Wednesday Afternoon Links of Hope

by | Aug 12, 2020 | Daily Links | 344 comments

We chose to send our just-turned-five son back to VPK rather than start kindergarten this year. We were on the fence already because he’d be the youngest in his class, basically, but the shitshow public schools dumpster fire of a school year pushed us to send him back to daycare for another year. The daycare we used last year and will use again are awesome. How awesome? They closed a total of zero days for COVID. And, their school year started today. Which confused us because they told me the 24th when I re-enrolled him, but apparently they got an exemption from the state to start their VPK program when schools were supposed to start. So, long and short is I’ll be down to one kid in the house in the mornings now for the next couple of weeks and then (please God!) school starts for the first grader. We may have survived the long nightmare of being around each other 24×7!

I honestly can’t tell whether this is pro or anti-Biden. It runs down a laundry list of ill-spoken racial statements in Biden’s career and then drops this:

Instead, Biden is a Left-wing Archie Bunker, the stereotype-spewing lead character of the brilliant 1970s comedy series “All in the Family.” Producer Norman Lear’s top-rated show was a high-water mark for ethnic humor, which was how Americans once cheerfully addressed and overcame racial differences, unlike today’s corrosive techniques of in-your-face confrontation and Maoist re-education.

Mississippi or Minnesota? Mosquito design “accidentally” makes state flag finals. (h/t SugarFree)

New Jersey police arrest men for helping people to enjoy themselves.

Of course, the neck gaiter is basically for men who just don’t have time to fight all the Karens, so I’m not sure they’ll care about this report that: Neck gaiters may be worse than no mask at all. Um, okay. **makes jerkoff motion** whatever. Ban it and I’ll move to the old bank robber style bandana (when I’m not wearing my glibs “#talismask”)

 

About The Author

Brett L

Brett L

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

344 Comments

  1. Brochettaward

    If you aren’t First, why were you even born?

    • Roland of Gilead

      “a soul may descend to this world and live for seventy or eighty years, just in order to do [your fellow] Jew a material favor, and certainly a spiritual one.”

      • Roland of Gilead

        That’s from Baal Shem Tov, not my own.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      To piss on your grave.

      • Brochettaward

        Envy is an ugly color on you, my friend.*

        *Not really a friend because I would never be friends with someone who is not First.

      • Tres Cool

        Since Ive been 1st more times than you, are we friends? Shake?

        /passes hand over head

  2. OBJ FRANKELSON

    I keep toying with the idea of getting a shemagh to wear out and about.

  3. Drake

    I don’t know what the men in NJ were arrested for. The outdoor gathering limit in NJ is now 500 – it was lifted last month for the Governor’s daughter’s wedding with 400+ guests. Maybe the cops should have busted up that party.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      The gov did that no shit? These fucking people think they’re royalty. Worse, they’re right.

      • Drake

        Yep – took from 250 to 500 for his kid’s wedding. But my gym is still closed.

    • Grosspatzer

      So there we were, sittin’ on the bench, and the meanest, ugliest, hairiest father-raper of them all sat right down next to me and said,

      “Kid, whatcha in for?”

      And I said, “litterin'”. And they all moved away from me on the bench, until I said

      “And violating the governor’s executive order”.

      And they came right over, shook my hand, and said “You’re alright, boy”.

  4. Count Potato

    “Biden’s comments are racist, but not as this word is shouted today. Biden’s views of Blacks avoid the hatred or homicide of Democrats George Wallace, Bull Connor or a Jim Crow lynch mob.”

    That’s backwards. Today, even the tiniest thing is racist, including things that have nothing at all to do with race.

  5. The Other Kevin

    My youngest returned to in-person high school today. I hope they’re able to keep it going.

    Meanwhile, I had a depressing meeting with my sled hockey team today. Right now all tournaments are cancelled, and the hospital that sponsors us won’t officially sanction sports until there is a vaccine. Even after we start back up, we won’t have nearly as many funds available for our program. We are still having unofficial practices, but Illinois considers hockey to be “high risk”, so as of this weekend we might not be able to scrimmage, just do “skills with social distancing”. At that point I’m better off just going to stick & puck here in Indiana.

    • Nephilium

      So sorry to hear that TOK.

    • Count Potato

      Sorry, and there might never be a vaccine.

      • grrizzly

        There’s already one in Russia. Perhaps not enough testing to determine if it saves from COVID but might still work as a psychiatric placebo.

      • But Enough About My Prostate

        It is, in fact, the placebo effect that I’m rooting for, so that our Idiots In High Places will finally lift all these fucking restrictions. Plus I’d have a serious schadenböner if every pearl-clutcher I know gets the vaccine and then a whole raft of ’em come down with mild cases of the ‘Rona. Of course, they’d probably just claim that their infection would’ve been fatal without the vaccine…

    • invisible finger

      Switch to sled basketball. Lower the net to floor level and play on ice with a puck.

      • Rhywun

        Also, wear BLM shirts.

      • The Other Kevin

        Maybe an on-ice protest?

    • Fourscore

      Whatever happened to the day after Labor Day as first day of school? I’ve been out of the loop so long I assumed school still started on Tuesday after the Labor Day. Do kids need more days in school now for a reason? Do teachers/kids need more days off during the year?

      It’s still summer, bikes, fishing,baseball, etc for kids.

      /Podunkville idiot

      • Rhywun

        I don’t get it either. Labor Day is the unofficial end of summer.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        Most places up north have marched the date forward to extend Christmas break and build in a few more snow days now that they cancel for flurries.

      • Fourscore

        So its about the money. Attendance is a requirement for the cash, the reason administrators hate drop outs.

      • Viking1865

        The final day of school should be the day before Memorial Day, and the first day of school should be the day after Labor Day. Any other policy is an attempt to ruin the true beating heart of American freedom, American prosperity, and American happiness: summer vacation.

        Make Summer Great Again.

      • Fourscore

        Yep, back in my day…

    • Count Potato

      It’s not implausible.

    • R C Dean

      I’ve been seeing similar data for flu and ILIs (influenza like illnesses). They fall off a cliff, in a completely unprecedented way, when COVID data started to be collected. This past flu season actually started out looking like a moderate to bad one.

      Possible explanations are:

      (1) Flu and ILI deaths got misattributed to COVID.

      (2) COVID was a “harvesting event” (actual terminology) that killed people before who would have otherwise died from the flu/ILI before the flu could get to them.

      (3) People stopped going to see their doctors when the panic was triggered, so lots of people got (and died of ) the flu/ILI without ever seeing a doctor and getting diagnosed.

      (4) Doctors stopped testing for flu because of the tunnel vision on COVID.

      I suspect its a combination of all four. This is why I think a good analysis (if we can get one) of excess deaths is critical to getting a real number on COVID mortality. I thinks its clear COVID was a harvesting event to some extent, in that a chunk of its many elderly/frail/comorbid victims weren’t going to make it to, say, the end of the year anyway.

      • one true athena

        My son had flu (tested for flu) in early March. I suspect two weeks later he might’ve been an ‘suspected covid’ patient, because the doctor would’ve seen him by zoom and he wasn’t sick enough to go through the hassle (then) of getting the covid test.

      • prolefeed

        I tried to find a link on excess deaths in the U.S. for this year versus previous years – couldn’t find anything. Apparently Google and whatnot have tweaked their algorithm to hide that data waaay down in the results.

      • Viking1865

        They have. Literally could not find it when I searched a while back.

      • Brochettaward

        Drudge linked to a story the other day that claimed there was like 230,000 excess deaths this year. No, I don’t have that link. No, I will not enact that labor for you.

      • R C Dean

        Very questionable. Excess deaths data usually lags by months. As in, comparing excess deaths through June 2020 with excess deaths through June 2019 will cause you to miss a bunch of excess deaths in 2020.

        The CDC site uses “predicted” deaths. IOW, its another fucking model.

      • Overt

        “The CDC site uses “predicted” deaths.”

        No this is wrong. It is predicting what “Normal” deaths would be. That is the model, and if you are going to say something like “Excess Deaths” you are going to have to have some sort of model to say what normal deaths would have been, or we are back to arguing about whether that old guy with cancer who died of pneumonia while infected with covid was actually killed by COVID.

        The model is that they use historical analysis to “predict” how many people would normally die in a given week. Then they look at how many deaths were actually reported. (And these reported deaths are subject to 1 – 8 weeks of delay, meaning that the numbers will continually change for upwards of two months as more deaths come in).

        Their model for predicting normal deaths is pretty straight forward and uncontroversial. And you can look on their site and pretty well see where “Actual Deaths” severely departs from the common trend. So we could quibble about whether they should have expected 5000 or 5500 deaths that week (predicted deaths), but it is pretty easy to see that the 10,000 reported was an “excess”.

