Thursday Morning Links

I still think he got screwed, but whatever.

Hoo-boy. A three game suspension for Meyer.  I guess I can live with that, but the media talking heads sure can’t. They wanted a pound of flesh and this just won’t do. How dare he cover up…what exactly? Sorry, assholes. This is becoming an exercise in who can out-social signal each other and has zero to do with investigating domestic violence (which the Powell PD did on over 60 calls in a 90 day stretch and found absolutely nothing to substantiate the claims, and even her mother said none happened).  Well go suck an egg, assholes. When you’re banging out hot takes to your hundreds of moon-faced followers hoping your paper or website stays afloat long enough for you to keep getting paychecks, Urban will be winning football games and making 30x what you are to do it and stadiums full of people will cheer him on and won’t even recognize you as you stroll the concourses at halftime.

I’m sorry, I went off on a tangent there. Let’s get some sports scores going, shall we?  Toronto beat Baltimore (poor Baltimore), Chicago topped Minnesota, Milwaukee blanked the Reds, Texas took out Oakland, the world champion Houston Astros beat Seattle, Washington squeaked past Philly, Atlanta scalped Pittsburgh, Boston finally figured out Cleveland, the Cubs mauled Detroit, the Mets cut down the Giants, the Marlins cruised past the Yankees, the Rays stung the Royals, the Rockies topped the Padres, the Diamondbacks stung the Angels, and the Cardinals beat the Dodgers. The NL divisions and wild card are super tight, while the only race in the AL anymore is the west and second wild card.  a little more than 30 games left per team…should be fun.

Pure genius

Just in case you were wondering what famous people were born on this date, wonder no more. We have Charles Martel, headless Louis XVI, dancer and actor Gene Kelly, jazzman Bob Crosby, actresses Vera Miles and Barbara Eden, (one of the greatest) drummer(s of all time) Keith Moon, college athlete Rudy Ruettiger, singer Rick Springfield, “Night Shift” actress Shelley Long, Jordanian Queen Noor, the ageless Julio Franco, drug aficionado River Phoenix, funny man Jay Mohr, convicted pederast Jared Fogle, and wingman to Shaq Kobe Bryant.

Also happening on this date: William Wallace was executed, Calvinists were granted rights in Holland (but it was going to happen anyway), the American Methodist Episcopal church was founded, Ghandi was released from jail after a hunger strike, “You Cant Take It With You” hit theaters, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed (for what it was worth), “The Big Sleep” also hit the silver screen, the first C-130 hit the skies, Armenia declared independence, Osama bin Asshole issued a fatwa against the United States, Quadafi was overthrown thanks to the CIA going back on our word, and the first twitter hashtag was used (God help us all).

Man, that was slim pickings. Oh well, its quality not quantity. And with that, on to…the links!

e palekana, e nā hoaaloha

I know how they feel in Hawaii. If there are any Glibs out there on one of the islands, stay safe.

Even if he does this just to piss people off, its probably a bad idea to pardon Paul Manafort. Especially since he’s yet to go to trial for the other laundry list of charges against him, the optics are terrible.

What an asshole. And a shitty terrorist too. You’re supposed to kill infidels, not your relatives. Jesus, you can’t even Islamo-terrorism right anymore, ISIS followers. Get your shit together or we’ll have to start referring to you as the JV again.

Victim of alleged Asia Argento sexual assault speaks out. Calls out hypocrisy of Argento and speaks about his shame of being stigmatized as a male victim. I know some of you think this is a money grab, but seriously, the dude kept quiet the entire time until he was outed and if whats alleged in the settlement is true, she did effectively pull a Cosby on him.  I’d like to see the police handle it at this point.

“Hey city taxpayers…suck on this”

Chicago finds a way to piss away even more money on pensions. That’s ok…they can just tax the producers more and more until they all move away.  Then they can become Detroit.

More calls for immigration reform in the wake of Mollie Tibbetts murder allegedly carried out by an illegal immigrant. According to some talking heads, she’s just “some girl in Iowa”. Yeah, that’s gonna sell.

Police bust Spanish ring of endangered turtle sellers. The best part: they’re actually raising the turtles to sell and are probably getting a better survival rate than the dumbass environmentalists out there destroying property values and property rights in order to “save” them.

First of three tracks. Because this man was a God. And because I reserve the right to do what I want from time to time.

Go out there and enjoy your day, dear friends.

Comments

613 responses to “Thursday Morning Links”

  1. Police bust ring of Spanish ring of endangered turtle sellers.

    But, but, sloopy, the turtles want to be freeeeeee, not farmed.

    /econut

    1. straffinrun

      Turtle head pinched.

    2. Pretty much. It’s like all those people in Africa who farm endangered animals for hunts managing to do the job of repopulation a hundred times better than the dipshits who want to displace people and relocate them.

      Didn’t something happen like that with Rhinos recently or some other endangered animal? They relocated them and the entire herd died in a few days.

    3. Count Potato

      “Europol says Thursday that police in Mallorca seized around 1,100 turtles and 750 eggs, including specimens of 14 of the 50 most endangered species in the world. Some of the protected species came from the United States, Canada and Mexico.”

      That sounds like an extremely extensive operation. I never heard of an illegal dealer having 14 kinds of drugs. And they had to keep finding people who were willing to spend $10K for a pet turtle. Maybe they ate them? Are there turtle addicts jonesing for their next fix? “Yo, I’ll suck your dick for a pancake tortoise!”

      1. Nephilium

        I’m just curious how that 1,100 turtles compares to the number kept in zoos/captivity. Maybe they should have just hung a shingle as an Eco Friendly Animal Rehabilitation Non-profit.

        1. Sean

          Maybe they should have just hung a shingle as an Eco Friendly Animal Rehabilitation Non-profit.

          Combine that with a Pakistani women’s shelter for a real good defense.

  2. Winston

    Even if he does this just to piss people off….the optics are terrible.

    Erm…you are talking about Trump you know…

  3. AlexinCT

    Morning Gliberatti!

    1. Slammer

      *throws devil horns*

      1. Nephilium

        *Starts up mosh pit*

        1. Chafed

          *Turns amps up to 11*

  4. Brett L

    Aw man. I was hoping for a better, less reasonable rant. A three-game suspension is essentially a punt. Either fire him or tell everyone to fuck off.

    1. Ayn Random Variation

      Are those the 3 games they play Whatsamatter U, Sisters of the Poor, and Michigan?

    2. This was the calmest I could be. I’m still digesting the excrement punched out this morning by Heather Dinich and Christine Brennan, where they all but say Meyer himself was beating some woman up who the police basically wrote off as a whack-job.

      I think he got screwed. And so does he if you listened to his presser. But the media are going bonkers now about deleted emails. Nevermind the fact that NOBODY FOUND THE ALLEGED VICTIM CREDIBLE from law enforcement, the community of coaches, the school or even her own goddamn family.

      Zach Smith was a piece of shit husband. She was a piece of shit wife. And now their kids are always going to be tarred with this public airing of grievances. It’s a sad state of affairs, to say the least.

      1. leonadasiv

        “But the media are going bonkers now about deleted emails. ”

        Reminds me of another woman married to an abuser…

        1. R C Dean

          Except for the part about the media giving a shit, that is.

      2. Pope Jimbo

        Well he could use that time off to run for Attorney General in Minnesoda.

        Of course, he’d have to run as a Republican so maybe that wouldn’t work out so well afterwards.

      3. robc

        The cover up is worse than the crime. Especially when there isnt a crime.

        It makes you ( well, me) wonder what unrelated, problematic stuff was in the texts.

      4. DrZaius

        I’ve followed this only in the sense that I want to see how the media covers it.

        Conclusions I’ve made… WR coach really sucked at his job and only had it because of his grandfather. I mean jesus fucking christ, he gave them every opportunity to fire him just for sucking at his third tier coaching job and they never did.

        Also, I love how the lying cocksucker media folks think lying to them at Big 10 media day was some type capital offence.

  5. AlexinCT

    I know how they feel in Hawaii. If there are any Glibs out there on one of the islands, stay safe.

    If this was in Florida, Floridaman would be telling people to hold his beer and watch his neat trick…

    1. PieInTheSKy

      I think the worst will avoid Hawaii though …

    2. Private Chipperbot

      This is part of what I do for work. There’s only about a 10% chance that the islands sees even 50mph winds at sea level.

      1. Democractic Hitler

        Control hurricanes? Sweeeeet.

        1. Private Chipperbot

          Shh. Re-wraps tin foil.

          1. Jarflax

            You work at HARP? Whycome you not hit antifa rallies with tornadoes?

          2. Private Chipperbot

            Tried. Mr. Lizard keeps re-purposing the energy into their version of a fleshlight.

          3. Mr Lizard

            Just trying to build a better STEVE SMITH trap

  6. Winston

    https://m.theepochtimes.com/democratic-socialists-of-america-is-a-communist-organization_2621954.html

    While touted in the media as a new movement, DSA is nothing but warmed-over communism.

    1. AlexinCT

      It’s always communism repackaged in a new big loaf of bread, covered with other things that make it look good, to mask the fact that when it is all removed you still have one giant turd sammich.

      1. Winston

        They are allies!/ some guy from the Harvard Crimson

      2. You don’t have a turd sandwich. You have a picture of a turd sandwich you have to wait in a seven hour line just to walk by and see in the turd sandwich store window.

        1. AlexinCT

          But since everyone has to do that it is more just than a system where only some get that turd sammich!

          /woke idiots

    2. Suthenboy

      No shit?
      I am shocked.

  7. Tundra

    Good morning, Sloopy!

    Sorry about your guy, but that’s the world we live in now.

    And Quadrophenia is my favorite Who album. 5:15 is a perfect selection!

    1. MikeS

      Good tunes. And apropos of nothing, 2 of the 3 are CSI theme songs. Here’s the other 2 to round things out:

      Who Are You -Very cool video of them in the recording studio

      I Can See For Miles

  8. Count Potato

    “He did,” she replied. “He said he considered that. He feels I think — I think he feels bad for Manafort. They were friends, he didn’t work for him for very long. Worked for him for basically 100 days. The president didn’t know about all of this tax stuff. He wouldn’t know about that.””

    I doubt Trump will do anything until after the other trial is finished. Trump could also just commute his sentence.

    Speaking of optics, the left-wing media demanding the names of the jurors when it looked like they might not convict Manafort, then not mentioning anything at all about the jurors after they got the convictions they wanted, didn’t look so good either.

    1. Pope Jimbo

      Yeah, the absolute requirement to have the names and addresses of the jurors has sort of dropped by the wayside hasn’t it?

      Complete mystery why.

    1. Pat

      They should be paying people to poop as well. Kind of a new take on the old “pay one guy to dig a ditch and another to fill it back up” concept.

      1. AlexinCT

        You should be running that town Pat. In fact, you should go run that state! Pure genius and a true job creator.

        1. Count Potato

          Wait until he hears my idea of turning used needles into drinking straws.

      2. Gadfly

        Given their generous homeless programs that apparently come with no strings attached, one could argue that they already are.

    2. mindyourbusiness

      But San Francisco (and, I assume, the feds and state government) can spend 2.2 billion dollars on a new light rail terminal!

      *spits*

      1. C. Anacreon

        Actually, it’s a bus station.

        1. mindyourbusiness

          Thanks for the correction. Maybe they can spend another couple billion on light rail.

  9. WTF

    Regarding Urban Meyer, I still can’t see that he actually did anything wrong. I think if I were in that position, I would have dug in my heels and told tOSU that if they tried to discipline me over this bullshit I would resign and go build a winning program for a rival school.

    1. If it was any school but Ohio State, he would have. His ties are too deep there.

      1. Drake

        We’ll see, That kind of back-stabbing fuckery will eat through all his loyalty quickly.

        I too would be telling them to fuck the hell off. Maybe he’ll still try to have a great year to maximize his market value then punch out when the next good college job opens up.

        1. What job compares to the one he has? I could see him maaaaaaaybe going to Notre Dame, but that would be it.

          He’s always maintained that Ohio State was his dream job. The fans, students and boosters love him. And apparently the entire BoT wanted there to be no penalty but Drake insisted on it and they decided “fuck it, let’s end this circus”.

          Drake will not have his contract renewed. Meyer will stay there as long as he wants or until he does something as egregiously bad as Woody or Tressell.

          1. Drake

            I get that you are an OS fan – but there are plenty of equivalent college jobs.

          2. Not to Meyer. That’s my point.

            And by “plenty”, I hope you mean “less than 10”. Because there aren’t many. Notre Dame, Alabama, Oklahoma (maybe), USC (maybe) and … that’s it. Texas is a shell of its former temporary greatness. So is Michigan. Penn State is still tarred with the Sandusky scandal. And Nebraska is hot garbage.

          3. Drake

            USC definitely, Clemson, Florida, Auburn…

            Any FBS school that hires Meyer is a national contender in 3 years. And none of them except OS have stabbed him the back.

          4. He left Florida for Ohio State. And they’ve sucked ever since.

            And Auburn is simply not in the same ballpark as far as facilities, national following and booster base as Ohio State. Not even in the same league, really.

            I’ll give you Clemson, I suppose. They’re definitely upper-tier, but their conference doesn’t have the exposure, and their success is relatively short compared to OSU’s.

            Again, he’d never leave his dream school for one of those places without some serious ties. That leaves almost exclusively Notre Dame.

          5. Winded

            Well, sounds like more B10CCG losses in Wisconsin’s future then. On the plus side, the news breaking yesterday has buried the Badger suspension story for now. And at least at Wisconsin it was as it should be–the players committing the infractions rather than the coaches.

          6. The Maryland situation will take the air out of that Wisconsin situation. Of the media ever let go of the Ohio State story, that is.

          7. Jarflax

            Much as I love giving you crap about tOSU, I am kind of dumbfounded that Urban’s tempest in a teapot has dominated the “Maryland’s staff basically ran a player to death while mocking him” story. One guy maybe should have fired an employee based on unproven allegations (no, we have legal procedures for a reason and this fire first try case later crap needs to stop) the other let his staff break every work out safety rule in the book resulting in a dead kid.

          8. Getting a coach fired for running a kid to death isn’t nearly as fun as getting one fired for not answering a question from one of your media brethren and for not properly bowing at the alter of the almighty sports media.
            -what an honest sportswriter would say

  10. PieInTheSKy

    Chicago finds a way to piss away even more money on pensions. That’s ok…they can just tax the producers more and more until they all move away. Then they can become Detroit. – I think Chicago glibs should just work harder and pay their fair share. Moving away is for cowards who flee their responsibility to the Chicago pensioners.

    1. AlexinCT

      That’s the plan with these people. These ticks plan to suck their victims dry and hope they are long gone when the victims kick the can, so it is just someone else’s problem to deal with.

  11. Winston

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/26/communists-capitalism-stalinism-economic-model

    Don’t get me wrong: regimes that took the name “communist” – from Stalin’s to Pol Pot’s – committed unspeakable, monstrous crimes. But for the right, a revival of interest in Marx’s pre-Stalinist vision of communism is the most striking and chilling example of its own collapsing ideological supremacy: “communism” is synonymous with tens of millions of deaths and nothing else. Capitalism, by contrast, is presented as a largely bloodless, blameless engine of human prosperity.

    1. leonadasiv

      Man that argument gets old. The problem is that journalists are too uneducated to know how bad that argument is, and keyt making it.

      1. AlexinCT

        They know damned well how evil it is but they are more interested in destroying the capitalist system because they are idiots.

    2. PieInTheSKy

      I think we covered this one when it appeared

    3. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Perhaps it has something to do with violence being part and parcel of the communist philosophy, and voluntary trade/cooperation being part and parcel of capitalism.

    4. Rebel Scum

      Socialism and communism require dictatorship and tyranny to attempt to get people to go along. This stems down even controlling speech because people might decide they want to be free to create and earn and keep their stuff if word was allowed to spread that they should be able to. Free thought is always a threat to the “revolution”.

