Thursday Afternoon SugarLinks – Finnegan watch

by | Sep 17, 2020 | Daily Links | 346 comments

Someone is after his granddaughter’s job…

Watch your back, Finnegan!


J.K. Rowling Book Burning Videos Are Spreading Like Wildfire Across TikTok

A new TikTok trend has emerged this week as former “Harry Potter” fans protest author J.K. Rowling’s widely criticized views on trans people by burning copies of her books.One video, posted by TikTok user @elmcdo shows a number of “Harry Potter” books being placed on a burning pyre.

“You have to stop using ‘death of the author’ as an excuse to have your cake and eat it too,” the voiceover says. “While the reader’s perspective is an important part of interpretation and meaning, it is impossible to completely divorce a work from its creator.”

The voice-over continues: “The positive impact that J.K. Rowling’s work had on millions of readers does not negate how her hateful lobbying has affected the trans community.

“This doesn’t even touch on the harmful fatphobia, racism and valorization of supramacists and child abusers in her most famous work.”

The video ends with the message: “Your love of ‘Harry Potter’ is not more important than the lives of trans women.”

In case you were wondering about Rowling’s crime, she doesn’t think that someone growing up as a boy who later comes out as a woman has the same life experience as a woman who born a girl and grew up as one. Also, she objects to being called a “person possessing a uterus” instead of with the time-worn “woman” designation.

Why are just her books being burned? Burn the witch non-Pagan unWiccan front-holer!


There Won’t Be a Clear End to the Pandemic
The collective sense of closure we’re all longing for may never arrive. Instead, brace for a slow fade into a new normal.

It’s an overlong and whiny article interviewing whiny people about the uncertainty of a post-COVID hellscape. But amid these tales of woe, they felt they should start here:

At any rate, a metric like that does not translate to straightforward guidance on when it’s safe for people to do certain things again. It will not, for instance, tell Maya Cade, a 26-year-old screenwriter and social-media manager in Brooklyn, when she should get her post-pandemic tattoo. Cade told me she spent some of her pandemic alone time reflecting on how she presents herself to others and on “the respectability politics I was knowingly and unknowingly internalizing as a means of survival as a Black woman.” Although this held her back from getting a tattoo before, now she’s resolved to get one as soon as it’s safe, though she doesn’t know when that will be—maybe 2022, she guesses.

All those dead people and lockdowns and economic turmoil have really upset Maya’s plans on when to get the tattoo that will make sure she is no longer seen as respectable. The Atlantic, everyone, the fatberg in the intellectual sewer of self-own “journalism.”

OMWC sent me this, another salvo in his war against my sanity.


 

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About The Author

SugarFree

SugarFree

Your Resident Narcissistic Misogynist Rape-Culture Apologist

346 Comments

  1. Chipwooder

    Hoo boy, the Atlantic has been full steam leftward for years, but is just an outright festering pile of shit at this point.

    • B.P.

      Fighting over the same audience as all the other formerly respectable publications.

      • juris imprudent

        … and losing to Teen Vogue?

    • Count Potato

      Even as recent as last year it had some very good articles.

      • Chipwooder

        Indeed. It was always good for at least a few of those here and there. It’s basically Salon now.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Even Salon was decent about 20 years ago.

      • Chipwooder

        Also true! Someone somewhere linked a late ’90s Salon article not too long ago in a column, and it was shocking how normal it was compared to the lunacy they descended into sometime during the first Bush term.

      • LCDR_Fish

        I remember reading Salon a few times in college, but then this article just broke me. https://www.salon.com/2000/02/03/card/

        Just couldn’t get past that embarrassing/enraging lack of professionalism. (now I just can’t be bothered)

      • Rhywun

        Yes, it was. I remember going there every day.

      • kinnath

        I was a paid subscriber when they first started having financial problems.

        Then they went totally to shit during the Bush years.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        I remember Table Talk. WebX chat with nice sane people not unlike yourselves.

      • R C Dean

        nice sane people not unlike yourselves

        Err . . . .

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Uh, relatively?

      • TARDis

        I’m old enough to remember when Rolling Stone didn’t suck.

    • Bobarian LMD

      I got involved in a hissy-fit on another site when I compared the Atlantic to the New York Post.

      • But Enough About My Weird Culinary Fantasies

        I got into it with my niece when I compared The Atlantic to the NYT, which in turn I called “a flaming bag of fresh dog-shit left on the world’s front porch.” To my surprise, she conceded that I might have a point.

      • Hyperion

        You’re both wrong. The only thing which the Atlantic can be compared to is the Guardian. You just cannot top that level of hysterical Marxist derp anywhere else.

      • Threedoor

        Jacobin?

    • Agent Cooper

      Yet, every once in awhile they pull a cogent, somewhat-balanced article out of their collective asses.

      • Bobarian LMD

        You’re talking about the NY Post, right?

    • Hyperion

      “Hoo boy, the Atlantic has been full steam leftward for years”

      They jumped the proggy shark right after Trump was elected and it’s only been downhill full steam ahead since.

  2. Timeloose

    Nice selection for today’s music. 17 year old me is very happy or tragically unhappy?

    • SugarFree

      At least it wasn’t that weird egg video for “Headhunter.”

      • Timeloose

        I’m loving this. Its a audio equivalent of blasphemy in a good way.

      • Rhywun

        #metoo

        LOL!

      • Trolleric the Goth

        this is actually awesome.

        feels like the kind of track the KLF would have made

      • blackjack

        She reminds me (in this, anyway) of my friend who was a director. I was an extra in one of her short films about a chola chick. I still have my copy, but it’s on VHS. The wannabe chola look was pretty prevalent in the early nineties.

      • Rhywun

        I’ve never seen a video for either. It’s not like MTV showed them nor the clubs where I danced to them a zillion times.

  3. Fourscore

    “Ma’am, If I told you that you have a beautiful body would you hold it against me”

    “Help, HR, HR, I’m being gazed upon”

    • Bobarian LMD

      Hopefully, you’re not directing that at one of the book-burners?

  4. Count Potato

    I think her writing about a serial killer who dresses like a woman was pretty trollish, and has lead some people who previously defended her to believe she actually is transphobic.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      All she ever said was that people who have penises aren’t women and they detract from the overall feminist movement.

      • Count Potato

        I don’t even think she said that. But she knew that her comments were at the very least being accused of being transphobic.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I think it’s hilarious that she responded with a giant middle finger.

      • Chipwooder

        Same as Gina Carano with the “beep/bloop” fake pronouns

      • Bill (Door) Baggins (a Skellington)

        I finally got my wife to watch The Mandalorian and we just watched the first episode with Carano. This makes me like her even more.

      • Count Potato

        That’s one way of looking at it.

        Although I think a famous 55-year-old billionaire writing a book just to own a bunch of confused trans kids on the internet is kind of lame.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Those confused trans kids would love to ruin someone’s career and life as a way of elevating their own self-worth.

