Glibertarians.com 2018 Archive

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  • STEVE SMITH SUNDAY EVENING LINKS OF REMEMBERING

    “STEVE VS STEVE” … MAKE STEVE SMITH BREAK FROM HOLLYWOOD.

     

    STEVE SMITH WATCHING OLD SHOWS ON TV (POWER BY RACCOONS RUN ON FLYWHEEL). HIM SEE PAINFUL MEMORY. STEVE SMITH ONCE PART OF HOLLYWOOD. 1970S WAS CRAZY TIME.

    ROD SERLING AND LEONARD NIMOY MAKE BANK.

    HOOMANS SEE UFOS, THINK THEY SEE CRYPTIDS (WE HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT…EXCEPT NESSIE – SHE VERY SHY). THEY WEAR CRAZY CLOTHES AND LISTEN TO CRAZY MUSIC.

    STEVE SMITH RIDE SOUL TRAIN!
    STEVE SMITH THINK IT OUR WATERLOO!

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    STEVE SMITH GET JOB CONSULTING WITH “SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN” SHOW. THEM WANT DO “BIGFOOT” EPISODES.  STEVE SMITH HELP. THEM THROW IN ALIENS, MAKE “BIGFOOT” BE ROBOT. IT TOTAL 1970S SILLY. IT GO TWO EPISODES! YOU NO WANT WATCH – READ ABOUT EACH. BUT THIS NETWORK TV – THEM TAKE OUT ALL RAPE SCENES STEVE SMITH ADVISE. ANDRE GIANT (HIM PLAY SASQUATCH!) ALSO NOT HAPPY THEM TAKE RAPE SCENES OUT. THIS LEAD TO BAD BLOOD… MAYBE STEVE SMITH TELL MORE STORY NEXT TIME.

    RIGHT NOW, HIM GIVE LINKS INSTEAD.

    1. STEVE SMITH WONDER WHY DAILY FAIL WORRY ABOUT “VIGILANTE BACKLASH“… STEVE SMITH SHOW THEM VIGILANTE BACKLASH. BY BACKLASH, MEAN RAPE.
    2. HIM HAVE “POSSIBLE HEART PROBLEM“… 9MM HEART PROBLEM! STEVE SMITH THINK HIM NO COME OUT HOSPITAL UNLESS GIVE LOTS MONEY OR SQUEAL LIKE PIG. STEVE SMITH OFTEN HEAR SQUEAL LIKE PIG…
    3. STEVE SMITH THINK SOME FUNNY GLIBERTARIAN PEOPLES GET SAD. WANT OTHER FUNNY GLIBERTARIAN PEOPLE LOOK SEE Q OK.

     

  • History with a Side of Food

    Food history shows generally fall into two categories: those that focus on cooking with a side of history, and those that focus on history as told through food. I’d like to recommend three series that focus on history with a side of food.

    First, is The Supersizers (hat tip to Lafe Long), available on YouTube. It seems to be two series, The Supersizers Go and The Supersizers Eat. The hosts are Giles Coren and Sue Perkins. The show is focused on food culture throughout British history. There are a few partial cooking demonstrations (watch a chef sew a bird’s head onto pig’s body), and they do discuss changes throughout time. For example, shifts in food due to the introduction of spices like nutmeg or the increased availability of sugar.

    The hosts eat the diet of a particular era, such as Roman or Edwardian, for a week. Like Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me, the two get checked out by a doctor before and after embarking on their new diet. (What should they expect from drinking all that booze during the Elizabethan era?) They dress in period costumes – Sue Perkins continues to wear her nerdy, black, hipster glasses even when wearing a toga – and sit down to eat a table set in period style. They eat off trenchers (a piece of bread) in a number of episodes because plates weren’t in use yet. The series is silly and fun and full of bite sized pieces of culinary history.

    Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner with Clarissa Dickson Wright is more substantial fare. This three part series is also available on YouTube. Each episode focuses on a different meal and she explores how trade and technology have influenced and changed what and how we ate each meal. As in The Supersizers, the show has little in the way of cooking demonstrations, but we do see what a meal would look like and she gives a more erudite discussion of the culture surrounding food. It defintely kept my interest.

    Food: A Cultural Culinary History is a banquet of information. It is available through the Great Courses channel on Amazon Prime (you can get a trial membership to binge this series). I had never watched a Great Courses series before and I’m not sure what I expected. Perhaps a Ken Burns style documentary with pictures and voice-over, or maybe something more like the History Channel with its badly acted re-enactments. Nope.

    It is just a chubby guy in a suit, standing there talking. And I was riveted. This a survey of the history of the world told through food and culture. It covers the impact of trade and technology on what and how we eat from pre-history to modern times. Ken Ablala is master lecturer. He does throw in the rare, amateur food demonstration; charoset, penitent’s salad, and sushi. If you watch no other series, watch this one.

    So, what did I learn? Well, two things I’d like to share. First, no matter what time period you consider, or what diet people followed, someone will passionately insist it’s wrong. And, not only is that diet physically unhealthy, it is morally unhealthy and anyone who eats that way is a bad person. (Shakes finger.) This, of course, creates an opportunity for the governing institutions of church and state to intervene. For example, during the middle ages, the Catholic Church designated nearly half the year as ‘fast days’ which meant eating fish. Even after England’s break with the church, the government (particularly the Elizabethan government) continued to require fast days – mostly to support the English naval fleet. By fishing, they retained their seaman skills and supported themselves, without the crown having to pay for a navy – thrifty. So, when someone tells you that people used to eat a lot more fish, just remember that it wasn’t necessarily by choice. The weird categorization of things as fish (beaver tails) demonstrates that people were not necessarily excited about eating fish, fish, and more fish.

