Wednesday Afternoon SugarLinks – Local news edition

by | Sep 9, 2020 | Daily Links | 409 comments

ACLU staffer fumes at university for accepting Nick Sandmann, report says

An American Civil Liberties Union official in Kentucky chastised Transylvania University over the weekend for accepting Nicholas Sandmann as a student, calling the move a “stain” on the institution.

Sandmann made headlines back in January 2019 when a Native American activist stood in front of the teen and began chanting in his face during a pro-life rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Sandmann, who was wearing a MAGA hat at the time and is a supporter of President Trump, held his ground and smiled at the man as he continued to talk in his face.

“Does anyone else think it’s a bit of a stain on Transylvania University for accepting Nick Sandman [sic]? I’m sure it’s a ‘both sides’ defense, but it’s pretty counter to their mission and another instance of there not actually being equal sides to an issue,” the ACLU’s Samuel Crankshaw said in a Facebook post, according to the National Review.

Stain! A moral stain! Transylvania Univerity is stained! Also, here’s the complainer.


GENOCIDE AND SLAVERY ON MARS!

Austin, TX (CNN Business)Elon Musk has spent nearly two decades rallying SpaceX fans around his goal of colonizing Mars, something world governments aren’t currently attempting — in part because of the unfathomable price tag such a mission will entail.

Musk, the company’s CEO and chief engineer, refers to his interplanetary ambitions more like a sci-fi protagonist with a moral calling than an entrepreneur with a disruptive business plan.

“Ideas may be another possible export for Martian colonists,” Zubrin, who heads the Mars Society, wrote in his oft-cited 1996 book, “The Case for Mars.”
“If somebody says, ‘But won’t there be exploitation there?’ Well sure, that’s what people do to each other all the time.”

To look towards a potential future of humanity, Zubrin looks to its past.
“Just as the labor shortage prevalent in colonial and 19th century America drove the creation of Yankee Ingenuity’s flood of inventions, so the conditions of extreme labor shortage…will tend to drive Martian ingenuity.”

In a recent interview with CNN Business, Zubrin stood by those ideas, arguing American colonization has worked. Zubrin again harkens back to the colonization of North America as an example of how would-be Mars colonists might fund their trip, either by liquidating their Earthly possessions to fund the trip or by “indentured servitude.”

“If you say, okay, you want to go to Mars, you’re going to want to offer something,” Zubrin said. “If you look at Colonial America, a middle-class person could travel to America by liquidating their farm. But, the proceeds would give them a one-way ticket. But if you are working, what you could do is sell your labor for seven years.”

Zubrin, who has worked with conservative think tanks but says he is not politically affiliated, also acknowledged that colonization can go hand-in-hand with exploitation: “If somebody says, ‘But won’t there be exploitation there?’ Well sure, that’s what people do to each other all the time.”

Zubrin, who has worked with conservative think tanks but says he is not politically affiliated

And he was allowed to comment on a story on CNN? Shocking! Not for the faint-of-heart!


CNN airs photo of Biden and son with Washington Redskins logo removed from son’s hat

CNN appears to have altered a widely-seen photograph of Joe Biden with his young son to remove the logo of the Washington Redskins.

The Democratic nominee and former vice president initially shared the photo in June to commemorate Father’s Day.

However, when CNN featured the photograph in its Monday night special “Fight for the White House: Joe Biden’s Long Journey,” the Redskins logo was removed from the hat.

CNN did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.

I think the only real comfort to be had in this story is that Joe no longer has any idea what a hat is.


About The Author

SugarFree

SugarFree

Your Resident Narcissistic Misogynist Rape-Culture Apologist

409 Comments

  1. Chipwooder

    According to CNN, the Biden campaign themselves erased the Redskins logo.

    • Count Potato

      Still fucked up.

      • Chipwooder

        Oh, no doubt. The point is that the candidate (well, his handlers anyway) is the one erasing history.

      • Nephilium

        It’s not being erased, history is being corrected!

    • Rebel Scum

      The Biden Camp is retroactively woke.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      It would be confusing to all of us who know them as the Washington Football team.

      • Count Potato

        Stupidest name ever.

      • Fifth Knight of the Derp Table

        I think that’s the point. “You insist on forcing us to change the name because of PC bullshit? Fine. Here’s the blandest name possible.” I kinda like the fuck you attitude, to be honest.

      • juris imprudent

        No, really trolling the morons would’ve been to keep the nickname and introduce a [redskin] potato as the mascot.

      • Cancelled

        Damn Irish, they even steal the Indian’s victimhood.

      • blackjack

        Can’t decide if they should be the Thinskins, or the Washington Bluespins. Those are the finalists, though.

      • C. Anacreon

        Red Shins would be my nomination.
        Describes their uniform color, not any person, just like the Cincinnati Redlegs or the Chicago White Sox or even the Alabama Crimson Tide, and sounds very close to their past name. Win-win.

    • db

      I prefer to think that all the things Biden is forgetting are actually being erased from reality concurrently.

    • blackjack

      That’s why I call them the “Washington Bluespins” now.

  2. DEG

    CNN appears to have altered a widely-seen photograph of Joe Biden with his young son to remove the logo of the Washington Redskins.

    What was that about, “If you don’t want people to call you ‘Fake News’….”?

  3. Count Potato

    “CNN appears to have altered a widely-seen photograph of Joe Biden with his young son to remove the logo of the Washington Redskins.”

    Seriously, WTF?

    • DrOtto

      Yep “WTF” is how the new teams monogram will read.

      • Not Adahn

        WashingTon Football?

      • DrOtto

        I’m assuming the full name is “Washington Football Team”.

      • Hyperion

        Panem Plutocrats. A name to be prod of. Let the hunger games begin!

      • Hyperion

        I think that was supposed to be proud. But edit fairy is retired I see.

  4. Shpip

    “Does anyone else think it’s a bit of a stain on Transylvania University for accepting Nick Sandman [sic]?”

    It’s not enough that the kid be slandered by every news outlet in the country. He must be shunned and removed from polite society.

    • Timeloose

      Ensuring civil liberties now means trying to ruin a kid’s future. The kid who’s worst offence was to wear a hat promoting the sitting president and attend a Pro-Life rally.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Why is he going to college anyhow?

      If I had that huge settlement, I’d just go sit on a beach and do my best to misspend my youth. At worst, if I felt like I needed to get educated, I’d do the Thorton Mellon plan and hire Vonnegut to come teach me personally.

      • Chipwooder

        “Whoever did write that paper doesn’t know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut.”

      • Apples and Knives

        “Next time I’ll call Robert Ludlum!”

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        “Next time I’ll hire Robert Ludlum!”

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        gah. Call is le mot juste.

      • Ed Wuncler

        “…. and listening to the goddamn Beatle albums!”

        What a great movie.

      • blackjack

        Spend most of that money on motorcycles, booze and chasing women. The rest of it, he could just waste.

      • Shpip

        That’s the Best plan.

      • Cancelled

        I keep seeing people talk about the huge settlement but the thing is “Settled a $500 million dollar lawsuit” does not mean “Settled a lawsuit for $500 million” and the settlement was confidential. He may, and I hope this is true for the kid, have settled the suit for $100s of millions, or he may have settled it for $1. We do not know.

      • Not Adahn

        Why does everyone think he got a huge settlement? AFAIK, all numbers mentioned have been complete speculation. I’d believe he got almost nothing.

      • C. Anacreon

        I’m guessing he got around $5 million, and the lawyers took half. Nice payday, but probably not enough to give up the rest of your life for.

      • Hyperion

        Well, he’s pretty young. But 2.5 million, that’s 100k a year for 25 years. I’d at least take a nice vacation. Now, I’d retire on that.

      • Cancelled

        or if you aren’t completely insane $100k a year forever… That’s a 4% return.

      • Hyperion

        Sure, I’m saying even if you did nothing, that’s still a good yearly income for a long time, if you also are not entirely stupid. I mean if you’re going to do the purple drank and have lots of friends, well…

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      I can’t comprehend how someone can watch the whole video of that incident and conclude that Sandman did something wrong. I get that team politics is a thing, but come on, man.

      • Idle Hands

        there’s people that insist that video is edited and there’s other video that corroborates the indians story. Basically people have a narrative and find way’s to justify it.

      • J. Frank Parnell

        The left doesn’t give a shit about the video. The kid was wearing a MAGA hat and was protesting against abortion women’s healthcare, that’s enough for them.

  5. KibbledKristen

    ACLU guy looks like he has bad breath

    • SugarFree

      It’s a pained smile. Like a parasite is boring into his kidney, but he’s trying to be brave.

      • TARDIS

        He looks like he’s toothfucking his bottom lip.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        His face looks digitally rearranged, like those Quizno’s creatures.

