Memorial Day 2020 Morning Links

by | May 25, 2020 | Daily Links | 311 comments

Back when I worked in Fire/EMS, I also served in the small volunteer fire department in the town in which I lived. This village has a Memorial Day procession and ceremony every year. It’s a big deal.

The members of the VFW and American Legion march to the cemetery up on the hill to place a wreath at the monument listing all the local citizens who were killed in all the various wars (declared or not). The fire apparatus and ambulances follow along behind the marchers. Behind the fire department equipment, dozens of local citizens of all ages march. As I said, it’s a big deal in that village.

The oldest member of the VFW makes a short speech, usually talking about the reality of war. Often this is given by a man who had been wounded in action, speaking of the way that being wounded felt, the horror of watching your friends die, and sometimes about the way it felt to injure or kill your opposite number on the other side.

The wreath is laid at the foot of the monument and silence is observed. The entire event honors the dead without glorifying war. It is very moving.

This year, one might think that this ceremony wouldn’t be taking place. It is in New York State where “New York State will allow Memorial Day ceremonies with 10 people or less, at the discretion of local governments.”

However, it is in rural NY, in a village where the Volunteer Fire Department Ladies’ Auxiliary is better armed than the New York State police barracks up the road. Guess what? I’ve been reliably informed that the ceremony is going ahead exactly as usual.

Fuck off, Cuomo.

 

On to links.

Finally! Although as HM points out, if your parents opted for the 64 color box, most of those were included. I guess this is simply a marketing ploy? Everyone will buy the 64 color box and the special one.

He’s not wrong.

“In times of crisis, Person said it is normal for a person’s mental state to change.”

I wish people would stop hoarding all the flour that I need for the baking I always do. Related: Do any of you have a home grain mill you like? If this keeps up, I might need to acquire one.

This is not a color unspoiled fresh tofu should be.

 

 

And a song for today.

 

 

About The Author

SP

SP

I've got an idea! How about we just stick to the Constitution as written and then the government can leave me the fuck alone.

311 Comments

  1. Shpip

    Suicide rates spike through COVID-19 pandemic

    Foreseeable consequences are not unintended.

  2. JG43

    That flour story reminds me that I need to get baked.

    • Rhywun

      The new normal has us all baking alone together. #staystrong

      • BakedPenguin

        JOIN US

      • Suthenboy

        Resistance is futile?

      • Incentives Matter

        No, it comes from properly-developed gluten.

  3. Rhywun

    marketing ploy

    Cue the cries of “my color isn’t in there!” in 3, 2, 1….

    • Trials and Trippelations

      I see pasty ginger is missing

      • Rhywun

        My mom was more freckle than pasty. She could have appropriated one of the darker hues. I’m sure that would have gone just peachy now that the cool thing is to be hyper-focused on race and color.

      • Gender Traitor

        My oldest sister’s hair is reddish-brown – never as red as mine (though she hasn’t gone gray. Bitch.) But boy did she get the freckles any time she went out in the sun. Sadly, her appointment for her high school senior picture was the week after she got back from summer camp. They tried to even out her skin tone with some orange-y makeup. It did not turn out well.

      • Gender Traitor

        Inorite??? I feel so othered!

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Transparent with a dash of red.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      How do you color gender?

      • leon

        How to do you get 75 genders?

    • Jarflax

      *looks at various drawings by the little ones between age 3 and age 11
      *notes complete absence of any desire for color matching
      *smiles grimly at the thought of 100s of sjw moms trying to force little Uwnjendrd and Tranzicia to use the correct crayon.

      • Rhywun

        I had a complete absence of any interest in drawing people, properly-hued or otherwise.

  4. Trials and Trippelations

    I would think putting a face on tofu would make PETA members uncomfortable with eating it

    • Jarflax

      It’s a human face. They have no issue with eating humans.

  5. Brawndo

    I’d rather eat a bat than tofu.

    • PieInTheSky

      I like tofu if cooked right

      • Brawndo

        I’ve had tofu before. It tastes like whatever you cook it with for the most part. It’s like brussel sprouts, when people say they love those when they roast it with butter and salt. You don’t love brussel sprouts, you love butter and salt.

      • Rhywun

        Only when there is enough butter and salt to cover the hideous flavor of Brussels sprouts.

      • BakedPenguin

        There is NEVER enough butter and salt to cover the hideous flavor of Brussels sprouts.

        There is enough cheese to cover the nasty taste of broccoli, and there is enough butter to cover the taste of peas and green beans, but nothing can cover the unholy awfulness of Brussel sprouts, just like there isn’t enough gravy in the world to make biotic waste taste good.

      • Tundra

        Brussels sprouts are super high in vitamins K and C. I definitely love that.

        How to make them:

        Cut off stem, halve them and remove outer shit.
        Toss them with shallots, olive oil, salt and pepper.
        Spread them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.
        Roast them in a 500 degree oven for 15-20 minutes (flipping them halfway if you aren’t forgetful like me).
        Hit them with balsamic vinegar immediately before serving.

        Perfect.

      • BakedPenguin

        Better idea: take your broccoli and cover it in cheese. Slather it so there are barely any remnant areas where you can see broccoli. Microwave until the cheese is melted.

        Also high in vitamins C & K.

      • SweatingGin

        Cheez whiz, am I right?

      • Tres Cool
      • westernsloper

        If you are not cooking your brussel sprouts with bacon you are doing it wrong.

      • egould310

        ^^^ This guy gets it.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        Even then you’re still wrong for not using Pancetta.

      • westernsloper

        Excellent! A new line in the sand of the food wars has been drawn.

      • Incentives Matter

        And balsamic vinegar or Worcestershire sauce. Plus you need to shred the damn things so they cook evenly.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        This is how I do it, just without the shallots.

      • The Hyperbole

        Open bag of frozen sprouts
        Toss in ½ C boiling water
        Cover
        Simmer for 8 minutes
        Drain
        Add 1 ½ TBSP butter
        Pepper generously

        Perfect

      • Fourscore

        Throw the sprouts away, eat the parchment paper

      • l0b0t

        We will often just halve them and shake them in a bag with a bunch of olive oil and a pack of French onion soup mix, then spread onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet and roast until crispy.

      • Overt

        I thought I loved how sweet brussels sprouts get when you roast them, caramelizing the sugars and driving off the sulfur compounds. But, I guess it was the butter and salt all along.

      • Mojeaux

        Brussels sprouts are a cruciferous vegetable low-carbers tout constantly. I have no idea if they actually eat them.

    • SP

      Ooooh! Pretty!

      Thanks, RAH.

    • westernsloper

      That thing is cool. Not that I would spend that kind of money on a grain mill. (I am saving up for a vertical rotisserie) Where do you get the grain to mill? I have never seen a bag of wheat at my local walmart.

      • RAHeinlein

        Most decent bulk food sections have grains, plus a number of online retailers.

      • Mojeaux

        Emergency prep suppliers online.

      • Mojeaux

        If you have a “LDS bishop’s storehouse” near you (a Mormon cannery/tiny grocery store operation for supplies for the needy), you can buy grain there.

      • prolefeed

        I used to have a hand grinder for the eleventy-billion cans of Mormon Wheat TM I used to have.

    • l0b0t

      Wow! That thing sure is nice.

