Saturday Morning On The Road Links

by | Nov 26, 2022 | Daily Links | 200 comments

Much adventure this week. I drove, solo, to Montana to have Thanksgiving with Spud, Francisco d’Anconia, and his wife at the latter’s Unabomber cabin. Weather being what it is, I lost a day coming out so sadly had to postpone my visit with Mr. and Mrs. Riven, but I’ve hatched a plan to get back out there with NPR Lady. She’ll never know what hit her. Interestingly, in all my stops from Wisconsin west, I was always the only person in sight not wearing camo. I bet if I search Amazon, I can find a camo yarmulke so I’ll fit in.

Oh, here it is.

Of course, in the Thanksgiving spillover, we are thankful for birthdays today, which include an early import from Canada; a rather noisy fellow; a guy who was truly the catalyst for a technological revolution; a guy who wasn’t a Jew but it would have been perfect if he were; one of my very favorite novelists; a superb cartoonist who unfortunately found fame and fortune; an absolutely iconic sculptor; and a guy that always had the protection of Triumph.

And from this, we clumsily segue into Links.

 

The retarded face of evil.

 

Does anyone actually understand what the fuck is going on here?

 

Local news, it’s boring, but look at that hair! It’s worthy of an Eastern European dictator.

 

Because no-one knows the difference between a semi-automatic and a 9mm. We’re a stroke away from President Harris.

 

This seems… dubious.

 

It’s important to deny choice.

 

Both this story and this story are, at their essence, the same.

 

Old Guy Music has a bit of a libertarian bent, unintentionally I’m sure. I absolutely hate the hipster visuals in the video, but it’s a cool song. I bet SugarFree could do a nice Horror Theater with this material.

About The Author

Old Man With Candy

Old Man With Candy

Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me. Wait, wrong book, I'll find something else.

200 Comments

  1. Count Potato

    “Does anyone actually understand what the fuck is going on here?”

    Yes, they are pedos, and bold enough to think they can flaunt it.

    • Pat

      The legal arguments should be interesting. The lawyer who gets to walk into court and argue earnestly that the placement of a legal brief involving child pornography in an ad image damaged Balenciaga’s brand, but that kids and teddy bears in BDSM garb in a separate ad image did not damage Balenciaga’s brand has his work cut out for him.

      • Pat

        It’s telling that this a hill upon which so many on the far left are willing to die. Telling for a couple of reasons. First, the obvious implication that there’s a lot of powerful, wealthy people who are really, really, really, really personally invested in, at the very minimum, having completely age-inappropriate discussions about sex with very young children. But secondly, that they are confident enough in their political and economic power to know they can get away with unapologetically and loudly taking that position publicly.

      • Brawndo

        Rosenbaum, one of the guys Rittenhouse killed, had molested 5 boys. Not sure why he wasn’t behind bars for life.

    • Count Potato

      There have been years of articles from Salon, The Atlantic, etc. defending “minor attracted persons”.

  2. Pat

    in all my stops from Wisconsin west, I was always the only person in sight not wearing camo

    How could you tell they were wearing camo?

    • Count Potato

      It was Navy camo?

    • Old Man With Candy

      Saw disembodied bearded faces bobbing around.

      • SDF-7

        “How not to be seen…”

    • Sean

      Everyone should own some camo clothing.

      • Gender Traitor

        I got this tunic tee from Duloot Trading a little while back. Still trying to figure out where to wear it to be cleverly disguised.

      • Fourscore

        Or Carhartt’s, a tuxedo you can wear everyday

      • Brawndo

        Everyone wants to wear Carhartt. Nobody wants to do Carhartt shit.

      • Pat

        I’m down to a single pair of camo shorts nowadays, but battle fatigues were a wardrobe staple during my adolescence. Partly because I was playing a lot of woodsball (that’s paintball in the woods), but I also just liked them as practical clothing. When I started primarily playing speedball (that’s tournament paintball on flat, level playing fields with big inflatable bunkers) overpriced tournament gear supplanted a lot of my camo. It’s no wonder I had to chase the girls away with a stick…

    • juris imprudent

      One of my favorite PJ O’Rourke passages describing the British soldiers in Northern Ireland and how the Irish didn’t seem to see (or at least take notice of) them. He wrote it must be a testament to the effectiveness of the camo uniforms.

      • l0b0t

        This came up a bit on the zoomy last night. Here is a 1976 episode of BBC Panorama discussing the “Troubles” in South Armagh where you can see that exact behavior; it’s sort of surreal. Also, I really, really, really do not want to see this level of violence and conflict spring forth from our modern political divisions.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcS2LBx3nZ4

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Also, I really, really, really do not want to see this level of violence and conflict spring forth from our modern political divisions.

