Hey what’d’ya know? The magic still works. Stepping in for SP today who has more important things to deal with. I’ve not been around much, so drugs may be falling out of my ass on every link. Lemme tell ya, 2021 has been a rollercoaster already. Mrs. L is going to be a bionic woman in less than a month (third son destroyed an already at-risk hip), and between now and then, we’re getting moved out of the house for 10 days because of the world’s luckiest water leak, and what I regard as insanely generous insurance rules regarding water damage to our floor. That’s just this week’s fun. But you’re not here for me, you’re here for links!
Looks like the Fed is gonna run the presses until we’re Zimbabwe. I read a really interesting essay the other week, that I can’t find at the moment, about why Ethereum (and to a lesser extent, Bitcoin) were going to be good stores of value. I won’t say I was sold, but I do feel like the whales and manipulators have been diluted enough in those two crypto markets to be less manipulated than the US dollar markets.
EDIT: Found the link Why ETH Will Win Store of Value. It contains a lot of data about ETH and BTC issuance and security mechanisms that I did not have a good handle on, and has a lot of links that lead to other interesting things. Again, I’m not shifting my 401(k) to ETH or BTC, but it gave me a lot of context to compare with other ways that I might store value against the dollar.
Oh man, my kids love Brown Bear, Brown Bear. Eric Carle, children author, dead at 91.
This is fun.
I’ll step up against the Musk cult here. The original plan before budget cuts was always to sponsor more than one private lunar contract, which is at the heart of the lawsuit Blue Origin filed against NASA. The proposal language discussed multiple awards. This is simply Congress funding the line item at a level to bring it in line with the initial wording. And also, I will laugh my ass off if Blue Origin gets boned by NASA on the rebid.
“This is fun.”
That thing crashed my browser.
It is addictive.
There is a spot in north-central PA where within just a few miles you can drain into one of the St. Lawrence, Susquehanna or Allegheny.
I recently read that the Danube and the Rhine are sort of connected underground, in the SW corner of Germany. That kind of blew my mind.
I clicked my front yard. The path started out nowhere near my front yard.
I think it tries to find the closest known wash
It starts with the nearest identified stream.
Ahh, that explains it.
This is indeed a fun toy. I was made aware of it several days ago through the paddling (that’s Canoe/Kayak, OBE) community. I’ve been plugging in some of my favorite canoe trips and watching it.
I have a community?
Do you contain multitudes?
I have a feeling that Tonio would like to explore that
Let me show you my J-stroke.
Damn lower-48-ists.
I’m running it on an I5 7400T and runs multi-core nicely, but at about an 85% load.
Glad I didn’t try that on 6 year old work laptop.
Cool. If I piss in my driveway, it takes a thousand mile journey in the Coosa River all the way across Alabammy, and then onto the tourists in gulf. Too bad all my neighbors have Ring cameras.
The north-south continental divide runs a couple miles from where I sit, every few years the local rag runs a puff piece on the early 1900’s tourist attraction “The Watershed Barn” the rain that lands on one side if the roof ends up in lake Erie, the other side’s rain ends up in the Gulf of Mexico. Apparently people traveled from all around to have a picnic in front of this barn, this is what people did before television.
That would be a blow against cynicism, since I interpreted the rewrite as currying favor with WaPo.
Interesting. I took it as a gift to Bezos via Blue Origin.
Considering that the amendment proposed (to give $10B to “a second bidder”) was introduced by the senator from Washington, where Amazon is HQ’d, I’d say that’s a reasonable guess.
Sure, but just because they came in 2nd in the last bid cycle and 1st isn’t competing doesn’t guarantee they’ll be 1st in the next one. If the same person who advised SpaceX was the only qualified bidder in the first bid qualifies the next bid, I can see them being a little shitty about a company filing a lawsuit and lobbying Congress to overturn their opinion. Never underestimate the pettiness of an expert scorned.
Boeing is also HQ’d there.
Their last attempt at a rocket blew up too. But at least they built something.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged congressional leaders on Thursday to step up spending, saying that the government is operating on a budget that is more than a decade behind the times.
Money printer go burrrr.
But seriously, what is this cunte playing at? They’ve spent trillions upon trillions on fauxvid relief already. You might as well stock up on toilet paper now because you will be using it as currency and wiping your ass with dollars sooner than later.
I’m all set for TP when TSHTF: I save CVS receipts/coupons.
“Major inflation fears as Biden prepares to announce a $6TRILLION budget tomorrow that will boost federal spending by 25% – the highest level since WWll”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9625573/President-Biden-propose-massive-6-trillion-spending-plan.html
It’s not that the Trump administration was austere. Why do we need such an insane increase in spending?
Cause when Tony and Guido come knocking on the door you give them your protection money?
It’s politically tone deaf. There is no outcry to raise inflation adjusted spending above 2010 levels.
The Ratchet of Free Shit. How are they keeping the House in 2022 without buying a fuckton of votes?
I understand your point but I don’t see how yellen’s idea does anything but accelerate the collapse of pensions and I can’t see how that buys any votes. But then again voters ain’t getting any smarter.
…and I thought Navarro was stupid…
Murphy’s law seems to be way outdated, Walmart doesn’t seem to have the market cornered.
I’m almost flabbergasted, almost.
They’re out of their fucking minds.
Biden isn’t doing squat. It’s the people putting shit in front of him to sign that are doing this, and those retards think money comes out of a hole named MMT.
