471 Comments

  1. Tres Cool

    mornin’

  2. UnCivilServant

    Mornin’ Banjos.

    Welp, back to moving snow.

    • Animal

      Used to be that at every snowfall, you’d have neighborhood kids banging on your door offering to shovel your snow for a few bucks. What happened to that?

      Goes outside to yell at clouds

      • Brett L

        Do you know how much the OSHA required PPE costs for snow removal? Especially at depths over 18 inches! Now you have to have a hole watch and safety barricades.

      • db

        Having worked in industry for a long time, I still get a kick out of that term.

        “Hole watch.”
        *snickers*

      • Gustave Lytton

        +1 incompetent person

      • Brett L

        My only construction experience was a greenfield LNG terminal with a company that was fanatical about safety. Like, the only thing you didn’t want to tell the owner was that someone was seriously injured. He made it a point to personally attend (and lavishly fund) every safe work hours celebration within a half day’s drive of Houston. And would fly into big ones for out of state. So any time there was an open hole, there was someone doing constant hole watch and their team leader would cruise by about every 45 minutes to check the count and make sure people were actually watching.

        So I’ve been watching with great amusement the road project in front of my house. I see guys every day standing around without hard hats while heavy equipment is moving dirt. There were 3 firetrucks out there a couple weeks ago, when I heard they hit a gas line (but did not rupture, I guess). And the absolute most desultory hole watch. Like, a dude with a vest and no lid playing on his cell phone. After they bumped the gas line. I’m expecting at least one ambulance rollout before the end.

      • Lachowsky

        In all honesty, confined space permits and procedures exist for a reason. They can be overdone, and at times things that aren’t confined spaces are labeled as such, but a hole watcher kept me from getting in a very bad position one summer.

        We had an underground high voltage network that supplied primary side power to the transformers that fed the different building at the Carbon Plant i worked at 8 years ago. There were man holes where the power junctions were up.

        One hot August day, one of the junctions made up in the man hole blew apart and shut down the east loop, killing power to two of our operations. I had to go into the man hole and remake the junction. It was about 105 outside that day, and there was no air movement whatsoever in the hole. I brought an ice chest with a 24 pack of bottled water with me into the hole and began to work.

        Any of you sparkies know that splicing insulated multiconductor high voltage cable is a time consuming process under the best of circumstances, and this was certainly not that. It was dirty, hot, and humid and you have to keep the cables, clean and dry for your splice to not blow up when energized.

        Anyway, long story short, after about 6 hours or so hours, i started getting really loopy and tunnel visioned. I had been drinking water, but not enough to keep up. My hole watcher noticed and got me out of there to cool off for awhile. I thanked him later for keeping me from getting myself in a potentially deadly spot.

      • db

        Yep, confined space procedures are really important, but more important is understanding the spirit of them and not just the letter.

        What kind of carbon?

      • Swiss Servator

        “What kind of carbon?”

        GAIA RAPING! Is there any other kind?

        /Green New Deal

      • UnCivilServant

        I have never lived anywhere where the nieghborhood kids would offer to shovel for any rate. I’m pretty sure this was a fiction invented by old-timers to try to shame the kids into clearing the sidewalk for them.

      • Fourscore

        I loved the snow, Mrs Yancey always called first, 50 cents to shovel her front sidewalk and the path for the mailman. Had 2-3 regulars plus our own. Fifty foot lots and my brother was my partner.

        Blessed be the Mrs Yanceys of the world. We knocked on a few doors but most people were like UCS

      • UnCivilServant

        Look, I’ve got $110 in my wallet, and if someone were offering, I’d be willing to negotiate. People just never do.

      • Fourscore

        If I was your neighbor I’d do it for free with my snow blower.

      • UnCivilServant

        I really wish I had a good place to store one.

        I guess if I could clear off the front porch it might work there, but not making much progress there.

      • UnCivilServant

        And I do appreciate the kind offer, and fully believe you. I just have to work with the logistics of current circumstance.

      • Tres Cool

        You mentioned your neighbors stealing your trash can. How long would a snowblower last on your porch ?

      • UnCivilServant

        The porch is enclosed with a locked door between it and the street. It’s more of a front room because there’s no door between it and the house, but it’s a porch for tax purposes. (It has a separate, lower roof too, so it counts)

      • UnCivilServant

        And no, I’m not dragging the trash can onto the porch again. There’s nothing to keep any rancid smell out of the house, and as I said, the neighbors love dropping their worst stuff in it, so the plastic reeks.

      • C. Anacreon

        Where do you keep your honey bucket?

      • rhywun

        I remember it from around 40 years ago.

      • Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

        My #1 Grandson has made a standing offer to shovel our roof gratis. Mind you, he loves his Grammy and she gives guitar lessons. He doesn’t mind my company either. He’s a good kid.

      • Ted S.

        I got “volunteered” every spring to help clean the sand from my grandparents’ driveway.

      • Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

        SOOO many “Moving Days” when Bro and I became teenagers… At least there was usually much beer when we got past about 14 or so. I think the term is “voluntold”?

      • zwak

        I think it is “I was volunteered by my [choose wisely]”

      • invisible finger

        As a kid I shoveled my neighbor’s walk just because it was a nice thing to do, especially the old folks. If they gave me money, I graciously accepted it. They sometimes asked if I would then do their driveway for an additional amount, which I also accepted.

        And I liked having a shoveled walk when I walked to school. Especially since I walked home for lunch.

        But physically moving one’s self from a home to a school building and vice versa is a no-no nowadays.

      • Tundra

        My kid shoveled for a bunch of neighbors until he left for school. Made great money.

      • Cy

        I made so much money as a 12 yr old in Wisconsin shoveling snow. Almost as mush as I did mowing lawns in Seattle.

      • Necron 99

        1977/78 in the great blizzard that hit KY, IN, IL area my buddy and I shoveled driveways and side walks for a couple bucks. Had to do my own house first, and we had a basement level garage and driveway where the snow just piled up – a good 8 feet of snow in front of the garage, so by the time that was done very little time was left for making any money.

      • Lachowsky

        It rarely snows where I live, but when I was a kid i made money mowing laws. I would just walk around town and find grown up yards, knock on the door, and ask to mow. I made a bunch of beer and pot money that way.

      • Mojeaux

        I did it.

        My kid does it.

        He goes to the rich neighborhoods to do it, though. I didn’t have that luxury.

      • Nephilium

        Happened here a couple years back. However, they’re also now competing with adults hauling their snow blower around offering to clear your driveway as well.

        Today there isn’t even enough snow on the driveway to start shoveling yet. It’s still coming down though.

      • UnCivilServant

        Come on up here, there’s plenty of snow to move.

      • Nephilium

        It probably won’t still be there by the time I do my mandatory 14 day quarantines in PA and NY. It’s really nice of ‘vid to respect state boundaries that way.

      • Sean

        I was in NJ yesterday. Totally no quarantine needed. “Medical” exception. Despite the hygienist putting her hands in my mouth.

      • Ted S.

        No kids near where I live.

      • Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

        Spidey-Sense?

    • UnCivilServant

      Shit, just in the time since I last bitched about it, the part I had shovelled picked up a half inch of new snow. My little snow-trap of a sidewalk has two feet of depth to the cross section in places, (but only eighteen inches in others) and it’s still coming down. Why can’t the wind clear the snow instead of depositing more?

      • I. B. McGinty

        FYTW.

      • Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

        I ‘member out in camp going to sleep and waking the next morning to 3 and half feet of snow. I was staying in a motorhome and it took some doing to escape out the side door. The power was out and the motorhome was basically a trailer because it didn’t run. We were stuck up there for two days. That’s when you look at your Dad and he becomes a walking cooked turkey.

    • UnCivilServant

      *bleeeep*

      Every half hour there’s another half inch on the already shovelled areas that needs to be re-cleared. Salt isn’t helping enough. And I still have a mount taller than I am that is encapsulating my car.

      Why can’t I just curl up and go back to bed?

      • UnCivilServant

        I am a fool.

        I was almost done with the walkways, just have the front steps to go, so I clear them over-eagerly. Guess where I throw the damn snow? Right on the sidewalk I just cleared.

        *sigh* hasty is slow.

      • Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

        That’s not great. Isn’t it wonderful to be so smart that you fuck yourself over? Time and time again?

      • UnCivilServant

        Well, When I re-cleared the sidewalk, I made sure I moved it someplace I didn’t need to clear.

      • Cy

        Ok. bear with me here. They have this thing called ‘the south.’ It’s a lovely place where it almost never snows and when it gets hot you just turn on a magical machine and stay inside.

      • UnCivilServant

        I’ve been there in the summer.

        I can’t breathe the liquid air.

  3. The Late P Brooks

    The lt governor of New York was just on Bloomberg. “We don’t want lockdowns, but the fucking lowlife peasants aren’t doing what we tell them. Also, send money. Otherwise, we’ll have to lay off all the doctors and nurses and teachers. It’s not our fault our state budget is a complete lie.”

    Analysis: Lying Cunt.

    • mrfamous

      It’s almost as if choosing leaders via hereditary title isn’t the best idea

    • EvilSheldon

      When abusive, entitled people start in with the emotional blackmail, the only healthy response is to give them nothing and cut them out of your life.

      • mrfamous

        It was precisely how I approached politics prior to 2020: keep it the fuck out of my life. But in 2020 they decided that this was no longer an option I was allowed to have. Infuriating.

  4. Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

    How the heck do you fit a Santa hat on a porky-pine? Very gingerly I’d assume. Mornin’ Banjos!

    • Fourscore

      Mornin Festus, porkies are not your friend, even with a cute little cap. They love those pine trees and can destroy a lot in a winter without even climbing down. Tree woodchucks.

      • Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

        Big problem 30 years ago when I lived in the Queen Charlottes was the deer nibbling the tops of cedar plantings. They’d grow out like a lazy wife, not up as God and Man intended.

      • Claypoolsreservoir

        Festus, you’re my favorite.

  5. The Late P Brooks

    COVID numbers are difficult to trust. Cases are often counted more than once as patients go in and out of the hospital, and some deaths are attributed to COVID that are barely related, if at all.

    “Plague related complications” seems to be the current phraseology.

    She had one foot in the grave, but she might have pulled through.

  6. invisible finger

    I thought Cuomo The Genius defeated CV19 months ago? I guess he is confessing that he failed colossally.

    Gotta love these brain-dead bureaucrats – they take credit for summer and blame everyone else for winter.

    • pan fried wylie

      they take credit for summer and blame everyone else for winter

      This ties in with the Ant and Grasshopper parable somehow.

    • mrfamous

      “they take credit for summer and blame everyone else for winter”

      I for one am stunned that our noble elected officials would do such a craven and dishonest thing

  7. Trials and Trippelations

    “Texas fought challenges to voting laws while Georgia settled.”

