Tuesday Morning Hot Links

by | Nov 17, 2020 | Daily Links | 491 comments

It just doesn’t stop. November heatstroke is the best heatstroke, so they tell me. I am sooooo ready to move back to Montana…

The heat will not stop birthday parties, and we really should have them for people like a guy whose reputation as a stripper will go on forever; a guy who always had madness in his method; one of the most fascinating guys with fascinating ideas; a punchline for a Jim Nabors joke; yet one more superannuated careerist leech; a guy who put on the absolute drunkest show I’ve ever attended; a guy who made perhaps my favorite movie ever; the finest comic actor of our generation; a superb guitarist whom I admired greatly when I was a teen; YEEEEEEAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHH!; a prolific actor who will always be Milton; and an antisemitic and incompetent war-pig who in a just world would be an input for a woodchipper.

Let’s get to news before I stroke out.

 

See, if you’re going to do it, do it right. 

 

What would we do without experts? And NPR?

 

Xiao has a career in HOAs ahead of her. Not that it’s really any saner here.

 

The utter cruelty of the panic-enforcers has no bounds.

 

And why governors and woodchippers are a natural pairing.

 

I know this makes me a bad person, but every time I read about a drug or vice cop getting killed “in the line of duty,” I feel a bit happy. Shit like this is why.

 

Old Guy Music is a cover of a birthday boy tune, played by someone who is a tad less drunk than Lightfoot was the last time I saw him.

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.

491 Comments

  1. Yusef drives a Kia

    and to think I left AZ for this……..

    • Nephilium

      Welcome to fall weather!

      We’re in the low 30’s with rain/sleet/snow and ice.

      • PieInTheSky

        Well that is because you send all your global warming to poor Bucharest. We did not yet have negative (real degree) temps. And the goddamn leaves are still on the goddamn trees.

      • Nephilium

        Just a couple weekends ago, we set new record highs. The temperatures were completely unprecedented!

        Except the old records were set 60 years ago… so, completely precedented.

      • Sean

        I like the second picture more.

      • Suthenboy

        It looks like you have similar climate to what we have except you get a bit colder in winter, we get a bit hotter in summer.

      • PieInTheSky

        Well 30 years ago it usually started snowing about this time of year. Then again 60 years ago who knows.

      • Not Adahn

        Looks like late September here.

      • PieInTheSky

        here as well

      • Spartacus

        Beautiful crisp Fall here…lows mid 60s, high mid 80s.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Bella just busted her ass on the icy front steps, never seen ice before,

      • Not Adahn

        Fortunately, she doesn’t have far to fall or weight very much.

      • Ted S.

        Got that on video?

      • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

        That’s why you need the snow shovel.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        they dont work on ice, I need salt,
        Yes I have a snow shovel

      • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

        It was a joke about dog turds.

      • But Enough About My Wild Culinary Fantasies

        NOT SALT!

        Get “traction compound” (usually sand and/or fine gravel). Salt’s bad for the doggo’s paws, and if she licks ’em, she can get sick from salt overload. Plus, unless the melted ice is completely evaporated or swept away, diluted salt has this wonderful ability to make the remaining ice surface even more slippery. Yay.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Kitty litter. Cheapo brand giant bag of kitty litter.

      • Animal

        -3 in Willow, Alaska at the moment.

      • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

        Super happy for you! That compound is basically my dream home! Buy a giant generator and a snow-scoop for the diesel. Maybe a skid-steer?

      • l0b0t

        Dream home indeed. I’m still salivating over that outbuilding with the SeaLand container. Y’all found a beautiful place, Animal.

      • prolefeed

        61F in the Austin exurbs right now. Highs this week low 70s to high 60s. Brrr. 😉

  2. AlexinCT

    What would we do without experts? And NPR?

    Actually be able to form decent opinions after some research?

    • leon

      Why do you want research when the experts can tell you how to think

  3. leon

    We interviewed deranged lunatic to tell us that we aren’t doing enough to destroy people’s lives.

    • Lackadaisical

      Leon, if you don’t lock yourself away for eternity, giving up your freedom to move, speak, and earn a living then you just want people to die. How hard is this to understand?

      • Pope Jimbo

        C’mon Man! You are being a bit excessive aren’t you?

        If Leon contributes to the right causes, updates all his social media to support the right people and learns how to bow and avert his eyes when a credentialed expert walks by, I’m sure they will let him out for 45 minutes every Thursday afternoon.

      • Lackadaisical

        Okay, but only if he switches his avatar to black for AT LEAST one week.

  4. PieInTheSky

    See, if you’re going to do it, do it right. – no, I will not click on images containing a train

    • Spartacus

      This is from my town…Florida Man gets stinking drunk, does donuts in the police parking lot.

      • l0b0t

        Sweet! I grew up on an island bifurcated by the Charlotte/Lee County line. We had 2 cops, 1 Charlotte County sheriff’s deputy and 1 Lee County sheriff’s deputy.

      • PieInTheSky

        which was the good cop and which was the bad?

      • Spartacus

        I think Pine Island is within Lee, so…Boca Grande? I actually live south of FM.

      • l0b0t

        That’s the one; best tarpon fishing on Earth.

      • KOVIDKristen

        My parents lived in Punta Gorda for a few years. It was a nice place as far as FL goes. I loved having oysters at Harpoon Harry’s in Fisherman’s Village.

      • Ted S.

        Please tell me he did donuts in the American Pie sense.

  5. PieInTheSky

    What would we do without experts? And NPR? – we must pray to the experts to absolve us of sin

  6. PieInTheSky

    Xiao has a career in HOAs ahead of her.
    \
    ” sneaking a friend from across campus into their dorm room for some late-night socializing. ” – come on a writer should come up with a better euphemism than this

    • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

      We all believe that it’s a pillow fight. Fuck those counting machines.

    • Agent Cooper

      “their dorm room”

      So … menage?

      • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

        A fois gras!

      • AlexinCT

        You can say that again…

      • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

        A fois gras!

      • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

        Twicer is nicer. Fuck a duck.

      • Surly Knott

        I thought it was goose.

  7. The Late P Brooks

    It’s not just the complacency of individuals driving the death toll higher and higher, Blauer said. Unfettered movement between cities and states — and conflicting messages and guidelines from leaders — fueled the rising case counts.

    “Papieren, bitte.”

    • Suthenboy

      Cases mean jack shit.

      “driving the death toll higher and higher”. Death toll? Or Death rate? I was under the impression the rate was dropping. Of course the toll will rise, unless there has been some kind of miracle breakthrough I am unaware of it’s not going to drop FFS.
      More deception. People wonder why I am so cynical.

      • leon

        Transition teams aren’t in charge of anything. Unless he’s making the argument that he should be put in charge before inauguration.

      • Plinker762

        The massive win for Biden was a clear mandate that he must be installed as president immediately.

      • juris imprudent

        Well now that you mention it. /every Dem’s fantasy

      • commodious spittoon

        Transition teams aren’t in charge of anything.

        Nobody in Biden’s team better be talking with ROOSHUNS.

      • Lackadaisical

        I already saw that some of then were meeting with foreign officials. And they haven’t even unequivocally won yet.

        And nothing else happened.

      • Plinker762

        Well, Biden has already met with the Chinese.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Trump should ask Joe to give him his “plan” and if it makes sense Trump will implement it. Of course to be totally transparent, Trump will also have to publish the plan.

        Biden is going to luck into being inaugurated right after this surge has peaked. Then he can do whatever he wants and claim that the dropping rates are totes because of his plan.

      • prolefeed

        Biden is going to luck into being inaugurated right after this surge has peaked.

        “luck” and “peaked” may not mean what you think they may mean.

        And, from the rampant bipartisan authoritarianism going on, I’m skeptical any of the numbers our betters use to scare us will drop anytime soon, since that would mean relinquishing the sweet savor of ordering the proles around like cattle.

      • Pope Jimbo

        The states will give up some of their power because it will make Joe look good and also for big time state bailouts.

        The state whores might love their power, but they love that cash even more than Winston’s Mom.

    • Plinker762

      That quote stood out to me too.

      Perhaps some sort of internal passport is needed. I believe there was a country that had those in the past.

  8. The Late P Brooks

    “Not only does a mask protect you as the individual, it also protects all the people around you,” Blauer said. “It is one of the most essential public health interventions that we have.”

    Fucking cargo cultists.

    • Pine_Tree

      No, it doesn’t. Every single molecule you exhale makes it out of the edges of that mask, exactly as if you didn’t have it, except perhaps for a tiny, tiny few that might be on it for a bit. You can tell it’s tiny because otherwise the thing would be soaked with moisture in mere moments. And for that tiny few, you either re-inhale them immediately (right after your body got rid of them) or then touch the freakin’ thing all the time, getting whatever’s there on your fingers so you can touch other people with it.

      So a mask is, if anything, a net negative for both you and everybody around you.

      • invisible finger

        The only really effective mask is six layers of saran wrap covering the mouth and nose.

    • Suthenboy

      Not one shred of evidence to support that.

  9. l0b0t

    Gordon Lightfoot now! Gordon Lightfoot forevah! Also, Stompin’ Tom Connors!

    Thanks, OMWC. I love Lightfoot.

    Here is my favorite – Don Quixote

    • PieInTheSky

      Foot fetishes are gross

    • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

      Love of Gordon and Joni is supposed to be in the blood but I never cared for them. Used to be a huge Neil Young fan until he turned idiot many years ago. Now if you say something bad about Downey, I will have to cut you.

      • Fourscore

        You leave Gordie alone, Son. OMWC gets it. Its always Gold with Gordie. Thanks

        /Sticks Gordie’s Gold on the tune box

  10. PieInTheSky

    The utter cruelty of the panic-enforcers has no bounds. – honestly if that material is condom grade I am sure it would be someones kink

  11. The Late P Brooks

    Though the alleged offenders adamantly denied the accusation against them in their Zoom hearing, the evidence was “overwhelming,” according to Mel Xiao, a twenty-year-old senior from New Jersey and one of three CCC judges, selected by application, who investigated the case. “We spoke to multiple other people who lived in their [dorm] and they all confirmed it,” said Xiao, a premed student who recovered from a battle with COVID-19 in September. “That was a case where we had to assign a more serious sanction and they also received a pretty stern warning that essentially said, ‘We know you withheld this information and weren’t transparent with us.’”

    The Red Guard wasn’t dead, just sleeping.

    • Spartacus

      So when does Rice open their branch campus in Xinjiang?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      MY son’s school has an official snitching system as well.

      He was sent there to expand his artistic repertoire and better his skill-craft by performing and listening to other students perform. Instead, he’s locked in his room the entire time and the weekly slot for student performances has been taken up by social justice speakers distributing their drivel via mandatory Zoom sessions.

      He’s been thoroughly red-pilled by the experience. So much so that he wants to become a writer for Shapiro.

      In the meantime, we’re at a loss as what to do for college. Rice was high on his list, but it looks like they’re out of their minds too.

      • Drake

        he wants to become a writer for Shapiro

        Then he hasn’t been red-pilled. Shapiro is a hypocrite and gatekeeper for the left.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        He’s attracted to Shapiro’s proposition that he should learn the left’s theories better than they do and use it against them.