One of my colleagues sent me this earlier today.
We’re thinking about offering people a chance to last forever. For a price.
Liquidate my estate, have my corpse turned into a pinata, and fill it with the cash from the earlier step.
Then my loved ones get paid and also get to take out any lingering resentments.
That has a certain appeal…
You want to make it rain from your dead body like a yahoo at a strip club?
Sounds like you have mummy issues.
Ah yes, insurance covered a very substantial remodel due to a really small amount of water damage – tile had to be ripped up to dry the subfloor. No way to just replace that tile, so ALLLLlllllll of the tile came up and got replaced. I actually felt bad for the insurance company – can you imagine?
About 1 sqft of parquet floor was damaged. That 1sqft is attached to ~800sqft of other parquet. There are no thresholds, so they have to make all the continuous flooring the same. As well as the actual damaged vinyl tile in the bathroom. I was like… surely, having someone custom match the parquet is cheaper, no? Don’t get me wrong, Mrs. L hates the floor and wanted it gone, so its a big win, but since I am on Citizens, which is backed by the full faith and credit of my taxes (and insurance premiums are up 15% this year and probably at least that much next year) I’m not as happy winning the insurance lottery as I should be.
You get the value of the parquet regardless of what you replace it with so go nuts with something you’ll actually like.
Three words: “Luxury Vinyl Plank.”
Changed our life after the toilet tank flood of ’19. Love our floors now.
This is fun.
Indeed. As if I needed more ways to waste my time and procrastinate.
I hope Mrs. L’s bionic transformation goes well.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged congressional leaders on Thursday to step up spending, saying that the government is operating on a budget that is more than a decade behind the times.
Fuck you cut spending.
Taiwan Is The Babylon Bee’s Country Of The Year 2021
Taiwan is famous for its electoral rights and civil liberties it grants to all its citizens, unlike the neighboring fake country of China, which is a lame, boring place run by a bunch of communists. Boo China. Nobody wants to go there. And their president looks like Winnie the Pooh. …
The Taiwanese people also enjoy the freedom of religion, and none of them have to worry about being placed in concentration camps for believing the wrong things. …
Wow, China. Taiwan is really making you look bad. Maybe you should try not sucking so bad and we’ll consider you for a “Most Improved Commie Fake Republic” for next year.
Reposting:
https://twitter.com/TheBabylonBee/status/1397935499365343232
Yeah I’d be expecting a Chinese cyber attack on the Bee sooner or….
Along with that, Yellen said stronger spending is needed for her department, particularly in tracking financial crimes, community development projects and in cracking down on tax cheats. Yellen asked for $13.2 billion to fund IRS discretionary spending and $417 million to guide the American Families Plan.
I can think of a few people who should be jailed for financial crimes.
You know, I was just wondering about the lack of community development projects lately. I’m glad somebody is finally paying attention to community development again!
You better not be casting aspersions on Hunter Biden with that crack!
After all a new story has come out about how poor Hunter’s pay was cut in half by the heartless bean counters at Burisma.
Even after the pay cut he was the highest paid guy at Burisma? WTH? How did I miss that tidbit when this scandal first came up. Because that would have completely allayed my fears about there being any corruption involved in hiring Hunter.
People who use glass pipes shouldn’t throw crack rocks?
The question was asked earlier, why the 180s on so many things. My crystal ball is it is to be a slap in the face of the public. First the Time article that highlights all that was done to fortify the election and now the information that we said was totally true, well it wasn’t, and we got what we wanted. What are you going to do about it.
I am calling hubris here on it all.
I think you’re very close. I think it’s a test. And they do seem to be passing it. I think they aim to do the 180 and see if the public accepts it blindly, if they even notice.
The agents of Goldstein have been at work. We were always at war with East Asia.
So, I can re-read 1984 or just watch the news and get the same info.
I admire your appreciation of the classics.
Well, teens were responsible. Shocked faces engaged. Even coordinated their activities and where they will be before and after work. I guess the notion that they will be paying that $300 for their school property got them to think. Incentives, how do they work?
This makes complete sense here.
“Fortify” should be in sneer quotes.
“Atlanta councilman running for mayor who voted for ‘Defund the Police’ measure is dragged down the road and almost killed by kids as young as seven who stole his Mercedes during day”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9625885/Atlanta-councilman-voted-Defund-Police-measure-dragged-road-car-thieves.html
There is a lot to unpack there.
All the way screaming “Im one of you!”
A police force overflowing with funding wouldn’t have prevented this. Funding goes towards pensions, DOD military equipment to use against citizens, and hiring new revenue officers to write speeding tickets.
I can’t get fully onboard with the “defund the police” movement, but I’m solidly there on a Defund/Cut police by 95% combined with loosening up restrictions on self-defense Movement.
“He claims it took 45 minutes for police to arrive because it was assigned as a low-priority dispatch”
Two bored cops at dispatch –
Cop 1: Huh. He’s actually held on this long.
Cop 2: Crap. Guess we have to call a unit in.
Guy in handcuffs in backseat: Can you pass the joint?
Hampton, NH policy break up fight with help from other police and thunderstorms
“There was a lot of dancing and loud music and for the most part they were being pretty orderly and not doing anything unlawful, but then a few fights started to break out and we ended up having to clear things out. There were several hundred people. They weren’t all fighting, but there were onlookers to a couple of skirmishes that broke out,” he said.
