Category: Daily Links

I had a pretty rough weekend. Hope yours was better.

Well we’re down to Championship Week in college basketball, prepared to run through two of the greatest weeks in a single sport. Unfortunately it got off to a horrible start as Michigan won the Big Ten tournament after running through Michigan State and Purdue in back-to-back days.  Congratulations…we still own you in football. (As evidenced by the skunk weasels latest recruiting strategy.) Pathetic.

Elsewhere, Cincy took care of Wichita State. Duke put a beat down on UNC. Auburn won the SEC season crown. And Xavier and Villanova are headed toward a Big East collision.  Enjoy the week and next one as well.  Perhaps we will be resurrecting the March Madness Pick-em for the Glibs.  And by “perhaps”, I mean we absolutely will.  Anonymity guaranteed, except for me knowing emails when you register for it.  I’ll have the link up in the next couple of days to get registered. A good time will be had bye all, and you could win a little sweet Glibs swag.

On the ice, the winners were the Panthers, Predators, Army/Vegas, the Mighty Ducks (sorry Blackhawks, its over), Winnepeg, Columbus and the MINNESOOOOOOOOOOODA WIIIIIIIILD! And if you’re wondering why I do that, I have no idea. Perhaps because the Minnesodan contingent here is so passionate about hockey, I want to give them a little extra love.  Who knows.

In the EPL, Burnley beat Everton (lol), Leicester drew Bournemouth, Stoke did the same with Southampton, Swansea rolled over West Ham, Spurs won, Watford won, Liverpool wore out Newcastle and beat Rafa for the first time since he left. And then on Sunday, Brighton beat Arsenal (and the world laughed and laughed and laughed), and Man City pretty much embarrassed Chelski. Manure play today and will hopefully lose and Liverpool will sit in second, even though they should be there anyway after the refs stole two points from them vs Spurs.

No Bundesliga or Spanish results. But a special nod to Florence, where the captain of Fiorentina, Davide Astori, died suddenly from cardiac arrest over the weekend ahead of their match.  Totally shocking and extremely sad. The city have declared a day of mourning.

I’m sure there’s other stuff to talk about, with the combine and all that.  But we only have so much space and I only have so much time to get it all in before the natives (you) start getting restless. So I’m moving on into…the links!

Even for Democrat politician wannabes, what you write on the internet lasts forever. You’ve got to reach the top before you can effectively memory-hole (or ignore) what was written int he past. Also, they should say he wrote them to a female “friend” rather than friend. Because a real friend wouldn’t sell him out for a little political expediency.

Well, he’s persistent. There are so many government benefit scammers out there on both sides of the immigration debate. Perhaps we need to revamp the whole system to weed out the fraud* so this kind of shit doesn’t happen.

*I know it should be abolished completely, but I’m being realistic here.

Eric Holder, who was held in contempt of congress for obstructing justice by refusing to hand over evidence in their oversight investigation of the gun running into Mexico plan he helmed, predicts that Trump will be charged with obstruction of justice by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The obstruction? Firing a couple of appointee-level positions which he’s free to fire someone from for any or no reason at all according to precedent.

One off the last fiscally sane Democrats speaks some sense in Chicago. Obviously it didn’t go over well. I mean, how can a fiscal conservative and foe of abortion have a place in today’s Democrat party?  Well, he is about to be drummed out anyway, if there Team Blue brass has anything to say about it.

See if you can guess which state this happened in before clicking: Man and daughter arrested for incest after being spotted having sex in the back yard.

No good deed goes unpunished. I’m going to go way out on a limb here and say that I bet alcohol was involved.

And last but not least, the reactions to this tweet might be the greatest thing the internet has ever brought us in response to Brooklynites thinking they make everything better than everyone else.  Stick to penny-farthing races and rooftop beekeeping festivals and leave this to the experts, kthxbai.

The video is worthwhile just to watch the lanky geek with the bass act like he’s rocking the fuck out. Epic.

