About The Author

Banjos

Banjos

Wife of sloopy, mother to three bright, curious, and highly active young girls. Perpetually exhausted.

317 Comments

    • UnCivilServant

      Business licenses are are an abomination. They don’t solve any problem they even purport to. End them

      • Nephilium

        But then who would protect us from terrible restaurants?

        /narrator’s voice: The Big Egg reopened about a year later, is still open, and is still considered a greasy spoon (and fork, and knife, and glass) where you want everything well done.

      • AlexinCT

        Your problem is believing this shit was about solving problems rather than creating a lucrative grift…

      • UnCivilServant

        Who said anything about believing anything? I was trying to preempt the most common pro-licensing argument I get from other sites.

      • juris imprudent

        ^ THIS

      • DEG

        They are, but I’ll take whatever wins I can right now.

    • Rebel Scum

      “We consider this a victory,” said former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr, who served as one of Strickland’s attorneys. “It shows that if you are right, and you have the constitution behind you, you can fight the government and you can win.”

      It’s probably because the suit is now moot. The constitution is meaningless to the government.

      • Rat on a train

        It could also be the state fears a ruling that would hinder future abuses.

      • Nephilium

        Yeah, that’s something that’s always annoyed me when a case is declared moot. It’s not like the defendant gets back their time or money, and now (correct me if I’m wrong one of the lawyerly types here) they have no recourse to get the money back.

      • AlexinCT

        It’s a warning to make sure others understand pissing off the state has real costs…

    • DEG

      Excellent news.

  1. Nephilium

    Too bad Newsom can’t just print the money he’ll need to pay, right?

    • UnCivilServant

      Too bad Newsom can’t just print the money he’ll need to pay isn’t being required to personally cover the costs

      He again fobs the bill off on the proles.

      • Nephilium

        Just wait, he’ll announce some program to pay “underprivileged children”, and claim that’s how he’s paying back the Church by just skipping replacing the middlemen with the new department he’s starting.

    • AlexinCT

      He will ask the Feds for more “infrastructure” money…

      • UnCivilServant

        He can always sell a high speed rail no one needs, wants, or can use.

  2. UnCivilServant

    I had a “Morning, Banjos” comment just after I responded to Rat.

    But the site insisted I was commenting too fast.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        I wonder if they’ve solved the cost issues that doomed the Concorde. Especially now when I can get on a video call with folks in Europe and don’t really miss the face to face all that much. (To be fair, they’ve never sent me overseas… my trip to Asia was canceled due to covid)

      • UnCivilServant

        “We fixed the problem by applying a bunch of ratchet straps to the continents and shortening the trip. Our appologies to the trans-pacific airlines”

      • Rat on a train

        The Pacific will be connected by high-speed trains.

  3. UnCivilServant

    China threatens nuclear war.

    Chinese knockoff nukes don’t work.

    • AlexinCT

      My bet is that the CCP, which also ran a campaign of lies at home about the virus’ origins as well as the number of deaths, are far more afraid of the Chinese people realizing the truth and going after them, than they are of the rest of the world doing anything to them. The rest of the world currently running most countries that could/would take some action, are basically bought & paid for shills of the CCP, and the CCP doesn’t really believe any of them will buck their masters. But the billion plus serfs might decide they have had enough of the CCP, and that will mean a brutal response that will wreck their plans or the loss of power, neither of which is acceptable to that cabal.

      • UnCivilServant

        I have a theory that when the Three Gorges fails, the CCP goes too.

        That’s a when, because it was built with serious design defects. Just like the PRC

      • Tundra

        Holy shit!

        You may be right.

      • AlexinCT

        There are a ton of these problems when the way you build shit is basically by stealing other people’s IP to avoid the costs of learning to do shit right on your own, and then copy it. Coupled with a system that encourages the political class to skim off the top of every project to pad their own pockets, and the fact that the people involved wouldn’t be able to speak up if they saw something wrong for fear of repercussions, and you have a sure fire way to create a catastrophe in the making.

        That dam will go sooner than later and the toll will be in the millions. The CCP has been putting a framework in place to make sure that story never percolates to the public when it happens, because the agreement is the CCP keeps their authoritarian power for as long as they also make sure the people all profit and the deaths of the old days do not happen.

      • hayeksplosives

        “Yellow alert”

        Heh.

  4. Rebel Scum

    China threatens nuclear war, expanding arsenal in case of ‘intense showdown’ with US

    They kinda already did a nuclear war with the convid mishap.

    • juris imprudent

      “If you thought that was bad…”

  5. Rebel Scum

    Fauci’s upcoming book scrubbed on Amazon, Barnes & Noble amid backlash

    Cancel culture!

    • Sean

      In some timeline, that shit weasel ends up in prison. Sadly, I don’t expect it to be this one.

      • Akira

        In some timeline, that shit weasel ends up in prison. Sadly, I don’t expect it to be this one.

        I’m expecting this to play out the same as when Democrat hero FDR put Japanese people in concentration camps: There will be official acknowledgement decades later that this was a gross violation of civil liberties, they may throw some reparations to people, but nobody who played a part in that decision will actually be in trouble.

    • AlexinCT

      Bullshit. The left just wants the story to go away, and having to defend his lies (and thus theirs) sounds too risky for them at this time…

      • R.J.

        I was hoping his book would be released. It would then fail to break the top 100. That would be the best.

      • AlexinCT

        Anything published by the shills of the left always ends up selling a ton of books, because they set up rackets where left-aligned entities buy the books to pad their sales numbers. Most of these books that sell and do good however are never read by anyone.

      • DrOtto

        It would rocket to the top, then would end up getting handed out to immigrants just like Kamala’s book.

  6. Tundra

    Good morning, Banjos!

    Man, those are some brutal lynx. Can we please rewind to December of 2019 and try this all again?

    I guess the only good news is that TMITE is running out of options with regard to the fuckhead Fauci. Rand is having fun dunking on him, too. Unfortunately he will never really pay for what he’s done.

    • The Other Kevin

      Hey Tundra! Sent you an email with my schedule for the weekend. I leave today. Getting nervous!

      • Tundra

        Sweet! I’ll see you at the rink. Probably Saturday – I have a game Friday.

      • Gdragon

        I’m so jealous. I keep getting email invites to group skates I used to be a part of in “open” places in the USA that I no longer call home and it is really starting to get to me.

    • juris imprudent

      Unfortunately he will never really pay for what he’s done.

      The one thing govt does exceedingly well – shielding it’s own from accountability.

  7. Rebel Scum

    U.S. infectious disease chief Anthony Fauci made an urgent inquiry about controversial gain-of-function research in February 2020 as the coronavirus was beginning its deadly spread from China across the world, according to official government emails forced into public view this week.

    Why such concern if you also believed the research was worth the risk of pandemic?

    Also, Rand was right and you lied, you cunte.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      I worry for RP’s safety.

      • DEG

        Yep.

        If he’s not carrying a gun and hiring private, trustworthy security, he should be.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Got to get the terminology nailed down so you can begin the parsing if necessary.

      • prolefeed

        Allegedly trying to prevent a worldwide outbreak of an airborne respiratory virus, by breeding super virulent airborne respiratory viruses in a communist bioweapons research lab partially funded by the feds, in a country whose authoritarian agenda would be mightily advanced by releasing said bioweapon, thus giving government control freaks everywhere their excuse to ramp up communistic authoritarian measures …

        What could go wrong?

  8. UnCivilServant

    *mildly suppressed rage*

    I had to shift my weekend plans by a day because my box of books wasn’t going to arrive until friday… and all of a sudden it’s out for delivery today, when it’s too late to shift them back.

    Nevermind that a hotel stay from Sunday to Monday is cheaper than from Friday to Saturday, so this is still saving me money, it’s the principle of the matter. I changed plans for this delivery, and it changed delivery to moot my changes.

    • Sean

      Is this a sight seeing getaway or do you have notable activities planned?

      • UnCivilServant

        I’m going to Maine. I’m going to take pictures, have some seafood, and improvise from there.

      • Not Adahn

        FYI: Saraspa has IDPA/USPSA/SCSA events through the end of October on Practiscore now so you can plan.

      • UnCivilServant

        I’ll take a look. I do have a scheduled trip to Ohio, and a funeral to attend (it got delayed due to the government restrictions). And a huge chunk of september is accounted for.

