We’ll recover from last night. Eventually. At least we had a 22 year old Syrah to thank for the coup de grace. The B-grade noir film from the ’40s (Phantom Lady) was a nice accompaniment to dinner as well.
You figure that December 26 has to be one of the worst days to be born on- you still get screwed out of birthday presents (“These are for Christmas AND your birthday!”) but your DOB isn’t memorable. However, that didn’t stop a guy whose motto was, “Vive la difference!”; a guy who was most famous for beating up on little guys; a guy who proved that even dirty books can be dull; a guy who actually WAS worse than Hitler; a terrific actor even smaller than Rod Serling; a career piece of shit who left behind an even smellier piece of shit; a guy who started something big; a pitcher who actually lost a no-hitter, got blown off the mound in one game (and threw comically slowly); a guy who should have gotten prison for his production; and an answer to the riddle, “How bad a politician do you have to be to get removed in California?”
No riddles answered here, just news.
If he could throw better, he would have been able to hit Cuomo.
New Hampshire, Florida of the North.
“We haven’t killed all of them yet.”
BrettL has an alibi. Or maybe he doesn’t.
Old Guy Music features not only the greatest American composer of the 20th century, but also the absolutely coolest guy to ever hoist a saxophone.
‘sup yo
Morning Tres
Heya dollface. How YOU doin’ ?
Doll Face, the movie in which Perry Como threatens to beat his girlfriend.
Compare/contrast the original with the sanitized version.
“We haven’t killed all of them yet.”
Relevant
Coasties: spending shit-tons of money protecting us from awesome drugs we could have had a fun time with.
Another white supremacist attack on a Selfless Public Servant in NYC, I see.
Old Guy Music features not only the greatest American composer of the 20th century,
I thought Diane Warren was the greatest American composer of the 20th century
Who doesn’t love the stirring, power soft-rock theme from Star Trek: Enterprise.
Good Morning All!
The rest of the folks will be along later. I’m glad Xmas is over, except for the leftover food. Now to get New Year’s out of the way and it’ll be spring before we know it. Days ae getting longer, Yippee!
I’ve been doing the “days are getting longer” dance since Monday!
December is dark and days are short, but there are Christmas lights and decor, and usually good visits with friends and family to help stave off malaise.
And when Christmas is over, we have lengthening days. Yay!
It would definitely feel weird to be in the Southern Hemisphere for Christmas.
I always measure winter as being 1/2 over on January 15th. Seems like the days are recognizably longer and the sun is brighter, snow begins to melt soon (a little).
HAHAHAHAHA!
Must be nice
I once heard that February was the worst.
Nope. It’s April
What’s big, grey, and write gloomy poetry?
T.S. Elephant
“There is simply no place in Michigan, or in the United States, for chilling threats like this to people who are simply doing what they believe is correct,” he added.
The fed continued, “that is why we are formally dropping all charges against Ross Ulbricht, Ed Snowden, and Julian Assange.”
Intentions are the only metric.
…For government officials and their immediate families. The rest of you peons are strictly liable.
For People Who Matter. Being a fed doesn’t necessarily count. Ask Mike Flynn.
How squeaky clean can a man get? They were up his ass with the FedGov proctoscope and were still reduced to fabrications and entrapment.
Happy Boxing Day to our Commonwealth Glibs!
Boxing Day is for limeys, and half-assed brits (Canadians).
I blame the metric system.
Brrrrrrrr. It’s cold again.
Dropped 1.2 of those vacation carb lbs since yesterday. .8 to go.
Mornin peeps.
Good going! Evict those darned pounds before they have a chance to settle in and start paying rent.
I’m sure I put on a couple. I ate too much sodium too, so my feet are a bit swollen.
Not gonna sweat it! Still have 48 hours before work…
My weight has been trending up over the month.
I will attack it once the holidays are done.
I’m actually down to the lowest I’ve been in years.
I’m still a fat bastard, but I’m less fat.
Despite the increase, my weight is overall lower than it was at this time last year. I also have more lean mass according to bodyfat percentage measurements.
