Wednesday Afternoon SugarLinks – The Gawker Effect

by | Jun 9, 2021 | Daily Links | 282 comments

Raiders Of The Lost Ark’s Karen Allen doesn’t think Indiana Jones is a pedophile

There’s a big market on the internet these days for reappraisals of the pop culture canon, which is how we get sudden waves of nostalgia for stuff like Master And Commander and also years-too-late backlashes against stuff like, oh, Master And Commander. It’s also how we get new takes on old movies, reinterpreting themes or examining character dynamics from a more modern, socially conscious perspective, like the idea that Indiana Jones’ relationship with Marion Ravenwood in Raiders Of The Lost Ark is… kinda creepy. When he shows up at her bar early in the movie, the two briefly recap how they know each other, with Marion saying, “I was a child. I was in love.” and Indy responding, “You knew what you were doing,” which some people have chosen to interpret as “Indiana Jones was in a relationship with a kid.” (Ignoring the fact that “I was a kid” is a pretty common way to refer to a pretty wide window of younger days.)

Uproxx recently spoke with Karen Allen, who played Marion in that one movie and not any others that we can think of right now, and brought up the potential creepiness of that scene. Allen agrees that “you could say that” there are some “sinister undertones” to the conversation (as Uproxx puts it), but she doesn’t think it means that Indiana Jones is literally a pedophile. She says her take on the scene was that Marion was 16 when they met and Indy was maybe 26, and “they could have kissed a few times,” but her interpretation was that “it was quite innocent.” She thinks they cared for each other, but he decided it was a “dangerous situation” and broke it off.

The author of this piece.

The Gawker Effect is to make sure that nothing enjoyable can be enjoyed and everything miserable is praised. This article your typical result from the Effect: a joyless, ungenerous, Twitterish, and historically ignorant hot take on an old movie beloved by just about everyone except the anhedonic Millenial and his horde of dry-cunt spinsters.


 

But I still feel like we should celebrate and promote dumb voices. If the stupid cannot speak up, how can they ever be spotted, captured, sterilized and tagged?


 

France is sending a second Statue of Liberty to the US

New Yorkers have a surprise gift to look forward to for this Independence Day: a second Statue of Liberty sent by France. This new bronze statue, nicknamed the “little sister,” is one-sixteenth the size of the world-famous one that stands on Liberty Island. On Monday, during a special ceremony, the smaller sibling was lifted and loaded into a special container at the National Museum of Arts and Crafts (CNAM) in central Paris, where it has been installed since 2011 in the museum’s garden. It will be erected on Ellis Island, just across the water from the original, from July 1 to July 5.

The statue, over 450 kilograms (992 pounds) in weight and just shy of 10 feet tall, was first made in 2009. It is an exact replica of the original 1878 plaster model preserved by CNAM.

“The statue symbolizes freedom and the light around all the world,” said Olivier Faron, general administrator of the CNAM. “We want to send a very simple message: Our friendship with the United States is very important, particularly at this moment. We have to conserve and defend our friendship.”

Not cool, CNN. You never tell the public a woman’s weight. Or her age. Une femme doit avoir son mystère.


 

Libertarian Party New Hampshire just keeps the spicy takes coming. Love it.


 

Principal resigns after photo shows Colorado high schoolers re-enact murder of George Floyd

A Colorado high school principal has resigned after a photo surfaced on social media showing three students re-enacting the murder of George Floyd.

In a letter to parents that noted “significant challenges” during the school year, St. Vrain Valley Schools Superintendent Don Haddad announced Monday that Mead High School Principal Rachael Ayers had stepped down after 12 years at the school as a teacher, assistant principal and principal.

It’s unclear if her resignation is connected with the incident. Ayers did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

An image posted on Snapchat last month showed a person, in blackface, on the ground with one person holding his arms and another person with a knee on his neck.


 

Protesters disrupt Bay Area congressional town hall, claim medical freedom and privacy rights

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. – It was a raucous 90 minutes in Marin County when a congressional town hall in the Bay Area Tuesday night was stormed and disrupted by anti-vaccine and pro-Donald Trump protesters. Rep. Jared Huffman struggled to carry on his first in-person town hall in a year amid the disruptions.

Congressional town halls are generally tame, even dry with discussion over policy, but that was before COVID and the polarizing 2020 presidential election.

“Medical freedom now!” was the chant at the San Rafael Community Center. Huffman had to shout into the microphone to be heard.

“We have always had capacity rules for gatherings. We’ve always had common sense limits on gatherings and I’m sorry that some of it rubs you the wrong way. But it is not a civil right. It is not apartheid. It is not the Holocaust,” Huffman tried to reason with the crowd among the shouts.

About 100 people RSVP’d to the town hall. His audience ended up in face to face confrontations with protesters.

“I apologize to everyone who came here to try to have a civil, respectful conversation,” said Huffman as a woman with a sign that read, ‘All the ferrets died. No passports no way’ sat on the stage in front of him.


ALL THE FERRETS DIED


 

About The Author

SugarFree

SugarFree

Your Resident Narcissistic Misogynist Rape-Culture Apologist

282 Comments

  1. UnCivilServant

    Surprise attacks when the enemy leaves themselves vulnerable are an age-old military tradition. Go Texas.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Stand To is still retarded.

      • Bobarian LMD

        BMNT is the best time to catch the BLUEFOR with their dicks in their hands.

      • Gustave Lytton

        See, I would say right after they walk to a portashitter with an FM.

