Tuesday Morning Links – The Sloopy Is Out There

…and so is sloopy.

 

Nothing yet from sloopy…but I am on the case! I have it narrowed down to alien abduction or a “Deliverance” style ordeal in central Texas. So while the Glib-Files investigators work on this, I will send another round of links your way.

[Actor heavy] Birthdays: Washington Irving (1783), Iron Eyes Cody (1904),

“I am sad I am not around to celebrate my birthday”

Doris Day (1922), Marlon Brando (1924), Wayne Newton (1942), Tony Orlando (1944), Alec Baldwin (1958), Eddie Murphy (1961), Amanda Bynes (1986)

Sports: ‘nova beat Michigan in basketball. The dream of an undefeated White Sox season died. I still don’t want to talk about hockey.

Links:

  • #MeToo means she won’t. Before this calms down, I wonder how many other politcos will have the skeletons in their closets dragged out and shown to the world. Overall, I must say this is a good thing…if this is what it takes to pry some of these careerists out of office.
  • This will not end well. Personally, I would have kept my head down, mouth shut and not made a spectacle of myself…were I trying to get into the US. I wonder if ICE could make a trade – LA area homeless for Hondurans?
  • Hmmm. I wonder when we will get a “ripped from the headlines” episode of some police procedural about this story. Probably not, because the villains are in blue and the DA’s office.
  • Extremely glib“?! Hey, that is our schtick!! There has been some talk of adopting “extremely glib and not at all aligned with the truth” as an official site motto.
  • Prince Charles…spreading the demise of monarchy, one dominion at a time?

Oooh, I have to run now….the tip hotline is ringing.  Sloopy, hang in there buddy, we’ll find you! THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE!

Comments

510 responses to “Tuesday Morning Links – The Sloopy Is Out There”

  1. Slammer

    “#MeToo means she won’t. Before this clams down”

    The MeToos could have shut their clams down at any time

    1. I almost think I should not have corrected that typo. It sort of fit, didn’t it?

  2. WTF

    Maybe Sloopy is lost in a delirium of celebration over Michigan getting spanked by ‘Nova.

    1. Brett L

      I heard he was headed for Ft. Worth, so probably captured by a cult. Here’s hoping they aren’t at the top of the ATF’s action list.

  3. Drake

    I thought Charles was going to get skipped over for the crown in favor of his son because he’s divorced, and you know… a retard.

    1. Gadfly

      I don’t think the Anglican Church is as opposed to divorce as they were when Edward VIII was pressured to abdicate, and being a retard has never been an obstacle to inheriting the throne, so I don’t think Charles will get skipped.

  4. Rufus the Monocled

    Zuckerberg v. Cook. SJW retard fight.

    1. Pope Jimbo

      The winner gets to take on Elon Musk for the Shyster of the World heavyweight championship belt.

      1. Ayn Random Variation

        Fake News.
        Al Gore is the current holder of that title.

  5. Rufus the Monocled

    NYC police and DA are providing quite the material for episodes of L&O, eh?

    Right. Better to be woke.

  6. PieInTheSKy

    Prince Charles…spreading the demise of monarchy, one dominion at a time? – maybe the queen disinherits him or something

    1. Brett L

      “Okay, okay, you don’t like Charles. What about his decent son and smoking hot daughter-in-law who has done her duty as a baby factory?”

  7. Mr Lizard

    “The cops — who claim the entire incident was consensual — were fired over the allegations, which DA Eric Gonzalez has called “conduct that boggles the mind.””

    Sheesh. I thought New York enforcers were team players

    1. Brett L

      Conduct that boggles the mind — but in no way worth prosecuting

      1. Negroni Please

        No reasonable prosecutor would actually pursue charges here
        /Comey

      2. Mr Lizard

        Actually it appears from the article that the prosecution is ongoing, maybe. Fuckin journalists and details.

        1. straffinrun

          That and I have no idea what the pronouns mean.

    2. R C Dean

      They double-teamed her, didn’t they?

    3. Ayn Random Variation

      Pretty obvious what happened here. The cops arrested her and said they’d let her go if she had sex with them. SOP.

    1. Negroni Please

      Germans like to encourage appeasement in others. It often comes in handy for them.

      1. PieInTheSKy

        You must be one o them supporters of christian privilege

    2. Sayonara Europe.

      1. straffinrun

        You leave us out of this. *Distances himself from former Axis member*

      2. Rufus the Monocled

        It’s all America’s fault!

        If they would just be more woke, this wouldn’t be an issue! But because they don’t, it just makes Europe look bad and Paris Accords.

        /modern European prog logic.

    3. Brett L

      So they’ve gone to the late 19th Century British Public model? Boys who survived that did pretty okay, when they weren’t rendered worthless.

      1. WTF

        Prince Philip and his son Prince Charles are fine examples of that.

    4. Chafed

      Nothing says multicultural like absolute conformity.

      1. TK

        Whichever is the most dominate, assertive and aggressive culture will win out.

    5. Heroic Mulatto

      “She had blond hair, no headscarf, has a German-Hebrew name — and we are Christians!”

      What’s the problem, lady? You already buckled under once!

  8. straffinrun

    University event aims to combat ‘Christian Privilege’

    The April 5 diversity workshop is titled “Christian Privilege: But Our Founding Fathers Were All Christian, Right?!”

    1. PieInTheSKy

      Well yes all those mandatory theology classes must go

    2. WTF

      Yes, yes, the privilege of being the only religion it is okay to mock, and to force adherents to enact labor for others that violates their beliefs.

      1. Ayn Random Variation

        Jews are fair game too.

    3. robc

      But Our Founding Fathers Were All Christian, Right?

      Proving once again, if a title asks a question, the answer is no.

      1. SugarFree

        Exactly. Few mainline Christians would accept Deists into the fold except in a “big tent” political sense.

        1. robc

          The Jefferson Bible makes it really clear where he stands.

          1. The Last American Hero

            It also was a side project he kept on the down low.

    4. Rufus the Monocled

      ‘All are welcome!’

      Except white male Christians who don’t use proper pronouns. Hisssss!

      If you really read (and squint hard enough) carefully, I swear you can see a gulag for Christians between the lines.

  9. PieInTheSKy

    So some idiot in Romania’s parliament wants a law that all electronic products sold which have menus of some sort should have menus in Romanian. Well what if it is a fucking niche product that a couple of specialty stores sell? Ban them all? Goddamnit

    1. Drake

      Your EU overlords would allow that?

      1. PieInTheSKy

        Probably not but the bill will probably go through until it is declared illegal. Won’t cause much damage but shit like this pisses me off for some reason. Although it shouldn’t given the average Romanian member of parliament has the intelligence of an not to bright rock

    2. You could get a job as a translator.

    3. Rufus the Monocled

      Quebec has similar language restrictions. I always wonder how many (mostly smaller niche) companies choose NOT to export their food here. There has to be an unintended consequence of this action.

      We already see it with the Habs. The team practices linguistic discrimination. The results speak for themselves. Not only that, as any non-Francophone will tell you, there’s a whole lot of discriminatory behaviour that goes on here. For example, my buddy was about to be hired by a small software firm. He did very well with the owner in the interview. He then was asked to go to the Montreal office and meet the head person there. She refused to speak to him in English, while his French is so-so (mostly because the companies he worked for over the last 22 years deal with U.S. customers so his French has decline a tad). He didn’t get the job because of that twat. Same with another friend of mine in pharma. A former boss was open in telling him she was a Pequisite (Parti-Quebecois – ie nationalist hicks who hate English). A real classless piece of work. My friend is the epitome of class in the English mould. So when it came time to cutting back, she cut all the ‘Anglos’ first.

      Friend of ours (Italian) is second in line with the Montreal police force. They flat out told him he could never be police chief because it has to go to a French-Canadian.

      They’ve even decided to put in linguistic exams to get a, get this, a real estate and mortgage rep license. And the exams are extremely difficult; rumour has it tougher for non-Francophones.

      Only in Quebec does this shit happen. Heaven forbid we speak of it. They refuse to acknowledge it happens. But it does. In every other jurisdiction it’s what we call discriminatory or prejudicial practices. Quebec is a shithole and it’s only a good one because of Canada.

      Hence, why my daughter ain’t staying here.

      1. You should move.

        1. Rufus the Monocled

          Biggest regret. My wife’s family on her maternal side is from Rhode Island and she thinks Canada is dinky and loves the USA. Why we choose to stay is beyond us. Even my extended family have grown tired of it.

          What’s happening is two things. Either people pick up and leave or plan to (as we are hopefully) or they adopt a ‘join ’em’ mentality. So for example, they send their kids to French school in an effort for them to give them an advantage. I personally think that won’t work because Quebec Inc. is already entrenched. I keep reminding your name is not ‘Tremblay’. It may as well be ‘Corleone’. While it’s not as drastic as that and there have been improvements here and there, but the bottom line is if an employer sees to equally qualified people and one is French and the other is ‘other’ the French person is getting the job. And they’re open about it. Just listen to French TV and radio. It’s sickening. You don’t even see this shit in Alabama.

          In Ontario the most popular police chief was Julian Fantino while another wop made it to the head of the RCMP. But Quebec says no.

          So they don’t get my blood.

          1. Ayn Random Variation

            This is why the black/white face Star Trek was the best episode. And also the hill people Taxi episode. People will always find reasons to hate each other

          2. LOOK TO THE COOKIE!

      2. Rufus the Monocled

        Oh. The come back to those honest to admit this happens? They’ll say it’s ‘necessary’ to protect the culture. Some culture, eh? Weak as shit if you need to do that. Another, which annoys me, is ‘yeh well I worked in Toronto and it’s the same thing!’ BULL FUCKEN SHIT. Anglos aren’t perfect but they sure as hell don’t engage in those practices. Maybe they did 80 years ago but no more. Toronto is waaaayyyyy to big, cosmopolitan and important a city to dick around like that.

        A tale of two cities? In Montreal, you see the differences between the French and English. I grew up on the French side (loosely termed as ‘East end’. I worked on the English (loosely called the ‘west end’ making up Outremont, Westmount, Hampstead all the way to the West Island ). There’s no comparison between the two and their institutions where ‘politesse’ is concerned. The English hospitals and overall quality of life is far more polite and civil. The West Island is like going to Ontario and boy do nationalists hate that place. Ive grown to appreciate it. The more West you go, the more frequent the thank yous and hello basically.

        ‘Le minding’ as one friend put it, is different.

        1. The apartheid state of Quebec.

          1. Rufus the Monocled

            That no one dares speak of. Quebec acts like it’s a ‘victim’ province.

            Meanwhile it’s Quebec and Ontario that have dictated Canada since Confederation. Pre-Confederation, it was ALL Quebec. Montreal had a ‘hinterland empire’ that stretched all the way to St. Louis and to the nether-regions of western Ontario up towards Gaspe. It was yyyyuugee! Lotsa beaver pelts sold!

          2. No one gives a shit about Alberta.

      3. Number.6

        Rufus, exporting those mythical Canadian girlfriends to help benighted nerds everywhere.

      4. invisible finger

        “He did very well with the owner in the interview. ”

        if this wasn’t enough to get the job, he ought to be glad he didn’t get it. Owner sounds like he’s getting embezzled and is too chickenshit to stop it.

      5. Broswater

        Don’t really know how old you are Rufus, but I can tell you that most of the younger generation don’t give much of a shit about the language issue and the PQ. Just look at their meetings : all grey heads. A few idealists youths but that’s it. It’s a dying movement. It’s basically old people that don’t want to adapt to the reality of the modern world aka Boomers – the original Millennials. It’s not xenophobia, it’s mostly ignorance, combined with a good dose of resentment for all that ”speak white” past.

        But sure, we are a French speaking province. And a lot of older people don’t speak English. If most of your coworkers and customers speaks French and only French, it might be a good thing that you’re able to speak it. Same with English in the rest of Canada. Same with Spanish in the US.

        Now refusing to speak a language someone else is more comfortable with is just being an asshole, and the distribution of assholishness has no language barrier. Your friend should be happy not to work for such a stupid person. My bet is that she was a boomer. And a cunt.

        But yeah, sure, les deux solitudes is still a real thing, you can’t erase 500 years of complex history just like that. But it slowly going away.

