Glibertarians.com 2018 Archive

Author: Old Man With Candy

  • Saturday Morning So Long, SP! Links

    SP has cut me loose for the next few days while she wanders off to deepest rural Appalachia. This reduces the number of likable people in the household to approximately zero. The Mighty Wonder Dog is bereft, though not so bereft that she stops begging for Swiss to come over with his usual offering of pizza for her. The real victims will be the door-to-door campaigners, of which there are many; SP usually prevents me from answering the door, but without her here, I can enjoy the fine sport of trolling. The first question is almost inevitably, “Have you decided whom you’re voting for yet?” The proper answer, if you’re a sick fuck like me who wants to make them uncomfortable (and give them stories to tell) is, “No. Tell me why I should vote for your guy.”

    In the Illinois governor’s race, I truly haven’t decided. As usual, the Team Red and Team Blue candidates are repulsive quasi-humans, with Team Blue offering a Chris Christie look-alike with Maxine Waters-level intelligence. Team Red offers us a completely ineffective Progressive. The third party candidates include a rather, ummm, colorful Libertarian and a so-con authoritarian hired by unions to pull votes away from Team Red. We watched the Browns play football instead of the debates, which made us winners. Other people unfortunately had to watch the spectacle.

    Rauner said of McCann: “He has received funding from Mike Madigan for his campaign. He was put on the ballot by Mike Madigan’s attorney.”

    “You’re a liar. You’ve been lying to the people of Illinois from the very beginning,” McCann replied.

    Rauner continued his attempts to portray Pritzker’s support for a graduated-rate income tax to replace the state’s currently mandated flat-rate tax as “proposing a massive tax hike on all the people of this state.”

    That prompted Pritzker to interject, “Gov. Rauner, you’re lying. You’re lying again.”

    Sparkling rhetoric!

    I don’t often feel sorry for members of the media, but I admit some sympathy here. The Browns game was much more interesting. And this increases my resolve to figure out how to get the hell out of this state.

    Wait, did I forget birthdays? That’s awful because today is the birthday of the autodidact Michael Faraday, one of my personal heroes. Especially so, since I spent most of this past week setting up chronoamperometric experiments. Read all about him. Not just a great scientist, but an interesting human.

    When I worked in Europe, my least favorite city was Venice. Insane traffic, smelly, dirty, and not terribly scenic. And whatever you do, DON’T SIT DOWN.

    The city’s mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, has proposed a fine of up to €500 (about $585) for anyone planting themselves down in an undesignated spot. The proposal isn’t without precedent in Venice. People are actually already prohibited from sitting in tourist hotspots St Mark’s Square or the Rialto Bridge. The mayor’s proposal is part of the city’s #EnjoyRespectVenezia campaign, which has been in full swing this summer. It’s all part of a general Venetian crusade against rampant overtourism.

    I think we all know how to help them with their overtourism problem.

    More shit that will kill you.

    Over 3 million people died from alcohol consumption in 2016, equating to 1 in 20 deaths globally, according to a new report by the World Health Organization. “The alcohol consumption level continues to be very high,” said Dr. Vladimir Poznyak, WHO’s Management of Substance Abuse coordinator. “All countries can do much more to reduce the health and social costs of the harmful use of alcohol.”
    Alcohol consumption was also found to cause more than 5% of the global disease burden and reported to be a causal factor in over 200 disease and injury conditions.

    Of course, there’s the expected goal here.

    “Far too many people, their families and communities suffer the consequences of the harmful use of alcohol,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO. “It’s time to step up action to prevent this serious threat to the development of healthy societies.”

    And by “action” he mean “rape.” Well, the statist version of rape.

    Though 95% of countries impose taxes on alcohol, WHO expects more actions to be undertaken by countries, adding that fewer than half of them use other price strategies such as banning below-cost selling or volume discounts. The member states of the WHO agreed in 2010 on 10 measures to reduce harmful use of alcohol, such as pricing policies and actions on marketing and alcohol availability. As part of the agreement, they declared “its associated health and social burden” as a “public health priority.”

    Conclusion: Mexican Sharpshooter is worse than Hitler.

    I know it shouldn’t, but this story delights me.

    Agents with the OIU had began investigating Twenty Two Fifty, Inc. which is also known as Sharky’s in May of 2017. During the investigation, agents say they were able to buy drugs and lap dances by using food stamps. During the five-month long investigation, agents exchanged more than $2,000 worth of food stamps to buy heroin, fentanyl, carfentanil, cocaine, methamphetamine and lap dances.

    Man does not live by bread alone.

    “If it weren’t for these goddamn customers, we could get our work done more efficiently!”

    The New York City subway can be a daily adventure. Waterfalls cascade down stairways in storms. Ceilings drip and sometimes collapse. Elevators, when they work, seem to double as urinals. Panhandlers, dancers and musicians hustle for tips. People jostle, argue, clip their nails and eat smelly foods.

    Officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said the precious seconds lost to commuters… were partly to blame for delays plaguing one in three subway trains. The MTA has ordered conductors to be more assertive closing doors and not allow limbs or bags to force them open. The new policy is part of a broader push launched in August to reduce delays, in part by training riders to stand clear of closing doors. If subway workers can shave seconds off a train’s journey at intervals along its route, transit officials said, the MTA can significantly improve punctuality.

    New York would be great except for New Yorkers.

    And weekends would be great except for that Old Guy who keeps throwing out music that doesn’t even have light shows, dancers, and autotune. In this case, something triply appealing to me: Hot jazz, Django-style, Albanie Falletta, and a live performance in one of my favorite Austin clubs, the deeply-underground Elephant Room. Check out the bass line played on sax!

  • Sunday Morning Pre-Game Links

    The Ravens already blew the week, so I can look at today’s games with objectivity, as a fan of football rather than a fan of the Ravens. In Jewish tradition, an adult male starts the day with a prayer thanking Yahweh that he’s not a chick. Today, I started the day thanking Yahweh that I’m not a Cowboys fan, unlike certain Irish midgets whose handles I will not mention beyond “it rhymes with ‘cruddy dishes.’” And if he’s up early and looking in, I can only say, “You know who ELSE was a Cowboys fan?”