    • Not Adahn

      A samurai could not kill a sleeping enemy. Sneak up on him with an unsheathed sword, kick them and immediately stab them? That’s fine.

      • Mojeaux

        A samurai could not kill a sleeping enemy

        That’s his problem.

        If I have to die violently, I’d just as soon it be swift while I’m asleep. There are worse ways to go.

      • Gadfly

        A samurai could not kill a sleeping enemy. Sneak up on him with an unsheathed sword, kick them and immediately stab them? That’s fine.

        I’m now bummed that Ghost of Tsushima did not give the player character the second option, only the first.

    • Mojeaux

      They said it like it was a bad thing.

      • UnCivilServant

        They would have to be willfully ignorant of tactics, strategy, and history to do that.

    • Suthenboy

      I dont think there is a war in history where that has not happened. Maybe Santa Ana should have stayed in Mexico City and minded his own business. Texas and Louisiana had already filled up with Gringos. It was a lost cause for Mexico.

      • UnCivilServant

        Satna Anna was the kind of guy who launched a coup against himself to get back his power (and later founded a chewing gum company to finance a similar purpose). He didn’t have it in him to leave well enough alone.

      • Suthenboy

        That is true of too many people.

    • Tonio

      Yes, those treacherous colonials refused to line up in a field and fight like a real army. Those rascals hid behind walls wearing homespun and shot at our well-ordered, red-uniformed troops.

    • Old Man With Candy

      Now do Yom Kippur.

      • Chafed

        Are you an Islamophobe?

  2. The Late P Brooks

    Gawker Effect- indistinguishable from blunt force head trauma?

    • SugarFree

      People who get hit in the head at least have the excuse that they got hit in the head. What’s Low-T’s excuse?

      • zwak

        Hit in the balls?

      • EvilSheldon

        Anxiety, depression, or PTSD (the r/ trifecta). Pick one out of a hat.

      • Tundra

        Soy. Lots of it.

  3. Count Potato

    ” ‘All the ferrets died. No passports no way’ ”

    Ferrets?

      • Count Potato

        This site is very educational.

    • SDF-7

      I’m thinking maybe one of the vaccine trials? I’d DuckDuckGo it, but I figure I’m on enough lists already….

    • Bobarian LMD

      Rep. Jared Huffman serves as an example that there are still ferrets.

  4. Surly Knott

    Legalize recreational plutonium.

    • Tonio

      [standing ovation]

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      *Looks around the office for my lead codpiece*

  5. Count Potato

    “Legalize machine guns, fighter planes, attack helicopters, and battleships.”

    I don’t know if letting Jeff Bezos have his navy is a good idea.

    • SDF-7

      :shrug: Pretty sure he could (has?) buy his own island in the Caribbean and/or Pacific, declare it a sovereign state and spool up his own Navy if he cared to. Or just have enough “demilitarized” hardware similar to Germany in the 1930’s that just happens to have all the mounts for the weapons ready….

      But then again, I’ve always been on the side of “If the Founders were cool with privateers and folks buying their own warships for the Continental Navy, of *course* they’d say ‘If you can afford an Iowa-class, go for it!'”.

      • Gadfly

        that just happens to have all the mounts for the weapons ready

        This reminds me of the Japanese helicopter destroyers, which are totally not aircraft carriers in waiting, ignore the runway, it’s just an aesthetic feature.

      • SDF-7

        Yup… they came out and admitted it with the follow on Izumo class.

        Totally not a coincidence that this gives them a counter balance to China’s attempts at blue water carriers. (Though they’re going to need a bigger one soon — but then again, if we’re really lucky the Chinese stole the plans to the Ford class and will be trying to get EMALS working right. (I seriously couldn’t believe it when I read a bit ago that they designed the system so you can’t take one of the cats down for maintenance without taking all four down… from the sound of it because they can’t be electrically isolated. What the frakkin’ frak, guys….)

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      Plus battleships? Are we going to lure the USN into the second Battle of Jutland?

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        Fun fact: The IJN made 18″ Anti-aircraft shells. I have no idea to what extent they were employed.

      • UnCivilServant

        No, battleships are convoy raiders and self-propelled artillery.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        That’s great so long as you have complete air superiority. Things end badly if you do not.

    • Ozymandias

      The people who say this don’t realize how loudly they’re braying their ignorance. Set aside the historical facts around privateers or that letters of marque are IN THE FUCKING Constitution for the moment.
      Do any of these idiots think that if we made nukes “legal” that suddenly we’d have people spinning centrifuges in their basements? I fantasize about someday getting the opportunity to destroy a reporter on this subject in public. It goes something like this:
      Q: “You would rescind all restrictions on weapons… even nuclear weapons!?!!”
      A: “Yes, I would. And I will bet everything I own that if I gave you and everyone you know, the smartest people you could find, from now until eternity to build a centrifuge to make weapons-grade fissile material, that you would never get past the most basic steps necessary to produce anything. It took a collection of the greatest minds in world history working with the complete resources of the US government under threat of war by another nation-state with its own scientists to produce the first bomb. You couldn’t make a paper airplane if I gave you the paper and instructions.”

      There’s a lot more, but it applies all the way down to helicopters. When I was a QAO for a skid squadron, we used to track man hours per flight hour religiously. For two of the oldest airframes in the inventory, the AH and UH-1, it was somewhere in the range of 8 man-hours of maintenance per 1 flight hour. That says nothing of the resources it takes to arm one up and get it in the air. Or the tools. And training. And parts. Same is true for tanks, too.
      These people are allowed to get away with their stupidity because no one calls them on it; and they consider themselves clever while being completely unaware of their unfathomable ignorance on this subject.
      Drives me the fuck insane.

