Good morning my Glibs and Gliberinas! And what an amazing day it always is!
Before Afghan collapse, Biden pressed former Afghan President Ghani to ‘change perception’.
Biden waived congressional mandate for report on Afghanistan withdrawal risks
In secret texts, U.S. military officials lamented leaving Americans behind in Kabul
Oklahoma Congressman missing after secret rescue attempt in Afghanistan
Taliban requests America recognize them as a legitimate government of Afghanistan.
More businesses have already fled California this Year than in all of 2020
After all the Democrat shenanigans, TX state legislature still passes the election reform bill.
That’s all I got for today. I’ll leave you with an obligatory song and move along with my day.
Why must we embrace the clusterfuck Banjos? This sucks!
Good morning! Yeah! This fucking sucks fat ones!
Acceptance is probably the most important stage of healing.
I’m at least past bargaining.
I would expect in a clusterfuck there is at least some sucking involved, yes.
But it’s Steve Smith sucking your toes by force.
I think I’d enjoy that. Well, tongue like a human or tongue like a cat?
THEM NOT TOES…
“Before Afghan collapse, Biden pressed former Afghan President Ghani to ‘change perception’.”
Let me guess? He told them that they really didn’t need to do anything of note, that they should focus on inane and meaningless shit like how many pronouns one should have, what your gender is right now, and laughing at the Taliban for not celebrating pride month, and then get a bunch of sycophants in the press to protect them from these idiotic things, only the Taliban proved that doing things – even when you are a bunch of goat fucking idiots – is more important….
No — he promised them aid on the condition that they spun the narrative to make his administration look better.
I swear I’ve heard of something like that before…. isn’t progjection funny that way?
whaddup doh’
Birthday Boy!
Morning, Banjos.
Get one of those directional screen protectors, they work really well at keeping other people from seeing what’s on your screen (or even it it’s powered on).
Wishing Banjos a good morning is now NSFW? Odd times….
He works for the state.
“Banjos” is racist, since banjos were played at minstrel shows.
“Good morning” is insensitive to those with circadian rhythm disorder and enforces a solar-centric concept of morality, completely erasing the lived experiences of indigenous cultures who venerated other celestial objects.
:opera clap:
“Good” implies a moral judgment and is unacceptable.
*Stan Marsh “Nice!”*
Morning everyone
“After all the Democrat shenanigans, TX state legislature still passes the election reform bill.”
Stories like this, where libs cry tears when their evil plans are foiled, give me hope….
We need to remain vigilant however, because the fascist people that want to keep power perpetually and are using the marxist tactic of divide & conquer, will not just give up. They want to federalize elections so they can make the system we have even more broken.
I make it a point to tell every asshole that says there was no fraud that the US election system is designed to be impossible to audit, uses a tallying system that runs software that is proprietary but given to corrupt people without supervision to work with, have rules that legalize cheating (ballot harvesting for example), and has a political party demanding we let everyone and anyone vote (because every vote should count), and then rewards the winner with the biggest prize on the planet. It’s not a question of if, but when the system will be abused, and people paying attention know it has been the case for decades. More importantly, the people that did – the worst and most destructive credentialed mediocracy in our history – it even had someone write an article trying to spin it as being them “fortifying” our democracy (fucking idiots don’t even know I guess that we live in a republic for that reason) by abusing the most important premise about the whole voting thing: that the US citizens decide whom their leaders are.
Honestly, its events like this that show you how Commie Democrats are actually doing in Civil war 2.0
They really are not doing well. Desperation is not their strong suit and is backfiring left and right.
Remember, this is how it went with Trump as President. Lefties would say or do something and the media would make it sound like they are winning. Then after a few news cycles, the truth comes out and Lefties lost that fight.
Rinse and repeat.
Also remember that only <5% of Colonists fought as Americans for a free America. The rest of the Colonists were sympathizers to one side or another or fought for the British.
It’s been outrageous scandal after scandal, lie upon lie, embarrassment upon embarrassment. But it’s all fine because the media chooses which stories to highlight and which to ignore. The media really is the enemy, truly.
Land of the free, home of the slave.
The uninformed are digging their own graves
Pacified with the mainstream media
What is it with politicians and their hangers-on that they don’t understand that owning up to mistakes and blunders could only improve their standing in the perceptions of the general public? Their constant stonewalling and spin only confirms the observation that they don’t know what they’re doing.
Is it because they know that the general public doesn’t really matter?
That our politicians are chosen for final selection by an elite, and only presented to the public as limited options among which we must decide, is one of the major failures of our system. But it’s not a failure of our system alone–it seems to be the case worldwide, regardless of whether the public is given a choice among a group of final candidates or not
*cough* Fauci *cough*
Well, in his case, he’s not even elected. He has even more insulation from what are supposed to be his ultimate bosses. But he’s a “public servant.”
Quickest way to get fired in an IT job is to make a mistake, and try to cover it up. Make a mistake and own up to it right away while fixing it, you’re generally in a much better position (as long as it’s a very infrequent thing).
Yep. I tell all my new employees eventually that if they make a mistake and promptly own up to it, we can work it out. Cover it up and lie about it; you’re done.
We gave that same speech to the new guy when he started.
Given some of the mistakes I made that took down production instances at an inopportune time, I’m not going to burn someone for the existance of an error, but if they lie to be about it – I’m not so forgiving there.
For those who have worked with Cisco Call Manager and UCCE,
Remove All Associated
Everyone’s got their horror story about clicking that damned button.
“Why would you even make a button that does that?”
That’s like putting the “Nuke” button right next to the “Nurse” button.
Which brings up the question once again: could anyone make that video today, if Biden were the object of the joke?
Why wouldn’t you put an Are you Sure prompt? And why would you put it right fucking next to the Save changes button. I’ve heard in the more recent versions that they have moved it and put in a prompt… but still.
Why wouldn’t you put an Are you Sure prompt?
*snickers while thinking about the UI team for that product*
Hint: most of them were busy doing what we now call ESG.
+1 core bomb a production server
I once had an employee who was working with a contractor that core drilled into a floor right through a conduit carrying an e-stop circuit for a major piece of equipment, causing it to shut down and lose us over $300,000 of production in one day.
Because he immediately told me what happened and explained how it happened, I went to bat for him with one of our VPs who wanted his scalp. It didn’t endear me to the VP, but it was the right thing to do, I think.
Hmmm… thinking of high value and production — anyone know how Lachowsky is doing? Hadn’t heard from him in a while (or I’m just oblivious…). Wouldn’t blame him at all if he’s taking a mental break, just wondering.
Steel shortages are everywhere. He’s probably swamped.
It was the right move as long as the employee is not some other kind of trouble.
My rationale is that you are rewarding transparency in fixing errors rather than corruption like covering up problems and pass them along.
Thats the way I always looked at it.
Some People dont like Trump but he was the only politician in probably 100 years that picked an issue and stuck to his guns. Border security (wall) is on of those issues. Honestly its much better than politicians say one thing and do another.
If our government policy is so complex and wishy-washy where even bureaucrats dont know what to do under clearly established law, then were in trouble.
We’re definitely in trouble.
Any misunderstanding is my fault for not explaining procedures well enough. A second misunderstanding required a private explanation, in the “wood shed”.
Praise in public, criticize in private
“What is it with politicians and their hangers-on that they don’t understand that owning up to mistakes and blunders could only improve their standing in the perceptions of the general public? Their constant stonewalling and spin only confirms the observation that they don’t know what they’re doing.”
Where have you been since 2000? The media has learned the lesson that they can assign people the opinion to hold based on what and how they cover news. They were furious Boosh managed to prevent Gore from stealing the 2000 election using lawyers to disenfranchise military votes, and had 9/11 not happened would have made that dumbass idiot a one term president (deservingly, but his replacement would have been worse). Then they lied that marxist asshat that promised to destroy the country Obama into the WH, and protected him by lying for him to hide the ineptitude and corruption of that administration. After that they thought they would repeat their stunt with Crooked Hilary only to watch that fall flat with the people that simply refused to accept their narrative. So they abandoned any and all semblance of objectivity, willingly, to distort reality. And even then, they needed to cheat and steal the election to get their way, and have been censoring and punishing anyone calling out their ineptitude/criminality/abuses.
