Saturday Morning Half-Assed Links

by | Nov 21, 2020 | Daily Links | 381 comments

Look, we were up late with an honored visitor. We drank wine. We over-ate. We had terrific and wide-ranging conversations. It’s really fucking early here. So don’t expect sparkling prose from me.

There’s a bizarre range of birthdays today including a massively misquoted free speech advocate; another guy I’d be happy to do some lines with; a guy who certainly was not a pipe; a guy who laid the groundwork for Coltrane and Parker; a woman who is the answer to the trivia question of, “What is the link between the LA Rams and the Outer Limits?”; a guy who set an example that all politicians should follow; a guy who liked the way I looked, and guaranteed it; Iceland’s number 1 export; and a guy who sings opera just for kicks.

With all that said and excuses made, let’s news this place up a bit.

 

How does this relate to global warming?

 

“Get rid of these ridiculous bureaucrats.”

 

I’m sure it will take a lot of work to talk her into it, right?

 

Indiana guns.

 

Strong union.

 

The spirit of Corbyn lives on.

 

This has done a lot to help keep traffic down here.

 

Old Guy Music sort of fits the theme.

About The Author

Old Man With Candy

Old Man With Candy

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

381 Comments

  1. Ted S.

    “Get rid of these ridiculous bureaucrats.”

    Isn’t Fauci one of those ridiculous bureaucrats himself?

    • Fourscore

      “ridiculous bureaucrats”

      Redundant

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I interpret the data differently and conspiracy theory aren’t synonymous. Also Fauci’s an asshole.

  2. Fourscore

    Y’all don’t need no stinkin’ oversight, OM. You’re doing right smart the way you’re a doin’ it.

  3. LCDR_Fish

    Seriously…all this talk of covid surges, etc. Work just keeps going on the same as it has every day. Still gotta email the base commander about his gym lockdown, but we did have a major VIP visit this week with no complications.

    • Fourscore

      Gov Walz, Hero of MN, “Lock ‘er down, boys, I think I’ve seen enough”

      Shuts down MN (again) last night. Qualifies as one of the ridiculous bureaucrats.

      • Ted S.

        Did he shut down the media and turn off their transmitters, too?

        Of course not, since they’re parroting his propaganda like the good little shills for the state that they are.

      • pan fried wylie

        Transmitters? Like, lasers?

  4. Scruffy Nerfherder

    It’s true, Disney does give you cancer.

    • Suthenboy

      I thought Disney was cancer

      • pan fried wylie

        Cancer is just your cells, so which part is Disney and which part isnt?

      • Jerms

        I took the kids to Disney a few years back and was wishing i had cancer so i didnt have to be there. Place is the worst.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        To my kids’ credit, they don’t really like the Disney movies.

        They much prefer the Studio Ghibli animation. As my middle kid put it, “Disney is really kind of stupid and predictable.”

      • pan fried wylie

        As a kid once….”Studio Ghibli”? Does it look good at least? It doesn’t sound good. I remember the shitty off brand cartoons. Looking back, i spent most of my time outside anyway, I dunno why we really needed the vcr. Oh, yeah, so my parents could watch porn, that’s why.

        But make me feel guilty for buying it. Crafty, cheap fuckers.

      • Ted S.

        You didn’t surreptitiously watch their porn?

      • pan fried wylie

        I was a stupid, obedient, well behaved child.

        That’s what I’ll curse on my deathbed.

      • Homple

        Have they seen “Grave if the Fireflies”?

      • Homple

        Grave OF the Fireflies.

      • pan fried wylie

        IF they’ve seen “Grave OF the Fireflies.”

      • Kwihn T. Senshel

        And the crazy thing about GotF is that it was part of a double-header with My Neighbor Totoro!

        For those that have seen both, imagine being a kid and seeing those back to back.

        (for those that haven’t seen them, very different in “weight”… GotF is not a feel-good movie by any means, although it is powerful)

  5. The Late P Brooks

    The nation’s leading infectious diseases expert, Anthony Fauci, voiced his frustrations about the spread of misinformation, saying, “Get rid of these ridiculous conspiracy theories.”

    Fuck off and die, you pompous little shit.

    • Chipping Pioneer

      The nation’s leading infectious disease expert

      OFFS

      • Sean

        I didn’t vote for him.

      • hayeksplosives

        “Leading” doesn’t mean “most qualified “ or “best.”

      • pan fried wylie

        “in front of”, like “first over the cliff” etc

      • blackjack

        Objection! Leading.

  6. Ted S.

    a woman who is the answer to the trivia question of, “What is the link between the LA Rams and the Outer Limits?”

    Technically, wasn’t Dominic a part owner of the team too, at least until he wound up in prison?

    • Old Man With Candy

      Community property. She got it from her last husband (the guy who lost the Colts in a card game), and Dominic had a CP interest after they got married,

      • Ted S.

        They should have just let the state of Maryland take the Colts by eminent domain instead of losing it in a card game.

  7. Trials and Trippelations

    I never thought I’d see the day when Old Man music featured a band I know and liked. I have actually been on a Gov’t Mule kick lately.
    I never made it to any of Haynes Asheville Christmas concerts, but I did see him at an Allman show 15 years ago.

      • Trials and Trippelations

        I like the message

      • blackjack

        Wouldn’t want to miss that!

    • blackjack

      I’m a fan of Haynes, too. I saw him with the Allmans 3 or 4 times. I like when the old man music takes a blues turn, instead of jazz.

    • PudPaisley

      I’ve been on a Warren Haynes kick for 30 years and Mule for close to 20. Totally geeked out on both.

      You should definitely try and make it to a Warren Haynes Xmas Jam. They really are special and probably my favorite day of the year. It’s all about pacing, though. It’s 8 hours of non-stop music (used to be longer, sometimes going until 5:30 in the morning). The night actually goes surprisingly fast as long as you take some breaks and don’t over drink.

      • blackjack

        I totally would, but I live in a state that’s a prison. No concerts allowed. Hell, we just got a curfew of 10 p.m. Until we get better grades, we gotta be home before then.

  8. The Late P Brooks

    On Friday, Canada’s chief public health officer outlined new modeling that painted a grim picture for the weeks to come and warned the country is “not on a good trajectory.” If people maintain their current number of contacts, Dr. Theresa Tam said, Canada could be logging 20,000 daily cases by the end of December. If contacts increase, that could surge to 60,000 new cases each day.

    Or the numbers COULD start going down.

    Fuck you and the model you rode in on.

    • Sean

      Wait, there’s 60,000 people in Canada?

      I’m calling #fakenews

      • Chipping Pioneer

        Well, I’ve been told that I could be infected multiple times per day.

      • pan fried wylie

        Per infectee.

      • cyto

        Well, if you count it on a cellular level….

      • pan fried wylie

        “McCovids: Trillions upon Trillions upon Trillions infectecd!”

    • mrfamous

      I am a mathematical modeler. I am despondent about what is happening to my profession. What we do can be enormously helpful and I’m exceedingly proud of the work I’ve done. But this crap damages us.

      I can make a model show you whatever you want it to show. But I do everything within my power to show you what I think is the best guess based on the available information, and then explain all the reasons why it might be wrong and how to proceed forward with the model as new data comes in.

      And I’m seeing the profession reduced to being the Oracle of Delphi. Knock that shit off, please.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        As I’ve tried to explain to numerous people, mathematical models are almost always vast simplifications of complex phenomena. In engineering, you’re usually trying to reduce the overhead of the calculations by getting close to your answer with a simplified model. In doing so, you’re ignoring second-order or higher inputs to the problem and edge effects. And that’s with something that is pretty well understood from a physical science point of view. Modeling human behavior and other living organisms is a nightmare of faulty inputs and poorly defined processes.

      • mrfamous

        Correct. However, in certain fields you absolutely _have_ to do it. The goal is not to be perfect, the goal (well it should be anyway) is to know more about the process than you did going in.

        The problem is that if you government official a variety of scenarios that could happen, they’re gonna pick and run with the one that they feel is in their own best interests, rather than try and craft a policy that is initially modest and adaptable to new info as it comes in. The “precautionary principle” rarely works as people think it will.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Absolutely. Bureaucrats and politicians employ the Precautionary Principle only in regards to their own jobs and power, not in regards to the effects their policies have on others.

      • pan fried wylie

        *gutpunch* UGH!

      • Fourscore

        But what if you let everyone do what they wanted? It would be chaos!

      • pan fried wylie

        Just demonstrate measuring a field. Way up above, it’s a square….nope.

        Done and done? Nope, they’re still fucking retarded.

      • pan fried wylie

        So, in other words, there’s no reason I can’t have cheap easy to use simulation software for everything, except for professions like yours.

        That was the gist last time i used SolidWorks. It’s all there and it works, but there’s still a market to sell it as a $20k software package because professions like yours “do everything within my power to show you what I think is the best guess based on the available information, and then explain all the reasons why it might be wrong and how to proceed forward with the model as new data comes in”.

        Seems like you could offer that service just as well after I’ve run my own simulations. I can make guesses. I even use the product in question, which you don’t. Justify your expense.

      • mrfamous

        I’m not sure I understand the response. My point is simply that I can build a model where masks reduce transmission rates by 90% and hand it to you and let you go to town on it. But I feel my job is to tell you whether the data supports such a model (obviously, it doesn’t). More than likely the data is such that a series of possible models ranging from “masks increase transmission by x%” to “no effect” to “masks reduce transmission by y%” and try and make my best guesses as to what the chances are of each _based on the available data_.

