Glibertarians.com 2018 Archive

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  • Who Wants To Be President?

    An amusing news story yesterday caused some discussion. These seem to pop up every year or so and are generally used as a way for academics to bash their latest not-a-leftist target. Eight straight years of “see, Bush is horrible!” followed by eight straight years of “Obama is dreeeeamy!” sort of triggered my cynicism meter. Of course, the inclusion of presidents still in office is de rigeur for sending the desired signals, and putting Trump on the list after barely a year in office is reminiscent of Obama’s affirmative action Nobel Peace Prize, just before he started six new wars and began drone-killing Americans.

    Likewise, historians love presidents who were incredibly active, preferably ones who killed a few hundred thousand people. The bias that “doing something” is better than “leaving us alone” is a powerful means of slanting the ratings. So given OUR biases as libertarians, how would you rank our presidents?

    My own personal feeling is that there’s probably 5 or six great ones, five or six horrendous ones, and most of the rest form a blob in the middle and ranking them is useless.

    My Top Five:

    1. Calvin Coolidge- did a wonderful job of leaving us alone, and look what happened. Economic boom time, which only ended when a more activist president and congress decided to start meddling.
    2. George Washington- for doing what every president ought to do: serve his time, then go home and shut up. I put him here in the top 5 because he wasn’t John Adams.
    3. Grover Cleveland- someone whose first instinct is to avoid federal action unless specifically demanded by the constitution ought to get more libertarian love. And he had a wonderful way of phrasing.
    4. Bill Clinton- wait, what? His arrival here wasn’t due to anything he deliberately did, but what he managed to do accidentally was totally tie the government into knots so that they were too busy with perjury and blowjobs to fuck things up. Economic boom, balanced budgets, only minor wars, who can complain?
    5. William Henry Harrison- for the obvious reason.

    My Bottom Five:

    45. Richard Nixon- the guy who came close to killing a million, brought us the War On Drugs, the EPA, wage-and-price controls, “Affirmative Action,” decoupling of currency from hard assets… he was a fucking disaster, top to bottom.
    44. Lyndon Johnson- easily the most corrupt and murderous human to ever occupy the Oval Office. Besides killing millions, he halted the progress of black Americans and destroyed their next several generations.
    43. Woodrow Wilson- it was hard to not rank him the worst, and I think a good argument could be made for that. Besides getting us into a world war and setting the conditions for an even bigger one, he was famous for his intense racism, his love of eugenics, his complete disregard for the constitution, and… well, I can think of absolutely nothing in the favor of that disgusting piece of shit.
    42. James Buchanan- sometimes the historians are right.
    41. John Adams- the Alien and Sedition Act and the Quasi War sent the US in the wrong direction from which we still haven’t fully recovered.

    I have not towed the libertarian lion of putting Lincoln in that bottom five, mostly because (unlike the guys there) he was a mixed bag and besides the obvious evil, accomplished some great things as well (like Amendment XIII). And FDR came oh so close to the final cut, and I would not argue about his inclusion…

    OK, my droogs, discuss.

  • Tuesday Morning Hey It’s Not Sloopy Links

    And I bet after this weekend’s fun, you’re too scared to click on any links I put up. Well, you sometimes have to have faith.

     

    Oh noes, let’s keep the Scare Machine working.

    “Last night I told my wife I would take a bullet for the kids,” said Robert Parish, a teacher at an elementary school just miles from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, where a former student killed 17 people, including three staff members who found themselves in the line of fire. Since the attack last week, said Mr. Parish, “I think about it all the time.”

    Curious if Mr. Parish spends just as much time thinking about lightning strikes, too. I’m guessing probability and statistics weren’t part of the Education curriculum.

    It’s always nice when voting district boundaries are arbitrarily set by unelected and unaccountable lawyers wearing black dresses.

    Preliminary analyses of the new map showed congressional races in the state being much more competitive for Democrats.

    This is my shocked face.

    In another shocker, Amazon has invented a technology that monitors fucking-off time and can be used to improve their efficiency. To be fair, I’d never consent to wearing this shit, but the key word here is “consent.” Of course, the socialists are birthing a bovine.

    As a company, Amazon is simply too powerful and must be dismantled. Under capitalism, the scientific and technological advancements made are being used to squeeze every last ounce of profit out of workers. We must liberate the productive forces of society from the capitalists in order to benefit the many, instead of continuing on the current trend of the vast majority being driven into the abyss of slave-like low-wage labor.

