Wednesday Afternoon SugarLinks – Got the Sleepy Joe Shakes

by | Jul 13, 2022 | Daily Links | 346 comments

I’ll be honest… I’d try it.


 

Remember this simple phrase the next time to see someone with a thin blue line t-shirt. Removing the screams makes the video seem like they were just chillin’ in a empty hallway together, no big deal, I’ll check my phone and get a little hand-sanny. I get that the people editing the video didn’t want to freak people out, but maybe’s it’s fucking time to freak the fuck out. Disband that force, disband that city government, and tattoo COWARD on all their foreheads.


 

Charges: Man lit his camper on fire, defaced own garage to appear targeted due to Trump flag

MINNEAPOLIS – A Brooklyn Center man faces federal charges after he lit his own camper on fire to make it look like a politically-motivated crime, and then allegedly filed several fraudulent insurance claims.

Molla reported to police that someone set fire to his camper “because it had a Trump 2020 flag displayed on it,” and spray painted the Antifa or anarchy symbol, “BLM” and “Biden 2020” on his garage door. The U.S. Attorney’s Office says Molla actually lit the fire and defaced the garage himself.

Court documents show that Molla then “submitted multiple insurance claims seeking coverage for the damage to his garage, camper, vehicles, and residence caused by the fire.”

Molla submitted insurance claims totaling more than $300,000, receiving only $61,000 in the process. He then accused his insurance company of “defrauding him.” Court documents show he also yielded more than $17,000 from two GoFundMe accounts.

Never go full Smollet, bro. Next time a simple “Live, Laugh, Love” burned into you yard with salt will allow you to blame the HOA book club and everybody hates those bitches.


 

Original

 

Cover

 

You won’t be happy with me,
But give me one more chance
You won’t be happy anyway

About The Author

SugarFree

SugarFree

Your Resident Narcissistic Misogynist Rape-Culture Apologist

346 Comments

  1. Compelled Speechless

    Hey Brochettaward, I thought I’d hold this spot for you.

    nonsense

    • Tundra

      Nice.

    • MikeS

      🤭

    • Ownbestenemy

      Excellent!

    • Aloysious

      Very cheeky.

    • Brochettaward

      I’m getting angry. You won’t like me when I’m angry.

      • Compelled Speechless

        I was already angry before you said that. I guess you could say I was angry……..first.

        https://tenor.com/xgns.gif

      • EvilSheldon

        I don’t like you now.

    • Chafed

      You were rightly and adequately rewarded.

    • SandMan

      That was my favorite ass-shaping gift, until the Mexican volleyball girls showed up.

      • SandMan

        Ass-slapping that is.

      • TARDis

        Surprisingly, this one seems firmer than the volleyball girl.

      • Ownbestenemy

        The whole of the clip of the #1 gif is…worth studying.

      • Zwak, who swallowed your pain, and is asking for more.

        I still like this one best. ‘Cause glasses.

      • Ownbestenemy

        The glasses help sell that

      • SandMan

        And the nearly simultaneous head nods.

      • SandMan

        I’ll grant that it is more high brow.

      • TARDis

        Proper even.

  2. Shpip

    A Brooklyn Center man faces federal charges after he lit his own camper on fire to make it look like a politically-motivated crime, and then allegedly filed several fraudulent insurance claims

    Never go full victimhood, dude. Leave that to the dopey college kids.

    • Swiss Servator

      If you are going to try a little “Greek Lightning” for insurance fraud, make it low key… “Some darn kids or bums accidentally set a fire – burnt muh camper, darn it.”

      • Compelled Speechless

        I would have said I saw a guy meeting Jussie Smollet’s description running from the scene. He’s got nothing to lose because he was wrongfully abused by the system!

      • SugarFree

        Double Jeopardy. He can’t be charged twice for faking a hate crime.

      • Compelled Speechless

        He can’t be charged for faking the SAME hate crime. Wait, I see what you’re doing. Let’s tell him about double jeopardy!

      • MikeS

        Also; don’t argue with them when they give you “only” $61,000

      • ron73440

        “That’s not right! I caused way more than $61,000 worth of damage!”

    • Pope Jimbo

      He should use the BP Cop excuse: “I reached for my fire extinguisher, but accidently pulled out my Bic lighter”.

      Of course they they would have busted him based on the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_ekugPKqFw&t=8s

  3. Mustang

    Think of all the taxpayer money that will go into treating those heroic officers for mental trauma. Think of the disability ratings they’ll get for PTSD! The poor dears.

    I hope they hear those screams for the rest of their miserable lives and that it drives them to insanity.

    • Tonio

      I hope they hear those screams for the rest of their miserable lives and that it drives them to insanity.

      So much this.

    • Fatty Bolger

      I fast forwarded through the video. How many kids bled to death while they stood around and did nothing? Fucking cowards.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Those dudes should hire the sheriff of Hennepin County for how to manage their PTSD claims. He’s doing a bangup job.

      After his drunk driving crash in December, Hennepin County Sheriff Dave Hutchinson went on a spending spree, eating and traveling at taxpayer expense, despite rarely being seen in the office.

      The FOX 9 Investigators made a public records request for receipts and statements for his county-issued credit card, known as a P-card for purchasing.

      During the four-month period between Dec. 23, 2021, and April 22, 2022, Hutchinson spent $17,588 with his P-card.

      Sheriff Hutchinson has applied for early retirement (before the election) due to PTSD caused by his crash and everyone being so mad at him afterwards.

  4. Old Man With Candy

    Stephin Merritt is always the right choice.

    • rhywun

      We used to hang out at the same gay dive bar in the East Village. Didn’t know him or anything but I knew who he was and did own one of his albums.

  5. slumbrew

    Huh, they just mentioned The Magnetic Fields on The Fifth Column podcast.

    Haven’t heard that name in years, then twice in a week…

    • Chafed

      SugarFree moonlights as Moynihan.

      • Compelled Speechless

        SugarFree is waaaaayyy cooler than Moynihan.

  6. MikeS

    Editor’s note: The sound of children screaming has been removed

    /rage level: Max+

    • Mustang

      Declare them outlaws. Capture them and force them to listen to the screams on repeat forever.

      This has made me abnormally hateful.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I’d settle for them all being fired but even that’s not going to happen.

      • Compelled Speechless

        The level of hate you feel is perfectly normal for watching a video where cops check their phone notifications and apply hand sanitizer for an hour and a half while they know children are being murdered ten feet away.

      • hayeksplosives

        the hand sanitizer part really got me. But at least he could get on his cell phone and mark himself as “Safe from Covid” on Facebook.

        I’ve read some excuses that they waited an hour before entering the classroom because they thought the shooting was over. But in that case, surely they knew that potentially dozens of kids (and as it turns out, a few teachers too) were in desperate need of immediate medical attention.

        The teacher (since then confirmed deceased) who was talking on the phone to her husband during the “standoff/standdown” told him she was bleeding out! She could possibly have been saved if the cops had gone in there and shot the perp, then let the paramedics get to work.

      • EvilSheldon

        Yup. This is standard police operating procedure, courtesy of the ‘No matter what, I’m going home at the end of my shift,’ chickenshit mentality.