      • Count Potato

        I think you are way over-generalizing. As far as I can tell, most of them are not to ruin anyone’s life. That SJW lynch-mob shit is more of a “trans-trender” thing.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        There are plenty of confused kids who are just that, confused. I feel for them. Whether they continue with the trans direction or if they reverse course after going public, they’re going to catch shit from a lot of people.

        There are also plenty of kids who have been taught to weaponize that confusion.

      • juris imprudent

        writing a book just to own

        Did she actually write all of this into the book? I thought it was the mob’s desire to cancel her and her response, not her writing, that was the issue.

      • Rhywun

        The way I heard it, it was a throwaway line referencing a minor character. Some activist website twisted words, and it blew up.

        IOW same shit as ever these days.

      • Ozymandias

        Gotta strongly disagree with you here, Count Potato. I doubt that J.K. is doing this to “own a bunch of confused kids.” I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that she’s smart enough to appreciate that it’s the people behind the trans kids – the Marxists egging them on and the kulturkampf warriors taking a collective piss in our faces and telling us it’s raining – is who she really is saying “fuck off” to.

        Second, I hope eventually we’ll get past the point where we interpret every pushback by freedom-loving people as merely “pwning the LIBS!!1!” If I were in her position, I would tell them – LOUDLY – all to go fuck themselves. They don’t own the fucking language and someone’s hurt feelings doesn’t create super-rights to silence someone else. See, e.g. “Satanic Verses” or cartoons of the Prophet. Maybe I’m wrong.

      • Count Potato

        Well, that’s possible, but it might not seem that way to them.

      • Cancelled

        So what? Are you seriously suggesting a writer should self censor because some people with mental health issues would be upset by what she wrote? It is up to each of us to find a way to exist in the world. Expecting the rest of the world to change to suit us is not merely idiotic or insane, it is outright evil.

      • Ozymandias

        Well, Count, beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but words aren’t actually violence, notwithstanding the Marxists’ repeated attempts to change the Constitution, the law, and the natural order by making that claim. Someone writing a book, or telling a joke, or drawing a cartoon that offends some particular group used to be known as… “tough shit.”
        Most of us grew up on a book called “Truly Tasteless Jokes” and it had multiple editions/volumes. I daresay transgender people back then either dealt with it or recognized it for what it was. See, also, Dave Chappelle.

        Alternatively, most of our grandmothers understood it this way: “sticks and stones may… etc.” That this bit of wisdom is now being turned upside down does not in any way reflect badly on J.K. Rowling, Lenny Bruce, or Jyllens Posten (the publisher fo the Muhammad cartoons). Indeed, in a sane world, it reflects rather badly on the people reacting to it, notwithstanding how loudly they shriek about being “hurt” by a character they don’t like in a book written by someone whom they don’t even know.

      • blackjack

        + 2000 tubes of airplane glue!

      • Count Potato

        I’m not suggesting words are violence. That’s just silly.

        What I’m saying is that even if her words were directed at the “people behind the trans kids – the Marxists egging them on and the kulturkampf warriors”, it’s neither a unrealistic expectation, nor an irrational response, if the trans kids now think she is actually a transphobe.

      • Overt

        This isn’t about trans kids. It is about a bunch of trans activist adults who have been bullying their way through leftist institutions for the past 5 years. Right after the dam broke on gay rights, these guys- well trans women- began pushing heavy agendas, like demanding that any man identifying as a woman be treated like a woman. At first in places like Big Literature and other “woke” industries, this was largely no big deal. And if you voiced the slightest disagreement, they could link you to the evil conservatives who had been fighting the anti-gay battles for the last decades.

        The problem is that these trans activists were nasty guys- they were mixing it up with women, but fighting in the dirtiest sexist male ways. I cannot remember who the Trans activist was, but it came out a few years ago that he/she was this hugely vicious asshoIe who would terrorize young women with the worst verbal and mental abuse possible. Evidently, the same came out about the Trans woman who first “lead” the CHAZ.

        It was only when this transitioned from intellectual awards and circles, to real world stuff like bathrooms and women’s sports that JK Rowling spoke up. She isn’t picking a fight with kids on the internet, she is picking a fight with these activists who have co-opted pretty much every leftist institution to their twisted cause. Hell, even BLM has a bunch of trans activist boilerplate in it that would likely shock 90% of Blacks.

    • tarran

      Transvestite != M-F Transexual.

      The people pretending that they are are basically engaging in the basest sort of stereotyping.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        And transgender exists in some limbo between the two.

      • Count Potato

        Achshually, no one uses the term “transsexual” anymore, so anyone who would have been called that is transgender.

      • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

        Dr. Frankenfurter might have something to say about that.

    • Cancelled

      I doubt she is afraid of trans people. This whole -phobic trope is silliness. One can disagree, or even disapprove, without hatred or fear. I have a great deal of compassion for those with any dysphoria. It is certainly not a personal failing on their part, and it absolutely gives them a tougher, almost insurmountable, path through life. Howver, I think the concept of sex reassignment surgery as ‘treatment’ is up there with lobotomies in the pantheon of psychiatric quakery. And I think pandering to the demands of the woke crowd is doing tremendous harm to young gay, and confused children and should be fought, even at the risk of hurting someone’s feelings. You don’t improve your mental health by coddling your problem, you improve it by finding safe and gradual ways to confront your problem areas. The woke crowd’s method would have us telling a man standing on a skyscraper that we believed him as he said he could fly.

      • Overt

        Official literature discussing “Gender Dysphoria” that is posted around my workplace boldly insists that “the only known treatment for gender dysphoria is sex reassignment surgery”. It is insane- it is something that even 20 years ago a trans person would punch you for saying, because the general line was that everyone approached this sort of thing differently. And it is certainly something that is not supported by medical literature. And yet if I were to point that out to whomever wrote the article, I would most certainly be fired.

  5. Scruffy Nerfherder

    tell Maya Cade, a 26-year-old screenwriter and social-media manager in Brooklyn, when she should get her post-pandemic tattoo

    I just… I can’t even…

    I don’t think there’s ever been a generation this self-obsessed and pampered.

    • B.P.

      I’m sure she just has to live in Brooklyn to hold down her online typing job.

    • blackjack

      Fucking covid zombies! I can’t even Kevin Bacon my way to anyone even being seriously ill with the fucking thing, and I live in the west coast epicenter. Hell, I work at the obvious first stop it would take to get here. Nobody I know has any real connection to anyone who has had more than a normal cold.

      • Bobarian LMD

        I know two people (Bacon number == 2) who have died from/with the Wuhan Flu.

        Both were greater than 80 and in the rest home with Alzheimers.

      • Chipwooder

        There have been a handful of cases at work, one death. I never learned who it was, so it might have been someone I knew in passing. My uncle had it, was fairly sick for a week (though never to the point of hospitalization), got over it. Poor guy barely survived a heart attack the month prior.

        I’m still fairly convinced I had it in late January, though I’ve never been tested for the antibodies because I don’t really care all that much.

      • DEG

        A relative of mine and her husband got it. They had symptoms, went in to get tested, and tested positive.

        I’ve heard through the family grapevine that they have recovered.

        I still think I had it back in January.

      • Count Potato

        I know someone who was in the hospital with it and lived.

