Tuesday Morning Links

by | Mar 10, 2020 | Daily Links | 501 comments

Coming soon to all of European soccer

Leicester have solidified their position in the top 4, Serie A have called off all games due to the Coronavirus, the UCL matches are going on as scheduled, many in empty stadia, and that’s abut it for soccer.  Gonzaga held off USF to hang on to a #1 seed for now. They’ll lose it if they can’t beat St Mary’s tonight.  And more teams punched their ticket to the NCAA tournament.

The Sharks may be forced to play in an empty arena. And your winners last night were Buffalo, Winnipeg, Florida, Vegas and LA. Also, locker rooms won’t allow reporters, which should have been done years before the Wuhan virus got everybody into a massive panic.

Legends

King Ferdinand II was born on his day. He shares it with racist asshole James Earl Ray, corrupt soccer admin Sepp Blatter, acting legend Chuck Norris, 1st Canadian female PM Kim Campbell, religious scholar (according to the NYT) and giant fucking asshole Osama bin Laden, motorcycle enthusiast and football coach Bobby Petrino, inbred Prince Andrew, actor Jon Hamm, pop musician Robin Thicke, actress Olivia Wilde, and new country singer Carrie Underwood.

Right, now…the links!

The volatility of the market continues apace. It’s almost as if it’s reacting irrationally to every little piece of news. And it’s almost as if the players involved know this. So let’s see how it all plays out: will the media deliberately force it lower with incessant fear-mongering or will Trump deliberately push it higher with incessant money-pumping? (Although I’m always happy when taxes are cut, so this one is good. I do fear, however, a lot of bailouts are coming, which is bad.)

More of this, please!

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this will continue. I wish it would speed up, actually. But I’m still happy to see progress.

Remember this the next time a union school teacher tells you they care about kids first. Because I guess they can’t negotiate while still doing their job. Hopefully this backfires and the school district fires them all and hires replacements.

That’s it, everybody. Start heading to Savannah. Or just stay home and get drunk in your local bar. Which would make that just a normal day in Southie, wouldn’t it?

The Chicago way. What’s the total taxpayers have been fleeced for at now, I wonder?

Come on, dude, and release it!

Man, somebody really wants this movie to never see the light of day. I wonder why?

But at least she didn’t use a gun! So that will make progressives happy.

This will be the first of many such local stories. Well, local in the sense that I live there. I’m still stuck in boring Kansas for a few more days.

This should be the Wuhan virus theme song! Just kidding, but it does rock.

Now go have a great day, friends!

About The Author

sloopyinca

sloopyinca

501 Comments

  1. JD is Unemployed

    Glorious Tuesday become Monday!

    • Swiss Servator

      You just looking for a catbutt?

      • robc

        I think you should catbutt sloopy. I couldn’t figure out why my browser wouldn’t reload to today.

      • Swiss Servator

        TPTB are amicable toward each other.

      • robc

        But a TPTB catbutt war would be a lot of fun for the rest of us.

        Until the catbutt truce.

      • Swiss Servator

        When Elephants fight, the grass gets trampled… be careful what you wish for.

      • robc

        When elephants fight, the ivory dealers get cheap product.

        *SOWER OF DISCORD*

      • leon

        Elephants eh? I knew you were a bunch of Republicans

      • robc

        Do porcupines fight?

      • JD is Unemployed

        I don’t think so, but I’m more interested in how they mate without impaling each other. I’ll look up some documentaries for this evening. Purely scientific curiousity.

      • UnCivilServant

        You just want to watch porcuporn.

      • JD is Unemployed

        Hot (SFW)

      • JD is Unemployed

        I miss my cat 🙁

        Two and half years since some jerkwad ran her down and she died in the arms of a kind stranger.

      • Gender Traitor

        I’m sorry. : ( Would you consider adopting another? (And keeping it indoors?)

      • JD is Unemployed

        I might do, but my old girl was wild. She originally came to us by free will because apparently she wasn’t too find of her owner’s place. She would have been very sad to be kept indoors. She was an excellent rat-killing machine. I think if I had a kitteh from kittenhood I’d keep them as an indoors cat. Where I live now my neighbors lost one of four cats to traffic, and another one of the three remaining has been hit twice and had surgery on his pelvis. Some folks that live further up the road have lost two cats in the past year or so. I’m definitely interested in kitty-proofing outside so they have somewhere to roam around and chase butterflies, but don’t go out into the street to get hit by traffic, or out into the fields at night to get shot by lampers or get busy with the feral farm cats.

      • Gender Traitor

        We’re only a couple of houses away from a main thoroughfare state highway, so kitty roaming is not a viable option. Fortunately, the new kitty shows no interest in going out. The last one was cured of his curiosity by getting pinned between Mr. GT’s leg and the door frame during a getaway attempt.

      • straffinrun

        That made even me a little sad.

      • Festus

        Shit. That’s awful. My kittehs stay inside the Thunderdome.

      • JD is Unemployed

        They very lucky to have ol’ Daddy Festus to keep them safe.

    • sloopyinca

      Half the commenters sat out the start of the week, so it feels like Monday to me.

      • JD is Unemployed

        Well, like, there’s no objective reality anyway, and like, if Prince doesn’t* believe in time, then I guess neither do I.

        Saying “didn’t” is like a microagression against us anti-timers.

      • Tonio

        Hey, time change Mondays be rough on people.

      • Nephilium

        I was traveling through the incubator that is the Atlanta airport, and I’m fine.

        /Nephilium died while posting this message

  2. gbob

    I cant recall a time in my life when I havent been in love with Debbie Harry.

    • robc

      THIS

    • robc

      The rapping part of Rapture is cringey however.

      • sloopyinca

        I wish more people could admit this.

      • robc

        Wait, I thought that is what it was known for, being so gawdawful.

      • JD is Unemployed

        Agreed. Post-punk white girls rapping was only cool when The Waitresses did it.

      • gbob

        Alright, I’ll fight this. If not for that rap, would anyone have known of Grandmaster Flash or Fab Five Freddy? Would hip hop have gotten out of New York? Her rap might be weak, but it blew open a musical genre.

      • robc

        I think you mean, “Would anyone white have known of…”

        I think they were already known.

      • sloopyinca

        As long as it eventually got to the west coast, where it became decent, is all that matters.

      • Just a thought not a sermon

        If I got to choose a coast I got to choose the East
        I live out there, so don’t go there
        But that don’t mean a nigga can’t rest in the West
        See some nice breast in the West
        Smoke some nice sess in the West, y’all niggas is a mess

      • Count Potato

        Every kid already knew Rapper’s Delight. Which was two years before Rapture.

      • The Last American Hero

        And without Marky Mark and his Funky Bunch, we’d never have had Death Row Records.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Womb Raider…

  3. robc

    corrupt soccer admin

    Can you name one who isnt?

    • sloopyinca

      Probably not. I suppose that was unnecessarily redundant and unnecessary.

      • robc

        Also, the boyfriend/husband/whatever beating the hell out of Petrino is much more believable than the motorcycle accident. Considering how he looked and she was uninjured…yeah…no.

  4. JD is Unemployed

    The Chicago way. What’s the total taxpayers have been fleeced for at now, I wonder?

    The recent Deep Dive podcast from IJ touches on this being kind of a misconception, with such legal expenses supposedly being covered by insurance. I get that it must be a lot more complicatd than that and certainly welcome any ACKCHUALLLYYYYY replies to this, probably involving ever increasing premiums having a knock-on effect into more aggressive taxation and petty fines from the authorities in question to pay for the cover they need to deal with all the suits that generates, and the whole ourobouros chugs along until it becomes some sort of singularity? I don’t know, I just wanted to seem smaht by using the word “ourobouros”. Happy Muesday. The libertopian dream of an 8 day working week will be realized!

    • Swiss Servator

      “Self insured” “Self Insured Retention” “Deductible”

      Yeah… the taxpayers take it in the shorts.

    • sloopyinca

      What insurance carrier would be dumb enough to write a liability policy for the Chicago PD?

      • invisible finger

        Exactly this, sloop. My niece worked as an underwriter for a municipal insurance company IN CHICAGO and they never issued a policy to any Chicago entity because the risk was too high.

  5. Private Chipperbot

    Glibs of the Year?

    “They were both half-naked and the woman was upside down with her butt on the steering wheel and he had his face in the woman’s genitals, like in a 69 position,” one resident told reporters visibly surprised.

    Hunter Gibbons, 56, and Ashley White, 19, were arrested for driving under the influence. Police said tests showed that Gibbons blew close to 27.5 times the legal limit for alcohol. A crack cocaine pipe was also found in the car as well as crystal meth.

    “It took us several minutes to release the man’s genitals from the woman’s mouth because her jaw seemed to have broken and swollen during the accident,” resident Sam Harris told reporters still visibly in shock.

