Howdy, y’all. I am experiencing a five-dollar word feeling — ennui. Which is not the feeling of preferring an enema to dealing with another shitty UI. I don’t know what the feeling is, but I experience it every time I have to log my time in PeopleSoft. No, I’m just bored and discontent with my life today. Like every other feeling I have, it will pass. On the plus side, I only have one more day of work this week. So I assume it will pass sometime tomorrow afternoon.
Joe Biden, known biographical plagarist and creepy toucher of women, claims he is “the most qualified person in the country to be President”. In a way that makes this the best and worst of all possible time-lines to live in, he is not wrong.
Chimpanzee tribe aggressively defends island. Sorry, former laboratory test subject chimp tribe.
All the regular posters are off pretending to work. I assume the orphan mines are running at capacity this time of year. So you get links from me today. And since there and so many subjects infinitely more interesting than politics, you get plenty of them.
Good morning fellow Glibs, hope you have your coffee or stimulant of choice as we dive into a new week.
If your birthday is today, you share it with General George McClellan, reality TV star Ozzy Osbourne, actress Julianne Moore, everyone’s favorite vegetable Terri Schiavo, and actress Amanda Seyfried.
Paris continues to burn due to a massive tax revolt, didn’t think you frogs had it in you, vive la France!
Investigation starts of unexpected suicide of Vice Admiral Scott Stearney.
ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONES. TIME TO WRAP UP THE WEEKEND – AND GET BACK TO SNARKING AT THE BRUTALS WHO PLAGUE THE EARTH. ZARDOZ WILL ASSIST, BY PROVIDING THE GIFT OF THE LINK. GO FORTH AND SNARK!
A GOOD START, PARIS – BUT THE NUMBERS CLEANSED REMAINS TOO LOW. WORK ON IT.
SOMETIMES ZARDOZ IS NOT HAPPY WHEN A PARTICULAR BRUTAL SHUFFLES OFF THEIR MORTAL COIL. THIS IS THE CASE HERE.
THE CONTINUED DEVOLUTION OF THE BRUTAL REALM OF THE UNITED KINGDOM PLEASES ZARDOZ.
And trust me, it’s miserable outside here. Hail, ice, rain, and snow. No sign of the Friendly Angel. But a lovely day indoors ahead, drinking and watching football (real football, with the grownups playing) with SP. And of course, I now have yet another reason to root for my beloved Ravens.
The top admiral overseeing US Naval forces in the Middle East, Vice Adm. Scott Stearney, was found dead in his residence in Bahrain on Saturday, the Navy said in a statement. While his death is being investigated, officials say there is no evidence of foul play at this time.
Have fun speculating about what’s going to be in Chapter 2. Underage boys? Passing intelligence to the Saudis? Affair with a Mossad agent? Autoerotic asphyxiation? Read through 103 parts of Hat and Hair and lost the will to live?
If I were to rate Trump’s best accomplishment so far, it would be getting Gorsuch on the Supreme Court. He’s looked pretty good so far. But I’d also rate Trump’s absolute worst idea as using tariffs as a way to whip up his base and get trade concessions in lieu of pushing for actual free trade, unencumbered by sweetheart deals. That’s been backfiring spectacularly (don’t even ask how badly that’s hurt the business I work for), since it’s based on the curious idea that you can pressure socialist countries by forcing them to raise taxes on their citizens. Well, we may be seeing a face-saving retreat happening.
“President Trump has agreed that on January 1, 2019, he will leave the tariffs on $200 billion worth of product at the 10 percent rate, and not raise it to 25 percent at this time,” the statement read. Over the next 90 days, American and Chinese officials will continue to negotiate lingering disagreements on technology transfer, intellectual property and agriculture.
And here’s a lovely gem of stupid symbolic harrumphing:
[Chinese president] Xi also plans to designate Fentanyl as a controlled substance, according to the statement. As the U.S. opioid crisis continues to rage, it would suggest that people selling the drug to parties in the U.S. would be subject to stiff penalties in China.
