The 2020 premiere of Saturday Morning Links comes at a momentous time. The NFL playoffs are beginning, SP and I are preparing for several waves of visitors and a landmark anniversary, this site is about to turn 3 years old, and the final push for the national elections is commencing. We live in a contested state, so we’re resigned to being continually wheedled to choose between two candidates we despise for congress, senate, and the presidency. And we resolved to continue our unbroken record of avoiding the census. It’s going to be quite a year!
Speaking of which, there are birthdays, including a guy whose work was both derivative and integral; Harlan Ellison’s spirit animal; a guy who redefined the phrase “slimy politician”; a guy who proved that you don’t have to be sane to win a physics Nobel; and a guy who proved that pretentious and boring are not bars to success.
On to news.
Dumber Boomers freaking about their grandkids. To my cohort: this ain’t Nam, wars don’t work that way anymore.
Think that was dumb? Hold mah beer.
But we do seem to be getting in deeper. Why the fuck are we over there, again?
(((Whataboutism))) proggie style.
Nothing stopping you from voluntarily handing it to our wise and benevolent government, Billy. Until then, shut the fuck up.
Old Guy Music today is another entry in the category of “if more country music was like this, I’d listen to more country music.”
“Iran Has Hezbollah Sleeper Cells in the U.S. Ready to Strike
Ali Kourani previously tasked with conducting surveillance of JFK & Pearson airports.”
That doesn’t seem all that dumb.
It may be inaccurate but it isn’t unbelievable on its face. They have intelligence assets abroad, and I’m sure it’s not that difficult to get into the country.
I hope the sandals come with snow shoes.
They could outsource the Minnesota campaign to Somalis.
They already have, and Ilhan Omar approves this message.
Did we seriously just link to info-wars as a definitive source?
We take everything seriously around here.
[citation needed][for anything other than pizza crust and certain tropical fruit toppings]
Okay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9aM_dT5VMI
Speaking of post.
http://www.nfl.com/schedules/2019/POST
“It estimated that there were an average of 17.5 mammals, 20.7 birds and 129.5 reptiles per hectare (10,000 square metres, so a square 100m on each side – about the size of a rugby pitch).”
The size of a what?
That there would be so many more reptiles than birds sounds odd.
Title of article “How do we know how many animals have died?”
Claim from professor “approximately 480 animals affected”
Idiot journalists strike again.
480 *million
How many of them are insects?
The entire column was nonsense, and kinda acknowledged as much. They went from “half a billion killed” to “480 million killed” to “480 million affected” to “we don’t know if they died, but they could have died later due to lack of food” to “I don’t know the actual densities in these areas” back to “there could have been many more animals affected”.
What a waste of time.
Birds can fly away?
If more country music was like that wouldn’t they just call it bluegrass.
That struck me more as country than bluegrass, though admittedly the boundaries are fuzzy.
I consider anything with a banjo and a fiddle to be bluegrass.
Never seen a gal play the invisible banjo? You’ll be fiddling and it won’t be bluegrass.
Bellla Fleck and the Flecktones would like to have a word with you.
I didn’t say you had to have a fiddle.
I would posit that the presence of the drum and guitar moved it more towards the C&W side of the ledger but it’s all 20th century Americana roots music and it is good. Thanks for the link, OMWC.
In any case, I enjoyed it.
Oh yeah, I didn’t mean to knock it.
The presence of a drummer makes it an improvement over most bluegrass, in my unabashedly biased opinion.
Speaking of bluegrass…it’s one of those genres that I wouldn’t know where to start in terms of picking up an album, but I know what I like when I hear it. Local (VA) station WNRN.org has a 3 hour bluegrass show every week – one of the best things about Sunday morning (8-11 EST). Heard a LOT of good stuff there…but still haven’t wound up picking up any singles, etc on itunes yet.
If I may be so bold, check out The Women’s Bluegrass Collective; it’s a great compilation album of female artists. Like Wilma Lee Cooper – https://youtu.be/iEmihpFo96k
Try Will the Circle be Unbroken
Looks like a decent start – pretty sure I’ve heard stuff from them before. Like I said – Bluegrass Sunday Morning on wnrn.org is dope
Why the fuck are we over there, again?
Thank you for asking. Gives me a reason to repost from the dead thread.
straffinline of the Middle East for the past two decades:
*Axis of Ebil declared. Iranquorea will leave Manhattan with a giant mushroom tattoo on it’s face if we don’t go get’em.
*Hands full with Afghanistan, the US gathers all the tribal leaders for a Loya Jirgoff. Great! Now we can get to some shockin’ and awin’ in Baghdad. For 9/11, Ragheads! Saudia Arabia raises a finger in protest at the racism, but decides instead to piss himself laughing.
*A giant rave is held in Lollafallujah. Strobes, lasers and kickin’ bass keep the party hoppin’ all night. Massive hangovers abound the next morning.
*”WTF are you looking at?” the US asks Libya. Libya blinks. “Me? Nothing. You wanna stop and frisk me for a nuclear program again?”. The US declines. “How about a bayonet up your poop chute?”
*Back in Iraq, while totes respecting Iraq’s sovereignty, the US builds a modern day Ziggurat in the center of Baghdad with a neon sign flashing, “American Embassy”
*”WTF are you looking at?” the US asks another dipshit. Syria gives the pouty expression indicating there is no way to answer that question without getting his ass kicked. Pallets of arms and cash are dropped into areas filled with desperately poor, religious zealots harboring ancient religious rivalries. Toyota trucks race each other towards the booty, photo ops with John MCain slowing a few teams down.
*The Ziggurat gets decked out with cool AF weaponry.
*Saudia Arabia asks Yemen, “WTF are you looking at?” US overhears this and sends Saudi Arabia some hi tech weapons to find out exactly WTF Yemen is looking at.
*An inkblot starts oozing across random areas in Syria and Iraq. Russia, Iran and the US decide not to ask each other, “WTF are you looking at?” in a historic unspoken alliance. Syria adds that he, indeed, doesn’t like that inkblot, either. The US backhands Syria with, “STFU, Donnie!”
*Another Royal Jirgoff is held in Afghanistan. Goats take a breather.
*An orange man declares victory over the inkblot. The Kurds roll their eyes, but can’t say much because of Turkey and Erred Again.
*The Ziggurat, for some reason, isn’t drawing the admiration of the people it looms over. Iran, standing proudly on a giant pile of shit, points at the Ziggurat. “That’s the source of your oppression!” A group of Qud suckers lead the mob to attack the Ziggurat.
*Orange man takes out the top Qud sucker with a Qud-buster missile. The Qud sucker proxies close ranks and declare they will turn day into night for the orange man. And if that isn’t possible, they will turn 8am into 2:45pm. You don’t want that, do ya?!
During all of this, the loyal opposition in the US is focused, mesmerized you could say, with Ukraine and tranny cock. WTF are you looking at?
Obnoxiously long. Sorry.
I’ve heard my penis described that way.
Hey ohh!
By the mohel, no doubt.
First liar, no chance
You’re Jewish, right? You misheard, “oh, noxious schlong.”
That’s only because you’re swimming in the shallow end of the pool.
This is the advantage of marrying someone of SP’s age- her basis of comparison came from playing Doctor with some of the neighborhood boys.
Little girls are easily impressed.
Refresh before posting.
Call me crazy, but it seems like the argument is that we need to maintain a presence in the region to stop bad people in the region from threatening our presence in the region.
You sound like the State Department.
I think that’s a pretty accurate summation.
At one point, we had an arguable national interest there because of oil. These days, with the US as a net exporter of oil, that’s more a problem for Europe than for us.
The only other fly in the ointment is the Israel connection. If Iran, Iraq, Syria/Russia or ISIS/ISIL were to be allowed to run free, one of them would eventually consolidate control of all of the gulf oil…. and all of that money.
Fast forward a decade or two and they’d have the armaments needed to actually carry out their threats against Israel.
Which also isn’t technically our problem, but between northeastern jewish populations and southern evangelicals, there is a lot of political support for Israel in the US electorate.
Financially, instability in the middle east probably is a net positive for the US these days…. as long as we aren’t expending blood and capital protecting the place. Our current oil supply is quite stable, and our competitors get theirs from over there.
