Good morning my Glibs and Gliberinas! And what a lovely day it always is!
Harry Reid dies at 82, he is known for giving Trump three Supreme Court Justices.
Biden was the most powerful man in the world as it fell apart around him in 2021
Biden rule imposing minimum wage increase on federal contractors faces court challenge
Is the Whitmer ‘Kidnapping’ Case About to be Tossed?
30,000 Unvaccinated Students Throw Los Angeles District’s Mandate Into Limbo
Termination of unvaccinated health care workers backfires
Red states extending unemployment benefits for fired unvaccinated workers
Gas Prices Could Hit $4 a Gallon in 2022
Food Manufacturers: We’re Raising Prices In 2022
Time capsule found at Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee statue site reveals Civil War-era artifacts
“Gas Prices Could Hit $4 a Gallon in 2022
Food Manufacturers: We’re Raising Prices In 2022”
Expected, but still.
Also, they are totally related. Most of the price of food is diesel.
Is that why some things make me…..[removes sunglasses]….gassy ?
YEEEEAAAAHHH-
* Takes a whiff*
NOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo….
Don’t forget the skilled labor you need to operate diesel equipment:
Um, since mine have been over $4 since Brandon took office, I’d say that’s a lock.
Morning, Banjos.
“John Madden dead at 85”
R.I.P.
I was thinking of making fried chicken, so I was wondering what people around here preferred as seasoning for the flour.
Mama Tres, that made some of the best fried chicken, used just flour, salt, and pepper. Grandma Tres let the pieces soak in buttermilk. And there’s always the skin-on/skin-off argument.
For the hundreds of times Ive tried, I cant re-create the experience. But I can make some damn tasty yard bird.
FYI: My Hannaford has that dried beef on the endcaps in the produce section. I guess it must be a decently widespread tradition here.
I might have to wander that way.
I use half corn meal, half AP flour, salt, and fresh ground black pepper. Sometimes, I add chili powder or a dash of cayenne.
Soak in buttermilk and hot sauce. Use salt, pepper and cayenne in the flour.
What Tulip said.
I go Cuban style, soaking the chicken overnight in buttermilk, lime juice, and a whole bunch of cumin. Then just salt, pepper, and a little paprika in the flour.
Ooh, look at Mr. I’m Made of Buttermilk
Add some baking powder to the flour too for a better crispy breading.
I soak my chicken in buttermilk, white wine, and honey.
Chick-fil-A adds powdered sugar to their flour for extra addictiveness.
What kind of ratio for the baking powder/flour mix?
Just a teaspoon for about 2 cups of flour.
Dammit, now I’m all hungry.
“FEMA is deploying hundreds of ambulances and EMS crews to transport patients. We’ve already deployed emergency response teams in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, Vermont, New Hampshire, and New Mexico. We’re ready to provide more hospital beds as well.”
Better get those hospital ships out there, Joe. They really came in handy last time.
“We’re sending the… uh… the thing to Colorado. It’ll dock in the port of Fargo.”
+ Rear Admiral CornPop
You see the guy whose heart stops beating, that guy, he’s going to be the one that dies.
*Circles casket on video screen*
Then BOOM!
Obligatory
Haha!
Whatever you say about him, he made football fun, something that is desperately missing now.
I enjoy the fuck out of Romo, even though he gets a little motor-mouthy…
Buck and Aikman make me want to throw shit.
Romo is great, his analysis is spot on, but I don’t think he’s as FUN an announcer.
“Prosecutors, meanwhile, insist the suggestion that the FBI was responsible for the Whitmer kidnapping plot is a factless fantasy peddled by the same people who claim January 6 was an inside job. “The conspiracy theory that the FBI instigated the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol to entrap otherwise law-abiding citizens has been actively promoted by certain media outlets,” the government sneered in a recent motion, referring to Fox News host Tucker Carlson.”
The 9/11 truthers seem less crazy now.
How do you manage to “sneer” in a legal motion ?
Is there a cured lip emoji?
I like to remind people that J Edgar hoover ran the FBI as his own personal blackmailing operation.
Wouldn’t it be “her” now?
That’s the rub.
The things that seemed so outlandish, so impossible…..
seem likely.
All of this has been so corrosive on “the American experience”, You end up questiotioning everything.
It also doesn’t help when they keep arresting kiddy diddlers left and right.
I laughed and snorted at the idea of child molestation rings everywhere in our ruling class. Now I wonder if I have a moral obligation to stop eating pizza.
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/093/677/732/original/ee8b7d50c316d363.jpg
Not sure where you are going with this one.
“Pizzagate”
Sorry.
Yeah, I was trying to be snide about Pizzagate. Has to be one of the stupidest Qanon conspiracies out there.
But then all these Important People keep getting busted for molesting kids and all combined with all the other crazy shit coming true, you start to wonder.
I should have been clearer in my joke. I was lazy. I thought I just had to mention kid fucking and the laughs would automatically happen.
STOP STEALING OMWC’s SHTICK!
If he promises to stop stealing my bikes, I’ll stop stealing his shtick.
No deals, Mr. Bond!
It was the moral obligation on pizza that confused me.
As far as pedophiles, i have heard a story or two myself. Hard to know what to believe.
Did your questiotioning get answeswered?
Not really.
The past year really broke me.
Were we ever “the good guys”, when did it change?
I have seen some incredibly brave, generous, kind individuals. Organizations? Not so much.
Conspiracy theories are now just spoilers.
insist the suggestion that the FBI was responsible for the Whitmer kidnapping plot is a factless fantasy
FBI informants literally hatched it.
by the same people who claim January 6 was an inside job
Then explain Ray Epps, among other things.
‘And therein lies the government’s biggest headache of all. If a trial showcases all the ways in which the FBI orchestrated the Whitmer kidnapping plan from start to finish—and the defense features the lowlife agents and informants who made it possible—the public will demand a similar reckoning about the FBI’s role in January 6.’
Narrator: There will be no public outrage nor a reckoning.
Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid dies at 82
Meh.
for giving Trump three Supreme Court Justices.
Karma is a bitch.
At this point, perhaps the Justice Department should pray that the judge rules in favor of the defense and dismisses the case before the FBI is further embarrassed—and exposed.
I won’t hold my breath or the FBI cuntes involved to be prosecuted for their crimes.
Qualified Immunity beyotches!
+1 Kevin Clinesmith
LOL
and exposed
Wrong agency, that’s the CIA that exposes themselves.
You’re thinking CNN.
Doktor Grandma should be out there on the front lines, pitching in.
