¡El Martes por la tarde enlaces Mexicanos!

“No dear, your father isn’t a coke-head. He simply loves Hostess Donettes more than he loves his family.”

Once again, I have been asked to provide links on account of Brett being unavailable  snorting lines of cocaine  because you all just love the Spanish Shtick.

Technically, this happened in Spain, not Mexico, but it is certainly notable when others appropriate American culture.

Las autoridades de Santiago de Compostela, en el noroeste de España, calificaron como “una barbaridad y un atentado a la cultura” lo que se encontraron en la mañana de este lunes: alguien vandalizó una de las figuras que decoran el exterior de la catedral de la ciudad y la pintó como si fuera un integrante de la banda de hard rock KISS.

La imagen de la figura, que rápidamente corrió por redes sociales, causó conmoción dentro y fuera de la ciudad, declarada Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la Unesco.

______________________________________________________

The authorities of Santiago de Compostela, in the northwest of Spain, described as “an outrage and an attack on the culture” what they found on the morning of Monday: someone vandalized one of the figures that decorate the exterior of the cathedral of the city and painted it as if it were a member of the hard rock band KISS.

The image of the figure, which quickly ran through social networks, caused commotion inside and outside the city, declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco.

Si me contrató, el trabajo estaría hecho.

In case you wanted to see a video of the drone that apparently tried to kill Venezuelan Nicolás Maduro, CNN has not confirmed if this is authentic, but they went ahead and published it anyway…

Speaking of Little Nicky, he wants to assure everyone this is clearly an attack from the far right, in both Venezuela and Columbia.  Apparently the Alt-right is run amok there too.

El mandatario venezolano precisó que los autores materiales del suceso ocurrido este sábado están detenidos. “Han intentado asesinarme el día de hoy y no tengo duda de que todo apunta a la derecha, a la ultraderecha venezolana en alianza con la ultraderecha colombiana y que el nombre de Juan Manuel Santos está detrás de este atentado”, enfatizó el gobernante. Los hechos ocurrieron en Caracas durante el aniversario 81 de la Guardia Nacional Bolivariana.

______________________________________________________

The Venezuelan leader said that the material authors of the incident that occurred this Saturday are in custody. “They have tried to assassinate me today and I have no doubt that everything points to the right, to the Venezuelan ultra-right in alliance with the Colombian far right and that the name of Juan Manuel Santos is behind this attack,” the president emphasized. The events occurred in Caracas during the 81st anniversary of the Bolivarian National Guard.

A Colombian human trafficking baroness was arrested in Colombia.  Normally I’m not going to say that you must click the link, but you might actually want to check this one out.

Una mujer colombiana apodada ‘Madame’ era presuntamente la cabecilla de una red de trata de menores en Cartagena de Indias que llegó a tener en su poder a 250 víctimas, muchas de ellas adolescentes de la comunidad afrodescendiente y venezolanas entre 14 y 17 años. Liliana del Carmen Campos Puello fue detenida el pasado domingo en la operación Vesta I liderada por la Fiscalía, descrita como el golpe más importante contra la prostitución que se haya realizado en Colombia.

El operativo ha puesto de relieve un problema que siempre a estado asociado con esta ciudad del Caribe colombiano, la más turística de la nación. La escena de un señor blanco rodeando con su mano la cintura de una chica negra mucho más joven que él por alguno de los parajes cartageneros más concurridos, como la Torre del Reloj o la Plaza de Coches, es una imagen habitual habitual que ilustra el problema del comercio sexual en la ciudad amurallada.

______________________________________________________

A Colombian woman nicknamed ‘Madame’ was presumably the leader of a trafficking network for minors in Cartagena de Indias that reached 250 victims, many of them teenagers from the Afro-descendant and Venezuelan community between 14 and 17 years old. Liliana del Carmen Campos Puello was arrested last Sunday in the operation Vesta I led by the Prosecutor’s Office, described as the most important blow against prostitution that has been made in Colombia.

The operation has highlighted a problem that has always been associated with this city of the Colombian Caribbean, the most tourist in the nation. The scene of a white gentleman encircling the waist of a black girl much younger than him by one of the most crowded places in Cartagena, such as the Clock Tower or the Plaza de Coches, is a common habitual image that illustrates the problem of the sex trade in the walled city

Here’s one (in English) for all you Musk haters.  In a Tweet today, he made public his intention to make Tesla private.

¿Se gustan musico con enlances? ¿No tengo otra opción aquí?

Como say what?  Need somebody to translate?  Fine, here.

Comments

436 responses to “¡El Martes por la tarde enlaces Mexicanos!”

  1. MikeS

    Thanks for posting my tasting notes the other day MS. And thanks for the Pabst PA review…I think

    1. mexican sharpshooter

      Anytime Mike! I’m still in search of beer you can find.

      1. MikeS

        You have actually posted a few that I can find. It’sz just that I usually am outside when your beer post goes up and I’m not around to comment until it’s dead. But I know Kriek Lambic is at least one that I can get. And have many times int he past. Delicious.

        However, to reward your effort, I am going to stop by the store tonight and see if they have Pabst PA. If they do, I’m going to buy one. Mostly because I don’t believe you when you say it doesn’t smell like urine…

    1. PBRstreetgang

      Its almost like she has no idea what she’s doing.

      1. AlexinCT

        Oh, I am sure she thinks she knows exactly what she is doing. Where she falls short is the basics of economics.

    2. mexican sharpshooter

      What the hell are “liberal scores?”

      1. PBRstreetgang

        My guess was scoring conducted by liberals/people who would are expected to be sympathetic to her policy stuff. So, even the people who agree with her at coming up with an additional $4.2T-ish/yr

        1. The people doing “liberal scoring” are accounting in magical unicorn farts and perpetual motion machines whereas the other scoring doesn’t.

        2. Chipwooder

          Yes. If you look at the story, he’s saying that even using the numbers from the lefties themselves gives you this ludicrous price tag.

          Marxism – it’s FANtastic!

    3. Juvenile Bluster

      Even with defense huge cuts, it would take a 37% payroll tax (on top of current 15.3%) to pay for this $42 trillion And don’t forget the surging budget baseline deficits that will require their own 15 percentage point across-the-board income tax hike to close.

      If we’re all poor, we’ll all be rich! Or something.

      Of course there are many people in the replies who don’t like these numbers.

      elvin Mabaquiao
      ‏ @MelvinByTheSea
      10m10 minutes ago
      Replying to @Brian_Riedl @voxdotcom

      Maybe so. But even to begin to work on that agenda is a far better use of our nation’s vast wealth than to gratify a bunch of greedy jerks who only crave the rush they feel when they are “winning”

      mike easter
      ‏ @casualhexes
      2h2 hours ago
      Replying to @Brian_Riedl @voxdotcom

      lmfao get fucked nerd, it’s happening whether you like it or not. nobody should be too poor to live in the richest country on earth, period.

      Dane Bramage
      ‏ @realDaneBramage
      2h2 hours ago
      Replying to @Brian_Riedl @voxdotcom

      Oh, look, a craven GOP bagman mangling math to spread wingnut propaganda. How refreshing and original.

      Felifax
      ‏ @Felifax1
      Replying to @Brian_Riedl @davidharsanyi @voxdotcom

      You’d rather continue to have thousands of children die from treatable cancers because their parents can’t afford inflated prices rather than pay a small tax cut: you are a sociopathic scumbag whose argument puts a price tag on human life

      There’s more, but it’s difficult to type while banging my head against the wall.

      1. Chipwooder

        Someone should just tell Felifax that it’s a 23rd trimester abortion and then he won’t be so bothered when a kid dies.

      2. Playa Manhattan

        “nobody should be too poor to live in the richest country on earth, period.”

        Wut? Did he open his bank statement, see the balance, and drop dead?

        1. Hyperion

          I remember when my wife first came here. She told me ‘The United States has the richest poor people on earth’. She Guevara needs to get out more.

          1. Schnirt Gurgleburger

            It’s wonderful that we can keep our poor people so fat.

          2. Hyperion

            She G would implement the Bolivarian solution to obesity. Works every time they say.

          3. trshmnstr

            It’s the newest rage! 100% less carbs than South Beach! No silly meal planning like Adkins! Keto flu? You will be losing weight so fast you won’t even notice!!! It’s the Marx diet!

      3. J. Frank Parnell

        I honestly can’t tell if this is serious:

        MReading
        @MReading7
        6h6 hours ago
        More
        Replying to @Brian_Riedl @voxdotcom
        The obvious solution is to take more money from the billionaires to pay for the trillions of dollars it costs. Easy.

        1. Mad Scientist

          And the following month we’ll take money from all the millionaires. And the month after that we’ll finally all be equal!

          1. Hyperion

            Not until after we’ve taken most of the money from those filthy rich making $40,000 a year. Then we’ll be equal. Equally poor, which seems to be the goal of all socialists, either that or they’re just all really stupid.

        2. That’s satire.

      4. Gadfly

        If we’re all poor, we’ll all be rich
        equal!

        It is their stated goal, after all.

    4. Hyperion

      Check this out. Sorry if anyone has already posted, I’m busy as hell.

      She Guevara a little confused?

      Upper middle class doesn’t exist any more? What the hell is she snorting? It can’t be good for you. There’s never been more upper middle class than what there is now, with lots and lots of shit that they do not need. Because if not, where the hell are all of these McMansions coming from with 3 luxury cars in the garage? When I was growing up, no one had a $500,000 house (unless they were very wealthy), 3 luxury cars and a garage that would hold them all, 3-4 smart TVs, everyone in the house having their own computer and smartphone. NTTAWWT. But poor babe is making an absolute fool of herself.

      But granted, if she had her way, there wouldn’t be any middle class left period, so problem solved, right?

      1. Nephilium

        So does that put me in the filthy rich or the bourgeoisie middle-middle class?

        1. Spudalicious

          Shitlord. Minor house.

      2. Spudalicious

        I was just going to post this. What really scares me is that someone this outright fucking stupid can win elections. Most of them are at least smart enough to hide it.

  2. MikeS

    Is it just me, or is the link we must click on…not there?

    1. mexican sharpshooter

      Listen, I am not responding to this on account that I caught it and fixed it before I refreshed and saw that you commented on it.

  3. Tundra

    Elon is a fucking moron.

