DALLAS – “It’s like, nothing we do is working” lamented Senior GOP Defeat Strategist Joanna Gambolputty. “No matter how hard we try to lose elections, people keep voting for us for some reason. It’s really weird.” Gambolputty added that no effort has been spared to alienate conservative and libertarian voters. “So far, we’ve double-crossed them over and over on things like war, guns, taxes, and spending but voters still turn out for us. We really hoped our support for the draconian pandemic restrictions would be the last nail in the coffin, but incredibly, many Republican voters support them.”
According to Gambolputty, desperate GOP leaders have pushed for launching more wars. “I tried to tell them that, absurd as it may seem, many GOP voters actually support endless war. The really insane part is the support is the strongest among those who never volunteered for the military. Figure that one out, because I can’t.” Gambolputty elaborated that the party’s time-tested strategy of nominating terrible candidates no longer seems to be working.
“We used to have solid, dependable losers like Mitt Romney and John McCain. But then this Trump guy comes along and out of nowhere, just starts winning. We were all like, ‘hey buddy, stop doing that’, but he just kept getting more popular despite our best efforts. If not for the pandemic, Trump would have been re-elected in a landslide and the GOP would have control of both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, and most of the governorships and state legislatures. There’s no way we could have recovered from a win like that.”
Gambolputty and her team of failure experts have been working around the clock to find a new losing formula. “So far, our best idea is to have Mitt Romney propose a special tax on Chik-Fil-A customers and then use the money to fund drag queen story hours. Also, all gun owners will be required to eat at Chik-Fil-A at least once a week to ensure sufficient revenue and also to encourage them to voluntarily disarm. And then, to annoy libertarians, we’ll establish a new government agency specifically tasked to enforce proper mask wear and social distancing. This new Control And Re-Education Network will have broad powers of warrant-less search, seizure, arrest, and public scolding. Enforcement mechanisms will include fines, imprisonment, and pineapple pizza.”
GOP against war? What is this, 1936?
Well done, though. Enjoy joyed it.
It could be argued that the Trump GOP has been scaling down wars but if you mean the larger GOP ya, they are kind of wary. (?) Warie (?) fuck it ya war mongers.
Many Trump voters wanted the troops home for various reasons. I’m not ready to call the GOP anti war, either.
Oh I am not saying that. I am just saying Trump changed the direction on that front and is a total idiotic shitshow on many others but the real GOP without Trump, ya, back to wars. Throw in Biden as Pres, we can be in a new one in no time.
We’ll be in a fresh one by spring. My money’s on Syria and all the resulting disaster that flows from that.
Iran.
It’s on.
Iran’s a Russian quasi client state. Bye bye Ukraine then and maybe Belarus too while Russia’s at it. There’s no way they’d let that happen without serious repercussions. Hopefully the left’s strange love of Iran will prevent that but I could see a Ukraine takeover if we get too adventurous in Syria too.
A Biden administration packed with Obamaites will not go to war with Iran. They will do some deep cover black op shit and rebuild/re-arm ISIS which Iran will benefit from because they are of the same faction of that split religion.
You sure?
We’ve flip-flopped so many times in this cluster fuck.
Lots of bombing potential there.
We gotta go back and save those Kurds from the genocide of us survived the lack of net neutrality.
Trump doesn’t have much of a moral opposition to war, he just doesn’t see the benefit.
The rest of DC was already on the take and profiting from our overseas misadventures
Nice Derp. Unfortunately, I’m having trouble determining what is satire anymore. The WSJ just published an article titled “The Myth of ‘War Weary’ Americans” that could have been written by your Senior GOP Defeat Strategist Joanna Gambolputty.
Is their principal piece of evidence the fact that voters might have elected Biden?
Holy shit, that’s real:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-myth-of-war-weary-americans-11606863481
This is going to to be a long motherfucking four years.
OFFS!
‘hey buddy, stop doing that’,
I lol’d.
Finally some got-damned respect, I mean c’mon “TMITE” takes off but “HB,SDT” is all but forgotten, Thanks Derpster, game recognize game.
Ha!
Sounds about right.
Did you not see the photographic proof that SSBC got more votes than some soi-disant “legitimate” candidates?
Wait’ll 1941
President Franklin Roosevelt called the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor a “date which will live in infamy,”
Repubs gotta wait their turn, play dominoes for a few years
Nice sidebar.
Nice comment.
All my comments are nice. Asking me to choose the nicest is like asking parents to choose which kid they love most.
