351 Comments

  1. Count Potato

    “Elon Musk fires top Twitter execs and will restore users with lifetime bans including Trump”

    popcorn.gif

    • AlexinCT

      Twatter is now an African-American owned business!

      • WTF

        That is technically correct, which of course is the best kind of correct.

    • waffles

      This is so good. I’m happy.

  2. Count Potato

    I’d rather eat a real bacon and egg on a hard roll, anyway.

  3. AlexinCT

    Elon Musk fires top Twitter execs and will restore users with lifetime bans including Trump

    SHOW US THE CODE!

  4. Pat

    Tim Robbins and the Lost Art of Finding Common Ground

    When you’ve lost Tim fucking Robbins…

    • AlexinCT

      And his woman too…

      I saw a meme she posted and wondered if they were trying to play 5D chess w/ me pointing out that democratic party had become unserious and should be abandoned by anyone with working neurons.

  5. AlexinCT

    Soros Gave $17.6M to Lefty Group Pushing Facebook, TikTok to Censor So-Called Election Disinfo

    At this point everyone should guess that Soros is the inspiration for Emperor Palpatine.

  6. Count Potato

    CNN isn’t far left. They are very much establishment.

    • rhywun

      WDATPDIM?

      • Count Potato

        Remember when Hillary was given debate questions to beat Bernie Sanders? Maybe that was MSNBC. Regardless, they are both pro-government channels.

  7. Fourscore

    Hah, McMullin was once a libertarian candidate. An independent Democrat, uh-huh.

    • juris imprudent

      “I totally promise to not to vote with all of those folks who hate Republicans, honest. Oh, and I won’t vote with those icky Republicans either.”

    • robc

      Ummm..what? I remember being an “independent” candidate who did “well” in Utah in 2016.

      • Bobarian LMD

        I recall McMuffin running as a “Right-wing” “Independent” who was supported by Never-Trumper asshats to siphon votes away from OMB.

    • Urthona

      I researched him for 5 seconds because of that and was quickly educated.

  8. AlexinCT

    Layoffs Hit Far-Left CNN as Primetime Viewership Collapses to 512K

    When I see CNN finally agree that out government is a corruptocracy, that all the 3 letter agencies are weaponized with woke fucking evil leadership, and that they have been basically fucking the American people over royally, I will maybe consider them actually trying to fix the broke shit.

  9. Count Potato

    “The Washington Post is on track to lose money this year,” The New York Times reported. The Atlantic is losing another $10 million this year, Axios said. And The Los Angeles Times is still struggling to sustain itself, according to Politico.”

    That’s some paragraph.

    • Count Potato

      “It was The Atlantic, after all, that cooked up the false and damaging Aisne-Marne cemetery hoax that played such a large role in determining the outcome of the 2020 election.”

      I don’t think it made any difference. Anyone who fought in WWI was already voting Democrat.

      • Tonio

        What you did there…

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      All of them are owned by larger entities that subsidize the skin-suited and failing businesses in order to push an agenda.

      The same thing plays out all across major media. They’re not there to turn a profit, they’re there to please their masters.

      • juris imprudent

        Funny kind of capitalism, isn’t it?

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        It only ends when the currency does.

  10. Pat

    Corporate Media Don’t Care How Much Money They Lose So Long As They Control The Narrative

    I came to that realization about a week after Trump got elected. Which is a major part of the reason I gave up on capitalism. Creative destruction will certainly bring us thousands of new market entrants any time now, right? …

    • AlexinCT

      There has been no capitalism in this country since the 1920s. What we have is fascism’s new incarnation. A pseudo marxist pile of idiocy in government & culture drives the people with power in government to control the private sector through regulations and executive style orders.

      • Pat

        Fair enough, although I can’t help but recognize the similarities to the “real communism has never been tried!” cop out. I’m more willing now than I would have been even a couple of years ago to entertain the notion that oligopoly is the natural end state of any sort of capitalism that exists outside of the pristine environment of an econ textbook.

      • AlexinCT

        entertain the notion that oligopoly is the natural end state of any sort of capitalism that exists outside of the pristine environment of an econ textbook.

        Oligopoly is the natural state of EVERY political/economic/ruling system that doesn’t put hard guardrails in place to avoid that. What do you think the current battle between the deep state and those of us that want nothing to do with it is about? We have an inept, evil, and corrupt cabal of people that are in the existing oligopoly trying their best to dismantle any and all remaining guardrails that our republic and system of government had in place to prevent them from becoming a hereditary one.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Give Kakistocracy a chance!

      • Pope Jimbo

        We should really start the Kakistocrat party. Our nickname would be the Kaks. I’m voting the the big kak candidate.

      • Fourscore

        We’re already there but to fool the people they label themselves repubs and demos. C’mon Man, you’ve seen some of debates. It’s like Dumb and Dumber was a casting call.

      • Tres Cool

        Reminds me of Bloom County- “This time, why not the worst”

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        My dad bought me that t-shirt in ’16. I should dig it out.

        My WIN button won’t stay anchored.

      • rhywun

        I thought we were already in one.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Like Peak Derp, there are plenty of people out there who are even worse the the current scoundrels in office.

      • AlexinCT

        Amen, your holiness.

      • juris imprudent

        Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.

        And we have managed to do that without any runt with a mustache or blustering bald guy at the top.

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

        Do hair plugs count? ’cause, you know, the thing!

      • juris imprudent

        Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden – doesn’t really matter, does it?

      • AlexinCT

        Crime bosses all of them.

    • Brawndo

      I think we should give up on the term “capitalism.” It’s been so thoroughly trashed. I think the economic model libertarians should be embracing is free exchange.

  11. AlexinCT

    Corporate Media Don’t Care How Much Money They Lose So Long As They Control The Narrative

    A long time ago reporters & media were just people that picked up the job because of looks or writing skill, and then spent their time trying to write things to tell people what was going on. There definitely was bias, even if they claimed otherwise, but the bias was towards small time things. Then colleges decided to create a media career track, and it turned into basically communist indoctrination. when the USSR fell, this bunch of subversive fucks just kept at it. Now we see the world the highly biased, ultra untalented, dumb as fuck people that have become mouth pieces for mediocrity and evil, have created, and it is a real ugly one.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Like the death of post WWII consensus political congeniality, this isn’t a new a development but a return to form after a period of abnormality.

  12. AlexinCT

    Wind Farm in Germany Is Being Taken Down for Expansion of Coal Mine

    The only way to force permanently immature children that live in fantasy land to grow up, is to remove their security blanket and force them to face the harshness of life.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Uffda. The Krauts are smarter than the Minnesodans.

      “We dropped two stacks and the whole building safely and securely onto the site,” said John Marshall, regional vice president for Xcel Energy, which owned the Minnesota Valley Generating Station.

      The coal-fired Xcel Energy plant dated back to the 1930s and closed for good in 2009 amid the ongoing shift to cleaner energy sources.

      I wish some local troll had gotten the plant onto the Historic Register and prevented them from demolishing it.

      • AlexinCT

        That’s the Cortez/Columbus tactic of burning your ships when you arrive in a new world to prevent anyone from thinking they are doomed and deciding to head back. This way, when lack of energy starts killing people, some enterprising bloke can’t just fire up the old plant and show the fucking idiots suffering & dying that there was a better alternative…

      • Pope Jimbo

        Well that does it. I knew those early colonizers were bad what with spreading disease, enslaving natives and erasing their culture, but they burned their boats and added to Climate Change? I bet they didn’t even have a proper permit to burn them.

      • AlexinCT

        The only difference between the good ole’ colonizers and these new ones is who is gonna get it. The new world colonist brought disease and killed the natives. The marxism colonists are doing it to their own.

  13. AlexinCT

    Is this why team blue continuous to insist that elections not have any way of being audited or monitored, and that minorities remain on the plantation and think eveyone but team blue are evil racists?

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      They also do this in Hispanic communities across the southern United States (and probably northern as well).

      When the harvester shows up at your door, they make certain you know which way to vote.

    • Pine_Tree

      I see headlines like that one “Jaw-Dropping Allegations…” and wonder who exactly is surprised at this. I know I’m being overly literal (can’t help that that’s my first interpretation), but still, this is super-well-known. This thing of people (jounalismists in this case) pretending to be shocked at massive Proggie fraud is tiring.

      • Pope Jimbo

        My favorite “I’m shocked to find gambling going on here!” moment was when a Somali immigrant was challenging a long time proggie Phyllis Khan here in Minnesoda for the first time in the primaries.

        Khan had been a crazy white wimmin progressive gadfly for decades in the Minnsoda House. She was thought to be invulnerable. Then the Somalis moved into her district and started running against her. The first primary that she was seriously being challenged she all of a sudden knew exactly where all the fraudulent registered voters were.

