Surprise! I’ll bet you didn’t expect a third morning of links from the Florida Man. Sloopy is off doing something “important” for his “business” or something. I understand it requires a large number of plastic beads and shaving his chest.
Wow, Civ has been out for 30 years? I probably have at least 2 full years of my life invested in that game.
This woman has to be an immigrant. No native Florida woman would look that ashamed.
Turns out this whole Ukraine-Russia spat was manufactured by… checks notes… Big oil?
The most tragic part of this story is that the guy probably drank that bottle of Busch Light.
A little throwback to 35 years ago
Morning… Brett???
I’m nearly as surprised as you. Nice knife you made, BTW.
Thanks.
The life of the wife is ended by a knife.
“Never ones to let a good crisis go to waste,”
It’s different when we do it.
“Putin’s ability to wage war in Ukraine and threaten the stability of Europe comes exclusively from his control over Russian oil and gas production.”
Who had war with Norway on their bingo card?
I’m assuming that panzerbjorn armor is at least equivalent to level IV.
“when Congress tried to prevent future Russian meddling in US elections,”
Do the writers at the Guardian have to wear helmets?
They have hair on them to make it less noticeable.
“The net effect will be the same: more addicts, in this case to climate destroying fossil fuels.”
Apparently, so do the editors, or are hyphens are like guns in their country.
What will we do with no climate?
We’ll have to settle for weather.
“If the Biden administration wants to help, it should launch a new green Marshall plan to help build renewable energy in Europe and around the world. Expanding the production of clean energy technologies, rather than fossil fuels, would help combat the influence of big oil and petro states, as well as address the growing climate emergency.”
So get the Chinese to burn coal to make solar panels?
Don’t forget the strip mining for minerals!
With the added bonus that the American taxpayer gets to pay for it all! An idea only a European could come up with.
African Lives Don’t Matter
This was the quote that stuck out to me too.
Yeah, Europe is a pile of rubble from 5 years of unrestricted warfare. Totes understandable why the US taxpayer should fund their green energy dreams.
Windmills, which everyone loves, and solar panel art are free for the taking, they materialize magically, if only the people would understand better.
Morning news. Ukrainians wearing masks, standing patiently in check out lines to pay for their food. I wouldn’t think the Covid would be the worst of their worries.
The Guardian is so full of ignorant and stupid and evil that it almost feels unfair to make fun of them.
“personal massager” Heh.
She’s not into group massaging.
Of all the places to conceal a personal massager, she chose… her purse?
Indeed, I thought it was going to be a very different story. Especially in Florida.
God’s pocket?
Euphemistically?
When confronted, Mears ran away into some trees nearby but was caught by the officers, according to the affidavit.
I’m going to guess that the trees she hid in were Quaking Aspens? Why else would they be vibrating like that?
She just wanted to try before she buys?
So…they don’t realize their own last 2 releases were pretty shitty?
I got VI in the Humble bundle last week and I feel ripped off at $10.
Good to know. I was tempted to grab it a few weeks ago.
I can tell how my Civ game would go – My stone age people finally figure out farming and how to set up additional cities two or three minutes into the game when the AI arrives with swarms of superlaser armed mechsuits and obliterate me.
I am reading it as a wordy excuse for the last two.
Howdy Folks!
how about some Covfefe!
“Correa was in a pickup when he stood up through the sunroof with a rifle in one hand and a bottle of Busch Light in the other. He then broke the bottle over his head.”
Approaching peak Florida Man?
Two questions: Was there any meth involved and was he wearing denim cutoffs and flip-flops?
If not, I do not recognize his claim to the title.
Narrator: there was meth.
The bizarre chain of events began about 8:19 a.m. Saturday…
The party was just getting into high gear.
It was still Friday to him.
Shades of Naomi Klein. And just as utterly vapid.
If only the little people would submit to our plans for a vastly lower quality of life for them so we can enrich ourselves and our buddies solving this “problem” we made up, we wouldn’t even need to have these arguments.
Heresy isn’t an argument, the argument is how to punish heretics.
Deee-Lite, now there’s one I haven’t heard in a while.
whaddup doh’
They fucked up again at work and gave me tonight off.
TALL CANS!
If you’re hot enough, you can make ugly clothes look good.
Guardian – peak derp?
BP has announced its dumping its stake in Rosneft anyway.
Seems like a mistake, from a business perspective. Sure the pr is great though.
I know a guy who was deeply involved in the development of that business unit back in the 90’s. I’m going to see if I can get his opinions on it. He lived over there for several years.
It’s like KPMG and Phil Mickelson. Dropping him was good for PR…but actually closing their offices in Saudi Arabia would be bad.
My local news channel this morning had something about how Russia was to blame for high gas prices and supply chain issues. Fuckers must be time traveling back a year to do all this stuff to us.
A war that started last week is responsible for inflation over the past year.
Success!
But in the end, he loved Big Brother.
Christ, I thought the quote might have been from 1984, but he actually said it.
How very MAGA
Trump’s loyalty to his supporters is truly overwhelming.
His biggest fault was and remains his almost blind faith in law enforcement and the military.
That’s republicans in general.
Some are waking up, one red pill at a time. It’s early yet, but the contrast between the Ottawa Police kneeling before BLM and forcing the truckers out has not gone unnoticed.
They broke Viking guy too. I bet we’ll be hearing the same from the rest of them they haven’t disappeared.
Just a little patience and you can save the operating costs of the helicopters.
Cultists gonna cult?
Look at me! Look at me!
North Korea Launches Suspected Ballistic Missile Off Its East Coast
Well, around 3AM my crazy neighbor and her angry schizophrenic brother packed up all their shit and moved out.
So that’s nice.
Congratulations?
The crazy people with mental problems just up and left. They didn’t try to stick it out?
Too many people are like that. Just run when the going gets tough.
Fucking split personality.
Happy to see them go. All the screaming and thumping and wall punching and crying coming out of their place grew tiresome.
Yeah, what was done, was seen.
Too often they leave everything where it’s at (on the floor, overfilled trash can, etc) . Come back later and accuse the owner of stealing all their valuables.
Oh no they forgot the Ming Vase.?
Matt Bracken has a pretty good perspective in what is going on with Russia and why. The news reports on my TV are utterly ridiculous.
Indeed. They were exhausting.
Heh. For Scruffy.
Stockman’s latest piece is nothing short of blistering.
https://original.antiwar.com/David_Stockman/2022/02/27/the-land-where-history-died/
LC coming to shriek “Putin lover, bandwagon!” In 3….2…1….
Yeah, my thought was along the lines of how proud Chomsky would be for describing how this is done. And this has been done well. The blind support to Ukraine is a thing of beauty, if you can admire the work of folks like Goebbels.