      • Not Adahn

        When you get a 9mm upper, then all three of those disciplines will be open to you.

      • CPRM

        Remember The Maine!

      • UnCivilServant

        Naval boilers need better quality control and maintenance!

      • wdalasio

        Sounds great! Have fun!

  9. Rebel Scum

    A report detailing the Biden administration’s “lottery” migration policy, resulting in the mass release of border crossers into the U.S. interior, reveals that DHS is flying single male adult border crossers into the country in addition to Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs) and adult border crossers arriving with children.

    So you are saying that the Biden-Harris *administration is engaging in human trafficking.

  10. Rebel Scum

    ‘OK Boomer’ Socialist E-Girl Shows Her $2,000,000 Apartment, Says ‘Tax The Rich’ Only Means Billionaires

    Only following the lead of TheBern.

    Socialism is for the people, not the socialist.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      And let’s not act like that girl is some highly principled socialist. She’d be flashing her tits on onlyfans if she didn’t make her millions this way.

      • CPRM

        The apartment also includes an area for her brother to sleep and play video games, according to the video.

        Certainly sounds like some, uh, other videos on the net.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Give her looks a few years to fade and she very well might be making those too. Fapitalism rules.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      LOL. She’s getting rich off their stupidity. She’s obviously meeting a market demand and fleecing the fools.

      As HM would say, don’t hate the player, hate the game.

      • AlexinCT

        I love the people that become stinking rich peddling marxism to stupid fucking idiots…

        It proves the peddlers are worst kind of humanity’s dregs, the masses are the fucktards, but all these idiots keep complaining about capitalism.

        Millionaires and Billionaires are evil and why marxism fails!!

      • UnCivilServant

        That’s a silly saying.

        There’s plenty of hate for both player and game. Each for their own reasons.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      She probably doesn’t understand the difference between income and wealth anyway, but if she is paying attention it means anyone earning over $400k.

      • Nephilium

        Rich almost always means people making about 10% more then the person answering the question. Poor is usually an income about 25% less then the person answering the question. Middle class almost always includes the income of the person answering the question.

        Most people consider themselves middle class regardless of their lifestyle.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        A complicating factor is lifestyle v. income. One can live a middle class lifestyle on a high income. Are they “rich”? Yes. Are they “middle class”? Yes.

        What’s that book called? The Millionaire Next Door or something like that?

      • Old Man With Candy

        Yeah, using context-free income numbers is always a problem. Is $150-200k middle class? In Erie, PA, you’re living in a mansion. In the SF Bay area, that will let you sleep in a cardboard box.

      • Nephilium

        A common feature in the local rag is showing what spending $X (where X is usually above 250,000) on a house will get you in three different places (one is always a CLE suburb, one is always CA or NY). Of course, there’s not too much complaining about suburban sprawl here, mainly because more people live in the suburbs then the city proper.

  11. Rebel Scum

    New office convid guidance:

    In our offices:
    • If you have been vaccinated, you will not need to wear a mask, this will be extended to guests and clients who come to our offices.
    If you have NOT been vaccinated, you will need to continue to wear a mask when away from your desk, in common areas and out in the hallways.
    • If you prefer to wear a mask, you may continue to do so
    • We will be using the honor system
    • Most Physical partitions will remain in place

    In trucks or vehicles:
    • If everyone in your vehicle is vaccinated, then proceed with protocol based on your comfort as well as the comfort level of everyone in the vehicle. If there is someone in the vehicle who is more comfortable with everyone wearing a mask, everyone needs to wear a mask.

    I never participated and am not about to start now.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      “If there is someone in the vehicle who is more comfortable with everyone wearing a mask, everyone needs to wear a mask.”

      Looks like a damn fine way to mark the assholes that’d best be avoided.

      • prolefeed

        Mark them with a sock full of pennies.

      • Rebel Scum

        Unnecessary. They mark themselves by wearing masks, even though I would guess that they are all “fully vaccinated”, which is a term about as retarded as “full semi-automatic”, particularly for something for which you cannot actually be vaccinated because it mutates constantly.

      • robc

        You can be vaccinated in the same way you can vaccinate for the flu.

        Seasonal, at best.

    • Pope Jimbo

      We started back in the office this week. I was surprised at the number of people still wearing masks (15%).

      Discussing it with a work buddy and he said that they were probably not vaccinated and were following the rules. My work buddy is not vaccinated and was not wearing his mask.

      Then we tried to decide who was crazier. People who wore a mask because they thought it offered protection or people who wore a mask because work rules said they had to.

  12. Not Adahn

    Good news! targetsportsusa.com has .22LR in stock

    Bad news! It’s thirteen goddamn cents a round!

    Worse news! I’m buying a case of it anyway!

    • Sean

      Ouch.

      I still haven’t tried out my AR .22lr conversion kit.

      We ran out of time last range visit with DEG.

      • Not Adahn

        I’m out of HV .22, the local shops never have any, and they’ll start sending my scores into SCSA soon. Gotta be able to reliably cycle the M9-22.

  13. juris imprudent

    In case you needed more proof that some part of humanity is just broken.

    • juris imprudent

      Oh sonofabitch. Where’s the damn broom.

    • Rebel Scum

      For many, the transitional period has been a little bumpy. A report by the American Psychological Association, published in March, 2021, found that almost half of Americans surveyed felt “uneasy about adjusting to in-person interaction” after the pandemic. The numbers did not change among the fully vaccinated. Nearly half of adults said that they did “not feel comfortable going back to living life like they used to before the pandemic.” After a lonely year, in-person socializing feels both exciting and alien, like returning to your home town after a long while away. Will everything still be there? Will you have any friends left? Will you have anything to say? Conversation, even on a bar stool, feels creaky and unpracticed. The joints need oiling. Still, there’s only so long you can workshop a squirrel anecdote. Eventually, you will need new material. You will need to leave the house.

      It’s almost like constant fear-mongering propaganda has consequences.

  14. OBJ FRANKELSON

    So it appears St. Fauci is going to be the sacrifice and all of the rest of the public health officials’ failure and politicians’ tyranny is going to be memory-holed.

    It’s not nothing that the face of this thing is getting a good kick to the balls, but it would be better if more of these asshats were held to account.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      It’s not necessarily over yet, just a month ago who here thought he’d be getting anything less than a tongue bath from the media? Maybe others will get their comeuppance too.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        Perhaps, but recent events have made me more than a little cynical about the odds of the political class being held to account.

      • The Last American Hero

        Just a month ago WaPo wasn’t retconning their news articles about the virus.

    • Pope Jimbo

      I’m sure John Durham will be released on the public health officials once he wraps up his Russia Collusion investigation.

  15. The Late P Brooks

    So it appears St. Fauci is going to be the sacrifice and all of the rest of the public health officials’ failure and politicians’ tyranny is going to be memory-holed.

    They meant well.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Quite a bit.

  16. Rebel Scum

    Pass.

    Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney gave a briefing on Wednesday afternoon to provide details about a new citywide vaccine initiative. The city will be working with the Richmond City Health District to increase vaccination rates.

    Like many other localities, Richmond is moving away from large scale events and appointment only opportunities for vaccinations. Richmond residents can still attend walk-up events every week.

    To help reach the federal goal of at least 70% of residents vaccinated, Stoney is working with the U.S. Conference of Mayors to introduce new ways to promote education, outreach and accessibility.

    Amy Popovich with the Richmond City Health District says the city is getting ready for #hotvaccinatedsummer, their summer vaccination campaign. Starting Thursday, June 3, businesses, neighborhoods and other organizations will be able to start requesting small vaccination teams to come to them for events. Forms to request a vaccination team will be available on the health district website. …

    “Come out, get protected, get hired and get back to life,” said Policy Advisor for Restaurants and Small Businesses, Jason Alley.

    • Tundra

      Fuck off, Amy.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Pretty soon they’ll be hiring hunters to administer vaccines with dart guns.

  17. juris imprudent

    Much brave.

    My Republican party – the party of smaller, fairer, more accountable government – had to take back control from the faction that had grown to include everyone from garden-variety whack jobs to insurrectionists.

    Well, if Boehner thinks our politics are a double-decker shit sandwich (his words in a preceding quote) – then he was driving the damn [double-decker] bus. He’s a total fraud and liar for claiming he ever care about smaller, fairer, more accountable government. And I’d be pleased to say that to his face.