    Second, I have long considered cooking to be a basic life skill. I confess to being a bit condescending to those who complain about having to cook. To me, its not that hard, and how else are you going to feed yourself? Do you expect someone else to cook for you? Well, actually, for much of history, yes. Most people didn’t cook. Cooking for one’s self or one’s own family is a relatively modern practice. And, as an economist, once the reasoning for why this was dawned on me as I was watching these shows, I felt pretty stupid.

    Abigail Adams by Gilbert Stuart
    Cooking utensils (especially metal utensils) and a hearth designed for cooking (or later a stove) were expensive. The Roman populace couldn’t afford to have their own ovens. They took their grain to the baker, who would mill the grain and bake the bread for them. During medieval times, if you worked for the king, or even a local lord, you didn’t cook. You ate in the hall and someone else cooked for you. Peasants working in the field would bring their grain and vegetables to the field with them and it would be cooked in a communal pot.

    In colonial America, Abigail Adams and her husband were wealthy people. She didn’t have her own bread oven. It was too expensive, and not just because of the capital investment, but because of the cost of fuel. Instead, she took her dough to the baker and rented time in his oven.

    During industrialization, dormitories with eating halls were common for workers. Well into the 1950s, unmarried working people who moved to the city for work lived in boarding houses that provided meals. Even today, we largely expect college students to live in a dormitory and eat in a cafeteria. Mostly due to the cost of renting and furnishing an apartment.

    Education should always change us and my foray into culinary history has made me even more willing to ignore the ever changing diet advice. It has also tempered my attitude toward those who don’t cook. In the big picture of history, not cooking isn’t that odd.

  • I Fucking Love Astrology: The Horoscope for the Week of July 29

    I have a technician who is just a rock:  solid, dependable, inflexible, brittle, and completely incapable of learning new things.  So here I am in my third hour of unpaid overtime today (yay exempt status!) while Rocky goes off on their third break having failed to learn the procedure they were supposedly practicing for the last five weeks and I have been endeavoring to teach since 3:30.  In their defense, I am a terrible teacher.  Perhaps some stargazing will calm me down.

    Well well well… that’s interesting.  We have Mercury(retrograde) aligned with Venus and Jupiter.  An extremely auspicious alignment, particularly with Jupiter being in Scorpio and Venus in Virgo.  If Mercury were station direct and had the Sun been in the mix, I’d tell you to expect a surprise invitation to the joint afterparty held by the various modeling agencies and AVN.  In this case, while we still have Peace, Love, and Joy (with special emphasis on the breasts and genitals (I swear I am not making this up, go check out the body:constellation correlation charts available at literally every “spiritual” bookstore anywhere)) we have Mercury being station retrograde (chaos, bad news) in Leo (heart).  Again, if Mercury were direct with these planets in these constellations, this would be the absolute perfect day to begin a honeymoon.  But Mercury is retrograde, in Leo.  This doesn’t negate the rest of the construction, but does indicate some negative consequences or unforeseen complications.  For example, you could have a red-hot quickie with the hottie from a few cubicles over… and get busted by HR.  Or you could be giving your partner the best banging they’ve ever had, and slip a disc.  Actually, that latter scenario is more likely, since there aren’t any signs re: financial loss.  Even more likely, based on the alternative interpretation of Leo as referring to the mane/hair, you will be having a fantastic bit of whoopie, and someone’s wig will come dislodged at an inopportune time.  These things happen.

    AAAAHHHH!  MERCURY RETROGRADE! PANIC IN THE STREETS!

    So yes, we are back in the infamous time of MERCURY RETROGRADE.  I don’t think I’ve explicitly mentioned the station direct/station retrograde dichotomy, so for those of you who weren’t taught the quadrivium, here’s what that all means.  The heavens are perfect, the earth is flawed.  It has been ever thus since the morning star fell.  A sign of being perfect is to be unchanging — can’t get any better than perfect, after all.  But there is a bit of a gradient; a bird doesn’t become an angel just because it can fly.  The moon is obviously imperfect since it changes all the time, it must therefore be closer to the Earth than to the heavens.  The sphere of fixed stars is perfect since they never change.  The planets change less than the moon, but they aren’t completely heavenly either.  The planets wander through the heavens most of the time in a particular direction (corresponding to the overall celestial motion) when they are doing that, they are acting as they are supposed to.  This is direct motion.  Every now and then, the planets cease moving and begin moving backwards.  This is retrograde motion.  When the planets are moving retrograde, they are acting contrary to the celestial design which means that their reversed and/or malign properties become dominant.  This also means that they backtrack through the zodiac, spending more time in a given constellation than they would have had they just spent more time in Sunday school.  Even more so as when they go back to direct motion they pass through a certain constellatory space for a third time.

    This leads to situations like the one we are currently in:  Mercury (the messenger, news, tidings, change, rumor) has been in Leo (royalty, government) so we’ve been in a period of increased political news.  But instead of passing on through and heading into the next constellation it’s going to reverse, go back, and basically fuck around keeping the news monotonous.

    Speaking of Leo, that’s where the sun is.  Leo is the lion, lions are in Africa, and Africa is hot, so it’s no surprise that for the next few weeks the weather will be warmer than the rest of the year.  I won’t say that astrology is part of the IPCC forecasting process, but I won’t say it isn’t either.

    Left to right: Krypton, Bill Nye, Neil DeGrasse Tyson
    IPCC Scientists (not pictured)

    Scorpio, Capricorn, Aquarius — Same Stars, Different Day.  If you want to break out of a rut, the heavens aren’t going to help.  Life should be chill for Virgos.  Fishing will be sub-par again.