    • robc

      Hmmm…

      .08 * 27.5 = 2.2%

      Umm…no. I am guessing this is somewhere with a crazy low legal limit.

      Even .02 * 27.5 = 0.55 which is feasible, but still deadly.

      • Agent Cooper

        Probably a typo. 2.75?

      • The Last American Hero

        Next you’re going to tell me Michael Bloomberg couldn’t have given everyone a million dollars.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Maybe he had a CDL?

    • sloopyinca

      Hunter Gibbons, 56, and Ashley White, 19,

      Nice.
      -South Park cops

      • Festus

        I’ll be 56 come December. Fingers and toes crossed!

      • AlexinCT

        Did that last week…

        Don’t feel much older though.

        And happy early birthday to you then.

    • Florida Man

      All the “you may also like” suggestions are really weird, and coming from me, that’s saying a lot.

    • leon

      How can they both be arrested for DUI?

      • robc

        They were both in the drivers seat.

      • banginglc1

        They were both on the drivers side?

      • banginglc1

        timing fail

        /bows to robc

    • Just a thought not a sermon

      Hey, I just discovered an old Thought Not Sermon I was working on at one point but never posted. Not sure all the presidents are here, I think, but most of ’em are.

      125) Best—Presidents whose legacies are mostly positive with few or no flaws: George Washington, Calvin Coolidge

      Good—Presidents whose legacies are mostly positive but not entirely untarnished—Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan

      Mildly favorable—Presidents whose legacies are generally positive but mixed or simply didn’t do that much: John Adams, William McKinley, George H. W. Bush
      Mixed—Martin Van Buren, Theodore Roosevelt, Bill Clinton

      Neutral to mildly unfavorable—Presidents who were basically non-entities or were in over their heads or clueless but did little long-term damage: William Henry Harrison, William Howard Taft, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter

      Unfavorable—Presidents with mostly negative legacies but resulting in little permanent damage, or who did not cause harm to the country but did little to stop it—Franklin Pierce, Herbert Hoover, Barack Obama

      Bad—Presidents whose legacies are mostly damaging but may have had some redeeming qualities: Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, George W. Bush

      Villainous—Presidents who did incredible damage to the country with few or no redeeming qualities: Woodrow Wilson, Richard Nixon

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Nice run down.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Where might Trump fit at this juncture?

      • Just a thought not a sermon

        Oh, man. Mildly favorable, I think. Definitely a corrective to what came before, but too disorganized to really change much in a permanent way. Despite all the noise about him, I haven’t seen anything that makes me think he’ll be remembered much 50 years from now.

      • leon

        I’d put in mildly unfavorable but could see it both ways.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        If prison reform works out, maybe that could help?

      • Agent Cooper

        “think he’ll be remembered much 50 years from now.”

        Upsetting the DC Apple Cart will keep him remembered for a long time.

      • leon

        You think freeing the slaves is bad and damaging!!!! / Result of public education.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Well he did say ‘redeeming qualities’!

      • leon

        He must like Lincoln’s white supremacy.

      • Count Potato

        Well, it was a major accomplishment.

      • Bobarian LMD

        It was also an accident. He didn’t want to do it.

      • WTF

        Man, you’re really looking to start a brawl here, aren’t you?

      • Tonio

        I’m still trying to figure out what that has to do with the unfortunate couple in Purcell, OK.

      • leon

        Just like there can only be one president, there can only be one driver at a time. Some may be more bad than others, but charging them all with being bad at the same time is wrong.

      • sloopyinca

        Why would Nixon be villainous but LBJ merely bad?

      • Tundra

        Both Bush fuckos belong in bad.

      • Just a thought not a sermon

        The betrayal of public trust. Although I’m not sure I considered lying about the Gulf of Tonkin incident at the time I wrote this. I could see moving LBJ down.

      • Count Potato

        Nixon just got caught.

      • WTF

        And got caught doing a helluva lot less than Obama did openly.

      • leon

        Nixon also ended the gold standard, instituted piece controls and in general ducked around in the economy. Those things I consider his bad legacy, not Watergate.

      • WTF

        ^This (as well as founded the fucking EPA)

      • MikeS

        …and OSHA, and the Endangered Species Act, and the Clean Air Act, and…

      • Agent Cooper

        ” Ulysses S. Grant,”

        Does Teapot Dome mean nothing to you sir!??!?!??!!???!!111??>**

        **-has no idea if Teapot Dome was a legit scandal, or something brewed up by nefarious actors to make Grant look bad.

      • Agent Cooper

        Damnit. Warren G. Harding administration. I fail history.

      • Drake

        It was a legit scandal – the Secretary of the Interior actually went to jail – that would have been laughed away as nothing during the Obama Administration. Harry Reid and the Clintons both did far worse.

      • Drake

        James Polk?
        Started a war, expanded our territory, punched out after 1 term. Used to sit on the White House lawn and talk to anyone who walked up. Probably somewhere in the middle along with Grover Cleveland.

        I might move Madison down a tier or two. Bumbled into the War of 1812, achieved nothing during the war, bumbled out of it.

      • The Hyperbole

        Where’s Zachary Taylor, the scrubbiest of all presidents?

      • The Last American Hero

        You forgot about Tyler.

      • Bobarian LMD

        I’d bump FDR and DDE both down one.

        FDR was about as fascist as most of the other world leaders at the time. *cue – “You know who else…?”

        DDE weaponized the CIA.

      • Pine_Tree

        I always include W. H. Harrison in the “best” list.

      • pistoffnick

        +31 days as President (shortest tenure)

      • Gadfly

        In all honestly Abe Lincoln should be bumped up. Yes, I know everyone’s complaints about the Constitutional violations and all that, and those should definitely keep him out of the top tier, but abolition is definitely a big plus and more than that keeping the union together was long-term beneficial to the country. The knock-on effects from having a broken up US are so greatly negative that having kept it together should give him massive favorability, even for someone who supports secession as a concept.

      • leon

        I flat out disagree. The cost to keep the union together was to ditch the republic all together. Lincoln saved the Federal Government, and since then the nation has not been a union or republic, but a runaway government posing as some union.

      • CPRM

        “I will keep the union together, by denying that it is a union of sovereign states, instead it is a sovereign federal government in control of the states!”

      • leon

        In short, the emancipation is what pushes Lincoln from being villainous to bad with redeeming qualities.

      • CPRM

        Except, remember, emancipation was only effective in the states that rebelled, which were not under his jurisdiction. It was a PR move.

      • leon

        Yeah, but he did advocate for the 13th amendment, so I’ll give him that.

      • Gadfly

        I think that this is baked in from the moment the US breaks up, really. If peaceful secession is allowed, all the slave states eventually secede in protest over the now ascendant Republicans abolishing slavery. West Virginia might not even stay, as their main objection was fighting their countrymen. This creates a large rival to the US on its home continent, something IRL it did not have (excepting the brief period of civil war). Disputes are inevitable, considering the CSA claimed land owned by the USA in the west, land they probably end up taking if the USA waves the white flag at Sumter. From there things are even more speculative, but fierce national rivalries are not generally conducive to the maintenance of small government in either party. Given the nature of slave states it is probably that the CSA continues to expand, possible taking territory from Mexico (which was smaller and weaker than it at the time) and in Central America (see the filibusters) and the Caribbean. The European powers would attempt to play the USA and the CSA off of each other to contain the two, and when the 20th century rolls around, who do those two nations side with if they get drawn into the world wars? Basically, I think the potential for damage both to the US and to the world at large that was avoided by keeping the country together makes it a good thing on balance.

      • Enough About Palin

        “Richard Nixon”

        He did open up business with China, so Nixon is responsible for the Corona Virus.

      • leon

        Oooh So instead of Wuhan Virus, we should call it Mao’s Revenge.

      • J. Frank Parnell

        True story: JFK once crashed his car into the White House while 69ing Marilyn Monroe, but the press covered it up.

    • DrOtto

      I think if they find meth and a “crack pipe”, it.may akshuallly be a meth pipe. Also, when do they tell us Hunter Biden changed his last name?

    • J. Frank Parnell

      a crack cocaine pipe was also found in the car as well as crystal meth

      shocked face dot jpeg

    • mock-star

      If you google the headline, several stories come up with different locations and dates, but every single other detail (names, quotes, etc.) the exact same. So Im going to say this is fake. BUT DAMMIT, I WANT TO BELIEVE!

  6. Rebel Scum

    Monday Morning Links

    Either I am recovering from a week long bender or I died of Wuhan slant-eye coronoavirus.

    • straffinrun

      You wish you had Corona.

      • Festus

        Not as fetching as green tatas…

      • straffinrun

        Lol.

      • Festus

        Wifey drives a Nissan Juke. Even uglier.

  7. leon

    Recession, by definition of bureau of statistics is two or more consecutive quarters of negative economic growth.

    • robc

      Was at joe or MNG who argued on TOS against that definitiion.

