large swaths of the Republican Party and the conservative movement have now reconciled themselves to supporting President Trump, including figures far more famous, powerful, and influential than any journalist. A strong case could be made that this particular endorsement didn’t really change anything, especially since its author was already openly anti-anti-Trump in her orientation.

    Still, if the GOP loses the ability to win elections during the next decade because its leadership has lost the trust of too many people in too many groups—Latinos, blacks, Asian Americans, Muslims, immigrants, anti-racists, anti-sexists, citizens who worry about the minimum civic virtues a republic requires to thrive—I will recall her endorsement as an illustration of how it happened.

    Conor Friedersdorf despises Donald Trump. If you know what’s good for you, you will, too.

    It doesn’t matter what he has actually done; he’s said some awful things.

    1. Just Say’n

      Friedersdorf use to be good on foreign policy and individual rights. Now, he’s just begun focusing on ‘feelz before realz’. Sad

      1. wdalasio

        I remember Friedersdorf commenting on conservative blog at the invitation of the blog’s owner. I was able to pick up his schtick back then. He’s basically a guy who has a decent education and defines his life by it. And never tires of trying to cast himself as more educated and intelligent than “those people”.

        All-in-all? He’s boring.

        1. My experience in Higher Education taught me to put little stock in credentials. This was reinforced by the fact that one of our best techs after I graduated was a former car mechanic who taught himself computers. The key transfer skill was in understanding systems and troubleshooting. The logical process of diagnosis was applicable to both fields, and the details could be picked up from available materials.

          1. Suthenboy

            Hear, hear. I bet I have more hours in hard science, social science and philosophy than 90% of those hacks, probably Conor too yet I put no stock in it whatsoever. Either my arguments hold water or they dont. Either they are convincing or they aren’t. I play myself off as a deplorable hick. Lemme tell ya, that sure gets a lot of masks to hit the floor.

            *spits tahbackee and sips some shine*

    2. TK

      if the GOP loses the ability to win elections during the next decade because its leadership has lost the trust of too many people in too many groups—Latinos, blacks, Asian Americans, Muslims, immigrants, anti-racists, anti-sexists, citizens who worry about the minimum civic virtues a republic requires to thrive

      The Republicans already have many anti-racists and anti-sexists in their party. In fact, I’d say that the majority of Republicans are anti-racist and anti-sexist and view Democrat as promoting culture that is sexist (all men suck) or racist (affirmative action, or attitudes like all white people suck).

      An on “citizens who worry about the minimum civic virtues a republic requires to thrive” – this is literally one of the pillars of conservative culture. They are the people that worry about civic virtue — certainly more than Democrats. They fucking tried to put a criminal in the white house during the last presidential election.

      On Latinos – Most Latinos I’ve met actually lean right – this is one of the things I wish Republicans would focus on more. Many Latinos want to vote Republican but Republicans are not very good at capitalizing on it.

      1. TK

        “They fucking tried to put a criminal in the white house during the last presidential election.”

        By “they”, I meant Democrats.

      2. Dems are focused almost completely on short term gain by playing the identity politics game; Repubs are too stupid to exploit it.

      3. R C Dean

        My understanding is that Latinos who can legally vote do not really support open borders, amnesty, etc.

        1. Hyperion

          Legal immigrants who I know are the most anti-illegal immigrant of anyone I know.

    3. Hyperion

      No, it actually matters a lot more what he does. Never listen to a politician, just watch what they actually do, because that has real world consequences.

      1. Galt1138

        Exactly! In fact, I think this applies to people in general. It’s far more telling what people do than what they say.

    1. Chipwooder

      Who is Dan Arel? Nevermind, don’t care.

      Following this shitstain’s line of thinking, there should be hordes of poor South Koreans trying to get into the North for all that generous housing and health care.

      Wish for the day – a debate between a North Korean defector and this Dan Arel jackass.

  50. The Late P Brooks

    The artists bolstered their case against Wolkoff by citing the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, which permits artists “to prevent any destruction of a work of recognized stature, and any intentional or grossly negligent destruction of that work”

    So- the artiste retains control if the work, in perpetuity? That must mean s/he has the power to veto a sale to a deplorable third party. No problems, there.

    “I’ve been to one world’s fair, a picnic, and a rodeo, and that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard come over a pair of earphones.”

  51. Semi-Spartan Dad

    Good shoot story that highlights how statistics are gamed to change self-defense shootings into the murder count column

    http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2018/01/dean-weingarten/texas-pizza-shop-after-fatal-defensive-gun-use-armed-employees-welcome/

    Texas Pizza Shop After Fatal Defensive Gun Use: Armed Employees Welcome
    By Dean Weingarten, January 17, 2018

    A justified defensive shooting in a Texas Pizzeria resulted in the death of one of the armed robbers. The response by the restaurant owner shows the acceptance of defense of self and others is gaining legitimacy in the United States. Here’s the relevant part of the official statement released by La Bella Pizza owners via myhighplains.com:

    We at La Bella Pizza on Olsen are deeply saddened by the incident that occurred last Tuesday, January 9th. Our hearts go out to All the families that are involved during this trying time. Our policy always has and always will be that our employees are welcome to legally and responsibly possess the means to defend themselves and others around them.