    Sadly, PJ seems to think that if a Republican is cursing he is telling the truth.

    • prolefeed

      How’s that “taking back control” working out for you, Mr. Minority Leader?

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      Meh, shove it up your ass boehner. You’ve had 30 years to accomplish something worthwhile, and all we got from you was soft fascism.

    • Rebel Scum

      from garden-variety whack jobs to insurrectionists

      I don’t think BLM/Antifa vote GOP.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Something happened to PJ Orourke over the years. Maybe too many invites to Wait Wait.

  18. Rebel Scum

    Senator Sorority Girl is not popular with the current regime.

    “As folks in Arizona know, I’ve long been a supporter of the filibuster because it is a tool that protects the democracy of our nation, rather than allowing our country to ricochet wildly every two to four years back and forth between policies,” Sinema told reporters on Wednesday. …

    “When you have a system that’s not working effectively, and I would think that most would agree that the Senate is not a particularly well-oiled machine right, the way to fix that is to change your behavior, not to eliminate the rules or to change the rules,” Sinema said.

    “So I’m going to continue to go to work every day, aggressively seeking bipartisanship in a cheerful and happy warrior way as I always do, and showing that when we work together we can get things done.”

    • Q Continuum

      Still would with extreme prejudice. And I’m led to understand she’d bring along her hot friends.

    • prolefeed

      Translation: “I’m a recently elected senator in a swing state where I could be booted out of office.”

      • Festus

        Heck, I’m just happy that you have a system wherein Senator Hooker Boots might be elected. That’s something.

    • Not Adahn

      I thought “Senator Sorority Girl” was Kirsten Gillibrand?

      • leon

        #Metoo

  19. leon

    So I guess I missed the debacle where Cathy Young and Nick Sarwak went after Malice for attacking someone who thinks teachers have a right to teach CRT to children.

    Why do libertarians think there’s a right for leftists to indoctrinate children?

    • Tundra

      They aren’t really libertarians.

    • The Hyperbole

      I’m going to need more context, was it a case where the school told the teacher not to and she did anyway, or one where the school was fine with it and outside influences (governors, senators, etc) were trying to tell them they couldn’t allow her to teach it?

      • Not Adahn

        CRT is a religion. It’s a universal unfalsifiable epistemology and metaphysics.

        CRT proponents should be free to establish their own private schools, and vouchers should be able to be used at them.

        Public schools though? Fuck that shit.

      • DEG

        Yep.

      • DEG

        By the way, there should be no public schools. But in the meantime, yeah, they shouldn’t be teaching CRT.

      • Festus

        It’s one of those “Don’t piss on the electric fence” debacles.

      • leon

        If it’s a public school, the government clearly can establish the curriculum and ban curriculum. A teacher has no first amendment right to teach a curriculum that has been banned.

      • leon

        Or put more sussinctly: Public school teachers have no first amendment right to set their own curriculum.

      • The Hyperbole

        Agreed again, but that curriculum should be set by the locally elected and accountable School Boards, not some City, State, or Federal Department of Education.

      • kbolino

        I’m sure that ship had already set sail long ago, but it was certainly far out to sea by the time Common Core rolled around.

        In my experience, school boards get worse when they get elected. They pander to people who don’t really have children in the system, because people who do have children in the system generally don’t care anymore once their kids are out. But the moral busybodies, the people who think “education is very important and our teachers are underpaid”, the people who want to police the behavior of others (whether left or right), their interest is perennial. And let us not forget the local businesses and grifters who attach themselves to school board-approved contracts.

        The most local and accountable control is that of a single, independent school, and if that is what you advocate for as being the best, then I agree.

      • The Hyperbole

        Sure but in my mini-anarchy-libertarian-ish view the public schools (if they exist at all, and they shouldn’t) should be run at the minimal level necessary, which might be school by school or district by district, If the people of some town four states away from me want to teach CRT or ID or that the moon is made of green cheese that’s on them and aint none o’ my business.

      • leon

        I’m with you about localism. So to answer your question, the idea that malice was smacking down that any banning of curriculum was anti libertarian, so even if this was done by a local school board Sarwak et al would be opposed to it.

      • kbolino

        I’m too lazy to search that deeply for it, but the best response by far IMO, which did not come from Malice himself was to the effect of, “public school teachers are government employees, the First Amendment protects us from them not the other way around”.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      We should be ignoring Sarwark. He holds no office and is generally loathed. Any attention given only benefits him.

      • Not Adahn

        Used. Car. Salesman.

  20. The Late P Brooks

    Another myth busted

    For Stephanie Davis, who grew up with little, the military was a path to the American dream, a realm where everyone would receive equal treatment. She joined the service in 1988 after finishing high school in Thomasville, Georgia, a small town said to be named for a soldier who fought in the War of 1812.

    Over the course of decades, she steadily advanced, becoming a flight surgeon, commander of flight medicine at Fairchild Air Force Base and, eventually, a lieutenant colonel.

    But many of her service colleagues, Davis says, saw her only as a Black woman. Or for the white resident colleagues who gave her the call sign of ABW – it was a joke, they insisted – an “angry black woman,” a classic racist trope.

    White subordinates often refused to salute her or seemed uncomfortable taking orders from her, she says. Some patients refused to call her by her proper rank or even acknowledge her. She was attacked with racial slurs. And during her residency, she was the sole Black resident in a program with no Black faculty, staff or ancillary personnel.

    “For Blacks and minorities, when we initially experience racism or discrimination in the military, we feel blindsided,” Davis said. “We’re taught to believe that it’s the one place where everybody has a level playing field and that we can make it to the top with work that’s based on merit.”

    In interviews with The Associated Press, current and former enlistees and officers in nearly every branch of the armed services described a deep-rooted culture of racism and discrimination that stubbornly festers, despite repeated efforts to eradicate it.

    The AP found that the military’s judicial system has no explicit category for hate crimes, making it difficult to quantify crimes motivated by prejudice.

    Get rid of the army. We need more social services.

    Bring on the Rainbow Puppy Empath Battalion.

    • leon

      “White subordinates often refused to salute her”

      Oh fuck off. No enlisted man has ever avoided giving a white man a salute. Why, they cross the road just so that can give every butterbar and a salute.

      • UnCivilServant

        Sounds more like a perpetually offended person more interested in power trips than any legitimate military purposes.

      • AlexinCT

        ^^^THIS^^^

        I knew many people that felt really pissed the enlisted personnel wouldn’t give them a proper salute. When asked why they were so bothered, expecting them to say sloppy salutes leads to sloppy execution, and potentially body count, I always got the disrespecting me thing. At that point I, with almost a 99.99% accuracy, was able to ascertain the problem was with the asshole with an over inflated opinion of self that saw problems in others that were not there.

      • Rat on a train

        I don’t know the motivation, but the post commander at Goodfellow AFB would drive around in his flag car with a van following to pick up people that didn’t salute.

      • Pope Jimbo

        When it came out that complete jackass Vindman demanded that he be addressed with Lt. Col, you knew what a complete douche he was.

        Especially when the person calling him Mr Vindman was a Congressman (Nunes is technically a real Congressman). Fucking asshole seems to be unclear on who the boss in that situation was.

      • AlexinCT

        Vindman definitely reminds me of the slew of idiots I interacted with that always thought their exceptionalism (all in their own mind) was not recognized and rewarded properly and had a massive chip on their shoulder because of that. The irony was that they never realized they were their own worst enemy (an usually a hazard to the people they were supposed to lead).

    • Gustave Lytton

      Shaving profiles are the modern day slave passes.

    • Q Continuum

      “But many of her service colleagues, Davis says, saw her only as a Black woman”

      Sounds like the problem is 100% in her own mind.

      • commodious spittoon

        It sounds like an organization that disparages merit and promotes by skin color.

      • Rebel Scum

        Yup.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Someone should tell Sugar Tits that the reason the enlisted men didn’t salute her wasn’t because she was black, but because she was female.

      That should make her feel better.

      • PieInTheSky

        When I am supreme ruler of the world you can be my tattoo czar

    • PieInTheSky

      I’ll take two

  21. Festus

    Egad! I’ve either drank too much this morning or not enough. Thanks for the links and “Mornin’ Banjos!”

