362 Comments

  1. Brochettaward

    CNN is launching a streaming service. How delusional can they be.

    • Brochettaward

      This is not a First.

      • Not Adahn

        Of course not, no formatting.

      • Brochettaward

        You know nothing of the Art Of The First.

      • Not Adahn

        Die Kunst Der Erste has been out of copyright for centuries.

      • Ted S.

        I believe you’re calling Bro a female first.

      • Evan from Evansville

        Die is the feminine article for Kunst. Hilariously, ‘girl’ is given the neuter ‘das.’ I’m glad English doesn’t truck with that shit.

      • Not Adahn

        I blame Bach.

      • Bobarian LMD

        I think he called him a cunt?

      • JaimeRoberto (shama/lama/ding dong)

        I think the Erste should be in the genative case, so it should be Die Kunst des Erste.

      • Aloysious

        This is not a First.

        So let me make sure I understand this situation. This is the First ‘not a First’.

        Hmm. This is the first time I’ve run across this.

    • Not Adahn

      Money laundering operation.

      • AlexinCT

        CNN’s money comes from an incestuous arrangement with social media where they have AI (read fucking junk programming) that always peddles links to these lefty propaganda sites for everything, regardless of how vacuous and stupid the shit the left peddles is and how much better content is elsewhere. If I recall correctly CNN gets over 100 million hits a month on their website because of this corrupt shit. That’s where they make their money.

      • WTF

        I would guess they also make a lot of money from fees from cable providers.

      • Not Adahn

        Remember the Steele Dossier was only in the mainstream media because Buzzfeed wrote about it, and the initial stories were all “Buzzfeed reports that…” and then they all circular-cited each other.

        This new streaming service can serve the function for injecting propaganda without the “respectable” CNN having to take the blame.

      • AlexinCT

        That dossier was in the news because the US intel apparatus got the OK from the outgoing Obama administration to weaponize the thing – which they ALL knew came from the Clintons and the DNC – as a means to run a PR campaign to soft coupe a president that had been elected by a public that had voted in margins large enough to overcome the rigging they had done for Hillary.

        The media did this willingly, knowing full well it was all lies, because the powers that be are owned and operated by the crime syndicate.

    • Sean

      If I wanted to pay to see whores, I’d sign up for onlyfans – not CNN+.

      • Not Adahn

        Hey! Potato fetishists need porn too!

      • Bobarian LMD

        Stelterriffic!

      • Rebel Scum

        You don’t have to pay for that. Pr0nHub exists.

  2. AlexinCT

    Biden uses tornado tragedy to push climate agenda

    Totalitarians will blame everything bad on the fact we won’t let them implement a harder/harsher totalitarian system..

    For whatever reason…

    • juris imprudent

      If you kulaks and wreckers would go along with the program we would never ever have bad weather again!

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        Oxygen, it’s what plants crave.

      • Tres Cool

        I thought it was CO2.

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        No CO2 is what’s destroying the environment ergo Oxygen is what all living things need.

      • Rat on a train

        What about love?

      • Tres Cool

        I would do anything for it, but I wont do that.

      • Chafed

        +1 super hot woman in the video

      • Rat on a train

        Emergency dictatorial powers are necessary. They will only use the powers for good and swear they will relinquished the powers when the emergency has passed.

      • WTF

        They will only use the powers for good and swear they will relinquished the powers when the emergency has passed.

        Just like Covid.

      • rhywun

        I laffed.

    • Rebel Scum

      “The terrorists hate us for our freedoms. So we are going to remove our freedoms.”

  3. cyto

    Wallace to CNN….. After his performance as a debate moderator, I would argue he was already there….

    • AlexinCT

      He should always have been there. He belongs with the peddlers of falsehoods and child molesters.

  4. Not Adahn

    Which poison mimics a stroke? I’m guessing warfarin or thallium could actually cause one.

    • UnCivilServant

      Isn’t warfarin a blood thinner? Isn’t that going to prevent strokes?

      • Not Adahn

        I thought that if you took too much it increased the chance of internal bleeding. Surely a doc here knows.

      • UnCivilServant

        That then raises the question of what counts as a stroke, because I was of the understanding that a brain hemmorage was not.

      • TARDis

        A brain bleed is pretty bad too, I’d say. Watched a co-worker with a a horrifying BP spike have one.

      • UnCivilServant

        I was delving into semantics for the sake of arguing.

        Both can kill you right dead or leave you with brain damage.

      • Sean

        I was delving into semantics for the sake of arguing.

        *shocked face*

        That never happens here.

      • ron73440

        I was delving into semantics for the sake of arguing.

        I came here for an argument!

        No you didn’t.

      • TARDis

        Both can kill you right dead or leave you with brain damage.

        Much like our favorite political parties.

      • Not Adahn

        TW CDC, so they could have changed the definiton on Friday.

        A hemorrhagic stroke happens when an artery in the brain leaks blood or ruptures (breaks open). The leaked blood puts too much pressure on brain cells, which damages them.

      • Shpip

        An ischemic stroke occurs when a blood vessel supplying the brain becomes blocked, as by a clot. A hemorrhagic stroke occurs when a blood vessel bursts, leaking blood into the brain.

        Unsure from the article which one Assange allegedly had.

      • AlexinCT

        Whichever one the drugs the people wanting to get revenge on him for exposing the corruption of the military-industrial complex or the democrat party gave him?

  5. Tonio

    “Democrat President Joe Biden is reportedly holding off on delivering military assistance to Ukraine as Russia prepares for what many experts believe is a likely invasion that could happen at any moment.”

    Dilemma. Once the hostilities start, if we so much as offload an MRAP for them we’re a silent partner in the war and will be expected to ramp up support. If we don’t, we look like big, giant pussies who are caving to Russia.

    Possible unintended domestic benefit to Putin’s actions: we may hear certain people STFU about collusion with Russia during previous administrations.

    • Not Adahn

      Nah, OMB gave away Ukraine to his buddy Vlad and then tied Biden’s hands.

      Just like inflation and covid.

      • Not Adahn

        And Afghanistan. And Global Warming. And China. And the JFK assassination. And the death of Rock.

      • Pope Jimbo

        The Rock is dead?

        Now there won’t be an Race to Witch Mountain 2?!?!?!

      • AlexinCT

        Fuck The Rock…

        I watched that for Carla Cugino

      • juris imprudent

        So how many copies of this would be found in the Alex household?

      • ron73440

        I tried to read the book, it was so boring I quit, this might have been the beginning of the end of my Stephen King fandom.

        Not sure how you make a good movie from it.

      • DEG

        It’s analogous to how GWB was to blame for everything bad during the Obama administration.

        Same old, same old.

    • Drake

      Holding out for his 10% for the Big Guy.

    • AlexinCT

      Are you still unconvinced that as is the case with everything criminal/evil that the left accuses the other side of being engaged in that these people are in bed with the Russians? If so, I remind you about the pipeline Biden approved, after cancelling the one here at home that would help the US’ goal of being/remaining energy independent, of all things, that circumvented the current problem they have with their other gas/oil pipeline to Europe: that it goes through the Ukraine and would be a disaster for the Russians if they ended up losing it and the coin it brings to their coffers. The new pipeline avoids the Ukraine, and thus allows Russia to level the place without having to worry about losing desperately needed coin from the European fuckwads. And Biden approved it despite the fact he was briefed of what that pipeline meant to stability of Eastern Europe and Russian adventurism…..

    • R.J.

      Also aren’t we dependent on Russian oil now? Can’t bite the hand that feeds…

  6. Shpip

    “All I know is that the intensity of the weather across the board has some impacts as a consequence of the warming of the planet and climate change,” Biden said. “The specific impact on these specific storms, I can’t say at this point.”

    In April 1974, the Super Outbreak created over 148 tornadoes from Alabama to Ontario, killing over 300 people. Pop theory at the time: global cooling and the oncoming Ice Age.

    • rhywun

      We just need to get the balance right – four or five trillion dollars ought to cover it.

      • juris imprudent

        And driving the mass of people into abject poverty so they must rely on govt handouts to survive.

      • rhywun

        Win-win!

    • robc

      I remember the April 3rd tornadoes. It is one of my earlier memories.

      I think this had more direct hits in KY, but that was bad too.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Circa 1970, Brandenburg got leveled and the tornado then tracked across the Ohio and fucked up a lot of Indiana.

        The tornado was probably worse than what hit Mayfield, just less people affected.

      • robc

        I don’t know, the Mayfield was EF-5 and stayed on the ground for over 200 miles, so there may not have been a worse tornado.

