Saturday Morning Links of Delay

by | May 8, 2021 | Daily Links | 254 comments

Things are changing so fast, I can’t keep up. Family and personal issues have stuck SP in New York, leaving Wonder Dog and me to fend for ourselves. And fending we’re doing, in our own special way. This involves cilantro, beer, horror films, and Milk Bones.

Birthdays today are particularly notable and numerous, and include a guy who proved that even monkeys can write history books; a vastly overrated dictator/president; the original televangelist; easily the greatest economist of my lifetime– and possibly ever; an absolutely delightful pianist whom I was fortunate enough to meet once; creator of my favorite cartoon TV show when I was a kid (and it is still delightful and fresh); the guy who in many senses inspired this site; a true and really impressive screwball; a guy who created the very worst movie ever made; the best toupee to ever serve in congress; the most self-indulgent pianist in my lifetime; a guy best known for floundering; the biggest jaw in football; the guy who made the Bears what they are today; a guy whose motto was “Safety First”; and a guy who, in a just world, would be gutted and hanging upside down from a lamppost.

Let’s get to the news.

 

“due to Covid-19 deaths, a decline in immigration and a lower birth rate” And that’s it? Nothing else?

 

This Florida Man is a king.

 

Phoenix is a tough town.

 

I’m shocked to find leftist antisemitism.

 

Our tax money. “aims to put the first woman on the moon by 2024” How stunning. How brave. Fuck you, cut spending.

 

“We will defend Jerusalem no matter what sacrifices we must make” he said from one of his beachfront mansions.

 

Try this with MY kid… prosecution would be the least of your worries.

 

Old Man Music is a cover of a Joni Mitchell song I love and spent hours learning to play. Fuck, this woman can sing.

About The Author

Old Man With Candy

Old Man With Candy

Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me. Wait, wrong book, I'll find something else.

254 Comments

  1. SP

    I’ll be home soon. (For certain values of soon.)

    Get the strippers out by then, because I restocked on rusty tin can lids while I was away.

    • Sean

      I’m surprised the TSA allows them.

      • Gender Traitor

        She drove, so no luggage limit! She could fill the entire trunk/cargo area! ::forgets what style of vehicle she has::

      • Sean

        Oh…there was that meet up…right?

        I’m not really mentally functional yet.

        *sips coffee*

      • mexican sharpshooter

        Why? Strippers believe it or not, are people.

    • Gender Traitor

      Left you a little….incentive, shall we say…on the Forum board to motivate you to perhaps stop in these parts again on your return, if you’re willing and able. Whether or no, safe travels whenever they may be!

  2. UnCivilServant

    a decline in immigration

    Well, emigration can be referred to as a decline in immigration.

  3. Yusef drives a Kia

    Good Saturday Glibs! I hope it’s a good one!

    • Gender Traitor

      Happy Saturday, Yu! I’m frustrated that it’s too chilly so far (41, “feels like 36”) to be out on my back porch this morning, but it’s sunny and pleasant.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        I know, right? 34 and sunny, it’s a Trap!
        going to be nice later, seize the Lake!

      • juris imprudent

        It was a fine morning to walk the dog, before the rain sets in.

      • limey

        feels like 36”

        Bow chicka wow

  4. Sean

    LOL. An ex gf, her mom, at a strip club at 3 am, and gun play. So very, very Florida.

    Just missing the bag of crystal meth.

  5. Yusef drives a Kia

    “a decline in immigration and a lower birth rate” I went back recently, what a mess, the beauty is even fading, lack of maintenance is what I saw,

  6. Gender Traitor

    Spilled lemons on the road causing hazard for Phoenix apartments, GM says

    Imagine the human tragedy had it been bananas.

    I….can’t! It’s too horrible to contemplate!

    • UnCivilServant

      No one remarked when it was cashews.

      That’s just nuts.

      • Sean

        Knock it off with the seedy puns.

      • dontreadonme

        Just wait for the zest of the story.

      • Tejicano

        I don’t believe Swissy will find this very appealing.

      • dontreadonme

        You think it will make him sour on the site?

      • Tejicano

        Oh grate. Now you’ve done it.

      • dontreadonme

        The tension is pulpable.

      • Tejicano

        I doubt you’re going to squeeze any more ouns out of this one

      • dontreadonme

        So tru, cause I wouldn’t ever make a joke about the juice.

      • juris imprudent

        If only I had a pithy comment.

      • Gender Traitor

        Yeah, I’d love to participate, but I’m afraid I’ll have to citrus one out.

      • dontreadonme

        True, a greener topic would be more sublime.

      • juris imprudent

        I truly admeyer all the efforts.

      • blackjack

        Once you start spilling lemons, it’s a slippery slope.

    • Tres Cool

      Let alone peanuts. Imagine the elephant stampede.

      Mornin’ !

  7. Stinky Wizzleteats

    Are spilled lemons really that big of a deal? I mean, no one wants crap spilled in front of where they live but these aren’t chicken carcasses or whatever and the little think of the children who have to walk over these horrible spilled lemons is silly.

    • Sean

      Sounds like a good occasion to throw a party.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        When life gives you lemons you’re supposed to make the best of it. Something like that anyway.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        When life gives you lemons,
        Build Surfboards,
        true story,

      • Trigger Hippie

        When life gives you AIDS, make LemonAIDS?

      • Gender Traitor

        Yeah, I think when this sort of thing happens, you’re always advised to take the opportunity to concoct some sort of beverage. Now, what was that…?

      • Tonio

        A lemon party?

      • Sean

        I’d like to think there was at least one person who googled that. ?

    • dontreadonme

      Enterprising kids would already have set up a lemonade stand at the next exit.

      • Gender Traitor

        Followed shortly by a cop, a health inspector, and some other bureaucrat demanding to see their business license.

  8. The Late P Brooks

    I think Ballgag Joe has mommy issues.

