l0b0t’s luminous links

by | Oct 30, 2022 | Daily Links | 254 comments

 

Probably better

 

 

l0b0t lazily loads luminous links –

 

In the spirit of the upcoming holiday, please to enjoy one of my favorite LEGO artists.

 

Residents of The Windy City learn how to covert money into noise at a tremendous rate (Repeal the NFA now!)

 

Wait… social media companies are helping right-wing candidates in foreign lands?  I’m so confused.

 

Local(ish)navel-gazing at its finest.

 

The Doctor Who reboot ended with Peter Capaldi; I have no idea what a Jodie Whittaker is or what horrors that blasted mouse has in store for the franchise but I cant imagine it ends well.

 

I stumbled upon this film, Men With Green Faces, a 1969 propaganda piece by the Department of The Navy that presents a look at how Navy Frogmen become SEALs.  It is interesting to see how the training compares to that in the 2000 documentary BUDS Class 234

 

 

Thank you for looking at my links.

Here are a pair of songs that comprise what might be, in my opinion, the greatest music videos ever (mildly NSFW because cartoon boobies).  Part 1  Part 2

About The Author

l0b0t

l0b0t

254 Comments

  1. Count Potato

    Disney isn’t even British!

    • Rat on a train

      The name is Norman so there is precedent.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        I saw it (d’Isney) on a BnB in Lincolnshire.

      • Chafed

        Pretty sure it’s Walt.

  2. Tres Cool

    whaddup doh’

  3. Count Potato

    “The man, who has an office job, says he sells illegal machine guns on the side — more than 1,500 in just the past year.”

    The AFT is doing a great job. Most useful three-letter agency ever.

    • Count Potato

      “That’s happened as mass shootings — in which at least four people are killed or wounded — have become more commonplace in Chicago.”

      mass shooting (noun)
      1. when a drug dealer clips accidentally clips three other niggas
      2. when someone on an SSRI has a bad day at school

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

        Yes on two, no on one. Because, as we all know, if the media doesn’t report on it, it never happened! (kinda like if no one hears the tree fall, it doesn’t make a sound)

    • Count Potato

      ““It’s very unfortunate that civilians are able to get hold of that type of artillery,” she says. “It’s really sad. And it’s really scary.””

      I’m sure that’s an actual quote.

      • l0b0t

        Meanwhile, I’m wondering if WebDom would allow something like this to be mounted on the porch. https://youtu.be/eRuB1r1wr5I

      • Fourscore

        Does it have the thing that goes up?

      • WebDom

        You already know the answer.

    • juris imprudent

      They didn’t cut the locals in, so the locals cut them out.

    • Count Potato

      “A special federal license is needed to own a machine gun in the United States.”

      Such accurate reporting.

    • Sean

      Lungs everywhere.

    • Count Potato

      “Glocks with auto switches have become a status symbol on the streets. Chicago rapper PGF Nuk titled a recent album “Switch Music.””

      He named himself after a baby bottle?

    • Count Potato

      “”With switches, though, the effort might be too late, says Kristen Rand, government affairs director for the nonprofit Violence Policy Center, which advocates for gun control. She says concentrating on the devices is “probably a lost cause.”

      “The focus should be on why so many firearms are so easily converted to full auto,” Rand says, noting that Glocks and other guns can easily be modified. “Manufacturers must bear some of the responsibility to design their guns to be more resistant to conversion.”

      “ATF should be looking at using their existing authority to classify some of these firearms as ‘machine guns’ as they did in the 1980s with the KG-9, MAC-10 and STEN,” Rand says. “This is a classic example of how the gun industry escapes responsibility for problems of their own making.”

      DIAF

      • rhywun

        The focus should be on why so many firearms are so easily converted to full auto

        Yeah, let’s not focus on anything that might actually “reduce violence”. Job. Done.

      • l0b0t

        Without ready access to STEN gun technology, we’re all at the mercy of NAZIs, Zygons and perhaps Cybermen. Thanks FedGov.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Why are cars so easily able to drive over the speed limit? Speed kills and car manufacturers are once again able escape responsibility!

    • Count Potato

      woops, ATF

      • Rat on a train

        FTATF

  4. Stinky Wizzleteats

    Pistols that operate via recoil are mechanical devices can be easily modified using easily manufactured parts? Well I’ll be dipped, who knew?

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Technically it doesn’t contain aspirin (but it sorta does). I give it one and a half Pinocchios.

  5. Pat

    one of my favorite LEGO artists

    Wait just one fucking minute here. You mean to tell me I could have had a career building LEGOs? Why did nobody tell me this when I was 8? My life could have been radically different.

  6. Ted S.

    Thank you for looking at my links.

    We looked at them, but didn’t read them.

  7. Ted S.

    I stumbled upon this film, Men With Green Faces, a 1969 propaganda piece by the Department of The Navy that presents a look at how Navy Frogmen become SEALs.

    If you’ve got FXM, they’re going to be showing The Frogmen on Nov. 7.

    And in movie news I mentioned a couple of days ago, TCM is running Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom at 8:00 PM today and the French horror classic Eyes Without a Face overnight at 4:00 AM.

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

      And the Criterion Channel is doing a whole run of ’80s horror movies right now. I watched Prince of Darkness the other night, and I might watch The Keep tonight (this is for Rhywun!) or Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer.

      Such good flix.

      • rhywun

        BBC-A has Creepshow. Always a fun ride.

  8. juris imprudent

    File this under “things that will never be retracted, just ignored when it becomes clear it was wrong”.

    The opening paragraph:

    America is now a nation where acts of political violence are so predictable that for months before an assailant broke into the San Francisco home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and attacked her husband, Paul Pelosi, on Friday, experts have warned such an incident was likely.

    Experts, right. It would be so enlightening for them to, just as a thought exercise, replace experts with priests and see how that reads.

    • Rat on a train

      Well, they aren’t entirely wrong. From Scalise to the Summer of Love there has been political violence.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Once again I ask what the criteria is for being an “expert” is?

