We have traveled the highways and byways of America and what we have seen and experienced is a wide variety of regional bad driving styles, indistinguishable Walmarts, and some of the most curious and fascinating roadside attractions one could hope for. Dodge City may have been our favorite, there is so much delightful kitsch and unintentionally ironic historical stuff. I think the most frequently uttered phrase in our car was, “Oh my fucking god, look at that!”
Sorta defeats the purpose, you’d think?
Birthdays today include a guy who inspired Proud Mary; a guy who brought uniforms into fashion; a guy who opened new frontiers while staying home; a guy famous for the wake-and-bake; a populist; the spirit animal of Adam Schiff; a guy who was responsible for the worst in pop culture; one of my childhood fantasy women; everyone’s favorite nutcase; a pioneering litterbug and Krispy Kritter; the proximate cause of much dope-smoking in the late 1960s; a guy who destroyed millions of computers; one of the saddest cases of TDS; the secret to Queen Elizabeth’s longevity; a notorious white supremacist; a guy who should be in the Hall of Fame but won’t; and finally, possibly the biggest asshole I have ever met.
With that in mind, let’s do Links.
You have to do some scrolling to get to the part that this is REALLY about.
Government’s ineptness shouldn’t surprise, but somehow manages to.
Millennial makes some bad choices, whines, and this is apparently newsworthy.
When you fuck things up, double down.
Actual reasons to hate Trump instead of the usual bullshit.
Leftists are very quiet about this.
Old Guy Music today has the obligatory hard rocker’s ballad. But it’s a really great ballad. And, the success of Mississippi Queen notwithstanding, it might be Leslie West’s best composition.
Morning, Old Man.
Who you calling old?
I love stupid stuff like the world’s largest ball of twine. Maybe it’s why I like Dada.
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/yAdVoeuESzKeAwiXcEW32A.HyI9XlLSoDX-xkUJjJMFb2
Yep, I would stop there.
When I was seven or so, my father had to give a paper in Boston, and my mother decided that it was the perfect excuse for a road trip. Me, my brother, and both parents driving from CA to MA in a ’66 Mustang convertible pulling a tent trailer. For six weeks. It was hell, but we did see every fucking roadside attraction my mother could find.
I did get lost in downtown Philly though, scaring the living shit out of my parents though, ’cause seventies Philly ain’t no joke.
Still sketchy af, bro.
That’s not Center City, that’s Kensington.
Center City in the 80s wasn’t that bad during the daylight hours. Lots of government buildings, close to tourist areas, and a heavy policy presence. Yeah, you’d have some aggressive bums and trash lined streets, but nothing like that. I doubt it is as bad as Kensington even today with the DA letting criminals run riot over the city.
But yeah, Philly has a lot of sketchy areas.
South St. in the mid-1980s was a veritable wonderland for this teen visitor.
A cousin of mine worked in a sex shop on South Street. I think in the 00s. He told me one memorable story which I might share in person or on a zoom.
Anyways, one day he, his wife, and I were on South Street for a festival a few years. We were talking down the street. There was a sex shop advertising, “GET YOUR PROM DRESS HERE!” My cousin said, “That’s the one all the strippers get their clothes from!”
Philly has never been a joke. It was never what you would call ‘a nice town’.
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/BjDhU38jQ3Cp84-Hxv7MMQ.Iyuitzqck2Ow4SNXNT8KQT
Background.
I love the World’s Largest Ketchup Bottle in Collinsville.
Behind the scenes at the town planning committee – https://youtu.be/Q_NjgpNKCdE
We should get these guys together
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/hood-milk-bottle-boston-ma-snack-shop-located-plaza-front-children-s-museum-has-been-95985364.jpg
For those who prefer tea instead:
World’s Largest Teapot
It’s also featured in the game Fallout 76, along with a lighthouse on a hill with no water anywhere in sight, which is also based on a real location in West Virginia. Stuff like that is one of the reasons I really enjoyed that game, in spite of all its flaws.
Here’s the lighthouse.
Thats by my house! well, like 25 mins away from it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv_QUiDYTTg
Clark Griswold, is that you?
Yep
Try that again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekdNbGHSquw
Years ago I saw an interview with a chick who was supposedly “creating miniature sculptures” of various “world’s largest” attractions. In other words, the normal-sized objects.
I don’t know if she’d received a government grant for her “art,” but I wouldn’t be surprised.
Always did want to go to the circus and see the World’s Tallest Midget.
Y’all know about Lucy the Elephant, right?
https://youtu.be/gDo74y8wrRg
Though well-intentioned, many articles on saving money or generating wealth aren’t helpful to working-class, marginalized, or economically hard-hit people who have little access to wealth and social capital to begin with.
Yeah, okay.
Expecting someone to go without the newest cell phone, a daily macchiato grande from Starbucks, an up to date laptop on which to tap out their latest anti-capitalism screed, and a high speed internet account to make sure everyone on Twitter sees at as soon as it’s done is white supremacy.
Those are all essentials.
It is all about prioritization. Delayed gratification isn’t fun, especially when your peers are conspicuous consumers. Millennials aren’t the only generation to want to keep up with the Joneses. The oughts had a lot of people taking out home equity loans for consumption.
No, but a couple things have made it worse for them – 1) their own stupidity at not being able to do basic math and figure out how to pay down six figure student debt as a barista with a fukaka-studies degree. Bad on them but once you reach a crushing amount of debt, it’s easier to say “fuck it, I ain’t never going to own a house, so I might as well buy a bunch of Apple gadgets, travel to Europe and lease a car I can’t afford.”
2) Social media. Seeing friends and acquaintances live a seemingly charmed life of vacations and creature comforts really ratchets up the pressure of keeping up.
Bad habits and lack of fiscal discipline means you’ll stay poor though. Not that you’re guaranteed success if you work hard and save but it is a good start.
Very important to drop out of high school, get married (or not), get a baby. And another generation is born. Admittedly high school is not all that important, educationally, but a stepping stone.