“If Iran, Iraq, Syria/Russia or ISIS/ISIL were to be allowed to run free, one of them would eventually consolidate control”
I guess someone is eventually going to win the centuries long Sunni/Shia war, but I doubt it will be any time soon.
Which also isn’t technically our problem
Not our problem, period. Israel’s security is the responsibility of Israel. And I say that as an unrepentant Zionist.
I (the guy with about 8% Ashkenazi DNA) will disagree. While I don’t believe in assigning blame/guilt by group identity, because guilt is an individual matter, I don’t mind pointing out that the Israelites/Ashkenazis have the highest average IQ of any identifiable ethnic group. And again, I’m not using that to draw any adverse conclusions about anyone else.
Perhaps more importantly, I point to the contributions of Jews to human civilization – in any area – and can only conclude they’ve more than earned a ‘special place’ meriting protection from extinction. Pick any topic, any human endeavor you consider worthy: from physics and chemistry to medicine and law, to music, literature, art, and on an on. Jews have made not just incidental, but life-altering contributions that have benefited all of humanity. So, yes, to my mind, that matters.
By the way, I feel the same way about the British. The contributions of the British Isles to literature alone (and then add in political philosophy) would, to my mind, be sufficient justification for adopting a special foreign policy for them.
Indeed, my reordering of foreign policy would include picking our allies by their level of attainment of “high civilization” and contributions to the human endeavor. It would look very different than the current ad-hocracy that dominates foreign policy.
Once upon a time, the Arabs were right up there but with medicine.
And math. Arabs crushed it in mathematics before they entered their dark ages.
Yep, but it stopped… and then went backwards. And 80+ generations of inbreeding ‘cuz “Prophet” hasn’t worked out very well, either, as it turns out. It causes IQ to go the wrong direction, in fact. That may be the one thing everyone is missing about the two cultures: we’re looking at the results of two diametrically opposed eugenics programs. The Jews – as a culture – have made marriage about intelligence for a LOOOONNNNGGG TIME. Jewish mothers don’t tell their sons to marry for looks – that’s incidental to marrying a “smart girl.” OTOH, Islam has made marriage about keeping wealth ‘in the family’ and following the Prophet’s example – which has meant marrying first cousins for so long that their gene pool now looks like the Hapsburgs.
What is the difference?
Arab contributions to medicine and math were phenomenal well into the 18th Century and learning, much less progress, stopped dead in its tracks. It can’t be just Islam because advancement happened as if it didn’t exist. Wahabis?
European contributions were, by comparison, paltry before the Crusades. Then came the Templars in the 12th Century and progress has only sped up exponentially since. It can’t be just Christianity because that existed long before European enlightenment (no, I don’t mean the philosophical movement). The plague?
What happened? (I have a few hypotheses, but I’m interested in the answers.)
What happened that the Islamic world and the Christian world diverged so swiftly and so detrimentally for one and beneficently for the other?
I feel a debate topic coming up. You game?
@Moj, If you have time to read and patience, author Karen Armstrong has some great historical books that answer your question. From what I remember, the leaders of Islam *decided* to halt advancing as a civilization.
No.
a) I’m not a good researcher
b) I can’t synthesize my thoughts very well
c) I’m not a good debater or I’d’a gone to law school
Sorry, I meant that for Oz. I should have quoted back…
Thanks, Plisade. I’ll look her up.
I got to wondering when I was researching my pirate book (1780). My heroine has a crew that’s about 1/3 women, and her personal physician, an Islamic Arab, was what would now be called an ob/gyn, who learned his trade in a harem.
There is actually quite a bit of medical stuff in the book. My heroine has a problem with pregnancy. She has an incompetent cervix but she gets pregnant if she’s looked at wrong, so she can’t keep a pregnancy.
So while they are moored in Amsterdam, her physician and assistant surgeon go to the university there. There, he remembers that the old physician who trained him had performed a surgery once that worked (cervical cerclage). He got to talking to the professors of medicine there and decided to ask the heroine if she wanted to try it. The catch was that he was to instruct the procedure to a full gallery. That was a thing. Cervical cerclage was a thing. In 1780. *mind* *blown*
ANYWAY, they did it too late so she lost that baby, but the next one was successful.
My point is that I thought (mistakenly) that Europe had not caught up to Arabs in medicine until later than 1780, but that is not the case. Still, they were behind in details so Arabs were still considered to be more skilled physicians/surgeons than Europeans.
The research as to what was being done and learned in 1780, what they knew, what they could do (i.e., anesthesia) just blew me away. We think we’re so smart. Doctors now are reinventing wheels the Arabs perfected centuries ago.
Oh, good, because the thought of debating at all, much less the lawyers on THIS SITE, scares me to death.
I meant e.g., not i.e.
Sorry, Ted!
@Moj, wow, wild story! I’m fascinated with that stuff as well. There’s a lot of medical info from that time period in the Aubrey-Maturin historical fiction series. Also, my lady friend is into Downton Abbey and we’re going to an exhibit of the show at the Biltmore Estate this Feb. I’m not into the DA story, but I’m looking forward to seeing the period implements.
Ha!
I got a scathing review from a dude who scathingly reviewed Master & Commander. I got put on the same shelf. I was flattered AF.
I’ve read that the US strategy there *is* destabilization and to keep the region’s military spending focused on land forces. All that is to keep its countries from forming a coalition and from being able to afford to develop any significant navies. The premise being that world naval dominance is key to the US’s continued economic prosperity.
So, Rummy was right, Mission Accomplished?
The mission, to prevent regions of the world from uniting so to keep any other naval threat from arising, will never end.
These countries aren’t going to form a coalition, and aren’t going to field navies that matter, regardless of whether we stick our dicks in or not.
IANAHistorian, but perhaps someone here could speak to the likelihood of another Ottoman empire/fleet, the likelihood of Turkey increasing regional influence if we were to pull out.
/none of that is to say that I support this destabilization strategy
Tautological warfare?
Nice.
^This guy gets it. If you aren’t currently working for the State Dept you missed your calling.
We have always been at war with (Mid)Eastasia.
+ 1 Shores of Tripoli
Am I having deja vu or was it Newton’s birthday last week?
He was born before the Anglican church adopted the Gregorian Calendar.
How many roots does x^2 – 1 = 0 have? That’s right.
It’ll stay his birthday until something acts up on it.
Shouldn’t the Old Guy Music be for the birthday boy?
The release of that record was the moment that forever defined Dirksen in my (at that time) young mind. And was one of the many things that pushed me in a libertarian direction.
I’d never heard that record, happy to say. Barry Sadler isn’t worried.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAbcKc1KE7o
Barry Sadler was kind of a talented guy.
As evidenced by the Monsey attack, many of the anti-Semitic attacks aren’t coming from the far right, but from non-white people immersed in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that are just as baseless, virulent, and dangerous as those spread by white nationalists.
That’s some deep digging, Vox.
“ Google searches for ‘draft age’ spike”
The only people who deserve to get drafted are people who are ill informed enough to have to Google the draft (and, truth be told, they really don’t deserve it either).
I have one friend who absolutely hates Trump and is active on Facebook. He posted something like “whew I aged out of the draft two months ago”.
I didn’t notice any anger over the MSM trying to escalate things with Iran and Russia in Syria.
“ I didn’t notice any anger over the MSM trying to escalate things with Iran and Russia in Syria.”
That’s what makes me wonder what the left is smoking. Many of the same people who are raising hell right now we’re all for bombing Iran and Hezbollah to kingdom come in Syria. It makes absolutely no sense.
It only makes no sense if you believe they lies they tell you, each other, and themselves about being anti-war.
I bet your friend supports Dems who support mandatory national service.
If there is no draft there can be no draft age kids. WW2 showed that draft age, by definition, can be rather fluid.
Yup nothing’s stopping Congress from saying “oh we’ll take 27 year olds too.”
between the ages of 21 and 45
The Draft and WWII
On September 16, 1940, the United States instituted the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, which required all men between the ages of 21 and 45 to register for the draft.
Let’s remember who re-instituted draft registration: Jimmy Carter.