      • Bobarian LMD

        I had heard EF4 on Saturday, but they were still evaluating.

        My eye inspection was that it was almost as bad as the Greenburg KS tornado from 2007.

      • R C Dean

        There was a very powerful tornado that went through my town when I was in high school in the late ’70s – I don’t recall specifics, but I think it was an E4 at least. I also recall that it stayed on the ground (or close enough) for many miles. I don’t know about 200, but 75 at least.

  7. R C Dean

    Ah, the old “pull doctors and nurses out of their jobs in one hospital to put them in another hospital” solution to shortages of doctors and nurses. Genius!

    • Not Adahn

      We’ll know that hospitals are overwhelmed when bored nurses have to resort to producing elaborate musical numbers. To deal with the stress of being overwhelmed, of course. And also bored.

      • Bobarian LMD

        When they activate the local NG, that is what happens as well.

    • Rat on a train

      What? They don’t have day jobs working as baristas?

    • rhywun

      Blame it on the unclean in NY, ME, etc.

    • The Last American Hero

      If they would take 5 minutes to stop self-narrating, there would be no shortage of medical personnel.

    • DEG

      As far as I’ve been able to tell, the NH guards-folk aren’t medical personnel and are helping with things like cleaning/turning over rooms/paperwork processing.

    • Rebel Scum

      “We’ll make up for it in volume.” …

  8. PieInTheSky

    Fordham University professor fired after mixing up names of two black students – our classes in various levels of school were 100% Romanian whitey and still teachers confused names

    • Not Adahn

      I remember a section of War and Peace where the characters were having trouble matching the given names with patronyms of people they had met. It made me feel a little better about myself.

    • Drake

      You people all look alike!

    • Tres Cool

      2 be fair, they were both “Rufus”.

      /blames it on the fever

    • Brochettaward

      Did your teachers send out long winded rambling apologies after in which they argued they should be forgiven for their sin because of all the great works they had done for the white race?

      • Tres Cool

        “…. because of all the great works they had done for the white race?”

        But enough about Margaret Sanger.

  9. Not Adahn

    There is no TV section in the forums, so I put the Expanse S6 post under “movies.” Because the special effects of that show are better than a 20th C. movie.

    • rhywun

      FWIW, I started S04 last night.

      • Not Adahn

        Yay!

        I liked all the seasons. S4 is different in that it’s primarily planetbound.

      • Bobarian LMD

        My favorite SF show ever. This is the last season Amazon is doing… Don’t know if the books proceed further?

      • ron73440

        There’s a lot more going on in the books.

        I really like the show, if I had never read the books I would probably enjoy it even more.

  10. AlexinCT

    I had a huge revelation this weekend while out hiking that I want to share with you all. I am sure you Glibs have heard about the new WH campaign to push the media into giving Biden and the donkeys more positive media than they already have been giving, especially after that Milbank joke of an article about how the media is tougher on Biden than it is/was on Trump, and the media’s response to it. And that’s where my revelation came from. Today’s political class, be it the members of the bureaucracy and/or the crime syndicalists that supposedly get voted into office, doesn’t respond with action to solve said problems plaguing the people they are supposed to be representing when the problems are encountered, but instead resorts to actions to manage the PR around such problems/issues. Instead of investing time to actually identify the root cause(s) of a problem, through analytics, logic, and reasoning, (and I think this is at the root of why they can’t ever solve problems because if you misidentify cause nothing you do works unless you are absolutely lucky as shit) to then work on solving it, their reaction is to ALWAYS do massive amounts of PR work to pretend the problem is caused by whatever agenda they peddle or doesn’t exist. Think about that.

    We have massive inflation? Don’t stop printing/borrowing government money to buy votes and enrich your pals! Instead pretend there is not inflation. When caught lying switch over to saying it is transitory! And when that bullshit fails to find traction with anyone but the dumbest marxists, finally admit it is there but tell the fucking yokels that inflation is actually not a bad but a good thing, because of the ludicrous claim that is exactly the reverse of reality that it hurts the ultra rich and government, but not the poor guy!

    Crime is out of control? It HAS to be because these poor people doing this are panicked that not everyone is vaccinated, or the issue is exaggerated by racists that want to pick on minorities stealing appropriating expensive sneakers & athletic wear, Gucci handbags, jewelry, or drugs and other items attractive to criminal entities, not because they are criminal entities, but because they are hungry! I would love the see the recipes they use for Handbag soup or sneaker soufflé.

    And so on. After 4 years of bullshit negative PR based on lie after lie to make the annoying bad orange man look like the antichrist for winning the election they had rigged for the hag now out and crying about how she was robbed of her destiny, for a price on some education site of all things, we have had close to a full year of idiotic PR that is intended to distract you from the disastrous and destructive things these criminals are doing to the country as they use an overblown pandemic as an excuse to reset us all into a new form of serfdom.

    They don’t want to fix problems. They want to manage your opinions of those problems so they can keep using the problems when it seems convenient to move the unwashed masses to accept whatever bullshit they want to do in the pretend name of fixing problems.

    • AlexinCT

      Damn, that strikeout was only supposed to strike out the word “stealing”. Sorry ladies.

      • Festus

        Works for me!

      • TARDis

        Can you say the magic words that summon the edit fairy?

      • AlexinCT

        HEPL?

    • Not Adahn

      I would love the see the recipes they use for Handbag soup or sneaker soufflé.

      Well that’s the thing with luxury leather goods — there’s lots of good meat left behind on it.

    • EvilSheldon

      This is completely normal. Bureaucrats never think in terms of, ‘How can I solve the problem?’, rather, ‘How can I maintain my position?’

      • invisible finger

        “And increase my budget?”

      • db

        I have a good friend who is a social worker and currently manages a non-state contractor for social services. He says the way it is set up in PA is that outcomes are not even measured, only “units of treatment delivered.”

        So you can figure out what that incentivizes.

  11. PieInTheSky

    I am unsure Putin will benefit much from an all out attack on Ukraine

    • Festus

      Neither he nor his people will. This is ginned-up bullshit pushed by the neos. They want a war or a reasonable facsimile of one. Whomever thought that pushing NATO up against the Russian frontier was sound foreign policy had shit for brains to start with. So much stupid.

    • wdalasio

      From the news I’ve seen, Putin has been offering up different alternatives for a peaceful resolution on Ukraine for the last year or so.

    • AlexinCT

      This is thick…

      • Festus

        I still remember terms such as “svelte” and “trim”. I suppose my ideals of female beauty have aged out like my poor old prostate. Too bad.

      • Animal

        I remember when people valued correct spelling.

      • Festus

        I still remember terms such as “svelte” and “trim”. I suppose my ideals of female beauty have aged out like my poor old prostate. Too bad.

      • UnCivilServant

        No, those are still the ideals. Don’t let anyone try to tell you otherwise.

      • Festus

        See! Had to deal with the job twice when once used to do!

      • Not Adahn

        “willowy”

    • JaimeRoberto (shama/lama/ding dong)

      She looks like she could be the daughter of the dwarf in Game of Thrones.

  12. Shpip

    I have a feeling that this will rustle some jimmies.

    • PieInTheSky

      The more important question what do glibs think of the new hairdo

      • Fourscore

        His Mom cuts his hair? Fourscore remembers

      • rhywun

        It’s very Teutonic. Bond villain confirmed.

      • rhywun

        LOL

    • robodruid

      Not a horrible choice.

    • Festus

      At least it’s not “Evil Pippi”!

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Shes a cutie

    • The Last American Hero

      As a former Time Person of the Year, I say “Welcome to the Club, Elon!”

    • Trigger Hippie

      TLDR Version:

      The media shouldn’t protect him because he hasn’t Progged hard enough yet…also, Trump’s fault.

    • rhywun

      It is amazing they can write that steaming pile of dogshit with a straight face.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Lizza is correct. Blind fealty to heads of state is the hallmark of dictatorships, not democracies. If democracy was measured along those lines, we’d be looking to Equatorial Guinea for guidance, not Joe Biden. How does it profit democracy to give Biden a pass on, say, overselling the insulin price reductions in the Build Back Better bill? Accountability is central to any cause of democracy. When Jen Psaki rudely mocks the idea of sending free rapid tests to every American, any defender of democracy—keenly aware of the public need and the potential to revive such civic spirits—would and should offer a riposte.

        That is one hell of a straw man.

    • Rebel Scum

      Use the media to prop up a failed regime even more than it already does…Seems legit…

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      They’re panicking because they are not proving themselves useful enough to the regime and will soon be shuffled off or replaced.