Go get the week off on the right foot.  That’s what I’m gonna try to do.

ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONES. MR. WHISKERS HAS ENRAGED FRIEND STEVE SMITH. ZARDOZ KNOWS WHAT FRIEND STEVE SMITH IS CAPABLE OF WHEN ROUSED TO FURY. THE TABERNACLE SENT ZARDOZ A REFERENCE FILE. EVEN THE ALMOST INVULNERABLE AND MIGHTY WARTY HUGEMAN HAD DIFFICULTY WITH ENRAGED STEVE SMITH. SO ZARDOZ MUST LEAVE YOU THE GIFT OF THE LINK, IN HAST AND FLY!

• BRUTALS DOING THE WORK FOR ZARDOZ. KEEP IT UP! SEE IF YOU CAN GET TO CHOLERA AND DYSENTERY NEXT.
• THIS IS A PITY. ZARDOZ COULD USE HIS ADVICE ON SPEED RIGHT NOW!
• ZARDOZ CAN ONLY HOPE THIS ENDS UP WITH A MACEDONIAN PHALANX VERSUS GREEK HOPLITES.
• NOT QUITE A BUNGA BUNGA PARTY – EVEN IF THE ITALIAN BRUTAL HAS A TOPLESS FEMALE BRUTAL JUMP UP AT HIM.

ZARDOZ HAS SPOKEN!

 

 

Fault is easy to find in this instance. Pie wrote a fine piece this week on Romanian wines, and showed me a category of wine I haven’t tried and you may as well show me the smooth body of a young girl. I’m there. So SP and I made the trek up to Milwaukee, the closest source of the intriguing Feteasca Neagra (Pie will forgive my inability to get the funny accent marks correct), a red wine made from the eponymous grape, a native of Romania (rather than an adapted variety from elsewhere). The first place we went, the salesman was helpful but somewhat befuddled. “I could have sworn we had some bottles of this, and our inventory shows there’s five of them somewhere…” After much digging and consultation with the store manager, they figured out that the inventory was a mistake. FUCK! But, they helpfully determined at another store nearby had stock and sent us in that direction, after observing, “No-one has ever asked for that wine before.” Extra points to the salesguy for not misusing the word “varietal,” one of those nails-on-chalkboard things for me.

At Store #2, the salesman (after overcoming surprise from people actually asking for this) found their stock quickly, two different ones from the same producer (Cramele Recas) and upon observing the low prices, we grabbed half a dozen bottles. Since Pie liked the La Putere cuvee, and the name was vaguely reminiscent of prostitution, we started there. The good parts: very full bodied, smooth despite the relatively high alcohol, big fruit and spice, quite distinctive. It smoothed out a bit with air, and paired with dinner, it came across as almost sweet. The bottle drained rapidly. The bad parts: screwcap (that is not a closure which is good for development with aging), American oak (that was a bit jarring- why not Slovenian?) with a bit too much new wood. It’s very slick and commercial. Nonetheless, for ten bucks, we were happy. I’d love to try this variety made from perhaps a cooler area, not as much wood, lower levels of manipulation (e.g., more barrels, fewer chips), and cork-finished. But that said, we’d drink this regularly, and several hat tips to Pie for expanding our horizons.

OK, enough wine talk, let’s have links!

Trump actually gets off a few good lines. There’s even some self-deprecation, which is more than Obama could ever manage. My favorites:

“I just want to say this, this is one of the best times I’ve had with the media — this might be the most fun I’ve had since watching your faces on Election Night.”

“We were late tonight because Jared could not get through security.”

“As far as the risk of dealing with a madman is concerned, that’s [Kim Jong Un’s] problem, not mine.”

 

“President for Life.” Figure that only happens in dictatorships and shitholes. Or maybe other places as well…

 

This sort of thing has always ended well… I hope that the vicious bigot Bishop Desmond Tutu is smiling.

 

His ex will unveil the statue so she can set him up one last time.

 

They’ve learned how to manipulate the media from the Parkland puppets. Two people quit and it gets headlines.

