Glibertarians.com 2018 Archive

Blog

  • Not Just Self-Evident

    Suthenboy is not a credentialed philosopher. Consult a credentialed professional before deciding.
    “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” -Declaration of Independence of the United States, 1776

    The notion of natural rights, that a person’s rights are inseparable from that person under any circumstances, is a relatively new concept and one that is and has been from the outset of its declaration controversial. It’s detractors say that it is an abstract concept existing only in the minds of its proponents. They claim that there is no objective evidence that such a thing exists in nature and thus that morality and ethics are arbitrary. I disagree.

    Whatever our founders believed the source of natural rights they made and appeal to the divine to justify belief in them. Perhaps it was a somewhat cynical, utilitarian approach to appeal to a nation that was strongly religious.

    “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?” -Thomas Jefferson

    Certainly the founders were not monolithic in their belief in the origin of rights, but they were in agreement that they existed. I propose that whether a gift from God or simply existing by virtue of our nature objective evidence can be found for their existence. It does not matter where they come from, their existence is evident.

    Few rational people would argue that our world does not function on naturally existing laws. The sciences operate on this premise. Science is a method for discovering what those laws are and how they affect ourselves and the world around us. The veracity of scientific discoveries is measured by the ability of those discoveries to make accurate predictions about how we and the world around us will behave. By this measure science is a far superior system than, say, astrology. Simply put, superior systems yield superior results.

    An engineer that can produce a functioning spacecraft certainly has a superior grasp of the laws of physics and chemistry than one whose most sophisticated accomplishment is a dugout canoe. The production of a computer requires a far greater depth of knowledge about nature’s law than the production of an abacus.

    Geologists have a deeper understanding of the earth’s structure than the guy who believes in turtles all the way down and so can produce petroleum or predict earthquakes and volcanoes whereas the latter cannot. The success of this system of knowledge is evidence of its correlation with natural law.

    Those disciplines are based on an understanding of the naturally existing laws of physics and chemistry. Systems of morality and ethics are the products of ideas. Their success depends on how closely those ideas conform to the natural laws of human nature and economics.

    To whatever degree societies have allowed individual liberty – that is the belief in and respect for natural rights – success by any measure has been exponentially greater than those societies that have not. The United States is the premier example of such a society.

    The US has produced more wealth than all other nations through the history of mankind combined. The US contributed to increased worldwide health, wealth and longevity more than any other nation. The US has more social mobility than any other nation. The US produced air conditioning, flight, electricity, refrigeration, hamburgers, hotdogs, telephones, mass produced automobiles, atomic energy, chocolate for the masses, heart surgery, vulcanized rubber, computers and the internet. The list is nearly endless. As the joke goes “There are two kinds of nations: nations that do X, and nations that have put men on the moon.” Nearly everything that makes the modern world what it is is a product of the United States.

    This wild success is the product of a belief in and respect for natural rights. Innovative individuals have been free to innovate and profit from their efforts. Individuals have been able to think, speak and act as they willed more than in any other society. By respecting the concept of self-ownership – that every individual naturally owns their mind, body and conscience exclusively and thus the product of their intellectual and physical labor – a powerful incentive for those individuals to strive for success is created. As a result the United States has flourished more than any nation in history and contributed mightily to the welfare of all mankind.

    Simply put, superior systems produce superior results because they adhere more closely to the existing laws of nature. A belief in and respect for natural rights has unquestionably produced superior results.
    * Fun story: During World War II my grandfather owned a pulpwood business and had a contract with the federal government to use German POW labor. One of the jobs he secured was in south Louisiana. He transported the POWs to the job site on a route that went through Baton Rouge. The first time the POWs saw the Wilkinson bridge they were awestruck. If you have occasion to cross that bridge pay attention to it. Most people that cross the bridge take it for granted but if you really look at the scale of it it is awe inspiring. It is easy to see how the POWs were barely able to believe their own eyes. What they said to my grandfather about it really stuck with me. “If we had known what America is like we never would have gone to war against you. No one can defeat a country that can build something like this.”