    The robber, 36-year-old Clayton Jerrell Morgan, was armed with an air pistol altered to look like a real gun. Morgan was killed when he pointed the air pistol at an armed employee. Morgan’s accomplice will be charged with murder under the felony murder rule. From amarillo.com:

    Amarillo Police Department has identified the man shot at La Bella Pizza on Olsen Boulevard as Clayton Jerrell Morgan, according to a news release. Officers arrested his alleged accomplice, 29-year-old Ruben Ryel Rios, who police said was charged under the state’s felony murder rule that allows a person to be charged with murder if they are involved in a felony crime that causes a death.

    The shooting illustrates one of the reasons why only 20 percent of justified homicides are recorded in the FBI Uniform Crime Reports. Morgan’s death will be listed as a murder because of the felony murder rule. It will increase the official count of murders in the United States, and reduce the official count of justified homicides.

    ©2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

    1. Warty

      I wouldn’t call that gaming, since it is in fact a murder under the law. It does, however, highlight the fundamental problem with statistics. Measurements are great, but they only measure what they measure, and you have to be very careful not to fool yourself into using them to support what you already believe. It’s one of the major reasons why science is so much harder than I Fucking Love Science-ing.

      1. Semi-Spartan Dad

        I would call it gaming since the results are not properly disclaimed as such. It’s like saying that a headache will be relabeled as cancer for a competitor’s product but my active treatment. If I tried this shit with medical research, my publications would be pulled and regulatory decisions would be affected.

        1. Semi-Spartan Dad

          *but not for my active treatment.

        2. Warty

          If we follow the cancer analogy here, the patient does have cancer. There was a murder, committed by the accomplice.

          If they’re not counting this as a justified homicide, then that’s bad. But it also ought to increase the murder count, since there was one of those murder things.

          1. Semi-Spartan Dad

            I think we’re differing on if murder is an accurate label. I do not think it reasonable to charge an accomplice for a murder that involved a good shoot by the victim or a cop. The entire labeling of such as a murder is what I’m talking about as gaming the stats.

            In any event though, from the article it sounds as if 80% of justified self dense shootings are not labeled as such which is an astounding amount.

          2. Warty

            I think I’m with you in that the accomplice shouldn’t be charged with murder, but since it’s statutorily murder, it seems to me that the stats ought to reflect it.

          3. R C Dean

            I haven’t really thought too hard about the felony murder rule (Is it full-blown homicide, or more of a manslaughter? The latter might make more sense, since the death was a foreseeable result of your decision
            to do some crimes, even if you didn’t intend to corpsify the dead guy).

            But, I don’t mind the incentive it gives prosecutors to go for the easy conviction under felony murder, rather than go after the actual trigger-puller and force him to put up his affirmative defense.

          4. Since Manslaughter was “Someone died, but it was an accident broght on by neglience”, Felony Murder sits near “Depraved indifference” and just below Second Degree “I meant to kill him and I did.”

      2. Suthenboy

        I dont think this is an inadvertent mis-measure. Every goddamned thing the gun grabbers say is a lie, something calculated to deceive. This is no different. It’s gaming. Gaming is a term used to describe when someone finds a technically correct way to divert the system to produce an end the system is not intended to produce. It’s gaming.

    2. DOOMco

      huh.

    3. commodious spittoon

      If the accomplice is being charged with murder, shouldn’t that make Morgan’s death a suicide?

      1. Morgan’s accomplice will be charged with murder under the felony murder rule

        Felony murder rule – if, as a result of your crime, someone dies, you get a murder rap, because your actions led to their death. Even if you didn’t kill them yourself.

      2. Rebel Scum

        shouldn’t that make Morgan’s death a suicide?

        Who ever said that laws had to contain consistent reasoning and definitions?

        1. Not Adahn

          +1 selfie-taking “child pornographer”

          1. Number.6

            Should demand to be tried as a minor though.

  52. The Late P Brooks

    The shooting illustrates one of the reasons why only 20 percent of justified homicides are recorded in the FBI Uniform Crime Reports. Morgan’s death will be listed as a murder because of the felony murder rule. It will increase the official count of murders in the United States, and reduce the official count of justified homicides.

    Wow- that’s… enlightening.

  53. straffinrun

    You’re on a crowded train or bus and a lot of people get off at a stop. Now you’re sitting right next to a dude even though there are a lot of open seats. You slide over or stay right next to the guy?

    1. If there is space, I keep at least one empty seat between me and any other passengers.

    2. Homo or no homo?

    3. Tonio

      I move. Just because I’m a homo doesn’t mean I like people.

      1. Yusef drives a Kia

        But if there is one spot open, will you sit next to anyone? I do

        1. Sometimes I’ll opt to stand if there looks to be too much physical contact involved with the available seat. Public transit riders around here range from dumpy, average looking fold to the sort of people where you look at them and go “how many diseases and parasites will I catch if I get too close?”

          1. Yusef drives a Kia

            I’m thinking more waiting at the DMV ,I can’t use Public transportation, I Must drive myself, Being a Passenger scares the shit out of me,

          2. In a DMV, I won’t sit adjacent to anyone. I don’t want to be in a position where they can read my forms.

          3. commodious spittoon

            I lean over and show them pictures of my kids. I mean, my pictures of kids.

    4. commodious spittoon

      Noogie him.

    5. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Move in closer now that it’s a more intimate setting.

      1. straffinrun

        That was terrible advice. Now I’ve got a wife and a Japanese salaryman to take care of.

