Technically, your both Nazis

by | Jan 23, 2021 | Beer, Food & Drink, Literature, Standard Libertarian Disclaimer | 245 comments

I am continuing my pledge to not talk about what happened this week and outline a libertarian philosopher.  I am having trouble linking beer to the theme and it surprises me.  For such an over regular industry one would think a couple minarchists would let the freak flag fly on some level.

This is my review of Oskar Blues Dales Pale Ale:

Frederich A. von Hayek is was of the Austrian school and when most mention the Austrian school they often think of him as a standard bearer.  He won a Nobel Prize in 1974 for his theories on prices being the ultimate economic tool.  While he penned multiple works, his book, Road to Serfdom is what he is best known. Like The Law, it is also not on my bookshelf on account of my little brother also borrowing it.

I probably should ask if he wants to keep it…

Hayek stressed the limits to knowledge of elites kept them from knowing everything they needed to know in order to be able to make intelligent decisions on pretty much anything.

It is rather a problem of how to secure the best use of resources known to any of the members of society, for ends whose relative importance only those individuals know. Or, to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge not given to anyone in its totality.

Unfortunately, in his time like our own most academics were pushing collectivism and he found few of his peers had an individualist worldview.  This was the impetus behind The Road to Serfdom, and he spends a lot of time on his observations that many seem to take for granted, or conveniently forget:

Hayek repeats pun the title of a book by the time The roots of National Socialism. Hayek’s thesis is very classic and seen today is to bring the ideas of socialist National Socialist theories. His argument is based on the recovery of the ambiguities of many socialist writers. This he does in this chapter by highlighting the ambiguities of the historian Sombart from Plenge, etc. for Lensch.

Hayek is interested only in the German case, but from an international perspective, the trajectories of Mussolini in Italy, of Laval in France are sufficiently compelling to bring relatives to think about systems.
[…]
the influence of German ideas is disturbing. It pin of the authors, however, he considers in good faith by pointing to the similarities of their analysis with those of the Nazis (but forgotten in France) and “Professor Carr is he aware, for example, stating that we no longer find a lot of sense to the common distinction in the eighteenth century between “society” and “state” it states precisely the doctrine of Professor Carl Schmitt, the Nazi theorist of totalitarianism? “(P.136).

If the end result is state control over everything you own, what difference is there if they present the veneer of private ownership over that which they intend to control?  The difference between socialists and fascists, is the socialists are utopian. So why make the distinction?

What I find truly remarkable about this is Hayek immigrated to England in 1938, and published the book in 1944.  This entire treatise on individualist, free market thinking was written during the London Blitz.  If there was ever a time in history when nobody would hold it against you to desire the state to save your skin, its when the Germans were turning London into a pile of rubble.

Once again, since I assume you skipped ahead, here’s the short version:

I don’t know who Dale is, or why he made a pale ale.  This one is good example of an American Pale Ale.  This is not an IPA and anybody that intends to make the claim in the comments below that this is a fruity hispter IPA is a bloody communist.  What is the difference?  Balance—this actually has it, while still being flavorful.  Its almost ubiquitous and at $2.99 for a tall can is actually a really good deal. Oskar Blues Dales Pale Ale:  3.5/5

About The Author

mexican sharpshooter

mexican sharpshooter

WARNING: Glibertarians.com contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. https://youtu.be/qiAyX9q4GIQ?t=2m22s

245 Comments

  1. Scruffy Nerfherder

    The internet grammar in the headline makes the article.

    • hayeksplosives

      I had trouble with several sentence structures in there, including the quoted material.

      Either Mexi needs to unscramble his brains or I need to unscramble mine.

      • commodious spittoon

        Is what camps are for, tovarich.

      • But Enough About [this space intentionally left blank]

        Yeah, I had to turn my “almost-but-not-quite-coherent” translator up to eleven for that passage. It’s still too early on a Saturday for me to break that thing out.  {grumble}

      • Gender Traitor

        Hayek repeats pun the title of a book by the time The roots of National Socialism.

        ::confused puppy head-tilt::

      • mexican sharpshooter

        I had trouble with several sentence structures in there, including the quoted material.

        There were several typos in the articles I quoted. I chose not to fix them because then I wouldn’t quoting them.

        “Your” in the title is a reference to a Michael Malice joke where he is poking fun at the reader’s insistence on grammatical perfection instead of what’s actually important: the ideas being presented. I promise not to deliberately trigger your autism next week.

        You have my word as a Spaniard.

      • Ted S.

        Yeah, my cross to bear is having to deal with you lot of deeply imperfect people.

      • hayeksplosives

        No good. I’ve known too many Spaniards.

      • Hyperion

        ‘Dale’s Pale Ale’

        It’s because Mexican is drinking that racist hipster juice again.

      • rhywun

        *whew I thought it was just me*

  2. commodious spittoon

    Woods mentioned in one of his lectures (probably several) that the deadender Communists of his day would argue, in response to Mises’ calculation problem: the world communist party would simply keep Hong Kong as a capitalist island and emulate its prices to dictate the distribution of goods around the rest of the world. I wonder whether that’s true.

    • Viking1865

      It’s not. Communism has to expand and cover the world, because as long as there’s a capitalist place that the narod can, at whatever remove, perceive as the alternative, in the long run the regime will fall. That’s why the North Koreans are the only truly commie regime left standing. They learned very early to lock down the sources of information and ban all travel.

      If you let in Western movies and TV, eventually people will realize they have been conned. But if you kidnap Japanese film directors and force them to make Juche propaganda, you maintain your regime.

      Capitalism can survive actual communists in power actively trying to destroy it, but communism cannot survive if a Ukranian peasant is permitted to sell chicken eggs to his neighbors at a price he sets.

      • commodious spittoon

        Are you saying it doesn’t make sense in theory (true) or that commies didn’t actually argue this? Because that’s what I meant, I wonder whether Woods heard it once or if this was a prevalent idea among the commies who actually bothered responding to Mises et al. It’s about as sensible as the rest of their garbage theories, in any event.

      • robc

        What I see is that modern computers mostly solve the computation problem.

        Its bullshit.

        Also, the best counter example is the craft beer industry.

      • DEG

        I remember reason had a picture of some computers Allende set up in Chile in order to solve the computation problem.

        Oh. Not “modern”.

        Still doesn’t fucking matter in my mind.

        Rational agents throw monkey wrenches into attempts to model their behavior.

    • kbolino

      Well, without him providing receipts, it’s hard to assess Woods’ claim. I’ve not heard that one before, but I’m not as old as Woods and I don’t interact with many commies.

      Note that not all communists believed in central planning. Trotsky, for example, was critical of a centrally planned economy, using an argument that is somewhat akin to Bastiat’s quip about men made of finer clay. For Trotsky, the soviet was the fundamental unit of economic organization, not the central committee. Of course, Trotsky never got to make many decisions in a real polity, and was killed off on Stalin’s orders, going to show that whether decentralized economic planning under communism is possible becomes rather moot once a single individual has seized the power of the state, which is inevitable in communist revolutions.

  3. The Late P Brooks

    Were all Nazi’s, now.

    • Cy

      Lies! We’re just one more EO from perfect equity, utopia and prosperity! JUST ONE MORE!

  4. The Late P Brooks

    He won a Nobel Prize in 1974 for his theories on prices being the ultimate economic tool.

    That will be rescinded any day now.

  5. KromulentKristen

    Your all Nazi’s and Democrats will send you to there camps

    • KromulentKristen

      *Democrat’s

    • KromulentKristen

      *camp’s

  6. KromulentKristen

    Chicago just opened indoor dining. LOL

    • westernsloper

      We knew it was coming but holy fuck.