    1. Drake

      Maybe they should take a break from the dancing and clean the crap off the streets?

      1. leonadasiv

        Forget it man, it’s Puerto Rico town.

  10. Girls whose physical attributes will cause you to make false assumptions about their personalities.

    http://archive.is/FaKRC

    1, 7, 9, 17, 19, 20, 26, 40.

    1. Mr Lizard

      I only went past 1 for the sake of science

    2. PieInTheSKy

      42 has weird eyes

  11. straffinrun

    Baker also reportedly threatened to kill Kain in a voicemail.

    But was he Able?

    1. WTF

      Boooo!

      1. straffinrun

        Give a brother a break.

        1. WTF

          Swiss, can we get a narrowed gaze over here?

        2. Mr Lizard

          You mean like with a rock?

        3. *narrows gaze*

    2. Negroni Please

      The Lord has rejected your offering

    3. Evan from Evansville

      Boom. I strongly approve.

    1. straffinrun

      That is the worst thing I’ve read in a while.

    2. “Her death and other recent killings have sparked fresh calls for an end to gun and knife violence in London”

      Yeah, that’ll do the trick.

      1. straffinrun

        You know what else sparked fresh calls?

        1. Stormy Daniels?

        2. Ayn Random Variation

          Summer’s Eve?

        3. Duck hunting?

      2. WTF

        They’ve already banned those things outright, but just one more law will do the trick!

        1. Summary execution for anyone found with a knife over 2 inches.

        2. The Elite Elite

          Stop gun crime with this one weird trick!

    3. leonadasiv

      But I thought America was the only place this happens!

    4. Drake

      None of the victims or the suspects in the article look the least bit English. Were they so bored over there they decided to import a lot of excitement and drama?

      1. Number.6

        London is a multicultural nirvana. That’s what a genetically ‘average’ Londoner looks like nowadays.

        1. WTF

          So, no more British people in London?

          1. Number.6

            That is a British person. She could easily be 3rd or 4th generation ‘British’ by birth.

            We don’t all look like Bertie Wooster or Elizabeth Taylor.

          2. WTF

            Oh, yeah, next you’re going to tell me you don’t all wear bowler hats!

          3. Drake

            No more English people. As gone to the fringes as the original Britons after the Romans, Agles, Jutes, Saxons, Danes, and Normans invaded.

          4. WTF

            Except this time they are actively importing their invaders.

          5. That’s how the Saxons got there, unless I’m not remembering history correctly. Britons were being raided by Saxon raiders, so they invited some bands to settle on the shores, thinking not unreasonably that they’d thereby be invested in defending against less-peaceful Saxons. Obviously, that shit didn’t work the way they intended.

      2. Number.6

        It’s alluded to in the article, it’s not clear whether this is a Postal Code gang shooting, in which case someone was just earning their teardrop, and the victim really is collateral damage, or whether the target might have been one of the kids she was hanging out with, or even the girl herself.

        Whether we ever find out, is largely dependent on the internal dynamics of this court intrigue I talk about elsewhere in this thread, and who is leaking information to who.

    5. Number.6

      I think there are a couple of things going on here.

      The Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders is to be replaced. As head of the Crown Prosecution Service, she oversaw the department from 2013 and has therefore been in the big chair throughout the Great Pedophilia Hunts and the latest ‘revelations’ about child grooming gangs etc. Her tenure has been quite controversial compared to prior DPPs, and it’s clear the ascent of Cressida Dick to become Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has coincided with increased rheeeeeeeeeee!

      Dick herself is not without controversy, since she was running the investigation of the London bombings that resulted in the public execution of an innocent Brazilian national Jean Charles de Menezes. She herself was exonerated (the buck clearly didn’t stop here) and indeed, was promoted a couple of years later.

      This was the backdrop to a comment I made yesterday about the increased publicity that London’s receiving. I’m still trying to figure out cui bono.

      So, there seems to be considerable court intrigue going on at the moment – and I have no idea what it means, or whose tribe are the good guys – but shit’s going down behind the scenes in London, and I’d like to think that it’ll lead to an improvement, but I ain’t betting on it.

    6. PieInTheSKy

      England is going full retard. They import immigrants who stab each other and then want to ban kitchen knives for all.

      1. WTF

        Yes, the West seems determined to commit cultural suicide.

  12. Tundra

    I still don’t want to talk about hockey.

    Wild clinched a playoff spot last night, but it’s looking like Winnipeg in the first round. I suspect golf is in the Wild’s near future.

  13. leonadasiv

    Interviewing for a new position at work today. Wish me luck.

    1. The Elite Elite

      Don’t tell me what to do, slaver! Good luck.

    2. straffinrun

      Don’t forget the under wear goes inside the pants. Seriously, good luck.

      1. leonadasiv

        I was thinking about going commando, but that sounds like a better idea. Thanks!

        1. Brett L

          Do like fighters at weigh in. Go to the bathroom and give yourself a half-chubbie before you walk in so as to intimidate the interviewer.

    3. Trigger Hippie

      Reverse Cowgirl?

    4. Slammer

      Good Luck!

    5. Tundra

      Good luck.

      Try not to say ‘fuck’ too many times.

    6. Missionary?

    7. Rufus the Monocled

      Remember to tell them the motto I teach people: If you’re not raping, you’re not trying.

      1. STEVE SMITH GIVE THUMBS UP!

        1. robodruid

          That’s not a thumb!

    8. gbob

      Remember, they’re just as afraid of you as you are of them. Try to appear as big as possible. Raise your arms and spread your legs. If you’re carrying a flashlight, try to shine it in the interviewers eyes. Make loud noises. If you don’t have a gun or mace, use a stick. If it goes wrong, just try climbing a tree. Perhaps throw some food in front of the person giving the interview and they won’t chase you.

      That may be advice for dealing with bears. I could never keep it straight. It may be why I interview bad.

      1. *opera applause*

      2. Badolph Hilter

        *unofficial additional applause*

    9. Rasilio

      enact emotional labor on your behalf?

      What do I look like a genderfluid ace person of color?

    10. SP

      Well? How it’d go? The suspense is killing me!!

  14. The Elite Elite

    Trump’s administration is trying to kill us all! EPA To Gut The Only Major Federal Rule To Cut Climate Pollution From Vehicles! We’re all going to die from global cooling, warming, change!

    1. Tundra

      I’d prefer they just shut down the whole fucking agency, but that dumbass 54 mpg thing is a good start.

      The histrionics from the watermelons are exactly like those from the gun grabbers. They simply do not want people to have cars. Freedom is bad. Wait for the streetcar like everyone else, comrade.

  15. straffinrun

    Libertarian Candidate Calls Gay People “Disgusting”

    Justin Jones, a libertarian candidate running for Arkansas House District 87, has called gay people “disgusting” on his personal Facebook account. In an exchange between Jones and Hawaii resident Myah Baeza, the candidate lashed out against homosexuals.

    1. WTF

      What an idiot.

      1. straffinrun

        Pretty sure it was a joke. But in today’s climate, that doesn’t make him any less an idiot.

        1. straffinrun

          Nevermind. He’s an idiot.

        2. WTF

          Exactly, stupid to even make a joke like that on social media if you plan to have a public career.

          1. A Fuggin White Male

            Well, it is Arkansas, so it might actually help him.

    2. leonadasiv

      This guy’s an idiot. But obviously it means that libertarianisim hates teh gays. It’s not like it was the only party fighting (ineffectually, I’ll Grant) for gay rights for 40 years.

    3. A Fuggin White Male

      Did he say gay people are bad people? Would he criminalize being gay? No? Ok, carry on.

      1. robc

        Dont you understand, not only must you legalize, you must also normalize.

        This isnt just a gay thing either. Its anything Kulture War related.

        1. JaimeRoberto

          It’s not enough to normalize. You must celebrate.

      2. spqr2008

        It’s like me with weed. I find it to smell disgusting, and have never tried it, but I fail to see where I should criminalize someone’s cultivation or enjoyment of it.

        1. trshmnstr

          As somebody whose path to libertarianism was forged by gay marriage and weed (as in, I’m not a fan of either, but I thought it wasn’t any of the government’s business), I completely agree

        2. A Fuggin White Male

          Yup… I think stoners like Joe Rogan who think “muh weed cures everything” are annoying as fuck. And DUDE WEED culture is equally annoying. But that shit should have been legalized a long time ago.

          That said, I really don’t want people to be able to smoke it in public. I got kids. Sorry not sorry. Don’t piss drunk idiots or people in the nude wondering around in public either. But such things should be up for my locality to decide, not the feds, or even my state.

          1. Trigger Hippie

            As somebody who’s spent a lot of time high in public, I’m betting you’ve been around people of my ilk very, very often without realizing it. Hiding the fact you’re drunk is a little trickier. That said, I never made it a point to smoke in front of people. Unlike a few of my friends who, coincidentally, have been arrested for possession well into their thirties, I don’t show my ass just for the lulz.

          2. A Fuggin White Male

            Oh, I don’t mind if people get high as fuck in their home and go for a nice walk in the neighborhood afterwards. I just don’t like them actually smoking a joint in front of my kids.

          3. Heroic Mulatto

            What about smoking tobacco?

          4. The Last American Hero

            That’s already punishable by death in most coastal cities.

    4. Christ, what an asshole.

    5. Heroic Mulatto

      The letter he wrote was sub-literate.

  16. Derpetologist

    interesting

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

    ***
    The Combined Action Program was a United States Marine Corps operational initiative implemented in the Vietnam War and proved to be one of the most effective counterinsurgency tools developed during that conflict. Operating from 1965 to 1971, this program was characterized by the placement of a thirteen-member Marine rifle squad, augmented by a U.S. Navy Corpsman and strengthened by a Vietnamese militia platoon of older youth and elderly men, in or adjacent to a rural Vietnamese hamlet. In most cases, the Popular Forces militia members (Nghia Quan) were residents of the hamlet who were either too young or too old to be drafted into the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN) or the Regional Forces (Dia Phuong Quan). The entire unit of American Marines and Popular Forces militia members together was designated as a Combined Action Platoon (CAP).
    ***

    Been reading a lot on COIN. Best practices: small units, close cooperation with locals, avoid artillery/air strikes, prioritize intel/psyops

    Old news but have the lessons been learned?

    1. Derpetologist

      case in point

      Afghanistan air strike ‘kills civilians’ at religious school
      http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43619834

      ***
      An Afghan military air strike targeting the Taliban in northern Kunduz province is reported to have killed civilians.

      Eyewitnesses said that helicopters targeted a gathering at a religious school in Dasht-e Archi district.

      The government says at least 25 Islamists were killed or injured, but a doctor in Kunduz city told the BBC that more than 50 severely injured people were brought to his hospital.

      The Taliban said no fighters were there and only civilians were killed.

      The hospital doctor, who did not want to be named, said students and civilians were among the casualties. The district is controlled by the Taliban.
      ***

      The British did not use much air power during the Malaya Emergency, except for leaflets and loudspeaker messages.

      1. R C Dean

        The government says at least 25 Islamists were killed or injured,

        The Taliban said no fighters were there and only civilians were killed.

        I see no reliable sources of information here.

        1. Private Chipperbot

          Divide the Islamists in half; double the civilians, and call it good.

    2. Slammer

      I recommend a book called The Village by Bing West. Excellent personal memoir on the Vietnam CAP.

    3. Trolleric the Goth

      of course not.

      without an effective rural constabulary to truly enforce order, a military alone won’t ever quell an insurgency unless you’ve got the will to round everyone up and scorch the earth a la second Boer war, and even then that doesn’t always work

  17. straffinrun

    China Destroys Sassy Bots After They Bash Communism

    But when a woman asked BabyQ, “Do you love the Communist Party?,” the red-scared robot fired back, “No,” according to a screen shot posted online.

    “Do you think such corrupt and incapable politics can last a long time?” the robot raged —after a second user tapped out the message, “Long Live the Communist Party.”

    1. leonadasiv

      See! Capitalism can’t withstand the strength and efficiency if communism!

    2. “The right-wing bots”

      Uh … what?

    1. leonadasiv

      “encouraged white nationalist to infiltrate schools”

      You can’t do that, only we can do that! /Communists

      1. WTF

        Yeah, if only the schools were as diligent in rooting out Communists and other Marxists.

