My Struggle

by | Jan 6, 2020 | Family, Libertarianism, Musings | 460 comments

I was born in 1963, and got to see a lot of change in America: hippie uncles and aunts; Dad was an older Vietnam Marine; the ‘70s; typical American kid. The Ice Age was coming, the sun zooming in, (sorry) Arab oil, and mood rings, fun but so….

Mom was a great influence, she gave me The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Plato and some Roman stuff, the The Gulag Archipelago. I was fully anti-commie by 16.

Rush, yes, the hampster-voiced Pro  Rock gods I love so much, back in the ‘70s/‘80s we read the lyrics, looking for the “deeper meaning,” which was usually Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll, but Rush was different. The drummer wrote the lyrics, man! And he also read some Ayn Rand, making Anthem, and of course 2112, the long version. When I was playing in my friend’s mom’s garage, she heard the lyrics and gave me a book, The Fountainheadby Ayn Rand, cool, I like architecture….

26 years old, married, HVAC guy, musician, I’m supposed to be a tree hugger, and I was ‘til my lead man drove a truck with no FM radio, so we listened to this local chick talk about other people’s problems, and some guy named Rush, Baseline Budgeting? Hmm, then I learned about my old friend Buckley, Sowell, and others. Off to the races. 

I saw Reason Magazine many times—usually at a dentist’s office or some such—and the idea intrigued me: follow the Constitution? Read the Constitution? What a concept. Flash forward to 2003, I was finally slogging through Atlas Shrugged, and through the Instapundit, found Reason online and thought, “Yes! maybe some refuge from the refuse.” I learned more and expanded to other places but always came back to the TOS, things were good.

As soon as I heard the community only existed to serve the State, I was out, I came here and I have learned more about, and differences in, L/libertarians than any other website available, the outside world would do well to listen to the Glibs!

 

About The Author

Yusef drives a Kia

Yusef drives a Kia

Punctually illiterate But never late

460 Comments

  1. Spudalicious

    The world would be a much odder place if they listened to us.

    • robc

      Keep Earth Weird!

      • Florida Man

        CAN DO!

        *puts on fairy wings and zooms around room*

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I’m assuming “puts on fairy wings” means “snorts a half kilo of meth”

      • Florida Man

        ….correct

  2. Florida Man

    the outside world would do well to listen to the Glibs!-

    Are you mad?!? Don’t let the plebs in here!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      There’s an outside world?

    • Jarflax

      I’m extremely leery about recommending the site to anyone. I have quite a few flat out libertarian friends and many conservatarian ones, but at the risk of heresy, the thing I like about this place is not that it is libertarian. It is that it is libertarian without falling into the purity test and angry denunciation of divergent thought trap that most libertarian spots devolve into. Watching John and Eddie melt down and get shown the door, and LH and Elspeth show themselves out over trifles was a reminder to me that libertarians are much better at theory than at the actual practice of living in a community.

      Obviously most, if not all of us are generally liberty loving, but we have devout Christians, Atheist (((Jews))), Yokeltarian liberty-hippies, wise preteen matriarchs, sex crazed multiracial academics, somewhat flamboyant gay men, and that is just among TPTB. (If I have miss-categorized any of you please feel free to correct me, but that is what I have gleaned from comments). Yet somehow, despite often heated discussions, some trolling, miscellaneous tits, gloves, Georgisms, her imperial highness the worst, and even that Herperiobole guy we have a community going here.

      Can you imagine any other place where the cast of oddball characters, with very very different attitudes, tastes and styles could coexist as easily as we do?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Wait..

        (((They’re))) actually here?

        I thought you guys were joking.

      • Rebel Scum

        Depends. Does pineapple belong on pizza? (Hint: No, it does not).

      • Tundra

        *sighs, hops the boards and drops the gloves*

        Anything belongs on a pizza, RS. It’s the ultimate purity test!

      • Crusty Juggler

        Even a bunch of bees or a toaster oven or broken glass or toenail clippings or old cassette tapes or a handkerchief that fell out of an old woman’s church sleeve?

      • Rebel Scum

        Or drugs that fall out of a hooker’s ass. Tundra probably also likes deep dish. It is total anarchy here.

      • Tundra

        If it make the pizza eater happy it’s none of your business, slavers!

      • Spudalicious

        *drops gloves*

        Except pineapple.

      • commodious spittoon

        Belong’s got nothin’ to do with it.

      • Jarflax

        The secret final verse of Dixie goes:

        I miss old Mammy’s Pineapple Pizza,
        Eat away, eat away.
        That Pineapple Pie was oh so awesome
        Eat away, eat away
        Cooked up in her old deep dish pan,
        To die for down in Dixie.

      • Spudalicious

        Pretty right on.

        And fuck off, Tulpa.

      • Crusty Juggler

        YOU FUCK OFF

      • Spudalicious

        SHUT UP LIBTARD!

      • Crusty Juggler

        OK BOOMER

      • Rebel Scum

        How dare you.

      • mindyourbusiness

        Can you imagine any other place where the cast of oddball characters, with very very different attitudes, tastes and styles could coexist as easily as we do?

        No, Jar, I can’t. And I find that sad. I’d like to believe that there’s room out there for people to live and let live, but it seems that there’s something in the human psyche that won’t make room for anything/anyone too far out of the ordinary.

        Sometimes I wonder if we still have too much left in us that we should have discarded after we came down from the trees.

      • Florida Man

        Leaving the trees was a mistake, possibly the ocean.

      • Jarflax

        I think the mistake was earlier. When we traded immortality for sex.

      • mindyourbusiness

        You may be right. But even if sex is mediocre, it’s still fantastic.

      • Jarflax

        Well the women might get joined.

      • Florida Man

        Joined good and hard.

      • The Last American Hero

        I was going to say the Mos Eisley Cantina but there were two violations of the NAP in under 10 minutes in that place.

      • C. Anacreon

        They’ve improved since then.
        They now feature live music by Mos Def.

      • C. Anacreon

        And the Eisley Brothers.

    • Lackadaisical

      He said listen.

      Surely they wouldn’t be allowed to post anything.

  3. Count Potato

    So how are you doing now? Is the wife OK?

    • Florida Man

      I was afraid to ask… hope Wendy is doing well.

      • DEG

        I also hope she is doing well.

  4. Crusty Juggler

    I think the world would be a better place if the masses trended toward libertarianism, but Glibertarianism…meh…

    • Lackadaisical

      Wouldn’t be a lot of work getting done, that’s for sure.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Nonsense. We’d end the scourge of child unemployment in a week flat.

  5. gbob

    For me it was Buckley and National Review. I was an anti Regan punk socialist in high school…but because of behavior issues I wound up in a school run by monks. My history professor was a mean son of a bitch who stormed a tank in the Hungarian uprising and had to get out of country quick.

    In the library, however, we had all the magazines in the world. Started reading NR to counter the other rags… and started finding a view that was in between.

    Of course, a childhood of Heinlein helped. The character of Jubal was the man I wanted to be.

    • Rhywun

      I took a long detour thru National Review before finding Reason. I blame Camille Paglia at Salon for getting me to first start questioning a lot of shit I thought I knew and in an approachable way. Andrew Sullivan, too (I think he was there) before he went off the rails.

      • Jarflax

        If feminism had followed Paglia it would be a healthier movement. I disagree with her extensively, but she is both smart, and wise enough to engage disagreement respectfully.

      • Florida Man

        A question for history buffs, did the abolitionist movement dissolve after the 13th amendment?

      • mindyourbusiness

        Nah, it just changed channels. abolitionism as such died out, but temperancers and suffragettes learned from its success.

        Don’t know if any abolitionists joined those two movements, but wouldn’t be surprised if they did.