The most important lesson politicians have taken to heart from these events and the douchebags pretending to be the media, by party, because there are different standards for team blue vs. team red assholes, is that you NEVER accept guilt and only apologize – falsely, cause it isn’t about being sorry as much as it is to pretend you care – while you demand the other side immediately resign (and they do/did, cause they were spineless assholes that would go even if they were not guilty at all, until Trump showed them that was a dumb fucking way to do shit). Politicians, because of the ineptitude and stupidity, and for team blue, because of their marxist dominated beliefs, knows to always frame the story so it makes them look good, and failing that to try and cover up the truth. When you get used to being able to skate because you are covering up the truth, you are going to do more of it…
+10000
Hence the push to federalize the punitive environment. Make it shitty everywhere so the bad actors look better by comparison.
Well that and blatant redistributing wealth from healthy tax payers to cover Democrat states and businesses that failed in ways we measure. Normally moral hazard would prevent many of the horrible decisions states and businesses are trying to pull because they would run out of money. The Founders made sure that states cannot coin their own money (without the consent of Congress) for this reason.
We all knew that Americans mostly accepting the TARP bailouts would lead to more of this and based on political cronyism. Sure enough.
Too bad it wasn’t a BK… Anarchy in the BK, I want my Whopper made my way!
No one referenced the one and only Vandals and what they think an anarchy burger is?
NSFW…
One of my favorite anthems, right behind My Right.
According to NPR, TX banned abortions this morning. Someone was actually decrying how it turned citizens into “snitches.”
hahahahhaha,
*now* they’re concerned about people “snitching.”
That’s fucking rich. Last night I was reading a twitter account I enjoy and they said something to the effect of “you know, you can just ignore them”. I think that’s right. These people are so venal, hateful, and compromised. They grow stronger from my anger and wither from lack of attention.
Presumably people have started creating a series of memes depicting major historic disasters as “Extraordinary Success?”
Things that come to mind:
Dunkirk
Saigon
The Battle of Stalingrad from the German POV
Titanic
Bay of Pigs
…?
The Romans saw Extraordinary Success at Teutoberg Forst.
Not really a parody
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8T1txBRoQxQ
Napoleon made it all the way to Moscow.
Lincoln enjoyed the play.
He found it mindblowing.
My first marriage
ZING!
Hindenberg
Chicago Fire
Gettysburg (from Southern POV)
Pearl Harbor
Ishtar
Dunkirk was actually more of a German blunder than an Allied one.
Yep. Hitler fucked up, he trusted Bluto.
TBF – He also wanted to avoid casualties because he had bigger fish to fry. He thought that Great Britain would turn turtle. This was was his banana peel that led to to the sewer grate.
As much as a clusterfuck Afghanistan is, I would still take this shitty departure over the continued war and I have to give Biden and Trump credit for ending it. Dave Smith made the point that the media is sure to give us 24/7 coverage of people falling from planes, chaos in Kabul, etc. but they haven’t really shown the carnage of the war itself, only the ending of the war. The MIC and their enablers in the media are the enemy of the people.
The problem is it doesn’t appear that they planned the withdrawal even though they knew it was coming.
Yeah — I would expect most of us here (maybe all, but who knows) were in favor of not digging that money/blood pit any deeper, but expected the withdrawal to be done in a fashion that at least protected US citizens and probably those who worked with us. Not much anyone could do about the “government” we’d leave behind because unless the Pakistani Intel folks (who back the Taliban) want it there, we’d be there forever propping them up. And screw that.
Or to be less verbose and give props to db: “Hear! Hear!”, I suppose.
Or it was intentionally sabotaged by the Pentagon. I remember a story of a higher up bragging about lying to Trump about how many troops were in Syria. Biden didn’t do himself any favors by extending the pull out date for political reasons (if I remember right, the Trump timeline was scheduled for right before the fighting season starts). There’s plenty of blame to go around here, but I’m trying to keep the bigger picture in mind despite the media’s efforts to obscure it.
Joe’s handlers wanted a 9/11 pull-out for symbolic reasons. He broke a deal with warlords. Big mistake. Everything went pear-shaped after that.
This
It’s important to remember that ending a bad war is better than starting a “good” one.
hear! hear!
I wanna start a good war on the limber-dicked cocksuckers that are mandating things right and left! Didn’t you good people already fight this fight? Don’t mind us, we’re already rolled over.
Of course, more US soldiers died in the evac than did in the last 10 years of the war, so it was a shitshow. But we did need to leave.
Nah, Joe told me on tv yesterday that it was a great evacuation.
It was an extraordinary success.
Trump tried to pull troops out. Congress passed that law that prevented funding for any total pullout.
I saw one article in the last few weeks that implied that is why el presidente Biden did coitus interruptus that way in Afghanistan.
And that’s *exactly* why we need to have laws setting uniform tax rates the world over.
Collectivism is a system that believes individuals make bad choices and thus need an elite to make important decisions for them. You can still decide how fast you bend the knee, but you will bend the knee..
Can we choose which knee?
Only if you choose the correct knee
What if both of your knees are already gamed? I’m not taking the knee.
You can always kowtow.
I don’t bend that way.
Growing a respectable queue might be a problem at this late date.
I subscribe to the notion that I wont bend the knee and knee-cap as many Commie fuckers that try that shit with me.
California will just reply that only the “rich” and “privileged” can flee while leaving all the poor people for them to “take care of”.
See: charter schools
I’m tempted to say, “You made them poor, you take care of them.”
But then I remember that these venal assholes enjoy tending to the poor the same way that a sheepherder enjoys ‘tending’ to his flock…
“I think people should just wear their masks and be safe and be polite.”
Isn’t that special?
Listen, don’t be so rude. Do you want those people to see you like this? To think you’re hard to get along with? Come on, just come with me, we’ll get on the train together.
Yep. Just a friendly pat on the shoulder…
I am hard to get along with.
In what way would the Taliban not be considered the legitimate government? Because they’re evil?
They were not approved by the right people.
THEY’RE TERRORISTS!
/GOPtard
As in the case throughout history, the “legitimate” government is the one that can enforce its monopoly on violence.
They need to hold a fortified election first.
That guy who fled was supposedly elected in a fair election. ??♂️
I guess the tollybon are “legitimate” in the sense that they won the latest civil war but that doesn’t mean we have to deal with them or FFS give them “aid”.
The obvious deal they are offering is to let Americans leave when they get diplomatic recognition. A normal Administration would quietly accept it and call it a win. Who knows what these idiots will do?
Because way too many people think that the Taliban, ISIS, and al-qaeda are the same thing.
They are all carnivores. Some are wolves, some are bears and apparently the Taliban are the foxes.
I would recommend reading a history of Afghanistan. I have been brushing up on it in the last few weeks.
Afghanis have a fierce independence streak. Independence from outside rulers anyway. They trade tyranny for tyranny.
They are Stone Age peoples and not really a threat to America. Even with Bin Laden hiding there for some time, the Taliban never attacked the USA.
Unfortunately for Afghanis, their Islam leaders lead them to poverty and that makes them vulnerable to Russia, China, Iran, and other thugs.
America became richer when Trump stopped spending truck loads of money there.
I am officially homeless. It really interferes with my ability to sit around commenting here. I am too busy trying to get my vast pile of “stuff” out of the old homestead.
I’m back in Blackfoot with another load of stuff for storage. I haven’t even started moving tools and shop equipment yet. Fortunately, the guy who bought my place is happy to work with me.
Maybe you should get that looked at…
If your next stop isn’t tent under a bridge homeless are you really homeless?
“The Unhomed”
“The Roofless”
“Differentially Housed”
Maybe the rez chones can lend a hand?