Good rant. The way our “elites” screwed with the Ukraine so they could economically strip-mine the place is disgusting. None of this would be happening if we had just left them alone and the Biden’s had found other places to collect bribes and kickbacks.
It may have been hard to find a more corrupt place with enough wealth to plunder – it was like a Biden Perfect Storm.
That is good.
Seems exaggerated from the other side but many good points.
Not nearly as exaggerated as the YouTuber that Scruffy linked yesterday.
I did comment on that. His opinions are certainly suspect, but at a minimum it provides some insight into the other side of the story.
Yes, there’s a glaring omission: That Yanukovych was very pro Russian (while half of Ukraine is not). He turned his back on the EU-Ukraine deal in favor of a pro-Russian deal, leading to massive protest, that Russia then intervened in.
To say that this was all the fault of the U.S. for helping to overthrow a democratically elected president is negating the fact that Yanukovych was very likely little more than a corrupt Russian stooge.
Really, the Ukraine has been staving off civil war since the breakup of the USSR by passing back and forth the political offering plate to the west and the east.
It is now a liability to have known anything about Ukraine from before about 2018. Just knowing names like Yulia Tymoshenko, Euromaidan, Petro Poroshenko, and Orange Revolution before the NYT brings them up marks one as a far-right reactionary now.
Eh, he goes a little too far in existing Russia’s actions as defensive in nature. You’re still an asshole when you’re invading another country, what is even the pretext?
Stockman’s map just screams for separating Ukraine into two countries. I wonder what the economic resources of the two areas are…
I’ve been explaining this stuff to my wife and kids, and I also used the Cuban missile crisis as an example of how our flirting with Ukraine about joining NATO is viewed from the Russian side.
Yeah, I told my wife how do you think we’d react if the Soviets threatened to add Mexico to the Warsaw Pact and installed a puppet government there?
Russia is the aggressor here, but the rest of the world knew this was a problem years ago and did nothing about it. All the world leaders are absolute trash.
Of course Russia is the aggressor, the issue is that this was avoidable from our side by not meddling and withdrawing the offer of NATO expansion. That is unless you’re going to go with Russia intends to recreate the CCCP and therefore our actions were irrelevant. War and invasion were always coming.
In which case though, our actions would seem to be foolhardy at best and exceedingly dangerous at worst under the old balance of power framework when dealing with nuclear armed opponents.
–Lowry at NR
This shit cracks me up. WWII was the end of history? It settled all disputes for all time?
Not to mention, NR has at the same time an article on a new [liberal] world order. How is THAT not an imperial vision (even if for a strange imperial power, as per KDW)?
IT Dept.: Greetings Lab group! We are excited to announce that we will be migrating your data to an upgraded storage solution! Also, you have too much data to migrate, please delete 5TB. Kthxbai.
5TB? Just have everyone delete their “photo” stashes. Shouldn’t be an issue I’d imagine.
We are excited to announce
I hate the PR crap thrown in these announcements. “We are excited to announce we are switching from keys to keycards for bathroom access!” You want me to get excited? Announce you are dropping stupid, bureaucratic requirements. Tell me you are disbanding the DEI office.
Great ‘upgrade, ?
Enjoy your new solution.
“Our new solution is a sixteen acre RAID array of five in floppy drives. It’s its own backup system too. We have a hundred and forty-eight dedicated technicians whose solw job is to swap out media as it fills up.”
Good paying jobs!
Their sole, slow job?
Write speeds are not what they used to be,.
WSJ Notes
While Ukraine is under attack by Russia, Ukraine’s civilian population is also under siege from the coronavirus, a situation only likely to worsen.
The fighting in Ukraine’s east is forcing a mass migration to the west that is crowding mass transit centers and trains and jamming roads. Video images of the large numbers of Ukrainians on the move show understandably few signs of face coverings, even as the country is just getting past a record high point in its infection rate.
Putin’s master plan. The plague will spread through NATO killing 99% of the population. Europe will finally be united under a Russian flag.
There’s a reason for that and the reason is the perceived relative risk is small. When real trouble knocks on your door the petty bullshit falls away pretty quickly.
You think the NYT will believe that?
“Calls to expel Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene after speech at white nationalist event
Republican leadership condemned for failing to discipline Georgia congresswoman for speaking at far-right summit”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/26/republican-congresswoman-marjorie-taylor-greene-cpac
“Romney: Marjorie Taylor Greene a ‘moron’ for speaking at white nationalist event
Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar, members of Congress who spoke at a white nationalist event in Florida this week, are “morons” with no place in the Republican party, Mitt Romney said on Sunday.
“I’m reminded of that old line from the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid movie,” the Utah senator and 2012 presidential nominee told CNN’s State of the Union.
“One character says, ‘Morons. I’ve got morons on my team.’ I have to think anybody that would sit down with white nationalists and speak at their conference was certainly missing a few IQ points.”
Greene, from Georgia, and Gosar, from Arizona, spoke at the America First Political Action Conference, or AFPAC, organised by the far-right activist Nick Fuentes. Greene defended her attendance, saying she did not know Fuentes or endorse his views.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/27/mitt-romney-marjorie-taylor-greene-paul-gosar-morons
They keep using the term “white nationalist”.
“Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, said: “In any other world, Greene speaking at a white supremacist conference where attendees have defended Vladimir Putin and praised Adolf Hitler would warrant expulsion from the caucus, to say nothing of her advocacy for violence and consistent antisemitism is disgusting.”
I’m seeing a bunch of Jewish and non-white people on their speaker list.
White supremacy is colorblind.
[golf claps]
Curious what the examples of praising Putin and Hitler are.
Hitler would have enforced mask mandates? To the Guardian, that is praise.
Anything that is not a condemnation is praise.
There’s a video circling about of Fuentes talking about the greatness of young white men, and saying “lets give Putin a hand” and then chanting putin.
I watched at least one of his entire speeches, and while he really is the embodiment of the worst aspects of the right, all of the above instances were taken out of context. It appeared he was playing into the idea that they were nothing more than Trump/Russian stooges. And also feeding into the white supremacy narrative, by accepting their label sardonically.
That’s my take away anyway. Really don’t care for a word that sniveling little weirdo had to say… I wouldn’t be necessarily against calling him and those who follow him, white supremacists… If he’s not, he’s certainly tip toeing that line with masterful talent.
The people I know who worry about white nationalists live in the whitest communities on the planet never go anywhere near the melanin-enhanced population.
They live in a white nationalist dream world and can’t admit it.
Argument by assertion and repetition
works.
And I’ve already sent Democrats repeat this on social media.
#RepublicansAreTraitors
I’m Guardianed out already. No clickey.
Kick out Danang Dick for speaking at a CPUSA celebration and then we’ll talk.
He meant well though.