      • leon

        I don’t know. It’s probably not a great one, but it’s better than “Dow Jones loses x% in value”

      • Lackadaisical

        really?

        what would you propose instead?

  8. Rufus the Monocled

    I got nothing.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      I got a coffee and a trail of ants from the living room window to the toddler’s chair.

      • Fourscore

        Pretty much normal with a toddler/teenager

      • Bobarian LMD

        The toddler won’t slide a plate of food under it’s bed for two-and-a-half weeks.

      • JD is Unemployed

        This time of year I start to get one or two ants in the kitchen on a scouting expedition. If there’s something left accesible to them the message gets back to the colony pretty quick and they’re out to clean up, so it pays to keep it clean, and let the recce ants report that there’s nothing there.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        We’re in the woods, so it’s not a matter of if, but when. Usually it isn’t until April, but the mild winter has sent them out scurrying early. That and I just laid down a mulch bed right in front of the window they’re coming through so I’m sure they’re exploring the new digs.

        It’s all sugar ants, so no big deal. Just need to get out there and spray sometime this week.

      • AlexinCT

        Nuke the fuckers from orbit, yo.

    • Festus

      “Get to work! Lazy Farmer!”

  9. Just a thought not a sermon

    “Tellurian lays off nearly half of its workers, shuffles executives”

    I don’t know, I feel like this is the same as the stock market. Crash isn’t because of coronavirus, it’s because the market was ready to tumble and was waiting for something to happen. Same with the shake out in oil/gas–it’s been needed for a while, oil price crash is just the inciting event.

  10. Just a thought not a sermon

    124) I noticed in the restroom at work there are signs up on the mirrors now about washing your hands—no need to explain why. Coronavirus, 24 hours a day! But the strange thing is, it seems to be working—I had to wait in line for a few seconds for a sink to open up so I could wash my hands. That’s never happened before.

    Makes me wonder, will the coronavirus outbreak actually save lives, with all this handwashing, and staying home from events, and so forth? Sure there’s a new disease added to the mix, but all the precautions will help hinder the spread of the old diseases, as well. With everybody doing all the little hygienic things they were supposed to be doing all along, this could be the best flu and season in years. What else—hepatitis, maybe? Maybe TB in cities where that’s come back. Sure we get the daily count of coronavirus deaths, but isn’t it possible the overall infections disease death rate will decline in 2020?

    • Florida Man

      You could genetically engineer some sort of super predator mutant that hunts humans and after 6 months people would just accept it as the new normal. You can’t stay scared forever. That’s why new hobgoblins need to be constantly invented.

      • AlexinCT

        This man gets the tents of modern day marxism..

      • AlexinCT

        tents=tenets…

      • Bobarian LMD

        Well, I think the commies put their showers in tents, so this probably works.

    • Festus

      I’m a custodian. I figger I’m pretty much immune to everything, at this point. I don’t get colds or flu’s and if I do they last for a day or two. China is Asshole!

    • pistoffnick

      Yesterday, we got a full page memo from the Saaaaaaaaaaaafety Department telling us how to wash our hands.

      But I can’t remember the whole “ABC song”!

      • Festus

        Pretty certain the word will come down from on high to disinfect every doorknob. What good that will do once I walk away remains to be seen.

      • UnCivilServant

        In order to keep those doorknobs clean, you’ll have to remove them and store them somewhere safe.

      • Festus

        Meany!

      • Plisade

        -1 The Bourne Legacy lab shooting scene

      • Akira

        At my work (in a small-ish town in Ohio) the maintenance guys have been instructed to wipe every single door handle in the building with Lysol three times a day.

    • Trials and Trippelations

      No people are gross. There are plenty of gross people to spread germs

    • invisible finger

      I’m sure cities like San Fiasco have started handing out hand sanitizer to the homeless reminding them to use it after shitting on the sidewalk.

  11. Nephilium

    Boston strong my ass.

    Cleveland Strong! Year 178 of the parade.

    • The Last American Hero

      Boston Strong means we hide in our houses like little scared bitches while the police try to find a pair of murderers.

      • Desk Jockey

        I was in Boston for college when that happened. Me and a buddy took a walk around Beacon Hill to get some fresh air since classes were cancelled. Got hassled by a cop who alleged that he had a coworker who got “his balls shot off fighting the bomber” and that the bomber looked a lot like me. Told us to get off the streets or he’d bring us in.

        This was two days before they shot the MIT security and went on the run. Needless to say I didn’t believe much of the info they were telling the school after that.

      • AlexinCT

        Comply with authority citizen, or we will make you pay…

  12. Rebel Scum

    will the media deliberately force it lower with incessant fear-mongering or will Trump deliberately push it higher with incessant money-pumping?

    Yes.

    • robc

      I just want another payroll of my 401k buying cheap.

      • AlexinCT

        Buy low. Sell high. You never go broke making a profit.

        BTW I have lost no money in the stock market, because I have not panic sold any stock. It will not just bounce back, but go higher once the people hoping to crash the economy so democrats win an election (funny how hurting Americans to win power seems to always be the team blue agenda) are finally ignored.

      • ChipsnSalsa

        Yearly bonus is coming this Friday. Hope things have stayed low till then.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      They’re going to be pushing on a string.

  13. gbob

    It’s not 9am, but its beer o’clock for this dude. Up all night on the dumbest project in the world. Playing with starting a legit radio station, with rights to stream music. Turns out, everything needs to be properly tagged. 3,435 albums on my hard drive collected over twenty years. Most badly tagged. That meant running through and fixing tens of thousands of files worth of meta data. My eyes hurt. My soul is broken pieces.

    • banginglc1

      It’s what you get for doing things!

      /goes back to staring at cubicle wall

    • Just a thought not a sermon

      3,435 albums is quite a few. It almost covers every King Crimson live album.

      • Shirley Knott

        Damn, I’m missing a couple.

      • Festus

        #metoo

      • Festus

        I dig Fripp but damn he’s a noodler…

    • Nephilium

      Back in the early days of the net, I remember I had at least one decent app that would (assuming you had some sensible file structure, like %Artist%\%Album%\) would update all of the tags for your audio files through a DB lookup. About the only thing it was really bad at was Genre, I think it would have tagged 95% of my collection as Alternative Rock (if I hadn’t limited it to track name, album name, and artist name).

      • UnCivilServant

        Artist/album is a terrible file structure. You can never find the good songs and you’re spending all day clicking through folders instead of building aplaylist.

      • Nephilium

        That’s for storing the files. You would have songs built out in playlists in your file structure instead of being built in whatever app you’re using for a music library?

      • UnCivilServant

        No.

        I name them artist – song and keep the whole lot in one directory. In pretty much every case ‘album’ is superfluous data and I can just skim down one directory while building a playlist.

        And there is no need to have an app keep a music library, because there it is.

      • sloopyinca

        Yeah, you need to catalog bu album since a lot of artists have GH albums or songs with multiple recordings.
        Also, it makes it easier to play some double-songs that are listed individually but are always played together (think Queen and Pink Floyd).

      • UnCivilServant

        Try listening to them individually some time.

        You’ll find they don’t need to be shackled together.

      • sloopyinca

        You’ll find they don’t need to be shackled together.

        Maybe people like them that way. It might explain why, you know, they’re played so frequently that way instead of individually.

      • Nephilium

        Nope. There’s live albums and different versions of the same song by the same artist (off the top of my head, I have at least three different versions of both Zipgun Bop, Barflies on the Beach, and Hey Pachuco all by Royal Crown Revue). Then as sloopyinca mentions below, greatest hits albums, compilations with various artists, and other similar releases cause duplicates in your structure.

        And something to manage the library is necessary if you want to search for something, and have a large enough library.

      • UnCivilServant

        Recorded live? *delete*

        And there’s nothing that prevents multiples, simply annotate which one is which.

        And you know filesystems are searchable and sortable as-is.

      • Nephilium

        UCS: You can have the few live albums I own when you can pry them from my cold dead hands. The Caught in the Act album (Royal Crown Revue) is glorious.

      • UnCivilServant

        I don’t want them.

        You can keep them.

      • robc

        But how would you play an album if you stored them a different way?

      • UnCivilServant

        Why would you play an ‘album’ what is this 1959?

      • robc

        Yes. yes it is.

        Actually, it is more like 1973.

      • Bobarian LMD

        In ’59 most popular music came on 45s and LPs were used for classical music and and started expanding into show-tunes.

        LP Albums really didn’t hit their stride until the ’60s.

      • Agent Cooper

        This is supposedly one of the first rock albums with no ‘filler’

        1957.

      • Just a thought not a sermon

        1) Some works of music may be divided into different tracks/files but form an intrinsic whole–the movements of a symphony, for instance.

        2) From the mid-1960s to the 1990s, many rock and pop albums, while perhaps not as cohesive as a symphony, were nonetheless not meant to be mere assortments of songs, but were arranged to complement each other best by being played in the order presented on the album.