    His lawyers are gonna bitch slap him.

    1. The Other Kevin

      Was I not supposed to do that? /Elon

      1. When you call a guy trying to rescue stranded children a pedo, you’ve jumped the shark.

    2. Juvenile Bluster

      This is about as blatant an SEC violation as I’ve seen. He made a tender offer without, you know, following any of the SEC’s requirements about tender offers.

      1. And if the SEC goes after him, how many of the Tesla cultists are going to blame Trump?

      2. Tundra

        Christ, we got to spend some quality time with the SEC because some trades went down a few days before we missed estimates.

        And were a fucking small-cap!!!

        1. Playa Manhattan

          How many of those trades were you?

          1. Tundra

            Look! A squirell!!

            *runs out*

        2. Juvenile Bluster

          I have to deal with that a lot, when a client’s stock jumps/falls on either estimates or major news. 3 or 4 times a year usually.

          It’s usually FINRA that tries to hit us though, not the SEC.

          And the thing is… THEY KNOW FUCKING EVERYTHING. First I have to send them a list of everyone who knew about the news in advance (officers, directors, us lawyers, PRNewsire, the financial printer…). Once they get that, we usually get a second letter saying: “We know Officer X is acquainted with person Y, who sold their stock the day before the bad news hit. Did they talk, and what did they talk about?”, to which the answer is usually “They spoke together at a conference 8 years ago. That’s the last time they talked to each other”.

          1. Tundra

            I hated that shit. I was the dork that wrote everything, went on road shows and spent quality time with the asshole analysts and brokers. Being public as a small company was so incredibly retarded. Several years after I left they finally said fuckit and took it private. Best decision EVER!

          2. You think FINRA is bad, you should try dealing with FINMA

      3. Playa Manhattan

        You can’t just tweet whatever you want as a 20% shareholder?

        1. RAHeinlein

          Then what’s the use of having f-you money?

      4. totally_not_an_escaped_ai

        This is about as blatant an SEC violation as I’ve seen.

        That was the first thing I thought when I saw that come through. Any idea of what the penalties are for this? What sort of class-action could short sellers do when it’s 100% known that the buyout is just vaporware?

        1. Tundra

          It’s a weird situation.

          Why Elon Musk Desperately Needs Tesla Stock To Stay Above $360

          Why is $360 the magical level? That’s the conversion price for $920 million of convertible debt due on March 1, 2019 (indenture). If the stock price does not cross $360, the company will have to repay bondholders with cash instead of shares. A quick glance at the balance sheet would tell us that the company could afford this payment at present as the company had $$2.24 billion in cash at the end of Q2. However, we must also take future capital investments and the ongoing operational cash burn into account.

          Who the fuck knows? The whole situation is bizarre.

    1. The Other Kevin

      I forgot about her. That was back when comic companies knew their audience and how to get them to part with their lawn mowing money.

    2. Lackadaisical

      I’d be willing to give her political assylum in my harem.

  4. Tundra

    I had Destroyer on 8 track.

    /farts dust

    1. I had LP’s, until Mom threw them out because Satan.

      1. Tundra

        Awesome! My buddy stored his Ozzy records at my house for the same reason.

        1. Funny thing was we weren’t religious at all, didn’t do church save X-mas and Easter, no Jesus pictures or needlepoint scripture hanging on the walls, but one day all my Kiss albums are gone.

          1. Mad Scientist

            I had a friend in high school who had one of those moms who freaked out about satan everywhere. I wasn’t allowed to visit him at his house because I was in league with the devil. He kept some of his albums at my place. One day we realized we could record his albums onto cassette and then label the cassette however we liked. Apparently, his mom never felt inclined to verify if he was really a big fan of gospel music.

          2. Tundra

            I believe the answer lies in the lyrics of this gem.

          3. Nah, by then Mommy and Daddy weren’t rolling on the couch, or rolling numbers, or rock and rollin’ any more, at least not with each other.

      2. Dr. Fronkensteen

        I wasn’t allowed to play D & D because gateway to the occult and Satan.

        1. Tundra

          I opted out because there were even fewer chicks than this place.

          1. bacon-magic

            ^^^

        2. mexican sharpshooter

          My aunt once told me God would punish me if I ran a red light.

          1. MikeS

            What was her position on masturbation?

          2. mexican sharpshooter

            I preferred not to ask.

          3. J. Frank Parnell

            No excuse, you should still be paying attention to traffic signals.

          4. MikeS

            ALOL

          5. Missionary?

          6. Enough About Palin

            I was in a band when they were big. We played a lot of the same venues, but never got a chance to see them (we did hear stories, though!). Only saw the Suburbs once. They were great live.

          7. Tundra

            I wonder if I was at any of your shows?

            They often sucked, but when they were on they were magic.

            I lost count of how many times I saw the Suburbs. Still one of the best Minne bands.

    2. Mad Scientist
      1. Tundra

        Oh yeah. That one was cassette!

      2. Stinky Wizzleteats

        Much better then the Knights In Satan’s Service version.

  5. Rebel Scum

    Was the virtue worth the signal?

    Austin Clay, who identified himself as the man who took a pickaxe to Donald Trump’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star, was arraigned Monday in Los Angeles County Court — and discovered precisely how much his “resistance” could end up costing him.

    The L.A. County district attorney, TMZ reports, has charged Clay with felony vandalism, and, if convicted, Clay could face a maximum of three years in prison for destroying Trump’s star in an act of protest.

    Clay probably won’t object to the charges, though he may try to enter a plea bargain. If convicted, Clay isn’t likely to serve the full three year term, but L.A. County courts are notoriously unpredictable.

    1. What a moron.

    2. Stinky Wizzleteats

      I suspect the Gov will pardon him if he gets convicted.

  6. Release the tits!

    http://archive.is/oKCkU

    Impromptu survey: growing up, the preferred nomenclature for nipples visible through clothing was “THO” (titty hard on). I’ve heard many different terms by now and I’m trying to determine if there’s a regional variation.

    1. Tundra

      High Beams.

      1. Tres Cool

        ^seconded

      2. Scruffy Nerfherder

        Same, plus…

        “She could tune in Tokyo with those.”

        1. Tres Cool

          Up periscope!

      3. Playa Manhattan

        Or brights

      4. Rasilio

        this

    2. The Other Kevin

      THO or smuggling tic-tacs.

    3. MikeS

      N(ipple)HO

      Cutting glass

    4. Endless Mike

      I like “fripples”

    5. Spudalicious

      Artesians.

    6. The Last American Hero

      Stack of Dimes

  7. The Other Kevin

    RIP Stan Mikita, one of, if not the best, Blackhawks players ever.

    1. Tundra

      Bummer. Great hockey player.

      …if not the best…

      I’m an Esposito guy, myself.

      1. Private Chipperbot

        I used to have one of his stupid dome helmets as a hand me down when I first started playing.

    2. Chipwooder

      I raise a donut in his honor.

  8. Tres Cool

    I havent been back to TOS in ages, but Drudged linked an article this morning. The only thing that amazed me was that ENB was allowed to publish something that didn’t involve sex.

    1. Count Potato

      Well, she’s married now.

      1. Enough About Palin

        Ha!

  9. The Late P Brooks

    New York mag has this look back at the great recession up, including this, from Yves Smith at naked capitalism:

    Trump is crowing about this 4.1 percent GDP growth, right? Yet if you look at the statistics, real worker wages have continued to be flat for this period. The crisis itself was the greatest looting of the public purse in history. The crisis itself was a huge wealth transfer. The Obama administration should have forced a lot more recognition of the losses. These losses were real. They should have forced more loan write-downs. And recognition of the loss to the financial system.

    ————

    And we did this in a more indirect manner by having the Fed engineer these super-low interest rates that were a transfer from savers to the financial system. Economist Ed Kane said that basically savers lost $300 billion in income a year. So that reduction of income right there, you see today. There’s a Wall Street Journal story about how pension funds are in crisis. There’s not a single mention of the fact that the zero-interest-rate policies are the reason why the pensions are in distress. All retirees and long-term savers, life insurance, they’re all in the same boat. It used to be that if you were a saver or an asset holder, you could get a decent positive return doing something not crazy. And the Fed took that away. The big reason the pensions are in crisis is because the way we dealt with the crisis.

    I used to read her blog now and then, but she fell off my radar. I think she’s right about this.

    1. The Other Kevin

      I’d be curious to see where she got that $300B number, but that doesn’t surprise me. It always seemed to be a bad idea to discourage people from saving and encourage them to pile on debt, but that’s been the US’s policy for decades.

      1. trshmnstr

        Inflation and near zero interest rates makes for a massive disincentive against saving for one’s future.

    2. Florida Man

      I’m no economist, but that scans. Traditionally you had a percentage based on your age in bonds. In the last 10 years bonds paid the equivalent of zero, so I’ve been nearly 100 percent in the market, despite craving a safe way to make a few points.

    3. Anecdotally: I remember a time in my childhood when my parents were teaching me about saving. They gave me 500 bucks or something to put in a 5-year CD. Granted CDs are not really the best vehicle, but that’s beside the point I’m trying to make. The interest rate was something like 10% (!). Granted, you can’t touch the money, but that’s an insane guaranteed rate of return with basically no risk. Now a 5-year CD at my Credit Union is like 0.8%. You’d have to be an absolute window-licking retard to do that.

      1. Mad Scientist

        With inflation you’d only be losing a few percent a year!

      2. Mojeaux

        SmartyPig pays 1.55% at the moment.

      3. Florida Man

        You’re effectively paying them to use your money at that rate.

      4. trshmnstr

        It wasn’t all that long ago that 6.5% for a 5-year was a bad deal. Fuck the monetarist tinkerers.

        1. And they want to go to a cashless society so that they can go to negative interest rates.

    4. Don Escaped Texas

      “4.1 percent GDP growth, right? Yet if you look at the statistics, real worker wages have continued to be flat”

      um: GDP is a statistic

      Real median wages have been flat for a very long time; feel free to hang that on any president, but the real reason is the big old world out there.
      GDP can go up when that’s true: it’s “gross” product, so there’s nothing about GDP that is intended to indicate median anything.

      America was greatest when average guys did things (run nuts on lugs) that no other country can do.
      Today, people who live in huts in Brazil run nuts on lugs, so that’s not been a hot idea since 1964.
      Rule: if your competitors can’t make money, you gotta be very special to make money.

