About The Author

Banjos

Banjos

Wife of sloopy, mother to three bright, curious, and highly active young girls. Perpetually exhausted.

406 Comments

  1. Evan from Evansville

    I believe I shall First this. Gotta love CNN’s failure.

    • Fatty Bolger

      I can’t believe they thought people would pay $6 a month for CNN. lmao.

      • Not Adahn

        Everyone they know thinks CNN is great, and absolutely essential to Democracy!

      • slumbrew

        They thought they’d have 2 million subscribers the first year! And 15-18 million by year 4!

        They must have the best drugs at CNN.

      • The Other Kevin

        I know it’s early and all but 0.5% of their expected subscribers makes me so happy. Couldn’t happen to a worse bunch of people. LOLOLOLOL

      • Evan from Evansville

        Yo. You’re in Indiana as well, yeah? We may need to hang out if you have the time.

        I’m leaving sometime after May 9.

      • The Other Kevin

        Yep, I’m an Indiana man, in the northwest corner.

      • invisible finger

        CNN: the High-Speed Rail of news.

  2. Not Adahn

    An out-of-shape, not-all-there senior citizen avoids NY’s finest? Unpossible.

    Well, unless he crawled off somewhere inaccessible and autoeuthanized.

    • Evan from Evansville

      You enbiggened that comment with such a cromulent message. We are honored.

      • Not Adahn

        I can’t take credit; I stole it from Iain M. Banks.

      • Evan from Evansville

        Psh. I stole mine from Conan (when he was good) and the Simpsons.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        That was a Conanism? Makes sense. When do you think he lost It?

    • slumbrew

      As long as we learn the important lesson from this tragedy, it’s OK.

      That lesson, of course, is *checks wristband* ban ghost guns!

      • Not Adahn

        Daily Mail says it was a .380, which doesn’t makes much sense.

        NYPD presser said it was a G17, which doesn’t make sense if it jammed.

        Of course, I can see DM getting confused about the difference between 9×19 and 9x17mm.

      • UnCivilServant

        Watch, it’ll turn out to be a Lorcin.

      • Not Adahn

        I’ve never actually heard of someone using a taco truck as a weapon.

      • UnCivilServant

        They have a special every saturday night.

      • EvilSheldon

        If he was using some cheap-ass extendos, a Glock 17 malfunctioning is very believable.

        What is really weird is that fanboy shot like 10 people and didn’t manage to kill any of them. I’ll place my bet now – it’ll turn out that he was using snakeshot or some other zero-penetration dipshit load.

        I also noticed a couple of field-expedient tourniquets and pressure dressings. Good stuff. If you carry in public, you need to have the knowledge and hardware to treat a gunshot wound. A Stop The Bleed class is a good place to start.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Dude, Hydra-Shoks are expensive.

      • db

        Also, ineffective.

      • EvilSheldon

        Like divorces, they’re worth it. How’s that for an ugly parallel?

      • db

        I read they identified the gun was chambered in .380 ACP.

      • Not Adahn

        NYPD Spox said G17. No idea what DM’s source is.

      • db

        This is why it’s mostly pointless to discuss facts in these cases before a few days have passed.

      • db

        So, Glock 42 if it’s a Glock.

      • EvilSheldon

        Or a Glock 25 or 28. How weird would that be?

      • db

        The 25 would likely be stolen, or purchased used, if legally obtained. Was the 28 banned from import to the USA as well?

      • Not Adahn

        I never understood why carrying a dedicated tourniquet was a thing when suitable materials for one are always at hand.

      • EvilSheldon

        Improvised tourniquets do not work nearly as well as purpose-built ones. And ‘always at hand’ is a massive overstatement.

        You should still know how to improvise a tourniquet, but you should have one on you as well. Especially if you’re at the range.

      • Not Adahn

        No, I don’t believe it is a massive overstatement. That’s why I italicized the “always.” Even when I’m naked, I’m nearby to sheets or towels.

      • Count Potato

        Also, if you carry a tourniquet, you might want carry a marker so you can write the time down on the person’s forehead.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Even when I’m naked, I’m nearby to sheets or towels.

        Kleenex don’t count.

      • EvilSheldon

        Sheets and towels are half of an improvised tourniquet. What are you going to use for the windlass?

        Even then, you end up with something that takes much longer to apply, and is much more likely to fail.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Thank you for the reminder. I’ve got an extra tq or two I should just toss in my work bag. In the wrapper and unstaged is still better than nothing.

      • Sean

        Those Korean mags suck. I doubt they’ve gotten any better.

      • db

        It’s possible to get ETS mags to function very well by replacing the follower with a Glock follower.

      • Sean

        I don’t have anything bad to say about the ETS stuff.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Sounds like he was shooting low, according to the report I heard last night? Mostly leg wounds?

        First reports are always wrong, though.

      • Bobarian LMD

        I thought they said they recovered a .38, but it may have been in the bag of fireworks.

      • rhywun

        Mayor Idiot basically said exactly that.

        “We have a gun problem herpity derpity doo.”

        Because banning legal guns would totally have prevented this crime which was in all likelihood committed with a stolen weapon just like the vast majority of the rest of them.

      • Not Adahn

        Pretty sure Freddy Fatman didn’t have a license to carry in NYC. And those mags were most definitely not SAFE act compliant.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      He’s hiding at the gun range. The cops will never find him there.

      • EvilSheldon

        Ouch.

  3. Tres Cool

    whaddup doh’

    • Yusef rides a Bike

      Semi same, sup Tres!
      /Earl Grey, Hot

      • Tres Cool

        I worked 2 hours over and Im off tonight. TALL CANS!

  4. Evan from Evansville

    RIP Gilbert Gottfried. You were weird and that was the point. Your roast of 9/11 was remarkable. Among other things. Take care, fellow strange human.

    • SDF-7

      I’m sure he’d be pissed that for all his talent — my brain jumps to Iago the parrot every time I think of him. Ah well… he was still damned good in that role.

      • Evan from Evansville

        A) Yes, he was.
        B) The man got a good paycheck for that.
        A+B=He deserved it.

    • Tres Cool

      Im thinking you meant the Hugh Hefner roast he did post 9/11. The Aristocrats joke. I just watched it again- great stuff.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Apparently he had a bunch of 9/11 jokes ready to go, but the first one got such a bad reaction that he immediately pivoted and did The Aristocrats instead.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Double G was a complete mystery as a kid. I saw him in TV shows and movies and had no idea why he was there. Then I started listening to him on podcasts with Penn Jillette and Norm and laughed and laughed.

      Gilbert with Norm

      • Fatty Bolger

        First time I ever saw him was in Beverly Hills Cop 2. My friends and I thought he was hilarious, and were doing imitations for months after.

      • Galt1138

        The first couple of years I lived in LA, I worked front desk/night auditor at hotels (low budget movies weren’t paying much).

        Gottfried was a guest at Le Montrose hotel in West Hollywood once, and I checked him in. Very nice, soft spoken guy.

        His 9/11 Aristocrats bit is classic.

  5. Not Adahn

    About that bogus whipping story, a question for the horsey glibs:

    It seems to me that trying to hit someone with your reins is a terrible idea and a great way of getting thrown from the horse. Is that so?

    • Yusef rides a Bike

      It doesn’t hurt them at all, it just gets their attention,

      • Not Adahn

        I thought the reins would get grabbed/shagged on the victim, causing the horse’s head to suddenly get yanked to one side.

      • UnCivilServant

        That would depend on where you were holding the reins and whether your grip could counteract the effect before it reached the horse.

  6. Tonio

    He also shared local news reports and movie clips and used them as jumping-off points for his rants. A March 1 video began with a PIX 11 report about rising violence in New York City’s subways. In it, he went on to criticize Mayor Eric Adams, women, social workers and homeless people.

    This sounds vaguely familiar. Are we missing any of our regulars?

    • Sean

      Pie seems to be absent. What did you people do to him?

      • Not Adahn

        Ditto Limey. Apparently the great Euro-firewall is blocking us, or they got sick of the Toxic Americaninity.

  7. UnCivilServant

    Good morning my Glibs and Gliberinas!

    Good Morning, Banjos!

    I’m still waiting on the ruling in Bruen to see if NY will leave the ‘May Issue’ enclave. I expect if forced to ‘shall issue’ status they’ll wind even more layers of red tape around the process to create more nitpicky points to reject applicants.