She’s a doctor, you know.
Jillden, M.D.
Oh shit….it IS Wednesday
*sets timer for noon*
I am afraid SugarFree is on break today. We will resume your normal brainterrors next week.
*flips table*
*sets
trash canCitroen on fire*I didn’t know you lived in a banlieu?!
He couldn’t find a Citroen, so he had to substitute a Citron.
I’m a sucker for the classics.
In New York state, Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency over the omicron variant and called in the National Guard to assist with nursing homes. She added that hospitals in the state at over 90% capacity could be ordered to stop elective procedures to focus on the surge. Biden said testing facilities will also be opened in the state.
So she wants to make a run at Cuntemo’s corona death record.
Maybe I just didn’t appreciate how utilitarian it is over at TOS until now, but observations like these just make me angry.
https://reason.com/2021/12/28/fauci-wants-to-kick-the-unvaxxed-off-of-airplanes/
Precieved pragmatism over principles.
That is the first time I’ve visited TOS in probably 6 months. Didn’t Matt used to concern himself with liberty, rights, and freedoms?
Give him a break. He’s spending all his time trying to drum up support for letting Ukraine and the Baltic states join NATO.
That is what I always remember him getting riled up about on the Fifth Column podcast.
He was also the one who said “How can we know if it is a fishing expedition unless we have an investigation?” about one of the Trump scandals. Can’t remember if it was the Russia Collusion or the Ukraine Quid Pro Quo kerfuffle.
The Baltic States are already in. The Ukraine never will be – if they had gotten their shit together before the post-Soviet Russians, they could have been. Now it’s way too late.
Same problem with Somin. ‘Vax mandates are totes cool cause they’re less of a restriction on you and save more lives than police and the military.’
Huh?
Not sure how blanket restrictions on my freedom aren’t worse than roadz.
The Americanized version of plata o plomo.
At least five Republican-led states including Iowa have extended unemployment benefits to people who’ve lost jobs over vaccine mandates, and a smattering of others may soon follow.
Just more slow motion GOP insurrection.
Did Harry Reid have a black eye when he died from “falling on a treadmill”?
President of what once was the most powerful nation…
Biden is our Gorbachev.
Gorbachov!
Soviet Truth Bomb
More like our Konstantin Chernenko.
Biden is our Gorbachev.
On a tangent, I’ve been watching a few Youtube videos of people walking through their grocery stores in other countries. Svetlana from Russia gave a good walkthrough of one in St Petersburg. I was blown away. The quality of the produce and meat looked much better. There was an absurd number of options in a huge Walmart sized store, and the shelves were fully stocked. Russian brands were about 20% of what we pay, and even American brands like Lays were still at least 50% cheaper.
I sent my wife pictures of our local regional grocery store with the shelves half wiped out last week. I also went to Kroger and found regular 80/20 ground beef was $7/lb and their butcher/seafood case was completely emptied out and shutdown. It’s been a bit thought provoking watching that Russian walkthrough compared with my experiences here.
Gorbachev in his prime had more vitality in his left thumb than Joe Biden still has in his entire body. There’s no way Biden will still be alive 30 years after his presidency like Gorby.
Vodka is a preservative.
This is pretty fucked up: Retired FBI agent convinces woman she’s on “secret probation” and milks her for $700k.
Feds Claim Former FBI Agent, Accomplice Defrauded Woman Out of More Than $700,000
That sounds rather stupid
You don’t generally fleece the wise.
BTW – I have to give you props, on Lonzo Ball. I thought he was an overrated and overhyped creation of the media….now, having him where I can see him consistently….he is a very solid NBA point guard. MUST CREDIT PIE for being on him early.
flashy scoring PG are fashionable this days
His defense and rebounding are surprisingly good, and he is fairly selfless in distributing the ball.
Wasn’t it a former FBI guy and a former FedGov Prosecutor trying to shake down Rep. Matt Gaetz?
And some of you are opposed to the death penalty.
I’m of a mind that some people need killing.
I’m open to debate on who gets to kill them and what the standard of proof needs to be.
“Jessie Diggins gets first win of cross-country skiing season, essentially books Olympic spot”
I thought you americans wern’t any good at cross country
We used to be bad, then we changed the name to “trans country” and every kid signed up.
Now we dominate women’s cross country races. Still suck at men’s cross country.
Thanks, but I have to admit that this is just a pimple on the ass of the thrill i get from the opprobrium of a narrowed gaze.
*squints suspiciously*
Where muh Squint Eastwood pic?
While gas prices have declined in recent weeks, GasBuddy is forecasting that prices at the pump nationally could increase in 2022 and possibly top $4 a gallon.
Since I have to buy 93 and am already paying $4+ I guess that means I get to jump to $5+. Thanks, Joe Biden! ///Let’sGoBrandon
Uffda. I want more details on this NBA stupidity.
Do does KAT actually have the Rona? Or did he get put on the fucking Do Not Play list because he was in close contact with someone who popped positive?
If he has it, I would believe it would be super newsworthy that someone who had the Rona, was vaxxed and boosted got another case of the Rona.
If this was just because he was in close contact with someone who had the Rona, then it is triple stupid to hold him out of games. The dude has almost no chance of getting the Rona again.
Or he popped a false positive. I hear that happens from time to time.
First of all, not guilty. Not just because of how she looks but because she was 22 and he was 17.
But we know she’s being prosecuted because the prosecutor is jelly af.
Misread that at first. Thought SHE was 17. I was still gonna post a “solid would.” Humans are humans and teenagers gonna teenage.
I now feel less dirty about saying that she’s giving further solid wood to that ‘solid would.’ Everyone had a damn good time. Fuck that being illegal, as long as it was consensual. And I guarantee that it was HIGHLY consensual.
Sorry bro, those eyes are too crazy.
Good! I’ll take your scraps. More for me.
Don’t yuck my yum! And yeah, 22-year-old athlete? I’d like to see more of her figure, but I sense a need for her to have an over-the-top craziness in her frame to place her outside of my Palace of Yes and More Please.
Haha! Just shows I’m getting old (I think we’re around the same age?). While you’re still young at heart.
I may be more deprived and desperate…
I’m 34.5 at the momo. I would agree that I’m still young at heart. Not always for the best, but I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth…I have no reason NOT to want to take that to the hoop.
When you say ‘how she looks’, you mean how she brainwashed him with that eldritch gaze, right?
22 year old athlete. Probably waxed.
