Tuesday Morning Return to Normalcy Links

What this country needs is a good swift kick in the @#$

I have noticed that word caused considerable grammar Nazis and Aspies to change it to “normality”. I have looked for “normality” in my dictionary and I do not find it there. “Normalcy”, however, I did find, and it is a good word.

We are returning to normal here at Glibs. Well, at least for this morning. No cryptids running about, all the tech is working, and I will be off morning link duty starting tomorrow…as I submerge myself in the work my beloved Swiss overseers have allowed me to do. *wipes chin*

So…in the words of the great American Philosopher, Tone Lōc, Let’s Do It.

Birthdays – J.P. Morgan (1837 – tip your top hats, please) William Holden (1918) Olivia Hussey (1951) Maynard Keenan (1964) Liz Phair (1967) Jennifer Garner (1972) Victoria Beckham-Spice (1974)

Sports – All my teams are out of the playoffs or have started their season and suck, hard….so there is nothing to say other than the NBA and NHL (allegedly) are playing off. Euro soccer angers some, delights others. MLB is lying under a curtain of snow and ice.

Links

  • Whatever Cuba was doing to US diplomats, they appear to be doing to Canada now. PM Zoolander hardest hit? I cannot imagine what the Cubans are thinking, especially since Canada has been fairly stalwart in forging a path that is a bit more friendly than that of the US. Go figure.
  • Lay your bets as to allegations of poison gas use! Where? Here. Time to go long on missile futures.
  • Is there a doctor in the house? Well, one woman thinks at least one particular one is a good fellah. Here, she could run for Congress in certain districts.
  • You no steal phone! POW! Somebody buy that man a cigar.
  • So much for information being available. Sigh.
Now go do that voodoo that you do so well!

Comments

470 responses to “Tuesday Morning Return to Normalcy Links”

  1. I have noticed that word caused considerable grammar Nazis and Aspies to change it to “normality”. I have looked for “normality” in my dictionary and I do not find it there.

    I have never even heard the word ‘normality’, while ‘normalcy’ in context of the phrase ‘return to normalcy’ is just a normal part of the language.

    1. Just a thought not a sermon

      “We are returning to normal here at Glibs. Well, at least for this morning. No cryptids running about, all the tech is working”

      This sounds like the opposite of normal.

      1. Yeah, but it’s a statement from Switzy, who glares at our normal punning.

    2. Raven Nation

      Man, I just heard something in a podcast about this in the last few days or so. But, normality, is the British-English version. Normalcy was, apparently, introduced to American-English by Warren Harding…

      hahaha: so I just realized Harding first used the term in a campaign speech from which Swiss, umm, borrowed for this post.

      1. *waggles eyebrows*

    3. I’ve heard both, and I generally use “normality”, but I like the sound of “normalcy”.

  2. MikeS

    It’s Hedly

    1. Chipwooder

      Piss on you, I’m working for Mel Brooks!

      1. NOT IN THE FACE!!!!

  3. Just a thought not a sermon

    101) Global warming OMG!!!!!!

    Global Warming Has Made Gulf Stream Slowest in 1,600 Years

    “According to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, the Gulf Stream is circulating at its slowest rate in at least 1,600 years… [and] climate change is to blame.
    A shutdown of the Gulf Stream’s circulation is possible in the long-term, and that would have disastrous consequences, bringing rapid sea level rise to the East Coast, more extreme winters.”

    So we should probably go ahead and start looking into moon colonies, right? Except, in the last couple paragraphs of the article:

    “MIT professor Carl Wunsch said the study’s ‘assertions of weakening are conceivable, but unsupported by any data’”, and “a separate study, also released Wednesday in the journal Nature, claims the 150-year slowdown of the AMOC is a result of natural changes.”

    So, um, this is speculation rather than something anybody actually knows, and even if true, it’s likely part of a natural cycle. (In fact, it would almost certainly be part of a natural cycle—I mean, what were humans doing 1,600 years ago to make the Gulf Stream circulation slow down? Also, why does every single one of the global alarmists act like they’ve never opened a history book—there’ve been numerous history-shifting climate changes just since recorded history started.)

    1. So much for Hedly’s admonishment…

      1. MikeS

        I though it was beautiful alt-text.

        What you need is some rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists to take care of the OT’ers.

        1. Could you repeat that, sir?

          1. straffinrun

            Impressive. I can’t even remember my wife’s middle name.

          2. AlexinCT

            Mongo?

      2. Just a thought not a sermon

        Geez, I waited all the way ’til 8:02.

        1. Not Adahn

          It sez right there 7:02

      3. Tundra

        I was wrong. I guessed 5.

    2. Brett L

      I have also seen this thing about the AMOC running amok. I am sure they misrepresented in the graphic, but it looked like they were taking measurements in one corner, where a movement of a hundred or so miles by the current would put it outside the measurement area entirely.

    3. Suthenboy

      The global warming chicken littles are getting as good at clap-trap as the feminists.

      Findings are conceivable but unsupported by any data. In other words “I just made this shit up.”

      I see that the governor of florida is being sued over global warming. I love this quote – ““It is the responsibility of the state to uphold the constitution, and these young people have a fundamental right to a stable climate system,” said Guy Burns, lead counsel for the eight plaintiffs, most of whom are teens.”

      Pure gibberish.

      1. Jarflax

        In a sane world Gary Burns would get Rule 11 sanctions so fast he wouldn’t have time to say law license. (or the FL equivalent but I am far too lazy to look up the FL rules of Civil Procedure, and frankly too scared to know what Florida Man considers Civil Procedure). In our current world he’ll probably end up a judge.

        1. Jarflax

          oops Guy Burns, I othered him.

          1. Bobarian LMD

            Guy Burns

            Is that a euphemism for chafing in the nethers?

    4. Evan from Evansville

      “A new study has found the Gulf Stream is circulating at its slowest rate in at least 1,600 years”

      Ooooooookay.

      Let me put this out there so maybe someone smarter than I (low bar!) can explain:

      1. How the fuck do you accurately measure the gulf stream’s speed? Best I can think of to get legit-ish accurate data would be something like that rubber ducky thing, where after the shit wrecked all the rubber duckies traveled the oceans. But even then, how do you actually track that shit? Do they tag individual (with n hopefully being crazy big) ducks with RFIDs? I guess I’d be cool with that as a baseline (#notanoceanographer).

      2. How in the ever loving fuck do they claim to be able to claim “in at least 1600 years?” How would they be able to measure that even 40 years ago?

      Obvious, blatant bullshit.

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        The Gulf Stream’s speed is measured in a number of different ways. Since it’s fastest at the surface, that’s the easiest, but only provides an approximation of the sub-surface. Other methods can provide the sub-surface speed. I don’t know what they used or how it was implemented for this study.

        Estimates of historical Gulf Stream speed are generated using core samples from the ocean bottom. They use the size distribution of sand particles to estimate the speed, given that faster currents carry heavier particles. I don’t know much about the method or its accuracy, just that it was the technique used for this study.

        (I took a lot of physical oceanography in college/grad school)

        1. Jarflax

          LIES! You measure it by sitting in lotus and communing with Mother Gaia. Your patrionormative measurement based sciencing ignores the true wisdom of the feelz.

          1. Rasilio

            He is clearly not taking into account female and black ways of knowing

  4. Slammer

    NORM!

      1. Chipwooder

        “It’s a dog eat dog world, Sammy, and I’m wearing Milk Bone underwear.”

    1. straffinrun

      My guess is Cliffy is more the type to hang out here.

        1. Slammer

          It’s a little known fact

          1. Bobarian LMD

            Always apropos.

            Couldn’t find the actual clip.

    2. Just a thought not a sermon

      “Can I draw you a beer, Norm ?”
      “No, I know what they look like. Just pour me one.”

    3. Rufus the Monocled

      ‘Women you can’t live with them…..pass the beer nuts’.

  5. Whatever Cuba was doing to US diplomats, they appear to be doing to Canada now. PM Zoolander hardest hit? I cannot imagine what the Cubans are thinking

    Maybe Cuba is just a toxic environment.

  6. Count Potato

    “Stop the War activists defended Bashar Assad as a ‘good man’ on Parliament Square last night with one woman insisting he would not kill civilians because he is a doctor.”

    So were Kermit Gosnell and Joseph Mengele.

    1. Chipwooder

      And HH Holmes.

      1. Not Adahn

        He had a pretty big dick, but I don’t think he actually killed anyone with it.

        1. Jarflax

          Pretty sure he killed Seka.

          1. Jarflax

            … who is apparently still alive.. so derp

        2. Chipwooder

          Maybe, but the extent of his participation in the Wonderland murders is open to speculation.

    2. Slammer

      Looking at those pics, and the pics from the Pussy March, Global Warmistas, and the Gun Grabbers…I’m absolutely convinced Big Posterboard is behind it all.

      1. They have overthrown Big Papier-mâché, eh?

        1. Slammer

          Hostile Takeover, or Silent Coup? Historians are divided.

          1. The Mimes helped with a Silent Coup.

          2. Rasilio

            yeah but they were really just pawns of the Boy Scouts of America who are a front group for the Bavarian Illuminati

  7. straffinrun

    The war has killed more than 500,000 people and has drawn in regional and global powers.

    It wasn’t my fault. I was drawn in.

    1. The tug of war?

    2. Pope Jimbo

      Well? You were drawn in what? Charcoal, oils, watercolors, crayons? C’mon we need to know.

      1. Pope Jimbo

        And I’m assuming it was a tasteful nude. The medium is the only open question.

        1. it was a tasteful sleazy nudeFTFY. I mean it doesn’t make sense the other way around.

    3. Rasilio

      I’m not a war monger I’m just drawn in that way

  8. Chipwooder

    Lindsay Graham is a demented asshole.

    1. Count Potato

      “”We’re becoming the chemical weapons police,” Graham said.”

      Well, that part seems true.

    2. leonadasiv

      Lindsay: “I wish you could have seen the look on that A-rabs face when she blew up! Phew were we freedomed her so hard know what hit her”
      McCain: *blinks*
      “It’s ok John, we can Draw a picture for you”
      *Drool drops from McCain’s mouth*
      Oh, John I didn’t mean to excite you so much, let me clean that up

      1. straffinrun

        McCain does look like a komodo dragon.

  9. Tundra

    Liz Phair.

    Wood.

    Little something for everyone in this video.

    1. Just a thought not a sermon

      Damn it, Tundra!

      That’s a great song, though.

    2. Chipwooder

      Fuck. Yeah.

      Love Liz Phair.

      1. Festus

        Definite double wrap, though.

        1. Chipwooder

          Oh, yeah, she’s probably fucked more people than the population of a small Central American nation.

          I haven’t seen a picture of her in quite a while, so I hit up the web search and….damn, she looks pretty much exactly as she always has. Aging quite well.

          1. Galt1138

            Like a fine wine. Or cheese. Or a bourbon barrel aged stout. Or….
            Titties!