Easy answer, the one I didn’t have
So you have spoken with Ted’s parents. Got it.
Thank you! I’ve been clicking all over the page, thinking “What the heck did I do to make that show up and how do I make it go away??”
Derpy forgot to turn it off before submitting.
At this point, we’d need one of the powers that be to switch it off.
As long as it’s not a permanent change to the post page layout, it’s no big deal. Thanks for the explanation.
Nope, something that could happen to anyone. There’s no permanant implications.
Heh one of my team’s QA testers is a Caren. I feel bad for her.
Hahah, that’s actually pretty perfect, given that her job is literally to criticize shit (speaking as a QA tester).
Right?! Every time I see her name pop up in my Inbox I cringe.
I’m sure I generate the same response with some of my developers. The worst is when I need to call out some dumb “this is 10px off center” bug. I prefer finding stuff like, “you forgot xss protection on this field” instead.
Nah, that’s just being good at your job.
Hell, I get more frustrated at what some of my developers are doing than at the testers who report it.
Worst at one place I worked was a woman who had the last name of Tester, and a first name that started with a T.
There were several attempts by infosec to disable/delete her account because they thought it was fake.
Our company is small enough that we haven’t run into that one yet. Phew.
My company is large enough that I keep coming across some dude with my first name and almost the same last name except two letters in the middle but otherwise it rhymes. There must be a few dozen John Smiths but I haven’t checked.
I think we’re still at under 200 employees, and while I might not have met each of them personally, I recognize all of their names. I’ve worked at much larger places before; I like the much smaller environment better.
I’m at the same company I started temping for when it was < 100 employees 20 years ago (and before it was acquired by Big Company a few years ago). We’re at around 7,500 employees now. So I’ve had I full range. There’s pluses and minuses of all sizes but I do miss the old days.
The joy of having a weird last name is that will never happen to me.
For a long time, the only other person with my last name in the Boston phone book was my brother.
(I know, I know, it’s a dated reference)
On the other hand, if you have an unusual name but someone else pops up with it too, gross rumors can end up attributed to you. It’s easy to get lost in a sea of John Smiths and say ‘It was a different John Smith!’ Not so much when your first name is (in modern days) Ethel or something.
Both my names are uncommon, if not weird, enough that it was quite surprising to come across someone with almost the same name. There are a couple thousand of my last name in the US although I’ve never met someone I didn’t know with it.
Lamb is roasting…gonna tske half of it and chop it for some sheppards pie. Teen 1 has GF over, shes nice but man…stop trying to close your door, you aint gonna have sex in my house buddy and gal.
Dude, lay off the wine.
“you aint gonna have sex in my house…”
*Thinks back to when pistoffnick was that age*
You sure about that, pops?
“We’re gonna check out the garden shed.”
LOL OK it makes more sense now that I realize he’s talking about his kid. Maybe I need to lay off the sauce.
My kids are about your age, Nick, rules don’t always mean what I thought they meant.
They’re going to have sex out in the yard instead?
(Admit it, you’d laugh if it was somebody else’s kid I was talking about.)
I believe my exact words were, “Hey dad, we’re gonna take a walk around the neighborhood.” He would have caught us in the yard; too vigilant.
Keep it old school! My dad wouldn’t even let boys in my room. If they visited, we were in public areas, period.
Certainly Im not the only one that read that as “pubic areas”.
That is how I originally mistyped it, but caught prior to pushing post.
Enforcement mechanisms will include fines, imprisonment, and pineapple pizza.
Countdown until Chief Justice Penaltax rules this isn’t cruel and unusual punishment…..
“I’m not locked in here with you. YOU’RE LOCKED IN HERE WITH ME!!!”
Oh, yeah.
Talk about a tar baby moment.
Nice, Derp!
Gambolputty and her team of failure experts have been working around the clock to find a new losing formula.
How about this?
I heard about that today. “Are you FUCKING serious!” is what I yelled at the radio.
They may be in earnest, but they are obviously not serious people.
I dunno. Maybe it’s the pessimist in me, but companies may simply be calculating that craven pandering is a winning move. I mean, they don’t have any duty to principles, just what’s best for the company, and we may be in an environment where this garbage actually works.
Otherwise why are so many companies doing it?
And NASDAQ is a company after all, albeit a somewhat unique one.
Or this
https://cafehayek.com/2020/12/putting-stock-in-competition.html
LOL I’m sure they’ll resist it for all of five minutes.
Has that writer been paying any attention at all to the direction this country has taken over the last 20 years or so?