        Amazing how “there is now election fraud” turned into “look over there! My opponent is cheating!!!” so quickly.

        Khan lost in the next race to a young Omar Ilhan.

    • Nephilium

      There’s a state constitutional amendment on the ballot here in Ohio (Issue 2), that would ban illegals from voting in any state, county, or city election in Ohio. The biggest media push against it has been that the wording of the amendment may prohibit 17 years olds (who would turn 18 before election day) from voting in party primaries.

      • AlexinCT

        That we actually have to codify tat illegals should not be allowed to vote shows those of us that now better how fucking far down the road of clown world we have traveled…

      • Gustave Lytton

        the amendment may prohibit 17 years olds (who would turn 18 before election day) from voting in party primaries

        I fail to see the problem. Not 18 on election day, no vote.

    • Brawndo

      The fact that Democrats can afford to pay 10$ per ballot is insane.

      • AlexinCT

        What do you think all those donkey green energy & infrastructure bills that cost trillions and deliver nothing of actual value are about, huh? The bulk of that money goes to the connected which then contribute a not too shabby amount of it back to dnc efforts to buy votes & fortify elections.

  14. Sean

    Agrawal will walk away with $42 million, according to an analysis by research firm Equilar earlier this year

    I must be doing some thing wrong.

    • AlexinCT

      I hope he ends up having to spend that all, and more, on lawyers, once we find out how he basically lied and robbed his stockholders.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Eh, I’d rather he keeps it then giving it to lawyers.

      • AlexinCT

        I am sure the people he fucked over and realize this asshat kept them from making a bigger investment profit will feel otherwise. I certainly do.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        What type of lawyer do you think he would be hiring?

      • AlexinCT

        He has plenty of lawyers on his payroll already. They just helped him buy this shitshow company, didn’t they?

        I hope they are brutal, blood thirsty lawyer hell bent on making the old twatter leadership pay for what they did.

  15. AlexinCT

    Evan McMullin’s Faux ‘Independent’ Campaign Is Bankrolled By Democrats

    If this was the only really crooked shit team blue was doing with money they tricked idiots to give them or collected from ultra rich evil fucks with anti-humanist agendas, I might be bothered. But these days this sort of shit is par for the course.

    • juris imprudent

      It may yet be that the extremist candidates they supported in the Republican primaries come back to haunt them by winning the general.

  16. Certified Public Asshat

    Oz Calls Fetterman’s Bluff, Offers Do-Over Debate

    The bully just wants to steal Fetterman’s lunch moneyunpaid taxes.

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

      Once again, I need to remind everyone that Fetterman was the name of the scientist who created him.

      He is Fetterman’s Monster.

    • AlexinCT

      Rethuglicans are about to take away our democracy! Whycome you want the world to continue after that, huh? FASCIST RACIST!

    • Drake

      Close enough to southern Russian missile sites to be able to get to their land-based nukes inside their launch times (maybe).

    • Tonio

      Wait, they describe the sub’s commander as “General,” not “Admiral.” WTF?

      • robodruid

        Ranger tabs on the uniform as well.

      • Cowboy

        Becuase that is the CENTCOM commander, not necessarily the commander of the sub itself.

      • Bobarian LMD

        I know that guy!

        Went to trade school with him.

        The fact that they put THE Army Commander for the entire ME AOR on the boat was a PR campaign.

      • Tonio

        IOW, the answer is bad journalisming. Thanks, guys.

      • Gustave Lytton

        No, he’s the CENTCOM commander, not the sub’s skipper.

        Also

        attacks against locations housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria

        Let’s see… one place we supposedly left and another we shouldn’t even be in.

  17. Count Potato

    “Why Are Virginia Students Studying Sexuality, Body Size, And Privilege In Spanish Class?”

    https://thefederalist.com/2022/10/28/virginia-students-no-comprendo-why-spanish-class-is-spent-identifying-sexuality-body-size-and-privilege/

    The same reason that woman was attacked by a bear. They need to cull the government employees. I don’t live there, so I don’t know the best time of year for federal worker season. Maybe three tags for bow or rifle hunting with strict caliber requirements so the hospitals don’t get flooded with wounded bureaucrats.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      Earlier this month, spies and sleuths walked through the doors of the Central Intelligence Agency’s top-secret headquarters here in the D.C. suburbs for a day of work fighting foreign threats to the United States CIA. Around the corner, on Georgetown Pike, teens shuffled through the doors of classroom No. 1208 at Langley High School for 90 minutes of Spanish II.

      • AlexinCT

        Mama me la pinga, Hijo de puta!

    • rhywun

      What’s the Spanish for “mind your own fucking business”?

      • AlexinCT

        Mi mama me mima…

    • Certified Public Asshat

      como se dice “latinx” ?

    • Rebel Scum

      We really need to eject NOVA and reclaim the counties now comprising WV.

  18. The Late P Brooks

    Dept of We Know Best

    “We haven’t necessarily said what companies are affected by it, and what businesses are affected by it. What we’re looking at is people that are employees that are working for companies that are being taken advantage of as independent contractors. We want to end that,” Walsh said.

    He did mention a few of the jobs that would likely be covered, and one of those does overlap with the Uber, Lyft and DoorDash business models. “We have plenty of businesses in this country, like dishwashers and delivery drivers in areas like that, where people are working for a business that other employees in that business are employees, and they’re labeling them as independent contractors. So we’re going to look at this. We’re in the rulemaking process now. We’re taking in the comments now, and we’ll see when the comments come in what the final rule looks like.”

    Walsh added that the idea an independent contractor want to retain their flexibility doesn’t wash with him. “Flexibility is not an excuse … pay somebody as an employee. You can’t use that as an excuse.”

    Central planning is what made this the richest and strongest nation on earth.

    • Pat

      Then when those jobs go unfilled or disappear entirely they’ll say it’s because Americans are lazy pieces of shit and we need another 20 million illegal immigrants to out-hustle them. The need for a permanent underclass for the Chamber of Commerce set is largely why the Democrats haven’t rammed through any of the amnesties they’ve been proposing since about a week after the last major one in ’86. The second they get legal status they lose all of their utility to their employers. For the moment at least, the donor bux are evidently more important than the dynastic political security of another 10-20 million D voters.

      • rhywun

        Hence why they’re trying to normalize the idea of illegals voting. For the win-win.

  19. juris imprudent

    The post election Democrat airing of grievances is beginning early.

    I could simplify this by providing the script every surviving Democrat will use: “you didn’t listen to me. I won because I am so smart and in touch with my voters, and voters everywhere are just like mine”.

    I think it might be narcissism.

    • Drake

      No deep dive on the mixed bad of crazy ideologies they are dedicated to?

      • juris imprudent

        You know that Geico commercial with the kids and the crazed Halloween killer? The one where the blond says “why don’t we just get in the running car”?

        You’re the guy that says “Are you crazy?”

    • Grumbletarian

      Isn’t the problem always framed as ‘our messaging was too complicated for the ignorant rubes to grasp’?

      • Rat on a train

        The ignorant proletariat doesn’t appreciate the nuance. They don’t know what is best for them. We need a revolutionary vanguard to enforce what is needed to create the New Soviet Man.

      • AlexinCT

        That’s precisely why they need an information of truth ministry. So they can make sure the rubes get the messaging.

    • Pine_Tree

      Funny part about the “you didn’t listen to me” thing: If Herself had listened to her husband back in 2016 (and subsequently), we’d be halfway through Her second term now. They’d have everything they claim to want.

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

        What? And have herownself get mansplained too by the Great White Chief of the Patriarchy Clan?

        I think not!

    • The Other Kevin

      I could tell them in 60 seconds why they’re losing, and it will only cost them a few million. But basically anyone not in politics, entertainment, or the media could do the same. It’s not complicated.

  20. Certified Public Asshat

    Inflation Caused 18 Percent of Americans to Skip Meals or Not Buy Groceries: Survey

    Time to work off that Covid-15.

  21. Certified Public Asshat

    learn to code— Tim Pool (@Timcast) October 28, 2022

    Shit’s getting wild over on the bird app.

    • Pat

      I hate to piss in the punch bowl, but I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed to find out that the acquisition only means Twitter goes back to being as shitty as it was in 2015. Musk has already assured his investors and advertisers that it’s not going to be “anything goes”. Still an improvement, mind, but it’s never not going to be a cesspit.

      • AlexinCT

        No system that implements “anything goes” will survive in the real world, and expecting that is unrealistic. The improvement is however the huge thing. if they stop the massive amount of bots and also stop doing the dirty and questionably legal work of government censoring they have been doing, this will be a massive win for everyone.