This summer, while “homeless” I realized I spent nights in the following cities (in order):
Mt Pleasant (starting point, so not homeless yet)
Knoxville
Louisville
Fort Collins
Louisville
Evansville
Louisville
Chicago
Louisville
Bowling Green
Louisville
Memphis
Louisville
Denver
Fort Collins (rental home)
Which Mt. Pleasant?
The unpleasant one.
See below, my Mt. Pleasant is not very pleasant either. Ex-wives will do that, “One star, would not marry again.”
The one with no Mt, suburb of Charleston, SC.
Ahh, my ex lives in the Iowa version.
No ‘Mt.’ there, either.
I…happen to be curious as to where you were in Eville and what you did there.
Two year checkup with my daughter’s feeding therapist and we are done with feeding therapy.
We stayed at the Ronald McDonald house @ St Vincent for 2 nights.
I prefer the term ‘structurally deficient’
I’m officially roofless. The boys are tearing hell out of everything as we speak.
I’m grateful I got the hardworking hispanic crew, these guys are monsters.
So was my dog, after this vocal cord surgery.
Or like SCOTUS since last September.
Congrats!
I was homeless for a couple weeks in July. It was strangely liberating!
Homeless but debt free isnt a bad place to be.
That will be me in a few mere months. I’m terrified & excited
Not Guilty
On the one hand, just leave the lady alone and ignore it. I mean really, report that? On the other hand, probably don’t want to normalize sexual acts in public (or maybe you do?). On the gripping hand, my penis.
North or South Tybee, asking for a friend.
Jefferson Davis Highway could have five different names in the area next year
Spotsyltucky went with Patriot Highway over the Democrats preferred Emancipation Highway.
Was “keep the original name” on the ballot?
How about, “who gives a flying fuck, just give it a number”?
How are you going to reward your donors in the road sign industry that way?
Shit… there’s still signs out here in the Cleveland area that give directions to Erie Pa. The newer signs at least have Erie PA.
“Penna”
I was wondering when they would get around to that.
I always thought memorializing Jefferson Davis was a shitty idea anyway.
Just what we needed – another front opening up in the culture wars.
“City Councilman Tim Duffy said Emancipation Highway is unifying and forward-thinking.”
Because 155 years ago is forward thinking.
Hey. They finally got around to moving the historic slave auction block out of sight.
I’d like to submit “Fuck You We’re Sticking With Jefferson Davis Highway” highway.
Jefferson Claude Van Davis Highway?
“Our traffic hustles like Brussels!”
The Southpoint area is more Double Impact.
They should call it the Jeffersons highway. It runs north and south. So you use it to move on up. To the east side even.
Roady McRoadface
The correct answer
If only they had opened the naming to the public.
The “Stop Naming Shit After People” HIghway.
I’ll be back in a minute — got to go take a Woodrow Wilson?
“Random Corrupt Politician Boulevard”
It’s my estimation that every man ever got a highway named after him was one kind of sommbitch or another
KC Jones was a son of a bitch….
You some kind of Lakers fan?
No, just remember my DI singing it to us like this…
TMNT
It was probably the cocaine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxCfnq7A56M
They could go with the West Virginia route and name a bunch of things after the last Klansman elected to federal office.
Name it after the governor: Blackface Highway
US 1, going through Florida, is Dixie Highway until it reaches Monroe County (the Keys) and becomes Overseas Highway.
Very strange days we are living. I’m listening to a podcast with Russian Orthodox Jewish doctor and a Franciscan Friar talking about how our global elites are using fear to control us and destroy our liberties – and I agree completely.
Skip to the 6 minute mark when they get rolling.
https://brandnewtube.com/watch/dr-zelenko-amp-brother-bugnolo_HtNzVvFLOZQtFAk.html
In what way would the Taliban not be considered the legitimate government? Because they’re evil?
We’ll have to ask the United Nations Council on Human Rights what they think.
…and they don’t dress very well, either…they can’t come in here, looking like that…
/My Mom
Ass Wednesday gives more cushion for the pushin’.
https://archive.li/Hzgwp
Alt headline: thicc thighs save lives.
Face diaper picture. Blech.
I was in and out of my rack so many times…
But this new Stanford study exposes the devastating results of California’s experiment with big government and welfare-state largesse.
Something something eventually run out of other people’s money.
Where are you moving?
Somewhere they still have money we can take?
Agh! How I have grown to loathe that face. The vacancy is worse than a long-term motel. He’s gotta go.
Grandpa yelling at you after he burned the barn down.
Kamala will make it all better.
You must be into BDSM domination by a harpy…
Kamala is more into Boss-Secretary roleplay.
We’ll try. Can you get rid of Trudeau? Maybe we can get rid of Newsom too.
After the fortification? Highly unlikely.
What’s he looking at there, or not looking at?
Balloons? Or was that the Hillary one?
This one always makes me laugh – https://youtu.be/kXjbXGyQDsE
I’m looking for a place in the Pocatello area.
I spent a night sleeping in a hammock in Pocatello once. I had driven there from California on my way to the Beartooth Mountains in Wyoming. My dog was spooked by what might have been bobcat or mountain lion in the woods. So I put him in the car and shut my eyes.
You’re a Fed!
Not sure exactly why — probably because of the OnlyFans thing that they’re cutting off their main draw due to bank pressure from all I’ve heard, but I was dwelling on it around 1AM after waking up and realized just how difficult it would get, and how quickly if the financial sector decided you were persona non grata these days.
Paycheck? Direct deposit no more. And if banks won’t cash it….
Mortgages? Gone.
Gas and whatnot to try to get what you can to a place you can live? All plastic is shut down. Can’t pull cash. If you do sell tangible items to get enough cash, you rapidly can run afoul of “drug trafficking” or “money laundering” crap where they seize your money. And if you’re in that situation, can’t imagine how you’d get a lawyer to get it back (especially if the lawyer then risks non grata status).
And if your property is paid off and you have a cabin in the woods you can somehow make it to — property taxes and all.
I would expect you *might* find a credit union in the short term, but given how quickly web sites that are disliked by the big banks (and the web site competitors, doubtless) — the pressure on them to disavow such clients would ramp up quickly as it did with backbone providers.
We can’t all move to the bush in Alaska and hope to be on land where no one notices… don’t think regulations are exactly the answer (since a) private companies and all and b) regulations and government using these companies as the iron fist inside the velvet glove of their desired policy is the whole problem!), but it is a distressing thought. Barring getting a cultural focus back on minding-your-own-damn-business, I’m not at all sure how this would change. Ok… SMOD or other apocalypse would do it.
Just a Thought, Not a Solution?
Bitcoin fixes this. or in the event of apocalypse, food, water, ammo. But for now we are locked in to a hellish system of increasingly paranoid control freaks.
Maybe — but I strongly suspect that this is why crypto currency is being lumped in with “money laundering” as a narrative.
They may not be able to steal it without your private key, but they’ll be looking to cut access to it however they can.
I’ve been trying to learn more about it and I am impressed with the goals of the Bitcoin developers, namely to make it as impervious to the government as possible.
Bitcoin fixes this
does it? I’m guessing that widespread crypto usage would center on one or a few exchanges. Now we have to hope that CoinBase doesn’t go fascist.
The reality is that unless you circle the wagons with a local community with similar worldviews, you’re going to be at risk of being forced to choose between survival and worldview.
IMO, it’s time to start mourning the affluent lifestyle of today, because it’s heaving out the last few breaths of life. Not all conveniences will go away, but TPTB have shown a capability to do unconscionable things, including locking people out of the financial system.
Not really but “bitcoin fixes this” is a meme.
*shakes fist at cloud*
They are absolutely making the financial system a tool of their social credit programs. Wrongthinkers will be punished.
It’s evil.
The situation is one caused by the financial sector regulations making these handful of backbone providers the only game in town.
The options are either – convince everyone that burning down the financial sector regulations would be good. Or some bastard child of public accommodation where these entrenched entites are nominally barred from discriminating against customers.
