Emergency Substitute Wednesday Morning Links

by | Feb 17, 2021 | Daily Links | 507 comments

I don’t see an AM links post being edited by anyone so I’m going to go out on a limb here and put one up for you people.

Sorry, no actual links. You can supply them yourselves as you always do, and the thirty-minute guideline is suspended.

Be safe out there, people.

TPTB UPDATE: TX still having electricity issues. Somehow today fell through the cracks. Thanks to Tonio for staving off a no-post insurrection.

About The Author

Tonio

Tonio

Tonio is a Glibs shitposter, linkstar (Thursday PM, yo), author, and editor. He is also a GlibZoom personality and prankster. Tonio is a big fan of pic-a-nic baskets. His hobbies include salmon fishing, territorial displays, dumpster diving, and posing for wildlife photographers.

507 Comments

  1. UnCivilServant

    the thirty-minute guideline is suspended.

    Anarchy! Anarchy!

    • Cy Esquire

      Guidelines? What are we pirates?

      • Festus

        My exact thought! I love the old dear serving tea to the boys. Cracks me up every time.

      • Hyperion

        Except for you, you’re Tulpa.

      • Nephilium

        More Anarchy!

      • Tonio

        Ska for the MF’ing win. Thanks.

      • Nephilium

        Looking through my audio on the local computer, it looks like that was one of the albums that got lost in the great car break in of the late 90’s.

      • Nephilium

        I am dissapoint. I was expecting this to continue the thread.

      • Tres Cool

        Dancehall > Ska

        Fight me

      • Nephilium

        No. But I’m already going to be in Vegas a couple weeks before that for the rescheduled Viva this year. The girlfriend and I were contemplating starting to switch up between Viva and Punk Rock Bowling in the upcoming years.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Man…$170 for punk rock show…really sticking it to the man.

      • Gdragon

        I can’t hear “Punk Rock Bowling” without thinking of Ben taking a dig at Mike et al. And the $170 price tag fits this song too 😉

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSnpRkL0hwg

      • Nephilium

        In fairness, it’s not just a single show, it’s a full weekend of shows and events. Besides, we’re all old now.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Yeah well I want to get my son and his girlfriend (both punkers) to the show but $340 gets me my meat slicer and grinder…decisions, decisions.

    • robc

      Its not anarchy until images can be freely posted.

      • db

        Blink Tag!

      • Rat on a train

        Combine with the marquee tag for maximum enjoyment.

      • Tulip

        Please, no.

      • robc

        It was the best day in the history of TOS!!!

        (and I missed it)

      • Spartacus

        I was there. It was glorious! And probably got several people put on watch lists.

  2. UnCivilServant

    I had something… but I forgot what it was because I’ve been answering work emails, and those numb the mind.

    • Tonio

      Oooooh. Thanks, hon.

      • bacon-magic

        Good job taking up the slack Tonio.

      • Tres Cool

        He didnt call YOU “hon”

      • Not Adahn

        Bacon is usually less about honey than maple.

      • bacon-magic

        The true sweetness lies within the meat.

      • commodious spittoon

        Go ‘way! Bastin’!

  3. Scruffy Nerfherder

    *puts on Joker mask*

    We’re all nihilists now!

  4. Tundra

    Thanks, Tonio!

    For you.

      • Tonio

        Nice. THanks.

    • Tonio

      You’re welcome. I’m exceeding my authoritay by doing this, so if I disappear for a while you’ll know why. Last time I did something like this I had to spend a day down in Typesetting, sorting the commas from the periods.

      • Suthenboy

        Nah. It’s a good catch. Look, given the conditions around the country right now I dont think any of us would not understand if things got gummed up and the links were late or missing.
        Global warming cooking the country, power outages….dogs and cats…we understand and appreciate your efforts.

      • juris imprudent

        Glad to see you Suthen, I was wondering how you and the rest of your fine state were managing.

      • Rebel Scum

        I though that was me.

  5. Ted S.

    It’s none of the company’s goddamn business to be practicing “social responsibility” or “diversity and inclusion”, and the fucking mandatory survey didn’t have an answer to tell them this isn’t their job.

    • Hyperion

      What about the field you choose ‘fuck off’ in the drop down?

    • Suthenboy

      OFFS. The Dems are trying to pull off a coup. Their tactics, rhetoric and goals are indistinguishable from those of the Bolsheviks. Uncanny parallels?
      Ya’ dont say.

      • hayeksplosives

        Shut up, kulak!

        Or are you a wrecker?

        Either way, “Shut up”, she explained.

      • Suthenboy

        I am not usually a multi-tasker but in this case….

    • bacon-magic

      ^

    • Cy Esquire

      Holy crap! A good article.

    • Hyperion

      “The establishment view has not shifted one iota even with the emergence of evidence debunking the narrative.”

      And it’s not going to. It’s not about facts or truth or anything like that. It’s about the narrative and that’s the media’s job, to spin the narrative hard until everyone accepts it. Those who refuse are dangerous extremists.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      The current political climate has prompted people to report their family and friends to the authorities—the FBI received more than 100,000 such tips

      Former senior intelligence officials talk about dealing with Trump supporters (“religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists, even libertarians”) as if they were overseas insurgents. A large-scale “de-radicalization approach” must be taken to “deprogram” President Trump’s “political cult members,” who believe “Joe Biden didn’t win the election,”

      We have a target on our backs here at glibs. We may not be the first or biggest target, but they see us as a domestic version of those chat boards Al Quaeda used to release Bin Laden videos.

      • Agent Cooper

        Winston learned to love pineapple on pizza …

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        We have a target on our backs here at glibs. We may not be the first or biggest target, but they see us as a domestic version of those chat boards Al Quaeda used to release Bin Laden videos.

        Yes. I’ve been very careful in what I’ve posted here lately. We’ve had some big life events recently, including a death in the family (not immediate), that I’ve avoided mentioning because it I’m worried about being doxed by someone who makes that connection.

        I was especially concerned when my wife was still active on Facebook and timelines could easily be matched up. I’m much less concerned now that she has seen the light with social media and deleted all such accounts last month.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        I’m already way too “out there” on glibs, so, were somebody motivated, they could probably dox me.

        To be fair, I’m a member of FedSoc, Christian Legal Society and a variety of other wrongthink groups with much bigger targets, so I’m not so worried about glibs being my downfall.

      • Animal

        Yeah, me too. I’ve been a quasi-public figure since I got involved in combating PeTA and the various radical animal rights kooks back in the mid-Nineties, so screw it – if they want to come up the valley looking for me, well, I’ve got only one high-speed avenue of approach and good fields of fire all around.

      • db

        It’s probably important to point out that regardless of who won the election, it’s not a secure process, and it’s wide open to fraud and manipulation potential. Until the US takes real steps to ensure free, fair, and auditable elections, the trust in the system will be badly strained.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      boom

      You have to understand: most writers are losers, or at least, they secretly think of themselves as losers. They were losers in high school and never got over it and were surprised to learn that they couldn’t get their novel about Facing Adulthood with My Multiracial Friends in Bushwick published and so didn’t get the literary celebrity they felt they deserved. So they dive into the media ecosystem where they are delighted to find exactly what they were looking for: a new high school, a replacement for the one where they were a fucking loser, where this time they’ll be the quarterback, they’ll be the head cheerleader. And so they get up every morning and jockey for rank. They horse trade. They seek favor. They amplify work they don’t really respect because the person who wrote it is more popular or successful than them or both. They pretend that terrible, terrible jokes told by terminally unfunny people are entertaining, because they know the other person will reciprocate.

      Anyone with the audacity to write from outside of that world is a target.

      • SDF-7

        Wasn’t there a study not long back that a lot of people exhibit Impostor syndrome — i.e. the actually competent feel like they aren’t as competent as those around them, and some day someone will notice? Be interesting to compare the relative weights of the two issues between writers / artists versus engineers.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Eric Hoffer and von Mises both covered the sentiment extensively among anti-capitalist movements and their adherents.

      • UnCivilServant

        If I can do it, it’s because the task is easy.

      • Hyperion

        + 1 and eleventy

  6. Cy Esquire

    The past 18 months have been absolutely ridiculous. There has to be some kind of theorem that proves we’re just living in a video game or something. I think we all know who the NPC’s are.

    • AlexinCT

      TULPAE!

  7. Rebel Scum

    Be safe out there, people.

    You can’t tell me what to do.

  8. Ted S.

    Ooh, Tsitsipas came from two sets down to beat Nadal.

    [celebrates]

  9. LCDR_Fish

    So…what do folks think about Nevada as a location? My buddy moved down there last year (got a place near Tahoe since his wife works just over the CA border at a hospital) and some of the land in Washoe county does look pretty nice. It seems like a good deal for taxes as well. Not sure it’s quite as good for me as WY or MT or AK but pretty affordable.

    • Ted S.

      Isn’t it in the process of turning deep blue?

      • Tonio

        It’s Cali adjacent.

      • Rat on a train

        It’s California with gambling and hookers.

      • db

        Without a coastline.

      • Plisade

        They’re naming an airport after Harry Reid.

      • Sean

        ^ mic drop

    • Tundra

      My buddy has been in the same place as ownbestenemy for many years. He loves it.

      • Ownbestenemy

        It really is nice here, if you can weather the 3 months of hellish heat. Other than that, we get two times a year where its 70s with light breezes. Just a lot of city dwellers are buying up real estate like crazy and turning our politics.

    • juris imprudent

      There is a lot of spillover from CA. If it were me, I would opt for the vicinity of Elko – which puts you closer to SLC than SF.

      • LCDR_Fish

        Looking at the landscape/weather – I’m thinking Washoe or Elko. My buddy is getting radicalized (I’m helping) – but he seems to think it’s a good place. He showed me the boxes of ammo yesterday that he picked up at the local gun shop with 0 box restrictions.

  10. Suthenboy

    Crap. More precipitation through the afternoon. The roads are even worse than they were yesterday as if that is possible.

    • Tonio

      Sorry, bro.

    • Rat on a train

      I’ll trade some sun and 10 degrees for what little good government you can spare.

  11. The Frostbitten GT

    I have what may be a silly, drug-dropping ass, every-Glib-should-know-this question, but what’s with the “I Am Lame” category/tag/whatchamacallit?

    • Nephilium

      If the person writing the post doesn’t select tags, that’s the default one.

      • Not Adahn

        ^I think this is the correct answer.