      • EvilSheldon

        At my shooting class this past weekend, the medical brief specifically stated that in the event of a gunshot wound to a student, we stabilize the victim and transport him to the hospital ourselves. The typical ‘secure the scene’ police response is why.

      • hayeksplosives

        About 10 years ago, all my employers (then defense contractor, now dept of energy/Nuke stuff) have held mandatory active shooter training, in some cases involving role play.

        The idea was to think it out and act it out in advance so there’d be no hesitation if it ever came up in reality.

        A couple of years ago, one of my colleagues was driving along a residential road and saw a uniformed lady cop wrestling with a larger male “civilian”. He got out of his car joined the fray and likely saved her life.

        Would a fellow cop have done that? We will never know.

      • MikeS

        This is what I’ve been saying since the beginning. Kids and teachers were in there bleeding out. They had to suspect if not know this. And that fat fuck police chief claim that they thought it changed from “active shooter” to “standoff” appears to be a bald face lie; I’ve not seen anything claiming they ever tried to make contact with the shooter. Wouldn’t you do that in a standoff?

        The whole thing is so goddam enraging. I am truly flabbergasted (and honestly disappointed) that nobody -to my knowledge- has made these cops’ lives utter hell yet. At a minimum the town’s hardware stores should be out of spray paint due to “COWARD” tags all over town.

      • Tonio

        Presumably, there is a school intercom system like we had in every school I attended.

      • hayeksplosives

        That’s an interesting topic. Every school has a PA, no? Operated from the front office, or “Principal’s office.”

        Did nobody make an announcement or give instructions? Maybe they are trained not to do so, in order to ensure the hypothetical gunman doesn’t know the strategy. Maybe the office admins work from home now.

        I’d like to see what the Active Shooter training that was allegedly held a few weeks before this real shooting happened instructs.

        All the active shooter training I’ve had (as a civilian employee) pretty much amounts to “RUN-HIDE-FIGHT”.

        Run if you can get away, hide if you can’t get past the shooter or shooters, and if need be, commit to taking up any means at hand: chair, hammer, 2×4 to clobber the guy. Because if it gets to the “fight” point, you’re more likely saving others than saving yourself.

        What do they teach the cops?

      • EvilSheldon

        They did make an announcement. No one knew what to do, because they hadn’t practiced any emergency drills.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Yep. And exactly what the fuck were they waiting for before going in? Camouflaged uniforms? They had rifles, they had shields, they had everything necessary except the balls to do it.

      • Mustang

        This got me wondering, is this the flip side of the war on “toxic masculinity?”

        Not meant to be an excuse for their cowardice, but I’ve been hearing a lot about increased suicide rates among men and general malaise. The extreme end of that becomes these active shooters. The opposite extreme could show itself as cowardice. You’ve got a society of weak men who either snap and become violent or roll over and take it because they’ve never been taught to control their rage or suppress their fear.

      • Compelled Speechless

        Tyler Durden suspects you are on to something.

      • Chafed

        I think you are being to kind. The chief was, at best, incompetent. His loyal soldiers… I mean officers… lacked the initiative to do the right thing for the right reasons. The lessons of Nuremberg remain unlearned.

      • Count Potato

        This isn’t new. Some teacher bled out during Columbine long after the shooting was over.

      • MikeS

        It’s new in the sense that supposedly everyone learned what not to do from Columbine, and yet, here we are.

      • Count Potato

        No idea how that makes it new. There was similar shit at Parkland, etc.

      • MikeS

        And I have no idea what it not being new has to do with anything.

      • Count Potato

        Columbine was 23 years ago.

      • Brett L

        Unfortunately, the Texas Constitution forbids outlawing specifically. However, shunning and/or lynch… err spontaneously delivering a rebuke by the general citizenry… only require a jury trial.

    • DrOtto

      They just wanted to get home that night.

  7. kinnath

    I watched the video with the “removed screams”. I assumed that the screams occurred during the original volley of shots. And I assume any kids still alive were hiding or playing dead. Thus no additional screaming. So it is not clear to me from that video that the police who were shitting their pants in the hallway would have heard kids screaming after they arrived.. There is already enough reason to hate the cops. I am not going to assume the stood there while kids were screaming.

    • SugarFree

      The pussy that almost falls on his face running away from the killing floor classroom was hearing them.

      But let’s see the raw video.

      • kinnath

        But let’s see the raw video.

        Absolutely.

        Put all the cops on the 50 yard line at the local high school. Play the video on big screen TVs. Let whatever happens at the end of the video happen.

      • Mustang

        I regret watching the edited video. I could not watch the raw one.

      • SugarFree

        I completely understand.

        But the unedited footage would really emphasize how long those fat fucks just stood there. I don’t get mad about much, just sort of live in a state of bemused cynicism (expect the worse and you are never surprised) but this has got me wound up. I want them peeled, salted, roasted and fed to feral dogs.

      • hayeksplosives

        I want to see footage (if there is any) of the cops escorting the border patrol (I think?) officer out of the school because he was heading to the classroom despite orders. They allegedly took his firearm and removed him from the school.

        That is so whacked.

      • R C Dean

        I believe it was another cop.

        Whose wife was being murdered at the time.

      • R C Dean

        Or maybe his kid.

      • hayeksplosives

        I could see that motivating a feller. I do think it was his wife, but the “journalism” of this whole event has been so terrible I don’t know what to believe.

      • Tulip

        I want their names published.

      • Tonio

        If they are tried their names will be a matter of public record.

        And while I’m sure Uvalde School District and PD are scrubbing public records, someone has their pictures. Society needs to treat them like the personnel of the Nazi extermination camps.

      • R C Dean

        I don’t get mad about much, just sort of live in a state of bemused cynicism

        I am now deeply disturbed that this is also an accurate description of me.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Yeah, I can’t engage with this topic too deeply. It gets my brain running in incoherent loops of rage.

    • Mustang

      Unfortunately I can imagine scenarios where they’re still making plenty of sounds.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I would not vote to convict anyone who took retribution.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The Club of Rome?

      Yeah, they were assholes extraordinaire. And they still are.

      https://www.clubofrome.org/

      With a view of moving the current sustainable finance discussion from surface changes to the deep shift needed in our relationship to money and the existing finance system at large, the new Club of Rome Finance Impact Hub brings together real economy actors, investors, thoughts leaders to address core systemic alterations needed to support a well-being economy in balance with nature and responding to core global tipping points.

      The Finance Impact Hub was launched on 20th February 2020 with a high-level roundtable at the Club’s new EU office, housed at Triodos Bank in Brussels. It convened officials from the European Institutions, EIB, ECB, Central Banks, Impact Investors, Finance Institutes, Foundations, Academics, and Members of the Club of Rome. Its primary objective was to explore key areas of change and existing leverage points and commence a co-creation partnership with a community of champions.

      The spirit of the new Finance Hub is anchored in the seminal report to The Club of Rome, “The Limits to Growth” (1972), where calls were made for a deep-systems shift away from conventional finance models to one at the service of people-planet-prosperity. A series of publications since have continued to call for this shift. In particular, the Club of Rome’s Climate and Planetary Emergency Plans published in September 2019, calling for a decade of action that will enable the necessary change in systems to ensure long-term environmental and social sustainability.

