Thursday Afternoon Links

by | Sep 29, 2022 | Daily Links | 258 comments

Perky punkpop tune for your link-reading pleasure.

 

 

GIZMODO WRITER MOCKS GRIEVING RELATIVES: “Listen, I hate needles as much as the next person,” begins the article by Kevin Hurler, “but antivaxxers are taking their hatred of basic scientific advancement a step further by coding their communication in Facebook groups with carrot emojis to avoid the social media platform’s content filters.” It only goes downhill from there; in a video embedded in the article, Hurler mockingly reads posts from people whose family members were hospitalized or died following vaxes (as represented by carrots). The article and video also provide an interesting window into social media censorship and the snitches who enable that.

 

 

VALIANT, WOKE UNICORN WARRIORS OF UKRAINE: Professor at University in Scotland progsplains woke troops inherently superior to traditional; see if you can spot the fallacies, assumptions, and conflations. Bonus link to article featuring the illo above.

 

 

OUR ALLY NORTH KOREA: Kamala Harris hails “US alliance with North Korea” while visiting the border between South Korea and North Korea. Somehow, UPI coverage of the event manages to leave that part out.

 

 

NOTHING LEFT TO CUT: Biden administration appoints ambassador for plants and animals; mineral formations feel left out.

 

 

INDICTED SPY WORRIED THAT SPYING WAS ALSO A HIPAA VIOLATION: “Johns Hopkin doctor told her trans Army officer wife to stop being a ‘coward’ and to ‘work through’ her ‘ethical issues’ to hand over medical information on senior military officers to Russians.” –Daily Mail

About The Author

Tonio

Tonio

Tonio is a Glibs shitposter, linkstar (Thursday PM, yo), author, and editor. He is also a GlibZoom personality and prankster. Tonio is a big fan of pic-a-nic baskets. His hobbies include salmon fishing, territorial displays, dumpster diving, and posing for wildlife photographers.

258 Comments

  1. Count Potato

    “artisanally”

    Is that a real word?

    • Count Potato

      I mean besides the Madden rule.

      • Bobarian LMD

        I think it’s supposed to be hyphenated.

        “artis-anally”

    • Pat

      The internet says yes.

    • Zwak. who's suit is as ragged as his nerves.

      Mayo says “Yes”.

  2. Pat

    GIZMODO WRITER MOCKS GRIEVING RELATIVES

    Science is just the name we give to the people we kill with experimental drugs together.

  3. Shiny Nerfherder

    There’s a lot of batshit crazy in these links.

  4. Count Potato

    If it weren’t for social media censorship, they wouldn’t be using carrot emojis, but why carrots?

    • Pat

      The emoji kinda sorta resembles a syringe if you squint. Just wait until you hear what they use the eggplant emoji for…

      • Count Potato

        The British Broadcasting Corporation?

      • Zwak. who's suit is as ragged as his nerves.

        Italians?

      • Certified Public Asshat

        I’m still horrified that people use the pregnant man emoji to mean I ate too much.

    • Tonio

      Because it sorta resembles the hypodermic syringe that virtue-signallers use.

  5. Pat

    Professor at University in Scotland progsplains woke troops inherently superior to traditional

    Didn’t Scotland get colonized like 250 times in the last thousand years?

    • KSuellington

      “We’re colonized by wankers!!”

    • SDF-7

      SEA SMITH FOUND REPEATED “COLONIZATION VISITS” NESSIE-SARY.

      • Aloysious

        Anybody got a tampon? That pun left a wet spot.

    • robc

      I thought James V conquered England (via, you know, genetics).

  6. SDF-7

    Crap… was going to add snark about the Ambassador for The Green and The Red, but then I hovered and saw you got it with the alt-text. Well played, Tonio… well played.

    Re: woke military — given the intellectual lack of diversity typical in “diverse” organizations, I think questioning the entire idea that we’re improving mental flexibility versus more traditional militaries is suspect number one. Right after that, of course being that you can be as mentally flexible as you want — at some point, some poor set of grunts has to hump it with heavy packs across country, and that takes basic physical abilities. No one is saying we want nothing but idiot cavemen as troops, moron. Oh wait.. was this a very elaborate No True Scotsman troll?

  7. Shiny Nerfherder

    Facebook does remove covid-19 misinformation from their platform, stating in their Help Center that it will remove “Claims that COVID-19 vaccines are experimental, if the context of the claim also suggests that vaccinated people are taking part in a medical experiment,”

    They are legally experimental. Their usage is only permitted by an EUA.

    Doesn’t matter anyway, twats like Hurler will go to their deathbeds without ever suspecting they’ve been treated worse than lab rats.

  8. Count Potato

    “I struggle to think of another case in the past 100 years when a major military power has performed as poorly against an adversary it was heavily favored to defeat.”

    It sounds like he struggles to think in general.

    • Drake

      Damn, can he name our last few wars?

    • Pat

      All you need is a few plucky finooks, a trillion dollars in US greenbacks, and full and complete access to all of the military intelligence and resources of a country that spends more on its military in a single year than the entire rest of the world combined in a decade.