    Fun fact, at the time I took a permit prep class, the application form had a tiny instruction stating to use a particular color ink. But only one color, if you used the wrong common color (between blue or black, I forget which was being mandated) you would be rejected for failing to follow instructions.

    • Tonio

      That’s exactly what DC did after the courts told them to start issuing permits. And they know it’s illegal but they also know it takes time and money to litigate this. This shit will stop only when government employees face real, personal liability for their actions.

      • Ted S.

        I want to see them dragged out of their houses at gunpoint as the houses go on the auction block to pay off the settlement.

      • Not Adahn

        “down to the last cufflink.”

  8. SDF-7

    Morning, Banjos!

    I suppose CNN+ gives us the lower bound on the function of “How many people in America are crazy enough and will pay for their crap?” Count our blessings…

    “…SB 319 makes sure that law-abiding Georgians … can protect themselves without having to have permission from your state government,” Kemp added. “The Constitution of the United States gives us that right, not the government.”

    I should probably be happy enough squishy Kemp at least signed the thing — but this language drives me nuts. The Constitution *recognizes the innate right of the people and tells the government it can’t infringe it*, it doesn’t give the right. Did all these people fail civics? He’s at least old enough he should have had to take it (when I was growing up in the Georgia school systems, 1 year of civics + 1 year of Georgia history / state civics, iirc…)

    Did they measure literacy just in English for CA — because I have my suspicions on why the schools are failing (well, that and the ever increasing gang activity, even out here in the Central Valley…)?

    Re: the Haitian “whipping” story — too bad they won’t get all their time and stress back, and I’m sure it didn’t hurt the rest of the Border and Customs folks’ morale. Pandering idiots in the Executive branch….

    Skimming the article — I’d say Brooklyn shooting person of interest posted crazy rants more than anything else. Sounds like he was just going off on everyone… which (especially given the snark around here), I’m not overly eager for the authorities to start coming down on (Hey, Spirit O Preet… how ya doin’?)

    • Plinker762

      Well, we now have a supreme court justice who won’t say if individuals have natural rights.

      • Sean

        She’s no biologist, either.

      • Pine_Tree

        Whaddya mean “she”?

  9. Rat on a train

    Inflation 40-year high, wonder what it actually is if it was calculated like it use to be
    80s or 90s definition?

    • WTF

      So, more than 15%.

      • The Other Kevin

        That tracks with the price increases I saw at the store recently. Everything seemed 10-15% more expensive.

  10. The Late P Brooks

    MSNBC has not revealed who will host the 9 p.m. hour Tuesday through Friday beginning in May. Reports have circulated since January about MSNBC executives wooing high-profile talent to the cable news network to replace Maddow.

    Strawberry?

    • Pope Jimbo

      Whoever gets that job better insist on a budget to get Maddows old office refurbished. I heard she was murder on the carpets.

      • Compelled Speechless

        Did they match the drapes? Tangled, unwashed and unkempt?

  11. WTF

    Oklahoma Gov Signs Law Banning Nearly All Abortions

    I suppose if states like NJ can ban an actual enumerated constitutional right to bear arms, then Oklahoma can also impose “reasonable, common sense restrictions” on a made-up right.

  12. SDF-7

    Daily Seaview computer console — not great, but at least not Chump territory this time:
    Daily Quordle 79
    4️⃣8️⃣
    5️⃣7️⃣
    quordle.com
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜?⬜?
    ⬜?⬜?? ⬜⬜?⬜⬜
    ⬜?⬜?⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ????? ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜?⬜⬜
    ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ?⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜?⬜⬜⬜
    ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ?????

    ⬜??⬜⬜ ⬜??⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜??⬜ ⬜??⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜??⬜ ⬜?⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜⬜?⬜ ⬜?⬜⬜?
    ????? ⬜⬜?⬜?
    ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ?⬜???
    ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ?????

    • Rat on a train

      Daily Quordle 79
      4️⃣7️⃣
      6️⃣5️⃣

    • Translucent Chum

      Daily Quordle 79
      6️⃣7️⃣
      8️⃣5️⃣
      quordle.com
      ⬜⬜?⬜⬜ ??⬜⬜?
      ⬜⬜⬜⬜? ⬜?⬜?⬜
      ⬜?⬜⬜? ?⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜⬜⬜? ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜?⬜? ⬜?⬜⬜⬜
      ????? ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ?????

      ⬜?⬜⬜⬜ ⬜??⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜??⬜ ⬜⬜???
      ?⬜??⬜ ?⬜⬜?⬜
      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜?
      ⬜?⬜?⬜ ?????
      ⬜⬜⬜?⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
      ⬜?⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
      ????? ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛

    • Plisade

      3 7
      6 5

      And got lucky with a 3 on Wordle.

      • Plisade

        Hurdle 102
        https://www.arkadium.com/games/hurdle

        4/6
        ⬜⬜?⬜⬜
        ⬜?⬜?⬜
        ⬜?⬜?⬜
        ?????
        4/6
        ⬜⬜⬜⬜?
        ⬜⬜⬜?⬜
        ⬜⬜⬜??
        ?????
        4/6
        ⬜?⬜⬜?
        ⬜?⬜⬜?
        ??⬜⬜?
        ?????
        4/6
        ⬜⬜⬜?⬜
        ?⬜⬜?⬜
        ??⬜?⬜
        ?????
        Final 1/2
        ?????

      • The Hyperbole

        I’m going to have to start getting up earlier to do all these damn puzzles.

      • Sean

        Hurdle 102
        https://www.arkadium.com/games/hurdle

        4/6
        ⬜⬜?⬜⬜
        ⬜⬜?⬜⬜
        ⬜⬜?⬜?
        ?????
        6/6
        ⬜⬜⬜⬜?
        ⬜?⬜⬜⬜
        ⬜?⬜⬜?
        ⬜?⬜⬜?
        ⬜⬜⬜?⬜
        ?????
        6/6
        ⬜?⬜⬜?
        ⬜?⬜⬜?
        ⬜?⬜⬜?
        ⬜?⬜⬜⬜
        ⬜⬜⬜?⬜
        ?????
        3/6
        ⬜⬜⬜?⬜
        ?⬜⬜?⬜
        ?????
        Final 1/2
        ?????

      • Ghostpatzer

        Hurdle 102
        https://www.arkadium.com/games/hurdle

        4/6
        ⬜⬜?⬜?
        ⬜⬜?⬜?
        ⬜⬜???
        ?????
        5/6
        ⬜⬜⬜⬜?
        ⬜⬜⬜⬜?
        ⬜⬜⬜?⬜
        ⬜?⬜?⬜
        ?????
        5/6
        ⬜?⬜⬜?
        ⬜?⬜⬜?
        ⬜????
        ⬜????
        ?????
        5/6
        ⬜⬜⬜?⬜
        ⬜⬜??⬜
        ?⬜??⬜
        ?⬜???
        ?????
        Final 1/2
        ?????

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      Daily Quordle 79
      4️⃣8️⃣
      5️⃣7️⃣

      I followed in your footsteps. Left some points on the field, but no chumpery for me.

    • Grumbletarian

      Daily Quordle 79
      7️⃣3️⃣
      8️⃣6️⃣

    • db

      4 7
      8 5

    • Grummun

      4 9
      6 8

    • Tundra

      Daily Quordle 79
      4️⃣7️⃣
      5️⃣6️⃣

      Back to 22!

    • The Other Kevin

      DNF. My first guess was fantastic, then I spent 4 guesses on the lower right when I had all but the first letter.

    • Winded

      Daily Quordle 79
      4️⃣7️⃣
      5️⃣3️⃣
      quordle.com
      ⬜⬜?⬜? ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜?⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜?⬜? ⬜?⬜⬜⬜
      ????? ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜?⬜⬜
      ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜?⬜⬜?
      ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ?????

      ⬜⬜??⬜ ⬜⬜⬜??
      ⬜??⬜⬜ ??⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜?⬜?⬜ ?????
      ⬜⬜⬜?⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
      ????? ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛

    • kinnath

      Daily Quordle 79
      7️⃣4️⃣
      9️⃣6️⃣

      not a total failure today

    • Bobarian LMD

      Daily Quordle 79
      3️⃣7️⃣
      6️⃣5️⃣==21
      The upper right had only one letter after six words, but there wasn’t much left after that.