        Depends on the endgame. I’d consider this level of violence and conflict to be exponentially preferred over the “peaceful” roundups enjoyed under Soviet unity. Or Cambodian unity. Or Chinese unity. Moving us there is of course the entire point of gun control.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        While it’s already been repeated ad nauseum, Solzhenitsyn puts it much better:

        And how we burned in the camps later, thinking, What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.

      • slumbrew

        Likely mentioned in the Zoom but I’ll recommend “Say Nothing” again. Great book about the Troubles.

  3. Count Potato

    “Sweden’s parliament decided in 2017 said that by 2045, the Scandinavian country is to have zero net emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and is to have 100% renewable energy.”

    Because laws are magic?

    • juris imprudent

      That’s why you have courts, to enforce the magic.

      • Count Potato

        So they’re like wizard robes?

      • juris imprudent

        Impenetrable language, only practitioners approved by the guild – tell me I’m wrong.

    • Fourscore

      Wood is renewable. Nothing like burning wood to warm the heart and the hearth

      • Grosspatzer

        “Wood is renewable”

        Not according to my urologist. Time to shop for a new doctor, I guess.

      • SDF-7

        Yup, exactly what I was thinking. Those carbon atoms got bonded into the structure originally, so net-zero carbon.

        Alternate take: So is dung. Either seems acceptable to the Great Reset.

  4. The Late P Brooks

    “There has been a thirst from voters, especially swing voters, young voters, parents, to hear candidates talk about gun violence, and I think Democrats are finally sort of catching up with where the public has been.”

    America yearns for dictatorial nannytarianism. It’s what made this nation great.

    • R C Dean

      “America yearns for dictatorial nannytarianism”

      A depressingly large percentage apparently do.

    • rhywun

      Inorite? It’s crazy how the Dems never talk about “gun violence”.

  5. Pat

    but look at that hair! It’s worthy of an Eastern European dictator.

    It’s like James Trafficant’s rug if it was real.

  6. The Late P Brooks

    Law enforcement officials have long called for stricter gun laws, arguing that the availability of these weapons makes people less safe and makes their jobs more dangerous.

    You don’t say.

  7. R C Dean

    “I bet if I search Amazon, I can find a camo yarmulke so I’ll fit in.“

    I think Yarmulkes.com has a better selection.

  8. juris imprudent

    So we caught a bit of Jeff Dunham’s new bit last night, and one of the dummies is talking about getting catfished by a guy with a van, named OMWC‘s default-world-name. Wife didn’t understand why I found that so funny.

  9. The Late P Brooks

    “It wasn’t that they just wanted to be heard. They wanted to be obeyed,” he added.

    That’s crazy. Don’t they understand I was elected Supreme Nanny? If anybody is going to be obeyed around here, it’s going to be me.

    • SDF-7

      Great… now I’m only going to hear Trudeau as psycho Janeway.

  10. Grosspatzer

    Protection of Triumph? I was expecting Conan O’Brien, not Goulet.

    I saw the 1993 revival of Camelot with my bride-to-be and her parents. Well, I saw half of it since we left at the intermission. Awful, probably would have been entertaining if I had smoked an ounce of weed beforehand.

  11. Old Man With Candy

    Related to the kiddie issue: was listening to NPR in the car last night. The obligatory wall to wall stories about the incessant massacres of transies. Reporter was questioning people (sympathetically, of course) at a rally. There’s a bunch of kids yelling, “I’m trans! I’m trans!” One of them says, “I was born a boy, but I’m a girl now.” Pause. “Is this gonna be on the news?”

    • Grosspatzer

      “was listening to NPR in the car last night”

      Uh-oh.

      • SDF-7

        I was expecting “playing it over the van speakers — it works better than the ice cream music these days”, myself.

      • juris imprudent

        +1 NPR lady in Buffalo

      • Old Man With Candy

        Only FM station I could get, and signal wasn’t good enough for my usual Amazon music stream.

      • Gender Traitor

        I had a similar experience years ago – long before satellite radio or streaming – driving through the mountains of Pennsylvania. Only station my AMC Spirit could pull in was an NPR station playing a program with one version of Bolero after another after another, including one conducted by Lenny B. but recorded very badly (complete with a horn section that was downright honking.) This is why I believe I can say that I have an “educated distaste” for the piece.

    • Pat

      I remember going to the dentist as a kid and getting a small toy for being a good patient while the dentist drilled my teeth. I wonder what trans kids get when they leave the “essential health care” office?

      • SDF-7

        Years of therapy and prescription drug bills?

        Yay!

      • PieInTheSky

        the rapy is bad

      • SDF-7

        STEVE SMITH ACCREDITED THERAPIST.