      • RBS

        Man, that’s a lot of buzzwards.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Europe is self-immolating and we’re urging it on.

      The only gratification I will get out of it is when the system breaks and the nomenklatura hang.

      • Winston

        Europe is self-immolating

        Why does the West always self-immolate after lengthy periods of prosperity?

      • Brett L

        Soft time makes make soft men, soft men make hard times, hard times make hard men, hard men make soft times. It’s the circle of “luck”

      • Combat Wolf Furry

        Now do Chinese emperors.

      • The Last American Hero

        The guys that got bitch slapped by Japan in spite of home field advantage and outnumbering them like 10-1?

    • Winston

      Bad Things can not happen in Current Year

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      The Dutch attacking their own food production and self-sufficiency in the midst of a supply chain disaster and possible famine in many poorer countries is either calculated nefariousness or absolute insanity. Sri Lanka just booted their WEF guy and I hope the Dutch do the same.

      • Winston

        Problem is will Sri Lanka get a new leader who isn’t a WEF Stooge or a shithead?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        We’ll see I suppose but if they get more of the same the entire government will end up Mussolinid.

      • The Other Kevin

        That’s the question I keep asking myself. Will the WEF swoop in and “rescue” everyone from the crisis they themselves created? Or will people realize the WEF was responsible?

      • Tundra

        I can’t be arsed to look for it, but the WEF has already indicated that they will “assist” the farmers by purchasing the land.

      • R C Dean

        I believe I saw a Dutch politician saying they were going to need a lot more housing for immigrants, and so they were going to buy abandoned farmland for that.

        One unaddressed piece of the supply chain crisis: there is a serious shortage of dead politicians.

      • Tonio

        “Abandoned.”

        Forclosed, condemned, seized, appropriated. See also “land snatch.”

      • tripacer

        See: Snatch.
        Hayley 7, United States nothing.

      • Mustang

        I’m guessing the former since hardly anyone knows what the WEF is. I’d bet that greater than 90% of the world’s population is totally unaware of it and that at least half of the remaining population supports it, a quarter of the remaining think it’s the paranoid delusions of conspiracy theorists, and the last quarter either know and don’t care or know and hate them.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        They might not know specifically what the WEF is but the masses are actually pretty good at sniffing out things when they seem fishy although they might be confused as to the cause. Any power they hold is due to organizational capture by a small number of loathsome people who are bound by dogma to go too far too fast. I doubt more than a fifth of people have any sympathy with their goals and when it hits people in their wallets they pay attention.

      • Compelled Speechless

        The Dutch government really is unbelievable. If I was actively trying to start a populist uprising, I would be doing exactly what they’re doing right now.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        It is unbelievable and I don’t think it’s due to stupidity. No one’s that stupid.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        *points at the German Green Party*

      • Chafed

        *points at Adam Schiff, Chuck Schumer, and The Squad ™. *. Really?

      • rhywun

        They have the added benefit of being stupid in addition to evil.

        Not all the evil ones are stupid.

    • Name's BEAM. James BEAM.

      My FiL certainly remembered it; he also (as a young man in his early teens) was a part of the Resistance (along with his dad and brothers).

      I’ve talked before about Den Topp, the family’s small cottage just across the canal from Sneek (pronounced like our English word “snake”). During the winter of ’44-’45, there was a barge that had coal and potatoes on it that got stuck in ice in that canal; by springtime, the barge had been almost completely emptied by the local populace (with the “regular” German Army mostly turning a blind eye). If it hadn’t have been for that barge, a lot of people in and around Sneek might not have made it through that winter.

      • Gustave Lytton

        There’s a reason Audrey Hepburn was waif thin.

      • UnCivilServant

        was it stuck or “stuck”?

    • Sean

      lulz

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      It’s about having people under their thumbs, not health. The current dominant variants aren’t that bad symptomwise.

    • grrizzly

      Yeah, I had a feeling that I didn’t insult enough the Costco employees eagerly enforcing the mandate. I’ll have another chance in September. Mock their looks, mock their intelligence, mock their weight. Make them hate their jobs.

      • Brawndo

        Ehh, go fuck yourself. If you want to change anything, go directly to store management.

        Otherwise you’re just lashing out like a child at someone who’s choosing between wearing a muzzle or having to find other work (where they might have to wear a muzzle anyway)

      • grrizzly

        The store management will tell me to go the governor or to a public health official in charge. You see they are only following orders. The vast majority of store employees don’t harass their customers who don’t wear masks. The ones who do, who enjoy being mask Nazis deserve being treated like the scum they are.

        Perhaps, people working in retail cannot find a job where they are not forced to wear a mask but they can always get a job where they don’t force customers to wear one.

      • Brawndo

        I mis-read that, I thought you were talking about a corporate policy, not a governor policy. I also didn’t realize you were talking only about the mask enforcers at these places.

        If you couldn’t tell, I’m bitter because of the number of times my mask was below my nose and a customer told me to pull it up, or they snitched to management about it and I just had to deal with it. If I could call them pussy narcs to their face I would.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Meh. Rather than belittling the poor sod at the front entry, we cancelled our Costco membership, told the store manager why, and hopped over to Sam’s. Not only haven’t we had to wear a mask, but it’s actually a better store anyway.

      • Mojeaux

        I never did understand the Costco love. Had NOTHING we use daily, whereas Sams has most everything.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Yup. The difference is especially stark since we have Sams plus with the Sam’s mastercard. It’s an automatic 5% off everything we buy at Sam’s and sometimes up to 10% off gas. They even rolled out something where we can get Sam’s cash back on our other credit cards at certain places just by enrolling them.

        Even just looking at the barebones differences, Sam’s is better stocked, the produce and meat is higher quality, and I walk out the door each time with lower per unit costs than if I went to Aldi or the like. That just wasn’t the case with Costco.

        Costco is a mere shadow in comparison.

      • hayeksplosives

        Costco seems to have “snob” value for some people. We only got a Costco membership when we were in Escondido because there was no Sam’s.

        In Minnesota, we happened to live about as quarter mile from Sam’s, closer than the regular grocers! So we always got meat from Sam’s, which was terrific when we had 2 growing boys/teens. For some specialty stuff, we had to resort to grocery stores, but Sam’s was pretty great for everything else.

        I’m thinking of joining Sam’s again so I can get dry good staples like rice and beans (for the impending hard times) when I am coming home front the Vegas office.

      • Gender Traitor

        Costco seems to have “snob” value for some people.

        Sam’s has the taint of Walmart./hipster prog

        Sam’s meat is great. I think the only meat we get at our regular grocery (Meijer) is cold cuts.

      • grrizzly

        Costco has a much better selection from my point of view and is much further away from both homes of ours (as in a neighboring state).

        If people had actively confronted the mask Nazis in all their forms right away–instead of coming up with excuses why we need to stay polite and civil and, surely, this poorly paid concentration camp guard is just doing her job–we wouldn’t have gotten in a situation when governments and corporations demanded non-stop injections of a toxic gene therapy from most working-age Americans.

      • grrizzly

        Sam’s club is much further away…

  8. Tundra

    I can’t watch any more of that video.