The food-at-home index, which includes purchase from grocery stores, rose 6.4% over the past 12 months, with meats, poultry, fish and eggs increasing 12.8%.”
Fake news. Bidenomics has given us the best economy evar.
Finally someone is willing to do something about the obesity epidemic!
John Madden dead at 85
He was the best at what he did in the NFL.
Making the long stretches between plays bearable?
He was a great announcer, but think about his Raider’s teams. I can’t see any current coach (who are all control freaks) being able to deal with so many misfits.
Just Win Baby.
So, I found the bakery that made that delicious stollen/cheese danish hybrid. Unfortunately, their online ordering system is incompatible with my work computer.
https://www.deisings.com/
Bakeries are dangerous to my health.
Speaking of gas i noticed my car actually works better in winter with the 100 premium stuff rather the 95 regular stuff
6.1 usd per gallon right now but then i drive like 4000 kilometers per year
Isn’t it illegal to mix American and metric units in the EU?
I am trying to occasionally convert things for you math challenged Americans
Math challenged? Americans can multiply and divide by numbers other than 10.
100 octane?
Yes
Metric octane. Not the same as the us.
U.S. uses (R+M)/2 method but Europe uses only R number, which is always higher than M.
Do they make the gas companies add corn alcohol to your fuel in Romania? That kills gas mileage and eventually engines over here.
the premium stuff has 5% the regular 10%
There you go – probably makes as much difference as the octane.
Plus colder, denser air.
Good thread on Leana Wen mask flip-floppery:
https://twitter.com/neontaster/status/1476002115298500608
She was NPR yesterday saying that NuVid was no longer an “existential threat.”
That’s because flu A and B are going to make a resurgence with a vengeance as we pivot to the next thing we are supposed to be afraid of.
Forcing unvaccinated students to stay home and study online is certainly separate. But it’s equal! So it’s ok!
Can you not combine keg stands with vaccination and get them all somehow?
I thought keg stands were a vulgar American college student thing. Don’t Eurostudents engage mensur between singing bouts at the taverns?
I was speaking of murican students we do not have those things
Yeah, I was thinking that the gown would drop down and interfere with the drinking, not to mention exposing your unterpantzen.
I haven’t found one yet, but yesterday there were some stories about the CDC’s “revised” estimates of omnicronk’s prevalence. It appears their initial “estimates” were faulty.
Instead of somewhere between (I’m making this up) 85 and 50 per cent of new cases, it’s only somewhere between 60 and 20. That’s some real good specificity. And the steno pool just scribbles it down.
My guess- they decided the Deadly Delta is a better stick to beat the peasants with.
So suddenly the delta variant decided to spread like wild fire? CDC needs to go away.
Final VA redistricting maps
Less gerrymandered than current districts, but where it remains favors Democrats. I get redistricted back into a shifted 7th.
Doesn’t look like it will impact me at all.
https://twitter.com/Sturgeons_Law/status/1475516236234641413
OFFS!!
HANS! Fetch the flammenwerfer!
Stop. No. Stop fighting. This is awful.
Stop stealing my sentiments damnit.
Getting what they deserve.
“As we recognize that covid-19 is not a deadly or even severe disease for the vast majority of responsible Americans, we can stop agonizing over “cases” and focus on those who are hospitalized or at risk of dying.”
https://twitter.com/JRubinBlogger/status/1475851939371962368
The midterms are coming.
“Meh.”
-Dominion
Never forget that the voting machines are so prevalent because the GOP got cucked on Bush’s “tainted” win in Florida in 2000.
Every major piece of legislation is written by the GOP (even the ACA, which passed with 0 GOP votes, traces back to Romney and Heritage Foundation) and yet is administered by and for the benefit of Democrats.
I always liked Madden’s commercials.
Filed under: mysteriously shifting news coverage.
Another thing I have noticed in the last couple of days in that “Airplane Karen” story. The news reports seem to have all simultaneously swerved to saying the guy called her a “slur” and that’s what set her off. In other words, he totally asked for it, and merely got what he deserved.
Case dismissed.
All I get is pics from her Baywatch days. But that’s the NY Post for you.
So if someone calls me a name I don’t like I have free reign to assault them? Good to know.
*cracks knuckles*
He totally asked for it when he decided to be a cis-hetero white male.
Truly the Rosa Parks of our time.
Just ask her, she’ll agree.
I just tried this from a local brewer
Hophead South Monarch – Imperial Stout with Rum barrel fermented Columbia Coffee and Ceylon cinnamon 9.2% ABV
and it strengthened my view that imperial stouts are just not worth drinking
I have to figure out to send you some proper Imperial Stouts.
Just saw a NBC news analysis found that children with covid are 2 times more likely to be hospitalized when compared to adults. Wonder how they came to that conclusion.
They caught the vid in the hospital?
They found it in their ass. It was just sitting there, waiting to be pulled out.
Lower rate of hospitalization combined with an even lower rate of testing?
there is a hallmark like Christmas movie on netflix called A Castle for Christmas. It is boilerplate script of successful (American) woman goes to (Scottish) countryside. I watched 15 minutes out of morbid curiosity and failed to recognize Brooke Shields as the lead actress
There is a market for those Hallmark movies. I’m not part of that market, but someone watches them.
Mrs Rat. Fortunately she is content to watch them without me just as I was content to watch Die Hard without her.
also in Romania we used to have the hallmark channel but now there is a channel called diva which shows those movies
In regards to the article posted about post-vaccination deaths and autopsies last night, the question was raised as to where the bodies came from.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-most-detailed-evidence-yet-of-the-devastating-damage-covid-vaccines-can-do/
This comports with the biodistribution studies of the MRNA vaccines and the Salk study on the toxicity of the spike protein.
‘the total lifetime dose of these messenger RNA vaccines that you can tolerate before you die is limited. We don’t know the exact amount because there is simply not enough experimental data. That’s one of the great scandals of these vaccines, that no proper toxicity studies have been carried out.’
Nicely stated. That is why I will not get a booster.
You keep this up, Scruffy, and you’ll be on Root’s show before long.
There are probably more than 100 swan on the lake today
https://photos.app.goo.gl/rkbhF6EVQnd4m1AEA
Rare wolf family spotted in Minnesota
It’s a Grim!
Well there goes the neighborhood!
His hair was perfect!
Ancient DNA From Neolithic Tombs in Britain Reveals the World’s Oldest Family Tree
https://scitechdaily.com/ancient-dna-from-neolithic-tombs-in-britain-reveals-the-worlds-oldest-family-tree/
Oh, come on, they found the living modern descendant of another british stone age burial. I was expecting another “And here’s their modern relatives.”