    Some auspicious birthdays. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, of course, but even more importantly, Korla Pandit.

    This is a horrifying story, and inevitable given that our government puts armed agents out in the wild without a lot of scrutiny. I’m sure this guy passed his polygraph tests as part of CPB’s rigorous screening, right?

    Ortiz is a 10-year veteran of the border patrol and had been working as a supervisor with the U.S. Border Patrol in the town located roughly 150 miles south of San Antonio on Texas-Mexico border, according to local media reports.

    Authorities said they plan to file four murder charges and one charge of aggravated kidnapping against Ortiz.

    Ortiz was arrested around 2 a.m. Saturday morning after a woman he allegedly tried to abduct fled and gave police a detailed description of Ortiz, including his tattoos, Alaniz said.

    But at least he kept our country safe from drugs.

    Did you know that Silicon Valley has a diversity crisis? A CRISIS! I had no idea. But thank the various gods, there’s people who recognize this and know the solution: a formal program of discrimination.

    Silicon Valley wants to believe that we live in a meritocracy, but we need to accept that we live in a sexist, racist and anti-LGBTQ world, and that investing in pipeline programs and unconscious bias training alone is not going to close the hiring gap.

    So we took a simple step and implemented quotas: 50% of our speakers had to be women of color. Later, we mandated that 10% of our speakers be non-binary and trans and 20% of our speakers be black and latinx. We’re not done: we plan to do the same for veterans, mothers, and people living with a disability.

    Implementing quotas not only changed the way we operated—we created tracking systems to make sure we were on target to meet our quotas, because what gets measured is much more likely to get done—but it changed our community. It meant thinking about representation during every hiring process, planning meeting, or public event. It meant having some difficult conversations with friends, colleagues, and even with myself. It meant saying no to very successful and established white women. But change and evolution is often uncomfortable, and discomfort and friction are the keys to growth.

    By “discomfort and friction,” I guarantee you she doesn’t mean hers. And I’m sure people of color like Asians are underrepresented in tech, right?

    The mystery of how the Baltimore Orioles got so bad so quickly is suddenly evident.

    The Baltimore Orioles will make history Tuesday when they become the first American professional sports team to feature Braille lettering on their uniforms.

    This explains the inability to hit.

    National Federation of the Blind President Mark Riccobono, who will throw out the ceremonial first pitch before the game, expressed his appreciation for the Orioles’ initiative.

    This explains why they can’t pitch.

    Man, those scientists are just not giving up.

    The Associated Press consulted with 17 meteorologists and scientists who study climate change, hurricanes or both. A few experts remain cautious about attributing global warming to a single event, but most of the scientists clearly see the hand of humans in Florence.

    For years, when asked about climate change and specific weather events, scientists would refrain from drawing clear connections. But over the past few years, the new field of attribution studies has allowed researchers to use statistics and computer models to try to calculate how events would be different in a world without human-caused climate change.

    “Attribution studies.” That’s a new one for me. Apparently a synonym for, “ignore the actual data and pimp for funding and more government.”

    There was some discussion last night about First World Problems. And here’s a perfect example, massive outrage over… a fucking pattern on a sweater.

    “Michael Kors copied a Mexican sweater design and I’m pissed. It’s not fair that he is stealing ideas from people that make their own pieces to make a living, for him to come and not even credit or pay Mexican artisans for taking their ideas.”

    I may protest by making a breakfast burrito.

    Here’s a great story from the NY Times. I hope you’re sitting down, because this is shocking: if you make fundamentally bad life decisions, things don’t go well for you.

    Vanessa Solivan and her three children fled their last place in June 2015, after a young man was shot and killed around the corner. They found a floor to sleep on in Vanessa’s parents’ home on North Clinton Avenue in East Trenton. It wasn’t a safer neighborhood, but it was a known one. Vanessa took only what she could cram into her station wagon, a 2004 Chrysler Pacifica, letting the bed bugs have the rest.At her childhood home, Vanessa began caring for her ailing father. He had been a functional crack addict for most of her life, working as a landscaper in the warmer months and collecting unemployment when business slowed down. “It was something you got used to seeing,” Vanessa said about her father’s drug habit. “My dad was a junkie, but he never left us.”

    In May, Vanessa finally secured a spot in public housing. But for almost three years, she had belonged to the “working homeless,” a now-necessary phrase in today’s low-wage/high-rent society. She is a home health aide, the same job her mother had until her knees and back gave out. Her work uniform is Betty Boop scrubs, sneakers and an ID badge that hangs on a red Bayada Home Healthcare lanyard. Vanessa works steady hours and likes her job, even the tougher bits like bathing the infirm or hoisting someone out of bed with a Hoyer lift. “I get to help people,” she said, “and be around older people and learn a lot of stuff from them.” Her rate fluctuates: She gets $10 an hour for one client, $14 for another. It doesn’t have to do with the nature of the work — “Sometimes the hardest ones can be the cheapest ones,” Vanessa said — but with reimbursement rates, which differ according to the client’s health care coverage. After juggling the kids and managing her diabetes, Vanessa is able to work 20 to 30 hours a week, which earns her around $1,200 a month. And that’s when things go well.

    So, no skills, no education, no spouse, three kids, and we need to be shocked that this has consequences. The comments, of course, run heavily toward the notion that bad decisions should not cause any problems for people.

    I’m Black, a woman, 28, disabled and I work- everything I want to say about how miserable it is to live in this country cannot FIT into this comments section. The constant racism, isolation and looks of pity from other people, the bend-over-backwards work I do with a compromised body for 10 bucks an hour that will never get me off SSI- on and on. All I can say is TRUTH to every word of this piece. BTW: for those shaming Vanessa (“why did she have the audacity to have 3 children when she knows she’s poor and undereducated, why did she drop out of high school”)- human nature cannot be policed, no matter how much America excels at shaming. So what she had three kids, the rich often have twice that number and no one says boo. I have no children, I’ve only got my own mouth to feed and even I cannot make it! Trump voters need to learn to punch up and not down: corporations are the enemy, not the poor and brown skinned.