  6. Ted S.

    This is not a color unspoiled fresh tofu should be.

    I assume you can get ergotism from spoiled tofu.

    Definitely you can get botulism from mis-canned non-meats.

    • Tonio

      Ergots are grain-specific fungi, ie they only grow on grains and certain grasses.

      RE: tofu: Anything with that high a moisture content is going to be a host for some type of bacteria, mold, or fungus which will fuck you up, at least temporarily.

      • juris imprudent

        One of the worst cases of food poisoning I ever saw was from tofu.

      • Jarflax

        I know that one time a piece of a coworker’s tofu got into my lamb palak and it certainly made me nauseous.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        You sure it wasn’t paneer (cheese)? Indians don’t really go in for tofu.

  7. Gender Traitor

    the Volunteer Fire Department Ladies’ Auxiliary is better armed than the New York State police barracks up the road

    Sweet.

    I never got the box of 64 (with the crayon sharpener!!!) as a kid, and I was jealous of the kids who did. The best I ever remember having was the box of 32. Most of our crayon collection was dumped in an empty Crisco can. I’ve made up for it as an adult, obsessively buying markers, paints, and colored pencils I rarely use.

    • Gender Traitor

      Speaking of crayons, I KNEW IT!! Raw Umber is officially the ugliest color in the visible specrum. Anyone whose skin is that color should be eligible for grafts or a transplant.

      • Suthenboy

        Huh?

        I did a lot of toning of black and white prints once upon a time. I have some prints with combos of toners that are very close to that and are quite beautiful. They aren’t that flat as they have a touch of copper in them. At the right angle you can see a metallic sheen.

      • Gender Traitor

        The touch of copper would be a definite improvement. The Crayola version lacked that.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        Who has skin that pink color? Is that for sunburn?

        I think that tofu is infected with Serratia marcescens.

  8. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Hertz filed for bankruptcy.

    It was all downhill after they lost OJ.

    • PieInTheSky

      Capitalism failed

    • Spartacus

      Hertz HQ is about 10 miles from my house. It’s like a ghost town there.
      Nearby they have a hockey arena (imaginatively named Hertz Arena) whose parking lot is filled with Hertz cars that are not being used.

  9. The Late P Brooks

    Guess what?

    Maybe the human spirit isn’t completely vestigial.

  10. The Late P Brooks

    It’s too bad Hertz isn’t getting ready to flood the used car market with GT350s.

  11. Suthenboy

    Rotted beans are not food.
    What would it take for people to stop giving money to those sadistic ghouls?

    We probably won’t get to see the special crayon colors as the people who purchase them will probably eat them.

    Sessions: Idiot or snake in the grass?

    The suicides are sad and completely foreseeable.

    I might bake today. It is raining all day and into the night so why not?

    • Ted S.

      Sessions: Idiot or snake in the grass?

      Why not both?

    • Tulip

      Yesterday, I made sourdough English muffins. Today, I’m making lemon jelly donuts.

      • Suthenboy

        Mmmmmmm. Lemon jelly donuts…

        What time should I be there?

      • Trials and Trippelations

        ?

      • Sean

        Food porn. Post pics.

      • juris imprudent

        No baking but I do have a pork butt on the smoker.

      • Pi Guy

        I’m not partial to deserts but definitely made a yummy sound for smoked pig stuff.

    • PieInTheSky

      Rotted beans are not food. – actually all sorts of things are food. That is one of them.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      My guess is the Intel agencies had his web browser history and a copy of his phone records calling cabana boys.

    • Old Man With Candy

      OK, should you ever find yourself in the desert, I will feed you my mapo tofu, assuming you can take the heat. This will, I guarantee, wipe out the memories of shitty hippie tofu dishes you might have had in the part.

      It will also wipe out your asshole the next morning, but that’s a different matter.

      • PieInTheSky

        mapo tofu – I made Kenji Lopez version of this and it was quite decent

  12. The Late P Brooks

    Obviously, people are committing suicide because of their fear of contracting the plague. The lockdowns must continue.

    • Suthenboy

      Which governor are you channeling? NY? NJ? MI? Or is this one of those group seances?

  13. leon

    So Jo Jorgensen got the LP nod this year. I don’t know much about her, but what I had heard didn’t make me to excited for her.

    • creech

      What did you hear? She probably knows what Aleppo is and I doubt she will be campaigning stoned all the time (though she may want to after facing interviewers who will ask all kinds of tough and trick questions that would never be fired at major party candidates with a D behind their name.) LP candidates tend to be sacrificial lambs (though they do volunteer for the job) sent to appease those who foolishly still think a plurality of Americans can be assembled to vote in favor of individual liberty.

      • kromeekrius

        That last sentence broke my heart. I don’t care about LP candidates, but I would still like to think people would at least consider personal freedom as an option.

  14. PieInTheSky

    I will repeat my question from Saturday maybe I get additional input, regarding my living room bar.

    The affordable wood is “paltin” which google translates for me as Sycamore maple. Does anyone know how such a wood works for furniture?

    • Stillhunter

      I’m not familiar with euro trees, but it is from the maple family so should do well and according to Wikipedia it is a fine wood for furniture. Apparently it resists staining (not sure how that works if you want to actually stain it) so might be good in a bar setting. I like this passage myself:
      “ In Scotland, sycamores were once a favoured tree for hangings, because their lower branches rarely broke under the strain.”

      • Stillhunter

        I was just going to post that link! You have it backwards though. It’s not a sycamore, it’s a maple (genus: Acer)

      • R C Dean

        I see you are correct, sir.

      • Tundra

        Someone in this thread knows all there is about trees.

        And gets paid for that.

        Just sayin’. 😉

      • Stillhunter

        Thanks for the compliment, though I’m no expert in the uses of wood, mostly in how trees/forests are managed. I’m also a pedant…

      • PieInTheSky

        that does not look encouraging… maybe linden is better

      • R C Dean

        I like the grain – nice and tight and straight.

      • PieInTheSky

        durability is low but indoors should not matter. I don’t know about the allergy thing is that while woodworking or with the finished furniture, which has lacquer and stuff on it

      • Stillhunter

        It’s during the woodworking phase. Once it’s finished it should be fine.

        I missed the Saturday thread. What type of furniture are you using it for?

      • PieInTheSky

        I got the following prices.

        2000 US for oak way to much.

        1500 US for ash wood, still to much

        1200 for what google translates for me as Sycamore maple – pricey but doable

        1050 for linden tree wood

        800 for fir wood

      • PieInTheSky

        I got a second offer for 3000 US oak, 2800 US linden

      • kinnath

        I cringe whenever I see wine being stored in any living space. It belongs in the cellar.

        At least, the wine is on its side.

        The furniture though is attractive.

      • PieInTheSky

        Oh I don’t want the wine storage part. The inspiration was mostly for the shelves with glass support. In my sketch I have just doors on the lower part.

      • BakedPenguin

        Pie, could you make it with a sturdy wood for a base, then use a veneer for the outside? I’m thinking of guitar manufacture, which I know has little to do with building a bar, but they often use cheaper woods for the main instrument, but place lovely exotic woods (Koa, Ebony) for the places that people will see, while the structure is built around maple or something.

