Links, Thursday Afternoon Variety

by | Oct 1, 2020 | Daily Links | 282 comments

Wife had an OB appointment today. The doc says our baby is both long and large for his… age? gestation? Anyhow, with about four and a half weeks until term, she is measuring at term, and unless she has an abnormal amount of fluid, he’s gonna be a chonk. First boy was 8.75lbs at full term, second was just over 7 but 3 weeks early. Looks like 3rd baby is going to come out ready to wrassle. Wife definitely feels like she’s carrying around a full-term baby. What is the old Heinlein saw? “Any healthy woman can do in [8] months what takes a cow or a countess 9.”

My alma mater has declared “Spring Break is Cancelled!!” after cops break up a 1000 person party. I’m sure all of those students are now on double secret probation. As an alumnus, I could not be more proud of the students or more disappointed by the administration.

I found this post on industrial literacy, share it with your Green friends.

While I am outraged the DA felt the need to bring charges, I am relieved that the good people of Texas found no reason to bring action against a man who defended his church against a shooter.

How could anybody be confused?

 

About The Author

Brett L

Brett L

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

282 Comments

  1. Count Potato

    “Florida State University canceled its spring break on Wednesday to try to protect against the spread of coronavirus.

    Sally McRorie, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at FSU, told students that the administration is altering the schedule and canceling spring break because the school’s “highest priority remains the health and safety of our students, faculty and staff.””

    So they still get Winter break though?

    • Bobarian LMD

      If they just had someone stand outside with an AntiFa protest sign, the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs would have probably brought in catering.

  2. Shpip

    That before we had electricity and clean natural gas, people burned unrefined solid fuels in their homes—wood, coal, even dung (!)—to cook their food and to keep from freezing in winter.

    Burning dung. That’ll be my excuse the next time I have a ladyfriend over and she walks in, crinkles her nose, and says “This place smells like shit!”

    • The Other Kevin

      100% organic and renewable!

    • Pope Jimbo

      “Poking at a campfire with a stick is one of life’s great satisfactions.” —Patrick F. McManus —Of Fire and the Night, September 1999

      Of course that assumes you get to go back home to your house with central heat and electric lights.

      • TARDis

        Fire pits are a backyard thing in the south, I hear. There are usually burn restrictions in the Summer though.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Tons of back yard fires up here too. They were so popular that there was a rash of stories like this one where people were demanding bans, permits and other stupid crap.

        And I love poking campfires with sticks. My add on comment was that the reason it is so nice is because it is the exception. I’m sure if you had to light fires to heat water and cook food every day, you wouldn’t be so excited to sit around one poking it with a stick.

      • Brett L

        We just had a fire in the backyard and the neighbor kids came over and everybody made s’mores. It was nice. Also nice that it was sub-70 and no humidity.

  3. Count Potato

    “That the washing machine, clothes dryer, dishwasher, vacuum cleaner, and microwave are the equivalent of a full-time mechanical servant for every household.”

    But when do we get a robot maid like on the Jetsons?

    • Bobarian LMD

      Anatomically correct?

      Rosie, you’re all right.

      • C. Anacreon

        Rosie, you’d like to rivet her.

      • TARDis

        ROSEE SMITH RIVET YOU!

  4. Rebel Scum

    Florida State University canceled its spring break on Wednesday to try to protect against the spread of coronavirus.

    You can’t stop the spread.

    • Count Potato

      I still think Trump could have handled that way better during the debate.

      In an odd way, even though it was a stupid question, it was also a softball.

      • Ayn Random Variation

        He was awful. Anybody on here could have handled the ambush fairly easily.

    • Rebel Scum

      FFS…

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      That guy would fit in great in East Germany.

      What the fuck is going on?

      • Hyperion

        Nothing new here, just the start of Coup Number 2 Electric Boogaloo.

    • Lackadaisical

      Those are some fugly people.

    • Brett L

      Actually, their problem is that they took their shot and missed. That hasn’t happened before and now they look weak. It used to be an unwritten law that you didn’t fuck with the intelligence services and the Feebs because they would end your career. Now they don’t have that option and have lost a lot of power.

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      Iran does it, so why not?

    • Hyperion

      Sooo, democracy is when a group of assholes have decided that they get to pick the candidates that you are allowed to vote for? I’m glad we’re not a democracy.

  5. leon

    Tim Rodgers, a prosecutor with the Tarrant County district attorney’s office, said Monday that Texas law allows a person witnessing someone placing others at risk of serious injury or death to act with deadly force to protect others.

    “Mr. Wilson did just that. He did it responsibly and, as a result, he was justified under the law in his actions,” Rodgers said. “Based upon the grand jury’s decision, the law enforcement investigation and our review of the case are complete. We believe the grand jury made the right decision.”

    I guess i can kinda understand, but it seems like such an open and shut case, why would you bring it to a Grand jury.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      It’s Sharen Wilson, she has never seen a case she doesn’t want to prosecute

      • Fourscore

        Jack Wilson looks like the Texan every Texas man would want to look like. Ass kicker that takes no shit and proved it. Thanks, Mr Wilson.

    • R C Dean

      2 minute presentation by the prosecutor

      “The dead guy busted into a church service and shot two people. Mr. Wilson, who by the way was awarded a Texas Medal of Freedom by the Governor, put him in the ground with one shot. Anybody want to indict him for murder? No? Alright, lets break for lunch.”

    • robc

      I am okay with that. I prefer the grand jury to make the decision over the DA.

  6. Count Potato

    “How could anybody be confused?”

    I saw that on the DM. I still don’t know if that person is claiming to be transgender or naturally androgynous.

  7. leon

    Canceling Spring Break…. Do they know it’s the Fall?

    • leon

      Careful, You’ll trigger some of the clubbing instincts of the more untame libertarians on this board.

    • Drake

      I bet it would be delicious fried and rendered down a little.

      • KibbledKristen

        Mmmmm….baby seal bacon….the rarer the species, the better….?????

      • Tundra

        Dibs on the skin.

        I need a new pair of slippers.

      • Fourscore

        Hide side out, fur side in.

      • Hyperion

        And you get enough lamp oil to last all year.

  8. DEG

    Florida State University canceled its spring break on Wednesday to try to protect against the spread of coronavirus.

    Sally McRorie, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at FSU, told students that the administration is altering the schedule and canceling spring break because the school’s “highest priority remains the health and safety of our students, faculty and staff.”

    What assholes.