Profits over people!
The flight attendant union called out the CDC over the revised guidelines.
“We said we wanted to hear from medical professionals on the best guidance for quarantine, not from corporate America advocating for a shortened period due to staffing shortages,” said Association of Flight Attendants-CWA International President Sara Nelson. “The CDC gave a medical explanation about why the agency has decided to reduce the quarantine requirements from 10 to five days, but the fact that it aligns with the number of days pushed by corporate America is less than reassuring,”
She warned businesses against pressuring workers to return to work before they feel better, arguing that could create a greater disruption than staffing shortages.
The White House referred to the CDC for a response to the pushback. The CDC did not respond to The Hill’s request for comment.
The nurses union is also against decreasing the isolation period and last week had called on the CDC to maintain the previous guidance of a ten day isolation period.
“The arguments solely focus on maintaining business operations, revenues, and profits, without regard for science or the health of employees and the public,” National Nurses United President Zenei Triunfo-Cortez wrote to the CDC last week.
Heroes on the front line.
I think there is some truth to it, at least, CDC statement basically said as much.
I might point out that the nurse’s union is basically protesting a reduction of paid leave from 10 days to 5 days. As far as the “science or the health of employees and the public”, I don’t think there’s anything reliable out there to even factor in to how long leave should be. Its all over-determined crap.
Muh Democracy.
‘Threat to our democracy is our biggest national security concern’
Fuck our “democracy”
Article IV, Section 4
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
Muh “Republic”!
The biggest current threat to democracy is Democracy.
I would think that “fortifying elections” is the biggest threat to democracy but I’m just a Deplorable Redneck Idiot.
“Fortification” is the norm. The election rules have been continuously rewritten almost year over year since at least as far back as the 1950s. The entire purpose of the system is to appear as one thing (“democracy”, “will of the people”, “accountable to the voters”) but be realized as another (manufactured consensus, appearance of legitimacy, ratification of elite design).
And nothing else happened.
Monday afternoon the Los Angeles Police Department released body camera footage from a shooting last week that left an innocent 14 year-old girl dead after officers opened fire on a suspect in Burlington store in North Hollywood. “We at the LAPD would like to express our most heartfelt condolences and profound regret for this innocent victim. There are no words to describe the depth of the sorrow we feel for this tragic outcome.”
Burlington is negligent because:
They let a bad guy in the store.
Their interior walls are not bullet resistant.
They have money.
This is a tough one. The 48 hour rule might need to be extended for it.
I struggle with bullets penetrating a wall as a Rule 4 violation. On the one hand, yeah, you don’t know what’s behind the wall. On the other, saying that its a Rule 4 violation essentially means “You can never take a shot indoors”.
Indoors is where most crimes happen. You have to be able to take a shot indoors.
Are they still calling it a ricochet off the floor?
And that’s why some people don’t believe in using a rifle for home defense.
Handgun rounds also penetrate walls. Maybe not as many, but my understanding is the rifle round only penetrated one wall before hitting the victim. I’m a skeptic for rifles for home defense, mind you. They seem better suited for ranges that are . . . inapt for home defense.
Shotguns have their own Rule 4 problems. 00 shot is a wall penetrator, and even lighter shot can penetrate sheetrock (although not with the same terminal velocity). I’m currently stocked with 00. but am thinking of going to a lighter shot for the defense rounds. But with shotguns, you’ve got the pattern spread problem.
It is a tough one. On one hand, the responding officers observed his violent acts and could assume was still violent and their actions were justified. On the other, when they came upon this asshole, he was no longer aggressive and they issued no commands and just plugged him. The officer with the rifle was a bit eager to get there in my opinion.
No criminal charges. Civil case and absolutely should lose along with losing his job, along with a few of the other officers.
Cops are typically scared little thugs. This is exposed when the shit hits the fan.
In this situation, cops needed to proceed into the store with pistols or shotguns. Youre choosing the type of weapon that minimizes innocents getting hurt. Also cops are not good shots. Especially under situations where suspects might shoot cops. Many cops want the glory and special treatment but dont want the risk of being shot.
If I use a rifle to defend my home and a round that I fire hits a neighbor, I am responsible. Its not necessarily criminal negligence but I am responsible.
Theater
President Biden said Tuesday he would impose a mandate that Americans be vaccinated against COVID-19 to travel domestically if his medical team recommends it.
When asked when he would make a decision on domestic travel vaccine requirements while out for a walk in Rehoboth Beach, Del., Biden told reporters, “when I get a recommendation from the medical team.”
The idea of mandating coronavirus vaccines for domestic travel has been bouncing around the administration for months, and the emergence of the omicron variant caused the White House to revisit questions over whether to impose it.
We have to do it. Just look at all the bodies piled up at the airports awaiting disposal. We might as well include trains, busses, and escalators.
“The buck stops with those guys over there. With, you know, the thing.”
You want a revolt?
This is how you get one.
I’ve said that a lot over the last two years and I’m still waiting.
Not happening.
What happened to “The feds can’t fix this”?
They can’t, but they can punish their political opponents.
Anarcho-tyranny. They won’t dare help you, but they reserve the right and the power to hurt you.
Biden said this while wearing a mask on a beach. A mask, on a fucking beach. I think it’s a safe bet to expect we will witness further heights of derp this coming year.
“We at the LAPD would like to express our most heartfelt condolences and profound regret for this innocent victim. There are no words to describe the depth of the sorrow we feel for this tragic outcome.”
Please accept this giant sack of taxpayer money as a token of our heartfelt sympathy.
“989 respondents submitted their gluteal preferences, 482 respondents (48.7 percent) were women and 507 (51.3 percent) were men. Overall, the most attractive buttocks waist-to-hip ratio is 0.65 from the posterior view (44.2 percent of respondents). The next most attractive ratio was 0.60 (25 percent of respondents). Positioning of the lateral prominence at the inferior gluteal fold was rated by 26.3 percent of respondents as the most attractive. From the lateral view, the most attractive buttocks have a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.70 (29.8 percent of respondents), with the most prominent portion positioned at the midpoint of the buttocks (45.1 percent of respondents), which is a 50:50 vertical ratio.”
https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/wk/prs/2016/00000137/00000006/art00054
Ass Wednesday.
https://archive.md/v8bF4
“989 respondents submitted their gluteal preferences…”
Now THAT is the sort of science I can get behind!
