Wednesday Afternoon SugarLinks – Taco Bell edition

by | Mar 24, 2021 | Daily Links | 405 comments

Taco Bell’s all fancy now. Demolition Man is real!

Taco Bell Opened A Restaurant With A Fire Pit And Cornhole In Its Outdoor Dining Area

The masterminds over at Taco Bell are constantly testing out new menu items and it seems that their focus is not only on great food but also an overall positive consumer experience. This year, the brand is set to open 1,000 new locations globally to fulfill different needs in each area, and Taco Bell even has a new restaurant location that includes a fire pit and game area.

If you’re only familiar with a classic Taco Bell with a drive-thru and indoor dining area, you should know there are quite a few other ways that locations may be popping up near you soon. In 2015, Taco Bell saw an opportunity to make restaurants that didn’t include drive-thrus for urban areas, and thus the Taco Bell Cantina restaurant concept was born. Additionally, during the pandemic, Taco Bell had to adjust its restaurant experience across the board, which is why designs that prioritized drive-thrus, which it’s calling “Go Mobile” restaurants, started popping up too.

And as long as they kept the cornholing out in the back yard, I assume it will be sanitary enough.


 

Biden’s New Deal: Re-engineering America, quickly

President Biden recently held an undisclosed East Room session with historians that included discussion of how big is too big — and how fast is too fast — to jam through once-in-a-lifetime historic changes to America.

Why it matters … The historians’ views were very much in sync with his own: It is time to go even bigger and faster than anyone expected. If that means chucking the filibuster and bipartisanship, so be it.

Mid-terms a comin’.


 

Woman charged $5,700 for a single cup of coffee still fighting for a refund — three months later

A Colorado woman has been struggling for months to get a refund from a restaurant after they overcharged her $5,700 for a cup of coffee.

Lisa Angello said she purchased the coffee on Christmas Eve during a trip to the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Centre in Aurora, Colorado, with a friend who was visiting from out of town.

A week later, she was surprised to see an alert from her bank for insufficient funds in her account. “I have never had an insufficient funds fee before. I’m very, very careful with what money is in there, how I pay my bills,” she told CNN.

Angello initially assumed the alert was fraudulent, but after taking a closer look at the amount, she realized that the restaurant had made a typing error and charged her $5,705.70 for the coffee.

“I realized that 570570 was the dollar amount put in twice,” she said.

The resort admitted to the error in an email to Angello in January, CNN reported, and claimed to have refunded the money. Angello’s bank, the United States Automobile Association (USAA), said it did not receive the transfer, and after three months, withdrew a credit given to her to compensate for the financial loss.


 

About The Author

SugarFree

SugarFree

Your Resident Narcissistic Misogynist Rape-Culture Apologist

405 Comments

  1. Shpip

    how big is too big — and how fast is too fast

    JOE BIDEN ASK STEVE SMITH! NO SUCH THING AS TOO BIG OR TOO FAST!

    • Tonio

      They’re goin to try to pull an FDR on us and make everyone dependent on government whether we like it or not.

      • Galt1138

        I’m reading Amity Shlaes book on “The Great Society,” and I immediately thought of LBJ when i saw that article (and some FEE articles about Biden’s ridiculously expensive and stupid plans).

        The self righteousness of those involved in The Great Society, so sure they’re doing what’s best for everyone, is infuriating.

  2. Rebel Scum

    Taco Bell Opened A Restaurant With A Fire Pit And Cornhole In Its Outdoor Dining Area

    I have only had Taco Bell while drunk.

    • Nephilium

      That is the best time to have it.

      • SugarFree

        I would imagine having a large amount of alcohol in your system is a good idea for eating there at all.

      • Swiss Servator

        That is the best only time to have it.

    • rhywun

      I’ve never had Taco Bell.

      • SugarFree

        It’s not the worst fast food, but it is low on the drive-thru hierarchy.

        I will say one thing in their defense, I have never been served a regular when I ordered a diet. Only drive-thru I can say that about.

      • bacon-magic

        Their regular tastes like diet. #stingywiththediabeetussyrup

    • Count Potato

      I’ve never had Taco Bell.

      Remember those weird commercials where it was like sort sort of secret cult?

      • Chipwooder

        The ones that had a strong flavor of socialist realism, with the chihuahua?

      • Count Potato

        No chihuahua, as far as I remember. It was like an Eyes Wide Shut thing.

    • Wood Chipped Wednesday

      Or for their freezes

  3. bacon-magic

    I would advise corn-holing first, then Taco Bell.

    • Tonio

      ^This guy gets it.

    • KromulentKristen

      Not if you’re German

      • bacon-magic

        Ew.

      • Chafed

        Ew.

      • KromulentKristen

        There was literally a Sugarfree episode today, yet y’all say “ew” to this.

      • juris imprudent

        He’s been fairly tame with these so far – which really, really worries me.

      • TARDis

        As a perv, and a German, I have no idea what you mean.

      • KromulentKristen

        You’re saying you’ve never starred in a Scheiße fim?

      • KromulentKristen

        You’re saying you never starred in a Scheiße film?

  4. Swiss Servator

    “Woman charged $5,700 for a single cup of coffee still fighting for a refund — three months later.”

    Was it Kopi Luwak? Then it might very well have cost that much.

    • Sensei

      Well shit…

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        *tapers stare*

    • Ted S.

      She didn’t notice she was being overcharged?

      • juris imprudent

        She needed to drink that coffee first.

    • Chipwooder

      What I’ve wondered about Kopi Luwak is why anyone would have dug coffee beans out of a civet’s shit in the first place to try making coffee from it.

      • SugarFree

        Kind of like the first person to eat an oyster. “Hey! There’s some slime in this rock! I wonder what it tastes like!”

      • juris imprudent

        I would guess it was the kid eating his own snot – hey, that looks like what I pull out of my nose, I’ll try that.

        The bigger question is – how did he convince the next person to eat it?

      • PudPaisley

        “Hey Jacques, this beaver’s asshole tastes just like raspberries!”

      • DEG

        Desperate times make desperate people.

  5. The Late P Brooks

    The historians’ views were very much in sync with his own: It is time to go even bigger and faster than anyone expected. If that means chucking the filibuster and bipartisanship, so be it.

    “Historians” who know nothing of the past, and have comprehension of human folly and the fatal conceits of those who rule.

    • leon

      I mean, such a move would make you go down in history, that’s for sure.

      • Hank

        Well, Monica Lewinsky…wait, the subject is too serious for jokes, never mind.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      “Historians” who have a vested interest in BIG SHIT FROM TOP MEN.

      They love that crap. Particularly if they think they’ll be the ones documenting it.

    • invisible finger

      Paraphrasing Mises in “Human Action”, historians don’t know shit about economics.

  6. grrizzly

    $5,705.70 for the coffee.

    Debit cards are for ATMs. Credit cards or cash are for coffee.

    • Sean

      I won’t even carry around my debit card. It sits unused in a drawer.

    • Chafed

      Stories like this are why I don’t use a debit card. I can’t imagine the circumstance in which it is advisable to give a third party unrestricted access to the cash I have on deposit.

      • Sensei

        +1

      • Ask your doctor if BEAM is right for you

        I’ve been using debit cards since the mid-80s. I’ve never had a problem with them.

        Credit cards, on the other hand . . .

    • slumbrew

      Debit cards are for ATMs. Credit cards or cash are for coffee.

      Very much this.

      • Ozymandias

        Debit cards are for ATMs. Credit cards or cash are for coffee.

        But coffee’s for closers.

      • Swiss Servator

        She had to close her checking account… does that count?

      • Ozymandias

        The Judges… Will Allow!

    • rhywun

      My closest liquor store won’t take Amex and I’m not carry around a 2nd credit card but yeah I should probably consider not carrying around my debit card either.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      This. I set the purchase limit on my debit card to zero.

      I’d prefer to replace it with ATM card, but the bank has made this exceedingly difficult.

    • Agent Cooper

      I have a debit card that also acts like a credit card. It’s not from a bank but a credit union that is very protective and would probably catch that mistake and remove it from the transactions within a few hours. They’ve been very good with any hints of fraud.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        My CU has also been very good with fraud. I’ve had it happen a few times, and they usually catch it before I do, even if I catch it day of. Last time (a couple months ago) they called me literally as I was walking to the back room to give them a call about the charge.

