Saturday Morning Rush Rush Links

by | Dec 3, 2022 | Daily Links | 199 comments

No funny story today, but I’ll have a mildly amusing one tomorrow. I’ve been buried in a rush project which has occupied a stupid amount of my time- 60-80 hour work weeks, silly hours, amazing pressure, rapidly looming deadlines. I’ll be spending all day today at work after putting in 60+ hours already. But we are well on our way to having it done and I may be able to re-emerge as a human. It’s at the intersection of science and art, so for me, the struggle (mein Kampf) is worth it. Molten glass, burns, potatoes, copper, lasers, this project has it all.

Speaking of all, birthdays abound, including a guy who made lots of dollars; another guy who made lots of dough; a guy with a black, black heart; a guy who did not kill Spider Sabich; a congresswoman even more viciously stupid than Hank Johnson; a guy famous for pointlessly driving around in circles; a pioneer of academic thoughtcrime; a guy truly batshit crazy; a hilariously entertaining and transparent fraud; a very beddable woman; and a wonderful character actress from the best reality TV show ever.

Let’s do Links, then, shall we?

 

I swear this happened to me, with me in the role of switcher to off an annoying hospital roommate. Upshot was they moved me to a private room. Nice deal. Violence pays.

 

Living rent-free in their head, still.

 

Make it California. C’mon, you know you want to.

 

After telling everyone in Zoom chat last night that the Twitter bullshit isn’t very important, I’m being a hypocrite and linking the latest bird app news here.

 

Oops.

 

I hope they don’t fix the headline. J-school experts.

 

The story of the physics guy with $100,000 of student loan debt from grad school is beyond fishy. In any case, wreck the system, we’ll all be better off.

 

Earlier this week, Riven sent me some cute pix of her dissecting an eyeball. Now I know why.

 

The Old Man has little to say beyond “I fucking love this fucking song, and I fucking love James Fucking McMurtry.”

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.

199 Comments

  1. Count Potato

    “Big project reaching climax.”

    Euphemism?

  2. Count Potato

    Why is it always Iowa, then NH, anyway?

    • juris imprudent

      Make it California. C’mon, you know you want to.

      Harris still loses.

      • Count Potato

        That’s she’s less likable than Hillary Clinton is quite an achievement.

  3. The Late P Brooks

    Molten glass, burns, potatoes, copper, lasers, this project has it all.

    A special something for Doktor Grandma’s Christmas feast?

  4. Pat

    Molten glass, burns, potatoes, copper, lasers, this project has it all.

    I mean, what else could it be but a steampunk laser-guided spud gun?

    • Trigger Hippie

      Add some duct tape, a coat hanger, and a pineapple and you’d have the best MacGyver episode ever.

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

        Nock the regulator off of an Argon tank to make it fly around, and you have included the A-Team.

  5. Stinky Wizzleteats

    Re Twitter drop: It’s the least surprising big scoop I’ve ever seen, at least thus far. It’s basically a confirmation, which is nice of course, of shenanigans we all knew were happening but there’s not really anything new here. Are most people so naive that they don’t think this kind of stuff goes on all the time?

    • WTF

      What’s new here is the actual proof of shenanigans. Knowing is one thing, proving is quite another. The proof is important.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Another batch of info coming today too…should be interesting.

      • Pat

        Snowden leaked documents proving unequivocally that the NSA had been spying on American citizens for over a decade and bald-faced lying about it, including in perjured testimony to congress, and nobody gave a shit. Proof that Twitter was staffed from the mail room to the C-suite with censorious cunts was always a mere formality. The people who care already knew; the people who didn’t don’t and won’t care.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        They weren’t doing that and it they were that’s a good thing is the SOP.

      • Fourscore

        …and they swear they’ll never do it again, either….

      • juris imprudent

        All of those people that didn’t care: meh, I’m not hiding anything.

      • MikeS

        +1 “You have nothing to worry about if you don’t do anything wrong.”

      • Chafed

        +2

      • rhywun

        Too bad half the country is perfectly fine with this.

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

        Until they start loosing elections, then it will be the worst scandal EVAH!

      • WTF

        American Pravda.

      • juris imprudent

        Hahaha – making truth relative? That’s what the left/Dems have been doing for decades. Oh, now that that gets turned on them, it’s all different. FUCK OFF AND DIE.

    • Urthona

      I’m still enjoying the moving goal post defenses though.

      One of the defenses I see is “this was the democratic party and not the government”. I like them falling into this trap because the next dumps should reveal it was the government too.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Yep, they’re being smart about the releases. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Project Veritas does the same kind of thing on a regular basis.

  6. Pat

    Living rent-free in their head, still.

    This time they’ve got him for sure though.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Not prosecution wise but they’ll drip drop leak through favorable outlets at the most unfavorable times possible. The Kanye, Fuentes, Milo beclowning might have been the kill shot for his ambitions anyway-he looked like a completely naive fool.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Well damn, I thought that had to do with congress getting his taxes. Read the article first you asshole.