    • Rat on a train

      The rule prohibiting transforming into a bat really limits the maximum height.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Remember when Trans Helsing snuck into the meet with a giant stake as a supposed woman pole vaulter and took out half of Romania’s Olympic team?

      • AlexinCT

        He, erm she, took them out? Like on a date?

    • Sean

      I’m more of a pole vault aficionado.

      #TeamGherca

    • robc

      You aren’t really a high jumper until you have cleared your own height.

  13. PieInTheSky

    A family said they missed out on their monthly Universal Credit payment because they receive their wages every four weeks rather than monthly.

    Mark Davies, his partner Lynette and their daughter Sophie live in a council house in Fairwater, Cardiff, and receive Universal Credit because the woman is unable to work due to fibromyalgia, diabetes and severe arthritis.

    Sophie, 28, is also unable to work due to mental health issues.

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/we-missed-out-universal-credit-25676573

    Now I assume this is sad for the family but damn some people probably should not have children…

    • Sean

      I dunno. They look well fed. Skipping a meal or two might do them some good.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Somebody’s got to pay for that shitty hair cut and dye job.

      • Festus

        Getting paid to eat bon-bons is its own circle of hell. When I was a young man we took being on unemployment insurance as a given. We partied and such but we were as active as fuck. Sports, hiking, fishing and skiing all the time. It was the culture that we grew up with. The cool guys worked half the year and had fun for the remainder. It was a terrible lesson but rampant back in the 70’s and 80’s.

      • Fourscore

        It was a way of life on the Iron Ranges, a garden and a cow and unemployment were all we needed. That’s why most of the kids in my generation left a soon as they could.

    • ron73440

      That family reminds me of “Lazy Larry”.

      He worked for my mom and was very careful not to work enough to lower his welfare payments.

      His wife was on disability as were both of his kids and they were very happy when the 16yo daughter got pregnant because the payments went up.

  14. Jerms

    Im in long island Got email from my gym saying vaxxed or not everyone must mask up. Just paid for 3 months the other day so I went in to try and get refund for 2 of them. Girl said she needs to talk to owner.
    Next closest gym said proof of vax or mask up.
    Gym thats 20 minutes away said “the rule is proof of vax or mask but we arent asking anyone to show us any medical records.” This is the best gym and the only one with a sauna anyway. Win-win.

    • pistoffnick

      “…one with a sauna anyway…”

      JUST DON’T RUB THE JAMAICANS IN THE SAUNA THE WRONG WAY!

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        It’s not the Jamaicans you have to worry about. It’s the racist Nigerians.

      • AlexinCT

        Is Jussie the first American that scammed a couple of Nigerians and scored one against the scammers?

      • Necron 99

        You have to give him credit for giving black people roles that were traditionally filled by white guys.

      • UnCivilServant

        You should probably avoid people from Queens anyway.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I didn’t assault that Jamaican! I Marley touched him at all!

    • Urthona

      I’m in Texas and no masks for almost a year now.

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        Hey it’s cheap altitude training.

      • Drake

        My gym owner put up some mask signs around the gym to satisfy the authorities while never once wearing one himself. Working out while wearing a mask has to be the dumbest thing ever.

      • Pope Jimbo

        C’mon man! Dumbest thing ever?

        What about mandating masks for high school athletes because games are live streamed?

        Since games resumed Jan. 14, some athletes have played at times with face masks below their nose or mouth, sometimes resting on their chin. While spectator attendance is limited by COVID-19 guidelines to no more than 150 people in gyms and rinks, many livestreamed games reach considerably bigger audiences.

        All about the SCIENCE!

      • rhywun

        +1 mask-up when the cameras are on

        What a fucking joke.

        Have any of these idiots noticed that nobody’s wearing a muzzle in pro sports? (Well, except for the help, as usual.)

      • Pope Jimbo

        I sweat like a pig. Mandatory masking would have ended my career in high school sports. I would have been self-waterboarding.

    • Festus

      .Hopefully nekkid, coed sauna!

      • Rat on a train

        It’s trans-coed for you.

      • AlexinCT
    • DEG

      Gym thats 20 minutes away said “the rule is proof of vax or mask but we arent asking anyone to show us any medical records.” This is the best gym and the only one with a sauna anyway. Win-win.

      Excellent.

    • Tundra

      Good deal!

      I’m glad you found one. I finally invested in the equipment for my house, but I do miss the sauna!

  15. AlexinCT

    I just read this revelation on the problems that Pfizer recorded about their vaccine and immediately found a huge problem with the thing which seems to be put together to scare people that lack the ability to do statistics/math. While the article tells you there were adverse effects and even deaths, it never mentions what the percentage of incidents is as part of the whole or if these incidents have been cleared of noise. If I have 160K incidents and 1223 deaths – WORLDWIDE – as part of hundreds of millions of people getting that shit shot, statistically these numbers are at best noise or unavoidable effects (nothing we humans make is 100% failsafe). Worse yet, how certain are you that those 1223 deaths are really caused by the shot and not coincidental?

    I took the first 2 shots because I the lacked good data and the fact that I had taken so many other vaccines without any consequences left me to believe it was a good gamble. I don’t plan to get any boosters, because the reality is that the vaccines don’t work as advertised, and it is now to me looking like this thing is a racket to make the pharma industry billions and help the resetters keep their criminal enterprise moving forward. That having been said, articles like this that peddle information in a vacuum without all the needed information to provide the user with real insight are not much better than the panic porn from the left about not getting the vaccine. Don’t fall for this shit please.

    • Sean

      If you don’t get the boosters, you’re literally killing people and the lock downs are all your fault.

      Also, wear your mask – forever.

      -msm

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I would point you to the list of adverse effects the FDA knew were coming prior to the release of the vaccine.

      https://informedchoicewa.org/news/fda-slide-16-table-2-everything-being-reported-to-vaers/

      Steve Kirsch has done great work on the statistical analysis of the shot side effects, and his results generally show that the risk/benefit calculation does not justify the treatments for any age group and for younger ages they are absolutely dangerous.

      https://www.skirsch.io/vaccine-resources/

      • Jerms

        Yes Steve has been great he’s doing Gods work. If the numbers he is coming up with as far as vaccine injuries are only half right—then we are truly fucked. Well not me, but a lotta people who are lining up for shot after shot after shot are.

    • Drake

      Yep – they purposefully release snippets of incomplete data – good or bad – without all the information needed to do real risk analysis. Makes me very suspicious.

      “The FDA says it may take until 2096 to release all 451,000 pages it used to approve Pfizer’s vaccine.”

      That’s when I’ll decide about the shot.

      • UnCivilServant

        If that’s the case we can simply pile the papers up, tie the FDA appovers to a stake atop it and burn it all.

        Approval recinded.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The FDA says it may take until 2096 to release all 451,000 pages it used to approve Pfizer’s vaccine.

      All you need to know about the “vaccines.”

      If the data were positive, they would be trumpeting it from the rooftops.

      • Festus

        There is no data.

      • AlexinCT

        ^^^THIS^^^

        I think the biggest problem is that there has not been enough time to get any serious data yet. That having been said, Pfizer not wanting to release the details is not at all ensuring. Reality is that there WILL be bad incidents. The question is how many people suffer that and what the risk vs. reward is for doing either.

        BTW, at this point, anyone that is 100% sure their choice – to take the vax, or not – was the right one is not operating from any place of facts/logic at all. You are basically making a choice based on your own fears/feelings, and backing into it by claiming you have made a logical decision.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        When evaluating a medical treatment, the cost-benefit analysis should be done prior to broad scale implementation.

        If you’re going to shotgun a solution, it should be done with established meds with established safety profiles.

        From the beginning of this, the default position of the bureaucracy has been to give preference to those treatments that provide the best cost/benefit to the pharmaceutical companies by choosing those treatments which are novel and expensive and lowering the risk to the corporations through the regulatory and legal process. It’s not only been the mRNA vaccines, but also treatments like remdesivir. Note that remdesivir also enjoys freedom from liability because it is only given with the approval of the NIH in a hospital setting during a public health emergency. Per the Prep Act of 2006, you cannot sue under those conditions.

        That said, we have lots of data on the mRNA shots now, and it’s not good. And it correlates well with the known mechanisms of damage from the spike protein (Salk Institute research) and the broad dispersal throughout the body (Harvard and Japanese research). It looks like a duck, it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck. I don’t need a double blind randomized study to establish that it is most likely a duck.

      • PutridMeat

        100%? No. I’m not 100% on much of anything other than the fact I’m a handsome, debonair individual. 99% sure? Absolutely.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        BTW, at this point, anyone that is 100% sure their choice – to take the vax, or not – was the right one is not operating from any place of facts/logic at all. You are basically making a choice based on your own fears/feelings, and backing into it by claiming you have made a logical decision.