      • The Last American Hero

        Until some dipshit in the studio decides to re-order a concept song on Caress of Steel.

      • Tonio

        The “album” would simply be a playlist.

      • robc

        Sure, but you would have to build that for each one. I think the DB idea below works best, you can have an album column and a track number column (along with whatever other info you would want) and build a playlist on the fly via query.

      • Nephilium

        Right. The music library runs the DB. The files are downloaded/ripped/etc. to the file structure. With the right tags, the DB gets built automatically when it scans (or you tell it there’s new files).

        Of all the things to start a lively committed discussion here, I never thought it would be how to store audio files.

      • sloopyinca

        If you did them as a playlist, the double-songs wouldn’t properly blend together when you played Brain Damage/Eclipse or We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions.

      • Just a thought not a sermon

        Heartbreaker/Living Loving Maid
        Feeling That Way/Anytime

      • sloopyinca

        Intruder/Pretty Woman
        Any symphony ever recorded

        The list is pretty long

      • robc

        On the other hand, if you grew up in the 8 track era, you are used to songs being chopped up.

      • leon

        File structure is generally a terrible way to organize data.

      • robc

        True, database makes much more sense, then with a query you can organize in whatever form you want. Just need to figure our what fields you need.

      • UnCivilServant

        Too easily lost and too much work to maintain, and not terrible portable across platforms.

      • robc

        points 1 and 3 make no sense, and 2 is a wash with any other organizational system.

      • UnCivilServant

        I can take my usb stick with my filesystem of organized work, media, and documents and plug it into any OS out there and have everything in the same place I left it. Trying to drag a database around is a lot messier and a lot more work.

        Until you’re talking about enough data and enough users to necessitate a networked server, it’s just not worth the effort.

      • Tundra

        Nerds.

        *opens Spotify*

    • Fourscore

      What are your 100 favorites?

    • Agent Cooper

      But do you have the 16-disc version of Fool’s Gold?

    • pistoffnick

      “My soul is broken pieces.”

      Pre-existing condition ;^) – had nothing to do with staying up all night. Coverage denied.

  14. Tundra

    Good morning, Sloopy and thanks for the lynx!

    Especially Debbie.

    What the hell is magic about 1000 people? Again, if this virus is so scary, shouldn’t we do the whole social isolation thing?

    How weird is that for the players to play in an empty stadium/arena. It will give them a nice peek into the future, though, of playing in the Beer League.

    Have a great day, y’all!

    • Just a thought not a sermon

      Does playing in an empty stadium eliminate home field advantage?

      • robc

        with enough games, we may find out.

      • Tundra

        Some, I guess, but there is still travel.

      • Fourscore

        Nah, just play home games…

    • sloopyinca

      How weird is that for the players to play in an empty stadium/arena.

      I bet the Tampa Bay Rays office phones are ringing off the hook from players asking what to expect.

    • Gustave Lytton

      1000 is an arbitrary number, and yes should do more social distancing (not isolation!) but probably need some adjustment to get there. Look at the people who are breaking quarantine that are either infected or households with infections.

      At this point, there isn’t much expectation of containment, it’s about slowing the spread and keeping infection growth from overwhelming hospitals. That’s when things turn ugly for everyone, not just those with covid-19.

  15. leon

    TOS has had some really good, and really awful Coronavirus Articles lately

    • Gadfly

      It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

  16. Rebel Scum

    The union already had begun mobilizing community support.

    Forcing parents to have to make other arrangements for their children, including missing work, is sure to drive support for petulant “teachers”.

    • leon

      Yeah. Striking for pay, all those selfless teachers only care about the quality of teacher the students get. It’s really for the children.

    • ttyrant

      The striking teachers were on an overpass above I94 on my commute in this morning. Schmucks.

      • leon

        Really. Did the police stop the parents from throwing them over the side?

      • Fourscore

        Kids safe for another day, at least

    • ChipsnSalsa

      Maybe the teachers don’t realize they are the paid babysitters and if that isn’t happening the people have to write another check they might start to get upset.

  17. straffinrun

    Initially, the SPFE pursued mental health teams in every building — 300 more employees by the district’s count at a cost of $30 million a year — as well as 50 interpreters to work with students and families plus additional staff to work with special-education students

    That’s a lot of scratch. Are they starting from zero?

  18. robc

    Dow Futures are up 800.

  19. Rebel Scum

    Or just stay home and get drunk in your local bar.

    I can drink green Bud Lite and listen to Dropkick Murphy’s without paying a premium and have to be around people.

  20. Festus

    Adjusting my tin-foil chapeau, doesn’t this all seem so very convenient if one wanted to take down one “Orange Man Bad? They’ve been saying for years that the only way to defeat him is to have a recession. Well, here we are. Russians and Saudis working as one, “Pandemic” and then cats and dogs sleeping together.

    • Florida Man

      Here’s my problem with global conspiracies. I can’t get 10 people to show up for a dinner reservation on time, but multiple countries are coordinating multiple disasters to take down one guy?

    • leon

      More of “never let a crisis go to waste”

      • leon

        Meaning, you don’t need a conspiracy when your enemies are willing to throw every crisis at your feet.

        Trump is partly to blame for the fragility of the economy, by pressuring the Fed.

    • Swiss Servator

      Russians and Saudis are at daggers over Iran, but agreeing they need to stop US frackers from burying them… so they have this weird contradiction in actions. It didn’t work before, it won’t work now.

      China is getting it in the shorts via the outbreak, not so much Orange Man Bad.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Western companies need to stop doing business in China.

        Hasbro, for example, split for Vietnam and India.

        Far better to deal with than those authoritarian dicks in China.

        Hit ’em in the wallet.

      • Swiss Servator

        Do business where you can….but learn the problems of concentration risk, sketchy rule of law, etc.

      • Gadfly

        but learn the problems of concentration risk

        Hopefully at least some businesses learn this lesson. It seems like so much of the tech industry has been hit hard by having all of their eggs in the Chinese basket, but I don’t know if they’ll learn.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Meh, Russians and Saudis have their own domestic problems to worry about. Trump is not the center of everyone’s universe.

      • Swiss Servator

        Only that of the Hat and the Hair.

    • Festus

      Pretty face, nice tits, deplorable ass.

    • straffinrun

      *Breaks out Big Bertha*

    • Tundra

      I guess body-shaming is only bad when applied to land whales.

      Golf bores me less today. Thanks, CP!

      • Festus

        I used to have a subscription to the Golf Channel. Plenty of hotties but they all have to compete against Korean stumps that seem better at the sport.

  21. Festus

    Dead-threaded the comment about my pal’s 71 challenger when we were talking about “Vanishing Point” with the 383 Hemi and slap-shift. The first and only time that I’ve driven 140 mph. God damn that was a lovely little car. 18 year old’s being 18 year old’s. I wish I could do that again on bias-ply.

  22. Rebel Scum

    CNN✔
    @CNN

    “What the White House press secretary is touting — that President Trump works a lot and doesn’t sleep — are just the sort of things that make you more vulnerable to illness, not less so,” @CillizzaCNN writes. https://cnn.it/2TCveAi | Analysis

    You care about Trump’s well-being now?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      They just care about having something to criticize.

      • Tundra

        That certainly explains the ratings. Who the hell wants the tiresome negativity 24/7?

      • leon

        CNN: we’ll say whatever we want cause we’ve got the worst takes around.

    • Festus

      No.

  23. Rebel Scum

    Mr. Mika, Peddler of fake news

    MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and political consultant Rick Wilson both fell for a fake President Donald Trump tweet Monday where Trump appears to claim that the “sitting president” should be shot from a cannon if the Dow Jones plunged.

    The fake tweet claims to have been posted in 2015, before Trump became president. In it, Trump allegedly wrote that “if the Dow Joans (sic) ever falls more than 1000 ‘points’ in a Single Day,” the president at that time “should be ‘loaded’ into a very big cannon and Shot into the sun.”

    Scarborough and Wilson retweeted the fake post after the Dow Jones fell around 2,000 points Monday. Trump, however, never actually wrote that tweet. Numerous outlets, including Reuters and Snopes, previously fact-checked the tweet as made-up.

    • leon

      But Trump did tweet before becoming president so it was somewhat true. / Snopes

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        This guy journalists.

    • Just a thought not a sermon

      So Warren supporters are getting tattoos of what will like to normal people to be a random string of numbers and letters? Maybe they should also get a tattoo of the license plate number of Warren’s tour bus.

      • Tundra

        WWWD?

        Combust, apparently.

      • Juvenile Bluster

        I will always respect Wellstone for one reason: He was the single vote against the PATRIOT Act in 2001.

      • Fourscore

        And he was only going to serve 2 terms. MN got lucky but Klubuchar is the penalty, so there

    • leon

      Child: Grandma what’s this tattoo for?