    Of course. It’s racism, greed, and Trump. There’s no agency.

    Fuck it, let’s spin some Old Guy Music. And although I was going to answer the other question from last night (“Desert Island, which music do you have with you, the Beatles, the Stones, or the Kinks?”) with, “None of the above, the Byrds,” and put up some classic Clarence White, I fell into an alternate YouTube hole. And damn, Annie Ross really was the best.

     

  • Saturday Morning Pre-Yom Kippur Links

    “Wait, I thought I was supposed to blow the chauffeur on Yom Kippur?”

     

    Gut Shabbos, fellow Glibs! It’s the run-up to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. And you know what? I’m not sorry in the least. Do you know who else was not sorry in the least?

    It’s the Ides of September, and of course that means it’s an auspicious day for anniversaries and birthdays. Following the Charles Whitman sampler at UT, shit-heel Lyndon Johnson made a formal call for gun control, because of fears of death coming from above. He then bombed the shit out of several Vietnamese cities over the next few days, killing tens of thousands. But that was OK because intentions. Harper’s Ferry was captured by the Confederates, Sandra Day O’Conner was approved for an inauspicious Supreme Court career, and the Nuremberg Laws were passed. In birthdays, Oskar Klein (of the Klein-Gordon equation), Murray Gell-Man (developer of quark theory), and Neil Bartlett (who showed that so-called inert gases could be made to form compounds). In deference to SP, I’ll also note Agatha Christie, who apparently wrote something or other.

    News next.

    The Most Horriblest Hurricane Ever rapidly downgraded to a tropical storm. Sadly, there were still a few casualties.

    Among the fatalities so far is a person in Lenoir County who died while plugging in a generator, according to a news release from North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s office.

    Some people shouldn’t play with electricity. The OMG OMG GLOBAL WARMING!!!! pants-shitters haven’t commented yet. Of course, items like this do not feed into the narrative.

    While we’re on the subject of Global Warming, please allow me to plug Roy Spencer’s new e-book on the subject. Dr. Spencer has been a rare voice of sanity, with an admirable, “We just don’t know” point of view. “The science is settled” is an infallible marker that you’re dealing with someone ignorant or dishonest. There is no third choice.

    Now here’s a story that’s just fucking weird.

    Cincinnati police and firefighter recruits are asked to describe their “most unusual sex act” in a questionnaire that can later become accessible to the public… “Not counting self-masturbation or legal sexual activity with a willing partner, what was your most unusual sex act?”

    Is there a masturbation that isn’t “self-masturbation”? The other interesting thing to me is that all of this is part of a polygraph screening procedure for recruits. I hope that part of the screening also includes Tarot cards, astrological projections, and aura-reading, all of which are at least as accurate. I note that one of the driving reasons for me getting out of aerospace R&D was that I refused to subject myself and my reputation to polygraphy, which restricted me from being cleared into some key programs. Polygraphy has caught exactly as many spies as the TSA has caught terrorists, but in true government-incompetent manner, it’s still universally used.

    Sausage Fest!

    Bob Evans Farms is recalling nearly 47,000 pounds of pork sausage links because it might contain pieces of plastic, the Agriculture Department said.

    Apparently, the aggregate plastic is the size of Texas. Or twice the size of Texas. There’s a soda straw joke somewhere in there as well.

    Look, I’m just as much in favor of the Free Range Kids concept as anyone (perhaps to excess, IYKWIMAITYD), but this might be a bit over the line.

    Police in Vallejo on Wednesday admitted to making a serious mistake when it took a half an hour Tuesday night for officers to respond to a call about two unattended toddlers on a second-story window ledge.

    The voice of Marianne Kearney-Brown can be heard in video she recorded Tuesday evening from the window of her downtown Vallejo office. She took the clip when she saw a couple of toddlers in diapers outside the second-story window of a nearby loft.

    I think the cops are being treated unfairly here. There’s priorities involved, and donuts are not going to eat themselves. Context for those not familiar with the area: Vallejo is the slummy asshole of Napa Valley.

    When choo-choo boondoggles are not enough, double down!

    “In California, with science under attack, in fact we’re under attack by a lot of people, including Donald Trump, but the climate threat still keeps growing,” Brown told delegates assembled at Moscone Convention Center. “With science still under attack, we’re going to launch our own satellite, our own damn satellite, to figure out where the pollution is.”

    Brown’s office said the satellite — to be developed in conjunction with the San Francisco-based Earth-imaging company, Planet Labs, and launched by 2021 — will allow the state to track greenhouse gas emissions.

    I’m sure that this will be a totally honest and graft-free effort, and that the contractor never donated any campaign or lobbying money.

    Old Guy Music! This time, a Canadian import I knew in Austin whose work spanned folk, jazz, blues, and gospel. This is a live version of an upbeat lament. Yeah, I know, but it’s a great tune and she has a really fine voice.

     

    ;

  • Tuesday Morning Why Am I Here Links?

    No funny intros or lead-ups, no frills. We just noticed the Sloopy situation, led to the scene of the crime by an overwhelming scent of urine puddles and the moaning of someone of indeterminate gender. So… while the EMTs and cops do their thing, let’s get down to business.

    Besides the obvious anniversary, today is also the birthday of O. Henry, one of the under-appreciated gems of American letters, Ed Reed, who redefined “safety,” and Dylan Klebold, who re-invigorated Michael Moore’s career with his novel use of a trench coat.

    On to news.

    California never disappoints.

    All of California’s electricity will come from clean power sources by 2045 under legislation signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday, the latest in a series of ambitious goals set by the state to combat the effects of climate change.

    The bill narrowly passed the Legislature last month after nearly two years of debate over cost and feasibility concerns. Opponents argued that pushing fossil fuels out of the electricity grid within three decades wasn’t possible, and efforts to do so would lead to higher electric bills across the state.

    Last month, state regulators released a report showing climate change would lead to deadlier heat waves, more consistent wildfires and higher sea levels in the coming decades than previously believed.

    Because we always believe reports by regulators which show the urgent need of… more regulation. Coming up next: subsidies for the millions of Californians that won’t be able to afford the new, higher rates. or perhaps, the Let Them Eat Cake Act of 2047, which is hailed as a means of enforcing virtuous sacrifice.

