Wednesday Morning Links

Yeah Daaaaaayum! The Houston Rockets pulled off a big win, when the Warriors did not, in fact, come out to pla-e-yay in the fourth quarter. That was a surprise when I woke up and saw it this morning after turning the tv off in the third because it wasn’t much of a game.  I’m still sticking to my guns and calling this one in 6 though.  I caught a glimpse of the script when Adam Silver walked by a TV camera the other day.  Celtics-Cavs will go to 7, by the way.  But the league hasn’t decided who they want to win yet. They play game 5 tonight.

Speaking of playoffs, the Wales Conference champions will be crowned tonight in Tampa Bay.  I’m sure Capitals fans are relaxed, what with their team’s performance in big games like this over the history of the franchise.  Also, it was 20 years ago this playoff season when I watched the Capitals live in game 4 of the Stanley Cup final.  Tickets were about $25 each for lower level corner seats at the MCI Center (I think) as they were swept by the Red Wings.  That’s the year they rolled Vladi Konstantinov onto the ice (to some tears from me and other fans) after that dickhead limo driver wrecked his career and life. Way to go, asshole.

Across the pond, Arsenhole find a new manager they hope can bring them to the promised land of Thursday European matches, which will be all the rage in London this fall.  Meanwhile, Liverpool get set to take the biggest of big stages this weekend.  YNWA.

Hey, today is my eldest daughter’s birthday. She shares it with Gen Ambrose Burnside, physicist and inventor of the transistor John Bardeen, hero to musicians Robert Moog, baseball’s Buck Showalter, libertarian actor Drew Carey, assclown “writer” Mitch Albom, snaggletoothed singer Jewel, and Jeopardy! contestant-extraordinaire Ken Jennings. And historical events such as Ben Franklin inventing bifocals and Mao Tse-tung starting his barbarous “Great Leap Forward” took place.

And now its time for us to take a great leap forward (without tens of millions of dead bodies, I hope) toward…the links!

Get out your checkbook, buddy.

I know Stormy Daniels’s attorney figures he’s gonna get rich off of this shitshow. But it looks like he needs to start stroking some pretty hefty checks of his own before that happens.

LOL, fucking millennials.  Seriously, dude?  Seriously?!?!?!

Smug doesn’t even begin to describe this guy.

The NYT’s Frank Bruni is shitting his pants because he’s afraid the Mueller investigation might be helping Trump.  He actually laments that focusing on collusion only will cause the media as well as the hoi polloi to overlook serious things like risking security by using unsecured devices. And he also decries that the media are letting Trump frame the investigation as being only about collision when its about so much more (which contradicts the spirit if not letter of the directive) they could use to get rid of the outsider.

Wow. What kind of an asshole does shit like this? Kudos to the soldier. I wonder if children of adoption are more prone to take care of others in the same situation. I’d imagine so. Any adopted Glibs out there want to weigh in?

Re-enactment

Careful what you wish for, lady. Or perhaps she was menstruating, because I heard that attracts them.

Why this is surprising is beyond me.  Cheerleaders have always been notorious for being bitches.  But still, I think it shows how thin-skinned the pussies running high schools as well as students and parents of today’s kids, can be.

Trump tries to stay on topic during media Q&A.  Meanwhile, the media continue to ignore mounting evidence that there was a conspiracy to spy on, entrap and fuck with his presidential campaign.

Proof that old people can still make good music.

Enjoy hump day.  I’m taking my daughter, who is a Giants fan, to watch Verlander shut them down.  God bless day baseball.

Comments

491 responses to “Wednesday Morning Links”

  1. MikeS

    Re. the “Dead” baby story: Christ what a bitch!

    1. MikeS

      Oh, and first bitches!

    2. Bob Boberson

      While it’s by no means something unique to them, young soldiers/sailors/marines/airmen seem to have a talent for finding the craziest, most devious & duplicitous young wives imaginable. Speaking from befuddled second-hand experience.

      1. MikeS

        It does seem that way. Growing up near an airbase I’ve seen more than a few airman who ignored the hot/crazy ratio.

        1. Bob Boberson

          Some even forget the importance of the “hot” part of that ratio. I’ve seen so much havoc reaked by these “whore to housewives;” wives prostituting themselves out of base housing, stealing all his shit and disappearing while he’s deployed, moving boyfriends into their house while he’s deployed, false paternity……..trailer parks have nothing on military housing in terms of insane drama.

          1. Viking1865

            There’s a reason that they use to not let, IIRC, E-4 and below marry without the permission of the CO.

          2. Gustave Lytton

            I’ve seen more than one junior officer similar bad marital choices.

            Gentlemen by an act of Congress.

          3. Bob Boberson

            Gentlemen by an act of Congress.

            it still astounds me how 19th century attitudes and assumptions go unchallenged and are basically “baked into the cake” of military culture

          4. Bob Boberson

            Which, while I get why, creates an environment ripe for petty tyranny. I’m glad those rules aren’t in effect but, like I said below, you mix fucked-up incentives with young, dumb and full of…..well, you get the idea. It doesn’t make for wise choices

      2. Drake

        Yes – I saw many a young Marine ruin his life that way.

        1. Tejicano

          A Marine buddy of mine came back from a 6 month deployment to find his wife 3 months pregnant. He even tried to make it work.

      3. Chipwooder

        Honestly, some guys will marry almost anyone just to get to move out of the barracks, and the base rats know that.

        1. Bob Boberson

          Yeah, military compensation creates some super fucked up incentives. That’s another piece I’d like to collect my thoughts on and write but that would definitely take some time and research maybe later this year

      4. ron73440

        Not just young ones, we came back from Iraq and our 1st Sgt’s wife had moved and not told him. He went to his house and there were renters living there.(General Power of Attorney)

        He told us he wanted to kill her, but he knew he would get caught, so he didn’t.

        I believed if he found a way to get away with it, sh was dead.

      5. Fourscore

        I second the experience

  2. MikeS

    While being mauled, the 28-year-old Kornak managed to reach a canister of Mace-like bear spray and ended the attack, inadvertently spraying herself in the process.

    Having bear spray in the house makes someone 100% more likely to spray themselves with it.

    1. Brett L

      The next sentence though:

      She then walked to her work vehicle and drove to find help, according to Strickland.

      That’s pretty tough with a fractured skull

      1. MikeS

        Yeah, she’s a gamer, for sure.

        1. I look forward to the story about her in two years where she changed her plans, became a shark researcher and got bit by a shark.

        2. Slammer

          Chick that’s into bears?

          Usually doesn’t work out.

          1. *narrows gaze*

    2. Glitterstorm

      I had a co-worker at REI spray it by “accident” in the store. I have no idea how the fuck he managed that one but the store closed for the day and I went and got Costco hotdogs.

    3. Pat

      I’ve used it in the outdoors to deter non-bear animals before and had the wind blow it right back in my face. Wasn’t pleasant but there’s worse things. Getting mauled by a bear, for instance.

  3. Brett L

    I’m taking my daughter, who is a Giants fan, to watch Verlander shut them down. God bless day baseball.

    Speaking of Astros-Giants, Gerritt Cole must have been pretty deep in the doghouse with his wife, since he gave up a BP homerun to her brother yesterday. By the look on her face, she knew he served it up, too.

    1. Grooved that one, that’s for sure.

  4. MikeS

    Where the hell is everybody? They’re not working, so they must be sleeping?

    1. I had nothing to say, so I said nothing.

      1. MikeS

        I didn’t let it stop me.

      2. Pat

        Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

        – George Eliot

    2. Drake

      Why not both?

  5. Private Chipperbot

    will cause the media as well as the hoi polloi to overlook serious things like risking security by using unsecured device

    Now they’re concerned about unsecured devices? FFS…

    1. Yeah. Don’t these idiots ever look back at their previous work?

    2. MikeS

      Yeah, that really jumped out at me too.

      Maybe the just-published Politico report of Trump’s deliberate, cavalier use of a cellphone that doesn’t have strict security safeguards would be getting extra attention. The story outraged me, because it’s yet another glaring example of Trump’s dual set of rules — proper ones that apply to others and nonexistent ones that let him and his clan do as they please — and it puts the lie to his supposed horror over Hillary Clinton’s sloppy email habits. Not for the first time or for the last, he’s being a raving hypocrite.

      So, it’s OK for you to be a hypocrite, as long as you are accusing Trump of being one? OK. Fuck off.

      1. The Clinton email setup has been confirmed. Has any official statement been made to substantiate the claims of Trump’s alleged use of insecure phones? Or is it still just “sources speaking on the condition of anonymity” with the media reporting them as the gospel truth?

        1. MikeS

          This is actually the first I’ve heard of it. Granted, I haven’t been following this shit closely, but still. And as far as insecure phones go, didn’t herself do that with the extra phone she had to have on her that she denied having until photographic evidence proved her to be a liar…again?

      2. Bob

        I’m not sure there’s a requirement to use government phones for government work like there is for Email.

        The idea is if the taxpayers fund your work they have a right to review it. Therefore all government work has to be done through the government email system where it’s archived for FOIA and oversight. That’s easy since email accounts are cheap. It also doesn’t mean you can’t have your own private email. The private email is not for work though, and if it’s used for work it should be transcribed to an archive for the public.

        But not every government employee gets their own cell phone issued, nor would that be particularly useful since the communication isn’t recorded anyway. You can’t talk about secret information over an unsecured cell, but I’m not aware of any prohibition that run of the mill government work can’t be done on one.

        1. Psycho Effer

          ^This. You don’t need to use a government phone or email to call your buddy and shoot the shit. Being President doesn’t mean that the public owns your entire existence. You just need to be careful to use the right email/phone for the right purposes, and never mix the two.

  6. Slammer

    Great links, sloop.

    Happy Bday, Eldest daughter!

    1. Well thank you!

    2. Old Man With Candy

      She’s quite cute.

      1. SugarFree

        [readies the bear mace]

  7. PieInTheSKy

    LOL, fucking millennials. Seriously, dude? Seriously?!?!?!

    Is he single, the ladies want to know.

    1. Slammer

      Pathetic. Those smug face pictures really work for the story, too.

    2. That eviction came ten years too late.

      1. Yeah, they might should have just taken him to a Planned Parenthood 31 years ago.

        1. Old Man With Candy

          I have often come out in favor of retroactive abortion.

          1. Rufus the Monocled

            I’m pretty sure that was a thing in some cultures at some point in history.

    3. Atanarjuat

      Yeah. He was never even in a relationship with the chick he knocked up, it seems.

      He’s also suing Best Buy for $340K for firing him. I kinda wonder to what extent his parents are at fault for spoiling him as child.

      1. trshmnstr

        Yup, as much as the articles want to paint the parents as victims, they made this monster and now they’re having to deal with him doing monster things. Nary a single tear should be shed for these enabling, coddling, phone-it-in, participation trophy, only-the-best-for-my-kid, so-called parents.

      2. Tejicano

        Not sure wtf the thought they were doing 10 years ago. I have 2 boys in grade school and I already know that if by the age of 20 either of them is still hanging around I will introduce them to the 4 military branch recruiters and talk them through their options. “Flap them wings or put on a uniform.”

      3. Rasilio

        I wouldn’t necessarily rush to blame the parents.

        Yes it is entirely possible that they created him and his sense of entitlement by coddling him his entire life but it is not necessarily so. Kids are individuals and some are just assholes who actively rebel against every and anything their parents try to teach them

        1. trshmnstr

          Kids are individuals and some are just assholes who actively rebel against every and anything their parents try to teach them

          Without diving too deep into the debate , I don’t buy the “bad apple” theory. In my mind, it’s lumped in with the “we just grew apart” theory of divorce. They’re both in the category of “you may not see it, but you contributed to this situation.”

    4. Banjos

      It really makes you fully understand how pathetic INCELs are knowing that this dude can get laid and they can’t.

      1. Tejicano

        INCELs are just a different facet of this loser expecting that they should be given that which they desire/need.

        1. Banjos

          Throw the 300 lbs blue-haired feminists in the mix demanding people find them sexually attractive instead of not eating an entire box of Twinkies a day, and you get the perfect trifecta of terribly-parented entitled Millennial brats.

  8. Slammer

    I’ve always been a big fan of Buck.

    One of baseball’s best.

    1. Rufus the Monocled

      Lol.

      There’s nothing worse than sticking your hand out and not getting one in return.

      You feel like an absolute fucken zero even if unintentional.

      In fact, it’s the equivalent to calling a woman a ‘cunt’ I submit.

    2. Chipwooder

      I’ve never forgiven him for blowing the 1995 ALDS by leaving Cone in Game 5 long after it was clear he had nothing left in the tank. Ruined Donnie’s only shot at a title.

  9. Old Man With Candy

    the investigation as being only about collision

    Typo, but more accurate this way.

    1. I’ll leave it then. Besides, I fixed six typos already.

  10. PieInTheSKy

    Lil Tay Claims She Has a Headphones Deal Worth Millions

    http://www.xxlmag.com/news/2018/05/lil-tay-headphones-deal-worth-millions/

    1. Lol, that kid is a libertarian in the making.

      1. Michael

        That kid is an hourly rate motel heroin overdose in the making.