        When he comes home for the holidays, he’s going to get a good dose of Mises and Popper. I agree that Shapiro is relatively shallow, but he giving voice to a very frustrated youth segment.

      • juris imprudent

        I kinda hate that theory – of being just like the left, because the left is fucking despicable. Why be like that? Even if you win, what have you actually done?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        It’s not being just like them, it’s understanding their actual proposition so you can effectively argue against it. In general, conservatives have a better understanding of the left’s intellectual foundations than the average leftist does, while the modern left has almost zero understanding of the right’s intellectual foundations.

        How many college leftists have read Burke? I’d wager almost none.

      • Lackadaisical

        I’ve never read Burke. I guess I done ducked up.

      • leon

        I think he means, understand their theories better than they do. Like studying Marx to better counter Marxist arguments. (Spoiler that’s not hard)

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Popper’s Open Society is I think the gold standard for understanding them up to about 1960. For a better explanation of the wretched amalgamation of identity politics and Marxism after that point, I like Hicks’s Explaining Postmodernism

      • juris imprudent

        You don’t counter Marx’s arguments, because they are religious platitudes. You don’t really have counter-arguments for that. You can certainly point out the utter lack of science in scientific socialism and the absurd teleology, but as long as someone is a blind believer – that is exactly what they are.

        And I do see the right aping the tactics of the left, and it isn’t a good look.

      • Homple

        “Even if you win, what have you actually done?”

        You’ve won, which you won’t do if you bring talking points and sweet reason to a gunfight.

      • juris imprudent

        Won what exactly? Politics in this country really isn’t a matter of knives or guns, thankfully. And a hearty fuck off to anyone who hopes for that.

        If you become indistinguishable from your opponent, who has really won?

  12. The Late P Brooks

    Typical penalties include writing letters of apology, performing community service projects, meeting with advisers, or completing educational research papers about public health—not to mention the shame most feel after having been shown to have placed their fellow students at risk.

    No dunce caps? No revolutionary slogans SCIENCE formulae hung around their necks?

    • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

      I can’t believe what I’m reading but mind you, I never thought that the “Patriot Act” would still be here twenty years later. Fuck that. I knew it would be and much worse to follow. They will never let go of the power. This is what broke my centrist tendencies, that and the cock-slurping of Obama.

  13. Tundra

    Good morning, Old Man!

    Sweet jesus, are you trying to kill us with these lynx?!?

    My blood pressure is reaching some pretty impressive heights. Well done.

    Here’s another Lightfoot cover, played by some guys who could probably pace Gordo.

    Have a great day, people! Even if it hurts!

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      if it hurts, just rub some dirt on it, you’ll be fine

  14. PieInTheSky

    Estimation of US Children’s Educational Attainment and Years of Life Lost Associated With Primary School Closures During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic

    https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2772834

    How the fuck can anyone estimate something like this with a straight face? Ain’t no way of knowing

      • Spartacus

        Sorta reminds me of this

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Lol, I had that conversation yesterday! I ended up using the phrase “for a certain definition of accurate, yes”

    • Certified Public Asshat

      It’s very likely bullshit, but at least they are trying to highlight how we are ruining the lives of children.

  15. Tonio

    JHTFC, a friend just announced he was going to be offering “cultural humility education.” Expecting secondhand grift from a Biden/Harris administration, no doubt.

    And before anyone says, time to purge my social media.

    • straffinrun

      That stuff is so far over the line for me and violates everything I believe in that I’d quit before going to one. If you ever needed to draw a line, draw it at attacking people for their DNA. You could call it the Mason Dixon 2.0 or something. It’s evil.

      • leon

        It’s farcical on every level. Do you know what businesses need? More fuel for office politics.

        I’m surprised we haven’t seen more EEO/workplace harassment lawsuits over this.

      • Gdragon

        Back when I was still trading for “the man” there was an invisible but clear line between revenue generators and support, and while they didn’t all weight everything exactly the same at every shop they all knew what/who was most important. I don’t even ask people at the big banks and whatnot where those lines are being drawn now, highly paid diversity monitors and re-educators and the like are everywhere I’m sure.

    • CPRM

      “cultural humility education.”

      We need to follow the shaming they do in latinx countries. The ladies there are very proud to be embarazada.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I misused the word embarazada when I was working in Central America. The entire plant was quite amused.

      • prolefeed

        It’s like saying “Je suis plein” at a French restaurant after consulting your English to French dictionary, which literally translates as “I am full”, but which actual French speakers know means “I am pregnant.”

      • Fourscore

        I used to tease my French cook, after a meal. She knew that I knew so she could laugh and belittle my Motor Pool French

    • I. B. McGinty

      We were at Mrs. McGinty’s parents last night and before some of the old westerns they had a “contains outdated cultural depiction” warning before the show.

    • Not Adahn

      cultural humility education

      Ypipo need to be ashamed.

      PoCs are righteous and should be proud of that fact.

      What do I win?

    • The Other Kevin

      Is there a market for disability awareness training? I’m thinking a book called “Leg Privilege”, and lectures at college campuses for $250,000. Or is that kind of awareness not in fashion anymore?

      • Tonio

        Dude, you could probably monetize that. But you’d need to join the right guild. The person I was referring to has a degree, Sir. A degree, I tell you. Letters after name and everything!

      • The Other Kevin

        That’s a good point. I will need some type of credentials to get past the gatekeepers. Oprah isn’t going to put my book on her list unless I have an advanced degree in some sort of “studies”.

      • AlexinCT

        Is there a stupidity studies? That would be an aggregate of all the other studies degrees..

      • Nephilium

        I think that’s called an Education degree.

      • AlexinCT

        I wanted to laugh. That is, until I realized you were absolutely correct and this was not a joke….

      • Fourscore

        I have one of those, Im’ Prou.d to Say?

      • AlexinCT

        When you got yours it probably meant something. These days it only means you have been steeped in marxist bullshit.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        These days it only means you have been steeped in marxist bullshit.

        If that. They’re taught to show up to class, how to emote on a piece of paper, and how to line up at the bars on Tuesday nights.

      • The Other Kevin

        I was making a joke but the more I think about it, the more I like the idea. I could write it with some of my teammates. It would be somewhat tongue in cheek, but also be a serious look at what it’s like to grow up disabled in America or recover from a war injury. Along the way we could throw some serious shade at “wokeness” and “privilege.” Hmmm…

      • Animal

        Lesson 1: Betty Grable.

      • Agent Cooper

        Lesson 2: Ann Miller
        (Not gorgeous, but legs for days)

      • banginglc1

        No, you’re white

  16. WTF

    I know this makes me a bad person, but every time I read about a drug or vice cop getting killed “in the line of duty,” I feel a bit happy. Shit like this is why.

    That the court allows asset forfeiture shows just how meaningless the constitution actually is.

    • leon

      The court has no respect for economic rights, little for gun rights and is fading on religious rights.

      • WTF

        Of course the founders anticipated that government, including the courts, would encroach upon and violate rights over time. It’s what the second amendment was intended to address.

  17. Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

    I always get in a bit of a funk when reading about guys like Mobius. I’m smahrt, not like everyone says that I’m stoopid or something! I’m smahrt and I deserve respect!

  18. Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

    Your title photo could use some up-skirt.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    How the fuck can anyone estimate something like this with a straight face? Ain’t no way of knowing

    According to my model, my model is correct.

    • juris imprudent

      According to my modeldogma, my model is correct.

      FTFY

  20. PieInTheSky

    I keep getting an add for a new residential complex near Bucharest called “American Village”

    Top of the page they say “72 villas and 6 apartment buildings in an area close to the city”

    Scrolling down “59 villas sold, 57 available”

    Must be American maths. Or they added apartments and villas together, like apples and oranges

    • PieInTheSky

      there are a few standard types of villas called Texas Nevada Montana and Maryland though I have no idea how they chose those names

      • Nephilium

        The Texas one plays high school football replays in audio non-stop. The Nevada one you can’t turn the lights off, and there’s random bells and flashing lights.

        I’ve got nothing for the Maryland one.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        If it is a Bal’mer, Maryland one, it comes with a complimentary smackhead passed out in the corner.

      • Not Adahn

        It smells of rotting seafood.

      • Animal

        I’ve got nothing for the Maryland one.

        Crabs.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        TBF, you could call the Nevada one that too.

      • juris imprudent

        Craps for NV!

      • PieInTheSky

        Montana is 253 square meters with a 90 sqm garden and 14 sqm patio and a garage, the only one which has a garage and is 268k euros

        Maryland is 186 sqm with a 45 sqm garden and a 4.5 sqm patio

        Nevada is 286 sqm with 240 sqm garden and 12 sqm patio

        Texas is 189 sqm with 100 sqm garden and 4.5 sqm patio 250k euros

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Does the Montana come with a round American woman and rabbits?

      • Not Adahn

        They need to flip the TX and NV designations.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        Well based on population density there is more land per/person in Nevada.

      • Lackadaisical

        Downside is that your garden is a desert.

    • Spartacus

      You don’t think they’re only going to sell it once, do you? Ain’t no profit in that.

    • Agent Cooper

      “Scrolling down “59 villas sold, 57 available”

      Now you now how we count votes.

    • Drake

      When I took math, my teacher would mark the answer wrong if I didn’t properly label both axis on a graph.

    • Count Potato

      Because eating turkey causes winter?

      • AlexinCT

        What does eating ass cause?

        Asking for HM….

  21. Rebel Scum

    Experts Say It’s Not Enough

    Experts can fuck off.

  22. Gdragon

    When you’re expecting something more like GG Allin and you find out it’s Gordon Lightfoot… it works out just fine here and in real life, you still enjoy the singing that you realize you’re quite inappropriately dressed for.

  23. PieInTheSky

    In important sports news the Bucks traded for jrue holiday and bogdan bogdanovic

    Also I find it annoying that some football team uses bucs as short and I confuse it with bucks

    • robc

      Bucs is a better shorthand for Buccaneers than Bucks is for Male Deer.

      • PieInTheSky

        Fear the Deer robc

      • robc

        Rob Deer?

      • Gdragon

        How’s he doing these days? I just had a sad vision of him sitting in a lawn chair on an off-ramp in a greasy Hawaiian shirt with a bat between his legs and a big sign reading “Try to strike me out – $10 men, $5 women/kids”

      • robc

        Since his playing days, Deer has had a career in drag racing, sprint car racing and has served as a roving hitting instructor for the San Diego Padres minor league system and is currently the owner of Viz-U-Bat.

        ^^wikipedia^^

        I have no idea how up-to-date that is, so you might be right.

    • CPRM

      They’re the Bucks, won’t make any difference. They had Kareem for 6 years and only got 1 championship (ever).

    • Agent Cooper

      Thanks for single-handedly keeping the NBA alive …

      It’s a shit league filled with Chinese apologists.

  24. The Late P Brooks

    Inexplicable

    Democrats held on to the House majority in 2020, but in the weeks since, it’s Republicans who have been celebrating the election results.

    “Pundits doubted us. Polls were stacked against us, and I don’t believe one person in this room believed we’d win one race,” boasted House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., at his weekly news conference last week.