        Was with you until this. When a novel medical intervention is proposed, it is the burden of the manufacturer to provide evidence of its efficacy and safety. No manufacturer has provided reliable data, so it is perfectly logical to reject the intervention given the reported risks of Covid. I don’t see how you can claim otherwise.

      • R C Dean

        Pretty much my thought, as well. The little bits of data that we do have are not exactly overwhelmingly persuasive. In an absence of information, its hard to say that ‘wait and see” isn’t a perfectly defensible, perhaps even correct, approach.

      • PutridMeat

        Agreed. In fact there’s an additional layer. I think I’ve arrived logically at the conclusion that, from a purely medical personal health standpoint, there is no compelling reason for me to take the vaccine. That’s fact based at least as far as I understand the facts and relates to both my personal risk/benefit as well as the larger societies risk/benefit – purely health/medical. But even further, given the outcome of that reasoning, I think there’s a further very important logically based reason to refuse the vaccine and that’s the pressured and mandated aspect of them.

        A society that will accept, nay embrace, forcing this on a population under threat of forced exclusion and ostricization is descending into evil and needs to be resisted and told NO! I suspect Alex doesn’t advocate mandates, but this is more general. That reason for not getting vaccinated is also rational, not fear or feelings based – well maybe to the degree that I fear authoritarian states, it’s fear based, but it’s a rational fear. I don’t think these are 2 distinct rational paths either – even if I concluded that I, or the larger society, would receive some benefit from my taking the vaccine, I might still refuse, still a perfectly rational decision. I can accept maybe slightly higher risk in the service of acting against a much greater risk of a large step toward authoritarianism in the long run. So it’s really just another factor that goes into the decision to get the vaccine or not. In a better world, we could make a purely risk-benefit analysis, weighing risk-benefit for the individual and for the individual+society on a purely medical basis. But we don’t live in that better world, and other factors must be integrated into the decision making process – RATIONALLY! Obviously, I wouldn’t cut off my nose to spite my face; if the risk/benefit on the medical side of things was clear and large, the totalitarian aspect would have less impact on my reasoning – nevermind the fact that, if the risk/benefit was clear, no sort of mandates would likely be necessary.

        So more briefly, No Alex – I’m not backing into thinking I’ve made a logical decision. I have made a logical decision based on everything I understand about the situation. Could I be wrong? Sure – but that’s a very different question.

      • Pope Jimbo

        What they are hoping to do with the mandates is make sure there is no data you can compare the vax against.

        Get that control group of unvaxxed down to 0 and there won’t be any pesky counter factual to The Narrative.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        ???

        They desperately want to remove the control groups.

      • invisible finger

        There is plenty of data. And it is all sloppy. If anyone outside the FDA got their hands on it, the incompetence would be impossible to hide and Pfizer’s stock would tank, and the FDA and CDC would have zero credibility, even with moron in the street.

        Reminds me of this scene with the General and his binders of data.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om081RGfzHg

      • db

        Imagine if this had happened under Trump or Bush, or Reagan. The media would be screaming their heads off about the deliberate stonewalling of the obviously corrupt government.

        There is one reason, and one reason only, to hide information like this, or like information on events in WWII and the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s–to cover up wrongdoing by the people in charge and to blunt and/or forestall public outrage until it can have no effect. It is the essence of irresponsive, unrepresentative rule by elites, not government by the people.

    • Festus

      Next Saturday I get my second dose of poison. I’m almost hoping that I have a bad reaction to it just to fuck with the covidiots.

    • Bobarian LMD

      The data for those 160K incidents come from the early first months “as of February 2021, when Pfizer’s shot was being rolled out worldwide on an emergency basis, the drugmaker had compiled more than 42,000 case reports detailing nearly 160,000 adverse reactions to the jab.”

      So the denominator isn’t reported and the number is likely much lower than “hundreds of millions of people” for that data set.

  16. Stinky Wizzleteats

    “ the Fordham University lecturer sent a nine-page email to students in his Composition II classes explaining the incident”

    When, WHEN, will they learn? Man are they gun shy.

    • UnCivilServant

      Nine pages is way too long. No notice was required, but at most it should have read

      “I see you little shits a few hours each week. Of course I don’t know your faces. Get over it.”

      • Not Adahn

        Were they also masked?

    • Festus

      I get ethnic people’s names wrong all of time. I just write it off as being old and addled. One browney looks much the same as any other. What? Am I not supposed to do that?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I’m just not good with names. I’d be screwed.

      • cyto

        I have the same problem. That is why I am not in sales…

        When I was in grad school on of my best friends was “that birdy looking chick” for the first 3 months I knew her because she was introduced to me by her first name the first time I met her at a class function, but goes by her middle name. Yeah, getting one name is a bit much to ask… Toss two in the mix? I have no chance.

      • Festus

        Masking must be social hell for you. I’ve been sorting people by height. weight, skin and hair color. It has not been optimal. Of course, I’m mask-less as much as I can manage. They know me, I don’t know them.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Hey man, hey bud, how’s it going, and other generic greetings seem to work pretty well.

      • cyto

        You really go around all day flagrantly risking listen seeing someone??

        Brave man in 2021!

        Person. Brave person.

        Dammit….

  17. The Late P Brooks

    Sorry for the mixup. You all look alike to me.

    • UnCivilServant

      They bit his face off!

    • AlexinCT

      When your idea of how nature works comes from Disney it will be skewed and dumb and have consequences. I suspect he thought the otters would let him fuck them and instead they reacted with anger at the attempted abuse…

      • Pope Jimbo

        Pullleeeeeeeeeze!

        Are you telling me that that fine documentary I watched about a lion who lived with a wart hog and meerkat without eating them was a lie?

      • AlexinCT

        The part about the hog having a fascination with burning gas and telling the other two stars were burning balls of gas certainly was a fantasy. Everyone knows plasma from fission is waaayyy beyond burning. Sheesh!

      • cyto

        In my youth we got to see great footage of natures apex predators on the hunt.

        Wild Kingdom was great! But they always cut from the takedown to the feast.

        At some point in the late 90s, someone decided to start showing the whole thing. The first one I saw was a pack of wolves taking down a big deer. They were tearing open the abdomen and eating the organs while it was still screaming. They basically showed the wolves eat the entire back half of the deer while it was still alive. It was a horror show.

        The same time period brought us footage of Orcas hunting seal pups. They ate their fill, then started playing with the pups. They would catch them and fling them dozens of feet in the air… Playing catch with their buddies. The aftermath was out of a horror movie… Blood red waves washing dozens and dozens of seal pup carcasses onto the shore. “Only man hunts for sport” put to the lie.

        That trend seems to have ended, from what I can tell. Back to sanitized violence.

      • UnCivilServant

        “Nature, red in tooth and claw,” comes and goes as a theme, trading with the disnified lie.

      • WTF

        Yeah, I saw one where a wolf pack spent an entire day cutting a Bison out of the herd, and running it to exhaustion then taking it down and eating the poor thing while it was still alive. Horrific stuff.

      • R C Dean

        I’ve had to help Pater Dean put down mother cows. The coyotes would come for them just after they gave birth. They would eat the afterbirth and then start on the cow, from the back end. The cows would still be alive when we checked the herd the next morning.

        And now you know why I hate coyotes, and will shoot every one I can. Which is irrational, I know. But some things leave a mark.

    • Tres Cool

      Maybe that guy ottered stay in his hotel.

  18. Rufus the Monocled

    In high school, we had two black sisters in one of our business/law classes. The teacher would sometimes pick on students for answers and one time he snapped and pointed to one of the black girls. “Heather?” The girl answered. “I’m Hazel. She’s Heather.” Yes, the reactions is what you’d expect in a movie.

    • Q Continuum

      HOLY SHIT IT’S RUFUS

      • Sean

        *shuffles papers, trying to look like I’m working*

      • Rufus the Monocled

        /ruffles Sean’s hair.

    • Festus

      We had two black girls in my class. Twins. Top that.

      • Q Continuum

        Penthouse Forum?

      • Tres Cool

        Their names werent “Lemon Jello” and “Orange Jello”.

        It was pronounce Lah’mahn-shello and Oh’rahn-shello.

      • Festus

        Normal names, Linda and Lisa. Army brats. Took me a few months to figure it out.

      • Rebel Scum

        “Porsche” and “Mercedes”.

      • Pope Jimbo

        How did you decide which girl’s hair you would touch?

        Because it is known that white people cannot resist touching the hair of black women.