  6. SDF-7

    Love this from the replies to the Texas Twitter Twit.

    • Not Adahn

      Dixie Flatline
      @UncleBobsReason
      ·
      3h
      Replying to
      @Jra4U
      and
      @GregAbbott_TX
      And? File a complaint with the marquis of fucking queensbury

    • Count Potato

      Ha! I knew it.

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      It is really depressing that our would-be overlords do not know how anything works.

      MacNamara was a POS and woefully out of his depth at DoD, but the guy at least carried himself like he was competent.

      • Gustave Lytton

        “The power of Brylcreem compels you!”

  7. wdalasio

    The Gawker Effect is to make sure that nothing enjoyable can be enjoyed and everything miserable is praised.

    It’s something I see growing in our culture. I’d extend enjoyable to virtuous and miserable to base. I really don’t hold out much hope for a civilization that degrades the good and celebrates the bad. Hopefully, it’s just a passing fad.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      An obligatory reference to the Chump Effect article belongs here

    • Suthenboy

      Yes, hopefully. The pendulum always swings. The marxist shitbirds will never get their way as long as we are armed. That is the very purpose of the second amendment. I think people will eventually get enough of their clap-trap.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Look at the optimist over here! ?

        There may be a pendulum, but it’s walking leftward with every swing.

    • Tonio

      They are embracing psychological warfare. They are trying to make America miserable, ashamed to be American. Everything must be re-evaluated through the microscope lens of wokeness and political correctness. We are truly sliding towards a nightmarish, Orwellian world where civic duty is denouncing your neighbor.

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      It is all an outgrowth of the post-modern and Marxist infestation of the academy, IMO.

  8. Suthenboy

    There is a reason that international law forbids forcing people to take experimental drugs. That reason is named Josef Mengele.

  9. The Late P Brooks

    Love this from the replies to the Texas Twitter Twit.

    Nice.

    • SDF-7

      Hmm… must have missed the New Yorker Conscription Act of 2018.

      (AKA — don’t like your remuneration for contractual employment? QUIT YOU DUMMIES!)

      • wdalasio

        I don’t know. I’m not going to fault them for wanting better pay. And the New Yorker has been a big proponent of the perils of income inequality. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they paid lousy wages.

    • Not Adahn

      New Yorker employees: the intellectual creme de la creme.

      Also New Yorker employees: Unaware that Anna Wintour’s a bitch before taking a job from her.

  10. waffles

    “nothing enjoyable can be enjoyed and everything miserable is praised”

    I enjoyed that

    • waffles

      Those are expensive tweets

    • SugarFree

      Majdi said that the ordeal has taken a toll on his daughter, who found another job at a restaurant but was quickly hounded out when protesters discovered where she was working.

      Now, Lianne is planning to move overseas to start a new life, he said. Majdi said he offered to hire her back at the family business, but she refused, fearing that Holy Land would suffer further fallout.

      Cancel culture is just a right-wing myth.

    • Not Adahn

      ‘Top 3 races you wish to eliminate. Ready, go! Jews, blacks, and the fats.’

      She’s pleasantly plump herself.

    • Sensei

      I tried to skim the article. From my quick read the problematic quotes are from HS. Mind you it’s OK she marched with BLM while working at the grocery store.

      I’d be more concerned about the current activity, but if it’s separated from the grocery store chain who cares.

      That said, I’m guessing she was A-OK with cancel culture until she was cancelled.

      • Bobarian LMD

        First they came for the slightly plump palestinian girls, but…

  11. DEG

    To be clear: That’s still creepy.

    Huh. This guy’s head probably would have exploded had he been around my high school or the place I worked when I was in high school. More than a few 16 and 17 year gals dating guys in their twenties and nobody batted an eye.

    Libertarian Party New Hampshire just keeps the spicy takes coming. Love it.

    🙂

    I might have to rethink my decision to never have anything to do with them after their “not wearing a mask is a NAP violation” tweet. The folks behind that tweet were purged when the Mises Caucus took over. Unfortunately, the Mises Caucus memory holed that tweet.

    • SDF-7

      Huh. This guy’s head probably would have exploded had he been around my high school or the place I worked when I was in high school. More than a few 16 and 17 year gals dating guys in their twenties and nobody batted an eye.

      Yeah — not to mention that when Indy was in his mid-20’s it would have been around 1916? 1918? Somewhere in that range. Young men dating and marrying women in their mid-teens was hardly unheard of prior to our increasing infantilization of anyone under 30….

      • Bobarian LMD

        16 years old and unmarried? Was she a nun?

      • Shpip

        Maybe she was from Amity.

    • Suthenboy

      The Libertarian party is a bunch of lunatics. How they manage to remain semi-cohesive is a mystery to me. It seems they should have all wandered off to eat crayons and lick windows.

    • Trigger Hippie

      My parents married in the late 70’s. She was barely 17 and pregnant, he was 24.

      • Animal

        I married the first time in 1981. I was 19, she was barely (like three days earlier) 18. Not pregnant, though.

  12. DrOtto

    I wish for a moment I had Twitter to correct some moron who responded to the TX military strategy tweet that “The Alamo was a military fort built in Mexico without Mexico’s permission…” akschwuallly, it was a Catholic Mission… there are several such missions built in that region.

    • Sensei

      Bluto : What? Over? Did you say “over”? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!

      Otter : [to Boon] Germans?