    • Tejicano

      From my point of view Joe has breathing issues, as in, he does it too much and I wish he would stop.

    • Old Man With Candy

      One great year.

      • The Gunslinger

        But what a year it was for a 13 year old lad. With Ernie Harwell and Paul Caray on the radio and George Kell and Al Kaline on the TV.

      • Old Man With Candy

        The main thing I remember about George Kell is who replaced him.

      • The Gunslinger

        Was it the human vacuum cleaner?

  9. The Late P Brooks

    Can you say political slush fund?

    Democrats are fighting to approve trillions of dollars in new spending to tackle everything from education to housing to clean energy, the culmination of years of work by advocates across the progressive movement. But finding the votes in Congress may be the easiest part.

    The federal government has struggled in recent history to quickly translate cash from Congress into actual shovels in the ground. And for Democrats, deriving a political benefit would require that voters see and feel the impact before the 2022 midterm elections.

    President Joe Biden will have to figure out how to spend the money on time, on budget and with the intended impact. Depending on how that all goes, Biden could end up as the next Franklin D. Roosevelt, lauded for restoring faith in big government programs, or unable to get his ambitious plan off the ground.

    ——-

    Advocates and outside experts say the Biden administration is well positioned to route money through existing programs, boost state and local governments that have an existing backlog of infrastructure projects, and accelerate clean energy trends that already have momentum in the private sector.

    But there are also lots of details to fill in and many potential hurdles to overcome, even if the money is approved.

    Details, details. As long as the media is willing to bury any stories about corruption and ineptitude this thing will be the biggest big-government success since putting a non-birthing person on the moon.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      “next Franklin D. Roosevelt”

      The next patrician asshole to extend an economic downturn unnecessarily through bad policy? Way to go Joe I guess.

      • dontreadonme

        And to conspire with the media to cover up an impairment for his public image even though in FDR’s case his disability didn’t actually affect his ability to do his job unfortunately.

      • Tejicano

        “next Franklin D. Roosevelt”

        Should we be warning anybody of Japanese ancestry?

    • Count Potato

      “The federal government has struggled in recent history to quickly translate cash from Congress into actual shovels in the ground.”

      In recent history?

      ” And for Democrats, deriving a political benefit would require that voters see and feel the impact before the 2022 midterm elections.”

      They’ll just report it did.

    • rhywun

      Biden wants trillions for infrastructure

      LOL.

      Never change, NBC.

      • hayeksplosives

        accelerate clean energy trends that already have momentum in the private sector.

        Because anything the free market can do, government can fuck up.

  10. The Late P Brooks

    Followed shortly by a cop, a health inspector, and some other bureaucrat demanding to see their business license.

    Don’t forget the union labor activists.

    • Old Man With Candy

      This stand does not pay a living wage!

  11. The Late P Brooks

    A cautionary tale is the 2009 stimulus, whose spending initiatives Biden oversaw as vice president. Then-President Barack Obama promoted the bill as being full of “shovel ready” projects that could quickly get people working.

    But investments in ambitious initiatives like high-speed rail failed to get past opposition from Republican governors, who killed transportation projects in Florida and New Jersey. Cost overruns derailed projects in Democratic states like California, where a plan to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles is stuck on more modest Central Valley line additions that are still in progress.

    It would have worked, too. Lots of out-of-work mortgage brokers are qualified to run construction equipment. Those mean old republicans only opposed high speed rail to make the Ascended One look bad. We would all be riding to work on 500mph choo choo trains if not for the wreckers and obstructionists.

    • Spartacus

      My school is still trying to get FEMA to pay out the money they promised for hurricane Irma cleanup.

  12. trshmnstr the terrible

    Try this with MY kid… prosecution would be the least of your worries.

    It kinda cracks me up that paddling, once so commonplace that a paddle hung in nearly every principal’s office, is now national news.

    • dontreadonme

      Well everything can become national news thanks to the intertubes. That said, being a “victim” of corporal punishment in school I would say that it is an abomination and should be banned. Leave that shit up to parents. Of course my experiences probably contributed to my early rejection of authority and institutions and set me up to become libertarian so I guess there is a silver lining to those kinds of experiences.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        I agree. I have problems with it from a few different perspectives, especially for public schools, but I wouldn’t make a federal case of it if it happened to my kid. Then again, we’re one of the few families still using corporal punishment at home, so we’re a huge outlier.

      • rhywun

        should be banned

        Torn on this.

        I agree it’s wrong, but… man, some kids need a smacking.

      • Gender Traitor

        This parenting columnist has long been, as I recall (from back when I used to read the newspaper,) OK with parents spanking children too young for other punishments – with a bare hand on the bottom in the context of a loving (non-abusive) parent-child relationship. He always struck me as having common sense – all too UNcommon any more.

      • rhywun

        Yeah, that was pretty much my experience.

      • Tonio

        It’s like capital punishment. Some people deserve it, but I don’t trust the state to administer it.

      • dontreadonme

        That kind of sums up my stance on both issues.

      • Plinker762

        Or applied immediately during the act. I remember one kid in sixth grade acting up in class, harassing other students and ignoring the teacher’s verbal admonishments, the teacher broke a yard stick over his ass. The immediate consensus of us was that he deserved it.

  13. The Late P Brooks

    I watched Fritz the Cat last night. I wouldn’t say it holds up well, but it’s an interesting cultural artifact.

    It’s pretty sad to see a cartoon cat with a more subtle grasp of race issues than the best and brightest minds of the 21st century.

    • straffinrun

      If you like that, I’ve got a few Japanese gameshows I’d like to introduce you to.

  14. The Late P Brooks

    Adie Tomer, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, said that much of the infrastructure funding would most likely go to thousands of small projects at the state and local level, which are often already planned out and easier to get off the ground efficiently than larger ones. Think bridge repairs more than The Big Dig.

