Sunday Morning More Links From The Road

by | Nov 27, 2022 | Daily Links | 254 comments

Another day on the road. 12 more hours of NPR, the only station I could get in the boonies that wasn’t awful religious radio. Pray for me and the fate of my immortal soul.

Birthdays are here and we mustn’t forget a guy who could count to 100; a guy who looked like the cartoon image of Emmanuel Goldstein; one of my childhood heroes who knew how to pull the strings; King of the breathless non-sequiturs; a great comedic inspiration; a guy who was the prototypical oddball sci fi writer; a guy who did the economic equivalent of the captain of the Titanic (“What iceberg?”); a wonderfully empty-skulled ginger; co-star of a crappy TV show; a guy who inspired one of Spinal Tap’s drummers; the quintessence of pretentious and ignorant bullshit for fun and profit; and easily the hottest world leader of my lifetime.

 

What a shocking accusation.

 

I can now attest to this from first-hand experience.

 

Department of Absolutely Futile Gestures.

 

Did you know that there’s dogs specifically trained to sniff out jizz?

 

Cuing it up for Biden.

 

An actually interesting trademark case. You know which side I’m on.

 

Kulaks and wreckers.

 

How could Old Guy Music get any better than three amazing voices in perfect harmony doing a great song?

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.

254 Comments

  1. Tres Cool

    whaddup doh’

    l’chaim !

  2. Count Potato

    “Pray for me and the fate of my immortal soul.”

    I thought you people didn’t believe in afterlife?

    • SDF-7

      There’s various Old Testament references to: various holy men being bodily assumed into Heaven (one of the sons of Adam, Elijah… did Elisha make it at the end? I forget…), I swear some reference to Abraham keeping an eye on his descendants post-mortem, etc… so obviously some sort of afterlife there.

      Of course — those naughty 1-4th Century AD (or for that matter, King James) transcribers could have completely mucked it up versus the actual scrolls… so what do I know.

      • Pat

        Enoch and Elijah are reported to have never tasted death. Elisha died. The reference to Abraham in heaven is from the New Testament parable of Lazarus and the rich man.

      • Rat on a train

        It’s a mistranslation. They were bodily consumed into heaven. God ate them.

    • Pat

      Ahem.

      Most religious Jews believe in an afterlife of some description, but they believe that it’s a relatively unimportant detail whose description was left out of the Torah because God is more concerned with our behavior now.

      • juris imprudent

        Shows how influential the fucking ancient Greeks were (and still are)!

      • Pat

        The concept most likely long predates the Greeks as well, they’re just the first culture stable enough and with a written language to have recorded it. Even if there is no afterlife or God, it would be sensible for the first beings cognizant of their own mortality to create one as a coping mechanism.

      • juris imprudent

        It’s kinda funny, but aside from the Hindus, no one seems concerned with where we come from near as much as where we end up.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Yep, I still pray to Zeus every evening and so far I haven’t been struck by lightening even once.

      • SDF-7

        That’s because I invested in a Zeus-repellant rock that is supposed to cover this hemisphere a while back.

        No raping swans coming after my wife, you randy bastard!

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        But has he raped you yet?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        It’d be an honor, this is the King of the Gods we’re talking about here.

      • SDF-7

        STEVE SMITH ANOINTED ACOLYTE. BE HAPPY TO FILL IN.

        …. AND BY FILL IN, MEAN…

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Oh no, I’m not falling for that again.

      • juris imprudent

        Christianity is as much Greco as it is Judeo based.

      • Pat

        Only really by way of the Hellenized Paul. Without the Jewish Messianism Christianity would be utterly incoherent.

      • juris imprudent

        Messianism, borrowed from Zoroastrianism as I recall.

      • Pat

        Difficult to say with any degree of certainty, as the dates for the establishment of both Zoroastrianism and Judaism are disputed. They are likely close enough in age that the borrowing, if there was any, could have gone either direction.

      • juris imprudent

        Well, assuming the Babylonian captivity, it tends to put Judaism in the borrower position, but fair enough – it can’t be said with certainty.

      • Pat

        There’s elements of Messianism in pre-exile Judaism though. The problem is there’s no firm consensus on the origin Zoroastrianism. If the earliest estimates are correct, then Zoroastrian Messianism may have predated the Jewish prophets by as much as 500 years. But if the latest estimates are correct and Zoroastrianism dates to the 6th century, then it’s contemporaneous with exile Judaism, and the earlier Jewish pre-exile Messianic prophecies would more likely be an original contribution.

    • Chai Girl

      I do

  3. SDF-7

    My music library is around 132Gb (with, granted probably duplicates in there). That fits in my phone – as do various podcasts. As such, I haven’t listened to the radio in years. Just putting it out there…. and good morning, glad your return road trip is going well, OMWC.

    • Gender Traitor

      I scared up a memory card (SD and microSD) reader with a USB-C connector so I can plug it into my phone. Makes all my music portable without filling up my phone.

      • SDF-7

        That sort of useful stuff is deemed unfashionable or something by Apple. 😉 [Yeah yeah… they’re not great, but while I like Linux – Android is firmly in the “Google wants all your data” camp for me… so sticking with iphone for now]. The price delta for one with sufficient internal storage isn’t too bad these days, especially since I prefer the older small form factors and get the SE/SE2 style when they deign to put one out (far enough between that it is an upgrade for function / battery life anyway).

      • Pat

        Get a Motorola handset with microSD slot and install Lineage ya lazy git.

      • SDF-7

        You aren’t my supervisor! ;P

      • Gender Traitor

        Curious – why Moto? Only brand with a microSD slot or only one compatible with Lineage (which, I presume, gets you at least a little further out of Google’s reach?)

      • Pat

        Moto just generally tends to have very good support for third-party Android OS images like Lineage OS, since they typically release their device drivers and kernel publicly, and almost all of their models still have microSD slots whereas most other manufacturers, including most of those with decent third party ROM support, phased them out long ago. Lineage OS is based on the Android Open Source Project, and by default has no Google services. If you want to be bored into a stupor by some curmudgeonly privacy schizo, here is a relevant article.