    3. Pope Jimbo

      I don’t think she was wearing a bra. It was too distracting. The director of that video should have sent her home.

      1. Gadfly

        He would have, except, well, he got distracted.

  10. Just a thought not a sermon

    Birthdays – Liz Phair (1967)

    Liz Phair is 51? I am old, so old. Not as old as her, but still. That Fuck and Run song would go on forever now.

    1. Tundra

      Spotify tells me she will be here in June. I may have to go ogle – er – listen.

      1. Gustave Lytton

        I saw her live about 15 years ago. Thought she put on a good show.

      2. egould310

        Going to see Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever tonight at the Echo in LA. Stoked!

        https://youtu.be/uqh4DoCyMCs

        1. Tundra

          I’m jealous!

          Here’s another gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPJIByCZbmY

          1. egould310

            Yeah. I was hoping the new album would be released today. But alas…

            Also, I’m not a music festival kind of guy, but I am seriously considering hitting Desert Daze this year. https://desertdaze.org

            Great bands, a fistful of mushrooms, warm California sun. Alright ok.

          2. I’ve only heard of one of those acts. I must no be with it anymore.

          3. Gilmore

            The only one you need to know is Death Grips

            Or as i like to think of them, “The Original Guantamo Bay Interrogation-Band”

          4. B.P.

            Not bad. I thought about going to that festival last year, but already had reservations for Riot Fest in Chicago.

            I saw Ty Segall a couple of weeks ago and now I’m deaf. And yes, Death Grips brings it.

    1. “Teen” – too old.

      1. Mr Lizard

        Ya figured, but it was the only joke I had. Speaking of which can we get the cop-hating PedoBot back?

          1. Mr Lizard

            *hisses, pouts, crawls back back on hot rock*

            FINE

        1. Huh, I never thought of it like that.

    2. straffinrun

      “It’s a unisex shirt, if you will,” Knop said. “Guys wear it every day and we would never be staring at their nipples to see if they were hard and x them out because we didn’t like their nipples showing through.

      Unisex Tits. I like where this is going.

        1. AlexinCT

          No moobs for me either brah.

    3. Count Potato

      “”The dean, after having [Lizzy] put on the undershirt, asked her to stand up and move around,” Knop explained. “They handed her four band-aids and told her to ‘X’ out her nipples.””

      WTF???

      1. Old Man With Candy

        This is now a measure of nipple size. A six band-aid is major nippage, eight band-aid is Tracy Lords.

        1. Private Chipperbot

          /Marilu Henner enters the contest…

          1. Tundra

            Let’s not forget Kim Bassinger.

    4. Slammer

      “Manatee High School”

      More like the John Signal

      1. *symphony applause*

  11. Pope Jimbo

    I am so fucking happy I work for a company focused only on US customers and no longer have to worry about GDPR.

    That entire regulation is a giant heaping pile of shit. When I was trying to build global apps, I’d ask lawyers for guidance and they’d all say “It is fuzzy on what exactly the regulations mean and since they aren’t being enforced yet, there is no additional guidance from court cases.” That was helpful.

    It was also crazy that the damages that people can collect are based on the revenue that a company collects that year. Way to make the behemoth companies in Europe curl up in the fetal position at the mere idea of doing anything on the internet.

    I don’t know if the preceding paragraphs made it clear, but the GDPR really urinated me off.

    1. leonadasiv

      I hadn’t heard about it, but it seems kind Europe wants to kill the internet. I’m sure all those Nations will be glad that they ceded sovereignty to a faceless government.

      1. The internet is a threat to their potemkin village efforts. It must therefore be shut down.

      2. Pope Jimbo

        Europeans are absolute morons when it comes to the internet and “privacy”.

        I worked for a big German company and they were absolutely terrified of the law. They should be too. The fines can be up to 4% of total global turnover. So if you are Amazon and you fuck up in collecting data in the EU, they can collect %4 of your global revenue (I think there is a max of 20M Euro). So large companies are very worried.

        We put on a trade show in Chicago a couple years ago. As part of the show, we created a mobile app to help attendees figure out when talks were going on and where. Also a map of the site. Pretty simple. But our German colleagues (as in worked for the same company) freaked out because the mobile app used an AWS service in North America! That meant some of their personal info was not routed to Germany (because they were Germans) and the T&S of the app wasn’t clear enough that data was stored in NA. They lodged complaints with our global execs and we had to shut the app down until we could roll an emergency patch out.

        1. Damn Germans….always at your feet or at your throat.

        2. leonadasiv

          The rules requiring data and servers to be located within physical boundaries are obnoxious.

          1. The data should be in your own data center where you can lay your hands on the very disks it resides on should the need arise.

            Kill the cloud.

          2. MikeS

            The data should be in your own data center bathroom where you can lay your hands on wipe the very disks it resides on like, with a cloth, should the need arise.

          3. AlexinCT

            Well played…

            Helps when you are also above the law…

          4. Private Chipperbot

            The rules requiring data and servers to be located within physical boundaries are obnoxious.

            Welcome to my world. It’s the first thing I have to ask any new vendor. Where are your servers located? Where is your data stored?

          5. God help you, if you are working with Canadians.

    2. It’s possible several tech companies pull out of Europe altogether.

    3. cyto

      I can’t figure out how WhoIs relates to online privacy. It is right there in the domain registry agreement that your information will be online tied to your domain. Exactly how in the world do they figure this information is too sensitive to make public? Do they shield the owners of local businesses from public records? Europeans are just….. odd.

  12. Richard

    Good morning! This is Richard still on vacation. I’m in Rochester, NY. It rained all day yesterday and today’s forecast is for light snow. I moved away from Rochester as soon as I could. It’s just how I remember it.

    Yesterday I enjoyed a pint of Young’s Double Chocolate Stout:

    https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/664/73/

    I recommend it.

    1. Are we talking Rochester Rochester or one of the ringing towns like Chai-li, Henrietta, Webster or Greece? I haven’t been in any of them for years and I know I forgot one, and I can even picture where it is geographically…

      1. Richard

        I’m currently in Rochester proper. I’m visiting my family who lives in and around the city. I grew up in Webster, “Where Life Is Worth Living”.

        1. I only went to school at the South Henrietta Institute of Technology, so I have friends in the area, but no family.

          What was the town I’m forgetting?

          1. Richard

            Penfield? Brighton? Irondequoit?

          2. It was Penfield. Thank you.

          3. Richard

            For those who don’t get the joke, from this web site:

            https://everything2.com/title/South+Henrietta+Institute+of+Technology

            “According to RIT folklore the university was almost called South Henrietta Institute of Technology (SHIT) instead of Rochester Institute of Technology. This story is often told in circles of freshmen and sophomores.”

          4. Next you’ll be telling them about the cross-campus tunnel!

        2. Old Man With Candy

          I like how they say “Raaahchester.”

          /insert Jack Benny joke here

          1. RAHeinlein

            “What’s that, Boss?”

  13. What does Cuba gain by doing this shit?

    1. Evan from Evansville

      Eh. Occam’s razor–It’s been 60 years of an antagonistic relationship between Cuba and the US (though less with Canada….I think) that it’s just habitual, learned behavior.

      Brothers or spouses poking each other just because they can.

      *Shrug*

      My best guess. Second one–They’re shit’s retarded and they pine for the ghost of Desi Arnaz, as is only natural.

      1. Rufus the Monocled

        Less? Try never.

        I’ve never heard of an issue with Cuba.

        1. Maybe the Cubans are afraid Zoolander will come and claim the throne, as an heir of Castro…

        2. Evan from Evansville

          I haven’t heard anything either. I just assume(d) that those from The North could/would be lumped together with the US for our especially close cultural, political and geographic relationship.

          Shrug. YMMV.

    2. Sensei

      There is has been some conjecture that this is accidental. Some variations of listening and spying devices that are interacting and unitentionally proving harmful. Given that this is now impacting a generally supportive Canada and not the Evil US lends more strength to this conjecture.

      1. cyto

        There is also a lot of speculation that this is all a mass hysteria and there is nothing actually there. It wouldn’t be the first time that a set of diffuse and ill-defined symptoms created the notion of a disease that wasn’t actually there.

  14. These ladies have clearly not been kicked out of bed for eating crackers.

    http://archive.is/EcDLD

    Provisions are low; send 20 with dispatch.

    1. Gustave Lytton

      It might be a while. Looks like she’s going to be in bed all day.

  15. straffinrun

    10 Canadians, including some minors, experienced symptoms including headaches, dizziness, nausea and difficulty concentrating.

    Found Justin’s missing porn debut video.

    1. Rufus the Monocled

      “Bend over I’ll show you a male feminist.”

  16. The Late P Brooks

    It was also crazy that the damages that people can collect are based on the revenue that a company collects that year.

    “From each, according to his ability to pay….”

  17. Festus

    I dead-threaded this one. I just watched Kellyanne Conway and Chris Cuomo talk epic derp for 28:32. God have mercy on my soul! Anyways, reminded me hauntingly of this – https://youtu.be/kW_wLhYErR8

    1. Chipwooder

      Plus, the King’ s blood courses through her veins, so it’s the next best thing to having sex with Elvis

      1. Gustave Lytton

        So she’ll make me a bacon banana PB sandwich?

        1. Chipwooder

          That would go without saying, I’d think.

  18. Count Potato

    “The Mooch’s restaurant is helping ‘Sugar Daddies’ find ‘stunning women’

    The Mooch is helping “Sugar Daddies” hook up with pliant young women seeking “arrangements.”

    Anthony Scaramucci’s Midtown restaurant, Hunt & Fish Club, is the venue for Thursday’s “Sugar Social,” where 25 “invited gentlemen” will meet for cocktails and dinner with 35 “stunning women.””

    https://pagesix.com/2018/04/16/the-moochs-restaurant-is-helping-sugar-daddies-find-stunning-women/

    1. Male to female ratio not low enough.

    2. Badolph Hilter

      Hunt & Fish Club

      Oh, bravo.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    Girls who wish to participate to will go braless. Boys will put bandaids on top of their shirts over their chests. This is all to send a message and destigmatize natural bodies.

    The boys should put baby bottle nipples under their shirts.

    1. leonadasiv

      So it’s the Human form be longer beautiful?

    2. Festus

      Oh the fun we would have had…

  20. Festus

    I refuse to believe that Olivia Hussey is older than my bugged-out eyes when we watched that film in Grade nine. No Sir, you are a liar, Sir! A damnable Liar, Sir and I will have satisfaction!

  21. The Elite Elite

    McCain is going to live forever, isn’t he? We’re cursed to have him in Senate to the end of days, nothing will ever kill him or make him retire.

    1. Festus

      He’s like that dude with the empty cranium that was memeing everywhere a few years ago. “Hold on! Hooooold on! Everyone around you has their little schemes so hoooooold ooooon – To Your Dreeeeeaaams!”

    2. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Something will get him sooner or later and he’ll go to his just reward, God willing.

    3. Drake

      He’ll be Senator Christopher Pike – sitting in his little scooter beeping “yes” for war and “no” for spending cuts.