 

Old Guy Music! This is a guy I used to see regularly in Austin, and has made a pretty decent career for himself. Here’s a rollicking little number from one of his Japan tours. Oldsters will remember Shakey’s.

ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONES. AS THE CHOSEN ONES KNOW, ZARDOZ IS ALL ABOUT TWO THINGS – CLEANSING BRUTALS AND HIS KITTY, MR. WHISKERS. ZARDOZ GOT A TUNE UP, DOWN AT THE GARAGE – AND IS FASTER THAN EVER! WHO KNEW THE BRUTALS DOWN AT SHELBY’S FIX N’ FUEL COULD TUNE GRAVATRONIC DRIVES SO WELL? ANY WAY, STILL HAVING SOME DOWN TIME, ZARDOZ DECIDED TO POP IN AND VISIT FRIEND STEVE SMITH. ZARDOZ HAD TO TAKE MR. WHISKERS WITH, AS ZARDOZ WILL NOT PERMIT BRUTALS TO WATCH HIS KITTEH!

ZARDOZ WAS UNAWARE THAT FRIEND STEVE SMITH HAD A NEW PET BUNNY:

SO WHEN ZARDOZ LANDED, MR. WHISKERS JUMPED OUT AND …

BEFORE ZARDOZ COULD ADMONISH MR. WHISKERS TO BEHAVE…

THE TABERNACLE HAD JUST INFORMED ZARDOZ THAT THE RABBIT IN QUESTION WAS THE NEW PET OF FRIEND STEVE SMITH. NORMALLY, A GOOD CLEANSING DOES NOT BOTHER ZARDOZ – BUT THIS WAS NO BRUTAL, PART OF THE PLAGUE OF MEN THAT POISON THE EARTH. SO NOW ZARDOZ IS UNSURE OF HOW TO BREAK THE NEWS TO FRIEND STEVE SMITH, WHEN HE RETURNS FROM THE CAMPING SITE DOWN THE TRAIL.

THEREFOR, ZARDOZ WILL GIVE THE CHOSEN ONES LINKS, WHILE ZARDOZ COGITATES UPON THIS PROBLEM.

• “YOUR LAW AGAINST US IS UNLAWFUL“… ZARDOZ’S LOGIC CIRCUITS ARE ALREADY STRAINING. THIS IS NOT HELPING.
• THE PENIS IS EVIL. KEEP IT HIDDEN, BRUTALS!
• SELF-CLEANSING BRUTAL NEAR HAT AND HAIR? ZARDOZ WORRIES ABOUT THE HAT AND THE HAIR, ESPECIALLY LATELY.
• ZARDOZ BEGINS TO THINK THE NHS MIGHT DO MORE TO CLEANSE THE FILTH OF BRUTALS THAN EVEN HIS BRUTAL EXTERMINATORS.

ZARDOZ HAS SPOKEN.

 

…

 

I feel like my Uncle Eddie.

Eddie wasn’t really my uncle, he was my dad’s best friend, but still, Uncle Eddie. Eddie was a rather fearsome fellow, remarkably talented and intelligent, and (unlike my dad, who was remarkably kind and considerate) completely lacked in any shits to give regarding people’s feelings. He was smart, sarcastic, cutting, snarky, and merciless.

I loved Uncle Eddie.

In any case, Eddie’s employer decided to send him to a course, named after a best selling author of yore, which would (they hoped) help him to smooth over his rough edges. This was futile in that Eddie was nothing but rough edges, but they were tired of having person after person quit after being verbally ripped to shreds when their work was anything less than Eddie’s exacting standards. Part of the course was persuasive public speaking. The class was given an exercise: each person would stand up and extemporaneously give a speech that was supposed to arouse emotion in the audience. Person after person spoke, and because sadness is an easy emotion to tap, they all told sob stories, one after another. Near the end, a blind guy in the class got up and started speaking about his seeing eye dog. He spoke at length about the bond between them, the way the dog became almost part of him in a way that most humans couldn’t understand, how the dog transformed his life and gave him a love and devotion that could never be duplicated. He went on to talk about the dog’s eventual decline in old age, then talked about the night he held the old dog in his arms as the dog finally died. The class was in tears.