      • Gender Traitor

        Thanks! 🙂

    • Old Man With Candy

      When I’m not in the boonies, I can (and do) stream Amazon HD. Problem is when I’m in data hell.

      With the advent of streaming, my actual music buying slowed to a bare trickle. Much like Grosspatzer’s urine stream.

  4. Count Potato

    “Did you know that there’s dogs specifically trained to sniff out jizz?”

    But why?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Rule 34

    • Annoyed Nomad

      So the big guy could track down his son when needed.

  5. Scruffy Nerfherder

    “ Woe to those students who have immersed themselves wholly in quantum mechanics or classical literature out of the love of the field and of knowledge. Without a track record in promoting diversity, as well as a philosophy of diversity, those people are doomed.”

    Used to be that we accepted the asshole personalities of genius professors as part of the cost of having them around. Now they’re screening for a different type of asshole and promoting them almost solely on that qualification.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Meritocracy is so last century.

    • SDF-7

      Just insane that the professors let the idiot asshole HR type administrators take over — but I expect like most things, the people trying to get actual work done don’t want to waste time on paperwork, HR and managing others… leaving it for these assholes to take control of hiring… then the departments… and then it was all downhill.

      Love to see the serious professors say “Screw this crap” and found actual universities — but a) They’d never be accredited so they couldn’t get students and b) I’m sure they need the endowments / funding of the established ones to do their research, so they just grin and bear it.

      Maddening.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        The only way this ends is through a currency collapse. Reality has to assert itself again.

      • Fourscore

        You can’t outrun the long arm of the law (of economics). Inflation is only a symptom.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Banks wouldn’t do business with them either. We’re entering a very stupid age.

      • Old Man With Candy

        The profs absolutely are on board with this. Not surprising, they have to have convincing DEI shit to even get into grad school or undergrad at more elite institutions.

        The filters work. And the faculty is woke.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Once people sell their beliefs out there’s a certain amount of unconscious justification and buy in that goes along it and they eventually believe even if they didn’t start out that way. It worked for the Norks and it still works now.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        We are the Remnant.

      • Grosspatzer

        The filters work. And the faculty is woke.

        And yet, there you are. Who wrote your DEI essay?

      • Old Man With Candy

        One of the advantages of not actually being faculty (my official title is “Temp Research Chemist”) is that I can avoid that shit.

      • Not Adahn

        “Temp Research Chemist”

        Yeah, research chemists often have limited lifespans.

      • slumbrew

        We’ll see who’s laughing when he starts making blue super-meth.

      • Not Adahn

        What was the lifespan of chemists on that show again?

      • Penguin

        Eh, I can’t see Old Man hiring someone as dumb as Jesse.

      • Not Adahn

        Wasn’t Jesse the only one who survived the series?

      • Penguin

        Yes, but only because of Walt’s actions.

        And to be fair, Jesse gained wisdom as the show went on.

      • juris imprudent

        Is academia like govt when it comes to be ‘temporary’?

      • Zwak, who taser's the chimp with the razor.

        For a good chunk of people in the university environment, it is as pro forma as joining the communist party; just one more box to tick on the way up the ladder. For the others, it is the whole point of the show.

        It has very little to do with HR, who simply enforce the will of the deans.

      • juris imprudent

        enforce the will of the deansinmates

        The deans are just grossly overpaid intermediaries.

    • rhywun

      I wonder if professors swap “diversity statements” over beers at lunch and laugh at the whole charade, or if the schools have successfully achieved the environment of fear and mistrust that they’re aiming for.

      • SDF-7

        A decade or so back, I would have said the former — but after all the “Whiny asshole student gets prof fired for stating reality” stories over the last few years, I have to currently bank on the latter.

        They’ve brainwashed the kids into lunatics and set them in charge of the asylums formerly known as universities.

    • Ted S.

      Used to be that we accepted the asshole personalities of genius professors as part of the cost of having them around.

      You’re not saying that’s why we have OMWC around, are you?

      /sarcasm

  6. Ted S.

    King of the breathless non-sequiturs;

    Happy birthday Thomas Friedman!

  7. SDF-7

    a guy who was the prototypical oddball sci fi writer

    — I was guessing Poe, though I didn’t think it was his birthday. Detective novel, proto-sci-fi…. for a nut with a penchant for first cousins, he did break new ground.

  8. Drake

    Sirius / XM is free this week. I’m on the road and it’s much better than searching for new stations every hour. Still not paying for it when the free period ends.

    • Sean

      It was free for a couple months when I first got my GTI, the audio quality sucked.

      • DrOtto

        Funny you mention this, my wife drives an Audi (another VW product) and the sound quality is very muddied, but in my lowly Chevrolet, it sounds great. I’m convinced it’s the receiver the German manufacturer uses.

    • DrOtto

      I should have read through these better before posting this info 2 hours later further down the line. Fun fact, I have a mess of SiriusXM stock I picked up on the cheap during the great recession/carmageddon, so I tune non-subscriber customer cars to SiriusXM when I work on them during these periods. The first hit is free!

  9. The Late P Brooks

    A diversity statement alone is unlikely to get you an interview or a job offer, but a well-written diversity statement may enable you to stand out among a large pool of qualified candidates.

    You’ll never enter the priesthood if you don’t master the catechism.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      👆👆👆

      You must signal your adherence to the faith even if the tenets of it change on a daily basis.

  10. Ted S.

    An actually interesting trademark case. You know which side I’m on.

    I note the article doesn’t include a picture of the chew toy.

    It also includes this bit of BS:

    The satirical site, The Onion, has filed a brilliant parody brief to support the right to parody. The Onion regularly publishes funny fake news stories

    • SDF-7

      Citation needed.

    • Rat on a train

      SNL also used to be funny.

  11. Count Potato

    “But the Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded, finding it to be expressive speech protected by the First Amendment.”

    The headline should be, “Holy Fuck, The Ninth Circuit Got Something Right”.