  12. PieInTheSKy

    More calls for immigration reform in the wake of Mollie Tibbetts murder allegedly carried out by an illegal immigrant. According to some talking heads, she’s just “some girl in Iowa”. Yeah, that’s gonna sell. – sadly most people will see their hobby horse and not politicians of all stripes try to profit from each dead body

    1. leonadasiv

      This. Any death is useful to someone, and politicians will walk over any body to push their agenda.

    2. Slammer

      politicians of all stripes try to profit from each dead body

      Sorry, I’m just not into hearing these mendacious cunts who blame every shooting in the USA on gun owners and the NRA turn around and say, “Don’t politicize this poor girl’s death”.

  13. Winston

    Here’s the $64,000 question for our time: how did digital technologies go from being instruments for spreading democracy to tools for undermining it? Or, to put it a different way, how did social media go from empowering free speech to becoming a cornerstone of authoritarian power?

    I ask this as a distressed, recovering techno-utopian. Like many engineers of my generation, I believed that the internet would be the most empowering and liberating technology since the invention of printing by moveable type. And once the web arrived, and anyone who could type could become a global publisher, it seemed to me that we were on the verge of something extraordinary. The old editorial gatekeepers of the pre-internet media world would lose their stranglehold on public discourse; human creativity would be unleashed; a million flowers would bloom in a newly enriched and democratised public sphere. In such a decentralised world, authoritarianism would find it hard to get a grip. A political leader such as Donald Trump would be unthinkable.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/19/twitter-supposed-to-spread-democracy-not-trumps-ravings

    1. AlexinCT

      Because democracy is spreading communism and rebranding it as good-think!

    2. Gadianton

      The amusing thing, is that the internet is the thing that made Trump possible. When you remove the gatekeepers, everyone’s voice has a chance to be heard. Including the voices you’d rather not hear.

      1. Democractic Hitler

        Exactly. I would claim everything up until his very last sentence has come to pass, more or less. He just didn’t like the result.

  14. PieInTheSKy

    Jeremy Corbyn proposes creation of BBC sister company – the British Digital Corporation

    https://www.thedrum.com/news/2018/08/23/jeremy-corbyn-proposes-creation-bbc-sister-company-the-british-digital-corporation

    Among the most radical was his call for a BBC sister corporation to tackle digital media and even create a publicly owned social media site to rival Facebook.

    Sadly most left brits will think this a good idea…

    1. straffinrun

      Corbyn has tabled the creation of a much more radical separate bespoke digital service that would futureproof its existence.

      *Wanders off in search of ESL lessons*

    2. Pat

      They’re already regulating all of the content on social media anyway, might as well cut out the middleman. Worked for healthcare, right?

    3. Flying Poodle

      Saw BBC sister. Link was not as advertised. Sad..

    4. Suthenboy

      “Sadly most left brits will think this a good idea…”

      Good luck to them.

    5. Gustave Lytton

      The good news is that BDC will only work on a BBC Micro

  15. Ayn Random Variation

    “The ageless Julio Franco”

    Fyi, he’s been reincarnated into Miguel Andujar.

    1. Nephilium

      IIRC, my dad still has a signed foul ball he caught from Julio back in the 80’s.

      Who-Who-Julio!

    2. invisible finger

      At first I read that as “Jesse Franco”. He provided more entertainment.

  16. Winston

    The problem with liberal capitalism of both the Thatcher and New Labour varieties is that it surrendered morality to the invisible hand. Adam Smith justified personal greed by making it out to be the driver of other people’s employment. This meant that even so-called progressives could worship the money god with a clean conscience. It will be a long road back from the Blair/Thatcher consensus that has stained our soul so deeply. But a start has been made with us leaving the European Union. Yes, Brexit threatens many vested interests, and the muscle of the City of London may derail it yet. But perhaps, just perhaps, the dismantling of Thatcher’s liberal legacy has finally begun.

    https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2017/apr/20/liberal-capitalism-has-rotted-our-souls-but-its-days-might-be-numbered

    1. Pat

      Adam Smith justified personal greed by making it out to be the driver of other people’s employment.

      Wouldn’t it be easier to just say “I have literally never read any of Smith’s work, especially not Theory of Moral Sentiments” than to make yourself look like such an unmitigated retard?

      1. leonadasiv

        He was hedging that no one else has actually read Smith either.

      2. A Leap at the Wheel

        In his defense, it was written like a hundred years ago or whatever. And like no pictures, either.

    2. Bob

      Communists want money, they just think they should get to take it. Communism is greed as a political philosophy.

      1. Jarflax

        Nitpicking here but no it is not. Communism is Envy as a political philosophy. Greed is the desire for more, envy is the desire for other people’s stuff.

    3. Rebel Scum

      and the muscle of the City of London may derail it yet.

      Something something the will of the people.

  17. AlexinCT

    Is anyone surprised that once the people that have indoctrinated to believe in social justice & free shit for all bullshit are educated about the cost of that virtue signaling, basically shown how much that free stuff costs and made aware there are not enough rich people to cover that so the productive amongst them are going to be the ones footing the bill, that they suddenly don’t find socialism appealing. Deprogramming these kids and getting them unwoked shouldn’t be too easy when you have 53% of them thinking they are gonna be millionaires. I am sure none of them will like to be made millionaires the way Venezuela did it either.

    1. leonadasiv

      But that’s the fastest way too be rich

      1. AlexinCT

        You mean taking other people’s money under the guise of doing good for others?

        1. leonadasiv

          No, debasing the currency. Everyone is equal and everyone is rich.

          1. totally_not_an_escaped_ai

            There are a lot of millionaires in Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

    2. Pat

      It’ll be interesting to see how bought into the idea they are in the long term. The Euros are happy as pigs in shit with their welfare states, and they know precisely how much it costs.

      1. AlexinCT

        My experience has been that the ones truly happy with it are usually the takers. The takers that are unhappy are unhappy because they want more free shit. Most of the productive will lend this system lip service – they don’t want to admit this sucks because they feel it would reflect negatively on their country – but if given the chance, would bail for freer climates.

      2. Drake

        Do they? It’s going to cost them their culture, their history, heritage, freedom, and their national identities.

        1. AlexinCT

          The majority of them seem perfectly willing to sacrifice everything to get the illusion of security of some kind.

      3. JaimeRoberto

        I would argue that they don’t know how much it costs. My wife is from Europe. Every time I have to do my taxes she says the European system is better because they don’t pay taxes. I point out that you do pay taxes, they are just withheld from your paycheck, so you don’t see the cost. She says, yeah, that’s right, so we don’t pay taxes. Same with the VAT. It’s just built into the price you see. It does make it more convenient when shopping, but it hides the cost of the tax.

  18. Speaking of…

    Asia Argento Proves, Once Again, That Women Are Human Beings

    Women are hypocrites. Women are opportunists. Women are liars.

    They are abusers and bullies and manipulators. They are capable of cruelty, callousness and evil.

    Just like men.

    The larger question is whether the Argento story might undermine the #MeToo movement. Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer certainly hopes it will. So do various anti-feminists, right-wing bloggers and conspiracy theorists, who are already fashioning the Argento plot twist into Pizzagate 2.0.

    Most people aren’t going to fall for this nonsense. They’re not going to stop taking sexual abuse seriously because of one high-profile hypocrite.

    1. Pat

      Fake but accurate.

    2. AlexinCT

      I have rarely found a man that can stoop to the level of evil, callousness, cruelty or just downright vindictiveness that your average scorned woman does.

    3. WTF

      Women are hypocrites. Women are opportunists. Women are liars.

      They are abusers and bullies and manipulators. They are capable of cruelty, callousness and evil.

      Yet we should totally believe them without evidence whenever they are accusing men of anything.

      1. Yet we should totally believe them without evidence whenever they are accusing men of anything.

        If you’re gonna quote Brett McMurphy, at least credit the sonofabitch.

        1. WTF

          *applause*

    4. leonadasiv

      “They’re not going to stop taking sexual abuse seriously because of one high-profile hypocrite.”

      This makes no sense and shows her bias. They are still taking sexual abuse seriously, even when it’s a woman who is the abuser.

      1. WTF

        And it’s not that people won’t take actual sexual abuse seriously, it’s that they’ll stop taking unsupported allegations of sexual abuse seriously, which is what really worries the MeToo crowd. You know, the same MeToo crowd that has completely disappeared regarding Keith Ellison.

  19. Pat

    According to some talking heads, she’s just “some girl in Iowa”. Yeah, that’s gonna sell.

    Warren had perhaps the hottest take yet on the issue.

    1. Slammer

      The Campaign Ads write themselves

    2. straffinrun

      JFC. Are all injuns tone deaf?

    3. PieInTheSKy

      Gotta work it for the base

  20. Pat

    Wilmette mom investigated for letting 8-year-old walk dog around the block.

    Just after returning home from a walk around the block with her dog, Marshmallow, an 8-year-old Wilmette girl expected a visit from a playmate. Instead, police officers arrived at the family’s door.

    An anonymous caller had contacted police after seeing the girl walking the dog alone, said her mother, Corey Widen. While police never pursued charges, the seemingly common activity launched an Illinois Department of Children and Family Services investigation to see if Widen was neglecting her children, she said.

    “For something like this to happen to me, there’s something really wrong,” said Widen, 48, who agreed to let her 8-year-old daughter and 17-year-old son get the Maltese puppy last year as long as everyone took turns walking her. Widen, who asked that her daughter’s name not be used, said the girl’s walk around the block — most of which Widen says she can see out her windows — is the only time her home-schooled daughter is unsupervised. “The funny thing is … I’m a joke with my friends because my kids are around me all the time.”

    1. leonadasiv

      “An anonymous caller had contacted police after seeing the girl walking the dog alone, said her mother, ”

      I hope this person rots in hell.

      1. Bob Boberson

        I find it funny that in these cases there’s always a lot of outrage directed at the busy bodies who call the police but very little directed at the cops who’s response should be “sorry Helen Lovejoy, we’ve got better things to do”

        /Not saying your comment or reaction is misplaced

        1. leonadasiv

          I think it’s because I expect police to be stupid statist thugs and so I’m not disappointed. I also expect people to understand the ramifications for calling the police (i.e. bringing violence on your neighbor) and that is just wrong. If you are really so concerned, walk over and check on the family yourself.

          1. Bob Boberson

            (i.e. bringing violence on your neighbor)

            If you are really so concerned, walk over and check on the family yourself.

            My theory is people are awful and most do want to bring violence to their neighbor on some level because these types of busybodies get off on imposing their will on others, they just lack the courage to attempt it themselves and the cops make a capable and willing agent.

          2. Stinky Wizzleteats

            It doesn’t help that snitches used to rightly be looked down on and now they’re lauded.

        2. Pope Jimbo

          The problem is the day that something bad really happens to the kid. The media is going to run the 911 tape of you telling her to go pound sand 24/7.

          Besides, as a patrolman you probably love calls like this. Get to cruise over to a nice neighborhood and hassle docile people while throwing your authority around? That has to be better than dealing with dangerous people in a shitty neighborhood.

          1. There are no shitty neighborhoods or dangerous people in Willmette…

          2. invisible finger

            Shitty neighborhoods, no. Plenty of dangerous people though, the police department for example.

    2. Pope Jimbo

      Don’t you get it? She could have been abducted! She could have been killed.

      Car jackers are just waiting to steal your kids and cars

      1. AlexinCT

        It just wouldn’t have been a big deal if it was done by an illegal alien if we go by these people’s reactions when it comes to that Mollie Tibbits case.

    3. Count Potato

      The cop is still miffed that he was too slow to shoot the dog.

    4. Enough About Palin

      If I had an 8-year-old kid and I let him walk my German shepherd around the block, there is no one who could even get close to him. It’s an extremely protective dog.

    5. The Last American Hero

      As I said yesterday when I saw this – if this happened to me, I’d find the bitch that called the cops and SWAT her.

  21. Rufus the Monocled

    ‘Night Shift’ actress?

    What, DIANE CHAMBERS not good enough for you!?

    1. Pat

      Night Shift was hilarious though.

      1. Rufus the Monocled

        Yeh.

        Next to the Louie De Palma/Elaine Nardo and Herb Tarlek/Jennifer Marlowe dynamic, Sam and Diane were it!

        1. Pat

          I didn’t say Cheers wasn’t hilarious as well. The show was total shit once she left and they brought in Kirstie Alley. I can’t believe they dragged it out as long as they did.

    2. “Night Shift” was better than “Cheers” season one, I can tell you that. We tried watching some episodes on Netflix recently…just not very good. I’m sure it’ll get better, but I don’t know if I can Middle my way through watching the show get it’s legs.

      1. Pat

        If you weren’t sold on Cheers from the pilot I can’t imagine you’ll enjoy it at any point thereafter, to be honest. The entire concept for the show is contained in the pilot.

        1. Bobarian LMD

          The opening skit was often a thing of sublime genius.

  22. Winston

    The future of the LP?

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

    Just before the end of World War II in April 1945 Fierlinger became the exile chairman of the Czechoslovak government and remained such until the 1946 elections. He became a leading figure in the “left-wing” social democracy movement which sought the closest possible ties with the Czechoslovak Communist Party.

    Between 1946 and 1948 Fierlinger was chairman of the Czech Social Democratic Party. After the communist coup in February 1948, Fierlinger acted as the chief proponent of the “unification” of the Social Democrats and the Communists. Through the unification of the party, he became a member of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party in 1948. According to American journalist John Gunther, Fierlinger was subsequently nicknamed “Dr. Quislinger.”[2]

    Closer to Matt Welch’s actual politics than that of Vaclav Havel…

  23. Rufus the Monocled

    “…In selecting the Trump administration for the “dishonor,” members of the SPJ Freedom of Information Committee pointed to an Associated Press report this week that documented records set by the Trump administration for failing to provide information sought under the Freedom of Information Act.

    “A huge ‘congratulations’ to the Trump administration for being the first presidential administration to win this prestigious award,” said Danielle McLean, SPJ Freedom of Information Committee chair. “A true democracy gives free and open access to the very public body it is supposed to serve. The Trump administration has so far done a fantastic job shielding the public from that essential access by censoring and withholding a record number of files requested through the Freedom of Information Act. Saying that, I urge the Trump administration to please stop this practice and start governing for the people.”

    Wasn’t the Obama administration really good at this? I wonder if her got an award….hmm.

    https://www.spj.org/news.asp?REF=1554

    1. Pat

      Wasn’t the Obama administration really good at this?

      Ask Judicial Watch. They still have documents trickling in from FOIA lawsuits from close to a decade ago.

      Obama also prosecuted more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than any other president in history. And spied on journalists. Most transparent administration evah!

      1. Stinky Wizzleteats

        Obama was doong it for the right reasons, Trump’s doing it to protect Putin.

        1. AlexinCT

          ^^^^THIS^^^^

          And these people truly believe when their guy is in charge and the state basically is a tyrannical entity, it is totes OK. After all, the only people that should worry are the icky ones they dislike to begin with.

    2. B.P.

      How come nobody trusts journalists?

    3. And Hillary, who specifically set up the server to get around FOIA requests.

  24. straffinrun

    ‘He was known (to police) for advocating terrorism but it seems he was a disturbed person rather than someone who could respond to calls for action from terrorist organisations like Daesh,’ he said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.

    So you’re saying ISIS terrorists aren’t disturbed.

  25. Rebel Scum

    Elizabeth Warren, Orwellian Nightmare

    Warren slammed President Reagan’s famous quote, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

    “Since Watergate, generation after generation of American politicians have attacked the very idea that our government can do anything right,” the senator said. “Anyone remember Ronald Reagan’s famous line? ‘What are the nine most terrifying words in the English language? I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’ Really? Government help is terrifying? Give me a break.”