There are very real white nationalists, especially in the UK. They are a small minority, but every bit as toxic and detached from objective reality as the far left. Sure, they don’t have institutional power, as it were, but festering in the shadows means their ideas go unchallenged, and you wouldn’t want to get into it with them anyway, not if you value your sanity. The cultural Marxists and grifters cynically crying wolf so many times on “racism” has made people jaded and apathetic to this and has created an environment where the small number of actual racists have found their ideology can thrive.
I might continue on this beat and become the new Hyperbole or something. At first I’m not confident it will be received well or that I will be able to communicate any of it effectively.
One might start to think that was the point since they need an enemy to truly thrive.
Exactly. It’s cynical. I would advocate for not playing into it and being the kind of identarian, zero sum tribal thinker that they oppose, but too many of them just see that not as rising above but as some kind surrender. They really are zero sum race war LARPers.
The biggest problem with white supremacists is that they have misidentified the enemy. It still amazes me to see anyone talk about “minorities burning down cities” re: BLM and Antifa. Motherfucker, how many people shot by Rittenhouse were black? He gets into an altercation in an active BLM/Antifa riot, shoots three people, and they’re all white criminals. Where the blacks at?
Yarp. They advocate for some kind of racial purity, based on some vague notion of some time in the past where the “race” was “pure”.
A misty-eyed dream of “old Albion” or something, based on some very messed up readings of history and literature. The “White British” or “White English” identity is very much akin to the quasi-mystical pseudoscience the Nazis were pushing, and yet a lot of this people boast of British military prowess against the Nazis in WW2.
*shrug*
They’re just the absolute epitome of what the cultural Marxists like to point to as an example of the existential threat they hold up as justification for their own bad ideas.
We Was Kang Arthur n’ Sheeit?
White supremacists in the U.S. have a similar blind spot. It is not the darkies upending society, it is the white liberals doing so. A bleeding heart and/or a comfy email job will pretty much guarantee leftward advocacy, if not today then eventually.
So that cold lump of coal in my ribcage saved me?
“but festering in the shadows means their ideas go unchallenged”
A perfectly good reason to not isolate them too much then.
What would you suggest? Twitter is a toxic cesspool with or without them and I feel that the ideological self-sorting is too strong anyway. I would guess that there are many among them who might come around. Didn’t Jordan Peterson pull a lot of people back from that brink?
*shudders* ;^)
I’ve encountered more than a few white nationalists and neo-Nazis on Gab. Seems that they’re, almost to a person, reactionaries who either buy into the “(((banksters)))” crap or the n***ers are waging a race war crap. Sometimes it’s more subtle than that, but not often.
Broken people who are just as much beholden to simple thinking based on incomplete data and biased news sources as the prog-fascist left.
You have a stronger constitution than me. I couldn’t stomach gab. I did pay attention to Parler for a bit but just followed a few accounts that posted up links to thoughtful long reads or just posted funnies like High-funtioning Libertarian. It’s formatted in a way that you don’t see comments unless you click anyway. I like that.
Gab is less bad once you get a curated list of people to follow who aren’t in the top 25 most followed. You can also set up filters on some of the most commonly used racist phrases, which helped a lot.
Still a lot of conspiracy theory trafficking, weird off-topic stuff, blatant self promotion, and general social media sewer behavior, but I’m there for the parallel economy, not to socialize with people. I’ve deleted my account a couple times, but I keep coming back because I think it’s important to support Torba’s vision even if I have no interest in consuming the social media feed. 90% of my follows are small businesses, and I try to pop in once a week to skim for news that didn’t make it onto glibs.
One hopes that the majority of them are simple-minded teenagers acting out to shock the older folks, much like most of the scribbled swastikas on walls and such are done because they know it will shock people and cause an uproar.
There is at least a little of that. Analyzing postmodernism is important in understanding how the left succeeds, but one should not overextend the analysis to the belief that postmodernism is the ruling order. Our society is full of widely held taboos and universalist mores; there is not now nor has there even been an overculture that actually adheres to pomo. It is just a weapon used to degrade an established moral framework and replaced it with another one. Young people who have (or believe they have) nothing to lose will recognize these taboos and flout them. Some of them may end up at sincere belief, but one should no more regard this as deterministic than, say, believing the Jon Stewart-Stephen Colbert shtick would lead to a more self-aware, humorous, and open politics.
This is what bothers me most about the new right – that the most salient feature is the devotion to the tactics of the left. You can’t get to a good end by bad means.
When you fight with Marquis of Queensbury rules and your opponent fights prison rules and is constantly snaking you while the ref holds your arms behind your back, the end result is that you will end up dead. In that case your choice is to die a noble death (and then be painted as the bad guy anyway) or fight to win. And the only win you win is to fight with the same or more brutality than the bully.
Team red idiots either learn this is reality or they will be the prison bitch because they will lose if they keep following the rules. Real life isn’t a fable or parable.
Curious what you mean by ‘using the tactics of the left?’
It’s probably obvious now but I disagree. The Art of War is not a book of leftist tactics. Fighting to win does not mean becoming indistinguishable from the enemy. Set aside Disneyfied notions of morality; that too is the enemy’s work.
We must recognize these things: the Fabian strategy and the Long March through the institutions were successes; the enemy started by taking the heights of culture and respectability, and then needed only to wait for the fruits to grow. When challenged, they weaponized our principles against us and we enabled it by allowing them to dictate what those principles “really” meant. Principles are promises you give to your friends, and your friends judge you by your adherence to them. The enemy is not swayed by accusations of “hypocrisy” because they have the initiative and thus get to define what their own principles mean, and these definitions can change whenever appropriate. We are suckers if we believe their words instead of watching their actions.
There is no point insisting on decorum with the indecorous. There is not point demanding a return to normalcy with the people who hate normalcy. There is no point arguing for a common moral ground with those who prefer shifting sand. The mushy middle always does what power tells it to, sometimes sooner, sometimes later. The real fight is over what power is telling people. Every day, it moves in a direction less favorable to us. We cannot bend it to our will through appeals for mercy.
Trump is the mold, not the end-game. We should not give one iota of concern for how we appear to people who hate us. You build respect through strength.
I will answer all 3 of you at once.
The left fights only for the sake of power. When the right adopts that mode (because it seems to work), then it isn’t fighting either a good fight (pace Alex), nor one that will lead to a good outcome (wrt kbolino).
If the fight isn’t to constrain/limit power, then the fight isn’t worth it and humanity should destroy itself. It would deserve that end.
To me, the bothersome part of the new right isn’t their tactics, but their battlefield. Rather than telling the bigoted left to fuck off, they play the victim. Rather than identifying and rejecting skin-suited institutions, they agitate for regulating them. The new right is a resurgence of populist technocracy in a way that hasn’t been seen on the right since the socons came to power in the late 19th century.