        The worst part is remembering where all I have auto-pays set up on the old card.

    • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

      Yup. The credit card is a buffer in front of my bank account.

  7. The Late P Brooks

    goddammit

    “Historians” who know nothing of the past, and have NO comprehension of human folly and the fatal conceits of those who rule.

    • Rebel Scum

      Biden’s handlers are seeking a facade of legitimacy as they take unprecedented measure to undermine the country. ///FundamentalChange

  8. Drake

    Beschloss said the parallels include the New Deal economic relief that Franklin Roosevelt brought in 1933, which saved the country from caused the Depression and chaos.

    …landmark legislation on climate, guns, voting.

    I don’t recall any of this – particularly gun control – even being mentioned during the campaign. Obviously he has a mandate.

    • juris imprudent

      Ah we all know on what he campaigned on – I’m not Trump. That’s all that mattered.

      • Drake

        As if the campaign mattered.

      • juris imprudent

        As if platforms ever matter.

      • Drake

        I would loved to have seen Biden publicly advocating stringent gun control in GA and AZ last year.

      • leon

        Well AZ did elect Mr “I’m gonna take your guns away” Astronaut no?

      • R C Dean

        Yes, they did. That idiot McSally never made an issue of it.

      • Count Potato

        He’s senile not stupid.

      • BigT

        Yes, he is both.

  9. R C Dean

    Mid-terms a comin’.

    If HR 1 beats them to the finish line, I wonder how much it will matter.

    • leon

      The shenannigans by the Dems as soon as they get power should be enough to keep any sane person from wanting them to ever be close to power.

      • Rat on a train

        The pool of sane people is shrinking.

      • bacon-magic

        Yet they still get votes.

    • Chafed

      That really is an open question. If it passes then I expect Team Blue to abuse the process. I then expect Team Red to employ the same tactics. It will make a mockery of elections.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      Require states to restore the ability of felons to vote the moment they are out of prison

      The only part of the entire bill that doesn’t absolutely suck.

      • Hank

        Well, I’m not sure. The 14th Amendment seems to leave the issue to the states, not Congress, and the only exception would be if criminal disenfranchisement was an excuse for a forbidden kind of voting discrimination (eg, race).

        Of course Congress will claim that the only reason any state disenfranchises any convicted felons is because of racism.

        In reality, the political reality is that convicted felons are more likely to blame other people for their own misbehavior – in other words, natural Democrats.

      • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

        I can see an argument that they need to complete probation or parole first. Not being a criminal, I’m not sure which one is the applicable term. Anyway, once they complete their punishment they should be allowed to vote.

    • kbolino

      The mistake you and they are making is to think that elections are a magic process that grants one nearly unlimited power to carry out an agenda.

      They aren’t. The elected branches don’t run the government, and the government doesn’t run the country. Public policy is a circle jerk among the overcredentialed who permeate the institutions of cultural status.

      The solution is not likely to come from winning elections any more (I won’t discount it as a possibility but you’d have to win so many elections so consistently and repeatedly that it is infeasible). They think that by taking over the referee spots, they get to run the ball game. But the players can take the ball and go home.

      The government is not a substitute for the people.

      • R C Dean

        elections are a magic process that grants one nearly unlimited power to carry out an agenda

        Elections are supposed to be a brake on unlimited power, but that only works if the party in power has a risk of losing an election. HR 1 will do much to mitigate that risk for Democrats.

        The elected branches don’t run the government

        Not any more, this is true. They can and do expand the power and scope of the unelected government.

        the government doesn’t run the country

        Naturally, it doesn’t dictate anything it doesn’t care about (like, for now, what you had for lunch today), and what it does dictate it enforces arbitrarily and capriciously. But it (even for values of “the federal government”) is far and away the most powerful institution in the country, and its not even close.

        But the players can take the ball and go home.

        I can? Well, I could stop paying taxes and obeying laws I didn’t agree with, but I wouldn’t have a home to go to for long if I did that.

      • slumbrew

        I can? Well, I could stop paying taxes and obeying laws I didn’t agree with, but I wouldn’t have a home to go to for long if I did that.

        The good news is you’d be given a new home. The bad news…

      • kbolino

        They are likely going to make you choose between keeping the level of freedom you are accustomed to and keeping the level of prosperity you are accustomed to, if not soon then eventually, this much I agree with. But that does not mean you will be homeless or even jobless, even if you may not have the same level of comfort as today. We joke about the camps but that is not the most likely outcome. The most likely outcome is Italy or India. We will have a large government and most people will avoid it to some extent or another. I expect petty things like bribery will become more widely accepted (though still very illegal, of course, but if you happen to have seen Mr. Franklin lately, I’m sure we can reach some kind of agreement).

        I couldn’t fault anyone for seeking options elsewhere, since if you’re going to live in a second-rate state, why not live in one that does the things you care about well, but even here, as the government seeks to further expand its remit its power will further dilute. It will do everything but none of it well. Its mandarins will pontificate endlessly and with much seriousness and yet mostly inconsequentially to the daily lives of the average person.

        And all of this is very likely going to happen whether that bill passes or not.

      • Ozymandias

        So… a lot like China then?
        (I’m going to write more on that subject eventually).

      • kbolino

        I can’t say how close or not it will be to China. I think the U.S. was already on this course solidly from ca. 1950 to 1980. But then Reagan and Gingrich happened, and while they weren’t half what their detractors or supporters made them out to be, they did upset the apple-cart. We are reverting to mean though, I think, which puts us (back) on the trajectory to the License Raj and the (old) Turkish civil service and an infinite horde of petty but bribable bureaucrats and so forth.

      • invisible finger

        China or Chicago.

      • juris imprudent

        That’s kinda what provoked some thoughts on my part about ex-patting to France. French culture has long transcended French governance and maybe that is a vibe I could connect with. I can see why that just doesn’t come naturally to us here.

      • slumbrew

        Ignoring the government as much as possible seems to be a national sport there.

      • Ask your doctor if BEAM is right for you

        As you can imagine, with family in Normandy, the Spousal Unit and I have toyed with the idea of de-camping to the Land ‘o Wine and Cheese ourselves; we finally decided against it, because of various financial unknowns involved in moving there.

        But I’d sure as Hell spend six months a year there if I could.

  10. juris imprudent

    did not receive the transfer, and after three months

    Buttle, Tuttle – what’s the difference?

  11. Mojeaux

    Taco Bell’s only real value is cheap food fast and late at night.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      The risk of food poisoning is also quite low.

  12. Chafed

    Great music link SF. I was surprised didn’t last longer and become a much bigger act.

    • SugarFree

      Especially since they got so much exposure being on the main stage for Lollapalooza 2.

      • slumbrew

        That’s where I saw them.

        Main Stage: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ministry, Ice Cube, Soundgarden, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Pearl Jam, Lush.

        *shakes cane at damn kids on the lawn*

      • Count Potato

        I wouldn’t go that far. Maybe Depeche Mode?

      • slumbrew

        This Ministry is much closer to the Mary Jane Girls

      • slumbrew

        And now I’m going down memory lane with the track listing from With Sympathy.

        I played the shit out of that cassette.

      • Count Potato

        Yes, that is.

      • Translucent Chum

        Heh. Just that song. I swear it’s the same music as In My House…

      • Galt1138

        I still have the 12″ dance single for In My House.

      • slumbrew

        I’m still bummed my All Day / Everyday 12″ was lost along with the rest of my small vinyl collection.

      • slumbrew
      • SugarFree

        I was passed out stoned by the time the Chili Peppers came on. No loss, never was much of a fan.

      • Chipwooder

        Better lineup overall than Lollapalooza ’97 when I went, but that one did have Tool as the headliner. Main stage (as far as I can remember) was one of Bob Marley’s sons, James, Korn, Snoop Dogg, Tool, and a few techno acts who I paid no attention to because I generally hate the genre.

      • slumbrew

        Per wikipedia:

        Main Stage: Orbital, Devo, The Prodigy, The Orb, Tool, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Tricky, Korn (dropped out in July owing to illness),[10] James, Julian Marley and Damian Marley, G. Love & Special Sauce and the Uprising Band, Failure

        Orbital? Tricky? The Orb? That’s right up my alley!