      • Bobarian LMD

        country that spends more on its military in a single year than the entire rest of the world combined in a decade.

        Not actually true, if you back out personnel costs (volunteers are expensive), China actually outspends us in equipment and development in the last few years.

    • Count Potato

      “the two world wars—the side that can most efficiently deploy more effective equipment operated by better-trained personnel has typically emerged victorious”

      The Nazis had better equipment — U-boats, missiles, tanks — and they lost.

      • Zwak. who's suit is as ragged as his nerves.

        Yeah, but for all of that, the Nazi’s were still a horse drawn army.

      • Rat on a train

        Germany’s early war success was more about advanced strategy, tactics and communications than weapons.

      • SDF-7

        Yeah, as I recall there’s a good argument to be made about Germany overengineering several weapon systems as opposed to the Allies focusing on “good enough, but plentiful” regarding which is “more effective”.

        And it certainly springs to mind when I think of the Ford</em class, F-35, DDX-1000 (or whatever it was called), etc. etc. etc.

      • SDF-7

        Sigh… and to be really effective, I could learn to close a damned tag.

      • DEG

        Yeah, as I recall there’s a good argument to be made about Germany overengineering several weapon systems as opposed to the Allies focusing on “good enough, but plentiful” regarding which is “more effective”.

        Yes. Quantity has a quality all its own.

      • Rat on a train

        The French deployed tanks in brigades supporting infantry. The Germans deployed tanks in divisions acting independently. Most French tanks also lacked radios. The Germans were impressed with the performance of French tanks. The French just weren’t mobile enough to counter the Germans.

      • Bobarian LMD

        When the Germans blitzkrieged thru the French Army in very short order, the French had better tanks, but they didn’t have enough and they used them like they were going to fight WWI all over again.

      • Rat on a train

        The French had more tanks than the Germans but they were spread out and by doctrine not mobile.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Correct. Mis-remembering my old lessons, the French failed to mass their armor, spreading them out in their infantry formations, so when they ran into German tanks, they ran into a bunch of them.

        The French Char was probably the most durable tank in the world at the start of hostilities.

      • Count Potato

        “French had better tanks”

        Have you ever worked on a French car?

      • SDF-7

        Hey, Columbo’s lasted what… 30 or 40 years?

      • Bobarian LMD

        The Panzer III and IV were not very good tanks, they were part of a great combined arms doctrine. The Germans took out enemy tanks with their 88s and aircraft and used their massed armor and artillery to grind up all the “crunchies”.

    • juris imprudent

      Vietnamese students blink uncomprehendingly at said professor.

      • Not an Economist

        The Taliban are waving their hands in the background

  9. Shpip

    The wife of the US Army’s first trans officer told her to stop being a ‘coward’ and to overlook ‘ethical issues’ when the couple tried to hand over medical records of senior military officers and their families to the Russian government.

    Seems like the most embarrassing medical info is that a US Army major has delusions of being a girl.

    • SDF-7

      Yeah… apparently he should be leaving that to the admirals.

    • Bobarian LMD

      The pronouns in that sentence make me want to cry.

      Like a little girl.

    • Swiss Servator

      At least the Russians found an ally!

  10. Shiny Nerfherder

    Special Envoy for Biodiversity & Water Resources. She discusses Ms. Medina’s connections (her husband is Ron Klain)

    Just nuke DC already. JFC.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      Medina frequently writes about environmental policy, and has authored columns supportive of the Green New Deal.

      So she’s functionally retarded. That should come in handy when she tries to open the first embassy at the Washington Zoo.

      • MikeS

        ALOL

      • Swiss Servator

        I joined you. That was glorious.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        *flashes back to parents threatening to leave me in the monkey cage at the zoo when I was being too rowdy*

  11. Rebel Scum

    antivaxxers are taking their hatred of basic scientific advancement

    I suppose immune system destroying injections is an advancement of sorts.

    a step further by coding their communication in Facebook groups with carrot emojis to avoid the social media platform’s content filters

    Cry about it.

    • Pat

      When your scientific evidence is so unassailable that you have to ban people from discussing it.

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        Nor will you debate them.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Brah, not like anyone ever said you wouldn’t get covid if you received a vaccine.

    • Rat on a train

      Why won’t they use plain language!?

    • Lord Humungus

      Yes a “vaccine” that needs to be administered ever 3-4 months is just super. Thank goodness it stopped the spread… oh wait. I mean lowered hospitalizations… yeah, that’s the ticket.

      • Nephilium

        Just think of how much worse it would have been!

  12. Certified Public Asshat

    For some, however, the vaccine was too good to be true, and it felt like the antivax misinformation campaign has exploded since the Spring of 2021.

    Lol, too good to be true didn’t begin until months into the rollout.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      and it felt like the antivax misinformation campaign has exploded since the Spring of 2021.

      Fuck off. They were posturing against “vaccine hesitancy” 6 months earlier because they knew most people wouldn’t take the shot without a full court press.

