Link to the inaugural edition of my weekly ramblings. (T/W if you’re an NYT subscriber.)
Life provided me a smooth segue by offering an article to act as a coda to my last post about the (failing) NY Times. It’s an interesting collection of admissions about how Times subscriptions have cratered, revenue stayed flat, but they’ve added a significant number of online subscribers! How the data is spun is as important as the actual data. Most interesting stats to me? Numbers 15 through 19. [1]
- 91% of The New York Times readers identify as Democrats (“As for political affiliation, more than 9 in 10 people who cite The New York Times as their go-to news source identify as Democrats.”) Echo chamber for several million, anyone?
- More than two-thirds of The Times’ readers are white. (“The New York Times audience demographics also reveal a significant discrepancy in its racial and ethnic makeup. According to research, 71% of the paper’s readers are white, 10% are Latino, 4% are Black, and the remaining 15% belong to other groups.”) Huh. That doesn’t seem very ‘diverse.’
- 72% of the papers readers have at least a university degree. That seems even less diverse.
- 38% of the New York Times readers earn more than $75,000 a year. I wonder what the Times distribution is in Compton or Watts? Or even in the more ‘diverse’ areas of the Bronx?
And the money shot…
- The average Times reader is well-informed brain-washed and politically opinionated an asshole. (Research shows that 40% of the readers care about overseas events, and 24% are also eager to learn about other cultures and lifestyles. Additionally, more than 33% of the paper’s readers say they would participate in civil protests regarding the issues they care about.) Never change, NYT. Never change.
I promise I’ll come back to this and make it relevant, but for now, let’s put a pin in the NY Times’ proggie racist echo chamber.
A lot of the recent political performance art makes me wonder… where does it all end? If you’re wondering exactly which piece of political performance art I mean, I don’t want to make these pieces too linky, so I’ll just point to the Media coverage and political pandering of these events: the mass shooting in Colorado, the problems surrounding the surge of immigrants at the border, and (a propos of my prior posts about M. Havel’s greengrocer) this prosecutor demanding that businesses take loyalty pledges.
My fascination with philosophy runs in two directions, much as it does with all theoretical/academic discussions on any subject: first, I want to hear the theory, in toto… but then I want to hear how it interacts with reality. I think this comes from my lifelong desire to be an engineer, of which I only completed 2 years before a bad semester threatened to cost me my NROTC scholarship. [2] Of course, Fate eventually turned me into a lawyer, but I never lost my engineer’s eye for wanting to see theories articulated – and then either falsified or proven – with some verifiable, measurable claims and data. Working as general counsel for a guy who was just a few credits shy of his applied mathematics degree really helped me see that my engineer’s eye could be turned to other less “scientific” endeavors than the building of aircraft.
…like the Law.
I was always fascinated to ask other lawyers about the outcomes of their given theorems, whether it’s a case decision, a piece of legislation, or their ideas about how society ought to be. Whether it’s a flying machine, a court’s opinion, or a Congressional enactment, there ought to be some point at which the proponent of an idea has to both articulate the intended results and the ways in which those results can be measured. If it is intended to fly, at some point you have to be able to say for how long, how far, how fast, etc. If instead it is legislation intended to “solve poverty,” then you damn well should be able to at least (a) define what “poverty” is, and (b) say how the legislative attempt to solve that problem will be measured a success or failure. Of course the latter schemes never contain such metrics. The recent congressionally-approved $1.9 TRILLION COVID spend-a-thon is yet another example of people passing legislation with all kinds of wild-ass (and non-falsifiable) word-salads promising help, but zero concrete metrics by which we, as our own posterity, could take the measure of the proposal’s success at, say, the 5- and 10-year marks. Feature, not bug, quippeth the Glib hive-mind.
Let’s take this up a meta-step, and return to the political performance art of the current Administration, the DNC, and its media toadies: roughly what does the Biden Non Compos Mentis administration really want to accomplish with control of all 3 branches of government, the remaining Cathedral Media, and the (Newer, Betterer Control provided by) Social Media? Is it simply more spending and grift for their particular cohort of corporate and billionaire interests?
Wh-What’s that you say? Facebook spent more money on lobbying last year ($19.7 million) than any other company in America!? Oh, and Amazon was #2 at $18.7 million…? While Amazon profited handsomely from state and federal lockdown policies that cratered their economic competition?? You don’t say!
My read of the tea leaves is that isn’t all that’s going on. The piece I linked at above (the loyalty pledge), coupled with what we’ve seen with the shadow-banning of conservatives on Twitter, or the outright removal by Youtube and Facebook of any information contra the official government narrative about COVID, or effectiveness masks, or horrible consequences of lockdowns, or Cuomo’s murder of NY oldsters…(etc) ALL suggests that greasing corporate pockets isn’t the end goal for all of this. That’s just the normal modus operandi for how Congress greases its wheels. The real end goal is significantly worse than that. Allow me to back into my explanation with a story.
My wife watched the Chernobyl television series this past week and I (sort-of) partook with some selective watching. (Spoiler alert! There was a huge f***ing explosion at the former-Soviet Union’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986. It was kind of a big deal.)
Name’s Chernobyl. Nice to meetcha.
The series was well-constructed and well-acted, in my opinion, even if it does have some dramatization and composite characters. It’s been criticized as being a bit heavy on the western stereotypes of the Soviet Union and I’m willing to accept that may be true, but what there doesn’t seem to be disagreement about is the underlying nature of the cause of the disaster. The TL/WW (Won’t Watch) version is that Soviet RBMK-reactors like the one at Chernobyl had a major design flaw: the very tips of the control rods were made of graphite, which in some unlikely-but-not-impossible conditions can act to excite the reactions in the core, rather than shut it down in the event of a need to SCRAM the whole thing. This flaw was discovered by a scientist investigating an identical accident at a Leningrad plant with an RBMK-reactor. That scientist first published a paper about the design flaw of RBMK-type reactors… in 1975 – only to have the paper suppressed/disappeared by the KGB. In the aftermath of Chernobyl, the investigation conducted by Valery Legasov eventually ran into this same information; and it was suppressed again. Why?