Year to date, there have been 22 outbreaks investigated by the Center for Disease Control, including the dangerous E. coli outbreak currently linked to romaine lettuce. It’s the highest number of total investigations compared to the past 12 years—but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb says that’s not necessarily because more food has suddenly become “unsafe.”
“I think what’s happening is that we have better technology than ever before to link outbreaks of human illness to a common pathogen,” Gottlieb told CNN.
Alternate explanation: Chipotle has many more locations now.
One woman, who went to graduate school with [Neil deGrasse] Tyson, alleged in a 2014 blog post that he had drugged and raped her. After writer David McAfee published an interview with the woman, Tchiya Amet, two other women went public with sexual misconduct allegations. One accuser, physics professor Katelyn Allers, said Tyson groped her at a 2009 party. Tyson’s ex-assistant, Ashley Watson, said she had to quit her job because of his unwanted sexual advances, McAfee reported.
On the one hand, the whole #metoo thing has accelerated the enstupidation of our society. On the other hand, Tyson is an arrogant and sanctimonious shithead of incredibly meager scientific accomplishment who has somehow been lionized by the Left as a great thinker, and there’s an inevitable Schadenfreude factor. Gripping hand, I have to stick with my principles, dammit, despite my personal desire to see the shithead suffer. And that’s driven by seeing several physicists of real merit having had their careers destroyed by this mindless juggernaut.
The centre of Paris was on lockdown tonight after masked protesters stole an assault rifle from police, clashed with riot squads and set fire to cars and Christmas trees on the Champs-Elysees in furious demonstrations against the French government. Protesters said today’s actions were ‘the start of a revolution’ that would eclipse the mass strikes and occupation of universities and factories in 1968 when the country was on the cusp of civil war.
Fires and clouds of tear gas covered the French capital from early morning until late in the evening, in some of the worst violence ever seen in the French capital as more than 5,000 demonstrators brought chaos to Paris for the second week running.
I have a hypothesis. Note the running theme in the photos in this news story. Yeah, sure, most of the rioters have something in common ethnically, and I’m sure that Europeans will gleefully point this out, but that’s not really it. When all is said and done, I think we’re going to find out that the French auto companies are actually behind this- massive car burnings mean more sales. Brilliant!
Old Guy Music! And I know that nothing will annoy the masses more than the Grateful Dead. So of course that’s what I’m listening to. And here’s a really nice live version of what I think is their best straight-ahead rock song ever, and one I’ve covered in a couple of bands. It’s just plain fun to play, and it’s fun to listen to. So spark one up and be groovy.
After several amazingly busy days that have kept me away from you gang of relentless pervertsracist swine wonderful people, I have returned with links and snark. Oh, and birthdays. December 1 marks the birthdate of such notables as Madame Tussaud, my spirit animal Woody Allen, the beyond-amazing asshole and brilliant talent Jaco Pastorius, supposed funnyman Dick Shawn (who was directly responsible for the only sequence in The Producers that was worthy of fast-forwarding through), and object lesson in the inevitable fruits of prohibitionism, Pablo Escobar.
George Bush, the 41st president of the United States and the father of the 43rd, who steered the nation through a tumultuous period in world affairs but was denied a second term after support for his presidency collapsed under the weight of an economic downturn and his seeming inattention to domestic affairs, died on Friday night at his home in Houston. He was 94.
The adoration then follows, of the sort the press loves to heap on any Team Red political figure who is no longer relevant, but whom they savaged while in office. This is going to be pretty sickening for the next week. At least this NYT hagiography mentions Bush puking on the Japanese prime minister. It neglects to mention his relentless ass groping (“Everybody knows that you stay out of Poppy’s arm reach!”). And of course, no one will dare come at it from the standpoint that he was an authoritarian statist big-government piece of shit, a paternalistic elitist who ran a corrupt spy agency, whose legacy is decades of war, the Sleazy Lawyer Full Employment Act the ADA, David Souter, unprecedented expansion of the carceral state (though that record was broken by his Team Blue and Team Red successors), spawning another generation of privileged and incompetent shitheads who styled themselves as “leaders,” inflicting the now mercifully forgotten Dan Quayle on us, obstructing the Iran-Contra investigations because Team Red corruption is just fine, and continuing the march of Team Red away from any notion of actual constitutional conservatism and to becoming largely indistinguishable from Team Blue.