        (fine – outside of “Little Fluffy Clouds”, not a giant fan of The Orb).

      • l0b0t

        Oh man, for me, The Orb will always bring to mind late night, MDMA or mushroom fueled mountain bike runs around New Orleans. A leisurely ride down to the Superdome, an hour or so there until security chases one away, then a high speed run up the Mississippi River Boardwalk, through Da 1/4, Marigny, and Bywater; hitting the gates of the Navy base at the Poland Ave. wharf. Then turning around and flying down to The Roundup for cocktails or Port O’ Call for cocktails and cheeseburgers.

      • rhywun

        The only band listed above I would pay to see is Lush.

        And maybe Ministry. And Tool.

        I enjoy a couple of the others but only moderately.

        Good gravy those shows were a lot of suck.

      • slumbrew

        Soundgarden and Pearl Jam were both good – They had just released Badmotorfinger & Ten, respectively, before that tour.

      • Agent Cooper

        The Ministry set at that Lollapalooza was the greatest live act I’ve ever seen. The place was manic. The crowd was overturning garbage cans. Some guy had a hundred or so paper plates and was tossing them into the air like frisbees one after the other. It was sincerely mesmerizing.

        I’m not even that big of a Ministry fan.

      • slumbrew

        Hah, it was also during the Ministry set that people tore up (what was then) Great Woods

      • rhywun

        Meh, their older stuff is much better anyway.

    • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

      I saw that at the University of Chicago. Great show in a small venue.

  13. R C Dean

    The resort admitted to the error in an email to Angello in January, CNN reported, and claimed to have refunded the money. Angello’s bank, the United States Automobile Association (USAA), said it did not receive the transfer, and after three months, withdrew a credit given to her to compensate for the financial loss.

    USAA’s customer service, especially on credit card issues, has seriously declined. I’ve had a couple over recent years, and it has been deathly slow and unsatisfactory in almost every way.

    • Swiss Servator

      All their service has declined – funny, they went from being small, exclusive to officers…then NCOs too…then anyone in….then “hey, you had a relative who had 120 enlistment in the Civil War? JOIN!!!” and they have deteriorated at each step.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Can confirm. However, even their shadow of themselves can still be better than their competition.

        The membership expansion is a symptom of their mindset, not the cause.

      • Sensei

        Yup…

        I actually have my great great grandfather’s Civil War discharge. So I’m all good!

      • The Bearded Hobbit

        I actually have *my* great great grandfather’s Civil War discharge, too. 103rd Ohio Infantry.

      • Count Potato

        GEICO is still good though.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        They tried to nearly triple my rates when I moved back to TX. Screw them.

      • Count Potato

        Really? What happened?

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Sent them my new address in TX, and the auto renewal that was upcoming jumped from $300ish to almost $700. Umbrella went up even more by percentage, nearly triple.

        I’ve never had an accident, short one deer incident a few years back (that didn’t impact the price at all), no tickets, no change in the cars. No nothing. They simply took advantage of me moving and attempted to jack up the price.

        I didn’t give them a chance to negotiate down. I jumped to progressive, who was in the ballpark of what I was paying GEICO in Virginia.

      • Count Potato

        Weird. Maybe a difference in state insurance laws?

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        That’s what I initially thought when they pulled out more than expected for the partial term, but progressive matched my older cheaper geico bill within $40 over 6 months. I don’t doubt that Geico could’ve been competitive, but I don’t reward companies that try to gouge the customer only to negotiate down drastically whenever the customer complains.

      • Sensei

        I don’t know if Swiss will comment, but as an insider.

        Rule of thumb is mutuals are preferred, but there are good for profits and crappy mutuals so it’s a generalization.

        GEICO used to cancel policies of people who reported stolen radar detectors. Not sure if that’s the case anymore, but they used to be “speed kills” kind of insurer.

        I’ll cheerfully pay a little more for a company that won’t hassle you and nickel and dime you if you make claim. For personal lines – “Here’s lookin at you Allstate”.

      • Swiss Servator

        I had an evil uncle who worked for Allstate. Never.

  14. The Late P Brooks

    I have these pieces of paper in my wallet…

  15. rhywun

    The historians’ views were very much in sync with his own:

    Get out!

    • leon

      Lol.

      The Hooker told him she had a good time.

  16. Rebel Scum

    The historians’ views were very much in sync with his own: It is time to go even bigger and faster than anyone expected.

    Because they are activists.

    Mid-terms a comin’.

    As if the electorate’s vote matters anymore.

    • juris imprudent

      Seemed to matter for all of the down-ballot offices in the last election.

      • Drake

        I’m highly skeptical of the Michigan and Georgia Senate elections.

  17. The Late P Brooks

    I mean, such a move would make you go down in history, that’s for sure.

    He proved his lifelong commitment to DEMOCRACY! when he abolished the Republican party and appointed himself President-For-Life.

    • juris imprudent

      NARRATOR: Which turned out to be a surprisingly short term.

      • Drake

        Didn’t see it then but I agree. I joined the Marines during the Cold War and we were still planning for the big one. For us that meant being harder and better trained than our adversaries who would outnumber us. To fight and keep on fighting even if it came down to knives and fists.

      • leon

        The Army isn’t in a great state, but to be fair, What state is the Chinese military in? What actual scenarious have their leadership been in either?

        The Russians at least have had a no shit fight with the Ukranians, and so are probably the more dangerous threat to US than Chinese military.

      • Drake

        I bet the Chinese military isn’t actively trying to make themselves less effective.

      • leon

        Don’t you have to be a CPP Member to be an officer? Isn’t that all tied up in Party Politics? I guarentee you that the PLA is fraught with dipshit officers there becaues they know how to kiss Xi’s ass just right.

      • leon

        This is fantastic.

      • slumbrew

        Hey, it’s Frank Grillo!

        Gotta pay the bills…

      • juris imprudent

        The Chinese will be fighting on home terrain (at least per the recently announced Army strategy for the Pacific). They can be less effective and still have a lot of advantages.

      • Swiss Servator

        I don’t think the Russian invasions of Ukraine and Georgia have shown the Russian military to be all that much a threat to us. Their navy has all but disappeared as well.

      • kinnath

        I’m pretty sure the Russian military was coming apart when I was travelling in the middle 90s.

        The only issue is whether or not they have any functioning ICBMs with nuclear payloads.

      • l0b0t

        We’ve discussed this on the late late zoomy. China (and when I say China I mean the CCP) is not any threat at all in the traditional military sense. They have no ability to project their forces in any meaningful way. Invading them would be stupid because manpower; small UAVs make naval action against them difficult but containment is not impossible. Honestly, I think they will collapse from internal economic pressures if just shut out from a significant percentage of the global supply chain. The DPRK they ain’t.

      • juris imprudent

        Peter Zeihan is very bearish on China – bad demographics and heavy dependence on exports. So that’s two strikes. I’d add that the succession of Xi is unlikely to be smooth – particularly if things domestically (in China) are unstable. And he is projecting this by the start of the next decade.

      • juris imprudent

        I had missed that, thanks for the pointer to it.

    • leon

      The U.S. Army announced Monday that it will use keep the events on the third version of the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT 3.0) gender-neutral, but male and female soldiers will be evaluated on separate gender-specific percentile tiers, amid concerns female soldiers are scoring lower and disproportionately failing the test compared to their male counterparts.

      That’s not Gender Neutural.

      What the Army should do is set the standard as the standard, and then not care how much better you do on the test than the Standard.

    • Hyperion

      Xi and Putin are still having their forever cocktail party, now with MOAR COCKTAIL!

    • Rat on a train

      War is graded on a curve.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Parabolic?

      • Rat on a train

        para bellum?

    • juris imprudent

      If the ACFT was the worst of the dysfunction in the Army it would be one thing, but throw in the entire Acquisition bureaucracy – which was deformed not one bit by all of the reforms concurrent with the latest 4-star [Futures] command. All it does is the same old stupid shit, just a tiny bit faster. And then you take a good look at the people making the GO ranks (and in fairness, they are what the system spits out).

      Ass kicking? They won’t even be able to find their ass with both hands and a field manual.

    • rhywun

      Whoever wrote this should be assigned to a remedial English class.