Because it would prove extraordinarily embarrassing to the “Supreme Soviet.” i.e. Party apparatchiks.
Legasov killed himself the day after the second anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. His notes and recordings were discovered and circulated among the Soviet (and wider) scientific community. It’s an incredibly compelling story because of the stakes, but I was struck by how similar it looked to where we are right now here in the U.S. with COVID.
And then, as if by Divine Gift, MIT came out with this article about “COVID skeptics.” I was linked to it from one of the few Twitter feeds that I follow, The Ethical Skeptic, some kind of data wonk whose website is a paean to reason. I’ve been amazed that he didn’t get canned from Twitter a long time ago, but my theory is that he speaks at such a high level that the Twidiot Censors don’t know what the majority of his tweets mean. I bring him up because his account is specifically mentioned in the MIT piece, as is Alex Berenson’s. Try to ignore the Lefty-slant of the MIT verbiage (which accepts as True the viewpoint that is actually Wrong-But-In-Power because it is backed by the Mainstream Media). What’s important are those nodes – that map. What those nodes show might jokingly be described as the Axis v. the Allies, for board-gaming nerds of the ’80s. There is some wonderful information in there, but what it means won’t be known for decades.
To me, however, that MIT website is additional evidence for my pet theory that what we’re witnessing is a fight that’s been going on for quite some time between the Cathedra Media (as surrogate for entrenched interests, both corporate and government) and Other Media, which includes bloggers and a whole slew of non-traditional sources of information on the internet that seeps out from behind the post-totalitarian system. To tie-in both the NY Times and my earlier question about “what they want:” we’re witnessing the fight to be the dominant cultural narrative in the U.S. Because that’s how you can wantonly break the law and destroy evidence if you’re Hillary Clinton; or fabricate a dossier and launder it through your friends high up in the CIA and even generate a special prosecutor using it; or lock people in their homes and collapse an economy during a pandemic; or openly sell influence and launder the proceeds through a 501(c)(3) while you’re SecState – oh, if only poor Alphonse Capone had had a Foundation! That’s what owning the dominant cultural narrative in the USA gives you the ability to do.
What we’re witnessing is a phenomenon perhaps best described in this book, “Winning the Story Wars: Why Those Who Tell – and Live – the Best Stories, Will Rule the Future.” We’re witnessing a fight for control of The Narrative. The One that determines exactly how much of your money and freedom government can get away with stealing from you. Trump unfortunately lost that battle; I’m not certain about the wider War.
The Truth is like a beach ball in pool water; it has a natural buoyancy and wants to come up, will come up, if not otherwise suppressed. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to keep it under water.
That quote is from a friend of mine and I’ve always thought it’s one of his better analogies. Right now the Cathedral Media and government, aided by their collaborators – the Karens, the BLM and Antifa fanatics, control freaks of all kinds – are driving The Narrative, but the problem is that Reality always has the last word – and it’s always a laugh.
* * * * * * * *
[1] This should forever be referred to as the “Asshole Pentagram.”
[2] I didn’t need to be able to “build ’em to fly ’em” was my Marine Officer Instructor’s quip while I struggled under the weight of both my course load and the demands of 5 AM mandatory Marine Option workouts on the Charles (in winter… even when it was spring).
You expect me to believe that the New York Times has readers?
Plenty of people read it, how else are they going to bitch about what the NYTs writes.
Discrepancy with what?
Some overrepresentation of whites (5 – 10%), under-representation of Blacks and Latinxs (about 10% each), and overrepresentation of other groups.
New York City isn’t 71% white. Yes, I know the Times has pretensions of being a national newspaper.
That’s such an excellent dissection of the NYTs, that I don’t have a comment… well, a couple mabybe.
“91% of The New York Times readers identify as Democrats”
I’m gonna make a wild guess that 0% identify as libertarian.
“38% of the New York Times readers earn more than $75,000 a year.”
Paupers. As usual, the useful idiots outnumber the elites.
“72% of the papers readers have at least a university degree.”
Which one again approves that education today is more about indoctrination and less about education.
There are the Reason writers…
Like they’re gonna identify as libertarian to anyone from the NYT.
That ain’t how cocktail parties get invited to.
+1 MOAR COCKTAIL PARTIES
Thanks for reinforcing my opine on that point.
Agreed. And where I think the Left has an advantage is that their narrative is based mostly on emotion. The failure of the non-Left to date can be attributed to their (our?) insistence on responding to the Left’s emotional appeals with reason and facts. The converse of “facts don’t care about your feelings” is also true: “my feelings don’t care about your facts”. The psychological attachment to a world-view that you are emotionally committed to is much stronger than one you are not emotionally committed to. And so the Narrative moves ever-Left, and drags the Overton Window with it.
AND that this is actively indulged.
I have FEELINGS, as I’ve said before, that something is “wrong” or “right,” but I try to parse those feelings with philosophy and my intellectual needs to see what I come up with.
Thanks for the reminder to us INTJs*, RCD.
*not all and probably spurious research anyway
The psychological attachment to a world-view that you are emotionally committed to is much stronger than one you are not emotionally committed to.
This is entirely true. But, I think it leaves out the true source of the Left’s emotional commitment to the narrative. I don’t think the narrative necessarily appeals to them due to any personal emotion, so much as it’s conveyed status. That is, the broad commitment to the narrative isn’t so much a function of any emotional appeal inherent to the narrative itself, but of the narrative as a status symbol. People accept the narrative because accepting it identifies you as not one of those people. It’s why I’ve suggested in the past that libertarians and conservatives would be well served to start treating progressivism as sort of a low-rent, middle-brow pretension of sophistication.
Except, not at all. that’s not how this works, it’s not how any of this works.
Can you elaborate CP? I’m running into a hearing and will be away for a bit, but if this is simply pedantry about the word “explosion” or even the finer details of what happened, you win. The details of how Chernobyl went ka-blooey aren’t really my point. It’s how and why that knowledge was suppressed.