      1. The Last American Hero

        How much of that wage growth over the years has been gobbled up by healthcare premiums?

    5. Raston Bot

      tl;dr nothing substantial has changed and it’s about to happen all over again.

    6. Playa Manhattan

      The zero-interest-rate policies are so our government can borrow money cheaply.

      You know, “public” money.

      Fail.

    7. Enough About Palin

      “Yet if you look at the statistics, real worker wages have continued to be flat for this period. ”

      This is not true.

      1. Enough About Palin

        Wages in the United States increased 4.89 percent in May of 2018 over the same month in the previous year. Wage Growth in the United States averaged 6.20 percent from 1960 until 2018, reaching an all time high of 13.77 percent in January of 1979 and a record low of -5.77 percent in March of 2009.

        https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wage-growth

      2. R C Dean

        Yet if you look at the statistics, real worker wages have continued to be flat for this period.

        What period? The word “this” needs an antecedent. Probably refers to the 2Q that we had 4.1% GDP growth in, but who knows? And what kind of idiot would expect “real worker wages” (again, what does that mean? Take home pay? Gross pay? Pay to real, not fake, workers?) to go up by 4.1% in a single quarter absent massive inflation.

        Dishonest hack is dishonest. And sloppy.

        1. Lackadaisical

          That would be interesting to know.

          I read someone arguing that the tax cuts didn’t increase worker wages and thus were ineffective. I think they were even right that worker wages hadn’t rsen (just their actual take-home pay).

    8. invisible finger

      Susan Watsername (Yves Smith) is a double-talking leftist asshole. She gets a few things right and so much wrong she’s actually worse than a complete idiot. She banned me when I called her on her contradictory nonsense. She was in favor of nationalizing the banks 10 years ago “because Sweden did”.

      She’s right that the low interest rates contributed to the pension problem (but are not the major cause) but she also supported nearly everything Bernanke did – which included suppressing interest rates. She ain’t Austrian (she hates them), She ain’t Chicago (disagrees with them), she a goddamned Keynesian liar.

  10. Dr. Fronkensteen

    Fuck Maduro. The sad thing is I don’t see this whole thing turning Venezuelans into a brand of libertarian.

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      South and Central America follows the general pattern of:

      Socialist shithole
      Military junta shithole
      Vaguely democratic capitalist semi-shithole
      Socialist shithole

      repeat ad inifinitum

      1. Dr. Fronkensteen

        Yep, Chile being pretty much the sole exception.

        1. Mojeaux

          Viva la helicopter.

        2. robc

          Costa Rica too.

          1. Playa Manhattan

            They know where their bread is buttered.

            American investment.

      2. I have been plagued by this for my whole life. There is NO reason that, theoretically, Latin American shouldn’t be as rich as North America. Similar colonial histories, abundant natural resources lots of arable land. Why can’t they get it together?

        1. Catholicism?

          1. Dr. Fronkensteen

            Nah, more along the lines of property rights. I think Hernando De Soto pretty much nails it.

            http://www.thepowerofthepoor.com/concepts/c6.php

          2. OneOut

            In Costa Rica if you leave a home vacant for even a short period of time someone else can move in and are almost impossible to evict.

            So little foreign investment.

          3. The Last American Hero

            So, it’s like Seattle?

        2. Tundra

          <a href="here“>Because the have this.

          But not these.

          1. Tundra

            Fuck it.

            Che but no guns.

          2. I approve of the second link.

            First link needs TLC from THICC Edit Fairy.

        3. robc

          Similar colonial histories

          Not really. Spanish vs English rule makes a big difference.

          1. Pope Jimbo

            The theory I like is that Canada and the US was colonized by people moving here to make a new life. They were here for good and made decisions based on the long term.

            Latin America was colonized by people who came here for a set period of time to grub as much wealth as they could. Once they had their money, they moved back to Spain to live it up. So they made decisions to maximize the short term gains.

            No idea how accurate that is, but it sounds sort of right to me.

          2. R C Dean

            Alright, I’ll move my comment down here.

            Why can’t they get it together?

            Continental colonialism v. English colonialism. I’m pretty sure that the former English colonies have outperformed former continental colonies just about everywhere.

            That doesn’t explain it, but its a pattern (I think) that might lead to an explanation.

          3. Creosote Achilles

            India v. Hong Kong example is raised by that theory though

            Both Brit colonial. One has enormous amounts of land, people, resources. The other has a bay and some scenery. Guess which one is a shit show? The one that went socialist.

            So why did one go socialist and not the other? Is there some cultural reason? Strong personalities of national leaders? Religion? Dunno.

          4. J. Frank Parnell

            Just a wild ass guess, but it seems like India is more like South America, in that there was a large indigenous population ruled over by a small and fairly insulated core of colonials, which possibly led to European “Enlightenment” values being dismissed by the population at large as tools of the imperialist oppressors.

            In the US and Canada, otoh, the European colonials pretty much completely displaced the natives. Hong Kong, the native to colonial ratio was probably not as one-sided as in the Americas or India, but afaik the English were mostly there to trade rather than just exploit the natural resources.

          5. BakedPenguin

            One thing I’d heard was just that Socialism was simply the in thing in the couple post war decades in which most UK colonies gained independence.

          6. Lackadaisical

            One thing I’d heard was just that Socialism was simply the in thing in the couple post war decades in which most UK colonies gained independence.

            Thats not unreasonable. IIRC, a lot of the upper crust in India were educated in Britain, where they could have contracted socialism. Of course, the corruption and inefficiency of government is also ingrained in the culture pre-British colonization as well, with the added ‘benefit’ of a caste system that kept a goodly portion of the populace where they belong.

          7. Gadfly

            My guess is that the English were a lot further along the path of individual rights by the time they started colonizing, thereby giving their colonists a head start culturally. The English had a long history of rebellion to curtail the power of the state (or of any individual within the state), which doubtlessly affected the attitude of English colonists (such as the future Americans).

          8. JaimeRoberto

            On the whole former British colonies have fared well relative to lands colonized by France, Spain, etc. , so if you had to be colonized by someone, the Brits were the best choice. Just don’t tell that to the Irish. I usually attribute it to cultural differences, but that’s just a lazy guess.

        4. Bob

          It’s filled with people who are considerably stupider on average than the ones that settled the US and Canada. I know it’s popular to believe that unde the right minarchist framework Wakanda’a will sprout up everywhere but it doesn’t work like that. Human capital matters.

  11. The Late P Brooks

    aaaand, in that NY mag thing, you get this, from some yahoo “policy analyst” named Matt Bruenig:

    And obviously there’s a racial component too that I feel has been very overlooked. I don’t think people realize just how bad the Great Recession was for black and Latino families. The level of wealth decline in those groups … You could write a whole reparations article just off what happened in the past eight years. Like, you don’t even need to go back to the GI Bill. You could just say, “Look at what happened where clearly racially predatory bankers load black families up with these subprime mortgages and just extract wealth out of them.” That’s the story that’s not been fully discussed, for one reason or another.

    RACISSSSSSSS!

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      That’s Mr. Elizabeth Bruenig to you buddy.

    2. Chipwooder

      Matt Bruenig is a millennial Marxist twit whose wife is the equally execrable Elizabeth Bruenig.

      1. Still would (Elizabeth, not Matt).

        1. Chipwooder

          I’d only let her blow me, because then I wouldn’t have to hear her talking.

          1. Creosote Achilles

            We have these magical things called ring gags that also work for that purpose as well.

          2. Enough About Palin

            Never had a good blow job I see.

    3. PBRstreetgang

      If loading up poor folks with inflated subprime mortgages they could not pay resulted in this gigantic “extract[ion] of wealth out of them [the mortagees]” and to the banks, why did those same banks need to be bailed out? Shouldn’t all the banks he claims extracted all this wealth have been really rich rather than really broke?

      1. trshmnstr

        It’s funny how much of the Marxist oppression narrative could be undercut simply by paying cash for things instead to taking loans to buy shit you can’t afford.

      2. Florida Man

        I’m guessing he’s not very bright.

    4. The Other Kevin

      Interesting how year after year people’s views of race and interracial marriage become more relaxed, yet there’s this “systemic racism” out there that’s worse than 1860.

    5. Mad Scientist

      1. loan money to people who can’t pay it back
      2. ???
      3. profit!

      1. I think step 2 is “Massive Taxpayer Funded Bailout”.

        1. Schnirt Gurgleburger

          Yep.
          And 2.5 is millions of people snap up up foreclosed homes at a deep discount. Thanks fellow taxpayers!

      2. PBRstreetgang

        Brueing is a financial alchemist apparently.

        1. Juvenile Bluster

          I thought you said fullmetal, was confused.

          1. Sensei

            +1 empty suit (of armor)

    6. R C Dean

      Of course, no mention is made of the anti-discrimination hammer that was coming down on banks if they didn’t have a “good racial mix” in their loan portfolios.

      Were the mortgage bankers scumbags for making loans that were a really bad idea for the borrower? You bet. Were the borrowers idiots for taking out those loans? Of course. Did all this happen in a totally unregulated market without a single bit of government oversight or distortion? Not even a little bit.

      1. invisible finger

        If anything, the government encouraged this shit. I distinctly remember CalPERS excoriating Fannie and Freddie for NOT getting in on the housing bubble and denying their pensioners all those juicy “profits” and by profits I mean subsequent losses.

        That’s really where the Yves Smith shit above pisses me off. The recession and pension failures are a direct result of government encouraging reckless behavior. But government worshipers will simply never cop to government being the problem, unless they can blame it on some individual rogue from the opposing party.

        1. OneOut

          There is a youtube video of Barney Frank giving a speech to Congress saying there was absolutely no danger of subprime collapse when Bush administration officials tried to throttle it back.

    7. Rhywun

      You could write a whole reparations article just off what happened in the past eight years.

      Oh, please do.

  12. Chipwooder

    Stunning news – vast majority of heterosexual men and women not interested in dating members of the same sex pretending to be the opposite sex.

    1. trshmnstr

      Shit lord!!!

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder

      -1 Crying Game

    3. Mojeaux

      For example, 50% of the trans-inclusive straight women and 28% of the trans-inclusive gay men were willing to date a trans woman, even though one wouldn’t expect either straight women or gay men to be attracted to women.