  11. PieInTheSKy

    No links on the Philip Roth death? Isn’t he like a big American writer?

    1. I’ll leave that to somebody who can do it justice. I never got past fifty pages of his work.

    2. Old Man With Candy

      He is indeed, and I even gave Sloopy a link to use. But Sloopy is antisemitic, this is known.

      1. No I’m not. Although writing about a successful Jewish businessman who also was a sports star seems like it belongs in the fantasy section as opposed to historical fiction.

        In all seriousness, I just never read his stuff.

        1. Old Man With Candy

          No I’m not.

          That’s what Progs always say.

          1. Jarflax

            C’mon OMWC, Sloopy isn’t an antisemite, his favorite coach has been compared to Jacob or Esau?

  12. Rufus the Monocled

    Man is that guy a poster child for losers or what? Him and Pajama Boy are the face of the new and improved DNC. All he does is use the court system in an effort to ‘score’ that one big deal. He’s working on something big as Petty sang.

    “Shiniqua Simpleton., Mombia, India, 3 minutes ago
    If his parents were smart they could have change the locks while their son was at a Bernie Sanders rally last year.”

    lol.

  13. Rufus the Monocled

    Speaking of Konstantinov. You’re, ahem, old enough to remember the Red Wings ‘Big Red’ power play. Bowman basically said, ‘Russian-up the PP’. Total control of the puck.

    You also recall – as others probably more than me since you’re fart stains are older than mine – the CCCP with guys like Makarov, Larionov, Krutov and the aforementioned K’Nov. They were AMAZING to watch as much as I hated them.

    1. I PISS ON “RED ARMY NORTH”!

    2. The KLM line was insane.

      And the hockey world owed a debt of gratitude to the late Mike Ilitch for having the foresight he had in bringing the Russians here like he did. It probably would have happened anyway, but he still gets creditnin my book.

      ::pours out 40oz and dumps Pizza!Pizza! on curb::

      1. Rufus the Monocled

        Yeh that generation came a little late in their careers – Krutov was fat like Kessel by then – but they were still effective.

      2. Private Chipperbot

        The old beat writer for the Wings wrote a book about bringing the Russians over.

        One defection created an international incident and made global headlines. Another player faked cancer, thanks to the Wings’ extravagant bribes to Russian doctors, including a big American car. Another player who wasn’t quite ready to leave yet felt like he was being kidnapped by an unscrupulous agent. Two others were outcast when they stood up publicly against the Soviet regime, winning their freedom to play in the NHL only after years of struggle.

        1. Rufus the Monocled

          I remember those stories. We used to hear them when they tried to defect.

          1. ron73440

            I’ve recorded the movie Red Army, a documentary about the Soviet Hockey team that aired on the NHL Network, but I haven’t watched it yet.

            Has anyone seen it?

  14. Slammer

    Which Glib was this?

    Guy gets frustrated with cops and bomb squad and delays, so just rolls in himself to check out the bag.

    The original caller comes off as a total doofus:

    “He rode past me and he was saying: ‘I’m going to diffuse this situation’.

    “I was concerned for everyone still around, but really concerned for him. He was not acting in his right mind.

    “If I would have saw him coming down the sidewalk earlier, I would have tried to stop him. It’s a scary situation.

    “You don’t know if it’s a bomb or backpack. When he went and did it, I thought oh no. It’s not going to end well. It’s going to end bad.

    “Some water bottles came out and they were aluminium or stainless steel. You don’t know they were just water bottles. It could have been a bomb device there.”

    You don’t know if they were just water bottles. Classic.

    1. Brett L

      Fucking. Awesome. Does he have a legal defense fund yet?

    2. Suthenboy

      First comment: “People like that could put a lot of cops out of work and cause funding to be cut.”

    3. Atanarjuat

      They thought it could be a bomb, so they roughly tackled the guy on top of the backpack contents. Maybe it’s time to rethink that police recruit IQ ceiling.

      1. Bob Boberson

        They recruit based on IQ maximums rather than minimums….better chance that they’ll “just follow orders.”

        1. Bob Boberson

          Re-reading your statement I realize my comment was redundant…..*needs more coffee*

    4. Bob Boberson

      I saw that this morning on HLN (Robin Meade-WOOD)…..he may be my new hero. It’s nice how the cops face-planted him on the sidewalk for his trouble.

    5. ruodberht

      Well, after all, according to the Sun, he was going to “diffuse” the situation. Sounds like a threat to spread things over a large area, like a bomb would. QED.

      1. Brett L

        Well, if he failed to defuse the situation, he would have been diffused in a cloud of organic matter, most likely.

    6. MikeS

      It could have been a bomb device!!!!!!11!!

      1. Badolph Hilter

        *Looks suspiciously at avatar*

        1. MikeS

          Call the Boston PD! Close all the bridges!

    7. Pope Jimbo

      What? Water bottles? In Wisconsin? Something fishy about that!

      1. MikeS

        Oh, I’m sure they had beer in them.

        1. Pope Jimbo

          Paint thinner. Ted will back me up on that.

      2. Nephilium

        Why? It’s not like it was mineral water in Ohio.

  15. Pope Jimbo

    $100M of a department’s $248M budget was fraud? Uffda!

    While nothing can eradicate greed, there’s always room to improve fraud detection. A week ago, a Fox 9 TV report underscored that ongoing responsibility by spotlighting a program that remains a target despite ramped-up resources to deter theft — Minnesota’s $248-million-a-year Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP). Fraud in CCAP, which helps cover day care for about 30,000 kids, has been a known problem for years. Previous investigations and convictions, as well as the 2017 Legislature’s decision to fund the hiring of more investigators, have been well-publicized.

    But the Fox 9 report stood out for two reasons: It proffered an extraordinary number — $100 million — that may be lost to fraud. And it alleged these funds might have been funneled to a terrorist group in Somalia.

    Don’t worry. The spineless GOP didn’t do anything this year to actually cut any spending. So you don’t have to worry about any Somali day care operators going to bed hungry.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      Price of civilization

    2. I’m not sure they can even charge the people with fraud. Can’t they just use the “cultural incompetence” defense that was recently employed somewhere in New England?

    3. They’re not frauding hard enough.

    4. Tundra

      Mogadishu, Minnesota

      More on the situation, including the back story on how we got here. And this gem:

      Starting in the 1990s, the State Department directed thousands of refugees from Somalia’s civil war to Minnesota, which is now home to the largest population of Somalis outside Somalia itself. As the Washington Times noted in 2015, in Minnesota, these refugees “can take advantage of some of America’s most generous welfare and charity programs.” Professor Ahmed Samatar of Macalester College in St. Paul observed, “Minnesota is exceptional in so many ways but it’s the closest thing in the United States to a true social democratic state.” A high-trust, traditionally homogenous community with a deep civil society marked by thrift, industriousness, and openness, Minnesota seemed like the ideal place to locate an indigent Somali population now estimated at 100,000.

      It was a good run.

      1. Drake

        Who looked around 20 years ago and said: “You know what this place really needs? 100,000 Somalis!” ?

        1. I think it was more along the lines of “Where can we dump 100,000 Somalis that we can look benevalent, but don’t have to see them?”

          1. Brett L

            “Where will make them remember Somalia fondly?”

        2. A Fuggin White Male

          The lobbyists lobbying on behalf of Jennie-O. That’s who. Gotta have that cheap labor.

      2. Atanarjuat

        Interesting that they’re doing the same thing in Scandinavia as the Scandinavian-Americans, with the same unfortunate results.

        1. Tejicano

          Makes me wonder if they felt duty-bound to follow in their footsteps, or if they thought they could show how it was supposed to be done?

      3. Rufus the Monocled

        Are they diluting the Viking blood of Minnesota?

        1. Pope Jimbo

          Jokes on them. We are contaminating them.

          Their islamic army will be on the verge of winning the war, when the Viking germ will kick in and cause them to choke away the victory in some incredibly bone headed move.

      4. Rasilio

        Hey, Minnesoda is just following the example set by their Nord Cousins

        1. Tundra

          Check the timeline, Rasilio. We led the parade.

    5. Badolph Hilter

      Oh yeah, well, fraud happens in the private sector too you know!!1!!

  16. Scruffy Nerfherder

    SJWednesday: A Feminist Roundtable on Gun Control Is Everything You Would Expect

    Bad uses of statistics

    Demands that attribute mass shootings to mental illness and propose limiting medical privacy laws to let healthcare providers collaborate with police are incredibly disappointing. A hyperfocus on mentally ill people as the cause of gun violence is dangerous and ineffective. The vast majority of mentally ill people (who, by the way, make up one in six U.S. adults, including me!) do not commit mass shootings: less than 5% of gun killings in the US are committed by people with a diagnosed mental illness. Banning people with mental health conditions from owning guns wouldn’t have prevented Parkland, and demonizing people with mental health conditions allows for further encroachment on their civil rights.

    Attempts to be more woker than thou (looking at you whitey)

    I agree and I wonder: does calling individual shooters — many of whom may indeed have been experiencing a mental health crisis — terrorists do anything other than score white people woke internet points?

    And the uncanny ability to skirt so close to the truth yet miss the point entirely

    Guns aren’t just about individual deaths; the government’s organized control of access to guns is a way to organize and monopolize violence. What would the cops be without guns? What would the military and the state be without them?

    Ultimately, our vision of an anti-racist, anti-imperialist, pro-feminist gun control is one that not only acknowledges that no one deserves to die, but that everyone deserves to live — and to thrive — free from state as well as interpersonal violence.

    1. Rufus the Monocled

      They live their lives in a confused paradigm of word salad divided along ‘anti’ and ‘pro’ labelings and babblings and long run on sentences, like, because it sounds better and to use sophistry to confuse and because gun control and sick people shouldn’t get them and if it means we have to tie them up it’s for the collective greater good.

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        As with everything else, it’s only about who is in charge with them. It’s not about principles, but identities. The only thing bad about white males is that they’re white and male. If they were black and female, or purple and androgynous, they would be awesome.

        At least I get some entertainment out of watching them run around issues like this, contorting themselves into pretzels, desperately trying to avoid the logical conclusions by beating on their prose with a woke hammer until it submits.

      2. Slammer

        At least they admit that one in every six of them is mentally ill, though I suspect that among them that number most likely trends much higher

        1. Mad Scientist

          All women are at least a 4 crazy.

    2. Badolph Hilter

      less than 5% of gun killings in the US are committed by people with a diagnosed mental illness

      Whereas nearly 100% of assault-style weapons are used solely to commit mass murders.

    3. Rebel Scum

      mentally ill people (who, by the way, make up one in six U.S. adults, including me!)

      So what you are saying is that proggies and sjw’s are mentally ill.

      terrorists

      There is no “terrorism” without political motive.

      Ultimately, our vision of an anti-racist, anti-imperialist, pro-feminist gun control

      Otherwise known as “gun control” with a bunch of retarded, inconsequential and meaningless qualifiers.

      free from state as well as interpersonal violence.

      Violence does not begin or end with the gun.

  17. Sour Kraut

    Libertopia is here:

    A floating Pacific island is in the works with its own government, cryptocurrency and 300 houses

    Finally time to cash in that Sealand passport I spent my life savings on in the 90s!

  18. MikeS

    From that asshole who won’t move out of mom and dad’s house:

    He says he immediately filed an appeal as a ‘poor person’ so that his court fees could be waived going forward.

    DailyMail.com did discovered that he used to work at a Best Buy, and that he is suing the company for discrimination…He is seeking nearly $340,000 in damages, pay and attorney’s fees

    Michael also wouldn’t go into detail about how he lost custody of his son, but insists he is a ‘great father’ and that the court ruling was ‘unreasonable’

    Michael left court frustrated, refusing to speak to his parents and saying he didn’t think the judge read the case fully

    I’m sensing a pattern here. Fucker thinks the world owes him anything he wants.

    Also, I feel bad for the parents. I really, do. This has to be terrible for them. BUT; they are the ones who created this monster.

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Maybe the boy’s just a bad seed, like Hitler or Michael Bloomberg.

      1. MikeS

        “It’s not my fault! I swear!”

        /Klara Hitler

    2. ChipsnSalsa

      Like so many people, if he spent as much time working as he spends trying scheme his way out of work, he’d be pretty well off.

      1. Badolph Hilter

        Not sure that theory holds true if you can’t even manage to hold down a job at Best Buy.

        1. It does if said person deliberately sabotaged their employment by spending their effort avoiding doing the work they were ostensibly being paid for.

  19. Scruffy Nerfherder

    SJWednesday: Whatever You Do, Don’t Agree With Whitey

    With bonus hypocrisy in the conclusion

    The danger of defining the genius as a white male is multi-fold. First, as Coates writes, the tokenizing of a select group of geniuses like himself and Kanye puts crippling pressure on non-white and non-male artists to serve as the spokespeople for entire communities, for impossibly broad demographics. T.S. Eliot and William Faulkner were never asked to be the representative of every white male. “What Kanye West seeks is what Michael Jackson sought,” Coates argues. “Liberation from the dictates of that we.” Kanye’s is an impossible situation manufactured by a white mainstream that chooses to tokenize, rather than to open up our artistic canon and fold in a multiplicity of voices, backgrounds, experiences. If our canon were broader, if our curricula were more balanced, we wouldn’t act as though Junot Diaz’s behavior spoke for every Dominican man. As though Aziz Ansari’s comedy represents every individual of South Asian descent.