      • rhywun

        Yeah, this appears to be the AG of NYC’s personal crusade. Not to be confused with the ones from the state AG or Congress. 🙄

      • Count Potato

        Good thing there is no crime in NYC.

      • Grosspatzer

        If this keeps up, he won’t have a chance of winning the nomination. I don’t think this is desirable for the dems, better to save the heavy artillery for after the primaries.

      • Michael Malaise

        Too early in the cycle for the Ye/Milo thing to really damage him.

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

      Heh. I saw a “The Walls are Closing In on Trump!!!” headline just yesterday.

  7. Pat

    Earlier this week, Riven sent me some cute pix of her dissecting an eyeball.

    I’ve seen that one

  8. The Late P Brooks

    Jayziss. That twatter thread format is unreadable.

  9. EvilSheldon

    James McMurty is largely responsible for getting me back into country music. Saint Mary of the Woods is one of the five albums that I’d take with me to a desert island.

    • Trigger Hippie

      I’ve been a fan of Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir for a few years now. Worth a listen if you like the dark, bluesy, bluegrass style of country music.

      • DEG

        They’re a good band.

    • Old Man With Candy

      You have excellent taste, sir. It’s a wonderful album.

      I had a 30 hour drive back from visiting Francisco d’Anconia last week and took that opportunity to run through McMurtry’s entire recorded catalog. Not that I’m obsessive or anything.

  10. The Late P Brooks

    On Tuesday night, Stanford announced an investigation into Tessier-Lavigne’s research. The school “will assess the allegations presented in The Stanford Daily, consistent with its normal rigorous approach by which allegations of research misconduct are reviewed and investigated,” a spokesperson wrote in a statement.

    We’ll form a committee to safeguard the evidence until this thing blows over.

  11. The Late P Brooks

    What’s new here is the actual proof of shenanigans. Knowing is one thing, proving is quite another. The proof is important.

    We’re dealing with people acting on deeply held religious convictions. Their faith is unshakeable, and their truth is unassailable. They are warriors in the great struggle between Good and Evil.

    What you consider to be proof is nothing more than scurrilous lies and slander against noble crusaders for the soul of mankind.

  12. Pat

    Two escaped emus captured in Ohio, unrelated emu still on the loose

    Dec. 2 (UPI) — Officials in an Ohio county said two escaped emus were rounded up this week — but another emu remains on the loose in the area.

    Highland County Sheriff Donnie Barrera said that deputies worked together with the owner of the two emus to get the flightless Australian birds back into their enclosure.

    Barrera said a third emu, which does not belong to the same owner, has been on the loose since mid-November.

    The emu has been repeatedly spotted in the Hillsboro area and was caught on camera walking down the middle of a busy road in one of the earliest sightings. Locals said the emu’s origins are a mystery.

    Which Ohio glib is missing their guard emu?

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      The large flightless birds are stupid dangerous ill-tempered bastards. Some eccentric ladies’ emu (maybe ostrich, I can’t remember) got loose around here a while back and started attacking horses. Killed a couple by opening up their guts if I remember right.

      • Pat

        Shit. I knew emus could be aggressive, but I didn’t know they could take out a horse.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Depends on the ratite species. Emus have pretty good temperaments, especially if raised from chicks around people. They’re good with kids and livestock. We’ll aiming to start a flock in a couple years, just need to raise the fence height first from 4′ to 6-8′.

        Rheas can be flighty and sometimes aggressive, but are much smaller so can’t do that much damage to an adult.

        Ostriches and cassowaries are dangerous and off our list. Cassowaries are just plain vicious and have been known to disembowel humans. Ostriches aren’t vicious, but generally aren’t friendly either.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I was delivering furniture to that same ladies’ house back in the ‘80s, I was in highschool, and the whatever it was snuck up on me from behind and leaned into me pretty hard. I thought it was by buddy messing with me but turned around and there’s this alien head six inches from my face at eye level. I gave him a good right hook and he ran off but I guess I’m still traumatized. I hate those damn things.

      • juris imprudent

        OSTRICH SMITH?

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I like em. It’s the closest we can we get to having actual dinosaurs larger than chickens. They definitely do need to be socialized though, and I wouldn’t want to snuck on by any of them.

      • Animal

        Well, akshually, they’re not closest we can get to dinosaurs – they are dinosaurs. Theropods, in fact.

    • Gender Traitor

      Which Glib looks most like Doug?

    • DrOtto

      Based on some of these replies, emus sound like the pit bulls of the bird world.

  13. Pat

    Your tax dollars hard at work

    A mural by renowned graffiti artist Banksy remains intact after a group of people tried to steal it from the wall of a war-torn building in Ukraine.

    The group cut off a section of board and plaster bearing the artwork of a woman in a gas mask, officials said.

    Police said a number of people were arrested at the scene in Hostomel and the painting has been retrieved.

    It was one of several works created by the anonymous British artist in Ukraine last month.