      Gma: :Sigh: it was when Grandma was excited for a presidential campaign.

      Who?

      You know child, I don’t remember.

      • invisible finger

        “Grandma” wouldn’t have any children that survived.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      So goddamned stupid.

    • WTF

      You know who else tatooed ID codes on people?

      • Tundra

        Lol. Nice work, my GSD-owned friend.

      • WTF

        GSD-owned

        I see you understand how it works.

    • Tundra

      You know who else liked to tattoo numbers on people?

    • R C Dean

      You know who else . . .

      • R C Dean

        Dammit!

  24. Certified Public Asshat

    Libertarians: Government sucks, let's hollow out the civil service*Pandemic comes, hollowed-out civil service is unable to respond effectively*Libertarians: See, told you government sucks— Noah Smith ? (@Noahpinion) March 8, 2020

    When did Libertarians hollow out the government?

    • leon

      Seeing as the CDC didn’t have funding cut….

      • Rebel Scum

        “There were fine people on both sides…”

      • Juvenile Bluster

        But Trump has PROPOSED a funding cut* for next year. Same thing, right?

        * Government-defined “funding cut” which means the budget still rises but not by as much as they thought.

        Maybe if the CDC spent less money on stupid shit like trying to ban vaping they’d have more time and resources for pandemics.

    • WTF

      I love how government failures somehow always count against libertarianism.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        In this particular case, it’s even more aggravating since the purported core mission of the CDC is to prevent communicable disease. Yet for decades they’ve been expanding their scope to smoking, teen date rape, bicycle safety, obesity, motor vehicle safety, violence prevention, opioids, safety in the home, safety on the sports field, carbon monoxide poisoning, climate change, epilepsy, arthritis, ad infinitum….

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Don’t forget gun deaths!

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Congress actually managed to ban them from researching that a while ago.

        But I guarantee they want to, desperately. Every public health major/official out there is a walking , talking authoritarian wannabe.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Don’t kill their fantasy world.

    • Lackadaisical

      we just didn’t government hard enough. dastardly libertarians, who clearly pull all the strings in government, just want people to die.

    • Akira

      I think the real hypocrisy is:

      Leftists: “Making sure immigrants go through designated checkpoints for some basic vetting is exactly like Nazi Germany”
      Also Leftists: “Trump won’t give our government the tools it needs to protect us from the Coronavirus!”

  25. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Tard Tuesday: Is It Humor If This Is What You Actually Believe?

    As an increasing number of schools and universities closed down because of the coronavirus outbreak, the Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, revealed on Monday that she had been planning for years to close every school in the country anyway.

    Speaking to reporters in Washington, DeVos said, “When I took over as Education Secretary, I came with a simple mission: to shut down all of the nation’s schools. It turns out that I was just ahead of my time.”

    Noting that schools are where students learn math, science, and history, DeVos said, “I have long believed that schools are where all the bad things happen.”

    Deciding to “wipe out the scourge of education once and for all,” DeVos said that, within days of taking office, she drew up an ambitious plan called No School Left Open.

    In a reassuring message to the nation’s parents and students, DeVos said, “Amid the current crisis, many of you are wondering how we will close every American school overnight. Let me just say that this is the job Betsy DeVos was born to do.”

    • WTF

      schools are where students learn math, science, and history

      Assuming facts not in evidence.

      • Fourscore

        “schools are where students learn ”

        Facts not in evidence

      • leon

        Kids minds are like sponges. They are always learning. Now what they are learning… that is a different question.

      • Fourscore

        Kids on the corner learning about Supply and Demand, smarter than Krugabe but no Nobel

      • CPRM

        When I broke my arm we made sure to go to the hospital school.

      • sloopyinca

        That’s pretty ducking comical seeing as a kid is more likely to require health care from attending school than he/she is to receive it there.

      • Gustave Lytton

        So not much different than from education?

    • Rebel Scum

      The feds are going to shut down state schools?

    • leon

      The amount of vitriol towards a fucking Secretary of Education is really only explainable because she is opposed by the teachers Union.

    • Tonio

      The old canard of accusing libertarians about being “anti-education” because we oppose government schools, and particularly FedGov involvement in K-12 education.

      • WTF

        Yes, and we are also obviously anti-food because we oppose government control of the food supply.

      • CPRM

        Now you got it!

      • UnCivilServant

        Someone’s got something! Initiate quarantine panic!

        Decontaminate! Decontaminate!

  26. Rebel Scum

    Foreign election interference.

    “I see this as really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, not just in American politics, but for left-wing politics around the world,” Vancouver student Quentin Rowe-Codner told the CBC. “I decided to start making calls and texts and I found that to be good and rewarding. But I started a little bit isolated just doing it on my own.”

    Rowe-Codner did some research and discovered that foreigners are actually allowed to volunteer for any U.S. campaign. This seems to contradict the outrage over election interference, particularly that of the Russians, which we’ve been spending so much time and money investigating and trying to prevent.

    The 22-year-old student at Simon Fraser University has organized four “bank-a-thons” for his fellow students to “get together and campaign.”

    These foreign students are also using tools on the Bernie Sanders campaign website to do it. According to the CBC, volunteers “can access an automatic dialing and messaging system” through Bernie Sanders’ campaign website, then they can “get a batch of phone numbers for American voters and start making calls and sending texts.”

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Why don’t you get a job instead?

      • UnCivilServant

        Work is for deploraplebs.

      • R C Dean

        Quentin Rowe-Codner

        Yup.

      • Gdragon

        That’s the character that called Brendan Fraser a dirty sheeny in ‘School Ties”, no?

      • Rhywun

        I thought it was the latest hire at Jacobin.

    • Gadfly

      These foreign students are also using tools on the Bernie Sanders campaign website to do it. According to the CBC, volunteers “can access an automatic dialing and messaging system” through Bernie Sanders’ campaign website, then they can “get a batch of phone numbers for American voters and start making calls and sending texts.”

      Maybe the journalist is just eliding some information here, but they make it sound like it’s super easy to start making calls on behalf of at least the Sanders campaign. Seems like way too good of a trolling opportunity if true.

  27. Festus

    gah. Sifting away. See you guys later.

  28. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Tard Tuesday: I NEED MY DADDY

    A Normal President Would Have Addressed The Nation.

    Any one of the previous American presidents in modern times would have already given a prime time address to the nation in which truths would have been told and in which a plan for going forward would have been explained.

    We are without leadership. We have been without leadership for three years.

    This is a fact equally as frightening as the virus itself.

    • leon

      And then they would bitch about his speech if he had given one.

      We are without leadership. We have been without leadership for three years.

      Beat me more master! please!

    • R C Dean

      Any one of the previous American presidents in modern times would have already given a prime time address to the nation

      Lessee, we have 26 deaths to date in the US. Did Obama give a prime time address when we hit 26 dead from H1N1 flu?

      Nah, didn’t even declare a national emergency until over a thousand were dead. Quick Google does not show that he ever gave a prime time address.

      So, to summarize: Fuck off, you fucking fuck.

    • Lackadaisical

      Some of us don’t need a leader. .. we are already married.

  29. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Tard Tuesday: According to sources…. no scratch that, according to my brain lint….

    We knew this was coming. It was inevitable that, when faced with a national public health crisis, Donald Trump’s team of white nationalists, ideological incompetents, and people selected for praising Donald on TV would seek to respond literally the only way they know how: with racism, tax cuts, and new propaganda campaigns.

    • leon

      Not going to go to Daily KOS, but suffice to say, how can you argue that the policy isn’t racist? They asserted that Donal Trump’s team is full of white nationalists, so obviously the policies will be racist.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I actually went to the source article from Politico and looked for an “according to sources familiar…” line, but they’re not even bothering with that anymore. It’s just argument by assertion.

  30. Raven Nation

    Just out of curiosity: does anyone know (short version) why Italy has been hard hit by Corona? Or is it just the first domino?

    Also, BBC News called the Italian health care system “one of the finest in the world.” True/false/partially true?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      one of the finest in the world

      Compared to the NHS, maybe.

    • PieInTheSky

      Well one thing is they are an aged society so lots of elderly. Other than that I think there was a period with lots of gatherings and such.

      one of the finest in the world.- how does one measure these things?

      • Akira

        Not sure what they used, but some metrics for measuring the quality of healthcare systems include a measure for “financial fairness”, or the degree to which everyone pays the same amount regardless of how much in healthcare resources they’re consuming. So there’s a baked-in preference for socialized systems, and I’m sure they use those metrics as evidence for how great single payer is.

    • PieInTheSky

      Some local journo wrote a blog about why does Romania;s president not go visit Romanians in Italy as if this would help at all or would be possible. Visit how? Get them all in a room?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Useless acts are all the rage these days.

        See Twitter.

  31. PieInTheSky

    So a question for any home espresso making glibs should there be any.