    House Republicans did far better than election forecasts predicted. Not one Republican incumbent has lost. A dozen races had still to be called as of Monday evening, but Democrats are on track to have a single-digit House majority that’ll be the narrowest in two decades when the new Congress convenes in January.

    “The first building block of how we got here was recruitment,” said Dan Conston, who runs the Congressional Leadership Fund, the top House Republican super PAC. Of the seats Republicans flipped, the winning candidate was either a woman, a minority, a veteran or some combination of the three.

    Conston contends that Republicans had better messengers for a more persuadable message — on the economy and cultural issues — for undecided swing voters. CLF spent $140 million on ads this year that sounded similar to the message used in an ad against freshman Rep. Joe Cunningham, D-S.C., that said he was “backed by lobbyists and radicals who want to defund the police. And he backs Biden. That means higher taxes.” Cunningham lost.

    The coronavirus pandemic also made campaigning itself a cultural and tactical issue in competitive races. Many Republicans continued to hold in-person events, rarely wore masks and ran traditional door-knocking campaigns to get out the vote, all things Democrats more often avoided over concerns about public safety.

    CHEATERS!

    • leon

      “House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., ”

      Do we know much about this guy? I’m assuming he’s awful and will be the speaker if the GOP retakes the house in 2022

      • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

        Team! Team! Team!

      • juris imprudent

        You are correct on both counts.

      • Chipwooder

        Never trust a California Republican

  25. Rebel Scum

    Specialized tent provides opportunity for long overdue hugs at Longmont senior living facility

    Bubble Boy was ahead of the curve on corona I guess.

    • Agent Cooper

      I blame The Moops.

    • Kwihn T. Senshel

      I wonder in these stories why they couldn’t just demand a 7-day quarantine and 1-2 negative tests. Wouldn’t that be safe? That’s what we’re told, anyway.

      Not debating the claims of danger, but if negative=safe, then it’s safe, right?

  26. robc

    Question from perusing the afternoon links earlier this morning (it is only tangentially related to a comment there):

    There is the common story (verified by 1st hand accounts) of bars running dry on, say, Bud Light, and hooking up an extra Coors Light keg to the line and no one noticing the difference. If so, and yet someone has a preference for Bud Light, do they really? And what exactly is their preference for? Is it just team?

    • commodious spittoon

      Just give me a Modelo, hombre.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        After Modelo started going woke with their advertising, I’ve instead started reaching for XX when there’s nothing good on tap.

      • commodious spittoon

        Tbh Modelo’s the first thing that sprang to mine, but XX Lager is my go-to draft. I like Modelo micheladas, though

      • Chipwooder

        Fun fact – if you buy Tecate in cans, the hole on the tab is the Tecate eagle. I just noticed that the other night, and thought it was really cool.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        Nergo (Reeee!!) Modelo is pretty dang good. The wife drinks the regular Modelo when she is in the mood for beer.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        Negro (Reeee!!!) Modelo is my goto at Mexican/Tex-Mex restaurants. The wife gets the regular Modelo when she is in the mood for beer.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Sí, es rica, and good with food.

      • Gustave Lytton

        A real Modelo, not the fake Constitution brewed for American markets crap.

    • WTF

      It’s team and habit more than anything. The major American beers all have a very, very similar flavor profile.

      • robc

        Yes, I am well aware. Which is why craft beer took off…there were people looking for something different.

        Some people make the comparison between macro beer and fast food. But the difference is, I can tell apart McDonalds from Wendy’s from Burger King. They all have distinctive flavor profiles. They may be lcd burgers, but they aren’t interchangeable.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        I can tell the difference between Coors light and Bud Light. It may not be night and day, but bud light is horse piss and coors light is horse piss with an unpleasant aftertaste.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        Bud Lite is has a weird fruity taste to it. My SIL’s boy (from a previous marriage) mentioned getting a cold Bud Lite somewhere and I asked him why he didn’t get a beer, he stared blankly back at me, he’s a little dense.

      • banginglc1

        When I drank domestics more regularly, I could tell differences between them . . . especially Miller from Bud, but it is minor and I doubt most people who don’t drink a 12 pack a day would be able to tell. And the guy who drinks 12 a day either doesn’t care or assumes it’s an old keg.

      • banginglc1

        When I drank domestics more regularly, I could tell differences between them . . . especially Miller from Bud, but it is minor and I doubt most people who don’t drink a 12 pack a day would be able to tell. And the guy who drinks 12 a day either doesn’t care or assumes it’s an old keg.

      • Hyperion

        Miller and Bud taste nothing alike to me.

    • leon

      Coke, Pepsi etc.

      But seriously, if you prefer red things over green, anyone who doesn’t care is not going to understand your preferences.

      • robc

        I can tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi and RC.

        For that matter, I think I could tell the difference between Bud and MGD. But Bud Light and Miller Lite? I don’t think so.

      • invisible finger

        You can’t taste the diff between the rice adjunct and the corn adjunct because of the 1% difference in alcohol? You’re drunker than you realize.

      • robc

        Yes, that is exactly what I am claiming. It might be BS. Without doing a triangle test multiple times I wouldnt know for sure. And I am not interested enough in the answer to do the triangle test even once. On either group.

      • Lackadaisical

        Woah buddy.

        While the big three all suck, Id say Miller is a definite step ahead of Bud and Coors.

      • Gdragon

        I like regular Pepsi almost as much as regular Coke but it’s only a hypoglycemia treat for me. But Diet Pepsi I find absolutely nauseating.

    • Nephilium

      There’s a reason that blind taste tests and triangle tests are the gold standard. A bar near me ran into a similar problem due to a Cleveland Beer Week promo they did. They decided to do a huge imperial stout brunch, with a lot of rare and hard to get ones (KBS was on the list pre-bottling days). They then ran a special for flights, which they were not set up to really do well (no little carriers or pads identifying what was what). By the time the frazzled waitresses were bringing the flights back to the table, they would have a tray of ~20 different 4 oz pours of nearly identical looking imperial stouts to pass out…

      • robc

        Yeah, by look that would be tough, but I bet they tasted somewhat different. Although after one or two it can be hard to tell.

        I have judged beer comps before and at a certain point you expect to have palate fatigue, but the range in homebrews can be so wide that you can still pick them apart. What is nice is that in a flight of 12 or so, there will be 2 or 3 so far ahead of the pack to make picking out the winners easy.

      • Nephilium

        We could tell the KBS, the Southern Tier Creme Brulee, and the Southern Tier coffee stout (Kaffee IIRC, it was the only strict coffee imperial stout available) apart. But the others just kind of blended together.

        When I judged a comp once I was offered my choice of IPA’s or light hybrid. I immediately chose light hybrid, as I figured I would be less likely to roast my palate quickly in that category. We all agreed on which was the worst (tasted like cold, carbonated wort).

      • robc

        Last time I judged, one of my categories was fruit beers. Ugh, the bottom 2/3rds were artificially flavored raspberry wheats. Even so, those could be divided into two groups: those with a bad underlying wheat beer and those with a okay underlying wheat. I am particular about wheat beers, at the same time I was judging these, across the room my hefe was winning the wheat category.

        The funny think is, the bottom was filled with bad raspberry and winner was a raspberry porter. A damn good porter with real raspberry that accentuated the porter instead of distracting.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Cherry in beer is an unholy abomination.

      • Nephilium

        Depends on the cherries. As an example, Mad Elf out of Troegs is a dangerously delicious beer. On the other side, the Bell’s Cherry Stout (made with tart Michigan cherries) and the Sam Adam’s Cherry Wheat (if that’s even still around) are both foul abominations.

      • robc

        Sam Adams has made some abominations, havent they?

        The cherry wheat. The triple bock. Probably some others I dont remember.

        Their flagship is okay, but I dont get how they got so big. Then again, I love New Glarus but totally don’t get the appeal of Spotted Cow.

      • Nephilium

        robc:

        I got a bottle of the Triple Bock as an extra in a trade many years back. Of course, it was from the 1997 batch, well over a decade old, and the guy who tossed it in said he could still get it on the shelf where he was. I like soy sauce, and that was a tough little bottle to work through. What’s shocking is the seasonal ones that get the love don’t get individual releases, but are instead shunted to the variety packs (Old Fezziwig, Chocolate Bock, etc.). I understand the breweries putting a new recipe in a mix pack, but not one that they’ve had the recipe done for decades and that being the only release for it.

      • DEG

        Mad Elf is excellent.

      • R C Dean

        This is objectively wrong. A good kriek is a damn good beer. New Glarus makes one, although I don’t think you can get it outside Wisconsin.

      • robc

        There’s a reason that blind taste tests and triangle tests are the gold standard.

        When I was doing testing with friends I would always throw in two of my beers to go along with two other commercial beers, but not tell them. So they would be ranking and rating 4 beers, but it was really only 3. You could throw out results from the person (this really happened) who had mine ranked 1st and 4th.

    • l0b0t

      Our distributor would have thrown a shit-fit and stopped selling us all AB INBEV products if we had sold mislabeled product. We were contractually obligated (and required under statute law) to only sell the labeled beer through the respective taps. If a Bud product ran dry, our Bud distributor would move Hell and high water to get us more. I’ve seen the bud guys come to the Quarter as a 10 man team, hand schlepping kegs up a thoroughly blocked Bourbon St.

      • Tres Cool

        10-man team?
        The Clydesdales ?

      • l0b0t

        We moved a lot of bottled beer. The most popular were Bud Light, Lite Beer from Miller, and Coors Light. The Bud cases had, by far, the strongest glue; actually taking some effort to break down. Our Bud rep heard me complaining about the strong glue one day and quipped “That’s what we do with the old Clydesdales.”

    • Tres Cool

      As someone that spent the greater part of my life drinking CL, if a bar did the reverse Id know immediately. Would I care? Prolly not.

  27. Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

    That is one hell of a birthday list. Will need to go back.

    • robc

      Tom Seaver, Ryan Braun, and Nick Markakis. Baseball birthdays are an all time great and two really good current guys. Although one is a really bad liar.

      • robc

        Also Mitch Williams, but I didnt scroll down that far.

      • CPRM

        Ryan Braun never did no drugs HGH!

  28. Not Adahn

    Milos Forman > Martin Scorsese

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Not what I expected.

      • straffinrun

        Told the wife I wanted one for after our daughter grows up and I feel lonely. That didn’t sound any better when I said it in Japanese.

      • AlexinCT

        She saw through you and realized you would just use it for…

        Never mind..

    • Animal

      That may be the saddest thing I’ve seen all year.

  29. Rebel Scum

    From California to Pennsylvania, governors and mayors across the U.S. are ratcheting up COVID-19 restrictions amid the record-shattering resurgence of the virus that is all but certain to get worse because of holiday travel and family gatherings over Thanksgiving.

    People seriously need to start ignoring the pointless, tyrannical dictates.

    • Drake

      Sidney Powell With Lou Dobbs – discussing Smartmatic / Dominion software and the affidavits being gathered.