Now it was Eddie’s turn.

He stood up, shook his head sadly, and observed, “It’s tough to follow a dog act…”

This aroused emotion in the audience, and Eddie was lucky to escape alive. And that is how I feel trying to follow SugarFree. Well, no matter, links must be served.

What I’m taking away from this is that you’d do well to let incredibly corrupt and capable lawyers set up things like this rather than approaching it as a businessman. There’s much to learn from the Clintons.

As long as there’s money to be raised and publicity to be hounded, there’s people you can always count on.

And as long as there’s meaningless moral preening points to be made, there’s people you can count on to make them, while of course relentlessly self-promoting. This would be delightfully easy to intersectionally troll. “Wait, you visually decide? It’s not physical, it’s a social construct, you shitlord!”

Speaking of which, here’s an example of toxic masculinity in action.

This is the kind of shit that drives me crazy. A basic question is asked of a physicist, he gives a very standard answer, the reporter doesn’t understand it, and voila! clickbait ensues. The correct answer, Mr. They-Don’t-Teach-Science-In-J-School is, “Just because you can formulate a grammatically correct question doesn’t mean that it’s physically meaningful. There is no such thing as ‘before’ the beginning of time, it is a meaningless phrase, and Hawking tried to tell you that.” TW: Neil deGrasseTyson.

There are some questions that really don’t need to be asked.

And just because. Miss you, dude.

In today’s Old Guy music, I’m reminded of why They Might Be Giants might be the best pop band ever. This is one of their lesser-known songs, but it shouldn’t be.

SEA SMITH DO LINKS TODAY! COUSIN STEVE SMITH ALREADY DO COLUMN. ZARDOZ STILL AT GARAGE. THAT LEAVE SEA SMITH TO DO LINKS. WAS THINKING OF DOING ONLY SERIOUS LINKS. BUT FIGURE, IT FRIDAY…DO FISH LINKS! STEVE SMITH LIKE FISH. EAT FISH, TALK TO FISH, RAPE FISH. SO HERE LINKS ABOUT FISH:

1. HUNGRY COUNTRY WITH LOT OF PEOPLE AND NOT CARE ABOUT OVERFISHING … FISHES MOST. SEA SMITH KNOCKED OVER WITH FEATHER!
2. SEA SMITH ALWAYS SHAKE HIS FINNED HEAD AT CALIFORNIA. YOU SAY “WHAT THEY DO NOW?!” SO SEA SMITH THINK, “OKAY, MORE FISHES FOR SEA SMITH!”
3. HERE IS FEATURE ABOUT FISH, THAT JAPAN GLIBERTARIAN PEOPLE KNOW ALREADY. SEA SMITH LIKE TO HAVE SASHIMI WHEN VISIT JAPAN. BY VISIT, MEAN RAPE.
4. AND LAST, HERE SAD STORY FOR NODAK GLIBERTARIAN PEOPLE. SEAS SMITH NO LIKE ICE, UNLESS IT TRAP SHIP FOR SEA SMITH TO VISIT. BY VISIT, MEAN RAPE.

SEA SMITH HOPE YOU HAVE FAIR WIND, FOLLOWING SEAS…HA HA, BY THAT, MEAN SEA SMITH FOLLOW YOU!

Thank God its Friday.  And the first round of golf I will have gotten to play in some time.  Well, that’s the plan anyway.  It may not happen now that I’m a little short-staffed at the auction yard after the yard guy I’d hired as a favor to my friend decided to get good and drunk on the job yesterday to the point that he embarrassed me in front of a customer I was loading out and then decided to take a 45 minute nap until I woke him enough to forcibly eject him from the property. Seriously. Dude was 3/4 of the way through his second 42 ounces of cool, refreshing Steel Reserve when I came back from a meeting with a customer and the landlord of my office. And it wasn’t even noon.