  12. The Late P Brooks

    Hundreds of activists, among them Greta Thunberg, marched through the Swedish capital to a court Friday to file a lawsuit against the Swedish state for what they say is insufficient climate action.

    More than 600 young people under the age of 26 signed the 87-page document that is the basis for the lawsuit which was filed in the Stockholm District Court. They want the court to determine that the country has violated its citizen’s human rights with its climate policies.

    “Sweden has never treated the climate crisis like a crisis,” said Anton Foley, spokesman of the youth-led initiative Aurora, which prepared and filed the lawsuit. “Sweden is failing in its responsibility and breaking the law.”

    You’d think the Swedes would appreciate a little global warming.

    • juris imprudent

      Well, I can see why they wouldn’t want to extend bug season.

  13. PieInTheSky

    The Best USA 🇺🇸 Grocery Store Coffee

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

    while one should not buy grocery store coffee, James Hoffmann knows his coffee. Tis sad that it was not an American coffee that won.

    • KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

      Well, American coffee is grown on a small island way out in the Pacific, and is pretty hard to find away from said island, and really expensive even when buying it on said island.

      • PieInTheSky

        folgers?

      • KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

        Fairly certain Folgers comes from Central & South America. Maybe a bit from Asia & Africa if they can get it cheap.

      • PieInTheSky

        “American coffee” mean murikan company / brand

      • Pat

        If you include the territories, we’ve got Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines in addition to Hawaii, although IIRC coffee production in Puerto Rico took a dive after the Spaniards saddled us with it.

  14. Shpip

    Under EdChoice, the Ohio Department of Education pays private schools $7,500 per eligible high schooler and $5,500 per eligible elementary student per year, which covers all or part of the private school tuition. The General Assembly has broadened eligibility over the years. Public school districts say that with limited public dollars, the hundreds of millions Ohio has spent on vouchers over the years has not just decreased public school enrollment, but diminished available public funds.

    I’m failing to see the problem here, unless “We have to compete with the private sector for money” is a problem.

    • Nephilium

      It’s local to me, and I’m very entertained by the breakdown on the pro and anti voucher sides. From the article:

      Anti-Voucher:

      These include the Ohio Federation of Teachers, the Ohio Education Association, the Ohio Association of Public School Employees, Ohio Council 8 American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the Ohio School Boards Association, Heights Coalition for Public Education, Disability Rights Ohio, the Ohio Poverty Law Center, the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland, the Buckeye Association of School Administrators and others supporting some or all of the plaintiffs’ arguments.

      Pro-Voucher:

      The Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Initiative and a group of parents sending their children to private schools across Ohio are among groups backing the defendants. The parents are represented in part by the Arlington, Va.-based Institute for Justice

      One thing the story didn’t mention is that most of the school districts (at least up in my neck of the woods) have had declining attendance over the past couple of decades… even in the private schools. The grade school I went to no longer operates as a school, just a church now.

      • juris imprudent

        You expect teacher unions to care about demographics?

      • Nephilium

        Of course not, but the fact that the local news couldn’t even gin up a couple of parents to represent the anti-voucher side should tell even the low-information people something. It just strikes me that on one side you’ve got a bunch of unions and teacher organizations, and on the other you’ve got a group supporting religious liberty, parents, and the Institute for Justice.

      • juris imprudent

        Low-information voter (variant #1): unions good! full stop

      • Pat

        There’s a lot of people who dick ride teachers as well. How anybody could attend school for 12-20 years of their life from childhood through early to mid adulthood and come away with the impression that teachers are some elevated class is fucking beyond me, but nevertheless, they do. I think for a lot of lazier parents it’s extremely important to their own ego to think of the teacher as some kind of an expert so that they can rationalize offloading the responsibility for inculcating their children with a system of ethics and values onto somebody else.

      • Fourscore

        Go back 80 years or so, when many parents were not well educated. Teachers were miracle workers that had been to college and stuff. My cousin had a 2 year degree and taught in several states. I think she was grandmothered in and eventually got a 4 year degree. My parents lacked formal education and were out of their element when involved with even a high school diploma. That was the norm for a lot of people.

      • Ownbestenemy

        That is a great point Fourscore.

    • juris imprudent

      The Ohio Constitution says “common” not “public” schools, so I’d dismiss with extreme prejudice.

  15. The Late P Brooks

    One of them says, “I was born a boy, but I’m a girl now.”

    Oddly enough, I saw a story a week or two ago about the “surprising” disparity between M to F and F to M transitions. Apparently there are a lot more girls who want to be boys than there are boys who want to be girls. I guess it didn’t get much traction.

    I’m just going to blame the patriarchy.

    • Pat

      Freud’s penis envy theory vindicated?

    • rhywun

      Apparently there are a lot more girls who want to be boys than there are boys who want to be girls.