    And I also can’t decide if I like the original or Superchunk’s homage better. So I’m gonna say they are both brilliant and that I really, really miss the ’90s.

    • Negroni Please

      I wish I had realized in the 90s that I was living through the pinnacle of American civilization.

    • SugarFree

      Merritt needed to trust his voice more on that first album. But I like Mac’s scream/sing version quite a bit.

      • Tundra

        Asshole, now my comment looks like early onset dementia!

      • MikeS

        Don’t get so angry. Go have a pudding cup and relax.

  9. Certified Public Asshat

    Why the Right to an Abortion Matters for Every Person

    Grant and I first met 10 years ago. If our journey were a rom-com, it would start with a meet-cute. We were on a beach in Nicaragua, on a New Year’s holiday with a big group of mutual friends. Over the course of that week, we bonded over books and education advocacy, but neither of us detected a spark. We remained platonic pals. Nerd friends, who would exchange articles and support one another’s causes. From Pencils of Promise to the Skid Row Carnival of Love, our priorities were always aligned, but we both thought of ourselves as compadres, not soul mates.

    Then, in the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak in New York City, hospitals could not get PPE and people were dying at horrifying rates. Grant was working in orthopedics and had contacts in the medical equipment field with millions of N95 masks but no way to distribute them. He posted a call for help. I answered it with a tip of my own about a warehouse that was manufacturing hospital masks and gowns. And in the organizing work that followed, we moved toward each other. It was an aha moment; all these years, right under my nose, was my home. Grant is my person. My best friend. A true partner. But I could have missed him, if it were not for the abortion he and a former partner had. Because the love of my life and a former partner of his had access to an abortion in his past, he and I have a future. Because a young couple in their 20s had access to reproductive care, the two of us are now actively planning a family.

    At the time of the abortion, Grant was in his mid-20s. He was a public school teacher making $37,000 a year, barely scraping by on his own, with close to zero savings. Luckily, his health care was provided by the school district, and those savings meant he could just afford to make rent. He and his then partner had decided to part ways. But a few hours after that final conversation, he got a call from her telling him that she was pregnant.

    *fast forward*

    And now, with the draconian and anti-science and anti-medicine laws being passed there, the Grants of today have fewer rights than the Grants of yesteryear.

    Well, I am not moved at all by this awful story and I am very unconvinced that men have lost any rights in all of this.

    • Mustang

      I’m so glad they murdered that baby so that we could be together.

      Me. Me me me. Meeeeeeeee! Me? Me.

      • The Other Kevin

        Mrs. TOK often says that a lot of the pro-abortion stuff just comes off as selfishness. And here’s your proof.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        This poor guy almost missed his trip to Nicaragua.

    • MikeS

      CWAC

    • Tonio

      The poor, underpaid COVID-hero schoolteacher. Wow, could you be any more hackneyed and unbelievable?

      • Pope Jimbo

        Check out the link to the story about the Hero Somali Teacher of the Year who is being forced to quit because of “systemic racism”. Her main gripe is the kids all came back fucked up from the lockdowns.

        She should be checking her union before she falls off that high horse and breaks her neck.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Better wear a rubber with this one Grant, if she’s half as self-involved as she comes across you’ll be divorced inside three years.

    • Compelled Speechless

      So literally her argument is “My boyfriend who’s like super perfect for me, was with someone that like, wasn’t me and he would have had to stay with this girl who like totally wasn’t me to raise their stupid kid together. But they like, totally killed the kid, so they didn’t need to be together and now he’s my boyfriend! And that’s why it’s like, the most important!”

      Here’s an argument along the same moral lines sweetie. If the holocaust never happened, almost no one alive today would be here since it would completely change the course of all human events causing infinitely different pairings of humans and infinitely different insemination times even for couples that would have been the same. By your logic was the holocaust good since it totes made you be alive and stuff?

      • hayeksplosives

        I hate to admit it but as terrible as the reality you are snarking about is, your snark is so perfectly executed that I LOL’d.

      • Tonio

        My boyfriend who’s like super perfect for me…

        That is spot-on. I can hear the vocal fry when she says “super perfect.”

        Have you ever considered writing in slightly longer form? I know this total shitpost website that will publish almost anything.

      • Compelled Speechless

        Thanks. I have always been super shy about my writing since back in school and honestly haven’t written anything more than an inappropriately long post on forums like this since I left school at the turn of the millennium. I do get some ideas I’d like to flesh out from time to time. I’ll let you know if I ever produce anything I think people might want to read. BTW, I really enjoy your posts on here.

      • Tonio

        Thanks, and please do. I’m happy to read anything you write if you want a second opinion.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Hell, even I’ve posted an article here. Sure, it was about a trivial topic (boxing) but it still received largely on topic responses for the first hour or two. If I can do it you sure as shit can.

      • R.J.

        They let me write here. Clearly anyone can.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Aliens, zombies, vampires, large chested women of questionable morals… you’re a gold mine, dude.

      • Count Potato

        Medium?

      • robc

        “almost anything”

        So something has been rejected?

      • Chafed

        FOS’s white supremacist treatise?

      • Compelled Speechless

        I don’t know if it was rejected or just lost in someone’s spam folder, but I never heard back about my 2019 submission entitled “Beto O’Rourke: The Hero We Need, The Hero We Don’t Deserve.”

      • SugarFree

        I’m sure it was just lost somehow. We’ve tried to always get back to people–well, real people. We get a lot of “want to republish this for a fee?” spam.

      • Compelled Speechless

        That was a total joke. There’s no such thing as a Beto fan in real life. Except Matt Welch. I’m definitely not secretly Matt Welch.

        ***Eyes dart in all directions to see if anyone is looking at me suspiciously***

      • Compelled Speechless

        I tried to make the title so laughably absurd that it was obviously a joke.

      • Tonio

        Okay, our bad. Someone should have gotten back to you on that, probably me.

        It’s a very lax organizational structure, as you’d expect. There is nobody explicitly tasked with replying to things sent in using the “submit” feature, and things slip through the cracks. I’m going to take this up at the next ether frolic editors meeting.

        If anyone submits something and doesn’t get a response of some sort within ten days, please re-query us.

        Write to me at my_handle (at) thisdomain (dot) com.

        Again, apologies to you, and any other first-timers we ignored.

      • DrOtto

        That’s how you honor a holocaust.

    • Mustang

      “In a deeply personal essay, the actor Sophia Bush and her husband, Grant Hughes, share the impact abortion has had on their life.”

      I know the answer, but do they not understand how deeply disturbing this sounds? This probably doesn’t change minds, it just reinforces entrenched positions.

      Next on Glamour, how giving up my annoying teen for adoption changed my life for the better because I could finally take that trip to Fiji.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        She really typed it out thinking that this was going to be the thing to convince pro-lifers that she is correct.

      • Brochettaward

        Don’t know if it was so much for the pro-life crowd as much as it was an attempt to galvanize support from members of the progressive hive mind who have remained generally unmoved about the whole thing. Men who think it doesn’t really impact them, but who are pro-choice.

      • Tulip

        ^this, or she’s secretly pro-life.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I pissed my proggie sister off because I told her that I was being pushed more and more into the pro-life camp because of the shrill screeching from the pro-choicers.