      They could start by doing a find/replace on “gender” with “sex”.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      C’mon man, everybody knows the Chinese are softies.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Fuck, I remember when the new Marine Commandant (Al Gray) showed up in Okinawa and told us that the days of PT being some easy formation runs were over – even for the Air Wing – and we were going to start doing more practical conditioning like humps with our packs.

      His quote: “Right now we’ll be the best looking mob with our fancy red running shorts to ever get run off a hill”.

      I’m guessing he wouldn’t have been a big fan of this sort of sissification of the Corps.

      • Ozymandias

        Al Gray was – and still is last time I saw him speak – the shit.
        Last time I saw him speak at a Marine Corps birthday ball, he was invited to speak AFTER the Chairman of the JCS (and former Commandant, Joe Dunford) had just finished speaking as the guest of honor. Gray got up and essentially swatted the sitting CJCS by saying something to the effect of: “I don’t know about all of that, but when I was with Chesty Puller at Choisin…” Gray’s speech lasted about 1 minute and had the place roaring.
        I looked around my table and was like, “Did Al Gray just bitchslap the Chairman?” A lot of heads were nodding and laughing. (And I should note, I know Dunford personally. He was always known as a great officer and a good guy and still seems to be that).
        I have some friends who have epic Al Gray stories from when he was the CG for 2nd Mar Div.

      • Galt1138

        Mark Rippetoe occasionally complains about PT in the military, and how wasteful it is to spend so much time running/marching, when strength training will benefit soldiers more (and they’ll still be able to hoof it with heavy gear).

    • Pope Jimbo

      Hold on to my carrot a second

      That photo was sent to me by a coworker yesterday. It was taken by his daughter at her apartment. The story (according to him):

      Daughter buys a bunch of carrots at CostCo a couple days ago. She’s making lunch and gets them out and opens up the bag to find a hairy lump inside (you really need to look at that photo now). She screams and runs from the room.

      She calms down and comes back to the kitchen and sees that yup, that was a bat in her bag of carrots. Even better, it wasn’t a dead bat! Nope, he had just been hibernating from being stuffed in various refrigerators. After being left out on the nice warm counter he was beginning to come around and was slowly moving.

      Daughter freaks out more, throws everything in a bag and tosses out of her apartment into the front yard. She then called the cops to report the incident.

      That is where the story ended. The coworker didn’t know what the cops said or if they ever showed up.

      We’ve been teasing him about the all the settlement money his daughter threw out the front door.

      • Count Potato

        I wonder how it got in there?

      • Hyperion

        It hitched a ride across the border on one of those illegal farm laborers from Wuhan.

      • l0b0t

        one of the coolest cats I’ve ever known lived in Tallahassee. His name was Foot, and he loved to perch on the roof of the carriage house and when the bats would emerge from the dormer window, he would leap and tackle them midair. There would be heads on the porch, to let his humans know what a good boy he was in the morning.

      • Hyperion

        Oh shit, I haven’t opened either of those 2 lb. bags or carrots I just bought at Costco…

      • Hyperion

        Have you told Costco yet that you didn’t want any bat with your carrots?

      • Hank

        “We’ve been teasing him about the all the settlement money his daughter threw out the front door.”

        I wonder if Costco would let it go to court, or if they’d look at their internal documents and say, “nope, don’t want any of that revealed, let’s settle.”

        NOTE TO COSTCO LAWYERS: I said I don’t know.

      • Hyperion

        You didn’t see that tiny print on the Costco label that can only be read with an electron microscope stating ‘Costco is void of any liability for the bats found in your product?’.

      • Hank

        “It’s listed right there, after monosodium glutinate.”

  18. Pope Jimbo

    Minnesoda’s Supreme Court unanimously shitlords all over rape victims. I look forward to the strident howling and passage of terrible laws to “fix” this.

    In Minnesota, a person who is sexually assaulted while intoxicated isn’t considered “mentally incapacitated” — a designation that warrants a higher charge for the attacker — if he or she consumed alcohol or drugs voluntarily, according to a new state Supreme Court decision that could have far-reaching consequences for rape victims.

    The unanimous Supreme Court decision, written by Justice Paul Thissen, says the lower court’s definition of mentally incapacitated in this case “unreasonably strains and stretches the plain text of the statute” because the victim took intoxicants before encountering her attacker. The statute “means that a person under the influence of alcohol is not mentally incapacitated unless the alcohol was administered to the person under its influence without that person’s agreement,” wrote Thissen.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Another good quote:

      The opinion comes after a new report, prompted by a Star Tribune investigative series, that urges lawmakers to adopt stricter laws to protect victims of alcohol-related sexual assault. The report found that the current law poses a “significant roadblock” to prosecuting cases where someone is voluntarily intoxicated but unable to consent.

      The local newspaper wrote a story! And the Supreme Court doesn’t take it seriously? Or listen to the journalos?

      THIS SHALL NOT STAND!

      • Drake

        What if they are both intoxicated? Mutual rape?

      • R C Dean

        The report found that the current law poses a “significant roadblock”

        There is no such roadblock to prosecuting cases. “But she was drunk” is not a defense now or ever.

    • R C Dean

      isn’t considered “mentally incapacitated” — a designation that warrants a higher charge for the attacker — if he or she consumed alcohol or drugs voluntarily

      That’s been the rule forever. Basically, if you get shitfaced, you assume the risk of being shitfaced. Don’t want to assume the risk? Don’t get shitfaced.

      Consequences for rape victims from this ruling? Zero. It doesn’t change the law, and it only says the enhanced penalties for a convicted rapist don’t apply.

      I, too, look forward to the gross misrepresentations and lies about this ruling.

      • SugarFree

        “I drank myself retarded” is no longer an enhanced charge.

      • Pope Jimbo

        So you can’t sue your friends for making fun of your beer goggles?

      • leon

        I, too, look forward to the gross misrepresentations and lies about this ruling.

        I can easily see the twitterati screeching: “Minnesota legalizes Rape of drunk women!”

        Also, this is the fundamental difference in vewipont on the purpose of the courts. The Court says “Hey your law that the legislature voted on, doesn’t allow for this”. If the people of michigan want it that way, they should go to the legislature and make them fix it. The Court should not (though often does) serve as a super legislator changing the laws to make people feel good. Therin lies the seeds of tyranny.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    male and female soldiers will be evaluated on separate gender-specific percentile tiers, amid concerns female soldiers are scoring lower and disproportionately failing the test compared to their male counterparts.

    They should do it like one of those staggered-start races where everybody theoretically gets to the finish line at the same time. Let the men start doing pull ups first, and then have the women start after a delay. For the mile run, give the women a lap and a half head start.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Back in my day, the WM’s didn’t even do pullups, they just hung on the bar for as long as they could. I can’t remember if they had to do the three mile run or if it was shorter.

      We had a female gunney in my squadron in Okinawa who was a big time triathalon racer. She won a few of them while she was there and was an exceptional female athlete. She tried a few times to run in all male formation runs and had a hard time keeping up. And we were just average swinging with the wing types (well except for me).

    • Drake

      Pretty much how it worked in mixed gender Marine units. The women ran 2 miles, stopped, and watched the men run the third mile.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Thanks, I thought they ran a shorter distance, but I couldn’t remember for sure.

      • Drake

        The real issue is that running doesn’t mean shit. I was never a great runner and there were women in the unit who could outrun me. But when we put on our combat gear and went for a long march, all the WM’s stayed behind or road in a safety vehicle. Not one of them could have stayed with us for even a mile with gear on.

      • Pope Jimbo

        We had a salty gunney in Memphis who was always making us do the Old Breed pt tests.

        Climbing up/down a cargo net, a broad jump with a pack on, rope climbing. It was fun and probably a lot better for training than simple running was.

      • Drake

        I had to climb down a net from a ship to landing craft in the middle of the Pacific once – terrifying.

    • leon

      Last month, Capt. Kristen Griest, the first U.S. Army infantry officer and one of the first of three women to earn the Army Ranger Tab, wrote an essay sharing her opposition to gender-specific fitness standards.

      And they consider themselves a reputable Military reporting outfit.?

  20. DEG

    Presidential historian Michael Beschloss told Axios FDR and LBJ may turn out to be the past century’s closest analogues for the Biden era, “in terms of transforming the country in important ways in a short time.”