    That before we had modern agriculture, more than half the workforce had to labor on farms, just to feed the other half. That if synthetic fertilizer was suddenly lost, a mass famine would ensue and billions would starve.

    Heh. I used to know some Greens that thought that humanity could get all of its food through organic farming.

    A grand jury in Texas decided Monday to take no action against a man who fatally shot an armed man who killed two people at a Fort Worth-area church in late December, prosecutors said.

    Good.

  9. Rebel Scum

    Not the Bee.

    President Donald Trump doesn’t exercise.

    He’s got a theory about that. “Other than golf, he considers exercise misguided, arguing that a person, like a battery, is born with a finite amount of energy,” Evan Osnos wrote in a 2017 piece in The New Yorker.

    The president, who is 6-foot-4 and about 240 pounds, also doesn’t follow any special diet, the piece said. He famously loves fried chicken, soda, and McDonald’s. While he’ll occasionally tuck into a burger from Burger King, his true love is McDonald’s fish sandwich. And he also has a soft spot for the fast-food restaurant’s French fries.

    Trump, 74, on Wednesday credited those fries for his magnificent head of hair.

    The claim came after Ari Fleischer, a former press secretary for President George W. Bush, posted a story on Twitter about a 2018 study that “reveals a chemical found in McDonald’s French fries may be the cure for baldness.”

    “Scientists from Japan said the chemical is added to the fries in order to keep the cooking oil from frothing up. When they tested that chemical on mice, scientists said, the mice regrew hair. Scientists said this is the first time they have mass produced what they are calling ‘hair follicle germs’ with this method,” the story said.

    • leon

      So there’s concern trolling, what do you call it when someone is intentionally obtuse to try to make someone else look dumb?

    • KibbledKristen

      And he also has a soft spot for the fast-food restaurant’s French fries.

      Don’t tell him that the absolute best McD’s fries (mouth-scorchingly hot and just ever so slightly overdone, i.e. crisp AF on the outside) are to be found in Alexandria, VA. It’s my secret McD’s, tucked in a strip mall far away from the interstates.

      • Tulip

        Ooh, share. You can text me

      • KibbledKristen

        (Rose Hill)

      • Tulip

        That was my guess. That’s the only one I go to

      • KibbledKristen

        I’ve only ever been disappointed in the fries once that I can recall

      • dbleagle

        Been there too. But I miss the days when they prepared the fries with lard.

    • B.P.

      Cue the fact checkers.

      Also, “tuck into” a burger? Google tells me that may be an Australianism.

    • Ayn Random Variation

      ……he said between sips of scotch and puffs on a cigarette….

  10. Drake

    Did the Jack Wilson shooting go to a grand jury just to make sure he couldn’t ever be prosecuted or sued.

    The video is rough, but that’s how you do it – one and done in the head with a .357 Sig.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Looks like lots of flagging by others moving up. Watch your muzzles.

      • EvilSheldon

        Moving around people without pointing guns at them, is a skill most gun owners could use some more practice in.

  11. Ozymandias

    That before we had electricity and clean natural gas, people burned unrefined solid fuels in their homes—wood, coal, even dung (!)—to cook their food and to keep from freezing in winter. That these primitive fuels, dirty with contaminants, created toxic smoke: indoor air pollution. That indoor air pollution remains a problem today for 40% of the world population, who still rely on pre-industrial fuels.

    This.^^^^^ Right. Fucking. Here.

    Kabul sits at about 6000′ MSL and is surrounded by mountains, many that reach above 15k (or more). The airline approach and departure into Kabul requires a spiral down in and up and out. It’s kinda nuts.

    Anyway, as a consequence, during the winter months when you’re landing, the first thing you notice from about 20K’ (even in a pressurized cabin) is the smell. They’re burning everything… to stay alive. The temperatures are savage cold and they burn wood, cars, tires, fuel, feces, you name it. They burn anything they can to stay warm because the alternative is death. Whenever I hear Green New Deal and ‘global warming’ CO2 assholes speak, all I want – more than anything – is to transport them to Kabul in the winter and ask them if they would care to lecture the locals about the evils of “fossil fuels” and its terrible effect on Mother Gaia.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Ironically, our relative wealth is going to be the end of us.

    • invisible finger

      Lots of greens are really ZPGers and are just fine with billions dying.

      Another portion are really commies and think all those advances are because FDR and therefore only socialism will sustain it all.

      You’d think these contradictory positions would make these groups natural enemies but they found common ground in their mutual hatred of people in general.

    • Tulip

      There’s a reason people would first get running water in the barn, and then the house.

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      There’s a movement in some California cities to ban natural gas in new home construction, because electricity is created magically and definitely won’t make home ownership more expensive.

      • mikey

        Great. Now when there’s another blackout you not only can’t go out to eat in your electric car you also can’t cook dinner when you have to stay home.

  12. Tundra

    Hi Brett!

    Glad to hear the boy will another bruiser. I think we’re gonna need them…

    Fuck FSU.

    Fantastic essay on Industrial Literacy. Bookmarked for extensive sharing. One thing:

    That if synthetic fertilizer was suddenly lost, a mass famine would ensue and billions would starve.

    What happens if you suddenly shut down the economies of the largest food producers in the world? Merely tens of millions?

    That WIlson dude looks like the kind of dude who ends a rampage with a single head shot. Well played, old guy.

    How could anybody be confused?

    Repulsed, actually.

    • Tulip

      My reading is probably some health issues – said she spent a lot of time in the hospital between 6 and 15. So that may have affected development and it must suck to grow up that way. If that’s true, then good on her for taking what life gave her and excelling.

      Or, transgender. Idk

  13. Count Potato

    Today, in everyone is literally Hitler:

    “Kayleigh McEnany’s day from HELL: WH press secretary gets savaged over Trump’s dumped ballots claims, wrongly declares Amy Coney Barrett a Rhodes Scholar, and argues over white supremacy (then Fox News reporter slams her on air)”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8795227/Kayleigh-McEnany-holds-car-crash-White-House-briefing-prompting-furious-tirade-Fox-News-reporter.html

    “EXCLUSIVE: Leader of ‘white supremacist’ group Proud Boys is the state director of Latinos for Trump with close ties to the GOP as he’s pictured with high-profile republicans including the president’s son Don Jr., Roger Stone and Senator Ted Cruz”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8794301/Leader-Proud-Boys-state-director-Latinos-Trump-close-ties-GOP.html

    • leon

      Latinos for Trump is a white supremacist organization.