      Boon : Forget it, he’s rolling.

    • kbolino

      Lots of people seem to think “the winner writes the history books” implies that somehow if the loser wrote the books they’d be any closer to the truth.

      • Count Potato

        Thank’s Ted

      • Agent Cooper

        What fucking pedestrian vocal talent.

      • Gustave Lytton

        There’s a video of her singing live. Pedestrian doesn’t even begin to describe how it is. She does get points for actually doing it live instead of lip syncing her studio version.

      • rhywun

        That’s… wow. Who knew that existed?

        PS. Yeah, rural California is clamoring for far-leftist representation. You go girl!

  13. grrizzly

    I booked a bed & breakfast in Bar Harbor for a weekend in July, didn’t even think about masks there. Today the innkeepers sent me an email that mentioned that “Masks are REQUIRED to be worn at all times when entering the Inn and in any common room.”

    I couldn’t believe they were still doing it in the summer of 2021: last week I returned from a 10-day trip through FL, MS and TN where even many hotel employees were not wearing masks, let alone forcing their guests to don them. So, I called the place and the person on the line confirmed the requirement to wear face masks. I told him that I don’t wear a mask and despise people who force others to wear them. Reservation cancelled.

    Based on their room availability this B&B is full: people still comply with this nonsense and many probably even love it.

    • Sean

      Disaster cosplay.

    • Suthenboy

      It is a security blanket for the herd animals. The mask is totally useless from a practical standpoint.

      • Tonio

        [golf clap] for “security blanket for herd animals.”

      • DEG
    • DEG

      Barf.

      I’m taking my daily driver car into the shop next week for maintenance plus AC service. They didn’t say anything to me when they called me back about the appointment about masks even though I mentioned not wanting to wear a mask in the shop in my e-mail to them. The shop is not longer running its shuttle service, so I’m getting a loaner at $25 a day even though I have a second car, the Mustang. I can’t drive two cars at once. Uber and Lyft are still requiring masks according to their websites. So… I’ll pay the $25 for the loaner.

      • grrizzly

        Graceland in Memphis, TN no longer requires wearing face masks. Most people didn’t wear masks anywhere including shuttles that bring visitors to the mansion. The trip to the South was a complete success. We could visit local attractions, museums without worrying about masks practically everywhere.

    • Trigger Hippie

      You’re irredeemable, unconsciously attacking minorities, destructive to the very existence to the Earth and the only way to even try to atone is to deconstruct your entire identity and submit to CRT. Except there’s no path to salvation, only future penance until you die hating yourself for ever living.

      Struggle Sessions are so tedious.

    • Suthenboy

      Wow. I am guessing that Donald lives, breathes and eats racism. I dont think I have ever seen anything more racist than that.

      Keep in mind that ‘whiteness’ in their minds is cultural, not racial. What they mean is ‘western enlightened civilization’. I think ‘ol Don there has race and culture conflated.

      CWAA

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Keep in mind that ‘whiteness’ in their minds is cultural, not racial.

        I think you’ll find, in peeling back the layers, that they intentionally conflate the two. You can’t hate people to the core if they’re victims of their own culture.

      • prolefeed

        Try changing “whiteness” to “blackness” in this description and you get a rant that a KKK member might have written.

        It’s like changing “taxation” to “theft” in any political utterance – the mindset of the speaker becomes painfully obvious.

  14. Certified Public Asshat

    Indiana Jones is a pedophile

    No, but those crystal skull aliens are.

    • leon

      You’d think a whiny millennial would understand that someone could call themselves a child while not legally being a child.

    • SDF-7

      What crystal skull aliens?

      Next you’ll say something crazy like there was more than one Highlander movie or something….

      • UnCivilServant

        You’d just lose your head over that, wouldn’t you?

      • The Other Kevin

        There really can be only one.

      • Endless Mike

        But he saaavedd he Ozzzzooonnne layer…

    • Bobarian LMD

      Speaking of Indy…

    • Agent Cooper

      I thought the article was going to be about Short Round.

  15. Tonio

    “Chardonnay Antifa” may be the funniest thing you read all day. By Glibs values of funny.

    Until you realize that these people, while batshit crazy, are also rabid hyenas.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      flouting Chairwoman Brenda Sheridan’s request to use jazz hands

      ??

      Good on these people. There are a lot of government drone leftists in that area, but Loudoun is a mix of DC swamp culture and Virginia agriculture. Good to see the latter fighting back against those leftist assholes.

      • Tonio

        Horse country Virginia “agriculture.”

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        IIRC, Loudon Co. is regularly on the list of the wealthiest counties in the country.

      • Not Adahn

        “What? I’m not flipping you the double bird. These are my jazz hands. I have carpal tunnel syndrome you ableist scum.”

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I like this

    • zwak

      “louting Chairwoman Brenda Sheridan’s request to use jazz hands.”

  16. Sensei

    If I read one more glowing review of Ford’s new Maverick pickup truck and what a genius move it is for Ford without a single mention of the Chicken Tax

    There have been plenty of good small pickups made globally. They just couldn’t be imported here without costing almost as much as a medium or even full sized pickup.

    • Bobarian LMD

      All the Toyota and Datsun PUs would come thru the LA Harbor with no bed on the truck to get past that. The installed the beds right there for a period of time when I was a kid.

  17. Shpip

    Whenever I go to McDonald’s, I get a few extra straws from the dispenser. I take them home with me and put them in a drawer in the kitchen.