    What happens when we limit the genius club to a small, select group? When our idols are torn down — by their own foul behavior — we act as though it were some irreconcilable loss. Who will we watch if not Woody Allen? What will we read if not David Foster-Wallace’s Infinite Jest? Our mainstream artistic canon could be recreated ten-fold with the works of non-white, non-male artists who didn’t have the access to capital and platforms through which to share their work.

    Judith Shakespeare never had the room to pen her counterweight to “The Taming of the Shrew” (and if she had, it likely would have produced some comedy far less misogynist). There are countless more female and non-white voices whose works have been left off syllabi to make space for the “genius” of Wallace, J.D. Salinger, Norman Mailer, Leon Wieseltier. In this #MeToo moment, when artistic titans are being called to account, it’s time to redefine the classics. It’s time to make space for a new era of emergent genius — one defined more by artistry, originality, values, and voice, and less by race and sex.

    1. Rufus the Monocled

      Get a haircut and get a real job, Coates.

      1. Drake

        I disagree with conscription on principle – but can sure see how it would do this generation of young men a world of good.

    2. SugarFree

      First, as Coates writes, the tokenizing of a select group of geniuses like himself and Kanye puts crippling pressure on non-white and non-male artists to serve as the spokespeople for entire communities, for impossibly broad demographics.

      Coates isn’t wrong here; this is an actual issue. But where he is wrong is that he and Kayne are geniuses. Shrewd businessmen? Oh, yes. Geniuses? Oh, my, no.

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        I would argue that Coates desperately wants that position. He certainly does not shirk from it.

        West, as far as I can tell, does not assume that mantle for himself. He’s just a self-promoter. I think it’s more that when the “wrong” white people start to take notice of a black man’s opinions, the woke community uses every method possible to discount him and find a way to shut him down.

        1. SugarFree

          It’s more about what a genius is. I’ve met geniuses. They aren’t mush-mouthed rappers who marry Kardashians or opinion writers for The Atlantic who mistake long-winded incoherence for erudition.

          I mean, get that money. I respect that. But neither of them are even middling intellectuals, much less paradigm-shifting intelligences.

          1. Rufus the Monocled

            I grew up with a couple of geniuses. We’ve all read what makes a genius. We know one when we see one and all that.

            Problem with ‘genius’ is pop culture proclaims everyone they like a genius. Like the time Oprah called Jon Stewart a ‘genius’.

            Coates ain’t a genius. Like you said, shrewd sure. Smart, I grant.

            But please.

    3. Tejicano

      One of the things I admired about Prince – his music was his. It wasn’t black music nor white music. He promoted artists of any color. He wrote music for anybody he figured had the talent to make it work.

      1. Tundra

        George Clinton on cultural appropriation:

        I

        ‘d bite off the Beatles, or anybody else. It’s all one world, one planet and one groove. You’re supposed to learn from each other, blend from each other, and it moves around like that. You see that rocket ship leave yesterday? We can maybe leave this planet. We gonna be dealing with aliens. You think black and white gonna be a problem? Wait till you start running into motherfuckers with three or four dicks! Bug-eyed motherfuckers! They could be ready to party, or they could be ready to eat us. We don’t know, but we’ve got to get over this shit of not getting along with each other.

        1. Scruffy Nerfherder

          +1 Atomic Dog

        2. Sour Kraut

          Funny thing about that. George Clinton actually was a genius.

        3. “Wait till you start running into motherfuckers with three or four dicks!”

          Equipped to fuck multiple mothers at the same time.

          1. Count Potato

            MILF porn or inter-species erotica?

          2. Rasilio

            Why not both?

        4. Bob Boberson

          RAAAACIST!!!! /Prog

        5. Tejicano

          Well, yeah. George Clinton was colonizing his own continent of music back in the 70’s.

        6. Rufus the Monocled

          Bill’s long lost black brother?

          1. Tejicano

            Of the two I’d say the other would have been a better president. But that’s a pretty low bar.

        7. Akira

          As anti-racist rhetoric goes, that beats Obama’s blustery hoopla by a fucking mile.

    4. Akira

      Judith Shakespeare never had the room to pen her counterweight to “The Taming of the Shrew” (and if she had, it likely would have produced some comedy far less misogynist).

      The Taming of the Shrew has been called misogynist by an SJW? That only makes me want to read it more…

      1. Brett L

        Jesus Christ. They probably also love 10 Things I Hate About You. IT’S THE SAME STORY!

      2. As far as movie versions go, the Richard Burton/Liz Taylor version is still the best.

        1. Brett L

          Of course. Both of them could act.

          1. And then there’s “The Sandpiper”.

  20. It’s almost as if there’s something inherently sexual about this pose.

    http://archive.is/oqKnA

    9, 9, 9, 9 and 9. Oh and 16 is THICC.

    1. Atanarjuat

      I think I spotted a Toblerone Tunnel.

    1. MikeS

      Despite the prosecution, anti-gun activists have come out in support of the professor. Melody Vaccaro, vice president of Nebraskans Against Gun Violence, told the Post that…“We think this is the NRA using the criminal justice system to rain terror on regular people,” Vaccaro said.

      “Regular people” don’t stalk political opponents and spray fake blood on their homes.

    2. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Remember kids, if you keep your head down until after you get tenure there’s almost nothing you can’t say or do.

      1. Tundra

        Wait until the enrollment reckoning. It will happen.

    3. Chipwooder

      In the words of Moe Wanachuk, that cunt is no good.

      1. Private Chipperbot

        Here’s to all that gorgeous snatch in F L A…

        1. Chipwooder

          This isn’t art, boy, it’s sex!

  21. Scruffy Nerfherder

    SJWednesday: Suffering Is The New Black

    In reality, disability is a complex identity, and disabled people are multifaceted non-monolithic human beings. I am proud, like many people, to be disabled. When people suggest that my life would be better without my disability, it feels like they’re rejecting me as a person.

    Unfortunately, cure-focused narratives have deep roots in systemic ableism and continue to persist today. When news broke out that Stephen Hawking had died, public figures and media outlets alike were quick to frame his disability as a burden.

    1. “and disabled people are multifaceted non-monolithic human beings”

      Rich coming from someone who likely ascribes hook, line and sinker to toxic identity politics that seeks to strip all individual agency from people and lump them into predetermined demographic categories to be led around like cattle.

    2. Semi-Spartan Dad

      My wife and I were accused once of being discriminatory “neurotypicals” because of the therapeutic treatments we’re pursuing for our son with autism. Let that sink in… “neurotypical”. Therapeutic treatments meaning therapy to help him talk and interact with the world. This SJW told us providing any assistance at all was bigoted because, as the article noted, it frames his disability as a burden.

      SJWs are pure evil and a cancer on society. They would create a Hell on Earth if ever allowed to come into real power.

      1. Semi-Spartan Dad

        I thank this site for inoculating me to such insanity by repeated exposure in small, controlled doses. My dear wife has never experienced SJWs before and was completely floored.

        1. Tundra

          You need to teach her the Glib refrain for round two with the SJWs.

          1. “Fuck off, Slaver”?

          2. Tundra

            Bam! UCS gets it in one!

          3. “Touch my kid and I’ll kill you. Slowly.”

          4. Semi-Spartan Dad

            It’s a good saying. I’m a fan of Q’s though too.

          5. trshmnstr

            “if you keep sticking your ass in my business, ill stick my business in your ass”?

      2. Sour Kraut

        I’ve seen plenty of that. There’s the “neurodiversity” movement. Sadly a lot of scientists and “skeptics” endorse this view. And I agree with you. These doctors wouldn’t say diabetics have “blood diversity”.

      3. Nephilium

        If you want to see evil, look into the concept of deaf culture. This has been around longer then the SJW’s.

    3. Rebel Scum

      . I am proud, like many people, to be disabled.

      I am not saying you should have a negative self image, but this seems odd to be “proud” of. One, it is unfortunate and two, it is not something (necessarily) in ones control.

      cure-focused narratives have deep roots in systemic ableism

      **facepalm**

      “Stop trying to help make my life better, you bigot!”

  22. PieInTheSKy

    Mexico: brazen daylight shootout turns Guadalajara into war zone

    Attack on restaurant targeting former state prosecutor brings war on drugs to one of city’s trendiest avenues

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/23/mexico-brazen-daylight-shootout-turns-guadalajara-into-war-zone

    Shame on the US for what it is doing to Mexico

    1. Brett L

      Mexicans have agency, too.

      1. PieInTheSKy

        Yes. This one for example

        amexcid.gob.mx

    2. commodious spittoon

      But how!? GUNS DON’T EXIST IN MEXICO. They’re not allowed! There’s laws and everything! Even if someone wanted to shoot someone else, there’s no way they could! THEY’RE NOT ALLOWED TO!

  23. RE: Baby selling scheme.

    What a bizarre story. Guy married the wrong woman that’s for sure.

    Also; one thing that irks me is the need to always qualify adopted children’s parents. It’s always “adoptive” father or mother as if they are less in some way. In reality, to me, they’re the real parents doing the hard work and shaping the kid’s life. It’s a lot more of a commitment than ejaculating/being ejaculated into. Call them the parents and the bio-parents sperm donors and incubators.

    1. Tundra

      Agreed. The biological part is the easy part of parenting. I hope the guy ends up adopting the baby, marrying a non-piece-of-shit chick and lives happily ever after.

      1. My cousin ended up marrying a woman who was pregnant with a rape baby. He is 100% the father of that kid regardless of genetics.

        1. Chipwooder

          My uncle married a woman (who turned out to be a worthless sack of degenerate pill addict shit) who had an 18th month old baby. The biological father wanted nothing to do with the baby, so he renounced his parental rights and my uncle adopted the baby. Even though his parents have split up acrimoniously and his blood relation is his mother, my now-22 year old cousin sided with his father.

        2. Count Potato

          STEVE SMITH, JR??

        3. blackjack

          My wife is adopted. Early on in our relationship we gave a child up for adoption. Now we have an adopted son who was seized by the state. When I was a child I was seized by the state twice, once to put legal pressure on my mom (by the cops and about drugs) and the second time as a juvenile delinquent (eventually they placed me in a foster home with a pedophile and I escaped and never looked back.

          1. blackjack

            sorry, we adopted our son because he was seized by the state, he wasn’t seized from us

      1. LJW

        Ok that’s weird I sware I was making a new post but it appears to have come out as a reply. Also edit fairie please help!

    2. Bob

      That makes about as much sense as the complaints about disabled people not being called able diverse. They say they’re adopted because they are, it’s not some sort of slight meant to provoke.

  24. Rufus the Monocled

    I read a great quote on youtube the other day:

    “Jordan Peterson is the Rocky Balboa of the culture wars”.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      Meh. I do not find Peterson that impressive. But I assume he strikes a chord to both fans and foes.

      1. His ideas are not ground breaking; they would have been utterly uncontroversial 25 years ago. What’s impressive about him is his willingness to singlehandedly take on the monumental force of Leftist PC culture. To me, the guy defines bravery.

        1. PieInTheSKy

          I don’t like his style which seems to me also as a more subtle appeal to emotion than reason, and also a bit of returning to the same few things when sometimes the topic is different (like in the debate I mentioned bellow). Also I think he makes some claims a bit strongly relative to the evidence, especially tings from psychology. But it is effective. My way of addressing issues is not.

          1. Rufus the Monocled

            How does he appeal to emotion?

          2. PieInTheSKy

            With his rhetorical style. Or this is my impression of him. How his voice and demeanor changes during his deliveries. I will think of why looking at him often gives me this impression to see if I can properly articulate it.

          3. PieInTheSKy

            Or maybe I just confuse good rhetoric with that. Maybe this is why I sometimes prefer argument in writing as a way to get arguments across not based on how engaging you can be talking.

          4. Rufus the Monocled

            I think you did. He does’t do rhetoric.

            He has a style sure but it’s not designed to prey on the emotions.

            If anything, it’s almost Zen-Spock like – which can ruffle or confuse people for sure.

            I personally love that it makes people squirm.

          5. PieInTheSKy

            I don’t find him Zen myself. He is not attempting perfect calm. He does get rattled on occasion and he does change his voice, rhythm, demeanor in the course of building his case.

          6. Rufus the Monocled

            Zen-like!

            I don’t think you’re appreciating the fact he gets attacked with extreme prejudice in a lot of these interviews. It’s designed to throw him off and sometimes they get him for a couple of seconds.

            On the balance, he’s been quite composed and solid. Sure he may lose some composure but quickly regains it. He’s human after all.

            I think you may be, if I may, nit-picking. There aren’t many people like him around in the public sphere.

        2. Brett L

          Yes. Its mostly that he doesn’t get angry or disrespectful, just keeps mauling his attackers with cool, Canadian politeness.

      2. Rufus the Monocled

        Oh, I find him damn impressive. To put up with that shit and all the misrepresentation with a calm, cool demeanour? Gotta give the man props. Plus he’s helping to jolt people who were fed a pack of bull shit lies back into place.