      • Overt

        I am ashamed, there is another bit of prediction going on. They are attempting to predict how many deaths will be reported in the most recent weeks. This data of course gets replaced as real data comes in.

        One VERY interesting piece of information: While most states are reporting COVID deaths right in line with the “Excess Predicted Deaths”, one state has reported COVID deaths well below the Excess Deaths reported by the CDC. Even more interesting, that same State is showing a spike in Excess Deaths (from the CDC) over the last week, but is REPORTING a very low number of COVID deaths.

        If you follow the main stream media, you will of course guess that it is that asshole government in Florida that is cooking the books. But the actual state in question is spelled with a Knife, a Fork, a Bottle and a Cork.

    • Brochettaward

      $800,000 per black household is a small price to pay to assuage my white guilt.

      • Drake

        Only if it includes a one-way tickets and giving up U.S. citizenship.

      • Nephilium

        The Irish can get reparations too?

      • robc

        What is the bankruptcy rate for lottery winners?

      • leon

        Nah, they’ll get 10k per household. The rest is to make sure the bureaucrats get their cut.

    • The Other Kevin

      I don’t see how it’s even possible to determine who would be eligible. Would some white descendants of Thomas Jefferson get a check?

      • But Enough About My Prostate

        Turns out, via the magic of 23andMe (or whatever, ’cause it was my brother who sent the test in), I have a sixth cousin or somesuch in Louisiana who’s black (at least if his profile pic was anything to go on). I’m dreaming of some sweet, sweet reparation YankMeBucks for my next birthday…

      • Brochettaward

        Your brother could be inadvertently snitching on distant relatives by using such sites. The Original Night Stalker would still be a free man if not for people like him. Think of the serial killers.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Get fucked, you show me a former slave and I’ll insist he/she get paid. Otherwise fuck off.

    • Suthenboy

      Why not 100 trillion, or a trillion trillion bazillion? We also need a 200% tax rate for everyone.

    • leon

      If they do reparations, it should be a tax, exclusively paid for by white people.

    • Rhywun

      Now we’re talkin’ real money. Crank up the presses (even higher).

    • Ed Wuncler

      If they did reparations, it would tear this country apart. I had one white coworker make a good point. His family is of German descent and from Joliet. He pointed out the unfairness of his family who never owned one slave and were in Germany during slavery giving me, a black dude who lives in an affluent Northwest Suburb money for something he didn’t even suffer for.

      • Rhywun

        I like to ask people to guess what all the talking heads were discussing on 9/10/2001?

        Yep – it was reparations. This nonsense comes and goes every decade or so like clockwork.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        There are so many “tear this country apart” milestones that we’ve hopped over this year that I’m afraid it wouldn’t actually tear the country apart. It should tear the country apart, because reparations is a deeply flawed concept from start to finish, and anybody who forces reparations on the American people has more in common with the slaveholders of the past than any descendant of slaveholders has.

    • Gadfly

      So, if we’re gonna do reparations for slavery, are reparations to the native americans next?

      I’m totally not asking because I’d want in on a 1/16th portion of that.

    • Animal

      Show me anyone alive today that was actually held in slavery in the U.S., and then I promise I’ll give three-fifths of a shit.

    • KibbledKristen

      If I have to pay reparations, then I never want to hear about “colonization” or “privilege” ever again. That’s the deal.

      • Cancelled

        No, that is very much not the deal. In fact I’d bet that more reparations bad whitie no cookie dollars get spent on programs to educate you about your inherent racial evil and defectiveness than are ever paid to descendants of slave.

      • KibbledKristen

        That’s my deal, I should say. They can take it or leave it.

  6. Nephilium

    So… Hope?

    The neck gaiter is also something I may have a use for when if the masking fashion goes away. Some of the crushed limestone trails get pretty damned dusty. Crushed limestone + Sweat + Beard = Crazy gray beard that can be molded.

  7. The Late P Brooks

    Ban it and I’ll move to the old bank robber style bandana (when I’m not wearing my glibs “#talismask”)

    Wear a motocross mask and goggles.

    You want “dehumanized”? Okay, then.

  8. The Late P Brooks

    The trainers claim that “individualism,” “perfectionism,” “intellectualization,” and “objectivity” are all vestiges of this internalized racial oppression and must be abandoned in favor of social-justice principles.

    Aaaaand done.

    • leon

      I’d argue that Social-Justice has no principles. A principle being something that you can apply universally and hold as a general truth.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        They have a couple. “Wypipo suck“ is one of them.

      • Not Adahn

        All SJ policy proposals can be summarized as “hurt whitey.”

    • Grumbletarian

      As part of this process, white employees must abandon their “white normative behavior”

      My abandonment of white normative behavior would include beating the shit out of the trainers and stealing their stuff.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      That’s one way to eliminate dissent.

    • Rhywun

      Why is nobody suing companies for pushing an oppressive workplace? I know there will be no recourse in the public sector but there should be in the private sector.

      • SDF-7

        At least in the tech field, I would assume because it seems like every possible employer is in lock step on politics these days. Be noticed as an unbeliever (outcast! unclean!) and you’d better be ready to retire, because I would bet there’s an unofficial black list out there. Gambling on winning the suit and getting enough to live on doesn’t feed the family in the short term.

      • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

        It will happen. My company is going down this route, and it might be my retirement plan. If they make this kind of training mandatory, I am going to refuse.

      • Rhywun

        I’ll go along to get along if it’s the usual multiple-choice time waster. If it turns into calling me a racist, I honestly don’t know what I will do.

      • Ted S.

        Tell them you’re gay and the only reason they’re criticizing you is because they’re raging homophobes.

      • Rhywun

        *takes notes*

      • Nephilium

        If it gets to that point, I may tell them I identify as a Black man.

        Of course, on my team are two black guys, an Indian, a white guy (non-technical), a Costa Rican, and myself.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        We’re bordering on the “calling me a racist” side of things at my company. Mostly just emails and optional meetings, but they’re starting to formulate ways to give teeth to this shift.

        I’m already planning my escape, but I’ll likely time it with them rolling out something egregious.

      • R C Dean

        Perfunctory click-through computer-based training, whatever.

        Struggle sessions led by lunatic SJWs? I think those could generate some very interesting racial discrimination claims, based on the bits of curricula and anecdotes I have heard.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        in the past, our struggle sessions were rather restrained. The most they would say was “you’re primed to be wary of the ‘other’, and that applies to race/gender/etc.” or “stereotypes can easily evolve into prejudices if left unchecked”

        I doubt anybody is leaving it that bland these days.

      • Rhywun

        No, because like everything else, they’re outsourcing it.

      • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

        I don’t have a problem with that formulation. But my company acquired another company that had some SJW HR person who started talking about intersectionality and identities and allies in a company meeting, and now we have a recommended reading list that includes White Fragility. The trend is bad.

      • Cancelled

        Sex drives can easily evolve into rape if left unchecked. Ambition can easily evolve into dishonesty if left unchecked. Assertiveness can easily evolve into murder if left unchecked. No crap, every impulse taken to an extreme becomes a deadly sin. The list of Virtues and the list of Sins match up, that used to be the whole reason for discipline and education, until the leftist scum turned every institution into a campaign tool for the philosophy of envy.

    • Agent Cooper

      I really don’t think they want white people to really get invested in identity politics.

    • Brochettaward

      Bailey and her attorney, Jane Lamberti, also say the hospital failed to install safety post in front of the emergency room entrance, which could have prevented the fatal incident from happened in the first place.

      ‘Secured posts that provide a secured space between pedestrians and an ER and car traffic going through,’ Lamberti said. ‘If you look at the video, Piedmont does not have any of these security bollards or posts.’

      I hate lawyers so much.

      • mikey

        A friend of my wife went to her insurance agent whose office was in a strip mall. She did the wrong pedal thing and ended up inside the insurance office. She took a concrete-filled bollard into the office with her. With a Toyota Carolla no less. Fortunately, on one was hurt. The office cancelled her insurece on the spot.

      • one true athena

        I can’t really object to them canceling her insurance when her car ends up inside their office. wow.

      • Mad Scientist

        How many other Asian friends does your wife have?

      • mikey

        Several, but they’re not QUITE as bad drivers

      • TARDIS

        I hate lawyers so much.

        Me too. Well, not as much as generalizations, of course.

      • Brochettaward

        I hate people named TARDIS the most.

      • TARDIS

        Peak Hate. TARDIS for teh win!

    • Homple

      More than likely, she stepped on the accelerator instead of the brake and froze in panic, pressing harder. Happens now and then.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Yeah, see the Toyota sudden acceleration defect of 2010 or so.

      • Gadfly

        More than likely, she stepped on the accelerator instead of the brake and froze in panic, pressing harder. Happens now and then.

