Wednesday Afternoon Links

by | Apr 29, 2020 | Daily Links | 436 comments

This is the looongest week EVAR. It feels like Friday and its only Wednesday? Dear Lawd. I am dying here. Just. Dying.

This is a fun story I found about debugging.

I agree, there is “no way on Earth” the US government agencies will be able to test 5M Americans a day. But Amazon or Walmart could do it next week.

Combining these parenting robots with sexbots may crash the au pair economy.

AMC Theaters drinks poison, wonders why enemy is unharmed. The L household rented Trolls 2. No way was that worth $20. As an aside, I feel bad for the chick who did the rocker girl voice. She’s no Ann Wilson.

 

Here, have a Heart.

About The Author

Brett L

Brett L

Brett set out to find America, the real America, the America of strip malls and serial killers, of butthole waxing and kelp smoothies, of cocaine and maggots. He sought it in the most American part of America—Florida: swamp gas and fever dreams, where love arrives on a rickety boat and leaves when it doesn't have the money for its fourth abortion. Oh, where has Brett gone? He’s drinking at the neck of America’s wang, chewing its foreskin and working its shaft. Brett is becoming legend. Brett can never die. Brett can never die. Brett is America, facedown in his own patriotic puke: the red his blood, the white his stomach lining, and the cold, cold blue his gas station slushie, spiked with coconut rum and tetracycline.

436 Comments

  1. Yusef drives a Kia

    I loved Ann when I was a lad…..
    Howdy!

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      and a First?

      • Oy the Billy-Bumbler

        But no dancing #1 thingy for Yusef

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        I haven’t had one for a long time, no worries,

    • Bobarian LMD

      I loved Ann too, back before she ate the rest of the band.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        LMAO!!!!!! very funny!!!!!

    • AlmightyJB

      I saw Heart sometime around ’90 give or take. Good times.

  2. Count Potato

    “Dear Lawd. I am dying here. Just. Dying.”

    I’m starting to get depressed over this whole thing.

  3. Donation Not Taxation

    Brett L,because Florida Man and linked AMC story, a Florida AMC story 4U:

    ‘Palm Springs Mile Associates, Ltd. accuses AMC Theatres of committing a breach of contract when the movie theater chain didn’t pay their $52,153.87 monthly rent for their AMC Hialeah 12 location. The suit contends that the COVID-19 global pandemic doesn’t constitute that AMC Theatres can trigger the force majeure provision of the lease.’

    complex dot comet
    slash pop-culture slash 2020 slash 04 slash
    amc-theatres-sued-florida-failed-april-rent-payment-covid-19-closure

    • R C Dean

      The suit contends that the COVID-19 global pandemic doesn’t constitute that AMC Theatres can trigger the force majeure provision of the lease.’

      This is a huge legal fight developing all over the place right now. Force majeure (act of god) is generally a defense against breaching a contract. Good contracts have a definition of it in the agreement. I have never seen one that listed “pandemic” or “epidemic” (I suspect that will change). A few for personal services might list “illness” or similar. Ours list acts of civil authorities, which we are saying includes the the order by Ducey, High Lord of the Deserts and Mountains, Blessed be His Name, shutting down our operating rooms.

      Also coming (and Swiss undoubtedly knows more) – a huge fight over business interruption and other insurance.

      • {|}===[|}:;:;:;:;:;:;:>

        Interested to see whether our ever industrious plaintiffs’ bar will begin class actions based on the takings clause for the various non-essential businesses which have been forced to close by the government.

  4. Count Potato

    “Now the question for the engineer was why the car wouldn’t start when it took less time. Once time became the problem — not the vanilla ice cream — the engineer quickly came up with the answer: vapour lock. It was happening every night, but the extra time taken to get the other flavours allowed the engine to cool down sufficiently to start. When the man got vanilla, the engine was still too hot for the vapour lock to dissipate.”

    I’m just surprised that Pontiac paid an engineer that much time to figure out one person’s problem.

    • Slammer

      Why the fuck are they keeping the chocolate ice cream in the back of the store?

      Racists

    • AlmightyJB

      Vanilla is the best selling ice cream. Vanilla with chocolate and caramel, banana, nuts, whipped cream, cherry.

  5. Mad Scientist

    Look, if you’re eating vanilla ice cream, you deserve to walk home. No self-respecting car should take you anywhere until you redeem yourself by replacing that vanilla with Rocky Road.

    • Suthenboy

      Rootbeer float.

      That is all that needs to be said.

      • Incentives Matter

        The judges will also accept “Coke float.”

        But none of that Fanta shit!

      • Mojeaux

        none of that Fanta shit!

        I take it back.

        Orange Fanta creamsicle floats #FTW!

        (I like root beer floats, too. I always alternate.)

      • Incentives Matter

        Orange *Crush* is fine.

        Fanta tastes like chemicals.

      • Mojeaux

        Okay, you’re in my good graces again.

        Orange pop will suffice.

      • Galt1138

        MMmmmm. Brings back memories.

      • I'm Here To Help

        Cheerwine float. Excellent with vanilla or chocolate ice cream…

      • DrOtto

        Specifically Barq’s root beer and Blue Bell homemade vanilla.

    • Spartacus

      Amen!

    • R C Dean

      No self-respecting car should take you anywhere

      When you have an open ice cream container. That shit is sticky, yo, and will get on your car.

    • Naptown Bill

      French vanilla is good, and eating it is how I do penance for eating chocolate peanut butter swirl or cookies and cream every other time.

      • Don Escaped Sarcasm

        What is vanilla bean? That’s my favorite Blue Bell.

      • Naptown Bill

        Sounds like vanilla with actual vanilla in it, which is pretty darn good. My wife grew up in east Texas and she and her siblings cannot say enough about Blue Bell ice cream.

      • Mojeaux

        I am not a fan of Blue Bell.

        Breyer’s vanilla bean is scrumptious, though.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        Breyer’s over Blue Bell? To each their own, I guess.

        Then again, people look at me funny when I say that I’m not all that impressed with In N Out, so I get the feeling.

      • Don Escaped Sarcasm

        coo: what county ?

      • Naptown Bill

        Originally Port Arthur but then they moved out to Huxley, which is pretty much in the middle of nowhere in Shelby County. Her dad’s still there and we go spend a week or two every other year or so, either in the summer or for Thanksgiving or Christmas. He’s got about five acres off a county road and just retired all the way a few years ago, so we basically go and sit outside smoking meat and drinking on the patio, maybe go walk around in the woods, go fishing and/or swimming if it’s nice. Good times. We’ll usually take a night to drive over to Shreveport and gamble so we can get a dose of civilization.

      • Don Escaped Sarcasm

        A buddy of mine calls that “deep in the spleen of Texas”

        seems like there’s a Shelby County in every state and an Aiken in every Southern state

      • Naptown Bill

        You don’t say…

        That’s where my family’s from. Moved there in the mid-1800s from Gadsden. In fact, if you look at a map, my great-great-great(-great?) grandfather originally owned that peninsula east of Rainbow City and sold it to the city of Gadsden to pay for land outside Wilsonville.

        In the Small World category, my great-grandfather left the ‘bama to live in Newton, Texas, and had a little house on the reservoir on the LA side. My dad grew up in Maryland but spent summers down there and used to drive up to fish on the reservoir. I don’t recall how it came up, but maybe a year into our relationship I mentioned Toledo Bend to my then-girlfriend and she was stunned anyone up here had ever heard of it.

  6. Tonio

    There is a “this story has been debunked by Snopes” tag at the end of the debugging story. FAKE NEWZ!!1!

    • The Other Kevin

      I feel like the Bee has done a story on this, but have they debunked Jesus’ parables?
      FALSE: There is no evidence the prodigal son ever returned.

    • leon

      While apocryphal i’ve seen bugs that absurdly awful.

      • Mad Scientist

        A professor called into Click and Clack one day to troubleshoot a little British convertible he drove to school. It seems every day he’d carpool with another university employee on the way in. Some days they left at the same time, so he’d drive the person home as well. And when this happened, the car worked flawlessly (for a British car). But some days his companion had a different schedule and he’d have to drive home alone. And nearly every time he left alone, the car wouldn’t start.

        After several questions Tom and Ray figured out the problem. With a passenger in the car, the professor would put his things in the trunk. With no passenger in the car, the professor would put his books and whatnot on the passenger seat. The passenger would wear his seatbelt. The books did not. And there was a relay wired to the passenger seat that would prevent the car from starting if the passenger wasn’t wearing their seatbelt. The books tripped that relay.

      • Don Escaped Sarcasm

        I enjoyed that show back in the day.

        They opined one time that it was bad for your AC compressor if you kick the snowflake button on at high engine speed. I laughed: how could handy, practical guys with serious educations get such a simple question so wrong.

      • westernsloper

        You saying they failed in a clutch?

      • Don Escaped Sarcasm

        absolutely

        but I see no reason not to let them vent

      • Dr Mossy Lawn

        I had a door bell that would ring when you toggled a light switch on in the basement..

        Seven years later I tracked down the exact wiring, and the cause was obvious, and you could tell that each person’s actions in creating the chain was reasonable to them at the time, given their knowledge.

        I’ve had plenty of computer bugs like that.

      • Dr Mossy Lawn

        I had a door bell that would ring when you toggled a light switch on in the basement..

        Seven years later I tracked down the exact wiring, and the cause was obvious, and you could tell that each person’s actions in creating the chain was reasonable to them at the time, given their knowledge.

        I’ve had plenty of computer bugs like that.

      • Shirley Knott

        The postman squirrel always rings twice.

  7. Q Continuum

    Hell, combine parenting bots, sexbots nonstop pandemic paranoia and throw in egg-retrieval bots and artificial wombs, there’s no reason anyone should ever have to go outside or have contact with another human being ever again.

    • Tonio

      Didn’t Asimov do a series of stories about that?

      • Q Continuum

        I don’t know about that, but I did definitely see it on PornHub.

      • Slammer

        I, incel?

      • SDF-7

        Just one in a larger series about Robots: The Naked Sun. Caves of Steel is better, imho.

    • Spartacus

      Still need abusive-alcoholic-unemployed-boyfriend robot to make a complete set.

      • R C Dean

        Chavbot 3000.