There are exceptions, however.
The Gods Of The Copybook Headings Should still be required reading. Immutable truths are immutable.
That was a deeply stupid article. Lots of calls for Uncle Sugar to fix things (rent control, anti-flipping laws). I’d say give the author what she wants, good and hard, except it’d screw up our lives too
OFFS!
Yeah, it’s too early for this much stupid.
She is getting what she wanted, good and hard. That is what she is complaining about. Turns out magic hats are not really magic.
1) write a list of your financial priorities (in order)
2) assign dollars from your paycheck to those priorities
3) when you run out of dollars, your budget is done. If this is unacceptable, reprioritize your financial priorities
4) discipline yourself to the budget
5) $$
Of course, there are some other skills and understandings that are helpful to have beyond that, but those 4 steps get you 80% of the way there.
1) Hookers
2) Blow
3) And we’re done…
Can I get senior discount?
It’s a group discount. You have to bring your wife.
Checks AARP card. Nope.
J/K don’t actually have one.
I spent a fortune on strippers and cocaine and squandered the rest.
No line item for ammo?
⬆
I got a case of 193 on the way. I couldn’t help myself. Gotta scratch that itch.
Don’t remind me. My Mark 7 has been down for three weeks (proprietary part, so I gotta go through all the troubleshooting with the manufacturer) and I’m completely out of practice 9×19.
Just got a case of 9mm 124 grain today. Did not know FedEx delivered on Sunday.
Very simple but not always easy. Like many important things.
A-freaking-men
It gets easier with time, but it’s never easy.
People vastly underestimate how much money they spend on crap.
I recently had a short talk with my oldest daughter about this. I told her “You’re a poor college student, it’s time you started living like one.”
a guy who brought uniforms into fashion;
Happy birthday Hugo Boss?
I was thinking the same thing.
Same
I think I found it! What do I win?
There was a wonderful Sowell quote about foreign aid that comes to mind. Something like, “Foreign aid is taking money from poor people in rich countries and giving it to rich people in poor countries.”
I figured it was the standard spin that whatever was agreed to was of course not enough.
Every single news outlet discussing COP 26 has included that shit.
More proof how dumb journalists are.
If we don’t have to deliver, I will personally pledge a trillion.
“but older generations still try and blame it on our work ethic.”
Quit whining and get a job you bum!
Well, here’s the first problem.
LOL
You don’t talk back to the priests.
To be fair, government intervention is the main driver of the increase in college costs as well as the perceived need to have a college degree to get a good white-collar job.
30 years ago when I was graduating high school, I and my parents had to do the whole financial aid thing. The college looked at all of the declarations and determined how much we’d be able to pay toward college costs, with the rest coming from scholarships, work study, loans, and the like. It was blatantly obvious to me that if the government put more money into the system in the form of increased financial aid, we’d still have the same family contribution, and the rest of the money could go toward increased charges from the colleges.
True and the fact that college debt can’t be discharged through bankruptcy also traps people. It’s has become a predatory racket that prays on the young, the naive, and the stupid.
Yes.
On the other hand, these things aren’t exactly secret.
Exactly. My XX graduates next month with zero debt. Where she goes from there is unclear. She will need to borrow quite a bit of money to continue on to become a Physical Therapist. She’s having second thoughts.
I support allowing bankruptcy discharge for private loans not backed by taxpayers.
Private loans should not be backed by taxpayers, ’cause then it’s not really private anymore.
This is where the real education begins.
In the last five years, the number of full-time employees at my university has increased by 185. The number of administrative professional staff (student services, career center, compliance, Title IX office, etc) has increased by 194, which means that the total in other categories (including faculty) has actually decreased slightly. If you want to know where the extra dollars are going, this is a hint.
It irritates me when people go on and on about spending more & more money at public schools.
You wouldn’t need to spend more & more if you stopped hiring so many fucking administrators, and concentrated on faculty, you dumb shits!
I’ll forward your recommendation to our President, who makes the large-scale budget decisions. I’m sure he’ll get right on it.
Seriously, though, some of this is self-inflicted, but some is a rational response to the mounting compliance requirements. Every year legislatures pass several new things that we have to do, usually in response to some momentary panic, along with reporting requirements. Next year when the problem is gone (or is demonstrated to not have existed in the first place), they will move on to some new mandate, but somehow they never get around to deleting any of the old ones. We spend thousands of man-hours every year compiling reports that were mandated a decade ago and that nobody cares about anymore, but are still required in statute. Given that we have to do these, it makes more sense for the time to be spent by some A/P staff making $50K than by someone with a PhD making $70K.
This is exactly right. We have a modern environment, with all that entails, legally, technologically, and socially. Professors, like when my father was hired on in the seventies, did most of this stuff as it wasn’t too difficult. But, with a full teaching load professors do not have time to deal with every in-and-out of hiring law, sysadmin, and whatever else needs to be dealt with. But grad students weren’t unionized, EOA wasn’t actual law, the EPA wasn’t checking on everything, the entire business system wasn’t digitized, and so on. It’s also a very competitive market, and a good professor with solid research can cause a bidding war for a salary, not unlike a good executive in the business. So, that cost needs to be entered into the equation.
Yes, this does allow a lot of BS to come down the pike, but that is true in any legacy environment, such as auto manufacturing, farming, gov’t and so on. But one thing that gets glossed over is that every seemingly evil scheme that HR gets blamed for was OKed by someone in the University President/Provost office. This stuff doesn’t just come out of nowhere, it comes from the top and the pressure applied by students, faculty, and regents.
Sarbanes-Oxley waves hi.
Exactly. Add in that a schools often hire Title IX people, etc. and give them titles like Assistant Vice-Chancellor which means significant salary bumps. I could share some specifics but it might get too close to doxxing myself.
Gen Z exists to make Millennials look good.
Meanwhile, at FedEx, Mojeaux’s 18yo XX is making twice as much as she made at Walmart and is learning how to drive a forklift.
Ditto OMWC’s 21yo XY at Amazon.