Talk about mudflaps, my girl’s gottem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qDgCmzh5ao
Ass a lot of questions and then publish the results? That seems more like polling than SCIENCE
Burn the heretic.
“If science can’t be questioned it’s not science anymore it’s propaganda & that’s the truth”
Don’t read the replies. There’s a lot of people who are happy to obey.
Appeals to authority are in vogue.
Don’t make me responsible for my own decisions, just tell me what to do.
You want a revolt?
This is how you get one.
By all means, make it transparently obvious that logic and actual science have nothing whatsoever to do with any of your “solutions”. Be completely forthright and make it incontrovertibly obvious to one and all your prime criterion for establishing policy is enforced obedience, not “safety” or “public health”.
“I know her being at this hotel doesn’t mean that she was doing anything wrong. There could be a perfectly innocent explanation.”
Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt buddy.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/dear-deidre/17084135/friend-saw-my-girlfriend-in-hotel-with-stranger/
You don’t expect her do do a coke deal in public, do you?
The office is burning up. Someone must have let one of the women get to the thermostat.
Doesn’t she know turning up the thermostat in winter makes baby Greta cry?
*cranks thermostat to forge welding temperature*
Move it higher up and put a spider on it.
This. This, is how you shitlord folks.
“989 respondents submitted their gluteal preferences, 482 respondents (48.7 percent) were women and 507 (51.3 percent) were men. Overall, the most attractive buttocks waist-to-hip ratio is 0.65 from the posterior view (44.2 percent of respondents). The next most attractive ratio was 0.60 (25 percent of respondents). Positioning of the lateral prominence at the inferior gluteal fold was rated by 26.3 percent of respondents as the most attractive. From the lateral view, the most attractive buttocks have a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.70 (29.8 percent of respondents), with the most prominent portion positioned at the midpoint of the buttocks (45.1 percent of respondents), which is a 50:50 vertical ratio.”
I have no idea what any of that means, but a few weeks ago, I was driving through downtown Bozeman, and there was a girl standing on the sidewalk at the corner waiting for the light to change. She looked like a ballerina; tall and slender, with small breasts, and there was just a slight convex curve to her belly. Her posture was perfect. Her back was straight and flat as a plank, down to the base of her spine, where what was obviously a firm muscular bottom rounded out very nicely.
I didn’t have my calipers with me, but it looked perfect.
I’m gonna need pics to render judgement.
Should have sent her to Brooks Brothers where she could be scanned and her contours saved for sexbot production.
TRUMP GOES TO ARBY’S!
If there were any doubt about the vaccine lobby paying to undermine alternative treatments, this should put it to rest.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-vaccine-gold-rush-and-the-damning-ivermectin-tape/
https://twitter.com/ManDaveJobGood/status/1475896457169235969
I feel too tired to laugh.
https://twitter.com/Chet_Cannon/status/1475881831048249347
It’s all so tiring.
Men continue to intrude on women’s achievements.
“Jeopardy!” contestant Amy Schneider has been on an impressive winning streak, earning more money than any female competitor in Jeopardy history — but Schneider, a transgender woman, is actually a biological man.
Larissa Kelly, who previously held the distinction as the woman with the highest all-time winnings, congratulated Schneider on taking the top spot.
“Well, it was fun to hold a Jeopardy record for a few years…but it’s been even more fun to watch @Jeopardamy set new standards for excellence, on the show and off. Congratulations to Amy on becoming the woman with the highest overall earnings in the show’s history!” Kelly tweeted.
Schneider apparently had no qualms laying claim to the women’s record, replying, “Thanks so much, I’m honored to be in your company, and I look forward to some day watching the woman who beats us both!”
OFFS
From the minimum wage federal edict article:
“Federal contract workers are essential workers and are critical to the federal government,”
That’s a pretty broad brush there with which they paint “essential” status onto all federal workers.
No offense, but there should be only about 548 people on the federal payroll, either directly or via contract.
None taken.
I do respectfully disagree though. National defense (actual national defense, not bribing the Pakis not to kill us) is one of very few things that is specifically set aside in the constitution for the FedGov.
Still needs massive reform, of course.
This passage from the article about the time capsule under the Robert E Lee statue is a fine example of how crazy our culture has become:
The statue multiple states away injected Floyd with several times the lethal dose of fentanyl. It is known.
They were hoping to find proof in the time capsule.
Butter knives?
Oh come on. They gave us actual steak knives during dinner service when I flew to the UK. Drop the theater.
“This is a good example of why we cannot assume that something as innocent-looking as a child’s stuffed animal is not a risk to security,”
Might contain cream spreaders. Good job, TSA.
“My theory is that basically everyone working the COVID response at the federal level thought that the South deserved their summer surge, that it was entirely b/c they were too dumb to get vaccinated, so it’s fine to just let them suffer.
Everyone up north looked at kids in the South doing 10-day quarantines for asymptomatic COVID and basically said “fuck em, who gives a shit about those kids. If they were good like us, they wouldn’t be testing positive”
Now that COVID is hitting the north, they realize that the policy response for mildly sick and asymptomatic people is vastly worse than the disease, terribly intrusive, and incredibly destabilizing
Now that they have to deal with it, they’ve decided its time to change it.”
https://twitter.com/politicalmath/status/1475653061880254470
If the poll numbers weren’t where they are now, they’d be doubling down on stupid. This whole pandemic reaction is purely political.
Is it possible that the very recent trend of “Covid is not that bad stories is in preparation for the Beijing-hosted Olympic Games?
China would not be happy if the world effectively boycotts the games because 1/2 the athletes test positive (and asymptomatic).
To be fair, no one in the south actually followed the stupid guidelines anyway.
Nor did most in the rural parts of the North, despite whatever blue check idiots on Twitter might claim.
Mornin’
The Pacific Legal Foundation sued the administration over the mandate on behalf of outdoor adventure guides, arguing it amounts to “an executive power grab to force a social agenda through federal contractors.”
The Pacific Legal Foundation has done some good work. They were instrumental in some states in pushing back against the lockdown insanity.
The nation’s second largest school district was set to implement a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for students, but once school leaders realized they would have to send home thousands of students to learn online it reversed course.
Heh.
The LA school district is a great example of how all it takes is to stop complying.
I’d bet cash money that King Walz would love to bring back his Emergency Dictator Powers, but he knows that no one would listen anymore. He’s wily enough to know that the worst thing that could happen would be for people to realize he doesn’t have any real power.
Successful politicians are very skilled at running to the front of where the people are already heading and then claiming they led the parade there.
