Like Henry VIII[1] this group’s morals couldn’t get any lower so let’s discuss another definition:
Debase: To reduce in quality or state; impair the purity, worth, or credit of; vitiate; adulterate.
As we’ll see later, Henry VIII scores here too!
In my never-ending quest to promote coin collecting I like to ask kids[2] the question, “What makes money valuable?” The response is always, “Because it’s money!” which these days is a correct answer.[3] Money is valuable because it’s money. The government says so.
But then I say, “Money used to be valuable because it was made of valuable metals.”, give the kid a flip with a 1964 quarter in it,[4] and say, “This old quarter is made of real silver.[5] It’s worth more than four dollars![6] Keep it as a treasure and don’t spend it.[7]”
Since 1965 U.S. quarters have been made from an alloy of 75% copper and 25% nickel sandwiching a 100% copper core.[8] While this is technically debasement it’s not the morally impaired kind of debasement described below. There was no attempt to fool the public into thinking that that the new quarters were still made of silver.
A classic example of debasement is what happened to the Imperial Roman “denarius” which over a period of 450 years fell from 95% silver to nearly zero. The decline of the coin was both a cause and an effect of the decline of the Roman Empire.[9]
A denarius from the reign of Emperor Tiberius. He actually increased the silver percentage.
The denarius was about the diameter of a U.S. dime and was originally the unskilled laborer’s daily pay. It is an example of hard currency, valuable because of the value[10] of the metal with each coin’s weight and purity guaranteed by the government.[11]
The core lands of the Roman Empire were not particularly rich in gold and silver ore. Precious metals had to be imported but that was easy to do when the Empire was expanding. Some of the first big Roman projects in the barbarous isle of Britannia were lead mines for the extraction of silver.
But when expansion slowed, new sources of plunder and ore dried up while the expense of defensive armies on the frontiers did not. Popular exotic consumer goods from the East could only be purchased with silver leading to a net outflow of hard currency.
Imperial currency production had to be maintained despite a shortage of bullion. Lacking money printers that go brrrrr! there was only one other solution.
The debasement of the denarius was a slow thing. Every Emperor who did it undoubtedly thought, “It’s just a little bit.” but there were a lot of Emperors. Like going broke, it first happened slowly and then happened quickly. The fiction of a hard currency couldn’t be maintained. Soldiers demanded pay raises to compensate and threatened to turn around and re-conquer the homeland if they weren’t granted. Those Easterners and their damn assayers wanted more of the debased coins for their exotic consumer goods. The only way for the Imperial Mint to satisfy demand was to debase harder. It turned into a classic hyper-inflationary event that destroyed the Imperial economy.
Here’s a chart of the debasement of the denarius:
From the Wikipedia article on the denarius. Doesn’t show the fall to zero.
Another example of debasement is the English “testoon” during the reign of Henry VIII. Henry did quite a lot of things to raise royal revenue[12] but war expenditures still outweighed income and in just seven years the coin, worth 12 pence[13], was reduced from 92.5% silver, to 50% silver, to 33% silver with a pure silver coating. The alloying metal was copper. The silver coating tended to rub off on areas high relief, like Henry’s nose, revealing the copper/silver alloy underneath giving the King the nickname “Old Copper Nose”.
When the silver standard was later restored the word “testoon” had the connotation of debasement so the new 12 pence coin was called a “shilling”.
A King Henry VIII “Old Copper Nose” testoon. Same as the featured image.
The U.S. has always been forthright about its coinage debasement. In 1853 the weight of silver coins[14] was reduced by seven percent. This made the value in silver less than the face value of the coin and ended the mass melting down of the previously overvalued coins. The new coins were struck with arrows around the date to indicate the new weight.
An 1853 quarter with arrows at the date.
Footnotes:[15]
[1] Two Kings of England after me, those assholes.
[2] When I’m allowed to be near them.[16]
[3] A more correct answer is that the government accepts it for tax payments but I don’t expect kids to know that.
[4] I told you I’m promoting coin collecting.
[5] Actually 90% silver and 10% copper.
[6] $4.37 at the time of this writing.