  22. The Late P Brooks

    In February, Lloyd J. Austin III – a former Army general who now is secretary of defense, the first Black man to serve in the post – ordered commanders and supervisors to take an operational pause for one day to discuss extremism in the ranks with their service members.

    Austin gave commanders the latitude to address the matter as they saw fit, but emphasized that discussions should include the meaning of their oath, acceptable behaviors both in and out of uniform, and how service members can report actual or suspected extremist behavior through their chains of command.

    A recent poll from The Military Times showed the stand-down was received with mixed reviews. Some service members said their units went “above and beyond,” but others reported their trainers made disparaging comments that undercut the discussions and that the sessions were short and non-interactive.

    The Southern Poverty Law Center sent Austin a letter shortly after his order, applauding him for his decisive action but underscoring that systemic change on all military levels is urgent.

    “Those who are indoctrinated into white supremacist ideology present a significant threat to national security and the safety of our communities,” SPLC President Margaret Huang wrote.

    Way to move those goal posts. “Racial prejudice” suddenly equals radical extremism. Thank goodness the SPLC is there to call them out for their imperfections.

    • Rat on a train

      Are any of you extremists? We’re not leaving this room until we’ve identified at least one extremist in the ranks.

      • UnCivilServant

        *points at Rat on a Train*

        Found the extremist.

        Get Him!

    • juris imprudent

      Thank goodness the SPLC is there to call them out for their imperfections.

      Truly the John Birch Society of our times.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I thought the John Birch Society had true believers and not just a bunch of shills and scam artists.

    • Rebel Scum

      the first Black man to serve in the post

      Irrelevant.

      operational pause for one day to discuss extremism in the ranks

      Destructive.

      but others reported their trainers made disparaging comments that undercut the discussions

      Because they should be learning to fight and kill the enemy, not CRT racism.

      who are indoctrinated into white supremacist ideology present a significant threat

      Citation, please.

      And have we already forgotten that Richard Spencer formally endorsed Biden for president?

      • Rat on a train

        I recall COOT in the 90s. I think they intended it to be an opportunity for victims to lecture oppressors, but since our unit did’t have enough victims, it turned into a challenge to come up with the most absurd scenario of improper behavior.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Wouldn’t a bunch of white racists be EXACTLY who you needed to fight the CCP?

      Non-racists would take prisoners and not keep killing thousands of the People’s Army. They’d show mercy and we’d be swamped with POW’s. Or suffer from PTSD from the wholesale killing.

      If we have to fight white people in Europe, we can always count on the black Nation of Islam troops to handle them.

      It amuses me that the people who are going to be killing others simply for being from the wrong nation state need to be trained to do so with only the right kind of animosity. “You will kill that godless Chinese commie because he’s from China! Don’t let me catch you killing anyone just because they are Asian”

    • Muzzled Woodchipper

      Those who are indoctrinated into white supremacist ideology

      So virtually no one.

  23. The Late P Brooks

    Santiago added that “we know that far too many service members indicate they experience discrimination.” He noted that the Defense Department had launched multiple efforts in the past year, including updating its anti-harassment policy, assessing its training on implicit bias, and developing data-driven strategies to guide efforts to attract and retain diverse members and also identify unhealthy work environments.

    That’s so weird. The more broadly you define something, the more of it you find.

  24. DEG

    ​The media mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist government touted the country’s “urgent” goal to expand its arsenal of long-range nuclear missiles in anticipation of an “intense showdown” with the US.

    They don’t need to do this. Just release a cold virus into the US and let the US destroy itself.

  25. DEG

    Sunday River Brewing under new ownership.

    Sunday River Brewing Co. is tentatively set to reopen next week under new management, and soon, a new owner, according to Rick Savage, who last year drew headlines for flouting pandemic restrictions that eventually led to the business’ state liquor and restaurant licenses being tied up in court.

    The restaurant is hosting a hiring event Thursday and plans call for opening its doors as early as June 9.

    Asked about the past year’s notoriety — Savage appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show, racked up fines, and his brother was accused of tailgating health inspectors who left abruptly, concerned for their safety — Bar Harbor restaurateur Michael Boland said, “What matters at this point is getting the restaurant back up and running and getting the many folks that have worked there in the past and some new ones working again.”

    He added, “We’ve applied for all relevant licenses under a totally new corporation and all state entities have been helpful in moving expeditiously.”

  26. Certified Public Asshat

    Thread:

    Statement on May 28, 2021 Antifa assault:No journalist in America should ever face violence for doing his or her job.Yet on Friday, May 28, Antifa tried to kill me again while I was reporting on the ongoing protests and riots in Portland, Ore. for a new chapter of my…— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) June 3, 2021

    Come on bro

    • AlexinCT

      When they finally do kill him, the Portland rulership as well as the Biden admin will give those antifa terrorists medals of freedom for helping the totalitarian state and its efforts to make sure the unwashed serfs don’t get information that might conflict with what the people in charge want them to believe.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        He’s endangering those poor antifa by reporting on their misdeeds.

  27. Rebel Scum

    Hate-crime?

    Spanish police arrested a woman for cutting off the penis of her Bangladeshi boss while he was allegedly trying to rape her.

    The woman, who originally comes from Bangladesh herself, was working in a bar in the municipality of Sant Andreu de la Barca, 3o minutes from Barcelona, and claims that her boss, also a Bangladeshi, had been sexually harassing her weeks before the attack.

    On Monday, the woman claimed that her boss went further than harassment and attempted to force her into having sex with him. As he did, she grabbed a knife and cut off his penis, El Mundo reports.

    Inspector Oscar Carreras, head of the local police, said the man was taken to hospital and received emergency surgery. The woman was arrested on suspicion of amputating her boss’s penis, while her boss was arrested for attempted rape. Both have prior criminal records.

    • AlexinCT

      Cutting off a dick, especially in a moment where you are struggling to avoid getting raped, sounds to me like one heck of a difficult thing to accomplish without missing and gutting the fucker. I’ma gonna call bullshit on this story unless we get more details….

      • WTF

        Yeah that scenario seems improbable at best.

      • Nephilium

        What are you talking about? I saw a whole movie about this.

    • leon

      Correction, she cut off his body.

    • juris imprudent

      Both have prior criminal records.

      Shouldn’t that have qualified them for Australian citizenship?

  28. Festus

    Bedtime, fellow Glibs. Souses like me always have this tune running in the background – https://youtu.be/be7iNHw8QoQ Have a grand and glorious one, if you can.

    • PieInTheSky

      Take a gun in case of bedbugs

    • DEG

      Bye Festus!

  29. PieInTheSky

    For me at least OK Boomer chick is still very easy on the eyes… hits a strange sweet spot.

    And makes me understand simping even less. The hottest egirls make me look at some pictures and move on. I don’t want to see their views and certainly not give em a single penny.

    • PieInTheSky

      Holly shit watched some of the apartment video and heard her voice… I’ll stick to pictures.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      For most, a glance at a picture or three stokes the primal rutting urge. For some, they’re trying to fix their insecurities by paying the pretty girl to make them feel important. Of course, their world would cave in on itself if they realized that there were 10,000 other men getting the same “intimate connection” with her.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        I come here for free intimacy.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        And I always look forward to you being here *looks at sheet of paper* Certified Public Asshat.

      • PieInTheSky

        “intimate connection” – I do not want to cement my reputation as the local degen but I get that at erotic massage parlors where there is actual physical contact

      • AlexinCT

        Consenting adults engaged in a mutually beneficial transaction is OK, man…

        Gotta love the rub and a tug parlor!

  30. The Late P Brooks

    Stop contaminating the narrative

    To Matt Masterson, the review of 2020 ballots from Maricopa County, Ariz., that’s currently underway is “performance art” or “a clown show,” and definitely “a waste of taxpayer money.”

    But it’s not an audit.

    “It’s an audit in name only,” says Masterson, a former Department of Homeland Security official who helped lead the federal government’s election security preparations leading up to November’s election. “It’s a threat to the overall confidence of democracy, all in pursuit of continuing a narrative that we know to be a lie.”

    By lie, he means the assertion from former President Donald Trump and some of his allies that election fraud cost him a second term in the White House.

    And, Masterson says, the strategy chosen by the state’s Republican state Senate leaders is working as intended to undermine confidence in the outcome of last year’s vote.

