Monday Morning Links

What a long few weeks.  Four to be exact that I’ve been away from the links, with the exception of a single day.  If anything went awry during that time, its most likely my fault. And heartfelt thanks for those who picked up the slack in my extended absence.  Sometimes work just takes it all out of you…and this was such a time.  But I have to say, it was profitable.  So I am not gonna complain about it at all.  But I am happy to be home for what should be, with the exception of a couple days next week, an extended period of time.

I see the Capitals and Penguins are facing off in the second round again.  Series 1-1, with the Capitals looking a lot fresher. But we all know how this series turns out… Nashville blew three leads last night but managed to keep their composure and win in OT to even the series with Winnipeg.  And I have to say, that is some fun hockey to watch.  The Vegas Black Knights are likewise knotted up 1-1 with San Jose after thumping them in game 1 and dropping game 2 in OT.  I can’t see San Jose hanging in though. Vegas has so much speed its ridiculous.  And in the final series, Boston took Game 1 against Tampa Bay, who will look to even the series tonight.

Sorry, soccer fans. You’ll have to wait until Wednesday to see this again.

On the hardcourt, Lebron did what Lebron does in the early rounds: put his team on his back and win. Which means we can eventually see Lebron do what Lebron does in later rounds: ch- ch- ch- choke.  Actually, he won’t get the chance. Toronto will run them out in 5.  Elsewhere, Boston and Philly get started tonight in what could be an entertaining series (by NBA standards).  I see Philly advancing.  Out west, the Rockets are up 1-0 against the Jazz and should win that series. Golden State is likewise up 1-0 and should also best the Pelicans. Why? Because the NBA’s Western Conference is more predictable than a Hulk Hogan wrestling match.  No other sports updates, really. Soccer is boring until tomorrow and Wednesday’s UCL games. So I won’t bother.

Today’s birthdays: Carl Gauss, Cloris Leachman, hockey’s STEVE SMITH, Kirsten Dunst, and Gal Gadot. Its also the day in 311 that the Romans formally began to tolerate Christianity, the Moors landed in Europe (the first time), George Washington was inaugurated as the first President of the United States, James Monroe signed the Louisiana Purchase, Hitler killed himself, Willie Mays hit four homers in a game and the North Vietnamese army captured Saigon.

Is that a lot to take in?  Well if it is, be sure to forget some of it because you need to make room for…the links!

The head of the White House Correspondents’ Association has learned nothing from the Trump presidency.  Never apologize, never back down and never compromise.  Was the “speech” a little over the top?  Yeah, maybe. But that doesn’t matter. And besides, the bigger issue is that Trump is the first President since Reagan to not attend the ass-kissing nerd prom, and people act like that’s a bad thing.  Protip: if you want to be taken seriously by the American people, stop cozying up for photo ops with the people you’re supposed to be critically covering and treating yourselves like you’re celebrities. And politicians should stop attending since it gives the appearance that there’s no difference in the media and politicians/officials when it comes to there DC insider network.

“If I only had a brain”

We may have heard the last from John McCain. But I bet he manages to channel some bullshit from beyond the grave that will urge his former colleagues to do something that robs us of our liberty.

The schools we hired you to clean are disgusting, unsanitary and you should be ashamed of yourselves. Because of that, we’ve decided to give you more money.  Meh, what’s an extra $259 million to Chicago Public Schools?  Its not like they’re ever gonna be able to pay those bonds back anyway.

Remember the sad tale of the loving women who adopted all those kids and their accidental death when their SUV slid off a cliff on PCH?  Well it actually turns out that they were horrible, abusive people. And the child welfare officers in three different states did little to stop it.  Nice job, government bureaucrats.

Just in case any of you had forgotten why we should pull out of that entire region.  I assume that number will rise as the day goes by.

That would make some nice boots.

Just a reminder that Houston probably has more in common with the coonasses from Louisiana than it does with those people from Dallas-Ft Worth. Jeez, that’s a big boy there too.

This is how I felt doing the links today.

Have a wonderful day and a great start to the week, friends!

Comments

459 responses to “Monday Morning Links”

  1. Morning, Sloop, and welcome back.

    1. Gracias! It’s been way too long.

      1. bacon-magic

        Amen.

  2. Suthenboy

    I’ll never get a first if I dont learn to stop reading the links.

    1. I looked through them, but didn’t find any I wanted to click through.

    2. Slammer

      There are links?

  3. PieInTheSKy

    God damn the pacers sucked. The referees didn’t help much either.

  4. straffinrun

    The White House Correspondents’ Association president has apologized for Michelle Wolf’s ‘divisive’ monologue

    They spelled “predictable” wrong. This hack comedian hands conservatives a gift on a silver platter by doing jokes that belong on a bazooka gum wrapper. And what do they do? Pearl clutching. *SMDH* Correct response? “I wasn’t offended. I was bored.”

    1. WTF

      “She’s a comedian? I thought comedians were supposed to be funny.”

      1. AlexinCT

        On the left it is more important to be woke than top actually be funny.

    2. AlexinCT

      If they ever wanted to validate Trumps decision not to go to this shit show, and my decision to just not bother with that freak show, this shit that went down, was it.

  5. gbob

    Thinking about Trump makes me crazy most of the time. For everything he does well, such as lowering taxes, cutting regulation, making peace in Korea and making people I hate frothing at the mouth angry, there’s everything else he does which is terrible. That being said, looking at the last few weeks of the Supreme Court, I’m really happy we don’t have a Clinton appointment on the bench right now.

    1. Suthenboy

      “…for everything he does well…there’s everything else he does which is terrible.”

      In other words, the best president we could hope for. After 8 years of Pinko Shitweasel I can think of one thing he did right. Brace yourself…he regulated away the combustion promoters tobacco companies were putting in cigarettes.

  6. PieInTheSKy

    NBA’s Western Conference is more predictable than a Hulk Hogan wrestling match. – Every sports writer predicted Portland to win and the pels swept

  7. gbob

    When I’m erect, do I call my penis a stalactite or stalagmite? No matter, as long as it’s exposed around strangers, exploring a hole.

    Billed as “A Leisurely Naked Stroll Through The Cave By Lantern Light,” Howe Caverns in Schoharie County is offering a one of a kind subterranean tour for those who prefer clothes-free recreation.

    The event takes place on International Nude Day–July 14, 2018–and is intended to be a celebration of body positivity. The popular tourist attraction shared details in a Facebook post.

    1. Mr Lizard

      STEVE SMITH SAY JOKES WRITE THEMSELVES

    2. The Elite Elite

      “is intended to be a celebration of body positivity.” So, is this a way to trick fat people into burning a few calories by hiking through a cave?

    3. SugarFree

      This is easy to solve. Did your penis drip down from the ceiling or build up from the floor?

      1. That’s not the issue, he can’t remember that StalaCtites are on the Ceiling and StalaGmites are on the Ground.

      2. Banjos

        Does your dick hang low?
        Does it wobble to and fro?
        Can you tie it in a knot?
        Can you tie it in a bow?
        Can you throw it over your shoulder
        Like a continental soldier?
        Does your dick hang low?

        1. Brochettaward

          I see what Sloopy sees in you.

      3. Slammer

        I saw an ad on the tv yesterday for fixing bent dicks

        1. Red Pill Matt

          I went on a date recently with a woman who peddles Xiaflex, an injection that breaks down collagen to straighten out curved penises. There were a lot of penis jokes. I couldn’t tell if she wanted to f*** me or sell me $30,000 worth of injections.

          1. totally_not_an_escaped_ai

            Sweet Jeebuz the warning label on that. Curved Willie I guess is staying curved:

            Receiving an injection of XIAFLEX® may cause damage to the tubes in your penis called the corpora. After treatment with XIAFLEX®, one of these tubes may break during an erection. This is called a corporal rupture or penile fracture. This could require surgery to fix the damaged area. Damage to your penis might not get better after a corporal rupture

          2. Red Pill Matt

            F*** me, I bought the injections… she was hot.

          3. AlexinCT

            Let us know how it works out for you.. I mean the getting injections part.. But you can also provide a blow by blow on the dating activities..

        2. I worked on the campaign for that — well, not that dumb ad and dumb campaign. We had good ideas that obviously never made it past the client. The office I worked in helped out the office that had the business. I don’t work at that agency anymore. Fun stuff though, working on potential TV spots.

          Of course they ended up with boring typical pharma TV stuff.

    4. Spartacus

      I call mine the pillar of Ashoka.

  8. gbob

    No good deed going unpunished, episode 4,567.

    When he was made assistant manager of a pool in Fairfax, Va., two years ago, Mateusz Fijalkowski spoke barely any English and did not know how to swim.

    In the United States from Poland on a summer program, Fijalkowski spent most of his time here hospitalized after nearly drowning in that pool. Now Fijalkowski, 23, is suing the police officers and lifeguard who pulled him out.

    Often police are sued for being too aggressive with mentally ill people; in this instance, they are accused of not doing enough to stop a man in the midst of a bipolar episode.

    Make your own Polish swim team jokes here, I guess.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      To be fair he is the kind of immigrant who assimilated local habbits damn fast

      1. wchipperdove

        tricksy habbitses

    2. Not going to click through to WaPo, but shouldn’t some variation of the Good Samaritan Law lead to a speedy dismissal of a lawsuit for pulling a drowning man out of a pool?

      1. Jarflax

        According the the link the police stopped a lifeguard from pulling him out and then waited for him to stop moving before letting the lifeguard go in after him. They ‘saved’ him by performing cpr after all this.

        On the other hand, he didn’t fall in and drown. He jumped in and held himself underwater trying to suicide, so …

        1. Oh then it’s simple, the Lifeguards did what the could and are protected under the Good Samaritan Laws, and the Cops have Judicial Immunity due to being Kings Men. Case dismissed.

        2. LJW

          No way in hell I’m going to try to stop a suicidal man from drowning himself. I’m not getting pulled under with him. I don’t blame the police in this case.

          1. kinnath

            If you get into the water with a drowning person, there will be two bodies at the bottom of the lake/pool/whatever. You wait till the person drowns, then you fish him/her out.

            — Boy Scout training circa 1985 (as opposed to the Boy Scout training circa 1965 which taught me lots of supposedly cool ways to get out of the clutches of said drowning person).