      I agree with the WSJ guy I saw on Fox Business this morning. Either she and Giuliani are lying their faces off and need to be exposed or they are speaking the truth and that has to be exposed. If it’s swept under the rug, nobody will ever believe election results again.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I don’t trust Giuliani at all. Powell, on the other hand, seems to be a straight shooter with a serious hatred of the DOJ’s corruption.

        If Trump prevails, he should make her Attorney General.

      • Drake

        Rumors that she’d be the FBI Director and given free-reign to clean house.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        That would be fantastic as well.

  30. The Late P Brooks

    He’s been thoroughly red-pilled by the experience. So much so that he wants to become a writer for Shapiro.

    In the meantime, we’re at a loss as what to do for college. Rice was high on his list, but it looks like they’re out of their minds too.

    Buy him a moving van. It’s a booming segment of the economy.

    • Plinker762

      He can divert the blue states to Mexico

  31. Ted S.

    I didn’t know Martin Scorsese made Jaws.

  32. The Late P Brooks

    We were at Mrs. McGinty’s parents last night and before some of the old westerns they had a “contains outdated cultural depiction” warning before the show.

    Stupid fucking white man

    • KSuellington

      One of the best Westerns made right there. I’d put it in the top 20 for sure.

    • straffinrun

      There’s the old joke about the guy standing outside the whore house window eating the hot buttered corn cobs flying out the window. That video adds a whole new dimension.

  33. The Late P Brooks

    Because eating turkey causes winter?

    *outright, prolonged laughter*

  34. leon

    With all the lockdown rules on numbers of people at Thanksgiving, I bet people are starting to wish for the 3/5ths rule was appliEd to them…

    • Plinker762

      I’m assuming that the T-Day lockdowns are a trial run for Christmas.

    • CPRM

      They don’t teach fractions very well in public school.

      • Jarflax

        I was recently told, by a college graduate, that she could do division but did not know how to work with fractions or ratios. I was unable to persuade her that they were the same thing.

      • CPRM

        Ratio is a twitter term about how your tweet is being savaged, duh.

  35. The Late P Brooks

    All these sob stories about “overworked” doctors are just like when firemen complain about having to actually leave the fire house and put out a fire.

    • leon

      I thought we flattened the curve so doctors would be overworked for longer.

  36. invisible finger

    The government War On Coronavirus is succeeding at the expected levels.

    • prolefeed

      They’d have to win both of the Georgia Senate runoffs to get anything through, and then have few to no defections from nervous Democrat legislators.

      • R C Dean

        From what I have seen, the GA Repubs are doing a fine job of infighting and refusing to either demand in-person voting or play the mail-in game. I’m not optimistic.

    • R C Dean

      Not workable in the sense that millions of guns will be surrendered on day one.

      Quite workable with a longer time frame – shut off new sales, marginalize/criminalize existing gun owners, drain the pool of privately owned guns over time, create a precedent that can be expanded to cover more and more murderdeathmachines.

    • leon

      would be subject to a violation of the National Firearms Act. Possession of an unregistered NFA item is punishable by ten years in prison or a $250,000 fine, so we’re talking about turning more than 170-million items that are currently in the lawful possession of tens of millions of gun owners into illicit substances that could land them in the a federal penitentiary for a decade.

      Tin Foil Hat: The point is to turn a large portion of the populace into felons and remove their right to vote. No need for jail time, just take the gun and say “You’re a felon now”.

      viola, no more GOP votes.

      • R C Dean

        And, of course, a registration list is just a confiscation list waiting for its day.

      • Agent Cooper

        As the movie title goes, There Will Be Blood.

      • Hyperion

        If the Ds get the Senate now, the 2A is history. It was actually already over when they passed the Brady Act, it was just a matter of time. It’s either ‘Shall not be infringed’ or it isn’t. If it isn’t, which it obviously is not, then it’s over.

        I expect rhetoric like this 24/7: The united States is the only country in the world with no healthcare! The United States is the only country that just lets people run around with murder sticks! The United States is… well, you get it.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        I expect rhetoric like this 24/7:

        Is this any different from the last 30 years? I’ve been hearing the same damn “we’re the only country in the developed world that does/doesn’t do X” arguments since I can remember.

  37. PieInTheSky

    So after a while back youtube was recommending me Miami swim week bikini fashion shows, not it recommends regional Italian beauty contests which is weird. Then again the difference is interesting between US models and probably more random Italian chicks. The weird thing is that in most of the tialian ones there is no runway just tables wiht people siutting at them and girls in bikinis walking between the tables. It looks like the are picking which ones to do later.

    Miss Blumare Finale Regionale Veneto 2020

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0tZOmrwQ9w

    VS

    Frankies Bikinis Swimwear Fashion Show SS 2018 Miami Swim Week 2017

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gA2uHILDqA

    • commodious spittoon

      For sale: nuclear reactor, never used. It’s okay though, in this case they replaced it with a solar power installation… to power the lights at the old reactor.

    • Gdragon

      The guy trying to bring all of the troops home is obviously a war-monger.

    • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

      As a boy I was taught that premature withdrawal was a good thing. Ah well, New Normal.

      • AlexinCT

        All is fair in love and war…

    • leon

      A generation of war is “premature” withdrawal. Every Pentagon puke deserves to be breaking rocks at Leavenworth.

      • Tejicano

        Think about it – guys who first enlisted after 9.11 and both survived and stayed in are ready to retire next year.

      • Lackadaisical

        Exactly, we’ve been ‘ leaving’for 12 years. Pull the plug already.

    • Drake

      Maybe Jens Stoltenberg should offer to send a brigade of Norwegian troops there to place ours.

    • Agent Cooper

      “You had two decades, dipshit”

  38. Count Potato

    “Georgia’s Republican secretary of state reveals that Lindsey Graham pressured him to find a way to toss out legally-cast ballots

    Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday that Sen. Lindsey Graham pressured him to find a way to toss out legally cast ballots in the state’s close election between President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden.

    Speaking to The Washington Post, Raffensperger – a fellow Republican – said he talked to Graham, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Friday and the South Carolina senator asked if he could toss out every mail-in ballot from counties that have higher rates of non-matching signatures.

    ‘It sure looked like he was wanting to go down that road,’ Raffensperger told the newspaper, expressing disbelief that Graham wanted him to disenfranchise large swaths of Georgia voters.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8955773/Georgias-GOP-secretary-state-accuses-Lindsey-Graham-pressuring-toss-ballots.html

    • leon

      “‘It sure looked like he was wanting to go down that road,’ ”

      So mind-reader.

    • Nephilium

      toss out every mail-in ballot from counties that have higher rates of non-matching signatures

      Can’t they just throw out the ballots that have non-matchine signatures? I thought that was a PA court case that stopped that, which shouldn’t have any influence on Georgia.

      • AlexinCT

        COUNT EVERY ILLEGAL VOTE!

    • Rebel Scum

      pressured him to find a way to toss out legally-cast ballots

      Define “legally cast”.

  39. The Other Kevin

    November Heatstroke was my favorite Guns N Roses song.

    • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

      My favorite GNR song is the one that I never had to listen to. They live in the top five of terrible rock bands for me along with Bon Jovi, AC/DC, Oasis and Fleetwood Mac when they stopped playing blues and sold out.

      • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

        Also Bruce Springsteen, The Eagles, Foriegnor and any form of Rap.

      • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

        Nope. I’m old and that sucks.

      • Nephilium

        Both are referencing old stuff as well.

        Zork – 1977

        Voltron – 1983

  40. Not Adahn

    You know the jokes about hookers being unionized? It ain’t a joke.

    Instead of sex workers getting a bailout directly, wouldn’t it make sense to issue prositution credits to customers to stimulate demand? Maybe some variant of “cash for clunkers?”

    • PieInTheSky

      Hookers have been unionized in Amsterdam a long time. There is even price fixing to some degree in the red light district.

  41. Pope Jimbo

    Knowing her, the new secret conduit from her campaign to her personal bank account won’t be hard to find (unless you are a jouranlo). Ilhan Omar promises to no longer do business with her husband’s consulting firm. Or maybe Hubby #3 is about to be kicked to the curb.

    U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar has told supporters that her campaign is no longer doing business with her husband’s political consulting firm, a connection that had previously sparked scrutiny and complaints to campaign finance watchdogs.

    In an e-mail late Sunday, Omar said her campaign was terminating its contract with the firm to “make sure that anybody who is supporting our campaign with their time or financial support feels there is no perceived issue with that support.”

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The one thing all of DC can agree on is MOAR WAR.

    • leon

      Keeping up appearances. That’s a good reason the keep the troops in harm’s way.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Biden will keep us in so keep your nonexistent chin up Mitch.

    • straffinrun

      Cuz it’ll be less humiliating when the US is forced out in ten more years.

    • Lackadaisical

      Curious what he thinks we should have done differently in Vietnam.

      Also, he does realize that our ‘departure’ from Saigon occurred about 2 years after we ended the war, right?

      • R C Dean

        And occurred, if memory serves, because Congress refused to honor our deal to defend South Vietnam.

    • Fourscore

      Maybe we could skim off the top and get the best ME refugees plus lots more

      • R C Dean

        I had not taken you for a day drinker, Fourscore.

    • AlexinCT

      Watch it Pie, or she will hurt your ass…

    • DEG

      Mesmerizing.

  42. Rebel Scum

    Party of the people.

    But if Mr. Trump tries to undo the legal process or disrupts a peaceful transition to Biden, the CEOs discussed making public statements and pressuring GOP legislators in their states who may try to redirect Electoral College votes from Biden to Trump, said Yale Management Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, who convened the meeting.

    “They’re all fine with him taking an appeal to the court, to a judicial process. They didn’t want to deny him that. But that doesn’t stop the transition,” said Sonnenfeld. “They said if that makes people feel better, it doesn’t hurt anything to let that grind through.”

    The CEOs decided to wait for the November 20 certification of votes in Georgia before meeting to decide their next moves. Action could include threats to stop donations to political action committees or even corporate relocations, Sonnenfeld said.

  43. Rebel Scum

    Progjection.

    Wallace said, “I was off a couple of days last week. I tuned in to a little Fox News in prime time and was aghast. I mean, they are pumping flagrant lies into millions of viewers. They’re interviewing lunatics. They call them lawyers, not sure how many of them have law degrees, saying there are a million votes here, observers here. These cases have been filed. They’ve gone before judges that were Democratic and Republican appointees, and they’ve all been thrown out. Do you share president Obama’s concern about the alternate universe of fact-free information that’s being pumped into trump’s base?’

    Network host Al Sharpton said, “We’re now in a nation where facts don’t matter. You make up facts. And not only do you have an alternative reality, how do you debate someone that is dealing with a totally fictitious premise? How do you debate a fantasy that someone wants to sell, and people want to believe? I think the danger of that is in the middle of having to engage and try to knock down fantasies. We put ourselves at risk to a foreign enemy or some enemy like a pandemic that is a natural disaster because reality is not going to spare fantasy.”

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      The fact that they take Race Hustler Sharpton seriously says way more than anything they actually say.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        +1 Tawana Bradley

    • leon

      “Do you share president Obama’s concern about the alternate universe of fact-free information that’s being pumped into trump’s base?’”

      These people told you for 4 years that Trump was a Russian asset. Don’t let them gaslight you into thinking they are honest.