Sorry, gotta run! I’ll check back in a bit.
It’s not pedantry, it’s a very clear distinction. Chernobyl never even reached the theoretical ‘meltdown’, much less any kind of kabloeey. The containment protocols failed, yes. Radiation was released into the area, yes. But there was never any form of explosion.
Interesting
So…. pedantry then?
Maybe I should just obscure all details in writing for the aspy/autists so that we can have a discussion about the larger point?
I’m yanking your chain, CPRM, but c’mon. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees.
“Explosion” has a scientific definition that I believe would adequately cover what happened at Chernobyl – at least that’s my opinion as a guy who used to get paid to blow shit up with military grade boom-stuff.. And given the cover-up, difficulty in post-accident reconstruction, and the widespread disinformation by the Soviets, you’re really going to start making bold assertions about things like this?? And completely WHOOSH! by the point that I was making? Really??
I think I want my $5 back for your cartoons.
Not sure how that’s not an explosion.
Maybe it’s just me, but a steam pipe bursting isn’t the same as ‘nuclear plant explodes’.
Non-nuclear explosions are still explosions.
A burst steam pipe isn’t an explosion – it is a failure of metal (or other pipe material) to contain a volume under pressure. An explosion involves an explosive. Even a nuclear weapon is triggered by a very run of the mill explosive (to drive the the fissile material to critical mass).
The weird bit to me has always been the distinction between propellant and explosive.
Creating volume under pressure is literally what explosives do. In the case of Chernobyl, the live steam generator (whatever it was) was the explosive.
Sure, but the class of things called explosives do that via chemical reaction, not mechanical force.
A boiler explosion is an explosion. This is just a boiler explosion writ large.
JI, an explosive is not required for an explosion.
The chemical reaction causes mechanical force.
As I’ve said before:
Glibertarians – come for the snark, stay for the pedantry.
Gunpowder is an explosive when uncontrolled, a propellant when controlled. All those exploding SpaceX rockets demonstrate the same distinction.
I’ve always understood an explosion to be characterized by uncontrolled expansion of a material (usually (always?) a gas) above a certain threshold. Any bomb or missle “explosion” can be described as a failure of metal to contain a volume under pressure. Of course, that’s what its designed to do, but still.
I think anything can cause an “explosion”, especially colloquially. If, say, I had a faulty CO2 canister for my spritzer that “catastrophically” failed, I would say it exploded, even though it was nothing more than an abrupt release of CO2 under pressure.
Gunpowder explodes when ignited – whether it is contained in something or not. Smokeless burns – and if not contained just burns off.
My limited understanding has been that there is a threshold chemically speaking at which the reaction takes place that is the difference between the two.
I’m fairly sure that explosive decomposition is a different chemical process than combustion.
Pedantry, I know. But if you have to be a pedant, explosives is probably a good subject for it…
Blackpowder also “burns” when not contained.
Its an old time technique for woodburning designs.
Smokeless actually burns faster than blackpowder.
Not sure what kind of gunpowder explodes when ignited in a loose pile on a surface.
Smokeless actually burns faster than blackpowder.
Yeah, that’s why it always seem weird to me.
You may be thinking of the difference between an explosive and a high explosive, which is the spped at which the reaction propagates through the substance.
That’s true, but it doesn’t have anything to to with whether or not something is an explosive.
Not sure what kind of gunpowder explodes when ignited in a loose pile on a surface.
There are quite a few high explosives that won’t detonate without containment. Shoot a primer charge in a wheelbarrow full of prilled AN, and it’ll just scatter and burn and make a mess. Shoot the same primer charge in the same pile of AN prills, but this time in a sealed 55-gallon drum, and it’s party time!
It’s too bad there’s not a Glib who makes a living making things go “boom” who could weigh in.
(she’s got more important things to deal with, but perhaps she’ll see this later)
The wildlife living around the reactor is doing quite nicely Ive heard, and seen
So I saw this meme the other day on Facebook. I haven’t fact-checked it so I haven’t shared it at large.
I prefer Roentgen/rem/rad to Gray/Sievert.
For one things, the units work better. You have to work in mGy or mSv.
1 R = 10 mGy
1 rad = 1 rem = 10 mSv.
I’m not partial to a measurement system, but I am curious how accurate those comparisons are. Not enough to look it up, though.
This is always handy when talking about radiation:
https://xkcd.com/radiation/
“…[only] 40% of the readers care about overseas events, and [a mere] 24% are also eager to learn about other cultures and lifestyles. ”
I find this suprising – that the NYT readers may have answered honestly (almost revealed preferences).
I would have thought their self image would have required the answer “Of course, we’re interested in the world and other cultures – were not like those Neanderthals.” I would have exptected both questions to be 90% in the positive.
Love your rants Ozy – depressing as they can be.
http://www.mappingthenation.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Rumsey-Steinberg-New-Yorker-1976.jpg
Thanks to whoever suggested the Sun NYT Biz article re the WSJ. Still not sure why demographics matter if they’re profitable but will go reread paper copy of former.
I know a Sunday subscriber; usually goes unread, thank dog. SOW, the wide blue plastic bags they come in are good for dog poo.
Rag can be OK in Food and occasionally Arts sections.
“To what end?” is what worries me.
Money and power. Same as it ever was.
While true, I think that’s too broad a brush to be really useful. And there’s more to it.
I’m working on putting some more flesh on that skeleton in Issue #3.
Looking forward to it.
I’m going with, ‘Perpetual freedom from scrutiny.’
Since you brought up politics as performance art, KDW’s take is more that they resemble more a blend of group therapy and role-playing game.
I’m unimpressed. The article is mostly about how Repubs should do a deal with lefties on a new gun control law which . . . does something . . . about gun trafficking and straw buyers.
Which are already illegal. So, in an article decrying “performative” hysteria and politics, he proposes . . . performative politics, namely making something which is already a felony even more illegaler.
Not mentioned in this proposal for “compromise” – a rollback of any existing gun control laws.
You know what puts real pressure on real criminals? An armed populace.