    The graffiti is undamaged and police are protecting it, the governor of Kyiv region, Oleksiy Kuleba, said on Telegram.

  14. The Late P Brooks

    Ginger snaps and coffee- an excellent way to start one’s day.

  15. The Late P Brooks

    What about unpaid sick days?

    As I wrote previously, the paid sick leave measure, given to Biden on a platter by progressives, offered the president a second chance at getting it right for rail workers. He could have expressed excitement about the prospect of finally giving rail workers paid sick leave, blasted Republicans who opposed the measure, and at the very least put pressure on legislators to pass the measures.

    Instead, he created a sense of urgency, moving the deadline for such legislation up by a week. Rail workers had threatened to strike on December 9, but Biden insisted he needed a bill from Congress the weekend before. He also made clear that he didn’t support any amendments that would cause delay.

    Now, Republicans like Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Josh Hawley are billing themselves as more pro-worker than the president, given that they voted for the paid leave amendment.

    That backstabber! Why didn’t he just declare a national emergency and give the unions everything they asked for, and more? He missed his big chance to appoint a avowed communist transgender railroad czar.

    • Brawndo

      Are there still places in this country where full time employees *don’t* get any paid sick time?

      Even shitty retail jobs give like 40 hours/year after a probationary period

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Very surprised the railroad workers don’t. I thought they had great contracts.

      • Gender Traitor

        Don’t rail workers have their own government-run retirement system separate from Social Security, which seems to include some sort of sickness benefits?

      • rhywun

        My first few jobs had no paid sick days. Lots of jobs like that out there – though probably outlawed in many areas since then, because people are too stupid to make that decision for themselves.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        They get paid time off, just not separate sick time.

        I don’t get separate sick time… just general time off for any reason. Just like pensions, it seems like most non-government corporations have moved away from keeping time off in separate buckets.

      • WTF

        So they are actually demanding more paid time off, while falsely implying they don’t get paid if they’re out sick.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Right.

        I don’t know how the railroad worker’s retirement benefits works, but a lot of gov employees with pensions just sit on their sick time and never use it. Unlike regular time off, the rollover cap on sick time can be in the hundreds or thousands of hours. Then, upon retirement, those hundreds/thousands of hours are cashed out, used to buy earlier retirement, or rolled over into inflating pension payments.

      • DEG

        It’s been a long time since I had sick time separate from vacation time. It’s all been lumped together under “Paid Time Off”. Doesn’t really matter to me though, since I can work remotely, I just work from home when I’m sick.

  16. EvilSheldon

    Last night I successfully repaired my furnace. I am just unreasonably proud of myself.

    • Gender Traitor

      Bravo! You SHOULD be proud!

      Got a CO detector?

      • EvilSheldon

        I do, but the furnace is a fully electric heat pump so the CO risk is close to zero. The CO detector is more for my emergency power-outage propane heater.

      • Gender Traitor

        👍🏼

      • Pat

        My heat pump has yet to crap out on me (knock on wood), but I understand they’re a real pain in the ass to fix, so kudos on the DIY repair.

    • Sean

      How much duct tape did it take?

      • Pat

        Are we still doing the thermostat references or nah?

    • Grosspatzer

      Damn! Well done, I could have used your skills a few weeks ago.

    • Mojeaux

      Well done, you! As a former DIYer myself, I am proud for you!

    • MikeS

      Attaboy!

    • DrOtto

      I fixed my home AC a few months back and was telling anyone who would listen. I get it.

    • slumbrew

      Good job!

      I took apart my washing machine and replaced the coupler and the dogs a year or so and I’m still bragging about it.

      My wife still isn’t that impressed.

  17. The Late P Brooks

    Too bad half the country is perfectly fine with this.

    Only half?

  18. Drake

    If I remember correctly the South Carolina primary is where Joe Biden began his “miraculous” (orchestrated) run to the nomination. This is probably some kind of payback that will bring in lots of campaign cash to pass around. The Dem party in SC is such a nonentity in state politics, they are probably very malleable to do as they are told by the DC string-pullers.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      You do remember correctly and SC Dems tend to vote for the establishment. They won’t have to worry about any of those pesky Sanders or, God forbid, AOC types.

    • Brawndo

      In other words, by the time the SC primary happened, the Dems realized Biden wouldn’t win with a crowded field. It’s more to do with having a few states giving you information instead of anything particular about SC.

    • KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

      I voted for the first time in SC this election and I was shocked at the number of unopposed candidates.

      • Drake

        Me too – I left wondering why I bothered.

    • Michael Malaise

      Both Klobuchar and Buttigieg dropped out while ahead of Biden, so the fix was obviously in.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    Biden is left losing on both counts—practically, as a supposed advocate for workers, and politically, as a Democratic president. Biden could have put up an actual fight for paid sick leave, rather than feebly suggesting he’ll fight for it later. It would have been good politics, and morals too.