      • westernsloper

        I posted that Knuckle Khead.

      • KromulentKristen

        hahahahaha

        You people drink me under the table every Friday. Anything I say or do between Friday night & Sunday morning is not my fault.

      • westernsloper

        That’s the spirit!

      • westernsloper

        Pretty sure the whole “asymptomatic” spread thing has been proven to be BS so I am not sure what they are getting at there.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Better screenshot that one, it might go poof.

    • commodious spittoon

      Gonna guess Grisham will wait for cues from Newsom before rolling back restrictions.

      I mentioned yesterday going to lunch at a Chinese buffet and how absurd their setup was. Miles of indoor seating taped off only to have people packed into the hundred square feet of awning area. The proprietor had framed it in with sheets of plexiglass and 2xs just lag bolted into the stone and stucco facade. It was so jank, they had a 2×4 braced against a handicap parking sign. And all of it unheated, of course. It was surreal how little sense it made, and I don’t blame them for trying to stay solvent while complying with the kafkaesque requirements our governor imposed. It’s almost like the impositions are a cruel and vindictive exercise of power.

      • commodious spittoon

        Also, the LOS crew mentioned awhile back that comedy clubs are contriving “outdoor seating” schemes which amount to setting up tables and a stage in the parking lot… and putting walls around the setup… and roof on those walls to keep the heat in…

        I mean, maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way. Maybe we should celebrate business owners getting to expand their premises without the authorities getting involved. It’s a real libertarian revolution in construction permitting.

        I fully expect they’re gonna get pounded by licensing departments in the coming months.

      • tripacer

        Our local brewery/casino/bowling ally set up a circus tent in the parking lot with forced air heat, and a 2×4 structure inside that supports all the TV’s. It’s exactly like being inside the building, except for the asphalt floor. They’re using the time to remodel the building.

      • robc

        How well does a ball hook on asphalt?

      • zwak

        I was in a restaurant yesterday (weekend getaway to one of the few counties in OR open) and they had hung old windows between booths. It looked kinda cool and natural with the rest of the decor.

      • egould310

        I’ll be in Oregon all next week. What county is open?

      • zwak

        Lincoln. So if you are in Salem or Corvallis you can drive straight out to the coast. At least right now.

    • DEG

      There is talk in Nashua, NH about the city issuing one-day restrictions for St. Patrick’s Day.

      • hayeksplosives

        Racists. Xenophobes. Anti-Catholics.

        …spits on ground and adopts wrists first Fighting Irish pose of Notrw Dame…

      • DEG

        We’ll see how St. Patrick’s Day shakes out here.

        Last year, the Clown Prince shut down indoor dining the night before St. Patrick’s Day. Indoor dining had been shut down in Massachusetts for a little bit before hand. “We gotta shut down indoor dining for three weeks because Massachusetts people might come up on St. Patrick’s Day.” was his explanation. Fuck him.

        So, last St. Patrick’s Day I got take-out for lunch and take-out for dinner. Lunch was from the local Irish pub. It was eerie walking in there. Usually they have a line for St. Patrick’s Day. No line. The place was empty. At the one end of the bar, out of sight from the front door, was a manager handling take-out orders. It was sad. The place I went to for my dinner take-out was a local brewpub. They had a few more staff working. The place was also eerily quiet. The staff seemed scared about their future.

        I know a place in Manchester is planing to order the same amount of food the owner ordered last year. I don’t know if other places have started planning yet. We’ll see how things shake out. Hopefully, this year we have a good St. Patrick’s Day.

      • Nephilium

        Cleveland has already cancelled the St. Patrick’s Day parade this year.

  7. westernsloper

    I listened to Road to Serfdom in audio form, (which now that I type that, it is obvious). I find I am incapable of reading books now.

    Finally MS reviews a beer I have had. Dale’s is not bad at all. When I was “building my own six pack”at the grocery store yesterday I skipped Dale’s and grabbed another of Oskar Blues offerings that I don’t recall atm. I did however, drop the coin for a bottle of this. It cost almost as much as the box of Franzia I was in the liquid store for. I just poured a glass and sweet baby jesus this is good stuff.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      I listened to Road to Serfdom in audio form, (which now that I type that, it is obvious).

      I did, too. I have it slated for reading in book form because I have a hard time with retention when listening to audio books.

      • westernsloper

        I have a problem with retention whether I read it or listen. I learned early the only way I can retain anything is to write it down. Multiple times. I am a dull boy.

      • But Enough About [this space intentionally left blank]

        I learned early the only way I can retain anything is to write it down.

        Multiple retention/reinforcement pathways. Turned me into a “study beast” at Uni in the 80s. It’s a good way to remember/absorb.

    • DEG

      I haven’t read “The Road to Serfdom” in a long time. Maybe twenty years?

      That Smoked & Oaked beer looks good.

      • westernsloper

        It was really good. I am not sure it was $14 a pint good but every now and then ya, it was good and today was the day I drank a $14 pint of beer. One beer and I am ready for a nap good. I am not a good beer reviewer and all I can say is it was holy shit this is tasty good.

    • Hyperion

      You don’t have to read or listen to that stuff anymore. Now we get to live it in real life. 1984 and Animal Farm are her folks, with a heavy helping of Idiocracy.

    • mexican sharpshooter

      I doubt anyone here would be surprised but I prefer their Old Chub Ale but its a bit harder to find in Phoenix.

      • Nephilium

        Ten Fidy. Barrel Aged if you can find it.

      • l0b0t

        My local beer jobber has that at $75 for a 4 pack of Tall Cans. I really want to try it but not that much.

      • Nephilium

        I think the cans I picked up (16.8 IIRC) were ~$13 each. When I’ve seen it on tap, it was served in a small rocks glass at $8-$10 a pour.

    • westernsloper

      There used to be a hot dog place in DIA north end of Terminal B. Very hipster but had good dogs. I had my first cans of Dale’s there as well as Mama’s pils. The place may have been an Oskar Blues establishment. They tried to open a satellite operation here in bumfuck but I think the Vid panic killed it. It hasn’t opened its doors since last march. If they open again I would go back just for the duck confit egg rolls.

      • Nephilium

        Speaking of ‘vid killing things. Great Divide is closing their RiNo taproom. This should upset STEVE SMITH.

      • pistoffnick

        “…duck confit egg rolls.”

        You have my attention!

  8. The Late P Brooks

    It is rather a problem of how to secure the best use of resources known to any of the members of society, for ends whose relative importance only those individuals know.

    Last evening, the conversation veered briefly onto the subject of art. One of my friends, who was an antique dealer in a past life and keeps abreast of this stuff, mentioned some Old Master coming up at Sotheby’s. Then there was some talk about people who buy (or steal) fabulous artworks and hog them to themselves. I could tell there were a couple of people itching to suggest the government should determine who gets to appreciate fine things.

    • commodious spittoon

      I could tell there were a couple of people itching to suggest the government should determine who gets to appreciate fine things.

      As if we don’t have a mass-distribution system for replicating such things virtually costlessly, accessible at any time by just about anyone outside North Korea or the very poorest villages in the world. What timing!

    • hayeksplosives

      Several years back, a ring that had belonged to Jane Austin came up for auction in the U.K. Nobody there objected to it going from private ownership to private sale.

      But then news got out that the winning bidder was Kelly Clarkson. That led to much clutching off pearls and demanding that this unique English treasure should not go on sale to a rich American. After they whipped up a sufficient frenzy and demanded that it should belong to the British public, even invoking an obscure law regarding archeological artifacts not being for private sale, an astonished Kelly C voluntarily returned it with baffled apologies.