        If the politicians and media want to seize upon the last of those three and run hog wild with it, I’d feel it would also be my job to tell them why it’s dangerous to do so.

        As for what I do, it’s a completely different area than the one you work in, but in mine if you believe you know something and it turns out you’re wrong, that actually can do far more damage than simply knowing nothing about it in the first place. My specific inclination is to warn people away from “overfits,” IE getting people to step back from aggressive modeling and trying to get people to understand how ‘random’ the world can be. The media, however, thrives on aggressive predictions.

      • blackjack

        As somebody who’s dated models, none of this makes sense.

      • pan fried wylie

        That you exist is why SolidWorks still costs $20k. I’m blaming you for that.

      • pan fried wylie

        Unrealistic, Unfair, Unfixable. Totally.

        I’d vote for biden if he’ll gimme solidworks though. he won’t though, so fuck him. too bad I probably did anyway.

      • blackjack

        There’s models and there’s models and then there’s models. I like the third kind.

      • pan fried wylie

        “Revell Level 3”, ammirite?

      • blackjack

        Some strong assed glue!

      • pan fried wylie

        I’m just sayin, I could prolly build a scale model of the Cali dam for way less than a license to SolidWorks, and we could still answer those engineering questions.

        Computers have been a serious boondogglehornswaggling on the world. I say that as a professional boondogglehornswaggler.

        There’s time’s when you really need to boondogglehornswaggle a problem, but probably far more times when you could save the money and just wing it.

      • pan fried wylie

        The town’s getting flooded either way…

      • cyto

        In my former role at a financial services company, I tried to model out the net return on a bunch of potential business we were considering purchasing.

        They handed my team a bunch of numbers and a book of business and said “how much is this worth?” So off we went. I was easily able to price the future business…. but the problem was that my numbers kept coming up with losses. I knew better, because these sorts of deals were keeping the lights on and we were making a tidy sum.

        After beating our heads against that wall for many days, I took our results to the CEO and CFO and said “I can’t make any sense of this”. I explained that I had learned that the profitability was extremely sensitive to some initial conditions and assumptions…. and demonstrated with 3d graphs how changing those parameters wildly impacted the results.

        That’s when the CEO said his number of 9% was just a thumbnail he uses… and it has costs baked into the thumbnail.

        Well, damn.

        The real number is more like half that, but it fluctuates wildly over time.

        Well, damn.

        Go back and rerun the numbers …. and a huge profit pops out, giving him a realistic price he can offer.

        Da fuq, man? Ask me for a detailed answer on a quarter billion dollar portfolio, and give me a SWAG at the most critical number of the whole thing?

      • pan fried wylie

        You were asked to forecast based on nothing, and you did it, and nothing went terribly wrong.

        You should feel great about yourself. Thrilled. You have godlike potential. No one can stop you. BE THE GOAL.

      • pan fried wylie

        I’m sayin, I’d have quit. But I like to do real work, that makes sense.

      • cyto

        A nice stock option package argued differently.

        One that got wiped out in the financial crisis. So thanks for that, irrational regulators.

    • Chipping Pioneer

      At current positivity rates, they’d need to test a million people per day. Ain’t gonna happen.

      Nobody in the MSM notices, or wants you to notice, that all of the predictions have been off by at least an order of magnitude.

      • LCDR_Fish

        According to the daily updates I see in the dispatch, we’re getting nearly 2 million test results a day now.

        Guessing a lot of those are for folks who have to get repeatedly tested for sports, etc.

        I expect to have my first test all year in about 3 weeks. Supposedly less “invasive” now.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I’ve taken one in order to get an outpatient procedure.

        The nurse who administered the test was obviously sick of doing it.

      • cyto

        I found the nasal swab thing to be surprisingly unpleasant.

        Not terrifying, or even something worth telling a whole story about…. but just… surprisingly unpleasant.

        I had an image of what it would be like in my head.. .and it was uncomfortable and annoying. But the way they shove it way, way up there and leave it for so long…. it is just …. surprisingly unpleasant. Not a big deal… just more unpleasant than I had anticipated.

        Kind of like when you get your expectations set too high for a movie or a restaurant… and then it is just fine. Your overall impression is more negative than it should be. Or in that rare case where you expected something to suck and it turns out great.. that “going against expectations” bump. (for me it was “Princess Bride”, which I had not heard of and which the girls chose. I expected something terrible, and got a complete gem)

    • rhywun

      “Grim” is another one of those words I’m awfully sick and tired of lately. Usually paired with “milestone”.

  9. mrfamous

    “Fauci described how COVID-19 differs from the regular influenza, saying it is wrong to compare the two.”

    Um. When you have a line like that in a news story, one would expect then to see said description. But no dice. There’s nothing after that except Fauci moaning about being criticized.

    It kind of reminds me of right after the housing crash and the only attempt made by congress to apply the brakes to the forthcoming spend a thon. The wailing from the beltway types was absolutely insufferable (Megan McArdle chief among them). It’s very instructive how these people react when someone tells them ‘no’ for the first time in their professional lives. They are not used to not getting their way and they get ugly pretty quickly.

    • R C Dean

      Umm, by describing how the ‘Vid differs from the flu, didn’t he just compare them, which is wrong?

      • pan fried wylie

        no no no, he CONTRASTED them, that’s ok.

  10. Timeloose

    Time for a Dad joke.

    “Shooting at Wisconsin mall injures 8; suspect ‘at large’”

    Where is this “Large” and why can’t they just stake it out every time there is a shooting.

    • pan fried wylie

      Youngest son: What?

    • Sean

      Boooo!

      • Timeloose

        That is well deserved. I’ll be here all week…try the veal.

    • Not Adahn

      I thought all Sconnies were large, what with the beer and the brats and the cheese curds and the hotdish and…

    • Agent Cooper

      Wisconsin is at large.

  11. The Late P Brooks

    Thought crime

    On Nov. 7, I walked through downtown Los Angeles to see and hear the kind of jubilation one would associate with liberation from a foreign occupying force. The trauma inflicted by the Trump administration’s four long years — the Muslim ban, the border separations, the assault on democratic norms and institutions, the politicization of just about everything and, now, the crazed effort to overturn the results of this election — will take many years to heal, if it ever does.

    I think the trauma helps explain the strong reaction to the page we devoted last week to letters from Trump supporters. The assertions in the critiques fell into six categories:

    I can’t offer a succinct summation. You have to read the whole thing.

    Closest I can get to a tl;dr- Printing letters to the editor from people who do not despise you-know-who with the intensity of a thousand suns is journalistic malpractice.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Yes, downtown Los Angeles has been “oppressed”

      These people have a martyr complex that is beyond compare.

      • pan fried wylie

        Six figures arent enough to escape the oppressions?

        When will it end. Minimum wage, UBI, and reparations in the 15-figures for everyone!

        PETABUCKS FOR PRRRRRRRUHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! (“PRUH” is just loud nonsense.)

      • Ted S.

        I figured it was the sound the money printers make as they speed up.

      • pan fried wylie

        oh, duh, i was too dazed from the money spitting out hitting me in the face. pfft-fft—ftf-t-f–ft

        sorry, still sp—ffftt-f-f-f-ft yeah they dont stop.

  12. The Late P Brooks

    I am a mathematical modeler. I am despondent about what is happening to my profession. What we do can be enormously helpful and I’m exceedingly proud of the work I’ve done. But this crap damages us.

    What’s the point of a model, if it does not agree with and justify your prefabricated conclusion?

    • mrfamous

      I suppose it takes a certain mindset, but the most exciting part of my work is when I get a result the opposite of what I was expecting. Often, there’s a mistake or error somewhere that needs fixing, occasionally it means I’ve learned something I didn’t know before.

      • pan fried wylie

        when I get a result the opposite of what I was expecting

        That’s the best kind of signal, because it’s so clear to track down.

    • pan fried wylie

      Shhh, I’m already harassing’im on this one.

  13. The Late P Brooks

    The letters were portrayed as conveying the ideas and feelings of Trump supporters, but the editorial curation was unintentionally dangerous. The curation presented mild versions of the Trump campaign’s violent, oppressive messaging. Such presentations are how white supremacy and other forms of government-led hatred function — by tempering hatred as a set of reasonable policies while ignoring the dangerous resulting practices.

    Times readers have been reading Trump supporters’ underdeveloped arguments for years. Many of us have had to be aware of them for our own safety and survival. The published letters did not center those arguments, which demonstrates that many Trump supporters understand the president’s messaging is problematic, but they choose to ignore his violent rhetoric and his actions. Featuring these letters elevates the opinions of those who have accepted the hate as a byproduct of what they gain from a Trump presidency.

    Yumpin yimimy. Down, boy. Your meds; take them, you must.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Times readers have been reading Trump supporters’ underdeveloped arguments for years. Many of us have had to be aware of them for our own safety and survival.

      That may be the scariest thing I’ll read this month. If they truly believe that, then almost any action is justified in response.

      • Trials and Trippelations

        “ Many of us have had to be aware of them for our own safety and survival.”