        This, most likely, especially since the driver was elderly (since the elderly tend to have slower reaction times).

      • Shpip

        That happened with the Q-Tips in Florida so often that a) car manufacturers changed their software so that you can’t shift from Park into Drive or Reverse without having your foot on the brake, and b) pretty much every storefront has those concrete bollards between the building and the parking lot.

        Not that it thwarts elderly Florida person. Usually they do it going forward, though.

    • Ted S.

      Another covid death.

    • Hyperion

      Granny done gone postal. Look out here she come again! They told her Trump is going to cancel Medicare! *running, screaming, crashes*

  9. ruodberht

    A fucking pool party with chlorine everywhere.

    Am I the same species as these pants-shitting pussies?

    • Homple

      They’re not afraid of anything, they just love the power tripping.

    • grrizzly

      I’m close to renouncing my belonging to the human race. Fortunately, I have an alternative species identify lined up.

      • Cancelled

        *watches video of Grizzly males fighting in spring.

        Might want to rethink that plan.

  10. prolefeed

    What’s with the meme here about drugs falling out of someone’s ass? Did I miss a thread about incompetent drug mules, or about Mexicans, pot, and ass sex, where that meme became an in joke?

    • Nephilium

      There was a very often linked story about a man accidentally shooting himself in the testicles, and having a baggie of drugs fall out of his rectum. It got linked multiple times in every thread for about a week, eventually building itself into meme status.

      • Not Adahn

        Soon it will pass unto that land where it will join the Golden Girls, Browns Pallbearers, and Telling Your Dying Relative That Trump Was Impeached.

      • SDF-7

        And… “thicc?”

      • Nephilium

        Where Tow, the Blue Lion, lives eternal while Dunphy is power lifting while surfing.

      • Not Adahn

        Smooches.

      • R C Dean

        while Dunphy is power lifting Morgan Fairchild while surfing

      • Cancelled

        Maybe Lou Reed and David Bowie can write a song about it.

  11. Rebel Scum

    a number of flags that featured “guitars, beer cans, Largemouth bass, a Jesus meme and the Southeastern Conference logo.

    Include all of these on one flag.

  12. The Late P Brooks

    Davis, 31, and a man identified by police as the party promoter, Marheem Miller, 28, of Camden, were charged with three counts of violating the governor’s executive orders. Davis was also issued a summons for littering and will be charged for violating the local zoning ordinance. Davis and Miller could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.

    Land of the Free.

  13. DEG

    The “mosquito flag” is certainly an original take on the state’s past and went up on the commission’s website for the public to weigh in on. But it wasn’t to be, and the flag was quickly yanked. “The mosquito flag advanced to Round Two due to a typo in a list of flag numbers submitted by one commissioner,”

    Typo. Huh.

    The party Sunday in Sicklerville, about 20 miles from Philadelphia, went on and the homeowner and the event promoter were charged, Gloucester Township police said Monday. It is at least the third large party shut down in New Jersey in the last week where guests paid entrance fees.

    Jack booted thugs.

    Ban it and I’ll move to the old bank robber style bandana

    The rare occasions I bend on a mask I use a bandanna. Which never covers my nose.

    • Not Adahn

      Which never covers my nose.

      Well, then it won’t do any good!

      • DEG

        Exactly.

  14. The Late P Brooks

    My abandonment of white normative behavior would include beating the shit out of the trainers and stealing their stuff.

    Don’t forget rapin’ the Hell out of their wimmin.

  15. KSuellington

    The neck gaiter study is shite, but I have no doubt they don’t do jack, along with the vast majority of masks people are using. As I’m typing this I’m eating lunch in my van and watching some dude adjust his mask. He has touched his face about ten times in two minutes. In no possible way is that helpful.

    I wear a neck gaiter because I want to do the absolute minimum. I’m with Neph, I used them a lot before when fishing or skiing or other outdoor activities so as to not have to constantly reapply sun block. Since this panic has started I’ve been in about 500 homes and businesses to do service calls. I slip it up if I’m dealing with a Covidian and if not it stays on my neck. It goes on half a second before I enter a business and then off a half second after exiting. What a ducking joke.

    • R C Dean

      We had a guy out at the Casa Dean to do some work. He came in with his mask on. I told him “You don’t have to keep that on for me.”

      And behold, off it came. I am now out of the zone where I could have caught the ‘Vid from him, so I escaped unscathed.

      • Nephilium

        I had someone out yesterday to check on some dead branches in a big oak tree. I opened the door he stepped back, started to offer his hand, double checked himself until I said, “It’s good” and shook his hand. We then started commiserating about the lockdowns and how crazy this all is.

        When I had the guys out here to replace the furnace, they were wearing the masks, and then cautiously asked if I would mind if I took them off. I let them know they could take them off, and I wouldn’t care.

        I’m sure I’m due to die of the VID any day now.

      • Viking1865

        I caught a ride from a coworker a few weeks back. This dude is a total MUH COVID DANGER pussy. He has condishuns, he TRUSTS THE EXPERTS, he knows DRUMPF SO BAD YO. So I’m in his car, with my mask on. Because its his car, and his rules. Dude looks at me and goes “Oh you don’t have to wear your mask.”

        People are very very fortunate I can’t induce aneurysms with a thought.

      • KSuellington

        Heh, heh. I’ve seen a very similar thing with a couple people.

        I’m sure all those workmen were very glad not to have to do physical labor with a fucking mask. It sucks. I had to wear one for 6 hours yesterday as I worked on a couple of particularly problematic doors. It makes work so much more cumbersome.

    • Nephilium

      So… In ways to piss off more people while technically following the executive orders…

      Rorshach Masks has released neck gaiters as well. You can watch people call you a white supremacist (based on the HBO miniseries) while you spread your COVID around.

  16. Certified Public Asshat

    Wut

    Trump brilliantly narrows down the location of his acceptance speech. Either break yet another law and do it at the WH, or do it at Gettysburg and celebrate your devotion to White Supremacy.— Rob Reiner (@robreiner) August 10, 2020

    • kbolino

      When did it become a law that the President can’t campaign in the White House? I feel like this is yet another one of those “norms” that just got invented yesterday. What the fuck were FDR’s fireside chats if not campaigning?

      • Viking1865

        FDR never threw ethnic minorities in prison camps, and he never demonized his domestic opposition, and he never lied to the American people either.

    • Cancelled

      He knows Gettysburg had something to do with the Stars and Bars evil badflag but after all, he is a meathead, and is a bit confused about it.

    • Grumbletarian

      Sort of like if Queen Elizabeth’s coronation were held at Appomatox Courthouse.

    • Suthenboy

      What is the average age of people in 3rd world countries vs the US?

      • Gadfly

        I really think that this is the main thing. The countries that have been hit hardest by this, first world countries, have disproportionately large elderly populations, against a disease that disproportionately targets the elderly.

      • Viking1865

        Yeah how many chunky octogenarians with multiple serious medical conditions are alive in Third World countries?

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      I wouldn’t trust the data collection abilities of 3rd world countries. I don’t necessarily trust our numbers 100% either, but they are probably closer to the truth than most countries.

      • Brochettaward

        You’d have to trust their ability to test to begin with before you could even trust their willingness/ability to count deaths accurately.

      • Drake

        I’d have to trust ours too.

      • Drake

        Really? I think ours are wildly inflated. Would we know there was a pandemic if it wasn’t on TV? It was a minor cold for the only people I know who had it.

      • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

        Ours could be inflated due to the incentives that were put in place, but I can imagine that a fair number of deaths were not counted early on as well. I’m not saying our numbers are perfect, just more accurate than most.

      • R C Dean

        My working assumption is that our deaths are over-reported by 30%.

      • Drake

        There was a whole effort around here to count “potential” vivid deaths before March.

  17. Rhywun

    New Jersey police arrest men for helping people to enjoy themselves.

    /whistles innocently, thanks God he doesn’t live next to a mansion with a large swimming pool

  18. Nephilium

    Alright… in off topic news. That’s it, I’m done with “virtual” rides. I signed up for one back in March when this was only going to be a couple of weeks of lockdown and it looked entertaining enough with some decent swag. It’s not a fucking joke anymore. All of the supported rides have been cancelled, and I can’t even do a long ride without carrying extra water as places have turned off the fucking water fountains, so I can’t refill my bottles on the ride.

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      I did the Dirty Kanzelled ride in May. I carried extra water and was lucky enough to find enough fountains that were still working. I’ll probably be doing another one in October. I have a route scouted out where I can stop at gas stations to buy water if necessary.

  19. KibbledKristen

    Everyone knows the MN state bird is the mosquito

    • Pope Jimbo

      We got two sizes.

      Those small enough to fit through the screen door and those big enough to open the screen door themselves.