And why: his non-sequitur response to an act of war against the US committed by Iran.
Carter was a total piece of shit. It seems unjust that he has lived to a very old age.
It takes a very long time to rehabilitate your image when you screw up so much, so badly.
Although he did a surprisingly good job on deregulation…. something that wouldn’t actually pay off for many years.
Draft will go away as soon as enough support for including women in the draft builds up.
Hypothetical: if an XY person has a sex change (hormones, surgery, etc), is (s)he now exempt?
For that matter what if xe simply identifies as female? We’ve been assured that gender is just a social construct, after all.
How about an XX who transitions to male at 14 years? Does he have to register for the draft at 18?
Perhaps that will be sooner than expected?
And let’s not forget also who ran against it and said he would end it if elected president. And not only didn’t, but his administration went after and prosecuted refuseniks.
Wait, they aren’t?
It’s almost undeniable that Jews have outsized influence relative to their numbers but so what? Other ethnoreligious groups could learn a few lessons from them rather than scapegoating.
Well, they do here in the US where they are the grandkids of immigrants who pushed them to education and professional careers. There are lots of immigrant ethnic communities like that in the US…. doing a lot better here than they did back in the home country. A big chunk of US jews are the descendants of immigrants who were immigrants in the countries they fled to come here…. so double immigrant effect, I suppose.
There are loads of dirt poor asians over in asia…. but that certainly isn’t their reputation here in the US.
“Dumber Boomers freaking about their grandkids. To my cohort: this ain’t Nam, wars don’t work that way anymore”
This WWIII narrative is weird to me. Why didn’t these morons freak out with all the escalation towards Russia?
Because who the fuck knows?
I suppose conflict with Russia doesn’t seem real to them like further conflict in the Middle East does. Which means that the Russia fever dreams were never really about a Russian threat.
Duh – Putin is an evil white male. Just totes cis-het-patriach… something or other.
They did, before it became more politically convenient to scapegoat Russia.
They have been flailing around looking for an anti-Trump narrative that would stick. Many of their early-hours ideas flopped badly, so they moved on. Now they are in full-on scare mode. Apparently their metrics say that is working. CNN was all-in on having experts tell us about worst case scenarios.
One guy yesterday was going on and on about some dam that the Iranians have totally scoped out and we have no idea how deeply they have penetrated our infrastructure…. They were basically saying that any day now Iran was going to destroy most of the US with cyber-attacks, infrastructure attacks and soft target bombings. Expert after expert coming on, saying the same thing, but with a different version in mind.
They must have spent quite a bit of time trolling conspiracy theory boards looking for the right experts to call in.
Now would be a good time to get rid of Selective Service, or to propose a law requiring women to register for the draft.
Yes to the first part of the sentence
Gender women or women women?
Twenty million Corporal Klingers.
There were a bunch of joke posts on trans twitter about being ineligible for the draft.
Yes, no.
Ban the draft, don’t make more people eligible for it.
I just think we’d be more likely to be able to get rid of the draft if it were proposed to make women do it too.
As shocked as I am to say it, I’m with Ted on this one. Nothing but equality will drive that point home.
The best way to get rid of the draft would absolutely be to make everyone eligible and then to actually use it.
The last time they used it only young men were eligible, and that was enough to get it dropped. I think the way they screwed up that time was that the war dragged on for 15 years, allowing time for opposition to build. WWII was only 4 years. The Korean War was 3 years.
Iraq/Afghanistan/Syria/Libya/etc. has been 18 years, with no real end in sight. Now would be a really good time to end the draft, with perpetual war on people’s minds.
The length of the wars have less to do with drafting and more to do with what the aims were and how they were prosecuted. We’d still be involved with S Vietnam today if we hadn’t cut off materiel and support.
We”d still be dicking around with the Nazis in France if our goal had been containment rather than unconditional surrender.
Someone expanding the tax base isn’t leading to lowering or ending that. I doubt the draft would be any different.
Ultimately those making the decisions will be unaffected directly.
“Iran’s president Rouhani warns America has made a ‘grave mistake’ by killing Soleimani in an airstrike and warns they ‘will suffer the consequences for years to come’ as he visits the general’s family and promises to ‘avenge his blood'”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7851299/Irans-president-warns-America-grave-mistake-killing-Soleimani-air-strike.html
“Iranian UN ambassador warns US strike killing Qassem Soleimani is ‘tantamount to declaring WAR’ – as American embassy in Baghdad braces for further violence during funeral marches”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7850619/Iranian-ambassador-warns-strike-killing-Qassem-Soleimani-tantamount-declaring-WAR.html
I’m no foreign policy expert, but I don’t think they would talk this much trash, and not try shit. Also, because Trump doesn’t telegraph his punches, Iran has no idea what Bernard “Orangutan” Hopkins is going to do either.
I figure Iran is definitely going to do something. Whether it’s going to be limited in scope inside Iraq or they’re going to take a shot at the Saudis or Israel is yet to be seen.
And as much as I hate this current policy, I will give Trump credit for keeping his military plans on the down low.
I doubt Iran would take a direct shot at the Saudis. Proxy skirmishes, sure, that’s been going on forever. But I don’t think Iran wants to start the Shia vs. Sunni final battle, because they know there is no way they can win.
Absolutely they’re going to try shit and they’re going to step up their efforts which is why this killing wasn’t a very good idea.
But he was like totally a bad dude who assaulted our sovereign building!!!
The only saving grace is that they probably fear they could be targeted and not the men they are commanding. Or… that will cause them to say fuck it since he’s targeting us anyways and we have to save face or get ousted by our own people.
I think that was the real message… they took out their commander in Iraq and their overall military commander. The Mullahs had to see that as a direct threat.
I see everyone looking for a way out – they’ll have to save face by saber rattling and doing some oblique attack…. and then everyone will be ready for a deal of some sort. Then everyone goes home declaring victory.
Iran isn’t that sort of crazy. They tested the waters with attacks on shipping and oil in the gulf of Arabia and found little punch back from the US. So they tried direct action against the US in Iraq. That earned a low-numbers, high impact punch-back.
Depending on what they do, the next round could be the end of it.
Also in play…. .they seem to have enough power in the Iraq government that they might be able to get a vote to tell the US to leave. That would be a win-win in my book…. although I doubt we could take them up on it.
I don’t know what the correct response would have been, but not responding wouldn’t have been a good idea either.
Getting out is the correct response but that’s fantasyland so, barring that, going after the local Iraqi Iranian proxies seems like the best way to send a message. It wasn’t Persians trying to storm the embassy.
Well, we “no responsed” shipping attacks and oil attacks. That earned an embassy attack.
This response will undoubtedly earn some sort of response. Maybe the ambassador to Uganda is about to get blown up.
Leaving would have been a great idea. I really wish that everyone over there didn’t have their head up their butt so we could unstick ourselves from this tar baby.
Saddam could have simply not played all those games with the inspectors and we would have been out of Iraq in two years. He’d happily be dictating today if he had just been able to see that path. But I suppose he was afraid of tipping his hand to the Iranians by capitulating too much.
Saddam could have simply not played all those games with the inspectors and we would have been out of Iraq in two years.
He was playing those games because he had chemical weapons, which made their way to Syria as soon as the war began.
/things I heard from my former weapons inspector neighbor
To this day, it remains unclear to me why stable regimes having “weapons of mass destruction” is a problem worth “solving” by turning them into unstable quagmires.
I don’t believe anyone in charge thought that would be the outcome. I think they were all certain that the Iraqis would accept Western-style democracy with open arms.
And if he wanted WMD of any sort, simply putting stopping temporarily and putting up with any indignities the inspectors chose would have gotten him free to act within just a couple of years.
Instead, he delayed inspections and moved documents, stopped them from visiting various locations…. anything they could think of to look for all the world like they were not complying.
dumb strategy. It was the same as having the cops tell you to pour out your beer on your way in to a concert venue. Just do it and be on your way. Try to be tricky about it and you just make yourself late and get a ticket. Or maybe miss out all together and go to jail for a night.
