Thursday Morning Links!

by | Dec 8, 2022 | Daily Links | 451 comments

Howdy everyone, Sloopy and Banjos are busy today so I’m in the driver’s seat. Do not attempt to close your web browser, or we will beam the outtakes from SF’s fiction deemed too horrible to publish directly into your brain.

This guy is playing the crazy angle to the moon.

Elon Musk has decided to clean up Twitter himself.

Florida Man, you make Jesus cry.

About The Author

Brett L

Brett L

Brett set out to find America, the real America, the America of strip malls and serial killers, of butthole waxing and kelp smoothies, of cocaine and maggots. He sought it in the most American part of America—Florida: swamp gas and fever dreams, where love arrives on a rickety boat and leaves when it doesn't have the money for its fourth abortion. Oh, where has Brett gone? He’s drinking at the neck of America’s wang, chewing its foreskin and working its shaft. Brett is becoming legend. Brett can never die. Brett can never die. Brett is America, facedown in his own patriotic puke: the red his blood, the white his stomach lining, and the cold, cold blue his gas station slushie, spiked with coconut rum and tetracycline.

451 Comments

  1. Shpip

    Chad Mason, 36, allegedly began his sick crime spree while walking a friend’s labradoodle Friday in a quiet neighborhood in Clearwater, police said.

    “Bitch set me up.”

    • Pat

      Nicely done.

    • Rat on a train

      dog groomer

      • pistoffnick

        Warning: Perhaps slightly NSFW

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

        There is nothing wrong with girls in panties and hoodies.

    • Ted S.

      Nice editorializing in the story, too.

    • Bobarian LMD

      Filed under church, dogs, florida,

      That is like Warhol/Waters level surreal.

  2. PieInTheSky

    Elon Musk has decided to clean up Twitter himself. – well the programmers need exercise

  3. Sean

    Wait, were the janitors actually Twitter employees? It reads as if they were subcontracted.

    • WTF

      Musk doesn’t seem to understand that as union members they are entitled to these jobs.

      • rhywun

        I have to imagine he already has plans to GTFO of California.

      • db

        For maximum lulz he should have moved it and then fired everyone after they had relocated

    • SDF-7

      Definitely mentions of him terminating the contractor involved and switching to a different one (at which point the unions whined that the new one was supposed to rehire the same workers… which may well be the law since the union lobbyists write said law and all, but it makes no sense to me) in other articles I read on the topic.

    • UnCivilServant

      Reading the article it does sound like they were subcontractors.

      • Spartacus

        It does, but then how could he only fire some of them?

      • UnCivilServant

        It would depend upon the verbiage of the contract. There’s probably some clause so that Twitter can require the contractor to get rid of some people, which would have been intended for events sich as theft, etc.

    • Lackadaisical

      Our highly skilled sanitation technicians deserve a living wage, or at least the union bosses do.

  4. PieInTheSky

    This guy is playing the crazy angle to the moon. – I though evidence should be submitted in advance in court

    • Brawndo

      He was running a bit behind

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

        I think there is a crack in your theory.

      • pistoffnick

        Careful!
        Lest Swiss turns his brown eye your direction

  5. PieInTheSky

    The Hijacking of Pediatric Medicine
    The American Academy of Pediatrics claims to support the health of all children. Many doctors are appalled by its prescriptions.

    https://www.thefp.com/p/the-hijacking-of-pediatric-medicine

    early OT i guess given the paucity of linx

    • SDF-7

      You just know Brett isn’t going to bother shipping a bunch of server squirrels through EU customs to strike you down… anarchy! Anarchy!

    • Pat

      It delights me that this kind of stuff is happening and finally waking some people up to the fact that physicians are not gods. Most are midwits as easily biased and led around by ideology as anyone. Parking your ass in med school for 8 years and then going into practice where 80% of your day consist of dispensing antibiotics for VD and the sniffles and making referrals to the non-midwits who specialized does not warrant this mythical status folks like to give their doctors.

      Also, while what Leelah Alcorn said was basically retarded, I also don’t buy into the idea that suicide is contagious. It’s psychological claptrap from the same basis as “video games cause school shootings.” 17 year old young adults are idiots, but they have agency.

      • pistoffnick

        …17 year old young adults are idiots…

        17 year old pistoffnick would vehemently challenge that assertion.
        52 year old pistoffnick quietly nods in agreement.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        My general experience with doctors is that a lot of them are very good at memorization, but lacking in problem solving.

        Not true for all obviously, but the myth of the ubersmart doctor has been with us for too long.

      • db

        That’s my opinion as well. I have known a fair number of doctors personally, and most are not among the smartest people I know.

      • Pat

        +1. Physicians are the auto mechanics of the professional class. Most of them are shitty diagnosticians. Algorithmic, but not very analytical. At least for general practitioners. Some of the specialties are a little better. But not all, by any means.

      • Not Adahn

        One of my fraternity brothers was as smart as a stump. Should have been failed out of school, then got a job working as an engineer at Raytheon.

      • Brawndo

        Speaking of Raytheon. My former employer expanded into the New England area about ten years ago, and since they are a sort of up scale store, they normally only plop stores in affluent areas. The first area they chose was kind of a head scratcher at first. Certainly some wealth in the area but not unusually so. But turns out Raytheon is one of the big employers in the area. They’ve got that MIC money. It’s basically recession proof since our masters in DC make sure there’s always a war to fund somewhere.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        The number of people capable of being physicians far surpasses the number actually allowed to become MDs. There’s a quite a large group of people who score very well on the MCAT (the medical school admissions exam). Far more than can be admitted. Starting about a decade ago, schools began selectively screen those for wokeness… i.e., belief in health equity. They even went so far as to add a new section to the MCAT for the explicit purpose of evaluating each candidate’s belief in health equity. So, just spitballing numbers, let’s say you have a thousand candidates who score in the X percentile, then 30 are selected out of this group based on their race, sex, and belief in health equity. These 30 people selected are intelligent… they have to be to pass the minimum threshold…. but not necessarily anywhere near as smart as many of the others in the group of 1,000.

        This is far different than how recruitment into medical school used to be. It’s a natural consequence of having a guild that artificially restricts supply through a state-sanctioned monopoly that then becomes skin-suited by the Left.

      • juris imprudent

        I’m glad I’m old enough to not see how that fully plays out.

      • Drake

        Yes – they seem to just follow a matrix. If this, then prescribe that or refer out to someone else.

        The old guys who drew on wisdom and critical thinking all seem to be out to pasture now.

      • Fourscore

        We all can read the PDR but we can’t sign the permission slip.

      • Count Potato

        We should get rid of prescription requirements for most drugs.

    • Tonio

      “The paucity of links…”

      Lucky to have any at all, you is.

      • Sensei

        The way you do this is to “help”.’

        “It looks like Brett L was busy today let me help with another link…”

      • juris imprudent

        Even worse, with a dog story up top he didn’t take the opportunity to pun with pawsity.

      • Fourscore

        You’re barking up the wrong tree

      • Bobarian LMD

        Don’t be so ruff on him.

      • juris imprudent

        I’m only worried about Swiss neutering this thread.

    • Lackadaisical

      Example number 357438 why controlling the institutions is critical.

  6. Rat on a train

    Other employees fired from Twitter said they were filing lawsuits against Elon Musk after he insensitively fired them and caused so much pain and anguish.

    “He chose to fire so many of us during a difficult time period in the tech industry,” said Adrian Trejo Nunez, another former employee.

    We need laws like they have for utilities that only allow employees to be fired during specific windows during the year.

    • SDF-7

      Maybe the tech industry and the economy as a whole wouldn’t be in such a difficult time if you, your buddies and other grovelers in tech and media didn’t foster the anti-energy anti-human “lockdown everything and stop using energy at the point of a gun! Oh, and you’re a terrorist if you criticize us!” policies over the last couple of years, dumbass.

      • AlexinCT

        SHUT UP PEASANT! They then replied to being told the truth…

    • Not Adahn

      “He chose to fire so many of us during a difficult time period in the tech industry,”

      You don’t need to be a genius to work at twitter.

      • AlexinCT

        Definitely not if you were in HR where a failing company hired 7.5K people so it could have 10 layers of managers that did nothing.

      • DrOtto

        They stole GMs business model.

    • Pat

      Ah yes, the classic tort of firing employees during a difficult period in their industry.

      • WTF

        Of course if the industry is going through difficult times, that’s exactly when you would expect people in the industry to be let go.
        Fucking logic, how does it work?

      • SDF-7

        Fucking logic, how does it work?

        Well, it is important to keep the order of operations correct — and the transitive properties are becoming more en vogue these days….

    • Drake

      Learn to code?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Learn to work

    • The Last American Hero

      That ignorant fucker should take a drive through the rustbelt or a mill town and get back to us on tough times.

      • Lackadaisical

        Amen.

    • Michael Malaise

      ” he insensitively fired them”

      He wasn’t nice to us doesn’t sound like grounds for a suit, but maybe that’s just me.

      • Not Adahn

        Sandy Hook v. Jones established that hurt feelings are worth big bux.

  7. Pat

    This guy is playing the crazy angle to the moon.

    I may disagree with he says, but I support the mooning of judges.

    Also that cut on his forehead in the mug shot looks like the alien line cook from the Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up? episode of The Twilight Zone.

    • rhywun

      It’s where the voices are seeping in.

      • SDF-7

        They told me you’d say that!

      • rhywun

        Bob had bitch tits.

  8. The Late P Brooks

    Every American has a right to a permanent job. It’s right there in the Constitution.