        1. Gustave Lytton

          Good news is he won’t be home much. Bad news is finding vomit on the floor in the morning (that isn’t your own). Push him in front of the train and tell the police that he was depressed?

    6. Rebel Scum

      You do this.

    7. Hyperion

      I would get up and move closer to the front.

      1. Hyperion

        And the reason I’m saying that is that it’s normal behavior. I see people do it all the time I’m on train or metro. So it doesn’t look specifically like an avoidance maneuver.

        1. I’ve never seen anyone affronted if, as a bus empties out, someone shifts one seat to stop being in direct physical contact with another passenger.

    8. Suthenboy

      One seat separation? I look for a row of seats with no one in it.

  54. PieInTheSKy

    Rule of Law index

    https://twitter.com/conradhackett/status/963520125524725760

    Romania is 29, just above Barbados. I attribute it to out better climate and hotter women.

    1. commodious spittoon

      Denmark, more like Winmark.

      Norway, more like Norwin.

      Finland, more like… Finwin.

      1. Sweden is highly ranked -> this is a load of shit.

        “Rule of law” unless you’re a refugee who likes setting cars on fire; then you’re just misunderstood.

        1. Hyperion

          Those aren’t really crimes because that stuff it totes ok in their own cultures.

        2. Hyperion

          I stopped reading all of those articles a while back after I realized that they are cherry picking data to come to get the results they want.

  55. The Late P Brooks

    You slide over or stay right next to the guy?

    Lay your head on his shoulder and sigh loudly.

  56. Nephilium

    In beer related news, Stone Brewing is suing MillerCoors for labeling Keystone in a way that the can will just show Stone Light. While most of the trademark lawsuits surrounding branding in beer (I’m looking at you Bells, Innovation Brewing is not close to your marks at all), this one looks to have some merit.

    “Since Keystone’s debut in 1989, prior to the founding of Stone Brewing in 1996, our consumers have commonly used ‘Stone’ to refer to the Keystone brand,” MillerCoors spokesman Marty Maloney said in a statement. “We will let the facts speak for themselves in the legal process.”

    1. commodious spittoon

      “We will let the facts speak for themselves in the legal process.”

      Unless they SF the facts.

    2. Private Chipperbot

      ‘Stone’ is a funny way to spell swill.

    3. invisible finger

      Um, no.

      The asshole in the picture is conveniently holding his hands over “Key” so that it looks like it says STONE LIGHT even though it clearly say KEY STONE LIGHT.

      I hope Stone Brewing loses their ass and goes bankrupt because of this frivolous shit.

      1. Looking at the picture, the huge “STONE” that fills the side of the can makes it so that there are limited viewing angles where it says

        “Key
        STONE”

        and at most times will read as “STONE”, which is the point the plantiff is suing on.

        1. Nephilium

          And I can easily see that causing confusion in the marketplace. And if the statement that MillerCoors is dropping the Key from their social media outlets and marketing (from the plaintiff… so…) is true, that’s even more damning.

          1. Galt1138

            Yep. I know there’s disagreement about IP laws. But, given the nature of existing law and trademark, I think Stone has a valid complaint.

      2. Hyperion

        Yep. Also, why would anyone who drinks beer not know what that is? It’s not going to be in the same section, it will be in the 18 swill pack area.

        1. The average consumer is dumber than you realize.

          /Court precedent.

        2. Private Chipperbot

          A case of Keystone costs about as much as a six of Stone. Not much consumer overlap.

          1. Meh, back when I allowed myself to drink at home I always had a 30 of Strohs and one or two sixers of some uppity pricey beer, usually Hefes in the fridge.

  57. Mojeaux

    @UnCivilServant I have a client who needs to find an illustrator. Do I remember you saying you are one?

    1. I am not an illustrator. I have to pay my cover artist to fill in that skills gap.

      1. Mojeaux

        I like your covers and that’s about what he’s looking for. Would you mind emailing her contact info to me at esb10 at b10mediaworx dot com?

        1. His info is publically available here. though for a full book worth of illustrations, he may not be your guy. (Just knowing his personality and work preferences, he gets bored with repetition, so may up the asking price)

          1. *oh, and the numbers on the image are non-commercial, in the fine print, commerical commissions are “contact me and lets talk”

          2. Mojeaux

            My bad. I went to your Amazon page and saw the name Barbara and assumed she was the illustrator.

          3. Barbara was my first editor.

          4. Galt1138

            “It’s Babra, Sarge!”

    2. I’ve used Dreamstime several times to buy an image that I can modify (adding title/author/crop). Unless you need something very specific, there are plenty of drawing / photographs done by pros that should meet your needs.

      1. I splurge on custom art because my own browsing habits draw my eye to custom cover art and I don’t even read the title of a book with a photograph cover. Since I only had my own habits to go by, my design question was “How would I catch my eye?”

        1. commodious spittoon

          With a scarcely-clothed dame writhing sensually in the grips of a hulking, brutish sasquatch.

          1. Number.6

            Needs more Mountain of Skulls.

          2. Scruffy Nerfherder

            +1 Frazetta

          3. Number.6

            Who can really tell if the biceps and pecs are oiled under all that fur?

      2. Mojeaux

        Sadly for me, my client needs a cartoonist/illustrator and that is not in my skillset. Designing abstract covers and using stock art are more my (very slow) speed.