    The process is a simple exercise in how disinformation spreads and takes hold in 2021. And experts fear it presents a blueprint for other states and lawmakers to follow, one that is already showing signs of being emulated around the country.

    “Now we have a playbook out there,” said Masterson, who is currently a policy fellow with the Stanford Internet Observatory. “Where if you don’t like the results — by the way in an election that wasn’t particularly close … you just claim you didn’t lose and in fact the process itself was rigged against you.”

    You could always blame the Russians for “interference”. That’s totally legit.

    • Rat on a train

      We should ask the real governor of Georgia.

      • juris imprudent

        How is it that she isn’t getting the job of saving voting rights instead of Kamala?

    • hayeksplosives

      … to undermine confidence in the outcome of last year’s vote…

      Pretty sure the corrupt local election judges CAUGHT ON VIDEO BRINGING IN BOXES OF NEW FILLED IN BALLOTS AFTER POLLS CLOSED in key blue stronghold cities already took care of that undermining confidence thing.

      • The Hyperbole

        The Georgia table thing or was this somewhere else?

      • WTF

        If everything is really legit, wouldn’t thorough investigations and audits boost confidence when they confirm that nothing was amiss and there were no shenanigans? So then why object to even the idea of investigations and audits?
        The question obviously answers itself.

      • kbolino

        What they say should never be taken at face value. They say whatever it takes to gain or maintain power. Audits were vital to the health of our democracy ca. 2016 and yet they are an unprecedented threat to it ca. 2020. But it is not hypocrisy (and thus they are unfazed by charges of hypocrisy) because the underlying principle remained the same.

      • The Hyperbole

        How many investigations and audits? Isn’t this the fourth or fifth one for Maricopa Co. At some point it does just become a fishing expedition, and this audit does look pretty shoddy. It was going to take a few week, it’s been two months, they’ve gone through two or three different “auditing” companies, the principle contractors do appear to be grifters with no experience in elections. Now that could all be left wing bullshit, but I haven’t seen anything stating otherwise.

      • kbolino

        Ultimately, I fear, the audits will tell us nothing because there is 1) nothing left to tell (the records were shoddy to begin with and have already decayed, both intentionally and negligently) and 2) the people conducting the audit are either captured by power (and thus already compromised) or powerless (and thus irrelevant pawns). The purpose of the election was to maintain the appearance that the people have some input in their government. To the already limited extent it was even capable of doing that (Rep vs Dem: much choice, so variety; gerrymandering; 750k people per district; primaries and caucuses and jungle primaries, oh my; illegals get counted but don’t get to vote; “requiring ID is racist”; urban machines vs. diffuse suburban/rural precincts; etc.), it may have even succeeded and what we’ve got is really “the will of the people”. But the “fortifiers” know that when they control both sides of the outcome, then it doesn’t really matter which way it goes. Much like the 9/11 Commission, Feynman’s appendix to the Rogers Commission, the Church Committee, etc., even if the audits discover something and legislation gets enacted from it, the system adapts, absorbs, and conquers it anyway (it’s like Microsoft’s “embrace, extend, extinguish” except without any market forces to check the monopoly).

    • Rebel Scum

      It’s a threat to the overall confidence of democracy

      Unlike being against examining apparent problems…

      all in pursuit of continuing a narrative that we know to be a lie.

      But do we?

      The process is a simple exercise in how disinformation spreads and takes hold

      Progjection.

      here if you don’t like the results … you just claim you didn’t lose and in fact the process itself was rigged against you.

      Stacy Abrams could not be reached for comment.

    • TARDis

      by the way in an election that wasn’t particularly close

      Well, the cunte could be right about that.

  31. Rebel Scum

    Rule Britannia something something.

    A CRACKDOWN on smoking in Oxfordshire will begin in earnest as lockdown ends, with outdoor dining areas and workplace fag break spots as the top targets to go smoke-free.

    Oxfordshire could be the first county in England to go ‘smoke-free’ by the year 2025, as a plan agreed by public health officials before the pandemic began in February last year finally gets underway.

    The priorities for the county’s smoking strategy this year include what has been billed as creating more spaces where people feel ’empowered’ not to smoke.

    This would include encouraging employers to stop the habit outside offices and factories, or by creating smoke-free areas in newly created pavement dining areas.

    Oxfordshire’s public health director, Ansaf Azhar last week described the strategy as a ‘long game’ to change smoking culture, with the aim of preventing deaths from diseases linked to tobacco.

    Well, that makes sense. You should also ban outdoor campfires.

    • PieInTheSky

      You should also ban outdoor campfires. – you think that is not on the list? and grills as well. And fireplaces.

    • PieInTheSky

      Also you know who else was against smoking?

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      “That’s great, then we can focus on the other commercially driven addictive disease, the consumption of alcohol.”

      Ban it, ban it, ban it! God, do I hate these people.

      • hayeksplosives

        I’ll bet a bottle of Laphroaig that these assholes will cite the reduced consumption of alcohol in bars when they closed at 10pm per COVID-19 curfew as evidence that those hours should be kept year-round.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        It’s like they can’t comprehend that life is fatal. Who wants to live to be 120 in a sterile and uninteresting world anyway and for those who do feel free to try, just don’t try to impose that vanilla shit on others.

      • EvilSheldon

        “Who wants to live to be 120 in a sterile and uninteresting world anyway,…”

        They do.

        The people promoting this risk-minimization philosophy are invariably boring. They have no deep interests and no hobbies. They exist only to soak up entertainment.

        And they think that that kind of bovine life should be all that everyone else needs.

      • ignoreLander

        Life is a sexually transmitted disease with a 100% mortality rate.

    • wdalasio

      creating more spaces where people feel ’empowered’ not to smoke.

      It’s like they’re trying to do Orwell, but can only manage Orwell for Retards.

      • EvilSheldon

        I felt empowered not to smoke the last time I went to a cigar bar.

    • Not Adahn

      outdoor … fag break spots

      I thought they called that “dogging” over there.

  32. The Late P Brooks

    Baffling

    Despite fears that the CDC’s mask reversal could potentially lead to a COVID-19 spike, cases in the United States remain in decline.

    In the weeks since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that fully vaccinated people mostly don’t need to wear masks or socially distance anymore, new COVID-19 cases “have continued to decline at virtually the same rate as during the month before the” announcement, The New York Times’ David Leonhardt wrote Wednesday. New COVID-19 cases have been down by almost 75 percent since the middle of April, the Times noted, and the seven-day average recently declined to less than 20,000 for the first time since March 2020.

    “A crucial point is that the loosened guidelines probably did not cause many people to change their behavior in ways that created new risks,” Leonhardt writes. “Vaccinated people went maskless more often, but they are extremely unlikely to get the virus. And even before the CDC change, many unvaccinated Americans were already not wearing masks, particularly in Republican-leaning communities.”

    When it was first announced, the CDC’s mask guidance was criticized by some experts as being too abrupt, and CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen was among those concerned it would remove an incentive to get vaccinated. Leonhardt notes, though, that the number of daily vaccinations in the United States had been falling prior to the CDC guidance, and “with a few days of the mask announcement, the decline leveled off.”

    Overall, the data suggests “the optimists were better prognosticators than the pessimists,” Leonhardt says, and when it comes to unvaccinated Americans who may have stopped wearing masks because of the guidance change, “there don’t seem to be enough of them to increase the spread of the virus.”

    Or maybe, just maybe, the masks never did a goddam thing, and it was all just an exercise in tribalist faith healing.

    • hayeksplosives

      Lesson learned: when the teeming masses are panicked over a non-existing threat, don’t just do something, stand there!

  33. hayeksplosives

    LOzl @ Socialist girl.

    Those who proclaim themselves “socialists” are usually depressing, have no sense of humor & attended an expensive college.

    Fate loves irony.

    —Elon Musk

    And in the subsequent brouhaha:

    How many socialists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

    Answer: That’s not funny!!

    —Elon Musk

    • EvilSheldon

      Quit making me like you, Elon!

  34. The Late P Brooks

    I don’t know the motivation, but the post commander at Goodfellow AFB would drive around in his flag car with a van following to pick up people that didn’t salute.

    Those urinals aren’t going to clean themselves.

    • creech

      Back in ROTC the newbies would just salute everyone in uniform until it became such a joke that even the real officers were grinning.