    Instead, Biden did not express his support for the paid sick leave measure that his caucus overwhelmingly supported in the House and Senate, nor did he engage with the notion that perhaps the best way to avert a strike is to address demands that prompted the threat in the first place.

    The best way to get a deal is to accede to the other party’s demands, in toto.

    • rhywun

      I’m still not clear on why FedGov is sticking its nose into any of this.

      I couldn’t find “operation of railroads” in my copy of the Constitution.

      • Pat

        They *did* eminent domain a lot of property and lease a lot of federal land to make interstate railroads happen. If you squint just right I guess there’s probably a commerce clause case to be made. Wouldn’t fly in Patopia, of course, but such is life.

      • WTF

        “Commerce clause” herp derp.

      • DrOtto

        Did you remember to check under the penumbras and emanations?

  20. Semi-Spartan Dad

    Pat, I’ve enjoying reading through the computer security series. Most of it is a bit over my head, but some good steps I can follow.

    Question for you or anyone else. I looked at Restaurantdepot’s website a couple weeks ago and just received their marketing flyer in the mail. It’s not clear to me how I could have been linked to the website. The closest location is over an hour away, in a different state, so the flyer was most certainly targeted to me and not a random occurrence. I have Proton VPN always on with a killswitch and never inputted any personal information. How could this be linked to me? I was on Brave (I know, not the best) and may not have had the private mode on. Would that have mattered?

    Alternatively, my wife and I were talking about it and she does have the Facebook and some other social crap apps on her phone. Could our conversation have been picked up that way through her phone and sold as marketing data?

    • R C Dean

      Probably the latter. I have heard way too many people tell me of similar things happening to them.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        It’s bizarre. The wife and I will talk about things and then see related-ads appear on YouTube. I’ve heard Google, Amazon, etc. handwave this off as coincidences that we’ve tricked ourselves into believing. I’m assuming it’s being picked up her phone. This actual targeted mailing though is a new one.

      • Pat

        Do you happen to have a “smart” TV? If so, the microphone that’s used for voice commands is never off, and selling your data to advertisers serves both as a manufacturing cost subsidy and continuing revenue stream for the TV maker.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I do unfortunately have a couple smart tvs. I’ll look into disabling the microphones. I run Rokus off these and drilled through the microphones in the remotes. Forgot about the tvs themselves though.

      • Pat

        Unless you’re using the built-in apps, you can simply leave them disconnected from your local network. If that’s not possible, you can use Pi-Hole, or even your router’s built-in firewall/blocklist to stop traffic to the domains used by the manufacturer for tracking and telemetry. If you scroll to the “Tracking & Telemetry Lists” section at Firebog, you will find blocklists for Amazon, Android, and a generic “SmartTV” list.

    • Pat

      Could our conversation have been picked up that way through her phone and sold as marketing data?

      Yep, it could. Even more likely: she has GPS/geolocation services enabled on an Android phone and Google sold the geolocation data to a marketer.

      • Pat

        (presuming, of course, she’s been in the vicinity of a business establishment even tangentially related to restaurant supply)

        You can opt out of location history in your Google privacy dashboard, although if you think it actually does anything besides stop displaying the data to you while still collecting and selling it, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        She does have GPS enabled but has never been to anything related to a restaurant supply store. We live way out in the middle of nowhere and far from anything like that.

      • Pat

        There’s always the possibility you were a “false positive” in some bulk data sold to a marketer. One of the disadvantages of having so much data is that it’s more difficult to pick the needles out of the haystacks. “Hey, this guy fits your search query, he once clicked on an ad for a juicer 7 years ago and lives in the same state where your business is located.”

    • Pat

      Also, incognito/private mode on any browser is only really good for preventing data from being stored locally. It’s like opening a standard browser window, but deleting all of your cache, cookies, and history at the end of the session. Firefox also disables some first-party tracking features in private browsing, but the principle is the same. You can still be tracked by tracking cookies, for example, while your session is running – but those cookies will be automatically deleted when the session is closed. But, for instance, your ISP or a local device or service on your network would still be able to sniff your web traffic. Since you’re using a VPN anyway, that’s less of a concern, of course.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Can those tracking cookies provide my name and address to a retail company whose website I visited (but didn’t enter any information)? Or does the VPN prevent that? I’m trying to figure out how I could be possibly have been linked through my computer. I’ve never bought anything from restaurantdepot, never inputted information on their website, and had the VPN running.

      • Pat

        Tracking cookies themselves aren’t that sophisticated, it’s just a unique identifier stored on your machine to keep track of some aspect of your web activity. However, they create a lot of data that can quite easily be correlated with other data about you. Let’s say you went to Amazon, logged in, and shopped for a set of measuring cups. Amazon’s tracking cookies would do things like store your login credentials for the site (innocuous, and necessary), and also give you a session fingerprint, so that every item you looked at could be correlated to the unique ID string of that tracking cookie. Let’s say Restaurantdepot is an Amazon advertising partner. They tell Amazon “We’d like to buy some customer data, please. Can you tell us which of your customers in X zip code between the ages of 18-45 have searched for restaurant supplies in the last 90 days?” In that bundle of data, if you fit the demographic profile, your search query for measuring cups gets picked up, your data gets sold to Restaurantdepot, the junk mail marketing firm they contract with correlates your name against a public records database to send you a shitty spam flyer.