        In LA?!?! I lived in LA county for a year, and while I ran into several conservatives (skewed sample selection they were all from an old, dying church) there was so secret conservative cabal running LA county

      • Plinker762

        +++They+++ are everywhere secretly controlling everything

      • pan fried wylie

        With the +’s, that means, what, Danish?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      And unsurprisingly, the author of that paranoid drivel came from the NYT to the LA Times.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        And WaPo before that. It’s the pipeline of idiocy.

      • TARDis

        Unfortunately it’s evolved into a network. Prognetᵀᴹ. All the deadly power of Skynetᵀᴹ, but with none of the intelligence and compassion.

    • Rebel Scum

      his violent rhetoric and his actions

      His what?

      I definitely do not inhabit the same reality as this person.

    • kbolino

      Such presentations are how white supremacy and other forms of government-led hatred function — by tempering hatred as a set of reasonable policies while ignoring the dangerous resulting practices.

      This too is projection. Substitute “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in place of “white supremacy” and the sentence reads just as, if not more, accurately.

      The constant motte-and-bailey tactics employed to get what they want and paint anyone who disagrees as a Nazi is a big part of how they have wedged their way into positions of power and influence. Their ideas lead to suffering, resentment, and strife but they care not because they think they will get to rule the ashes and along the way only the bad people will suffer.

  14. The Late P Brooks

    The Times should dedicate itself to more fully representing the full range of opinions in California and why people hold them. From there, a more meaningful and inclusive dialogue might begin.

    This may best be effected by censoring any and all voices with whom I do not agree.

    These people are not as self aware as two year olds.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      meaningless and exclusive

  15. Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

    Yay! OMWC links! Now I have something to do with my morning!

  16. PieInTheSky

    Does anyone know anything about Maker’s Mark Cask Strength? It is at a discount but still pricey. A bit out of my range but was interested in trying a higher priced bourbon.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      I’ve never had it, but I’ve heard decent reviews from others.

      • PieInTheSky

        280 lei is a lot of scratch

    • DrOtto

      The Maker’s is fine, but might I suggest Old Grandad 114. The picture on the bottle is Basil Hayden. It’s chea…, er, I mean inexpensive, and a great value. I paid $22 for a 750ml. First swallow is a little hot, but mellows nicely after that. You’re welcome.

    • Aloysious

      Had it. It’s, for me, quite tasty.

      Being cask strength, it will put hair on your chest.

    • PieInTheSky

      ..

      • Not Adahn

    • l0b0t

      Why do the Students Of Color™ get to reclaim a space that was never theirs? Is that not a sacred Indian burial ground? Shouldn’t the poor oppressed First Peoples get a say?

      • pan fried wylie

        DO YOU EVEN ANGLISK, BRAO?

    • Not Adahn

      Someone seriously needs to write a letter to the editor raging about how white colonizers need to keep their filthy hands off of their [insert tribe here] sacred rock.

      Maybe there’s someone on Indian Twitter we could persuade to launch a crusade?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The dumbest part by far:

      After the rock is removed, the Black Student Union’s focus will shift to generating ideas for how students of color can reclaim the space, such as installing a piece of art, McWhorter said.

      “So it becomes a way to celebrate instead of having it as an empty space reminding us of what it once was,” she said.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        A statue of Malcolm X holding a white person’s severed head seems appropriate.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Mark my words, after whatever they decide on is erected, the artist(s) will be celebrated as brave and stunning.

        They’ve brought the concept of the participation trophy to a whole new level.

      • Plinker762

        Put up a giant watermelon?

    • hayeksplosives

      All I got was this racist rock…

      • pan fried wylie

        dammit, i still gotta wait for the next racist rock to bust out “niggerhead?”.

        The aniticipa **yaaaaaaaaawnnn** what?

      • blackjack

        In the 70’s, that could have been somebody’s giant pet.

      • Gdragon

        Oh, so black people are pets now are they? 😉

    • rhywun

      “niggerhead,” a commonly used expression in the 1920s to describe any large dark rock

      Several sentences later…

      University historians identified the news story as the only known instance of the offensive term being used

      LOL ?‍♂️

      • Fourscore

        Back when Ol’ Fourscore was aspiring to become a One Score that was the word we used when we were drilling and hit a hard substance that deflected the drill bit. It would make the whole rig shutter until we got past or through it. We were always at loggerheads when that happened.

      • rhywun

        Logger, please.

    • JMBOO

      Just goes to show, money is no object when doing the right thing.

  17. Not Adahn

    NPR was talking about the limited amount of coofdrugs and how they needed to be allocated fairly. They said that they should only be given to those who needed them most which was 65+, underlying conditions… and non-white.

    Oooooh goody. I cannot wait to see how this plays out.

    • Ted S.

      Wait until we see the side effects from the drugs/vaccines.

      • Not Adahn

        Yup. It’s going to be a perfect shitstorm of mutually incompatible viewpoints. If only they would write “Islam is right about women” on the side of the vials.

      • Fourscore

        Some youngster can have mine (and the missus’s) We don’t need/want any stinkin’ vaccines.

      • DrOtto

        Reminds me of the ’80s when McDonalds was taken to task for only advertising to whitey. They changed. 10 years later, McDonalds was sued for “targeting” black communities with their unhealthy food. It’s always a set up.

    • Trials and Trippelations

      I work at a hospital and none of the other nurses want this shoddy vaccine. We are hoping healthcare workers are not one of the targeted groups

      • Ted S.

        Yeah; I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but I would like to see the side effects before taking it myself.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        You most certainly will be, probably the first, period.

      • pan fried wylie

        We are hoping healthcare workers are not one of the targeted groups

        Is that like hoping the sun wont rise? The wind wont blow? Congress wont fuck you in the ass?

        Have you calibrated your realisticismeters recently?

      • Trials and Trippelations

        “ Is that like hoping the sun wont rise? The wind wont blow? Congress wont fuck you in the ass?”

        Yes ?

        Oof I really mistyped that. I know HCW are on the top of the list. The hope is more for delay, delays, delays, and old people that want it get it first.

        The real prayer is that there is a feasible opt out, which there won’t be ?

      • JMBOO

        Will they at least have the common courtesy to give you a reach-around?

      • R C Dean

        Are you kidding? Healthcare workers are literally at the front of the line, as in, the first production run is reserved for them.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Except of course HCQ + Zinc

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      “non-white”

      But of course..they seriously need to cut this shit out or whites are going to be reidentifying with their racial group for electoral purposes.

      • Rebel Scum

        It’s like leftists are trying to create white racists.

      • R C Dean

        Pish. Everyone knows Fraudulent-Americans are the voting bloc that matters.

    • blackjack

      They should inner city gangsters distribute it on street corners. That usually gets a whole bunch of drugs out quickly.

      • pan fried wylie

        But then ONLY to blacks. Was that the goal? I haven’t been keeping up, who’s got some crack?

    • l0b0t

      DAMN! USMC Aviation, the bar has been set; go give those Russkies what fors ’til they cry brassafrax!

  18. l0b0t

    Good morning everyone. The prosciutto bread was so damn good, we finished the loaf last night (1 sneaky slice at a time) and will make another one today.

    Pan Fried Wylie, thanks for joining in the zoom thingie, it was nice to meet you, as it were.

    • pan fried wylie

      Heh. Festus seemed less than impressed in the remnants of last night’s thread. Left me confused. Seemed like an amicable night to me. BUT IMZ TEH DRUNZ OH NOES…

      I dunno. Tell me to fuck off and I can fuck off, I don’t need to be here.

      • Not Adahn

        Something about semen in your hair and holding a turd while calling it a Hershey bar?

      • pan fried wylie

        *shrug*

      • Old Man With Candy

        How does one fry a turd?

        Man, we apparently left Zoom far too early.

      • pan fried wylie

        Words words words words….

        It was a tame hangout on zoom. If the first time I joined zoom becomes the jizzturdwhizzbaghowdidyamissitparty that never was…I dunno. I probably won’t be back just out of convenience.

      • l0b0t

        Just make this bread. All will be right with the world for a day or so.

        https://youtu.be/h2bxvkMltl0

    • CPRM

      I was going to join the zoom, then I got high drunk and fell asleep around 5pm and slept until 5am. Nice waste of a night off. But I’m drunk now, so Saul Goodman.

      • Fourscore

        Drinking coffee out of my favorite cup. You’re a good man, s’aul. Wish someone would come so I could show off the cup. thanks, CPRM. “Til next year, Bud.

      • l0b0t

        12 uninterrupted hours? Sounds Heavenly.

      • The Bearded Hobbit

        @CPRM

        According to the good folks on zoom last night I look like an older version of you.

        Take that as you will.

      • CPRM

        A lady fren 19 years ago (when I was 18) called me a hobbit because I had hair on my toes…So it seems to fit.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    A voice in the wilderness

    Progressives may suppose that, now that the country has come so far in recognizing the backwardness of racism, Americans can afford to be more exacting. And racism is indeed a gruesome reality that an enlightened America must get past as much as possible. However, there is a difference between embracing this goal as one among many and treating it as a religiously tinged mic-drop concern. Black or Latino Trump voters may know quite well that racism exists, or that Trump is racist, yet not prioritize it to the degree that the woke consensus assumes any sensible person would. To psychologically healthy individuals, the fact that Trump wouldn’t want to be their friend may seem an abstraction, as they will never meet him, have fulfilling lives that have nothing to do with him, and are quite sure that they are as good as him anyway. To these people, Trump’s policies, or even just some of them, or even just the cut of his jib, may seem more important than what Trump would say about them in private—or public.