    Leo music:

  • Sunday Morning Jew’s News

    Links. This is what I do while all the goyim are off doing their polytheistic thing (“Oh no, it’s not three gods, it’s like a three in one. You’re a Jew, you wouldn’t understand. And put that hammer and those nails away.”).

    There’s a lot of birthdays and historical anniversaries today, but as it was yesterday, one in particular stands out. It is the birthday of Don Marquis, the greatest American poet. A sample of why this is so (and the origin of the handle of one of our most beloved commenters) is here. I guess out of fairness to my deep love of jazz, I should also add that it’s Charlie Christian‘s birthday, he being the father of modern electric guitar. 75 years later, the music still resonates.

    OK, enough frivolity, let’s get down to business.

     

    In the Department of  TSA Delenda Est, apparently this absolutely useless, unaccountable, unconstitutional, and oppressive agency has been working overtime on new ways to wipe their asses with the 4th amendment. We can thank Bush for this monstrosity, may he burn painfully in Hell, right next to Ron and Nancy.

    [U]nder Quiet Skies, thousands of unsuspecting Americans have been subjected to targeted airport and inflight surveillance, carried out by small teams of armed, undercover air marshals, government documents show. The teams document whether passengers fidget, use a computer, have a “jump” in their Adam’s apple or a “cold penetrating stare,” among other behaviors, according to the records.

    The teams track citizens on domestic flights, to or from dozens of cities big and small — such as Boston and Harrisburg, Pa., Washington, D.C., and Myrtle Beach, S.C. — taking notes on whether travelers use a phone, go to the bathroom, chat with others, or change clothes, according to documents and people within the department.

    I have no words. Only the famous Mencken quote.

    Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

     

    In the Department of Brainless Media Whores, we have David Hogg, the Israelis have Ahed Tamimi.

    In January, Ahed was indicted for assaulting an officer and an IDF soldier, and for five other incidents in which she threw stones, and attacked and threatened security forces.

    The Tamimi family and Palestinian activists are preparing a hero’s welcome for Ahed and her mother in Nabi Saleh. Dozens of family members and supporters are expected to receive the two upon their release at an IDF checkpoint near Tulkarm. Her father, Bassem Tamimi, said on Saturday that several Palestinian groups plan to celebrate the release of his daughter and wife. He said that the two will first head to Ramallah to lay a wreath at Yasser Arafat’s mausoleum in the Palestinian Authority Mukata presidential compound.

    Later in the day, Tamimi is scheduled to hold a press conference in the Beduin village of Khan al-Ahmar, near the Jewish settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim.

    My predictions: Ameh will soon be on a Team Blue Tour in the US, standing with She Guevara. And Bassem is finally going to get laid again. Win-win.

     

    I loved living in Austin. There really was a delightful craziness which I attribute to the presence of a huge university and enough heat to cook people’s brains. And they never, ever disappoint.

    The Equity Office also suggests eschewing the name “Austin” altogether, as Stephen F. Austin fought to defend slavery in the Texas Revolution and supported the institution after the state gained its independence from Mexico.

    The office also suggests the city reconsider the name of some of Austin’s most recognizable streets, parks and landmarks – including Pease Park, Barton Springs, and Bouldin and Waller creeks – but not before input from Council and the public. The Equity Office says those second-tier suggestions honor figures who weren’t directly tied to the Confederacy, but may represent “segregation, racism, and/or slavery.”

    Chance of this actually happening: zero. But a bunch of tax leeches get to justify their jobs and morally preen. Win-win again!

     

    Speaking of my former homes, California continues to make me feel good about getting out after spending most of my adult life there.

    California’s Supreme Court ruled that employers must pay workers for the time they spend completing off-the-clock tasks, such as locking up after work. A federal law, called the Fair Labor Standards Act, generally allows companies to avoid compensating employees for time spent on duties the law describes as trivial or too difficult to track.

    In its majority opinion, the California Supreme Court said the federal rule does not apply in the state when it comes to certain off-the-clock tasks performed by employees. It’s the result of a six-year legal battle between Starbucks and Douglas Troester, a California worker who sued the company for not paying him for closing tasks that he said took four to 10 additional minutes after he clocked out each day. Over the 17 months of Troester’s employment at Starbucks, the unpaid time added up to more than $100, according to court documents.

    Shaun Setareh, one of the attorneys who represented Troester, said it amounted to “wage theft.” “It’s basically skimming off of people’s paychecks for the benefit of fattening the wallets of CEOs and stockholders of major corporations,” he said.

    No way that this ruling is intended to open up the legal process for abuse and fattening up the wallets of lawyers and straw plaintiffs. That would be cynical. On the bright side, it was Starbucks.

     

    More news from one of my former homes:

    In November, voters here [in Utah] will consider a ballot measure to legalize medical marijuana and possibly join 30 others states that allow its use. While opponents, including a group of Utah doctors, have characterized Proposition 2 as a clear and dangerous step on the path toward legalizing recreational pot in the state, supporters say the initiative is a move of compassion.

    Legalize weed and next thing you know, people might be tempted to try COFFEE. Then you’ll have the horror of Starbucks opening in Provo! Think of the children!

     

    I’m on a mission from GOD!

    Addressing the congregation at First AME Church, [Maxine] Waters said, “You’ve gotta know that I’m here to do the work that I was sent to do, and as pastor said to me when I came in this morning, ‘When God sends you to do something, you just do it!’” she exclaimed to cheers from the crowd.

    Seriously, Moms Mabley was funnier. Maxie could learn a thing or two watching some old clips.

     

    Old Guy Music, and this time dedicated to SP. She was actually a top-class trombonist, which always looks funny when played by people smaller than the instrument. And Bill Watrous, who just died a few weeks ago, was her favorite. And damn, I can see why.