      So…straight women and gay men want dick.

      Quelle surprise.

      1. Does “trans-inclusive gay men” mean people born women who became men and want other men?

        1. Chipwooder

          Good question. We really need a detailed flow chart on this one.

        2. Mojeaux

          I read it as gay men willing to date a MTF. I assumed that the MTF had not had dickectomy yet.

          1. jesse.in.mb

            Meh, I was having this conversation off-board earlier. Pretty sure I hooked up with an FTM a few years back. It was fun enough. I’d be fine doing it again, I just find most of the FTMs that show up on the apps are not…how shall we say .

            Scruffy dude with a slim build and a few conveniently placed scars isn’t going to put me off. Long term I’d be disappointed with not having an on-hand source of dick other than my own though.

        3. grrizzly

          I believe “trans-inclusive gay men” refer to 11.5% of gay men who wouldn’t rule out dating transpeople. I bet we’re talking about 2 or 3 actual people in the sample of 958.

          1. grrizzly

            I suspect the sample contained 26 gay men and 3 of them wouldn’t mind dating a trans person. I inferred it from the 11.5% number.

          2. MikeS

            The science is settled!

        4. J. Frank Parnell

          I think “trans-inclusive” means they claim to believe that women with penises are literally no different from women with vaginas?

      2. Count Potato

        “Virtually all heterosexuals excluded trans folks from their dating pool: only 1.8% of straight women and 3.3% of straight men chose a trans person of either binary gender. But most non-heterosexuals weren’t down for dating a trans person either, with only 11.5% of gay men and 29% of lesbians being trans-inclusive in their dating preferences.”

        So do 29% of lesbians, according to one survey.

    4. Dr. Fronkensteen

      What? You know it’s not enough to tolerate these people. You must celebrate them. And by celebrate mean participate.

      1. STEVE SMITH SAY BY PARTICIPATE MEAN…

      2. Chipwooder

        Cha-ching. This goes back to how the word tolerance has become completely distorted and perverted. I am tolerant of transsexuals – I have no desire whatsoever to regulate their lives and tell them who they can and cannot have sex with. As Otto said in A Fish Called Wanda, pork away, pal! I will NOT, on the other hand, be browbeaten into being something that I’m not. I am a heterosexual man. I want to have sex with women. Women have vaginas. Women do not have penises, full stop. If I wanted to have sex with someone possessing a penis, I would be a gay man (or at least bisexual). It’s emblematic of how barking mad our society has become that this is becoming a controversial line of reasoning.

        1. Chipwooder

          Thicc edit faerie, how I miss you

          1. Tundra

            She died of heart disease.

        2. I bet Otto knew how to close his <em&rt; tags.

          1. Ack, that should have been <em>.

            Less than and greater than, not left and right!

        3. OneOut

          A woman BORN with a vgaygay for me.

        4. R C Dean

          Women do not have penises, full stop.

          And never have. Just to be clear on this. In my book, you whack chop it off, you’re still not a woman-woman.

          1. Lackadaisical

            ^this.

            The terminology used now to cover this up is so confusing to me. If I were inventing English a transwoman would be a person who was born as a woman and wanted to be a man.

          2. Schnirt Gurgleburger

            You obviously have not been counseled by a millennial HR rep who will let you know you are not qualified to make such a statement.

        5. BakedPenguin

          This belongs somewhere around here.

          BTW, this was the story they used as a pilot – ‘Carmen’ was played by Morena Baccarin in that.

          1. BakedPenguin

            AS Pilot

    5. The Other Kevin

      I’m guessing the solution to that “problem” is going to involve lots of screaming, name calling, and public shaming on social media. Which of course is always the best way to get someone to consider new ideas.

    6. Chipwooder

      I so enjoy when this is called “bigotry”. WHY WON’T YOU HATEFUL ASSHOLES DATE A CHICK WITH A DICK?

      I love all my fellow gay male and hetero female Glibs, but they’re welcome to keep all the dick to themselves. Ain’t getting it done for me.

      1. Chipwooder

        After reading that, I could have phrased that a little more precisely. Oh well.

    7. I thought telling people who they should and shouldn’t sleep with was, like, totes unwoke among the SJW hivemind. Love Trumps Hate™ donchaknow.

      1. Bob

        Yeah, it’s almost like the LGBQTABC revolution is more about culture war than anything else. But reasonatarians are the smart ones for taking their arguments seriously and not figuring out they were acting in bad faith.

    8. Juvenile Bluster

      The high rates of trans exclusion from potential dating pools are undoubtedly due in part to cisnormativity, cissexism, and transphobia — all of which lead to lack of knowledge about transgender people and their bodies, discomfort with these unknowns, and fear of being discriminated against by proxy of one’s romantic partner.

      No, it’s because I don’t want to have sex with someone that has a penis.

      But hey, whatever makes you feel better about yourself.

      1. Mad Scientist

        Hey, they gotta try this. They know “right thinking” people can be guilted into anything, so they’re sure they can convince a few fellow travelers to switch sides for the greater good. What’s hilarious about this is that they spent years arguing that gays were just made that way and there’s nothing they can do about it, but now if you find your date has something downstairs you don’t like somehow you weren’t made that way and you should feel guilty about it.

        1. Count Potato

          That’s the whole “political lesbian” thing.

          “Being Straight Is A Choice”

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v11wfp8vmrM

      2. Count Potato

        Putting aside that genital preferences are perfectly fine, and not any sort of bigotry. Another thing to consider is that many people date to find people to marry and have children.

        1. Playa Manhattan

          That excuse will only fly for straight people.

          1. Count Potato

            Which is the vast majority of the population.

      3. Playa Manhattan

        Is cisnormativity supposed to be some sort of slur?

        I want to fuck women. Sue me.

        1. R C Dean

          Check out the normie over here. *points at Playa, hesitates, points at himself*

      1. Chipwooder

        Oh thank god, I thought it was going to be that ridiculous song from Bill Nye the Sciency-ish Guy’s Netflix show.

        1. Rebel Scum

          I find your lack of faith disturbing.

    9. Raston Bot

      does trans mean “not”? so trans woman would mean not a woman?

      what is cisnormative? is that redundant?

      1. Chipwooder

        A transwoman is a man pretending to be a woman

        1. Count Potato

          This is seems more dedicated than just pretending:

          https://www.instagram.com/msblairewhite/

          1. Chipwooder

            The success with which someone can pull it off doesn’t change the fact that the plumbing is wrong.

    10. Pope Jimbo

      Minneapolis City Council office parties hardest hit.

      2 of the 13 city council member are trans. I’m waiting for the civil lawsuit claiming discrimination. Straight people will point out that the disparate impact of having 16% of the council seats being filled by trans people is proof of discrimination.

    11. PieInTheSKy

      i would date a hot women who identifies as not tat hot to the point she lowers her standards enough to date me.

      also this was said in the previous thread.

    12. I love the link to another one of their stories in the first line. No outside sources for them.

  13. The Late P Brooks

    Matt Bruenig is a millennial Marxist twit whose wife is the equally execrable Elizabeth Bruenig.

    I’m not going to bother to act surprised.

  14. MikeS

    We (by “we” I mean Sloopy and OMWC) no longer have to argue if Jaws is a cinematic masterpiece or an hour and a half of your life that you’ll never get back. What’s important is that it’s a clue to a 40 year old cold case!

    A ‘tantalizing’ theory from Stephen King’s son: Shark thriller ‘Jaws’ holds the clue to an unsolved 1974 murder

    When Hill trained his eye on “Jaws,” 40 years after Steven Spielberg’s tale of a man-eating great white shark first smashed box-office records in the summer of 1975, the writer saw something that prickled his skin with goose bumps and jolted him from his seat at a movie theater in Newington, New Hampshire.

    It wasn’t the marauding of the marine antagonist that stupefied him, but rather the fleeting appearance of an extra cast in a crowd scene approximately 54 minutes and 2 seconds into the film. The young woman seemed to have the same visage he had recently seen in a composite sketch of the victim of a grisly murder that has stumped police on the far reaches of Cape Cod for 44 years.

    1. Perhaps they should watch Mystery Street, even if they think the casting of Ricardo Montalbán as a Portuguese-American police chief on Cape Cod is strange.

      (He’s actually quite capable, and it’s a good movie to watch to see that he was far more than just KHAAAAAAAN! or a Latin lover.)

      1. MikeS

        I watched that a couple months ago. Good flic

    2. Playa Manhattan

      That’s 4chan level aspie.

    3. R C Dean

      Way to not show us the crowd scene where she supposedly appeared. Rendering the entire article much less interesting.

  15. The Late P Brooks

    Anecdotally: I remember a time in my childhood when my parents were teaching me about saving. They gave me 500 bucks or something to put in a 5-year CD. Granted CDs are not really the best vehicle, but that’s beside the point I’m trying to make. The interest rate was something like 10% (!).

    I remember those days, only it was people saying, “If I won a million dollar lottery jackpot, I’d just put the money in the bank and live off the interest.” Now, if you put a million bucks in the bank, the interest is less than what you’d make wrangling shopping carts at walmart.

    1. Pope Jimbo

      Less probably. You are forgetting about all those fees that banks charge for holding onto your money.

      1. Count Potato

        BOFA is one of the worst.

    2. PieInTheSKy

      except some people if they had a million they do 2 chicks at the same time

  16. Rebel Scum

    OBAMA GETS NEW PEACE PRIZE DESPITE HUNDREDS OF CIVILIAN CASUALTIES IN DRONE STRIKES

    Former President Barack Obama has received another peace prize.

    The former president was named a Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope laureate Monday. The award honors those who “work toward a more just and peaceful world.” The RFK nonprofit tweeted that it is “honored to present Barack Obama” with the award.

    Obama responded that Kennedy was one of his heroes. “Bobby Kennedy was one of my heroes,” Obama said, “He was someone who showed us the power of acting on our ideals, the idea that any of us can be one of the “million different centers of energy and daring” that ultimately combine to change the world for the better.”

    Positive change? I couldn’t hear it over the sound of hellfire missiles exploding wedding parties and c-130 mounted howitzers trashing doctors without borders hospitals.