Hampton police officers were assisted by Epping police, New Hampshire State Police and the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office.
Reno said no injuries were reported.
The fights were reported in the area of Ocean Boulevard between C and D streets.
Reno said it took about a half-hour to disperse the crowd.
A line of thunderstorms that rolled through the state also helped.
“The storm came through and made quick work out of everything,” he said.
“Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot is SUED by white reporter from Daily Caller after she said she would only give one-on-one interviews to black or brown journalists”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9626525/Chicago-mayor-Lori-Lightfoot-SUED-journalist-froze-white-reporters.html
Why does she look like she’s dead?
The town is a financial zombie.
I don’t know Chicago politics enough to figure out how a character like that wound up mayor. Maybe it was her turn or something? She is just so unappealing in every way.
She looks otherworldy, like ET. Possibly lobotomized.
My copy of “Thorneycroft to SA80” arrived today. It looks good.
I want to get in on the new Kickstarter, but alas I’m being financially responsible.
You don’t have a money printer?
/Feds
I’m in it.
Only about $50K to go until it his the $1 million mark.
My rain drop ended up in Lake Michigan, go figure,
Mine traveled 0km and ended in the Atlantic Ocean.
Mine here in the desert just goes the ground water. Don’t feel bad.
Dating back to her days as Federal Reserve chair, Yellen has long called the nation’s fiscal path “unsustainable,” but has advocated more spending at a time when interest rates are low and the economic recovery remains incomplete.
She subsequently told the committee during Thursday’s hearing that she sees costs to finance the debt remaining “very manageable” as she and other economists see interest rates staying low.
This time it’s different.
Hi Brett!
Watching all the Gulf-of-Mexico-bound little raindrops as we speak. I’m gonna waste a lot of time on that site.
“Four cops spark outrage by posing for ‘big game hunt trophy photo’ with shirtless bank robbery suspect and their dogs after Mississippi manhunt”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9625627/Cops-spark-outrage-posing-photo-bank-robbery-suspect-manhunt-Mississippi.html
At least he looks happy.
They didn’t shoot him before posing, so yeah. He’s happy he has photo evidence that he was alive and captured.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9626173/Ted-Cruz-lays-NYT-science-reporter-tweeted-Wuhan-lab-leak-theory-racist-roots.html
TMITE
Facebook got one of the insiders that talked to Project Veritas.
I’ve been assured that this never happens.
An armed school employee thwarted a kidnapping Tuesday after he confronted a man on a playground with his gun, according to police.
The situation started about 2:30 p.m. at an unidentified elementary school in Ogden.
Ira Cox-Berry, 41, approached and grabbed a student, an 11-year-old girl, who was playing on the playground, police said. Cox-Berry allegedly pulled the girl away as if he was trying to leave with her, but a school employee approached Cox-Berry and demanded that he leave the school.
Cox-Berry briefly let go of the girl, and the employee was able to get the children who were also nearby into a classroom, according to a police affidavit. Police say there were 19 other children nearby at the time.
Cox-Berry then approached the building and started punching a window in an apparent attempt to get inside, police said. The employee then produced a firearm and held off the man while calling 911.
Officers arrived shortly after and took Cox-Berry into custody after a short struggle, according to a statement from Ogden police.
Interesting. Normally they name the Hero Teacher in these situations. But since the school employee had an icky gun, probably contrary to school policy, s/he is no longer a “teacher” and will be memory-holed.
You can bet this won’t be big national news. In Austin just a couple years back, a construction worker was fired and vowed to come back and start shooting. He did and a foreman shot him before he was able to hurt anyone. Never made it beyond the local news.
“A bitter defamation lawsuit is now brewing between Johnny Depp and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) after new documents revealed the non-profit’s staff penned the explosive domestic violence op-ed at the center of the actor’s $50million libel suit against ex-wife Amber Heard.
A trove of emails seen by DailyMail.com suggest Heard, 35, had minimal input in the December 2018 article which was written by an ACLU strategist then submitted to her for approval.
The draft went through multiple legal revisions, with Heard’s lawyer anxious not to mention Depp, 57, by name or breach a non-disclosure agreement in the former couple’s $7million divorce settlement. ”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9618547/Johnny-Depp-sue-ACLU-defamation-Amber-Heards-op-ed.html
CWAC
Hulk Hogan takes down Gawker, Johnny Deep get the ACLU???
Dafuq timeline are we an again?
WTF?
Is the ACLU run by total morons?
Yes. And have been for some time. I regret having given them the benefit of doubt for far too long after they started being woke.
Same here. But as NA suggests above, this could be very interesting if it goes the way of Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker.
Not Adahn pointed out at the tail end of the previous thread that Politifact has now joined Snopes in obsessively fact checking the Babylon Bee, which doesn’t even begin to pretend it’s not satire.
I’d like to see Politifact and Snopes fact check SNL sometime.
Time for The Bee to start “fact-checking” Politifact and Snopes. Hilarity ensues.
I guess they didn’t learn from Snopes and NYT. Let them. It only drive more traffic to the Bee and they become even more satirical against Politifact
Okay, I appreciate the huge advances that SpaceX has made, but I’m not a Musk fanboy.
Congresswoman has had a case of the red ass ever since the single award was announced. Specifically mentioned how the award was made at the last minute by evil Trump appointees who Harris(Biden) hadn’t then gotten around to replacing. She wants a redo so money can flow to other contractors, causing project delays and higher cost.