        I don’t do twatter, I have no plans to ever do it. I do occasionally read posts, and I think allowing people to call out the bullshitters and make fun of them is the best recipe for turning back the evil onslaught of marxist pedagogy.

      • Urthona

        I don’t care about bots.

        Not banning someone who misgenders for hate speech is an excellent first step. As is bringing back anyone who said now proven true things about covid and vaccines.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        “learn to code” is still a net positive.

        but yes, twitter sucks. at least I don’t smoke.

    • juris imprudent

      1) Allow a thousand controversies to bloom!
      2) Pull more eyeballs back to the platform!
      3) Prune out the deadweight.
      4) PROFIT!

      Musk really is a genius.

      • AlexinCT

        Musk understands human nature, persuasion, and the fact that the current direction social media is taking us is going t be dystopian.

      • Michael Malaise

        He’s not buying Twitter for Twitter. He’s buying it as part of a larger scheme to develop an app that can do Twitter, YouTube, Venmo, etc. in one.

      • Urthona

        Everyone has that idea, but we will see.

  22. The Late P Brooks

    More Walsh:

    In the battle against inflation, Walsh said moving people up the income ladder is a better way of helping Americans make ends meet than laying them off.

    “I think there’s a way to do that by creating good opportunities for people so they have opportunities to get into the middle class, and not enough people in America are working in those jobs, quite honestly. … I think there’s a lot of Americans out there right now that have gone through the last two years, a lot of concern in the pandemic, they were working in a job maybe making minimum wage, maybe they had two or three jobs. Really I think the best way to describe what is a middle class job is a job you can work, one job, get good pay, so you don’t have to work two and three jobs to support your family.”

    From a policy perspective, Walsh expressed disbelief that a higher federal minimum wage remains a contentious issue on Capitol Hill.

    “It shocks me that there are members in the building behind me, if you can’t see the building behind me it’s the Capitol, that think that families can raise their family on $7-plus, on the minimum wage in this country,” he said.

    But Walsh conceded that legislation to increase the minimum wage, which was held up in the Senate, has an uncertain future ahead of the midterm elections.

    Yes, Marty, there are literally hundreds of millions of people out there working for seven bucks an hour, desperately trying to raise a family and keep a roof over their heads. Raising the minimum wage will put more money in their pockets and bring down inflation. Why can’t we do that?

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      In the battle against inflation, Walsh said moving people up the income ladder is a better way of helping Americans make ends meet than laying them off.

      This sentence stuck out to me as an indicator of someone who has absolutely no clue how businesses operate (outside of those living on the government teat).

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        This explains it.

        Martin Joseph Walsh (born April 10, 1967) is an American politician and former union official. He has been the 29th United States Secretary of Labor since March 23, 2021. A Democrat, he previously served as the 54th mayor of Boston from 2014, until resigning in 2021 after being confirmed by the United States Senate to serve as secretary of labor in the Cabinet of President Joe Biden. Before his mayoralty, he served as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, representing the thirteenth Suffolk district from 1997 until 2014.

        He has literally never held any employment that one might consider productive, and in general, all of his jobs have been net drains on the economy.

      • Nephilium

        Right?

        Instead of laying people off, pay them more. That way they have better lives.

        /company goes under, all the people lose their jobs

      • Grumbletarian

        Billionaires will just have to swim in shallower pools of gold coins.

        /derp

      • AlexinCT

        People ignorant of the basics of economics really do not get that companies that do not take actions to make sure they are profitable or at least don’t live in the red, will not last long. Probably because these same people feel government should steal tax payer money – including money from successfully run companies – to bail out the ones that suck.

    • rhywun

      I hope someone asked him how many decades ago it was, the last time he saw a teenager working his first job at a fast-food joint or whatnot.

      • AlexinCT

        Hah!

        I have a different take on this than you do. Most of the fucking idiots talking about families living on minimum wage know damned well they are full of shit, but admitting that they like minimum wage increases because it helps them funnel more money to unions, and especially public unions – whom always have contracts tied to minimum wage – where they can then collect even more money to lard the coffers of ONE political party’s campaigns.

    • Grumbletarian

      That was great!

      • Fourscore

        They learned more that day than if they’d opened their books. It’s something they won’t forget. Thanks, Jimbo

  23. juris imprudent

    So this is actually a pretty good read, and I find myself wanting to agree with lots if not most of it. Ah, but the catch – this is the same Michael Lind that is so wrong about libertarianism; what assurance do I have that is head isn’t as firmly up his ass here?

    Ah, there we have it – his solution:

    Alas, only one solution to the threat of woke hegemony can possibly work: a massive and permanent expansion of the regulatory powers of American government. Because of the longstanding ideological habits and precommitments of those who broadly agree with the above diagnosis of the problem, this is typically the last solution that occurs to them. Paradoxical though it may seem, however, political intervention is necessary to depoliticize the institutions that have already been diverted from their limited missions and competencies.

    Now to be fair, he has skewered the classical liberal plan of action pretty well just before this. So the funny thing is he is setting up the nationalist conservatives with this bit and I kinda don’t think that’s what he intended. Or maybe I’m wrong and that’s exactly where he wanted to go.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      a massive and permanent expansion of the regulatory powers of American government

      Anybody who could look at the situation and prescribe that is willfully blind to reality.

      • Pat

        Eh, unilateral disarmament isn’t a winning move either. There isn’t a winning move once you’ve gotten yourself this badly fucked. Libertarians and classical liberals will still be navel gazing about the appropriate use of state power while they’re boarding the cattle cars. I guess there’s a quiet dignity about dying with your principles.

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        The regulatory powers of the government is a major part of the reason we’re here.

        Dismantle the regulatory state in its entirety.

      • Pat

        That would be the ideal, of course, but even effectuating such a plan requires some agency head to fill out the paperwork to lay off their entire staff, then navigate the 18 years worth of legal challenges, which will be heard in administrative law courts rather than normal courts. It’s part of why Trump ended up being such an ineffectual bumblefuck. He had no clue whatsoever how to actually execute on the promises he made because he wasn’t a government administrator for his entire career, and unfortunately he’s apparently a piss poor judge of character and surrounded himself with inept clowns, on the one hand, or the very swamp creatures he swore to replace, on the other. This gets back to the whole Pinochet concept that’s divided libertarians for so many decades now. A benevolent dictator is not the ideal scenario, but it may be preferable among all of the other available non-ideal scenarios.

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        You cannot end the regulatory state from the executive branch, only throw a spanner in the works.

        Congress could end all of it tomorrow, however.

      • Pat

        You cannot end the regulatory state from the executive branch

        I’d argue you can only end it from the executive branch at this point. The administrative state is all ostensibly part of the executive branch, and have arrogated their authority from successive congresses willingly offloading lawmaking some place where they can’t be held accountable for it. Theoretically congress could turn off the money tap… right around the time that Christ rides into D.C. on a donkey and sets up the New Jerusalem.

      • juris imprudent

        Trump wasn’t even a competent businessman. He’s a fucking con-artist and shameless self-promoter, that’s all.

      • EvilSheldon

        You’re half right. Trump was an ineffectual stumblefuck because, despite his own pretensions (and the fantasies of his supporters), he is not an executive and he never will be. Trump is a salesman. He’s reasonably competent at negotiating deals, and you can’t handle a bureaucracy that way.

      • juris imprudent

        Well, this is essentially the solution of big-govt conservatives*. So Lind ends up pimping for the national-conservatives. Like I said, I don’t know if that was his intent because he doesn’t seem to be a fellow traveler to that cause. With the evolution of the Republicans to a populist party, unrooted to conservative let alone libertarian principles, I think we should get much more comfortable with that terminology.

        * yes I know that seems like an oxymoron, but it really isn’t, not if you look at who the first political conservatives were in Britain or France.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      She’s a stupid twat. She’ll be perfect for Senate after Fetterman gets elected and they allow him to quickly retire because of medical issues.

    • rhywun

      Do they not teach swimming in every school in America anymore?

      • Trigger Hippie

        Never was taught in my school growing up. Then again it was in a small town with many ponds and lakes around it so we kinda just figured it out on our own or were taught by a parent.

        Then again maybe it wasn’t taught at school in the hopes that the five black kids in the K-12 classes would drown. It was Hicksville, racist, flyover country after all.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Our small town that was surrounded by lakes (412 within 25 miles) required swimming in order to graduate. The thinking was that everyone was going to be around the water a lot and they should know how to swim.

        Most of the schools around us did not require swimming.

        Like you said, it was pretty easy for almost everyone because we had all learned to swim as tiny kids.

      • Nephilium

        They never taught swimming at any of the schools I went to here, nor was it a common thing that I was aware of at the public schools. Now… almost every suburb had public pools and free/cheap learn to swim classes all summer long.