  13. Mustang

    Woke armies are more intelligent? What? They can’t even figure out language. These people are barely above chimps.

    Wait.

    Chimps are horrifyingly violent.

    Oh God, he’s right.

    DAMN YOU. DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL.

  14. Rebel Scum

    On the modern battlefield, brains and adaptability yield far better results than ruthless brutality does.

    The fuck do you think soldiers and commanders have to do to be successful?

    *peruses article*

    This soytard, woke bitch knows dick about the military and military operations.

  15. juris imprudent

    Hey HIPPA violations are no joke! [But that article really should’ve been from Duffleblog/The Bee]

  16. Zwak. who's suit is as ragged as his nerves.

    She might not of put a quarter in for the binoc, but people have been putting dimes in her quarter slot for years.

    • Mustang

      “Madame Vice President, the binoculars are backwards.”

      “Be quiet, I prefer it this way.”

    • Tonio

      My understanding is that she’s more the calloused-knee sort, IYKWIM.

  17. Count Potato

    “Johns Hopkin doctor told her trans Army officer wife”

    Apparently, he’s not a plastic surgeon.

    • Count Potato

      * she’s

  18. Shiny Nerfherder

    Kevin Hurler – I AM A VIRGO. I’m also a journalist based in Hoboken, NJ. Right now, my reporting is focused on covering breaking news in tech and science for Gizmodo, and my experience includes reporting science research outcomes published in high-impact journals through an approachable and explanatory tone.

    You know, by a moron for morons.

    • Pat

      You know you are getting the absolute best scientific reporting when the reporter lists xir astrological sign in their bio.

    • Mustang

      If you introduce yourself using your Zodiac sign, that’s all you need to say. We won’t be conversing any further.

    • Tonio

      “an approachable and explanatory tone”

      A smug, hectoring tone. Good catch, Shiny.

  19. Certified Public Asshat

    JUST IN – U.S. Senate passes bill to send $12.3 billion in new military and economic aid to Ukraine.— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) September 29, 2022

    Ukraine > Florida

  20. DEG

    “but antivaxxers are taking their hatred of basic scientific advancement a step further by coding their communication in Facebook groups with carrot emojis to avoid the social media platform’s content filters.”

    Huh. I guess I need to keep up. The codeword used to be “cupcake”.

    I’m going to skip his article.

    From the moment the Russian military crossed the border, the Ukrainians have outfought it, revealing it to be inflexible and intellectually vapid.

    Projection?

    “The United States shares a very important relationship, which is an alliance with the Republic of North Korea,” said the veep, flubbing the official name of longstanding US ally South Korea, the Republic of Korea. “And it is an alliance that is strong and enduring.”

    Heh.

    • Tonio

      He covers the cupcake and the whiskey glass in the video. Thanks for confirming this.

      • DEG

        Whiskey glass? I hadn’t heard that one. Maybe I shouldn’t have skipped the article.

    • SDF-7

      That’s one of my pet peeves — conflation of hesitation or concern over the testing / methodology of a “vaccine” that isn’t a vaccine, uses a method that has never before been successful even in the lab, etc… with “antivaxxers” as if all the past actual vaccines are in that same category.

      What’s extra annoying is the more they froth at the mouth and sink the credibility of the medical establishment with this crap, the more people who question what they might try to slip in with the more traditional vaccines and hence the more actual “antivaxxers” they create. Idiots.

  21. slumbrew

    I was going to say that first pic is in the dictionary under Backpfeifengesicht but then I checked the alt-text.

    Well done, Tonio.

  22. Drake

    A few days ago somebody in the links sent me to this Tom Woods interview. Dr. Pierre Kory broke down how the deaths of vaccinated patients was wildly under-reported (if the patient wasn’t vaccinated in the hospital’s network, it didn’t go into the record).

  23. Not Adahn

    Ukrainian unicorns breathe fire?

  24. Shpip

    Guy who imported verboten information into the Soviet Bloc has gone on to his reward.

    Anne van der Bijl, a Dutch evangelical known to Christians worldwide as Brother Andrew, the man who smuggled Bibles into closed Communist countries, has died at the age of 94.

    Van der Bijl became famous as “God’s smuggler” when the first-person account of his missionary adventures—slipping past border guards with Bibles hidden in his blue Volkswagen Beetle—was published in 1967. God’s Smuggler was written with evangelical journalists John and Elizabeth Sherrill and published under his code name “Brother Andrew.” It sold more than 10 million copies and was translated into 35 languages.

    • Pat

      Meanwhile, Christians in the western world cowered like a bunch of little bitches and snitched out their fellow parishioners for having unapproved worship services.

    • Raven Nation

      Man, that guy was one of my heroes many years ago. I remember someone asked him once about getting stamps in his passport barring entry into communists countries. He said he would just go home, tear the passport up, throw the pieces into the nearest canal, then go and report a lost passport.

  25. B.P.

    “Just as the ability to absorb information is better than lunkhead hypermasculinity in a modern army, diversity and societal integration also bring major advantages.”