    “Slave.” You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. And really, this is much creepier– creepy enough that I think it’s the future for the Glibertarians’ staff.

     

    “I tried.” And you managed to re-invigorate a faded career. Well played.

     

    Young horny New Zealanders, take hope!

     

    Music from the Dinosaur Tour. I had a sentimental frisson- not only was I a big Cream fan as a youngster, this was the first song I ever learned to play on the guitar. It is a bit weird to see Jack Bruce playing that particular bass- was he channeling McCartney?

     

  • This week’s lesson in Vegan School…

    This week in Vegan School I learned…

    Figs + Olive Oil + Post Sunset = Vitamin D

     

  • Monday Afternoon Links – WHERE MUH DEMOCRATES GONE? edition

    Her Buttholiness WILL NOT be taking a year off of acting to save our Democracy. “Fuck your Democracy,” she says and spits.

    Don’t worry, Jennifer Lawrence isn’t going anywhere!

    On Friday, Entertainment Tonight reported that the Oscar winner was planning on taking a year off from acting to focus on activism. However, a representative for Lawrence exclusively tells EW that she will return to work when one of several projects in development is ready to go.

    According to IMDB, Lawrence currently has seven projects in development, including an untitled film with Amy Schumer, Ron Howard’s Zelda Fitzgerald biopic Zelda, Adam McKay’s Bad Blood, Luca Guadagnino’s Burial Rites, and more.

    ‘Spin the bottle’ and a kegerator: #MeToo movement lawmaker faces new sexual misconduct allegations

    In separate interviews, the former Garcia staffers said they left her office, in part, because of regular pressure to accompany their boss to alcohol-fueled evening events.

    “It was a power imbalance,’’ one staffer said in an interview last week. “You’re telling me, ‘We’re going to go to a happy hour,’ and I don’t want to do that. It was something that was central — ‘We’re going to go out’ … and I was, ‘I don’t want to hang out with you, I want to go home.’”

    The ex-staffer said employees worried about retribution from the boss if they didn’t go along, and that signing the public letter was “the opportunity to be heard” about an unhealthy workplace that often included “vulgar” conversations related to Garcia’s personal sexual experiences.

    “It wasn’t a two-way street. It was usually just us listening,’’ she said. “I thought it was weird. It came off as sort of bragging.”

    …

    The industry lobbyist said he was surprised last year when, during a late-morning policy meeting in Garcia’s Capitol office, the assemblywoman poured beer from a kegerator — a refrigerator with a beer tap on top — located in her office.

    She offered the brew in red Solo cups to the group of lobbyists, even though it was “sometime between 11 a.m. and noon … a little early,’’ the lobbyist said.

    Sometimes you have to derp like no one’s watching…

    How Has Trump Changed America?

    A year ago, a bunch of us made predictions for what this presidency might bring. Now, we’ve reassessed—and found many of them were surprisingly accurate.

    I’d like to see Slate at the foreground of a new Millerite movement. “The Trumpocalypse happened like we said, dammit! It just happened in a plane of being beyond our understanding. So no one could see it happen. And it didn’t really change anything.” And then they all go to Guyana and poison themselves.

    And, from the Gawker gift that keeps on giving…

    We Need To Start Barking At White People Who Speak Out Of Turn

    One thing, however, that we can and definitely should start doing is what M’Baku and his Que Dog Jabari Tribe did when encountering a problematic white dude who was speaking when there was no ask or need or purpose for the thoughts and opinions of problematic white dudes.

    Bark.

    Not a purposeless bark. This isn’t a shih tzu barking through the window at a squirrel. Instead this would be an intentional bark. A targeted bark. An overpowering bark. A drowning bark. A Wakandan bark. A bark meant to communicate “Um, who told you that you can speak? When it is time for your words, we will let you know. And maybe that time will never come. We’ll see. Now, just shut up and stand there. Maybe get on your phone and google ‘How not to be a colonizer.’ Whatever you do, I want to hear you not speaking.”

    The bark doesn’t just have to be a counter for useless words, either. A wayward white hand reaches for your hair? WOOF! WOOF! WOOF! A group of white people huddled on a sidewalk refuse to step aside when you attempt to walk past them? WOOF! WOOF! WOOF! A purse is clutched when you walk on an elevator? WOOF! WOOF! WOOF! (If they’re going to act scared, you might as well give them a reason to be.)