    1. Beyond parody.

    2. Stinky Wizzleteats

      He did so much for Libya though.

    3. PieInTheSKy

      peace is a state of mind. Obama is at peace with himself

  17. Juvenile Bluster

    Fun with the Broward County government.

    1. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel files a FOIA with regard to certain information about school shooter Nikolas Cruz
    2. The school board complies with it, sending a heavily redacted document. Unfortunately, they’re morons, and they fucked up the redactions, so the entire document was readable. tl;dr: The school board tries to sugarcoat things, but they fucked up really, really badly.
    3. The School Board sues the Sun-Sentinel and the reporters for posting the redacted information (which, by the way, is a massive 1st amendment violation and will never stand up in court). Once news about the suit comes out, it turns out the School Board’s lawyers did this on their own and didn’t consult the School Board first [Note: I doubt that. Seems more like the school board’s covering their own asses.)

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Do they have Yakkity Sax playing over the speakers at the county hall?

    2. R C Dean

      Jeebus. It never ceases to amaze me how often people released “redacted” documents that are still readable. I’ve even gone to the effort of blacking out a document, copying it, blacking out the copy, and copying that. To make damn sure nothing is readable. And since everyone wants everything emailed, I then scan the final copy.

      And there’s probably still processing software that can get some info out of the redacted bits, but still.

      1. The Last American Hero

        According to the TV documentaries NCIS and CSI, local PD could break your redaction in under a day.

  18. The Late P Brooks

    No, it’s because I don’t want to have sex with someone that has a penis.

    What he said.

    *Is that really in any way difficult to comprehend?

    1. trshmnstr

      Yes, because they truly believe that one’s gender has nothing to do with their anatomy. Hetero men, in their eyes, are attracted to people who feel female. The fact that those people happen to have penises is of no concern.

  19. trshmnstr

    Anybody use LaTeX in a Microsoft Office environment? I’m getting fed up with Word’s formatting BS, and I’m hoping to automate some of the field filling stuff. I’m a bit concerned that the Neanderthals who have to read my stuff may keel over if presented with a PDF to review.

    1. Tundra

      I think latex is pretty inappropriate in any office environment, but hey, we won’t judge you.

      1. MikeS

        *nods sagely*

        I always go bareback at work.

        Wait…that’s what you meant, right?

      2. Mojeaux

        I think latex is pretty inappropriate in any office environment

        Agreed.

        but hey, we won’t judge you.

        I will.

        1. Tundra

          I changed my mind.

          1. Pope Jimbo

            I doubt that the advantage of easy cleanup in an office environment will offset the trouble this will lead to in the #MeToo age.

      3. Chipwooder

        Not at Vandalay Industries

        1. Dr. Fronkensteen

          And you want to be my latex salesman.

          1. MikeS

            One of the best episode ending scenes EVER.

          2. Dr. Fronkensteen

            The best episode ending scene in a sit-com ever.

            “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”

          3. Mojeaux

            +1 annual Thanksgiving screening.

          4. MikeS

            Boy, yeah. That has to be #1. But was it the final lines of the episode? It’s been too long…

          5. Mad Scientist
          6. Tundra

            Genius. I loved that show.

          7. MikeS

            The science is settled: Best ever sit-com episode ending line.

          8. tarran

            I can assure you that wild turkeys can fly. Not well; not long distances; but enough to fly to the top of a 50 ft tall tree and then glare menacingly down at you.

    2. grrizzly

      Why wouldn’t you use WinEdt for LaTeX?

      1. Spudalicious

        Are those the ribbed ones?

    3. Pope Jimbo

      My old mentor had a great story about how he learned LaTeX back in the late ’80s to create a fake pay stub.

      He had decided to job jump and was offered a new position. The only caveat was they wanted an old pay stub to verify that he hadn’t fibbed about his current salary which was what they were going to base his new salary on. The problem was that he had completely lied about how much he was making.

      So he spent several weeks cramming and finally printed a fantastic fake pay stub which his new company promptly ignored. He got his new salary, but it turns out that what he thought was some strange audit, was really just a routine check done while onboarding a new employee and on one actually gave a shit.

      To me a PDF means that the document is done and no one is supposed to make changes. Are the neanderthals supposed to make suggestions?

      Besides, no one needs more than vi and perl to create reports.

      1. “Besides, no one needs more than vi and perl to create reports”

        You are a war criminal.

        1. Pope Jimbo

          Don’t tell me you are an emacs pagan

          1. MikeS

            I mostly use Notepad.

            *scratches ass. burps*

      2. Mad Scientist

        Not true! Sometimes I also need sed and awk!

      3. The Bearded Hobbit

        Besides, no one needs more than vi and perl to create reports.

        VI is VILE. As was its satanic spawn in DOS, EDLIN.

        … Hobbit

        1. Mad Scientist

          That’s crazy talk. There’s no better text editor than vi.

          1. trshmnstr

            Emacs for life!

      4. trshmnstr

        vi and perl

        *has vivid flashback to a refactor project*
        *sweats profusely*

    4. LaTeX is created by Satan to torture graduate students. I refused to use it on my thesis even though my advisor explicitly said to do so. That was the hill I was going to die on.

      He relented and I won.

      Fuck LaTeX.

    5. Mojeaux

      Okay, in all seriousness, let me know if you’d like help with it. moriah at moriahjovan dot com.

  20. Count Potato

    “Professor Slams ‘Hegemonic Masculinity’ of Homeless Men

    During interviews with homeless men, Dej claims she learned that many aspire to “hegemonic masculinity,” which she defines as the type of masculinity that serves to “fortify the dominance of men” and ultimately “subordinate women.”

    However, she finds that it is difficult for homeless men to achieve this. Without the trappings of a successful life — such as a home or a career— many men instead develop what Dej refers to as “compensatory masculinity” to cope with their failed status.

    This type of masculinity is worse than hegemonic masculinity, though not yet as bad as toxic masculinity, and it involves men “emphasizing whatever hypermasculine traits they can within their stratified social status” to the detriment, allegedly, of women.

    Throughout her paper, as she writes up her research findings, Dej ridicules these men for everything from reinforcing gender stereotypes, to refusing to show emotion, to talking about how their ex-wives stole money from them.”

    https://pjmedia.com/trending/professor-slams-hegemonic-masculinity-of-homeless-men/

    The important thing is that they still have their male privilege.

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      I’d bet showing your feminine side at a homeless camp isn’t exactly safe if you’re a guy.

      1. Mojeaux

        Probably not if you’re a girl, either.

    2. Creosote Achilles

      Homelessness, women and children hardest hit. Despite the overwhelming majority of homeless being men.

    3. MikeS

      compensatory masculinity…is worse than hegemonic masculinity, though not yet as bad as toxic masculinity

      Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

    4. R C Dean

      So what’s her solution?

      1. Count Potato

        Needs moar study.

        “Professor Dej declined to comment. According to her CV, she has been awarded at least $185,000 by the Canadian government to research homelessness since 2009, and she notes that this new study is an outgrowth of her previous research.”

        1. Mad Scientist

          Plenty of people have an interest in ensuring others stay homeless. Look! There’s one now!

      2. trshmnstr

        Systemic castration, physically, chemically, emotionally, and societally.

    5. Chipwooder

      Hobo privilege?

      You know how progs are always rattling on about not “punching down”? Yeah.

      1. Gadfly

        Male privilege.

        By virtue of being male, these hobos are more privileged than the female professor getting six figure government grants to study them like monkeys.

  21. Sensei

    Nobody mentioned this or did I miss it?

    Freddie Mac to lower financing costs for landlords who cap rent rises

    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/freddie-mac-to-lower-financing-costs-for-landlords-who-cap-rent-rises-2018-08-07

    How to make housing unaffordable and punish taxpayers at the same time!

    1. R C Dean

      I predict very few takers. Rates are already low. A lower rate is unlikely to make much difference to a commercial real estate outfit, and not enough, I would expect, to get them to agree to cap the rental rates for the building.

      The value of an apartment building is basically the discounted present value of its rental income. Cap increases in that, and you have devalued the building. I haven’t done the math, but I can’t see how shaving some basis points off the interest will offset the reduction in the building’s value.

      1. Sensei

        Agreed.

    2. invisible finger

      Even more evil than on the face of it because the property taxes are probably more of a killer than the landlord’s interest payments. The city/county/state aren’t going to set the property taxes based on the rent he’s getting, they’re going to max it out on the rent they COULD be getting on the open market.

    3. The Bearded Hobbit

      I have a couple of rental properties and my guideline (for 30 years or so) is that I will never raise the rent on an existing renter. In fact, I may be the only landlord in, well, forever who lowered the rent at the request of a tenant. They are wonderful people who love my properly like it is their own (taking care of minor issues themselves) and have been there so long that I’ve lost track (10-15 years). Sometimes good landlords get good tenants.

      … Hobbit

      1. Rhywun

        My previous landlord raised it $10 a year. I almost fell out of my chair when I read the first lease renewal. That’s just unheard of in NYC.

        Now – $100 a pop.

      2. Spudalicious

        I’ve been a landlord twice. First was a condo we rented to a veterinarian. She begged us to let her bring her very rare cats that she kept in crates when she wasn’t home. Uh huh. She moved out after she got fired from her job. The carpet layers were gagging when they pulled the carpet and we even had to replace the corroded rail from the closet sliding doors.

        The second was the current house we’re in which is over 4,000 square feet. They had Yorkie’s. We used a management company that signed off on the exit inspection. Yes, we replaced this carpet too.

        Some people have good luck with it, I’ll never do it again.

  22. R C Dean

    CNN has not confirmed if this is authentic, but they we went ahead and published it anyway.

    New CNN motto?

    1. mexican sharpshooter

      CNN no ha podido confirmar la autenticidad del video.

      I find it interesting how CNN will put a statement like this in a story in Spanish, but won’t do that in English.

  23. Tundra

    Well, this is interesting:

    CHRISTOPHER STEELE DODGED CONGRESS’S INTERVIEW REQUESTS, BUT CHUCK GRASSLEY FOUND A SOLUTION

    A lawyer for a Russian businessman suing BuzzFeed News over the infamous Steele dossier says he will provide the Senate with a video of a deposition that Christopher Steele, the document’s author, gave as part of the BuzzFeed lawsuit in June.