      Kelly was just a Jane Austin fan who bought it because she liked it and didn’t want it lost to time. Poor girl was pilloried for doing a perfectly legitimate transaction, but TOP. WOMYN. decided her pudgy American fingers weren’t good enough to possess something that they hadn’t cared enough to buy to keep it from leaving the British Isles.

      Thank goodness the noble government was there to step in and decide which pearls to cast before which swine.

      • kbolino

        Has the British museum “returned” all of its Egyptian artifacts yet?

  9. hayeksplosives

    OT:

    I saw a tweet with a picture of one of those fru-fru yogurt containers that lists the name of the cows on the side. The names are Letty, Erma, Padma, Fanny, Lucy, Veronica etc. The original poster lightheartedly wrote “All I have ever wanted in a yogurt was to know who the cows are.”

    The humorless cunte who replied wrote “Notice how they named all the cows traditionally girl names. There is a deep connection between misogyny and consuming animals.”

    The winning reply to her was “I feel like yogurt from a bull wouldn’t taste quite right.”

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      LOL

    • westernsloper

      Too salty?

    • Cy

      Woody Harrelson would beg to differ.

    • Viking1865

      Meanwhile, on the XY side of the cattle business, you only keep the strongest, most virile, and energetic bulls intact. The rest get their balls cut off and are destined to be quickly raised and eaten.

      • hayeksplosives

        Misogyny against the trans cows!

      • Cy

        Most people don’t really think about it, but all cows go to slaughter. If I remember correctly, cows get sent to the slaughterhouse age 4-7, usually when they stop producing enough milk.

        The meat from a slaughtered milk cow, I personally believe, is tastier than most of the over fattened stuff.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Jizzgurt: We have the happiest livestock on the planet.

      • westernsloper

        #reacharoundfarms

    • KromulentKristen

      “I feel like yogurt from a bull wouldn’t taste quite right.”

      I’d say it’s more of a texture/consistency issue…

    • Animal

      The winning reply to her was “I feel like yogurt from a bull wouldn’t taste quite right.”

      This person wins the Internet for the day.

    • DEG

      The humorless cunte who replied wrote “Notice how they named all the cows traditionally girl names. There is a deep connection between misogyny and consuming animals.”

      Fuck.

      The winning reply to her was “I feel like yogurt from a bull wouldn’t taste quite right.”

      Heh. Nice.

      • hayeksplosives

        Never mind the fact that consuming milk products isn’t exactly consuming the animal itself.

        But it is enslaving and molesting the cows!!

        The PETA types seem to think that if we were all vegans,, then thousands of cattle would roam the countryside gamboling about and eating daisies. Never occurs to them that those cattle would never exist if they weren’t being bred for livestock use.

        (Disclaimer: I’m a huge fan of eating beef, but I hate feed lots. I pay more for free range beef when possible. I subscribe to the Genesis point of view that God gave permission to Adam (mankind) to eat and use livestock, but that man has to take good care of the livestock as his part of the deal.

        Thomas Massie’s cattle looked content, and probably are right up until they are led into the chute for slaughter.)

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        That disclaimer is something that I want to eventually get too. I’m too complacent about just picking up the cheap meat at Aldi or Walmart.

      • DEG

        A former coworker of mine, an Indian guy, told me about a vacation he and his wife took to America. He had been in America before, but his wife had never been in America. His wife is a devout Hindu. He is not quite so devout, and will eat beef if he’s outside of India and his wife isn’t around.

        They were driving through some countryside and passed a cattle ranch.

        His wife said, “It’s so nice that Americans provide special places to take care of cows.”

        He didn’t have the heart to tell his wife that Americans eat cattle, and those animals were probably destined for someone’s table.

      • hayeksplosives

        Awww. I’d let her keep that illusion, like letting little kids believe in Santa.

      • kbolino

        PETA knows damn well what would happen, they are already in the business of mass animal euthanasia.

        The idiots who think PETA are good people, on the other hand, …

      • Hyperion

        I mean you have to admit that it is really weird that people named cows (a female animal), feminine names. It’s unprecedented!

        Logic! Truth! Science!

    • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

      Isn’t Padma an Indian (dot) name? I’d think that would be somehow problematic too.

      • hayeksplosives

        Maybe it’s a cute nod to a Brahma cow?

      • C. Anacreon

        Padma the cow is married to a bull named Darth Vadar.

    • one true athena

      I read a post years ago from some dumb SJW lamenting that the robots in the Wall-E movie have ‘gender’. There was much wailing of “why do we have to ascribe gender to robots? ” and probably “Patriarchy!” blahblah the usual, but I just remember staring at the post, because never once did it occur to that person that EVE and WALLY are the robots’ names. And regardless of “boy called Sue” situations, 99% of people when they look at the name EVE are going to think “girl”.

      It’s just such a monofocus, they don’t even know what they’re looking at anymore.

  10. The Late P Brooks

    “Notice how they named all the cows traditionally girl names. There is a deep connection between misogyny and consuming animals.”

    Assign numbers to them, instead of names. Tattoo the number on.

    • westernsloper

      Or we could ear tag em.

    • juris imprudent

      When I was a kid, the first two cows we raised for beef we made the mistake of naming. The second two remained un-named and were much tastier.

      • But Enough About [this space intentionally left blank]

        The BIL raised turkeys for eatin’ for awhile back in the day. Every year they were named Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and Spare.

      • hayeksplosives

        I helped bottle feed an orphaned cow whose owner named her Skillet so us kids would know we shouldn’t get attached.

      • R C Dean

        Pater Dean had a steer named T-Bone.

        For a little while.

      • Gustave Lytton

        We named ours as kids. With names of cuts.

      • Cowboy

        We named ours as kids
        With different names of cuts
        They sure were tasty

  11. The Late P Brooks

    Pretty sure the whole “asymptomatic” spread thing has been proven to be BS so I am not sure what they are getting at there.

    Asymptomatic spread is their “Get Out of Logic Jail Free” card. It’s the variable for which no solution exists. It’s magical. No explanation required.

  12. Timeloose

    American Pale Ales are one of my favorite styles. Dale’s PA is a good one.

    The wife and I were sampling some sours last night before I switched over to bourbon.

    We had a goose Island Gillian, which I thought was too sour, the wife really liked it.

    The outstanding beer of the night was the Cascade Brewery Honey Lime Ginger. Really well balanced, flavorful, and just a hint of oak.

    https://www.cascadebrewing.com/our-beers/honey-ginger-lime/

  13. The Late P Brooks

    And another random rant: if the snifflecooties are really so contagious and pernicious, why isn’t there an “airborne droplet” test, on the order of a breathalyzer?

    If it’s so goddam easily broadcast into the air, it should be easy to find.

    • SP

      Don’t give them any ideas. Sheesh.

    • westernsloper

      Naaaaa, too easy. They have to shove a Q tip up your nose to the backside of your eyeball and cycle the test 40 times to determine you are going to kill grandma and make you isolate from from your family.

      • hayeksplosives

        The tracking chips stay in place better the farther up they can stick them with that Qtip.

      • Tres Cool

        I….never thought of that

      • rhywun

        LOL

        /I’m going to pretend that’s satire

  14. cyto

    0 In the earlier thread, folks were discussing JoJo siwa coming out. The question, is that really a thing any more? Someone said they thought that Freddie Mercury and Elton John laid that to rest in the ’70s.

    I agree with that sentiment…. And it has been a while. Coincidentally, YouTube took me down a Norm MacDonald rabbit hole yesterday. He had a bit on SNL when Ellen Digeneris came out. It was on the cover of Time, and he goes “What is this? Must have been a really slow news day….”.