  • It’s WHAT day already? The Horoscope for the week of September 9th

    Not like Suthern though, obviously. To afford that kind of woodland up here would require a couple of order of magnitude more scratch than I have.
    Trees. I has them.

    I seemed to have lost a few days.  I’m assuming that sweating out my own body weight twice daily by moving house in 95 degree weather with humidity imported from the Gulf Coast then crashing on the floor because you can’t make the effort to unpack the bed and waking up at dawn because of your glorious new 5′ x 5’9″ windows that don’t have blinds yet and repeating the day over again might have something to do with that.  On the other hand, when the dew point gets over 85, it does provide a really nice demonstration of the efficacy of modern multi-paned windows as the condensation only was on the outside of the outer pane.

    Digital cameras seem to have trouble with blue. The actual color is darker.
    The floor upon which I slept. On the wall to the left, I’ve put a 3’x 4′ mirror to make it even more sunlighty
    It's a maple.
    Mirror is on that space on the left. Also, Tree.

    But seriously though, fuck this weather.  I expected this bullshit when I lived in Houston but I thought the exorbitant real estate prices were supposed to be offset by having better weather.

    You may wonder why I wasn’t prepared for this weather, what with my ability to read the stars and all.  The answer is simple: celestial objects have no bearing on the weather.  If you don’t believe me, just ask the IPCC.  The rest of my predictions from last week’s reading came true, with the exception of the pest control thing.

    For this week, there are some interesting things, generally positive.  There is a really complicated construction based around the Earth-Venus-Jupiter alignment that has solidified from last week.  This backbone is a really good thing, but we have two oppositional axes forming against it.  The first is Mercury in opposition through Venus.  So we’ve got disruptive events having to do with your love life.  If your SO is suddenly increasing the amount and variety of the snu-snu they’re giving you, it’s because they’re compensating for having taken on a side-piece.  Sorry about that.  Or enjoy it while it lasts.  You do you.  The other oppositional axis is drawn between the new moon and Mars.  This is the kind of thing that results in Dear John letters and/or your newborn resembling a serviceman who was NOT out on deployment at the same time you were.

    The sun is in Virgo.  This has splashover results for the rest of us in focus and resistance to peer pressure.  But for us non-virgins, that effect is negated this week as we have two change-lights (Mercury and the Moon) conjoined in that sign.  If Virgo is your birth sign however, you will have particular success in overcoming disruptions.

    I really need to learn how to take care of Maple trees.
    The sun is also in my east-facing breakfast nook. Also, another maple.

    Venus remains in Virgo for another week, so if you are benefiting/suffering from guilt-induced turbosex, your relationship will hold together, at least for this week.

    I have such fond memories of kitchen counters, I"ll need to break these in.
    Home cookin’

    We (still) have the conjunction of Mars and Saturn in Capricorn.  Wars destroy resources.  In other news, water is wet.  And Jupiter is still in Scorpio, but because of that Venus alignment, we should expect the beneficent aspects of that sign: good sex, particularly good sex in the context of formal/official relationships (due to the rulership/governmental aspect of Jupiter).

    All glibs are welcome to stay at my new home!  Just fill out the visitation application (including the non-refundable application fee) and once we’ve run the credit check and settled on the damage insurance and liability waivers, I’ll see about scheduling your visit.

  • 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.

  • Coming Attractions and Saturday Night Open Post

    Greetings from the Twin Cities! Probably the less said about Tundra’s night the better. After all, I’m much nicer than OMWC.

    I will say that if Tundra ever decides to not dis me (this is TWICE now), he will be hard-pressed to measure up to the charm and fine specimens of manhood that are A Leap at the Wheel and Pope Jimbo. They showed us a lovely evening, and I so appreciate them making time to get together with us. It’s good to know who values my friendship and who, well, doesn’t think that much of me.

    Tonight we will be having Neapolitan style pizza from Punch Pizza, and I can assure you there will be no pineapple involved.