    This outlook arguably represents a more sophisticated sensibility than the pitchfork attitude of many on racism. Think of those who since the 1980s have rejected the Great Books canon because the authors were white and almost always racist. Ahead of the curve? Maybe. Or one could see this condemnation of people for being unable to see beyond their time as simplistic and even anti-intellectual. Many, in fact, do.

    The idea that once anti-racism has acquired real purchase in our consciousness that it must be the measure of everything in how we evaluate those among us, in the fashion that Galileo’s detractors assumed Christianity must determine scientific inquiry, is not truth incarnate. It is a modern fashion, one that perplexes as many as it attracts. The notion that we are not whole until we are seen as perfect equals by all citizens is creative at best, but utopian at worst. Life as an individual is too rich for that vision to compel more than a subset of the population.

    The lesson here is that the identitarian left must not labor under the impression that all Black and brown people share their sense of racism as an ultimate deal breaker. Coalition building of the kind that will win future elections will require them to hold their noses and understand that to many perfectly sane people of color, policy matters more than rhetorical virtue on race and racism. They must also understand that few of such people will be amenable to schooling on the matter. Talk to them as prodigals who need to be taken out back and instructed in the gospel and you will only drive them to the next charismatic, incurious megalomaniac that rises from the Republican swamp.

    It takes him a little while to get there, but he makes it. I wonder how many of the Atlantic’s readers can swallow the bitter pill of recognizing black people as individuals with their own judgement of what is best and most important.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I’m not ceding the ground that racism is an undeniable fact of the American experience in 2020.

      The only way you can make that case is if you redefine “racism” into something so trivial as to be meaningless.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I’ll make that case that racism is an undeniable fact of the American experience in 2020 without using trivial examples:

        -Many companies now require nonwhite candidates for roles or even offer a bounty to recruiters to put the finger on the scale for nonwhite candidates for every role. I think this is racist towards both whites and nonwhites.

        -The proposition that the Covid vaccine should not be available to white people under the age of 65

        -On a personal level, I’m getting pretty fucking tired of hearing my school colleagues refer to every single issue we talk about in class as being about “women and people of color”. I think I’m going to start requesting they rephrase this to “everyone but white men” every time I hear it.

        -On a more trivial note, I find it insane that much of the media has started capitalizing Black and keeping white lowercase.

      • Gustave Lytton

        AUSA’s ARMY magazine is doing it as well.

      • DrOtto

        I read the phrase “women and people of color” and “racist” in my beloved Car and Driver for the first time several issues ago. I will not be renewing. I have been a subscriber since the ’80s.

    • Spartacus

      I wonder how many of the Atlantic’s readers can swallow the bitter pill of recognizing black people as individuals with their own judgement of what is best and most important.

      The fact that they are getting out of step proves that they don’t have any judgment. If they really had any, they would agree with me. C’mon, man!

      –Jomala Harriden

      • pan fried wylie

        is that JOE-mala or Jo-MAla.

      • Spartacus

        Where I come from, we always accent the first syllable, whether it needs it or not: JOE-MA-la

      • rhywun

        Jommie-la.

      • pan fried wylie

        Shhhhush-yooouuuuu!

  20. The Late P Brooks

    NPR was talking about the limited amount of coofdrugs and how they needed to be allocated fairly. They said that they should only be given to those who needed them most which was 65+, underlying conditions… and non-white.

    But what about Our Health Care Heroes?!

    • l0b0t

      As one of Joe Biden’s “Black ladies who stock the shelves at the grocery store“, I’m sure Gov Cuomo will want me to get one. I’m not gonna.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    The nation’s leading infectious diseases expert, Anthony Fauci

    I bet it says that right on his business cards.

    • CPRM

      Being appointed to a political position means you ARE THE BEST!

  22. Rebel Scum

    ‘Get rid of these ridiculous conspiracy theories’

    The WEF has been pretty open about its goals.

    • Rebel Scum

      …and how it is using a mild respiratory illness to achieve them.

  23. Rebel Scum

    Stacey Abrams would be a great Democratic Party chair if she could be talked into it

    Well, she has no shame and is likely venal, so I could see that.

    • blackjack

      Then, Clint Eastwood could explain things to her.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      It would have to be a wide and sturdy chair.

      • rhywun

        Meow.

    • Fourscore

      I read that as Stockey Abrams, that works too.

  24. Rebel Scum

    Shooting at Wisconsin mall injures 8; suspect ‘at large’

    Check the Big and Tall store.

  25. CPRM

    My PC wanted to do a windows update this morning, then a disk check.

    Spending like an hour watch random percentages role by…

    Inspired and Election Meme!

    • pan fried wylie

      An hour is excessive.

      Boot disk specs? NvME SSD?

      • CPRM

        Meh, it was Windows doing the update, then my BIOS wanted to do the disk check, then windows finishing the update and restarting, then Windows wanting to reboot to do a disk check…Then my BIOS re-doing the disk check. It was an odd cycle, and no SSDs, 20TBs of spinning disks.

      • pan fried wylie

        Why is your BIOS doing a disk check all the time? Also, 20TB of platters….WTF man, put your OS on a fucking SSD already. Any of those platters on raids? But you got a UPS. So as long as that’s good…you can avoid that 15hr rebuild. Get that shit outta your desktop.

      • CPRM

        Lets see 20TB of platters=$200. 10TB of SSD starts at what? $300?

      • pan fried wylie

        you only need 250gb to put your OS on.

      • CPRM

        But then everything else is still on spinning disks, so a disk check as such is still the same. (My OS is on a hybrid SS/platter no idea how it actually compares to SSD as a whole)

      • pan fried wylie

        I’ve never played with the SS/platter, but if it plugs in with a cable, it’s shit.

        The SATA interface is one of the biggest bottlenecks to the flash in a SSD. the NVME flash drives just plug the flash right into the PCIx bus via a lil slot on the motherboard, bypassing the old harddrive bus completely.

        And go into your bios settings and turn of the disk check. Do you have a reason for it every boot? I’ve never heard of that. Seems like it’s just going to wear the drives down faster spinning them for no reason checking for problems that arent there.

      • CPRM

        The hybrid drive is SATA, so that is a negative, yes, but is plenty responsive in most cases. I had left several memory intensive programs open for the last week while Windows was trying to demand a reboot for multiple updates. So this morning I finally finished recording the audio for the cartoon and then upon the reboot this cycle started.

        It doesn’t call for an HD check EVERY boot, just the cycle this morning. First time in 6 months.

        But! you’re missing the GOSPEL GOOD NEWZ!

        I made a MEME and got another step closer to making this months cartoon!

      • Hyperion

        Looks like SSD is going for about $100, a little more, per TB. So 10TB is going to be around a grand.

      • l0b0t

        I just picked up 2 14TB external drives from Best Buy for $187 each. SSD has a long way to go.

  26. Old Man With Candy

    Do you know who the best dinner guest is? One who brings hookers and coke. The second best? Once who brings Port and Kauai coffee.

    • pan fried wylie

      Eh….i dunno, you’re awake far too early to have had a REALLY good dinner guest last night…

      • Old Man With Candy

        I finally hit the wall at 0100, SP rolled into bed about 0500.

        The coffee is what’s keeping me alive at this point.

      • l0b0t

        They do grow a mighty fine bean in that volcanic Greenhell. Also, IIRC, they deserve credit for the national distribution of kettle-cooked style potato chips.

  27. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Poor, poor Gavin Newsom. My field of fucks to give is barren…

    One of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s children is quarantining after a school classmate tested positive for Covid-19, the governor’s office confirmed to POLITICO late Friday.

    Newsom’s child was exposed at his private school and has been in a 14-day quarantine, communications director Nathan Click said in an email. POLITICO is not naming the school or child for privacy reasons.

    It marked another rough turn for the Newsom family in a week where the governor has drawn harsh criticism for attending a 12-person dinner party at The French Laundry for a Sacramento lobbyist friend. The school exposure is likely to draw attention from teachers unions, who have called on the governor to close all campuses due to a surge in coronavirus cases.

    “The family has taken the potential exposure seriously and is following all state protocols,” Click said. “After being alerted by the school that a classmate tested positive for COVID-19, the potentially exposed Newsom child began a 14-day quarantine from the date of exposure in accordance with state public health guidance for schools.”

    Newsom received a rapid test this week that was negative and will get a nasal swab test this weekend, according to Click. All four Newsom children have tested negative, as has first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

    • CPRM

      first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

      WTF?

      • blackjack

        Wishful thinking. He’s hoping for some future partners.

    • R C Dean

      Doesn’t that also mean Newsom has to quarantine as well?

      I mean, assuming he has any kind of contact with his own child.

      • pan fried wylie

        Do you need a billy club in the face?

        This fucken guy over here…

      • blackjack

        I got sent home for 14 days because I talked to a guy who’s sister in law tested positive. Then he got ANOTHER two weeks because he rode in a vanpool with a guy who later tested positive. Now, everyone makes a big show of hanging out with that guy, hoping for a two week reprieve.

    • rhywun

      POLITICO is not naming the school or child for privacy reasons.

      OFFS.

      Here’s an eye-opener touching on what a wretched slime-ball that person is.

  28. cyto

    One question about the Jerusalem thing….

    How do countries have policies “recognizing” the capitals of other countries?