  12. juris imprudent

    King of the breathless non-sequiturs

    Greatest basketball announcer ever – you saw the game the way he described it.

    • Old Man With Candy

      I was never that brain damaged. Wife 1 and I used to see Lakers game regularly (she had been a basketball player for a major college team), and when Hearn was announcing, she would ask over and over, “What the fuck is that guy talking about?”

      • juris imprudent

        Really? You listened to a radio while you were at the game? I get that was always kind of an LA thing to do – like listening to Scully while you were at Chavez ravine.

  13. juris imprudent

    So it appears the Pac-12 used the Alaska RCV method of deciding which 7-2 conference record team to put into the championship game against USC. Yeah, I read the tie-breaking rules – they are so stupid that I can now justify USC and UCLA exiting the conference.

    • Drake

      The problems they’ve had scheduling quality non-conference opponents probably has more to do with. The horrible Pac12 refs won’t be missed either.

      • juris imprudent

        They ignore head to head and have some convoluted common-conference-opponent thing. I guess the ASU loss was the real killer. Maybe deservedly so.

  14. Fourscore

    There are those that say you can never go home but I think OMWC will prove that to be a falsehood.

    “I may be slow but I’m ahead of you” bumper sticker.

    Give us a sign when you pull into your driveway, OM

  15. Pat

    easily the hottest world leader of my lifetime.

    Sanna Marin is a contender, if you consider Finland a country.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I prefer to refer to it as The Wayward Oblast of Western Karelia but, yes, cute.

  16. rhywun

    Protests spread across China as anger mounts over ‘COVID-zero’ policy

    I knew all the new camps they’re building would come in handy.

    • SDF-7

      So did they, I expect.

    • DrOtto

      Dissidents, Covid patients, it’s all the same.

  17. The Late P Brooks

    Are there “right wing” universities which still emphasize the principles of western culture and objective reality in an attempt to cater to a market niche?

    Haha, of course not. Because federal money. And Title IX. And the Dept of Education. And so on. It’s kind of a shame, really.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Hillsdale, Grove City, Liberty, and a few others

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Liberty University, BYU, Bob Jones University, and I’m sure there are plenty of others. Rare comparatively but they do exist.

    • Fourscore

      Looks like another trip to the boat landing…

  18. Rebel Scum

    A top European official reportedly blasted President Joe Biden and his response to the Russia-Ukraine War, saying that the U.S. has “profited the most” from the war

    Not the US but the political class and anyone connected to it.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      As if European government officials can differentiate between the two or even care about the welfare of the common folk. They hate their own populace, let alone the US’s. This is a battle of the elites and we’re just ants trying to not get stomped on.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    I wonder if professors swap “diversity statements” over beers at lunch and laugh at the whole charade, or if the schools have successfully achieved the environment of fear and mistrust that they’re aiming for.

    I’d like to think they joke about it with the undergrad students they’re canoodling after hours.

  20. SDF-7

    ‘Orning ‘ordles: I think my best Early round yet — no misses and down below 4:30 time wise. Didn’t break the 4 minute mark… so still a pathetic also-ran comparatively… but for me, that was good. So I’m happy.

    Main event wasn’t fantastic — but didn’t suck too bad either. I’ll take it.

    Daily Duotrigordle #270
    Guesses: 34/37
    Time: 04:24.57
    https://duotrigordle.com/

    Daily Quordle 307
    7️⃣6️⃣
    8️⃣3️⃣
    quordle.com

    • Pat

      Daily Quordle 307
      7️⃣3️⃣
      6️⃣5️⃣

      Meh

    • rhywun

      Good as it gets for me.

      Daily Quordle 307
      5️⃣4️⃣
      6️⃣3️⃣

    • Grosspatzer

      Bah.
      Daily Quordle 307
      7️⃣6️⃣
      8️⃣4️⃣
      quordle.com

    • Penguin

      About how I usually do.

      Daily Quordle 307
      8️⃣7️⃣
      6️⃣3️⃣
      quordle.com

    • Tundra

      Daily Quordle 307
      6️⃣7️⃣
      4️⃣5️⃣

      Towing the lion.

    • The Hyperbole

      under 4:30 is damn impressive with 34 guesses. The only way I get under 4 is to use four seed words, I never finish under 36 guesses.

  21. Rebel Scum

    Khamenei’s words come days after United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Chief Volker Turk warned Iran is in a “full-fledged human rights crisis”

    Just recently though…

  22. Pat

    Balenciaga and the rise of paedo chic

    Paedo chic is one of the most worrying trends of our time. We seem to be witnessing a surge in the paedophilic sensibility. No, this is not to say that anyone at Balenciaga is a paedophile, or that a parent is a child abuser if he lets his kid hang out with braless ‘transwomen’ at those bacchanalian orgies of self-regard mixed with self-pity that Pride gatherings have become. But it does feel like the paedophilic imagination, the view of children either as sexual beings or as fit for being exposed to sexual beings, is having a resurgence. And we need to talk about that.

    We’ve seen the rise of child drag queens. They ‘saunter’, they ‘slay the runway’, they look ‘fierce’, say mainstream media outlets about these young children who adopt the exaggerated sass of adult drag performers. We’ve seen kids attending not only Drag Queen Story Hour events, which are odd but not the end of the world, but also blatantly sexual drag performances. And who can forget the Family Sex Show – three words that really do not belong together – that was due to take place in Norwich earlier this year? It was about sex, featured full-frontal nudity, and was aimed at kids as young as five. Its website encouraged children to google masturbating animals so that they might see how natural it is to have a wank. Online searches for sexual images of beasts? What could go wrong?

    You don’t have to be Mary Whitehouse to find this disturbing. To be worried that pop, always loved by the young, has been pornified, with kids singing along to lyrics like ‘chains and whips excite me’ (thanks, Rihanna) or to the dreaded ‘WAP’. To be worried that so many American schoolteachers seem hellbent on teaching their charges that there are a hundred genders and you can be any one of them you want. To be worried by reports about a male Canadian schoolteacher wearing Size Z fake boobs while teaching teenagers or that some sex-ed books in schools contain info about orgies and sex apps. It’s okay to say this isn’t normal. Even – brace yourselves, moral relativists – that it’s bad.