    CHICKEN CHAOS!

  • Romanian Food – A Short Primer – Part Two

    I will skip the introductions as this is part two of a post and continue where I left off in the last post. Romanians usually eat, rather anticlimactically, 3 meals a day, unless you are too poor or following one o’ them new-fangled intermittent fasting things the kids seems to like these days.

    Try the Estonian avocado with typical Romanian Sriracha
    Eat at Pie’s!

    To do the linguistic part first, breakfast is called “mic dejun” (similar to French I would say, mic meaning small). The mid-day meal is “pranz”. And the evening meal is “cina”.

    To start with breakfast, it can be either eggs (fried – in the one proper way, not like you Americans and your 50 ways of frying an egg –  scrambled, boiled or omelette) or cold cuts. Most often cheese accompanies either the eggs or the cold cuts as a side, along with some raw vegetables (onion, radishes, tomatoes, bell peppers most often). More traditional, as in 100 years ago, it would mostly be bread or mămăligă with branză (cheese), slană (basically pig fat, sort of like eyetalian lardo) and raw onion. Romanians eat lots of raw onion, red onion being preferred as somewhat milder in taste.

    My pictures do not do it justice
    Mama Pie’s homemade noodle soup

    Lunch and dinner traditionally are somewhat similar, and are usually a first course which is mostly liquid and a second course which mostly solid. Dessert is included to make the standard 3 course meal.

    For the liquid part, Romanians distinguish primarily between supă – which is generally a clear broth with dumplings or noodles – and ciorbă – which is denser and has lots of vegetables and sometimes meat.

    Ciorbă is further categorized. There is borş – which is soured with either the eponymous borş or with verjuice made from unripe grapes or fruit, or the juice from pickling cabbage. There is peasant style, which is less sour and has more vegetables in it – making it quite think (and hated by kids, me included, who tend to try to eat the broth while skipping the veggies which are left in the plate until angry parents tell you to eat them). There is a style made with sour cream incorporated into the broth – which is most often called a la greque. And there is ciorbă de burta which stands alone, a tripe soup made with sour cream but soured with vinegar.

    Smantana is often added – superfluously in my view – to peasant style ciorbă, although adding it after cooking has a different effect then incorporating it into the broth during the cooking process.

    Not that I would ever be hungover, mind you.

    Really sour ciorbă is seen locally as a hangover cure. In fact, there is a traditional very sour one called Ciorbă potroace and this is traditionally eaten the second day after a wedding. In the past, wedding feasts were some of the rare occasions when people got fresh meat and plenty of it. They would get various poultry to roast. The neck, feet and innards (hearts and such) were used to make the broth which would be amply soured. The next day, after plenty of food and liberal libations, a meal of ciorbă de potroace was seen as good for recovery. There was also a silly superstition not to give chicken feet to school aged children because it was going to make them do badly at exams. No idea where that came from.

    My family version of ciorbă de potroace was New Year’s turkey ciorbă. The tradition was to roast a turkey for New Year’s dinner and use the not-thighs-and-breast parts to make a really sour ciorbă which would be the first meal after sleeping in the next day, suitable due to the long night and plentiful libations.

    And homemade bread, I guess
    Duck legs and cabbage

    Now, solid food can be mostly stews with cabbage, beans or potatoes for most people. Duck over cabbage is a preferred delicacy – an entire roast duck over a bed of cabbage. Beans are eaten with pork, often smoked rib or sausage. There are also moussakas and vegetable stews and roast chicken. Often sarmale – leaves stuffed with meat/rice mixture, most often cabbage or grape vine, but also my mother makes some good ones using young horseradish leaves. These are probably similar to such dishes in other countries. Romanians are also big about grilling – with pork being prominent and mici the national grilled dish – small caseless sausages. A local favourite is MBS or mămăligă with branză (cheese – feta style) and smantană (sour cream). Besides the main ingredients butter is usually added and sometimes soft boiled eggs.

    One particularity of Romanians, usually older ones, is that they eat bread with everything. Soups, stews, meats, vegetables, a few slices of cheap white bread are always included.