    Old Crazy Uncle also never disappoints.

    Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Monday renewed his attacks against Amazon, sharing videos on Twitter that accuse the company of using “Orwellian language.”

    “Listen to how Amazon uses its own lingo to blur the distinction between billionaire CEO Jeff Bezos and the average Amazon employee making minimum wage, according to journalist @J_Bloodworth,” Sanders tweeted as he shared one of the videos.

    I take seriously the guy who was kicked out of a hippie commune for being too lazy. But as someone who has demonstrated the ways to get rich from leeching off taxpayers, he has taught us all much. After all, some animals are more equal than others, amirite Comrade? By the way, does the average Amazon employee make minimum wage?

    Of course, there’s understandable outrage that our news media is being attacked for dishonesty. That’s just so unfair. And so untrue. Ohhhhh, wait…

    Recently, another Houston Chronicle journalist flagged me with questions about the accuracy of a story written by veteran Austin reporter Mike Ward. Ward joined the Chronicle in 2014 after a long career with the Austin American-Statesman. Specifically, questions were raised about whether individuals quoted in one of his stories were real people. Our own researchers, after an initial review, had difficulty finding a number of sources cited in Ward’s most recent reports.

    Ward has insisted that his work was truthful, that his work involved real people, and that we would eventually find the individuals behind his “man-on-the-street” interviews. However, given the questions this review raised, he offered to resign and I accepted that resignation last week.

    Oops.

    When asked why I chose science as a career, I think of the important knowledge that we uncover, our deeper understanding of the universe, our contributions to the welfare of mankind. Here’s an example.

    In a 24-hour period all the flatus they expelled was collected via a rectal catheter (ouch). They ate normally but to ensure a boost in gas production they also had to eat 200 grams (half a large can) of baked beans.

    The participants produced a median total volume of 705 millilitres of gas in 24 hours, but it ranged from 476 millilitres to 1,490 millilitres per person. Hydrogen gas was produced in the greatest volume (361 millilitres over 24 hours), followed by carbon dioxide (68 millilitres per 24 hours). Only three adults produced methane, which ranged from 3 millilitres per 24 hours to 120 millilitres per 24 hours. The remaining gases, thought to mostly be nitrogen, contributed about 213 millilitres per 24 hours.

    Men and women produced about the same amount of gas and averaged eight flatus episodes (individual or a series of farts) over 24 hours. The volume varied between 33 and 125 millilitre per fart, with bigger amounts of intestinal gas released in the hour after meals.

    Your tax dollars at work.

    Some Old Guy Music to wrap up. Roots, the real thing.

  • Sunday Morning Hitting The Road Links

    After a rather adventurous couple of days in the Twin Cities, SP and I are packing up The Mighty Wonder Dog and heading back home. But the regret is tempered by two wonderful things that today marks: the REAL beginning of the football season (will the Ravens crush the Bills? Will the evil Packers get eaten by the Bears?) and the New Year tonight. Coincidence? I think not.

    Noteworthy events on this date: California was admitted to the Union as a state, so when their debt burden explodes, we’re all on the hook. And it’s the birthday of the architect of the Gallus gallus domesticus Holocaust, Colonel Harlan Sanders. I hope his son Bernie is proud.

    On to the news, since I have no time for more side nonsense.

    So it turns out that the Dallas cop who killed a guy in his own apartment had a history of being a bit shooty. And of course, the race hustlers and lawyers are already circling above…

    Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and state Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, held a news conference Saturday afternoon in which they urged the community for patience as the investigation proceeds, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

    “Is this a white on black crime? Yes,” West said. “It was a white, female Dallas police officer who shot and killed a person from St. Lucia of African descent.”

    And inevitably:

    Our office has been retained to represent the estate of #BothamShemJean. Our first & foremost priority will be to ensure justice is served for this family.

    And of course, that fat, fat contingency fee. Which of course will be paid by the Dallas taxpayers, not the cop responsible or her union.

    Video shows the brave officer in the immediate aftermath on the phone to her union rep.

    Susan Collins won’t ever have to worry about how she’ll hang up her clothes again.

    Democrats argue that President Donald Trump picked Kavanaugh because he will vote to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision. Liberal groups are running TV ads encouraging the senator to reject the nomination.

    People from across the country have mailed about 3,000 coat hangers to her office, symbolizing back-alley abortions that took place before they became legal.

    This is why I couldn’t be a politician- I wouldn’t be able to resist trolling the trolls. I’ll let you kind folks imagine all the ways that could be done…

    Serena Williams, always classy.

    The drama unfolded when Williams realized she had been given a point penalty after she broke her racket during the final at Flushing Meadows in New York City. ‘This is not right, this is not fair. This has happened to me too many times,’ Williams screamed at Ramos.
    ‘Because I’m a woman you’re going to take this away from me.”

    As opposed to her opponent, who wasn’t a woman?

    Shit-stain war-boner dead guy will, in the great tradition of Diego Rivera, honored with a shitty mural.

    The mural was planned to cover a 30-foot-high, 120-foot-long wall on a building at 4235 N. Marshall Way in Old Town, near Goldwater Boulevard and Fifth Avenue. The concept depicts McCain’s face in front of an Arizona flag created with approximately 30,000 icons representing the state’s five C’s: cattle, copper, citrus, climate and cotton.

    People old enough to remember the cover photo for Who’s Next will know exactly what I’m thinking.

    Every time I regret living in Illinois, New York says, “Hold my beer!”

    Nixon also pushed her plan for a state universal health care program that estimates suggest could cost initially anywhere from $96 billion to $200 billion. The state budget currently is $170 billion. Nixon said she does not have a plan to pay for it, though she suggested a recent Rand report raised the idea of higher payroll and other taxes.

    “Pass it and then figure out how to fund it,” Nixon said.

    Genius.

    Ahhhh, academics.