    There seems to have been an erasure of the boundary between adults and children, meaning kids are increasingly dragged – no pun intended – into worlds that were once for grown-ups. The consequences can be sinister. Consider the trans youth charity Mermaids. Not only has it published images featuring young children in sexualised make-up and clothing sitting on beds with drag queens. It also had a trustee who once gave a speech at a conference for ‘minor-attracted persons’ (ie, paedos) and who wrote of a 12-year-old boy dancing, that he was ‘mimic[king] sex acts, repeating the easily citational gestations of pelvic thrusts’. Another of its members of staff, a man, posed as a schoolgirl in explicit photos. Again, this isn’t normal.

    Highlighted portion is also a problem in libertarian circles, without reference to this issue in particular (although there are a lot of pedo apologists in libertarian ranks). It’s why I generally shun the label anymore. It’s well and good to theorize that social institutions will handle such things through shunning and other forms of social coercion, but practically unenforceable within the framework of an atomized individualist morality. Yes, you can start your own enclaves like the Amish. But so can the sort of people who like to fuck children.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Kid banging is by definition an exercise of coercive power over another individual and those who engage in such could absolutely be handled without government intervention in a libertarian society. It wouldn’t be pretty though.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      “And we need to talk about it.”

      Okay. Those who act on their pedo impulses get put down.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Bingo, it’s just that simple

    • rhywun

      Drag Queen Story Hour events, which are odd but not the end of the world

      Educate thyself. (Register-walled but my browser’s Reader functionality gets past it)

      TL;DR – the organizers are radical Marxists who want to “deconstruct” your family.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        This. They’re publicly lying about their motives.

      • rhywun

        See: BLM.

        Funny how this phenomenon echoes and echoes.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        If someone’s the type to bring their kid to a drag show their family has been deconstructed already. Forwarding the idea that those shows can exist within a sexually neutral context is foolish at best and potentially suspect. They’re sexualized by their very nature which is fine for consenting adults but but is not fine for kids.

      • rhywun

        I’ve gotta wonder what RuPaul thinks of all this.

        That show was dumb fun for a couple years, but I stopped watching a decade or so ago. The recent politics of it seems like something they couldn’t avoid addressing in some fashion.

  23. westernsloper

    More than 14,000 people, including children, have been arrested……

    Damn.

    • Penguin

      Yeah, they know how to tyrant.

  24. Count Potato

    “Trump brands Kanye West a ‘seriously troubled man who just happens to be black’ – after coming under fire for dining with the embattled rapper and white nationalist Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11473819/Donald-Trump-calls-Kanye-West-seriously-troubled-man-rant-Mar-Lago-meeting-Fuentes.html

    “Healthy young child gets a radio, gets pumped with massive shot of hip hop, doesn’t feel good and changes – BLACK. Many such cases!”

  25. The Late P Brooks

    Shocking

    In a way, it is hard to explain just how shocking it is to hear a crowd in Shanghai calling for China’s leader Xi Jinping to resign.

    It is extremely dangerous here to publicly criticise the Communist Party’s general secretary. You risk being put in prison.

    And yet there they were on the Shanghai street (Wulumuqi Lu) which carries the name of the Xinjiang city where a fire had killed 10 residents, and zero-Covid restrictions were blamed for hampering the rescue effort.

    One protester calls out: “Xi Jinping!”

    And hundreds reply: “Step down!”

    Again and again: “Xi Jinping! Step down! Xi Jinping! Step down!”

    The chant also went out: “Communist Party! Step down! Communist Party! Step down!”

    For a political organisation with no greater priority than remaining in power, this is as big a challenge as they come.

    The government appears to have drastically underestimated growing discontent towards the zero-Covid approach – a policy inextricably linked to Mr Xi, who recently pledged there would be no swerving from the policy.

    Bring on the hatchet gangs.

    • Drake

      “It is extremely dangerous here to publicly criticise the Communist Party’s general secretary. You risk being put in prison.”

      Something we have in common with the Chinese.

    • SDF-7

      I’m sure the Twink of the North is frantically rubbing one out imagining what his ideological masters are going to do to suppress this.

      Meanwhile PPP is doubtless planning on how to defend Trenton from the rebel’s upcoming Christmas raid with their dastardly muskets it is just sick that they have.

    • Pat

      Who Is John Galt Tank Man?

    • Grosspatzer

      Time to mobilize the troops, nothing brings people together like a good old-fashioned war.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Stay tuned for her new book “How to Draw Rageclicks and Become a Multimillionaire.”

      • juris imprudent

        Followed by her smash best seller – Those Patriarchal Bastards: How the Washington Post Abused Me!

      • Pat

        Apropos of absolutely nothing, your avatar on this relatively small screen keeps reminding me of the cover art for Battles’ La Di Da Di

    • SDF-7

      Please seal her in a bubble so she can live her completely isolated life. With no internet access so the rest of us don’t have to put up with her blather, of course.

      • Count Potato

        She keeps the thermostat in her home at 90°F.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        For the love of GOD, Montresor!

    • rhywun

      I wonder if China would take her in – she’d fit right in.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Sometimes I think authoritarianism (and acceptance thereof) is hardwired in the human psyche. Pack animals yearn for a strong leader.

    • Mojeaux

      Far more succinct way of saying what I tried to say yesterday, only with a lot more words. /Yogi Berra

  27. The Late P Brooks

    Global force for good

    The Treasury Department granted permission Saturday for oil giant Chevron to produce and export oil from Venezuela following the South American country’s decision to restart talks with opposition groups.

    The move could add supply to the global oil market, which may ease fuel prices and speed the declines in U.S. gasoline prices that have been a political burden for President Joe Biden since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

    But a senior administration official said the easing of sanctions was not driven by the oil market pressures and was instead a response the Venezuelan regime’s decision this week to participate in the negotiations with opposition groups. Those talks, which were originally launched in Mexico City in September 2021, are expected to focus on humanitarian programs and setting future elections.