Good for both of them.
Agree completely. Good on ’em.
They should get together, be some sort of Libertarian-adjacent, fork-lifting power-couple.
She describes herself as a free-lance writer. That means that either nobody wants to hire her full time, or that she doesn’t want to be “tied down” to a job. If it’s the former then her best bet would be to look for a steady job with benefits even if it’s not in her chosen field.
Yep, with the job market like it is now she could easily get a less sexy but decent paying career type job. Banks, grocery stores, etc. nothing wrong with those.
It wouldn’t help. Can you truly envision this person being able to commit to a shift schedule or interact with customers?
Yeah.
She’d last one shift at most. Probably less than that.
I had an argument back in 2010 with a friend about Obamacare. He was pro-national healthcare, because health insurance was too expensive for him to afford (not true, but he wanted full coverage, not HSA). I pointed out that he should have majored in something more marketable and went to work for a large company that offers that as part of compensation. He wanted to stay in his apartment and freelance.
I don’t understand why so many people don’t look at pay and benefits when selecting majors and career paths. There is a lot of stuff I would have rather done in my life or career, but I made sacrifices for financial security. Now I get to subsidize people that don’t want to bother.
When I was younger, I would alternate between temping and being a full employee, mostly because I wear out my welcome (personality wise) after a year or two in a company. My work was excellent and I did all the things you’re supposed to, but I fell to office politics every time. Women are evil and territorial, but I have no doubt my personality was grating. (It’s one reason I’m a hermit.) Anyway, temping was perfect for me. I was usually a hammer the agency would send in to fix shit.
Anyway, the one downside of temping is/was lack of benefits. When I was a full employee, I took advantage of the benefits as much as I could before I was shown the door. When I was temping, I knew I was taking a risk. I had some injuries and I was susceptible to bronchitis a lot back then.
Then I got a job at a weird place where I was the normal one (as well as the fixer), and I had great benefits. Had my first baby on that plan. Then I quit to stay home with her because by then I had a husband with a job with benefits.
His job makes it possible for me to be self-employed. I have that luxury because of him, and I’m grateful for it—but we also pay out the nose for it (equivalent to our mortgage, when we had a mortgage). I don’t know how much his company pays.
Anyway, all that to say that I’ve been on both sides. I will say this: I went to the doctor for a lot less when I didn’t have insirance, and I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. I could have used some mental health benefits, but those weren’t part of packages back then the way it is now.
Oh, and put down your fucking phone and get those stupid ear buds out of your head.
“Mom, I said I’ll look for a job tomorrow. I’m tied up today in this game thing that you don’t understand”
I’ll bet that’s an actual quote.
Muffler men:
https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/37422
Closest one to me is Big Chip.
Can attempting to overthrow a 60 year old dictatorship really be considered “counterrevolutionary”?
The revolution never ends
+1 PRI (Mexico’s Institutional Party of the Revolution)
Good morning. Sunday morning.
Sunday to YOU perhaps. But I worked all last night, and I have to tonight.
Morning, sunshine. How YOU doin’ ?
I ain’t gotta work til tomorrow morning. Monday morning. Until then, it’s true crime and hoofball.
https://giphy.com/clips/zck-kntr-good-morning-sunday-MUiedNiXvFJWYPz7vp
(Reposting from the dead thread) Liberty is REALLY stepping up their game with the Prevost conversions – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP7hAPYAU8w
I could spend the remainder of my years in this. Although, I would want to eliminate the half bath and expand the kitchen into that space.
She’s a beaut!
I’m considering the possibility of never doing the RV nomad thing. Unless I can get my colleague’s dad’s RV for the $16k he quoted. With inflation, gas prices, RV prices, I can’t afford to sink 1/3 of my condo profits into one. Sigh.
The thought of filling up a 200 gallon diesel tank at today’s prices is mind-numbing. Also, from watching these videos, it seems like a never ending of trading in and refinancing every few years. I want no part of that.
Yeah, it’s rough out there. My plan is evolving into rent a place in Laramie (or Cheyenne) for a year and look for land or a house with land to buy. I need to put my $ into something more stable at my age.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that something I can afford will fall into my lap.
Do you really like winters that rival Minnesota or North Dakota?
If there’s skiing? 100%
Hence my not moving to ND or SD.
Laramie has a nice-looking little ski area about 40 minutes outside of town.
Looks out at 5 inches of snow. Hey, it’ll go away in 6 months. This winter is going to be really long for me. I’ll have cabin fever in a week.
OTOH, it’s really beautiful today, I need to get out and clear a little snow but I have to be extra careful.
Good luck, KK.
Ideal Sunday – get to ski area at opening and get some first tracks. Ski for a couple hours, have a bowl of ski area chili, drive home, watch hoofball in front of a fire.
Skis frighten me, but I would like to try that snowboarding thing; particularly the kind with a giant kite. I like chili and while I don’t like watching televised sports, I would happily putter around the kitchen while you watch them. I could even shout encouragement from time to time – “GO TEAM!”, “SCORE A POINT!”, and such and such.
KK – sent you a tweet DM. Seen some used listings posted locally.
‘Navigating the maze of health insurance costs and policies in the United States is also difficult, and takes a toll on our finances. Even for a healthy person, the price of having a child at a hospital can be prohibitive…
The Great Recession also affected housing, creating shortages that were driving up rent even before the pandemic…’
Problems created by government interference.
‘Rent control, controls on house-flipping that artificially increases the cost of land and rent, and even climate justice that would prevent devastating fires would give millennials peace of mind when it comes to securing housing.’
Calls for more government interference.
-climate justice that would prevent devastating fires
Or they could just, you know, clear out the fucking underbrush.
What, like with a comb?
It would do no such thing. Drill mud cores from the Great Lakes. Seasonal smoke/charcoal deposits layered as far back as the lakes have been there. Same further south. Tundra fires and forest fires throughout the ice age. Natural phenomena are natural.