Denial of financial services is a troubling development but it turns out the OnlyFans stuff was likely a publicity stunt and is not a great example. They withdrew the policy and now people can partake of scat, watersports, and all of the furry porn their little hearts desire.
Did not know that, thanks. Not that I don’t still expect this to start happening given the trends…
Under old totalitarian systems – both marxist and fascists – they used camps to reeducate or kill you. That stuff ends up labeling you evil, so the new totalitarian collectivists came up with a great way to avoid the negative press associated with camps: you just deny your enemies the ability to earn a living and participate in society. I sometimes wonder if this is the whole thing about the mark of the beats in Revelations.
Even better, they made the entirety of society the reeducation camp using social media, social credit schemes, and pressure on banks and other vital service providers.
So if you fail the reeducation camp they cancel your ability to make a living, and that’s the new extermination camp..
Everyone who would do those things to you has a name and address. Not advocating anything, just sayin…
I have gotten some additional information regarding the OnlyFans thing. It seems that the CC companies wanted them to stop hosting pr0n because costs associated with the huge number of chargebacks that they had to process. Think, “Honey, I have no idea why that charge to OF for MsButtStuffer23’s videos is on our CC statement! I will get it refunded!” Apparently, this sort of thing is very common in the online smut business, I guess OF had a higher rate of chargebacks than average.
I do not know if that was the entirety of the CC companies’ rationale for squeezing OF, but it seems it was a factor.
That makes some sense.
But generally the vendor has to eat the chargeback, so from the CC company’s point of view it’s a wash.
Yeah, that loss is definitely also built into the business model and part of the cost…
I am not sure, I would imagine that there are at least a few man/hours that go into processing requests and the like. I don’t know enough of the intricacies of CC procedures to say for sure.
Oh, the CC processors definitely hate dealing with them. In their ideal model, they just process and collect fees with next to zero labor costs.
I’ve billed millions in credit card transactions and they still give me grief if there’s a chargeback or any problem, even if it’s on their end. To say I dislike those companies is an understatement.
When I worked in French Quarter porn shop, we always took down driver license info for credit card sales because of that very reason.
If you don’t want your woman (or man) to know you are doing pr0n, then don’t use a shared credit card to pay… Seriously…
The alternative is to let them know you are into donkey pr0n with midgets and that he/she better let you do your thing or else you will be buying a donkey next for your home entertainment needs…
Was this 1/4 Franc or 1/4 Euro?
The Church of The Subgenius prophesied this back in the 1980s – http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/classic/classictales/TheVreedeezSanction.html
I have long recommended everyone to start a LLC or other type company.
This pretty much changes your relationship with banking, IRS, vehicle registration, etc from personal to business.
But yeah, cash and bitcoin are a great anonymous way to live life.
Baseball birthdays:
HoFer Jim O’Rourke, who was not married to Ayn Rand.
Garry Maddox
Riiiiicooooo Carty
And then nothing else. And “music” for obvious reasons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8_f3kJOX_8
“HoFer Jim O’Rourke, who was not married to Ayn Rand.”
*narrows gaze*
The joke doesn’t work, for some reason I was thinking his name was Frank O’Rourke, but it was Frank O’Connor, so that was a stretch.
But it still is technically true.
And really, THAT part is what gets the comment, not the awful music link?
There was an effort. 😉
Hard hitting journalisming from NPR
Will the exit affect Biden politically long term?
Long term? Are you fucking kidding me?
If you really want to hear the true voice of NPR, listen to this roundtable on how the First Amendment is a travesty and free speech needs to be done away with.
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-media-constitutionally-speaking
Considering how fast the news cycles come at you now maybe they’re talking about a couple of weeks.
They must mean “Will this stain his immortal soul”. That’s the only long term he should be discussing. Preferably with a non-squishy priest, but what are you gonna do….
Biden won’t be around long for any long term problems to be problems.
HAHA. This is so true that the media is not even trying to say that el presidente Biden will be alive to run in 2024.
How about “Emaciation Highway”? That’s forward thinking.
The segment in the next county over can be the “Kate Moss Parkway”
Semi-relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq52YeBpXHs
Not sure I’ve ever seen a better sign in a museum
https://twitter.com/anicegreenleaf/status/1432719082361589769
Crowdsourcing, nice.
Seems pretty self-explanatory
RTFL!
The Bonnaroo cancellation tweet contains one of the most glorious representations of twitter in a nutshell I have ever seen
https://twitter.com/skodafox/status/1432861568161796097
The CDC is a cruel, sick joke
Due to the surge of Covid-19 cases, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is asking unvaccinated Americans not to travel during the Labor Day holiday weekend.
The US is surpassing an average of 160,000 new Covid-19 cases a day, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. With the spread of the more transmissible Delta variant and many students returning to the classroom for a new academic year, the rise is concerning officials and health experts.
“First and foremost, if you are unvaccinated, we would recommend not traveling,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a White House COVID-19 Response Team Briefing on Tuesday.
Walensky said that while people who are fully vaccinated can travel with precautions, current transmission rates mean they too need to take Covid-19 risk into consideration when deciding whether to travel.
“Unvaccinated” is now synonymous with “unclean”.
If you’re not vaccinated, you are nothing more than a walking, talking pustule of contagion.That’s how SCIENCE! works.
And no mention of natural immunity yet again.
The sheer dishonesty is stomach-turning.
So… it’s safer to travel on Labor Day then any other time this year? I mean… based on the CDC track record with the ‘vid…
it’s safer to travel on Labor Day then any other time this year? – unless you wear white pants if I remember Johnny Bravo cartoons
I saw a group of the unvaccinated cavorting with the Devil under a full moon at midnight. Something, anything, has got to be done.
Horror of horrors in New Zealand when news leaks out that covid-positive people in hotel quarantine were being allowed to exercise in the underground car park. (TBF: part of the concern was these people walking through the hallways on their way to the car park).
One public health expert said everyone should be given an exercise bike in their hotel room (he also said he would not “want to be anywhere near” the car park while c-positive people were there).
Public health policy being set by germaphobes is not a good idea.
Any policy being set by the irrationally fearful is going to end up the same way.
public policy being set by lunatics is a bad idea.
Covid can go through solid materials like walls. You are only protected by porous masks.
Is this doctor for-fucking-real?
Nancy conducting some ritual. Totes cool.
She can suck my balls.
https://apnews.com/article/ap-fact-check-32c744eced8e2950989200ae1eea35fc
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Couldn’t this be equally truthfully written as:
“Journalists at President Biden’s press conference today failed to ask probing questions and get a response from him regarding his broken promise to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan until the last Americans are out, as he offered the faint assurance that even with the last U.S. planes gone that it’s never too late for U.S. citizens to leave.”
Does anyone know anything about bicycle blue book? The KBB of bikes, or just nonsense?
I have been perusing FB marketplace for a bike, and I live near the beach so I am trying to swipe one from someone moving out of their beach house for the end of summer.
This is the one: https://www.bicyclebluebook.com/value-guide/product/3040541/
Says no more than $150, which seems low for an entry level Trek, even if it is 8-9 years old.
Don’t know much about that site. I do know that the new and used bike market has been hammered for the past year and a half for some unknowable reason.
Local politician wants me to mask. Can someone help me understand. I don’t think there’s any evidence masks or anything else for that matter will “defeat covid”. Why are people still clinging to this idea. There’s no endgame, no victory condition. Is there any point arguing? I am so frustrated by this.
masks no. double mask work like a charm.
I told someone that told me this that if more masks are better, they should wrap their head in cellophane so they really were protected…
It was not appreciated.
I was willing to believe that part of the problem was everyone is wearing useless masks.
But it looks like the areas in Germany where they mandated KN95s are indistinguishable from the areas without those mandates.
I doubt those are being worn properly either. It’s not just a matter of slapping those things on your face and they do actually constrict breathing. Probably being worn too loose, under the nose, under beards, fidgeted with, etc.