      • Jarflax

        No, it largely morphed into the ‘Temperance’ movement, because with a few exceptions (Douglass springs to mind), it wasn’t about liberty for the slaves as much as it was about punishing the sins of the masters. Libertarians team up with progressives when society is denying liberty to a minority and every single time, once the battle is won the progressives turn around and use the movement to deny liberty to another group.

        Oh, you were being rhetorical? sorry pedant mode active.

      • Florida Man

        No I was serious. I was curious if they were an example of an activist group getting their demands met and then going away. I guess the answer is “nope”.

      • juris imprudent

        Honestly, it runs against human nature. Once a group is organized, it is more inclined to find a new mission after accomplishing a goal than to simply dissolve. Those who were most dedicated to the goal might drop out, but most of the group will tend to want to sustain it’s “group-ness” simply by dedicating to another cause. March of Dimes is a really good example, and of course drug warriors were largely prohibitionists that needed another fix, er, I mean cause.

        Early on, Douglass was a suffragist as well as an abolitionist, btw.

      • Jarflax

        I deliberately ignored the suffrage part because I wanted to highlight the unprincipled nature of prog behavior, but yes the suffrage movement also came from the abolitionist movement. Can’t get away with anything here!

      • Mojeaux

        I adore her. I like listening to her, really listening. She is internally consistent. I would like to sit down and have a conversation with her, but she’d leave me in the dust in about 1 second.

      • Tundra

        She’s excellent. We have virtually nothing in common, but I will always take the time to read/watch her.

    • DEG

      I discovered Heinlein late and wished I had discovered him earlier.

      • Crusty Juggler

        Fun fact: there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

      • mindyourbusiness

        +1 avatar

    • Trigger Hippie

      I’ve posted the link before, as have others, but stumbling upon this in my early/mid-twenties started guiding me away from my almost boilerplate(drugs being the obvious exception) Republican political views that I was raised on. It also gave me a deeper, clearer, more reasoned rationale for distrusting the legal system as a whole, not just the laws that would fuck up my party. I would assume several of our resident lawyers have given it a view before:

      https://archive.org/stream/THEMYTHOFTHERULEOFLAWByJohnHasnas47/THE%20MYTH%20OF%20THE%20RULE%20OF%20LAW%20by%20John%20Hasnas-47_djvu.txt

      • Trigger Hippie

        Sorry that the formatting sucks. I tried getting the original website to load, but no dice. Anyway, here’s the original version’s link. Good luck getting it to work:

        http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm

  6. Crusty Juggler

    <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/whiteness-toy-story-4-1266176”The Whiteness of ‘Toy Story 4’

    Because in many ways TS4’s worldview seems like an Eisenhower-era fantasy, a vision of America that might have come from the most die-hard reactionary: lovely if you’re wealthy and white, but alarming if you’re black or brown or gay or a member of any other minority — in other words, more than half the U.S. population.

    “How’s it goin, Eisenhower?”

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Obviously, there should have been a Ken that identified as Barbie in there.

      • The Bearded Hobbit
      • Rhywun

        Jeebus. I didn’t know he went tranny.

      • Lackadaisical

        Not exactly surprising.

        I mean, Ken didn’t have anything down there either.

      • The Bearded Hobbit

        Great minds. . .

      • Spudalicious

        Dammit.

    • Jarflax

      Unless you include women as minorities you aren’t getting to more than half the population with that division. No matter how many letters you tack on to the LGB you covered the vast majority of the sexually diverse with those 3 letters and everything after that is just splitting and revisionism, and since sexual diversity exists in all races you don’t get to add the full 3-7% onto the 12% Black, and 17% Hispanic number.

      • Rhywun

        That stuck out to me too, from the steaming pile.

      • Mojeaux

        Some internet rando:

        “‘Gender fluid’ is just bisexuality with new branding and less meaning.”

      • Jarflax

        Half the time it isn’t even that. I see people referring to themselves as gender fluid or queer who present as their biological sex, are heterosexual in their relationships, but die their hair, or wear desperately conformist unconventional clothes. At this point I think you qualify as gender fluid or queer if you shop at Hot Topic (is that still a thing?).

      • Mojeaux

        I think you qualify as gender fluid or queer if you shop at Hot Topic

        I don’t know if Hot Topic is still a thing, but I fervently hope you are right.

        “Furries” is a thing at XX’s high school.

        “Trans” is a thing at XY’s middle school.

      • Jarflax

        I blame Maid Marian from Disney’s Robin Hood. She was a total fox.

      • Sean

        Clicked.
        Not disappointed. ?

      • Rhywun

        I dunno. I think, officially, one is about “how I present” and the other is about “who I fuck”. But yes, like Jar implies, “genderfluid” in practice tends not to mean anything at all.

      • Jarflax

        Then you have the aces and demis. Because being choosy about who you sleep with must make you a distinct category since “everyone knows” the natural default is screw anything that will allow it.

      • Florida Man

        75 percent of people are minorities, except for white men which are the majority…

        Huh?

    • R C Dean

      “alarming if you’re black or brown or gay or a member of any other minority — in other words, more than half the U.S. population.“

      Alarming, why?

      Also, this is still a majority white country. By a pretty fair margin, even counting gays, etc. as minorities.

      • kbolino

        I thought you only got over 50% by including Hispanics, but apparently non-Hispanic whites still constitute slightly more than 60% of the population. Including Hispanics, it’s 72%.

        But I guess in some people’s minds “demographic destiny” arrived a few decades (centuries?) early.

      • The Last American Hero

        Plus we got the Asians And Jews now so the white majority is actually growing.

  7. Scruffy Nerfherder

    The refrain from my father growing up:

    “Government isn’t there to help you and nobody owes you a damned thing.”

    I suppose that colored my view of the world a little.

    • straffinrun

      ^Peter Schiff confirmed.

      • Fourscore

        P. Schiff’s father didn’t think he owed income tax. He manned up and went to jail.

  8. Tundra

    Love you, Yufus!

    We grew up a few years apart. I can’t claim to find the Grail as early as you, but…

    Bottom line: we are all hot freaks.

    • hayeksplosives

      I’m going to send her a Menorah as a trophy.

  9. Rebel Scum

    My Struggle

    You tagged that memorial? Nah, couldn’t be. You actually know history.

  10. Mojeaux

    Your mother was a very wise woman.

    I gave my kid Anthem a few years ago (she’s only 16.5 now). She liked and understood it, but eschewed the rest of Rand for Plato and Shakespeare, yet she struggles in school. XY (14) is too busy working to read anything except for memes, but he breezes through school.

    What we really want to know, though, is how Wendy is faring.

  11. Crusty Juggler

    Jury orders police officer who fatally shot teen to pay family $3.65 million

    For years, 17-year-old Christian Sierra battled depression. His parents changed jobs and emptied their savings to stay home with him and get him treatment. Then, on a sunny Saturday afternoon in May 2014, while watching movies at a friend’s house, Sierra locked himself in a bathroom and started cutting himself with a three-inch paring knife. He said he wanted to die. His friends dialed 911. Sierra darted outside, chased by another teen who tried to calm him and get the knife away from him. The police dispatch call went out as a “suicide threat.”

    Officer Timothy Hood, a relatively new officer for the Purcellville, Va., police, was the first to arrive. Within four seconds of informing dispatchers he was on the scene, radio recordings show, Hood fired three shots into Sierra’s chest, killing him. “Shots fired, put several rounds into him,” Hood radioed in. “Got the knife.”

    Troo libertarians know why this story is so bad.

      • DenverJ

        Huh. Oh well, it’s the Crocodile Dundee thing; you’ve all seen it.

      • DenverJ

        Oh the carrot was assbackwards

    • Mojeaux

      Hood, an Iraq War veteran, is now an officer with the Haymarket police in Prince William County.

      Natch.

      Haymarket officers attended the trial in uniform to support Hood.

      I guess this is why there are no good cops.

      • Rhywun

        One reason why.

        Disgusting. How is that anything other than an attempt to intimidate the family and influence the jury?