      In a country where there are strict rules about the training you need to complete to receive a license to braid hair, surely there is some standards around being a political hate expert.

      • juris imprudent

        An expert is someone who is never wrong, never loses credibility for being wrong (even though they are never wrong) and says things that support the narrative I am pushing (which is also never wrong).

    • Lackadaisical

      How long can I have a standing to say ‘i told you so?’ it’s like the libertarians who have been warning of inflation for 30 years… You might be right, but it’s not exactly a prediction if you’re off by so much in time.

      Also, conveniently ignores all the left-wing political violence for the past 8 years. So, warning about it is like saying there might be a fire in the future after ignoring the billowing smoke for several hours.

  9. juris imprudent

    A far more stinging bit of opinion.

    For the last several weeks, the nation watched the trial of accused Waukesha, Wisconsin, massacrer Darryl Brooks, who chose to defend himself in court despite overwhelming evidence against him. He attacked the victims, claimed it was an act of God and finally closed by arguing the court lacked jurisdiction over the case.

    His arguments ranged from the appalling to the ridiculous, and he was convicted of six counts of first-degree intentional homicide.

    In the waning days of the 2022 midterm election campaign, Democrats across the country have taken a page out of his playbook.

    • Pat

      Massacrer is a funnier word than it should be, all things considered.

    • rhywun

      the Democrats’ attempts at changing the narrative will lead to a stinging verdict from the American people this November

      You have to admire the optimism.

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        Drugs help.

  10. Fourscore

    OMWC takes a day off and an employee has to fill in for him. Hope you were on the clock, Iobot, overtime is overtime.

    • Ted S.

      He’s getting a percentage of the article’s profits.

    • Old Man With Candy

      Was it you who sent along the latest sign? If so, gracias, it’s going up at Spud’s place.

      • Fourscore

        You caught me!

      • Spudalicious

        Damned awesome Fourscore! Thank you!

      • Pope Jimbo

        Sign? As in a placard or something? Or like a bag of deer shit?

        Knowing Fourscore I have my suspicions. Did he tell you it was deer sign? Or did you only figure it out after you had eaten a “milk dud” or two?

      • Fourscore

        I saved a bag of wild smart pills for you, because you are my friend.

  11. rhywun

    I’m so confused.

    Why did I not hover? FU for sending me to WaPo.

    • Rat on a train

      Why am I getting directed to pages for election fraud when I search for election fraud?

  12. rhywun

    I cant imagine it ends well

    I see it becoming wildly popular and even more unwatchable than ever. Sad farewell, I guess, but that is the Disney+ effect in case the author still has questions.

    • l0b0t

      Sigh… Disney breaks my heart. Their pre-1980s product was such a huge part of my childhood, and growing up a long afternoon’s drive from Disney World made me a fanboy of the park. They still produce some quality stuff; Sophia The First comes to mind. But by and large they seem to poison anything they touch.

      • rhywun

        I don’t have any of that past, thank goodness. Never been, and never cared for their product.

      • Gender Traitor

        When I was a kid, my mother and I for a time were saving up nickels and dimes, hoping to make a pilgrimage to Disney World. Still hadn’t made it by my sophomore year of high school when I got a chance to get the “cultural tour” of NYC with my school’s choir director and drama teacher. We put the money toward that trip instead. Still have never been to Disney World – no regrets.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        https://yesterland.com/

        I always preferred WB, but a Looney Toons theme park never existed.

      • Gender Traitor

        When King’s Island opened down the road apiece, its kiddie-themed area was pretty solidly Hanna-Barbera. At one point, that section of the park went All-Smurf, but I never witnessed that atrocity. Haven’t been there in…decades??

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        There was a Knotts Berry Farm / Snoopy association for a while, now that I remember.

      • R.J.

        It does exist. Six flags over Texas. It is lame.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      It’ll get the Star Wars treatment: Flashy and frivolous fluff.

  13. Pat

    How Scotland’s trans lunacy is harming the young

    Many will be familiar with the Tavistock clinic in London, which until July of this year was England’s sole specialist ‘gender identity’ clinic for children and young people. In July, after years of complaints and whistleblowing, it was ordered to shut its doors by NHS England. Dr Hilary Cass, who is leading the government’s independent review into gender-identity services, found that the clinic was ‘not safe’ for its young users.

    Four hundred miles away, in Glasgow, is the Sandyford gender-identity clinic. Many of its practices mirror those of the Tavistock. Yet the Sandyford still continues to operate, seemingly without coming under much political or clinical scrutiny. That is until this week, when a leaked recording of an NHS seminar from June emerged. It contains shocking admissions from a consultant clinical psychologist at the Sandyford.

    Patients as young as 16, the consultant acknowledged, had been referred for double mastectomies by the Sandyford after just one clinical assessment. This was despite her stark admission that there was not ‘robust evidence’ for the treatments the Sandyford offers.

    What’s more, the Sandyford consultant considered such irreversible treatment entirely ethical, even for children who later regretted it, as long as the information provided by the patient had been ‘correct at the time of writing’. In other words: operate first, ask questions later. When clinicians take such an approach, it is perhaps no surprise that there are growing numbers of ‘detransitioners’ regretting their irreversible decision to transition.

    […]

    In response to the recent criticism of the Sandyford, an NHS Scotland spokesperson says: ‘Our gender identity service is modelled and informed by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) guidelines.’ But this is hardly reassuring. These are the same guidelines that say there should be no age limits for irreversible transitioning, including cross-sex hormones, vaginoplasty and double mastectomy (meaning children as young as nine could receive this treatment). Disturbingly, the guidelines formally recognise ‘eunuchs’ (who seek castration) as a new ‘gender identity’. They promote breast-binding and genital-tucking in children. And they even say that parents’ wishes can be ignored, if deemed to be ‘unnecessary’.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      When these kids who were going through a phase grow up the lawsuits are going to be earthshaking. There should be tribunals followed by shipment to Siberia for the people in positions of authority who green light this shit but monetary payouts will probably have to suffice.