SLDs that we shouldn’t be doing this with taxpayer dollars, but, dammit, if we’re going to do this let’s pick a technological innovator who has solved problems that Boeing, Lockheed, and the other dinosaurs have been unable to solve in the decades since Apollo. Womp, womp.
Have they defunded the Allied Space superbooster yet? They could probably do that and fund 4 companies just with the PM billing line item from that debacle. Also, I’ll admit to being in favor of not having a single source to interplanetary. If Blue Origin is really that close, give them money, but I’d rather see someone from the not-backed-by-a-deci/centi-billionaire club get $10B to take a shot at it.
You mean ULA (United Launch Alliance), aka Team Dinosaur?
I like Blue Origin, and they’re making progress. Unlike Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Grumman, and all the others who have been coasting on their cozy relationship with NASA and DOD?
That’s fair. I think that ULA has the dinosaur industry covered and SpaceX has the Bond villain side of the industry covered. I’d like to see Sierra Nevada or Rocket Lab given $10B and a bunch of runway. But definitely Blue Origin over another dime to ULA. Those guys are wedded to a technology stack that is older than the average engineer working on the project.
This story about Biden is really about Trump, because we hates him
President Joe Biden on Wednesday told Americans he had ordered US intelligence agencies to report in 90 days on whether the virus originated not in animals and spread to humans but might have escaped from a Chinese laboratory.
The move deepened a mystery encompassing the pernicious spread of a deadly pathogen, an intricate epidemiological puzzle, the opacity of a totalitarian system and the bitter overtones of a superpower rivalry. It will fan doubts about the World Health Organization’s capacity to tease out lessons from the current crisis in order to prevent future pandemics.
In the US, it leaves both the former Trump administration and the Biden White House facing calls for transparency about their efforts to establish how the virus started and whether politics tainted their investigative efforts. If it turns out the virus did escape from a laboratory, former President Donald Trump may be able to claim some vindication. But it would also highlight how his repeated habit of trashing the truth and bending intelligence to suit his own political ends shattered his credibility on this and other issues.
——-
The Biden administration is now facing calls to show it took the possibility of Chinese culpability sufficiently seriously especially since prominent Trump team officials and Republicans are launching a victory lap after last year promoting claims about the Wuhan lab — mostly without any clear evidence.
But Trump supporters also appear to be making another attempt to whitewash history of his disastrous handling of a pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands on his watch.
Why don’t they just come right out and say it?
Trump created that virus, and loosed it upon the world, just for laughs!
How’d you get an advance copy of the 1/6 Commission report?
OFFS.
Never change, CNN.
Well, to be fair, the evidence wasn’t clear after CNN has deliberately obfuscated it.
So Trump being proven right, or at least being shown to have a good point, highlights his habit of trashing the truth?
I think someone’s habit of trashing the truth is being highlighted, alright.
That’s gonna be tough, after shutting down the investigation into Chinese culpability.
Maybe public schools should not be politically partisan.
An Oregon school board tabled a vote on flying Black Lives Matter, “progressive pride” and POW/MIA flags alongside Old Glory at its facilities and within each classroom earlier this month after a fiery meeting that saw young progressive members clash with the rest of the board.
Board member Robyn Stowers berated members who wanted to send the proposal to the Oregon School Boards Association for legal review, although they eventually prevailed.
“You’re creating a roadblock in a racist system that does not reaffirm our students’ diversity,” she said. “Black Lives Matter, our progressive pride flag, these are our students identities.” …
“If you don’t like the law, then change the law,” she said.
“The law is White supremacist,” Stowers shot back, knocking the idea that the radical proposal should see review from an outside authority before being forced on teachers, students, parents and everyone else in the community. “The law does not represent every culture.” …
And students will be required to learn “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” also known as the Black national anthem, in addition to “The Star-Spangled Banner.” …
Where is this country of “Black” and why would American citizens sing its anthem?
Just lock the doors, wrap a chain around the handles and use the tools that BLM has used in the past year.
Public schooling is child abuse.
It wasn’t very good a generation ago, but it has been skinsuited over the last 5-10 years. They want to turn your children into prog fascist useful idiots first and want to babysit them as a distant second. Actual education? Pshaw.
The Trump administration, facing election-year blame for its botched handling of a pandemic the ex-President long downplayed, had a strong incentive to find Chinese negligence, whatever the real story was. It also had a record of shaping science and intelligence for political ends and rejecting inconvenient expertise.
They claimed, without evidence.
Especially since his downplay pretty much was vindicated. It ate through a portion of society sadly, but it wasn’t the second coming of the plague for sure.
C/mon, man, it killed .19% of the population, that’s almost 2/1000. Meanwhile natural causes/ unnatural causes killed an additional 1 % or more.
What is the CDC doing about that epidemic?
well, as a matter of fact!
That’s why they consider Covid a “gift”. There was no “correct” way to handle it, so it was easy to find fault in everything he did. Even if he changed his mind on something. If he opposed something that was wrong, if he later supported it that was wrong, or at least he should have supported it earlier.
Trump firing Fauci was bad optics, to be sure.
And at $400K he certainly isn’t going to resign. Where would a geezer find an easier job? Greeter at Wal-mart, have to stand up for hours?