      • westernsloper

        What BP said. Use plywood with edge banding. We don’t build furniture out of solid wood anymore for a reason. It is hard to do and expensive. Doors, and end panels work fine but the actual cabinetry is easier if you just build a good quality box out of cabinet grade plywood. Look into the Euro/32mm system for cabinetry. Blum has lots of good resources. https://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Blums_Process_32_Manual_PDF.html

      • Stillhunter

        ? thanks for enacting my labor. I like it!

        If it will be stained, you’ll probably want something like the maple since the grain tends to have more figure. If painted, the linden or even fir will be fine. The main issue with the latter two is they are quite soft, so durability may be an issue (denting, etc.). Depending on the species, the fir may be nearly as hard as the maple. Linden (basswood) is very light and soft.

      • Tundra

        Maple.

        I have a bunch of maple cabinets and they look great and have held up beautifully. Maple can be a bitch to stain, but pros know how to do it.

      • PieInTheSky

        My kitchen is basically plywood with Wood veneer but for some reason for the living room I wanted wood. I assume quality furniture with oak wood veneer will not be much cheaper than the Sycamore maple

      • westernsloper

        When I build nice cabinets the outside is real wood, but the interior is all built of cabinet grade plywood. Example Another The flat map area in the first is also maple plywood. The exterior wood is all cedar which I stained to look like mahogany because who the hell can afford mahogany. Yes it is very soft and dents but that is called character where I stand. I also have lots of dents. My shop cabinets are all plywood with flat doors out of plywood.

      • Stillhunter

        I think we’ve run into one of the well known issues with internet discussions. Tough to express detail and nuance. I’m going to assume you are not painting and want to see the grain. The reality is you are best off using different types of wood to build a “bar”. I agree with WS and BP on using engineered wood for the cabinet box portion and door panels. Using solid wood will require edge gluing to produce a panel, which has pros and cons.

        I would say use solid wood for the bar top (likely a glued panel of some type, edge or face depending upon preference), door rails and stiles, cabinet trim, shelf, and glass hangers.

        Dents, etc. definitely add character and I’m not averse or I wouldn’t have built my dining room table of pine (mostly to save money, I’d prefer a hardwood). But for something that gets a good bit of metal and heavy glass dropped on it, like a bar top, a harder wood is probably best (and will still procure it’s share of dents).

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      It’s not a true maple. Sycamore is not a common wood for woodworking because of its interlocked grain structure. It poses problems for planing and tends to have a lot of tearout.

      It does get used for non-exposed pieces though, like drawer sides.

      • Stillhunter

        A tree from the Acer genus is not a true maple?

  15. The Late P Brooks

    I’ll see your Tom Waits and raise you a John Prine.

    • Gender Traitor

      I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the first line of the refrain may be the best sentence ever set to music.

      • Gender Traitor

        By a hair. ; ) (Wrong link?)

      • Ted S.

        Whoops, although you can have the oils in aisle 5 or the “CAN’D BEANS” in, I think, aisle 6. (Seriously, “Canned” is spelled that way.)

        The link I meant was this.

      • Gender Traitor

        IIRC, I read somewhere they wrote that as a goof when they needed a quick follow-up to their Big Hit.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        I love grocery store scenes in old movies and TV. Guess I’m a packaging nerd.

      • l0b0t

        When we receive products that have new packaging design, I will often shelve those in the front and hide all the old style in the back so it’s like an archaeological surprise for a future shopper.

    • Gender Traitor

      I like to think that he and little Stevie Goodman are somewhere finally jamming (and collaborating?) together again.

  16. The Late P Brooks

    The Washington Post is like a high school girl with a hate-crush on Trump. They’re completely obsessed with him.

  17. Rufus the Monocled

    i don’t see pink in that crayon box.

    • Toxteth O’Grady

      I see five shades of rose that could be lipstick.

      I think this is actually a good idea, but 24 is excessively granular for kids’ art.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        It seems like a waste to me if its meant for a kid to be able to color his or herself accurately. They will only use one crayon, so sell them in singles.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        Like Sharpies!

      • mexican sharpshooter

        For $5 each…we’ll make millions!

        *lights cigar with $100*

  18. The Late P Brooks

    Pouncers pounce!

    On Friday morning, Joe Biden said something dumb — and offensive.

    “Well I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” Biden told Charlemagne tha God in a radio interview for “The Breakfast Club.”

    He apologized later that day, saying he “shouldn’t have been such a wise guy” in the interview with Charlemagne.
    President Donald Trump — and his allies — seized on the Biden comment expressing their horror that the presumptive Democratic nominee would so glibly take the votes of African Americans for granted. Trump’s campaign quickly produced “You Ain’t Black” t-shirts and sent their surrogates out to condemn the former vice president.

    “I have struggled with Biden’s recent remarks,” tweeted former Trump administration ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Saturday afternoon. “They were gut wrenchingly condescending. Regardless of color, gender, or class, to label any individual with what he or she is expected to think, believe, and vote is demeaning and disrespectful. Not to mention arrogant and entitled.”

    Which, fine. Biden was wrong. He shouldn’t have said it.

    But, the outrage summoned by Haley and her ilk seems to miss one big reality: Trump says and does things on an almost-daily basis that far exceed the inappropriateness of Biden’s comment. And yet, there is silence from the same people so willing to leap to condemn Biden.

    Just a lot of what-about-isms, when the real issue is President Cartoon Villain hates black people so much he makes Nathan Bedford Forrest look like the Black Man’s best friend. What do those people even know about anything?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Somebody show me where Trump said support for him was a litmus test for someone’s cultural identity.

      • Q Continuum

        Somebody also please show me, with specific examples, how Trump has treated black people as horribly as the media claims he has.

      • Shirley Knott

        ^^^So much this. Ditto the LGBQ faction.

      • juris imprudent

        Have you seen him kissing their asses in public? Well then sir, I tell you that demonstrates the hate that runs to his core.

    • Brawndo

      If Trump’s awfulness and racism happens “nearly every day”, surely you can rattle off dozens of specific, sourced, examples that have happened in just this month. I’ll wait.

      • creech

        I’ve asked some foamers that question and the only thing they ever mention is “Charlottesville.”

  19. Tonio

    SP, that is a really touching story about your town’s Memorial Day observance. Also, mad props for having been Fire/EMS.

    • Sensei

      I’ve read that before. Still gets to me.

      Assuming the rain holds here the flag will be going out as it does every Memorial Day.

    • Chafed

      I’ve seen that many times. I get choked up every time I read it.

    • BakedPenguin

      I hate to go down this road, because assuming the report is accurate (and I’ve no reason to doubt it), those soldiers should be honored regardless. But in addition to the wastefulness of our policy, we’re wasting the bravery of our forces. The US has a much more formidable foe in China, and we’re dicking away our strength in places where we are not wanted when we should be ramping up to face a greater foe.

      The Iraqis told us to leave; let’s leave, and defend America. Why is this so hard to understand? Wasting our money and the courage of our soldiers on pointless foreign ventures is such a worthless mess.

      I know everyone here knows this, and apologies for reiterating it.

      But Drake, honor to the two Marines, as well as their unsung comrades who have also passed.

      • Drake

        Sure we fought some truly senseless campaigns and turned a what should have been a brief punitive expedition in Afghanistan into a forever war. Just like Vietnam, the members of the military performed incredibly despite our worthless civilian leadership.