    • grrizzly

      5️⃣7️⃣
      4️⃣6️⃣

  13. robc

    I know cromulent made the OED, but has embiggens?

    • robc

      That was a reply to Evan way up above.

  14. The Late P Brooks

    Weaponize?

    China’s Foreign Ministry has notified the US it “firmly opposes” the consulate order, ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said in a news briefing on Tuesday.

    “We express strong dissatisfaction with the politicization and weaponization of evacuations by the US,” Zhao said, adding that the US was “smearing China.”

    Pulling Americans out is “weaponizing” the plague?

    If’s not the American embassy making the Chinese look like lunatics.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I think it’s just assholes all around.

      It’s like watching pro-wrestling but only the heels showed up to work.

  15. l0b0t

    Daily Quordle 79
    4️⃣7️⃣
    3️⃣6️⃣
    quordle.com
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜?⬜?
    ??⬜?⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜⬜?⬜ ⬜⬜?⬜⬜
    ????? ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜?⬜⬜⬜
    ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜?⬜⬜⬜
    ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ?????

    ⬜??⬜⬜ ⬜??⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜??⬜ ?⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ????? ⬜⬜?⬜?
    ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜?⬜⬜?
    ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜????
    ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ?????

    • Not Adahn

      $20, same as downtown?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Just call him Captain Sulu and he’ll do whatever you want.

      • TARDis

        Let you boldly go where many have been before?

  16. Count Potato

    “Brooklyn subway shooting: Person of interest posted racist rants to YouTube for years”

    Just like the Navy Yard shooter, I’m sure the corporate media will start dropping the story because it doesn’t fit the narrative.

    • Ted S.

      Or Las Vegas.

      • Not Adahn

        What do you mean Las Vegas?

      • UnCivilServant

        That information is above your clearance level, Citizen. Friend computer kindly requests you to report to a reimaging center for cognitive alignment.

        Remember, happiness is mandatory.

    • slumbrew

      Say, what ever happened to that SUV that drove itself into a pile of old white ladies in a parade?

      • Rat on a train

        SUVs are evil and should be banned.

    • WTF

      “Black people can’t be racist!” Because…bullshit bullshit…power structures….bullshit bullshit…systems of oppression….bullshit bullshit…etc.

    • juris imprudent

      They will follow it with the exact same interest and intensity as the Waukesha parade attack.

      • Drake

        White supremist are our biggest security threat! Ignore the bodies from Black supremacists – they don’t exist

  17. Not Adahn

    So someone here reminded me of a series I started in the 4th grade, but the school library only had the first book

    I kind of want to finish what I started, but I also don’t feel like spending money when I have a pile of other unread material.

  18. Pine_Tree

    So yeah, we got constitutional carry, but we still have Kemp. Pull quote: “The Constitution of the United States gives us that right, not the government.”

    This is basically a shibboleth, and he comes down on the wrong side of it. No surprise. He doesn’t seem to believe anything other than “I’ll do whatever will keep me popular with the establishment.”

    • Brawndo

      “the constitution gives us that right”

      /Headdesk

  19. Scruffy Nerfherder

    SJWednesday: Woke Whiteys Whitening Their Whites

    I think a lot of millenials in general misunderstand the connection between systems of oppression and interpersonal experiences of prejudice, but this is also a race-specific problem.

    And by race-specific, I mean that this is a White people problem more than anything.

    Now, let me be clear about why this article is directed at White people.

    First, I am White, and as such, my role in ending racial oppression must be in engaging other White people to join accountable work for racial justice. Plain and simple.

    Second, because privilege conceals itself from those who have it and because White people benefit most from the current systems of racial oppression, we as White people have a particular tendency to bury our head in the sand on issues of race, but we also have a particular role in acting for racial justice.

    Are there people of Color who act in ways that reinforce systems of racial oppression? Sure. But it is not my place to address those issues. It is my place to work with White folks.

    • WTF

      These lunatics are so far up their own asses it’s amazing they don’t just disappear.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I love this part:

      Race as we know it was created to ensure that poor Europeans utilize interpersonal expressions of racism to uphold bigger systems of oppression.

      Somebody has never read the Old Testament, or anything that predates 1960.

      • WTF

        My favorite part is that she thinks this actually makes sense.

    • juris imprudent

      Capitalizing White? Is that trying to equate Whites with Blacks?

    • Not Adahn

      I made the mistake of reading the comments on Scott Alexander’s substack. There are people there that sincerely claim that worldwide, most racisms are performed by wypipo against nonwhites.

      Bayes wept.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        They’re also predominantly technocrats or people who want to live under a technocracy. It’s a strange juxtaposition of self-loathing and belief in social order through credentialism.

      • Not Adahn

        And utilitarians. Which sounds like a great philosophy conceptually but always starts with “assume a spherical cow” and uses that to derive policy.

      • juris imprudent

        You forget that I linked an article here about the academic paper that argued the whiteness of Japanese.

    • Plisade

      “I am White, and… privilege conceals itself from those who have it…”

      So you admittedly can’t know WTF you’re talking about.

      • juris imprudent

        It’s gnosticism, just with a different holy mystery.

    • Rebel Scum

      because privilege conceals itself from those who have it

      White-privilege is the covid of racial oppression.

      White people benefit most from the current systems of racial oppression

      Fascinating. Seems to me that the opposite is true.

  20. Not Adahn

    Am I misremembering or were there news reports yesterday that Frankie Fatman killed 8 people?

  21. The Late P Brooks

    NPR is shocked- shocked, I tell you

    A growing number of forecasters now believe a recession is on the horizon as the Federal Reserve gears up to raise interest rates sharply to combat the highest inflation in more than 40 years.

    It’s an unusual outlook at a time when the economy is strong by many measures. Employers have added nearly 6.5 million jobs in the last 12 months and unemployment has fallen to just 3.6%.

    ——-

    Last month, the Fed began raising interest rates in an effort to tamp down consumer demand and bring prices under control. Ideally, the central bank would cool off inflation without sending a chill through the whole economy.

    The monetary thermostat is not very precise, however. Some forecasters worry that the Fed’s chance of getting it just right are not good.

    “It could happen,” says former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. “But I don’t think it’s terribly likely.”

    Summers has been arguing for more than a year that both Congress and the Fed were pumping too much money into the economy, with big COVID-19 relief payments and rock-bottom interest rates.

    Not even Larry Summers can be wrong all the time.

    • WTF

      It’s Putin’s Price Hike Russia’s Recession!!!11!!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      They raised rates a whole quarter basis point! They’re totally serious about fighting inflation!

    • Rat on a train

      It’s an unusual outlook at a time when the economy is strong by many measures. Employers have added nearly 6.5 million jobs in the last 12 months and unemployment has fallen to just 3.6%.
      Ignore that the economy still hasn’t fully recovered from the jobs lost to government imposed closures and the unemployment rate would be higher if the labor participation rate was what it was two years ago.

    • Rebel Scum

      A growing number of forecasters now believe a recession is on the horizon as the Federal Reserve gears up to raise interest rates sharply to combat the highest inflation in more than 40 years.

      It’s the Biden Budget Buster Putin Price Hike.

    • WTF

      A graduate of Boston U. with an economics degree, no doubt.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      She’s so close….

    • Sean

      Would not.

    • Pine_Tree

      A yoot like this is actually redeemable at this point if you explain it right.

      Their most favorite thing to be (as has been true for yoots for all time) is the possessor of special knowledge – something that’s solis sacerdotibus.

      Explaining how currency (‘specially paper) is just a signal, not actual value, etc. as though it’s deep magic actually gets through.

    • juris imprudent

      Isn’t pulling through what caused his problem?

    • sloopyinca

      This story really tugs at your heartstrings.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Doh!

      • Pope Jimbo

        I can’t believe a Texan was quicker to make a masturbation joke than me – a Yankee!

    • ron73440

      He needs to do a better job taking care of himself.

    • Banjos

      What a jerk.

    • Pope Jimbo

      That story tugs at my heartstrings

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      In the one hand, it’s a sad story. In the other hand, it feels like a complete stranger.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Hopefully this story will have a happy ending.

    • Not Adahn

      Rare lung injury? Whacking cough?

  22. cyto

    Today in propaganda….

    NBC Today teased their upcoming story…”the New York Subway attack…. what do we know about possible motives?”