  • STEVE SMITH’S SATURDAY EVENING LINKS.

    STEVE SMITH…HAWT!

    STEVE SMITH HIT JACKPOT! “SASQUATCH GROUPIES” COME TO WOODS, LOOK FOR SQUATCH…STEVE SMITH OBLIGE. BY OBLIGE, MEAN RAPE. BUT NO CAN RAPE THOSE WANT STEVE SMITH. NOT SURE IF CAN COUNT ON MONTHLY RAPESQUATCH QUOTA REPORT. BUT WAS FUN ANYWAY.

    BUT YOU NO HERE TO LISTEN TO STEVE SMITH TALK WORK, YOU HERE FOR LINKS! SO HAVE LINKS!

    • STEVE SMITH KEEP EYE TO SOUTH. HOPE CALIFORNIA GLIBERTARIAN HOOMANS SAFE. STEVE SMITH NO LIKE BAR-B-QUE PEOPLES.
    • WHEN LAST TIME ITALY PEOPLE AND UK PEOPLE ALLIED? STEVE SMITH REMEMBER IT LONG TIME AGO. LOOK LIKE MAYBE AGAIN? WAIT, WAIT….STEVE SMITH TRY “YOU KNOW WHO ELSE” GAME!!!  YOU KNOW WHO ELSE ALLY ITALY WITH BRITAIN?
    • OK, WHICH ONE OF FUNNY GLIBERTARIAN PEOPLE THIS WAS? STEVE SMITH NO EAT SPIDER. BUT HIM DO HAVE BEER.
    • THIS WHY TWITTERS IS CRAZY. STEVE SMITH PREFER HOWL IN WOODS TO SEND THOUGHTS.

    STEVE SMITH ALSO HOPE FRIEND ZARDOZ NOT SO SAD OVER HIM NOT HAVING KITTY AROUND ANYMORE.

  • Jai Alai

    Before I begin, lets get it out of the way since it comes up from time to time:

    Am I Mexican? No, I am not from Mexico, but my family originates from a town split by the Gadsden Purchase. I happen to descend from somebody that resided on the north side. I am no more Mexican than any of you who happen to know which country your (great…) grandparents got of the boat from and lived in a neighborhood populated entirely by immigrants from the same country. Ultimately, the avatar is a reference to a character from 3:10 to Yuma.

    Now for the part that was actually questioned:

    I am not Carlos Hathcock, but I think I mastered basic marksmanship.  Pistol (left) and Rifle (right).

    Yeah, yeah, yeah. Control your breathing…

     Cool?

    The grocery store in my neighborhood was closing down. For some reason, the clerk explained, the lease Safeway held for the last 30 years was not renewed. This meant that everything was 25% off.

    Everything?

    Yes, everything.  Including things I normally think are likely too expensive for what they are. Other things included brisket, scotch whiskey, artichokes, frozen salmon…

    This is my review of Cigar City Brewing Jai Alai IPA:

    I always thought this was some kind of extreme handball. Originating in the Basque region of Spain where players simply caught and threw a ball against a wall in the church courtyard, later evolved into an actual sport. If you were at all a part of the social scene in South Florida during the 70s, you were watching Jai Alai (pronounced Hī a Lī). The sport is almost dead today, but interest spiked about ten years ago when back in the day, the Most Interesting Man in the World made a few gamblers happy.

    Part of the reason it died out was a players strike that lasted three years, and Whitey Bulger whacking the World Jai Alai president. It is a sport people gamble on after all…but in all fairness gambling is probably the biggest reason people still play it.

    The Fronton:  That is the front wall. It is made from granite for reasons to be touched on shortly. The arena itself, called the Cancha, is composed of the granite Fronton, a back, and left walls each made from concrete. There is no wall to the right, but there is an out of bounds line and a fence to protect the crowd. There is also a foul area on the Fronton itself, that is made from a different material and makes a different sound when struck. Foul balls are not playable.

    The Cesta: This is the big curved basket worn on the right hand. Each is made from woven wooden reeds grown in the Pyrenees. It is attached via a leather glove to the right hand of the player and fastened together with a leather strap called a ‘cinta.’ The Cesta allows the player to both catch and throw the ball in “one fluid motion” as required by the rules. Judges are stationed to make sure the player does not hold the ball, and throws it fluidly. It is also handy for putting a wicked spin on the ball to outwit your opponents.

    Are you left handed? You may play Jai Alai with your right hand. Because of the way the Cancha is set up, it is too dangerous to play left handed for both spectators and players. Consequently, no Cesta will be made for a left hand. If you want an advantage in a dangerous sport by being wired up backwards—stick to boxing.

    The Pelota: That means ball, en Español. The ball itself is made from a metal core, hard wound Brazilian rubber, string, and wrapped in goatskin. It is approximately ¾ the size of a baseball, or similar to a lacrosse ball should you actually be familiar with a lacrosse ball. One thing to take away; it is harder than a golf ball and hurled at speeds averaging 150-180 mph. The pelota is exchanged at 15 minute intervals and the cover replaced because of how quickly it gets worn out in a game. This is why the Fronton is made from granite; the ball would otherwise tear apart other materials.  Yes…I am linking this site as a reference.

    The rules: Ever watch prison inmates play handball in the yard? That’s pretty much it, just without the stabbings. Here’s a good rundown.