        I agree that China is the primary threat that we hopefully never have to openly war with. The argument can be made that our experienced “blooded” military is an even better deterrent, although I think the price too high. Shifting budget from operations to training and keeping social policies (chicks in the infantry) out would be money better spent.

  20. The Late P Brooks

    Be AFRAID

    As states ramp up their reopenings, some are coming under criticism for making public misleading statistics or concealing information related to the coronavirus outbreak.

    While the U.S. has reported more cases and deaths than any other country, the method for counting COVID-19 deaths varies by state. In testimony before the Senate earlier this month, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said the actual number of people who’ve died as a result of the pandemic is “almost certainly” higher than what’s been counted.

    Leaving aside my ongoing desire to drop an anvil on that guy from a great height, why should it be shocking that a country with a population of 350 million has more cumulative deaths than countries than smaller nation? Why do they find it necessary to claim the casualties have been “underreported”?

    • Ted S.

      As states ramp up their reopenings, some are coming under criticism for making public misleading statistics or concealing information related to the coronavirus outbreak.

      Somehow I don’t think this is a reference to Cuomo’s concealment of how many of the deaths were in old folks’ homes.

    • Tonio

      Why do they find it necessary to claim the casualties have been “underreported”?

      Why to keep the fear level up, of course.

      Also, basic ass-covering since we’re not to “bring out your dead” levels as they had predicted.

      • creech

        In Penna., the death rate is reported as something like 7.5% of reported cases. In my county, it is over 10%. Naturally, this scares the shit out of people and creates Karens by the basket full. Even with 65% of those deaths occurring in nursing home patients, lots of folks see catching ChiComVirus as more likely to lead to death than other risky activities such as driving on the Schuylkill or Atlantic City Expressways.

  21. Q Continuum

    What is the relative penis size of the various crayons?

    Inquiring minds want to know.

    • Ted S.

      I thought you were into tits, not penises.

      • Jarflax

        Ted, these days you don’t have to choose.

      • Shirley Knott

        Giving a whole new SugarFree take on “why not both?”

  22. Tundra

    Good morning, SP!

    Glad to hear that the people in NY are keeping an important tradition alive.

    Regarding the silly crayon box, I still don’t see my particular Italian/Scot reddish hue. Racist?

    I asked a pontificating neighbor if the suicides were less worthy than dead grannies. That was an error in judgement.

    Fabulous song. I have a love/hate thing with him, but that song falls solidly in the love category.

    Make it a great day, people. I’m gonna go see my gramps and then grill about 7 lbs of jerk wings.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Please expound on your pontificating neighbor.

      I love a good fuckup story.

  23. Q Continuum

    “Tofu never caused a pandemic”

    Well neither did normal meats normal people eat.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      +1 Bryan Adams.

    • mexican sharpshooter

      H1N1 Swine Flu was something we contracted from pigs, which are as tasty as they are common.

      But I’ll concede H1N1 didn’t kill enough people for the world to go full retard.

      • Q Continuum

        I would think that the events of the past 6 months would make that decision rather trivial. But then again, I’m not a Commie apologist.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        If the EU is retarded enough to side with commie China, then they’ll have to lie in that bed.

        Honestly, there’s no more excuse for this kinda of shitty rhetoric.

        China is a paper tiger.

    • Q Continuum

      “Unlike his predecessors, he does not try to exercise global influence by asserting control over international agencies”

      Translation: He doesn’t play balls-on-chin with corrupt transnational cabals that operate at cross-purposes to Western governance and are dedicated to erosion of national sovereignty.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        “The EU’s natural desire to be tougher on China has been held back by revulsion at Trump’s methods and a fear that if Europe jettisoned China altogether, its chief partner would have to be Trump.”

        Maybe the smart and sophisticated Europeans put on their big boy bibs and maybe look, you know, beyond Trump?

        If they base their perceptions and decisions on Trump that’s short sighted stupidity.

        China is asshole. That would be my speech to the ‘Peans.

        What’s also too bad is how Europeans can’t seem to extricate themselves from this ‘China is bad but America is bad too!’ calculus. Of the two, who is more trustworthy and a historic ally? Which of the two have trade been key? Which of the two protected Western civilization during the Cold War and beyond?

        I can’t believe Europeans wouldn’t close ranks with the USA. It’s bizarre.

        If the EU can’t see China is a singular problem this is disappointing. USA isn’t interested in making them client states. China is interested in dominance. Until the commies die off, China must be treated like the Soviets.

      • Overt

        “Until the commies die off, China must be treated like the Soviets.”

        Perhaps you don’t remember all the assholery and hand wringing of Europe during the cold war? They hated the fact that the US was their shield and made us suffer for the privilege constantly.

        One of two things is happening here. 1) Enough of the leaders in Europe have been compromised by the Chinese that they truly are choosing china over the US, 2) This is standard Europe trying to have it both ways- relying on sugar daddy US to pay the bills while they sleep around with every boy on the block.

      • Rhywun

        he does not try to exercise global influence by asserting control over international agencies

        That’s China’s job now.

    • egould310

      Oh jeepers! I hope Australia chooses wisely. Should they go with the Western liberal democratic republic? Or should they go with the fascist authoritarian communist Chinese regime?

      One of these systems has a future. Choose wisely, Australia.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Judging by how New Zealand has acted in recent years, they may make the wrong choice. China would swallow them whole as if they never existed.

        I can’t believe this is even a debate with these countries. Blows my mind. What the fuck did the USA did to them? Fuck their wives?

  24. The Late P Brooks

    “This helps to set realistic expectations on how the pandemic will affect people’s lives and to inform required changes in behavior to prevent the spread of the virus,” he added.

    The panic-mongering must continue until my lust for attention has been sated. Bow down, or face my wrath.

  25. The Late P Brooks

    I’m gonna go see my gramps and then grill about 7 lbs of jerk wings.

    Do you catch the jerks in a net in order to pull their wings off?

    • Tundra

      They are wily, but I know all their tricks.

    • Q Continuum

      Q: What’s the difference between having sex with Demi Rose and a couch cushion?

      A: Demi Rose self-lubricates.

      • PieInTheSky

        A: Demi Rose self-lubricates.- I would not be so sure of that

  26. The Late P Brooks

    “The government has one mission; academics and scholars have a very different mission,” Dr. Dean Hart, an expert on viral transmission and former Columbia University professor who has run for the New York State Assembly as a Democrat, told NBC News.

    “As a scientist, I’m looking for the truth, the heck with who it hurts politically,” he added.

    So precious.

  27. westernsloper

    …countless people were calling in to order as many as 10 of the company’s five-pound bags of flour at once. Who would need that much flour in their homes?

    That is a lot of flour, but I guess if all you eat is bread it makes the toilet paper you are hoarding last longer.

    • Toxteth O’Grady

      What’s with all the baking? You can still buy bread, including artisanal.

      • Gender Traitor

        That reminds me – I think it’s time for some of this toast.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        Two loaves in one bag? Mind blown. Reminds me of Mitch’s many baked-goods jokes.

        “Pepperidge Farm bread. That’s fancy bread. You can tell it’s fancy because it’s wrapped twice. You open it, and it still isn’t open. That’s why I don’t buy it. I don’t need another step between me and toast.”

