Sunday Morning Very Serious Links

by | Aug 2, 2020 | Daily Links | 364 comments

Some of you have been treating Links like they’re your personal little joke parlor. Stories of death, danger, and destruction, and all you can do is make fun. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

But some people, despite the shame, managed to be born on August 2nd, and that list would include a guy whose vision turned a swamp into a Swamp; a guy whose name still makes me flinch from unhappy memories; New York’s favorite decorator; one of the (((brothers))); one half of the most legendary detective team; another shithead who was a pretty fine actor; the guy responsible for some of the finest music from the 1960s; Paul Ryan’s spirit animal; someone who badly wanted to be Judy Holliday; and another asshole who was a terrific filmmaker.

And with that, the news. Which I expect all of you to treat with the seriousness and gravity that it deserves.

 

SugarFree’s spirit animal has passed to a different plane of existence.

 

This is not what we mean by gun control.

 

I love the idea of buying votes with the money extracted from us by force.

 

I just want my popcorn.

 

NFL gives another “fuck you” to their fan base. Which no longer includes SP and me.

 

“What, this is a problem?”

 

Pro-talismask congressman gets the vid. But that’s totally different than the anti-talismask congressmen getting the vid.

 

Old Guy Music is an old guy, making a few bucks at a restaurant. I’d have slipped him a twenty.

About The Author

Old Man With Candy

Old Man With Candy

Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me. Wait, wrong book, I'll find something else.

364 Comments

  1. Yusef drives a Kia

    I start my Census job this morning, no joke,
    First!

    • UnCivilServant

      Watch out for cannibals.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      and no more Dia beetus!

    • Sean

      Good luck and here’s hoping you end up with a dear penthouse letter.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Heh

  2. Count Potato

    “another asshole who was a terrific filmmaker”

    I don’t think he’s that much of an asshole or all that terrific.

    • Old Man With Candy

      I have a different dogma.

      • Count Potato

        Clerks and Chasing Amy were great, but plenty of his movies were meh. Jay and Silent Bob Reboot and Yoga Hosers were just awful.

      • Sean

        The original Jay and Silent Bob was excellent. I haven’t watched the reboot yet.

      • Professional Beach Bum

        Red State was good…

      • Count Potato

        It was, but it’s very different from his other movies.

      • Professional Beach Bum

        True

    • UnCivilServant

      I was expecting George Eastman, but his Birthday was in July.

  3. Count Potato

    “The NFAC, which is short for “Not F——- Around Coalition,” was marching in military-style fatigues and carrying semi-automatic weapons in order to call attention to the fatal police shooting of Taylor in March. Johnson said about 2,500 armed and 300 unarmed militia members took part in the march.”

    They also hate jews.

    • Ted S.

      Who doesn’t?

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        me

    • Don did not Escape Spring Training

      Three members of an armed militia were shot in an apparent accident at a protest calling for justice for Breonna Taylor in Louisville on Saturday afternoon.

      Armed are exactly my favorite sort of militia.

    • mexican sharpshooter

      marching in military-style fatigues and carrying semi-automatic weapons

      People with guns and scary pants!

  4. Q Continuum

    “prohibits players from attending[…]indoor parties that include 15 or more people”

    I guess the players will have to have their orgies outside.

    • Rhywun

      I keep seeing chyrons of this and that player “opting out” of this season. I assume that means they are “opting out” of a paycheck…?

      • Q Continuum

        Sure they are. Just like the teachers who refuse to go to work are opting out of getting paid too.

        /sarc

      • Don did not Escape Spring Training

        largely

        In baseball, there’s some minimal provision, $100k or so, but no one’s getting his $15M package to sit on a chaise in Cabo.

      • Rhywun

        FWIW, I didn’t see any for baseball players – just NFL.

      • mrfamous

        Yes they are

  5. Yusef drives a Kia

    I’m not white listing some shitty little site from Alabama,

  6. Count Potato

    “If players do violate the rules, NBC Sports speculates that teams may “rely on contacts within the community to contact the team if/when violations are witnessed,” or even use a tip line. In other words, members of the community would be encouraged to report players they see trying to attend church. Other ideas suggested by NBC include tracking players or stationing officials at “local establishments,” potentially including players’ houses of worship.”

    That’s not all creepy.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      if only there was a rule. maybe some sort of amendment…….

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Snitches get stitches or they ought to anyway.

    • IntraveneousWoodChipper

      “ That’s not all creepy.”

      IDGAF about football players kneeling and whatnot. But the hypocrisy of the NBA millionaires bleating about racism and oppression when they make billions from Chinese *actual, honest-to-god slave labor camps* has really opened my eyes. Idk if I can continue watching the NBA after all of this. It’s truly disgusting.

  7. Count Potato

    “Grijalva is currently asymptomatic and that “he’s feeling fine and is just getting some rest.””

    So he might not even have it.

    • Sean

      I keep hearing about false positives…

      • cyto

        Down here in SoFla I was just talking with a mom that we haven’t seen in a while. She works with a bunch of doctors in Ft. Lauderdale – apparently there are hundreds who have been quarantined at a hotel near the hospital over the last few months. Anyway, one of them tested positive so a bunch of people needed to get tested, including her. The testing took forever, and a few of them never actually got tested despite being on the list. She knows 3 that did not get tested but got positive results.

        So the weird “internet rumor” has at least one local confirmation here.

    • cyto

      Alternate take… .being asymptomatic, how does he know that it was not he who brought it to the office and infected his republican colleague?

      • mexican sharpshooter

        Because he aLwaYS weArS A mASk, of course.

      • Pi Guy

        And he always wears a mask. So just imagine if he’s masked _and- is the source.

  8. The Late P Brooks

    “We, the NFL…encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest.”

    …and here is our list of approved topics.

    • Festus' Mustache

      …and here is me continuing to ignore the NFL. With Vigor.

  9. Festus' Mustache

    Slip him a few orphans from the patented Van.

      • Festus' Mustache

        That tune was in high rotation here back in the 70’s.

  10. Fourscore

    Good stuff, OM, too bad about Brimley but great old guy music. Chuck Berry and I danced many a tune together and this reminds of the days. Thanks.

    • Old Man With Candy

      It was something I came across accidentally. Which seems to be the main way I find new music these days, by not actually looking for it.

    • Festus' Mustache

      My Dad used to cut a rug to Buddy Holly. It was pretty funny watching that giant of a man gyrate around the floor with mother, who stood 4’11”.

  11. Q Continuum

    It seems as though Newsweek has seen a market opportunity in not being an ultra-Left Commie publication.

    https://www.newsweek.com/mlk-versus-blm-changing-hearts-minds-opinion-1522073

    One of my prog friends (who lives in Portland no less) has been bitching for a long time about the “paradox of tolerance” and “speech is violence” and all the other prog rationalizations for violence. I have told him many times that no only is the violence immoral, it’s also strategically stupid. Take the great mass of apolitical or even prog-by-default people and cancel them/beat them up/burn their shit down. You think they’ll vote for you? Fuck no. They’ll go to the only side that will have them and shows any interest in protecting them and their property; even if that side does have actual Nazis in it (which it almost never does).

    • Rhywun

      The transformation to a color-blind society is thus far incomplete

      Sigh. BLM and their antifa friends explicitly reject such an end. I get where the author is coming from but he can simplify his logic by recognizing the first principle that they have no intention of “making a better society” and proceeding from there.

      • Count Potato

        If BLM is colorblind, Stevie Wonder is a photographer.

      • cyto

        I have heard them angrily berate me and my fellow travelers with the notion that a desire for a colorblind society is racist. So, yeah… drawing MLK into the BLM movement is going to be problematic.

        Oooh! I used “problematic” in a sentence!

    • Tejicano

      Looks like somebody is aware of the brake pedal. I can only hope this is the beginning of common sense from the progs.

      I’m not betting any money on it.

    • cyto

      I am actually stunned by the reality on this.

      In the middle east, this tactic routinely works. Islamist terrorists blow up people at the market. The people get angry at the government for failing to protect them from islamic militants blowing people up. So they support the overthrow of the government and install the Islamic militants as their new dictators.

      It is completely insane, but they do it time and time again. There must be some psychological reason why this works, because it seems to be built in to the human condition. Dictators of all stripes have used rioting youths to usher in broader demands that they be given absolute power.

      • Rhywun

        I absolutely believe that if people don’t put a stop to them, this is going to turn into a political party or at least they will just take over the Democrats and rule that way.

      • kbolino

        Meh, if you believe terrorism is God’s punishment, and people in league with the terrorists tell you it will stop if they can enact God’s reign on Earth, there is a certain logic to it. It helps that it’s usually not the exact same people, the terrorists being at most a loosely connected paramilitary wing of the larger movement. Fascists and Marxists have also both used promises that the violence will end if they win (“Peace, Bread, and Land” quoth V. I. Lenin).