I think they are overpaying their hand. We live in a world with all electronic exchanges. If the big boys all fall in line then an upstart has a real chance to become a major player.
Talk about ripped from the headlines! I just got home and listened to that Shapiro kid the whole way. As I do sometimes. He was all shook up by the polls prior to the election. He bought it all hook line and sinker. Now, He’s in a huge hurry to play second fiddle to Biden. It’s like he’s stuck in the nineties loop of Pointing out all the hypocrisy then making dire predictions. He’s settling back into that like it’s his longed for home. I kinda wish there was better radio around here. Maybe I need satellite again.
Shapiro’s looking forward to going back to DESTROYING 19 year old college freshmen in debates while cheering on stupid ass Mideast wars. He’ll do well under Biden, he’s such a squish he might even cozy up to the Lincoln Project.
Titty Tuesday never loses!
https://archive.li/VotC5
You are correct sir!
This new Control And Re-Education Network
While it works good as CAREN, it is only one tweak away from being a very disturbing dystopian agency:
Control and Re-Education Services
CARES
We need to dispatch a CARES officer to deal with an antisocial incident. *shivers*
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act says, “Hi!”
Ooo, you’re good at that.
After having a perfectly sensible St. Andrew’s Day dinner, a Cajun nog sounds like a good way to end the day.
Hm I wonder if Grand Marnier would work in that.
Shockingly sweet, I would think. But I bet substituting 1/2 to 1 ounce of the cognac with GranMa could work quite well.
Or just omit the sugar called for in the recipe.
Leave out the sugar, and use B&B instead of Cognac. Ima tryin’ that one.
Man, I thought it was St. Gabriel day.
ain’t no Republicans in Dallas
Or Kenosha, apparently.
Or any other swing state, but just for this one election.
Dallas is minus 1 Democrat
+1 / LHO
My prediction: conscription within ten years
Don’t worry, they’ll pay conscripts with a new GI Bill (to help prop up the flagging higher ed system after student loan forgiveness kills their cash cow).
Why can’t we mix it up a bit and ‘forgive’ student loans in exchange for a term of service in the military? Sort of a reverse GI bill? You’re in the debt, now serve in the Army for 2 years for every 50k you owe to get out of it. I’d rather that people just pay what they owe, but this would at least give me a grim sort of satisfaction.
They can work off the loans in the forthcoming Civil Defense and Internal Security Forces.
(*psst* they already do…)
Ha, of course I was behind the times. Ima link that the next time one of the whining entitled brats that went to a top college spends their time complaining that people like me (who didn’t) should make their lives easier.
But I’d be told it’s not enough anyway, because the person doing the whining about being crushed by college debt somehow finds the funds to score floor tickets to large WWE events, so I don’t think they’re exactly embracing the suck to get out of their debt.
There is a scheme where you work for the government for 10 years and they forgive your loans. It turns out, they created the scheme and then just denied everyone who applied for it. My wife tried to get me in on it, but it turned out it was a scam.
They briefly discuss it here. Apparently, they didn’t get the memo that it’s all bullshit.
Bet it’s not a scam if your parent is a well-connected government employee or official themselves.
Yeah, they denied something like 95% of the applicants. Good bet the other 5% were offspring of the more important animals.
The destruction of science continues apace. I had to get 12 paragraphs into this article to figure out if they were comparing women to men, or women who’ve procreated to other women who have not. The writer studiously avoided the any useful descriptors; only a couple of direct quotes late in the article let it slip.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-11/ps-tno113020.php
The destruction of science continues apace. I had to get 12 paragraphs into this article to figure out if they were comparing women to men, or women who’ve procreated to other women who have not. The writer studiously avoided the any useful descriptors; only a couple of direct quotes late in the article let it slip.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-11/ps-tno113020.php
I’ve got this new phone with a front camera which shows up as a black circle right in the middle of the screen at the top. I have this irresistible urge to hang it up on a nail.
I gotta replace mine. First I left it in a car on a 90 degree day. That warped the case really badly. Then, apparently, having a warped case makes it far easier to crack the screen, which I did with a shirt pocket fall ( that I’ve done a dozen times with no damage.)
Trump isn’t doing so well.
https://twitter.com/cnn/status/1333917661793816576?s=21
I’m sure the deep state will go after Holder next for his pardon shenanigans.
I’m out of quarantine tomorrow. Headed back to work for the first time in 14 days.
Lessons learned:
1) it is easy to get soft. I slept in until 10 am nearly every day.