    “I have very little concern there are enough projects out there,” Tomer said. “The bigger question for me is how do we value return on investment: What are good projects versus questionable projects?”

    Stop it. You’re killing me.

    • straffinrun

      I keep forgetting. Is the infrastructure crumbling still?

      • rhywun

        Come to NYC for the crumbling infrastructure. But it’s not for lack of throwing money around.

      • straffinrun

        You lost me at “Come to NYC”.

      • DrOtto

        Stay for the subway rats!

  15. straffinrun

    A spokesperson for the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office says the shooting stemmed from an argument between a man’s girlfriend and his ex-girlfriend.

    Best possible scenario played out.

    • dontreadonme

      You missed spelled threesome.

      • straffinrun

        Cum and knock on my door.

      • Tres Cool

        -1 Stanley Roper

      • straffinrun

        On a serious note, got into a big argument last week over who was better, Norman Fell or Don Knotts in that role. How could anyone not choose Don Knotts?

      • The Hyperbole

        Because they aren’t idiots?

      • straffinrun

        Those are fight words at the Regal Beagle.

      • l0b0t

        Fell brought a subtle dignity to the role. Knotts was just buffoonish. Fell brought back Jack Benny’s fourth wall breaking, deadpan to the camera. Knotts played the exact same clueless clown type character he played in The Apple-Dumpling Gang. Knotts was much closer to the original British television (Man About The House, George & Mildred) character of Roper. Fun fact – the British version had two spinoffs: George & Mildred (remade as The Ropers in the US) and Robin’s Nest wherein the aspiring chef protagonist finally gets his own restaurant.

      • rhywun

        All true, but Mr. Furley could really rock an ascot.

      • straffinrun

        Well said, but I do have to laugh at the “subtle dignity”.

      • l0b0t

        To be fair, I enjoy both of the characters and would hesitate to label one of them better; they were different characters. The lecherous neighbor character was toned down significantly from the British version. In the UK, he was always trying to talk the two girls into a threesome before being shot down and slinking off to the pub to be misunderstood by the gay Scottish barman (Percy).

      • Ted S.

        Robin’s Nest became Three’s a Crowd in the US, with IIRC Mary Cadorette as Jack’s wife and Robert Mandan as the father-in-law.

      • rhywun

        +1 tinkerbell

    • Tres Cool

      Talk about 2 birds, 1 stone

  16. The Late P Brooks

    Slavery and oppression

    South Carolina and Montana residents will be cut off from federal pandemic unemployment benefits next month, with Republican governors in each state claiming the payments have led to a workforce shortage. Economists say that’s not the case.

    “Employers are just angry that they are unable to find workers at relatively low wages,” Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, said in an interview. “The jobs being posted are more stressful, more risky, harder jobs than they were pre-COVID. … When the job is more stressful, then it should command a higher wage.”

    ——-

    Shierholz told ABC News that after the $600 bonus on unemployment expired at the end of July, “You should have seen a bump up in employment, and you can’t see that in the data so it just points to that it wasn’t really causing the labor supply effect. It’s just difficult to imagine that something half that big is having any effect now.”

    But a report from the Economic Policy Institute shows that a more likely reason some employers aren’t attracting workers is that many of these businesses are offering too-low wages. In a true labor shortage, the report states, wages will rise as does competition among employers. But wages aren’t growing — at least not quickly enough.

    William E. Spriggs, an economist and professor at Howard University, said in an interview with ABC News that there is no data to prove that unemployment checks are preventing Americans from returning to work.

    There is no data. No reason to believe.

    Just offer them more money. What’s so hard about that?

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Manistee McDonalds is hiring for 14$ an hour and they can’t find enough people to stay open normal hours, there is a ton of work around right now,

      • Gustave Lytton

        Not to worry. The feds will inflate the hell out of the dollar further so that $14 won’t even buy a happy meal.

    • rhywun

      In a true labor shortage, the report states, wages will rise herpity derpity doo

      We don’t have a labor shortage, you fucking morans.

  17. Count Potato

    “Chinese scientists have been preparing for a Third World War fought with biological and genetic weapons including coronavirus for the last six years, according to a document obtained by US investigators.

    The bombshell paper insists they will be ‘the core weapon for victory’ in such a conflict, even outlining the perfect conditions to release a bioweapon, and documenting the impact it would have on ‘the enemy’s medical system’.

    This latest evidence that Beijing considered the military potential of SARS coronaviruses from as early as 2015 has also raised fresh fears over the cause of Covid-19, with some officials still believing the virus could have escaped from a Chinese lab.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9556415/China-preparing-WW3-biological-weapons-six-years-investigators-say.html

    I’m pretty sure it was gain of function research, not a bioweapon.

    • Tejicano

      Po-teh-to, Po-tah-to – how do you do work on a bioweapon without that step?

      • Count Potato

        Start with a much deadlier pathogen?

    • juris imprudent

      Do you mean the crime of owning one, or a crime committed with one that stymied a police investigation?

      • Gender Traitor

        Put it this way – has there been a victim?

      • Plinker762

        There is always a victim – the government.

  18. The Late P Brooks

    I keep forgetting. Is the infrastructure crumbling still?

    It’s worse than post war London. Giant heaps of rubble, craters, twisted metal jutting futilely toward the sky.

    • straffinrun

      You’re just trying to get me to move back.

      • Tres Cool

        London, Ohio ? Or London, Ky. ? Or London, Ontario, Canuckistan ?

  19. straffinrun

    The remainder, a loss of about 24,000 residents, was credited to fewer births, a nationwide trend that has impacted California more than other states, according to the report.

    Slipping on sidewalk shit caused half those miscarriages.

  20. straffinrun

    I’m thinking of refurbishing my smoker with parts from a cache of 1911 pistols my Grandpa left me along with a case of Bulleit whiskey. Advice?