        1. My own drawing skills are subpar. I know a few artists – and one who did a bookcover for them – but getting them to do anything was worse than pulling teeth. I had to cajole/bribe the one who did the work for me until he finally did it. It pushed back the publication a few months.

          And I ended up replacing his work with something from Dreamstime!

          It just takes a lot of time to go through hundreds of images until one strikes my fancy. High noise level there with some amateurs (with artistic levels much like my own) trying to cash in on their subpar work.

          1. One of the reasons I like my current guy – he works fast. Watch his stream sometime just for entertainment value. this was a five-hour endeavor I watched realtime.

          2. Mojeaux

            Yes. I have a different client with an illustrator whose art is amateurish at best. As I was into the project I started to think it was deliberate. But after a quick look-see at her webpage, no. Just…no.

            This is about what he’s looking for:

            Moon Patrol
            Tangie and the Bitter King

            His illustrator is MIA, I guess.

        2. I’ve commissioned a lot of folks via Deviantart – vast array of talent there (and complete garbage too admittedly, but pretty easy to get in touch with folks and get price lists, etc).

          1. Mojeaux

            Thanks. I’ll direct him there because even though I have an account, I forgot all about it until UCS linked.

        3. Galt1138

          Don’t know what your budget is. But, this guy is one of my closest friends, and is excellent. He may be either too pricey or too busy. Worth inquiring, though.
          http://cskern.biz/

          1. Mojeaux

            Oh, that’s BRILLIANT.

          2. Galt1138

            Yeah, he’s pretty good. Puts my artwork to shame. And, the bastard’s color blind. I hate him 😛

    1. Number.6

      Two of those are favorites of mine.

  58. commodious spittoon

    (Hint: here’s the chance to tell someone how much you love them and perhaps give the site a few extra hits when you tell them to take a look.)

    “His name’s ‘SugarFree’. He posts some very, um, engaging stories.”

    1. commodious spittoon

      “What is fidelity, after all?”

      “…Not fooling around?”

    1. Tundra

      Not tits?

  59. Private Chipperbot

    Detroit cop training death should not have happened.

    “It’s too soon to know what the cause factor was in this,” Craig said Tuesday. On Wednesday, Craig said he was “troubled” that the training exercise was conducted in an uncontrolled environment. Michigan Avenue, where the fatal crash took place, is one of Detroit’s main roads, and is heavily traveled. The crash happened just off Clark, which is west of West Grand Boulevard. “You don’t do surveillance training in an uncontrolled environment,” Craig said. “And an uncontrolled environment is city streets.”

    The damn car was sheared in half. It looked like a train hit it while a giant was holding it in place. I can’t believe they did this on open public streets.

    1. Tres Cool

      Oh, Christ- the irony. I shot coffee out my nose:

      ?? ??????? ???? ??????????? ????? ????????’ ????? ?? ????? ???? ????????, ????? ???? ???????? ???? ?? ? ????? ????? ????????, ??? ???? ?? ??????? ???????. ????????, ????? ?? “?????” ?????? ??? ??????????, ??? ????? ?? ?? ???????? ??????? ?? ??? ???? ?? ???????.

      1. Private Chipperbot

        Yeah.

  60. wdalasio

    Gymnast (((Aly Raisman))) is tired of being objectified.

    Then she better damn well not have any pictures of beefcake amongst her effects.

    Here’s a hint, folks. No one who doesn’t know you has the ability to know jack shit about you beyond your superficial appearance. And, honestly, the fact that you’re good at a sport I have no interest in whatsoever isn’t a reason for me to elevate you much beyond your superficial appearance. But, being superficially good looking is a good thing. It’s not the sum total of good things. It’s not even a hugely important one. But, it is the one thing I can observe about you at an instant.

    But, if people like Aly Raisman really, really want to not have anyone paying attention to that superficial good, maybe we should just do away with gymnastics as a sport, since the appearance of the participants is probably the largest reason anyone at all pays attention to it. Then the lest of us can appreciate the fact that people like Raisman have faded away into their much-deserved obscurity.

    1. I still -rarely – check in with FB, but it’s become a cesspit of gloom ‘n’ angst, often political. Or else I’m just tired of hearing one of my lesbian “friends” complain about her lack of girlfriends, or the shit stirring pay-attention-to-me posts.

      But the tube building and vinyl collecting groups I belong to are interesting.

      1. commodious spittoon

        Without Facebook, where would I drunk-post witticisms that sounded a lot funnier in my head?

        Oh, right. Here.

    2. trshmnstr

      I haven’t once regretted deleting my Facebook.

  61. Number.6

    Can I just say that implementing DKIM on my domain is a pain in the ass?

    1. commodious spittoon

      D’Kim is Jong-un’s street name.

      1. Number.6

        Sometimes, I’m kinda convinced that’s true. Fucking spammers and the lengths I have to go to to deal with the fallout. Between that and the Spectre vulnerabilities (interesting that they used the English-English spelling) , I’ve got nothing done since Monday.

    2. These euphemisms are getting a little obscure.

      1. Number.6

        It’s a kind of purity test, Q. You wouldn’t understand …

        1. You know who else administered purity tests…

          1. Watewater Treatment Workers?

          2. Gold rush era pawn brokers?

          3. commodious spittoon

            Assay, assay, son, you may be on to something.

          4. There’s a nugget of truth in there for certain.

          5. Number.6

            I can’t think of a good pun, so I’ll just leave this as a placer holder.