        Fuck, even Harriet Tubman listed “white wimmen touching my hair” as her #1 gripe. And it was by a huge margin over #2 Slavery.

      • Festus

        There were many racist jokes that I laughed at and then felt the shame, later. Chocklit Twins was one. 13 year-olds can be very cruel. I even heard them referred to as “The Nigger Twins” once or twice but that didn’t gain much traction. We had four sets of twins attending our small high school. The dusky ones were nice girls. I can’t say the same for the white ones.

      • Tres Cool

        Tres Sr. would never, ever use the n-word, and if he heard it in his presence would lose his shit.

        However, dont ask him what Brazil Nuts are called. That rolls right off the tongue.

      • Fourscore

        My Dad was colorblind (in his demeanor)., he cursed out everyone equally. I learned a lot of my vocabulary from him.

        Any sentence that started with “god damn” and ended with “sonofabitch” was complete by his definition. Could inject anything in between.

        Sure do miss him.

      • Pope Jimbo

        What percentage of “racism” is simply young kids being their normal horrible selves? Like Festus says, there is a period where kids are just terrible beings that spend a lot of time establishing a pecking order by attacking others for the slightest of differences.

        Skin color is just an easy thing to attack someone else about.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        And how much of “woke” is just people being their normal horrible selves with moral justifications for their horrible behavior?

        If you want to control people, give them an excuse to hate and get rewarded for it.

  19. Rufus the Monocled

    So who’s new around here? Don’t want to step on anyone’s stinky toes.

    • AlexinCT

      You look vaguely familiar muppet man.. Do you work?

    • Q Continuum

      We think someone might be Elon Musk.

    • Translucent Chum

      Marc Bergevin has some free time.

    • db

      They’re all Tulpa.

    • juris imprudent

      Don’t want to step on anyone’s stinky toes.

      Are you sure you’re in the right place?

    • Dr. Fronkensteen

      Alas no new members. Our missionary work has been flagging.

  20. AlexinCT

    This is how you fucking troll these assholes: make the stupid shit they inflict on us hurt them personally.

    • Plisade

      I don’t think any politician’s use of humans in such a way is good. I realize it may just be rhetoric, but still, not a good look.

  21. Festus

    Ah, feck it! I need to eat and sleep someday. I’ve had a mere 6 beers and I’m trundling about like a head-heavy toddler. Have fun, Glibbies!

    • AlexinCT

      Night night Festus.

    • TARDis

      Sleep tight, Fes!

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Good night old man!

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Because he wears the crown (of thorns?).

  22. The Late P Brooks

    Rufus! My man!

  23. Certified Public Asshat

    My family is back to negative COVID status. I’m hanging in there.

    As Tres reported over the weekend, the aches/chills are no joke. My breathing has been fine throughout, but Christ almighty I couldn’t sleep from the achy feeling in my lower back and hips.

    I did also lose my taste and smell on Saturday though. Hopefully I don’t stink.

    • Pope Jimbo

      So did you take advantage of the loss of taste/smell and go win the local lutefisk eating competition?

      • AlexinCT

        Euphemism?

      • Certified Public Asshat

        I cleaned the cat box, the best I could do.

      • Pope Jimbo

        ^THAT^ is how you euphemism folks!

  24. The Late P Brooks

    There is plenty of data. And it is all sloppy. If anyone outside the FDA got their hands on it, the incompetence would be impossible to hide and Pfizer’s stock would tank, and the FDA and CDC would have zero credibility, even with moron in the street.

    As I have said previously, if the hard core short sellers (Bill Ackman?) had latched onto this in the beginning their analytical framework would have been extremely useful in shutting the panicdemic down.

  25. db

    Biden Withholding $200M In Military Assistance As Russia Prepares For Possible Full-Scale Invasion

    And there is, of course, absolutely zero chance that he or members of his administration have called Ukrainian leaders to issue a quid pro quo…

  26. Rufus the Monocled

    Yes, yes. I’ve been away. DEG has sent me salutations from the misfits here. I thank you all.

    Been busy being appalled with Canada. Nation of losers and assholes. Apparently no restriction is hard enough for these cowards.

    We’re still fighting here. Been part of a couple groups and foundations challenging the criminal politicians, quack health officials and useful idiots in media.

    And will someone do something about Pfauci?

    • UnCivilServant

      We’re trying.

      Old bureaucrats like that are dug in worse than ticks.

    • DEG

      We’re still fighting here. Been part of a couple groups and foundations challenging the criminal politicians, quack health officials and useful idiots in media.

      Excellent.

      Welcome back!

    • invisible finger

      Would any woman go to an ob/gyn named Dr. Quackenbush?

      • Rufus the Monocled

        A kinky one?

      • Not Adahn

        Oh please. Like there’s ever been a med student that didn’t use the speculum to do a duck impression.

  27. DEG

    Wooden and cement board houses. Storage facilities and distribution centers that are well below European building standards. Buildings obviously not engineered for Milton Keynes let alone tornado alley. Totally predictable damage to normal weather events.

    The comments on the Daily Fail article do not disappoint.

    President Biden on Saturday addressed the fatal weather that ravaged parts of the South and Midwest and used the tragedy to further his own beliefs on climate change.

    Go fuck yourself.

    In New Hampshire, about 70 National Guard members are providing medical support across the state. “If unfortunately during the winter months, the hospitalization rates continue to increase, we’ll be more than happy to provide additional resources,” National Guard Maj. Gen. David Mikolaities said according to Epoch Times.

    Fake news according to the NH subreddit. Folks who claim to work at hospitals say that they only lost about 1% of their staff to vaccine mandates, and that’s not enough to be a problem. So therefore it is a Covid problem and everyone needs to mask up and vax up or else!

    I know, I know, I should just should browse porn when I lurk on reddit.

  28. The Late P Brooks

    From the beginning of this, the default position of the bureaucracy has been to give preference to those treatments that provide the best cost/benefit to the pharmaceutical companies by choosing those treatments which are novel and expensive and lowering the risk to the corporations through the regulatory and legal process. It’s not only been the mRNA vaccines, but also treatments like remdesivir. Note that remdesivir also enjoys freedom from liability because it is only given with the approval of the NIH in a hospital setting during a public health emergency. Per the Prep Act of 2006, you cannot sue under those conditions.

    That said, we have lots of data on the mRNA shots now, and it’s not good. And it correlates well with the known mechanisms of damage from the spike protein (Salk Institute research) and the broad dispersal throughout the body (Harvard and Japanese research). It looks like a duck, it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck. I don’t need a double blind randomized study to establish that it is most likely a duck.

    From the beginning, they downplayed and disparaged treatment of symptoms.

    That is unforgiveable.

    • Drake

      It’s malpractice on an international scale, murder and genocide on levels that would make Stalin proud.

    • invisible finger

      That is why I don’t buy the “lab leak” theory. It wasn’t a leak – I suspect it was intentionally injected in a few Chinese (since they likely don’t have informed consent protections [as if we really do for that matter]) as an experiment in Wuhan around 2018. This “original” strain may have been somewhat mild, but it mutated into something much more severe.

      Calling it a “lab leak” makes it sound like an accident – at worst a couple of leakers pay the price and all the other associated people get to breathe a sigh of relief. If it was injected intentionally (and it wouldn’t even have to be a CCP defense department plot, just a researcher a la Dr. Jekyll) it is a criminal act.

      • juris imprudent

        The “leak” is the symptom. The disease is gain-of-function research.

        WWI was the chemist’s war; WWII, the physicists. Have no doubt, WWIII will be biologists’ to own for the damage that will be done.

      • Ozymandias

        Damn, JI – that is so good Ima hafta steal it. I’ll give you credit, though.
        “Some guy on the internet said…”

      • juris imprudent

        Granted, it could just be a 12 Monkeys style of disaster and not some nation-state conflict.

        I don’t even remember the forum, but someone once offered up the greatest internet quote/paraphrase I’ve ever stolen: Of all the incredible things I read about in the sci-fi of my youth, the only thing I’ve seen in my adulthood is the dystopian government.

      • Animal

        That is good, and speaking as a biologist, the thought scares the living bejeebers outta me. Back in my days in Uncle Sam’s green I took the usual NBC training; bugs always scared me way more than nukes or gas.

      • AlexinCT

        Back during the Cold War I was never worried about chemical or nuclear war ending humanity either Animal, but I was always worried about bio-annihilation. Man is a seriously tenacious animal, but bio weapons are one of the few things short of an extinction level event that can and would wipe us all out.

      • juris imprudent

        And mankind is full of the hubris that a well-designed weapon would not suffer from unintended consequences. Say like, the pax.