He’d have ever opportunity to have build a nuke by now if he had played that one smart. Hell, they could have signed a treaty with the US and become a client state with preferred trade status. He could have played that whole thing into much greater wealth and power for himself.
Dumbass.
Sure, and we could question whether that belief was realistic at the time, but by the times we did it all again Yemen, Lybia, and Syria, I don’t think anybody could plausibly claim to be unable to predict the most likely outcome.
(my comment was in response to MikeS)
@kbolino. Absolutely. My response was about Iraq only. You are 100% correct about the rest, and Einstein’s definition of insanity comes to mine.
You get more of what you reward, and less of what you punish.
Iran was already pretty much balls-out in going after the US via their proxies. I suspect they may advance the timetable for something they already had in the works, but what more can it really do without going toe to toe with the US military.
A little out of date, but this map gives you an idea what will give Iran second thoughts about going too far with retaliation.
I’m surprised there are so many bases in Pakistan.
Me too. Same with the smaller “stan” states.
A Business Insider article showing a map they found on Democratic Underground. Let’s just say I’d like to see some verification from a different source.
Also, the number of military personnel.
A while back I saw a listing of countries with US military bases with headcounts. It looked like whomever compiled that list counted embassy guards and military attaches as evidence of a military base in that country.
You’d think Iran would make more hay out of the other people the U.S. killed. Soleimani was the director of clandestine operations; if anything, Iran should have egg on its face for having this guy get caught outside of Iran.
What better way to act like you don’t have egg on your face?
Fair point.
But the US media hates Trump so much, they’d rather embolden Iran than miss up the chance to paint Trump as the dangerous and evil one.
It’s ridiculous how much coverage they are giving to the riled up crowds on the Persian streets, as if that a warning sign that Iran is going to do something imminent.
Since when havent there been Outraged Muslims in the streets somewhere in the world.
Especially since they gave very little coverage to the crowds of riled up Persians in Iran who were pissed with their government.
Letters to the Local Rag: We Have To Burn The Village To Save It
Maybe the socons and the antigunners can join hands in Virginia and start kicking in doors. See, bipartisan compromise wins again.
And thus ends the Guns & Dope Party.
Fucking dilution, how does it work?
Wait…. pot use causes aggression?
Imma have to check on that one…. my experience with pot smokers says otherwise.
Passive aggression
Letters To The Local Rag: Reefer Madness
The ghost of Harry Anslinger?
You notice how alcohol is never mentioned.
Sometimes it is. Those people are ignored or downplayed now, but maybe not for that much longer. There’s an incredible amount of overlap between the reasons ostensibly behind the current wave of anti-drug hysteria (against nicotine, THC, opioids, etc.) and the reasons for the original temperance movement. It’s CURRENT YEAR and we’re so much smarter than those dolts in the past, why not give Alcohol Prohibition 2: Electric Boogaloo a try? I’m sure if we just tear down more reminders and erase more history from the public consciousness, it’ll work this time.
…and music, don’t forget that. Elvis started it with all that, you know, stuff the kids called Rock…Some of us knew where that would lead…
Fuck you. I’m done reading.
They are noted experts on low level street crime. The FBI mostly writes traffic tickets and investigates residential burglary.
“Fuck you. I’m done reading.”
Funny. That’s exactly as far as I got too.
“necessitate five or six additional police officers”
But what would the net headcount be when you no longer need all those officers busting dealers and users, setting up stings to entrap consenting adults; …all the lab peeps to test the contraband, etc.?
“Experience shows”
Yeah, right.
This is why “decriminalization” is a trap. It does nothing to dismantle the war on drugs. Our current “legal but illegal but over-regulated so we can funnel stuff to cronies and taxed so much that there is still a black market” version doesn’t really solve the problem either.
We need legal-legal. As in, “you can buy it at Walgreens” legal. Phiser, Seagrams or Reynold’s Tobacco brand name legal. These half-measures suck.
We need to quit our puritanical aversion to getting high. Currently “getting high” equals no medical use. They should actually stipulate that getting high is an end result that is desired and allow companies to develop products for that purpose.
Then we could use product liability, risk-reward calculations, testing for side effects, optimize for low addiction, etc. How big would the market be for a low half-life drug that is non-addictive, has no side effects and gets a nice cocaine or heroin or LSD high? Instead we keep dumping research money into creating a heroin derivative that does not have any of the euphoric effects so we can patent that and sell it as a pain reliever.
“legal-legal” We could just keep the lawmaking simple and disallow the banning of any victimless transaction.
Precisely my vision.
When you can buy name-brand pot from national companies in Walmart… that’s when it is legal.
Letters to the Local Rag: Not Taking Is Giving
“has been a tax-free benefit, making it the single largest annual federal tax expenditure (i.e.a loss of revenue for the federal government).”
Huh. I figured just the government not appropriating all income was the biggest loss of revenue to the government.
It is known.
Which was only implemented as a work-around for wage controls.
As always, the answer to too much government is always more government.
I’m not sure using all of the previous failed experiments in U.S. health care to justify the current failed experiment is such a bright idea.
Mayor FUDd
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said the security threat to his frequently targeted city changed significantly overnight considering the resources of a modern, major nation such as Iran compared to those of non-state organizations like al Qaeda or ISIS.
“We have never confronted in recent decades the reality of a war with a government of a large country with an international terror network at its behest,” the mayor told a news conference.
“New Yorkers deserve to know that we have entered into a different reality,” he said.
——-
New York police were on “heightened vigilance” and New Yorkers could expect to see more uniformed officers, some heavily armed with long guns, at sensitive areas, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said.
Greater security is typically seen on the subway, other mass transit, and tourist attractions at times of heightened alert.
But the escalation of tensions with Iran meant “a world of difference” and “we have to assume this action puts us in a de facto state of war,” the mayor said.
Okay. Invade Iran, Bill. We’re all counting on you.
Nah, New Yorkers have been at war with a local government with a local terrorist organization (the NYPD) at its disposal.
Yesterday, I was told raising the tobacco age to 21 is an excellent thing, and should have been done ages ago. Because think how much money we’ll save by not curing those kids of cancer, or something.
Talk about undeveloped brains…
On average, smokers have lower medical expenditures over the course of their entire life because they die sooner.
The average age people who smoke start smoking has been lower than the legal minimum for as long as I’ve been alive. But I guess if we make it moar illegaler it will work this time.
It’s worked for alcohol.
As good a place as any to stick this……
If you can serve in the military, you are a full citizen. And a big F.U. to anyone who says otherwise.
This goes for voting, drinking, smoking…. all of it. If you don’t want 18 year old kids drinking and smoking and whoring, raise the age for military service.
Whatever happened to binge drinking? and alcoholic elected officials? and good old fashioned adultery in the White House?
Kids today need some role models if they’re ever gonna grow up to leadership positions.
I think the Methodists should choose up sides and battle to the death, in hand to hand combat.
We’re not talking about who gets to park in the shade. This is Word of God stuff. No quibbling or compromise allowed.
Been to a Methodist church lately?
It would be silver-haired geezers with canes versus dumpy lesbians with bad haircuts.
No offense intended to the Methodists here.
My mother is active in the UMC politics. She was upset at the results from the last General Conference and said she didn’t think that Africans should have gotten to vote on how the church in North America got to set its policies.
I responded, “but you think it’s important that Californians should have a voice in the policies of Texas? And you want to abolish the Electoral College.”
That was literally the only thing I’ve ever said that kept her from bringing up political subjects for the rest of my stay.
Whichever half goes left after the split will die. Going left is the kiss of death for denominations – Episcopalians are an example of a once popular church that became a small club for cat ladies.
The problem is, while the overwhelming majority of people are religious very few of them are Christian in any orthodox way. And this is not a new state of affairs. The churches were successful by providing other functions than Christianity to the local populations, but now those other functions are provided by other entities. When you eschew all doctrine other than “be nice to people who deserve it,” there’s just too much competition for an org to survive in any large format.
The link re: the proposed Methodist split got me searching for “family trees” of the various Protestant denominations, and I found this impressively detailed database. So why not split? It’s what Protestants have always done, and I’m sure many of the past splits have been over more trivial stuff than this. [Disclaimer: Presbyterian-reared, former Unitarian Universalist agnostic opinion]
Neat, thanks!