    They come back from break and do a little setup then toss to a live stand up from NYC. “We don’t know for sure what mY have motivated this attack, but officials say the attacker may have made social media posts critical of the Mayor of New York”

    End of story. That is it. Nobody knows. But he probably is motivated by being against democrats, so…. well, you know……

    Did not feature images of attacker, suspect, race…. none of that. In fact, watching the video you would think the attacker is some bald headed white dude who was fleeing toward the camera.

    • WTF

      When the media put out the description of the attacker yesterday, they omitted his race. Because somehow that’s not important as part of the description for a felon at large.

      • cyto

        Just ran another update on Today.

        “Police are now naming a suspect, not just a person of interest”

        They showed his picture.

        Did not mention race or motive.

        Compare and contrast with prior stories.

      • Not Adahn

        NY Post mentioned his race, then stealth-edited it out.

    • cyto

      As an experiment, I asked the kids in the middle school carpool if they knew about a mass killing at a Christmas parade. They did not. I asked if they knew about someone running 60 people down with an suv at a parade…. nope.

      Propaganda works.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Lies of omission are the norm.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Memory-hole incoming in 3, 2, 1….

      • Rebel Scum

        How inconvenient.

  23. Tres Cool

    Good ol’ Rob.

    Rob Reiner
    @robreiner
    If Donald Trump is not Indicted, America will no longer be a Democracy. It’s that simple.

    I wonder if anyone has every explained that what we have is not a democracy, but a constitutional republic.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Is it possible that he gets dumber with each passing year?

    • WTF

      He thinks political prosecutions of political opponents signifies “Democracy”. He really is a meathead.

    • ron73440

      what we have is not a democracy, but a constitutional republic.

      I don’t even think we have that anymore.

      • cyto

        Not unless you put “constitutional” in scare quotes

    • UnCivilServant

      Well, if he’s not able to grasp the concept that you should only indict someone for whom you have evidence of an actual crime, then getting him to grasp the difference between a democracy and a republic is hopeless.

      • cyto

        The democrats did a good job on the propaganda with this one. By going to a judge to sign off on their nonsense, they gave people easy talking points.

        Similar to having Judge Sullivan cover up the framing of Flynn by refusing to drop charges and inventing charges of his own.

      • Not Adahn

        Emoluments! Trump hotels! COnspirasee!

    • cyto

      Funny…. our current president is *actually* on the take. Like, iton-lock proven on the take from foreign interests. We knew this way back with Barisma. The level of involvement and proof has only grown.

      But sure, some partisan committee wants to indict him for something they made up out of whole cloth and it is an existential threat.

      Makes my brain hurt.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Yeah, this was my first thought.

        Joe is on tape bragging about how he said no money if you don’t can that prosecutor and it is Trump who gets impeached for “quid pro quo”?

        Of course, the very idea of attaching strings to money is so far outside of politics that it literally makes me shake just to think of it!

      • cyto

        Mentioning a pegging from 50 years ago and linking to a video is peak Glib.

      • pistoffnick

        …pegged him…

        Kinky!

  24. The Late P Brooks

    If Donald Trump is not Indicted, America will no longer be a Democracy. It’s that simple.

    The lynch mob is DEMOCRACY! in its purest form.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Nice

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Random Capitalization always lends Credibility.

    • Drake

      Best news I’ve heard today.

  25. Pope Jimbo

    No idea why this victim of racism and privilege isn’t even more famous than George Floyd.

    The incident started Dec. 22, when police say they encountered Fiafonou walking along a downtown street allegedly yelling threats. An officer reported offering to take Fiafonou to a hospital, but police say he declined and went into a nearby residence, and then came out carrying knives and a hammer.

    Austin police initially sent a large force of officers to attempt to take Fiafonou into custody. But they later withdrew, with two officers remaining to observe Fiafonou. Police say the following day Fiafonou walked into a nearby convenience store carrying a large knife, then charged at a police officer.

    Gast opened fire, shooting Fiafonou seven times.

    • Pope Jimbo

      I would love to know how many of the “dozens” of protesters were also family members

      Dozens of people held a rally in Austin a week after the shooting to protest Fiafonou’s death and demand compensation for his family. Some family members who attended disputed the official account of the incident.

      • WTF

        demand compensation for his family

        The ghetto lottery, they want to collect their winnings.

    • cyto

      If people didn’t rally around Kelly Thomas after video of him begging for his life and screaming for his daddy emerged, combined with pictures of his hamburger face, I don’t know what would do it.

      You have Daniel Shaver crawling on the floor, begging for his life as he is taunted and threatened by police (for no reason), shot 5 times in the back at point blank range. The video didn’t even make the news.

      Facts are not driving this stuff

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Everything is narrative. Everything.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I’d hold her starfish.

      • Pope Jimbo

        All you guys and your phrasing.

        A cautionary tale involving toxic masculinity and sea life.

        Doctors believe physical contact with the giant mollusk may have triggered his allergy to seafood and exposed him to high levels of arsenic.

        Madison, 22, whose condition has stabilized, said he inserted his penis inside the clam as a prank to impress his friend, Thomas Meyer.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        “Allergies to seafood are fairly common and usually occur after ingestion of fish or shellfish, not after sexual intercourse with shellfish,” he told local reporters.

        The More You Know…

    • Not Adahn

      Mmmmm. Elizabeth Hurley’s starfish.

    • Sean

      I’d slam her starfish.

      Wait, what are we talking about?

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Sea World used to let people (kids?) pick up starfish. Probably don’t sell trays of fish to feed to the dolphins anymore either.

      • Pope Jimbo

        The Como Zoo in St. Paul used to sell you a paper cup of bait fish for a quarter. You could throw the fish to the seals and sea lions. Many fond memories of doing that as a kid.

      • Not Adahn

        OKC zoo did that too. Also used to have gumball machines filled with grain to feed the swans and the prarie dogs.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        A thing someplace, that is.

      • Not Adahn

        That actually looks like the correct timeframe for when I was a regular at the OKC zoo. They had a summer day camp for kids. Got to feed a giraffe and handle boas.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Your mom wanted you out of the house too? Both SW and the zoo had those, if only a week long. Saw Jack Palance filmed in a komodo dragon enclosure for Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Aw heck, maybe it was seals. Incumbent senility, pool chains, bad dude… tapioca…

  26. Not Adahn

    I had no idea bees were so expensive. $225 for a “nuc,” whatever amount of bees that is.

    • UnCivilServant

      Probably enough to get the hive started.

      • Not Adahn

        I imagine it’d be difficult to transport a cord of bees.

      • Pope Jimbo

        A cord of bees is shipped in a simple cardboard tray. This is known as a bee flat.

      • SDF-7

        Unless you forget to smoke the bees and get the stingers. Then it is a sharp.

        Hand it off to your kid and see minor.

      • Not Adahn

        The hard part of measuring a cord of bees is getting the packing correct. It needs to be “loose enough to let a squirrel through, but tight enough to stop the cat chasing it.”

      • Pope Jimbo

        Are you fucking assuming the species of creatures cavorting amongst the bees?

        Not all “squirrels” have bushy tails you know.

        49-year old Barry Wilde is a well known trans-species activist who spends most of his time living the life of a squirrel in a 460 acres wooded area that his parents own in central Georgia.

        Although he claims to live off the land by eating wild fruits, mushrooms and pine nuts, he’s accused of complementing his food supply with more than 42 ton of peanuts, stolen during two violent heists near Macon in Georgia on October 14 and 16.

      • UnCivilServant

        49 and lives with his parents?

        Just shoot him now, call it pest control.

      • juris imprudent

        All of these bee puns are for the birds.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Those nuc bees that you spent all that money on? That glow in the dark? Yeah, those are fire flies.

    • Sean

      40mm beehive.

      The slow motion video is great.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        But why?

  27. The Late P Brooks

    Brian Deese, the director of President Biden’s National Economic Council, acknowledges the economic challenge that high inflation poses but argues that the strong job market and extra money in consumers’ bank accounts should help.

    “The United States is better positioned than any county in the world to navigate through this very difficult period of time,” Deese said last week, at a forum sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor.

    We’re in the best of hands.

    I hope that was a prayer breakfast.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      We’ll stop that price inflation with more money inflation.

      Works every time.

      • Pope Jimbo

        If you fight fire with fire, why wouldn’t you fight inflation with inflation?

        Do you guys even SCIENCE?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      It’s even better in the original gibberish.