    So is it any good? If you happen to like heavy citrus IPA, yes. This is more orange/tangerine rather than the overpowering grapefruit variety that everyone loves to hate. Not my first choice but it does pique my interest in Cigar City’s other offerings, should any ever become available near me. Cigar City Jai Alai IPA: 3.5/5

  • Saturday Morning Links – What, him again? Edition

    What do you get when there’s links lacking the depth of Sloopy’s, the creativity and formatting of SP’s, the sly snark (and equally great formatting) of WebDom’s, the Spanish of Mexican Sharpshooter’s, the trilingual classiness of Swiss’s, the conciseness of Brett’s, and the rape of STEVE SMITH’s? You get mine. Old, creaky, and cheap.

    Before jumping into the news, I just wanted to share something that amused me. Some Amazon reviews. No, not the intentionally funny ones from the 55 gallon drums of personal lube or the wolf-moon t-shirt, but ones where the reviewers were totally serious. In this case, it was for the brand of veggie burgers that SP and I had for dinner last night. They’re a remarkable product of food science, and despite being (so I’m told) disturbingly realistic imitations of ground up cow corpse patties, are 100% vegan. Well, there’s an invitation for self-righteous delight!

    Not vegan !!!
    By Amazon Customer on May 21, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    Products like these that contain “Palm oil” are NOT VEGAN, as they contribute to animal killings in this case with the extinction of MONKEYS…
    Wildlife such as orangutans have been found buried alive, killed from machete attacks, guns and other weaponry. Government data has shown that over 50,000 orangutans have already died as a result of deforestation due to palm oil in the last two decades. This either occurs during the deforestation process, or after the animal enters a village or existing palm oil plantation in search of food. Mother orangutans are also often killed by poachers and have their babies taken to be sold or kept as pets, or used for entertainment in wildlife tourism parks in countries such as Thailand and Bali.
    you feel like you are unboxing an iphone
    By Amazon Customer on June 24, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    This product is gratuitously over packaged.
    It may not be apparent from the manufacturer’s picture, but the 2 patties are packaged in a hard plastic tray with a clear film top, all slid inside a cardboard sleeve. When you open it, you feel like you are unboxing an iphone.
    I’m a vegetarian because I want to reduce my environmental impact. So, while I really like this product, I won’t buy it again because of the completely un-necessary packaging.
    And I get why they do it. This really is an exceptional burger, and they want to communicate that through the packaging. I would give the burgers themselves 5 stars. They simulate the squishy feel and look of meat quite well, which results in a very pleasurable experience. Most veggie-burgers are dry and puck like.
    But the second time you eat one, you don’t need the snazzy packaging and you just end up being another hypocrite, who snacks on a $3 meat free hamburger while chucking a bunch of petroleum based plastic into a landfill.

    Wherever did people get the idea that vegans are prissy, humorless twits rather than deeply concerned and serious thinkers?

    And screw all those other birthdays, today is the birthday of the great Phil Proctor. “Oh, Porgie, oh my oh my oh my!”

    Everybody needs a hobby. But for shit’s sake, if it’s upskirting, you have to do it right. Flash is not a good idea.

    The video footage taken on July 5, 2016, contains five segments, put together as part of the Metro Police Transit Department investigation into (senior Obama administration official) Mendoza’s conduct…

    In the far left of the shot you can see him getting closer to the woman on the escalator, bending down and the light on his cell phone turning on. You can then see the flash from the camera as he takes the photo…

    According to Department of Education documents, Mendoza tried to take photos and videos up women’s skirts at least four times on his government-issued iPhones in July 2016 without their consent. When he took the indecent photos, he was supposed to be at work and was using a travel card funded by the taxpayer, according to the documents obtained by DailyMail.com through a Freedom of Information Act request.

    It’s guys like him who give perverts a bad name. Still, that’s not the part that struck me as interesting. What was interesting was that the story was entirely unreported despite the high profile and the click-friendly salaciousness. It only came out now because of FOIA requests. You don’t think it was because he was in a Team Blue administrations, do you? Don’t you think that if a Team Red guy was caught doing the same thing, the news media would be just as happy to bury it out of a deep concern for the guy’s well-being? Of course, because their job is just to report, not cover up for people on their Team and go totally hysterical about people on the other Team.

    What could be better proof of the stupidity of an entire generation than eating laundry detergent and making stars out of some rather empty-headed rich kids who happened to be at a crime scene? Maybe this.

    Drake fans are jumping out of moving vehicles for a viral challenge and the National Transportation Safety Board is reminding the public that that is a bad idea…

    Unfortunately, since it went viral, a shocking amount of challenge participants have taken things to a dangerous (and stupid) level by jumping out of moving cars as opposed to just dancing next to parked ones.

    What was the old joke about why Polish dogs have flat heads?

    Speaking of flat heads, delightful irony abounds.

    In recent months, Moonves has become a prominent voice in Hollywood’s #MeToo movement. In December, he helped found the Commission on Eliminating Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace, which is chaired by Anita Hill. “It’s a watershed moment,” Moonves said at a conference in November. “I think it’s important that a company’s culture will not allow for this. And that’s the thing that’s far-reaching. There’s a lot we’re learning. There’s a lot we didn’t know.”

    Clearly.

    If you’re going to do immigration, do it right.

    Nude sunbathers watched in confusion as the group of more than 30 migrants sprinted into a surrounding forest to evade the pursuing Spanish border guards. The migrants had just crossed the strait of Gibraltar having sailed from the coast of Morocco.

    A spokesman for the Guardia Civil police force in Ceuta said the migrants managed to climb over the double barrier, which is covered in small blades. He said they scrambled over “all of a sudden, with much violence”.

    Come for the titties, stay for the welfare.

    Summer is the best time to ramp up the OMG PANIC!!! PANIC!!! stories about the imminent immolation of the earth.

    “You see roads melting, airplanes not being able to take off, there’s not enough water,” said Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. “Climate change hits us at our Achilles’ heel. In the Southwest, it’s water availability. On the Gulf Coast, it’s hurricanes. In the East, it’s flooding. It’s exacerbating the risks we already face today.”