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Ha! Fucking hilarious…

    2. RAHeinlein

      And this is why I shook Chuck’s hand and thanked him for his service the last time I saw him at the airport. He also penned a nice opinion piece for the journal today re: Kavanaugh:

      On July 10, the morning after President Trump nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he’d oppose the nomination “with everything I’ve got.” If the weeks since are any indicator, we should believe him.

      Immediately after news broke that Justice Anthony Kennedy was retiring, Democrats demanded that the president wait until the next Congress to appoint a replacement. They cited the “Biden rule,” a precedent based on then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden’s 1992 pronouncement that his committee would wait until after the heated presidential election season to consider any Supreme Court nomination. This year is a midterm election year, not a presidential one. Most Democrats have abandoned the talking point, but they haven’t abandoned the goal of delaying the process.

      Presumably, Mr. Schumer announced that he would oppose Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination before he read the judge’s 307 written opinions and the many other opinions he joined. Certainly, it was before he reviewed the more than 17,000 pages Judge Kavanaugh provided to the committee in response to our bipartisan questionnaire and an estimated one million pages of documents the committee has requested from the Bush White House, where Judge Kavanaugh once worked.

      It stands to reason that Senator Schumer wasn’t too concerned about Judge Kavanaugh’s record before he announced his opposition. Why is it so important to Senator Schumer now?

      https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-moment-of-honesty-from-chuck-schumer-1533595761?mod=hp_opin_pos3

      1. Hyperion

        Schumer and Biden are two of the most vile words one could utter in the same post. But all that aside, I expect the Democrats to get antifa to ‘protest’ and occupy the capital building during the confirmation process and litter the entire place with excrement, urine, and who knows what the fuck else, while attempting to block and attack people. The mayor of DC will probably order the police to stand down.

        1. The Capitol has its own police, doesn’t it?

          1. Hyperion

            As far as I know. Are you saying that it doesn’t?

    3. Spudalicious

      I really like Grassley.

  24. Count Potato

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9eE6KZzue8

    You can save the audio, and listen to it as a podcast, if you are into that sort of thing.

    1. Hyperion

      I just read somewhere that Trump has really had it now because Gates has proven that Manafort is guilty because Gates is apparently a fucking big time crook. You can’t even make this shit up. It’s almost like the Democrats are truly depending on running Soviet style kangaroo courts to convict people of being wealthy in the the court of public opinion.

    1. Hyperion

      I’ve just been catching up on that. Apparently, the left are going on an all out censorship campaign. The mask is off.

      1. Stinky Wizzleteats
        1. AlmightyJB

          Yeah, I’ve suspected that the professors that are teaching their students to silence conservative speakers by any means necessary don’t really care so much about the individual speakers but it’s just another step in the indoctrination process to teach that censorship is good, so that when they take over the internet and media because thats “too important to leave in the hands or greedy corporations” they’ll have no qualms about shutting down dissent. 1984, the instruction manual.

    2. CPRM

      You guys

      fuckoff sexist shitlord drumpf sucker

    3. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Scott Horton was on Part of the Problem talking about this today.

    4. Lackadaisical

      John at TOS was just saying the Libertarians were going to be next.

      1. Stinky Wizzleteats

        Certainly, it’s about disagreeing with the narrative they’re pushing. Conservatives and libertarians are all hateful Nazis now and that slur is even being thrown at people on the left who refuse to get in line. Our relative ineffectiveness might save us for a while though.

  25. Stinky Wizzleteats

    Count Dankula’s appeal rejected, he tells the court to fuck off because he’s not paying the fine.

    https://www.bitchute.com/video/camlWH7pKCc/

    1. Spudalicious

      The original tweet was from 2015. And the philosophy behind the whole Smokey The Bear campaign actually played a role in allowing the buildup in undergrowth and reduction in thinning by throwing massive resources on every fire and minimizing it’s role in the natural environment. Smokey needs to be a rug in front of somebodies fireplace.

  26. Count Potato

    “Saying that Aliens helped the Egyptians build the Pyramids, or the Mayans and Aztecs theirs has massive racist and colonialist undertones that infantilizes black and brown peoples capabilities of innovation and technological development.”

    https://twitter.com/HeronXIII/status/1026172974972502016

    1. CPRM

      But not about aliens building stonehenge?

      1. mexican sharpshooter

        C’mon man. Demons build Stonehenge.

        1. The Last American Hero

          I thought it was built by druids to keep the demons in.

      2. Mad Scientist

        I’ll be impressed when they used stones, not from a quarry a hundred miles away, but stones quarried on the moon or Mars.

        1. Gustave Lytton

          -1 mass driver aimed at Earth

        2. The Last American Hero

          I’ll be impressed when they build a structure that could not have possibly been built without powertools.

          1. Schnirt Gurgleburger

            Not really qualified here, but:

            STEVE SMITH HAVE POWERTOOL

    2. Rhywun

      Heron X ☭
      @HeronXIII
      Heron // ✨Pansexual Non-Binary✨ // Pan-African + Irish Marxist-Leninist //

      Oh come on. That’s a parody, right?

      1. straffinrun

        Sounds like a bad drink Gopher would serve.

        1. straffinrun

          Isaac, Damnit.

  27. Count Potato

    “Infowars is the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and YouTube to tear our nation apart. These companies must do more than take down one website. The survival of our democracy depends on it.”

    https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1026580187784404994

    Christ, what an asshole.

    1. Gustave Lytton

      He must order copies of the Constitution by the palletload so he can wipe his ass with it every time he takes a shit.

      1. Count Potato

        I don’t think he takes a shit. He just lets it build up in his head.

    2. Hyperion

      Nutty, yes, tinfoil hat wearer? Yeah, that would describe Alex Jones. Hate? Not so much, that sounds more like antifa and leftists in general. There assholes are going to get what is coming to them unless we can save them from themselves, along with the rest of us. If not, the writing was already on the wall in an antifa photo I saw a while back, depicting a wall with the writing ‘liberals get the bullet too’.

  28. Count Potato

    “The true purpose of social media is finally coming to light. It was never meant to share ideas and moments as they promised. It was meant to record, to watch, and label who is worthy. The purpose of social media has always been to serve as nothing more than Big Brother.”

    https://twitter.com/ashtonbirdie/status/1026927045610102784

    1. Hyperion

      If we can just get to a China type social media score system, utopia will appear. Nothing could possibly go wrong, I mean not for me, I’m one of the right thinkers.

  29. Hyperion

    So, what is really the deal with the OH special election tonight? The media are going all in that the Democrat has a huge edge. But when I look at the primaries, the GOP had around 30,000 more total votes. I mean I’m not talking about a district with millions of people, it looks like the GOP had about 65% more votes in the primary. Something doesn’t sound right here. Maybe I’m wrong.

    1. Lackadaisical

      What election is that?

    2. That’s my district it’s pretty red has been for 20 plus years, perhaps back in the union heyday of the 70’s there may have been a democrat edge, but now, it’s Trump town. The dems thinking they were gonna flip it must a been smoking sommat. Maybe they saw the gerrymandered map touched Columbus, but it only hits the northern edge, i.e. the rich white part of Cowtown, Dems don’t stand a chance.

      1. trshmnstr

        My mom said the local news media were doing their best to gin up votes for the dem.

        1. Well, I don’t even have a TV (he smugged) so I can’t speak to that, I do know its about 80% blue-collar-working-class-‘Merica-Fuck-Yeah!! people. When we still had the GM plant the union folk might have swung it blue but no longer. In 2016 the Trump sign to Her signs ration was easily 9-1. I saw more “Lock Her Up” or “Hilary For Prison” signs than actual Hilary signs.

        2. Nephilium

          I saw at least one article that said no matter who wins in this election, the Republicans lose. They were basing it on the Republicans spending and putting feet on the ground when it’s supposed to be a safe district, so if the Republican wins, they really lost because they spent money and manpower they could have saved.

          I mean, ignoring safe districts is how Hillary won, right?

      2. Hyperion

        Regardless, the democrat is so far ahead at this point, that I’d say it’s over.

        1. No shit?, well I guess I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about when it comes to politics.

          1. Hyperion

            Well, I didn’t say that and it’s tightening now. But 66% of the vote is in. You mad, bro?

          2. Not mad, I just swear a lot. self-depreciating if anything.

          3. Oh . Maybe not, latest update only 550 votes difference (0.5%), with 59% counted.

          4. Even if Balderson wins it that’s a hell of a lot closer than my road sign analysis would have called, it’s a good thing I can swing a hammer because I suck at political prognostication.

          5. dorvinion

            Looking at the results, I don’t have a dog in this race but you can bet that there will be a lot of hate directed at the dude from the Greens.

            https://www.politico.com/election-results/2018/ohio/special-election/aug-07/

          6. dorvinion

            Or not cause I can’t maths right

  30. Tres Cool

    So, based on what I read this morning, Sloopy has been really “busy” this week ?

    1. straffinrun

      I would’ve guessed Jim Acosta.

    2. Unreconstructed

      Nah, that’s too far from his house. If that was Sloopy, he’d be in a different neighborhood. Unless the bet was badly made, and that’s why nobody knows who it is…

  31. straffinrun

    Once again, I have been asked to provide links on account of Brett being unavailable  snorting lines of cocaine  because you all just love the Spanish Shtick.

    Mexican blew a line himself.

    1. mexican sharpshooter

      *rubs nose frantically*

  32. Lackadaisical

    Mojeaux, you wrote this in an earlier thread today regarding prescription contraceptive, hopefully you’re still around:

    Not only do they just write a scrip, what they will do is hand out whatever samples they have in the office. There is no effort to differentiate formulations and tailor a scrip to a patient.

    Me and the wife had a problem with this. Obviously during her pregnancy wifey was off the pill, then when she went back on they had her on a similar, but different formulation which, iirc, wasn’t working as well. She had to call up the doc and get him to give her the exact one she’d had before. Point being not only are the docs a barrier, but can actually hinder access to the right drugs.

    1. The Last American Hero

      Mrs. Hero has tried several different formulas over the years, some of which had nasty side effects. Every time the conversation went like this:
      Mrs. Hero “Hey doc, that version of the people is causing me to get fever and chills.”
      Doc (scribbles new scrip) “Try this.”

      There was no carefully considered review of the medical file or testing done, it was pure trial and error.