The funny thing is how many denominations split out of movements originally designed to unify other denominations.
Bloody splitter!!
Cue outraged braying
In the U.S. where 419 sites are managed by the National Park Service, including monuments, recreation areas and seashores, the future of national parks appears less secure.
“Today’s rapid climate change challenges national parks in ways we’ve never seen before,” said Mike Litterst, public affairs chief for the National Park Service. “Not only that, but aging facilities, limited resources and growing visitors have made maintaining the parks an enormous task.”
President Donald Trump has proposed nearly $500 million in budget cuts to national parks in 2020. But more than $11 billion in repairs or maintenance across the system have already been postponed for more than a year because of budget constraints, Litterst said.
Leasing the land to farmers could potentially address some of those needs, said Pamela Barnes, community engagement supervisor for Cuyahoga National Park, because the farmers would take stewardship of their plots and the buildings on them.
——-
The process to win a lease at Cuyahoga National Park is competitive. Applicants must demonstrate they have access to capital, outline their concern for public welfare in their business plans and detail their sustainability farming practices, among other requirements. A lease is valid for 60 years, and farmers must follow strict guidelines for sustainable farming.
They are then able to sell their produce at a year-round farmers’ market that provides fresh produce options for locals. As many as 450,000 people live in food deserts in Cuyahoga County, the region that includes both the park and Cleveland. Charities and health officials have previously sounded the alarm on the need for better access to fresh food.
——-
The program is administered by Countryside Food and Farms, an organization created in 1999 to help the park conserve the valley’s rural character. Dozens of farmsteads in the area, some dating to the 1800s, were in crumbling disrepair.
“Like most small farms in America, they had begun to disappear at the wake of the industrialization of our food system,” said Tracy Emrick, CEO of Countryside Food and Farms.
A godawful mishmash of nonsense and non sequiturs, but you can be certain the environmental purists will come swarming out of the woodwork to denounce this evil scheme to sell off our national treasures.
“Today’s rapid climate change challenges national parks in ways we’ve never seen before,”
Fuck off, already.
“As many as 450,000 people live in food deserts in Cuyahoga County”
Lemme guess, most of them are somehow obese, despite not having access to food.
Food deserts cause obesity. Because you are forced to eat at McDonalds and buy your food at 7-11 in a food desert.
Remember its not food they have no access too. Its healthy food. The only broccoli these people can easily acquire is covered in nacho cheese!
“As many as 450,000 people live in food deserts in Cuyahoga County”
What an absolute load of horseshit. For one thing, there’s nowhere near that many people in East Cleveland, and for another, you can walk or take the bus to the many neighboring areas that do have grocery stores.
And just a reminder that the food desert criteria is bullshit.
The entire southwest quadrant of my town is classified as such (I looked on the USDA website, where they have a “food desert locator tool”).
Within this alleged food desert is a Kroger supermarket, a family owned meat/produce shop, and a bulk health foods store.
I looked in my area, and found a similar result, the “food deserts” all contain or are directly adjacent to major grocery stores. Their map seems to be based on census tracts, which are awfully coarse geographic regions for marking with a definition that is based upon being 1/2 or 1 mile away from a grocery store. Seeing this, I believe I realize where they can come up with the 450,000 number: being well trained journalists and/or politicians, they haven’t a clue how to analyze data, and so have conflated someone in the census tract being more than 1/2 mile away from a grocery store with everyone in that tract.
The climate wackos need to make up their minds.
Convert half of UK farmland to nature, urges top scientist
I’m not sure that would help all the farmland wildlife that has adapted to thrive on agricultural land. Of course since agriculture here (and elsewhere) has changed rapidly in recent history, they aren’t doing so well either. I wonder if his plan involves half the country becoming hunter-gatherers to survive, or if the new nature preserves would exclude that.
I didn’t realize the Feds created a national park out of whole cloth in Ohio.
Locals are scratching their butts wondering why fewer young people are buying/learning/going fishing/hunting/camping gear and outdoor stuff.
That train has left the station. Video games/organized sports/school activities/ and all the other tech advances demand the attention of kids.
When a 10 year old needs a bus ride 2 blocks to school and eats 2 meals a day of government food why would he want to catch an icky fish?
The parks will be taking the same hit as the population ages. Small towns are dying/dead unless they’re close to a metro area.
Hey, kid, hand me my cell phone, would you? Need to call Grandma upstairs to see if lunch is ready.
When a 10 year old needs a bus ride 2 blocks to school and eats 2 meals a day of government food
^^this
I live in a semi rural area and the bus thing is absolute crap. I had to walk to the bus stop which was located for the convenience of the bus route. The bus around here stops at every driveway even if it just a couple dozen feet down and kids don’t even wait by themselves. They either sit in their parents’ idling car and only get out when the bus stops (which further slows traffic behind the bus) or they stand there while their parent waits in the idling car watching them.
…too numerous to detail here.
Yeah, I’m sure people are going to jump all over that.
There is a Cuyahoga National Park?
Ok then.
I remember when National Parks were supposed to be limited objects of unique natural beauty.
And then, we get this:
Countryside’s Emrick said she hopes similar programs encourage young people to take up farming.
“Because in America, we have a deficit of young farmers, difficult access to farmland and capital, and a broken food system that promotes cheap food that does not support or fairly compensate our American farmers,” she said.
Kkkorporashunz, how we hates ’em.
Enforced inefficiency will make farming profitable again, just you watch.
Well stated.
Goddamn economies of scale, efficiency, and consumer preference cutting into our profits! We deserve economic rent!
It always boils down to favoring things that urban hipsters like.
As always, it’s the damn hoarders and Kulaks!!
Nothing fixes difficult access to farmland and capital like government micromanagement.
Because in America, we have a deficit of young farmers
上山下乡运动
Pronounce it with a Khmer accent to really give it that oomph.
*eye roll*
Yea, it’s not like farmers get any subsidies from the government or anything…
Food should be expensive. Housing, too. Oh, and energy. And everything else. Utopia here we come.
Oh, and energy
now you’ve done it !
The food is so cheap that farmers can’t survive on their meager incomes while simultaneously being so expensive that the poors can’t afford it.
Senseless ME wars are a new thing that Orangemanbad invented. Why would Trump do this? Every article I’ve seen on this Iran bullshit fails to acknowledge either Iraq or Afghanistan. That said, it would be great if his actions caused some of the pen & phone powers of the presidency to be permanently curtailed.
I’d appreciate it if the pundits would simply acknowledge the last 2 months. Many of them have been calling him feckless for failing to take action against Iran. Now, those same folks are saying he’s a war-monger and reckless for taking an extremely limited (although highly provocative) action.
^
Yeah, you will notice that NONE of the Democrats are voicing that opinion.
Nope – just Orangemanbad-get-rid-of-him-and-give-us-the-ring-Frodo.
On the topic of “state capacity libertarianism” which has made the rounds here a couple of times (e.g., see the original post by Tyler Cowen). This seems to be a part of the emerging bipartisan consensus, that we were led astray by a rigid adherence to a vacuous form of libertarianism. The austerity (that never really was), the blind adherence to markets (that never really happened), the discounting of social problems and policies (that anybody older than about 14 should be able to recall differently). That’s not exactly Cowen’s argument, of course, but that’s where many people seem to be headed, on both right and left. But even Cowen’s actual argument reads like the manifesto to form the Niskanen Center, with no mention that such a thing already happened and already failed. It turns out that trying to graft “more, but better, government” onto libertarianism is not any more effective (albeit less distasteful to the right sorts of people) than trying to graft ethnocentrism onto libertarianism.
Libertarianism, in the modern American form that we understand, has always been about reforming the government without abolishing it or radically altering its character. It is minarchism that seeks a drastic reduction in the size of government, and anarchism that seeks its abolition. Libertarianism is about choosing the more liberty-friendly path forward as often as possible. That is not the same thing as choosing the “better government” path forward as often as possible. Government can govern well (for certain definitions of “well”) at many sizes, but the American experiment has shown that large government tends to be inimical to both competence and liberty. Many people have posited reasons for this (the ethnocentrists, for example, are particular fond of appeals to ethnic homogeneity), but none have offered workable solutions (or, at least, none have offered libertarian solutions; communism and ethnic cleansing not being particularly libertarian).