Because the “experts” recommend them. And that which is not prohibited, must be mandatory. There’s no room for “the people we listen to think it’s a good idea, this is our recommendation, make your own choice”. Same with the vax. Same with seatbelt or helmet laws.
They’re going to defeat COVID like the War on Terrorism defeated Terrorism.
Your local politician is dangerously, mind-blowingly stupid.
Good morning, Banjos!
What a thoroughly enraging series of lynx! The Afghanistan clusterfuck gets worse every day. If the Yon story is even partially true, heads should roll (but won’t).
It’s interesting that people are starting to leak things like the phone call. And that the media are reporting it. I still can’t figure out the end game.
Oh well, I hope everyone has a great day, despite the insanity!
I bet you their game is to somehow find a way to blame this on the other people, not the team blue idiots…
See below.
Everyone is focused on how to make one of the other players the scapegoat. So, each faction is leaking whatever details it can to try to get traction that one of the other factions is to blame, barring the whole matter being memoryholed by a compliant press.
Why are people still clinging to this idea. There’s no endgame, no victory condition. Is there any point arguing? I am so frustrated by this.
Prove your commitment to the One True Faith. Believe, and be saved.
What is it with politicians and their hangers-on that they don’t understand that owning up to mistakes and blunders could only improve their standing in the perceptions of the general public?
You’re assuming an open system where performance and correcting errors are the key values. But, what if it’s not. What if it’s a closed system predicated on who’s got what on whom? In that system, admitting error is a potentially fatal mistake. Then the other factions and players get to pin the problem on you. And, in a closed system, not being at fault is much more important than the functioning of the ostensible purpose of the system. Why, for example, do you think everyone from the press secretary to the President just happened to be on vacation when everything broke down in Afghanistan? It was about ass-covering. It was about not being the one pinned with the problem. In a sick way, it’s rational. If that’s the game, it’s the optimizing strategy. It’s just disastrous when that becomes the game.
This is correct.
They don’t care about the masses. It’s all about jockeying for position among the ruling class.
Yeah, it’s a warped game with shit rules and the referee is a lunatic but if you don’t play by them they’ll nail your ass to the wall. The only way to not be that way is to be boring and conventional in a way that precludes success in politics.
There is no referee. The ostensible referee is just another player.
I don’t consider myself a Randian or an Objectivist. But, if you want to understand the behaviors of the country’s leaders at this point, you could do a lot worse than to re-read Atlas Shrugged, paying attention to the bad guys, not so much with respect to the good guys, but versus one another.
Yep. Sadly, we seem to be in very short supply of “good guys” in the AS mold, but have a glut of the “bad guys.”
What’s interesting to me is that, while the “good guys” seem larger than life and implausible to find in the real world, the “bad guys” are all too realistic and common. Some will say that the “bad guys” were caricatures in the same way the “good guys” were, but I think the depths of “bad guy” depravity in the real world haven’t even been plumbed yet.
I don’t know db, they shoot dogs. Beyond that I don’t want to know.
Also I’m not certain it does benefit politicians to take blame. It’s not like a regular job.
That’s more a symptom of the way the system operates than a cause, excuse, or explanation.
When a normal person accepts responsibility, there is usually a reflection / root cause analysis, and change in behavior.
They aren’t going to change their behavior, so why dwell on the disastrous consequences of that behavior?
Haha
Cover ups and denial of blame are easy when you have the vast bulk of the news media on your side. Others, without media fawning, have learned the hard way (e.g. Penn State and Sandusky scandal.)
Una Ragazza per il cinema 2021 Finale Regionale Veneto, Gustoclick , Marghera VE.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WebkSmbHHys
HEY! To TPTB: I submitted an article on the site for the first time, rather than just emailing it in. I am wondering if I did something stupid (I do that a lot) and messed up the submission process. It still says “Pending review.” People are busy and I’m not pushing for any time-slot or anything. Just wanna know if I fucked up somehow. I emailed SP about it but nothing back yet. (Again, people are busy and I’m not at all worried/concerned/anything.) I just may need to resend it in is all.
I was challenged by a friend to do a prompt. I had four to choose from, and I chose reentry. I think it’s pretty good. Obviously it’s about my current situation. But things are actually going really well right now. It is really just a styled write-up of The Incident through each stage of recovery. I hope it reaches out to folk like HayekS and Yusef who are going through difficult times. Today is brighter than the day before it for me, and that certainly wasn’t the case for a long, long time.
I read constantly but because of time zones it’s so hard to comment when people are here! I’m 13+ hours ahead of most of you, it’s 10:50pm here now.
Anyway! I’ll keep reading and I hope the piece finds its way here. Please let me know if I fucked up the submission process; I do have it saved as a file and can still get it in.
Take care all! I’ll be here for the next….hour or so.
Pending Review is normal. It just means it hasn’t been scheduled yet.
Roger. Just ignorant of submitting directly through the site for the first time.
Thanks, UCS.
Hey EFE!
I take it you saw this. https://www.gofundme.com/f/professional-bb-glibertarian?qid=a0f9b24b10b3b7da4b6bdc422c54623f
I saw about PBB’s situation and felt it. I wish that I could help, just as I wish I were really able to give to the TPTB. I’m just not in a financial way that I can personally help right now. I root for everyone’s recovery. It’s a hard situation for everyone to be in. I can only offer my shoulder, but I hope my piece is able to give encouragement through troubled times.
Didn’t mean it THAT way.
I know. I just wish I were able to support fellow Glibs and our Overlords for the work that they’ve done. Is a thing I think about, for all the love and support you all gave me.
It’s on the schedule Evan,
Nice! I’m excited and would love to be able to chat in real time.
hayeksplosives getting out while the getting is good
https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1433051442626052099
Of course the reaction to the pushback is to push even harder.
New Dem mayor, slim (+1) Dem council majority.
Yikes. When freedom of speech is a public health crisis, and public health is the new religion, then freedom is heresy.
It’s saner in her part of the county. The mayor of Poway (not her area, but nearish) wears a cowboy hat.
That’s some mighty fine police work, Lou.
Why should they do anything?
“Dammit! I don’t want to deal with this shit.”
“Just call it in as fireworks.”
Libertopia!
Funny how all the accusations were reported by the mainstream, but this isn’t.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2021/09/01/matt-gaetz-exonerated-after-man-charged-with-extortion-n2595102
Buried.
He’s still a jackass.
I’ll give him a pass for rubbing this in everyone’s faces, after the way TMITE went after him.
I’ve enjoyed all the pants-shitting over the new Texas abortion law.
If I understand correctly, you still have 6 weeks to get one?
I don’t know the details, but CNN in the gym had the title “Roe vs Wade in Danger after Texas Abortion law”
RvW is bad precedent. It should be tossed back to the states.
Roe v Wade is a joke SCOTUS creation.
Either every American has total and complete medical privacy to get the federal taxpayer to pay for any procedure or we dont. I dont remember anything in the US Constitution saying that.
Now the 9th Amendment does protect those rights not specifically granted or protected by the Constitution. Privacy and medical privacy certainly would seem to fall in that category. The problem is that once you have created a almost new American citizen, do they also get protected rights?
The 9th Amendment really depends on Americans mostly agreeing to what those unnamed protected rights are. America is very divided on this issue.
A compromise could be that states get to decide on abortion and federal taxpayers dont pay for them.
Ugh. Gonna go eat something but I’m not hungry. I hate feeling this way. Hope that all of you merry Glibs feel better than I do today.
I’ve gone just over 72 hours without a single carbohydrate. I’m going nuts, I want donuts and waffles and pancakes and toast. This is on par with my stabs at going cold turkey from caffeine or THC. All I’ve eaten for 3 days now is steak and eggs.
Don’t give in. Stick to your plan.
Good work! Stay the course!
It passes. Truly a case of weakness leaving the body.
Thank you all. The alternative seems to be early death, so I’m going to endeavor to persevere.
You could have dinner with Mikaela Peterson once you’re past it. In Austin even.
Ooh, moderate ketones for me this a.m. No wonder I’m ravenous.