    4. straffinrun

      McCain Treated for Intestinal Infection

      The writer got that backwards.

    5. Psycho Effer

      We just need to find his phylactery. Then we have to decide whether it is better to operate him like a puppet like Mr. Lizard is doing, or just put him out of his misery.

      1. Mr Lizard

        Actually we skin-suited him for the 2000 election but kept the original in stasis. The goal was to drop a few tac nukes in Afghanistan(yuge ratings), spread some cloned Bin Laden remains, then kidnap the real Bin Laden from Pakistan.

        From that point forward we would run fresh Bin Laden footage after every trivial negative event in the news cycle. (kinda like how the Undertaker used to show up at random WWF interviews = more yuge ratings)

        However that plan didn’t work out so we returned the original McCain but he was such a dick that we didn’t even bother to cure his cancer. The premise was that American mammals deserved to be burdened with such an asshat.

        Anyways you’re stuck with him cuz you took away our fun so suck it

  22. Pope Jimbo

    By the way, we are quickly becoming the shining city on the Progressive hill here in Minnesoda.

    Not only are we super duper bike friendly, but now we are becoming just like Europe with knife crimes in our schools.

    Only knuckle breathers are still using guns in schools.

    The police chief in a Minnesota city where an 8-year-old slashed three other students with a knife says he wishes he knew why the boy did it.

    Sauk Rapids Police Chief Perry Beise says the boy randomly cut three children at Pleasantview Elementary School on Monday morning, then went into the office and set the knife down. Beise says that when officers arrived, the boy was in a counselor’s office while the three children, who were not seriously hurt, were being treated by the school nurse.

    1. Drake

      More gun control and Somalis and you’ll achieve Paradise.

    2. He should have tried running with scissors instead.

  23. LJW

    Republicans regain advantage on dealing with the economy

    Not sure if this poll shows us that Americans are dumb, or that NBC/WSJ polls are not accurate. Or both. Purely anecdotal, but everyone I’ve talked to, including some Democrats have liked the tax cuts. Our tax preparer gave us an estimate on next year’s return and we are due back an additional $2000, that estimate doesn’t include the additional deduction due in September.

    1. Gadfly

      The Democratic propaganda machine is strong in its efforts to convince people that low taxes are bad. The government knows best how to spend that money, after all.

      1. Badolph Hilter

        “What good does it do me to get money back if rich people are getting even more money back than I am?!”

        1. AlexinCT

          Is that envy or jealousy? Both?

          1. cyto

            Look, just pay your fair share!

    1. DAMMIT. C’mon SMOD, I expected better from you!

      1. Zombies ate my darling

        Never meet your heroes.

    1. Ever notice how the ones calling for boycotts are usually not the ones who buy the products in the first place?

      1. Gustave Lytton

        Doesn’t matter. Companies publicly run in fear of the mob. Inside the companies, I think there are a number of sympathetic people who are happy to help bend the companies to the mobs’ demands.

        1. Gadfly

          There do seem to be a lot of corporate executives sympathetic to progressive causes. It’s too bad they can’t be thrown to the proggy wolves without dragging down the rest of the country.

          1. Took me a while, but I figured that one out. This is a generalization, and will not apply to all cases, but it covers a good many of them.

            The same personality traits that contribute to collectiveism also crave stasis and status quo. They are drawn to large organizations where change is slow or nonexistant, and the collective exists. Having a natural aprtitude for manipulating existing power structures, they end up climing to the top of these large organizations that they would never be able to build, nor take the risks required to found.

          2. Gadfly

            That is an interesting explanation, but I don’t think it quite takes into account the progressive desire for “change”. I mean, I guess it could be just affected conformity to fit with your theory, but I’m not entirely convinced. Although I could definitely see your theory being true in some cases.

          3. It is not a desre for ‘change’ so much as a drive to do what they mistake for ‘good’ by means of the selfsame institutions they gravitate to. Most of the people involved are not actually malicious, they just believe in a unversal, collective optimum that can only be attained through the group and through collective conformity, with deviation only in areas of no import. Thus the things they seek to change are those they see preventing their progress towards this ‘universal collective good’ without thinking through the potential unintended consequences of getting their way.

            Emergent patterns and behaviours are anathema to the way they view the world, so everything must be pre-organized to exist. It’s a surprise so few of them are creationists.

      1. Suthenboy

        “Parkland, Florida shooting survivor ”

        Well that makes two of us.

      2. Rasilio

        Could be titled…

        Parkland shooting survivor Hogg desperately tries to keep his 15 minutes of fame going

    2. leonadasiv

      Add it to the long list of inefectual boycotts by the left. I really think that boycotts main force is in the fear it generates. I think they rarely work along their base principle.

    3. Badolph Hilter

      I was just about to post a comment along the lines of: “remember last news cycle when a few punk teen activists were going to lead the way to the gun control promised land?”

      There are upsides to the country’s ridiculously short attention span.

      1. Gadfly

        There are upsides to the country’s ridiculously short attention span.

        The short attention span only seems to apply to things people don’t care that much about, which is a good sign in this case. Gun control is still not a winner.

  24. robc

    Sports: The Reds won last night, 3-13!!! Watch out Milwaukee, we are only 4.5 games out of 4th!

  25. Count Potato

    “Human clones are being grown inside brainless cows as organ packages, meant to replace failing, natural human organs with a hybrid, genetically-modified tissues”

    https://twitter.com/RealAlexJones/status/986084586596786177

    1. LJW

      Are those antibiotic free brainless cows?

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        More importantly, are they friggin’ gay?

        1. Please. these are Cows, not Bulls. They’d be Lesbian.

    2. Suthenboy

      He’s got a pretty good shtick.

      1. Chipwooder

        I honestly don’t think it’s shtick for him. I think he believes the crazy nonsense he spouts.

        1. No, it’s an act. He’s an entertainer selling products, part of the reason he actively encourages meme-generation and jokes at his expense – it drives traffic to his work and thus revenue.

      2. Jarflax

        He’s Art Bell 2.0. He just replaced Aliens and Ghosts with Internationalist conspiracies.

    3. B.P.

      I could use a new liver.

    4. Rasilio

      brainless cows

      So…..

      They could just say democrats

  26. leonadasiv

    So Google thinks I should be interested in something that happened between Cohen and Hannity. It’s all wapo so I can’t read it
    Anyone know what’s going on?

    1. LJW

      Cohen apparently gave Hannity legal advice. And for some reason that’s a big deal?

      1. leonadasiv

        Damn. I thought maybe it was some lurid affair.

      2. AFAICT it’s TDS by proxy. DRUMPF is Satan so anyone remotely associated with him is also pure evil.

      3. straffinrun

        Cohen wasn’t a lawyer lawyer and therefore every one of his clients has no privilege.

        1. Drake

          The OIG report and Comey’s book are both putting the focus back on the Weiner / Abedin laptop. The FBI went to extraordinary lengths to pry it away from the NYPD. I wonder where it is now?

      4. leonadasiv

        So is this, as predicted, the beginning of leaks, or was this information found by other means.

        1. Tundra

          Leak-o-rama.

          Hard to believe, considering Who is overseeing the case.

          So very scummy.

          1. I misread that wand was expecting to see something about onion relatives.

        2. spqr2008

          This was said in open court, because Cohen is trying to get an injunction to not allow the FBI to look at his files (because of Client-Attorney Privilege), and he said he had two other clients, then his attorney was forced to say Hannity was one of them out loud, in a packed courtroom. Of course, the judge involved is a Clinton appointee, so no hint of bias there.

    2. Suthenboy

      This is not going to end well.

      1. Gustave Lytton

        I keep saying, these people are Roperites. They’re cutting down every law & custom & protection to get at their devil. I’m not sure they’re going to like it when it’s over. I know I sure won’t.

  27. Michael

    So much for information being available. Sigh.

    I will rest easy tonight knowing that no matter how bad the economy might ever get there will always be opportunity in selling rakes for Western Europeans to step on.

  28. The Late P Brooks

    Good luck

    Speaking alongside the flag-draped coffin of a police officer killed in a terrorist attack in southern France, President Emmanuel Macron last month lay blame on “underground Islamism” and those who “indoctrinate on our soil and corrupt daily.”

    The attack added further urgency to a project already in the works: Macron has embarked on a controversial quest to change Islam in France — with the goal of integration but also preventing radicalization.

    He has said that in the coming months he will announce “a blueprint for the whole organization” of Islam. And those trying to anticipate what that will look like are turning their attention to Hakim El Karoui, a leading voice on how Islamic traditions fit within French culture.

    Must be Islamophobia.

    1. Tundra

      Lol. ‘Blueprint’ my ass. He’s gonna build a wall.

    2. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Trust Macron, I’m sure he has a fine understanding of what makes the ululating jihadis tick.

    3. Drake

      Macron is going to become an Mullah?

  29. Supreme Court heard arguments on internet sales tax today

    “I was in D.C. about once a month lobbying this issue, and I became increasingly frustrated,” said South Dakota state Sen. Deb Peters, who is also president of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

    She finally lost her temper: “I basically blew up and said, ‘I need a bill. Somebody get me a bill.’ “

    Sounds like an extremely reasonable and well-balanced person. Totally not a
    Control freak and certainly not ravenously trying to steal as much money as possible from the proles for her dumb projects. I mean, it’s just a complete mystery how the several states that do not have a sales tax keep their government functioning at all. Fuck you, mafiosa.

    1. MikeS

      Especially since South Dakota is one of them.

      Or are they a no income tax state? I forget. And as you can tell, I am far to busy working to look it up. Rufus would be proud, if he wasn’t so busy working.

      1. Gadfly

        Sales tax map.

        The four states without sales tax are Oregon, Montana, Delaware, and New Hampshire.

        1. robc

          KY has no local sales tax. The 6% is entirely state and the state doesn’t allow the locals to add on.

          There are some TIFF districts where part of the money does end up with the locals, but that is created by state law and it flows thru the state.

    2. leonadasiv

      ‘I need a bill. Somebody get me a bill.’

      This doesn’t even make sense. Why would you think that makes you look good?

      1. I really think that’s quite the point. She’s all the way up her own ass.

      2. There are two types of people in this world: those that prefer to pass the hat around, and those that prefer highway robbery.

    3. mindyourbusiness

      Something something somebody get me some muscle over here…

  30. Drake

    There was a Republican on Fox Business this morning talking about taxes and fiscal policy. I wasn’t paying much attention until he cited the economic and tax revenue growth from the Harding / Coolidge tax cuts. I had a happy for a moment.

  31. Ignore the fact that this has been going on for at least two decades.

    http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/04/15/california-s-crazy-one-party-liberal-politics-is-why-had-to-finally-leave-state-and-m-not-alone.html

    By itself this is all well and good; the problem is that these refugees are spectacularly un-self aware and bring with them the insane politics from which they’re fleeing.

    1. Old Man With Candy

      I did not. Does that make me special?