    I remember thinking the same thing at the time. “Coming out” was already no big deal by the mid 80’s. Nobody cares who you have sex with. Unless you take a video and post it online. Then I suppose those choices are of more public interest.

    • hayeksplosives

      In the 80s I was a kid, and I recall my adult cousin came home from San Francisco for Thanksgiving with his “roommate.” My sister and I didn’t understand what was up, but we knew there was tension and unhappiness between my cousin and his mother, my melodramatic aunt.

      Much later we learned that he had come out to his parents on that holiday, and my stupid aunt had rejected it and called it “her cross to bear.” Also learned later that her brother (my dad, US Army Major Dad) had contacted the cousin later and told him he was welcome in our home any time and that he didn’t want him to have to part with his cousins (us) over his mother’s hang-up.

      Unfortunately the damage had been done, so that later when cousin’s long time partner died of AIDS none of us knew or were able to be there for him as he mourned the love of his life.

      When he himself was dying of AIDS later on, he came back to our home state to be with family and say his goodbyes. My stupid aunt was still a cunte about it all.

      These days it’s much better to be openly gay, but I reckon there are still some families with misguided bigots like my aunt.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        If you ask my wife’s grandmother, she still won’t admit that her youngest was gay, despite him having died of GRID in the early 80s. The family loves and misses him, but he was just “a unique fellow.”

        There’s still a generation of Christians out there who see homosexuality as a personal rejection of family and faith and react much the same as if their kid said they were a prostitute or going off to live on a buddhist commune. “To our shame, you’ve chosen to reject us and our values.”

        I’ll say that it’s not just the older generations of Christians who have a really hard time with the issue. Mostly because Christians generally are not equipped with the skills required to think through the issue and come to a scripturally balanced resolution. I’ve harped on the anti-intellectual basis of the modern western church in the past, and this is one situation where the unthinking tree produces an idiotically bipolar fruit. It’s either “ignore the scriptures” or “be an asshole to the gays”. Never any nuance, never any subtlety, never any thoughtful balance.

      • juris imprudent

        If these assholes think Christians are the problem, wait until they get a good Muslim majority.

      • egould310

        “ Mostly because Christians generally are not equipped with the skills required to think through the issue and come to a scripturally balanced resolution.”

        Jesus forgives sinners.
        No man is without sin.
        Love thy neighbor.
        Accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

      • Swiss Servator

        “Mostly because Christians generally are not equipped with the skills required to think through the issue and come to a scripturally balanced resolution. I’ve harped on the anti-intellectual basis of the modern western church in the past, and this is one situation where the unthinking tree produces an idiotically bipolar fruit. It’s either “ignore the scriptures” or “be an asshole to the gays”. Never any nuance, never any subtlety, never any thoughtful balance.”

        Yup, you done got us tagged.

        *extends loving middle finger*

      • Nephilium

        One of my lesbian friends was cut out of her parents’ will because she came out.

      • hayeksplosives

        Possibly the deepest held prejudices are the ones in families, which makes their rejections all the more painful.

        In public, in careers, academia, and the arts, I don’t think coming out hurts one’s prospects any more. Maybe even the contrary in certain settings.

      • cyto

        When I was a kid, way back in the seventies, there was sort of a need to know basis.

        As in, I did not know that Liberace was gay. I was a kid, and I did not need to know. there were no other human beings on the planet who didn’t understand this, but if you didn’t need to know you didn’t know.

        So when I was in high school, I played trumpet at church a lot. I would play classical pieces with our organist accompanying me. One time my seventh grade science teacher happened to be there when we were rehearsing. She was my favorite teacher ever, so I was really excited to see her.

        I asked her why she was there and she told me that the organist was her roommate. They had been roommates for 22 years.

        Okay. You guys are roommates. Great! Two of my favorite people are roommates.

        That was the only thoughts in my head.

        Much later I understood what she was telling me. but at 16, I didn’t need to know so I didn’t know. That was the 50-something year old lady version of coming out in the late ’70s. Everyone in town knew that they were roommates. Everyone who wanted to could connect the dots. Anyone who didn’t want to had plausible deniability.

        This was a very conservative southern church. Everybody knew that the organist and the science teacher were roommates. Nobody said anything negative about it.

        So I think tolerance has always been there in some form. If they had been roommates for 22 years in the late ’70s, that means they moved in together in the late 50s. That is quite a while ago. And Liberace was one of the biggest stars in the country at that time.

        I also know some family members in my wife’s family who have issues with their parents. I am not sure what to make of it. Because there are several gay guys in that family tree, and one of them is loudly upset and proclaims himself ostracized. I have no idea what goes on behind closed doors, but nobody seems to even spend two seconds thinking about it outside of him regaling us with stories about how angry he is with his family when he gets drunk at holiday gatherings. So I can’t really judge what he’s going through, but it doesn’t entirely add up that it is only about his orientation, since he has a couple of uncles and a cousin who make no secret of their sexuality.

      • Nephilium

        Yeah. Her father recently passed, and she said it was a double edged sword.

      • Rothbardsbitch

        I’m in academia, I would probably get a raise if I came out as gay.

      • J. Frank Parnell

        Crazy.

        My extremely religious, very bigoted grandfather’s reaction to one of my uncles being gay was to lecture him on the importance of practicing safe sex and always using a condom so he wouldn’t catch AIDS. (This was in the 80’s, my uncle would have been about 30ish at the time).

    • Cy

      One thing I don’t see discussed or even pointed out regarding this issue is progeny and the disappointment for some when they find out that they’re odds of having grandchildren, nieces or nephews through that person goes to nearly zero or at least it goes down dramatically.

      I think a lot of people are more upset about that than anything having to do with where someone puts their hoo ha…

      I think it sucks that no one seems to be allowed to be upset that a family member is possibly ending their line right there. I suppose there are plenty of straight people out there doing that too. My brother is a good example for that. I really wish he’d have kids but I understand why he chooses not to. Yes, there are plenty of gay couples or even gay singles that still manage to procreate. But, the odds go down and they go to near zero of someone having a large family.

      This is a very specific case that mostly applies to a younger person coming out. I know of many older people that’re gay and had children early in life and came out later. Which brings up a whole ‘nother discussion on marriages and spouses who’ve had to go through that.

      Nothing is ever black and white.

    • kbolino

      The gay “community” (read: activists) has a narrative that high-profile actors, politicians, etc. publicly coming out was important and transformational.

      The fact that the average person who “changed their mind” about gays talked about a cousin, brother, sister, friend, etc. and not Ellen DeGeneres never figured into this narrative.

  15. Stinky Wizzleteats

    Indlovu Gin, a gin made in Africa … designed by elephants:

    https://ibhu.co.za

    “Being able to trace provenance is important because Indlovu gin will have vintages (similar to wine). Depending on the locale where and season during which the dung is collected the botanicals will vary, which will infuse different flavours.” Sounds yummy…

    • westernsloper

      Where I have worked on that continent the Gin was distributed in small bags. Kind of like the salad dressing in a bagged salad. It was horrid but worked. These were politicly disputed areas though so it might be different in S Africa.

      • KromulentKristen

        Must. Resist. Temptation.

      • westernsloper

        Consider yourself trolled.

      • l0b0t

        I’ve seen the illicit liquor vended in plastic bags (often with a sharp straw) across the Caribbean as well.

        Also, tee hee @ KK.

  16. limey

    I’m bitter that noone appreciated my Django Reinhardt pun in the morning links.

    You guys are the worst.

    My both Nazis agree.

    • KromulentKristen

      *You guy’s are the worst

  17. DEG

    For such an over regular industry one would think a couple minarchists would let the freak flag fly on some level.