The privately managed forests in California haven’t suffered out of control wildfires. They are thinned and the underbrush is cleared. Government managed forests are tinderboxes that make the news.
4.3 billion years is a really long time, things change.
Time is a tough dimension to understand. 30 K years ago mastodons were walking around my yard, maybe alligators, before that dinosaurs . Even 500 years ago the natives were restless. Believing that we mortals are responsible for any recent changes is the height of arrogance. I haven’t figured out how to change the temps with a thermostat but Al Gore, creator of the internet, knows I’m responsible for every drought/flood/hurricane ad infinitum and can fix things if only I’ll turn off my outside light.
Or let them burn out naturally so that fuel gets consumed the first go around. All they’re doing now is staving off the inevitable, kind of like we’re doing with Covid.
Dear America’s Youth:
Learn a trade. Get a library card. Go forth into the world and meet other people. Accept them for who and what they are (and are not) and do not try to change or “educate” them.
You can thank me later.
XOXO
Also, no social media until you’re an adult.
a guy who was responsible for the worst in pop culture;
Not Aaron Sorkin?
possibly the biggest asshole I have ever met.
You haven’t met me.
It’s a high bar.
“World’s Biggest Asshole” wasn’t one of the roadside attractions you came across?
Sure it is, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. DC
That was a deeply stupid article. Lots of calls for Uncle Sugar to fix things (rent control, anti-flipping laws). I’d say give the author what she wants, good and hard, except it’d screw up our lives too
I just skimmed, because I didn’t want to get that much derp on me so early in the day, but she has obviously never made the connection between government “fine tuning” of the economy and the plainly visible (to us) consequences thereof.
If we just turn the knobs a little to the left, it will all come into focus.
I mean, I kind of agree with the writers complaints. Even though their solutions are retarded. The world many of us were raised to think existed is just a fairy tale. Some perceptive youngsters were able to see through it and become very successful, but the “college for everyone” mindset I and many others were raised with has been an absolute disaster. I don’t put all the blame for that on 18 year olds not knowing better.
Agreed. You don’t know what you don’t know, and you can only go with what you’ve been taught—by people who also don’t know OR have a vested interest in guiding you down the wrong path.
Again it comes back to people not unpacking the problem to its roots and fixing it at the source—government. But if you don’t know you’re on a false premise, how do you unpack it?
We ask 18yos to make major life decisions as soon as they graduate, when just last week they had to ask to go to the bathroom.
+1 Really should have stayed in Army until pension vested.
For those following the Aussie rescue dogs at Doggy Daycare Farm Trips, the final dog has been adopted. The people that adopted him look very promising!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8txux3uSxQ
Also, Bobby the pittie was adopted last week and he has an Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bobbygotrescued/
rescue dogs – as bill burr said it is not a rescue it is one of those free dogs you get at the pound.
“free”
That’s adorable. They are very much not free.
My friend in Dutchland flew a cat from Cyprus as a pet because due to tight regulations they are hard to get there
The President of the organization I worked for at my first job out of college would bring a cat home to DC from Turkey once in a while. His…stature allowed him to streamline all the paperwork and regulations.
Ain’t that the truth.
1) Hookers
2) Blow
3) And we’re done…
But I needs gas for my hot rod.
Replace blow with scotch and yeah…
Who built it ?
Oh yeah.
You did not disappoint.
*checks college football scores with mild curiosity, stops*
Texas lost to Kansas? KANSAS?!
What the hell happened to the Texas football program?
@oldtakesexposed would reply with this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OasjKpAJCFs
Indiana would like a word. They managed to lose, at home to Rutgers. Final score: 38-3. To Rutgers, which one week ago lost to Wisconsin 52-3 in game that wasn’t that close.
To be sure®, Indiana is much more of a basketball school than a football school.
But that’s still pretty bad.
The Gods Of The Copybook Headings Should still be required reading. Immutable truths are immutable.
We (the Imperial “we” if you like) could make the recitation of the “Gods” mandatory, like the Pledge of Allegiance, every morning.
It wouldn’t help. Empty words are empty. Some folks never learn.
-climate justice that would prevent devastating fires
Or they could just, you know, clear out the fucking underbrush.
*Little Pig Number Three looks up, shakes head bemusedly*
Black Friday – which we copied fro you lot but changed the date- was this friday depressed me as I did not stick to the plan to get a laptop I wanted for my mom. I am pissed because I did not follow the plan and missed out and got a second best option. and I told myself before stick to the plan stick to the plan. this also made me miss a great offer on a bottle of Laphroaig An Cuan Mor which pissed me off and made me do something extremely irresponsible.
I also ordered a pixel 5a for me as the 6 did not convince me for the price difference.
And furthermore someone insulted the bottle of wine I had just purchased.
Capitalism!
the stupid site changed my default delivery settings and this distracted me long enough to miss the fucking thing. the one I got may be just as good as far as how my mom uses it e.g basic internet browsing still I am pissed. I lost a nights sleep due to it. which pissed me off even more because it annoys me how much I am affected and upset by things that in the grans scheme of things dont matter.
You should listen to those Stoic guys on the internet. Just ignore the part about how kneeling down, taking the jab, obeying, and showing your vax card is part of their philosophy.
My friend in Dutchland flew a cat from Cyprus as a pet because due to tight regulations they are hard to get there
Haha, you really had me going, for a minute.
the plane ticked was 300 euros. I think it cost him like 600 total to adopt a stray cat from Cyprus and bring it to Amsterdam.
No strays there? No shelter pets?
Amsterdam has a whole boat for that (ex would never me to take one back to the states to join our herd).
https://depoezenboot.nl/en
apparently no
the secret to Queen Elizabeth’s longevity
I should have known before I hovered over the link. I laughed.
A deal aimed at staving off dangerous climate change has been struck at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.
The Glasgow Climate Pact is the first ever climate deal to explicitly plan to reduce coal, the worst fossil fuel for greenhouse gases.
Is this an editorial or a news report?
But poorer countries had been calling throughout the meeting for funding through the principle of loss and damage – the idea that richer countries should compensate poorer ones for climate change effects they are unable to adapt to.