        These groups, once purging the near enemy in their own ranks, then go after the far enemy of anyone in society at large who vocally opposes them. This second step is purposeful, as it cows the resistance of the rest of the people. If the strongest voices opposing these groups are eliminated, then then you as a common person lose the sense of rhetorical cover you had, and if you know how they were eliminated, then you know what awaits you if you speak up (though, you’ll probably be eliminated too anyway in the end).

      • cyto

        Well then…. it is a good thing that these folks have not been eliminating people who are the near opposition. I mean, they have been cancelling….

        Oh, wait.

        Yeah. That’s bad then.

  12. Fourscore

    My non vote is for sale, just getting a rebate on my tax money, although stealing from grand children may not be ethical.

    • Q Continuum

      Cheer up 4×20, it’s not like that money is going to be worth anything once hyperinflation hits anyway!

    • Festus' Mustache

      I live in a place where my vote literally does not matter. I could write in “Fourscore”.

  13. Yusef drives a Kia

    Fine guitar work, Great find OMWC!

  14. The Late P Brooks

    Grijalva wears a mask every day at the Capitol.
    Grijalva also praised House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s mandate requiring all House members and aides to wear masks on the floor “to keep members and staff safe from those looking to score quick political points,” he said. “Stopping the spread of a deadly virus should not be a partisan issue.”

    Superstition harder.

    • Festus' Mustache

      *brain tumoring accelerating*

    • Don did not Escape Spring Training

      What I’m noticing in local social media is that soccer mom is leaning dubious after initially gathering all her chicks under her feathers. A few anecdotes have bombarded her repeatedly:
      a/ their wide experience does not in large align with the focused reporting they have heard for four months.
      b/ almost all the casualties are just the weakest in the herd; no amount of shilling can paper over the piles of fat and old corpses of folks who were generally going to die soon anyway
      c/ facilities in the main are not overwhelmed; it’s serious, we’re redlining from straight to straight, but there are not three cases for every hospital bed
      d/ most people and almost all children are not suffering serious symptoms
      e/ argue 4M all you want, she realizes it’s only 1% of the US are cases worth a trip to the doctor
      f/ her heroes are getting it even though they played by the rulez
      Autumn approaches, and she has moved from defending the cave to, mon Dieu, these kids have got to get out of the house . . . open the damned schools.

      Someone needs to tell OrangeMan to stop his ranging blather and focus for a few months: if he can be the face of our calm exit from this, extolling a calm plan back to productivity, and completely drop any acknowledgment that riots or the CDC even exist, he can drop the nation’s blood pressure. The burbs were learning #Resist because his constant beclowning of himself make him a target; all he needs to do to recover the patience of the middle is to largely shut up, say two adult things, and wait for the panic about the emerging Biden platform and team to start scaring a few people. Myself, I think he’s behind and too stupid to do any of this, and, because he surrounds himself with yes men, there is no one who can save him.

      • Q Continuum

        Asking Trump to stop beclowning himself is like asking the Dems to stop being insane.

      • Don did not Escape Spring Training

        if you eat all your vegetables, you can go to the park for the afternoon

        it’s literally a kindergarten strugglefest

      • kbolino

        Even the fact that he surrounds himself with yes men is something a cunning opponent could take advantage of. In fact, it almost looks like they have. Everybody not fanatically loyal to him turns around and leaks shit to the press, or tries to undercut him, with the quintessential example being Lt. Col. Asshat who provided cover for the impeachment. Whether he richly deserves it or not is immaterial to the fact that he’s the President and most people generally should be supportive even if they don’t like the guy. I mean, one only needs to compare the treatment Obama got vs. Trump to see both bad extremes.

        And so I think you’re right, nobody is taking a page out of Sun Tsu. Everybody in DC is so far gone that there are no adults in the room. Not the moderate Democrats, not the radical Democrats, not the Trump fans, not the NeverTrumpers. Even people in distant orbit around DC (e.g. mainstream libertarians) can’t help but beclown themselves. Neither the Emperor nor any of the courtiers are wearing clothes.

    • Rebel Scum

      “Stopping the spread of a deadly virus should not be a partisan issue.”

      So why are leftists making it one?

    • Sean

      25 is guilty of eyebrow crimes. I’d share my spindle with 40.

  15. Stinky Wizzleteats

    The NFL is just pathetic. Do the Japanese still like their baseball? Where can I watch that I wonder because all the US sports leagues have gone into the ditch.

    • Q Continuum

      NHL, at least for now, seems largely apolitical.

      • Gender Traitor

        #BlackPucksMatter

      • Rufus the Monocled

        For now.

      • Chipping Pioneer
      • Tundra

        Are you joking?

        The last two days I’ve gotten woke stories from the Wild.

        “JT Brown: Why I raised my fist.”

        “Matt Dumba delivers a powerful pregame speech.”

        *retch*

      • Gdragon

        I stopped watching HNIC last night when they began with a Nelson Mandela quote and a BLM montage. I mean, I guess it was the Habs so I may have turned it off anyway 😉

      • Agent Cooper

        Nope. Big BLM presence at last night’s Habs/Pens game. At some point, people will just tune out the message because it’s so authoritarian and pervasive.

      • Broswater

        The girlfriend is a lifetime Habs fan. Big time fan. Like room full of Habs jerseys, brings the kids to a few practices and at least a game once a year, got the app that goes ”Wheeeee!!!” when they score type of fan.

        After yesterday’s BLM performance, she’s done.

    • Roland of Gilead

      Nope. Killer curves.

  16. The Late P Brooks

    Fernando Martinez, a partner of the Olé Restaurant Group, was one of dozens of business owners in the downtown Louisville district who recently received a letter from protesters laying out demands that aim to improve diversity in the area, which is known for its locally-owned shops and restaurants.

    Who doesn’t love mobocracy?

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      It’s classic Sharpton tactics: Threaten, accept payout, fill pockets, move on to the next target. Good on them for standing up.

      • cyto

        I like the inclusion of “diversity training”. One of my favorite versions of laundering payoffs in the guise of purchasing services.

      • cyto

        And I say this as someone who knows one of the “diversity training” crowd.

        She’s an independent contractor with a PhD in relevant “studies” who makes a living designing curricula for various companies, governments and NGOs. She makes a really decent living doing it as well. She’s my go-to for irrational SJW opinions.

        And she is the most openly racist person I have ever met in my life. Even people who I firmly believed had ties with the Klan way back from my youth had the sense to hide their racism in public by the time the 70’s rolled around. But this SJW has no clue just how racist she is – she sees herself as the embodiment of the opposite, in fact. Yet I have been afraid that she was going to get me attacked at a restaurant when she was quite vocal about her disdain for her fellow diners of other races.

    • Rhywun

      the area, which is known for its locally-owned shops and restaurants

      Soon it will be known for boarded-up windows. Congratulations, “protesters”.

      • cyto

        They won’t get it.

        AOC still crows about preventing Amazon from bringing 25,000 high paying jobs to her area… and about how they did actually put 1,700 low paying jobs in the area.

    • Homple

      This is not surprising once you notice that the civil rights movement has long since morphed into a national shakedown racket enforced by every level of government.

    • R C Dean

      What, that the FBI burned so many cycles on this while they seem unable to track down anybody from antifa?

      • Homple

        Probably because antifa is still useful to whoever runs the country. On some future night after antifa has ceased to be useful, the long knives will come out.

      • The Last American Hero

        Antifa doesn’t exist.

        /Progtard

      • IntraveneousWoodChipper

        Riots? What riots?

  17. The Late P Brooks

    The demands and an attached contract, which were created by local organizers and activists, ask NuLu business owners to:

    Adequately represent the Black population of Louisville by having a minimum of 23% Black staff;

    Purchase a minimum of 23% inventory from Black retailers or make a recurring monthly donation of 1.5% of net sales to a local Black nonprofit or organization;

    Require diversity and inclusion training for all staff members on a bi-annual basis;

    And display a visible sign that increases awareness and shows support for the reparations movement.

    Phelix Crittenden, an activist who works with Black Lives Matter Louisville, said the demands and related “NuLu social justice health and wellness ratings” were not meant to be a threat but were instead intended to start a conversation with owners about how their businesses can better reflect and support Black people.

    This country is circling the drain.

    • PieInTheSky

      if you have 1 employee you need 23% black ?

      • Gender Traitor

        If only one, must be at least a quadroon.

      • Ted S.

        I identify as panracial.

      • cyto

        I tried identifying as a hot 19 year old lesbian polyamorist, but none of the other hot, 19 year old lesbian polyamorists were buying it.

    • Rhywun

      Racism is the new hotness.

    • Ted S.

      And display a visible sign that increases awareness and shows support for the reparations movement.

      Václav Havel’s greengrocer would like a word with you.

      • Homple

        Ted S., Good observation. “The Power of the Powerless” is very much worth reading these days.

    • Don did not Escape Spring Training

      Slava Akhmechet @spakhm As an immigrant, the most perplexing thing about the left is that they genuinely in their heart of hearts believe making the system more meritocratic will hurt black Americans, but accuse *other* people of racism.