    • AlexinCT

      Seems the version of the constitution the free loaders have doesn’t match mine…

      • Grumbletarian

        Theirs is the Living Constitution. Yours is a dusty scrap of parchment written by old dead straight white men, bigot.

  9. PieInTheSky

    Musk should move twitter to Texas.

    • SDF-7

      I would not be at all surprised if he does exactly that.

    • Rat on a train

      Doesn’t he plan to open a Texas co-HQ?

  10. The Late P Brooks

    Am I correct in assuming Warnock won the runoff by seventy million votes over the uppity field hand?

    • SDF-7

      Wasn’t that many — something like a 51% to 48% split, but yeah… the urban areas all went Democrat and outvoted the rest of the state (from a map I saw a day or so back, Atlanta, Savannah, Augusta and Macon definitely — I think Athens (no surprise there), though the little blue county I assumed was Athens was less Northeast of ATL than I thought Athens was… *shrug*.

      • Pat

        From what I understand, Walker actually went ahead by a few thousand votes at one point, and then something like 30k more mail in ballots arrived, as they do.

      • SDF-7

        From the margin, I suspect Fulton just did old school harvesting instead of needing to invent another water leak at least.

      • Rat on a train

        There’s a reason D areas are the last to report.

      • WTF

        Gotta see how many votes they need first.

      • DrOtto

        That wasn’t necessarily true in 2016. I remember sitting in a bar w/a buddy in Houston and specifically watching the presidential election results for Wisconsin and seeing that both Milwaukee and Madison results were already in when Trump was pulling ahead there, yet CBS wasn’t calling it and I was wondering why not. The literal tears started shortly after by the anchors, it was wonderful. In 2020, both Milwaukee and Madison were last to report. That was very telling to me that strange things were afoot.

      • Sean

        and then something like 30k more mail in ballots arrived, as they do.

        *sigh*

      • Penguin

        …then something like 30k more mail in ballots arrived, as they do.

        …at 1 am.

        Chad Mason was arrested for having sex with a dog and destroying church property.

        His parents must be so proud…

    • Count Potato

      Running over linebackers is worse than running over your wife.

    • juris imprudent

      Everyone is just going to ignore how much worse candidate Walker was then every other Republican running for state-wide office (and Kemp positively trounced Abrams). Man talk about a fucking bubble.

      • Pat

        “Walker was a shitty candidate” and “Georgia has a shitty election system” can both be true simultaneously.

      • SDF-7

        I’d like to point out that I specifically didn’t say jack one way or another about the relative suitability of the candidates (I can’t imagine voting for Warnock based on the shit that came out in 2020 about his summer camps, much less the obvious corrupt church-as-landlord shit… but I just pay taxes in Georgia, I don’t live there at the moment so I don’t know what the relative media campaigns or perception was). Just that the urban areas unsurprisingly broke blue and outvoted the more rural/suburban.

        How the hell that puts me in a bubble… ya got me.

      • Ted S.

        Fetterlump was the worst candidate of all this cycle, yet he won.

      • juris imprudent

        And underperformed the co-headliner of the campaign (Shapiro, for governor). Which means there were fucking crossover votes from Shapiro to Oz. (And that Mastriano was a shit candidate himself).

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Meh. Kemp was part of the election rigging. The eGOP would prefer Dems win over non-eGOP candidates. Some of us consider it as a further sign of the uniparty and the eGOP being controlled opposition. Others consider it a sign that GOP must have different candidates. It’s interpreted differently, but no one is ignoring it.

      • juris imprudent

        Then we’re back to shut the fuck up about all election results because they are all rigged for the uniparty. Just get over elections, entirely. I got that part. What the fuck is the deal with acting different about them?

      • SDF-7

        Are you seriously telling people here not to snark and bitch about something even if they know it is futile?

      • juris imprudent

        Something, something about expecting different results when nothing changes…

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I’m not sure what you mean. The midterms played out pretty much exactly as I expected.

        Instead of spending my time worrying about what I see as a futile exercise, I’m choosing to withdraw as much as possible from the system. Build stronger relationships within my community. increase resources on my homestead to weather whatever comes, and have fun with friends and family.

        I do keep up with events because I have to be informed to prepare for whatever comes (such as the looming ATF bullshit on pistol braces or state-specific magazine bans, etc).

      • juris imprudent

        Yeah, that’s the Benedict option – sans Catholicism.

        It may ultimately be possible to build a new federal system out of such local efforts – after the whole thing collapses into a smoking ruin. I’ll be happy enough to be dead and gone by then.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Yes, that’s the conclusion that I’ve drawn, at least for Virginia and in critical swing states. I stopped voting because I believe the voting system is rigged within Virginia and nationally.

        That doesn’t mean all elections are rigged or rather I haven’t seen evidence to support this. From what I’ve seen, it appears elections can be easily rigged by strategic fixes in a handful of key areas.

      • juris imprudent

        Cool, and sorry to all for snapping. But this is the only answer that makes sense.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Not at all. It’s a heated subject and, whether rigged or not, I think we can all agree that the politicians have intentionally created an electoral process that prevents accountability and an easy way to audit the outcomes.

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

        ” it appears elections can be easily rigged by strategic fixes in a handful of key areas.”

        That was made brutally clear in 2020, and only magnified in ’22. As long as there are mail in elections, there is going to be this bullshit, and as long as there are people who will excuse “losing” as simple bad candidates while others, such as Fetterman, win who are just as, if not greater idiots.

      • Count Potato

        Also, even without any shenanigans, mail in voting favors Democrats.

  11. The Late P Brooks

    Liz Cheney is in her bunk

    Iran said Thursday it executed a prisoner convicted for a crime allegedly committed during the country’s ongoing nationwide protests, the first such death penalty carried out by Tehran.

    The execution comes as other detainees also face the possibility of the death penalty for their involvement in the protests, which began in mid-September, first as an outcry against Iran’s morality police. The protests have expanded into one of the most serious challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

    Activists warn that others could also be put to death in the near future, saying that at least a dozen people so far have received death sentences over their involvement in the demonstrations.

    They know how to deal with insurrectionists.

    • rhywun

      I find it interesting that news of this comes out of Iran, but not a peep about the mass executions that are surely happening in China with more to come after their recent “troubles”.

      • SDF-7

        Iran doesn’t pay off most of the establishment politicians, present a lucrative market to big business, manufacture a crap ton of cheap stuff or represent the Last Bastion of Their Philosophy for the True Believers(tm).

      • Drake

        Not a peep about our very own gulag in DC.

      • rhywun

        Yeah, that too.

    • juris imprudent

      So Liz wants a good hate-fuck with a mullah?

      • Pat

        If this casbah’s a-rockin’ don’t come a-knockin’

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

        The Shereef don’t like it.

  12. Count Potato

    “You can spoof your useragent to obscure your browser and OS”

    How does one do this?

    • Pat

      Depends on the browser. There’s plugins for chromium/Chrome and Firefox, or in Firefox you can do it manually in about:config under the general.useragent.override setting (you’ll likely need to create that string yourself). There’s a guide from HowToGeek. It’s older, but I think that should still work.

      • Count Potato

        How does that hide your OS?

        Also, from what I’ve read if you just edit about:config it just makes you stand out as someone lying about using Firefox.

      • Pat

        You can change the UA string arbitrarily, so you can just swap in the browser engine and OS of your choice. You can find an index of common UAs here.

        Also, from what I’ve read if you just edit about:config it just makes you stand out as someone lying about using Firefox.

        It can add to your browser fingerprint, just like any modification. That’s always the risk with piling on extensions or browser mods. You have to balance privacy, security, and anonymity. Anything you adjust to mitigate one affects the others.

      • Count Potato

        That’s part of what I was thinking, if you change the UA string, it can see extensions that are unique to your browser, etc.

      • Pat

        That’s true even without the spoofing, it just adds another point of uniqueness. Since the vast, vast majority of web users are on Chrome or a chromium variant with no privacy or security mitigations of any kind, even the most basic steps you take to increase your privacy and security make you more unique and identifiable on the web. That being said, sacrificing some anonymity to gain some privacy or security is usually a pretty good bargain, particularly if the resulting uniqueness is a result of obscuring your personal data that you’d rather not share. If the ad companies and three letter agencies know “this browser belongs to a privacy schizo” but don’t know much about the privacy schizo behind the browser, the loss of anonymity is less consequential.

  13. SDF-7

    Since we’re going OT a bit early — I don’t always agree with Schlichter — but have to say this about sums up my thoughts on the past few days with the Stupid Party.

    • Pat

      I know, I know, Hanlon’s razor and all that, but I still subscribe to the evil theory vs. the stupid theory. Nobody is that stupid, that consistently, for that long, unless they’re just playing stupid to paper over their cupidity.

      • Drake

        This – Mitch is perfectly happy as Minority Leader and will backstab any trouble maker reformers who run for Congress.

      • AlexinCT

        Mitch cares about Mitch. Fuck the American people and the party.

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

        One thing I will always be grateful to Mitch for is keeping that shit stain Garland of SCOTUS.

    • WTF

      Of course, they must always “reach across the aisle” to give the Dems what they want.

      • juris imprudent

        And you of course get the same kind of complaint from the proggie wing-nuts about the ‘centrist’ Dems giving in to Republicans. It’s a fun game, if you like stupid prizes.

      • AlexinCT

        Bipartisanship means democrats win. I never see democrats crossing the isle at all. In fact, when that Manchin shit played out I was waiting for him to fuck over the team red idiots that thought he was not part of a plan to play them and fuck over and rob the tax payers.

      • Fourscore

        A compromise (“reaching across the aisle”) is halfway between 2 bad ideas.