    Georgia Republicans showing the kind of behavior I’ve come to know and despise from Republicans

    “ Florida and Texas are open while NY is closed despite having a smaller population and far more deaths.”
    This is one of the reasons my wife and I will be celebrating our 10 yr anniversary in Florida this summer

    “ Rand: the election was in “many ways stolen”
    So Rand is going to get asked the “will you accept the results of the election” during his 2024 Presidential run

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      Georgia Republicans showing the kind of behavior I’ve come to know and despise from Republicans

      And Georgia Republicans received millions of dollars in return for using Dominion machines. This was funneled into at least one private “consulting” company owned by the same GOP in charge of the election apparatus. They didn’t even bother pretending a fictitious layer of separation like with Hunter and Joe or the Clinton Foundation.

  8. The Late P Brooks

    Just Friday, a New York Times psychiatrist demanded that doctors who question masks efficacy lose their licenses.

    Cargo cultists.

    • Trials and Trippelations

      the old appeal to authority argument until your “authority” doesn’t agree with you

    • invisible finger

      The first person I go to when I need advice about a respiratory pathogen would be a psychiatrist. /sarc

      I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a junk scientist believes in junk science.

      • EvilSheldon

        Are you calling psychology junk science? You monster! Don’t you realize that everyone should talk to a therapist?

      • UnCivilServant

        A The Rapist? Which is it? A Rapist or The Rapist?

      • Nephilium

        So you’re saying UCS should get a nu start on life?

      • Ted S.

        Worse, psychiatry.

        He just called Dr. Chet a junk scientist.

  9. The Late P Brooks

    “Build back better.”

    I hope you get that inoculation and promptly die right there on live teevee, Joe.

    • Plisade

      I just might take to the streets in celebration, shooting my guns in the air in a confused happy deranged state of 3rd world emotion, if that happens.

    • Agent Cooper

      How the Biden team never managed to get Sir Mix-A-Lot involved in the campaign is a mystery.

  10. Swiss Servator

    Ah, another day where if you were to paint the skyscape, all you would need is a spate of gull shite.

    *shakes fist at clouds*

    • Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

      Up here it has been snow/rain/rain/snow. Just enough to try my resolve. Two nights ago I swept a pound and a half of grit from a smallish area. It’s tough to maintain standards when the Gods are actively sabotaging your efforts. Day 12 today.

  11. Sean

    That was almost like exercise. I’m calling that my glibfit for the week.

    And that was only the driveway and the sidewalk.

    I’ll leave the deck for my gf.

    • Swiss Servator

      “I’ll leave the deck for my gf.”

      Now that is some prime shitlording right there!

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Lol, there’s a picture somewhere in my archives of my poor Texan wife all bundled up, carrying a snow shovel at my dad’s place. We had convinced her that shoveling the snow was fun and that she was being given an honor by being allowed to shovel the 8″ off the driveway. She got about 1/4 way through when she glared at me and said “this isn’t nearly as fun as you made it out to be.”

        To her credit, she finished the whole thing and did a decent job at it.

      • leon

        Shovel the snow? What an honor!

      • Brett L

        We had convinced her that shoveling the snow was fun and that she was being given an honor by being allowed to shovel the 8″ off the driveway.

        A friend of mine once referred to this as “Tom Sawyering” someone. I’ve tried to propagate that use.

      • pan fried wylie

        “We Tom Sawyer’d mah-Wife real good.”

        “Go on…”

  12. The Late P Brooks

    “Jobless claims MUCH HIGHER than estimates.”

    Imagine my surprise.

    • Q Continuum

      DRUMPF DUN DID IT

    • prolefeed

      #11 or #14 bring the booty.

    • DEG

      #27 is wearing a face diaper. You can see the ear loops. I’m out.

  13. The Late P Brooks

    Saving America

    Bill Kristol, a leading figure in the anti-Trump movement, said that “never-Trump Republicans are a small but potentially important part of the overall Biden governing coalition.” If Biden tries to pass an immigration bill, for instance, they could help by touting provisions popular with Republicans and moderates.

    “It could be ads. It could be private meetings. It could be talking to business leaders or to … members of Congress,” he said. “Never-Trumpers can help the Biden administration govern successfully.”

    Though several of the never-Trumpers don’t consider themselves Democrats, they aren’t too concerned about the success of the current GOP, either. Edwards said all of the anti-Trump Republicans he knows want the Republican candidates in the Georgia Senate runoffs to lose because a GOP-controlled Senate will stymie a Biden agenda. And a do-nothing Biden presidency would optimize conditions for “another Trump” in four years, he said.

    They just want what’s best for the nation.

    • rhywun

      don’t consider themselves Democrats

      No, they’re commies if they want “a Biden agenda”.

      Asshoes.

    • Plinker762

      “potentially important” LOL

    • Cy

      By “coalition” he mean RAPE!

    • AlexinCT

      These fuckers want what is best for their circle of credentialed globalist fucking assholes and the aristocratic status they feel is due to them, but the serfs won’t accept that as what is best for the nation.

    • Rebel Scum

      govern successfully

      Why do I get the impression that this means I will be less wealthy and less free?

      • Mad Scientist

        But you can take pride in knowing you paid for the boot that’s stomping on your face.

    • Lachowsky

      Kristol and the Neocons return home to the party they party the abandoned 60 years ago. Fuck those guys. They were always democrats anyway and their infestation into the republican party only made that party worse.

      • juris imprudent

        “We’re liberals but we really hate communism – can we call this place home?”

  14. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Domscheit-Berg, who stole the files form WIkileaks, is a prima-donna asshole (like Assange), but unlike Assange, he has contributed nothing since his break-up with Wikileaks. It appears he merely envied Assange’s role and wanted to be the center of attention.

    Berg has done nothing in the years since, while Assange continues to contribute, even from the basement of the Ecuadorian embassy.

    • limey

      I don’t think he was in the basement, or that it even has a basement, but I could be wrong. Anyway, he pissed off Moreno by airing his dirty laundry and Moreno gave the UK permission to send the coppers in to arrest him. He had been surveilled while he was in there anyway, legally or otherwise, but good luck fighting that in the UK. He’s been in prison in London since his arrest in April 2019, and apparently tortured psychologically (in addition to the psychological torture of being locked up with sociopaths). Even with a presidential pardon, he’s screwed. The Swedish “rape” case will never really go away, the UK has a long list of process crimes out the wazoo with which to tie him in in court and prison for the rest of his life, and there are too many very powerful people he’s royally pissed off for him to ever be anywhere, even locked up, without looking over his shoulder every waking second.

  15. Rebel Scum

    Hunter Biden sent ‘best wishes’ from ‘entire Biden family’ to China firm chair, requested $10 MILLION wire

    Nothing to see here. Moeve along, subject citizen.

    • Plisade

      Biden the Messiah has resurrected the Lazarus that is investigative journalism.

  16. Certified Public Asshat

    Shitty, mediocre, conventional-wisdom-spouting blogger who has never done a day of journalism or reporting in his life thinks it's weird and deserving of derision to want to see evidence before believing inflammatory US Govt claims.Why? See the description above. https://t.co/e8fGxhjDb9— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 17, 2020

    Greenwald shitting on Yglesias? I am here for this.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Greenwald is absolutely correct here. The media “consensus” is that Russia orchestrated the attack because they’re capable of it, but there has been exactly ZERO evidence of such shown.

      Is China not capable of this attack as well? In fact, the media is explicitly avoiding mentioning China in relation to this when we know that China got into the OPM and stole tens of millions of files. It stinks to high heaven.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Speaking of the OPM files. At the time of the revelation, I figured China was interested in the contents for potential compromise. Given Fang Fang and an unknown number of similar agents, maybe the use was just to get names of people with clearance for cultivation without regard to the contents of the security investigations? I also haven’t seen any news articles connecting the two events, which would be awfully coincidental if they weren’t.

    • limey

      *grabs extra grande popped corn and two sodas*

    • kbolino

      For all of his ex-cohorts yammering and whining about attacks on press freedom, Greenwald is one of the few American journalists who has actually been harassed by the U.S. government for his reporting. Journalists are all in this together, by which they mean they will ensure those who toe the line keep getting paychecks and retain their “access”.

  17. robc

    Interesting baseball bithday today: Chase Utley is #1 in WAR. 64.4 career WAR. So, HOF or no? Probably not, I am don’t really think of him as an HOFer, but, at that level you should be getting some support. He had five years in a row at his peak that he was getting MVP votes. He led the league in HBP 3 consecutive years (ouch!).

    HOF montior score is 94, where 100 means likely HOFer.
    HOF standards score is 36, where 50 is average HOFer.

    His 10 most comparable players has 2 HOFers, Bobby Doerr and Joe Gordon.

    It will be another 3 years before he is on the ballot, will be interesting to see how high his vote total gets.

    He made $125,573,570 in his career. Not bad at all.

    • Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

      Fuck me for playing football too. I could have at least had my Uni paid for.

    • limey

      I expect it depends largely on who else is on the ballot. Who’s up in three years?

      • robc

        I don’t know exactly, but the roughly comparable players currently on the ballot are (with max vote percent so far):

        Scott Rolen 35%
        Gary Sheffield 31%
        Todd Helton 29%
        Manny Ramirez 28%
        Andruw Jones 19%

        That is what I see for Utley too, getting in that 30% range. None of those guys will be off the ballot in the next decade. Part of the problem is guys like Bonds and Clemens taking up 60% of the vote for the next 5 years. They are taking up ballot slots that could go to other guys. Under normal circumstances, they would have got their 98% vote in year 1 and cleared space.

      • robc

        60% of the vote for 15 years takes up 9 times as many vote slots and 100% of the vote in 1 year.

      • The Last American Hero

        Let them in. Just add a few plaques about the how the whole league minus Ichiro was juicing at the time.

      • robc

        and Junior Griffey. He wouldn’t have had the injury problems in Cincy if he had been juicing like Bonds.

      • Bones

        Don’t leave out Frank Thomas!

  18. Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

    Idea for Derpy – “Bicopalypse Now” The Squad venture up the Potomac in a swift boat to apprehend Trump. Tailib is the one that drops acid.

  19. l0b0t

    Thank you all very much for the kind words in the overnight thread. Yes, Stefano has made several appearances on the Zoom thingies; he was the smaller of the two, the ticked tabby who cried for food, not the Maine coon who thrives on non-consensual cuddling. Getting home from work this morning was very tough. First time in a decade that Stefano wasn’t waiting at the door, crying to be fed.

    • Tulip

      When late lamented cat passed away, it used to break my heart that I didn’t hear his nails clicking on the hardwood floors. Almost ten years and I still miss him.

    • Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

      I’m so sorry, Friend.

    • DEG

      Sorry.

    • KOVIDKristen

      So sorry L0b0t. That just sucks so bad.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      But avoid threesomes – and any casual sex. It puts you at high risk of catching Covid.

      Good thing you can’t catch anything else from sex.

      • Q Continuum

        Didn’t you hear? WAY more people have died of Kung Flu than AIDS.

        WAY. MORE.

    • Brett L

      She gave him a courtesy bone. What else does he want?