    • Rebel Scum

      I remember when a wise man said “Judge me not by the content of my character, but by the color of my skin.”

      No, wait. Scratch that. Reverse it.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      “start a conversation with owners about how their businesses can better reflect and support Black people.”

      “Conversation”.

    • Animal

      The demands and an attached contract,

      The proper response to which is “go fuck yourselves.”

  18. Rebel Scum

    The group’s founder, John “Grand Master Jay” Johnson, told ABC News that members of the militia were inspecting firearms prior to the demonstration when a woman’s weapon was accidentally discharged. Johnson referred to the woman as a trainee.

    Usually premature discharge is a male problem.

    • PieInTheSky

      why do you oppose equality?

    • Count Potato

      It’s tricky.

      • Roland of Gilead

        To rock around

      • Rebel Scum

        To rock a rhyme that’s right on time.

      • Roland of Gilead

        Don’t you just hate that feeling when you discover you had the lyrics to a song wrong for decades?

      • Roland of Gilead

        Hangs head in shame

      • Gender Traitor

        Excuse me while I kiss this guy.

      • Q Continuum

        Everybody plays the flute.

      • l0b0t

        Blinded by the light. Revved up like a douche, another runner in the night?

      • l0b0t

        Desperado, why don’t you come to placenta?

      • mindyourbusiness

        Sittin’ on a carton of eggs.

    • Grummun

      inspecting firearms

      “playing with loaded guns”

      Johnson referred to the woman as a trainee.

      Doesn’t seem like she got very good training. Whose responsibility was that?

    • Ted S.

      One of the headlines at the top of that page was about everybody’s favorite white trash royal, Meghan Markle, spending an exorbitant amount of money on… a notebook. I won’t name the company to give them advertising, but a quick search shows there cheapest notebooks are $60 and up. For a bunch of paper?

      • PieInTheSky

        it’s not the paper is the status symbolism

      • Ted S.

        Veblen goods for the win!

      • cyto

        Even better, someone thought that this was worthy of news coverage.

  19. Rebel Scum

    Coronavirus update: Another round of $1,200 checks part of stimulus proposal

    Great, I get my own money back. But how many millions do we have to give to the Kennedy Center this time?

  20. Rebel Scum

    “Ten years ago, I attended a new building opening in my district and spoke to what I think all of us believe in – respect for one another’s views, to treat all people with respect, and to fight against oppression wherever we find it. I found an area of agreement in their beliefs – where all people, of whatever race, color, or creed are created with equal rights, which is what my remarks were all about.”

    So you are down with 1A, 2A, and all the other A’s? (Stop laughing, Glibs)

  21. hayeksplosives

    Mustachioed yellow tabby cats throughout the world pour out a snit of insulin for Brimley.

    • BakedPenguin
  22. Rebel Scum

    Alongside its restrictions on attending worship services, the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) also prohibits players from attending indoor nightclubs and bars (except for take-out), indoor concerts, professional sports games, and indoor parties that include 15 or more people.

    The deal has not been publicly released, but NBC Sports made no mention of any restrictions on attending protests. Meanwhile, the NFL’s Twitter account has been sharing and celebrating pictures of players engaging in protests around the country.

    Arbitrary horseshit is arbitrary. Also, know your audience. There are plenty of leftists that like football, but I’d wager most fans are not down with the marxists of OBLM*.

    *Only Black Lives Matter and only in certain, specific circumstances.

    • PieInTheSky

      I never know where the line between stupid and evil is

      • Sean

        You’re a Democrat? ?

  23. Rebel Scum

    Members of Louisville’s Cuban community plan to gather Sunday in support of a NuLu restaurant owner who says he was threatened by Black Lives Matter protesters during a recent demonstration.

    Fernando Martinez, a partner of the Olé Restaurant Group, was one of dozens of business owners in the downtown Louisville district who recently received a letter from protesters laying out demands that aim to improve diversity in the area, which is known for its locally-owned shops and restaurants.

    Martinez has publicly denounced the demands on Facebook, calling them “mafia tactics” used to intimidate business owners. And on Thursday, a small group of protesters confronted him outside his newest restaurant, La Bodeguita de Mima, on East Market Street.

    “There comes a time in life that you have to make a stand and you have to really prove your convictions and what you believe in,” Martinez wrote in his Facebook post. “… All good people need to denounce this. How can you justified (sic) injustice with more injustice?”

    “Demands”? Good for the Cubans for telling these assholes to fuck off.

  24. The Late P Brooks

    Speaking of superstitioning harder

    The premier of Victoria plunged the region into a “state of disaster” on Sunday, announcing even stricter lockdown measures, introducing a nightly curfew and banning virtually all trips outdoors after Australia’s second largest state recorded 671 new infections in a single day.
    Daniel Andrews told Victorians at a news conference that “we have to do more, and we have to do more right now,” as the state battles to contain a devastating coronavirus outbreak that had already stripped residents of their freedoms, livelihoods and social interactions and made it an outlier from the rest of the country.
    “Where you slept last night is where you’ll need to stay for the next six weeks,” Andrews said, announcing a curfew between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m. beginning Sunday evening and moving Metropolitan Melbourne into stage four lockdown measures.
    In that part of the state, only one person per household will be allowed to leave their homes once a day — outside of curfew hours — to pick up essential goods, and they must stay within a 5 kilometer radius of their home. Melburnians had already been under strict measures for most of July after the area was identified as the epicenter of Australia’s second wave.

    Needz moar human sacrifice.

    • Q Continuum

      Just put everyone in prison. For the children.

      • Tejicano

        Again?

    • Sean

      Holy shit. ?

    • Gender Traitor

      In the finest penal colony tradition.

    • leon

      When does he announce that they will be nuking the city to stop coronavirus?

    • Rhywun

      I’m officially giving up on AFL this year. When your teams are forever denied a home game, what’s the point? None of it means anything.

      See also: MLS. Supposedly the season will “resume” (it never really started) after the current “tournament” which is really just a series of exhibition matches. I seriously doubt my team will get any home matches in whatever format they manage to pull out of their ass later this month.

      I may watch one or two more NHL games if only to decide if the Rangers really suck as much as they appear to, but again – none of this means anything.

      • Q Continuum

        USL Championship man; it’s the only thing I’m watching.

      • Rhywun

        I don’t have an obvious team to follow so I picked Pittsburgh. I do try to catch some of the games.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Don’t bother. I don’t give them a second of my time. What’s the point? The entire experience of what sports is supposed to be about is dead at the moment. No fans, overtly political, fear of Covid. A person is gonna follow their team only to see the season cancelled because we’re the most pathetically weak people in world history.

        2020 is a write-off.

    • mrfamous

      This is fucking nightmarish

    • juris imprudent

      They’re worried about the second wave? They should be more worried about The Last Wave, right?

    • Rufus the Monocled

      WOW.

      I have no more words for these incompetent fools.

    • cyto

      We have a nighttime curfew.

      One question that i have not heard an answer to…..

      Exactly what is a curfew supposed to do to stop the spread of the virus? Why do I have to be home by 11?

      I suppose it is because of the young folk who want to go out clubbing. If you put a curfew pretty much exactly when they all start going out, you kind of put a damper on that sort of thing.

      But it still makes no sense to me that all of the stores have been running on reduced hours because of covid. Why close up a couple of hours early? Why 8pm instead of 10 pm?

      And why does my 24 hour walmart close at 10 now? (at least it is better than 7pm, which it was for a while.) Sometimes I need something at 11:30 pm. And sure, that place always did have a pretty sketchy crowd after 10 pm, but at least you could go get.. stuff…. at a reasonable price after hours. Plus, if you happened to hit it at the right time on the right night, all the strippers from the local strip clubs would be shopping there. At least, that’s what I assume they are… lots of hot and semi-hot young women dressed somewhat inappropriately for a walmart, but not quite all the way to “hooker fashion”.

      Anyway…

      Wait, what were we talking about agian?

      • kbolino

        It’s possible to dress inappropriately for Walmart? I thought half the appeal was watching plainclothes Mennonites walking down one aisle and hooker chic trailer trash walking down the next aisle.

      • cyto

        You are correct, sir!

        I was really, really tempted one late night. The wife still has the habit of sending me out for her late night cravings left over from her pregnant wife days, so I hit the late night seen there fairly often. One night within the last year there was a real gem… easily 350lbs, wearing a tiny thong under wide weave fishnet stockings, with a red lace bra under a black sheer top. She was a 3 on her best day, I’d wager… and her best day was probably 3 decades behind her. I had my phone out and ready to snap a photo to text home… but then I decided that it was mean, despite the vision being presented.

        The only plausible explanation was that she lost a bet… but there was absolutely no indication that this was anything other than her chosen attire for the evening. The outfit would have been hideous on a 20 year old Tiara Banks. On this lovely lady… wow.

        I still kinda wish I had snapped that photo.. and I’m kinda glad I’m the type who didn’t snap that photo. I guess I’m just a complicated guy.