      1. You’re special for a whole lot of reasons…

        1. cyto

          Short bus panel van special…..

    2. leonadasiv

      Bbbbbbut California is the way we should pattern our democracy after the second civil war. There can be no dissenters.

    3. Embrace and love the refugee that seeks the salvation of more limited government. Chide, deride, persuade and never miss an opportunity to mock anything else.

    4. Scruffy Nerfherder

      They’re fleeing because the Rethuglicans ruined California… obviously.

    5. Chipwooder

      Same as how assholes from MD, PA, NY, NJ, and New England move down here and start voting for the same shit that made them want to leave those states.

      1. Gadfly

        Dim bulbs don’t draw the connection between the two. They think their old states failed due to bad luck, like in that quote people like to post here from time to time.

        1. Badolph Hilter

          When you are writing a song for something else, if you are doing something for money, I always think that’s bad luck.
          -Chad Kroeger

      2. Grumbletarian

        Even within New England, you have unwashed Masses moving into NH and voting for the same policies that made them leave MA.

  32. Brett L

    Man, the Boston Marathon looked like a shitshow yesterday. 38 and raining hard? Fuck. That.

    1. straffinrun

      Did a dude win the women’s race?

      1. ARREST THAT MAN FOR MISGENDERING!

        1. straffinrun

          Now you did it. We’re all doomed.

        2. *Arrests Q for attempted kidnapping*

    2. Grumbletarian

      Freezing rain seems to be the only way to prevent a Kenyan or Ethiopian from winning.

      1. They turn into an ice sculpture mid-stride?

        1. They take one look outside and say “Fuck that noize, I’d rather run from rhinos.”

  33. Evan from Evansville

    Looking for lawyers! RC Dean, et al:

    Speaking of sportsball, I read something interesting involving a sorta futures contract that players are signing.

    Young baseball players are getting paid advance bonuses by private firms, the most famous worth $4.5 million. In return, a contract is signed and the player has to pay the firm 10% of their future earnings throughout their careers. A Dominican player is suing the company over the contract being (legally) unconscionable. He was only advanced $360K and is expected to make around ~$100M over his career.

    Reading this, I couldn’t really see what was wrong. Now, the player brings up some interesting points that if true, I understand the nefariousness behind it.

    1: The company itself assigned the player the lawyer; it’s argued they did this just to say that he had representation.

    2: Player says he didn’t have translator. But contract is in Spanish and company said negotiations were done in Spanish.

    If those things aren’t true, it just seems like a futures contract. I the business model made sense if above board–poor kids get money now to help their families and simply have to pay it back later. Just….a loan. Any legal folk have interest and opinion on matter? Thanks!

    1. robc

      How young? If they were less than 18, I think there are grounds to have them voided. And there have been lots of shenanigans with underage Caribbean* players.

      *that word is hard to spell.

    2. Raven Nation

      Somewhat related, BBC Sports writing produces column of drivel celebrating Patrick Reed’s Masters win: http://www.bbc.com/sport/golf/43786005

      tl; dr: Reed had a selection of brand name clubs and was sponsored by anyone, “It is a refreshing approach, a break from the commercial normality of the professional game. For fans, it is surely more authentic to know a player is using a certain club or ball because they like it rather than for vast financial gain.”

      1. robc

        I am assuming Reed is too much of an ass to get sponsored.

        1. robc

          Except Nike, of course.

      2. B.P.

        Commercial normality? I thought we settled on normalcy.

    3. Drake

      I watched that HBO Elvis documentary over the weekend. It was very well done and focused on the music. This is child’s play compared to whatever the hell contracts Elvis signed with Colonel Parker. That guy owned his balls for Elvis’ entire career.

  34. Rufus the Monocled

    The EU is so fucking annoying with their rules and regulations. What’s their problem exactly with Whois’?

    1. Michael

      To me it sounds like they didn’t take Whois into consideration when drafting the regulations. It got tangled up in them after the fact because the EU is helmed by retards.

    2. Rasilio

      No personal identifying information of EU citizens is allowed to be stored outside of the EU borders and those EU citizens have the right to ask for you to delete all of their information

      1. How do they enforce that against someone with no presence in their borders?

        1. R C Dean

          those EU citizens have the right to ask for you to delete all of their information

          I was dealing with a paranoiac (very nice fellow) who wanted us to delete all of his information from our system. Turns out we actually could delete his electronic medical records (it was outside the mandatory retention period), so, even though it is phenomenally stupid for him to want it deleted, I cleared that.

          He also wanted us to delete him from our billing records. I told him no. On account of if we did that, our books would no longer balance and we would be exposed to spoliation of evidence charges if we were ever audited on a dataset that includes him. Plus, he is in some “public health” type databases, which can stand a little random deleting before they become analytically useless, but not much.

      2. R C Dean

        No personal identifying information of EU citizens is allowed to be stored outside of the EU borders and those EU citizens have the right to ask for you to delete all of their information

        Possibly the stupidest fucking law I have heard of, well, so far today. The bar is very high, after all. I’ll assume this applies only to electronic information, because I’m not quite willing to assume that even the EU has made it illegal to have written information about an EU citizen outside the borders of the EU.

        So, with that in mind, if an EU citizen sends me a pdf of a letter that has their name, address, phone number, and email on it, I’m not allowed to store that letter? What if they email me? Can I keep the email, or do I have to purge my cache and all my backups? If I am an international company, I have to segregate all my EU information into a server that is in the EU, and no other server outside the EU is allowed to access it (or, can access it only in a read-only mode?) ?

        1. Rasilio

          yes, it is online information only

  35. The Late P Brooks

    the problem is that these refugees are spectacularly un-self aware and bring with them the insane politics from which they’re fleeing.

    “Where are the amenities?” they ask. “Why aren’t there more bike trails, and dog parks?”

  36. The Late P Brooks

    Young baseball players are getting paid advance bonuses by private firms, the most famous worth $4.5 million. In return, a contract is signed and the player has to pay the firm 10% of their future earnings throughout their careers.

    I think this was common practice in boxing, in the old days. Maybe it still is. The syndicate (or whatever) paid the fighter’s expenses during training, with the expectation of payback from the purse(s).

  37. LJW

    Kimba Wood: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

    Some info on the judge presiding over the Cohen case.

    “Wood Presided Over the Wedding of George Soros & Was Once Called a ‘Life-Long Democrat’

    Fueling some of the conservative anger at Wood: She performed the non-denominational wedding ceremony of liberal financier George Soros to Tamiko Bolton in 2013. Nancy Pelosi was among the guests, Page Six reported.

    Wood herself was also married to a lawyer named Jesse Lovejoy, making Richardson her third marriage.

    In a profile story on Wood, The New York Daily News, in 1995, said that Wood’s ascendancy to the federal bench raised some eyebrows because “Wood had no criminal experience at the time D’Amato nominated her for the judgeship and, as a life-long Democrat, she could hardly be said to share D’Amato’s views.”

    1. Gustave Lytton

      Kimba Wood… that name sounds familiar.. that’s right, she was going to be Clinton’s AG until she ran into problems. No way would she be holding any sort of grudge against Republican media figures like Hannity. Also, today she’d be hailed as a DACA hero.

    2. Kimba Wood married Jesse Lovejoy?

      What genre of porn is this?

      1. Chipwooder

        Worst season of Lovejoy EVER!

  38. Rufus the Monocled

    Musk Tweet from the 13th:

    “Excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated.”

    1. PieInTheSKy

      Meh it is not that humans are over or underrated but that there is a something that is worth automating and something that is not.

      1. For example, we could automate Elon Musk out of existance and never notice. Just put a bad idea tweetbot in his place.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    Excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake.

    You misspelled “hubris” dumbass.

  40. ttyrant

    Minneapolis-based glibs — you have a lovely city. Despite all the snow this weekend, I enjoyed the 48+ hours I spent there. I spent most of the weekend hunkered down in Lilydale, but was able to get out and drive around a bit on Sunday. Easy to see it as a future ‘settle down’ spot for me, although that’s likely a bit down the road.

    1. Pope Jimbo

      You should have let us know you were in town. We would have lured you out into the blizzard for sure.

      1. MikeS

        But when I come to town you blame the blizzard on me and say you have “plans” and don’t have time for me.

        *sniff*

        1. Oh they have plans for you…

          Just give them time to prepare the dungeon…

          1. Tundra

            SHUT UP, Q!

            Nothing to worry about, Mike. Here, have another beer…

    2. Tundra

      I wish it had been actual spring for you, tyrant. The lakes are beautiful!

      Where do you live now?

      1. ttyrant

        I’m in Milwaukee, Tundra. Part of the appeal of the Minneapolis area for me is that I like living near a city without having to deal with some of the more obnoxious aspects of city living (namely parking, traffic and cost of living). As such, my girlfriend and I were looking at apartments and houses around Summit Hill. Like I said, I wouldn’t expect to make the move soon, but I’d appreciate any recommendations as far as areas to look that are within spitting distance of either Minneapolis or St Paul.

        1. Old Man With Candy

          We love Milwaukee. Love it. Really nice waterfront, great arts and music scene, fine food (you’ll usually find us at Transfer). CoL isn’t bad. Despite being Illinois folk, we spend far more time in Kenosha and Milwaukee than Chicago.

          That said, one of the two best restaurants we’ve experienced since moving to the midwest was in Minneapolis. So there’s that.

  41. Waterfall Insurance

    This is so stupid shaggy and James corden is it Corbin? Whatever.
    https://youtu.be/qzt7JvsYIuI

  42. Juvenile Bluster

    Christ…

    Walter Olson
    ‏Verified account @walterolson

    Not the group it used to be: @ACLU calls for government-owned broadband, claims First Amendment may *require* as opposed to forbid state-operated communications infrastructure http://www.freestatefoundation.org/images/Just_a_Shadow_of_the_Old_ACLU_041618.pdf

    1. Chipwooder

      Not that I needed any more evidence that the ACLU has proceeded to the skin-suit phase of its existence, but that’s still eye-opening.

    2. Suthenboy

      Once was, my ass. They are just returning to their roots.

      1. spqr2008

        Weren’t they founded to protest Wilson’s illegal restriction of Commie speech during WW1?

        1. Suthenboy

          Yes. Legal counsel for the communists.

    3. PieInTheSKy

      Civil Liberties are nonsense anyway. Liberty is liberty.

    4. Nice to see Dershowitz calling them out on their bullshit.

      And I agree with Suthen; they’ve never been about defending liberty. They always have been a useful idiot front group for Communists.

  43. Nephilium

    Last day of work before vacation. It’s currently snowing heavily here in Cleveland, which I will be leaving behind tomorrow to go to Vegas for a week. In good news, I have finally managed to score a room at the Orleans for Viva Las Vegas next year. For some reason, they decided to open online sales at 1:00 Pacific time, with telephone sales starting at 7:00 Pacific. I have the feeling that there won’t be rooms left by the time the telephone sales start.