      • The Last American Hero

        He wants the well-built room mate.

      • DEG

        Yep, that was obvious from how he described his room mate.

  20. The Late P Brooks

    “The storm put increased pressure on hospitals already stressed by the plague.”

    Uh huh.

  21. Tundra

    Good morning, Banjos!

    That’s all I got for today.

    All? That’s a hell of a lot!

    The Hunter Biden story is interesting. I’ve read speculation that they knew it was only a matter of time before the malfeasance (and investigation) became more widely known, so they are getting ahead of it. But why not wait a few weeks until Stumblin’ Joe was installed?

    Florida and Texas are open while NY is closed despite having a smaller population and far more deaths.

    Obviously it’s a political war against small business and the middle class. I just can’t see the end game, though. The end of private property?

    Our fuckwit came out with the most convoluted fuckery yesterday. He’ll graciously allow us to have outdoor dining. In Minnesota. In December.

    Oh, and only 2 households and a max of 10 people for Christmas. Have more than one kid? Tough shit!

    Gyms will open – kind of – with 100% masking. No thanks.

    The Health Department goons were out shutting down rebels yesterday, but we may have reached critical mass. Lots of anger out there right now. It feels like do or die time.

    I’m looking forward to patronizing some brave fuckers’ restaurants this weekend.

    Great song! I love punk Christmas.

    Let’s sing along with Bad Religion!

    Ah, the good stuff.

    Have a great day, my friends.

    • Nephilium

      Obviously it’s a political war against small business and the middle class. I just can’t see the end game, though. The end of private property?

      UBI and a federal jobs program?

      • invisible finger

        You give most of them far too much credit for being able think ahead by more than a few hours.

      • EvilSheldon

        A more dependant, more compliant population.

    • The Other Kevin

      “I just can’t see the end game, though.”

      More government control. They’ve been nibbling at the edges for a long time, and this was a good opportunity to take a big bite.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Yeah, the idea that he is “helping” restaurants out by allowing outdoor dining in December and January in Minnesoda is ridiculous. The fact that the press corps covering his presser didn’t burst out in gales of laughter is proof that they are nothing but court stenographers for the DFL.

      Of course they aren’t any stupider than his rules on family gatherings

      While the state says indoor gatherings are strongly discouraged, a maximum of 10 people from two households can visit indoors if they keep six feet of separation and take other precautions.

      Up to 15 people from three different households can gather outdoors if they maintain physical distancing.

      I’m sure Christmas with the family will be so much more fun when you have your favorite kid and his family inside with you while watching the other kids and their families stomp around outside trying to stay warm.

      • Agent Cooper

        “Up to 15 people from three different households can gather outdoors if they maintain physical distancing.”

        So a Menage-a-Trois?

    • DEG

      Obviously it’s a political war against small business and the middle class. I just can’t see the end game, though. The end of private property?

      I’ve seen a few conspiracy theorists types talking about “The Great Reset”. I think they might actually be on to something.

    • zwak

      There seems to be open revolt in Washington right now.

      https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2020/12/15/rural-washington-towns-openly-rebel-against-governor-inslees-latest-covid-shutdowns-n1213285

      ZOMG! People are carrying rifles! Buyt seriously, when these governors have only a political base in the one city and have damaged all ties to the rest of the state through “environmental” policies that only destroy communities, what do they expect. See also Oregon outside the Willamette Valley and California outside the coastal strip.

  22. Rebel Scum

    “The fraud happened. The election in many ways was stolen and the only way it will be fixed is by in the future reinforcing the laws.”

    Someone wants a Trump endorsement in 2024.

  23. robc

    But see, Nevada doesn’t count because:

    1. We don’t know how those illegal voters voted, so maybe it didn’t change Nevada anyway.

    2. Even if you flip Nevada, it doesn’t change the election results.

    See no fraud at all!

    (Repeat logic above for any other state)

    • leon

      The problem with this country is that we have 12 federal agencies for the Russians to hack.

      • invisible finger

        12-factor security

    • Chafed

      There is either some serious incompetence or social engineering to blame.

      • kbolino

        ¿Por qué no los dos?

  24. The Late P Brooks

    Our fuckwit came out with the most convoluted fuckery yesterday. He’ll graciously allow us to have outdoor dining. In Minnesota. In December.

    Take a knee, and give thanks, ungrateful knave!

    • limey

      You know what else these dying people all have in common?

  25. leon

    Your Thought of the Day, brought to you by Leon (TM):

    “People Do what they Do, because they are what they are. Human Nature hasn’t changed, and is not expected to in the future. But don’t let that stop you from changing who you are and what you do!”

    • Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

      Thanks, Leon.

    • Plisade

      +1 Frog & Scorpion

  26. Rebel Scum

    Georgia’s surprise tilt to Joe Biden this year—the first time the state went for a Democrat presidential candidate in nearly 30 years—followed after officials made numerous concessions to election activists over the last several years, including allowing voting documents with errors on them to be processed instead of rejected.

    Curious how that worked out…

  27. Count Potato

    “Tucker Carlson calls Jill Biden ‘borderline illiterate’ and ‘not very bright’ because of ‘typos everywhere’ in Ph.D. dissertation that got her ‘the same degree as Dr Pepper’

    The prime time host told his viewers that he read through the 130-plus page academic paper written by Jill Biden in 2006.

    ‘Dr. Jill needs reading glasses,’ Carlson said.

    ‘Dr. Jill can’t write, she can’t really think clearly either,’ Carlson said.

    ‘Parts of the dissertation seems to be written in a foreign language using English words.

    ‘They’re essentially pure nonsense like pig Latin or dogs barking.

    ‘The whole thing is just incredibly embarrassing. And not simply to poor illiterate Jill Biden, but to the college that considered this crap scholarship.

    ‘Embarrassing, in fact, to our entire system of higher education, to the nation itself.

    ‘Jill Biden’s doctoral dissertation is our national shame.’

    Carlson then took aim at Joe Biden, saying that his wife is ‘a lot smarter than the man she married’ and that he isn’t sexist because he would not hesitate to criticize the president-elect in the same manner.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9062089/Tucker-Carlson-Fox-News-blasts-Jill-Biden-borderline-illiterate.html

    • leon

      Fuck you Tucker Carlson. Rote adherence to spelling standards is a conspiracy to control people by the Dictionary-Industrial complex.

      Bad Spellers Untie!

      • zwak

        I am an atrocious speller, but that is why you have a proofreader, whom you pay!, go over a dissertation before submitting to orals.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      In one excerpt, Jill gets her fractions wrong, writing: ‘Three quarters of the class will be Caucasian; one quarter of the class will be African American; one seat will hold a Latino; and the remaining seats will be filled with students of Asian descent or non-resident aliens.’

      Lol, so it is actually a piece of garbage. Call her doctor though.

      • Gustave Lytton

        non-resident aliens

        They cross the border to attend school then return at night to their home country?

      • Agent Cooper

        They float around, not bound by the laws of gravity.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      ‘Parts of the dissertation seems to be written in a foreign language using English words.

      Huge red flag of a purchased dissertation from an overseas paper-for-hire shop.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Dissertations for schools of education are almost uniformly moronic and focused on political activism instead of actual individual development.

      • kbolino

        That, or they are “evidence-based research” which involves getting lots of highly motivated people together to teach a class using the novel methodology du jour, then to write a p-hacked paper saying everybody in the entire world should apply this approach, which is totally different than the last N times people wrote the same paper but with a different methodology du jour, and what are confounding variables anyway?

    • creech

      DOCTOR Biden earned her degree at a school heavily influenced by Senator Biden to the same degree Michelle Obama earned a $300,000/yr. job in Chicago when Barry was a state senator.

      • zwak

        This. She clearly was awarded the degree to curry favor with a corrupt Senator.

  28. Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

    That Assange phone call is pretty fucking damning.

    • leon

      SLD and all, that actually looks like a no shit anti trust case (disclaimer that of course the prosecutions arguments are always going to look good for the prosecution). Not the stupid “You banned me from facebook! WAWHWHW YOUSE A MONOPOLY” that i seem to hear from conservatives.

      • Count Potato

        “Not the stupid “You banned me from facebook! WAWHWHW YOUSE A MONOPOLY” that i seem to hear from conservatives.”

        I wouldn’t call that stupid.

      • kbolino

        Well, it’s no less stupid than the utopian vision of net neutrality. It displays an ignorance, willful or otherwise, of what the Internet is and how it has worked in the past.

      • juris imprudent

        True, stupid is a little too dignified for it.

    • db

      One of the things about journalism that bugs me the most is the near universal failure/refusal to link to supporting documentation for a story. Here’s a perfect example. They spend a ton of words discussing a lawsuit. Any link to the actual claims in the lawsuit? No, you’d have to go search for it yourself somehow. A simple link at the end of the story would suffice. They don’t even have to quote it. But how am I supposed to trust the reporter’s interpretation of the legal language?

      Same thing with scientific papers. OK, thanks for the summary, dude, now I want to read the paper. Maybe even link to the abstract?

      • EvilSheldon

        The only difference between Hollywood and the media, is that Hollywood doesn’t lie about what it is.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    Some jackass is on my teevee saying “Somebody will come along and take over those failed restaurants. No big deal. What would really be great is if the government provides incentives for entrepreneurs.”

    If you’re waiting for a government “incentive” you’re not an “entrepreneur”.

    Wait- that’s not true. “Entrepreneurial rent seeking” has been a thing since the Middle Ages.

    • EvilSheldon

      This falls into the rare category of, ‘Too stupid to be actually malicious.’

    • leon

      I’m fine saying that about Boeing et al, who demand bailouts. But not about the small businesses that are screwd because Gov. FYTW decides you have to starve to death.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Those are called carpetbaggers.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Nothing attracts entrepreneurs like knowing their business, and all the investment of time and money they’ve put into it, could be taken away at the drop of a hat.

    • R C Dean

      What would really be great is if the government provides incentives for stops imposing disincentives onstops imposing disincentives on entrepreneurs.

    • leon

      And doctors are admiting this. Didn’t they run an article saying “Oh looks like Rand Paul was actually right in his exchange with Fauci” ?

      • Tundra

        The sad irony here is that by not allowing it free rein through low-vulnerability populations, it actually made the ‘vid last longer and ultimately more dangerous for granny.

        So again, we threw out the playbook for a not-so-scary virus. Well done Top. Men.

      • Pope Jimbo

        King Walz still can’t admit that closing schools was stupid.

        He is grudgingly opening K-5 as a sop to us peasants for keeping bars and restaurants closed. Despite there being ZERO deaths between 5 and 19 in Minnesoda.

    • Rebel Scum

      Pox COVID party!

  30. The Late P Brooks

    The Fed will support our economy for as long as it takes.

    Support it to death.

    • leon

      So i think i’ve figured out a succinct way to put MMT:

      “If you find yourself in the enviable position, that people are willing to lend you money, to be repaid by a currency you control; You should take those suckers for everything they have, for as much as you can, until they realize the folly of their ways”.