      • rhywun

        We had swimming classes in JHS and before that I took free classes at the local HS – during the winter ❄️

      • Nephilium

        The Catholic high school I went to had a swim team, which had to practice and train at another school as there wasn’t a pool. However, the convent up the hill from the school had a pool for the nuns. Once that got out, it did not sit well with the students and parents.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Didn’t they drown in those habits? 😉

      • Michael Malaise

        No. My alma mater has no pool nor access to one. No swim team, no diving team.

        I learned at my aunt’s pool starting at the age of 3. I nearly drowned one time as the instructor took his time taking off his watch before diving in to retrieve me.

    • Pat

      From the ages of ~3-14, my best friend was black. We took swimming lessons at the YMCA and swam at the local public pool every summer. Neither of us drowned. Both of us were competent, if unremarkable, swimmers. I guess nobody told the Shadle pool administrators about the honkies only policy…

    • Rebel Scum

      “Muh-racism” is the left’s answer for everything.

  24. Sean

    Daily Quordle 277
    5️⃣3️⃣
    7️⃣4️⃣
    quordle.com

    • Grumbletarian

      Daily Quordle 277
      6️⃣4️⃣
      5️⃣7️⃣

      Meh.

    • Grosspatzer

      Daily Quordle 277
      5️⃣4️⃣
      6️⃣3️⃣
      quordle.com

    • Pat

      Daily Quordle 277
      3️⃣4️⃣
      5️⃣7️⃣

    • rhywun

      I’ll take it.

      Daily Quordle 277
      6️⃣3️⃣
      7️⃣5️⃣

    • Cowboy

      Daily Quordle 277
      5️⃣6️⃣
      4️⃣3️⃣
      quordle.com

      Great success!

    • Tundra

      Daily Quordle 277
      7️⃣8️⃣
      6️⃣5️⃣

    • whiz

      Daily Quordle 277
      4️⃣3️⃣
      5️⃣6️⃣
      quordle.com

  25. juris imprudent

    So funny thing about those PA ballots. The Republican party controls both sides of the state legislature, and yet they can’t get the executive branch to abide by the law.

  26. Pope Jimbo

    Learn to code?

    That makes no sense. Looks like there are a lot of twitter, fb and other Big Tech firms shedding devs. Probably going to be a glut of them in the market.

    What industry is out there that really, really, really can’t find anyone to fill openings in their organization? I know…..

    Learn to cop

    Minneapolis streets will soon be patrolled by ex-Twitter employees!

    • Sean

      Can they work from home?

      • Pope Jimbo

        “What do you mean the precinct doesn’t have a nap room? Or a cafeteria with free food? Not even a game room?”

      • AlexinCT

        So you saying these tools will soon demand their employer provide them with this at home?

      • Fourscore

        There was a movie where cops just stopped into the local businesses and got free rewards, like cigarettes and other non-cash benefits.
        Can’t remember the name

      • Tres Cool

        The town I grew up in had/has a McD’s that had a policy of giving free food to cops/EMS.
        As far as I know, its still in place.

      • The Last American Hero

        See also Starbucks, although I don’t know if they still do that post-Floyd.

    • Nephilium

      But then they would have to touch icky guns that shoot minorities.

  27. The Late P Brooks

    Paradoxical though it may seem, however, political intervention is necessary to depoliticize the institutions that have already been diverted from their limited missions and competencies.

    It’s a paradox, alright.

    • juris imprudent

      Narrator: there will never be a depoliticization, only swapping of agendas as parties have their turn in power.

  28. Pope Jimbo

    Disappointing and funny development in the GOP gubernatorial race: Jesse Ventura endorses King Walz.

    Disappointing because I thought Jesse did an OK job as gov. He was miles better than either of his opponents (Skip Mondale and Norm Coleman). The Dems and GOP were also so distracted by their mutual hatred of him that they didn’t get much of their usual shenanigans passed.

    Funny because of how everyone is spinning this:

    “This endorsement is an embarrassment and shows that Walz is losing and desperate for support,” Hann [Mn GOP State Chair] said in a statement. “As a Vietnam veteran, I am appalled that Gov. Tim Walz would seek and tout the endorsement of such a discredited conspiracy theorist.”

    • Pope Jimbo

      I also had a genuine Native American Tear slowly rolling down my face as I saw this:

      Ventura, a former Navy Seal and onetime professional wrestler, called his endorsement of any major party candidate unprecedented. But the one-term governor cited Walz’s response to COVID-19 and the threat to abortion rights as reasons for changing tactics.

      Ventura also cited the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol as a reason to take a stand.

      “Our democracy is under attack,” Ventura said in a video released by the Walz campaign. “I took an oath 50 years ago as a Navy Seal to defend this country. I can’t stand with anyone or any party who cannot condemn the Jan. 6 insurrection.”

      C’mon Jesse! What happened to you man? King Walz’s response to the Rona really?

      • juris imprudent

        He was Jesse The Body in the wrestling ring, not Jesse The Brain.

      • AlexinCT

        When you dance with the devil, the devil changes you…

      • Fourscore

        Didn’t he move to Mexico, saying he wasn’t coming back because of Minnesoda’s high taxes or something? At least we have the Jesse Ventura Railroad to sleep on in the winter. No masks required.

      • Grumbletarian

        I took an oath 50 years ago as a Navy Seal to defend this country.

        This country was the result of an insurrection.

      • The Last American Hero

        I’ve noticed this among my friends on the rabid right side of the aisle. They claim to love the country so much but completely fail to understand why it’s special. They were fully on board with all manner of security state expansions, undeclared wars, and trampling of civil liberties to protect us from terrorists hiding under every bed.

      • AlexinCT

        A lot of people on the right think that powers given to government would be stewarded properly by conservative minded people. A serious failure in understanding both human nature, especially when it comes to power, and of a system where power can shift to the other side which you don’t trust.

  29. Gustave Lytton

    When I track my international DHL Express shipments, why do I sometimes get information for a shipment that is not going to the intended destination?

    DHL periodically recycles shipment waybill numbers for operational reasons. Occasionally this results in information in our system for two shipments travelling under the same waybill number at the same time. DHL is working hard to eliminate these occurrences. In the meantime, please be assured that while this information may be confusing, your physical shipment will be heading to its correct destination and receiving the same careful attention as every other shipment in our network.

    🤦‍♂️

    Yeah, working hard yet their system still allows it. I’m reminded about a scolding the 1SG gave me one time when I replied “I’ll do my best” that I was already planning to fail.

    • rhywun

      Wow. Somebody wasn’t paying attention in Database Design 101.

    • AlexinCT

      Customer #1: Whycome I got a sex doll with boobs and a wang?

      Customer #2: WTF is this box of assorted glass dildos and barrel of lube doing here?

  30. Rebel Scum

    Elon Musk fires top Twitter execs and will restore users with lifetime bans including Trump

    Muh-fascism!

    • AlexinCT

      The one thing that most scares the establishment is the inability to control the narrative to hide that they are fucking inept, evil, and have plans that will fuck the vast majority of us all over.

      • juris imprudent

        Hide? Klaus wrote and published a whole fucking book. That’s about as opaque as Mein Kampf.

      • Rebel Scum

        But it is a “conspiracy theory” to point out their “Great Reset”…

      • AlexinCT

        ^^^THIS^^^

        They want to have it in the open to taunt those that would call them out on it while getting cover from those in charge of giving the sheeple their narrative.

      • juris imprudent

        Conspiracies are conducted in secrecy and denied. What part of this isn’t visible?

      • juris imprudent

        Hold on – you’re saying a Poltifact denial of reality counts? Isn’t their denial actually as clear a statement of intent as you get? The inverse barometer of truth?

      • AlexinCT

        The best conspiracies are the one you can run with in the open, while delegitimizing those that realize your conspiracy theory is a for real fuck you.

      • juris imprudent

        Then it isn’t a conspiracy, it’s a program.

    • Gustave Lytton

      “Will restore”

      Yet it’s still suspended as of now. Would be pretty easy to reverse the more high profile ones last night when the previous regime was getting walked.

  31. robodruid

    Sooooooo……..

    I am assuming that the Senate is going to flip. Which means that the republicans would vote on the new-vice president.
    I think its very likely that Biden steps down after the elections. The Democratic party cant afford for him to stay for 2 more years. Make Kamala President now, and they get to pick VP.
    Delay and the repubs get to pick VP.

    That’s your November surprise.

    • juris imprudent

      Well that would be the ultimate endorsement of Congress as a parliament as opposed to it being an independent branch of govt.

    • Trigger Hippie

      Nah, they’re too arrogant, too prideful, too worried about saving face to ever admit the Biden administration is an absolute disaster. If(and it’s a big if) the Republicans take the Senate I expect a rush of executive orders via the sock puppet so large it will take years of court battles to even begin to address the abuse of executive power, much less repeal any of the orders.