      • Ownbestenemy

        People panicked, some induced by the virus, media, friends, and governments; others a little bit of game theory:

        I am reasonable and composed, however, with all these others panic buying I need to buy those goods also so I have some too.

        Multiply that over and over and you get what we got in terms of our grocery supply.

        Wrap all that up with 10001 youtube cooking shows/baking shows and the “I will just watch a video” culture of doing

  28. PieInTheSky

    So after a long drought here, the government declared some agricultural areas blighted so the farms can ask for central government money. Some Romanian counties already reported 20% more blighted land than existing agricultural land

    • Jarflax

      Unintended consequences are so predictable.

  29. robc

    Home grain mill? Yes. Cheaper to buy the big bags of malt and mill it yourself for homebrew.

  30. PieInTheSky

    Was this covered?

    President Trump has upended four decades of successful U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, Hal Brands, Steven A. Cook, and Kenneth M. Pollack write. From our Spring 2020 Issue:

    https://twitter.com/ForeignPolicy/status/1264239755086254082

    • leon

      “upended four decades of successful U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East”

      These people can be ignored

    • Q Continuum

      “successful U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East”

      I suppose if you consider pointless war with no clear goal and no end in sight “successful” then I guess he’s right.

      • Rhywun

        “successful U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East”

        I needed a good laugh this morning.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        If that was success God help us all.

    • juris imprudent

      Hahahaha, Hal Brands, who just recently wrote we should may need to get back into the Mossadegh/Allende mode of regime change as part of great power competition with China.

      • Jarflax

        *perks up at the thought of more Pinochets

      • juris imprudent

        Chickens home to roost in Chile these past few months.

      • Jarflax

        Not the ones that got helicopter rides. Pinochet 2 Huey Boogaloo

    • Tejicano

      So they are saying that US middle east policy has been successful since 1980. I would be very interested to hear how they describe “successful”. Maybe they mean the US has been successful in pissing off, at one time or another, every major (and a bunch of minor) player in the region at one time or another?

      • westernsloper

        Lots of money spent on armament + the evolution of the “contractor” sector of war zone corporations + more long term destabilization = Success!

    • Rufus the Monocled

      FP has gone full ‘tard in the last few years.

      It wasn’t so in the 90s and 00s. But these days? Oof.

    • Drake

      1840 to 1880?

    • Viking1865

      Hal Brands is an American historian. He is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute

      Steven A. Cook is the Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations

      Kenneth Michael Pollack is an American former CIA intelligence analyst and expert on Middle East politics and military affairs

      __________________________________

      These people are on the same level as defense contractors. They require perpetual war, perpetual playing of The Great Game, because the market for their skills is completely dependent on government needing to spend money on analysis and symposiums and conferences and research grants on all the various hot spots of the world.

    • Sensei

      These people are beyond parody.

    • Fatty Bolger

      I’d hate to see what failed policy would look like.

    • Overt

      The Ukraine and the Middle East are both examples of regions in the world that the US should give exactly ZERO shits about. Unfortunately, you cannot tell that to the Intelligence Desks, Analyst Departments, and News Desks that have been built around these regions over the past years. You cannot tell that to business people who have gotten a couple billion dollars each year from government aide and projects, who then go on to fund charities and think tanks and hire relatives of politicians.

      Seriously, The Atlantic Council was originally skeptical of intervention in Ukraine- always highlighting the corruption in the country as major problems. But then the US searched through its couch cushions and found a couple billion to send its way. Well that aid needed to be distributed to someone. And that requires opinions and analysts and diplomats and attaches. And these people then go to Think Tanks, like the Atlantic Council, which now is terribly worried that the US will disengage with the reason. The same is the case in Syria. We were paying military contractors and war material in the north to defend the Kurds up there. You know the Kurds? We have spend decades defending their no-fly zone from Saddam and the like. We sent ataches and analysts and setup desks at the CIA to write very serious policy papers. And then Trump decides to leave them to their own devices? No WAY!

      Even if you give the benefit of the doubt to these agencies. Imagine an analyst who went to school to learn Ukrainian or Kurdish or whatever. He has worked for years, developing contacts and info about the region. He has built up a small team inside the State Department, analyzing every bit of news that comes out of the region. He has written important memos that have been used to brief the president on trips to the region. When he retires from this gig, some international think tank that wants to start opining on the region has talked about making him a Fellow there. Do you think that analyst will ever say “You know what, this place is important, but it is not our priority right now. The country has more important stuff to work on, so please don’t give my department another $5 Million next year.” Do you really think that will happen?

      • westernsloper

        The same is the case in Syria. We were paying military contractors and war material in the north to defend the Kurds up there. You know the Kurds? We have spend decades defending their no-fly zone from Saddam and the like.

        The no fly zone was not in Syria, and I would argue the Syrian Kurds are a bit different than the Iraqi Kurds. One is more commi than the other at least from my experience. Not that I have been to Syria.

      • Overt

        I didn’t say we had a no fly zone in Syria. We did provide protection for the Kurdish-held oil fields there. While Syrian Kurds are a different population, it is like saying that New Yorkers are different than Texans. The fact is that the US is heavily invested in that entire blob of an area. There are entire desks of people who have gone native, and want to make sure that the US forever defends the Kurds from the numerous assholes that they keep pissing off- from Iran to Syria to Turkey to Iraq.

      • westernsloper

        I don’t know, but I think your comparisons are off a bit, and I may have had one too many trailer park mimosas to discuss the topic. I learned the other night that there are entire desks of people dedicated to figuring out why there are so many Harley Davidson’s bought from war zones. My thought was we have entirely too many entire desks of people figuring out shit that does not matter, but then again I collect a paycheck from an entity I do not think should exist but I am a lazy sell out pos. I spent years going back and forth, here and there and elsewhere from Iraqi Kurdistan and made many friends. They were/are not communists. If a person thinks a genocide is not something that should happen the Kurdish people might be a place to keep an eye on. Is it another nations responsibility to stop such things? By forcibly taking money from its citizens? I don’t know. I do know we spend a lot of money on far more worthless endeavors.

      • Mojeaux

        I am a lazy sell out pos

        *confused*

        Aren’t we all?

      • westernsloper

        I wasn’t always. But I reached a point I really needed a paycheck and my sole efforts couldn’t produce one so I went with who would pay me. I guess I am one of those principals over principles people we bitch about.

      • Mojeaux

        Survival, man. I know what that’s like.

        I’ve fired clients before when I really really really needed the money. I don’t regret it, but I do think twice and thrice before doing so.

        I just had a client I should’ve fired. I didn’t. I have a client I should fire. I won’t.

        In the end, I will have the benefit of having helped support my family and in a year I won’t remember how awful that client was.

      • Overt

        “My thought was we have entirely too many entire desks of people figuring out shit that does not matter,”

        Yes, there we are in whole-hearted, agreement (strangely enough, I am two bottles into a real mimosa). I have found that every region of the world is “complicated”. Which is why we have desks of people explaining to us it is complicated, and nuanced, and so we just need to spend a few million more to make sure the experts keep it from getting out of control.

        I am happy to admit that I couldn’t tell a Turk from a Kurdish Commie from a Kurdish Iraqi. I am sure they are very different. I also don’t think the distinctions matter in that region, any more than the distinctions between a Texan and a Bostonian.