      • But Enough About My Prostate

        Got that same joke here in Alberta. Also in the Northwest Territories (but when I was in the Territories, it was actually true, dammit).

      • Pope Jimbo

        Ole and Lars were out camping when two giant mosquitoes flew out of the trees and grabbed them. The mosquitoes were at least 8 feet tall and there was nothing Ole and Lars could do.

        One mosquito turned to the other and said “Should we suck out all their blood here? Or bring them back home and then suck their blood out?”

        “Are you crazy!” said the other mosquito, “if we bring them back home, the big ones will take them away from us”

  20. SDF-7

    Since Q is taking a sanity break:

    Here and some great ones.

    • KibbledKristen
    • J. Frank Parnell

      I think Ass Wednesday was his thing.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Swiss ass! (you can even see a bit of the ass hole)

  21. KibbledKristen

    Still waiting for the vet to call so I can pick up the teenager. I could really go for some w33d right now.

  22. Rebel Scum

    America is the Indiana of the world.

    Amidst a sharp increase in shootings and violent crime in England, the New York Times believes its found the culprit: American guns that are being smuggled in to the island nation where guns are banned. In a new story entitled “How American Guns Are Fueling U.K. Crime,” the paper pins the blame for the United Kingdom’s increasing crime rate on our Second Amendment, though eventually the authors reluctantly acknowledge that most illicit firearms seized in the U.K. come from Europe, not American soil.

    Most illegal firearms in Britain still come from Europe. But investigators seized hundreds of smuggled American guns last year, a small figure by international standards, though experts say the number that the police do not discover is likely to be far higher.

    The British police have traced some of the smuggled American guns back to loosely regulated gun fairs in states like Florida. Investigators have also seized American weapons being smuggled on a container ship and hidden in car engines.

    Now the authorities fear that after Brexit, when borders with the European Union will be more tightly regulated, the illegal gun trade from America could accelerate, especially given the Trump administration’s broad support for the gun industry.

    “A major Trump administration goal is to globalize the firearms trade and facilitate exports, and if you’re facilitating legal exports it’s almost inevitable that there will be an illegal diversion of weapons into criminal markets in other countries,” said Aaron Karp, a senior consultant for the Small Arms Survey in Geneva and a lecturer at Old Dominion University in Virginia.

    • Brochettaward

      I’m not clicking the link, but do they even bother to address how much UK crime is committed with guns to begin with, let alone with guns traced back to America? And I’m guessing there’s no mention made of the influx of third worlders.

      • Rebel Scum

        Idk. But it is a link to BearingArms, which quotes another site. No harm in giving them clicks.

    • Suthenboy

      Their crime rate has nothing to do with imported guns and everything to do with them deliberately importing criminals.

      Fuck them.

      • Gustave Lytton

        If only. There’s plenty of good ole Englishmen committing crimes.

    • KibbledKristen

      I thought knives were the preferred murder tool over there

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      Back in my days in Europe the gun crime was from the various mafia groups who were getting their guns from China or Eastern European countries. I doubt that has changed.

    • Viking1865

      A major Trump administration goal is to globalize the firearms trade and facilitate exports, and if you’re facilitating legal exports it’s almost inevitable that there will be an illegal diversion of weapons into criminal markets in other countries

      Trump is such a cuck. If you’re gonna be a merchant of death, really lean into it.

      President Viking:

      “Good evening. Today I’d like to announce that America is open for business to all oppressed people everywhere. Arm yourselves. Free men are armed, and there’s no better way to be armed then with American steel. We have American classics, and we have immigrant gunmakers who have moved production to the only country where we know for a sure and certain fact that criminals both private and public sector fear nothing more than an honest armed man. Come. Visit us. See the sights. Eat our delicious food. Drink our delicious beer, which is also the best in the world. And when you go home, take a finely crafted American made pistol, rifle, or shotgun home with you.

      Are you British? Yobs run the other way when you brandish a Remington 870. Are you from India? Rapists don’t like 9mm slugs. The SW Shield is a compact and easy to use choice. People of Hong Kong: Marching is great, protesting is great. But the final argument of kings is force. I don’t know if AR15s can win your freedom back for you, but I do know that the PLA will never ever forget your names. “

      • Hyperion

        “Drink our delicious beer, which is also the best in the world.”

        The ones we imported from Europe, that is. The rest are IPA swill. But you can’t have everything!

        Sorry, I couldn’t let that one glaring inconsistency mess up your great post.

  23. Pine_Tree

    ‘vid anecdote: A couple with whom we’re casual friends lost his mom a few weeks back. She had had cancer a long time and was very obviously in end-stages. Friend and his sister (both in their ~mid-50’s or so) had been doing most of the care, and then they managed to get her moved into a local (good) assisted-living facility. She got cootie-tested upon entry. She was asymptomatic but positive for CV-19. Friend and his sister both had to get tested, and they were asymptomatic-but-positive too. His wife and 3 teenagers had the same results. His mom got moved to the hospital after only a day or two in assisted living, and then to hospice, where she passed away. None of the family were allowed in to visit for any of these last few days. So:
    – that really sucks for everybody involved
    – that’s 7 people (6 of whom were generally healthy and 1 who was very much not) who were positive with 0 symptoms
    – apparently, the story is they DIDN’T call her a covid death.

    Anyway, mostly just griping.

    • Brochettaward

      If I had someone I cared about, say one of my favorite prostitutes, came down with covid and I was told I couldn’t visit in the hospital there’d be problems. Especially if there’s real risk of death. I’m not letting someone I know die alone for their covid theater.

      • SDF-7

        How is Winston’s Mom these days?

      • Raven Nation

        Haven’t seen Winston himself around in a while.

    • Ed Wuncler

      “None of the family were allowed in to visit for any of these last few days.”

      This angers me to no end.

      • Mojeaux

        My mom isn’t afraid of dying (she’d prefer it because she’s not ill, but she’s in constant pain), but she doesn’t want to die alone.

      • Mad Scientist

        You wouldn’t want to catch it twice!

      • Count Potato

        Me too.

  24. KibbledKristen

    How hard is it to find 45 long colt, and how in demand is it?

    • Suthenboy

      A quick DDG tells me it is available but at over $1 per round. Ouch.

      • KibbledKristen

        No shit??? I have 7 boxes that I’m never going to use.

      • Suthenboy

        Mostly on auction sites. Have a look at gunbroker.com

        Gun and ammo prices are crazy right now. That is not a good sign….

      • mock-star

        you aint kidding. I just looked at 9mm. prices start at over 50 cpr for wolf steel cased.

      • KibbledKristen

        I just bought some 9 from cheaper than dirt and they limited me to 4 boxes

    • Not Adahn

      Among the cowboy shooters, I am told that many of them start shooting it to be more authentic, but inevitably switch to .38 because of the cost.

    • mock-star

      According to ammoseek.com, its out there. During normal times, its around 75 cents a round. Right now its around 90 cents.

      • mock-star

        im wrong. more like 1.10 a round now.

    • KibbledKristen

      What’s the best way to sell? Suthen, you mentioned auctions?

      • Suthenboy

        Try gun broker

      • Suthenboy

        Sorry short answers. Trying to eat tuna fish sandwich and type

      • DEG

        I’ll second GunBroker.

        Kristen, you’re a member at a club or range right? If so, check to see if they have a members “for sale”/”wanted” list/board/what-have-you.

      • KibbledKristen

        Good idea! I’ll check

      • LCDR_Fish

        Probably plenty of local places that would be happy to buy it from you – maybe you can at least get a quote and save yourself the shipping. (Did you ask at Elite?)

      • KibbledKristen

        I’ll ask next time I’m in there. I think I paid about $150 for all of it about 7-8 years ago. I want dat cash!!

    • Rhywun

      That guy better have a bodyguard.

    • Count Potato

      I find capitalizing the word “black” jarring to read.

    • Hyperion

      “It is condescending… and not helpful. I urge white people to chill. Stop helping us, because you’re making things worse!”

      Well, at least Biden brings you Kamala Harris, that should make up for it.

  25. Mojeaux

    Oy. I’m setting up an Etsy shop for my embroidery stuff (I gotta get my inventory sold, man) and I have run into one problem after another. Also, revisiting old work is disorienting. “Who the fuck did this bullshit?” “Oh. Me.” “Damn, you’re good.” “Yes. Yes, I am.”

    Anyway, I haven’t done one fucking thing for my clients in the last however many days because I’ve had administrative shit to do (like tend my needlework business). Five days. Five days of administrative hullabaloo. *headdesk*

    XX is going into her senior year. Right now, the subject of a car is on the table. She has a good full-time job and no debt, but also no credit. My dad stuck me with a series of beater cars that sucked my bank account dry for years. So what to do, what to do: TRY to find a decent used car she can pay for in full and cross our fingers and hope it isn’t a nickel-and-dimer OR have her finance something good (hello, Enterprise) when there is no interest and it can build her credit and cross our fingers she can continue to make the payments once she leaves home. We are honestly and truly stumped.