        1. PieInTheSKy

          I meant his style of doing things does not work for me. But I understand it works for most of the people. And he does fight em head on and in a smart enough way.

        2. MikeS

          I haven’t seen a lot of him, but when I have the first thing that always strikes me is his composure. Quite impressive.

          1. It is the lack of emotive response that infurates those whose worldview is built on feelz.

          2. Evan from Evansville

            This is what I find the most impressive as well.

            I would lose my shit if someone boiled me down to “angry white man.” When he hears that I feel so sorry for him—you see his face, just accept how stupid it is, but he knows that if he lashes out then he loses.

            That he can continue to keep his cool while being so purposefully whipped up like that is legitimately amazing. When I get into discussions/arguments I know that I have to argue based on logic, reason, and fact. My opponents…not so much.

            I can handle their bullshit-posed-as-erudition for a while. I really can. But eventually I just have to call bullshit on them. That he never (publicly) loses his cool is amazingly admirable.

          3. Rufus the Monocled

            Exactly. The temptation to strike someone with such an allegation is great. As my wife says, ‘how can you possible respond to such a charge without looking bad?’ That’s how they fuck with you. They’re evil little shits.

    2. Rufus the Monocled

      And I never understood why they gave a character who was supposed to be an Italian-American an Iberian name. Was it that hard to use Rocky Prosciutto or Rocky Pecorino? Or Rocky Scrova? Or Rocky Sukastamignia?

      https://www.houseofnames.com/balboa-family-crest

        1. Rufus the Monocled

          See? Was that so hard?

      1. Brett L

        Meh. He grew up in an Italian neighborhood in Philly and was Catholic. Boom. Congrats, you’re Italian

      2. I blame the Romans.

      3. Count Potato

        Boats.

  25. PieInTheSKy

    I was a few days ago but I watched the Munk debate with Stephen Fry and the alt rights favorite psychologist. That Michael Dyson was from my point of view the worst debater I ever seen. But I feel he is convincing to many. Lots of big word salad to make him sound cultivated while saying nothing of substance, making everything about race and speaking with pathos in a rhythmical preacher way. Fry was the only guy on topic. The pro PC part started every argument with a personal attack on Peterson.

    1. So basically the Ta-Nahesi Coates of debate.

      1. PieInTheSKy

        I looked at some lefty sites who though the pro PC side one. Those people have no understanding of what a valid argument consists of. I am having more and more trouble with this. I believe in debating ideas and arguments, but I cannot seem to find a way to do so with left wingers. They have no concept on the difference between subjective and objective, argument and anecdote and such. And I don;t think they care to learn. I cannot see getting through. I am not talking changing opinions. Just a better level of debate.

        1. Two reasons:

          1. They operate on the premise that feelings are supreme, so their entire ideological foundation is anathema to logical debate.
          2. They have existed in a homogenous ideological bubble for so long that they have gotten intellectually lazy and incapable of arguing their points.

          To them, their conclusions are self-evident and if you disagree you are either too stupid to understand or you have some evil hidden agenda.

          1. Stinky Wizzleteats

            Debate should be about convincing undecideds who have some sense and an open mind, lefties deal in emotion and dogma and are a lost cause.

          2. PieInTheSKy

            Dyson in the debate makes the argument: you are white and cannot see white privilege like a fish does not know what water is. This is a poor argument. You are basically saying you are wrong cannot tell and have to blindly believe what I tell you. This sort of argument is meaningless because it can be used for any debate and cannot be falsified. Well it can be falsified by saying it is a bullshit arguments. You need to have an reasonably objective quantifiable evidence for your claim or it is worthless. The point of a debate is that I don’t blindly believe you and you need proof I can perceive.

          3. “Nuh uh, the Emperor is totally dressed in an awesome outfit, you’re just tooo unsophisticated to see it.”

          4. Scruffy Nerfherder

            Exactly, the concept of privilege, as defined by the SJWs, exists only to shut down debate.

          5. Rufus the Monocled

            My friend once told me I could not question the merits of ‘free post-secondary education’ because my parents covered my tuition.

            I would say it’s not only a ‘poor’ argument but an unfair one without merit.

          6. It’s not an argument at all. It’s screaming “your opinion doesn’t matter so shut up!”

          7. Rufus the Monocled

            Yes. Except in this case it’s weird because my friend knows I’m informed and always praises my ability to argue. But that goes out the window the second it’s a topic or issue they deem off limits. It’s weird.

            I told him ‘okay. You can’t talk about hockey because you played tennis.’

            He kinda got where I was going with that.

          8. Gustave Lytton

            Ah, the old “you don’t have kids” so you can’t weigh in on why someone is a shitty parent.

          9. Rasilio

            Take a fish out of water and see just how well it understands what water is

        2. Scruffy Nerfherder

          They have no concept on the difference between subjective and objective

          They explicitly deny the difference between the two. It’s not an oversight or a misunderstanding, it’s a precept of their philosophy.

          1. PieInTheSKy

            But this makes debate worthless. You feel what you feel I feel what I feel and we have no way of solving it. Just by inventing oppression pyramids and saying somehow the oppressed are right, but this is silly. You are not right just cause you feel oppressed. I feel oppressed.

          2. Scruffy Nerfherder

            When you realize that it is all about power, and only power, it makes perfect sense.

            Logical consistency is not a goal. Achieving power is.

            But for Marxism there is stronger philosophical reason that rules out democratic reformism: environmental determinism. Marx holds that except as a malleable potential, there is no human nature — “the human essence has no true reality,” wrote the early Marx. Consequently, humans are plastic and shaped by their circumstances. “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their lives,” Marx wrote, “but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.”

            If you view that man is a product of his environment and only his environment, then the only way to move forward towards utopia is to seize power and force the environment to bend to your will.

          3. Tejicano

            For them – feature, not bug.

          4. Exactly. It’s weaponized postmodernism. Derrida talked all about how meaning is totally dependent, not just on the context of the actions, but on the person interpreting them; thus rendering any concept of objectivity meaningless. Lefties have taken that, fused it with Marx’s permanent revolution and used it as an assault on objective reality ever since. Hence attacks on biological sex and gender, the most fundamental essence of human experience. Despite of how evil it is, it’s actually quite elegant. It truly is the Dark Side of the Force.

            “Is the Dark Side more powerful?”
            “No. But, easier and more seductive.”

    2. Stinky Wizzleteats

      I can’t quite bring myself to watch that particular shitshow.

      1. straffinrun

        It’s worth it. Dyson humiliated himself.

    3. Rufus the Monocled

      That’s why Peterson is amazing as we said up top.

      Dyson went straight to an ad hominen attack revealing in the flesh he’s a fraud and piece of racist shit.

      1. PieInTheSKy

        Not only Dyson, Michelle Goldberg mad every argument first about Peterson and then about principle. Isn’t ad hominem like the most classic of logical fallacies?

        1. Rufus the Monocled

          She was just plain lost and useless. Talk about spinning around throwing all the trivial tropism that comes with the narrative, losing footing and then closing with ‘yeh, so white privilege is bad, m’kay?’ Intellectual masters my ass.

          A NYT writer no less.

      2. Akira

        What I remember about that debate is Peterson trying to speak in a calm and reasoned manner, and Dyson interrupting with, “Mmmmm! Hmmmmmm!!!! Mmmmmmmm!!!” Fucking grade-A debating skills, shitbird.

    4. PieInTheSKy

      Also I am still amazed how various online publication simply blatantly lie

      https://torontolife.com/city/toronto-politics/learned-last-weekends-political-correctness-debate-starring-jordan-peterson/

      On stage was Peterson—the guy who has famously refused to use they/them pronouns to address gender non-conforming students (at his job at a publicly funded university). – this is not true. He opposed a law mandating this.

      New York Times published a profile of the prof, in which the author lays out Peterson’s support for “enforced monogamy” and patriarchy based on innate male superiority. – this is not true

      Goldberg quoted from the profile in her opening statement—presumably as a way of articulating the dangerous ideologies that could prevail in the absence of PC culture. – this is silly. Dangerous ideologies whatever they are prevail perfectly well in PC culture. Maybe even more.

      Peterson accused her of attacking him personally. – she did attack him personally.

      1. They’re just lefty political operatives with bylines. Consider them the propaganda wing of whatever prog political party in their country and you’ll have an accurate description. They have as much integrity as the artists creating posters of Kim Jong Un.

      2. straffinrun

        They really are fucking with the wrong guy. He’s not an extremist. Much more statist than, say, Rand Paul. It looks ridiculous to paint him the way they are. Easy to prove they are wrong about him and he won’t apologize when he’s not wrong.

        1. Scruffy Nerfherder

          I read an interesting opinion on why the left is gunning so hard for Peterson. It’s not because his ideas are so different from other conservatives, it’s because Peterson has chosen to preach inside their church. They own academia, they own social media, yet these are the venues in which Peterson is competing for influence and he is winning. Therefore, they must destroy him.

      3. Stinky Wizzleteats

        Facts aren’t important and it’s all about the narrative. Don’t pull your hair out, there’s no amount of logic and sound argumentation that’ll make these people see the truth.

      4. TK

        I highly encourage this type of reporting from the left. The more they blatantly lie, the less seriously they are taken in the future.

  26. Scruffy Nerfherder

    SJWednesday: Wherein They Admit It Is All About Power, And Only Power

    Narrator: It can be difficult to tell the difference between sexual empowerment and sexual objectification when the only distinguishable difference is that one is supposedly “good” and the other “bad.”

    Narrator: So what is the difference? That would be power.

    That is, who is controlling a person’s presence in the sexual situation? If the person being “looked at,” or sexualized, has the power in the situation, then they are sexually empowered.

    1. These people are legitimately insane. Truly sick.

      1. Rufus the Monocled

        Progressivism is all but about seeking power and control for its own sake. ‘Consensus’ is meant to be manipulated to achieve power.

        Hence stupid terms like ‘democratic socialist’.

        1. Scruffy Nerfherder

          It’s the lens thru which you can understand what they do and how they think.

  27. MikeS

    My wife recently discovered Einstein Bros. bagels. The french toast ones are proof that Yahweh exists. Geshmak!

    1. I originally misread that as french bread bagels.

      I was confused as to what that would evoke such a reaction. French toast I can understand.

    2. Badolph Hilter

      Nothing beats Bruegger’s bagels.*

      *out of the several bagel places in southern Michigan

  28. Rebel Scum

    risking security by using unsecured devices

    So NOW it’s a problem.

    decries that the media are letting Trump frame the investigation as being only about collision when its about so much more

    Yea, overturning the result of the 2016 election.

    (which contradicts the spirit if not letter of the directive)

    It contradicts the letter. But since when does the law matter?

  29. robc

    Meanwhile, Liverpool get set to take the biggest of big stages this weekend.

    The FA Cup final was last weekend. You may have missed it due to the 2nd biggest event in London last Saturday.

    1. Juvenile Bluster

      Nobody gives a shit about the FA Cup anymore.

      1. robc

        I am not sure why anyone cares about exhibition matches against European teams.

  30. Pope Jimbo

    Won’t anyone think of the drug addicted kidz?

    Evil Big Pharma and their lobbyists victimized kids by killing a bill to steal $20M/year in taxes in a “backroom lobbying campaign”.

    Before you get too giddy….

    The bill that included the fee passed the state Senate 60-6, and would have raised $20 million in licensing fees from pharmaceutical companies every year. But that fee failed to make it into the final budget bill, replaced by $16 million from the state general fund.

    So we are still going to dump a shit ton of money into a hole. And if you still have any residual feelings of good will toward the GOP for not passing this monstrosity, read the story and read the comments by the GOP fuckers.

    1. Pope Jimbo

      BTW, if you want to know just how lefty the Minnesoda GOP is, read this story about their campaign to pressure Gov. Mumbles into signing their big shitty omnibus bills.

      The highlight of the campaign is when they trotted out a bunch of people who really, really, really want to suckle at the teat of govt. (to be fair, the more principled of them don’t want cash, they just want govt to force you to do things that they want).

      To that end, they brought up — one-by-one — people from across the state, each with a personal stake in items inside those endangered bills. There was the mother from Nisswa whose daughter was badly injured by a driver with a suspended license who supports increased penalties for such offenses. There was the group-home owner from Chisago who needs increased reimbursements for his workers. There was the technology company owner from St. Paul who wants a tax credit for angel investors. There was the deputy state registrar whose South St. Paul business is in danger unless she gets some reimbursement for costs caused by the state’s troubled MNLARS computer system. And there was the son whose elderly mother died at an assisted living center who wants state oversight of elder care enhanced.

  31. Was initially a reply above to Lefty debating tactics above, but I thought it deserved its own thread.

    [Shouting “privilege!”] is the rhetorical equivalent of a deus ex machina. We’ve talked about building ethical codes without a concept of G-d and how some kind of force outside the realm of human debate must exist to define certain actions as universally good or evil. However, this can’t be used to debate things logically within the realm of humanity; which is why it requires faith.

    Lefties accept their premises (privilege, structural inequality, etc.) on faith and cannot argue them logically because they have replaced traditional ethical codes with their Marxist dictums. They are religious fanatics and debating is more like evangelizing. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have a problem with any of it, except for the fact that they are not just evangelists, they are jihadis bent on cultural domination and forced submission. It’s why they have such an affinity, subconscious or not, for Islamic fundamentalists.