Heh, I’ve gone 72 hrs without eating anything. And 72 hrs without sleeping. The pink unicorns help you with frac tarn when the flabule makes dotre.
Stay strong!
Oh, and maybe eat some fiber. Just sayin’
We are under psychological assault. We are all feeling it. The people here are more resistant than average. I often find myself feeling nervous for no immediate reason these days and have analyze my thoughts and calm myself down.
They talk about in the video I linked on #20.
Schrodinger’s Afghan pullout:
https://www.econlib.org/electorate-may-want-both-afghan-pullout-and-non-pullout/
Is that like a Dirty Sanchez, Cleveland Steamer, Rufus Turner, or Filthy Hibibi?
I’m afraid to ask.
Kulldorff is getting spicy.
I can’t believe he hasn’t been disappeared yet.
I think the proposed booster regimen is pushing the fence sitters off the rail.
Mornin’ Banjos.
“We are f*cking abandoning American citizens,” an Army colonel assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division wrote Sunday in frustration in a series of encrypted messages that detailed the failed effort to extricate a group of American citizens, hours before the last U.S. soldiers departed Afghanistan.
How long until he is frog-marched out?
NH Republicans looking to 2022
Shortly after the 2020 election when the GOP regained its majority in the Legislature, Jason Osborne, vice chair of the Committee to Elect House Republicans, was already looking a year ahead. He told the NH Journal, “It will again be my great pleasure to show what can be achieved by Republicans who stand united and to break even more records in the 2022 campaign season.”
As House majority leader, Osborne leads the faction of the GOP whose values and votes closely align with those of the NH Liberty Alliance, the political arm of the Free State Project founded in 2003.
In 2020, the alliance endorsed 143 House candidates, 86 of whom were elected, among them 27 freshmen whose number nearly equaled the margin of the GOP’s 213-187 majority. Osborne’s teammates took four of six top leadership positions in the House as well as the chairs of 10 and vice-chairs of nine of its 22 standing committees.
With the GOP holding a relatively narrow majority, the liberty faction wielded sufficient leverage in the most recent legislative session to drive the agenda. And it placed its stamp on what House Speaker Sherman Packard called “the most conservative budget we’ve produced in 50 years,” with Osborne extolling the session as “a transformational symphony of reforms.”
The day before the vote, Osborne remarked, “We need more Republicans.”
And a new breed of Republicans as well, bent on shrinking the authority and functions of state and local government while expanding the scope of individual freedom, loosening the bonds of social responsibility and freeing the hands of the private sector.
So if the Afghan withdrawal was a massive success as Biden claimed yesterday does Trump get credit for it?
Since it was his plan and all.
H Hahaha! I’m a pet. A walking talking cat meant to be cared for, coddled and contained. Death be not proud.
Le purr, le sigh…
+1 sexist patriarchy
Toon in With Me is doing a French theme this morning. There’d better be a belle femme skonke de pew in there.
Stossel? He’s dead to me,
https://pjmedia.com/columns/john-stossel/2021/09/01/mandate-vaccine-n1474817
Paging David Schultz…
Or does David Schultz drive a Kia?
who the fuck is that?
https://youtu.be/zrX9Ca7LSyQ
Never seen that, awesome!
I remember when it happened. Being the sick pos I am, anything Stossel related reminds me of that incident. No joking around, that caused injury.
Damn he slapped him back to factory settings
?
Bitchslapped…
Pretty much agree with him.
Bless your Heart!
I didn’t think the article was that bad. He thinks refusing the vaccine makes you a dum-dum. I think his mustache makes him look like a dum-dum.
I see nothing dumb about being skeptical of a rapidly produced treatment using an unproven technology.
I’m with you. I can also see why a 74 year old would want the vaccine.
Ultimately he is against mandates, so really no harm done.
I think the technology is ‘proven’. mRNA stuff has been around a long time – couple of decades at least. The details of the implementation on the other hand leave a lot a of room for doubt. Coupled with the strong signal of adverse affects in the short term and the unknown long term effects, either independent or as a manifestation of the short term signal in the longer term (to say nothing of the completely unknown effects of endless boosters they seem to LARPing themselves into), there’s ample reason to be skeptical. Deployed against a virus that IS NOT THAT GODDAMN DANGEROUS (SMITE/TMITE, PBUH), it makes no sense to me to roll those dice. Especially since I likely already had the actual thing. I’ll take Stossel’s accusation of dum selfishness as an approbation.
It may have been around, but this is the first instance of trying to use in humans to provide immunity to a virus. That is an unproven application that just keeps showing more complications each time I look.
I’d call that unproven.
Gotta disagree with you PM. The “technology” may be proven – as in, we know we can make these things, but there has NEVER been an approved mRNA injectable. Never.
And just because the tech theoretically works abso-fucking-lutely does not mean it works when put into practice. And we now have over 13K VAERS death reports for this “proven” technology since they started using it, plus the hundreds of thousands of serious reactions.
This tech is ANYTHING BUT “proven.” And then there’s the fact that Israelis – who injected near their whole population – are getting Covid at incredible rates now, mere months after the injections.
Sorry, but my standards for “proven” are a lot different than what I’m seeing.
I think its proven that mRNA technology can provoke your body to produce protein spikes that induce an immune reaction.
What isn’t proven yet is how good that immune reaction is, how long it lasts, and what its side effects are. Because we are in the early stages of an unblinded observational study involving hundreds of millions of test subjects.
What could possibly go wrong?
Was responding when I was automagically logged out. So I lost the scintillating comment that would have solved this issue once and for all and got us out of this mess. And now I’ve forgotten it.
But RC’s response vis a vis the semantics of what “proven technology” means is basically where I’m at. I agree wholeheartedly with Ozy and UC about ‘proven technology’ wrt to a safe effective vaccine protocol.
. . . a rapidly produced treatment using an unproven technology.
That we’re all Phase III Trial testers for. All one billion+ of us.
Wake me up when we’re in one.
But, but, don’t you care about the fatties and the Q-tips?
I read the other day that one of his female staffers is some kind of bed-wetter. I forget the details.
Yes. Someone linked a tweet from her here a few days ago.
Generally I like Stossel, but I think he gives too much to the Lil Rona Panic assholes.
“ I consider vaccine refusers foolish and selfish. I got vaccinated, and I wish you would.
But government should never force a treatment on people. That’s tyranny.”
I’d add and government coerced private businesses as well but he has a solid stance here although I disagree with his certainty concerning this vaxes’ safety and efficacy. His language is mildly provocative but that’s his schtick.
Selfish, like that’s a bad thing?
Fuck Him..
A virtue, I once heard.
Selfish, like that’s a bad thing?
It is…. but I doubt Stossel can articulate a coherent reason why it’s bad from his utilitarian worldview. I also doubt he can articulate a coherent reason why government doesn’t have the authority to impose their will against any “selfish” action of any individual.
If you don’t take care of yourself first, how you care for others?
Selfishness =/= being self-sufficient.
I’m the most giving selfish person I know, to my own detriment on occasion,
I like to help people,
I’m the most giving selfish person I know
I think you sell yourself short by calling yourself selfish. When I think of selfish giving, I think of people who start up foundations that just so happen to fund things that benefit the givers. The Clinton Foundation. The Gates Foundation. Heck, 80% of the large non-profits out there.
I’ve seen you give without a second thought even when it probably meant you had to sacrifice your own financial priorities and goals. That’s the antithesis of selfish.
Thanks,
He is a bit off there, I’ll admit. Acting in one’s own perceived self-interest is human nature and the ability to do so absent coercion is of fundamental importance.
He’s hedging his arguments. The purported freedom lover is indicating where they will land when the inevitable lines get drawn.
I appreciate that JS is trying to take a nuanced view. But I have a few questions.
– Is JS going to get his third vaccine ‘booster’? How about a fourth? What’s the cutoff point, and why?
– For what reason does JS trust Dr. Offit’s pronouncements, rather than those of any vaccine-critical experts? Has JS sought to independently verify any of Offit’s numbers?