      • kbolino

        The last time I saw someone like that, she had a black eye and the (presumable) source of that black eye was walking beside her, and he was wearing much less revealing clothing. I felt bad for her, though of course I didn’t know the full story (maybe she got the black eye from a fight she started, maybe she really did fall into a doorknob, maybe public BDSM was their kink, who knows…).

    • The Last American Hero

      So first Japan, now Australia.

      The countries that “did it right”.

      Apparently “doing it right” means you can slow the spread or delay the spread but the day or reckoning will come one way or the other. And the cost of the measures to delay the spread is extremely high.

    • Old Man With Candy

      It’s a classic. I never saw Django do it, but David Grisman and Tony Rice were a nice substitute.

      https://youtu.be/ONBYS-FSQwc

  25. The Late P Brooks

    Black driver demands white BLM protesters stop blocking road in Austin so he can go to go to work to provide for his kids

    Not the Bee.

    • cyto

      The good news is that he’ll still be a reliable Biden voter.

      Nothing seems to be able to shake that Lyndon Johnson hold.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Soon it will be known for boarded-up windows. Congratulations, “protesters”.

    Just say no to gentrification jobs!

  27. R C Dean

    Somebody mentioned a few days ago they might be interested in taking my .22-250 off my hands. Pipe up if you are interested, because I’m ready to sell

    • Don did not Escape Spring Training

      but what if some commie coyote threatens you from a quarter mile away?

      • R C Dean

        Xe’s going to need to come a little closer. My eyes (and ears) aren’t what they used to be.

    • Sean

      Wasn’t me.

      I thought it was the Hobbit.

    • The Bearded Hobbit

      That would be me. Is it a Ruger #1? How much are you asking.

      • The Bearded Hobbit

        jemezhobbit at the gmail

      • R C Dean

        Lemme drag it out of the safe and send some pics. Will need to be later today.

        Prefer to do directly via email. I’ve pinged TPTB to send you my email.

      • R C Dean

        Just emailed you. I think.

  28. Don did not Escape Spring Training

    Biden picks Tulsi, wins in landslide, immediately resigns, Tulsi pulls us out of everywhere, and a national day of fapping is upon us

    just sayin’

    • PieInTheSky

      I am not sure they prefer Tulsi to Trump

      • cyto

        I think you are right. They really, really didn’t want her to get a fair hearing.

    • Q Continuum

      I’d be ok with that.

      I dig Tulsi’s foreign policy even if her economics and gun grabbing are terrible.

      • PieInTheSky

        what if she succeeds imposing her views in domestic agenda and not in foreign affairs, you get the gun grabbing but keep the wars

      • Homple

        Just remember that Tulsi’s economic policies will fuck you over personally while her foreign policy is busy not bothering somebody in Trashcanistan or wherever.

    • Grosspatzer

      Tulsi pulls us out of everywhere

      Phrasing?

    • Rhywun

      Biden picks Tulsi

      Wrong hue.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      It’s interesting mental masturbation you’re engaging in there but remember that the mainstream Dems hate her more than the Republicans do.

      • Don did not Escape Spring Training

        oh, just having some fun; I wouldn’t put any of the characters under consideration in charge of a Dairy Queen for the weekend

  29. leon

    You’re right that that is what Just Sayin’ would want

  30. The Late P Brooks

    You gotta break a few eggs, if you want a perfect world

    In a hearing focused on the federal response to the global health crisis, Fauci said that the U.S. was experiencing a much more severe resurgence in coronavirus cases than countries in Europe because many American states failed to completely shut down.

    “If you look at what happened in Europe when they shut down or locked down or went into shelter-in-place. … They really did it to the tune of about 95-plus percent of the country did that,” Fauci said.

    “When you actually look at what we did, even though we shut down, even though we created a great deal of difficulty, we really functionally shut down only about 50 percent in the sense of the totality of the country,” he added.

    Those peasants owe it to me to make some sacrifices. I know what I’m doing.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Screw that little shrimp. Seeing him yukking it up at the baseball game sans mask was the last straw for me.

      • leon

        I was done when after two months and being told that protesting the power grabs was killing grandma, they praised all the rioters

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Oh, I agree, but there was something about the flagrant personal disregard for his own rules that got me.

      • Homple

        He’s part of the ruling class, so he has a license to flout his own rules.

    • The Last American Hero

      Because 3 of the 5 people that inhabit South Dakota didn’t wear masks?

    • Agent Cooper

      It doesn’t matter what we do. Nature finds a way. I think outside of the virus burning itself out, it’s absolute hubris to think that humans can actively control it.

  31. Grosspatzer

    Some of you have been treating Links like they’re your personal little joke parlor. Stories of death, danger, and destruction, and all you can do is make fun. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

    Lighten up and leave me alone!

    • Rebel Scum

      Humor is how I cope with the world.

      • Grosspatzer

        This. Also, humor is how the world copes with me.

      • Gender Traitor
  32. westernsloper

    Grijalva also praised House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s mandate requiring all House members and aides to wear masks on the floor “to keep members and staff safe from those looking to score quick political points,” he said. “Stopping the spread of a deadly virus should not be a partisan issue.”

    Nancy should have gone a step further and mandated no speaking whatsoever. This would help in many ways.

    • Grosspatzer

      s/masks/ball gags/

    • kbolino

      The mask itself though, there’s no political points to be scored there no sirree.

  33. leon

    Looks like the DC court of appeals is going to enable Sullivan’s complete flouting of judicial limits and supreme court precedent.

    • Q Continuum

      This is not getting much attention, either in the media or around here, but it is one of the most disgusting abuses of power I’ve seen in my lifetime.

      • Aloysious

        I’d love to see judges impeached and thrown bodily out into the street, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

        I can’t wait for some of the legal minded around here to share their thoughts on the subject.

      • l0b0t

        One of the law DerpTube channels I follow had a guest who often argues in that circuit and he claimed that Sullivan is well known for being a dullard who relies heavily on his clerks for the actual opinion writing and such. I wonder if this is all being pushed by someone in Sullivan’s office.

      • cyto

        You are talking about Barnes. He hates that guy.

        And it seems pretty clear that there is coordination behind the scenes. In the Stone case they actually went so far as to manipulate the choice of judge and impaneled a biased jury. I have to suspect similar shenanigans here.

        Sullivan went out and found a guy who had openly been critical of Trump and Flynn and appointed him as a de-facto prosecutor to push the absurd notion that Flynn should be charged with perjury for pleading guilty to a crime of which he was in fact innocent.

        And this court has clearly signaled that they are going to allow it – restricting arguments to “is a mandamus the only remedy”. They clearly signaled that if there is any other remedy (like letting Sullivan do whatever he wants, for however long he’d like and at whatever cost before issuing a ruling that can then be appealed), then the mandamus will not be ordered.

        A clever bit of partisanship designed to avoid airing the details that have been coming out of this case – like the fact that they never intended to investigate anything and only interviewed him in order to charge him with lying to investigators… investigators who did not believe he lied, who did not record the interview and who suspiciously rewrote their notes weeks later, destroying the originals. Can’t include any of that in the record. Can’t include the questionable amicus. Can’t include the specious attempt at charging him with perjury. Can’t even include the law on withdrawing plea agreements. Only “is there another remedy?”

        They might as well have issued their ruling without a hearing… but ordering him to pay for another few weeks of federal appellate level representation is a bonus, I suppose. Then he has to handle Sullivan’s new prosecution. Then his ruling. Then the appeal of that ruling… right back to a highly partisan appeals court…. then he has to wait around for the US supreme court next year.

        They are really, really screwing this guy.

      • cyto

        Yeah, I posted about it in the wee hours last night.

        They are completely signalling that they not only are OK with Sullivan screwing with him for absolutely no reason, but they participated by waiting as long as they possibly could to respond to Sullivan’s request for an en banc hearing – one which he had no standing to ask for. So by some legal fiction, his request (which was arguably after the deadline for such requests) reset the clock for the full court… .which they also waited out.

        You will never convince me that they did not both do this on purpose. They are screwing with the guy just to be screwing with him. They could have done this within 48 hours of the initial ruling, but chose not to.

        It seems pretty clear that the only objective at this point is to force a pardon by Trump. They want to declare him a discredited criminal and declare Trump’s pardon a coverup.

      • kbolino

        While I don’t think you’re wrong about their intent, calling a pardon a coverup is stupid. Once pardoned, you can talk about what happened without fear of reprisal. Though, if you did more than you were pardoned for, it’s probably better to stay quiet.

      • cyto

        That would require that anyone is interested. They only want to have a talking point for CNN when Barr brings forth his report about Obama administration abuses of power within the FBI, CIA, DOJ and State department.

        Whatever it says, it is part of the coverup of all of Trump’s crimes with Russia.