        I might have had it. I tested negative (at the time the false negative rate was around 30%) and was told to quarantine based on symptoms.

      • J. Frank Parnell

        A couple of weeks ago I heard that an acquaintance from like 20 years ago – who I haven’t seen in at least 10 years – was really sick with it and recovered. AFAIK that’s the only person I know who’s had it.

        My sister-in-law claims she knows like 20 people who have died from it. On the one hand, she’s in New York, but on the other hand she’s overly dramatic and prone to exaggeration, so I have no idea how accurate that number is.

      • blackjack

        So, if I know people on the internet who know people who’ve had it, does that mean that now I can Kevin Bacon my way to someone who’s had it?

      • Mad Scientist

        I know of 7 different people who got it. All of them lived, including the couple in their 70s.

      • But Enough About My Weird Culinary Fantasies

        Brother-in-law (57 years old), sister-in-law (53), mother-in-law (82). All recovered.
        MIL said it was like a bad cold for a week, plus it aggravated a pre-existing condition (poor circulation in her toes).
        I also have a friend who was acquainted with a d00d in his 50s who passed away from it. Multiple “big whammy” co-morbidities (obesity, diabetes, poor lung function).

      • DEG

        Whatever it was I had in January that I think was Lil Rona was a bad cold that lasted four days. It stood out not because it was bad, but because I had no congestion at all. Every other cold symptom, but no congestion. I always have congestion when I have a cold.

      • The Hyperbole

        A friend’s father died from it (as far as I’ve heard) he was 70-ish but in good health, still very active. Hell of a nice guy, he owned the bar that his son “ran” and whenever he stopped by he’d buy a round and shoot the shit with whoever was there.

      • kinnath

        My cousin and her husband passed from Covid the last week of July. Their daughter had to sign the papers to take both of them off life support on the same day.

        Now you are two degrees from dead bodies.

      • Florida Man

        My cousin was in the hospital with it. They thought she wasn’t going to make it, but she pulled through. I’ve heard most of the trachs we’ve done later died. The youngest I’ve done was in their 40s. It’s not the Black Death, but it’s not a hoax.

      • blackjack

        I don’t doubt it’s real, I just question if it’s worthy of upending the whole world and voluntarily plunging the masses into poverty. I have zero doubt that many people worldwide will die from this overreaction. I’m pretty sure if we had a real number, it’d be close or less than the ’68-’69 flu, during which we did almost nothing. Also, I feel that the measures we did take, likely had zero effect.

      • Tundra

        Wait for the famines. We are currently not shipping food (shitty food, yes, but food) to a lot of people.

        But hey, it isn’t the ‘rona, right?

      • Florida Man

        The over reacting and fear may well end up killing more people than Covid-19

      • Cancelled

        I work with a Chabad-Lubavitch guy who lost several older relatives, and had a number get sick. (He is from Crown Heights).

      • Threedoor

        I had it pretty bad.
        Six week dry cough.
        Two days of night fevers.
        4-5 days chills.
        6-8 weeks of terrible joint pain and immobility in my shoulders and jaw.
        Lots of boogers.
        Eight months later o still have shortness of breath.

        Still not as bad as West Nile.

    • Gustave Lytton

      And the answer is never. No ink.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Don’t even need to add covid to get that answer either.

      • grrizzly

        In total agreement.

      • J. Frank Parnell

        You’re just internalizing respectability politics so you can survive as a black woman.

      • Fourscore

        “when she should get her post-pandemic tattoo”

        More importantly than when is where she should get the tattoo. Preferably some where she can’t share with the rest of humanity ’cause who gives a rat’s ass?

    • Desk Jockey

      Don’t lump us all in. Now let me tell you about my unique and very important problems that no one else has had before…

      • Mojeaux

        “The first noble truth is that nobody cares you exist.” –some absolutely correct rando on the internet

    • Cancelled

      Rome 450-475 AD springs to mind…

  6. Tonio

    They have finally started burning books with no sense of awareness of who else has burned books.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      That’s just the tip of the iceberg of what they don’t know and were probably never taught.

      https://nypost.com/2020/09/16/survey-shows-young-new-yorkers-lack-of-holocaust-knowledge/

      Nearly 20 percent of millennials and Gen Z in New York believe Jews caused the Holocaust, according to a new survey released Wednesday.

      The findings come from the first-ever 50-state survey on the Holocaust knowledge of American millennials and Gen Z, which was commissioned by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

      For instance, although there were more than 40,000 camps and ghettos during World War II, 58 percent of respondents in New York cannot name a single one.

      Additionally, 60 percent of respondents in New York do not know that 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

      • Tonio

        I was just thinking about that. Stop reading my mind [adds another layer of tinfoil]

      • Gustave Lytton

        Actually believe it, poorly worded question, or just wanted to fucked with the poll taker?

        If you answered “millions”, “5 million”, or “a lot”, would those count as incorrect?

        https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/holocaust-remembrance-day/holocaust-facts-6-million-where-is-the-figure-from-1.5319546

        The sad truth is that the Holocaust isn’t an aberration of history but a particularly acute and heinous expression of it. And regardless, everyone involved will fade to dust, lose context and details, like other historical events.

      • Chipwooder

        JFC…..how the hell do you not even know the name of Auschwitz?

        Dumb as a truckload of bricks yet of incredibly inflated self-opinion, narcissistic and shallow…..what a wonderful crop of youngsters we’ve produced.

      • Agent Cooper

        Teaching history is pretty easy if you think about it.

        WW2 – just fire up the first 15 minutes of Saving Private Ryan and then show the “Why We Fight” episode of Band of Brothers.
        You can also include Downfall if you want. Sure, movies rarely get it all right, but it’s better than learning nothing.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        We took a semester on Nazi Germany in high school. They showed Playing For Time.

        It was a little uncomfortable when I blurted out “Hey, that’s my cousin!” during a scene where a Nazi soldier takes a toddler away from its mother. He was an extra.

        https://youtu.be/A-fcB8IncpY?t=3156

        He was also an American soldier at the end of the movie.

      • Sensei

        The article itself is depressing, but:

        A shocking 28 percent of respondents in New York believe it is acceptable to hold neo-Nazi views, while 62 percent have never visited a Holocaust museum in the United States.

        I’m not sure that the fact that I’ve never been to a Holocaust museum should be problematic. If it helps I’ve got lots of pictures of dead relatives thanks to the Final Solution so maybe that qualifies. Some of them are hanging in my house as a matter of fact.

        Also not sure why neo-Nazi needs to be contrasted against museum participation either.

      • B.P.

        Holocaust museums don’t exactly dot the countryside.

        Also, what constitutes “acceptable to hold neo-Nazi views”? There’s a difference between “should be against the law” and “wouldn’t associate with such a person.”

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        There’s plenty to object to in the characterization of the poll and plenty of context missing, but not being able to name a death camp or thinking that Jews caused the Holocaust are both fairly striking.

      • B.P.

        Oh sure. I’m merely referencing the two things Sensei teased out.

      • Rhywun

        Also, what constitutes “acceptable to hold neo-Nazi views”?