      • db

        I’ll even carve out an exception in my general disdain for ambulance chasing lawyers for litigators who take on their cases.

      • Ted S.

        What if they say it was caused by the water at Camp Lejeune?

    • Count Potato

      I’m actually shocked by the sheer numbers of people who go along with this shite.

      • rhywun

        The propaganda around this issue has been wildly more effective than I could have possibly imagined.

        They’ve got anyone even vaguely leftish convinced that not chopping their daughters’ tits off is “hate”.

      • hayeksplosives

        The “if we don’t provide gender-affirming treatment” or “if you don’t let your child get the treatment” they “will commit suicide” angle is used to beat people over they head until they let the kids get the treatment.

        Because kids never exaggerate or express stubborn resistance to reason.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      I won’t shed a tear when the perpetrators and pushers of these crimes against children are pulled from their homes and decorated with tire necklaces.

      • Count Potato

        I’m not expecting that to happen though.

      • Ted S.

        I could see a case or two where a mother used a child this way in divorce proceedings and the child kills said “parent”.

      • hayeksplosives

        Yup.

        The kid as pawn in a divorce case scenario has come up a few times. I’m unaware of a case wherein the dad was the one pushing for the trans treatment.

    • Pope Jimbo

      I heard the Scottish trans lunacy is kilting the young lasses.

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        They’re being plaid by the medical authorities.

      • Pope Jimbo

        The docs are sheepish about talking about these surgeries.

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

        Someone needs to scotch this practice.

      • Fourscore

        Ewe better believe it, Mac. Irish it would stop.

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

      It’s like how all the Nazi’s moved to Argentina to continue after the war was lost in Europe.

  14. Sensei

    Morning all.

    A quick scan of the headlines has the deaths at Seoul’s Halloween celebration sitting at 151 people.

    I’m always uneasy with lots of people and lots of buildings during major events in cities. And that was before the crazy times of today.

    • Grosspatzer

      I’m always uneasy with lots of people and lots of buildings during major events in cities.

      #metoo. I grew up in NYC and worked there for decades. The New Year’s Eve mobs are a head scratcher; who wants to be herded together shoulder to shoulder for hours in the freezing cold with no reasonable access to sanitary facilities (even worse on St. Patrick’s Day for obvious reasons)?

      The only time I was sort of present for one of these events was New Year’s Eve in the mid nineties, when a friend of Mrs. Patzer who was a senior exec at Sheraton comped us a room at the Sheraton Manhattan in the Times Square district (51st and 7th). We had an early dinner and movie, returning to the hotel by 8PM, and watched the “festivities” from a window. Ugh.

      But the NYC Sanitation department is amazing. Woke up at 4AM for some reason, looked out the window, and 7th Ave. was as spotless as it ever has been.

    • straffinrun

      That’s an awful story.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I shudder thinking of the kimchi sweat smell coming off any mass crush of people in Korea.

      • straffinrun

        Joint point in the opposite direction and yell, “It’s BTS!”

    • hayeksplosives

      So it was all crush injuries? I had wondered if there was a smallish release of toxin (pepper spray, or something sinister like sarin) that then caused the stampede.

      The footage of dozens of EMTs working on dozens of victims on the sidewalks was surreal.

      Poor folks just wanted to see a celebrity.

  15. Count Potato

    “The nudist ex-lover of the man who attacked Paul Pelosi is a pedophile who attempted to kidnap a 14-year-old boy and allegedly bought sex dolls for her sons to use.

    Oxane ‘Gypsy’ Taub, 53, the former lover of David DePape who is charged with attacking Pelosi in his San Francisco home, was convicted in 2021 for child abuse.

    Prosecutors said Taub, who once protested naked in front of San Francisco City Hall, had been stalking the boy, sending him emails and messages and trying to lure him to secretly meet with her.

    Ryan La Coste, one of Taub and DePape’s neighbors, said he’s long complained about the family’s behavior and nudity while minors were around, noting that the family keeps several sex dolls, according to Michael Shellenberger’s Substack.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11368629/Nudist-ex-lover-Paul-Pelosi-attacker-PEDOPHILE-molested-boy-14.html

    https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/pelosi-attack-suspect-was-a-psychotic

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      They’re psychotic drugged out disorganized weirdos? In San Fran? Say it ain’t so!

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        Peace and love man, peace and love…

    • straffinrun

      Seeing Musk fact check Hillary on Twitter today made my day.

    • R C Dean

      “Although the couple hung LGBTQ and Black Lives Matter flags, their neighbors said their liberal politics was performative”

      Desperately scrambling to protect the Narrative, I see.

      • straffinrun

        Like that’s any different than the rest of them.

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        their liberal politics was performative

        Spare me the bullshit.

        This is reminiscent of the leftists who argue that Stalin wasn’t a leftist because he did bad things and leftists don’t do bad things, only those on the right do that.

      • rhywun

        Tricksy mega-MAGA in disguise.

    • hayeksplosives

      Nah, it was Trump’s fault.

    • The Last American Hero

      I’ve been told on Facebook that the attacker was a Republican, and did this with the full support of the RNC.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      At least he lives up to half of the band name now.

    • Ted S.

      Obviously caused by the clot shot.

  16. db

    He also told investigators he bought the gun in Indiana and that he could get a switch for less than $25, the prosecutor said.

    Barbarindianans at the gate

  17. Gender Traitor

    l0000000!!! 😃 Good morning to you….and everyone else! I slept in later than I usually do, even on weekends, so no time for my usual “reverse Waltons”-style AM greetings.

    Re: Doctor Who, I’d heard that the Whittaker alleged-Doctor regenerated into David Tennant (SQUEEE!!!), promising us a brief nostalgia trip to the good ol’ days for a few specials before The Doctor then regenerates into the next tick-box-check-off incarnation. (***SIGH!!!***) I’ll hunt up a link to where I saw that – hadn’t heard about the Disney angle. If the specials with Tennant are only going to be on Disney+ outside the UK, I guess I’ll just have to miss them. 😒

    • Rat on a train

      tick-box-check-off incarnation
      trans?