    • Fatty Bolger

      If she’s a saver and responsible, and has a good amount to put down on the car, then financing should be fine.

    • R C Dean

      Cars, including used cars, are a lot more reliable now. A. Lot. Of course, when they do need work, its rarely cheap. So getting nickel and dimed is probably not likely.

      She’s going to need a car sooner or later unless she moves to some urban hellhole and takes public transportation everywhere.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      IMO, saddling her with debt before she graduates high school does a disservice.

      Again IMO, Part of growing up is learning how to take care of your things and work around it when your things don’t work.

      • Mojeaux

        Saddling her with a nickel-and-dime beater would be as much of a disservice. Trust me, I know.

        To me it’s six of one (getting-to-work security) and half-dozen (getting-to-work insecurity) of another.

      • Viking1865

        Cars are a lot more reliable now then they were in the past. Something like 4 year old Honda Civic will run forever. I have a friend who bought a 4 year old Civic with 200k miles for a song, and it’s almost at 300k now.

        You’d also be surprised how much of your own work you can do via YouTube videos and playing with it.

      • mrfamous

        Was going to echo this. Beater’s can be great money savers as long as you can do all the minor work on the car. Window motor breaks? Order up a new part and install a new one. Four or five things like this and you’ve saved over a grand. It’s things like the transmission that can cause the real expenses to rack up. You don’t save much with doing your own oil changes but it does teach you to pay attention to the routine maintenance that cars need.

        I’m guessing the used car market is finally starting to get past the debacle that was Cash for Clunkers, but I’m also guessing it’s effects will still linger for a while.

      • Timeloose

        I owned two Foci. The 2012 we had was a stick. Very sporty and reliable. The wife got 150K mikes with no issue.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Brother was just used car hunting and said the supply has dried up. He thinks it’s more of people looking for cheaper alternatives right now as money gets tighter. I supposed people just not turning over their cars at the same rate right now could be doing some of it too.

      • Mojeaux

        I thought Hertz going bankrupt would solve that problem, but I underestimated the number of people in the market for a used car.

        Neither my mom nor I have never had bad luck with a fleet car and we’ve never bought a fleet car from anyone other than Enterprise.

      • Mojeaux

        Neither my mom nor I have never

        have ever*

        Stupid double negatives.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        just to add some color and show that I’m not just talking out my ass. My first car was a 15 year old Ford taurus. It had a tendency to lurch you into an intersection and stall when the temperature was below 40. It blew a power steering pump, and it eventually succumbed to a broken front spring that punctured a tire. The steering was sloppy enough that we called it “the boat”.

        There were a few days where I had to ride the bus to school, bum a ride off a coworker to make my shift, or beg my parents to drive me somewhere because the boat was in drivable. I also put some substantial money into the car to keep it running (on the order of a few thousand). That rickety piece of shit lasted me 6 years before we donated it, and by then I had saved up enough to buy a car that would last me another 7 years until the dumbassery I’ve been posting about in GlibFin.

        It sucked sometimes, but I was never in fear of missing a car payment. I was never forced to choose between food and transportation. As long as I had $20 for gas and enough for insurance, I could make it another week.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        Saddling her with a nickel-and-dime beater would be as much of a disservice. Trust me, I know.

        I strongly disagree. Let’s say you drop $15k on a decent used car. That’s 5x$2k repairs on a $5k beater. Are there some lemons out there that will do that kind of damage to your pocketbook? Sure. Are they common? Not at all.

        The risk isn’t being priced in. The instant the ink dries on the loan, you’re in for $15k + interest. On the other hand, your $5k beater may or may not cost $10k over the next X years. Most likely, that cost of ownership for the relatively short period until she’s making enough money to upgrade, is going to be substantially less than $10k.

        In your shoes, I’d spend $5k and toss every penny that would be going to the car company into a savings account to buy a better car in a few years.

      • Mojeaux

        I strongly disagree.

        We’ll have to agree to do so then because I lived that nightmare for better than 10 years. Dad chose the car, I was expected to pay for it and the repairs, and they all ended up in the shop more than not.

        So when I say it’s as much of a disservice, I’m not talking out my ass, either.

      • robc

        As already said 1990 reliability and 2020 reliability are radically different things.

      • Mojeaux

        As already said 1990 reliability and 2020 reliability are radically different things.

        This is not something I thought of and is actually quite reassuring.

      • Viking1865

        Yeah we’re not trying to “well ackshually” you. It’s just that cars have gotten much more reliable since 2000, and even since 2010.

        I have an 07 Ford and the only time I need to put money in it is when it fails state inspection, and its not a particularly reliable model. If I lived in a freer state I would have only put it in for oil changes.

        Buying a 2012 with 90k on it in 2020 is not like buying a 1982 with 90k on it in 1990.

      • Cancelled

        If you can’t afford a repair for your beater you have the option of doing without a car until you can afford it. If you can’t afford your car payment your credit is toast, and you lose the car permanently. I have to vote no car loan here, and pretty much always.

      • Viking1865

        Another thing to consider, no matter how careful you drive, you can still get in a wreck, and if you do then the insurance pays off the loan first, then you get whatever is left over. Especially important with a young driver.

        Pay that thing off, then if some idiot hits you the insurance money comes to your pocket.

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      Whatever you do, teach her how to change the oil. That should save her a few bucks and familiarize her with the workings of a car so that a mechanic is less likely to take advantage of her.

      • But Enough About My Prostate

        Oil, headlights/taillights/sidelights (I’m serious! my Toyota maintenance place wanted to charge me 0.25 of a shop hour for each light!), engine air filter, cabin air filter, windshield wiper blades, transmission fluid, radiator coolant and windshield washer fluid.

        Those things alone can add up to thousands in shop charges over the life of a car, and they’re almost all dead easy to do.

        Oh, and whenever a light that’s part of a pair or set goes, replace both/all of ’em. They all have similar life spans, so if one goes, the rest are probably getting ready to do so as well, unless the failure in question happens within a few dozen or hundred hours of operation (“bathtub” failure).

    • Shpip

      Given what you’ve described, I’d go with something like this.

      Simple, reliable, no-frills transportation that won’t break the bank.

      • Mojeaux

        Oh that’s excellent, thank you. She has about half that amount right now. My husband is a Hyundai fan anyway. We have 2, in fact.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Haha, SUCKERS!

    Before talks between congressional Democrats and the White House fell apart, there was clear bipartisan support emerging for revamping the program, which offers government-backed small business loans that can be forgiven if employers maintain their payroll. One major revision would make it easier to convert the smallest loans — those for $150,000 or less, which account for most of the program’s volume — into outright grants, making life easier for both borrowers and lenders.

    But the negotiations stalled just as the Small Business Administration this week began accepting applications for businesses to have the loans forgiven. Now many lenders are waiting to see whether a deal can be salvaged before they start the process. The stalemate is creating more doubts for small business owners as they try to navigate the program and avoid being stuck paying back loans they expected to be forgiven.

    “It is frustrating, knowing the benefit this could have for many small business owners who are waiting to apply for forgiveness,” said Holly Wade, director of research and policy analysis at the National Federation of Independent Business, which advocates for small businesses in Washington.

    The confusion is the latest example of lenders and borrowers being left in the dark about how to proceed with the Paycheck Protection Program, after suffering through a chaotic launch dogged by incomplete guidance from the Trump administration and SBA technology glitches.

    “You fucked up. You trusted us.”

    Swapping wealth creation for debt. What a splendid gambit.

    • Ted S.

      Cool link, bro!

    • Mad Scientist

      I’m curious if this is how it’s going to work:
      1) government forces you to close your business indefinitely
      2) government offers to loan you money to cover your expenses while your business is closed
      3) government forgives all or part of the loan
      4) government charges you income tax on step 3

      • Drake

        5) “Maintain your payroll” without any income while the goverment is paying your employees more not to work than you were paying them to work.

        My local gym owner got some that money and just gave it back. Wasn’t going to work without a definite reopening day.

      • Grosspatzer

        That is the business model of La Cosa Nostra, with some minor alterations.

        3. You can’t pay off the loan on time.

        4. We break your legs.

      • The Last American Hero

        4 is We print a fuckton of money to cover this and Everyone pays through the hidden tax that is inflation.

  27. Pope Jimbo

    When I was first going to college, I was nowhere near as contrarian as I am now, but even then there is no way I wouldn’t balk bullshit like this.

    So the school decided, first and foremost that they are going to ask all students and staff to sign what they’re calling the Blugold Fly Right Pledge.