        “Voted for Donald Trump”?

      • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

        I’ve been to Auschwitz but I’ve never been to a Holocaust museum in the US. I guess that’s problematic.

      • Tundra

        Dachau for me. I guess I too am a problem.

        Glad I went though. The place was quite powerful.

      • Threedoor

        The museum in the Nuremberg records building is equally powerful.

      • Tejicano

        I have mixed feelings on the problem with Gen-Z not remembering the Holocaust when President Carter, on the opening of the Holocaust museum in Wash. DC stated, and I quote :

        “we must forge an unshakable oath with all civilized people that never again will the world stand silent, never again will the world…fail to act in time to prevent this terrible crime of genocide…”

        – while at the exact same time Cambodia was in the midst of a genocide of similar proportions and we weren’t doing a thing about it.

    • dbleagle

      The Red Guards?

    • blackjack

      That’s because [censored] and [redacted] Make sense?

  7. Rebel Scum

    former “Harry Potter” fans protest author J.K. Rowling’s widely criticized views on trans people by burning copies of her books.

    Trans are the new SoCons.

    • Drake

      Imagine being over 15 and caring what J.K. Rowling thought about anything.

      • Rebel Scum

        If Harry and Ron are not secretly gay for each other and Hermione is not secretly a black, trans, lesbian, furry I am burning my HP books. *storms out*

  8. The Other Kevin

    There will be an end to the pandemic. Eventually people will accept a certain number of COVID deaths just like they accept a certain number of traffic deaths, drownings in swimming pools, and flu deaths. They’ll just say “oh what a shame” and then go on with their lives. The question is, how long can that be delayed?

    • Tonio

      One of their talking points is “how can Republicans be comfortable with 180,000 deaths” like those Republicans actually set a metric and put people on lists and stuff. It’s going to take a while before that talking point is walked back or allowed to fade, what with the numbers going up and all.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Vote Democrat and Never Die appears to be their new slogan.

      • Rebel Scum

        That means 92% of lives were saved compared to the original estimate. That’s an ‘A’ on a college scale.

      • invisible finger

        Wake me up when the number of Covid deaths in the US this year surpasses the number of abortions in the US this year.

    • blackjack

      We will never know how many people died from the ‘vid. The huge number includes flu and pneumonia. Because those only happened starting with the ‘vid, dont’cha know?

      • Fourscore

        If gun legislation saves just 1 life…

        Can’t put a value on life but looks like a Kentucky Court just did and 12 M seems to it.

        /No thank you to resuscitation

      • Grumbletarian

        It also includes people who died in traffic accidents, so, yeah.

    • Drake

      Yes – when they realize the covid deaths are somewhere around lightning deaths for anyone under 80.

  9. Rebel Scum

    brace for a slow fade into a new normal.

    More like the new abnormal.

  10. Timeloose

    “A new TikTok trend has emerged this week as former “Harry Potter” fans protest author J.K. Rowling’s widely criticized views on trans people by burning copies of her books.One video, posted by TikTok user @elmcdo shows a number of “Harry Potter” books being placed on a burning pyre.”

    Newsweek. A few dopes on the internet doing something stupid is now news worthy. If that is the case there is a trend of people filming themselves setting people and things on fire for a cause that is less well defined than the Harry Potter book author back lash. What actually motivates them, what do they want, and who are they getting support from?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The more important aspect is that very few number of twatters can cause people to get fired, to lose contracts, etc…

      Rowling is fairly immune since she’s got fuck-you money, but she’s the exception.

      • The Hyperbole

        It works at the other extreme as well, but somehow having “Fuck-you bupkis” doesn’t carry the same panache.

      • Cancelled

        Yeah, but the other extreme is ‘nothing left to lose’ and that may not have pnache, but it sure can make you dangerous.

    • juris imprudent

      They did have to buy the books before burning them…

      • Fourscore

        Not at Uncle Hugo’s in Mpls

    • Drake

      He should run for Senate as a Republican. He would win in a landslide then do absolutely nothing.

    • DEG

      I’ll be impressed when he does something about the DoJ’s bureaucracy instead of just talk.

    • Grummun

      “Because the attorney general is ultimately politically accountable for every decision that the department makes, I and my predecessors have had an obligation to ensure that we make the correct decision,” Barr said

      When in recent memory has this actually worked? Reno? Holder? Those guys got away with murder, literally, and were never held to any meaningful accounting. An AG that is implementing a President’s policies is not going to suffer consequences.

  11. juris imprudent

    I haz confuze.

    While the reader’s perspective is an important part of interpretation and meaning, it is impossible to completely divorce a work from its creator.

    Didn’t post-modernism preach that the reader is the only source of meaning to a text?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Yes

      But the reader is free to consider the viewpoints of the author when they offend them. Postmodernism places no limits on what the reader may consider.

      • Mojeaux

        ?

        IME, the only way you can divorce the author from the work is to look at the story alone, which leaves a whole lot of information on the table. Some stories, particularly political ones, can’t stand on their own.

      • LCDR_Fish

        Posted this one above – an old one but still maddening. https://www.salon.com/2000/02/03/card/

        It’s hilarious when you consider that OSC has written plenty of gay characters including as leads in some of his series.

      • The Hyperbole

        Yeah, I’m not buying that, If I can’t understand the story without knowing a bunch of facts about the author, then the author failed and/or it’s not really a story and just a op-ed disguised as fiction.

      • Mojeaux

        If I can’t understand the story without knowing a bunch of facts about the author…

        Well, first, I’m talking about stories written by old dead white guys that are the canon of lit programs in the west. Part of a lit education is studying the author and his time and the politics surrounding what he wrote.

        it’s not really a story and just a op-ed disguised as fiction.

        Yes. That’s what a lit education is about, sussing out what’s an op-ed and why, and putting it all in context.

        You don’t have to know anything about Stephen King to enjoy his books. You don’t have to know anything about Danielle Steele or James Patterson, either, but it’s interesting knowing they have teams.

        But they are also not part of old dead white guy canon.

  12. DEG

    The pandemic has rendered many activities unsafe, but thankfully it can’t stop us from fantasizing about them. A common balm that people reach for is the sentence construction “When this is over, I’m going to ____.” It seems to help, if only in a fleeting way, for them to imagine all of the vacations they’ll go on, all of the concerts they’ll attend, and all of the hugs they’ll give, as soon as they’re able to.

    I tapped out here.

    Yesterday I got a hair cut. No masks. I shook hands with the barber. Beautiful.

    • But Enough About My Weird Culinary Fantasies

      I’m not a huggy person, and even I’m still giving out hugs to any of my friends that want ’em. Just last Friday, for instance, with some friends over for dinner and drinks.
      The world’s lost its collective mind.

      • Ozymandias

        My wife and I went to the gym on Tuesday (they’ve now been allowed to open). It’s a CF gym, so it has a very communal feeling. i.e. I know a lot of the people by sight, even if I don’t know their names. It didn’t dawn on me until we left that I hadn’t seen a mask anywhere. ANYWHERE. For the hour I was there, it was all forgotten, just a normal afternoon class with people high-fiving, sweating near each other, and (gasp!) even sharing equipment, such as boxes for burpee box-jump overs.