    1. egould310

      Have fun in Vegas. I have a friend who will be there doing some fetish modeling/burlesque stuff. I can get your info to her if you’d like.

      1. Nephilium

        Is she competing in the Burlesque Showcase on Friday? The girlfriend and I will basically be hanging around the Orleans for most of the weekend. I’d leave it up to her if she wants to meet up with an online acquaintance. 🙂

  44. PieInTheSKy

    The Corruption of Evidence Based Medicine — Killing for Profit

    The idea of Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) is great. The reality, though, not so much. Human perception is often flawed, so the premise of EBM is to formally study medical treatments and there have certainly been some successes.

    https://medium.com/@drjasonfung/the-corruption-of-evidence-based-medicine-killing-for-profit-41f2812b8704

    While I agree there are major issues I am somehow skeptical of the solution – “Bribery of university doctors is the problem — one that is easily fixed if the political will exists.”

    Right political will and regulations … That won’t backfire

  45. Gustave Lytton

    GPDR is apparently scaring the shit of our legal department. Thankfully, I don’t work near it or touch it.

    1. GDPR is fucking up our compliance department something fierce. While I’m not part of it, I have to deal with them tangentially and I think some of them are on the verge of suicide.

  46. Count Potato

    “My daughter started crying at the dentist office bc the dentist “is a boy” and the dentist said “sorry, there are no girl dentists at this office” & my daughter looked at me & said “why did we come here.””

    https://twitter.com/AlissaNutting/status/986011656626098177

    1. What an abusive mother.

    2. Gustave Lytton

      What? Not freaking out because the dentist said “boy dentist” and “girl dentist”, clearly infantilizing adult professionals?

      1. Chipwooder

        Why is that girl assuming the dentist’s gender?

      2. If the child is young enough, that would not be language out of the norm, especially if it was the child who brought up the topic.

    3. spqr2008

      I had the absolute coolest dentist as a kid. He has been the dentist for the Cincinnati Zoo for 30+ years, and has pictures of him working on the teeth of all of the animals at the zoo (the man literally has his DDS, and a Vet Dental Doctorate too). To add to the cool factor, he also had an arcade machine of some type or another there while you waited (first an SNES, then a SEGA Genesis) with a cartridge selector. Good times with dentistry.

    4. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Creative writing professor with crazy eyes.

      I feel for the kid.

      1. Chipwooder

        We found the bunny boiler!

      2. Jarflax

        She’s not crazy she is just nutting.

      3. MikeS

        Creative writing professor = Professional bullshit artist

        1. Those who can’t, teach.

    5. Drop the novocaine and *really* give her something to be afraid of at the dentist.

    6. Suthenboy

      I am tempted to say this is bullshit.

      1. Of course it is, it’s the woke six year old trope.

      2. The possibilities are: A – it’s fake and the woman is doing this to virtue signal, or B – it’s real, the woman doesn’t realize how bigoted it sounds because she’s the one who incentivized this sort of thinking in her small children. Either way, it’s a sign the twit is a horrible person.

        1. Heroic Mulatto

          or C – they are devout Muslims who will not deign to be touched by a member of the opposite sex outside of their immediate family.

          1. In general, maybe. In Ms. Nutting’s case, not likely given the remainder of the social media profile.

          2. Heroic Mulatto

            That was a joke.

    7. SugarFree

      Everyone at my dentist is a woman. I like it. The hygienist usually gently nestles my head between her boobs.

        1. SugarFree

          NOOOOOO! Browsing for pics, I’ve found they have hired a guy! My toothy safe space is ruined!

          Here’s my fav. She always smells so nice.

          http://beaumontfamilydentistry.tumblr.com/post/55019982729/meet-dr-jill-miller

          1. Hehe, your dentist office uses tumblr. Saves on some costs, I guess.

    8. Gilmore

      “So i slapped the little hate monger and shrieked, “DONT ASSUME THEIR GENDER””

  47. Chipwooder

    Never change, NY Post

    A mysterious “half human, half animal” creature has been caught on camera after it was said to have savaged two dogs.

    I defy anyone to tell me how that thing looks half-human.

    1. Suthenboy

      I am a bit skeptical. Just a bit.

    2. Evan from Evansville

      My guess is a bear with mange. Loses all its hair and is in rough and desperate shape. Looks like there are no indigenous bears in Argentina, but don’t count out a zoo escape or something similar.

      That’s generally what these things are.

      1. R C Dean

        Legs are too long for a bear. Except for the head, it looks the size and shape of a Hreat Dane to me. Look at the door behind it – that is a big animal.

        1. Chipwooder

          Yeah, there’s a lot of Great Dane to that thing, and one would be eminently capable of killing a pit bull and a German shepherd.

      2. It’s a skinny, mangy Great Dane or something along those lines.

        Not a bear. Trust me on this.

    3. Gadfly

      It doesn’t. But the best part is the tags they attached to the article:

      Filed under aliens , argentina , wtf

      1. No “KHAAAAAAAAN!” ?

    4. Chipwooder

      Appears to be a photoshop of this

  48. PieInTheSKy

    Oxford and Cambridge: will elite universities go private and raise fees?

    https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/apr/17/oxford-cambridge-universities-private-raise-fees

    The government launched its review of post-18 education in February. With the Tories keen to woo young voters, following Jeremy Corbyn’s commitment to end tuition fees, a reduction of the £9,250 fees cap is widely expected. But vice-chancellors say quality could be threatened if the government does not plug any gap with new funding.

    Unlike other universities, Oxford and Cambridge say fees, even at £9,250, do not cover the costs of the tutorial-led teaching for which they are famous. A spokesperson for Cambridge would not comment about going private, but said each student costs an average of £18,500 a year to teach.

    1. Oxford and Cambridge, two dilabidated corpses of institutions that have long ago stopped being of value.

      1. Jarflax

        Its lips are scattered?

        1. Sure, we’ll go with that.

  49. F. Stupidity Jr.

    Trump Derangement Syndrome or Pop Derangement Syndrome? Why pro-Trump Spurs fans are abandoning the team

    One fan, Cassandra Cassanova, told the Washington Post that when Popovich began talking about politics she threw away all of her Spurs gear and memorabilia in a trash bag and donated it to Goodwill.

    “That’s how angry I got. It ruined my basketball life,” she told the Washington Post. “I took it personally. I was such a loyal fan and he insulted me. Why would you start attacking the people who had been so loyal?”

    Well, I’ve been a fan for 36 years. I’m not going anywhere. I will say – while I fully acknowledge all the great things Pop has done for the team – I can’t wait until that self-important pock-marked arrogant SOB leaves his post. I wish beat reporters would ask Pop to list all the ways in which his foreign players have suffered since January 2017, but it would never happen. The sports press is as leftist as the political press. They’re all on his side.

    1. Rufus the Monocled

      He exposed his faux-intellectual nonsense with his partisan ‘we are Rome now’. Right. Just when Trump got elected. How convenient.

      I can’t and won’t watch the NBA because of James, Kerr, Pop…etc. Clearly they’re too woke for me.

      And oh…Crosby > James.

      1. Winded

        It seems most hockey players surpass their counterparts in the other team sports. They definitely seem like the most fan-friendly among the team players. Although there are a lot of ex-bulls here in Chicago that carved out nice media gigs just by being fan-friendly while the team was winning titles.

    2. Winded

      Well, Pop’s young foreigner from Latvia suffered last night courtesy of American Draymond Green’s elbow…does Pop hope that was just standard NBA violence and not anti-immigrant behavior?

      I can still enjoy the NBA as I’m not bothered by athletes on soapboxes, as long as they realize that their views can be questioned and challenged. Many learn once you’re not a superstar anymore you last a lot longer in the league if you’re not outspoken and just seen as a quiet workman-like veteran. Using a few Chicago high school players as an example, Juwan Howard and Nazr Mohammed extended their careers in this fashion. Howard played 19 years and only once in his last 6 did he get 1000 minutes. In Mohammed’s case, how does a guy last 18 seasons in the NBA never averaging double figures in points or rebounds? But a 32 year old Craig Hodges couldn’t overcome his conduct at the white house or his locker room agitation, even on a team coached by the leftist Phil Jackson, and his playing career was done.

      I’m the same way with actors. I can watch Sean Penn or Meryl Streep in a movie, enjoy their performance, and not connect them with their viewpointss even once. But I’m still inconsistent–I can’t force myself to watch a Michael Moore movie, so I guess I draw the line at directors.

      1. I’m the same way with actors. I can watch Sean Penn or Meryl Streep in a movie, enjoy their performance, and not connect them with their viewpointss even once. But I’m still inconsistent–I can’t force myself to watch a Michael Moore movie, so I guess I draw the line at directors.

        No, I think it’s the subject matter. The movies you do watch are not overt propaganada, so still retain some entertainment value.

    3. JaimeRoberto

      I’ve been a Warriors fan since childhood, but listening to Kerr pop off on the issue du jour has soured me on the team. I still root for them, but I don’t care as much. He’s been a great coach, but I really don’t care to hear his opinion on every political issue. Maybe winning two championships in three years has made it easy to lose interest too.

  50. The Late P Brooks

    You know… morons

    Few places know the toll of gun violence as well as Chicago. But even the city that saw more than 2,700 shootings last year is finding out that using economic muscle to push Wall Street into enforcing gun control is easier said than done.

    On Monday, the Chicago City Council’s finance committee put on hold an ordinance that would have barred the city from working with banks whose clients failed to adhere to certain policies, such as not selling firearms to anyone under 21 or dealing in high-capacity magazines. Mayor Rahm Emanuel introduced the proposal three weeks ago in the wake of the school shooting in Florida, saying “when it comes to fighting for stronger, smarter gun laws Chicago is putting our money where our mouth is.”

    The plan stalled in the face of opposition from the entities it seeks to police. The Illinois Bankers Association called the measure “overly broad.”

    If enacted, a financial institution couldn’t win or renew city contracts unless it “adopted a safe gun sales policy applicable to its retailer clients, partners or customers.” The result was a proposal that could have hampered Chicago’s ability to deposit or borrow money — especially given that the city already has a junk rating from Moody’s Investors Service, making it more difficult to float bonds.

    They’re lucky they can find anybody anywhere dumb/brave enough to lend them money. Trying to impose idiotic social justice preconditions takes a special kind of delusion.

    1. Badolph Hilter

      “We know that we can’t technically pass laws mandating what we want, so we’ll try extortion instead.”
      – People who complain a lot about legal “loopholes”

    2. Rebel Scum

      to push Wall Street into enforcing gun control

      Um…wut?

  51. wchipperdove

    Behold a steaming pile of pro-political party derpitude:

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/power-party-political-reforms-can-bad-democracy-090049295.html

    ‘Power to the party: Why political reforms can be bad for democracy’

    Warning: long article. It had to be, to fit in all the derp.

    1. Chipwooder

      I figured it was more Jon Rauch bullshit, and I was right, with a healthy dollop of Cass Sunstein-style “nudging”

      “Our institutions turn us into human beings who are capable of being free men and women, who will choose to do the right thing, generally speaking, and so can be left free to choose, and don’t have to be coerced into being responsible,” Levin said.