      • AlexinCT

        While I lack information to prove or disprove the WHY the Kung Flu got out of the Wuhan lab, it is no longer in dispute that it came from there, that the US CDC/DOD were paying for the work being done by the Chinese military which was weaponizing various viruses there through third parties, as a way to get around a Obama era feel-good policy that banned that work in the US, which almost immediately resulted in the work being outsourced to the Chicomms, and that China was not just doing gain of function, but weaponizing this shit.

        I wouldn’t be surprised to find out this was just the Chicomms being hacks and doing something way over what they were qualified to be doing that caused this, but there are too many coincidences that also point this might not have been accidental. The damned virus allowed not just China (the strain that escaped is a boomer killer that conveniently kills older people making the current & future strain on the socialized Chinese healthcare system less of a burden in a massively aging population caused by the one-child policy), but also helped a lot of people that are part of the globalist cabal and agenda that was being unraveled by Trump (accidentally or otherwise), to do some real nasty shit to fuck the rest of us over and put themselves back on track, and this shit seems to be just too fucking convenient to be by accident.

        I still believe that the fact that the rest of the world is still giving China a pass on this is a real serious problem. At a minimum we should all be forcibly divesting from China and enacting seriously punishing economic sanctions on these fuckers. I suspect we are not because the CCP has the goods and would implicate the fuckers that let this all happen.

      • R C Dean

        China was not just doing gain of function, but weaponizing this shit

        Gain-of-function research is inherently dual-purpose.

        I suspect we are not because the CCP has the goods and would implicate the fuckers that let this all happen.

        Yup. Of course, as you mentioned, we were funding it, so the ChiComs don’t even need anything super-secret to keep the US from going after them. Our hands are dirty, too.

    • Gustave Lytton

      freedom from liability because it is only given with the approval of the NIH in a hospital setting during a public health emergency

      Another retard who can’t actually read what both the Prep Act and the declarations cover and trust his retard readers to not actually read it either.

    • cyto

      I was about to post that… Fantastic stuff.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    And will someone do something about Pfauci?

    Beat him senseless with a sock full of nickels would be my preference.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Hell for Fauci will be having to constantly watch the media put Scott Atlas on TV while ignoring him.

      Fauci would gladly go to prison as long as he could still give interviews. In fact, he might relish the idea of being imprisoned as a martyr for SCIENCE.

      That asshat would see himself as the reincarnation of Galileo.

      But if prison meant no more interviews and attention, he’d lose his shit.

  30. Count Potato

    “Backing up: aducanumab, aka Aduhelm, is a new “Alzheimers drug” recently approved by the FDA. I use the scare quotes because it’s pretty unclear whether it actually treats Alzheimers. It definitely treats beta-amyloid plaques, and beta-amyloid plaques are kind of nasty-looking brain structures that seem to be related to Alzheimers somehow. But we’re not sure exactly how they’re related, they might not be related in a way where removing them treats Alzheimers, and the best studies don’t find that the drug helps patients feel better or remember things more. Aducanumab doesn’t meet normal FDA standards for approval, but the FDA approved it anyway under one of their many “fast track” programs for promising drugs. This has been pretty roundly criticized, because although aducanumab might or might not work, it definitely costs $50,000/year/patient. Even if it worked great, that would be a hard pill to swallow (no pun intended, Aduheim is an IV infusion), but it’s especially galling since it might not work at all. Doctors will probably prescribe it despite its questionable value, and someone will end up paying the extraordinary price tag.”

    https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/adumbrations-of-aducanumab

    • robc

      Viagra has a better record vs Alzheimer’s and is much cheaper. It probably needs more extensive (heh, pun not intended) testing though.

  31. PieInTheSky

    So I was walking in the park minding my own business and a crazy looking lady gave a a brochure

    Understanding the Wisdom of God by Michael Shattuck’s Pastor at Celebration Christian Church

    Are you people exporting your weird shit to Romania

    • ron73440

      Can vampires be converted?

      • Pope Jimbo

        Isn’t talk about converting blood suckers antisemitic?

      • UnCivilServant

        Are we talking standard vampires, metric vampires, or chinese vampires?

      • Rat on a train

        DC to Marvel?

      • db

        Nope. Once a vampire sparkles, it is lost to all reality and forever doomed.

  32. wdalasio

    their reaction is to ALWAYS do massive amounts of PR work to pretend the problem is caused by whatever agenda they peddle or doesn’t exist.

    You’re absolutely right about that. The thing I find the most striking, though, is how obviously and transparently full of crap the PR spin always is. They aren’t even particularly worried about any sort of superficial plausibility to the bullcrap. The media wants an excuse to say they were fooled and not complicit in overtly participating in the PR effort.

    • Ozymandias

      It’s just the fig leaf. I never understood the point of it until I read Havel and the “Power of the Powerless.”

      Let us take note: if the greengrocer had been instructed to display the slogan “I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient;’ he would not be nearly as indifferent to its semantics, even though the statement would reflect the truth. The greengrocer would be embarrassed and ashamed to put such an unequivocal statement of his own degradation in the shop window, and quite naturally so, for he is a human being and thus has a sense of his own dignity. To overcome this complication, his expression of loyalty must take the form of a sign which, at least on its textual surface, indicates a level of disinterested conviction. It must allow the greengrocer to say, “What’s wrong with the workers of the world uniting?” Thus the sign helps the greengrocer to conceal from himself the low foundations of his obedience, at the same time concealing the low foundations of power. It hides them behind the facade of something high. And that something is ideology.

      Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them. As the repository of something suprapersonal and objective, it enables people to deceive their conscience and conceal their true position and their inglorious modus vivendi, both from the world and from themselves. It is a very pragmatic but, at the same time, an apparently dignified way of legitimizing what is above, below, and on either side. It is directed toward people and toward God. It is a veil behind which human beings can hide their own fallen existence, their trivialization, and their adaptation to the status quo. It is an excuse that everyone can use, from the greengrocer, who conceals his fear of losing his job behind an alleged interest in the unification of the workers of the world, to the highest functionary, whose interest in staying in power can be cloaked in phrases about service to the working class. The primary excusatory function of ideology, therefore, is to provide people, both as victims and pillars of the post-totalitarian system, with the illusion that the system is in harmony with the human order and the order of the universe.

      The smaller a dictatorship and the less stratified by modernization the society under it, the more directly the will of the dictator can be exercised- In other words, the dictator can employ more or less naked discipline, avoiding the complex processes of relating to the world and of self justification which ideology involves. But the more complex the mechanisms of power become, the larger and more stratified the society they embrace, and the longer they have operated historically, the more individuals must be connected to them from outside, and the greater the importance attached to the ideological excuse. It acts as a kind of bridge between the regime and the people, across which the regime approaches the people and the people approach the regime. This explains why ideology plays such an important role in the post-totalitarian system: that complex machinery of units, hierarchies, transmission belts, and indirect instruments of manipulation which ensure in countless ways the integrity of the regime, leaving nothing to chance, would be quite simply unthinkable without ideology acting as its all-embracing excuse and as the excuse for each of its parts.

      • Ozymandias

        Sorry, wd. I can’t help myself. The money shot follows. I should have started there.

        …This system serves people only to the extent necessary to ensure that people will serve it. Anything beyond this, that is to say, anything which leads people to overstep their predetermined roles is regarded by the system as an attack upon itself. And in this respect it is correct: every instance of such transgression is a genuine denial of the system. It can be said, therefore, that the inner aim of the post-totalitarian system is not mere preservation of power in the hands of a ruling clique, as appears to be the case at first sight. Rather, the social phenomenon of self-preservation is subordinated to something higher, to a kind of blind automatism which drives the system. No matter what position individuals hold in the hierarchy of power, they are not considered by the system to be worth anything in themselves, but only as things intended to fuel and serve this automatism. For this reason, an individual’s desire for power is admissible only in so far as its direction coincides with the direction of the automatism of the system.

        Ideology, in creating a bridge of excuses between the system and the individual, spans the abyss between the aims of the system and the aims of life. It pretends that the requirements of the system derive from the requirements of life. It is a world of appearances trying to pass for reality.

        The post-totalitarian system touches people at every step, but it does so with its ideological gloves on. This is why life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies: government by bureaucracy is called popular government; the working class is enslaved in the name of the working class; the complete degradation of the individual is presented as his ultimate liberation; depriving people of information is called making it available; the use of power to manipulate is called the public control of power, and the arbitrary abuse of power is called observing the legal code; the repression of culture is called its development; the expansion of imperial influence is presented as support for the oppressed; the lack of free expression becomes the highest form of freedom; farcical elections become the highest form of democracy; banning independent thought becomes the most scientific of world views; military occupation becomes fraternal assistance. Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.