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        *sigh*

        Of course it was cops from the closest community to me… I’ve already gotten the overwrought asshole vibe from them more than ones.

    • Tonio

      Because the “relatively new” policeman in Purcellville doesn’t have anything close to that much money from his salary and savings, and the taxpayers are on the hook.

      • Lackadaisical

        “Hood is not personally liable for the jury award. As a Purcellville police officer, he was covered by the Virginia Risk Sharing Association, a self-insurance pool used by more than 460 Virginia municipalities to cover such liabilities. The association is appealing the verdict, Judkins said”

    • Lackadaisical

      I thought it was going to be fake. A police officer who can hit his target without mag dumping? But I see he was in the military.

  12. Fourscore

    Your story sounds so similar to others, including mine. You were lucky to have had your mother to guide you along. I was floundering, looking, looking, not able to understand what was going on. I accidentally found Robert Ringer’s “Looking Out for # 1” and it made sense. Somehow discovered Hayek, Rothbard, David Friedman and realized I wasn’t alone. Good article, Pardner, there’s still hope.

    • straffinrun

      The Iraq war showed me that the powers that be don’t only lie about blow jobs. The politicians lie. The media lies. Only libertarians were saying, “The all lie about something. And that’s why they shouldn’t have so much power.”

      • Jarflax

        The Barons at Runnymede agreed with that.

      • straffinrun

        The original libertarians. Protecting their captured market.

      • Fourscore

        For me was the VN Experience. Light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be a mirror.

  13. kinnath

    1963. They year my youngest brother was born.

    • Fourscore

      That’s in between my 2 kids.

      • DenverJ

        Damn. You should be running for president!

      • Fourscore

        Over qualified, age wise

      • Lackadaisical

        Aren’t you like the same age as Bernie?

      • Fourscore

        I’ve got Bernie by 4 years. He’d a been carrying my books in middle school but was too young

      • Jarflax

        He’d have lost them or sold them. You lucked out.

  14. Crusty Juggler

    Smokey and the Bandit is a libertarian masterpiece.

    • Spudalicious

      No argument but the sequel sucked.

      • Crusty Juggler

        Libertarianism > capitalism fwiw.

      • Jarflax

        Since it incorporates all that is good in capitalism as well as other non-economic goods I’d say that is not a controversial statement. Try harder!

      • Crusty Juggler

        Aerosmith > Springsteen.

      • Jarflax

        I never liked Springsteen. I agree with you.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Born to Run is the shittiest song ever recorded.

      • Rebel Scum

        Weird Al > Aerosmith > Springsteen

      • Spudalicious

        Now you’re just being silly, even though I like Weird Al.

      • Mojeaux

        I hate Springsteen, so yes.

      • Rhywun

        Fun little article about Springsteen – basically: “yeah, he’s a phoney but so what”.

        (I am a neutral – don’t care about him one way or the other.)

    • Mojeaux

      This past summer, I queued that up to cheer myself up. It worked. Now I just queue up “Eastbound and Down” and that usually works.

      Rockin’ good time.

      • DenverJ

        Great song, had it in my head this summer.

      • Don Escaped Bloomington

        more Jerry Reed yumminess

        This is about the only Reed that is simple enough for me to handle. If he doesn’t make you crave a Tele, you just don’t understand.

      • Gender Traitor

        Quote by way of Mr. GT: “Jerry Reed is the only man in Nashville who can get away with calling Chet Atkins ‘Son.'”

      • hayeksplosives

        +1 Pam Poovey

  15. DenverJ

    Good morning, Vietnam!

    • DenverJ

      Sorry, I have Asperger’s.

      • Crusty Juggler

        I would pay $10,000 for someone to fuck you in your asperbergy ass.

      • DenverJ

        For ten grand, I’ll do it to myself.

      • straffinrun

        It doesn’t count retroactively.

      • DenverJ

        Why? It’s all on the back-end, anyway.

      • Spudalicious

        Back up, buddy. That’s just masturbation.

      • DenverJ

        Yeah, and probably about 9 grand in yoga and dieting and such…
        But think of how good shape I would be in, oh, and the new, smaller sized clothes!

    • Rebel Scum
  16. Rebel Scum

    There is an inordinate amount of tag-failing going on at this hour.

    • DenverJ

      Yo, that’s pretty homophobic, dude.

      • juris imprudent

        Too much one-handed typing.

  17. Rebel Scum

    Killing Oscar Salami

    “This should have been done for the last 15-20 years,” Trump said. “Him in particular. He was their real military leader. He’s a terrorist. He was designated as a terrorist by Obama, and then Obama did nothing about it.” …

    “We’ll see what happens. We’ll see what the response is, if any,” he said. “But you’ve seen what I’ve said our response would be.

    Trump again criticized Obama for his “appeasement” with Iran, giving the government of Iran billions of dollars as part of the nuclear deal.

    “I think that the Obama administration was just letting them get away with murder, in the true sense, murder,” he said.

    Trump added that Iran got even worse after making the nuclear deal with the United States, recalling when it took ten sailors hostage.

    “They humiliated those sailors, and our country,” he said.

    The president also mocked the establishment media and Democrats for expressing sympathy with Iran.

    “He was a terrorist, you know, they don’t want to call him a terrorist. Now the Democrats are trying to make him sound like he was this wonderful human being,” Trump said and repeated Limbaugh’s criticism that the establishment media was even describing Soleimani as a “poet.”

    +1 Hellfire (and fury)

    • DenverJ

      As you may well know, I am not a huge fan of government. I do, however, think that killing people who plot the killing of US citizens and service members is a legitimate use of governmental power.

      • hayeksplosives

        My heart swelled with pride when they confirmed it was a Reaper drone, stealth model.

        Made with pride by America, in that state y’all love to hate, California.

      • juris imprudent

        The proglodytes will drive such businesses out of their glorious state. UNPURE! UNPURE!!!!

      • DenverJ

        Hayek, you look so coy in your new Avatar. Thumbs up

      • Trigger Hippie

        I’m guessing she just finished up her part of the work for the Reaper drone.

      • Tundra

        She doesn’t fuck around with toys.

        You’ll see her work if the Mullahs decide to push things.

      • Trigger Hippie

        MOAB style, huh?

        *note to self, don’t fuck with hayek*

      • Gustave Lytton

        Funny. Doesn’t seem to be getting picked back up by the mainstream media.

    • straffinrun

      That made me physically ill.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Who?

      • Crusty Juggler

        He was a famous rapper for a minute, bro. Him and Rude Jude got into it once!

        For the two of you who click and listen, please note they are both white.

      • Jarflax

        Nothing screams authenticity like the children of multi-millionaire celebrities speaking with a ghetto slur in their voice.

      • Florida Man

        But it’s fine for Daniel Craig to steal my ancestors accent for Knives Out? Hypocrisy!

      • Jarflax

        Was that any good?

      • Florida Man

        It’s a fun movie. People said it was amazing so it didn’t live up to my expectations, but worth a watch.

      • Winston

        it didn’t live up to my expectations

        A Rian Johnson film subverting your expectations? Where did I hear that before?

      • Florida Man

        I know his other boy that was in dexter. I don’t know this weirdo.

      • Crusty Juggler

        The one son is a pretty good actor. Chet is hilariously awful. The king of cringe, if you will.

        I suggest you check out his rap career.

      • Florida Man

        ……….fine.

      • straffinrun

        He still sounds white. Wonder why?

    • Rebel Scum

      Tom Hanks’ son Chet

      I see the first problem.

  18. straffinrun

    How many comedians that hosted Hollywood award ceremonies woke up this morning and thought, “Goddamnit. Why didn’t I think of that?”

    • Crusty Juggler

      All the super famous cancel-proof comics?

    • hayeksplosives

      My favorite part was near the beginning when he said “I don’t care anymore. No, that’s not true; I never cared.”