I’m diagnosing the cinderblock attack as a random knockout game victim. Probably by a mentally ill guy. Normal young black hardass wannabes will be a lot less likely to hit a women than a crazy person would. No honor in it. Plus the trenchcoat kinda says “on the streets during cold weather”. Doesn’t mention her being robbed.
Yeah, I don’t even bat an eyelash at this stuff. It happens all the time.
I watched some video clips of Biden speaking extemporaneously (no teleprompter).
He’s either unusually clumsy about speaking, the way some people just can’t dance, or he has cognitive decline that is going to become obvious in the next few months.
It’s weird to think that we have an incoming administration of a president that no one expects to serve even one full term, yet the Veep waiting in the wings didn’t win any of her party’s primaries.
I don’t think anyone wanted Kamala (even Tulsi and Amy Klobuchar got more votes) but Joe painted himself into the corner with that “woman of color” pledge.
Well, Tulsi is a “woman of colour”, but is the wrong shade of colour.
Dude has 9 toes in the grave. He belongs in a home with a blanket and a chair to die in.
I’m still surprised he made it through the election.
Try not to get him excited, unless you want Kamala.
Kamala becoming CinC is not an “if” but a “when”. And I’d put down money that it happens in the first term.
how much and are you giving odds?
We’re gonna find out just how well cutting edge anti dementia medicene has progressed. I’m betting they’ll get a dozen or so synapses to fire.
Hillary was suppose to be dead four years ago, I’m willing to put some money against you people’s track record of diagnosing a politician’s life expectancy.
Wait, Hillary’s not dead? My lying eyes?
/heads for the eye doc
I’m on record as saying I think he’ll make. I also said he’d make it to the election.
Yep. It’s going to be a Jill Biden regency until that magical day when KH becomes eligible to serve two complete terms on her own after finishing out Biden’s term. I’m thinking that team KH will arrange for evidence of his failing faculties to leak to outlets like Breitbart.
Poor Astra.
Dammit, it’s DOCTOR Jill Biden.
Stop disrespecting smart women who can pass organic chemistry (or something).
The DNC wanted Kamala because she will be beholden to them. She has no constituency other than the “woman of color” idiots who somehow think this is a victory against racism even though they didn’t vote for her in the primaries
Plus she’s a lying whore-dog with no pants on.
(Am I doing Bidenspeak right?)
I’m hoping Harris’ ego gets the best of her and she tries to go her own way against the wishes of the DNC. That would mostly give us political gridlock which means little gets done or changed.
I think this is likely.
It’s interesting that as the Democrats tighten their grip and try to consolidate their one-party rule, some patient long-sighted Dems are trying to go slowly so the frog doesn’t know it’s being boiled, but other Dems are ready to drop the mask, burn bridges, and openly shit on their “enemies.”
The brash ones can’t imagine not winning all elections in perpetuity.
I predict unseemly open squabbling among the lefties.
The brash ones can’t imagine not winning all elections in perpetuity
Since they can get away with massive fraud, that’s not really a crazy thought.
Yeah, similar thoughts have ocured to me too lately. One party rule is OK when it is them ! Because they have good intentions (which they don’t or won’t admit are enforced by arrest, jail, and violence for “resistors.”)
Yeah, her constituency is the establishment, no one else.
If the DNC had completely gone off script and put Michelle Obama in the VP role I would be less concerned. At least it would be more like what we had before Trump. With Harris taking over and the imagined mandate to get things done I see a bad moon rising.
I’m also pretty sure that if Lady Obama had been on the ticket, there would be no need for fraud; she would win in a landslide.
Decline. He used to be more normaller.
We made the guy with the sandwich board warning us “The End is Near!” president.
My money is on cognitive decline.
Yes, Biden has always been gaffe prone. Look at videos of him from four or more years ago. He did a much better job of public speaking back then.
Harris is a good little party apartchik. I think the Democrat party leadership wanted her.
Dude’s gonna liive forever, to EVERYONE’S chagrin.
Christmas isn’t really celebrated here. My kids were in school a half day and the wife was at work. So I ran the Weber for about 9 hours and made a bunch of stuff for dinner.