    “Do you know what’s actually terrifying? Hurricanes like Katrina and Maria are terrifying, which is why the victims of natural disasters ask for government help,” she added. “After a lifetime of hard work, growing old and going broke is terrifying, which is why the American people strongly support Social Security. Choosing between food and medicine is terrifying, and that’s why the American people rise up and take to the streets when Republicans try to cut back Medicare and Medicaid.”

    As a native American, you’d think she’d be more skeptical of the government.

    1. Rufus the Monocled

      She’s a horror-porn film onto herself.

    2. leonadasiv

      Being a slave to nameless government employees, because they can ruin your life, is terrifying

    3. Pat

      As a native American, you’d think she’d be more skeptical of the government.

      Boom! Roasted

    4. WTF

      I like how she then proceeds to give examples of problems created by government that were then addressed by government programs that are now, or soon to be, failing.

      1. Bob Boberson

        ^^^I noticed this too, come on Lizzie, at least give us ONE untainted example…..oh wait……government has the chronic fecal version of King Midas syndrome.

    5. Drake

      Think that will play outside of the urban statist enclaves?

  26. Slammer

    Conservative CNN pundit suspended amid revelations of sexual misconduct allegations from 2014

    They suspended that guy that Phil Mudd flipped out on, the day after Trump mentioned him in a tweet

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Well that didn’t take long.

    2. Pope Jimbo

      Just couldn’t be trusted around the white wimmen?

    3. MikeS

      I’ll be eagerly waiting for the race baiters to come out and say he’s only being accused because he’s a black man.

  27. Rufus the Monocled

    What’s with all the love turtles are getting these days? First of all, the chocolate sucks. Second, they’re uselessly slow. Third, they’re the reason there will be no more straws!

    And if someone chimes in with ‘turtle soup is delicious’…../slap!

  28. Drake

    How Mueller set up George Papadopoulos with a sting and it partially backfired.

    1. So George Papadopoulos is a real guy and not the character from “Webster”.

  29. The upside of patching the QA instances is that there’s no pressure to have them up and running yesterday, and most of the process is watching progress meters.

    The downside is, I’m watching progress meters.

    1. Oh, and since we ironed out all the process issues patching dev, there’s not a whole lot of chance I’ll be needed to fix anything.

  30. Tonio

    Brilliant first paragraph, Sloopy.

  31. Winston

    Personally I think the impeachment of Trump will have roughly the same libertarian result as the Zimbabwean coup of last year.

    Petty feuds among the elites can get extremely nasty. See Stalin/Trotsky, or Southern Democrats during Jim Crow for example.

  32. Rick C-137

    Morning Glibs, here’s a nice object lesson on gun control
    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-45271874

    Alternative title something something 3D printers

    1. Pat

      We need commonsense metalworking control.

    2. Drake

      “Gun factory”

      A tiny machine shop turning out century + old technology.

      1. By 1918 you already had the Browning 1911, so I don’t see where the century + matters. A few more years and you’re talking the production model Ma Deuce.

    3. Rebel Scum

      But if you ban them no one can get them. That’s how it works, right?

  33. Pat

    Man Who Made Ammunition Used In Las Vegas Massacre Charged

    PHOENIX (AP) – An Arizona man who sold ammunition to the gunman in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history has been charged in Nevada with engaging in the business of making ammunition without a license.

    The indictment filed Wednesday against Douglas Haig doesn’t mention his sales to Stephen Paddock, who killed 58 people at a Las Vegas music festival last October. The charge makes no mention of the Las Vegas attack.

    In a separate case in Arizona, Haig is charged with manufacturing armor-piercing bullets.

    Investigators said in the Arizona case that unfired armor-piercing bullets found in the Las Vegas hotel where Paddock launched the attack had Haig’s fingerprints.

    1. They can’t find any video surveillance in the hotel but they can pull fingerprints from the fucking bullet casings?

      Pull the other one.

    2. Rebel Scum

      As if this event wasn’t already suspicious enough.

  34. Pope Jimbo

    TOTES WOKE!

    It was a beautiful morning, according to New Zealand’s minister for women, so after 42 weeks of pregnancy she decided to hop on her electric bicycle and ride to the hospital to give birth to her first child.

    Julie Anne Genter this week posted a picture of herself outside the Auckland City Hospital holding her bike, saying she was ready to be induced and “finally have this baby.”

    “This is it, wish us luck!” she wrote, adding that “My partner and I cycled because there wasn’t enough room in the car for the support crew … but it also put me in the best possible mood!”

    Why do I know about this? Because this is Minnesoda and we are bound and determined to be the most progressive biking city ever and Genter was born a Minnesodan! Yup. We taught her that it was super awesome to bike to the hospital.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      Has Minnesoda the proper climate for all that biking?

      1. MikeS

        No one needs more than 4 weeks of biking weather.

      2. Pope Jimbo

        SHUT UP!

        That sort of thinking only lets Portland get farther ahead of us on the various bike polls. If we only invest a few more hundred millions on bike lanes, people will realize how awesome it is to bike to work. Even in sub-zero weather. Even from their suburban home 25 miles away.

        1. Nephilium

          Fat Tire bikes for ALL!

          1. Pope Jimbo

            I’m currently trying to decide if I want to buy a fat tire bike or studded tires for my regular mountain bike for this winter.

            I recently got a job working about a mile from my house. I don’t want to walk it during the winter and am pretty sure that it will be snowy enough the regular mountain bike tires won’t cut it on the paths I take to work.

          2. Nephilium

            Do you have a good local bike shop? The ones here usually do a couple of fat tire rides in the winter where you can try one out for free. They’ve been trying to do a pedal to Put in Bay (a village on an island in Lake Erie) the past couple of years, but global warming has prevented the lake from freezing over.

          3. The Last American Hero

            Ah, Put-Out bay. We had us some goooood times there a lifetime ago.

          4. ChipsnSalsa

            Belt drive fat bike.

          5. Count Potato

            Those are expensive!

        2. Gustave Lytton

          Don’t you guys have bike lanes in your Skyways?

          1. Tundra

            Motherfuckers tried. It didn’t happen, thank god.

      3. Enough About Palin

        Pie — Yes it does, if you dress for it. About a 12 years ago, I parked my truck and only used my bicycle to get around Minneapolis for about 15 months. If you already have clothing for cross-country skiing (and 10-below-zero is an ideal ski temp because the skis dam near fly at that temp) you be set for biking year-round.

    2. ChipsnSalsa

      Now, the unwoke part.

      Genter announced that she’d given birth Tuesday evening to a healthy boy weighing nearly 4.3 kilograms (9.5 pounds).

      Don’t assume it’s gender!

      1. Pope Jimbo

        No assumptions were made. The kiwi baby was called a boy because the first thing he did was try to hump a sheep doll in his crib.

    3. B.P.

      Electric biking isn’t biking.

  35. PieInTheSKy

    Professor’s Average Salary by Department at Ohio State University

    https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/98gp57/oc_professors_average_salary_by_department_at/

    Why is Human resources so high? Maybe human resources is better in the US than Romania but damn round here they are not the sharpest tools…

    1. Pat

      HR gets paid a lot to keep the company (or uni, as the case may be) out of lawsuits, and employment law in this country is a kafkaesque clusterfuck.

      1. AlexinCT

        They get paid so much supposedly to not cause too much trouble.

    2. Semi-Spartan Dad

      It’s because HR is in charge of setting salaries.

      Why the one group in a company that has absolutely zero knowledge of any productive value gets to set everyone else’s salaries escapes me. Actually, I suspect the reason is preemptive protection from sex, race, and LGBTQLMNOP+- lawsuits over pay discrimination. HR can they truthfully say that they discriminate against everyone equally who is not in HR.

      1. Why is HR setting salaries and not management?

        1. AlexinCT

          Social Justice you tool!

          1. “From: Management.
            To: Human Resources.
            RE: You’re fired.
            See Subject.”

          2. AlexinCT

            Lawsuit!

          3. We used your budget to boost Legal. You’ll end up owing us money.

        2. Semi-Spartan Dad

          Protection from pay discrimination lawsuits. Similarly, when I interview candidates, HR provides a sheet of pre-approved questions. I don’t have to use all of them, but whatever I ask one candidate, I have to ask all candidates.

          I also think it’s a way of keeping salaries down while keeping employees and management on good terms.
          Peon: Boss, I really need a raise.
          Management: Absolutely, you deserve one. Let’s get it done.
          HR Overlord: Go fuck yourself.
          Management: Sorry peon, I really wanted to do this but HR isn’t letting it go through.

          1. Scruffy Nerfherder

            Another reason it’s bullshit. You lose good talent that way.

          2. AlexinCT

            I can speak personally to this….

          3. Nephilium

            #metoo

            At least the exit interview was entertaining.

            HR: “What could we have done to retain people like you?”

            Me: “More competitive pay.”

            HR: “Is there anything else?”

            Me: “Paying for training.”

            HR: “Anything that doesn’t have a cost?”

            Me: “No.”

          4. Semi-Spartan Dad

            I’m going through this now. My boss is putting through a massive promotion and a 50% pay raise for me. HR is going to try to block it. Our hope is to get enough senior executives to push it over HR’s objections. I have recruiters reaching out constantly and won’t be staying if it doesn’t go through.

          5. AlexinCT

            Basically where I am. I was told I will be getting a formal offer with a $33K salary increase at my new job and know my boss who knows this shit show falls apart when I leave, will freak out and desperately try to get it so I don’t leave, but HR will find a way to screw me even if they match it.

          6. Semi-Spartan Dad

            I saw your post on it the other day when I was catching up. It made me reflect on my own situation and may have even been the catalyst I needed to apply to a couple other positions. I’m a little concerned my boss will find out because one is a close strategic partner of my company, but the pay is 50-100% higher and I need a counter (or alternative) if HR lowballs me.

            Good luck on navigating your situation. Regardless, having options are good.

  36. Winston

    Reading the Guardian and seeing the likes of Lizzie Warren and Karla Marx reminds me that classical liberalism has no one to blame for its decline but itself. They very willingly became the pseudo-commies that they are now.

    1. leonadasiv

      I think historically the progressives did a better job at rallying the mob/masses than the liberals did at defending reason. So they died out.

      1. Drake

        Historically they were bracketed on the left by the Soviets and Red Chinese. They would rally the mob but never go full commie.

  37. Rebel Scum

    Iran unveils ‘first domestically manufactured’ fighter jet (TW: CNN)

    Iran unveiled what it described as the country’s “first domestically manufactured” fighter jet Tuesday, state-run Press TV reported.

    State media aired video and pictures of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in the cockpit during its first public display.
    Test flights of the jet, dubbed the Kowsar, took place Tuesday on the eve of the National Day of the Defense Industry, according to semi-official Mehr News Agency. It was unclear whether the jet’s first public display flight has yet taken place.

    The Kowsar can be used for “short aerial support missions” and is equipped with systems that “promote precision targeting,” according to state media.

    It’s an F-5 Tiger…

    1. PieInTheSKy

      Any good?

    2. Pat

      They 3D printed it off of Defense Distributed, I’ll bet.

    3. PieInTheSKy

      Looks ehm pointy…

    4. Tundra

      It’s an F-5 Tiger

      Or a Mirage III.

      Either way, they will be fun target practice.

      1. Drake

        I was thinking the same thing. Looks like the crossed them and sprinkled in a little F-20 Tigershark.

      2. AlexinCT

        You called it Tundra.

    5. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Yep, that’s almost an exact copy. If that’s the best they can do, and it is, we have nothing to worry about.

      1. Endless Mike

        Which were F-5’s – or did I miss the joke?

    6. B.P.

      Cultural appropriation.

      1. R C Dean

        Worse than that: appropriation of traditional culture, given the age of the F-5 (dating back to the late ’50s). I don’t think they’ve been in active duty since the ’90s.

  38. Bob Boberson

    I guess we are far enough in for a OT ‘Bob’s misadventures in dating update.’

    New girl started in the office this week. Cute, shy, single, seemingly intelligent. We have a little coffee club where you bring your own mug and shoot the shit for 15 minutes. Everyone tries to have a quirky, funny mug. She shows up with a hand-made looking on that simply says “FEMINIST” on it………Pass.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      I always found dating in the office strange. And I don’t see how that story is a dating story. You did not go on a date.

      1. Bob Boberson

        And I don’t see how that story is a dating story. You did not go on a date.

        *Lips quiver, runs off to bathroom to cry

        1. Endless Mike

          NOW it’s a dating story..

      2. The Last American Hero

        His elbow got to second base when she bumped against him rinsing her mug out in the sink. Totally a date.

      3. Bobarian LMD

        It’s called ‘padding the stats’.

    2. Pat

      The worst thing about third wave feminism is its popularity among normal looking college girls. In the old days you could pretty easily eliminate feminist nutcases from your dating life simply by limiting yourself to attractive women.

      1. Bob Boberson

        The indoctrination seems to be nearly universal as the dating pool shrinks. Unmarried women who disavow feminism are as rare as hen’s teeth.

        1. Correlation does not imply causation, but there are some correlations that make you go ‘hmmm’.

        2. Mr Lizard

          Relax mammal. If she is not a tatted up, blue-haired harpy then she is one good deep dicking away from stay-at-home suburbia goddess. Perhaps STEVE SMITH can offer up an advice column.

          1. commodious spittoon

            STEVE SMITH isn’t even exurban.

        3. Tejicano

          I would say that women who do not disavow third wave feminism will continue to be unmarried – at least unmarried to men.

    3. Slammer

      Does she have nice tits, though?

      1. Bob Boberson

        meh, pretty face, kinda skinny

        1. Private Chipperbot

          Get a mug that says ‘Soy Boy’ and see if she bites.

      2. Certified Public Asshat

        Q will be the judge of that.

    4. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Maybe it’s ironic…try making an awkward sexual advance and see if she goes to HR, that should clear it up.

      1. commodious spittoon

        You think she hasn’t already just for cornering her in the break room?

        1. Tejicano

          Yeah, but your name is just one of dozens she has reported this week so HR might possibly not be taking this too seriously.

          1. commodious spittoon

            It doesn’t help her case that the first name she reported to HR was the HR interviewer.

    5. Brett L

      “Did you make that in rehab?”

      1. invisible finger

        ^Winner

      2. Endless Mike

        Holy shit.

    6. Atanarjuat

      Go on a trip somewhere far away, and hook up with a bunch of chicks doing the same stuff and staying in the same places as you. That will get you out of your slump.

    7. Certified Public Asshat

      And what was your mug?

      1. Drake

        A Glib mug I have to assume. Or maybe Shitlord?

    8. “Are you into Feministing?”

  39. Winston

    Since libertarians support urbanization then why is that urban aren’t libertarian?

    1. PieInTheSKy

      ehm what?

      1. leonadasiv

        It’s Winston. He likes to take one libertarians idea and then cast it as if it were a dogmatic Creed of libertarianism. It’s called straw man argument.

        1. Winston

          I dunno. The glories of modern urban cosmopolitaness is pretty common among libertarians. Seems pretty inherently urbanite to me.

          Then there are the likes of Joe Stromberg who wondered if the yeoman farmer is the true free man.

          1. Pat

            The glories of modern urban cosmopolitaness is pretty common among libertarians.

            Perhaps among the think tank set, which has more to do with them being part of the think tank set than them being libertarian. The intellectual roots of every political philosophy tend to be urban since that’s where the intellectuals hang out.

          2. So in other words, cities accumulate socal dross.

          3. Pat

            I wouldn’t necessarily go that far, but certain occupations tend to land one in a particular environment, which affects one’s worldview and points of reference. You aren’t likely to find a brilliant free market economist turning wrenches in a garage in Biloxi, for example.