      • WTF

        ‘centrist’ Dems giving in to Republicans

        Such as? There may be one or two, maybe, occasionally, but I haven’t seen it to the extent that multiple Republicans are constantly “compromising” with the Dems.

      • juris imprudent

        The both of you could just as easily be lefties complaining; you don’t see it because you don’t want to.

      • dbleagle

        Hey! My Senator gets a shout out in the piece, Look, it’s pretty clear that Thom Tillis is the Mazie Hirono of the GOP, the dumbest member of a dumb party. Again, that’s being charitable.”

        They is being incredibly nice to Mazie since there is considerable debate if she is even a sentient being.

      • AlexinCT

        Dan Bongino has a quote that I will give you here: “Too many politicians in the republican party are really big state democrats pretending to be something else, but there are zero people with republican values amongst the democrat politicians”.

      • juris imprudent

        Not a bad description of Trump – 80s or 90s Democrat masquerading as a Republican.

        What I really don’t get from you (and others) is why you expect a Republican to be something different. I remember fucking Reagan, I voted for him; he was a former Democrat himself, and for all of his talk about smaller govt he didn’t deliver a damn bit of it. What did you think Walker was going to be except just another Republican disappointment?

        The left wing nuts are just as cranky as the right wing nuts. And even if we aren’t SoCon/NeoCon/establishmentCon – we are just as far out of line with the mainstream as they are. When you’re on either end of the horseshoe, the center is just as far distant and that’s why I have to laugh.

    • Tonio

      You might think, in the wake of yet another couple of humiliating defeats, the Establishment would undertake a deep and searching personal inventory, but if it did that then it would not be the dumbest leadership of the dumbest party in American politics. And American politics includes the Libertarian Party.

      Zing!

      • juris imprudent

        Does American politics really include the Libertarian Party? Maybe if it includes LaRouchies, I guess. But not as a serious story.

      • Not Adahn

        The LaRouchies had more candidates on my ballot than the LP did.

      • WTF

        Yeah, libertarians want to leave people alone to live their lives as they see fit.
        How stupid!

      • juris imprudent

        It is stupid, according to probably a majority of Americans – you know, those Hey Buddy types.

      • Pat

        Yeah, libertarians want to leave people alone to live their lives as they see fit.

        The overlap between the Libertarian Party and libertarians is tenuous at best nowadays. The last two LP presidential candidates (because why not waste your entire annual budget on a futile presidential run instead of targeting local and state offices where you might actually get elected?) were in favor of “antiracism” and BLM, and compulsory gay cake baking and “humanitarian” wars, respectively.

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

        This. And it is a huge reason why I am getting more involved with local Libertarians. Work on moving the ship, not building a life raft out of concrete.

    • The Gunslinger

      FTA:. “but if it did that then it would not be the dumbest leadership of the dumbest party in American politics. And American politics includes the Libertarian Party.”

      It’s funny because it’s true.

      • The Gunslinger

        Tonio beat me to it. Always hit refresh dammit.

  14. PieInTheSky

    It cost National Highways £267m to prepare a planning application to get permission to build 23km of road.

    The road, which would connect Essex and Kent, still hasn’t gained planning permission.

    https://twitter.com/Sam_Dumitriu/status/1600439970044313600

    well you can’t just build roads willy nilly, otherwise the libertarians win, and we don’t want that (despite the 1245 articles in the Guardian about how England is controlled by an extreme libertarian cabal )

    • PieInTheSky

      From the comments

      “Ideas of March
      @mrmarchee
      It seems entirely appropriate that any new road building exercise be examined thoroughly during an escalating climate crisis.
      I imagine a lot of this money will have gone to privately owned consulting firms. Transferring public money into private hands is the main Tory ethos.”

      • juris imprudent

        +1 Churchillian conversation with an average voter

    • UnCivilServant

      267m? They can still squeeze more graft out of the planning process.

  15. SDF-7

    ‘Orning ‘ordles: Warmup round was almost a disaster… doing well, then think “Well, I can just try this guess… I have a couple to spare… oh, well how about this… next thing you know, you’re at a +0…

    Main event also started well, then I hit a “there aren’t that many words starting with that and ending with those two… we can try… oh.. not that… well must be… oops…” and blew 2 guesses. Ah well… To be fair to myself, had to eliminate letters somehow, really.

    Daily Duotrigordle #281
    Guesses: 37/37
    Time: 06:30.07
    https://duotrigordle.com/

    Daily Quordle 318
    4️⃣3️⃣
    7️⃣8️⃣
    quordle.com

    • PieInTheSky

      pathetic

      • SDF-7

        Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries right back atcha. Pbbbpt.

    • Sean

      Daily Quordle 318
      5️⃣6️⃣
      8️⃣7️⃣
      quordle.com

      Better than me.

      • PieInTheSky

        Better than me. – low bar to clear

    • PieInTheSky

      I would continue to troll Quordlers but alas I need to go

    • Pat

      Daily Quordle 318
      6️⃣7️⃣
      4️⃣8️⃣

      Welp…

    • Grumbletarian

      Daily Quordle 318
      3️⃣4️⃣
      6️⃣8️⃣

    • Penguin

      Close to chumping.
      Daily Quordle 318
      5️⃣6️⃣
      7️⃣9️⃣
      quordle.com

    • Cowboy

      Daily Quordle 318
      3️⃣7️⃣
      5️⃣8️⃣
      quordle.com

    • robc

      Chessle 299 (Expert) 5/6

      ⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛⬛🟨🟩⬛⬛
      🟨🟩🟨⬛🟨⬛🟨🟩⬛⬛
      🟨🟩🟨⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛🟩🟨
      ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      https://jackli.gg/chessle

      That is weird. I had it all figured out EXCEPT the very first move. When 4 failed, it was obvious, but, yeah, weird.

      • robc

        Daily Quordle 318
        3️⃣9️⃣
        6️⃣7️⃣
        quordle.com

        GLIBS didnt work for UR.

    • Tundra

      Daily Quordle 318
      5️⃣9️⃣
      6️⃣8️⃣

      Yuck.

    • UnCivilServant

      Why would we trade anyone for some sportsball player in a league nobody watches?

      • juris imprudent

        To secure the political support of lesbian progressives?

      • dbleagle

        If she wasn’t that she’d still be stuck in a Russian prison.

    • Sean

      OFFS.

      Adults in charge…

      🙄

    • Pat

      I guess the Ruskies had a Bout of mercy?

      • UnCivilServant

        No, they got a great deal in exchange for an otherwise useless sack of shit.

      • WTF

        Nah, they got the “merchant of death” released and didn’t even have to give up anything else.

      • Ownbestenemy

        I at least got it Pat

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Viktor OUT amirite?

      • juris imprudent

        He b out now!

    • Ownbestenemy

      But left Paul Whelan, who has been there since ’18 to rot. Good job Brandon

      • Penguin

        What political juice would Brandon have received by including him in the deal?

      • Fatty Bolger

        Paul Whelan is right where he belongs.

    • Penguin

      The CBS “news” lady in RoaT’s link actually called this a “hostage” negotiation. No lady, whatever you think of Russia, they are a sovereign nation, and WNBA woman was a moron for going there while breaking their laws. They weren’t “taking a hostage” by arresting her. It’s definitely fair to say that those laws shouldn’t exist, or they are too harsh, but it’s another thing to say that any Americans should feel free to ignore them. I may think the people’s republic of California has a raft of stupid laws, but that doesn’t mean I get to go there and break them with impunity.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      They actually went forward with swapping Bout for Griner? JFC.

      We’re ruled by children.

      • AlexinCT

        These are the same people that wanted you to think they were geniuses because they got played by Iran back when where they signed some deal Iran never took seriously and then gave them pallets of cash.

    • Brawndo

      With more arms dealers out there, maybe it’ll help lower the price of guns and ammo.

  16. The Late P Brooks

    Bark like a dog

    That connection might seem a bit odd. QAnon is the American far-right conspiracy theory that Donald Trump is on a secret mission to expose and execute a ring of Satan-worshipping liberal elite child traffickers. Why would Germans care about a preposterous myth about American politics?

    But QAnon has had significant currency abroad for years. QAnon-affiliated groups have surfaced across Europe, including in Britain, the Netherlands and the Balkans, and data indicates they have their biggest following outside America in Germany.

    That’s because QAnon serves as a useful tool for right-wing movements around the world to promote bigoted conspiracy theories and authoritarianism in thinly veiled terms. Social scientists and intelligence officials say that QAnon is a valuable technology for spreading ideas that naturally get traction on the German far right. As a New York Times report from 2020 explained, “the mythology and language QAnon uses — from claims of ritual child murder to revenge fantasies against liberal elites — conjure ancient anti-Semitic tropes and putsch fantasies that have long animated Germany’s far-right fringe.” As Stephan Kramer, head of domestic intelligence in the eastern German state of Thuringia, told the Times, “QAnon doesn’t openly fly the colors of fascism, it sells it as secret code.” It’s likely helpful for the far right that QAnon mythology can hint at antisemitic conspiracies (such as blood libel claims) without explicitly invoking Jews, avoiding the legal restrictions on hate speech in Germany.

    When in doubt, blow the anti-semitism whistle. That’ll bring the pack running.

  17. PieInTheSky

    #OTD in 1912, Kaiser Wilhelm II met with military leaders to discuss tensions in Europe. They agreed that war was inevitable but disagreed over timing. Tirpitz (navy) suggested to wait 1.5yrs. Historians have debated the meaning of this War Council re German culpability for WWI.

    https://twitter.com/hoyer_kat/status/1600798628359991299

    • juris imprudent

      A bit ironic that the war in Europe was largely caused by the fight for territory outside of Europe.