    O’Dwyer was boarding a Qantas plane when a flight attendant reportedly looked at her boarding pass — which said “Dr. O’Dwyer” — and instead addressed her as “Miss O’Dwyer.”
    “Do not look at my ticket, look at me, look back at my ticket, decide it’s a typo, and call me Miss O’Dwyer,” Dwyer shared on social media. “I did not spend 8 years at university to be called Miss.”
    O’Dwyer is a senior lecturer in Aging and Family Care at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom with a PhD.

    So take a lesson- you will all address me as DOCTOR Pervert. I did not spend 10 years at university to be called Mister.

    Old Guy Music today honors another birthday, in this case Elvin Jones, arguably the greatest drummer to ever walk this planet. And as a bonus, some superb playing by the great and under-appreciated Joey Defrancesco.

  • Saturday Morning Remote Links

    SP and I had come to the delightful Twin Cities for a wedding and to have dinner with a few of the locals. We arrived at the Stray Dog and found Leap At The Wheel and Pope Jimbo waiting for us. “Where’s Tundra?” we asked. The two Minnesotans shrugged. Jimbo replied, “He was supposed to be here, I have no idea what…” His ringing cell phone interrupted the conversation. “That’s him calling now. Hello?”

    “Hey Jimbo, it’s Tundra. I have a bit of a problem.”

    “What’s up?”

    “Well, it’s a long story, but I need bail. Can you guys help?”

    “What the hell happened?”

    “I was in my Triumph, stopped at a light, when a very attractive woman came up and asked if I was looking for a date. Naturally, I offered her a ride. And things started going funny…”

    “Funny?”

    “Yeah. She asked me to head down a road, then pull over. Naturally, I did. And she reached over and started pulling down my fly. “$20 for a Kirby Classic.” I handed her a twenty, and she leaned over the center console and started to, well, you know. BJ.  It was pretty excellent, at least for a few seconds. But suddenly there were flashing lights from behind me. It was a cop! So I took off quickly. I mean, a guy of my reputation can’t be involved in some sort of hooker scandal. I figure, my Triumph can out-handle a cop car so they should be easy to lose. I was wrong.”

    “What happened?”

    “I ended up in a ditch. Cops all around me. They yanked me and the hooker out of the car. And her wig came off. I mean HIS wig. That was not a happy surprise. And they seemed to know him, apparently a regular. But the bastards arrested me, charged me with contributory sex trafficking, resisting arrest, mopery, reckless driving, and sodomy. I need you guys to get me out of here, they’re sticking me in a cell with a guy who keeps calling me ‘Fuck Socket.’”

    “What’s bail?”

    “I need $10,000 cash.”

    Much laughter. “Enjoy your night and we’ll all have a beer in your honor!”

    So Tundra, best of luck when you get out. We were all thinking of you.

    Notable birthdays today include the great Peter Sellers, TV pioneer Sid Caesar, and my favorite country singer ever, Patsy Cline. And news… we got news.

    Obama is back on the scold. We as a people have disappointed Daddy yet again.

    “You happen to be coming of age” amid backlash to progress, Obama told the students. “It did not start with Donald Trump, he is a symptom, not the cause. He is just capitalizing on resentment that politicians have been fanning for years. A fear, an anger that is rooted in our past but is also borne in our enormous upheavals that have taken place in your brief lifetimes.”
    Obama spent a sizable portion of his remarks criticizing Republicans in Congress, saying “the politics of resentment and paranoia has unfortunately found a home in the Republican Party” over the last few decades and argued that the policies GOP leaders are pursuing aren’t conservative.

    “Yeah, bad bad Team Red! Deplorables! I’m the only one who should be peddling fear and anger!” Of course, his speech followed a very familiar pattern.

    Obama’s favorite word seemed to be “I,” which he repeated at least 87 times, followed by more than a dozen references to “my” or “me.”

    I wonder if we’ll ever get a president that isn’t a drooling narcissist. Sigh.

    My favorite zoo exhibit is the Pander Bear. And it’s always fun to see them do their tricks.

    “This is an extremely nuanced issue, and through his own personal experience and his own ideals, [Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum] has come to the conclusion that he is not a supporter of the BDS movement,” David Singer, a campaign adviser to Gillum, told Orlando Weekly in an interview. Singer continued, “To be a progressive thinker, and as someone with progressive values, does not mean you are in lockstep with every position of the progressive movement. And this is one where he simply is not.”

    A couple things come to mind, beyond the obvious, “I need some of that Jew gold for my campaign in Florida.” First, he’s going to be dead meat as the rest of the prog movement tears into him for apostasy. Second, why would anyone care what the foreign policy leanings are for a governor? Last I recall, this was totally a Federal issue. But, oh yeah, Florida and Jew gold.

    I swear to Yahweh, I’ve seen this somewhere before…

    Thunderstorms knocked out power to several homes in the historic town of Bridgeport, Connecticut on Thursday night, leaving residents scrambling for a way to see in the darkness. In the confusion, a 30-year-old woman reportedly grabbed a quarter stick of dynamite she had mistaken for a candle.

    The woman suffered severe injuries to her face and hand, which may result in the loss of at least one finger.

    Oh, now I remember! Wile E. Coyote! If this were the best of all possible worlds, the dynamite brand would have been Acme.

    Talk about landing on the wrong side of the hot-crazy axis.

    A South Carolina doctor is in stable condition Friday after suffering gunshot wounds while trying to block a spray of bullets fired by his former girlfriend, who then turned the weapon on herself, according to reports.
    Jennifer Rudemyer, 39, who was found dead outside the Hilton Head Island home of Gaston Perez on Tuesday night, attacked him hours after he got a restraining order against her…

    Given her business as a home organizer, he probably left his shoes on the floor in front of the couch.

    And in honor of birthday boy Anton Dvorak, Old Guy Music features Roland Kirk doing a mashup of the Going Home theme from Dvorak’s New World Symphony and the classic Sentimental Journey.

  • Thursday Afternoon (((Links)))

    Brett fell victim to the old practical joke of Krazy Glue on the toilet seat, so I’ve been pressed into links service. My mission is to make him regret asking.

     

    The Kavanaugh Kabuki kontinues.