    Anyway, this coming week, Glibs have stepped up yet again with some great articles. We’ll have posts from A Leap at the Wheel, Not Adahn, Web Dom, trshmnstr, robc, Yusef Drives a Kia, The Bearded Hobbit, Suthenboy, and PieInTheSky. And I’ll have a little poll for you in the Wednesday evening spot.

    OK, on to the Saturday Night Open Post! Have a great rest of your weekend. (Go Pack!)

  • SEA SMITH NAUTICAL SATURDAY EVENING LINKS

    SEA SMITH GET TOO PLAYFUL. SORRY FOR SHIP!

    SEA SMITH STILL NO FIND TOUGH JEWISH COMEDY CLUB, GO TELL JOKES. SO HE GIVE LINKS TO YOU INSTEAD. THAT GOOD DEAL, RIGHT? IF NOT, COME VISIT SEA SMITH FOR REFUND. SEE, CAN STILL PRACTICE JOKES!

    OK, NOW LINKS:

    1. NO TIME LIKE PRESENT – GET READY FOR STORMZ! YOU GET LAWYERS, GUNS, MONEY…WAIT, FOOD, WATER, GENERATORS. AND GUNS, LOTS OF GUNS.
    2. WHY EQUATORIAL GUINEA NO HIRE SEA SMITH GO “TALK” TO SUBSEA7? HE VERY PERSUASIVE WHEN NEED BE. BY VERY PERSUASIVE, MEAN RAPEY.
    3. HAHAHAHA! NOW CALL NEBRASKA “LIBYA”. WHAT WITH CELL DOOR FLY OPEN ALL TIME NOW?

    SEA SMITH HOPE YOU HAVE GOOD NIGHT, AND COME ON IN, WATER FINE!

  • Nephilium’s Games Corner – Kicking What Now?

    Sturgeon’s revelation: “Ninety percent of everything is crap.”

     

    There have been close to 15,000 projects for board games on Kickstarter.  If we just go with the ones that were successfully backed, we’re probably at about 60% of that number, and at least 90% of them are crap.  Today I’m here to talk about some of the ones that aren’t crap, and some signs that the game project you’re looking at may be part of that 90%.

     

    Game 1: Scythe – Steampunk, alternate WWII, and engine building (2-5 players; 7 with expansions)

    When most people look at Scythe, they see a wargame with sculpted mechs and characters.  This is not a wargame, if you go in expecting a lot of combat and dice rolling, you’ll be very disappointed (especially as there’s no dice in the game).  Instead, Scythe is a game of efficiently expanding and building up your faction to score the most points when the game ends. In fact, the biggest random element of the game is the setup, where each player is randomly given a faction board, and an action board.  The faction determines your starting location, special abilities, and piece color. The action board is where the meat of the game is. Each action board has the same 4 top and bottom actions, but they are not paired the same across the boards. On each players turn, the player selects an action, performs the top action, and then (if they are able and want to) perform the bottom action.  The top action items are:

     

    1. Move – Move two to three units one hex
    2. Trade – Pay one coin to get two resources of your choice or gain popularity
    3. Produce – Select up to 3 hexes that you control to produce resources
    4. Bolster – Draw combat cards or increase your power

     

    While the bottom actions are:

     

    1. Upgrade – Pay oil to move an upgrade cube from the top of your board (making a top action better) to the bottom of your board (making a bottom action cheaper)
    2. Build – Pay wood to build a structure on a hex you control
    3. Deploy – Pay metal to place a mech on a hex you have a worker on
    4. Recruit – Pay food to get a recruit, which will give you a bonus when players on either side of you take a specific bottom row action

     

    The bottom row actions will also give you coins (between 0 – 3).  You cannot take the same action two turns in a row. All of the players are isolated to their own 3 hex peninsula at the beginning of the game, and they all have different methods to move off of that to the center of the board.  As people are taking their actions, they can move to claim encounters (which usually provide a small reward, a big reward for a cost, or a small reward for a cost). As people slowly expand their faction, they are working towards goals.  The game ends immediately when 6 stars are placed by any one faction. Stars are placed for any of the following:

     

    1. Completing all of your upgrades
    2. Building all of your buildings
    3. Deploying all of your mechs
    4. Recruiting all four of your recruits
    5. Producing all of your workers
    6. Completing a secret objective (each player is dealt 2 at the beginning of the game)
    7. Winning combat (up to 2 stars for this one)
    8. Reaching the top of the Power track
    9. Reaching the top of the Popularity track

     

    The Power track is used for combat, there are combat dials that allow the two factions involved in a combat to secretly decide how much of their power they wish to spend for the combat.  Each player may also play combat cards based on how many units are involved in the combat. Both players reveal simultaneously, spend the cards, the power, and the winner is decided. The winner is the player who’s total power spend was the highest, with the attacker winning ties.  The losing player’s pieces are all returned to their starting space, and the winner now controls the hex. You may have noticed that I’ve talked about controlling hexes multiple times so far. The reason the control of a hex is important is that unlike most games, resources stay on the game board, and can be spent from any hex you control.

     

    The Popularity track is critical in this game.  There are three tiers of Popularity, which give you three different values for items for end game scoring.  Popularity is hard to gain, but can be very easy to lose. If you attack someone, and force their workers back to their home base, you lose popularity.  Encounter cards that give you a big reward for a small price, that small price is usually popularity.

     

    One other special location on the board is in the middle.  It’s referred to as the Factory. Whoever controls it at the end of the game counts it as 3 hexes for end game scoring, and as a faction moves their character model onto the factory they are able to select a Factory card to add to their action board.  These are usually better options than the standard actions, and have a move that allows you to move a single piece 2 spaces instead of just one.

     

    At the end of the game, you count up victory points by paying out coins for hexes controlled, every two resources you control, placed stars, and building locations (based on a tile that is randomly selected at the beginning of the game).  The player with the most coins wins.

     

    Game 2: Roll Player – Character creation has never been so fun. (2-4 players)

    Have you played Dungeons and Dragons at any point in your life?  Then the theme of this game should come very naturally to you. In this game, you are building a character.  You won’t be using the character for anything (although the expansion due out later this year has you fight at the end), but you can see who’s character stuck closest to their “theme”.  Each player starts by either selecting (or randomly being assigned) a race board. These are your standard elf, human, dwarf, dragonkin, etc. races, each of which has some attribute bonuses and penalties.  After that, each character draws a dice from a bag and the color of the die indicates which class card they select. Each class card has two sides, and the player selects which class they want to use. Then each player is dealt a backstory, and an alignment card.  These cards are where players will earn the majority of their points. Class cards have attribute goals, an ability, and a class color. Backstory cards have different color dice assigned to different columns in each of the attributes, and Alignment cards have positive and negative points at different locations.  As complicated as it sounds, the iconography is really well done, and makes it very clear what your goals are. The last part of setup is that each player draws out starting dice from the bag equal to the number of players plus four. These dice are then rolled, and players start placing them into their attributes.  Finally, a market is built out of cards equal to the number of players plus one. The game is then played in phases:

     

    1. Roll Phase – The starting player pulls dice equal to the number of players plus one, and rolls them.  These are then arranged on Initiative cards in order. So the lowest roll go on the lowest numbered initiative card, and the highest roll go on the highest initiative card.  If two or more dice come up with the same number, the starting player chooses the order for those dice.
    2. Dice Phase – The start player then selects one of the dice and it’s matching initiative card, places the dice in an attribute row, and (optionally) takes an attribute action.  I’ll get to the attribute actions a bit later.
    3. Market Phase – In initiative order, each player may either buy a card from the market, or discard a card from the market and get two gold.  There are different types of cards available: Weapons, Armor, Skills, and Traits. I’ll explain those in a bit more detail later.
    4. Cleanup Phase – Each player may refresh a skill card, the remaining die goes back into the bag, and the leftover market cards are discarded.  The start player then moves to the next player clockwise.