    “This action is not being taken in response to energy prices, this is a limited license. As we have said in the past, this is about the regime taking the steps needed to support the restoration of democracy in Venezuela,” the official said.

    The oil supplies affected under the new license would have likely have gotten to customers via the black market, the official said.

    The decision to allow Chevron to resume shipments from the South American nation comes ahead of a Dec. 5 deadline for tightened sanctions on Russia that could roil the world’s oil markets. The G-7 and European Union are moving to restrict Russian petroleum exports and impose a price cap on petroleum sales.

    Just as long as the wrong people don’t profit from it.

  28. Semi-Spartan Dad

    Quick update on the predator happenings, I’ve had multiple neighbors report a bear near my property over the past few days. Still could be a bobcat though, or less likely, a mountain lion. The cougars around here prefer their targets just a bit older. I settled on the Sightmark Wraith night scope. Should be here this week along with a bipod so I can settle in comfortably and wait. I’m thinking a well placed .308 will put down whatever is killing my animals, just need to find it.

    • Grosspatzer

      Happy hunting, varmints need killing. But I don’t understand this:

      The cougars around here prefer their targets just a bit older.

      I thought cougars preferred young men.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I’d match the buck to about 12 years old in human years. Not quite ready for breeding, but I have a suspicion he still died trying to protect his doelings before the dogs got there.

    • westernsloper

      What has been snacked on by said predator?

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        A juvenile buck had his neck snapped and was dragged over to the fence line. A few superficial wounds in addition, but he was killed from the broken neck. A few days before that, a 35lb pig was dragged to over the fence line and found there still alive. She seemed like she was going to survive but must have had internal injuries and died the next day.

        I have two 7-month Great Pyrenees on guard in the yard. They are chasing the predator off afterwards, but it’s striking fast enough to make the initial attack before the dogs can get there. Both attacks have happened in the early morning between 4-6am.

      • Not Adahn

        Do bobcats go after prey as big as they are?

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I don’t know much about predators of this size. I’ve had a decade of losing poultry to owls, hawks, and foxes, but this is the first time we’ve come up against something like this.

        The inner yard, where the kills are happening, has a strong fence with no large gaps that keeps out coyotes and stray dogs, so the predator is going over the fence. We briefly considered it might be the GPs themselves, but there’s stress on the fence that shows force on it coming from the outside.

      • westernsloper

        Sounds like a cat. If the Pyrenees haven’t got it holy moly that thing is fast,

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Very fast and strong.

      • SDF-7

        Getting flashbacks to this book. Be glad it isn’t a Grendel.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    Quick update on the predator happenings, I’ve had multiple neighbors report a bear near my property over the past few days.

    It’s awfully late in the year for bears to be out and about, isn’t it?

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      It is, but it’s also been unseasonably warm here lately. And I’m surprised a black bear would risk a pack of large dogs to snatch and grab livestock. Maybe both make sense though if it hasn’t gotten enough to eat for the winter.

      • Fourscore

        Put out those game cams

  30. westernsloper

    Listening to the latest Part of the Problem and they are playing clips of Hill dog clinton on John Stewarts podcast. I almost forgot what an utter horrible warmongering POS she is.

    • Tundra

      That was something, wasn’t it? Stewart actually asked a decent question or two but Hildog’s answers were insane. He was probably afraid to go back at her and call bullshit.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    Venezuela sits on some of the biggest oil reserves in the world, but mismanagement of the oil sector by the government and sanctions imposed by the U.S. has sharply cut its exports.

    ——-

    Chevron, which has maintained a presence in Venezuela during the sanctions imposed by the U.S., said it had received the permit.

    “We are determined to remain a constructive presence in the country and to continue supporting social investment programs aimed at providing humanitarian relief,” Ray Fohr, a Chevron spokespereson said in a statement.

    Social investment. And a little something for the Big Guy.

    • EvilSheldon

      He was really being nice with that “Interesting.”

    • slumbrew

      Maybe Wikipedia isn’t up to date, but I don’t see the list of successful businesses Reich has run.

      • UnCivilServant

        I don’t think he’s done anything of value. Ignore him.

    • Zwak, who taser's the chimp with the razor.

      How the fuck did RR even get a doctorate? That shit stain is too stupid to even put pants on.

      • UnCivilServant

        Parrotting what the academians wanted to hear, I suppose.

    • Pat

      Honestly just sounds like every generic adult contempo station nowadays. That could be a Chainsmokers hit without much lyrical tweaking. The democratization of high-quality recording technology has been abysmal for the music industry.

      • Gender Traitor

        …and great for independent musicians. 😉

      • Pat

        Yes and no, I’d say. On the one hand, it’s nice for talented artists to be able to put out something with production values rivaling a major studio with only a few thousand dollars worth of equipment in their basement. It makes it easier to attract an audience and put your best foot forward. On the other hand, without those technological limitations everything ends up sounding exactly the same since every garage band and bedroom pop star can put together top 40 pablum effortlessly. Some of my favorite albums from my favorite bands would hold no charm to me if they were recorded today, because the character that made them unique, special and obviously independently produced would be obliterated in a sea of pitch correction, grid-aligned drum loops, effects libraries, overdubs, and the rest of the homogeneity wrought by industry magic.

      • Gender Traitor

        If there’s a market for a “lower-tech” sound, I’m sure someone will fill it. Doesn’t Bob Pollard/GBV deliberately keep stuff kinda rough?

      • Pat

        If there’s a market for a “lower-tech” sound, I’m sure someone will fill it.

        There is one, but it’s a bit niche, and ironically, because the crappy old lofi equipment that accompanied the DIY movement has mostly aged out of circulation, you have to either pay a fortune to build a vintage studio or… replicate it in software. Most modern “lofi” recordings are done with VST plugins. So you’re basically taking pristine recordings made with modern digital equipment and telling the software “Hey, compare this to the sonic characteristics of that vintage [4 track/preamp/amp/pedal/reverb chamber/etc] and make it sound like that.” You end up with the hyper-irony of homogeneous-sounding approximations of noisy old equipment. There are exceptions though – especially with older DIY ethos groups like GBV that you mentioned.