        Now with poor hygiene!

      • AlmightyJB

        Who plays guitar but only knows one song.

  8. The Other Kevin

    “It feels like Friday and its only Wednesday?”
    I’m right there with you. Weekends have been nice, but for some reason everyone being home all week, with no variation to the schedule, makes every week drag. That, and having nothing to look forward to, like sporting events and hockey practice.

    • Naptown Bill

      Last weekend my wife was like, “I feel like I should have the Sunday blues but all the days blend together…”

  9. Q Continuum

    AMC sez “Screw you guys, I’m going home”. Realizes nobody misses him. Woe unto AMC.

  10. Count Potato

    “But Amazon or Walmart could do it next week.”

    Amazon could only do it if there was a home test.

    “Giroir was responding to a new study’s findings. Harvard University published a report last week that said the U.S. would need to ramp up testing capacity to at least 5 million tests a day by early June, and 20 million per day by late July, in order to reopen the economy. Giroir told TIME that the assessment is “an Ivory Tower, unreasonable benchmark,” adding that it’s not needed based on current modelling.”

    WTF does that have to do with re-opening the economy?

    • leon

      They learned their lesson about setting achievable goals as the standard, We flattened the curve too soon. Now we need to fix testing to an impossible level before you can get your rights back.

    • Tonio

      Yeah, I don’t see the FedGov having the workforce to do that on their own; they’d have to contract that out to local health departments.

      And the story I saw about local, free testing near a local public housing complex showed a *very* short line with inadequate “distancing.” Granted, since it was supposedly appointment-only that may have affected the number in line.

    • Hyperion

      We can’t let Walmart do it. You just go letting people in a Walmart they’ll buy things no one needs, like garden seeds and lawn furniture.

    • R C Dean

      Leaving aside entirely the utter pointlessness of tests for active infections as some kind of benchmark for opening the economy, just look at how stupid the numbers are:

      5MM tests a day for 60 days means just about every human being in the US is tested in June and July. 20MM tests a day thereafter (until when?) means basically the entire population is tested on a two week cycle.

      It varies depending on which test, but between the test kit and the analysis, call it around $150 per test. So, that would be $750MM a day, every day, in June and July, going to $3BB a day, every day, in August, or more than $1TT a year. Just to do pointless testing for active infections by a virus with a case fatality rate that is less than the flu for people outside high-risk groups.

      It is so bonecrushingly stupid that its no wonder so many of Our Masters are seizing on it as a requirement for releasing us from house arrest.

  11. Grumbletarian

    Dr Tempest says that by 2050 parenting will be “entirely optional”.

    Hey, Doc? It’s already entirely optional. You just don’t have kids.

    • Q Continuum

      …or be such a shitty parent that the State takes over.

    • Mad Scientist

      Sure, but you still get to pay for them.

    • AlmightyJB

      Babysitting your children is what the internet is for.

  12. wdalasio

    AMC Theaters drinks poison, wonders why enemy is unharmed.

    To be fair, what option, other than going out of business and distributing the proceeds to stockholders, do they have? If movies aren’t released in theaters before going to television, there’s really no reason for movie theaters to exist. The theaters’ entire business proposition is gone without the “theatrical window”.

    • Q Continuum

      *buggy whip makers nod in agreement*

      • wdalasio

        I’m not saying they should win. I’m saying they have no choice but to fight it.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Three words

      Frat Party Hosting

    • Tonio

      Theatres definitely going to have to downsize and specialize to stay in business. The Cine-Bistro thing seems to be doing well, although it turns off some people who want to watch the movie in a more traditional auditorium. Party hosting with themed games and props, ie Ghost Busters could work.

      • Pope Jimbo

        What they need is a new incarnation of William Castle.

        William Castle was no slacker. Not content to rest on his laurels, he set his feverish little mind to work to come up with what the studios wanted — more gimmicks and higher grosses. His next project was House on Haunted Hill (1959), a nifty little horror film boasting the director-producer’s first real star, Vincent Price. But even Price was upstaged by Castle’s new gimmick, “Emergo.” Each theater was equipped with a large black box installed next to the screen. At a designated point in the film, the doors to the box would suddenly fly open and a twelve-foot plastic skeleton would light up and zoom over the audience on a wire to the projection booth. Studio executives were initially skeptical when, at the first sneak preview, the equipment failed and the skeleton jumped its wires and sent a truly horrified audience running for cover.

        After further testing, Emergo was perfected and installed in theaters all over the country. The kids went wild. They screamed. They hugged their girlfriends. They threw popcorn boxes at the skeleton. Most important, they spent their allowance and made the film a huge hit. Was this not the first film to utilize audience participation to an absurd length? It certainly seemed more fun to me than dressing à la Brad and Janet and throwing rice at the screen during The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

        Written by John Waters

      • Tonio

        Waters famously used (introduced?) smell-o-vision. You can only imagine…

    • Pope Jimbo

      I’d still go to the movies. If I watch it at home only my family gets to hear my witty bon mots that I like to shout out during the show.

      When I go to the movies, lots of people get to hear them. I get to bask in their adulation. And if I’m really lucky someone will challenge me and we can shout insults at each other. Dirty Dozens during Dirty Dancing is the absolute best.

      • Q Continuum

        I didn’t know His Holiness was black.

      • Pope Jimbo

        What a revelation it was for me to go to the movies in Memphis after growing up in NW Minnesoda.

        The Norwegians wouldn’t shout “Fire!” even if the place was burning down. They’d quietly exit and maybe tap a few people on the shoulder as they left.

        Then I went to my first movie in Memphis and the audience was yelling all the time. It would always start with a couple jokers yelling at the characters on screen. Then two jokers would start going after each other while the rest of the audience urged them on.

        One of the most liberating moments of my life! Or maybe it was one of personal high points of cultural appropriation?

      • Naptown Bill

        Maybe he’s from Bowie, MD. Going to a movie theater in Bowie is like sitting in the green room of the Jerry Springer Show. I can’t watch a movie without total sensory deprivation, but after ten years in Bowie even I find myself sometimes offering advice to people in horror movies. At home, though; I’m not a savage.

      • Grumbletarian

        Every Statler needs a Waldorf.

      • Tundra
    • Tonio

      The few remaining drive-in theatres are doing very well. Also some businesses converting parking lots to drive-ins.

      • Pope Jimbo

        All the drive ins here in Minnesoda are gone. But I remember them fondly from when I was a kid.

      • Tundra

        Hell yes. Me and Mrs. Tundra used to go all the time.

        I bet you can guess what happened…

      • Pope Jimbo

        She left you locked in the trunk? Serves you right for being a cheapskate and trying to sneak in.

      • Tundra

        IT’S CALLED ‘FRUGAL’, ASSHOLE!

        Idiot Walz do anything more retarded, today?

      • Pope Jimbo

        I pretty much avoid the news to keep from going insane.

      • pistoffnick

        My dad took 7 yr old pistoffnick to a screening of “Jaws” at the drive-in theater just outside of Rochester. I wasn’t very interested because there were story tall boobies on the screen looking out the back window.

        16 year old pistoffnick saw the beginning and the end of “Good Morning Vietnam” at the same drive-in. The rest of the movie I was…occupied.

  13. Gender Traitor

    I would give my left tit to be able to sing like Ann Wilson.

    • Hyperion

      She’s probably the best female rock vocalist ever.

      • Gender Traitor

        ^!^!^!

        I trust you’ve seen/heard her cover of “Stairway” from the Kennedy Center whoop-de-do for Plant?

      • Mojeaux

        Jimmy too, I believe.

      • robc

        I would go with Debbie Harry, but not going to argue over it.

    • Sensei

      Go for your right in exchange for being able to sing like Nancy and you can harmonize with yourself.

      • Gender Traitor

        ::looks down at The Girls, ponders deeply::

        Nah – I still need one. Not gonna say why.

      • Gender Traitor

        FAKE NOOZ!!!

        Besides – long gun or GTFO.

      • Grummun

        long gun or GTFO

        Preach it, sister.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I think the right tit is reserved for having Amazon like archery skillz

    • Naptown Bill

      One of my oldest friends is a guitarist and also really into metal, like very technical stuff, and has been into hardcore punk for years and years. Sings bass, kind of looks like a cross between Steve McQueen and Johnny Rotten. Every now and again, we’ll just be out drinking beer by the fire and he’ll be like, “…TILL NOW, I ALWAYS GOT BY ON MY OWN” in a high falsetto.

  14. Donation Not Taxation

    Snopes claims allergic car false.

    snopes dot comet
    slash fact-check slash
    cone-of-silence

    • Suthenboy

      I thought they were too busy debunking the Babylon Bee to have time for anyone else.

      • Rhywun

        Old Snopes, back when it was still good.

      • Donation Not Taxation

        Mind blown?

      • Donation Not Taxation

        The Bee covers Snopes.
        Examples:

        Concerning Survey Finds Too Many People Believe Snopes Is A Legitimate Fact-Checking Website

        Snopes Announces Fact-Checked Study Bible.

        Snopes Rates The Devil’s Lies As ‘Mostly True’

        Snopes Rates Babylon Bee World’s Most Accurate New Source

  15. Hyperion

    “I agree, there is “no way on Earth” the US government agencies will be able to test 5M Americans a day. But Amazon or Walmart could do it next week.”

    That’s no way to create a massive new federal agency. Let’s call it the DOAP (pronounced DOPE), Department of Anal Probes. You see, when you yank the deplorables aside as they take a walk or you stop them driving in their car and yank them out, you give them the roadside anal probe. It collects the needed blood sample and also shines the light up there that can kill the virus. Not the one Trump talked about, the OTHER like, the WHO approved one. It also attaches the tracking tag somewhere were those dangerous right wing anti-authority types can’t take it out.

    It’s going to be a jobs engine. We’re on the road to recovery, we’re all in this together, one anal probe at a time!

  16. Count Potato

    “Combining these parenting robots with sexbots may crash the au pair economy.”

    I met an au pair from Denmark at a bar once. Sadly, I’ve never frosted a Danish.

    • Q Continuum

      I spent a weekend in Copenhagen about 10 years ago. Those Scandinavian chicks sure know how to party.

      • Count Potato

        I remember her Danish-American friend balked when I called Denmark “Scandinavian”.