What bothered me was that KDW missed the real problem. He treated the “compromise” as the end state. “Well, we’ve comprised so we’re done here – next problem.”
The end state for the left isn’t a common sense compromise, it is disarmament of the citizenry/turning all deplorables into felons.
If the disarmament movement ever offered up an actual, legitimate proposal for compromise – say, removing silencers and SBRs/SBSs from the NFA in exchange for universal background checks – I would probably accept just out of shock.
But the disarmament movement isn’t really interested in compromise. They truly have the approval of their own conscience.
I’m sure there’s a compromise I would sign on to, even though it would be a violation of human rights and, to the extent it matters any more, the 2A. The problem with a compromise on gun control is two-fold:
(1) It will be temporary. The anti-gunners want total disarmament. Their stated goals short of that are a pretext. So they’ll be back for more, as they have proven time and again.
(2) Both sides have to get something they want. I’m not sure there is anything left for the anti-gunners to get that they actually want, that I am willing to give. Even universal background checks are just a trojan horse for shutting down all gun transfers outside the system, and I don’t believe for an instant that it won’t be yet another piece of universal registration and piecemeal, at best, confiscation.
I don’t even oppose universal background checks on 2nd Amdt grounds – the goddam federal govt is NOT granted a general police power. I would unhesitatingly bust someone’s nose that said “but Commerce” to my face.
(3) After several generations of being lied to and about, the gun culture has no rational basis for a trust relationship with the disarmament movement. That pitch is thoroughly queered.
While it would be easy to agree with you, the matter isn’t disposed of that easily, since there is a vast swath of the populace that wants “something done” about gun violence. The reality that most of us will never be subject to it doesn’t matter, and people tend to be more frightened by the random stuff than by gang-bangers shooting up shitty neighborhoods.
That’s true about almost everything, though. Crime, violence, global warming, structural racism, economic inequity…it never ends. The only rational response to the unending calls to ‘Do something!!!’ is to say, “Do it yourself, nobody’s stopping you.”
since there is a vast swath of the populace that wants “something done” about gun violence
This is a key talking point of the Left but I don’t think it’s accurate. More like manufactured outrage.
I think someone posted an article here the other day that pointed out protecting gun rights is the most important single issue to a huge proportion of non-Left voters, but is rarely the most important issue for democrat voters. Dem voters give lip service but don’t really care compared with their other priorities. At the end of the day, advancing or opposing gun control matters little to reelection for Dem politicians. Conversely, supporting gun control is often an automatic election ender for GOP politicians.
The political class wants to outlaw private ownership of firearms. That’s the primary reason it’s on the Dem platform and outrage is constantly ginned up by the media. The Dems push, the GOP compromises, and the political class progressively inches towards it’s goal. That’s why any grand compromise would be pure fiction.
Even a representative republic will respond to what the people want. We come to the end that the problem is the people. Which is the problem in every system of govt, and why anarchism does not exist except as theory.
Criminal justice is a core function of our govt; you really don’t get to say “do it yourself”.
Precisely. Williamson rambles on about compromise without explaining how any of what he’s suggesting is an actual compromise. Apparently he believes a compromise occurs when the left gets only some of what they want, and that’s it. 2A supporters get nothing. Williamson affords the gun grabbers good faith that they have done nothing to earn.
You wouldn’t consider an actual program of enforcement to be something 2A supporters would support? I get that you assume the control-types are just lying about that – but setting that aside for a moment, why wouldn’t you want enforcement of the existing law?
If you don’t want it enforced, shouldn’t you be really arguing for repeal?
I’m not understanding how enforcement of existing laws is an actual compromise. Straw buying is already illegal. Selling guns to felons is already illegal. If the DOJ, which is run almost entirely by progs, isn’t enforcing those laws, then the Brady Campaign guy in the column should be talking to his own side, shouldn’t he? Is the NRA/GOA/VCDL/whoever really standing in the way of enforcing existing laws.
Since the reality is it is NOT enforced, and the compromise WERE to offer resources and commands to get the job done – would that really not appeal to pro-2nd people? Yes, it is exactly that that will end up discomfiting some Dems (mostly of a state/municipal variety) because it will mean more of THEIR constituents in court and jail. Again – why is that not appealing to you, me or other gun owners? The essence of a compromise is we get something we want, and the other side has to give something up. As a purely standalone matter – this isn’t a compromise for us at all.
Where is straw purchasing de facto allowed? Asking for a friend.
It’s not that straw purchases are allowed anywhere as much as they are probably difficult to prove. Like a lot of laws.
If someone doesn’t go “Actually, I am buying this for someone else”, it’s nigh impossible to enforce.
And did they outlaw gifting firearms to someone?
Can you point to any recent prosecutions/convictions? The claim is usually made that x% of NICS transactions are turned down because the person is a prohibited buyer – yet we don’t hear about those people being prosecuted, do we? So either someone is lying about the turn-downs, or the law under 922 is not getting enforced.
@JI
Sorta recent info.
Akshually, it’s pretty easy when the miscreants are of your typical criminal intellect.
1) A guy coming in with a specific make/model/options written down
1a) who doesn’t spend any time handling said firearm
2) A”purchaser” who comes in with a “friend” who is driving the decisions on which guns to try out
3) A guy who comes in, goes through the process of gun shopping, leaves without purchasing, and immediately a different person comes in to buy that particualr gun. Bonus points if the “purchaser” is trying to describe which gun he wants as opoposed to knowing it by sight.
I never said it didn’t appeal to me. I just don’t really see it as a compromise.
“The majority of cases are not prosecuted for the same reason the ATF cited: the difficulty of proving someone “knowingly and willingly” lied on the form”
What is that saying – ignorance of the law is no excuse? The real reason is the Federal attys don’t build sexy political resumes on these. No reason for us to go along with that fucking pretense.
1. I’m no expert on the matter, but those straw purchase scenarios you outlined are all very personal. As in, someone buying a gun for someone they actually know. The bigger problem is probably buying guns for people you don’t know. Shit you are going to sell at a mark-up illegally.