The problem with “state-capacity libertarianism” is the state. We’ve lived under it, seen how it works, known its limitations as long as we’ve been politically aware. There are reform paths, but they must always begin with leashing the government. Less money, fewer opportunities for graft, more restrictions on the exercise of power. The reality is that we have been following through on the general idea of expanding government but making it “better” for the past several decades. The exact problems that prompted the emergence of American libertarianism in the 1960s and 1970s may not be as relevant to the popular consciousness now as they were then, but the underlying premises haven’t changed. We’re not going to get a “better” government by the enactment of wishful-thinking policy alone.
It sounds like “The libertarian cocktail parties just have blue freaks and fat people dancing in their underwear. I want to go to cocktail parties with fruit sushi where everybody sneers at the rubes.”
Some relevant addenda to my post:
Cowen does specifically address liberaltarianism and tries to contrast “state capacity libertarianism” with it. But, the first and biggest point of difference, over the welfare state, seems to be wishy-washy at best. The idea seems to be to favor “big projects” over blanket transfer payments, but that’s forgetting that most of the modern welfare state and its transfer payments started as “big projects” of the past. P Brooks seems right to call it “Great Society libertarianism” in the sense that it is in love with its conception of the state doing big things to “help” people in grandiose fashion.
Also, when I said none have offered solutions, I meant that none of those who have tried to graft other ideas onto libertarianism have offered workable solutions that are still libertarian. From the olden days of Reason and Cato, to the modern times with e.g. Slate Star Codex, a deep skepticism of the power of government to solve problems is at the heart of finding libertarian solutions. Any time somebody starts with the premise, “if we just allow government power to expand in these select areas”, their conclusion of “then it can shrink in these other areas” never reaches plausibility. The large government is already woefully incompetent; that it hasn’t devolved into a much more malign form of government is worth some thought, but one should look askance at any notion that can be boiled down to “we’re not at warlordism yet, so the government is still very functional”.
Cowen sits on the advisory board of the Niskanen Center. He’s a college classmate and good friend of Brad DeLong, and frequently pumped up various idiot leftists like MattY over the years. He’s a utilitarian, not a principled libertarian. There’s more than a faint whiff of elitism and cosmo upon Cowen.
On the topic of “state capacity libertarianism” which has made the rounds
I still don’t have a good handle on what “state capacity” means. Maybe they should call it Great Society libertarianism. Or “protecting you from yourself” libertarianism.
Heaven knows, they don’t agree with the dictum, “You’re not really free, if you’re not free to be wrong.”
While not a deterministic argument per se, it seems that any “new” conception of libertarianism that starts with a heavy emphasis on global warming (modulo whatever it’s being called at the time) is never going to lead to interesting places. While keeping nuclear power and fracking on the table is “smart”, keeping the entire energy sector at the behest of government, but this time with (it seems) the right people/ideas in charge, isn’t really about libertarianism one way or the other.
We’re not going to get a “better” government by the enactment of wishful-thinking policy alone.
Oh, come on. We just need a few more magic spells to get things right.
Title 18, Sec 922, subsection (G)… abra-caddabra
Surprise
Donald Trump ordered a drone strike on Friday that killed the second most powerful man in Iran.
The decision to kill Qassem Suleimani was made without the approval of Congress and has been widely condemned by Democrats and international experts as a reckless act that will move the US closer to yet another conflict in the Middle East.
Why do it, then? With a general election less than a year away, some have speculated that there may be some political calculus at work. Trump’s popularity is surprisingly steady (even his impeachment in December 2019 barely dented his numbers) but is also consistently low. Trump is the least popular US president since at least Harry Truman.
Yes, yes, of course. It’s just a trick to boost his numbers and take everybody’s eyes off the impeachment ball.
Dastardly Orange Man is dastardly.
The decision to kill Qassem Suleimani was made without the approval of Congress
Something, something, disposition matrix.
I was half tempted to say “next thing Trump will have a secret kill list with proscriptions of American citizens” on a few Facebook posts about Trump’s assassination strike.
It wouldn’t work.
Yesterday an actual US congressman defending Biden said that if Biden was president, he would not have made this strike without going to congress first.
This, from the Obama administration – who notably took down the Libyan government without notifying congress, without a declaration of war and without even bothering to adhere to the war powers act.
Also, it was in defense of Biden’s claims that he argued against the strike on Bin Laden.
This doofus actually wanted to argue that “Biden was actually in the room when the decision was made, so he knows what he said and you don’t!” in defense of Biden’s recent claims that he did not in fact argue against the raid. This, despite personally being the source of the other story, that he did argue against the raid.
OFFS!
As we discussed yesterday. The authorization of force Congress gave Bush for Afghanistan and Iraq has no expiration date. Since that shithead was in Iraq…
I don’t know if it was “without the approval of Congress.” Congress’s intentional abdication of oversight of the executive branch could be deemed pre-approval of all actions taken by the executive. That may be an evil, horrible way of government, but let’s not take responsibility away from Congress.
One of their most powerful people in Iran was a leader of a secret military force? Sounds like we did Iran a favor.
but is also consistently low
Define “low”. Last I heard was mid 40s which is consistent with the last 2 presidents at this time in their first term.
True patriotism.
Higginbotham compared Trump to President Richard Nixon, who resigned in disgrace in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal. The column goes on to praise Nixon for his design to resign, a decision that Higginbotham describes as Nixon emphasizing “country over personal considerations.”
“But Nixon emphasized country over personal considerations in deciding to resign. While most historians believe the full House would have voted to impeach, and the Senate would have secured the necessary two-thirds vote for removal, the trial process would have been extremely divisive and painful for the country.
In retrospect, we will never know whether a show of stubbornness — like Trump’s — might have switched the political dynamic and persuaded the Senate to not convict, but we can instead be grateful that Nixon did not put the system to the test.”
To Higginbotham, President Trump only has one choice. Higginbotham argues that Trump must resign so that America can “begin the process of healing.”
“The answer is clear: Trump should resign so the country can begin the process of healing. The divisions in the country today are even more corrosive than they were in 1974. That’s why it’s even more important that Trump emulate the best of Richard Nixon, who, in a rare moment of grace, understood he could only weaken the nation he led by focusing solely on himself, and chose the better path.”
Ah, yes, let’s discount from that “healing” the nearly 1/3 of the country who vociferously support Trump. You’re full of shit, Higginbotham.
Trump must do exactly what my progressive friends and I want. Only then can the idiots who voted for him begin to be healed from their stupidity and ignorance.
That’s laughable. The situation is drastically different from Nixon’s. The impeachment vote was straight party line, and not even unanimous on the Democrat side. The chance of a Senate conviction is nil. Most of the “divisiveness” is from Democrats who refuse to accept the results of an election.
Nixon resigned because the Republicans in the Senate told him to, or else.
Yep. He was told by his own party that they would vote to remove him from office.
I think I just ruined my dad’s birthday by inadvertently getting into a Middle East foreign policy argument with him. Eh.
Show him this:
https://archive.li/6nRsb/e8e129b34223eb139474cea5d78eecd64a9f6153.jpg
It’ll perk him right up.
Where are her organs?
I wanted to keep it SFW.
In the vestibule?
Well it certainly cheered me up. Thanks, Q.
keeping the entire energy sector at the behest of government, but this time with (it seems) the right people/ideas in charge, isn’t really about libertarianism one way or the other.
If you assume the conclusion, which inevitably boils down to “To be sure, libertarianism may sound like a good system, BUT…” you inevitably fall back to the necessity for big government as a means to fix “market failures”, which is merely shorthand for “stuff we don’t like”.
That encompasses everything from global warming to uninspected lettuce and non pasteurized milk.
Speaking of non pasteurized milk, I have some cheese made by a local Amish farmer from same. I can understand why Europeans, French in particular, think we know so little of cheese.
The dastardly gun industry is at it again.