      • Count Potato

        Aren’t the Doctor (and the Master) already trans?

      • The Last American Hero

        The Master had a reincarnation as a woman. The Doctor has always been male, as the Whitaker incarnation was shitty fan fic.

    • Gender Traitor

      Aforementioned Tennant reprise link, which doesn’t say where the specials (more than a year away, dammit!) will be shown outside the UK.

      • db

        Dr. GF is a big Dr. Who fan. The real fans download the specials from pirated copies that get shared within minutes of the shows airing.

        She’s not a fan of the Jodie Whittaker version, but not for explicitly anti-woke reasons. She says the writing is crap and the stories are pretty thin and rehashed.

      • db

        It’s almost as if the current showrunners thought all they needed was a gender swap gimmick to put eyes on the screen and abandoned fundamentals.

      • Rat on a train

        What they need is a Cousin Oliver.

      • l0b0t

        So who was the worst addition, Cousin Oliver on The Brady Bunch, or Danny Cooksey as Sam on Diff’rent Strokes?

      • Pope Jimbo

        Scrappy Doo

      • rhywun

        Andy Keaton

        I’m sensing a theme.

      • l0b0t

        …the writing is crap…

        My sentiments exactly. I’m utterly ambivalent to the race/sex of the actor portraying The Doctor. I absolutely adored Michelle Gomez as Missy (The Mistress).

      • Gender Traitor

        We gave Whittaker a chance, as we’d liked her well enough in Broadchurch, but your Dr. GF is correct – crap writing and plots, plus too damn many companions, as if trying to cover all possible identity groups. We gave up pretty quickly. (Have all the previous current generation serieses (?)/seasons, i.e. Eccleston through Capaldi, on DVD or BluRay, but acquired through “official channels.”)

    • rhywun

      If the specials with Tennant are only going to be on Disney+ outside the UK

      Yeah, the article didn’t make that clear. Either way I doubt I’d be watching.

      Hadn’t heard about Tennant but I’ve paid zero attention since Capaldi exited.

    • Rat on a train

      Wikipedia says the fifteenth doctor will be Ncuti Gatwa.

    • UnCivilServant

      I get confused by these discussions. the show has been off the air since the 1980s.

      • Gender Traitor

        If you eschew all other of the “new Who” series, please do give the Tennant/Tate series a try. Donna Noble is the best companion ever.

      • l0b0t

        If you have not seen the Hilly and Hannah Hindi parody, please do so right now. https://youtu.be/9WBqHdI5Bdw

      • Gender Traitor

        Magnificent! 😄👍🏼👍🏼

      • The Last American Hero

        You misspelled Clara Oswald.

      • The Hyperbole

        Insert Sean’s avatar here. Except replace the mediocre fourth Dr with the third and best Dr.

  18. Shiny Nerfherder

    Reposting, but it’s well worth it. The original audio interview is on Brownstone.

    “Yes, but nobody has ever challenged Fauci openly, and they’re going to cut your balls off,” these officials said. “The decision has been made at the highest levels of government: CDC, NIH, Fauci, his team. They are now going to move to cancel you and to cut your balls off.”

    Alexander asked, “What do you mean exactly?”

    “They’re going to destroy you, Paul. They’re going to destroy your name, your career. You’ll never work in Washington again. They’ll end your career,” one of them replied.

    After offering to write Fauci an email apology, these individuals whose names are withheld by Alexander, told him, “No, you don’t understand, it’s done… It’s over. They are going to select communications between you and all the parties in your unit and across HHS, and they’re going to find a word in it or a line. They found a line and they’re going to leak it in about four days to the mainstream media, across the board, all [of them]. And they’re going to create a narrative. And they’re going to go about destroying your name.”

    “The media already has [the line] and has already written their stories. It’s just going to come out on a certain day,” they said.

    https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/trump-covid-official-relates-shocking-saga-of-experience-in-dc-profound-corruption-of-deep-state/

    • Tundra

      Holy shit.

      We may be in a little trouble.

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        The agencies are irredeemable. They have to be destroyed and the people running them have to be made into warnings.

      • rhywun

        It is insane that the Pres can’t fire anyone xe wants to in the executive branch.

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        Hence why the legislature has to kill the agencies or change the laws to make it possible for the president to do it. As currently structured, they cannot be reformed by the executive.

        I think it’s more likely that we’ll go the other route though, which is a strongman that wipes the slate clean, violently.

    • The Hyperbole

      Whole lotta ‘they’s in there. Why don’t these people ever actually name these ‘deep staters’

      • Count Potato

        I share your skepticism.

      • Tundra

        Lol. After all the examples of minions bragging about lying to Trump?

    • juris imprudent

      Word had come from the deep state… that they will not complete my hire

      Uh-huh, also known as government HR, the even more idiotic version of corporate HR.

    • R C Dean

      “these individuals whose names are withheld by Alexander”

      Name. Fucking. Names.

      Until there are direct personal consequences for Swampers, this will not end, or even slow down.

    • hayeksplosives

      Alexander’s bosses warned him several times that there were people in these calls who worked for NIH or the CDC whose “job is to subvert and undercut President Trump.”

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      I don’t see any khakis or Patriot Nation gear.

      • Pat

        How do you do fellow kids insurrectionists?

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      If the that’s hot phrase makes a comeback I’m going to check myself into a mental institution until it passes again. I could use a long vacation anyway.

      • Ozymandias

        I don’t know if it’s true for some of our other vets here, but I have these American “culture gaps” where a certain song or phrase or something else caught the collective consciousness of the country, but I was on a deployment, or in training/at sea, or otherwise hunkered down and missed the entire gestalt.
        “That’s hot” was one of those “gaps” that led to a hilarious exchange with my father (of all people – unrepentant King of Dad Jokes!) when he tried to show how hep he was by breaking that one out. I was like, “WTF did my father just say?!?”
        It always comes to mind when I hear that Paris Hilton bit.
        Related – I gather that she’s objectively attractive, but she does exactly zero for me.