      Yup. I think that sums it up.

  31. Certified Public Asshat

    Pete Buttigieg is right. Airports are romantic.

    Let’s pause for a moment to consider that airports can, in fact, be romantic. Sure, travel is often obligatory and stressful. But when traveling for pleasure or to see loved ones — the kinds of journeys that are discouraged during the coronavirus pandemic — an airport is also a hub of possibility: the place we go to be transported somewhere where we’ll be reunited with people we cherish, explore a place we’ve never visited or make new memories in a favorite spot.

    Why is he not the secretary of love?

    • UnCivilServant

      Because the Ministry of Love hasn’t been formally founded yet.

    • leon

      TSA: Making sure your travel is our pleasure!

    • db

      Where else can you go to get fondled by complete strangers in front of complete strangers for free?

      • db

        Oh wait, nevermind, you’re paying for it too.

    • Nephilium

      ‘member when you could see people off on their flight all the way at the gate? When you just had to go through a metal detector and an X-ray?

      • db

        If you have flown into or out of Pittsburgh, you’ll know that Pittsburgh International has a large secured air side terminal connected to an unsecured ticketing/baggage/receiving terminal by a tramway. The airside terminal has almost all of the restaurants, shops, services, etc. It used to be that people could come to the airport and eat, shop, whatever on the airside.

        With 9/11 and US Airways closing its major hub at PIT, the airside terminal now relies entirely on passengers for dining and shopping, and the passenger traffic is significantly reduced, since the airport serves as merely a terminus, not a thruway (some minor commuter flights excepted).

        So now, apparently, they have come up with a “shopping ticket” you can get that will let you go through the TSA checkpoint (same security procedures as travelers) and shop and dine. I imagine that pretty close to zero of those have been issued, with the possible exception of family members seeing people off on rare occasions. The whole terminal was built for a different era, and now the Allegheny County Airport Authority is stuck with this gigantic terminal that is losing money, so they keep pouring tax money into it. There was a big beautification push a few years ago when the city was supposedly in the running for the alternate Amazon HQ, but that fell through.

      • Nephilium

        Never flew through Pittsburgh, it’s only 2 hours away by car. There’s a couple of airports from the before times that have that same issue.

      • DEG

        It’s been a long time since I flew through Pittsburgh. I remember the area beyond security being huge… and empty.

      • KOVIDKristen

        A former colleague of mine worked on the Pittsburgh pitch for Amazon. She’s a raging MAGA.

      • KOVIDKristen

        DCA was built in the mid-90’s and it’s already woefully outdated, but the dining & shopping outside security are pretty good. In fact, the dining & shopping airside are much worse.

        DCA’s real problem is technological advancements since it was built. Good luck finding ways to charge your devices in that shithole.

        I am curious about what the functionality of the brand-spankin new regional terminal will be (and LOL at the new terminal construction being started just before the ‘Vid struck us all down)

      • The Last American Hero

        It’s been 20 years and we still haven’t fixed the cell phone parking lot at our airport. It’s too small, and the road dumps you out on the wrong side, so you have to cross 4 lanes of traffic to get to the arrivals lane – in about a 1/4 mile, while the freeway dumps in and has people crossing the opposite way to get to the departures lane.

        ROADZ!!!

    • The Other Kevin

      Sounds like someone’s been watching Love Actually on the 25 Days of Christmas marathon.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I absolutely love producing papers in order to be afforded the right to freedom of movement.

    • Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

      No. Airports are aromatic.

  32. The Other Kevin

    Was that $10 for a splatter painting?

    • The Other Kevin

      Or $10million even?

    • Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

      I could have mailed that for free at about 7 Pacific last night. That was one of those “Drop the phone and pray to Jesus” moments.

      • prolefeed

        Those Hunter Biden paintings fail my Thrift Store Test – as in, would I pay about $10 or so for them if I found them unsigned in a thrift store.

        A large amount of modern art in museums fails that test for me.

      • R C Dean

        But they are very useful for influence peddling and money laundering. Now, he doesn’t need to go through the hassle of pretending to be a businessman. He can just splatter paint on a canvas, and sell it for $10mm to ChiCom operatives, Ukrainian crooks, you name it.

      • db

        The art, while alien and unsatisfying to a provincial mind like yours, speaks volumes to the sensibilities of the more globally minded citizen. The stubborn insistence of the Western mind on its own stultifying artistic standards cannot hope to unlock the possibilities that those from the East can imagine. The value of the art to them is intrinsic, and the artist’s voice, clear as rain.

  33. UnCivilServant

    so, they closed the office, but it was a remote work day anyway.

    Do I have to work?

    • PieInTheSky

      For the government? No

    • Swiss Servator

      You think 1)I am clicking a link with that title?, 2)I am going on Twitter…?

      • PieInTheSky

        I did not even realize the account name. The tweet has nothing to do with it.

      • Swiss Servator

        Nice try, my Romanian trickster friend.

      • DEG

        I clicked.

        It’s a picture of the Lincoln Memorial with the text:

        A House Divided Against Itself Is a Duplex – President of the Home Owners Association

  34. leon

    Marcon (President, Frenchia) has come down with the COVID! Why didn’t he follow the protocols!?!?!

    • PieInTheSky

      *Macron in case it was unintentional

    • Endless Mike

      He’s a young man in good health – he needs to be careful around his wife, though.

  35. Broswater

    I know it would be shooting ourselves in the foot even more but at this point I would be for countries that refuse to put their population thru lockdowns to start imposing economic sanctions to those that use the heavy hand of the state to abuse their population and violate their human rights with the lockdown.

    Maybe once it touches their budget those fuckers will start realizing how moronic they are acting.

    • Count Potato

      What did he know about the Clintons?

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      It is fishy bit a lot of cops do cap themselves.

  36. The Late P Brooks

    I know it would be shooting ourselves in the foot even more but at this point I would be for countries that refuse to put their population thru lockdowns to start imposing economic sanctions to those that use the heavy hand of the state to abuse their population and violate their human rights with the lockdown.

    Unfortunately, I suspect the exact opposite happened to Sweden.

  37. Q Continuum

    There’s been a lot of talk about how the Dems were so crafty with the fraud; spreading it out and doing just enough to win so that each piece of evidence isn’t enough to overturn things.

    That’s BS. They weren’t crafty or smart at all, it was embarrassingly amateurish. Voting machines with 68% error rates? “Broken water pipes” incontrovertibly proven to not have happened? Stopping counting in all swing states at the same time? They were fucking caught on video rolling out suitcases full of ballots after everyone was sent home for Christ sake!

    They just knew that they had the full support of the “Press”, the judiciary and the bureaucracy, along with a GOP that’s either too corrupt or too cowardly to do anything about it. In fact, it actually serves their purposes better to be so unsophisticated.

    “Hey peasants, look at how utterly blatant we can be about wrecking your electoral system and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it! You’ll bend over and take it because that’s what you do; the weak suffer as they must.”

    • leon

      “Hey peasants, look at how utterly blatant we can be about wrecking your electoral system and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it! You’ll bend over and take it because that’s what you do; the weak suffer as they must.”

      See, to me the problem isn’t that they are in control and are getting away with it because of the Media. The Problem is that easily 50% of the population is completely OK with fraud, if it means their guy won the election.

      • straffinrun

        I’d be fine with it if my guy won. I’m gonna oppress you less.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        easily 50% of the population is completely OK with fraud, if it means their guy won the election

        To this point, it’s interesting that Romney, Cindy McCain, McConnell etc welcomed Biden with open arms while Rand was unambigious about the election being stolen on the floor of the Senate yesterday. Quite the contrast. Biden was more than just the Dem’s guy.

      • Rebel Scum

        So you are saying that Rand is going to contest the election in the Senate. *makes popcorn*

    • straffinrun

      I’m thinking it’s pretty simple: mail in ballots. You flood the country with easily forget documents and this shitshow is what you get.

      • leon

        I don’t like pushing “Grand Conspiracies” because even if you could get one, they would inevitably flounder like any other “Grand Plan”. But They literally were pushing mail in balloting from the beginning of the pandemic, when we had 0 idea about what things would be like in November.

      • straffinrun

        It’s a fatally flawed system and scaling it upwards is not going to make the flaw less harmful. Less people should be voting, not more.

      • straffinrun

        Fewer people. Ugh.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I hate to agree with Straff, but yeah, mail in ballots.

        1) Easy to “help” old people and others fill out their ballots for the right person
        2) Easy to send back all the ballots that were mailed out to dead people or people that had moved. All marked for the right person
        3) Lots of lazy fucks who were legally eligible to vote actually did vote. If they had to go to the actual polling station, they wouldn’t have gone because they didn’t really give a shit.

      • R C Dean

        4) Easy to dump manufactured ballots into the pile of mail-in ballots that have become separated from their validation envelopes. In order to do this with in-person ballots, you also have to alter the record of who, and how many, people voted at a given polling place.

      • Count Potato

        This.

      • R C Dean

        Mass mail-out ballots break one of the key protections against voter fraud – lining up the count with the number of ballots cast by verifiable registered voters.

        The only way to fix this is to do away with secret ballots. The signed envelopes are insultingly weak protection. You need a verifiable signature on every ballot. And even that is weaker/more problematic than in-person voting. Clean voter rolls and photo ID at in-person voting stations is a relatively simple and easy way to get much better electoral security.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Down with the Australian ballot! Make voting ‘Murican again! Where’s my jug of corn whiskey?

      • kinnath

        The only way to fix this is to do away with secret ballots.

        I think it can be solved without doing away with secret ballots using existing technology. But it’s pointless to delve into the details, because no secure system will ever be implemented.

      • Pope Jimbo

        The whole premise that Covid was so horrible that you needed to go to mail in ballots was the first lie.

        If you accepted that crowds at the polls would have been superspreading events, then you could just as easily switched to a week of voting. Pick some simple way to decide what day you vote on. And anyone can vote on the last day.

        Crowds would be winnowed down to whatever level you think is acceptable and you keep most of the security protocols in place.

        It certainly would have been better than mailing out shit tons of ballots and expecting that to work.

      • R C Dean

        I think mailing out shit tons of ballots worked exactly they way they wanted it to work.

      • Gustave Lytton

        5) Excessive voter registration (motor voter laws, etc) of people who can’t be bothered to register on their own imitative and failing to purge rolls of non-voters/deceased/other ineligibles.

      • kbolino

        I was looking at PA’s results yesterday or the day before, and on their face they’re not suspicious. Joe Biden gained over Clinton more than Trump gained over 2016 in 48 of 67 counties; that definitely explains how he won the state and largely leaves out the possibility that a handful of counties flipped the whole thing.