The holiday in Japan starts next Tuesday and runs through the following Sunday. I’m looking forward to the break.
https://mailchi.mp/aimsurplus/merry-christmas-and-happy-holidays-from-aimsurplus
Xmas card pic. ?
Nice!
Guy on right… would. But my fondness for holiday attire is well-known.
Yeah. I saw your ‘cold open’.
Dude on the left in the chest rig and the frog outfit – I keep seeing this “Pepe the Frog” meme. I think it alludes to a frog not being boiled yet and ready to jump. Or is this common knowledge – or completely wrong?
I hadn’t looked that close at green guy, but on second take it’s kind of macabre.
Completely wrong.
It just feels good, man.
I’m guessing the Nashville attack wasn’t an FBI false flag, because it was far too competently pulled off.
By the way, remember how the Vermont power grid went down after the 2016 election, and the entire establishment press intimated it was the Russians? Then it was memory-holed as the lack of proof became clear. If something like this happened with that timing they would have been insisting we roll the tanks toward Moscow.
I have no evidence at all, but my first thought was it might have something to do with the never ending government Covid restrictions. Not sure what the situation is in Tennessee though.
If I remember correctly, a lot of Covid response was pushed down to the county and municipal level in Tennessee. There were very few statewide restrictions.
Davidson County (which includes Nashville) and Nashville itself cracked down pretty hard at the height of the Lil Rona Panic. I remember news stories about Nashville police arresting homeless people for not wearing masks and a story about shenanigans involving the numbers used to prove spread of Lil Rona in bars leading to bar closures.
We have some glibs in TN, they can elaborate or correct me.
The Beef Wellington rocked last night. The kids even ate the duxelles which are primarily mushrooms.
I ate too much though. Ooof….
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe told CNN, ‘An explosive device of this size is going to be treated presumptively as an act of terrorism.’
Surprised he didn’t blame it on the Russians.
They’re trying to decide whether to blame the Russians or the right wing militias.
Why not blame both?
Going down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole (it was next to an at&t substation!) I found another not really similar attack on a local communication hub in California in 2013.
https://mobile.twitter.com/JacobCouvillon/status/1341807412085440514
I remember reading that at the time! I speculated that it was a test of vulnerability of the grid and of the fiber optic comms.
I wondered if it was would-be eco terrorists, anti-globalists, or the usual Religion of Peaceniks.
Our power grid is PAINFULLY vulnerable. Some factions in the DoD would like to install “active denial” systems as a deterrent at critical substations, and we offered to do it, but nooooo, we have to worry about the feeeeeeelings of the terrorists/activists.
Pussies.
I dont know what active denial systems are.
A microwave oven with a hole cut in the door.
Close enough for government work.
Don’t be silly, we have to buy a custom microwave system with a premade hole that costs ten thousand times what it should.
Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that, but yeah, using electromagnetic waves to make skin feel uncomfortably tingly.
I have often cringed at the thought of how vulnerable we are in more ways than just the power grid and I am not going to give any kooks ideas by listing them off. I guess me sitting around crossing my fingers isn’t a very good defense strategy.
Ok, I vote for active denial systems but they can’t be used to protect everything.
She was conscious and hospital staffers were “taking care of her,” the source said.
Those quotation marks make it sound kind of rapey.
It means they’re brushing her hair… sensuously.
We can only hope it was air quotes. *You like this, don’t you?”
Old guy music was too short, I don’t get why musicians think it’s cool to build up slowly and then cold stop just when they get swinging, fucking trolls.
I’d put Aaron Copeland, Samuel Barber, Lenny Bernstein, Perry Farrell, and John Adams ahead of him.
Racist.
The Nashville Sound yesterday is the beginning of the covid racheting down. Seems like with the vaccine rollout things are quieting, this could be the way the collapse happens, the miracle drug stops the covid dead in its nefarious tracks and we have bigger things to worry about.
The Russians/Chinese/Iranians are already here, bombing innocent cities!
This would never happen if the federal government ran health care
At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, a small group of disability rights advocates found itself in a race against time to save the life of a woman with an intellectual disability.