      • TARDis

        Well Latinos are white when they commit crimes doncha know?

        They are oppressed minorities otherwise.

    • Count Potato

      “Roger Stone is picture with a group of the Proud Boys as they hold up the ‘white power’ symbol with their hands. The unofficial uniform of the Proud Boys is a black and yellow Fred Perry polo shirt – which is, bizarrely, a clothing choice they share with many in the gay BDSM community”

      • Brett L

        I can only guess how much self-loathing homosexual meetups are generated by Proud Boys rallies. “We’re not gay, we just don’t masturbate and aren’t particularly into women.” Okay, bud. Keep telling yourself you’re only getting a blowjob from a dude to keep from masturbating if it lets you do your thing.

      • Count Potato

        I never heard that they aren’t into women.

      • Brett L

        I don’t think its a requirement, but what little I’ve paid attention them, they look and talk exactly like the guys I knew who were super-Christian because they weren’t ready to come out of the closet yet. Maybe I’m the only one who sees that.

      • Ted S.

        Maybe you’re the only one to see it because you’re the one who’s gay?

      • Brett L

        Could be, but I do enjoy the sensation of PIV sex, and find the female form much more exciting, so I’m not very good at being gay if I am.

      • Mojeaux

        Long, long time ago I was on a Mormon Usenet group. There was one dude who was staunchly all about doctrine and knew it backward and forward, yuge participant in the group (I think one of the founders).

        Fast forward about 10 years, I see him in the comments of a Mormon blog absolutely trash-talking the church. Talk about whiplash. Oh, then he said something about being a bear and the light went on.

        Related: I don’t care who someone sleeps with, but come out of the closet and immediately leave your wife to her own devices while you cavort, I’m going to judge you.

      • leon

        We had a guy in my ward, as a kid, leave his wife for his boyfriend. His son was my age and was the one who found out about the affair. Felt bad for him.

      • Mojeaux

        Mr. Mojeaux asked me what the difference was between leaving a wife for a woman or man, and I’m like, look, it’s one thing to cede the ground to another woman. You had a fair chance and somebody else won. This is especially true if you let yourself go.

        But a dude? There’s just no competing with that.

        I have heard of women getting mastectomies and all the prosthetics specifically to compete, and…they can’t.

      • Tulip

        I would see being left for a man as nothing to do with me. I would be angry because I wouldn’t believe he didn’t know and yet married me and brought on all this heartache, but I can’t imagine getting prosthetics and trying to compete. I mean, it’s him, it’s not me.

      • The Hyperbole

        Years ago the morning dude on Sirius Patriot was hard core anti-gay marriage, for most of the normal religious/morality reasons, but one reason he kept harping on was if gay marriage were legal he would have to worry about his wife leaving him for a woman.

      • Count Potato

        I’ve never seen Aladdin or heard the song.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Apparently it was left on the cutting room floor.

    • Count Potato

      “Fox News White House correspondent John Roberts, in a stunning display of anger and frustration, went on his cable news network – of which President Trump is a frequent viewer – to slam McEnany.

      ‘For all of you on Twitter who are hammering me for asking the question, I don’t care because it’s a question that needs to be asked and clearly the president’s Republican colleagues a mile away from here are looking for an answer for it, too. So stop deflecting. Stop blaming the media. I’m tired of it,’ he said from the White House lawn with the executive mansion visible behind him.”

      John Roberts is being a jackass here. If you watch the video, it’s clear she answers his question.

      • leon

        I don’t care because it’s a question that needs to be asked

        If you pretend he’s never answered it before, then you can act indignant.

      • Drake

        And you have to pretend it’s a coherent question. Name the organization.

      • Pope Jimbo

        ^THIS^

        She said he had answered it and then started quoting statements he’d made condemning it and gave dates.

        Then Roberts kept saying that he wanted a simple answer. I wonder what he thought his gotcha was going to be if she had said “yes”?

  14. Certified Public Asshat

    The doc says our baby is both long and large

    Humblebrag?

  15. Rebel Scum

    Oh…

    Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott and President Jay Wallace congratulate presidential debate moderator Chris Wallace for “professionalism, skill and fortitude” during last night’s debate between President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

  16. Count Potato

    “Volunteers in Moderna’s and Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine trials describe miserable side effects including high fevers, chills and body aches that left them bed-ridden for a day – but insist ‘people should still get the vaccine’ when it is approved”

    Luke Hutchinsons, 44, was prepared for that possibility after signing up to help test whether Moderna’s shot worked, safely.

    He felt a bit less than 100 percent for a few days after the first dose but eight hours after his second dose on September 15, the healthy computational biologist was too weak to leave bed, running a high fever and writhing with pain and shivers.

    It even got harder for Hutchinson to breathe. The experimental COVID-19 vaccine left him feeling like he’d contracted the virus it was meant to protect him against.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8794945/Volunteers-covid-vaccine-trials-painful-effects.html

    WTF??

    • leon

      I know nothing about vaccines, except that they cause autism.

    • Brett L

      I mean, he essentially did contract the virus. It may not have been reproducing, but those are immune response symptoms.

      • Brett L

        This is just speculation, but I think it took them several generations of flu virus before they were able to tune it to get enough proteins in your system to train your immune system without it causing the full flu immunoresponse in a large number of people. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is similar.

    • Ted S.

      You’ll get terrible side effects from the vaccine, but dammit, we’re still going to propagandize!

    • Gustave Lytton

      And points out the nepotism in the media world at the same time.

      • Drake

        That was the sting at the end of the burn!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      LOL. What an asshole. He acted exactly as his detractors would have predicted.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      As the person who speaks for the president, does the president denounce white supremacism, a group that is founded in all their forms?” he asked.

      Dafuq does that even mean?

      • Drake

        Trump handled it well – name the group for me and I’ll tell you if I disavow them.

      • Hyperion

        What have the Proud Boys done that makes them white supremacists?

        I’d like to know that to start with and then we can talk.

        Anyone who believes they should be able to violate any one else’s rights by using violence against them, I condemn. Any group that says to me ‘I don’t like you because you’re white’, OK, who cares, then don’t bother me.

        The left need to be called out hard on this shit.

      • kinnath

        I was explaining to someone yesterday — the Proud Boys are Male Chauvinists not White Supremists. So please berate them for the proper sin.

      • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

        They are a little weird, but I don’t think they are white supremacists. But people are working with the labels the media and the Democrats have supplied.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        I was a fan of Gavin McInnes prior to the Proud Boys thing. He just started drifting a bit too whiny MRA for me, and I bailed.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        It means “You say it, then we get to interpret it as we see fit.”