          2. Tundra

            Reach
            Wade
            Throw
            Row
            Go

            /former lifeguard

          3. Gustave Lytton

            Huh. I did my lifesaving merit badge in the late 80’s or so and don’t remember letting them drown first. During the final rescue attempt, the instructor damn near drowned me the first time. The second time, I did a better job and put them in a lock as soon as I was in reach and towed his ass to the dock.

          4. Bobarian LMD

            In the early ’90s, I was the safety officer while we were doing ‘drown proofing’ of new soldiers.

            One of the requirements was for them to swim a short distance. I was floating in 8′ and would make them swim out around me.

            Dickhead swam well enough to get past me and then panic and attempt to use me as a flotation device. I had to stiff-arm him and walk my ass to the side of the pool.

            I changed my method of testing after that.

          5. R C Dean

            I don’t blame the police in this case.

            I don’t blame the cops for not going in the water personally.

            I do blame them for stopping a lifeguard from doing so.

          6. AlexinCT

            Can you imagine the paperwork they would have had to fill out if the suicider had drowned the life guard?

    3. WTF

      Well, since the courts have already ruled that the police are no obligation to protect anyone, I don’t see how this goes anywhere.

    4. Homple

      The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources started a program to breed the ultimate game fish.

      They first crossbred two fish species:

      The Coho Salmon for it’s size and meat / bone ratio
      The Walleyed Pike for its famous texture and flavor

      They called it the “Cowal”. It was meaty and tasty but was lazy and put up no fight when hooked, so it wasn’t much of a game fish.

      So, to add some sporting fight to the new fish, they crossed the Cowal with the Muskellunge

      They called the new fish the Cowalski, but it was an utter failure.

      They couldn’t teach it to swim.

      1. R C Dean

        Actually, a salmon/pike/muskie cross would probably be one hell of a fish.

      2. That’s a long walk for a youknowwhat.

  9. Mr Lizard

    “That would make some nice boots”

    Fuck off capitalist!

    1. Not Adahn

      It’s not our fault your hides are so durable and stylish.

    2. AlexinCT

      I love me my gator and rattle snake boots!

  10. straffinrun

    “John hugged me tonight. He asked me to take care of Meghan. I said I would,” Domenech wrote. “F–k you soulless crazies. F–k you all the way to hell.”

    Glibs gets a shout out!

    1. Drake

      John, I promise to take care of her as well as you took care of your first wife.

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        *boom*

    2. *victory dance*

  11. Hyperion

    Democrats losing millennials?

    Hmm, to hear them talk, it’s millennials who will bring the blue tsunami this fall.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      Lib… libertarian moment?

      1. Psycho Effer

        It’s the Nick Gillespie of Libertarian Moments.

        #bringingitback

    2. Grumbletarian

      “It sounds strange to me to say this about the Republicans, but they’re helping with even the small things,” Hood said in a phone interview. “They’re taking less taxes out of my paycheck. I notice that.”

      “Those are CRUMBS, you deplorable-in-training! P.S.: Vote for us, k?”

      love,
      Nancy

      1. Hyperion

        Yeah, God forbid they notice the crumbs.

        ‘Just listen to us, you little snots!, there is no tax cut, stop looking at your pay stub and vote for us! /decmorats

      2. Gadfly

        Yeah, it comes down to whether they prefer more money and more freedom or if they prefer to be woke. We shall see.

    3. Rebel Scum

      Terry Hood, 34, an African-American who works at a Dollar General store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and took this year’s poll, said he voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

      But he will consider a Republican for Congress because he believes the party is making it easier to find jobs and he applauds the recent Republican-led tax cut.

      “It sounds strange to me to say this about the Republicans, but they’re helping with even the small things,” Hood said in a phone interview. “They’re taking less taxes out of my paycheck. I notice that.

      Looks like someone is finally getting off of the Democrat plantation. Obviously a race traitor, or something, to be able to make a rational decision to vote against his interests.

    4. TK

      The shift away from Democrats was more pronounced among white millennials – who accounted for two-thirds of all votes cast in that age group in 2016.

      Two years ago, young white people favored Democrats over Republicans for Congress by a margin of 47 to 33 percent; that gap vanished by this year, with 39 percent supporting each party.

      It’s almost like constantly telling white people how awful they are isn’t a good way to get them to vote for you.

    5. The Last American Hero

      Well them and the Latino vote, which they seem to have confused with the African American vote.

  12. wdalasio

    OT: In sort of interesting news, for me, at least, I got engaged over the weekend. On the upside, she’s looking for a longish engagement, next fall. On the downside, I’ll be dealing with her engagement issues and wedding planning until next fall.

    1. straffinrun

      Congrats! *whispers under breath- don’t do it* Way to go man!

      1. AlexinCT

        You should tell him to hurry up and get married, because why should he be single and happy?

    2. gbob

      Congrats! May you both adopt many orphans for your mine, and may your woodchipper never be used against each other!

    3. PieInTheSKy

      She? Now woke I see… to bad…

      Anyway congrats …. as long as no shotguns were involved

      1. You mean you’re against trap and skeet shooting at the reception?

        1. PieInTheSKy

          Trap is a hate word.

          1. Gadfly

            He’s not talking about shooting those traps. He’s from upstate NY, not General Zaroff’s island.

        2. wdalasio

          Hmmmm….can you do that in NY Harbor?

          1. Is it physically possible? Yes.

            Will some busybodies take affront? Yes.

          2. wdalasio

            Will some busybodies take affront leave you with thousands of dollars in fines? Yes.

            That fixed version answers my question, I think.

          3. Jarflax

            Nah it’s New York. They’ll just sink the boat and machine gun you in the water.

    4. Old Man With Candy

      I’ll be dealing with her engagement issues and wedding planning until next fall.

      WARNING WARNING DANGER DANGER!!!!!!

        1. Slammer

          You incompetent and incompehensible imbecilic bucket of bolts! Just…you…WAIT

    5. Way to go! Is this number one for you?

      1. wdalasio

        No, I’m a widower.

        1. straffinrun

          OOOF. Knew I should’ve just said, “Congrats”. Well, here’s another, “Congrats!”

          1. wdalasio

            No worries. It’s one of those things that happen in life. I’ll never forget or stop loving my late wife. And my fiance understands that.

            But, it’s been more than four years since she passed, and it’ll be more than five by the time we marry. That’s enough for due respect.

          2. cyto

            Sounds about right. Two years to become a human being again, a year or two to figure it out and actually meet someone.. yup, right on schedule.

            I hope you find happiness that lasts the rest of your days! Mazel tov!

    6. Brett L

      “Sounds great, honey.” Can save you from everything except “does this make my ass look big?”

      1. In that case you say “I like big butts and I cannot lie…”

        1. bacon-magic

          ^^^

      2. Bobarian LMD

        It’s not “this” that makes it look big.

        Is never the right answer.

        It may be correct, but it is never right.

        1. AlexinCT

          So, no telling her to rub toilet paper on her boobs, because after a few decades of rubbing her ass with it and watching it grow, it might help her grow her…

          Ah, never mind.

    7. leonadasiv

      Congrats!

    8. Good for you! But figure out a way to cut down the length of the engagement. That part of it sounds like hell on earth.

      1. Banjos

        What the hell is an engagement?

        1. Brett L

          Its like pregnancy, but with less payoff.

        2. It’s either an appointment or a combat operation.

        3. SugarFree

          Primarily, it is a period of time during which either party can sober up.

        4. A twenty minute drive to the JOP in Fresno.

          1. Jarflax

            With the bride to be climbing out the window of the pickup screaming for help?

          2. Bobarian LMD

            Pshaw!

            The window on the pick-up hasn’t rolled down in years.

      2. wdalasio

        She wants a fall wedding on a boat. That’s going to mean next year, since this fall is too close by wedding standards Yeah, it sucks. That said, we’ve got sailing in August and possibly over the New Years. So, that should take her mindo off of it for a while. And we know a lot of people we can get to provide a lot of the services. But….

        1. Rent a twenty foot boat, a JP and a few witnesses. You can do that by this fall…

          1. wdalasio

            Soo…your goal is to have her kill me in my sleep?

            The wedding is for her. It’s always for her.

          2. I’m not going to be there, even as a guest, and you’re not asking me to foot the bill, so don’t feel obliged to take any of my suggestions.

          3. Scruffy Nerfherder

            Wrong

            The wedding is for the guests and families. The honeymoon is for her.

            You get nuthin’ (other than continued access to her groinal areas), and you’ll like it.

          4. “You get nuthin’”

            Not having to suffer the indignities and pointlessness of existence alone?

          5. Scruffy Nerfherder

            Theoretically, you can get that at the homeless shelter.

            (I’m joking wdalasio, really I am… well mostly anyway…)

          6. cyto

            Nuthin’? In my experience the groom gets to cut checks. So there is that…..

        2. SugarFree

          Fall 2019: wdalasio is mysteriously pushed off a boat

          1. wdalasio

            That’s why you don’t put her on your insurance until after the wedding.

          2. SugarFree

            Wise man.

          3. AlexinCT

            If he is wise he puts conditions (like a full blow autopsy and such) on the prenup and the insurance…

        3. Not Adahn

          You’re gonna need a bigger boat.

      3. Chipwooder

        Yeah, in retrospect, I’m glad I got sent to Okinawa, which necessitated a quickie wedding a month after the engagement. Saved a lot of money and headaches.

    9. The Elite Elite

      Good luck.

    10. Hyperion

      Congrats. You job now is to just convince her to save that wedding money and invest in some man cave stuff.

    11. wdalasio

      Thanks for the congratulations and well wishes, everyone! It’s much appreciated.

      1. Slammer

        Congrats, man

      2. Tundra

        Congrats! I wish you both many years of happiness!

    12. Tonio

      Congratulations, wdalasio!

    13. Rufus the Monocled

      Congrats.

    14. Mojeaux

      Awwwwww. *happy sigh*

    15. RAHeinlein

      Congratulations – I wish you all happiness!

    16. Count Potato

      Congrats!

    17. So this isn’t a shotgun wedding?

    18. mindyourbusiness

      Kudos to you and your fiancee! Keep pushing for an elopement.

    19. SP

      Congratulations!