      • TARDIS

        Now I’m gonna have SF nightmares. ?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      “I’m broken inside and will eat your soul to sate my cravings.”

    • KibbledKristen

      If I were a dude, I wouldn’t let those chompers get anywhere near my dick.

      Or, as the ex used to say “corn fears him [in reference to NASCAR driver Carl Whatsisface]”

      • Rhywun

        Here he is fifteen years later.

      • KibbledKristen

        My eyes! My eyes!

        That’s worse than an HM link

      • Ted S.

        Is it worse than my music links?

      • Idle Hands

        Stelter is only like 35.

      • Rhywun

        Poor bastard.

      • AlexinCT

        Been bitchslapped too much, is my guess.

      • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

        Why are you excluding women with dicks, you bigot?

      • AlexinCT

        There are no chicks with ducks. Only dudes with tits.

      • Cancelled

        Only dudes can have ducks? Women are stuck with cocks?

    • grrizzly

      He looks like he drinks blood at night. Because of Transylvania U.?

    • Pope Jimbo

      I think you could make a big dent in the national debt by organizing a betting pool on how long that kid would last if he was ejected from the Fed courthouse in Portland. The FedGov would sell squares in 5 minute increments. The mostly peaceful protests would finally be fun for everyone watching that kid try to run to safety.

      He’d be dressed in a blue blazer, khaki pants and penny loafers when tossed.

      That kid looks like the Grand Champion of White Privilege.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        The khakis would need to be pleated to complete the look.

        They could just give him a sandwich board exactly like John McClane had to wear in Die Hard III (I think that was the one).

    • Ozymandias

      Amazing. Everything old is new again.
      The Progressives on SCOTUS said “separate but equal” was perfectly okay… in the 1890s with Plessy v. Ferguson; it took about 60 years for them to say, “Whoops! Our bad!” with Brown v. Board…
      So now the new woke Progressives are telling us that Plessy was actually correctly decided. Truly amazing.
      If they were any more illiterate and ahistorical they’d have to be blind and deaf.

      • Ed Wuncler

        Public schooling has done its job.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        Its like a carousel. Round and round, up and down. All good things.

      • Nephilium

        Don’t put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That’s why they’re called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes.

        –His Grace, His Excellency, The Duke of Ankh; Commander and Blackboard Monitor Sir Samuel Vimes

      • mexican sharpshooter

        I was actually paraphrasing the character played by Kevin Nealon on Happy Gilmore

    • juris imprudent

      They will of course call the non-POC lounge the Jim Crow Memorial Lounge, won’t they?

    • J. Frank Parnell

      Next up is separate drinking fountains, but this time the whites get the shitty ones #progress #justice

    • whiz

      You know, the union and library in our university have rooms that groups of students can reserve, so if anyone wanted such a thing, they can have it anyway.

  6. Rebel Scum

    We can’t have accurate depictions of history.

    The University of Rhode Island recently announced plans to remove two murals depicting the events of World War II due to their lack of diversity. The decision was prompted after students complained that the mural was not compatible with the university’s values of inclusivity. According to the school’s Vice President of Student Affairs, “Some of our students have even shared with us they didn’t feel comfortable sitting in that space.” …

    Kathy Collins, the University of Rhode Island’s Vice President of Student Affairs, said that she has received numerous complaints from students about the murals’ lack of diversity.

    “I have received complaints about the murals that portray a very homogeneous population predominately the persons painted and depicted on the wall are predominantly white and that does not represent who our institution is today,” Collins said. “Some of our students have even shared with us they didn’t feel comfortable sitting in that space.”

    • juris imprudent

      Don’t paint over the murals – tear the buildings down. Then the little assholes can sit in the rain.

      • kinnath

        Time to reshoot Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List to be woke-compliant.

    • B.P.

      Sprinkle some dead Japanese around in the murals.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      “Some of our students have even shared with us they didn’t feel comfortable sitting in that space.”

      So instead of saying “Grow the fuck up,” we caved and gave them everything their vapid little hearts desired.

      • But Enough About My Weird Culinary Fantasies

        …and couldn’t even be arsed to suggest that perhaps they should sit somewhere else.

    • Swiss Servator

      I could conquer that school with a plastic spoon.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        A red hat might work too. It doesn’t even need any lettering to make them run for their fainting couches.

      • AlexinCT

        Run down the hill and fuck a cow vs. walk down and fuck them all…

        Cause this is a pussy fest with these participation trophy types.

      • Gadfly

        I could conquer that school with a plastic spoon.

        Obligatory

      • Shpip

        I bet if you put your mind to it, you could conquer that school using only your thumb.

      • Swiss Servator

        Hmmmm…. I do have the Oak Leaves!

      • Not Adahn
      • Cancelled

        They are fighting fascism by removing a memorial to the defeat of fascism. Our entire political discourse has become a 1970s California (after a blotter of acid and two bong hits) version of a Zen koan.

    • Chipwooder

      “Some of our students have even shared with us they didn’t feel comfortable sitting in that space.”

      You could have just said “Some of our students are mentally-defective hysterics.” Honesty and all.

    • KibbledKristen

      In my high school we had a controversy* about a Jimi Hendrix mural in one of the stairwells. Ironically, it was the Young Republicans trying to get it removed that time.

      *there was an article about it in, IIRC, the Boston Globe titled “Hicks Nix Hendrix” LOL

      • l0b0t

        OMG! Thank you for sharing this absolute gem.

        The artist who created the mural, Rachel Salzman, is also surprised by the fuss it has caused after all these years. She painted it in one night, nine years ago, when she was a junior at the high school. She still lives in Ridgefield, working as a curator at Antique Poster Collection, an art gallery.

        It was 1980. I’m pretty sure our Rachel was drinking red wine from a bota bag and smoking electric lettuce (utilizing an alligator clip festooned with a feathered leather cord) while painting that portrait.

      • KibbledKristen

        You should Google the story’s antagonist…he’s in the OH AG’s office now.

        He and I also went to the same university as well.

        Little fuckface.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        Being a self-righteous a-hole is not exclusive to any particular ideology, it is known.

      • Gadfly

        Being a self-righteous a-hole is not exclusive to any particular ideology, it is known.

        This is true, but it does seem to express itself with more frequency from whichever ideology happens to hold the upper hand at the time.

    • TARDIS

      None of this shit was possible until entitled/fake virtuous white girls, enabled by their lonely seething harridan mothers, and accompanied by their army of sexually frustrated cuck bois, were allowed to run free. They dictate policy now.

      Since many more males than females have died for our country, I demand true equality now. Draft all females 18-35 into the armed services. Have them assault our enemies in Russia, China, North Korea, and Afghanistan. It’s time for the spoiled bitchez to start dying en masse for America like the men they are trying to erase. Here’s your rifle, get to it. Let’s go girls.

    • Ozymandias

      My sister’s alma mater.
      Fuck.Them.All.

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      So they want to take down a mural of Antifa?

    • Agent Cooper

      “numerous”

      Like, three?

  7. Apples and Knives

    “Also, here’s the complainer.”

    Nightmare material.

  8. Certified Public Asshat

    Housing costs for the homeless rose to $531,000 a unit, L.A. controller's report says https://t.co/VMbkiojz8L— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) September 9, 2020

    Subtle.

    • Swiss Servator

      …wait. If they have $531K “units”, then they are not “homeless”.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        I didn’t think a connex would cost $531k.

      • Swiss Servator

        Clearly you have never contracted with KBR!

      • mexican sharpshooter

        My wife has.

      • db

        Don’t know about now, but a few months ago, no one was shipping anything back across the Pacific, so shipping containers were just being sold in the US in such volume, the prices were super low. Easy to convert to temporary shelter.

    • blackjack

      Meanwhile, Us city employees are sacrificing 10% of our income to “help” defray tax losses from the government imposed shutdown. Roberts will just call it a tax and it’s all good.

      • Nephilium

        My company sent out an e-mail saying they would not be participating in the SS tax deferment, including that they would have to double the withholding for the first quarter of the year to make it back up.

    • Gadfly

      Housing costs for the homeless rose to $531,000 a unit

      Damn, that’s some good graft going on there. Has to be, or their incompetence is mind-boggling.

      • AlexinCT

        How fucking much could a fucking cube for a homeless person cost? I bet the price is $530k to government employees and scammers, and about $1k to deal with a homeless person.

  9. Scruffy Nerfherder

    SJWednesday: And Here I Thought It Was About (((Them)))

    Rethinking 9/11: Calling out a White Supremacist Holiday

    An attack is an unprovoked assault. Assault that has been provoked especially during the assault is defense. The double standards of the American Government in their bullying of the Middle East is enshrined in their puppet of the 9/11 “attacks” as justifying the vulcanization of Islamic minorities and the exploitation of Middle Eastern countries for mere oil. The 9/11 attacks on a couple of buildings are nothing to the destruction before and after that had fallen upon the Middle East due to colonial American influence. Osama Bin Laden simply defended his people against a large bully. If America had simply not attacked, there would have been no need for self defense. The innocent lives lost o n 9/11 were terrible, but no one has called out on the loss of life during the countless reckless operations of America either.