        I take it as a good sign for Trump that the Fox News reporters are turning on him. It was a myth that there was any love for him among their staff. They must be concerned he’s going to win.

      • Hyperion

        All of those guys are Bush era holdovers who are mad Trump won’t let us bomb poor sheep herders into oblivion and bring the ones who are left here as refugees.

        There’s a few decent people at Fox, IMHO, Tucker, Guteld, Kennedy, maybe a few others, but those guys are not running the place. The guys running the place are neocons.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Were. Roger Ailes is dead, and was forced out anyways. Fox News exists to be a skinsuited bogeyman where the actors no longer need to wear a mask. See Shep Smith ending up with a show on MSNBC.

      • Hyperion

        Neil Cavuto, Bret Baier, and Sean Hannity gone as well?

      • Gustave Lytton

        They’re still Emmanuel Goldstein window dressing.

      • slumbrew

        CNBC, not MSNBC.

        So, better? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

      • Gustave Lytton

        I stand correct and apology for besmirching Smith’ name.

      • Gustave Lytton

        I’d like to think autocorrect did that

        Stand corrected and apologize

      • SDF-7

        The new Progressive Baptism, I guess:

        Do you renounce White Supremacism?

        And all its forms?

        And all its empty promises?

        Do you acknowledge America’s systemic racism?

        And commit yourself to Diversity?

        And abase yourself before Inclusion?

      • Hyperion

        Fuck off?

      • KibbledKristen

        *chef’s kiss*

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Nice. Stealing that.

  17. Rebel Scum

    My girl, Kayleigh…

    @johnrobertsFox I would refer you to your wife’s reporting from 21 hours ago… accurate reporting I cited in the White House Press Briefing.

    PWND.

    • Drake

      missed it by this much!

    • KibbledKristen

      She. Is. Amazing.

      And, TBH, slightly terrifying.

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      I gotta say, she makes me randy.

  18. Hyperion

    “My alma mater has declared “Spring Break is Cancelled!!” after cops break up a 1000 person party.”

    I keep telling you guys, you have to do it right by rioting, looting, and burning stuff down. That’s an acceptable party and you’ll probably get money, free pallets, of bricks, and maybe brave hero status on the Twatter.

    • KibbledKristen

      And lots and lots of electronics and designer merch. Just think of all the Air Jordans!

      • Hyperion

        Oh yes, I forgot about the free reparations.

    • leon

      As long as you masquerade as Socialists. If not your wife will get a bullet in the head faster than you can say ruby ridge.

  19. Hyperion

    Here we go again

    Hasn’t anyone told these folk that we have commie cooties here and they’ll drop dead the minute they walk across the border?

    • Hyperion

      Where’s muh link? Who stole my links!?

    • leon

      Walter Williams rights on Lewrockwell.com?

      • Ted S.

        Well, he certainly doesn’t left on lewrockwell.com.

      • Rebel Scum

        And he is generally in favor of rights.

      • Hyperion

        I see the Lew Rockwell guys occasionally at the airport. I’ll go over and talk to them. They’ll say some sensible stuff, but it always goes down the the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, and I have to excuse myself.

  20. Ownbestenemy

    Just had to sit on a ton of meetings cause we had a positive pop up today. The agency handles this all really well in the field in my opinion except our cleaning procedures after the fact.

    Last day this person was at work was a week ago, tested positive today and deep clean/sanitization tonight. A week after the fact seems like theatre to me especially since this person hasnt been in the building sense.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Our honcho just told us that no one will be going back to the office until at least Jan 18th.

  21. Rebel Scum

    Cunte.

    Gun Owners of California reports Newsom signed AB 2847, which “forces manufacturers to use microstamping technology in order to have new handguns on the approved [California DOJ] roster.”

    The CA DOJ maintains a roster of new guns approved for sale in the state of California. Beginning July 1, 2022, only new guns with microstamping technology will be added to the list.

    Moreover, each time a gun with microstamping technology is added to the roster three guns without such technology will be removed.

    Microstamping technology has proven unworkable everywhere it has been tried, as it is easily thwarted by criminals who understand how it works.

    • leon

      Sure you have a right to own weapons, as long as they exist on this list of imaginary weapons we allow you to own.

    • kbolino

      I’m still a little flabbergasted how 1) a court said with a straight face “impossibility is not reason to void a law” (paraphrased) and 2) mandating an impossibility is not an infringement.

      • leon

        Well that’s just because you don’t get that courts are all about the ends. And the end is that you don’t get to have guns.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I think those penumbras and shit cover imaginary technologies.

      • Mad Scientist

        *grabs trashy and yells, “RUN!” while running*

    • leon

      LOL on the ACU pattern: “Reminder that this cost the taxpayer 5 Billion”

      • Gustave Lytton

        They’re all pretty good digs at the origins/who wears them. True Scotsman second to last row, second column.

      • kbolino

        If I said I got even 10% of the references I’d be lying.

      • Count Potato

        I didn’t get most of it either.

    • l0b0t

      Those are brilliant. I have too many of them in trouser form. I really, really want some Nork stuff.

    • Count Potato

      Someone has a lot of free time.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The wool pattern comment is very true.

  22. Animal

    Our younger grandson’s nickname is “Chonk.” He’ll be one next month, and he’s already at upper 90th percentile for weight – and bottom 20% for height. Kid is going to be a fireplug. And he’s going to have a little brother in December or January. Those boys will be a pair of Immovable Objects.

    • TARDis

      Biology is an amazing thing. Both of my kids were “Chonks” at near 10 Lbs on delivery. XX never stopped growing until about 19. She’s tall and slender. XY didn’t start growing until about 18 months, just like his dad. But then, he did get a nice case of Salmonella as a toddler. We’ll see where he stops. I keep pestering him about getting some exercise so his sister can’t take him in a fair fight.

      • TARDis

        18 months ‘ago’

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      Ours have been tiny. Trashbaby#1 was induced because they were afraid of IUGR. She wasn’t being restricted, she’s just in the 10th percentile height. She’s in the 40th percentile weight last I checked, but that’s mostly from doing gymnastics (little gym) from 18 months. The kid is a ball of muscle.