    • Timeloose

      Be sure to drink the whiskey while you are fabricating.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    It’s snowing.

    Hurry up, Joe! Save Gaia!

    • straffinrun

      I’m holding my mouse and scrolling with a an index finger filled with malicious intent.

  22. The Late P Brooks

    Assume a magic spell

    The Justice Department on Friday released a proposed rule that would broaden the definition of a firearm, requiring some gun-making kits to include a serial number as the Biden administration moves forward to combat so-called “ghost guns.”

    It comes several weeks after President Joe Biden promised a crackdown on “ghost guns,” homemade firearms that lack serial numbers used to trace them and are often purchased without a background check.

    For years, federal and local law enforcement officials have been sounding the alarm about what they say is a loophole in federal firearms law, allowing people who are generally prohibited from owning guns to obtain them by making the weapons themselves. Ghost guns have increasingly been turning up at crime scenes and being purchased from gang members and other criminals by undercover federal Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents.

    ——-

    The rule sets forth several factors to determine whether the unfinished receivers could be easily convertible into a finished firearm, a senior Justice Department official said. If they meet that criteria, manufacturers would also be required to include a serial number, the official said. The rule also would require serial numbers to be added to homemade, un-serialized weapons that are traded in or turned into a federal firearms dealer.

    The official could not discuss the matter ahead of a public announcement and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. Once the proposed rule is published in the Federal Register, the public will have 90 days to submit comments.

    The critical component in building an untraceable gun is what is known as the lower receiver, a part typically made of metal or polymer. An unfinished receiver — sometimes referred to as an “80% receiver” — can be legally bought online with no serial numbers or other markings on it, no license required.

    Converting the piece of metal into a firearm is relatively simple and takes only a few hours. A drill press or a metal cutting machine known as a Computer Numeric Control, or CNC, is used to create a few holes in the receiver and well out a cavity. The receiver is then combined with a few other parts to create a fully functioning semi-automatic rifle or handgun.

    “Criminals and others barred from owning a gun should not be able to exploit a loophole to evade background checks and to escape detection by law enforcement,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “This proposed rule would help keep guns out of the wrong hands and make it easier for law enforcement to trace guns used to commit violent crimes, while protecting the rights of law-abiding Americans.”

    We just need a few more magical words on paper, and this hobgoblin will be vanquished.

    Never before in the history of interpersonal conflict has it been possible for a man (or woman) to build a lethal weapon safely shielded from the eyes of Justice. Modernity is a terrifying place.

    • Q Continuum

      “Converting the piece of metal into a firearm is relatively simple and takes only a few hours. A drill press or a metal cutting machine known as a Computer Numeric Control, or CNC, is used to create a few holes in the receiver and well out a cavity.”

      Yeah it’s not *that* simple. For an experienced machinist, sure. For a hobbyist, it’s really easy to screw up the tolerances and turn it into a paperweight. Has a “ghost gun” EVER been used in a crime? I mean, probably once as an anomaly. But sure as shit there aren’t hordes of Chicago South Side gang bangers renting CNC time to finish 80% receivers. These are emotional scare tactics to ignorant readers, pure and simple.

      • Plinker762

        There are a lot of jigs and tooling available that make most of the finish operation pretty easy if one has basic mechanical skills.

      • R C Dean

        “pretty easy if one has basic mechanical skills”

        ITS A TRAP!

      • Not Adahn

        Has a “ghost gun” EVER been used in a crime?

        Oh yes. The “ghost gun” category includes firearms that have had the serial numbers removed, in addition to ones that never had one.

      • Q Continuum

        OK, OK, fine.

        I mean specifically 80% lowers that were finished by the end user.

      • Count Potato

        I mean specifically the spirits of guns that have died.

    • Tejicano

      “…a metal cutting machine known as a Computer Numeric Control, or CNC, is used to create a few holes in the receiver and well out a cavity…”

      And these CNC machines are cheap and easy to operate, right? Ah, no.

      There already is a BATFE standard covering “readily convertible” which states that the conversion takes less than 8 hours of work. They could, theoretically, bump that up to 12 or 20 hours. Either way, (unless something else has changed in my absence) I believe there already was a requirement to mark the receiver once the work has been completed.

      I’m waiting to see the actual wording of this proposed regulation. If we’re lucky they will screw it up like they did the GCA and they’ll have to give some kind of amnesty for home-built machineguns.

      • Plinker762

        You don’t need to mark it if it is for personal use only. The gray area is if you build it for yourself, get tired of it and decide to give/sell it to someone else.

    • juris imprudent

      The talisman of a serial number! It’s like a fingerprint – totally unique and unequivocal as identification.

      • dontreadonme

        Yeah it’s really a nothing burger issue promulgated by the entertainment industry crime movies “they filed off the serial numbers” and the desire to appear to be doing something. I may or may not have made some of these, I probably wouldn’t trust my life with them in actual combat. And in any case making them illegal will only stop the honest people, not the criminals who are industrious enough to build one.

    • KSuellington

      I met Willie McCovey once. My friend’s mom worked at a Holiday Inn that he was staying at. He was nice enough to not only sign our gloves, but to ask us all the players names on our baseball team (we were on the 7th grade team) and sign a postcard of himself addressed to each player’s name. Still have the singled card on my downstairs beer fridge.

  23. Cy Esquire

    “Try this with MY kid… prosecution would be the least of your worries.”

    You didn’t spank your kids?

    • Old Man With Candy

      No. And I think they turned out great. Except WebDom, who turned out… unusual.

      • Old Man With Candy

        Oh, and like Tonio said above, it’s different when done by me or by an agent of the state.

      • Cy Esquire

        “Carter and Cecilia Self, a clerk at the school, reportedly told authorities that the girl’s mother requested the school spank her daughter. Under school policy, teachers are only allowed to paddle students if the parent is present, according to the report.”