      That is a very recent phenomenon.

      • juris imprudent

        And strangely far more prevalent than ever before – like Alex Jones was almost right or something.

      • Tundra

        Yep. It used to be overwhelmingly M to F.

        Oh, and vanishingly rare, overall.

      • Nephilium

        Interesting. The only two that I’ve known and worked with were both F to M (this would have been back in the early 2010’s). They did both know each other before working at the place though. That’s also keeping a strong difference between transsexuals, transvestites, and drag queens.

    • SDF-7

      “Kim is worried people aren’t paying enough attention to HERRRRRRRR!”

    • juris imprudent

      How exactly is one disgraced as a rapper? I’d think going bougie might do it, but Kanye ain’t that.

      • SDF-7

        Put out a polka album?

        Still wish my son had bought into my whispering over the years that polka is the true music of teenage rebellion….

      • Pat

        Still wish my son had bought into my whispering over the years that polka is the true music of teenage rebellion….

        Can confirm. I had the complete Weird Al discography in my teens.

  16. PieInTheSky

    Local news, it’s boring, but look at that hair! It’s worthy of an Eastern European dictator.

    This content is not available in your country/region. – ironic

    • SDF-7

      Don’t cha think?

  17. Pat

    Daily Quordle 306
    3️⃣4️⃣
    7️⃣5️⃣

    • SDF-7

      Obviously had better seeds for UR than I did. Had to burn a guess to narrow that down.

      Daily Duotrigordle #269
      Guesses: 35/37
      Time: 06:24.73
      https://duotrigordle.com/

      Daily Quordle 306
      3️⃣5️⃣
      7️⃣6️⃣
      quordle.com

    • Grosspatzer

      Seriously, UL?

      Daily Quordle 306
      7️⃣4️⃣
      3️⃣5️⃣
      quordle.com

      • SDF-7

        Probably helps that I watched Wednesday on Netflix over the last couple of days.

        (Summary thoughts: More than a little fomulaic, but watchable. Pretty obvious in the characters who were set up as possible suspects… but the writers obviously knew that (Ep 7 has a visual sequence where they literally say something like “I have all the puzzle pieces but have to determine how they fit” and the camera focused on each suspect in turn”). Major gripe was that the ending was a bit rushed (characters just went along and helped…. because they needed to — none of the inter-personal dynamic was truly settled, imho), and definitely had some X happens because plot demands it! [One character had a season-long issue that resolved itself just when such a resolution was required… with no backup or building as to why that moment finally worked… you can speculate a few things, but it really doesn’t fit].

        Still hold to my “They really really wanted to do a Tim Burton’s Harry Potter”, but I don’t feel like I want those hours of my life back.)

    • Tundra

      Daily Quordle 306
      4️⃣5️⃣
      6️⃣7️⃣

      Finally found the line.

    • rhywun

      I was fully expecting to burn through three or four guesses for UL.

      Daily Quordle 306
      6️⃣5️⃣
      3️⃣4️⃣

    • SDF-7

      Editor’s note: The Megan Fox in question she’s mistaken for lives in Trenton, New Jersey and works at her local Love’s truck stop as an “appointment only entertainment counselor”.

    • Pat

      This may be controversial, but I don’t find Megan Fox all that attractive, and especially not with the 4 pounds of spackle and balloon lips she’s been sporting since… high school, I guess. That aside, the woman in that story looks like a mile of bad road in the before and after pics. Time isn’t doing me any favors lately either, but shit, that’s a harsh 29 years.

    • juris imprudent

      So ‘glow-up’ is tramp down?

    • l0b0t

      I thought they were meant to grow from CHAVs into Pepper-pots, not the other way ’round.

    • Tundra

      Eww.

    • rhywun

      TIL that “glow-up” means “make yourself repellant”.

    • Shpip

      She seems to be doing the Volvo-driving soccer mom thing in reverse.

      The phrase “mutton dressed as lamb” comes to mind.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Megan Fox and Shia LaBeouf were ungracious assholes during the filming of thr first Transformers. On the other hand, Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson paid out the local watering hole in small town Alamogordo and invited anyone from thr base to come enjoy.

      Plus Fox has club thumbs or toes, can’t Remer.

      • Gender Traitor

        THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH CLUB THUMBS!!!

        Unless you’re bowling. Then they’re a definite handicap.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Sorry not Megan Fox but you look like a whore.

  18. PieInTheSky

    I just was at the most disappointing wine festival of the year… barely a dozen things worth tasting. Also I am stating to think australian shiraz is not my thing

  19. KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

    Between the diarrhea, toothache, menstruation, people on true crime shows saying “cowoberate”, and 7:30am weekend work tasks…I don’t even know what I’m fixin to do.