      • grrizzly

        Denmark is 100% Scandinavian. What didn’t the friend like about it?

      • Count Potato

        Honestly, I have no idea.

      • Ted S.

        Are you certain it wasn’t a Finnish friend?

      • Count Potato

        Yes.

      • R C Dean

        So you’re saying you didn’t Finnish?

      • Pope Jimbo

        Yeah, the Finns are the ones who freak out about being called Scandis. They will pointedly tell you that they are Norse, but not Scandinavian.

        And looking at the antics of the Norwegians and Swedes I grew up with, I can see why they’d want to disavow them

      • Chipwooder

        It’s linguistically based, right? Finnish is in a different family of languages than Swedish/Norwegian/Danish, I believe.

      • Slammer

        Once you get past the burka they can be fun

      • JaimeRoberto Delecto

        I used to run the Hash with a Danish girl whose name was Wild Fang, which translates to Wild Thing. It fit.

    • Gustave Lytton

      au pair

      Mmmmm…Heidi Lenhart…

      • Ted S.

        Louise Woodward….

      • commodious spittoon

        *highlight, right click, web search*

        *Adblock redirects to page telling me about changes made to Adblock*

        Wait… isn’t that what I installed Adblock to prevent?

    • Mojeaux

      I have, in fact, frosted a danish.

  17. J. Frank Parnell

    Here’s the sanest, most rational, not at all hysterical headline you’ll read all day.

    Georgia’s Experiment in Human Sacrifice
    The state is about to find out how many people need to lose their lives to shore up the economy.

    • Q Continuum

      You know who else wanted to sacrifice lives to shore up the economy?

      • Suthenboy

        Pre-columbian indian tribes?

      • Tres Cool

        The Federal Reserve ?

      • Gustave Lytton

        The parents of Dutch boys with hydraulic cement fingers?

    • wdalasio

      And I bet she just luvs science<3<3

      These people are damned idiotic. Beyond an overtaxed medical system, shutdowns don't save lives. They simply delay the loss of life. This really isn't hard. It's something I could have explained to 15-year-old wdalasio and I'm pretty damned sure he'd have gotten it. But, these people have allowed a bumper sticker version of the actual advice that was given out (advice that proved to be based on inaccurate projections, mind you) by the experts to become their damned mantra.

    • Chipwooder

      Fresh off of their fulsome praise for Chinese censorship, The Atlantic basks in the warm glow of yet another triumph!

      That’s funny, I don’t seem to be able to root out The Atlanic’s companion article taking Colorado and Jared Polis to task. There must be one, no?

    • JaimeRoberto Delecto

      Gee, why didn’t the author pick Colorado as her example?

      • Fatty Bolger

        Or the left’s usual darling, Sweden?

    • R C Dean

      Now do gay Democrat Polis’s functionally identical plan for Colorado!

  18. Count Potato

    “AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., the largest U.S. cinema chain and a subsidiary of Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin’s Dalian Wanda Group Co., will no longer show movies from Universal Pictures, arguing that the studio is “breaking the business model” that has sustained the companies for decades.”

    Is it just me, or do the Chinese own way too much stuff here?

    • pistoffnick

      Yes*

      *works for a company owned by the Chinese

  19. Winston

    In the early 1930s people wanted the state to give them booze and jobs but people just want the booze and in Canada the pot as well. Progress!

  20. kinnath

    Dreamboat Annie was the first CD I ever bought.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      LP, Vinyl

      • kinnath

        I think that was the LP that had the cover photo embedded in the vinyl.

    • Slammer

      My first LP bought with my own cash was KISS Hotter than Hell. They were also my first live concert. Cheap Trick was the opener, so technically they were the first live band

      • Count Potato

        I’ve seen both, but not in the same show.

        Cheap Trick are way better musicians.

  21. Winston

    https://www.aier.org/article/the-conquest-of-america-by-communist-china/

    But it is most certainly the case that we are all Chinese communists now, with almost no, de facto, real and meaningful autonomy and discretion over our own lives and our ways of earning a living. We are pawns on a society-wide chess board, who are told what to do and where to stand and if anything goes wrong, we are the first to be considered expendable in the great political chess game of politicians asserting to know what is in the “national interest” and why we must be made to obey it.

    In the realm of economic policy and social dictates, China is once more the “middle kingdom” and America is among the ideological vassel states paying tribute to it by emulating its vision of the organization and mobilization techniques of a world model for the centrally controlled and planned society.

    The great idea of an American Exceptionalism based on the ideal of human liberty, personal choice, free association inside and outside of open markets, and equal rights under impartial rule of law was a magnificent chapter in human history that is very possibly coming to a close. We will not fully know and appreciate what has been lost until it has become extremely difficult to successfully get it back.

    Man, I feel so optimistic!

    • Suthenboy

      “We are pawns”

      Apparently Dick has a frog in his pocket.

  22. The Late P Brooks

    Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead!

    But economists from a broad range of ideological backgrounds are encouraging Congress to keep spending to combat catastrophic job losses — and say now is not the time to focus on the deficit. They emphasize that the federal government can borrow at near-zero interest rates, as investors seek the safety of U.S. bonds and the Federal Reserve buys up tens of billions of dollars worth of Treasury securities each week.

    GOP concerns over the deficit will play a central role in negotiations as lawmakers begin working on the next emergency spending bill and Democrats push for more funds for state and local governments.

    Meanwhile, because so much normal economic activity has evaporated because of safety fears and stay-at-home orders, the threat of a crippling drop in prices is perhaps more of a concern than inflation, many economists say.

    But economists from a broad range of ideological backgrounds are encouraging Congress to keep spending to combat catastrophic job losses — and say now is not the time to focus on the deficit. They emphasize that the federal government can borrow at near-zero interest rates, as investors seek the safety of U.S. bonds and the Federal Reserve buys up tens of billions of dollars worth of Treasury securities each week.

    GOP concerns over the deficit will play a central role in negotiations as lawmakers begin working on the next emergency spending bill and Democrats push for more funds for state and local governments.

    Meanwhile, because so much normal economic activity has evaporated because of safety fears and stay-at-home orders, the threat of a crippling drop in prices is perhaps more of a concern than inflation, many economists say.

    Just keep shoveling money into the boiler until it blows.

    • Winston

      Considering that this is what fiscal conservatism looks like I hate to see what fiscal liberalism looks like…

    • Hyperion

      I have this really crazy idea that we just let people return to work. Crazy, I know.

      • Grumbletarian

        If we do that, some 96-year old with a dozen underlying health problems might die! MONSTER!

    • Contrarian P

      When the hell have we focused on the deficit? Sure, we’ve reduced the size of it at times, but I can’t remember anybody really talking about it since Clinton “balanced the budget”.

      I’m still struggling to understand how one is supposed to stimulate an economy that one has also forcibly shut down, no matter how much money is employed.

      Come to think of it, I’ve never seen “stimulus spending” that actually produced an economic turnaround. Instead it’s always “I know the economy still sucks, but think how much worse it would have been if we hadn’t spent all this money!”

    • Winston

      Who are these economists that want Republicans to not ignore the deficit?

    • Hyperion

      Politico has been god awful for as long as I can remember.

      But if anyone actually believed anything they say (they’ve never been right about anything), then it must lead to a lot of confusion.

      for instance, the entire time Obama was president, the democrats and the ‘experts’ did not give a hoot about deficits at all. Deficits were fine, even healthy economically. Then came Trump and all of the sudden those people who didn’t care about deficits for 8 years, became very concerned about them. Now, all of the sudden, another flip flop?

      Are deficits bad, or good, or who cares?

  23. Q Continuum

    I’ve got a fever and the only prescription is Ass Wednesday.

    • Chipwooder

      #40 is for the true shitlords

      • DEG

        Seconded.

  24. J. Frank Parnell

    Debunked!

    Drs. Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi, who own urgent care centers in the region, had called a press conference to release their conclusions about the results of 5,213 COVID-19 tests they had conducted at their centers and testing site. They claimed the results showed that the virus had spread further in the area, undetected, and thus wasn’t all that dangerous.

    But public health experts were quick to debunk the doctors’ findings as misguided and riddled with statistical errors — and an example of the kind of misleading information they are forced to waste precious time disputing.

    Shut up and stay inside and stop wasting the precious time of public health experts, you guys.

    • Slammer

      The people who believed Russia Russia Russia for 3 years are now claiming those guys are MAGA plants. And they should have their licenses revoked

    • Drake

      By By CALmatters.

      Where did Cal get his degree?

    • Count Potato

      Doctors, same as anyone else, should be allowed to express different opinions.

      YouTube should not have taken it down.

      ““This pandemic has been so severely politicized in this country that evidence, no matter how poor, gets amplified enormously if it benefits one side or another,” said Bergstrom, who also was one of the first experts to critique the doctors’ study on Twitter. “We always hoped this crisis wouldn’t come, but that if it did we’d all be in this together. That’s been a huge surprise for all of us doing infectious disease epidemiology. It’s amazing to have to deal with this misinformation that’s being spread around for political purposes and the ways that interferes with adequate public health response.””

      And that Twitter thread isn’t politicized?

      • Hyperion

        “Doctors, same as anyone else, should be allowed to express different opinions.”

        But those are dangerous opinions. Why do yo want people to die?

    • Suthenboy

      “health experts were quick to debunk the doctors’ findings”

      Sounds legit.

      • Hyperion

        Look, dude, 97% of scientists agree those guys are wrong. The WHO is right, 97% of scientists agree the WHO is always right. Why do you hate science?

      • J. Frank Parnell

        These aren’t just any scientists, these are experts. EXPERTS.

      • Grumbletarian

        What the hell would a doctor know about things like viruses and running a hospital anyway?

    • leon

      But public health experts were quick to debunk the doctors’ findings as misguided and riddled with statistical errors — and an example of the kind of misleading information they are forced to waste precious time disputing.

      The debunking was so thourough that we aren’t even going to tell you what was wrong with what he said. Just trust us.

    • westernsloper

      The doctors “basically hyped a bunch of data and weren’t transparent about their methods.