– How many times does JS need to be slapped upside the head with it, before he figures out that ‘public health’ is mostly a giant scam, and the Covid-19 response has been nothing but a bunch of idiot bueraurecrats playing monkey-see-monkey-do?
How many times does JS need to be slapped upside the head with it
Maybe he thinks it’s fake. ?
He might be biased due to being in his 70s and having had cancer.
So he’s probably just as susceptible to yearly influenza, but I don’t see him or anyone else calling for shutting the world down over it.
Them: THIS ISN’T THE FLUE!1!!!!!!1111!1!
US: What are the symptoms?
Them: Flue like.
“I keep having smoke blowing up my backside. I’m told these are Flue-like symptoms.”
No, that’s some weird sex shit. You’re now a protected class. Choose whatever bathroom you wish.
Seems appropriate for a Banjos lynx:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-58279480.amp
Aww, Wally just wants to hang out.
Supposed to be flying the shitshow that is American Airlines tomorrow to go visit Pa & my brother’s brother as well. Fingers crossed.
Enjoy your trip. I’m heading out United next week.
/checks time
About this point next week I’ll be annoyed if there’s no drink service.
/sotto voice: I don’t expect there to be a drink service
Raining for the last 12 hours. Supposed to rain for another 12. I live by the Juniata river in central PA and Im hoping it doesnt flood too badly.
Hope you are safe. That’s beautiful countryside. Passed through many times on way to Happy Valley, and once from the dining car on the eastbound Broadway Limited.
Good luck with that. Crossing my fingers, looks like the heaviest stuff will be north and west of my part of NJ.
Yikes. Hopefully you don’t get flooded out.
I’ve been along the Juniata River a few times. It is nice country.
For the first -and likely the last- time, I agree with AOC:
AOC slams Biden’s Rahm Emanuel nomination as ‘deeply shameful’
We’re ambassadorships always just payoffs? There are people on this site who know more about Japan and speak better Japanese than that Obama hack.
You don’t need to speak the language, that’s what translators are for.
At least Jussie Smollett can visit Japan now without fear.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Kennedy
And yes, ambassadorships have been a mix of professional foreign service and political payoffs for a long time
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Annenberg
*Generally* they tend to send the career foreign service types to politically sensitive ambassadorships and give out ambassador positions that are more stable as political patronage.
+1 Joe Kennedy
Was Bootlegger Joe the one who was so pro-Hitler that FDR was forced to recall him?
I am not sure about her rationale, I have no idea about the case in question. But she is right. If there was ever anyone that should be driven out of polite society, it is Rahm Emmanuel.
Rahm Emanuel as Ambasador to Japan? Run for the hills, Japanese friends! They’re expecting a major crisis, which will not go to waste.
AOC is a (leftist) populist so you’ll end up agreeing with her more than once, kind of like Bernie Sanders.
Re the upstream mask discussion at #35. How are laymen, like most of us, to make a “scientific judgement” when the experts don’t agree? The Local letters to the editor column has been carrying on a debate now for two weeks. First, a doctor writes in that viruses are so small they pass right through masks, rendering the masks useless. That created a chorus of howls, none of which refuted the doctor’s assertion. Yesterday, a virologist responded and said the masks are somewhat effective. He claimed that, yes viruses are too small to be caught in masks, but that viruses typically cling to the water you aspirate, and much of that water vapor is captured by the masks. To paraphrase, the proof is in the fact that your mask will get moist and soggy after a couple of minutes whereas, unmasked, you aren’t even aware of the water vapor you are putting into the air. He said the masks certainly aren’t foolproof but are better than nothing when you suddenly sneeze, cough, or sing and speak. So, I ask, are masks 10% effective, 50%, etc? [The answer, of course, does not inform the decision to mandate their use.]
If they worked, they could measure and quantify the amount to which it worked. The can’t, creech, and that’s how you know they’re lying.
There’s also a bit of commonsense and longer historical perspective: in the history of humanity, THIS is the 21st century tech that’s going. to save us? Really? A fucking piece of cloth in front of your mouth??
You mean, no one in the human history with respiratory viruses ever thought of covering their mouth with a piece of cloth?!?
I guess that must mean that Muslim countries with hijab and other face covering have fared entirely better and have lower rates of transmission, right? I’ll wait for the evidence… (and wait, and wait, and wait)
It’s complete fucking horseshit.
There have been no end of studies about masks for 100 years, going back to teh Spanish flu. None of them showed that they work. I am unaware of any studies since the pandemic began that show they actually do work in reducing the spread of respiratory infections.
That’s the key thing. There are reasons to believe they stop some viruses, etc., but no evidence that they actually reduce the spread of respiratory infections in any meaningful way.
Question on the VAERS data:
Has the reporting been reviewed/cleaned up to get rid of deaths that weren’t caused by the vaccine? When you give a vaccine to hundreds of millions of people in a handful of months, a lot of them are going to die for other reasons. I would expect a nonzero number of reports to be deaths that are not due to the vaccine. How many, I have no clue, but it could be more than a handful.
In the Beforetimes, at my main medical clinic in Minnesota, they had a mask dispenser (and I think a hand sanitizer station) on the way to the registration and waiting zone.
It just said “if you’re actively coughing/ sneezing, please wear a complimentary mask.”
Pretty much the same policy that should have been in place, no more and no less, for the last year and a half.
I’d say “Jen Psaki can kiss my lily-white ass” except that she hasn’t earned the privilege and I never want to occupy the same county as her.
Fuck her and the evil regime for which she stands.
Available on Hayeksplosives’s OnlyFans….
Already posted? New San Francisco Initiative to Pay Individuals Not to Shoot Others
I need to get in on that because I am rapidly in danger of shooting others, though not in the way I think San Fran means (and i’m not in San Fran).
Here’s a question – if I do eventually wind up shooting someone, do I have to give the money back?
(This is too fucking stupid to be believed, but there it is).
Sounds like that policy I’ve seen in some places where they pay HS students to attend school and behave.
I guess it graduated.
Oh my sweet zombie cheebus. I’ve got an uncle who regurgitates the DNC talking points and sends out an e-mail every couple of weeks. Today (just the highlights):
I’m beginning to be concerned about his mental health.
*shakes head*
Unless it’s the only presidential speech he’s heard…
Yeah… Nixon’s Farewell to the Whitehouse Staff is, IMO, right up there at or near the top.
https://youtu.be/4zrU5GHyp4U
Since 1961? What about Saint JFK?
That’s batshit insane, Neph. Sorry about your uncle, but he’s certifiable.
Virtue signaling isn’t a harmless conceit. Repeating shit that you know to be untrue over and over again, and accepting pats on the head for it? He’s not just delusional, he’s made himself delusional.
I realize the bar isn’t high but
…is grade-A delusional.
Make sure he’s not on any of the older relatives’ accounts as a power of attorney, cuz that guy ain’t right.
I realize the bar isn’t high but
…is grade-A delusional.
Make sure he’s not on any of the older relatives’ accounts as a power of attorney, cuz that guy ain’t right.
I realize the bar isn’t high but
…is grade-A delusional.
Make sure he’s not on any of the older relatives’ accounts as a power of attorney, cuz that guy ain’t right.
TRIPLE CROWN SQUIRREL!
DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET!
*golf clap*
That is a first! or third..I am confused
Whoa! 3X
You can say that again.
And again, and again.
No, wouldn’t that be 4x?
(Sits back to see if I can out-pendant the pendant).
We’re encouraging greatness.
Even if it risks meddling on foreign exchange markets.
Flag him as spam.
I’ve contemplated it. I haven’t gone that route yet. I did set him to low priority already.
When my niece had her graduation party at my house; her friends were complaining about ‘crazy libertarians’, I didn’t dare break their little hearts and tell them they were getting to underage drink and cause a ruckus in the middle of no where because a ‘crazy libertarian’ was letting them.
That reads like a copy-paste from a talking points memo.