I’d bet cash money that King Walz would love to bring back his Emergency Dictator Powers, but he knows that no one would listen anymore.
Which makes him smarter than some.
Here in southern NH, I see widespread noncompliance with Nashua’s reimposed mask ordinance which the Board of Health and Board of Aldermen insisted was needed to stop the surge of Lil Rona cases overwhelming local hospitals. I still haven’t worn a mask. I’d say only about half of businesses have the required signs up. Many businesses that have the signs up won’t care if you walk in without a mask on.
“LATEST: The newly updated CDC guidelines don’t require testing at the end of isolation because PCR tests can stay positive for up to 12 weeks, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky tells @GMA”
https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1476189028982702080
LULZ.
I laughed too.
An admission of what they knew long ago.
It’s just no longer convenient for them to keep up the fiction.
Seems as legit as any of the Covid pronouncements to date.
Now that they’ve worked the entire country up into a terrified lather and public dissatisfaction is starting to show in polling numbers, they need an exit ramp somehow so they can appease us peasants with tablescraps of liberty.
Kim Jong Un Attends Ivy League University To Learn New Brainwashing Techniques
Does he realize he could have just gone next door to China? It’s basically the same thing.
Speaking of China…
Nice. What could possibly go wrong?
Judge Dredd the AI version.
I am… the law.
It already has gone wrong.
That’s not satire?!
*beep boop guilty, next*
I’ll eat my hat if that thing ever finds someone innocent.
They only let him in because he paid full freight. Otherwise they would have kept him out because the Ivys have “too many” Asians.
Here is a good football related story. The player was classy, some of the comments are not.
Good man. I managed to avoid all but the first two (positive) comments.
He was fun to watch during his brief stay with the Patriots.
Abundance of Caution Bowl
The Wolfpack were trying to win 10 games in a season for only the second time in program history.
Though UCLA did have multiple players not make the trip to San Diego for COVID-19 reasons, Wolfpack coach Dave Doeren said nobody at NC State knew UCLA was dealing with more COVID-19 issues once the Bruins arrived in town to begin preparations for the game. The first Doeren heard about it was when his athletic director, Boo Corrigan, told him the game was off — only minutes before the news was reported on social media.
Doeren told a small gathering of reporters in San Diego he broke the news at a team meeting in which his players expressed anger, confusion and sadness.
“Felt lied to, to be honest,” Doeren said. “We felt like UCLA probably knew something was going on, didn’t tell anybody on our side. We had no clue they were up against that. I don’t feel like it was very well handled from their university. It would have been great to have had a heads-up two or three days ago so we could have found a Plan B. Disappointing.”
Jarmond responded to Doeren in a statement posted on Twitter.
“With today’s COVID results, our medical staff deemed it unsafe for us to compete this evening,” Jarmond wrote. “While we had isolated COVID challenges, we were still in a position to compete up until today.
“I am truly disappointed for everyone who was involved with the game.”
How many of those players were actually sick?
Inquiring minds want to know.
At least when one team cancelled for the bowl game in Tucson, and one cancelled for the bowl game in El Paso, they were able to put their opponents together to play a game. But for NC State, there’s just not enough time.
*clutches pearls*
“I mean, this is a deep, deep sickness in our democracy,” Himes declared. “And I don’t know how you address it. You asked me whether the, you know, specifics of what happened in the Willard would matter. There is not a shred of evidence out there that this election was stolen. And, in fact, court after court after court and commission after commission after commission has said no, it’s not. And yet, you get guys like this. I mean, set aside the basic indecency, set aside what it says about our country that people talking to the President of the United States can’t put aside their petty grudges to behave with some respect. This is a cancer. This is a deep, deep cancer on our democracy, Jim. And I really worry about what that means for 2024 and beyond.”
This entire illegitimate regime can go to hell.
Why would any court or commission decide any other way? The desired result was achieved, the electoral mechanism continues to lack any meaningful form of transparency, the massive jobs program for the email caste remains untouched, and control over the system remains in the “right hands”. For a judge to rule against it, or a commission to publish a report condemning it, would require almost unheard of levels of class treachery.
And, at the end of the day, it could all be “above board” anyway: the past election may have been as “clean” as any other, the propaganda machine did its job, and the voters now reached the near end stage of their purpose: to sit at home, do nothing but consume, periodically collect free money, and when asked, exert the least possible effort to ratify the regime.
“Vote by mail” is automatically illegitimate. It’s as simple as that.
As long as it exists, there is no point in participating in the charade.
It could be done securely. So can electronic voting for that matter. And in-person voting with paper ballots isn’t necessarily secure. Having a theoretical audit trail is only as good as how well it is actually exercised and the findings applied.
Switching to widespread mail-in voting at the last minute did however create opportunities that weren’t there previously. Close coordination between the policy makers and the policy pushers gave the latter an early advantage. The GOP will no doubt catch up, only for the rules to be changed again, but as befits their role as the designated losers, they will always remain behind the game.
Having a theoretical audit trail is only as good as how well it is actually exercised and the findings applied.
True. And the audit trail should be as short and tight as possible, which is why I don’t like mail ballots.
Current practice, as I understand it, is that the validation of the mail ballot is done with the envelope, which is then separated from the ballot. This means the audit trail is irretrievably broken. And is very weak, even if the envelopes aren’t supposed to be separated from the ballot.
The alternative requires that each ballot be tracable to a specific (read: named) voter, which means no secret ballot.
Once the envelopes are opened, there’s just a pile of ballots, same as with in-person voting. The key is that there should never be more (or fewer) ballots than envelopes. The envelopes shouldn’t be discarded, either. The process is basically identical, at audit time, to in-person voting. You have a list of registered voters, you have a list of people who voted (envelopes), and you have a set of ballots. Everything in between is subject to human manipulation, and thus auditability also requires auditing the enforcement of external rules.
I should note that, in my state at least, ID is not checked at the polling place. If it is in your state then that is an extra integrity check that isn’t directly present for mail-in voting. I think that too can be addressed, but it won’t be as neatly equivalent as what I implied above.
Concur.
And doubly illegitimate for junk mail voting, where they vomit out millions of ballots into the wild. I had to opt out of getting a junk mail ballot in AZ. Frickin’ AZ, which is run by Repubs and has been forever, went for junk mail voting as the default.
And the idiot Repubs are standing around wondering why they are losing state-wide elections.
No ballot should be mailed out, ever. Absentee voters should have to pick them up in person. Everyone else can get their ass to the polls. Which isn’t a perfect solution, but it closes one gaping security hole.