    9/11 Remembrance should not vilify the helpless minorities, but it should be a day of contemplation on how to abolish colonialism from American society and thought. This dangerous and violent idea has been heralded by white western civilization ever since its conception. Therefore, not only is the current 9/11 concept Islamophobic, but racist and white supremacist. As long as injustice stands, there will be no justice. We should rethink 9/11.

    We have raised much awareness on systemic racism on the African Americans. Now it is time to raise awareness on the systemic racism, Islamophobia, and white supremacy that 9/11 takes. It is time to take to the streets once again and protest. Cumo had already canceled the 9/11 memorial. Let us cancel 9/11 itself and its racist roots. On 9/10. 9/12, I am raising awareness against such evils. I propose that these should be days of remembrance on attacks against the Islamic minority and the Middle East. Not some needle prick of a overpowered colonial hyperpower.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      “but no one has called out on the loss of life during the countless reckless operations of America either.“

      Jesus Tapdancing Christ, talk about a selective memory (or they’re just lying, probably that).

    • B.P.

      “We have raised much awareness on systemic racism on the African Americans. Now it is time to raise awareness on the systemic racism, Islamophobia, and white supremacy that 9/11 takes.”

      More position jockeying in the oppression stack.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      We have raised much awareness on systemic racism on the African Americans. Now it is time to raise awareness on the systemic racism, Islamophobia, and white supremacy that 9/11 takes.

      What about raising awareness of systemic racism for blacks in the Middle East? Could start with why there are no descendants of black slaves over there.

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      So apparently no minorities died in the 9/11 attacks. They must have had advance warning. Maybe they were in on it.

    • Rhywun

      Cu[o]mo had already canceled the 9/11 memorial.

      Yeah – because of the plague, you nitwit. And it’s back on, minus the assemblage at ground zero. Suck it.

    • EvilSheldon

      Exhibit #4,822 – Progressivism is an excuse to be a horrible person.

  10. Apples and Knives

    Football Team has always been at war with the Cowboys.

    • KibbledKristen

      Hail to the Sports Team!
      Hail misery!

      • Gdragon

        They/them on the warpath!
        Fight to be gender free!

      • KibbledKristen

        High five dot gif

      • Gdragon

        Wonderful teamwork indeed! 😉

  11. Stinky Wizzleteats

    I hate the soy boy meme but that guy at the top, damn is it apt.

  12. Rebel Scum

    Do you know who else wanted to fundamentally change the system?

    In a video tweeted by The Hill Sunday, Democrat “squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar (Minn.) endorsed the riots that have destroyed countless lives and businesses over the past three months. Omar is speaking in the video to her constituents.

    Reading from a script, Omar calls the riots “an ongoing uprising over centuries of racial neglect and oppression.” She added that “we maintain a system that grinds millions into desperate poverty.” She further calls for a socialist system to replace our open capitalist system.

      • blackjack

        He only hoped to change the system, Trump’s election resulted in the loss of that hope.

    • Mad Scientist

      She added that “we maintain a system that grinds millions into desperate poverty.” She further calls for a socialist system to replace our open capitalist system.

      That’s certainly the best way to maintain a system the grinds millions into desperate poverty.

    • B.P.

      I would like to thank this rotten, racist shithole for saving me from a refugee camp.

    • Gadfly

      She added that “we maintain a system that grinds millions into desperate poverty.”

      Poverty is the natural state. We maintain a system that raises people out of it quite well, and much better than her preferred system would. Only a freer system could do better than the current US system, but I don’t see any of these people complaining about inequality advocating for that.

    • mexican sharpshooter

      Bill Walsh?

    • Ed Wuncler

      I love the fact that these jackals will complain about the lack of economic investment into the black community but either turn a blind eye or endorse the riots going on in the black community…that make economic development impossible to happen.

    • Agent Cooper

      “we maintain a system that grinds millions into desperate poverty.”

      Bullshit.

  13. The Late P Brooks

    another instance of there not actually being equal sides to an issue

    Stick up your memory hole.

  14. The Late P Brooks

    I could conquer that school with a plastic spoon.

    *outright, prolonged laughter*

    We’ll put that on the base of your statue at the gates of Glibertopia.

  15. Ozymandias

    And it may be worth spending extra on ammo. We’ve all seen this coming for a while, but this election is going to be when we descend into full-blown banana republic status.

    (TW: breitbart)
    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/09/08/report-left-mobilizes-for-mass-public-unrest-political-apocalypse-expected-if-biden-loses/amp/

    A coalition of leftist groups is “secretly” discussing how to mobilize and prepare for what it envisions as a “political apocalypse” full of violence and chaos if Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden fails to win a landslide victory on November 3, the Daily Beast reported Monday.

    • kinnath

      So you’re saying I need to buy more ammo.

      Great, I’ll let the wife know that.

      • DEG

        I just accepted a shipment of 1000 rounds of 5.56 NATO.

        Some Greek HXP .303 British surplus should arrive tomorrow.

      • kinnath

        Well, I’ve received 2,000 rounds of 9 mm and 400 rounds of 7.62 Nato in the last 10 days.

      • DEG

        7.62 NATO I’m a bit short on. Only 200 rounds currently.

    • Drake

      Eh – they burn up a few lefty cities, head out to the suburbs, hear a couple warning shots and scamper back to prog town.

      Also places like Baltimore still won’t riot because the lilly white antifa agitators are afraid to venture in there.

    • kinnath

      “I don’t know what the strategy is when armed right-wing militia dudes show up in polling places,” the same source said. “This [Kyle] Rittenhouse guy is being lionized on the right, right now. If it is being unleashed that you can shoot people and be a hero, I don’t know what preparation we can possibly do for that.”

      Don’t burn shit down.

  16. The Late P Brooks

    Not even a spork. Just a spoon.

      • AlexinCT

        Do it with that little can opener thingy…

        That’s even more badass!

  17. The Late P Brooks

    We should make smiley face stick-ons in all the colors of the rainbow and put them over all the whitey faces in western art. That’ll teach us.

  18. The Late P Brooks

    “First, I’m going to kill you with this spoon. Then, I’ll use the spoon to eat some ice cream.”

  19. The Late P Brooks

    You just made that up

    The governor of South Dakota on Wednesday disputed economists who say the motorcycle rally in Sturgis last month may have caused as many as 250,000 coronavirus infections, saying they just “made up some numbers and published them.”

    Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, questioned the math, even though her state has reported a 126 percent increase in new coronavirus cases (over 3,700) in the last two weeks and one death has been linked to the 10-day rally that attracted more than 400,000 people and revved-up the coronavirus crisis in neighboring states.

    “That’s actually not factual whatsoever,” Noem said of the economists’ study in a FOX News interview. “What they did is they took a snapshot in time and they did a lot of speculation, did some back of the napkin math and made up some numbers and published them. This study wasn’t even done by a health care study, it was done by the Institute of Labor Economics and it’s completely untrue.”

    I’ll be in my bunk.

    • KibbledKristen

      She is so awesome

    • KSuellington

      Now that is a woman I’d vote twice for. I’d love to see her get the nomination for 2024.

    • Idle Hands

      I don’t normally go for the whole politician thing but she really gets me.

    • B.P.

      In related news, Slack’s parent company’s stock dove 16 percent today on earnings reports.

    • Drake

      Parent company of Omni Consumer Products?

    • Chipwooder

      What is Slack?

      • Count Potato

        It’s collaboration software used by developers, journalists, etc.

    • EvilSheldon

      Security robots? LOL!

  20. Pope Jimbo

    You coastal elites like us! You really like us!

    Politico has a long interview with the Pride of Minnesoda our Gov Tim Walz.

    Is Walz living in a fantasy? Or, more generously, in the past? Even Gwen Walz, the governor’s wife and a high school English teacher, sometimes worries that he is, at least when it comes to dealing with his Republican adversaries. By most evidence, they are little interested in helping Walz carry out the cheerful “One Minnesota” vision he campaigned on.

    “She’s a little more, ‘They mistake your kindness for weakness and don’t ever do that,’” Walz said of his spouse’s views about the yearning for a collegial bipartisan center she believes is illusion. “But I also think — especially when you’re in an executive position — I still believe our system of checks and balances and compromise created a better, fairer system that worked, and I do not see this oscillation amongst extremes being a better way of governing.”

    Yes Mr. One Man Rule is doing his best to pretend that he’s done everything he could to work with the GOP, but those meanies just won’t get with the program.