  19. Crusty Juggler

    James Mangold To Direct Timothée Chalamet As Bob Dylan In Searchlight Drama About Icon’s Move From Folk To Rock Music

    EXCLUSIVE: Searchlight Pictures has closed a deal with Ford v Ferrari helmer James Mangold to direct Timothée Chalamet as the young Bob Dylan, during the period when he was poised to become folk music’s most seminal figure. When Dylan instead embraced rock ‘n’ roll and traded his acoustic guitar for an amp and an electric guitar, it created a huge outcry. And it cemented the status of rock music. Dylan is working actively with Searchlight and Mangold on the film, which the studio said is untitled but has been referred to around town as Going Electric.

    I love niche film making as much as the next guy but man oh man…

    • DenverJ

      When Dylan went electric, he was accused of selling out. There was a huge argument in music and the counterculture. I’m not sure it’s that obscure a niche.

      • Jarflax

        Selling out: When you make actually manage to get paid for doing the thing you have been doing ‘professionally’ but unsuccessfully and your friends have to keep bussing tables and selling dime bags to make ends meet.

      • Florida Man

        I prefer the term “Cashing In”.

      • Mojeaux

        When the music of your childhood is used to sell blood pressure and erectile dysfunction medication on TV.

      • Tundra

        When London Calling ended up in a Bond film, I was thrilled for the guys. I really don’t understand the silly fuckers who think you should starve for art.

      • Crusty Juggler

        Capitalist pig!

      • Mojeaux

        Ending up in a Bond film is awesome.

        Shilling Viagra? That’s not just selling out; that’s embarrassing.

      • Jarflax

        When your audience has moved from the target demographic for sex, drugs and rock and roll into the demographic that needs the drugs to have the sex, you shill viagra. People take musicians too seriously.

      • Winston

        How about a film about Deep Dish pizza?

      • DenverJ

        There’s a place here called Jet’s. OMG. Buttered crust, etc. But it gives me heartburn, so we don’t order it. But two nights ago we ordered it. Soooooo good.
        I paid the price that night, but who needs sleep?

    • Chafed

      Beyond the staff at Rollingstone magazine, who is supposed to care about this film?

      • Sir Digby's Rockin' New Year's Celebration

        Excellent question!

  20. Rebel Scum

    Is it March yet?

    *adds green food coloring to Bud Light*

    • DenverJ

      You fool! You’ll kill us all!

    • Bobarian LMD

      *Looks at all the red hearts and candies out at the store…

      “Yep, it’s the next important holiday.”

      • mexican sharpshooter

        Martin Luther King day is no laughing matter. As somebody that grew up in Arizona, I AM CONSTANTLY HAVING TO TELL PEOPLE IT ACTUALLY IS A FUCKING HOLIDAY IN ARIZONA

  21. straffinrun

    For a guy with such a fun name, Dan Bongino freaks the me the fuck out.

    • Spudalicious

      I think he’s okay with that.

      • straffinrun

        He may be fine with it, but I pity the schizophrenic that clicks on one of his segments.

  22. chipping pioneer

    I find myself despairing lately.

    I am of the minarchist type of libertarian. I think that government has a role, which is to secure the rights of its citizens, and that’s it. Full stop.

    Like many of you, I recognize that we’re never going to achieve any type of Glibertopia. I want to remain hopeful that we can find ways to reduce the size and scope and influence of the State on our lives.

    However, I have little hope. Political discourse is increasingly reduced to two factions. Neither of them want to reign in the power of the State; they only seek to use it for different purposes.

    I fear that we’re doomed.

    • Winston

      Increasingly?

      • kbolino

        Some measures of partisanship show a growing divide. The postwar bipartisan consensus (and its post-9/11 booster shot) seems to be long gone now. Of course, the same consensus got us into this mess to begin with, but hey at least it was semi-amicable.

      • DenverJ

        It’s the two of them fighting over who gets to tell people how to live that will eventually show the American people that nobody should have that power- is what I would say if I were tripping on shrooms.

    • Lackadaisical

      Yeah, but who knows. History is full of weird stuff happening that no one expected.

      • Winston

        See. Trump, bin Laden, etc…

      • DenverJ

        Cities in Flight starts with the discovery and widespread dissemination of anti-gravity, and entire cities leaving an authoritarian Earth.
        Haven’t read it in decades. Maybe I’ll revisit it.

      • Raven Nation

        +1 on Cities…and Blish in general.

    • straffinrun

      Hope is over rated. You just do what you think is right and let the chips fall.

      • Tundra
      • straffinrun

        Nice. A little early in the day for that. I’m feeling this right now.

      • Tundra

        I really need to visit Japan.

    • Crusty Juggler

      “I fear that we’re doomed.”

      Yep. So stop paying attention and do things that make you happy.

      Easy peasy lemon squeezy, bro.

      • Fourscore

        Yep, go fishing…

      • chipping pioneer

        It’s January.

      • chipping pioneer

        This is my preferred mode.

      • Tundra

        It’s pretty much the same.

        With more clothes.

      • Spudalicious

        No wonder he drank so much, he was fishing at a horseshoe pit.

    • Florida Man

      Read some ancient literature/philosophy. I find it comforting that 2000 years ago they had the same problems, hopes, dreams, concerns that we have today. Also, focus on what you can control sand don’t worry about what you can’t.

      • Jarflax

        True, and the threats were more immediate and existential. Rouhani may fantasize that he is the new Xerxes coming to crush the decadent west, but he isn’t.

      • straffinrun

        300 trannies hold him off at Derpopolae.

      • Florida Man

        Whoo boy, that got a hearty chuckle.

      • straffinrun

        Should’ve went with “hot gates”.

      • DenverJ

        I larfed

      • kbolino

        Are they allowed to fantasize themselves as non-Muslims?

      • Jarflax

        Call an Iranian an Arab and see how deep Muslim Brotherhood runs. They very much think of themselves as the heirs of Darius, Cyrus, and Xerxes, just with a new faith.

      • kbolino

        Reminds me of the Turks (in Turkey) connecting with “their” history from the Hittites onward. Yeah, I’m pretty sure with so many conquests and migrations that blood is kind of dilute at this point…

      • hayeksplosives

        My former boss was born in Iran and got stuck in the US as a student during the 1979 coup.

        He is now a US citizen, but takes massive exception to being called Iranian. He says he’s American, but Persian born.

      • Gustave Lytton

        I’ve heard that (second hand) also. My late stepson’s father was Persian.

    • chipping pioneer

      Rein, not reign. Fuck. I always get that wrong.

      • Rebel Scum

        Grammar always rains on my parade.

    • Gender Traitor

      I fear that we’re doomed.

      I find the Second Amendment Sanctuary movement in Virginia encouraging.

      And, of course, there’s always the chance that the more the politicians are fighting each other, the less damage they’re doing to us.

  23. Florida Man

    Super Car Mega Build is a crap show.

  24. Winston

    Speaking of the Globes I am reminded of how the bohemian artist class was supposed to be inherently libertarian. Oof….

    • kbolino

      I thought, growing up, that people of my generation (1980-1990 or so) would be more intelligent, considerate, and introspective than our parents’ and grandparents’ generations. Boy, was I wrong.

      • Winston

        What made you think that and what evidence was there? I am reminded of all the talk about a certain moment which in the end boiled down to Iphones and the Johnian trifecta.

      • kbolino

        I was a child and young adult. I had optimism and rose-tinted glasses. I had no context, since my parents and grandparents weren’t people as such in my mind yet and so empathizing with them was a nonsensical proposition. Also, they weren’t as crazy at 15, 18, or 21 as they are today.

      • kbolino

        Last sentence “they” is people around my age.

    • Bobarian LMD

      Speaking of the Globes

      Q’s not here Man!