    DOOOOOOM!

    • R C Dean

      FDR and LBJ may turn out to be the past century’s closest analogues for the Biden era

      War it is, then.

      • juris imprudent

        A 2 front land war in Asia?

  21. DEG

    NH man in fatal shoot-out had an AK-47

    The man who entered into a fatal shootout with a New Hampshire State Police trooper two days before Christmas was a convicted felon who used a modified AK-47 and two high-capacity magazines in the gun battle, authorities said Wednesday.

    Mark R. Clermont, 45, was shot and killed in the night-time shootout with Trooper Matthew Merrill in Dalton, according to a press briefing and 47-page report released today by Acting Attorney General Jane Young. Young ruled the shooting justified under New Hampshire law.

    At least 30 rounds were exchanged between Merrill and Clermont, while residents of a Bridge Hill Road mobile home huddled in their play-room shed in Dalton, a town of about 1,000 in the North Country just north of Whitefield, authorities said.

    Clermont initiated the gunfire when he and the trooper struggled on the ground. During the struggle and two separate gun battles, Merrill felt confused at times, couldn’t see and felt his trigger was gummy, said Associate Attorney General Jeff Strelzin.

    Meanwhile, the owner of the property and his family, Chris Landry, at one point struck Clermont with the handle of a machete to keep him from entering their shed, which was the family playroom. And after Merrill shot Clermont fatally, he retreated to the house of a neighbor across the street, who let him in, called 911 and tended to his wounds.

    • R C Dean

      struck Clermont with the handle of a machete

      Dude, yer doin’ it wrong.

    • leon

      a modified AK-47 and two high-capacity magazine

      What do they meant by “High-Capacity” magazines. Was he shooting out of a drum or a standard 20 or 30 round magazine?

      • DEG

        From the article:

        Strelzin said authorities have not determined how Clermont obtained the weapons. He said high-capacity magazines, which hold a maximum of 30 rounds, are legal in New Hampshire.

      • DEG

        I wonder what the guy would say if he hears about my 40 round magazines.

      • Wood Chipped Wednesday

        They mean more than 1.

    • Rebel Scum

      Police shooter had AK-47, two high-capacity bullet clips

      Wow…That’s some headline.

      modified AK-47

      Like with an optic?

      • DEG

        modified AK-47

        Like with an optic?

        From the article:

        Serial numbers had been removed from the weapon, and its stock was removed, which made it easier to carry around.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Huh…from my lessons in Heartbreak Ridge, it did not have the distinct sound of my enemy’s weapon of choice. Movies are bullshit man.

  22. DEG

    FBI confiscates BitCoin ATM from Murphy’s Taproom in Manchester, NH

    A Bitcoin ATM connected to an FBI raid last week in Keene has been removed from Murphy’s Taproom on Elm Street.

    Last week, the FBI arrested Free Keene leader Ian Freeman and five others who are part of the libertarian movement on charges related to an unlicensed cryptocurrency exchange they ran through churches they were closely affiliated with.

    The cryptocurrency vending machine (CVM) in Manchester was installed by Bitcoin Embassy NH, which is connected to the Shire Free Church, according to business records. The group has operated the machine at Murphy’s since 2016.

    Unlike a traditional ATM, CVMs sell the virtual currency for cash, like other vending machines. This particular machine did not allow users to trade Bitcoin or other crypto currencies for cash.

    • juris imprudent

      Using a church as a shell? Nice try.

      • Swiss Servator

        Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and The Nation of Islam laugh at you.

      • DEG

        It’s OK when the right people do it.

      • juris imprudent

        They only laundered good ol’ greenbacks.

  23. The Late P Brooks

    Hurry, before it’s too late

    After mass shootings in Boulder and Atlanta that killed 18 people in the span of a single week, lawmakers are once again calling for stricter gun regulation in America. The gun industry is already preparing for a surge of sales.
    “When you hear more calls for firearm restrictions, we have observed gun sale increases primarily from people buying before they’re not able to,” said Rob Southwick, founder of the market research firm Southwick Associates.

    ——-

    On Tuesday, President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass gun-control legislation that Democrats introduced earlier this month.

    “I don’t need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take common-sense steps that will save lives in the future,” Biden said, listing a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, as well as strengthening the background check system by closing loopholes, as areas he would like to see Congress act.

    If you have been thinking about shooting up a school, or a mall, or maybe even your place of work, you’d better get on it, before Joe decides to make it illegal.

    Don’t get left out of the fun.

  24. Hank

    Michael Beschloss is the one historian named in the Biden article – I checked the titles of his books, and it looks like they would be in the spank bank of any would-be dictator/President:

    Presidents of War: The Epic Story, from 1807 to Modern Times

    Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989

    The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1941-1945

    The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960–1963

    Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev, and the U-2 Affair

    The Presidents of the United States of America [with Hugh Sidey]

    Kennedy and Roosevelt: The Uneasy Alliance [with James MacGregor Burns]

    • leon

      The Presidents of the United States of America [with Hugh Sidey]

      Who the hell is Hugh Sidey, and why is he being included with the presidents?

      • Hank

        coauthor

      • slumbrew
      • Hank

        Oh, yes, ha ha, I knew that, I was just checking to make sure *you* knew it.

    • Pope Jimbo

      The Presidents of the United States of America

      Sounds Peachy

      • bacon-magic

        +MILLIONS

      • The Other Kevin

        It’s not fair to lump them all together.

    • juris imprudent

      The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1941-1945

      Stalin and Churchill had a lot more to do with that.

  25. Rebel Scum

    Serves her right for having an opinion that questions the narrative of St. Floyd.

    A Bishop Ready High School theology teacher was fired after making comments during a virtual class last week disputing whether George Floyd could breathe while a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck May 25.

    Deborah DelPrince’s employment at Bishop Ready High School was terminated Friday after she was placed on administrative leave the day before by the Catholic Diocese of Columbus, Deacon Thomas M. Berg, Jr., Chancellor of the diocese said Tuesday.

    She had been a teacher at the Catholic high school in Columbus’ Hilltop neighborhood since 1999. When reached by phone for a comment Tuesday afternoon, she hung up immediately.

    During a class on Feb. 24, she responded on camera during a virtual class to a student’s screen showing LeBron James wearing a shirt that says “I can’t breathe”: “That’s not necessarily true, but it perpetuates a myth against police.”

    • kbolino

      Forget politically charged bullshit, how many teachers are just unloading their emotional problems on the students these days? Or just otherwise failing to maintain the emotional separation necessary for a proper relationship where one of the individuals is in a position of authority over the other. None of that unprofessional behavior gets punished (unless it crosses certain specific lines, and even then only if they get caught). It’s not so much that the “standards” go one way as that there aren’t really any standards at all.

      • leon

        I tell my wife this, but as i get older, the more and more i realize that large swaths of stuff i was told by teachers are just shit they made up.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    “But she was drunk” is not a defense now or ever.

    Now I want to see a story about a Divorce Court “But she knew I was an asshole when she married me” defense.

  27. Rebel Scum

    I assume this means that the admin is converting the border facilities into labor camps.

    President Joe Biden put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of his efforts to fix the border crisis that has erupted under his leadership after he reversed many of the policies that the Trump administration used to secure the United States-Mexico border.

    “With the move, Biden hopes to show Americans he’s taking the border situation seriously after facing stiff criticism from Republicans as the flow of migrants has increased since he took office in January,” The Associated Press reported. “But the high-profile assignment for Harris, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 and is expected to run for the White House again in the future, could be politically fraught.”

    The move comes after Harris was widely criticized this week for laughing when she was asked if she was going to visit the southern border to view the crisis. Thousands of children have been detained in federal custody after crossing the border, many of whom have been kept for periods of time longer than legally allowed and in facilities that have been described as “akin to jails” where they have been subjected to “horrific conditions” that include “disease, hunger and overcrowding.”

    • Ownbestenemy

      “…put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of his efforts” Yeah and Grizzly Adams had a beard.

  28. SP

    As noted in the dead thread, if you have anything of interest to the community, that you own the rights to or that is in the public domain, and you wish to share it as a download, email me and I’ll add it to our Downloads page.

    Additionally, I have added a new section near the top of the Forum to make it easier to find and share resources.

    • Ownbestenemy

      It was a #1 and done until #33 showed up and I forgot where I was.