      • rhywun

        It doesn’t matter which warm bodies are in either seat for the next two years, so I don’t think they have any concerns whatsoever about giving Joe the heave-ho.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Oh, I agree a Harris administration would equate to the same thing as a Biden one, I just think the DNC is too proud to admit that their insistence that Biden is in a perfectly fine mental state over the last three years was a blatant falsehood. Never admit fault or error and all that political jazz.

    • kinnath

      Doesn’t work. Dems have 48 votes plus 2 independents. Kamala can’t break the tie to become president.

      • robodruid

        You bring up an excellent point. But I bet there a couple of RINO’s who would give in.

      • kinnath

        My guess is that the Rs want Biden in office so they can start investigations and impeachment proceedings.

        So, I don’t expect any RINOs to cross the line to put Kamala in the Oval Office.

  32. Rebel Scum

    Evan McMullin’s Faux ‘Independent’ Campaign Is Bankrolled By Democrats

    *shocked face*

  33. Rebel Scum

    Oz Calls Fetterman’s Bluff, Offers Do-Over Debate

    Just more bullying and ableism.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      mmmmm…. biscuits ‘n mustard… I like the way you talk…

    • AlexinCT

      What’s the over and under that the democrat plan was to hid how bad shit was with the Dr. Fetterman monster, skate through the election with some extra fortification to make sure he is pulled across the finish line, then reveal to the rubes that would have voted differently had they known the facts that they got played and are now gonna get the monster’s bride in the senate? Now they are going to have to do a massive amount of fortifying, so much it might be blatantly obvious, to carry that monster over the finish line. I think they are hard at work doing that, though, but this time hiding the shenanigans will be a bit harder with all of us expecting it.

      • juris imprudent

        You’re going to be really disappointed if Oz wins, and Republicans continue to hold both sides of the PA legislature, aren’t you?

      • AlexinCT

        Yeah, you somehow concluded that because I am not a fan of the team blue crime syndicate, I am a fan of that douchnozzle Oz. I am not. And frankly, if the people of PA let team blue straddle them with team blue cuntes, they deserve the pain. Not thinking Oz will be a big step up, but hopefully it is a step away from more disastrous shit.

      • juris imprudent

        Team be ruled still wins, sure, but that isn’t really your game.

      • AlexinCT

        Don’t hate the player, hate the game…

      • juris imprudent

        Dude, it is your game that I don’t like. If you want to stand on “there’s no difference between the parties” – then who wins doesn’t matter, does it?

  34. Rebel Scum

    Spending on business equipment fell in the month of September amid an overall decline in manufacturing activity, signaling a lack in business confidence across the economy.

    Hopefully my severance is good.

  35. Rebel Scum

    High inflation rates have forced almost a fifth of the U.S. population to limit their food purchases, and meal intake, according to a new survey from the Nationwide Retirement Institute.

    But inflation is only up an inch. And it’s way lower than other countries. And that should satisfy me because Democrats say so. They really care.

    • Trigger Hippie

      I lost a lot of weight this year and it wasn’t intentional. That’s all I have to say about that.

      • Mojeaux

        How are you doing?

  36. The Late P Brooks

    A shriek in the darkness

    After months of legal wrangling, Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter appears to be finally going through. Musk and the right see this as a great thing because it will restore “free speech” to Twitter. Any suggestion that the sort of “free speech” they envision can have highly undesirable consequences is met with howls of “Libs hate free speech” or other accusations of fascism. Similarly, warnings that unfettered free speech results in dangerous misinformation spreading are derided with “Sunlight is the best disinfectant” and the libertarian belief that in the marketplace of ideas, the best will always win out.

    These theories will be tested quickly. It is being reported that after the sale is finalized, Musk plans on laying off nearly three-quarters of Twitter’s staff and that one of the first things to go will be any corporate attempt at content moderation and user security. Musk also plans on restoring the accounts of high-profile sources of disinformation and violent messaging who were previously banned, most notably former President Trump.

    The pro-Musk arguments are complete nonsense, and there are innumerable historical and modern examples of why social media platforms with nearly unlimited freedom of speech produce horrors. The Supreme Court decided free speech isn’t absolute long ago, when Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes noted that you can’t shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater, for obvious reasons.

    ——-

    The argument that the free market of ideas will win out, or that truth will inevitably conquer demonstrably false narratives, is essentially a libertarian fairy tale. It is completely ungrounded in observable reality. A quarter of all Republicans believe the bugnuts-crazy QAnon conspiracy theory that “the government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking operation.” Similarly, 71 percent of Republicans believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump by nefarious means, despite the fact that no credible evidence exists for such a claim. The power of confirmation bias is incredibly strong, and most social media companies cash in on it and boost their popularity with algorithms showing consumers increasingly outlandish material that already fits their worldviews.

    As far as the free market goes, people forget that the usual result of completely unregulated markets is monopolies. Ideas within social media are no different. “Free speech” competitors to Twitter such as Gab, Parler, Truth Social, and GETTR (which exert little to no moderation) are uniformly conservative monocultures full of the worst kinds of misinformation and hate outside of 4Chan and Kiwifarms.

    I like that he admits his preferred notions have no chance of competing in a free and open marketplace.

    With any luck, this guy is standing on a chair with a rope around his neck this morning.

    • juris imprudent

      the usual result of completely unregulated markets is monopolies

      Man, that is some high derp right there. I’m almost tempted to say peak even.

    • R C Dean

      “one of the first things to go will be any corporate attempt at content moderation and user security”

      Just ignore Musk’s letter to advertisers saying there will still be moderation. And what’s this about gutting user security? Unless that is code for getting rid of the bots, I have no idea where that came from.

    • Michael Malaise

      “With any luck, this guy is standing on a chair with a rope around his neck this morning”

      This would’ve gotten you suspended on Twitter previously.

      • juris imprudent

        What you did there, even unintentionally, was seen.

    • AlexinCT

      My bet? This is a “Gulf of Tonkin”/”J6” like operation to generate sympathy in the woke crowd and fear from those that would throw money at the Pelosis…

    • Pine_Tree

      So many possibilities, yes. Hard to know where to even bet. Illegal immigrant, FBI plant, sure-enough rw nut-job, dumb and obvious false-flag from a proggie, estranged family member, disgruntled business associate, etc.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Nope, if the offender had even a hint of right wing on him, they’d already be trumpeting this to the high heavens.

      On a side note, that is truly a desperate criminal to invade Nancy’s home like that. Anyone taking the risk that they might encounter Nancy sleeping in the nude is 100% crazy.

      • Trigger Hippie

        He just really wanted some premium ice cream.

      • AlexinCT

        Maybe this was Vodka Skeletor’s way of getting back at her tool of a husband for getting caught driving drunk and fucking things up instead of laying low?

      • Aloysious

        Nancy sleeping in the nude

        Barfman says “Barf”.

      • Swiss Servator

        *contemplates gouging own eyes out*

    • Pat

      Probably some guy into whose car Paul Pelosi crashed in a drunken stupor.

    • Raven Nation

      Never underestimate the power of random.

    • Drake

      Harry Reid’s brother?

  37. Rebel Scum

    Wind Farm in Germany Is Being Taken Down for Expansion of Coal Mine

    I did nazi that coming.

    • juris imprudent

      I gas that was inevitable.

    • Tres Cool

      Sounds like they made the reich decision.

      • Swiss Servator

        All y’all…

        *narrows gaze*

  38. Pope Jimbo

    The Dems have really been hoisted by their own petards in recent years. Their insistence on electric stoves over gas stoves is a big time driver of their current woes.

    With gas, you have a lot of control and can ever so slowly bring up the temp of the water on the stupid frogs in that pot of water. With electric, you don’t have the ability to gradually raise the temp. The electric stove kicked in and jolted the temp up a bit too quickly and the stupid frogs are getting restless.

    Case in point: the frogs have figured out that election judges, Sec of State and other once pointless jobs administering elections really are important. Now the MSM is bewailing the fact that the dumb frogs have caught on to the importance of those positions and are either filling them with their own goons or challenging the current ones.

    Similar things are happening on school boards everywhere. They spent 50 years slowly taking those over and then they blew it by pushing too hard. You could say they threw the tranny into a higher gear too soon and now the frogs are taking seats back.

    • The Other Kevin

      I’ve learned recently that you should never underestimate the ability of the left to push things too far too fast. Seems to be their thing lately.

      • juris imprudent

        Why not, it works. You never get more than a fraction of what they pushed undone.

      • Pope Jimbo

        What are you talking about? I’m looking forward to the numerous bills the new GOP controlled Congress will pass to repeal ObamaCare. Sure Biden will veto them, but surely in 2024 when the GOP controls the Presidency and Congress they will easily repeal that.