    • Pat

      people on true crime shows saying “cowoberate”

      Are they trying to say “corroborate” or “cooperate”?

      • SDF-7

        Or substituting resonant cows for the usual spherical cows in physics problems?

        I suppose some of the wave dynamics lab exercises could be improved in such a fashion.

        Sorry you’re still miserable, KK. Was hoping things had improved with eggs and toast.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        They are trying to confirm the mootive.

      • Fourscore

        Some people are always trying to horn in

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        Then they steer things in the wrong direction.

    • PieInTheSky

      free bleeding?

    • Count Potato

      Eat bananas and stop watching true crime shows?

      • SDF-7

        But if she switches to romantic comedy movies she’ll have to hear about “Wuv… twue wuv…”

    • KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

      I will say the Glibzooms have been epic, however

      • R.J.

        Dang. I am still on the road. I miss you all.

      • Penguin

        “Fire of Unknown Origin” last night was funny.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Damn, three days of diarrhea and now toothache too?

  20. Count Potato

    “I wrote this piece on Dr. Gallagher for a large publication who later decided not to run it. I know it’s hard to have this conversation, but people need to see the truth about trans surgeries on minors. I made a substack and posted the article here:”

    https://twitter.com/iamGrushenka/status/1595489549878280209

    “Dr. Gallagher: Using TikTok to Advertise Double Mastectomies to Minors”

    https://sashawhite.substack.com/p/dr-gallagher-using-tiktok-to-advertise

  21. The Late P Brooks

    Fuck you, and the activist you rode in on

    On Thursday, Axios published an article it shared on Twitter with headline, “Activists warn lives at risk over Elon Musk’s amnesty plans for suspended Twitter accounts.”

    Musk declared he would reinstate banned accounts after a Wednesday poll revealed that’s what Twitter users wanted. In response to Musk’s declaration, the Axios piece reported, “Activists warn the situation would get much worse if people like former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke were welcomed back following permanent bans for hate speech.”

    The Axios report noted that hate speech has already been rising on the platform since Musk’s purchase, claiming, “Online monitoring groups have reported a rise in racism, anti-Semitism and other hate speech on Twitter since free speech advocate Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of the social media company last month, though the billionaire said Thursday it has declined.”

    The piece also cited activists, including Center for Countering Digital Hate CEO Imran Ahmed, who stated, “Superspreaders of hate, abuse and harassment will be the only people to benefit from this latest decision by Twitter.”

    Mean tweets are more deadly than nerve gas.

    • SDF-7

      “Person who gets paid for seeing racism everywhere continues to see racism everywhere. World is shocked and surprised. News at 11.”

      • Ownbestenemy

        Yep its like the parking enforcement company that our HOA hired and the HOA members wondering why there is an increase of violations all of a sudden.

    • juris imprudent

      Center for Countering Digital Hate

      As I was saying about the immensity of our prosperity, and the parasitic class it supports.

    • EvilSheldon

      What lives, exactly? Maybe they could use a little more risk…

  22. Pat

    Universal flu vaccine could counter future pandemic

    Scientists say they have made a breakthrough designing a vaccine against all 20 known types of flu.

    It uses the same messenger-ribonucleic-acid (mRNA) technology as successful Covid vaccines.

    Flu mutates and the current annual jab is updated to ensure the best match for the sort circulating but would probably not protect against new pandemic types.

    The new vaccine triggered high levels of antibodies, in tests on ferrets and mice, that could fight a broad range.

    The antigens it contains – safe copies of recognisable bits of all 20 known subtypes of influenza A and B viruses – can teach the immune system how to fight them and, hopefully, any new strain that could spark a pandemic, the researchers say, in the journal Science.

    “The idea here is to have a vaccine that will give people a baseline level of immune memory to diverse flu strains,” Dr Scott Hensley, one of the scientists behind the work, at the University of Pennsylvania, said.

    “There will be far less disease and death when the next flu pandemic occurs.”

    Sounds like it’s ready for emergency use authorization and compulsory administration to 320 million Americans without exception.

    • Gender Traitor

      successful Covid vaccines

      For some values of “successful” (i.e. financially)

      • SDF-7

        Those gold plated yachts aren’t going to buy themselves!

    • Count Potato

      “successful Covid vaccines”

      ????

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Science Denier!!!

    • rhywun

      Just Say No.

    • R C Dean

      Without looking, I would guess “Pretty damned awful”.

      • PieInTheSky

        especially when the lord banned camp followers

      • Ownbestenemy

        Be wary of thr fife players, I hear they are the freaky ones

  23. Tundra

    Good morning Old Man!

    Long-ass drive. Glad you’re back safe.

    Does anyone actually understand what the fuck is going on here?