    Gone are the days when scientists drew a bright line dividing weather and climate. Now researchers can examine a weather event and estimate how much climate change had to do with causing or exacerbating it.

    Sure they can. Suuuuure.

    Well, sometimes to have to give in to the inevitable. And that means Old Guy Music. And the theme really fits. These guys got it in 1972, before most of you kids were even your daddies’ boners. Bonzo was a fantastic band, way ahead of their time, that has sadly faded into obscurity.

  • ZARDOZ’S FRIDAY NIGHT LINKS OF SAD

    ZARDOZ REMEMBERS MR. WHISKERS…

     

    ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONES. ONE NIGHT THIS WEEK, AS ZARDOZ PULLED INTO HIS DOCKING BAY/HOME, HE REALIZED SOMETHING WAS MISSING. ZARDOZ MISSES THE BEST KITTY EVER, MR. WHISKERS. ZARDOZ HAS TRIED TO FILL THE VOID WITH TWITTER, BUT TO NO AVAIL. PERHAPS ZARDOZ CAN SPEND MORE TIME RAISING THE BRUTAL EXTERMINATORS UP FROM BRUTALITY? MAYBE GIVING THE GIFT OF THE GUN…

     

    ZARDOZ WILL CONSIDER ALL THESE THINGS. HOWEVER, YOU, THE CHOSEN ONES SHALL RECEIVE THE GIFT OF THE LINK, AND NOW!

    1. NOT QUITE THE MATERIAL ZARDOZ IS SEEKING FOR THE BRUTAL EXTERMINATORS. ZARDOZ WILL HAVE TO CROSS “IDIOT YOBOS” OFF THE LIST. THREE VICTIMS, NOT ONE KILL.
    2. WHILE MORE PROMISING, MALI IS TOO FAR FOR ZARDOZ TO GO RECRUITING.
    3. OH…IN CASE ANY OF THE CHOSEN ONES WERE WONDERING WHAT ZARDOZ MEANS BY “THE FILTH OF BRUTALS” PLAGUING THE EARTH – HERE IS A GOOD EXAMPLE. “Instead, we just surrender the streets and say, ‘It’s OK. You can camp here. You can shoot up here. We’ll give you a box for your needles, and we’ll come and clean up after you,’” Schafer said. “The streets smell like feces and urine, and man, it’s tough to want to stay here.”
    4. ZARDOZ DOES NOT UNDERSTAND BRUTALS – THIS BRUTAL WAS VERY CORRUPT, CONVICTED OF HIS CRIMES TWICE…HE ALREADY LOOKS LIKE HE HAS BEEN AGED, AS THE ETERNAL “FRIEND”WAS. WHY WAS HE NOT SIMPLY CLEANSED?

    ZARDOZ IS GOING TO HAVE THE TABERNACLE RUN PICTURES OF MR. WHISKERS FOR OLD TIMES SAKE.

    YOU WERE A GOOD KITTY.

    ZARDOZ HAS SADLY SPOKEN.

  • Friday Afternoon His and Hers Links

    Brett is at the doctor’s office this afternoon, starting his rounds of plastic surgery to repair the alligator bite wounds. So, following SP’s morning links, y’all get me and my inimitable afternoon links. It was a tossup between Lucky Pierre and Sloppy Seconds, but I felt that the former was more apropos.

    I feel empowered now that I know how to put lines between each story like a real grownup. Ironic that it was SP who showed me how to do this, albeit with much sighing and eye-rolling. Well, whatevs, let’s look at the news.

     

    In big news that for some reason has totally escaped the notice of the Trump-obsessed media, the House has actually passed a piece of legislation that INCREASES the strength of private property rights. And the vote was unanimous. There is one teensy little obstacle, though…

    The House vote didn’t have much drama to it, but the issue directly aims at the relationship we have with government and the nature of private property, a core right recognized in the Constitution. Kelo perverted that relationship, putting everyone’s property rights hostage to politicians who want to hand off spoils to bigger entities. The case prompted some states to step in and redefine eminent domain to prevent another New London abuse, but despite four attempts by the House to correct this injustice, the Senate has remained obstinate.

    And of course, a president with a veto pen who has declared that he LOVES eminent domain. I very often disagree with Clarence Thomas, but his dissent in the Kelo case is delightful invective.

    Of course, any of us little people, after stealing over $100k by fraud, would have gotten off with no jail time and no felony conviction. Right? Her family connections were of course completely irrelevant.

    Caroline, 31, offered an apology while promising her wild ways are behind her, as she accepted her sentence of two-years probation. ‘I not only acknowledge my conduct and take responsibility but deeply regret the harm caused,’ she told Justice Curtis Farber. ‘I can assure you that I have made amends, full restitution, completed community service and that nothing like this will ever happen again,’ Biden said, according to the New York Post.

    As part of her deal she plead to a lesser charge of petit larceny.

    Decked in a fitted black dress and ankle booties with her blonde locks flowing,  Caroline happily had her felony conviction tossed.

    Some animals are more equal than others.

     

    Here’s something that, had it happened anywhere else but the woke capital of the world, would have resulted in a Darwin Award.

    The investigation revealed that the couple had been asleep in their bedroom when they were awakened by the unknown suspect speaking to them and asking to use their WiFi network. The suspect was wearing something covering over his face. The male victim got out of bed, confronted the suspect, and pushed him down the hallway and out the front door of the house before calling police. No one was injured.

    Chez SP/OMWC, if he had managed not to get eaten by our rather large guardian dog, he would have taken the Room Temperature Challenge, assuming SP (a crack shot) had a gun within reach of where she sleeps. Which she totally doesn’t because it would be illegal. Totally.