2) The masks, the disinfectant foggers, the protocols required by the safety department at work do nothing. It is pure theater.
3) Coronavirus is not really that bad. I’m overweight, I have asthma, it knocked me out for two days. Then I was fine.
4) We should not be shutting down gyms, restaurants, parks, etc. over this. (That is also pure theater)
Carry on with your life. This, too, shall pass.
Glad to hear you’re feeling better.
Glad you are better Nick.
You are on fire Derpe!
Trump still leads 205 – 148 !!!!!!!!!!!!!
https://www.270towin.com/maps/2020-election-certification-status
Trump will win! Watch Fox News! Read Breitbart! Ignore the haters and liars! Send mo money to Trump4prez.law !
Signores Giuliani and Pompeo guarantee he will win! This is not over!
God wants Trump to be president!
Own the fucking libs!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111!!!!!1111111111!
Mine eyes have seen the glowing of his oh so orange skin
He’s tucking li’l monster away, ye Gods where’s that thing been?
The strippers line up telling of his many, many sins
His truth is nearly gone!
Gory, gory, what a fucktard
Seen his ass, it’s a ton o lard
No one lies as fast or as hard
His truth is nearly gone.
Don are you okay?
He seems to think Fox is pro-Trump for some reason.
So after glibfin, I opened an “investment” account. I’ve decided to regard everything committed to it as a sunk cost – it, that it’s already been gambled away.
I figure it’ll all vanish when the market tanks.
couple of observations
a/ watch the long-run PE ratios and ask yourself what’s driving equity valuations today
b/ remember that when a few stocks are inflated all beyond reason, you can’t really expect diversification from index funds: you’re just getting Apple, Tesla, and Google with a a few side dishes
I was going to commit a portion of the account to the deranged strategy of buying stock in companies whose products I actually buy.
It’ll probably lose money.
you can’t really expect diversification from index funds: you’re just getting Apple, Tesla, and Google with a a few side dishes
Yeah, this is more than a bit hyperbolic. I checked my domestic stock index fund, and their top 10 stocks were 23% of the portfolio. Top heavy, yes, but 77% of the portfolio is hardly “a few side dishes”.
I’m still in the planning stages because the account is so new that the transfer hasn’t cleared yet.
So my mind is still playing around with the potential drawbacks to various distributions.
UCS what is your plan for this money?
I don’t have one beyond “see if I can get a better return than the savings account”
You will drive yourself crazy picking individual stocks. As suggested below, get a book by John Bogle. I did that 26 years ago when I started saving for retirement. I avoided a lot of mistakes and gained the perspective needed to make it through dives in market without panicking.
FWIW, nearly any long term plan will outperform a savings account.
Why would I be driven crazy? I’m not going to sell or try to game the fluctuations.
If I buy shares in a company by name, it’s because I want to own a piece of that company.
Right now, I own a little slice of Minds from the early early funding cycle (the company hasn’t had an IPO yet) not because I expect those nineteen shares to make bank, but because I more social media competition.
I misunderstood your goals. Have at it.
Good resource
Yep – I have a comment awaiting moderation because I posted multiple links to Bogleheads. (I had forgotten about that commenting limitation).
I’m a big fan, with the enthusiasm of a late convert (though it’s been a bit of time at this point).
I rebalanced my 3-fund portfolio recently and it’s quite soothing to feel like I have a real handle on my money.
Yep, just looking at that – e.g.,
https://www.schwabfunds.com/resource/swtsx-fact-sheet
tech companies in the top-10 are ~ 19% of the fund, the other 4 non-tech companies bump it to ~ 23%.
Tech overall is ~ 27% of the fund.
As ever, I’ll pimp:
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started
and
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio
“We were all like, ‘hey buddy, stop doing that’”
Oh, well done. Well done, indeed.
My favorite reference. I smiled.
Great job Derpy. I can now cancel my subscriptions to Newsweek and Time.
Has the dashboard been expanded? I seem to have buttons to look at all the comments and to create new posts, and those have never been there before, AFAIK. I can even see comments in moderation. Do other people see those, or have I been given some level of access by mistake?
You may have gotten bumped to contributer status.
Those of us who are contributers have those options.
I see. Thanks for the info. If that is indeed the case, this is the easiest promotion I’ve ever gotten. I hope I’m not expected to actually do any work now.
Congratulations on being our new columnist.
I have work in a few hours, so I’m going to have to get some sleep.