        They are already beginning to write the narrative, CNN, MSNBC, NYT et. al. have jumped back on the Russia train, pretending that the Mueller investigation actually clearly demonstrated that Trump was colluding with Russia. In fact, if Mueller had not been handcuffed by the Trump administration, they would have dug into his financial records and revealed all of his corruption. (literally, this is what they are writing right now).

        https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/30/politics/jeffrey-toobin-trump-fbi-mueller-true-crimes-and-misdemeanors/index.html

      • kbolino

        They’ve had 3.5 fucking years to find a smoking gun and they haven’t even turned up some powder residue. Every day, it’s “any minute now”. Trump has likely committed a bunch of minor offenses of the law, making him only the 45th President to have done so, but there don’t seem to be any serious skeletons buried in his closet, or at least none that they’re going to find by constantly digging.

      • cyto

        What is abundantly clear as the details of the early days of the “counterintelligence investigation” are being dribbled out – they never even slightly suspected that there was anything there. Now that we know that Steele’s original source didn’t even know any Russians, it is hard to take any of their protestations seriously.

        But beyond all of that – you can simply deduce this from their original claims.

        They said that they had information that Russia was targeting Trump’s campaign for infiltration, therefore they opened a counterintelligence investigation. This was their description at the time.

        Now, what is the first thing you do if you find out that Russia is trying to infiltrate the Sandia nuclear research facility? Start setting up employees with criminal investigations? Or begin working with security people at the facility to prevent the infiltration? How about if you found out that the Chinese government was infiltrating SpaceX to steal their secrets or sabotage the company? Start looking in to Gwen Shotwell’s dealings with Japanese suppliers from a decade ago and charge her with crimes so that you can get her to testify against Elon Musk? Or maybe work with SpaceX to help prevent the damage from being done?

        It was an obvious and transparent lie. Anyone who was even putting a tiny bit of thought into it should have seen right through it.

        Yet most people still can’t see it, even now that the dots have all been connected for them.

      • Aloysious

        Thank you for your posts.

  34. The Late P Brooks

    Trump has continually cited the U.S. testing capacity as the reason for these surges. Health experts, including Fauci, have said, however, that an uptick in cases cannot be explained by an increase in testing.

    Fauci reiterated this point during his testimony on Friday, stating that the surge in cases was caused by several factors, including states not abiding “strictly by the guidelines that the task force and the White House had put out” when beginning a phased reopening.

    Yeah. Keep saying that, Foochy.

    This is so fucking stupid, it’s unbearable. I’m pretty sure nobody really believes “testing” causes the disease, but hey act as if that’s what Cartoon Villain is saying.

    • Q Continuum

      Considering it’s never been conclusively proven that lockdowns are actually effective at reducing the impact of a pandemic, all of this bullshit is built on a potentially false premise anyway. If we can’t say that lockdowns work, we can’t say that eliminating them causes failure. Confounding variables here, correlation/causation, etc. etc. I don’t need to remind this crowd about dubious stats and outright mendacity. The punchline is that we have very limited knowledge; about the virus, about how to treat it, about its effects, etc. One of the only things we do know is that the economy collapses when the government prohibits economic activity. What the hell? Let’s do that!

      • Sean

        I swear at one point Cuomo came out and declared that a majority of positive tests were people who were stay at home people. It was a very short lived story.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Once again. Sweden shows itself to be the single most sage nation in all this stupidity.

        Our rulers are micro-managing lives to combat this virus. It’s fucken nuts. People’s morale is going to sink even among the biggest gung-hoers of the lockdowns. Watch.

        Harvard demanded lockdowns in 13 states. They should lead by example and forego their checks. Same with idiot politicians. Let’s see how serious they are.

    • R C Dean

      “Health experts, including Fauci, have said, however, that an uptick in cases cannot be explained by an increase in testing.“

      Yet the positivity rate is declining. There is literally no other explanation for the increase in case count than the increase in testing.

      • R C Dean

        Argh. Should be case rate, not case count.

    • Gdragon

      The comparison that I make (and it has been more effective than I thought it would be) is that making an out at bat is one of the worst things that a player can do on a baseball field and yet Pete Rose was the MLB career leader in outs made while still managing to be a very good and effective hitter.

    • Rebel Scum

      Well we can’t harvest ballots unless we know which ones to throw out or change.

    • R C Dean

      Love the statement that it’s OK to break the security seal, too.

  35. PieInTheSky

    Or, consider this in the EU context. The 27 states only need to worry about one set of regulations, not 351 sets.

    The former English hobby of moaning about EU regulations is quite amusing from this perspective. The alternative was 37,700% more regulation.

    Well done, chaps.

    https://twitter.com/ole_b_peters/status/1289280229551177728

    I wonder if these people consider that in this case lobby/regulatory capture is also much easier, not even talking about one size fits all issues, and the fact that big centralized states have additional subdivision regs

    • kbolino

      In larger states and pseudo-states like the EU, regulatory capture isn’t necessarily easier, but it is much more rewarding. In fact, I’d say the difficulty is generally higher, but the reward scales faster than the cost. It’s better to reign over 27 nations than just one.

      Much like Catalan independence or heck the Confederate government given what was posted here the other day, the resulting system may be less libertarian. The point, however, is for self-determination. How that gets achieved is an important question, but whether it is worthwhile seems to me to be trivially answerable with “yes” in most cases.

      • cyto

        This is easy to see when you watch the EU deal with big multinational corporations – particularly tech companies and financial institutions.

        They just come right out and say it …. “we are going to extort a few hundred million or a few tens of billions from these guys”

        Yeah, they don’t use the word “extort”. But they do simply announce investigations into obviously made-up violations of principles that they just invented de novo for the purpose – all with a target price tag. It really is transparent enough that you can see them calculating “hey… Google has made $50 billion dollars in our territory over the last several years. I think we should hit them up for an extra billion in fees.”

  36. Count Potato

    “I’m asked a lot about who is funding antifa in Portland. One way they do it is through using an anonymously-run front group, in this case @RiotRibs
    , who then disperses to other anonymous people & groups (street “medics”). There is no charity registration or accountability.”

    https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1289725590119968769

  37. The Late P Brooks

    Failure to edit

    The Highland High School principal and interim Salt Lake City School District superintendent both apologized Saturday for what they called hate speech printed in the school’s recently released yearbooks.

    The yearbooks were released Friday, and when students opened them, they found a senior quote that said, “There are two genders and a lot of mental illnesses,” FOX13 reported.

    In a statement from the school district, officials said the quote was published “in spite of the editing protocol in place.”

    The district’s interim superintendent, Larry Madden, called the quote “unacceptable” and condemned it, saying that it wasn’t reflective of the district’s values.

    “To our LGBTQIA+ and other marginalized students I say, please know how deeply your teachers, school administrators, and district leaders care about you and your well-being,” Madden said. “This quote was offensive and inappropriate.”

    What the fuck makes you think you can say something like that? Where do you think you are? Nazi Germany?

    • leon

      Must be a bio student

  38. Grosspatzer

    Coronavirus update: Another round of $1,200 checks part of stimulus proposal

    9Is writing bad checks still a crime?

    • Q Continuum

      “Bill is going to jail”

      And will he meet up with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny when he gets there?

    • mrfamous

      Minneapolis City Government tells residents to move out of Minneapolis.

      They’re not going to be happy until their city becomes a Detroit-like punchline

    • Tundra

      I no longer need to set foot in that shithole.

      The reality is that crime has been on the increase for the last couple of years. This horseshit is merely accelerating the process.

      Minneapolis is lost.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    Considering it’s never been conclusively proven that lockdowns are actually effective at reducing the impact of a pandemic, all of this bullshit is built on a potentially false premise anyway.

    It’s right there in the model, man. If we all hide indoors, the Big Bad Wolf can’t eat us.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Look, a garbage programmer created a seriously flawed model using worthless data sets that proves that it works. Why do you hate #SCIENCE?

    • The Last American Hero

      I like guy #2’s T shirt.

      • cyto

        Make Orwell Great Again is fantastic.

        And they cannot be boogaloo boys. No Hawaiian shirts. I read vox. they have to have Hawaiian shirts.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    Is writing bad checks still a crime?

    It’s not illegal when the government does it.

    • Grosspatzer

      Nixon agrees.

  41. Rufus the Monocled

    Why is Kevin Smith an asshole?

    • PieInTheSky

      due to weight loss?

    • mrfamous

      He’s thin-skinned as hell. Every time he makes a shitty movie (which is most of the time), he goes apeshit when folks point out what a shitty movie it was.

      • Tres Cool

        I cant pass the refrigerated pickle section now w/o thinking about you. Asshole.

      • The Hyperbole

        LOL, FYI I scored 4 jars today, our long national nightmare is taking a turn for the better.

    • Negroni Please

      Look when Mexico is sending their people, they arent sending their best

      • Fourscore

        “‘Cause everybody’s gotta have somebody to look down on
        Prove they can be better than at any time they please”

        Jesus, man

  42. Rufus the Monocled

    Stop spreading the virus!

    How?

    Magic Mask!

    Can I ride your magic mask?