    “I am going to release the e-mail about racial profiling and I understand that the penalty comes with potential ousting from the Senate,” said Booker, a possible 2020 Democratic candidate for president. At another point, Booker said, “This is about the closest I’ll probably ever have in my life to an, ‘I am Spartacus’ moment.”

    But it turns out, Booker didn’t actually break any rules. The Republicans on the Judiciary Committee said they worked with the George W. Bush library and the Justice Department overnight to clear the emails. The restrictions were waived early Thursday morning.

    How brave! Let’s be honest, the only remaining purpose for these hearings is to get soundbite clips for campaign ads.

     

    Who says that baseball isn’t a contact sport?

    Multiple sources told The Athletic that neither Impemba nor Allen were part of Wednesday’s broadcast due to a physical altercation between the two television personalities following Tuesday’s game in Chicago against the White Sox. It is not immediately clear what prompted the incident.

    According to the accounts of those sources, there has been simmering tension between both Impemba and Allen and the clash of personalities ultimately boiled over on Tuesday night. “They’re like an odd couple,” said one person familiar with the dynamics of the broadcast’s production.

    I’m guessing Rod Allen came off better in this one.

     

    My buddy Warty has been heavily involved in robotics. He’s usually pretty mum about what he’s working on, but I think you’ll all agree that this is something he should be proud of.

    “Being in the adult entertainment industry and at the forefront of sex tech innovation, we wanted to put our XXX spin on robotics, which is why Cardi-Bot can not only mimic human-like behavior, but also get down and dirty, all with the quick click of a button.

    “We’re very excited to make Cardi-Bot, the world first sex robot people can control over the Internet, available to the world and let people live out their wildest fantasies.”

    I’d guess that a lap dance could be pretty hazardous.

     

    One of the pioneers of pyramid schemes multilevel marketing has died.

    DeVos had been president of Amway from its 1959 founding until he retired in 1993. His son Doug DeVos has served as president of Amway since 2002. He was also the father-in-law of Betsy DeVos, the US education secretary. His family still co-owns Amway with the family of co-founder Jay Van Andel. DeVos and his family has a combined fortune worth $5.5 billion, according to Forbes’ list of richest people.
    Amway is still successful: It reported sales of $8.6 billion last year. It uses a network of 3 million sales people worldwide. The multi-level marketing industry as a whole posted global sales of about $190 billion, according to its industry trade group.

    And here’s the great thing: if you can convince just three of your friends to die, and each of them can convince three of their friends to die…

     

    The latest entry into the “When you don’t succeed, prog harder!” sweepstakes is a senate candidate from the beautiful state of New Jersey.

    Harris is among a wave of young activist Democrats, emboldened by the 2016 presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. They have sent shock waves through the party establishment around the U.S., starting in June with a New York primary victory by 28-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over 10-term incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley. Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, 39, riding an insurgent wave, scored a stunning victory last week in Florida’s Democratic gubernatorial primary. And on Tuesday, Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley beat longtime Rep. Mike Capuano in a closely watched Democratic primary.

    Now, it’s the 38-year-old Harris’ turn in the spotlight, a place she never expected to be.

    This is clearly unkind of me, but the first thing that came to mind when I saw the photo was, “Here’s Pat!”

     
    SP addition, at OMWC’s request, since he is working or driving or in a meeting or….

    Sad to hear that Burt Reynolds has died. We recently saw him in a gem of a film, The Last Movie Star. We were both surprised by how much we liked this movie.

    A good friend was his neighbor in Jupiter and had nothing but very nice things to say about him. RIP Burt.

     

     

     

    Nope, you’re not escaping Old Guy Music just because it’s a weekday. A common topic of musical discussion is, “What covers were better than the originals?” My answer is always, “Anything by Dylan.” So on that theme, here’s The Nice doing a nice version of Country Pie.

  • Monday Morning Last Minute Substitute Links

    Well, you nice folks were supposed to be rid of me this morning. But Sloopy called in sick and I’m the only staff guy stupid enough to be awake this early on a holiday. So you’re stuck with me for one more day. And indeed, Links will have a certain… rushed quality. Not the high quality, high precision Links you’re used to from the Sloopster. Ah well, we’ll live.

    Birthdays and anniversaries looked pretty dull today, so fuck that. Except that it’s Charlie Sheen’s birthday, so we should all celebrate with coke and hookers.

    Sloopy did say something about some Little League thing involving Michigan. This is shit I don’t bother with.

    See, we have a theme! Now let’s briefly look at some news.

     

    America is now leading the world in taking silly things like grapes out of wine production, and grain and barrels out of whiskey.

    Over the past two years they have developed a way to re-create wines, using flavour molecules, sugars, acids and ethanol derived from natural sources. Decolongon said they identified more than 100 compounds in the wines they have replicated.

    The beverages would be cheaper to manufacture than real wine and have less of an environmental impact.

    Hopefully, they’ll be better than that really horrendous Photoshop job on the photo of Decolongon.

     

    We used to have Planet Ten to fantasize about. Since Pluto’s demotion, we now are back to single digits.

    Circumstantial evidence continues to accumulate for the existence of Planet Nine, the hypothetical body thought to be lurking in our solar system far beyond Neptune. But no telescope has been able to spot it. Michael Brown, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology, says he feels “eternally optimistic” that someone will soon find it, but there’s reason to believe that Planet Nine, if it exists, might be essentially invisible to existing observatories.

    Wait a minute, didn’t Michael Brown get shot and killed by a racist cop? This is all very confusing.

     

    In the Department of I Told You So, Team Blue is suddenly rediscovering their love for the filibuster.

    Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota Democrat, expressed remorse that her party eviscerated the power of the filibuster five years ago, leaving them no path to stop Judge Kavanaugh, barring Republican defections. Ms. Klobuchar, who voted with fellow Democrats in 2013 to trigger the “nuclear option” and curtail the filibuster, said she would support reverting to the 60-vote rule should her party regain the Senate.

    “I don’t think we should have made that change when we look back at it. But it happened because we were so frustrated because President Obama wasn’t able to get his nominees, but I think we would have been in a better place now,” she said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

    Clearly a woman of steadfast and consistent principles.