      I’d say I hope you are just as happy as OMWC and I are, but that seems kinda passive-aggressive.

    20. Badolph Hilter

      May your regrets be minimal.

  13. PieInTheSKy

    So long weekend here since commie labor day is a free day and most people took today off as well. 27 and sunny good day for grilling and drinking cheap cold beer which is the local custom on 1st of May

    1. What should people get either labor day off work? Shouldn’t you be engaged in labor on labor day?

      1. PieInTheSKy

        Back in the good old days it was worse than working. You had to march in front of the Dear Leader. Each government enterprise had it own group with supervisers to see everyone was apropriatly enthusiastic

  14. gbob

    Lawmaker shocked that people drink in bars, threatens to shut it down.

    “I’m trying to clean up Five Points,” said Dick Harpootlian, a Columbia attorney who is leading a crusade by neighbors living around the Five Points district to reverse the spread of late-night college bars. “If this causes ripples across the state, that’s not my problem.”

    Fuck off, slavers.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      So how does a judge decide what is a meal? Or is this one o dem i know it when i see it deals?

      1. straffinrun

        If you nuke it, it’s not a meal.

        1. So, no eating Nagasaki, got it.

          1. straffinrun

            Unless you’re a fat boy.

          2. Not Adahn

            *Godzilla takes offense, looks at tail girth in the mirror*

      2. Brett L

        In Florida, if less than 51% of your income comes from food, you are a bar.

        1. Jarflax

          Beer is basically bread, Whiskey is purified grain, Vodka is essence of potato! “No ma’am, that is not a screwdriver it is a boiled potato a’lorange

        2. Gadfly

          In Florida, if less than 51% of your income comes from food, you are a bar.

          $20 bowl of pretzels lets you order off the $0.50 beer menu.

    2. Mr Lizard

      “Five Points bars that mostly cater to University of South Carolina students, many of whom are underage and use fake IDs.”

      For those interested of course these dogged journalists included a report on the exact number of arrests for said crime…

    3. l0b0t

      Christ, what an asshole.

    4. Hyperion

      “Dick Harpootlian”

      Man, if there was ever a name for a dickhead statist, there it is.

      1. commodious spittoon

        Rand is slapping her forehead in the afterlife.

      2. Chipwooder

        Wasn’t that the name of Jackie Mason’s character in the shitty Caddyshack sequel?

        1. Bobarian LMD

          There was never any sequel to Caddyshack, you damned liar!

          1. l0b0t

            Caddyshack 2 has Randy Quaid, this makes it the better of the two films.

    5. Rebel Scum

      You see, only servers in restaurants and hotels can mix a cocktail or pour a shot in South Carolina. But critics say many establishments have skirted that law — with state regulators’ consent — by heating up a hot dog in a microwave or offering other minimal fare.

      By following the law…

  15. Marvelous mounds of mammary magnificence.

    http://archive.is/AFwyr

    Exceptionally good group for Sloop’s return.

    3, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15, 20, 24, 26, 35, 36, 37, 40, 41, 43.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      13 34 … 37 after a slight breast reduction

      1. Breast reductions should be tried in the Hague.

        1. Unless to repair injury, silicone is the real crime against humanity. It neither looks nor moves right.

          1. PieInTheSKy

            Agree… doar very saggy to to breastfeeding count as injury?

            I actually knee a girl who had good looking and feeling implants but it was odd cause as i understod the implant was not in the breast but under the chest muscle. Ot was painfull as shit. She went from nothink to like a b cup.

          2. Private Chipperbot

            Please tell me you used voice recognition for this comment because that would be awesome.

          3. PieInTheSKy

            No. When i type of my phone i have no spell check and i do not get along with phone keyboards.bi write like shit in romanian on my phone

          4. PieInTheSKy

            That being said i dont care much as long as it is understandable and most times it is

          5. wchipperdove

            She needed the padding because you kept kneeing her in the ribcage, you monster.

        2. The Elite Elite

          Indeed. No woman needs a breast reduction.

    2. straffinrun

      Gee, wonder why you didn’t include two on your list.

      1. Feed her about a dozen Big Macs and we might have something.

        1. straffinrun

          I’d start with an IV drip first.

  16. I really am enjoying watching the press self-immolate.

    1. AlexinCT

      Pass the popcorn brah..

      Could not happen to a more scummy bunch of douchebags and assholes.

  17. When visiting southern louisiana in general and NOLA in particular, what areas should be avoided?

    1. PieInTheSKy

      Avoid grant parish. It is full of gun nuts

      1. Sean

        +1 scary ass white boy

    2. SugarFree

      Areas with humans can be dangerous. Avoid them at all costs.

    3. Not Adahn

      Driving on I-10 with out-of-state plates.

      1. What excuse do they normally nab you for?

        1. Brett L

          Speeding, driving too slowly, pulling to one side, your car matches the description of another wanted vehicle, FYTW. Those are only the ones that have happened to me personally.

          1. So what’s a better route through the area? Or should I jut pick a differen state all together? I still have a perfect record of never having been pulled over and don’t want to spoil it on a stumble through asshole cop turf.

    4. Warty

      Watch out for alligators, brah.

  18. leonadasiv

    “And the child welfare officers in three different states did little to stop it. Nice job, government bureaucrats”

    You’re supposed to blame homeschooling!!!

  19. gbob

    Clown leader hates immigrants, expects his southern neighbor to enforce stricter border control.

    Yet somehow it’s alright when this twerp does it.

    Canadian authorities, concerned with the increasing number of illegal immigrants now straining their resources, want the United States to do a better job enforcing its own immigration law and vetting visitors from Nigeria so that they don’t eventually make their way to Canadian soil.

    1. leonadasiv

      RACIST!!!!!

    2. So he’s building a wall and the US will pay for it?

    3. Rebel Scum

      better job enforcing its own immigration law and vetting visitors from Nigeria

      So what you are saying is that Canadians do not like black people.

      1. Grumbletarian

        “Justin Trudeau doesn’t care about black people!”

        ~Kanye?

    4. Gadfly

      FTA:

      But now Canada — and specifically, Quebec — can’t afford to feed, shelter, care for, and support countless refugees. The schools are overloaded and the immigration system is backed up. And thanks to a loophole in its immigration laws, Canada can’t get rid of them; if you claim protected status once you make it onto Canadian soil, the government, it seems, can’t deport you until it’s given you a fair hearing, a process that can take up to two years.

      So they have two problems here: 1) slow as molasses bureaucracy, 2) an overly generous welfare state (why are they giving benefits to people before they qualify for residency?). But instead of admitting they have a problem, they want the US to help them out.

      Although I’m going to guess the real problem for these Quebecois is that the immigrants are from Nigeria, where they speak English. I bet if the immigrants were from Côte d’Ivoire they wouldn’t be complaining.

  20. Brett L

    From the Cleveland (TX) gator story:

    “That llama was the worst. He was a wild llama and he tried to whoop me. That thing was bad news,” he said. “I’d rather go up against a gator any day of the week than another llama.”

    There you have it. Llamas are the Nicole of the side-of-the-highway animals.

    1. Warty

      I got chased by an alpaca once. Those things are the geese hate birds of the camel world.

  21. Rebel Scum

    Gillibrand Proposal: Put a Bank in Every Post Office

    “Millions of Americans are being forced into payday lending schemes that only exacerbate their money problems, and Congress has the ability to wipe out these predatory practices right now by creating a Postal Bank that would be accessible to everyone, everywhere,” Gillibrand said in a statement announcing the bill.

    “For millions of families who have no access or limited access to a traditional bank, the simple act of cashing a paycheck or taking out a small loan to fix a car or pay the gas bill can end up costing thousands of dollars in interest and fees that are nearly impossible to pay off,” she added. “The Postal Bank would solve this problem by putting a retail bank branch in all of the U.S. Postal Service’s 30,000 locations, providing low-cost, basic financial services to all Americans, and effectively ending predatory lending nationwide. Politicians in Washington have taken millions of dollars from payday lenders to help protect this industry’s predatory behavior on hardworking families, and it has to stop.”

    Under Gillibrand’s plan, the new Postal Bank would offer low-cost checking accounts, small-dollar interest-bearing savings accounts, low-fee and low-interest micro loans, debit cards and low-fee ATMs, online services like bill payment, and domestic and international wire transfers.

    The senator’s office predicted the Postal Bank “would effectively wipe out predatory payday lending industry practices because low-income workers would be able to take out low-interest, small-dollar loans from the Postal Bank instead of being forced to rely on predatory payday lenders.”

    Though Americans of all income levels would be able to use the bank, it “would specifically benefit low-income households that have limited or no access to traditional banks,” Gillibrand’s office said.

    I’m pretty sure Walmart has already solved this issue.

    1. leonadasiv

      “taking out a small loan to fix a car”

      The only “small loans” people take out are ones with their credit cards, and if you can’t get a credit card it’s because you are a proven credit risk.

      1. Well there are those much derided payday lenders that the Democrats want to kill.

        1. leonadasiv

          Wells Fargo, (for all that I have them) used to have a paycheck advance product, where if you had direct deposit, they could advance you some money from your check if needed. It was a flat fee paid back over several paychecks, much cheaper than pay day lenders, and helped people out in bad situation. Some goody two shots
          Shoes in the fed-gov made a stink and Wells Fargo shut it down. I wonder how many people that ‘hellped’

        2. WTF

          They will force the productive and responsible members of society to foot the bill.
          Because “fairness”.

    2. WTF

      Millions of Americans are being forced into payday lending schemes…

      Someone doesn’t understand what force is.

      Under Gillibrand’s plan, the new Postal Bank would offer low-cost checking accounts, small-dollar interest-bearing savings accounts, low-fee and low-interest micro loans, debit cards and low-fee ATMs, online services like bill payment, and domestic and international wire transfers.

      Let me guess who is going to absorb the excess costs for providing all of these services.

      1. straffinrun

        What’s an interest bearing savings account? Thought those were extinct.

        1. Look, my savings account might only pay out 0.01%, but it’s still technically interest bearing.

      2. Akira

        Someone doesn’t understand what force is.

        In the “progressive” worldview, force is defined as “offering something”. People are just like goldfish; if you sprinkle food in the tank, they will eat it. Everything is a “system” that compels people to take some action.

