Look! Up in the sky! It’s the emergency Glib Signal!
Tonio has let us all know that the post hopper is low. Something must be done. So, I finished work, cooked dinner for the family, and then wrote this open trash post.
I am introducing three conversational topics, but clearly you can talk amongst yourselves about anything you desire.
Topic 1: People who make movies don’t even care anymore. Look at this. It’s the title screen! I paused it, in case you may actually need the correct spelling of Christmas in the upper left. This is only one example of the descent into Idiocracy which is our modern world. Let me know what ridiculous things you have seen lately. Is it better than this? Even my photography is trash!
Topic 2: The Republicans could have chosen better candidates. Lots of chatter going on about this. I personally believe this guy could have beaten Fetterman. Thanks to Count Potato
Topic 3: Speaking of jams (see #2), this came across my mind. Enjoy and post some music!
Mweehahaha! The trash poster strikes! The only way to stop me is to make a post!
Swiss Servator adds… We are really out of material. Got an idea…put finger to keyboard and knock it out. Here is your big chance!
A twister by Chris Tams?
No, it’s a remake of the stormchaser film by Chris Tam – Chris Tam’s Twister.
I don’t like the above attempt at a First so I will pretend that didn’t happen. I won’t even use my third eye to reshuffle the timeline here.
Who Firsts the Firsters?
I’m skeptical that Swiss would approve of my content.
I would have little doubt about your thoughtful contributions, but an entire post of your shtick and I’d track you down and personally catbutt you.
See, that calls for a true Brochetta of FIRST
All hail the great firster, first of his name.
You have made several thoughtful posts on various things, but lately you’ve discussed the NFL and its nincompoopery. That would make a good article.
*Opens on work computer* You can’t tell me what not to do.
What’s “work?”
Now you’ve done it. You lit the Rufus signal.
Good, we haven’t heard enough from him lately.
Excessing federal personal property…I try to do my part
I have two in the hopper about 95% done.
I was be sending one thru today for sure.
I found one that can be refitted into a complete story. I have others that are in flight that require some more work.
Of course, I could always do some video game reviews and an article on theology…
Hey, I’m the only trash poster around here!
Meehaha! Defeat me then!
No dumb here!
You see how Congress passed a funding bill? Maybe passing a sweeping, costly, and highly unconstitutional student loan forgiveness plan by executive order and expecting Congress to fund it after the fact wasn’t such a hot idea. Though I am surprised that the Republicans didn’t let the Dems have their way here, too. I mean, anything and everything is negotiable if it means money for the military and Ukraine.
The movie features Casper Van Dien. That’s all it needs.
Here I was thinking that Grace was his sister – it’s his daughter.
Damn, I’m getting old.
Who’s your daddy?
Do you ever get the feeling that the people in the FedGov really aren’t working for us?
Isn’t the question “Do you ever have the delusion that the people in the FedGov are working for us?”
All the time. Sometimes they literally say so outright.
“people in Hollywood don’t even care anymore”.
At the risk of revealing too many embarrassing things about myself…
I watched the new Disney+ series Willow, having fond memories of a not-so-good fantasy pic by George Lucas back in the day.
Ooof.
It is bad. Really bad. Half the time you can’t even tell what is supposed to be happening. (This from a guy who rolls his eyes when people talk about how hard it was to follow Inception, or about how deep the series Lost was)
Telling further tales… I tried to go back to “The Witcher” and catch the latest season. Yeah… I made it less than 15 minutes before I got bored and left.
Then you’ll love the newest offering of the Witcher.
😂
I bailed out of that after episode 1. I couldn’t take the desecration.
Speaking of lovely 80s things aging gracefully (not Madonna), Ladyhawke has not fared well ONLY because of the soundtrack, which Alan Parsons produced. It should have had a more fantasy soundtrack (rather than adventure), a la Labyrinth.
I will say 1 good thing. Warwick Davis is still performing at the same level he did in the original.
(I watched the original with my 10 year old in preparation, so it was fresh. I really liked him I the role, but let’s not kid ourselves.)
The soundtrack to The Princess Bride is a crime against music, but would you remember the movie more fondly if it were any other way?
I’ve actually never seen The Princess Bride, although I have the DVD.
I didn’t remember the music from Ladyhawke at all, though, so… Labyrinth was brilliant.
I’ve actually never seen The Princess Bride, although I have the DVD.
What.
The.
Fuck?
I can’t even.
*hangs head in shame*
I believe the word you are looking for is Inconceivable.
You need to fix this NOW.
Okay, not NOW, but the first time you have 90 minutes available.
I’m late to the party here, but I’m sincerely surprised that nobody in these “you’ve never seen it?” responses has posted the one flamingly obvious retort.
Oh nevermind, I typed too fast. Rob did.
Speaking of which, the only good retro-fitting of movies I have witnesses was replacing the Stevie Wonder soundtrack to The Outsiders with period rockabilly.
That worked nice, and made the film so much better and au currant.
So, Ladyhawke was an Alan Parsons project?
It is a beautiful movie in spite of the soundtrack, yes. There’s a scene in there where the hawk flies low over a pond, wingtips just brushing the surface of the mirror-smooth water; it turns out they had just been filming some random shots of the bird flying, and that footage was so beautiful that they just inserted it into the movie.