  35. Broswater

    Good morning all.

    Thank you for the GIF, put a smile on the girlfriend on this rainy day!

    Now on to the links so I can feel depressed again argh.

  36. Count Potato

    “Sanchez has garnered a following of around 700,000 followers on Twitter, in addition to having 382 thousand followers on her Twitch account.”

    She also has a record for domestic violence.

  37. UnCivilServant

    *stares intently at outstanding mortgage balance*

    I want to know what it’s like to be out of debt… Thet number is going down!

    *makes monthly payment*

    • hayeksplosives

      When I am asked if I’m a homeowner, I hesitate because the house I’m living in belongs to the bank.

      (Refinancing in Feb helped though)

      • UnCivilServant

        It is my name on the paperwork. The bank doesn’t own it, they just have a lien.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Got some good news for you, you can stop worrying about it because after you pay off the bank you’ll just be paying rent to the government.

      • hayeksplosives

        That’s quite a ray of sunshine.

        Fortunately I am not thinking of my house as a legacy to give my children, primarily because I don’t have children.

        When/if I retire, I’ll probably sell in California and buy or rent a place in a much cheaper state as I run out the clock.

      • TARDis

        I don’t mind. The government uses the property taxes to provide me with essential services.

    • PieInTheSky

      In Dutchland the interest is low enough that people actually pay the minimum possible and have no wish to be out of debt

      • UnCivilServant

        I will be out of debt.

        I have been dumping extra in to get rid of that debt (and saving some $200k+ on interest)

        If someone wants to stay tied to their lender, that’s their choice. I think it’s the wrong choice, but *shrugs*

      • Certified Public Asshat

        It’s not hard to beat a 2-3% mortgage, but I also get not wanting to owe someone else money.

      • UnCivilServant

        I have been in debt since I got my first job.

        I want to know what it feels like to be on the other side of the line.

      • robc

        ^^THIS^^

        It may make technical dollars & cents sense to pay a low mortgage payment and let your money build up at a higher rate, but, you know what? I would prefer not owing anyone anything.

        There is flexibility when you have no debt.

        Tomorrow is my last day of work. Next Friday I close on selling my house. I will be debt-free until December. There is power in that, even if I am going back into debt.

        Unemployed and debt free is much better than unemployed and a mortgage payment hanging over me. Of course, the fact that I have 9 weeks of rent-free living ahead of me helps too. But even the 4 months of rent from Aug-Dec is already sitting in the bank, so that is a nice place to be.

      • robc

        If my house was not already sold, I might be freaking out right now.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        I’ve never actually seen it laid out clearly, but it would be interesting to see someone who paid their mortgage off early not through extra monthly payments, but my investing into a brokerage account until they could sell (with enough to pay tax) and then use the remaining proceeds to retire the mortgage.

      • UnCivilServant

        Given my history with brockerage picks, that would take longer than making the minimum each month.

        *glares at CD Projekt Red*

      • hayeksplosives

        My main savings are in the form of my 401k.

        When dem politicians start talking about all that wealth that “Americans” have in their 401ks, I want to gird up for battle.

        My 401k is MY 401k, not some collective savings I share with other “Americans”.

        Same for IRAs. The I is for Individual.

      • kbolino

        Let us ponder the irony that we are stuck between choosing to fund our enemies slowly but efficiently over time, and get a small reward from the “investment”, or that we might be forced by our enemies to fund them in one sudden burst and lose our pittance reward.

      • Nephilium

        As it currently stands, I’ve been making the minimum monthly payment on my mortgage for the past couple of years. I also have enough in brokerage accounts to pay off the reminder of the mortgage at this point (with money left over, not counting the capital gains taxes I would be hit with). I see inflation coming, and figure the brokerage accounts should at least keep up with inflation better then a savings account (or my fixed rate mortgage).

      • DEG

        I was at that point until I bought the Mustang. I’m not far off from getting back there.

      • R C Dean

        That’s the theory – essentially, leverage your house for investment capital that you can use to pay off your house – but I doubt it actually works that way in practice very often.

        The only thing that will keep me from paying off my mortgage early is inflation.

      • kinnath

        Inflation punishes savers and rewards borrowers.

        My mortgage is at 2.5%, so I no longer plan to pay it off early. The longer it goes, the less it costs me.

        It’s fucked up, but that what Joemala is giving us.

      • robc

        I refuse to pay mortgage in retirement, so part of my retirement plan is paying off the house.

        Right now, it is a 13 year plan…this time 2034, my daughter should be finishing up High School. That is when I am targeting retirement. At least from working for the man.

        So I will have 12.5 years to pay off mortgage and build up enough savings to retire the way we want.

      • AlexinCT

        I have chosen to keep the mortgage running while putting my money in my retirement savings… Making more money there (for now) than I would paying off the mortgage. Once I retire, I will look at my fiscal situation and decide if just paying it all off in one lump vs. keeping the mortgage payments going is better financially (taxes, keeping my retirement principal, not needing too much income that results in insane taxes).

        Each person should figure these things out sooner than later, so they can get the best ride, and then be ready to adjust as soon as the morons running the system crap all over the people doing the right thing. A phenomenon that keeps occuring cyclically as soft times lead to stupid people and ideas dominating.

      • kinnath

        I have nine years left on a ten-year mortgage.

        I had planned to make extra payments to pay off early.

        Instead, I will wait and make a lump-sum payment near the end.

      • AlexinCT

        Rewarding the bad behaviors that keep the people in power in power!

      • Rat on a train

        I’m with you. Even with low rates, I want the little I owe gone.

      • R C Dean

        The math gets complicated. Sure, you are paying the mortgage with cheap dollars, but you are buying everything else with cheap dollars, also. If your income is matching or exceeding inflation, you’re probably fine. But leverage is leverage, and requires income (or assets) to be paid. What if your income goes away, or doesn’t keep up with inflation?

        There’s a good reason inflation is historically associated with economic misery for the lower and middle classes. Mortgages are leverage, and leverage is always risk. My risk calculation today is that I don’t want to carry risk into a hostile economic environment, like the one created by inflation.

      • Tundra

        It’s a tough call for sure. I just sold my house and will be renting for at least a year. Inflation concerns me, obviously, but having a bunch of cash when the market corrects would certainly be a positive. I’d like to be mortgage-less as well.

      • Gender Traitor

        Still owe for our cars, but mine will be paid off in April. Could pay it off now, but the rate’s lower than I could get now, and the fact that I’m paying it to my employer somehow eases the sting.

    • Gender Traitor

      ::thinks about mortgage document stamped “Paid In Full” (thanks to TT) framed and displayed on the mantel at Chez GT/TT, smiles::

  38. The Late P Brooks

    Today, in the corruption of language

    Weight stigma is so prevalent and so detrimental to a person’s self-worth and willingness to seek health care, that it has become a matter of “social injustice and a significant public health issue,” said Rebecca Puhl, the lead author of two new studies on the topic.
    “Stigma is an enemy to health,” said Puhl, who is deputy director at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut. “And just like mental health, weight stigma is a legitimate public health issue, and we need to legitimize it in a way that really hasn’t been done yet.”
    The prevalence of weight stigma is especially significant because the causes of obesity are complex and often outside of personal control, said Puhl, who has studied weight stigma for nearly two decades.

    “Weight stigma”

    Call it what you will, you still have an ass three axe handles wide.

    • WTF

      the causes of obesity are complex and often outside of personal control

      Yeah, I’m calling bullshit on that one. Eat less, eat better, and exercise more works for all but a very small fraction of the population who may have some rare metabolic issue.

      • Agent Cooper

        My incredibly overweight niece has lost 90 lbs on Keto. It’s possible.

      • Akira

        Another BS excuse is “healthy food is too expensive”.

        Maybe it’s expensive to eat the trendiest hipster douchebag health foods like kale and quinoa salads, but there are tons of healthy foods you can get for dirt cheap: Brown rice, lentils, beans, canned tuna, frozen vegetables, etc. They may not be the most delicious foods in the world* but it denies them the excuse that eating healthy costs too much.

        Also, a huge component of obesity in most cases is consuming bullshit empty calories like soda and candy. Cutting those out actually saves you money.

        * When you’ve been into fitness for so long, your whole mindset changes so that you enjoy healthy foods more because they’re healthy for you.