      1. Tundra

        My dad was a pharmacist. According to him, no one knew less about the drugs they were prescribing.

    2. Mojeaux

      Yes.

      I’m not going to say that formulations aren’t different; they are. I’m also going to say that if one’s not working for you, maybe you SHOULD go to a doc and discuss it, tell him your symptoms, and get something right. But they don’t do that. They throw samples at you, which is awfully nice of them, but doesn’t address any problems.

      In my 20s, I had, shall I say, some issues unrelated to contraception that required birth control pills. LOTS of them, like 5 packs a month for about 2 years. Although a lot of docs gave it the good ol’ college try, nobody could ever find out what was wrong with me. Massive doses of iron and low-carb finally cleared it up. But there are LOTS of women who do not need birth control. They need the hormones. For me, getting that much BC was a nightmare. I would have killed to be able to go into Walmart, talk to a pharmacist* and tell him my problem, and drop $25/month on what I needed.

      *Which reminds me. A pharmacist would be much better at helping out with formulations than a doc. Just keep the shit behind the counter. If somebody has questions about which one to buy, give them some guidance.

      1. Count Potato

        That drugs require prescriptions is bullshit. Adults shouldn’t need to get permission slips to buy things.

        1. Mojeaux

          I cannot disagree. We buy Bronkaid. Missouri limits you to 3 boxes every 30 days. Don’t have to have a scrip, but you have to present your driver’s license to buy it.

      2. Lackadaisical

        I’m not going to say that formulations aren’t different; they are.

        Thats what I got out of your quote, but until this happened to us, I had no idea there were different formulations.

        I’m also going to say that if one’s not working for you, maybe you SHOULD go to a doc and discuss it, tell him your symptoms, and get something right.

        Oh, wifey raised hell and got things sorted out, we were lucky because she already knew the formulation she needed and read it off to them so they’d get it right…

        But there are LOTS of women who do not need birth control. They need the hormones. For me, getting that much BC was a nightmare. I would have killed to be able to go into Walmart, talk to a pharmacist* and tell him my problem, and drop $25/month on what I needed.

        Sorry to hear about your travails, ‘just’ another one of those unseen consequences of over regulation of all society.

        1. Mojeaux

          ‘just’ another one of those unseen consequences of over regulation of all society.

          Feature, not bug.

  33. straffinrun

    This morning’s commute isn’t fun. Getting worse.
    https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20180808-00010001-wmap-soci.view-000

    1. trshmnstr

      I can’t read Japanese, but judging from the picture, a giant mechanical space penis with a red tip will be penetrating the earth just east of Japan. Tokyo appears to be in the splooge zone. Where’s godzilla when we need him???

      In all seriousness, stay safe and dry!

      1. straffinrun

        Be honest, you see giant dicks in everything.

        1. STEVE SMITH SEE GIANT DICK IN EVERYTHING.

          1. Rhywun

            AND BY ‘SEE’ MEAN ‘PUT’

          2. STEVE SMITH LOOK DOWN AND SEE GIANT DICK IN EVERYTHING.

        2. trshmnstr

          Yes, but it’s usually mine

      2. 35 m/s is only 80 MPH.

        1. straffinrun

          Typhoo(n) don’t go much above that. The train service getting all mucked up is the big problem.

          1. Hurricanes go above that. 80 is only a Category 1.

          2. straffinrun

            Yep. These things don’t do nearly as much damage. Dump a ton of rain on your ass, though.

    2. Did Gojira finally attack again?

    3. Gustave Lytton

      Changing your handle to straffintaifū?

  34. Count Potato

    “Infowars is Not Just Being Censored, Basic Business Infrastructure Now Being Stripped as MailChimp Bans Their Email

    Infowars is not just being censored now, in the latest Totalitarian move against the outlet, Mail Chimp and LinkedIn have also banned them from using their services.

    The leftist Big Tech mob isn’t content with just censorship — they are now targeting the outlet’s basic business infrastructure.

    In a statement to the far-left activist website Media Matters for America, the email service made an exception to their rule about commenting on individual users or accounts.

    “MailChimp doesn’t generally comment on individual users or accounts, but we’ll make an exception today. MailChimp notified Infowars that their accounts have been terminated for violating our Terms of Service, which make it clear that we don’t allow people to use our platform to disseminate hateful content,” the statement began. “We take our responsibility to our customers and employees seriously. The decision to terminate this account was thoughtfully considered and is in line with our company’s values.””

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/08/infowars-is-not-just-being-censored-basic-business-infrastructure-now-being-stripped-as-mailchimp-bans-their-email/

    1. straffinrun

      Has anyone made The Obiwan getting struck down animated gif yet?

    2. Rhywun

      Not following this very closely… was it something specific that caused the hive mind to reject him?

      1. straffinrun

        The big sin being sited was his Sandy Hook comment. False flag insinuation. BS.

        1. Rhywun

          Meh. So “hateful content” really is just whatever they say it is.

          1. Count Potato

            Yes. And ““hateful content” could be used against any progressive opinion. If you are a against climate change, you hate coal miners. If you are for gun control, you hate gun owners. If you are against school choice, you hate children. If you are pro-choice, you hate babies.

      2. mikey

        So, because of this kerfuffle I visited the site for the first time and bookmarked it. There’s nothing really there. Today it’s about them being censored – not surprising. Kinda like Drudge I suppose. If there’s a message there it’s in their choice of stories. Sorta like… anywhere.

        1. Stinky Wizzleteats

          He’s a character actor that often says some off the wall stuff. On the whole, though, he’s no more hateful than The Young Turks.

    3. Stinky Wizzleteats

      What a crock of horseshit.

      1. straffinrun

        At least this truth teller hasn’t been deplatformed.

        1. Stinky Wizzleteats

          Don’t you dare disparage that fine human being.

        2. Rhywun

          Someone has a lot of free time to shit out hot takes on everything Trump twats.

    4. Mojeaux

      This is the logical progression.

      Take away his soapbox.

      Take away his income.

      Within the next day or two, Paypal, SquareUp, Kickstarter, Patreon, whoever, will cut him loose so he has no way of trading electronically.

      Hearkening back to our “private companies can do what they want” discussion, I would say a whole bunch of private companies ganging up on one person or one segment of the wrongthink population, comes pretty close to something illegal.

      1. Stinky Wizzleteats

        He’s just a test case, wait until they really get going.

        1. Mojeaux

          Yes.

          However, I think WoodChipperGate was the beginning of the government side of this cleansing.

      2. Rhywun

        I’m no lawyer but I’m not seeing anything illegal there. Nobody is required to perform a service.

        Unless you’re gay. And… I think I just came up with a winning strategy that he could use to fight this…

        1. R C Dean

          I’m not sure there’s nothing illegal here, nothing is jumping out at me. I’m not even sure there’s any kind of conscious coordination going on. But it may be that concentrations of economic power can be just as bad for society as concentrations of government power, and on that basis (libertarian or no) Big Tech needs to be broken up.

      3. R C Dean

        Its an interesting question.

        Should a group of private companies be permitted to collude/conspire/coordinate against someone to render them effectively an unperson? Private companies aren’t allowed to collude to set prices under anti-trust law (which I tend to think is a good thing).

        Some of these same things are being done to gun makers and sellers, don’t forget.

        This is extraordinarily concerning to me. If unpersoning by a group of companies is allowed, what damage will society suffer until alternative workaround appear? These same companies who are unpersoning Jones have enormous clout with politicians; what assurances do we have that alternative workarounds will be allowed to appear? The government loves centralization in all things, including especially the economy. You know that they would just love to cut a deal with Big Tech that involved Big Tech doing their bidding in exchange for a moat against competition. And so would Big Tech.

        I don’t have a proposal to stop this from happening. But I sure want it to stop.

        1. R C Dean

          On the Facebook/Twitter side, I think stripping them of their liability protections and exposing them to defamation, etc. would probably bring this to a halt. I suspect you could throw MailChimp in that bucket as well. If you limit the content you distribute based on “hateful” or “offensive”, you are a publisher, and are exposed to defamation.

          1. Rhywun

            And you can bet that every single one of these outfits has the same clause in their TOS.

          2. Stinky Wizzleteats

            The publisher angle is definitely the way to go.

        2. Rhywun

          Their being in bed with government seems like a good angle from which to fight this. Just unearth an email – gotta be some out there from some snake asking for a “favor”.

        3. straffinrun

          They’re claiming it wasn’t collusion, but rather they all just happen to come to the realization that Jones was evil, all within a 24 hour period. I don’t see how you can stop them from colluding (unless you have direct evidence of it). Punish them for colluding to ruin a person’s life and the tech firms will be in a rush to boot people first so they don’t get stuck with the heretic.

        4. Should a group of private companies be permitted to collude/conspire/coordinate against someone to render them effectively an unperson?
          Yes, yes they should.

          You people (yeah I said it) are bitching about social media on a social media site created because TPTB were upset with their options, Sure Glibs isn’t Facebook or Twitter but its existence is a testament to the inevitability of creative destruction, remember when Montgomery Ward was going to monopolise retail, then it was Sears then K-mart then Wallmart now its Amazon tomorrow it’ll be something else. Facebook and Twitter are nothing special I bet a case of Stroh’s against the beer of your choice that by 2025 one or both of them has been usurped by a new platform.

          1. straffinrun

            Gotta say that I don’t find the monopoly argument very persuasive. If the culture decides it wants to rely so heavily on these few tech firms, we need to change the culture, not the laws.

          2. F. Stupidity Jr.

            “Private” companies.

      4. I have always believed that a person or private company has the right to associate with whomever they choose, full stop, and I’m not going to start now just because the companies involved are espousing a belief or acting in a manner I find repugnant. A principle’s a principle. With that said, this is a perfect opportunity for a bit of tit for tat if there’s a legal justification under the public accommodations part of the Civil Rights Act to go after these companies and force them to bake the cake, so to speak.

        What I would rather see, and in the interests of full disclosure I have a $50 site donation riding on this hope, is companies come in to fill the void. Best would obviously be for new companies that just do what they do for money, regardless of the political opinions of their customers, but in a grim, dystopian way it would be fascinating to see an entirely separate ecosystem of businesses geared toward the exiles from the Progressive-dominated marketplace. There’s a gun range near me that is invite-only and requires members to also be paying members of the NRA. What if they also banned members on the basis of espousing Progressive viewpoints? How about a Facebook that banned accounts found to promote “social justice” or socialism?