I’ve always enjoyed that movie: Matthew Broderick’s ongoing conversations with God, Michelle Pfieffer in those days was so beautiful she didn’t look quite real. And that scene in the final act, where Rutger Hauer rides that huge black horse down the main aisle in the cathedral? Great stuff.
Why don’t they make movies like that now?
What you did there was observed.
Why don’t they make movies like that now?
No clue, but it was nearly perfect. We were just talking about it the other day with our kids. I decided we were bad parents for not showing it to them when they were young, so we’re gonna have family movie night soon to fix that!
Great scene here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_npi1WISDk
I think we are on like 5th generation of Hollywood nepotism at this stage and the entire industry is pretty much creatively bankrupt. At the studio level its nothing but rehash of IP’s because that’s supposedly safer. And the almighty foreign market or some such.
I think nepotism is a big thing. It’s a bunch of people who never really worked. Never really experienced anything. Those are the people coming up with ideas and doing the writing and signing off on shit for the most part. People from insular, privileged little worlds with no real life experience and incredible amounts of narcissism and group think don’t make for good writers.
Mash up all three and now we are talking. Willow dreaming of an island that is dreaming of Willow.
This is why the news of Amazon bringing one of my favorite franchises to the screen is bad news to my ear.
I would totally watch a good reboot of Love Boat. Key word == “good”
Can you picture the guest spots with today’s talent?
It would be the modern c-listers like Rob Riggle clogging up your screen.
Fallout? Nolan will meld Westworld timeline with Fallout timeline to make the Institute make sense.
Warhammer 40k.
Ah. At least Henry is a Warhammer geek. Then again, he was a Witcher fan and we all see how that turned out.
It does not fill me with optimism.
It can only go up from Halo…
It can always get worse.
I’m watching ‘The Peripheral’ on Amazon right now and it pretty quickly turned to hate-watching – they deviated from the plot of the book instantly. It’s a totally different story, just with characters named the same. Gibson’s work can be a bit convoluted, so adjustments need to be made, but they’ve utterly changed character’s motivations, personality, etc.
Granted, Gibson is already a lefty and had a total fucking meltdown when Trump won (the sequel to ‘The Peripheral’ is total fucking cringe fulfillment about Herself winning) so a left-ward slant was already built-in, so at least that’s not annoying me too much. We’ll see how they finish out.
I watched the series. It was entertaining enough.
I hadn’t read the book. I gave up on Gibson a long time ago.
Things like making Lev a heavy annoy me – in the book he’s really pretty mellow, especially for a Klept guy.
But the showrunners want to show what a scary amoral monster he is, so they have him kill the Stub version of himself, along with the extended family.
But that makes no fucking sense, as it’d mean he’s something like 120 years old, which is obviously isn’t (the book talks about Lowbeer being quite old and how unusual that was).
I didn’t even know he wrote a sequel to The Peripheral.
So does preventing Drumpf from stealing the presidency somehow prevent the Jackpot due to Her benevolent guidance, or is the Jackpot portrayed as a good thing because it gets the human population down to sustainable levels?
She’s saves the world from nuclear destruction, of course; the Jackpot might still happen but thanks to Her benevolence it’s less likely.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34943643-agency
I wish I was kidding. That first review covers it pretty well. “Tedious” is right.
lol.
I didn’t watch Lost, but I totally dug Inception, although it was uncomfortable at times.
Im going through Lost right now. I am not seeing what was so amazing about it. Everything is quite on the nose but I remember (maybe misremembering) people saying it was so deep and philosophical or some nonsense.
Everyone kept telling me, this is so deep! You have to watch it!!!
People I like.
So, I watched.
It started out intriguing. But then…
I quickly realized the writers had no idea where they were going. It was just spooky and vague so they had a spooky and vague backdrop.
And it quickly devolved into “oooh!!!! What if we did this!!”.
It was like the South Park parody of Family Guy with the manatees and the idea balls. “That’s like this one time, Mohamed came to the door wearing a meat helmet and gave me a salmon.”.
Yep, that was the problem. It was very interesting, until you realized they had no idea where the story was going and were just making it up as they went along.
There were lots of puzzles that they hadn’t figured out answers to yet, which led to people thinking it had to be meaningful instead of made up as it went along.
The problem with Inception is the problem with nearly every Nolan film. You don’t really give a shit about the characters. DiCaprio wants desperately to get back to his children (or so we are led to believe … does that thing stop spinning or not?) but you never see him interact with the kids, you never get the import of his relationship to them. You don’t even really see the f-ing kids! I get it that maybe they were never real, but keeping them at such a distance from the audience really weakens the emotional arc of the main character.
You get weird scenes of him with Marion Cotillard in a hotel room that lack any real emotional resonance.
Nolan is a technocratic filmmaker who makes interesting movies but cannot really tell a meaningful story. His most sincere work was one of his first (Memento.)
I watched a preview of this when I logged in to watch Christmas movies last month. That got a big old NOPE from me. After the 4th Indiana Jones abortion I swore off reboots.
It’s not just that they are cringy. It’s that it casts shade on the originals.
Lost – deep?
I knew they were dead and in purgatory before the end of season 1.
*gasps* well I guess no more reason to continue watching. *kicks can* Thanks juris
If it spared you from watching the whole thing you really would thank me.