    • The Last American Hero

      As Professor Bob Packett said about WWI, “It began stupid, was fought stupid, and ended stupid.”

    • Count Potato

      “Takes more to heat than to cool a house or business.”

      That’s not true. Heating is more efficient than cooling.

      • UnCivilServant

        Correct.

        It takes only one conversion to turn your chosen form of energy into heat. And depending upon the chosen form of energy, you can get a lot of the stored potential out.

        You can’t directly convert energy to cold, you can only use other effects to move the heat to a different spot.

      • R.J.

        No one has yet come up with a way to move the heat to a specified spot. I personally would like to move my heat to congress.

      • Count Potato

        No one uses their A/C to make hot water, or their heat pump to run the refrigerator.

      • Not Adahn

        Just house the homeless in server rooms!

      • EvilSheldon

        We call those guys the site admins.

        Seriously, twice in my storied career, I’ve had to evict someone who was living in the data center. We’re not talking ‘having a futon in the office for all-nighters,’ we’re talking ‘having laundry hanging on UTP cables strung between server racks’…

      • The Last American Hero

        What do you have against Goths? Richmond has to live somewhere.

      • EvilSheldon

        I don’t get the reference, so I’m gonna take a guess…The Office?

      • Nephilium

        The IT Crowd. Well worth watching. At least one episode has gotten the creator in trouble with the modern woke crowd, and he refuses to apologize for it.

      • UnCivilServant

        I tried watching that once.

        I didn’t get past the halfway mark on the first episode.

      • UnCivilServant

        While you don’t need to be up to clean room standards to run a datacenter, the smears of fecal matter homess people leave around them isn’t good for the machines.

      • Social Justice is Neither

        Probably depends on the temp range. I assume it’s cheaper to heat per degree change but for many winter locations you need a lot more temperature change than summer cooling.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        That was my assumption too. Going from 15 to 70 degrees F takes more energy than going from 90 to 70 degrees F.

      • UnCivilServant

        Proof positive that insulation is key.

  18. Pat

    The FBI is tackling its most pressing internal problems

    Dec. 7 (UPI) — Women undergoing FBI training receive a disproportionate number of performance citations, dismissals and negative evaluations while also being subjected to sexist jokes and remarks, a new watchdog report found.

    The report published Tuesday by the Justice Department Inspector General said it found that a substantial number of women undergoing FBI training in Quantico, Va., reported inappropriate behavior and inconsistent instructor evaluations due to their gender.

    Specifically, the watchdog report states that women account for 46% of dismissals despite only accounting for roughly 25% of all trainees. It also found that 43% of women reported that they believe men were treated more favorably, 48% said that instructors criticized them more than their male counterparts for doing the same job and 50% said instructors told sexist stories or jokes.

    • PieInTheSky

      It also found that 43% of women reported that they believe men were treated more favorably, 48% said that instructors criticized them more than their male counterparts for doing the same job and 50% said instructors told sexist stories or jokes. – totally believable… It is not like the current thing encourages people to whine about discrimination all the time. It may be true, but who can believe this shit anymore?

      • UnCivilServant

        I assume it’s false, until evidence is provided.

        That said, I still support dissolution of the FBI.

      • Not Adahn

        According to notable scholar Hanna Gadsby, all jokes are sexist, and funny jokes are violent. Therefore if 50% of feebs tell jokes, this stat would be true.

      • EvilSheldon

        Q: Why are women bad at math?

        A: Because they spend their lives being told that this (holds up fingers two inches apart) is seven inches.

      • Not Adahn

        I will be expecting your commentary on the noon article.

      • EvilSheldon

        Please let the article be about guns, and not about penis jokes…

      • UnCivilServant

        It’s about weights and measures.

      • Not Adahn

        Recreational guns.

    • UnCivilServant

      Sounds like we have to cancel the FBI in its entirety.

      so sad.

      • PieInTheSky

        I mean if it stops just one sexist joke, it is worth it

      • Penguin

        Exactly. We’re defunding the FBI for the wimenz.

      • Penguin

        *sigh* …We’re for defunding the FBI…

    • Sean

      Have they tried identifying as men?

      Who’s certifying that these trainees are actually women in the first place?

      I demand answers.

      • SDF-7

        What, you want to be some sort of Federal Breast Inspector to make sure or something?

      • Brawndo

        “trainees”

        You misspelled trannies.

    • Not Adahn

      The report published Tuesday by the Justice Department Inspector General saidit found that a substantial number of women undergoing FBI training in Quantico, Va., reported inappropriate behavior and inconsistent instructor evaluations due to their gender.

      So, they did a survey, and women were more likely to say that their supervisors were unfair sexist poopy-heads?

      • Count Potato

        They are also more likely to be sent to interview cannibals.

    • Rat on a train

      I assume the FBI has reduced physical requirements for women just like the military.

      • The Last American Hero

        Yes, they have. The double standard was in place more than 30 years ago. I imagine it has been lowered since then.

        See, you have to pass a fitness test, because you might find yourself in an altercation or having to chase someone. However, if a woman chases a suspect then the perp runs at about 80% speed. It is known.

    • Michael Malaise

      Did anyone ask if their father stinks of the lamp?

  19. PieInTheSky

    ESP vs. LAT – Full Women’s Semi-Final | U21 Beach Volleyball World Champs 2021

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7OJ55nYceI

    Important question: at what age does it become creepy to watch women’s under 21 beach volleyball?

    • SDF-7

      I’d say about 25.

    • Pat

      Depends. In person or on TV? If the former, when you can no longer pass for a college kid. If the latter, it doesn’t matter, nobody can see you.

    • Not Adahn

      1/3 your age +7

      • UnCivilServant

        So anyone who’s got an age in the double digits is being a creep watching 20-yos play volleyball?

      • Not Adahn

        67

    • EvilSheldon

      When you’re dead?

      • Fourscore

        I’m too old to play football but I still like to watch…

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

      When you start to realize that they all could be dating your son, age-wise.

  20. Count Potato

    “Growing Pains actor Kirk Cameron is banned from hosting readings of his children’s Christian book at more than 50 publicly funded libraries – despite most hosting ‘drag queen story times’ for kids

    In Providence, Rhode Island, the Rochambeau Public Library told the publisher over the phone, ‘No, we will pass on having you run a program in our space.'”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11514251/Kirk-Cameron-banned-hosting-readings-Christian-childrens-book-50-public-libraries.html

    That’s a kick in the balls.

    • WTF

      They need to suppress the old religion so the new religion can thrive.

    • Pat

      Having been subjected to a few of Kirk Cameron’s TBN movies as a church kid, I breathe a sigh of relief for the children, but the double standard is, as always, nauseating.

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

        Indeed. Maybe, just maybe, they shouldn’t allow ANY overt discrimination or indoctrination.

        Just a thought.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      They can’t have any book readers there who aren’t potential child molesters, you should know that.

    • LJW

      So lawsuit incoming?

  21. The Late P Brooks

    No matter how abominable and misguided the details of the story are — or how toxic its proposed solutions to the problem — it’s not hard to see how that kind of narrative can be compelling at a time of skyrocketing inequality, plunging confidence in institutions across the West, and rising inchoate anti-establishment movements. As political institutions strain to adapt to populist political formations and declining trust, it’s a potent — and dangerous — tool.

    There’s still a great deal to learn about this plot against the German state, but it’s a reminder of how powerful fringe ideas can be. They can organize and move people to do great harm, no matter how obviously ludicrous they may seem to the rest of us.

    The solution is obvious. We should have a large and extremely powerful government agency specifically tasked with dispensing government-approved verified-true information to the civilian population, while silencing the doubters and opponents of progress.

  22. PieInTheSky

    A round-trip flight from Paris to NY cost $525.60 in 1960. Relative to income, this is about $7,000 in current dollars (using @MeasuringWorth
    calculator). Today you can fly for about $700 (yes, that includes wine!) in economy

    https://twitter.com/jmhorp/status/1600515652502044673

    • UnCivilServant

      The flight was also more luxurious and convenient.

      Comparing any flight in 1960 to modern econony class is not apples to apples.

      • Not Adahn

        Apple didn’t exist until 1976.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Depends what you mean by luxurious and which carrier you fly. Inflight entertainment doesn’t even compare. Pretty much premium economy and above have a much better hard product than anything from the 60’s, too.

      • The Last American Hero

        Umm.

        I disagree.

        https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2019/10/17/golden-age-airplane-food-is-over-future-snacks-sustainability/

        A traveler in economy in the 1960s could expect to enjoy a selection of French wines with their meal of cream of tomato soup, veal with pilaf, salad and dessert. In the ’70s, flying Pan Am from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Tokyo meant starting with cocktails like a Manhattan or whiskey sour, followed by hors d’oeuvres, teriyaki steak or chicken, rice and dessert. Smokers could choose from a selection of cigarettes.

        I disagree heartily.

        https://groovyhistory.com/sexy-stewardesses-in-the-1960s-and-1970s-making-the-skies-friendly/6

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

        Eh, aside from the joys of smoking on planes, it’s still all airplane food.

        Don’t get the fish…

    • juris imprudent

      If air travel in 2001 had been as exclusive as it was in 1960 the World Trade Center would still be standing?

  23. Sensei

    Today in Idiots In Cars.

    turn around, don’t drown

    The water just suddenly appeared. And it most certainly wasn’t obviously flowing quickly either. And the guy was driving so being unable to swim isn’t an issue either.

    • R.J.

      What a maroon. Darwin in action. I can’t even finish it.

    • tripacer

      I watched that on mute, but in my head I could still hear the sound of the fan cutting a circle into the back of the radiator.