Ahh. Wealth transfers. Of course.
The FBI says it is aware of reports that unauthorized emails from a legitimate FBI address were sent to thousands of organizations.
SEE!!!!! RUSSIAN COLLUSION WAS REAL!
Some people have done so, but they’re the exception rather than the rule. Learning financial literacy is a challenge for people who grew up with survival as their main goal. Fact is, it’s harder for millennials to move up in their social and income status than previous generations. According to a 2019 analysis by Stanford University, there are also racial homeownership gaps among millennials because every gain from the reforms meant to help people of color own homes after the Civil Rights Movement has been lost.
I tapped out here. Too much stupid.
He acknowledged that rising costs of basic goods are “worrisome”
If he didn’t say, “I DID THAT!” he didn’t acknowledge anything worth a damn.
The U.S. military covered up 2019 airstrikes in Syria that killed up to 64 women and children, a possible war crime, during the battle against Islamic State, the New York Times reported on Saturday.
2019. It can be blamed on Trump which is why the NYT dug it up. Otherwise they would have killed the story.
The doctor was the star of one of a crescendo of televised exposés by the Cuban government in recent weeks, designed to discourage participation in the islandwide “Civic March for Change” that Cuba’s blossoming opposition movement has called for on Monday. Demonstrations in support of the march are planned in Miami and many world capitals.
Interesting that the Cuban government outs their plants.
It looks like it is windier today than yesterday. Leaf clean-up will be interesting. Whenever I start it that is.
Lots of leaves still on the trees here. I will wait for them to fall and then run the mower over them to grind them into mulch.
I never understood why people rake them up and dispose of them then buy fertilizer. Just grind the things up, let them filter down into the grass and rot. The places you have trouble growing grass will soon disappear.
Normally I chop up leaves with my mower until the grass stops growing. Until then the only time I use the leaf blower is to clear the driveway and my flower beds.
Then after the grass stops growing, I use the leaf blower to clean up whatever falls after that point.
Unfortunately, I broke my mower (self-propelled walk behind Honda) last week when mowing for the last time this year. Sheared off a bolt holding the back wheel on, and no idea how it happened. I just noticed the back wheel being loose, and everything went to shit from there.
It’ll get fixed in the Spring. The place I bought my snowblower from services all Honda yard equipment. I’ve been having them tune up my snowblower and mower. I’ll have them fix the mower. The last time I fixed the back wheels on this thing it was painful. They’re the drive wheels so a bit more complicated than the front wheels.
We have big leaf maples here. Even ground up, the volume is more than enough to make a grass inhibiting mulch. Hence they get swept/blown up, hopefully before the rains turn them into waterlogged mush. This year has been a challenge.
It’s been my experience that people in “survival mode” tend to be really, really good with money. When you know you have a limited supply of it, you tend to watch it very closely and make the most of it.
When you get bailed out at every opportunity, that is when you get sloppy with cash.
Yep.
I think back to when I was a kid from a broke family and I was working a job just above minimum wage. I was very careful with money.
When I got my first salaried programmer job, I got sloppy with money.
Then I realized I was fucking up, and fixed it.
I will admit to not being as careful today as I was when I was a teenager. My salary is far above what I need to pay my bills. However, I still write up budgets and pay attention to what I spend.
Honestly…being active duty – esp as an officer in a high cola place like Hawaii. I really wasted a lot of dough – regrets now but live and learn. I’d like to say I’ve picked up a few things with age/exp – just took longer than I would’ve liked and I gotta focus harder now.
Whiny millennial: Whatchawanna bet that she enthusiastically supports every policy that helped bring her situation about?
What it is really about? It’s a grift, plain and simple, just as the ME wars were a grift. The taxpayers got looted, some of the loot went to corrupt, savage warlords and the majority of the money went to the people perpetrating the ‘wars’. As I recall the fleeing president of Afghanistan loaded pallets of cash on his escape helicopter but had to toss out some of his acolytes and some of the cash because he overloaded the chopper. That sums up the whole thing up nicely.
FBI? Corrupt political organization composed of thugs. Why anyone takes them seriously anymore I have no idea. Never, ever, ever speak to them. Not about the weather, not about what time it is, nothing. Keep your mouth completely shut.
Castro and Guevara were the darlings of the leftist social scene here in the US after they booted Batista. That is when they were lining up homosexuals against a wall at home. Of course they are quiet now, otherwise it will come into full light their sympathies for blood-soaked communist dictatorships. They really are evil fuckers.
Good morning all.
Biden admin lies. News at 11.
What the fuck are we doing in Syria? Yemen?
Given the photos and film I have seen of Germany in the closing days of WWII I have a hard time working up outrage about the atrocities committed in war. Don’t want your hands dirty? Dont go to war.
How many BTUs does the Dept of Energy produce?
How many kids does the Dept of Education teach to read?
Dept of Trans gonna fix the logistic jam? Starting tomorrow ?
C’mon, Man, those are problems that can be solved with more money and people, they’re understaffed.
“The FBI and CISA [Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency] are aware of the incident this morning involving fake emails from an ic.fbi.gov email account,” the FBI said in a statement Saturday.”
“We continue to encourage the public to be cautious of unknown senders and urge you to report suspicious activity to ic3.gov or cisa.gov.”
Sure. No chance that ic.gov would also be compromised. I blame Peter Norton.
Incompetent government agency is going to investigate a problem largely attributable to said agency’s incompetence. I’m sure they’ll get right to the bottom of it.
The Maldives?!? I thought they were subsumed into the Arabian Sea back in 2002 because we disregarded Al Gore?
Are there any peer reviewed studies that show sea levels actually rising? I’ve been hearing this shit for at least 20 years. It seems like there’d be someplace on the planet that’s geologically stable and low lying where they could mount a yardstick and check it twice a year or something.
Well there is Venice, where the water has been rising for hundreds of years. Because the land is sinking. But that must be all about climate change, too.