Spared me from watching any of it now. Not that it was near the top of my list.
Some people around here take their entertainment way too fucking seriously. If you are enjoying it, keep watching. I didn’t watch it until a couple years after it finished running, so I knew going in the end was… not worthy of the first five seasons. I still enjoyed it because there are a lot of entertaining moments along the way. But I’m not an entertainment snob, so, whatever.
Some people around here take their entertainment way too fucking seriously.
I find it hard to believe that autists take anything too seriously!
Happy new year, Matt! I hope all is well!
Thanks, Tundra. This year is starting off much better than the previous. Happy new year to you, too!
Ya’know – that’s kinda an interesting point. We’re all good with do your own thing, politically, but boy can we human as good as anyone when it comes to certain other topics…
Deep dish pizza with pineapple.
For example.
Yes. It is known that the thinner the crust, the better the pizza, and pineapple pairs wonderfully with pepperoni.
Is it a type of pizza if you use lavosh cracker bread for the crust? If so, it is the best type of pizza.
*remembers John’s diatribes against The Eagles/Springsteen/Dylan*
Well at least somebody knew. I doubt the writers had any idea at that point.
To be fair, beyond a pitch book and a bible with some sketchy ideas about future episodes, most series are not fully developed from the jump.
True, but a show like Lost needs to have some idea of where it’s going. I think it was Frank Herbert who compared the ending to mountains in the distance; you don’t have to know how you’re getting there, but they’re always there to remind you that you are going somewhere.
I wish show writers would pick a number of season they think they can get sold…then write the story from there backwards to season 1, episode 1.
Vince Gilligan laughs at you. Someone knows how to tell a story from start, to finish. Even with a spin-off.
ISTR he had the whole story arc, all 5 seasons, written down from the get-go. I have a vague memory of hearing that about B5 as well (I’ve not seen it).
And he’s done two series, not a new one every other year. I can imagine his mode isn’t sustainable for higher output.
Laughs at me?
I don’t make the rules. And yes, Vince is awesome.
Correct. They don’t bother mapping out a multi-season arc because they don’t know if they’re going to get canceled after the first season.
As soon as I heard the premise, that was my thought, although I compared it to the vintage Leslie Howard movie Outward Bound.
Willow was my jam back in first grade, glad for everyone who tried it so I didn’t have to. My completely rose tinted memories are untainted.
I actually watched Idiocracy from beginning to end for the first time, not long ago.
Mostly I watch black and white detective/crime/thrillers from the ’30s and ’40s.
I watched one lat night called “Quicksand” featuring Mickey Rooney. It was of the type I call tarbaby movies, in which each bad decision is compounded by more worser decisions supposedly aimed at fixing the original fuck-up. It was actually pretty good. Peter Lorre was in it, too.
That’s one of my favorite noir themes. The compounding fuckups and terrible decisions. They are dark but I’ve always felt they captured humans pretty nicely.
I went on a film noire jag after being introduced to the genre in a college film course.
That bounced me into a screwball comedy that I love. “Bringing up Baby”.
Glibs who want a laugh, I offer this diversion. It is great fun.
While you are in the genre, take some time to catch “No Time for Sargeants.”.
I had the luxury of watching Bringing Up Baby at a real theater with an actual audience a few years ago. A good time.
Too right. “Bringing up Baby” is tremendous fun.
I actually watched Idiocracy from beginning to end for the first time, not long ago.
Me too. I guess it was fine? I can obviously see the connection everyone is trying to make to the movie, but I’m not sure it was really a good movie.
Mike Judge is routinely great. King of the Hill is one of my favorite shows. However, you can this story wasn’t as personal as his other work (Office Space, Beavis and Butthead, KotH)
Yup. Not the best movie, but it’s notable for the number of top notch memeable moments about our decline as a culture.
I assume you identified with Upgrayedd?
I’m in the process of doing some research on a book (or “manifesto”, to-may-to to-mah-to) on an idea I’m currently calling paleolibertarianism. I know that the term is used as “tactic”, but I’m thinking of it as a political philosophy. Essentially, my thinking is that libertarianism drew much of its early thinking from the pre-Buckleyite “Old Right”. And, with some modest tweaks, they got a lot of things right, most notably the corruption of the whole idea of universalist progressivism. It was Buckley and the National Review neo-conservatism that caused the American right to lose its way and mostly redefine themselves as champions of yesterday’s progressivism as a trade-off for militarism in opposition to international communism. But, the fight ended up mostly illusory (or at least not as meaningful) as the West and the communist block came to be dominated by a strikingly similar New Class largely a function of that progressivism and the Managerial State it created. And rule by that New Class is increasingly proving a disaster. Mainstream libertarianism, unfortunately, looks like it offers little alternative to that disaster other than artisan bread and slightly hipper circuses. At least that’s my tentative thesis.
So far, I’ve read Rothbard’s The Betrayal of the American Right and The Progressive Era. I’m about to get started on Nock’s Our Enemy the State. I’ll probably eventually get around to reading some Burnham and maybe some Dilas. Any suggestions anyone can give me would obviously be greatly appreciated.
When I start putting pen to paper, I’ll try to make some of it submissions here.