     

    The game continues until all of the players have filled up their character sheet.  As players place dice into the various attributes, they are able to perform special actions based on the attribute:

     

    • Strength – Flip any die on your character sheet over
    • Dexterity – Exchange any two dice on your character sheet
    • Constitution – Increase or Decrease the face value of any die by 1
    • Intelligence – Reroll any die you wish, keep either the new or the original value
    • Wisdom – Adjust your alignment in one step up, down, left, or right
    • Charisma – Spend one less gold buying a market card this turn

     

    Why would you want to decrease a die?  Remember when I said that each class card has attribute goals?  If your goal is 14-15, and you have a 16, you’re failing that goal.  There are some goals that are 14+, and others that are a single number.  Generally speaking, the harder it is to reach a goal, the more points it’s worth.  Your attribute values, dice placement, and alignment can grant you quite a few points (~20 for hitting everything exactly); however, you can also score a good deal of points based on the cards you’ve purchased.

     

    • Weapons – Grant special abilities or bonuses going forward.  The will have a picture of one or two hands on them, you may not have more than two hands worth of weapons at a time (but you can discard them as you wish)
    • Armor – Set collection, and grants points based on how many pieces you’ve acquired, with a bonus point if it matches your class
    • Skill – Special abilities that you can use as long as you can move your alignment tracker as indicated on the card.  You only refresh one each turn, so although you can do a turn of using four skills, next turn you’ll only have access to one of them.
    • Traits – Here’s the big points.  When purchased, these will adjust your alignment (if possible), and at the end of the game can be worth a large number of points.

     

    At the end of the game, players total up their points, and the highest value wins.

     

    What are the warning signs you can find in a project?  

     

    1. It’s a first time creator – You’ll have quite a few projects where it’s the creator’s first project.  That’s a big warning sign (especially if they haven’t backed any projects). The less you know about something, the easier it seems.  You’ll see first time creators having their printings being done in China, and be ignorant of the shutdown that happens during Chinese New Year (a full month).  Or they’ll have been way too optimistic with the costs for things, shipping isn’t cheap, nor is art.
    2. Lots of flash, no substance. – Lots of buzzwords, lots of mock-up images, lots of stuff to draw you in.  But what’s missing? Rulebooks, play test descriptions, notes on balancing. They may have a great idea, but it’s hard work to translate that into a good game, let alone a good game that you’re interested in paying for with the hopes of getting it.
    3. Previous projects have complaints about fulfillment in the comments – Always take a look through the comment sections on the creator’s previous projects (if they don’t have any, refer to warning sign 1).  After removing those who are the overprivileged backers (“It’s been 12 hours since I posted this comment, and you haven’t responded yet. I demand a refund!”). Look for complaints of poor/no communication, delays being improperly managed, late fulfillment (or no fulfillment at all).

     

    Also realize that most of the good games on Kickstarter will eventually make their way into retail, albeit at a higher cost then you may have paid if you backed the Kickstarter (and without promos).  I know I’ve slowed down a lot on my Kickstarter backing, generally going for obscure expansion (hello King’s Forge), and reprints of games that are out of print.

  • You Win Again, Kentucky!

    So this one time I went to Kentucky….

    Relax it wasn’t like that. I was in Lexington for work and I rather liked the town. The first thing about Lexington I noticed was–horses. I mean, hello! It’s called an automobile. It is faster than your horse. The other thing I noticed, once I got out of the class I was in, is the glut of whiskey, and whiskey related things.

    This is my review of beers aged in Bourbon Barrels.

    Why put it into a barrel? Why not?  Even if I already gave you a pretty good rundown on barrels, expanding beyond stouts may be prudent.  Besides, the chances are pretty good at least one of you has three fingers of whiskey and an open bottle of beer. More of you probably switched to whiskey once your college football team managed to knock itself out of contention–already. You were going to do both, and quite frankly the people that sell mind altering substances know their buyer.