      They used math. I am not sure how more transparent simple math could be. I get that they are claiming it might not be a true representation of the general populace, but when the anti body studies come out showing this BS is very widespread they dismiss those to. See what we have to do, is set very strict criteria for being tested and then that is how you get real data.

    • R C Dean

      public health experts

      With their long record of getting every single thing wrong, why wouldn’t I trust them?

      ““This pandemic has been so severely politicized in this country that evidence, no matter how poor, gets amplified enormously if it benefits one side or another,” said Bergstrom,

      He’s this close . . . .

      It’s amazing to have to deal with this misinformation that’s being spread around for political purposes and the ways that interferes with adequate public health response.””

      And there’s the progjection, right on schedule.

    • Sean

      OK, looks like MI is gonna be where the violence begins. Crazy bitch.

      • Slammer

        Probably exactly what she wants

      • Hyperion

        She want to be a democratic star. And these days, that requires a whole lot of authoritarian.

      • Pope Jimbo

        What are you going to do? Burn Detroit? Poison Flint’s water?

        Nothing you can do will faze MI. Their own government has already fucked up shit way worse than anything you can imagine.

      • Hyperion

        Detroit was apparently having a sort of rebirth after the unions collapsed the auto industry. Now I suppose it will be like something out of a Fallout game in a few months time.

      • Pope Jimbo

        My last job sent me to Detroit every couple months. The guy I worked with there kept telling me about this Detroit Renaissance and how it was “cool” to live there again.

        I’d look around and say “wha?” because it looked like a city that had been bombed to me.

    • Hyperion

      Democrats are going to blow their entire political capital on playing this pandemic hysteria until the very end. It’s a huge risk, but I don’t think they have anything else left. Mueller failed them, impeachment failed them, climate change failed them. This is their last desperate hope. Not that they won’t just move on to the next national crisis, but they’re really betting the farm on this one.

      Oh well, they do have the fact that 97% of scientists agree we must remain in police state mode forever.

    • Incentives Matter

      Good God. That woman’s just begging for civil unrest and food riots. What the Hell is wrong with her?

    • Drake

      Like a whole state stuck it in crazy and now she’s refusing the break-up.

      • Sensei

        Phil Murphy says, “see how rational I look”.

      • Drake

        The committee of 21 cronies is going to be a different nightmare.

      • Sensei

        Yes, I read the names and bios and cringed.

      • Drake

        I wonder how the State Legislators feel, having been replaced by executive fiat?

    • Q Continuum

      There’s a disgusting amount of boot licking in the comments.

      • Translucent Chum

        And she’s sharing private conversations to blow up any chance of working with anyone.

    • Chipwooder

      I won’t shed any tears when some nut takes a shot at her.

      • Shirley Knott

        I will, if they miss.

    • Pope Jimbo

      I can’t decide if this means that MI will vote for Trump because they hate Gretchen, of if it means that they will vote for Biden (assuming Gretch is his VP) so that she leaves the state to go boss around the poor residents of DC.

      • R C Dean

        vote for Biden (assuming Gretch is his VP) so that she leaves the state to go boss around the poor residents of DC.

        Didn’t see that play. Interesting. They will hatevote for Biden to get her the fuck out. I like it.

    • DEG

      Good timing. There is a protest scheduled tomorrow in Lansing.

  25. Translucent Chum

    I still can’t log into site from my laptop. I out in my info and glibs just asks me to log in again. I can get into worries with no problem. Any suggestions appreciated.

    • Translucent Chum

      And I clearly can’t type on a phone.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Email sp at this website and ask her to take a look.

    • commodious spittoon

      WordPress seems like the last platform on the internet where clearing your cache and cookies is necessary from time to time. I didn’t need to do it for years, but it clears up login and page rendering problems here.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Here’s the punchline from that Politico thing:

    The $2 trillion CARES Act passed by Congress last month amid the pandemic will increase federal deficits by $1.8 trillion over a decade, according to the CBO. That estimate doesn’t project any losses from the Fed’s emergency lending programs because the central bank is planning to lend largely to creditworthy businesses and municipalities.

    *outright, prolonged laughter*

  27. grrizzly

    What’s the point of massive testing for COVID-19 now? Perhaps many months ago it could have made a difference, when there were a few isolated cases. Now it’s too late. A random study of people for antibodies would be useful in order to able to assess how close we’re to achieving herd immunity. But that doesn’t require testing almost everyone. Herd immunity is the only answer in the short- and medium-run. And we already wasted 1.5 months on social distancing that made developing one more difficult.

    • kinnath

      You need to test to give people there COVID passports.

      • Suthenboy

        It doesn’t seem odd to me at all that our own govt would use a possible foreign biological weapon against us.

      • Ozymandias

        Veterans would like a word.

        The United States Armed Forces has a long and not-so illustrious history of testing nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons… on its own citizens. From at least the 1940’s on (and if you want to include Native Americans, we can go back a lot further!), the Department of Defense has conducted experiments on U.S. servicemembers using ‘unconventional’ weapons. A report prepared by the staff of the Senate Committee on Veteran’s Affairs in 1994 concluded that “[f]or at least 50 years, [the] DOD has intentionally exposed military personnel to potentially dangerous substances, often in secret[.]”[i] That report followed a Government Accounting Office inquiry into experiments conducted on servicemembers by the Department of Defense.[ii] The GAO report detailed many different programs, some of which the DoD still lists as classified, in which servicemembers were given experimental drugs and other treatments without their knowledge or consent.

        [i] An Institute of Medicine report looking at the history of mustard and lewisite gas found the Armed Forces researching chemical warfare after World War I and up through World War II. The report even traces some research back before the Civil War. See Senate Report No. 103-97, at 15 (1994).

        [ii] The Government Accounting Office (GAO) is the watchdog arm of Congress that investigates government agencies. See “Human Experimentation, An Overview on Cold War Era Programs,” U.S. General Accounting Office, September 28, 1994, GAO/T-NSIAD-94-266.

        I know, quoting myself is gauche as fuck, but there is indisputable evidence the govt has routinely experimented on military members – for decades – as a matter of policy no matter which party has been in power. See, also, MKULTRA.

    • Hyperion

      To track you everywhere you go and be able to stop and harass you anytime they want. Papers please, comrade.

    • Pope Jimbo

      It is a new goal post. Since their dire predictions of heaps of bodies didn’t pan out, they need to come up with some other fig leaf to hide behind to keep their powers.

      • R C Dean

        Eh, its temporary. The final goalpost is a vaccine.

    • Fatty Bolger

      I assume it’s the usual reason, more opportunities for graft.

  28. Yusef drives a Kia

    My disappointing Morning,
    Find good gun shop
    Walk up to counter and find the S&W Shield 380 EZ
    after inspection comes paper work
    Nope, AZ Drivers license only,
    AZ license requires a Birth certificate
    Go online and pay 60$ for a copy
    Download affidavites
    Run out of printer ink,
    Go to Walmart, no ink, no printers
    Order from Amazon, arrival on Sunday

    So I have to get the ink to print the docs, to scan them up, to get my BC, to get my AZ license to buy a handgun, maybe 2 weeks if I’m lucky,

    • Count Potato

      There isn’t a FedEx Office or some other place near you that does printing?

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        So I copy the pdf to a thumbdrive, get out in 107 degree heat, drive to the…………..
        Nah, I’ll just be patient

      • commodious spittoon

        Plus, you know, the virus is out there lurking… biding…

    • Hyperion

      Sorry bro. But it does get better one of these days. It has to! I also ran out of printer. Mine died deader than hell, it’s just too old, drivers fail constantly, can’t recognize printer cartridges. I’m getting ready to buy a new one on Amazon. I’m going laser this time, no more multiple ink cartridges to mess with all the time for me.

      • pan fried wylie

        I’ve had my little LaserJet P1102w for the better part of a decade now, great for intermittent printing, does manualfeed/envelopes no prob. The cheapo amazon cart I got last (3rd toner cart overall) is a little scummy but works well enough.

        It DID have a spell where it refused to wake up when sent a job, so you’d have to make sure it was awake before printing, but I think that was a wireless issue.

    • hayeksplosives

      Eh, it will be worth it when the paperwork is done. Check into AZ RealID requirements before you apply.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        That’s the reason, RealID, I knew I needed to get the BC at some point before my CA license expires, so now is as good a time as any,
        And the Gun was very reasonably priced, and Dee said she has plenty in stock, so I’ll wait

    • Sean

      UPS store printing?

  29. Winston

    https://mises.org/library/origins-nazism

    Even in the more advanced western parts and in the cities there were still many illiterates and semiliterates. These masses were not concerned with any political issue; they obeyed blindly, because they lived in fear of punishment in hell, with which the church threatened them, and in a still greater fear of the police. They were outside the pale of German civilization and German cultural life; they knew only their regional dialects, and could hardly converse with a man who spoke only the German literary language or another dialect. But the number of these backward people was steadily decreasing. Economic prosperity and education spread from year to year. More and more people reached a standard of living which allowed them to care for other things besides food and shelter, and to employ their leisure in something more than drinking. Whoever rose from misery and joined the community of civilized men became a liberal. Except for the small group of princes and their aristocratic retainers practically everyone interested in political issues was liberal. There were in Germany in those days only liberal men and indifferent men; but the ranks of the indifferent continually shrank, while the ranks of the liberals swelled.

    All intellectuals sympathized with the French Revolution. They scorned the terrorism of the Jacobins but unswervingly approved the great reform. They saw in Napoleon the man who would safeguard and complete these reforms and—like Beethoven—took a dislike to him as soon as he betrayed freedom and made himself emperor.

    I find this example of classical liberal thinking fascinating since you can already the serious flaws already. Us vs. Them thinking. Anti-elitism. Collectivism. TOP MEN. Militarism. Nationalism. Belief in the inevitability of their victory. Belief in the glories of state-run education. Belief that educated urbanites will always agree with them forever. The politicization of everything. The culture war.

    • Hyperion

      Our national divide is ready to expand once again, this time into a Grand Canyon size rift that will be practically unbreachable.

      On one side, you’ll have people who want to be at least somewhere free and resume the normalcy we had before this entire clusterfuck. On the other side, you’ll have the Karens and all the assorted versions of the left, who will be united in wanting to live in a centrally controlled government with little or no freedom where their every movement and decision will be decided for them by centralized authority.