     

    Turban Man.

    Grewal, the country’s first Sikh American attorney general, took to Twitter in response to the comments, which were made during Wednesday’s episode of “The Dennis & Judy Show” on New Jersey 101.5 radio. Grewal wears a turban as part of his religious beliefs.

    Hosts Dennis Malloy and Judi Franco brought up Grewal’s turban in a conversation about his recent order to suspend marijuana prosecutions. Malloy said he could not remember Grewal’s name, telling Franco, “I’m just going to say the guy with the turban.”

    “Listen, if that offends you, then don’t wear the turban, man, and I’ll remember your name,” Malloy said at one point.

    Me, I’m Yarmulke Man.

     

    Nothing Left To Cut

    In 2012, the New York Army National Guard paid the Buffalo Bills $250,000 to conduct on-field re-enlistment ceremonies. In 2014, the Georgia National Guard paid the Atlanta Falcons $114,000 to sing the national anthem. In 2015, the Air Force paid NASCAR $1.5 million in part for veterans to shake hands with racing legend Richard Petty. Your tax dollars. At work.

    If you skip the usual SJW drivel in this article, the main point still stands.

     

    Too bad he’s not a Biden.

    McFarland pleaded guilty to felony charges of wire fraud, bank fraud, and lying to a federal officer in an 11 a.m. appearance before Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald on Thursday, according to the Justice Department. The plea deal carries a federal sentencing recommendation of 135 to 168 months in prison, though he could be sentenced to as many as 75 years under the felony maximums.

    The alleged fraud happened while he was out on bail awaiting trial on the Fyre Festival fraud. Well, you do have to commend him for consistency.

    Old Guy Music yet again. I think I’ve posted a Leon Thomas song before, but there’s always room for more. This time, a short piece from an album that ought to be much better known than it is, with Thomas, Oliver Nelson, and Johnny Hodges, a real supergroup. This song is basically a vocalese version of Duke Ellington’s “C Jam Blues,” which beats three chord rock by being basically two note jazz. Thomas does his usual “holy shit, how can he make his voice do that?” pyrotechnics, Nelson’s arrangements are pitch-perfect, and Hodges is… well… Johnny Hodges.

  • What Are We Reading – July 2018

    jesse.in.mb

    Do not let my colleagues fool you with their nay-saying about James Swain’s The King Tides (Lancaster & Daniels Book 1). It is an entirely adequate beach read with a chipper pacing and zombie-like kiddie predators. To my mind, the main drawback to this book is the sponsored content, or the weird brand name dropping plus generic non-affiliated copy material–depending on if the author was paid for this or just lazy and trying to meet a word-count. It was jarring to be reading about the author’s disappointment that a kiddie diddler had smashed his phone only to be rescued by Verizon!

    “His phone was new, courtesy of his ex-girlfriend tossing the old one out of a moving car. Replacing it had been a snap. A quick trip to the Verizon store and forty-five minutes later he’d walked out with a new Droid, his contacts and apps restored. Kenny’s phone was also a Droid, and he wondered if Kenny had bought it from Verizon, which had more locations than a hamburger chain. If he had, then all his data was stored in the cloud and could be easily restored.”

    Spoilers: he also upgrades his phone from a Droid to a Moto Z2 Force during this exchange for only $40! I’m not sure that I’d recommend this book on its merits, but there are now enough people who have frog-marched themselves through it that it’s part of the current Glibertarian cultural canon. Don’t be left out!

    JW

    Have you ever read all the information that comes with penicillin prescriptions when the pharmacist fills them? Vomiting. Check! Mild skin rash. I wonder what “mild” means? Upset stomach. Check! Diarrhea. Uh-oh! I’ll be right ba….

    Brett L

    As part of an experiment in group self-abuse, I read James Swain’s The King Tides (Lancaster & Daniels Book 1). This book is terrible. Random shit not at all relevant to the plot, rogue FBI agents distributing kiddie porn (actually the most realistic part of the story), super-fit former Navy SEALs with beer guts congenital conditions that somehow didn’t disqualify them from that competitive system, kidnapping attempts of hot teen-aged white girls that the police don’t care about. I regretted reading this, even though it was free. Don’t buy it. Please do not encourage Mr. Swain to write any more books.

    In my literature entry for the month, I read Without a Country, a Turkish work translated into English. It’s an interesting family history starting with German Jews fleeing Hitler to populate Ataturk’s new university system, where hope and religious tolerance flourish, and tracks the changes in Turkish culture from the Muslim secular hope of Ataturk to the more fundamental Muslim sympathies. It was a good book. I enjoyed the writing.

    I also read Curious Tales from Chemistry: The Last Alchemist in Paris and Other Episodes by Lars Öhrström. As a chemistry geek, these are fun little tales about substances, some basic chemistry like orbitals, and history. Places, people, and things interesting to their history (like the guy tasked to steal British steel-making secrets for the Swedes). 

    Old Man With Candy

    In Jewish tradition, the Torah is divided up into sedras, roughly analogous to chapters. Each Sabbath, a sedra is read, sequentially, until at the end of a year cycle, the last sedra is finished. We have a nice holiday to celebrate it, Simchas Torah, then the process is begun again. For years, I had a similar ritual, reading a chapter at a time out of The Feynman Lectures on Physics each week until I was done the three volume set, then I’d begin again. This kept my basic physics sharp and it was, for a geek, remarkably enjoyable. The Lectures were a series of notes from a one year freshman physics sequence taught by Richard Feynman (arguably the greatest physicist of the 20th century), and transcribed and edited by two other physicists, Robert Leighton and Matthew Sands. The collaborators did a wonderful job capturing Feynman’s voice and unique style, and this set of books might be among the greatest works in the English language. Anyway, for reasons of life, I stopped doing my ritual some years back, and recently, it occurred to me that my brain suffered from the absence of Feynman’s ghost. So I started again. And it’s every bit as delightful and wonderful as I imagined, the exact opposite of dry technical books. Even if you’re not mathematically inclined, there’s so much clear and common-sense explication of how the universe works that you’ll come out of the experience much smarter than when you went in.