    1. Rufus the Monocled

      And are tenured in some cases.

    2. PieInTheSKy

      So we get back to I feel this is right so it must be.

    3. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Lefties accept their premises (privilege, structural inequality, etc.) on faith and cannot argue them logically because they have replaced traditional ethical codes with their Marxist dictums.

      I think it’s more fundamental than that. Their premises of privilege and structural inequality exist solely to further the cause of achieving power by eliminating opposition. When you wipe out all logical criticism by tarring it with a unrejectable premise, you can move towards your goal of achieving power in an expedited manner.

      Some of them have drunk the Kool-Aid and actually believe in privilege and the sort, the more savvy realize what it is really about.

      Stephen Hicks does a great job of dismantling Marxism and defining its logical conclusions.

      It follows that for Marxism the democratic process is a pointless sham. Democracy presupposes the effectiveness of reason — that individuals can observe, think, and judge for themselves, that they can learn from experience, be open to argument, and change their minds. Marxism, however, rules that out on epistemological principle: knowledge is conditioning, not rational judgment.

      In final consequence, it follows that when differently-conditioned individuals meet, the conflict can be resolved only by force. Socialists cannot argue capitalists into socialism. They cannot objectively present reasons or appeal to reason. They can only take over by violence and remove their social enemies.

      The SJWs are just useful idiots in the war. Outright violence to achieve the socialist utopia wasn’t succeeding anymore, so they picked a different battlefield to fight on.

    4. Rebel Scum

      Lefty debating tactics

      They feel, therefore they are correct. And they feel that you are a racist, homophobe, islamaphobe, etc, etc. if you disagree with them on any particular thing.

      There is no logic or honesty when debating a marxist. They call you names, then insist that you started it. They move the goal-posts, they lie. They project so much that they might as well have JVC tattooed to their foreheads.

  32. Juvenile Bluster

    Jesus fuck, Donald…

    Donald J. Trump
    ‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump

    Everybody is with Tomi Lahren, a truly outstanding and respected young woman! @foxandfriends

    Can one of his staffers invent, like, a fake twitter that he posts on but nobody else can see, and then fill it with (actual) bots that respond to him so he can be satisfied?

    Also, that got me thinking. That article the other day about how those researchers pulled numbers out of their asses to say that Twitter bots made up the difference in Trump’s election and in Brexit. If you look at the replies to anything Trump posts on Twitter, they’re pretty well univerally negative. But if you look at the replies to the same thing he posts on Facebook, they’re pretty much universally positive.

    tl;dr: The people in the middle (not the hardcore Trumpalos), the ones who went from being Obama voters to Trump voters, probably aren’t on Twitter being swayed, to the extent that a few dumb twitter bots actually swayed anyone to vote for Trump, which I still really don’t see.

    1. I wouldn’t mind being “with” Tomi Lahren IYKWIMAITYD.

      1. Tundra

        No kidding. I had no idea who she was. Sad that it happened in Minneapolis.

        1. Gustave Lytton

          I’d take her clothes to be dry cleaned and buy her a drink if it would help. 😉

    2. Chipwooder

      Cmon, he just wants to fuck her. Can’t blame the guy for trying.

    3. Juvenile Bluster

      Also, another one, Donald?

      Donald J. Trump
      ‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump

      WITCH HUNT!
      9:34 AM – 23 May 2018

    4. Pat

      tl;dr: The people in the middle (not the hardcore Trumpalos), the ones who went from being Obama voters to Trump voters, probably aren’t on Twitter being swayed

      Nah, out of work rust belt boomers who have to call their grand kids to program the universal remote were totally ensconced in an online ideological echo chamber. Thankfully they have been purged from the platform now so that diversity could be restored.

    5. Count Potato

      “‘Looking back, those are the people that will be embarrassed by the action. Their parents raised them better, furthermore, you don’t have to like me but you don’t have the right to throw things at me.

      ‘Is it at that the point that you can’t disagree with somebody, civilly? It’s really disheartening.’

      She added that it the ‘silver lining’ to the incident was finding unlikely support from critics who ordinarily ‘detest’ her, including the notoriously anti-Trump comedian Kathy Griffin who tweeted in her defense after footage of the attack surfaced.

      ‘Hey, that’s the silver lining in the whole thing, there are people that normally detest me and they’re coming to my defense at least on this incidents, so maybe moving forward who thought it was fun to throw party, maybe that they’ll see that that’s not the cool thing to do.

      ‘If Kathy griffin is sticking up for you or defending you, hey, I will take it.’”

      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5762077/Trump-tweets-support-Fox-pundit-Tomi-Lahren-drink-thrown-her.html

    6. Akira

      That article the other day about how those researchers pulled numbers out of their asses to say that Twitter bots made up the difference in Trump’s election and in Brexit.

      I love that idea… A small number of robo-Tweets totally swung the election for Trump, and this is despite the fact that practically all of Hollywood was trash-talking him, numerous mainstream media outlets were literally colluding with the Democrat Party, and there’s considerable evidence that the Obama administration pursued every possible avenue of sabotaging Trump’s campaign.

      But oh no, it’s Trump who had the unfair advantage…

    7. Bob

      I don’t get it. Why is it bad to support her or whatever.

  33. PieInTheSKy

    Our laws make slaves of nature. It’s not just humans who need rights

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/23/laws-slaves-nature-humans-rights-environment-amazon

    Recently, 25 children brought a lawsuit to end the deforestation and its devastating impacts on the environment and their own wellbeing. – interesting they can afford a lawyer

    In 1972 the law professor Christopher Stone published a seminal article, Should Trees Have Standing?, that explored the possibility of recognising the legal rights of nature. He described how women and slaves had long been treated as rightless in law, and suggested that just as they had eventually attained rights, so trees and other nonhuman living things should also do so. – everything I don’t like can be compared to slavery.

    1. Interesting how he manages to make a compelling case against abolition and suffrage.

      1. commodious spittoon

        I’m curious what he–or anyone backing those children–would think of the rights of the unborn. Surely, if we’re giving over rights to non-sentient objects, we should recognize the rights of eventually sentient fetuses.

        1. If a pregnant woman had a tapeworm, he’d argue for the rights of the tapeworm before those of the child.

  34. Drake

    Has the Assad Regime ‘Won’ Syria’s Civil War?

    Yes and no – they don’t seem to have the manpower to consolidate and hold the territory.

    A rule of thumb used by military planners states that 20 troops per 1,000 civilians are required for stability operations.

    Ha! No wonder Statists love gun control. I don’t think that ratio would work in some areas of the U.S with a true rebellion.

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      If we’d stop funneling cash and weapons to mostly foreign insurgents they’d have no problem consolidating. Those “opportunities” that might be available for the US that article talks about are built on the deaths of thousands.

      1. Drake

        I think there is a deal to be made. Assad winning the war but emerging relatively weak is obviously the best case scenario for us. Offer him the win (we cut off all funding to opposition groups except maybe the Kurds). He agrees to some human rights stuff – including inspections. And he cuts ties with Iran and Hezbollah.

        Win – win. Iran loses an ally. A guy who won’t slaughter Christians runs Syria.

        1. Stinky Wizzleteats

          Maybe but I just don’t see our foreign policy gurus as being sharp enough to pull that off.

          1. Drake

            They to be making gains elsewhere.

    2. Akira

      Ha! No wonder Statists love gun control. I don’t think that ratio would work in some areas of the U.S with a true rebellion.

      And I wonder how many US military members would actually go along with such a thing. I know there would be a lot of people who blindly follow orders and/or think it’s cool to finally get a chance to shoot some people, but judging from the attitudes of most military people I’ve met, there would be a huge amount of desertion and defection.

  35. straffinrun

    Most outrageous false flag/misinformation campaigns in US military history?

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      The moon landing, of course

      *grabs roll of tinfoil*

      1. straffinrun

        Well, that’s a wrap.

    2. Lachowsky

      U.S.S. Maine.

      1. straffinrun

        Teddy, the proto neocon.

    3. Chipwooder

      It wasn’t an exclusively American operation, but I’d say Operation Fortitude.

    4. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Operation Northwoods-Not put into action but lord have mercy.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

      1. Negroni Please

        what the fuck? How do I not know of this? Whelp that’s going to be covered in my class this summer.

      2. Scruffy Nerfherder

        I remember reading about that before. It’s a fantastic example of how you should NEVER trust the government to be truthful and accountable.

        it was authorized by the Joint Chiefs of Staff

    5. Tundra

      WWI

      1. straffinrun

        Probably III, too.

    6. NoDakMat

      The conviction of Iva Toguri as “Tokyo Rose.” There were several women that were known as Tokyo Rose among the troops and American propagandists. Iva was an American citizen who was caught in Japan caring for her parents when the war started, and was essentially forced into service by the Japanese. She tried her best to actually hide positive messages for the American troops in her broadcasts. When she returned to the US after the war, Walter Winchell and the American Legion demanded she be prosecuted, so the government fabricated a case to appease them. She was eventually pardoned by Ford after investigative journalists (what now?) uncovered the government shenanigans.

  36. Lachowsky

    Well hell. I met a suicidal deer this morning on the way to work. These compact cars really don’t hold up well in a collision.

    1. Drake

      Sorry to hear that. I’ve been there several times. Had one pop out of the brush mid-way through a sweeping turn. He looked right at me a begged for death’s sweet embrace. He got his wish and took my bumper, hood, and radiator with him to the afterlife.

    2. Tundra

      Yikes! Looks drivable, though. You cool?

      1. Lachowsky

        Yeah. I made it to work on time. Sucks though. I’m pretty sure my insurance will cover it. I have collision. Just sucks. Damn deer jumped out of the woodline and right in front of me. I didn’t even have time to slow down. I hit that fucker at about 50mph. Doesn’t look like the radiator is cracked and the wheel well isn’t rubbing against the tire. It sure looks like shit though.

        1. kinnath

          I picked up the 7-10 split on a pair of does at 60+ mph one day. Destroyed the sheet metal on both sides of the car, but left the hood and radiator intact so that I could drive home.

        2. Count Potato

          In most states, deer are covered by “comprehensive” not “collision”.

          1. Lachowsky

            I have that too, so I should be good.

          2. Yeah, collision was the damage done to the other vehicle, comprehensive was the damage done to me, liability was the damage done to bystanders and property, and collusion was what Hillary did.

          3. Badolph Hilter

            *golf clap*

          4. Los Doyers

            “Yeah, collision was the damage done to the other vehicle,“ Wrong. Collision is first party coverage (covers your car) that you can use anytime a car strikes your car or vice versa. Most people use this coverage when they’re in an at-fault collision to get their *own* vehicle fixed, but you can also use this coverage if you don’t want to wait for the at-fault party’s insurance to reach a liability decision (depending on the insurance, that could take a while).

            “comprehensive was the damage done to me, ” Wrong. Comprehensive is first party coverage (covers your car) that covers anything OTHER than a car to car damage. Examples include animal damage, fire, tree branches falling, hail, etc. Also covers theft/vandalism. Pretty much every situation other than your car hitting another car and vice versa.

            “liability was the damage done to bystanders and property”
            You were actually kind of correct on this one. There are two parts to your third party (damage you do to other cars/people) liability coverage: your bodily injury coverage and property damage coverage. Bodily injury coverage quite obviously covers the injuries/death you cause in an at-fault accident. It also pays for your legal defense should that person try and sue you. Property damage coverage pays if you are responsible for damage to another person’s property, be it a car, house, bike, whatever. Don’t skimp on these coverages. Try to afford the highest you can, especially if you have assets to protect. Cars are more expensive, and if you cause a three car collision on the freeway and you carry shit property damage coverage, you’re already in hot water. I work for the gecko. I see these situations all the time. People get sued. Oh, also, UCS, you just got ackchyually’d.

          5. l0b0t

            If I may offer an unsolicited plug for your employer. We recently switched over from Nationwide and found, to our delight, that the monthly savings for doing so were $5 more than the monthly payment on our new (to us) Nissan trucklette. The gecko’s favorite customer.

          6. Gustave Lytton

            As long as there are pedants on the internet, you can count on Geico to save you money

            Also, RIP R Lee.
            https://youtu.be/XfmVBmDKLZI

          7. I roll my eyes at the “customers who switched saved…” adverts, because the people who wouldn’t save wouldn’t switch. Anyway, my premiums dropped by half when I switched to Allstate from… Allstate. Technically from eSurance, but they got bought by Allstate before I switched.

            I’m still waiting for the ‘actually’ regarding collusion insurance.

          8. R C Dean

            collusion insurance

            See, also, the Steele dossier.

          9. Los Doyers

            The collusion bit was good, so no ackchyually needed there. But I just had to give you a taste of your own pedantic medicine, UCS. Nothing personal

          10. If you’re not going to stick to the bit…

          11. Los Doyers

            Striking a deer is covered under comprehensive insurance (hitting an animal,) however, swerving to avoid a deer and striking a tree would be covered under collision.

    3. Pope Jimbo

      Uffda. We laugh at your tiny Arkansas deer.