        That’s not really that far fetched. There are many people who literally aren’t strong enough to inflict pain with a spank and I could see the respect/public humiliation angle of having a school official do it be affective.

      • Old Man With Candy

        “She told us to.”

        According to school employees. Mother has extremely limited English.

        Right.

  24. Count Potato

    “NEW CIA RECRUITMENT AD:

    “Growing up gay in a small Southern town, I always struggled with the idea that I may not be able to discuss my personal life at work. Imagine my surprise when I noticed a rainbow on CIA Director Brennan’s lanyard.”

    https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1390814046023208962

    • Tejicano

      “…when I noticed a rainbow on CIA Director Brennan’s lanyard…”

      PHRASING!!!

      • dontreadonme

        Serious LOL

    • Q Continuum

      “I always struggled with the idea that I may not be able to discuss my personal life at work”

      Why the hell would you do this in the first place? Do I walk around work wearing this shirt (which I do actually own)?

      https://archive.li/asNL4/a5c6edd3e13307b26d8cf18544dbf13cd4805acd.webp

      True as the sentiment of the shirt may be, work is for working and I see no reason to share such details with coworkers.

      • Cy Esquire

        “discuss my personal life at work”

        Literally all we do at work. But we’re all semi-stuck here.

        As the saying goes “The only other place where everyone walks around talking about how much time the have left, is prison.”

        -Railroad guy

      • Hank

        Not true – there’s high school.

      • blackjack

        redundant.

      • Q Continuum

        I dunno, the single people at my work could be gay and I wouldn’t know. They might mention in passing that they had a date or something I guess, but usually just to say it went well or poorly. I don’t feel the need to ask them about the plumbing of their paramour; I guess ’cause I feel it’s not my business. Then again, I’m not a Gen Z social media addict who grew up oversharing and needing to be validated every other second.

        YMMV.

      • Not Adahn

        I’m assuming the stone butch chick with the mirror of Venus tattooed on her temple and the rainbow flag tat covering half her neck is a lesbian. But I’ve never asked.

      • Fourscore

        Army

      • juris imprudent

        Why the hell would you do this in the first place?

        BECAUSE YOU MUST VALIDATE ME!!!

        This is where we blew through tolerance, overshot acceptance and landed on celebration. If you don’t affirm and celebrate my existence you are phobic.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Should be a rainbow noose around Brennan’s neck, swinging from the nearest lamppost and body left as a warning to such new hires.

      • CPRM

        Watched ‘Tom Clancy’s: Without Remorse’ on Amazon this morning, it had a mid credits scene to set up Rainbow 6, but the whole thing was shitty, they never established that the ‘bad guy’ was even acting outside of orders from ‘The President’ (as an unnamed character) but yet, we’re supposed to trust ‘The President’ to institute a multi-national task force to deal with terrorism, even though the main baddie of this film held a position appointed by ‘The President’. I’m sure it’s all explained in the books, but not in this movie at all in any form.

    • rhywun

      “It didn’t go so well when I tried to hook up with him later, though.”

      • Gustave Lytton

        “Learn to hankie code!”

  25. Q Continuum

    Mrs. Q had her surgery touching up the undercarriage yesterday. Gonna be messed up for a while so I’m looking at a full weekend of slamming beer and looking after q-ette.

    • Tundra

      Thoughts and prayers.

      How is q-ette sleeping?

      • Q Continuum

        She sleeps pretty darn good. Still has the witching hour from about 7-11 every night though. White noise and rocking are the only things that work to calm her down.

      • Tundra

        Don’t be surprised if you have to break her of that. We had the same issue with our son and finally one night we said fuck it and let him cry himself to sleep. It felt like days but it really wasn’t that long and it worked like a charm. Never any issues after that.

      • Q Continuum

        How old was he?

      • Tundra

        I don’t recall exactly, but it was definitely earlier than six months. He had us well trained!

      • TARDis

        We had a problem with a day care my daughter went to. She was fine with nap time until about 3. Then she wouldn’t stay down and they took to rubbing her back to clam her down to sleep. Next thing you know, we’re having to do the same thing at bedtime.

      • CPRM

        17

      • KSuellington

        We had three boys that we let cry it out somewhere around 4-5 months old as they no longer really need night feedings once they get to that age. The first kid was the only real tough one as the other two trained pretty easy. It seems like an eternity, but we would wait about 15 minutes at a time before we would go in and check. It finally works and then everyone is happier with better sleep after a week or so.

      • Mojeaux

        How do you people remember this shit? I remember my kids’ birth and possibly what happened last week, although this is not assured.

      • KSuellington

        Youngest is 5 and oldest is 10, so not that long ago. But I get your point, a lot of that time is a blur due to exhaustion.

      • Tres Cool

        17

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Cry it out is a great method once they’ve shown themselves capable of sleeping longer stretches. Were over the hump on that one. That and the baby food is like ambien for babies.

      • Q Continuum

        Pretty sure we’re not there yet as this is classic colic.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Yep. Given her age, youre right that shes not there yet. Just a couple more months of this phase and then you can get back to something resembling regular sleeping habits. ?

      • blackjack

        A guy at work just had a newborn about 6 months ago. I asked him if he’s been getting any sleep and he said it’s had no effect on him at all. I was like: Bullshit! Then he told me he only sleeps 4 hours a night anyway and it just happens to match when the baby sleeps. Oh, OK.

    • straffinrun

      Can’t wait for you to go through the uncomfortable moments of having a female offspring grow into her body right in front of you. It’s been a soul checking experience for me.

      • Tundra

        ^^This^^

      • CPRM

        So…about that daughter 😉

      • Tundra

        LOL!

      • Gender Traitor

        How many cows and sheep is it going to set him back to get the deal done?

      • Q Continuum

        She is turning ginger… That’s gotta be worth a few extra right?