    I mean, I get recognizing or not recognizing a government of a country, or a claim over disputed territory. But at the end of the day, either you have control over a piece of land or you don’t. You are in charge of a region, or you are not.

    In Israel, they have been in control of Jerusalem for what… 53 years? Jordan claimed control over part of the city in 1950, but the 1967 war pretty much ended any such claims. Israel proper has only been around since 1948-49 in the modern incarnation. Why are we pretending that they do not control their borders and name their own capital city.

    We don’t even play that game in Ireland. The only other place that I’m aware of this nonsense going on is Taiwan, where apparently being a sovereign nation since 1919 doesn’t count for anything if China claims otherwise.

    That one at least is somewhat understandable. China is a nuclear power and can pretty much do as they please, within parameters. Likewise, nobody bothers disputing Russia’s claim over Crimea, even though they absolutely don’t have a leg to stand on. It is a moot point, and nobody really bothers with putting asterisks beside such claims…. and that was only in 2014.

    • pan fried wylie

      Yes, it’s political bullshit, next question.

    • CPRM

      Racist Islamophobe Confirmed!1!1!!11

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Seems appropriate here:

      The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations areforbidden to the Jews.

      Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is norefugee problem. Russian did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it, Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchman. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese-and no one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees.

      Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis.

      Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jewsto be the only real Christians in this world.

      Other nations when they are defeated survive and recover but should Israelbe defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews.

      No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on. There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Negroes are executed in Rhodesia. But when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him.

      The Swedes, who are ready to break of diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore, and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway.

      The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources. Yet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is toAmerica and the West in general.

      I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us. – hoffer

    • Gustave Lytton

      Since 1949, but a large part of the Taiwan thing is that they didn’t and still don’t officially dispute there is a single China. They’re just in disagreement about who controls it.

      Taiwanese independence is growing, but it still doesn’t even rule Taiwan.

  29. Tundra

    Good morning, Old Man!

    And a good morning to the rest of you freaks and geeks!

    I visited two restaurants yesterday, pre-lockdown. Jimbo and I had lunch at a neighborhood bar that’s been there for more than 60 years. It doesn’t look like they are gonna do the take-out route. Then last night my wife and I went to a local Tex Mex joint with some friends. We ate and drank too much, but it was really hard seeing the stress of the owners. They are gonna try to keep going with take-out, but we’ll see.

    I remain filled with rage. This can’t be good for me.

    Excellent song selection. I listened through twice and it made me want to see a live show again so goddamn bad.

    Have a great Saturday, people! I’ve got an extensive list of projects today, so wish me luck!

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      We got takeout at one of our favorite local restaurants yesterday for dinner. One of those old school Italian places with an Italian deli attached. Family is from Naples and have an accent so thick you can barely understand them. Such a gem in this middle of nowhere area. They seem to be doing okay. We usually buy provolone and mozz from their deli every week in addition to occasional takeout.

      We passed a Chinese restaurant, another local favorite, on the way there that is doing takeout only. There was at least 10 people standing in line which is more than I’ve ever seen preCovid so hopefully are doing okay.

      Hope your places can weather it.

    • Fourscore

      Finished up the business yesterday, Tundra, you’re in luck (again)

      • Tundra

        Thank you, sir!

  30. hayeksplosives

    I gotta stop listening to Mark Steyn. He’s depressingly spot-on.

    Do yesterday’s podcast included.a bit on a man Biden has picked to be his hate speech tzar. I think we all agree that “hate speech” is a bad distinction of crimes because it presumes to know the mind of the person committing the crime.

    Dis Person A commit aggravated assault on Person B? Yeah? Then prosecute person A for aggravated assault. Oh, Person A committed the assault because person B is a black tranny? Yeah? Then prosecute Person A for assault. Period.

    What’s really scary about Biden’s choice is two points:

    1) New tzar blames hate speech spewed for the acts of violence committed by people offended by the speech. For example, a French teacher recently showed the Charlie Hebdo cartoons to his class so they could discuss freedom of speech. The teacher was then decapitated for his troubles. The new tzar approach is that the teacher is responsible because he showed the cartoon.

    2) scary Point Two is that Biden’s new hate speech tzar casually threw “conspiracy theories” and even “false narratives” into the hate speech category.

    Wait, what? They are laying groundwork for total submission to the State. Even speculation of an alternative narrative is Hate?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      They are laying groundwork for total submission to the State.

      Yes. See the near total ban on opposing thoughts and ideas in many universities. That is their model.

      • cyto

        Groundwork?

        I kinda thought we were there back in 2008. We live in a world where the press decides as a group to stop covering the president’s briefings (because he’s winning over the people). We live in a world where the tech-press censor the actual president of the United States when they disagree with him.

        You remember all those science fiction tomes about a world run by corporations? Yeah, how close do you think we are now?

        If the most powerful man in the entire free world cannot fight them to be heard, what hope do we have?

        Conservative Treehouse just got deplatformed by WordPress. They are not that terribly different from us ideologically.

    • Tundra

      On Part of the Problem yesterday, the subject was Tech/Government censorship. All this shit is definitely scary, but I always have the same question: what the fuck can we do about it?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I found it interesting that Prop 16 failed miserably in California (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_16). Even with major donations, the vote was 57% against the elimination of the ban on racial consideration when hiring.

        It says to me that the leadership of the DNC and the corporate world is painfully out of touch with everyone else, including their own constituencies. That provides me with some hope, although it is faint compared to the fear of the TOP MEN just ramming thru their plans for the rest of us.

      • blackjack

        In the near future, all voting will no longer matter. Fuck all 40 million of the assholes that voted for Biden.

      • R C Dean

        “It says to me that the leadership of the DNC and the corporate world is painfully out of touch with everyone else”

        They’re doing pretty well with COVID panic.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I f they manage to get hate speech regs with the force of law behind them we really are finished.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Hopefully, Trump built enough of a firewall in SCOTUS to stave off the civil violence that is going to result from the criminalization of hate speech.

    • cyto

      Uh, you forgot point zero.

      0) There is a hate speech tzar.

      Good lord. Huxly and Orwell are spinning in their graves.

    • Hyperion

      It’s not complicated, they just get their priorities in order and go with it.

      1. Get rid of 2nd amendment.

      2. Get rid of 1st amendment.

      Not necessarily always in that order all of the time.

      That’s most of the job, the rest is just icing on the cake.

    • Charlie Suet

      Aren’t you slightly conflating hate crimes and hate speech? Hate crimes are indeed a stupid idea because they take something everyone thinks is bad and allege that it’s worse if a racial motive can be speculated.

      Hate speech is an even stupider idea because it won’t even be restricted to covering things that were traditionally criminal acts. Its advocates will pretend that they’re protecting the vulnerable even as the number of verboten comments grows and grows.

    • ruodberht

      The concept of mens rea presumes some sort of knowledge of mental states, so that’s not an objection. My objection to “hate speech” laws or “hate crimes” laws is that mental activity per se should not be illegal.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    Computers have been a serious boondogglehornswaggling on the world. I say that as a professional boondogglehornswaggler.

    There’s time’s when you really need to boondogglehornswaggle a problem, but probably far more times when you could save the money and just wing it.

    As they used to say about race car aerodynamics, “If it looks right…..”

    Says he person who wants F1 cars to go back to 450 horsepowers, so the aerodynamicists will be forced to focus their efforts on drag reduction instead of downforce.

    • CPRM

      An odd obsession on F1 cars for a plumbing parts salesman, but I’ll allow it.

    • mrfamous

      All I can say is that in my industry, before they started hiring people like me, the decision making was abysmal (which we pointed out, often). So much so, that when the first guy came along and started using people like me, he had so much success they made a Hollywood movie about him.

      My contribution to the field was probably worth a couple hundred million dollars. I live in a one bedroom apartment and drive a 12 year old car. I’m a touch unsympathetic to arguments that guys like me are overpaid, even when it’s easy to point to some situations where it’s very much true.

      We suffer from the fundamental problem that the people we work for have no idea whether we’re good at what we do or not, as it all seems like pure magic to them. Too often it unfortunately comes down to whether we tell them what it is they want to hear. Regardless of how good you are, no leverage = no money.

  32. Tundra

    Sagan with a nice kick in the balls:

    “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

    • cyto

      This is a well-studied phenomenon. It is actually a feature of the human mind that is exploited by scam artists to get you to double down and get scammed even more.

      • Plisade

        Do you know the psychological term for this?

      • Q Continuum

        Human stupidity?

      • R C Dean

        Sounds like confirmation bias to me.

    • Tundra

      Whoa, great choice!

      Turn off the TV just for a while
      Let us whisper to each other instead
      And we’ll hope that the corporate ears do not listen
      Lest we find ourselves committing some kind of treason
      And filed in the tapes without rhyme, without reason
      While they tell us that it’s all for our own protection

      1989. Damn, where has the time gone?

      • l0b0t

        Yep! “You and I, we never asked for any of this.”

        As a child of the 1970s, seeing the counterculture left go from railing against the dystopic panopticon from the (milquetoast) right to cheering and demanding that very tyranny in the space of 40 years has been a brutal betrayal.

      • cyto

        I cannot even wrap my head around it.

        Free speech used to be the absolute bedrock. They railed against anything and everything authoritarian. Now they demand compliance with their authority everywhere, all the time. Even outside the public sphere.

        It really is insane.