        Individuals need not believe all these mystifications, but they must behave as though they did, or they must at least tolerate them in silence, or get along well with those who work with them. For this reason, however, they must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it. For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Heard you on Wayne Allen Root. God bless you guys.

      • Ozymandias

        Thank you, Rufus, my Canadian muppet friend! Good to see you!
        I can’t help myself on this subject. I’ll never shut up about it until it’s fixed…
        (Which likely means I’ll never shut up about it.)

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Remind one of that link?

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Grazie.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Lol. Sounds like me with the masks. Jeeeeesus what a sad state of pseudoscience affairs! Quite the deep psychosis in play thanks in part to our despicable psychopaths in the bureaucracy. Never shut up. We gotta keep fighting to the end.

      • Ozymandias

        Herr DoktorFuhrer Fauci will keep us all safe, Rufus!
        All Hail “TEH SCIENCE” Hisself!

  33. Sean
    • Count Potato

      That guy is worse than Steven Seagal.

    • DEG

      I have taken the bolt out of bolt action rifles, checked it was clear, held the rifle up to a light, and looked down the muzzle to inspect the bore. I’ve also opened the bolt of used rifles, checked they were clear, and carefully inspected the muzzle end for damage to the crown.

      I’m certain if someone didn’t see all of what I did or watched me from certain angles I’d look like that dude.

      On the other hand, note: I checked to make sure the rifle was clear. Which I didn’t see him do.

      • Animal

        Ditto. If I’m thinking of buying a rifle, one of the things I always check carefully is the crown; a little divot there can really screw up accuracy.

  34. robc

    Our church had a Christmas talent show last night. My daughter did her first public piano performance, played Jingle Bells. She was the youngest kid to perform. One guy did speed stacking, which is the most Colorado thing ever, but gave me the idea that I may do a Rubic’s Cube performance next year.

    • Ghostpatzer

      “My daughter did her first public piano performance, played Jingle Bells. She was the youngest kid to perform”

      Something to cherish in the future. Last week the youngest Patzer performed “Go Tell it on the mountain” with his college chorus (fully masked of course. Grr.). Later we dug up a video of him soloing on this in church at age 7. Ah, memories.

  35. Brawndo

    The Ukraine is not America’s eastern frontier. Also, why are we trying to bring them into NATO? Shouldn’t they be at least *near* the North Atlantic? Putin has a lot more to gain (or lose) regarding Ukraine than we do. Let them figure it out.

    • Drake

      The Ukraine seems like just a place on the map instead of a nation – what the U.S. is becoming. I can understand Russian concern over the chaos and NATO on their borders. (Also understand other Eastern Europeans’ deep suspicions regarding Russian aggression)

      • Brawndo

        Dave Smith’s interview of Scott Horton does a great job explaining the situation. Also the US backed coup back in 2014.

    • juris imprudent

      HA! There is no place that isn’t subject to American governmental interests. The world belong to us. FYTW

    • JaimeRoberto (shama/lama/ding dong)

      U krajina literally means something like on the frontier, so by definition it’s ours.

    • Ozymandias

      How many more “conspiracy theories” have to turn out to be fact before the regime apologists wake up? Actually, it doesn’t matter. They’ll never stop apologizing and lying for the regime.
      See Havel quotes above. They help give the regime life and they know it.

      • JaimeRoberto (shama/lama/ding dong)

        They were conspiracy theories when those crazies were propagating them, but now that we have more information, they are just sound policy.

    • rhywun

      It’s useful to remember that “anti-vaxxer” was a thing in the before times, that they were considered crackpots, and that the media simply adapted the meme for the vid.

  36. The Late P Brooks

    “Last” installment of my phone saga:

    The new phone got activated yesterday. The so-called setup process was so infuriating I called Tracfone, and after screaming at a robot for a while, I finally got to a human being. The guy sounded “Indian” but it makes no difference to me if he was in Delhi or Ashtabula, Ohio. We were able to make ourselves understood to one another. He was extremely helpful and efficient. I told him the tale: I intensely disliked the new phone (Moto E) and wanted to switch back.

    It took a little while, but he got me back on the old phone. It may be annoying, but it’s not nearly as fucked up as the other one. There were ergonomic hardware issues, but mostly software, presumably with android. All I can say is it does not look like the software developers put “telephonic communication” very high on the priority list. It appears to be first and foremost a data sieve for google. What does that do? Why do I “need” it? How do I make a goddam phone call? Never mind, just keep hitting Accept-and-continue. You can worry about it later.

    Whatever. I suspect this more likely than not is my last android phone. Quite possibly my last “smart” phone. I have a computer for that other stuff.

    It seems as if there would be a market niche for a talk-and-text only communications tool. Haha, who am I kidding?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Economies of scale

      There are so many smartphone component manufacturers now that it’s almost less expensive to make a smartphone than a dumbphone.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Brooksy, I haven’t been paying attention to your phone saga.

      I do have some sort of Motorola flip phone that is in very good shape. If you want it let me know. I will never do anything with it.

  37. The Late P Brooks

    And now I have to go to Idaho Falls and return that phone to Best Buy.

  38. Scruffy Nerfherder

    It’s that time of year again when we receive Christmas cards from every company we deal with and my desk gets polluted with card glitter.

    • Pope Jimbo

      No goodies?

      At our old startup we used to get all sorts of candy, nuts and other goodies. One year our neighbors moved out and didn’t leave a forwarding address so we got all their goodies too.

      • creech

        I remember. That’s why I was always up 15 pounds by Three Kings Day.

    • Rebel Scum

      card glitter.

      Is that what you tell your wife after a late night out with the guys? //jk

  39. The Late P Brooks

    How many more “conspiracy theories” have to turn out to be fact before the regime apologists wake up? Actually, it doesn’t matter. They’ll never stop apologizing and lying for the regime.

    They worship the State. They cannot allow themselves to contemplate the possibility of a priesthood filled with venal, self-aggrandizing mortals?

    • Q Continuum

      Nope. Just like any new religion (or cult) the leaders are infallible.

  40. Tundra

    Good morning, Banjos!

    And thanks for the lynx. The Kentucky photos are incredibly sad – as is FJB’s response. What a fucking soulless ghoul.

    One drug can be responsible for 50% of the hike in Medicare’s Part B premiums

    What an amazing scam. Although, it is like males having to carry maternity insurance, gotta keep those premiums up and the Pharma fire hose pumping.

    Assholes.

    But that song is a perfect antidote to the poisonous news. It’s in my top five Christmas songs and now I like it even better (you have a wife with black eyebrows, lol!).

    Have a great day, people!

    • Brawndo

      Yes, but men can get pregnant now.

  41. The Late P Brooks

    Fucking youtube- NEW! IMPROVED! now with wall to wall vaxx ads!

    I don’t want to ride this ride anymore.

    • Drake

      I tried to watch some sportsball yesterday and couldn’t stand the ads.

      • Tundra

        I watch hockey on ESPN+ and they just go radio silence during the local commercials. It’s awesome!

  42. The Late P Brooks

    Lie back, and think of England

    Britain is facing a “tidal wave” of infections from the new Omicron coronavirus variant, ministers have warned, as they sound the alarm on rapid transmission rates in London and across the country.

    On Monday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed the country’s first death of a person with the variant. He told reporters at a vaccination clinic: “I think the idea that this is somehow a milder version of the virus, I think that’s something we need to set on one side and just recognize the sheer pace at which it accelerates through the population.”

    ——-

    Health Secretary Sajid Javid warned on Monday that the data on Omicron infections is unlike that of earlier variants.

    “It’s spreading at a phenomenal rate, something that we’ve never seen before — it’s doubling every two to three days in infections,” Javid told Sky News on Monday. He added that it was too soon to tell if cases of the new variant are milder.

    It will all be over, soon enough.

    • R C Dean

      He added that it was too soon to tell if cases of the new variant are milder.

      At that rate of spread, they should have enough data points pretty quickly, and likely have them now. I do love the caution they display before declaring a new variant less dangerous/virulent. I especially love the way it contrasts with their eagerness to declare a new variant as dangerous.

      • Gustave Lytton

        “variant of concern”

      • Pope Jimbo

        Concerning as fuck dude!

        If the entire country gets the OmicRona in the next few weeks and lives through it, cases will plummet! The epidemic will pretty much be over. Hospitalizations and deaths will plummet.

        That would be disaster for the govts.

    • rhywun

      It will all be over, soon enough.