  25. Tres Cool

    Mojeaux on January 6, 2020 at 7:48 pm

    I think you qualify as gender fluid or queer if you shop at Hot Topic

    I don’t know if Hot Topic is still a thing, but I fervently hope you are right.

    “Furries” is a thing at XX’s high school.

    “Trans” is a thing at XY’s middle school.

    Obligatory.

    • mexican sharpshooter

      Hot Topic is still a thing. Its a good place to buy Harry Potter merch.

      • Tres Cool

        Catchy tune tho’

  26. kbolino

    Baseline Budgeting

    To this day, I still have not been able to find out what the government did before baseline budgeting. I can’t imagine it’s worse than the clusterfuck we have today. Government accounting has that impressive ability to find all the wrong answers for every problem.

    • DenverJ

      Rather, they produce the answers for the wrong problem.

      • kbolino

        True, if the problem is how to spend money as wastefully as possible, they have all the right answers.

      • Mad Scientist

        Why, it’s almost as if that was their goal all along.

  27. chipping pioneer

    I watched an interview tonight with one of my favourite writers, Salman Rushdie (MJ, UCS, and SF notwithstanding). Despite being haled as a champion of free speech, this guy has it all backwards. He sees our time as one in which free speech is under attack, because Orange McBadMan attacks the media. Ignoring the fact that it’s primarily the left that wants to shut down dissenting views.

    Like many of my favourite musicians, many of my favourite writers (aforementioned Glibs excluded) have, um, questionable wordviews: Rushdie, Orwell, Hemingway, Naipaul, Conrad. What is it about being an artist that causes one to get things so wrong?

    • Florida Man

      Right brain dominance. They can’t crunch the numbers to see their pie in the sky dreams are unworkable.

    • straffinrun

      Artists are inherently dictators. They control everything that goes on the canvas.

    • Tundra

      Low-T?

      Honestly, I haven’t got a clue. I just ignore it. If I judged artist on their grasp of reality, my Spotify list would be pretty much empty.

      Just enjoy yourself!

      (It’s later than you think.)

    • Rhywun

      Has Salman not visited a university campus in the last couple decades?! FFS.

    • Winston

      The desire to change the world and tear down existing things while not having to deal with commercial considerations and financial obligations can easily turn into a desire for TOP MEN to rule us and create the new world they desire.

    • juris imprudent

      Just finished The Satanic Verses. I do seem to enjoy magical realism.

      • straffinrun

        Marquez was my favorite in that genre. That book pulls you in completely.

      • juris imprudent

        Marquez is good, and I really like Helprin.

      • straffinrun

        Never read any, but I’ll check it out. Try Murakami’s 1Q84 for a wild ride. I devoured them when they came out.

      • juris imprudent

        I probably like Soldier of the Great War best (first of his I read), but Memoir from Antproof Case is wonderful and weird and Winter’s Tale was a great book (not so much for the movie).

      • Raven Nation

        I should read that.

        I read The Moor’s Last Sigh; meh.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Me too. I last read Rushdie over twenty years ago. Haroun and the Sea of Stories was my favorite.

    • kbolino

      There are people who want Rushdie dead, but none of them are coming from Trump.

      • kbolino

        Reading again, I don’t think he sees Trump as out to get him (vs. the other parts of the media). But surely somebody who has a fatwa on his life would be able to contextualize bombastic verbal “attacks” with no physical follow-through.

    • Mojeaux

      Thank you for the kind words. 🙂

      Rushdie is on that “I MUST read him” list, but I’ll never get around to it.

      What is it about being an artist that causes one to get things so wrong?

      I was thinking about this a little today, in that this site has, as a percentage of its regular commentariat, a significant percentage of writers. I think this, in some way, may represent a larger body of artists who are conservative/libertarian, but keep quiet.

      I will not argue that most artists are some flavor of collectivist authoritarians, but I don’t think that number is as large as it seems.

      • straffinrun

        The best artists are the ones that recognize they are inclined towards collectivism and check, so to speak, that tendency. Guess that’s true for everybody, though.

      • Tundra

        Josh Whedon is a perfect example of a confused artist. Writes libertarian fiction but thinks he’s a progressive.

        Sad.

      • straffinrun

        You could make the case that is true for Vonnegut, too.

      • Spudalicious

        ^^^^

      • juris imprudent

        I wasn’t sold on Rushdie until I read Hitchens essay on him in Arguably. Hitchens’ politics could leave me cold but my god could that man write.

    • Heroic Mulatto

      What’s your problem with Naipaul?

      • Tres Cool

        No love for Sun Yat-Sen ?

      • Raven Nation

        I read The Enigma of Arrival and it convinced me to read more post-colonial fiction.

        One of the best books I ever read.

      • Heroic Mulatto

        Among the Believers is my favorite.

  28. mexican sharpshooter

    I like it Yusef….but you may be too kind. Future generations will look back and think, “pineapple on pizza is how the war started?”

    • Jarflax

      Is that really any more insane than something like the 30 Years War, fought between devout Christians over doctrinal differences that are pretty trivial, while the Muslim threat was pressing in from the Balkans?

      • mexican sharpshooter

        That sounds like something a pinnappler would say!

      • Tres Cool

        “pinnappler”

        Im totes stealing that

    • Spudalicious

      I’m okay with that.

  29. Winston

    I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about the need for “representation” in our entertainment. How many types of people need to be represented? There is White Women, Black Men, Black Women, Asian Men, Asian Women, Hispanic Men, Hispanic Women, Brown Men, Brown Women, Arab Men, Arab Women, Native American Men, Native American Women, Muslim Men, Muslim Women, Jewish Men, Jewish Women, Hindu Men, Hindu Women, Buddhist Men, Buddhist Women, Homosexuals, lesbians bisexuals, transgendered, transsexual, asexual, gender neutral, genderfluid, Physical disabled, mentally disabled, blind, deaf, autistic.

    Jeez that’s just the 34 I was able to think up of right now and that doesn’t included the combinations of these groups. And you are going to need to represent them in a way that will satisfy the SJWs. Good luck!

    • Tundra

      Free.

      Slave.

      That’s two.

    • hayeksplosives

      How ‘bout Americans? Humans?

    • Heroic Mulatto

      I don’t know what you are talking about. Last I checked, every single one of those is a Pornhub category.

      • Winston

        But are they all in the same…er film?

      • Heroic Mulatto

        If you’re lucky.

  30. hayeksplosives

    I’m reliving the Vikes/ Saints game on Fubo. Watching the whole thing. In the 4th qtr now.

    • Tundra

      *hands ‘splosives a towel*

      You’re going to need it

      • hayeksplosives

        I watched it yesterday at the VFW, but they went on with Bingo as usual on Sunday night. Half of us couldn’t believe it! They turned off the volume. I want the full experience.

      • Tundra

        LOL!

        I was at a wedding at the end of the game. My neighbor was in the pew next to me and had the game going on his phone. It took a lot of restraint not to yell on that toss to Thielen!

    • straffinrun

      That sure was an unexpected pleasant thing to happen. Made my day. It always makes me laugh in the post game interviews when they all insist they will be ready for next week. Has any coach or player ever said, “Fuck the next game. I plan on doing blow and banging hookers all week in celebration”? LT is the only one I could think of.

      • Tundra

        Ricky Williams?

      • juris imprudent

        Man, he just wanted to roll a fat one – don’t be doggin’ him on snortin’ up the yardlines.

      • straffinrun

        Really? Ricky was pothead only IIRC. I respect the guy for doing what he wanted. You could make a case he let his teammates down. Bunch of millionaires will be fine.

  31. cyto

    In the scattershot thicket of nearly-old-guy nostalgia above, you can determine a pattern…. people reading wicked-smart writers. Which brings up the question… where are today’s wicked smart writers. The William F. Buckley, the George Will, Paglia, Freidman, Rand, and, and, and. There used to be a lot of them. Mostly on the right/libertarian end of the scale… but also on the left.