    “It really involves three things,” Anderson explained. “One is a pledge to protect yourself, making sure you’re washing your hands, using hand sanitizer, wearing your face mask. The other is a pledge to protect others, again, wearing your face mask or socially distancing, doing everything you can to protect those around you.”

    One of the unique parts of the UW-EC pledge though, is the school’s request that students, staff and faculty log their temperature using an app that they are working to build before the semester begins. The school said it is developing the app along with the Mayo Clinic.

    “What we’re doing is asking every member of the community, student faculty, administrator to monitor and log your temperature and symptoms every single day including weekends and including days you’re not going to be here,” Anderson said.

    Fucking loyalty oaths and submitting to daily electronic monitoring. Fuck UW-Eau Claire in the neck.

    • Not Adahn

      They need it so they know which coeds are ovulating.

    • Rhywun

      lol go fuck yourself

    • Grosspatzer

      That is very nearly word-for-word the pledge my son has been “asked” to sign at Scranton. Boilerplate. It’s bullshit, but I get the feeling they need to do this to keep assholes like Wolf at bay. At least all his classes are in-person.

      • The Last American Hero

        Until week 3 of class when some teacher at another school gets The Vid.

      • Grosspatzer

        That is a concern. Hoping for the best.

  28. But Enough About My Prostate

    Ban it and I’ll move to the old bank robber style bandana (when I’m not wearing my glibs “#talismask”)

    My suggestion to SP of creating a #ThisMaskDoesNothing message for the masks on RedBubble (thanks SP!) has been mostly a hit where I’ve worn it (with the occasional pearl clutching). I bought a few extras for the spousal unit and some friends.

    • Nephilium

      It got nothing but positive comments when I was on the island. Especially when I pulled it out of a work shirt pocket to put it on.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    Fucking loyalty oaths and submitting to daily electronic monitoring. Fuck UW-Eau Claire in the neck.

    That’s a “Gimme my money back” situation.

    • Trolleric the Goth

      the upside down phone thing doesn’t strike me as a huge deal since the mic is at the bottom and he was pointing the mic at the laptop’s speakers, but the script is ridiculous

      • R C Dean

        Why would he point the phone mike at the speakers, though?

      • Trolleric the Goth

        so whoever was on the phone could hear the skype call is my guess

      • R C Dean

        Who was on the phone? Why couldn’t they just join the call?

      • prolefeed

        How do we know that was Biden calling Harris, and not a fake – just some rando with a fake script and a picture of Harris on his computer? Where’s his face?

      • Gadfly

        His face is in the pic – on twitter you have to click on a pic to see the whole pic, what is shown at first is just a cropped version. If it’s a fake, they did a good job getting someone who looks like Biden.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Yeah, I have no idea why he would point the phone away from him either.

        Of course if he was skyping with Kamala, why did he need a phone?

        And what must she have thought during that call when she saw that he had a script?

      • prolefeed

        And what must she have thought during that call when she saw that he had a script?

        “I’m gonna bust out the 25th amendment and be president right after the inaugural ball.”

      • Viking1865

        Yeah it’s speaker phone, who cares.

        But a script? Like, honestly, that’s not a good sign and of course the media is covering it up by cutting the script out of the frame.

      • invisible finger

        A teleprompter would confuse him.

  30. Gadfly

    Since some of you like dark humor, here’s a topical bit courtesy of Michael Malice:

    If Kamala Harris had a son he would have killed George Floyd.

    • Sean

      ???

      • dbleagle

        Huzzah!

  31. Fourscore

    “Seattle’s Office of Civil Rights”

    In 1976 I was Chief, HRD/RREO (Human Resources Development/Race Relations/Equal Opportunity) of a brigade at Ft Hood, TX. I had an 8 person staff, 4 black (2 Offs/2 NCOs) , 3 whites (2 NCOs, 1 EW) and myself. We were busy stamping out racial inequality, sex discrimination, drug use via surprise urine collection to be tested.

    For me it was kind of a General Halftrack assignment , coasting out to retirement. No one ever called, no one ever came to visit us to see what we were doing. I reported to the Brigade Chief of Staff. I thought I had accomplished all the goals and had eliminated the need for those things I was charged to do but apparently they went underground and I was too blind to realize it.
    I’m waiting to be recalled so I can be rehabbed myself, it was far deeper within me than I had realized.

    44 years later the problem is so bad that Seattle has an office dedicated to its remediation.

    • Gustave Lytton

      We were busy stamping out racial inequality, sex discrimination, drug use via surprise urine collection to be tested.

      Huh. They had urine tests to detect inequality and discrimination?

      • Fourscore

        Well, as you know, certain groups are more heavily invested in the drug trade

        /Sarc

      • Gustave Lytton

        And that’s what they get for pissing bigoted.

    • Drake

      44 years ago I doubt there was a female in the Brigade. Made the job of stamping out sex discrimination pretty easy.

      • Fourscore

        We were 10% and climbing, Support Brigade. It caused many problems because the troop units didn’t know what to do. I had been in a Sig Bn before going to Brigade HRD.

        Pole line women? As long as there was 2 men to run a 90 lb roll of WD1. First time we went to the field some women were assigned pup tents with a man, showers had to be scheduled by time. We began integrating as early as ’73-74, mostly clerks but soon there were some short truck drivers. I had to counsel a senior NCO on what he thought was humorous but could easily have been sexual harassment had I not stopped it immediately. Some romance did blossom and in one case a marriage between an officer and an EW.

        My lady clerk at HRD danced topless at a local club, invited us down but to the best of my knowledge none went to see the show.

    • Rhywun

      I wonder why they waste time taking their shirt off. He could have got in a couple punches if he wasn’t fiddling with that.

      • Drake

        Was he going flex on him?

      • Suthenboy

        It is cultural, and that has nothing to do with race.

        In some cultures ‘battle’ is primarily about intimidation. In others it’s primarily about killing.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        ?

        It’s important to know who you’re going to fight. You usually don’t.

      • Suthenboy

        I think we know who we are up against and I am fairly certain how it will turn out….just for the reasons I said.

    • Heroic Mulatto

      Not my kink.

  32. Yusef drives a Kia

    Kamala is Finnish for Horrible

    • But Enough About My Prostate

      Google Translate says “True”!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I thought salmiakki was Finnish for horrible.

    • leon

      English too.

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      Uh oh, Finnish is about to be canceled. As in finished.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Well it isn’t like Joe will Finnish his term, so what does that matter?

    • Grosspatzer

      Oh shit. Her first EO as president will be to have Linux replaced with Windows on all govt. servers. As if we don’t already have enough security issues.

    • Agent Cooper

      Mrs. Nixon is Finnish!

    • Roland of Gilead

      Nice

    • R C Dean

      Not bad.

      HarriDen doesn’t work for me. Gets the candidate’s names reversed. Its not intuitive enough.

      Joe/Blow is still my fave.

  33. Pope Jimbo

    Local Story that makes you go “huh?” on several levels.

    A guy purposely ran up on the sidewalk and hit a girl waiting to get on a school bus. She lived, but the guy is only going to get time served and seven months in the county work house. WTF? The victim was thrown 50 feet in the air according to the charges.

    Why did he do it?

    One of the men in the car told police that Troutman targeted Avant and the other students “to show that he had the capacity to kill someone,” the criminal complaint said.

    Police found the car in Man­kato several days later. In March, a sheriff’s deputy stopped Troutman in Grand Ledge, Mich., on suspicion of driving while intoxicated.

    • Suthenboy

      Rampant crime is a powerful tool for the left.

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      That’s some real social justice right there.

  34. The Late P Brooks

    Brother was just used car hunting and said the supply has dried up. He thinks it’s more of people looking for cheaper alternatives right now as money gets tighter. I supposed people just not turning over their cars at the same rate right now could be doing some of it too.

    There have been a few stories, lately, from places like the MSNBC business channel about the “ageing” of the private automotive fleet.

    People are definitely holding on to their cars a lot longer. Partly because they can (reliability) and partly because they must (price).

    • Grosspatzer

      Also, I believe people are driving fewer miles since the Day of the Vid. A trend which can only get worse as local feudal lords restrict travel from outside their fiefdoms. It’s looking like I may never need to buy another vehicle.

      • Mojeaux

        Yeah, since Mr. Mojeaux started working from home again, we go almost nowhere except the doctor, dentist, and taking XX to work.

    • LJW

      I’m considering buying my leased Accord then reselling it. Only 11,000 miles in 2 years. Blue book has it worth 3 to 4 grand more than what’s owed. Beats throwing away money on return fees.

      • R C Dean

        Why sell it?

      • LJW

        I want a truck.

      • Sean

        So you can run over protestors?

    • Mad Scientist

      Insurance companies have been rebating premiums since no one’s been driving anywhere as well.