          4. I’ve had some interesting conversations with mechanics, so I wouldn’t be too sure of that.

          5. Pat

            You know what I mean though. By and large the intelligentsia locates in cities, for reasons that are now mostly historical. Like attracts like.

          6. And my exposure to the ‘Intelligencia’ has shown not much of a value-add from their efforts. (and often a negative). A great deal of pretentious blowhards with few producing anything of note.

            At least the mechanic is doing something useful when they’re unnotable.

          7. Pat

            That’s a tempting way to look at it, especially with the abysmal state of modern academia, but history does owe a lot to the thinking class. It’s a luxury of a successful society, of course, but a necessary one in many ways. The interplay of big ideas is the difference between the American revolution and the French revolution, for example.

          8. Drake

            People who live in cities have to be pretty tolerant of other people and lots of interaction with government. Probably why cities almost inevitably turn liberal. Definitely why I avoid cities.

          9. Bob

            I always assumed the opposite. Their proximity leads to a desire to control others since they interact with them constantly.

            Rural people aren’t very concerned about people they don’t see.

          10. Endless Mike

            THIS. Government is always around you, it is always fucking up, and therefore you start thinking like “They ought to do this better” or “THIS is how it should be done” Instead of “Why are these idiots even in doing this?”

          11. I don’t give a shit where people live. It’s their choice.

      2. Winston

        Industrial revolution led to urbanization, which libertarians support. Also the Rust Belt occurring due to NAFTA also leads to urbanization which is something libertarians also support. And rural types are backwards yokel trumpistas which is also supported by libertarians. Yet the result of all of this is not a libertarian polity.

        1. Bob Boberson

          According to Hihn the polity IS libertarian but people like Ron Paul and Glib’s ruined the message and gave them no alternative but to go statist.

        2. Pat

          Industrial revolution led to urbanization, which libertarians support.

          Generic “libertarians” probably would have been fine if 70% of the country stayed on their farms as well, but it just so happens that industrialization raised standards of living markedly and as a consequence a lot of people abandoned the farms and lined up at the factories. What in your estimation is the proper libertarian response to geographical and demographic disruptions caused by rapid changes in the market? A de-industrialization commission?

          1. Winston

            I don’t know. I am trying to think about how libertarianism will actually work and the pesky issues that libertarians feud over. Immigration is one. The whole yokel/Cosmo feud is another. I mean the latter is pretty inherently urbanite yet the cities aren’t really bastions of libertarianish.

            Does this reveal a flaw ifblibertarianish? Or not? Or should we shut up about practicality in favor if hoping for libertopia.

          2. Pat

            Libertarianism will always be a niche philosophy with no major political influence, so arguing about the results of libertarian policy is like counting angels on the head of a pin, especially when you’re arguing about them piecemeal in the context of a decidedly non-libertarian society.

            To answer your question about urbanization though, I don’t think urbanization in and of itself is libertarian or un-libertarian, it’s just a thing that happens as a result of market conditions (which can be either natural or artificial). If you’re working to create market conditions hospitable to urbanization through regulatory interference or something along those lines, it’s hard to make any claim to libertarianism.

    2. Slammer

      The discussion above is Urban Meyer, not urban. Pay attention

    3. Since when is urbanization a fundamental element of libertarianism? Seriously, I’ve never heard this before, and I’m curious to see where you’re finding this.

      1. Winston

        https://mises.org/library/left-and-right-prospects-liberty

        Conservatism is a dying remnant of the ancien régime of the preindustrial era, and, as such, it has no future. In its contemporary American form, the recent Conservative Revival embodied the death throes of an ineluctably moribund, Fundamentalist, rural, small-town, white Anglo-Saxon America

        What pray tell was Rothbard’s alternative to the “rural” and “small-town” America that was in “death throes”?

        1. Pat

          What pray tell was Rothbard’s alternative to the “rural” and “small-town” America that was in “death throes”?

          As he explains at length in the paper, radical revolutionary individualism. Mises was nothing if not a Utopian.

          1. Winston

            Saying good riddance to small towns and rural life is usually another way of praising urbanity?

          2. Pat

            Or perhaps a recognition that a post-industrial-revolution society is unlikely to return to an agrarian model due to the economic efficiencies of industrialization, with a sprinkle of European elitism and seething hatred of religion thrown in. When Mises celebrates the death of conservatism (and his use of the term is more Euro-centric), he certainly doesn’t see centrally planned socialist metropolises as the enlightened alternative.

          3. Just Say’n

            Exactly. Mises and Rothbard, when writing “conservative” are referring to the long dead ideology from Europe that opposed free trade, emphasized land ownership, respect for hierarchy, and detested industrialization. It was born out of Jacobite thought.

            Whenever Rothbard was referring to American conservatism he would usually use the phrase “Buckleyite Conservatism”. American conservatism is a product of the Enlightenment, rooted in the thought of Burke.

        2. Just Say’n

          You’re confusing “conservatism” (in the European sense) with “Conservatism” (in the American sense). The European variant of conservatism, which no doubt Rothbard was referring to, was very much rural-centric and defenders of the ancien regime. It is generally accepted that European conservatism were the biggest opponents to liberalism. Think of the UK Corn Laws.

          The American version of conservatism is rooted in liberalism, just as American liberals were as well. Rothbard’s biggest criticism of American conservatism (construed by Buckley) was its interventionist foreign policy and its tentative acceptance of the New Deal. Ironically, he, like Chomskey, praised European conservatism for its dislike for intervention abroad.

          European conservatism (the classical variety) doesn’t really exist anymore. All of the “conservative” parties in Europe are now a strange hodgepodge of American conservatism melded with Christian democracy.

        1. A Leap at the Wheel

          This is exactly Pat’s point. Urbanization is a thing that is happening because of market forces (and environmental impact is a market effect because the environment is something players in the market use and care about.) I personally find living in cities to be yucky just on a visceral level, but I recognize that the median Manhattan-dweller has a smaller ecological impact than the median Vermont hobby farmer or Appalachian redneck.

  40. Pat

    Democrats Are Trying To Sneak A Feminist Amendment Into The Constitution, 33 Years Later

    Proponents of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) want to create a constitutional Frankenstein by breathing life into its corpse some 36 years after its ratification was defeated, in large part thanks to Phyllis Schlafly and her Eagle Forum.

    The ERA Congress sent to the states in 1972 stated: “Equality of rights under law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”[…]

    In 1972 Congress imposed a seven-year limit for states to ratify the ERA, as it established for all but two constitutional amendments since 1918. But when the amendment stalled in 1977 with the support of 35 states — three states short of the three-fourths needed for ratification — ERA advocates lobbied Congress to extend ratification seven more years.[…]

    Congress eventually extended the ratification deadline to June 30, 1982. (The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Post, The New York Times and The New Republic all supported the ERA, but opposed the time extension.)[…]

    Even with the unprecedented extension, the ERA fell three states short of the 38 needed for ratification. ERA advocates recognized their 1982 loss and re-introduced the amendment to Congress in 1983, but failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed for it to pass the House of Representatives.

    ERA proponents now claim they need only add three more states to the original 35 which ratified by 1982 (ignoring the five states rescinding approval), to reach the 38 states required to add the ERA to “their” Constitution!

    1. WTF

      I’m not sure they really want that these days. Current feminists do not want equality, and equal treatment under the law, they want advantages and privileges over men.

      1. AlexinCT

        ^^^THIS^^^

      2. See Double You

        All they need to do is install a few more RBGs and Sotomayors and they’ll get the double-standard interpretation they want.

      3. Tejicano

        Why the Eff would they want to be equal with men? Register for the draft? Flip a coin on child custody or alimony payments? Equal suspicion with respect to domestic abuse? Nope. They already have everything they wanted without giving up much that doesn’t matter.

    2. Rebel Scum

      IOW they want positive rights in the Constitution. PASS.

    3. Count Potato

      Many feminists were against the ERA.

  41. Pope Jimbo

    My ray of sunshine today. The fish pond at the Great Minnesoda Get-Together has been stocked.

    The state fair has a big pond near the DNR building and it is filled with all sorts of fish. I could watch for hours. And not because I’m trying to burn off a pint of lefse beer.

    1. MikeS

      Have some deep fired butter for me!

      1. MikeS

        dammit *fried*

        1. Pope Jimbo

          I appreciate your traditional approach to the state fair Mike. Maybe you could stretch your wings a bit this year?

          *I’m a traditionalist too. I always stick to pronto pups and cheese curds with a bottomless glass of milk.

          1. How does the glass retain anything if it is lacking a bottom?

          2. Tundra

            Very Zen, UCS.

          3. Almost like an Ice Cream Koan.

          4. Nephilium

            Milk, with only three ingredients, is the foundation for all the dairy foods you love – from the cheese on your pizza to the yogurt in your morning smoothie to the ice cream in the Flavor of the Fair malt or sundae.

            Ummm… shouldn’t milk have one ingredient: Milk?

          5. shouldn’t milk have one ingredient: Milk?

            A great many will contain added Vitamin D at the very least. I don’t know about the state fair in dairy country.

          6. MikeS

            The blueberry/rhubarb cobbler sounds divine.

          7. Tundra

            I wish the fair food were available somewhere else. I fucking hate that place.

          8. Pope Jimbo

            I love that place. I usually take an afternoon off in the middle of the week to go. That way you miss most of the crowds.

            One of the reasons I love it so much is because I grew up in out state and going to the Big City and the Fair was such a big deal as a kid.

            Looking at all the Big City girls, drinking beer in the old beer garden (they didn’t care how old you were back in the day) and looking at all the animal barns was awesome.

          9. MikeS

            Looking at all the Big City girls, drinking beer in the old beer garden (they didn’t care how old you were back in the day) and looking at all the animal barns was awesome.

            Which location excited you more?

          10. Pope Jimbo

            Mike, you dumb NoDak!

            You could sit in the beer garden watching the Big City girls walking by.

            Are you going to tell me that the beer garden at the NoDak state fair looks out at the Dairy barn, so all you dudes can ogle some tits 4 at a time?

          11. MikeS

            Cool it stump-humper! I just assumed from your admission yesterday that you spent a lot of time in the hog barn. It’s OK, I’m not judging!

            But seriously, yeah I am.

          12. Pope Jimbo

            Worse. I hang out in the hog barn to ogle the boars.

            The biggest boar in the state was always the #1 thing for my kids when they were little. Even more than the baby barn (where they have all baby animals).

          13. pistoffnick

            Anybody remember machinery hill?

            Sadly I think last year was our last year as a family. The girls are too cool to hang out with dad and the boy avoids going outdoors at all.

          14. Pope Jimbo

            Nick, yeah I went through that downer a bunch of years ago with my kids not wanting to go with me anymore.

            I still torture my wife by bringing her along with me.

            I have no mechanical skills at all, but I totally dig Machinery Hill and the manly stuff there.

          15. Tundra

            Oh, I loved it as a kid. Machinery Hill was incredible!

            Now that I’m old, I just detest the crowds.

          16. Rhuberry? Bluebarb? Naw, they both sound wrong.

          17. MikeS

            So does driving gloves to avoid sunburn, but I’m not one to judge.

          18. Visit somewhere that gets sunlight.

  42. Count Potato

    I’m still curious what happened to Ashton Whitty on Twitter.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrk0x9q8vlM

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Her hero is Alex Jones – check
      Doesn’t blink enough – check

      DSIIC

      1. Count Potato

        DSIIC?

        1. Scruffy Nerfherder

          Don’t Stick It In Crazy

          Learn it, Live It

          1. Count Potato

            While it sounds catchy, in practice it would eliminate almost all human procreation.

      2. But that cleavage haz me a confuse.

  43. Private Chipperbot

    Joe Murphy living homeless in Canada.

    Former Red Wings forward Joe Murphy has gone from NHL stardom and riches to being homeless in northern Ontario. Murphy’s story was told in a documentary on Canadian sports network TSN on Wednesday, in an emotional account Murphy told to senior correspondent Rick Westhead and former NHL goalie Trevor Kidd. “I’ve actually been living homeless in shelters across Ontario, in different areas, for many years now,” Murphy, 50, told TSN. “It hasn’t been easy.”

    That sucks. I’ll have to watch the doc, but it almost sounds like he wants to be where he is. He has people reaching out, including family and NHL types.

    1. Juvenile Bluster

      So many athletes go broke within a few years after leaving sports. ESPN did a pretty good documentary (called, well, “Broke”) on it a few years back as part of 30 for 30.

      1. Certified Public Asshat

        Apparently there is more to wealth accumulation than just being handed a bunch of money.

        1. trshmnstr

          *inchoate rage*
          /progs

    2. Tundra

      Bummer. CTE is ugly.

    3. Drake

      Homeless in northern Ontario.

      That does not sound like a long-term problem.

    1. Bob Boberson

      What’s with all the Demi Rose posts lately and what is her claim to fame other than having a whole lot of (synthetic) junk-in-the-trunk?

      1. Rhywun

        She’s probably banging the owner of the Daily Fail.

  44. Juvenile Bluster

    Fuck Urban Meyer.

    There, got that out of the way.

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      I know, right? Fucker is married to Kidman and banged Aniston and Swift. And I hate his music.

      1. Just Say’n

        I want to run through the halls of my high school….

      2. JaimeRoberto

        Every single song that guy writes is designed to get into a woman’s pants. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I just don’t want to hear it.

        1. Mojeaux

          Language was invented for one reason–to woo women.

          1. Jarflax

            Language pretty much everything was invented for one reason–to woo women.

            Human progress = peacock reathers.

        2. Bobarian LMD

          Every song that has ever been written was designed to get into a woman’s panties.

    2. Tejicano

      I’m just glad I don’t know who the Eff you are talking about.

    1. ruodberht

      Locksmiths don’t exist?

    2. J. Frank Parnell

      They misunderstood, thought it was a Hot Carl incident.

  45. Evan from Evansville

    A typhoon and a half are coming through Korea! A woman is missing (“swept away”) and Jeju has been busted up, but it seems like it probably won’t amount to much. Luck and love to dbeagle and all our Hawaiians.

    Trip to Chiang Mai soonish with Lady to assess the situation on the ground and if I/we can live there and work remotely.

    She (colored) is terrified of the crisis in South Africa and is very worried about her family. As is my white Saffa friend here. They are really starting to freak out about the safety of their families back home.

    Work continues to suck dick for Skittles.

    Nothing much to say for now. Just checking in.

    1. Just Say’n

      “Work continues to suck dick for Skittles.”

      Why you got to trash Skittles?

      1. Evan from Evansville

        In the hierarchy of American candies, Skittles *maybe* make the top ten. Maybe. I’m being generous.

        Sweettarts and hard Spree rank tie as number one. Chewy Spree can go fuck themselves.

        Tear Jerkers be in the conversation if they still existed. Fun Dip (the stick is the best part). Cry Babies are a poor imitation of Tear Jerkers but I’ll take ’em.

        Skittles and anything chocolate are way down in the list. Chocolate is terrible. The only good ‘chocolate’ is white chocolate, and of the actual variety, Hershey’s Kisses are by far the best chocolate delivery system. Actual chocolate is gross.

        I feel like Ted S.

        1. And people say I have odd tastes.

          You rank the worst as the best?

          1. Just Say’n

            You live in NY. You’re expected to have poor taste buds.

          2. We already know you’re wrong on all things food. Piling on biology to your list of wrongness won’t help your case.

        2. Just Say’n

          I agree with you completely on chocolate. I’ve met very few people who detest chocolate as much as me. I feel so close to you right now.

          1. Evan from Evansville

            Shuuuuuuush, snookems.

            We’ll cuddle soon. I want to listen to you breath as you fall asleep in my arms.

            We’ll dream of a world without chocolate together.

            *swoon*

          2. Just Say’n

            *kiss*

        3. RBS

          Fun Dip (the stick is the best part).

          You mean you feel like UCS?