      • Zwak, who taser's the chimp with the razor.

        Lo-fi was a big thing back in the ’90s. Cake, Pavement, Elliot Smith, Sebedoh, the list goes on.

        Plus, there are a ton of crappy bands with good production. The Beatles, for instance.

      • Tundra

        Yes. They dabbled briefly with a more polished, layered sound but quickly went back to the proper lo-fi goodness.

        One of my faves evah.

      • Not Adahn

        You’re not wrong.

        When I was in Alabammy, driving from the hotel to CMP there was a Christina station, but it played music from the 19th and early 20th centuries. I foud it fascinating.

  32. Not Adahn

    Should I get black-bagged/Seth Rich’d/suffer a tragic hunting accident, OMWC needs to pony up and outbid y’all for Lily.

    She is apparently catnip for underaged girls.

  33. PieInTheSky

    A new wine themed restaurant opened near my house. My bet is “won’t survive the winter”

    I am curious how many specialty coffee shops do. You can hardly throw a brick without hitting one (though randomly chucking bricks is ill advised in a busy city anyways )

    • EvilSheldon

      Coffee and bakery have ridiculous markups.

      • PieInTheSky

        yes. they still need to sell… one recently started told me they do 30 coffees on a good day but they hope it ;picks up. 30 a day dont cut it

      • Not Adahn

        They should get a side gig in laundering money.

      • PieInTheSky

        another guy with a coffee shop near me where the coffee business is slow guy has a side gig teaching self defense and situational awareness classes to 5 to7 year olds he has a a largish room in the back of the coffee shop for the purpose

      • Not Adahn

        I’m assuming those are metric ages.

      • PieInTheSky

        yes. about 20 years to diabetus in American

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Pie, are periods (/full stops) very expensive where you are?

      • UnCivilServant

        They’re not that expensive, but can only be sold as Periods if they’re made in Per Iod, France

      • Zwak, who taser's the chimp with the razor.

        Or doing laundry. For money.

  34. Not Adahn

    Wednesday is the kind of show that will become a lifetime obsession for a certain type of girl. Tim Burton has either normied out with age or is consciously toning things down. Glammed-up Brienne of Tarth is fun to watch. Some subtle humor. “Paint it Black” is the new “Gimme Shelter.” Metallica will be the new Rolling Stones.

    • SDF-7

      See yesterday morning’s links for my thoughts (Or don’t. I’m no one’s supervisor either).

      • Not Adahn

        I haven’t finished it yet.

        I did find the attempt to break the Mary Sue trope admirable yet cringy, by making it so that the only time she loses a confrontation, it’s to a teenaged girl.

    • Count Potato

      Luis Guzman doesn’t work as Gomez.

      • Not Adahn

        Eh, he works as the comics version of the character.

      • Count Potato

        Comics version?

      • Gender Traitor

        Maybe the original Charles Addams New Yorker cartoons?

      • Count Potato

        OK

    • Zwak, who taser's the chimp with the razor.

      Metallica has been the new Rolling Stones since Ride The Lightning.

      But Gimme Shelter is probably the best late ’60s song.

  35. The Late P Brooks

    Another day in Paradise

    The suspect hijacked the bus at approximately 7:53 p.m. on Cortland Avenue and Mission Street, the San Francisco Police Department told SFGATE. The suspect assaulted the bus driver in order to steal the bus, then drove it roughly 1.5 miles to 19th Street and Guerrero Street, hitting multiple vehicles in the process. There were no passengers on the bus, SFPD said.

    Officers then arrived at the scene and took the suspect into custody. An ambulance was called for the bus driver and another driver, both of whom suffered “non life-threatening” injuries, SFPD said.

    Maybe he had some place he needed to be.

  36. The Late P Brooks

    Wednesday is the kind of show that will become a lifetime obsession for a certain type of girl. Tim Burton has either normied out with age or is consciously toning things down. Glammed-up Brienne of Tarth is fun to watch. Some subtle humor. “Paint it Black” is the new “Gimme Shelter.” Metallica will be the new Rolling Stones.

    My code book seems to be out of date.

    • westernsloper

      Ya me too. WTF speak english dood.

      • Not Adahn

        A brief review of the Netflix show Wednesday.

        Wednesday is the kind of show that will become a lifetime obsession for a certain type of girl.* It is directed by Tim Burton, but for those who either love or hate is style, it’s much less pronounced than in his earlier work. It features an entertaining performance by Gwendoline Christie, who shows off her range by contrasting with her famous role in Game of Thrones. Fans of the TV show will appreciate the references. The soundtrack falls prey to unfortunate lazy tropes.

      • westernsloper

        Aaah, got it.

      • Not Adahn

        It is kind of fascinating how the Rolling Stones managed to write the two most overplayed in soundtracks songs ever.

      • Penguin

        Depends if you count Vietnam War movies. If so, you have to replace one of those with Fortunate Son by CCR.

      • Count Potato

        Is Gimme Shelter in that many soundtracks? Can’t think of any.

      • Not Adahn

        And that left out Sons of Anarchy.

      • Gender Traitor

        I’d consult our resident classic cinema buffs to check that against an instrumental-only La Vie En Rose over every establishing shot of every film ever set in Paris.

      • R.J.

        I really tried to get into it. My usual complaint: It looks great but lacks firm substance. When I sat down to watch it I just did not feel connected. Of course this is coming from the guy who watches B and C movies, so take that with a train of salt.

  37. Ted S.

    The World Cup is getting interesting.

    Go Croatia and knock Canada out of the tournament.

    • SDF-7

      I suppose any uptick is an increase from the x-intercept and all.

    • rhywun

      It seems unfair that Belgium will almost certainly advance.