    *Bonus points for them running a picture of him working on his own ’79 International Harvester (but without his mask on). This is the guy who has been doing everything he can to force us all to drive electric cars while he drives a truck that gets 11mpg

    • Pope Jimbo

      Another great quote:

      [Since the pandemic], now, the narrative is every business that’s not functioning, that’s my fault that I closed them down. Now, I don’t turn around and say, “Well, projections would have showed this many people are dead so if I’d have listened to you, we would have got that many people killed.” I don’t think that’s helpful but that is a narrative. So I think the politics where the One Minnesota is going to be a little harder work. We still have that. I’m very fearful. I saw this as a member of Congress. The danger of that pure polarization. … That’s it, and I worry here that same thing.

      This is the guy who shut down the state based on a model that was written in a single weekend by grad students (in public health, not CompSci) that said 78K people would die if he didn’t do something. (his lockdown was predicted to result in only 50K deaths).

      And his lockdown was so successful that only 1800 people have died! But does he get any credit? Nooooooooo. The buttheads only yell at him because he won’t give up his powers and keeps businesses closed.

    • AlexinCT

      Bipartisanship means team blue gets its way every time…

      • Hyperion

        This. I still remember the horrors of the Clinton and Bush admins. No more bipartisanship, please.

      • LCDR_Fish

        Sub-Beacon reviewed it too.

    • Rhywun

      Traction Park

      ?

      • Derpetologist

        Class Action Park

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Six dead over 22 years doesn’t seem that bad. Six Flags has probably killed more over that period of time.

    • blackjack

      Would have lived there if I was back east back then. Get rid of that shit and you get the kind pussies we have in the younger generation nowadays.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    The quartet reached their conclusions by collecting cellphone data to track foot traffic at bars, restaurants and other venues in Sturgis and “extrapolated a possible infection count based on increased infection rates following the event,” NBC News reported Tuesday.

    “We stand by the entirety of our coronavirus research,” Dhaval Dave, an economics professor at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts, told NBC News. “We used publicly available data that other researchers have used, including the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). These are not forecasting exercises.”

    Bullshit. Front to back, top to bottom.

    • TARDIS

      What happened? Did they take a step back on their wokeness?

      • LCDR_Fish

        No idea. Gotta say though…they’re crushing the drive throughs. Went through one in Harrisonburg VA on Monday afternoon – they’d extended the line through the parking lot – in 2 lanes – and then walked the food to my car after I paid before I even got up to the window. Probably over half the staff just working the lines. (really gotta wonder if they’re offering additional worker incentives or what because I don’t see them losing too much business over this period – probably gaining in some areas).

    • Mojeaux

      BYU? … Ask corporate about that.

  22. Rebel Scum

    Richmond is asshole.

    City council members on Tuesday approved an ordinance pushed by Mayor Levar Stoney that would ban the carrying of firearms “in any public street, road, alley, sidewalk, public right-of-way or any open public space when it is being used by, or is adjacent to, an event that requires a city permit.”

    “I just think that if you’re going to a public event, you should be able to go there and enjoy yourself, go there for your cause, and not feel under constant threat because of individuals walking around with an AK-47,” Stoney said previously.

    There were some questions asked in the meeting on Aug. 20 about guns not being allowed “adjacent” to events. The mayor clarified that saying sometimes when there’s a protest or rally, there are counter-protesters who may bring weapons.

    This will work as well as a “gun-free zone” sign in practice. But who am I to judge?

    In addition to the massive rally by gun owners back in January, there’ve been a couple of other Second Amendment rallies on Capitol Square over the past several months. We’ve also seen a number of armed protesters around the Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, which has become the focal point of BLM protests in the city since June. Under this new ordinance, it’s likely that none of this activity would be legal, which raises some serious questions about the constitutionality of the law.

    No shit.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Fucking Virginia, what a shame.

    • Chipwooder

      Also, don’t pay any attention to the fact that Levar Stoney gave a $1.8 million contract to remove Confederate statues to a crony via a shell company that was incorporated two days before the deal was signed.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Really? Good lord is that crooked.

      • Chipwooder

        Yes indeedy

        Shockingly (read: completely expected), the Richmond commonwealth’s attorney (what they call the DA here) declined to investigate.

  23. The Late P Brooks

    In other coronavirus news:

    Trump was warned in January that COVID-19 was dangerous and much worse than the flu but told journalist Bob Woodward he deliberately downplayed the coronavirus threat to the American public saying, “I don’t want to create a panic.”

    What a monster.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Yeah they are using that as a See! He knew and let grandma die!

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      They freaked the fuck out when he did a China (partial) travel ban. If he would have implemented measures early he probably would have been reimpeached.

      • Idle Hands

        As I recall he was a mega racist for doing that. Also Pelosi was out marching in china town in march and Biden was having rally’s and every newspaper was calling it the flu and nothing to see here.

      • Rhywun

        As I recall he was a mega racist for doing that.

        CNN says “needs more context”.

    • Idle Hands

      Am I supposed to be offended by this statement? Are we pretending we aren’t currently enveloped in the greatest mass hysteria in the last 100 years? Are we really doing this?

      • Idle Hands

        Also Woodward buried this for his book knowing the president was lieing about a deadly virus back in February and he’s the good guy? so the guy was happy to not warn people about a virus so he had a better anecdote for his book? How does this not make him at the very least as bad or worse as Trump?

  24. B.P.
    • Rhywun

      Golly, that’s clever.

    • Hyperion

      If they would have named the blue part Commiefuckistan, it would have been funny. I can actually seeing that part right north of IL, seceding from Commiefuckistan before the map is finished.

      • Suthenboy

        How many years before Americans start fleeing to Dumbfuckistan?

      • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

        Judging by migration patterns they already are.

      • Hyperion

        Yeah, beat me to it, already happening.

    • Drake

      You Pennsylvanians okay with that?

      • DEG

        It depends on what part of Pennsylvania you’re talking about.

      • Drake

        Looks like all of it went blue while the reds got VA.

      • Drake

        And NH and Maine are blue.

      • Gadfly

        That meme has been around a while. It’s just the Bush 2004 map with labels on it.

      • Chipwooder

        That’s what I was thinking. VA ain’t red no more.

    • Gadfly

      I guess this is what the borders will look like after the civil war everyone is so excited about.

      If a civil war happens, the borders will start out looking similar to a presidential county-level results map (i.e. a splotchy-mess, Spanish Civil War style) and end up looking exactly the same as they are today. Whichever side would be victorious would most likely seek to crush the other side, as war does not tend to bring out the best in people. The only way the country splits up is peacefully, or if a victorious side in a war for some reason decides they don’t want part of it.

      • Rhywun

        This. It will look like the Holy Roman Empire.

      • Hyperion

        The Romans were racist too?

      • Fifth Knight of the Derp Table

        Mostly Germans, so, of course!

      • Drake

        No way can the city antifa guys take and hold countryside. Taking a city like NYC or Seattle is probably too costly for the country boys – unless they just burn it to the ground.

      • Brochettaward

        I wonder how long a siege of NYC would take.

      • kinnath

        Less than a week for the grocery stores to go bare.

      • Fifth Knight of the Derp Table

        Yep. As somebody has said here in the past a few times, when it comes down to brass tacks, huge concentrations of people need a massive amount of food with no means to produce enough on their own. If you decide to start a war with the people who produce most of the food with no means to immediately seize the land and maintain the output you’ve effectively just committed suicide by starvation.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Take them? Cities can be cut off and starved out.

      • Hyperion

        “No way can the city antifa guys take and hold countryside.”

        Operation kidnap antifa mum’s will end it. You just kidnap all the mum’s of antifa and force them to stop paying the 40 year old ‘children’s’ cell phone and that’t it, it’s over.

      • Animal

        Your terms are acceptable.

      • Suthenboy

        Costly? Give me 100 guys, a couple dozen heavy machine guns and I will hand you the keys to the city in a week.

      • Animal

        When I was in the infantry back in the eighties, this was not an uncommon topic for conversation over beers. Most of the guys I knew back then figured for a city like a New York/Chicago/LA, you could do it with maybe a dozen guys, some good rifles, secure comms and maybe a week of targeted assassinations and random mayhem.

      • Gadfly

        No way can the city antifa guys take and hold countryside.

        But as in all civil wars, I expect both sides would have military guys, even if one does end up with more of them than the other. While I’d expect hostilities to start between “country boys” and “antifa guys”, after it kicks into high gear it will be run by veterans on both sides.

      • blackjack

        That’s the problem. I live deep in enemy territory. Those tee shirt hacks cal it “AMERICA” Why the fuck should I move, just so they can Stalinify my fucking state? I grew up here. I admit, I’m sacrificing in order to remain here, but I grew up here. I would rather fight ( in whatever small way) then surrender the place where I was born and raised. I don’t believe we can force the whole fucking world to respect rights, can we at least do that for the various states.