    Flying Dog and Raging Bitch?

    What is the difference? Balance—this actually has it, while still being flavorful. Its almost ubiquitous and at $2.99 for a tall can is actually a really good deal. Oskar Blues Dales Pale Ale: 3.5/5

    I think I had this beer once. If it is the beer I’m thinking of, it is good. It is a good example of a Pale Ale.

    • westernsloper

      It axshually has Pale Ale in the name Deg.

      • DEG

        Oh good.

        Sometimes I need a reminder.

    • juris imprudent

      Only took them six years of legal action to win.

      • juris imprudent

        Oh for the want of an edit button.

    • mexican sharpshooter

      I can’t find too many of their offerings here and I hate paying for Flying Dog.

      • westernsloper

        What do you want? I have a several really big coolers.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        Raging Bitch, of course.

        Now I have to go shopping.

      • Nephilium

        I make it a point to buy Flying Dog since they quite the BA over a rule change that would have prohibited them from displaying their medals on a label that had a name “deemed to be offensive”, and set up a First Amendment society.

  18. juris imprudent

    I love the line, I can’t remember where I read it: Hayek wrote a chapter on the knowledge problem and Thomas Sowell turned it into a magnum opus with Knowledge and Decisions.

  19. Hyperion

    I’m trying to avoid politics as much as possible these days. But I have to keep checking in on y’all to see if the site is even here still and how many of you have already been disappeared to the camps. And to see if I can figure out which of the new Tulpas is Brennan. Maybe one of those UFOs that senile old dickbag is seeing will take him away forever.

    • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

      I’m a mostly peaceful poster, but Brennan should be swinging from a lamppost.

      • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

        If I’m disappeared, I’ll have determined which of the Tulpae is Brennan.

      • Hyperion

        I just hope the pilot of the UFO that takes him away is STEVE SMITH and that STEVE is in the mood for some good ol anal probes.

      • R C Dean

        My peacefulness is intensifying. I need to get out of this (future) shithole.

  20. Hyperion

    If I were a lawyer right now, I’d be laser focused on lawsuits featuring people who’s civil rights have been violated because of their political beliefs or by being white.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      You’re, of course, assuming that the judicial system will fairly apply the laws as written. Big assumption these days.

      • Cy

        Or that a modern judge in any court is ‘impartial.’

      • Rothbardsbitch

        Thats what is so scary and driving me quite frankly nuts. One of the reasons I am a libertarian is that I value consistency especially when it comes to the laws. Pennsylvania clearly violated its state constitution when its Democrat Supreme Court rewrote its own election laws and ignored the legislature. That is clearly a violation, black and white no doubt. Yet that’s okay because Trump is bad. You know if Republicans did something similar the US Supreme Court would have stepped in.
        So why didn’t they? Because they are scared of the Democrats destroying the Supreme Court. When Republicans slightly step out of line there is always a judge willing to step in and freeze their actions. That judge in Hawaii with TDS is basically a meme at this point.

        The system does not work, peaceful secession is really the only possible solution.

        One of the reasons I did not post here a lot during the election is that I joined thedonald.win for a time. I thought I could kind of influence some Trumpists to think beyond Trump. I deleted my account there because 1) The Feds are doxxing people there and so is the press/activists. 2) It is a cess pool of stupidity.

        I pointed out that even though the God King Trump is in office he was essentially neutralized by the other branches of Gov and the Deep State. So even when their guy is in office it doesn’t change anything. The system is literally rigged to perpetuate progressivism. I was called a communist, a coward and even a pedo for calling for peaceful secession.
        The Qanon cult was so powerful any talk of a solution that did not involve the military arresting the democrats and the deep state during the inauguration was downvoted to hell.

        “Why would we secede, Trump one with 100 million votes, Biden got 25 million?” Even if Trump did win the election it was definitely not by that margin, obviously.

        My point is the left has driven conservatives so insane they have created a fantasy world to cope with their inability to fight back. The Libertarian Party is so concerned with virtue signaling leftist causes that they haven’t even realized that this should be the libertarian moment, the tyranny is here, de facto martial law has been in effect across the US for most of the past year. They just don’t call it that.

        In conclusion, we are so fucked it is quite frankly amazing.

        Our only real hope is that the neo libs and the progs fight each other over stupid shit. Because the Dems are playing 4d underwater chess while the Repubs are playing checkers and the Libertarians aren’t even in the game they running around chasing butterflies.

      • hayeksplosives

        Or the Libertarians are getting stuffed into their school lockers as the Babylon Bee noted.

      • DEG

        Libertarians aren’t even in the game they running around chasing butterflies.

        You’re being nice to the Libertarian Party.

      • Viking1865

        “the Repubs are playing checkers”

        The Repubs are exactly where they want to be. They can now fundraise off all the wonderful conservative policy they will enact once they get back in power. DONATE NOW TO STOP AOC AND PELOSIS SOCIALIST AGENDA!!!!! fundraising emails are what the GOP exists to do. The only thing they want to actually do with political power is fiddle with marginal tax rates. Oh, and we got lots of GOP judges so now its slightly harder for the left to find a partisan activist to enact things they can’t pass through the legislature.

        The GOP is henpecked husband whos wife spends all the money, decorates the house as she sees fit, has her friends over whenever she wants till all hours, constantly is wrecking cars and breaking expensive shit. He is allowed to turn the thermostat down every once in a while, but then she raises it right back up again.

      • commodious spittoon

        Maybe I’m getting paranoid but it seems likely that the IC is databasing entire online ecosystems for future use, and I doubt it’s just Antifa websites. What, we thought they’re using those tools exclusively to spy on their girlfriends? And who’s going to stop or even censure them, the same judges who insist that Trump exercising Constitutional power is nascent fascism?

        I don’t think it’s even a conspiracy so much as responding to incentives. The administrative state is dedicated to perpetuating and expanding the State. Trump’s perfidy wasn’t his opinions on immigration or trade deals or 1619 or anything policy-wise, it was his tepid, feeble opposition to the State.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        The Libertarian Party is so concerned with virtue signaling leftist causes that they haven’t even realized that this should be the libertarian moment, the tyranny is here, de facto martial law has been in effect across the US for most of the past year. They just don’t call it that.

        Maybe I’m black pilled or a pessimist or whatever, but where are the hordes of libertarian minded people just waiting for the libertarian party to clean up their act and improve the brand?

        The reason that we’re in a progressive death spiral is because it’s exactly what a generous majority of the country wants, both left and right. The libertarian party could transform into the glibertarians party tomorrow, run the most charismatic person on the planet on the most principled glibertarian platform, and they’d garner maybe 3% of the vote, mostly from people sticking it to the duopoly.

        When most people say “drain the swamp” or “eat the rich” they don’t mean drain the whole swamp or eat all the rich. They mean “punish my opponents and reward my fellow travelers”. That’s textbook authoritarianism, which is the common thread between the Dems and the GOP.

        Yeah, I guess I’m a pessimist #collapsitarian. *shrug*

      • kbolino

        The LP is the controlled opposition to the two major parties. Johnson and Sarwark might be gone but they set the model. Soak up attention and dollars for people disaffected with the duopoly then do nothing of any consequence with it.

        Our positions might be fringe but the appearance of unity in the overculture is paper-thin and barely hides the serious cultural tensions lurking underneath. Forget Democrat or Republican, the real fight is the Cathedral vs. everyone else. And the benefit the rest of us have is that the Cathedral’s win condition is total dominance while ours is only be to live our lives in the manner of our own choosing. One of those goals is a lot easier to achieve and the other is a lot easier to frustrate.