    I use a moka pot and was thinking of buying a cheap espresso machine to see how I like it. I am not a coffee nerd but I like nice single origin hipster roaster coffee. I wanted to start with a cheap espresso machine to see how it works, but I have a coffee friend who says it will not be in any way relevant because cheap espresso machines are useless crap and are not even close to the expensive ones. I am not sure I wanna spend a lot of money though. Is there a machine in the 100-150 dollar range that makes decent enough brew? Or is any under 500 device a waste of $?

  32. The Other Kevin

    Yesterday I took my kid to the doctor and instead of the usual hour we were out in 18 minutes flat. There were no cars and the waiting room was empty. Mrs TOK went to the Chiro and instead of the usual 1-2 hour wait, she got right in too. It seems people are self quarantining, which is probably a good thing.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I’ll beat that.

      I went to the Verizon Wireless store and it was EMPTY, with NO LINE OR WAIT TIME.

      I just about freaked out, right there.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        I’m not doing it, but one us should test out the MVA/DMV.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        12 minutes in/out, amazing…….

      • Certified Public Asshat

        :-O

      • Lackadaisical

        I usually like to spend 20 minutes minimum in and out.

      • UnCivilServant

        That’s the usual wait time at a verizon store.

        Do you usually find a lot of people hanging out in yours?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        *considers countless hours that are lost forever*

        Yes

      • The Other Kevin

        The wait is usually pretty long at mine too.

  33. pistoffnick

    Well, the neighborhood bear is awake – and hungry.

    She upended the trash can and tore through nearly every garbage bag looking for food.

    • Tundra

      Yay! Spring!

    • Fourscore

      Wow! Sounds early. I’ll take the bird feeders down Apr 1, unless I get help before that

      • MikeS

        Sounds early

        Global Climate Crisis in action

  34. PieInTheSky

    Also the post was yet again an hour early. Throws me off.

    Yesterday I posted a youtube when everyone already left. There was no warhammer 40000 fan around to tell me if it is any good, lore wise

  35. PieInTheSky

    I feel bad for thinking this way, but some part of me would have preferred if England had a lot or no corona cases to make my decision easier…

    In Romania the plan to close schools for a week. Apparently the firm is musing letting those with children work from home. Sadly I have no spawn so I may need to come to work.

    • CPRM

      adopt a pretty (above age of consent, below age of majority) girl. Easy peezy.

  36. leon

    I know that for most of your undead existence, there hasn’t been daylight savings, but i mean it’s been around for 100 years, you should get with the times.

    • PieInTheSky

      who are you talking to?

      • Certified Public Asshat

        I’m team standard time, but yesterday was 68 and sunny. I was almost swayed by my “extra” evening hours last night.

      • Nephilium

        Hah! I just had to change time zones through travel to make everything work out for another week.

      • whiz

        IDK, our dog has been barking when the sun comes up, so now that is an hour later. I kind of like that. (We are not early birds.)

      • robc

        Agree, but most of us need to shift up one time zone. I prefer the later sunsets.

      • Lackadaisical

        Chuck that.

        driving to work on the dark again. had to be more dangerous.

      • PieInTheSky

        Not only that, you do not do it at the same time as civilized world

      • leon

        we’re just doing our part to save the environment.

      • Nephilium

        Huh? We are the civilized world.

      • UnCivilServant

        How insulting.

        “Civilized” is a euphemism for decadent and corrupt.

      • CPRM

        Bar bar bar, eh?

      • Gadfly

        Is that not an accurate description of the US?

      • KSuellington

        The government stole my and Ron Swanson’s extra hour sleep.

  37. whiz

    We all know the CDC has strayed from its true mission, which is to study and curb communicable diseases. It seems to me that a totally appropriate task for them is to try to combat TDS, which is much more virulent than any physical flu or virus.

    If the Babylon Bee is lurking here, I expect to see them write an article on this.

  38. Scruffy Nerfherder

    A depressing take on the economic situation.

    I feel that we have officially entered a long term bear market. The amount of leverage that currently exists is simply overwhelming and a lock-up in manufacturing combined with an oil price war is going to implode the financial system. A deflationary spiral is inevitable as debt becomes unserviceable.

    China is headed into full blown depression and the contamination will hit everyone. The Chinese government could easily fall in the next year.

    In short, do not attempt to catch the falling knife. This is far from over and I expect we’re going to see a stock market valuation rollback of about ten years before it’s done. The Fed will go for negative interest rates and it will fail, just as it has failed in Europe.

    And don’t go heavy into precious metals. They will get liquidated in order to meet margin calls in the near term.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      So toilet paper, canned goods, and firearms…got it.

      Seriously though, I think you’re being a little too pessimistic but we’re definitely in for some not good shit for a while.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        The economy and the credit markets are intertwined. If the credit markets seize up, and they are going to, the economy stalls hard.

        In the US alone, the energy sector makes up 11% of the junk bond market. Those notes are going to be unserviceable. That is more than enough to bring down any number of financial players and banks.

        Corporate debt load is about $10T, or half of the GDP, a record amount by any measure. That is wholly and completely unsustainable. Companies have been taking on debt to buyback stock which has been driving the stock market. That is officially over.

        We’re about to get a healthy dose of reality. On the plus side, it will not be as bad for us as it will be for the EU, China, and the emerging markets.

    • CPRM

      Or…hang on for this hot take…not. Oil has been up too high for almost 20 years, even as supply has expanded due to fracking. I don’t know what else is tanking, been busy, but I don’t think anything but start-ups and oil were in bubble territory this time, and those both needed correction. Shipping and general commerce will take a hit due to quarantines, but the underlying infrastructure wasn’t at bubble status. But what do I know, I’m just a drunk that makes cartoons for 100 other drunks.

      • robc

        gold:oil ratio is about 44. That is insanely high.

        Oil isn’t the one in a bubble.

      • CPRM

        Explain. I have no understands.

      • robc

        The ratio of price of gold to oil (oz to barrel, I am using brent) usually stays in bands between 10 and 20. Any time in the past it has gotten outside those ranges, it has made for a great opportunity by buying one and shorting the other. 30 is a historically high ratio that has been hit a time or three, but it doesnt stay there long. 44 is not a number I can remember seeing.

        This time may be different, but that isnt the way to bet. But when it is different, you go broke. Or, you go broke if it is insanely high for too long.

        I have never had the fluidity (and balls) to actually invest in this strategy but I have followed it thru multiple cycles.

      • robc

        The theory of mine that it works on is that we have never truly left the gold standard.

        Pricing in gold is fairly constant across time, especially for commodities. Technical advancements are different, of course.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        And commodities are going into a bear market. Gold will follow.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        +1 men’s suit (or 2 or even 3 these days)

      • CPRM

        Sounds dumb to me, I’m just a simple country chicken lawyer. Gold goes up and down simpatico with the dollar, more or less. Oil is pegged to the dollar, but the supply changes more drastically.

        Oil should, without interference, should be below where it is today based on supply. Gold, one of the stable commodities, reflects its value as an inverse to the dollar now that they are de-linked.

        In essence, petrol is tied to the dollar, gold should show where the value of the dollar should be. It isn’t a direct link, and coming up with such chicanery sounds like a way to get people to send you dollars for advice that isn’t sound.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        You’re forgetting that the major funds use gold as a hedge. But when the margin calls start to roll in, gold gets liquidated in order to meet those calls. The credit markets are king because we are an economy driven by debt.

        In 2008, gold went from a high of $1040 to a low of $680 before it started climbing again. Long term it may be fine, but in the nearer term it’s highly risky.

        This chart only goes to 2010, but the point remains.

        https://i1.wp.com/www.marketcalls.in/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/30-years-of-gold.png

        We’re headed for deflation, not inflation.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      I think this is just going to be a hiccup. Most of what I’m hearing is delay of action, not cancelation. Once the main wave of the virus circles the world and the Chinese economy gets back to work, there will be a time where everybody is catching back up, and I think that will counteract the lull.

      Not to say that I think the economy isn’t precarious, but that I don’t think anybody is planning for a longer term decline yet. Basically, they’re hoping it all blows over by July.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I hope that you’re correct, but I don’t think you are.

        Simply put, China is fucked and China has been the driving force holding up commodity prices (which really haven’t recovered from 2008). We’re going to find a new floor for those prices before this is over.

      • R C Dean

        What we don’t yet know is how fragile various economies are versus how much an economic shock the Kung Flu will be.

        Could be a shock they can absorb, or not. If the latter, then the tide will go out as systemic weaknesses are tripped, and many boats will be left stranded. If the former, just a cycle of volatility in an otherwise sound (enough) economy.

      • Mojeaux

        I have a client whose book I am trying to get printed in China. This is not going well.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      The Fed will go for negative interest rates and it will fail, just as it has failed in Europe.

      I was just about to sign the paperwork to refinance the interest rate on my student loans before yesterday happened. Now I’m going to wait and see what happens at the Fed meeting next week.