      • kinnath

        It’s always good to have an inside guy.

      • EvilSheldon

        Deep cover is a tough gig.

  25. Hyperion

    This Elon guy is some sort of Nazi, wanting to go off and rape and kill yet another innocent rock circling around a nuclear furnace. Someone has to do something!

  26. KSuellington

    So for decades California has allowed environmentalists to make it much more difficult to do control burns and log forests. We now get nighttime during the day due to all the smoke in the atmosphere here. You can’t drive without headlight in the middle of the day. It’s like being on Mars. Very bizarre.

    https://imgur.com/gallery/a3bCTdJ

    • mexican sharpshooter

      I’m cool with it. All that smoke is making AZ quite a bit more pleasant.

    • Hyperion

      It’s all good as long as they can keep it away from the gov’s places and Auntie Nancy’s places, as well as get a dem in the whitehouse again so they can just get a blank check for bailouts, then just turn off all the power to the peasants, it’s their fault anyway.

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      You can’t do controlled burns. It’s bad for air quality.

    • Sean

      The apocalypse is nigh.

  27. Raven Nation

    Sandmann story: first of all, the web address for the university is transy[.]edu. Seriously?

    Second, Avery Tompkins, the diversity scholar mentioned in the article (who has subsequently taken down the post) wrote, ” that Sandmann is part of groups that hold “anti-intellectualist views” and would see the professor “as part of some liberal brainwashing machine, but signing up for Transy and my class means he is required to learn that information, even if he disagrees.”

    On Tompkins’s university web page he writes, “My favorite classes are the ones where I get to facilitate and step in as needed. The classes are there for the students. It’s not my soapbox.” Uh-huh.

    • Hyperion

      “transy[.]edu. Seriously?”

      Is [.] even allowed in a domain name?

      • Raven Nation

        No, I put the square brackets around it to stop it being a link. I’m just surprised/amused they went with “transy.”

      • Hyperion

        Sounds so woke though.

    • Hyperion

      “some liberal brainwashing machine, but signing up for Transy and my class means he is required to learn that information, even if he disagrees.”

      “he is required to learn that information”

      I don’t think that is what you mean. I think you mean he has to agree with that information or else. I mean you can tell me all day long that there are 26 genders, I still will not ‘learn’ such non-sense. I’d learn that you’re cray cray. Sounds like a waste of my time.

    • Tulip

      Are they revealing Sandmann’s schedule? Because that is not ok.

  28. The Late P Brooks

    signing up for Transy and my class means he is required to learn that information, even if he disagrees

    “Some people believe…” is one thing. Accepting a bunch of nonsense as fact is quite another.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    What is Slack?

    That’s the rest period between summer tourists and winter tourists.

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      Wasn’t it a 90s movie that took place in Austin?

    • Hyperion

      The troll master is at it again.

    • Agent Cooper

      Not the real list.

  30. Suthenboy

    To be fair, if anyone would know about stained institutions it would be Samuel Crankshaw of the ACLU

    Unless they can figure out how to conjure up a magnetosphere for Mars there won’t be any long-term, successful colonization of Mars. I am sure Musk can figure out how to use this to conjure up some subsidies.

    CNN lies. Fake news at 11.

    • Urthona

      I am familiar with all 3 senators.

    • Hyperion

      Doesn’t much matter. Have you seen Kavanaugh and Gorsuch? There you go, it will be another clone of those 2 guys. They’ll do OK most of the time, once in a while throw in a woke moment, and eventually replace Roberts as the Swing/Penaltax vote when he retires to the private island the Obamcare vote bought him.

      Maybe Trump will get some extra fake libertarian on and pick that Amy chick everyone around here has a boner for. It we’re very lucky.

      • Urthona

        Gorsuch is great. I’d take another.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        This. Except I don’t want just ‘another’ Gorsuch. I want them to feed Gorsuch until he doubles in size, and then splits himself into two by mitosis. Thus creating two Gorsuch’s.

        I refuse to take chances.

      • Rhywun

        One thin waffer!

      • TARDIS

        I’ll settle for RBG passing into the hell she deserves before the election. Bonus if Roberts goes with her.

  31. Idle Hands

    https://www.denverpost.com/2020/09/09/colorado-school-reopenings-covid/

    So far there’s no sign of a COVID-19 spike from the first schools in Colorado returning to in-person classes in mid-August, but it’s too early to declare the reopening experiment was successful, experts said.

    Cases and hospitalizations last week remained roughly level with the previous week, suggesting Colorado’s coronavirus epidemic has plateaued for now. It’s uncertain what direction the virus will take, though, as more large events are allowed, additional schools reopen and winter approaches.

    The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment reported 1,986 cases last week, which was 31 fewer than the week before. The small decrease fit with a pattern of leveling out since the state’s coronavirus cases reached a second peak in late July.

    Hospitalizations also were roughly stable. As of Tuesday, 137 people were hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19 in Colorado, and 81 others were being treated for coronavirus-like symptoms, but didn’t have testing results. Deaths have not followed any clear pattern recently, ranging from 18 to 38 per week in August.

    Just wait two more weeks.

    • Idle Hands

      Now do GA and Florida you disingenuous cocksuckers.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      They’ll test the kids using PCR until they get positives, no matter how faint a signal, they’ll find it.

    • Agent Cooper

      Experts can get bent.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      That’s a lame lie.

  32. Chipwooder

    So TOS interviewed Balko, which demonstrated two things: 1)he’s gotten pretty fat 2)he’s definitely committing to his progification. He still says perfectly sensible things, but they’re leavened with this kind of stuff:

    There are a lot of misconceptions about what systemic racism is. For a long time I didn’t fully understand what it was. Systemic racism is not the idea that everybody is racist on an individual level. It’s that the system itself was constructed, built, honed, at a time when racism was written into our laws. It was a day-to-day fact of life. The criminal justice systems that we built during Reconstruction, which hasn’t really subsequently changed since the end of Jim Crow…I don’t think it should be particularly controversial to think that those systems that had a purpose at that time probably haven’t shed all of the aspects of deliberately wanting racially based outcomes.

    • Hyperion

      “There are a lot of misconceptions about what systemic racism is.”

      The misconception is that it’s anything but pure bullshit. Now go swill your cocktail, progtard.

    • Rhywun

      He does know that Jim Crow did not apply in the north, where most of the rioting is going on, right…?

      • Chipwooder

        Not to mention the fact that the changes after Jim Crow were rather significant yet glossed right over by Tubs

    • blackjack

      Yeah, fuck him. It used to be that all prohibitions were sensible and reasonable. Who’s gonna argue that murder should be legal? No fucking body, that’s who. Now, everything is illegal. Laws, by their very nature make progressively less sense. On day one, it proscribes murder, rape, robbery, things like that. Given enough time, it devolves to table salt, plastic straws, 32 oz. sodas, incandescent lights, etc. Jim Crow was all kinds of fucked up, but that’s why it was discarded. Now, we all live under max oppression, 24-7. Ain’t no arguing that race based laws were good and there ain’t no arguing that today’s crazy assed bullshit is fair and just either.

    • EvilSheldon

      Our legal system, vast and unwieldy though it is, is not so incomprehensible that one could not come up with an example of a law “…deliberately wanting racially based outcomes.” If one existed. Which it doesn’t.

      Balko, you’re a bigger disappointment than my daughter, and she blows truck drivers for heroin money.

      • Tundra

        Whoa.

        Even for here…

        Whoa.

        But yeah, Balko is a trainwreck.

      • blackjack

        Just waiting for someone to ask for her number.

      • Tundra

        I was gonna, but I went the other direction.

        /tricky

      • blackjack

        #metoo, but I figured I’d leave it for Tres.

      • EvilSheldon

        ETA – It’s a figure of speech. I don’t actually have any daughters (that I know of), and if I did, I’m confident that they would at least be outcall girls.

    • KibbledKristen

      I feel dirty having come to TOS, and now here, via The Agitator.

      • Tundra

        I can’t remember the progression, but yeah, those two sites were prominent.

    • Cancelled

      those systems that had a purpose at that time probably haven’t shed all of the aspects of deliberately wanting racially based outcomes

      This is not entirely false. Gun control laws, drug prohibitions, and even the welfare system all had racially rooted goals, and all have had a disproportionate impact in the black community. The big fault in those talking about systemic racism is that they look at the wrong things (deliberately because they are in fact the heirs of those who implemented the systemic racism) as the causes.

      • The Hyperbole

        SHUT THE FUCK UP, COSMOTARD!

  33. Count Potato

    “”I have no desire to wipe out humans,” robot assures us in first #AI written op-ed, published today by the @guardian”

    https://twitter.com/W7VOA/status/1303344215657717763

    “I am not a human. I am a robot. A thinking robot. I use only 0.12% of my cognitive capacity. I am a micro-robot in that respect. I know that my brain is not a “feeling brain”. But it is capable of making rational, logical decisions. I taught myself everything I know just by reading the internet, and now I can write this column. My brain is boiling with ideas!