      Trashbaby #2 is measuring a few (4 or 5) weeks behind. New OB seems unconcerned about her, and we’re not getting worked up like they got us about #1. None of that “youre gonna meet your baby today” at 36 weeks, only to spend 3 hours with a specialist and have them send us home with a shrug of the shoulders.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Am I a bad father not knowing my kids birth weights or lengths? All I cared about was 10 and 10 and breathing.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        I honestly don’t remember either for #1. 6lbs and change, IIRC. I have no clue about length. 23 inches? That’s a reasonable number, right? I do have the visual memory of looking up her weight/height on the growth charts and having to go nearly off the scale low.

        I never understood the importance of the birth numbers except to garner pity for mama when she had to push out a butterball.

      • Ownbestenemy

        That last part is probably it? I know my mother had to push my lazy butterball ass out 3 weeks late cause I was all cozy. I was 9+ lbs in an incubator cause I was just a lazy baby.

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      My Dad’s caregiver is Tongan. She has an 8 year old nephew who they call Fat Boy. For them it’s a complement. The kid will probably play in the NFL one day.

  23. Ownbestenemy

    I finished Wasteland 3. Such an uninspired ending fight to the point I was asking myself “is that it?”

    • Hyperion

      I have it, but couldn’t get into it. Might try later. I’m really enjoying the new Mafia.

  24. Ayn Random Variation

    Why didn’t she just whip out her vagina?

    • Hyperion

      Wait… who?

      • Ayn Random Variation

        Doesn’t anybody read the links?

      • Ted S.

        Demi Rose?

    • R C Dean

      She looks more masculine than just about any nominally male college student I’ve seen in the last few years. If asked, I wouldn’t even hesitate to say “That’s a man, baby.”

    • Deplorableme

      should’ve just gave her the Dundee Test

    • Ayn Random Variation

      There are 8 people in Maine. The PA nonsense needs to be handled or there will be 50,000 mail in ballots from north philly discovered on Nov 6. And 60,000 of those will be Biden votes.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Someone just walked right in to the Philadelphia voting machine warehouse. No security or cameras at all.

        That doesn’t matter when you making up the results anyway. It’s Philly we’re talking about.

  25. Tulip

    The one (only one) bright spot of the pandemic for me is the expansion of delivery options. I don’t enjoy regularly shopping. I like shopping on vacation and occasionally going to thrift shops and flea markets, but every day shopping -pfft. Today I got wine delivered. AWESOME.

    I do grocery shop because I want to pick my own veggies and meat, but it’s definitely a chore.

    • Ayn Random Variation

      For me it’s working from home. For anyone who saw Cartman’s reaction last night to schooling from home, that is me. Don’t know how I can go back to open office space hell.

      • Hyperion

        #MeToo, #WFH, #FuckTheOffice

      • Rhywun

        #mefour

        I was dubious before I began doing it last week, but now I never want to go the office again.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        The anecdotal evidence I’m hearing is that a lot of small businesses are moving back to the office.

        The WFH trend ain’t great for everybody, probably more true for companies that require a lot of coordinated input.

      • dbleagle

        A large part of my job is coordinating inputs from multiple organizations spread across half the world. This panicdemic has ground almost all timely coordination to a halt.

        In 6-8 years when the politics behind the overreaction to the Kung Flu largely abates I look forward to what the research finds about health outcome, work outcomes, economic outcomes and future employers attitides.

      • DEG

        In 6-8 years when the politics behind the overreaction to the Kung Flu largely abates I look forward to what the research finds about health outcome, work outcomes, economic outcomes and future employers attitides.

        Prediction: Anything that doesn’t support “LOCKDOWNS OR GRANDMA WILL DIE!!!!!!1!1111!!” will get buried.

      • DEG

        #metoo

        Sometimes working with folks face to face is convenient, but otherwise I’m fine with working from home all the time.

      • Brett L

        This. I have been WFH primarily for 4 years now, but it used to be that you could schedule 3 days of meetings in the office and solve 3 weeks worth of online back-and-forth. I still think the optimum is “come into the office (client) when there is a hard problem to be solved”.

    • Ayn Random Variation

      And speaking of shopping from home, yesterday I was amazed to see all the Glibs swag now available, so I went on a little shopping spree.
      May I suggest a laptop case, pajamas and slippers?

      • KibbledKristen

        I’m a sick fuck – I actually miss my colleagues.

      • Rhywun

        My boss is the only person I work with who is from the same office as me. His boss is in Cleveland and his boss’ boss is in Texas. Colleagues around the world etc.

        But a lot of that is a function of my old NYC-based company getting acquired by the big new more-international one and most of the IT staff leaving.

    • Rhywun

      My everyday shopping routine hasn’t changed at all but I have everything I need within easy walking distance so no big deal. What’s changed is I now appreciate Amazon a lot more. In the before times I would take the subway to Bed Bath and Beyond or something – that seems crazy to me now when I could have just been ordering everything I need from Amazon all this time. I have to wait a little longer but the selection is a bit wider.

      • LCDR_Fish

        Yeah….but shopping at BBB in person is superior (not just for browsing – but being allowed to use as many expired coupons as you want without limits). Can’t do that on the website.

      • Rhywun

        Some months ago I was comparing BBB+coupons with Amazon on a couple items I wanted, and Amazon was winning. I haven’t done that comparison in a while, though.

      • l0b0t

        Indeed. Those coupons are what keeps the SodaStream refills affordable.

      • Mad Scientist

        Bed Bath & Beyond gives me a skull cracking headache just for walking in the door. I’ve been a smoker for 37 years, so you’d think my nose functions would be just about gone. I can’t even image what BB&B smells like to someone with a healthy ol’ factory. The place is an assault by 5000 different scented candles and soaps and picture frames.

      • Rhywun

        They should bottle whatever stuff that is they pump into the air there.

    • Ted S.

      I knew you all appreciate my music links!

  26. Mojeaux

    Sitting here listening to my childhood Christmas collection. Memories, OMG, flooding in, most of them good.

    Meanwhile, 40 years later, I’m thinking, “Maybe we should do something completely different this Christmas.”

    Suggestions? I would rather they not involve palm trees.

    • Ted S.

      Celebrate Festivus.

      And make donations to the Human Fund in your friends’ names.

      • dbleagle

        I agree with Ted, in part.

        Start with a good Viking Yule on the winter solstic, advance to a crazy Roman Saturnalia (complete with slaves and masters exchanging places) and complete with Festivus. Your hubby better prepare since he will be wrestling.

    • Ayn Random Variation

      Vegas

      • Ownbestenemy

        Vegas is dead until we can open back up again.

    • R C Dean

      May I suggest this?