        That’s a theoretical example, obviously, but I’m sure you can see the possibilities it opens up.

      • Plinker762

        Amazon probably already has address.

      • Pat

        They would, of course, but that kind of PII may not be necessarily be shared with outside ad partners.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Thanks for explaining how tracking cookies work. I don’t think this applies to the Restaurant Depot flyer, but would explain other junk mail and targeted ads I’ve received.

      • Count Potato

        The most likely thing is that you gave your name and address to some other company, and restaurantdepot bought it, and the timing with the website visit is just coincidence. Decades ago ago, I signed up for a supermarket card with a fake middle initial. Even though I’ve changed addresses many times since, I still occasionally get junk mail for that name.

      • Pat

        A much more succinct way of saying what I’ve been dancing around. Thank you.

        Data brokers essentially exist to sift through databases and make useful correlations and predictions about people based on their recorded behavior so that other people can sell them stuff. Some of those correlations and predictions are… tenuous. Hell, it could be as simple as Restaurantdepot’s mass mail marketing contractor just bought a list of addresses from your DMV and sent out 50,000 pieces of spam hoping 500 turn into sales.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I get this, but there’s no way this was a coincidence or from my information being sold from other retailers where I bought products. Restaurantdepot is not generally open to the public (some locations have an occasional daypass exception), only to licensed businesses, and has no locations nearby to me. The mailing came a week or two after visiting their website and looking for a specific product that I can’t buy retail. They’d get zero sales from sending mass flyers to every person living in my county and all the counties surrounding mine. I’d guess I’m more likely to win the Powerball than this being a coincidence.

      • Pat

        Yeah, it’s difficult to say with any real certainty. If you were inadvertently logged into Google, Facebook, or another social media site during that browsing session, that would be the most likely source of correlated data. Facebook in particular is pernicious that way; their trackers are on a lot of sites that you wouldn’t expect, they follow you around the web, and correlate your site visits with all of the PII in your Facebook account. I just visited the Restaurant Depot store page and noticed they have Facebook and Instagram social links at the bottom of the product pages. Which most likely means there’s Facebook trackers running on their site.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Interesting, thanks. I don’t have Facebook but will see what else I may have been logged into. The smart tv microphones you mentioned are concerning, Same with the social media apps that my wife does have on her phone (like Facebook). Feels like an all too real version of 1984.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    Vermin czar


    New York City is recruiting a new “director of rodent mitigation” to rid the streets of its most notorious furry inhabitants.

    The city’s Office of the Deputy Mayor for Operations published a job listing for the position, aka “rat czar,” on Wednesday.

    “Do you have what it takes to do the impossible?” asks the listing. “A virulent vehemence for vermin? A background in urban planning, project management, or government? And most importantly, the drive, determination and killer instinct needed to fight the real enemy – New York City’s relentless rat population?”

    ——-

    The salary for the city’s lead rat authority ranges from $120,000 to $170,000, according to the listing. Interested candidates can send their resumes, cover letters, and three references to the city’s online application portal.

    It’s unclear exactly how many rats call the Big Apple home. An oft-repeated urban legend tells us that the city has more rats than people (or over 8 million). But a 2014 study led by statistician Jonathan Auerbach and based on rat sightings reported to the NYC hotline estimated that there were only around 2 million rats in the city.

    They should pay by the rat.

    • Urthona

      My ideal job.

  22. Count Potato

    “Of course the liberal who was empowered by the old regime to censor on Twitter, Yoel Roth, is on that Mastadon thing they fled to, whining that reporting on major corporate actors like Twitter and its collusion with Biden campaign puts people “in harm’s way.” That’s their MO.”

    https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1598853177503203329

    I like how it’s both a nothingburger and will get people killed.

  23. The Late P Brooks

    Mayor Eric Adams has launched a concerted effort to combat the city’s famous rat problem. At a much-memed news conference in October, Adams joined Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch for an announcement that she said, “rats are absolutely going to hate.” Adams and Tisch announced that they would limit the number of hours residential and commercial trash can sit on the curb before it’s picked up.

    “The rats don’t run this city,” the commissioner said. “We do.”

    A rat by any other name…

  24. Count Potato

    BREAKING: Ben Collins Is An Asshole

    “Elon Musk paid $44 billion to discover what we already knew: content moderation is messy and involves whole teams of people with a range of viewpoints trying to appease different political factions.

    He then gave “leaks” to a Substack Man to present it as a blockbuster.”

    https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1598830129790214144

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I know who Taibbi is, who the fuck’s Ben Collins? Didn’t he play QB for the Carolina Panthers back in the ‘90s?