        The gushing about how great abortions are and how no one should feel bad at all about having one creeps me the fuck out. And I’m pretty OK with legal abortions early in the pregnancy. But for fuck’s sake have the decency to treat an abortion as a terrible choice.

      • Mojeaux

        have the decency to treat an abortion as a terrible choice

        This.

      • Chafed

        That’s right on the money.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Wow. Just… wow.

    • R C Dean

      Do they really want to go down the road of the baby-daddy having the right to abort their spawn?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      “I am so thankful my wife’s precious fiance got murdered.”

      • grrizzly

        I want to hear Dr. Jill’s take on it.

      • Pope Jimbo

        DR. Jill ain’t gonna say shit about what some woman wrote. She’s already been burned once by commenting on tacos. Not gonna get fooled again.

      • Compelled Speechless

        You’re being awfully presumptuous yourself there your holiness. Who’s to say that this “Sofia Bush” is even a woman?

        Dr. Jill will absolutely get fooled again. She fancies the spotlight. The media will be ready and waiting to forget any unbelievably racist thing she says.

      • Pope Jimbo

        If we weren’t all getting screwed so badly, it would be funny to watch DR. Jill get dragged for the ninny she is.

        She is a terrible person who pushed Joe to run for Pres because she wanted to be First Lady so badly. Normal loving spouses would have told Joe that he should retire and enjoy his last few years on Earth.

        After watching the tongue bath that Michelle Obama got, Jill was convinced she was going to get the same. She’d be the Alpha this time. No more second fiddle. Now she is getting mocked – and deservedly so – by the public.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      What would she say if it was a miscarriage?

      • Pope Jimbo

        That it was doG’s will that she and her beta dude were meant to be together?

    • rhywun

      we bonded over books and education advocacy

      Sorry, tapping out.

  10. Winston

    https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/keeping-up-with-the-fits-713?utm_source=%2Fprofile%2F13277919-arnold-kling&utm_medium=reader2

    I think that from the 1940s through the 1970s there was a genuine movement in the direction of merit-based criteria for broadening access to universities, and hence upward mobility, for those who were not white, male, and Protestant. As of 1940, my father’s career was somewhat limited by the fact that he was born Jewish, and my mother’s career was limited by the fact that she was born female. And of course others had it worse by being born Black. By 1980, those barriers of prejudice had been much reduced.

    But now the trend is away from merit-based criteria and instead toward cultural conformity. Part of that cultural conformity is contempt for people who work with things. And part of it is contempt for liberal values.

    Why did Kling think this would not happen?

    • Tulip

      Why do you hold us responsible for explaining?

      • Chafed

        Thank you Tulip. I particularly don’t get this one. Arnold King is a bright and thoughtful guy. Flinging shit at him makes no sense.

      • Winston

        Where did I say that?

      • Tulip

        So your question is rhetorical? Ok.

      • Winston

        Because you act as if this post was me attacking people here instead of a critique of Kling?

      • Tulip

        It is your shtick. I’ll go back to ignoring you.

    • Tulip

      Kling has a website. Go ask him and report back.

      • Winston

        Shouldn’t we delete this post and only send angry emails and tweets to the Uvalde PD?

      • Tulip

        Where did I advocate for that? I said I want their names published, but nothing about tweets or emails. That came from your fevered imagination. Or, is this another rhetorical question?

      • Winston

        Because you literally said that since Kling and Caplan have websites it is improper for me to critique them here? Everyone here constantly post links to people who have websites.

      • Nephilium

        Why did Kling think this would not happen?

        Isn’t really much of a critique.

  11. Winston

    https://betonit.substack.com/p/the-stillbirth-of-the-liberty-institute

    In case you haven’t heard, Salem Center faculty, especially Carlos Carvalho, have been closely associated with the failed attempt to create a separate Liberty Institute at UT. Key idea: To help restore intellectual diversity by creating a separate contrarian academic unit with the authority to hire tenure-track and tenured faculty. Though the Liberty Institute almost happened, UT president Jay Hartzell finally killed the idea, and replaced it with a hollow substitute, the Civitas Institute.

    I love how Caplan seems so shocked that this happened.

    • Tulip

      Caplan has a website and he loves to debate people. Go ask him and report back.

      • Fatty Bolger

        LOL! This may be the perfect Winston response, should work for majority of his comments.

      • robc

        You can even bet with him if you think he is wrong. Hence the name of his website.

      • Ted S.

        I 5hought it was about Beto O’Rourke’s lice eggs.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Demand that he wear pants if he wants to be taken seriously. And offer to take him out to the Italian eatery of his choice on Columbus Day.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Is that a Daily Ray of Sunshine post?

    • rhywun

      Speaking of someone who will publish anything….

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      Please let them be high schoolers, pleeeeeease let them be high schoolers.

      *clicks link*

    • Tres Cool

      Oh I totally would.

  12. hayeksplosives

    Don’t forget to look at the full moon tonight, if you have clear skies. Supposed to be a spectacular one!

    • R.J.

      I will do just that. Links are too much this afternoon.

    • SugarFree

      hayeksplosives is objectively pro-werewolf.

      • hayeksplosives

        Only werewolves who retain toxic masculinity. Those Twilight cunts don’t make the grade.

      • SugarFree

        Were-Pekinese.

      • hayeksplosives

        LOL

    • Shpip

      In related news, SpaceX is launching a resupply mission to the International Space Station tomorrow. The launch is scheduled for 8:44 PM EDT, which is 23 minutes after sunset at the Cape.

      Given the timing, I think there might be a chance to see a space jellyfish, but I can’t be certain.

      • rhywun

        I was expecting this space jellyfish.

  13. Count Potato

    “Editor’s Note: The sound of children screaming has been removed.”

    Damn.

    • The Other Kevin

      Just looking through the photos. I don’t see a problem with disabled actors, but in one of the photos the person in the wheelchair would have to ask the person to bend down so they could stab them.

      • Compelled Speechless

        Like most woke stuff, it’s not the inclusion that I have a problem with. It’s the inclusion for inclusions sake. It takes the focus of the story telling and breaks the illusion for the audience. I was really just pointing out the wheel chair since it’s so obvious. Based on the few things I’ve seen her in, Danai Gurira seems to have the sort of natural commanding presence for this kind of roll, so I don’t think the race/gender swap is inherently a bad thing. There are other things in the article that make me think they’re trying to bring in parallels to modern politics and that is where they always really lose me. Everyone in modern Broadway/Hollywood’s politics are stupid to the point where I’d rather watch the shows my toddler watches since they’re more nuanced.

    • SugarFree

      **This Richard, interpreted by a Black woman performing snarling and self-entitled toxic masculinity, appears to despise his rivals less out of perceived injustice and more for inhabiting (white) privilege and power denied to him.**

      Fuck. Off.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        *barf*

      • Penguin

        Oh, just one of Shakespeare’s well known polemics against white privilege.

      • Compelled Speechless

        Serious question. What are the chances that Shakespeare ever even came into contact with someone who wasn’t white?

      • SugarFree

        Unless he hung around the docks, quite low.