The woman was taken to the hospital with COVID-19. But the hospital, in a small Oregon town, denied the ventilator she needed. Instead, a doctor, citing her “low quality of life,” wanted her to sign a legal form to allow the hospital to deny her care.
Out of that quiet fight in early spring, the advocates — staff at a disability rights legal group, a state lawmaker and a few others — discovered something disturbing: There were many cases in Oregon of health care being rationed to people with disabilities.
——-
In the hospital, a medical provider wrote do-not-resuscitate (DNR) and do-not-intubate orders for the woman. Those are medical instructions to health care providers to withhold potentially painful interventions, like a ventilator or CPR, if a patient stops breathing or the patient’s heart stops. The woman was alone in the hospital and did not understand what the doctor and medical staff wanted her to agree to.
In addition, the hospital staff sent word to the woman’s group home: Fill out DNRs in advance for your other residents, in case one of them comes to the hospital.
People who worked with the woman were angry that the doctor and the hospital seemed to be discounting the lives of people with disabilities.
I am more outraged by the “activists” and “advocates” who beat the bushes looking for anecdotal sob stories like this than I am by hospital administrators attempting to allocate their resources efficiently.
Speaking for myself, DNR.
It’s so easy to download an Advanced Directive form from the inter tubes these days, it’s something I recommend to anyone.
I did the inter tubes form version, then later when I was writing my will, the lawyers threw in an advance directive. It was practically the same as the Internet form.
Fourscores have it in the medical will
Exactly 13 years ago today- at 18.36 (since I was there) Mama Tres passed after a month in the horsepistol. She’d been in Stage 4^9 pancreatic cancer for some time, and a couple weeks prior she’d had a procedure done to re-route her pleural fluid back into her gut ( I think it was called a “Denver Shunt”). Being her medical power of attorney, I asked for a DNR from the nurse before she went in, and was told it wasnt possible- they wouldnt perform the procedure if she had one. Boy, was I lied to. Not that I was necessarily in a hurry to accelerate her passing, but I was told that during surgery she went into full arrest 2X,and they brought her back- basically into a coma and she conked-out in Hospice.
That is pretty rough. I am sorry you had to go through that and sorrier that she had to.
Mother Nature is one mean ass bitch.
Good people die- assholes win the MegaMillions.
Thanks tho’
Sorry Tres.
“…administrators attempting to allocate their resources efficiently.”
Or Eugenics?
I would have to have a lot more info than this story gives to make that decision.
^This. I may not generally agree with the activists and advocates but they aren’t always in the wrong. See hospital administrators versus activists/advocates in the matter of Charlie Gard, another ancedotal sob story with chilling implications.
OTOH, Oregon has been at the forefront of most US euthanasia/assisted suicide efforts – and these folks are definitely pushing back – so props to them for that.
DRO is a scum bucket organization. They can fuck right off with their assholery. Whatever legitimate issue there might be is buried if those parasites are involved. Fuck them with rusty typhus infected DNR.
Gelser is equally a POS. Another carpet bagging out of state, just like Gov Kunt. She wouldn’t even be in that office if the meth addict before her hadn’t resigned back when she was trying to get into the state House.
I’d put Aaron Copeland, Samuel Barber, Lenny Bernstein, Perry Farrell, and John Adams ahead of him.
I don’t know anything about those other guys, but I’d seal Aaron Copeland (Copland?) in a 55 gallon drum, encase it in concrete, and dump him in the ocean.
You’d have to work awfully hard to gather up his ashes, and worse, you’d need to be in MA to do it.
No hate for Marty Haugen?
Ah, Barber, and the “Platoon” music. The pre-teen Barber actually played the organ at the church I get dragged to. They have an original piece he wrote for them, that’s never been released , that the organist plays on occasion.
The Nashville Sound yesterday is the beginning of the covid racheting down.
I cannot wait for our public intellectual risk analysts to start telling me I am more at risk from White Supremacist terrorbomber cells than I am from the chinee snifflecooties.
“Snifflecooties” would make a great band name, in the same vein as Joydrop or Teddybears.
I hate that I like Fannypack tho’. Shout out @ Rhywun, l0b0t, and my (718) peeps.