2. That doesn’t really make it easier to prosecute if sellers aren’t actively looking to become enforcers of the law. And it’ would be less about prosecution and more about refusing the sales.
@NA – you notice them because they are morons. There’s no way to say what % of attempted straw purchases go through, because you pretty much only catch the morons.
One could read that as meaning 12,660 of those denials were bogus.
I think intent becomes an issue when you can just as easily claim that your gun was stolen and wash your hands of the matter.
Well, yeah. That’s what a straw buyer is.
Someone who buys guns then resells them is a gun dealer.
Which are already illegal.
And unenforced and the point was to step up enforcement (which might have some unpleasant repercussions for Democrats). That something is illegal and the law not enforced should be a point that either the law should be repealed or it should be enforced and not just left in the idiot zone of symbolic effect.
As rare as they have been, there are real compromises that have been made on gun laws. When OR adopted universal background checks, it was paired with shall-issue CCW. Of course it wasn’t long before the gun control side was trying to undo that and return to their usual idea of compromise – we’ll only take half now and come back for the rest later (and we give absolutely nothing in return).
Quite frankly, I see the mood affiliation shit right here, and this morning’s pill discussion was a good example.
Mood affiliation, team identification, sure. See, also, human nature, and mental shortcuts.
A test:
Supposedly, the “Biden” administration is going to completely withdraw from Afghanistan this year. I support this, although I seriously doubt it will happen. I suspect this is not aligned with team or mood affiliation. Certainly not my usual oppo to the Left and the Dems, who I like to think I oppose because their policies are terrible.
Yes, the newly deferred removal. I would put more money on a subsequent deferral than on an actual removal of all American service members (including SOF not in uniform) by the new date (particularly given it is the 20th anniversary of 9/11).
And it isn’t that the mood affiliation is necessarily a bad thing in a group. Just maybe not a healthy thing at the national political level.
Most libertarian president ever.
I will admit that I’m surprised.
However, it looks like we’ll just be moving them elsewhere instead of bringing them home.
We aren’t moving them anywhere – we’ll just move the date, again.
This. We can’t give up, that was Obama’s good war.
The last time a president ordered this, the Pentagon gang simply ignored him.
Slow rolling Joe ought to be even easier.
Precisely my thought
Or they’re prepping for a new target. I doubt this done without their approval.
*nods*
If Bolton was still around I would say that country just to the west of Afghanistan, but I doubt Biden’s admin wants to go there.
By the end of the year.
He only wants to drop dollars there, not bombs.
OK, now do all the rest of the wars.
Good on whoever programmed Joe’s teleprompter.
So, sometime in the next five months he’ll announce when we’ll be withdrawing?
And great job on tying our withdrawl to the date of the instigating event. Wouldn’t want to be too subtle about announcing failure, after all.
Well good…now to see if it actually happens.
91% of The New York Times readers identify as Democrats
Wut? You could knock me over with a feather.
The other 9% are the sort of “independents” who would rather be boiled in oil than vote for a Republican.
My guess is the other 9% are Greens and Socialists. Prolly a few actual Commies in there, too.
Even if they went in with some diversity of thought and experience, they came out in uniformity after being cranked through the sausage grinder along with the other (once) individuals.
How fitting that ground meat is more prone to provide the right environment for harmful bacteria to thrive.
I’m surprised by the income figure. 38% below $75K would not have surprised me, I would’ve expected a higher skew up.
Same here. The median for the NYC region is over $100K, but that’s for a 3 person family.
Throuple?
I’m not that surprised, The Times plays much the role of the Daily Mirror in this bit from Yes Prime Minister.
72% of the papers readers have at least a university degree
In what?
“The weird bit to me has always been the distinction between propellant and explosive”
Propellant:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard_(rocket)
Explosive:
https://alchetron.com/Vanguard-TV3
Same stuff. One is under control. The other isn’t
That something is illegal and the law not enforced should be a point that either the law should be repealed or it should be enforced and not just left in the idiot zone of symbolic effect.
Intent vs effect
Cool, then I can rain down all kinds of effects that I didn’t really intend – particularly on people that think intent is what matters most.
I made my macaroni cabbage salad slaw. It’s actually pretty good.
Ingredients:
Cole slaw veggies – green and red cabbage, carrots, shredded.
Elbow Macaroni
Mayo
Sour Cream
Mustard
Vinegar
1 can tuna
1 can chicken
4 eggs
5 rashers bacon
paprika
salt
pepper
Bacon was cooked crispy and cut into bitz.
Eggs were hard-boiled and diced
macaroni was fully cooked.
Canned meats were drained.
Everything was mixed by eye in terms of quantities, so… not sure exactly how much of each went in.
The Garbage Plate of composed salads. Missing the boiled potatoes thoiugh.
I don’t think they would fit from a taste/texture perspective.
Where’s the sugar and honey?
That DOES sound good, though I’d be inclined to add minimal, if any, vinegar (not a fan of the smell.)
Dumb question: What constitutes a “rasher” of bacon?
When you buy a presliced pack of bacon, each slice is a rasher.
They are also called strips.
In that case, needz moar bacon.
I had cooked six, but I needed to “test” one and ate it.
A wise precaution. Quality control is paramount.
strip
I will if you do it first.
Done.
Live-stream from your webcam, or it hasn’t happened.
you people!!
Can’t take you people anywhere!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z7fV-wB2z8
As for the vinegar, you can’t smell it in the finished salad any more than you can smell it in mustard.
If it really bothers you, some of the milder vinegars, like rice or white wine might be more to your scent, but vinegar is where the bite comes from.
For Tundra.
https://notthebee.com/article/rare-photo-of-baby-delivery
Until CPS shows and takes the kid away.
Thank you, my brother! That is fucking hilarious!
I’ll bet I’ll still laugh in the Camp.
Thanks, Ozy! I enjoyed this one very much.
Tundra – Glad you liked it!
I’m kinda following a thread and I think it’s got one or two pieces left before I move onto other nonsense.
I may do a series on hockey for all of the non-skating heathen here – something different and not so dense.