        People take payday loans simply because they’re there. People buy guns because of NRA propaganda. Women take lower paying jobs (thus producing the “wage gap”) because they’re socialized to do so.

        There’s no will or volition. In their view, people do the “wrong” things because some puppetmaster is making them. That’s why “progressives” want to be the puppermasters – so they can make people do The Right Things™.

        1. cyto

          Well, there is actually a way to get to a metaphorical “forced to” in this case. But I don’t think they’d like the answer.

          You see, regulations on banks have made checking accounts much less ubiquitous than they used to be. In addition, offering any sort of loans, advances or lines of credit opens you up to fair lending act scrutiny, so they have that to worry about. So banks go with fees. Really expensive fees. If you overdraw your account, you can get a short term loan that comes with a huge fee approximating many tens of percent interest on the short term loan – which is them covering the check. Alternately, you could go with a bounced check fee ($50 bucks, maybe more) and the fee from whoever you paid with the check (maybe another $20 bucks) and maybe a reinstatement fee and a credit report hit.

          So a rational person without access to credit cards and signature loans who needs $250 bucks for about 8 days takes out a payday loan. This might save him 50 bucks on the transaction, and save his credit rating.

          So “forced’” in the sense of being given no better choices. But that’s probably way to libertarian of an answer.

          1. Akira

            So “forced’” in the sense of being given no better choices. But that’s probably way to libertarian of an answer.

            Yea, that’s true. But I’ve heard “progressives” insist that people who take payday loans have better options (working some overtime, borrowing from friends/relatives, or simply waiting another week for their paycheck) but they are too stupid to choose those options; they just see a payday loan commercial on TV and it’s all over.

    3. Juvenile Bluster

      Pretty easy to predict what happens from here:

      1. Low-income people take loans
      2. They don’t pay them back
      3. Media plays up “Poor person’s life ruined due o debt to government”
      4. Gillibrand demands that the debt be discharged

      1. Psycho Effer

        We could fix number 1 by getting some high income people to take out loans and not pay them back. Sounds like Medicare scamology part deux.

      2. Akira

        All the while, I’m sure they would be saddling private sector banks with so much new regulation that they would become all but extinct. Presto: government takeover of the entire personal banking sector.

    4. robc

      Two random comments:

      1. When I worked in Switzerland, I banked at the post office. I didn’t actually have an account, but my “direct deposit” went there, so I picked up my money on payday at the PO.

      2. On the old site, I always caught shit when I said that I thought payday lenders were scummy. I don’t see the conflict between thinking some business practices are scummy but should remain legal. Some music to back up my point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XqyGoE2Q4Y

      1. Caveat emptor is about all I have to say about unsavory business practices. As long as you’re not committing explicit fraud, it’s on the customer to exercise due diligence.

      2. I don’t see the conflict between thinking some business practices are scummy but should remain legal.

        You’re not supposed to say things I agree with. Don’t you know how this works?

        1. robc

          It bothers me too.

      3. cyto

        Payday loans are a bad money management choice. Unless you have no better alternatives. Then they look pretty good.

        For people with no access to credit, it can be a whole lot cheaper to take a payday loan than the alternatives.

        1. Akira

          True.

          The problem is that “progressives” think, “I personally wouldn’t do that, so nobody should be allowed to”.

          Either Tom Woods or someone on his show said, “You can’t help poor people by taking their list of options and outlawing the one that they actually chose”.

    5. Tonio

      Postal banks, just like England. No thanks.

    6. Pope Jimbo

      Fucking banking deserts are the worse.

      Maybe they could sell produce at post offices too.

    7. Suthenboy

      If she is so concerned about the household finances of low income people she would have voted to repeal Obamacare.

  22. straffinrun

    New Federal Prison Policies May Put Books and Email on Ice

    The first of the new policies bans all books from being sent into federal facilities from outside sources including Amazon and Barnes & Noble. These retailers are usually the only means by which prisoners can receive books because most facilities reject reading material sent from individuals or small bookstores due to regulations aimed at eliminating contraband.

    1. Brett L

      Huh. The State of Florida prison system just got “email”. Fuckers charge a quarter a message. But on the upside, my wife and her father can communicate more than the once a month one of them gets around to writing a letter. I don’t know if it made the inmates’ lives any better, but it sure to hell has helped several state residents with no felonies to their name.

      1. Your wife’s dad is in prison?

        1. Brett L

          Yeah. He should be out in 3.5 more years if he doesn’t screw up — which is unlikely since in Florida you can earn 1/3rd of your time back for good behavior, but you have to serve 85% of your sentence. Dumbass will get to serve as an object lesson to his grandkids — when you lose your ass, take the reversal and downsize.

          1. when you lose your ass, take the reversal and downsize.

            Euphemisms!

          2. robc

            in Florida you can earn 1/3rd of your time back for good behavior, but you have to serve 85% of your sentence.

            Can you translate that into math I can understand. I clearly didn’t take enough math post-calculus to understand Florida prison math.

          3. Jarflax

            I was wondering this as well, but then I remembered how regulations and laws work and realized making sense or even being internally consistent is not a requirement.

          4. Brett L

            As Jarflax noted, there’s no need for statutes to be consistent. When Florida set up their first sentence discounting, you could get 1/3rd of a day discount for every day you served without trouble. If you got in trouble you could lose up to all of your good behavior discount. In the 1990s, people like “Chaingang” Charlie Crist got elected and promoted by ever more draconian sentencing. Two of the major results were that every inmate has to serve at least 85% of the sentence handed down to them, and the 10-20-Life minimum firearm sentencing rules.

            Thus, you can “earn” all the good behavior days you want, but you still have to serve at least 85% of your sentence.

          5. SugarFree

            You can earn parole of your sentence served with good behavior with only 2/3rds , but really still have to serve 85% of your sentence before being eligible for parole.

            Which means you only really need to have good behavior for 45% of your prison sentence to max out its benefit. 55% of the time, feel free to fuck up.

    2. leonadasiv

      Got to let them squander. Can’t let them do one of the most beneficial things to eliminate recitivisim (my opinion)

      1. That prison-industrial complex isn’t going to sustain itself you know!

  23. The Elite Elite

    Stunning and Brave David Hogg is even keeping Dems in check when they received NRA money at any time of their career. Yes that’s right, drive away any Dem that isn’t 100% in step with the current year radical progressive agenda.

    1. straffinrun

      I think we’re going to see a wave of “The Way Back Machine was hacked” excuses.

      1. Drake

        Somebody got upset with the founder of the modern Democrat Party.

        1. Pope Jimbo

          Old Hickory might have been an asshole, but he was a true no-shit bad ass.

          I also think it would be cool to have a president who went around shooting people in duels for insulting his wife. (From a sporting point of view, sending Michelle O to the duel in your stead would be cheating).

          1. Evan from Evansville

            I would love to see a MMA fight between Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt. Jesus, that would be insane. Neither one of those men would EVER back down.

            I bet Lincoln could contend in the fight physically, but he certainly didn’t have the Cool Hand Luke “You’re gonna have to kill me” mentality.

            If there is a heaven, I hope it’s based on being able to organize crazy events like this so we all get to watch.

          2. Drake

            I love that he beat the fuck out of an attempted assassin with a cane.

          3. The Last American Hero

            Shooting is a bit extreme. Maybe they could play space checkers.

    2. Juvenile Bluster

      Well, at least he’s consistent?

      I’d be sure that the Dems are going to shoot themselves in the foot and lose their (pretty good) shot at taking the House if I wasn’t more sure that the Reps will shoot themselves in the foot too.

      1. This is the most impressive display I’ve seen of the two parties trying to out stupid each other in a long time.

        1. Juvenile Bluster

          Politics are definite proof that there’s no such thing as peak derp.

    3. wdalasio

      Yes that’s right, drive away any Dem that isn’t 100% in step with the current year radical progressive agenda.

      That’s why I’ve been skeptical of all this “Blue Wave” talk that’s been circulating for a while now. The Democrats won a few elections where they ran candidates with very “Blue Dog” platforms. But, as a party, they seem incapable of interpreting that as anything other than a full-throated endorsement of hard-line progressivism.

      1. Gadfly

        I think it likely that the Dems will take the House, let their freak flag fly, and turn their majority into the shortest-lived one since the “Do Nothing” congress.

    4. robc

      I may have mentioned this before, but back in the early 2000s my business had an office is a sketchy area. How do you know you are in a sketchy building? When they rent to political campaigns. So the D opponent to McConnell had her Louisville office next to us. There was a young guy sent form the DNC to help them out. The candidates son ran the Louisville office and the two of them used to get into loud screaming matches over gun policy. The son was a good-ole-boy KY democrat and he probably wanted free rifles for 3rd graders. The guy from the DNC was, shockingly, pushing for a gun control policy.

      It was hilarious.

    5. Rebel Scum

      “Remember both Democrats and Republicans take #NRABloodMoney,” Hogg tweeted to his 778K followers. “Just look up New Jersey state senator @JeffVanDrew, he’s a Democrat with An A rating from the NRA.”

      I hate this little shit. But I do hope the msm keeps him in the public eye. The midterms may prove as entertaining as the last general.

    1. Suthenboy

      We have children dying because they cant afford healthcare?

      Bullshit.

    1. Yusef drives a Kia

      AUTOPLAY!!!!!

  24. robc

    Its also the day in 311 that the Romans formally began to tolerate Christianity, the Moors landed in Europe (the first time), George Washington was inaugurated as the first President of the United States, James Monroe signed the Louisiana Purchase, Hitler killed himself, Willie Mays hit four homers in a game and the North Vietnamese army captured Saigon.

    311 was a busy year!

    1. If only the band representing the year didn’t suck so bad. 311 sucks worse than Sum 41.

      1. Juvenile Bluster

        I’m a free speech absolutist, but I’m willing to support the death penalty for this take, Sloop.

        1. You’re a fan?

          May God have mercy on your soul.

        2. Tundra

          Sorry, JB. Sloop is right on this one.

      2. Evan from Evansville

        Ok, ok, ok, ok. I get it. 311’s vocal….style….is beyond ridiculous. You just have to laugh at it.