    Pedos got caught doing perverted pedo things. Chaos ensued.

    • Old Man With Candy

      I’m definitely not back yet. Overnighted in Belle Fourche, SD. Next stop will be near your old stompin’ grounds.

      • Tundra

        Roads ok?

        Safe travels. Cell signal should get better, at least.

      • Fourscore

        Fortunately the warm weather has dried out the roads. Give’er Hell, OM, but drive easy.

  24. Stinky Wizzleteats

    “Does anyone actually understand what the fuck is going on here?”
    Not completely sure but it seems to mostly boil down to the fact that many of our uber rich are into some weird fucking shit. Think Caligula enabled by modern technology.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I hate to put it in these terms but that’s some Satanic sick shit. Our society needs to be more judgmental.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Judgmental of sexual perversity?

        HOW DARE YOU!

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        It’s indicative of people completely untethered from any sense of morality and interested only in the basest of gratifications along with the zealous pursuit of power. Some people really do need to feel like God is looking over their shoulder and these artists and their benefactors are some of these people.

  25. Count Potato

    “Nick Fuentes says the details in the Axios story of his meeting with Trump are accurate. Says he told Trump that he was a hero to him, but thinks he has lost his way and that the person who he most agrees with most now saying all right ‘America First’ things is Ron Desantis.”

    https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1596497588555063300

    Poorly written sentence. He never says he told Trump the person who he most agrees with most now is Desantis.

    Anyway, it’s quite plausible Trump didn’t know who Nick Fuentes was. Few people do.

    • Pat

      I had never heard of him until the pant-shitting about him reached national levels and he started showing up in 4chan memes.

      • juris imprudent

        I think the new face of white supremacy would be very disappointing to the old school of white supremacy.

      • Count Potato

        Neither face can grow a decent mustache.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Maybe they were just looking for an excuse to stop pissing away money on advertising to bots

    Asking users to pay for verification is a cornerstone of Musk’s new plan to make Twitter profitable and less financially dependent on advertising revenue. Already, half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers are no longer advertising on the website, according to a new report from the left-leaning think tank Media Matters for America.

    Those 50 advertisers spent almost $2 billion on Twitter ads since 2020 and more than $750 million just in 2022.

    Experts agree. It’ll never work.

  27. The Late P Brooks

    Musk’s latest Twitter thread didn’t mention whether his new plan would deviate from initial plans to charge $7.99 per month for verification.

    But his announcement came in response to a Tweet from former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who criticized Musk for failing to understand that “a corporations’ value lies in their workers — their knowledge, skills and ideas.”

    “Interesting,” Musk responded. “Now pay $8.”

    Say what you will about his ill-gotten gains, it’s good to see somebody who understands the true meaning of “Fuck you money.”

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      He’s got his faults but he’s still head and shoulders above the other bigwigs in the tech sphere.

    • rhywun

      criticized Musk for failing to understand that “a corporations’ value lies in their workers — their knowledge, skills and ideas.”

      I wonder how many corporations former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has run.

      • juris imprudent

        Pfhshaw! Booby is a sinecurist, quarter-mil a year at UC Berserkly. He’s never worked a day of his life in any kind of business.

    • Count Potato

      That’s a video not a gif. Neither are easy to download from Twitter, last time I checked. Maybe Elon will fix that.

  28. The Late P Brooks

    Welcome to the future

    The spots are only accessible to residents of buildings where the apartments will set you back several million, and if you want your car to live there too you’ll need between $300,000 to $595,000 more to score some precious space in the private garage.

    CNBC found two buildings in Manhattan offering spots for sale inside a so-called robo-parking garage.

    The first is located at 121 East 22nd Street near NYC’s Gramercy Park where a 140-unit condo building developed by Toll Brothers
    offers 24 automated parking spots.

    Earlier this month, Lori Alf, a full-time resident of Florida, picked up one of the rare parking spaces for $300,000 when she purchased the building’s priciest unit: a 5-bedroom duplex spanning almost 3,800 square feet.

    She told CNBC the package deal, which totaled $9.45 million, was a gift to her children who are now spending more time in New York.

    Now when Alf or her kids want to park the family’s Porsche Cayenne in the condo’s garage they pull up to a kiosk where the wave of a small radio frequency ID tag unlocks access to a subterranean car lair where no humans are allowed.

    Pressing a button on the kiosk sends a jolt of life into an empty metal pallet one level below. It slides across a track onto a powerful lift that sends the empty pallet up toward ground-level to meet the Alfs who can then carefully position their car on top of it.

    Not as cool as the Jetsons, but we’re getting there.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    Elsewhere:

    While Pham wouldn’t reveal the identities of any past or present clients, she did tell CNBC the automated parking was a major draw for one famous resident, who had a security team examine the parking area prior to moving in.