      The Russian people know little about Putin’s war on Ukraine because Putin has blocked their access to the truth, substituting propaganda and lies.

      Years ago, pundits assumed the internet would open a new era of democracy, giving everyone access to the truth. But dictators like Putin and demagogues like Trump have demonstrated how naive that assumption was.

      At least the US responded to Trump’s lies. Trump had 88 million Twitter followers before Twitter took him off its platform – just two days after the attack on the Capitol, which he provoked, in part, with his tweets. (Trump’s social media accounts were also suspended on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitch and TikTok.)

      These moves were necessary to protect American democracy. But Elon Musk – the richest man in the world, with 80 million Twitter followers – wasn’t pleased. Musk tweeted that US tech companies shouldn’t be acting “as the de facto arbiter of free speech”.

      Oompa Loompa Dippity Do…

      • kbolino

        When Orwell wrote 1984, it turns out he wasn’t nearly cynical enough.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        That non-sequitur/theme reversal is one for the ages.

        It really is impressive.

      • kbolino

        Getting someone to believe many contradictory things turns out to be a lot easier than getting them to believe one thing and to apply it consistently.

      • Rebel Scum

        which he provoked, in part, with his tweets.

        I’ll take “things that didn’t happen” for $1,000.

  28. The Late P Brooks

    Let the shitshow commence

    The uncertainty left Twitter workers feeling “super stressed” about the future, with employees reportedly “working together to help each other get through the week.”

    The report cited interviews with Twitter employees who asked not to be identified while discussing the company’s inner workings. Several employees told the outlet that Twitter’s internal environment was a “s–t-show” after Musk’s deal with the board fell through.

    One Twitter employee griped that Musk was likely ‘just getting started” with pushing for change at the company – a development the worker described as “unfortunate,” according to Bloomberg.

    Musk has emerged as a vocal critic of Twitter’s business practices, taking particular umbrage with the platform’s content moderation policies. He’s also the company’s largest individual shareholder after acquiring a 9% stake earlier this month.

    Under the terms of his initial agreement with Twitter, Musk would have received a board seat through at least 2024 and would be barred from acquiring more than 14.9% of the company. Without that deal in place, Musk is free to acquire a larger stake in the company and push for greater influence over its operations.

    Musk updated an SEC filing on his Twitter holdings with language that suggests he plans to stay active in the company’s dealings, despite his expanding business empire that includes Tesla and SpaceX.

    I can’t help thinking the twatterati wanted Musk on the board to muzzle him. They could accuse him of violating his fiduciary by badmouthingt the company he serves,

    This way, he can snipe from the underbrush.

    • kbolino

      A peak under the hood of corporate governance reveals many things, like for example that the CEO is not in charge of the employees.

      • juris imprudent

        We are now modeling business on government.

      • kbolino

        Yes, there is a great homology among large corporations, large governments, and large nonprofits.

      • R C Dean

        Corporations and Western-style government have broadly the same structure, and its no accident (since corporations as we know them were originally individually created by Parliament, and then Congress).

        Board = legislature.

        Shareholders = voters.

        CEO = executive.

        Of course, non-profits are also corporations.

      • juris imprudent

        Of course at a time, not all that long ago, it was the non-governmental organization that was viewed as the more efficient, and arguably more effective modality.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      employees reportedly “working together to help each other get through the week.”

      Awwww… poor babies…

      This town needs an enema.

    • rhywun

      I heard a board seat would have prevented him from revealing their algorithms.

    • Muzzled Woodchipper

      Turning g down the board slot also allows him to buy more if the company, and have even more of an influence.

  29. UnCivilServant

    Okay, I’ve got a question.

    At work I have a headset that plugs into the standard four pin telephone jack on my desk phone. That phone has a dedicated headset jack, and a mute button.

    When I’m not muted, everything is normal. When I mute myself at the phone, I get low-level white noise on the headset that goes away when I unmute myself again. I don’t think anyone else heards it.

    Any idea where it’s coming from/how I might get rid of it?

    • kbolino

      If your headset is a passive device (i.e. it has no connection other than the 4-pin jack you describe), then the noise is coming from the phone not the headset and there’s probably nothing you can do except get a new phone.

      • kbolino

        You could try a different headset if you have one handy and/or your IT department is unhelpful, but I’m fairly certain your problem is a feedback loop caused by how the phone implements mute.

      • UnCivilServant

        Damn.

        I couldn’t get the independant headset base station working, which is why I’m directly plugged into the phone. I may have to find that and see if I can’t do better at setting it up again.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Yeah. I’d guess it’s how it handles side tone. Something like cuts out input into that but leaves it connected to output. Voip set?

      • UnCivilServant

        Yes, it’s a VoIP phone.

        I found the powered base station for the headset that I failed to get working before. I got it working enough to make a test call, but need to see how it works on a cal that is not to the cell phone by my other ear.

    • Pope Jimbo

      white noise

      This is obviously coming from racism. The entire country is built on racism and is constantly emitting white noise.

  30. Ownbestenemy

    I’m sure there have been breathless articles on CNNs dismal start just like Trumps Truth Social right? Both can eat my ass

  31. The Other Kevin

    What was that controversy that got Gilbert Gottfried fired from being the Aflac duck? I haven’t seen one mention of it, which is great. He didn’t lose to cancel culture. He was who he was, always. RIP.

    • Pope Jimbo

      The Fukushima tsunami.

      The hatred was off the charts!

      “I just split up with my girlfriend, but like the Japanese say, “They’ll be another one floating by any minute now.”

      “I was talking to my Japanese real estate agent. I said ‘is there a school in this area.’ She said ‘not now, but just wait.'”

      • rhywun

        I LMFAO‘ed at his tasteless 9/11 joke.

        During a Friars Club roast for Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, Gottfried quipped that he “intended to catch a plane, but could not get a direct flight because ‘they said they have to stop at the Empire State Building first.’”

        The joke prompted boos from the audience, who also chanted that it was “too soon.”

        Doing it right.

      • kbolino

        “Too soon” gave us the TSA, DHS, and Iraq.

        Maybe it was actually too late.

    • Not Adahn

      Sounds like an excellent way to fight gentrification.

    • creech

      Coming soon to a city near you. Gangs must be smartening up: in Philly, they used to plant a guy in the valet crew at high end restaurants. Guy would check out glove box registration in high-end cars, call his confederates to give address of the folks going into the restaurant. The house would be ransacked while the riches would be dining.
      Even the cops aren’t dumb, so after about four or five robberies where the riches all went to one particular restaurant, the cops set up a sting and rounded up the whole gang.
      This L.A. stuff appears much more random and harder for cops to solve.

    • rhywun

      I always suspected that dressing, looking, and behaving like a slob would pay off some day.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        “They’ll all give us cushy jobs!” ?

        +1 JC Penney Timex. Jewelry doesn’t seem worth the security risk.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Good. Let the rich feel the results of their politics.

    • WTF

      suspects have been arrested but then released from custody — only to commit additional robberies, police said.

      I think I may see part of the problem.

    • KSuellington

      If California could just get it together to make private ownership of firearms almost completely illegal then LA could move much faster to becoming São Paulo.

  32. The Late P Brooks

    The amended filing said Musk “may express his views to the Board and/or members of the Issuer’s management team and/or the public through social media or other channels with respect to the Issuer’s business, products and service offerings.”

    Elon comin’.

  33. Gustave Lytton

    First Discord, then Zoom, now Quordle.

    • UnCivilServant

      The community is fragmenting and wandering off.

      :sniffles:

    • Sean

      #waffle82 2/5

      ?????
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      ?????
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      ?????

      ? streak: 2
      wafflegame.net

      Get in on the new thing.

      • Grumbletarian

        #waffle82 2/5

        ?????
        ?⭐?⬜?
        ?????
        ?⬜?⭐?
        ?????

        ? streak: 1
        wafflegame.net

      • Ghostpatzer

        #waffle82 3/5

        ?????
        ?⭐?⬜?
        ??⭐??
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        ?????

        ? streak: 1
        wafflegame.net

  34. Drake

    Anthony remembering Gilbert
    ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERXMCDrWJbk

  35. trshmnstr the terrible

    Rumble breaks new traffic records

    I’ve noticed that there is a lot more general content than a year ago. It used to be primarily political content, but more and more I’m seeing the stuff that used to force me back to YouTube showing up on Rumble. Still not quite there yet, but it’s getting there.