Oh, and remember the Big Issue that was central to his 1988 campaign? Banning flag burning. Nice one, Poppy, glad you had your priorities straight.
To be fair, he did appoint Clarence Thomas, who at least mixes some good First Amendment advocacy and opposition to eminent domain with an utter contempt for Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. If that’s the only good thing I can say about him, that he appointed a justice who’s no worse than Sotomayor and better than his son’s appointment of Roberts, that’s more than a little sad.
A police officer who claimed she killed a Dallas man in his own apartment in the mistaken belief that he was in her home was indicted Friday on a murder charge, authorities said.The indictment of Amber Guyger comes more than two months after she was arrested in the shooting death of Botham Shem Jean at the Dallas apartment complex where both lived — a killing that sparked days of protests.
That’s the good news. Really good news. The bad news is that the whole thing is being promoted as a race thing rather than a police state thing. This despite the fact that it took almost 3 months to charge her, she was given all of the usual protections for cops (like having several days to get her story straight before being questioned), and had the full-press support of the cop union. The Progressive racial narrative is almost a guarantee that the core issues with police (union protections, immunity, and militarization) will never actually be addressed.
How shallow of a human being am I? Oh yeah, very shallow. I only had one thought about this story.
The Kansas City Chiefs have released star running back Kareem Hunt, a decision that came after video surfaced earlier Friday that showed him shoving and kicking a woman in February. The team announced the move Friday night. Minutes earlier, the NFL had announced that Hunt, 23, had been put on the commissioner’s exempt list.
My first (and still principal) thought was, “Fantastic! The Ravens have an upcoming game with the Chiefs and this is one less defensive worry!” Like I said, I’m shallow.
I travel a lot for work, yet I really don’t participate in the various rewards programs. And here’s why.
Hackers stole information on as many as 500 million guests of the Marriott hotel empire over four years, obtaining credit card and passport numbers and other personal data, the company said Friday as it acknowledged one of the largest security breaches in history.
As usual, the first instinct is to figure out if liability can be trimmed back a bit.
The full scope of the failure was not immediately clear. Marriott was trying to determine if the records included duplicates, such as a single person staying multiple times.
The affected hotel brands were operated by Starwood before it was acquired by Marriott in 2016. They include W Hotels, St. Regis, Sheraton, Westin, Element, Aloft, The Luxury Collection, Le Méridien and Four Points. Starwood-branded timeshare properties were also affected. None of the Marriott-branded chains were threatened.
Guys, you own it. Stop making excuses and make people whole. Immediately. As if they will. But the lawyers are already circling, and of course, they’ll come out as the only winners.
A Massachusetts landlord told a Harvard University graduate student that he wanted her to move out of her apartment because her legally owned firearms made some of her roommates uncomfortable. The request that the student, Leyla Pirnie, move out came after her roommates searched her room while she was not home and found her firearms. That prompted one of the roommates to email [the landlord, Dave] Lewis requesting he verify that Pirnie was in compliance with applicable firearms laws.
“We discussed with Leyla that all of us are uncomfortable with having firearms in the house, and that their presence causes anxiety and deprives us of the quiet enjoyment of the premise to which we are entitled,” the roommate wrote to [landlord]Lewis.
I wonder whether they were actually looking for her vibrator? In any case, and I know this is a vain hope, I do hope that she moves away from those meddling kids, sues the shit out of them and her landlord, and discovers that she’s actually a libertarian.
Old Guy Music, and in honor of birthday boy Jaco Pastorius, here’s one of my favorite songs from what I think was his absolute best collaboration. Some fantastic jazz vocals and Brecker-style LA sax sound.
ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONES. ZARDOZ WAS VACILLATING BETWEEN GIVING THE CHOSEN ONES LINKS OR ADVICE, WHEN THE THOUGHT STRUCK HIS CIRCUITS…WHY NOT BOTH? YES, THE CHOSEN ONES DESERVE BOTH.
THE BLATANTLY BAD ADVICE GIVEN BY “ASK POLLY” AT THE MISERABLE BRUTAL PUBLICATION THE CUT IS THE TARGET OF ZARDOZ’S WRATH TONIGHT. READ THE SUPERIOR ADVICE OF ZARDOZ!
WHINE FROM ADVICE SEEKER: I feel like a ghost. I’m a 35-year-old woman, and I have nothing to show for it. My 20s and early 30s have been a twisting crisscross of moves all over the West Coast, a couple of brief stints abroad, multiple jobs in a mediocre role with no real upward track. I was also the poster child for serial monogamy. My most hopeful and longest lasting relationship (three and a half years, whoopee) ended two years ago. We moved to a new town (my fourth new city), created a home together, and then nose-dived into a traumatic breakup that launched me to my fifth and current city and who-knows-what-number job.
For all these years of quick changes and rash decisions, which I once rationalized as adventurous, exploratory, and living an “original life,” I have nothing to show for it. I have no wealth, and I’m now saddled with enough debt from all of my moves, poor decisions, and lack of career drive that I may never be able to retire. I have no career milestones and don’t care for my line of work all that much anyway, but now it’s my lifeline, as I only have enough savings to buy a hotel room for two nights. I have no family nearby, no long-term relationship built on years of mutual growth and shared experiences, no children. While I make friends easily, I’ve left most of my friends behind in each city I’ve moved from while they’ve continued to grow deep roots: marriages, homeownership, career growth, community, families, children. I have a few close girlfriends, for which I am grateful, but life keeps getting busier and our conversations are now months apart. Most of my nights are spent alone with my cat (cue the cliché).
I used to consider myself creative — a good writer, poetic, passionate, curious. Now, after many years of demanding yet uninspiring jobs, multiple heartbreaks, move after move, financial woes, I’m quite frankly exhausted. I can barely remember to buy dish soap let alone contemplate humanity or be inspired by Anaïs Nin’s diaries. Honestly, I find artists offensive because I’m jealous and don’t understand how I landed this far away from myself.
Also, within the past year I’ve had a breast-cancer scare and required surgery on my uterus due to a fertility issue. On top of that, I’m 35 and every gyno and women’s-health website this side of the Mississippi is telling me my fertility is dropping faster than a piano falling out of the sky. Now I’m looking into freezing my eggs, adding to my never-ending financial burden, in hopes of possibly making something of this haunted house and having a family someday with a no-named man.
I’m trying, Polly. I am. I’m dating. I’m working out and working hard. Listening to music I enjoy and loving my cat. Calling my mom. Yet I truly feel like a ghost. No one knows who I am or where I’ve been. I haven’t kept a friend, lover, or foe around long enough to give anyone a chance. What’s the point? I don’t care for my job. I’m not building toward anything, and I don’t have the time or money to really invest in what I care about anyway at this point. On top of that, society is telling me my value as a woman is fading fast, my wrinkles require Botox (reference said poor finances), all the while my manager is asking for me to finish “that report by Monday.” Why bother?
My apathy is coming out in weird ways. I’m drinking too much, and when I do see my friends on occasion, I end up getting drunk and angry or sad or both and pushing them away. And with men I date, I feel pressure to make something of the relationship too soon (move in, get married, “I have to have kids in a couple of years”; fun times!). All the while still trying to be the sexpot 25-year-old I thought I was until what seemed like a moment ago.
I used to think I was the one who had it all figured out. Adventurous life in the city! Traveling the world! Making memories! Now I feel incredibly hollow. And foolish. How can I make a future for myself that I can get excited about out of these wasted years? What reserves or identity can I draw from when I feel like I’ve accrued nothing up to this point with my life choices?