[7] And then get the quarter back in change the next day. Stupid kids.
[8] For a melt value of 5.7 cents. The melt value of a nickel is actually more at 6.7 cents.
[9] The historical statements and opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Glibertarian Foundation, the administrators of this web site, or the actual historical record for that matter.
[10] Yes, this just kicks the question of “Why is it valuable?” up a level but I’ll leave the deep philosophical discussion for the commentariat.
[11] You anticipate me sir!
[12] Like sacking all the monasteries.
[13] A pound sterling is 20 shillings or 240 pence.
[14] Other than the silver three cent piece which was already debased and the silver dollar which didn’t circulate inside the U.S. at the time.
[15] This article was solicited by Tonio. What on earth did he expect?
[16] This is a joke. Besides “Old Man With Coins” lacks a certain panache.
“What makes money valuable?”
Perceived or actual scarcity of anything deemed as a means of trade for goods or services by a group of people, regardless of its intricate value or utility.
*intrinsic
Damn phone autocorrect
My crass answer to why gold is valuable: Gold can get you laid.
Heh. Food and wine are currency for sex, at times.
OT – robc, came back from the store too late to see your reply on the ancient beer thing – Thanks.
At the store, I noticed a dozen generic eggs selling for $6.85 a dozen, so $0.57 each.
“The value of a thing is what that thing will bring.”
Yeah his reply [m]oney used to be valuable because it was made of valuable metals is basically telling the kid what the kid just told him.
Money is a consensual hallucination. It has value because everybody believes it does, and for no other reason.
Yes. This is only one card in the colossal house of cards that is our modern society.
Well, that has always been the case with money. It’s what “exchange value”, as opposed to “use value”, means.
Great article, I enjoyed it.
Speaking of submissions, do I need to add [submitted] or [review] or whatever to mine, or is the fact that is in pending good enough?
I put [draft] on them until they are complete, but never sure what to do when I submit for approval.
I always add [Ready for review] , I imagine it lets Tonio/Swiss know you didn’t accidently submit for review instead of save draft,
That is a good practice. I have done that a few times.
In general I try to only submit when I feel I am publish ready. I don’t want Swiss and Tonio to have to do much of anything other than schedule.
If you save something in Pending, that is enough – no need to label. If not ready, save in Drafts.
‘The core lands of the Roman Empire were not particularly rich in gold and silver ore. Precious metals had to be imported but that was easy to do when the Empire was expanding. Some of the first big Roman projects in the barbarous isle of Britannia were lead mines for the extraction of silver.’
As I understand it the Romans never did turn a profit in Britannia despite those mines due to the overhead of maintaining infrastructure and a large military presence there.
Debase: To reduce in quality or state; impair the purity, worth, or credit of; vitiate; adulterate.
Like me at an open bar.
…of the Monarchy
Prince Harry’s ‘Spare’ Has Been Brutally Retitled In Some Countries
I will be so happy once this only one shot to get rich wonder is out of the headlines.
I’m surprised that there hasn’t been a murder-suicide at their house yet. Such malignant narcissists tend not to actually do that well with each other.
His wife’s entire life is based on being in the limelight. This will never end.
I’m guessing reality TV is next.
Because after you’ve aired all the dirty laundry what do you do? You can only fly on private jets and stay in fancy hotels so many times for so many Climate Change Events.
Didn’t they already do a reality TV show?
It will when the marriage does.
And then a new media shit-show will begin.
I’ve still got my money on it ending in murder-suicide.
You sir are an optimist.
There seem to be enough people interested in the trashy royal family to where he can milk his name for plenty more. Maybe he’ll turn the book into a shitty Lifetime movie.
Obligatory theme music:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PVyS9JwtFoQ
I would have been disappointed by any other link.
I would have accepted this also, but THs is spot on.
It was literally the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the title.
Same. I was actually listening to it while I read. Pixies were so damn good.
Agree with the above, but I think this would’ve been acceptable too.
Thanks! I like this type of deep dive. We have smart people around here.
We do!
But we also have Mike S, me and the Pontiff, so it kind of evens out!