+1 Park Slope
That’s terrible but appreciated.
Prolly no songs about the 646, are there.
Is that a NOLA group? They syncopated.
9-11.1
The gang is all coming to breakfast as our spot is breaking the state indoor shutdown mandate.
We missed them being open last week because they were keeping a low profile.
Our waitress will be getting a big Christmas tip this week.
Excellent.
Morning, Glibs.
Morning, uncivil.
How many days til you’re back working for The Man?
Monday is my next work day.
I’m the team lead for the holidays. (aka, I’m the most senior state employee not on vacation in our group)
I’m back Monday too, but I think I can work from home, so at least I can lounge comfortably.
I’m still working from home, so at least I’ve got that going for me.
Silicone Saturday bounces into your Boxing Day!
https://archive.li/gkeET
It was pretty good, but #37 dragged down the overall quality.
You didn’t like the ink? She seemed unremarkable to me.
Ink is ugly. I hate it.
I like the lady in your avatar, I think. Her ass looks comfortable.
My ex-wife wasnt much of a wrestler, but you really shoulda seen her box.
/try the veal
My fathers favorite thing-
Waitress “You wanna box for your leftovers”
Dad “If you want, but I’d rather wrestle”
That’s about what Id expect from your corner of the (419).
*How you guys have that area code is beyond me. Its like Ohio Bell was gerrymandering.
Another gallery with no face diapers. Excellent.
My favorites: #3, #11, #14, #15 (despite the fake red hair, she is quite alluring to me), #35
I have to use my memory and other investigating skills because Google image search isn’t working on archive images again.
#8 is Oh In-Hye. RIP.
#20 has been in other galleries. I think I found some information about her, but cannot remember any of it if I did.
#39 is Eva Green. The picture looks like a still from “Casino Royale”.
#26 is Jordan Carver.
Frying up the leftover baked potatoes in the leftover fat from the smoked duck. I’ll drop a few eggs into the pan here in a bit.
Eggs from the smoked duck too?
No, but now I’m wondering how smoked eggs would be.
Awful, probably
Frying up the leftover baked potatoes in the leftover fat from the smoked duck. I’ll drop a few eggs into the pan here in a bit.
That sounds awesome.
*burp*
Since it shipped the estimated delivery date for my new phone was monday. But it was only coming from PA. So today it switched to “Out for delivery”
But the other stuff I’ve been waiting for is now scheduled for monday instead of tomorrow.
I’ve got a couple Vz58 mags that were supposed to be here more than a week ago. Still in transit/delayed. ?
Are these spares, or is something out of operation until you get them?
Impulse buy extras. You can never have too many.
No hate for Marty Haugen?
I can easily envision myself hating him if I actually was forced to listen to him.
San Diego surveyed some “health experts” to weigh in on whether California can/should stop the lockdowns. There are 2 “yes” opinions with the rest going “no”.
The “yes” arguments are clearly expressed, while the “no” arguments are based on bad models, questionable statistics, and feelz.
Even idiot politicians understand that they need a functioning economy to leech from, don’t they?
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2020-12-25/could-california-lockdown-restrictions-end-in-january
Yes: “ The consequences of quarantining most Americans and shutting down workplaces caused a “perfect storm” of rising unemployment, higher suicide rates, suspended other essential health care, and left no chance to build up immunities key to stopping the virus.”
No:” The suggestion that lockdown restrictions could end in January with a limited vaccination approach is shortsighted. Aggregate data might support this, but the devil is in the details. Coronavirus is hitting minorities at disproportionately high rates. ”
No: “ . Economic benefits could be elusive as people are reluctant to shop, dine out, or return their children to school. With a more normal life within reach, now is not the time to be brash.”
Top. Men.
I can totally see lockdowns continuing until the race-based results are satisfactory to the “experts”.
That is how venal and stupid our country has become.
Yup.
We just let them take over education, which systematically destroyed at least one generation’s ability to think critically, while at the same time either omitting or twisting the importance of Western thought, European thought on America and the rest of the world.
“Even idiot politicians understand that they need a functioning economy to leech from, don’t they?”