ADVICE FROM ZARDOZ: WRETCHED BRUTAL! THERE IS A BINARY SOLUTION SET IN FRONT OF YOU. FIRST, YOU MUST CEASE ALL PENIC ACTIVITIES – REMEMBER, THE PENIS IS EVIL – AND TRADE YOUR DEAD END JOB FOR LIFE AS A SERVANT OF THE BRUTAL EXTERMINATORS! A “RECRUITER” CAN BE DISPATCHED FORTHWITH!
READY FOR YOUR “ENLISTMENT BONUS”?
THEY WILL INSURE THAT YOU ARE PUT TO A PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE. CERTAINLY, IT WILL BE HARSH, AND PROBABLY SHORT. BUT THE FILTH OF BRUTALITY MUST BE CLEANSED SOONER OR LATER. CAN YOU MUCK OUT HORSE STABLES? HOW ABOUT SCRUBBING MASKS? LAUNDERING RED MANKINIS?
YOUR OTHER SOLUTION IS PROBABLY WHAT YOU SEEM MORE SUITED FOR – GRAIN SLAVERY IN THE SERVICE OF THE VORTEX. YOU CAN MAKE YOURSELF USEFUL, FOR AS LONG AS YOU LAST. WHICH, JUDGING FROM YOUR SNIVELING SCREED ABOVE, SEEMS LIKE IT WON’T BE TOO LONG.
WELL, THAT ONE DIDN’T LAST LONG.
CHOOSE WISELY, BRUTAL. ZARDOZ HAS SPOKEN.
NOW THAT THE ADVICE HAS BEEN DISPENSED…LINKS FOR THE CHOSEN ONES:
THE VERY EARTH ITSELF GROANS UNDER THE FILTH OF BRUTALS.
QUITTER! ZARDOZ DOES NOT UNDERSTAND WHY THIS BRUTAL GETS THE TIME OF DAY FROM ANYONE.
Hey guys, how’s it going? I managed to be adult enough to get my hair cut today. Its been on my list for about 3 weeks. That’s about it. My eldest spawn turns five this Sunday. Hard to believe. Time flies when you’re sleep deprived.
Four Swedish pilots were given US Air Force medals for helping to prevent an international incident 30 years ago. And yes, this is just a shameless ploy to link to pictures of the sexiest airplane that ever flew. Looking at pictures of those guys makes me glad the Swedish Bikini team isn’t having their 30th reunion.
Warty gifts us with a former Playboy model looking to become the first woman to win an F1 championship. I think flashing her headlights to pass would probably be pretty effective.
STEVE SMITH VOLUNTEER TAKE LINKS DUTY THIS MORNING. HIM HAVE GOOD MONTH ON QUOTA SO FAR. BY QUOTA, MEAN RAPE. SO HAVE TIME TO LINK FOR FUNNY GLIBERTARIAN PEOPLE. THEN STEVE SMITH GO WORK ON TREATISE ON CASCADIA INDEPENDENCE. LIKE HOW STEVE SMITH USE BIG WORD…”TREATISE”? HIM WRITE GOOD! BUT NEED MANY MORE LEAVES TO FINISH WRITING ON.
SO HERE LINKS FOR YOU!
OOPS. THEM NO FIX CLOCK NOW! STEVE SMITH THINK THEM SHOULD STICK TO MAKING BOILERS.
STEVE SMITH THINK IT LUCKY HE NOT “SAND SMITH”, READING THIS. SUSPECT MANY BEHEADINGS IN FUTURE.
“It’s good for you and makes your body feel warm,” he said of the local drink.” STEVE SMITH ALSO MAKE BODY FEEL WARM…
THIS SEEM LIKE NORMAL THING DO, WHEN AT WAR. WHY TAKE SO LONG?
Joe Biden, known biographical plagarist and creepy toucher of women, claims he is “the most qualified person in the country to be President”. In a way that makes this the best and worst of all possible time-lines to live in, he is not wrong.