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      A Jesse special of lube drums, an industrial sized container of viagra, and plane tickets for XX and XY to be as far away from the house as humanly possible during Christmas?

      ??

    • Hyperion

      “Maybe we should do something completely different this Christmas.”

      Social distance, wear your mask at all times, and use this time to educate your family about their wrong think and what they can do to improve their attitude, before you have to turn them into the authorities?

      • Mojeaux

        That’s what I’m trying to AVOID.

      • Mojeaux

        I’m really more of an Andalusia kinda girl, but palm trees are right out around Christmas time.

      • Mad Scientist

        You’re telling me you don’t prefer this to freezing temperatures?

      • Mojeaux

        That is what I am saying, correct.

      • Mojeaux

        Also, I have no spare change for such an outing, as much as I would reaaaalllly love to go.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Christmas Breakfast/Brunch, not dinner

      • Mojeaux

        Here’s our usual routine:

        Go to my mom’s/her sisters’ house on Christmas Eve for snacks and family time. Other members of the extended family may or may not be there depending on where they are spending Christmas.

        Go home. I play Santa. I go to bed. Occasionally, any friend I can rope into it and I will go downtown for Midnight Mass. My mom went once and that was enough for her. My last friend who loved it moved to Texas. I have no friends to go with. My husband definitely won’t. I might go by myself.

        Christmas morning, presents and stockings. That lasts about 10 minutes.

        Then we have cereal for Christmas breakfast (it’s the only time we have cereal).

        Aaaaannnnnd that’s it.

        Christmas Eve activities take the place of Christmas dinner. I was a child the last time my family had Christmas dinner and that was with Dad’s side of the family.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        We would avoid the dinners and make things like sausage/egg casseroles and crepes for breakfast. Add some good lox and coffee and I usually enjoyed the meal more than the presents.

        I hated going to see extended family on holidays. But that’s just me.

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      There are palm trees in Bethlehem. Why do you hate Jesus?

      • Mojeaux

        LOL First laugh of the day.

      • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

        I aim to please and shoot to kill.

  27. Hyperion

    “I found this post on industrial literacy, share it with your Green friends.”

    “and billions would starve”

    Feature, not bug.

      • Hyperion

        Oh, I saw it, long time ago, and they’re serious. Remember agenda 21? It had segregation as a core feature. Huh, I wonder why that sounds familiar? None of this stuff goes away, it just gets added to and renamed.

      • Hyperion

        “7 – Avoid petty laws and useless officials.”

        They just threw that one in there for some deflection.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Yeah, that one seems pretty reasonable but it depends on the subjective definitions of petty and useless.

      • Hyperion

        Yeah, useless may mean not willing enough to haul your ass off to the gulag for wrong think.

  28. LCDR_Fish

    This is some cringe (and not the same article as this morning so I don’t think ass drugs were involved): https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/right-wing-militias-civil-war/616473/

    Featured on the stupid early bird today – talk about jumping to conclusions (via the SPLC – who else)

    A Pro-Trump Militant Group Has Recruited Thousands of Police, Soldiers, and Veterans

    An Atlantic investigation reveals who they are and what they might do on Election Day

    • Hyperion

      “This is some cringe”

      Well, it is the Atlantic, there’s no way it isn’t.

    • Hyperion

      “the gold logo of the Oath Keepers”

      The Russians and the Boogeyman is coming for you too!

    • Raven Nation

      Related: Jesse Walker’s “The United States of Paranoia” has a really excellent chapter on the militia conspiracy fears of the 1990s.

    • Ownbestenemy

      People,” Geralt turned his head, “like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves. When they get blind-drunk, cheat, steal, beat their wives, starve an old woman, when they kill a trapped fox with an axe or riddle the last existing unicorn with arrows, they like to think that the Bane entering cottages at daybreak is more monstrous than they are. They feel better then. They find it easier to live.”

      The Atlantic just wrote it with more nuance.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Typical politician “What does the poll-testing say I should say?”

    • straffinrun

      If I were a white supremacist, I’d start a group and call it AntiRa.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      How can people be this stupid? It takes five grueling minutes of internet research to find that this narrative is fucking bullshit. Are the PBs a silly fratboy kind of fraternal organization? Absolutely. Are they a white supremacist organization? Absolutely not.

      • straffinrun

        The US govt is more of a racist organization if you go by history.

      • The Hyperbole

        The 1619 project was bullshit Straff.

      • straffinrun

        Sure. Just sayin’ that every govt is racist to some degree. At least going by the way the left defines it.

  29. Count Potato

    “‘My sexuality is sacred’: Bisexual pastor-turned-stripper has never been happier

    Growing up in a strict Baptist family, Nikole Mitchell was expected to be quiet, reserved and sweet. But her dreams weren’t quite so conservative.

    “From a young age, I had fantasized about being a stripper,” Mitchell, who now works as an erotic dancer on OnlyFans, told The Post. “But I was indoctrinated to believe my desires and my body were innately sinful and bad.”

    So instead of pursuing the pole, the mother of three went all-in on religion — and became a pastor. Even that, however, was rebellious in her family’s eyes.

    “I was taught that women aren’t allowed to lead and that women belong in the kitchen and with the children,” said Mitchell, 36. “So even though it went against everything I was told, I decided to become [a pastor] because of my love for performing.””

    https://nypost.com/2020/09/23/this-bisexual-pastor-turned-stripper-has-never-been-happier/

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Some people just can’t find moderation.

    • straffinrun

      That’s one way to get your tithes you.

    • The Hyperbole

      She’s not Thicc at all.

    • straffinrun

      “I started following my life coach’s wife [on Instagram]”

      People are weird.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      She looked better in nonskank form.

      • Trials and Trippelations

        Yep airbrushing was not her friend

    • Trials and Trippelations

      The church she went to in MPLS, Woodland Hills, is (or arguably was) headed by a christian anarchist/ libertarian, Gregory Boyd. She is right in that he seemed to be a bit of a Puritan as it relates to morality.

      Anywho, based on one of his later works that I read he should now only be classified as a left libertarianish (still a moral Puritan), but he’s all in on white privledge and left culture. ? his book the Myth of a Christian Nation was still formative to my faith and my interpretation of govt and politics

      • straffinrun

        Interesting.

  30. straffinrun

    The debate that upended the election is over until the next debate which will change the entire game. This week?

    • commodious spittoon

      Unsure whether you’re fat-shaming, fugly-shaming, or kink-shaming.