        Number 6,000 on the virtues of the free market is Creative Destruction. You spend your life being the best damn buggy whip craftsman, or flip phone maker, or mail logistics manager and then one day, BAMN. You are obsolete. You might argue left and right that there is still a place for buggy whips, but the market doesn’t care and you need to move on. But no creative destruction in the government…just a ratchet. The middle east and the Ukraine are fucking irrelevant to the United States. Pretty much everything we need to worry about right now is south of the border, or west of the pacific (obvious exceptions like the UK notwithstanding). The only reason why any of these continue to be in the news is that the people driving policy and news stories are precisely the buggy whip craftsmen that should be out looking for work.

      • westernsloper

        (strangely enough, I am two bottles into a real mimosa)

        ?

        We shall agree to agree.

  31. westernsloper

    I would imagine a Chinese Bat Soup recipe would have tofu as an ingredient, so how do we know it wasn’t the tofu and not the bat that caused the pandemic?

  32. The Late P Brooks

    Whaddaya know?

    During the 2016 election and for the first two years of President Trump’s term, sighed Barr, “the law-enforcement and intelligence apparatus of this country were involved in advancing a false and utterly baseless Russian-collusion narrative against the president.” They abused investigative and prosecutorial standards “to reach a particular result.”

    Indeed, it was a cynical bid to defeat Trump in 2016 and then to boot him out of office, or at least seriously undermine his presidency — all based on the fake charge, ironically, that it was Trump who tilted the election by colluding with Russia.

    ——-

    The farce continued for years under special counsel Robert Mueller. His team blackmailed Flynn into pleading guilty to lying to the FBI with threats to prosecute his son. Insiders leaked juicy tidbits to virulently anti-Trump media to stoke false notions of a Trump-Russia conspiracy — even though the FBI had nothing.

    Trump foes like Rep. Adam Schiff and ex-intel honchos James Clapper and John Brennan fueled the hysteria: Even last year, Schiff insisted he’d seen “ample evidence of collusion.” Yet, as Barr noted, there was never any basis to the narrative.

    The witch hunt upended the lives of innocents (Flynn and even private citizens), while fueling endless slurs against Trump, distracting him from real work. The abuses tarnished the reputations of the FBI and US intel agencies, while stoking political polarization and feeding public distrust of political leaders and institutions.

    Those behind it should pay a steep price.

    Barr blasts “attempts to use the criminal-justice system as a political weapon” and vows to block them “as long as I am attorney general.” Good. Real crimes should be prosecuted, but political abuse must be punished politically. It’s the only way to restore trust in government.

    It’s really a shame the way some people are willing to promote baseless falsehoods against an American President. Shameless, it is. Why would they cast aspersions on Obama that way?

    • cyto

      You’ve been watching Rachel Maddow, huh?

      (she had Schiff on the other day. The entire content was “these evil republicans are just throwing poop everywhere to avoid talking about their failure in Covid-19”.

      Never even an attempt to question Schiff’s actions.

      So… I used to have a question about people in the press like Maddow. Is she just guilty of motivated reasoning? You know, a true believer who is convinced that her team is right and Trump is just the most evil, terrible thing ever…. which explains how she held tight to the Russia narrative that nobody of her intelligence should have bought in the first place (see a plethora of Cyto posts starting in early 2017 that explain how the FBI narrative made no sense). OR was she simply an apparatchik, willingly doing the bidding of the party and pressing the narrative despite knowing that it was full of crap the entire time.

      Well, that’s gone. There can be no question of these people in the press simply being dupes of the DNC machine. They clearly are participating in perpetuating and defending the big lie. Putting Schiff on to attack Trump and Barr and completely avoiding the question of “you knew you were lying about Trump for at least 2 years – and you even pushed for impeachment based on what you knew to be a lie” isn’t just a biased media choice. It is outing yourself as a party operative.

      How these media companies avoid being counted as campaign contributions at this point is beyond me. People actually get charged with crimes for undercharging for printing signs for their political buddies (and not reporting it as a contribution). How is NBC pushing a lie like that across multiple properties for years not at some point a campaign contribution?

      • Q Continuum

        “was she simply an apparatchik, willingly doing the bidding of the party and pressing the narrative despite knowing that it was full of crap the entire time”

        ding ding ding ding ding ding ding!

      • Drake

        Of course she does. And do you think Rush and Sean Hannity aren’t secretly thrilled when Democrats win and / or do crazy malicious shit? It gives them material to rant about and drives their rating through the roof.

      • cyto

        That was the crux of the question….

        Cheerleader who is biased, or active participant knowingly spreading disinformation.

        Limbaugh has always been pretty explicit about what he is – an entertainer who uses politics to get an audience and make money. He has a point of view, a bias, an ideology… all of which are secondary to keeping and selling an audience.

        Hannity is a disciple of this model, coming out of talk radio in Atlanta.

        In the last 10-20 years, they have become more and more tied to the Republican establishment as the politicians realized their value.

        Meanwhile, Maddow is not the product of growing an audience in order to turn a profit. She is a product of Air America, an entirely political operation funded not for the purpose of making money, but for the purpose of spreading competing ideology to combat Rush Limbaugh and AM talk radio in general.

        MSNBC, likewise, was not conceived as a purely money-making entertainment exercise. It was designed to be an ideological counterweight to Fox News – spreading propaganda for the progressive movement and the DNC, but more specifically to push against Fox and attempt to replicate the Fox model (as they saw it).

        So it seems to result in different outcomes. Rush makes more money when Democrats are in charge and over-reaching. CNN and MSNBC have something similar at work, but the entirety of the left-media is in the same boat – you have CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, NPR, NYT, LAT, WaPo, HuffPo, BosHer, etc. on the same team – so the “we are the opposition” vibe is spread much thinner.

        This seems to me to be much more than team-cheering. If you knew that Bush was lying about weapons of mass destruction – as in you knew that he was intentionally making stuff up out of whole cloth – and you helped spread what you knew to be a lie…. that would be more than cheerleading. You’d be a co-conspirator.

        I’m contending that Maddow is not cheerleading – she’s a co-conspirator, and probably always has been, given her origin story and intelligence combined with lack of entertainment skills.

    • R C Dean

      “Real crimes should be prosecuted, but political abuse must be punished politically.”

      And there you have it . Nobody who matters will be prosecuted.

      • leon

        Yup. I like how the “only way to restore faith in government” is to allow politicians to act with impunity with regards to the laws. Seems pretty self serving. “Crimes must be punsihed, but if you are a politican, it isn’t crime, its just politics and you should be allowed go free.”

        This is why we get Presidents who say they can Drone Strike Citizens and no one even bats an eye or says “hey, maybe he should be imprisioned for high crimes against the people of the United States”.

      • cyto

        You haven’t been paying attention. Trump and Barr are destroying the rule of law by dropping the prosecution of a guy who was entirely targeted for political reasons by the prior administration and railroaded on trumped up and unsupportable charges. Duh….

    • cyto

      How does that video happen?

      What I mean is, exactly why would you say “I’m going to film my self eating a bowl of ramen while sitting atop a yoga ball….. wearing a bathrobe!”

      I kinda get making a clip of eating the noodles on a ball… and I kinda understand posting a video of it going horribly wrong…..

      But in a bathrobe? Whut?