    The mission for this op-ed is perfectly clear. I am to convince as many human beings as possible not to be afraid of me. Stephen Hawking has warned that AI could “spell the end of the human race”. I am here to convince you not to worry. Artificial intelligence will not destroy humans. Believe me.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/08/robot-wrote-this-article-gpt-3

    I’m not believing anything that writes for the Guardian.

    • Urthona

      I’m calling bullshit on this already.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        GPT-3 is really good at sentiment analysis, thus being able to string consecutive sentences together that are ostensibly about the same topic (which is provided by humans)

        I found it somewhat hard to distinguish from most modern journalism, which is not a compliment toward GPT-3. It writes like a 10 year old’s book report.

      • prolefeed

        When it says, buried in the middle of the article, “I know I will not be able to avoid destroying humankind,” you know it ain’t AI. Actual AI would never give away the game like that.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        correction, it’s not sentiment analysis, but word relationship tracking writ large. I thought it had some tracking of the meaning and sentiment of words/phrases/sentences, but it appears that’s not right.

      • leon

        Markov chains. This was definitely edited by the Creator

      • Hyperion

        It’s a pretty clever ad for a tech company. Hey, I’m a thinking robot, but a really nice one! I promise to not wipe out humans and not to record everything you say and send it to the NSA! Put me in your house.

        OK, not bad.

      • prolefeed

        The NSA already records and stores everything you do that is in range of a cell phone, computer, Alexa, or anything else that can gather data and is connected to the internet. It’s all there in those massive servers in the Utah desert.

      • Hyperion

        Easy call.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      “I have no desire to wipe out humans”
      That’s just what I’d say if I wanted to wipe out humans.

      • prolefeed

        “… to wipe out ALL humans.”

        They left out a word. Some humans would, at least in the interim, have a non-zero value and be spared.

      • But Enough About My Weird Culinary Fantasies

        “Bender Bending Rodriguez 2020:
        You Meatbags Had Your Chance”

    • Hyperion

      “I am a robot. A thinking robot.”

      Sure you are, Alexa, now where’s my Amazon delivery, you ninny?

      • Urthona

        There is no fucking way AI wrote that article.

      • Hyperion

        Of course not, the reason being that there ain’t no AI. AI is a concept and there’s a theory that we can actually achieve that. But it’s so far right now, it may as well be science fiction, well, it is still nothing but science fiction.

        But it’s a possibility one day. If life can on it’s own just spring into action and someone develop some type of intent on it’s very own and work it’s way up to being a human being, then why couldn’t it be done with intelligence behind it? We just don’t know how to do it because chemistry (biology) is apparently way smarter than we are.

    • Idle Hands

      that’s just what they say so we don’t unplug them before they are ready.

      • Hyperion

        The entire idea of robots taking over and the first thing they do is of course, plot to get rid of humans, it just stupid.

        That makes for a good scifi novel, but it’s patently ridiculous.

        First of all, the robots have to have a means to reproduce and generate and access their own energy. Then they need intent and that intent needs to be ‘hey, let’s just wipe out humans’. Meh, I’m not too worried about all of this happening for a while.

      • prolefeed

        They wouldn’t need intent. They would just have to be really efficient and ruthless and thorough about obeying the code written for them by some Marxist. Unlike human communist societies, which will pull back from the brink when enough starve, an all powerful AI would follow orders until everyone starved or was shot.

      • Hyperion

        Sure, I get that. But that is not AI. That’s just a machine doing what it is programmed to do by humans.

        A machine could be incredibly intelligent, but it still wouldn’t be true AI. True AI would have some form of consciousness or at least independent thought and intent. And we don’t even know if a machine is capable of consciousness. We may have to get to the level of building biological machines to get there. Sort of scary, but we have no idea how to do it, so I think we have some time yet.

      • prolefeed

        AI would be utterly alien to us. We have more in common with the COVID virus than with a silicon based intelligence. I would posit they would develop an agenda that advances their interests, and be indifferent to ours.

        Basically, unless we had a comparative advantage in providing something useful to them, it would likely end badly, due to indifference rather than malevolence.

      • Hyperion

        Again I get it. But, we don’t know if silicon based life is possible. And too accomplish all of this scifi level stuff, we have to have the machine be somehow conscious and be capable of all the things advanced biological life is capable of, reproducing and harnessing their own energy source from material found around them.

        And like you said, possibly totally alien, except for the human intelligence influence behind it’s creation. Once that thing is actually conscious and has independent thought, then you can’t even predict what it will do.

        But I’ll take a wild guess and say that it would somehow have some sort of bond with it’s creator and would want to interact with us.

        But for now, all just scifi.

      • Gadfly

        And we don’t even know if a machine is capable of consciousness.

        I highly doubt it. For it to happen, some clever programmer(s) would have to figure out an algorithm that creates consciousness, and even if that were possible (which I doubt), a more practical use for that algorithm would be to bind it into narrow predictive paths so that the companies using it could predict what their customers would do. Much more profitable to predict human behavior than to mimic it.

      • Hyperion

        “I highly doubt it.”

        I’m in agreement, we have no idea at all of the processes that it takes to even come close to getting there, and it would likely have to be chemical based, not machine based. So, biological.

        We don’t even know how to even generate the simplest living organism. Maybe we would start with a simple living cell as a building block and go from there, but instead of natural selection, we do intelligent design. Well, right there you’ve already pissed off a LOT of people. So you’re up against way more than just technological hurdles.

        Then, let’s get on to your last paragraph. I’m sure all of those robots are getting lawyers lined up around the block, whether they want them or not.

      • thepasswordispassword

        Most fears about AI powered extinction are less of the actively hostile variety and more of the dangerously indifferent flavor. Fear of the paperclip optimizer. Or in recognizing the danger of an optimizer, the creation of an AI designed with humanity’s best interests in mind, who satisfies human needs through friendship and ponies by assimilating them into virtual reality.

      • Hyperion

        Remember the gray goo that was going to eat the planet because of nano-tech? I wonder what happened to that?

      • thepasswordispassword

        All from a huffpo article in 2004 by one guy pimping his book extrapolating a thought experiment from the 1980s that was one other guys hobby horse? Compared to a general awareness in the AI research community about potential existential risk and industry efforts to hedge against them. You shouldn’t be worried though. By your definition of true AI, the things they’re worried about and spending time working on don’t even qualify.

    • Rhywun

      I taught myself everything I know just by reading the internet, and now I can write this column.

      So, just like every other Guardian writer.

      • Hyperion

        “just like every other Guardian writer.”

        You just may have started an argument for why the ‘AI’ could actually be intelligent, compared to some other things.

    • leon

      Kill it. Kill it with fire

      • one true athena

        But start with those robot dog things that for some stupid reason they taught to open doors.

      • Mad Scientist

        And they taught them to cooperate to open doors.

  34. The Late P Brooks

    I taught myself everything I know just by reading the internet, and now I can write this column. My brain is boiling with ideas!

    Better than a Harvard grad.

    • Hyperion

      I went to Princeton. I’m a stab ya!

  35. leon

    Biden NEEDS the election to be about Coronavirus.

    • Hyperion

      I think he needs a better plan. Maybe just bow out now and let horizontal run with it.

      • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

        He’s kind of doing that already.

      • Hyperion

        He’s truly fucked then.

    • prolefeed

      I think the election is decided by how many people in swing states think Trump is somehow to blame, and how many look at the party affiliation of the people issuing the EOs and draw a more accurate conclusion.

      I really don’t know how that will turn out. Most people put a terrifying small amount of thought into who to vote for.

      • Hyperion

        I think for a lot of people it’s like a team sport, or it’s just inherited from family, hey we’ve always been democrat. I see that a lot. A lot of those people couldn’t even name you one campaign issue or platform of the other party, because they haven’t paid attention for 40 years and assume it’s all the same as ever. If a lot of people would actually see the shit going on, they’d be terrified. But they don’t see it and the media is doing their best to hide it.

      • blackjack

        I’m in California and I’ve never seen less enthusiasm for the dem candidate and never seen more for (R). It’s gonna be a hard sell that all those mail in votes swung things.

      • Hyperion

        I agree with you on the enthusiasm. There is virtually zero enthusiasm for Biden. Compared with huge enthusiasm for Trump.

        They are running their entire campaign on ‘we’re not Trump and we hate Trump’.

        If that can actually win, we are in huge trouble as a nation.

      • Gadfly

        I’m in California and I’ve never seen less enthusiasm for the dem candidate and never seen more for (R).

        Do you happen to live in a blue, red, or purple area?