        4. Brett L

          You’ve been in Asia too long.

        5. Nephilium

          So you were the one lamenting that Necco wafers were going away?

          1. Evan from Evansville

            Neccos are my dad’s favorite candy. Just eat chalk.

            *Shaking my head at my Appalachian roots*

          2. Mojeaux

            When one is pregnant, Tums is a major food group.

          3. Democractic Hitler

            Man, I hope I don’t catch that.

          4. Mojeaux

            Just don’t declare yourself a woman and you’ll be fine.

        6. Troy

          Chewy Spree can go fuck themselves

          Wiser words have never been written.

        7. B.P.

          Dude, you’re from Evansville, home of the best dark chocolate turtles on earth…

          https://www.libschocolates.com/

          White “chocolate” is an abomination. Hershey’s milk chocolate is terrible.

    2. straffinrun

      The weather is acting up here, too. I’m outta beer and can’t decide to go to bed or make the trek.

      1. Evan from Evansville

        Where the fuck do you live?!

        The (maybe) best part about living in Asia is constant access to a 24/7/365 convenience store around every corner. I live a 20 second walk to my market/baby grocery store that closes at midnight and 30 seconds away from my GS25 (same as 7-11).

        Everyone else’s taste in candy is baffling. I’ll also accept SnowCaps (only if you’re at a movie theater) and hell yes to cotton candy. (Stale cotton candy is divine. Same with popcorn. Come at me, bro.) Chocolate is a very rare desire and anything chewy or gummy is to be discarded—preferably by using them to reward/bribe students. OMWC understands. Reese’s Pieces (pronounced Reese’s pee-sees) are also a very delectable snack.

        Lemons are the best fruit, especially eaten straight or in UNsweetened iced tea, and sour is the most important food group.

        1. F. Stupidity Jr.

          Lemons are the best fruit

          DING DING DING We have a winner.

        2. straffinrun

          Nearest conbini is about five minutes on foot. Just groggy today. Also, the jingle should’ve been, ET’s Feces Reek of Reeses Pieces

          1. Evan from Evansville

            You poor, poor man.

            *Work* is a five minute walk away. And people ask me why I don’t want to move back to Indianapolis (where all of my family is currently). No need for a car, insurance, nuttin.

            The actual best part of living in Asia is the travel. I was wondering recently why I don’t have much savings. Then I (why this had escaped me pretty much baffles me, though again I’ve only lived as an adult in Asia so it’s harder to have a reference point) remembered that I go on 3 thousand-or-so dollar vacations every year. Add that up and take them away from history and I’d easily have another $30k to my name.

            How much money is a ‘successful’ person at age 31 supposed to have? Add in my in-four-months bonus and my pension and I’ll probably leave Korea with $17-20k to my name with very little debt. That sounds pretty good to me, but I know if I lived in America/didn’t travel I’d have so much more than that.

            Always seems like every time I move I’ve got about $20k. Feels like I’m back where I’ve started. With [two] stacks of high society.

          2. straffinrun

            I used to let my wife handle all the investments because she worked at one of the big three financial banks as an analyst. We were looking at bonds to buy a few years back and she points at a chart and says, “Look at this one. 28%!”. I squint at the paper. “Uh, that’s Greece”. Been keeping a closer eye on her investments since then.

          3. ChipsnSalsa

            I squint at the paper.

            Trying to see it the way she does? So empathetic, nice.

          4. Sensei

            Japanese bank? The one’s that continue to fully write down all their assets and prolong the malaise…

            Plus this gem in the WSJ
            https://www.wsj.com/articles/turkeys-meltdown-hits-japanese-mom-and-pop-investors-1534930201

            Turkey’s financial trouble has claimed some distant victims: small investors in Japan, who have dabbled in emerging-market assets to escape superlow domestic returns.

          5. At 31? around then I had been in the debt clearance phase with a negative net worth. Since then I’ve accumulated something like $140K in assets and $80K in debts (car and mortgage, mostly) Pretty much none of those assets are liquid though.

          6. Evan from Evansville

            …How old are you now?

            I own nothing but I’m also quite close to paying off all my student debt, which is all I have. People always talk about student debt being so crippling…I went to IU, in-state obviously, and wracked up about $23k in debt. I’ve made $240ish payments per month and at last check I’ve got like $4k left. It was never a big deal.

            So….just don’t pay stupid money for out-of-state crazy-high tuitions? I literally can’t imagine wracking up $100k+ without going to med/law school.

          7. I can’t math well today. I was born in ’82.

          8. Nephilium

            A friend of the girlfriend racked up over $100k in student loans getting a Masters in History. He’s in his mid-late 20’s, and unemployed.

          9. I graduated with what I regard as a horrible amount at $54k in debt. That’s been paid off. I’m over a quarter through paying off my mortgage, and I have to fight the instinct to pay down the premium on the car loan because it’s a 0% loan, and there’s no benefit to paying above the minimum right now.

          10. MikeS

            Engineer: “How can I build that?”

            Scientist: “What is that made from?”

            Historian: “Do you want fries with that?”

          11. Tejicano

            My education – undergrad and masters – were paid for almost equally split between GI Bill, personal savings, and academic scholarships. That last scholarship saved me from going into debt.

          12. Engineer: “How can I build that?”

            Scientist: “What is that made from?”

            Historian: “Do you want fries with that?”

            Information Technology: “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”

        3. Mojeaux

          Lemons are the best fruit

          You could not be more right.

          I’m in ur Skittles, killin’ ur flavors

          1. MikeS

            Don’t dox me bro sis!

    3. Drake

      Trump seems to be paying attention to things in SA even if the mainstream media here in the U.S. has decided to completely ignore it.

      1. Count Potato

        “I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers. “South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers.” @TuckerCarlson @FoxNews”

        https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1032454567152246785

        I love how he @’s FoxNews as if they aren’t already following him.

  46. Juvenile Bluster

    I’m loving the reaction to the Cohen plea. All of a sudden Republicans are seeing the issues prosecutors massively overcharging people in order to force them into a plea deal. All of a sudden Democrats have full faith and confidence in the justice system.

    1. Just Say’n

      “Undocumented immigrants who have committed petty crimes should not face deportation for such crimes” and “Oh my God, regardless of what your opinion is on campaign finance laws, the law is the law”

      Is my favorite juxtaposition among certain libertarians who look awfully foolish for having pushed Russia fever dreams fro the past two years and are now left with a campaign finance violation

      1. WTF

        Possibly a campaign finance violation; no case has been tried, and depending on the details, there may not have been any actual violation, in spite of Cohen’s plea at the behest of Clinton operative Lanny Davis.

        1. Just Say’n

          Yeah, but we all know that Trump did this. I would be surprised if he wasn’t paying off women who he had affairs with

          1. WTF

            Right, but just paying off a woman is not a campaign finance violation, if he did it with his own money.

          2. Just Say’n

            Right. Of course there are variables at play here. But, even still, if he were guilty of a campaign finance violation and putting aside that criminal penalties are rarely levied for such actions, that would still leave people who presented themselves as opposed to Trump’s “law and order” mantra in a difficult position of trying to justify a campaign violation as legitimate grounds for undoing the results of the last election, particularly after those same people were reciting CIA talking points about Russia.

            I’m not going to name people in particular, but let’s just call them Radley B……wait, that’s too obvious. Let’s call them R. Balko

          3. Juvenile Bluster

            Excellent somewhat obscure Simpsons reference.

          4. Drake

            That’s why you hire a lawyer – to do things legally. And because attorney-client privilege was a thing until now.

        2. R C Dean

          Possibly a campaign finance violation; no case has been tried, and depending on the details, there may not have been any actual violation,

          I am not an expert, but I think it is highly unlikely that there was a campaign finance violation.

          The alleged violations are all based on ignoring that Cohen was reimbursed by Trump, that these “campaign expenditures” were made either by Cohen or by a corporation, which is true only if you pretend that the reimbursement didn’t happen.

          The other problem with the alleged violations is that they were very likely not made “solely” for purposes of the campaign, which would mean they are not technically campaign expenditures at all. My understanding is that expenditures that are “dual purpose” are not campaign expenditures, for the very good reason that any other standard would capture lots of things that might have an incidental affect on the campaign. There has been some reference to the payoffs being “primarily” for the campaign, but I don’t think that’s the legal standard.

    2. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Hypocrites gonna hypocrite…

    1. Pat

      God I hope this is real.

    2. Count Potato

      LOL

      1. TheArgonaut

        That is some pro level trolling!

    3. Just Say’n

      He’ll always be Puffy to me

    4. Stinky Wizzleteats

      All I know is now I really want one of those fucking combs.

      1. straffinrun

        Fuk you.

    5. Scruffy Nerfherder

      So Twitter does have some redeeming qualities

  47. Count Potato

    Someone explain to me how this isn’t complete horseshit.

    https://twitter.com/PetiteNicoco/status/1032244220743086080

    1. Drake

      Yes. Twitter is complete bullshit.

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder

      “The absence of personal misbehavior does not guarantee an account to be unaffected”

      Twitter et al are only doing this because they can. If non-progs just left the platform en masse, it would leave them as an echo chamber. As it is, staying on the platform is just asking to be abused.

      1. Pat

        Sanction of the victim and all that.

    3. F. Stupidity Jr.

      When will people learn to just listen to the correct opinions??

  48. Rebel Scum

    Cohen ‘Knows a Lot More’ to Tell Mueller, Won’t Accept Pardon, Says Attorney Lanny Davis

    Attorney Lanny Davis, who was a special counsel to President Clinton during his campaign finance investigations and impeachment trial, told CNN that “there is also a liberation in Michael’s voice” since his client decided to plead guilty and “hit the reset button on his life and his previous loyalty” to Trump.

    “This is a man with a very big heart, who loves his family, loves his country. And has been unable to speak, because of this cloud after the massive search warrant was executed including even his children’s telephones. Well, now, he is — stepped up to the line and he can now speak again. And he feels liberated,” Davis said.

    Davis said Cohen “would be able to provide information useful to the special counsel” but didn’t elaborate on what that information may be. “It pertains to something else that I can’t divulge right now,” he added.

    “I liken Mr. Mueller to a silent deadly submarine under the surface, leak-proof with the fuel energized by one thing, facts. Facts. Something that Rudy Giuliani doesn’t think exists, and that Donald Trump literally doesn’t care when he ignores,” he said. “And we’ll see what Mr. Mueller comes up with, but I do believe that Michael Cohen will tell the truth to Rudy Giuliani and will tell the truth about Donald Trump.”..

    “I know that Mr. Cohen would never accept a pardon from a man that he considers to be both corrupt and a dangerous person in the oval office,” Davis said, stressing that Cohen “has flatly authorized me to say under no circumstances would he accept a pardon from Mr. Trump, who uses the pardon power in a way that no president in American history has ever used a pardon — to relieve people of guilt who committed crimes, who are political cronies of his.”

    Davis reiterated that if Cohen, who once said he’d take a bullet for Trump, “tells the truth to the special counsel who talks to him, and I believe he will, he will have topics that in my opinion will be of interest to the special counsel in his Russian investigation and related topics.”

    *dons tinfoil hat* => I had a thought that perhaps this, the Omarosa stuff and/or Guliani acting like such a tool could be deliberate Trump-made chaos/distraction so as to keep his detractors occupied while he continues to work under the radar policy-wise. Which is to say that they are still working for him and he may be pulling off the greatest troll in American history. => *removes tinfoil hat*

    1. Brett L

      So Lanny Davis is basically? What? Mephistopholes? “Sure I’m the devil who is a a lifelong Clinton fixer, but I can get you out of this without going to Federal prison and perhaps without being sued into bankruptcy if you do things that seem to be on face against your best interest.”

      Also, a quibble, but do you get to “accept” a pardon? The President signs the pardon, you’re fucking pardoned.

      1. Rebel Scum

        You’d think a lawyer would know that. It’s all theatrics.

    2. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Occam’s Razor: Omarosa’s is a bitch, Giuliani’s tool, and Cohen’s a hopelessly corrupt snitch fuck, no conspiracy required.

      1. Rebel Scum

        I just mentioned because it would be hilarious and awesome if something along those lines was happening. ///AManCanDream

    3. Just Say’n

      https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1032448099296456705

      There is no 32 dimensional chess. Consider the possibility that our rulers are incredibly stupid and self-absorbed

      1. AlexinCT

        Not a possibility but a fact.. That is why we got Trump in the first place.

        1. Just Say’n

          Well said

      2. R C Dean

        Yup. Outcomes are classified as follows:

        Good outcomes: 32 dimensional chess in action.
        Bad outcomes: unintended consequences.

        Foreseeability, probability, hell, even intentions, need not apply. Our masters are basically chimps banging away on typewriters.

    4. Pat

      Mr. Trump, who uses the pardon power in a way that no president in American history has ever used a pardon — to relieve people of guilt who committed crimes, who are political cronies of his.

      Marc Rich ring a bell you disingenuous sack of shit?

      1. Pope Jimbo

        Totally different. Marc Rich had to pay big $$$ to get his pardon.

        Trump just doesn’t get stuff like this. He has no idea how government folk are supposed to act.

    5. JaimeRoberto

      I think he just called Mueller a fart.

    6. R C Dean

      I liken Mr. Mueller to a silent deadly submarine under the surface, leak-proof with the fuel energized by one thing, facts. Facts.

      Oh, fer fuck’s sake. Like, say, the fact that the knowingly FBI imprisoned men for murder in order to protect an informant? Which fact Mueller refused to act on when he had the authority? Those kind of facts?

  49. Count Potato

    “HOT LINES: Can We Talk About Toxic Femininity?

    Hear me out, because what has unfolded in the wake of Bourdain’s death is a display of chronic, predatory narcissism from Argento and McGowan. These two women have used and abused the #MeToo movement—which they have been at the front lines of since the beginning—for their own personal gain. I know it’s uncouth for me to say that, but I’m saying it. I’m uncouth. Kick me off the planet, ladies.

    I’m not arguing that Argento’s public indiscretions with French journalist Hugo Clément caused Bourdain’s death. (More on that later.) People cheat on one another. I’ve been there. Most of us have. Lust has a hard time steering your moral compass when you’re drunk on pheromones. It’s not the adulterous sex that eats you up inside, but the lie afterwards.

    That said, it’s ironic that since Bourdain’s suicide, we have witnessed a display of totally irreconcilable behavior from two women who are among the most prominent faces of a movement that centers around accountability.

    And you know what? I wasn’t going to go there. But fuck it. I’m going there. I’m going there because someone needs to. American journalists today are scared. They are cowards. Their opinion pieces are timid when it comes to topics like this, while they share a much different view when texting in private. So here is the ugly fucking truth everyone, because you have all been spoon-fed a bunch of idealistic garbage over and over and over.

    Argento and McGowan describe Weinstein giving them oral sex, and both say they faked an orgasm in hopes of getting the experience over with as fast as possible. Calling this “rape” is doing our society, including sexual-assault survivors, a disservice on so many levels. I was raped when I was 15 years old. I know a lot of women will accuse me of victim-blaming, but at some point we have to remove the impenetrable shield that one receives when she is considered a victim.

    Argento went on to have a consensual relationship with Weinstein for several years. The New Yorker article is what thrust the Italian actress into America’s cultural conversation. Before this, the American media knew little about her.

    Make no mistake, Weinstein is a monster. He is a total predator, and I consider the women who spoke out against him to be very brave. But what Argento and McGowan are doing is not brave. In fact, it’s disingenuous. Rape and sexual transactions are worlds apart, and they need to stay worlds apart.”

    https://penthouse.com/pages/asia-argento/Toxic-Femininity.php

    1. commodious spittoon

      I only read it for the scorching-hot takes on feminism, I swear.

      1. MikeS

        I would also accept a Hot Carl on a feminist.