    • Roland of Gilead

      I just saw a story on the local news a couple of days ago that said your used car has gone up in value by 10-15 percent due to a shortage of used cars. I was thinking bullshit but maybe they were right.

  35. Nephilium

    Well shit.

    Here’s some good news for a change. Well, not for the rioters… but for the rest of us. If I was even more cynical, I would say this was to try to shift some votes here in CLE.

    • Grosspatzer

      Ten Northeast Ohioans have been indicted on aggravated rioting and other charges that accuse them of destroying property as the May 30 protests in downtown Cleveland devolved into a riot.

      That is good news. Destroying property is now a crime!

  36. The Late P Brooks

    Destroying property is now a crime!

    Only in flyover country.

    • Grosspatzer

      Hey, it’s a crime in NYC, too. If you, for instance, deface a BLM mural.

  37. The Late P Brooks

    Those crazy Swedes

    For months, critics of Sweden’s strategy had claimed the Swedes’ softer approach was for naught. Despite its policies of encouraging social distancing mostly through voluntary action, projections still showed the nation’s GDP was expected to decline 7-10 percent in 2020.

    Of course it was never a question if Sweden’s economy would suffer. It’s a nation heavily dependent on exports, and a decrease in global demand was going to lead to economic fallout regardless of what Swedish leaders did. The question was how much would its economy be harmed.

    Two quarters of data have emerged now, and it’s clear that Sweden’s “lighter touch” policies have resulted in far less economic damage than its European counterparts.

    Indeed, a recent report from Capital Economics, an economic research firm based in London, concludes that Sweden’s economy is the least damaged in Europe, the “best of a bad bunch.

    “The Swedish economy has weathered Covid well, thanks in part to the government’s light-touch lockdown, and our forecast of a 1.5% drop in GDP this year is well above consensus,” wrote economists Andrew Kenningham, David Oxley, and Melanie Debono.

    ——-

    GDP is only half the story, however. Perhaps more importantly, Sweden’s strategy has shown human society can still function in the presence of the coronavirus, despite the apocalyptic warnings from modelers and media.

    While modelers predicted 96,000 Swedes would die by July as a result of its policy, as of mid-August the figure stands at less than 5,800, a higher per capita total than neighbors such as Finland, Norway, and Denmark but superior to Belgium, Italy, and others. COVID-19 case numbers continue to fall. Deaths and hospitalizations have flatlined, and reports indicate Stockholm is on the verge of herd immunity.

    It increasingly appears that Sweden, the maligned outlier, got the virus right.

    Instead of ordering humans confined in their homes, Swedes allowed schools to remain open and groups to congregate in parks, pools, restaurants, and bars. Not only did Sweden avoid much of the economic carnage and the unintended social consequences of lockdowns—increases in drug overdoses, domestic abuse, suicide, and social unrest—their strategy appears to have tamed the virus, unlike so many other nations around the globe who are seeing new waves of COVID-19.

    Many experts may be loath to admit it, but Sweden’s strategy increasingly appears to be both economically sound and scientifically sound.

    Many experts may be loath to admit it.

    You said a mouthful, Shirley.

    • mrfamous

      5,800/96,000 = 6%.

      So if we take the rate at which Neil “wild Thing” Ferguson was wrong on his projections for Sweden if the Swedes persisted in their policies and applied it to the 2.2 miilion he predicted for the USA:

      6% * 2.2 million = 133,000.

      So it appears if we had just done exactly what Sweden did, we’d have lost roughly 20,000 fewer lives. I realize this isn’t exactly bulletproof science, but it’s as solid as any of the other science going around these days, so…

  38. Hyperion

    Man, I swear, Kamala has gotten 3 skin colors darker since last week. What is up with that? They know she’s not really black, don’t they? What race is her father? Cuz, hey kiddies, I hate to break it to you, Jamaican is not a race. Now he could be 100% authentic unmixed black. No one will probably know, since if he is not as pure as the driven snow… maybe that was a bad choice…, they are right now scrubbing any vestige of his racial identity from the internets. So, her mum in Indian. But somewhere in her ancestry was a very wealthy Irish slave owner. She be owing many reparation, me thinks. So how bout it Kamala, if they just come to your house and start taking some of your stuff?

    • Drake

      She may wearing several extra layers of makeup to cover the botched plastic surgery.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    “The pandemic will not be over until we reach herd immunity, either through a vaccine or through natural infections,” Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, recently wrote in The Spectator. “Herd immunity is not a strategy but a proven scientific phenomenon, and to deny that is as silly as denying gravity.”

    That’s not what the consensus says. Somebody oughtta suspend that guy’s license to SCIENCE.

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      I saw an interview with Bill Gates on Bloomberg a couple days ago. He said the only way through this is through herd immunity due to vaccines, or uh, um, natural infection. I’m surprised they didn’t edit the latter part out. It made me think that maybe he’s not so confident in his vaccines.

      • Drake

        As foolproof as his software.

      • Grosspatzer

        Why do I get the feeling that it will not be possible to sue for damages when the rushed vaccines turn out to have serious side effects? If Gates and company are so bullish on vaccines they ought to be putting their own money into a fund to handle this.

      • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

        I was waiting for the interviewer to ask “Will you take the vaccine? Will your kids take the vaccine?” For some reason she forgot to ask.

      • Cancelled

        Liability and harm have only a loose connection these days.

  40. one true athena

    Anybody have any recs (or horror stories) about new refrigerators? Repair guy was just out and he said dump no more money in this, it’s garbage. So we don’t have to rush but I’m now in the market. *sigh* The Joy Of Home Ownership.

    • Nephilium

      Avoid Frigidaire. It’s what I’ve got now, and at one point the fridge handle broke off in my hand.

      I’d like to think I was that strong, but I have access to a mirror… and well, I can see my arms. I’m currently dealing with the freezer holding temps, but the fridge is already seeming to run a bit warm. It’s ~7 years old.

      • one true athena

        YEah, that’s the garbage I have to replace. I’m not sure how old it is (it came with the house) but I doubt it’s more than 7, and the temperature control is screwed up.

      • LCDR_Fish

        In my rental about 5 years ago, (maybe the same model) I had a similar issue – it was a fairly simple job to replace a circuit card on the back of the fridge – my landlord repaid me (found instructions via youtube).

    • Gender Traitor

      Had the Consumer Reports 2020 Buying Guide within arm’s reach. What style do you prefer – top freezer, bottom freezer, side-by-side, 3 French doors, or 4+ French doors? (I have no idea what French door models look like if not similar to a side-by-side.)

      • one true athena

        I’ve heard the French door styles tend to lose cool more quickly? I don’t know if that was just a flaw in early models though with bad seals. I’ve not had one.

        Freezer bottom with water/ice please

      • Gustave Lytton

        Space limitations? Older home here and a French door model will not fit in the opening.

      • Gender Traitor

        CR’s grid doesn’t list features, but here’s their top 5 bottom-freezers:

        1. Kenmore Elite 79043
        2. Kenmore Elite 79023
        3. LG LDCS24223S (Ask for it by name!)
        4. (With a “$” that means “CR best buy”) Kenmore 69313
        5. Amana ABB2224BRM

        For the record, Tom T. claims bottom freezers are the least energy efficient because convection. (When we replaced ours, we got a top freezer. Of course, that’s what I grew up with, so it’s what I’m accustomed to using.)

      • Nephilium

        From what I’ve heard, it’s the other way around (remember, heat rises). I’m also accustomed to the top freezer. My sister has a bottom freezer which is a drawer, which I know would just have buried food sitting in it at some point.

        I’ve got several home attempts to try to get my fridge/freezer working better before I decide I need to spend more money to buy a replacement. I’m just annoyed since I also have to drop my car off at the shop tomorrow for an ABS issue.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      We had a whirlpool at the last house that had leaking issues which required me to replace the condensation drain. The icemaker also had a tendency to freeze up. Whirlpool is on my no buy list.

      LG (2 houses ago) wasn’t terrible, but did have to have a warranty repair of a known icemaker issue. This was 5 years ago, though.

      Current fridge is a Samsung. I’m generally happy with it. Some design issues (freezer doesn’t open enough, fridge door doesn’t stay open, had to break the retaining clips to get the glass shelf out when I spilled something), but haven’t had any mechanical problems yet.

      • Rhywun

        I have an 8-year-old Whirlpool in my apartment that’s still almost like new. Runs cold, even.

    • Drake

      Our GE is 16 years old and no problems.

    • kinnath

      My 15-year-old Sear Kenmore (top of the line in 2005) with French doors is still running great.

      However, Kenmore isn’t really Kenmore any more.

  41. Trigger Hippie

    Many, many hours late to the party but,…to respond to SF’s latest enrty:

    “He smacked his lips then tried to lick them.”