  29. Pope Jimbo

    The audacity of saying you urgently had to pass another $3T of spending on the heels of a $2T boondoggle is amazing.

    Especially since you have already signaled that you are willing to use chicanery to get it passed. Fuck, you read stories about how the states don’t even know how to spend the hundreds of billions they already got.

    • juris imprudent

      But the states know they can’t use that money to create any tax relief – for 5 years.

    • Hank

      So, Moore is saying Alissa shouldn’t have left Syria to be corrupted by America’s violent mores?

      • Hyperion

        Coming to American automagically made him a racist. Maybe we need to close the border?

      • Pope Jimbo

        To be fair, he would have fit right into Syrian culture right about now.

        Why do we want him to give up his delightful Old Country ways and force him to assimilate into a systemically racist country?

    • Hyperion

      Assimilate == mow a bunch of innocent bystanders down. Well, OK then!

      • Hank

        I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but it’s as if Moore doesn’t like his country very much.

        Of course he *would* like America better if it were reconfigured to fit his specifications.

      • Hyperion

        I’ll gladly donate to any fundme page buying him a one way ticket to China.

  30. Pope Jimbo

    Admit it. You guys are all jelly because you only have NPR to inform your world view. In Minnesoda we only use NPR as a backup news source because we have MPR. Behold….

    Roads are getting deadlier for pedestrians; fatality rates are worse for minorities

    Racism (with the new improved Asian flavor)! Scary SUVs! For The Children! All of that and fun with statistics:

    And in the first half of 2020, while driving was down because of the pandemic, the pedestrian death rate — the number of people struck and killed compared with the number of miles driven — soared by 20 percent, putting 2020 on track for the largest one-year increase in the death rate ever.

    No where in the story do they give you the actual numbers from 2020. How many were killed? And if driving during the pandemic is down, the rate could increase even without an increase in deaths.

    • Pope Jimbo

      In addition to releasing preliminary statistics for 2020, the GHSA also took a deep dive into figures from 2019 and before. The group reported about a third of pedestrians were intoxicated when they were struck, and deaths are more common at night and in warm states (possibly because warmer weather encourages nighttime walking).

      So maybe the increased drinking during the pandemic could also be a factor in all those pedestrian deaths? Why not spin it as: Lockdowns causing more pedestrian deaths!?

    • Pope Jimbo

      This year, for the first time, the GHSA also broke out data by race and found Black, Native American and Hispanic people were substantially overrepresented in pedestrian deaths, compared with their proportion of the overall population.

      That trend, too, predates the pandemic. But Naomi Doerner, director of equity, diversity and inclusion at transportation consulting firm Nelson\Nygaard, notes the disparities of the pandemic affected pedestrian vulnerability, too.

      “A lot of people who could not stay home are essential workers,” she says. “A lot of those workers are comprised of people of color … and we know that a lot of those folks are transit riders, pedestrians or bike riders.”

      Likewise, it sounds like mass transit and bike riding are a good way to die. And these people want MOAR mass transit?! Do they want minorities to die?

      • creech

        Are you a heartless bastard who wants to see poor pedestrians die? There’s a growing transportation equity gap in this country. It is time for President Harris to have Congress jam through legislation providing late model, U.S. made cars for everyone who wants one.

    • db

      You don’t need to see the source data, just trust their analysis. They do the work so you don’t have to, Citizen.

    • slumbrew

      If nothing else, your updates remind me that Massachusetts isn’t really the derpiest state.

    • KromulentKristen

      So black folks are like Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer – incapable of understanding today’s scary fast modern world?

      • kbolino

        Or, as is often the case, they just tend to be more urban, and pedestrian hits and fatalities (like a whole host of other statistics) are worse in urban areas. “White people more likely to die in ATV and pickup truck-related incidents” would be a more obvious inverse of this.

    • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

      Asians are especially at risk because they tend to live in neighborhoods with a lot of Asian drivers.

  31. Francisco d'Anconia

    Demolition Man is real!

    Damn! Looks like Ima have to figure out the three seashells

  32. Count Potato

    “Footage has emerged showing the moment Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was attacked with bear mace during the January 6 insurrection.

    Sicknick, 42, died the day after he and two other officers were sprayed in the face with chemicals as a mob of rioters sought to overtake the US Capitol building.

    The alleged perpetrators, George Pierre Tanios and Julian Elie Khater, were arrested last week and are facing multiple felony charges including assaulting police with a deadly weapon.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9397417/Moment-Capitol-cop-Brian-Sicknick-hit-bear-spray-MAGA-riots.html

    • slumbrew

      There you go, proof positive. You get sprayed with bear mace and you have a stroke the next day. Everyone knows that.

    • juris imprudent

      So how was it that he was injured and didn’t get any treatment?

    • rhywun

      I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation for why they’re still sitting on the autopsy report.

      • R C Dean

        They aren’t charging them with murder.

        And waitaminute – bear spray is a deadly weapon now? But when the cops use it, its “non-lethal”?

      • Count Potato

        It’s lethal if you use it on a grizzly, because it just makes him want to kill you.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I was about to say that the autopsy report would certainly be part of discovery for murder.

      • Hyperion

        “they’re living better than us!”

        Well, if they would just forget about that old racist Constitution thing and vote for the right people, they could have nice things too!

    • Pope Jimbo

      Sure it is cramped with 26 migrant children, but we do have the nicest lawn on the block now.

      • Hyperion

        And all of our tomatoes are picked!

      • Hank

        Oh no you di’nt!

      • Hyperion

        *shrugs* Orphan supplies are running low because of the Pandemic.

    • rhywun

      Wow. What a clusterfuck.

    • The Other Kevin

      I’m honestly shocked there isn’t a big public outcry about this. For a year we were locked down, kept out of work, restaurants, gyms, and all the other things we enjoy. We were kept from our loved ones, even as some of them lay dying. We were tested and masked and social distanced. We were told to quarantine if we traveled across a state line. And now we have thousands coming over the border. No precautions, no testing, no social distancing, just, come on in and make yourself comfortable!

      • rhywun

        Is there even a “big public outcry” if the media doesn’t report one?

      • Tulip

        I’m sure that they don’t spread Covid. Just like the mostly peaceful protests.

    • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

      But WaPo just assured me that there’s no surge.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Wait a second. I fought California policy was not to cooperate with federal border and immigration enforcement. Why are they suddenly coughing up foster care?

    • Hyperion

      “suffering liver failure and needing transplant”

      Meaning he’ll have to not drink any alcohol for at least 6 months before he can get on the transplant list. In the new normal, a fate worse than death.

    • Count Potato

      “It doesn’t say it caused hepatitis, though.”

      I mean, was the water infected?

    • rhywun

      Today I learned there is an “alkaline water craze”.

      SMDH

    • Ownbestenemy

      Welp…I am going to die…..usually what I pickup on my early morning days cause its 2 for $2 bucks….

    • Ownbestenemy

      “Under Nevada law, retailers can also be held liable for selling defective products. ”

      Cause they should be responsible….Nevada has so many good things…and then they have this.

      • rhywun

        That is… insane.

        Why would anyone open a retail operation there?

      • Ownbestenemy

        Given the news…I would probably guess is they are responsible if they sell a known harmful product and not just one that has been found years later to cause harm.

        I am trying to find the law now…

      • Ownbestenemy

        NRS 42.005 Exemplary and punitive damages: In general; limitations on amount of award; determination in subsequent proceeding.
        Section 2, Subsection A: A manufacturer, distributor or seller of a defective product;

        I would suspect to initiate that clause, you would have to prove the manufacturer or even the seller knew the product was defective and continued selling it.

        So normal laws…nothing to fret about from what I see.

    • Hank

      That he’s handsome, brave and has nice breasts?

  33. Ask your doctor if BEAM is right for you

    Re: Biden trying to transform America:

    I’ll say this about the Left/Progs — they don’t fart around when they get all the levers of power. Our own Conservative Party in Canada, recently led by PM Stephen Harper, believed that whilst in power, “gradualism” or “incrementalism” was the best way to proceed, to slowly, oh ever so slowly, move the Overton Window to the right, to help the poor reluctant dears in Central Canada and on the left side of the political spectrum here get used to it.