    That guy doesn’t seem to exist any more. And I don’t just mean from a style point of view… everything is following a new style-sheet these days, with lots of stuff being written via an outrage formula to get clicks. But even in that world, there are no “holy crap, that guy is smart” writers. I suppose we have Peterson and Schapiro, but those guys are not in the same league as Buckley et. al.

    Denis Miller is in that category of crazy smart, but he took a different turn with his career. And he’s our age, so that doesn’t count anyway. We need a 35 year old Buckley. 10 of them, exploring politics with ideological rigor instead of partisan rationalizations.

    We have replaced that old guard with the AM radio guys – Limbaugh, Hannity, Maddow. But with the exception of Maddow they are bright, but not that bright. And none of them are deep thinkers. And as Maddow has proven, they are more beholding to party than they are to ideology.. although Hannity and Limbaugh are firmly in the conservative camp, even as they pimp for Trump on a daily basis.

    • Tundra

      Maybe, but we all regularly read authors who were dead long before we were born. The roots of libertarianism are way older than any of those writers.

    • juris imprudent

      Buckley in his younger days – before most of us were reading him – was not the man we would eventually come to admire. Granted, he learned from his mistakes – a characteristic all but unknown to the progressive mind. But his better days were ahead of him.

    • Mojeaux

      We need a 35 year old Buckley.

      I’m almost certain they’re out there. They’re just publishing independently so you can’t find them.

      Now, I write libertarian philosophy fairly blatantly in my fiction, but liberals are my biggest fan base. They aren’t quite sure how they got sucked in to reading Randian Mormons, but they sure aren’t going to quit doing it.

      • Gustave Lytton

        I write libertarian philosophy fairly blatantly in my fiction

        Terry Goodkind, is that you?

    • straffinrun

      My friend gave me The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray. It’s well written and has some good insights, but it’s overall theme is milquetoast. I have a feeling someone game changing is coming soon. The way society is moving is creating fertile ground for someone. So much bullshit has to grow something.

    • Francisco d'Anconia

      Smart people realize that politics is evil and don’t waste their lives promoting ideologies that have no chance of ever coming to fruition?

    • Mojeaux

      You forgot Tom Wolfe.

      • juris imprudent

        I’ve only read Bonfire of the Vanities – OMG. And as good as the book was, the movie was it’s antithesis. I had a discussion punctuated with much laughter with a couple of friends about how it should have been cast (since everyone in it was horribly miscast).

      • Mojeaux

        I wanted to poke my eyes out at the movie. I just…speechless.

        Anyway, A Man in Full is the one that’s my favorite. It really informs a lot of my writing.

        I believe that is also OMWC’s favorite book of all books evar.

      • Jarflax

        I liked A Man in Full better than Bonfire.

      • Mojeaux

        Yes, it’s a better book all the way around.

      • dbleagle

        “A Man in Full” is my vote as well.

      • Francisco d'Anconia

        Tom only wrote one book!

      • Mojeaux

        Koolaid Acid Test?

      • Francisco d'Anconia

        *sigh*

        There was a demon that lived in the air. They said whoever challenged him would die. Their controls would freeze up, their planes would buffet wildly, and they would disintegrate. The demon lived at Mach 1 on the meter, 750 miles an hour, where the air could no longer move out of the way. He lived behind a barrier through which they said no man could ever pass. They called it: The sound barrier. Then, they built a small plane, the X1, to try and break the sound barrier. And men came to the High Desert in California to ride it. They were called test pilots. And no one knew their names.

      • Mojeaux

        Dammit, I was trying to get you to think out of the rocketship.

    • Chafed

      I think Kevin D. Williams fits the bill.

  32. Winston

    I’ve been thinking but isn’t “Socially conservative” been a rather poor term or at least only relevant in the 1960s and 1970s if at all? The original Puritans wanted to overthrow the Monarchy, Church and Aristocracy not very socially conservative isn’t it? Or how Victorian morality was very much an attack on the morality of the aristocracy. Again not really “socially conservative”. And the Baptists and Catholics were traditionally the outgroups in the US so again their views aren’t very “conservative”. Or how the Temperance movement grew out of the abolitionists or how Edwardian Era Social Reformers were heavily associated with the Progressive Movement.

    • juris imprudent

      On a lark I picked up Pat Buchanan’s Death of the West and just started into tonight. So Pat laments, and laments, and laments, the movement away from glorious mid-century Christianity (god the 50s were a decade – pined for by both left and right, for different reasons of course) into our current soul-less existence. And I keep waiting for his epiphany as to WHY this happened. He is berating all of the usual suspects, and every now and then comes oh-so-close to a realization – which he rapidly eludes.

      Prosperity opens vistas of possibilities that necessity and tradition foreclose. Once exposed to that, it isn’t hard to understand why so few are willing to yoke themselves to the old ways. The new right critics of capitalism are beginning to understand this – that Schumpeter wasn’t just talking about business enterprises.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Once they’ve seen Pareé?…

      • Winston

        So the New Deal?

      • juris imprudent

        He does actually say that. And the funny thing he is just can’t seem to understand why no one wants to be either the traditional male or female role model he wants them to be. Say what you will about Jerry Falwell (and I think no one ever said it better than Mr. Flynt), but that man could actually SELL the idea. Buchanan blusters around, harrumphing and harranguing, but can’t say a good word for tradition itself – just damn you all for abandoning it!

      • Gustave Lytton

        Falwell certainly could sell Campari too.

      • Winston

        https://www.aier.org/article/not-losing-sight-of-the-classical-liberal-ideal/

        Yet Schumpeter is considered to be one of those old things that we shouldn’t yoke ourselves to…

        Today, the media and a variety of more serious public policy publications are awash in articles and essays insisting that the postwar “neoliberal” era has finally and inescapably come to an end, with a far more “progressive” and socialist system the way of the future. Planetary problems and domestic income inequalities and other social injustices require and demand nothing less than the more direct and guiding hand of government over social and economic affairs for the betterment of humankind, it is argued. “Liberalism” and relatively competitive markets have had their day, its critics insist.

        This happened in 1900 or thereabouts and is happening again.

      • juris imprudent

        It is a contradiction that conservatives have had a hard time grasping. Dynamic economics does not balance with static social roles. One has to give, or the other – or some from both.

      • Winston

        Except I wasn’t talking about “social roles” but the assumption that “dynamic economics” will always be accepted. Things constantly evolve yet the economic system is supposed to remain basically unchanged. This is the contradiction that liberals have had a time grasping. The fact that liberalism might be considered an out of date ideology is something that never occurred to them yet that is what happened in the Edwardian Era and is happening now despite the mass prosperity.

        I mean the Green New Deal is all about saving the world and throwing out the hidebound ideas of the past that are killing us. Free Speech is one of those retrograde ideas made up by privileged racist white men to justify their privileged racism.

      • juris imprudent

        Progressives don’t think. If they did they wouldn’t be progressives.

      • Winston

        You didn’t really the issue of saying that “we shouldn’t yoke ourselves to the old ways” and then a progressive will argue that your are the one who is yoking us to the old ways.

      • Mojeaux

        god the 50s were a decade – pined for by both left and right, for different reasons of course

        Pleasantville.

        I heard Dr. Laura just going off on this movie like crazy, saying it glorified infidelity and all sorts of bad behavior of youth (subtext: the 1950s were nirvana). So, of course, I saw it.

        It was a lovely film that portrayed the gift of choice. It’s been a while since I saw it.

      • Winston

        Fifties nostalgia replaced 1920s nostalgia, which replaced 1890s nostalgia and is now being replaced by 1980s and 1990s nostalgia.

      • Mojeaux

        No. 1996 was only 3 years ago.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Party like it’s 1999?

      • Winston

        I forgot 1850s nostalgia from Confederates and 1860s nostalgia from the Yankees.

      • Francisco d'Anconia

        Pleasantville is one of the most libertarian movies ever!