That would be awesome!
How can you do hockey and not be dense?
Do you even have a mullet?
Ozy, I love the beach ball comparison, and I hope that it is true.
It is, unfortunately it sometimes works on a time scale that isn’t convenient for the individual lifespan.
But the truth will out, eventually.
I’m no historian but the fact that they are still arguing over events that happen hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago seems to belie that assertion. The truth may “out” at some point but it can always be pushed back down , and at some point the “truth” loses buoyancy due to lack of interest and no one cares that it is lost to time.
SSD: The political class wants to outlaw private ownership of firearms. [Brooks’ing this]
I would say part of the political class wishes to do so. And a relatively small part of the total populace is adamantly opposed to that. In between there is a whole, whole lot of varying sympathies to either ‘end’, though more to the latter since there is no groundswell at all for repealing the 2nd. It is thus that those who truly want to outlaw all guns must dissemble about that purpose.
A large part of the political class, I’d say, when you include the Fudd Brigade that passionately believes that the 2A is entirely about being able to own expensive Italian shotguns to hunt ducks with.
And yet they can’t amount a frontal assault on the 2nd – they always have to find some way around it.
The natives are getting uppity
Republican Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and other conservatives have publicly called for the firing of U.S. infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci after he said it’s “still not okay” to eat and drink inside of restaurants and bars.
During Fauci’s Sunday appearance on the MSNBC’s The Mehdi Hasan Show, the host asked Fauci whether he thought it was fine for Americans to dine and drink indoors in restaurants and bars.
“No, it’s still not okay for the simple reason that the level of infection the dynamics of infection in the community are still really disturbingly high,” responded Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
Fauci said that the U.S. had seen a recent uptick in newly confirmed COVID-19 cases after a decline. Fauci also noted that people who have been vaccinated against coronavirus should continue to avoid crowds, especially indoors where many people aren’t wearing masks.
In an April 12 tweet, Greene included a clip of Fauci speaking to Hasan. She wrote, “The highest paid government employee in America is completely detached from the reality of the lives of Americans. He’s CLUELESS. He’s done enough damage to our country… #FireFauci.”
——-
Fauci has long drawn the ire of conservative critics for failing to offer rosy assessments of the pandemic, as well as the social restrictions necessary for reducing its spread.
In March, Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky criticized Fauci’s continued use of a face mask despite being vaccinated as “just theatre.” Fauci responded that it is important to continue wearing masks because the vaccination doesn’t guarantee complete immunity against COVID-19 variants.
In February, The View’s Meghan McCain, a conservative talk show host, criticized Fauci for being unable to explain when she’d be eligible for a vaccine or whether a vaccine would enable her to resume dining with her extended family.
When has that blathering quack been right?
Never change, Newsweek.
Question: if it is not safe to, well, do anything, where are the piles of corpses of former retail and other “frontline” (fuck, I hate that word) workers?
And don’t tell me their muzzles saved them. Not buying it.
Not buying it.
Salvation isn’t for sale brother, you must open your heart and let the love of govt fill you with redemptive goodness!
Fauci has drawn ire for being an inconsistent media whore.
The death rate’s about one in 300. If you aren’t old, fat, or diabetic you’ll probably be OK. The only piles of corpses to be found were in nursing homes and were put there by disastrously stupid decisions.
You know I read that at first as “Newspeak”.
Have you ever read the book ECOTOPIA, by Calanbach, Ozie?
https://www.amazon.com/Ecotopia-Novel-Ernest-Callenbach/dp/0553348477
Not the best-written book, and very much a product of its time, the early seventies. But it does nail down a sort of overarching Utopia (environmental, feminist, socialist) that is animating much of the dreams of the left. And like much of Moores Utopia, it is worth reading as a sort of baseline rulebook for where the left et al seems to be going.
!, and yuck.
I was assigned that in college; I thought I might have recycled it but I see it’s still here.
Same class in which I was assigned The True Believer, so I will refrain from revolt.
zwak – No, I haven’t read that one, but yes, I would agree with the premise. I believe I’ve written here about the two branches of the same American Utopian tree: the religious (right) and the statist (progressive left). I’ve come to realize they’re actually both religious – same exact things, the Left has just convinced itself that they’re atheist (because it’s cool to be aggressively atheist now), but they’re more hardcore than Baptists at a revival.
^^^ this
Oh, they are both sides deeply and aggressively religious. And of the fervently proselytizing variety.
One thing I would point out is that over the last 50 years the left has made strong inroads to be the new religion, but at heart, it is failing right now. Which, in my eyes is the reason for the Big Push we are seeing, what with Climat panic, BLM, Antifa, and so on.
It’s kinda like that scene in Groundhogs Day, where Bill Murry takes Andi McDowell out on an almost perfect date, but due to being such a gentleman cannot close the deal, so to speak. But, being a reenactment of the same day, over and over again, when he tries all of the same tricks as the night before, it comes off sloppy, insincere, and boorish. And in the end shows that what he really wants is simply to get laid, and not be the self-actualized person that he appears as.
For Replacements geeks:
Paul Westerberg on the passing of Prince.
It’s been five fucking years. Unreal.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6SFNW5F8K9Y
Also for Replacements geeks, a pretty good documentary from a couple of months ago:
https://youtu.be/rQShh_77bDo
There’s some good old footage there. Seems like their biggest barrier to megasuccess was self-sabotage.
Lol at this M365 training.
We’ve apparently got a “Customer Success” somethingorother from Boston He’s a 20-something with an unfortunate beard and problem glasses and a blue printed shirt buttoned all the way up. No tie.
One of the “features” is we can “enrich” our chats with .gifs.
Can you rate the guy 0 stars and demand a refund?
Now he’s telling us that he uses “be right back” when he lets the dog out or refills his water bottle. This is different than “away” which is what he uses for his lunch break.
“and if you wanted so switch you language to say, German… I forget how they spell “German” in German…”
*headdesk*
why are you being forced to seit through this waste of time?
I’m a M365 CHAMPION!
Is that three BMWs welded together?