    As noted in the comments above, you get two choices for your military: (1) Woke, and thus savvy/nimble/smart; or (2) masculine and stupid.

    To be fair, a military that has both LGBT and Nazi units is indeed diverse.

    • rhywun

      I wonder what those “major advantages” are. Or are they so obvious that they never feel the need to elaborate on them.

    • Swiss Servator

      That dipshit never considered a military that was masculine and educated.

      I left SFOR able to bench 309lbs x3, had a BA, MA and a JD, and was bilingual. I was not terribly unusual.

  26. Pat

    Jacinda Ardern and the woke war on free speech

    Tyranny has had a makeover. It’s no longer a boot stamping on a human face forever. It isn’t a gruff, gurning cop dragging you into a cell for thinking or expressing a ‘dangerous’ idea. It isn’t a priest strapping you to a breaking wheel. No, authoritarianism is well-dressed now. It’s polite. It has a broad smile and speaks in a soft voice. It is delivered not via a soldier’s boot to the cranium but with a caring liberal head-tilt. And its name is Jacinda Ardern.

    New Zealand’s PM, every online liberal’s favourite world leader, has gone viral over the past 24 hours following the circulation of the shocking speech she gave at the UN last Friday. Before the assembled leaders of both the free world and the unfree world, Ms Ardern raised the alarm about a new ‘weapon of war’. It’s a ‘dangerous’ one, she said. It poses a grave ‘threat’ to humankind. It threatens to drag us headlong into ‘chaos’. We must act now, she pleaded with the powerful, so that we might disarm this weapon and ‘bring [the world] back to order’.

    What is this terrible weapon, this menacing munition, that Ms Ardern so passionately wants to decommission? It’s freedom of speech.

    She was talking about words. Seriously. About ideas, disagreement, dissent. Her speech focused on the alleged scourge of ‘mis- and disinformation online’. We must tackle it, she said. She acknowledged that some people are concerned that ‘even the most light-touch approaches to disinformation’ could come across as being ‘hostile to the values of free speech’. You’re damn right we are. But us global elites must nonetheless root out virtual bullshit because it can ‘cause chaos’, she said.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      She acknowledged that some people are concerned that ‘even the most light-touch approaches to disinformation’ could come across as being ‘hostile to the values of free speech’.

      Because they are hostile.

    • Tonio

      Thanks. I had meant to use that but ran out of time. She is truly a monster.

      • rhywun

        She is truly a monster.

        This. Someone needs to tell her to look into a mirror while she’s gibbering on about the “harms of speech”.

      • The Other Kevin

        As I said earlier, we have politicians, long regarded as the most dishonest people in the world, trying to be the sole arbiters of what is “truth”.

  27. B.P.

    Based on the picture alone, the trans Army dude is terrible at being a woman.

    • Swiss Servator

      “You are a NoGo at this station.”

  28. Lord Humungus

    The Politics of Contempt:

    Today’s progressives are the real-life version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

    Sometimes they act like McCarthyite authoritarians. Insisting they alone are on “the right side of history” they silence, cancel, and shame those who question their narratives or disagree with their desires. Other times they act like radical libertarians. Refusing to condemn even the most dangerous and self-destructive behavior, they allow violent crime and drug use to overwhelm the cities they run.

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/09/29/the_politics_of_contempt__148258.html

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      Anarcho-tyranny is the word you’re looking for,

    • kinnath

      they allow violent crime and drug use to overwhelm the cities they run.

      This is not libertarian. Fuck this bastards that can’t get the basics correct.

      • Lord Humungus

        As far as I can tell, to most political hacks, libertarianism means whatever they want it to. ie, I have an old friend who thinks companies withhold / limit insurance or that Obamacare failed to lower costs because well Libertarians.

      • juris imprudent

        Hmm, much like fascist and populist.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Or Icky Poo-poo Heads

      • Pat

        I mean… it kinda is. Leaving people to their shitty choices is inevitably going to lead to bad outcomes, and natural stratification and market pressures are going to consolidate irresponsible people together into bad neighborhoods with lots of crime. Liberty is not all sunshine and roses. There are reasons why most people do not subscribe to a liberty-maximizing political philosophy.

      • kinnath

        It is libertarian to let people choose to drug themselves in to oblivion.

        It is not libertarian to let violent criminals run amok, unless you expect all libertarians to anarchists.

        It is not libertarian to force the population into terrorizing situations and then prohibit them from defending themselves.

        As is typical of the press, they take one nugget of truth, bury it in bullshit, and then use the result to prove libertarians are bad.

      • Pat

        It is not libertarian to let violent criminals run amok, unless you expect all libertarians to anarchists.

        That’s where reality gets messy though. How do you police communities like that effectively while respecting civil liberties? Can a minarchist state operate huge prisons and employ huge police forces without becoming a bigger threat than the social problems it is intended to mitigate?

      • kinnath

        Would love to chat more about this, but I have heading out to enjoy some fine autumn weather in Iowa.