        I think one of the two or something in-between is where this all ends up. I don’t know if the companies doing this stuff have thought it through beyond social signalling and getting rid of icky people, but kicking Alex Jones off of Facebook doesn’t turn all his fans into Bernie Sanders supporters. All they’ve done is push him and his audience to find some alternate outlets. If they really thought InfoWars was a dangerous alt-right hate vehicle or whatever, they just lost the modicum of control they could have over its content.

  35. Old Man With Candy

    Just dropping in briefly to say hello from Atlanta, which is just as much of an overcrowded steambath as I remembered. Can’t wait to get out of here. Two more days…

    1. Tundra

      Weird, isn’t it?

      The second worst airport in the world is surrounded by a total traffic-clogged shithole. Color me surprised.

      1. jesse.in.mb

        Second in the world?

        I’m gonna need to see your math here. SVO is #1 and #2 for me, I effing hate JFK and ORD. ATL was irritating but I don’t know about second worst on the globe.

        LAX was bad and the traffic to it and failure to have transit (thanks neo-Marxist bus advocates!) is egregious, but it’s improved dramatically and two projects are actively fixing most of my complaints about it.

        1. Tundra

          Mostly just fucking around.

          Philly is the worst.

          ATL sucks mostly because my connecting flight seems to always be 3 counties away.

          I actually love MSP and AMS.

          1. jesse.in.mb

            I did like MSP. Saying you like AMS is the airport equivalent of saying “I like watching puppies and kittens frolicking together while I eat a double scoop cone of my favorite ice cream and get a bj.”

            ATL’s layout perplexes me, but I’ve definitely dealt with worse. One of my least favorite and/or funniest experiences was having a connection through Denver where we spent our 35 minute connection time running (at altitude) because our first plane was late and the place is just one long hallway.

          2. Tundra

            Terminal 2 at MSP just got redone, too. It’s beautiful. I’ve been flying SW more lately and it’s so nice to go out of the smaller terminal.

            And yeah, loving AMS is easy, but I really dig puppies, kitties, ice cream and bjs.

            What the hell is wrong with that??

          3. jesse.in.mb

            Hey man. I won’t stop you if you want to say self evident things just for the sake of saying them.

            Find me someone who *doesn’t* like AMS and it’ll be an interesting conversation. Maybe whoever it was that complained that Kosher for Passover Coke made with real cane sugar was inferior to normal Coke.

          4. Tundra

            Fair point.

            Last week I was in the St. Louis airport and it was awful, and the Nashville airport which was OK. The live music in the Gibson bar was kind of fun.

          5. jesse.in.mb

            You know what airport is just fantastic? Rochester, NY: It’s tiny, they were one of the six airports to get a get-rid-of-TSA-and-hire-contractors waivers, and you can feel nostalgic about weird arguments with an ex-boyfriend about the availability of Labatt in LA while drinking one in a BLUE ZONE bar.

          6. Tundra

            I’ve flown to Newport News many times. It has like 6 gates. The TSA people and the employees are amazingly awesome. They seem lonely.

          7. jesse.in.mb

            PDX is probably my favorite airport, which is at least partially due to very friendly mid-20s scruffy guys doing security every time I’ve gone through. MSY has been surprisingly good too, but for different reasons.

          8. RAHeinlein

            I’ll second PDX. Non-terminal “A” EWR and new MSP are very good.

          9. Rhywun

            It’s tiny, they were one of the six airports to get a get-rid-of-TSA-and-hire-contractors waivers

            My hometown. Good for them.

          10. jesse.in.mb

            I’m flying there in October to visit family in Victor. I flew through BUF last time and it was fine, but additional driving and the experience just wasn’t as pleasant as ROC.

          11. Gustave Lytton

            ATL and DEN are pretty much designed the same way. STL is a ghost town after TWA folded and AA cut back the remnants. I haven’t been in MSY since the terminal work.

          12. Gustave Lytton

            My personal ordering:

            Shitholes: PDX, AMS, BOS
            Mediocre: SFO (fuck fake TSA Covenant Security, they’re even more incompetent assholes than the regular TSA), SEA, FLL, EUG, BOI, ORD, IAH, YQX, STL
            Alright: IAD (depending on the terminal), JFK (depending on terminal), FUK, YYC, ANC, MSY, CLT, BLI, LAS, PHX, FAI, PVR, SNN
            Pretty good: DEN, LAX, RDU, VIE, KIX
            Great: HND

          13. Old Man With Candy

            AMS is great. Ditto VIE.

            ATL… get off the plane, walk a mile, and you get to take a packed train ride to baggage. It might be two or three trains before you can fit in. Then it’s another long train to the rental car center. The flight from Milwaukee was shorter than getting my suitcase and car after landing.

          14. Tundra

            My parents are in Vienna right now. Judging from the pics…

            wood.

          15. CPRM

            Wood for your parents and you’re not even one of the appelatia glibs. Didn’t know minnisodas swung that way.

          16. Tundra

            There are some places outstate that are kind of scary.

            But I meant Vienna.

            You know who else ‘wood’ Vienna>

          17. Gustave Lytton

            Yes! Knew it would be that video before clicking.

      2. Old Man With Candy

        The only airport I hate more is Heathrow.

        1. Tundra

          Only been there once. Still not as bad as ATL.

    2. Spudalicious

      In training for the afterlife, are ya?

    3. jesse.in.mb

      overcrowded steambath

      Go on…

      1. Tundra

        Serious question: steam or sauna and why?

        1. Old Man With Candy

          Sauna. I love those things. Totally irrational, I know.

          1. Tundra

            Why? I’m trying to figure out where to put a wood fired one here.

          2. Old Man With Candy

            Like I said, irrational. It was just… enjoyable.

          3. Count Potato

            You’ll finnish it eventually.

          4. jesse.in.mb

            Someone needs a cocktail

        2. jesse.in.mb

          Steam unless the place is poorly maintained. If it smells even slightly musty I’m in the dry sauna instead. Most of it is that I live in a relatively dry climate, so I like the steam for softening any crud in my sinuses. I also feel like I can tolerate it longer overall.

          1. Tundra

            My gym has both. When allergies are bad steam is perfect. Otherwise, sauna seems to take car of the muscles better.

          2. jesse.in.mb

            Oh at home I’d put in a dry one. I don’t want to potentially have to deal with mildew or something.

            I feel less ridiculous splaying out and stretching in a steam sauna (even in a completely deserted K-spa). I don’t know why, maybe the illusion of privacy the steam provides?

          3. Count Potato

            I’m fond of the “Indian sauna” (although I have no idea how authentic that is) that I’ve experienced at a number of ashrams. You get a bunch of yogi dudes. Crank the sauna to 11. Then hit it with a hose. Then get into restorative poses to deal with the intense heat and humidity so you don’t pass out. Then as the water vapor dissipates it turns back into a regular sauna. Which is sort of a relief. It’s sort of like pouring water on the hot rocks in a sweat lodge.

            I remember this time I was in a Native-American sweat lodge. It got so intense several people left. The person running it saw me sitting cross-legged with my eyes closed, and asked me if I was OK. I said I was fine because because I was locked in Svastikasana (so I was barely burning any of my only calories for heat). Then I had to explain it had nothing to do with Nazis.

          4. Count Potato

            Also, Jesse might be amused that at this sweat lodge we were smoking something called “bear medicine”.

          5. jesse.in.mb

            You’re terrible at convincing me that you don’t have anything interesting to write about. I just want to be very clear on that point.

          6. Count Potato

            um, “own” not “only”

          7. Count Potato

            “You’re terrible at convincing me that you don’t have anything interesting to write about. I just want to be very clear on that point.”

            I’m not trying to convince anyone of that. Although, I started outlining an article about the eight-limb path of “Raja Yoga” in relation to libertarianism. But merely describing the yamas and niyamas quickly became too verbose. I could write an entire article how Ishvara Pranidhana (which is just one of the niyamas) is anti-collectivist….

            Anyway, I’ll try to work on something.

          8. Tundra

            Please do.

            I learn a lot here.

        3. We’ve hit 85% humidity more often than not this summer. I’ve taken to cold showers so that I can postpone sweating long enough to greet whoever I’m going to be spending most of the day with before I look like I swam there. I can’t imagine a situation in which I’d not be sweating for some good reason but still want to anyway.

          1. Tundra

            Eucalyptus helps.

          2. jesse.in.mb

            Clearly you’re sauna culture is not run by Koreans. We have…mugwort.

            The acupuncturist we hired looked stricken for a minute when I caught him spraying a mugwort infusion on patients and chided him for not burning it on their skin. Then he nerded out about the benefits and how moxabustion is dumb, but mugwort is helpful and all that. I wonder if he’s still so zealous about it.

          3. Tundra

            The fuck?

            i just googled ‘steam mugwort’ and got this.

            I’ll stick with eucalyptus.

          4. jesse.in.mb

            The story takes place in Santa Monica. Of course they used mugwort, it’s run by Koreans because LA. Mugwort is big in traditional chinese medicine for reasons that I fail to remember from my times spent studying acupuncture (book-larnin’, not training) and sitting in “event pools” (ebentu tang) in Korean saunas that had different herbal properties written mostly in hangul but also in broken english…sometimes.

          5. Tundra

            Lol. I’ll have to try it next time I’m there.

          6. jesse.in.mb

            The place I went near where I lived had salt water hot tubs that were not as hot, and were outside on a balcony. It was fucking amazing to lie back in an ultra buoyant hot tub and watch a thunderstorm roll over the city… I miss that place.

          7. Rhywun

            Yeah, if I want “sauna” I can just walk into my non-AC kitchen at any time during the last two or three weeks. No thanks.

          8. Tundra

            You’ve mentioned that. Is it only the kitchen that is the seventh level of hell?

          9. Rhywun

            No but the kitchen is especially bad because cooking. The fridge puts out a lot of heat too.

  36. Aerozppln

    Holy shite this Ohio is coming down to the wire. All depends what precincts they did or didn’t count first.

    1. CPRM

      Ohio is a fake state made up by Alex Jones, everyone knows this.