      • Chafed

        He is NBC’s misinformation reporter. Yes, that’s real. FWIW, the guys on The Fifth Column tore him a new asshole.

    • Pat

      I mean it’s certainly not a bombshell like the former president stealing nuclear secrets to give to the Russians, of course…

    • Tundra

      He then gave “leaks” to a Substack Man to present it as a blockbuster.”

      Old media is almost dead. The jealousy of new media and citizen journalists is delicious.

      • juris imprudent

        That’s his way of saying the fucker makes more from subscribers than I do from my corporate bosses.

  25. Mojeaux

    @NotAdahn re dedthred and “Gene,” I don’t know the reference you made to another author/book, but Gio/Gene does serve a greater purpose without pesky love triangles getting in the way. I hate love triangles with the white-hot hatred of a thousand burning suns.

      • Mojeaux

        OMGI love that (slap) bass line.

    • Not Adahn

      Ah, then I completely missed where you were going with that.

      When I was a wee child, I read a series of books by John Christopher in which he mistakenly rhymed “Jean-Paul” with “Beanpole.”

      I thought since you had already established that the hero knows more words by sight than by sound, he was doing something similar with the alias “Jean-Luc” that would come back to bite him as an imposter.

      • Mojeaux

        Oh, I see.

        No, “Gene Luke” is so Trey can remember the fake name for “Giovanni Lucarelli,” which is also not Gio’s real name, but he’s hiding from the NY Families. Trey’s guiding philosophy as a conman is “A good lie is short on details. The best lie is the one a cat tells himself.” So he needs to be able to remember the lies he tells, and that’s too much crowding his brain, so he makes it as simple as possible.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Watchdogs

    New Twitter owner Elon Musk declared last month that “hate speech impressions” had dramatically fallen on the platform since he took over.

    It was a remarkable claim, given that Musk has executed mass layoffs and chased away hundreds of employees, draining the company of much-needed resources to enforce content moderation policies, which the billionaire has also publicly criticized.

    On Friday, two watchdog groups published research that indicated Musk’s claim simply did not hold water, offering one of the clearest pictures to date of the surging tide of hate speech on the platform.

    The Center for Countering Digital Hate and Anti-Defamation League both said in reports that the volume of hate speech on Twitter has grown dramatically under Musk’s stewardship.

    Specifically, the Center for Countering Digital Hate said the daily use of the n-word under Musk is triple the 2022 average and the use of slurs against gay men and trans persons are up 58% and 62%, respectively.

    And the Anti-Defamation League said in a separate report that its data shows “both an increase in antisemitic content on the platform and a decrease in the moderation of antisemitic posts.”

    Both groups expressed alarm with what they are seeing occur on Twitter, one of the most influential communications platforms in the world. The Anti-Defamation League described the deteriorating state-of-affairs as a “troubling situation” that “will likely get worse, given the reported cuts to Twitter’s content moderation staff.”

    Descent into madness.

    Repent. The end is nigh.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Have mercy, the ADL’s just terrible on everything every time.

      • Chafed

        It’s quite embarrassing. When Abe Foxman ran the joint, it was all about the mission and not cozying up to one party. Now, it’s on the cusp of being another leftist interest group.

    • Count Potato

      “The Center for Countering Digital Hate and Anti-Defamation League both said in reports that the volume of hate speech on Twitter has grown dramatically under Musk’s stewardship.”

      That’s like the diamond people saying an engagement ring should cost two months’ salary.

  27. Chafed

    MikeS is going to have a rough start in the morning links.

    • Count Potato

      What?

      • Chafed

        The picture of Geddy Lee

      • Count Potato

        Ah, OK.

    • MikeS

      I thought about skipping them all together. But, it wasn’t so bad.

      • Fourscore

        You’re a real Glib, MikeS, what we do without you? Sacrificing through the suffering (if I’m understanding correctly).

    • PutridMeat

      I must say I’m bit miffed at the special treatment MikeS gets around here. I mean he gets to wake up to a picture of his favorite vocalist!

      What do the rest of us get? I mean other than neat birthday lists with clever descriptions. And an over view of the worlds insanity safely hidden by links we can click or not. Or an entertaining story, sometimes with funny insight into NPR dating in the modern world. But other than that, what have morning links done for us?!

      Luck SOB.

      • MikeS

        🧐

      • Chafed

        👍

      • Fourscore

        Could be worse, you could be MikeS

  28. The Late P Brooks

    Imrad Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, said that Musk had “sent up the batsignal to every kind of racist, misogynist and homophobe that Twitter was open for business, and they have react accordingly.”

    “A safe space for hate is a hostile environment to most decent folks,” Ahmed added, “by means of comparison, who would want to sit in a cafe or pub where crazies are screaming expletives and bigotry, let alone have the chutzpah to claim that it was democratically-essential debate?”

    Who would want to sit in a cafe with a bunch of negroes? It only makes sense to allow people to control their surroundings. Let them be comfortable. What’s wrong with that?

    • rhywun

      That person can go fuck himself.