    • leon

      “These cases have been filed. They’ve gone before judges that were Democratic and Republican appointees,”

      And if he appeals to SCOTUS, they will flip to talking about how the courts can’t be trusted.

      • R C Dean

        Plus, its just flat wrong. Some have, some haven’t, some haven’t even been filed yet.

  44. OBJ FRANKELSON

    The wife had Fox news on our NSA listening device Alexa and they said, “The President’s lowering troop levels from 4,500 to 2,500, not zero as many had feared.”

    Fucking chickenhawks. Whatever good we could’ve done over there ended circa 2002.

    • Drake

      That’s just stupid. Why lower them to the point it is more dangerous for those who remain? Just fucking get out and declare it over. If Biden actually becomes President and wants to go back, make him get authorization and justify it.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        And I am sure that the remaining forces are going to be holed up at Bagram doing not much of anything but defending Bagram.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        Well, save for the Black Helicopter types, they will still be going into Definitely Not Pakistan and mucking about.

      • Drake

        I would guess 500 or so Fobbits, a couple of battalions of Infantry, and some SF types. Enough to do raids and control their immediate vicinity, but meaningless for the whole country.

    • Chipwooder

      We now likely have teenaged soldiers in Afghanistan who were infants, or weren’t even born yet, when we first arrived. If that doesn’t strike someone as ludicrous and emblematic of a campaign that has long since passed its sell-by date, I don’t know what to say to them.

  45. Rebel Scum

    Go to hell.

    Amy Klobuchar

    Wear a mask.

    • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

      Nope. Put me in jail.

    • Drake

      Does she yell that at every undated picture she sees?

      She was right about Dominion.

  46. PieInTheSky

    As a socialist I’m deeply conflicted about the legacy of Castro. He has a reputation for being a brutal dictator, yet he let many counterrevolutionaries escape and we still have to hear garbage from their little capitalist grandkids all the time.

    https://twitter.com/leslieleeiii/status/1328416513183903744

    I remember when some tankies were saying the problem with Chavez was that he did not exterminate the upper classes and that is why Venezuela failed. Castro made the same mistakes it seems

    • leon

      So your conflict is that Castro was not brutal enough of a dictator.

      • AlexinCT

        That seems to always be the take with these morons: “That two billion dollar stimulus, where we printed money we didn’t have, failed because it should have been a 5 billion dollar one! Just make some billion dollar coins to cover the difference!

        Also: “That was not real communism! Under real communism 2/3 of the people would have been turned into plant food, not just 1/3 like Pol Pot did to his countrymen.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Twitter never fails to amaze me by giving voice to the filthiest, most craven, and blood-thirsty communists out there.

    • Chipwooder

      What a vile bitch.

  47. l0b0t

    I found this fascinating – The Socialist Sausage that changed the world. – https://youtu.be/AcxQBkdughc

  48. Not Adahn

    Lol.

    I don’t know if it’s true-believing Karens or the goldbrickers, but there has been enough of a insistence that the automated IR screening is inadequate that there is a new temperature screening technique:

    Eveyone is going to be issued a thermometer to take our own temperature, and a card to flash at security “certifying” that we have done so and are not hyperthermic.

    • Q Continuum

      I figured they would just go straight to doing rectal readings.

      • Not Adahn

        They simultaneously announced measures to “increase labor efficiency” and expand the D&I programs.

        To be fair, they’ve been pretty good about keeping the D&I to a non-hateful level. So far it’s been “free samosas for Diwali” and recognizing MLK day as a holiday.

      • Q Continuum

        “free samosas for Diwali”

        I love how privileged white champagne socialist diversity mafiosos look at culture in the shallowest possible way.

        And then have the audacity to trash the Deplorables for “cultural appropriation” of Halloween costumes.

      • Chipwooder

        I don’t know, man, samosas are pretty damned good.

  49. creech

    Here’s one tactic my financial advisor told me one of his clients had suggested. Client apparently has enough socked away in savings to pay for a full ride for his daughter at a state college. Client wonders if maybe the kid shouldn’t take out the maximum loans possible to pay for college and then hope Pres. Harris forgives the first $50k or more? Should President Harris not be successful in ripping off the taxpayers, then client would pay off the loan when the first payment is due after graduation. One way to hedge college costs? I’m sure all the hard-working folks out there who learned a trade or paid for their own tuition will give a hearty “fuck off slavers” to this suggestion.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Those who paid for their own tuition are going to get fucked either way.

      • Chipwooder

        As are we who scrimped and went without in order to pay off our loans.

        I try to be a reasonable person, but the smug little millennial maggots who bleat about how selfish it is to expect others to pay their debts as I did make me want to strangle their lazy fucking asses.

      • Idle Hands

        It’s full on class war.

      • Q Continuum

        In support of the privileged and wealthy.

        There’s a reason that the only demographic Biden seemingly improved with were older (read: wealthier) white people.

      • Idle Hands

        There are a ton of people who love the state of the economy. The problem is they don’t have any direct interaction with the frontend sales or work in some paper pushing compliance capacity.

      • The Other Kevin

        It is class war. A large majority of student debt is for advanced degrees at high-profile schools. So we’ll be paying off loans people took to get a PhD at Harvard.

      • AlexinCT

        This is a wealth transfer program from those that did the right & responsible things to the dumb kids if elite rich fucks that did everything other than be responsible and fiscally prudent. Especially the ones that got idiotic degrees that only qualified one to work at fast food or coffee slinging places.

      • Idle Hands

        That’s the propaganda sales pitch. In reality it’s going to funnel to the people who need it the least in the credentialed elite. Both the people you mention and the credentialed elite are the base of the dem party at this point so it’s just a full on wealth transfer from the one side of the aisle to the other.

      • leon

        Yeah. I also think about all the soldiers who shipped off to iraq/afghanistan In large part so they could get the college benefits. THANKS! College Debt forgivness is one of the most targeted transfers of wealth to a privlieged minority group i can think of.

        I talked about it yesterday.

        – Min Wage increase
        – College Debt Forgiveness
        – I’m assuming negative Interest rates

        All things that will be a big FU to the people who “did things right” so that they can “help the people in need”.

      • Idle Hands

        The democrats are the party of the elites and white collars. It’s quite interesting to see them wear the pelt of a populist party while passing policies that do nothing but hallow out the productive sectors of our society and eliminate opportunity to build wealth. Party of wealth stratification and pissing on the poors.

    • Idle Hands

      This is one of the most infuriating public policy goals I’ve seen in my lifetime.

    • Q Continuum

      When do we get mortgage forgiveness? I wanna know ahead of time so I can take out a jumbo load on a $3M mansion nearby that just went on the market.

      • Idle Hands

        I think they should just give everyone 100k and we can do what we want with it.

    • R C Dean

      Client wonders if maybe the kid shouldn’t take out the maximum loans possible to pay for college and then hope Pres. Harris forgives the first $50k or more?

      The only risk is he invests the money, the markets take a crap, and he winds up with not enough savings to pay off the loan. The same risk you take whenever you borrow to invest. I won’t do it, but lots of people have a different risk tolerance than me, and many of them do quite well.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      I don’t know, this seems like a promise she has no intention of keeping.

    • Pope Jimbo

      I have to admit that I am thinking about something similar. My last two are in school but we have paid for it so far with no loans. Maybe they should be taking loans out for the next year or so.

      Boy that would make me feel like a greasy grifter though. On the other hand, paying my debts and getting screwed will make me feel like a complete chump.

      • CPRM

        I saw this coming 20 years ago when I was going off to college. It’s the one grift I’ve done that I don’t feel any shame about. Made sure every loan I took was the subsidized one and got on the ‘income based repayment plan’, where since I was making next to nothing the payment was $0.

        Sadly, I decided it was time for a grup job finally, so if the dems don’t follow through this time I might have to actually make a payment next year. (I still wasn’t so committed to the grift as to vote for Biden).

  50. Rebel Scum

    One pro-freedom thing these cuntes could do. But I am not holding my breath.

    Governor Ralph Northam’s office announced his support for the legalization of marijuana on Monday.

    “It’s time to legalize marijuana in Virginia,” Northam said. “Our Commonwealth has an opportunity to be the first state in the South to take this step, and we will lead with a focus on equity, public health, and public safety. I look forward to working with the General Assembly to get this right.”

    • Idle Hands

      what else does he expect us to do while we sit on our coaches collecting unemployment and wait for the jobs to never come back?

    • Festus' Mustache Needs To Calm His Tits

      So Northam becomes the Angler-fish. Well played.

    • l0b0t

      “I look forward to working with the General Assembly to get this right make sure that taxes and graft keep a thriving black market in place.” FTFY

    • leon

      Our Commonwealth has an opportunity to be the first state in the South to take this step

      I don’t care what you are working on, i hate this kind of “This is why we should do it! So we can be first!”

    • Chipwooder

      Coonman does something worthwhile….first time for everything, I guess.

    • Jarflax

      Incoming Reason articles on Northam the Great Liberator.

    • B.P.

      It’s good he managed to wedge “equity” into a place that it has fuck-all to do with anything. I assume Dem leaders have a laminated checklist of buzz words that must make it into every press release, speech, etc.

    • mrfamous

      He makes an appearance in the thread

    • prolefeed

      #26

  51. The Late P Brooks

    Speaking of college loans- my dad took out low interest college loans “on my behalf’ and invested it.

    That was long ago, when interest arbitrage was a thing.

    • Mojeaux

      RC Dean’s Pater did that, too.

      I actually thought about it, but didn’t do it.

      • R C Dean

        Yeah, can’t remember the spread, but I suspect it was at least 3 – 4%.

      • Mojeaux

        That would be worth it right now because savings interest is so low. My best (fluctuating) rate was 0.82% at SmartyPig, but today it’s 0.55%. I do also have a “high interest” savings account at 3% but only up to $1500. I don’t consider that a decent interest rate (relative to anything else), especially with a fixed 0.3% on amounts higher than $1500. We have exactly $1500 there, but not a penny more.

        I don’t know what my kid’s “high interest” money market account rate is. I should probably ask.

      • mrfamous

        My “high-interest” savings account was at 1.9% when I opened it a few years back. It goes down 0.1% pretty much every month now, I think it’s at 0.55%.

        I’m self employed and pay quarterlies so I have to stash that money somewhere regardless until quarterlies are due.

        Modern Monetary Theory blows donkey balls

    • Lackadaisical

      My then girlfriend’s cousin told us to do that when we were in college, I graduated in about 2009 for context lol. Glad I didn’t take his advice.

  52. DEG

    A Cape Coral man was arrested and charged with DUI on Sunday after troopers say he was driving aggressively in the parking lot of their Fort Myers headquarters.

    Heh. A friend of a relative of mine used to smoke pot on the steps of the local police station. When asked why, he said, “If the cops are doing their job, that’s the place they aren’t!”

    But some experts say these efforts may be too little, too late — like a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.

    Those experts can go fuck themselves.

    After a tipster turned them in, the two alleged offenders were forced to appear before the student-run COVID Community Court (CCC) that the school launched this semester to adjudicate public health violations on campus.

    Snitches get stitches. Struggle sessions. Fuck.