See every communist country ever. It is about power. They know they will still have power and Freezers full of 50 flavors of ice cream no matter how much everyone else has to dig for roots.
See: Venezuela (crowds of starving people stoning cattle while those in power party every night)
See: The Norks (look at satellite photos taken at night)
They arent just idiot politicians. They are the worst kinds of people imaginable X 100. Mark Levin – “No matter how bad you think they are, they are worse.”
I don’t feel cheered up, but I do feel more sane not to be the only one seeing this.
Big businesses are deemed essential while small businesses are being forced out of out business left and right. Isn’t there an Iron Law that foreseeable consequences aren’t unplanned? Or something like that? This is an intentional reshaping of the economy.
^This^
Great Reset indeed, but I am not sure the plan is sound. Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Twitter, etc are the biggest players in the economy right now. They are big because the prosperity that the general population enjoys. Cutting off your customer base’s income seems like a bad business model.
They’ve convinced their own base that government really is the fount of all blessings, so I guess they don’t see the economy as a big deal, just some pet cause that Wall Street types get all lathered up about.
TIL that I can, to my surprise after my recent surgery, climb seven flights of stairs with a week’s worth of groceries on my back. Less surprisingly, I really don’t want to do that again.
to my surprise after my recent surgery, climb seven flights of stairs with a week’s worth of groceries on my back.
That’s good progress.
I can see why you wouldn’t want to do it.
Yeah, it wasn’t by choice – trust me. Elevator was broke.
I watched “Christmas Story” again and, taking one of you’s advice, tracked down Ralphie’s Mom in “Slap Shot.” Ho. Lee. Smokes. I guess cause I never saw it on the screen but just on tv I never saw the Melinda Dixon puppies. I wonder if Ralphie, instead of dreaming of a Red Ryder bb rifle, didn’t lay in bed and imagine, in his 9 year old mind, what all that racket was coming from his parent’s bedroom every night.
Just don’t let Hanrahan hear you talking like that ?
Air Fryer or Insta-pot? Doesn’t matter, I unwrapped both right after telling everyone how I do enjoy cooking. Plan on cooking some chicken later in one of them, any suggestions?
Air fry up some chicken wings and send them my way, thanks
As a chicken wing conesoiur, I’m intrigued by this option. As far sending them out, I have a standing order not to send cooked poultry across property lines. You are willing to bring your own hot sauce here.
These ATK baked wings are shockingly good.
https://www.wnyc.org/story/recipe-americas-test-kitchens-oven-baked-buffalo-wings/
*sideways glance*
Saved for later.
They consistently get kudos when I make them.
https://nomnompaleo.com/post/157517114578/instant-pot-pressure-cooker-chicken-pho
Tulpa?
Was that in English? I might pass that on to the wife.
Chicken is always best fried…especially wings.
I like the “I Am Lame” tag on this post.
Katelyn Jones, 23, of Epping, is accused of firing off menacing text messages to Republican Wayne County Board of Canvassers chairwoman Monica Palmer on Nov. 18 — because the official refused to certify results of the US presidential election in favor of Joe Biden, according to a criminal complaint filed by the FBI.
I wonder if she will end up with a nice tenured position for this.
About 74 pounds of cocaine were spotted floating off the Lower Keys by a fisherman Wednesday afternoon. The fisherman, who was boating south of Sugarloaf Key, notified a Monroe County sheriff’s deputy who was on marine patrol at the time.
Apropos
Old Guy Music is excellent.
Update on PA restaurants defying the governor: The count is up to 671. This is roughly a doubling over the last ten days.
It started as 125 lbs, but after the fisherman’s “finders fee” and the cop’s take, only 74 lbs were left.
Dread and ominous foreboding
Last year, when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy asked then-Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ga., to help lead a new committee charged with investigating how to modernize the U.S. House, Graves cynically turned him down.
“I had declined it with the — I guess it’s a sad acceptance, that this was just going to be another failed attempt by Congress to say they’re going to do something that they ultimately don’t do,” Graves said. “And boy, was I pleasantly surprised by the outcome and the work of this committee.”