  18. ruodberht

    Washington Irving was great. Really creepy stories. Especially the Sleepy Hollow one.

  19. Spartacus

    How Parkland students feel about their new mandatory clear backpacks
    Parkland students are about to learn the most important lesson of this whole awful mess: when you demand others to be responsible for your safety, they will do it by taking away your liberties. The *only* way to keep your liberties is to be responsible for your own safety. And that’s why we have a second amendment.

    1. straffinrun

      Senior Delaney Tarr tagged Rubio in a tweet of a picture of her bag with feminine products and the orange price tag attached to it.

      So humiliating she had to tweet a picture of it to the world.

      1. WTF

        Because this is Rubio’s fault?

        1. OF COURSE IT IS HE IS A WHITE HISPANIC SHITLORD AND BAD WATER SIPPER!!!!111!!

      2. Badolph Hilter

        Delaney, how many children are you willing to have killed in order to protect your modesty over feminine hygiene products?

    2. Rufus the Monocled

      IT’S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THIS! IT’S FOR OTHER PEOPLE NOT ME!

      A form of Nimbyism no?

      1. Badolph Hilter

        NIMBP

    3. Private school is looking more and more like I made the correct choice for my child every single for my child with every passing day.

      1. Rufus the Monocled

        You have a puncher’s chance in private school. If you don’t like something, you can easily complain because you PAY.

      2. Akira

        If I ever accidentally produced children, there’s no way in hell I’d send them to a government-run school. If I couldn’t afford private school, I’d homeschool them, and I don’t care if I’d have to run on two or three hours of sleep to do that.

    4. DrZaius

      And if the courthouse or passport office or city hall had a restriction on large opaque bags, and required personal items to be scanned, and maybe prohibited weapons how many people would object? Oh wait, that’s exactly what the fuck it’s like already. Pardon my lack of sympathy kids.

      1. Brett L

        I had to go over to the county courthouse for something one day and left my pocket knife in my pocket. The guy at the xray machine laughed, took out a manilla envelope, said he’d drop my “super-dangerous, scary folding knife” in there, and I should just remind him when I came out.

    5. Badolph Hilter

      Parkland students are about to learn

      Well, they are about to experience it, I’m not sure they’re actually going to learn anything. Maybe they’ll have a walk-out demanding their rights to opaque luggage.

      1. Spartacus

        Well, yeah. What they learn will be whatever their handlers say they should learn, for the most part.
        Hopefully at least a few of them will begin to make the connection: I don’t have much hope for the majority.

  20. Public school teacher strikes in Oklahoma and Kentucky. Public transit worker strikes in France in a society highly invested in public transit. These are just a few examples of the hazard of going all-in on public sector.

    1. Rufus the Monocled

      Some heavy-handed ‘greater good, price for civilization’ left-wing hack on the radio (Anne-Lagace Dowson) insists we all use more public transit because – whatever.

      Leaving aside my lifestyle is not conducive to doing so (never mind I find mass public movements gross and annoying because I’m a loner type of person), the last thing people need is for their daily routines to be inconvenienced or disrupted because fucken bus drivers aren’t happy with 80k a year and want taxpayers to give them better pensions.

      Screw that.

    2. LJW

      I saw an article where a teacher in Oklahoma said he only brought in roughly $1400 a month after taxes. My only guess is he was some sort of teachers assistant or a gym teacher. Media went out of their way to find this guy because the average teacher pay in Oklahoma is roughly 44k.

      1. A Fuggin White Male

        44k in Oklahoma is pretty decent fucking money… especially when you consider the benefits on top of it.

        1. One of the things that I love about so many public sector workers is the expectation of a pension. These days, the pension from private Industry is practically non-existent. There’s a massive disconnect between these people and the rest of the world.

          1. A Fuggin White Male

            And they have no clue how much it hurts them. Working class people used to empathize with teachers and considered them allies. Not anymore. Now they see them as whiny entitles pricks who are disconnected from reality and keep trying to raise their property taxes. And that’s how we got Trump.

          2. Heroic Mulatto

            whiny entitles pricks who are disconnected from reality

            To be fair, that’s also how I view most “working class” people.

      2. Brett L

        My first real job at 22, I brought home roughly $1400/month after taxes. I managed to live in my own apartment in Houston and pay all my bills and buy a shitty car. I could have stretched it farther by getting a roommate.

        1. trshmnstr

          But then I can’t have a “safe” car and the privacy I deserve in a nice apartment and shop at whole foods like any self respecting person does!

          $1400/month ain’t a lot, but it’ll get you a beater car, a small apartment, and enough spare cash to eat out at a restaurant a couple times a month.

          Of course, it is very easy for teachers to make a killing with a side job. Tutoring pays $20/hour or more, and they have 3 months off in the summer to do something more consistent.

          1. Akira

            I’m so fucking done listening to teachers whine about not getting paid enough.

            Their average salary is good for a job that you only attend 9 months of the year. They have lavish benefits (which are driving many states to bankruptcy).

            And something that not many people realize is that the teacher’s union makes them basically like cops – untouchable and unaccountable. They’ll get fired pretty reliably for having sex with students or physically assaulting them, but anything else will just be “punished” with reassignment to a desk job at the local school board while they “investigate” and quietly reinstate them a few months later.

          2. spqr2008

            And if you aren’t vested in the union, you’re fucked. I had a very perky blonde English Teacher, who, at age 23, had taken some kind of advance track education degree they have at Vanderbilt, for my junior year in high school. She was a decent teacher, and obviously still feeling out the job (and nice to look at at 7:20 AM every day), but did a decent job helping us develop our writing and literature analysis. She got canned because our teacher’s union was renegotiating their contract that year, and she would work outside of the proscribed hours if it were necessary to help those of us who had extracurricular activities that took place at 2:30 (the teacher’s contract specified they had to be there 7AM- 3PM, and the union was a bag of dicks to any teacher that violated that, including the music instructors, who were district wide staff, and not part of the collective bargaining unit). Naturally, several of us did need appointments throughout the school year later than 3 PM, and she’d just stay and grade and lesson prep in the junior English faculty office (she waited for me and my chem lab partner to finish a chem lab we had, since we only had from 2:20- 3:00 to finish it, then helped both of us on our individual issues with a poetry analysis essay). Luckily, when she was canned, she was able to find a position with her high school (she grew up a little east of where I did), and they got a good one, because she could have been a very good replacement for the English teacher I had my senior year (who retired after it) with a little seasoning and assistance from the rest of the English department. Unfortunately, it was run like a ladies’ club, and the head of the department (although beloved by my younger brother as his Freshman, Junior, and Senior English teacher), had teachers she just hated, and treated like shit.

          3. Rasilio

            In Oklahoma or Kentucky.

            In a place like Chicago or NYC it won’t get you a parking spot

      3. R C Dean

        he only brought in roughly $1400 a month after taxes

        I wonder how much the union takes.

  21. Mustang

    I deleted my Facebook today. I originally gave people two weeks notice but fuck it, they can figure it out.

    Still counts as on topic, right?

    1. Close enough…

    2. Drake

      I got a new phone last week and immediately disabled every social media app. Made me angry I couldn’t delete them outright.

      1. trshmnstr

        There’s inbuilt tracking you should disable as well. You can search online for info about how to disable it.

        1. Drake

          I almost through the fucker into a wall when I walked out of a restaurant and Google asked me to rate it.

    3. Atanarjuat

      Yeah, I’m thinking about it myself. The only thing I know I’ll miss are the family pics. I think you did the right thing.

      1. Mustang

        You can download the data file and get all of your pictures. You’ll just have to ask for them personally if you want more after that.

  22. Pope Jimbo

    Love you kid, but I’ll hug you after your bath.

    LOS ANGELES (AP) — A 13-year-old boy was miraculously rescued Monday after falling into a river of sewage in Los Angeles, getting swept away and spending more than 12 hours in the city’s toxic and mazelike underground sewer system.

    1. LJW

      I wonder what diseases he contracted.

      1. WTF

        But when he gets older he will have an immune system of solid steel!

      2. Floridaman

        Considering he lives in LA, I’m pretty sure he’s already built up an immunity to illness from being surrounded by sewage.

    2. Rufus the Monocled

      Soooo, the Toxic Avenger is REAL!?

      1. WTF

        If this was the Marvel universe, he would develop super powers.

        1. Rufus the Monocled

          And be woke.

          1. WTF

            Well, LA, so he’s probably already woke.

        2. Floridaman

          Yeah, but they would be shitty ones.

          1. *narrows gaze*

        3. Pope Jimbo

          Sewerper Powers!

  23. Pope Jimbo

    I still don’t get it, but the Twinkies try to explain why they got mad about the Orioles bunting on them.

    According to Dozier, the O’s didn’t hold their runner at first during the top of the 9th and thus “conceded” the game. I still don’t really get it and think Dozier is grasping at straws, but read it yourself.

    “When they didn’t hold our runner on, they conceded to the fact they didn’t want us to steal, so we didn’t steal,” Dozier said. “We could have very easily stolen and put up more runs, so therefore in return you don’t bunt. That’s what everybody is missing in this whole thing.”

    1. Brett L

      I said it yesterday, if you’re going to shift in the 9th, i.e. play your best defense, expect the other team to play their best offense. What a bunch of assholes.

      1. Drake

        Yes. I hate the shift. I hate that every young player now swings up for “launch angle” so there are no more spray hitters for average. Every team used to want a Rod Carew, Wade Boggs, or Tony Gwen to set the table for the power hitters. Now everyone is just whaling away at pitches – straight into a defense set up for it.

        1. Slammer

          Pitchers are going to address that launch angle move by pitching way up in the zone

          1. Drake

            Umpires will address that problem by calling a “ball” on anything above mid-thigh.

          2. Pope Jimbo

            If only they would do something as consistent as that.

            My pet peeve is how each umpire has his own strike zone and it could change during a game.

    2. Slammer

      Dozier needs to STFU on this issue instead of doubling down. Bunting and going the other way is a response to all the shifting the last couple of years.

      And here’s the thing about the “unwritten rules” of baseball. They’re unwritten.

      And if the Twins try to hit Sisco later in the year, then Dozier is gonna get drilled. How’s that for Unwritten?

      1. Private Chipperbot

        I have a solution for the shift. Only four of the seven position players (catcher/pitcher don’t count) can be on either side of second base. Want to overshift infield? Center field must be one step on the opposite side of second base. This allows you to still shift, but you have to decide where your gap is going to be; infield or outfield.

        1. Jarflax

          So basically the ‘issue’ here is:

          1. Some combination of actual statistical analytics and ego/payroll driven love for the longball has caused batters to exclusively focus on hitting for power, leading to highly predictable trajectories.

          2. Fielders respond by shifting to defend the predictable trajectories.

          3. whiny bitches whine about number 2, because they want there not to be consequences to their decision in number 1.

          Sorry, but when you make the cost benefit analysis to exclusively hit for power you do not then get to whine and ask for rule changes to offset the cost you have incurred. The ‘solution’ if shifts are hampering offense is to go back to Wee Willie Keeler’s advice and “hit em where they ain’t.”

          1. Private Chipperbot

            Oh, I agree. I’m just sick of hearing people bitch about the shift. Be late on a fastball and poke it to the opposite field, or maybe don’t try to pull an outside pitch and hit a weak grounder into the shift.

  24. Michael

    I watched a good portion of “Flint Town” on Netflix last night. It’s a documentary series that follows the Flint, MI police department during the water crisis of recent years. The series is very well executed, remarkably neutral in its narrative and quite revealing in regards to people’s attitudes during the 2016 election. Highly recommended.

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8004578/

    1. commodious spittoon

      Did it touch on the petty quarrel between Flint and Detroit’s water utility, and Flint’s botched Plan B when the latter axed their service prematurely?

      1. Michael

        It didn’t really go into much about the water issue, as the focus is mostly on the cops. The saddest part was watching it with my in-laws. They are such die hard progressives that they actually believe that Snyder is exclusively to blame for what happened. How anyone can be so willfully ignorant of reality is far beyond my understanding.