      • juris imprudent

        This is where I’ll unqualifiedly praise Trump’s judicial picks. They aren’t slaves to wokeness.

        I am slightly more optimistic (which isn’t hard with this crowd) that the Dems will overplay their purely phastasmic mandate, and the Repubs will win a resounding victory in the mid-terms. Is that going to deliver some kind of libertopia – not hardly, but it least it should slam the breaks on the careening to the left.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Dems will overplay their purely phastasmic mandate

        Maybe it’s the circles I’m in, but I’m not seeing that. I’m seeing a leftist base that is circling the wounded prey, goading the alpha to finally tear its throat out so they can start feasting. Maybe there’s some silent majority that’ll come out of the darkness and chase off the jackals, but 1) I don’t trust the electoral system to accurately reflect such a thing, and 2) I question from what demographic that support is going to come from. Maybe married white chicks shift more right now that Trump is out of the picture? I doubt it, though.

      • Viking1865

        Everything bad is going to be Trump’s fault for a long time, there’s no way in hell the media and the culture will allow Biden to be blamed. It will all be his fault. That’s honestly why they had to get him off Twitter, he’d absolutely savage Biden on a daily basis on stuff like Keystone or MTFs in the girls locker room.

        ” I don’t trust the electoral system to accurately reflect such a thing”

        They’re going to push for universal mail in ballots, and the politics and culture has completely accepted that voting should be just as easy and painless as ordering food. The GOP cannot win a national election that couples mail in voting with the rotten system. The Dems can, just as they did in 2020, manufacture as many ballots as they need to in the key states. They never purge the rolls in the big blue cities, so they have plenty of votes to pull from.

        “I question from what demographic that support is going to come from”

        Yeah I keep telling people here this: you think the people you know now are annoyingly ignorant of economics and culturally abusrdly woke? Wait till you get a load of the next crop of voters. 2 years from now 6 million currently living Americans will be dead, and a corresponding number of new voters enter the electorate. The children of the country are educated by people who are ideologically hostile to freedom and especially free markets. They are in opposition to the principle of limited government, of federalism, of equality before the law.

        Oh, and if the Dems do amnesty 10 million or so illegals, thats at the very least 6.5 million Dem votes, and lots and lots of them are in Texas. That’s the kill shot. The absolute best case scenario at that point is that the GOP held state governments can somehow gerrymander district maps that give them a healthy margin in the House, but if that happens leftist judges will just strike them down. Oh, and we continue to see the locust effect of people fleeing the Blue and voting Blue in the Red.

        Ideologically, the leaders of the GOP are determined to keep on fucking the chicken of Reaganism or Bushism, as though that’s a winning formula. I actually do think there’s a path forward for the GOP, but they have to get with the times really fucking quick. Maybe the MAGA people primary out all the corporate tools and reset quickly and have a majority for a DeSantis run in 2024, but I still think he would need massive turnout to overturn the fraud.

      • kbolino

        The GOP cannot win a national election that couples mail in voting with the rotten system.

        Bullshit. The GOP is not so hapless. They get blindsided because they keep playing by the old rules even when the game changes. Then eventually they wake up and realize the rules changed and the Dems got advanced notice but the game is still playable. If they lose repeatedly it’s by choice not necessity.

      • Viking1865

        “They get blindsided because they keep playing by the old rules even when the game changes.”

        They filed suit in the states that decided the election, on the grounds that the executive branches were overriding the written state law. Courts ruled against them because “pandemic”. If the written election laws passed by the legislature can be overridden by governors and bureaucrats, how do you win by the rules?

        There is no more neutrality in the courts. Even conservative judges are from leftwing environments, they are the product of law schools, and they refuse to inject themselves into political questions. Meanwhile leftie judges not only are willing to, they are eager to.

        Universal mail in ballots mean that every single state with a large blue city has an enormous reservoir of fraudulent votes just waiting to be tapped. They don’t purge the rolls. The GOP doesn’t have that, they don’t have any big counties full of GOP voters where they can just dump 200,000 or 300,000 80/20 Red votes at 2 AM on Election Day when they need to swing the state.

      • kbolino

        Reading more of what you wrote (this and other threads), I think we’re in agreement more than disagreement.

      • kbolino

        There is no more neutrality in the courts.

        And whose fault is that? As the left loves to point out, the GOP have gotten more judicial appointees through than the Democrats for a couple decades now.

        Like I said, the GOP is still playing by the old rules. They want to get judges confirmed by 95 votes when the reality is that a judge worth a shit is going to be a knock-down, drag-out fight that gets 51 votes. That’s every appointee, to every seat. Force the Democrats to go crazier, as they clearly have no brakes on that train.

        The bipartisan consensus has been dead since Robert Bork got borked and Clarence Thomas got Anita Hill’ed. The GOP is living in the past.

      • westernsloper

        *deletes comment

  21. hayeksplosives

    Heaven help me, I started a 7 day trial of Brit Box streaming. About to watch some Yes, Minister to reset my cynicism meter.

    • Rothbardsbitch

      I heard Mira Furlan, I believe that’s her name died recently from the fucking West Nile virus of all things. This timeline sucks.

      • hayeksplosives

        Yup. I’m still hurting from that one.

        I popped the first Babylon 5 DVD in the player yesterday but i still can’t watch without my eyes leaking.

      • Rothbardsbitch

        Love that show, I rewatch it every 3 to 4 years along with Battlestar Galactica.

      • hayeksplosives

        I borrowed a copy of “When Father Was Away on Business”, a drama set in post WWII Yugoslavia from a Bosnian classmate in the early 90s.

        In one scene toward the end, Mira Furlan’s character rashly decides to kill herself RIGHT NOW with no planning so she quickly wraps some cords around her neck and jumps off a chair. This has the effect of landing her flat on her ass while raising the blinds whose cords she has around her neck.

        She looks up in stunned disbelief, then laughs and shrugs it off.

        That scene has come back to mind a few times when I think of real people who commit suicide: how many of them would take it back if they could? Were they that committed? Or did they have a “between the bridge and the river” moment?

      • The Bearded Hobbit

        how many of them would take it back if they could

        Many years ago I read an article where the author interviewed people who had attempted to jump to death but had survived. According to the article, 100% of them changed their mind after they stepped off the ledge, or whatever. The article was about jumpers but I’d guess it’s probably similar for others who had time to regret the action.

      • hayeksplosives

        Craig Ferguson, who has been pretty low at times, enough to have thought about suicide as an option, wrote about that phenomenon.

        He wrote a novel entitled “Between the Bridge and the River” in reference to that moment of regret when suddenly the jumper realizes that all his problems are not that important after all, but it’s too late. Only the survivors tell the tale.

      • commodious spittoon

        That’s just a lie Big Pharma and Big Therapy spread to keep people from trying.

      • l0b0t

        I only knew her as Rousseau on Lost, but she was awesome in that role. Sad…

  22. The Late P Brooks

    Cows all look alike to me.

    • hayeksplosives

      You can tell the boy cows from the girl cows because only the boy cows have horns.

      (Actual city dwellers have said this in my presence)

      • But Enough About [this space intentionally left blank]

        It’s possible that the city dwellers you overheard were geldings, so their confusion is understandable.

      • Animal

        You wouldn’t steer us wrong, would you?

      • juris imprudent

        That ain’t no bull shit.

      • Animal

        If you’da ox-ed me, I coulda told ya.

      • Animal

        *Facepalm*

    • straffinrun

      You have to milk the males differently.

  23. Rothbardsbitch

    I’ve got a show rec. Titans on HBO Max, I thought it was one of those CW teen cringefests and there is a little bit of that but wow its actually pretty damn good! I’ve been bingeing it. Its about Robin forming a team of superheroes after leaving Batman. Very dark but also entertaining. Its live action btw.