    “I know that our students are really frustrated by not being able to (perform) as they have in the past,” Landes said. “Trying to figure out ways to make it safe and to be able to help students engage has been my drive over the summer — to make sure that our students could complete their degree requirements and get their performances in, but do it in a safe way.”

    Fuck you. Just let them perform as normal.

    A five-minute hug wasn’t nearly long enough for Carol Braun and her 97-year-old father, Vince Shryack. It was their first hug in about eight months and even though they were separated by a sheet of plastic, it didn’t seem to matter.

    Separated by plastic? Fuck.

    “I must again pull back the reins,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday as he restricted indoor gatherings to 10 people, down from 25. “It gives me no joy.”

    The old “this hurts me more than it will hurt you” bit. Fuck you.

    It’s taken six months, but the D.E.A. finally sent a letter to Alban saying they will return the money.

    Mighty nice of them. Mighty nice. Fuck them.

    • Q Continuum

      “student-run COVID Community Court (CCC)”

      The future of criminal justice ladies and gents!

      • leon

        Never waste a crisies to get what societal changes you want in. And boy do we have the crisis of the century here.

      • prolefeed

        They left out the ending P in CCCP

  53. Idle Hands

    I’m starting to suspect the lack of inperson schooling around the country is about a budget shortfall far more than about the covid.

    • Q Continuum

      If this breaks the back of the education/indoctrination complex it will all have been worth it.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        I was hopeful early on but starting to lose hope.

      • Idle Hands

        Hard not to be totally and utterly black pilled. Especially when you own a business that is probably not going to make it through.

      • Nephilium

        The brewery I went to on Saturday was joking/not-joking about selling beer out the back door if there’s another shutdown order.

      • Tejicano

        I am hoping to see a lot more of this kind of ignoring the rules to make it work. The wider that attitude spreads the less power the government has over the people.

      • Hyperion

        I still remember back when I was 19, I was working for a crew building housing up in the mountains and it was a dry county. Instead of everyone driving the 20 miles to the nearest liquor store in the neighboring wet country, the locals knew about some bootleggers. You’d dive up this hollow out in the middle of nowhere and at some point about a mile down a dirt road, you’d come upon a shack obscured by shrubs and there’s this old dude looking out a window in a shack. You’d tell him what you wanted and pay and keep driving.

        Looks like maybe bootleggers make a comeback in 2020, big time. I’m going to stick with beer since the government will probably put poison in the liquor. Population control, you know, and teach those icky freedom lovers a lesson.

      • R C Dean

        I lived in a dry county as a kid. It was about a 20 minute drive to the county line liquor stores. The net result was, when you made the drive, you stocked up – you didn’t buy a sixpack or two, you bought two cases. Now you have more beer, so do drink more, or less?

        A great early education in perverse incentives and counterproductive government bullshit.

      • Hyperion

        That county I lived in went wet about 20 years ago. I don’t know if there are still dry counties, haven’t bothered looking.

        What we really need is a good tax on liquor so that people will stop drinking. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

      • l0b0t

        Thanks Mojeaux. I had never heard of that show but now I have it on a hard drive. It’s cute and it has the janitor from Scrubs/Dad from The Middle, and I’m fond of his work.

      • Lackadaisical

        Sorry for your loss. My wife is a (very small) business owner and she’s lucky to have no overhead but lots of people we know got crushed.

      • Kwihn T. Senshel

        I do think that this will “break” the complex in the sense that it will be altered. However, I’m afraid it won’t be for the better. While some parents will wake up, I think most will accept the “new normal” and even come to believe that having children do 30 minutes of work per day after watching a video of their teacher is sufficient for good education.

        Not to re-hash the whole education-has-gone-downhill thing, but I’d argue that most parents aren’t indepenently-thinking enough to even recognize that they’re being sold a bill of goods with all this, let alone their kids.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        The schools around here are closing again anyway, but when they did the fucked up virtual, hybrid, or in person triple option a lot of the parents I know stayed virtual because they deemed it safe and good enough. It’s not like any of them had the balls to just abandon the school system.

      • Kwihn T. Senshel

        Aye. I’ve helped move a number of people into the homeschool/co-op/hybrid model of education for their kids (as I had kids earlier than most of my peer group so kind of broke ground in a sense), and it’s really interesting how fearful they were at first.

        “But, how will we know that they’re getting an education if they don’t take the standardized tests?!” (they still can, if you want them to)
        “I want to do teach at home, but what if I mess it up?” (if you make effort, you won’t)
        “Won’t it wreck their chances at college?” (meh, depends)

        Anyway, it is a scary thing to do something different, in any area, and the way our public government education system is fetishized makes it even more difficult for some.

      • Kwihn T. Senshel

        (replying to my own comment)

        I recognize that some home dynamics don’t support traditional homeschooling, whether because of the kids’ needs, or teaching style/ability of the parent, or schedule, etc.

        But there are many hybrid/co-op models out there nowadays, and I’m hoping that more parents start to see the potential benefit in those.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        But there are many hybrid/co-op models out there nowadays, and I’m hoping that more parents start to see the potential benefit in those.

        I’m a huge fan of university model schools as a compromise. One of the churches we started attending here has a university model school attached, and it’s on the list for when 1st grade rolls around in a few years.

        The one thing that I’ve really struggled to find is an age agnostic schooling model. I don’t want my kids to spend 13 years surrounded by 20 kids selected based on being born within a 12 month span. I want them to be able to go to class with older kids and younger kids, get hands on instruction from adults, and participate in extracurriculars that aren’t purely age stratified. IMO, it takes a bunch of the all-encompassing angst out of the equation when social interaction is more than just hanging around your age cohort all day.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        My wife homeschools and she can’t seem to convince anyone that once you get going school is done in 4 hours or less.

      • Agent Cooper

        My kids are good procrastinators so it takes them about 7-8 hours to do 3 hours of work.

      • Kwihn T. Senshel

        Take away the 30:1 ratio and disruptive kids, and you can get a lot done in 3 hours, especially when they’re young.

    • leon

      Our new Governor cruised his way to re-election promising many many dollars for the schools teachers union.

    • l0b0t

      IDK… NYC is spending far more money with the distance learning and partial school attendance than they would with a regular school year.

  54. leon

    Oh my gosh i’m working on Sysiphus’s Pull Request.

    Every time i send it back the reviewers come back with something completely new and unbroached that they want fixed, changed etc. Why didn’t you mention that last time so i could get it done then?

    • Nephilium

      Because then they would have to do work?

    • Brett L

      What? Find 2 problems?

      • leon

        I just want to move on to my next ticket i picked up last week…. :SOBS:

    • R C Dean

      “OK. That’s a new request. I handle requests in FIFO order, so it’ll be a few weeks. I’ll be in touch.”

    • leon

      Why not three days?

      • PieInTheSky

        3 is to few. 5 is to may. 4 is just right.

        Also baby steps

      • Nephilium

        Just wait for the proposal for the 4 day/20 hour work week for the EU.

        It’ll actually be 4 days of 20 hour shifts, but look at how the marketing writes itself!

      • Lackadaisical

        Twice a week. 😉

      • pistoffnick

        Whether we need it or not!

      • Hyperion

        “4 day/20 hour work”

        And all of the sudden that $15 an hour isn’t working out so great?

    • R C Dean

      No problem. Eveyrbody is now a .8 FTE, and gets .8 of their full-time pay.

      • Florida Man

        Why no 4-10’s? Right. Commies.

      • R C Dean

        This idea is floated periodically, and its always 4 8s. With no reduction in paid days off, which means your current days off are leveraged to a higher percentage of your work days.

        I had to explain to more than one of our shift-based doctors, who work 14 or so 12 hour shifts per month, that they get zero paid days off because (a) paid days off and shift pay don’t mix and (b) they already get two weeks off per month. If we gave them the standard load-out for docs of 30 days PTO, then that would mean they are really only working 10 months of the year, and those 10 months they are working the equivalent of two weeks. So a regular doc with an office practice works 48 weeks a year, and they would work 20 weeks a year. So its not happening, and if you don’t like it. quit.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Summer Hours!

        In Minnesoda a lot of companies switch to 4-10’s during the summer so people have more time to spend outside and up north.

        It starts off OK, with everyone actually working their 40s. Then it becomes a rule that all meetings have to be scheduled between 8 and 5, which leads to people sneaking out a bit early or coming in a bit late. So pretty soon, the usual suspects are working 32 hours a week and the others get resentful as hell that they are working 40 still.

        But HR doesn’t dare call out the slackers and woe be to anyone who tries to cancel Summer Hours because people want those 3 day weekends.

      • Kwihn T. Senshel

        I work 9 hours Mon-Thu, 8 hours every other Fri, with alternate Fridays off.

        Works pretty well, although I do think I’d prefer 4 10’s.

    • mrfamous

      The fatal conceit, 21st Century EU edition.

    • PieInTheSky

      I am 23 and my husband is 28. We have three children and we’ve been married for seven years. – unsurprising

      • leon

        Seven Year itch isn’t that strong.

      • PieInTheSky

        I was referring to her age at time of marriage

    • Chipwooder

      I will say this much – I knew a guy in the Marines who married his wife when they were both 18 and just out of high school. His wife’s mother gave birth to her when she was 16. I saw his wife’s mother when we graduated radar school and she was about 36 or 37, and she looked terrific. A definite would.

      • R C Dean

        she looked terrific

        Then your buddy’s wife will probably hold up just as well.

    • Mojeaux

      He often complains that I put the children before his needs.

      Oh, ya think? That’s what kids do, asshoe.

      your mum sounds full of remorse.

      Yeah, that she got caught and no more boytoy.

    • Tejicano

      Mutha-fukkka!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Sounds very chavvy

    • Tejicano

      At a party in grad school I was talking with another student – wealthy Mexican dude – and late in the evening after a number of drinks he confessed that the main reason he came to grad school was to get away from his home situation. He married into an even wealthier family who all lived in a huge mansion/complex with his wife’s extended family – and he had been sampling the goods of about 7 or 8 of his wife’s close relatives including her mother and a couple aunts.

      • Lackadaisical

        See, that is who needs a refugee visa.

    • Agent Cooper

      So we have new neighbors. A young couple. The wife is a stepmom to the 9-year-old girl. She’s about 26, and she’s pretty cute and fit. Well, her mother came over and they were out walking the dog and the mom, who is about 45-ish or so now is IMHO hotter than the daughter.

  55. CPRM

    Last night when I left for work I found out I had a headlight out. Got home this morning and looked up how to change it on my car, you have to partially remove the front bumper. Like 20 bolts n pins under the hood and in the wheel wells. It’s cold outside and my ankle hurts, fuck it. Made an appointment to take it to the shop later this week.

    • Tejicano

      Definitely designed that way for that purpose.

  56. prolefeed

    From yesterday’s dead thread:

    It’s the same stupid, transparent lie that every politician uses to stake out some credibility for their own stupidity. Sure, there are SOME voters that believe in you. You’re fucking delusional to believe any majority does.