I love this. I was just chatting with a friend about how empires inevitably overextend themselves. Currency debasement seems to always be lurking in the wings.
Thanks, Richard.
And thanks, Trigger Hippie, for enacting my labor!
I’m looking forward to the US knocking two or three zeros off dollar prices like all the cool countries do.
It’s not lurking in the wings, the modern form of debasement is the 24/7 money printer.
(Insert “It’s happening!” GIF)
I meant ancient empires. We are much more refined and horrifying in our debasement.
Modern, ya know.
If only there was a theory that could describe it.
Luminiferous Aether?
A modern theory? About monetary stuff?
Wilhelmine Germany ain’t exactly ancient.
They didn’t make it very long. We started the presses over a hundred years ago.
And were they a real empire?
Per wiki: Claiming much of the leftover territory that was yet unclaimed in the Scramble for Africa, it managed to build the third-largest colonial empire at the time, after the British and the French ones.
I stand corrected.
We may have run ours longer, but we can’t match (hopefully) the top speed they got theirs up to.
As long as the audience claps, Tinkerbell can fly.
“What makes money valuable?”
It’s easier to carry than a fifty pound bag of freshly harvested corn or a bale of cotton.
That’s why I prefer a 50lb bag of goose down…much lighter.
Smart.
Helium.
Oi!
Corn is supposed to be sold in bushels. Now are you hauling an underwieght bushel of maize, an underweight bushel of wheat, or an overweight bushel barley?
Theme music
“Money used to be valuable because it was made of valuable metals.”
ah but what makes the meals valuable
metals goddamnit
Funny, that’s just what I was thinking about. (the corrected version).
Because they were stable, shiny, and were coveted.
Very intrinsic that is!
Well, the stable portion is pretty intrinsic. They won’t break down, won’t rot, won’t evaporate, and will remain shelf stable for a very long time.
So will polished granite.
JI:
True, but the rarity would be the issue. However, people… uh… people find a way.
I read about a Euro sea exploring captain who wanted the natives to do a few tasks for him. They laughed at him, so he and his men went around with charcoal marking black “X”s on their stone tablets. This freaked the islanders out, so they immediately complied. The explorers then promptly went around and washed off the markings.
Kind of a dick move, but at least they didn’t come around with guns killing a few to “set an example”. And I find it weird/interesting that they knew what the symbol meant – (or at least, that’s what I read.
They are tasty?
Because Oooh, Shiny!
mmmmmm… footnotes. Tasty.
I think I might have figured out footnotes in WP. I’ll try next column.
If you have, can you write an article about making footnotes?
Please do. They’re fun.
I did linkable footnotes for one of my old articles. It was a lot of work and I don’t recall doing it again. I’d be more specific but it involves a lot of greater-than and less-than signs and since there’s no comment preview I know I’d screw it up.
If you want to see, go here:
https://www.glibertarians.com/2020/12/diy-water-systems/
And do whatever it takes to “View page source” on your web browser. Scroll past all the WordPress stuff to the article content.
I write my articles in Libre Office writer, and add my footnotes there. Then I cut-n-paste the whole document into WP, and the footnote links magically appear. If only superscripts rendered correctly on desktop.
Will let you do it in straight HTML?
https://www.hmc.edu/communications/accessibility-resources/footnotes-how-to/html-example-correctly-formatted-footnotes/#fn-1
1. You have to know the direct URL to the footnote (and back, if you want to get fancy), which you won’t know until the thing is published.
2. There’s a plugin to do them (probably several), but the site is too overloaded at the moment to introduce a new plugin that very few people use.
3. You CAN use <sup> and </sup> to get that superscript working, though.
Mojeaux! What’s the name of the book where your stories of the Mormon female warrior monk were published?
Monsters & Mormons
Enjoy!
I just bought a copy of the e-book and Amazon says it’s been delivered to “Richard’s Android Tablet”. There exists such a device but I don’t know how Amazon knows about it. I guess I’m going to have to install the Kindle app.
I’m looking forward to reading your stories again.
w00h00!
So, I only have one story in that volume and it’s the one I posted here, in segments.