As far as counting goes, all counting locations should be under 24 hour video surveillance, viewable by anyone over the internet, and recorded. If the video goes down, counting stops. If counting doesn’t stop, no votes are included while the video was down (at a minimum).
If the video goes down, counting stops. If counting doesn’t stop, no votes are included while the video was down (at a minimum).
In the current legal regime, this likely won’t survive the first court challenge. Forget plain judicial vacancy appointments, if Republicans want to win, they should be gutting the courts with impeachments.
No ballot should be mailed out, ever.
RC Dean wants to disenfranchise military voters.
Yeah, let’s talk about government officials and their media lackeys smearing a private citizen. Or that admitted traitor Swalwell talking about indecent behavior. That fucker should be dancing at the end of a Chinese made rope.
In plain language, we haven’t the faintest idea
The CDC significantly reduced its estimate for how prevalent the omicron variant of COVID-19 is in the United States on Tuesday, saying that the new variant was only responsible for 22.5% of new cases in the week that ended Dec. 18, not the alarming 73.2% that it had originally estimated last week.
For the week ending Dec. 25, the agency says omicron accounted for 58.6% of all new cases.
Jasmine Reed, a spokesperson for the CDC, noted that there was “a wide predictive interval posted in last week’s chart,” and the downward revision was partly due to the “speed at which Omicron was increasing.”
“CDC’s models have a range, and… we’re still seeing steady increase in the proportion of Omicron,” Reed told Fox News Digital. “In some regions in the country, Omicron accounts for ~ 90% or more of cases.”
——-
As the CDC collects more data, it can more accurately pinpoint the proportions of each variant throughout the country, according to Dr. Li Tang, an associate faculty member in the department of biostatistics at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
“Earlier, they probably relied on a small number of available sequences. It should be also noted, although the confidence interval now is narrower, the range is still big, covering from 41.5% to 74%, suggesting large uncertainty,” Tang told Fox News Digital.
Large uncertainty? No shit, Shirley. It’s like you just keep pulling numbers out of your ass.
“Ohhh!! Well, it looks like we have a SCIENCE DENIER here, boys! Lock ’em up.”
I really worry about what that means for 2024 and beyond.
You should be worried.
“The first thing @JoeBiden and I will do in the White House is get this virus under control.
8:39 PM · Nov 2, 2020”
https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1323439729988296704
The hula hoop gif isn’t quite as mesmerizing as the ass slap, but it’s close.
Check out the gif I posted in the forum a year or so ago. 😉
Definitely hypnotic.
I might point out that the nurse’s union is basically protesting a reduction of paid leave from 10 days to 5 days. As far as the “science or the health of employees and the public”, I don’t think there’s anything reliable out there to even factor in to how long leave should be. Its all over-determined crap.
Exactly. And the statement from the skywaitresses union looked like a thinly veiled threat of sick-outs on a large scale.
No ballot should be mailed out, ever. Absentee voters should have to pick them up in person. Everyone else can get their ass to the polls. Which isn’t a perfect solution, but it closes one gaping security hole.
Voting is so important no one should ever have to exert the slightest amount of effort to do it.
“It is not partisan because we are trying to create a one party state.”
“I’m working very closely with members of the U.S. Senate to ensure that they both understand the urgency of the moment but that we recognize the complications of the structure of the Senate,” Abrams outlined. “And that’s why we need to frame this as restoration of the Senate. This is not about breaking tradition. It is about protecting the fundamentals of our nation.”
You want to restore the appointment of senators by the state legislatures so that the senate can return to being the house of the states, as intended?
“[W] hat’s most important is that we stop framing this as a partisan battle. This is not about partisanship. This is about patriotism,” she added. “It’s about American citizens, regardless of who they choose when they enter the booth, that they have the ability to participate in our elections. And that, on the other side, that their votes are actually counted by those who are responsible for determining and announcing the outcome of elections. This is about protecting voters but also about protecting the foundation of our democracy and not allowing it to be subverted by those who would erase the voices of the people in order to achieve their political ends.”
The only thing anyone should be asking Stacy Abrams is why she is still fat. Does she hate healthcare workers?
Speaking of those two things, obese female medical “professionals” is apparently what the state health department thinks are good spokespersons and advocates for their covid vax commercials.
As far as I’ve been able to work out, the emerging job of the healthcare industry is to protect the right people from the consequences of their own actions and to punish the wrong people regardless of whether their current condition is their own fault or not.
I see she’s still making shit up.
Whose “voices” are we “erasing” this time?
Hi! Sorry I’m late .
I have come here to piss some people off. Sorry to offend, but based on your recommendation I read the first book of the Witcher series while I was on vacation.
Well, now I see why the series was so disjointed and confusing. Have book reads like it was written by a committee of 14-year-olds using a wiki. Being in the fantasy genre, it is kind of right up my alley. But it was so poorly written that I had a hard time getting into the story or indeed getting much out of it.
It actually makes me wonder why anyone bothered making a video game out of it.
But in defense of the series, it definitely lifted straight from the book. And usually having read the book makes the movie more understandable and adds depth. In this case, I think having seen the series made the book more understandable and added depth. It’s not a good sign.
So, my apologies to those who loved the books. I cannot add my endorsement to yours. The experience was marred by long stretches of gibberish that added nothing to the ambiance or to the plot. Luckily it was a fairly quick read, accomplished mostly during my flight to see relatives.
Haven’t read it – isn’t it a Polish series? Getting translated can’t help smooth out the prose, I’m sure.
(as an aside, am I the only person who thought The Three-Body Problem was a POS? I’m sure the translation didn’t help there either, but talk about wooden characterizations… )
I did not know it was a translation. That would certainly be a factor. The actual story line isn’t bad… Well, except for a few glaring “why would you do that?” moments. There are a number of conflicts that could be completely avoided by simply saying who they are and what happened.
Didn’t read three body. I recall quite the kurfuffle in response though.
I thought the Three Body Problem was fascinating as an insight into a Chinese mind. As a story it was highly uneven. Some hard science and some stupid magic.
The sequel was also overrated.
I enjoyed Deaths End because it was like reading a traditional story backwards, with the protagonist always fucking things up beyond the point where it should be possible to fuck things up any more.
My lack of pets is starting to wear on my mental state. I hope I can find a rental that accepts pets when I move, because I just simply hate life right now.
Get an ironic pet. Like a hermit crab. Totally meta.
I keep wondering if I should get a pet mouse. just to be ironic after all the effort to finally be rid of them.