        When my wife and I were talking about it later, it really hit me just how oppressive all of this bullshit theater is. It really was like a weight lifted off of me, to finally be around other adults not wearing masks and just bullshitting, to be able to see people smile, to see their face, some folks bring their kids in (there’s a daycare) and so we were joking around with little (unmasked) people… I don’t think we will ever be able to metric how harmful this scamdemic mask and lockdown bullshit has been to people’s mental health.

      • Tundra

        Totally. I didn’t realize how much I actually liked my gym peeps.

        This is truly fucking people up.

      • Bill (Door) Baggins (a Skellington)

        “People high-fiving sweating near each other, and (gasp!) even sharing equipment, such as boxes for burpee box-jump overs.”

        So what you’re saying is you are all going to die.

      • Ozymandias

        Absolutely, Bill. I should be dead in…. /looks at watch…. another 40 or 50 years with any luck.
        We all do eventually.
        “Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.”
        -Julius Caesar, Act II, sc. 2

      • DEG

        I am saddened by the increasing number of people at my gym wearing a mask while working out.

    • blackjack

      Sorry, gotta do it.

    • blackjack

      Another fantasy song.

      • Tundra

        And yet another!

      • blackjack

        HAH! I ‘member that one.

        How about this one?

      • blackjack

        And,

      • blackjack

        Dammit! and…

      • Tundra

        Nice!

      • Tundra

        Haha!

        Good one, Mad!

      • blackjack

        But, wait! There’s more!

      • DEG

        Nice.

        The barber wasn’t a fantasy, he’s a real person and being that I’m a clueless straight guy, I’m not into him in the way that I’m into the blonde in the video.

  13. Shpip

    Y’know, everyone has the occasional oopsie at work.

    TW: if you laugh at this, it confirms you’re a horrible person, i.e., welcome to Glibertarians.

    • Lady Z

      I laughed, but then I felt really bad after.

    • Hyperion

      Whao! Hey bro, hey, you done got caught you a white girl!

    • Rhywun

      Man… nothing can go right in Rochester lately.

      • Cancelled

        At least they aren’t Albany!

    • Nephilium

      Shame people throwing away a perfectly good white woman like that.

    • blackjack

      Gotta go back to this one.

  14. Aloysious

    SF – holy crap that cover photo is disgusting.

    I love it… in a twisted part of my cold, black, heart.

  15. Hyperion

    “fans protest author J.K. Rowling’s widely criticized views on trans people by burning copies of her books”

    That’s not Orwellian, at all.

  16. Aloysious

    Book burners are repugnant.

    • Hyperion

      But book burning is trending on Twitter! Isn’t that where all the cool kids get their moral compass?

      • Bobarian LMD

        They should go out and buy extra copies so that they can burn it again.

        That’ll really show her!

      • Hyperion

        They should smash their iPads just to make sure.

      • Aloysious

        I used to say that I can’t think of a better action to display a post Renaissance and Enlightenment reversion to barbarism and superstition.

        Then 2020 happened.

        Now these muppets (no offense, Rufus or Trashy) seem to be the norm.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I consider the postmodernists to be the anti-Enlightenment

      • Aloysious

        You make a solid point.

    • Mad Scientist

      How can you say that!? Burning books is how you fight fascism!

      • Hyperion

        That and burning businesses, and cities in general.

  17. Hyperion

    “Also, she objects to being called a “person possessing a uterus” instead of with the time-worn “woman” designation.”

    Why are people not using her preferred nouns? Can we just cancel those people?

  18. Hyperion

    Now, finally, the fires have come to Balmer. Just saw this in a memo.

    “The MTA has evacuated some Metro stations due to smoke in the tunnel. BCFD en-route”.

    • Agent Cooper

      Ballmer will just eat the fire.

      Oh, I thought you were talking about Steve Ballmer.

  19. grrizzly

    From TOS:
    An Online Student Attended a Rooftop Party. He Was Reported to NYU and Suspended Indefinitely.

    Andy thinks NYU treated him unfairly. It’s hard to disagree. Importantly, he didn’t actually put anyone on campus in danger, because he had no plans to set foot on NYU property: He lives off campus, and all his classes were online.

    “I am not a student who will be staying at or near NYU housing, nor will I be entering Campus Grounds or NYU buildings as I am currently enrolled in all online courses,” Andy wrote in his appeal of the decision.

    The appeal was rejected.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Now they’re just fucking with people because they can.

      He has solid grounds for a lawsuit, but the appropriate measure would be to scalp everyone involved in the decision to suspend him.

    • Hyperion

      You know studies show that rooftop commie cooties is the worst kind.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Is that Andy Tuttle or Andy Buttle?

    • Chipwooder

      I’m taking my classes remotely this semester. You don’t have to, you can go to the classroom if you want (where the professor does the live stream), but who the hell wants to go down there to sit around in a fucking mask? Anyway, VCU still sends me this stupid daily health assessment they insist is mandatory. I’ve never done it because there’s absolutely no reason for me to fill it out when I never go there.

      • blackjack

        I have to do one for work every day for 14 days. I stood and talked with a guy for 15 minutes who’s wife might have been exposed to someone who had it. I get 14 days paid leave and text in my monitor sheet, to prove I ain’t got it.

      • Rhywun

        who the hell wants to go down there to sit around in a fucking mask?

        Yeah, I start a new job next week (I guess? Haven’t heard a damn thing from them. I hope I passed the “background check”….) and it’s remote for now but if I have the choice there is no way I’m going into the office if I have to wear a mask all day.

      • blackjack

        I intitially got hired by LAPD. I failed background, despite not even having a non-traffic misdemeanor. They were able to ascertain, somehow, through my existing record that I have no respect for the law (meaning them, personally.) kept me from getting hired at the airport by about 6 weeks, on top of it. Whatever little respect I had for them is long gone now.

      • Rhywun

        Yikes, that’s creepy.

        Well, I’ve worked for this company before, so I’m not *too* worried.

      • DEG

        If I go into the office, I need to wear a mask all day.

        I told my boss, “I am not going back into the office until this Covid Theater Bullshit stops.”

    • Aloysious

      Rico is one of the very few writers over there that I’m not completely repelled by.

      That said, he still makes me upon occasion yell at the computer screen.

      • Rhywun

        Rico is one of the very few writers over there that I’m not completely repelled by.

        Funny how that happened, innit?

      • Cancelled

        His only ‘flaw’ was what people in the comments called equivocation. It never bugged me much, because I don’t see anything wrong with “to be sure.” Shikla can go back to India, (as an untouchable since she is so worried about privilege) and ENB best have my money!

      • Ted S.

        Don’t you mean ENB should have your sandwich ready?

      • Cancelled

        I’d no more have a whore make my sandwitch than ask a chef for a blow job.

      • The Hyperbole

        Meh, nothing about being a whore means one can’t make a damn fine sandwich, same with chefs, some might give excellent nob-slobbin’, I bet Julia Child was a freak back in the day.