The little girl is Sadie Kreinbrink, from Ostrander, Ohio. Sadie has Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma and must “undergo 66 weeks of intensive chemotherapy, ” so Henry created “66 unique rifles” to be sold to raise money to help Sadie’s family with her medical expenses.
Henry calls the rifle the “Sweet Sadie.” It is a lever-action .22 s/l/lr with engravings that are “hand-painted pink” to be special to the rifle and the cause.
Beckett Burge, of Princeton, Texas, is the young boy for whom Henry is raising money. Beckett has leukemia and is undergoing “rigorous treatment.” Henry created the “Beat It Like Beckett” .22 s/l/lr rifle to raise money for Beckett’s family during this time.
The “Beat It Like Beckett” lever action has “a large loop lever, a brushed metal receiver cover, and a 17” blued steel octagon barrel.”
Henry makes nice rifles. All gun Glibs should have one.
Which would then all tragically be lost in boating accidents.
Joe Biden: “I really, really, really, don’t want to win this election.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden has told a voter at a campaign stop that he agrees completely with her statement that plastic bags should be banned. Apparently in Biden’s mind, cutting down millions of trees every year to make paper bags is much, much better.
Isn’t he brilliant?
“I agree with you 100 percent,” Biden said. “We should not be allowing plastic. What we should do is phasing [sic] it out.”
There’s his out. How long will it take to phase out?
Umm, isn’t that a correct use of “phasing”? Why the [sic]?
I had the same thing typed out and then I re-read it one more time…
Maybe the tense? “What we should do is phase it out” or “what we should be doing is phasing it out”
Got it. I autocorrected in my head to an actual English sentence, like what Hype wrote.
I liked “fazing” it out, as in faze out politicians
I have a long-standing preference for real words.
Is this the same idiot that wrote the illegals/drivers license piece yesterday or another idiot writing for the same site? You can take on Biden’s stupid position here many ways but ‘it’s either plastic or paper’ and ‘this is the most important thing to him’ are spurious at best.
True. He could be calling for bags of any kind to be banned.
Just like it’s too dangerous for NJers to pump their own gas (or NYers to have nozzle locks) it’s simply too dangerous for people to carry their own groceries. The average citizen doesn’t have all the extensive training in lifting carrying and other aspects of materials handling that Teamsters do. All grocery transport must be left to trained professionals.
NJer please!
And you do the same thing as the writer in the opposite direction. He didn’t claim it was “the most important thing to him”.
And you also ignore the entire point of the article, which I think even you could agree with:
Sure but I’m not a journalist.
The bit about Trump killing terrorist while Joe’s worrying about plastic bags is what I found spurious. Campaigning politician panders to audience isn’t really big news or a damning indictment in any way.
Were there some unnecessary shots against old Uncle Joe? Maybe. But again, the entire point was to show the craziness that has infected the Dem nomination process. Not the candidates themselves. The fact the Biden feels that he has to give the questioner the time of day is pretty amazing. Especially when most sane people would say there’s much, much more important questions to be asking the candidates.
“sane”
Here’s your problem.
Meh, when was the last time any politician on the campaign trail told a possible voter that their question/concern is stupid and you have better things to worry about? And if you want me to get the point of your article don’t tack it on the end as a coda, I need it in the headline or the lede or put This is the entire point right before the entire point.
Honestly. You really are much more contrarian than hyperbole. You really should consider a name change.
Well, trees do grow back. I’m less concerned with the trees than with the fact that paper bags have other problems compared to plastic, like an intolerance for being wet.
“an intolerance for being wet”
Stop talking about Amanda Marcotte that way.
“trees do grow back” Reminded me of this, re the (once) Fertile Crescent, from the book, Guns, Germs and Steel…
“In ancient times […] much of the Fertile Crescent and eastern Mediterranean region, including Greece, was covered with forest. The region’s transformation from fertile woodland to eroded scrub or desert has been elucidated by paleobotanists and archaeologists. Its woodlands were cleared for agriculture, or cut to obtain construction timber, or burned as firewood or for manufacturing plaster. Because of low rainfall and hence low primary productivity (proportional to rainfall), regrowth of vegetation could not keep pace with its destruction, especially in the presence of overgrazing by abundant goats. With the tree and grass cover removed, erosion proceeded and valleys silted up, while irrigation agriculture in the low-rainfall environment led to salt accumulation. These processes, which began in the Neolithic era, continued into modern times. For instance, the last forests near the ancient Nabataean capital of Petra, in modern Jordan, were felled by the Ottoman Turks during construction of the Hejaz railroad just before World War I.”
And the climate never changed in the past.
The quoted explanation and climate fluctuations are not mutually exclusive. The climate of “low rainfall” may not have always been so, and that change could’ve contributed to the region’s forests’ inability to bounce back.
True, perhaps I have become sensitive, but I read that as
orangeman bad.THE WORLD WAS PERFECT THEN!!! /proglodyte
Paper is an agricultural product. It’s planting millions of trees every year.
Paper is still the inferior material for plastic applications.
Let’s just ban plastic across the board. I mean, what is it really used for in modern life that can’t easily be replaced?
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/9bGZTP-MRayDorGR-IWG9w.s76-AT0cmd8558sIlBTTp1
?? that link works.
It did, and it’s excellent.
It does indeed and both the poster and the aforementioned vegans make my blood boil.
That triggered a flashback of a woman I almost asked out.
I asked for her phone number, she told me to look her up on facebook. She gave me some information to find her.
I found her facebook profile. I looked through her public pictures which included a picture of her wearing dreadlocks. White girls with dreadlocks are a hard no for me, but it gets better. She was draped in plastic bags and the caption for the picture was, “Did you know all of these are made with oil? That’s scary!”
I never thanked her for doing me a favor. Instead I just walked away and did not look back.
To be fair, Dem voters are all over this shit. This won’t cost him a single vote.
Also, the alternative to plastic bags isn’t paper any more – they’re pushing cloth bags.
Cloth bags – made from cotton? These idiots have no clue what an environmental clusterfuck cotton agriculture is, particularly in AZ and CA?
Idiotic on many, many levels. Forest area in the US is increasing because the paper industry drives forestation.
And anyone who has ever visited Dow’s polyethylene plants in Texas, then gone to Neenah’s paper mill in Wisconsin will have a pretty good grasp on the relative clean-ness and ecological impact of the production of these two materials.
Further proof this has less to do with “the environment” and more to do with forcing the poors to do what the elites tell them to. They’ve been shopping with cloth bags for decades and it’s time to make everyone else do it too.
Neatly sums up almost every coastal progressive policy initiative.
Ol’ Joe certainly isn’t Dustin Hoffman.
Apparently in Biden’s mind, cutting down millions of trees every year to make paper bags is much, much better.
It will give those out-of-work coal miners something to do.
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Maybe the edit fairy could delete my last “O” as well as this comment? That would tidy things up.
Learn to saw?
Lo, and OK is going to be hard to take anywhere.
https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1213114263616786434
Gay?
The New Yorker’s nethers ache for the feel of Suleimani’s throbbing cod.
They feel a tingle going down their leg?
I was thinking more running down their leg.
Definitely thicc
The Babylon Bee must wonder how it can possibly keep up.
If I’m looking for adjectives to describe Soleimani, I think I’d start with “scatter-brained”.
Silicone Saturday provides pulchritudinous pillows of pleasure for your personal peeping.
http://archive.li/ay18M
Is #2 that Demi Rose thicc chicc on which I often clicc?
Nope.
#27
No, but she looks just as fake.
#7 looks fun. I’ll just hang out with her.
Whatever happened to binge drinking? and alcoholic elected officials? and good old fashioned adultery in the White House?
Kids today need some role models if they’re ever gonna grow up to leadership positions.
Hear, hear!
*bangs shoe on table*
“good old fashioned adultery in the White House”
Various paid off porn actresses unavailable for comment.
Justice?
https://nypost.com/2020/01/03/women-win-13m-legal-battle-against-girlsdoporn-website/
“At trial, defense attorneys argued that the women were over 18, understood what they were doing, accepted payment and in some cases returned to San Diego again and again to make more videos.”
OTOH:
“Some of the women testified that although they accepted performing sex on camera to earn money, including paying for college, the subsequent publicity ruined their lives and careers.”