Come visit. I have a spare bedroom and a pup that needs attention while I’m at work.
Get a hamster or something. Or smuggle in a kittah and name it Anne Frank.
Volunteer at a pet adoption place?
Hypothetical Moral question – If you walk up to an ATM and find that the previous person made a withdrawl but left the cash sticking out of the machine. There is no sign of the person – what is the appropriate response?
Pocket the cash. Throw some in a tip jar / collection plate.
(you could also hang around a bit to see if they show up, if you want to be a mensch – I found a $20 in an ATM and had a kid come back into the ATM a few minutes later in a semi-panic; I handed it over)
Sticking out of an ATM, I would give it to the bank (assuming git’s attached to a bank). If it’s one of those standalone ATMs, not sure what I would do.
Oh, yeah, I’m assuming stand-alone ATM.
Take the cash and wait around a bit to see if they come back.
If they don’t, either you got lucky or contact the bank, depending on the amount involved.
Bank open or closed? Makes a practical difference. Local or on the road? Also practical difference.
I have actually encountered those. I turned the money in to the bank.
Disclaimer…. I was in college. The ATM was on campus and I had to walk 15 minutes to the bank, but it was open. And at the time, the 100 bucks was a huge sum of money to me. I was getting by on 20 bucks a week, sometimes less. One month I didn’t get paid, so I actually ran out of cash. I ate 2 meals that week. I actually snagged a handful of crackers and ketchup packets from the salad bar at Wendy’s one day to have something to eat.
But in that context, taking a hundred bucks from someone else who might be in that same situation was unthinkable. And I knew they could figure out who it was.
Fast forward to this year. At the county fair my daughter found a $50 on the ground we looked around for a likely suspect to have dropped it… Even loudly announcing it. A pair of deputies was there for the whole thing. They told us to just keep it. So she did.
I, if at a bank would turn the money back in with a receipt if one is available. If a standalone? Stick around for a bit to see if someone realizes they had their head in the clouds. If no one shows up I guess just leave it. I don’t want other people’s money for no reason.
Take the Money and Run
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MneA9pgLVw
Take The Money And Run
I was thinking last night about how fucked the administration is in regards to mandates, especially for FedGov workers. They completely painted themselves into a corner. If they follow the military and go blanket denial of religious accommodations they will have a slew of lawsuits on their hands. On the other side of the coin, if they start taking this exit ramp they are creating for themselves, all the fence sitters that saw no other choice but to buckle and get the vaccine under the mandate will bring lawsuits also.
As always, the FedGov should have stuck with education on the matter of public health but they went and stuck their dick in crazy and crazy is not happy. I write this as they have slow walked the purges and punishments. On November 23rd, I was supposed to start discipline on my one employee (as my boss with me too) and that was quietly pushed back to Jan 3. Now it is February sometime that we begin discipline steps.
I still predict at the federal workforce level, sans military, of course, we see almost all the religious accommodations approved. Otherwise, it’s EEO lawsuits nationwide and the government will be tied up in courts or just paying out massive amounts of settlements. I figure a good lawyer could look at my track record, my potential, and see that I deserve an equivlenet of another 15 years annual salary with a %3.5 inflationary increase.
I keep saying that no one has even begun to address the massive rift there is now in the military and going forward – and how that gets healed. At least one federal judge has already said that the government’s claim about the “interchangeability” of the two vaccines is a non-starter. The military is still gliding along pretending they didn’t hear it, however, because the judge denied the injunction (because he was lied to at oral argument, as it turns out. He was led to believe that there is Comirnaty “available” for the troops. That’s a flagrant falsehood, but he bought it and pltff’s counsel in that case wasn’t… very well-apprised of facts on the ground and why.)
In any event, what I wonder is, how the hell is the military going to repair the massive broken trust between the troops and senior leaders (and even those leaders who just “went along”). I would assert that right now are military is an absolute broken husk of a fighting force because of this mandate. The massive abuse of the unvaccinated in the military is a completely unreported on story. It’s an absolute travesty. And even those who went along are watching their brothers and sisters being just fucked with, abused, having their liberty cancelled, no PCS orders, no TDY, nothing, pulling them from flight status, cancelling their training, you fucking name it. It’s happening and it is a matter of policy, not just aberrant, overzealous commanders. i.e. Assholes. It’s institutionalized abuse of those who don’t want to take the shot and it’s right out in the open.
Those who “couldn’t afford to” say “No” can’t unsee what they’ve witnessed.
I would submit that this will decimate the effectiveness of our military for decades in ways not yet even considered.
Yeah, kind of wishing I’d stuck it out now. Hoping my new job is awesome…
Some “heath expert” was just on the radio talking about how polio, measles, tetanus, etc. vaccines all did wonders and he can’t understand why authorities can’t mandate that those reluctant to take the CCPvirus jab be forced to do so. He even said, “I got my polio vaccine in public school.” Host, of course, didn’t point out that a) those vaccines have shown decades or more of relative safety, and that the current jab has not, and b) polio shots or any other administered by the school nurse, back in the day, was -as I recall, maybe Forescore can too – voluntary.
The polio vaccine was administered in a high-trust environment. Force was unnecessary.
Much of the U.S. today is a low-trust environment. People don’t trust their neighbors, they don’t trust the businesses and organizations around them, and last of all, they don’t trust the government. The mechanisms of building higher-trust communities have been systematically eroded. The competence and good faith (real or imagined) of the government, healthcare, education, banking, and other “important” sectors of the liberal order are quite visibly on the decline. The “necessity” of compulsion is a reflection of this degradation. At the same time, the marginal cost of each extra percentage point of compliance rises exponentially.
I wonder if that by-gone “trust” isn’t something nostalgic that really wasn’t so? Some blacks still remember Tuskeegee experiments not to mention excessive force by police departments. Banks were hated in the Depression. Industrialists were portrayed as Robber Barons. Doctors – particularly psychiatrists – as quacks. Mencken and others roundly trashed Congress and politicians. Maybe the only group that used to be trusted and is no longer is Journalists, though Hearst and his ilk were condemned as partisan back when every town and city had competing newspapers.
There seems to have been a peak of trust in the post-war years which likely doesn’t reflect the situation pre-WW2 (or pre-New Deal even). The farther one goes back in time, though, the harder it is to contextualize what things meant. The U.S. post-1950 is at least close enough to our own to assess the differences somewhat clearly. The U.S. in say 1890 is a totally foreign country.
There are also some neighborhoods that I avoid without someone forcing me.