It’s a short term solution to a problem that has been festering for a century. They want to be the “you tommorow” of “me today, you tomorrow”, not realizing that it just flips and comes right back to them in spades.
That seems a little extreme JI. There’s too much good in humanity to condemn it based on politics.
In some cases I could see the benefit of growing your power to prevent evil. Not having the strength to stand up to your enemies doesn’t seem like a virtue to me.
You must first seize power in order to limit it. Power does not answer to you. It does not wait to hear what you think of it. It does not limit itself any more than it absolutely has to. The idea that power can be constrained through democracy alone has been disproven everywhere democracy has been tried, from Athens to the present day.
There is no such thing as a clean victory. The Patriots were bastards in the Revolution. The Union were bastards in the Civil War. The U.S. Army were bastards in WW2. Our hands are not clean; that is propaganda. “But our enemies were worse!” you may say. Yes! Yes, they were. They still are. All the more reason to beat them.
@trashy, strongly agree wrt the regulate social media movement. I remember ~10 years ago when the right was fighting against such movements (in the radio sector, or course)
It’s a short term solution to a problem that has been festering for a century. They want to be the “you tommorow” of “me today, you tomorrow”, not realizing that it just flips and comes right back to them in spades.
This is a good way of putting it, and I think also this is the reason fascism ultimately failed everywhere it was tried (from Spain to Chile to South Africa; I’m not talking about the Austrian Painter). The “Third Way” was a solution with no spiritual center. And so too the “New Right” largely represents a resurgence of the “Old Right” which instead of having lost the Culture War of the 1960s–1990s lost the Culture War of the 1860s–1890s.
This burgeoning awareness must be separated from the black pill that we are on the losing side. Rejoice, we have been on the losing side for almost two centuries, we’re not going to be exterminated just yet. Where do we go next? Right-wing populism has to lead somewhere and not just be an end unto itself.
“ and I think also this is the reason fascism ultimately failed everywhere it was tried (from Spain to Chile to South Africa; I’m not talking about the Austrian Painter).”
Fascism didn’t fail at all from what I see in the western world. it just mutated to drop, or more often, better hide, some of the more onerous beliefs/practices from Fascism 1.0. Instead of sending their enemies to camps, they now destroy your ability to earn a living. They have made the nationalist bent an evil thing (realigning more with the international nature of marxism). They still do command economies, using the power of government to pick winners and losers, while blaming capitalism – something that doesn’t exist since the power of government is used to control practically everything the private sector does or doesn’t do – for the things they want to cancel.
The CCP might pay lip service to marxism, but they are the epitome of the new fascist system. Our leaders in the west are jealous of the CCP and want to have just that themselves. That’s why the shit is so fucked up and we talk so retarded these days (Ideocracy was prophetic).
AlexinCT: I see where you are coming from, and I agree that “free-market capitalism” is not the reigning economic order. But fascism is more than just a merger of state and corporate power; there is also a vigorous sense of national identity and a strong reaction against leftist social (dis)order which are very much missing from our “fascist” system today. Moreover, the fascist still sees the state in the driver’s seat of the state-corporate system; whereas, in our present day, it is not so apparent to me as may be to you that the state is in the driver’s seat. For good or ill, there is a massive network of state-adjacent organizations (e.g. universities, nonprofits, media) which feed into the state more than the other way around.
Right-wing populism has to lead somewhere and not just be an end unto itself.
Yup. Being reactionary works for as long as you’re less bad and less powerful than the alternative. That’s what causes the script to flip when the reactionaries gain power.
Broadening back out, this is why the right’s tactics should be aggressive, but their strategy should be conservative. Aggressively wrest the power back from the prog-fascists, but don’t retaliate with mirrored abuses of power. Of course, that’s not usually what happens when the reactionaries take power.
I don’t want to be the most consistent libertarian in the box car bragging I never violated the NAP
“But fascism is more than just a merger of state and corporate power; there is also a vigorous sense of national identity and a strong reaction against leftist social (dis)order which are very much missing from our “fascist” system today.”
That’s the old fascism. The new fascism actually encourages leftist disorder, especially when it allows the state to grow its power in favor of the machine. What it now won’t tolerate is disorder that harms the state. That’s why we had the machine encouraging the BLM/Antifa riots (the state profited from disorder that might rid it of the asshole that won the election they had rigged for Hillary and then lost because of voters that led to 4 years of soft coup attempts) while coming down with its full force on that shit on 1/6 (or if you look to or north how they responded to an actual worker’s movement).
“Moreover, the fascist still sees the state in the driver’s seat of the state-corporate system; whereas, in our present day, it is not so apparent to me as may be to you that the state is in the driver’s seat. For good or ill, there is a massive network of state-adjacent organizations (e.g. universities, nonprofits, media) which feed into the state more than the other way around.”
All you have to look at is how the state decided the US would not remain energy independent and would do that green shit that resulted in Russia thinking it had the west by the balls and made Putin go all adventurous (and I suspect they wanted this for some reason not yet apparent) or how the state told social media to censor anyone that effectively was opposing its reset agenda and they jumped to comply. I am sure there are examples of some occasional pushback from the private sector, but in general our machine dictates what private entities prosper (see green tech shit that is unviable but gets tons of money from government that uses it as a way to funnel tax payer cash to their preferred people) and which ones will not prosper or even will fail (see fracking and pipelines in the US).
I guess I see it like this: CAGW and the “green energy” bullshit came from the academy first. The state adopted it later. The fact that it was useful to the state is why it got adopted, of course, and the state will shop around for the ideas most advantageous to power, but having seen some of the insides of government up close, I’m not convinced there is enough competence and initiative there to be making their own decisions. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, and whatnot.
Creech, was it you that was reading the Lighthorse Harry book? I finished mine and would be happy to send it to you, if you are interested.?
No, I wasn’t reading it but I wanted to read it.
I put them in the nasty-but-don’t-bother-anyone quadrant of the nice/nasty bother-people/do-not-bother-people quadrangle.
The big problem is the nice-bother-people folks who support the nasty-bother-people square.
Exactly. Nice-bother-people is a false existence, a natural contradiction. As soon as you are bother-people, whether you are nice about it or not, you are a fuckwad. It’s just harder to get angry at nice people. That really makes them worse than the nasty types who are easily hated.
Ah, good to see Mitt Romney being the left’s bagman as usual.
I think he’s more the sack man – fondling the sack of those who tell him to shut up and be a good boy.
After reading about Nick Fuentes (allowing for the obvious bias of some of the reports), whatever he is is not something someone would want to be associated with.
I’m reminded of Don’s comment a few days ago about somebody on the production line saying if she removed a washer and shim the transmissions went together much more easily.