I have the Friday evening post for my Prohibition and gangster romance. I think tomorrow is chapter 15.
Looking at Richard’s footnoted article he linked to, you just need to link to the ids and anchors, as they show in the Mudd link
Which is indeed a bit of a pain.
This article isn’t about underground storage areas?
You could do a whole book on that topic. I bet it would be a best cellar.
no.
This topic is best left in the vault
Trust Animal to root around this topic.
Only if the book reviewers don’t undermine it!
Obligatory: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Z6SOlWbds
Careful, Swiss will cast down stairs at us.
“It’s Nacho Cheese!”
I am willing to trade a 1 pound English coin for one pound of silver. Any takers?
They minted a coin that weighted one pound? Seems kind of big.
When England used real money, they did refine it to the point where you could find the face value of the coinage by the weight – provided you separated the copper from the silver first. One pound sterling was actually… one pound of silver coins.
At the time, they didn’t issue a pound coin. Now the british monies aren’t worth near what they used to.
Pennies were 1/240th of a pound, a pound coin weighed 12 pennies, but was gold.
If only the vestigial spirit of independence that kept the UK from the Euro had been strong enough to avoid decimalization.
Nice. My earliest silver dollar is 1893, far after the debasement. This article made me go look through them again.
Silver dollars weren’t debased because they circulated internationally and would have stopped being accepted otherwise. The 1853 debasement made the smaller silver coins subsidiary and effectively put the U.S. on the gold standard.
So they shrank like and old man’s wee wee instead?
I would have enjoyed weighed a pre and post coin. I did find an 1879. Still not early enough.
I have a bunch of circulated half dollars starting with the Barber series going through to Kennedy. I once weighed them all and made a graph showing silver loss due to circulation as a function of time. Older coins have noticeably less silver in them.
Did you also measure their volume?
Even my ADHD has its limits.
Haha. Clearly mine does not. I even want to measure weight and volume of mint vs. totally rubbed down. I have examples of each from 1921.
[whistles innocently] When I was shooting competitive smallbore, I had a scale so that I could sort out a carton of ammo into matched lots.
Ooo! Good experiment.
Getting the density helps to show how close to the ideal silver coin the material could be, since debasement tends to be done with metals of lesser density. So those new coins might be both heavier and bulkier showing an increased copper content.
Older or well-worn?
Shaved or normal wear?
I’m pretty sure the material loss was wear due to circulation but some of the Barbers are pretty smooth so maybe Liberty did shave.
Are you talking about coins?
It’s funny how when a “neutral” site is picked by the NFL, it’s always an in-door stadium. Bills-Chiefs, if it happens, will take place in Atlanta. The NFL wants another shoot-out, like last year. They’ll probably get it regardless, but if they chose a site like Pittsburgh (it’s two cold weather teams regardless) it would be less of an event for social influencers and there may be inclement weather that reduces the overall points scored. Can’t have that now…
If you’re serious about it being neutral, then it makes sense to play it in an NFC stadium.
Fair enough. Then put it in Chicago. An outdoor stadium like both teams play in, roughly the same distance from each team’s home, and closer to both than Atlanta.
Hell, even playing it Indy makes more sense. WTF?
There is already a massive tournament taking place then.
Chicago might have been an option if they had a better stadium. It’s one of the worst, and is in a terrible location for visiting fans. Even the Bears don’t want to play there any more.
CORRECT.
how does the owner of the stadium impact the competitive balance of the game in any way? Are the Steelers somehow going to sabotage the Bengals if it were in Pittsburgh, just as an example?
I doubt AFC or NFC stadium factored into the decision making. They initially wanted to have the game in Indianapolis. Out doors on a grass field, particularly in cold weather was probably never on the table.
NFL wants to try to turn this into an event, perhaps with the goal of seeing if they can make the championship games mini-Super Bowl type events. And they want points. Lots and lots of points. Artificial surface in doors? It’s all geared to making it a track meet.
Chiefs-Bills all the way down.
Or at least, as long as Allen and Mahomes are young and healthy.