        But then when you break out the votes by in-person vs mail-in things go beyond pear-shaped. Trump almost wins a lockout (66 of 67 counties) in in-person voting. Biden, on the other hand, gets a crushing landslide in mail-in voting (I didn’t run the full numbers, but it looked like about 80% of the mail-in ballots for the state as a whole). No political statistician worth his salt should look past such an anomalous result. It doesn’t prove fraud, indeed it doesn’t prove or disprove anything at all in its own right, but it raises way too many questions that shouldn’t be ignored. There’s no reason a prior to expect such a massive swing, and whatever the reason may be it should be teased out not filled in solely by narrative (“smarter/caring voted by mail” vs. “fraud and low-effort”).

    • The Other Kevin

      It wasn’t one big effort, it was thousands of small efforts. You have a significant number of people who think Trump is “literally Hitler”. You could count on all those people to do whatever it took to stop this existential evil.

      • Drake

        “By any means necessary” gives you a lot of options.

      • The Other Kevin

        And a lot of deniability. “We had no idea people would do illegal things! Thousands of times! In all the states that made a difference!”

    • Drake

      Yes it was blatantly obvious and completely ham-handed.

      The result is that almost half the country has lost faith in our institutions. People have become utterly cynical and distrustful of everything they are told.

      Historical examples of similar circumstances – Pre-Revolution France, WWI Russia, Weimar Germany… They all turned out great.

      • Akira

        Pre-Revolution France
        Led to a crusade against wealth inequality

        WWI Russia
        Followed by revolution that gave workers a voice

        Weimar Germany
        Ushered in a party that wanted free healthcare, free college, and greater regulation of the entire economy with particular attention to the banking sector

        What? I don’t see the problem!
        /Leftist

    • PieInTheSky

      I’ve seen people saying “if there was fraud why did they not flip the senate…”

      • Drake

        They still might. And the Democrat in Michigan probably won fraudulently.

        But their big focus was on the Presidency. Several states had reports of thousands of ballots magically appearing for Joe Biden and nobody down-ballot.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Look, carpal tunnel is a real thing and a lot of heroes got it marking thousands of ballots for Joe and only Joe. And you – monster that you are – want them to permanently cripple themselves by also having to fill in the Senate race too?

    • Plisade

      Cue Juris Impudent…

      • UnCivilServant

        Once he declared that nothing counted as evidence, I stopped paying attention to him.

      • Plisade

        “Give evil nothing to oppose and it will disappear by itself.”

      • juris imprudent

        I gave you the link to NR on what the Trump legal team stipulated to in Wisconsin. It did not comport with their media portrayal.

        But I’m the one not concerned with evidence (versus a fucking narrative)?

    • Rebel Scum

      doing just enough to win

      Biden got at least 15 million more votes ballots than he could have without massive election fraud.

      • juris imprudent

        Nah uh, it was eleventybillion!!!11!++ votes – all the mean Americans that don’t kiss Donald’s glorious hole.

  38. leon

    @SP; CC: TPTB:

    I pushed a special Year in Review article yesterday, that is full of links. Feel free to use it whenever to cover for missing links, or as just a regularly scheduled article. Whatever you want.

    • EvilSheldon

      In the style of Dave Berry, one would hope…

      Jeez, i wonder what Dave Berry will actually do for the year in review article?

      • EvilSheldon

        Fuck. Fuck you, auto-correct…

      • leon

        If i was 10% as clever as Dave Berry, i would have attempted. But I did throw my own special spin on it.

      • db

        Don’t worry, you won’t get to read it–it’ll be censored for inaccurate content.

  39. straffinrun

    There’s a great chance that you are as full of shit as I am.

  40. PieInTheSky

    https://www.facebook.com/MennoHenselmans/posts/3627630233961452

    The timing of eating did not alter the circadian phase or amplitude of central clock markers (plasma melatonin and cortisol), nor sleep efficiency, indicating late night eating does not harm your sleep. However, the delayed eating group did report going to bed about 25 minutes later, probably because they still had to eat their last meal close to bedtime and wrap up their day before going to bed. This caused them to sleep on average 20 fewer minutes during the study. The reduced sleep could have partly explained the trend for worse health biomarkers in the morning for the late night eating group.
    Overall, my conclusion is basically the opposite of the researchers: this study supports that under well-controlled conditions, eating late at night is not a problem for your body composition.

  41. PieInTheSky

    ZZ pandemic solution-END LOCKDOWNS, NO MASKS. Immediate economic reopening. Easily manage increased incidence COVID-19 with Zelenko Protocol Plus. END GOVERNMENT OBSTRUCTION of life saving medication and information. High risk patients must be prophylaxed and/or immediately tx

    https://twitter.com/zev_dr/status/1330624554646056965

    right…

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Despite the unfortunate unnecessary capitalization he’s right and we’d be much better off if we’d just listened to him in the first place.

  42. Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

    Huh. Little Miss Yoga Pants is almost as cynical and snarky as I am. I’ve found an April to my Ron.

  43. The Late P Brooks

    Less people should be voting, not more.

    Lesser people should not be allowed to vote at all.

    • straffinrun

      I corrected that. And I’m eating my kid’s first attempt at making dinner. Just wish it wasn’t pork. Half raw.

    • Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

      Voting should be for tax-payers not tax dependents. You have no skin in the game? Go fuck yourself.

      • straffinrun

        Vote with your feet or bullets.

      • UnCivilServant

        What does the unit of bullet-feet measure?

      • straffinrun

        Depends on the size of the boot.

  44. Pope Jimbo

    Things are escalating in the Minnesoda Rebellion

    Restaurants are opening in spite of the magnanimous gesture King Walz made yesterday in allowing them to have outdoor dining. Now they are yanking liquor licenses from the wrong thinkers.

    After a number of bars, restaurants and other public-facing businesses in Minnesota forged ahead with plans to reopen Wednesday, in protest of state pandemic restrictions, the state announced Wednesday night that it notified two bars — including one in Lakeville — that it intends to suspend their liquor licenses for 60 days.

    The move comes “for blatantly violating” an executive order “by selling alcohol for on-premises consumption,” according to a statement from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety Alcohol and Gambling Enforcement Division.

    I wonder how long it will take before the restaurants and bars realize it will be cheaper to simply bribe the cops/sheriff to look the other way than it was to collect taxes on the food and booze.

    Sure you yanked my liquor license. I’ll stop charging sales tax (and all the other “temporary” taxes that get added on) and just bribe the local cops a few grand every month.

    • Pope Jimbo

      You also got to love the science behind this gem:

      While only a fraction of COVID-19 exposures in the state have been directly linked to bars and restaurants, according to the Minnesota Department of Health, they likely resulted in new infections in other settings.

      “likely”. That’s some nice science you got there Lou.

      • Tundra

        The contact trace fuckers aren’t even asking about retail, just bars and restaurants, gatherings, etc.

        It’s maddening.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Who the fuck is talking to the contact tracers? The same benighted twits who talk to telemarketers?

        My guess is normal people (80%) tell the contact tracers to fuck off and leave them alone
        Semi-normal people who still thing that the govt can “do something” (5%) give the contact tracers as much info as they can remember.
        Karens (15%) talk the ears off the contact tracers telling them all the places they saw people with no masks. They are a vindictive bunch. They know that they followed all the rules and still got infected so it must be the fault of some evil other person. If their spouse went to a bar, they blame the bar.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Also, I think that the contact tracer program is just a jobs program for DFL activists.

        The bar has been set with more than 70% of the cases having no known origin. If that was the metric I was measured by as a contact tracer, I’d spend all day fucking off. I’d spend an hour every day maybe calling a few people. I’d also look at the address of some of the infectees, get on google maps and pick a few nearby retail shops and say the people visited there.

        OK, I wouldn’t even spend an hour a day working. If my manager ever questioned me, I’d say that all the deplorables were not cooperating.

      • kbolino

        normal people (80%) tell the contact tracers a polite fiction, whether they believe it, they simply forgot the truth, or they intentionally lie/evade

      • Pope Jimbo

        I’ve got a list of jackasses that I will swear I met with for several hours in a small unventilated room the day before I tested positive. Just to watch them get tagged with a mandatory 14 day self-quarantine.

  45. kinnath

    My favorite Mr. Grinch.

    • PieInTheSky

      I feel this was linked here recently probably i the early morning thread.

      • kinnath

        Probably me.

        It seemed appropriate given the music link from Banjos.

      • PieInTheSky

        there was also one with a chick and a violin

    • The Other Kevin

      I always liked this one. You can see these guys got their dad’s talent.

  46. PieInTheSky

    This is a watercolour painting of a condition known as ‘Chimney Sweep’s Cancer’, also called soot wart, on a 32yo man. Soot warts are a squamous cell carcinoma of the skin of the scrotum & it was the first reported form of occupational cancer.

    (gruesome) Thread!

    https://twitter.com/WhoresofYore/status/1336400388543668229

  47. straffinrun

    Being disappointed that democracy didn’t give you a favorable outcome is like being sad that the 17 year old runaway in the bus stop restroom didn’t swallow.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      That bitch lied to me.

    • R C Dean

      Oddly specific, straff.

      • Chipwooder

        Definitely sounds like there’s personal experience involved here

  48. Rebel Scum

    Texas and nine other states file antitrust lawsuit against Google.

    These rubes think they have standing…

    • leon

      I Questioned Texas, and any other states, ability to have standing in that case. What authority does one state have to another to request that they adhere to their own laws. Such a case would have to come from a citizen of the state that is violating it’ own laws.

      • UnCivilServant

        They had those suits too, but those got thrown out with even flimsier excuses.

      • leon

        The logical thing is for the states upset about this to threaten to secede from the union, like Podesta planned to do when they lost the election.

      • Rebel Scum

        TX and texans are not affected by who is president and elected by what means?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        What happens in other states vis a vis the composition of the federal government effects people in other states. I doubt the courts will see it that way though.

      • R C Dean

        Such a case would have to come from a citizen of the state that is violating it’ own laws.

        Such a citizen would lack standing because they can’t show a specific injury to themselves.

        What authority does one state have to another to request that they adhere to their own laws.

        When refusing to adhere to their own laws, in violation of the Constitution, has a direct impact on the state. Allowing judges and agencies to change election requirements violates the Constitutional provision that election laws are established by the legislature of a state. The direct impact is trickier, but I think the argument is that Senate represents the states, and another state violating its own laws changes representation in the Senate which affects other states.

        None of this matters, of course, because standing is the easy pretext for SCOTUS to stand aside. Essentially, nobody has standing to challenge a Constitutional violation related to elections. State election laws cannot be enforced in federal court, despite the Constitutional implications. There is no protection against violations of the Constitutional requirements for elections.

      • db

        Hypothetically, what could be done if a State Executive chose the Electors unilaterally, in violation of the State’s law, and sent them to the Electoral College?

      • R C Dean

        Congress would recognize the electors from the election, and/or SCOTUS would discover a way to overturn it, depending on which way the wind was blowing.

      • db

        But would any other State have grounds to sue? The residents of the State in question?

      • R C Dean

        See my previous reply.

      • Plisade

        What about the Constitutional guarantee of a republican form of gubmint? If the people of a state aren’t represented, i.e. executives and judges making law rather than the lawmakers, have they not standing federally?