      “Hate” is not illegal and there is PLENTY of it already, except it is “hate” that he approves of.

      • juris imprudent

        I hate pompous assholes – I wonder if he feels threatened by that?

  29. Madhatter

    I have commented only a few times, but have been reading articles and comments for years. So I recognize most of you by your handles. I also note when one of the frequent posters drops off. Has anyone heard from Trashmaster?

    • Mojeaux

      Welcome!

      I am guessing he got tired of the constant bad news, he had just moved and was looking for a new place, he’s got a young family, and he was trying to find a new job. I could be wrong on any or all of those points, but he’d been making noises to that effect for a little bit before he left.

      I miss him too.

      • MikeS

        The constant bad news was definitely something he brought up. And IIRC he was also frustrated that most of the commenting wasn’t to his liking.

      • Mojeaux

        We are nattering nabobs of negativity.

      • Gender Traitor

        I gnew someone was going to say that!

      • MikeS

        …and I too would like to see him (and many others who have disappeared) come back.

      • Chafed

        Totally. I miss him, HM’s ass eating quips, and Sir Digby’s self-defense videos.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Ditto. And a lot of other missing glibs.

      • Pat

        And IIRC he was also frustrated that most of the commenting wasn’t to his liking.

        I hope it wasn’t anything I said. It’s probably just my mental derangement, but I feel like just about every time I come back here after a hiatus somebody disappears right after. I, too, dislike being deprived of the company of our lord of rubbish.

      • MikeS

        No, going by my crappy memory, it was the Twitter links, and tittie pics, and music links….I think he just wanted more serious discussion.

      • Fourscore

        Didn’t he make the rusty lid thing for SP. It was beautiful and thoughtful.

      • MikeS

        He did. It was really sweet and beautiful…in a Glibertarian sort of way.

      • Q Continuum

        “tittie pics”

        *looks around nervously*

      • Chafed

        Yeah, he lost me on that one.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Nah, the commenting is fine. It was more the constant influx of CURRENT EVENT IS END OF WORLD crap from TMITE and SMITE filtering through here that I needed to purge for a while. I miss the conversations and relationships, but don’t really miss the news stories and links (no offense OMWC and other linkers…it’s not the links themselves, it’s the contents of the stories being linked).

      • MikeS

        After hitting “post” I wished I had added, “But I’d love for him to drop in and tell my I’m remembering wrong!” Hope you stick around, totally understand if you can’t.

      • slumbrew

        I’ve considered taking a break for similar reasons.

        The links and commentary aren’t even wrong or misleading. I could just use some blissful ignorance.

        But I just can’t quit you.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Yep, the ignorance is blissful. I just got back home from a men’s prayer breakfast at church, and hearing the other men talk about things I’m blissfully unaware of (evidently there was a 7yo girl abducted and killed by a FedEx driver locally) makes me very happy that I’m not plugged into the news anymore. Blissful ignorance is blissful indeed.

      • juris imprudent

        Our trips to our SW VA place enforce the disconnect – lousy cell service and no other internet. I’m always refreshed by that.

      • The Bearded Hobbit

        I went through that during the Radley Balko period at TOS. I finally had to walk away to protect my blood pressure.

        I finally have just accepted that there’s nothing I can do about it and move on with my day.

      • EvilSheldon

        Me three. Hope he’s doing well.

      • R.J.

        He is fine, he’s been working his butt off. I texted him the other day. I miss him too. Nothing bad has happened.

      • MikeS

        Tell him we miss him.

      • Pat

        Good to hear that.

    • Madhatter

      Thank you all for your replies. I hope he and others, like Tulip, return soon.

      • DEG

        I have e-mail addresses for him. I just sent him a note to let him know people are asking about him.

      • DEG

        And I just missed RJ’s reply above.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      Hello! I’m alive and well! Life is busy. Helping out with homeschooling the 5 year old and covering for a coworker out on paternity leave at work leaves little time for internet conversation.

      • MikeS

        👍🏻🧐

      • slumbrew

        Good to hear! Hopefully you’ll have time to stick your head in if your schedule gets some slack.

      • R.J.

        Heh. DEG beat me to texting you! We are all lonely without you.

      • Tundra

        Hey Trashy!

        Nice to see you and I’m glad all is well!

      • Gustave Lytton

        Huzzah! Just wanted to say going through a IP issue as a naive first timer, I have a newly found appreciation for the lawyers doing the legwork on it.
        Also appreciate the faith you and other Glibs have shared and shown, it’s been very helpful to me.

  30. The Late P Brooks

    “Hate” is not illegal and there is PLENTY of it already, except it is “hate” that he approves of.

    Anything which makes him uncomfortable or, worse yet, has the potential effect of forcing him to question his beliefs is hate, plain and simple.

    NO HATE ZONE.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    Pick a number, any number

    Uvalde survivors file a $27 billion class-action lawsuit against police and others

    I’m not even going to bother skimming through that.