      • Cancelled

        That is no doubt true, but I think it is rude to ask a professional to provide services outside their profession.

      • LCDR_Fish

        Julia was a spy behind enemy lines in France during WWII IIRC – sure she had to do all kinds of things.

      • The Hyperbole

        Fair enough, I wasn’t thinking about it on the contractual/professional level. I thought you were make a value statement about the culinary and fellacionary abilities of people based upon their profession.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        I don’t see anything wrong with “to be sure.”

        I think I was particularly sensitive to it because i saw the livertarian party going in the direction of accepting the left’s premise and quibbling about implementation details. “To be sure” is just another form of that.

      • blackjack

        All of the “to be sures” were about him being woke. “To be sure, Trump is a mean, mean man!” “To be sure, trans people need special rights..” ETC. Changing tires on cars is wizardry, to be sure!

      • invisible finger

        Back in high school 1979 my English teacher gave me a B on an essay only because of a “to be sure” I put in there.

        He was absolutely right. It is nothing but a lazy, pandering phrase to evoke a kind of empathy that the author hasn’t earned.

  20. Rebel Scum

    This guy.

    President Donald Trump on Thursday announced the creation of a “1776 Commission” to fight the growth of far-left revisionist history such as the 1619 Project.

    “The legacy of 1776 will never be erased,” Trump said in a speech at the National Archives building to celebrate Constitution Day.

    The “1776 Commission” will promote patriotic education in America’s schools and oppose reductionist partisan historical narratives.

    The president’s speech was the sharpest criticism to date of critical race theory in education and media.

    “Whether it is the mob on the street or the cancel culture in the board room, the goal is the same,” Trump said. “To silence dissent, to scare you out of speaking the truth and to bully Americans into abandoning their values, their heritage, and their very way of life.”

    • Hyperion

      Well, he’s right.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Trump does say some good things

      “The legacy of 1776 will never be erased,”

      “We will never be a socialist country”

      Even if wrong, those are both good goals.

      • Nephilium

        Hell, there was a Trump ad that came up streaming yesterday that explicitly called out the Democrats as socialists.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      NPR is characterizing this as Trump seeking to foment cultural division.

      • blackjack

        Because America is a shithole country?

  21. Aloysious

    Front 242. I liked that. It was different.

    wrt the video… those were some big-ass leeks.

  22. Lady Z

    Your links make me hate everyone. Good music though.

    • Florida Man

      If you didn’t hate everyone before the links, you weren’t paying attention.

      • Lady Z

        Edit: Your links make me hate everyone more.

  23. Rebel Scum
    • Drake

      I like the Biden ones where he’s talking to 3 people standing in circles.

  24. Gustave Lytton

    Gah. Scheduled CM for Monday morning so my weekend gets cut short instead of Tuesday morning when it’s just part of the work week. “We’d really like to have it done sooner than later [but don’t want to bug a VP to rubber stamp the request for this week]”. Now I’m hoping it fails early.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Colono-Mobility test?

      • Gustave Lytton

        Change management. Colono-mobility sounds more pleasant.

      • blackjack

        Tehn, maybe the hoto song is for you!

  25. Rhywun

    J.K. Rowling Book Burning Videos Are Spreading Like Wildfire Across TikTok

    I’m assuming this is because a male suspect wore a ladies’ coat in one throwaway line in her latest book and the internet went apeshit because of course it did.

  26. prolefeed

    Thought while mildly baked: Every politician at the national level, without a single exception, is a hard core statist who wants to slice away at your freedoms until it is all gone.

    Some are in more of a hurry than others – that is the extent of their differences.

    Reading Greg Egan’s short story “Chrystal Nights” currently.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Sorry to read the other day about your familial TDS, PF. I have a couple of relatives with that. “My ex-wife was ‘tarded. She’s a pilot now.”

  27. SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

    Well, constitution day went pretty well. Some interesting questions that I had to tip toe around, but I managed to mention that progressives and SoCons grew out of the same movement, that progressives used to openly hate the constitution, and that the government has exceeded its bounds in ways that are incompatible with the bill of rights, including the fact that marriage regulation isn’t mentioned as a power of the fedgov.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Hurrah! Would like to have seen it.

    • Cancelled

      that progressives used to openly hate the constitution

      well, for what it is worth so did libertarians

  28. Chipwooder

    Ummmmm….what?

    Edward-Isaac Dovere
    @IsaacDovere
    asked at a fundraiser today abt fears Trump will undermine election, Biden referenced classified briefings he is now receiving: “it goes beyond what he’s saying. It goes to what he’s encouraging.”

    “I’m hopeful, but I am concerned,” he said. And it won’t be over until it’s over”
    3:38 PM · Sep 17, 2020

    What “classified briefings” would these be?

    • kbolino

      Every election, the two nominees get briefed by the NSC/IC starting shorty after their nominations, dating back to Eisenhower and Stevenson.

      • Fourscore

        Trump and Kamala?

      • Chipwooder

        But regarding “fears Trump will undermine election”?

      • kbolino

        Probably not, but who knows. The briefings are supposed to be about the operations and concerns of the NSC/IC to ensure the President is “prepared” to take office, dating back to Truman getting treated like a houseplant by FDR then suddenly being thrust into the hot seat when the latter died.

      • Rhywun

        Two?

      • kbolino

        What, you think the swamp would deign to recognize third parties as legitimate?

    • The Other Kevin

      He has a right to be concerned. People from one candidate’s party are openly telling him to not concede the election no matter what. Oh wait, that’s not what he meant?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The intelligence agencies are taking this chance to fuck with Trump. I have no doubt they want him gone for all sorts of reasons.

      • juris imprudent

        They had to suffer through 8 years of Obama not giving a shit about them – the least they can do is try to torpedo a guy who buys into them even less.

      • kbolino

        Suffer? Obama gave them 95% of what they wanted and all they had to do was accept the farce that was “sequestration” in return.

      • juris imprudent

        Obama never bought into what the Intel or Foreign Policy communities, aka The Blob. Instead he relied on his own extraordinary intellect and his devoted cadre of unqualified toadies.

        In a lot of ways, Trump isn’t different from Obama, except in style and since style is more important than substance these days.

      • invisible finger

        Who cares what he bought into. He gave them all the money they asked for. That is all the swamp cares about.

    • Ownbestenemy

      The ones no longer n person and are emailed? Seems there was a smart move.

    • kbolino

      If they’re leaving mail behind one day, and the next day there’s even more mail, they’ll never catch up. That having been said, paying postal workers overtime pay is not necessarily the right solution.

      And yeah, political motivation seems to be completely absent from this. It’s a combination of postal worker incompetence, Congress not knowing what the fuck it wants from the USPS, and the President and Postmaster General exercising their prerogative at what is to the media an inopportune time.

      • Ted S.

        Yeah, that’s been happening at work since the last couple of rounds of layoffs. 🙁

      • Gustave Lytton

        What I take it as is the mail isn’t ready to be loaded so that’s why the truck has to wait for it. The next day, it’s ready to go plus whatever else comes in or doesn’t make it by that day’s cutoff.