      • CPRM

        Brown rice, lentils, beans

        Not Keto friendly, if that’s how your body works best at cutting weight.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Weight stigma is also a hell of a motivator to get healthier in the first place. Without it our society will be even blimpier than it is now.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    “Instead, these oversimplified and inaccurate societal beliefs persist that if you just try hard enough you can have whatever body you want — those are the beliefs that really fuel societal weight stigma,” she added. “Fundamentally, this issue is about respect and dignity and equal treatment of people across different body sizes and weights.”

    Respeck! And dignity! Take that, haters!

    • hayeksplosives

      Tell that to your pancreas, heart, and leg joints.

    • kbolino

      “if you just try hard enough you can have whatever body you want”

      This is bullshit because we are not created physically equal. Some people will get more results from a certain workout than others, for the same reason some have more body hair than others, some sweat more than others, some have more severe menstruation than others, etc. The body types that you can achieve, and how much effort you have to put in to achieve them, vary from person to person.

      This, however, is not an excuse for being a fat lazy slob. You may never look exactly like some arbitrary idealized form, but that does not mean you won’t look better than you do now. Fitness is about not dying at 40, 50, or even 60 of heart attack, stroke, self-inflicted type-2 diabetes, etc. That you look better from it is a nice perk.

      • EvilSheldon

        Ayo. That’s one of the many things that pisses me off about the ‘Healthy at Any Size!’ assholes.

        Strong and healthy are related, but they’re not the same. You can be fat and strong. You can not be fat and healthy.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      if you just try hard enough you can have whatever body you want

      Wut? Who says that?

      I’m never going to be 160lbs. Even when I was doing manual labor and running a 5k everyday I had a hard time getting to 190. That doesn’t mean, of course, that I can’t be fit if I try harder.

      I hate this “you shouldn’t make any judgments because it’s harder for some than others” about as much as “you can be/do anything as long as you put your mind to it.”

      Mindless pablum, the lot of it.

      • R C Dean

        if you just try hard enough you can have whatever body you want

        Its just a variation of the toxic (IMO) pablum we spout to our children – “You can be anyone/do anything you want”.

      • Gender Traitor

        I want to be Pope!

      • DEG

        Be the real Pope Joan.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Over my dead body!

      • UnCivilServant

        Your terms are acceptable.

        *loads rifle*

  40. The Late P Brooks

    Anti-SCIENCE

    “Could there be criminal culpability here given the repeated failures of Dr. Fauci, who was basically in charge of our messaging on this and advice on this? Could there be criminal culpability here of fraud or ongoing collaboration with the Chinese when he was making excuses for them?” Ingraham wondered aloud.

    “At the very least, there is moral culpability,” Paul replied, claiming that Wuhan scientists gave Fauci “credit” for the development of the virus.

    “It’s very dangerous,” he added. “We shouldn’t be doing it here or there, but Dr. Fauci has denied it to this day. But the private emails show he was acknowledging it was gain-of-function. The scientific community needs to look at this because he hides behind this veil of the lab coat that nobody can question him.”

    You know who else did “medical research”?

    What’s a little weaponized flu between friends?

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Unit 731?

    • wdalasio

      I’ve noticed a pronouncement over Paul’s time in the Senate.

      Paul makes a pronouncement.
      He gets mocked and derided for his pronouncement and portrayed as a tinfoil hat loon.
      Roughly a week or two passes.
      The authorities quietly confirm exactly what Paul said.

      At this point, I’m inclined to believe that the virus was a lab leak from a gain-of-function research project that was sponsored, at least in part, by the U.S. government that wanted to still conduct the research while patting itself on the back that it had banned it.

      • wdalasio

        I’ve noticed a *pattern*…

      • R C Dean

        At this point, I’m inclined to believe

        That’s always been the most plausible explanation, and has always been my default. Aside from simple logistics (there’s two, count ’em, two virology labs in Wuhan, etc.), there was evidence from very early on that COVID came from a lab. I recall reading some analysis by, I believe, Australian researchers more than a year ago calling out anomalies in the virus that sure made it look “artificial”.

      • AlexinCT

        I have been certain (based on facts the media later chose to silence people in the know for speaking) that this virus was an escapee from the Wuhan lab from almost the get go. What was unknown was if it was the gain-of-function variant or the weaponized killer version. That’s why the whole world panicked and started the lockdowns, BTW. Their intel people notified them this was a man made agent, and potentially could be so deadly it would kill people in numbers that would be insane, so they all locked down. The fear was real, because of the unknowns, and China’s efforts to not just hide, but misdirect.

        It was not too long before they realized it was just the gain of function variant, which while highly contagious was not the killer version, and then decided to politicize the whole affair to push the Davos globalist agenda (and get rid of Drumpf who stood in their way). The usual suspects were recruited to keep peddling the lies and help them move the chess pieces towards their political globalist goals. Part of that campaign was to allow the usual unwashed mob to only get the side of the story they wanted to and keep them scared.

        The reluctance to drop the charade, even now, as things unravel, is because they still need to cover their tracks – the campaign to silence dissent backfired – and want to do more of their global reset shit, so they can pull the trigger on events that permanently allow them to keep us all obedient or canceled.

      • Gustave Lytton

        If only the villains were actually that organized and effective. It’s more Three Stooges than Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

      • AlexinCT

        Embrace the power of both…

        The reason it is unraveling is that they are horribly inept (which is why they are doing the things they are: a meritocratic system is a mortal threat to their current hold on power and their desire to make it a hereditary system for their dumb marxist cock sucking offspring) and despite all their efforts, people managed to work around the censoring and bullshit to make it impossible for the truth to be done away with.

      • AlexinCT

        Case in point

        The world is run today by credentialed morons that fear being held accountable for their massively stupid ideas and the failures they produce. By default this forces them to “fortify” things and they always end up with the shit blowing up in their face eventually. But that won’t discourage them….

      • invisible finger

        To me it feels even more sinister than that. Because I can’t understand the motivation behind the medical dogma of “don’t treat the sick people as if they have pneumonia despite all the evidence that they have a pneumonia.”

        The doctors who ignored that dogma and treated patients with chloroquine, steroids, ivermectin, vitamin D supplements, ultraviolet light, etc. were all having success with patients recovering, but the medical establishment was claiming all of those treatments were no-no’s and the proper course was to do nothing except take Tylenol. I suspect the military (in most countries) were trying to hoard supplies, but the idea that you shouldn’t even sit on your porch on a sunny day is overt malpractice.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        ???

        The absolute opposition to possible therapeutics simply because Trump endorsed it is what enrages me.

        The JAMA quietly withdrew its denunciation of HCQ the day after the election.

      • CPRM

        Or leaving Afghanistan, or lab leak or…

      • Gustave Lytton

        the U.S. government that wanted to still conduct the research while patting itself on the back that it had banned it

        Ah, a page from the stem cell textbook. Of course now it’s up to we should be using embryos because “Science!” demands it.

      • kbolino

        There’s also the doctors in Wuhan/Hubei who discovered the disease was spreading in late 2019 and were silenced by the PRC authorities. If the disease had a completely organic origin, the silencing would not make any sense. The PRC is an authoritarian quasi-communist state, but funky new diseases are hardly rare there, and usually don’t warrant such a reaction. The umpteenth new variety of bird flu doesn’t get anyone silenced, as far as I can tell.

        No doubt back then they still believed they could control it, and it wasn’t until it hopped to Taiwan that the cover-up of its existence failed and they shifted to a cover-up of only its origin.

    • CPRM

      What the fuck des he know, he’s just an eye doctor!

      • R C Dean

        Fauci came up with one of my colleagues, who hadn’t really heard about the emails.

        I pointed out he hasn’t actually seen a patient in 50 years, and is a primary care doctor who we would never let on our medical staff as an infectious disease specialist.

        She was pretty quiet about him after that.

      • TARDis

        My wife’s boss practically worships the damn gnome. I hate that my wife just has to be silent or risk her job.

      • R C Dean

        So does mine. And unless the DemOp complex put a marker on him for some reason (which is looking like it may have happened), none of this will penetrate her bubble.

  41. Count Potato

    “White mothers in the U.S. are nearly four times more likely to have an infant death involving drugs, a new report published on Thursday finds.