He relented, and along with Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., set out with a joint mandate to examine ways to make the House more modern, more efficient, and more bipartisan. Kilmer knew it would not be easy.
——-
After nearly two years, the six Democrats and six Republicans on the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress put out a final report in October with 97 unanimous recommendations on how to change the House.
A lot of them involve logistics, like how to better schedule committee hearings. Others are more controversial, like bringing back some form of earmark spending; and some might elicit eye rolls, like designating bipartisan space in the Capitol where lawmakers can just hang out.
Bipartisanship. Better stock up on lube.
“help lead a new committee charged with investigating how to modernize the U.S. House..”
Didnt those assholes include in the covid bill $89M for them to get new furniture for the senate?
I don’t like the sound of that one bit.
How about a guillotine for Congress critters that violate the Constitution and their oathes?
They already have a giant dining room, and several (former) smoking lounges in the Capitol building and also duplicative facilities over in the Rayburn Building, the Longworth House, and the Cannon Building. How much more lazy-ass hang-out space do they need?
Those were all created a hundred years ago and the signs are in a language no one can read. Have pity on our Congresscritters!
The “yes” arguments are clearly expressed, while the “no” arguments are based on bad models, questionable statistics, and feelz.
Even idiot politicians understand that they need a functioning economy to leech from, don’t they?
Imagine my surprise.
First rule of Parasite Club: “Don’t Kill the Host”.
I think y’all are greatly underestimating how much contempt they have for us.
Our man in Cloud Cuckoo Land
You don’t need a doctorate in ethical philosophy to think that now might be a good time to tax and redistribute some of the top’s riches to the hard-hit below. The UK is already considering an emergency tax on wealth.
The president-elect has rejected a wealth tax, but maybe he should be even more ambitious and seek to change economic thinking altogether.
The practical alternative to trickle-down economics might be called build-up economics. Not only should the rich pay for today’s devastating crisis but they should also invest in the public’s long-term wellbeing. The rich themselves would benefit from doing so, as would everyone else.
That sounds about right.
Wealth tax = capital destruction.
What could possibly go wrong?
That whole thing is just filled with flat-out lies. Here’s a single paragraph:
“But starting in the 1980s, America retreated from public investment. The result is crumbling infrastructure, inadequate schools, wildly dysfunctional healthcare and public health systems and a shrinking core of basic research. Productivity has plummeted.”
None of that (except maybe the schools, and even then no) is remotely true.
God Reich sucks. My only guess as to why he gets such a pass is people feel sorry for him. The fucker bitches about income inequality for 30 years all the while making a god-damned fortune himself for simply telling the socialists what they want to hear.
He says things people like to hear.
And that they like to hear these things is indicative of why the situation is “so bad” in the first place. Inflation-adjusted per capita government revenue and spending are up across the board since well before the 1980s. We do not have a revenue problem, and insofar as it concerns “infrastructure”, we don’t hardly have a (not enough) spending problem. The key problem we have, which is plainly evident in Reich’s laser-like focus on confiscating more of other people’s money, is the widespread belief that problems are solved by spending more money, and exacerbated any time too much money sits unspent. Well, we have spent more money. Lots more money. More money, indeed, than we have collected, and so we have expanded the money supply to spend even more of it. In the case of education, we’ve tripled the amount of money spent. It hasn’t done a damn thing (except spend more money). In the case of healthcare, spending (both government and private) has increased six-fold. While healthcare is significantly more advanced now than it was 40 years ago in many ways, much of the spending has gone toward increases in non-novel expenditures. We didn’t have MRIs forty years ago but we did have stitches; the availability of the MRI doesn’t explain the greatly increased cost for other things.
Reich is not so crass as Warren to admit that “the metric is money” but his underlying belief is the same. As with the disease and climate models we’ve seen lately, the actual results are irrelevant. The process is the point, and the outcomes can only either prove we’re doing the right thing, so we need to spend more because there’s no such thing as too much of a good thing, or we were waylaid by reactionary forces and/or insufficient commitment, and of course the only way to overcome those setbacks is also by spending more.
I was thinking Friedman….but Reich writing for the Guardian is no surprise.