          6. commodious spittoon

            Q puts the Au in autistic.

          7. Number.6

            This posting hit the motherlode of puns.

          8. Well, he’ll have good prospects then.

          9. Akira

            Your wit was not employed in vein.

          10. Number.6

            The acid test will be how long we can continue in this vein.

          11. It appears to be close to spent.

          12. Number.6

            I’m sure we can dredge up some more material if we work at it.

          13. Not sure how long the tailings will last.

          14. commodious spittoon

            Some ore material, you mean.

          15. Number.6

            I can riffle thru’ my stuff to see if I can hit pay dirt.

          16. It may not meet our refined standards though.

          17. Number.6

            We’re getting to the point where most of the good stuff is an amalgam of material.

          18. commodious spittoon

            Ingot nothing else.

          19. Do we at least have enough bullion left to make soup?

          20. Number.6

            If we can’t get a few more, we’re gonna get panned.

          21. Number.6

            That would depend. Your bullion soup always tastes of cyanide.

          22. commodious spittoon

            It’s getting awfully flakey.

          23. Cyanide?! It’s made with aqua regia!

          24. Number.6

            I think I’m going to have to leaf it at that.

          25. Our puns are no longer up to the gold standard.

          26. commodious spittoon

            IXON-NAY ON THE OLD-GAY

            Okay, I really got nothing now.

          27. Number.6

            I’m off to take a shower, IYKWIMAITTYD.

          28. commodious spittoon

            You’re just taking the piss now.

          29. JaimeRoberto

            Humbug.

          30. Hippocrates?

          31. Tres Cool

            Branch Davidians ?

          32. R C Dean

            Speaking of which, I am really enjoying the Waco miniseries.

          33. trshmnstr

            Buttplug?

          34. Number.6

            The Culligan Man?

    3. Dr Mossy Lawn

      You may,
      Now, are you properly handling automated forwarding with re-writing and mailing lists with reply to’s?..

      1. Number.6

        Fortunately, I’m not messing around with relays and mailing lists. My issue is that while I have valid DKIM keys in my DNS, all my reporting from the big guys who create DMARC reports, tell me I have 0% conformance. So, I go and set ‘strict’ mode, and it breaks DKIM altogether. I just managed to get a setup to ‘stick’, and it validates as strict, but I have to wait and see what tomorrow’s DMARC reports say.

        That, and I discovered that DNSSEC is probably a waste of time.

        1. Dr Mossy Lawn

          DNSSEC is definitely a waste of time. I live in horror of the government regulators mandating it… (like in brazil).

          yes, we should use SHA1 and RC4 hashes for security in 2018.. How do you want your DNS to fail today.

          Aren’t the DMARC reports post traffic reports?, so you need to have generated a certain amount of traffic.

          1. Number.6

            1. Yeah, Now I find out
            2. ‘cos the internet is so 1988, it can’t handle any hashes that weren’t compromised in 2001
            3. Yep, they are post traffic, but I’m generating a fair number of emails to a number of domains
            that I should be able to get some response from, but seemingly aren’t. I tweaked them by putting DKIM into strict mode, which probably won’t do anything, but makes me feel warmer inside.

          2. Dr Mossy Lawn

            The problem is that DNSSEC makes the internet very brittle.. multiply the expired cert we had yesterday for glibs * that takes out your entire infrastructure, email, VPN, transactions etc.

            One domain on DNSSEC is no big deal… I have 3500 domains, and 17K trust anchors to manage if we went to DNSSEC.. (scattered among 100 CCTLD’) and nobody automated any of it.. (there are RFC’s but nobody follows them) None of the DNS IP management tools do anything with it.

            so.. 10 domains and 50 trust anchor updates every day.. that will go well.

          3. kbolino

            FWIW, I think the/a solution, now that we have it, is to use DNS over DTLS. It provides the benefits most people need out of DNSSEC without the headache of creating a new signature for every record change.

            The downside is that this is more computationally expensive (every request is separately encrypted) and consumes more bandwidth (DNSSEC results in bigger response records, but DTLS adds the overhead of a handshake). However, this is no different from HTTPS. Nobody signs their webpages.

          4. kbolino

            yes, we should use SHA1 and RC4 hashes for security in 2018

            There have been better options for almost a decade now.

  62. So I ordered a Lonsdale – who makes boxing sports gear – winter jacket:

    A bit I saw via Wikipedia:

    In the early 2000s, Lonsdale clothing became popular among some European neo-Nazis, allegedly because a carefully placed outer jacket leaves only the letters NSDA showing; one letter short of NSDAP, the acronym for Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the German name of the Nazi Party.[2][3][4] Wearing a brand with no Nazi links in order to express Nazi sympathies helped bypass strict laws concerning the public display of Nazi symbolism.[5] In the Netherlands, Belgium, northern France, Spain and Germany, the term Lonsdale youth became widely used to describe teenagers with far right tendencies, and the brand was banned from certain schools in the Netherlands and Germany .[2][6]

    So beware if you see me coming down the street, Nazi-ing it up ‘n’ shit.

    1. Number.6

      It’s an amazing thing, every time someone tells me a Lonsdale jacket is going to be delivered in the USA, it arrives in Europe.

      1. ::opera applause::

        very good, sir (or madam or other).

        1. Number.6

          Takes bow. Falls out of Mini Moke.