      • straffinrun

        I still have no idea what that tsk skt tsk thing was all about.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Ozy!

        Her sister Nicky seems saner.

        Paris seems saner than Kim K, who seems saner than Meghan M. (I learn a lot from the Daily Mail sidebar without ever clicking on it.)

      • Ozymandias

        TOG!
        I’m not dead yet, but busy AF kicking the government in the dick each day. Life’s GREAT!
        (Judge denied government’s motion to delay discovery until after some rulings and that means we’re on the hook to file a joint discovery plan… today!)

        When I found out that Paris got started as one of Kim K’s straphangers… well, it made me consider whether a leaked sex tape might be the best way to earn some subsequent royalty income! I’m not a prude, but the whole Paris Hilton-Megan M-Kim K path to fame was all I needed to know that Rom would soon be burning. I’ve never gotten any of the reality TV, famous-for-being-famous set.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Lord’s work…

      • rhywun

        I have a similar gap that covers 85 and 86 when I lived in Germany.

        I still come across movies and TV from those years I’ve never heard of, etc.

      • Ozymandias

        As far as I know, Grunge never happened.
        I remember someone a few years later cranking the volume on some Pearl Jm tune and I was like, “who TF is this??”

      • Gustave Lytton

        Chris Farley dying and Clinton admitting he lied about having an affair still aren’t “real” for me. Like reading about JFKs assassination in a history book.

      • Mojeaux

        Time periods I missed because I was busy working/going to school/rearing babies:

        1. Grunge
        2. Buffy TV show
        3. All of the 2000s

  19. Grosspatzer

    lobot links! Glibs just gets better and better!

  20. db

    l0b0t lazily loads luminous links

    Let Lily, Let lily, lick large luscscious lips

      • db

        Mark Hamill’s post-meth recovery role.

      • Grosspatzer

        Oh. My. God. That is truly demented.

      • The Hyperbole

        And here you said those Sturgill Simpson videos were the best music videos ever.

      • l0b0t

        I love Sesame Street, but The Electric Company was the height of 1970s children’s educational television. It gave us the Joan Rivers, Gene Wilder, Zero Mostel cartoon – The Adventures Of Letterman.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    We need to go back to muzzle loading Derringers. It was good enough for John Wilkes Booth.

    • Sean

      I need more firepower than that to defend from steak thieves.

  22. Tundra

    Good morning!

    Daily Quordle 279
    3️⃣6️⃣
    4️⃣7️⃣

    WTF, lower right?

    • Grosspatzer

      Mornin’! Plenty of WTF in this one.

      Daily Quordle 279
      3️⃣7️⃣
      8️⃣4️⃣
      quordle.com

    • Grumbletarian

      Daily Quordle 279
      3️⃣8️⃣
      6️⃣4️⃣

    • rhywun

      Bah, humbug.

      Daily Quordle 279
      5️⃣8️⃣
      6️⃣4️⃣

    • Pat

      Daily Quordle 279
      5️⃣7️⃣
      8️⃣4️⃣

      Lower left for me. Deceptively simple. Then again this was pretty much a dog all around.

    • kinnath

      Daily Quordle 279
      5️⃣8️⃣
      6️⃣4️⃣

    • whiz

      Daily Quordle 279
      3️⃣8️⃣
      6️⃣4️⃣
      quordle.com

  23. The Late P Brooks

    Can’t you see how much I love you? Now get back in the kitchen before I dot your other eye.


    Former President Barack Obama on Saturday sought to sway voters who are worried about inflation, warning in two key Midwestern states that Republicans seeking control of Congress have no plans to rein in prices and could target social safety net programs.

    Campaigning alongside Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in Detroit, and later Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and Democratic Senate nominee Mandela Barnes in Milwaukee, Obama acknowledged the economic realities Americans face. But he said handing power on Capitol Hill to the GOP would do little to solve those problems.

    “In your gut, you should have a sense: Who cares about you?” he said in Wisconsin.

    In a moment that rapidly spread across social media, Obama lambasted Barnes’ opponent, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who is seeking a third term. He cited Johnson’s past comments comparing the management of Social Security to a “Ponzi scheme” and criticized Johnson’s vote for the 2017 GOP-led tax overhaul.

    Social Security’s not a Ponzi scheme. Ponzi never rounded up “investors” at gunpoint.

    • rhywun

      Stop “caring” about me, assholes.

    • PieInTheSky

      Why do you hate the elderly? Do you want grandpeople to starve?

      • Fourscore

        “We need to save SS for our children” said no old person ever.

        Or as Mrs F says, “I like free stuff”

    • R C Dean

      “Who cares about you?”

      The people who hate me and want me to die?

  24. The Late P Brooks

    he former President on Saturday portrayed the modern GOP as unserious and uncompromising, describing the party – with few exceptions – as beholden to former President Donald Trump’s whims.

    “Own the libs and getting Donald Trump’s approval. That’s their agenda,” Obama said in Milwaukee.“They’re not interested in solving problems. They’re interested in making you angry, and then finding somebody to blame,” he said. “And they’re hoping that’ll distract you from the fact that they don’t have any answers of their own.”

    Obama’s message mirrored Biden’s insistence that Republicans have not offered proposals to rein in inflation and his warnings that GOP congressional majorities would target popular safety net programs like Social Security and Medicare.

    Former president Bill Clinton speaks during a rally at Nyack Veteran’s Memorial Park on October 29, 2022 in Nyack, New York.
    Bill Clinton goes to bat for endangered chair of House Democrats’ campaign arm
    It also echoed what former President Bill Clinton said at a campaign stop for Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney in New York on Saturday. Clinton said that the GOP’s midterm slogan should be: “This is a real problem. Let’s vote for somebody who will make it worse.”

    Democrats are the party of ideas.