    • Negroni Please

      You want a seat cover on your moustache ride?

  43. The Late P Brooks

    Get out there and crack some heads

    Gov. Cuomo slammed New York’s finest Saturday for not taking action against bars and restaurants that are ignoring coronavirus safety rules.

    The governor said 27 Manhattan establishments got violations overnight out of a total 41 statewide.

    “We need the NYPD to step up and do enforcement,” Cuomo said during a Saturday conference call with reporters.

    I make the laws. You enforce them. We will have order. I will be obeyed.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      The WHO’s briefing, if anyone bothered to read them, basically says ‘clusters’ in places like restaurants, gyms etc. need more research. It’s not a given it spreads easily. They know it happens in homes more but everywhere else is not proven but strongly suspected.

      The amount of lives being ruined on so many levels is one of the great injustices yet.

      Again. Sweden went back to normal and we have Governors wanting cops to go crack knee caps.

      Unbelievable.

    • The Last American Hero

      Mr. Governor, what if the restaurants claim to be opening to fight the spread of institutional racism, do they get a pass?

  44. Rufus the Monocled

    “Fernando Martinez, a partner of the Olé Restaurant Group, was one of dozens of business owners in the downtown Louisville district who recently received a letter from protesters laying out demands that aim to improve diversity in the area, which is known for its locally-owned shops and restaurants.”

    Martinez has publicly denounced the demands on Facebook, calling them “mafia tactics” used to intimidate business owners. And on Thursday, a small group of protesters confronted him outside his newest restaurant, La Bodeguita de Mima, on East Market Street.”

    Well. To deal with mafia tactics use mafia tactics. In this case, hire them to deal with this shit. Just saying.

  45. hayeksplosives

    Home remedies requested.

    I woke up with aches all over my body. They are the sore, crawly skin ones that I get with flu or severe cold.

    I can’t take aspirin or ibuprofen or naproxen.

    Any suggestions? Low fever, about 100.

    • Urthona

      probably just get a covid test to rule that out as quickly as possible.

    • Negroni Please

      I hear fish tank cleaner is the way to go

      • Urthona

        I wouldn’t take HCQ unless it’s early in the disease. Hence why I’d get a test. Going down the list of 50 or so studies, the positive results come when it’s taken early or prophylacticly. Like tamiflu or similar antivirals. if you get full blown sick it’s already too late.

    • l0b0t

      Since my most efficacious suggestion would likely cost you your clearance; how about a nice long soak in an Epsom salt filled bath?

      • Tres Cool

        Pics required, too.

    • Drake

      Tumeric and garlic are my go to’s when I’m achy.

    • Count Potato

      I’m not a fan of tylenol, but if you haven’t been drinking, it might help.

      Anyway, I would call your doctor ASAP.

    • Rhywun

      Tylenol?

  46. Tundra

    Good morning, Old Man!

    Fuck pro sports.

    My phone informed me yesterday that Matt Dumba (Wild defenseman) gave a speech on social justice before the game.

    I’m done.

    I’ll just read more and try to give the lynx the respect they deserve.

    And enjoy the hell out of the Old Guy Music. So effortless and awesome, that guy.

    Have a great day, people!

    • Drake

      Yep. Done.

    • Rhywun

      I’m done.

      Am very close to there myself. Probably not more than a day or two.

  47. Pope Jimbo

    I love the idea of buying votes with the money extracted from us by force.

    Cute you think that the money being sent out was actually extracted from us tax mules. We are so fucking broke that the money to pay for this is going to be extracted from our great-great-great grandkids.

    Sure technically, I guess you could say that we are paying for it via the inflation that will happen because they are just going to print that money, but there isn’t any extraction.

    • Urthona

      My great great grandkids I’m worried about, but my great great great grandkids are spoiled assholes. Fuck those guys.

    • Q Continuum

      More:

      “Privilege is not: About you. Privilege is not your fault. Privilege is not anything you’ve done, or thought, or said. It may have allowed you to do, or think, or say things, but it’s not those things, and it’s not because of those things. Privilege is not about taking advantage, or cheating, although privilege may make this easier. Privilege is not negated. I can’t balance my white privilege against my female disadvantage and come out neutral. Privilege is not something you can be exempt from by having had a difficult life. Privilege is not inherently bad. Privilege is: About how society accommodates you. It’s about advantages you have that you think are normal. It’s about you being normal, and others being the deviation from normal.”

      This could be lifted directly from a religious text focusing on mysticism. It’s completely superstitious nonsense that has the benefit of simultaneously being meaningless.

      • l0b0t

        My eyes glaze over when reading this tripe in the very same way they do when I read of various Christian heresies. These folk are busy arguing about the necessity of water baptism or the singular/dual/tripartite nature of the Godhead; meanwhile, there’s crops to be harvested and widgets to be made.

      • EvilSheldon

        Privilege is not: Something I care about.

      • kbolino

        Given all of that… why go to such effort to try to change it? If privilege is so generally benign, and so common to human societies that every single one we have ever known has had it, what is going to be accomplished by constantly talking about it? If all of those statements are to be taken as truths, then the only thing to be concluded from this is that somebody who doesn’t have what they consider to be enough power wants even more.

    • Negroni Please

      Cannibalism wasn’t on the privilege list.

      • Count Potato

        *brushes Negroni with butter*

    • Pope Jimbo

      Doh!

      But in fairness to me, your link wasn’t very descriptive.

      I’M THE REAL VICTIM!

  48. The Late P Brooks

    Don’t make us do our jobs

    Tenured faculty members at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) told undergraduate students in an open letter not to return to campus this fall because of coronavirus concerns, the latest move in the debate over reopening schools.

    “We need to stay safe from Covid-19 by staying at home – and we need you to stay home in order to protect yourselves and your fellow students, your teachers, the many workers who serve you on campus, the residents of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and your own family members and loved ones,” 30 tenured faculty members wrote in a letter published Thursday by The Charlotte Observer.

    It’s not like those students are getting their money’s worth. They should all just drop out. What will the posturing eggheads say, then?

    • leon

      Yup. Please fork over the same tuition dollars, but don’t come and get them.

      Professors absolutely hate being told that they are in a business and that students are their customers.

      • commodious spittoon

        This morning I was alerted by a jogger to a dog loose and cowering in the side yard. Now I have a pug puppy in the back yard and I’m working out what to do about it.

        I hate that people don’t tag their dogs. I won’t pretend it’s a big imposition, but now rather than simply calling the owner to come pick up his dog, I have to investigate.

      • commodious spittoon

        No idea why this ended up here.

    • Grosspatzer

      Youngest patzer will be entering his second year at University of Scranton shortly. The administration has allowed the professors to choose the structure of the classes (in person / remote / combination of the two). Of his six classes, five will be fully in person, one remote. Not sure how this will play out, since everywhere I look a single positive test requires a full lockdown, but I give them credit for at least trying to provide the services they contracted for.

  49. Professional Beach Bum

    Got my dad here years later than I should have. Seems he is diagnosed with late-stage Parkinson’s, been falling a bunch. Fell, broke his ankle (trimollelear [sp?]) break, so I get to keep him for a couple more months. All of the bitterness over his choices since 1984 are gone when I have to deadlift him and change his Depends, and see the mental decline of a man who was on the translunar trajectory team for all of the Apollo flights. Yes, drinking The Belvanie 14 y/o Caribbean Cask at 0800.

    • Tundra

      Sorry, dude. Fucking brutal.

    • Grosspatzer

      Sorry, that sucks. Hang in there.

    • Cy

      That’s rough. You’re a good son. Keep it up.

      • Fourscore

        You are a double good son and I know your father hates to impose on you, if he has his faculties. These are some of things old people worry about.
        Worst thing is the nursing home. There comes a time…when the covid is welcome…speaking for myself only

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Ouch. Good luck.

    • JD is in the United Karendom

      I’m sorry man. Make the most of the time you have now.

    • Count Potato

      Sorry 🙁

    • Sean

      Sorry to hear that.

    • Professional Beach Bum

      Thanks everyone, I don’t post a lot, but been around since TOS around 2010. You all keep me sane and laughing. I wouldn’t trade this time with him for anything, even if bingeing Andy Griffith for him to dream to is maddening lol. *sneaks in documentary playlists of ancient history and warfare…

  50. The Late P Brooks

    Karen wants satisfaction

    Speaking from her hospital bed, the woman shoved to the ground inside a Staples in New Jersey after she asked another customer to pull up her face mask says she plans on pressing charges.

    Margot Kagan says she was using one of the fax machines inside the store in Hackensack Wednesday afternoon when she noticed the woman using the machine next to her was not wearing a face mask.

    She says when she asked the other woman to wear her mask — she cursed at her.

    “When she started cursing me out I said, ‘well you’re endangering everyone.’ So that’s when she took it upon herself to leave her little cube area and come in mine, but she’s, face-to-face with me, without the mask on properly,” Kagan said.

    Kagan recently had a liver transplant and uses a cane as she recovers.