    The unnamed celebrity’s representatives OK’d the deal in part because the star could enter and exit the garage in total privacy, Pham said.

    “They liked the idea that you didn’t have to engage with a valet or an attendant, or that anyone couldn’t come in right behind you,” she said.

    And during the pandemic, the broker said, residents who wanted to minimize their exposure to Covid-19 loved that they could deposit and retrieve their vehicle without handing over their keys to a valet.

    Sure. And then he can go to the Burger King drive-through on Times Square.

    • rhywun

      It takes a lot of fuck-you money to say you live in Manhattan and you don’t have to see or speak to another person while you’re there.

  30. westernsloper

    The retarded face of evil.

    Epic POS.

    • R.J.

      I bet Pat covers this in his web browser article…

      • Ownbestenemy

        It’s outrageous but also self inflicted. TOS have become insidious and purposefully difficult to understand. Almost like our taxcode itself.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    All your money are belong to us

    he Internal Revenue Service is reminding tax filers to prepare to report transactions of at least $600 that are made through so-called “third-party” facilitators such as Venmo and PayPal.

    The agency on Tuesday posted an explainer warning American business owners earning $600 or more per year on payments that are received through apps such as Zelle, Cash App, Venmo, and PayPal to file a tax form known as Form 1099-K.

    The IRS is interested in transactions involving part-time work, side gigs, and selling goods, according to the agency

    Of course they are. Stealing from the government will not be tolerated.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Since we employ said services I was reading up on what we need to do. I can do differential calculus easier than determining when I will need a 1099-K

    • Count Potato

      “selling goods”

      That part is bullshit. If you sell something you no longer have it, so it shouldn’t be considered income.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Normal day good will just be sold like used cars….on the tax form you document it was for a loss or less than what you actually sold for.

      • Count Potato

        How many people keep receipts for everything they ever bought?

        Not only that, but you already paid taxes on the money you used to buy it in the first place.

        So lets say instead of buying something that I later sell for the same price (no gain or loss) I keep it in cash. How is that any different?

      • Ownbestenemy

        This is why tax preparation companies are salivating at this. It’s going to be so convoluted that audit protection will be a huge upscale on your tax preparation.

      • Count Potato

        Probably. I was making more of a moral argument.

  32. The Late P Brooks

    Before this year, the threshold for filing a Form 1099-K report was at least 200 transactions totaling an aggregate of at least $20,000.

    When Congress passed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, it included a provision that reduced the reporting threshold to a single transaction over $600.

    Now those robber baron billionaires will pay their fair share!

    • westernsloper

      Onlyfans models hit hardest,

  33. westernsloper

    ……..Unabomber cabin.

    Envious. I wish I had been smart enough to go that route 15 years ago.

    • Ownbestenemy

      CIA safe house just not cutting it anymore?

      • westernsloper

        🖕

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Perfect

  34. The Late P Brooks

    on the tax form you document it was for a loss or less than what you actually sold for.

    Is that for each individual transaction?

    I assume it depends on how (if) you are formally structured.

    Let’s say, for the sake of argument, you buy mid century modern furniture and restore it; just a few pieces per year, as what was once a (marginally profitable) hobby. Are you now going to do the deep dive into cost accounting, to keep from having to pay taxes on money which is properly an expense, or are you going to just say fuck it? Or are you going to say, CASH ONLY, until they ban cash?

    • Ownbestenemy

      Yeah if digital transaction you can’t hide the true amount. So cash only.

    • Count Potato

      If the furniture restoration is a loss, the IRS will say it’s a hobby.

      If the furniture restoration is a gain, the IRS will say it’s a business.

  35. Count Potato

    “After the release of #DiedSuddenly, the Health Organizations have been forced to respond.

    Their response?

    It’s not the vaccine that caused your loved one’s death or injury- it’s the people who tried to warn you about the dangers of them.

    Criminal.”

    https://twitter.com/DiedSuddenly_/status/1596231410502737920

    “This brief review will offer data that may demonstrate that misinformation perpetuated by the anti-vaccination movement may be causing more deaths and side effects from any vaccine. A mini review of published literature has been conducted and found that mental stress clearly causes vasoconstriction and arterial constriction of the blood vessels. Therefore, if subjects are panicked, concerned, stressed or scared of the vaccination, their arteries will constrict and become smaller in and around the time of receiving the vaccine. This biological mechanism (the constriction of veins, arteries and vessels under mental stress) is the most likely cause for where there has been blood clots, strokes, heart attacks, dizziness, fainting, blurred vision, loss of smell and taste that may have been experienced shortly after vaccine administration. The extreme mental stress of the patient could most likely be attributed to the fear mongering and scare tactics used by various anti-vaccination groups.”