  38. The Late P Brooks

    What you need to know

    After pressure from activist groups, the Biden administration announced on Tuesday they would be extending the pause of student loan payments into next year.

    The pause, which was set to expire on Dec. 31, was extended up to June 30, with Biden saying the extension allows the Supreme Court time to hear the case in its current term.

    The payment pause will end “no later than June 30, 2023,” Biden said, because payments will resume 60 days after the Education Department is permitted to implement the program or the litigation is resolved, which should come before the end of June, when the Supreme Court term typically concludes.

    The announcement comes after the administration fell under pressure from student loan advocacy groups, which argued borrowers should not have to pay monthly student loans bills until the courts reach a decision on the legality of student debt forgiveness.

    The pause on student loan payments began at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic under former President Trump to give relief to struggling Americans. It has been extended under the Trump and Biden administrations at least six times.

    With the legal barricades that have popped up against the debt relief program, Biden said he is “never going to apologize for helping working class and middle class families.”

    At this point, there is absolutely no reason for anyone to believe this house of cards can survive. Payments more likely than not will never be re-started. How can they be?

    What happens next? Who the fuck knows?

    • SDF-7

      We enter hyper-inflation and the whiners pay off their student loans with the change from their Starbucks latte before the inevitable revolution.

      • Fourscore

        I laugh, quietly and to myself, waiting for the Republican House to ride in and solve the problem. Cutting spending is hilarious but a really bad joke on the public. Old people, military, gov retirees have been promised a pay raise commensurate with inflation. The deficit spending will go on, inflation will go on, unemployment will increase and with it the War of Stupidity will demand more green paper.

    • rhywun

      College is effectively “free” and your taxes are massively hiked to pay for it.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Britain had “free” university fees once; what happened to that? Blair might know.

      • rhywun

        Other countries like Germany work it with meritocracy.

        Imagine the US trying to limit college education that way. The howls from the left would shatter the earth.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      If the economy is so great and unemployment is so low, why can’t they repay their loans?

  39. The Late P Brooks

    Biden said he is “never going to apologize for helping working class and middle class families.”

    And by HELP mean… well, you know.

    STEVE SMITH School of Human Kindness type help. But the government will give you a pillow to sit on afterwards.

    • SDF-7

      This government? I think they’d more likely use the pillow to smother you during.

      • juris imprudent

        Dead you are only of salvage value, alive you can keep being milked for taxes.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    guy has a side gig teaching self defense and situational awareness classes to 5 to7 year olds

    Sounds like a business plan with unlimited upside.

  41. DrOtto

    I think if you have a satellite radio equipped car, they’re doing the free thing right now where you can tune into SiriusXM for free. You can also get NPR on that of you like, but no more searching for stations when you get out of one station zone to another.

    • UnCivilServant

      You’re still using broadcast audio in the car? I just plug in my walkman and play from that.

      • DrOtto

        I’m in and out of my car umpteen times a day. I need something that is just on, without having to que up something on my phone.

      • Zwak, who taser's the chimp with the razor.

        Bluetooth to Spotify.

        Done.

  42. Count Potato

    “This was about corrupt, disgraced, twice impeached FPOTUS Trump conjuring an extortion scheme to investigate Biden to steal the 2020 Election. This episode planted the seeds of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Incase we forgot, this Hunter Biden stuff was cooked up by Trump and Giuliani.”

    https://twitter.com/AVindman/status/1593966735350185984

    CWAA

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I don’t know, he is a military man and a neutral arbiter. I’m sure he’s on the up and up.

      • juris imprudent

        Wonder how long he would actually last in the Ukraine govt?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      this Hunter Biden stuff was cooked up by Trump and Giuliani

      That’s a bold lie, even for that corrupt asshole.

      • Zwak, who taser's the chimp with the razor.

        It is the same jackass’s who think Hilary won.

    • rhywun

      In case you forgot, even MSM outlets are admitting “this Hunter Biden stuff” was real, you smarmy lying fuck.

    • Ted S.

      Pvt. Vindman is sayiпg this even after media outlets admitted the Hunter laptop is real?

      • Fourscore

        He can always run for Guv of Minnesoda. Be at home with Walz

    • Zwak, who taser's the chimp with the razor.

      It is kinda funny how they are saying the quiet part out loud now.

  43. The Late P Brooks

    Another take on the student loan giveaway

    So, if the White House isn’t telling the truth about its justification for pausing payments, what are the real reasons? I have two theories, both of which make a lot more sense than the one offered by the Department of Education.

    One likely motivation behind the move is that Biden doesn’t want to take the political blame that comes with restarting student loan payments. Federal student loan payments have become something of a political game of musical chairs. No one wants to be left standing when the music stops — or, in this case, when payments restart.

    The Trump administration and Democrat-led Congress paused student loan payments for the first time in 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been nearly three years since borrowers have been required to make payments on their federal student loans. Forcing tens of millions of borrowers to pay a bill they haven’t seen in years is a political loser. It makes much more sense for Biden to continue “pausing” debt payments until he’s no longer living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Then, it will be some other president’s problem.

    A second reason Biden likely wants to continue the pause is that it greatly benefits employees at government agencies, including many teachers, as well as workers at many nonprofits. Of course, both groups are part of Biden’s political base.

    Under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, anyone who makes ten years’ worth of monthly student loan payments — 120 in total — while working for a government or nonprofit organization receives total debt forgiveness, no matter how much they owe.

    Although it defies all logic, the Biden administration is continuing to count non-payments under the pause toward the total number of payments required to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. That means that since the pause began in 2020, government and nonprofit workers have managed to shed nearly three years’ worth of payments from their 120-payment requirement, all without being required to make a single payment.

    The longer the student loan freeze continues, the more government and nonprofit workers will qualify for total loan forgiveness. At the very least, millions will move much closer to attaining student debt cancellation. It’s one of the biggest welfare programs in America today, it mostly benefits well-paid college graduates and most people have no idea it’s going on.

    The most deserving members of society.

    It’s altruism, all the way down.