GM Recalls Certain C8 Corvette Models For Missing Halfshaft Bearings
The problem: affected C8 Corvette Stingray models had improperly manufactured half shafts installed at the factory that were missing one or more ball bearings.
Whoopsie!
Plus, they only had half the shaft. Seems like a big problem. /Ignorant about cars
“I probably have at least 2 full years of my life invested in that game.”
When I look at the cumulative hours played in my Steam account for various games I almost feel ashamed and that’s just for the last eight years when I’ve had an account. I enjoy gaming but what a time suck it can be.
Happiness is taking a vacation day for no other reason than you’re reaching your max accrual.
“1619 founder Nikole Hannah-Jones blasts media for ‘insidious racism’ and claims they only care about ‘Europeans with blond hair and blue eyes’ after heavy coverage of Ukraine compared to other conflicts”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10558235/Nikole-Hannah-Jones-blasts-media-insidious-racism-heavy-coverage-Ukraine-invasion.html
CWAA
Translation: “When people who don’t look like me suffer I don’t give a shit.”
Alternate translation “Nobody is paying attention to my grift right now!”
Just five minutes ago, we had to stand with Ukraine because there are black people there and Putin wants to exterminate them. Can the ethno-narcissists not get their stories straight?
ethno-narcissists
Yeah, I’m stealing that one.
Fair, I stole it too.
I bought a ticket to this movie called “Putin invades Ukraine” but it’s overhyped, there’s not much action, the plot is boring, and the special effects are fake. I want my money back.
Ever think “nah, this story is just too stupid to link, even to laugh at journalismists.”
Then you say “Fuck it, it’s Monday.”
Virtually in chains, huh. No way I’m watching, however.
Everything serves a purpose, even the incredible (definition #2) dreck.
You mean like the link embedded in that story?
https://www.yourtango.com/news/california-high-school-installs-transition-closet
Apparently all the trans kids were still in the closet when I was a bit younger. We had none and the weather was weather every year.
Force Congress to do its job? That’s just like slavery!
The states and the coal industry appealed to the Supreme Court last year. The Biden administration, fearing a disastrous ruling, “unilaterally surrendered the Clean Power Plan” and pledged to write a new rule that would regulate only the coal fired plants themselves, says Harvard’s professor Lazarus. “They buried it, and they told the court it’s gone. There is no more case.”
But the court, in an unusually muscular assertion of power, agreed to review the now-revoked plan. It is no secret why. To one degree or another, the court’s six-justice conservative supermajority has been itching to limit the power of regulatory agencies, and potentially even the power of Congress.
In recent cases, the conservative court majority has begun to outline something it calls the “major questions doctrine,” which could hamstring the authority of all agencies, from the EPA to the Securities and Exchange Commission to Federal Reserve Board.
In general, it is far less deferential to agencies than the court’s previous case law suggested. Specifically, the major questions doctrine requires Congress to specifically authorize new policies or directions, even when the language of a statute gives an agency broad power. The question is, “has Congress spoken clearly enough to tell a federal agency that you can create a program that has substantial effects on the American economy,” explains Tom Johnson, a lawyer who previously worked for West Virginia in its opposition to the Clean Power Plan.
Congresspersons are too busy raising money and running for re-election to get bogged down in the nuts and bolts of their grand concepts. Besides, they might actually be expected to know what they’re talking about.
Remember, to you democracy means the people voting for what they want (demos+kratein = rule by the people). To them, democracy means the people ratifying what their betters have told them to. You see the motte while they frolic in the bailey.
You see the motte while they frolic in the bailey.
Stealing this one, too.
I’m* stealing this one, too. You’re on a roll this morning kbolino
*shrug* I guess I slept well last night
…at holiday Inn Express?
/Someone had to say it.
…limit the power of regulatory agencies, and potentially even the power of Congress.
The former actually means limiting the power of THE EXECUTIVE. How fucking stupid can you be to not understand THAT? Oh wait, you mean you do understand, but you’re a crypto-fascist that wants power in the hands of one single person accountable to the people? And you are lying about what your own true motives are. OK.
It limits congressional power because they might have to actually pass detailed authorizing legislation with all of the time and potential accountability that entails. They’re big picture guys! They need to pass stuff to find out what’s in it.
The bureaucracy is not part of the executive branch any longer. Recognizing this, and forgetting about what the Constitution intended (or at least, not holding it to be authoritative), is important. The enemy knows this. Do not be fooled by Mr. “Pen and Phone”; he was only providing top-cover for what the people “under him” wanted to do already. There is no imperial Presidency in this country. There is, however, an emerging Mandarinate, led as always by eunuchs.
Agreed
You’re not far off.
Yes, that’s the problem that needs fixing. A SC decision to that end may get us there peacefully.
Relying on the Supreme Court alone is a recipe for disappointment at best and failure at worst. Taking on the bureaucracy may require empowering the Presidency in unorthodox ways, such as restoring total hire/fire authority and repealing the term limit amendment.
A SC decision would be only one step. You are quite right about the rest.
I just don’t think we’re likely to get there peacefully in the end. Humans are just too fucking complacent when as prosperous as our society is.
‘court’s six-justice conservative supermajority has been itching to limit the power of regulatory agencies, and potentially even the power of Congress.’
Those mean conservatives, trying to stop us from repeatedly breaking the constitution and then backing down only when challenged successfully so we can try again later. So dastardly.
Why come you no follow the experts? They can guide our society to a bright new future.
They’re upset that the SC is finally cottoning onto the statist game of suspending a bill/law so that they won’t rule on it due to “mootness”
Chemical supplier: In order to reserve totes for your exclusive use, you’d need to buy eight ISOs a month.
We: Ok, increase our order to 8/month.
They: We don’t have the capacity to fill that order.
“Just-in-time”
Classic Dept A doesn’t talk to Dept B.
Or passive aggressive we no longer want to reserve totes for your exclusive use but don’t want to say so outright.
*DING* *DING* *DING*
We do the same for segments we want to decrease or go away. Sometimes the customers don’t get our obscured message and hold on tighter than the runt of the litter getting a teat.
he problem: affected C8 Corvette Stingray models had improperly manufactured half shafts installed at the factory that were missing one or more ball bearings.
Fortunately, nobody actually drives them. They just ark them in the garage and admire them as they wait for the price to go up.
+$10k Dealer Markup
I have the Civilization board game. It ‘s beautiful and a lot of fun, but it does take about 2 years to play.
So big pharma is cool, big tech is cool, but big oil is not even though they might be able to bring most of us some financial relief.
I’m wondering how much Big Oil would have donate to D’s in order to become one of the Good Guys.
Unquestioning obedience, same as everybody else.
They just have to hang out with the right tech guys.
Which one? There have been at least three different versions I’m aware of (with the first predating the computer game by quite some time).