     

    Well, Florida’s gubernatorial race is taking a predictable turn- the Team Blue guy wants to monkey with health care, but he has a creative way to pay for that boondoggle. He’ll raise taxes. But not on ordinary people, he’s got newer, fresher ideas.

    “We will increase taxes for corporations in our state who, right now, just so you are aware, only 3% of companies in the state of Florida pay the corporate tax rate. … And that 3% under the Donald Trump tax scam got a windfall of $6.3 billion overnight due to the tax reform that took place in Washington, DC,” Gillum said. “We’re not asking for all of it,” he continued. “We simply said we believe that we ought to bring a billion of that money back into the state’s government because being a cheap-date state has not worked for the state of Florida.”

    Clearly not. That booming economy and huge in-migration of people and business are things that must be stopped.

     

    And here in Chicago, our “Reverend” Livingston is still determined to piss off as many people as he can, pursuing the goal of drawing more attention to… Reverend Livingston.

    Protesters led by an activist Chicago minister plan to shut down the nation’s second busiest airport on Labor Day by blocking the primary highway leading into and out of O’Hare International. The Rev. Gregory Livingston says Monday’s march along the Kennedy Expressway is an effort to highlight the violence and lack of educational and employment opportunities on the city’s South and West sides.
    “We must end Chicago’s tale of two cities,” said Livingston, pastor at New Hope Baptist Church on the city’s West Side. “We will shut down O’Hare International Airport.”

    Well, I’m sure every gangbanger in his neighborhood is thinking, “Shit, I gotta stop doing this, they’re gonna shut down O’Hare!”

    And of course, the penalty for having me sit in on Links today is more Old Guy Music. And still old school Tull, another song I’ve played in various bands over the years.

  • Sunday Morning Links It Is

    I wish I’d been at the McCain funeral yesterday. Putting aside the now-usual and expected politicization of EVERYTHING, I mainly wanted to make sure the fucker really was dead. Instead, I had to hear the pissing and moaning on the radio as if his death were something tragic and momentous rather than just one more opportunity to put TDS on display. I don’t often agree with Trump, but this time I do. And speaking of display, the Aretha Franklin funeral was equally newsworthy, not just for the predictable TDS, but the spectacle of leering aged horndogs Bill Clinton and Jesse Jackson discussing the details of Ariana Grande’s ass. Sadly, they were upstaged by some pastor who managed a sideboob grope.

    Ah well. Unlike yesterday, there were some notable birthdays and anniversaries today. For example, it’s the birthday of jazz greats Horace Silver and Clifford Jordan. Also microchip pioneer and business guru Andy Grove, the most delightfully named baseball player Drungo Hazewood, and the spectacularly titted actress Cynthia Watros.

    On to the news.

     

    For whatever reason (maybe the grant cycle?) there’s been a sudden rush of global warming panic articles. Of all of them yesterday, this one was my favorite.

    “If we allow climate change to go unchecked, the vegetation of this planet is going to look completely different than it does today, and that means a huge risk to the diversity of the planet,” Jonathan Overpeck, dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan and co-author of the new study, said in a statement. “We’re talking about global landscape change that is ubiquitous and dramatic. We’re already starting to see it in the United States, as well as around the globe.”

    Way to pack in every FUD buzzword you can. I’m sure that “more research is needed.”

    If emissions continue to rise unabated, the scientists concluded, the probably of large-scale vegetative changes is greater than 60 percent. If nations succeed in meeting their 2015 Paris Agreement greenhouse gas mitigation pledges, the probability of large-scale ecological transformations is less than 45 percent.

    “According to my preeeecise calculations, it’s all about a meaningless treaty. And of course, putting our guys in charge.”

     

    In sports news, yesterday was the big cutdown day in the NFL. And just as Sloopy is obsessed with some Little League team or other, I am similarly so with the Baltimore Ravens, who finally gave up on Breshad Perriman (“He has has 4.2 speed and 5.6 hands.”) to the delight of the city. More interestingly, their rookie kicker found out the downside of playing for the Ravens- you have to be in Baltimore.

    Ravens rookie kicker Kaare Vedvik suffered injuries in an assault and robbery that required him to be hospitalized. The Baltimore Sun reports that Vedvik was being treated at Maryland Shock Trauma Center. “We are aware that Kaare is being treated for head wounds and we are monitoring the situation,” the Ravens said in a statement.

    When I worked at Johns Hopkins Medical School, one of things we were shown in orientation was a map of the area with a red line showing borders that one must not cross if life and limb are important. Apparently, this was not part of the Ravens’ orientation for players unfamiliar with the area.

     

    Man, it has to be embarrassing to be a Catholic these days. Besides the constant stream of priest-fucks-boy scandals, there’s a pope who ignores the famous advice of St. Augustine and enthusiastically declaims on issues where he is totally ignorant but where there’s prog points to be scored.

    “Sadly, all too often many efforts fail due to the lack of effective regulation and means of control, particularly with regard to the protection of marine areas beyond national confines,” the pope wrote. “We cannot allow our seas and oceans to be littered by endless fields of floating plastic,” Francis said. “Here, too, our active commitment is needed to confront this emergency.”

    He also denounced as “unacceptable” the privatization of water resources at the expense of the “human right to have access to this good.”

    You tell ’em, Frankie. More regulation, that’s what we need.

     

    Keep it classy, Chicago. After a tragic fire on the West Side that killed ten kids (living in a somewhat, ahhhh, sketchy situation), their funeral was a massive and public spectacle. And in the finest Chicago tradition, it was dignified and solemn. Or maybe not.

    Dozens of mourners spilled out of the front of the church onto Cermak Road, WBBM Newsradio’s Bob Roberts reported from the scene. The crowds gathered around the corner and half a block down Whipple Street before police came screaming in to restore order.

    Mourners had already been seen flashing gang signs outside the church.

    Not that this is an isolated thing, mind you. It’s a Chicago thing.

     

    Old Guy Music yet again! And continuing the theme of old Jethro Tull in preparation for the dinosaur concert tomorrow, this song was of course an inevitable choice. If SP weren’t asleep, I’d give in to my itchy urge to grab my flute and play along. I love this tune.