    • hayeksplosives

      Hmm. Perhaps I will check it out. I had assumed teen angst etc also.

      It’s a rainy day in SoCal (thank God, sincerely) so I’ll be indoors anyway.

      I picked and juiced 3 dozen lemons from my winter crop in preparation for the spring blossoming.

      Anybody with a good lemon bar or other recipe, I welcome your links to recipes.

    • l0b0t

      In a completely different telling of the tale, the animated Teen Titans Go! is fantastic and clearly written by folk who enjoyed the 1980s run of the comic.

      https://youtu.be/ApIg7MPh0Ts

    • Nephilium

      If you like that, check out Doom Patrol. It’s slightly related, much more comedy in Doom Patrol (also based on DC comics).

  24. mikey

    Remember Nancy and Shillary wanting to see Donny’s phone logs for his conversations with Putin on Jan 6th.?

    Well, a transscript has been found;
    PUTIN: OK [redacted], here’s what I want you to do.
    POTUS: Go ahead, I’m listening.
    PUTIN: With all your oil production the low prices are killing me. You’ve got to do something.
    POTUS: OK
    PUTIN: First, stop all the fracking.
    POTUS: Check
    PUTIN: Second, kill that damn pipeline
    POTUS: Check.
    PUTIN: And deny all new drilling permits.
    POTUS: Check – we’re already on it.
    PUTIN: Good. Well be in touch.

    So glad Putin’s puppet is gone.

    • Hyperion

      The reset button is back in the Whitehouse. As soon as we get done capitulating to everything Xi and the Iranian Mullahs want, we’ll get right on it.

  25. Hyperion

    Just ordered pizza from a local place, never been there before even though it’s a couple miles away. Interestingly, it’s Pizza and Indian food. I ordered pizza, which is said to be better than the local chains. But the Indian food is supposed to be really good. If they show up with my pizza and it’s edible, I’m going to try their Indian food next. Shit, I almost forgot to order beer, better get on that! I’m supposed to be writing some code, but my wife keeps distracting me, I guess writing code is for tomorrow.

    • commodious spittoon

      Hm… curry pizza.

      • Hyperion

        The pizza was actually pretty good.

  26. Hyperion

    Anyone teaching this in our public schools today? Haha, the current generation are completely incapable of even understanding what this guy is saying. They know there are 29 genders, or is it 62? But they cannot comprehend this.

    The power of misinformation

  27. hayeksplosives

    ROFL.

    Watching “Upstart Crow: A Lockdown Christmas 1603”

    Upstart Crow is a sitcom about Shakespeare. In this episode, the Bubonic Plague is sweeping London, and Will has just returned from buying essential items from the market. He’s ranting about all the people going around not wearing their Plaguey Beaks as protection. Scoffs at the ones who won’t wear them and say “I’m a free born Englishmen. We didn’t fight at Agincourt just to be forced to strap on Plaguey Beaks!” Kate adds that the ones who wear their Plaguey Beaks around their chins aren’t helping either.

    I’m in the right mood for this nonsense.

    • commodious spittoon

      Now I have a birthday gift for mom.

      • hayeksplosives

        Now Kate is telling Will that his writing of a Scottish play is cultural appropriation.

      • commodious spittoon

        LOL yeah, she’ll dig it.

        David Mitchell FTW, too

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Surprisingly sane for Beeb! (Was linked here a few weeks ago.)

  28. robodruid

    Spouse just watch a show on political assassinations during the cold war… And I think when here?

  29. The Late P Brooks

    Speaking of video entertainment- one of these days I’ll stop dithering and stalling and sign up for Epix so I can watch more Pennyworth.

  30. The Late P Brooks

    And apparently Upstart Crow is available on Prime. Bueno.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    What do good little boys and girls get?

    Now that he’s assumed office, President Joe Biden is expected to get his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan passed as quickly as possible. The measure includes a $1,400 stimulus checks for most Americans.

    With Democrats in control of both the presidency and Congress, the overall plan has a good chance of passage. However, one Republican congressman is throwing up a roadblock of sorts.

    Rep. Steve Stivers, a Republican from Ohio, suggested checks go to people who’ve received the coronavirus vaccine.

    “I hope the administration will look at that option because we actually buy something with our $1,400 — and that’s herd immunity,” Stivers said in an interview with Yahoo Finance.

    He suggested the quickest way to get the economy going is to get people vaccinated and back to work or school.

    Kiss my ass.

    • kbolino

      The saying “the government breaks your leg and then hands you a crutch” is pithy but misses the point. They bought the crutch with your money and then attached a bunch of strings before they handed it over to you.

    • Nephilium

      I’m sure that’s going over well back in his home district.

    • commodious spittoon

      I really should have bought into crypto.

      • commodious spittoon

        For some added misery. I considered dropping $100 on bitcoin when I read about it around 2012, for lulz, but I was a broke twentysomething and didn’t.

      • hayeksplosives

        My modest investment 3 years ago into Tesla has turned into a very significant part of my 401k.

        Part of me wants to “protect it” by cashing out before the market crashes. But I now believe the odds of my getting to keep my 401k instead of having the government “spread America’s retirement savings more equitably “ are about 50/50.

        If the market were truly free, I’d be confident in Tesla staying strong. But Elon’s early indications of deep skepticism of woke culture and woker governments make me fear that he will be targeted and Tesla stock values will drop.

        Too bad I invested inside the 401k instead of a personally owned brokerage account. I’d be converting to gold or putting it in a foreign bank.

        Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I remember hearing about it on NPR back around then and thinking it’d be good to take $500 or so and buy crypto just for the hell of it. If only.

  32. The Late P Brooks

    Let the search for scapegoats commence

    The Biden administration on Friday announced a major initiative aimed at overhauling the government’s approach to domestic terrorism, ordering intelligence agencies to conduct a “comprehensive threat assessment” into what officials say has become a pressing national security challenge.

    “The Jan. 6th assault on the Capitol and the tragic deaths and destruction that occurred underscored what we have long known,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. “The rise of domestic violent extremism is a serious and growing national security threat. The Biden administration will approach this threat with the necessary resources and resolve.”

    President Joe Biden on Friday ordered the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to conduct the national threat assessment in cooperation with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, Psaki said.

    ——-

    The White House National Security Council also will develop a capability to counter domestic violent extremism, Psaki said, and launch a policy review “to determine how the government can share information better about this threat.”

    The administration will also look for ways to address domestic radicalization and the role of social media, Psaki said.

    The announcement comes in the wake of the security and intelligence failures that allowed domestic extremists to overrun the Capitol, leading to the deaths of a police officer, a rioter and three others. More than 140 people have been hit with federal charges in connection with the riot, including some members of far-right militia groups.

    Something something persecution of the innocent.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      deaths of a police officer, a rioter and three others

      Supposedly the officer died of a stroke while doing paperwork in his office, the other three croaked from heart attacks and the like, and the girl was unjustifiably shot by a cop. Funny how they leave the details out isn’t it?

      • C. Anacreon

        Plus, the three heart attacks were at the rally, not the Capitol. And statistically would have happened had it been any similar group of over 100,000. People die at just about every big attendance football game, for example. But let’s not let that get in the way of the narrative.

  33. The Late P Brooks

    FBI officials have said for years that they have felt hamstrung in their approach to domestic extremists, because the government has been loath to use the surveillance tools it deploys against al Qaeda or ISIS adherents to Americans who hold radical political beliefs that may lead some of them to violence.

    All together now-

    THE CONSTITUTION IS NOT A SUICIDE PACT!