Oh, great. One of us is writing a manifesto. Might as well get ready for the FBI raids and CNN leaks now.
“You know I always knew there was something off but then again, we are all off…just seemed odd though” /CNN quote of OBE
Followed by
“This vast terrorist network spans 4 continents”
– US attorney General Merrick Garland.
It takes way less than a manifesto to get raided these days….
Too bad they weren’t around when old Karl was at it.
Pro tip – in modern lingo, calling your work a manifesto will make people think you have or plan to murder a not insignificant number of people.
Guys, I was joking. Pretty much any work of political philosophy gets called a manifesto these days. And I’m sure the topic will inevitably get me put on some list or another.
Just be sure to very loudly and publicly declare that you will not ever commit suicide. That is the “stop resisting” of the manifesto crowd.
Like the Agile manifesto?
Technically that murdered a not insignificant amount of business projects.
*applauds very enthusiastically*
Dammit! Required training at work just mentioned that.
If you haven’t read Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism and The Revolt of the Elites – I’d certainly recommend both of those. He will stretch you back in time to follow the earliest roots of things. Which leads me to the Enlightenment – which is the source of the universalist belief underlying both modern (and classic) Progressive and Libertarian thought.
Universalism, as opposed to being specific to a culture (e.g. rule of law in the Anglo-American tradition), is the devil of our intellectual delights.
Do universalist, realist and vitalist philosophies all share that same root? There are so many terms to describe the post enlightenment ideas.
I’m not certain but inclined to say yes, and that traces to Socrates-Plato-Aristotle as so central to the humanism that emerged from the Renaissance. There were lots of ideas back in the classical world, as Ron’s series has illustrated with regard to Stoicism, but they didn’t all enjoy the same influence.
And yet most end in Nihilism. I need to read more on this. The Stoics seem to avoid a lot of what the others didn’t.
That’s a big part of the critique from Bloom (that you end up in nihilism), and his respect for Rousseau and Nietzsche. I am struggling with the latter and I’m not sure I’m up for attempting the former (given the amount of criticism of him I have absorbed and accepted).
Question for Glibs in remote locations. Best internet options when you don’t have cable or fiber optic options?
We found a house we would like to buy, but no cable internet, just DSL internet which sucks. I work at home sometimes, my wife full-time. Trying to decide if we just pass on the house or try some of the 5G internet options. Anyone have experience with them?
Starlink, if you can get it there. Several of my boonies-living friends have it and love it.
Issue I’ve read is waiting lists for access. Otherwise folk are quite happy with it.
According to their website, not available yet in our area. But coming soon.
We may buy it while keeping our rental for the next year and take our time with renovations. Maybe Elon will have it available by then,
Even of it isn’t, I have heard that you can get the mobile version for RVs and use that. This is what I heard, not what I have verified.
Costs extra… But not terrible if you have the cash.
Currently using Verizon cellular based home router. Reasonably satisfied with it, supports my work. We don’t game and haven’t streamed – so maybe we haven’t stressed it.
Are you able to do video calls okay with that kind of solution?
I don’t do video calls – Teams is audio (and PPT sharing) only for work.
We have DSL. The wife and I both work from home. We got rid of DirecTv and now rely on streaming. Performance is not great, but it works.
FedGov gave one of the local telco coops money to bring fiber to the under-served rural areas. Being a proud Libertarian, I turned them down.
No I didn’t. Fiber has been run all the way to the house. Final hook-up and service should start sometime in the next few weeks (according to the plan when we signed up last summer).
We had satellite-base internet for years. It sucked.
For a mere 100k you too can provide better Internet than you have to poor risk people like kinnath*. /That heart of an angel song, cute puppy dog eyes
*Not a shot at you, I just hate those programs. So incredibly wasteful.
Some electric company is talking about running fiber through the area on one of those programs. They have absolutely no schedule for availability.
My mom and her sisters live out in the boonies. It’s some cable no-man’s land between Comcast and Spectrum, so there’s no cable service there. They were using a mifi, but it was getting expensive.
Since we have AT&T with unlimited data, we just told them to use their phones as their hotspot, and that suffices for their needs. It works for me for all devices and apps (TV) if the internet goes down at my house or something (which it does, often).
I think KK also uses her phone’s hotspot.
Also, 5G just sucks ass across the board no matter where I am. I wish I could have 4G back.
We have old copper-cable DSL out here. Seems to work fine for our purposes, although we have two accounts and two wireless routers, one for the house and one for the office. We have no issues streaming movies and so on.
You could build your own fibre ISP
If I had half that guy’s technical skills I could make a lot of money in upstate SC.
What sort of speeds are they offering to the potential house? DSL, like cable, covers a wide range of speeds from adequate to surely you must be joking and runs on plant ranging from gold plated to holy hell, how is this even working?
10 MBPS from AT&T.
1 MBPS from Windstream because I am a mere three miles from the small town hub that provides local telco services.
try some of the 5G internet options. Anyone have experience with them?
I have T mobile 5g and I am not a fan. I don’t know if it’s hardware, software, or available bandwidth. Lots of buffering and dropped balls. I need to find a better alternative. Is all 5g terrible? I have no idea. Am I just in the wrong location for proper coverage? Who knows?
Starlink sounds really good but I am put off by the cost. Hughes net keeps sending me offers.