    When the Liberals took back power in 2015, they damn well yanked the steering wheel left and stomped on the gas virtually from Day One, and fuck anybody to the right of ’em.

    Cons never learn. NEVER.

    • Hyperion

      At this very moment, the RINOs in Congress are lining up around the block to get back to bipartisanism and give the left everything they want.

      • kbolino

        Bipartisanship means 300-400 people get to insert their cronyist amendments into the bills instead of just 270.

      • The Other Kevin

        Of course! Who wouldn’t want to be part of history!

  34. trshmnstr the terrible

    Whelp, I learned a very basic lesson over again today. The sharp part of the knife isn’t a good place for fingertips. I made the dumb mistake of making the sponge go the wrong way across the blade. Thankfully I don’t think it needs stitches.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Always blade down….always….

    • slumbrew

      Ouchie.

      I’ve also learned to rest the hand holding the knife on the edge of the sink & bring the sponge/brush to it vs. the opposite. I’ve slipped more than once, doing it the other way.

    • db

      Oh man I did that a couple of months ago with a new 8″ chef’s knife I got for Christmas. No stitches, but I took a nice filet almost completely off of the pad of my finger. I reattached it and kept it bandaged and disinfected and it healed in a few days. Curled up around the edges though, and I had to trim it back as the old skin died off.

  35. kinnath

    Sportsmans Guide has shipped six M1a mags already. They’ve had pretty good service so far.

    • The Bearded Hobbit

      Just picked up two AR mags for $13 each with a 15% discount on to of that. Can buy mags, just can’t find anything to put in them.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Not if you are into rap music.

      • Hank

        Her Facebook screenshot has “n****r”

      • Hank

        I mean, asterisks and all.

      • Ownbestenemy

        nascar? Seems legit

      • Hank

        That would also be hate speech in SF.

      • slumbrew

        “nagger”

      • rhywun

        Negger, please.

    • rhywun

      Not if she used the rapper-approved version.

  36. Pope Jimbo

    Someone just read about Minnesoda getting all that Fed money for spending. Cost of wall for new light rail line increases by 356%

    A mile-long wall separating freight and light-rail trains on the Southwest light rail route will cost nearly $93 million — a 356% increase over what was initially budgeted four years ago.

    The “corridor protection barrier” was a late addition to the light-rail line, which will connect downtown Minneapolis to Eden Prairie.

    BNSF Railway, which operates trains in the corridor and controls the land, insisted in 2017 that a barrier separate freight and light-rail trains. At the time, the Metropolitan Council, which is building Southwest, estimated that the cost to build the wall would be about $20 million.

    I don’t want to hear any wild conspiracy theories from you guys about connected cronies jacking up prices just because the pols here have a couple hundred billion burning a hole in their pockets.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      $93,000,000 per mile for a wall? I’m in the wrong business.

  37. Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

    “It is time to go even bigger and faster than anyone expected. If that means chucking the filibuster and bipartisanship, so be it.”

    Hence the National Guard at the Capitol.

  38. Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

    When I was young it was popular amongst the teens to steal the bell from Taco Bell. This was when it was an actual bell that wasn’t cemented in place or just an illuminated sign. Alas, it was a little before my time. Too young to be hippies. Missed out on the bell.

    • slumbrew

      Still, NEVER FUCKING APOLOGIZE.

      Forever and ever, amen.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Jeebus, what an idiot.

    • Hank

      “The majority of Leno’s old jokes perpetuated stereotypes about Asian communities consuming dog meat.”

      This stereotype is also perpetrated by this organization:

      “The mission of China Rescue Dogs is to rescue and rehabilitate dogs from the meat trade in China and provide them with loving homes in the U.S. and Canada.”

      https://chinarescuedogs.org/

      • Hank

        And here’s a Reuters article from April 9 last year:

        ‘China reclassifies dogs as pets, not livestock, in post-virus regulatory push

        [Trigger warning: Photo of slaughtered dogs]

        ‘…Though dog meat remains a delicacy in many regions, the Ministry of Agriculture said in a notice published on Wednesday that dogs would no longer be considered as livestock. It uses that designation for animals that can be bred to provide food, milk, fur, fibre and medicine, or to serve the needs of sports or the military….

        “Dog consumption has become increasingly unpopular in China, and the southern city of Shenzhen became the first to ban it last month.

        “However, the Humane Society International, an animal welfare group, estimated that around 10 million dogs a year are still killed in China for meat, including stolen pets. The city of Yulin in the region of Guangxi holds an annual dog meat festival in June.”

        https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-dogs-idUSKCN21R1VI

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Surely you know by now that facts are irrelevant.

      • Hank

        You know, I’m feeling a bit queasy, I guess Western arrogance does that to you.

      • l0b0t

        How many animals would not be endangered if the Chinese market did not have a demand for all sorts of stupid patent medicines?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Listen, if you know a better way to get your dick hard than drinking powdered white rhino horn mixed with beer then I’d like to hear it.

      • Ozymandias

        *Insert Q link here*

    • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

      Did he say “I aporogize”?

    • rhywun

      I could never stand him. I watched Carson occasionally but when Leno took over I never watched that show again.

    • Mojeaux

      I wrote a shaggy dog story about Asians eating dogs. Got an A in creative writing class.

      • Gender Traitor

        If you still have it, dare one of your kids to turn it in for an English assignment. 😉

      • UnCivilServant

        Subborning Plagarism?!

        How dare you?

      • Mojeaux

        I wrote a short story for my kid’s English class because she just couldn’t, I knew that, and it was stressing her out disproportionately. She got an A.

        Natch.

      • Mojeaux

        LOL I used it for creative writing 2 also. That time it got a C, but the prof had never heard of a shaggy dog story and he preferred middle-aged male existential angst stories. There were other problems with him. One of very few times I can honestly say, “It’s not me. It’s you.”

      • Ask your doctor if BEAM is right for you

        *GASP*

        CANCELLED!

  39. Ask your doctor if BEAM is right for you

    PSA: Václav Havel’s essay “The Power of the Powerless” (51 pp., 12-point type, PDF, 458 KByte) can now be downloaded from this site. If anyone notices an error, please let me know and I’ll correct it and ask SP to re-upload the corrected version.

    • Count Potato

      It says I need a decryption key.

      • Ask your doctor if BEAM is right for you

        I certainly didn’t encrypt it when I made the PDF, and I did a test download when I saw it was available. Worked perfectly.

        Anybody got any ideas to help out CP? Alternatively, you just wanna tell me what your e-mail is and I’ll mail it to you?

      • Nephilium

        Just tested here, and it downloaded and opened just fine for me in Foxit Reader (which I liked a lot more before they kept trying to install other apps with it).

      • Count Potato

        The pdf isn’t asking for a decryption key, mega is, so I can’t download it.

      • Ask your doctor if BEAM is right for you

        Like I say, tell me your e-mail and I’ll just ship it to you. Did it for Tundra earlier today.

      • Gender Traitor

        Opened fine in Acrobat Reader for me.

    • rhywun

      He should change his name to BrooklynDad_BrainDamaged.

    • Ownbestenemy

      I was waiting for the parody punchline and then I realized I had AIDS too.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Ugh, just think, some poor fool is married to that person.

  40. Count Potato

    “THREAD: Here are all the idiotic leftists who immediately jumped to politicize the tragic Boulder shooting to push their narrative, only for it all to fall apart when it turns out the shooter is muslim…”

    https://twitter.com/CalebJHull/status/1374389676790804482

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      So many faces in need of punching

    • The Gunslinger

      I drove past her restaurant on my way home tonight. The doors are boarded up. There are quite a few homemade signs of support on the wall though.

    • rhywun

      I assume she’ll pay more later for the piles of ‘vid-riddled corpses she will have been responsible for.

  41. Nephilium

    Just got back from a nice bike ride. Just over 15 miles, very few face masks in sight. I felt vindicated when I caught up to and passed someone on an e-assist bike.

    • DEG

      Speaker Cupp, who is a former member of the State Supreme Court, said after the House vote that he has studied the bill in detail, looking for a weakness that would allow a successful constitutional challenge. Cupp said he could not find a constitutional issue that would threaten the bill.

      Paging John Roberts, Paging John Roberts!

      On a serious note, I hope this sticks and has a good effect.