      • Mojeaux

        I didn’t know that. I just know it resonated deeply with me and I couldn’t figure out WTF Dr. Laura was on about.

      • Francisco d'Anconia

        Well…maybe not “ever”…but I can see why Dr Laura would object to it.

      • Heroic Mulatto

        If by “Pleasantville” you mean “Behind the Green Door”, then yes.

      • Francisco d'Anconia

        A close second

      • straffinrun

        If by that you mean “Cube”.

      • Spudalicious

        Joan Allen. Yum.

      • Tundra

        Damn straight. I’d colorize her.

      • Winston

        There seems to be quite a nostalgia from an overly idealized past overlooking the fact that the “social liberals” of the past became the woke SJW cancel culture-types of today. And complaints about Yute Music of today. Oh the Irony!

      • Winston

        Or how one way the classical liberals thought to save us from hidebound traditionalism, specifically of the Catholic variety, was the…Public School System!
        There was no way the public school teachers could become statists that want to enrich themselves out of the public trough, right?

  33. Gustave Lytton

    Stuck in my head

    https://youtu.be/a70yJwgQtzo

    Colds suck. Seem to be on the downward slope of it but the throat is just killing me now.

    • Tundra

      Whoa!

      Blast from the past. Martin sure had pipes.

      Feel better, man. This stuff works.

      • Gustave Lytton

        I’ll have to keep it mind for the next time. Meantime, I’m going with the cure from when I was a kid, creamy cold French vanilla ice cream

    • Mojeaux

      I’m going through my music wish list of approximately 260 songs/albums. I do not know why I put some of this shit on this list.

    • Tres Cool

      Let the NyQuil sink in (if you added a shot of booze its the Cosby-colada) and listen to THIS

      • straffinrun

        Heard that song a million times, but never knew that was it’s name.

      • Mojeaux

        I don’t know why, but that reminded me of this.

      • Tres Cool

        And that sidebar sent me to this

      • straffinrun

        I took some Billquil. The nighttime sniffling, sneezing, coughing….so I could get raped medicine.

    • Mad Scientist

      If you like Benny Golson, you’ll also like Ben Webster.

      • Mojeaux

        Oh, yes. Yaaaaassssss I doooooooooooo.

      • Mojeaux

        Good, but does not make me swoon or get short of breath.

      • Mad Scientist

        OK, then give John Coltrane a try.

      • Mojeaux

        That had me in the first four notes.

      • Mojeaux

        Dude, this is lovely. I’ve got tears in my eyes.

      • Rhywun

        It’s nice and I don’t even like jazz.

      • Mad Scientist

        Glad to hear it!

      • Mojeaux

        I don’t even like jazz

        I am very picky about my jazz.

        I love this stuff like what Mad Scientist has been posting, but I have never known the names or pieces or even what decade any of it was made in, so I could never find it.

        Stan Getz is usually my go-to guy.

        I like smooth jazz just to wind down and also to do intensive brain work but also needing music. It cannot have words or complications that will make me think about the music itself. I need white noise, something more than a thunderstorm track on loop.

        I like quite a bit of fusion jazz.

        What I don’t like are the interminable jam sessions that have funky time signature changes, especially rapid ones, and some time signatures are just awful without any changes, and I hate the discordant chords.

      • Mojeaux

        I can’t work to most classical music. It demands I think about it. Baroque is the exception.

        Also, the Rach 3, which I use as a kind of Pomodoro timer. It’s almost 45 minutes long and I do actually use it as a unit of measure. “It will take me two Rach 3s to do this task.” I can only do that because I’ve listened to it so much that I also know where the zeniths and nadirs are, so there’s a rhythm to how I work.

      • Mad Scientist

        OK, one more for you that I think fits your criteria, even if it’s a horn rather than a sax. Miles Davis – Kind of Blue.

      • Mojeaux

        Oh! I used Kind of Blue while I was writing my Prohibition book, along with Elevator to the Gallows.

      • Mad Scientist

        Also, this version of Summertime is amazeballs.

      • Mad Scientist

        Oops. That was the wrong link. Summertime.

    • Spudalicious

      Tenor sax, but still sublime.

  34. straffinrun

    Let’s start a gofundme to get Gervais to host the Libertarian convention.

    • Winston

      Well the Convention is a joke already so…

      • straffinrun

        The Yokels will be there this year. Diversity!

      • Winston

        So you mean Tom Woods? I have no idea what you mean?

      • straffinrun

        Yeah. They all joined the party, so I’m assuming they’ll be there.

      • Winston

        Lincoln Chafee running will be interesting. What exactly makes him particularly Libertarian for a Republican turned Democrat? I mean at least Weld and Johnson were considered fiscally conservative and opposed the socons.

      • straffinrun

        Socially liberal, fiscally conservative. That stupid motto better not make a comeback this time.

      • Winston

        Was Chafee even all that fiscally conservative?

        Socially liberal, fiscally conservative.

        I do love how this term is an overly romanticized appeal to a idealized non-existent past. How ironic.

      • straffinrun

        I should care about Lincoln Chaffedme because?

      • Winston

        Well he may run for LP so I thought that was interesting considering he was a “moderate Republican” and they aren’t known for fiscal conservatism.

        Chaffedme

        Har.

      • Winston

        And the LP being taking by disgruntled Republicans is a sight to see.

      • straffinrun

        Arcane and irrelevant is fine. Was just asking?

    • hayeksplosives

      I’m in.

  35. hayeksplosives

    An alcoholic is someone you don’t like who drinks as much as you do.

    —Dylan Thomas

    • Tres Cool

      “addiction is the one disease you get yelled at for having”

      -Mitch Hedberg

    • mikey

      “I feel sorry for people that don’t drink because when they wake up in the morning, that is the best they’re going to feel all day.”
      – Frank Sinatra

      • Sir Digby's Rockin' New Year's Celebration

        “Don’t drink water, because fish fuck in it.”
        -Harry Anderson

    • straffinrun

      My mom has been a dependency (alcohol/narcotics) therapist for 40 years. Unreal how many of her stories at the dinner table ended with, “He then told me about how he fucked his dog.” That’s the yardstick I use.

      • Spudalicious

        Whew! I’m still good.

      • Rhywun

        Right?!

      • Tres Cool

        + screwed the pooch

      • straffinrun

        Idaho alcoholics and Wisconsin alcoholics have different tests. Did you use Mr Potatohead as a verb?

      • Spudalicious

        More as a noun.

      • straffinrun

        Mrs Potatohead only has eyes for you.

      • Gustave Lytton

        https://youtu.be/vKfoHpxH6aw

        The bag of chips wasn’t the only thing she used his mouth on.

      • Spudalicious

        And Mr. Potato Head is very accommodating.

      • straffinrun

        Ever given someone a slinky?

      • Sir Digby's Rockin' New Year's Celebration

        YeNO!

      • CPRM

        We had a slinky, but I straitened it.

      • straffinrun

        You animal. After that you turn your toy into Stretchmark Armstrong.

      • Chafed

        I now understand why you moved to Japan.

    • Mad Scientist

      I’m not an alcoholic. I’m a drunk. Alcoholics go to meetings.

      • Francisco d'Anconia

        Fuck those meetingz! Buncha quitterz!

      • Donation Not Taxation

        Fermentation dependent person?

    • mikey

      “It was a woman that drove me to drink and I never had the decency to thank her.”

      W.C. Fields

      • CPRM

        Heh, totally true in my case.

  36. Yusef in Space......

    Ozy and I went to California to grab my stuff, so I missed the whole thing! I’ll catch up, hope it was fun!

    • straffinrun

      Road trip!

      • Yusef in Space......

        non stop talking for 11 hours, lots to discuss,

    • Mojeaux

      Leaving California behind for good! YAYAYAY!!!

      • Yusef in Space......