      • R C Dean

        No, no they do not. Just ask SCOTUS.

      • kbolino

        The states are sovereign entities in union with each other. While Texas (or any other state) does not have standing to force another state to adopt Texas’s view of the world, it should definitely have standing to force a state to follow that state’s own laws. The legislature is the primary representative of the people. If the executive or judiciary ignores the legislature and constitution of that state, they have violated the U.S. Constitutions guarantee that each state enact a republican form of government. If state X can get away with ignoring their legislature, why can’t Texas or any other state do the same?

        This is setting aside a case where I would think standing would be very obvious: if a neighboring state, say Oklahama, became a despotic dictatorship, then Texas would be receiving some of its refugees. Despite the use of the 101st Airborne to enforce Brown in Alabama, it is not the Federal government’s job to use the Army to solve every problem.

      • kbolino

        Or, I should say, it’s not the Federal executive’s job to solve every problem by unilaterally deploying the Army.

  49. Rebel Scum

    Florida and Texas are open while NY is closed despite having a smaller population and far more deaths.

    Everyone knows that NY did everything right and has the best record. Cuomo got an emmy (or something) for goodness sake.

  50. The Late P Brooks

    While only a fraction of COVID-19 exposures in the state have been directly linked to bars and restaurants, according to the Minnesota Department of Health, they likely resulted in new infections in other settings.

    And millions dies as a result of the Sturgis Festival of Dirtbags. Because we think it might have been possible.

    • KOVIDKristen

      Interesting how Sturgis quickly fell out of the news…

      • Tundra

        Not here. The dishonest hacks stillbring it up.

      • Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

        I do the minimal compliance. Every once in awhile you encounter the leap back. Fuck them. They can’t replace me.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Yup. Still act like I-90 was impassable because of all the dead bodies from the bikers who got the Rona in Sturgis.

        Just like they keep pretending you need to wait 4 weeks before you can see any bump caused by deplorables not listening to the experts and getting together as a family for Thanksgiving dinner.

      • KOVIDKristen

        I was there a week or two after. Stepping over all the dead bodies was worth it for the scenery.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I heard Gov Noem secretly had all the dead bodies hidden inside Teddy Roosevelt’s nose on Mount Rushmore.

      • Nephilium

        Yeah. I just saw an article the other day that brought up the Sturgis “superspreader” event that caused dozens of cases… DOZENS!

  51. Rebel Scum

    DHS promises 450 miles of border wall by January 1st.

    Just more wall for Biden and his globalist friends to tear down.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Yeah, there’s no point. Even if it remains physically intact it does zero without some kind of monitoring.

      • Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

        “If you let this pulp and paper magazine die, we will shoot this dog!” Nice one Stinky.

  52. straffinrun

    Keep holding out. Eventually we’ll vote ourselves into sanity as long as it’s a fair vote.

    • straffinrun

      And calling out your betters for being hypocrites and inconsistent will shame them in to doing the right thing.

  53. Brett L

    Suck it, dark matterists!

    “The external field effect is a unique signature of MOND that does not occur in Newton-Einstein gravity,” McGaugh said. “This has no analogy in conventional theory with dark matter. Detection of this effect is a real head-scratcher.”

    Paper is linked at bottom of article for whoever was complaining about that upthread. They had strong signal at both the high and low end, which is pretty darn good. Lots of statistical modelling to verify the likelihood of the result not being an artifact of the dataset.

    • leon

      \McGaugh said that skepticism is part of the scientific process and understands the reluctance of many scientists to consider MOND as a possibility.

      WHAT? I thought science was about consensus!

    • db

      That was me, above.

      I have long wondered if the effects on gravitation that resulted in the dark matter hypothesis could be explained by regular matter contained in adjacent universes that are linked via common dimensions with ours. For instance, imagine two universes that share a small condensed dimension (similar to the ones postulated as part of string theory explanations). Matter that extends into those dimensions could show weak gravitational effects on matter in the adjacent universe.

      It’s all bullshit, and I lack the mathematics to describe it, but perhaps weirder shit has been proven true.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        It’s a far more acceptable explanation than a massive amount of matter that we can’t see or interact with.

        Or fucking string theory.

      • KOVIDKristen

        Physics seems to have become a hot mess after about the mid-20th century.

        I always enjoy reading books about Faraday, Einstein, Maxwell, Rutherford, Bohr, Meitner, etc., but when it comes to string theory & dark matter I am totally lost. For example, Brian Greene is an entertaining writer, but I can’t understand WTF he’s talking about, even with all the Homer Simpson analogies.

      • db

        Alternatively, imagine a universe folded back on itself in such a way that very distant points in one dimension are close to each other in a condensed dimension–in that case one needen’t even postulate multiple universes.

      • db

        “needn’t” WTF is going on with my spelling circuits?

      • juris imprudent

        Or imagine a universe that doesn’t have consistent rules throughout. If you are Einstein, you accept absolute universality because God created the universe. If you drop that justification – just what is it that tells us that our ‘local’ physics are absolutely universal?

      • db

        I think that’s the definition of “Universe” in the cosmological context. Certain constants in the universal models are, well, constant throughout the universe. If they aren’t, it’s not a Universe, or at least, not a Universal Constant, in which case the model is incorrect and needs a deeper dive to discover the real underlying Constant.

      • juris imprudent

        There is no rational reason to assume that a universe born of chaos behaves rationally – yet that is exactly what we do. It’s an axiom that no one wants to examine.

      • db

        Who’s the one here who warned the other against nihilism the other day 🙂 ?

      • juris imprudent

        So it’s nihilism to question if our rationality is sufficient to comprehend creation? I could quote you the Book of Job that gives a lovely dialogue on that.

      • db

        To be pedantic, you wrote “born of chaos,” not “created from nothing.” One could construe the first to carry no religious/supernatural implications.

      • juris imprudent

        How dare you attempt to out-pedant me! And I reference Job for it’s literary merit, not it’s theology.

      • Raven Nation

        The idea of changing laws of physics has been studied. For example: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100909004112.htm (although that article is 10 years old).

        I certainly don’t understand cosmological theory but, as it happens, I was watching an older episode of The Way the Universe Works (?I think) the other day and there was some discussion about this. The theory has a specific name which I can’t remember right now but I think has the word “Domain” in it somewhere.

      • juris imprudent

        It’s really problematic if we try to create special rules – usually a sign that a theory is decaying badly, and we need a better theory.

        It just may be there are limits to what we can discover via science, just as there are likely limits to any domain of knowledge humans can ever assemble.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Nonsense, we just need more dimensions in M-Theory.

      • db

        The notion of time- and space-dependent constants in the physical models is common, but the model should hold throughout a Universe. I’d argue that if a Universal Constant depends on its temporal or physical location within the Universe, then the model that uses that constant is not sufficiently defined.

      • juris imprudent

        So time and space are what we perceive them to be. It isn’t like we have a real perspective outside of them.

      • R C Dean

        My uninformed take is that “dark matter” is basically “assume a can opener”. They can’t get their theories to line up with what we observe, so they posit something unobservable to save their theories.

        See, also, “systemic racism”.

      • Brett L

        I’m hoping that the described Emergent Field Effect will give new grist to the “gravity as an emergent property of entropy” theory. Which I find absolutely fascinating, but is well beyond my two semesters of undergrad thermodynamics.

      • db

        I’ll have to go read up more on the “emergent property of entropy” idea.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Phillip Pullman hardest hit.

      (but not nearly hard enough)

    • Fatty Bolger

      “I came from the same place as those in dark matter community,” he said. “It hurts to think that we could be so wrong. But Milgrom predicted this over 30 years ago with MOND. No other theory anticipated the observed behavior.”

      The best theories make predictions that can be tested, and when they bear out often lead to many other revelations. This deserves a lot of attention.

    • Not Adahn

      I’m partial to superfluid dark matter, mainly because I want to bang Sabine.

  54. Certified Public Asshat

    Elon Musk slammed for whining about pronouns on Twitter https://t.co/wtW5U3XLPf — New York Post (@nypost) December 17, 2020

    His baby’s name looks like a gender pronoun, so maybe he should sit this one out.

    • PieInTheSky

      not to defend old Musky but how is that whining?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Not swallowing that bullshit whole hog is by definition whining.

    • Agent Cooper

      I kind of hate cats because humans end up becoming subservient to them.

  55. Rebel Scum

    What is the error rate on the convid pcr tests? And can it distinguish among coronavirus and rhinovirus strains?

    • Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

      no

    • mrfamous

      Hard to say because it’s hard to define what counts as an error and that number changes based on how each state is running its tests.

      A 40 ‘cycle’ test is going to pick up live COVID virus, dead COVID virus, dead other coronavirus strains, and dead all sorts of other things that when they decay look a lot like dead coronavirus strains. Only the 4th of those is obviously a negative outcome, but only the first of those is really what the tests are supposed to actually be looking for and would justify any contract tracing or quarantine.

      If ever there was a textbook example of the best thing for public health would be individuals vigorously pursuing individual health. When the government directs public health measures from above, this is exactly what you get: exaggeration of a real problem and a half-assed solution that, at best, barely addresses it.

  56. Festus' Mustache's tits keep calm and carry on.

    Alright. I’m done. Have fun you crazy bunch of tinker-toys. Festus needs sleep.

  57. The Late P Brooks

    Failed experiment

    Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf has described 2020 as a “terrible” year and says the national coronavirus strategy has failed.

    He made the remarks as part of an annual TV programme reviewing the year with the royal family.

    ——-

    “I think we have failed. We have a large number who have died and that is terrible,” the king says in the programme.

    “The people of Sweden have suffered tremendously in difficult conditions. One thinks of all the family members who have happened to be unable to say goodbye to their deceased family members. I think it is a tough and traumatic experience not to be able to say a warm goodbye.”

    ——-

    Sweden’s state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, in November explained the strategy relied on a combination of legal and voluntary measures.

    He told the BBC that this was, in the Swedish context, “the combination that we really believe is the best one”.

    According to an official report released earlier this week, the strategy failed in its effort to protect the elderly in care homes – for which the government has admitted responsibility.

    Over 90% of Covid-related deaths have been among those aged 70 and over, and nearly half of all Covid deaths have been in care homes, the government says.

    ——-

    Sweden is also said to have one of the highest per capita Covid-19 death rates in the world, and has had more deaths than the rest of the Nordic countries combined. This has led to criticism from the country’s neighbours, Norway, Denmark and Finland, that its less strict approach is putting their own measures at risk.

    What a garbled mess of random assertions. BBC journalism at its finest.

    • mrfamous

      Sweden’s excess death rate for 2020 is normal. They count COVID deaths via a different standard than the others.

      Oh, and by the way, mask wearing is prevalent in _none_ of those countries.

    • The Other Kevin

      I’m too lazy to do the research, but it seems to me that every country is seeing the same thing regardless of the measures they take. Like the virus is just doing its thing and it can’t be prevented.