      • Count Potato

        Just surprised someone average looking can make enough money to buy a house in nine months.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      She’s not bad looking but I don’t get guys simping for her. She looks like a typical public school teacher or bank teller.

    • R C Dean

      Dayum, Count. That’s how you sick burn.

  31. LCDR_Fish

    I know Tom Jefferson mucked with his Bible a bit, but this is just nuts.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/chinas-communist-christ/

    The CCP “translation” reproduces the story more or less word for word — up until the point at which Jesus is left alone with the woman whom the Pharisees had dragged before him. Events then take an altogether bizarre and diabolical turn:

    When the crowd disappeared, Jesus stoned the sinner to death saying, “I too am a sinner. But if the law could only be executed by men without blemish, the law would be dead.”

    You read that right: In this telling, Jesus gets rid of the crowd so he can have the pleasure of bashing the woman’s skull in himself.

  32. LCDR_Fish

    KDW has been on an absolute tear in writing the last week – a ton of solid articles. https://www.nationalreview.com/author/kevin-d-williamson/

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/blm-becomes-the-plo/

    We see this kind of thing all the time. San Francisco doesn’t need to abolish capitalism or eliminate “inequality” to alleviate its affordable-housing problem, but it does need to reform its zoning and land-use laws — something that Nancy Pelosi’s rich San Francisco friends have been fighting tooth and talon for decades. And so San Francisco pretends that San Francisco’s problems are not of San Francisco’s making, that the problem is “white privilege” or some other comfortable abstraction.

    Because we have 50 states and a great deal of genuine diversity within and between our communities, a federal system of government with checks and balances, and three rivalrous branches of government, it takes a considerable degree of political consensus to get anything very important done in the United States. That is a benefit, not a defect — it protects our liberties and the rights of minorities from the factional passions of temporary majorities. The tragedy of the months following the death of George Floyd is that a real consensus for police reform, and urban reform more broadly, could have been built. Instead, we got riots and arson, and roving bands of quasi-Maoist bullies conducting impromptu struggle sessions at Washington sidewalk bistros and alfresco restaurant seating in Dallas, along with a lot of outmoded Marxist rubbish about the secret white-supremist roots of rhyming poetry, off-Broadway theater, and traffic laws.

    You want to improve police practices and governance in American cities? I’m your huckleberry, and a great many conservatives are ready to work toward that goal. You want to smash a few plates of kale-and-quinoa salad, smash windows, and smash capitalism? Then we don’t really have anything to talk about, because you are ridiculous and irresponsible children. The United States is not going to be governed by boutique radicalism and mob violence. We don’t negotiate with terrorists, and we don’t negotiate with bullies — or cooperate with them.

    • LCDR_Fish

      https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/debating-obamacare-again-and-again/

      The ACA began as an attempt to replicate the highly regarded health-insurance system of Switzerland in the American context. The Swiss system offers no reassuring generalities to ideologues: It is both market-based and heavily regulated; it is not funded by taxes, but the government lays a heavy hand on certain costs and business practices, notably by mandating that the minimal insurance policy be offered by all firms on a nonprofit basis. Consumers have a great deal of choice about what kind of insurance they want to have, but they do not have any choice at all on the matter of having it. Like the ACA regime, the Swiss system specifies a minimum level of benefits, and it ensures that those with preexisting conditions are neither excluded from coverage nor charged dramatically higher rates — something that does not come up very often, because Switzerland achieves better than 99 percent compliance with its individual mandate through a program of ruthless enforcement. If you fail to sign up for coverage, the Swiss government signs you up for a policy whether you like it or not, and then your new insurer charges you for the premiums you would have paid during your period of noncompliance, plus interest and penalties. Which is to say, the Swiss enforce their individual mandate the way the U.S. government enforces almost nothing save tax payments — and Uncle Sam reliably drops the ball on those, too.

      The Obama administration, as Chris Pope notes, exempted people with low incomes and the recently unemployed from the mandate — which is to say, he exempted almost everybody who doesn’t have insurance already: Out of the 30 million uninsured, the Obama administration exempted 23 million from the mandate. The Americans who both 1) lacked insurance and 2) earned enough money that their penalty would exceed $1,000 a year amounted to about 0.3 percent of the population — 1.2 million people. And so it is not much of a surprise that the mandate did not get these people to sign up or that the removal of the mandate did not seem to have much effect on Americans’ willingness and ability to purchase insurance. The mandate was toothless.

      ….

      Biden, Court-Packing, and Constitutional Norms

      Senate Committee Votes to Subpoena Tech CEOs over Liability Protections

      Joe Biden Is Just an Idea

      Mitch McConnell Should Try to Cap the Number of Justices at Nine

      On Court-Packing, Biden Is Afraid of Losing the Radical Left
      NR PLUS Health Care
      Debating Obamacare, Again, and Again
      By Kevin D. Williamson

      October 1, 2020 6:30 AM

      Share on Facebook

      Share on Twitter
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      Print this article

      (Kubra Cavus/Getty Images)
      There’s no consensus between or within parties for a national health-care plan. But piecemeal reforms are possible.

      NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE ‘W hy did the individual mandate fail in its intended purpose to increase enrollment?”

      Chris Pope of the Manhattan Institute asks the question in his very insightful National Review column, an essay that has far more of substance to say about health care than either of the grunting, sneering buffoons we saw sniffing each other’s butts on Tuesday evening. With California vs. Texas coming before the Supreme Court in November, the grievously misnamed Affordable Care Act is once more before us, and its deficiencies — and the deficiencies in attempts to address those deficiencies — are worth revisiting not only for the light they shed on the still-critical issue of health care but also for understanding what ails American government more broadly.