        Also, if you’ve saved a draft without tags, it auto-selects and you have to remove it.

      • UnCivilServant

        Who would save a draft without the metadata filled in?

      • Tonio

        [glares balefully at UCS]

      • UnCivilServant

        It was meant to be a jab at my own compulsive nature.

        I see how it was poorly phrased.

      • Tonio

        Mine was also a joke. We’re good.

    • Tonio

      IDK. It’s apparently the default tag for some reasons. I’m a mere initiate, that knowledge comes with master of the lesser mysteries.

      • Not Adahn

        To engourage contributors to tag their posts so any of TPTB who have an organization fetish don’t have to go back and add them?

      • SugarFree

        Yes, it is an SP shaming tactic.

      • SP

        Exactly this. The default category for WordPress is “uncategorized.” Which is silly.

        When I changed it, more people did pay attention and started selecting an actual category so the posts could be, you know, found again.

      • R C Dean

        The default category for WordPress is “uncategorized.”

        Reminds me of the “This page intentionally left blank” we used to have to put into prospectuses. Well, its not blank any more, is it?

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        I’m so very bad at that. I’ll blame it on the fact that I draft most my articles by phone.

      • KromulentKristen

        I self-selected “I Am Lame” for my Liz Lemon article LOL. Such a Liz Lemon thing to do!

  12. Rebel Scum

    Supposed to get Ice Storm 2: Frozen Boogaloo tonight and tomorrow. Local guy, DT, is less pessimistic than the local news stations. Idk who to trust anymore.

    But lost power for about 17 hours as a result of the one last weekend. Gf didn’t like it but I was having fun with the temporary “hardship”. Got to use a heater I bought a couple years ago and my oil lamps. Main concern was the possibility of losing any of the frozen food, primarily the meat. Should be fun again. Prepare responsibly*.

    *food, booze, heat. (In that order. ///kidding)

  13. hayeksplosives

    My coworker whom I am slowly turning to libertarianism told me yesterday that he was pleased to see that a Dutch court had thrown out the COVID curfew and lockdown edicts on the grounds that those measures are for limited emergency use only. And that COVID didn’t count.

    Later on, I searched for a corroborating article, but by that time, an appeals court had reinstated the curfew at least until a hearing on Friday.

    So much for that.

    Courts playing smackdown with each other, just like here.

    BBC, so of course the “crisis” is attributed to the ruling ending the curfew, not to the higher court overturning it:

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56084466

    • Tonio

      Remember, everyone agrees with libertarians on *something*. Agree with them heartily on that issue, then slowly introduce another issue on which you think they’d agree with you. Stick to the issues themselves, not the framework of rights. After two or three of those, start talking about the framework. /Uncle Screwtape

      • Animal

        I find that, when discussing libertarian ideas, it’s pretty easy to sell folks on the “nobody gets to tell you what to do” part. It’s the “you don’t get to tell anyone else what to do” that people balk at.

    • Tundra

      The tide will turn. Freedom will win.

      • Plisade

        Word. I’ve found some very positive forecasting in George Friedman’s books. “The Next 100 Years” was my introduction. Currently reading “The Storm Before the Calm.” Great stuff. It’s been really interesting to be concurrently reading “The Anatomy of Revolution” by Crane Brinton. All that’s really put 2020, Trump & Biden into perspective. Things are going to be just fine 🙂

      • juris imprudent

        I like Peter Zeihan too, who used to work for Friedman.

      • Plisade

        Looks good, thanks. Got a particular recommendation?

      • AlexinCT

        FREEDOM IS SLAVERY!

    • Hyperion

      “My coworker whom I am slowly turning to libertarianism”

      Extremist! Insurrection! Killing our democracy!

  14. robc

    Baseball birthdays looked boring at first glance:

    1. Ed Brandt, a mediocre (121-146) pitcher of the 30s. I noticed his 1 career stolen base, then I noticed he played in more games than he pitched in. He PH 12 times and PR 17 times in his career. Not much of a hitter, .236 career, but he did have 4 triples so maybe he ran the bases well.

    2, Wally Pipp, most famous for being replaced by someone who was irreplaceable.

    3. Josh Willingham, someone those alive may recognize.

    Pretty mediocre, but the top 2 had over 30 WAR each.

    • Idle Hands

      Willingham has a solid career.

  15. The Late P Brooks

    We’re gonna need a bigger magic hat

    A devastating winter storm that has plunged Texas into an electricity crisis offers warning signs for the U.S. as the Biden administration seeks to prepare for a future in which extreme weather is a greater risk and America is almost entirely powered by renewable energy.

    Energy generation is one challenge. But an equally daunting task centers on storing power from renewable energy for extreme events like the one hammering Texas.

    In Texas, the center of a wave of outages across the Southern and Central parts of the U.S., the primary electric grid suffered a one-two punch wrought by the deep freeze: off-the-charts demand for power as Texans tried to heat their homes and power plants that simply failed to produce power when people needed it the most.

    Wind and solar, still fairly small slices of the state’s energy mix, played only a minimal role in the sudden power shortage, utility officials said — contrary to a wave of conservative critics who tried to falsely pin blame for the situation on renewable energy.

    ——-

    Electric grid regulators said the U.S. will have to develop vast supplies of power storage — such as gigantic batteries — that rely on emerging technologies that have only recently started becoming economical and feasible on a large scale.

    “For batteries to play the ultimate backup system, we’re so far away from that it’s not funny,” Jim Robb, CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Corp., a regulatory body, said in an interview. “To really make the vision that we like to get to, a highly decarbonized electric system, you’re going to have to have batteries deployed in many orders of magnitude beyond what we have now.”

    We need to shift even more production into “renewable” sources, with no way to stockpile production capacity for completely predictable high demand events. Because global warming.

    • juris imprudent

      We obviously need the universities to start offering degrees in Energy Studies to remedy this critical lack of magic energy.

      • Not Adahn

        *Ahem* Critical Energy Studies.

      • Rat on a train

        I have a 5VDC device that identifies as 120VAC. It also wants to use a gender neutral plug.

      • Agent Cooper

        Critical Energy Equity Stuides.

    • Suthenboy

      “Wind and solar, still fairly small slices of the state’s energy mix,”

      Yeah. 25% is a small slice.

      There is reality and there is this steaming pile of shit.

    • Cy Esquire

      If only there were a magical substance that we could burn and was easily stored, transported and abundant….

      Hmmm….

      • Cy Esquire

        Someone needs to do an article like the Hydrogen Dioxide only about coal and it’s benefits. See how many idiots can connect the dots.

      • db

        That’s pretty radical.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        HO2?

      • Cy Esquire

        Ahem… Dihydrogen monoxide

      • Rat on a train

        It is dihydrogen oxide or oxidane according to the IUPAC Red Book (table on page 306)

      • Not Adahn

        Precursor to FOOF

    • Muzzled Woodchipper

      And probably not a single mention of nuclear.

    • Idle Hands

      Every report I’ve ever seen says are footprint is meaningless towards carbon emission in comparison too india and china on scale. So figure virtue signaling is more important than actual results.

      • juris imprudent

        I pointed that out to my proggie friends on FB when the French court found the French govt had failed to meet Paris Accord levels, whereas we had withdrawn from the Accord and exceeded the required emission reductions. Come to think of it, none of them had anything to say on that.

      • The Last American Hero

        Same damn thing happened with Kyoto – which the US exceeded because of the dreaded fracking. Meanwhile have the G20 signed Kyoto and failed to meet it because virtue signalling and taking the US down a peg is the real goal.

  16. Semi-Spartan Dad

    Calling for more ice and more power outages here. For the past 5 years, I’ve been lugging my 250lb generator out of the steel toolshed and across gravel and then hauling it back uphill across the gravel. Don’t have an enclosure so can’t use it while storms are ongoing. I’ve been considering for years to build an enclosure for it to reside permanently but never got around it.

    Had a duh moment yesterday that I could just buy a couple more genny cords and leave the damn thing running in the tool shed. There’s plenty of ventilation with the doors open and it’ll be sheltered during storms. There’s already a ground pipe sunk in right next the shed too. It’s so obvious in hindsight and I feel stupid it never occurred to me over all of these years. Wife is on the way to HF right now to get the cords.

    • Tundra

      LOL. I have those epiphanies a lot!

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Jokes still on me. Wife drove an hour to find all the cords are sold out. Same with every place in a 2 hour radius.

        I didn’t figure generator cords would be in high demand. Generators and extension cords to plug appliances into, sure, those would be wiped out. Genny cords are for a generator outlet wired directly to your panel though. I didn’t think that would be a DIY project the typical homeowner would take on right before a storm.

      • R C Dean

        Should take on? No.

        Would take on? Uhh. . . . .

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Are you hooking the genset into your house wiring?

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Yeah, I have an outlet on the side of the house with an interlock on the panel.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Out of professional curiosity, what is the breaker size and what gauge/length are your cords?

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        30 amp double pole breaker and 75′ 10 gauge cord. I calculated a ~2% drop.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        You’re should be ok, however I would recommend oversizing the cord. There are plenty of 6/4 cables on the market for backup genset setups. It will put you well outside the margins.

        The usual problem with generators and active loads is damage to the equipment you’re trying to run from instantaneous voltage drops.

        For example, my mechanic just cost me $2800 by hooking up an inverter driven 7-1/2 hp motor to a 7kW generator. Blew out the capacitors in the inverter within seconds. It was a “teaching moment”.

        I rent/sell/repair generators as part of my business, so I see just about every problem imaginable.

      • AlexinCT

        Word.

      • Cy Esquire

        I’m a two male plugs and an extension cord kind of guy.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Ahh, the suicide cord approach. And into the dryer outlet right?

      • Cy Esquire

        Nah. We isolate the main breaker and shut off the non-vital breakers. We’re only pushing 1kw off the genset.

        😉

    • Suthenboy

      Several years ago: My brother (an engineer) is running some stuff hooked up with cords off of a generator. He smells hot plastic, reaches down and touches cords.

      “Damned. Those cords are getting hot”

      Me: *sips drink, looks over at cords* “Well, you have them mostly coiled up”

      Him a few seconds later: ” Oh shit. I didnt think of that.”

      Be careful with those cords. Very careful.

      • Cy Esquire

        Wire gauge/amperage is definitely a thing.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Inductive coils are as well.

        Generally best to not have AC wires coiled up.