      FUCK. YOU.

      1. Freedom is slavery.

  52. Better band name:

    “Stormy Daniels’ Diseased Genitals” or “The Russian Sex Coaches”?

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/model-claiming-know-lot-trump-russia-due-thai-033627397.html

    1. Chipwooder

      She was arrested for prostitution…..in Pattaya?? I’ve been to Pattaya – unless it’s changed significantly in the last 14 years, prostitution is less than frowned-upon there.

      1. Stinky Wizzleteats

        Didn’t pay off the right people would be my guess.

      2. Juan-Baptiste Emmanuel Seguin

        Protectionism…damn furriners takin’ jobs from decent hard workin’ Thai ladyboys.

    2. Michael

      Anastasia Vashukevich, known by her pen name Nastya Rybka…

      Her stage name in Russopolglish can be roughly interpreted as “nasty fish”.

    3. Ugh, the plastic surgery.

  53. Rufus the Monocled

    WaPo and NYT nominated for Pulitzer for their work on….Trump and Russia.

    Drain the swamp.

    https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/16/2018-pulitzer-prize-winners-526854

    Oh. And don’t read the comments.

    Just. Don’t.

    1. Another award that holds as much water as the Nobel Peace Prize.

    2. Suthenboy

      They are truly doing the lord’s work.

    3. Rebel Scum

      In the dark age of Trump, when truth is endangered, it is right to honor the guardians of the truth. The Fourth Estate, flawed but dedicated, continues to fulfill its duty to our republic by confronting those in power with their lies and questioning their actions. The true honor is how much the press is hated for exposing the truth, calling politicians to account, and making people actually think independently. That is the real measure of success.

      This HAS to be sarcasm.

  54. KibbledKristen

    So since Data Zuckerdude got asked stupid question by idiots on the Hill, Facebook has locked down certain things. One of those things is live streaming to closed groups.

    This means, for you #AvGeeks, Big Jet TV has been forced to broadcast everything to its freeview channel for the last week.

    Just FYI.

    1. Rufus the Monocled

      I’m starting to wonder if he’s on the spectrum. If so, it would explain his weird mannerisms.

  55. CPRM

    in the words of the great American Philosopher, Tone Lōc, Let’s Do It.

    To reignite the burger wars, after having the best burger in the world at Fat Burger, I ran into Ton Loc there and we talked for a bit.

    1. SugarFree

      I’ll burger war: I’ve never had a burger in a restaurant better than the ones I make on my grill. I don’t even do anything all that special, it’s just hard to beat a well-made, cooked-to-order backyard burger in my mind.

      1. Chipwooder

        If you buy quality beef, all it takes is some light seasoning to make a fantastic burger on your own grill.

      2. CPRM

        I’m the opposite, even though I am a good cook, everything tastes better when I didn’t have to put effort into making it.

      3. robc

        The Grale Burger is very good. You might be able to do better on your grill, but I doubt it.

        1. SugarFree

          I’ll have to try it. I generally don’t order burgers if there are stranger things to eat.

          But I’ll put my skirt steak up against anyone’s…

          1. Scruffy Nerfherder

            But I’ll put my skirt steak up against anyone’s…

            Definitely a euphemism….

          2. SugarFree

            The key to flavor is dynamic friction.

    2. KibbledKristen

      Best burger I ever had was in Alanya, Turkey. I was probably drunk as hell when I had it, so maybe it wasn’t as good as I remember. But I think it was made from lamb.

  56. Rebel Scum

    REPORT: North Korea, South Korea Set To Announce Official End To War

    Hostilities on the Korean peninsula ended on July 27, 1953, but the war didn’t.

    The U.S., North Korea and China signed an armistice agreement designed to “insure a complete cessation of hostilities and of all acts of armed force in Korea until a final peaceful settlement is achieved,” according to the agreement.

    Sixty-five years later, the war has never been officially declared over.

    Now, though, North and South Korea are reportedly in talks to permanently end the war, daily newspaper Munhwa Ilbo reported Tuesday, according to CNBC.

    Ahead of a summit next week between North Korean premier Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, lawmakers from the neighboring states were thought to be negotiating the details of a joint statement that could outline an end to the confrontation.

    Kim and Moon could also discuss returning the heavily-fortified demilitarized zone separating them to its original state, the newspaper said.

    Pyongyang and Seoul have technically been at war since the 1950-1953 Korean conflict ended with a truce — and not a peace treaty. Geopolitical tensions have occasionally flared up since the armistice, although to date both countries have managed to avoid another devastating conflict.

    Peace in our time.

    1. Rebel Scum

      President Trump and the North Korean dictator are set to hold talks as early as next month.

      North Korea has been softening its rhetoric of late. Reuters reported late last month that the North Korean leader has “pledged his commitment to denuclearization and to meet U.S. officials.

      “It is our consistent stand to be committed to denuclearisation on the peninsula, in accordance with the will of late President Kim Il Sung and late General Secretary Kim Jong Il,” Kim Jong Un said, according to Xinhua. Kim is currently in China for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

      1. Stinky Wizzleteats

        If Little Kim gives up his nukes he’s a Class A sucker.

        1. Rasilio

          Not necessarily. His situation is a bit different than Qaddafi’s was. Even without his nukes he still has China preventing the US from engaging in any thoughts of enacting regime change.

          If I had to guess China is ultimately the one behind this. Till now the Norks being a constant thorn in the US’s side has been to their advantage and so they let the Kim’s continue on with their little extortion racket. Now however China feels like it’s military is at least near parity with the US in their own back yard and they plan on being the sole regional power on that side of the pacific which means they want the US out. Getting the US out of the region means ending the Korean war and getting the troops stationed there sent home

      2. robc

        Any bets on between Kim and Trump, who would get the Nobel Peace Prize?

        1. Scruffy Nerfherder

          I’ll put a hundred bucks on the short, fat one. The Nobel Committee loves terrorists who pretend to reform.

          1. Psycho Effer

            If Kim gets the prize, that’s real money in North Korea. That’s a lot of piss-hookers and blow that he can selfie to Donald to show off.

        2. CPRM

          Obama.

          1. Not Adahn

            This

        3. Rebel Scum

          Probably Kim because we live in a world where brutal foreign dictators are praised and the sitting president of the US is reviled for being literally figuratively Der Drumpenfuhrer Hitler II. At any rate, I am still waiting for Barry’s to be revoked.

    1. Badolph Hilter

      Now that’s a band name.

      1. Yeah, not “The Slutty Koalas” but “Those Slutty Koalas”

  57. Rebel Scum

    I cannot imagine what the Cubans are thinking

    “Why are all of our cars from the 1950s?” ?

    1. spqr2008

      Quaintness, and appeal to lefty nostalgia.

    2. R C Dean

      “Why are all of our cars from the 1950s when every country that has a car industry except the US will trade with us?”

      Christ, you’d think we had the Navy blockading Cuba’s ports instead of just a ban on Americans trading with Cuba.

      1. The 1950s were the last tiem any Cubans but Castro could afford new cars.

    3. Juan-Baptiste Emmanuel Seguin

      Hey now, be fair. Sometimes you can find a GAZ from the 70’s.

  58. Juvenile Bluster

    I blame capitalism.

    According to a recent study conducted by the Central University of Venezuela and two other universities, up to 90 percent of Venezuelans live in poverty now.

    As a result, some urban Venezuelans are being drawn to rural areas in last-ditch efforts for basic survival. Food is scarce in cities.

    “People are moving to the countryside because you can more or less survive if you have a small plot of land and access to your own produce,” says Phil Gunson from the International Crisis Group, a global non-governmental organization based in Caracas.

    “But it doesn’t resolve the healthcare situation. People can’t get blood pressure checked so they die from a heart attack or a stroke. There is no chemotherapy for cancer patients. People with chronic illnesses are simply not able to get their treatments,” Gunson warned.

    In Guárico, where remote farms can be reached only in the dry season, lives are especially at risk due to the lack of medicine that has also become scant under President Nicolas Maduro’s rule.

    Hernandez, the dairy farmer, said his 21-year-old goddaughter ran out of insulin and had to be taken to a hospital. “My goddaughter died in an ambulance after its tire went flat,” Hernandez said. “She didn’t make it as there was no mechanic available nor an extra ambulance.”

    1. Chipwooder

      Wreckers and saboteurs have ruined everything in Venezuela.

    2. CPRM

      See Mao, this is how you redistribute the population. Make the cities so shitty the people move back to the country. Venezuela is #winning!

    3. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Let’s go to the socialist apologist of record for an opinion:

      JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you about Latin America. We had a period, for about 10 years, of enormous social progress in Latin America—all these socially minded governments, reduction of income inequality, the only part of the world where there are no nuclear weapons. And yet, now we’ve seen, in the last few years, real steps backwards. Quite a few of the popular governments, with the exception of Ecuador, recently have been thrown out of office, and a deepening crisis in Venezuela. Your sense of what has happened, in that, after so much promise, all of a sudden it seems that the region is going backward?

      NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, there were—there were real achievements. But the left governments failed to use the opportunity available to them to try to create sustainable, viable economies. Almost every one—Venezuela, Brazil, others, Argentina—relied on the rise in commodity prices, which is a temporary phenomenon. Commodity prices did rise, mainly because of the growth of China. So there was a rise in the oil price, of soy, and so on and so forth. And instead of trying to develop a sustainable economy with manufacturing, agriculture and so on—like Venezuela is potentially a rich agricultural country, but they didn’t develop it—they simply relied on the commodity—raw materials commodities they could export. That’s a very harmful—it’s not only not a successful, it’s a harmful development model, because when you export grain to China, let’s say, they export manufacturing goods to you, and that undermines your manufacturing industries. And that’s pretty much what’s been happening.

      On top of that, there was just enormous corruption. It’s just—it’s painful to see the Workers’ Party in Brazil, which did carry out significant measures, just—they just couldn’t keep their hands out of the till. They joined the extremely corrupt elite, which is robbing all the time, and took part in it, as well, and discredited themselves. And there’s a reaction. I don’t think the game is over by any means.

      There were real successes achieved, and I think a lot of those will be sustained. But there is a regression. They’ll have to pick up again with, one hopes, more honest forces that won’t be—that will, first of all, recognize the need to develop the economy in a way which has a solid foundation, not just based on raw material exports, and, secondly, honest enough to carry out decent programs without robbing the public at the same time.

      AMY GOODMAN: What about Venezuela?

      NOAM CHOMSKY: Venezuela is really a disaster situation. The economy relies on oil as to a great—probably a greater extent than ever in the past, certainly very high. And the corruption, the robbery and so on, has been extreme, under the—especially after Chávez’s death. So, it’s a—I mean, if you look at it, it still has—if you look at, say, the U.N. Human Development Index, Venezuela still ranks, say, above Brazil. So it’s the—there are hopes and possibilities for reconstruction and development. But the promise of the earlier years has been significantly lost.