        1. commodious spittoon

          At this point I don’t see much daylight between progressives’ reifying views on politics and those of alt-right antisemites. Both philosophies boil down to a fixation on a certain class of plutocrats that somehow gets its fingers into everything, from global financial markets to a bureaucratic spat between municipal agencies, to advance some inexplicable, shady agenda the progressive/antisemite can adumbrate only vaguely but the machinations of which they see in every piece of news. I’d write it off as laziness but both types get so worked up about it.

          1. Michael

            …to advance some inexplicable, shady agenda…

            I’ve found that asking them to explain exactly what this agenda might be invariably leads to some of the most vigorous hand waving imaginable peppered with mutterings of “profits over people” and whatnot. It can be pretty disturbing at times.

        2. Akira

          I remember Lefties blaming Republicans and “corporatization” for the water problems. It’s odd, because Michigan had a Republican governor but damn near every other public official is a Democrat. And I’m looking through the Wikipedia article, and I’m not seeing where a private corporation had anything to do with this problem.

          1. commodious spittoon

            iirc, Dems blamed it on “cost-cutting measures,” which of course means anything from slowing the rate of growth in public spending to auctioning off libraries to coal companies whose only product is lung cancer. Flint wanted to switch service to a new plant then being built, either because it was cheaper or because they figured they’d make more money than they could buying water from Detroit. But that’s all Dems needed to excuse away the colossal failure by a slew of bureaucrats and the EPA. Seriously, they may as well be shrieking about TEH JOOOZ for all the sense it makes.

  25. Brett L

    Tampa cops are lazy.

    1. WTF

      Tampa cops are lazy.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    How Parkland students feel about their new mandatory clear backpacks

    Make them come to school naked.

    1. straffinrun

      You really do want to see their feminine products, don’t you.

      1. Pope Jimbo

        If you thought Bloomberg was after these kids as spokepeople, you would be stunned at how much harder Tampax would pursue them. They’d pay a lot of $$$ for the Parkland gals to plug their product.

        1. trshmnstr

          They really want to soak up the public attention.

        2. Rasilio

          When there is a shooting at your school, nothing soaks up the blood like Tampax

    2. Pope Jimbo

      What? And have half of the students open carry a gun?

  27. LJW

    By the numbers: The harrowing figures of sexual assault in America

    All figures below are reported by the NSVRC

    One in three women will experience some form of contact sexual violence in their lifetime.

    One in six men will experience some form of contact sexual violence in their lifetime.

    63 percent of sexual assaults are not reported to police.

    More than 90 percent of sexual assault victims on college campuses do not report the assault.

    One in five women will be raped at some point in their lives.

    One in 71 men will be raped at some point in their lives.

    $122,461 is the lifetime cost of rape, per victim.

    $127 billion is the amount of money rape costs the U.S., annually.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      NSVRC – is that reliable source?

      1. WTF

        Magic 8-ball says “not likely”.

        1. LJW

          When you need money you inflate the numbers and promote fear.

      2. PieInTheSKy

        More than 90 percent of sexual assault victims on college campuses do not report the assault. – no way of knowing, sorry

        also to 91% of sexual assault victims are female, I assume it depends on how sexual assault is defined and perceived. Not that I don;t think women are a majority, but I was grabed by the crotch by drunk women and I would not consider this a sexual assault if asked. Some would.

        1. Akira

          More than 90 percent of sexual assault victims on college campuses do not report the assault. – no way of knowing, sorry

          The same way they know that “only 5 to 10 percent of rape claims are false”.

      3. Evan from Evansville

        There’s only one link for that.

        I believe that it’s this one.

    2. NONSENSE, STEVE SMITH BUSY, BUT ONLY DO SO MUCH!

      1. straffinrun

        STEVE doesn’t charge, either.

    3. WTF

      63 percent of sexual assaults are not reported to police.

      More than 90 percent of sexual assault victims on college campuses do not report the assault.

      Then how do you know they are happening?

      1. Brett L

        Surveys ask questions like: “Have you ever been uncomfortable while being kissed, touched on your genitals, or while engaged in intercourse?”

        If yes, sexual assault. Which #metoo. I definitely have been sexually assaulted by that definition. By several women. While in college and even on college campuses.

        1. WTF

          By that ridiculous definition, I would say the rate is about 99.9% for both sexes.

    4. LJW

      There are approximately 150 Million in the United States. Correct me if I’m wrong according to the 1 in 5 number that means 30 million women will be raped in their lifetime.

      1. straffinrun

        Or only a couple dozen curve busters that will be walking really funny.

    5. R C Dean

      One in five women will be raped at some point in their lives.

      “Rape” is a word that has a meaning. It is much narrower than “sexual assault”, which can include grabbing someone’s tits or ass or whatever. “Rape” means forcing someone to have sexual intercourse; it requires both coercion (and not just “pressure”) and penetration. While I am sure there are societies where 20% of the women have been raped, the US ain’t one of them.

  28. Pope Jimbo

    It is nice to see immigrants to this country adopt our ways.

    Local Hmong politician is trying to weasel out of criminal charges due to him “helping” an elderly Hmong voter fill out their ballot during the last election. He had no idea that it was illegal. My guess is that he will get off. After all, he managed to beat a pretty clear case of soliciting a bribe earlier in that election.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      If he had said Uffda while being arrested he would have be indistinguishable

      1. Pope Jimbo

        Well he’d also have to have a lutefisk feed to raise money for his campaign too. But he’s getting there.

        1. Gustave Lytton

          Yum. Fish sauce on lutefisk. Hmonnesoda cuisine.

  29. PieInTheSKy

    Seven US Marines Arrested in Romania Following Drunken Street Brawl

    https://sputniknews.com/world/201804031063152850-romania-us-marines-arrest/

    1. …sounds about right.

      /Army

      1. Oh, and if you want to avoid trouble down the road, have your cops kick the crap out of them, and establish a fierce reputation, early on.

        1. l0b0t

          So very much this. There is a reason the USN Shore Patrol is the most feared law-enforcement organization that helps police the Mardi Gras (followed closely by the Angola guards).

    2. WTF

      Marines? Drunken street brawl?
      Shocked, I am.

    3. Pope Jimbo

      The only surprising thing in that story was that 3 of the 5 were zeros (officers). I bet they were mustangs.

      That and what the fuck is a naval support station doing in Deveselu, Romania?

      1. PieInTheSKy

        That is where the Romanian bit of the missile defense system is at

      2. Drake

        Several of the Marine Air Officers I worked for got locked up for that kind stuff. Swinging with the Wing.

    4. Drake

      I don’t get it. What were they arrested for?

      /Marine

      1. Pope Jimbo

        Being too fucking awesome and manly!

        Those girly cops and bouncers were mad because all the Romanian gals were all over Marine jocks.

        1. Drake

          Pope Jimbo gets it!

  30. The Late P Brooks

    I deleted my Facebook today.

    [insert thumbs up]

    1. Rufus the Monocled

      I wonder how addicted people are to FB to not have the courage to delete their accounts even though they know what Zuckerberg thinks of them and their privacy.

      It’s a helluva drug, eh?

      1. LJW

        Google, Apple, Microsoft and pretty much a majority of the apps on your phone all have the same info on you. Actually Google probably has more than any of them. I’m all for sticking it to Facebook, but it’s not going to secure your privacy. Unless you complete go cabin in the woods off the grid.

        1. Rufus the Monocled

          I know. We’re screwed.

          Google is the worst of the bunch.

        2. Trigger Hippie

          Yep. The amount of data shared between these companies is a touch creepy. Case in point: I watched the Netflix show Mindhunter a few weeks ago and the next time I got on YouTube I had an interview with Ed Kemper as a ‘suggested for you’ video despite absolutely no cross-referencing of the subject matter beforehand.

    2. PieInTheSKy

      I never post on Facebook and rarely look at it but for some reason did not delete yet.

      1. straffinrun

        At this point, the horses have the barn. They’ve already got the goods on me.

        1. PieInTheSKy

          me to especially as I logged into other things using my facebook account

        2. Brett L

          I think I’m going to just engage in a year long data-corruption campaign where I post pictures of random people and talk about things I have no interest in. Poison the well as it were.

          1. l0b0t

            You haven’t been doing that all along? One of the old Ivan Stang/Church of the Subgenius books, High Weirdness By Mail, really hooked me as a young lad. One of its points is that one should get one’s crank literature from all over the ideological spectrum so as to avoid being easily pigeonholed by the Postal Inspectors. Also, Verner Vinge, in True Nyms, spoke of the prudence of never using one’s real name online.

    3. Mustang

      I was moving this direction before the data leak. Other reasons include not having my subordinates or superiors having access to it in any way and I think it plays a large role in the dumbing down of society. I’ve had supervisors try to find me on it to send me messages about tasks while I’m on leave (nevermind that they have my email and phone number). I’m just over it.

      Not much I can do about the other services. If someone offered me a phone that didn’t track everything and I could download the apps I wanted without using the major players I would buy that very quickly. Just need my browser, my bank app, and my encrypted email and messaging app.

    4. Urthona

      I like Facebook and won’t be deleting it.

      Like all the pictures or what’s going on in friends lives and their cute kids.

      Not at all concerned about them selling the information that I voluntarily gave them that helps companies serve me better.

      Also,it’s all wrong. Facebook thinks I’m a moderate. Hahaha. Idiots.

  31. straffinrun

    The other day I talked with an American friend here. He’s a big 2A defender and owns guns himself. “Do you think they should allow the Japanese to own guns? It’s nice that we don’t have to worry about shootings, so I’m not so sure.” What an asshole.

    1. Vinnie

      Quote from Saburo Sakai on the subject in the late 90s “Those people are so stupid. Do they think that soldiers actually want to start a war or something, even though they would be the first ones killed? Do they think that if we get rid of armies, that we can rid the world of war? Do they also think that if we banish doctors, that we can rid the world of disease? Why don’t they understand that armed forces are like an insurance policy for use in case of emergency. Who do they think is going to protect them if someone were to actually invade Japan? Article 9 of the Constitution [the part of the Japanese Constitution that renounces war as a sovereign right]? Do they think that if they staple copies of Article 9 onto boards and post them all around Japan’s shores that a foreign invader is going to turn around and go home if they read it?”

      1. Good quote.

        The hypocrisy in being a 2A supporter and then denying the rights protected by that amendment to people from other nations using the argument gun banners trot out in this country is appalling. If you don’t need to worry about violent crime in Japan, which I’m not sure is true, then it has more to do with Japanese culture and socioeconomics than what weapons are available. If you’re just worried about being shot as opposed to being injured by any other means, then you’re an idiot. That’s like trying to lose weight by putting mustard instead of ketchup on hamburgers.

        1. R C Dean

          I think the only valid conclusion that anyone can draw from cross-country comparisons of murder, crime, etc. is that culture is prime determinant, and everything else is noise at the margins.

          Somebody mentioned the current push for gun control at work, pretty much following the DemOp line that the children were leading the way.

          I usually stay out of these discussions, but I couldn’t help myself and said I don’t believe in primitive superstitions like animism, so I don’t believe guns cause any violence at all, and that I cannot bring myself to take any kind of instruction or direction from high school children who are by definition less experienced, less educated, more naive, and more easily manipulated than actual responsible adults.

          There was an uncomfortable silence, and then people remembered they had jobs to do.

          1. Akira

            Somebody mentioned the current push for gun control at work, pretty much following the DemOp line that the children were leading the way.

            Well, I’m glad they’re finally admitting that most Democrats are functioning at the level of high schoolers.

          2. That’s just it. If guns caused murder then you couldn’t let police have them, right? Because the gun just makes people do things. But very few gun grabbers advocate disarming police, because police are in theory “trained”. I guess trained to not kill people at random? I’m not sure, but they get very vague. There’s a popular conception that police are screened by psych evals to weed out people who would commit murder, which I love to hear because it ignores the phenomenon of police shootings while simultaneously requiring that a significant portion of the population are homicidal. And if you believe the latter, then you would expect way more killings.

            So you have a choice. You can either believe that guns cause people to commit murder but there is special training that only police can receive that prevents them from killing people and police “bad shoots” are just statistical noise, or guns don’t cause people to commit murder but a significant percentage of the population would kill someone given half a chance, but through advanced screening techniques police are only drawn from the non-homicidal part of the population, meaning that most people are homicidal but too stupid or lazy to bother with knives, sharp sticks, poison, bombs, etc. Alternatively, you can believe that most people aren’t murderers AND guns can’t make someone commit murder, and so private gun ownership isn’t really a problem. The last bit, however, requires you to re-examine your initial premise, which isn’t comfortable for anyone. And since the gun grabbers are usually just operating on emotion they don’t see it as a problem to be solved.