    • db

      If I understand you correctly, you’re extending the run length of cable? Be careful of that; make sure that you don’t exceed the acceptable voltage drop with the cords you are using. You can’t assume that a particular gauge wire is appropriate for a particular current at any length.

    • Rebel Scum

      You could also use a collapsible canopy. Maybe.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Yeah, I thought about that. Or even just putting a sheet of plywood over a couple sawhorses. It’s still a pain to lug out and back though so extending the run by just a bit will solve that.

  17. The Late P Brooks

    Omar AI-Juburi, a partner at Ernst & Young who consults on energy markets and grid technology, likened the fast development of large-scale battery storage to that of solar panels, which for years were exorbitantly expensive before costs came down dramatically. From 2015 to 2018, the cost of utility-scale battery storage dropped by almost 70 percent, the Energy Information Administration has said.

    “Every indication is that it will continue to increase in capacity, decrease in cost, become more commercially viable,” Al-Jaburi said. “Storage won’t solve all your problems by 2035 or any date, but it will be a major player.”

    Assume a battery.

    • Animal

      Assume a battery.

      105s or 155s?

      • Rat on a train

        242?

      • Nephilium

        Reminds me of a time a guy came up to me to ask me about the bumper stickers on my car (there’s an Aperture Labs one, a 50.0 half century one, and a 62.1 metric century one). He said, “I know the 50.0 one is for a 50 caliber, but what’s a 62.1 caliber?”

      • db

        That’s a long barrel

        /artillery joke

      • Animal

        A 20 gauge, more or less.

      • Not Adahn

        “We do what we must, because we can.”

      • Rat on a train

        He should know that if the number is greater than 1 it is millimeters not inches.

        I did see one of those numbers in a circle stickers with “3.14” in the center.

      • Nephilium

        They do sell stickers with 0.0 in the center as well (usually with a tag line of “I don’t run”).

      • LCDR_Fish

        300

      • Rat on a train

        Nothing in this chapter shall limit or abrogate any existing authority of law enforcement officers to take, maintain, store, and utilize DNA or forensic identification markers, blood specimens, buccal swab samples, saliva samples, or thumb or palm print impressions for identification purposes.

        ?

      • juris imprudent

        As I recall, 105 is pretty much obsolete. Mammoth Mtn used them for avalanche control and they were going to have to replace it because ammunition for it was running out (and no new production).

      • Rat on a train

        They are used, with blanks, for ceremonial purposes.

      • LCDR_Fish

        Pretty sure they’re still with all the light units – 3-6 FA was 105 when I was with them. You want road mobile, air-mobile artillery options for the fast folks.

  18. straffinrun

    Library staffer fired after being accused of burning Trump, Coulter books

    Cameron Williams was suspended in December after he allegedly posted video to his Instagram page showing him pouring lighter fluid on the Ann Coulter’s “How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)” and Trump’s “Crippled America,” before burning them in his backyard. Williams at the time reportedly blasted “FDT,” an anti-Trump rap song by artists YG and Nipsey Hussle.

    Williams, a local Black Lives Matter activist, was asked by the Chattanooga library late last year to clear the shelves of any old, damaged or untruthful books.

    • UnCivilServant

      “Untruthful”?

      That’s not the library’s job to decide.

      • Not Adahn

        If they don’t how will they keep the reference section separate from the fiction section?

      • Not Adahn

        Also, I got a card at my local library.

        It is three stories tall.

        There are books on part of one floor. There is mor square footage devoted to A/V materials.

        The entirety of one of the floors is dedicated to “community meeting rooms.”

      • Tulip

        Eh, I don’t have a problem with meeting rooms in a library. I’ve had book clubs that met in the library, I know of a D&D group that used the library, etc.

      • Nephilium

        In the long ago, before the fear of the ‘vid got into them, there was a monthly board game meetup at one of the local libraries.

      • Festus

        Our library is mostly set aside for indigent people to come in from the cold. I don’t mind that but the constant screaming could go away. It is a Library, after all.

      • The Frostbitten GT

        …I got a card at my local library.

        It is three stories tall.

        That’s a big library card.

      • UnCivilServant

        If it were gold, it would be a Trump card.

      • Not Adahn

        The worst part is having to pay the overdue book fines with Triganic Pu.

      • Agent Cooper

        You should see the condom he keeps in his giant wallet.

      • Agent Cooper

        That’s a big card.

      • Agent Cooper

        Damn. Three minutes late.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        Yeah, this whole idea that we need information gatekeepers is regressive as fuck.

        They need to read them some fucking
        Areopagitica
        , though I suspect Milton would be cancelled too.

      • Hyperion

        ““Untruthful”?

        That’s not the library’s job to decide.”

        Good thing that in the glorious future when the Biden admin establishes the Ministry of Truth, we won’t have to fear these untruths.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The mistake was publicizing it. I imagine the library would have been fine with it otherwise.

      • Tonio

        Keep your voice *down* young man.

    • Suthenboy

      “…asked by the Chattanooga library late last year to clear the shelves of any old, damaged or untruthful books.”

      So the library is encouraging book-burning. The problem is that they got caught.

      • Festus

        My truth is more important than Shakespeare’s truth, Bigot! I weep for what this is becoming. My Grandkids will never breathe free air for their entire lives. America (and Canada to a lesser degree) was founded upon a giant middle finger and we’ve lost that.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        There are still plenty of crevices and crannies for people to recede into, given their willingness to sacrifice their convenience and tight-knit connection with mainstream culture.

      • R C Dean

        The “old, damaged” was just eyewash for the “untruthful”. You don’t ask a radical activist to evaluate whether a book is old or damaged.

    • Ownbestenemy

      The spinsters weaving this administration’s story are more dangerous than Biden and Harris ever will be.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Not where I wanted this … but okay

    • Hyperion

      She was just protecting our democracy. Maybe Biden will call her to the Whitehouse to give her one of those medals.

  19. db

    Relevant to the discussion from yestreen:

    Not one of the worst meals I have ever had, but I spent some time in Newfoundland, specifically the area around St. John’s. Knowing that their economy is heavily based on fishing, I expected to have some really great seafood. Every restaurant I went to had the same basic menu of breaded deep fried fish. I was pretty stunned. Later in life I noticed that a lot of towns that have industrialized fishing industries often don’t make very good seafood outside of their finer restaurants.

    One thing I did pick up on in Newfoundland was Cod Tongue. What a great little appetizer/bar food!

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      The worse meal I ever had was just a cheeseburger and fries from a local hole-in-the-wall diner. Think more Open House than Waffle House with maybe 5 seats and residential stovetop comprising the kitchen. It was inedible and I ended up throwing both out uneaten.

      I’m not picky with burgers and fries. It’s not easy to make a great burger/fries but it’s pretty damn difficult to make them inedible. That’s the only time I’ve thrown out a meal like that. I’m guessing the beef sat in a freezer for months and was freezer burned to hell and back. They probably never changed the oil for the fries.

      • Festus

        Not a viable restaurant. It was a money laundering operation that some schmoe wandered in to. Don’t feel bad, happens all the time.

    • Muzzled Woodchipper

      Is it bad that I’ve sort of refused to go to Newfoundland because it’s populated with the ancestors of loyalists?

      • R C Dean

        Now that’s how you hold a grudge.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        And I’m not really the grudge holding type.

      • Chipwooder

        I didn’t realize that Loyalism was such a big thing in the Maritimes until I took a cruise that included stops in Halifax and St John and saw several memorials to the colonists who fought against the American Revolution. Fuckin’ Canucks…..

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        I mean, unless your point is to point, laugh, and call them all losers, why even go?

      • db

        If you’re really into odd styles of drag racing, sit in the terminal at the St. John’s airport and watch a pair of huge snow plows race each other down the runway and taxiways in an endless loop, only pausing to let an airliner land once in a while.

  20. Old Man With Candy

    Something tells me that Sloopy and Banjos are having power issues this morning.

    • Festus

      Daughter #4 on the way. Will they name her Glibby or Randi?

      • Tundra

        Malice.

      • Festus

        Oooh! Nice!

      • R C Dean

        I’m still hoping for R. C.

      • banginglc1

        Clearly Banging if the best name, and it’s unisex!

      • banginglc1

        *is . . . why do I always see typos after I hit post?

    • Idle Hands

      What the grid could really use is not only less reliable green energy sources but also an electric car in every home plugged into the wall, when we are on the precipice of in all likelihood a cycle of global cooling. I assume we are on the precipice of global cooling because the people pushing global warming are always 100% wrong in the opposite direction on nearly everything.

    • Agent Cooper

      Could be, but this is ultimately how energy usage will change — not through government edicts but by evolving markets. If Ford wants to stick their money there, more power to them. They are more likely to have it work in Europe anyway where average drives are much shorter. We’ll see.

  21. Tonio

    Okay, kids. We’re expecting an ice storm here tomorrow so I’m going to itty off to the supermarket before the mob hits.

    • Not Adahn

      Mob hit?

      • R C Dean

        Hey, he’s got a busy schedule, and wants to get his errands out of the way, OK?

      • Not Adahn

        OK?

        I think you meant “capisce?”

    • Tulip

      Yeah, I’ll probably run out at lunch to get a few things

    • SugarFree

      Grab all the milk and Wonderbread you can. Push down an old lady. Punch a 3-year-old. Panic the Kentucky way!

      • SugarFree

        [rams Muzzled Woodchipper with cart]

  22. Festus

    Tonio is sure to whip this site into shape in no time. Sexy, sexy Tonio for the win!

    • Plisade

      “They’re not like us.”

      Did he just admit to being racist?

      • Suthenboy

        You mean “…for the 5000th time.”?

    • Timeloose

      He is basically saying that the culture of today is more accepting of different races in advertising than in the past. Trying to paint the man as a racist based on this sound bite is a pretty weak. There are plenty of things about him and his presidency outside of race that should be pointed to as problematic.

    • R C Dean

      Also false: The claim that there was no plan whatsoever for vaccinating people. Nope. Apparently they were just dumping vaccines by the side of the road or something.

  23. Not Adahn

    Local news fun time:

    Apparently the problem with Schenectady is that it has the wrong nickname. So the city council has begun the process of changing it from “The Electric City” to… “Schenectady Metro.”

    I’ve been there. There’s nothing “metro” about Schenectady. Don’t get me wrong, it’s charming in its own way, and there’s a great hot dog stand just off the highway.