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36381188/

    I’m no cardiologist, but that sounds like bullshit.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Very similar to stories ran that “poor sleep in youths”, “loud noises” and other nonsensical events were being attributed to it.

  36. Mojeaux

    Regarding the social contagion of FtM “transitioners” amongst teenage girls, this explains a great deal of it. I don’t know wherher I saw that here or on Twitter. “The Death of the Tomboy.”

    There are a whole lot of people out there who can’t STAND the idea of a girl liking being a girl WHILE ALSO liking boy things. Like DIYing and fixing cars? Like playing football in the yard on Thanksgiving Day? Don’t like wearing dresses? Why, why, you MUST be a boy!

    • Count Potato

      I posted it here.

      There is also an “economic contagion” — there is huge money in it.

      • Mojeaux

        Thanks for posting that vid. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot the last year or so.

      • Count Potato

        YW 🙂

  37. Mojeaux

    Hey, everybody. Thanks for your nice comments on my story.

    Straff, to answer your question as if it were asked seriously (because I can’t tell), mentioning that Gene Luke turned Marina’s head is actually a poke at romance genre conventions. Once the couple in the romance has been established, there is no turning of the heroine’s head. The hero is the only one she is interested in and doesn’t even notice other men’s attractiveness. For Marina to acknowledge that another man is handsome, even to herself, is considered a little bit taboo (or, it USED TO BE, in case I am behind the time because I don’t hang out with romance authors and readers anymore because they’re all tediously lefty).

    • juris imprudent

      poke at romance genre conventions

      You wicked non-conformist you!

      • Mojeaux

        Again, serious answer: I don’t do things like that to be mean or show up other authors, nor am I a self-loathing romance author. I’m up front about what I write and fuck you if you don’t like it. But while 20-year-old me appreciated that convention and found it honorable and loyal, 30- to 54-year-old me finds it unrealistic to not notice or to not remark upon it to myself. Likewise, Trey can see Dot’s “a looker” without being interested in her.

  38. The Late P Brooks

    There are a whole lot of people out there who can’t STAND the idea of a girl liking being a girl WHILE ALSO liking boy things. Like DIYing and fixing cars? Like playing football in the yard on Thanksgiving Day? Don’t like wearing dresses? Why, why, you MUST be a boy!

    It’s all so confusing. There is only black. There is only white. No greys. And, for the sake of everloving Zod, NO POLKA-DOTS OR STRIPES!

    • Mojeaux

      Fertilizing the patriarchal and archetypal gender roles since dirt. I thought these were the same people who spouted “Girls can do anything boys can do!” just 20-30 years ago.

      Where are the bra burners? Oh, wait. They’re called TERFs now and cancelled/silenced.

      • Count Potato

        The TERFs never seemed to care one way or the other about FTM. Although I agree, feminists in general (most of whom neither TERF nor cancelled) are oddly quiet about this.

      • Mojeaux

        Oh, I can see that. They more want men out of women’s spaces.

  39. Ted S.

    I’m mildly surprised nobody’s mentioned the death of Irene Cara yet.

    The Oscar goes to the songwriters, which is why she didn’t get one for the theme to Fame even though she sang the song memorably in the movie.

    • Ted S.

      63 is much too young.

      • juris imprudent

        I refuse to pay attention to deaths of people younger than me.

    • Gender Traitor

      The title track was a huge hit, but for my money the movie’s finale was one of the best from all musical movies.

      Ah, the optimism of youth…

      • Ted S.

        Oh I hate that song.

        I was in third grade when the movie came out, and my sister was in ninth grade when the school system had them still in junior high. Their JHS choir sang that awful song in one of their concerts.

        “Out Here On My Own” is probably more Oscar-bait, but they only had Cara sing it on a stage rather than have it be an expression of actually being on her own. That whole year was an extremely strong one for the Best Original Song category.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      So she didn’t get her wish to live forever.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    I thought these were the same people who spouted “Girls can do anything boys can do!” just 20-30 years ago.

    For people who like to bray about what a bunch of intellectually unconventional free thinkers they are, they sure do like rigid classifications.

    • Mojeaux

      I really do think that’s it. Must. Have. Labels. “I’m ____.” Not “I like ____.”

  41. The Late P Brooks

    It takes a lot of fuck-you money to say you live in Manhattan and you don’t have to see or speak to another person while you’re there.

    If you’re that rich and famous, you should travel the streets of New York by palanquin, throwing shiny freshly minted nickels to the adoring throngs.

  42. The Late P Brooks

    It is plainly obvious the Democrats are obsessed with destroying any sort of economic independence or innovation.

    Bidenomics: FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

    • Ted S.

      Bidenomics: Everything for the state, nothing against the state, nothing outside the state.