      And special for you Lach, look at this important bit from that story:

      Wurtz was wearing a seat belt while driving the 2001 Pontiac Grand Am involved in the crash. She was not transported to a hospital.

      ::Officer McSafety nods in approval::

      1. Lachowsky

        Yikes. Deer are bad enough. I wouldn’t want to have to contend with moose and elk.

        I have a buddy who has hit a cow before. It totally destroyed his Geo Metro.

        1. Geo Metro? I’m going to guess the cow walked away without noticing.

          1. Lachowsky

            I know that particular cow was the only loose cow in the county that no farmer would lay a claim to. Funny how that works.

        2. kinnath

          About 15 years ago, a local guy hit a cow on the highway while driving a motorcycle. Neither the cow nor the guy survived the incident.

          1. Lachowsky

            Yikes. That’s not surprising. Cows are heavy, motorcycles are not.

        3. Gustave Lytton

          I hit a cow. Thankfully I was driving a non-pop can F150. It was still running and I was able to move it and the wrapped cow so I was only blocking one lane of traffic.

      2. Tundra

        No information was available about the moose.

        That’s because he he shrugged it off and went to look for a little whitetail.

        1. R C Dean

          Him so horny?

    4. Scruffy Nerfherder

      That sucks.

      A friend of my wife hit a deer and it came thru the windshield where it proceeded to flail around and spray blood all over the entire family until it died.

      1. Which, the deer or the family?

        1. Scruffy Nerfherder

          Dude, I don’t switch pronoun antecedents mid-sentence.

          Do you think I’m a barbarian?

          1. Stop trying to spoil the joke with Grammar!

        1. Scruffy Nerfherder

          Yep, pretty much like that except with the deer in the cabin.

        2. commodious spittoon

          Good fucking God, was that sedan set to blend?

          Palette cleanser.

        3. Lachowsky

          That’s crazy.

      2. Brett L

        Had a friend who hit a deer and thought he’d take it home and eat it. Fucker woke up in his trunk and went all Tommy Boy on everyone.

    5. Pat

      At a time like you may appreciate this

    6. straffinrun

      Literally a deer in headlights.

    7. I hope you stopped and at least took the hind quarters and backstraps. That’s some damn fine eatin’.

  37. Rebel Scum

    A government wildlife worker who recently landed her dream job researching grizzly bears in a Montana mountain range is recovering from a bear attack that left her with a fractured skull and other serious injuries

    Seems like a bad idea for a woman to work around bears given that it is known that they can smell the menstration

    She was apparently following the right protocols for working in grizzly bear country, including carrying bear spray and a satellite communication device

    I would like to note that the “proper protocols” do not include carrying a 45-70 for defense against huge beasts that with literally maul/kill you and the bear spray likely just pissed it off. Well, what hit it anyway because…

    While being mauled, the 28-year-old Kornak managed to reach a canister of Mace-like bear spray and ended the attack, inadvertently spraying herself in the process.

    Ouch.

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      I maced myself once during a drunken episode.

      I can’t even imagine what hitting yourself with bear spray would be like.

      1. Bear spray is, IIRC, actually weaker than pepper spray intended for humans. The containers pack a big volume, but the active ingredient is actually at a lower concentration. Bears have a vastly more sensitive sense of smell than humans, so you don’t need as much.

        1. Badolph Hilter

          There’s a product test job you don’t want.

      2. Gustave Lytton

        I knew a couple of guys years ago that decided to try out pepper spray. Not nearly as incapacitating as it seems, and probably even less if the attacker is hopped up on something.

    2. Akira

      I like that old discussion that would pop up on gun forums from time to time:

      “Hey guys, I’m going to be hiking out in bear country – what’s the best handgun for bear defense?”

      “Oh, any kind of handgun you’re comfortable with… Just make sure to file off the front sight first.”

      “Why would I file off the front sight??”

      “So it won’t hurt so bad when the bear takes that handgun and shoves it up your ass!”

    3. l0b0t

      When I bike/camp in CO., I carry my S&W 329PD (skandium and titanium in .44 magnum) as prophylaxis against bears. I hate the damn thing; the felt recoil is like catching a fastball barehanded. That said, it very much will kill a bear. I will go to great lengths to not kill a bear but I would still like to have the option when all by myself out in the Front Range.

    4. JaimeRoberto

      This happened on a trail I had hiked about a month earlier. https://www.adn.com/wildlife/article/woman-mauled-brown-bear-cordova-hiking-trail/2014/08/13/

      We got about 1/2 mile down the trail, encountered a bear, backed away slowly and returned to our car. As we were getting in our car a lady in a pickup truck pulled up, grabbed her shotgun out of the back and took off merrily down the trail. It might even have been the same lady in the article.

  38. kinnath

    I had a Crimson Trace laser grip installed on my Springfield Armory 1911 EMP last night. What an awesome device that is.

    You can’t miss under 10 yards. You can shoot twice as fast with better grouping than with standard sights.

    At 25 yards, I put 16 of 18 inside the 8 ring; 11 of those inside the 9 ring; and 6 inside the 10 ring. While shooting a 9 mm with a 3 inch barrel. Not bad for the first time shooting with the laser.

    1. Juvenile Bluster

      The only reason you’d want that is to kill people. I’m calling the FBI!

      Hey everyone, I stopped a mass shooter! Give me money!

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder

      This just in:

      Old man has a laser guided EMP. He’s going to take down the electrical grid.

    3. Negroni Please

      They are super handy just don’t let it be a crutch. Like all the people who carry DA/SA but only ever practice in SA (same with wheelgun folks who only shoot SA). Or folks whose nightstand gun is loaded with full house .357 but they only practice with .38. Batteries die at terrible times, and likely you have guns that don’t have a laser. Keep up plenty of practice without the crutch too.

      1. kinnath

        I practice regularly with an EMP-4 and shoot league with it. No lasers allowed. 😉

        I’ve put about a thousand rounds through the EMP at the range. I can put 45 out of 50 in the 9 and 10 rings at 15 yards.

        What I found surprising was just how fast you can reacquire the target and shoot again with the laser versus standard sights.

        1. Negroni Please

          Right on man. You can do cool shit with lasers. Like clearing a corner in the retention position and still be capable of accurately engaging a distant threat. It’s like a cheat code.

      2. R C Dean

        We’ve got lasers installed in the guide rods on a couple of our pistols. My guess is that they are most useful in a true high-threat situation by giving you a very instinctive and relatively obvious aiming point. They really don’t do much for my range accuracy, probably because my accuracy limiter is more trigger pull than sight acquisition.

        1. kinnath

          I shoot just fine at the range without a laser.

          My wife and I have lasers on our carry guns, because shit happens. You are stressed, and you have no time.

          With the laser, you put the green dot on the target. If you squeeze the trigger in a semi-controlled fashion, the bullet hits within inches of the green dot. The gun does not have to be in the proper place. Your grip does not have to be perfect. You don’t have to have enough light to see your sights.

          Just put the green dot on the target and try to control your squeeze.

          But we still practice at least bi-weekly (usually weekly) to do everything the right way without using a laser sight.

        2. kinnath

          The other big consideration (more for me than my wife) is actual vision. I am an old man. That means I am losing my near vision. I wear bi-focals. My distance vision with correction is better than 20/20. With my near vision lens, a book at reading distance is crystal clear. However, my mid vision (like the distance from my eyeballs to the sights of the gun with my arms extended) is not great. Tri-focals would help at that distance, but getting things perfectly aligned with the sights in the mid-range lens and the target in the distance lens would be pretty much impossible in a threatening situation.

          So, looking through the primary distance lens in my glasses I see three slighting blurry posts that I have to line up with each other and then the target. At the range this is easy enough to do. In a dark parking lot, not so much.

          With the laser, I hold the gun just a bit lower, I don’t look at the gun at all, I look at the crystal clear greed dot sitting on the crystal clear target. Then I squeeze the trigger. It is shockingly easy to do.

          It will be a long term problem to not learn to depend on the laser. So I’ll just have to burn through several cases a year at the range without the laser. What a terrible situation. 😉

  39. Rebel Scum

    the media continue to ignore mounting evidence that there was a conspiracy to spy on, entrap and fuck with his presidential campaign.

    They were in on it.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    No information was available about the moose.

    Being withheld pending notice of next of kin.

    1. Tundra

      That Guy • 17 hours ago
      Road’s closed. Moose out front should have told ya’.

      LOL

    2. commodious spittoon

      The moose was illicitly given up for adoption to a Texas couple but a highway patrolman revealed the sham.

  41. TK

    I wholeheartedly approve with the thumbnail used for this links post. Its good to see that the heroes of my people are remembered.

  42. The Late P Brooks

    From up there, someplace:

    I am proud, like many people, to be disabled. When people suggest that my life would be better without my disability, it feels like they’re rejecting me as a person.

    Unfortunately, cure-focused narratives have deep roots in systemic ableism and continue to persist today.

    A perfect illustration of my point the other day about how the victim culture rampant today is not about finding solutions or making life better/easier, it’s about marinating oneself in oppression and demanding unquestioning acceptance and accommodation from the world at large.

    Do you want school shooters? Because this is how you get school shooters.

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Proud to be disabled and decrying cures? Fuck you. As the owner of a neurological problem I’d damn near sell my soul to get rid of I hope that attitude never takes hold.

      1. Old Man With Candy

        As the owner of a neurological problem

        Let me guess: you want cake?

        1. Stinky Wizzleteats

          I’ll pass.

    2. commodious spittoon

      When I’m finally losing my luxurious head of hair, at least I can claim to be a proud victim of MPB. A survivor, really. I’ll be so brave.

    3. R C Dean

      When people suggest that my life would be better without my disability, it feels like they’re rejecting me as a person.

      Which is stupid, but shows that her identity is to be a victim, rather than, say, a person who strives to overcome the obstacles in her path. There is a deep sickness percolating through some sectors of our society; I don’t know how widespread it is or when/how it will end.

  43. “Careful what you wish for, lady. Or perhaps she was menstruating, because I heard that attracts them.”

    I just want it known that I was nowhere near that area and had nothing to do with this, and nobody can prove anything to the contrary.

    1. TK

      We can’t prove that you weren’t in the area, either. What’s your alibi?

      1. straffinrun

        He was hanging out with MS 13?

  44. Tundra

    Dirty Jobs, Good Pay

    Mike Rowe is terrific. Too much to summarize well, but I liked this paragraph:

    With unemployment now below 5 percent, employers find themselves casting an even wider net for workers. Ex-convicts remain a largely untapped source of labor, but since many grew up without working fathers as role models, they often have little grasp of what’s expected of them in the workplace—one reason that anti-recidivism initiatives that focus primarily on encouraging prisoners to complete high school and work toward a college degree while behind bars have such a low success rate. Project JumpStart, a Baltimore construction-trade training program for ex-offenders supported by Koch and Rowe, instead tries to inculcate in its participants the basics of comportment—showing up on time, being responsible for your work—as the first steps on a path to a construction career. After a decade in operation, Project JumpStart says that 80 percent of its graduates are still employed in the industry. It has assembled a stable of employers happy to hire its trainees because of program grads like Antoine Boykins, who tells Rowe during an interview: “A man afraid to work is a man afraid to live.” When he’s asked what his skill is, Boykins replies, “I work hard.”

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      This is how you rehabilitate.

      1. Assuming you actually want to. More prisoners = more sweet government lucre. Recidivism is a job-security program for the prison-industrial complex.

    2. Brett L

      During the last big boom in FL, maybe 2005, the guy who ran the GED program for the FLDOC told me that they had construction guys standing outside of prisons looking for helpers. I think they do a lot of construction trades training in FL for them that wish to opt in.

    3. R C Dean

      Antoine Boykins, who tells Rowe during an interview: “A man afraid to work is a man afraid to live.” When he’s asked what his skill is, Boykins replies, “I work hard.”

      Damn. Some lucky bastard has him on the payroll.

      1. Gustave Lytton

        No shit. Hopefully his conviction won’t stand in the way of owning and operating his own business in the future. I’d put money on him.

  45. The Late P Brooks

    Like all the people who carry DA/SA but only ever practice in SA

    Every now and then (not lately, though- I’ll put it on my list of things to do), I’ll run a few mags through the Sig and de-cock after each round. Because that DA trigger pull seems like it’s a mile long (and HEAVY) when you’re only used to SA.

    1. Negroni Please

      Yeah that’s why I hate DA/SA. Consistent trigger pull is a big deal to me. I’d rather a long spongy (but consistent) DAO to a DA/SA. With waaaaaay too many people who carry DA/SA (cough….cops…cough) it’s a virtual guarantee that they will throw their first (and most important shot) way the fuck off target.

    2. kinnath

      Or, carry SA-only.

    1. Endless Mike

      He hosted the Man Show with Adam Carolla before he decided to become a little bitch.

  46. The Late P Brooks

    Project JumpStart, a Baltimore construction-trade training program for ex-offenders supported by Koch and Rowe

    *runs away, shrieking*

    1. Tundra

      Awesome. I hoped that would trigger someone.

  47. Count Potato

    “We’ve lost 630,000 Americans to overdoses since 2000. We’re in the midst of an #OpioidEpidemic. The House will soon consider more than 60 bills to combat this epidemic because we can’t let opioids continue to ravage our communities.”

    https://twitter.com/SpeakerRyan/status/999289718683721728

    What could possibly go wrong?