    Yep. Despite record breaking vote counts in 2020 for both major presidential candidates, here are the numbers:

    Population of U.S. 332M
    Eligible to vote 239M

    Biden: 79M
    Trump: 73M
    None of the above: 87M

    Guess which of the three gets inaugurated on Jan. 20th?

    • leon

      I’m still astounded that 70+ million people voted for either candidate.

      • Kwihn T. Senshel

        When for your entire life the utterly consistent messaging has been “you must vote, and for one of two teams,” then it kinda makes sense.

        Not trying to make excuses, but it’s really hard to ignore that sort of social pressure and cultural habit when you don’t have (or know of) sources of alternative views.

      • prolefeed

        I’m not. My wife’s family mostly voted early, and then harangued the lone kid who hadn’t gotten around to registering to vote yet. Far as I know, 100% turnout among them, 100% Biden voters.

      • leon

        I’ll say, I’m impressed that the Outrage machine was able to keep up for 4 years straight and push a win. Impressive.

      • juris imprudent

        I’ve never been outraged about Trump (contrary to some folks here belief that I have TDS), but I am tired of him. He could’ve accomplished a lot more if he just wasn’t who he is. So I am not at all surprised that he lost.

      • leon

        I have no doubt he would have won if not for Coronavirus. Incumbent, strong economy = Win.

        Apart from that, you are not a “normal” person. You seem to think fairly clearly. A lot of the votes that Biden was able to pick up in my understanding is from the people frothed up to vote by the outrage machine in the media.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        I’ve said before that Trump the politician has accomplished many things that would be impossible for a different republican candidate, but Trump the person has limited his ability to accomplish another set of things.

        An ideal-ish candidate would have Trump’s ability to cut through the BS without wilting under media pressure and a personality that didn’t turn off 2/3 of the country. Unfortunately, those are not orthogonal traits.

      • R C Dean

        He could’ve accomplished a lot more if he just wasn’t who he is.

        I agree with this. His effectiveness has been pretty strongly limited by his personal shortcomings. He nonetheless got some things accomplished.

        Assuming the current vote totals hold up, I will still be a little surprised that he lost. His shortcomings didn’t limit his base’s motivation, but increased the anti-Trump vote. However, that pales in comparison to the damage done to his chances by the unending, four year, dishonest tsunami of lies and sewage spewed at him by the Democrats and their operatives in the DemOp Media, amplified by the Tech Lords, the illegal “#resistance” throughout the administrative state, and the illegitimate #resistance in the federal judiciary. File all that under “politics”, I guess.

        Our institutions are broken, pretty much across the board. Without broken institutions, I think he would have won easily, Allah help us all. And I still believe that without the #resistance infecting the electoral process, he likely still would have won. I get that Philly looks like its not the problem, but nobody is saying Philly is the only problem. It may turn out that there are good explanations for all the weirdness around the electoral process this year, but I’m not hearing them yet.

      • AlexinCT

        I agree with this. His effectiveness has been pretty strongly limited by his personal shortcomings. He nonetheless got some things accomplished.

        I will disagree with that. I firmly believe after observations that the ONLY reason he accomplished things was because of his off-putting personality and his never-give-up attitude. Someone less combative and annoying would have caved to the left’s constant 24/7/365 attacks and defamation tactics, and been run out of that office.

      • Agent Cooper

        “His effectiveness has been pretty strongly limited by his personal shortcomings.”

        it’s a bit of a Catch-22 because his “shortcomings” are partially the reason he was elected.

      • R C Dean

        By his shortcomings, I mean his inability to follow through on his administrative reforms, his poor choices in senior officials (which may be due to the Senate), and his scattered, unfocussed, semi-articulate communication style being exactly the wrong thing during the ‘Vid. Sure, it was fun when he was slapfighting with the media and the House, but once the country believed it was in a crisis, it needed him to communicate soberly and clearly. And he failed, too often.

      • Hyperion

        Trump was a pretty damn good president overall. And I think all of us will be missing him a lot soon when we are dealing wiht economy crushing new regulations and taxes and Orwellian social controls.

        Trump’s problem is being really bad at who he surrounds himself with.

        But for 4 years, I made more money, was pretty much left alone, didn’t see the ME burning every day on CNN. We’ll all be saying goodbye to all of that.

      • Old Man With Candy

        Also not surprised, but delighted to be collecting my bets.

        Joe will be a fucking disaster, but at least he’ll likely only get one Supreme Court pick.

      • R C Dean

        I think that’s right – unlikely more than one current Justice will expire in the next couple of years. Of course, Harris might pick one up in the back half of “Biden’s” term.

        And it assumes that the Dems don’t get the Senate and ram through court packing. I have less than full confidence in Dem Senators crossing the aisle to oppose it., but I think the odds are against it. Until the midterms, anyway. I don’t like the ratio of Dems to Repubs coming up in 2022.

  57. Pope Jimbo

    OK, the state legislators are having a donnybrook that is fairly amusing to watch. The GOP had some swindig and it turned out to be a “superspreader” event with 4 people who attended testing positive. Then those Rona Mary’s showed up to a special session of the legislature to approve more One Man Rule. Now the Dems are acting outraged that the GOP would put their lives at risk by showing up at the special session without telling the Dems about the dire danger that they faced.

    The quotes from the Dems are pretty funny.

    • Pope Jimbo

      “I continue to care for patients on a regular basis,” said Klein, a medical doctor. “For their safety and my own, I demand that Senator Gazelka tell us if any of the members or staff who attended the November 12 special session with me have been tested or have experienced symptoms, and if any of those tests have been positive.”

      Hmmm…. Shouldn’t this guy take the advice that he has been preaching to us proles and just go self isolate? Can’t be too careful. And this is a guy who has voted for gobs and gobs and gobs of money on our state Contact Tracing program. Shouldn’t those fuckers be able to contact Klein if he was one of those people who came in contact with a sicko? Or is he admitting that that program is a complete waste of time.

    • Pope Jimbo

      “If I had known this information I would have avoided going to the Senate,” Franzen, DFL-Edina, said of the COVID-19 cases. She believes Gazelka acted in a way that meets the standards for bringing “dishonor and disrepute” to the Senate. “I think that would apply certainly because we’re the leaders of the state and we’re telling people to stay home and mask, but we are not leading by example.”

      At least she gets it. If you are going to preach to the proles, you should walk the walk. Of course, she is probably a true believer in the lethality of the virus and is sure that this will deprive Minnesoda of the leadership they so badly need.

      • R C Dean

        For their safety and my own, I demand

        Fuck off.

        If I had known this information I would have avoided going to the Senate

        Why do I doubt that?

      • Pope Jimbo

        Hold on a second RC. Am I reading your comment correctly? Are you trying to tell me that state legislators might say things that they don’t really believe just to score political points?

        That doesn’t ring true to me.

  58. The Late P Brooks

    Biden: 79M
    Trump: 73M
    None of the above: 87M

    MANDATE!

      • R C Dean

        I’m curious: where are the Philly suburb’s votes counted? I gather Biden outperformed in the burbs, but not the city proper. But if the problem is vote counting, then where the votes were counted is what matters.

        What about Pittsburgh? Who controls it, what were the results there?

      • juris imprudent

        Counties do the vote counting, so no, the ‘burb votes do not go to Philadelphia county for tallying.

        I think the biggest thing to note is that Clinton was abominable in the balance of the state and Joe was not. Those are a lot of staunchly Republican areas, where the local vote counting is not in question in the slightest. He did far better there, and the ‘burbs, and that was the key to him winning the state, not the phantoms of urban chicanery.

      • Agent Cooper

        Chester County doesn’t add up though.

      • Drake

        The argument is that they used Dominion systems to delete or flip Trump votes in surrounding more Republican counties in MI, WI, and PA. I was caught and corrected in one WI county. A for-real paper / hand recount would be the only way to confirm.

      • juris imprudent

        OK, so if the state level has fraudulently changed local tallies – that is actually a more reasonable theory than “it was all because of Philly”. A recount may just expose that too.

      • Drake

        Messing around with a few thousand votes in Detroit, Philly, and Milwaukee was the original plan but turns out that Trump was too far ahead – that’s why they had to stop and reboot at 10pm in those states. In several states Trump’s vote count actually went down afterward, which shouldn’t be possible.

      • juris imprudent

        I don’t believe Trump’s count ever went down in PA, just that the Biden vote climbed.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Something bothers me about the way the Edison data is reported. why are they reporting shares of the total vote instead of vote counts for each candidate? It would seem that a much more natural data format would be Biden: 132938, Trump 102947, Jorgensen 4509, Write-In 1252. Instead, the data that I’ve seen has been in the format Biden: 0.478, Trump: 0.465, Ballots: 242530

        Why are they transforming the data into percentages before reporting it?

    • Don escaped Two Corinthians

      Landslide

      * per a certain person’s 2016 micrometer

  59. Nephilium

    Here in Ohio, looks like people are getting their lawsuits in order for Thursday’s expected shutdown announcement. One nice little dig in the article:

    The lawsuit argues that the health orders should be left up to state legislators who, the suit points out, have not passed any laws that would require people to wear masks or take any other precautions.

    • leon

      New Think Peace from Current Affairs:

      “Legislatures are outdated, and Coronavirus has shown us that they are Dangerous”

      “With the current pandemic, things that feel like they shouldn’t be controversial, have of couse, become political. When Governors swooped in to save lives, many far right extreemists quickly sounded the ralying cry of killing poor people. They argued that the governors didn’t have the power to enact their measures, and that only the legislatures could craft law….

      from Employment reform to life saving public health protocols, legislatures accross the country have been bastions of power for regressive, racist and vile thought. It is time we abandon these institutions that give safe harbor to racists.”

      /snark

      • Kwihn T. Senshel

        Nice.

        I do think that all branches of gov’t (and the 4th, the bureaucracy) have become lawmakers now:

        The Executive makes proclamations with the force of law (see CV restrictions)
        The Judicial decides that this or that law doesn’t mean what it says, so makes up another one out of whole cloth
        The civil service creates red tape, fees (taxes), interprets vague laws or mandates in whatever way benefits the bureaucracy best

        Perhaps it was ever thus, but seems like it’s increased in recent years.

      • Tejicano

        The Judicial decides that this or that law doesn’t mean what it says, so makes up another one out of whole cloth

        “Shall not be abridged” = “reasonable restrictions”

    • Hyperion

      No worries, looks like we’ll be able to borrow another 15 trillion USA$ from China soon and everyone will be happy as peas in a pod. Now stay in your pod, comrade, the emperor is arriving soon!

    • Agent Cooper

      I heard DeWine wasn’t going to suggest a lockdown, but you may have heard other things. He is talking about a ‘slow down’, which is probably Lockdown Lite™.

      • Gender Traitor

        He has a presser today, which makes me wonder if he just couldn’t wait until Thursday.

      • Kwihn T. Senshel

        he just couldn’t wait

        Ya, when I saw Oregon lock down last week, I knew that Inslee (WA) was going to follow, and even harder. Couldn’t help himself.

        And, he announced everything on a Sunday morning!

      • Pope Jimbo

        It does look like there is some sort of competition between the Govs to see who can lockdown hardest.