        Wait….

        Nevermind.

  39. Certified Public Asshat

    JUST IN – Pelosi's husband "violently assaulted" in their San Francisco home. pic.twitter.com/7F38743rTX— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) October 28, 2022

    Crime is under control in SF.

    • Sean

      Meh. Not sure if I believe it.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        What if I told you he was eating subway.

      • AlexinCT

        At 2 AM? And he was attacked by a couple of guys wearing MAGA hats and yelling MAGA COUNTRY, BEAOTCH!??

      • Swiss Servator

        Dude with a hammer…sound like a crazy street person to me.

  40. Rebel Scum

    Someone is confident.

    Cochise County plans to vote to hand count every single race on every single ballot—w/ Election Day just 18 days away & early voting already started. That’s illegal & risks the integrity & accuracy of the election. I’ve warned them: If they proceed, I’ll take legal action.

    I think the words “integrity” and “accuracy” mean something different than Democrats think they mean.

    • juris imprudent

      Those words are like democracy. Anything that stops Democrats from winning is bad.

    • rhywun

      “Illegal” too.

  41. The Late P Brooks

    Will Musk be sleeping in his office at Twatter?

    He’s homeless, you know.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      That day in the life video from the other day showed they have sleeping rooms.

    • AlexinCT

      Brutal, but oh so delicious…

  42. The Late P Brooks

    Elon; in the theater; with a flamethrower

  43. Pine_Tree

    Regarding the twitterpocalypse: and to think that the spark that set it all off was the Bee calling a man a man. Ha!

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      It starts with a beat of Bee wings…

  44. Rebel Scum

    Naturally The View always has the best hot takes.

    The View laughed about the possibility that Herschel Walker has brain damage and yesterday Behar mocked DeSantis for looking like he “had a stroke.”
    But today, Behar is appalled that people have concerns about Fetterman’s clearly poor condition: “It’s so unempathetic to the guy.”

    Sunny Hostin claims Oz “chose to bully a stroke victim.”
    “He obviously was bullying him,” she declared. “It takes real bravery to allow people to see your weakness.”
    Without evidence, she claims “Fetterman’s cognitive abilities have not been compromised.”
    She calls Oz a “quack”

    • Certified Public Asshat

      The doctor is just trying to make sure Fetterman gets the care he needs, which is not in the senate.

  45. ron73440

    Psycho Killer is cool, but do you know about the Psycho Chicken?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnBlst3T7bY

    I remember this song from Dr. Demento and recently found the video.

    I almost fell off the couch laughing while my wife rolled her eyes.

  46. Rebel Scum

    We should distinguish the US government form the American people.

    Putin Speech: “America Has Nothing to Offer the World Except Domination”

    Putin just gave another speech. I translated his last major speech because it’s time people in the West understood what’s happening – too many still think the war in Ukraine is about Ukraine.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      A very interesting and illuminating speech. No one, not me at least, ever accused Putin of being a dummy and this speech is just more evidence that he’s pretty damn smart.

    • Fatty Bolger

      That’s an old playbook, he sounds exactly like every other tyrant blaming America for everything and calling for a new world order (with themsevles at the helm, naturally).

  47. The Other Kevin

    I had an interesting day yesterday, and it gave me some perspective. I was hired to work from home, but we have a quarterly meeting at our HQ, and yesterday I drove the 1.5 hours to attend. I had never been in one of our company’s buildings. It is huge, and I’m told before COVID, 700 people would work there every day. But now we are all allowed to work from home, and except for the quarterly meetings, about 40 people go to the office every day.

    • rhywun

      I wonder how long businesses can keep supporting mostly empty office buildings. Can’t be much longer.

      • Gustave Lytton

        You would think. But a lot of corporate structure is ego massaging for Top.Men. Who wants to run a F500/F200/F100 company with HQ the size of a midsize medical practice?

        Obviously the solution is to consolidate locations and force people to come back to the office.

      • rhywun

        Nuts to that.

        Give me a thirty percent raise and I’ll consider it.

        PS. I was hired during the plague so they can’t argue that it’s “back to normal” for me.

      • Pope Jimbo

        There is also a large contingent of Top Men who want to be downtown in an office because they spend lots of time networking with other Top Men in other companies. Marketing, Sales, BizDev, etc. These guys are like The View, they get together to have coffee/drinks and talk smart and see if there is any opportunity to work together somehow.

        My old partner from the startup days was like that. Constantly networking. I’d like to mock him more, but he has climbed farther up that corporate ladder than I have. Of course, I can’t even imagine the hell of what he has to do every day in Big Corp.

        And yes, I do believe that the Corp HQ is an important part of dick measuring contests between people in that area. “You don’t even have a moss wall in your company’s entrance way?”

    • robc

      I had a meeting at the office of a major tech company last week. They are supposedly on a 50/50 hybrid schedule. On a random Tuesday, there were 2 people in the office other than the ones we were meeting with.

      It was a smaller office in Nashville, not their big west coast HQ, but still, it was clearly far below 50%. Not sure they are enforcing that 50/50.

      • Gustave Lytton

        My company has worked for thirty years to move support functions away from the physical locations they support, into fewer and fewer regional locations with teams scattered across the country, then 100% work from home over the past 2-3 years. It’s laughable trying to put the cat back into the bag and “needing” to go back.

      • rhywun

        We’re supposed to be in three days a week. I haven’t gone in in over a year. *shrug*

    • AlexinCT

      My company had several buildings in Hartford CT where they rented space for the 15k of us that worked in that city in addition to they owned themselves. They have no canceled all their leases and can’t even fill the 3 buildings they have, because most people work from home, even as they try real hard to convince people to come in 3 times a day.

    • Nephilium

      Both the company I work for, and the one I support are currently in the process of turning down offices, and cutting rental expenses.

    • The Other Kevin

      I don’t know why this isn’t a big story. They were talking about it a little during Covid. Commercial real estate has to be in terrible shape, and the exodus from cities is is a big deal.

      • Nephilium

        It’s been all over local news. There’s all sorts of fun fights going on between suburbs and cities, and the like.

  48. The Late P Brooks

    The end of affirmative action

    Affirmative action in higher education has endured by relying on moderate justices like Sandra Day O’Connor, only to see the court remade by Donald Trump and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). The need for negotiation is over on an issue that sharply divides Chief Justice John Roberts from the liberal justices, particularly Sonia Sotomayor. And striking the policies down could also open up broader legal attacks on the use of affirmative action in employment.

    Blum’s group, which says it represents about 20,000 students, has asked the high court to overturn its ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger, a 2003 landmark decision that held colleges can consider race and use holistic reviews as long as their affirmative action programs are narrowly tailored.

    It’s a move education and civil rights groups fear will exacerbate inequality for years to come. They point to race-neutral college admission policies in California, Michigan and other states where the practice is banned and diversity has declined. A race-blind admissions standard, they say, fails to take into account discrimination and other barriers Black and brown students often face.

    College admissions are so completely subjective I don’t know why anybody thinks this will make a meaningful difference. Are they going to fight quotas by imposing different quotas?

    • Trigger Hippie

      Ah, the old “We need more racism to combat racism” line of thought. The classics never get old.

    • AlexinCT

      I heard more than 80% of honkeys and Asians applying for collage now tell these colleges they identify as something other than that, and the colleges MUST not only accept that, but can’t do anything about it once they realize they were duped. Makes me kind of cheer on this affirmative action shit.

    • rhywun

      Yeah, they’ll just find other ways to discriminate against whites and yellow (Yellow?) students.

      • AlexinCT

        Someone told me Asians are bananas. They may be yellow outside, but they are fucking evil honkeys inside. They believe in all that getting educated, meritocracy, and hard work shit or something, which is all sorts of acting white.

      • rhywun

        The whole “acting white” business is one of the vilest, evilest lies perpetrated on not-whites.

        It’s sick.

      • juris imprudent

        Even sad-beard can’t grok the shit. When you can’t fool someone like that, you’ve really gone deeply insane.

      • AlexinCT

        That’s an understatement. It is IMO evil.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Uffda. Asian Tiger Moms would think that acting white is bad because it is a step down from their natural racial superiority.

        Ask me how I know.

      • robc

        You are secretly an asian tiger mom, trying to fool us with that whole Pope bit, right?

  49. kinnath

    As I noted last night, the Elon take over of Twitter has completely dropped off the Google News front page. You have to click into the Business section to find it, and even there it’s not prominent.

    I wonder if Elon can afford to take over Alphabet next.