    • Rat on a train

      Small city syndrome. They need a professional sports team to put them on the map.

    • Agent Cooper

      The Electric City is so much cooler.

  24. juris imprudent

    I’m sure Nancy wants this investigation to do exactly what the 9/11 investigation did – cover up all ties to the prime movers (House of Saud money and Wahhabi dogma).

    Or perhaps the Benghazi investigations, where we never did learn – hell, no one even ASKED – what Amb. Stevens was doing in that location, or the need/nature of the safe-house there.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      No need to ask why there was a safehouse there when everyone knows it was to facilitate the shipping of surplus arms from the recent Libyan civil war to various “friendly” groups in Syria.

    • Suthenboy

      No one ever told her to be careful what she wishes for?

    • The Other Kevin

      If they’re creating a commission to find a conspiracy, you can rest assured they will find one.

      • R C Dean

        I’m thinking a new Iron Law:

        You see what you are looking for, and don’t see what you aren’t.

        Something like that.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        A correlary to “you get more of what you measure and less of what you ignore”?

      • Plisade

        Sooo… KK should invest in a tape measure?

  25. The Late P Brooks

    Apparently the problem with Schenectady is that it has the wrong nickname. So the city council has begun the process of changing it from “The Electric City” to… “Schenectady Metro.”

    “Brought to you by General Electric.”

  26. Festus

    I miss you guys on the Zoom. Been working too much and never see a friendly face no mo.

    • Old Man With Candy

      Likewise, you’re greatly missed there. But you’ll be back.

      • Festus

        Thanks. That actually means a lot to me. Now I’m all verklempt!

  27. The Other Kevin

    Happy Ash Wednesday. If you do DIY ashes, make sure you cool them off first.

    Yesterday my 8 year old niece thought the day was called “National Fat Day”. I like how that kid thinks.

    I finally finished watching the latest episode of BattleBots. They announced the playoff brackets. It’s going to be good this year.

    • Nephilium

      The Cleveland Diocese has changed the ash distribution this year, due to the ‘vid.

      • Not Adahn

        Are they making the ash distribution more equitable?

      • Nephilium

        FTFA:

        The priest will bless the ashes with holy water and then only once say one of the refrains from the Roman Missal – either “Repent, and believe in the Gospel,” or “Remember that you are dust, and unto dust, you shall return.”

        The priest will then cleanse his hands, put on his face mask, and distribute ashes, but instead of marking each forehead with a cross, he will sprinkle ashes on each person’s head to avoid physical contact.

        I’m picturing them using something like a glitter cannon next year, so they can blast the whole church at once.

      • Animal

        That would actually be pretty great.

      • Agent Cooper

        “Shameful flirting with blackface.”

        This is satire, right? We suffer from historical and cultural amnesia.

      • Mojeaux

        I would say willful disregard of context in service of The Agenda.

      • Ownbestenemy

        That…I need a drink.

      • kinnath

        Someone was outraged a year or so ago about some historic bar that had antique photos of coal miners stopping at the bar at the end of their shift.

        Again, it was about “blackface” horseshit.

    • KromulentKristen

      Huuuuuuuuuuge!!!

      I say the final will be Tombstone v. Copperhead

  28. Sensei

    So the question is “trust fund, zero savings or both”?

    Manhattan Couple Ditch Apartment, Buy RV. Was It Worth It?

    RV life has many advantages over Manhattan life, they say. It’s cheaper, for one. They were renting a 1,100 square-foot two-bedroom in Hell’s Kitchen for $5,800 a month. Now, they’re paying $2,000 a month on a loan for their $412,000 Tiffin Phaeton. Even factoring in insurance, fuel and site fees of about $700 a month, their expenses are roughly half what they were in New York City. “We’re saving a lot of money,” Mr. DeRose says.

    • Idle Hands

      always a trust fund.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      It’s $700/month until you get that first Tier IV emissions repair bill.

      • Sensei

        Emissions regs will cause electrification of all kinds of cars and equipment more effectively than direct “green” subsidies.

        It’s amazing the crap that is now attached to diesel engines that both decreases efficiency and reliability.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Tell me about it.

        I loathe to think about the tens maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars I’ve spent on lousy diesel emissions systems.

        And it usually decreases the fuel efficiency as well.

    • Cy Esquire

      Tiffin Phaeton

      That thing is huge. WTF are they parking it that for even $700 /month?

      • Festus

        Walmart and the local casino let you park for free.

      • Tejicano

        Daddy’s driveway?

    • PieInTheSky

      $412,000 – That is not the true van lifestyle

    • wdalasio

      The basic idea isn’t too bad. Getting out of Manhattan does save you a huge amount of money. I’d only quibble that they could have done a hell of a lot better than an RV. For what they’re paying they could have a really nice house elsewhere.

      • Festus

        “But the virtue signaling, Moe! Think of the virtue signaling!

    • Agent Cooper

      They could buy a nice house next door to me with a pool and 3400 square feet for $412k.

    • Sensei

      Some of my other favorite bits:

      The couple never expected to join the nation’s RV herd. This time last year, Ms. Glazer, who is 36 years old, was happily working at home, building her fast-growing business-coaching service. Mr. DeRose, 37, loved his job managing a territory of financial centers for Bank of America…

      Then the pandemic hit. Suddenly, everything they loved about Manhattan—the restaurants, the theaters, the crowds—vanished. “It lost its sparkle and uniqueness,” Mr. DeRose says.

      They hit on the RV idea last summer on a networking Zoom call for entrepreneurs. The host, who lived in California, recently bought an RV, and his tale was inspiring. Within two weeks, Mr. DeRose and Ms. Glazer purchased their motor home. Mr. DeRose gave several months notice to his employer so he could join his wife’s company as its CFO and COO after they hit the highway…

      • Not Adahn

        loved his job managing a territory of financial centers for Bank of America…

        Now I hate this asshole .

      • wdalasio

        If they’d decided on a house, DeRose wouldn’t have had to quit his job. I can’t fault them for wanting out of NYC. The lockdowns really were an eyeopener about what NYC has to offer. But an RV really does seem like it’s setting themselves up for failure. All the crap that made living in New York repulsive without the restaurants/theaters/crowds is still there with them. They’re still cramped in together in a little space. They still don’t have a lot of options to enjoy life without leaving their home.

    • KromulentKristen

      You’re…not supposed to pay as much for an RV as you would for a house. Did no one sit them down and talk to them about the facts of life, such as depreciation?

      I’m hoping to get into my (used) RV for about $100k or less.

      • R C Dean

        No way they aren’t upside down on that loan.

      • KromulentKristen

        Yeah, and I’ll be paying cash for mine.

    • Hyperion

      Half? They’re doing something wrong. They can get a new 6000 sq ft home with acreage for less than $5800 a month in most states.

  29. Rebel Scum

    TMITE

    Glenn Greenwald
    @ggreenwald

    I have no doubt Mr. Iraq War Veteran – who joined with Liz Cheney to prevent a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan — knows *a lot* about zip ties.

    He knows little about how to read journalism, since the reference was to the false story that the protesters *brought* them with them

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      So that guy snatched those from the fuzz? Why the fuck isn’t that being reported (rhetorical, don’t bother answering)?

    • Gustave Lytton

      The shitstains of Congress.

  30. wdalasio

    The problem of corporate woke (see the Ford story above for the latest example) is the result of the market for corporate control being made a hash of. Hell, we’ve reached a point where the Business Roundtable is even out-and-out saying that they consider shareholders just one “constituency” to be balanced against the others. What that means, in practice, is that the companies are effectively ceded to management, because management can pretty much always find another “constituency” that agrees with whatever management decides it wants. In that sort of situation, management is inevitably going to be closely tied to the interests of the state. Because the state remains the one “constituency” that still holds power over management. Reform of the market for corporate control strikes me as a one of those little niches of policy that could produce huge gains for libertarianism.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      That one is at least a self-correcting problem.

      Unfortunately, it’s going to cost all of us a lot of pain and money.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    The money shot:

    Although it is extreme winter, not warmer temperatures, that is affecting Texas, some climate analysts believe that climate change may be playing a role, as well, in the intense cold and storms ripping through the Southern U.S., a phenomenon that could continue or worsen. Rising temperatures in the Arctic may be diminishing the jet stream of air that serves as a sort of buffer for the polar vortex, keeping the frigid air from plunging south.

    But grid operators can plan only for peaks and surges that they see coming, a task of analyzing past trends and extrapolating predictions that is only growing more difficult, said Michael Craig, who teaches energy systems at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability.

    “We are in a nonstationary world. Climate change means that it is not stationary,” Craig said. “The last 40 years might not be reflective of what’s coming down the pike the next 40 years.”

    Obviously, we need more and better computer models, which will verify our dire predictions and justify unlimited government control of the electric grid.

    Planning based on real world observations utilizing known reliable technology is just not sexcy enough.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      “some climate analysts believe that climate change may be playing a role, as well, in the intense cold and storms ripping through the Southern U.S.”

      So some climate analysts believe that climate change might not be playing a role too, no?

    • Idle Hands

      The green energy scammers coming back out of the woodwork after the Trump admin has been vanquished are the most insidious malevolent force of evil we face as a species second only behind the branch covidians.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Point taken but the Venn diagram on those two groups is pretty much one circle.

    • Rebel Scum

      “We are in a nonstationary world. Climate change means that it is not stationary,”

      It’s like climate changes as the weather changes.

  32. Idle Hands

    https://wtop.com/local/2021/02/report-if-widespread-remote-work-becomes-the-new-normal-in-dc-a-lot-of-people-would-be-left-out/

    he COVID-19 pandemic spurred a rapid shift to remote work as the threat of the coronavirus and stay-at-home orders shuttered offices and businesses across the D.C. region.

    But even if only a quarter of employees continue working remotely post-pandemic, the impact of that shift could dramatically alter the region’s economy — including significant hardship for small businesses in D.C.’s downtown and questions about equity for workers whose jobs don’t allow them to work remotely.

    That’s one of the take-aways of a new 40-page report from the Greater Washington Partnership, “Remote work in the Capital Region: Implications for the region and an inclusive recovery,” which was published Tuesday.

    The study was conducted by Ernst & Young and takes a broad look at remote work in what it calls the entire “Capital Region,” which includes the major metro areas of D.C., Baltimore and Richmond and covers some 10 million residents.