      Of course they’ll claim they’re the ones who want freedom, but also safety. They’ll say they’re more free because they will have weed and on demand abortion, with absolutely no awareness of how quickly any of that can be taken away from them, for any reason, when the central authority decides it’s good for their safety.

      • Mojeaux

        wanting to live in a centrally controlled government with little or no freedom where their every movement and decision will be decided for them by centralized authority.

        Camazotz

      • Gender Traitor

        “Don’t let it be forgot that once there was a spot…”

      • Winston

        On one side, you’ll have people who want to be at least somewhere free and resume the normalcy we had before this entire clusterfuck.

        How a big a group are they and how much of a fight can they put up?

      • Hyperion

        50-60% Maybe more. And they have all the guns.

      • Suthenboy

        And like the USSR they will drown in drug addiction, crime, alcoholism, poverty, oppression and general misery all the while loudly proclaiming their way is superior.

      • Hyperion

        “drown in drug addiction, crime, alcoholism, poverty, oppression and general misery”

        But all of that will be free!

      • Tres Cool

        -1 krokodil

    • Winston

      Not to mention these classical liberals assumed the press and intellectuals would always be on their side.

      • wdalasio

        I get your point. But, I’m not so sure it’s a press/intellectuals entirely divorced from the classical liberals. Maybe I’m wrong, but I always kind of get the idea that it was the classical liberals themselves who sold classical liberalism down the river. Sadly, I see the same thing in much of modern libertarianism.

        The core principle for both was individual liberty and the primacy of the individual. But, you see both letting other values slip in. And, by all means, those other values might be good and worthwhile things. Who doesn’t like equality? Who doesn’t like to rely on reason? How backward do you have to be to not want to learn from other cultures and civilizations? The problem is, for every value other than liberty you let slip into the mix, the value of liberty is just a little diluted. Liberty stops being a guiding principle and becomes just one of several values that you have to balance. Until, eventually, liberty gets tossed overboard in favor of those other values.

        That’s always why I look askance at “thick” libertarianism.

      • Winston

        I always kind of get the idea that it was the classical liberals themselves who sold classical liberalism down the river. Sadly, I see the same thing in much of modern libertarianism.

        No I fully I agree that the classical liberals themselves who killed classical liberalism.

        What I find interesting is the assumption that there were 3 groups of people: the uneducated peasants, the liberals and the aristocracy. Since the aristocracy would always be a small minority this meant reducing the number of uneducated peasants would always increase the number of liberals. Eventually this would cause the aristocracy to surrender without a fight once the liberals because the vast majority of the population. This was inevitable of course.

        And how do you turn the uneducated peasants into liberals? Having them move into cities and become educated of course! And who will provide this education? The state of course! And these liberals will be the intellectuals and the media forever.

        And the notion that trade with China would liberate them was based on similar assumptions that there were 3 groups of Chinese people: the uneducated peasants, the liberals and the Party members. Once the Chinese peasants move into cities and become educated the ranks of the liberals would swell and the Party would inevitably collapse since they could never truly gain popular support.

  30. hayeksplosives

    Orphaned in the H&H dead thread:

    After years of side stepping reporters who’ve been trying to get Elon to jump into social politics, Elon finally expresses an opinion. And lefties don’t like it one bit.

    Tesla CEO Elon Musk is urging states across the country to put an end to lockdowns aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19.

    In a series of tweets early Wednesday, Musk posted phrases like “FREE AMERICA NOW” and “Give people their freedom back”

    “My frank opinion is that the harm from the coronavirus panic far exceeds that of the virus itself.”

    Musk agreed in a follow-up tweet that states should “reopen with care & appropriate protection” amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but he also said leaders shouldn’t be putting “everyone under de facto house arrest.”

    My favorite:

    Musk had earlier hit out at Silicon Valley, saying it had become ‘Sanctimonious Valley’ and ‘too much the moral arbiter of the world’.

    Oh, man. Commenters are now painting him as a heartless fat cat.

    • Hyperion

      They’ve been doing that for a long time. He should give them all free internet and electric cars.

    • Tundra

      This is one of those “don’t make me defend Trump” kind of situations.

      Elon is 100% right. Good on him.

    • Q Continuum

      Unpersoning in progress…

    • commodious spittoon

      “reopen with care & appropriate protection”

      Thanks, but no. I have no faith in the care or appropriateness of people who have demonstrated no capacity for either. Reopen, or don’t. Either you have citizens or you have subjects.

      • hayeksplosives

        Yeah, that was the one disappointing tweet. He probably felt like he had to throw out a bone to the Karens.

  31. Tundra

    Hi Brett!

    Fun story about the car (despite the Snopes buzzkill). A good lesson for sure: don’t buy a Pontiac!

    My ex BIL married their Danish au pair – a sexbot would have cheaper for sure.

    Man, the Wilson sisters were hot back then. Thanks for that one.

    All of a sudden it’s sunny and gorgeous here. I think that means it’s time to close up shop!

    • Tulip

      I loved, loved my trans am. It was a 1995 that I bought in 2001 and drove until 2015. I bought a Rav4 to make it easier to haul the dog and gardening stuff. Still miss the trans am. It was fire engine red.

      • Tundra

        Yeah, in high school I drove a 1965 LeMans with sweet mags. My friends driving little econoboxes were jealous.

  32. Pope Jimbo

    One of the problems movie theaters have is that TV can show series. I’d much rather watch a long series like Game of Thrones than three long movies like LOTR.

    And now that TV can cuss and show hooters, why pay the $$ to watch in a theater?

    • Mojeaux

      That’s why I always said my dream was for an HBO series of my books, not a movie or two.

      • Tundra

        So who would you select for Trey and Marina?

        I, of course, would be Boss Tom.

      • Mojeaux

        Using celebrities of the time, because I don’t have current analogs, Marina would have been played by Nancy Carroll; Trey by a young Burt Lancaster (as he was in Elmer Gantry except younger); Dot by Marion Davies; and the only one I have a current celebrity for is Gio, who’s Vincent Piazza.

      • Tundra

        If this fucking shutdown lasts much longer, it won’t be a problem.

    • Winston

      Even Season 8?

    • Mad Scientist

      If you go to the theater, you’ll get to experience $2 worth of snacks that cost $40, sticky floors, people talking on their cellphones, waiting in lines, and a commercial block that lasts half an hour. Why would you want to stay home and miss out on that?

      • Suthenboy

        Wife bought a big screen TV and hooked a Boze up to it for sound. My bathroom and my kitchen is here. Also, my couch.

        Do people still go to theaters?

      • Pope Jimbo

        Same thing with sportsball.

        Beer I like and as much of it as I want (or wife allows). No lines for bathrooms. And if the Vikes are choking away another one, I can turn off the TV and go enjoy the rest of the afternoon.

        Given that TV $$$ is way more significant than stadium sales, I have no idea why the owners can still extort money from cities.

        Which makes me think of what happens if the NFL plays in empty stadiums this year. Do people realize that for 99% of the fans, it doesn’t make a bit of difference? Do cities stop paying for new stadiums?

      • JaimeRoberto Delecto

        For football and basketball the best seat in the house is the couch. For baseball and the other football, it’s better at the stadium.

      • Tundra

        Hockey is way better live, but I got tired of dropping $400-plus a game to take the fam. If I get free tix I’ll go, but other than that, it’s sofa city, sweetheart!

      • JaimeRoberto Delecto

        I’m one of the 10 native Californians. I don’t know what hockey is.

      • hayeksplosives

        My home theater has a pause button. Therefore, I watch from home.

      • Pope Jimbo

        That might be the #1 reason that I love watching stuff at home. I’m too spazzy to sit through an entire movie and I’m spoiled with the pause button.

      • Mad Scientist

        And rewind, for all those times your wife asks you to turn the volume down because the movie/game/show is too loud, followed up 60 seconds later by, “What did he just say?”

      • Mojeaux

        No, this is a fault of the sound editors.

        They make dialogue low and difficult to hear and then blast the music and explosions.

      • R C Dean

        Don’t leave out the directors who apparently encourage actors to mumble and slur their dialogue.

        I’ve had movies where I’ve actually turned on the subtitles just so I could follow the fucking dialogue. Granted, my hearing sucks, but its not that bad (I think).

    • R C Dean

      A couple of times a year we go to a theater that serves booze and food. Really comfy recliners, too. I think that business model has a future, especially since they have a cafe out front to also serve booze and food to people who aren’t even going to a movie.

      • hayeksplosives

        Yeah, those kind are. Not of an event, a movie date night. Comfy, away from nearest other seat pairs, bacon fat popcorn…yummm…

    • Tejicano

      When I remodeled our place here I buried about a hundred yards of monster cable in the walls between the place where the entertainment center sits and 6 points up on the walls near the ceiling. I hooked up a Bose sound system through a Yamaha amp with the TV/DVD player running through that.

      This was the fulfilment of a promise I made to myself as a child when I told myself I would have an in-home theater when I grew up if I could afford it. That was back in the early 70’s when the mere idea of anything approaching this set up would have been a dream reserved for millionaires.

  33. Gender Traitor

    My boss has graciously approved my request to take vacation for the two weeks leading up to Memorial Day. If nothing else, it will give me a brief reprieve from the indignity of wearing a mask and having to go around taking a dozen people’s temperature every morning.

    Don’t necessarily plan to travel, but is there any place I could go – not TOO distant from SW OH – where hotels/lodges and restaurants would be open and hubby & I could be free to be touristas?

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      BhC AZ, open for business

    • Tres Cool

      heh….Big Bone Lick State Park

  34. Hyperion

    I’m beyond bored. I’m searching for more seeds to try to grow the most varieties and most exotic peppers I can find. Are there any that contain drugs? Asking for a friend.

    • Drake

      Today I was bored enough to read descriptions of ancient apple tree varieties and decide which to plant in my imaginary orchard. Also checked out the fruits that I’ve never heard of but apparently can grow at this latitude. Will come in handy when the food supply chain collapses.

      • kinnath

        I have 30 heirloom trees planted in my back yard right now.

        I need to write up an article.

      • Drake

        I would read.

      • kinnath

        I just savagely pruned my orchard last weekend due to an outbreak of fire blight.