        I only know two albums of theirs—Music and 311. Take the vocals just out of it. They are fucking good musicians. If they could just record instrumental shit you’d maybe reconsider.

  25. Slammer

    My dad died exactly 3 years ago today from glioblastoma, the same thing as McCain. I hope he dies after 12:00 am May 1st, because I don’t really want to associate my dad and him.

    1. Old Man With Candy

      He’s too much of a shithead to die without giving us all one more giant fuck-you. So your Yahrzeit is safe.

    2. BakedPenguin

      Slammer: your dad wasn’t a warmongering prick. No reason to associate them.

  26. Question: After McCain ends his final filibuster, does AZ have a special election or does the governor appoint someone?

    1. Tundra

      Both, I think. When Stuart Smalley got his dick smacked, our gov appointed a commie placeholder until the special election.

    2. mexican sharpshooter

      The Governor can appoint somebody, but as it happens to be an election year…

  27. Juvenile Bluster

    Re: Millenials and Team D

    Axios
    ‏Verified account @axios

    According to new polling, 46% of millennials favor Democrats, while 28% prefer Republicans.

    Those numbers in 2016: 55/27

    8:46 AM – 30 Apr 2018

    1. So it sounds to me like they’re growing up and slowly learning that both parties suck.

      1. MikeS

        Libertarian Moment!

  28. straffinrun

    Minnesoda contingent, enjoy. Former George W. Bush ethics lawyer ditches GOP, to seek U.S. Senate in Minn. as Democrat

    Richard Painter, a longtime Republican who was chief ethics lawyer for George W. Bush’s White House, intends to run for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota this year as a Democrat, according to a filing he made recently with federal elections officials.

    1. Tundra

      *barf*

    2. Pope Jimbo

      What is amusing is that Painter came out against Trump before the last election and got on all the media outlets for a bunch of “See even Republicans can’t stand Trump” stories.

      When he first floated the idea that he would run for the seat he said he wasn’t sure what party he was going to run as. The local commie rag reported that as straight news, but anyone who knows anything about our local politics busted a gut laughing at the idea that the GOP would allow him to run in their party.

      On the other hand, I haven’t heard of any GOP candidates that make me think that they have a chance of winning.

  29. Pope Jimbo

    Some news to get Gordilocks all worked up.

    Minnesoda has mandated that Diesel #2 (used by truckers) must have at least 20% biodiesel in it. That is double national average. Minnesoda truckers are not pleased. They have to install extra gear to cope. I’m sure that all the truckstops in N/SDak, Iowa and Wisconsin are happy as shit.

    Also pleased? This asshole:

    But Bob Patton with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture said the biodiesel industry adds more than $1.5 billion a year to the state’s bottom line, and helps boost soybean prices.

    “It’s great for the agricultural economy and the economy overall,” Patton said.

    AKA: We made a lot of money in our last robbery!

    1. If only I worked in an industry in which the government could force people to buy my product.

    2. Gustave Lytton

      #2 diesel is used for all highway engines, so passenger vehicles and light trucks as well.

      The big problem with biodiesel is that it breaks down as it sits and algae starts to grow, which is more of a problem for non-commercial vehicles (or standby generators) which don’t turn over the biodiesel in the tank as quickly.

  30. BakedPenguin

    From TOS: Robby talks about Title IX, almost manages to get through without a “to be sure”.

    1. BakedPenguin

      Ah, shit. It’s the first link.

  31. Tonio

    Regarding the lesbian couple who pulled a Thelma and Louise with their kids in the car: The linked article shows one of the kids holding a Bernie campaign sign. I suspect that they got a pass from the various CPS agencies for reasons of political correctness and affinity. Thanks for the nut punch, Sloop.

  32. Slammer

    Good lord, the introductory video playing in the Jury Duty waiting room is beyond awful. Who produces this crap?

    1. Tundra

      Got your Gadsden hat on?

      1. Slammer

        Antietam National Battlefiled.

        1. Tundra

          Classy!

    2. Jarflax

      Troy McClure

    3. They subjected you to a video? Poor bastard. we just had to listen to a Bureaucrat – and I’m inured to that sound.

    4. robc

      The government?

      When I took my CCDW class the video was obviously hosted by a retarded 3rd cousin of the Governor or something. He pronounced “burglar” as “burger”.

      1. maybe he was just hungry when they were filming.

    5. BakedPenguin

      Oh, that was me. If you want better, just raise taxes.

    6. Michael Bay?

  33. A Kirsten Dunst link but no Gal Gadot link? It’s like you secretly hate us.

  34. Evan from Evansville

    Well, Glibs. I have a confession to make. I hope it’s not too unseemly.

    I was raped this weekend. It was my birthday and I got loaded. I don’t remember leaving the bar or my friend’s friend taking me home. I don’t remember getting into bed with her and I don’t remember who initiated what. I literally sobered up during the act.

    We fucked until the morning and cuddled and were very sweet. We plan on seeing more of each other.

    I am truly traumatized for life.

    This is why I hate how the SJWs and rape-criers piss me off so much. Yes, if you reverse the genders on this…it’s very fucked up. And yet I’m thrilled. It’s almost as if there are different desires and risks for men and women when it comes to having sex.

    Sorry if TMI.

    1. Was it the same person you were crushing on, or a new one?

      1. Evan from Evansville

        New girl. Things are fuzzy, but I honestly think that I “woke up” as she was fucking me.

        It was pretty fucking rad.

        1. Mr Lizard

          Come one people! You guys are about as hard hitting as a ball of wet toilet paper.

          redhead? Sweater puppies or ant bites? Real or fake? And how about the THICCNESS?

      2. Scruffy Nerfherder
    2. straffinrun

      The “her” in that didn’t come a minute too soon.

      1. Mojeaux

        How do you know when she came?

        1. straffinrun

          I always fail this question.

        2. Just Say’n

          Well done

        3. SugarFree

          Ouch.

    3. commodious spittoon

      It’s almost as if there are different desires and risks for men and women when it comes to having sex.

      You better be careful, you might end up engaged and planning a boat wedding.

    4. PieInTheSKy

      Did she have any alcohol at all? Because if yes it is still you who raped her

      1. WTF

        And he’s on the hook for child support in any event.

  35. Pope Jimbo

    Speaking of GOP rino’s….

    Arne Carlson (GOP gov in the ’90s) co-wrote an opinion piece this week bemoaning the bill that would require able-bodied people to get a job in order to get Medicaid.

    Every once in awhile, a proposed piece of legislation threatens to be so harmful that it warrants special attention. The bill in question essentially compels “able-bodied” people to work or lose the health care they receive through Minnesota public programs. On its face, it sounds appealing. However, not only would this proposal increase taxes and cause counties to hire more employees, it would actually make the poverty situation worse.

    How odd it is that Republicans who rail against taxes, government bureaucrats and unfunded costs imposed by state government find this bill so attractive. The magnet is the campaign money available to them via the Koch brothers of Kansas and their allies on the political extreme. It is expected that they will spend well over $400 million in the 2018 elections alone.

    The Koch brothers are mentioned several times in the article so you know it is old school woke.

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      cause counties to hire more employees

      Say what?

    2. Just Say’n

      States love them some federal subsidies and Medicaid is now the largest expenditure in most states (haha, education)

  36. Juvenile Bluster

    Don’t get my hopes up like this, Mattis

    Q: Could we ask just one quick one on North Korea? If there is a peace treaty that’s reached, as they talked about in Panmunjom earlier today, do — do U.S. troops need to stay stationed on the Korean Peninsula?

    SEC. MATTIS: Well, that’s part of the issues that we’ll be discussing in the negotiations with our allies first and, of course, with North Korea. So, I think for right now, we just have to go along with the process, have the negotiations, and not try to make preconditions or presumptions about how it’s going to go. We — the diplomats are going to have to go to work now.

    1. Just Say’n

      The SK president is playing this masterfully. He’s buttered up Trump by declaring that he deserves a noble peace prize for bringing the North to the bargaining table.

      The best way to have Trump ignore his hawkish advisors is to praise him as a peacemaker

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        Yup

        1. Just Say’n

          Now someone needs to convince Trump that peace will piss off the media.

          Securing peace to own the libs is better than nothing

          1. commodious spittoon

            Anything Trump does will piss off the media.

            Peace is something Trump could do.

            Therefore, peace will piss off the media.

          2. Just Say’n

            True

          3. commodious spittoon

            I wonder whether it’s frustrating or comforting to be led around by the nose like that. On the one hand, you’re angry all the time. On the other it’s not like copy is difficult to produce when you already know what you’re going to write. It must be like that facilitated communication bullshit, only instead of some charlatan guiding your hand it’s spite.

  37. KibbledKristen

    But we all know how this series turns out…

    LOL

    Sometimes I think of switching allegiance to the Wild.

  38. Just Say’n

    Kirsten Dunst’s birthday. Would

  39. Rufus the Monocled

    The Winnipeg Jets have some serious talent.

    Holy moly can they move that puck around.

    1. Tundra

      No kidding. Big, strong, fast.

      Still a pretty good task to get by Preds, though.

    2. BakedPenguin

      I doubt anyone could ever post a more Canadian comment, Rufus. It could have been posted with a Maple Leaf on your avatar.

      Also, the Bruins are going to take the Cup – Hah!

      1. Tundra

        You spelled Army wrong.

        1. BakedPenguin

          Pretty shitty trolling on my part, I admit.

          My apologies / Je suis desole

    3. Chipwooder

      They really nailed the draft for several years. That’s a team that’s going to be very dangerous for a while.

  40. Gadfly

    Just a reminder that Houston probably has more in common with the coonasses from Louisiana than it does with those people from Dallas-Ft Worth.

    I agree that Houston is a bit more Louisiana than the rest of the state. Just like San Antonio is a bit more Mexico and Austin is a bit more California. I guess that leaves DFW as the most authentically Texan of all the major urban areas. ;-P

    1. Yusef drives a Kia

      Will’s Point or GTFO

      1. No thanks. Fuck that dry county

        1. Yusef drives a Kia

          Still? it’s been 25 years, I figured they grew up, but it Is Texas…..

        2. robc

          I live in a dry county.

          Fortunately, the city is wet and I live about 2* ft from the city line.

          *slight exaggeration, but I figure my neighborhood is being eyed as the next for the city to annex.