    2. commodious spittoon

      We are still talking about a 17-year-old “boy” who presumably could have overpowered and knocked the block off his “assailant,” yes? The only reason this made news is because California has a ludicrous age of consent. Okay, the ersatz mommy stuff is a little weird, but what in that world isn’t bizarre? She fucked a teenager (“predatory narcissism” is an excellent descriptor), he hit her up for cash, she paid, and now, years later, he’s back for more. Who is getting worked up on his behalf?

      And it’s rich hearing a feminist castigate journalists for cowardice on this subject. “Yeah, we would have ruined your career and probably inspired your suicide had you written what I’m about to say, but you owe it to us to write the truths we’ll destroy you for because our movement jumped the tracks decades ago and is careening toward civilizational suicide.”

      1. The Last American Hero

        Fuck that. If the genders were reversed, they’d be stringing this guy up by his balls from a lamp post. And as the face of the meeeetooooo movement, it’s too good to pass up.

        1. Jarflax

          Tempting as this mindset is (especially in this case) due process matters. I am increasingly skeptical that the information age has been a net boon to mankind. From hysteria about crime leading us to smother our kids in security and monitoring, to the drowning out of any rational voice in a tsunami of emotional attacks, it has real costs, and recent events show that its biggest boon, allowing unconnected outsiders access to an effective means of broadcast communications, was only a temporary effect of its youth. Now that it is hitting a degree of maturity, you see the same sort of establishment gatekeeping being used to shut out the disfavored viewpoints.

  50. Nephilium

    So tonight I think dinner will involve a bike ride. To the new Fat Heads production facility. And I need to find my signature on the Goodbye/Hello poster (that was signed the last day the old production facility was open).

  51. Just Say’n

    Trump’s tweet about South Africa is going to troll Elizabeth Warren into defending racially based land confiscation without compensation, isn’t it?

    1. It won’t matter to her base, because they already agree it’s impossible to be racist against whitey.

      1. Just Say’n

        Fact Check: Pants On Fire

        In fact, you can be racist to white people if you mock a white woman who pretended to be native american in order to bolster her job prospects.

        1. Just Say’n

          Of course, such a fact check is dependent upon said white woman holding the “right” politics

      2. Evan from Evansville

        Not to belabor my point from above, but my “coloured” (shudders at word and spelling, but she insists) Lady feels incredibly threatened by the goings-on in SA.

        1. Then she’s sensible, because it’s a shitstorm in the making. I’m not going to pry whether or not she has family potentially in the middle of this coming mess or whether she might have to go there for whatever reason.

          1. Stinky Wizzleteats

            Not to mention that when they’re done with the whites the mixed people and Indians will be next.

          2. WTF

            Apparently the left/media are up in arms because Trump asked the Secretary of State to look into this matter.

          3. Rhywun

            The HuffPo headline reads “Donald Trump Sparks Outrage By Tweeting White Nationalist Talking Point”.

            Wow.

          4. Ed Wuncler

            That’s terrible as fuck. And this is why the Left and their cohorts in the media are losing ground everyday because they have a narrative to sell. Damn the consequences.

          5. Charlie Suet

            One thing you can be absolutely sure of: however stupid leftist media’s response to this, however badly it gets exposed by actual events in SA, there’ll be no repercussions and no mainstream criticism.

            We’ll still be told how respectable and important and morally right steaming turds like HuffPo and Vox are. There won’t be any general revision of opinion on their writers. It’ll be just like the New York Times, the Graun and the New Statesman’s apologies for the USSR. The left always, always, always gets a pass on its past misdeeds.

          6. Evan from Evansville

            Don’t know about her family, really. She only talks about her sister who is in the navy and getting married next May. She has openly said that she might not be able to join me in Thailand (if that works) because of her family shit back home. We’ve been together for four months and she mentioned this maybe six weeks ago. I still don’t want to pry about it—she’s having a shit time here and I don’t want to be the person to remind her of more nastiness.

            My white Saffa friend definitely has shit at stake. They are farmers. I asked him what he would do when /if the shit hit the fan. Without a beat he said he and his family would get out of dodge. Was leaning towards Australia. Despite their crack-shot Boer heritage, they are not armed as far as I have gleaned.

        2. Drake

          A woman in South Africa should be pretty concerned there even if things don’t get worse. It’s the rapiest place on Earth by a wide margin.

          South African women have a greater chance of being raped than of graduating from high school.

          1. Ed Wuncler

            That’s the M.O. of a lot of governments in Africa. Instead of fixing their shit and becoming less corrupt, they blame the former colonialists for their troubles.

          2. WTF

            Huh, you’ve clearly never experienced the rampant raping at an American college campus!

          3. Juvenile Bluster

            5 out of every 4 women at college are raped.

        3. Bob

          Why would she be threatened by it?

          1. Rhywun

            IIRC, “coloured” means “mixed” or even “Indian”.

          2. Evan from Evansville

            If you saw her walking around in the US you’d just think “My lord, that’s a pretty black lady.”

            She understands that why I say black and doesn’t give me too much shit–she gets our baggage with the word colored–but if a Saffa called her that…she’d be incredibly insulted and would probably start going Lady Crazy. Much more than the standard 4.

            She’s melatoninally ‘black,’ but culturally she’s descended from Brits, not Afrikaaners or native “blacks.” Her heritage is European. She associates herself as being with the SA whites much more than with the African blacks. Some of her screeds on black South Africans are a bit rough to listen to, but I just have to put it through her filter and not through mine. SA is an incredibly violent and rapey place. Both her and my Afrikaaner friend speak passionately about how many, many people (even blacks) believe that Apartheid was much better than what’s going on now. At least shit kinda functioned back then.

            It’s interesting how your background in SA is by far more important than how you look, which obviously just isn’t how it works in the States. She has friends and family who are feeling very pressed about the seemingly inevitable furtherance of the clusterfuck at hand.

          3. Ed Wuncler

            You know that a place has reached a shithole status when the former oppressed would rather go back to the days of oppression instead of dealing with the current bullshit.

    2. Just Say’n

      “Is Forced Land Confiscation Wrong? (Fact Check: No)”

      – WaPo in about a couple hours

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        “Everything You Need To Know About South African Land Reparations Explained”

        – Vox

        1. Stinky Wizzleteats

          I was thinking more of a cracked.com 10 item listicle on why the land confiscations aren’t a big deal, maybe penned by David Wong.

          1. commodious spittoon

            “Oh, you think you have it rough being forced off your family’s land and maybe seeing your wife and kids butchered? Fifty years of Apartheid, bro. You got off easy.”

          2. Nephilium

            They’re busy with Trump.

            I miss when they were funny.

          3. Winston

            Conquest’s law my friend…

          4. “No one talks about”

            Uh, maybe there’s a reason?

        2. Just Say’n

          “Why South Africa Provides a Model for How to Tackle White Supremacy”

          – NYT

          1. MikeS

            “I Can Find South Africa On A Map!”

            -Gary Johnson newsletter

          2. commodious spittoon

            “What’s a ‘part tide’?”

          3. B.P.

            Winner.

          4. Winston

            Sarah Jeong will write it?

      2. Winston

        And Reason and Kevin Carson and Sheldon Richman will say…

        1. Scruffy Nerfherder

          Richman – “How Israel Dominates US Foreign Policy Towards South Africa”

          1. Just Say’n

            To be fair to Richman, Israel was the apartheid government’s few allies in the world after Rhodesia’s government fell

          2. Scruffy Nerfherder

            I know, that’s why I wrote it that way. Richman would definitely drag out the “Remember when we did such and such back in 1492…” argument.

          3. Just Say’n

            Well played

    3. MikeS

      Yes. She’ll demand all Native Americans people with high cheek bones get their land back.

  52. Count Potato

    “Massachusetts Republican beats trans driver’s license bill by forcing votes on all 73 genders

    BOSTON, August 16, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Legislation to add a “Gender X” option to driver’s license should have been a straightforward task in the far-left state of Massachusetts, but one Republican lawmaker managed to derail the bill by taking transgender ideology to its furthest extreme.

    “Since all Democrats must admit that the number of genders is endless, how dare the commonwealth lump all the new genders together as ‘Gender X’?” Carr writes, summarizing Lyons’ facetious reasoning. “Every gender, he declared, must be listed on Massachusetts driver’s licenses! That was Lyons’ non-negotiable demand. No justice, no peace.”

    Lyons told Carr he settled on demanding recognition for 73 different “genders,” as that was the number he reached by tallying the number of custom gender options Facebook offers.

    Knowing that his liberal colleagues couldn’t rule any of the genders out of order without undermining the logic of transgender ideology, Lyons introduced each as a separate amendment to the bill the evening of July 31, each requiring 10 minutes of debate and three minutes to vote on.

    “Number 6 added as a gender ‘cis.’ Amendment 9 — cis female, 13 — cis woman, 14 — cisgender female, 18 — cisgender woman,” Carr details. “Amendment 21 — gender fluid, 22 gender non-conforming, 23 gender questioning, 25 gender variant, 26 genderqueer.”

    Six hours in, Lyons had only filed 35 of the amendments, at which point House leadership realized he was running out the clock and there wasn’t enough time before the midnight deadline to pass both the bill and the other legislation on the docket. At 10:45 p.m., they withdrew the bill.”

    https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/retreats-for-gay-priests-brothers-and-lesbian-sisters-to-take-place-in-milw

    1. Certified Public Asshat

      *Reads quote, reads URL*

      Is that really the right link?

    2. Pat

      A modest proposal, to be sure…

    3. WTF

      Awesome

    1. MikeS

      OMG. HAHAHAHAHA!

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Ack!

      Let the Crying Games commence.

    3. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Good one

    4. commodious spittoon

      Oof.

    5. Just Say’n

      Dude has soft features

      1. Mojeaux

        He is shockingly pretty. He could give Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley (possibly Anne Hathaway) a run for their money.

        1. Pat

          Natalie Portman? Mmmm, maybe. Keira Knightley? Nah. She has possibly the most perfect female face in the history of humanity. Anne Hathaway looks like Joe Camel.

    6. straffinrun

      Nice front hole.

    7. Evan from Evansville

      Credit where credit is due—His Hogginess is going to be an attractive man.

      *Throws up hands*

      I don’t like it! I’m just callin’ it as I see it!

      1. Rhywun

        Meh… any man looks attractive underneath a halo.

        1. Evan from Evansville

          These euphemisms are getting more Biblical…

    8. Count Potato

      Would.

    9. Mr Lizard

      Ya he’s on our top 10 budget skin-suit list

  53. invisible finger

    ” Then they can become Detroit.”

    Nah, their plan is to become Caracas.

    1. I still think it’s kind of dumb because of the anomalous nature of school shootings.

  54. Ed Wuncler

    I’m reading the response to the Trump’s tweets about the land grabs in South Africa and it’s dismaying to see the comments. I guess it’s okay to violently seize land from their owners if it right a wrong from the past even though it will cause economic chaos and disinvestment. And the best thing is that when the Afrikaners leave in droves taking their wealth and expertise with them, the same assholes that are cheering the land grabs will be the first ones pissing an moaning about the whites leaving.

    And also, seeing how quickly these assholes in the comments are willing to use violence as a means to justify their social justice bullshit, thank goodness for the 2nd Amendment. That’s why we must never ever give an inch because don’t think for a second that they won’t justify using violence against those who they don’t like.

    1. The San are the only group of people left who can claim to have been the ‘original’ in habitants, but the area was largely unused. Plus, several major power bloc tribes arrived after the Boers. So stealing land from white farmers isn’t addressing a wrong, its merely perpetrating one.

      1. Count Potato

        The Bantu expansion was a violent shit-show. Then again, so was Europe until after WW II.

      2. Drake

        They arrived because the Boers were the only thing in Africa at the time that could actually stop the murdering rampages of the Zulus.

    2. Drake

      People got bored with all the modern technology and prosperity – so we are going to have a worldwide race war. Let the Great Hunt for Whitey begin.

      1. Ed Wuncler

        What really grinds my ax is that the asshole Apartheid advocates predicted that this would happen if they allowed a majority ruled government. And Mandela to his credit had some wisdom and common sense to know that land grabs would have an adverse affect on the country.

        1. Scruffy Nerfherder

          I always thought it was a serious failing of the West to allow the commies to seize the high moral ground over apartheid in South Africa. The West waited too long to make an issue out of it and demand reforms.

          1. Bob

            It’s not communist politics, it’s racial politics. The South African government couldn’t care less about Marx. When it was convenient to make Marxist noises to get support and power they did that, when it was convenient to talk like Locke to get power they did that. Their only interest in western political philosophies is that they can play some for fools by pretending to be interested in them for a moment.

          2. Scruffy Nerfherder

            I agree that it is both. Tribal politics underlie almost everything in sub-Saharan Africa, but communism provides the philosophical and moral framework for redistributionist policies, particularly those that involve force.

          3. They also, as we’ve seen in the US, provide a basis by which you can divide the population into identity groups arranged on a victimhood hierarchy. Marx did this by class, modern Marxists are more likely to do it by race and ethnicity.

            I agree with Bob though that any philosophy they espouse is purely out of convenience in service to their ultimate goal with is power. Marxism is just a particularly useful tool.

          4. Creosote Achilles

            Marx did this by class, modern Marxists are more likely to do it by race and ethnicity.

            Intersectionalism is Marxism in an ugly mumu.

          5. Ed Wuncler

            I think a lot of folks in the West didn’t want to make a big deal out of it because from what I understand, South Africa is rich in resources and a major trading partner.

            But you’re right though. By us staying quiet about it, it allowed the Communist ANC to become legitimate and be perceived as the only one fighting against the apartheid government.

          6. We’re just going to get yet another example of how human failings (envy, jealousy and vengefulness) can be exploited by a ruling class and drive a prosperous society into ruin. SA has huge resource reserves, a relatively diversified economy and was on the path toward joining the “developed world”. Because a tiny cabal craves power, they’re playing off the emotions (some of which are completely justified) of the masses to persecute a productive minority. Short term will be atrocities and crimes against humanity, long term will be economic destruction and just another failed Sub-Saharan state.

          7. Bob

            They lack Human Resources. People are not blank slate’s.

          8. Bob

            “I take your shit because I want it” is pretty much the default political philosophy of history. It existed long before Karl Marx. People are trying to squeeze their ideology into this. Communism is the opposite of libertarianism, so communism is bad. But that doesn’t mean all bad things are communism.

        2. Drake

          Some of them were assholes. By the end, they were just panicked white guys with no idea how to get our of an impossible situation. They were desperate enough to trust a convicted terrorist murderer to take power and not kill them all.

    3. They’re gearing up to try and do something similar in the US; they just need to morally justify it to themselves first.

  55. KibbledKristen

    Nice to know Federal Air Marshals are just as mentally stable as any other cop. I have been seated next to a couple of them over the years. They make themselves obvious with their nasty attitudes and overall lack of normal flying social skills.

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

    1. KibbledKristen

      (you gotta listen to this – it’s nucking futs)

    2. Petty dictators gonna petty dictator.

    3. Scruffy Nerfherder

      What a douchebag.

      With any luck, he’ll be fired, but I’m sure the union will have something to say about it.

    4. KibbledKristen

      From the interactions I’ve had with them, the agency picks the most misanthropic, socially awkward candidates they can find.

      1. We do well on Civil Service Exams.

        1. KibbledKristen

          I’m as misanthropic and socially awkward as they come. These air marshals are in another league altogether.

  56. Mojeaux

    @I. B. McGinty, I want to write raptures about your post last night. I’m in awe of your skill. And your garage. And your tools. And your wood.

    1. ChipsnSalsa

      Better frame that statement McGinty.

      1. Nephilium

        Probably want to use some kind of hard wood for that frame, right?

        1. MikeS

          That should be plane-ly obvious.

          1. Mojeaux

            De plane, de plane!