Mine is this one, the 2002 release.
Got it. Played that one a couple times back when it came out. Long and involved game with lots of bits and complex rules (and some broken strategies). The license went to Fantasy Flight after that, and they came out with a much more streamlined game (with the same name of course).
That one has been on my radar, but I haven’t picked it up, and most of the local players that like heavier games lean towards more abstract Euros.
That’s because big oil is the only one of the 3 that actually make proles lives better and not more dependent.
Professor Lazarus, for his part, worries that severely limiting Congress’s delegation powers would create a dysfunctional system of governance. He points out that, like the Clean Air Act at issue in this case, many statutes use “broad and capacious language” to authorize federal agencies to regulate commerce, health, and safety. These constitutional delegations were permissible when these laws were passed, but now, decades later, the Supreme Court seems to have changed its mind.
Dysfunctional. Unlike what we have now, which is as elegant and efficient as a Swiss watch.
What they mean by “dysfunctional” is “constitutionally or practically limited in any way or form.”
I thought he was dead?
*narrows gaze*
Obama brought him back
Fuck off, technocrat. Command and control economies are the dysfunctional ones.
These constitutional delegations were permissible when these laws were passed, but now, decades later, the Supreme Court seems to have changed its mind.
You’re only allowed to overturn precedent when the left wants it overturned, in which case it also becomes a moral imperative to do so.
I notice you have a ratchet in your hand. I have a gun.
So who is more enraged at the horrible refing on Saturday, Everton fans or Liverpool fans?
I was hoping sloopy would be around to rant this morning.
I have seen literally no one, including Man City fans, who think it wasn’t a handball.
Lampard’s post game comment calling it “incompetence, at best” is pretty much a direct claim that corruption is a legitimate possibility, right?
FROM A FRIEND: “Ukraine’s government asked citizens to turn in captured Russian tanks. Citizens replied the tanks were lost in a boating accident.”
*wild Kermit applause*
Relevant.
I think that is a Ukrainian vehicle though. Any military mind folks can confirm? Looks like an APC that was recently purchased/gifted to Ukraine from another article I read this week. Wish I could remember the name of it.
I dunno. Maybe someone more knowledgeable will stumble along.
It looks like this to me: https://www.defencetalk.com/russian-army-to-switch-to-wheeled-armored-vehicles-43784/
Yeah, I’d pretty much take the stance that anything I captured is a war trophy and if you want it and I’m willing to part with it, then fuck you, pay me.
Time magazine once named it one of the 100 greatest video games. It has spawned five sequels, the most recent of which was released in 2016.
/checks list
PacM-Man, Castle Wolfenstein, Zork, Wizardry, NetHack, and Leisure Suit Larry all made the list. Nice!
Hunt the Wumpus?
I loved that game!
Had to program it in every time we turned the machine off though, iirc.
We had one of these! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-99/4A
Parsec, TI invaders, Alpine, tombstone… What a time to be alive. I had no idea we were about a decade behind what cool kids had and I didn’t care.
Meh. Once you’ve got Zork, do you really need Wizardry or (especially) LSL?
Just say “Infocom text based adventures”
Wizardry being a different genre – yes.
LSL is due to my prurient mind. It was based on a text game, which I had played, but my prurient mind liked LSL better.
Wizardry wasn’t an Infocom text based adventure. It was one of the early party based CRPG’s.
How did Command and Conquer not make that list? Granted, there are many games on the list I haven’t played, but surely one of them is less worthy.
Also, I think Commander Keen deserves some love–it didnt’ have a huge audience but it helped gel the id Software team and set the stage for their success with the revolutionary Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake.
Dune II being on the list makes up for C&C. Same company made it, and used the concepts for that game to build C&C.
Hardly anyone played Dune II
I remember Dune II being very popular. It pretty much defined the RTS genre.
I remember never having heard of it until the second sequel cam out in 2001.
And I was an avid C&C player.
You’re going to make me search for this list?
Yes.
It’s not terrible, but they put ME3 on the list. Of all the Bioware games… ME3 is the one you pick?
What criteria are they using, because now I’m confused.
How many developers and fanbois lobbied to be on the list?
No Jumpman? I am disappoint.
https://c64online.com/c64-games/jumpman/
In other deferred sports news – what about the weekend massacre of NCAA top 10 basketball teams?
Yeah, that happens sometimes.
Its near the end of a long season and conference tourneys are just around the corner. Now is a good time to take a loss and reset.
When are the fuenerals? How mong are we going to have to suffer through memorial and tribute articles…
Oh, you mean metaphorically.
It was unprecedented that the top 6 all lost on the same day. Parity rules!
Interestingly, only three losses out of seven were to unranked teams. Purdue lost to 19-9 Mich State (probably a 26-29 ranked team before the win), Arizona lost to a 10 loss Colorado (probably 38-42 rank) , and Tex Tech lost to a 9 loss TCU (probably 29-33 rank).
I come bearing a message of optimism and hope
“I think there’s no question that in the State of the Union, the American people and anybody watching around the world will hear the president talk about the efforts he has led over the past several months to build a global coalition to fight against the autocracy and the efforts of President Putin to invade a foreign country,” Psaki said.
“But what people will also hear from President Biden is his optimism and his belief in the resilience of the American people and the strength of the American people,” she added.
If you dumb racist Nazis would just do exactly as I say, the world would be a better place.
Funny how anyone that stands against these evil people is labeled a Nazi, huh?
We’re invading Canada, too?
Apparently, these efforts did not include selling arms to the country he was going to invade, though.
Guess they succeeded in distracting everyone from their shit policies?
Oh the pretzel making will be grand and will make any Catholic priest avert their eyes to the contortions their bodies will have to do to light the gas lamps.
I would rather he perform his job without having to rely on my resiliency to do so.
A little throwback to 35 years ago
Nice try, Dr Gerber.
“What if I told you Europe is not a continent by defintion, but a geopolitical fiction to separate it from Asia and so the alarm about a European, or civilized, or First World nation being invaded is a dog whistle to tell us we should care because they are like us.”
https://twitter.com/nhannahjones/status/1498023539156275200
https://twitter.com/redsteeze/status/1498141208324964352
The dimwit cannot understand a definition, meanwhile the midwit cannot overcome one.
Oh you are on fire today.
Cheers.
According to Psaki, while Biden will acknowledge the crisis in Ukraine, he would also speak on “what we all have to look forward to.”
*anguished groan*
Now with less lube!
With every passing day, the situation in Ukraine looks more like a LARP.
I think this pics belongs here.
If it were a panel in a comic, I would’ve condemned it as unbelievable.
It’s all about your PMA: Positive Mental Attitude…sure you live under a bridge but it’s a very nice bridge and just check out the view.