        Plant modern, disease-resistant hybrids. It’s less work.

      • RAHeinlein

        That would be very nice.

      • Suthenboy

        I just came in from checking on my paw-paw trees. I planted half of a dozen a couple of months ago. I was afraid the awful storm we had last night might have damaged them. they are all doing just fine and leafing nicely.

      • kinnath

        My 1st 18 trees came from Trees of Antiquity. They are almost exclusively on MM.111 rootstock. Their claim that this is semi-dwarf is not correct. Semi-vigorous is more accurate. Time to bear fruit of 2-4 years is completely unrealistic. I am just getting fruit on about 1/3rd of the trees at 6 years.

        Checkout https://www.cumminsnursery.com/

        You order now for deliver this fall or next spring depending on your climate zone.

      • Suthenboy

        I am jealous of people who can grow cherries. Black cherry is the only one that will grow here. There is something about the flora/fauna in the soil here that an awful lot of species cant tolerate. I am also very jealous of DoubleEagle as he has macadamia trees. I have tried growing them here and they died the first year and not from the cold. We also cant grow hazel nuts.

      • Hyperion

        I’m jealous of all you guys. I sold my property in January this year. The plan was to buy another, but all of this stupid has sort of screwed that up. So all I have right now to garden on is a deck. It’s pretty big. But I want some acreage again. It may be another year, I’ll just keep saving money, as long as I’m still employed.

      • Suthenboy

        I pay about 1500/year property tax on about 1000 acres in Catahoula and Lasalle parishes. That is timberland prices.
        I pay about 1000/year on my 11 acres that I have my house on. Louisiana allows homestead exemption on the first 100K if y ou have a house.

        Given the figures I heard the other day from various other states on property tax….you might consider moving too Louisiana. We have the lowest property taxes ini the nation, and not by just a little bit.

      • Hyperion

        I looked at some homes in the area you told me that is where you’re at. We found a nice place there we liked for a really good price. I’m still looking, will be for probably the next year, then we’re going to buy something, somewhere.

      • Hyperion

        Geez dude, 1000 acres? I had 24 and I thought was big.

      • Tulip

        I pay more than $5k in property tax for less than 1/4 care.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I am jealous of people who can grow cherries.

        Suthen, you responded to the wrong commen. Q’s link to Teen Vogue’s questions about virginity was upthread from here.

        Black cherry is the only one that will grow here

        Also…. RACIST

      • Drake

        Even worse – they get black knot disease.

      • Drake

        I just planted a 3rd apple tree from raintreenursery.com. Two from last year are doing well, not sure if they will flower this year.

    • Count Potato

      Yes, there are ornamental peppers that contain drugs.

      • Hyperion

        I had one that was really pretty, no drugs, but it was like 50x hotter than a Habanero. Which is why people don’t eat them.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Ornamental Pepper Drugs,
        Sounds like a tribute Band………………

  35. kinnath

    You can never go home.

    I Just Came Home to Sweden. I’m Horrified by the Coronavirus Response Here.

    With its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, though, Sweden’s upright image has been tarnished. Over the past few weeks, the world has watched as Sweden’s public health agency has largely ignored international scientific consensus on the most efficient and lifesaving response to COVID-19: social distancing. Sweden is the only nation in the group of more economically developed countries taking an almost entirely laissez-faire approach to the pandemic. As a native Swede who has been based in the United States for the past 10 years and recently made a temporary return to my home country, I have found it difficult to experience Sweden’s uniquely incautious yet self-assured response, even if it hasn’t been entirely unpredictable.

    • Suthenboy

      And the outcome is….?

      Apparently needs more jackboot.

      • R C Dean

        Sweden has less than half the number of people with positive tests than the US on day 52 (1,482 per million v 3,073 per million). Caveat: results vary based on testing rates, which I don’t know).

        US has a lower death rate on day 37 (177 per million v 212 per million). Caveat: results vary based on classification of cause of death.

        Day of comparison is the most recent day for the US per the invaluable DIVOC site.

      • robc

        Sweden screwed up and failed to lock down senior homes early and got hit hard there.

      • westernsloper

        Name someplace that didn’t? Hell Polis just asked for a plan from the senior homes due on May 1. I imagine the plan will say, “we have a bunch of empty beds. Everybody died.” Big fuck up. Over 60% of deaths in CO are from homes.

      • Tundra

        Over 80% here. And they just started talking about it this week.

        Imbeciles.

      • robc

        Up to day 32, the death curves were indistinguishable.

    • Drake

      Karen is worried.

    • Winston

      Damn immigration to the US making someone statist and Sweden being more free than the US being a bad thing. Irony is off the charts!

      • B.P.

        I was think along the same lines: Person from Sweden lives in U.S. for a decade, somehow ends up far more safety-clinging and communitarian than his countrymen. Nice job, America.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Now I know we’re doomed here in the US.

    • commodious spittoon

      HARDER DADDY.

    • invisible finger

      I stopped at “ignored international scientific consensus.”

    • Incentives Matter

      I have to admit, many of the replies are delightfully irreverent. I don’t think Slate expected quite these responses to such an article.

    • B.P.

      “There have been some voices of reason outside of the official government response.”

      Ah, reason[ing]. That’s what you’re up to.

      • Shirley Knott

        Just because the voices are in your head doesn’t mean they’re the voices of reason.

  36. Hyperion

    My Nail Salon more special, tippy tippy!

    ALPHARETTA, GA. — Last week, Gov. Brian Kemp announced that some Georgia businesses can start reopening. I don’t always support Governor Kemp’s policies. And I disagree with the reopening of places like gyms and bowling alleys: It’s just too soon for those places from my perspective.

    But as the owner of a 13-year-old nail salon here in northeast Georgia, I was relieved to hear that businesses like mine could reopen with precautions.

    I see. All businesses are equal, but some businesses are more equal than others.

    Have we come up with a name for an Asian Karen with a side of hypocrisy?

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Kim Rong?

      • Hyperion

        lol, good one Yusef!

      • LemonGrenade

        I snorted.

      • Tejicano

        She rub you Rong way?

    • OBE #Learn2Essential

      ha! loving it!

  37. SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

    Boss, 2 months ago: I’m your biggest asset while you plan and undertake project X. I’ll make sure your plate stays clear.

    Boss, today: I know you’re busy with project X, but we need project Y out the door by Friday and project Z needs to be ready to go by mid-May, and youre the only person who knows how to fix those projects.

    • Fatty Bolger

      That’s the price you pay for being conscientious and competent, I’m afraid.

      • Pope Jimbo

        One of the things I’ve said before about big corporations is that if you are competent, you will never get promoted.

        There is an opening, if we promoted Trashy, who’d get that shit work done each month? But if we promote that other guy on his team who doesn’t really do anything then everything still hums along. Awesome!

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        So why was I promoted?

        *blissful ignorance*

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Never make promises you can’t keep.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Job Security, quit bitching….

    • Pope Jimbo

      Is the added gravy the fact that your bonus is tied to Project X?

      At the end of the year, your boss will look at you and say, well since you never got Project X done, you get no bonus. Maybe next time don’t fuck around so much on Project Y and Project Z.

      That used to happen all the time to me in a previous life. Except it wasn’t my boss doing the shafting. It was the HR people who ran the bonus program. And normally my boss would go talk to them and explain that I’d get at least 100% of the bonus.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I hated setting year-long goals at review time.

        They never lasted more than a few weeks because corporate priorities shifted.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        Project X needs to go well, but Y and Z were my own creations as well (Y was an automated company-wide email with inbuilt analytics for our business units on a per-manager level, Z was an automated slide deck with analytics on our outside counsel’s performance.)

        Y is a long-known commitment, but the introduction of Z ate up all of my allocated time for getting Y done.

        Anyway, X is a project of a magnitude way beyond what can be accomplished in the given time, but I’m attempting it anyway. If it succeeds, it’ll be a multi-million dollar piece of software that I will want to own a piece of when it gets spun out into its own little company and hoovered up by one of the dinosaur companies in the space.

      • R C Dean

        a multi-million dollar piece of software that I will want to own a piece of

        Let’s hope your lawyer did a good job drafting that “not really work for hire” agreement.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        Lol, contractually they have me over the barrel. Practically, I’m the only one who knows how the software works in conjunction with the real world. It would take them months to get somebody up to speed enough to generalize the software to sell. I think there’s room for some spirited negotiations when the time comes.

    • westernsloper

      I got my ass chewed twice today for nothing I directly did, just situations that came up. One of them involving a contractor who we now see had problems with his work and another related to the Vidfreakout. I so need to work for myself.

      • Pope Jimbo

        The cross I had to bear is that we had a snafu deploying some new code. Nothing huge and all caused because our devops team won’t give us permissions to do simple things.

        All the other devs went radio silent and I got stuck “fixing” the deploy problem. And by fixing, I mean I had to track down various people on the dev/ops team and hector them into doing some manual things because we don’t have the right permissions.

        So basically a kindergarten teacher all day. Ask for help, they tell you it is impossible, point out to them that it is possible but they need to do it because they won’t relax permissions. Sigh. Over and over.

      • LemonGrenade

        My code deploy is in an hour. Now that all the other folks are working remotely too, I will insist on a hangout or zoom so I can make sure they keep paying attention. Otherwise, those fuckers wander off as soon as their stack has been pushed, whether I’ve confirmed it’s good to go or not.

      • Mojeaux

        I so need to work for myself.

        Getting screamed at by a bunch of people who don’t know each other is better than getting screamed at by people who know you got screamed at by 6 someone elses.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        At your age? Tell them to Fuck Off, and open a shop of your own,

      • westernsloper

        I doxed myself in the Zoomdrinkathon last weekend to the other Zoomers present. I no longer work in the trades so to speak. I tried. Small community and I could not get a contractor to even talk to me because they did not know me. I grew up about 70 miles from here and know people there, but have no in routes to cabinet making here. I gave up and took the first decent job I could find before they shut my electricity off. That was over two years ago. Now I am just trying to get by until I can get out. Given the coming recession, the future is not looking so good. You on the other hand, will never have a shortage of work. HVAC baby! V is for Virus proof!

    • JaimeRoberto Delecto

      Mm, yeah. I’m going to need you to come in on Saturday to work on Project Y.