    “I held up my cane so she couldn’t go any more forward. I didn’t touch her with it. At some point, she grabbed the cane and threw me and it on the floor,” Kagan said.

    Disclaimer- bodyslamming the dumb bitch was wrong.

    If she’s so fucking fragile, why didn’t she stay home, or at least keep her goddam trap shut? No sympathy.

    • JD is in the United Karendom

      Clear case of assault. So she said something objectionable, that doesn’t justify the violence. Old folks are simultaneously scared of the ‘rona because it actually could kill them, and also probably don’t want to put the rest of their short lives on hold until something else kills them. I upset an old fella recently when I quipped they’d have to throw me in jail before I where a mask. He got upset and lurched off after asking me to repeat myself. Apparently what he heard was “HAHAHA I WANT TO KILL YOU, OLD MAN!” which is one particularly cynical way of interpreting my facetious comment. Anyway, we were all standing around outside, noone was social distancing, and he wasn’t even wearing a mask, so fuck him, but that’s the long way round to say, even if this woman is a Karen+, I don’t sympathize one bit with the asshole who physically attacked her.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        If this doesn’t get reigned in it will graduate to lockdowns and masks in the homes.

        It’s all they know. To double down on the double down.

        It’s outrageous. They don’t even have a game plan. Just a set of arbitrary measures.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Double down? Please Mr Exagerator.

        I’m sure after we are done with this short 15 days to flatten the curve, things will get right back to normal totes pronto.

    • Rhywun

      why didn’t she stay home

      This. Take some fucking responsibility.

    • Agent Cooper

      “using one of the fax machines”

      Luddite!

  51. JD is in the United Karendom

    This is not what we mean by gun control.

    I felt for sure that would have been an ass-drugsing since I saw it somewhere a few days ago, and I was waiting for MSM to spin it into “peaceful BLM protestors shot by militia members with full semi auto black assault rifles” or something, and obfuscate the details. I like the name. The Not Fucking Around Coalition. Fucking around? Down with that sort of thing.

  52. CPRM

    Alongside its restrictions on attending worship services, the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) also prohibits players from […] professional sports games […]

    Um…

  53. The Late P Brooks

    It’s like God’s judgement on the heretics

    Rep. Seth Moulton’s comments came in a conversation on Monday with Amy McGrath, a Democrat who is running for the US Senate in Kentucky, hosted by the 92nd Street Y. A spokeswoman for McGrath’s opponent in the race, Sen. Mitch McConnell, then tweeted a clip Moulton’s comment calling him out for his comments and for McGrath’s response in which she “smiles and nods.”

    “We certainly have this perception in the Northeast that all the red states are getting what was coming to them because they refused to follow these mandates and they’re playing politics with this rather than listening to the science,” Moulton said Monday.

    Moulton tweeted Friday that he does not “believe that personally, but it is true that some people in blue states have that perception. If it gets under some people’s skin enough that they start wearing masks, it will literally save lives,” with a link to a story by the Boston Herald, which earlier reported on his comments.

    Believe, people! Trust SCIENCE.

    To be sure, I derive no personal sense of satisfaction from the exposure of my political enemies as SCIENCE deniers, but…

    • Drake

      So he’s saying the death rates are higher in red states? Really?

    • JD is in the United Karendom

      It wears the mask on it’s face, or else it’s shamed in utter disgrace.

    • kbolino

      Some of the first reported cases of coronavirus were in San Antonio (I was there around the time). And yet Texas didn’t have its “first wave” until months later. That tells me that interstate travel is driving this more than any other factor; people are afraid to travel abroad but they’re less afraid to travel domestically. Placing blame on governors for anything other than directly attributable actions (like NY, NJ, and PA shoving people back into nursing homes) is asinine. New York City was a hotspot early because it’s a global city moreso than any other place in the United States. Ditto London in the UK. This petty politicking is all so stupid.

    • leon

      Why would i be bothered that some weirdos on the east cost continue to believe things that have no basis in reality?

  54. The Late P Brooks

    Moulton’s comments come as the United States has no unified strategy on slowing the virus’ spread and sharp partisan divides exist over containment strategies. The virus earlier ravaged the northeast and has now debilitated other parts of the country, killing over 150,000 Americans.
    Following their conversation, McConell’s press secretary tweeted the clip of Moulton saying red states had it “coming to them,” calling Moulton a “Liberal Dem.”

    Michaela Johnson, Moulton’s press secretary, told CNN in statement that McConnell’s team was taking “cheap shots” with the tweet.

    No unified strategy. Oh horror.

    Why can’t we be more like those Australians? They know how to deal with a plague.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Look if we had unified on a single strategy we’d be so much better off. For example if we had all decided to follow the lead of Cuomo on this CV stuff…..

      Well, Social Security would be a lot closer to solvency.

  55. Pope Jimbo

    No matter who Biden chooses to be his VP, I only give them a 50/50 chance of being the actual VP. Because I don’t think that Biden can actually make it through the presser and remember who the VP is.

    “I’m announcing today that in my run for Senate, I’m choosing Kamala Warren for my VP!”

    • l0b0t

      I fear he’ll pull a Mel Carnahan and we’ll end up with DOCTOR (and don’t you forget it) Jill Biden as POTUS.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Jill Biden needs to be called out for her mendacity. She should be the first person to be telling Joe it is time to drop out of the race and go enjoy the few years he has left. Better than anyone, she knows he isn’t up for the challenge of actually being POTUS.

        Also on that list are all the uptight 20 year-old asshole ambitious kids who are Joe’s handlers on these campaign events. They are willing to help endanger the entire country just so they can burnish their resumes by being on Joe’s campaign.

      • Grosspatzer

        Straight-up elder abuse. I’ve never met Biden, and yet I still feel guilty for mocking his dementia (doesn’t stop me, though). If you are willing to expose your deteriorating relative to public humiliation to further some agenda, you have made a deal with the devil. I don’t like to use the word “evil”, but this is one case where it is appropriate.

      • The Last American Hero

        The ghost of Eleanor Roosevelt came to Jill in a dream and said it would be OK.

      • BakedPenguin

        Edith Wilson was in it, too.

    • creech

      You know they are in trouble when a Biden sycophant appeared on CNN to tell viewers that it would be bad for Biden if he had to stand there at the debate and refute every lie Trump was telling. Au contraire, sir, that would be great for Biden – it would show he was well-informed, it would demonstrate how Trump lies, and it would put to rest lots of uncertainty about Biden’s intellectual capabilities. So, in conclusion, Biden and his handlers are scared shitless to go up against Trump in a debate and will find some excuse to weasel out of them.

  56. Pope Jimbo

    When even the Germans think the lockdown nonsense is too much you know you’ve jumped the shark.

    Also has an interesting chart showing Sweden’s death count. (5 in the last week). You know how I know that the liars in DC knew that lockdowns were BS? When they didn’t go full on mocking of Sweden. They knew that the curve for Sweden would look like it does. They also knew that with our lockdowns we’d have second waves (and probably third waves). So they knew that in the long run everyone’s stats would end up being pretty much the same, so don’t crow early.

  57. Pope Jimbo

    Welcome aboard the Shitlord Express, brother!

    Black Male Privilege now a thing.

    • straffinrun

      Woof. Team Blue gonna have to change it’s name from the Democrat party to the Donner party.

      • Grosspatzer

        Nice! Looks like they are freezing out everybody.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Ah, the good old grievance purity spiral. The people pushing this will be dismayed when they eventually get excluded in favor of LGBTQetc of color and the vicious cycle will continue.

      • Fourscore

        “I can live in a world where polygamy is still an option for men in the United States as well as around the world.”

        Some previously skipped over white women rejoice!

      • Gender Traitor

        But would it be an option for women?

  58. The Late P Brooks

    So they knew that in the long run everyone’s stats would end up being pretty much the same, so don’t crow early.

    “Flattening” the curve does not necessarily alter the area under the curve, merely the distribution over time.

    • Rebel Scum

      The area under the curve was always going to be the same. The goal posts were moved to “stop the spread”, which ain’t gonna happen. This whole thing is an exercise in control and I refuse to play along.

      Now that the heat of the day is up (since I’ve been lazy this morning …) it seems like the perfect time to cut the grass.

      • straffinrun

        It was all about number of hospital beds, right? Well, if they didn’t even come within a mile of being overwhelmed anywhere, they can GFTWARCS. All this Kabuki is cultural appropriation.

    • creech

      Isn’t the hope that extending the time would allow more time for a cure/treatment to be found? If we know, for certain, that a cure won’t ever be found, then the best thing to do might be to “let’er rip.”

      • Pope Jimbo

        Let me be the first to not take any vaccine that is rushed to market.

        My father had Guillain–Barré syndrome in the early 2000’s. Within 48 hours he went from being totally normal to completely paralyzed from the neck down and needed a ventilator to help him breath. He spent a little over 4 months like that before he began to recover. It was at least a few years before he was physically OK again and he still is scared shitless that it might happen again.