Had a vacation rental in the middle of nowhere NH with Hughes – worked but very laggy.
Hence part of the reason for the low earth orbit from Starlink,
Most 5G service providers are offering tiered access to the 5G network. For instances, we have it on our phones but its the ‘basic’ or ‘starter’ so really not that much better than the 4G network.
And that is definitely location dependent. We switched from T-Mobile to AT&T. On T Mobile I got hundred megabit down and 20 meg up, all the time.
AT&T is highly variable, but mostly worse than T-mobile 4g.
But we are in south Florida, where MetroPCS built the best 4 and 5g network in the nation. It is easily their best area of coverage.
Interesting. I can use my T-mobile 4G for work, as long as I am someplace stable. It seems slow for a good work/VPN connection. I would have thought 5G would solve those problems. I am hoping over time it frees us from physical cables.
5G suffers from attenuation to a much higher level than 4G. That’s why they’re constantly pushing all these micro node solutions. 5G wins in dense urban and along highly trafficked thoroughfares. Outside of that, 4G is likely going to be superior for the next few years.
Thanks. That makes sense.
Yes.
No. Different providers provide different speeds. Bandwidth costs money.
Typically Verizon will provide the highest available bandwidth for the highest price.
Also, 5G encompasses a range of networking modes with differing speed levels and 4G LTE will still be used for remote areas as it is a longer range, higher power, protocol.
In short, saying 5G is like saying mid-sized sedan, there’s a lot of options.
My T-Mobile 5G works perfectly. I had a great zoom call with Penguin the other night, in fact.
I think it really does depend on market.
Wow, that’s nuts.
Did somebody say manifesto?
Would folks be interested in a preview of Nova Roma II?
Why would I not be?
Otherwise you can read my completely stolen article on onion wine.
Yes please.
*harumphs loudly*
Check your inbox.
I read about this earlier. It actually appears like the guy tried to make things right to the best of his ability after he sobered up. However, because the airline tried to bury it he has been thrown to the wolves in the most public of ways by everyone that should have looked at the incident in the first place.
I’m in no way downplaying what happened or what he did.
Air India embarrassed by urination scandal
You have to dig a bit to find out what happened – I assumed he pissed himself drunk and got on her but, nope:
a heavily drunk passenger approached her and “unzipped his pants, relieved himself, and continued to expose his private parts” to the woman.
Yow.
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/drunk-man-urinates-on-senior-citizen-woman-co-passenger-on-air-india-flight/article66336781.ece
It’s the craziest story in a while. And January just started! What wonders await us this year….
Well after the fact he gets extradited and imprisoned for 14 days.
The idea being that all the outrage that should be directed at the authorities and Air India will be redirected at him instead.
Worse part is that it will probably work.
I’m pretty ignorant of Indian culture, but I find it hard to believe that most of India gives a fuck about this. Aren’t they one of the most rapey countries in the second world? A drunk dude pissing an elderly woman seems kind of tame to roving gangs of rapists on the streets. Though, perhaps those stories are exaggerated. I don’t know. Seems more like something that got massive media attention, probably from the West more than domestically, and now they have to do something.
Big difference between low caste rural and high caste (hi respect for the elderly) woman in first class.
He was probably lower caste then her, making it the biggest affront to propriety ever to exist.
If he was lower caste in general or than her, I’d think (again, pretty ignorant here) that they’d have acted on their own.
He did work for Wells Fargo. Was he some lowly call center guy?
Fairly high-up VP, I think – he’s an older guy himself.
So, yea, I’m going to assume this is really more of a dog and pony show for the foreign press that picked up on the story though I’m not on the ground in India or reading Indian twitter to confirm.
It isn’t normal behavior to do this anywhere, particularly to someone in the upper crust (which the old lady certainly is if she can afford first class). I haven’t heard anything about an uproar… Anyway, this guy deserves everything coming his way.
Most 5G service providers are offering tiered access to the 5G network.
I’m sure Pocatello is not a high value market on its own, but it’s on an interstate corridor. Service is definitely marginal.
Is Christmas Twister a variant where the colors have been replaced by jingle bells, trees, Santa hats and reindeer?
Boy I wish. It was just a tornado that happened on Christmas.
I did not see that twist coming.
Did they make the funnel cloud look like an upside down christmas tree?
Also sadly no. We could have written it better. Instead of hail, it’s glass tree balls. Houses are decimated by tinsel. Families impaled on giant plastic toy soldiers. Cats save the day by toppling the tree-like tornado. But only after it destroys the city.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/mother-shoots-crook
Parole revoked.
What a piece of trash.
Feel sorry for the mother and her kids.
e have old copper-cable DSL out here. Seems to work fine for our purposes, although we have two accounts and two wireless routers, one for the house and one for the office. We have no issues streaming movies and so on.
ORLY?
I think copper dsl is the only hard line option available to me. Other people in this area have small dishes which I assume are for wireless internet but the physical layout of my property (and trees) would make for a pain-in-the-ass installation of an antenna. I would have to put an antenna out at the road and run an underground cable to the house.
Regarding streaming movies: YouTube and Netflix now default to the highest resolution, also something is going on in the background that drains data. Probably surveillance. So they suck ass for streaming. Apple does the same but streams slightly better. Pluto, TUBI and Crackle stream well over almost any semi-modern connection.