      I’m planning on an accelerated 4 year repayment schedule so would prefer a variable rate, but variable was bizarrely more expensive than a fixed rate. I’ve never seen that before. I guess maybe the lenders are expecting rates to drop and are trying to lock borrowers into the fixed.

      • Plisade

        Likewise with propane. Whenever the sales people start trying to push me into a fixed markup, I know it’s time to float. And vice versa.

      • Plisade

        Oops, fired that off too quickly…

        Fixed price per gallon vs a fixed markup on a floating indexed price per gallon.

      • MikeS

        Premature quotation?

  39. Toxteth O’Grady

    I think it’s Prince Edward’s birthday. And Sharon Stone’s, apparently.

    • CPRM

      Is Prince Albert in the can?

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        ?

  40. KSuellington

    I like the use of “Wuhan virus” sloop. The CCP does not. I really hope the medium and long term consequences of this thing include movement of manufacturing out of China. A collapse of the party would be nice to see, but that’s a long shot and they could end up with something even worse.

    • leon

      Just wait till the CCP starts demanding that no one even mention china when talking about the wuahn virus. The left will get in line and say how it is so racist.

      • CPRM

        So Yellow Fever it is then?

      • Tejicano

        I prefer “Pooh flu” since that points at one particular individual with a moniker he hates as well.

      • R C Dean

        I like Mao’s Revenge, from upthread. Sticking with Kung Flu, for now. Pooh Flu is too insidery, at least in the West.

      • Tundra

        Jimbo coined “Slant Sicks”, which is brilliant.

      • Private Chipperbot

        Lebron nods.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Spanish Flu, German Measles, MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome), etc. Fuck off Salon.

      • leon

        I mean we have a disease for an entire ethnic group just called “Irish”. It doesn’t get much worse than that.

      • KSuellington

        Irish you wouldn’t have said that.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        K-Sue, you married into an English family? Is there any friction?

      • leon

        I said it doesn’t get much worse. But be thankful you aren’t a Scott

      • KSuellington

        My wife is English, as in from there, but she is really a mutt, with Scottish and Eastern European being the most prevalent. My family is all from Southern Ireland, so the animosity towards the British has long receded. Two of my uncles lived there for a long time and one is still outside London an hour or so. You still find the odd individual in the south of Ireland that is still bitter, but the opposite attitude is much more common there. That’s not to say they wouldn’t like to see a united island, just that most of the hard feelings are gone. The North is a different beast.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        Irish flu? Hemochromatosis?

  41. Gadfly

    Or just stay home and get drunk in your local bar.

    That’s the more authentically Irish way to celebrate anyway.

  42. AlmightyJB

    Maybe it’s my imagination, but it’s seems like there has been a significant uptick in the number of layoffs over the last several months. That’s not going to help consumer confidence.

    • R C Dean

      Last job report was good, FWIW.

      • Fatty Bolger

        273K jobs added, almost 100K more than expected. Might have been enough to shoot the DOW over 30K minus the coronavirus.

    • Gustave Lytton

      If it’s your imagination, it’s mine also. My gut feeling was a lack of true revenue/pricing growth & demand for a bunch of places with increased costs needing to be matched.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      We just did a stealth layoff recently. I think we probably have a real one coming next quarter.

      That said, low interest rates play into our business model, so we (the company) are all on board with the fed doing further rate reductions.

      Of course, there are obvious weaknesses to a model that works best in historically aberrant interest conditions.

    • robc

      Uninfected believers have been encouraged to flee to Kentucky, where they can board Ken Ham’s ark.

    • leon

      Isaiah 44:3
      For I will pour water on the parched ground and cause streams to flow on the dry land. I will pour my Spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your children.

      • CPRM

        I will pour my Spirit on your offspring

        Eeeeeeeeew! *Teenage girls and CPRM*

  43. Mojeaux

    Where are you in Kansas?

    • Raven Nation

      Hutchinson I think.

      • Mojeaux

        *ding ding ding* Rings the bell.

        That is very far away from us KC metro Glibs.

      • sloopyinca

        Yeah, I’m in Hutchinson. It’s sooooo boring.

  44. Mojeaux

    I’ve spoken of my insomnia troubles before. GT spoke of hers last night, UCS did, Festus did.

    Is this A Thing with us Glibs? Another commonality besides our borderline Asperger’s?

    • CPRM

      If I didn’t drink I’d only sleep every 72hrs or so. I’m terrible with insomnia when I’m sober. thankfully, that isn’t often.

    • Nephilium

      You can add me to the list of insomnia people. Or, as I’ve read more on it, I just have a natural sleeping pattern of 02:30 – 09:30, which doesn’t work to well with modern work schedules.

      • Mojeaux

        That’s a valid caveat. I can fall asleep naturally between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. but I don’t sleep long and then I’m tired. I thought my college graveyard stint ruined me, but that isn’t so.

        If I am sitting down and doing something calm like reading or watching TV between the hours of 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., I’ll fall asleep, but that will generally be a catnap. It helps. Not much. I had a job once where I was watching TV for mentions of certain brand names (“press clipping”) and I fell asleep regularly. Very quiet environment, calm, dim lighting.

        I take caffeine/ephedrine stack 3x a day to keep me awake and Tylenol PM to get me to sleep. I wish I’d known about the stack earlier than at 29. It would have made my life so much easier.

      • CPRM

        caffeine/ephedrine

        I can’t do those, again why I don’t feel bad about my vices.

      • Gender Traitor

        If I ever took caffeine & ephedrine three times in one day, I would never sleep again. If I died, I’d become a very jittery zombie.

      • R C Dean

        Mojeaux, have you thought about “detoxing” and going off the stack and Tylenol? It would probably be a miserable week, but the long-term benefits might be worth it. In a totally unrelated area, we constantly find that a lot of our patients problems are due to the drugs they are taking, and by the time we detox them, they are better and need a much lighter pharma load.

        Mrs. Dean had built up quite a daily intake of misc. supplements, and when she cut them way back, she discovered that she had been basically countermedicating the effects of supplements, and is now feeling much better with very few supplements.

      • Mojeaux

        Absolutely not. I spent years and years and years falling asleep at my desk and getting in trouble for it. I’m not going back to the days of perpetual sleepiness.

      • CPRM

        Why I was happy New Job was 2nd shift, then I got flipped to 3rd. And the insomnia set it again.

      • Chipwooder

        Sounds similar to me. Unless I’m exhausted for some reason I really can’t fall asleep before 1 am or so, usually more like 2.

    • robc

      borderline?

      • Mojeaux

        I can be “on” socially and quite charming AND I have a filter. That qualifies me for borderline.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      I sometimes struggle with it. I always keep Nyquil and Zzzquil stocked.

      • Raven Nation

        I’ve found lately that this works well for me: https://www.emergenc.com/products/sleep I prefer this to taking meds when I’m not sick.

        It’s the melatonin which you can get in any number of places.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Thanks Raven, will check it out.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      Not I. If I get less than 8.5 straight, I feel tired. I’d love to live like my wife, doing things at the ass crack of dawn. I’ve never been able to do that. I’d rather sleep.

    • Shirley Knott

      I’m on that list as well.
      Sadly, my prescription coverage decided the sleeping pill I was taking (moderately helpful) was not “suitable” for “seniors.” My sleep has been marginal since then. 🙁

  45. Fatty Bolger

    Bernie: It will be different this time.

    Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) on Monday differentiated Democratic socialism from “authoritarian communism” at a CNN town hall at which he fielded a question from a Russian immigrant who accused him of being “eager to implement” many Soviet-style policies.

    “My father’s family left Soviet Russia in 1979 fleeing from some of the very same socialist policies that you seem eager to implement in this country,” audience member Samantha Frenkel-Popell said. “So my question is, how do you rectify your notion of democratic socialism with the failures of socialism in nearly every country that has tried it?”

    “Is it your assumption that I supported or believe in authoritarian communism that existed in the Soviet Union? I don’t and never have. And I opposed it,” Sanders responded.

    “What do I mean when I talk about democratic socialism? It certainly is not the authoritarian communism that existed in the Soviet Union and in other communist countries,” the senator said. “What democratic socialism means to me is we expand Medicare, we provide educational opportunity to all Americans, we rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.”

    • Rebel Scum

      What democratic socialism means to me is *insert platitude*.

      And there is nothing that precludes Bernie’s socialism from being authoritarian by adding the modifier “democratic”. And socialism is authoritarian by nature.

      • Tejicano

        Maybe, since it seem the modifier “democratic” isn’t working so well he should try using the modifier “national”?

      • Fatty Bolger

        The USSR was a union of republics, after all. Said so right in the name, so how can you doubt it?