        I have a much greater appreciation for how things like Nazi Germany could happen now. People are remarkably malleable.

      • R C Dean

        I dunno. The left has been remarkably consistent from my perspective. Free speech for me, but not for thee. Right wing authoritarian bad, left wing authoritarian good. Etc.

        The mistake was in falling for their schtick that they were principled.

      • kbolino

        Well, the Old Left is dead. And I don’t mean that figuratively. They are literally dead. So is the Old Right. My maternal grandparents were Nixon hardliners. A decade has passed since they were laid to rest. The actual hippies, at least the ones who survived the 1960s, are close to if not already pushing up daisies.

        You can find cases of people who have been around long enough to have spoken out of both sides of their mouth, and heck pointing out long-term hypocrisy was a big part of Jon Stewart’s schtick back in the day (e.g. play clip of O’Reilly saying one thing in 1998, then saying the opposite thing in 2005). But they don’t constitute a mass of people. Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders will sing different tunes today than they did 10 or 20 years ago not because their entire generation has changed, but because they are appealing to a different generation.

      • Hyperion

        No different that the war mongering. Now if Trump pulls us out of Afghanistan, the 60s peaceniks will be the ones demanding we get back in there and make some moar warz real good and hard.

      • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

        Holy Crap I lit into pan fried in the comments. I want to take them back but on the other hand it is 2020. I0b0t is Judi’s favorite zoom-glib and she also has a nib-on for Neph.

      • l0b0t

        (Blushes) Aw shucks… I’m serious about the Victorian pedagogy though. I think a great many problems we face would be eliminated by a return to education fundamentals like rote memorization for arithmetic and cautionary tales of the heathen denizens of foreign lands. I have a relation on my mom’s side who graduated university in the early 20th century and had a working knowledge of Latin, Greek, and French; all to be a chartered accountant.

      • Gustave Lytton

        It wouldn’t be the worst thing.

    • rhywun

      Love that song.

  33. The Late P Brooks

    We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us.

    “The emperor has no clothes.”

    “Off with his head.”

  34. Chipping Pioneer

    I have an unusual tickle in the back of my nose this morning.

    So this is how it ends.

    It’s been nice knowing you all.

    • cyto

      It is either Covid or that supe from “The Boys” that makes heads explode.

    • blackjack

      I had a sore throat all weekend. I think I got it at the funeral I attended. People still get minor colds and the apparently eradicated flu. It lasted three days. I think skateboarding in a deep pool helped me overcome it.

  35. The Late P Brooks

    0) There is a hate speech tzar.

    Pick me! Pick me! I want to be in charge of hate speech. i hate everybody.

    • PieInTheSky

      how can we know for sure you are not just going to cash the pay check and do nothing?

      • Surly Knott

        Because, given the existence of such a tzar, that would be the best of all possible outcomes, which tzars never deliver.

  36. Q Continuum

    Tig ole’ bitties on Silicone Saturday.

    https://archive.li/KTvLf

    PS: There was definitely some weird shit goin’ down at the end of the previous post. Everything ok?

    • cyto

      I’m about to head to the air show in Ft. Lauderdale…. I’ll probably drain a 2 liter of Diet Mnt. Dew while I’m at the beach. We good?

      • cyto

        Oh, Ft. Lauderdale beach is the tie-in there. Lots of silicone.

    • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

      I got pissed off and lost my shit at pan being trollish. He acted the right cunte on the zoom and I am drunk.

    • Hyperion

      I made the mistake of checking out TOS just to see how severe their case of TDS is, at this point. Hoo boy, it has not improved. In fact, it’s fatal at this point.

      They have an article proclaiming Jeff Flake a real true libertarian while saying Massie and Paul are just basically Trump fan boys and fake libertarians.

  37. Timeloose

    I’m sitting in my breakfast spot for what might be the last time this year. It’s as packed as allowed. As I drove there I passed a line of 100+ cars waiting for their COViD tests.

    Apparently a lot of people want to travel for thanksgiving and come back home, so they follow the rules put forth by their betters.

    I’ll be at the gun shop afterwards buying more magazines.

    • PieInTheSky

      buying more magazines – what is the point of more magazines with no ammo?

  38. PieInTheSky

    Well the village mom lives in just got quarantined. I need to write a statement on a piece of paper if I want to visit her saying where I am going and why

    • PieInTheSky

      It is stupid because the village hit an arbitrary infections per 1000 people limit but it is a commuter area for Bucharest so most people there are actually working and getting infected in the city they just live in the village due to cheaper housing

    • Ted S.

      Can’t you just turn into a bat and fly there?

  39. cyto

    Interesting – Sydney Powell’s claims of releasing the Kraken to stop the claimed election fraud does not seem to have much traction with libertarians. It really isn’t a hot button issue at all, here or at TOS.

    Is that because of a sense of fatalism: that they have not one chance in hell of succeeding? Or is it that nobody believes a word of it? Or is it that everyone is just waiting to see if there is any substance beyond some mail room guy puffing his chest out and claiming that he saw a sandwich truck?

    Not to cast any aspersions… but the “alt media” is known for their embrace of kooky conspiracy theories. Yet this one is getting a pretty big “hands off” approach. I know a couple of conservatives who pass around the news of the day about Powell’s efforts, but even they don’t seem to energized. Two or three messages a week about it. The guy passed out at Wendy’s in Atlanta generated more than that in 15 minutes from these guys.

    • PieInTheSky

      meh as an outsider I think you are past the point where clear enough evidence can be found so it is all performance art

      • kbolino

        As a non-outsider, I feel the same way. This is becoming Russia Fever Dreams 2.0. There is plenty of smoke, but as yet no fire.

        I think ballot harvesting serves as a plausible explanation, and ballot harvesting was made 10x easier this election by the eleventh hour push to use mail-in voting. I have no doubt people crossed ethical and probably legal lines to get more ballots for Biden, and quite often it seems only for Biden. But proving that out is going to be next to impossible.

        The fact that everybody and their brother was in the tank for Biden, from the postal workers, to the election officials, media figures, major corporations, secretaries of state, judges, and bureaucrats, certainly does no favors for Trump.

        Our institutions have been hollowed out. The long march is still ongoing, but it has already advanced considerably since 4 years ago. It doesn’t take “massive fraud” it just takes complicity.

      • blackjack

        Man, they spent millions of dollars and years of time prosecuting “collusion” and there was not a single person willing to put thier name behind any accusation of any law breaking. Sidney has a couple of hundred real people with sworn affidavits. Meaning they get prosecuted if they turn out to be lying. She found them in a short couple of weeks. EVERY FUCKING INDICATOR says this election was rigged. It walks and talks like a duck. “Collusion” never once seemed reasonable, voter fraud is the only logical explanation. The gaslighting is very powerful.

      • kbolino

        I have a feeling that the way this is going to play out is that every specific, provable instance will be downplayed. It will be a couple dozen to a couple hundred ballots affected per instance, adding up to less than the margin of victory. Much hay will be made about how this is calling into question the otherwise rock-solid Integrity of Our Elections, and a handful of people will be given slaps on the wrist to show that it’s Not Okay to get caught. Under President Biden, the GOP in the Senate will make a show of passing some kind of bill, which will inevitably expand the government, waste money, and create a bureaucratic fiefdom that will be skinsuited from day one and later used against them like everything else they’ve done, to show that they took the Concerns of Their Voters seriously. Then, I imagine, nothing else of consequence will change.

      • kbolino

        Let me just caveat this cynicism by saying I don’t think everything is hopeless, I just think the GOP is hopeless. Trump ruffled their feathers and shook up some established power structures but they will get their eternal wish to return to business as usual soon. Longer-term change, which is needed, requires people outside the political establishment to take action. I think that can definitely still happen, and probably will. But I expect less than good things to happen from the sort of people who are at least 50% responsible for the current mess.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        ^This. I am amazed how quickly the hundreds of affidavits, including from Democrat poll workers, are just being hand-waved away as a nothing.

    • Hyperion

      Well, TOS is NOT a libertarian site, so…

    • Hyperion

      It can’t be taken seriously because Guliani. Exactly what I’ve been saying for a long time would be Trump’s downfall, the people he surrounds himself with. If he had a real AG and not a Bush establishment holdover, things may have turned out differently.

      • l0b0t

        I agree; Trump has made some stupendously bad hires. IMO, Trey Gowdy should have been the AG from the begining.

      • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

        Trump always hires pretty before smart. “That weirdo with the jug-ears? Fuck him.”

      • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

        The reason he puts up with Rand is his nubbly hair. I’ll bet that Trump rubs Rand’s hair on the first tee for luck.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        That was offsides in the 2016 debates, teasing Rand about his hair. I like his hair. I am also generally pro-beard on men, even Justin, but it’s up to the whisker-grower.

      • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

        My hair was Scottish ringlet when I had hair.

      • grrizzly

        Trump could not have a “real” AG because all his appointments have to be confirmed by the Senate Republicans. They are an integral part of the swamp. The Republicans on the Senate Intelligence committee are fully complicit in spying on the Trump campaign. Now, could Trump accomplish more with tricks like appointing Ric Grenell? Maybe, but those are only temporary appointments.

      • l0b0t

        Robert Barnes has made this point on the Viva Frei podcast. He rails against McConnell as the main reason Trump gets stuck with terrible employees.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The burden of proof is very high.