    Supposedly, this craze began 1992, when…

    Greg Hall of Goose Island Beer Company in Chicago produced a bourbon barrel-aged beer by filling six barrels that had previously contained Jim Beam with his beer. He premiered it at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver that fall, effectively debuting an entirely new style.

    So if you hate it, blame that guy. Stouts aren’t the only thing you can throw into bourbon barrels, they simply bode well with the smooth vanilla notes the wood imbues into the beer.  They even put wine in them for reasons I cannot give an intelligent answer.

    What I can discuss, however:

    This one was pretty good. I would think a pale ale would be overpowered by the taste of whisky, and I don’t think I was wrong. Still if you happen to sip whiskey you will probably like it. Full Sail Kentucky Cream Bourbon Barrel Aged Pale Ale. 4.0/5

    I rather enjoyed this one. While I normally don’t go for an IPA, the red varieties I do find interesting. This one stands up better than the pale ale due to the robustness in ale to begin with. The whiskey mutes out a lot of the hoppiness. Founders Dank Wood Red India Pale Ale: 4.2/5

  • 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.

  • ZARDOZ’S FRIDAY NIGHT LINKS OF CLEANSING

    YOU ONLY STAB, THE ONES YOU LOVE…

     

    ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONES. ZARDOZ NEEDS TO REINFORCE ONE OF THE CENTRAL TENANTS OF ZARDOZHOOD….CLEANSING THE FILTH OF BRUTALS, WHO ARE LEGION, AND PLAGUE THE EARTH. PURIFYING THEM, AS YOU WILL. THE GIFT OF THE LINK WILL REINFORCE THAT! GO FORTH AND COMMENT!

    REPORTING FOR COMMENTS!
    • THE CLEANSING GOES ON. SYRIA HAS PROVEN A MOST FRUITFUL AREA TO REMOVE BRUTALS FROM THEIR LIVES.
    • IF ONE CAN STACK SKULLS LIKE A MONGOL CONQUEROR, ZARDOZ WONDERS WHY YOU WOULD BURY THEM INSTEAD? CLEANSING BRUTALS ISN’T SIMPLY KILLING THEM…THERE IS AN ART TO IT!
    • MOVE OVER SOMALIA! ZARDOZ HAS A NEW FAVORITE….LIBYA! PERHAPS A TRIP TO TRIPOLI IS IN ORDER? PERHAPS ZARDOZ COULD PROCLAIM “ZARDOZ CAME, ZARDOZ SAW, BRUTALS DIED!” …THEN CACKLE. BEEN DONE YOU SAY? BACK TO THE POSITRONIC DRAWING BOARD…
    • ON A LIGHTER NOTE…GOOD TO SEE SOME BRUTALS KEEPING A MEANINGFUL PERSPECTIVE.

    ZARDOZ HAS SPOKEN.

     

  • Friday Afternoon Links

    Happy Friday, frens. I hope your day is going smoothly. I will be working late tonight to try to avoid working on the weekend. So I’m making up by mixing  my first drink at, well,  a pretty early hour. My Seminoles look to rebound against Samford. Here’s hoping they found pads for some of the bigger flag girls and get some blocking on offense. tOSU takes on conference powerhouse Rutgers. UT plays Tulsa, and we’ll hope for only one fourth quarter interception after the game is out of reach. Oh, and pro football starts. Texans will find a way to lose to the Patriots. I’m hoping Clowney/Watt/Mercilus combine for a lot of angry Tom Brady yelling at the refs. And that all three survive Week 1 without injury.

    Florida Man gives “rough trade” a go, ends up stabbed in neck.

    Hey look, U niversity of Texas may have lost to Maryland, but they seem to have superior heat stroke treatment.

    Florence looks like she’s gonna take a big dump on the East Coast next week. Glibs from GA to NJ may want to start watching the weather, buying ammo, and polishing their looter-shooters.

    Let’s all roll our eyes at this one. Cincinnati shooting could have been a bloodbath because the shooter had “over 200 rounds of ammunition”. Okay, so like, what? He packed his usual range bag? I can only imagine what would be said about my friends who buy ammo by the case.