        Both he and his partner in an office got the swine flu vaccine and ended up getting GBS. Sure it is anecdotal, but it is also a huge coincidence that two people in the same office got such a rare disease.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I’m going to hold off on it myself for a bit just to be sure. It doesn’t fill me with confidence that the developers/manufacturers are being exempted from liability already.

      • Pope Jimbo

        For me that doesn’t set off alarm bells. Anyone who tries to do something without following the normal FDA process needs some assurance that they aren’t going to be sued if something goes wrong.

        I’m more concerned that too many people think we need a vaccine or life can never return to normal. So they are going to push this out totes fast without doing enough testing.

        I’m not saying there needs to be a full FDA testing process, but I also think that since this virus isn’t reaping millions of people every day, maybe pump the brakes a bit and do a good bit of testing first.

      • AlmightyJB

        I don’t trust my life to any process consumed by politics and money. Especially to vaccinate against a virus with a statistically improbable chance if killing me. I’ll let other people be the beta testers.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Pulllleaze!

      If they stopped posting pics, all the rich white kids would drop out of BLM protests in a minute.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Yeah, good luck with that.

    • Count Potato

      “riots”

    • AlmightyJB

      I have a bag of Aleppo in my spice cabinet. Along with 100 others spices, dried herbs, and blends:)

  59. mexican sharpshooter

    Nolan said that Grijalva is currently asymptomatic and that “he’s feeling fine and is just getting some rest.”

    Damnit. I was hoping they’d need to ventilate him so he’d STFU.

    • mexican sharpshooter

      I shouldn’t be so hard on the guy. With zero legislative achievements, he is in practice everything I want from a government figure.

  60. The Late P Brooks

    Scofflaws and seditionists!

    Minnesota’s Attorney General has announced legal action against the organizers of a rodeo for flouting state imposed safety precautions against the spread of COVID-19, after a large crowd assembled at its annual event.

    At least one person attending North Star Stampede Rodeo in Effie, 225 miles north of the Twin Cities, tested positive for the disease and now hospitals in Itasca County are bracing themselves for a wave of tests.

    Ahead of the event which took place between July 24 and July 26, the ranch and its owner, Cimarron Pitzen, had been in dispute with state officials who told him he would have to limit attendance to no more than 132 people to keep within the COVID-19 restrictions on gatherings imposed by Governor Tim Walz.

    Pitzen took to Facebook to say that while the event would take place “with no spectators… if people would like to come and protest against this ridiculous Government over reach, feel free to do so, I will not stand in the way of peoples’ ‘Right to Assemble.'”

    OMFG a wave of TESTS!

    Nobody gave you permission to do that.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Especially since our governor regularly brags about how his administration worked tirelessly to ramp up testing capability. He calls it a “moon shot” like effort. But I guess that the tests were really for big city protesters and important people. Not rubes Up North who like to go outdoors and watch men with pointy boots taunt poor animals.

  61. The Late P Brooks

    Look if we had unified on a single strategy we’d be so much better off. For example if we had all decided to follow the lead of Cuomo on this CV stuff…..

    Well, Social Security would be a lot closer to solvency.

    Medicare, too.

    • Count Potato

      Why the fuck is he naked?

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Not so much Antifa as a drunk Slav I think.

    • Pope Jimbo

      I have a super old shitty phone with a cracked screen.
      I almost never carry any cash

      “Do what they say”?

      That sir is too much!

      • Fourscore

        You ain’t Jimbo’s boss!

    • Drake

      Don’t stop for strangers who are trying to approach you or stop your car.

      I thank you and my defense attorney thanks you.

  62. AlmightyJB

    “The Links point to real stories of human tragedy so it would be awful if you laughed.”

    You know us better than our own mothers:)

    • Old Man With Candy

      No, I know people’s mothers better.

      • AlmightyJB

        Lol

      • Grosspatzer

        I thought you knew their children better. I am disappointed.

  63. The Late P Brooks

    Battlespace prep

    While a safe and effective vaccine is our best hope for ending this pandemic, only half of Americans said they would roll up their sleeves to get vaccinated, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research conducted in May. Around 1 in 3 were not sure if they would get vaccinated, while 20% said they would flat out refuse.

    Scientists might be wowed by the speed of scientific progress, but a breakthrough will mean little if only half the population ends up getting vaccinated. Some Americans might be rightfully wondering: If it usually takes a decade or longer to develop a vaccine, how are scientists condensing this process down to a year? How can the public be sure that corners are not being cut and safety is not being compromised? And could the President — in an attempt to woo voters in an election year — spin his own “October Surprise” and grant emergency approval of a vaccine that has not been through rigorous safety tests?

    While researchers are racing to develop a vaccine, public health officials should be working concurrently on ways to ease these fears. Because transparency is key to building public trust, here’s what should be explained about the accelerated vaccine development process.

    What good is a vaccine if we can’t force the plebs to take it? We need to round them up and run them through chutes, like cattle. Everybody gets a FZZZZT! in the neck, and no more plague (’til next time).

    And that bit about Trump being the one to force a vaccine onto the market; that’s a nice touch.

    • Hyperion

      The bio-chips are not ready yet, patience!

  64. Hyperion

    “This is not what we mean by gun control.”

    Those guys may be disappointed after they vote for Biden and Beta takes their AR-15s. Maybe in future protests, they can carry some rocks and sticks.

  65. The Late P Brooks

    Whoops. Missed my close tag, I guess.

  66. KSuellington

    We are staying in a hotel in Utah for the day after the drive down from Montana. Got a half hour of peace as the wife just took the kids to the pool, thank god it is open. At breakfast in the lobby we walked in and CNN was on two screens with that flaccid penis looking fellow babbling away. My five year old points and loudly says “hey dad, look! There’s that fake news again.” I was very proud.

    • Grosspatzer

      Congrats, that right there is proper parenting!

    • Gender Traitor

      You’re raisin’ that kid right!

      • KSuellington

        Thanks guys. My wife got a kick out of it in a “oh damn, this kid is already a handful” way. It also amused some old feller who chuckled under his mask.

    • Hyperion

      “with that flaccid penis looking fellow”

      Which one?

      • KSuellington

        The chubby looking one. Stetler I think. I never watch news programs, I read all my politics. When we got in the room last night after a swim, the kids wanted to watch some cartoons and CNN was the first thing on while I was trying to figure out the control. “What is this dad.?” “Fake news, guys, lets watch something more real, like cartoons.” Kid’s a quick learner.

      • Hyperion

        It was a joke, they all look like flacid penis faces to me.

        My ultra liberal client org always have it on Fox in all their lounges. I can’t really explain that.

        “Fake news, guys, lets watch something more real, like cartoons.”

        That’s epic.

      • KSuellington

        Must be for the hate watching.

        And yes, i agree. I think I am skipping most pro sports for at least this year. Let’s see how they do with their all woke all the time strategy. Fuck em.

  67. Hyperion

    “NFL gives another “fuck you” to their fan base. Which no longer includes SP and me.”

    I’m done with the assholes as well.

  68. The Late P Brooks

    It’s a free country.

  69. Hyperion

    “Karen Bass”

    Who?

    • Rhywun

      She’s spent so much time in Cuba it’s understandable if you don’t recognize her name.

  70. The Late P Brooks

    Other people’s money

    A year ago, Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos set records with the world’s biggest divorce settlement. On July 28, MacKenzie Bezos (now MacKenzie Scott) announced that she’s spent the time since aiming to set a much more inspiring record — for how fast she can give the money away.

    When the couple divorced in 2019, they were splitting the largest personal fortune in history, estimated at the time at about $145 billion. The couple announced a settlement in April 2019 that left Jeff Bezos 75 percent of his Amazon fortune, while Scott departed the marriage with $35 billion, making her at the time of the announcement the third-richest woman in the world (a recent Forbes ranking now has her at fourth).

    Right away, Scott indicated that her approach to philanthropy would be profoundly different from the approach she and Bezos had used as a couple. Jeff Bezos’s forays into philanthropy have been limited. While the wealthiest man in the world, he has not signed the Giving Pledge to eventually donate a significant share of his wealth, and he’s donated a far smaller percentage of it than other ultra-wealthy figures like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett, or Mike Bloomberg. When he has given, I’ve criticized his approach for a lack of rigor and clarity.

    One month after the divorce, Scott signed the Giving Pledge that Bezos never did. “I have a disproportionate amount of money to share,” she wrote in her pledge letter. “I won’t wait. And I will keep at it until the safe is empty.” And it seems like she’s been acting on that declaration.

    BFD

    • Grosspatzer

      *Opens safe* All that for me? Thanks! What’s your next move?

    • EvilSheldon

      MacKenzie is gonna wind up working as a cashier in a desert bar somewhere. Just watch.

  71. KibbledKristen

    Holy shit we were just talking about Wilford Brimley on the Zoom! What kind of voodoo do you people possess? Jeezus I hope you’re not talking about me – I’m not ready to die!