The level of naïveté required to think that having sex with a stranger on film would *not* end up on the internet is astonishing. Yeah, I feel sorry for these girls since yootz tend to be stupid and their stupidity will live on the internet forever, but I guess this is feminist since FEEMAIL EXPLOYTASHUN. Women have agency until they don’t.
It was either breach of contract or it wasn’t, The fact that the girls should have known the pornographers were full of shit doesn’t excuse them from being full of shit.
Good question: we’d have to see the wording of what they signed. Does it need to explicitly say that the videos won’t be posted on the internet, or does the absence of it explicitly saying they will be posted on the internet suffice? IANAL, so I’d like to hear from someone who is.
I’ve got a really good used to car to sell, only driven on Sundays (in Demolition Derbies) by little ol’ church ladies. Politicians and used car salesmen,
same gene pool.
Typically, fraud requires reasonable reliance on the misrepresentations.
Sure it did.
Follow up:
The internet is so saturated with porn, as long as you don’t use your real name, what are the chances an employer/potential partner would find your stuff by accident? It’s hiding in plain sight.
“Returned to San Diego”
Chafed could not be found for comment…
The male talent’s name is Hispanic and I know Chafed is one of (((us))) so he’s in the clear… this time.
Who reads the names???
We got rid of most of the blue laws, but we haven’t shaken the attitudes, I suspect what happened here is unsympathetic defendant/sympathetic plaintiff.
The Goyim learned about schisming from (((them)))
Any Cheesehead Glibs wanna fess up?
https://nypost.com/2020/01/02/wisconsin-english-teacher-admits-to-repeatedly-pooping-in-local-park/
Smile–You’re on Candid Camera!!
I saw several hands raised…Good that its on the east side of WI, some on MN folks live close to the border, just sayin’
I don’t know if it’s iPad or what, but I’m having a really hard time with Amazon Photos to share.
http://www.imgur.com
I am having problems with that too. Has to be the iPad.
I was forced to use the app onstead of desktop site so we’ll see if that works.
I second the imgur recommendation. I use it solely to share stuff with you louts.
It just so happens that he’s inspiring Google searches about the draft age. It seems people are just the teeniest bit worried that the killing of an Iranian top general, Qassim Suleimani, might spark a war with the U.S. — and, perhaps, that those of prime conscription age might be forced to participate.
I remember folks being worried about the draft during the first Gulf War. I still don’t expect it to come back.
Following last night’s assassination of the Iranian military leader, authorities in both New York and Los Angeles announced that they were ramping up security in readiness for possible revenge attacks on U.S. soil.
ALIENZ!!!!
The new proposal calls for a traditionalist Methodist denomination opposed to gay marriage and ordination of LGBT clergy. A spinoff denomination would allow same-sex weddings and gay clergy.
Sounds like Freedom of Association is working the way it should. I’m certain the usual suspects will call this a Very Bad Thing.
In a statement, the NYPD’s Public Information office told me, “The NYPD has zero tolerance when it comes to hate crimes in New York City. We have deployed assets and resources in Jewish neighborhoods, specifically around houses of worship. This includes an increase of uniform patrols, auxiliary units, as well as plain clothes patrols. Additionally, officers from the Critical Response Command and Strategic Response Group are patrolling these areas.”
So you don’t want them to be safer?
It estimated that there were an average of 17.5 mammals, 20.7 birds and 129.5 reptiles per hectare (10,000 square metres, so a square 100m on each side – about the size of a rugby pitch).
They’ve then multiplied that by the amount of land hit by the fires.
“We’ve estimated that in the three million hectares of New South Wales alone that were burned up until about 10 days ago probably as many as 480 million mammals, birds and reptiles would have been affected by the fires,” Prof Dickman said.
Sounds about as legitimate as claiming my penis makes John Holmes’ penis look small.
Bill Gates — the second richest person in the world with a current net worth of $108.8 billion, according to Forbes — says his extreme wealth is not fair.
Go fuck yourself. If you don’t want that money, instead of whining like a dumb shit, send it my way.
I like today’s Old Guy Music. I agree, I’d listen to more country if country sounded like that. Kinda like this.
“Sounds like Freedom of Association is working the way it should. I’m certain the usual suspects will call this a Very Bad Thing.”
We can’t let those homophobes/sodomites do their own thing! It’s sinful and wrong!
Mornin’ Glibbies. Got lots to do today, but of course checking in here is my first priority. Except when I’m deep in a book and then humans cease to exist.
Carryover from last night’s thread:
@JD
Under the U.S. flag of Harlequin Presents, yes. That’s where I acquired a taste for it.
Regarding the request for naming-of-my-heroine help, I had decided on Adelaide but I’m not sure.
@commodius spittoon
@Festus
Even though I’ve already got a (tertiary) character named Lisette, she never speaks, and I really like the name. I also like Miette. I haven’t researched that, but apparently Miette patisserie makes a rockin’ macaron (band name!) called miette.
Lisette/Miette of ______. Or Lisette/Miette the Silent/whatever.
@Ted’S
Point taken re Old Dutch. That said, my father spent 3 years in Holland and surrounds and considered Flemish different enough from Dutch to be a separate language. Also, Belgians consider themselves to speak Flemish, not Dutch. That may be a national pride thing, but they also speak French without calling it a different thing just to be difficult.
@MikeS
I’m sorry about Trixxxie Johnson. Trixie Belden is a favorite and I can’t tarnish her.
@Jarflax
Please feel free to send dispatches from the rabbit hole of history.
My first order of business is to make a map of 10th Century Europe and overlay current Europe find out which parts of Belgium France had so I can put my nun near Denée. At least Namur and Charleroi. Jarflax already did it for me verbally, but I can’t picture it. Our Glibbie nw (whom we have not seen in a while—hint hint) made me a map of northern England/southern Scotland with hexes so I could measure distance.
Then I’ll get cracking on my tortured monk anti-hero from Spain.
Monk, nun. You know where this is going.
And thank you all for your help! I am saving the entire thread for reference.
This is the division after Charlemagne which more or less (very more or less) lasted until 959 when the purple part (which is Lotharangia and includes Belgium) was split.
As to the Flemish/Dutch distinction, I’m not remotely qualified to speak on the subject of when that linguistic split occurred, but the period you are writing about is roughly when Beowulf was composed, so I wouldn’t try for linguistic accuracy unless you want your readership to be composed of a handful of PhDs who actually speak Old French and Old Dutch.
Here is what it looked like shortly after the split.
That said, my father spent 3 years in Holland and surrounds and considered Flemish different enough from Dutch to be a separate language.
I have some current and former Dutch ex-pat coworkers that say they have a lot of trouble understanding Flemish.
“You know where this is going.”
An epistolary novel of unrequited Platonic love?
Ding ding ding! Got it in one!
Monk, nun. You know where this is going.
He fixes the
cablebutter churn?THANK YOU!!
I was about to make a joke better suited for a priest, and realized my faux pas.
/I got nuthin’
+1 Bro. Hungus
One or more assholes hacked my Netflix account overnight. The emails said the logins appeared to be in Holland, and some location in India.
No sign of anything more nefarious as of now, but, fuck these people with rusty chainsaws.
Sorry.
Dude–if you wanted to watch something, all you had to do was ask! Not that I would have agreed, but… 😉
/thanks
I hate that.
FWIW, my tiny neglected embroidery business website is constantly under a brute force attack. I have no idea why. They don’t even get the user name right and they’ll never be able to get the password. It’s long and in 2 different languages: French and Lewis Carroll.
Occasionally they try my author website, but with the same problems.
Why my sites? There is nothing to gain there.
IANAHacker, but I think they want to gain control of it so they can ransom it back to you.
I don’t have the money to pay a ransom (not that I would), but I back up regularly and the rest of it … dudes, have at it. Good luck selling my books and cross stitch patterns.
Depending on how much control they get, it can also be used as a place to launch attacks such as DDoS.
Yeah, they want the computer not the content (most likely).
So, Cods and Cuntes, The Hacker Years?
OK, more like Hacker Cuntes
This has been going on for years. YEARS, I tell you.