Lots, but of course they are VERY regionally dependent. Why? Because land sinks as well, and that differs greatly from location to location. Here is New Jersey, as an example.
Takeaway: there is no one “sea level.”
yes there is and satellites can measure it with 1mm accuracy
*facepalm*
I remember Ron Bailey making such a claim.
There must be some way to tweak that data into a hockey stick. Michael Mann is on the case.
It’s mostly nonsense. My favorite is the Pacific islands that were supposed to vanish and it turns out are now higher than ever.
“It seems like there’d be someplace on the planet that’s geologically stable and low lying”
No, there is not. The earth’s surface is a very dynamic place. every inch of it is moving both vertically and horizontally at measurable amounts. That includes the ocean’s floors. The volume of water, not just its level is also constantly changing. There are so many factors involved that solid, meaningful measurements of sea level are nearly impossible to obtain. Perfect conditions for Chicken Little to run a scam.
Most people think of the earth’s crust as essentially fixed and stable barring a few places with earthquakes and volcanoes. It ain’t so. Not one inch of it.
One of my favorites: https://backtraxamerica.com/life/when-the-river-flowed-backwards/
My grandfather told me that we, here in Louisiana, felt shocks from the ’57 earthquake in Alaska. The water table across the US dropped 12 feet.
I’m always surprised (not really) that the people panicking about unprecedented warming never seem to notice that melting glaciers reveal archeological sites.
Yep
(some of which are relatively recent, too)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/11/13/climate-change-italy-alps-world-war-one/
“Climate change”
Lol
“…melting glaciers reveal archeological sites.”
Such sites have been found as deep as 100 feet down in the gulf of Mexico. Others in most coastal plains that are now submerged. Sea level has been rising for 16 thousand years, since the peak of the last ice age. I find this fascinating because…who knows what kinds of civilizations existed during and between the ice ages over the last million or so years? We think of two or three thousand years as ‘ancient’ history when that shit happened just yesterday. What has the dynamic climate and surface disruption scrubbed away that we will never know about? Fiction writers could have a lot of fun with that.
Why are the Maldives currently building airports is my question.
They have been saying that they will be underwater in a couple of years for the last 30 years. Boofuckinhoo, no, we aren’t giving you any money.
“We have 98 months to halve global emissions. The difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees is a death sentence for us.””
Get to work building a raft. You’ve got time.
Sadly, there’s apparently no point at which we’ll say, “So you’ve been wrong about this and this and this in the past, so we’re just going to ignore you from here on out.”
Dear Yahoo, remember when all your “news” articles got brutally ratio’d in the comments section almost each and every time? I remember. Good times.
Do they still have comments? Most lefty sites have taken down their comments section. I wonder why.
So who was your designated criminal on the road trip?
How to get from Coast to Coast? Appeals for calm (from Mother), obedience (that’s right), fellow-feeling, and so on will not avail. But a technique (trick) may. It is The Designated Criminal.
On setting out the family must establish a rotation. Each car member, then, on his appointed day, will be The Designated Criminal. On his lucky day, everything that goes wrong in the car is his fault. The affronted family are happily then leagued against the diabolical offender in their midst.
dammit, that was supposed to be block-quoted
“On his lucky day, everything that goes wrong in the car is his fault. The affronted family are happily then leagued against the diabolical offender in their midst.”
Sounds like my development team.
I always knew there was a reason I approved of David Mamet (and it wasn’t just his being friends with Ricky Jay.)
Silly question:
If all these islanders and residents of low lying coastal areas are truly convinced they will be swallowed up by the sea, why aren’t they fleeing? They could move to Romania, where there are mountains, and never have to worry.
There are no silly questions only silly people
Silly question:
If all these residents of low lying coastal areas are truly convinced they will be swallowed up by the sea, why did the Obamas buy a seaside mansion?
He’s doing the Cnut thing; pointing out to all of us that not even he can halt the rising tides of CLIMATE EMERGENCY.
It’s spelled CUNT.
He can part the waters AND walk on them.
Since he didn’t actually have to work hard to get it, what does he care if it is taken by the sea? His wealthy masters paid for it since he was (is) such a good minion. As long as continues to do their bidding, he can live wherever he chooses.
Because it is My Island Home!
Never have to worry about floods. However, once the sun goes down there is a whole other set things to worry about.
“Were These The ‘Richest’ People In Human History?”
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/were-these-richest-people-human-history
Augustus Caesar, $4.6 trillion. Righteous bucks…
Operation Rampdown: Leaked official Covid ‘exit plan’ to dismantle key measures including self-isolation, mass testing and Test and Trace by early next year
Britain’s Covid response set to be dramatically scaled back early next year
It’s part of a secret Whitehall pandemic ‘exit strategy’ codenamed Rampdown
The 160-page plan is in Government documents leaked to The Mail on Sunday
‘Britain will have to learn to live with Covid as an ‘endemic’ illness for many years’
Free Covid testing to be scrapped for everyone under ‘Rampdown’ plans
No more self-isolation for those testing positive when laws expire in March
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10198985/Operation-Rampdown-Codename-revealed-Government-papers-dismantle-key-Covid-measures-year.html
Yay.
/semi-Zoidberg
It’s like they don’t even know how to authoritarian.
*Australia nods*
Well there is Venice, where the water has been rising for hundreds of years. Because the land is sinking. But that must be all about climate change, too.
What? A stone building on a mud foundation isn’t stable?
There are no silly questions only silly people
Guilty as charged, M’lud.
“Millennials own nothing because the economy screwed us over for 25 years”
IT’S NOT FAAAAAAAAIR!!!
I wonder what those people have to say about the millennials out there doing the adult thing and being fairly successful at it. I know gobs of people like that. Sure, most are in more debt than they should be, but it’s not like there isn’t some substantial percentage of millennials actually living life like adults.
More:
“my mother wanted me to go into a respectable, high-paying, stable profession, such as a lawyer, accountant, or perhaps a high-ranking corporate position.”