  32. PieInTheSKy

    so this twitter

    https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein/status/980985632603430912

    attacks Cormac McCarthy for not being utopian What I found amusing a few tweets down: “I haven’t written an opinion piece in years but I fucking hate this guy so much if anyone wants to commission a long essay on why he’s bad dm me” . lol

    1. Bobarian LMD

      attacks Cormac McCarthy for not being utopian

      Obviously never read “The Road”.

  33. The Late P Brooks

    She told listeners about how she brought her white nationalist views into the classroom. She also invited people linked to infamous far-right hate groups onto the show.

    A guest who appeared on Unapologetic on February 26 was Lana Lokteff, wife of Henrik Palmgren. Both are known for presenting a series of far-right podcasts. Palmgren also owns Red Ice, a media outlet recently classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

    BURN THEM. BURN THE WITCHES.

  34. The Late P Brooks

    It’s a helluva drug, eh?

    I have never, to my recollection, even looked at a facebook page. I never had an account. Never wanted people to know about me. I’m strange, I guess.

    1. No, you’re not. I’m not a Gold Star facebook hater like you, but I deleted my account over a decade ago and haven’t looked back. Social media is a cancer.

      1. trshmnstr

        Social media is a cancer.

        Y’know, a year ago, I’d probably have pushed back a little bit on this statement. I had recently deleted Facebook, had long since deleted Twitter and snapchat, and kept Instagram and LinkedIn. I would’ve qualified your statement with something about each respective medium.

        These days, after having to continually purge my Instagram when people can’t help but virtue signal, even when their page is about sharing pictures of cats or goats or aquariums or pretty landscapes, I’m over it. Instagram is probably gonna go soon. LinkedIn is, unfortunately, a primary recruiting tool in my field, so I’ll do my best to ignore it without deleting the account.

        1. Even LinkedIn is turning into Facebook Lite in terms of virtue signalling and nonsense. I stay on it for the same reasons, namely the recruiting aspect, but I absolutely hate how much it has veered towards the Facebook pattern of people posting vapid comments with a linked article in order to maximize their exposure via the algorithm.

          1. Conquest’s 3rd Law.

          2. Gustave Lytton

            And posting non-professional subjects and comments. I don’t give a shit about your personal life.

      2. robc

        I stopped using FB in Jan/Feb of 2008. The election shit on both sides caused me to quit.

        I havent ever deleted my account, its still floating around out there.

    1. Michael

      Oh, for fuck’s sake.

    2. JaimeRoberto

      The same article was on SFGate yesterday. Something, something, coordinated messages in the media are bad unless we do it.

      Anyway, the article also mentions that the bots play on both sides of the fence and after Parkland they were active on the gun control twatters too, but for some reason Ingraham is singled out in the headline.

  35. The Late P Brooks

    Also, this-

    She told listeners about how she brought her white nationalist views into the classroom. She also invited people linked to infamous far-right hate groups onto the show.

    Is “her white nationalist views” the wording SHE used to characterize her opinions, or is that the characterization used by the SPLC/Newsweek reporter. Gosh, it’s so hard to figure out.

    1. WTF

      If you’re not “woke”, then you are a “white nationalist”.

      1. Exactly. This is why their degradation of language is so pernicious; it’s become impossible to distinguish between “white people should have a separate ethnostate” vs. “I believe in natural rights enumerated in the Constitution”. To the radical proggies, these are equivalent sentiments.

        1. commodious spittoon

          Not even equivalent statements, which at the very least is susceptible to being interrogated. “How are these two the same thing?” No, in prog parlance, the latter is a dog whistle for the former, which means they needn’t explain how the two relate. They’re both part of the incorporeal milieu of racist sentiments which needs never be defined. Your bad faith is taken on faith.

  36. The Late P Brooks

    I think I’m going to just engage in a year long data-corruption campaign where I post pictures of random people and talk about things I have no interest in. Poison the well as it were.

    Ooh, nice. Let everybody know all about how much you enjoyed the weeklong quilting-and-square-dancing seminar at Branson. And the cooking school in the south of France.

    1. LJW

      Have you been reading my Facebook feed? *Runs to delete account*

    2. Brett L

      “Just got back from the Nation of Islam/Scientology barbecue in Clearwater! I’m hooked!”

  37. The Late P Brooks

    Google is the worst of the bunch.

    Yeah. Unfortunately, I have andoird phones, and a google-hosted web site. I’m fucked.

    1. Switch to a flip phone. It’s glorious.

      As far as the website, I’m sure there are alternatives.

      1. Sean

        Switch to a flip phone. It’s glorious.

        I’m still happily using a LG Cosmos 2. I’ve been refusing to “upgrade” and get a smart phone.

  38. PieInTheSKy

    Women Aren’t Always Sentenced By The Book. Maybe Men Shouldn’t Be, Either.

    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/women-arent-always-sentenced-by-the-book-maybe-men-shouldnt-be-either/

    TW: long and stuff

    1. Count Potato

      “That disparity grows even larger when the full scope of discretionary decision-making is considered. Prosecutors exercise at least as much power as judges in sentencing because they decide what charges to bring after an arrest. A 2015 study from the University of Michigan Law School found that when such decisions are taken into account, sentences for men are on average 63 percent longer than sentences for women.”

    2. Badolph Hilter

      From 538.com ? Man, these guys have REALLY branched out from the business of correctly predicting one election.

      1. Akira

        I’m so sick of hearing people talk about that site like it’s some super-duper whizbang scientific mathematical algorithmic data aggregator (and of course, that these people are incredibly smart because they read that site).

        Strangely, I haven’t heard much about 538 since the 2016 election results came in…

  39. “Doris Day (1922), Marlon Brando (1924), Wayne Newton (1942), Tony Orlando (1944), Alec Baldwin (1958), Eddie Murphy (1961), Amanda Bynes (1986)”

    And me!

    You forgot Jennie Garth. We were born on the same day.

    1. Tundra

      Happy birthday, Coop!

    2. Brett L

      Happy Boithday!

    3. Slammer

      Happy birfday, Agent

    4. robc

      Didnt Garth and Bynes do a TV show together?

      That might be weird.

      1. Gustave Lytton

        Yes.

    5. Count Potato

      Happy Birthday!

    6. TK

      Happy b-day Coop

    7. SP

      Happy birthday! So, now that you’re 21, how are you going to celebrate?

  40. The Late P Brooks

    it’s become impossible to distinguish between “white people should have a separate ethnostate” vs. “I believe in natural rights enumerated in the Constitution”. To the radical proggies, these are equivalent sentiments.

    At the SPLC, “college admissions (or hiring practices) should be merit based and colorblind” is white nationalist hate speech.

    1. Drake

      Funny how “colorblind” society went from the aspiration goal of the civil rights movement, to hate speech in the span of my lifetime.

      1. Gotta keep the rabble riled up lest they leave behind the victimhood narrative and start changing their voting patterns.

      2. kinnath

        This is one of the saddest parts of the new progressive mindset. King was far from a perfect man, but his speeches were a critical part of my coming of age.

        1. Drake

          Yep – they haven’t officially chucked him out yet, but his name doesn’t come up much any more.

          1. JaimeRoberto

            His name comes up one day a year, then they spend the other 364 days ignoring some of his most important thoughts.

        2. Gustave Lytton

          Same here. As with many of our countries greats, or humans in general, a flawed man who made the world a better place.

          1. Floridaman

            Show me a man who claims to be perfect, and I’ll show you a charlatan.

  41. The Late P Brooks

    EGAD!

    Federal authorities in Dallas have arrested one of the designers of a Kansas water park slide that decapitated a 10-year-old boy.

    Trent Touchstone, chief deputy with the U.S. Marshals Service in Dallas, said Tuesday that 72-year-old John Timothy Schooley was met by agents at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport late Monday.

    Schooley will be held in Dallas pending his arraignment and extradition to Kansas on charges that include second-degree murder.
    Kansas water park owner, slide designer charged with murder in boy’s death

    A Kansas grand jury last week indicted Schooley and Jeffrey Henry, a co-owner of Texas-based Schlitterbahn Waterparks and Resorts. The indictment alleges Schooley lacked technical or engineering expertise in amusement park rides.

    1. I read a detailed report of this; murder might be a bit of an overcharge, but negligent homicide is definitely warranted. They ignored (literally) dozens of warnings, complaints and more minor injuries from both employees and customers. In addition, they were not loading or maintaining the rafts used on the ride properly.

      1. Tundra

        I still think had the kid not been the son of a politician, it would never have been charged this heavy.

        1. Unfortunately, you’re probably right.

      2. kbolino

        Even negligent homicide is a stretch. That they were negligent and someone died is not enough. This is a civil matter.

        1. I’m not a lawyer, but the threshold is “reckless disregard for life” right? Based on my reading of the events leading up to the incident, I’d say it reached that level. Though, again, I’m not a lawyer so I could very easily be talking out of my ass.

          1. R C Dean

            In Kansas, second-degree murder includes killing a human being unintentionally but recklessly under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life.

            The example is standing on an overpass throwing rocks down at the cars as they drive under.

            This strikes me as a stretch, but maybe not completely out of bounds depending on the facts. If they were told “there have been a number of accidents and injuries, and this thing is going to kill someone sooner rather than later because X”, and the kid died because of X, then maybe.

    2. Pope Jimbo

      Well, that place doesn’t sound like Action Park.

      Sounds like it was a lot of fun.

      But the most infamous of the rides at Action Park was the Cannonball Loop—an enclosed waterslide with a complete vertical loop. According to one urban legend, when park owners sent a dummy doll on a test run of the ride, it came back with no head. Gene Mulvihill offered his employees $100 to test out new rides, including the Cannonball Loop, and despite employees winding up with bloody noses and bruises, he opened the ride. One person even remembers hearing that a patron got stuck at the top of the loop, causing the park to build a hatch to aid in future rescues. Just a month after it opened, and after countless injuries were reported, it was shut down by the Advisory Board on Carnival Amusement Ride Safety. Today, Mulvihill’s son admits that they “never quite perfected that one.” But, he remains proud of his father for taking a risk with the ride in the first place, “My father, if he could find a guy with a crazy idea for a ride, he’d hire the guy, even if he never built it before.”

      It wasn’t just the thrill of the dangerous rides that kept kids coming back, summer after summer. It was also the park’s “anything goes,” choose-your-own-adventure mentality. Then-underage visitors remember being able to drink beer freely and run through the park without a care—or much in the way of adult supervision. In fact, doctors who treated the many injuries incurred at the park noted most people were intoxicated, regardless of their age. The employees (including Mulvihill’s own five children) were often teenagers themselves, having as good of a time as the patrons.

      Action Park was finally closed in 1996. By then, the park was responsible for six fatalities, including three drownings in the Tidal Wave Pool and the death of a 27-year-old man who was electrocuted on the Kayak Experience when his boat tipped over and he came into contact with water that had a loose wire touching it.

      Sounds like an awesome place. And the ’70s and ’80s seemed much less litigious than today.

  42. The Late P Brooks

    I saw an interesting thing on the local teevee news last night; not much detail, though. Took a quick look at Boz paper, but nothing there (yet?).

    Apparently, the Democratic Party has gone crying to the Montana Political Practices Kommissar because some sort of “right wing political action committee” helped the Green Party gather signatures for their candidates to get on the ballot. Obviously, it’s an attempt to STEAL votes from legitimate Demo candidates in order to deprive the people of Montana of their god-given right to representation by a Democratic Party member in Congress.

    Montana election and campaign finance law is a fucking disgrace.

    1. kbolino

      You will select from the approved list of parties comrade, and be glad that you were even offered a choice.

    2. Gadfly

      The Democrats should return the favor by helping get the Libertarians on the ballot. If they already are, then I’d say the Rs are just leveling the playing field.

  43. Am I the only one here who thinks that Project Management is completely worthless?

    Set a deadline and do the damn work. Making it more complicated than that is just a make-work program for MBAs.