    • AlexinCT

      They want to bury the fact they are losing across the board before the coming election…

  50. PutridMeat

    Interesting contrast between what one is supposed to think about Blake Masters (R senate candidate in AZ) vs when one actually here’s him talk. Now maybe Dave didn’t push him some of his more ‘extreme’ positions, but what I heard here, sounds like a decent possibility. Come on AZ, get it done if for no other reason than to get rid of that empty human suit Mark Kelly.

  51. The Late P Brooks

    “There is no workable alternative to achieving the kind of diversity we have today and that we’ve had for decades,” said Lee Bollinger, president of Columbia University and lead defendant in Grutter.

    Overturning Grutter will be a set back for not just higher education, he said, but for all sectors.

    “It would put us into a new era in which we would fall back on society’s efforts to address issues of racial injustice that are part of our history — and tragically so — and continuing to this day,” he said.

    Que?

    Anybody care to translate that for me? All I hear is random bursts of static.

    • rhywun

      I think it means he doesn’t believe in his own BS – and how could he, given its obvious failure to accomplish any its stated goals – so he has to resort to issuing a stream of gibberish.

    • juris imprudent

      Read a bit yesterday about how Marshall’s [dissenting] opinion was that affirmative action was needed to overcome the history of discrimination against blacks. No other group was mentioned as needing such benefit. I’d love to quote that bit in an amici brief.

    • Michael Malaise

      Hint: don’t look at your DMs.

    • The Last American Hero

      Rape threats are a legit cause of banning accounts, so naturally, she should report them.

      Oh wait, you can’t report shit that isn’t happening.

  52. kinnath

    Schumer says Warnock’s Senate race against Walker is ‘going downhill’ in remarks to president

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., expressed concern Thursday about Sen. Raphael Warnock’s re-election race against Republican Herschel Walker during a conversation with President Joe Biden.

    The private discussion was picked up on a microphone and camera while they stood on an airport tarmac in Syracuse, N.Y., with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul.

    “The state where we’re going downhill is Georgia,” Schumer appeared to tell Biden. “It’s hard to believe that they will go for Herschel Walker.”

    But our vote — our early turnout in Georgia is huge. Huge!” Schumer added.

    Those prefilled ballots are flying off the printer as we speak.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Makes you wonder what he was going to say after “vote” before catching himself.

  53. The Late P Brooks

    Higher education groups are preparing for the end of race-conscious admissions policies.

    “I would be less than honest if I were to say that I’m optimistic,” Paulette Granberry Russell, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, said about Grutter’s odds before the Supreme Court. Her pessimism, she said, is spurred by the composition of the court and its recent decision “to ignore 50 years of precedent” in the Dobbs case.

    you could always try to focus on diversity of thought…

    I crack myself up.

    • Raven Nation

      “National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education,”

      That such an organization exists tells you all you need to know about the priorities of administrators in higher ed.

  54. The Late P Brooks

    You would think. But a lot of corporate structure is ego massaging for Top.Men. Who wants to run a F500/F200/F100 company with HQ the size of a midsize medical practice?

    Bring back Lord Hanson. I did very well on my investment in Hanson, plc, long ago, and the principal reason I bought the stock was because (as I recall) Hanson’s corporate HQ was some rundown brick building salvaged from one of his acquisitions, and the ratio of corporate HQ overhead to revenue was positively miniscule in comparison to other “conglomerates”.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      He was engaged to Audrey Hepburn in the early ’50s. She could have become a Rank actress.

  55. Rebel Scum

    Enjoy your generic crumbs, plebs.

    Biden said his message to people on grocery and gas prices is that “we’re getting them down. I told you I’d bring them down. We’re bringing it down. I come from a family where if gas prices went up or if food prices went up, what happened was there was a conversation at the kitchen table. And we’re doing a whole lot of other things to — and by the way, the food prices, the main driver of food prices is not the price of beef and eggs, etc. although, they’re up. It’s packaged goods, packaged goods. You’re going to see people not buying Kellogg’s Raisin Bran, you’re going to see them buying other Raisin Bran, which is going to be a dollar cheaper.”

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      “Put it on a plate, son. You’ll enjoy it more.”

    • The Other Kevin

      Thanks for the good advice, President Carter.

      • juris imprudent

        Not fair, Carter actually had some compassion.

      • ron73440

        Wear a sweater and enjoy your inferior food.

    • The Other Kevin

      There is a second Aldi going up very quickly in our town. That company’s been doing great, but they’re going to start making bank really soon.

    • Nephilium

      /looks at the price of beef, chicken, turkey, pork, milk, and eggs.

      • rhywun

        /comes to the shocking conclusion that Joe is full of shit

    • Drake

      We’ve had our share of conversations around the kitchen table about you Joe.

  56. Timeloose

    We had some recent discussions on hiring and resumes in the past few days. I’ve finally found and hired a candidate for a role that has been open for over a year. I’ve gone thru so many resumes and interviews with garbage candidates, over, under, and not even the same animal qualifications.

    I read this pretty funny periodic tech fiction, essentially Dilbert if he was a psychopath. This particular week was about hiring a new boss. I’m sure many of the IT folks know about this site and column.
    https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/24/bofh_2022_episode_12/?td=keepreading

    Some examples:

    “The interviews continue, each applicant being asked for some practical demonstration of their fit for the role. The only standout was the ex-baker who’d come with a pie chart made out of a real pie, representing the areas he thought would be a good fit for the company.”

    “Perhaps we could ask some questions that would be directly related to the role?” one of the HR blokes suggests.

    “Sure, sure,” I say. “If you woke up in a shallow grave in a forestry setting with a lump on your head, would you tell anyone? Asking for a friend.”

    • AlexinCT

      HR is always about giving other people working at the company the shaft…

    • EvilSheldon

      Simon is still writing? That’s a bit of good news. Maybe the world isn’t complete dogshit after all.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Holy shit! Simon Travaglia is still writing and has been all along? I haven’t thought about it in years, probably been twenty since I last read some.

      🤯

      • Timeloose

        Yep, and he still has stair and window based “work place accidents” quite often.

    • Nephilium

      Ahh… the BOFH, I haven’t read those in a couple of years.

  57. The Late P Brooks

    “National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education,”

    That such an organization exists tells you all you need to know about the priorities of administrators in higher ed.

    Yeah, that just screams “intellectual rigor” and “devotion to the pursuit of truth”.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Sounds like being a member would make for a sweet gig. Think they need a libertarian? You know, for intellectual diversity…

      • ron73440

        Think they need a libertarian? You know, for intellectual diversity…

        NOT THAT KIND OF DIVERSITY, YOU BIGOT!!!

  58. Rebel Scum

    We have to destroy freedom of speech to save it.

    The letter argues that Random House has a duty to stop the publication of ACB’s book to save free speech. “This is not just a book that we disagree with, and we are not calling for censorship,” says the letter, titled “We Dissent.” “We cannot stand idly by while our industry misuses free speech to destroy our rights.” It quotes British leftist David Puttnam, who contends that the media has a duty to “balance freedom of expression with wider moral and social responsibilities.”

    That’s the rub, of course: who gets to decide the contours of the “wider moral and social responsibilities” and the “misuses” of free speech? Even if we formed a consensus on those alleged duties, one of the reasons (real) liberals treat speech as a neutral principle is to protect dissent and challenge conventional wisdom. Rationalizing censorship as a means of protecting people from harmful ideas is as old as censorship itself.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      We must deny you your rights to safeguard our own never ever ever ends up in a good place.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      They seem willing to die on that hill. They may be obliged in that regard in the near future.

    • Suthenboy

      a duty to “balance freedom of expression with wider moral and social responsibilities.”

      Uh huh. Where have I heard that before?
      How about this: If someone is going to decide what can be said and what cant be said, I will do the deciding. Does that sound good?

  59. Mojeaux

    Good morning, all! I was awakened early this morning by sharp chest pains (on the right side), especially beneath my breast, a sudden headache and jaw ache (again, mostly on the right), and shortness of breath. It’s not the first or third time this has happened, but they are increasing in frequency. Clearly they’re not heart attacks, because I would be dead. Dr. Google and I are leaning toward costochondritis, but it’s either something you go to the ER for while it’s happening, or you leave it alone because what can they do for you if they’re not watching it in real time? Also, it alleviates once I hit the recliner. It will stop long before I get to an ER. So after it happened earlier this week and then this morning, and I am not yet dead, I will rule out a heart problem.

    Anyway, Tim Robbins, my word! I didn’t read the whole interview but the lead-up was interesting.

    What is the thing a CEO (any CEO) SHOULD do the second he buys a company (any company)? FIRE THE LEADERS IMMEDIATELY. Everybody’s acting like it was this shocking thing when it’s what should be done first thing in any situation. Hoping to get my man straff back tweeting. Isn’t Gordilocks also in the Twitter gulag?