    *Standing ovation, tosses garlands*

    I fucking lost it for a minute or three, bravo.

  42. The Late P Brooks

    Anybody have any recs (or horror stories) about new refrigerators?

    Not really, but my parents have a fairly new one (I don’t even remember the brand). It has the full width refrig on top and a pull out drawer freezer on the bottom. WAY better than the old side by side style.

    • Brochettaward

      The Late P Brooks’s parents are still alive. I thought I had lost the ability to be shocked.

  43. The Late P Brooks

    The Late P Brooks’s parents are still alive.

    My dad died in July. I haven’t gotten used to it. Still think of them as a set.

    • Viking1865

      My phone still has “Nana and Pop” as the contact, and my Pop’s been dead five years.

      • Hyperion

        Yeah, my mom’s number is still saved on my phone, and she passed away last year. It’s still weird that she doesn’t call me at least once a work, usually when I’m at work in a meeting, God rest her soul.

    • KibbledKristen

      My dad’s phone number in my phone contacts still said both his and my Ma’s name until I got a new phone 4 months agog. She died in 2013. Her birthday is coming up. I miss her much.

      My dad remarried, but it’s still “Bill & Gretchen” to me.

      • Fourscore

        My Dad’s been gone over 50 years, still think about him, my Mom 30 years now. I think I miss my Dad more because I saw my Mom getting older and older where as my Dad died after I’d left home and didn’t see him very often for many years prior to his death. We all have our memories…

  44. LCDR_Fish

    Pie – saw your comment about Romania this morning – what’s the local opinion about the Navy Aegis Ashore base there? I’d love to get assigned there (I’ve got a few friends who’ve been over) – but at this point in time, unless I get a mobilization option as a Reservist, probably not much chance of me making it over there on orders.

    • Rhywun

      Quid…?

  45. Heroic Mulatto
  46. KibbledKristen

    Just got home from picking the 17-year-old up from the vet. He had clean x-rays (aside from the rheumatizz), clean blood, and clean shit. Yet somehow I managed to come home with, like, 5 medications.

  47. The Late P Brooks

    Second wave

    New Zealand officials are investigating the possibility that its first COVID-19 cases in more than three months were imported by freight, as the country’s biggest city plunged back into lockdown on Wednesday.

    The discovery of four infected family members in Auckland led Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to swiftly reimpose tight restrictions in the city and social distancing measures across the entire country.

    The source of the outbreak has baffled health officials, who said they were confident there was no local transmission of the virus in New Zealand for 102 days.

    “We are working hard to put together pieces of the puzzle on how this family got infected,” said Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield.

    Investigations were zeroing in on the potential the virus was imported by freight. Bloomfield said surface testing was underway at an Auckland cool store where a man from the infected family worked.

    ——-

    Residents of Auckland, home to around 1.7 million people, were given just hours to prepare for the return to level 3 restrictions on Wednesday, requiring people to stay at home unless for essential trips.

    “Going hard, going early with lockdown is still the best response,” Ardern said. “Our response to the virus so far has worked … we know how to beat this.”

    The rest of the country was placed back into slightly looser level 2 restrictions. The restrictions will initially remain in place until Friday.

    Police set up roadblocks to discourage a mass exodus from Auckland, while supermarkets rationed the sale of some staple products amid a rush to the shelves. Long queues formed at COVID-19 testing centres in the city.

    Kill the whole herd. Just like at the end of Hud. It’s the only way to be sure.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Lockdown the whole city for four members of the same fucking family? What a bad joke.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Insanity…

      • Rhywun

        Madness.

      • Ted S.

        Their house….

    • KibbledKristen

      Nobody has ever ever seen Jurassic Park have they?

  48. The Late P Brooks

    WHEEEEEEEE!

    COVID’s historic significance lies not in what it implies for our daily lives. Change, after all, is the one constant when it comes to culture. All peoples in all places at all times are always dancing with new possibilities for life. As companies eliminate or downsize central offices, employees work from home, restaurants close, shopping malls shutter, streaming brings entertainment and sporting events into the home, and airline travel becomes ever more problematic and miserable, people will adapt, as we’ve always done. Fluidity of memory and a capacity to forget is perhaps the most haunting trait of our species. As history confirms, it allows us to come to terms with any degree of social, moral, or environmental degradation.

    To be sure, financial uncertainty will cast a long shadow. Hovering over the global economy for some time will be the sober realization that all the money in the hands of all the nations on Earth will never be enough to offset the losses sustained when an entire world ceases to function, with workers and businesses everywhere facing a choice between economic and biological survival.

    Unsettling as these transitions and circumstances will be, short of a complete economic collapse, none stands out as a turning point in history. But what surely does is the absolutely devastating impact that the pandemic has had on the reputation and international standing of the United States of America.

    In a dark season of pestilence, COVID has reduced to tatters the illusion of American exceptionalism. At the height of the crisis, with more than 2,000 dying each day, Americans found themselves members of a failed state, ruled by a dysfunctional and incompetent government largely responsible for death rates that added a tragic coda to America’s claim to supremacy in the world.

    Pull your skirt down, drama queen. You look ridiculous.

    • Viking1865

      with workers and businesses everywhere facing a choice between economic and biological survival.

      This is the Big Lie that the media desperately needs to convince Americans of. Desperately. That the coming economic shitstorm, destruction of wealth, and inflation was the sacrifice laid on the altar of actual survival.

      If people actually realize that it was all for nothing, there will be hell to pay.

  49. The Late P Brooks

    Here wego:

    More than any other country, the United States in the post-war era lionized the individual at the expense of community and family. It was the sociological equivalent of splitting the atom. What was gained in terms of mobility and personal freedom came at the expense of common purpose. In wide swaths of America, the family as an institution lost its grounding. By the 1960s, 40 percent of marriages were ending in divorce. Only six percent of American homes had grandparents living beneath the same roof as grandchildren; elders were abandoned to retirement homes.

    No, George, not the common purpose!

    • Rhywun

      at the expense of community and family

      Wow.

  50. The Late P Brooks

    In a complete abandonment of the collective good, U.S. laws define freedom as an individual’s inalienable right to own a personal arsenal of weaponry, a natural entitlement that trumps even the safety of children; in the past decade alone 346 American students and teachers have been shot on school grounds.

    The American cult of the individual denies not just community but the very idea of society. No one owes anything to anyone. All must be prepared to fight for everything: education, shelter, food, medical care. What every prosperous and successful democracy deems to be fundamental rights — universal health care, equal access to quality public education, a social safety net for the weak, elderly, and infirmed — America dismisses as socialist indulgences, as if so many signs of weakness.

    How can the rest of the world expect America to lead on global threats — climate change, the extinction crisis, pandemics — when the country no longer has a sense of benign purpose, or collective well-being, even within its own national community? Flag-wrapped patriotism is no substitute for compassion; anger and hostility no match for love. Those who flock to beaches, bars, and political rallies, putting their fellow citizens at risk, are not exercising freedom; they are displaying, as one commentator has noted, the weakness of a people who lack both the stoicism to endure the pandemic and the fortitude to defeat it. Leading their charge is Donald Trump, a bone spur warrior, a liar and a fraud, a grotesque caricature of a strong man, with the backbone of a bully.

    Oh, the HUMANITY!

    • Viking1865

      universal health care, equal access to quality public education, a social safety net for the weak, elderly, and infirmed

      The American government spends more money on all those things than any other country in the world.

      They never stop pretending it’s the 20s and Andrew Mellon is running the economy while Harding sells public land to his cronies. They perpetually pretend that the New Deal and the Great Society didn’t actually happen, and aren’t actually costing trillions of dollars a year.

  51. The Late P Brooks

    They never stop pretending it’s the 20s and Andrew Mellon is running the economy while Harding sells public land to his cronies. They perpetually pretend that the New Deal and the Great Society didn’t actually happen, and aren’t actually costing trillions of dollars a year.

    Millionaires in top hats toss pennies from their open top Duesenbergs to the street urchins.

    • Viking1865

      It actually annoys me more than anything else they pull.

      The feds collected 3.5 trillion dollars in 2019. There are 128 million households in the United States. You could give the 30 million poorest households in America 50,000 dollars a year for 1.5 trillion. Just take the IRS database, and dump 10 payments of 5,000 dollars each into the 30 million poorest households. Don’t need anything but a computer and some accountants to monitor the program. Oh, and since this churns through, you have at least 60 million households getting the big bucks every other year. At least some of those households would take that 50,000 and break the cycle of poverty. Did you have a really shitty year, actual genuine bad luck and fell down into that bottom quarter? Heres 50 grand to get you back on your feet. Are you a senior who’s actually staring at cat food and no heating oil? Boom, here you go. Post a bounty for reporting welfare fraud.

      Standard Libertarian Disclaimer applies to the above of course.