You never know with DSL, it can be anything from very fast to excruciatingly slow, depending on the quality of the wiring run and how close you are to the servers.
Similar to my situation. I have DSL from the phone company with no data caps but the bandwidth is marginal (and disappears during times of heavy use.) I have a satellite system that has decent speeds (less than they advertise, though) but a 10GB per month data cap. I do no streaming and even YouTube is generally unwatchable.
I might give Elon’s system a try.
https://www.westernjournal.com/gen-flynn-exclusive-1-rule-house-just-adopted-set-expose-fbi-doj-intel-deep-state/
I’m not gonna hold my breath.
I think I read that Massie is going to chair it. So that’s either good news or shows the intent to hang him out to dry.
That bounced me into a screwball comedy that I love. “Bringing up Baby”.
If you like screwball comedy you can’t miss My Man Godfrey.
“What’s Up, Doc?”
“Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”
“That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Do not open on a work PC.
Meh.
*Opens on a work PC*
It got de-dirtied a bit in final editing. All is well. Just a cloud penis.
LOL, I was actually wondering how you managed to ‘shop up a Glibs tophat.
*innocently returns to work*
My work computer goes through a corporate proxy. I bet they don’t approve of this site. Believe me they notice when you go off the reservation.
I don’t know why anyone would use a work pc for anything but work. You have a personal phone! Use that! Or if you work at home, use an entirely different PC!
Iowahawk fights childhood obesity.
Make sure to scroll. He’s really a visionary.
Children struggling with obesity should be evaluated and treated early and aggressively, including with medications for kids as young as 12 and surgery for those as young as 13, according to new guidelines released Monday.
So a healthy diet and exercise are not on the table.
Uh, hello?
They don’t call it Little, Unobtrusive Pharma!
There are profits to be made, man. Sheep to shear, if you will.
Give them more sugar!
Of course not:
“Obesity is not a lifestyle problem. It is not a lifestyle disease. It predominately emerges from biological factors.” – Aaron Kelly, co-director of the Center for Pediatric Medicine (U of Mini-Soda).
I’ll be the first to say that being over-weight is almost definitely hormonal and biologically based. It is not a lack of will power – if you are listening to experts; there is almost no way to lose or maintain weight doing what they insist you do. But that does not mean it is not a lifestyle problem (and it isn’t a FUCKING DISEASE). The ‘experts’ have been pushing nutritional nonsense for decades and when we reap what they have sown, their nonsense is not the problem, they’re experts after all. We’ll fix it with more nutritional nonsense that will do the exact opposite of fixing it along with drugs and surgery.
As a lifetime fat guy, I will state that I was at my proper weight one time. I was barely eating, and I rode a bike or walked where ever I had to go. I will never get to there again. I eat less and less each year as I get older to prevent the scale from climbing. But, yes I do have actual control over what that scale reads. Lifestyle matters. And genetics matter. Welcome to a worlds with a millions shades of grey.
Genetics definitely matter. But, IMNSHO, not in the sense normally meant that you’ll just be fat if your hormones are genetically unbalanced or you lost the genetic lottery. There is no evolutionary biology advantage to obesity. There is some evolutionary advantage to efficiency in storage for lean times and I’d suppose that is genetically encoded in many of us. But the modern *lifestyle* and even more so, modern diet, corrupts that evolutionary advantage and makes people fat, regardless of how much they restrict calories – you can’t win the calorie restriction game in the long run, ever. I would guess that for at least 50% of the population, if you follow the modern dietary recommendations, you are going to be fat, no matter what you do. I count myself in that number.
I was in very good shape up until 20 or so as I was swimming competitively and mostly was forced to eat decent food growing up (except when I spent a year in a French adjacent place – a full fresh baguette every morning doesn’t make for a skinny me, even at 5-6 years old!). For the next 20+ years, I was a metabolic mess, because I ate the crap we are fed in a modern society – heavy on sugar, low on fat, high in processed carbs. On occasion, for a short period, I could essentially starve myself and get down to fighting trim, but it’s a losing battle, you can’t keep that up. For me, almost entirely ditching carbs (cept beer for a long time) and increasing my animal fat and protein resulted in dropping a lot of weight and keeping it off with little to no effort – as long as I stay away from processed foods and sugar. I still have a probably 20lbs to get rid of that I just can’t seem to, but it’s effortless to maintain without blowing up to 300lbs. I’ve almost completely eliminated beer in the last year or so, maybe that will help push the rest of the way. Maybe no – I might just be in that ‘love handle’ group in perpetuity, the curse of my efficient genetics. If we ever have a zombie apocalypse, perhaps it will serve me well.
Shorter – I think anybody can lose and maintain body weight and more importantly general health – I don’t think a decent reserve of healthy fat is at all unhealthy – by lifestyle changes. And that almost entirely by changing the quality and type of food, not quantity. Minimal sugar, no processed carbs, minimize carbs to whole fruits (seasonally) and vegetables and increase the portion of animal fats and proteins as a percentage of your caloric intact.
Healthy diet? You mean eating Lucky Charms instead of beef and eggs?
Make Anorexia Great Again
[snort]
Wut?