Mom sounds sensible.
“Instead, I am a writer on a freelance income with student loan debt that will wreck my finances once repayment provisions begin again in 2022.”
Because someone held a gun to your head and forced you to choose a low-paying profession?
“The economy is stacked against millennials”
Ummmm…no, you stacked it against yourself by not learning marketable skills.
“Rent control, controls on house-flipping that artificially increases the cost of land and rent, and even climate justice that would prevent devastating fires would give millennials peace of mind when it comes to securing housing.”
Aaaaaaand there it is. 2+2 = Communism. What’s the capital of Vermont? Communism. What are the three normal states of matter? Communism, communism and communism. It’s the answer to everything!
Learn to code dipshit.
This is the actual correct answer
In that case, they shouldn’t have a capital – just a commune.
“I am a writer on a freelance income”
A few weeks back, I was exchanging e-mails with someone about pursuing a writing career. I told them that it was VERY difficult to achieve a position where you could earn a living by writing alone (fiction or non-fiction). I looked up a couple of people (David McCullouch was one, I forget the other) to give this student an example. Even though I knew the general backstory, I was surprised at how relatively late in life it was before these guys – who make a ton of money now – were able to drop their other jobs and do nothing but write.
Starting out as a free-lance, and expecting to make a decent living at it, seems wildly optimistic.
The majority of humans can’t face reality. They go through life pretending the world is what they wish is was instead of what it is.
No one is more afflicted by this than the youthful. Reality hasn’t had enough chances to slap sense into them yet. Even then most people don’t get it.
“White House tries to pivot messaging on economy”
Yeah, it’s the *messaging* that’s bad. You’re just not explaining correctly to the rubes how higher prices, shortages and unemployment are actually good things.
Let go, Brandon!
That sums up this presidency, and leftism in general at this point. All hat, no cattle.
Messaging is all they got, as that is all they understand.
Pay no attention to that man (and his openly stated policy goals) right in front of you
Increasing the global supply of crude oil would lower prices. But U.S. presidents don’t have a direct way to do this. American oil companies answer to shareholders and owners, not to the government.
Unlike most members of OPEC, the powerful cartel that has direct influence over oil production, “we don’t have a national oil company with spare capacity to bring to market,” Book notes.
So whereas, say, the king of Saudi Arabia can just decide to pump more or less oil, the president doesn’t have that option.
What this country needs is to nationalize the energy industry.
It is just a coincidence that I was paying $1.70 per gallon 2 years ago and now it is between $3.50 and $7.00 per gallon under Biden’s policies. Just coincidence.
Must be one of those ‘run of bad luck’ events that Obama talked about.
*I was stunned to hear him say that. At first I thought it was just another way for him to give us the finger but upon reflection it occurred to me that he has probably never even heard the name Heinlein. What a malicious, ignorant asshole.
I filled up last Thursday and noticed that my regular (89 octane) gas was the same price as the diesel – $3.47 per gallon. In 2019, the gas was $1.87 and the diesel $2.30.
Allowing pipelines, honoring drilling leases, and increasing refinery capacity would go a long way towards dropping prices. Less than a damn year ago we were self-sufficient for Christ’s sake.
‘Self-sufficient’ is a term that makes leftists turn beet red in the face and steam come out of their ears. Of course they squandered it.
Woodchippers I say. They can go a long way to solving a lot of problems.
“There you go again”
See, those are the causes, not the solutions. OPEC is gouging us, that’s the problem
/sarc
https://archive.md/GbouG/9c5aa2ec6221cbacd747f7529f450e4136bb67ed.webp
Aryan babes for my shitlordz on Slutty Sunday.
https://archive.md/esJ3W
Yard work time.
Learn to code dipshit.
Stocking shelves in a shoe store sounds like her highest value slot in the economy, assuming she can get them properly ordered by size.
I think that would put her on a management track at our local big-box shoe retailers.
The Al Buddy plan.
You know what they say: what’s the one thing in common in all your failed relationships?
https://www.thesun.co.uk/dear-deidre/16714884/make-a-relationship-work-in-real-life/
That’s funny ’cause that’s what my son admitted a few years ago. The common thread.
Nobody in the oil industry misses the irony of this moment: Major world leaders are calling for oil use to drop dramatically in the years ahead, to reduce the catastrophic impacts of human-caused climate change.
But in the near term, Biden and other leaders are desperate for energy prices, and eagerly welcome the prospect of increasing oil production.
A true leader would just tell his people the hard truth. Freezing in the dark is their duty. Anyone who objects is an enemy of the Regime.
“On his lucky day, everything that goes wrong in the car is his fault. The affronted family are happily then leagued against the diabolical offender in their midst.”
Sounds like my development team.
I had a friend who used to say, “Who’s not here? We’ll blame him.”
It’s a disability.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/showbiz/dancing-ices-liberty-poole-says-25452175
I don’t think it is her boobs getting in the way so much as all the silicone in her lips.
Sunday doge
https://pasteboard.co/kc80dYtzUhZp.jpg
They cant make coffee or cook. They make a slave out of you, yet they are much better company than most humans.
Speaking of slavery I have to get up now nd walk across the house to let a couple of them in. I think I have worn a rut in the ceramic tile walking across the house to let dogs in, let dogs out, let dogs in, let dog out….
Great expression!
Ravioli in a 2 MIchelin Star Tuscan Restaurant with Gaetano Trova – Arnolfo **
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAa_Tzs3Hog
Thank you sir, I’m about 3 minutes in and hooked already.
OH BABY!! Wee pyramids filled with onion marm, topped with a saffron cream sauce and garnished with saffron pistils.
carbs though. no keto
q-ette news:
She’s been saying her first word a lot since uttering it yesterday (Yaddy) when I come into a room; much to Mrs. Q’s chagrin as I “won” (I always did have a way with the ladies).
She’s also completely uninterested in cuddles or toys, all she wants to do is pull herself up and try to walk. She’s taking after Dad in that way since, as my Mom recounts frequently, I started running (not walking) at 8 months. I didn’t learn to stop without crashing into something for another month.