    2. Always nice when a woman admires your tool and ability to work with wood.

      1. KibbledKristen

        That’s what I love about Nick Offerman

        1. commodious spittoon

          Take it down about 20%, Squirrely K.

          1. KibbledKristen

            Impossible – I’m a middle-aged woman.

          2. Tres Cool

            You said it big shooter

    3. Creosote Achilles

      I had missed the article.

      So I.B. McGinty, I am in awe sir, of your skill. I have dinked around with building some simple shelves, but that’s some amazing work. Thank you for the article and looking forward to mor.

    1. “just outside of Columbus, Ohio”

      I suppose. It takes you 54 minutes to drive from Columbus to Zanesville. Just outside in my estimation would be New Albany.

  57. If you don’t want to get naked, only accept roles that don’t require it and always explicitly put it in your contract. Otherwise, STFU.

    https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/new-politics-hollywood-sex-scenes-metoo-era-1136333

    1. Nephilium

      Back in the before time, before PoundMeToo, a group of us were shooting the shit, and someone had put in the DVD of Resident Evil with the commentary track on. Paraphrasing here but:

      Milla Jovovich: So for this opening scene, I thought my contract said no nudity.
      Paul W.S. Anderson (director): No, it very explicitly called for nudity.
      MJ: Are you sure about that?
      PA: Absolutely.
      MJ: I’m not sure I would have agreed… Never mind, look there’s my nipples!

  58. A Leap at the Wheel

    Hello Glibs,

    I’ve been out of town for a few days to attend a funeral. Here are some random thoughts.
    1) If the funeral is for a 89 year old woman that attended mass on average over 7 times a week, and she dies hours before the Catholic Church is revealed to have, once again, protected kiddy diddlers, and you are the priest giving the funeral mass, do not comment about how it was good that she died before the news came out.
    2) Outside of metro Pittsburgh, the Ohio Valley still appears to look like a bombed shit hole. The fracking boom and the automation boom have not put thriving businesses in any of the empty buildings that were rusted out shit holes twenty years ago.
    3) Immigrant/Catholic Appalachian culture has all the same dysfunctions as the rest of Scotch-Irish Appalachia, but at least out food is better.
    4) Mental illness and dysfunction flow through my family like the Force does through the Skywalkers. Most of the people in my generation have moved away and stayed away, and this was a powerful reminder of why.
    5) Never trust a junkie. Never. Trust. A. Junkie.
    6) I learned to love classical liberalism because I saw first hand what life was like when social structures don’t mitigate human nature. Since moving away, I’ve dedicated my life to building healthy social structures. Traveling back home has reminded me what chaos it is when those structures are never put into place. I am rededicated to my work with my family’s cub scout pack, our church, my reading club, an another community non-profit that I”m going to start teaching out of.
    7) I wrote two angry articles that our magnanimous hosts will probably publish. They aren’t directly about this issue, but the underlying emotions made their way into the articles. I may write a more sober series of articles in a bit focusing on point 6), when the spirit moves me.
    8) I may have finally convinced my uncle (by marriage) to write down the essays about his father he keeps meaning to do. His father was a living Horatio Alger figure, born in a one-room shack and rising to the level of being on the prosecution team at Nuremburg. It would be a loss if these stories are not preserved.

    1. My sister lived in Pittsburgh for 12 years up until this summer. I always liked visiting because it was so foreign to me, but I could see how living there might get kind of depressing (no offense).

      1. A Leap at the Wheel

        No offense taken. Depression is the correct word for both the economy and emotional zeitgeist. Beautiful land. Amazingly rich culture both high and low. But depression so thick you can swim in it.

      2. Pittsburgh is actually pretty cool. The outlands of that area, not so much.

    2. Tundra

      Welcome back, Leap.

      Sorry for your loss. I like your sixth point. I need to step up my game there.

    3. straffinrun

      Since moving away, I’ve dedicated my life to building healthy social structures.

      That is something I’ve been focusing on as I get older. Went to my wife’s temple (she’s a practicing Buddhist) and everyone there was friendly and seemed to genuinely want the best for me and my family even though I’m not a Buddhist. When I was a kid, many of the dads in our neighborhood would go to church just because of the social glue provided despite not being religious at all.

      1. A Leap at the Wheel

        I have… eccentric… views on Christianity that don’t include regular church services as being a requirement of proper faith expression. But I’m an attending member of a very main-line Missouri Synod Lutheran church. Half because my wife doesn’t share all my views (well, no one does…) and half because of the social network that being a regular church volunteer provides.

      2. Mojeaux

        many of the dads in our neighborhood would go to church just because of the social glue provided despite not being religious at all.

        I find myself on this teeter-totter with regard to my church. Some of the things the leadership does drives me up a wucking fall. Some members are insufferable. Sometimes the local leadership voluntells me to do something (at which point I raise an eyebrow and they back off). Doctrinally speaking, I am as I said in Gadianton’s thread, grappling with Christianity 101. Otherwise soooo many things about our doctrine suits me to a T. Even when they don’t, I don’t feel like I need to go through anybody to get to God, and ultimately, that is where my faith lies. So the leadership in Salt Lake is bearable even when I wouldn’t take it from anybody else, and the leadership here can be silly but they know better than to go toe-to-toe with me, and there are the petty squabbles amongst members in which I do not involve myself, because I answer only to God.

        BUT. This group of people is my tribe. It’s always been my tribe. It’s almost all I know. And I know that if someone is in need, I’m going to help. And I know that if I’m in need, I will get help. I can go anywhere in the country (world?) and still be part of my tribe, and know that I and mine will be taken care of if SHTF.

        Also, my tribe prepares for TEOTWAWKI. We’ve gone on ward (parish) campouts and used what we had in storage and those are fun as hell. I have a place in my tribe and major part of that place is for when SHTF.

        1. straffinrun

          Interesting. I’ve been kicking the thought around in my head recently that the problem with people today is that they’re too afraid of death. “Give me liberty or give me death”. That is a non starter for most people if you don’t have a tribe to protect in the long term. Why risk danger if you’re not going to be around to enjoy the benefit? “Conscience doth make cowards of us all” *mentioned in my Hamlet post* has never been more true than in these times where nothing is true and everything is relative.

          1. Mojeaux

            the problem with people today is that they’re too afraid of death

            I agree with that. I’ve thought that for decades, especially as I made my living for a time doing medical transcription, and 90-year-olds were getting quadruple bypass surgeries.

            I was never afraid of death–until I had kids. When they are grown and on their own and doing well, I will again no longer be afraid of death.

          2. straffinrun

            The kid (or kids in your case). *Sighs* That’s why I’m glad we have the whole family from Aunts, Uncles, Mom, Dad, Cousins and our circle of friends in the neighborhood to rely on in case something happened to me. Of course, the wife is the most important person. It would be terrifying to be a single parent without any real support.

          3. invisible finger

            The problem with people today is that they’re too afraid of failure. (To them, death is a kind of failure.)

            Failure is a great teacher, but people would rather have grade inflation and credentials instead of learning.

        2. A Leap at the Wheel

          Some of my family’s closest friends are Mormon. I’ve been on the brink of talking to my wife about exploring joining that church a number of times. Everything you talk about is the kind of thing that I would love to have in my life.

          But I’m just absolutely incapable of sublimating my intellectual independence to any kind of hierarchy that would put itself between myself an God. Intellectual independence is, to my mind, *the* gift God gave to humans, and the New Covenant was a commandment to prevent hierarchy between each person and God.*

          I’ve been on a few of those ward camp outs too. They are a lot of fun.

          I left the Catholic church over this issue, and I can’t bring myself to ignore it.

          *If you note that this interpretation is very convenient for me in that it makes point of Christianity align with that which I find to be relatively comfortable.. well, yeah I’ve noticed that too.

          1. Mojeaux

            Technically speaking, one of our tenets is that we DON’T have to go through anyone to get to God. In practice, the path to God morphs from a priest-like figure to being perfect. We don’t say it. There are unwritten rules and understood traditions as in all organizations, but if you want to get to God, you be perfect, or as close as you can get.

            Here’s where I would normally get into doctrine versus culture, but every org has its tenets and its often contradictory culture. I am lucky enough to be able to separate those, to evaluate my path to God, and to decide to try to be a good person on its own merits rather than trying to earn my way into God’s presence.

            Those unwritten rules and stuff will always creep into my discussion of the church, so I’m glad Gadianton was the one to write that post.

          2. A Leap at the Wheel

            Right, and its the in-practice that bothers me, not the in-name issues. The idea that another person could inform me that I have been called to a particular role, or that another person could receive revelation that is applicable down a hierarchy but not up, etc, are deal breakers for me.

            Also, the last time I investigated was during a recent ordination of women (sorry if I have the terminology wrong) controversy. I was reading a personal blog written by Mormons for Mormons about Mormanism, and the author was very undecided. The author’s Bishop dropped into the comments and reminded everyone that everything they said was being monitored and that the author was going to be called to account for his posts next time they met face to face. That was a pretty stark reminder that, nope, I couldn’t look past those issues.

          3. Mojeaux

            That bishop is an asshat and I personally would have told him that to his face.

            What people, particularly women, forget is that the leadership is lay, and they are generally unaccountable for their leadership, and therefore able to be talked-back-to.

            My husband and I say no regularly. I can accept that someone was impressed to say something to me about whatever discussion we had, and consider or dismiss it at will. I refuse to go along with the program because “my leader told me I should.”

            Monitored. That would set me off on a loud profanity-laced rant in a bishop’s office in no time flat and they CAN’T DO ANYTHING…except excommunicate you.

            If you’re afraid of excommunication and you think God’s going to hold it against you, that’s not my problem. I don’t think that way. I think, “You’re an unreasonable asshole; get off my blog.”

            To wit: My last bishop, whom I did not like, knows very good and well what I write. I found out I am known up and down my church’s leadership for one particular book I wrote. Not a word has been said to me. By anyone. Ever. I am not afraid of excommunication because I do not believe that God is going to abide by the word of man.

        3. I was raised Episcopalian, so not actually believing core tenets of Christianity isn’t really a stumbling block as the church is primarily a place where people meet to carpool to a golf course. Still, there’s a social stability aspect that is becoming increasingly important to me, especially as a father, and there aren’t many other institutions better than the church for that kind of thing. But, as a non-believer, I feel like it’s insulting to people of faith to attend the same institutions for the side benefits, so I’m passively in the market for other things I can get my entire family to do with other people.

          1. Mojeaux

            I am not a joiner. Of anything. If I hadn’t been born in the church, I wouldn’t join. If I hadn’t attended a private Southern Baptist school for 9 years, I would have left by now.

            Being there for the side benefits is a relatively recent development for me, which began as my kids started to get older, and I saw I needed to provide THEM with a stable organizational environment that generally turns out good people.

          2. straffinrun

            I don’t think it’s insulting as long as you’re up front with them and show respect to them and their religion. While it’s not technically a religion, living here for so long I’ve come to realize that being calm and polite with people even when they do irrational things is what makes civilization. Don’t instigate violence, listen to people and show respect. If we all did that, the misunderstandings would seem irrelevant.

          3. Certified Public Asshat

            So skip mass and show up to the potluck?

          4. straffinrun

            *Wretches* Bad experience with potlucks. I’d rather go dumpster diving.

          5. Nephilium

            Raised Catholic (I was even an altar boy back in the day), went away from the Church (and organized religion in general) early in my teens, and don’t have a strong desire to go back. And I kind of agree with the feeling about insulting the believers by attending their services. Hell, I didn’t like it when in High School (Catholic, see above) and had to go to Mass. I was one of the few who didn’t go up for Communion because I didn’t feel it was appropriate.

            The nuns giving me dirty looks for that didn’t help my opinion of the Church…

      3. Pat

        Typical of my cohort, I pretty much want nothing to do with an organized church, which is largely a result of having been a very dedicated but decidedly not-in-the-inner-circle church volunteer for about 8 years. Seeing how it works from the inside without being part of the bubble was an… interesting experience. The social aspects aren’t worth it, especially since i’m not a very social person. But I think society is a lot worse off for the stability that religion used to provide.

    4. Pat

      1) If the funeral is for a 89 year old woman that attended mass on average over 7 times a week, and she dies hours before the Catholic Church is revealed to have, once again, protected kiddy diddlers, and you are the priest giving the funeral mass, do not comment about how it was good that she died before the news came out.

      That… that didn’t actually happen right?

      1. A Leap at the Wheel

        It did. The priest also fucked up mass at least twice, maybe as many as four times according to my former-alter-server-cousin. He fucked up the rosary twice in ONE RECITATION. His directions for out-of-towners to get from the cemetery to the reception hall used two turns where buildings used to be (turn left were the old white barn used to be.) He went on a tangent about someone else who died while leading the prayer at the viewing. He accidentally slipped a line of the Hail Mary into the Lords Prayer before the food was served at the reception.

        The only fuck up I’ll give him a slide on was that he mentioned how proud my Grandmother was when she saw all her grandkids getting confirmed. This guy wasn’t there for any of those, but most of us were confirmed by then-Bishop Weurl.

        1. Pat

          Christ what an asshole.

          1. A Leap at the Wheel

            You know how crazy people are funny on TV, but its just really sad in real life? He was like the real-life version of the Bishop from the Princess Bride.

    5. Bob

      As a rule of thumb- don’t mention pedophelia at a funeral.

      1. straffinrun

        Definitely stick with necrophilia.

    6. The Last American Hero

      If you haven’t already done so, I recommend you look at Wood Badge.

      1. A Leap at the Wheel

        I’m signed up to take it in January or February.

    7. DEG

      Welcome back, and my condolences.

  59. Thinking about the white farmers being ejected/murdered in South Africa gets me thinking about all sorts of other crimes against humanity that have happened over the years. I find it fascinating the levels of delusion people are capable of to keep their heads in the sand. People wouldn’t believe the Holocaust until they saw pictures of the camps (and even then there are assholes denying it). Even in a time of unlimited connection and communication, people won’t believe their own lying eyes about SA and call this a conspiracy theory.

    SA certainly has a lot of baggage from its own racist past, but I thought part of the whole “never again” of the Holocaust was that everyone could agree that slaughtering people because of what they look like/believe/own was wrong not matter the circumstance. I guess I was being idealistic.

    1. Tundra

      You forgot that we’re still just the smartest monkeys.

      1. A Leap at the Wheel

        True fact – the human brain applies a disproportionate amount of processing power to describing parabolas (aka how to throw rocks), management of fire, identifying fine details on faces, and selecting the appropriate time to stab an ally in the back for the most personal gain.

        1. A Leap at the Wheel

          In fact, you can’t turn off those functions even if you try.

          1. Tundra

            Why the hell would I try?!?

          2. A Leap at the Wheel

            Some old Justice League comic or cartoon had a great exchange that went something like this:

            Superman: How long can you humans hold their breath before passing out?
            Wonder Woman: How on Earth would we know that?
            Batman: Six minutes, twenty three seconds.

          3. kinnath

            Hear this with Lego Batman’s voice, and it is perfect.

          4. commodious spittoon

            *applies power drill to head*

        2. The rest of the time is thinking about/staring at boobs.

    2. A Leap at the Wheel

      Social outcomes that happen over and over and over again are not coincidence. There are behavior patterns that result from immutable features of social networks (e.g., secrets become exponentially more difficult to keep as social network complexity increases) and from very-hard-to-mutate human instincts.

      I’m not a member of the (((tribe))), but I though never again was more about never letting genocide happen without putting up the stiffest resistance possible. That is not, precisely, the exact same thing as never letting genocide happen. But then again, I don’t have the same cultural exposure to it, so I could be wrong.

      1. invisible finger

        I think a lot of the “never again” shit is based on people conveniently thinking “Hitler did it” than more appropriately realizing “Government did it.” IOW, assigning all the blame for the bureaucracy to the public face of the bureaucracy. Because government is always almighty, all-knowing, and all-good, it’s just certain individuals that wreck it.