    1. Drake

      Hey! There’s a lot more to it than that!

      /Project Manager

      1. I’m sure I’m in “The less you know about something the simpler it seems” territory. It’s probably really important for majorly complicated things like building a 747; but my experience with it is “I could’ve finished the whole thing in the amount of time we spent writing documents that I consider utterly pointless.” Maybe that says more about my own management.

        1. Drake

          I try to tailor my approach based on project scope and complexity. A 1 month project with 5 tasks – I track with OneNote or whatever. A year-long project with hundreds of tasks and dozens of people is going to MS Project and getting reported with Gantt charts and all those kinds of tools.

          The project scheduling is the easy part. Managing the people who don’t report to me to do something outside their normal jobs is the challenge. Also change management if we’re changing processes people are used to. All that and keeping the sponsors happy.

    2. Gustave Lytton

      Good PMs are good. Bad PMs are bad.

      1. Badolph Hilter

        Yup.

        “Project management” isn’t necessary if you have a very small team of highly skilled and highly motivated individuals who are capable of getting the job done with no support. For the other 99.5% of teams, that won’t cut it.

    3. kinnath

      For anything more that a trivial project, yes project management is necessary.

      The problem arises when the estimate for the project doesn’t meet expectations (the project costs too much or takes too long), so the bids get fucked with to produce the right answer. At that point managing a project to bogus expectations is doomed from the start. That is not a failing of project management.

      1. R C Dean

        I’ve come to appreciate it especially for recurrent projects. If you just ad hoc your way through something, the next time it comes up you are unlikely to do it much better. With defined project management, opportunities for improvement are much more apparent.

    4. A Fuggin White Male

      There is nothing I loathe more than an MBA who never had to do any sort of sales (and I mean the hard type… basic level cold calling and stuff), labor, or technical work in their career. Never actually had to do anything that makes the business actually fucking run, but yet feel entitled to tell other people how things should be done.

      I know someone that went from West Point, served for 12 years after he graduated, and then went straight to Harvard Business School. Zero private sector experience. Zero business experience in general. Yet in another year or so, he’ll surely be “managing” all sorts of people and telling them what they ought to do.

      1. Gilmore

        ^this

        there is a certain class of managerial type who go straight from undergrad to business school and end up in middle-management, and proceed to politick their way to career advancement. they’re slime and mostly useless in every way.

        i despise sales and (mostly)avoided it successfully for years, but discovered that as your job-responsibility expands, *everything* involves sales on some level.
        (mine tended to be ‘flying shotgun with sales guys and backing them up in pitches, where i’d play the “product specialist/whiz analyst” that would be able to answer detailed questions to give clients confidence.

        it is the backbone of any business, and woe upon he who disrespects it.

        1. A Fuggin White Male

          I’ll also add that the West Point/HBS guy whom I referenced is also the biggest shit-bag asshat douche-nozzle I know.

          I have a file on him that I’m keeping just in case he ever does get into politics (and its seemingly obvious he’s being groomed for it). I’ll sink the bastard the very first time he ever runs for office. Because tyrants like him should never have power.

      2. Akira

        Zero private sector experience. Zero business experience in general. Yet in another year or so, he’ll surely be “managing” all sorts of people and telling them what they ought to do.

        Hell, Obama became the fucking president with almost no private sector experience (according to Wikipedia, he worked for a year and a half at some private company, then entered politics forever).

        1. Drake

          So a year and a half more real-world experience than Bernie Sanders.

          1. Michael

            Getting kicked out of a hippie commune doesn’t count for anything these days?

    5. Akira

      Am I the only one here who thinks that Project Management is completely worthless?

      Is that where you go around and ask people what percentage of their task is complete, then make a PowerPoint about it for management every week?

      1. Badolph Hilter

        That is certainly the incompetent version of it.

        1. I guess I don’t know what a competent version looks like then.

          I envision a guy filling potholes in the road. The PM is standing on the side filling out reams of paper reporting on what percentage the current pothole is filled and how many potholes are left. These reams of paper are littered with buzzwords, unnecessary details and schedules that are either insanely ambitious or absurdly long. The PM then translates this into about 47,000 PP presentations to present to upper management, who in turn create 47,000-1 (y’know, to simplify) PP presentations to present to executives. It goes without saying that the PM is making about 5 times as much as the guy actually doing the work.

          If the PM had just helped fill the damn potholes it could have been done in half the time for less money.

          1. commodious spittoon

            Or you’re paying the PM that Gilmore described an exorbitant amount of money to not fuck up the pothole.

          2. Gustave Lytton

            A more competent PM would make sure that flaggers were there when the pothole filler is scheduled to be there, that the right asphalt was ordered and is delivered at the right time, and the paint truck comes out and repaints the lines. Makes everything run smoothly, to spec, and the handoffs between people/groups where far too often it’s “that’s not my job, my job is XXX only, I don’t do YYY or I don’t tell ZZZ that I’m done they can now do their task”.

          3. My BIL-to-be is a construction project manager and that’s largely his job, just done at the commercial construction level, so think building a new Rite Aid rather than filling a pothole. But it’s largely setting the job up with the client, then making sure that all the various subcontractors are where they’re supposed to be, paid on time, qualified, etc., and that everything’s happening according to schedule.

          4. Gadfly

            ^this^

            A PM like Q describes is either incompetent (missing the stuff Gustave mentioned) or unnecessary (someone else is doing what Gustave mentioned). Management is absolutely essential for the smooth operation of a large/complex project, but many companies do have too many or too incompetent managers, making management seem unnecessary in those instances.

          5. R C Dean

            Reminds me of “The Bridge Over the River Kwai”, in which a major plot point is the way British-style (project) management is superior to Japanese-style beat-and-starve-a-mass-of-laborers.

    6. If you have 10 projects running simultaneously, you need a PM.

    7. Brett L

      I have worked with great project managers (and terrible) on projects big and complex enough to actually warrant specialized skills. The current trend of going and finding a PMP certified person to manage a 6-12 person team with no external procurement is ridiculous. I find that particular certification in the software industry to be completely useless in predicting project success or failure. The number one predictor of small team success where there is no substantial procurement pipeline is internal team accountability. Second is a strong commitment by team and project owner to maintaining a defined scope of work that defines “done”.

    8. Pope Jimbo

      Uffda, it is like you bastards don’t even AGILE!!!

      No need to plan ahead. Just mob up every two weeks and figure out what you will do for the next two weeks. Then stand around every day for a few minutes and mumble some shit about what is going on that day.

      1. kinnath

        Agile — where the stories are made up, and the points don’t matter . . . . .

      2. Brett L

        Agile is just like every other PM methodology — Applied well, it generates continuous improvement and increased productivity. Applied by the other 99% of companies, it is a way to get the engineers to work more over-time and feel guilty about not delivering impossible to reach goals.

        1. trshmnstr

          We did agile the right way and it kicked ass. It took about 3 months to get out of waterfall mode, and then we really started to click.

          It worked well at siloing conversations. Want to discuss the implementation details of feature A? We had the tools available to force that conversation offline.

          It was also great at clarifying expectations from management. No more “add feature X by next week’s release”

          I’m a big fan of well-run Agile.

          1. Rasilio

            The problem is well everyone who says that overlooks the fact that 95% of teams do not do agile well and they are comparing the 5% who do to the 95% of teams who do not do waterfall well, not the 5% who do.

            There is no general benefit to agile over waterfall at all. Any supposed general benefit of agile is in reality a benefit of a healthy and productive culture and team construction and could be replicated in a well functioning waterfall methodology. Where the differences between agile and waterfall become relevant are that each is better at different types of work.

            Agile is much better for building something brand new because it allows you to find optimal designs via trial an error (in essence you can fail fast). Waterfall is much better for maintaining and expanding an existing product that has a large backlog of legacy requirements and dependencies that need to be tracked and managed

    9. Rasilio

      Nope, you are far from the only one.

      however your statement is a bit insufficient.

      A good PM is worth their weight in gold, the problem is so very very few of them are worth a damn.

      A good PM assists the team by helping to clear impediments and identify them before they are encountered. The typical PM takes status reports and masturbates to Gantt charts

      1. Number.6

        You could argue that that’s the proper function of any manager.

  44. KibbledKristen

    *sigh*

    This woman keeps calling and calling and calling. I’ve blocked her number. She keeps calling.

    WTF?

    1. TK

      Are you sure she’s not some kind of crazy ex or something?

      1. KibbledKristen

        I’m sure she is a crazy ex of some kind. At first she seemed rational, but she keeps trying to contact me over and over and over.

    2. Badolph Hilter

      How does someone keep calling once you’ve blocked their number? That doesn’t sound like a definition of “blocked” that would work for me.

      Sorry, sounds like a really shitty situation.

      1. KibbledKristen

        The calls go through to voice mail without ringing on my end (she has not left a voice mail). Sounds like a useless system to me, too.

        1. Private Chipperbot

          Hate to say it, but you may want to file some type of official report. And document the hell out of the calls in case it comes to the point of a PPO. Save the voicemails, etc.

        2. R C Dean

          KK – if this is on your cell, I have had good luck with the RoboKiller app. You can plug her number in as a blocked number, and it will send her straight to a pre-recorded message (some of which are hilarious, but I use a recording of the “This number has been disconnected”). You phone never rings, and there is no opportunity to leave a VM.

          Restricted numbers may not get blocked, unfortunately. I’m pretty sure there is no way to really block “No Caller ID” calls, which is weird, because those should be the ones that you can block automatically.

      2. KibbledKristen

        Also, when she calls from a Restricted number, the system doesn’t recognize it as a blocked number and rings.

        1. trshmnstr

          I believe most phones allow you to categorically block restricted numbers.

          Samsung phones let you do it in the phone settings.

      3. commodious spittoon

        If it’s like my phone, you’re still notified that a blocked call tried to ring through, and how often.

        1. commodious spittoon

          D’oh.

    3. Is her name Vienna?

    4. KibbledKristen

      So after she called me twice this morning, I sent her a text telling her I got her messages and I wanted nothing further to do with the squeeze or her or the whole situation. She replied back that she would no longer contact me. Hope it holds true! But I screened capped everything and re-blocked her number.

  45. Gilmore

    Is it gay when you find yourself attracted to girls with masculine features? asking for canadian friend.

    1. Idle Hands

      Only when you suck her dick.

      1. commodious spittoon

        Frank: Suppose the other guy is picturing a girl, too.

        Dee: How’s he going to do that with a dick in his mouth?

        Frank: I don’t know. That’s his problem.

      2. Gilmore

        I mean, not *that* masculine.

        i am e.g. this canadian fellow is not attracted to emma whatshername-girl who used to be Harry Potter’s co-star? but she’s got sort of a man face

        this is what prompted the thought. OF MY CANADIAN FRIEND

        1. Mr Lizard

          Sooooo you’re saying you are ashamed of your Canadian heritage?…

        2. I don’t think she’s masculine looking. Would.

          1. Yeah, there’s angular and there’s masculine. The two aren’t necessarily always the same.

          2. Gilmore

            “I don’t think she’s masculine looking”

            tomboyish

            it has a lot to do with mannerisms and behavior, not just thick eyebrows and jawline (a la Emma harry-potter-lady)

          3. Gadfly

            But she’s clearly countering that with feminine hair and clothing. If you find her masculine I’d say that you are too straight, if anything.

          4. Gilmore

            you are too straight, if anything

            I get that a lot. FROM QUEERS HITTING ON ME
            (swigs Dixie beer)

            just kidding bro

          5. KibbledKristen

            I see nothing masculine about her in any way.

          6. Bobarian LMD

            Other than the adam’s apple and the big hairy hands?

            jk

            But with a different hair style, she could easily pass as a teen-aged boy.

          7. R C Dean

            I’m not getting anything masculine or even sort of angular. She looks quite agreeably rounded to me.

          8. Number.6

            Girl-next-door-attractive. Not a very well staged video with lighting that isn’t very flattering to her.

            Could do with someone to help her with her wardrobe. But definitely female.

        3. TK

          Yep, you’re gay Gilmore. We still love you of course.

          1. Bobarian LMD

            Much better more feminine in that video.

          2. Number.6

            Amazing what reasonable lighting and a couple of dollars in makeup can achieve.