Oh, I’m sure it is.
Sycophancy is such a weird thing. I don’t understand it.
<b
*sigh*
Psalm 28:3-7
Let each man be paid in Full?
“Thinkin’ of a master plan?”
I was thinking of the Columbo episode: The Conspirators
Something I heard long ago, possibly even in law school.
Young people prize justice.
Old people prize mercy.
I struggle mightily with this. Help the despicable power seekers win!?! Even if I can take the abuse, how can I justify that my passivity might allow them to do worse to a less fortunate person than I?
I do appreciate the last couple verses on remaining good when the going gets tough. Easy to be good when things are going your way, but what are you made of when it’s not the case?
Help the despicable power seekers win!?! Even if I can take the abuse, how can I justify that my passivity might allow them to do worse to a less fortunate person than I?
I don’t think there’s any passivity or passive assistance implied here. I say that not because it’s obvious (it’s not), but because I’ve struggled with the same verses for a while.
It’s a manner of carrying oneself. Not to get embroiled in petty squabbles. Not to take advantage of your neighbor. Not to sacrifice your own loving kindness just because somebody else is a weapons grade asshole. You are accountable for your own behavior, and you are called to be kind, loving, faithful, patient, and self-disciplined, even in the face of an unreasonable, or even evil, opponent.
That doesn’t mean that we can’t be doers of good, purveyors of truth, conscientious objectors, and even renegades, where appropriate. We are to seek justice, and where injustice is being done, we are compelled to intervene, even forcefully. Daniel was sentenced to death for doing right. Jesus cracked the whip when the moneychangers were defiling the temple. He didn’t hesitate to call people “fools” when they acted foolish. “Love your neighbor as yourself” doesn’t mean “be an enabling doormat”. It means using your God-given smarts to discern the Truth and to do everything in your power to elevate the Truth above the various webs of evil being spun around us. True empathy… a thoughtful consideration of others rather than a superficial offering of scraps to assuage guilt and signal virtue.
/stream of consciousness
(Saving to Notes for later)
Thank you.
Nice,
You do know Psalms (canonically) was written by a guy who sent his friend off to war so he could bang his wife, right?
That’s the whole freaking point.
Moses was a murderer (killed an Egyptian and had to go on the lam for years), David was an adulterer, King Solomon has umpteen wives and whores, Aaron occasionally caved in and let folks worship Baal… there are plenty of terrible people in the Bible that God redeems and uses for great good.
It’s very important (for Christians) to note that there is not a single thing we can do to earn eternal life after we shuffle off this mortal coil. It’s only by God’s Grace (his undeserved gift) that allows us to have that.
If you think you can earn Heaven through your own works, go ahead and join Islam.
If you think you can earn Heaven through your own works, go ahead and join Islam
Or intersectional wokeism. It appears to be a wokes based theology.
I like the fact that even weapons grade assholes have an opportunity for redemption and forgiveness. There’s something comforting about that.
Amen.
And this is a small part of where a young me balked on Christianity. I get redemption and that a system that doesn’t allow it can (will?) lead to bad things happening in a social system. But there is value to the idea that you are, to a large degree, a product/reflection of your actions. The easy ‘gotcha’ is someone like Stalin. To stay within the Christian eco system, but applicable in general to a redemptive idea; If I understand the doctrine correctly, if Stalin had, on his death bed, accepted the reality of God, accepted Jesus Christ as his savior, and genuinely (however one determines that) sought forgiveness and redemption, all would be forgiven and he would be welcomed into the Kingdom of God. That never seemed right to me – there are some things you don’t get an out from. Causing untold misery and death for your entire earthly existence only to be treated exactly as one who did nothing but good his entire life is… unsettling.
Cue unease at Darth Vader being saved/earning forgiveness only because he saved his whiny bitch of a son after a long, bloody life of pillage and hatred.
I am also in “There is a point of no return” camp. Though it may be my limited capacity for foregiveness. I hate that I got the phrase from TV tropes, but the term ‘Moral Event Horizon’ is apt. Once you’ve crossed it, there’s no way you’ll manage to make up for what you’ve done.
Since I’m dead threading, I can muse in peace –
I understand the value of redemption as a sort of allegorical story that contains wisdom about how to live your life personally and in relation to others. Perhaps the mistake is taking at as an absolute story that can be applied to all situations. It’s a lesson learned by humans through a long and difficult history, but has no metaphysical reality as might be implied by extending it to the extreme as I did above.
If I understand the doctrine correctly, if Stalin had, on his death bed, accepted the reality of God, accepted Jesus Christ as his savior, and genuinely (however one determines that) sought forgiveness and redemption, all would be forgiven and he would be welcomed into the Kingdom of God. That never seemed right to me – there are some things you don’t get an out from.
1) God’s standard is so much higher than we can comprehend that the distance between Mother Teresa and Stalin is indistinguishable (“the good works of man are like [used tampons]”) . We’re all pigs in the sty pretending we’re not stinky because we don’t have as much shit streaked mud caked to us as that pig over there.
2) Because it is so laughably impossible for any of us to earn our way to eternal glory, either we’re all fucked (“all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”, “the wages of sin is death”) or there needs to be another mechanism to righteousness.
3) The other mechanism is faith. Righteousness was accorded to sinful people through obedient faithfulness via the mercy of God. That mercy is available to all*, even those who have done horrible things. Mercy isn’t mercy if it’s only available to the nice people.
*Calvinists would quibble here.
Yes, if Stalin had a genuine deathbed conversion, I’d expect him to be in heaven. Probably existing in the eternal equivalent of a shanty town on the edge of civilization.
Re: the Stossel COVID video/article where he refers to the “unvaxxed” as “selfish”, but limply admits that forcing people to be vaccinated is wrong.
I believe it feels wrong by the Stossel fans (including me) because he didn’t do his usual even-handed reporting of “both sides”. His only guest that adds comments is an obvious pro-COVID vaccine doctor. There are multiple doctors who oppose forcing the vaccines he could have included and they could explain reasons why people could/should choose to avoid the COVID vaccines. As someone pointed out, Stossel is in his 70’s and thus in the population of people who probably should get the vaccine. I think he’s allowed his prejudice to cloud his approach to this subject.
Stossel didn’t do his homework before making the video/article and it clearly shows. And his fans are calling him out on it.
Ayup
They’re selfish, why, exactly?
Because they are more likely to cost the government money given their higher risk of being hospitalized with the ‘Vid? That should be rejected out of hand by anyone claiming to be libertarian. Its the self-licking ice cream cone of public health tyranny. Whether its true or not doesn’t matter.
Because “your vax protects me, and my vax protects you”? That runs into the utilitarian problem of “is it true”. The actual effectiveness of the vaccines is the key to this, and its increasingly in doubt. More fundamentally, it raises the question of just what sacrifices you are “selfish” for not making in order to benefit others. You want a slippery slope – that one’s at about 89 degrees and coated in teflon.
Yup. I rarely say nice things about Ayn Rand, but her insight on the morality of sacrifice is pretty well on-point.
She is where I learned aboot Selfishness, and began considering it in earnest,
In my distant yout, I had to take “Ethics for Engineers”.
It was taught by the Arts & Sciences college, not engineering. The professor was outstanding; he presented every important school of thought without ever giving his own views away.
He mainly taught us to question, and to recognize bull shit being peddled.
I recall as an idealistic student that “Utlitarianism” seemed great until enough discussion and mental experience showed me that the greatest benefit for society would always be defined by those in power to try to implement it.
I recall when the prof saw the light go on in my eyes. Now i’m more of a Kant kinda gal but really a Hayek one.
I have a soft spot for Stossel. When he had his show on Fox News, that was the first time I heard someone question the war on drugs in a logical manner. Before that I was an unaware supporter of the police state. Now I read Lysander Spooner for fun and he started me in this direction.
That being said, this article hurts my brain. He has good points and immediately shoots them down with emotion or opinions stated as fact.
Not gonna lie, a little disappointing.