        Come tho think of it, it’s not even clear if the waiting trucks are for delivery to mailboxes, the trucks from the local sorting center to the area post offices overnight, or the long haul trucks moving mail around the country.

    • Rhywun

      It’s complete horseshit. All the “changes” have nothing to do with the election and have been in the works for years because nobody fucking uses the mail any more.

  29. Old Man With Candy

    “Sanity.”

    Who are you trying to bullshit?

    • blackjack

      The voices. They won’t leave him alone.

    • blackjack

      Great timing. Not great, cute!

    • Count Potato

      Oh well.

    • Ted S.

      Who’s Bill Bar? 😉

    • Raven Nation

      IF the report is true then Barr is acting like an ass.

      Oddly, my prog friends in Seattle think the mayor is a fascist thug.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Barr is doing his law and order schtick.

        This should be left to the voters.

        Durkan didn’t revolt, she just fucked over her constituents. Let them hang her from a lamp post.

      • Gustave Lytton

        They’re still US citizens entitled to the rights and privileges of all US citizens, and the protection of the same. The response to civil rights violations in civil rights era South wasn’t to send a bunch of U hauls so that denied citizens could move out.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        So how is she a fascist thug?

        She did every thing short of dissolving the municipal government to cave to the protesters.

      • Gustave Lytton

        She didn’t kneel down and formally surrender Seattle city government to the rioters. Plus the Cossacks work for the Czar.

      • blackjack

        I love the Seattle Cossacks!

    • Cancelled

      Slammed him so hard he lost an r

    • IntraveneousWoodChipper

      Some incredibly-ironic progjection in there. Some of the choicest bits:

      “Durkan said Trump and Barr are ‘willing to subvert the law for political purposes’”

      “ The Department of Justice cannot become a political weapon operated at the behest of the President to target those who have spoken out against this administration’s actions,’ Durkan, a former US attorney, said in a statement.”

      ROFL

      • IntraveneousWoodChipper

        Durken blithely ignored public safety laws and property rights by allowing protestors (read violent rioters) to ransack Portland, causing millions of dollars of damage in the name of a Neo-Marxist revolution but Trump and Barr are the ones “subverting the law”

        Suuuuure, Karen.

      • blackjack

        Umm, they started their own country within our borders. Durkan ran interference for them and refused to take any action against the marxist settlers to the detriment of US citizens. She protected them. She violated her oath to uphold and protect the constitution, plainly.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Stick…eye….poke

  30. Count Potato

    “Rookie cop, 26, is indicted for accidentally killing mother-of-three, 30, while shooting her unrestrained dog during welfare check

    A former Texas police officer has been indicted in the fatal shooting of a homeless woman last year after he opened fire at a dog racing towards him and inadvertently struck her.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8743619/Rookie-cop-indicted-accidentally-shooting-dead-mother-opening-fire-charging-dog.html

    Good thing he went to see if she was OK.

    • Mad Scientist

      But he did find out if she was OK, so job well done, officer!

    • kbolino

      But I guess panic-firing at dogs is ok?

    • Rebel Scum

      Probably not gonna be any riots over this one.

  31. SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

    Evidently the mask snitches are going to be reporting on compliance rate at my daughter’s soccer game on Saturday.

    We’re it an activity I was doing, I’d loudly quit and ask for money back. Since it’s my daughter and she’s 3, it would feel like she was being punished, which is the last thing I want this mask bullshit turning into. If she was older, I could have the conversation and let her choose, but at 3 years old, I’m a bit boxed in.

    I may try my experimental mask with big gaping holes cut in it, or wear the damn thing around my neck in protest.

    • Ownbestenemy

      The best answer is hopefully everyone removes their masks..but I know that not to be realistic.

    • Gadfly

      …my daughter’s soccer game…
      …she’s 3…

      I didn’t know 3 year olds could even play soccer. Do they actually play the game, or do they just run randomly around having fun and then afterwards get juice boxes?

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        some of them don’t make it on the field. Most of them run on and off the field at their whim. My daughter is one of the more focused ones (a surprise to me), so she scored 3 goals last game.

        Juice boxes are verboten because they might have covid cooties. Half the fun of soccer is gone when you don’t get a snack and a drink at the end.

        I’m settling on writing “worn under protest” in my mask in sharpie.

      • juris imprudent

        just the initials… WUP

      • Gadfly

        That’s about what I thought it would be. Although that sucks they don’t get snacks, as I do remember that being the best thing about youth sports (not a sports guy).

      • Rebel Scum

        Do they actually play the game

        They play A game. It is called “Herdball”.

      • blackjack

        HEY! Those toddlers have way less fake injuries than the pros, and that’s a fact!

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        the one who threw herself down on the sideline and sobbingly refused to enter the field reminded me of some soccer I’ve seen on TV.

    • Mad Scientist

      Biden Now Thinks…

      I’d like a fact check on that right there.

      • Gustave Lytton

        That was my first thought too.

    • kbolino

      If the CDC can cancel evictions, I’m pretty sure they can order the use of masks. Who’s going to stop them, anyway? Certainly not the other bureaucrats nor their pet judges.

      • Ownbestenemy

        They couldn’t institue speed limits or seatbelts…now vis blackmail I can see the masking happen. On its face its a non-starter and I would suspect Trump even thought about imposing it.

    • Rhywun

      Pretty sad that the election is basically turning into a referendum on fucking masks.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        I’m encouraged by it. Can you imagine if every election turned into a referendum on government mandated nonsense? People might actually get tired of government mandated nonsense.

      • Rhywun

        I’m afraid that people will want more of it.

      • Cancelled

        Most people have a list of government mandates they are just itching to see imposed.

      • grrizzly

        If only we were more like Québécois. 100,000 people rallied against masks in Montreal on Saturday. They chanted USA and waived Trump 2020 flags.

  32. Gadfly

    OMWC sent me this, another salvo in his war against my sanity.

    Which side of the war is currently winning?

    • Cancelled

      OMWC v SF is not the sanity world cup…

    • mexican sharpshooter

      “Can they both lose?” – Henry Kissinger

    • Count Potato

      Do have the link where that link goes?

    • Count Potato

      “In a video posted to Facebook on Monday, Africa Town Coalition leader Kevin Wharton Price identified himself as one of the demonstrators at the hospital. He stated explicitly that his group is “not Black Lives Matter.”

      “We’ve been on some actions with Black Lives Matter, but we have our own political agenda,” Wharton said. “Not Black Lives Matter. Not antifa.””

      BFD

    • blackjack

      Nyet! Just Nyet!

  33. Count Potato

    “EXCLUSIVE: Education Department opens investigation into Princeton University after president deems racism ’embedded’ in the school

    The Department of Education has informed Princeton University that it is under investigation following the school president’s declaration that racism was “embedded” in the institution.

    President Christopher Eisgruber published an open letter earlier this month claiming that “racism and the damage it does to people of color persist at Princeton” and that “racist assumptions” are “embedded in structures of the University itself.”