    I linked Volume 1 of the set because that’s the one that is likely to have the most appeal to non-physicists. It covers a sweeping range of topics; though focused on classical mechanics, Feynman talks about probability, thermodynamics, cosmology, biology, psychology, wine, and as a bonus, he offers his rather tart observations about philosophy. More so than anyone else writing about science, he is rigidly clear about what things are “this is the way it is, we can describe it, but we can’t say why it is this way” and what things are “here’s something about which we know why.”

    Strange as it may seem, we understand the distribution of matter in the interior of the sun far better than we understand the interior of the earth. What goes on inside a star is better understood than one might guess from the difficulty of having to look at a little dot of light through a telescope, because we can calculate what the atoms in the stars should do in most circumstances.

    One of the most impressive discoveries was the origin of the energy of the stars, that makes them continue to burn. One of the men who discovered this was out with his girlfriend the night after he realized that nuclear reactions must be going on in the stars in order to make them shine. She said “Look at how pretty the stars shine!” He said “Yes, and right now I am the only man in the world who knows why they shine.” She merely laughed at him. She was not impressed with being out with the only man who, at that moment, knew why stars shine. Well, it is sad to be alone, but that is the way it is in this world.

    Here’s an example of Feynman’s presentation methods, talking about the incredibly important and almost universally misunderstood topic of entropy. If you like this and the lightbulb goes on, pick up Volume 1 of the Lectures and prepare for a wild and crazy ride through the way the universe works.

    SP

    I also selected The King Tides (Lancaster & Daniels Book 1) for my free Kindle book this month since there was nothing else even remotely interesting. (How much do the authors pony up for this? I can think of no other reason for the choices.) However, being smarter than my dear Glib friends, I waited until they had all reported in, then quietly deleted it from my Kindle unopened.

    In enjoyable reading, I am swiping through How to Speak Midwestern by Edward McClelland. Things I’ve learned so far include: where Little Egypt is; what a frunchroom might be; where a gangway is located and for what it might be used; who Trixie is and what she’s up to with Chad.

    SugarFree

    I read the Joe Pitt series by Charlie Huston. Hard-boiled vampire private detective in a Manhatten ruled by vampire clans as bitchy and mean and petty as any 8th-grade clique of half-pretty girls. They are competently written. but mostly crib from various other, better detective novels for plot: the spoiled heiress with the monstrous father from The Big Sleep, the cynical operator playing all sides against each other of Red Harvest, Mike Hammer’s blase cruelty of those he has decided are guilty. The best book is the third, Half the Blood in Brooklyn, with Joe fighting off a thoroughly crazed sect of Hassidic vampires and their odd workaround for obtaining “kosher” blood. Overall, the series isn’t bad, it just also isn’t very good.

    I read/watched Ira Levin’s The Boys From Brazil. Gregory Peck as Dr. Mengele is one of the more inspired casting decisions in movie history, constantly walking the line between terrifying and absurd. The biggest knock on the movie from a production standpoint is the blue contact lens they had to put on young Adolf–they are distracting in our 1080p world.

    I also read/watched that old stand-by, The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty. Chock full of juicy Catholic guilt and atheist hate, the movie satisfies like no other. The Zodiac Killer said of the film “I saw and think ‘The Exorcist’ was the best saterical [sic] comidy [sic] that I have ever seen.”

    I made it through two chapters of The King Tides. It was terrible.

    Web Dominatrix

    I picked up a couple books this past week.

    Originals by Adam Grant and Talk like TED by Carmine Gallo. Originals is about how non-conformists influence and change the world, while Talk Like TED is about public speaking a la TED Talks.

    I have no interest in public speaking (or really doing anything that requires me showing up somewhere on someone else’s schedule), but I am into livestreaming and video marketing.

    So far Originals is really interesting. Adam Grant is a great writer and he pulls in some compelling studies and references. I haven’t cracked open Talk Like TED yet.

     

    ZARDOZ

    ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN READING ONES. BOOKS CAUSE NOTHING BUT TROUBLE! OH AND IXNAY ONYAY ETHAY IZARDWAY OFYAY OZYAY!

    ZARDOZ HAS SPOKEN.

     

     

     

     

    Swiss Servator

    Upon recommendation (and loan) of a regular at my local, I read “The Last Days of Night” Edison vs Westinghouse (as in Thomas Alva vs George) and Nikola Tesla wanders into the picture. The story is from the point of view of Westinghouse’s young lawyer in the fight against Edison over the patent of the light bulb. Mostly based on actual events, it is a fairly interesting look into inventing, what drives/drove the inventor/inventors of the time. A little electricity learnin’ and some fancy laweryin’ too. Reads quickly, and has some very, very short little chapters…almost like the author was not sure where he was going at first.  Probably would make a decent movie if cast right. Give it whirl if you have some time.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    STEVE SMITH

    STEVE SMITH BUSY WITH CASCADIA INDEPENDENCE. HIM NOT HAVE MUCH TIME READ. JUST TREATIES AND FOREST LAW (HIM PROMINENT FOREST LAWYER!). READ MONTHLY QA REPORTS ON HIKER ENCOUNTERS TOO. BY ENCOUNTERS, MEAN RAPE.