  36. Tundra

    Good morning, Banjos!

    And good morning to the rest of you lovely freaks!

    Inflation 40-year high, wonder what it actually is if it was calculated like it use to be

    I believe it is somewhere around 19%. But really, Congress giving themselves a 20% bump tells you all you need to know.

    • kbolino

      The Congressional raise probably doesn’t tell half the story either. It’s just welfare for the idiots and newbies who haven’t built up investment portfolios and fundraising warchests. I wonder what frivolity Pelosi spends her official salary on, just for kicks.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Ice cream, duh.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Lipstick, hair dye, cashmere, Sub-Zeros…

      • rhywun

        I wonder if they trade insider stock tips with each other, or have some sort of competition going instead.

      • kbolino

        If only we could see into their emails as well as the Pakistani intelligence service.

  37. Gustave Lytton

    Snow again this morning. Cherry tree was just starting to blossom.

  38. Red Pill Matt

    I think a good follow up to asking Ketanji Brown Jackson to define a woman, is to ask, “Are you a woman?” If she says ,”yes”, then you ask, “how do you know you are a woman?”

    I suppose she could still answer, “I don’t know. I’m not a biologist.” I would imagine most people don’t want one of the most powerful arbiters of law not knowing themselves.

    • kbolino

      The best follow up would have been not to confirm her, but that would require the GOP establishment to have enough spine to purge its traitors.

    • R C Dean

      “Are you a woman?” If she says ,”yes”, then you ask, “how do you know you are a woman?”

      Too easy. “Because I identify as a woman.”

      Ask her “Is Senator Blackburn* a woman? How about Senator Graham**?”

      *She’s a member of the Judiciary Committee, so she’d be sitting right there.

      **Just for the lulz.

      • invisible finger

        How can you identify as something you can’t define??

  39. Brawndo

    There was a comment I saw on here a few days ago regarding California’s new trucking regulations that made a good chunk of trucks non compliant in the state, thus causing a huge back log at California ports, and how if the commerce clause would apply here. Obviously, it’s been stretched before (Wickard v Filburn) to get desired outcomes, but I was wondering who could even sue since you’d have to have standing.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      It goes beyond the trucks. It affects cranes and other port operational equipment as well. It’s just mass stupidity.

    • kbolino

      The idea that claimants in cases of national controversy must still show standing is (or at least has become) absurd. The courts can at any time upend the entire constitutional order, and replace it with a new one on a whim, but heaven forbid some peasant objects to something in a way that hasn’t been recognized by Harvard and Yale.

    • Fatty Bolger

      The commerce clause just says that Congress can regulate interstate commerce. Is there a federal law that California is violating?

      • kbolino

        If impeding immigration is outside Arizona’s authority, wouldn’t impeding international trade be outside California’s?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        ???

        On the other hand, I’m somewhat for California’s acts of self-destruction. They’re trying really hard for someone to risk the capital to get alternatives up and running.

      • Fatty Bolger

        I assume so, if that’s what they were attempting to do. But we’re talking about local transportation regulations, which is undeniably a state reponsibility.

      • R C Dean

        Wickard says there essentially no such thing as “local” transportation. Its all interstate. At a bare minimum, one might inquire how California has the authority to ban vehicles from the interstate highways.

        Dormant Commerce Clause says the states can’t regulate interstate commerce unless the feds allow them to.

      • Fatty Bolger

        We’re going in circles. Yes, the feds could override these regulations. As far as I know, they haven’t.

      • UnCivilServant

        Is there a federal law that California is violating?

        Thousands, probably. Just look at the size of the federal register.

      • Brawndo

        Fair enough. So if we wanted to play by the rules (stop laughing), it would be the job of Congress to strike down California’s regulation? We’re doomed aren’t we?

      • kbolino

        Given the general trend, the Federal government does not want to slow California’s roll, they want to jump ahead of it and go even further even faster. Congress is a speed bump but won’t likely take decisive action against it.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Yep. But kbolino is right. there’s no real desire by the feds to stop what California is doing.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I hope she dies a miserable, lonely death.

      • Drake

        I bet she doesn’t believe in the devil, but he sure believes in her.

      • Not Adahn

        How soon can you get pregnant again after an abortion? And what’s the likelihood of sterilizing complications after each one? I know one woman who had some sort of injury during her second who now can’t have kids.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Asherman’s Syndrome?

      • Drake

        Girl my wife knew in college had a series of abortions. Now a childless middle-aged cat-lady.

        Doesn’t answer the question, but it sure seems like she ruined her life buying into the feminist mindset.

      • UnCivilServant

        Feminism has a fantastic track record of making women unhappy.

      • kbolino

        I was watching a YT “documentary” on witchcraft in Romania. It was probably sensationalized and I’m sure there were “darker” aspects of it that weren’t touched on (e.g. the husband of the head witch looked a little brawl-happy). I’m sure the Orthodox Church isn’t too happy about it either.

        However, it struck me that they were providing a valuable service. Instead of wasting money on “therapy” and drugs, the predominantly female clientele were spending smaller (though still considerable) sums of money to be purged of evil spirits. Just as effective, less hassle, no tax money used (and no taxes paid!).

        Similarly, old wives’ tales existed for a reason. Feminism is a natural extension of the triumph of “reason” over old wisdom, the stripping away of peasants’ long-held traditions by bourgeois midwits simply because the peasants (or at least the ones put on the spot) can’t explain why they do the things they do, and the aristocracy has degenerated too much to keep everything in order.

        The modern world increasingly looks like compounding all the mistakes of pre-modern living while abjuring all of the solutions discovered by pre-modern peoples to tame their own instincts.

      • wdalasio

        It’s Chesterton’s Fence. The truth is that an organically ordered society (as ours still mostly is) develops patterns and behaviors without any top-down plan, but based on accumulated wisdom. Thinking you can do away with those patterns and behaviors without fully understanding them is, more often than not, an assumption that you have greater wisdom than that accumulated by everyone who came before you. Sure, circumstances change. And what worked in the past may not be appropriate for today. But, that’s a pretty big assumption to make without even understanding what it is that worked that you might be changing.

      • kbolino

        Yes. Forget CRT and gender goblinry, those are merely very contemporary examples of a broader and older phenomenon. The public schools have been the leading edge against tradition for as long as they’ve existed, for two primary reasons:

        1. upending tradition was an explicit goal of the more honest architects (Mann, Dewey, etc.), and
        2. the teachers are themselves already groomed against tradition: by and large, they exist in an artificial world where their needs are met not by adherence to tradition or even by “hard work and dedication” but by simply showing up every day and sticking to the script; even the more inquisitive/hard-working ones are still the product of education programs, pedagogical theories, and other grand designs for intentional change and upheaval

        It doesn’t (or didn’t) have to be this way, but the biggest reason children have no appreciation for tradition is that the people who actually raise them (their teachers) don’t have any appreciation for tradition and don’t need to. Chesterton’s Fence is not even slightly entertained because, as far as the people involved can tell, it doesn’t actually work that way. Organic consequences befall other people and remain entirely abstract. No teacher has ever lost their job because they “failed” a student in some way, despite being a proxy parent. Indeed, the only consequences that must be addressed are those manufactured by the system, of which the teachers are contributory parts, and this eventually translates, with a variable time lag, into setting the consequences and norms of “the real world” since the children grow up and carry on these habits past graduation day.

      • Drake

        It always strikes me as arrogant and ignorant when those types view traditional relationships during the 19th century as oppressive. Those traditions seem like a negotiated settlement after centuries of refinement. Men only got one wife they were supposed to be faithful to, they worked to provide for the wife and family – in return women expected to be well-treated, and were tasked with raising the children and maintaining the home.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Those traditions seem like a negotiated settlement after centuries of refinement.

        Yes, mostly negotiated between men.

        Men only got one wife they were supposed to be faithful to

        Not true, a man’s reputation would not be much affected by unfaithfulness (it might even be enhanced in some circles), while a woman’s would be ruined.

        they worked to provide for the wife and family – in return women expected to be well-treated, and were tasked with raising the children and maintaining the home.

        Yes, men were expected to provide, and not beat the wife and children overly much. But there were limited opportunities for women to escape husbands who didn’t fulfill expectations.

      • kbolino

        Not true, a man’s reputation would not be much affected by unfaithfulness (it might even be enhanced in some circles), while a woman’s would be ruined.