      Just some bad planning, that’s all.

      1. Noam is an overcredentialed idiot. Sadly there are people who mistake him for a sage of all things.

        1. Heroic Mulatto

          Chomsky’s political views may be idiotic, but please explain to me how he is “overcredentialed”.

          Or better yet, explain to me why the Chomsky hierarchy is wrong and he shouldn’t have secured tenure.

          1. Not every subject needs a doctorate level degree.

            You can freely argue that his opinion should carry weight above that of laymen in his chosen field, but the problem is the ‘sage of all things’ attidue people have towards him. I’m not a linguist, I’m not going to speak to whether or not his work is any good there, but every time I have heard him speak, his words have always elicited the reaction “what a moron”.

          2. Heroic Mulatto

            Not every subject needs a doctorate level degree.

            So, are you claiming this about theoretical linguistics?

            the problem is the ‘sage of all things’ attidue people have towards him

            That is correct and the problem I have with “public intellectuals” in general. However, when it comes to whether or not he “earned” his degrees and academic rank, it’s a bit childish to judge someone’s competency in their field based on what you know from their public statements on their political views. Calling the man who single-handedly founded modern linguistics “over-credentialed” just sounds petty.

          3. Not every subject needs a doctorate level degree.

            So, are you claiming this about theoretical linguistics?

            I don’t think you want my honest opinion, as it’s liable to cause pointless strife.

          4. Apparently I close the tab without posting my previous reply.

            In retrospect that was a fortunate turn, as I was getting too agitated for an internet discussion, and it’s simply not worth the argument.

            Are you angling for an apology, an attestation of wrongess, or do you just want me to walk away?

      2. KibbledKristen

        So Chomsky is saying they need to move to a planned agrarian economy? Like Pol Pot’s Cambodia? That worked out well.

        1. Pol was the wrong Top Man for the job, KK. Don’t you even Socialist Appologist?

      3. MikeS

        So, it’s a—I mean, if you look at it, it still has—if you look at, say,

        Shithole. Shithole is the word you are searching for, Noam.

      4. Stick to linguistics you hack.

        1. KibbledKristen

          Even there, his word is no longer gospel. Lots of academic challengers.

      5. Those weren’t steps backwards. This isn’t regression. This is the natural progression of command economies. We’ve seen it time and again in the Bolivarian socialist tradition, and we’ve seen it on a larger scale in China and in the Soviet Bloc countries. It has happened so often you have to be delusional to honestly believe that it isn’t a pattern.

    4. Slammer

      I heard it is illegal for Doctors to list cause of death as Starvation there

    5. KibbledKristen

      I met lots of Venezuelans in the early 90’s in college. They were all glamorous, Euro-style, wealthy people.

      I wonder what happened to them? Hopefully they managed to get a permanent place in the U.S. before the Chavez shit hit the fan.

    6. Psycho Effer

      But what is their GINI Co-efficient? They are much more equal than they used to be, and that’s the measure that matters!

      1. JaimeRoberto

        The easiest way to make everyone equal is to make sure they have nothing.

    7. creech

      You know who else didn’t know how to change a flat tire?

  59. Rebel Scum

    New AP U.S. History Textbook Implies Christians Are Bigots, Reagan A Racist

    In describing the rise of Black Lives Matter in the aftermath of the Ferguson, Missouri shooting: “The nearly all-white police force was seen as an occupying army in the mostly African-American town.” In a section discussing President Trump’s cabinet, the book says “They were largely white males, more so than any cabinet since Ronald Reagan.” In a discussion of the nation’s politics after 2012, it says “Those who had long thought of the nation as a white and Christian country sometimes found it difficult to adjust” to secularization and an increase in people of other races. Elsewhere, it describes Trump’s “not-very-hidden racism.”

    A section discussing the 2016 elections returns to these paranoid, highly politicized interpretations of some Americans’ decisions to vote for Trump:

    Trump’s supporters saw the vote as a victory for people who, like themselves, had been forgotten in a fast-changing America–a mostly older, often rural or suburban, and overwhelmingly white group. Clinton’s supporters feared that the election had been determined by people who were afraid of a rapidly developing ethnic diversity of the country, discomfort with their candidate’s gender, and nostalgia for an earlier time in the nation’s history. They also worried about the mental stability of the president elect and the anger that he and his supporters brought to the nation.

    There’s a reason public schools are referred to as public indoctrination centers.

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Someone failed AP HTML.

      1. They’ve really watered down College and the AP courses if that’s on offer.

      2. Rebel Scum

        Here

        This place could use a “preview” button.

        1. MikeS

          Monocle has one

          1. MikeS

            Oh wait. It appears that Top Hat with Monocle does that…

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder

      “They were largely white males, more so than any cabinet since Ronald Reagan.”

      Because skin color and gender determine job effectiveness.

      If they were to state that they were the least qualified, it would be an actual criticism.

      1. With a little reflection, it usually turns out that the people flinging accusations of bigotry are often the most guilty of the form they decry.

        I was recently reminded of an Australian *bleep* who was defending a move to only recruit women for a given PD for a certain period of time with “why can’t the best person for the job be a woman?”

        I kept wanting to reach through the internet and choke her. “Bitch, it’s not the other person saying the best person isn’t a woman, YOU are saying the best person isn’t a woman because you say they won’t get the job unless half the field is eliminated first!

        Sorry for yelling, but it’s been a year and the stupid brick of a *bleep* still aggravates me.

        1. Raven Nation
          1. Deeeeeeeeeeeeerp, how about no people on Mars unless a private enterprise decides to do it?

          2. It was not the eye rolling identity politics, it was the disingenuous arguing and constantly repeating the same trite line that was contradicted by the policy she advocated. I hate circular dialog and repeating of trite falsehoods in place of a rational position. That’s what got under my skin.

        2. R C Dean

          why can’t the best person for the job be a woman?

          “Well, going by your example, it seems unlikely.”

      2. spqr2008

        I personally believe that some of Reagan’s actions in his political life were motivated by race- See the California Gun Control laws after the Black Panthers used open carry at the statehouse. But I don’t think that complies with the narrative.

        1. Scruffy Nerfherder

          I’m not a fan of Reagan. I think he gave good lip service to small government but other than tax reform, his commitment seemed to be scant. And his ramp up of the WOD was completely immoral.

  60. Rebel Scum

    Is there a doctor in the house?

    I’m not a doctor, but I’ll take a look anyway.

    Stop the War activists defended Bashar Assad as a ‘good man’ on Parliament Square last night with one woman insisting he would not kill civilians because he is a doctor.

    Bill Cosby wouldn’t rape because he is a tv family man.

  61. I haven’t seen this posted, so forgive me if it has.

    https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/nation/2018/04/15/gay-rights-lawyer-burns-himself-death-protest-against-fossil-fuels-immolates-self-nyc-ecology-protes/518678002/

    I’ll say this much; given that watermelon environmentalism is an anti-human death cult, at least he’s putting his money where his mouth is.

    1. I’ve seen rumor and speculation that he was terminally ill anyway, so he decided to go out in a blaze of glory.

    2. Number.6

      Least he could have done is composted himself.

      1. It’s not about the environment, it’s about the attention.

    3. Rasilio

      Wouldn’t immolating yourself release more carbon into the atmosphere than say shooting yourself and then being buried underground?

  62. The Late P Brooks

    No justice, no interns!

    Unpaid internships also artificially limit a company’s hiring pool. If internships are unpaid, after all, students who have to make money to support themselves can’t do them. This system therefore gives people from more privileged backgrounds an unfair leg up on valuable career experience. Offering internships for college credit only is even worse, since it forces students to pay what typically amounts to thousands of dollars to their universities in order to work for free.

    Those financial realities stand to put internships outside the realm of possibility for those who aren’t affluent. That’s a huge percentage of college students. A recent study of students at more than 60 American universities found that 36 percent don’t have enough food, and a similar proportion lack adequate shelter. These are not kids who can afford to pay to work.

    And pay they must. CNBC calculated last year, for example, that it would cost around $9,506 to live for the summer in a city like Los Angeles, and an unpaid intern would forgo about $3,480 in wages (before taxes) — meaning that an internship can cost $12,986. Students who are struggling to eat aren’t going to be able to shoulder such costs. This means companies are losing out on their skills.

    Trump’s America. What a shithole.

    If only the Ministry of Plenty would outlaw internships, and provide a living wage for all.

    1. Chipwooder

      A recent study of students at more than 60 American universities found that 36 percent don’t have enough food, and a similar proportion lack adequate shelter.

      Bull. Shit. You see a lot of emaciated college students running around? I sure as hell don’t. They all look perfectly well fed to me – overfed, in many cases.

      1. “Have you ever had to skip a meal? Have you ever slept somewhere other than a proper bed?”

        1. Chipwooder

          I mean, when I was in college I ate a shitload of Maruchan instant lunch, and Kraft mac’n’cheese with cut-up hotdogs in it because I was always broke, but so what? I didn’t starve. How many of these little fuckers are on meal plans, anyway? I only was for one year because the food sucked and I was borrowing a shitload in student loans to buy it, but a whole lot of my fellow students went to dining halls.

      2. Raven Nation

        “a similar proportion lack adequate shelter.” They’re the ones living in the dorms

        1. Chipwooder

          Wagstaff: (Cracking walnuts with the telephone.) And I say to you gentlemen, this college is a failure. The trouble is, we’re neglecting football for education.

          Both professors: Exactly. The professor is right.

          Wagstaff: Oh, I’m right am I? Well, I’m not right. I’m wrong. I just said that to test you. Now I know where I’m at. I’m dealing with a couple of snakes. What I meant to say was that there’s too much football and not enough education.

          Both professors: That’s what I think.

          Wagstaff: Oh, you do, do you? Well you’re wrong again! If there was a snake here, I’d apologize. Where would this college be without football? Have we got a stadium?

          Professor One: Yes.

          Wagstaff: Have we got a college?

          Professor One: Yes.

          Wagstaff: Well, we can’t support both. Tomorrow we start tearing down the college.

          Both professors: But professor! Where will the students sleep?

          Wagstaff: Where they always sleep. In the classroom.

          1. Stupid and shortsighted.

            Sale of the property would bring a higher return than paying to tear down the buildings.

            And it may have been the major I was in, but I never saw a college student sleeping in the classroom. Those who wanted to sleep simply did not show.

          2. Chipwooder

            Man, who takes the fun out of the Marx Brothers? UCS, that’s who!

          3. Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo, Zeppo, and Karl?

          4. Number.6

            No love for Richard then?

      3. What’s it called? The “Freshman 15”? Everyone I know who went to college and lived on campus gained weight the first year.

        1. Heroic Mulatto

          But that’s from grain delivered via beer.

          1. I know a guy who developed gout in his freshman year based on a diet of fast food and Busch. You may be on to something.

    2. Badolph Hilter

      You know what kinds of fields have paid internships? The kind where you’ll be able to make a decent wage once you graduate.