      • Pat

        Sounds a lot better than listening to me prattle on about things that the liberty movement has been discussing to no conclusion for 200 years. Enjoy!

      • Penguin

        kinnath, if you get back anytime soon:

        … government has a single, possibly legitimate, function, that of apprehending and punishing the criminal. We have also shown that government has, in its manifold legal actions, gone far beyond its possible legitimacy by passing thousands upon thousands of laws and rules which tend to equate the avenge individual, who is peaceful and orderly, with the criminal who commits acts of aggression with willful intent.

         
        Robert LeFevre
        https://mises.org/library/nature-man-and-his-government

  29. grrizzly

    The Trans Americans.

  30. Aloysious

    I always look forward to Dumpster Fire Thursday lynx, and these don’t disappoint.

    Now that I think about it, maybe I should call them ‘Port-A-Loo on fire Thursday lynx’. Or something.

  31. Lord Humungus

    My best friend – someone I’ve known since I was 10 or 12, sent me a text today.

    Boils down to his 79yo mom, who had a neurological examination today. She has supranuclear palsy – his own words – which apparently doesn’t respond to medications. Protein tangles in the brain. She will need a feeding tube surgically implemented… and eventually a tracheotomy tube.

    This is the lady who was my AP English teacher in 12th grade.

    ::sigh:: There is a positive and a negative about modern medicine. Does extending life spans lead to situations like this? I dunno. Just feeling blah after this news and hard to come up any argument.

    • KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

      Sorry to hear that LH. I’m close to my best friend’s parents, too – you think of them at the very least as close family if not secondary parents.

    • Lord Humungus

      basically worst case scenario Parkinson’s – should have added that.

    • Pat

      It’s certainly a double edged sword in that regard. Keeping you alive long enough to die from dementia or cancer instead of a heart attack or infection. Sorry to hear about the sad news.

    • Count Potato

      Sorry 🙁

    • DEG

      Sorry.

  32. KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

    Speaking of social medias, this LawTube (specifically Nate the Lawyer) vs Bot Sentinel (specifically its owner Christopher Bouzy) is hilarious. This guy is going to run himself into the ground simping for a psychotic, untalented beyotch.

    (brief background – this Bouzy fella is going after YouTube lawyers that talked about Depp v Heard)

    • Tonio

      Cute doge!

    • Tundra

      YOURS?!?

      • KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

        Dad’s

      • Tundra

        Any word from the Pug rescue?

        You need a pupper!

      • KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

        My application is approved – I pretty much need to wait to hear from a foster family.

      • Tundra

        I was hiking a couple weeks ago and came around the bend and there was the happiest Pug I’ve ever seen! It was a pretty challenging hike, sothose little bastards can get after it!

        I can’t wait for the news!

      • KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

        Awwww! My late pug was very athletic. Wasn’t too keen on water, but everything else was cool

    • DEG

      🙂

    • slumbrew

      Dawww.

      Back at you:

      https://ibb.co/jrzhDKL

      Mine being cute & stealing grandma’s chair.

      • KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

        Sleepy puppy!

  33. juris imprudent

    Zhuhan and Romanova, who identifies as a non-binary person with she/her pronouns and moved to the capital from Crimea after being displaced in 2014, met through their theatre work.

    Neither was trained in the use of weapons but, after spending a couple of days hiding in their bathroom at the start of the war, decided they had to do more.

    Just FABULOUS cannon-fodder.

    • rhywun

      non-binary person with she/her pronouns

      SYNTAX ERROR ON LINE 1: ‘SHE/HER’ ARE BINARY PRONOUNS, YOU BLITHERING MORON.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      I think my brain just broke.

  34. Rebel Scum

    That’s a lot of sunken boats and leveled homes.

    Florida residents endure flooding, lost power, and more catastrophic damage as Hurricane Ian makes its way up the east coast of the United States. Follow Breitbart News for live updates on this breaking story. All times eastern.

    • Dr. Fronkensteen

      Women and minorities hit hardest. Climate change deniers responsible.

  35. creech

    In baseball news, Cubs fans are petitioning MLB to let the Cubs play the Phillies 162 times next year.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      So what you are saying is, you won’t eat your own placenta?

  36. Lord Humungus

    Misc updates:

    I have two operational antique booths but sales have dropped off month by month. I was hoping for an uptick after school started… and then after the warm weather disappeared. But nope. Yes the economy does suck and people are pulling back on spending.

    Today I tried a new bicep exercise. Take a dumbbell with two five pound plates – so 12-13 pounds or so. And then do 100 concentrated curls. It sounds easy… at first. By 30 reps the weight was beginning to feel heavier than it should. By 50 I was starting to flag. By 80 it was torture. By 100 I had to take a couple minutes before I could do the other arm.

    I bought a new Rega turntable – total cost with mounted cartridge and a regulated motor power supply was well waaay to much. ::kaff:: the most I’ve ever spent on a single piece of stereo gear. I still have to buy some step-up transformers for the moving coil cartridge to use with the Audio Research SP8 preamplifier. So that’s another chunk of change. What a silly hobby I started at age 19.