        I don’t think this is as true as modern media makes it out to be. Men’s attitudes today are more hedonistic than they were then, and this is partly because a degenerate slice of men from earlier times has been inflated. For every Lord Byron, there was a more proper aristocrat tut-tutting his philandering and other foolish actions, who didn’t get as well highlighted by modern literary critics.

        Even more recently, the portrayal of sexual mores in the 1960s a la Mad Men has leaned more heavily on the “typing pool as harem” trope than on the “keep women out of the workplace, and failing that, keep them away from the men” norm which was more common especially outside of trend-setting New York ad agencies. An unfaithful man would have been regarded poorly by other men in many, maybe most, work places.

        The consequences of infidelity were primarily enforced by members of the same sex, and this is not as well understood by modern eyes shaped by times in which intra-sex policing is somehow seen as doing the bidding of the other sex, and widespread “understanding” of homosexuality has altered perceptions of platonic male-male and female-female relationships.

        But there were limited opportunities for women to escape husbands who didn’t fulfill expectations

        Well, the vice-versa was true, too. Keeping marriages together was not just a woman’s imperative. An unfaithful man would not be well-regarded as a suitor for a young woman’s hand. Divorce and remarriage was by and large a pastime of the wealthy.

    • Fatty Bolger

      I don’t think it’s meant to be taken literally.

      • kbolino

        Lying to promote evil is worse telling the truth of evil because it obfuscates the latter.

    • Tres Cool

      Its shame her mother didnt feel the same way.

  40. Nephilium

    Alright all, hold down the fort. It’s time for me to head off to go to Viva Las Vegas. Rooms have been booked for next year already.

  41. waffles

    wonder what it actually is if it was calculated like it use to be

    something like 19.5% if the random internet comments I read are to be believed.

  42. wdalasio

    With regard to inflation, the big talking point yesterday was that the smaller-than-expected increase in the core rate (ex food and energy) suggested that the 8.5% number (as others have noted, an underestimate relative to earlier calculations) represents a peak. Aaaannnnd….that lasted for all of a day. This morning’s PPI (Producer Price Index) number for March came in at 11.2%. PPI is generally regarded as a strong leading indicator of CPI. My bet is that we’ll see a spike in the April core rate, offset by temporary easing on gas prices. All in all, I don’t think the peak claim is going to hold up any better than the “transitory” claim.

    • cyto

      Something weird is happening.

      Walmart has lots of empty shelves.

      I have memory back to the beginning of rhe 70s. I cannot remember there ever being empty shelves at the stores (unless there was a run on a popular Christmas toy). Not even at the height of stagflation or during gas lines in the early 80s.

      But the ice cream section at Walmart was 1/3 empty the other day. The soda section is frequently missing sections. The chip section routinely has big blank spots. The paper goods are still in perpetual short supply.

      And they are telling us that major food shortages are coming. Wheat and corn specifically. We have never had that in the US.

      • kbolino

        Some of this seems due to Walmart itself. I have observed this phenomenon repeatedly, only to go over to Target or Giant (local grocery store chain) and find what was missing at Walmart.

        I do believe that there are legitimate “supply chain disruptions” going on, and it’s likely going to get worse, but I also believe a good deal of this is down to fragile processes that were instituted by MBAs to please investors but which have begun to run into a “failure of assumptions”, i.e. the rosy conditions that backed them are no longer there.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Manufacturers will abandon JIT if they see disruptions coming, but an expansion of capital investment during a supply chain crunch to compensate won’t happen if there’s no confidence in future conditions.

        Needless to say, the more the government sticks its fingers in the system, the worse they make it.

      • kbolino

        Yes. The government plays a huge role in setting up the conditions that favor these practices, then chastises the people who follow the incentives to foreseeable conclusions.

      • kinnath

        As one of my old bosses used to say: “Remember kids, JIT happens!”

      • Gender Traitor

        I see bare shelves at my local Meijer grocery, too, and can’t find many of the products I want – which were in plentiful supply not so very long ago. Angers me more than the price increases.

      • robc

        The weird one for me is distilled water. Neither Walmart of King Sooper has any, but Safeway seems to be fine.

        I don’t normally go to Safeway, but every 3 months or so, I go buy 4 gallons of distilled water. The last time, it was a different brand, noticeably more expensive. I paid $1.49 per gallon instead of 98 cents.

      • Tundra

        Same experience. But last week even Safeway was out. I got the last two gallons at the local Sprouts.

      • robc

        The first time I ran into the problem last fall, it took two Safeways to find any. But every Safeway I have hit since has had them.

        I check King Sooper every time I am in, they have the sign up saying “nope, someday!”

      • rhywun

        It is weird. My supermarkets are fully stocked with everything I would expect – but at about 20% more than what I paid last year.

        In the drugstores, OTOH, there are bare shelves everywhere.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      I would have been terrified by that as a kid, at least in the baby-teeth years.

    • wdalasio

      The pathetic part, to me at least, is how many “libertarians” are 100% on board with this, even though it’s publicly funded.

      • kbolino

        The religion that has no name, or how to hack the First Amendment by couching your beliefs in secular terminology.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      We went from toleration to promotion of multiculturalism so it makes logical sense that we go from toleration of fringe sexual lifestyle choices to promotion as well.

      Deconstruction of Western Civilization is the objective.

      • kbolino

        Deconstruction is merely a tactic. They intend to rule. They are weak and they cannot seize by strength alone, but they have numbers and breadth, and they can degrade the systems that stand in their way, and berate their opponents into submission, which will open up enough opportunities that they can seize the goal nonetheless.

        And it is only so visible to us because they’ve been succeeding for a long time already.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        The cynics intend to rule, that much is definitely true. Hell if I know what the true believers think they’re accomplishing.

      • kbolino

        Status.

        They will either gain higher positions, or at least retain their current positions, in the new regime.

        The average Democrat voter today is simply a good weathervane.

      • R C Dean

        We went from toleration to promotion of multiculturalism

        Foreseeable consequences are not unintended. This was predicted during the Gay Marriage Kerfuffle, and the predictions were validated shortly after when the activists went straight to bayonetting the wounded. The predictions were slightly off, as they tended toward “next up, polygamy and bestiality”, not “mental illness”, but on the whole, everybody involved should have known something like this was coming, because we had already crossed the bridge from toleration to totalitarianism in other “civil rights” issues.

  43. Tres Cool

    Not always but often I put Hellman’s mayo on my eggs.
    Change my mind.

      • UnCivilServant

        I suppose you have a right to be offended, but I couldn’t make sense of that word salad

      • Tres Cool

        What you did right there- I noted it in an ocular capacity.

      • SDF-7

        So will Swiss strike us down, or will these yolks go ova his head?

    • kbolino

      I can’t change your mind, but I can barf if I think about it.

      • UnCivilServant

        More egg salad sanwiches for kbolino!

    • Brawndo

      Seems redundant considering mayo is made of eggs.

    • Count Potato

      That’s OK only if they are hard boiled.

  44. Tundra

    MOAR WAR!

    Fuck it. We’re never gonna win against these monsters.

      • R C Dean

        What’s the baseline? The current rate tells me nothing without a baseline.

        Meaning comes from context.

      • The Other Kevin

        You, or someone else here, has been a good influence on me. My first question when I read that was, “Is that typical, and if not, how much more is it than we’d expect?”

      • Drake

        Bragg is where much of the physically tougher training in the Army takes place. Stress enough people hard enough and a few will drop dead. When I was a Marine recruit an 18-year-old died of a heart-attack. Just happens.

        As RC said – what’s the baseline? If they are well above it, the one difference is that they all got their clot shots and are reacting like professional soccer players.

      • Pine_Tree

        My oldest went through Basic and AIT at Benning in the first half of ’21. Said guys were regularly dropping shortly after shots.

        In RTAC (late summer I think), they had very strong verbal push-back from the Instructors to the tune of “if you get the shot, you better freakin’ tell us” after some very serious cardiac events.

      • Fatty Bolger

        54K military personnel, one death a week is 52 deaths a year out of 54K, or roughly one in a thousand. That’s probably not an abnormal number.

    • juris imprudent

      M-I-C… k-e-y…

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      They want their proxy war. They don’t care how many Ukrainians die or are impoverished by it. They also obviously don’t care about global starvation.