    • Tundra

      Good lord.

      I don’t care if you have a lifted 4Runner with a snorkel, you don’t drive through that.

    • R C Dean

      Of course, the other secret to crossing water is, once you make the decision, drive like you mean it.

  24. Pat

    We need to talk about woke homophobia

    If someone had told me a few years ago that in Britain in 2022 a gay-rights organisation would be branded dangerous, hateful, parasitical and even Nazi-like, and that it would be denied public funding so that it couldn’t spread its poisonous message to the masses, I’d never have believed them. Homophobic McCarthyism in modern Britain? The ruthless censorship of homosexuals in such a gay-friendly nation as ours? No way. Won’t happen. Only it has. The LGB Alliance, the only organisation in the UK that caters exclusively to the needs of homosexual and bisexual people, has once again found itself monstered and silenced by Britain’s cultural guardians.

    The Telegraph reported at the weekend that a leading figure in the Arts Council, the government body that gives out millions of pounds to art projects, denounced the LGB Alliance as ‘divisive’ and ‘anti-trans’. The LGB Alliance is sceptical of the ideology of transgenderism, which makes it ‘anti-trans’ in the simpleton morality of the new elites. In a virtual Arts Council meeting earlier this year, deputy chief exec Simon Mellor slammed the alliance and said it was a ‘mistake’ for the council to have awarded it £9,000 to make a film about gay people’s contribution to the life of the nation for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Then, five days after that virtual chat, on 19 April, the grant was withdrawn. The Arts Council insists it didn’t take the decision to withhold funds – that call was made by a secondary funding body, the London Community Foundation. But it is at the very least striking, and more than a tad concerning, that a gay-rights organisation was deprived of Arts Council money shortly after an Arts Council higher-up denounced it as transphobic.

    It gets worse. Unofficially, Arts Council employees took to the internet to rage against the LGB Alliance in the most extraordinary and intolerant fashion. Arts Council staff circulated a petition against the funding of the alliance, with one employee describing it as a ‘cultural parasite and a glorified hate group’ whose supporters are ‘neo-Nazis, homophobes and Islamophobes’. Another said the alliance is a ‘hate group’, not unlike the KKK. Formally, the Arts Council may not have issued the edict saying ‘take away the alliance’s money’, but it cannot shirk its part in whipping up hysteria about the alliance, in contributing to the chattering classes’ feverish view of this organisation as a nest of fascists masquerading as gay liberationists. For Arts Council leaders and staff to put about bile about the LGB Alliance and then say ‘It wasn’t us’ when the alliance lost Arts Council money is a bit much.

    This isn’t the first time the LGB Alliance has been viciously rounded on by the correct-think set. Since its founding in 2019 it has been the target of a ceaseless smear campaign. Barely a week passes without a Twittermob emerging to denounce the alliance as hateful, disgusting, creepy and, worst of all, old. Nothing seems to offend the neo-Maoists of the over-educated ‘queer’ set more than the sight of people over 50 talking about their rights. Woke mobs have lobbied for lottery funding to be withheld from these pesky homosexuals and even for the alliance’s charitable status to be relinquished. The trans youth charity Mermaids even took the alliance to court to challenge its status as a charity. That has backfired spectacularly and – forgive me – hilariously: Mermaids itself has now been made the subject of a statutory inquiry by the Charity Commission after ‘concerns’ were raised about its governance. People in glass houses, right?

    We should all be concerned about the Arts Council’s behaviour. Even if we accept that the council wasn’t responsible for the decision to defund the LGB Alliance, it’s still the case that its employees made highly politicised and even quite spiteful judgements about the alliance. For council employees to brand the alliance as parasites and Nazis and similar to the KKK is not only nasty and false – it also calls into question the political neutrality of the council, its ability to award arts funding in a cool, impartial manner. Is it only groups that win the approval of the politically correct that get funding from the Arts Council? There’s an undeniable vibe of McCarthyism to this.

    • Count Potato

      Mermaids is cancer.

    • juris imprudent

      Douglas Murray anticipated this – because being homosexual is definitely not compatible with being trans.

      • Count Potato

        Someone can be both — no matter how you want to define it.

      • juris imprudent

        Since he is gay, I’ll take his word for it.

      • Count Potato

        Wasn’t also Aristotle? So I’m going to say set theory still works.

      • Not Adahn

        Let me introduce you to a couple of guys named Blanchard and Bailey…

    • Penguin

      Good for the LGB Alliance. Good for the TERFs.

      • Count Potato

        TERFs are assholes. They are against adult MTF even existing, but say nothing about irreversible procedures being pushed on female children.

    • Not Adahn

      Her heart will go on.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I have a mild version of it. I pray that it never progresses because it is not fun.

      • Count Potato

        Sorry 🙁

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Whoops sorry Scruffy, and here I am making boner jokes.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Don’t worry about it. I make fun of it too.

        It rears its head when I push too hard physically. The muscles tighten up much more than they should and cause problems in terms of neuropathy and aching. People who have bad cases have it much, much worse as it does not relent and is quite painful.

        When I get an spasm onset I usually just pop a Valium and wait it out.

      • Penguin

        Jesus, Scruffy. Be well. What Dion has sounds like hell on Earth, and even a “mild” version sound very unpleasant.

    • Brett L

      I think I dated a woman who had that, but only in bed

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        You know Gina too, huh? Small world…

    • SDF-7

      She’s a weeping angel?

      • Rat on a train

        don’t blink

    • Certified Public Asshat

      I had that in middle school.

    • Rat on a train

      See a doctor if it lasts more than 4 hours.

  25. The Late P Brooks

    A round-trip flight from Paris to NY cost $525.60 in 1960. Relative to income, this is about $7,000 in current dollars (using @MeasuringWorth
    calculator). Today you can fly for about $700 (yes, that includes wine!) in economy

    Alfred Kahn, Hero of Freedom.

  26. Rebel Scum

    or we will beam the outtakes from SF’s fiction deemed too horrible to publish directly into your brain.

    I’m already pretty fucked up. Try me.

  27. Rebel Scum

    Man who allegedly yelled anti-Semitic slurs at Jewish daycare moons judge

    That’s not kosher.

  28. KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

    we will beam the outtakes from SF’s fiction deemed too horrible to publish directly into your brain

    Meh.

    • SDF-7

      If it doesn’t involve epoxy, your ladder doesn’t shake?

  29. The Late P Brooks

    From Pat’s link:

    The LGB Alliance is sceptical of the ideology of transgenderism, which makes it ‘anti-trans’ in the simpleton morality of the new elites.

    Most excellent.

    • juris imprudent

      That victim stack sure is a greasy pole.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Leroy Jackson gets state prison, Jose Alvarez gets let go…that should heal the rift between the black and the Hispanic communities.

  30. Rebel Scum

    Janitors hired to clean at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, California, protested after 20 employees were fired, so the social media company bought by Elon Musk fired the rest of them.

    Critics of Musk are outraged that he would fire the workers just weeks before Christmas.

    Elon continues to clean the place up.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I’ve become a grudging fan, still ain’t buying a Tesla though.

      • Pat

        I still think Musk is a slimy rent-seeking fuck, but I’m delighted by what he’s done with his ill-gotten taxpayer-subsidized fortune, so I’m willing to overlook it, at least temporarily.

      • Drake

        If he’d make a good plug-in hybrid, I would seriously consider.

  31. Rebel Scum

    A Florida man went on a deranged rampage in which he had sex with dog in front of horrified families — and then destroyed a church nativity while trying to escape from the angry onlookers, police said.

    The bitch couldn’t have been that bad looking.

  32. The Late P Brooks

    Today in Idiots In Cars.

    Do you want bent rods? Because that’s how you get bent rods.

    • R C Dean

      + 1 Peyronie’s

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      That’ll teach rich people what’s what.

    • juris imprudent

      It requires whoever paid the taxpayer to produce a 1099 for the taxpayer to include. The wife does dog-sitting through Rover; they will be giving her a 1099 for this year.

      • Pat

        “Marketplace facilitators” like eBay and payment processors like PayPal will have to send you one if you sold, say, a couple of used graphics cards for $301 a piece. Even though you probably paid $1,200 a piece for them 3 years ago. Our deficit problems are solved.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        You won’t owe tax as long as you know what you’re doing or hire someone else. That’s all part of the game though, the average rube will just pay too much tax.

      • Pat

        Exactly. Let’s say you’re a wagie standard deduction taker who doesn’t itemize or file schedule c normally, is it really worth the expense and hassle to either hire somebody or DIY over the extra 600 bucks in “income” you made selling some of your old junk on eBay or OfferUp, or are you just going to shrug and go “eh, not worth the effort?” Making the threshold that low almost exclusively fucks over poorer people who can least afford it. Major corporations and even pissant little businesses like mine certainly aren’t out there making unreported $600 transactions FFS. Ironically, most of the people who would actually be affected would probably not end up owing any net income tax anyway. “Make sure you report that 600 bucks so we can send you your EITC check.”

        The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say, ‘See if it weren’t for the government, you wouldn’t be able to walk.

      • WTF

        This is why I pay my dog sitter in cash.

      • The Last American Hero

        My band has had to fill out W9’s for multiple venues this year. This is the first year this has happened. Previously, we would get paid in cash and never needed to provide tax info.

        You are talking about a typical weekend warrior group that plays out once a month or so for gas money.

        Thanks Brandon.

      • juris imprudent

        Oh, that’s an interesting point – I don’t think she ever filled out a W-9 with them.

    • Fourscore

      payments for goods or services that exceed $600.’”

      Gift exchange, not payments

  33. Rebel Scum

    Commies gonna commie.