    • rhywun

      the Biden administration is continuing to count non-payments under the pause toward the total number of payments required to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness

      I… what?

    • Fourscore

      What happens to the interest? Also stopped? So those who are making the payments get double credit on their 120 payment plan?

      • rhywun

        Is there even interest? If the government took over the industry, I would not be surprised if there isn’t any.

    • Pat

      I have to admit I kind of admire how Bolton managed to parlay Trump to resuscitate his career after turning himself into toxic waste for even the most Lost Cause neocons after the Bush administration.

      • Michael Malaise

        The Mouth and the Mustache series!

  44. UnCivilServant

    “‘Ritual’ is Archeologist for ‘we don’t know'” – Someone (Tony Robinson) on Time Team.

    • UnCivilServant

      I found an… alternate source for Ancient Apocalypse and am halfway through the first episode, and there are a few things that bug me about how he’s presenting his data. Right now it’s focused on a site in indonesia where there are two identifiable cultural layers, the surface layer typified by construction in columnar basalt ‘logs’, and one ‘four meters down’ which appears to have built using irregular cobbles based upon the video footage. I say based upon the video footage, because the presenter is trying to muddy the distinction between the two layers. The local archeologist working the site says the surface layer is 2500 years old and the deep layer is 7200 years old. How was this dating established – no information given. If you’re going to be postulating about ancient civilizations, your dating methodology is of vital importance. Getting an asserted date with no follow-up on how they came to that number is irksome.

      Now the columnar basalt architecture is impressive, but they keep presenting it in such a way as to let the viewer mistake it for the older settlement layer. There are a number of other columnar basalt architecture sites in the same region with similarly impressive architecture, but 500 BC is the time of classical greese. They have not yet gone into detail about the older habitation layer.

      Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and this is your presentation – don’t hide the data and methodology or I’ll assume it doesn’t support your assertions. I’m willing to be convinced, but bring me the data!

      • UnCivilServant

        Ninteen minutes in before they start talking methodology.

      • UnCivilServant

        Spend less time talking about how it’s not accepted by the mainstream and go back to the data. You haven’t provided all that much

      • UnCivilServant

        At end of first episode, have to leave the house so will break here.

        It doesn’t look like he’s out to actually convince people he’s right because while they finally admitted to getting their dates from core drilling and looking for datable organic matter, they avoided saying what the datable material they found was. How am I supposed to accept your claims if you keep very basic things from me? If you’re right, the facts won’t hurt you. If these facts are open to multiple interpretations, lay them out and have a debate.

      • UnCivilServant

        One more argument before I go.

        The host does talk about one of the more famous and recent columnar basalt sites in the Phillipines, and how some of their columns are fully submerged. He uses this as evidence that the site must be from when sea levels were lower.

        By that logic, the port at Alexandria must have been built when sea levels are lower from the upright sphynxes and architecture we find under the mediterranian. But we know when Alexandria was built and that the port was sunk in an earthquake. The Phillipines are also techtonically active, and so the simple explaination is that it suffered a similar fate. To get the pre-sea level date, you have to show it wasn’t sunk by an earthquake and was that old.

        In all I’m probably going to keep watching, but I get why he hasn’t had much traction in selling the theory. He isn’t being very thorough at eliminating alternate explainations.

  45. The Late P Brooks

    Wonder how long he would actually last in the Ukraine govt?

    He’d steer well clear of windows and elevator shafts, If he knows what’s good for him.

  46. Chai Girl

    Hello, I’m back now. Got my computer mostly up and running now. 🙂 Happy Holidays to everyone.

    • Gender Traitor

      Welcome back, and Happy Holidays to you, too! ::lifts mug of chai latte in salute::

    • DEG

      Welcome back and happy holidays!

  47. The Late P Brooks

    Our best. Our brightest.

    Actress Alyssa Milano was blasted on Twitter, including by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, after saying that she “gave back” her Tesla and replaced it with a Volkswagen.

    “I gave back my Tesla,” Milano, a prominent supporter of Democrats on Twitter, posted Saturday. “I bought the VW ev. I love it. I’m not sure how advertisers can buy space on Twitter. Publicly traded company’s products being pushed in alignment with hate and white supremacy doesn’t seem to be a winning business model.”

    Twitter users, many of them conservative, criticized Milano over the tweet with many pointing out Volkswagen’s ties to the Nazi Party during the early days of its inception.

    “Volkswagen was literally founded by the Nazi’s and Hitler,” conservative political commentators The Hodge Twins posted which earned a crying laughing emoji and a “100” emoji from Tesla CEO Elon Musk who recently purchased Twitter.

    You go, grrrrrrl!

    • Michael Malaise

      My friend indicated he cannot buy a Tesla because of Musk. I told him to buy a Ford, because they have such a pristine history.

  48. DEG

    I read somewhere that L. Sprague de Camp introduced Heinlein and Heinlein’s-then-wife to swinging. I haven’t read much de Camp. I’ve liked what I’ve read of his stuff.

    A diversity statement alone is unlikely to get you an interview or a job offer, but a well-written diversity statement may enable you to stand out among a large pool of qualified candidates.

    Another bit showing MIT is overrated.

    At another point, a large group began shouting, “Down with the Chinese Communist Party, down with Xi Jinping,” according to witnesses and videos, in a rare public protest against the country’s leadership.

    So the regime is identifying more dissidents to disappear.

    “We wanted to invite our colleagues to come back in a setting where they could be the most comfortable, and the COVID-sniffing dogs were the perfect partners to make that happen,” Dana Rosenkranz, BARK’s senior manager of real estate and workplace, told The Daily Beast in an email. “Our employees found this extra precaution comforting.”

    This sounds like a load of horseshit and some scam artist is laughing all the way to the bank with the money he makes on COVID-sniffing dogs.

    Meeting with Basij personnel in Tehran Saturday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described the popular protest movement as “rioters” and “thugs” backed by foreign forces and praised “innocent” Basij fighters for protecting the nation.

    I think the protest movement is a Color Revolution. I’d like to see both sides lose.