I thought only govt training was that bad.
I wouldn’t know, I haven’t paid attention to the training in years.
Either this little shit is being condescending, or he’s a moron who should be fired immediately.
I don’t like being condescended to.
Of late, I have little tolerence for morons.
Either way, show the guy the door.
Alas, it’s online. I’m getting switched to M365 tomorrow, except for my calendar which will still be google for some reason.
When we built this place, each meeting room had a LCD at the door that interfaces with Outlook’s calendar so you could see if the room had been reserved. That particular system stopped working when we got all googlefied. But they’re not switching back on the calendars yet…
This guy is in Boston, but he doesn’t sound like he’s from Boston. Honestly he looks eerily like a City of Heroes dev that used to hang out at the Yellow Rose.
Are you going to be stuck with the web interface, or allowed use of proper desktop software?
The web interface sucks, and even with the collab tools, the desktop apps can do everything the web site does and do it better.
We are encouraged to use the web inteface, but will have access to the desktop apps.
“And we can add a gif, which breaks up the nuance of having a giant wall of text…”
“… resulting in a document that is grossly unprofessional and detracts from the intended message.”
Look, kid, sometimes, you just have to be taken seriously. If you want to break up the wall of test, find some places you can put additional subheaders in and give them a splash of color and maybe some bullet points so that it doesn’t look like as much of a wall of text.
And whil you’re at it, read some actual books so you get used to more than 140 characters at a time.
/curmudgeonly geezer
I was more about the “breaks up the nuance”
I think I’ve mentioned before how our coworkers in Singapore add animated sparkles and stars to their .ppts And how my (Taiwanese) boss’s boss’s boss uses violet comic sans in her emails.
Going the same way in a few months. Getting rid of WEBEX and being forced to use MS360 teams conference. I don’t really care as long as it works. I’m more concerned about any push for online apps instead of offline. So far we are keeping offline MS office.
wdalasio – I brought your comment down simply because it’s a pretty good summary of my analysis of the fight for “The Narrative.” I’ve got some slight tweaks, but I think it’s close to the core of what’s going on.
That’s part of the emotional attachment. Maybe even a large part, but there’s more. The Left’s Narrative generally has a dose of:
(a) “helping” others – the poor, women, minorities, etc.
(b) envy/resentment of the rich/powerful
(c) fear/risk aversion
(d) even hope – embodied in their utopian vision of the future
Probably others, as well. I think the condescension/self-righteousness/status feeling is as much a result of the other emotions they evoke than the root of people’s attachment to the Left’s Narrative.
Always love the main page pic, both for the sentiment and for the Aran sweater background.
Pardon me for Mumsnetting, but evidently it’s racist to liken a black coworker to an Inuit. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/textbased/news/text-9462457/NHS-worker-sues-racial-discrimination-boss-joked-Nanook-1922-Inuit-film.html
Are we to the point yet where its racist for a white person to have any interaction at all with a non-white person?
I don’t know, you deal with personnel.
(Ugh, sorry to have sounded flippant there.)
Hope not…
Linking to a version of the Daily Mail that doesn’t include the scantily clad female click bait articles on the side is in bad form.
PAGING Q! Q TO THE BOOBIE PHONE!
Since y’all want to talk about guns and background checks, let me throw out some red meat: I don’t believe background checks are Constitutional. This is part of my larger bitch about background checks of any kind. They make no sense.
The system lets a guy out of jail presumably because he has “paid his price” and is now, according to the system, able to return to the larger society. Except the civil law will crush an employer who doesn’t do a background check on everyone to determine if they’re a felon in the event they commit another crime. But how does that make any sense?? If the legal system let the guy out, why the fuck do we hold someone who gives the poor bastard a chance legally accountable for money if he fucks up? Shouldn’t we be suing the judge who only sentenced him to X? Or the prison system that let him go? Or the probation officers and system that failed to identify that he wasn’t rehabilitated? Etc.
Nope. Background checks are how the system unloads civil liability for re-offenders onto innocent job owners who had NOTHING TO DO WITH THE GUY’S ORIGINAL CRIME OR HIS SUBSEQUENT CRIME. Fuck, I hate those things.
If he isn’t rehabilitated (or can’t be in the case of certain sexual predators) then don’t FUCKING LET HIM OUT OF JAIL, YOU ASSHOLES.
Background checks are among the stupidest things ever foisted on us that we accept mindlessly.
I’ll agree.
However, it’s tough for me to get worked up about it. I can walk two minutes up the street and pick out any manner (no NFA – you pedants) or number of firearms and be out of there in 30 minutes or less with my new merchandise. Not exactly a big imposition.
It’s about more than firearms. A felony conviction means you are discriminated against in nearly every aspect of your life going forward. Even misdemeanors can be enough. We’ve got a culture that is excessively punitive in some ways. And it’s largely the poor/middle class who get hit with this shit. The ones who can’t buy their way out of trouble or who don’t have the connections to make up for their mistakes after.
Can’t argue that.
Or that.
But how many of those people were denied a PTI or ARD style program?
Or more bluntly, how many times did they fuck up to end up discriminated against? How bad was their crime against humanity?
I’ve got a sliding scale on sympathy for this point.
Diversion programs don’t always result in withholding of adjudication. They often don’t. Different states and counties also have different policies and programs. A lot depends on the prosecutor and, yea, circumstances. And when background checks are conducted, they often aren’t done in a personal manner where the individual has a chance to actually explain any circumstances that led to the issue. Or they can run into strict non-hire policies at different companies or in housing. You work in a small business, maybe you interview someone and you take a chance depending on what you do. That isn’t the situation a lot of people find themselves in.
Or you apply at Amazon and they’ll take you even if you just got out of prison for mass murder or have 6000 convictions for petty theft.
Fair points.
I don’t know if it really shuts mostly decent people out of “civil society”. Actions have consequences. I know, I’ve done dumb shit before.
I’ll agree too – let’s kill the ’68 GCA. Yay – now we are the tiny minority tilting at a windmill.
All of them need to go.