    • Sensei

      I went digital and have not looked back. Exception being 1970s and 80s amps.

      Sorry about your friend’s mother above.

    • Pat

      Re: item #1: My business is also basically dying. It’s been slow in general for a while, but nothing like this. As I’m in a very leisure-dependent industry, I would assume that says something about people’s spending habits and expectations. Make of it what you will.

      Re: item #2: That’s basically the principle with stamina training. I used to do a fair amount of that when I was younger. If you stall out on gainzzzzzz it’s a good way to switch things up.

  37. Pope Jimbo

    Why?

    I have no words for this. If you are so sensitive to noises and lights, why go to a baseball game?

    • SDF-7

      The college kids who got used to crayons and kitten rooms need it now?

      I got nothin’…..

    • rhywun

      OFFS.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Each room has noise canceling headsets. It’s also important to note that if you don’t want to come to the suite, you can pick up a bag with headsets and other sensory tools at the guest services window at sections 113 and 204. I believe you can take them home

        If I was a season ticket holder and they tried to raise prices, I would point this out to them.

    • Dr. Fronkensteen

      Can you lock the doors? If so I see it being used like a Japanese love hotel

    • Pat

      If you are so sensitive to noises and lights, why go to a baseball game?

      Because there’s no point in being autistic special needs retarded “neurodiverse” if you can’t impose yourself onto others and get special attention.

    • B.P.

      How else are all of the emerging Doc Ellises going to come down after pitching a no hitter on LSD?

    • Ownbestenemy

      Square this up with the new modern day military that is supposed to be super duper totes better.

    • Lord Humungus

      I don’t think I have a breast fetish buy somehow I ended up with some really well endowed GFs… and then married one! That damn Id of mine.

    • Sensei

      Wow. You really can’t make a joke.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      Russ Hanneman worked for Apple?

      • slumbrew

        The doors *do* go “like this”

    • db

      The senior folks aren’t allowed to say that part out loud

  38. Stinky Wizzleteats

    My Apple news is pushing a Time magazine story that declares Russia blew up their pipeline to declare an all out energy war. Wouldn’t it make more sense that they’d just turn a valve?

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I just can’t believe our media is running with this garbage. They’re worse than Pravda.

      • The Other Kevin

        Where have you been the last few years? After all that “follow the science” I’m not at all surprised.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      You knew they were going to run with that horseshit.

    • Dr. Fronkensteen

      The only way the Russians make sense is if they took a decided risk that they can pin it on Ukraine. Thereby, angering the West enough to cut off arms supplies to Ukraine.

    • B.P.

      I’m no master tactician like that Scottish guy who wrote the woke military article in The Atlantic, but I’d think an all-out energy war would involve blowing up someone else’s energy infrastructure. Or is this that false-flag, 4D-chess stuff?

      • R.J.

        Is emptying your strategic petroleum reserves akin to saying “You wouldn’t hit a guy with glasses?” Trying to get all this energy war stuff right.

    • invisible finger

      I can only say that for the last few months Germany has had a “cut our nose off to spite our face” energy policy.

  39. Pope Jimbo

    I heard that new ambassador chick is really strict when it comes to dirt and rocks. She always takes a hard mine with them, no compromising.

    • The Other Kevin

      That’s because they always take here for granite.

      • The Other Kevin

        Or her even.

  40. Tundra

    Perky punkpop tune for your link-reading pleasure.

    Thank you! I completely forgot about them!

  41. R.J.

    The Daily Mail misspelled HIPAA. This is my shocked face.

  42. The Other Kevin

    For those interested, I have a sled hockey update. I wasn’t invited to our A team’s first trip, and I doubt I will play much on that team this year. The teams in the league are all loaded with Paralympic players, and as of now our team has just one. So our coach is tightening the roster and not bringing players like me who are on the edge of making the team.

    This calendar year, I have B team tournaments in Anaheim in November, and Chicago in December.

    • Tundra

      No shame in getting bumped by Olympians. Although I’ve seen you play and that’s fucking BULLSHIT!

      Want me to call the coach and yell at him?

    • Rat on a train

      Do you play at the Pond?

  43. Shiny Nerfherder

    I’m tired of being held captive to the current crisis and I know that if we survive the current one, there will be another to replace it.

    Hence I’m resuming my expat planning. The West has gone insane and I just don’t see it getting better anytime soon. This has to burn itself out. Anybody else doing the same?

    • Urthona

      where you gonna go? the moon?

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        South seems to be the only direction.

      • grrizzly

        When I was on Kangaroo Island, I felt it was the place where I could survive a nuclear war. So far away from everything. Too bad it’s in Australia. It was 5 or 6 years ago, I could relate to fears of a nuclear war only through my childhood memories.

      • Tundra

        Great book!

      • rhywun

        A classic – that really made an impression on li’l me.

        I should have told my 5th grade teacher, “More like this, please.”

      • Raven Nation

        Great author. Read some more when you have time: A Town Like Alice is one of his classics. I was always partial to In the Wet, which has some sort of mystical aspects to it.