I’m alive, You are all insane,
For you, good sir – https://youtu.be/W-p0gQzHiyI
Nicco’s a cool guy
On last night’s Zoomie, I mentioned the odd sports stuff I’ve been watching. Here is some – https://youtu.be/nZg4XnMjtwY
Underwater hockey – https://youtu.be/p90hTbeuHZU
I never got the box o’ Christmas cookies that an acquaintance usually sends. Now I have no idea if it got lost at USPS, or if she took me off her cookie list.
If I’m no longer on the cookie list, 2020 just reached it’s peak.
Some people continue to live under the delusion that food carries Covid-19. So maybe your friend was discouraged from sharing home baked goods this year.
Oh, she definitely baked & sent them. She’s a semi-professional food blogger, so she posts about the whole process of making the cookies. About 10,000 of them!
Ghosting you on the cookies would be bullshit, so I chose to blame USPS.
(Still haven’t gotten the holiday cards we ordered in late November. Or my wife’s Christmas present, ordered on the 7th)
Did she get a USPS tracking number for the parcel?
I mentioned yesterday that the DVDs I sent my sisters spent a week stuck in Rochester NY, apparently because fuck you that’s why.
The package I sent my niece in Tacoma left Boston on the 18th and is in… Jacksonville, FL. Still.
She may have a tracking #, but she doesn’t share them with the individual people who get the packages. I don’t want to ask her, because I don’t want to put her in the position to have to say “yeah, I took you off the list”. If she did take me off the list, I’d be sad to not get cookies anymore, but she may need to cull her list from time to time.
Let’s see. We have:
Buccaneers at Lions
49ers vs Cardinals
Dolphins vs Raiders
I think this will be the one game that Miami wins this season.
Dolphins are 9-5, second in the AFC East. They’re not bad at all.
Oh, I need coffee. I mentally hung the Jets tag around the poor Fins. My bad.
Easy mistake – the game the Jets should have won (before the Rams upset) was against the Raiders.
Jets DC got himself fired for screwing up that game in the weaning seconds
Waning*
I wonder how long Raiders Nation is willing to give to Gruden.
Go fish!
Found the games on Fubo.
All set now. Time for breakfast!
The second games reads “Amazon/Twitch” here. WTF. Streaming only?
Yup. Amazon Prime only from what I read; I don’t do streaming.
Sepak Takraw, kick volleyball – https://youtu.be/8T2VwSyTGtI
Calcio Storico, the game for those who think rugby is for pussies – https://youtu.be/zm7XTqXqbpY
lolwtf
New version of “Irish People Try”, but with Punjabi villagers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edj93DTZIGg
Bismillah
Hah! I’ve been watching these videos off-and-on for the last couple of months or so. They’re surprisingly addictive. (Much like the “Western” food they keep getting given to eat.)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Blake
The Brits should have hanged him when they had the chance. Also, fuck them for putting someone who had been a prisoner for three years back into the field.
I’m totally enamored of this design of the counter top ice maker I got from my neighbor. Once the ice is made, it’s pushed into a basket that sits right over the water reservoir, so as the ice melts, it drips back into the machine, which then proceeds to make more ice from the drippings. I used a fuckton of ice last night, and I still had about cups of water in the reservoir this morning.
¿Quién es más macho?
England – https://youtu.be/z3vTlrQi30A
or
Alaska – https://youtu.be/EaHZLUWwxfQ
Is this even a question (with apologies to Limey)?
(don’t mind me – I’m very, very bitter about the state of the UK)
“I would rather a plain russet-coated captain who knows what he fights for and loves what he knows, than any 10 whom you call Gentlemen, who are all that and nothing else.” – Oliver Cromwell
Run to town done. They dropped the price of prime rib after Christmas as I suspected (sale price of $5.70 down to $5.30), but I didn’t get one. I can’t justify $40 for a hunk of meat even though I love it.
Old guy music is good today. The best jazz gets over quick.
We were sold out last night and the sale ended yesterday. I was bellyaching about it to the meat manager and he walked to the back and came back with stack of rain-checks. Now I don’t have to wait until the Easter sale.