Anyway, I got out of there without him hurting himself or someone else. But that’s what I get for hiring the degenerate son of a friend instead of a random dude with a pulse that sits in front of the nearest Home Depot.  Lesson learned. and rant over.

Hey, there were sports yesterday. Sorry Louisville, that choke job should put you out of the tournament. Michigan is advancing, as is Wisconsin (and that should put Maryland out as well). Penn State plays Ohio State tonight and will try to beat my Buckeyes for the third time this year.  I will be displeased if that happens. Wichita State won, as did Cincy and Arizona.

On the ice, the Bruins went for the two-point conversion and put up 8 in beating the Pens. Other winners were the Hurricanes, Lightning, Panthers, the Predators, the Sharks (sorry Swissy), the Kings and the Coyotes, who beat the MINNESOOOOOODA WIIIIIIIIIILD!!!!  Congrats to the winners. Sorry, Chicago. This year is circling the drain.

OK, that ought to do it for sports.  Now how about…the links!

Want to start the links with something retarded?  Then you’re in luck! You know, when your article is filled with government interventions that either fail to solve or actually exacerbate the problem, you might want to reach a conclusion other than “the government needs to solve this”.  But expecting that from the LA Times is like expecting a pig to do algebra.

OK, this one is a bit of a dilemma for libertarians. Actually it isn’t. This is a private property rights dispute and the property owner or operator has a right to have someone removed that refuses to leave.  But we are still free to point out when that person using their rights is an asshole.  This is one of those times.

When the “we have to ban guns because they’re the only way people can carry out mass killings” narrative is disputed by reality. If only it were easy for that family to have been able to easily purchase and use a deadly weapon to defend themselves against somebody. Unfortunately for them they lived in San Francisco.

I need one of the Chicago Glibs to track this guy down and buy him a beer. See, this is how Americans should get involved in fighting over there, not by being shipped over as an “advisor”.

Its physical.  And educational. So why did the guy resign? Oh yeah, I guess because its not on the approved list of teacher aids. Jesus, what a bunch of prudes.

Follow up to the piece yesterday where a college baseball coach told a Colorado recruit he wasn’t interested because kids from that state hadn’t been passing drug tests: he’s been fired. Listen, if I can give any advice here to potential managers, business owners or coaches: don’t ever give anyone a reason for not hiring, recruiting or retaining them.  Always say its “for no particular reason at all” and never share anything about your reasoning with anyone else in writing. Jesus, this is elementary stuff here. Only SJW’s can hire and fire people based on political or social beliefs. That’s the way its been for decades now.

Not all power bands are created equal. This one was superior to any others I can think of.

That’s all she wrote. It was good to get back to links duty. I hope I didn’t disappoint.

What’s up, hosers? I just found out its supposed to snow next week while I’m in Dearborn. That’s a whole fucking pile of fail. But it will make my kids happy if we can FaceTime some snowflakes. (No jokes about going down to the local college!) My wife started Spring Break last night after taking a test this morning. She’s got a happy hour with her PT assistant class friends. She Ubered up, so I expect her to come home pretty well lit. I have to pick the kids up, so I can’t start really catching up until after that.

This guy is the epitome of Boston for me.

Look at people shaming the Texas bus driver for trying to stay alert.

You know what I want to give a company with a reputation for poor corporate citizenship? Time and location of all my medical appointments. But not to worry, its B2B so it will really be your insurance company giving that information away.

Ladies and gentleman, these are the people who think they are qualified to run the economy. Look at the chart. These guys are getting 7.5% annually over the last decade. About what the S&P has returned. Smarter than the market my ass.

Did Dark Matter affect the early universe? I remain a skeptic of anything that can only be inferred and not measured.

Some days you just need a stylophone solo.