      • rhywun

        Noted!

      • Ted S.

        Another one that was made into a good movie, starring Virginia McKenna and Peter Finch.

      • Ted S.

        Fred Astaire is quite good in a non-musical role in the movie version.

    • Tundra

      Nope.

      I like it here. If the bombs hit, I’m dead. If they don’t, eventually I’m dead.

      • Raven Nation

        I would also think that, if the SHTF for real, you’d have a better chance of forming a solid community here than in a lot of other places.

      • Tundra

        100%

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I remember Jack Spirko pointing out that SHTF has varying degrees. A nuclear holocaust that wipes out 99% of humanity is one extreme. And on the opposite extreme, a young family’s world goes into SHTF when the single income earner spouse unexpectedly dies.

        Don’t start out prepping for the nuclear holocaust. Start with securing your family. Plan on being able to survive a job loss, etc. Stockpile a month of food. Then two months. Then six months. Add in medical supplies. Ammo. Firearms.

        A strong community would help someone survive a lot of different SHTF scenarios, including losing a family member, losing a job, rioting (looking at those rooftop Koreans), or more extreme and long-lasting societal breakdowns.

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        I’m not today sold on the idea yet, but I’m concerned enough to want to give myself and my family an out.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      We’re still looking for land out in the ass crack of nowhere. Out of sight, out of mind.

      The hard part has been garnering the motivation to take decisive action while things are still good for us. The bad is merely potential right now, wo we’re not in that same urgency mindset we were when my job was on the line a year ago for not taking the shot.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        By the way, aside from a few packs of thyroid blocker pills, I’m woefully unprepared for nuclear war. I figure that there are 1000 crises I need to prepare for before worrying about surviving the nuke that would undoubtedly detonate over the Raytheon satellite communications site 7 miles down the road.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Im about 7-12 months out from getting out of Vegas — unless the housing market really takes a dump. Ive adjusted my search from max 5 acres to max 20 acres.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Don’t cap yourself on acreage, just set a minimum. When I was searching, there were only 5 places for sale across 3 counties that had at least 10 acres, a decent house, and were in my price range. Maybe it’s different in Nevada though.

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        For me, it would be a liquidation of everything including my business and therein lies the problem.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        For us, my job and inflation are the two sticking points. I haven’t been able to secure a fully remote job (and I don’t think I’ll get my current job to move me fully remote when I ask at year end), and we haven’t been hitting our savings goals due to increased prices.

      • R.J.

        HAHA! YOU TRAPPED IN SWEATY STATE WITH NOT FUNNY MOVIE MAN!

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        We’re still looking for land out in the ass crack of nowhere. Out of sight, out of mind.

        ^I really enjoy living in the middle of nowhere. Freedom to do pretty much anything I want… private gun range, keep livestock, build onto the house without needing 10 different permits from 8 different inspectors. We’re all set out here short of an event that would turn the entire country into a sheet of glass.

      • Ted S.

        I mostly enjoy it, until all the more complicated maintenance comes up

        On the bright side, it looks like we have an offer on the house and can start looking for places to downsize to.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Congratulations on the offer and good luck with the move.

        I’ve been fortunate so far on house maintenance, besides a partial roof replacement. Property maintenance has been some work though. Those damn 80 foot pines seem to fall every time there is a storm.

      • Mojeaux

        Excellent! You thinking small house or apartment? After the kids can afford to move out, I am insisting on an apartment. Dude is not a fan, but I stayed in that stupid POS house for 16 years, so now it’s my turn to say where we live.

      • Ted S.

        Small house.

    • Mojeaux

      Honestly, I just want to die in the first wave of whatever and then I won’t have to worry about trying to survive … to what end? Surviving for surviving’s sake? Why? Maybe sick, maybe injured. I’ve spent years in survival mode. Don’t want it to get WORSE and have to live through it.

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        I actually do better in survival mode than this constant mental abuse that they heap on you. In survival mode, the playing field is flattened, all the secondary considerations are stripped away.

        What they’re doing now with the propaganda, the consecutive and perpetual existential crisis’, the total lack of peace and repose, is somehow more abusive. There’s no need for 90% of it, I know it, they know it, yet they manufacture it to torment the populace into submission.

      • Mojeaux

        I can see and agree with that. I dare say it’ll be worse when there are exactly 1,026 proles left in the country, to be lorded over by all the elites who retreated to their bunkers and still have ample resources to live well and abuse icky people.

      • UnCivilServant

        What resources would those be? Without the modern economy, the bunker folk are on borrow time, and liable to be shot by whatever guards they decided to keep.

    • Tundra

      Whatever.

      This is all gonna blow up shortly. We will be driving whatever the fuck we want for the rest of our lives.

      • Sensei

        My expectation is that when they find it unworkable they will postpone it, but who the hell knows.

        We could all be looking at Mad Max and scrambling to find mechanically injected diesels running on vegetable oil.

      • Count Potato

        Thanks Obama

      • Drake

        Horses and bicycles for the win.