    I gained 3 pounds just googling that picture

    On dessert, there is not much to say. There are usually crepes or cakes or ice-cream and such. One local favourite is papanasi – a highly caloric a deep fried cheese doughnut covered in sour cream and sweet preserves. Generally they come in pairs, two per portion. This is I think because originally one came just with sour cream and one just with sweet preserves, so they were two – one each way – but now they kept the number but add both sauces on both donuts.

    Well, that is about it I would say. Probably the last time you have to suffer through a Romanian food post for quite some time.

  • Monday Morning Links – All Offense Edition

    Monday Morning Links – All Offense Edition

    Her Buttholiness Shall Save Us All

    “Hunger Games” star Lawrence revealed her plans while promoting her latest movie “Red Sparrow,” sharing with Entertainment Tonight her ambitions to “fix” democracy in America while she takes a Hollywood hiatus.

    “I’m going to take the next year off,” Lawrence outlined. “I’m going to be working with this organization as a part of (anti-corruption organization) Represent.US… trying to get young people engaged politically on a local level.

    “It doesn’t have anything to do with partisan (politics). It’s just anti-corruption and stuff trying to pass state by state laws that can help prevent corruption, fix our democracy.”

    “I couldn’t give a shit if the whole street collapsed”

    Police have arrested a woman after an abusive note was left on an ambulance demanding it park somewhere else during a 999 call.

    Paramedics were left disgusted by the note, which stated ‘I couldn’t give a s**t if the whole street collapsed’, following an incident in Tunstall.

    The crew was also verbally abused while attempting to deal with the incident, which occurred at around midday yesterday.

    Now a 26-year-old Tunstall woman has been arrested for public order offences.

    An organization that provided–on average–37 condoms to each competing athlete, must do something about all these already adjudicated sexual harassment claims!

    Why the IOC should see Shaun White as a warning sign

    Putting sexual abusers or harassers on pedestals, however, contributes to a more terrible world. Turning such people into idols suggests that sexual misconduct isn’t such a big deal and that it’s possible to get away with it. That’s an unconscionable message to send to people around the world.

    Ultimately, as the organization in charge of the Olympic Games, the IOC should take responsibility for deciding who is in violation of sexual misconduct policies, rather than directing countries and sports leagues to solve the problem. If the IOC sets standards of conduct, then find reasonable evidence that they’ve been violated, they should be the ones to take action to remove that athlete’s privilege of competing.

    The IOC should therefore develop a policy disallowing the participation of athletes who are found to have ever committed sexual harassment or abuse.

    Any athlete participating in the Olympics should have to sign a disclosure form indicating whether they have ever formally been charged with or accused of abuse, including in a lawsuit or through criminal charges. If the answer is yes, the IOC should investigate immediately to determine the validity of the charges.

    If an investigation reveals the accusations are valid, the athlete should be automatically disqualified. Questions such as those about the allegations against White shouldn’t be considered or addressed only after an athlete has won a medal.

    OFF WITH THEIR HEADS! BOTH OF THEM!

    Butt Stuff

    And a song. I didn’t forget the song.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7iVsdRbhnc&app=desktop

  • ZARDOZ’S SUNDAY EVENING OPEN POST

    ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONES. ZARDOZ UNDERSTANDS HIS CHOSEN ONES HAVE MUCH TO SAY, AND TO LINK…WITHOUT GUIDANCE FROM ZARDOZ OR ANYONE ELSE. AS ZARDOZ HAS RAISED YOU FROM BRUTALITY, HE WILL ALLOW HIS CHOSEN ONES AN OPEN POST…FOR TONIGHT. GO FORTH AND POST! ZARDOZ HAS SPOKEN.

    ZED COOKIES

     

  • Sunday Morning Wake and Bake Links

    In conversations over many beers yesterday with Swiss, he lapsed into his usual complaints. “Why do we even bother doing Links? No one actually reads them. Lord Humungus just starts posting his own, Q starts posting titty pix… it’s like our efforts are useless.” I hate to see a grown man cry like that so I reassured him, “Yes, they do, they read our stuff very carefully. And they read every article we link.” Yet somehow, he didn’t believe me and continued to sob uncontrollably. I think he’s wrong. Work with me here, people.

    So apparently, our Fearless Leader has actually been captured on tape spouting incredibly antisemitic statements. Could it be that the Progressives are right about Trump?