    Then, whenever the wife yells “GODDAMMIT! THIS IS THE LAST STRAW!” I can open the drawer and show her that there are plenty more.

    Calms her right down… eventually. Most of the time.

    • SDF-7

      You’ll be here all week, tip the veal and try the waitress?

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      I, too like to live dangerously. I tell my wife to, “calm down” when she is pissed off.

      • slumbrew

        I like to throw in a “you’re being hysterical.” That seems to help.

      • zwak

        Yep, right up there with asking if its that time of the month.

      • whahappan

        I find “relaaax” works wonders.

    • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

      I prefer to just dump the straws straight into the ocean because I hate turtles. And ay oop.

  18. Gadfly

    She says her take on the scene was that Marion was 16 when they met and Indy was maybe 26

    I’ve read that this was George Lucas’s idea for the characters’ backstory, so it’s basically canon. Also, not news, and not particularly shocking. 16 is the age of consent in most US states today, and the film was set in the 1930s, so the idea was that it was a consensual yet problematic relationship (since she was Jones’s professor’s daughter) – which basically describes all the relationships Indy ever had.

  19. wdalasio

    Texas “won” its revolution by attacking the Mexican Army while they were sleeping (their traditional daily siesta of the culture) in a strategically vulnerable position?

    A presumably grown adult woman is complaining that soldiers in a war trying to kill one another didn’t respect the other side’s nap time. We really are doomed as a society.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      It’s astoundingly brilliant in its stupidity. I think a milestone of stupid has been achieved even if it will be surpassed by noon tomorrow.

    • ignoreLander

      The thing that gets me is she is bitching about “Texas “won” its revolution by attacking the Mexican Army while they were … in a strategically vulnerable position

      That’s right folks…. In real-life, non-Hollywood warfare, don’t EVER look for a strategic advantage. Thass raycisss…. Or somesuch.

    • Endless Mike

      Their TRADITIONAL naptime of their CULTURE, shitlord!

  20. Gadfly

    You never tell the public a woman’s weight. Or her age.

    Reminds me of a quote I like: “A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age.”

    • leon

      Brave men tell the truth
      A wise man’s tools are analogies and puzzles
      A woman holds her tounge, knowing silence will speak for her.

  21. Sensei

    Man stuck for days inside giant fan at Bay Area vineyard

    SF Man give FL Man a run.

    “The man indicated he liked to take pictures of the engines of old farm equipment,” the statement said. “After a thorough investigation, which revealed the farm equipment wasn’t antique and the man had far more methamphetamine than camera equipment, the motivation to climb into the fan shaft remains a total mystery.”

    • The Other Kevin

      He really blew it this time.

      • Count Potato

        I don’t know. He could put it on his Only Fans.

    • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

      When I was a kid I nearly got stuck in a culvert. Getting in was easy, but at the top end someone had dumped out some concrete which narrowed the diameter of the culvert. I still get nightmares from that from time to time.

  22. SP

    Unfortunately, I need to be away from my computer this evening, so I am unable to host a Midweek Zoom. Yes, I’m a loser.

    My apologies.

    • Old Man With Candy

      Can you give me your login info and I can kick it off?

      • SP

        No, I won’t give you my login info. But I can start it and then hand it over to you.

        So, in that case, here’s a link

        Standard times apply. 8 pm Eastern, 7 pm Glibtime, 6 pm Spudtime, 5 pm OMWC and CA time.

        (I also won’t let you use my toothbrush.)

      • Tulip

        Nevermind, SP will start it

      • Old Man With Candy

        SPLITTER!

        OK, it’s yours.

      • Old Man With Candy

        Wait, we can’t keep crossposting. OK, it’s mine now. And if you change it again, I swear I’ll hunt you down.

      • TARDis

        What if she doesn’t like candy?

  23. ignoreLander

    anhedonic Millenial and his horde of dry-cunt spinsters

    *Slow Clap*

    • SDF-7

      Ok — there’s a twitter handle I’m never going to follow a link to knowingly. Sorry, Count.

      • Count Potato

        It’s just a video mash up with Kamala and Trump.

  24. prolefeed

    From the am links:

    “/queues up half a dozen Facebook commercials “lamenting” that there have been no new internet regulations in the past 25 years.”

    Notice how those fucking ads have one word in a sentence changing quickly to different topics the unspecified legislation they’re pushing would address? And about the third changed word in, almost subliminally, they change it to “elections” for a brief moment?

    I’m guessing that is about, “let’s change election laws to kill the First Amendment by requiring censoring of whatever is deemed to be lies, with only one party on the pointy end of that metaphorical stick”?

    • Suthenboy

      The bill of rights include only ten amendments. Those ten were singled out because those are the top targets of the tyrant and the most empowering rights to the individual. The tyrants we have today are no different from those of the past. All tyrants come out of the same cookie cutter.

      • prolefeed

        If the people who wrote the BoR had a sneak preview of what the federal government would morph into, they might have expanded that list to, oh, 100 amendments, and specified punishments for the future traitors who would chip away at these protections.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Or they would just be appalled at their heirs for squandering a gift

      • prolefeed

        At least one of them had a more active role in mind about protecting that gift:

        “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

      • Gadfly

        And it should be remembered that he said that not when he was a rebel against a government, but when he was a government minister and there was a rebellion going on against one of said government’s constituent members. I think that’s what the kids call “based”.

      • Suthenboy

        Not specifying punishments…I dont know. I think it is a flaw but it could also be used as a political weapon so I could be wrong.