    Never in my entire life has it been more abundantly clear how stupid, dangerous and moronic people are. This economic was obvious and clear in april, and made permanent in in december. Noone is going back to the office, in the dc metro area in december 58% of the workforce is working remote full time this doesn’t include the part timers who are going into the office when they have to a couple of times a week. These fucks have decimated whole industries and only now when they are starting to see a possibility of the reits and bond markets taking a hit from their grand experiment do they even pretend to give a shit.

    • KromulentKristen

      I plan on never sitting in my cube again. Ever. I’ve had a couple of colleagues collect my shoes for me. I suppose I’ll eventually need to go there to get the rest of my stuff.

      The food court in my office building made most of their money from tourists. They’re fucked. The building is a block from the WH. No way they’ll let tour busses park on the street & let massive groups off to wander around.

      Welcome to the capital of FWEEDOM

      • Ownbestenemy

        I always go to this when I see FWEEDOM

    • R C Dean

      questions about equity for workers whose jobs don’t allow them to work remotely

      Oh, fuck off.

      • AlexinCT

        They will solve this unfair dilemma by taxing those working at home and redistributing their money to create equality/equity!

    • KromulentKristen

      I used to work at home frequently even in the Before Times, and people I met would say “Oh, jeeze, must be nice!” (jealous much?)

      Yeah, it is nice. That’s why I made the choices I made and set up my career path as I did for 20 years, motherfuckers.

      • Idle Hands

        I don’t have a problem with people who work from home really. My problem is something like 30% of the economy is predicated on people working in offices buildings across the country. And 30% of the economy collapsing eventually effects everyone.

      • Idle Hands

        They took this course of action without any thought or plan of what the short term and mid term ramifications of an economic shift like that is. it was always going to happen slowly, also companies have experimented with this concept since the internet with varying results.

  33. Rebel Scum

    PolitiFact
    @PolitiFact

    President Biden did not manipulate the weather to create a winter storm that left millions without power in Texas

    Thanks for informing us.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Did they bother checking the vaccine claim?

    • PieInTheSky

      Was it Putin?

      • J. Frank Parnell

        Trump did it on Putin’s orders.

    • Suthenboy

      Did anyone claim that he did manipulate the weather?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        They’re debunking some random asshole on the internets.

        That’s their job.

      • Festus

        No

      • Festus

        I really shouldn’t but Imma have another beer just like Lizzy.

      • juris imprudent

        I swear, it is tempting at times to dive into 4chan or whatever, just to make up totally stupid, random shit and watch the monkeys fly (both the ones that believe it and the idiot fact checkers).

    • R C Dean

      Well, if the President can stop the seas from rising and the planet from warming, why can’t he call down a winter storm?

  34. Idle Hands

    Also from the last thread worst dining experience I’ve ever had was at a Toby Kieth branded bar, ordered ribs which tasted like rubber, the beans were cold and they tried to serve me a $4 beer in a fucking solo cup,

    • Nephilium

      Both of my stories about the worst experiences have to deal with drinks.

      1) Bennigan’s (TGIFriday’s with an Irish theme pasted over it) had just opened up in the area, and several of my friends wanted to check it out. So we went, and laughed at the menu and the faux Irish dishes. After the meal, I saw they had Irish Coffee listed on the dessert cocktail menu (along with Bailey’s and Coffee and other such drinks), so I told our poor waitress I would risk it. After she left, I explained the two quickest ways to identify a bad Irish Coffee. First, canned whipped cream, instead of a think layer of gently whipped heavy whipping cream. Second, green creme de menthe, because green = IRISH! Never before that day did I think I would have to add a third item to the list. The drink came out, with both of the warning flags, and the cherry on top? A cherry on top. There was a cherry on top of the whipped cream and creme de menthe.

      2) A hole in the wall Irish pub that had survived prohibition, but didn’t survive the ‘vid lockdowns. A friend of mine had just really gotten into the Big Lebowski, so he was drinking White Russians as his go to. This place was a beer and a shot kind of place, maybe a two part drink. It was my shout, I walked up to the bar, ordered the pints for the table, and a White Russian. Bartender looks at me, I gesture to the guy who wanted it and shrugged, and the bartender shrugged back. He starts pouring the pints. Then he gets to making the White Russian… he looks lost. So I kindly mention, cream, Kahlua, and vodka. Bartender thanks me, pours the Kahlua and vodka into a glass with ice. Then he grabs a Sysco container out of the fridge, takes a sniff of it, and tops it off with Orange Juice. He goes to dump it, and two old guys sitting at the bar start giving him grief about dumping it, “It could be good!” they say. The bartender takes a sniff of the concoction he had made, tosses it into the sink, and says, “No. It couldn’t.” Turns back to me, and says, “We’re out of cream”.

      • Festus

        To me “Irish Pub” means red-heads in short skirts with a bad attitude. The food and drink are tertiary.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Then we a place in Vegas for you, though it is a British Pub but that is how they dress.

      • DEG

        Something similar to Mad Dogs in San Antonio?

      • Festus

        “Family Fun!”

      • DEG

        Nice

      • Nephilium

        For me, it means that they will have Guinness, Harp, Smithwicks, and Bass on tap. They will have shepherd’s pie, stew, and fish and chips. If you’re lucky, they’ll have boxty.

        Here, the bartenders are usually males and either them, or the manager have recently come over to the states.

      • Not Adahn

        And hurling on the TVs.

      • Chipwooder

        I used to go to an Irish bar exactly like that, only it was in Okinawa.

      • Nephilium

        Of course it was exactly like that, they almost all are. No matter where in the world you go, you can find an Irish Pub. There will be nights that are for trad music, and the crowd will sing along. They’ll watch soccer there, and whatever the local cheap lager is on tap as well.

      • db

        I suspect that most “Irish” restaurants in the US are like most “Mexican” restaurants in the UK.

      • Nephilium

        From my time over in Ireland, the main differences is better service in the US, better chance of bangers and mash in Ireland, air conditioning in the US, and bathrooms in the basement in Ireland. The Irish ones also open earlier and do the full breakfast (several of the Irish pubs in my area also do the full breakfast all day as well).

      • SugarFree

        Hmm… full breakfast.

        We had some ex-pat Irish open a bar in Lexington in the mid-90s. It was a really great place to hang out until the frat guys showed up.

        I don’t begrudge them the money, but I’m not going to a bar to stand in a crowd of yelling idiots singing Dave Matthews’ songs.

      • Agent Cooper

        The Guinness is also better in Ireland, but that probably goes without saying.

      • Nephilium

        Agent Cooper:

        Tasted the same to me.

  35. KromulentKristen

    They’re saying 8-12″ for DC. I say 0″.

    It’s up to you to figure out if that’s a euphemism

    • Idle Hands

      lmao. The dc listening area expands to like fucking Harpers ferry and Frederick md when it comes to snow totals.

    • Rebel Scum

      I have seen upwards of that for Shenandoah, not for DC.

      Though I am sure a reliable and effective 6″ is always appreciated.

      • Animal

        Though I am sure a reliable and effective 6″ is always appreciated.

        There’s a “your Mom” joke in there somewhere.

      • juris imprudent

        something something slippery enough

    • Tulip

      I thought they were saying 2-4″.

      • KromulentKristen

        The Weather Channel last night had 8-12″ for DC proper. Like I said, I say 0″. This thing won’t materialize just like 99% of the storms the forecast for us.

    • Muzzled Woodchipper

      They told me 8-12” too.

      We got 2” if freezing rain topped by sleet, then about 4” of snow.

    • creech

      Pharaoh Joe will make Amtrak run on time.

    • Not Adahn

      *deleted joke about why they were all built in the early ’40s*

    • Suthenboy

      Trains….no thanks.
      Commies and their goddamned Choo-choo’s.

      • Festus

        They love to pull that train, don’t they? Can I sneak across the border and live in a shack in your back 40? I know my way around saws and like dogs and cats. I will be ever so good! Asking for a friend.

  36. DEG

    Venezuela turning to privatization

    Early in 2007, after winning a second six-year term as president, Hugo Chávez announced his plan to nationalize Venezuela’s largest telecommunications company, CANTV, hinting at wider nationalization plans to come.

    “All that was privatized, let it be nationalized,” announced Chávez, who had run under the banner of democratic socialism.

    Nearly a decade and a half later, on the brink of mass famine and a growing energy crisis, Venezuela is now moving in the opposite direction.

    According to Bloomberg News, Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has quietly begun transferring state assets back into the hands of private owners in an effort to reverse the country’s economic collapse.

    • PieInTheSky

      Maduro is ruining Chavez legacy. Sad day for socialism.

    • Suthenboy

      “transferring state assets back into the hands of private owners”

      They misspelled ‘cronies’ and there is no mention of how much he is keeping for himself. I predict no recovery for Venezuela for at least a generation.

      Wow is that full of zingers.

      “Venezuela’s plight is the most unlikely of stories.”
      By unlikely they mean ‘completely foreseeable’.

      “growth began to stall in the mid 1970s, however, after it nationalized the petroleum sector”
      Who could have seen that coming?

      “However, Venezuela’s flirtation with socialism would eventually turn into a love affair.”
      Tocqueville puts on his surprise face.

      I tire of this. I could spend an hour parsing that.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        It’s the Russian model of privatization.

      • PieInTheSky

        Also Romanian… and probably a lot more.

      • AlexinCT

        Ex-intelligence agents turned into mob bosses will hold all the wealth?

  37. Muzzled Woodchipper

    Reposted from last night….

    Greenwald laying waste to the “InSuRrEcTiOn” meme being played by the media on a 24/7 loop.

    Then, perhaps most importantly, is the ongoing insistence on calling the Capitol riot an armed insurrection. Under the law, an insurrection is one of the most serious crises that can arise. It allows virtually unlimited presidential powers — which is why there was so much angst when Tom Cotton proposed it in his New York Times op-ed over the summer, publication of which resulted in the departure of two editors. Insurrection even allows for the suspension by the president of habeas corpus: the right to be heard in court if you are detained.

    So it matters a great deal legally, but also politically, if the U.S. really did suffer an armed insurrection and continues to face one. Though there is no controlling, clear definition, that term usually connotes not a three-hour riot but an ongoing, serious plot by a faction of the citizenry to overthrow or otherwise subvert the government.