      I fucking hope so.

    • Rebel Scum

      as they sound the alarm on rapid transmission rates

      I’m shocked that a respiratory illness is easily transmissible.

      I think that’s something we need to set on one side and just recognize the sheer pace at which it accelerates through the population.

      “We need to keep the fear alive.”

    • Pope Jimbo

      On Monday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed the country’s first death of a person with the variant.

      Don’t be modest. It was the planet’s first confirmed death from the OmicRona.

  43. Rebel Scum

    Before and after photos show of tornado destruction

    The slide toll is neat, if kinda morbid. The level of destruction blow me away…

    • Rebel Scum

      tool*, even.

  44. Rebel Scum

    While speaking to reporters and virtually assessing the tornado damage from Wilmington, Delaware, Biden was asked whether he “could conclude that these storms and the intensity have to do with climate change.”

    Tornadoes never happened before recently. It is known.

    • juris imprudent

      Gaia shows her anger by destroying the homes of those most responsible?

    • rhywun

      Biden was asked

      In before another reporter could ask whether Biden could conclude that these storms and the intensity have to do with systemic racism.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Did Biden whip out a chalk board and start showing the math that proves that climate change caused those tornadoes? He is so damn dreamy when he gets down into the numbers and totes owns those dumb climate deniers.

  45. Count Potato

    ““California’s first superintendent of equity lives in Philadelphia and has a separate job there, more than 2,500 miles away from the schools he advises as one of the highest paid officials in the state Department of Education””

    https://twitter.com/AndrewDesiderio/status/1470423127322681358

    But our princess is in another castle.

    • kinnath

      “4) Let hospitals quietly triage emergency care to serve the unvaccinated negroes hispanics women journalists last”

      • Rebel Scum

        What about (((them)))?

    • R C Dean

      Blatantly illegal under federal law, and utterly indefensible in court.

      Not to mention grotesquely immoral and unethical.

      Ladies and gentlemen, your conservative “thought leader”!

    • Ghostpatzer

      That’s not how triage works.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Sure it is.

        Not being vaccinated is the same as having a severed femoral artery. Death is all but certain, so you might as well move on to someone who has a chance of living.

  46. Count Potato

    “Aside from priorities, is this even true? Is there any good reason to believe that inflation hits low-income households especially hard? ”

    https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1469727921623416846

    Money can be exchanged for goods and services.

    • R C Dean

      Why would people who struggle to provide the necessities* be hit hard by increases in the price of necessities? It defies logic!

      *For current values of “necessities”.

    • ron73440

      Was he really an economist?

      I know he won a Nobel Prize, but that’s just dumb.

    • Rebel Scum

      Paul Krugman is a parody of himself.

  47. The Late P Brooks

    Shocked and appalled

    The White House has become increasingly concerned of migration being used as a weapon.

    U.S. officials have accused Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko of being the latest to take advantage of desperate migrants. They say he helped bring migrants from war-torn nations to the Belarus border in order to create a humanitarian crisis and put political pressure on his European neighbors.

    Ivo Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO

    “People are being used as pawns in a terrible, terrible game,” said Ivo Daalder, who served as the U.S. ambassador to NATO in the Obama administration. “It takes a particularly evil mind. It takes a particularly evil mindset to see that people and their vulnerability and humanity can actually be used as a means to achieve political ends.”

    Politicians would use immigrants in service to their agenda?

    Say it ain’t so.

    • juris imprudent

      IT’S DIFFERENT WHEN WE DO IT!!!

  48. Rebel Scum

    Democrat President Joe Biden is reportedly holding off on delivering military assistance to Ukraine as Russia prepares for what many experts believe is a likely invasion that could happen at any moment.

    It’s none of our business. Let the pro-Russian regions go to Russia and avoid a war.

    But it is curious that the pretend administration cares about the Ukrainian border and not the US border.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Well I sure hope you have a plan to admit any remaining regions of Ukraine to NATO, because it would be utter folly not to.

      Think of the $$$ to be made building new NATO bases in the Ukraine and Baltic States. Only a moron would turn down that loot.

  49. DEG

    Chris Sununu on “Face the Nation”. Transcript, the video is in the article. The video won’t play on Brave but that’s fine.

    MARGARET BRENNAN: You talked about mask mandates not necessarily being a light lift in your state. You’ve had anti-vaccine protesters. I know you last year canceled your public ceremony for your own inauguration because of armed protesters who objected to some of your health restrictions. Is that kind of physical backlash, that kind of security risk, why you are not putting in place a mask mandate?

    GOV. SUNUNU: Oh no, no, no, no, no, not at all.–

    MARGARET BRENNAN: It’s not a factor?

    GOV. SUNUNU: No, no. It’s not a factor at all. That’s a very small contingency. So, at the end of the day, you know, you’d have to do a state- a full state of emergency. And I remember when I- if I do a mask mandate as a governor, remember, almost no state has mask mandates right now. But as a governor, if you were to do that, every district, every county, whether you have high transmission levels, whether you’re highly vaccinated or not, it covers everybody. And what you’re really telling folks is thank you for making the sacrifice and getting the vaccine, getting the boosters, doing the right thing and you’re still in the penalty box.–

    MARGARET BRENNAN: Well-

    GOV. SUNUNU: And the fact of the matter is COVID isn’t going away anytime soon.–

    MARGARET BRENNAN: It’s not a penalty box. I mean, for people with unvaccinated family members, small children, immunocompromised. It’s just putting on a mask.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Subtle shift in the narrative…”highly vaccinated”

      • Sean

        “Active subscription.”

    • rhywun

      It’s just putting on a mask.

      It’s just a tiny injection. It’s just installing a small microchip. It’s just putting on an armband.

      “Go fuck yourself, ma’am.”

      • Rebel Scum

        It’s just 2 weeks to flatten the curve.

    • Rebel Scum

      COVID isn’t going away anytime soon

      It’s not going away ever. It is endemic. Take your vitamins and deal with it.

      It’s just putting on a mask.

      I refuse the shame muzzle.

      • Pope Jimbo

        It will never go away.

        Youngsters who get it will develop effective responses to it and it will end up being no more dangerous to them when they are old than the flu is to us current geezers. Something that will finish the job when you are already teetering on the edge of death, but just a shitty weekend if you are healthy.

  50. Rebel Scum

    Four states – Indiana, Maine, New Hampshire and New York – are deploying the National Guard to battle the COVID-19 healthcare staffing shortage.

    If only there was a simple solution to this problem.

  51. Rebel Scum

    Chris Wallace Announces Departure From Fox News, Will Go To CNN

    Just in time given that CNN is running out of (alleged…) pedophiles.

  52. Rebel Scum

    Fordham University professor fired after mixing up names of two black students
    “I have done my best to validate and reassure the offended student that I made a simple, human, error. It has nothing to do with race,” Trogan said.

    TBF the clicks and whistles can get confusing.

    No, it’s ok. I’ll see myself out.

  53. The Late P Brooks

    MARGARET BRENNAN: It’s not a penalty box. I mean, for people with unvaccinated family members, small children, immunocompromised. It’s just putting on a mask.

    Fuck off, you dumb superstitious cunt.

    • R C Dean

      Did we ever sort out whether masks protect the wearer, or the public at large? Because I remember both. I think they landed on “the public at large”, but I’m sure it had nothing to do with requiring the largest number of people to wear masks and was based on solid science, which refuted the decades of research showing masking had little to no impact on the spread of infectious diseases.

      • ron73440

        The sonogram nurse who refused to treat me, had a different answer depending on which question I asked.

      • Sensei

        Mrs. Sensei, who is an RN, thinks the mask mandate absolutely ridiculous.

      • Bones

        Mrs. Bones, BSN RN, agrees.

      • Bobarian LMD

        They wear masks in a OR because bacterial infections will kill you dead.

      • rhywun

        “My mask protects you, your mask protects me.”

        I’m sure you remember that drivel.

        Just like “asymptomatic spread”, the intent is to ensure that this shit never ends.

      • Rat on a train

        Here. You can have my mask so it is always protecting you even when I am not around.

      • Pope Jimbo

        You have to admit it was a pretty ingenious move. If you said masks provided protections to the wearers, people could look at the data and come to conclusions about the efficacy.

        By saying it protects others, you pretty much ensured that no pesky facts could trip you up. “Well of course you got the Rona even though you double masked. You went somewhere that had a bunch of filthy unmasked, unvaxxed sub-humans wandering around.”

      • ron73440

        Like “jobs created or saved” add a sprinkle of obvious BS on top of the sneaky BS and make it impossible to deny your success.

    • cyto

      Nice.