  25. Grumbletarian

    Barack, the party that you say cares keeps sending billions to a foreign nation with which we have no alliance. The nominal leader of said party seems to be trying to get us involved in at least one nuclear war, maybe two. The party that you say cares is spending money at an unprecedented pace, and fearmongering that the other party may not let them continue to do so.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      Barry is just a tool of the agencies. If he had any balls, they cut them off long ago.

  26. PieInTheSky

    The stupid clocks changed again. I wish they wouldn’t

  27. The Late P Brooks

    Obama described inflation as a global challenge that resulted from a coronavirus pandemic that “threw off supply and demand,” as well as Russia’s war in Ukraine, which he said has driven up gas prices.

    “When gas prices go up, when grocery prices go up, that takes a bite out of people’s paycheck. That hurts,” Obama said. “But the question you should be asking is: Who’s going to do something about it? Republicans are having a field day running ads talking about it, but what is their actual solution to it?”

    As long as it’s not “continue to inflate the money supply with bogus schemes to ‘help’ the consumer” It’s worth a try.

    • rhywun

      Ukraine

      So let’s keep flushing billions of dollars down that toilet; it is sure to work any day now.

  28. juris imprudent

    Background emerges on Pelosi assailant!

    “David was a good kid; he just had opinions,” said Teresa DePape. She believed DePape was a fan of the Burning Man festival, an annual counter-culture arts gathering in the Nevada desert.

    Ruh-ro

    • PieInTheSky

      I blame hipsters myself

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      “David was a good kid; he just had opinions,”

      He’s a grown adult, not a kid. And everybody, including Charles Manson, has opinions.

    • rhywun

      He was just about turn his life around.

  29. PieInTheSky

    The tragedy of Telford’s girls
    Did political correctness enable the biggest sexual abuse scandal in British history?

    https://edwest.substack.com/p/the-tragedy-of-telfords-girls

    Here, in a town of 140,000 or so people, some 1,000 young girls were systematically raped and sexually abused by gangs of men over a number of years — and this figure has been described as ‘tame’ by a witness to a recent inquiry.

    The perpetrators were mostly Pakistani men, the victims were overwhelmingly poor, white and English. The girls, as young as 11 or 12, were given drink and drugs, gang raped and passed around, and threatened if they told the police. Countless such testimonies were confirmed by the authorities, and investigations here reported quite extreme and unprintable forms of sexual abuse. In this town seven men went to jail, although five were given relatively short sentences and are most likely out again.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      There’s only one way to rectify that situation, and it ain’t pretty.

      • juris imprudent

        The authorities that looked the other way should be the kindling for that conflagration.

    • Homple

      Mark Steyn has been on this story for a long time.

    • rhywun

      Did political correctness enable the biggest sexual abuse scandal in British history?

      Yes. This is an old story and the answer has been known for a long time.

  30. The Late P Brooks

    The best way to fix supply chain problems is to increase costs and regulatory obstacles for the people who make and deliver things.

    That’s Econ 101.

  31. Shiny Nerfherder

    All the colleges want in on the act.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11357387/UK-scientists-mutant-Covid-strains.html

    British scientists intentionally created hybrid Covid strains in risky experiments judged to be like ‘playing with fire’, MailOnline can reveal.

    Hamsters were infected with mutant viruses, blends of the original Wuhan strain and parts of either Omicron or Delta.

    Critics of the research, carried out by Imperial College London, called it ‘insanity’ and warned the lab trials could, in theory, unleash a new viral threat. Twenty scientists were involved in the project, including one who sits on the Government’s advisory panel SAGE.

    But the university insists the study, part-funded by the taxpayer, followed British regulations and was entirely safe.

    Me thinks the scientific community has completely lost the plot.

    • juris imprudent

      Yeah, you do have to wonder – who thinks this is a good idea? Some disciple of Mengele?

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        Hell if I know, but Boston College is doing it. Some other lab I can’t remember the name of in Maryland is doing it. I have to assume there are multiple other research universities that are doing it, definitely UNC where that lunatic Ralph Baric works.

        It’s completely out of control.

      • Tundra

        The only reason for GoF research is bioweapons. That’s it.

        Every one of these labs needs to be droned.

      • rhywun

        It’s almost like it’s intentional.

      • slumbrew

        BU, not Bc

  32. straffinrun

    “ l0b0t lazily loads luminous links”
    Asked my wife to read that out loud for me.
    Changes the meaning.

    • Ozymandias

      What’s wrong with roads of ruminous (ice) rinks, straffinBigot?!?

      • whiz

        Lacist!

  33. The Late P Brooks

    British scientists intentionally created hybrid Covid strains in risky experiments judged to be like ‘playing with fire’, MailOnline can reveal.

    “So, you don’t think you need to take our scaremongering seriously? We’ll show you.”

    • straffinrun

      The Mai Lai code of ethics.

  34. DEG

    Up until the song and dance routine, the cartoon boobies reminded me of the Rifts RPG 1st edition cover.

    Chicago Police Supt. David Brown agrees. Brown told reporters last month: “Switches that make single-action weapons fully automatic as well as the high-capacity magazines that hold more bullets in them with an extended clip

    I feel twitchy. “Single action”, “clip”.

    The right-wing Bolsonaro has repeatedly alleged without evidence that voting machines used for a quarter century in Brazil are prone to fraud.

    Where have I heard this before?

    Under the watchful eyes of Russell T. Davies, who’s returning as showrunner more than a decade after overseeing the first four seasons of the series’ modern run, new episodes of “Doctor Who” will stream on Disney+ outside of the U.K. and Ireland (where they will bow on the BBC, same as ever).

    I tried watching NuWho once. Nope. Waste of time. Give me Old Who.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Whoa. Haven’t thought about that rpg in a long time.

  35. The Late P Brooks

    They claimed, without evidence

    The assailant who broke into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home Friday and fractured her husband’s skull is only the latest in an escalating era of political violence, one largely driven by violence from the far-right.