      • prolefeed

        The problem is that the optimistic notion that tyrants and governments can be permanently restrained by a piece of paper seems to have been thoroughly disproven. Turns out that people who disdain liberty will rewrite that document or trample it underfoot.

      • Suthenboy

        I think it was Franklin who very pointedly said that this system would only work in a moral society. The marxists know this and that is why they never stop chipping away at morality.

        As to the morality of society then vs now I cannot say. It always seems worse today because it is right in front of your nose and many of the transgressions of the past are lost in time.

        Keep your powder dry people. Keep it dry.

      • prolefeed

        Well, as my wife never tires of pointing out to me, morality of that time said it was OK to own other humans. But if I talk about how the laws and politicians she supports today create fractional slavery, with the weird support of people whose fairly recent ancestors included said slaves, with that fraction of slavery growing over time, we go down the rabbit hole of political discussion. So, we mostly STFU about politics.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Last round is for the final roll.

  25. prolefeed

    “Surprise attacks when the enemy leaves themselves vulnerable are an age-old military tradition. Go Texas.”

    I suppose the person bitching about the “surprise” attack during a siesta is also pissed off that George Washington sneakily crossed a freezing river and attacked sleeping Hessians, thus preventing Washington from losing the war and dangling from British gallows for treason?

  26. Count Potato

    “Thread.

    Blackrock is buying every single family house they can find, paying 20-50% above asking price and outbidding normal home buyers. Why are corporations, pension funds and property investment groups buying…”

    https://twitter.com/APhilosophae/status/1402434266970140676

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Because they’re drowning in Fed cash and are desperately trying to find an inflation hedge.

      Meanwhile, the poor sap trying to save up enough to buy a house is getting fucked by the government that’s supposedly trying to help.

    • prolefeed

      If you’re expecting the pre-Harris administration to keep on with its spending binge, then you ought to expect even more massive inflation, making those home prices in a few years seem amazingly cheap. As in, we had a 40% jump in median house prices in Austin in a single year.

      Of course, predicting the future is tricky at best.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Which comes first, the housing crash or the inflation induced “right-sizing” of the housing market?

        I’m betting on the crash happening first. Buying a house at the top of the market is not ideal.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        My pay increase has been wiped out by inflation, gas and food mostly, but I pay my house off sooner,

      • prolefeed

        Well, the actual inflation rate over the past year was around 33%, since the money supply was increased by about that amount. Giving that devaluation of dollars, a 40% rise in housing prices seems to be about keeping pace. Not sure we’re in a bubble.

      • Gustave Lytton

        *looks at last paystub* Fuck…

    • EvilSheldon

      When there’s blood on the street, buy property…

  27. DEG

    Tom Woods annoyed a left-libertarian. His response.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Yeah, Tom has got their panties in a twist

    • SugarFree

      Now let me be blunt: the people I am responding to do not matter in any way. Nobody has ever heard of any of them, and if you combine their lifetime contributions to the libertarian movement it wouldn’t match what I crank out in a month.

      Has Hihn been reincarnated? Or is there always a Hihn in reserve, ready to step up when the old Hihn finally dies?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Woods does have a bit of a that “LOOK UPON MY WORKS “ vibe going on. It’s annoying, but he’s not nearly as bad as Sarwark.

      • Tundra

        He’s a great promoter, annoys me sometimes, but overall I’ve learned a lot from him.

    • slumbrew

      JFC.

      • TARDis

        Callous disregard for life. 10 years oughta do it. 5 if he sucks off everyone in the prison… twice.

        If that was my close relative and there is no significant monetary compensation, piggie will need 24 hour protection.

    • Sean

      Very much so.

    • EvilSheldon

      Yep. Someone wanted to try out that fancy new PITT maneuver they just learned.

    • Count Potato

      Then there are all those videos of guys with earpieces removing barricades.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      No, that’s a false flag op is ever there was one,

      • Suthenboy

        Yep. The problem is there are enough idiot conservatives to take the bait.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Doesn’t matter.

      The media and the politicians have, through incessant lying, created a situation where everyone’s confirmation bias will run amok.

      All that matters is how it will be spun.

      • Count Potato

        Reality still matters.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        To whom?

        Last I checked, most people are aligning with their team and hardening their stances.

        Proper who hold their judgement are a small minority.

        I should be selling a Jump To Conclusions game.

      • Mojeaux

        I’m of two minds. Reality is being successfully distorted to mean weird things that will have long-term consequences, but not for decades, if not generations, e.g., trans movement and the new Jim Crow.

        On the other hand, there are immediate natural consequences (reality) that will not be seen as consequences, e.g., inflation. Reality is at work right now, but it is not recognized by those who most need to recognize it.

      • Count Potato

        Most people aren’t on a team.

    • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

      It does look fishy, but anyone can copy those tactics. It would be nice if those guys were caught and identified so we could know their background. Unfortunately they probably only got the poor schlubs who didn’t think to disguise themselves.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Anybody that isn’t wearing a mask in this day and age while doing questionable shit almost deserves to get caught.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Not full tactical body armor!

    • Sean

      They haven’t.

  28. rhywun

    France is sending a second Statue of Liberty to the US

    I was waiting for the woke punchline but it didn’t come.

    Like she has purple hair or she’s wearing a mask now, or something.

    • SugarFree

      Any country that will bitch-slap its feckless President is OK by me.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Can we start with Biden?

  29. Yusef drives a Kia

    God damn Ticks! I played 44 holes today and removed a feeder from my elbow, and a friend pulled one off of my head, fucking gross!