  63. commodious spittoon

    I want to walk into the majority-woman department next door and ask, “Hey, where are the flowers?”

  64. invisible finger

    I don’t like to point out misspellings in posts and comments. But I do like to point it out in artwork. The front page artwork misspelled Valentine as Valetine; or maybe the person just isn’t so special.

  65. Pope Jimbo

    Uffda. Mixed messages.

    A threatened teacher strike in St. Paul was recently averted. The superintendent said (two days ago) the teachers contract won’t bust the budget.

    Today there is a story that the St. Paul school district is facing a $17M shortfall next year. (But don’t worry, those are preliminary numbers)

    1. Number.6

      I bought a couple of hundred NFA weapons and suppressors last month, which means our bank account is 17 million in the red, but as I told my wife, it doesn’t really bust our budget,

      1. At least with the NFA materials, you have something to show for it. I’d wager the SPSD is not the shining gem of achievement they pretend it is.

      2. commodious spittoon

        It helps when your budget is all the tea in China.

      3. Gustave Lytton

        Did she tell you she wasn’t really going to bust your balls as she squeezed them into dust?

    2. commodious spittoon

      Awfully Minnesota Nice of them to threaten a protest over busting the budget.

    3. commodious spittoon

      If I had to put a face to the name Solvejg Wastvedt, it would be hers.

  66. Tres Cool

    Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, because I often am. However, the teacher saying she was #MeToo sexually harassed by her students is delivering her soliloquy from a podium placed in front of a Playboy Bunny?

    1. SugarFree

      That’s Gloria Steinem when she went “undercover” at a Playboy club to expose the misogyny inherent in men finding attractive women attractive.

      The Bunny’s Tale

    1. Number.6

      Duh. Fuck yeah.

    2. Galt1138

      Indeed. She looks great.

      Wasn’t Ric Ocasek married to her? Lucky bastard.

      1. Number.6

        Still is. Lucky bastard.

  67. The Late P Brooks

    Have some rambling, incoherent babble

    “Smart cities” merely want to be perceived as smart, when what they actually need is quite different. Cities need to be rich, powerful, and culturally persuasive, with the means, motive, and opportunity to manage their own affairs. That’s not at all a novel situation for a city. “Smartness” is just today’s means to this well-established end.

    The future prospects of city life may seem strange or dreadful, but they’re surely not so dreadful as traditional rural life. All over the planet, villagers and farmers are rushing headlong into cities. Even nations so placid, calm, and prosperous as the old Axis allies of Germany, Japan, and Italy have strange, depopulated rural landscapes now. People outside the cities vote with their feet; they check in, and they don’t leave. The lure of cities is that powerful. They may be dumb, blind, thorny, crooked, congested, filthy, and seething with social injustice, but boy are they strong.

    If you can figure out what this prattling wanker is on about, let me know.

    1. People like jobs.

      Idiot thinks people like cities.

      News at 11.

    2. commodious spittoon
      1. commodious spittoon

        I read in vain for a thesis statement and found only cluttered madness, but I think he’s crapping on the leftist conceit of technology-driven urbanism as a mechanism for realizing social justice. I can get behind that.

        1. Number.6

          I see so many implicit “to be sure”‘s in there, I have no trouble with inferring his intent.

    3. Number.6

      If cities “need” to be “rich, powerful and culturally persuasive” my expectation is that in comparison, rural areas should be comparatively “poor, weak and culturally irrelevant”.

      Fuck him. Fuck him and his elitist claptrap with a large, rusty plowshare.

    4. Pope Jimbo

      I wish I could tell you what that was about. But I can’t.

      I can tell you that “Smart Cities” is a complete scam that has big tech companies loot various municipal budgets. It is an offshoot of the IoT world. The big consultants will show up at a city planner’s office and tell them how wonderful their city could be if you added sensors everywhere on everything and then used those data streams to manage their city services.

      The city planners love the idea because it will give them a shit ton more power. They won’t have to rely on slothful city inspectors to go out and do their jobs. The bots will send the data into the cloud and algorithms will tell the city folks how to make more money.

      So big contracts are signed. Hundreds of consultants devour big budgets. At the end of the day, a lot of sensors have been deployed, but because no one really knows how to use the data it just sits in the cloud doing nothing. A few lame apps will be created to show off as a demo (10 to 1 odds that it will be an app that shows buses/train locations in real time).

      My analogy is that the IT consultants are miners who make a lot of money digging up ore. In theory someone who knew a bunch about smelting could refine it into steel. Still even with the steel you would need people with an idea of how to use it and what people wanted to build with it. City adminstrators don’t know how to smelt the ore, much less what to do with that. They were promised a city of shiny objects and all they got was the ore.

      I’ve been involved with several of these projects in my career. They are always fucked from the beginning. Benefits were over promised, the work just to deploy sensors is huge, city bureaucrats meddling, etc., etc.

      The IT guys make a bunch of money doing it. They always get the city planners to vouch for them to the next city before it becomes clear that the benefits won’t ever materialize so the cycle will repeat it. City planner don’t get a “smart city” but they aren’t spending their own money either. And during the implementation phase, the IT consultants will kiss their ass and take them out to dinner and happy hours, so it isn’t all bad.

  68. Count Potato

    ““Run over by a really bad process,” Duke soccer player has his day in court

    Read more here: http://www.heraldsun.com/news/local/counties/durham-county/article199782844.html#storylink=cpy

    Duke University broke its word to a men’s soccer player when it mishandled the disciplinary process it put him through after a fellow student accused him of sexual misconduct, Durham’s top judge agrees.

    Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson acted on that conclusion Monday by turning a temporary injunction into a permanent one that bars Duke from imposing a six-semester suspension that soccer player Ciaran McKenna otherwise faced.

    Hudson’s ruling effectively decided McKenna’s breach-of-contract lawsuit against Duke ahead of trial, leaving the two sides little more to do but argue about the damages Duke eventually might have to pay him.

    He’ll be seeking more than just attorneys’ fees, as the question ultimately revolves around “what effect does it have to be falsely labeled as a rapist and how much does it cost you in life,” said Emilia Beskind, one of McKenna’s lawyers.”

    http://www.heraldsun.com/news/local/counties/durham-county/article199782844.html

    You would figure Duke would know better by now.

    1. commodious spittoon

      His name is plastered all over the piece, of course. Hers? Don’t be ridiculous.

  69. The Late P Brooks

    He’ll be seeking more than just attorneys’ fees, as the question ultimately revolves around “what effect does it have to be falsely labeled as a rapist and how much does it cost you in life,” said Emilia Beskind, one of McKenna’s lawyers.”

    Gender traitor. How dare she defend that rapist monster?

  70. Count Potato

    “There is a wealth of writing on the inextricable connection between Benson’s ideologies — fiscal conservatism and free market ideology — and real, tangible, state violence against marginalized communities. Such thinking is fundamentally at odds with any intention to pursue real justice for structurally and historically marginalized people. Arguments like Benson’s enable white supremacist and fascist ideas to fester and flourish by defending the speech of already empowered people over and above any concern for justice or histories of violence.

    How does Benson’s claim to free speech and his dismissal of the racism at the heart of ‘free’ speech debates, help our community heal, learn, and grow? OUR institution cannot simultaneously honor this speaker and claim a commitment to change.

    It is the responsibility of every member of the Brown community to look deeply within themselves and within their surroundings to see and speak against subtle and not-so-subtle traces of white supremacy and fascism that exist or are enabled in our community. White supremacy and fascism are not outside problems. These are Brown University problems and we must be unequivocal and unrelenting in our pursuit of their eradication.”

    http://bluestockingsmag.com/2018/02/13/silencing-and-free-speech/

      1. Number.6

        He doesn’t look anything like he did in his eponymous show …

        1. Tres Cool

          What you did there. I saw it.

    1. kbolino

      There is a wealth of writing on the inextricable connection between Benson’s ideologies — fiscal conservatism and free market ideology — and real, tangible, state violence against marginalized communities.

      If by “wealth of writing” you mean “one poorly sourced book written by an author with an axe to grind and full of factual inaccuracies and logical fallacies”, then yes.

  71. Count Potato

    “Noam Chomsky Explains What’s Wrong with Postmodern Philosophy & French Intellectuals, and How They End Up Supporting Oppressive Power Structures”

    http://www.openculture.com/2018/02/noam-chomsky-explains-whats-wrong-with-postmodern-philosophy-french-intellectuals.html

    1. Count Potato

      “Chomsky says the places that have been damaged most by postmodernism are in the Third World, because intellectuals have focused on arcane, meaningless discourses rather than solving problems.”

      https://twitter.com/clairlemon/status/963548613887447040

    2. Number.6

      ::Falls off perch. Imitates Norwegian Blue::

  72. Count Potato

    “The IRS Is Coming for Your Passports

    A draconian new policy tramples on a basic civil right.

    The U.S. government is building the world’s largest debtors’ prison: the United States.

    Beginning this month, the Internal Revenue Service will begin denying passports to some American citizens with unpaid taxes and, in some cases, revoking the passports of Americans with tax delinquencies. The government will in effect place those with unpaid taxes under arrest, effectively denying them their right to travel.

    To be clear: We are not talking about Americans who have been convicted of tax evasion or tax fraud, or who are awaiting a criminal trial on charges related to tax matters. These Americans have not been charged with a crime, must less convicted of one. They simply have unpaid taxes amounting to $50,000 or more.

    More precisely: They have an unpaid IRS liability amounting to $50,000 or more. The IRS’s aggressive schedule of interest and penalties for unpaid taxes ensures that a relatively small amount of unpaid taxes can turn into a $50,000-plus liability with remarkable speed.”

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/456393/irs-policy-targets-us-passports-congress-should-reverse-it

    1. Gustave Lytton

      You know who else denied exit papers?

      1. Warden Samuel Norton?

      2. trshmnstr

        That woman in that Seinfeld episode who couldn’t even spare a square?

        1. commodious spittoon

          *stands on chair to applaud*

      3. A bowel blockage?

    2. R C Dean

      the Internal Revenue Service will begin denying passports to some American citizens with unpaid taxes and, in some cases, revoking the passports of Americans with tax delinquencies

      Including the IRS and other pubsecs who are behind on their taxes? Because there’s a shitload of them.

      1. Number.6

        It’s like you never heard of professional courtesy.

  73. The Elite Elite

    So, I never paid much attention to Milo. I’m just curious since maybe one of you know better than I. Is he really Persona Non Grata in the conservative community simply over his comments about his sexual experience as an underage lad? Because this article about him seems very over the top about how “horrible and awful” Milo is. http://www.weeklystandard.com/open-letter-to-the-bruin-republicans-who-invited-milo-yiannopoulos-to-ucla/article/2011582

    1. It was less his comments on his personal experiences, more his comments about the yacht parties where others were being abused.