      • Gender Traitor

        Oh, you’ll be able to name your own price! Sky’s the limit! 😉

      • CPRM

        Whoa! No woman is worth multiple cows!

      • Tundra

        A LOT!

      • Nephilium

        CPRM:

        Just offer up lots and lots of cows.

  26. Tundra

    Mornin’ Old Man!

    I’m not a JM fan, but that is excellent old guy Music.

  27. Hank

    Why would a black student want a Jim Crow dormitory? Liberalism and multiculturalism haven’t met their search for meaning:

    ‘Chances are that you don’t have religion. You don’t have much patriotism, either, the kind of love that lets you say with pride, “I’m an American!” and gain strength from that loyalty. Moreover, you don’t have an assuring sense of neighborhood, not with the Internet having made so many of your social interactions virtual. Needless to say, the pop culture you enjoy doesn’t align you with any venerable traditions, and the consumerism flooding your iPhone turns you into just that, a consumer.’

    https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/05/a-new-segregation

    • rhywun

      These students want grounds and foundations, reassuring origins and forebears.

      I think it’s even simpler than that. They want power. And they found a convenient way to get it.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Yep, there may be inherent desires to be a part of something bigger, but that desire is easily corrupted into wanting to become something bigger. Make no mistake, they see us as “less than”. It’s impossible to be fervently zealotous and not think that way.

  28. westernsloper

    Scott Simon re India: (concerned voice) “Why haven’t they locked down?”

    TMITE

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I’m getting conflicting reports over the outbreak.

      One group says they stopped using ivermectin because the vaccines became available, another says China released variants into the population, another says remdesivir started getting used, etc…

      It’s a clusterfuck of information.

      • CPRM

        I blame OMB. Give me a Pulitzer.

      • westernsloper

        There has been a clusterfuck of information for over a year from around the world and the only constant in it all is a certain sort of person pushing lockdowns and the data showing lockdowns make no difference when compared to places that don’t lockdown. I am coming around to the thought they are honestly trying to kill us.

      • Gender Traitor

        Awww, they’re not trying to kill us. They’re just trying to thoroughly demoralize us and break our spirits. They only want what’s best for us themselves.

      • straffinrun

        Hey. That doesn’t make me feel any better.

    • KSuellington

      Yeah, why don’t all those people earning a substance level existence just log onto their computers and work from home? If they just do that for a year it will all turn out just fine. They can order food off Grubhub if they get hungry and just chill an Netflix while Amazon takes care of their delivery of essentials. It’s, like, really simple.

  29. CPRM

    I’ve found myself really missing directing. Sure, I direct the cartoons that I am the only participant in. But, in most aspects of life I don’t care to be in charge. I’ll do what other people want for dinner, I’ll do what other people want to do on a night out. I’ll defer to cow orkers at work.

    But I miss having that singular vision when directing, where I know exactly what needs to be shot and how. Even if no one working with me can see rhyme or reason, I know how it all fits together.

    Finding actors is easy, but finding actresses is hard. Must be because I’m sexist or something.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Casting couch with standards?

      • CPRM

        Just the observation that men are more likely to make an ass of themselves than women. So, kind of the opposite of the casting couch idea. For whatever reason, finding an appropriate actress for roles has halted production on my no budget short films than finding actors.

    • Tres Cool

      Hide the ficus

      Lookit Weinstein over there.

  30. l0b0t

    As mentioned on last night’s Zoomy; bow down before the televisual delight that features Lee Van Cleef and Timothy Van Patten as ninjas!

    The Master (1984)

    • Nephilium

      Sounds a lot better then the work Zoom I got pulled into after midnight, and then again at 08:00 this morning.

      /grumbles

      /realizes his sleep schedule is fucked today

      /gets ready to head out and get food and beer

  31. The Late P Brooks

    More fleas who think they should be running the circus

    The editorial staff at the Washingtonian magazine revolted Friday after its CEO penned an op-ed column saying corporate managers have “a strong incentive” to demote employees who don’t return to the office.

    The Washington Post on Thursday ran an opinion piece by Catherine Merrill, the chief executive of Washingtonian Media, in which she lamented that many employees prefer to continue working from home amid the widespread shift to remote jobs during the coronavirus pandemic.

    “I am concerned about the unfortunately common office worker who wants to continue working at home and just go into the office on occasion,” Merrill wrote.

    ——-

    “As members of the Washingtonian editorial staff, we want our CEO to understand the risks of not valuing our labor. We are dismayed by Cathy Merrill’s public threat to our livelihoods. We will not be publishing today,” a number of the publisher’s 25 editorial staffers said on Twitter.

    ——-

    An employee for the Washingtonian — who spoke to CBS MoneyWatch on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter publicly — said she interpreted Merrill’s piece as a direct threat to staffers like herself.

    “I don’t know how you would read that as anything other than a direct message to your employees,” the worker said. She and her colleagues felt “blindsided and confused,” she added, since the company had been engaging in what she called productive conversations about what an eventual return to the office might look like.

    Regarding the strike, “We decided to take a stand and say the work that we do needs to be valued more than was demonstrated in that piece,” the employee added.

    Guess what, Shirley- you shouldn’t make threats you’re not willing to follow through on. I guess you could always go work for the Ladies’ Home Journal.

    • CPRM

      ‘My boss wants me to work They is such an asshole!’

    • juris imprudent

      not valuing our labor

      Hint: you aren’t laborers.

    • Gustave Lytton

      I hate everyone in the story.

    • rhywun

      *shrugs* I don’t want to return to the office and its terror-theater either, but I will because I like getting a paycheck.

  32. Not Adahn

    RE: paddling,

    I grew up in a time when such a thing was commonplace. Also important to this story is that my parents were EXTREMELY good about keeping things from me and would never undermine anyone’s authority, since I had such little respect anyway.