      And they seem absolutely convinced that the war cannot and will not broaden. On that front, they may be partially correct, because there is a limit to how much of this bullshit Germany, France, and Italy will tolerate. But Poland is the wild card that could get us all killed.

      • Rebel Scum

        So how many Pollacks does it take to cause a nuclear war?

      • Drake

        Security around Zelensky must be incredible. He’s keeping this war going well after they’ve lost.

        Sounds like the Ukraine might really have been planning to attack into the Donbas. A huge chunk of their army is trapped the east – I’ve heard between 60 and 100 thousand are in that “cauldron”. If Zelensky doesn’t capitulate shortly, the Russians are going annihilate that army, then carve off the eastern third of the Ukraine for themselves.

        But Zelensky is still running around doing his Churchill impression until it’s time to retire to his Italian mansion.

      • UnCivilServant

        I haven’t been able to lock down a trustworthy source of information with regards to what’s going on over there. What is the source you’re using?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I have some limited sympathy for that dipshit. He’s fucked any which way he goes. The nationalist nutcases that worship Bandera would off him if he capitulates, and there has to be growing discontent among the normies that want peace.

        Add in the CIA to the mix and you’ve got the worst job in the world. At this point, he’s probably just looking to save his own skin.

      • R C Dean

        I haven’t seen that the Russians have been able to close off the eastern “cauldron”. Not yet. The last I saw was informed(?) speculation that they are repositioning and building up for a big push in the east, which I think would start with closing off the cauldron. I think the BBC has the most reliable public info.

    • Rebel Scum

      Pentagon invites top 8 U.S. arms makers to Wednesday meeting to discuss weapons for Ukraine, sources say.

      Is Ukraine even paying for these weapons or is that privilege left to the American taxpayer printing machine?

      • Drake

        You are – plus 10% for the Big Guy.

  45. robc

    In a discussion of US manufacturing, I mentioned the company I work for has 10 plants in the US.

    Actually, our 12th just opened, the first line begins official production tomorrow. Our 13th opens late summer.

    13 plants across 7 states.

    These are ones we built as opposed to buying out failing plants, which most of ours have been.

  46. Count Potato

    “Janet Yellen: “The recent IPCC reports confirm that our window of opportunity to leave our planet worthy of our children and our grandchildren is even closer to being permanently shut. We must redouble our efforts to decarbonize our economies.””

    https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1514249658901704711

    CWAA

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      As if you needed more confirmation that Yellen is simply a spokesperson for the globalists.

    • Brawndo

      Feel free to start with yourself you evil cunt.

    • KSuellington

      Earth Day is coming up real soon and it is over 50 years old at this point. Back then in the early 70’s it was catastrophic global cooling, peak resources, and pollution that were going to wipe humans off the planet. When exactly are we going to ever reach this point of no return in regards to the environment? We keep being promised it will be here soon, but that date just keeps getting pushed farther into the future. I’m starting to get real suspicious this is all just a giant grift.

      • KSuellington

        We are all gonna be in our own private Buffalo!

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Save da ozone!

        George Carlin was right that the planet will be fine; I think he was wrong about why the people are (indeed) fucked.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Whose quote was it? STTE of “I won’t insult your intelligence by suggesting you actually believe what you are saying.”

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I laughed.

      • Sean

        #metoo

      • UnCivilServant

        I chuckled when I first saw it a while ago.

    • Brawndo

      Rooftop piggies

  47. kinnath

    Headline story at Slate Trump Is Right About the Deep State. Thank God!

    Did not read; won’t bother to link. You can find it on your own if you need some aggravation.

    • Rebel Scum

      Unaccountable bureaucracy is a threat to the savior of our democracy!

  48. Count Potato

    Speaking of Rumble,

    “1/2 Here are emails we received from the @globeandmail, demanding to know why we aren’t dutifully copying YouTube’s censorship. It is now common that we receive pressure from journalists demanding that we censor more. See the next tweet for Rumble’s response:”

    https://twitter.com/rumblevideo/status/1514243124830392325

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Joe Castaldo is a pencil-necked twat.

    • Tundra

      Excellent response.

    • Yusef rides a Bike

      Go Rumble!

    • R C Dean

      Yup. If someone were to walk up to him in broad daylight and put one to the base of his skull, I would vote to acquit. And hang the jury if that’s what it took.

      • Pine_Tree

        With perfectly legit reasonable doubt, too.

        I mean, SO MANY people could reasonably be expected to have motive that who’s to say that one particularly accused “someone” really did do it. Cameras lie – dressing up as somebody else with motive and getting video’d doing it would be a PERFECT way to carry out one’s revenge plan.

      • cyto

        Back in the early nineties when I was living in Atlanta my lab partner used to do put on Neal Boortz all day. One day there had been a 15 year old girl raped and the Cops had been looking for a suspect for 2 weeks.

        Someone called in to say say that they had found the rapist. The news later confirmed that he was found, naked, in the middle of college Avenue with a pair of vice grips on his junk beaten to Hell. Apparently a bunch of her cousins found him and dragged him into the middle of the street by his junk.

        When the lieutenant from the police gave the briefing comgave the briefing, you could almost hear him giggling as he said that nobody saw anything.College Avenue is a very busy street with with loads of pedestrians and 4 lanes of traffic at all times of the day. This was right near the rush hour for lunch.

        You’re gone but son of a b****, nobody saw anything!

        and everybody was OK with that

      • cyto

        Wow. Voice to text vs autocorrect…. fight!

      • cyto

        You’re not gonna believe this, but son of a bitch, nobody saw anything.

    • EvilSheldon

      It’s always possible that the kid is in fact, not guilty of the crimes he’s been accused of.

      Or, were you talking about his father?

      • R C Dean

        It’s always possible that the kid is in fact, not guilty of the crimes he’s been accused of.

        Given his history of violating house arrest, I’m pretty confident he is a sociopath with poor impulse control who doesn’t think the rules apply to him.

        A second woman named Dallas Stoller who he was accused of molesting in October 2018 died suddenly in November 2021, before Turner could be tried on her allegations.

        That meant the charges in that case were dropped after the court decreed that Turner had the legal right to face down his accuser.

        Talk about suspicious circumstances. Died how, exactly?

        And since when does the death of a victim mean the accused can’t be tried? Why do I suspect his father, an investigator on the inside, has all kinds of dirt on all kinds of people?

      • KSuellington

        Interesting that her circumstances of death are not mentioned at all. By the DailyMail of all places.

      • R C Dean

        Probably suicide.

        Also, could be a vax reaction.

        Healthy 18 year olds very rarely die of entirely natural causes.

      • Count Potato

        Last I read, most common cause of death for people under 44 is trauma.

      • Not Adahn

        Died how, exactly?

        “Suddenly.”

        That’s literally all I can find. The family is described as having “lost” her, not “taken,” so with such a lack of detail I can only assume it was self-inflicted.

      • Count Potato

        Car crashes can be very sudden.

      • R C Dean

        One other thing – no way somebody who violates house arrest 50 times and doesn’t go to jail, unless the fix is in.

      • cyto

        Yeah… that has a 1 or 2 feel to it, if you have a lot of leeway built up.

      • kinnath

        why not both?

      • Not Adahn

        It’s possible. He was only found guilty of two of the rapes he was charged with. A third was dismissed because the victim was dead and thus unavailable to testify. The fourth “victim” was too drunk at the time to give sufficient evidence in the D’s mind.

    • rhywun

      whose father works for a local DA

      Ah, there it is.

      • cyto

        Unfortunately for him, there are a lot of women around the area who have fathers too

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Forget about the intellectual masturbation that they participate in, the empirical results of their theories have been an utter disaster. What concerns me is that nobody seems to care. The more ridiculous and contradictory their arguments, the more cult-like the fervor in DC for them becomes.

    • SDF-7

      Huh… I figured it was going to be about Justice Kagan with not being deep or original. (Ok… she’s still leagues better than the Wise Latina and I suspect better than soon-to-be-Justice “I’m not a Biologist”… but that’s a low, low bar…)

    • Drake

      Victoria Nuland’s husband. A lot of blood on that couple’s hands, and they crave more.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Don’t forget his brother and sister-in-law.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Thank you. That’s fantastic.

    • SDF-7

      YOU FOOL!

      Heh…

    • Tundra

      That was wonderful. Thanks!

    • MikeS

      I was crying by the end. So funny!