She’s getting her top two teeth after having the bottom two for a while. Solid foods are still a struggle, she seems to only want bottles. She’s also 100% going to be a redhead, something she has to be getting from Mrs. Q’s Dad; he was a redhead before he went bald (Mrs. Q is blonde and I’m (((swarthy))) ).
Not that anyone here cares about any of that, but it’s the primary thing in my life right now.
Mazel tov! I can feel the nachus from here.
We can’t tell yet whether ours is a redhead or not. In the sun, it has a slight reddish hue, but it may end up light brown. It’s gonna be curly like mine, I think.
Has q-ette taken a liking to books yet?
She likes hearing us read to her. Can’t tell if she’s following along or not, but I think she likes listening to us. We always try to read a story before bed.
Excellent. We read to our kids every night as well. Even after she was reading like a fiend, my daughter still liked my wife to read to her.
It’s great for the kids. I’m glad you are enjoying these times.
Wonderful. Enjoy all of it Q.
They like the rhythms and sound of the voice. Even when they don’t understand, they like being able to predict what happens next – the picture on the next page, the change in cadence in the voice. It helps provide a constant in a confusing world.
Your links do the same for me.
“…it’s the primary thing in my life right now”
And will be for the rest of your life.
Congratulations. Rearing a child will help you grow more than you know now. In a few years you will be a completely different person, a much better one.
Don’t have an immediate link – via Twitter but apparently Belarus is actively importing migrants from the middle east via their airlines and herding them to the Polish border where they’re supplying them with various materiel (cs gas even?).
https://twitter.com/pmakela1/status/1459868600639053826?t=aXfx6m2ZeooF-Hvzgu_Vew&s=19
Pardon my complete ignorance of the current situation, but to what end? Why would Belarus do this?
Cannon fodder?
The entire nation-state of Belarus is an ongoing international criminal conspiracy.
I think I have this right… I remember the president of Belarus being some kind of strong man dictator type in the mold of ‘ol Adolf.
I dont get it either, not knowing details about their relations. Russian collusion?
To destabilize the EU. The fact that Brussels hates the current Polish government for not wanting to be a vassal of the Eurocrats is a plus in this situation as Brussels and the usual parasite NGOs are criticizing Warsaw for not handling it correctly.
Nobody in the media, of course, seems to be asking how these “refugees” are winding up in Belarus. How many other countries would they have to go through to get there? And can they really be unsafe if the Belarusian military is actively escorting them to the Polish border?
It’s reminiscent of those “convoys” in Mexico that the US media don’t want to do any critical thinking about.
“To destabilize the EU[…]It’s reminiscent of those “convoys” in Mexico that the US media don’t want to do any critical thinking about”
It’s not really a conspiracy theory to say that the usual globalist, lefty billionaire suspects (Soros et. al.) are responsible for this through their NGO puppets. What I don’t get is the endgame. So they want to destroy Western Civilization; but why? To make more money? To try and create a global serf/slave class? It seems very naive to me unless their goal is World War III because if you completely destabilize the Western World that would seem to me to be the inevitable result.
NB: I’m not discounting that they do want to start WWIII to cull the population, just trying to get clarity on the issue.
They’ve been threatening to cut off the Russian natgas that’s piped through too as retaliation against the Poles and Germans raising hell and the Russians are getting pissed. If they aren’t careful they’re going to end up being Russia’s newest oblast. They’ll tolerate what’s his face as a somewhat embarrassing relation but he’ll get his ass handed to him if he starts getting too stupid and forgets his place.
Unless Belarus is the Russians’ stalking horse.
There’s a pipeline going through Belarus? I know Ukraine was trying to take natgas from the pipeline going through their country, and the whole point of Nordstream 2 was to go under the Baltic and obviate going through Ukraine.
Yep
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russian-gas-flows-via-yamal-pipeline-germany-rise-over-weekend-2021-11-14/
One of life’s greatest pleasures: having a beer at 9 am on a Sunday watching soccer.
For that reason, I enjoy Boxing Day more than Christmas.
I hate being in the millennial generation. Boo fucking hoo you graduated high school or college ran off to the big city where the cost of living is inflated from the policies you advocated for then you cry about being poor and blame it on the “boomers”. Individual responsibility is a thing of the past.
I know squirrels are annoying but this might be taking it a bit far.
https://metro.co.uk/2021/11/14/mutilated-squirrels-found-tied-together-and-hanging-from-pole-in-kent-15596715/
Ok then. If they are nuisance, and they are, then. you cull them with a pellet to the head. This kind of wanton cruelty is the work of a sadist. Such monsters rarely stop with just squirrels IYKWIMAITYD.
They need to find that person. Bring cadaver dogs.
Yikes. Serial killer in the making.
^^. Probably some 15 year olds in the crawlspace and a clown costume in the closet.
I’d start with hairy gents. They’re usually responsible for running amok in Kent.
?
Pellet to the head. In England. Are you gonna throw the pellet at the squirrel? Cause England don’t tolerate those things with barrels and triggers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTvS9lvRxZ8
Good morning, Old Man!
Tundra- Aussie doggy update up-thread!!
Amazing! I can’t believe they kept him!
Thanks, KK. That’s a day brightener!
People keep talking about inflation being Biden’s problem. It’s our problem, but to him the problem is getting people to shut up about it and accept it, just like everything else he does. Gas prices are high by design, and as long as he gets his wish list items I’m sure he’s fine with inflation too.
Of course he is fine with it. Inflation, that is by the proper definition of the word – inflating the money supply – devalues the dollar. He is doing it deliberately to make our debts easier to pay off. That we are getting fucked by it is of no concern to him or any of the other apparatchiks cuz fuck you. He hates the deplorables. That this punishes Trump voters is just the cherry on top for the left.
NB: I’m not discounting that they do want to start WWIII to cull the population, just trying to get clarity on the issue.
It doesn’t have to make sense, if you’re crazy.