    • Plisade

      I can’t believe there are still kings on the planet.

      • UnCivilServant

        The title has been neutered. Today’s kings put on different verbiage.

      • Plisade

        Peacocks of a different color.

      • Plisade

        That’s one privileged peacock. I bet it gets everything it needs to flourish in grandeur at the zoo and never has to lift a dewclaw.

  58. The Late P Brooks

    Just like they keep pretending you need to wait 4 weeks before you can see any bump caused by deplorables not listening to the experts and getting together as a family for Thanksgiving dinner.

    Just wait ’til groundhog day. Then you’ll be sorry.

  59. Rebel Scum

    Too many Americans are ignorant sheep that are ignorant and sheepish.

    A survey by Rasmussen Reporters and The Heartland Institute reveals that about 53 percent of likely voters who have heard of the Great Reset oppose its mission to further integrate nations’ economies, globalize American industries, and bind U.S. citizens to international climate rules.

    A minority of likely voters, 42 percent, who have heard of the Great Reset said they support its goals, while four percent said they were not sure. Whether likely voters support or oppose the Great Reset is largely based on their political affiliation, the survey found.

    For instance, 76 percent of Republicans said they do not support the Great Reset, whereas 72 percent of Democrats said they do support the initiative. Swing voters, though, by a majority, oppose the Great Reset.

    • mrfamous

      Wanting to hand over your personal autonomy to your government is bad enough. Wanting to hand it over to somebody else’s NGOs is insanity. Who the fuck is Klaus Schwab and why are people eager to make him their ruler?

    • Urthona

      The “Great Reset” can eat my ass.

  60. The Late P Brooks

    For instance, 76 percent of Republicans said they do not support the Great Reset, whereas 72 percent of Democrats said they do support the initiative. Swing voters, though, by a majority, oppose the Great Reset.

    Haha, suckers. You’re going to get what you voted for, good and hard.

    Unfortunately, so am I.

  61. AlexinCT

    Da fuq is that thing in the picture eating? Is that some sort of cake?

    • KOVIDKristen

      You ever gonna join us on Zoom again?

  62. Rebel Scum

    Dishonest cunte is dishonest and a cunte.

    “The two worst presidents of the last hundred years are the last two Republican presidents the current one Donald Trump and George W. Bush which speaks volumes about the modern Republican Party and also when you compare Trump and Bush, Bush killed hundreds of thousands of people abroad, you know, brown and black people in faraway countries we don’t care about. Donald Trump killed hundreds of thousands of people or presided over the preventable deaths here at home in the United States of America. And that for me, you talk about morally abominable. It is sociopathic.”

    More bs.

    “To me, diversity is a very big word in the sense that you certainly want a cabinet to look like America in terms of representation for African-Americans and Latinos and every other group in America,” Sanders told host Andrea Mitchell. “You know, when people turn on the TV and they see that cabinet room, they should say, ‘Hey, that looks like me,’ and that’s right. But equally important — or more important — is having a cabinet that stands up and fights for working people at a time when wages have been stagnant for 45 years, at a time when 92 million Americans have no health insurance or are underinsured at a time when working-class kids can’t afford to go to college and people are working for starvation wages and we’ve got to deal with climate change. So, I want diversity in the cabinet, I want it to look like America, but I also want it to be a cabinet that has the guts to take on powerful special interests and fight for working families.”

    • Rebel Scum

      Buzzword Bernie over here…and the chick above was asleep during the Obama years I suppose.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      “preventable deaths here at home”

      Our COVID death rate which is defined using a liberal classification is comfortably at Western European levels. Get fucked lady.

    • Akira

      The two worst presidents of the last hundred years are the last two Republican presidents the current one Donald Trump and George W. Bush

      Wasn’t there a president in the last 100 years who put American citizens in concentration camps on basis of race?

      • leon

        That’s Different!

    • leon

      There were no Wars when Obama was President. There was no Proscription List.

  63. juris imprudent

    Great article on the difference between let’s-all-get-along Republicans (Georgia) and the oh-hell-no Republicans (Texas).

    • Gustave Lytton

      I block bigots, mute fools.

      You’re busted BigotK!

      Seriously, this guy is purported member of the editorial board of Bloomberg Opinion and he can’t handle that tweet?

      • Ownbestenemy

        He can handle it just it doesn’t fit their narrative that Israel is evil.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The author is bitching that the Palestinians are being ignored in favor of a broader peace in the Middle East.

      In other words, the Palestinian leadership cannot continue to bitch and whine and fight any movement towards actual peace in order to continue their grift and that sucks for them.

      On the bright side, if the Saudis don’t give a shit about the Palestinians anymore then they have no real power to gum up the works.

      • leon

        At least some of what we have seen is that the Palestinians being cast aside because the Palestinian leadership is completely unable or unwilling to participate in any process. Then when the US offers incentives to recognizing Israel, a lot of these Arab States are going to see that that is the far more profitable route.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Well everyone else seems to at least on the face, grow up and actually negotiate rarher than bomb each other.

        Palestine and its enablers are recognizing that the world is properly treating them like the toddler they are.

      • KOVIDKristen

        These normalizing deals also effectively isolate Iran. And they piss off Erdogan, who previously was the only “bridge” between Muslim countries and Israel. He no longer has any say in the narrative as the only Muslim country with relations with Israel.

        It’s a win-win-win-win-win. Yet these people hate it.

        Who are the real Kulaks?

      • Chipwooder

        Bingo. The Arab nations appear to have finally run out of patience for Pali bullshit.

  64. Rebel Scum

    Konvid Kabuki theatre.

    President-elect Biden plans to take the COVID-19 vaccine in public and he could receive a dose as early as next week, his transition team confirmed to Axios Wednesday.

    Details: “I don’t want to get ahead of the line, but I want to make sure we demonstrate to the American people that it is safe to take,” Biden told reporters in Wilmington, Delaware, Wednesday. “When I do it, I’ll do it publicly, so you can all witness my getting it done.”

    The big picture: NIAID director Anthony Fauci says 75%–80% of Americans need to get vaccinated against the coronavirus to achieve herd immunity, and officials are keen to instill trust in the vaccine to achieve this.

    • mrfamous

      You have no idea how hard I’d laugh if Biden went into anaphylactic shock from the vaccine.

      Ultimately it would be a terrible thing, I desperately want this vaccine to be safe and effective, but I just wouldn’t be able to help myself.

      • Drake

        I was thinking the same thing – or while being interviewed right after, his face went all palsy. That would easily be my biggest laugh of 2020.

      • Agent Cooper

        “his face went all palsy.”

        How would we know?

    • EvilSheldon

      I have no problem with politicians being used as test subjects. In fact, it should be mandatory for elected officals.

    • Akira

      I’ve been told that “antibodies only last 3 months and then you can get infected again”, so what exactly is a vaccine supposed to do?

      Even if you theoretically gave it to everyone in the country at once, you’d still need to test every single person who enters the country to make sure they’re negative. That would require some border security measures that the Left might not be comfortable with…

      Oh hell, who am I kidding. They’d lock down the border and insist that “this is different”.

      • mrfamous

        We’ve kinda fallen prey this year to worrying about things that theoretically “can happen” but are highly unlikely to. All the control mongers need to establish is that some bad thing “can happen” to justify their draconian power grabs and senseless theater.

        All the wiping down of equipment and surfaces and all that stuff is utterly pointless. While this thing “can” be spread through touching a surface, it almost never does happen that way. In March, a German researcher went to the houses of everyone in a small town who caught it in a superspreader event. He was unable to grow a culture from a swabbed surface. IE, he was trying to get an infection from a surface that an infected person had recently touched, and was unable to do so.

        In March. And yet the wiping down continues…

      • Akira

        Yea, I’ve noticed that too.

        Some scientists in idealized laboratory conditions manage to get the virus to survive on a surface for 3 days. The corporate media reports, “Coronavirus can live on surfaces for 3 days”.

        Pretty soon, it’s just part of What We Know™ that it will stay alive on a door handle for 3 days and infect anyone who touches it.

  65. kinnath

    Two years ago, when I blew out my quad tendon, I couldn’t shovel the drive way.

    We had a heavy, wet snowfall, so my wife couldn’t use the snow blower. She was toiling away trying to move the wet snow when the three kids from next door came over and cleared the whole driveway.

    I had my wife give them 20 bucks. They didn’t want it, but took it reluctantly.

    A week later, we got a card in the mail with a 20-dollar gift card to the local pizza joint.

    Well played, kids. Well played.

    • R C Dean

      Ruh-roh.

      Now you owe them a favor. Which will probably be disposing of a body, carrying a package across international borders, something like that.

      • EvilSheldon

        Friends help you move, real friends help you move bodies.

      • kinnath

        Nah.

        I gave them an old Deere riding lawn mower that had a total failure in the steering system.

        I am not mechanically inclined, so I just went a bought a new one.

        The neighbor took the old one apart, fixed it, and put it back together. They are still using it.

    • Ownbestenemy

      They absolutely hate individual responsibility even the smallest amounts found in Congress…

    • Count Potato

      Anything right of Stalinism is “libertarian”.

    • db

      OK, I take back what I said above: This is proof of alternate universes.

    • leon

      The ideology of libertarianism systematically and successfully undermined the legitimacy of government over past 40 years. “Free markets” as an answer for all society’s problems has lead to wild inequality in the US, degraded public infrastructure, underfunded public schools.

      And what was the downside again?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Yeah, governmental budgets have shrunk across the board.

      • Gustave Lytton

        The ideology of libertarianism systematically and successfully reality of government undermined the legitimacy of government over past 40 years.

      • KOVIDKristen

        has lead to wild inequality

        Yep…because Maduro is totally starving along with the rest of Venezuela.

      • EvilSheldon

        Yeah, the endemic (I’m really starting to like that word) corruption and incompetence didn’t have anything to do with it…

      • Akira

        The ideology of libertarianism … underfunded public schools.

        Can they show me some official numbers on school funding that shows it going down since the advent of a libertarian movement?

    • Rebel Scum

      *spits out coffee*

    • Chipwooder

      I wonder how he sees the screen when typing while wearing the big red nose.

  66. DEG

    “We can’t just say, ‘It didn’t happen,’” Paul said about fraud allegations across the country. “We can’t just say, ‘Oh, 4,000 people voted in Nevada that were noncitizens, and we’re just going to ignore it.’”

    If dead people have the right to vote, why not noncitizens?

    The secretary of state’s office declined to comment on the three settlements and their possible impact on turnout and voting habits in Georgia’s election this year.

    All those settlements seem ready made to enable fraud. I think they knew it and liked it.

    The bitcoin price, hitting $20,440 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange before falling back slightly, is up around 200% over the last 12 months as governments ramp up spending in the wake of coronavirus lockdowns, investors look to bitcoin as a hedge against inflation, and institutional interest in bitcoin rises.