Good to know that his mom still dresses him in the same outfit he wore when he was 14
I once saw him in a weird half-black, half white suit.
Not sure who thought it was a good idea to dress him up like two face.
He used to wear very nice suits, now he’s just blowing money on ridiculous stuff.
I’ve used Photoshop for about thirty years, and while I can’t prove it (the image is too low-res and too coarse-grained), I suspect a ‘shop.
Also, if you simply search his images on The Goog, nothing like this shows up in the first hundred or so images, and if I understand the legacy media’s loathing for him, I would think this image would be everywhere, attached to every hit piece on the ‘Net.
You never know with DSL, it can be anything from very fast to excruciatingly slow, depending on the quality of the wiring run and how close you are to the servers.
That’s what I’m afraid of. As for the T mobile, I suspect I am at the outer fringe of coverage. When I was shopping at the Tmobile store, a couple of other people said it worked great even with multiple people on line. But they live in town, I assume.
I can never get any articles ready. I’ve started a few but am such a terrible writer and what are those squirrels doing? I will try to get something to a “ready” state.
I just submitted a pitch? for a humor fiction piece. It’s already written. About 10 pages that I can cut into parts if needed.
I may also start a monthly movie review if anyone is interested.
Oh, I hope it’s porn movie reviews!
lulz
Article submitted. Your welcome and I am sorry.
“Your welcome”
Ummm….
Poor Tonio, haveing to edit use
Michael malice?
Mmmmm… I love Arby’s!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vxQqdFOeoM
Oh, I hope it’s porn movie reviews!
Naked tiktok dancers.
“How could someone be so irresponsible?”
Among the items from Joe Biden’s time as vice president discovered in a private office last fall are 10 classified documents including US intelligence memos and briefing materials that covered topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has received a preliminary report on the documents inquiry, a law enforcement source said, and now faces the critical decision on how to proceed, including whether to open a full-blown criminal investigation.
I’m starting to believe the conspiracy theory that this is how they get him not to run again and go after Trump in one go.
It makes more sense that way.
Im with you…I mentioned in the dead thread that this is all to bolster the “no one is above the law” angle.
Ha! HAHAHAHA!
Oh, wait, were they hoping to be taken seriously?
Yeah, I’ll buy it when there’s photos of tense interaction between the FBI raiders and the Secret Service detail.
meh…source familiar to the matter is just as bad when it benefits/hurts the side we don’t like.
There’s a side we like?
Well, my side..everyone else is just wrong.
Love this bit of CNN cover.
https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/230110100114-20230110-biden-trump-documents-found.jpg?c=16×9&q=h_720,w_1280,c_fill
LOL classic agitprop
Never change, CNN.
We haven’t yet obtained confirmation that the documents do not contain nuclear launch codes.
What the fuck is this?
Unreal.
So if you can’t go kill people you seek out underaged girls? I mean…what?
It doesn’t really speak to their discipline when they are overseas and face minimal repercussions. Special forces can act with relative impunity in third world shitholes in ways that normal American soldiers cannot. The soldier who actually said that to a reporter, unnamed or not, is a fucking moron.
Yes
Damn, do they think they joined the UN forces or something?
So, what’s the alternative?
Kind of blows up the mythology, now doesn’t it?
Nah, just throw the Green Berets on the tv and cue up Barry Sadler’s song on the turntable.
The mythology is ridiculous or at least should be to anyone who has served. I do not have good things to say about the military, or military leadership. The guys who become special forces may be technically proficient compared to the leadership. The military wants to present itself as some professional outfit, but there aint anything professional in any aspect of it.
It’s made up of a bunch of dumb young kids who join. It’s mostly males. Combat arms are made up of dumb young males who like to take risks. They like booze, they like easy women, and they like the idea of war. Yea, that’s painting with a broad brush, but there’s a shit ton of stupidity and the amount of stupidity that the military is willing to tolerate fluctuates based on a variety of factors. Are there budget cuts? Are we at war? Are they hitting recruiting standards? How much money was pumped into training the stupid son of a bitch? On and on.
Special forces guys have been exposed to some crazy shit overseas. They mostly picture themselves as the alpha of all alphas which I guess is the sort of mindset you need to do what they do.
You aren’t going to fight a war with a group of choir boys, but that’s what the military wants people to think.
Very well said.
Dude, our killers are as pure as the driven snow.
Not like those other countries at all.
All the angst a while back about being in a job that is all about “killing people and blowing things up” from the more sensitive souls in the service. Note, they were not all Air Force.
1. I read once that a nation has a vested interest in sending its young men overflowing with testosterone out to fight and die, so they won’t a) be a nuisance at home and b) decrease a population that could and might rise up against the government and c) cut down on economic/social competition.
2. This comment of yours could be an article if you expanded on it. *ahem*
Knowing SF guys blew it up for me. They were very good soldiers and Marines, but not supermen or boy scouts.
So that’s why my boss keeps throwing so much work at me – to stop me from fucking around with young kids and the craziest drugs. Makes perfect sense when you think about it.
Just bored, and to a certain extent, used to getting away with shit.
IF the story is true and they were looking for underage girls, that is more than just being bored.
It does, in fact, speak to the kind of shit they are likely getting away with while deployed.
We already know what kind of shit they’re getting away with on deployment.