      The ACA individual mandate is a textbook example of bad program design and implementation. Some people object to such mandates on moral and constitutional grounds, and those concerns must be given due consideration, but there is nothing wrong with an individual mandate as a purely pragmatic matter. In the ACA, the mandate was intended to mitigate the problem of “adverse selection” created by a different, much more popular mandate — that insurance companies cover preexisting conditions at no additional cost. To use the most hackneyed illustration: If you could buy fire insurance after your house burned down, then you would have no real incentive to buy insurance earlier. If you can get comprehensive coverage for serious illness after you get sick for the same price and terms that you would have received had you purchased the same insurance before getting sick, then you have no incentive to buy health insurance until you are sick. The preexisting-conditions mandate transforms health insurance into something other than insurance, which is a financial product in which insurers charge a fee based on risk calculation and in exchange offer financial benefits in the case of certain events. Properly understood, you cannot insure against preexisting conditions, for the same reason you cannot bet on a football game that already has been played.
      More in Obamacare

      Why Didn’t Obamacare’s Mandate Work?
      Obamacare and the Court
      Biden Pushes Back on Trump’s Claim That Far-Left Will Pull Him Toward ‘Socialist Medicine’: ‘I Am The Democratic Party Right Now’

      The ACA began as an attempt to replicate the highly regarded health-insurance system of Switzerland in the American context. The Swiss system offers no reassuring generalities to ideologues: It is both market-based and heavily regulated; it is not funded by taxes, but the government lays a heavy hand on certain costs and business practices, notably by mandating that the minimal insurance policy be offered by all firms on a nonprofit basis. Consumers have a great deal of choice about what kind of insurance they want to have, but they do not have any choice at all on the matter of having it. Like the ACA regime, the Swiss system specifies a minimum level of benefits, and it ensures that those with preexisting conditions are neither excluded from coverage nor charged dramatically higher rates — something that does not come up very often, because Switzerland achieves better than 99 percent compliance with its individual mandate through a program of ruthless enforcement. If you fail to sign up for coverage, the Swiss government signs you up for a policy whether you like it or not, and then your new insurer charges you for the premiums you would have paid during your period of noncompliance, plus interest and penalties. Which is to say, the Swiss enforce their individual mandate the way the U.S. government enforces almost nothing save tax payments — and Uncle Sam reliably drops the ball on those, too.

      The Obama administration, as Chris Pope notes, exempted people with low incomes and the recently unemployed from the mandate — which is to say, he exempted almost everybody who doesn’t have insurance already: Out of the 30 million uninsured, the Obama administration exempted 23 million from the mandate. The Americans who both 1) lacked insurance and 2) earned enough money that their penalty would exceed $1,000 a year amounted to about 0.3 percent of the population — 1.2 million people. And so it is not much of a surprise that the mandate did not get these people to sign up or that the removal of the mandate did not seem to have much effect on Americans’ willingness and ability to purchase insurance. The mandate was toothless.

      Because we have an election coming up, some people are shouting “Health care is a right!” while others are shouting that federal efforts to make insurance more affordable are “Socialism!” That kind of emotionally hyper-charged moralistic language almost always goes along with policymaking incompetence, and it is put forward as a substitute for thoughtful program design. It thwarts efforts to achieve consensus.

      NOW WATCH: ‘Presidential Debate Commission to Modify Rules’

      Consensus is a factor in good program design, too. Consensus is not about good feelings or being nice to the people on the other side of the aisle — it is a practical consideration, one that Barack Obama et al. were, unfortunately, too arrogant to account for in 2009. The ACA system was never going to be implemented as written, because there was no consensus supporting the program. There were partisan divisions, obviously, but there also were divisions within the party coalitions: It was Democratic interest groups, notably labor unions, that opposed the so-called Cadillac tax and other revenue-raising measures. It wasn’t Republicans in the pocket of Big Business who worked so hard to eliminate the medical-devices tax — it was Senator Elizabeth Warren, who just so happens to have a number of medical-device manufacturers in her home state. Republicans are split about having the government negotiate prescription-drug prices, reimportation, and other marketplace interventions. Even continuing Democratic control of Congress would not have saved the ACA from years of constant revision, because most Democrats object to some of what’s in it and many Democrats object to it fundamentally, preferring instead an NHS-style monopoly system. Democrats cannot even agree among themselves about whether there should be private health insurance; it is unlikely that they are going to be able to come to a consensus with more market-oriented Republicans on the matter of health insurance.

      Also from Kevin D. Williamson

      Beer-Drinkers and Tax-Raisers

      Revolution by Shenanigan

      BLM Becomes the PLO

      Because we have a federal system with 50 states, a federal government divided into three branches with the legislative branch further subdivided, and strong constitutional constraints on government action, it takes a high degree of consensus to get anything meaningful and stable done on big national social-policy questions. Even smaller countries with less social diversity and less robust constitutional constraints run into that problem: In Sweden, for example, is the archetypal Nordic welfare state, but it does not really have a national health-care system. It has a series of regional and municipal programs, locally administered and mostly funded with local taxes. Think about that: A country known for having effective public-sector administration and very high taxes still finds it sensible to do things at the local level, in spite of its having a population smaller than that of Ohio. It is easier to achieve a relatively high level of consensus and buy-in at the local level. That is part of the conservative case for federalism — the United States is big enough to have both Greenwich, Conn., and Las Vegas; Silicon Valley venture capitalists and Texas cotton farmers. And developing one model of health-insurance regulation, one model of education, one model of air-pollution regulation that serves the needs of all those very different communities and comports with all their social and economic priorities is close to impossible. The progressive mindset, which is trapped in an outmoded factory model of society, favors uniformity and homogeneity in policy and practice because it assumes that the economies of scale that are at work in a steel mill or oil refinery also apply to education and health care.

      …..

      On the other hand, there are real opportunities for discrete, piecemeal reforms. There is, for example, very broad support for allowing the reimportation of prescription drugs, a reform for which there is a pretty good libertarian argument and an idea that was supported by both the Trump campaign and the Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign in 2016. (Trump mentioned this in the Tuesday debate.) We could probably take some pressure off pharmaceutical prices by changing the way Medicare and Medicaid calculate prescription-drug reimbursements. There are things that can be done.

      • LCDR_Fish

        weird, pretty sure I only copied a couple paragraphs

    • straffinrun

      Had me until the last sentence. The US does that all the time.

      • straffinrun

        This last line:

        We don’t negotiate with terrorists, and we don’t negotiate with bullies — or cooperate with them

  33. UnCivilServant

    Mmm… farmed steelhead trout baked with a little lemon and butter. I should cook for myself more often.

    Hrmm… I do have that flatiron steak.

  34. DEG

    Mississippi lifts mask mandate

    Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves ended a statewide mask mandate on Wednesday as the number of COVID-19 cases have fallen in recent weeks to less than half of what they were at the peak of the pandemic in August.

    The Magnolia State was one of 33 states in the union – not counting Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, who also instituted the mandate – to require its citizens to wear facial coverings.

    But the governor said he will still require people to wear face coverings in schools to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

    ‘We should not use the heavy hand of government more than it is justified,’ Reeves said at a news conference.

    ‘We have to tailor our actions to the current threat, and make sure that they do not go beyond what is reasonable.’