    The far-left President of Peru, Pedro Castillo, has staged a state coup.

    He announced he has dissolved the Congress & the judiciary & will rule by decree instead.

    A state of emergency & curfew has been introduced.

    He was about to be impeached

    • Pat

      JUST LIKE TRUMP! WAKE UP SHEEPLE!

    • Nephilium

      It didn’t work out how he would like.

  34. The Late P Brooks

    Tearful singer reveals she has rare one in a million ‘Stiff Person Syndrome’ that turns sufferers into ‘human statues’”

    Some days I definitely feel like I am turning to stone.

    • Not Adahn

      You’ve got Long Covid.

    • Pat

      Jeff Lynne can sympathize.

  35. Rebel Scum

    I wanted to like you…

    Virginia Attorney General @JasonMiyaresVA has NOT dropped the Covid related charges against a veteran-owned restaurant.

    @MattForVA, says the AG wants him to apologize before offering him help but Strickland refuses to back down.

    …but you R’s never learn.

    • juris imprudent

      Has to learn the proper respect for authority.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      When I am sworn in as the Attorney General of Virginia, I will pursue litigation to include Virginians in the group of individuals protected from the OSHA mandate.— Jason Miyares (@JasonMiyaresVA) January 13, 2022

      But that was then.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Huh, I know where he goes to church. I might actually see him this holiday season.

      If I do, he’s going to catch some grief from me about that.

  36. Q Continuum

    “Florida man busted for public sex with dog, wrecking church nativity scene”

    Meth’s a helluva drug.

  37. DEG

    “Our cleaning contractor at Twitter was told by Twitter that they are cutting the contract,” said Olga Miranda, union president for the janitors. “So we have about 48 families out of work. And it just so happens that it’s three weeks before Christmas.”

    And:

    “He chose to fire so many of us during a difficult time period in the tech industry,” said Adrian Trejo Nunez, another former employee.

    I’m certain the union can easily find the fired janitors new jobs. So they’re in a good boat. The others? Well, yeah, it’s a tough market out there as I am finding out, but if you actually built something and did some work, there are people hiring.

    On that note, I gotta get cleaned up. I’m back from the gym and had breakfast. Now I have to get ready for the interview I have later today.

  38. Bobarian LMD

    Just saw this:

    Ozzy Summers

    • kinnath

      Hot stuff

    • Count Potato

      That’s at least a few years old. I forgot the guy’s name, but he has a whole channel of mashups on YT.

    • The Other Kevin

      * opera clap* I always appreciate the creativity and attention to detail you include in your links.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    Speaking of the simpleton morality of the new elites, I remember when George W Booosh was a pathetic imbecile because of his narrowminded Good-vs-Evil Manicheanism.

    • juris imprudent

      Now it is truly human to hate most in others what you hate most in yourself.

  40. Drake

    Patrick Lancaster – the last real journalist? He walks around Russia asking regular people their opinions without any idea how they’ll respond.
    https://youtu.be/fzMKDuBAaR8

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I think the You Aren’t Allowed to Upset People Clause is somewhere in the fine print towards the back.

      • Rebel Scum

        Even Nicholas Cage can’t find that crap.

    • Michael Malaise

      I’ve been reading the useless one that doesn’t do shit but guarantee the government we currently have.

  41. Rebel Scum

    Know your audience…

    The popular doll maker American Girl is facing backlash for its new girls’ guidebook that reportedly advises children struggling with body image issues to ask their doctors for puberty blocking medications and to seek transgender support without parental consent “if you don’t have an adult you trust.” …

    “Parts of your body may make you feel uncomfortable, and you may want to change the way you look,” the book says at one point, according to the report. “That’s totally OK!”

    “You can appreciate your body for everything it allows you to experience and still want to change certain things about it,” another page adds. “If you haven’t gone through puberty yet, the doctor might offer medicine to delay your body’s changes, giving you more time to think about your gender identity.”

    The book tells readers, “If you don’t have an adult you trust, there are organizations across the country that can help you. Turn to the resources on page 95 for more information.”

    …and leave the kids alone.

    • creech

      I fail to understand the attempts to circumvent parental notice. If a child believes his or her parents will get angry and abusive over telling them about their gender issues, what the hell do the “organizations that will help you” think is going to happen when the parents are further enraged when it inevitably comes out someone has been secretly assisting the child with hormone blockers or gender changing advice? I imagine such enraged parents’ reactions could involve shotguns?

      • Drake

        Part of the fight to destroy the family. The State will be their parents.

      • wdalasio

        I’m currently reading Rothbard’s The Progressive Era. I’m still fairly early in the book. But, one of the themes that seems to come out is that, just under the surface, progressivism has always been a tool of cartelizing corporate interests. As much as government, corporate elites really don’t have much use for intervening institutions like the family. They get in the way of workers being arrangeable cogs and reliable consumers. If you were a cartoon villain businessman, you’d want the public to derive their sense of self from pre-packaged identity that you market complete with a set of accessories.

      • Q Continuum

        The very next thing I was taught after learning about “stranger danger” was to never trust grown ups who told me to keep secrets from my parents because if they didn’t want my parents to know what they were doing, it was bad.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I remember Suthenboy sharing a story of his child being afraid of what was in the woods at night around his home. He replied something along the lines of “Don’t worry about what’s in those woods. They won’t hurt you. I’m the scariest thing around here.”

        I used that same line for my children (thanks Suthen if you’re around) when we’re outside enjoying the firepit at night with the woods in the background. But to your point, I’ve also used a modified version of the same for my oldest about if an adult tells her to keep a secret from my wife and I.

        Relatedly, I haven’t really seen it talked about here but I still feel sick reading about those four murders in Idaho. Can’t imagine what those parents are going through. When my daughters are ready to leave the nest, it’ll be “here’s your dog and here’s your gun”.

      • Count Potato

        Worse, California is a transgender sanctuary state for minors.

    • rhywun

      None of this is about “gender”.

      It’s about Marxists wanting to tear the country apart. These people don’t give two shits about the kids or the “trans community”.

      • juris imprudent

        It’s building a constituency of very broken people.

      • Q Continuum

        ^^^This guy gets it.

        With an added bonus of delegitimizing and alienating the entire history of gay rights by letting anti-gay SoCons say “I told you so!”

      • Drake

        Yep – tolerance and compromise got us here.

      • Q Continuum

        Which, to be fair, is all the vast majority of garden-variety gay people ever wanted. The radicals, perverts and lunatics just took advantage of that good will and are ruining it for everyone.

      • The Last American Hero

        Yes, but the garden variety gay people, like my neighbors (whom I really like), stay real quiet and still go to the parade and other celebrations held by the QUILTBAG community.

      • rhywun

        Yeah, I stopped attending that stuff more than a decade ago. Writhing torsos and leather outfits are a dime a dozen, but especially it got way too political (i.e. leftist).

      • UnCivilServant

        We didn’t tell you so, this is far worse than what we warned you about.

      • rhywun

        Yeah, it’s a huge FU to gay rights.

        The people who study this stuff have concluded that, of those kids who aren’t larping, they mostly would turn out gay. We are now telling those kids that taking drugs and chopping off body parts is better than being gay.

      • juris imprudent

        We’re just trying to get society ready for our ultimate destiny!

      • rhywun

        Looking forward to watching that.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Let me get this straight. We collectively shut down and sued people for saying vitamins are a good course against illness but A-OK for doll makers to dispense medical advise to children?

      • The Other Kevin

        Yes. Team politics has completely ruined our society.

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

    N

    • R.J.

      O

      • Ownbestenemy

        P

      • Count Potato

        E

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

      son of a bitch.

      New gun day! I woke up to find that I had won this with a pretty lowball bid: https://auctions.mclarenauction.com/lots/view/4-81S18Z/westley-richards-1871-double-barrel-shotgun

      Setting aside that most of the info in the listing is wrong; not a Westly Richards, but a Williams Richard, etc. (If it was an actual Westley Richards I would put an extra zero at the end of what I paid) It also wasn’t one of the jokes of the British gun world, the Belgian made trade gun WRichards. I had to do a quite a bit of research quickly to make sure that it was who I though it was, and the actual address on the gun, 27 Old Hall St. confirmed it. And thus, I was able to get a nice old British double on the cheap! I will probably have to shoot 2-1/2″ black powder shells through it, due to the Damascus barrels, but that is ok, I am not going to take it out for a round of skeet or trap.

      Oh, and William Richards is still a going concern: https://www.wrichardsguns.co.uk/

      • Hyperion

        So that first one, finally got that gun Biden says it’s OK for you to have?

  43. wdalasio

    I have to admit that I’m a a bit torn about this bit. On one hand, I’d like to hope legislators would do the right thing universally. On the other hand, if companies want to support the left, maybe they should get the left. Good and hard.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I understand your misgivings. As for myself, I’ve thought long and hard and have decided “Fuck ‘em.”

      • R.J.

        I think “universally” is the key. Kroger was asking for merger assistance – so that is a company asking for special privileges. Overall, I have no idea why the government should even be in this conversation. Fuck them for being so, and fuck Kroger for asking for special dispensation. Also, Kroger was horrible to employees during lockdown, and also over forcing them to wear political slogans on clothing. So fuck them too. Fuck all those people.

      • Hyperion

        Mitch said they can have it, so neener, neener, neener!

      • R.J.

        And a really big “Fuck You” to that guy,

    • Hyperion

      That’s pretty damn fully right there though, I don’t care who you are.

    • Q Continuum

      I’m with Stinky. Fuck ’em. They signaled their virtue and now they get to reap the rewards.