    • Ownbestenemy

      “DeWine and other critics had earlier called the bill dangerous because it would limit quick action in response to an emergency.”

      That argument was somewhat valid exactly a year ago. If you are still running around like a chicken with its head cut off, then you have no business being governor.

    • Nephilium

      I love how all these restrictions and lifting of restrictions have such long out dates. This is an emergency, we need to close things down next week! He’s overstepping his authority, we’ll take it back in 90 days!

      • Ownbestenemy

        They learned from the banking industry

      • UnCivilServant

        90 days? So they still won’t have gotten rid of the illegal orders by the time I’d normally be on vacation?

      • Nephilium

        From the article:

        Senate Bill 22, which takes effect in 90 days, gives lawmakers the authority to cancel any gubernatorial health orders that last longer than 30 days, require the governor’s office to renew such orders every 60 days, and create a legislative oversight panel.

        There’s also the expectation of a judicial challenge, but it’s unknown if the Governor is going to launch the suit or if someone else will. DeWine apparently thinks laws passed to limit his authority are unconstitutional…

      • UnCivilServant

        The problem is, Ohio is between me and most of the country. Without either PA or Ohio flipping to normal, my options start to get limited in terms of how to get somewhere without dealing with the illegal lockdown shit.

      • Nephilium

        DeWine has said that if the case counts get down to 50 per 100k for two weeks for the state, he’ll lift the restrictions as well. It’s been at ~150 per 100k for the past couple of weeks. Local news is reporting ~25% of the population has gotten vaccinated as well.

        The question is which will happen first (and will there be a lawsuit).

      • UnCivilServant

        Forgive me if I don’t trust his word.

      • Gender Traitor

        I’d have serious doubts about your judgment if you did.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I think when the courts inevitably start overriding the legislature on this issue and extending the governors’ powers, we might start to see some actual political violence.

      And it will be justified.

      • DEG

        The Pennsylvania Supreme Court says hi!

        OK, to be fair, there is a provision in the PA constitution stating that concurrent resolutions, except one to adjourn the legislature, have no effect unless the governor signs them.

  42. egould310

    I just came across “FOMO” on the internet. Apparently it’s the fear of missing out. Anxiety disorder caused by social media where a person fears they are not having as fun, or enriching experiences as their peers? This sounds stupid.

    Social media is fucked. People are stupid and fucked. Fuck all of this stupid shit.

    • Tundra

      Go listen to The Jesus and Mary Chain. That will help.

      • egould310

        Thank you. Excellent suggestion.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Yep. My wife asked me just the other day “Do you miss Facebook” and I said “not one bit” What I have is all I need. Mom mails me pictures (which I got a huge box full of), oldest I talk to on occasions, and brother and sister we talk when we can. Life moves on. Except you bastards, I cannot quit you dirty lot.

    • UnCivilServant

      FOMO has been a marketing tactic since, well, more or less forever.

    • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

      Sounds stupid but it’s real. People are insecure, and social media makes it worse. I see it with my son. By nearly every measure he has it pretty damn good, but in his mind someone somewhere always has something better.

      • Nephilium

        There was also an article I read that went into how most people show only the highlights (trips, new stuff, fancy meals, etc.) and don’t show the bad times, hard work, or debt that was used to get them.

    • Gender Traitor

      a person fears they are not having as fun, or enriching experiences as their peers

      It’s like getting the gloating letter in the Christmas card every daggone day.

    • The Hyperbole

      I’m pretty sure “keeping up with the Jones'” predates social media.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      That describes almost every teenager that ever lived.

  43. juris imprudent

    Ha! And you all were worried about Roberts.

    “Every single day on average there are 65 suicides by gunshot in the United States,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said during oral arguments.

    Attorneys for both the Cranston police and the Department of Justice expressed no qualms with the justices finding the case falling under a preexisting exemption to the Fourth Amendment, rather than expand the community caretaker exception.

    • Gustave Lytton

      “I still like statist cock!”

    • Gustave Lytton

      The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

      Not seeing any preexisting exemptions in there.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Nor is there a community caretaker exception.

      • juris imprudent

        There is when the Nazgul decree there is.

      • Gustave Lytton

        They need to have their invisible ink pen shoved up their backsides Suez Canal in a sandstorm style.

      • rhywun

        Sounds like someone needs a little community caretaking. Let me make a quick phone call….

    • Ownbestenemy

      And statistically 442 people die by accident…what is his point?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        He doesn’t need to carry, why do you?

      • rhywun

        “Let them eat lead.”

  44. Count Potato

    “Americans have ‘no right’ to carry guns in public, 9th Circuit Court rules

    “There is no right to carry arms openly in public; nor is any such right within the scope of the Second Amendment,” the court ruled in an “en banc” decision that involved several of the panel’s judges.

    “We can find no general right to carry arms into the public square for self-defense,” the majority wrote, claiming that the Second Amendment applies to the “defense of hearth and home.”

    “The power of the government to regulate carrying arms in the public square does not infringe in any way on the right of an individual to defend his home or business,” the judges wrote.

    The court noted that “we have previously held that individuals do not have a Second Amendment right to carry concealed weapons in public” which means people in the West Coast states it covers have no right to carry a firearm in any capacity in public.”

    https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/mar/24/9th-circuit-court-no-right-carry-guns-public/

    In other news, Count Potato ruled, “The 9th Circuit can eat my ass.”

    • Gustave Lytton

      The only thing the 9th Circus is actually good for would be to test the derp power of a wood chipper.

    • juris imprudent

      Hadn’t the 9th previously ruled that CC could be restricted as long as open carry was allowed (or vice versa)?

      • Gender Traitor

        They’re evolving! (For some values of “evolve.”)

      • juris imprudent

        Nope, it was the 7th Circuit.

      • db

        Does that count as a circuit split?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        A short circuit

      • db

        Who’s Johnny?

      • db

        Or,

        “NO DISASSEMBLE NUMBER 2!”

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Noticeably absent is any mention of the defense of self.

      • Gender Traitor

        …or defense against government tyranny. How could they have forgotten that??

      • db

        It’s a new world with a kinder gentler government that would never ever do the kinds of things that made the Revolutionary War necessary. Quit it with your atavistic tendencies.

  45. Gustave Lytton

    “Pregnant people”. Christ on a crutch.

  46. westernsloper

    Corn hole is horse shoes for sissies.

    • Ownbestenemy

      I agree with you Western…though still fun.

    • db

      It’s way less threatening. The target is concave rather than convex, and doesn’t challenge one’s personal self-image with its welcoming void, as opposed to the horseshoe pin which is all erect and scary.

    • UnCivilServant

      Horse shoes?

      You’re supposed to play hand grenades.

      • Tundra

        Oh yeah! Here’s my favorite song from Horseshoes and Hand Grenades:

        Popular Creeps

        The ‘Mats breakup did not go well.

  47. grrizzly

    Three wild turkeys in the middle of Harvard Square tonight.

    • DEG

      They aren’t wearing masks! They want Grandma to die!!!11!!1

  48. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Looks like they confirmed Levine.

    Hide yo kids, the schools are going to be pushing hormone therapy to them before the mid-terms.

  49. Wood Chipped Wednesday

    I can’t tell if sugarFree likes author bios or not

  50. db

    uh oh, wtf is going on with bitcoin? I can’t load Coinbase pro; I did have a stop loss order that I think executed a while ago.

    • db

      yep, sure enough, it dropped a few large in the last few hours.

      • Mojeaux

        Meh, it’ll go back up.

      • db

        Frankly I hope it dips a lot more–my stop loss was near the top

      • Mojeaux

        If it does, I may get some more.

      • db

        Yeah, I’ve done pretty well by guessing the tops and dips. Missed a few, but scored on more. it seems like just when I forget about it it makes a big move. I try to leave stop limit orders in to protect my position but they have played out a little too conservative a few times and I missed one big price move recently. Better to miss out on a big gain than to lose most of it, IMO.

  51. KSuellington

    Taco Bell is the best chain fast food going. 3 regular tacos, 3 soft and 2 tostadas please. I’ve done well on their stock too, may have to buy some more shares of Yum! Making me hungry just thinking about it. It’s not real tacos, but it is real good.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Jack-in-the-Box is better and just as efficient on my bowels.

    • db

      Arby’s is the best