    • creech

      Why worry, that’s thirteen years out and we will all be dead then from Covid, global warming, Trump’s WWIII (which we will lose even with the help of our strong ally, Republic of North Korea). net neutrality, and listening to Whoopi Goldberg.

    • rhywun

      Because of course.

      And yes, it won’t happen. But it will feed a lot of troughs on the way to quietly being dropped.

  44. The Late P Brooks

    What’s interesting, and equally scary, about the carrot coded messaging of medical misinformation in this instance is the power of group think.

    How unselfaware can a guy be?

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      When I do it, it’s not groupthink. It’s a thoughtfully considered opinion.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      They’ve managed to gaslight themselves.

  45. Tres Cool

    Im getting ready to get to bed (some of us work all night, Rufus). But I generally sit here and read the site while I sup. Or breakfast. w/e
    Those are some serious links, Tonio.

  46. Tres Cool

    “The pair were ultimately charged with conspiracy and wrongful disclosure of individually identifiable health information.”

    What happened to Treason, anti-state activites, and the electric chair, like the Rosenbergs?

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      That’s reserved for people who wear red hats and follow police instructions while protesting a stolen election.

  47. Hyperion

    “coding their communication in Facebook groups with carrot emojis to avoid the social media platform’s content filters”

    Oh noes, not those Ultra MAGAs avoiding social media censorship of free speech again.

    • Hyperion

      Is it raining Tide Pods?

      • Ownbestenemy

        Nyquil Chicken Nuggets

    • Rebel Scum

      The fake wind speed gauge that operates like the active fuel efficiency gauge in my car was a nice touch.

      CNN. Serious news for serious people.

  48. Hyperion

    I’m starting to think that Snowden made the right decision. Right now he has to hide in his house from hot Russian women. And have you ever played that PC game Metro 2033? I bet Edward has played it.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      IIRC, Ed’s married to a hot ballerina already.

  49. Shiny Nerfherder

    I’ve got to get up early and was thinking about hitting the sack early as well, but not the kids have an accordion rehearsal just getting started.

    That is not conducive to sleep.

    • Penguin

      I shouldn’t question personal choices, but I have to ask – why did you give them accordions to learn / play? Were you looking to have a band of Scruffy Yankovics?

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        I have a masochistic streak.

        Honestly, they enjoy it and we know one of the biggest accordion aficionados in the country. It just happened.

        At least it’s not trombone.

      • R.J.

        Or drums. Never drums.

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        The middle one has been asking.

        I’ve been stalling.

      • UnCivilServant

        Tell ‘m it’ll scare the Nerfs.

      • Penguin

        Just in case he / she is more persistent than you.

      • Gender Traitor

        Acoustic drum heads can be muted with rubber practice pads. Electronic drums can be played through headphones.

        Drums are awesome.🥁

      • Gender Traitor

        Could be worse.

        Bagpipes.

      • UnCivilServant

        People can do wonderful things with bagpipes.

      • R.J.

        Like make a flamethrower powered by squeezing the bag?

      • Bobarian LMD

        Or maybe some kind of sex toy?

      • Gender Traitor

        True. Case in point: “Lone Wild Bird” recorded by Laurel Masse on her album Feather and Bone.

        I’m pretty sure the bagpipes on that track were NOT played by a beginning student.

      • Gender Traitor

        (Pedantic correction: bagpipe solo on track is “Macintosh’s Lament.”)

      • UnCivilServant

        But at one point they were all students.

        I’ve heard beginners of all instruments make painful noises as they began building skills.

        And bagpipers start learning on a practice chanter rather than a full set of pipes. Teaches finger and breath control prior to moving on to the bag.

      • Gender Traitor

        Practice chanter? Without the bag? I didn’t know that! 😃
        ::ponders taking up bagpipes::

  50. Shiny Nerfherder

    It wasn’t your imagination.

    https://open.substack.com/pub/nakedemperor/p/why-anger-towards-the-unvaccinated

    “ You may have naively believed that the fear, pressure and psychological toll of the pandemic caused your friends, family or colleagues to act in an unrecognisable way but it was all carefully planned. They conducted a study (and I’m sure this wasn’t the only one) to see which pressure points would work best on different parts of the population and then carefully released mountains of propaganda (funded by you) to turn your friends and family against you. This nudging was all done to get you to take a vaccine you decided you didn’t want.
    The ethics statement in the study says the experiments conducted were fielded under an exemption granted by the University. It’s not difficult to understand why.
    Whether mass vaccination was the only way out of the pandemic or not, behaviourally nudging citizens to guilt each other into taking a novel treatment was not the way a civilised society should have acted.”

    • R.J.

      Damn…. That dude with the glasses DOES have a punchable face! Tonio is reading my mind!

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        His personality appears to be even more punchable than his face.

  51. Akira

    OT: Bought a kilt and I gotta say, in loving it. It feels amazing to step outside and feel the cool autumn breeze, well, up there… Although the process for going #2 in it is honestly a pain in the ass.