    I was… seven or eight I think. Definitely less than ten. I had been spanked before and was going to be spanked again. When the principal left me in the antechamber to his office, I took the fuck off and ran for home. I was eventually chased down by a bus driver posse.

    The principal was PISSED, and adjusted his spanking accordingly. Apparently he did real damage. Unbeknownst to me, it was so bad that lawyers got involved and a protective order was filed banning the school district from spanking me again. I did not know this (see again: parents not undermining authority.) and was often threatened with spanking, but only ever given detention from that point.

    I only found out about this decades after the fact, when the principal’s obituary was in the paper and my parents went on a tear about how awful of a guy he was. They were amazing at hiding things.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      Oh man, that’s sucks. Sorry you had to go through that.

      would never undermine anyone’s authority

      I couldn’t be more 180 as a parent. No one has authority over my children except my wife and I. We do temporarily grant authority to others, such as a close friend watching them or their martial arts instructor, but are selective about it. I don’t trust teachers to find their own ass with both hands and a flashlight. There’s no way in hell I’d give them authority over my children, let alone let them administer corporal punishment.

      And that was essentiality the gist of the letter I sent to the school board informing them of our decision to homeschool. Our children will not respect anyone’s authority at your school indoctrination camp. Trust us that you don’t want them there.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        In hindsight, though successful, that letter probably got me added to another list. Oh well, it’s probably too many to count by now.

      • Not Adahn

        Eh. It didn’t really leave any kind of psychological mark. It’s amazing how much trauma one doesn’t experience when one isn’t informed that one is supposed to be traumatized.

      • blackjack

        This point is so missing from modern discourse, and it’s so very central to life. Rich kids are traumatized by having old and scratched high end bikes. Poor kids are happy playing with used auto parts. Human’s can find joy in almost anything. Unfortunately, they can find misery just as easily.

  33. TARDis

    This just in:

    I’m so happy! My wife is happy too.
    My 19 year old autistic son just drove off to start his first day at a job.
    *crosses fingers and toes*

    Ok, back to your regularly scheduled program.

    • Tundra

      That is excellent! Best of luck to the young man and congrats to you and the missus!

    • CPRM

      My 19 year old autistic son just drove off to start his first day at a job.

      How severe? Seeing ‘drove off’ I’d venture on the higher end of the spectrum. What’s the job?

      • TARDis

        higher end of the spectrum

        Yes, he seems to have moved toward the high side. We had great concerns when he was in elementary school. Very non-verbal, he was. We spent a bit of money keeping him on track. In middle school he got a great case worker who took a great interest in helping. We got weekly calls and many progress reports. Unfortunately the man retired, and my son started to flounder in ninth grade. He’s more of an Aspie than anything, and we are worried how he will interact with customers. He got a job at a fast food joint. He would have started at Whitewater last year if not for 2020.

      • rhywun

        Good luck to him.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I’m really glad to hear that. My elementary school aged son still has difficulty communicating verbally. I hope to see improvement as he gets older, but I’m not sure if he’ll ever be independent despite being smart and a talented artist at such a young age. He does gets a barrage of therapy regularly so we’ll just have to see.

      • TARDis

        That’s all we can do as parents. We resigned ourselves long ago to the fact he would be a late launcher. I hope your son can be independent. We know a few families with daughters that never will be.

    • l0b0t

      Yay!! That’s fantastic.

    • Gender Traitor

      That’s great! What’s he doing?

      • TARDis

        Two words: curly fries. ;}

    • Sean

      Nice!

    • limey

      Excellent. I think it’s always going to be a tough road for autistic people. With all the “tolerance” and “understanding” you might think they would have an easier time nowadays, but harking back to the discussion about the Basecamp situation on STEVE SMITH’s post from last night, I get the impression that it may be more complicated than ever. I would tend toward the notion that most autistic people, at least to a point, would prefer that they were pointed at a task and just went at it to getter done; a well-defined sense of a job being a job, and not complicated by woke HR malice and cultish nonsense.

      Of course, the flip side is that many autistic young people are more easily drawn into a massively online life of woke propaganda, militant trans ideology, etc. In some ways they are especially vulnerable to that. Those more grounded in the real world by parents who are hip to what their kids might most benefit from probably have a much better chance in the workplace.

      I’ve worked with autistic people before and there’s a quiet understanding that they just like to get on and stick to repetitive tasks, or focus on one area. It works. I don’t think any mandated HR “inclusivity training” or similar could ever improve a situation. Up to a point in time, autistic people may have just been thought of as “simple” or “tetched” by in reality they’ve been around for a long time, and it would pay to look at how they have (or may have) fit into workplaces and society naturally, as an emergent phenomenon, rather than today’s well-meaning yet deeply flawed initiatives that HR may apply.

      I don’t mean to suggest or assume that any of this applies to your situation, but I had some half-formed thoughts and here they are.

      • rhywun

        I think there are all kinds of differences between them. I have an autistic brother and I’m pretty sure he has no interest in going online, let alone getting into social media crap. He tinkers with models and cars and stuff and that’s about it. He has that kind of “simple” job you mentioned but he’s reliable and dependable. I’d hate to see him dragged into that kind of HR crap because he would just not be able to deal with that at all.

      • TARDis

        massively online life of woke propaganda

        No worries there so far. When he hears me or his mom ranting about any authoritarian (be if left or right) bullshit, he will ask questions. My daughter is the more woke one and can be quite disrespectful to me at times.

        prefer that they were pointed at a task and just went at it to getter done

        That’s on point. My son is funny that way. Since he wasn’t ready for a real job, my wife was paying him $7/hr. to do work around the house. He always did a good job, and would call for more tasks. “I’m done with everything and still have 15 minutes left. What else do you want me to do?” It cracked my wife up.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      That’s awesome Tardis! Congratulations!

    • limey

      I’m so happy! My wife is happy too.