  38. B.P.

    I decided to head over to Karen’skorner.com, er, I mean Next Door, to get a daily whiff of pants-shitting. There is a poll along the lines of: “Would you feel safe going to a restaurant right now if they opened?” Out of a half-dozen responses, here’s one:

    “no I would not, people that think it is ok to return to normal are either misinformed, idiots(equals misinformed), or just do not care about anyone other than themselves, or would rather see more people die.”

    Remember, we’re all in this together.

    (Yeah, I know, social media isn’t real life. The above comment does seem to be the on-the-street version of an Atlantic article, though.)

    • Winston

      I remember the good old days when social media was supposed to be full of libertarians who would prevent the government doing this sort of stuff rather than embracing this sort of stuff.

      • Ted S.

        We fucking get it, Winston.

      • Ozymandias

        Winston, given that you’ve now said this a million times here – to this *same* group of people – I have to ask a serious question: what is the point? What is it you are trying to prove? You’re talking to a group of people who are all kvetching in three-part harmony about how fucked the whole country is, and yet you just keep banging that same cymbal like one of those wind-up chimps. Seriously, what’s the end game? What are you hoping to achieve?

    • Suthenboy

      Sadly if I were to buy that I would probably give it to my brother. He has been shooting the same BAR in 270 for 30 years. He needs a new rifle where I have…had….a couple dozen to choose from.

    • Don Escaped Sarcasm

      yum

      • The Hyperbole

        You people are weird.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    To sign in, I have to prove I’m not a bot?

    What the fuck next, wordpress?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Sperm samples

    • Mad Scientist

      Look on the bright side. Now you know you’re not a bot, and neither is anyone else here.

    • Mojeaux

      WordPress decided to be cool and trendy and cater to people who need to drag and drop everything.

      It screwed the rest of us. When I get some time I’m going to change my blogs over to ClassicPress.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    the world has watched as Sweden’s public health agency has largely ignored international scientific consensus on the most efficient and lifesaving response to COVID-19: social distancing.

    Kill me now.

    • Mad Scientist

      It says “consensus” right there! And not just consensus, but scientific consensus. Internationally!

    • Incentives Matter

      Kill me now.

      No need! The WHOflu’s gonna do that for you any day now!

    • Gustave Lytton

      Written by someone who doesn’t have a clue what’s going on in Sweden. There absolutely is social distancing going on, but it’s largely voluntary not government mandated. Their economy is also in recession or will be. Forecasted contraction of high single digits, similar to the US and elsewhere.

  41. OBE #Learn2Essential

    Wednesdays is date night in the OBE household. Kids go off with grandparents to get a spoiled dinner treat and my wife and I typically, when the world wasn’t conpletely insane, would go out to the pub and bend some elbows for a bit.

    Now its stay-at-home and try not to kill each other nights. Thinking of hitting up Slater 50-50 since they are running a deal for 2. 50 bucks for a complete meal.

    Though I am tempted to upgrade to get a growler.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Slaters is the Bomb, do it…..

  42. Hyperion

    seig heil der fuhrer!

    You know who else threatened to round (((them))) up?

    I’ll tell you this, (((they))) won’t comply, and I should know, I live in their hood. He’d better get ready to do the rounding up. Maybe he can build some camps and some showers? I mean, showers, you know for disinfectant purposes, kill the virus and all that.

      • Hyperion

        “If it walks like a worse-than-useless bigot and talks like a worse-than-useless bigot and tweets like a worse-than-useless bigot, I’ve got news for you: ”

        Yup

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      You mean the (((Virus)))?

    • wdalasio

      So, Mayor DeBlasio wants to arrest (((them))) because they won’t comply with his directives around a germ that men cannot see. So, I think a good name for his policy would be “Germ-man-not-seeism”.

      • Gustave Lytton

        *chuckle*

      • Ozymandias

        Oh, SHIT!
        Now THAT right there is why I come to Glibs. Definitely made the subscription worth it.

    • Rhywun

      This is about stopping this disease

      Science!

  43. The Late P Brooks

    I believe that which is beneficial to me to believe

    Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York has offered her support to presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden following accusations of alleged sexual assault by his former Senate aide, Tara Reade.
    In a call with reporters on Tuesday, Gillibrand said she supports and stands by Biden.
    “So when we say believe women, it’s for this explicit intention of making sure there’s space for all women to come forward to speak their truth, to be heard. And in this allegation, that is what Tara Reade has done,” Gillibrand said.
    “She has come forward, she has spoken, and they have done an investigation in several outlets. Those investigations, Vice President Biden has called for himself. Vice President Biden has vehemently denied these allegations and I support Vice President Biden.”

    ——-

    Asked by reporters Tuesday, Gillibrand said she doesn’t see a contradiction between how Democratic lawmakers are handling Reade’s allegations and how they handled allegations levied against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey Ford in 2018, which Kavanaugh denied during congressional testimony.
    “No, and I stand by Vice President Biden. He has devoted his life to supporting women and he has vehemently denied this allegation,” the New York Democrat said.

    Senator Sorority Girl (currently alleged to be in the running for Biden’s VP pick) says, “Believe all women. But not her.”

    • hayeksplosives

      What mental gymnastics. Good on the reporter for even asking her to compare the 2 cases. Forced her to put into words how arbitrary her thoughts on this are.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Now that sounds familiar. Where have I heard something nearly identical?

      “I believe that women deserve to be heard and I believe they need to be listened to, but I also believe that those allegations have to be investigated by credible sources. … The New York Times did a deep investigation and they found that the accusation was not credible. I believe Joe Biden.”

      That was Stacey Abrams. Probably just a coincidence, though, right?

      “Biden believes that all women have the right to be heard and to have their claims thoroughly review. In this case, a thorough review by the New York Times has led to the truth: this incident did not happen.”

      See? Everybody agrees! Oh, that one’s actually from the Biden campaign’s talking points memo. Oops.

      • B.P.

        Maybe they can start blinking “S.O.S.” to the reporters in Morse code.

    • JaimeRoberto Delecto

      So believe all women doesn’t really mean believe all women. No kidding.

      And “their truth”. Ugh.

    • R C Dean

      when we say believe women, it’s for this explicit intention of making sure there’s space for all women to come forward to speak their truth, to be heard

      Err, wouldn’t that be “listen to women”, not “believe women”?

      Those investigations, Vice President Biden has called for himself.

      Did he? I don’t recall that.

      I stand by Vice President Biden. He has devoted his life to supporting women and he has vehemently denied this allegation

      Exactly like Kav, then.

      they have done an investigation in several outlets

      Since they never asked Biden or asked for the papers under lock key at the University of Delaware that could support her claim that she complained at the time, I don’t think I’d call it an investigation, exactly.

      • Tulip

        I remember Biden during the Anita Hill hearings. He has not supported women. Fuck him.

  44. hayeksplosives

    Mr Splosives is stir crazy. Can’t even go to a pub for a drink and a game. At least I have work to do.

    He announced this morning after being inexplicably rude and impatient (all I had done was work in my home office, a designated room) that he has a stick up his ass, got in the car, and drove off.

    People can’t live like this.

    • LemonGrenade

      Agreed. The hubby and I have been fighting almost once a week when pre-lockdown it was more like once a year. All of my test content for work is some iteration of “let me out this is dumb and i want my rights back” and every day seems to get a little bit worse.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        They opened the Restrooms at the park today, a good sign, but we never really closed down out here in the sticks…..

      • LemonGrenade

        Northam is an asshole. He deigned to allow us to start going back to the dentist and get elective surgeries again beginning next week. Funny, from a state with a motto like ours.

      • Mojeaux

        Mmmm, things are coming home to roost at Chez Mojeaux also.

      • Incentives Matter

        The spousal unit and I are actually getting along just fine, but then I’ve often told her that she’s the best friend I’ve ever had and the best thing that’s ever happened to me. (And I mean that.)

        The one thing we have been modifying over the course of the last six weeks is our alcohol consumption. It’s been way too high, and we’ve cut back by about, oh, I’d say 90% on an average day. We’re both getting better sleeps, despite our anxiety over our incompetent politicians and doctor-cum-bureaucrats (AKA Chief Medical Officers). Jason Kenney, our Premier and once the bright hope of a re-invigorated Conservative Party in Alberta, will forever be referred to in my head (and in certain company) as “Kneecapper” Kenney, because he hid behind the skirts of our CMO and allowed our economy to be kneecapped by her. Stupid, cowardly fuck. I had such high hopes for him, once upon a time.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        I honestly can’t tell if the increased friction is because of the lockdown or because of the pregnant wife or the stress of selling the house or because I’m working long hours lately. I wouldn’t say that it’s bad yet, but we’re both running on rather short fuses at the moment, as is the 3 year old.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Yeah, that’s a high stress time bomb you’ve got going there.

        Take a moment with the wife to forget everything else and just commit to be nice to each other for a few minutes. It will help.

      • LemonGrenade

        Yeah, we normally get along 24/7 just fine. I think it’s the 80 hour work weeks, and the kids being assholes that’s got us on edge.

      • Tundra

        We’re doing fine. We’ve been through way worse than this (so far, anyway). The kids’ stress is what’s kicking our asses.

        I’ve said it for weeks: if you were an evil fuck and wanted to create a mental health crisis, I can’t think of a more effective way to do it.

        Fuckers.

  45. The Late P Brooks

    I don’t know if it was “officially” open, but there were kids at the skate park. There was even a group of (very attractive) girls walking with boards under their arms in that direction as I was driving away. I wanted to go back and watch leer at them, but decided against it.

    • Tundra

      Just drove by the local skatepark here. Packed full of kids.

      Just as God intended.

  46. The Late P Brooks

    Not Clorox, though

    The Food and Drug Administration will authorize the emergency use of the antiviral remdesivir on COVID-19 patients as soon as Wednesday, a senior administration official told The New York Times. Pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences revealed promising study results involving remdesivir on Wednesday, but the FDA’s reported move would still sidestep the usual testing required to authorize a drug’s usage.