    • Ownbestenemy

      that term usually connotes not a three-hour riot but an ongoing, serious plot by a faction of the citizenry to overthrow or otherwise subvert the government

      Yep, the point I made to a neighbor and they still refuse to see that BLM, by their very words, are just that. Antifa “idea” even more so.

  38. Rebel Scum

    Your whiteness is blinding, bigot.

    A city public school principal is asking parents to “reflect” on their “whiteness” — passing out literature that extols “white traitors’’ who “dismantle institutions,” education officials confirmed to The Post on Tuesday.

    The “woke’’ offensive at the East Side Community School in Manhattan features a ranking list titled “The 8 White Identities,” which ranges from “White Supremacist’’ to “White Abolitionist.”

    The curriculum, written by Barnor Hesse, an associate professor of African American studies at Northwestern University in Illinois, claims, “There is a regime of whiteness, and there are action-oriented white identities.

    “People who identify with whiteness are one of these,’’ Hesse writes above the eight-point list.

    • db

      How about if I identify as human?

    • juris imprudent

      Dismantle institutions you say? OK, I game for dismantling the public school system that employs you!

    • Not Adahn

      I think the only cat memes that have died off are “I can haz cheezeburger” and “Itty bitty kitty committee.”

      • pistoffnick

        MEMES NEVER DIE!

        *unzips, flops it out for Harambe*

  39. The Late P Brooks

    Unrelenting idiocy

    A group of public health experts, including several who advised Joe Biden on Covid-19 during the presidential transition, is urging the administration to enact stronger mask requirements to protect workers as a growing number of allies raise concerns about the new administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

    In a letter sent late Tuesday to the administration’s top public health officials, the group said that current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines on masks don’t go far enough and that all health care workers and those at high risk of getting infected should wear medical-grade N95 masks or similar respirators rather than standard surgical masks or cloth face coverings.

    “Stronger protective measures are needed immediately to limit exposure and transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to control and end the COVID-19 pandemic,” the group wrote. “Action is needed to better protect workers and the public against inhalation exposure to the virus.”

    They’re pissed because the death toll isn’t in the millions, as originally predicted. So disappointing.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Nothing is stopping you from donning a N95 anytime you wish, assholes.

      • R C Dean

        Remember inauguration, when they announced anyone in the White House had to wear an N95? How many have you actually seen being worn by White House staff or visitors?

      • KromulentKristen

        I have a former colleague that works in the WH. I would ask him about masking there, but he’s probably still on telework, and he’s also one of those unprincipled lefties who loves whoever the Dems tell him to love, so he’d probably say it’s an exemplar of masking obedience over there.

    • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

      Triple masking is coming.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    This just popped into my head-

    The reaction of the public health mafia is like a bomb squad sent out to investigate and “disarm” a suspicious package, when at the end of the tense, highly dramatic First Responder kabuki, all they eventually end up with is a soggy peanut butter sandwich in a mislaid Hello Kitty lunchbox.

    MUH HEEEEEROIZM!

    • Plisade

      Nice. And then the media will parade experts who discuss the explosive dangers of soggy peanut butter sandwiches and how Hello Kitty is a symbol of white supremacy.

      • Plisade

        Yes!

  41. Rebel Scum

    This contemptuous cunte.

    MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough says that local businesses being vandalized in antifa/BLM riots over the summer is not equatable to the Capitol building:

    “No, jackass… I’m not going to confuse a taco stand with the United States Capitol.”

    • Rebel Scum

      Pwnd:

      And then bring on Roderick Reynolds, Detroit father of five who had his home burned down during the riots, so you can explain the difference to him @JoeNBC

    • Ownbestenemy

      Its as if they do not even acknowledge that people actually attempted to setup their own government inside the United States and publicly declared they are not subject to its laws this summer.

      • AlexinCT

        These people never targeted the top men directly, and in fact these rioters and insurrectionists served their agenda of telling the rubes that the bad orange man was responsible for the things they promoted. There is a reason they told us this was not going away (Hello KOMMIE-LOH) and then resorted to paying their bail every day (out of funds from the dnc and other political entities supported by the dnc) so they could riot again the next night.

        The fucking Trumpsters had the temerity to go after the top men on their own turf, and for that crime, regardless of the fact the severity was all in the mind of the top men and the fake news peddlers, they now want to implement the ame protections that the CCP has for themselves here.

    • PieInTheSky

      And here I would think, for people who do not worship The State as their god, it is obvious that if your issue is with government you should protest at the center of government not burn random people’s shit/.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        And here I would think, for people who do not worship The State as their god, it is obvious that if your issue is with government you should protest at the center of government not burn random people’s shit/.

        This thought has been running through my head since day 1.

        Antifa has problems with government policy. Their response was to take their grievance to the streets, burning or otherwise destroying or damaging private property.

        The iNsUrReCtIoN Crew has problems with government policy. Their response was to take their grievances directly to the seat of government power.

        One side is demonized, the other minimized as unimportant, or even good.

      • cyto

        One side was about two dozen semi-crazy dudes who got carried away and tried to break down a couple of doors while a couple of hundred people followed behind with cell phone cameras.

        The other side was a bunch of useful idiots who think that they are destroying society in order to remake it into a communist/socialist paradise. They have no idea that they only exist to do the bidding of their masters in the DNC establishment and create an impression that life in America under Trump is violent, repressive, and racist.

        It was always theater, they just didn’t know it.

    • commodious spittoon

      One burnt taco stand is a tragedy. One million is a statistic.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Scarborough is truly a despicable human being.

      I’m not going to be shocked at all when it turns out that he’s a kiddy diddler or some other low life.

  42. PieInTheSky

    Why China is terrified of Christianity
    From destroying churches to jailing priests, the Communist Party is bent on eliminating religion

    https://unherd.com/2021/02/why-china-is-terrified-of-christianity/

    far less known is the brutal, and intensifying, repression of China’s Christians. For while the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime has always repressed religion in general, Christianity has always been its biggest target. This is partly a result of the Party’s promotion of atheism, as well its nervousness towards any gathering of people that it does not control. But it is also rooted in its fear that Christianity represents a “foreign” threat to its way of life, albeit one that the CCP hasn’t quite worked out how to deal with.

    • Suthenboy

      Huh. Where have I seen that before….it seems so familiar….

      • cyto

        Lottie Moon is one of the big missions that our church supports. So we get to hear about repression in china frequently.

  43. The Late P Brooks

    “No, jackass… I’m not going to confuse a taco stand with the United States Capitol.”

    Right you are, Joke. A taco stand is constrained by the voluntary and innately mutually beneficial nature of its relationship with the public.

    Any random taco cart is more valuable and productive than the United States Congress.

    • commodious spittoon

      Thank you. State worship is pathetic. Cringing, servile bootlickers.

    • db

      A random taco cart certainly causes more joy and less harm on any given day than the US Government.

  44. Rebel Scum

    But what color socks did he wear?

    United States *President Joseph R. Biden made his first trip to Camp David with his family over the weekend. Located in western Maryland and operated by the United States Navy, Camp David has long served as a country retreat for the President and their family; as well as a place to host foreign dignitaries and officials. One of the amenities at Camp David apparently includes a working arcade.

    It was at this arcade that President Biden played his granddaughter Naomi at Mario Kart. She posed on Instagram about the trip. According to her, despite being “a little rusty,” President Biden was still able to win “barely.”

    Scranton Joe is just like you and me.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      I play Mario Kart on a console though like a poor person.

      • juris imprudent

        If you’re the President shouldn’t you be playing games on WOPR?

    • Agent Cooper

      played his granddaughter Naomi

      This seems endearing until you realize she’s 26.

  45. PieInTheSky

    The Balkan Federation as imagined by Greek revolutionary Rigas Feraios (1757-1798).

    He even wrote a constitution for the proposed revolutionary state, based on the French, and envisioned it as a multinational entity with Greek as the lingua franca.

    https://twitter.com/lijukic/status/1361764849118765057

    I’m sure that would have worked just great.

  46. Rebel Scum

    Frivilous.

    The House Homeland Security chairman accused Donald Trump in a federal lawsuit Tuesday of inciting the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and conspiring with his lawyer and extremist groups to try to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the presidential election he lost to Joe Biden.

    The lawsuit from Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson is part of an expected wave of litigation over the Jan. 6 riot and is believed to be the first filed by a member of Congress. It seeks unspecified punitive and compensatory damages. It also names as defendants Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, and the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, extremist organizations that have had members charged by the Justice Department with taking part in the siege.

    “All I wanted to do was do my job, and the insurrection that occurred prevented me from doing that,” Thompson, D-Miss., told reporters Tuesday as he recounted his harrowing experiences as Trump loyalists broke into the Capitol and disrupted the constitutionally mandated process of certifying the election.

    A Trump senior adviser, Jason Miller, said in a statement that Trump did not organize the rally that preceded the riot and “did not incite or conspire to incite any violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6th.” A lawyer for Giuliani did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

    The suit, filed in federal court in Washington under a Reconstruction-era law called the Ku Klux Klan Act, comes three days after Trump was acquitted in a Senate impeachment trial that centered on allegations that he incited the riot, in which five people died. That acquittal is likely to open the door to fresh legal scrutiny over Trump’s actions before and during the siege. Additional suits could be brought by other members of Congress or by law enforcement officers injured while responding to the riot.

    That’s some mighty straight reporting there.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Oh, we’re using lawsuits as political tools? Let me know when I can join the class action lawsuit to hold the congressional shitstains personally responsible and liable for defrauding the government by their work.

    • Suthenboy

      Isn’t Trump playing golf somewhere? They just cant get him out of their heads but it is really people like us, even if you didnt support Trump, that they are after. They cant tolerate the idea of a boot not stomping on a human face forever.

      Keep your powder dry.

      • Sean

        Morning news was all about the imploding of the Trump casino in AC. Something about poetic justice or some nonsense.

        They just can’t help themselves. Honk honk.

      • Festus

        This just makes the fungi grow.

    • wdalasio

      That case isn’t going to see the inside of a courtroom. The Dems were pretty successful at portraying Trump as engaged in a criminal act with a lot of support from their friends in the media. What they really can’t afford is for the case to go before a jury and get laughed out of court. And I really doubt they want to risk the possibility of Messrs. Trump and Giuliani conducting discovery.

  47. PieInTheSky

    Did you know that the Irish delegation to USA seeking American help in the 1920s met Lenin’s delegation seeking the same and the Irish took the Russian Crown Jewels as security for a loan of $20000?

    https://twitter.com/timbrophynenagh/status/1361672490313998336

    that does not sound true

  48. Rebel Scum

    Well, yeah.