Way to go Big Ten.  Your conference isn’t playing meaningful games because the league brass just had to have the conference tournament in that hotbed of Big Ten country…Madison Square Garden?  Seriously, what the fuck? Everybody is playing rivalry games this week as you get set to kick off your conference tournament nowhere near a single Big Ten school that is worth a shit. I hope the whole arena sits empty as you get set to finish your tournament the same day as conferences like the Atlantic Sun and MEAC rather than when it traditionally ends when its played at a venue that makes fucking sense.. Stupid bastards. Meanwhile, Villanova, Clemson, Nevada, Kentucky and Xavier were among the winners last night.

On the frozen ponds, Les Canadiens beat the Islanders, the Sabres topped the Lightning, St Louis took care of Detroit, Colorado was better than Calgary, and five goals wasn’t enough for Vancouver, as the Rangers put up 6 to win in overtime. And in case most of you haven’t noticed, spring training is well underway and games are being played.  Oh what a glorious time of year!

OK, maybe that’s a bit of an overstatement. Many of you are still dealing with shitty weather and snow. All we’re getting is rain, rain, rain. But at least I’m indoors except for the fact that I’m scheduled to move into my new office this weekend. SO I need it to stay away at least half of the day Saturday. Everybody pray for me that I doin’t suffer first-world problems this weekend. I will thank you for your prayers in advance by providing you this sweet ass edition of…the links!

Here’s a “child rapist” I think many of you would get behind. (TW: Florida. anti-TW: this is the type of teacher Van Halen was talking about.)

Trump puts his foot in his mouth.  Although his words are being wildly mischaracterized and its being implied he means in general, what he said is still a terrifying prospect.  As a bonus, I’m sure this will cause the left to have a renewed interest in defending the Fourth Amendment.  Still, he needs to choose his words much more carefully.  There would have never been a need to secure a warrant to arrest that idiot. He had the cops called during enough active crime situations that they could have easily arrested him on the spot and then secured a warrant while he was sitting in a jail cell awaiting a bond hearing.  That actually would have followed the due process requirements and would have also gotten the guns out of the hands of a sociopathic nut job who regularly made threats and acted like he was about to do exactly what he did.

The religious atheists on the left continue to make efforts to win the hearts and minds of America the only way they know how. Chris Pratt makes a harmless gesture that he believes, as do hundreds of millions of Americans probably, will make a positive difference in someone’s life and those assholes go bonkers.  Christ, what a bunch of assholes. Also, poor headline choice, Fox. It sure didn’t sound like Smith was “forced” to defend anyone. He did so willingly and graciously. And FWIW, Mallrats was still probably his best work.

For all those geniuses who say average Joes shouldn’t be walking around with guns and that only trained police officers should have them: I’d love for them to explain this and tell me they’re gonna stick with their position. Also, if we ban guns, this will never happen because people won’t have them. Except, this was in SF, where guns are essentially outlawed.  So there goes that bullshit talking point too…unless he went across the border into Indiana and got one and then went back into the city to carry out his mayhem.  Can they use that bullshit talking point in California? Sure seems to work for the grabbers in Illinois that want to blame their violence problem on everything but the individuals carrying their daily shootings out or the failed government system in their fair city that disenfranchises large segments of their population.

Speaking of Chicago politics, I see its business as usual. The federal investigation into the office has gone on for five years and the abuses have been chronicled with detailed precision. Yet somehow, the machine that brought us Barack Obama has yet to bring anyone to trial.  But that has to be a coincidence.

I guess I could have put this in sports, but I’m gonna count it as news. Hey, listen, I think the coach is completely justified in his position here, with the exception of his last couple of sentences. If he recruits players who can’t pass the NCAA-mandated drug tests and can show where that’s happened, he is making a sound decision that will make sure he’s able to field a team that won’t run afoul of antiquated NCAA rules.  Too bad he’s not venting his anger at the NCAA instead of Colorado pols. Because in my opinion, that’s where he should be directing it.

I had no reason to play this other than the fact that I wanted to hear it. Its my right!

Good luck out there today, friends.