        Maybe there is some weekly conference call and no gov wants to get mocked for letting their citizens run around free. Or maybe once one gov sees that a mob didn’t hang some other gov from a lamp pole for their unconstitutional orders, they decide it is safe for them to do so.

      • Kwihn T. Senshel

        no gov wants to get mocked for letting their citizens run around free

        I think the govs that actually want to allow this are few and far between.

        More likely they are striving to out-lockdown each other, and like you said, when they see that poking the sleeping bear is safe, then they become emboldened.

      • Hyperion

        “Ya, when I saw Oregon lock down last week”

        Yeah, but if you’re near Portland you can get some heroin to help get through it.

      • Nephilium

        The one today is supposed to be something related to the hospitals. Thursday is the deadline for the threat from last Wednesday, as the case trends aren’t going down, I’m sure he feels he needs to do something (insert rest of the trope here).

      • Agent Cooper

        It’s total gaslighting if us subjects can’t look at the current trends dashboard and see the small rollercoaster the serious numbers have been on for the past month. The only thing truly rising are cases.

      • Nephilium

        The part that pissed me off was in his speech last Wednesday, he specifically said that we know the spread is from informal gatherings, but if the case numbers don’t get under control, we’ll need to close the bars, restaurants, and gyms again.

        Quite a few restaurants are now lashing out at family gatherings questioning the sanitation and mask wearing protocols that will happen in homes compared to the restaurants.

      • leon

        Unity! by making sure you all fight amongst eachother about who’s fault it is that i am so brutal!

      • Gender Traitor

        Divide and conquer.

      • Jarflax

        Yes one of the keys to authoritarian rule is to always have a scapegoat. “Sorry bars and restaurants, we’d let you survive except the evil family gatherings ruined it for you.”

  60. Scruffy Nerfherder

    I think the final tally for kidney stone bills is in. Right at $8k. Of course, that’s adjusted down from about $30k.

    IIRC, the kidney stone I had back in 2002 cost me about $2k.

    I would like to take this opportunity to personally thank Barack Obama for saving me so much money.

    • CPRM

      I plan to go out like my grandma. Died in her mid 80s. One of her kidneys was just one giant stone. That way you don’t have to worry about passing it and you had a good run.

    • Hyperion

      “I would like to take this opportunity to personally thank Barack Obama for saving me so much money.”

      And he’s back! If you like your healthcare, you can keep your healthcare!

    • Pope Jimbo

      I was just griping about this last weekend.

      My insurance costs more. My deductible is super high. I used to be able to just go get medical stuff done. Now with that deductible, we skip minor stuff and wait. Every few years something big happens and once we hit the deductible limit we go hog wild getting all sorts of stuff done.

      Yeah, Obama care is awesome and thank doG that caring principled politicians like John McCain preserved it for us against the GOP barbarians who wanted to drag us back to the bad old days of 2007.

      • leon

        Thing with McCain is i think he did that out of sheer spite for the country and the GOP.

      • CPRM

        Thing with McCain is i think he did that out of sheer spite for the country and the GOP people who voted for him in 2008.

        They supported a Literal Hitler after all.

      • Hyperion

        It was his turn and Trump stole it. And just think, if he would have been president, we would have been saved from all that Covid stuff, McCain would have carpet bombed it!

      • Drake

        I was griping that we are stuck in our corporate jobs because private healthcare makes starting a small business untenable at this point.

      • Mojeaux

        Ours skyrocketed. Our premiums are almost half my husband’s paycheck.

        we skip minor stuff and wait.

        For us, it’s shrinks and therapists, so we can’t.

        once we hit the deductible limit we go hog wild getting all sorts of stuff done.

        Yup. And stock up on our meds at the end of the year, as much as we can.

    • Akira

      The History of American Healthcare, 1st Edition (2020) by Akira:

      One expansive government program after another that they promise will fix everything once and for all and guarantee that everyone gets what they need right away at little to no cost. Repeat this cycle at least once per decade.

      The End

  61. Rebel Scum

    Sure…

    President-elect Joe Biden has privately told advisers that he doesn’t want his presidency to be consumed by investigations of his predecessor, according to five people familiar with the discussions, despite pressure from some Democrats who want inquiries into President Donald Trump, his policies and members of his administration.

    • Tejicano

      …he doesn’t want his presidency to be consumed by investigations of his predecessor…

      “So wrap that shit up quick and have him in prison by July”

    • Brochettaward

      The country won’t be safe until bad orange man is behind bars.

    • R C Dean

      One of my more confident predictions is that if he loses, Trump will be indicted. Maybe not by the feds, for appearances sake, but certainly by the NY AG, and very likely by others.

      There will be no media empire, there will be no second run in 2024. Their rage and hate will never allow them to just let him be. They will go after him; its what banana republics do, after all. When they say “by any means necessary”, believe them.

      The smart move would be for Trump to resign in January and have Pence pardon him. Even that won’t save him from the state AGs, though.

      • leon

        Maybe Biden pardons him? As a gesture of Unity?

      • R C Dean

        I don’t see how a preemptive pardon helps Biden. It will massively piss off his base. And he is a famously nasty and vindictive politician, anyway, his carefully constructed Kindly Uncle Joe persona notwithstanding.

        As pure optics, maybe, because he can count on the state AGs to do the dirty. Or, perhaps, after Trump is convicted by the DOJ.

        Remember, the Dems idea of “unity” is, you stop resisting and let them do what they want. Pardoning Trump doesn’t really fit in with that.

      • juris imprudent

        Oh, that is so going up on my FB…

        A Democrat saying “unity” is like a cop saying “stop resisting”.

      • leon

        Pre-emptive, not a lot of upside, but if he gives in to the pressure, and lets the investigation roll on for 6 months, and then pardons him, there could be a way to thread it.

        And yes “Unity” means “Get in line with the program and shutup”.

    • Hyperion

      I actually believe that is true. For them to pursue Trump after he is out of office would be extremely reckless and dangerous. Sure, the far left wackos would do it, but the establishment will not, they have no interest in that, they have graft and corruption in mind. Moar cronyism! Once Mittens and Jeb are back in control of the GOP, they can go back to reaching across the aisle to screw over the sheeples again, like in the good old days.

      • leon

        I’m curious if jeb/mittens are able to gain control of the GOP. Trump was a character, but he didn’t create the animosity and unrest in the GOP, he just saw it and used it. I don’t know if a known quantity like Jeb/ Mittens could do it. However someone like Crenshaw i think could, since he’s a “new face” and could try to steer the sheep back into the establishment fold, while claiming to be an outsider.

      • Hyperion

        The GOP will run a woman in 2024. I don’t really think it matters, the mail in ballot for everyone thing will keep the dems in power forever. That will eventually reach down ballot as well and even local elections will be unwinnable unless you have that D by your name. We get one party rule and a Europe style transition for the country. It will of course, be disastrous and most of us will be poor, the middle class will disappear, because a middle class is not equitable. We only need 2 classes, the ruling class and the serfs But hey, we’ll all be happy comrades in the new utopia.

      • AlexinCT

        They don’t need mail in ballots when they have the dominion counting system…

      • Hyperion

        TOS has assured us that there are no issues with that system.

      • Agent Cooper

        The other question is what happens if they lose?

      • Idle Hands

        Well that’s exactly what they are going to do. I say that mostly because I figured the Covid shit would quickly leave the news cycle but no apparently we are all going to go the destitute dirt farmer path.

      • R C Dean

        Sure, the far left wackos would do it, but the establishment will not

        Perhaps the establishment can put the wackos back in their box. The losses in the House may do it. Who knows? Maybe the establishment didn’t think the wackos have their way throughout the year would really affect the voting? The question is, I guess, can the establishment put the wackos back in their box? The wacko program opens up whole new vistas of control and graft, so I’m not coonvinced they establishment even wants to shorten their leash. Or maybe there’s a deal – we’ll jail Trump for you, but don’t give us any shit on the legislative agenda; we still have to get something through the Senate.

        If the Dems wind up with the Senate after the Repubs botch the GA runoff, I’m thinking the wackos will be off the leash, though. No need for Senate deals, no need to hold back. If the Dems run the table, they already have their plan to convert to all mail-in voting, all ballot harvesting, little risk of loss of control.

    • B.P.

      That article is very light on what, exactly, merits an investigation. A slight mention of taxes, child separation policy, conflicts of interest, campaign finance violations. And then there’s this:

      “Democrats have sharply criticized Trump’s direct influence on Justice Department investigations, including his calls for Biden and former President Barack Obama to be prosecuted over allegations of unspecified crimes.”

      I guess “unspecified crimes” is “without evidence” 2.0.

      • AlexinCT

        These people are good at using language to minimize the criminal behavior of their bosses, while criminalizing non criminal behavior of their bosses opponents…

      • leon

        we must investigate him for investigating us!

  62. Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

    I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that we always get more restrictions right before a long weekend.

    • Kwihn T. Senshel

      According to the letter of the King’s Proclamation here in WA, one of two ways to “properly” have a social gathering is for everyone to quarantine for two weeks before the event.

      Announced yesterday, 11 days before Thanksgiving…

      • Hyperion

        Thanksgiving is racist anyway. Like all other Western or Christian holidays. If we’re going to keep it on the same day, it should at least be renamed. Maybe we could name it the Native American Woke Day and it will of course feature a transgender turkey with a name, who never gets eaten, because meat of any type is bad. The food item should be replaced with Tofurkey.

      • Pope Jimbo

        How about Beware of the Immigrants Day?

      • leon

        The other day i couldn’t figure it out buy my wifes calendar did not have Christmas, Thanksgiving or New Years on it but it did have native american day, “First Day of Black History Month”, etc.

        I checked on mine and it was all there, but not on hers.

    • Idle Hands

      https://petequinones.substack.com/p/these-people-want-us-dead

      This article is pretty much where I am, I don’t even know what to say about this shit anymore. This is the definition of a totalitarian state a ton of unclear rules created for the sole purpose to discriminately punish people whenever they deem necessary.

      • Kwihn T. Senshel

        From the article you linked:

        I can’t tell you how many people have contacted me to tell me that someone close to them has committed suicide

        I have a friend that runs a recovery and counseling clinic. He told me back in about August (so, before this new round of lockdowns) that he has had 1 suicide among his patients in the 10 years before 2020.
        He’s had 2 since March.

        This is what breaks my heart. The uncounted, unseen cost of all this dehumanization, separation, and control.
        In the name of safety and health, we’re creating danger (abusive households being forced together with no relief) and sickness (mental and physical).

      • Tundra

        I’m getting really worried about my daughter. I’m seeing a level of hysteria and despair that is freaking me the fuck out.

        I agree with Pete. This is fucking inhuman bullshit.

      • Mojeaux

        Despair is life-ruining.

  63. The Late P Brooks

    “With the current pandemic, things that feel like they shouldn’t be controversial, have of couse, become political. When Governors swooped in to save lives, many far right extreemists quickly sounded the ralying cry of killing poor people. They argued that the governors didn’t have the power to enact their measures, and that only the legislatures could craft law….

    from Employment reform to life saving public health protocols, legislatures accross the country have been bastions of power for regressive, racist and vile thought. It is time we abandon these institutions that give safe harbor to racists.”

    Save us, Comrade Stalin!