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Hope it works better than the link

      • Tundra

        Works fine for me, gramps!

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Apparently DuckDuckGo doesn’t like Walmart

      • Tundra

        3M Ultrathon.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Using a garden sprayer to douse yourself with bleach is always the sure bet.

    • Suthenboy

      I have spent half of my life in the woods. I hate ticks as much as I hate commies, but I repeat myself.

      DEET, dude. DEET up head to toe. Ticks are dangerous.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        DEET Forever! plus Tick collars on my wrists and ankles, learned from a friend, We play in the sticks a lot,

    • EvilSheldon

      This past Saturday, I had to remove a tick from…well, think of the worst possible place to have a slip with a sharp pair of tweezers.

      • Spudalicious

        Have you considered underwear and pants when you’re outdoors?

      • EvilSheldon

        Considered and rejected.

  30. Tundra

    I watched RoTLA recently. Still a great fucking movie.

    Funny song – thanks as always, SF!

  31. Count Potato

    “One of the most popular MSNBC stars is (needless to say) a former FBI Assistant Director: @FrankFigliuzzi1
    . Here he is casually arguing for the arrest and imprisonment of sitting members of Congress, something @MeetThePress
    promotes as if it’s normal.

    This. Is. Not. Normal.”

    https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1402603356045127683

    “WATCH: “Arresting low-level operatives is merely a speed bump not a road block,” @FrankFigliuzzi1
    says.

    “In order to really tackle terrorism … you’ve got to attack and dismantle the command and control element.”

    “That may mean people sitting in Congress right now.”:”

    https://twitter.com/MeetThePress/status/1402315752334626819

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      He’s effectively calling for a declaration of political war. The only question is if they’re floating this idea to test the waters out if he’s just being paid to shift the Overton Window.

      Either way, it can easily end with blood.

    • rhywun

      He’s talking about Swallowswell, right?

      • Ted S.

        Peter King retired, so it’s not him.

    • Trigger Hippie

      ‘This. Is. Not. Normal.’

      Key word: Former. He’s a private citizen. And to be fair, many people here call for rather unpleasant things to happen to members of Congress on a daily basis.

      Greenwald is swinging for low hanging fruit here.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I think the point of interest is how high in FBI leadership this fuckstick was.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        People at that level in law enforcement or intelligence are never really “former” and he has a lot of (undeserved in my opinion) cache from his old position.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Key word: Former. He’s a private citizen

        Meh…He’s also a regular contributor to a national TMITE show, treated as an expert due to his executive level federal law enforcement experience, and is being used by TPTB to push an agenda that is shared by many who are still in the position.

        He’s not some dufus saying this to 1000 people on a backwoods YouTube channel.

      • Trigger Hippie

        To address the points above: I have no doubt that this line of thinking may be if not prevalent, at least a significant subset within our intelligence agencies. That being said, this is nothing new within the FBI. Under Hoover they spent countless millions of hours and billions of dollars trying to root out political dissidents in and out of the Machine.

        The man’s a cunte, but nothing exceptional.

      • wdalasio

        And to be fair, many people here call for rather unpleasant things to happen to members of Congress on a daily basis.

        The key difference is we’re schmucks engaging in hyperbole on the internet. This is a guy making a real policy proposal on national television. This isn’t a guy saying he thinks some Republicans are especially awful or saying he generally wishes them ill. This is a guy specifically proposing that people actively be arrested, essentially for their politics.

      • TARDis

        This is a guy specifically proposing that people actively be arrested, essentially for their politics.

        Much like corporate CEOs having offensive people fired for not having the same views as them.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Again, within the FBI brass, this is nothing new. Lamenting the fact that it’s out in the open now via the basically state controlled media is a legitimate grievance but I’m not particularly shocked.

      • Trigger Hippie

        I apologize for the deadthread response…I’ve been drinking.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Fifty percent of Reps and 68 percent of Dems have a positive attitude towards the IRS (a little further down)?
      We. Are. Fucked.

      • Suthenboy

        Those numbers are bullshit. No one has a positive attitude towards the IRS, not even the people that work there.

      • Gustave Lytton

        They are positive they can use the IRS against their enemies.

    • Suthenboy

      It isn’t just ‘not normal’, it is forbidden in the constitution to arrest a member of congress while congress is in session…who am I kidding…

    • Suthenboy

      Give me a moment to recover from my shock.

    • creech

      This Fake News served its purpose on Nov. 8th. What was that old saying about how the lie is miles down the road by the time truth gets out of bed?

  32. Count Potato

    “I see I’m being trolled with the American flag this morning. Trolling a Black journalist with the American flag is not the own some people think it is.”

    https://twitter.com/MaraGay/status/1402247800545546242

    Actually, it is.

    • Suthenboy

      See the replies: “Once they are demoralized you cannot fix them. No matter how much authentic information they are given they cannot draw a sensible conclusion.” – Yuri Bezmenov

      To the true believers it never made any difference that the things said about Trump were pure fantasy. They even gobbled up the absurd horseshit that was shoveled about Kavenaugh.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Alternatively: “You can’t fix stupid.”
        -Either Aristotle or Ron White, I forget which

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Why not both, it fits,

  33. Spudalicious

    Anti-vaxers and Trump supporters in Marin? That’ll cause the vapors.

  34. trshmnstr the terrible

    Just got me a pair of sous vide cooker thingies over on Woot. Now I just need a vacuum sucker thingy and the plastic buckets, and I can cook like one of them chef cooker folks!