      • PieInTheSky

        Are you relatively new to the internet?

      • Ownbestenemy

        The question is today’s age: why not in a bathrobe?

    • Mojeaux

      LOL

    • cyto

      I was going to reply with something along the lines of “women are crazy”…. then I realized that men are just as crazy, if in a different way.

      • egould310

        We’re all nuts so who helps who
        Some help when no one’s got a clue

        Baby, why don’t we?
        Baby, why don’t we?

        There’s a place I’d like to go
        When you get there then I’ll know
        There’s a place I know you’ve been
        Here’s a wagon, get on it

        Baby, why don’t we?
        Baby, why don’t we?
        Baby, why don’t we?
        Baby, why don’t we? Why don’t we?

        You won’t see me, You won’t see me
        There you are and here I stand
        Tryin’ to make you feel my hand
        You won’t see me, You won’t see me
        I ring the doorbell in your mind
        But it’s locked from the outside
        You won’t see me, You won’t see me
        You don’t live there anyway
        But I knock on it all day
        You won’t see me, You won’t see me

        https://youtu.be/OKNzVsv-K38

    • westernsloper

      Goddess Knox goes on to brand the viewer “stupid”, “careless” and “selfish”.

      *rolls eyes* Like I have never heard that before.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      It depends…maybe if you work in The Vatican.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Thats just attention whoring

      • Q Continuum

        My rule: if we see uncovered areola or any uncovered clitoral hood/labia. Anything beyond that is fair game.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        A bit of an ice queen look but I like it.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        On second thought, y’all don’t click on that if you’re at work, could be NSFW even though it’s pretty tame.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Borderline but depends on the workplace.

      Really no different than some of the ads that make its way onto web pages though.

      Ruling: tasteful and the right amount of suggestive sexual content for middleaged blue collar workers wishing they were coming home to that.

    • R C Dean

      In my workplace, absolutely.

      If it’s on the screen when your boss walks in and you wish it wasn’t, it’s NSFW.

      • Sensei

        Correct!

      • Suthenboy

        So you keep Glibs minimized?

    • mexican sharpshooter

      Realistically? Only if you work from home.

    • whiz

      That looks plain Not Safe.

    • Fourscore

      Get rid of the gun and you’ll be OK

  33. Mojeaux

    I baked. Choco chip cookies.

    • kinnath

      twice?

      • Mojeaux

        Indeed!

    • Toxteth O’Grady

      Can? sure. Should? doubtful.

    • R C Dean

      I get it, to a point. There’s a zillion liqueurs I’ll never get in spite of their use in interesting cocktails.

      But no shaker? C’mon, man.

      And simple syrup is stupid easy to make. I don’t use it, but that’s because I prefer agave nectar or maple syrup in the cocktails that call for it.

      • egould310

        Maple syrup is way better than simple syrup. Easier too.

  34. Mojeaux

    I don’t see glow-in-the-dark in that Crayon box.

    • Toxteth O’Grady

      Skim-milk bluish white?

      • Mojeaux

        That might be light enough.

        After one particularly bad sunburn, my legs were purple for years, like a very faint all-over bruise.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Lizard people also left out.

    • whiz

      Albinos have a sad.

  35. PieInTheSky

    Conditionability of ‘voluntary’ and ‘reflexive-like’ behaviors, with special reference to elimination behavior in cattle

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763420304097

    Indiscriminate excretion by cattle is a source of environmental pollution.

    No successful toilet training in cattle yet.

    Various brain centres, the ANS and the SNS are involved in the control of elimination.

    Toilet training of cattle should be possible using operant conditioning techniques.

    • Suthenboy

      How much are they getting in the grant? That study sounds like a money tree. “We just need one more run at it! We mean that this time!”

      Cattle are like birds. They shit automatically, they don’t think about it. I think the claim that they have the wiring for it is bogus.

      • Jarflax

        Most studies are bullshit, which makes this meta as hell.

    • westernsloper

      *deletes nut milk joke*

    • Trigger Hippie

      Them not knowing that JOI is an acronym for Jerk Off Instruction is the uh, icing on the nut.

    • Suthenboy

      Does it come in a 55 gallon drum?

      • Shirley Knott

        Only particularly horny whales can do that.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Eye of the beholder, to each their own, etc, etc…

    • Gender Traitor

      There’s something to this, at least from this straight chick’s POV. Bulked up muscles actually do nothing for me. I’m much more focused on personality – intelligence & sense of humor are hawt. For physical characteristics, faces, if anything, matter more than torsos.

      • Ownbestenemy

        My wife is like that but faces is replaced with broad shoulders.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        Oh yes, can attest. Muscularity in excess connotes vanity, and who wants to be a gym widow to a roid case? Or crushed like a bug.

      • Mojeaux

        It should be proportionate and appropriate for his job. IOW if he’s getting paid to be like that, it’s fair.

      • R C Dean

        Well-dressed seems a consistent refrain.

      • R C Dean

        Oops, meant for next Mojeaux comment.

      • Mojeaux

        Yes, and I have made that point before. A guy in a well-fitting suit will catch my eye before a guy in khakis and a polo, but as long as I can tell he’s put together in some “style,” I’ll allow it.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        +1 ZZ Top

    • Chafed

      I’ll bet Q has some thoughts.

    • Mojeaux

      I could not, for the life of me, tell you what I find attractive in a man. My eye gets caught. Some of them are not attractive conventionally. Race, height, face, weight– Doesn’t matter. If they can back up catching my eye with something interesting, so much the better.

    • Tres Cool

      “If the women dont find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.”

      -Red Green

      • Fatty Bolger

        +1 duct tape

      • whiz

        We’re all in this together.

    • Viking1865

      The methodology is kinda wack IMO, because they used these goofy computer models. Using pictures of real people at various weights would have been a better methodology, IMO. Those computer models are pretty nonsense. The male with 22 BF% and 30 BMI has no gut, hes got broad shoulders. He doesn’t look fat, he looks like a lumberjack. Most dudes rocking those stats have a belly, they have a double chin.

      Christian Bale, for example, has run the gamut in his career. He obviously looks best as Bateman or Batman. Even the scarily unhealth low weight he dropped to the Machinist looks better than him sweating with his gut spilling out over his waistband in American Hustle.

      It’s really really fucking hard for a guy to get too big and too lean for most women. You have to actually be on gear for the typical dude to get into freaky gross territory. If you lift heavy 12 hours a week and keep your diet fantastically clean, you’re about 2 years away from looking like Captain America, but you’ll never get to Ronnie Coleman without chemical assistance.

    • AlmightyJB

      Wasn’t really a noticable differece

  36. PieInTheSky

    So my mother’s friend’s husband is stuck in a hotel in Saudi Arabia and this is the order menu they gave him

    Do I have any Arabic speaking followers that can help make sense of this but also, tag yourself, I’m “Normal doubt”

    https://twitter.com/vladadraws/status/1264355635434418177

      • Trigger Hippie

        My loop is also in Cornflex.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        Heep sheep

        (Why am I sitting here annoying you lot rather than Doing Something?)

      • Mojeaux

        Admirable work avoidance.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I’ll take some eggs fried with a side of tomato meat.

    • Fatty Bolger

      What’s in the foul white jar? Is it tofu?