      Paging NotAdahn: can you confirm planetary alignment? I’ve heard this is usually a pre-requisite for this level of marital harmony in human relationships.

      Jk!

      • TARDis

        We must celebrate with a visit to a brewhouse. 🙂

    • Mojeaux

      That is fabulous!!!!

    • Count Potato

      Congrats!

    • Old Man With Candy

      Oh man, I am so with you here.

    • blackjack

      I’m super happy for both of you!

  34. Not Adahn

    a guy best known for floundering;

    It occurs to me that Vir Cotto was a similar character.

    • Timeloose

      Waves “like this” at Mr. Morden’s head on a pike.

  35. Count Potato

    “SCOOP: The Walt Disney Corporation claims that America was founded on “systemic racism,” encourages employees to complete a “white privilege checklist,” and separates minorities into racially-segregated “affinity groups.”

    I’ve obtained internal documents that will shock you.

    According to a trove of whistleblower materials, Disney has launched a “diversity and inclusion” program, called “Reimagine Tomorrow,” which includes trainings on “systemic racism,” “white privilege,” “white fragility,” “white saviors,” “microaggressions,” and “antiracism.””

    https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1390828822581301249

    So how about them Uyghur concentration camps?

    • limey

      Coming soon to the United States: Mausvitz, the genuine experience of Disneyfied living, where you can whistle while you work, and work until you drop. Arbeit macht Equity! white people get in frei- uh, free! Special packages for boxcar- uh, I mean FAMILY grupp- groups! Es ist Zeit for a magical vacation experience!

      • rhywun

        Roseanne covered this already.

  36. Muzzled Woodchipper

    “due to Covid-19 deaths, a decline in immigration and a lower birth rate” And that’s it? Nothing else?

    I read another article last night that tried to pass that same spin.

    Apparently the new Journolist is out and talking points disseminated.

    It can’t be that CA is chasing people and businesses away with egregiously high taxes and insane cost of living. It’s that the Covid killed too many people and the OMB was mean to immigrants, so they stopped coming.

    • Count Potato

      “Apparently the new Journolist is out and talking points disseminated.”

      It never went away.

    • rhywun

      Covid killed too many people

      I thought CA was sensibly locked-down.

  37. Count Potato

    “As an American journalist, you never expect:
    1. Your own govt to lie to you, repeatedly
    2. Your own govt to hide information the public has a right to know
    3. Your own govt to spy on your communications

    Trump’s unAmerican regime did all of these.
    No one should accept this.”

    https://twitter.com/MichLKosinski/status/1391021496202670082

    Wow

    • rhywun

      LOL.

      Talk about born yesterday.

      • prolefeed

        Hunh. So the NSA, the FBI, the CIA, and now the fucking Post Office don’t spy on us? Idiot, ideologically challenged, or both?

  38. Count Potato

    “Elon Musk: Memelord or Meme Lifter?

    The billionaire has been posting content creators’ work without credit. Some are frustrated; others, simply puzzled.

    By Taylor Lorenz

    Elon Musk — the Tesla chief executive, SpaceX founder and soon-to-be “Saturday Night Live” host — is an open admirer of memes.

    “Who controls the memes controls the universe,” Mr. Musk tweeted last summer. He has called the visual jokes “modern art” and shares them regularly on Twitter, where he has more than 52 million followers.

    Mr. Musk doesn’t make many memes himself. Instead, he finds them online and has others send him their favorites. Sometimes he reposts his favorites without citing their origins….”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/style/elon-musk-memes.html

    much serious so journalism

    • rhywun

      OFFS. Do they even know what a “meme” is?!

      • Count Potato

        Forget it, Jake, it’s Taylor Lorenz.

  39. Mojeaux

    My kid is also reaching a milestone also. She’s filing taxes for the first time. She’s deciding whether to walk at her graduation at all because she found high school to be pure torture, and she does not find having gotten through it to be an accomplishment.

    • Gender Traitor

      What I remember most about my high school graduation ceremony was the dubious honor of sitting next to our valedictorian during rehearsal. Having more than enough credits, she’d sat out second semester and kept bitching that “This is so stupid! I could be at work right now!”

      At the risk of dating myself, I also remember that this was our official graduation song.

      • Mojeaux

        I don’t remember much about my high school graduation, but I was pissed they did not announce where I was going to college, like they did the couple of others. The Southern Baptist school did not want anyone to know I was going to BYU, even though it was by far the most prestigious school in our class.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Mo, congrats! See next thread.

  40. mexican sharpshooter

    Phoenix is a tough town.

    Between this, the shitty weather for five months out of the year, and the environment wanting you dead once you leave town, we like to think it just weeds out the weak.

  41. prolefeed

    “a guy [DeBlasio] who, in a just world, would be gutted and hanging upside down from a lamppost.”

    In a just libertarian world, he would have not been able to do any damage. He would have been detained in the local seat of government, something that looks like City Hall in NYC, but with bars on the windows and armed guards at the doors, and a discreet sign on the front lawn, “Institution for the Criminally Insane.”

    A place where the inmates could dress up and hold committee hearings and issue laws and edicts, that the non-inmates outside would, of course, completely ignore, because who obeys the ravings of lunatics?

  42. Ownbestenemy

    Enjoyed a night at local dive and while we had to engage in theater to get in, once seated at the bar no one cared. Which they were not allowing us cause we arent gamblers in the past (there choice not mandate). Our favorite bartender was so glad we were there we got our food and drinks comped.

    Its a beautiful Sat. 2nd generation garden is growing strong with new lettuce sprouting, beets, carrots, onion, beans and tomatoes.

    The herb garden portion is chives, coriander, thyme, basil, and oregano.

    It is pleasing to watch life grow

    • dontreadonme

      Yeah, gardening is a celebration of life every time a seed sprouts. It’s hard to beat.