GQP
A solid majority of Republicans do not believe President Biden was legitimately elected last fall, according to a new poll.
Sixty-six percent of voters who identified as Republican in a Quinnipiac poll published Wednesday said they think Biden’s victory was not legitimate.
Clearly 66% of voters that identify as Republican need to be sent to camp.
If you don’t think 100% of republicans need to go to reeducation camps then you’re going with them, shit Lord.
Awesome. Now do the number of Dems who thought Hillary won.
“it gave me a lot of context to compare with other ways that I might store value against the dollar”
I’ve been seeing plenty of that here in Austin, where housing prices have jumped about 30% to 40% in the last two years. They recently sold out a condo development in a couple of hours where they hadn’t even broken ground yet. Essentially sold patches of air in the sky that they promise to surround by walls and flooring – eventually.
Turns out that a year or so of creating 30% more fiat currency backed by nothing will make people a wee bit skittish about holding said fiat currency, prompt a run for the exits to something tangible.
Yup, buy now. If you* are planning a purchase, now is the time to do it. (We’ve put investing into low gear and saving for a car and a house into high gear)
Also, now is the time to get your emergency fund up to snuff if it isn’t already. Inflation may eat away at cash in the long term, but the cash is helpful when the economy crashes and everybody lays off 30% of their workforce.
*the generic “you”, not specifically you prolefeed
Part of our hedge, besides our savings, is that my wife provides a service and we are thinking even in times of tough economic times, people want clean dogs. We already barter a few services and will increase that as needed.
The trees in my yard are appreciating at the same rate as lumber.
Well finally, male porn stars will get paid as much as the females.
Lol!
The fun link doesn’t work on my phone, brave or safari browser, but from other comments it must be a watershed thing. Near me is a spot where a raindrop can go one of three ways. Hudson Bay, Gulf of Mexico, or Atlantic Ocean
https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/education_safety/education/minnaqua/leadersguide/appendix_1/7_5_water_facts.pdf
Weird. It works on my phone with Brave. Android, though.
Yes, it’s a watershed thing. Everything here heads to the Gulf. How do you get from Ely to the Atlantic?
Via Great Lakes
What do CWAA and CWAC stand for? Used here a lot, but can’t find any unpacking of that acronym elsewhere.
Christ what an asshole and Christ what a cunte
I’d cast this guy as a Bond villain.
WATCH: Sen. Ted Cruz gets Joe Biden’s ATF Director nominee David Chipman to admit that he wants to BAN the AR-15, the most popular rifle in America.
“With respect to the AR-15, I support a ban.”
At least he’s being honest. They do want to take away your guns.
There’s something to be said for that but I think I preferred the good old days when they thought that but they were too scared to say it.
Yes, well the next election is three and a half years away. I’m gonna guess the honesty disappears once we get closer.
The dude was also involved in the Waco slaughter?
WTH? Shouldn’t everyone involved in that fiasco have been fired or at least never promoted or given a raise until they left?
Do you even politics, bruh?
Biden’s superpower is identifying the absolute worst candidate for every position and he’s not stopping now.
I’m a simple kid who grew up on the edge of the Great Plains. I admit I don’t understand your Big City ways/politics.
I can’t even pretend that you aren’t 100% right because they just confirmed the gal who preached that blacks are genetically superior to whites as the head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights division.
Historians will call this the Pro Wrestling Era. Where everything got so big and silly and everyone was supposed to pretend it was real and enjoy it.
You leave Jesse Ventura alone, he was the real deal, in and out of the ring.
Link to the racist? I want to start another fight with my wife.
“My Husband Won’t Take His Mask Off—Even for Sex
We’re both vaccinated now. When will this stop?
I have been married to a great guy for five and a half years. He is handsome, sexy, funny, and kind. It’s true that he has always been a little “prissy” about illnesses, but I never thought it was a real problem. However, during the pandemic, his terror about getting sick has reached new levels. For the last year, he has refused to take off his face mask, even when we are at home—just the two of us. This is true even now that he is fully vaccinated for the virus. He wears it to sleep, to do most of his bathroom activities, and, yes, even during lovemaking. To eat, he pulls it up to expose his mouth, and then quickly pulls it back down between bites. While he does not insist that I do the same, I can tell it bothers him that I don’t—especially because I have now started going maskless outside, per the CDC guidelines, and plan on restaurant dining inside soon for a girls’ night out.
When I have tried to present him with the science, he says, “Scientists don’t fully understand the virus yet,” or, “I know it probably isn’t necessary, but wearing it doesn’t bother me, so if there’s even a small chance that it can protect us, I’d rather be on the safe side. What’s the harm?”
I disagree that there’s no harm. I want to see my beautiful husband’s face again. I want to kiss him on the lips romantically, like we used to, and not through a piece of fabric. (He does not change his mask very often and it is often smelly and soiled.) And I don’t want to feel judged by him for my own behavior, which I consider reasonable…..”
https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/05/dear-prudence-mask-coronavirus-fear-sex.html
https://www.syfy.com/sites/syfy/files/styles/1200x680_hero/public/2017/11/twilight_zone_eye_of_the_beholder_01.jpg
No Change! No change at All!
/Young Donna Dixon, MMMMMmmm
Maybe you shouldn’t have married a beta.
I’m thinking you may be wrong about this.
Those things might be true. But it is also true that he is a pussy and a moron.
Nah, this is just his kink.