    Gilead said Wednesday that its own trial, as well one overseen by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, met its goals. Of the study’s 397 severe COVID-19 patients, at least 50 percent of patients treated with a 5-day dosage of remdesivir improved and more than half were discharged from the hospital within two weeks. The overall mortality rate of the study was 7 percent, and relatively few patients developed bad side effects. But the study wasn’t evaluated against a control group, and it’s unclear if those recoveries were natural or if remdesivir actually had something to do with them. Hard data from the study also hasn’t been released yet.

    Anecdotal reports, including two published in The New England Journal of Medicine, provided more credibility for remdesivir in the coronavirus fight. But they also didn’t compared the drug against a placebo. A study published in The Lancet concluded remdesivir was “safe and adequately tolerated” but “did not provide significant benefits over placebo.” Kathryn Krawczyk

    We need years of fastidious academic research before we can try off-label use of FDA-approved drugs! What is this, a medieval barber shop?

    • westernsloper

      Yes?

      • Tundra

        Pass me the leeches, will ya?

      • westernsloper

        *pulls leech off left ball sack* Here you go.

    • Gustave Lytton

      I don’t believe Remdesivir has been approved by the FDA yet, even before this began.

    • JaimeRoberto Delecto

      Would that be something that you inject that disinfects?

  47. Yusef drives a Kia

    I looked closelier at AZ Carry Laws, No permit Concealed carry, as long as your 21, this is getting better….

    • Playa Manhattan

      You can’t be a prohibited person, though.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        No, I’m at least 2.5 Evans now, A nice piece, S&W Shield .380 EZ 130$ plus whatever else I need/want

      • Sean

        You’re going to like that piece. My gf has one. I put a couple mags through it. Refer to my avatar.

  48. The Late P Brooks

    NYT headline on google news:

    Fed Chair to Congress: Do Whatever it Takes to Keep Economy From Collapse

    Does that include releasing people from house arrest? Letting them go back to work?

    • Fatty Bolger

      Good God, no! What kind of mad man are you? They just mean more stimulus!

  49. The Late P Brooks

    I don’t believe Remdesivir has been approved by the FDA yet, even before this began.

    Oh? I thought it was already in use for other illnesses.

    • westernsloper

      Wiki says yes.

      Remdesivir was created and developed by Gilead Sciences, under the direction of scientist Tomáš Cihlář,[3] as a treatment for Ebola virus disease and Marburg virus infections.[4] Gilead Sciences subsequently discovered that remdesivir had antiviral activity in vitro against multiple filo-, pneumo-, paramyxo-, and coronaviruses.[5]

      That was a super fast wiki update.

      • westernsloper

        I guess it does not say it is approved though. I may be reading into that. No I did not read the whole page.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Gilead has been making it available under compassionate use grounds prior to moving into trials, but it’s otherwise unavailable to just order it off the shelf. Getting it into production at scale would take some time too.

  50. grrizzly

    Today is the first day when wearing face masks is required in my town. I went out for a walk to see what’s going on. Of course, without a mask. They will start issuing fines only a week from now. Just like yesterday most pedestrians were wearing masks. However, it wasn’t that difficult to notice a person without a mask. Nobody confronted me for my anti-social behavior.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      It seems to look like signaling anymore, bandanas, fashion statements abound, I quit wearing mine, Fuck Off! I’m done

    • Hyperion

      Token gesturing is a new/old favorite?

      A mask. Just put a bandana over your face, that’s at least comfy and no one will know that’s it’s you who robbed the local bank.

      If people don’t realize what idiots our ‘leaders’ are after this, they never will.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        “I went into the bank with a mask on and asked for money, they gave it to me”

      • grrizzly

        The other day I noticed that a local bank branch required a face mask to enter. I decided to drive to another branch that has a drive-thru window. On the way I realized that nowadays they would let me do banking with them if I wore a ski mask when just weeks ago they would have pressed the panic button at the first site of a person wearing a ski mask.

      • Naptown Bill

        I wear a shemagh and Ray-Bans, sometimes with a camo baseball cap. I find it meets the technical requirements of the quarantine regulations while hinting at my possibly being the kind of person who will soon begin making a stink about it. If I owned a stars and bars bandanna I’d wear that just to hammer the message home.

    • AlmightyJB

      DeWine reversed course and went from required to recommended for business customers. Business can still mandate. Local media shutting pants. NBC and CBS affiliates both strut out same LA transplant boutique owner from hipster town outraged about it. Pathetic.

  51. The Late P Brooks

    I saw something about Costco requiring masks to shop there.

    I guess I’ll be spending my money somewhere else.

    • LemonGrenade

      Saw something on hubby’s Facebook along those lines:
      “Sir, you can’t shop in here without wearing a mask. County orders.”
      “Dude, if I come in here wearing a mask, I ain’t paying for shit.”

    • slumbrew - double secret satan

      Masks in enclosed spaces where you can’t avoid being near people is not a crazy thing.

      Masks to merely be in public is.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Drivers on the road, windows up, mask on, Pathetic, we deserve what we get…..

  52. The Late P Brooks

    I just need to find some coffee I like as well as the Costco Colombian, at a reasonable price.

  53. Hyperion

    Trump’s worst trait, is, has been for a long time, a complete failure to surround himself with the right people. First there was that drug warrior garden gnome Jeff Sessions. So Trump finally gets it and fires his ass and then proceeds to make the same mistake over and over and over again. Fauci and Brix are incompetent WHO stooges. But now Trump knows this, but is afraid to fire them because he’s already let this shit go on for too long.

    Trump is one of the best politicians, only because he’s not a politician. There is no such thing as a good politician. Still, he’s going to win reelection and the left will then resort to outright violence against anyone who disagrees with them. Get ready.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      I am, believe it,

    • Suthenboy

      You don’t recall my story less than a week ago?

      10 yo Me: Papa, why cant we get someone good to run for office?

      My Father: Who?

      10 yo Me: I dunno, someone good.

      My Father: Give me a name. Name someone good. Good people don’t want to have anything to do with that shit.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        The answer is more guns…

  54. The Late P Brooks

    SRSLY?

    Michigan Rep. Justin Amash may be an outspoken conservative from a Republican-leaning district, but the launch of his exploratory committee seeking a presidential run was met with swift backlash from supporters of apparent Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

    Critics say a third-party bid by Amash, an independent who endeared himself to many Democrats by quitting the Republican Party and voting to impeach President Donald Trump, would likely siphon votes away from Biden in the 2020 election.

    “I like Justin. I love democracy. But I do think a 3rd party run increases the chances of Trump’s re-election,” tweeted Andrew Yang, a former Democratic presidential primary candidate who has endorsed Biden.

    ——-

    But even some of Amash’s self-professed fans call his move “perplexing.”

    Joe Walsh, a former Illinois congressman who had mounted a now-defunct Republican primary challenge against Trump, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that Amash running for president on a Libertarian ticket is “a terrible idea.”

    “Amash can’t win. But he can siphon enough votes from the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, to hand the election to Trump,” Walsh wrote.

    George Conway, a conservative Trump critic and husband of White House advisor Kellyanne Conway, tweeted: “Needless to say, my views align more closely with Amash’s than Biden’s. But the only real effect Amash could have in this campaign is to enhance Trump’s chances. This is a terrible idea.”

    If that’s true, Biden is an even worse candidate than I thought. Good job, DNC.

    • Hyperion

      That 1% of the vote he’s going to get is going to fuck over someone, somewhere, I’m sure.

    • leon

      Did they think no one would run third party?

      I mean Amash hates Trump so much he’s liable to pull a weld before the election is over.

    • LemonGrenade

      Wait, as in through the entire month of June?? I have at least two full weeks of reservations in MI parks paid in full in advance. Goddammit!!!!

      • Translucent Chum

        Us too. Wife in tears. Kids bummed. We were going to be at petoskey for 10 days starting in the 14th.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Come down to BhC, everyone else is, Fucking beach going locals, it’s Golf Course! get your towels off my baskets!
        /hitting people with plastic

      • Translucent Chum

        Check your email. We just got the notice from DNR.

      • LemonGrenade

        This is the dumbest fucking thing of all possible dumb fucking things I’ve ever heard. Two full weeks booked up in MI, that we set up in, like, January. I’m not crying yet, I’m still on the throwing shit and yelling stage. We were going to be OUTSIDE!!!

      • LemonGrenade

        Wait, there’s still hope. Both of our reservations for MI are at private campgrounds this time, so maybe we won’t be completely fucked. Now I’m really looking forward to South Dakota, since we’re booked there over the 4th of July and they haven’t engaged in any of this nonsensical bullshit.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      No camping?

      Does COVID target hikers like STEVE SMITH?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Just bonecrushingly stupid and ambitious

      • R C Dean

        I can only hope she gets the VP nod. She’s writing her own oppo file.

        Imagine Gretchen v SD Gov. Noem in the VP debate.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Nicotine, while not a “drug” is one of the most poisonous substances on the planet,

  55. CPRM

    I was finally able to obtain a back alley haircut! My head is like 5lbs lighter.

    • The Hyperbole

      20$ just like downtown?

    • R C Dean

      I hope you got one of the classy ones where they rinse off the coathanger before they use it.

      Oh, haircut. Never mind.

    • westernsloper

      ?

    • Sean

      I like the arrest tiktok nurses one.

  56. Yusef drives a Kia

    I just got a letter from the water company, ” in these troubling times, we won’t shut your water off, but don’t forget, you owe us”
    My current bill, 19.20$ for the month,

    • Count Potato

      That’s not that bad considering you are in a desert.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        It works for me, also being heat tolerant keeps the A/C bill down, I keep it at 87 degrees, it’s 105 outside right now

  57. Tundra

    I just went for a walk. Beautiful night.

    Listened to this fantastic album.

    Stared down two masked 20-somethings. You know, the demographic that hasn’t lost a soul. Idiots.

    I’m getting bored with this.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Night?

  58. slumbrew - double secret satan

    Just attempted to go for a nighttime walk with the spouse, she freaked out that I wouldn’t wear my mask (steams up my glasses), despite literally – _literally_ – not another soul in sight.

    Words were exchanged. This should be a fun 24 hours.

    • Unreconstructed

      Wow. Reminds me of the time I had a massive argument with the (then) wife about making our daughter walk ~2 blocks, entirely inside the neighborhood, home from her friend’s house at ~8 PM on a summer evening. Absofuckinglutely insane.