    • Pat

      For me, circumstances dictate. If a piece of legislation were introduced imposing a penaltax on media companies who don’t sufficiently censor information disfavorable to the government, then I’d hope anyone with a conscience would vote “no”, even if the benefits mostly accrue to shitty people with whom you would otherwise disagree. On the other hand, if a Meta, Inc lobbyist comes to your office wanting to discuss a proposed bill to loosen antitrust regulations because the Biden FTC is blocking a merger that they need in order to further cement their oligopolistic market position, I’m not going to cry any tears if you tell him “Sorry, I have other legislative priorities, perhaps go talk to one of the Democrats who got 98% of your political contributions.”

  44. Hyperion

    “Elon Musk has decided to clean up Twitter himself.”

    You would think they would have known better, but union members, nuff said…

  45. Hyperion

    “Florida Man, you make Jesus cry.”

    Did they find his dem party membership card on him? I’m guessing once they legalize pedo, beastiality is next on their priority list.

    • Hyperion

      Maybe they should knock.

    • Sean

      lulz.

      No idea.

      • Hyperion

        Looks like everyday Keystone cops to me.

      • Not Adahn

        $9k – $25K

        Our system includes everything: Secure door core made of steel, custom milled wood cladding, secure frame, multi-point lock system, insulation, hinges, thermal seal, and much more. Additionally the doorway is entirely assembled at our factory, optimized and tested.

        The variance in price is mostly based on the following factors: the security level of the door; whether the door core and frame will be bulletproof (and to what strength); whether the door lock will be mechanical or motorized, such as with a biometric scanner; whether the door is single or double leaf, and; whether the door has special design elements such as thick Mahogany or ballistic glass inserts.

      • Not Adahn

        I’d want the inside upholstered with tufted leather, like M’s.

      • R C Dean

        $18K for our house. Which would be silly, given all the windows we have. I guess I could replace those, too, but by the time I did all that with ballistic/armored windows, I could be looking at 6 figures. I’ll stick with the dogs and the guns.

      • Penguin

        I think it’s from Spain. The cops looked like they had “Guardia Civil” on the back of their Kevlar.

        BTW – don’t forget the framing. You can have the strongest door in the world, but if you have a shit frame, they can just knock it in whole. It also helps to have a door that opens outward.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        BTW – don’t forget the framing. You can have the strongest door in the world, but if you have a shit frame, they can just knock it in whole.

        Or take a Sawzall to the wall. Siding and OSB won’t stand up long. Or a hammer to the window.

        There’s marginal utility in expensive locks and doors without also fortifying other potential entry points.

      • Not Adahn

        +! Burn Notice tip: “if they have armored doors, shoot through the wall near the door”

    • EvilSheldon

      That particular door had some kind of internal reinforcement – it might have been as simple as a heavy couch pushed up against the inside.

      But a properly installed fiberglass security door in a steel frame should run you under a thousand bucks.

      • R.J.

        I didn’t even see pieces of the door coming off. That door was clearly made of unobtaintium.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        That’s what surprised me. The door seems almost completely undamaged.

      • EvilSheldon

        Oh yeah, it wasn’t some hollow sheet metal door. That’s a solid chunk of wood or something. But take a close look, that sucker ain’t even wiggling in the frame. Something big is holding that door closed.

      • R.J.

        *Inserts STEVE SMITH joke

      • UnCivilServant

        Wouldn’t STEVE insert himself into joke?

      • juris imprudent

        Maybe it wasn’t a real door, just a trompe-l’œil à la Roadrunner cartoons?

      • Not Adahn

        The doors Sean linked to lock into multiple sides of the frame (and floor?) like safe doors do.

      • juris imprudent

        Wonder if those are a standard feature of that building (since it appeared to be some kind of multiple unit dwelling).

    • The Last American Hero

      I like the second guy.

      He’s like “You pussy, let me show you how.”

      And proceeds to get the exact same result.

    • KSuellington

      EvilSheldon is totally correct. That door is solid wood, but there are objects behind it as well to make that ram bounce off it. One of my door takedowns happened on a meth head squat. Myself and my buddy took turns like that for a couple minutes with a forty pound sledge on the door. It was like hitting a brick wall, the sledge just bouncing right off with minimal door damage. When we finally got in, by smashing through a side window that had an old metal gate lag bolted into the studs around it, we found why we couldn’t get in the front or back doors. The methsters spent weeks building up both doors with all kinds of materials, lag bolts, wood, glass, metal, furniture screwed in and nailed in. I’m not exaggerating when I saw both doors had ten plus feet of materials fastened in behind them. Those fuckers really went to town. We eventually found how they were getting in and out. They fastened wood steps to the side of the building and used climbing gear to get up to the third floor and get in a back window.

      • Tundra

        Wouldn’t it be easier to just go to work like normal people?

        That seems like a lot of effort.

      • UnCivilServant

        When you’re to that point I suspect you have a difficult time holding down a job.

      • Michael Malaise

        But apparently it turns you into MacGyver?

      • KSuellington

        Yup, it was unreal effort. Only plentiful supplies of meth could accomplish something so pointless with so much effort. But they had at least a month of knowing that we would come knocking and they went to frigging town. That was just one (large, 3 story) unit in a building that I deemed the “Casa de Santa Thong” as during one of my first visits with a very prim and proper lady agent, I was almost goaded into a fist fight with a white dude in dreads and Santa Claus thong who came up and started gyrating up right on her. Those fuckers did more than 100k damage to the building.

    • B.P.

      Archibald, someone’s at the door.

  46. Rebel Scum

    There once was a xer from Nantucket.

    Nantucket has approved a bylaw amendment that will allow people to go topless on beaches regardless of gender.

    “In order to promote equality for all persons, any person shall be allowed to be topless on any public or private beach within the Town of Nantucket,” the new amendment to the Protection of Coastal Areas and Open Spaces bylaw states.

    Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey approved the bylaw on Tuesday, but it will only go into effect once the town meets appropriate posting and publishing requirements, according to Boston’s regional website.

    1) Free the tatas. 2) This shouldn’t require a law.

    • Hyperion

      C. From experience, I can say it won’t be the ones you want to see.

      • R.J.

        So true.

      • Q Continuum

        D. Unless it’s spring break at South Beach with drunk, exhibitionist college girls.

      • Raven Nation

        “where everyone is just one jello shot away from alcohol poisoning”

      • Sensei

        +1 GGW

    • Pat

      I like topless women as much as the next guy, but this whole Year Zero “hurrrrr men’s tits are exactly the same as women’s tits” gender equality rationalization is crapola. Dudes walking around shirtless is different from chicks walking around shirtless, regardless of how unfair and inequitable it is.

      • robc

        Back in the 90s there was a court case in Canadia regarding this.

        The judge said there were two possible results, treat them equally and both can go topless, but it changes assault rules. Grabbing someone’s breast would still be assault, but it wouldn’t be sexual assault if it was a woman.

        Or, second result, keep the sexual assault rules in place and women have to keep their top on.

        He chose the second, but I thought the logic was solid.

  47. Certified Public Asshat

    So apparently you can negotiate with Putin.

    • R.J.

      I wonder if that even crossed his desk? The negotiations were probably lower level.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Eh, not sure. From our perspective it looks like “see, we can’t negotiate with Russia because they get too much. The War in Ukraine is necessary.”

  48. Rebel Scum

    The shifty Pollacks are always up to something.

    There are nationalist organizations in Poland that dream of seizing the western territories of Ukraine, and they will act in this direction, Russian leader Vladimir Putin said.
    “You can see that they want to return the so-called historical territories, that is, to take back the western lands that Ukraine received as a result of Josef Vissarionovich Stalin’s decision after World War II. As you know, these lands were taken from Poland and given to Soviet Ukraine,” Putin said at a meeting with members of the Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights.
    According to Putin, “Polish nationalists” will pursue this because “you can see it even from their literature, reasoning and speeches.”

    He’s probably not wrong, but still…it is like, how you say, hypocritical.

    • juris imprudent

      I renew my call for the restoration of the glorious Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth!

      • Q Continuum

        It would certainly be loaded to the gills with heartbreakingly gorgeous Slavic women so… ok I’m in.

    • wdalasio

      It’s almost as if he’s suggesting to the Polish that Russia wouldn’t be to averse to their making a grab. Whatever you think of him, that’s a pretty good troll move.

  49. The Other Kevin

    Chicago area Glibs, I’ve got some hockey games this Saturday at Morgan Park Sports Center, 11505 S Western. My games are back to back, at 9am and 10:45am. No charge and free parking.

    • Pat

      No charge and free parking.

      Geez, you guys must be as underpaid as the US Women’s National Team.

      • The Other Kevin

        Our games are about as well attended. 🙂

  50. The Late P Brooks

    Vox wants you to understand

    This year, Congress’s annual defense bill, a must-pass measure that authorizes military spending for the next year, includes a unique provision.

    The legislation, known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), lays out more than $840 billion in defense funds and would roll back the military’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate. That mandate, put in place in August 2021 to prevent the spread of coronavirus among service members, is opposed by Republicans, who’ve long railed against vaccine mandates in general. Now the GOP is using the NDAA to seize a win on something they’ve made into a culture war issue.

    ——-

    The push against the military vaccine mandate marks the latest effort by the GOP to make vaccine mandates an issue of contention in different must-pass bills. Republicans have repeatedly threatened to hold up government funding unless they could vote on amendments that would defund vaccine mandates the Biden administration has put in place for federal employees and medical workers. Since those mandates were established, GOP lawmakers have frequently tapped into the issue as a way to show their base that they’re protecting people’s liberties.