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      we can’t let opioids continue to ravage our communities

      Anthropomorphism for the win. Proving Republicans are just as good at it as the gun-grabbers.

      1. straffinrun

        Team Red: Guns don’t kill people, opioids do.

    2. Urthona

      I don’t really like how the media has managed to market this as an “opioid” epidemic. It’s a heroin and fentanly epidemic. It’s been careful marketed as to imply that somehow ordinary painkillers are getting people hooked and the evil medical industry is to blame.

      Isn’t the case.

      People are just doing these drugs because they enjoy doing them.

    3. Badolph Hilter

      There’s a problem, therefore government must get involved.

    4. Alternatively: “Let’s manufacture a problem to solve so it looks like we’re doing something to justify our existence instead of tackling real problems facing the country.”

      1. Urthona

        I was just googling around on this, and guess what else spiked in 2015/2016?

        All other drug related deaths.

        https://d14rmgtrwzf5a.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/overdosedeaths1.jpg

        Surprised? Are we quite sure it’s “opioids” themselves that is to blame? Maybe we should be asking why people are abusing more drugs in general.

        1. TK

          Because the labor force participation rate is close to an all-time low? People are bored, poor and discouraged.

          1. Brett L

            I’ve been looking at the breakout of labor force participation rates. It mostly has to do with with the number of old people and young people not working. For instance, black women between 20 and 50 participate at record levels. Black men between 20 and 50 are well within historic norms and rising. Hispanic men 20-50 just passed white men for highest racial/ethnic rate, both near all-time highs. White, Hispanic, and Asian women in the 20-50 are falling from their 2000s era high back to a more historic medium.

            What has changed is that there are a hell of a lot of women 55 and over not working, and they are a fast-growing sector of the population. Men over 65 are also a growing segment of population.

            So 16-20 are underemployed and maybe bored and getting high instead of working. Everyone else is doing about what they were in the 90s.

          2. TK

            Hm, interesting, so this could just be an effect of an aging population? I haven’t dived into the numbers, so I honestly don’t know. I can’t comprehend putting anything in my body that came from a lithium battery strips and household bathroom cleaners either, so, its hard to really understand the thought process.

            I feel like we should probably be working longer these days anyway. Having people living in retirement for almost as long as they worked probably isn’t a recipe for success.

        2. There’s a good amount of commentary and research on this (not that our “betters” give a shit). Not just drugs, but alcohol and suicide as well, “deaths of despair” if you will. There is something more fundamental at work here, but it requires a lot of thought as to what it is and it almost certainly isn’t something the government can do anything about.

          But let’s prohibition harder and ban more shit. That’ll fix it.

    5. TK

      I don’t necessarily think the government will be very effective at solving the problem. In fact, they are more likely to make it worse. That being said, a lot of my customers from around the country (all rural areas) say that the meth/fentanyl problem is really out of control in their communities. It’s seriously fucking up the labor market for our industrial sector.

      1. R C Dean

        In fact, they are more likely to make it worse.

        We know for a fact it will make it worse. Clamping down on prescription painkillers drives people to the black market, where they will find heroin and/or will graduate to harder prescription drugs like fentanyl. Black markets always gravitate toward stronger substances. Always.

        This means it isn’t an “unintended consequence”. It is a known consequence.

        1. TK

          I wasn’t really talking about the legal/less restricted opioid market, but yeah I totally agree with you. I was talking more about shake & bake, etc.

        2. Shut up Dean we have to DO SOMETHING!!!!

        3. Count Potato

          If you make the problem worse, then you can throw more money at it.

  48. Both Clapper and Brennan are pieces of shit that should be behind bars.

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/04/james-clapper-leaker-liar-sleazeball.php

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      I still can’t get over the fact that we had a fucking commie in charge of the CIA.

      1. tarran

        It’s not surprising….

        The CIA was always staffed by people from the upper-classes who had graduated from ivy league schools. Guess which sorts of people are most likely to become commies? 😉

    2. straffinrun

      Brennan led the crusade to get John Kiriakou locked up for leaking stuff that should’ve been leaked. Scumbag.

    3. Brett L

      Venal selfish fucks, or conspiring bureaucrats. I’m not sure there’s a difference in the distinction

  49. The Late P Brooks

    We’re in the midst of an #OpioidEpidemic.

    I blame the Yellow Peril.

    1. commodious spittoon

      Frank Zappa warned y’all.

  50. Count Potato

    “Conversely, among the president’s supporters, there is now a presumption that the entire Russia investigation was and is a bad-faith effort by the “deep state” to create an “insurance policy” against a Trump victory — that there was never reason to investigate Trump, and each new revelation about a different investigatory technique (national-security letters, informants, FISA applications, etc.) is proof of additional wrongdoing.

    I’m in neither camp. I simply don’t know if Mueller has any “goods” on Trump or his campaign. He has obviously exposed a troubling degree of real and alleged criminal misconduct surrounding Trump, but he has not yet exposed evidence of actual collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. To the extent that I have a view on the ultimate outcome of his investigation, I’m skeptical that it will find that Trump or campaign officials actively conspired with Russians. The best investigative journalists in the world have been attacking this story for more than a year, with the help of a White House that leaks like a sieve. Yet no substantial evidence of campaign collusion — legal or otherwise — has emerged.

    At the same time, however, I find the notion that the Russia investigation itself was corrupt from the beginning to be so bizarre as to border on fantastical. There was ample reason to investigate whether the Trump campaign had improper contacts with Russians.

    In short, the Russia investigation has always been necessary, and it’s not over. The quickest way to discern whether a person is a credible analyst of this entire sorry affair is to determine whether they’ve prejudged the outcome, because no one knows what the future truly holds. Let the Mueller investigation continue. The partisan outrage can wait.”

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/russia-investigation-robert-mueller-reach-natural-conclusion/

    I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.

    1. Urthona

      French is still sticking to his guns I see.

    2. Stinky Wizzleteats

      The CIA and the FBI embedding themselves in a presidential campaign, totes cool.

    3. straffinrun

      If he has anything somewhat showing that Trump is a Russian Manchurian candidate, Mueller is a total asshole for not putting it out sooner. What if he started WW3 or something while Mueller was “building” his case? They’re lying. He doesn’t have shit.

    4. TK

      I understand the investigation as an “insurance policy” against a Trump presidency, but if the real goal was to stop him from winning — wouldn’t these FBI and CIA spies have broken major Russia collusion stories all during Fall 2016? They did a pretty shitty job of it.

      I guess the strategy could have just been to spy and feed information to the DNC instead.

      1. SugarFree

        Talk of Trump colluding with the Russians already wasn’t getting any traction (when he joking called for the Russians to find Hillary’s 30,000 deleted emails.) Without a smoking gun, it was better to keep it quiet and hope Hillary won rather than give him more “I’m an outsider, they are all against me!” ammo.

        1. TK

          Yeah, that’s a plausible explanation I suppose.

        2. Endless Mike

          Plus the odds of Hillary losing to Trump are 99 to 1 #538

      2. Brett L

        Assumes competence not in evidence.

        1. kbolino

          “Quantity has a quality all its own” or more specifically, “when you’re in control of the vast majority of the institutions, you don’t need to be competent”.

        2. TK

          I’m not following you.

    5. kbolino

      Right. An investigation that almost immediately turned into a fishing expedition and witch hunt with a blatantly partisan bias is totally not corrupt. Don’t believe your lying eyes, this is the government and they are purity and light personified.

    6. R C Dean

      I’m in neither camp.

      Well, its too early to draw definitive conclusions, but the pieces that we do have point, IMO, toward the deep state conspiracy.

      There was ample reason to investigate whether the Trump campaign had improper contacts with Russians.

      There was? From what I can tell, the “reasons” were based on an obviously bogus/manufactured oppo research memo, and some very flimsy/sketchy reports by people of dubious credibility who were highly motivated to lie. Its possible, I suppose, that there really was some kind of illegal activity (note: not the same as “improper contacts”), but if so its pretty much a happy coincidence, because nothing that has been cited as the reason for the investigation has stood up to scrutiny.

      Its also possible, of course, that Mueller is sitting on a bombshell and just buttoning up the final details that will show Trump really did solicit and receive illegal help from the Russians. Highly unlikely, IMO, since the indictment of the Russian troll farm specifically exonerated any American from criminal wrongdoing, he has brought nothing but bullshit process/perjury indictments to date, and his operation leaks like a fucking sieve. But you can’t entirely rule it out.

      Its also possible that the full IG report will exonerate the entire alphabet agency complex. Again, somewhat unlikely, since the IG has already made criminal referrals. I do think people who are counting on the IG to drain the swamp are going to be disappointed, but I’m betting that what’s in his final report will be orders of magnitude worse than Watergate.

  51. The Late P Brooks

    but he has not yet exposed evidence of actual collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

    I am stil waiting for a detailed and specific definition of what constitutes this “collusion” and an explanation of the mechanics of its effect on the votes as cast/counted.

    1. Badolph Hilter

      Exactly. It’s disappointing to see allegedly serious journalists just accept the premise that “collusion” is in and of itself some kind of high crime, with no qualifiers whatsoever. It’s just conceding 3/4 of the argument to the retards right off the bat.

      Remember when it was about “hacking the election?” My how far those goalposts have traveled.

    2. R C Dean

      One of the things that makes Mueller’s appointment illegal is that he was charged with investigating something that isn’t technically a crime. You will search the federal criminal statutes in vain for the crime of colluding with foreign governments. “Collusion” covers more than what the criminal statutes actually prohibit.

    1. straffinrun

      I don’t really trust that government.

      1. straffinrun

        Oops. Started halfway. The debate starts at the beginning.

        1. Going back and rewatching from the beginning this struck me:

          “Sexual assault increases 138% in 2 years.”

          That. is. fucking. OUTRAGEOUS. And Sweden seems more likely to jail you for bringing up that inconvenient fact than for actually committing a rape.

          Progressivism = suicide pact.

          1. straffinrun

            You can bring it up, but you can’t break it down by ethnicity. Ignorance is bliss.

      2. Sweden is a cautionary tale about the effects of combining unlimited immigration with a cradle-to-grave welfare state. The rest of Western Europe isn’t much better. Canada and the US should really be paying close attention.

        1. kbolino

          Sweden doesn’t have unlimited immigration. It actually would be kind of difficult for you or I to permanently immigrate there. And this isn’t even organic migration. The government opened up a much easier path, spiced up with a set of perverse incentives, specifically to drive a certain category of migrants into the country. It’s not open borders, it’s a bizarre population transfer scheme that doesn’t make any goddamn sense.

          1. Endless Mike

            The beneficial byproduct of creating a racially / culturally separated dependency class is a fanatically loyal voter block. Not sure where they go that idea from…

  52. The Late P Brooks

    And, as has been pointed out by numerous people, how does this alleged “meddling” in the democratic process by Putin differ qualitatively from Obama’s flagrant efforts to sway the Brexit vote?

    1. Chipwooder

      Or Obama (and Bill Clinton before him) actively aiding Netanyahu’s opponents.

    2. commodious spittoon

      Or, you know, directing State Department funds to oust Netanyahu.

  53. Count Potato

    “EXCLUSIVE: Former Trump Adviser Admits Talk Of Second Government ‘Informant’ Directed At Trump Campaign Was A ‘Misunderstanding’

    Former Trump campaign adviser Michael Caputo suggested on Monday during an interview on Fox News that there may have been a second informant that approached the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. In light of these claims, The Daily Wire interviewed Caputo and the man that he claimed may have been another government informant sent to target the Trump campaign.

    “Let me tell you something that I know for a fact,” Caputo said on “The Ingraham Angle,” with host Laura Ingraham. “This informant, this person they tried to plant into the campaign … he’s not the only person that came at the campaign. And the FBI is not the only Obama agency that came at the campaign. I know because they came at me.””

    https://www.dailywire.com/news/30960/exclusive-daily-wire-interviews-former-trump-ryan-saavedra

  54. trshmnstr

    I still can’t believe that I was carded a couple weeks back for buying those snap-pop things (the little paper wrapped things you throw to the ground and they pop). I mean, seriously, ive let my 1 year old play with them… what’s next, 18+ for buying marbles??

    1. Badolph Hilter

      Marbles? Are you trying to tell me they can still sell those bag-o-choking-hazards? Where the hell is the Bureau of Consumer Protection?

      1. commodious spittoon

        I bet he even buys his kids Kinder Eggs. And those little magnet toys. And lawn darts.

        1. MikeS

          What a monster!

          Oh, wait…

    2. Bob Boberson

      Hell, with an up and coming generation that thinks socialism and free shit is the bees-knees, why don’t we just make it illegal for a minor to participate in a monetary transaction….maybe if they grow up with no concept of voluntary exchange we can finally have the new soviet man!!!!

  55. The Late P Brooks

    Or, carry SA-only.

    1911, FTW!

  56. The Late P Brooks

    what’s next, 18+ for buying marbles??

    CHOKING HAZARD!