They’re unconsitutional, and always have been.
Any requirement that you ask permission (and that includes any licensing or registration requirement) to buy a gun, or exercise any right, is an infringement.
People accept the narrative because accepting it identifies you as not one of those people. It’s why I’ve suggested in the past that libertarians and conservatives would be well served to start treating progressivism as sort of a low-rent, middle-brow pretension of sophistication.
Posturing. Like small children playing dress-up in Mommy and Daddy’s clothes.
Ozy – I can tell you that living and working in and around NYT Land can certainly be trying.
We all have set of very narrow signs we telegraph to each other to let people know when you don’t follow the common liberal orthodoxy around here. It’s rather entertaining as sometimes in the workplace it can literally take years before you figure out someone’s political viewpoint. OTH, conventional liberals here will readily speak up at work.
I lived in Ozone Park in 1986 – went to Francis Lewis HS for my junior year of high school – that was enough for me.
One and done.
Amazon delivered a box a couple days ago and I didn’t open it, thinking it was a mouse or batteries from Jimbo, after he had given me a tablet and a Chromebook when I was in the hospital. Well, anyway, I opened the box today.
WTF? 2 little packages, looked like Crown Royal, each in it’s little blue bag. I opened them up and read the cards, finally figured out what they were (they were labelled) , then I laughed and started digging for the senders.
Thanks , OMWC and SP, your thoughtfulness and good humor, I can always use the cheering up and you made my day. I was bragging about my high speed accessories to the therapist and a friend that stopped by. I’m glad they are the racing models, ’cause those things are like gold here in Podunkville.
Now what were the in two little blue bags? Not Crown Royal. One was a bell for my wheel chair, to warn the lolly gaggers to get out on my way. The other blue bag had a bike pedometer to I can compute the distances for Glib Fit.
Glibs are THE BEST!
I can almost hear the good spirits through the text. Your good spirits cheered me up. Thanks.
And I’m glad you’re still doing well.
We have multiple examples of people who have passed a background check with ease, only to commit a “gun crime” at some later date. They are of no use whatsoever. That’s why we need to make them ubiquitous.
I just passed a background check last week when I purchased a firearm.
Everyone knows I’m like totally stable and stuff. I’d never go off the deep end. I’m not prone to volatile reactions. I’m totally reasonable. I never assume stupid shit and then say stupid shit. There’s no way I could be considered one of those loners with no friends who eventually gets a job at the Post Office. Yeah, these background checks totally weed out risky people.
I wish I could believe that. What I see is people believing whatever is repeated the most at the highest volume. If that happens to be the truth then it is pure coincidence.
It does – the Truth/Reality does eventually win, but as I noted above, it’s not always on a time-scale that provides much consolation to tiny human beings.
Sometimes it does – the Salem Witch Trials ended – and people knew they dun fucked up good. In pretty short order, relatively speaking: small comfort to the people who got crushed to death slowly by rocks or otherwise tortured, had their lives ruined, etc.
The Nazis did lose – the (((Jews))) are doing fine. But certainly didn’t seem so in ’37.
Reality wouldn’t be so fucked up w/o our intervention, but that’s what we are and what we do. That’s kinda the point I think – to find our way despite all of that.
To dare a really bad pun (as if there is another kind) might makes write. Winners write the history books. If you mean that a different narrative might pop up after everyone involved is dead and gone, then sure. But how does that matter in the present?
I wonder how much of what we take as Truth will be revealed as bullshit a couple centuries from now.
If we can use it to build physical things that work, it isn’t bullshit.
That’s not what I mean.
I’m going for a walk, see you guys in the PM lynx.
I’m streaming 92.5 on Shoutcast at work. It’s been nonstop CDC Covid safety spots all day.
Essentially “Mask up, bitches!” So tedious.
Do any of you work, or just sit around abusing your orphans?
*polishes monocle*
Why, whatever do you mean?
Where has that flappy-headed muppet been, anyway?
Speaking of Muppets, ever seen David Grohl vs Animal?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AZz9TSjZCM
Abusing orphans is hard work!
You need another orphan to abuse your orphans.
If you want a job done right…
Dammit…
OH MUH GAWDS! It’s the sarcasmic! Long time man…
It’s me. Long time no snarck.
TOS finally drove me out. Now they’re going after Zeb. It sucks, really.
I was wondering how long that would take.
I still go around there occasionally, after a very long total hiatus. But only to prod and poke at them for being such a fake libertarian site.
Looks like most of the commentariat left are either another shreek sock or as dumb as Tony.
I’ve been trying to elicit a response from Bailey, but it seems he has signed the ‘don’t reply to those lowly glibs or else no more cocktail parties’ agreement, as well.
Zeb dared to say I wasn’t running some account, and now Tulpa is running multiple socks saying he’s a sock of mine. This is after Tulpa brags about running multiple socks and deceiving people. Yet when someone complains about being socked by Tulpa, they’re a crybaby who runs multiple socks. It’s the Tulpa show over there. It’s beyond stupid. They can have it.
You say that like flogging the orphans *isn’t* work…
“And we can add a gif, which breaks up the nuance of having a giant wall of text…”
A dog chasing its tail, I hope.
The new pup catches her tail almost immediately. But she keeps running in a circle, like a fuzzy donut.
https://www.phillytrib.com/news/state_and_region/new-jersey-is-the-latest-state-to-require-schools-to-offer-courses-on-diversity-and/article_2db5fce6-bddc-5056-836e-ed96fc391dc2.html
OFFS.
https://www.pennlive.com/news/2021/04/pa-incredibly-concerned-about-falling-demand-for-covid-19-vaccine-as-eligibility-expands-tuesday.html
This has always reminded me of you, Ozy, no matter how implausible. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fhNrqc6yvTU
We did that all the time in the Marine Corps…. sang songs while in a formation.
The songs were just a little…different.
More like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWCYv40Ur1g&t=226s
Mexican links…
He’s doing it just to keep you from commenting first.
I thought it was only for hipster juice promotion.
Damn. Thanks for this as many bookmarks were made.