His retirement?
“Groove is in the Heart” ——> “Groovus in our hearts”
Gaaaaaay
Time to buy?
In less than a week, Russian assets have become practically untouchable for Western investors, who see no reason to expose themselves to a pariah economy that could be crushed by sanctions. Financial transactions also look increasingly difficult to execute and risk running afoul of regulators.
“It’s very difficult to see any scenario right now where buying Russian assets makes sense,” David Coombs, head of multi-asset investments at Rathbones, told me. All bets, he added, would be a “pure gamble.”
Something something blood in the streets….
Didn’t they shut down their markets? Where can a prole like me get in on the action?
I too am a potential killer (tw Slate)
I’m not saying you’re a murderer if you own a gigantic truck. I’m saying you’re a manslaughterer. If you do kill a person, it won’t be because you carefully planned it. It’ll happen totally by accident, and you’ll be horrified. The person you kill, if it happens, won’t be some jerk who wronged you. They won’t deserve it at all. Heck, there’s a solid chance it’ll be a toddler.
Does this make you feel bad? It should!
I’ve been thinking of what customized license plate to get for the new-to-me Titan. I bet that “I KILL” is probably still available.
The ridiculous condemnations based on the worst possible interpretations are getting tiresome. Maybe someone just needs to haul some fucking lumber.
This picture in the photo is a Ram Classic. it is sadly mislabeled in the article. At least get that right.
Kinnath- Reserve that license plate ASAP.
They’ve been publishing that article for 30 years.
KLLR might be easier to get.
Yes, p=mv and all that, but how much do these people think “compact” cars weigh? Is there even a car sold in the U.S. anymore that is under 1 ton? Also, let’s not look at how CAFE standards have been juked to favor larger vehicles.
Does this make me feel bad?
No, not in the slightest.
Notably absent from this editorial – any mention of the higher insurance rates for full-size trucks and SUVs, that indemnify the increased risks.
Ten or fifteen years ago, there was an article about soccer moms whining about how expensive the insurance was on their “safe” V8 SUVs. “They’re so safe for my kids, how can they cost more to insure?”
Well, you way more likely to kill someone when you get distracted, so you pay more in liability insurance. Pretty straightforward.
“But those are other people. They don’t matter.”
Exactly.
“But those are icky people. They deserve what they get.”
FIFY.
I have to admit, it was a surprise when I saw the premium on the Titan compared to the other vehicles that I own.
Hundred meter tall walking death machines tend to cause collateral… I mean yes, the SUVs are expensive.
Full size pick up, not SUV.
But yeah, it might as well be a hundred meter tall walking death machine. The premium is almost as much as the other three vehicles combined.
When I saw the title of that article, I was sure it was about the emissions and global warming…
KUVs, made for mostly peaceful protesters standing the street.
How many speed bump laws passed?
Christ, I should’ve know better than to look at the comments on a Slate article.
Shares of BP (BP) plunged 7% in London on Monday. Santander analyst Jason Kenney thinks the company could take a hit of more than $26 billion as it walks away from its business in the country.
Oh, did they now?
I bet that “I KILL” is probably still available.
“KRUSHEM”
I got a book for my dad for his bday that he already owns (Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman). Any recommendations for books about and/or by famous irreverent iconoclasts? He’s already read everything by C. Hitchens, BTW.
A Biography of Leo III?
The irony is that Leo was an iconoclast because he was reverent (at least in his own mind).
Something by Benjamin Franklin?
The Devil’s Dictionary.
Menckin?
Big Oil. What does it mean? Is there “Small Oil”? Mom & Pop Oil? Jed Clampitt!
I understand why they use the “Big” label as an epithet when applied to tobacco; they don’t want to tar (snort) the Indian tribe cigarettes and the small tobacco farmers as evil.
But why the heck do we even have to tag oil with the term “big”? Is it more insidious that way?
Heh.
It’s also a bit like blaming someone for something you forced them to do. Despite leftist cries to the contrary, petroleum is pretty heavily regulated. There is no “overarching regulatory framework” like the CAGW cult wants, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t stiff regulations on exploration, extraction, refining, transportation, and delivery. Consolidation into larger firms is inevitable in that environment.
According to Governor Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, “Big Oil” is the cause of all the problems in PA. By it, he means the extraction companies and explicitly targeted them during his campaigns.
In reality, he means that all of the land owners, primarily in very “Red” areas of the state, who have profited enormously from oil and gas leases on their property, are his enemies, along with the secondary beneficiaries of the incredible economic boom that we saw before he came into office.
Some context may be necessary: in PA, the State (Commonwealth) by law owns all “mineral rights” beneath the surface and landowners cannot profit by selling them. “Mineral Rights,” however, in this state excludes oil and gas, so the state has no claim to the resources and landowners were free to lease their rights to extraction companies. PA (the state) also owns extremely large tracts of timber from which it profits through forestry business. So PA is used to taking the profits directly from its natural resources and of course Wolf saw this as an unacceptable situation. He went after “big oil” with vehemence, but most people saw through that veneer and realized he was hating on the landowners. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to deny him two terms in the Governor’s mansion.
in PA, the State (Commonwealth) by law owns all “mineral rights” beneath the surface
WTF?
It applies to coal and other minerals, I believe. It’s pretty much unique among the States, I think.
My apologies, it seems I’m not completely correct here. In PA the mineral rights can be separated from surface rights, so buying a property does not convey the subsurface mineral rights unless the deed specifically states the rights are included.
It is confusing in some parts of PA because somehow the state managed to get ahold of some of them in the past for large portions. So it’s not universal that the state owns the mineral rights to any given piece of property.
In PA the mineral rights can be separated from surface rights, so buying a property does not convey the subsurface mineral rights unless the deed specifically states the rights are included.
That’s the way it is in Texas, and I believe just about everywhere.
I did some reading just now on this and it seems that in some mineral-poor states, they may not make a distinction. States specifically mentioned that do separate surface from subsurface rights are PA, OK, TX, CO, LA, and NM:
I wonder if there is any impact from colonial history there. Wasn’t the whole state Penn’s personal property at some point?
If people were just covering surface rights, the mineral rights may default to the state in that environment.
I have a friend who owns a surveying/civil engineering firm who has spent considerable time researching property deeds going back to the original Royal charter to Penn. I’ll have to ask him what the real story is.
I have a vague memory that the state’s ownership of surface resources, such as the state forests, date back to Teddy Roosevelt style Progressivism. “These natural resources are going to be destroyed by new technology, so we need the state to save us!”.
Err… I should add. I referenced Teddy Roosevelt because that was about the time the state started buying up/seizing forests. example.
I actually know a person that has inherited an interest in a smallish parcel of land that they lease to an oil driller. As I understand it, there are just a couple of derricks on it. He gets a small royalty from it each year. I joke with him that he is small oil.