      • Compelled Speechless

        You mean because of the rampant Swamp-thing creature problem that England historically had around this time?

      • SugarFree

        They had mostly been hunted to extinction by Billy Shakespeare’s time. Maybe stop watching those dumb shows on TLC.

      • Compelled Speechless

        Don’t act like you know more than me. Clearly you’re not familiar with his last, unfinished autobiographical work “Bill Shakespeare: Swamp Creature Hunter”. He was going to sell it as a spec script to a touring company that would eventually become Warner Bros., but he died before he could finish it because he was killed by a vicious pack of drowners. The unpublished manuscript would go on to be the basis of The Witcher series.

        Learn your history.

      • robc

        He might have seen a moorish doctor…from a distance.

      • Shpip

        What are the chances that Shakespeare ever even came into contact with someone who wasn’t white?

        Bill lived and worked in late 16th- and early 17th-century London, which was then (as now) one of the world’s leading trade centers and most cosmopolitan cities.

        It’s virtually a certainty that he stumbled upon an Irishman at one time or another.

      • Compelled Speechless

        Obviously I know that. I meant people. The Irish don’t count.

      • Ted S.

        If you prick her, she doesn’t bleed.

      • Compelled Speechless

        Snarling and self-entitled like ohhhhh say……a group of artists who feel it’s their right to take a 500 year old work of one of the most respected writers that ever lived and rework it to their own purposes current day political purposes because something something patriarchy, sexism and white privilege? Also, they won the most intersectional Olympics points!!!

      • Tulip

        Meh, there have been many reinterpretations of Shakespeare. His work remains.

      • Compelled Speechless

        I still maintain that majorly reworking what he wrote is almost always self-entitled and hubristic. I do have a major problem with skin-suiting people’s work to push their own messages that don’t or in this case couldn’t possibly represent the original artist’s intent. Write your own shit for that.

  14. KSuellington

    No way am I watching that video, I saw the stills of the cops checking their phone and getting hand sanitizer and that was more than enough.

    How about the mayor who thinks the chickenshit thing about that video was not the actions of the cops but whoever released it to the media?

    • R C Dean

      How about the fact that the police chief still hasn’t resigned, but is on administrative leave? I didn’t see anything about it being unpaid, either.

      • MikeS

        That fuck waited a month to resign from his newly won city council seat. The arrogance is astounding.

      • KSuellington

        Probably not unpaid. I’m sure he is hiding out far from the town, likely on vacation out of state for a few months.

        People say you don’t know how you’d react in such a situation if you were ever put in one. I’ve had a knife put up to my belly and I’ve been twenty feet away from cops unloading their guns on some (fellow?) criminals in Brazil. Neither caused me to panic. I don’t know how those fuckers could live with themselves after not stopping that from happening.

      • Shpip

        There’s a dark, dark part of me that almost hopes that the officers of the Uvalde P.D. get picked off, one by one, Unintended Consequences-style, starting with the chief.

        I try to keep that part hidden away and placated with whiskey.

      • KSuellington

        It’s an entirely understandable thing to feel that way in a situation like this, especially as people this cowardly likely won’t experience the utter soul crushing shame that they should feel for being such lowlifes.

      • Nephilium

        I’ve heard there’s a little town in PA that’s looking for a new officer after they discovered some issues with their previous hire…

    • Sensei

      Same. The stills I’ve seen make me want to rage.

  15. Count Potato

    In other news, I’m ignoring Amazon Prime Day.

    • Mojeaux

      They have my favorite pens on sale.

      • Count Potato

        I don’t have a favorite pen.

      • Pine_Tree

        That’s just weird. The answer is Uniball Vision fine-points.

      • Count Potato

        Well, life is weird. On the way back from visiting my mom, some black guy was fucking blasting Oasis. People at the stop light were looking at each other, “how can he drive if he’s blind?”

      • R.J.

        Alvin mechanical drafting pencils.

      • Mojeaux

        I don’t have one of those. My most beloved mechanical pencil is 34 years old.

      • Ownbestenemy

        I am rabidly defensive of my mechanical pencils and my drafting pencils. I will stab anyone who tries to swipe em

      • MikeS

        I’ve never used an Alvin. I still have my set of Staedtlers I got back in drafting school in the mid-90s. Great pencils.

      • Name's BEAM. James BEAM.

        Yep. Staedtler Mars micro 0.5mm mechanical pencil FTW.

      • robc

        My project for my Engineering Graphics class was a redesign of the mechanical pencil to waste less of the little stub (I hate throwing out that tiny piece that won’t stay in place). My design was entirely unworkable but got me a good grade.

      • MikeS

        Pilot G-2

      • Gustave Lytton

        Just when I thought Glibs couldn’t get any wronger.

        Y’all need pineapple.

      • Name's BEAM. James BEAM.

        Y’all are wrongest.

        The best pen of all time under two bucks is Pentel’s BK-77 Superb, available in red, blue and black (also, weirdly enough, in green and violet 🤮 ), with a very fine line (0.25mm) and oil-based ink that just doesn’t clog or clump.

        I buy them in packs of 12 off of Amazon, ’cause I haven’t been able to find them in the stores for many years (they were a staple of my Uni days back in the mid-80s). I’m due for another three boxes soon.

      • creech

        Got one with Metal Tip .7mm right in front of me. Love them, except about 1 in 4 or 5 gets scratchy real quick.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Yep. I’ve noticed that, too. I also don’t love the grips. They tend to get loose after a while. However, as a lefty, it’s the first low-smear gel pen I’ve ever owned.

      • EvilSheldon

        Nah. Parker Jotter with an Ohto Flash Dry 0.5mm gel refill.

      • Annoyed Nomad

        Your favorite WHAT?! Oh, there isn’t an “I” in the word “pens”

      • Mojeaux

        He’s downstairs in his mancave.

    • Fatty Bolger

      You’re not missing much, it ain’t what it used to be.

      • Tundra

        There are some great deals on Garmin watches, if ya’ll are looking for one.

        Here

        I have the Vivoactive 4, but I would look hard at the Instinct Solar or the Fenix 6.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        The new vivoactives look much better than the one I had 8ish years ago.

        Alas, I just got one of these instead (didn’t pay even close to that much, though). I don’t need the high level fitness tracking or Google pay or whatever else they jam into the high end smartwatches these days.

      • Tundra

        I like mine, but I’d rather have altimeter, compass, etc. for what I do now.

        It’s great for basics, though.

      • Tundra

        Thanks, Hobbit!

        Not available, but I’ll see if they just changed it.

      • Nephilium

        I dropped a dollar for Paramount+ to catch the South Park specials, and the second season of Evil. Already set my reminder to cancel it when the $1/month special price expires.

      • SugarFree

        __Evil__ is so weirdly good. I can’t believe I love Catholic X-Files.

      • Nephilium

        At least for the first season, I really enjoyed how they left everything ambiguous enough.

      • The Last American Hero

        It’s worth the $1 just to watch the milfy chick walk around.

    • whiz

      In other news, I’m ignoring Amazon Prime Day.

      Hey, don’t knock it. My wife got $10 off (and free shipping) on a split keyboard she’s been eying.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Wow

    • Ownbestenemy

      Its not Joe. Its her or her speechwriters cause its the same formula each and every time.