G’night Glibs.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c4GrVRkb2LQ
?
https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2020/12/01/national-weather-service-determines-tornado-touched-down-montgomery-county/
Huh. And I thought the emergency notification on my phone I got was BS. Turns out they were not wrong this time.
Yikes! Who knew an EF-0 could do so much damage?
https://www.pennlive.com/news/2020/12/customer-shoots-kills-would-be-robber-at-pa-restaurant-police.html
Who robs a Wingstop?
What is a wingstop?
It is a really bad wing “fast food” restaurant. The quotes are because it isn’t that fast. It is more like pizza in that you need to call in the order in advance.
The only one I have ever been to had the scrawniest wings in existence.
Somtimes you just really need some mango habanero chicken strips, yo.
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/beverly-hills-votes-to-oppose-county-health-order-banning-outdoor-dining/
There’s gonna be a big pile of dead grandmas.
Late to the discussion, but when I set up my new 401k in January 2020 (which is an awesome time to start a new account to see the power of dollar cost averaging – my ROR is insane), I overweighted to large cap value. In addition to the large cap index fund, I added a large cap value fund, specifically to avoid the problem of depending on too many of the big boys. I also think value is undervalued right now.
So far, that strategy has been meh.
However, my mid cap index fund is kicking everything else’s ass. And mid cap funds are always a bit more balanced, they can’t get overweighted in a few stocks because before that can happen, they move up to large cap.
So versus a total market index fund, I am heavier in mid caps and heavier in large cap value. I might change my ratios someday, but I especially like the heavier in mid cap aspect. And value always seems a smart long term play to me.
The XIRR function in excel says 52.3% annualized rate of return. I doubt I will be able to maintain that.
Hey! An Excel function I need to learn about! (My birthday gift from Tom T.)
I have taken the lazy road of sticking with “target retirement” funds based on what year you plan to retire and that rebalance toward stability as that date nears.
Chilly out this morning, homes. Better get out the fur-lined panties.
Thanks! Glad I gassed up last night.
A whopping 21º I think.
A Madoff rate of return like that would make me think they were cooking the books somehow, not that they are mind you (I’m just the suspicious type).
Oh, sorry, that was slightly misreported, it is actually -52.3%
Its what happens when the bulk of your purchases happen in a covid crash. And calculating an annual return on money that has been invested, on average, less than 6 months.
A year from now, it will be at 10% of -5% or something.
Mornin’ Glibbies! Even if our civilization is circling the the drain and I dealt with a hygiene product flush, three sweet young lasses waved and said goodbye to me on my way out the door this morning. I’ll take the tiniest of victories at this point. Faithful old Festus the Janitor, philosopher custodian and lecherous surreptitious ogler.
Mild-mannered janitor? Do you know martial arts ?
Might as well be and the site lurves them some Festus. It’s not like I leer and push the mop up and down in the bucket. It’s just a happy way to get through my shitty day. I like to look at pretty women and have enough experience to not be a creep. Of course, being absolutely beautiful gives me the keys to the kingdom :-).
You’re the Canadian George Clooney.
Yeah. The one that has a baby arm growing off the side of his head.
I’m sure our resident Romanian has a perfectly good explanation:
Mysterious Monolith Found in Romania After Similar One Vanishes from Utah Desert
I explained it the other day: the Brennan-Monster*.
*semi-obscure sci-fi reference. In the novel, it was a duplicate stonehenge that appeared very near the real one…except they were exactly the same, experts didnt know which was the original. Did whoever do it put down a fake or move the original then put a fake in its place?
Stolen by Gypsies.
Hey, they prefer to be called Roma.
I recently learned that some Gypsies are Santi, not Roma. Who knew?
There’s no way we could have recovered from a win like that.
Well done.
Lol.
Oh nice! Repost that on a non-dead thread!
Nice and classy. 🙂
Scrolling down, I see that Kirstie Alley has sealed her fate in Hollywood by being an outspoken supporter of Trump and is throwing all kinds of messages supporting investigation of election fraud.
I don’t suppose she’ll ever work again.
She’s fat and happy. Kirstie can afford to speak her mind because she never needs to work again PBUH. What about the rest of us schlubs?
The Bloombergers are slavishly worshipping the lieutenant governor of New York, right now.
NINE PER CENT POSITIVITY RATE!!!!!!
(WTF does that mean? Stop asking that.)
“If a comprehensive federal money dump isn’t forthcoming, what essential government services will you be forced to cut?”
“What on Earth are you talking about? TThere is no legitimate alternative. There is nothing left to cut! Millions are dying!”