    3. Ed Wuncler

      Us humans have an odd way of justifying some of the most heinous shit when especially when the oppressors feel as though they are the victims of oppression.

      That’s what’s happening in SA. I’m pretty sure most folks in SA wouldn’t themselves go and kill the Afrikaners but a lot of them live in hopeless situations, so when some asshole from the ANC say, “Hey, you’re poor because that asshole with all the land is keeping you down,” it’s easy to go along with the flow and condone this behavior. Mix in the whole Marxist envy bullshit and victimhood, you can see how violently seizing land from the white farmers isn’t that big of a deal. You’re just taking what was yours in the first place.

      1. Mojeaux

        Envy is a very seductive little demon. It’s so easy.

        Although I don’t want to take what someone else has away from him, I do want the same thing as the other person has. The retired doctor 2 doors down from me has a pool. Every summer I hear his grandkids out there having a good time, and I want a pool. I will never have a pool. I don’t have the money and I never will.

        But the doc is ancient, had a successful practice, and I am not in an intellectual position to become a doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc. The resentment of knowing I don’t have the wherewithal to gain that for myself is what digs at me.

        1. R C Dean

          Interesting. I just don’t really envy what other people have, or at least rarely and not that much. It may come from my time in law firms, when I saw both what the big-name partners owned, and how unhappy most of them were – I think it recalibrated what I really wanted to have because I got a look at what chasing that would cost me.

          I basically have everything I want – would I like a second home in the mountains, a garage full of cool vehicles, and about a dozen more guns? Sure. But I don’t feel the lack of them, and don’t really envy the people who have them, or at least not much.

          1. A Leap at the Wheel

            I also work around fabulously wealthy people, and I’ve experience the exact same thing. Its easy to not envy them in part because I will never compete with them, and because I have things that they will never have (like a Tuesday night leading cub scouts, putting my kids to bed, and reading a book without thinking about work.)

          2. KibbledKristen

            ^^This

            To attain this high level of material wealth requires sacrifices I’m not willing to make – leisure time, family time, sleep, relaxation. That’s fine with me. I’m doing just fine and have had my own sacrifices to get where I am. Everyone makes choices. The wealthy people I know work WAY too hard for my taste. I’m a lazy fuck.

          3. Mojeaux

            I’m a lazy fuck.

            This is one spot I have my conflict: Am I incapable or am I lazy?

            I feel like a person who is too mentally disabled to do more than bag groceries for a living, but not mentally disabled enough to be ignorant of just how mentally deficient I am.

            I would be happy to know I could do it and I’m just lazy, but I am afraid to find out if I’m simply not smart enough.

          4. Jarflax

            This is absolutely true! I earn about 1/4th what I could if I had followed the big firm path, and half what I could if I just worked hard to build my practice. But I get by on what I earn, have enough for the luxuries that matter to me, AND I have a degree of freedom that all that money simply wouldn’t adequately replace.

          5. commodious spittoon

            I feel like a person who is too mentally disabled to do more than bag groceries for a living, but not mentally disabled enough to be ignorant of just how mentally deficient I am.

            Wow. That hits home. Except even bagging groceries is much too customer facing.

          6. My grandmother taught me something that I carry to this day:

            “Comparing yourself to others is the shortest route to misery.”

            There will *always* be someone prettier, stronger, smarter, faster, richer, more capable, etc. etc.

            Someday someone will beat Usian Bolt’s records. Relying on external signals like that for internal contentment is a game that can’t be won. It’s always a struggle since we’re hardwired to be envious, but it’s worth the struggle.

            Also: who wants a pool anyway? All that maintenance and headache just so kids can come over 3 times a year to use it.

          7. Pat

            I would be happy to know I could do it and I’m just lazy, but I am afraid to find out if I’m simply not smart enough.

            That’s more or less been the story of my life thus far. I coasted through school as a “gifted” student, but never really challenged myself much, and consequently (along with some parental help) have a colossal fear of failure which, ironically enough, has kept me from achieving much anything.

          8. Mojeaux

            Also: who wants a pool anyway? All that maintenance and headache just so kids can come over 3 times a year to use it.

            Husband grew up in SoCal with a pool. He is adamantly against it anyway.

            It’s not the pool, per se, but what the pool represents: I made it.

            I have my own definition of “made it.” It’s not even that extravagant. But I haven’t yet.

          9. Nephilium

            I’m fairly certain I don’t envy much (other then those who have reached the point of retiring young, that I’m jealous of). And if I had taken some more risks and different turns in my career path, there’s a chance that I could have been one of those people. But I chose a safer route, which affords me a comfortable living, the ability to pay for hobbies I enjoy, and take several vacations a year. I don’t want a sports car, or fancy clothes, or a giant house, or a maid/cook/trainer.

          10. straffinrun

            I met this guy from the states today at the park. He’s on vacation, young guy around 30. We talked for a while about our lives. Don’t remember telling him anything impressive, but he finally breaks out a “Damn, you lucky bastard”. Made me laugh because that is not how I see my life, but maybe I should.

          11. commodious spittoon

            30-something on vacation in Japan… lucky bastard.

          12. Tundra

            My neighbor wants to fill his in. He said it was the dumbest thing he ever bought.

            So be glad you don’t have pools, people!!

          13. R C Dean

            We specifically looked for a house without a pool. Which really cuts down on the available houses in Tucson. I figured we wouldn’t use it enough for it to be worth the hassle.

            If I had small kids, it would probably be a different story – nothing entertains (and wears out) kids like a pool.

          14. KibbledKristen

            Maybe lazy isn’t the right word.

            I know for sure I’m incapable. Not intellectually (i.e. overall intelligence), but more like physically and mentally (i.e. overall personality/attitude). The cost of being a hustler go-getter making copious amounts of cash is too great for me to handle. I’d be dead within a year doing a CEO’s work.

          15. We just put in a pool. So far, so good. it gets used a lot and I use it to swim laps several times a week. It looks cooler than my old grass/weed combo backyard anyway.

          16. Ed Wuncler

            I left a job for that very reason. It paid lower than what other’s in my field got paid but we were a small company and if I have stayed, the payoff in the future could have potentially would have been yuuuge. But the office environment was sort of toxic and the long hours where starting to put a strain on my marriage and mental health. It wasn’t worth it. I love spending time with my wife and friends and missed going to New Comiskey to watch baseball games. If I have to forgo stupid amounts of money to do those things, I’m fine with that.

          17. Pat

            I just don’t really envy what other people have, or at least rarely and not that much.

            I envy certain traits in others that I would like to see in myself more than their possessions, because the possessions are the result of the traits.

        2. RAHeinlein

          I don’t have issues with envy, but I can’t tolerate inequity. My inability to cope with inequity ultimately prompted me to leave corporate.

    4. straffinrun

      Collectivist thinking. It’s the bane of humanity.

      1. Raston Bot

        race-based land seizures are the real-world application of “collective rights” that SJWs espouse. PROGRESS!

        1. R C Dean

          Never forget: “social justice” is just a euphemism for “collective punishment”.

          1. Raston Bot

            I don’t know how else to view it. Not without being disingenuous.

            And I hear/read about this idea of “collective rights” all the time. The ACLU’s position statement on the 2A says:

            “ACLU POSITION
            Given the reference to “a well regulated Militia” and “the security of a free State,” the ACLU has long taken the position that the Second Amendment protects a collective right rather than an individual right.”

          2. R C Dean

            the Second Amendment protects a collective right

            So what they are saying is, the right of corporations to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed?

          3. Raston Bot

            They cite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Miller#Decision

            Which just tells me we all need to form a Glibs Militia.

          4. B.P.

            The ACLU is being purposefully ignorant.

  60. straffinrun

    Zen master Seng-ts’an: “If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between for and against is the mind’s worst disease.”

    Just because I heard that today and liked it.

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      “I hate these filthy neutrals Kif! With enemies you know where they stand but with neutrals? Who knows! It sickens me.”

      1. commodious spittoon

        “What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?”

      2. Pat

        “Say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.”

      3. straffinrun

        I don’t take it to mean you should be neutral. More like what JSM said, “He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.”

  61. Take polls with a grain of salt but this is perplexing:

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/08/22/fox-news-poll-democrats-maintain-lead-in-race-for-house.html

    “The GOP tax law is less popular (40 percent favorable) than Obamacare (51 percent favorable).”

    WTF? This just goes to show that the MSM still has considerable power to direct the narrative.

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      I think I’d take that poll result with a boulder of salt.

      1. R C Dean

        Sample questions:

        “Are you in favor of tax reform putting a few pennies in your pocket and millions in the pockets of rich people?”

        “Are you in favor of Obamacare’s eternal guarantee of universal access to healthcare at no cost?”

  62. straffinrun
    1. R C Dean

      My favorite is the reply that even if you split the rent on a two-bedroom apartment, you’d still have to work nearly full-time to live comfortably.

      1. Stinky Wizzleteats

        30 hours of work required to live comfortably, even with a roommate? May as well be the damn gulag.

    2. B.P.

      What a river of stupid. Actual exchange:

      America’s A Woman
      ‏ @ILuvMyAfro
      Aug 21

      This makes no sense. Dont sit here and say that peoole who work in fast food learn nothing and are compensated because if that. Everyone starts somewhere and then move their way up. Thats incredibly condescending.
      4 replies 0 retweets 43 likes
      DrJeremyTeuton
      ‏ @DrJeremyTeuton
      Aug 21

      I started in “fast food” other than meager pay I took nothing from that other than a drive to not have to work like that for the rest of my life.

      I’m not condescending, not insulting the workers. I’m saying the talking points that defend low pay for them are B.S.

      1. straffinrun

        Lost at Last
        @lolwesley
        ·
        Aug 21
        Hey listen. I have 4 sources of income right now. I live comfortably. But I also know that it’s really dumb we’re born into a world where if we don’t spend our existence earning money, we die. Life feels pointless if you spend it trying to survive into the next day.

        Almost 500 likes for ^that.

        1. kinnath

          It’s feels good to dump on a dumb fuck like lolwesley. But in reality, lolwesley’s parents failed utterly to raise him/her/it with any common sense at all. My peers are responsible for this mess. Fuck them all.

      2. kinnath

        I used to tell my co-students in college that everyone should be forced to work a job they hate for at least a year before the are allowed to attend college. It puts the world in perspective. I would only bring it up when they bitched that their 15-hour-a-week work-study job was hurting their recreational time.

        I did McD’s in high school and Godfather’s for nearly 2 years as a second job after my daughter was born. Minimum wage jobs teach people how to be successful employees. I meet way to many new-grads that have never worked a day in their lives. They have no idea how to be successful at just showing up and getting work done.

        1. A Leap at the Wheel

          All of this. Work a shit job in high-school, and you’ll appreciate your adult job a lot more.

        2. Oh for fuck’s sake. I barely had recreational time during undergraduate and graduate. It’s just the way things are if you want do be serious. Why the fuck else does one go? Go through the motions?

          1. kinnath

            I was married and had two kids. I worked part-time through college. I had very little patience with the youngsters that complained about the jobs they had to work in exchange for the money the college gave them. But I kept the screaming inside and tried to explain the errors of their ways. I doubt that any of it stuck.

          2. Mojeaux

            Two stories:

            About 20 years ago, I was sitting in a diner, right near the kitchen. The cook was an older Mexican dude, who clearly ran the kitchen. But, he was at a chalkboard near the door, surrounded by a gaggle of high school girls. He was teaching them algebra, and doing a very good job of it. I imagined he was an immigrant and had been a school teacher or other professional, and he was here, being a short-order cook at Waid’s, tutoring a bunch of teenage waitresses.

            About 5 years ago I was at Target around Christmas time (between college semesters) buying a video or something in the electronics department. One kid was complaining about his student loans. The other said, “Dude, get a job and work your way through.” Thoroughly confounded the whiny one. “People do that? How am I supposed to do that?” “Manage your time better and get scholarships. They’re everywhere if you get off your butt and look for them.”

          3. kinnath

            Thanks for the story about the Mexican dude.

          4. Mojeaux

            I think about him a lot, actually, when I’m feeling down on life. He was so cheerful and enthusiastic about it. He’s been a definite influence on my life for the better.

          5. invisible finger

            Follow instructions? Man, you need, like, a master’s degree to do that ‘n shit.

            For fuck’s sake. I worked a job in high school stocking shelves at a drug store. I was saving for college for a CompSci degree. Working that job you learn – if you have a functioning brain – about things like A-B-C inventory, product placement (when you get sick of customers asking where something is you realize maybe you need to place it where it is easier to find, etc.), customer service, etc. After a few years, but before I was done with college, I got another pert time job as a computer operator. I had to schedule jobs, do backups, restore from backups after crashes, print output, get the reports to the appropriate departments, etc. Also had to troubleshoot problems, gather data for calling support about problems, taking calls from other operators about solving problems.

            Those two jobs made more of a difference to the job recruiters than the damn required degree – I’ve worked on writing and debugging MRP systems since graduating.

            After the step-daughter decided to go to college for music-voice, she started having second thoughts because what if I can’t get a singing job etc. Several people had to point out to her that a) she actually took the stuff more seriously than anyone else, b) she learned how to manage her time, c) learned self-discipline. That already makes her qualified for managerial jobs that have nothing to do with music. I gave her two more pieces of advice: 1) return every phone call and email/text message even if you aren’t interested in the particular gig or don’t have the time for it – the courtesy goes a LONG way and 80% of the people you compete with will not do it and then wonder why the calls dried up; and 2) take one accounting course – knowing how to handle money will show people that you aren’t going to waste theirs and will give you a leg up on the other 20% percent.

      3. Stinky Wizzleteats

        Fast food workers work hard, sure, but their marketable skills are posessed by almost everyone who isn’t handicapped. That’s the root cause of their low pay.

        1. If you think that jobs are things people are owed and your boss’s job is to hire you and make sure you have money, then yes, it seems wrong that you work an unpleasant job and don’t make very much for it. This is how most toddlers see the world. It’s also the root of the “labor theory of value”. They believe that the seller decides the value of a good or service and the buyer is required to pay it.

          Really, labor is a commodity offered in a market. Because low-skill labor is easy to come by there’s more of it than is demanded, and so the equilibrium price is low. Being a professional athlete is also hard work, and there aren’t many people who can do it; those who can usually can’t do it for very long. There’s low supply and high demand, so the equilibrium price is very, very high.

          Nobody passed a law that says economics is a thing. It’s not cishetero shitlords causing people to make decisions on the margins. Markets aren’t wypipo tricknology spread by the Kochtopus. This is just a description of how exchange works in human societies in the absence of coercion and totalitarianism.

    3. RAHeinlein

      Related – Power Lunch has two people from the Fed Up Campaign discussing using anti-trust laws to break-up companies and increase wages. When asked about tech companies like Facebook, Google – they duo was quick to say “well yeah, but AMAZON is the company that is KNOWN for exploiting its workers and encouraging their suppliers to exploit workers”

      1. straffinrun

        Jonathan Haidt (yeah, why don’t I just marry him) explains the conservative mind vs the liberal/progressive mind: conservatives priorize fairness and lib/progs prioritize empathy. When your empathy has gone so far that you can’t even understand the role capital formation and investment plays in production and efficiency, you’re living in a fantasy. Just go with fairness and be empathetic when giving to charity.

        1. RAHeinlein

          I don’t typically watch online video, but will check-out Haidt.

          1. RAHeinlein

            Thanks!

    4. Predictably:

      “I would also like to point out that socialism is not marxism; That Bernie is a Democratic Socialist see Norway; And Venezuela is a mess bc of the interference of capitalist US policy, economic boycotts and political subterfuge since Chavez’s legal election”

      Kulaks! Wreckers! NOT REAL SOCIALISM!