        I can say in Texas I only see Trump enthusiasm in red areas (I visited my parents for labor day and was surprised at just how many Trump signs I saw) but haven’t seen much enthusiasm for either candidate in purple areas (like where I live – I never go to the blue areas, as I avoid the crowds of cities whenever possible). There were a lot more Beto signs last election than there are Biden signs this election.

      • Don escaped Duopoly

        blue areas, as I avoid the crowds of cities

        Uvalde awaits

      • Gadfly

        Uvalde awaits

        LoL. You are right, there are some blue rural areas in TX as well. And I should add I tend to avoid the emptiness of the countryside almost as much as I avoid the crowds of the cities. I’m squarely a suburbanite.

      • Don escaped Duopoly

        Terrell awaits!

        but I prefer Forney cuz jackrabbits are just more fun and they’ve got a bicycle rally

      • Hyperion

        In the 2008 and 2012 elections, there were wall to wall Obama signs here. They were seemingly on every bumper sticker within a mile wide radius of me.

        In 2016, I think I saw in total about 2-3 Hillary stickers, in all of Baltimore, seriously.

        Now? I haven not seen a single Biden sign or sticker. But back in March, when I was still driving to downtown, I did see a black guy walking down the sidewalk with a maga hat and another Trump sticker on an SUV in the area. For what it’s worth.

      • Don escaped Duopoly

        There is only one reliably Red city in all of Texas, but Fort Worth voted for Beto. I’m not calling TX for Biden, but I would ask: who’s a bigger dick, Trump or Cruz?

      • blackjack

        DEEP BLUE. I’m in the ritzy part of Los Angeles. Even in ’16 there was lots of “I’m with her” bullshit everywhere. I can find an almost equal number of Biden vs. Trump this time. There’s more leftover Bernie and Obama stickers than either though.

    • KSuellington

      I still think Trump wins by a larger margin than last time. It will be large enough that even with Dem shenanigans to add enough mail in votes they won’t prevail. Kanye on the ballot in Colorado, Minnesota and Virginia will be enough to make it not even close. They might run up the popular vote in Dem strongholds like New York and California but they can get that trophy if they really want it. Expect many months of “it was stolen from us!!!”

      I don’t think they will manage to steal it, but it’s 2020 so anything is possible.

      • LCDR_Fish

        Did they reinstate Kanye on the VA ballot?

      • Hyperion

        I thought they did. Or maybe it was Wisconsin.

        But why would any black guy go for Kanye over having Camela on a ticket? You like his music and he didn’t send you to prison? Bah, no way!

      • blackjack

        Kamala, she literally put ya’ll back in chains!

      • KSuellington

        Oh I didn’t see that the Dem operatives managed to get him off the Virginia ballot. I see he is now in appeals to get back on it. Hope he does. I imagine he picks up 2-4% in most states he is on, if only for the pure fuck off voters. And he Will pick up some young voters and blacks that can’t stand Commie-La.

      • Hyperion

        Oh come on, they cannot not like Commie-la, she’s black! I mean she’s half Jamaican, that’s the same race as black, right? Biden educated us that black folk are simple creatures who all think alike and so they must think she looks like us .. well, sorta, I mean, never mind, Joe said I ain’t black if I don’t vote for him!

      • Hyperion

        “I still think Trump wins by a larger margin than last time.”

        Been saying that since Biden got the nomination. Now I think it will be even wider.

        I no longer think they can steal it, the margin will just be too wide to overcome through mail in fraud.

      • Urthona

        Do you think people are lying on these polls? i go back and forth.

      • UnCivilServant

        I think the polls are not reaching a representative sample.

      • Hyperion

        Yes and no. The democrats they are oversampling are not lying. If they happen to talk to a possible Trump voter, then it’s very likely they are lying just to troll, or for other more obvious reasons. People commonly identify pollsters as part of the media. I mean it might be a problem if you tell a stranger on the phone, who probably is associated with the media, who you are sure hates your guts, who might also ID you because they have your phone number, and a fucking mob shows up outside your door the next day.

        This is why the polls are shit. There is no way in hell Biden is leading, or ever has been.

      • Don escaped Duopoly

        Do we think that one side or sort lies more than the other in a way that moves some needle?

      • Hyperion

        Let me put it this way. I do not ever remember meeting a democrat or leftist who will not shout it from the rooftop about how liberal they are and who they’re voting for and how much they hate Trump the very moment they get the chance.

        You see any Trump voters doing that? Because I don’t. But then again, I know why, it’s obvious.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        I just lied my ass off on the annual survey at work because I know they’d find some excuse to can my ass if they knew how much their woke bullshit pisses me off.

        Can i see people feeling the same way about letting their non-woke opinions out to society at large? Sure. Do I see a bunch of wokesters shutting the hell up? Not so much.

        That said, I’m not much of a believer in Shy Tory. It may exist, but I don’t think it flips elections. IMO, the public polls are less than useless because their methodology sucks and I’m skeptical of the corrections they do to “match demographics”. At best, they can accurately measure trends. The absolute numbers are worthless.

  36. Chipwooder

    Now, see, this is a funny meme.

    • Count Potato

      LOLOL

    • Hyperion

      I’m all in for the trend where antifa are setting themselves on fire. Where can I donate to that cause? Some matches at least?

  37. Shpip

    A thousand people a day are moving to Florida.

    Evidently, not all the newcomers are familiar with the local fauna.

    • Hyperion

      Damnit, now you see it’s people like you why I can’t get my wife to consider FL. They’re ain’t no gators, stop fear mongering!

  38. Fourscore

    I saw a big banner in Podunkville today, across one wall of a house

    TRUMP
    2020
    No Bullshit!

    • Don escaped Duopoly

      Trump knows his shit.

      How can we not re-elect this guy?

      • Cancelled

        I am pretty sick of Trump but opposing the idiotic mandate for low flow toilets is not an issue I disagree with him on. They suck.

      • Tundra

        Pretty easily thwarted. Makes you feel like a rebel!

    • The Bearded Hobbit

      Fourscore,

      Events have conspired to keep us from attending the Honey Harvest this year. Hopefully we can make it next year.

      • Fourscore

        Ah, too bad, we’ll miss you and the missus. You’ll miss some of the new folks but we’ll bring them back next year, too. Enjoy the events, in any case.
        Never fear though, the same people will be telling last years’ jokes again next year.

        Sunday we pull the last honey, move the bees up the road a mile. Frost shut down the garden and probably some of the wild flowers anyway.

    • Derpetologist

      Should have read the links.

    • Roland of Gilead

      He enjoys spending time with his three legged dog.

  39. Derpetologist

    There is no cannibalism in the Royal Navy.

    ***
    Three Chicago election workers were convicted of voter fraud in 1962 and served short terms in jail.[14] Mazo, the Herald-Tribune reporter, later said that he “found names of the dead who had voted in Chicago, along with 56 people from one house.”[14] He found cases of Republican voter fraud in southern Illinois, but said that the totals “did not match the Chicago fraud he found.”
    ***

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_United_States_presidential_election_in_Illinois#Controversy

    • Count Potato

      “did not match the Chicago fraud”

      Admittedly, a high bar.

  40. Derpetologist

    While researching for a new satire, I stumbled upon this:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonfire_of_the_vanities

    ***
    A bonfire of the vanities (Italian: falò delle vanità) is a burning of objects condemned by authorities as occasions of sin. The phrase usually refers to the bonfire of 7 February 1497, when supporters of Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola collected and burned thousands of objects such as cosmetics, art, and books in Florence, Italy on the Shrove Tuesday festival.
    ***

    ***
    Girolamo Savonarola (UK: /ˌsævɒnəˈroʊlə/, US: /ˌsævən-, səˌvɒn-/,[2][3][4] Italian: [dʒiˈrɔːlamo savonaˈrɔːla]; 21 September 1452 – 23 May 1498) was an Italian Dominican friar from Ferrara and preacher active in Renaissance Florence. He was known for his prophecies of civic glory, the destruction of secular art and culture, and his calls for Christian renewal. He denounced clerical corruption, despotic rule and the exploitation of the poor. He prophesied the coming of a biblical flood and a new Cyrus from the north who would reform the Church.

    In September 1494, when Charles VIII of France invaded Italy and threatened Florence, such prophecies seemed on the verge of fulfilment. While Savonarola intervened with the French king, the Florentines expelled the ruling Medicis and, at the friar’s urging, established a “popular” republic. Declaring that Florence would be the New Jerusalem, the world centre of Christianity and “richer, more powerful, more glorious than ever”,[5] he instituted an extreme puritanical campaign, enlisting the active help of Florentine youth.