      I think it’s largely fatalism. Except with TOS, with them it’s just stupidity and a desire to be socially acceptable.

    • Q Continuum

      “they have not one chance in hell of succeeding”

      Can’t speak for anyone else, but this applies to me. We saw Herself do something so blatantly illegal with the private email server, with mountains of evidence, and she gets off scot free. We saw King Zero use the Nation’s surveillance apparatus to spy on and try to sabotage an opposing campaign, again with mountains of evidence, and nothing has happened.

      We’re way past even paying lip service to equal treatment under the law; wouldn’t matter if the CEO of Dominion waltzed into the Capitol and testified before Congress that he personally reprogrammed the machines to guarantee a Biden win, nothing would happen, no one would be held accountable and we’ll still continue to use the same shitty election methodology in perpetuity. Let the pre-Harris administration begin!

      • LemonGrenade

        Yeah, I’m right there with you. My tits are calm, as the saying goes, but until I see someone get arrested, I’m preparing to get it gooder and harder by a government that has long since dropped any pretense of governing by the consent of the people.

      • Urthona

        I don’t really care if anyone is arrested at this point or if any election is overturned.

        Prove it to me first.

      • Q Continuum

        My point is that even in the event that unequivocal proof, nothing will happen no matter what.

      • Urthona

        Yeah it will. America will know the election was bullshit and think about our country accordingly thereafter.

    • Urthona

      I just strongly suspect Powell’s claims are nonsense.

      But also there’s some fatalism.

      We just did a recount in Georgia which used Dominion. Nothing was found.

      The Wisconsin counties being recounted didn’t use Dominion.

      • R C Dean

        Did the recount use Dominion?

        I saw some stories of big errors during the recount (all mysteriously going Biden’s way) and totally inadequate monitoring.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        The Georgia recount was fraudulent. There is audio of an election official saying they were told to use the original vote numbers for the recount number.

        Either the audio is fabricated or not. If it’s legitimate, there’s your fire, smoking gun, or whatever you want to call it.

      • Urthona

        That seems like an entirely different level or conspiracy than the Dominion thing.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I may be misunderstanding, but I think you are saying that the Dominion fraud is suspect because the recount numbers match the original votes in GA which used Dominion. Right?

        I am saying that the GA recount can’t be used to disprove Dominion. Dominion may be false, but that should easily be able to be disproved directly with the datasets. I would not use the numbers of a suspect recount where it’s alleged that the original numbers are being reported to do so.

        As far as my fire/smoke statement, there are already hundreds of fires and smoking guns. Audio of GA election official acknowledging the recount is a complete fraud is just another to add to the list.

      • Urthona

        Secretly setting some software to use a scaling algorithm seems like something someone could get away with w/o being caught or directly implicated.

        Making poll workers fake a recount seems basically impossible. One loose end and they all go to prison.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        One loose end and they all go to prison.

        Who will prosecute? The GA state swamp who told them to do it? The Biden administration?

      • The Hyperbole

        But as far as I have seen the recount numbers don’t match the original, it could be BS I didn’t verify it myself but I read that 73% of the precincts were within a couple dozen votes, 25% were dead on, leaving 2% with ‘large’ discrepancy. They didn’t get in to what those “large’ ones were but I also have heard of three or four ‘found ballots’ a few hundred here and 2-3 thousand there.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Do you have a link for that? I looked the other day and couldn’t find anything.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        https://twitter.com/jennybethm/status/1328888692547538945

        Again could be fabricated. The problem is that there are no mainstream media investigating at all. Sources like this is the only place where anything is going to come up that people like us are going to see anything.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Thanks.

      • Urthona

        I mean you’re talking scores of poll workers being in on a conspiracy. The Dominion thing would be small potatoes.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        And there are scores of poll workers coming forward and saying so.

        This is what i don’t get. Whenever we hear about this kind of shit, the common refrain is that something so big couldn’t be kept a secret and someone would say something so we know . There are literally hundreds if not thousands of people coming forward from all across the country and acknowledging or even swearing under oath to observing or being told to commit massive electron fraud.

        Every one of those people is evidence. If Trump has been behind this, we would seen 24/7 non-stop news coverage of the greatest election fraud event in American history.

      • Urthona

        If you can get everyone working polls to cheat like that and no one cares why exactly do you need Dominion?

      • blackjack

        Look man, the polls all said it was gonna be a slam dunk for team hammer and sickle. They had no idea it was gonna take so much heavy lifting. When that became apparent, they stopped counting long enough for the trucks full of ballots ( with perfect, printer looking bubbles only on Biden’s slots, not down ballot) to show up. That’s when Biden got all of his dictator like vote ratios.

        If you’ve seen the blue team for the last four years, it’s obvious that they cheated. They cheated last time too. They booby trapped the whole system, trying to get Trump thrown in prison. His offense was standing in the way of Herself. This country is universally ( well, almost) pretending that life is still normal like it was 20 years ago. It fucking ain’t!

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I’m not saying Dominion happened, but if it did the reason would be because it’s cleaner and involves less people.

        It’s much quieter to manipulate the votes electronically. It’s alleged the algorithms and machines were originally created for Chavez in Venezuela. Then they began being used in other countries before ending up in ours. There is a definite link between dem officials double dipping while being on Dominion’s payroll and signing fat contracts using tax payer funds to use Dominion machines. Leaving aside the election fraud claims, there is rampant graft and corruption with this company.

        The allegations are that the fraud was just to be committed quietly and cleanly with Dominion. Trump received more votes than the algorithim could account for. When this became apparent on election night, the Dems panicked shut counting down in every swing state. That wasn’t part of the plan. This was when they started trucking in ballots and directly changing the vote counts in the software. I still have not seen a single explanation anywhere for why Trump’s vote total actually went down on election night during the ballot count pause.

      • blackjack

        Exactly. They looked at the polls, probably cut the margin in half to be safe, and adjusted the algorithm to account for that expected result. They still have no idea why anyone would vote for lower taxes, less regulation and a strong economy. They were shocked to see Trump getting so many votes.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      any substance beyond some mail room guy puffing his chest out and claiming that he saw a sandwich truck?

      Comon, at least be honest and say its hundreds of people, including Democrat election officials, swearing under oath.

    • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

      My penis is just the right size for servicing me. So what if I need to strap it against my leg?

    • Urthona

      Also maybe research the clitoris.

  40. PieInTheSky

    It seems I miss all the good stuff on zoom. I blame the roundness of the Earth

    • TARDis

      #metoo

      I blame my parents. They should have known their DNA was incompatible for producing functional human beings.

    • PieInTheSky

      I thought the daily star was a commie site. Posting racy sheet smells like commercialization… than again don’t blame the player blame capitalism

      • CPRM

        You blieve the the earf is round ant in capitilism?! U be stupit! Haha, im sumuch smertaer! I vetoed fer jo Bidenrt!

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        I think it’s just a tabloid (whose editorial position I admit I am ignorant of). Are you thinking of the Morning Star?

      • PieInTheSky

        Are you thinking of the Morning Star? — probably

      • kbolino

        I think you’re thinking of the Morning Star.

      • Ted S.

        That better be “Yes, Minister”.

      • Raven Nation

        Naturally (Yes, Prime Minister to be precise).

  41. The Late P Brooks

    Sydney Powell’s claims of releasing the Kraken to stop the claimed election fraud does not seem to have much traction with libertarians. It really isn’t a hot button issue at all, here or at TOS.

    Fatalism. I basically cannot bestir myself to even read about it, because I see no chance whatsoever that multiple state election results as reported will be reversed, no matter how rotten they might prove to be.

    It’s not as if a Biden victory was completely inconceivable. Down ballot results indicate, to me, that what we saw was a referendum on Trump as a person. It’s too bad those people were too dumb to see the down-the-road ramifications of voting for President Placeholder, but they’ll get it, eventually. Good and hard.

    President Flaming-Bag-of-Dogshit was my sentimental choice, but i am quite accustomed to being wrong.

    • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

      They’ve replaced one cackling Harpy with another. Joe won’t last six months.

      • Homple

        I wonder if Jill and Kamala have an agreed plan to put Joe away in an orderly manner when the time comes. If Jill goes all Edith Wilson it might imperil the peaceful transfer of power, so important in Our Democracy.

    • Kwihn T. Senshel

      Seems like all these archive.xx links can’t be reached if one is using CloudFlare as their DNS. So, the 1.1.1.1 service (Android/iOS app), or if you have that set on your local domain/computer.

      According to this link, it looks like Archive has chosen to not publish their IPs with CloudFlare. No idea why.

      Just an FYI for any Glibs having this issue.

      • Q Continuum

        Then you miss out on the tits!

      • Kwihn T. Senshel

        Oh, I didn’t say that ** I ** was using CloudFlare…

      • kbolino

        The why seems to relate to the fact that CloudFlare refuses to implement EDNS extension “Client Subnet” on their DNS requests, for privacy reasons. The purpose of the extension is to provide better geolocation of users so that content can be served to them from more local nodes in the network. However, a naive implementation of the extension would send a client’s entire IP, thus exposing who made the query to the authoritative nameserver on behalf of whom CloudFlare is making the request. Even when implemented “properly” such that only the highest 24 bits are sent, in many cases this still exposes information about who the originator of the request really is. It’s also, frankly, nigh impossible to reliably determine what portion of an arbitrary IP address minimally exposes the originator’s identity and maximally exposes the originator’s geographic location, especially in cases where the IP CIDR assignment is not geographic to begin with.