    Meanwhile, in the Metaverse, the stock is tripping around way below their valuation last year, but I can’t tell if it’s because the company is shit and nobody but old people uses it anymore or just general stock market shrinkage during an inflationary period.

    I am self-employed at home, so I haven’t had to deal with “come into the office today,” but I can well imagine people are more productive when they don’t have an open office space where anybody can yell at you at any time for anything, knocking you out of your groove. Hypervigilance is actually quite hellish. I’m hoping when I get a medical coding job, it can be from home. I won’t like being tied to my desk in ways I am not right now, but I really don’t want to have to do the whole get-up-early-and-get-ready-and-then-fight-traffic-for-an-hour and then commute home again. OTOH, maybe I need some human interaction other than my husband. Kidding, I don’t. My husband has to go into work for 2 days a week, but that is because he is dealing with paper paper and has to sit with a notary for a while to deal with the documents he produces.

    • The Hyperbole

      Straff is still tweeting.

      • Mojeaux

        As of Saturday he said he was banned again. He keeps having to invent new monikers.

      • The Hyperbole

        Ban must not have lasted long, according to his feed he’s tweeted a couple time everyday this week. The quality of his jokes has deteriorated though.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I had similar symptoms minus the headache even down to the goes away in a more upright position. Turns out it was reflux that can cause chest crushing pain that can extend into the jaw and arm just like a good old heart attack. It went away with a regimen of Zantac, Prilosec, and watching what I eat within an hour of going to bed. Maybe that’d be worth a shot.

      • Mojeaux

        Reflux! That sounds most likely. I am on a regular regimen of Protonix, but it does seem to coincide with a large(ish) (can’t eat that much) meal before bed, which is pretty much the only time I’m actually hungry.

      • Michael Malaise

        Do you take probiotics? I used to have severe stomach issues periodically where I would actually get sick to my stomach. Unbelievable cramps and bloating.

        Turns out, my gut flora was all messed up. The 2 gummies I chew every day now are like a miracle. I also take Nexium, but if I miss a day of that it’s not a big deal.

      • Mojeaux

        I’ll look into that. What do you take?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I worried about the heart stuff too and, like you, just figured that wasn’t it because it would’ve killed me already which isn’t the greatest place to be mentally. Here’s hoping you find something that works and you feel better.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Yeah, eating before bed could definitely cause it. That’s probably what is is.

        That said, be careful about assuming symptoms aren’t heart related. My Mom did that, and it caused a lot of misery for her when she eventually had her first serious heart attack that could have been prevented. She had two more and survived them both, so it definitely doesn’t automatically kill you.

      • Tundra

        And reflux is nothing to fuck around with either. It is your body saying something is really wrong. I know the drugs can work, but there is a definite gut issue and diet needs to be addressed.

        My FIL suffered from it, took the drugs and still ended up with a perforated esophagus and esophageal cancer.

        No bueno.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Good point, it’s easy to overlook the amount of damage reflux can cause, because we pass it off as “just heartburn”.

      • Mojeaux

        Family history of heart disease, heart attacks, the bad ticking time bomb going off early, the whole works. SOOOO I go see a cardiologist every year JUST because of my family history. Ticker is right and tight, which is why I kind of just go with the flow on these. If it were a heart attack, I’d be dead.

        BUT there’s always that tickle in the back of my mind. What if…? I don’t have little kids anymore and I don’t fear death, so to me, I just want it to happen fast and relatively painlessly.

      • kinnath

        I used to get stabbing pains in the middle of my back. One day my chiropractor told me to try ant-acid tablets because reflux can cause the pain I was feeling.

        Next time I had that pain, I chewed a couple of Tums and the pain went away immediately. So, I started taking over the counter Zantac (now taking Prilosec). The improvement was immediate.

        Get some Tums or something. Next time it happens, take some Tums. If you get immediate relief, then you probably have acid reflux.

        Note that acid reflux presents as heart attack in women. Two visits to ER in the middle of the night with crushing chest pain for my wife can confirm that.

    • ron73440

      Damn Mo, that sounds painful.

      If it is costochondritis, does that explain the headache and jaw pain?

      Take it easy, hope it goes away.

      • Mojeaux

        It does not, which was what kind of had me stumped, but Stinky’s probably right on the nose.

    • Rebel Scum

      Dr. Google and I are leaning toward costochondritis

      Idk what that is but sounds like reason for a doctor visit.

      I’ve stopped going to WebMD. The answer is always something innocuous or that I’m dying.

      • Mojeaux

        Costochondritis is basically inflammation of the cartilage between your ribs but Stinky’s idea is probably 99.999% correct.

    • The Other Kevin

      When I went in yesterday there were a few people I was meeting in person for the first time, and an old friend sat next to me, so there was a lot of chatting and socializing. It probably wouldn’t be that bad if I went every day, but for sure we didn’t get a lot of work done.

  60. The Late P Brooks

    Diversity? On campus? Fuck that!

    The University of Florida Faculty Senate approved a no-confidence resolution Thursday on the selection process to appoint US Sen. Ben Sasse as the next president, officials said.

    The 67 to 15 vote comes after Sasse, a Republican senator from Nebraska, became the only person considered for the high-ranking position at one of Florida’s largest universities. His candidacy sparked controversy on campus partially due to his 2015 comments on LGBTQ+ rights after the US Supreme Court ruled to guarantee same-sex marriage at the federal level.

    Not of the Body. Shun him!

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      They’re not going to love you Ben, you sold out for nothing.

    • Spartacus

      That’s likely part of it, but most of the opposition is to the process. This year Florida legislature passed a bill taking presidential searches out of the sunshine until the last round of finalists. The UF search committee only named one finalist, and so now the faculty don’t even know who else applied. They are being presented with a take-it-or-leave-it choice of someone who has no experience in administration of a large R1 university. The conservatism is just a bonus.

    • Gustave Lytton

      If the US only had 25 days left on 10/14, then we must be down to 11 days left now. How many days actually are remaining today? And what is the historical range?

      • Threedoor

        There is likely a spike in demand right now. Buying fuel to heat your house, farmers getting winter wheat crops planted. I bought 1200 gallons last month just to have it.

  61. juris imprudent

    Hopefully Matt has a public release of this – I’ll give you the subscriber link. It’s just fucking awesome.

    The beginning…

    It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes, one wishes something wasn’t quite so funny. The world this week needed a political maneuver pulled off with no laughs, and an influential group of American politicians (with one admirable exception) proved unable to accommodate.

    The Congressional Progressive Caucus took about 36 hours to pull off a circular firing squad stunt that would have made the Keystone Kops stand and applaud:

    On June 27th, analyst Christopher Mott at The Institute for Peace and Democracy published a white paper called, “Woke Imperium: The Coming Confluence Between Social Justice and Neoconservatism.” You might remember it. It was featured here in a TK article called “The Great Military Rebrand,” and Chris and I did a Callin show about his thesis.

    One of Mott’s central ideas was that Americans imagine they don’t fight wars for crass reasons of conquest or regional self-interest. They prefer grand battles of good and evil, part of a worldview that places “universalist narratives at the center of the human story.” Enemies are therefore cast not as mere competitors for resources or territory, but agents of Satanic influence

    Here’s the link for that white paper.

  62. Pope Jimbo

    My uncle is a high school graduate who did a stint in the Navy and then got a job working at a Koch refinery. They gave him an IQ/aptitude test when he applied at Koch. He passed and spent 40+ years working at Koch. Made six figures for many of those years and was dog loyal to Koch (despite being a traditional union Democrat).

    When the courts said that IQ/aptitude tests used by employers was racist, college degrees became a backdoor test used by companies to weed out undesirables.

    If they let people go back to hiring youngsters who had the right aptitudes and training them colleges would be gutted.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Doubt it. The world has moved on. Extensive training is a cost. Especially if they’re going through leave in a couple of years. Better to put the requirements on the opening. And HR has their own schemes for screening and assessing applicants.

    • Grosspatzer

      If they let people go back to hiring youngsters who had the right aptitudes and training them colleges would be gutted.

      Yup. I am currently employed as a data engineer and have been working in various IT roles since 1983. High school graduate (OK, I earned 4 credits freshman year before getting the boot from uni). It was tough finding a gig last time I got outsourced, lack of a degree automatically disqualifies me in many places. Doesn’t matter any more, pretty sure this will be my last full-time gig.

      • R.J.

        Me too. Hoping I can retire and mow lawns or something for side money sometime soon.

  63. Michael Malaise

    Why are some links light blue and others are red?

    • Michael Malaise

      Cursory research leads me to believe YouTube/video links are red. Correct?

      • The Hyperbole

        I believe that’s an optional thing If you are using one of Trashy’s plug ins.

  64. Threedoor

    I have to tell you all that this little group has been good for me.

    You are all weird and wonderful.