    Between 2015 and 2017, 442 babies had a death in which drugs – such as cocaine, methamphetamine, opioids, naloxone, and cannabis were involved – according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

    Of those infant deaths, about 60 percent were the children of Caucasian women.

    Death rates from drug overdoses have exponentially risen among the U.S. population, tripling from 6.1 deaths per 100,000 in 1999 to 21.7 deaths per 100,000 in 2017.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9645931/Babies-born-white-mothers-four-times-likely-killed-drugs.html

    Fentanyl or playing around with the numbers?

    • UnCivilServant

      Hold on, their claims don’t add up.

      if 60% of the deaths were from mothers of caucasian persuasion, and over 70% of the population of the US is the same, how is that ‘four times more likely’ than the alternative?

      Even if you ignore the fact that 442 people is a rounding error in this country’s mortality statistics, those percentages don’t appear to say what they’re claiming.

    • hayeksplosives

      Abortion rates among minority women vs Caucasian?

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      “Researchers found 60.4% of babies who died were born to white women
      This is 3.5 times greater than the 17.6% of babies born to black mothers and the 16.7% born to Hispanic women”

      Either the author is an idiot or their statistician is.

      • Old Man With Candy

        Or both. Or they very much know what they’re doing and assume the consumers of their virtual rag are too stupid to see the con.

        I vote for the last possibility.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt but you’re probably right.

    • Akira

      Fentanyl or playing around with the numbers?

      Aren’t black women far more likely to have abortions? Could be that their fetuses have just as many drug-related complications as the white ones, but it never gets counted because they’re being aborted.

      Also, what’s the point of this article? Just to highlight that wypipo are drugged out, toothless cousin-humpers who can’t raise their children right? It’s like if they ran an article saying “Black People More Likely to Commit Crimes”.

    • EvilSheldon

      Getting? This shit has been silly for 18 months.

      I hope that this is the irrational screeching that happens in the death throes…

    • AlexinCT

      IT MADE THE FROGS GAY!

    • Rebel Scum

      Getting?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      “potentially”

      Enough said.

  42. Count Potato

    “New York City’s transit system was hacked by Chinese operatives in April, it emerged on Wednesday, as a ferry company taking passengers to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket confirmed that they too had been targeted by hackers.

    The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) discovered that their computer systems had been accessed, but the hackers did not gain access to systems that control train cars, The New York Times reported, citing an internal MTA investigation.

    Transit officials said riders were never at risk, and they do not believe passenger or employee data was compromised.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9646583/China-hacked-MTA-failed-control-NY-subway-Ransomware-cripples-Marthas-Vineyard-ferry.html

    This shit is getting out of hand.

    • UnCivilServant

      Of course they didn’t get to the train control system. That shit’s so antiquated the hackers probably never heard of the systems it’s running and went “we can’t do more damage than they’ve done themselves”

      • kbolino

        Antiquated systems get a bad rap, but they often do far more with far fewer resources than the bloated and expensive systems that people inevitably want to replace them with. Their biggest faults are that they are written in now unfashionable languages (Fortran, Cobol, Assembly, etc.), they depend on hardware that doesn’t get manufactured anymore, and they were never designed to be connected to the Internet (which either didn’t exist yet or was just an academic research project).

        There’s something to be said for the fact that 4 people with coffee and a dark corner in a disused office could write the antiquated system that ran the transit network for 40 years but $100 million towards Larry Ellison’s next yacht ends up requiring a full-time team of 100 people to keep from catching fire.

      • kinnath

        I used to write code for real-time aircraft simulators that ran on computers with lower FLOPS than an 80386.

      • kbolino

        Obligatory pedantry: It’s hard to go lower than 0 (the 386 had no FPU)

      • kbolino

        Though I suppose you could compute floating-point operations in software, and use that to measure the FLOPS of just the CPU. With the 387 FPU, apparently you could get up to 1 MFLOPS which is higher than I would have thought (but nothing compared to say a modern GPU).

      • TARDis

        Ah, those were the days. I had to buy a co-processor so I could make AutoCAD work on my 386 back in college.

      • UnCivilServant

        No, they get a bad rap because they’re a royal pain in the ass to keep running.

        I say this as a guy who made my career keeping antiquated systems running in lieu of anyone who knew how they even worked – because the people who knew the guts all died of old age.

    • Pope Jimbo

      We take cyber security ferry, ferry seriously.

  43. The Late P Brooks

    The people promoting this risk-minimization philosophy are invariably boring. They have no deep interests and no hobbies. They exist only to soak up entertainment.

    This.

    Adrenaline is poison, to some people.

    • EvilSheldon

      I don’t even mean exciting or dangerous hobbies (although I do think that dangerous hobbies are a good idea).

      Just, have something in your life other than work, watching TV, going out to eat, and jerking off on the approved social media platforms.

      That’s one of the things I like about Glibertarians – you people are broadly interesting. Every time I come here, there’s a chance I’ll be reading about cooking, or disc golf, or writing, or obscure jazz, or foundry management, or skateboarding, or travel to interesting places…

      • R C Dean

        Or even shooting!

        Stay tuned.

      • CPRM

        Just, have something in your life other than work, watching TV, going out to eat, and jerking off

        Me hardest hit.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Stelter is a faithful lackey for CNN. He would have zero job prospects except for them so he viciously defends his master.

      • Gustave Lytton

        ^^^

        He looks like the midlife version of Private Pyle and is just as in need of a midnight blanket party.

    • Agent Cooper

      Did Ted Turner ever envision in 1982 he’d have a Human Potato as the face of his (at-the-time) ingenious creation?

  44. The Late P Brooks

    “Researchers found 60.4% of babies who died were born to white women
    This is 3.5 times greater than the 17.6% of babies born to black mothers and the 16.7% born to Hispanic women”

    Either the author is an idiot or their statistician is.

    The hand is quicker than the eye. Which shell is the pea under?

  45. Rebel Scum

    (((Sabotage)))

    According to the Iranian government, the nation has hit a spot of bad luck in recent months. An explosion damaged hundreds of centrifuges at their main enrichment facility of Natanz in April, causing a significant drop in nuclear fuel production. Iranian ships operating in the Persian Gulf experienced mysterious explosions and fires. Prominent Iranians are dropping dead in the streets — sometimes after being shot or blown up but sometimes for no apparent reason.

    Just bad luck, says the Iranian government. Meanwhile, Israel remains quiet.

    Then, on Wednesday, Iran’s largest warship — the Kharg — suffered an apparent explosion and fire. It sank off the Iranian coast near the Gulf of Oman. A short time later, a massive fire broke out at an Iranian refinery just south of Tehran.

    Also, sabotage.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I can actually believe the Iranians are incompetent enough to keep having serious accidents. They’re a third world nation of over eighty million with first world aspirations after all.

      • CPRM

        What are the Second World countries?

      • robc

        Soviet bloc. So none now.

      • robc

        I guess maybe Cuba?

      • Raven Nation

        North Korea?

      • kinnath

        Google says:

        The First World consisted of the U.S., Western Europe and their allies. The Second World was the so-called Communist Bloc: the Soviet Union, China, Cuba and friends. The remaining nations, which aligned with neither group, were assigned to the Third World. The Third World has always had blurred lines.

      • R C Dean

        At some point I thought it got redefined as, more or less, fully economically developed countries (pretty much the US, etc.), developing countries (some in Eastern Europe, Asia and South America), and as-yet-unredeemed shitholes (everywhere else).

      • kinnath

        Yes.

        That’s the way I always thought of it.

        Developed, Under Developed (frequently, but not always, stagnant systems under socialism/communism), Places living in the dark ages (frequently tied to dictatorships which may or may not have been socialist or communist).

      • kbolino

        There’s only a handful that really get put into that final category: North Korea, Cuba, Eritrea, maybe a couple others. Even Somalia, much beloved of the totally-not-racist set whenever libertarianism or anarchism comes up, can be called “developing”.

    • CPRM

      Good thing you linked the song, otherwise I’d have to.

      • CPRM

        Of course, then I had to watch Intergalactic, which made me want to revisit the the early 2000s internet video Monkey VS Robot

    • CPRM

      If their AI Ethics is any way connected to it’s Diversity and Inclusion, I’m glaad they aren’t being included.

      • ignoreLander

        That article is dripping with identity politics so yeah, it’s connected to Diversity and Inclusion. Vox, would we expect anything else?