    According to a letter the Department of Education sent to Princeton that was obtained by the Washington Examiner, such an admission from Eisgruber raises concerns that Princeton has been receiving tens of millions of dollars of federal funds in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which declares that “no person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

    Eisgruber’s letter branding the 274-year-old university racist came after a summer of unrest rife with race riots and an open letter from hundreds of Princeton faculty members who wrote, “Anti-Black racism has a visible bearing upon Princeton’s campus makeup.” The admission was followed by dozens of “anti-racist” policy change demands. Among them were calls for select faculty race quotas and to “reconsider” the use of standardized testing for admissions.

    Now, the Education Department has sent a formal records request as it pursues its investigation. Its main point of contention is whether Princeton has lied to the public with its marketing and to the department in its promise not to uphold racist standards, in accordance with receiving federal funds.”

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/exclusive-education-department-opens-investigation-into-princeton-university-after-president-deems-racism-embedded-in-the-school

    • Rhywun

      I… wut? Epic troll…?

    • Gustave Lytton

      I thought about this some more and it’s a shot across the bow of any business or government entity that proclaimed systemic racism is embedded in their organization.

    • one true athena

      “We’re only a little bit racist for rhetorically flagellating ourselves, we’re not really racist!”

    • Ted S.

      And then drugs fell out of their asses….

    • blackjack

      Is he a Kraut, or a Nip? Maybe a wop.

  34. Count Potato

    “The number of hunting licenses sold annually in the United States is greater than the number of troops in the world’s 10 largest militaries combined.

    Politicians considering gun confiscation (aka mandatory buybacks) should chew on that.”

    https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1306559656131731457

    • one true athena

      And people in America are very prone to boating accidents. It’s a national epidemic. very sad.

    • Gadfly

      You can add to that all the gun owners who don’t hunt, and those non-owners sympathetic to gun ownership who might find the threat of confiscation an impetus to become an owner.

      • Sean

        I haven’t had a hunting license in decades.

  35. straffinrun

    Now I regret burning all my Harry Potter books cuz they were filled with black magic.

    • Cancelled

      Inverto penisorum

    • UnCivilServant

      I thought they were filled with superforgettable stories and unmemorable characters.

      • Cancelled

        500,000,000 books sold.

      • UnCivilServant

        And?

        That doesn’t change the fact that after reading one, I could neither tell you the story nor describe the personality of any of the characters. They are unmemorable characters in forgettable stories.

      • Mojeaux

        De gustibus, etc.

      • Mojeaux

        I was entertained by the series, but too much time passed before the last book came out and I didn’t remember what had gone before, so I wasn’t interested past page 50 of the last book.

        That does not mean I didn’t have a good time while I was reading.

        The fact that I knew from the git-go why Snape hung with Harry dimmed my enjoyment a bit because it seemed so very obvious and it was being given short shrift, but while I was reading, that was my only complaint.

        Now I don’t care enough to complain. I just remember I had a good time reading the books.

      • Cancelled

        I wasn’t a huge fan, but she was writing commercial fiction and whether you like the books or not she did so at an unprecedented level of success. Maybe she is a hack. I personally despised both Twilight and 50 shades, and question the sanity of those who liked them, but we are not talking about high literature (although most of what I regard as literature was written commercially as well, and much sold well in its day), and the fact that you disliked the books does not detract from their success. Why does a writer write? Leaving aside the various flavors of OCD that may cause a person to NEED to write, the answers boil down to 1. Money 2. Desire to entertain or 3. Desire to educate/inform. I grant you Rowling did not accomplish number 3 (or even try), but she manifestly entertained many millions of people and she made a huge amount of money. She did not obtain her wealth by force or by fraud, and while I find the worship she received up until recently annoying, I have read the books and she did not do anything I would regard as “lowering the tone” or otherwise harming society or culture. The world is not a worse place because of her, and if there is value in adding joy to people’s lives it is a better place.

      • blackjack

        Everyday, I walk out of my house, turn to the south and see that fucking wizard’s tower at Universal. Every.Fucking.Day!

      • The Hyperbole

        Stop doing that… if it bothers you that is, If you enjoy the outrage than keep on keeping on.

      • blackjack

        You’re scaring me, next you’re gonna start calling me “Buddy!”

      • Tundra

        My kids loved them. I read one and gave the rest a pass.

        When we were in London we had to visit the fucking train station, of course. And in Edinburgh we went to the Elephant House, the place where she wrote a bunch of the books.

        Actually, she impresses the hell out of me.

      • straffinrun

        So kinda like glibs?

      • UnCivilServant

        And yet for some reason we’re not being showered with money for filling the mindless media market niche

      • straffinrun

        Surprising that analysis of Babylon 5 and dick jokes don’t sell better.

      • Mojeaux

        She tells a hell of a story.

        You don’t sell that many books if the story doesn’t resonate.

      • UnCivilServant

        Did we read the same books? The best thing I can say was that it was not a difficult read.

      • Mojeaux

        Yes. We read the same books. I enjoyed it. You didn’t. It’s no deeper than that.

      • Fatty Bolger

        I read them once, years ago, and remember the stories and characters quite well. To each their own, I suppose.

      • Count Potato

        Awesome, thanks.

    • blackjack

      When I was 10, I lived with my grandmother for about a year and a half. Her rule was we all had to take music lessons. My brother got a violin. I got a fucking accordion. That thing was twice as big as me. I had to bring it to school twice a week for my lesson. Oomp-pah-pah. You know how many accordion soloists there are that are famous? Yeah, me neither.

      • LCDR_Fish

        Just weird Al, but I’ve seen some nifty Bach buskers on YouTube

      • UnCivilServant

        He’s more famous as a parodist than a soloist.

      • blackjack

        I had money that Suthen would produce one first.

  36. straffinrun

    Now I regret burning all my copies of Mein Kampf.

    • UnCivilServant

      How many book burnings did you host?

      • straffinrun

        Two or three every moral panic.

    • blackjack

      I regret not stealing Abby Hoffman’s book. I did buy that one issue of National Lampoon, so I saved at least one dog, so there’s that.

    • Tundra

      I remember her! Never met her but read a lot about her.

      Great lady!

      • Tulip

        My brother was a guide for the boy scout canoe base. He always took them to her island, and took our family when we went to visit him.

      • Tundra

        Most of my BWCA trips were after she died. I’ll have to get by the museum some day.

      • Fourscore

        I read about her some 20 years ago but never enjoyed her root beer

      • Tulip

        I think it was 1981 when we went

  37. straffinrun

    All books that oppose censorship should be burned.

  38. Tundra

    This is pretty good.

    John MacArthur Says He’ll Start a ‘Jail Ministry’ if Arrested for Worshiping Indoors

    “We received a letter with the threat that we could be fined or I could go to jail for a maximum of six months,” MacArthur said on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle. “… My biblical hero, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, is the Apostle Paul. And when he went into a town, he didn’t ask what the hotel was like – he asked what the jail was like because he knew that’s where he was going to spend his time. So I don’t mind being a little apostolic. If they want to tuck me into jail, I’m open for a jail ministry. I’ve done a lot of other ministries and haven’t had the opportunity to do that one, so bring it on.”

    Pushback.