  • Saturday Morning Induced Labor Links

    Yesterday, SP received a couple of bushels of New Mexico green chiles for roasting, so of course they were prominently featured for dinner last night. And since she got two varieties (hot and extra-hot), I am paying the price this morning. So if the links seem a bit spicy, that’s why. Yes, I am typing this from the bathroom. Wash your hands after commenting.

     

    Global Warming- is there anything it can’t do? 

    Wheat, corn and rice crops will all be damaged — to the tune of 10 percent to 25 percent for every 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees F) that average global temperatures rise, according to the report. “Crop losses will be most acute in areas where warming increases both population growth and metabolic rates of insects,” they wrote. “These conditions are centered primarily in temperate regions, where most grain is produced.”

    There is no doubt that the global climate is warming and no real debate about one big cause: human activity. The effects are already being seen with heat waves, droughts, floods and stronger storms as ocean currents and atmospheric patterns are disrupted.

    I’m delighted at the reporters’ objectivity. NO DOUBT, NO REAL DEBATE.

    “Increased pesticide applications, the use of GMOs, and agronomic practices such as crop rotations will help control losses from insects,” Naylor said in a statement. “But it still appears that under virtually all climate change scenarios, pest populations will be the winners, particularly in highly productive temperate regions, causing real food prices to rise and food-insecure families to suffer.”

    Well, clearly we need to give Naylor more funding; think of the food-insecure children! Ignore that we’re breaking food production records left and right, it’s all gonna fall apart any day now.

     

    Despite my proximity to Alinea, I’m not a fan of molecular cuisine, though I can certainly admire some of the creativity that goes into it.

    A recent trend has taken hold in parts of the country where cereal or cheese puffs are covered in liquid nitrogen and “emit a misty or smoke-like vapor.” Shortly after eating the treats, people blow smoke out of their noses and mouths to look like a dragon. The treats, often called dragon’s breath, heaven’s breath or nitro puff, are popular at state fairs, carnivals, mall kiosks and some ice cream parlors…

    Well, that sounds fun! Until the FDA scolds descend.

    “Although liquid nitrogen is nontoxic and is currently used in medical settings and as an ingredient to prepare some food products, liquid nitrogen can freeze foods resulting in extremely low temperatures. This temperature can present risk of injury to consumers. Further, applying liquid nitrogen immediately prior to consumption increases the risk of accidental ingestion or direct contact with liquid nitrogen because it does not provide enough time for the liquid nitrogen to fully evaporate.” People who believe they may have suffered an injury from eating food with liquid nitrogen are encouraged to report injuries to the FDA.

    What we need is common sense cheese curd control. And what I need is a family-size order of cheese curds from Culver’s. Hold the liquid nitrogen.

     

    The UN is horrifically corrupt. I know, that’s not news. The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is horrifically corrupt by UN standards. Which is quite an achievement. The Hitler Trump Administration has decided that it will no longer shovel American taxpayers’ money at it.

    “The administration has carefully reviewed the issue and determined that the United States will not make additional contributions to UNRWA,” the State Department said in a statement. “Beyond the budget gap itself and failure to mobilize adequate and appropriate burden sharing, the fundamental business model and fiscal practices that have marked UNRWA for years– tied to UNRWA’s endlessly and exponentially expanding community of entitled beneficiaries– is simply unsustainable and has been in crisis mode for many years,” it continued. “The United States will no longer commit further funding to this irredeemably flawed operation.”

    About fucking time.

    A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called the US decision a “flagrant assault” against the Palestinian people, and a “defiance of UN resolutions.”

    “Such a punishment will not succeed to change the fact that the United States no longer has a role in the region and that it is not a part of the solution.”

    No, we’re not. Now go fuck yourself. And if Hitler Trump stops sending money and military to all the other foreign countries where we have no declared wars (23 of them at last count), I might even hold my nose and vote for him next time around. Big “if.”

     

    This is exactly the sort of story that will have legs with the Glibertariat. Beautiful legs, flailing and entangled…

    …sources tell FTVLive that two Anchors from WSAZ in Charleston, WV, got into a real fist throwing fight. Word is that Anchor Erica Bivens (top) and Weather Anchor Chelsea Ambriz (bottom) got into a fight at a local bar.

    The two anchor the 4PM newscast on the station and sources say that they attended an event to help end domestic violence against women called “Girls Night Out”!

    Witnesses tell FTVLive that the fight started with Ambriz acting “inappropriately” towards Bivens husband.

    I’ll be in my bunk.

     

    Remember the days when Team Red would hypocritically claim to be the party of limited government and free markets? I suppose it’s an improvement that they don’t even bother to lie about that any more.

    A Utah senator has written a formal letter to the Federal Trade Commission asking it to “reconsider the competitive effects of Google’s conduct in search and digital advertising.” In a two-page document released Thursday, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) noted that, when the FTC closed its previous investigation into the search giant in 2010, it partly based its decision on the expectation that Apple would become a “strong mobile advertising network.” This did not pan out.

    So clearly since the markets didn’t immediately give the result desired by Top Men, we have to step in and kill a bunch of shareholder value. We can only pray for Hatch to be the next to get fatal brain cancer.

     

    Old Man Music for y’all to complain about. One of the nice things about my out-of-the-mainstream tastes is that I often get to know the musicians whose work I love. After a show last year, I struck up a conversation with the flute player, and it turned out that he lived maybe two blocks from me. So we’ve hung out from time to time. He was over our house a couple weeks ago and mentioned that he’d bought two tickets to Jethro Tull’s 50th Anniversary tour, but his wife ended up not being able to make it. “Do you want to come to the show with me?” Now, I’m not big on dinosaur tours, but JT was probably my favorite rock band as a teenager, I still think their first three albums were superb, and it’s been close to 50 years since the first time I saw them live. And this flute player is a super nice and talented fellow, perfect to go to a show with. So that’s how I’ll be spending Labor Day. And in honor of a generous friend, one of my absolute favorite Jethro Tull songs, here done live but with two oddities: Ian Anderson playing Martin Barre’s Les Paul and John Evan being carefully hidden away.