      1. The Elite Elite

        Yacht parties? You have a link to these comments?

        1. It was a ways back, and I can’t go searching for it at work.

        2. Number.6

          Milo weighed in on the Hollywood Gay Pedophilia story (the stuff that Corey Feldman etc implied). Highly plausible, and may be revealed as true once the #Metoo momentum falls off.

    2. Hyperion

      He’s horrible and awful if you’re a prog or SJW, for a couple of reason. One being that he is a guy guy who is openly conservative. Two, he seems to revel in triggering the hell out of SJWs.

      1. Hyperion

        “guy guy”

        gay guy

        1. thom

          same diff

      2. His excommunication on the right came from a defense of abusive pederasty. After that, he all but vanished from the limelight, his fifteen minutes spent.

    3. Number.6

      He’s a troll that pisses off all the ‘let’s be polite’ conservatives and the inevitable anti-gay demographic.

      He got very badly sandbagged over the pedophiliagate issue, and couldn’t recover from that without hiding out a bit. The slander persists, so that any coverage he gets in the media is prefixed with what I consider a very unfair and untrue slander that is complicated enough that lots of people tl;dr/tl:dl any explanation he has to give before he gets to deliver his message.

      The tradcon populace were never really that enthusiastic about him, and he’s very polarizing, but I know a number of what I’d call Scoop Jackson Democrats in NYC who find him very entertaining and somewhat persuasive. After all, a city that loves Woody Allen can’t be too dismissive of another edgy jew with some skeletons in his closet.

    4. Rebel Scum

      He is a gay, ethnic Jew with a fetish for black guys (recently married one) who is a conservative provocateur that really gets under the skin of sjw’s and gets them to show their true colors. As such, I find him entertaining. (Yes, I know about the pedophilegate thing, but I recall him saying that his experience was ok for him. Not necessarily others and he was not advocating pedophilia.)

      I’m still an advocate of Milo for press-sec. It would be epic.

  74. The Late P Brooks

    Creative destruction in action?

    The Gear Works, a family-owned company in South Park that for more than 70 years built and repaired heavy industrial gears to drive equipment such as wind turbines and power generators, folded abruptly last week and sold its assets to a neighboring machine shop.

    The company has a storied legacy of sophisticated skills. For instance, it rebuilt the ancient gearboxes that lift two of Seattle’s historic drawbridges. And for a 747 jumbo jet owned by NASA, it designed and built a gearbox that could in midflight reliably open and close a massive door in the fuselage through which a telescope could observe the stars.

    Machinists Inc., located next door, bought all the machinery and gear-making equipment and has also leased the large Gear Works manufacturing building, which covers more than 100,000 square feet, more than doubling the Machinists Inc. manufacturing space.

    Interesting story.

    tl;dr- family is cashing out of multigenerational business

  75. The Late P Brooks

    I can tell you that “Smart Cities” is a complete scam that has big tech companies loot various municipal budgets. It is an offshoot of the IoT world. The big consultants will show up at a city planner’s office and tell them how wonderful their city could be if you added sensors everywhere on everything and then used those data streams to manage their city services.

    *moans, clutches head*

    1. Akira

      But do these consultants use fancy words like “data science” and “machine learning”? Because that means they’re totally smart and futuristic and stuff.

  76. The Late P Brooks

    These Americans have not been charged with a crime, must less convicted of one. They simply have unpaid taxes amounting to $50,000 or more.

    And these numbers are unresolved allegations, not judgements issued by a tax court.

  77. The Late P Brooks

    Paging Doktor Munchausen

    A few years ago, after a series of cascading injuries and illnesses that rendered me unable to type, drive, or sleep, I briefly became a professional patient. Like all of my professions, I took it seriously. I went to appointments armed with lists of well-researched questions written down neatly on my yellow legal pad, brought in the occasional medical journal article, and compiled detailed descriptions of my array of increasingly bizarre symptoms. My goal was to get my doctors to take me seriously so they would dive into the complexities of my case. I wanted to walk out of every appointment one step closer to determining the underlying cause of my mysterious condition and with concrete strategies to ameliorate my suffering so I could work, sleep, and live my life again.

    TW: Slate.

    “Those asshole men wouldn’t take me seriously.”

    1. Number.6

      They would not enact my hypochondria.

    2. Akira

      And I say herself deliberately, because data indicates both that women underreport pain

      After I finish my uncontrollable laughing fit, I’m going to call bullshit on this claim.

      1. Wife gets bumped: clutches and flops in pain like Claude Lemieux.

        Me: (three days later) how did I get this bruise?

        1. Me: (more than once) “Hold on, am I bleeding?”

          There are tasks that always end up with at least one laceration.

        2. Galt1138

          My experience as well. Granted, my wife is a tiny woman, barely over 5′ and 100 lbs soaking wet, and I’m getting her under the barbell to build strength. Still, she did go through a pregnancy.

  78. KibbledKristen

    Dear KK: I love you! You are awesome! Smooch!

    1. Akira

      You know who else had initials with a lot of Ks in there?

      1. MikeS

        Krispy Kreme?

    2. B.P.

      Boy, this whole send-a-message-to-yourself-as-cover-against-future-accusations thing is really taking off.