          1. robc

            Just checked, the north border of my neighborhood is, in fact, the south border of the city.

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Midland/Odessa is a bit more 7th level of hell.

      1. Chipwooder

        Really? But Friday Night Lights made it look so appealing! 🙂

    3. KibbledKristen

      What about Lubbock?

      1. Gadfly

        Lubbock definitely has a Texas feel, with a bit of panhandle flair. It even looks the part, as you could easily imagine cattle drives and cowboys when looking at the landscape. But it (and Waco too) is a Podunk little town compared to the other cities in Texas. The only urban area I forgot was El Paso, but that’s basically New Mexico.

        1. Amarillo haz sadz.

          1. The only time I remember Amarillo is in connection to the game company, “Amarillo Design Bureau”. I doubt they at the pillar of the city’s economy though.

          2. To me it’s about as quintessential Texas as you can get. Though, being a native New Mexican, Texas to me is much more Western/Panhandle than the metros of South/Central.

            I guess that’s one nice thing about the state; it’s so big there’s something for everyone (even SJWs: looking at you Austin).

          3. commodious spittoon

            It’s going to be amazing when, in a generation, California is drifting red and Texas is about as blue as blue states.

          4. Gadfly

            Well, I’ve never been to Amarillo, so I can’t comment on it.

            But I assume it’s Lubbock but more Oklahoma/Kansas-y. It’s about the same size, so it belongs in the second tier city category with Lubbock and Waco (and Corpus Christie, and I’m sure there are other small cities I’m forgetting about as well).

    4. Rufus the Monocled

      Because of Gas Monkey garage, eh?

    5. Juvenile Bluster

      Okay, fine, you pulled my arm.

      From the NFL Draft on Friday. Fuck Dallas.

      1. Rufus the Monocled

        LOL.

        Awesome. Grade A trolling.

      2. Gadfly

        lol

    6. Not Adahn

      A Central Texas redneck is Matt Carricker of Demolition Ranch.
      An East Texas Redneck is this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnT723O5fZg
      A DFW redneck is Hank Hill
      I’ll let someone else find media of West Texas redneck, since I never lived there.

      1. Suthenboy

        The east TX redneck girl is a central LA girl. There is even a video of them at MudFest a mile from my house. That bunch is extremely stereotypical of the people here.

        1. Suthenboy

          I dont think they live far from here. I think I recognize one of the places where she is shooting. It is an abandoned gravel pit around Natchitoches. I used to shoot there myself.

          1. Not Adahn

            There is a whole lot of overlap between east TX and LA. I don’t know if it’s because of the original inhabitants or because a major hurricane can cause populations to displace a couple hundred miles over.

  41. KibbledKristen

    On the inside, the new GE90. On the outside, the “normal” 747 engine.

    1. Brett L

      That’s a large engine.

      1. KibbledKristen

        This is why 4-engine aircraft are going the way of the dodo. Also, they’re making them quieter.

        1. Six engines are the wave of the future?

          1. Raven Nation

            Eight, actually.

          2. Gustave Lytton

            The correct answer is six turning and four burning

  42. The Late P Brooks

    I was raped this weekend. It was my birthday

    Best birthday present, ever.

  43. Stinky Wizzleteats

    File under Commie Pope (Ban all weapons tweet, I don’t see how this could possibly go wrong):

    https://mobile.twitter.com/Pontifex/status/990553785415200773

    1. Warty

      Nothing is ever new.

      29. We prohibit under anathema that murderous art of crossbowmen and archers, which is hateful to God, to be employed against Christians and Catholics from now on.

      1. Stinky Wizzleteats

        Sounds like Francis needs a come to Jesus meeting with, well, Jesus:

        “Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.”

        1. Warty

          Since when do Catholics read the Bible?

          1. Chipwooder

            Absolutely true.

          2. Just Say’n

            Using the Bible as the sole source of faith is what has always made the protestant tradition less intellectually robust than the Catholics

          3. Just Say’n

            I’m not saying that to be insulting or to defend the Pope’s position (although, I doubt that his naive position is really out of step with most faith traditions), I mean that as a fact. Descartes, John Locke, Kant, Hegel, Nietszche, and pretty much every philosopher from the Renaissance through Modernism had to have studied Aquinas and Augustine. Relying on the Bible, a text that is almost universally accepted in the Christian world as “divinely inspired” rather than the literal “word of God”, as your sole basis for your beliefs has cheapened the intellectual curiosity of some (but not all) Protestant faith traditions.

        2. Not Adahn

          Swords are totes not crossbows, jeez.

        3. Just Say’n

          It should also be noted that you are quoting the King James bible, which is not the one that Catholics use

    2. Wow this guy is a clown.

      C’mon Catholics, you can do better than this!

  44. The Late P Brooks

    Michael Hayden is concerned

    These are truly uncharted waters for the country. We have in the past argued over the values to be applied to objective reality, or occasionally over what constituted objective reality, but never the existence or relevance of objective reality itself.

    In this post-truth world, intelligence agencies are in the bunker with some unlikely mates: journalism, academia, the courts, law enforcement and science — all of which, like intelligence gathering, are evidence-based. Intelligence shares a broader duty with these other truth-tellers to preserve the commitment and ability of our society to base important decisions on our best judgment of what constitutes objective reality.

    The historian Timothy Snyder stresses the importance of reality and truth in his cautionary pamphlet, “On Tyranny.” “To abandon facts,” he writes, “is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power because there is no basis upon which to do so.” He then chillingly observes, “Post-truth is pre-fascism.”

    Public Enemy Number One has banished truth from the world. We’re doomed.

    If only there were more true American patriots like Michael Hayden (and, presumably that nice Clinton lady), we could bring America back to her senses.

    1. SugarFree

      this post-truth world, intelligence agencies are in the bunker with some unlikely mates: journalism, academia, the courts, law enforcement and science — all of which, like intelligence gathering, are evidence-based.

      This might be the funniest sentence ever written in the English language. It is both touchingly naive and corrosively cynical all at the same time. Anyone who can actually say it with a straight face–or worse, believe it–is a lunatic.

      1. Chipwooder

        A lunatic, or a wannabe despot who despairs at the notion that his ilk’s grip on American society is slipping.

        1. SugarFree

          I mean thinking this is literally true: journalism, academia, the courts, law enforcement [and] intelligence gathering are evidence-based is the product of a deranged mind. It isn’t just an is/ought fallacy but requires the rejection of so much evidence to the contrary that it can only be a mark of madness.

          The corrosive cynical interpretation (yours) is far kinder to his motives.

          1. commodious spittoon

            Some evidence is more evidential than others, evidently.

          2. Scruffy Nerfherder

            Much like George W Bush, he probably believes his own bullshit.

      2. Psycho Effer

        Anybody who leads a major federal agency over a long period of time is going to be a massive statist. Especially one who comes from the military. They grow up in a world that is nothing but TOP MEN. They truly think that they are noble servants of the proles who require their leadership to survive. Anyone who threatens that triggers massive cognitive dissonance because it calls into question their view of themselves as masters of the universe. This is why there is so much visceral hatred of Trump. Anything that he succeeds on, especially Korea, makes them want to kill themselves.

        In my opinion, Hayden was a good leader of the Agency, but in the immortal words of the Rock: “Know your role, and shut your mouth!”

      3. Scruffy Nerfherder

        I’m not even sure how to respond to that, it’s so completely disconnected from reality.

    2. WTF

      Projection all the way.

    3. “In this post-truth world”

      Christ I hate this phrase. Show me how the world is “post-truth”. What does that even mean? If you mean journalists don’t report the truth, then I agree with you.

      More likely is that you’re pissed that you don’t control the narrative right now so you have to attack what’s going on as false and/or fake. Gaslighting at its finest.

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        For Hayden, “post-truth” means people don’t believe him, even though he’s a well-established violator of the Constitution.

    4. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Hayden is currently a principal at the Chertoff Group, the very definition of the revolving door in Washington. He also oversaw the NSA at the height of its unwarranted spying on Americans. To say that he should be in prison for something or some things is an understatement.

    5. Rebel Scum

      Projection projection projection.

  45. I think Southern is just pissed that she’s a member of the itty bitty titty committee.

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

    FWIW: Would – Brook at either size and Southern. Preferably simultaneously.

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      At least she won’t have lower back problems later in life unlike those massively mammaried hussies you so regularly post.

    2. commodious spittoon

      Don’t you know what it means to become an orgy guy? It changes everything. You’d have to dress different. You’d have to act different. You’d have to grow a mustache and get all kinds of robes and lotions and you’d need a new bedspread and new curtains. You’d have to get thick carpeting and weirdo lighting. You’d have to get new friends. You’d have to get orgy friends.

  46. Rick C-137

    Morning Glibs! Good to see all is well over here. I bring you the gift of derp as thanks
    http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-43947959

    1. Chipwooder

      Smart girl – she knows not to grovel for forgiveness. Great legs, too.

      The bitch who cried about her dress has a picture of himself wearing a baseball hat. Stop appropriating my culture, motherfucker, and put a coolie hat on ASAP.

      1. Pope Jimbo

        Cultural appropriation is one of the stupidest SJW campaigns.

        Pro Tip for Immigrants: When we steal something from your culture and start using it, that means we like it. Be proud that we decided kimchi is cool. Or that your dresses are pretty and cool to wear to the prom.

        1. Akira

          Pro Tip for Immigrants: When we steal something from your culture and start using it, that means we like it. Be proud that we decided kimchi is cool. Or that your dresses are pretty and cool to wear to the prom.

          My goodness, by the sound of it, you’d think that there’s something similar going on when foreigners start wearing American clothes that they saw in movies!

    2. A person who believes in “cultural appropriation” has outed himself as a terminal moron.

      Proper response: “I’ll wear whatever I want and you can fuck off and stew in your own hate.”

    1. Because he created the framework for their society?

    2. Rebel Scum

      A commission spokeswoman defending Mr. Juncker’s visit… She said: …“I think that nobody can deny that Karl Marx is a figure who shaped history in one way or the other.

      Jesus Christ….

      1. Gustave Lytton

        You know who else shaped history one way or another?

        1. AlexinCT

          Marx’s ideas still killed more people than the mustached fella I believe you are thinking about.