    Ahead of the 2020 election, there was increasing concern about political violence perpetrated by the far-right, fears that cascaded following January 6. Since then, members of Congress, judges, and other public officials have faced pointed threats of violence, often from those espousing extremist ideologies.

    Violent attacks on political targets by leftists are categorized as legitimate protests in pursuit of equity and justice. Anything right wingers do is brown shirt thuggery.

    See how this works?

    *Remember when people were boarding up their windows because Trump supporters were going to riot on Election Day?

  36. Ozymandias

    I don’t know if anyone’s already made this prediction, but I want to jump in and note that in some period of time in the future (3, 5, maybe 10 years?) there will be thousands of people claiming to have TOTALLY ALWAYS been against the Covid vaxxes.
    It’ll be like those hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who will swear that they were at Shea when the Amazin’s won it all in 69!! (Except that Shea only held 58K that evening in October.)
    Watch. In 5 years those same family members and friends who broke your balls for being “anti-science” will be painfully recounting how courageously they fought the vaccine mandates over Turkey Dinner. Oh, and ditto for the blue checks, too. Once the zeitgeist really shifts, they’ll be lecturing us – LECTURING with pointed finger – about how the shots were never tested and it was a bad idea, mmkay?
    Be strong. Be patient. Try to be kind and forgiving.

    • juris imprudent

      I save my kindness and forgiveness for deserving people, not for stupid hypocrites that merely move along wherever the crowd takes them.

      • Ozymandias

        It’s for you, JI, not them. Trust me on this.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      Try to be kind and forgiving.

      I might be forgiving of the dupes. I will never be forgiving of those who had any authority.

      • Fourscore

        I don’t forgive and I don’t forget. Well, OK, I do forget but that’s why I write down the grocery list

  37. The Late P Brooks

    A key source of this vitriol is the demonization of one’s political opponents. That makes people already predisposed toward this kind of behavior more likely to act, according to political violence research from Nathan Kalmoe, associate professor of political communication at Louisiana State University, and Lilliana Mason, associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University’s SNF Agora Institute.

    But all things being equal, there’s a reason why politically motivated violence has escalated in recent years, and why it’s usually associated with the right-wing, as Vox’s Zack Beauchamp pointed out last year:

    Sustained campaigns of political violence don’t happen in a vacuum; they become plausible only when societies are rent by deep and serious cleavages. The GOP’s willingness to play with rhetorical fire — stoking racial resentment, delegitimizing the Democratic Party and the democratic process, and even indulging in naked appeals to violent fantasies — has created an environment that can encourage the outbreak of right-wing violence. This is already doing concrete damage to our democracy: Several Republican legislators have said they would have supported [Trump’s] impeachment if doing so did not pose a threat to their families’ lives.

    Wow. I had no idea.

    • rhywun

      LOL you could air a film on the moon with that much projection.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      If true, Greta just went up in my estimation.

    • l0b0t

      I’ve actually slogged through Industrial Society And Its Future. It reads exactly like one would expect it to; being the product of a rather brilliant fellow who was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

      • Count Potato

        I’ve read the whole thing, and don’t remember any word salad.

  38. The Late P Brooks

    Even leaders who use ambiguously violent rhetoric — a refusal to denounce violence, or coded language that doesn’t explicitly advocate violence but subtly suggests it — influence people to pursue violent tactics for political ends. Kurt Braddock, an assistant professor of public communication at American University, explained this on Twitter in May. That results in what he calls stochastic terrorism, or violent events which are not individually predictable on their own, but reliably occur due to seeding by a trusted leader.

    In Mason’s view, this kind of violence goes in cycles — it’s backlash to progress that American society has made on critical social issues like race and gender. However, just because patterns of progress and violence exist, that doesn’t mean that they occur naturally and eventually American politics will just move forward again. Ending these patterns will depend on whether and how Americans decide to participate in democratic institutions — or if we can even come to an understanding about what democracy is.

    That’s why we need to double down on winner-take-all DEMOCRACY!

    A razor thin majority justifies ramming the most radical partisan agenda imagineable down the throats of the losers, because elections have consequences, and don’t you forget it.

  39. PieInTheSky

    Elon musk and some other tech billionaire apparently came to Romania to have a halloween party at bran castle. Fuckin americans…

    • slumbrew

      “Fuckin Americans”

      They didn’t use local talent?

      Is it a Mann Act violation if it’s overseas?

    • Trigger Hippie

      You’re so racist you can’t even abide white African-Americans.

      SMDH

    • Mojeaux

      Dude, Elon Musk is AFRICAN.

    • R.J.

      You’ll never get invited with that attitude!

  40. The Late P Brooks

    Elon musk and some other tech billionaire apparently came to Romania to have a halloween party at bran castle. Fuckin americans…

    Economic stimulus, man.

  41. The Late P Brooks

    Be strong. Be patient. Try to be kind and forgiving.

    Revenge is a dish best served cold.

  42. Count Potato

    “The Republican Party and its mouthpieces now regularly spread hate and deranged conspiracy theories. It is shocking, but not surprising, that violence is the result. As citizens, we must hold them accountable for their words and the actions that follow.”

    https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1586693291231178753

    CWAC

    • Count Potato

      That’s Hillary who twote that, not Elon.

      Look like Hillary deleted it.

      • slumbrew

        Cutie.