      1. Rasilio

        Yep, got a paid intern sitting 10 feet to my right and another former paid intern who went full time after graduation about 15 feet in front of me

        1. Bobarian LMD

          Buried in your basement?

      2. slumbrew

        Indeed – I graduated my 5-year-school (Northeastern) with 2-years worth of paid internships. I was paid well enough I delayed graduation for 6 months to do another internship with Fleet Bank.

        I’ve since had some kick-ass interns working for me. I remain surprised that it’s not more common.

    3. Gadfly

      This means companies are losing out on their skills.

      That’s not how it works, Bloomberg writer. If a company is not compensating an intern, that means they don’t value the skills they bring and aren’t missing out on anything with a smaller pool of applicants. The whole point of unpaid internships is that the intern isn’t providing anything to the company, it is the company that is providing something to the intern. If a company really values the work of an intern, they will pay them before losing them.

      1. In an overwhelming majority of cases, when it comes to an intern, the question becomes: “What skills do you speak of?”

          1. Assessment of skills for potential employees is what the casting couch is for.

        1. R C Dean

          Exactly. That’s the point of interns. They don’t have valuable skills – they are interning to acquire them.

      2. kinnath

        Companies are prohibited by law from assigning value-added work to unpaid interns. Interns are there to learn, not work for the company.

  63. Juvenile Bluster

    SCOTUS upholds its own precedent, deciding Sessions v. Dimaya, which says that it’s unconstitutionally vague to say that an immigrant can be deported for a “crime of violence” without, you know, defining what a “crime of violence” is.

    5-4 decision…. and Gorsuch joined the liberal justices in the decision, because shockingly, he’s not Scalia (and he isn’t the other 8 justices) and actually decides shit based on the law and not on ideology.

    1. Juvenile Bluster

      I’m starting to like Gorsuch more and more

      https://twitter.com/Kruckenberg_Esq/status/986265790734393344

      1. He’s intelligent and principled; a very, very rare combination among the Federal Judiciary.

  64. Semi-Spartan Dad

    So is WHOIS and ICANN government supported? I’m not real clear on it, but remember GoDaddy.com threatening to have me prosecuted if I gave them false information for the registry on my first website. I’ve long since switched servers and pay for privacy. Which is also bullshit.

    Amusing anecdote: Accidentally typed in BigDaddy instead of GoDaddy the first time. Don’t recommend it.

    1. Chipwooder

      What did Gene Lipscomb ever do to you?

  65. The Late P Brooks

    Cass Sunstein, of all people, celebrates Patriots’ Day.

    The events of April 19, 1775, were the culmination of decades of new thinking about equality, freedom and self-government. With amazement, John Adams wrote that “Idolatry to Monarchs, and servility to Aristocratical Pride, was never so totally eradicated from so many Minds in so short a Time.”

    David Ramsay, one of the nation’s first historians (himself captured by the British during the Revolution), marveled that Americans were transformed “from subjects to citizens,” and that was an “immense” difference, because citizens “possess sovereignty. Subjects look up to a master, but citizens are so far equal, that none have hereditary rights superior to others.”

    If you want to understand American exceptionalism, that’s a good place to start. And if you want to understand the nation’s character, you would do well to focus on Concord’s embattled farmers — united, keenly aware of the risks, and without a single one afraid to go.

    Happy Patriots’ Day to all.

    No mention of the value of a free citizenry’s right to keep and bear arms, or to tell people like him to fuck off.

    1. “And all through the use of pussy hats and posterboard signs!”

    2. Chipwooder

      The Founding Nudgers are Sunstein’s heroes.

    3. Grumbletarian

      Now, of course, patriotic good-thinking Americans should freely give up their munitions to Papa Gubmint.

    4. “Citizens possess sovereignty… so long as they do what the cabal of elites know is correct and allow themselves to be coerced into such action.”

    5. Raven Nation

      Book Recommendation, “The Minutemen & Their World,” Robert Gross. Social history of Concord before and through the revolution. Includes one of my favorite descriptions in all the stuff I’ve read:

      “As they marched, David Brown…passed right by his own house…The house was now deserted. In that remarkably warm spring, the grain already stood green in his fields. And the apple trees were beginning to bloom. All that Brown defended lay about him: the British were trespassing on his home. Every one of the Minutemen could have said the same.”

  66. F. Stupidity Jr.

    RE: Liz Phair

    My first exposure to Liz Phair was her self-titled album of 2004. Great album, lot of good tunes, one of which was featured for this great video. I decided then to explore her back catalog – what little I heard was quite unlike the 04 album. Well, it turns out the 04 album was a mainstream attempt, a kind of sell-out attempt on her part.

    I guess I’m a…normie? FUUUUUUUUUCK

    1. Chipwooder

      Yes, her ’90s output was very different (and much better IMO).

  67. The Late P Brooks

    Degeneracy

    High school students marched to protest for gun control after the Parkland shooting in Florida and soon they might be marching straight to the voting booth in the nation’s capital.

    Washington is on track to become the first place in the country to allow people as young as 16 to vote in federal elections, including for president, as the nation glimpses the emerging political power of the generation that follows millennials.

    It’s part of a burgeoning movement in the U.S. and abroad as a growing number of cities and states consider ways to expand voting rights to younger people.

    ——–

    It’s a dramatic turnaround from just three years ago, when Allen introduced a similar bill that went nowhere.

    He credits the change in part to the eloquence and passion that teenage activists demonstrated in the post-Parkland “March for Our Lives” and nationwide school walkouts to protest gun violence.

    Throwing tantrums on a large skill demonstrates political maturity? We’re fucked. I remember listening to people talk about what a grievous error lowering the voting age to 18 would be. I have to say, they were probably right. Dropping it to 16 is pure self-destructive insanity.

    1. “It’s part of a burgeoning movement *orchestrated by Progressive activists to manipulate gullible young people* in the U.S. and abroad as a growing number of cities and states consider ways to expand voting rights to younger people.”

      FIFT.

    2. Gustave Lytton

      But remember, actual legal adults 18-20 are too immature to own a firearm (particularly a pistol), use tobacco, drink, or get a credit card.

      1. creech

        Any idea when age of majority dropped from 21 to 18? I recently read about a 19 year old could not join Union Army in 1862 without his parents’ consent.

        1. kinnath

          Early 70s, just before I turned 18.

          1. kinnath

            The glory days when an 18-year-old could legally buy booze.

    3. Chipwooder

      Eloquence – yes, that’s what I think of with Sinbad O’Connor and Piglet.

    4. CPRM

      They really aren’t thinking this through, they think they’ll get tons of boss hoggs voting, but it’s gonna be 4channers voting form more kek.

    5. Rebel Scum

      expand voting rights to younger people.

      If you are legally a minor, you do not get to vote. The end.

    6. Badolph Hilter

      Hooray, even more dumbasses who are absolutely certain that we can achieve utopia if only the rich will pay their fair share.

  68. The Late P Brooks

    Not much data exists on the political views of the post-millennial generation, which is made up of those born after 1996 and is sometimes called Generation Z or iGen. But if they vote like their slightly older peers, who lean overwhelmingly liberal, the change could be a boon for Democrats.

    Recognizing that potential, a coalition of progressive groups recently launched a major push to register high school students to vote in 10 key battleground states in this year’s midterms.

    “America’s children took to the streets and led marches with a unified message that rang out across the country: We need a Congress that will protect us,” said former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, whose gun safety group is involved in the effort. “We are making sure that they have the opportunity to cast their ballots for the first time and truly make a difference.”

    Okay, then.

    If 16 year olds vote, the entire country could actually end up looking like California. Swell.

    1. Heroic Mulatto

      Lower the vote to 16? I’m ok with that if they also lower the age for the draft “Selective Service” to 16 as well.

      1. Raven Nation

        & include women.

      2. I’d be on board with it, so long as the legal age for tobacco and alcohol purchases also goes down to 16. It’s a fair trade.

      3. Badolph Hilter

        I’m the one who has to throw age of consent in as well? OMWC not around today?

    2. It’s always about naked lust for power with these people. Thought experiment; if people under 25 voted overwhelmingly for Republicans, we’d see the media apoplectic over repealing the 26th Amendment and raising the age to 30.

      Just like if Latin American immigrants voted for Republicans instead of Democrats, the political class/media/DemOp complex would be advocating turning the Southern Border into the DMZ.

    3. Rebel Scum

      overwhelmingly liberal

      In my experience, self-described “liberals” are anything but.

      We need a Congress that will protect us,” said former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords

      Actually we need a Congress that abides by the document that created it. The government is not supposed to coddle you from cradle to grave.

    4. Rasilio

      With 2 15 year olds and an 18 year old in the house and several of their friends frequently around I will say this.

      They are with the millennial when it comes to social issues but they are far more open to capitalism and conservatism and distrustful of government and other authority than the millennials are. Now that may change when they start going to college and are more indoctrinated but as of now they are not anywhere near as liberal as the generation prior

      1. R C Dean

        They are with the millennial when it comes to social issues but they are far more open to capitalism and conservatism and distrustful of government and other authority than the millennials are.

        Too bad those positions are diametrically opposed.

        1. Badolph Hilter

          Well, diametrically opposed mainly if your definition of “social issues” involves making other people pay for stuff.

        2. Rasilio

          yeah sorry but I am not seeing where saying “it is totes ok to be gay or pretend to be a different gender” is in any way opposed to capitalism or conservatism

          1. R C Dean

            Because the millenial/SJW approach to social issues isn’t tolerance, but mandatory celebration and subsidy. You aren’t woke unless you support quotas, ostracism of wrongthinkers, and government handouts to the legally privileged, I mean oppressed.

  69. R C Dean

    Well, the Dean Beast, King of the Lizardkillers*, added to his body count yesterday with a four- five foot black racer snake. I am somewhat baffled as to how the snake go into their yard, which is surrounded by a four foot brick wall recently supplemented with strips of flashing on the outside to keep anything from climbing in (Google “Can Gila Monsters climb” for some nightmare fuel).

    These snakes are wicked good at climbing plants (flashes back to epic struggle with a six foot bull snake in their yard), so the best I can come up with is that it climbed a bush near the wall to the backyard, made it onto a climbing rose overhanging that wall, and then down and across the backyard and into their yard (either via a honeysuckle vine or under the gate). So now I’m tightening up the perimeter – no bushes within five feet of the wall, no overhanging limbs, flashing all the way around, and somehow blocking off the gaps under the gates.

    *On account of he bagged a Gila Monster week before last.

    1. Badolph Hilter

      And I thought it was entertaining to watch people construct elaborate deterrents against squirrels. This seems like it has way more potential.

  70. The Late P Brooks

    I’d be on board with it, so long as the legal age for tobacco and alcohol purchases also goes down to 16. It’s a fair trade.

    And handguns.

    1. kinnath

      Alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. Sounds promising.

    2. Rasilio

      don’t forget contract rights and body autonomy (which means they can choose to have sex without their partner going to jail and can even film it without going to jail themselves)