        4. Rope Snake

          damn, he’s hot

  46. Idle Hands

    The Scott Pruit “Corruption Story” is kind of hilarious. The man was paying what would amount to 1500.00 a month to rent a bedroom. The news of course breaks that down to 50.00 a night so the stupid people in the middle of the country won’t be aghast at what would amount to a mortgage payment to it costs to rent a bedroom in DC and think instead at what a hotel stay costs.

    1. Spartacus

      Well, the version I read said he only paid for the nights he actually stayed there. if that’s true, the hotel analogy might be a decent one.

      1. Idle Hands

        If that’s true a better analogy would be an Airbnb, which according to last check you can rent a “room” for less than 60.00 a day literally a block from the capital.

    2. TK

      Yep. I spend $48.33/day to rent my 800 sq. ft. apartment about 30 miles outside of DC. Its not odd or “corruption.”

      Decent hotel rooms cost around $120-$200/night here.

  47. TK

    Re: Facebook vs. Apple

    Cook told Recode last week that he would never be in the situation that Zuckerberg has found himself in, facing backlash for the massive Cambridge Analytica data breach.

    Cook said, “The truth is, we could make a ton of money if we monetized our customer — if our customer was our product. We’ve elected not to do that.” Apple, instead, has monetized products to customers, and Cook argued that was a sounder business model and not vulnerable to the same problems Facebook is having.

    Well, Cook’s only wrong in the sense that Apple could choose to monetize their customer and get into the same situation Facebook is in – its possible, but they just choose not to do it. The reason I’m not on Facebook is because I don’t think that the service they provide is worth the cost of them monetizing me/performing social experiments on me to mess with my mood.

  48. Badolph Hilter

    Way way OT: How hard is it to remove and replace a toilet?

    As context, my DIY-level is “moderate”. I’ve swapped out a ton of electrical fixtures, a few sinks, and a couple of sump pumps. I’ve replaced the innards of a toilet tank several times and done a couple of simple appliance repairs. I’m generally capable of remove-and-replace operations but putting in a new fixture or plumbing where it doesn’t already exist is above my pay grade.

    Replacing a turlet *looks* like a pretty simple operation to me. I’m not sure if there are any hidden gotchas that make it more difficult than it looks, particularly the bit about getting the seal done correctly on the first try.

    1. Gustave Lytton

      Not too bad

      1) clean off the old wax seal. Clean/bleach underneath and around toliet to make sure there isn’t any debris
      2) check the new toliet, particularly if it has a different footprint, in place to make sure it will be level. Get shims if needed.
      3) use the extra thick wax ring. Once the toliet is on, seat it and try not to rock it back or forth (see shims above)
      4) replace the bolts and hardware. Don’t try to reuse the old ones
      5) (optional) get a Toto washlet seat. The washlet itself is an either you like it or you don’t, but the heated seat in wintertime, oh hell yeah!

      1. Gustave Lytton

        6) try to get as much water out of the existing toliet as possible before removing. Place in large size garbage bags to keep from dripping in the house when removing. Have someone help you if available
        7) bleach and repaint the wall behind the toliet if you regularly have condensation on the old tank. Even if you don’t have mold, it’s nice to get this done if the tank is away from the wall but not really far enough to get a paint brush behind it.

    2. Private Chipperbot

      Pretty simple. Make sure toilet is level and you get the correct sized wax ring. Actually, maybe skip wax ring. I used a rubber one last time I changed toilets and it’s working perfectly.

      1. Hudson

        I would also recommend wax alternatives. If you don’t set the toilet down right on the first try you can make adjustments without screwing up the seal.

    3. Trigger Hippie

      It’s a pretty straightforward process. Just make sure the water lines are closed, the old toilet wax is scraped out and add new rubber seal. Also, if your shower is nearby, place the old toilet in there and tilt up at an angle to drain away any extra water still hiding in it to make sure you’re not dripping across your house when in the removal process. Finally, during installation, make sure the toilet is flush and level with the floor. If not, add a rubber or plastic shim to make it so. If you bolt it down, sit on it and can make the toilet wobble a bit, you’re not level and will probably have issues with leaking at the base at some point in the future.

      1. Trigger Hippie

        Or what Gustave said….

        1. Gustave Lytton

          Turning off the water supply first is a biggie.

    4. Drake

      It’s really easy.

      1. Pick out the new toilet you want.

      2. Tell your Plumber to install it.

      1. R C Dean

        This would be the Dean method.

    5. Stupid easy. I did one of ours last year, and I’m by no means a plumber. Basically, you’re going to get a toilet and an installation kit or some such, which is a wax gasket, nuts, and bolts, and get a pack of shims. And maybe not the bolts if there’s no reason to replace the ones that are there already. Turn the water to the toilet off, flush it and let it drain. If it’s two-piece, save your back and remove the tank–there will be nuts probably rusted to shit on the inside–and then take the bowl, disposing both on your front lawn/middle of the street/neighbor’s yard. Scrape what remains of the wax gasket from the floor.

      Put the new gasket there. Put the new bowl there and hand-tighten the nuts. Mount the tank, same deal with the nuts. Some people say you must never use a ratchet or a wrench on the nuts for fear of cracking the porcelain, which would indeed suck, but I found just being very careful to tighten the nuts no tighter than they needed to be to seem secure was fine. Use the shims to make sure the bowl is level and not wobbly, and trim the visible excess with a box cutter. Using thread tape, connect the water feed to the tank. This one you want to make sure is really tight, but not overly tight. Firmly tightened with a wrench is generally good; too loose or too tight and it’ll leak.

      Now, quadruple check that everything is secure and you don’t have extra, important-looking parts. Turn the water on and cross your fingers. Let the tank fill, and check for leaks. Flush a few times, check for leaks around the base. After a minute or two check to see that there isn’t a leak at the water supply. Provided all is well, you’re done.

      Last one I did took me about 30 minutes.

    6. I’ve done it, and look at me — I’m no Bob Vila.

    7. Michael

      What everyone else said, and have a massive deuce at the ready for the initial test flight.

    8. Yusef drives a Kia

      GENTLY rotate the bowl on the wax ring while applying downward pressure, do NOT use shims, level the floor first, or you will CRACK the bowl,
      This is how Plumber do it

    9. The Last American Hero

      I’ve had good luck with the waxless seals as well.

    10. Badolph Hilter

      Thank you all for your very helpful comments, I really appreciate it. Special thanks to Mr Lytton for spelling it out step by step.

      I will investigate the non-wax seals. That’s the part I’ve got the most angst about screwing up and it would be nice to have something where I can retry if it’s not right on attempt 1. I did not know that there were waxless alternatives.

      Yusef, leveling the floor sounds like an awesome idea, and also something that I’d have no idea how to do and probably not qualified even if I did know how. But I appreciate the suggestion. I’ll go ahead and assume that that’s the part that will make me regret doing it myself 12 months from now. Live and learn.

      And most important of all, thanks Naptown Bill for the tips on proper disposal of the old unit.

      Y’all are great.

      1. Number.6

        One last thing. Unless you’re gonna re-seat the toilet immediately. put an old rag in the soil pipe (and don’t forget to remove it when you do install the toilet) – your family will thank you for your thoughtfulness.

      2. Number.6

        Oh, and once the toilet is in place, and you know it doesn’t leak, consider grouting the base of the toilet with Plaster of Paris. This not only stops dirt and stuff getting in under the pan, it also reduces localized stresses on the toilet pan when someone loads it up, and deals with any slight unevenness in the floor. Make the plaster up in small batches (you won’t need much) up and pack it in the crack, then smooth the excess off with a finger to get a nice ‘web’ between pan and floor.

        Clean up with water before it sets fully. It sets pretty fast.

        1. Badolph Hilter

          Thank you 6.

  49. Count Potato

    “Chanel comes under fire for using Cindy Crawford’s ‘barely dressed’ daughter Kaia Gerber, 16, to star in its latest handbag campaign”

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5572517/Chanel-comes-fire-using-Kaia-Gerber-16-latest-campaign.html

    1. Slammer

      Give that poor girl a cheeseburger

      1. Yeah, she’s definitely an attractive young woman, but she could stand to have a nice dinner. Looking at her I worry that she might have an eating disorder.

        1. TK

          attractive young woman

          I think you meant to say an “attractive young wo-person,” shitlord.

    2. JaimeRoberto

      That’s barely dressed?

      1. R C Dean

        Badly dressed, certainly.

  50. wchipperdove

    I’ve come up with a motto for us flyover-country reg’lar folks: Deploribus Unum.

    1. Badolph Hilter

      Not bad. Would wear logo on tee shirt.

    2. A Fuggin White Male

      dude… quickly… make it into a bumper sticker. You’ll make a lot of money.

    3. Gilmore

      “”Deploribus Unum””

      excellent

    4. Slammer

      *applause*

    5. Trigger Hippie

      Faggy Latin talkun in muh flyover?! Never! We speak Murican here!

    6. *races to trademark, then erase this entire set of comments*

      Shit…did I just type that out loud?

      Uh…good one, wcd.

    7. R C Dean

      Awesome.

    8. Heroic Mulatto

      But that makes no sense without a preposition.

      1. Jarflax

        Pedanticus Unum

        1. Heroic Mulatto

          That’s at least closer to a grammatical case that would make sense.

          1. Jarflax

            Ex morositate unitatis?

            probably wrong as I used Google translate (Latin was 35 years ago, and I unfortunately have let it fade away to tiny remnants. “Britannia est insula” is about my speed these days)

          2. Heroic Mulatto

            I’m not sure we need to change the word. “Deplorandum/a” gives the meaning “that which should be complained about”, of which the ablative plural would be, “deplorandibus” I’ve settled on “E deplorandibus, unum” – Out of the deplorables, one.

          3. R C Dean

            OK, I actually kind of prefer the one about complaining.

          4. Bobarian LMD

            Imissadabus Icatchadanextbus?

      2. Brett L

        In Deploribus Unum?

        1. Heroic Mulatto

          That would work, ignoring the fact that “deploribus” is not a word. It should be “deplorabile”, from deplorabilis.

          1. R C Dean

            Its a pun. By definition, it doesn’t need to be grammatical or make literal sense. It gets its energy from its similarity to, but difference from, something that makes sense.

            Its fine, better than fine, the way you wrote it, w.

          2. Heroic Mulatto

            I wouldn’t classify Dog Latin as a “pun”, which by definition is word-play based on syntactic or semantic ambiguity.

            I do agree that employing Dog Latin does however capture the anti-intellectual ethos of the populace that would flock under the banner upon which this motto would be emblazoned.

          3. R C Dean

            People laugh at pedants, not with them. 😉

            I wouldn’t classify Dog Latin as a “pun”

            Close enough, in this case. Swapping out a correct term for an incorrect one that sounds similar for humorous effect is pretty much what I consider a pun to be. “Deploribus” is undoubtedly an incorrect term, both as a Latin word and as an English word. It is freighted with implied meaning(s), which is what makes it work.

          4. Heroic Mulatto

            The adoption of a formal register is to tweak your nose for white knighting.

          5. R C Dean

            Tweaked by a mulatto for white knighting?

            I think I just lost this round of intersectional poker. Next time, HM. Next time.

          6. JaimeRoberto

            Apparently the Latin word for pedant is professoria. Don’t know why I thought of looking that up.

          7. Heroic Mulatto

            Using the ablative form of the gerundive “deplorandum” would work better, on second thought.

    9. Michael

      Hell yes.

  51. KSuellington

    I heard there was some kind of all expenses trip for winning the Glibertarians March Madness bracket. I forgot the location though.

    1. Congratulations on being the least worst at picking teams.

      I finished 5th, which is good enough for me.

    2. trshmnstr

      I forgot the location though.

      *scratches out “Warty’s dungeon” on itinerary and writes “surprise!” *

      1. Trigger Hippie

        Damn your nimble fingers!

    3. Trigger Hippie

      You win an all expenses paid trip to Warty’s basement. Bring additional lube and opioids if you think you’re not capable of handling the ‘reward’.

    4. Brett L

      Warty’s dungeon? I hear Cleveland is nice this time of year.

        1. KSuellington

          I’ve never been to Cleveland before. I hear that it’s magnificent in spring.