    • westernsloper

      Always go with the hummus, meat and cheese plates in such places.

    • Toxteth O’Grady

      Vegans can order “she is suspicious of cheese”.

      What I can make out of that menu is making me hungry. I am mentally circling some items.

      • Suthenboy

        I joked with wife about translations and read some of those to her. She says that baba ghanoush means “Papa’s favorite”. It happens to be mine as well.

    • R C Dean

      That’s hilarious. Hard to pick a fave, but “luxury sofa” might be it. Or “fool industrial”.

  37. Suthenboy

    Re: Pie – I don’t know if you are asking in the right place. Many trees with the same names are quite different from Europe and America. I don’t think our experience with Sycamore or maple willl be the same as yours.

    This guy has experience with both and somewhere on his channel he discusses the differences extensively: Gah! What is it with youtube’s series of tubes that it sometimes will only load a blank page for me? I can’t load and get the link. Search for Paul Sellers woodworking channel. He. knows more about the workability/durability of different species and the differences between the American and European species than anyone I have heard before.

    • PieInTheSky

      I don’t know if you are asking in the right place – well you ask where you can not where you should…

      I don’t know if you are asking in the right place – I will thanks.

      Now I have to think about plywood… the whole wood thing was also psychological I like the idea for a bar to be made of actual wood.

      • Suthenboy

        Agreed on the bar. Granite and glass always end up with an unsightly crack or broken off corner. I also prefer the feel and look of wood. Wood is much warmer. wood absorbs some sound so it helps create a relaxing environment.

      • Suthenboy

        I also prefer solid wood over veneers but I have made some fantastic book shelves, desks, hall tree by digging through the plywood sheets at the store and choosing for wood grain patterns.

  38. whiz

    A couple of the better comments to the PETA story:

    Most ecoli outbreaks are coming from lettuce.

    Unlike LGBTQs, guns have never spread AIDS before.

    • Suthenboy

      That is some decent trolling.
      These days my comments on the subjects amount to “Go away and leave me alone.”

      • Fourscore

        “All we ask is to be let alone”

        You know that quote, would be on my tombstone if I was gonna be burie

  39. AlmightyJB

    Will YouPorn be searchable by all of the crayola skin tone colors?

  40. Incentives Matter

    Hey SP!

    Since we Canadians are all impoverished ‘n stuff, we can’t afford none of those fancy-shmancy flour mills that are made out of wood and lacquered up like some two-bit whore and go for a cool thousand U.S. bills. Instead, we have a nice lady named Barb here in Edmonton who owns the local specialty-food-‘n-gadgets store sometimes called the Bosch Kitchen Centre, and she carries two food mills (one of which a female friend of mine owns) that get great reviews for a modest price, the NutrMill Flour Mill by L’Equip, and the WonderMill.

    Neither of these will bankrupt you, and the NutriMill in particular can do all kinds of grinds.

    https://nutrimill.com/
    https://www.thewondermill.com/

    Hope this helps.

    • AlmightyJB

      Grindstones are a really good leg workout for the orphans.

  41. kinnath
    • westernsloper

      Right now, he said, people are focusing on the logistics of surviving each day, such as how to buy groceries safely.

      JFC people are dumb as dog shit. Those of us who avoid people as much as possible in normal times win this round.

  42. Toxteth O’Grady

    Speaking of moments of silence, how are Banjos and Sloopy holding up?

  43. Mojeaux

    Disconnected thoughts ahoy:

    Anybody who prioritizes “being safe” and “social distancing” and screaming at people for going out at all are, IMO, “the elite” regardless of their income status. I have 3 people on FB who are poor as church mice, but they are old and retired who are screaming at people that they’re evil if they go out, or at least, go out without masks. They have no idea what is happening to people down the financial food chain. If they did know, I’m not sure they’d care. No, I take that back. I think the regular old Karens might care if they were shown explicitly what is happening and they started to understand, but they would argue with themselves which was worse: millions of people suffering and children going without proper medical care (my particular point of rage) or old people dying.

    The underlying cause of the reaction is the fear of death and the seeming disconnect people have between the reality of being really really really old and…dying. People who are really really really old…die. It’s almost like they truly believe that if you wish it hard enough, they will live forever. Never mind maybe those really really really old people don’t WANT to live in misery. They hang onto people because they don’t want to let them go, not because the dying want to live.

    I do actually believe that the happenstance of putting all those sick people in nursing homes, which is killing off the old people exponentially, will be very happily used in preparation for socialized medicine. Do I think they did it on purpose? No, because I think it took everybody by such surprise they didn’t know what to do, but realized it soon enough to CONTINUE to do it.

    Lastly, I am sick of the language of “economic damage the pandemic has done”. No, the “pandemic” didn’t do it. The reaction of “the elites” did it. “The officer’s gun discharged.” “The family was run over by the SUV.” “See what you made me do to you!” Passive voice is the gold standard of propaganda.

    • whiz

      Passive voice is the gold standard of propaganda.

      That one’s going into my quote bank.

      • Mojeaux

        Aw, thanks!

    • Overt

      I just had one of the most frustrating weekends of my life because of this nonsense. It started with a weekend zoom meet up with some old friends. One was a big Trump head back in ’06, and was always ragging on me for being a libertarian and helping get Hillary arrested. But he also has diabetes, and is crazy about people going outside. Our meet up had all of our other liberal california friends, who just kept piling on with the not-science “SCIENCE” about the whole thing. It is amazing how they take a small, perhaps legitimate point like, “If you are sick, wearing a mask can help reduce spread” and just use that valid point to justify “EVERYONE SHOULD WEAR MASKS OUTSIDE ON THE TRAIL WHEN WALKING IN THE MOUNTAINS RHEEEE!!!” And that is science, you see?

      Minutes later, one of those friends was complaining about the lack of social distancing when she went to the local butcher to pick up aged prime steaks or what the fuck ever. Yeah, those horrible people weren’t social distancing? How terrible! You went right home, then right? No? You still stayed and got your steak while judging them? Wow, how irresponsible of you to participate in such disobedience! (These were the things I thought while nodding and smiling and sipping my wine.) It is like these people don’t even understand that they are making these little risk/reward decisions all day, and it would be fine if they didn’t cloud it with their judginess as well.

      Later, I was outside when I saw my neighbors, and I called out “Hey! Restaurants are opening this week. You gonna try one out?!” At which point I got an earful about how evil I am for engaging in exactly the commerce that our health experts have authorized. And yet she happily thinks she is being the “smart” one as she denies what our Top Men have said and shelters in her 4 bedroom house with takeout delivered daily.

      I just can’t even talk to people any more without a pulsing rage headache passing through. When I was much younger, political fights ruined two great friendships I had, so I have generally tried to keep politics away from friendly conversation. But as every single action you perform becomes laced with political meaning, these days, the stress of just trying to get along has me about to break.

      • Mojeaux

        But as every single action you perform becomes laced with political meaning, these days, the stress of just trying to get along has me about to break.

        A-fucking-men.

  44. DEG

    However, it is in rural NY, in a village where the Volunteer Fire Department Ladies’ Auxiliary is better armed than the New York State police barracks up the road. Guess what? I’ve been reliably informed that the ceremony is going ahead exactly as usual.

    Fuck off, Cuomo.

    Excellent. As it should be.