        On their end, Archive.xx insists that this field be present and serves bogus responses from its nameservers when requests come in that lack it. Personally, I think CloudFlare has the better argument here, and Archive.xx is just being intransigent. They could still serve a best guess response and use anycast, ASN, BGP, or other tools to geolocate and route at request time instead of at name resolution time.

      • kbolino

        (on the other end, if you think using CloudFlare is affording you much in the way of privacy because of this, don’t read too much into it: your DNS query may not include your actual IP, but your actual request to the target site has to include your public IP address to work; using CloudFlare gets you a little bit of anonymity in one aspect of how the Internet works, but you can’t hide your network identity from a website you willingly visit)

      • Kwihn T. Senshel

        you can’t hide your network identity from a website you willingly visit

        At risk of pedantry that you likely already know, you can’t hide the last-hop requester’s IP address from the target.

        But good info, thanks – I hadn’t dug into it other than a cursory glance at a couple of top DDG hits.

      • kbolino

        True. The last hop distinction matters when VPNs and proxy servers are involved.

  42. Fatty Bolger

    Looking at that picture of Justin Trudeau in the covid article… did he deliberately grow a beard like his (real) Dad’s? He’s supposed to be a “prankster”, seems like the type who would enjoy doing something like that.

    • CPRM

      #1 your middle finger gigging is back

      #2 After less than a year of working with the guys on my work shift they both started trying to grow beards (I’ve had one for about the last 17 years). Am I a trendsetter?

      • Fatty Bolger

        your middle finger gigging is back

        WOO HOO!!!!

        Could be they’re emulating you, especially if they look up to you and/or you are older. Men will do that, usually without realizing it.

      • The Hyperbole

        Unfortunately the quality has degraded yours looks okay, if a little pixelly, my “Two giraffe’s with a hyena watching” is unrecognizable.

      • Gustave Lytton

        That’s about how long I’ve had mine. Got out of the Guards and decided to let the Hitlertasche and goatee in between just go into a full beard. No need to shave anymore.

  43. l0b0t

    Apropos of nothing but a desire for escapism – Like Rumplestiltskin

    • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

      I can smell the Brylcreem and testosterone from here.

  44. Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

    He’s a perpetual frat boy that failed up on the family name. He thinks that he’s making a funny. He’s always going to think that he’s on his gap year https://youtu.be/eKFjWR7X5dU

  45. Ted S.

    I hope Rhywun is enjoying the tennis.

    • PieInTheSky

      In Romanian tenis rhymes with penis. In english not so much. This is off course unrelated but it reminded me of a stupid kids joke in Romania

      • Suthenboy

        I am guessing the punch line involves ‘fuzzy balls’

      • Chipping Pioneer

        Teaness? Or pennis?

      • PieInTheSky

        pennis

    • rhywun

      Went shopping. What’d I miss?

      Oh. I’m on Team Thiem. Go, Thiem!

  46. Q Continuum

    Let me preface this by saying that this is not in any way meant to be an insult/attack on anyone here; I’m just as guilty as anyone of this.

    It is my understanding that consistently expecting too much of people and situations then being let down and getting angry about it is a sign of low emotional intelligence. I think this goes double for highly abstract situations over which you exercise no control. It’s a disconnect between the feeling of disappointment and the inability to learn that the feelings are a direct consequence of your expectations being too high, not of the external stimulus. Since low intelligence is really an inability to learn, this tracks with me.

    Punchline: I’m trying to be more mindful and accepting of the external world and its constituents in order to raise my emotional intelligence. You can call it fatalism or lowering your expectations or whatever you want, but as a result my tits have been much calmer and I’ve been much happier.

    Calm tits.

    https://archive.li/GXIiM/37056cdd15e3da856b130205777bbe0f5bc8a48c.jpg

    NSFW.

    • PieInTheSky

      Let me preface this by saying that this is not in any way meant to be an insult/attack on anyone here – screw you buddy

      sign of low emotional intelligence – there is no such thing as emotional intelligence

      my tits have been much calmer – that is because you wont have a baby sucking on them all the damn time

      • Mojeaux

        that is because you wont have a baby sucking on them all the damn time

        I had two babies and that didn’t happen at all. God bless formula.

      • PieInTheSky

        but apparently it is better for the babies to suck a tit once in a while.

      • Mojeaux

        Not when there is nothing there for them to eat.

      • PieInTheSky

        I was mixed as a baby. I don;t know if it was the milk or my stomach but I needed formula as a supplement so I got both.

      • CPRM

        Do you remember this, or is this the story your ‘mom’ told you? (Basically, I’m saying you were stolen by gypos, prove me wrong!)

      • PieInTheSky

        I was not stolen only my real mom could love me

      • CPRM

        Mojooux hates dry cow!

      • Mojeaux

        Did you just … call me a cow?

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        What would you call EI then? just “maturity”? If so I can dig that.

      • PieInTheSky

        something without the word intelligence in it which makes it reminiscent of the stupid multiple intelligence theory. or basically call it nothing. what concept exactly should be defined?

    • Mojeaux

      My husband has taught me well in the ways of low expectations.

      There still comes a time you need to step back, ignore, or block people and/or events and/or circumstances and/or situations.

      • PieInTheSky

        My husband has taught me well in the ways of low expectations. – burn

      • Mojeaux

        Oops. That didn’t come out right.

      • PieInTheSky

        no, I’m sure 3 inches is enough

      • PieInTheSky

        ok that was a bad joke and I take it back. please ignore

      • Mojeaux

        Okay, thanks.

    • PieInTheSky

      also fake tits tats and piercings. meh

    • Gustave Lytton

      Turn off the tv or outrage media stimulus can reduce that disconnect to a manageable level. Sorry glibs, I vent here because meatspace doesn’t work too well. Wifey gets personally upset over an offhand comment that would get ignored here.

    • Chipping Pioneer

      I’m trying to square this with the local mask mandate. It upsets me. It upsets me that I have to have that awkward interaction in every place I go in. So, should I just lower my expectations of society and the people in it and just wear a mask?

  47. Kwihn T. Senshel

    If I’m hearing you right, Q, I think your underlying premise seems to be a version of “think of how dumb the average person is; now realize that half of the people are dumber than that, so why get worked up”, yes?

    For me, the emotional reaction stems not so much from others not meeting expectations (although I admit I do struggle with that sometimes), but rather that the sheeple are now directly impacting my life. I’d like to think that I don’t believe most people will think critically or any deeper that what they see on TV. However, when their lack of awareness restricts my movement, freedom, etc., then that is more difficult to not react to.

    So, I think I agree with your point overall, but also think that “being let down and getting angry” can have more than one source.

  48. The Late P Brooks

    consistently expecting too much of people and situations then being let down and getting angry about it is a sign of low emotional intelligence

    Always expect the worst. Occasionally, you’ll get a pleasant surprise. The rest of the time, you can bask in the smug satisfaction of knowing your judgement was correct.

    • Mojeaux

      I wasn’t expecting much when XX got a job at Walmart and I’m ecstatically surprised. Once she just said, “I hate school” life got a lot easier for all of us.

      Her bank account is just this much shy of 5 figures.

      Now she’s doing IT at a trade school and loving it, and she got an internship at Cerner before all the slots filled up in 7 minutes.

      She’s 17.

      I’m so proud I could pop.

      • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

        That is so cool. I want to hug you Mojo!

      • Mojeaux

        Consider yourself bear-hugged!

      • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

        *virtual non-compliant boner*

      • Gustave Lytton

        Amazing!

        I’m a firm believer in the power of routine work/drudgery to sharpen a person’s focus and drive, even if it’s I don’t want to ever do this manual labor again. My school years were a waste and I got far less out of them than I should have, mainly due to the lack of effort I put into it. And schools find that acceptable.

      • Mojeaux

        Me too, but I do wonder what I could’ve achieved if I had applied myself more in school. I hated school too, but I didn’t realize it. I did it because it was expected of me.

        Then one day when I was applying for law school, my bestie at the time said, “Why? You hate school.”

        Huh. So I do.

        The only classes I really loved were my art and fashion classes, which I took on a lark.

      • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

        I excelled at Bio and Art. Jamie Gumm jr. Kidding! I was good at history and Lit too. They were pushing me to be a teacher or a lawyer.

      • Kwihn T. Senshel

        I loved learning; didn’t care for school.

        While the responsibility rests solely with me, I think that much of the reason for my shaky persistence is due to the fact that I skated through school, relying on good memory and test-taking skills to get by. Thus as I entered adult life, I had very little in the way of a work ethic that would enable me to grind through boring or meaningless tasks.

        Been paying for that now for a while.

      • Mojeaux

        Same. I had zero study skills and didn’t really think about the fact that I could ask for help.

  49. The Late P Brooks

    I’m so proud I could pop.

    SWEEEET!

  50. Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

    Judi’s one and only craft fair happening this weekend. Covid restrictions mean that the ratio of vendors are set at a certain number between food and art. Daughter #1 just brought up five dozen aigs to sell. She’s turned out so goddamn cool. Never would have dreamed that dream 25 years ago. Hell, ten years ago.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Aw, Glibs plotzing from nachus.

  51. Aloysious

    Fine musical choice. I love that song.

    Was listening to Cab Calloway when I logged on, now this. It’s a beautiful morning.