    3. Scruffy Nerfherder

      In paying respects to Karl Marx, Juncker is signaling what he is to everyone else. Take note.

    4. I really like Daniel Mitchell and FEE in general.

      … Hobbit

  47. The Late P Brooks

    Further Tales of the Blue Tsunami

    While Mr. Trump’s rhetoric may play well nationally, it may be a tougher sell at the state level, where personalities, local politics and the driving need to get something done dominate. Ms. Blackburn is a barnburner; it’s not clear that she can be a barn-builder. On the stump, she’s more comfortable talking up illegal immigration and, at an event in Murfreesboro, calling for the support of a candidate who believes in creationism. In contrast, Mr. Bredesen’s latest spot emphasizes that as senator he would support a good idea, even if it comes from Mr. Trump.

    His get-it-done message resonates with state Republican leaders, including Mr. Corker, who couldn’t even say Ms. Blackburn’s name in a recent appearance on CNN. “I’ve said I’m gonna plan to vote for this person,” Corker told an incredulous Dana Bash, before adding that Mr. Bredesen “is my friend,” adding, “I’m not gonna campaign against him.”

    In a race that could determine control of the Senate, Tennessee Republicans may hold their nose and vote for Ms. Blackburn. Then again, one of the wealthiest of them, Colleen Conway-Welch, held a fund-raiser for Mr. Bredesen, which raised $350,000. Ms. Conway-Welch and her husband, Ted Welch, have supported Republicans for decades. But Ms. Blackburn appears to be a bridge too far.

    It is not obvious that Ms Blackburn is as uniquely horrible as Roy Moore, but it seems quite clear Bredeson is not part of the Bernie Sanders / Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party. Maybe he has a shot.

    1. Dems are gonna lean on that Moore loss (as unusual as it was, even with all his baggage) until the end of time. I see it as a black swan. It was like Scott Brown winning in MA; a one time deal in a special election during a particularly tumultuous partisan climate.

      1. Chipwooder

        The TN race is a bit of a one-off because of Bredesen, who was a popular governor and, for a Dem, pretty middle of the road. Of course, he won’t act that way once he’s in the Senate, but that’s his established track record at this time.

  48. KibbledKristen

    Anyone up for a mint julep at the Round Robin tonite? I’m self-pampering and staying there tonight. My commute tonight and tomorrow will be one block.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      The fastest flight to washington is 14 hours 30 minutes. How long are you there?

      1. KibbledKristen

        Let’s see – check in about 4pm, leave about 9am tomorrow. You might just make it in time for a breakfast drink!

        1. Chipwooder

          That would be such an Elvis move! Fly to DC, grab a few bloody marys, and get back on the plane and fly home.

    2. Chipwooder

      pfffft….their burgers are overrated

      1. KibbledKristen

        A burger at the Willard? Probably gonna get a steak of some kind.

        1. Chipwooder

          it was a joke based on the similar name to Red Robin.

          1. KibbledKristen

            Ahhhhh…LOL

    3. commodious spittoon

      My finances only allow for Red Robin, I’m afraid.

    4. Psycho Effer

      Sounds like fun, but I hate being in DC proper. Gives me PTSD. I prefer to stay in the Va burbs.

    5. Shpip

      Would gladly take you up on that, were I not a thousand miles south of you right now.

      FWIW, my ideal DC afternoons are something like:
      Lunch at Joe’s
      Happy Hour & oysters at the Old Ebbitt
      Cocktails at Round Robin
      Moar cocktails on the roof of the W
      Supper somewhere on the 14th St corridor (B Too, Estadio, or The Pig)
      Stumble into bed at the Hay-Adams with a nightcap at Off the Record

  49. Idle Hands

    Corey Lewandowski flashes white power ‘OK’ symbol on stage at Trump’s Michigan rally. I can’t stop laughing at this article.

    The “OK” symbol is widely used by white supremacists like Richard Spencer, though alt-right types like Stephen Miller and random interns also use it.

    While the symbol is used by white supremacists as a symbol of their common beliefs, they also claim it’s a meta-troll and that people are getting angry about an “OK” symbol. The Anti-Defamation League says it’s not a hate symbol—it’s just a symbol made by right-wingers who want to show they have an affinity with Nazis but who are not Nazis.

    1. Idle Hands

      Wat?

    2. RAHeinlein

      Stipulated that I am middle-aged, but when did the “OK” hand-gesture become a white supremacist symbol?

      1. Jarflax

        OK is not Ok.

        Aristotle is totally digging himself out of his grave and going zombie apocalypse on us.

      2. Rick C-137

        4chan started that as a joke and to see about beclowning normies.

        1. Pope Jimbo

          They should go after the Hawaiian shaka (hang loose) hand sign next.

          Given how proggie Hawaii is, it would be awesome if it became and alt-right hate sign.

          1. Pope Jimbo

            Now that I’ve thought of it, they should start flashing the signs for the Crips and the Bloods.

            That would be an epic troll. I don’t think that actual Crips or Bloods would give much of a fuck, but it would drive the grievance mongers nuts.

      3. SugarFree

        It started as a 4-chan hoax that was then picked up as an in-joke, but might be (Poe’s Law) being really used as a hate symbol as the hoax tried to suggest.

        1. Suthenboy

          Or maybe the people whining about it are just morons.

          1. commodious spittoon

            whynotboth.gif

      4. Grumbletarian

        It happened either on Nov. 8th, 2016 or Jan. 20th, 2017.

      5. Psycho Effer

        I got cat-called by a black woman at the courthouse on Friday and flashed her the OK symbol in response. Did not know that this was a thing, but makes me laugh now.

    3. KibbledKristen

      Hasn’t that been around for, like, a hunnert years or so? And it’s an emoji. Haven’t heard anyone bitching about the emoji.

      1. commodious spittoon

        Bitching about emojis is pretty much the state of our culture in 2018.

        1. commodious spittoon

          Maybe it’s just an addiction to so much winning in the neverending culture war, but were it my ideology and my crusade, I’d find petty victories like getting emojis removed or changed to more benign alternatives hugely embarrassing. Then again, I can’t imagine rallying against speakers like CHS or a yamaka-wearing Jewish kid from LA, so maybe it’s an issue of temperament rather than intellect.

    4. Sure thing. ??

    5. This is the kind of stuff a paranoid schizophrenic believes.

      1. KSuellington

        Fun fact: The “okay” sign in Brazil is an obscene gesture. It means take it in your ass. It’s usually held the opposite way though (with the outer hand towards the person who needs to take it in the ass).

      2. SugarFree

        “There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.”

    6. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Sounds OK to me.

      *head desk*

    7. Rebel Scum

      Well, what we do know is that it is not OK…to be white.

    8. commodious spittoon

      And OK Go is the anthem of the alt-right.

  50. The Late P Brooks

    Dems are gonna lean on that Moore loss (as unusual as it was, even with all his baggage) until the end of time. I see it as a black swan.

    Exactly. Anybody who uses Moore as an example of how “people have finally come to their senses about the Republican party” is nuts.

    Just like anybody spouting a bunch of meaningless bullshit about how some Democrat in some obscure county race won a state office “in a district Trump won by fifty points” and that proves the Republicans are going to get their heads handed to them across the board.

    1. KSuellington

      At this point I’d say that the Blue tidal wave will be more like a six inch shore break. They will pick up seats in the House, but I don’t think it will flip. They will likely lose a few in the Senate.

      1. R C Dean

        They will likely lose a few in the Senate.

        Why do I suspect that the DC Repubs worst nightmare isn’t losing both the House and the Senate, its keeping the House and getting a filibuster proof majority in the Senate?

        1. Drake

          The horror of being expected to deliver on their promises is too terrible to contemplate.

          1. commodious spittoon

            The Democratic legacy must be preserved even if every Republican gets primaried in the process. It’s not enough that Democrats succeed, Republicans must destroy themselves to ensure it!

        2. KSuellington

          Because you are correct, especially so with the Repubs that are in or almost in the NeverTrump camp. They’d prefer to return to the minority so they could use it as both an excuse to do nothing and to primary The Donald.

        3. “Well, uhhh… we can’t pass our agenda because… uhhh…. Mercury’s in retrograde! Yeah that’s the ticket! Sorry everyone, we want to do what we promised, but it’s just not in the stars right now.”

          1. Not Adahn

            Mercury went station direct earlier this month. It’s like you don’t even read the horoscopes!

      2. creech

        I guess, too, it depends on which Dems win their primaries. Around the Philly area, there are Dems running ads condemning Trump’s “idea to arm teachers is idiotic,” vowing to protect families from “Trump’s hatred,” and (in this case an incumbent) proudly announcing he co-sponsored impeachment with 56 other clueless House members.

  51. The Late P Brooks

    The “OK” symbol is widely used by white supremacists like Richard Spencer, though alt-right types like Stephen Miller and random interns also use it.

    This news alert brought to you by the diligent fact-checkers at the SPLC.

  52. Lachowsky

    “Sometimes work just takes it all out of you…and this was such a time. But I have to say, it was profitable.”

    You are sloop. Just finished my 3rd 16 hour shift in a row. I have something like 17 to go. I’m about to go to bed. Good day glibs, Hopefully I’ll be able to interact with ya’ll more in a week or so.

  53. Lachowsky

    “The day the North Vietnamese army captured Saigon.”

    Should be the day that the U.S. learned it’s lesson in fucking around in other peoples’ countries.

  54. KSuellington

    “Golden State is likewise up 1-0 and should also best the Pelicans. Why? Because the NBA’s Western Conference is more predictable than a Hulk Hogan wrestling match.”

    That’s because the Warriors are among the top three teams to ever play the game of basketball. They are so good that the discussion today is whether or not they continue to sit one of the top shooters in the history of the game for another game even though he is pretty much recovered from his injury six weeks ago.

    1. Juvenile Bluster

      Just wait ’til the Sixers sign either LeBron or Paul George this offseason…

      1. KSuellington

        They are an upcoming challenge to the Dubs for sure. Wouldn’t be surprising to see them sign either of those guys. LeBron might end up with the Lakers though.