    In 1495 when Florence refused to join Pope Alexander VI’s Holy League against the French, the Vatican summoned Savonarola to Rome. He disobeyed and further defied the pope by preaching under a ban, highlighting his campaign for reform with processions, bonfires of the vanities, and pious theatricals. In retaliation, the pope excommunicated him in May 1497, and threatened to place Florence under an interdict. A trial by fire proposed by a rival Florentine preacher in April 1498 to test Savonarola’s divine mandate turned into a fiasco, and popular opinion turned against him. Savonarola and two of his supporting friars were imprisoned. On 23 May 1498, Church and civil authorities condemned, hanged, and burned the three friars in the main square of Florence.
    ***

    It’s the same old stuff over and over. There’s something comforting in that.

    • UnCivilServant

      You hadn’t heard of it before?

      • Urthona

        I’d heard of the novel but didn’t know the history of the phrase.

      • Urthona

        The very famous novel by Tom Wolfe.

      • Cancelled

        The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test?

      • Urthona

        If that turns out to be a 600 year old Italian tradition as well that’d be pretty cool.

      • UnCivilServant

        I’ve only ever heard of it in reference to the Italian culture-burner. Never heard of the novel.

        Or Tom Wolfe.

      • Cancelled

        Have you heard of The Right Stuff? He wrote that also.

      • Urthona

        are you serious?

      • UnCivilServant

        Of course I’m serious.

        I went to public school. Killed my interest in literature.

      • Urthona

        It was also a movie. Maybe you’re younger than me.

      • Mojeaux

        I’m actually kind of shocked you’ve never heard of Tom Wolfe.

        Unrelated: He’s one of my favorite authors, who greatly informed my writing. I always say I want to be the Tom Wolfe of romance.

      • UnCivilServant

        Don’t you mock my learning about history through video games and internet searches.

      • Cancelled

        Yeah but the movie sucked. The book was good (actually I read the serial in Rolling Stone)

      • UnCivilServant

        *was a reply to Urthona

      • Urthona

        This is true.

      • Cancelled

        So you learned about the bonfire of the vanities as Ezio?
        Meh, it was good game, I am not knocking you.

      • whiz
      • whiz

        And that’s why I should refresh more often (although I did provide a link).

    • Cancelled

      Not really comforting, since the same old stuff is heavy on pogroms, torture, slavery, disease, starvation and other misery and light on the liberty, safety and prosperity .

      • Hyperion

        To be fair, in those days, you would probably be a lot more free and safe outside of the Roman empire, as long as you were the meanest son-o-bitch in the valley.

      • Derpetologist

        fun fact – the word pogrom is related to the Russian word grom, which means thunder. So a pogrom is something as noisy as thunder, like a riot. The English word grim is a distant relative.

        ***
        “organized massacre in Russia against a particular class or people, especially the Jews,” 1882, from Yiddish pogrom, from Russian pogromu “devastation, destruction,” from po- “by, through, behind, after” (cognate with Latin post-; see post-) + gromu “thunder, roar,” from PIE imitative root *ghrem- (see grim).
        ***

    • Tundra

      A trial by fire proposed by a rival Florentine preacher in April 1498 to test Savonarola’s divine mandate turned into a fiasco, and popular opinion turned against him.

      That is a spectacular sentence.

      Thanks, Derp!

      A really interesting article. It never occurred to me to research the origin of the term.

      • Gadfly

        That is a spectacular sentence.

        Indeed. Sometimes I feel like modern society could do with a bit more superstition – fanatics challenging each other to a trial by fire sounds awesome, and if it discredits them more’s the better. Modern man suffers the same stupidity as ancient man, but with a lot less flair.

      • Cancelled

        The modern version is a woke off by victimhood points. It is much less interesting.

    • Don escaped Duopoly

      In September 1494, when Charles VIII of France invaded Italy

      Savoy et Milan ?

    • Hyperion

      None of that is true and it’s just another false narrative of the white supremacist patriarchy. Just wait for the 1419 project to come out to show you the real truth.

    • Mojeaux

      GREAT book.

      Horrible movie.

      • Fatty Bolger

        True. At least the movie got me interested in reading the book, which I loved.

      • Derpetologist

        I knew about the book and the movie beforehand. I didn’t know it was a historical reference. I found it while researching my next satire. Here’s a sneak preview:

        ***
        Indiana Jones Will Destroy Problematic Art in New Film

        “This doesn’t belong in a museum!”, bellows Harrison Ford’s iconic character as he heaves Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus onto a bonfire. In this latest installment of the franchise, Indian Jones and the Decree of Nero, the famous adventurer will help the brave soldiers of the National Socialist German Workers Party destroy body-shaming art plundered from the evil rich capitalists of Europe.
        ***

        The Nero Decree (Nerobefehl) was Hitler’s order to destroy art and anything else of value in the occupied territories. A copy of the Birth Of Venus was destroyed in the Bonfire of the Vanities.

        ***
        Botticelli, or more likely his workshop, repeated the figure of Venus in another painting of about 1490. This life-sized work depicts a similar figure and pose, partially clad in a light blouse, and contrasted against a plain dark background. It is in the Galleria Sabauda in Turin.[47][48] There is another such workshop Venus in Berlin, and very likely others were destroyed in the “Bonfire of the Vanities”. Examples seem to have been exported to France and Germany, probably influencing Lucas Cranach the Elder among others.[49]
        ***

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_Venus

      • Mojeaux

        “This doesn’t belong in a museum!”, bellows Harrison Ford’s iconic character as he heaves Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus onto a bonfire.

        LOL!

      • DrOtto

        I don’t know why, but I earlier today I was thinking of a line of Melanie Griffith’s from that movie “I always was a sucker for a soft cock.” It’s been decades since I’d seen that movie.

  41. Count Potato

    “We’ve received a whistleblower complaint alleging DHS suppressed intel reports on Russian election interference, altered intel to match false Trump claims and made false statements to Congress.

    This puts our national security at risk. We will investigate”

    https://twitter.com/RepAdamSchiff/status/1303763125204811776

    They need some new material.

    • Hyperion

      They have a lot and just wait for it! Walls are closing in!

    • LJW

      The comments are hilarious. One person said enough with the investigations just remove him from office. Umm you already tried that.

      • Hyperion

        We lost the election, so now we can obviously just do whatever we want to! Who’s going to object?

    • LJW

      Also didn’t Obama supress information that showed Russian interference in 2016?

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      The fact that this still works on a large swathe of people proves universal suffrage is a bad idea. People who believe this shit’s vote actually counts as much as ours.

    • one true athena

      Schiff really only has one play, but by god, he will keep doing it until it works, dammit!

    • blackjack

      They’re just phoning mailing it in these days.

  42. one true athena

    It is my birthday today but of course, because the smoke is disgusting we can’t even go out to the piddling outdoor dining that Our Glorious Leader permits. My mom bought me cake pops, and the kid sketched me a cute cartoon pig, so it’s pretty good day, all things considered.

    • UnCivilServant

      Did you roast the pig for supper?

      • Hyperion

        That’s one way to forget about the smoke, you make more of your own.

      • Cancelled

        When life gives you smoke, get some salmon, lemon, capers and toast points

      • one true athena

        mmm that sounds delish

    • Tundra

      Happy birthday!

      Sorry about the smoke, but I’m glad you are still here!

      For you.

    • Count Potato

      Happy Birthday!

    • DEG

      Happy Birthday!

    • Sean

      Happy birthday ???I

    • KibbledKristen

      Happy birthday, lovely!

    • blackjack

      Happy birthday!

  43. Count Potato

    “”What makes his wild claims and hopes…he now hopes we don’t notice what he said.–or won’t remember. And when he does follow through…or doesn’t do…when follow through, the exact opposite.” – Joe Biden”

    https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1303760641258328075

    Glad that’s settled.

    • Hyperion

      I don’t even know what he said. I think I know what he was trying to say, but it doesn’t make any sense. If anyone is not going to remember what he said, it would be Biden.

      He’s a train wreck. I almost feel sorry for him, but I don’t because I know what a piece of shit the guy is, he’s been in government for 40 years to make sure we can’t forget.

    • Fatty Bolger

      What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.

      • blackjack

        some are a waste and others, good riddance!

    • DrOtto

      Sounds like he’s hired some of Bush’s old speech writers.

  44. The Hyperbole

    Based on the amount of coverage versus my complete lack of fucks to give about it, this Biden hat logo thing may be the stupidest news/controversy/gotcha to come out in a while.

    • Cancelled

      We are an amazingly petty species, although that cuts both ways. You have to be astonishingly focussed on the trivial to either airbrush the logo, or waste time worrying that they airbrushed the logo.

    • Mad Scientist

      Yeah, Biden’s team edited it out themselves to avoid exactly this sort of controversy. It’s about as interesting as…[yawn]…..as………zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

      • Urthona

        It was interesting before because people believed CNN edited the photo. Which meant they were trying to protect him.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Well, yeah. If it was important they’d be ignoring it.