    • kbolino

      Ah, for the halcyon days when we were being told that the rank-and-file of the FBI were VERY UPSET that Herself was not getting the proper punishment and the leadership would be forced to act to keep up morale. Proto-QAnon, if you will.

      Now I’d imagine all of those people, if they even existed to begin with, have taken their retirement packages, learned to keep their mouths shut, or found out that they really loved big brother all along. Any claim that depends on people putting their conscience over their paycheck is inherently suspect.

    • hayeksplosives

      Something about mutually pledging together our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor?

  34. The Late P Brooks

    Politico headline

    Biden says his mask mandate is common sense. Republicans say ‘kiss my ass.’

    When Joe Biden issued an executive order this week requiring mask-wearing on federal properties, it was framed as the least controversial provision he would issue early in his presidency.

    “It’s not a political statement,” he said, “it’s a patriotic act.”

    ——-

    The pushback against Biden’s mask mandate is the earliest, most visceral sign to date that consensus will be nearly impossible to form in a still very-much-divided D.C. And it raises questions about how far the new administration is willing to go to crush what remains of a lethal pandemic, with expectation of 100,000 more deaths in the next month and widespread vaccination still months away.

    I guess 100,000 deaths per month is the new baked-in normal. If only people would just do the sensible thing and wear a mask. Think of all those lives wasted because Republicans are monsters.

    • one true athena

      It’s a “patriotic act” he and his family didn’t bother to follow two hours after he signed it, and then Psaki said it was okay because it was celebratory.

      ah, the “celebration” exemption.

      • commodious spittoon

        An exemption that would not, of course, apply to anyone below the level of state official.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Hey, it works for (the right kind of) rioting too.

    • Suthenboy

      I find it hard to believe any republicans have the stones to tell anyone to kiss their ass

  35. The Late P Brooks

    Scientists and epidemiologists say mask wearing is a critical means to slow the spread of Covid. And it wasn’t a surprise that Biden made the mandate one of his first acts in office. Throughout the campaign, he had pledged to take the action on the first day of his presidency.

    If you have hard evidence to back this claim, please produce it ASAP.

    And not the “experts SAY” part. They do, and we know.

    • rhywun

      And it wasn’t a surprise that Biden made the mandate one of his first acts in office.

      No, it wasn’t. Because it’s political theater.

    • commodious spittoon

      “We have record-low levels of trust in elites, so we’re gonna need you all to believe elites harder.”

    • kbolino

      Could they find one substantial piece of Federal property where Biden’s order actually changed anything?

      Everybody was already wearing masks.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        “Everyone was wearing matching towels!” ?

        Sorry.

      • Suthenboy

        uh… not everyone

  36. l0b0t

    OT – I nominate Thomas Cochrane for a place in Profiles of Toxic Masculinity.

    https://youtu.be/pU-kFUJoJEU

  37. C. Anacreon

    So apparently they are planning keeping thousands of National Guard in DC until at least March. And hey, they could then label the new green zone, with no residential other than the President’s family in the White House, as the seat of the government, the entirety of Washington DC, allowing for the rest of the former DC to become its own state, without requiring a constitutional amendment.

    Perhaps this is what they are planning to do. And then the rest of old DC can even rename itself, free of racists like Washington and Columbus. Get ready for the 51st state, the State of Obama.

    • rhywun

      When I was younger, I thought England was going to be the 51st state.

  38. The Late P Brooks

    Get ready for the 51st state, the State of Obama.

    Obalama.

    Or would that be racist?

    • Hyperion

      Obamblelamey!

  39. Hyperion

    So, I just heard that CCP Joe sent something to Congress asking them to pass legislation to basically give a free 5 year pass to everyone who showed up here before Jan 1, 2021, illegally, and then they can apply for permanent residency after their 5 year free pass.

    My son-in-law recently asked me what it would take for him to come here as a legal permanent resident, and I said ‘Are you nuts, it will take you 10 years, minimal. Go to Mexico, walk to the border and say No Ingles, No Ingles! You’re in, easy peasy’. Thing is, I gave him sound advice, the best advice.

    • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

      When we were applying for a green card for my wife I told her it would be easier to fly to Tijuana, jump the fence and wait for amnesty.

    • hayeksplosives

      I am willing to compromise on a path to legal residency, but I’m staunchly opposed to people who accept the residency asylum ever getting US citizenship.

      There must be an incentive for doing immigration the legal way, and that incentive should include a path to citizenship, which is already established in law.

      Cheaters and illegals forfeit that Avenue, and quite suitably, should never get to vote in a US election.

      • Hyperion

        The problem is, folks like you and I do not get a voice in this. Before this admin is done, half of China, Africa, and the rest of the 3rd world will be inside our borders. I’m envisioning a USA in 2024 with a population of 3.5 billion. Lots of places around the globe are starting to look very attractive right now as an expat destination.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    We just need to mask harder!

    Some experts like Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School physician Dr. Abraar Karan have been advocating for public use of N95 masks from the start of the pandemic. In an interview with CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Karan outlined why N95s are critical at this stage of the pandemic.

    “If for four weeks the country essentially wore these masks in those risky settings like that indoors, what kind of difference do you think it would make?” Gupta asked.

    “This would stop the epidemic,” Karan responded.

    SCIENCE!!!!!

    *randomly smashes things with axe*

    • rhywun

      I can’t even.

      There aren’t enough trucks in the world to drive through all the holes in that statement.

    • straffinrun

      Karan? The simulation is barely even trying now.

    • Hyperion

      “Karan”

  41. The Late P Brooks

    The biggest problem is lack of supply. This week marked a full year of the coronavirus, and the Biden administration has committed to invoking the Defense Production Act more often to boost manufacture of N95 masks and other critical supplies. Experts hope manufacturing will hit a speed to be able to sufficiently supply the population.
    “An N95 that’s well-fitted clearly is the best that you can do,” National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN Friday. “You could get production of that at a much higher rate now.”

    Karan believes N95 masks could be an essential asset in reopening the economy as the vaccine rollout remains sluggish and quarantine fatigue soars.

    “Well, okay, we’ll let you out of quarantine, but only if you wear the oxygen deprivation bridle. It’s for your own good.”

    Maybe this is what was in the works all along.

    Like horses, they wanted to get everybody into “training harnesses” before strapping us up with the real thing.

    • rhywun

      I wonder how much it will cost to supply the world’s inhabitants – plus all the animals they claim can pass it – with N95 masks, which have to replaced, how often? And for however long they claim it will take for the ‘vid to “give up”.

      • Hyperion

        “N95”

        Have you ever worn one of those? They are extremely uncomfortable and make it very hard to breathe.

      • rhywun

        No. The regular ones that don’t do shit are bad enough.

      • Hyperion

        Then don’t even think about an N95. There’s a reason they’re effective. No air can get in, let alone anything else. I have some of them, anyone who wants them can have them all.

  42. The Late P Brooks

    MASK’S OFF FOR BIDEN!!!1!!

    Indeed it is, my friend. Indeed it is.

  43. The Late P Brooks

    The key here is to always wear a mask whenever you’re in public. One study in Lancet Digital Health found that a 10% increase in mask-wearing could lead to a three-fold increase in the odds of maintaining control over virus transmission in a community. The ability to control the spread of the coronavirus is in our hands — and on our faces.

    A “study” in “Lancet Digital Health”. It don’t get any better than that.

    Repeat after me: “According to my model, my model is correct.”

  44. The Late P Brooks

    Based on my admittedly non-SCIENCE!-tistic observation of mask wearing in public, there isn’t even ROOM for a 10% increase in mask wearing, you fucking quacks.