    One has to wonder, is it possible for porn stars to also be rapists? Here’s one who just might be.

    Ahhh, the Middle East. Always a reliable source of outrage and violence. This one might be a bit different, though.

    Just when I think Jeff Sessions can’t get any stupider, he proves me wrong.

    OK, y’all have fun in the comments, and make sure we stick to the topic so that Swiss doesn’t complain. But first, Old Guy Music! From the bestest guitarist with the finest patter, doing something… unexpected.


  • ZARDOZ SATURDAY EVENING LINKS

    ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONES. ZARDOZ MANAGED TO GET OUT OF HIS LANE OBSTRUCTION TICKET. ZARDOZ BELIEVES THE PRESENCE OF 100 BRUTAL EXTERMINATORS IN THE COURT GALLERY MIGHT HAVE HELPED.

    MIGHTY ZARDOZ…NOT GUILTY!

     

    SO, WITHOUT THE DISTRACTION OF THE IOWA STATE PATROL AND THE BRUTAL COURT SYSTEM, ZARDOZ IS ABLE TO GIVE HIS CHOSEN ONES THE GIFT OF THE LINK! GO FORTH AND COMMENT!

    • RED LINES FOR EVERYONE! ZARDOZ IS PLEASED. SOMEHOW THIS WILL END UP IN A LOT OF CLEANSING.
    • ZARDOZ IS AMUSED AT THE HEADLINE. ZARDOZ DEMANDS THE BRITISH TABLOID PRESS NOT CHANGE.
    • THIS AMUSES ZARDOZ EVEN MORE. ZARDOZ WOULD ASSIST THE BRUTAL BIDEN IN HIS EFFORTS.

    ZARDOZ HAS SPOKEN.

  • Education

     

    One of my family members is an online instructor that teaches classes to UN refugee camps around the world.  I respect this person very highly, so when he sends me an email with the title “What Kind of Legacy are We Leaving You?” I feel compelled to engage in the discussion.  His students were to read an excerpt from Viktor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning”, Plato’s “Euthyphro”, and to describe their own search for meaning.  The email he sent to me consisted of one student’s response.  The student is not a native English speaker and relayed his experiences outrunning war in Africa and the Middle East.  I am not going to write the entire message here but focus on a question the student asked in response: “Let me ask a question, does it mean that from all the way back to thousands of years ago education has done nothing to stop wars?”

    This is a sentiment that I started to wonder a little while ago. I enjoy reading about world history and economics and a repeated theme is the idea that we have come so far, we are so educated, that surely this time we’ll get it right if we just have the right people in charge. This time our society will be perfect, a Utopia. It’s a common theme in dystopian novels but frequently reflected in the speeches of many people who consider themselves to be revolutionaries.

    Or, y’know, your Utopia

    And yet, within a few short years of uttering this sentiment, those societies tend to collapse, almost always violently.

    Surely the next time we will be more educated. We will get it right. We just didn’t have the right people in charge or some “other” ruined the dream.

    It almost implies that education bestows a moral high ground. If we were more educated, we wouldn’t have so many wars, people wouldn’t starve, and we could get the best and brightest to solve our problems. In many ways our increasing knowledge has alleviated much of human suffering to those who are the beneficiaries of it. Crop yields have increased several times over because of what people have learned and the technology that came with it. In stark contrast, education also creates the most terrible weapons of war.  Atomic bombs can wipe out the same population that those increased crop yields can support.  It has struck me as an interesting dichotomy.

    If education implies morality, then being uneducated must mean that you are little more than a barbarian, and yet we know that that isn’t true, either.  Many of us have grown up with or have met many people in our lives who would be considered uneducated but are the most wonderful people to be around.  In stark contrast stands the individuals who would lord their education levels over others in search of that distant Utopia.  This, of course, is not always true and is not meant to be a generalization of either educated or uneducated individuals.

    The implication isn’t that we are pursuing the wrong means for Utopia. The implication is that we can’t escape our base instincts except by conscious choice, and even then, we cannot force others to accept it without conflict.  His question neither condemns nor condones education. To me, it succinctly illustrates human nature. Education is another tool mankind has created. It cannot bring us any closer to the Utopia we so desperately desire, but if we recognize that we cannot truly escape our instincts, we can use education to help each other in greater and more fantastic ways, as human beings have always done.