    I remember chatting with some friends about Bitcoin back when it first started. We all talked ourselves out of getting into Bitcoin because while it had some interesting things going on, we figured it wouldn’t go anywhere.

    Young parents and some of the elderly wore masks (some old, masked couples dancing adorably to the music), but most people didn’t, and the next morning the beaches and pools were once again bustling.

    A few nights ago I had dinner in a bar. A few younger folks came in to celebrate the 21st birthday of one member of the group. They all sat at the bar next to me. I overheard them talking about a trip to Florida. They were scared about people not wearing masks and wore their masks all the time. Fuck.

    Contractors hired by the Department of Homeland Security have built 426 miles of the border wall and are working around the clock to hit their target of 450 miles by January 1, according to supporters and critics of the barrier.

    Good for keeping people in. Someone has to pay for socialism.

    • Fatty Bolger

      I remember chatting with some friends about Bitcoin back when it first started. We all talked ourselves out of getting into Bitcoin because while it had some interesting things going on, we figured it wouldn’t go anywhere.

      No kidding. I remember reading about bitcoin mining it very early on, thinking “hey, maybe I should try setting that up just to mess around with it” but never did. Stupid past me. I could be a multi-millionaire right now.

      • Mojeaux

        So I wanted to get in on Bitcoin when it was $18.

        I was trying desperately/frantically to get an account at Mt. Gox (a 2-week process) when it shot up to $1,000.

        But then, as Jarflax has noted before, I dodged a bullet when Mt. Gox went bye-bye.

        I do, however, have some Bitcoin.

      • Urthona

        I bought like $40 worth some time ago just for fun, and I looked today and it’s worth $780.

        Man am I ever a fucking idiot for not buying way more.

      • R C Dean

        Same here. Unfortunately, its stranded in an account with CoinBase for which the email/username and password are long gone (I used a burner account, long story). There is a process for regaining access, but doubly unfortunately, my work computer refuses to open the CoinBase webpage. I don’t get the internal “for your protection” page, it just won’t fucking open. Opens fine on my phone. But I really don’t want to have to do this on my phone.

      • Mojeaux

        Oh, that’s always been my nightmare with regard to Bitcoin–getting stranded without access.

        My account’s with Coinbase also.

      • leon

        Coinbase is good for purchasing, i’ve used it to purchase. I will typically move it off onto a personal wallet so that i can recover it with the 12 word code phrase if needed.

    • juris imprudent

      Good for keeping people in. Someone has to pay for socialism.

      We won’t need walls to keep people in, you’ll just be required to pay the exit tax.

    • Urthona

      So were those 4000 noncitizens not subtracted from the total?

      Simply do so, right?

  67. DEG

    Remember when the NYC Health Department issued guidelines for sex in the time of Lil Rona? I found out today, that back in October the PA Department of Health decided to get into the action.

    • KOVIDKristen

      No illustrations. I am disappoint.

  68. Rebel Scum

    How is this a thing?

    NEW POLL: 60 percent approve of Biden’s job as president-elect

    • Gustave Lytton

      Ask the reverse question like “Do you think Biden is doing a terrible job as president-elect?” and count every one who doesn’t answer Yes as part of that 60%. Including ones who answer he isn’t president elect yet.

    • leon

      And Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize before taking office. And Lyndsy Grahm was on the ropes in that senate race before winning by 10 points.

      • Akira

        And Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize before taking office.

        And if they had any integrity, they would have revoked it after seeing what he actually did once in office.

      • Lachowsky

        He is still the only Nobel Peace prize winner to ever murder bomb another peace prize recipient. Quite an honor.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Lol I haye my fellow citizens.

      And to answer your question, propaganda that makes Goebbels look like a children’s book writer.

    • Chipwooder

      Better poll question: what does “Biden’s job as president-elect” consist of?

    • Drake

      I like the job he’s doing so much, I hope he stays President-elect forever.

      • R C Dean

        He could be President-elect for the rest of his life.

        I’ll say this – if he does get hospitalized, I wouldn’t leave Kamala alone in his room with him.

      • Chipwooder

        I imagine she’s consulting with Hillary as we speak on the best way not to leave evidence behind.

      • Raven Nation

        “The hereditary Emperor is nearly dead and has been for many centuries. In the last moments of his dying coma, he was locked in a stasis field which keeps him in a state of perpetual unchangingness.”

      • mrfamous

        She might reach across the aisle and seek assistance from the My Pillow guy

      • Raven Nation

        LOL!

      • ron73440

        She might reach across the aisle and seek assistance from the My Pillow guy

        I’m eating a sandwich and almost choked!

        Holy Shit, that was funny.

  69. Rebel Scum

    Neat.

    Artist Dave (of Arrowhead Vintage & Goods) alters old, forgotten thrift store paintings to Star Wars paintings by adding them surreal sci-fi characters.

    • db

      nice

    • leon

      Agent James Burk, a 16-year veteran of the ATF, said in the lawsuit he was working a “routine” assignment on July 7. That afternoon, he went to a home on the 3300 block of Edgebrook Drive near Dublin to retrieve a shotgun from someone who was not permitted to have a firearm.

      The lawsuit names the City of Columbus, Fihe and Winchell as defendants and argues this is part of a pattern of misconduct by Columbus police and a lack of investigation into officers’ behavior, calling it “unconstitutional policing.”

      Sometimes Juxtaposition is the best medicine.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I needed a smile. Thanks.

  70. The Late P Brooks

    NEW POLL: 60 percent approve of Biden’s job as president-elect

    And they all lived happily ever after.

    The End.

  71. trshmnstr the terrible

    *cusses violently*

    Blue Cross: we processed your claim in september and you owe the lab $40. Just provide the explanation of benefits to Quest and they’ll fix it.

    Quest Diagnostics: Blue Cross hasn’t proceeded the claim and you owe us $900. Just have Blue Cross reprocess the claim and provide proof of payment.

    • Mojeaux

      This is why, every once in a while when Mr. Mojeaux approaches the topic of switching to Blue Cross because it’s cheaper, I get cussy. “There’s a reason it’s cheaper.”

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        BCBS has been the good ones in this fight. It’s a discounting error, and Quest is utterly uninterested in listening unless I provide proof of payment for the $0.00 payment BCBS made.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Been there.

      Try getting a price in advance for an MRI with insurance adjustments some time. It’s almost impossible.

  72. KOVIDKristen

    New socio-political theory that I just made up: countries that had a big rush on TP in the early days of the ‘Vid locked down the hardest.

    Keep an eye on TP runs in the future to see who’s about to lose some FREEDUMZ

    • Pope Jimbo

      As I was hate watching the end of City of Angels last night, I was laughing at a scene that didn’t age well.

      The crusty jewish cop and his chicano side kick were staring out at LA that had just had martial law imposed because of race riots. Then the hero (a Roosevelt Liberal) says this.

      People start getting scared, they’ll allow anything. Goodbye, freedom. Hello, Third Reich.

      The whole show was pretty preachy about Nazis and racists wanting to build roads to fence in the undesirables, so it is funny to look at how it turned out today. The progressives are the ones using fear to stampede everyone into surrendering civil liberties.

      • Agent Cooper

        “As I was hate watching the end of City of Angels last night, I was laughing at a scene that didn’t age well.”

        I hate-watched it too, it was so uneven and so many of the dramatic lines were laugh out loud funny. The only thing I didn’t hate was Natalie Dormer.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Toyota doesn’t offer that upgrade in the States. Dammit.

      • UnCivilServant

        That’s an aftermarket component.

    • kinnath

      Driver is on the wrong side.

      When I was in Moscow in the 90s, the steering wheel was on the left as it was in Europe.

      • Mojeaux

        I assumed it was an import.

    • Mojeaux

      Okay, this is where I confess my dad’s sometimes utter stupidity in his efforts to circumvent our poverty.

      We had a Volkswagen Beetle. It was one of a long line of money-pit piece-o-shit cars we had. This thing didn’t have a heater, so my dad got the bright idea to put a flame-and-kerosene-burning heater in the passenger floorboard. All I really remember about it was to keep my feet clear and never EVER knock it over. I was about the size around as a charger platter, and maybe as tall as a #10 tin can. It was a squat, flat-top pentagon shape, the widest part in the middle and the smallest part at the top, with round holes cut around it.

      Now, remember, this was directly under the gas tank.

      Sometimes I look back on my childhood and adolescence and wonder how we made it through.

      • kbolino

        How does a car with an internal combustion engine not have a heater? I realize VW stands for “people’s car” but that is a level of cheap that I didn’t think possible. Yes, the engine was in the back and air-cooled, but how hard is it to run a duct?

      • UnCivilServant

        VW bugs were notoriously bad at heating the passenger compartment.

        I’m just wondering how no one in Mo’s family got carbon monoxide poisoning from that heater in their car.

      • Sean

        They just rolled the windows down.

      • Mojeaux

        Ha! Cracked the windows. Yep.

      • Mojeaux

        I don’t know. All I know is that that was how he solved the problem. And boy did it solve it. It was insufferable even in subzero temps.

        My second VW Bug’s heater was phenomenal.

      • KOVIDKristen

        In high school, I got my driver’s license later than most of my friends, so I would often catch a ride to school with one of them. One friend had a Bug with no heater. She was always my last resort.

  73. Not Adahn

    I would like to give special thanks to four companies:

    LL Bean
    Honda
    The Original Muck Boot Company
    Pirelli

    Out of my team of technicians, engineers and managers, I am the only one who came in this morning. There is still a technician from the night shfit who is still her because his car hasn’t been dug out yet. The roads in town have not been cleared yet. If we don’t ship another 22k wafers by EoY, I’ll lose ont on $500 in bonus money. I’mma braid a whip out of cleanroom tape and go motivate some peeps as soon as I clear out this queue.

    • Akira

      I’ll probably never drive anything besides a Honda. I’ve been driving them for about 15 years, and I’ve literally never had a problem that stopped me from getting to my destination. Any problems that occurred were when the vehicles were very old, and there was plenty of warning that I needed to get it to the shop.

      Meanwhile, it seems like everyone else I know has cars that won’t start, crap out in the middle of the interstate, etc. Even my friend’s brand new Subaru had to go back to the dealership for some kind of engine problem a few weeks after he drove it home.

      • UnCivilServant

        My one Honda ate starter motors, and liked to stall out shifting from first to second, or when braking. In fact, it liked to stall out any time to clutch was used.

      • Mojeaux

        I had an old Oldsmobile that would run and run and run and run, but it was nickel-and-diming us to death. Stupid things like the window-roller-downer motor. Not a problem except at drive-thrus, which was a problem. Also, in the summer because it didn’t have AC. My husband wanted to get rid of it. Sold it last December. Here’s the ad I wrote.

      • Ed Wuncler

        “state-of-the-art cassette player”

        LOL

      • Mojeaux

        I got hundreds of queries in a couple of hours.

      • Lachowsky

        My older brother is still driving his 2 door manual Civic that he bought brand new in 2004.

  74. ignoreLander

    Man, Texas FTW in these….