  55. Count Potato

    “Superheroes Don’t Wear Ponytails, and Yes, It’s Sexist

    But there’s a reason we don’t see many male superheroes with waist-long hair just so we can watch all that cool hair fly around. Christina Dokou, an assistant professor of American literature and culture at the University of Athens, explains that the “boys’ club” legacy of comic books, in which female characters were stuck with sexist stereotypes, still endures. “Even today, the physical attributes and feminine beauty of superheroines are exaggerated to make them look like, well, frankly, porn stars at worst, and sexy female athletes at best,” she tells Racked over email.”

    https://www.racked.com/2018/4/25/17275020/avengers-infinity-war-hair-mantis-black-widow-gamora-scarlet-witch

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Ponytails? That’s so 70’s. What the world needs right now is superheroes with man-buns.

    2. Akira

      “Even today, the physical attributes and feminine beauty of superheroines are exaggerated to make them look like, well, frankly, porn stars at worst, and sexy female athletes at best,” she tells Racked over email.”

      So female superheroes supposed to be fat and ugly?

      And aren’t male superheroes pretty stereotyped as well with their square jaws and impossibly chiseled physiques? /no homo

        1. Scruffy Nerfherder

          It’s like Jezebel had a love-child with Stan Lee.

        2. *wanders off, disturbed*

      1. kinnath

        There were articles complaining about the bulking-up of super hero dudes a couple of years ago. The complaints where that these guys were creating bodies that were impossible for any average guy to compete with.

        Who fucking cares — comic-book movies are fantasies.

      2. Rebel Scum

        to make them look like, well, frankly, porn stars at worst, and sexy female athletes at best,”

        I fail to see the problem. She probably doesn’t even like chick armor.

        1. R C Dean

          I’m struggling here to figure out what a stereotypical porn star looks like before I can even get to the part about how superhero chicks look like them.

          Gotta love the sneer when referring to “sexy female athletes”. I would think sexy female athletes would be just about the pinnacle of social and physical female empowerment.

          Its almost like her real problem is with women who are more attractive than her.

    3. commodious spittoon

      You know what we should really be talking about? The problematic machismo culture of lucha libre. Until we address that deeply troubling source of misogyny, how can we ever hope for progressive utopia?

      And those luchadore emojis, those have got to go.

  56. Gilmore

    Things i’ve learned in the last 24 hours

    – Windows 10 1803 update is a shrieking piece of shit that needs to be blocked for a few months until they fix all the problems they caused w/ it.

    anyone who hasn’t already had it pushed on them should change update settings to “metered connection”, and that should delay it; alternatively, you can just disable “wuauserv” in regedit, and wait until they try forcing it on people.

    Karl Marx was right

    1. Gilmore

      oh, also:

      The Trump admin is still using “White Power” hand signals to communicate to its secret army of Klan members

      I am duly terrified and will tweet this important news to everyone i know

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder

      In 2002, the French philosopher Alain Badiou declared at a conference I attended in London that Marx had become the philosopher of the middle class. What did he mean? I believe he meant that educated liberal opinion is today more or less unanimous in its agreement that Marx’s basic thesis — that capitalism is driven by a deeply divisive class struggle in which the ruling-class minority appropriates the surplus labor of the working-class majority as profit — is correct. Even liberal economists such as Nouriel Roubini agree that Marx’s conviction that capitalism has an inbuilt tendency to destroy itself remains as prescient as ever.

      Not much introspection into the “why” there. I’m pretty sure what I would call capitalism and what Badiou/Roubini would call capitalism are two different things.

      1. R C Dean

        capitalism has an inbuilt tendency to destroy itself

        We may actually be watching this right now, as the most advanced capitalist societies appear to be trying their damnedest to commit cultural, social and economic suicide.

        But its not really because of “a deeply divisive class struggle in which the ruling-class minority appropriates the surplus labor of the working-class majority as profit.” Its because capitalism has created so much wealth, surplus, and leisure that many people have decided that utopia is within reach if we can only purify society of retrograde thoughts and elements (which happen to be those that underpin economic success). Progressivism has long been openly hostile to “bourgeouis” culture and seems to make strides in destroying it in favor of a culture based on narrow identity/affinity groups. Capitalism thrives in a high-trust culture, progressivism creates a low-trust culture more akin to tribal or clan-base societies than to a thriving middle-class capitalist society.

        1. Gilmore

          I’m not sure that this idea that “X has an inbuilt tendency to destroy itself” is at all an insight unique to ‘capitalism’, … or even an ‘insight’ at all.

          ALL designed systems tend towards entropy. There is nothing in the universe that is a perpetual motion machine.

          The observation pre-supposes that economic and social-order is supposed to be some perfectly self-sustaining, complete and totalizing cultural force, which creates “perfect people” who perfectly support the artificial system by aligning their nature to its artificial impositions.

          Its a stupid judgment created by an imagined ‘false choice’ alternative.

          Its like the way a biblical literalist might look at the world and see “sin” infecting everything around him. Everything in the world is inherently ‘flawed’, provided you assume that the ONLY right way for people to live is in perfect accordance with artificial notions gleaned from some religious text.

          Same with this idea that, from the Socialist perspective, that “Capitalism is constantly failing, and has resulted in “Disaster”

          It only makes sense if your pre-supposition is that Mankind was SUPPOSED to have achieved some Utopian social-order of perfect human equality and an elimination of all material wants by now!

          Instead, we still have social conflict, and people are hopelessly wrapped up in pursuit of material desires even worse than during the industrial revolution.

          “Clearly we’re falling short!”
          (of some imagined goal no one except socialists ever had)

    3. Brochettaward

      If we had only listened to Marx sooner, there would be no Windows 10 update.

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        There’s no need for windows in a tractor factory, comrade.

        1. commodious spittoon

          Nor tractors, for that matter.

          1. Gustave Lytton

            Not a factory.

          2. Gustave Lytton

            *nor

          3. commodious spittoon

            Just a big, shallow mass grave.

    4. commodious spittoon

      I kill the update app every time Windows starts it.

    5. l0b0t

      Agreed. This ‘all folders open as tabs in the same window no matter what settings I change’ is driving me fucking crazy!

      1. Gilmore

        – Use system restore to back up to April 23 (when 1709 version was last updated)
        – when it restarts type “services” in the Windows 10 search box and click View Local Services. Scroll down to Windows Update and double-click the service. Set the startup type to Disabled. If the service is already running, click Stop. After the service has stopped, click OK.
        – then go to Settings/Network and change your network settings to “metered connection”.

    6. wdalasio

      Karl Marx was right

      At a certain point, what do you say to people who think like this? We have all the empirical data we could ever need. We’ve seen millions killed. Nearly all of the assumptions of his claims have been refuted or shown to be of little or no significance. On a certain level, anyone who’d buy into this drivel is incapable of human thought on any kind of form I’d consider recognizable.

      1. commodious spittoon

        By them a copy of Economics in One Lesson and hope for the best.

        Oh, wait. Hazlitt was just another old white racist. He exploited workers and probably discriminated against blacks and women.

        Never mind, we’re doomed.

        1. Badolph Hilter

          On Amazon, the “mass market paperback” editions of Economics in One Lesson are selling for $500 to $900.

          Economics in One Lesson indeed.

      2. Charlie Suet

        His claims were being refuted even while he was still alive. He famously left out statistics in later editions of his work that refuted his theory of immiseration, cherry picking the same statistics where he felt they supported his case. He and Engels both used data collected to support various Factory Acts (i.e. the gradualist response to poverty, whatever the libertarian reservations) to pretend that suffering was so bad that revolution was the only outcome / answer.

        His mistakes in relation to the labour theory of value could easily have been corrected if he had had any interest in the contemporary economics of his day. Equally, his much vaunted contributions to the theory of capital were prefigured by better economists and have at any rate been superseded. Aristotle invented biology, but a reasonably well informed child would be a better teacher of it than he would be.

        Even setting aside the fact that his ideas led to unparalleled bloodshed and misery (“When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror” – K. Marx), he was a bad academic. But apparently you can be an Associate “Professor” and not understand that.

        1. R C Dean

          Indeed. And its not just that our understanding has advanced in the subsequent decades, its that it was crap at the time.

          But its crap that’s useful to psychopathic utopians, so it has been shepherded past all objections.

    7. What’s shocking to me is that the collapse of the Soviet Union is so recent as to be well within everyone’s memory. That was the “big experiment” in which a whole society was built around a philosophy that held as closely as possible to Marx’s philosophical and political prescriptions. It failed. Big time. And killed many millions of people in the process. That’s not even taking into consideration all the other Marxist failure stories; the USSR was just the first and most authentic example of Marxism in action. As Bill said, what do you say to someone who still believes? Said individual doesn’t think; he emotes. Marxism works because it *feels* like it should. I would be so great if it worked, therefore, it does work. This is the kind of “logic” you expect from a six year old. I guess that’s what American universities are inculcating now; reducing people’s critical thinking ability to that of an early grade schooler.

  57. The Late P Brooks

    I believe he meant that educated liberal opinion is today more or less unanimous in its agreement that Marx’s basic thesis — that capitalism is driven by a deeply divisive class struggle in which the ruling-class minority appropriates the surplus labor of the working-class majority as profit — is correct.

    Nothing a good virgin sacrifice cannot fix.

    1. Charlie Suet

      “Educated” and “liberal” being defined in this instance as the particular qualities of people that believe this utter horseshit. What a cretin.

  58. Hyperion

    “If I only had a brain”

    It’s not that McCain doesn’t have a brain, it’s just that everything that emanates from it is some statist authoritarian bullshit. I wonder what his crummy little toady, Graham, is going to do now? Maybe he can get Max Boot to run for Congress or go chasing around after John Bolton.

  59. The Late P Brooks

    Gotta love the sneer when referring to “sexy female athletes”. I would think sexy female athletes would be just about the pinnacle of social and physical female empowerment.

    No kidding. But I guess being in tune with your body and seeking the limits of your potential is just the false consciousness one would expect from a dupe of the patriarchy.

    1. R C Dean

      I guess they are only body-positive if the body is spongy and ill-maintained.

  60. The Late P Brooks

    On Amazon, the “mass market paperback” editions of Economics in One Lesson are selling for $500 to $900.

    No shit? I’ve got my dad’s copy from college, complete with notes in the margins. Not exactly “showroom new condition” but all the words are still there.