    • SugarFree

      Maybe cut out all the technical terms.

    • slumbrew

      Welcome, brother!

      The Foodsaver is largely optional – the water displacement method covers most of your needs:

      https://anovaculinary.com/sous-vide-water-displacement-method/

      I haven’t used my Foodsaver for sous vide in quite a while.

      I do like the 12 qt container I bought – don’t bother with a fancy lid, just buy the standard $5 lid and cut the corner off for your sous vide circulator.

    • The Hyperbole

      Sous vide is so 2019, it’s all about pizza ovens now.

      • rhywun

        The cicadas come out nice and crispy.

  35. Gustave Lytton

    Found out my elementary school music teacher passed away last month. I’m sure there’s been others but somehow stumbled across her obituary while reading the paper today. Older than I would have guess based on (faulty) memory.

    • Suthenboy

      I know how that is. Unfortunately the older you get the more often that will happen. I have lost so many people that made the world a better place by being in it. I get sad thinking about it. I sure miss those guys.
      I am sorry you got that news.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Thank you Suthen. Brought back happy memories of singing any number of children’s songs, some that probably couldn’t be sung today. From her obit learned she was much into her church activities. Like pretty much every teacher I had, had no idea of it at the time.

    • rhywun

      I can remember all of my regular elementary teachers’ names but not the music teacher. What I remember more is all the hippy songs she made us sing.

      • rhywun

        Oh yeah, I’m sure that was one of them.

        Here is another.

      • egould310

        *barf*

  36. Tulip

    Since SP can’t, I’ll host the zoom tonight : OBSOLETE LINK

    • Tulip

      Nevermind, SP will start it

      • Old Man With Candy

        And I’ll continue it.

  37. Sean

    Thunder in the distance and it’s getting dark outside.

    • The Hyperbole

      I thought we weren’t doing metaphors anymore.

      • Sean

        It was a dark and stormy night after I had Taco Bell for dinner.

      • TARDis

        Taco Bell has Keto offerings? Who knew?

      • westernsloper

        You empty the contents of the tacos into your diet coke and huck the shells. No worries because it all fits through the straw.

      • Suthenboy

        Heh. My son had a friend in HS that worked at Taco Bell. He gave us some boxes once for…I dont remember what, storage of junk maybe. One was a box the meat came in. Printed on the side was “Grade C but suitable for human consumption”
        I dont think I have eaten at Taco Bell since then.

      • rhywun

        “Grade C” LOL

        That is a handy piece of information.

      • TARDis

        *gags*

      • Suthenboy

        Now there is a euphemism if I ever heard one. Is she gonna make you sleep on the couch?

        *A few years back I was cutting grass on a hot day and got very thirsty. I craved some purple grape juice over ice so I ended up drinking a half-gallon of the stuff in one afternoon. Little did I know what I was in for. Holy Jeebus, that went on for about three days. I voluntarily slept on the couch. Mrs. Suthenboy asked me if I was mad at her.

        “No, I am not mad at you at all. I am doing it because I love you. “

      • TARDis

        “And I want a new couch.”

      • Sean

        Lol, I was just being silly. No Taco Bell for me.

    • Suthenboy

      I am counting the minutes to bed time. I wish it was doing that here…perfect sleeping weather.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Dark? it never gets dark here, like Alaska or something,

    • Agent Cooper

      Sounds like the beginning of a Doors song.

      I don’t really like The Doors.

      • Agent Cooper

        Except for the fucking talking.

      • TARDis

        I don’t dislike them. There is much worse stuff out there that is worshiped and revered. Oddly enough, they are one of the few bands my wife and I used to listen to on long drives together.

    • Mojeaux

      I’m jelly.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Hard for me to sleep in daylight,

  38. creech

    I watched NBC’s story on ProPublica’s release of tax returns filed by Bezos, Buffett, etc. etc. None of the talking heads said a word about how ProPublica got these supposedly private and secure documents. Isn’t it illegal for someone in the IRS to release tax returns? I guess the FBI is just too busy tracking down guys wearing Buffalo horn hats (cultural appropriation) to see what evil bureaucrat is carrying water for Lizzie Warren and the other “fair share” slavers.

    • Suthenboy

      You guess? After the last 13 years or so it isn’t really fair to call it a guess.

    • Agent Cooper

      Let me guess

      – low salary
      – high asset value that isn’t subject to capital gains taxes

    • westernsloper

      The FBI was also busy finding the guy they had on retainer who had the key to the wallet they used to ransomware that pipeline.

      • Suthenboy

        Just ask yourself “Who benefits?” and that is the whodunnit 99.99% of the time.

      • egould310

        And it’s *always* an inside job. Always.

      • The Hyperbole

        There’s a Johnny Dollar episode (well five part series) called “Cui Bono”, he uses the phrases so often that it becomes annoying, yeah we get it Johnny you know Latin, just solve the g*d d*mn case and tell us the final tally.

    • Suthenboy

      That little malthusian toad has been stomping his feet and demanding a panic circus like this one for every novel cootiebug that has come along for nearly 40 years.
      Everyone seems to have forgotten but I haven’t. I remember him from my days in college micro. He was a hack then and he is a hack now. When this first started the guy was ecstatic that he finally got his mask mandates, lockdowns and business closings. None of it is based on science, on the contrary. Most people dont know what science is and this arrogant prick is clearly one of them.

  39. westernsloper

    The missing link works for Gawker?

  40. westernsloper

    Paging The Hyperbole. Hyperbole to the upside down table saw.

    That is some insane shit there.