  43. KSuellington

    Well, as expected the Paul Pelosi story is dropping quickly down in the headlines and being replaced by “muh democracy!!!” deep thought pieces. The tale of what happened in Pac Heights in the wee hours of Friday morning is utterly fantastical as presented. We are supposed to believe that a Qanon and January 6th obsessed, drug addled maniac somehow scaled a twelve foot high brick wall in his Fruit of the Loom with a hammer hanging out the back and got into the back yard of the Speaker of the House at 230am. I would bet my house that we never see any video footage of this from Pelosi’s or the neighbors numerous video cameras. Once in the backyard the Trump loving hemp jewelry maker smashes the back window (that mysteriously explodes outwards most of the glass) and enters the Pelosi house. No alarms, silent or otherwise go off. He encounters Paul somewhere in the house. The two have a discussion. Paul asks to use the bathroom where he has a phone charging and gets permission. He calls 911 and refers to the nutball as “David “ and “a friend”. He then decides to exit the safety of the bathroom and go back out to continue their discussion. The SFPD arrive a couple minutes later and are let into the house by an “unidentified person”. Who is this person? Why did they leave Paul, nudist enthusiast and hammer alone back in the room? The SFPD enter the room and the two men both have the hammer. Then Berkeley man wrestles the hammer away and begins to strike Paul with it. I’m sure any day now we will see the body cam footage of that happening. The story as presented is so full of holes and bizarre details it is laughable.

    Rant off.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Just like the drunk driving crash.

  44. The Late P Brooks

    This crystal ball only gets one channel; the Doom and Gloom Network

    Elon Musk on Thursday completed his long-awaited $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, immediately firing top executives and prompting concern among critics who worry the self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” will usher in more extremism and hate speech onto the platform.

    “Elon Musk’s acquisition and subsequent running of Twitter will radically transform the current information landscape in much the same way that the emergence of Fox News changed the information landscape back in the late ’90s — and we will all be worse off for it,” Angelo Carusone, president of the left-leaning nonprofit media watchdog Media Matters for America, said in a statement, predicting the rise of right-wing extremism as a direct result of Musk’s leadership.

    It must really suck going through life suffering from severe paranoid delusions.

    • R.J.

      By “we” Angelo means damn dirty commies. Piss on them.

      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z11pQzzEYUU

      Everyone else will do great; and maybe we will get back to reporters actually working for a living and researching stories.

    • slumbrew

      Angelo doesn’t really believe that horseshit.

      • R.J.

        He totally does. Read it from his point of view that Angelo has now lost control of his beautiful golden narrative. Leftist power is breaking. We must all continue make sure it stays broken. It will take decades to undo the damage that started with Lyndon Johnson.

    • Ted S.

      “left-leaning”, versus “right-wing extremism”.

  45. Mojeaux

    Re Disneyland/Disneyworld

    As a child, I was mildly interested in going, enough to shrug when my dad said a resounding NO. As a young adult, no desire to go. As an old adult, I have a raging desire to stay away.

    Worlds of Fun (Cedar Fair) has Snoopyland for the kiddies. My son really quite liked staying in Snoopyland and I didn’t mind because I could sit and read books while he rode rides.

    =====

    Re Disney itself

    I saw Bambi when I was very young. THE scene did not bother me. Fires happen. Animals die.

    My mother loved Disney movies. She especially loved The Apple Dumpling Gang. (She also thinks Deliverance was the scariest movie she ever saw.) I loved Pete’s Dragon so much I named a character Elliott.

    =====

    Re Dr NuWho

    1. Eccleston
    2. Capaldi
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    3. Tennant.

    Donna Noble IS the best companion!

    =====

    Re Twitter

    @straff, what’s your latest @?

    =====

    Re kids’ programming

    No, man, not Sesame Street or Electric Company. Schoolhouse Rock. 🎶Interplanet Janet, she’s a galaxy queen🎵

    =====

    Re Ted Kaczynski

    I haven’t read his manifesto. But was he wrong?

    =====

    Re Lego

    I once a huge gift basket of Lego sets in a raffle. I should have kept them and sold them, but doled them out as presents to my kids for Christmas and birthdays.

    Tangentially, I have to sign in to Instagram to see. 😡

    • Gender Traitor

      Your list of NuDoctors is bass-ackwards (and should insert Smith as #2,) but I’m glad to see you’re correct about companions. 😉 (Honorable Mention to Sarah Jane and to Pond.)

      • Mojeaux

        HATED Amy Pond. HAAAAAAATED with the white-hot fire of a thousand burning suns hated.

      • db

        She was super hot. But had a dumbass for a boyfriend.

      • db

        So, basically a combination of how female Who fans see themselves, and how male Who fans see themselves.

        The Amy/Rory thing was a perfect fantasy for Who fans

      • Mojeaux

        She treated him like garbage from the git-go. Why was she marrying him in the first place if she was going to treat him like he was trash?

      • Ted S.

        Aren’t a lot of women like that?

        [/sarcasm]

        This is why there are no female libertarians….

      • Mojeaux

        To be serious for a moment.

        I was always horrified. I don’t treat my husband that way and he treats me with respect. Their relationship was always ambiguous to me.

    • l0b0t

      I have to run get a couple cases of half & half because our staff couldn’t be bothered to mention YESTERDAY that we were out. Yesterday… when I was already at the store getting 16 gallons of milk. Sorry for the sign-in crap. You are right about Schoolhouse Rock. Pete’s dragon is one of my absolute favorite films. So much so that I put it on in the kitchen last week in lieu of our usual music. Did i sing along to Happiest Home In These Hills and We Got A Bill Of Sale? Yes i certainly did. Am I head over heels for Helen Ready, the only lady in the 19th century wearing trousers? Yes i am.

  46. The Late P Brooks

    Jesse Lehrich, the co-founder of watchdog nonprofit Accountable Tech, said Musk’s firing of Vijaya Gadde — a top Twitter legal and policy executive who headed the team that decided to remove Trump from the platform — was a “long-term catastrophe,” calling Gadde the company’s “moral compass,” Politico reported.

    Oh, the humanity!

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      Gadde claims that her father was systemically harassed by the KKK in Beaumont, Texas in the late seventies.

      While I don’t doubt that he experienced some discrimination, the KKK was a non-entity long before that. She just enjoys the attention the claim brings and the credibility it’s bought her in our victim-obsessed culture.

  47. Grummun

    No one is still reading on this post, but:

    The Doctor Who reboot ended with Peter Capaldi Tom Baker.

    • hayeksplosives

      Nope, no one is reading this post.

      • R C Dean

        I’m certainly not.