    1. Endless Mike

      Bag O’Glass FTW

  57. Count Potato

    “HBO’s Watchmen series will be set in the modern day, says Damon Lindelof: “[Watchmen] was specific to the Eighties of Reagan and Thatcher and Gorbachv. Ours needs to resonate with the frequency of Trump and May and Putin.””

    https://twitter.com/Polygon/status/999022900412932096

    1. Count Potato

      “The superman exists, and he’s problematic.”

      https://twitter.com/neontaster/status/999070264305639424

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder

      [Watchmen] was specific to the Eighties of Reagan and Thatcher and Gorbachv

      No it wasn’t, it was an alternate eighties where Nixon was still President.

      Lindelof can’t write worth a shit. And Lost sucked.

      1. “And Lost sucked”

        ^^^This guy gets it.

      2. kbolino

        Not to mention that the Soviet Union of the Watchmen universe was influenced much more by Brezhnev than Gorbachev. Hell, when Moore wrote the story, Gorbachev had just taken office and his major reforms weren’t even implemented yet.

        This guy is a total idiot.

    3. Bob

      Watchmen was the 80’s version of SJWs shitting all over comics. It was cliched claptrap and only looks worse in hindsight since all of their doomsday assumptions were the opposite of actual reality. They should let it die.

      1. Urthona

        Eh, there were several things that were smarter than typical comics and pretty noteworthy at the time.

        1) The “heroes” were mainly vigilantes w/o superpowers. They were far from flawless people.
        2) Except one guy, who gradually lost interest in humanity.
        3) The villain believed sincerely that he was saving the world.

        I would say that it was pretty noteworthy.

    4. Rasilio

      “Ours needs to resonate with the frequency of Trump and May and Putin.”

      Bullshit, no it doesn’t. I mean you certainly could adapt a work and update it to a different age but it is hardly necessary to do so and if you do the only way to be successful about it is to have an honest representation of the age as it actually exist(s) and by focusing solely on Trump, May and Putin it shows that there is 0 chance he will succeed at this. Instead he will present a completely lopsided view of the world that is build on reducio ad absurdium and straw man attacks on the followers of said politicians. Something that will cut his audience in half right out of the gate

  58. KSuellington

    Sloppy, your daughter has great taste in teams. It will be tough though today for the G men to do to Verlander what they did to him in the World Series a few years back. I’ll be listening on the radio to the best broadcasting team in baseball hoping for an underdog victory today,

    1. KSuellington

      Sorry for the autocorrect there.

  59. The Late P Brooks

    I understand the investigation as an “insurance policy” against a Trump presidency, but if the real goal was to stop him from winning — wouldn’t these FBI and CIA spies have broken major Russia collusion stories all during Fall 2016?

    My guess is they thought President Hillary was such a slam dunk it was better to not provide him with any excuse. He’s a sore loser, you know, and he might object to the results of a fair and honest election. And those crazy Trump voters cannot be expected to behave like adults when they don’t get exactly what they want.

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      I think to some extent, they drank their own Kool-Aid.

    2. TK

      Yeah, I guess that fits hand-in-hand with SF’s explanation above. I think that’s plausible reasoning.

    3. R C Dean

      if the real goal was to stop him from winning

      I think their real goal was to curry favor with Her Inevitableness, and to follow the lead of the White House. Let’s not forget the involvement of Obama’s inner circle in the unmasking intel intercepts (illegally, BTW) and the change in policy coming from the White House that allowed that information to be spread far and wide.

      1. kbolino

        There’s a fine line in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act* that Susan Rice was walking along. It’s doubtful even a nonpartisan court could indict, much less convict, her. But the leaking of unmasked intelligence to the press is a straight up violation, but they’ve studiously ignored any admission of that fact and avoided any attempt to ascertain the identity of the leaker.

        * = And, thus, this is one of its critical faults

        1. R C Dean

          FISA is vague on the reasons for unmasking (“understanding the context”, etc.). I can’t point to chapter and verse on Rice’s unmasking, because I don’t think we’ve ever been told everyone she unmasked, when, and why. But she unmasked over 260 names during the tag end of the Obama administration, and some of what was unmasked was leaked. I think she’s lying when she says her intent was pure, but I can’t prove it because I’m not a federal prosecutor with the power to subpoena and indict people.

  60. Count Potato

    “The incredibly frustrating reason there’s no Lyme disease vaccine
    Your dog can get vaccinated for Lyme. You cannot.

    Yet in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a vaccine called LYMErix was sold to prevent between 76 and 92 percent of infections. Hundreds of thousands of people got it — until vaccine fear knocked it off the market.

    The LYMErix story is worth retelling today. It’s a stark reminder of how anti-vaccine mania of the past few decades is leaving us all more susceptible to disease.”

    https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/7/17314716/lyme-disease-vaccine-history-effectiveness

    TW: Vox, climate change bullshit, etc.

    1. trshmnstr

      I thought it was taken off the market because it was shown to be mostly ineffective. That’s what my doc told me when she prescribed my month long dose of antibiotics to clear up the bullseye rash.

    2. “how anti-vaccine mania of the past few decades is leaving us all more susceptible to disease”

      As I’ve said, all it takes is for some rich Malibu prog to go to the wrong Indian Ashram, bring back a case of polio and start spreading it around to all the anti-vax kids at the Montessori school. Even if your vaccine causes autism (which it DOES NOT) I’m pretty sure autism is better than polio. But whatever. Natural selection and all that.

  61. Count Potato

    https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/999177656317837312

    I can’t believe Shaun King spread a hate hoax. Next thing your going tell me he isn’t really black.

    1. TK

      I like how all of his replies are gifs. How ‘come whenever lefties are embarrassed, they always go straight to posting nothing but gifs?

      1. trshmnstr

        Gifs are for when you can’t get the real words out through the bouts of sobbing.

    2. blackjack

      Yeah, because the cops NEVER wrongly accuse anyone of serious crimes amirite?

  62. The Late P Brooks

    This song just came on. Appropriate for that deadbeat millenial kid link.

  63. Juvenile Bluster

    Holy fuck, for the first time in his public life, he’s made sense.

    Shaun King
    ‏Verified account @ShaunKing
    11h11 hours ago

    I fundamentally reject the notion that we can’t afford to hold Democrats accountable to some very basic principles and ideals like not voting for a torturer as the head of the CIA or not voting to cancel essential Wall Street/Big Bank reforms.

    Shaun King
    ‏Verified account @ShaunKing
    11h11 hours ago

    What I know is that come election time, Democrats come to Black churches, kiss Black babies, play the sax on Arsenio, go to the BBQ, and even contemplate taking a knee during the National Anthem.

    But in those off years, they do shit that sets us back decades.

    1. Bob

      But he’s just upset Dems aren’t giving blacks more free shit. In his mind if blacks had a fair shake Zealand a would exist in reality. Since it doesn’t the dems are holding them back.

      They’re not contemplating the GOP, they’re contemplating moving the Democratic Party to be like South Africa and confiscate whiteys land.

    2. kbolino

      I shudder to think what “essential Wall Street/Big Bank reforms” look like to a Democrat these days. They have generally demonstrated an utter lack of understanding in what banking is and how the regulatory environment has shaped banking in this country. Every time they propose a “reform” it always looks like a plan to make things much worse. The days of Cleveland and Jackson are long gone in the Democratic Party.

      1. TK

        I think he’s talking about this.

        1. kbolino

          Why would anybody want to hear a word out of Barney Frank’s mouth? Jesus.

      2. Akira

        They have generally demonstrated an utter lack of understanding in what banking is and how the regulatory environment has shaped banking in this country.

        They’ve swallowed, digested, and assimilated this Fake Fact that banking is “completely unregulated”. Ditto with healthcare.

        1. kbolino

          “Banking is totally unregulated”

          “Here’s the first 1000 pages of banking regulations”

          “They don’t go far enough!”

        2. R C Dean

          I think you could have a good argument over which is the most highly regulated industry – banking/finance or healthcare. I don’t think anyone else is even remotely in the running.

          1. kbolino

            I don’t think anyone else is even remotely in the running.

            Alcohol.

  64. Gilmore

    It is a sign of my growing sense of maturity and seriousness that i did not reply to this with photos of Boy George and Rob Halford

    1. Count Potato

      Culture Club and Judas Priest mostly played real instruments. Homo synthesis would be Soft Cell or The Pet Shop Boys.

      1. Gilmore

        Booo now you’re hijacking my joke.

        my point re: synthesis was more emphasising ‘contrasts’ (boy george bringing a more femine touch, and rob putting a dog collar on you and tattooing “BITCH” on your chest)

        but ok, but i would have gone w/ Eurasure and some leathery industrial thing.

    2. kbolino

      WTF is “contage”?

      1. Count Potato

        Spreading disease?

        1. kbolino

          So, infect? I can’t find any dictionary that has the word “contage” in it, and the root in Latin was a noun with no related verb.

    1. Gilmore

      Gilmore Turn Ons:

      – scottish accents

      Gilmore Turn Offs:

      – those earlobe plug things
      – gamer chairs. really? you fucking ponces. you get special chairs to play *videogames* in. because you have a tactical ass or something.
      – scottish people

      1. commodious spittoon

        What about Scottish THOTs?

  65. They told me that if Trump were elected we’d see Stasi-like tactics of blacklists and secret policing and they were right!

    https://www.thefire.org/freedom-of-association-officially-dead-at-harvard/

  66. The Late P Brooks

    It’s not race baiting when we do it, ch 849

    The headline of the evening was the blowout win by Stacey Abrams in the Georgia Democratic governor’s race. Abrams, the former minority leader in the Georgia General Assembly, becomes the first black woman to win a major-party nomination for governor in any state.

    The Republicans will have to wait another two months before they officially have a nominee. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and Secretary of State Brian Kemp are headed for a July 24 runoff. But the races on both sides Tuesday night highlight the very different directions the parties are headed.

    In Georgia, a state that has quickly become very demographically diverse, Democrats decided to lean in and pick a candidate who unabashedly believes the Democratic Party has made a mistake in Georgia of continuously trying to win over Republicans, when she believes they need to turn out more minority voters. Democrats haven’t won the governorship in Georgia in 20 years. Back then, the state was two-thirds white. Today, it’s just over half, and the Democratic primary electorate is overwhelmingly nonwhite.

    Abrams appealed directly to that. “We have the power to redraw the image of leadership so we can all see ourselves reflected in its face,” she said in a Twitter graphic. (In the graphic, “ourselves reflected” was underlined, an unmistakable appeal to black Democrats.)

    Good old NPR. Message? Platform? Allowing people to become more prosperous through hard work and innovation? Who gives a fuck about that shit? She has a vagina, wrapped in black skin. Elect her!

    1. “She has a vagina, wrapped in black skin. Elect her!”

      And we’ve found the campaign slogan for Kamala Harris’ presidential run.

  67. Count Potato

    ““Bowl food” is hot new trend where you eat food out of a bowl”

    https://thetakeout.com/bowl-food-is-hot-new-trend-where-you-eat-food-out-of-1826195748

    Groundbreaking shit.

    1. New? Bowls are older than the invention of spoons.

    2. commodious spittoon

      But then you have to carry around a bowl, and throw it out when you’re finished. Better idea: an edible bowl. In fact, forget this open-face bowl design, make it more of an envelope enclosing the food. It could be made of some sort of gummy material so it holds together and doesn’t saturate very quickly, but can still be incised and chewed. Maybe some sort of bread-like substance, with flour and gluten, fried into a sort of edible napkin that folds and bends.

      1. Endless Mike

        The Artful Dodger approves.

    3. Bob

      Reminds me of the guy who though buttered rolls were a local NY phenomenon. Food writers apparently think the rest of us Neanderthals just chew on squirrels fresh on the spear.

    4. Charlie Suet

      Is this new in America, or just to the hack? We’ve been disappointed by bowl food at work do’s for a few years now.

  68. The Late P Brooks

    They have generally demonstrated an utter lack of understanding in what banking is and how the regulatory environment has shaped banking in this country.

    Wait, wut? Banking is a completely unregulated nightmare of dog-eat-dog predation.

    1. kbolino

      I’m starting to think they never actually use banks, or they are total idiots who can’t pay attention to anything. Besides the giant FDIC sign on the door, there’s all the hoops you have to jump through to comply with the USA PATRIOT Act, the fact that your deposits are either being monitored for “structuring” or else directly reported to the IRS, …. It’s like these people live in a fantasy land.

  69. The Late P Brooks

    More from NPR:

    “Your vote in 2018 is every bit important as your vote in 2016, although I’m not sure I really believe that, but you know. I don’t know who the hell wrote that line.”

    He paused and continued over laughs, “But it’s still important, remember.”

    Sure, it’s a self-promotional joke. But it’s precisely the kind of thing the people in charge of trying to help Republicans hold onto control of Congress don’t want the president to say.

    It’s a reminder that Trump is the ultimate wild card — and who knows what he might say or do between now and November.

    Who knows? That Trump- him so krazaay!

    At least they recognize, in their plodding dimwitted way, that it was a joke about Himself not being on the ballot. And, of course, if you’re making a speech at a political fundraiser, you can be pretty sure you’re talking to a group of actual voters, and not people who are going to say, “Well, that’s it then. No need to show up.”