    • Count Potato

      They’ll just bill it to Alex Jones.

      • rhywun

        lol

    • DEG

      A Dirndl pic in the gallery. Nice.

  32. The Late P Brooks

    Strictly legit

    House Democrats who recently gained access to some of former President Donald Trump’s federal tax filings are wrestling with how to make the most of the sensitive data before incoming GOP leaders inevitably shut down the budding investigation next month.

    Ways and Means Committee chairman Richard Neal, who will have to hand the gavel over to Republicans in January after their narrow midterms victory, met with Democratic tax writers late Thursday to talk strategy.

    In addition to running short on time to comb through several years of the embattled former president’s finances, Neal and whoever he taps to actually pore over the US Treasury documents must be mindful of disclosure laws designed to keep tax records confidential — though some of Neal’s colleagues maintain that everyone deserves to know about any conflicts of interest Trump kept hidden while in office.

    “I want them all released,” Ways and Means Committee member Bill Pascrell told MSNBC ahead of Neal’s group-wide meeting. The New Jersey Democrat added that any corresponding probe wouldn’t be about “one man,” but about accountability for all.

    Purely for educational purposes. We would never cater to the salacious or prurient interests of our base. We’re not vindictive. Trust us.

    • R C Dean

      “any corresponding probe wouldn’t be about “one man,” but about accountability for all”

      Which is why they have one, and only one, man’s tax returns. Or something.

  33. The Late P Brooks

    It’s bizarre. The wife and I will talk about things and then see related-ads appear on YouTube.

    “Plate of shrimp.”

  34. The Late P Brooks

    Which is why they have one, and only one, man’s tax returns. Or something.

    Trump’s returns will prove, once and for all, the folly of electing an outsider who has not devoted his entire life to the service of the nation.

  35. The Late P Brooks

    Jalopnik, of all places

    Which brings us back to the image Ye tweeted. Vorilhon claims that, during his first contact with the Elohim, their spaceship wore the insignia of a swastika encircled by a Star of David. Raëlism used this image as its logo for a time (it’s still in use among some followers), but due to understandable backlash, it was largely replaced by a swastika-free version in 1992. The current symbol of Raëlism is a Star of David with a swirl in the center.

    A swirl? like the yin-yang symbol?

  36. DEG

    The strike is groundbreaking – the largest in the history of US higher education and part of a wave of organizing at college campuses across the country. It has brought together 48,000 graduate workers, academic researchers and postdoctoral scholars within the nine-campus University of California system who say the low wages they are paid make it impossible to live in the cities where they work. The most common salary for graduate workers is $23,247, according to the academic workers unions.

    The higher education bubble can’t burst fast enough.

    • juris imprudent

      Grad students do a lot of the work so the schools don’t have to hire more real faculty; instead they hire more administrators.

    • Chafed

      So much this.

  37. Count Potato

    “Texas man, Matthew Jordan Linder, was charged with threatening doctors who provide gender affirming care at Boston Children’s. This is now the 3rd arrest connected to threats since Libs of Tiktok started targeting BCH in August….

    The defendant used language mirroring people like Matt Walsh, Chris Elston, and Tucker Carlson by saying the doctor is “castrating our children.” He then made a threat to murder the doctor.

    The charging document explicitly cites the misinformation spreading online as an inciting the threats against Boston Children’s Hospital and the doctors there. This is what stochastic terror looks like. Libs of Tiktok incited this.”

    https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1598890977501974528

    Posting screenshots and links to a hospital’s public webpage about what they are doing to children is inciting violence.

    Meanwhile, retweeting antifa is perfectly OK:

    https://twitter.com/MIAagainstFash/status/1599050890723217408

    • Q Continuum

      “saying the doctor is “castrating our children.””

      Well, they are aren’t they?

      • Count Potato

        Yes, but using a common term for it is mirroring the language of white supremacists.

        Do you know who else didn’t want to cut the tits off little girls? Hitler.

  38. The Late P Brooks

    The most common salary for graduate workers is $23,247, according to the academic workers unions.

    Does that include the value of scholarships? Don’t most of those “graduate workers” get free tuition, as well?

    • Q Continuum

      If they’re in a STEM program worth a damn then yes, tuition is almost always waived.

  39. DEG

    Time to go get some stuff done….

    • MikeS

      #metoo

  40. Fourscore

    If I understand correctly that means I have to pay back loans? Is this something new?

    I’ll just borrow from my Dad then, I’ll see if he’ll loan me more money

  41. PieInTheSky

    I made a burger and instead of using some hot sauce as I usually do I put some extra spicy nduja on the bun and some pickles. It was interesting…

    • PieInTheSky

      I am drinking a nice north rhone syrah from 2020… it seems impossible to find any older in my price range in Romania…

  42. Grummun

    The wife randomly came home from the grocery with a rack of spare ribs. She said they were on sale, I’m not sure that’s accurate, but don’t care. Ribs are rubbed awaiting clear weather tomorrow for smoking.