          1. Nephilium

            The orange barrels sprouting from the potholes, the sleet gently freezing on your windshield, the winds whipping across the lake sending waves crashing over the freeway…

          2. KSuellington

            Someone told me to visit East Cleveland before it gentrifies to get a more authentic experience. The damn hipsters are sure to discover it before long.

          3. Nephilium

            Nah, you’ve got some time. The hipsters are busy gentrifying Ohio City now; besides, there’s no breweries in East Cleveland. You’d have to go to Cleveland Heights or Cleveland proper for that.

    5. MikeS

      Way to go KSue! Great job picking stuff.

      I am still trying to figure out why Yahoo has me in 11th instead of 9th, but whatev’s. 8th loser is just as bad as 10th loser.

      1. MikeS

        Oh wow. I just necro-fucked this this post pretty hard.

        *slinks away, ala Carl Spangler*

  52. Count Potato

    “Reading is for the gays and the commies.”

    https://twitter.com/shoe0nhead/status/980731908639416320

  53. The Late P Brooks

    Cook said, “The truth is, we could make a ton of money if we monetized our customer — if our customer was our product. We’ve elected not to do that.”

    Well, they don’t monetize their customer base to “outsiders” anyway.

  54. The Late P Brooks

    If the PM had just helped fill the damn potholes it could have been done in half the time for less money.

    This reminds me of a conversation I had with somebody on a city council. In the course of a discussion about “uncontrolled intersection” (you know, no signs- yield yo right of way), I said, “Instead of pissing away a bunch of money on having a consultant do a traffic study, JUST GO BUY SOME FUCKING STOP SIGNS AND PUT THEM UP.” If they want to do a “study” they should just go ask the guys at the body shops where their customers got t-boned.

    1. Brett L

      The fact that juries have stopped believing their bullshit “memos” is actually great news. If testilying would stop working, maybe cops at all levels would do less of it.

    2. R C Dean

      I laughed and laughed. I’m pretty sure she got away with something, but fuck the FBI and their stupid “you can trust us, why would we need to record a fucking confession to a major crime?” approach.

      1. If Sessions wasn’t doing….whatever he is doing, he could simply issue a new policy. All conversations are recorded. Period. No recording, no evidence.

        1. commodious spittoon

          He had a sleeping nook installed under his desk.

        2. Sessions is too busy trying to “outlaw” bump stocks to do anything that actually matters.

    3. Gilmore

      “”Salman, who reportedly had an IQ of only 84,””

      What? really?

      what’s the technical line for ‘retarded’? 70, or something?

      you know you’re in trouble when you’re in that “too smart to be disabled, but too dumb to be considered normal”, grey-zone

      1. R C Dean

        You’re really in trouble when you get outsmarted by someone with an IQ of 84. Way to go, “best and brightest”.

        But, the FBI falls firmly into the “remember everything, learn nothing” camp, so I am sure there will be no change to their policy of “we don’t record nuffin, ever” policy.

        1. tarran

          They didn’t get outsmarted.

          They literally coerced a false confession and didn’t care that there was plenty of circumstantial evidence that falsified it.

          She was a rake. They stepped on it.

  55. trshmnstr

    I got a guide for the new office workspace, and it has a use case example. This girl worked 10 hours straight, including a working lunch, and spent all of an hour and a half at her desk… Somebody dropped the ball on explaining to our office accommodations team that legal department employees can’t just flit about the office with highly confidential information on their screens. Our work often requires that most other attorneys can’t see it. If they do, we’re without technically waiving atty-client privilege.

    1. trshmnstr

      without

    2. R C Dean

      Not just what’s on your screen, either. Its also what you say on phone calls and in face-to-face meetings.

      1. trshmnstr

        Yup, we’re going to be living out of conference rooms, only there arent enough to go around. Oh, and our extra monitors arent exactly mobile.

        But it’s trendy, and that’s all that matters!! Nevermind that this office model is designed for a sales team and doesn’t fit well for engineering teams or legal departments.

  56. l0b0t

    As some of you may know, my move to NYC neccitated the transfer of my firearms/ammunition/reloading equipment to relatives in less hoplophobic climes. Consequently, my shooting opportunities over the last decade have been few and far between. Today however, I’m in North Miami Beach and am 30 minutes away from taking my Hasid nephews to Pembroke Gun & Range to spend a few hours with some rental NFA weapons. The Glock 18 has me rather excited.

  57. The Late P Brooks

    Switch to a flip phone. It’s glorious.

    It’s tempting. The nonstop memory-gobbling google bullshit updates really piss me off.

    1. I remember owning a Nokia that texted and made phone calls, was nearly indestructible, and held a charge for like a week. It’s nice to have a phone that is a computer, but I miss just having a phone.

    2. trshmnstr

      Somebody more knowledgeable than me should do an article on de-googling Android phones.

      1. R C Dean

        Pretty sure step 1 is going to be “jailbreak it”. Which voids any warranty and will break some of your apps. Which might be fine, but isn’t a step to be taken lightly. I’ve looked at jailbreaking an Android tablet, and decided against it.

        But it would be interesting to hear from someone (not me) who knows what they are talking about.

    3. Gilmore

      I’d be interested in a flip phone as a satellite to the Smartphone.

      I like having smartphone as resource when out and about, but i woudn’t want to use it 100% for everything (phone + receiving text could be just as easy on flip phone); if i could split out the phone and have it mirror SMS, id probably carry both.

      1. trshmnstr

        If the phone were defeatured down to calls, texts, photo and video messaging, native video calling (FaceTime), and email, I’d be happy as a clam.

        Unfortunately, even just owning a phone is a trust exercise. The cell providers have more than enough info on you to sell you up the river.

  58. Count Potato

    I don’t even want to look up the original article.

    https://twitter.com/CassandraRules/status/980966086186332161

    1. Sean

      Ugh. Dude, why?

    1. Gilmore

      I was amused. would need to watch again to catch all the references.

    2. AIDS, AIDS, AIDS, AIDS…

  59. The Late P Brooks

    Futurism, FTW!

    Over the next 10 years, we’re probably going to see the introduction of self-driving cars. Whoever owns one is going to send it out to run all sorts of errands, many of them with no one in the car. Those empty personal cars aren’t going to care about sitting in traffic. We need to charge a price that makes owners think twice about sending out a car during peak times with few or no people inside.

    The article is about congestion pricing, and about how those goddam people who want to travel on their own schedule in their own vehicles need to be punished, and hard, but that bit about “Teh robot cars will make Manhattan unliveable!” was especially precious.

    Extra credit for the “We need to be more like London!” gambit.

    1. trshmnstr

      Here’s an idea, deregulate general aviation and let people escape the congestion by going up.

      1. TK

        It’d be nice if I could just launch a drone from my patio with a $10 bill paper-clipped onto it and have it come back in 15 minutes with a 6-pack.

        1. trshmnstr

          I think you just described me through my wife’s eyes.

        2. Pope Jimbo

          That would be super-duper nice for all the underage trap shooters in your neighborhood.

      2. leonadasiv

        Or private roads so that individuals bear the costs.

    2. Easier solution: No driverless cars!

      Why do we want them, anyways?

      1. trshmnstr

        Nobody NEEDS a full-automatic car with the black thing that goes up.

  60. The Late P Brooks

    This is the moment to improve the livability and economic viability of New York City. Let’s do it right, right now.

    Somebody should tell her(?) who the mayor is.

    1. R C Dean

      The less you know about something, the easier it looks.

  61. Gilmore

    Spiked/O’Neill have been hammering this story

    The CA thing seems to be the UK’s verison of “Fake News+Russians = results of election which progs dislike”

    Most of the media still happily pump this idea that voters are all mindless sheep who can be easily controlled by Facebook*, but are somehow immune to the 24/7 political-appeals made by the progressive-leaning, mainstream media and political-establishment

    (*of course, that’s because Facebook has been drinking news media’s ad-revenue milkshake, and they happily pump any story that potentially blames FB for social-ills)

    the narrative they are writing around Brexit is, ironically, an enormous act of misinformation. It is an act of Orwellian erasure of the truth of the recent past and its replacement with a lie. Two lies, in fact. Firstly that, courtesy of ‘dark’ but powerful networks, people came to be surrounded by Leave propaganda. Utterly untrue. The politics of Remain held far greater sway in public discussion, offline and online, in the run-up to the referendum. And secondly that many Brexit voters failed to think for themselves and instead fell victim to a ‘psyops operation’ and its ‘mass sentiment change’. This is a libel upon the electorate. … it pushes a powerfully elitist view of ordinary people as easy prey for the powerful. As blank minds easily filled by the memes and messaging of ‘dark, dystopian’ groups. It calls into question the very ideal of democracy, because what is the point of asking the public its opinion if significant sections of the public are so hollow that they can allow themselves to become the playthings of ‘a member of the global 1%’, in Cadwalladr’s phrase?
    … in the view of the embittered Remainer elite, still balking 20 months later at the defiance of voters, everything their side does is good, or at least acceptable, while everything the other side did was in some way sinister. And they have the neck* to accuse others of disseminating simplistic propaganda.

    Anyway, O’neill remains (pun) my fave columnist.

  62. The Late P Brooks

    Most of the media still happily pump this idea that voters are all mindless sheep who can be easily controlled by Facebook*, but are somehow immune to the 24/7 political-appeals made by the progressive-leaning, mainstream media and political-establishment

    This reminds me of the local panic over a Koch foundation’s offer to establish an economic research facility at Montana State. The arguments against it boil down to explicit claims that what is being taught currently is substantively so weak and intellectually inconsequential that it will be inexorably swept aside by the merest exposure to the dreaded “libertarian war on government and regulation” embodied in the grant.

    Nice to see them admit it.

  63. Gilmore

    Wait, What?

    “”From Thai Jail, Sex Coaches Say They Want to Trade U.S.-Russia Secrets for Safety“”

    NYT Journalist: “this sounds very plausible.”

    A pair of self-described sex instructors from Belarus have been stuck in a Thai detention center for weeks. They say that they have evidence demonstrating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign in the United States, and that they have offered it to the F.B.I. in exchange for a guarantee of their safety.

    Their claim — that they are targets of a covert Russian operation to silence them because they know too much — might seem outlandish, but, their case certainly includes some unusual circumstances.

    why, its almost like these Russians KNOW that American media are so hysterically desperate to pump news about ‘russian meddling’ that it might provide them some advantage.

  64. KibbledKristen

    Eichenwald is unhinged by Ben Shapiro and Kyle Kashuv

    1. KibbledKristen

      Y’all gotta read this – it’s completely whack-a-doo!

      1. Sean

        “Page does not exist.”

        1. KibbledKristen

          It does…Twitter has it semi-blocked (it can’t be embedded or something). If you go to Shapiro’s timeline and scroll down, it was posted about 30 mins ago

          https://twitter.com/benshapiro

        2. KibbledKristen

          Screen shot of the email Eichenwald sent to Shapiro

          https://imgur.com/a/omNvs

          1. R C Dean

            I don’t know which is my favorite – that Eichenwald can’t shake his rep as a tentacle porn aficionado, or that he wants us to believe he has friends who are conservative, or that his psychiatrist “friend” gave a professional opinion based on a text exchange.

          2. trshmnstr

            Journalism is up there with teaching and politics as one of the most fucked up professions.

          3. A Fuggin White Male

            He’s so full of shit.

            “I consulted a psychiatrist friend of mine”
            “I talked to a (conservative) Rabbi friend of mine”

            Coming from an alcoholic who regularly attends AA meetings and interacts with pathological liars daily, to me this certainly sounds like the kind of bullshit I hear routinely from said pathological liars.

          4. Sean

            Wow. People be crazy.

  65. The Late P Brooks

    Hate speech

    The “incentive structure” in terms of mainstream media coverage is “pretty clearly tilted to the left,” GOP strategist Matt Mackowiak said.

    Mackowiak took pains to point out that he recognized the trauma all the students experienced when a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14.

    But he argued that it was clearly valid to criticize their policy prescriptions to deal with the broader issue of gun violence.

    “I’m very sensitive to their horrific experiences, but they are really trying to make [the gun issue] a bumper sticker–type issue or an organizing campaign for the left, when it’s really far more complicated than that,” he said.

    Somebody should call that Eichenwald guy.