    “I think what people want is a Republican Party that actually follows through on what they say they’re going to do, that actually puts forward and enacts the policies that we say we believe in,” she said. “We talked for years about doing health care reform, repealing Obamacare, and we haven’t done it. We’ve talked about doing immigration reform, making sure that we’re welcoming people legally to this country, and we haven’t done it.”

    “So, that’s what I think the last several years should teach Republicans, is that we’re tired of politicians,” Noem continued. “We’re tired of people that stand up and give speeches and never take action. That’s what the last administration did, is they took action, and people realized that they liked that, and they liked the benefits of people who actually were public servants.”

    Actually representing constituents is so passe.

    Who could have guessed that Scotland had a white-supremacy problem?

    On Monday, the University of Glasgow’s Hunterian Museum, which was founded in 1807, announced the creation of the post on social media, tapping left-wing activist Zandra Yeaman to head up the woke project.

    In a blog post explaining the Curator of Discomfort position, Ms Yeaman said that it would focus on “looking at ways outside of traditional museum authority to explore the interpretation of contested collections and to design and deliver a series of museum interventions that takes the museum out of the institutional comfort zone”.

    Yeaman added that she will embark on “exploring white supremacy as an economic and cultural system in which white western ideals control the power of the text, the material resources and ideas of cultural superiority”.

    “Superiority”, such as Scotland being Scottish.

    • R C Dean

      looking at ways outside of traditional museum authority

      See, also, libraries burning books.

    • PieInTheSky

      I sure hope Scotland keeps making decent scotch among the ruins

    • Suthenboy

      Remember that words mean what they want them to mean. ‘White supremacy’ is their code for ‘western enlightenment’ and the notion of individualism.
      They are attempting to bring back feudal totalitarianism.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        This.

        Exactly fucking right. They’ve already admitted with their “multi-racial whiteness” bullshit that “white supremacy” isn’t about race at all, but about believing and upholding for radical concepts such as “a nuclear family” and “hard work.” The “problem” is framed in race because it’s politically useful, not because it has anything to do with race. It’s a tact to pin unapproved political thought in to terms of good vs evil.

        Essentially, believing in anything but the primacy of the state is WhItE sUpReMaCy.

        Fuck these people in the ass with a goddamn rusty chainsaw.

    • juris imprudent

      Noem, serving the public by pissing all over the results of a referendum she didn’t like.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        That definitely softened up my Noem boner.

      • robc

        Although it does fit with her saying she is going to follow thru on the policies she believes in. Is bending to the will of the people better than bending to the will of the media? Well, yes, but it is still bending.

        “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays you instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.” –Edmund Burke

      • Pope Jimbo

        If Noem flames out it will be because of petty grifts while she was gov.

        I’m sure every SoDak gov used the state planes as their own personal vehicles, but Noem is dumb to do this if she has national aspirations.

        I think the Dems are worried about her in 2024 because you can’t go a day without reading about her lying about SoDak’s Covid response (FACT CHECK: They did not do well) or shit like her using a plane for politics.

    • wdalasio

      ..it would focus on “looking at ways outside of traditional museum authority to explore the interpretation of contested collections and to design and deliver a series of museum interventions that takes the museum out of the institutional comfort zone”.

      I don’t suppose it ever occurs to them that the museums are making themselves the most expendable part of the budget when times get lean. Or they just don’t understand the notion of lean times.

  49. UnCivilServant

    Oh, joy, a Reply All storm at work.

    Now my inbox is flooded with people telling people to stop replying to all.

    • PieInTheSky

      could be worse you could have been the initiator.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I trade you that for my wife calling me at work to complain that Sling isn’t working on her phone and that I’m paying for a non-functional service that I need to fix for her right now.

    • commodious spittoon

      You’d think there’d be a prompt to dissuade that… “Hey, do you know you’re about to email ten thousand people all at once?”

      on the other hand… the same people would just click Yes without reading.

      A couple weeks ago Malwarebytes prompted me to restart while I was working in a model and I clicked yes without registering. And it just did it! Just restarted, like it asked and like I told it to! The gall! I lost an hour’s worth of work. /shameface

      • Nephilium

        Exchange has that in some incarnations. I know I get a prompt on some of the replies I send that say “You’re about to send this to X people, are you sure?”

    • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

      We used to have those occasionally, and I work for a tech company where people are supposedly intelligent. I think IT figured out a way to short circuit the replies.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Now my inbox is flooded with people telling people to stop replying to all.

      They might be worse than the original reply all-er, especially when they are 10 minutes after the first person telling everyone to stop replying all.

  50. Aus

    Should I buy a condo in FL, gulf side; yes or hell yes?

    • Suthenboy

      No. Storms both natural and political will destroy it. Also, since that is expected most of the construction there is really bad.
      Find somewhere a bit inland and private. Buy a really good shotgun and a pair of rottweilers.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Buy a really good shotgun and a pair of rottweilers.

        That’s solid life advice in general. Tangentially, I think we’re going to get a pair of rottweilers after the GSDs pass. I’ve been looking at bull mastiffs, but the wife has her heart set on rotts.

      • R C Dean

        Speaking of really good shotguns, finally got the Benelli 1301 to the range. Me likee. Fast, fast, fast. Its lightweight, so its got a recoil. It will take some practice (oh, darn!) for me to get the muscle memory to “set” properly for maximum speed.

        I need to practice the manual of arms on it; it wants to load a little different than my Remingtons; among other things, you’ve got to really the shells in the tube for them to “catch”. Fortunately, I scored some dummy rounds for just that purpose.

      • Not Adahn

        The dummy shells I used to teach myself to dual load (not quad-loading yet, but working on it) are somehow 1/4″ shorter than normal low brass shells.

      • R C Dean

        Hmm. I’ll have to check mine. Never thought of that.

      • Aus

        Interesting… Although I already have a shotgun and a fierce guard cat. (!) Although I prefer my M1 Carbine for my home defense weapon. Of all my firearms, I feel the most comfortable with it.

    • Plisade

      I’m looking for hunting land on the gulf side without much luck. I want to be near Chassahowitzka. Lots of nice homes at reasonable prices there.

    • kinnath

      Come to Iowa. Terrible weather and schizophrenic politics (a deep purple state). What more could you ask for?

      • kinnath

        Bad Link

      • kinnath

        Thanks for the link

      • Aus

        I’m already in Ohio… so, no thanks! (haha)

      • kinnath

        Not interested in a lateral transfer then?

      • Aus

        Haha no… trying to escape the weather. I also appreciate how Desantis seems to be fighting hard for his state.

        I’m hesitant to start another career in a state with weak-ass leadership. Obvi these things can change, but still, FL seems to have made good decisions in terms of pro-business attitude.

    • Cy Esquire

      I was eyeballing cocoa beach. Disney world, Cape Canaveral, the beach and good deep sea fishing all not too far away.

      • Aus

        My brother likes that area, I have never been yet. I would think the gulf side would be slightly more insulated against hurricanes, but I could be very wrong on that thought.

      • KromulentKristen

        My parents survived Hurricane Charley pretty well, despite living in downtown Punta Gorda at the time. 😉

        (the central FL Gulf coast is generally less susceptible to hurricanes than the Atlantic or northern Gulf)

      • Suthenboy

        I am sorry to tell you but the gulf side is very beautiful and a great place to visit…or used to be…but it is very much NOT insulated against hurricanes. It is not a matter of if but when. Whatever you put there will be destroyed. Life there is more or less a constant process of rebuilding.

        Move inland a hundred miles or so and build solid. There is a lot of real estate more than 5 feet above sea level, relatively inexpensive and private. Take a week or so vacation to the beach as often as you like but don’t put your money in real estate on the coast.

        More than once I have looked at really nice places on the coast (Pensacola, Fort Meyers, Mexico Beach, Destin) with picturesque views only to return a few years later and find nothing but slabs or pilings. If you haven’t been in a hurricane it is impossible to describe. I have ridden out at least a dozen of them and I assure you they are no joke. What you see on the weather channel really doesn’t do it justice.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        Move inland a hundred miles

        That is not possible in Florida, as the furthest point from a coast in Florida is less than 90 miles.

      • kinnath

        Hello Alabama

  51. Old Man With Candy

    Worst restaurant experience: Some years ago, I was in Beaune with a girl on the faculty of Paul Bocuse’s culinary school, having a delightful time. We popped into one of the bigger restaurants in the main square. Scanning the menu, there was nothing vegetarian (not unusual in France). But normally, any decent restaurant will whip up something. My date said to the waiter, “My friend here is a vegetarian, would you please make something for him?”

    “No, we have nothing.”

    “You have no vegetables in the kitchen?”

    The waiter grimaced and went back to the kitchen. Returned a minute later. “We have nothing for him.”

    At this point, I pointed out that they had oeufs en meurette on the menu. “So you have eggs. Can the chef make me an omelet?”

    The waiter grimaced again and went back to the kitchen. Returned a minute later. “No, we cannot.”

    I asked sweetly, “Perhaps I can go back to the kitchen and teach the chef how to make an omelet?”

    The waiter’s expression was memorable.

    My date then said to me in English, “We need to go elsewhere and quickly. If you get any food from them, there will be a bodily fluid in it. I do not know which one, but you don’t want to be eating that.”

    • PieInTheSky

      You American tourists going to France with your weird ass demands.

      • Old Man With Candy

        In Romania, such a demand will get you cut.

      • PieInTheSky

        Waiter were important people in communism, it took 25 years to get decent service in this country

    • KromulentKristen

      Dang…I was hoping she would whip out her Bocuse ID badge in the maitre’s face or something.

      • Old Man With Candy

        I’d still get jizz in the butter.

      • KromulentKristen

        But at least you’d have the satisfaction of a sick, sick burn. Totally worth it.

    • Suthenboy

      Now whose fault is that? You went to France for FFS. It’s full of Frenchmen.

      • Old Man With Candy

        99% of the time *outside of Paris*, I have found the French to be kind, generous, friendly, and accommodating. This hilariously bad experience was memorable because it was so exceptional.

        Paris is un autre chose.

      • R C Dean

        During my brief jaunt to Nice decades ago, I, too found them to be very nice.

        Never been to Paris. Likely never will.