Well, just exercised my white privilege by walking into a police station, and walking out later without being tazed, shot, beaten, or arrested.
And since that seems a bit short to leave by itself, here’s a big pile of derp:
Ban Cryptocurrency to Fight Ransomware
*this message brought to you by the federal reserve*
How are those linked? Didn’t they get into that pipeline by fishing with links to pics of boobies?
Q Continuum hardest hit.
The only link I can think of is that most ransomware asks you to send crypto to a wallet to get the encryption key. If you get rid of ransomware, there’s only a couple other ways to transfer funds online.
/looks at spam e-mails offering exciting jobs in the realm of package management
Ah OK, that makes sense. Not even close to being a good enough reason though.
Sorry, it should be: “If you get rid of
ransomwarecrypto”Yes, and it is known those two groups are equivalently evil.
Ban Money to Fight Bank Robberies?
And sex to prevent rape.
And reading to prevent learning.
And talking to stop violence.
Liz, Last of Fauxhicans, weaves web of lies and mistruths. The Great Spirit cries.
“Infrastructure is about helping people get to work and helping businesses thrive because they’ve got workers,” she said. “We build roads and bridges to do that. We invest in broadband to do that. We need to invest in childcare to do that. Millions of women are out of the workplace right now, and one out of four says the reason I can’t get childcare. We were in a crisis before the pandemic hit. It only got worse during the pandemic. This is our chance to expand our idea of what infrastructure means. Give women who want to work a real chance in the workplace.”
You know, we’d have plenty of workers if you would STOP PAYING THEM TO SIT ON THEIR ASSES.
Stop paying them to have children while we’re at it.
Words mean what ever we say they mean: “Infrastructure is about helping people get to work and helping businesses thrive because they’ve got workers,”
crunchwrap supreme is infrastructure
Why don’t these fierce liberated wimmin get around the child care issue by making their beta husbands stay home and watch them?
How come it is 100% cool to say that if a someone can’t pay $15/hr to their workers then they shouldn’t be business, but totes bad to say if you can’t afford to pay for childcare on your own, you shouldn’t be working outside the home.
$15/hr? That’s so last year fats.
Since Cedar Point is now offering $20/hr for starting, I’ve seen several articles hit my newsfeed that points out that $20/hr is now the new real starting wage for everyone!
Our little town has a BNSF track on the edge and the road to the nearest real city (about 35 miles away) runs along the track. I see a lot of trains. I’ve developed my own economic indicator by observing what goes down the track. Coal is down. Containers are coming back up after a down cycle. Building materials have been way down until today. Saw two mixed-freight trains with high percentages of finished lumber cars. You heard it here first.
Haven’t seen a 737 fuselage in a very long time.
While I only got 2 miles today, I feel good. I drove up to a state park and walked a very hilly trail through the woods. I found the Perfect Fixer Upper for some glib gearhead while I was there. Took a lot of pictures of trees and rocks and rivers, failed at taking pictures of birds. Didn’t see any whitetailed rats to take their picture.
Oh, and of the score or so people I met walking the trails, only one dumbass was wearing a mask.
??
?
I think that fixer upper can probably be buffed out good as new.
I mean, it’s got an engine, a roof, and even some of the original paint!
Oh noes! A govt shutdown in Minnesoda might really be a shutdown and that would be disasterous
A story about how the Minnesoda courts told the Executive and Legislative branches that they will not step in and order that essential services continue to be funded during one of the kabuki shutdowns that we love so much here. 80% of the govt was deemed essential during the last shutdown and kept operating.
I have no idea how Judge Gildea got so far in her career with such a crazy notion of how things work. Imagine an adult thinking that people need to follow the Constitution.
The judge who dissented should be disbarred.
Even that dude agreed with that part of the finding:
He just disagreed that Gov Mumbles didn’t have the power to line item veto the budget for the Legislature in a fit of pique.
“I have no idea how Judge Gildea got so far in her career with such a crazy notion of how things work. ”
The VP was her mentor? Funny guy, Jimbo.
The left thinks there are a lot of Nazis now? Wait until they go full Weimar.
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
That’s why they consider Covid a “gift”. There was no “correct” way to handle it, so it was easy to find fault in everything he did. Even if he changed his mind on something. If he opposed something that was wrong, if he later supported it that was wrong, or at least he should have supported it earlier.
Exactly. I have yet to hear any definitive answer as to what President Herself would have done which was any more “competent” than Bad Orange Meanie.
Masks sooner? We have seen how effective those were.
Don’t forget, someone suggested masks earlier and that meant you were denying PPE to front line workers.
Well since Herself was bought and paid for by the CCP, they might have warned her earlier about the outbreak. After all they would surely have wanted her to win in 2020.
Even with the heads up from Xi, she couldn’t have prevented any of the deaths, but it would have given Hilary enough time to coordinate a “Nothing but a bad flu” PR campaign with the MSM.
The CCP would never have released it if Herself was Queen.
You spelled Empress wrong.
Under Herself, the feds wouldn’t have changed the way they count deaths (from “from COVID” to “with COVID”), and would have stepped on diagnosing COVID by (a) running non-diagnostic PCR tests (b) until they got a COVID result.
Without the panic campaign being fed daily by garbage statistics, this would have been just a weird flu season with a mid-year spike. I think we all know why there was a panic campaign fed daily by garbage statistics.
I used to feel that way, but the rest of the world shit its pants too.