      • AlexinCT

        I tell people that the constitution of the U.S.S.R., Communist China, North Korea, Cuba, Cambodia, a slew of states in Africa, Nicaragua, and now in Venezuela, all have beautiful language, guaranteeing fairness, extolling the value of people’s lives, and demanding the delivery of utopia, yet every one of them turned into a giant shithole, murdering over 120 million people and forcing close to three billion people to live in abject misery and poverty conditions (in the name of progress), while the master class or master lived like an all powerful emperor.

        Bernie’s implementation will be more of the fucking same. That’s a fact you can take to the bank.

      • leon

        You know what other country has a constitution that absolutely failed at keeping the freedoms it guaranteed?

      • R C Dean

        *throws dart at map*

      • AlexinCT

        And I am willing to hazard a guess why it went south and looks like it is irredeemably heading to the same fate as the other commie shitholes did, but I suspect you already have a clue.

    • leon

      “Is it your assumption that I supported or believe in authoritarian communism that existed in the Soviet Union? I don’t and never have. And I opposed it,”

      So much so, i went there on my Honeymoon to oppose it.

      • B.P.

        It just seemed like a nice place to vacation.

  46. Rebel Scum

    Death to Israel Free Palestine.

    A photo of Rep. Rashida Tlaib proudly holding up Linda Sarsour’s book is making the rounds on Twitter Monday, and not so much because of interest in Sarsour’s book but more because of the T-shirt Tlaib is pictured wearing, which depicts the nation of Israel completely covered by the Palestinian flag.

  47. Tejicano

    I am planning a bit of a log road trip in the western US in about a month. Y’all reminded me recently how much I like Robert Plant’s “Big Log” as a theme for road trips so I would like to hear your suggestions for other music I should download for this trip.

    • R C Dean

      a log road trip in the western US

      With a properly rigged off road vehicle, that would be a lot of fun.

    • Private Chipperbot

      Just loop this. You’re welcome.

      • Tejicano

        Akshuooly… that movie was a first date with somebody who turned out to be a big mistake for me so I prefer to forget the whole thing.

      • Mojeaux

        Yeah, I feel sorry for you too. That’s an awesome movie.

      • Mojeaux

        +1 instant happy

    • whiz

      I like to listen to this on long drives.

      • Mojeaux

        OMG that would put me to sleep in a hot second.

        Me: this and this.

        Loud.

        Subwoofer cranked.

      • Shirley Knott

        Um, shouldn’t this be part of your insomnia solution?
        ///ducks

      • Mojeaux

        That works.

        I have an outlaw/road music playlist (although I have not yet put it on YouTube).

    • Shirley Knott

      FWIW, I found Tubular Bells 2 to be quite good for long-range highway driving.

    • R C Dean

      Just kick them the fuck out, already.

      • AlexinCT

        That school sure as hell has fallen a long way since I got my M.E. in E.E over 3 decades ago. I have a coworker that also went there around that same time (he did a bachelors) that has a kid there, and his kid tells him this shit is being done by your usual suspect group pissing away a massive pile of money to learn nothing of value (studies types) while the bulk of the other students just go about their lives.

      • Private Chipperbot

        Toss a lacrosse ball in there and let the team sweep them out.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        this shit is being done by your usual suspect group pissing away a massive pile of money to learn nothing of value (studies types) while the bulk of the other students just go about their lives.

        This has been their MO since day one. Those types of fucks were on campus when i was in law school. They were there when I was in undergrad.

        The concerning part is their accumulation of power. When it’s just a handful of kooks doing “look at me” shit on the quad, it’s relatively harmless. When they have control of curriculum and graduation requirements, things go in the shitter very quickly.

      • AlexinCT

        The concerning part is their accumulation of power. When it’s just a handful of kooks doing “look at me” shit on the quad, it’s relatively harmless. When they have control of curriculum and graduation requirements, things go in the shitter very quickly.

        You damned well know these idiots didn’t think of doing this shit on their own, and are being directed and prodded on by the people in charge of the shitshow studies departments they are members of. And these cuntes pushing them to do this do so because it benefits them and protects them from being categorized as useless drains on society’s limited resources.

    • Tundra

      Expel them all.

    • leon

      “Any harm that comes to students will be on the administration’s hands.”

    • Rebel Scum

      Everyone knows that college campuses are bastions of white-supremacy.

    • Rhywun

      Nuke it from orbit.

    • Raston Bot

      This didn’t sit well with Jennifer Jackson, a political science professor who teaches the courses “Gender and Politics” and “Black Feminist Politics.”

      “The fact that you’re saying it will take you eight additional weeks to write an email that says there are issues on this campus that deal with white supremacy is very distressing,” Jackson said.

      if my life was this useless, i’d probably view public temper tantrums favorably too.

    • Homple

      Some enterprising reporter should ask the regents, boards of governors, donors and such who supposedly manage and support these places if they really support what goes on there.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Considering the narrative is shaped just as strongly by what isn’t reported on as what is, this almost certainly won’t happen. It’d make for a good story though.

  48. Drake

    Fed up Greeks + out of touche elites + an epidemic + Turkey and Soros NGOs being asshole + Syrian invaders = violence.

    • Q Continuum

      The sad part is the EU elites and Soros are likely giddy over this. They soon might have some dead bodies to climb on top of and pontificate about Europe’s evil racism and hate. If a few desperate Syrians have to be used as human shields, it’s the price you pay for victory.

    • RAHeinlein

      From Telegraph (quoted in the article) “On Friday there were reports that members of German and Austrian far-Right groups had arrived on the island. Their presence was deeply disconcerting for aid workers and journalists who already feel they are being subjected to a witch-hunt.”

      I see a new video game here.

      • Drake

        Or a mini-series. Just take Amazon’s Hunters and change up the players’ teams.

  49. Drake

    What the hell is Bloomberg thinking?
    I get that Bloomberg doesn’t like Donald Trump personally.

    He opposes some of his policies.

    He has distaste for President Trump’s approaches and name-calling.

    But I also have little doubt that Bloomberg and Trump agree on 70% of policy matters.

    Meanwhile, Bloomberg has little shared policy space with his new Democratic friends.

    Seem like a lot of dough to throw away because you don’t like Trump personally – and he likes Biden or Sanders more?

    • Q Continuum

      Bloomberg is petty and bitter about the fact that someone he considers to be inferior to himself was able to become President when he couldn’t. He’s got a massive Napoleon complex and it eats him up that he wasn’t the New York billionaire President and Trump is.

      • Tejicano

        “Mr. Nail, meet Mr. Hammer. Mr. Hammer, this is Mr. Nail”

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Personal vendettas can be powerful things and this looks personal. Maybe he doesn’t like being eclipsed as one of the most successful billionaires turned politicians in the US, maybe Trump managed to bed some model Bloomy had his eyes on back in the ‘80s. Who knows really?

    • Rebel Scum

      Trump is alright (relatively speaking) on 2A and like fast food. Of course Bloomer hates him.

    • CPRM

      He likes other people who are in it for the power. Trump is an enigma wrapped in a Tootsie pop.

    • AlexinCT

      Seem like a lot of dough to throw away because you don’t like Trump personally – and he likes Biden or Sanders more?

      I blame it on envy. These narcissistic types always want to be top dog. It’s the whole “If an idiot like orange man can do it, then I certainly can, and will do better” thing.

    • R C Dean

      Bloomberg and Trump agree on 70% of policy matters.

      Hell, Trump and the Dems agree on 70% of policy matters. He’s basically Bill Clinton with a bad haircut, after all.

      I’m still convinced some of Trump’s motivation for running was personal animus against Obama for mocking him at, I think, a White House correspondent’s dinner.

      • leon

        :Queue clip of Obama sneering “At least i will go down in history as “President”:

  50. Mojeaux

    MO prez primary today. If I decide to shower and put a bra on, I’ll vote for Tulsi.

    • Drake

      Who gets your vote if braless?

      • Mojeaux

        Nobody. Because I don’t go out of the house without a bra on. Hence, I just never leave the house.

      • Gender Traitor

        GT’s solution to that problem:
        1. Woven fabric (stiffer is better {Isn’t it always?})
        B. Busy print or plaid
        III. Titty pockets

        I’ve been living in my Duluth Trading flannel shirts all weekend all winter.

        You’re welcome. ; )

      • leon

        I doubt she supports anyone in that case.

      • banginglc1

        What you did there really came in under the wire.

      • Mojeaux

        You guys are unhooked.

      • MikeS

        But our cups runneth over.

  51. Mojeaux

    Could I please please please get out of the House of Well Akshually… ?

    • leon

      Too bee fare…

    • MikeS

      Sure. But you’ll need to put a bra on. (your rules, not mine)

      • Mojeaux

        Oh damn. *looks at front door dolefully*

    • leon

      I think it’s really too late for that. After tonight Sanders will be almost thoroughly defeated.

      • Raston Bot

        really? well shit.

        what Trump will do to Sunrise Living Joe could be considered elder abuse.

    • Drake

      Blue Collar Joe doesn’t want him to have an AR-14!