        I’m done, thank God, Sorry you missed Ozy recently, a real fun guy to just listen to, I laughed hard!

      • Yusef in Space......

        And he has another 2.5 hours to go before he gets home, Dale is the Man!

  37. DenverJ

    Gesundheit

  38. CPRM

    Huzzah! Where else but here can a papist celibate who thinks most drugs are bad make a cartoon about Trump’s meth smoking Hat and be great friends with everyone? Because we don’t view the world as right or wrong, but in avenues of freedom. We can disagree and since we aren’t trying to force everyone else to be like us, accept each other for who we are.

    • Sir Digby's Rockin' New Year's Celebration

      Piss on you–I’m workin’ fer Mel Brooks!

      • Yusef in Space......

        Not the Face!

      • Sir Digby's Rockin' New Year's Celebration

        +1 French Mistake

      • Mad Scientist
      • Sir Digby's Rockin' New Year's Celebration

        “Spelling ‘amerika’ with a ‘k’, now, are we?”

        /terrific throw-away line form the series.

        /would also accept, “Butter me, Pat!”

      • CPRM

        I like (((him))) as well.

    • Rhywun

      The Hat smokes meth?! Well, I never.

      • CPRM

        I never did either. But I had a drug dealer roommate in college, he had this side piece that smoked meth and then cleaned our whole room. I could use someone like that, I’m shit at cleaning.

      • Rhywun

        I never did either.

        Hah I was expressing disapproval but yeah I’ve never smoked meth either. I’ve done a lot of drugs but I have my pride.

      • CPRM

        I was expressing disapproval

        Yeah, but there was no joke to make there as a rebuff.

      • Sir Digby's Rockin' New Year's Celebration

        shit at cleaning

        I think I see your problem.

      • CPRM

        I don’t, and that’s probably the problem.

      • straffinrun

        Never worked part time at McD’s in high school is my guess. Say what you will about Ronnie, but he sure did teach you how to clean.

      • CPRM

        No, I never did. But sadly in my late 30s working at McDonalds is upward mobility for me.

      • Sir Digby's Rockin' New Year's Celebration

        That clown is dynamite!

  39. CPRM

    The Witcher Netflix Show was ok. Enjoying my splurge of $15 to play the Witcher 3. And this is pretty sweet.

    • straffinrun

      $15 for a splurge is a good deal.

      • Sir Digby's Rockin' New Year's Celebration

        $20–same as downtown.

  40. CPRM

    Ok, gonna find a documentary to watch and render a client video while I pass out fall asleep.

    • Sir Digby's Rockin' New Year's Celebration

      render a client video

      Mmmmm….hog fat.

  41. Tejicano

    I hate when somebody I need to hear from for work tells me “I’ll call you a little later” – and I spend the whole day at home because it’s the best place for me to take a call, but they never call me. Luckily today I had a bunch of to-do’s which I could do sitting down at home.

    • Plinker762

      “I’ll call you later”

      “I’ll be right there”

      “Trust me”

      • Mad Scientist

        “Of course I’ll still respect you in the morning!”

      • Yusef in Space......

        Trust me means Fuck You in Californian……

      • Plinker762

        I was told that is how ((they)) say it

      • Rhywun

        “Let’s do this again some time”

      • Tejicano

        This guy is usually a real straight shooter – no BS with him. But he has a lot on his plate and the company which contracts us to handle their projects has been screwing him around, keeping him in the dark, and I have the end user asking me for info and commitments.

    • straffinrun

      Why is home the best place to make a call?

      • Tejicano

        Too noisy if he calls me while I’m out on the street. If he could fix an exact time to call I could be in a coffee shop or somewhere quiet. But that never works out.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Because the call is coming from inside the house?

      • Sir Digby's Rockin' New Year's Celebration

        Home is where you feel most comfortable using the shitter.

      • Plinker762

        Home is where you make it

      • Sir Digby's Rockin' New Year's Celebration

        ??

      • Chafed

        +1 Squatty Potty

      • Tejicano

        My hearing is pretty fucked from being in mortars back in my youth. It’s like I’m missing a couple bandwidths of sound which seems worse with digital phones.

      • Chafed

        Best possible excuse to explain why you weren’t listening to your wife.

    • Sir Digby's Rockin' New Year's Celebration

      Of all the officers involved, Mr. No Bears is certainly the biggest asshole of the bunch. It would take the whole Mega Roll package of Charmin to deal with him.

      I don’t know what it is about officers showing up well into a stop that feel they somehow have the best take on a situation and simply must mouth off to you.

    • straffinrun

      Tom Hanks expression says it all.

    • Sir Digby's Rockin' New Year's Celebration

      The man is funny, I’ll give him that. But, he always seems to fancy himself as the smartest guy in the room, in a very smarmy way.

      While it’s refreshing to see these dolts taken down a few pegs, I doubt it’ll be long before he relegates himself to the ‘just another asshole’ bin.

      • straffinrun

        What’s crazy about the whole thing is that any of us could’ve given that monologue a year ago. All the points he hit were already well established memes among those not on the social justice left.

    • Yusef in Space......

      I just watched the entire monologue, not so much funny as scalding and quite shitty, and it was all true,

  42. Sir Digby's Rockin' New Year's Celebration

    Glib parents, maybe you can comment on this–kids seem to really like shitting outdoors. This is something I am unaware of, and, probably could have gone the rest of my life not knowing.

    Also, lots of dick ‘n’ vag stories, but, that’s for another time.

    • Gender Traitor

      System fail: All those rules were supposed to keep the Libertarians off the ballot, not Democrats!

      Also, submitted without comment:

      Yang has trafficked on his reputation for being the smart Asian. He introduced himself to America in the first Democrat primary debate as “the Asian man who likes math.”

      • UnCivilServant

        Lets see:

        $1,000 * 12 months = $12,000/year

        253,768,092 adults * $12,000/year = $3,045,217,104,000/year

        Federal tax revenue = $3,460,000,000,000/year

        So, what are you gonna cut, Mr. Yang?

      • PieInTheSky

        A extra 10% tax on people making over a million a year will bring that revenue in

      • UnCivilServant

        Now, the FTR (Federal Tax Revenue) includes all sources, but for this demostration, lets say that all comes from people making over a million a year. The US top tax rate is 40%. If that goes up to 50%, the 3.46 trillion will only go up to 4.325, which doesn’t cover current spending, let alone the additional 3 trillion UBI bill. That is using the most generous values possible for that argument, which means actual revenue would be far, far, far less.

      • PieInTheSky

        everyone knows that if the rich paid their fair share, there would be enough money. Stop shilling for billionaires uncivil.

    • Gender Traitor

      BTW – I’ve finished (and thoroughly enjoyed) Shadowdemon, so I trust there’s now no danger of spoilers when the final installment of Ink & Infatuation posts tomorrow. Happily, I have a hair appointment early afternoon, so I should be able to read the story as I sit under the dryer.

      • UnCivilServant

        You should be good. The changes to the status quo from events in that book don’t get special attention later on, being the new normal, but do get referenced, since that is now how it is in-universe. You’ll probably figure out what I’m obliquely referencing when you read part 3.

  43. Gender Traitor

    Apropos of nothing except that the phrasing of this local news headline amused me: “Three people in hospital after crash that trapped one of them in Dayton.”

    • UnCivilServant

      “Help! I’m trapped in Dayton!”

  44. Gender Traitor

    Off to face the world. Yesterday was rather stressful at work, but with any luck, today will be better. I hope your days (or night in your case, Pie) go as well as can be expected.

    • PieInTheSky

      It is early afternoon really…

    • UnCivilServant

      It’s Password Change Day!

      I get to run around changing all of my passwords then reflexively typing the old one because I’ve had months to grow accustomed to it.

      *runs around in an insane celebratory dance*

      • Festus

        *runs around in an insane celebratory dance* Late nite Glib confirmed.