So I’m not sure whoever was president would have escaped.
Yeah, the fact that the whole world
wentstill is crazy over the ‘vid is what makes me doubt that it was just something dealing with US politics. But I do figure that at least for the next two years, cold/flu season are going to have some states try to bring back mask mandates, curfews, or some other restrictions.Depends. The US still holds influence over the world and when it panicked, so went the rest.
We bill ourselves as the pinnacle afterall.
I may have the timeline long but I seem to recall Europe, Italy in particular going full lockdown while we, the royal we the editorial we, were still toying with whether masks worked or not.
Dont cramp my uneducated hyperbole on the internet Hyperbole. Geesh. Such a buzzkill.
Italy panicked before the US did.
Remember when I said that Joe Biden will be in many ways much worse than Bernie Sanders? Was I wrong?
Yes?
This idea wouldn’t help me in the present, but it is intriguing since every county here is deep dep blue.. Why not let Red and Blue counties move to the state they prefer?
https://americanmind.org/salvo/red-lines/
The US Constitution lays out the method so the Founders obviously thought it was possible. Let rural Oregon join Idaho, western VA join WV, central and south IL join a series of states. It would be interesting to see which parts of Cali decide to depart and if AZ and NV want to adopt them.
Minnesoda would be reduced to the 7 metro counties and the rest of the state would be joining the Dakotas, Iowa or Wisconsin.
That would be weird.
NV is Cali-lite at this point. They don’t want them. Already some calls that we are ‘too free!”, “there outta be a law!”
Deep-blue cities that are surrounded by seas of red (think Buffalo or Cleveland) would never go along with this. The lines cannot be drawn by splitting up states; they would mostly have to be drawn by turning every city into an exclave.
Build the Wall!
This. City-states appear to be the closest relevant structure. How to allow them to oppress themselves and one another without oppressing the rest of the country is an exercise left to the reader.
It strikes me that something along these lines would be the ethical way to treat some of the issues in the republic. Democracy is worthwhile and admirable means for a polity to govern itself. But, democracy doesn’t strike me as particularly worthwhile or admirable for determining what a polity should be. A smaller population that doesn’t wish to be ruled by a larger one should have the right to separate from the larger polity and govern themselves as they see fit. Just because more people make up the larger polity, there’s no mandate that a smaller population should share the same government with them. Especially if that larger population isn’t particularly sensitive to the wants and needs of that minority (and, ethically, democracy doesn’t particularly suggest they need to be). By all means, the majority should be able to rule themselves as they see fit. But, the only reason I can see for that larger majority to demand that the smaller polity remain under the same government is that they intend to rule them abusively. I’m sure reasonable people can agree that that isn’t a particularly moral position.
Its not clear that the Consitution contemplates shifting territory from one state to another.
You’d have to stretch the language so that shifting territory resulted in each of the States involved “be[ing] formed”.
Subdividing a state to form a new state looks to be explicitly prohibited, to me (“no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State . . . “). I don’t read the “without the consent” clause to apply to subdividing a state.
Its all fantasy, though. No politician is ever going to consent to reducing xit’s own power, and transferring territory to another state does exactly that.
. . . . nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
Given the consent of the states involved and the US congress, parts of multiple states can join to form a new state leaving the rest of the original states alone. Right?
So, rural areas can join leaving the metropolitan areas as the old state. Chicago keeps the name Illinois. But the rest of Illinois can join parts of Indiana to start a new state.
We already did it twice. I agree it would be difficult, but to take the case of OR, the state has the initiative process so you can bypass the legislature. The key is for the rural counties to hype up the advantages to the progs in the Portland corridor of “kicking out” the counties. You keep your Dem Senators, you get rid of those icky guns, you can then implement your “progressive vision” those Trumpalos will never get the sweet benefit of your vision, and you get rid the “tax drain” of the rural areas. I mean it worked for Brer Rabbit, “Don’t throw me into the briar patch!”
After the first time, the Blues will get less dumb about the process.
Some enterprising person/group should start the message of “dont let them call it #orexit! We’re kicking them out!”
Why not let Red and Blue counties move to the state they prefer?
Power. Control.
the Founders obviously thought it was possible.
One might say it was the intention and that it has happened many times.
The Biden spending binge and the Lab Leak theory being mainstreamed reminds me what really bothered me about most of the anti-Trump sentiment: it was all about TOP MEN. You know we need a real TOP MEN to rule us and solve everything and Trump isn’t that TOP MEN so he sucks. The Cosmotarians believe in that too and delusionally thought that the GOP and Dem elites will magically reject everything they believe in cuz reasons and thought Biden would be that guy cuz Bill Clinton said something in 1996.
Unnamed boogiemen are still unnamed.
The woketarians should be too embarrassed to show their faces.
And since their usefulness is over, I doubt they’ll get many invites anymore.
The thing that gets is that Biden is doing exactly what he campaigned on so you can’t say that they were tricked.
Bullshit.
Okay. What is Biden doing that is at odds with his campaign platform?
Not canceling student loans.
I remember something about not going to war with oil production, maybe it was fracking, I don’t remember or care enough to look, but killing the Keystone pipeline I took as a promise broken. I could be wrong. There are all kinds of things the lefty statists bitch about as his promises broken because he did not go as far on their pet tyrannical projects as he said he would. Which I guess we should count as a plus.