      • SugarFree

        Lyon was just delightful, even with my atrocious minimal French and aggressive Ugly-American manners. I smiled a lot, they smiled a lot, and one woman almost died laughing when I got out my Euro-coin change purse that says “WEED MONEY” on it.

      • Mojeaux

        So my family’s 1988 sojourn in Paris was delightful. The Parisians were all very nice to us.

        Now, it might be because we are very well behaved people.

        It might also be that I ATTEMPTED to speak my little one year of high school French. They smiled, practically patted my head, and spoke in English for me.

        My brother learned French in Quebec and has a master’s in French literature (ikr?!). When he goes to Paris, they think his accent is adorable.

      • Suthenboy

        I suppose it is not fair for me to single out the French. Western Europe has a shortage of almost everything except arrogance. I had a similar experience in Belgium. And England. And France.
        *The Spanish stood out to me as especially warm, friendly and jovial. I like them. The rest of them can pound sand.*

      • Nephilium

        The Irish people I met were pretty nice, at least once they realized I wasn’t going to be the standard American tourist and start putting on a fake accent, start asking about leprechauns, or start talking about their lucky charms.

      • kinnath

        We spent two weeks in Ireland.

        We visited 6 towns in 2 weeks. We stayed in small Manor Houses / Hotels in small villages/town. It was great. They were thrilled to have American tourists instead of the busloads of Europeans they normally got.

      • Nephilium

        The girlfriend and I were mainly in Dublin, so they were used to ugly American tourists. Of course, the tourists having their children pose with the potato famine memorial caused a passerby to me to complain about, “Fooking tourists”, she seemed pleasantly surprised when I concurred with my American accent.

      • Chipwooder

        My aunt went to Ireland and Scotland a few years ago. She absolutely loved the Irish and totally hated the Scots. Said the Irish were friendly and warm while the Scots were sullen and nasty.

      • Mojeaux

        Weird. The Scots were nice to us.

        We went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner one night. It is strange hearing a Scots brogue out of a Chinese face.

        We did not go to Ireland, so can’t compare.

      • Chipwooder

        I’ve never been to either, so I’m only passing along her opinion.

        Now, the fact is that her side of my family is VERY Irish may very well have slanted that opinion.

      • db

        I have only spent a few hours in Ireland (on a layover) but there is something about a woman with an Irish accent that just makes me melt.

      • Chipwooder

        This is my experience too. The French are lovely people. Parisians, on the other hand, are mostly awful, and the French from outside Paris generally don’t care much for Parisians either.

      • But Enough About [this space intentionally left blank]

        If you want the Paris experience without having to, y’know, actually go to Paris, I highly recommend Bordeaux. A couple of hours by high-speed train from the capitol, and very laid-back, with excellent food.

      • Not Adahn

        Honestly, I’ve found that pretty much anytime someone’s been “rude” to me it’s been becasue I’ve fucked up some local convention and they were trying to enforce it.

        It happened three different times in England, and each time after I apologized they backed way the fuck down and were super-nice afterwards.

        Lady at The White Horse – “Hey, you can’t be here if you’re not a customer!”
        Me – “I’m sorry, I ordered lunch and am waiting for it to arrive, is that OK?”
        LaTWH – “Oh of course, I apologize for coming at you like that.”

      • robc

        Most of the french outside of Paris have at least some history of not being French. The north was British, the east was Prussian, the south was Moorish.

      • But Enough About [this space intentionally left blank]

        Paris is un autre chose.

        Can confirm. My French rellies in Normandy do not even consider Paris to be part of France. And if you want hilariously cringey stories about traveling around Paris, my rellies could keep you entertained for days. They hate that place. Especially my one rellie who worked as a chef there for 30 years.

      • Suthenboy

        Good grief…I make one joke about the Frogs….

      • Nephilium

        You should know you need to start roasting them, and then start slowly turning up the heat.

    • Raven Nation

      I asked sweetly, “Perhaps I can go back to the kitchen and teach the chef how to make an omelet?”

      That, sir, is brilliant.

    • Agent Cooper

      “Carano, who became known for spreading unfounded conspiracy theories last year,”

      This is her tweet about “spreading unfounded conspiracy theories”:

      We need to clean up the election process so we are not left feeling the way we do today.
      Put laws in place that protect us against voter fraud.
      Investigate every state.
      Film the counting.
      Flush out the fake votes.
      Require ID.
      Make Voter Fraud end in 2020.
      Fix the system. ??

      I can see why the above is so controversial.

  52. KromulentKristen

    I threw in the towel at work today. Might as well use some of those 100 hours of vacation time (I usually end the year with only a couple hours’ vacation time left).

    • AlexinCT

      Mental health day..

  53. Mojeaux

    Hey all!

    If you could do ME a favor (because Ozy has not asked me to say this and in fact, doesn’t know I’m doing this), if you have read Ozy’s Anthrax book, could you go here and leave a review? It would be lovely. Thank you!

    • PieInTheSky

      or you could pay Chinese review farms to leave reviews like normal people

      • Mojeaux

        like normal people

        You are indeed correct that normal authors do that. I, sadly, am not normal and depend on the goodness of readers to leave reviews. Shit, people who pirate my books don’t even leave reviews. It’s the least they could do for getting it free.

      • SugarFree

        Bigly book good fun. Ending emotions have tears. Great value. Buy go.

    • Cy Esquire

      I hope it was supposed to be a good one…

      • Mojeaux

        I purposely didn’t ask for good ones on purpose. Sometimes Amazon cottons on to those and thinks they’re Chinese-farmed reviews and will delete them.

        Also, things that some people don’t like, other people do like. I don’t know if that works for nonfiction, but it does for fiction.

  54. kinnath

    So off topic. My first Xterra (that I gave to my daughter) had a head gasket failure (minor) at about 135K miles. So we replaced the gaskets on both sides at that time.

    My new Xterra has 113K miles. So it is about time to replace the timing chain (and the water pump at the same time). Should I do the head gaskets while they have the engine taken apart?

    • PieInTheSky

      you should buy a new car

      • kinnath

        Why? It would just be full of electronic shit that I don’t want.

        The old one was still running great at 180K when it was totalled in last summers Derecho.

      • PieInTheSky

        Why? It would just be full of electronic shit – that is precisely why

      • kinnath

        I hate all the shit that is in the new Rogue we bought for my wife a year and a half ago.

        I don’t expect to ever buy a new vehicle again.

      • PieInTheSky

        but think of my bonus

      • kinnath

        Well, I won’t be buying Romanian. 😉

      • PieInTheSky

        the multinational corporation i work for is not romanian

      • robc

        Ae there any multi-nationals HQed in Romania?

      • PieInTheSky

        Ae there any multi-nationals HQed in Romania – I would think none of any note

    • Tundra

      Absolutely.

  55. Mojeaux

    Bitcoin about to hit $51,000. Missed my guesstimate by about 3 days. Dammit.

    • db

      I think it touched peaked at $51.7k around 0500 EST and drew back a bit.

      • Mojeaux

        I was sleeping, but it doesn’t matter. I’m still gonna ride this ride and see where it goes. Almost all the money we had in Bitcoin for a couple of years, Mr. Mojeaux had won, so this is free.

      • Mojeaux

        I had said it’d hit $50k over the weekend but it didn’t do that. It must have done it late last night because I checked before I went to bed and it was $49.7.

    • Suthenboy

      That market is fixed as hell. The guys making money run the price up and down. It is just like the stock market thus the recent “Fuck you back” given to the big players with Gamestop stock.
      I wouldn’t touch Bitcoin.

  56. The Late P Brooks

    Should I do the head gaskets while they have the engine taken apart?

    Have you overheated it? Like run it without water?

    • kinnath

      No

  57. The Late P Brooks

    you should buy a new car

    Buy a Mahindra.

  58. The Late P Brooks

    Fuck these people in the ass with a goddamn rusty chainsaw.

    Can we get the saw red hot? At least run it WFO with no chain lube.

  59. The Late P Brooks

    Also, re Kinnath’s head gaskets-

    Have them check torque on the head bolts to see if there’s any evidence of loss. If the head bolts pull up in a significant way, it might be worth thinking about.

    • kinnath

      thanks

      I am planning to put another 100k miles or more on this vehicle.

      So I am comfortable doing preventive maintenance in parallel with scheduled maintenance.

      • PieInTheSky

        a tesla will be much more reliable in the long run

      • kinnath

        Horseshit.

        The Xterra is paid for. It runs beautifully. It tows my trailer just fine.

        The “cheapest” solution just happens to also be the “greenest” solution which is to keep the thing running as long as possible.

      • Tundra

        He’s trolling you.

        People have discovered the Xterra. I should have bought a couple years ago

      • kinnath

        My sarcasm meter was so badly broken, I just chucked in months ago.

  60. Pope Jimbo

    When Biden has a meeting with a leader of another country, do you think the real powers sit in?

    I can’t see how you could keep up the pretense that Joe is President and running things in a meeting like that. You know he couldn’t sit alone with Xi for a couple hours and come back and accurately report on what was said and agreed to.

    Personally, I don’t think Kamala is in charge either. I’m not sure what Swamp faction is running Biden, but I bet if you were able to find out who was in the room with Biden when he called Merkel or Putin you’d be able to figure it out.

    I’d love to get an honest answer from some world leader on exactly what they thought, when James Carville entered through the back door and gave Biden a pudding cup to distract him while the adults talked. My guess is that it would be “whew! Sure am glad some not senile person is actually in charge”

    • Ownbestenemy

      I misplaced this comment but it fits for your thoughts:

      The spinsters weaving this administration’s story are more dangerous than Biden and Harris ever will be.

    • Gustave Lytton

      The two questionable assumptions here are those meetings aren’t highly scripted kabuki affairs and that other world leaders aren’t also drooling morons.

    • Suthenboy

      “whew! Sure am glad some not senile person is actually in charge”

      Yet they are wildly corrupt and incompetent for different reasons.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Thanks!

    • Suthenboy

      I have often been fascinated by Mars. There are obvious signs of plate tectonics, volcanism and erosion. Those are the same forces at work here yet they seem to be dormant on Mars. It is further out from the sun so less heavy metal and the planet has burned out? I would be stunned to find out there is no evidence of past life on that planet.

    • Fatty Bolger

      The Perseverance rover lands tomorrow. The primary mission is to look for signs of past microbial life. There’s also going to be a little helicopter that flies around, which should be cool.