I have tried not to wade into the sewer that is Twitter too much, but I was searching yesterday to see if there were videos of actual Javelin uses by Ukrainian forces. Searching “Ukraine Javelin” on Twitter yields an enormous amount of comments alternately arguing that Trump and a GOP Congress denied Javelins to Ukraine as part of an extortion scheme and that Biden denied them and tried to extort concessions from Ukraine.
From what I understand to be the facts, under Trump, Javelins were sold to Ukraine under the condition that they could not be used in the ongoing conflict in the eastern regions, but against a general invasion, that was OK.
Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Are they all right, and simply *everyone* is a nasty, extortionist global piece of shit?
Yes.
I hate you.
Also, if you show up on a Zoom sometime I can show off my new shiny video production doo-dads for streaming…
Cool cool. Was going to this weekend, but live hockey and mask free make OBE a very happy person.
nice!
You either have your own arms industry or you’re someone else’s bitch. Better to not find out whose bitch you are at the last minute.
Indeed
Hmm, selling weapons to a foreign military while trying to attach unenforceable and unverifiable conditions?. Must be Monday in Foggy Bottom…
A javelin? Light spears won’t do much against tanks. (I’ll see myself out.)
The First Casualty of War Is the Truth – The Current Western Propaganda for Ukraine Is Epic in Scale
Russian bot alert!
It is amazing the amount of propaganda being pushed. Ghost of Kyev, Snake Island Soldiers, Takedown of an entire Chechnyan tank brigage including the general…
That was false?
https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/802950.html
*shrug*
Did they hire Bagdad Bob?
The first casualty of this war though was Fauci’s narrative. I bet he is like Gollum right now in some dark cave petting his precious narrative.
Similar
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/war-propaganda-about-ukraine-becoming/
This is the stuff that makes me very nervous. Incompetent morons psyching themselves up for something really stupid and dangerous.
I mean there’s like a 99.9% Putin is bluffing, but it may have been smart to go there.
Me too. And the fact I live in a spot that will be nuked first has been crossing my mind, haven’t thought about that in a long time.
Tucker and Tulsi being called “Moscow apologists” in fucking Rolling Stone.
I… can’t even.
Ah yes. Deee-Lite.
“Kierin Magenta Kirby (born August 15, 1963), better known as Lady Miss Kier, is an American singer, songwriter, DJ, designer, fashion icon,…”
Cool!
“…and activist.”
Ugh.
“On that album, she called attention to the issue of ozone depletion with her song “I Had a Dream I Was Falling Through a Hole in the Ozone Layer”.”
Well it seems to have worked. I haven’t heard anything about the ozone hole in quite a while.
Still, that’a a great song. Love the cameos from Bootsy and Q-Tip.
Absolutely. I saw Bootsy and his band a few years ago at a festival and they really tore it up.
Is there even a car sold in the U.S. anymore that is under 1 ton?
These days, a 3000lb car is “light”. The previously mentioned C8 rolls across the scales at a svelte 3650 or so.
Add metal to protect the passengers in an accident. Vehicle gets heavy and gas mileage drops.
Add half a ton of batteries to make a hybrid to improve gas mileage. Silent cars murder pedestrians.
Add radar sensors and autobraking to avoid killing pedestrians . . . . . blah blah blah
And I don’t know why she swallowed the fly . . . . .
I am usually very aware of my surroundings when I am out. I didn’t realize how much of that awareness depends upon sound until I realized a car had been waiting for me to stroll my way across a parking lot. Electric vehicle. Didn’t make a sound.
I was very irritated that they caused me to be an inconsiderate pedestrian.
FedGov imposed, or will impose, regulations that electric and hybrids will have to “make noise” so that blind people know that they are there.
The noise is so dang annoying. I’d cut the wire if I knew where it was.
I was almost killed by an electric tram in Amsterdam near the Rijksmuseum. I never heard it until it whooshed past me. Granted, I should have stayed a bit further from the tracks, but I expected any train to be going the opposite direction, and the damn thing was so quiet. Not even a bell or horn, and there was a driver in the front who should have seen me.
Rijksmuseum…
Is that what they’re calling De Wallen now?
The lightest cars appear to be the SmartCar and the Mitsubishi Mirage, both right around 2,000 pounds.
I dont know where the Chevy Spark falls in that weight class, but Jugsy got stuck with one as a rental a couple weeks ago.
My only thought when I briefly drove it to fill the tank before return was “this roller-skate would be demolished if I hit it with my truck. Or even the POS Envoy (Denali) Testarossa”.
Im not engineer-y person, but Im pretty sure Mass always trumps Mass. Unless you have an elaborate safety system.
Midsize cars are generally safer than both smaller (cheap) and larger (functional) vehicles.
They tried to give me one of those (I had rented a full size). I said fuck no and ended up with a full size pickup.
Do not like puny cars.
Question everything.
Damn.
I occasionally see videos on Facebook from a visual effects guy that shows his kid in shocking circumstances like your linked video. They are generally so over the top that it is easy to see that they are a spoof.
Obligatory
The truth hits everybody.
Fact check: Depressingly True.
1. I have cared about other wars.
2. This is a war between a nuclear power and a country adjacent NATO.
He’s not talking about you, Rat.
He’s talking about them.
They need Ukrainian flag masks.
The QR codes on the foreheads is a nice touch.
I’m sure that guy thinks that he’s very smart.
The fatal flaw that doomed Generation X, was confusing ironic detachment for intelligence.
Was it apathy or did they forget to tell me we are doomed?
I heard the “Ghost of Kiev” and “Snake Island ‘Fuck-Yourself'” lines from different people independently this weekend. I didn’t know either were false at the time.
The “Ghost of Kiev” thing just sounded like nonsense. A Soviet-era Mig 29 blasting new Russian fighters out of the sky with impunity sounded pretty implausible.
And I heard it from a fellow pilot…who should have known better.
Ukraine is actually just a studio in Burbank. No such county exists.
*country
UkraineSouth Russia is a province of Russia.My wife mentioned it earlier today, I told her it was almost certainly nonsense.
I dunno. Smacks of contrarianism. I have a right to be concerned about this invasion.
Also have a right to not be concerned. It is so damn tiring that they think I must twist my personal feelings and views to the herd that is in the right column.
No. I get to control you.
Also, even if concerned, it doesn’t mean you agree on what is concerning or what MUST BE DONE!
true dat
Consider this is aimed at the twitterverse, it is probably mostly true (fact checked by a contrarian asshole).
I chuckled, sensibly.
Oh, come on the IK-EA rifle isn’t that difficult to put together.
finding the right allen wrench to feed the next round is difficult.
OK, I laughed.
Assembling your own rifle is boring.