Besides not being Donald Trump and agreeing with a smorgasbord of non-specific but definitely “progressive” positions, what exactly did Biden campaign on?
He didn’t. He stayed in his basement or attended “rallies” where no one showed up.
Check the Democratic platform: https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/
Did somebody let him know that’s what his campaign was about?
You’re so cute.
I wonder if Will Wilkinson is still clueless. My money says yes.
They were useful?
Heh. The libertarians never had much influence in the Republican Party in the first place so the chances that they would get better treatment from the neoconservatives and Democrats who were openly contemptous of them was nil.
The Trump bashing is less about Trump and more about sending a warning message to others who don’t fall into line.
To paraphrase an overplayed Swedish brat, “You’ve stolen my gravy train! How DARE you!!”
It’s the permanent state against everyone else
My favorite is that libertarians think the GOP spend and regulate too much so the solution is to support Democrats who will spend and regulate ever more since at least they will be nice and not too vulgar about it when they say libertarians are genocidal racists.
Yeah, but if the Dems do it, only the righteous and woke companies will have monopolies.
And then the big responsible socially conscious companies can crush independent entrepreneurs who dare think for themselves and assert their right to keep their business open even after bureaucrats decree that they are non essential.
Who thinks this?
The strawman.
Winston may be engaging in a bit of hyperbole, but the essentials of his critique aren’t particularly wrong. A significant number of libertarians did support Joe Biden, even though he ran on a platform significantly more centered around statism than that of Donald Trump. Biden’s policies since getting elected have been wholly consistent with this. You can spin it any way you want, but all any spin is going to do is absolve them of responsibility for positions they did take.
A not insubstantial portion of the libertarian movement takes the centrist messaging too seriously. They embrace the prog part of the prog-fascists, ignoring the horrifying historical trend of fascism following progressivism* wherever it’s tried.
*and other similarly positioned ideologies
The libertarians who don’t want TOP MEN to rule us unfortunately seem to be stuck figuring out a way to critique the Deep State in a way that won’t get them mad and won’t cause NYT to call them dumb hicks.
They are people, living in a corrupt and vindictive system…can you blame them?
Thing is if the system is so vindictive and corrupt there is not much of a point in trying to appease it. It is like an anti-Soviet dissident thinking that he can figure out some way to publicly criticize the government in a way that won’t get him labeled a wrecker, a CIA stooge, a gangster or a Nazi by Pravda.
Didn’t Yellen, or as I like to refer to her as, that bitch cause a crash before or am I mistaken? Who cares.
Stossel and Snowden talk
Watching: min. 3:37 “YOU MOTHERFUCKER”
Clapper belongs in prison.
Stossel made a damn good point about Snowden getting lost in the Mannings and Assanges of the world. Snowden was in a different class from the other two.
Indeed.
I’m not sure about Assange, but it does get to me when I see Snowden compared to Manning. Manning didn’t really release any new information. What Manning released, in big picture terms, was all public knowledge. And the details that Manning released, included a lot of stuff that got people killed. Snowden, on the other hand, scrupulously scrubbed his releases to make sure those sorts of details didn’t get released. And it was to reveal a pretty massive wrongdoing that the government was lying about. The two aren’t remotely comparable.
And Snowden is one of those issues that I want to bang my head against a wall when I’m talking to a lot of people on the right. They claim that Snowden is a traitor. And you walk them back to find out where they got that from and it’s….James Clapper and John Brennan. Yeah, the same guys they were noting were lying pieces of shite when they were trying to depose a duly elected president. When you know these guys are liars, how dumb do you have to be to still take their word on this sort of thing?
Wasn’t around for the late morning links, but Scruffy N. made the following statement:
If that’s how we Canucks do retribution, it’s pretty obvious that that word doesn’t mean what we think it means — lumber prices at my local Home Despot had an 8-foot 2×4 stud going for $2.11 in March 2020 (I know, I bought some to build my electronics bench downstairs, and still have the receipts); as of this afternoon when I was there to get some stuff, the same studs are going for $9.95 each.
Fuck me up the ass with 18 feet of curare-tipped red-hot cast-iron fencing. OW! OWWOOOWOWOW!!!
Thank you, Justin, Our Lord And Saviour With The Perfect Hair. Could I please have yet another reaming for the greater good?
Can the mills get workers?
No idea, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the answer is “no.”
What I read is that lumber is cheap and mills are expensive. Nobody wants to build a $10M mill to have a crash and a glut in a year, which has happened several times over the last 20 years. So the mills will run at capacity until demand falls, but you can’t build a mill hoping that extra million or two you make this year on the premium is going to be there over time. Everyone who tried it in 2004-2006 got their asses handed to them and either sold out or barely scraped by for a decade.
My go to is to blame Trump for tariffs even if it isn’t true.
And apropos of nothing, I want SugarFree to write an “About The Author” blurb for me that’s as good as Brett L’s. Unfortunately, I’m far too boring for that. :-(
I Gotta admit, I’m a tad put off that Brett L stopped using the custom avatar I made for him. First the whole Mr. Peanut-Milburn Pennybags logo fiasco and now this, I may have to pull an Eddie and demand all my content be stripped from the site.
Oh shit. I didn’t even realize it reverted during the Great Avatar Fiasco. I’ve been distracted. I’ll go fix that immediately.
Only if you provide positive evidence of the complete destruction of your murderboard, notes, and documents.