    Politicizing life or death choices. It’s what Republicans do.

    • Rebel Scum

      something they’ve made into a culture war issue.

      Yeah, sure…

      GOP lawmakers have frequently tapped into the issue as a way to show their base that they’re protecting people’s liberties.

      Funny, that. I thought Dems were “pro-choice”.

      • Penguin

        They’re also “SCIENCE” protagonists, which is why they’re following the most recent developments in the science around the COVID-19 vaxxes.

  51. Rebel Scum

    You are going to need something to reconquer territory lost to Ukraine.

    The US Department of State has approved the sale to Poland of 116 M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks and related equipment to an estimated cost of USD 3.75 billion, the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) announced on Tuesday.

    The tanks are an older version than the 250 M1A2 SEP v3 Abrams ordered by Poland earlier and are intended to fill the gap left by the country sending tanks to Ukraine.

    “The proposed sale will improve Poland’s capability to meet current and future threats by providing a credible force that is capable of deterring adversaries and participating in Nato operations” the DSCA said in a statement.

    It seems that we are just sending all of our weapons/systems elsewhere.

    • Rebel Scum

      Related.

      The State Department approved Poland’s request to buy 112 000 M829 depleted uranium APFSDS rounds for tanks.

      USA previously had a policy of not exporting DU rounds, even to its closest allies.

      It will allow Poland to destroy the front armor of Russian T-90 tanks.

      • Pat

        That’s nothing compared to amount of screen doors we’ve sold them for their submarines.

  52. UnCivilServant

    *grumble*

    I ask for normal delivery because the GPS sends people to the wrong intersection. If you just drop my food on a step and flee, it could be at the wrong house.

    Plus the outdoor steps are not sanitary.

    • PieInTheSky

      the problem is you grumble too much that is why they flee

      • PieInTheSky

        you should practice fasting

      • Lackadaisical

        I didn’t know you were in the WEF, Pie.

  53. Rebel Scum

    Name checks out.

    Project Veritas released a new video today exposing a high-ranking private school official, Joseph Bruno, who admitted that he teaches underage children about sex with items such as “butt-plugs” and “dildos.”

    Bruno, who works as the Dean of Students at an elite school in Chicago called Francis W. Parker, said that these were the items brought into the classroom by an LGBTQ+ group.

    “So, I’ve been the Dean for four years. During Pride — we do a Pride Week every year — I had our LGBTQ+ Health Center come in [to the classroom]. They were passing around butt-plugs and dildos to my students — talking about queer sex, using lube versus using spit,” Bruno said.

    The school administrator claimed that this educational practice is one of the reasons he enjoys his current employment.

    “The kids are just playing with ‘em, looking at ‘em [butt-plugs and dildos] … They’re like, ‘How does this butt-plug work? How do we do – like, how does this work?’ That’s a really cool part of my job,” he said.

    I assume law enforcement has been contacted. ///StopLaughing

    • juris imprudent

      Per wiki, checks out: …the school is based on the progressive education philosophies

    • Lackadaisical

      “How do we do – like, how does this work?’ That’s a really cool part of my job,”

      Y’all are just puritans if you don’t want teachers taking your kids how to properly use butt plugs.

      *Insert reason claiming that we need to de-stigmatize prostitution*

      • Not Adahn

        Meh. Whores >> Politicians.

        If you can legitimately massage my shoulders, or collect semen from animals, or clean sewers, or perform any number of protological examinations, it seems like arguments against sex work is “wrongfun bad.”

    • Pat

      inb4 the howls of iT wuZ TaKEn oUt Of COntExT!!!!!

      • juris imprudent

        SeLeCtIVe EdiTTiNg!!!

    • Not Adahn

      using lube versus using spit

      I’m assuming there’s a practical?

      • juris imprudent

        My guess is Mr. Bruno will be begging for lube for the ass-jamming he’s about to get.

  54. PieInTheSky

    The December 1998 issue of Computer Gaming World had Lara holding two strategically placed balls, and a Christmas tree decorated by Apogee’s Duke Nukem. So of course I cut it out to post 24 years later!

    https://twitter.com/ScottApogee/status/1600732473755041792

  55. Lackadaisical

    ” we will beam the outtakes from SF’s fiction deemed too horrible to publish directly into your brain.”

    I’m already getting waves of unease thanks to your last link there buddy, thanks.

  56. Rebel Scum

    Open corruption is open and corrupt.

    House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters told Democrats she doesn’t plan to subpoena former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried to testify at Tuesday’s hearing about the crypto exchange’s rapid demise, according to people with direct knowledge of the conversation.

    Waters informed committee members of her decision at a private meeting Tuesday with Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler on Capitol Hill, these people said, declining to be named in order to speak freely about private conversations.

    Those at the meeting say Waters said she wants committee staff to try to convince Bankman-Fried to voluntarily testify, those with knowledge of the meeting said. As of late Wednesday, Bankman-Fried has yet to agree to voluntarily testify to the House committee, two of the people explained.

    • Drake

      My old history books made a big deal out of the Teapot Dome scandal that got an actual Cabinet member jailed. It seems so quaint and small-time now.

    • Gender Traitor

      “Once I have finished learning and reviewing what happened, I would feel like it was my duty to appear before the committee and explain,” Bankman-Fried said. “I’m not sure that will happen by the 13th. But when it does, I will testify.”

      Learning what happened at his own company?? Implausible deniability?

      • UnCivilServant

        He doesn’t need a plausible excuse. He just needs enough that “No Reasonable Prosecuter” would file against him. He was funding the right people…

      • Nephilium

        The problem is that all of his public statements since then have been showing he was well aware of what was going on, and he made fun of all the woke people as well.

      • UnCivilServant

        I never said he was bright.

  57. PieInTheSky

    ok i genuinely don’t get eugenics stigma – isn’t “don’t let siblings marry” or “abort a fetus if tests positive for a horrible genetic disease” eugenics? which most ppl seem to support?
    Am I misunderstanding what people mean by eugenics? Is there a diff word I should use?

    https://twitter.com/Aella_Girl/status/1600728065503801346

      • Pat

        That explains how she can afford to be so stupid.

      • PieInTheSky

        apparently pulls 800k per year on onlyfans. And has quite the twitter following even on her SFW account, doing mostly polls and asking various questions of questionable depth

    • Lackadaisical

      She’s basically correct, though also must be purposefully ignorant of it’s history?

      Also probably a love of controlling others.

      • Not Adahn

        Eh, I think it’s more the idea that Top Men should (or even can) determine which people should be allowed to breed. Genetic Central Planners, if you will.

      • Pat

        Yeah, compulsion isn’t a technically necessary component of eugenics, but it’s been a practical one every place it’s been implemented as official policy. “Selective breeding” is a type of eugenics, but the term encompasses a lot more than that. Choosing to be sterilized in your prime reproductive years because you’re a neurotic freak is different than being sent to a state mental hospital because you’re funny in the head and being sterilized so you don’t pass on your defective genes.

    • R C Dean

      Eugenics is more population wide attempts to breed a better human race. Avoiding genetic abnormalities or known risks is in a different bucket, to me.

    • Tundra

      Neat!

  58. PieInTheSky

    ‘GRExit’ gains momentum as Ph.D. programs drop exam requirement

    https://www.science.org/content/article/gre-exit-gains-momentum-ph-d-programs-drop-exam-requirement-amid-pandemic

    To quantify the trend, Science examined the application requirements for Ph.D. programs in eight disciplines at 50 top-ranked U.S. universities. Only 3% currently require prospective students to submit GRE General Test scores, compared with 84% 4 years ago. An additional 5% strongly recommend that prospective students submit scores. Others make it optional; one program’s website reads, “In certain cases, a strong GRE score submitted with your application can improve your chances.” But 36% of the programs explicitly state that GRE scores will not be accepted or reviewed as part of the admissions process.

    Ledford attributes much of the shift to “a reckoning” around diversity. She and other scientists argue that the cost of the test—$220 per attempt, plus travel expenses and training materials—disadvantages students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and dissuades them from applying to graduate school. COVID-19 provided another reason to drop the test requirement, as a move to online testing led to concerns about whether some students had access to a suitable testing environment. “This was low-hanging fruit during COVID for places to give it a shot,” Ledford says.

    • UnCivilServant

      $220 is less than a textbook. It’s certainly within reach of a poor person with a job whose focus is getting further indoctrination.

    • Pat

      She and other scientists argue that the cost of the test—$220 per attempt, plus travel expenses and training materials—disadvantages students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and dissuades them from applying to graduate school.

      If that’s your concern then just set up a non-profit to subsidize the cost of the test for “students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds” (so much for the economic advantages of an undergrad degree if you can’t afford $220 to take the GRE). And then when that results in about the same distribution as we see now we can discuss your real agenda of giving preference to minority students and eliminating minimum standards of competence. FFS, the GRE is the least rigorous graduate school exam already. Exactly how fucking dumb do you need to make it?

      • Gender Traitor

        “The job I got with my Grievance Studies degree doesn’t pay enough for me to take the test and get accepted for the Master’s program in Barista Studies.”

    • juris imprudent

      So we’re going back to 18th century style highest education!

    • Michael Malaise

      I thought Grexit was the official Greece-out-of-the-EU movement.

    • Grumbletarian

      “Union workers and their families are finally able to breathe a huge sigh of relief, knowing that their hard-earned retirement savings have been rescued from steep cuts,” said Lisa Gomez, assistant labor secretary for employee benefits security.

      Pensions are not “retirement savings”.

    • Michael Malaise

      If they would allow loosie sales, this wouldn’t happen.

    • Michael Malaise

      Someone got a phone call.