Give this a read: https://chrishernandezauthor.com/2014/07/30/war-crimes-hard-choices-harder-consequences/
Thank you ES. That’s a hard read.
Maybe I knew too many dirtbag officers, because that wasn’t my first thought at all.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has received a preliminary report on the documents inquiry, a law enforcement source said, and now faces the critical decision on how to proceed, including whether to open a full-blown criminal investigation.
No reasonable Attorney General…
They were classified documents, but not *classified* classified…
The Green Beret is alleged to have been pimping underaged girls to the Special Forces community at drug-fueled parties in Southern Pines.
“Underage” as in “not allowed to drink in the bar because they are under 21”?
“Topic 2: The Republicans could have chosen better candidates. Lots of chatter going on about this. I personally believe this guy could have beaten Fetterman. Thanks to Count Potato”
There does seem to be a certain cachet from being somehow downtrodden that I think plays well to modern people, especially on the left. To them debilitating illness is no reason not to give someone great power.
In 2014-15 it looked for all the world like the ’16 Presidential election was going to be Hillary v. Jeb – the very culmination of our Presidential downward spiral of the previous 25 years. That we got Trump – who though he succeeded was by all other considerations, a terrible candidate in place of Bush still meant we had two horrible candidates. And yet not much worse than the two that contested the preceding election.
When Newsom runs for President, we will be reaching a new low.
*desperately tries to wake up from nightmare*
I’m trying to block that eventuality out of my head. Because you know it will happen and that fucker just needs to arch an eyebrow and every Democrat in the country is on their knees.
Newsome v Desantis.
They are already dancing.
The worst thing that can happen to DeSantis in my eyes is him being embraced by the establishment. It seems to have already happened which begs the question as to why. It aint because he’s so good at this politicking stuff.
There aint a lot of principle there, but he seems to have backbone. But they must be convinced they’ll get what they want out of him.
Why wouldn’t they – he is a politician not a revolutionary.
Heh!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FmHr1V9WYAcyoVV?format=jpg&name=small
Nice.
From my cold dead burners!
There does seem to be a certain cachet from being somehow downtrodden that I think plays well to modern people, especially on the left. To them debilitating illness is no reason not to give someone great power.
In my most cynical and unrepentantly coldhearted moments, I think the caring liberals see those people as little more than pets.
Laughing too hard at this.
Full-on belly laugh.
Excellent.
I don’t suppose you caught the relevant Rick & Morty?
No, I didn’t but I’m sure it was genius!
https://www.adultswim.com/videos/rick-and-morty/ricktional-mortpoons-rickmas-mortcation
“Perfectly vertical!”
Terrifying
But that’s not the only change. There are other provisions the conservatives extracted from McCarthy that weaken the power of the speaker’s office and turn over more control of the legislative business to rank-and-file lawmakers, particularly those far-right lawmakers who won concessions.
Stripping the Speaker of dictatorial power and giving the radical fringe a say? Democracy is doomed.
Conservative Republican voters are too dangerous to have representation.
There are no such things as “conservative Republicans.” They are all “extreme right wingers.” Haven’t you read the TMITE’s playbook?
Speaking of the Special Ops Myth-
Wasn’t there a case, a few years ago, where some sort of special ops group murdered one of their own guys to keep him from exposing their criminal activities?
That was in Mali.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/11/15/murder-charges-filed-against-navy-marine-special-operators-in-incident-that-killed-green-beret-in-africa/
The victim had turned in the killers for stealing operational funds.
The bell has sounded, and the race is on!
Early out of the gate we have the white woman on the inside rail. But don’t get too excited folks, there’s a lot of race yet to be run, and the favorites from the victim stack are sure to be contending before we hit the wire.
Awesome. Doesn’t mention if she is a D, R, or I clearly so I believe it is safe to assume hard left D. Change my mind.
If “JoJo from Jerz” likes her, she’s infrared.
There it is. A member of the progressive caucus. She should post that first and foremost in her ads.
I saw “actblue” and that kind of gave it away.
BWahahahaha
ha
“leaders like Mitch McConnell” McConnell is not a leader
Clips of homeless in California: obviously Trump’s fault.
Special interests in the Senate: like Pelosi and Harris?
also “39% unemployed”; and good ol’ Katie is a Consumer Protection attorney. Katie, do you see any connections?
For some reason she makes me think of Violet Beauregarde all grown up.
If it’s not a POC tranny, it’s just another colonizing oppressor.
That the chick that allegedly hurls racial epithets at her staff?
That describes a lot of white chick politicians who skew hard left.
I had access to Disney+ for about a week and a half.
Because of youtube video titles saying it was “The best Star Wars”, I watched Andor.
And it was.
I have exactly two complaints about it — the use of Arabic numerals (though I know full on Latin alphabet was used in the original) and the Space AKs (even though I also know about the C96s and Stens with bits glued on — these AKs were just electrical taped. Try harder!)
Otherwise, it was a good, if not staggeringly original set of well-executed set pieces in the Star Wars universe. I think the trick is, when writing about an established, mythic universe do not write stories involving the main cast! Take new, lesser, not-involved-with-the-main-drama characters and give them stuff to do in that world(s). LOTRO did this, and it works thee as well.
Volokh
Nice chart too with U.S. up top for excess death and Sweden down low.