      • Compelled Speechless

        I think they’re doing that comedy bit like in 80’s sitcoms. You know, the one where someone is super nervous and can’t think straight and so someone talks into an earpiece for them and they’re just supposed to repeat whatever they hear. The person on the other end has a stroke or diarrhea or some other hilarious medical condition and so the neurotic intern has to put on the headset and stumble their way through a speech because they spilled coffee on the real one. Classic.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Its not Joe. Its her or her speechwriters cause its the same formula each and every time.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Twice in a day I missed threaded….

      • Tonio

        [Moistens middle finger with own saliva, plots best course of attack on OBE’s ear canal.]

    • Drake

      Two possibilities:

      1. A 10-year-old really was raped, but they buried the story because it was an illegal immigrant. When the story got too hot, they actually admitted it.

      2. (More likely) The whole story is bullshit. It was a convenient lie right after the Supreme Court ruling, They got called on the bs so they grabbed a guy cutting lawns somewhere as the patsy.

      • Tulip

        What’s really sad about the article is they note he has somewhere to stay separate from the girl. So, he’s in the same building, or he’s the mom’s boyfriend.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        he’s the mom’s boyfriend

        Single most common avenue for child molestation.

      • SugarFree

        Like that first asshole Rittenhouse shot. Not only was he let out of jail for multiple child rapes, he was living with a women with little kids already.

    • rhywun

      If you’re anti-abortion, I don’t see how this unique case is going to change any minds. But they’re going to keep trotting out that poor girl forever, aren’t they.

  16. MikeS

    In more Let’s Go Brandon news, just got an email from Verizon that my bill is going up $12/month. Approximately a 10% increase.

    • Drake

      I have a Verizon work cell phone and a T-Mobile personal. I’d say T-Mobile reception is at least as good as Verizon now.

      • MikeS

        Up here in the hinterlands, Verizon used to be a must have if you wanted good service everywhere. Like you say, I bet that’s not the case anymore…I need to look into switching.

  17. The Late P Brooks

    Grant and I first met 10 years ago. If our journey were a rom-com, it would start with a meet-cute.

    From here, there’s nowhere to go but down.

  18. Pope Jimbo

    So much stupid. I don’t even know where to start.

    Fierce, Brave (her words, not mine) Somali teacher (who was once Minnesoda’s Teacher of the Year) is getting out of the teaching biz. Long article about how horrible it is that this great woman is being forced out. The first time she was fired it was because of the Teachers’ Union rules of last in, first out. This time it is because of “systemic racism” and she just can’t even anymore.

    Minnesota public school staffing levels declined by 7 percent between March 2020 and May 2022, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That meant teachers needed to cover for other staff during their limited free hours.

    For teachers of color, this additional workload presented even greater burdens. Even before the pandemic, many of these teachers paid an “invisible tax” by providing unpaid leadership on anti-racism in their schools and delivering extra support to students of color. Those needs grew exponentially after the twin upheavals of the pandemic and Floyd’s murder.

    *No mention of how much the student population declined. I saw something that in Minneapolis it was more than 10%, but I can’t be bothered to enact any labor to dig that up.

    Seriously, this story has so much stupidity.

    • Tonio

      Taxes are not voluntary; she voluntarily enacted labor to promote her ideology.

      “Leadership.” LOL

    • Pope Jimbo

      Qorsho started to wonder why the education system failed to meet the needs of so many students, especially students of color and those living in poverty. Her thoughts turned sociological and dark: Does society need an underclass of poor and uneducated people?

      She reflected on her own experiences as a student and why she’d ended up teaching. “Why did I go back to the crime scene where I was harmed?”

      She’d thought George Floyd’s murder, the pandemic, and rising poverty would serve as a “wakeup call.” Now, she’d come to a different conclusion: “There’s just a lot of comfortable people making decisions that are more than fine maintaining the status quo.”

      Qorsho’s spirits hit a low point during the Omicron surge in January 2022. So many teachers and students were out sick that she felt like she was expected to provide childcare at school, rather than education.

      You teach 2nd grade. That is pretty much childcare.

      • creech

        Depends on the school system. My granddaughter got pretty vigorous 2nd grade education at a public school in Dr. Jill’s husband’s state.

      • Mojeaux

        Yeah, I’ve got few complaints about my kids’ education thus far.

      • Not Adahn

        I learned cursive in second grade. No idea what they teach now.

      • Sensei

        ひらがな。

      • Mojeaux

        Last night, my son asked me how I type so fast. I told him I learned to touch type with the home row and all that. He was not willing to learn how to so that, but if I grew up a digital native and was adequately fast just winging it, I probably wouldn’t bother either.

      • The Bearded Hobbit

        My handwriting has always been poor. My sixth-grade teacher advised me to take typing “as soon as possible”. Dad commented, “You can’t carry a typewriter around in your pocket.”

        Fast forward 60 years and, oh!, hey!, I *can* carry a typewriter around in my pocket.

      • SandMan

        Typing was probably the most useful class I took in high school.

    • rhywun

      unpaid leadership on anti-racism in their schools and delivering extra support to students of color

      Horseshit.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Look it is quite an honor to be on the Committee for Public Safety, but sending people to the guillotine doesn’t pay the bills.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    Next on Glamour, how giving up my annoying teen for adoption selling my teenaged daughter to Jeffrey Epstein changed my life for the better because I could finally take that trip to Fiji.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Good when it confirms my beliefs and bad when it works against them…it must be nice to not have principles.

    • Name's BEAM. James BEAM.

      Yeah, Joly’s a piece of work, she is. Mind you, she’s been a disaster in all her portfolios, so this isn’t really all that surprising.

    • Sensei

      And the cluelessness.

  20. Count Potato

    “BMW starts selling heated seat subscriptions for $18 a month

    The auto industry is racing towards a future full of microtransactions

    In the case of heated seats, for example, BMW owners already have all the necessary components, but BMW has simply placed a software block on their functionality that buyers then have to pay to remove. For some software features that might lead to ongoing expenses for the carmaker (like automated traffic camera alerts, for example), charging a subscription seems more reasonable. But that’s not an issue for heated seats.”

    https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw-subscriptions-microtransactions-heated-seats-feature

    WTF??

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      Fuck that entire industry and the FedGov agencies that prop it up. Give me a car with an engine, A/C and enough mechanical safety features to survive a crash. Leave the rest on the design floor.

      • Compelled Speechless

        I’m not giving up my car’s automated ball massage and lotioner. It’s an integral part of the driving experience. It’s like cocaine – if you’ve never tried it, you’re better off not knowing how great it is. I can’t and won’t give it up. I’ll pay $18 a month for it as long as it calls me El Jefe and helps me clean up when it’s done.

      • Sean

        Seriously though, that’s all true with HID headlights, auto dimming mirrors, automatic headlights, automatic wipers, etc.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        If my law professor’s experience carries over, you can get the same treatment by driving under certain overpasses a couple of miles from campus with a per-use payment scheme.

      • Compelled Speechless

        With my needs it will come out to way more that $18 per month, I promise you that. They all want to charge extra for nicknames. I can’t get off without being called El Jefe! It’s a racist policy I tell you.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Moar work for Pie and his friends!

        Most angry farmers in America have sourced software from Eastern Europe to hack into their tractors. The software is sold in the black market, accessible on paid invite-only forums. The online groups provide hacked John Deere software through a specific code. Once access is granted, farmers have a variety of programs available for sale, mostly from cities in Poland and Ukraine.

        Electronic Data Link, Payload files, and Diagnostic Files servers that communicate with tractor controllers are among the software that is traded on these online platforms. They also offer speed-limit modifiers, license key generators, reverse engineered cables which allow farmers to operate their own tractors with an internet plugged computer.

      • Count Potato

        The engine is $100 a month.

    • Pope Jimbo

      I don’t dare drink while Prime Day is going on.

      • Tulip

        Afraid of your wife?

      • SugarFree

        Where do you think the 55-gallon barrel of lube joke came from?

      • Surly Knott

        All right, which one of you is this?

      • MikeS

        …I could tell from the crimson plume that followed, it would be a total loss.

        hahahahaha

      • Not Adahn

        With that in mind, I dipped each child into the vat before allowing them to cue up for the slide.

      • Not Adahn

        Apparently it’s OMWC:

        a horde of extremely well-lubricated seven-year-olds,… desperate for fun.

      • hayeksplosives

        But Drunk Amazon Santa is the best kind of Santa!

        All kinds of crap will arrive on your doorstep.

      • Tulip

        I can attest.

      • hayeksplosives

        It’s like hiding your own Easter eggs.

    • Tundra

      Will it be pink?

  21. Winston

    https://www.aier.org/article/tyrannies-of-hyperreality/

    But the trouble is coming because we have turned to authorities for far too long. Now the tab has come due. There is little more than can be done from on high. We will have to learn to turn to ourselves and each other again. So it has always been in the real world. So it will always be. We can no longer afford to live in this economic precession of simulacra. Reality will re-exert itself as night follows day. And it will hurt.

    But we must confront reality and shed ourselves of national experts or authorities who gain and keep power by clinging to hyperreality.

    I’m not sure if reality will reassert itself before things turn really bad…

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      Sounds like a really fancy way of saying that the boom-bust cycle is a thing, and the more ways you prop up the boom, the harder the bust. Not exactly groundbreaking thought from that particular think tank.

      • Winston

        True but he seems to realize the bust is much worse than he thought and wonders if a boom is even possible afterwards?

      • robc

        There hasn’t yet been a bust without a boom.

    • robc

      The Sri Lankan PM has a website, you should ask him?

      • Ted S.

        You’ll note that nobody’s calling the Sri Lankans in the presidential palace “insurrectionists”.

    • Winston

      Our economic policy, Vision 2025, is firmly embedded in several principles, including a social market economy that delivers economic dividends to all. In the first place we need to ensure we have a skill pool that matches the job market’s demands. Sri Lanka’s education system is being transformed through progressive and important policy reform: the minimum length of schooling has been increased to 13 years, while better education is being brought to rural areas through the Nearest School Is the Best School programme, and Sri Lanka is investing in more teachers and better training. Also, opportunities for vocational training in selected areas during school education will be introduced. Further, we have taken action to empower new and innovative ideas by strengthening the intellectual property regime in Sri Lanka. The plan for an “Empowered Sri Lanka” identifies the priorities of raising incomes, ensuring employment and housing for all, and improving the quality of life for all citizens.

      The plan is delivering impressive results. The current government has created over 460,000 jobs and helped more than 260,000 families secure a home. Strong progress is being made on plans to bring opportunities to rural communities by building necessary infrastructure such as roads and bridges, connecting rural and urban areas and linking Sri Lanka’s economic hubs. A programme, Enterprise Sri Lanka, has been launched to encourage young and educated entrepreneurs, who will receive loans to start SMEs. The government has also invested in some mega projects, including the Colombo Megapolis constructions – to build a city of the future – and irrigation projects including the Moragahakanda-Kaluganga Dam, to generate green energy and provide water resources for agro-production.

      Current Acting President wrote this by the way…

  22. Name's BEAM. James BEAM.

    OT: anyone here happen to have a stock of vacuum tubes that they might part with one? I’m looking for a 6FG6 / EM84 display “magic eye” tube, and the online stuff that’s available (very little choice) is asking prices in STEVE SMITH territory. It’s for an older EICO 955 In-circuit capacitor tester, in great shape except for the indicator tube (non-functional).

    • Sean

      *checks pockets*

      *shrugs*

      Sorry dude, no gots.

    • Count Potato

      I have a stock of vacuum tubes, but not one of those.

      • Name's BEAM. James BEAM.

        I’ve decided to bite the bullet on a 6E2 from China — supposedly a plug-compatible replacement for 1/4 the price of any comparable tube from North America. Online reviews on Aliexpress were consistently positive (and there’s several hundred of ’em), and the seller gets a 4.9-star rating for this item.

        I’m just pissed that the recommended tube clip on the Eico basically destroyed the original tube, and the installation manual had no warnings about it. Fargers!

    • Sensei

      If you see OMWC posting ask him.

  23. Hyperion

    Still hearing that this is the worst chatroom on the internets and that Sea Smith is wrong!

    • MikeS

      Hide your hipster juice! He’s back!!!

      • Hyperion

        Lurking in the shadows…

    • straffinrun

      “ Clinton told author Ken Auletta in an interview for the book that he and Weinstein bonded over a ‘deep yearning’ to get a lot of things done in their life”

      Mission accomplished.

      • Sensei

        a ‘deep yearning’ to get a lot of young things

      • Name's BEAM. James BEAM.

        Yeah. Deep Yearning. That’s the ticket.

  24. straffinrun

    Surprised there isn’t a “No Bullying!” Poster hanging next to the cop.

    • Ownbestenemy

      A “See Something, Say Something” one would be good too

  25. TARDis

    So did anyone buy anything interesting on Prime Day Clear Out Old Inventory Day?

    I was tempted to buy the Cheetos variety pack.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Stupid address vanity lightbulbs that my HOA is taking me to a hearing over. I am thinking rather than saying ‘its fixed’, I might take up and abuse the floor at the hearing. If the most pressing thing is a light in the address box is concerning, we should maybe address the wafting marijuana stench invading the neighborhood with the influx of Californians

      • TARDis

        light in the address box
        I don’t know what this is, but it sounds trivial.

  26. hayeksplosives

    OT: June 28 my husband had right eye cataract surgery. It’s almost healed and he can now see much better but that eye also has some old retina problems so it’s not perfect. But he can now tell blue from black in that eye!

    Yesterday he had cataract surgery on his left eye and has already gone leaps and bounds beyond where he was!!

    He chose the artificial lenses to be primarily for long distance vision (best for driving, appreciating scenery etc). In about a month he will get fitted for good short distance (reading, computing) vision.

    Meantime, he’s using “cheaters” from Walgreens.

    My fervent wish is for him to be able to get a drivers license in another month or two so I don’t have to be his chauffeur anymore. Driving him around makes us want to kill each other.

    • hayeksplosives

      Anyway, don’t fear the cataract surgery!! It’s so worth it!

      • mikey

        Without a doubt!