Risk analysis
Business executives, politicians and academics are bracing for a gloomy world battered by intersecting crises, as rising volatility and depleted resilience boost the odds of painful simultaneous shocks.
In its annual survey of risks published Wednesday, the World Economic Forum found that more than 80% of respondents expected either “persistent crises” or “multiple shocks” over the next two years, at best leading to “divergent trajectories” for countries and at worst triggering “catastrophic outcomes.”
Global experts identified the cost-of-living crisis as the most severe short-term risk, as high prices for necessities like food slam vulnerable households and lift the odds of civil unrest and protests.
“No country is immune to social erosion caused by lack of affordability and availability of basic necessities,” said Carolina Klint, risk management leader for continental Europe at Marsh McLennan, which partnered with WEF on the report.
Natural disasters and extreme weather events are seen as the next greatest risk, followed by economic warfare, failure to mitigate climate change and the polarization of society.
Obviously we need larger and more powerful governments, guided by and beholden to an enlightened global mandarinate operating according to principles established by the WEF.
Just don’t ask what policies, pushed by whom, might have led to “rising volatility and depleted resilience”.
WHO!!! ARE. YOU!! TO. QUESTION. THE. GREAT. AND. POWERFUL. KLAUS!?!?
Hmm. ZARKLAUS? I like it.
Now you’ve done it.
ZARDOZ will be unpleased.
ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONE. ZARDOZ CAN CONTEMPLATE A PARTNER IN CLEANSING…THIS KLAUS BRUTAL SOUNDS USEFUL. ZARDOZ HAS SPOKEN
Environmental concerns dominate over a 10-year time horizon. The top five long-term risks were identified as failure to mitigate climate change, failure to adapt to climate change, natural disasters and extreme weather events, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse and massive refugee crises.
Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.
Climate change, natural disasters, and extreme weather events are all eyewash. Climate change isn’t happening at a meaningful enough rate to blow up the economy. Natural disasters have always been with us, and are not a crisis or a change in the baseline state. I believe biodiversity and ecosystem collapse are about as well-supported as climate change, especially since the case for them these days generally starts with climate change. Massive refugee crises are more an effect, than a cause, of economic collapse, which will not be caused by any of the above.
I will be so happy once this only one shot to get rich wonder is out of the headlines.
In ye goode olde days, Harry and his grasping harpy would have been black-bagged to their new digs in the Tower well before now.
They might still be. The times they are a’changing…. Back.
“black-bagged” = racist!
*I had no idea that she was black until I had to hear about it endlessly.
She’s just as much white as she is black.
More so would be my guess. If they said she was Italian or Greek, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought.
Didn’t this article mention she was a “testoon?”
I remember when the one-drop rule was racist oppression. Now, it’s a coveted ticket to privilege.
Maybe the King will have MI6 whack them.
Related: https://www.facebook.com/ThesePostsAreTrash/photos/a.118879316906630/126622889465606/?paipv=0&eav=Afbl2_LpIr5zb2HgpuuHHCiQKtC5BiZTkFP6cXJ3EASdbjBdpaeyhVvkhg5IvKNZKUg
Well, damn, I might have just doxxed myself.
TPTB: help?
Not to worry. It’s FaceBook. You have to log in, and nobody goes there anymore.
You did not dox yourself. Relax.
Thanks both.
Hahahaha!
Now I know who you are!
And with that valuable information I will do
NOTHING.
CNBC – Garland just appointed a special counsel on the the Biden document fiasco.
*yawn*
We are doing something. Now we can’t talk about while he or she does his or her work.
Next question please.
“When is the entire administration and bureaucracy going to commit seppuku for it’s corruption?”
Yep..
Exactly. Now everybody can no-comment it, unless Joe proves resistant to the needs of the Party.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/nyc-jewelry-robbery
lulz
Yeah, but good luck getting them locked up.
On TV guns make a cool sound every time you point them.
Finger prints on ammo? Maybe unless they were wearing gloves while loading.
+1 click click
DNA, quite possibly.
Someone’s been watching too many movies.
I HATE when they rack the guns as they’re getting ready to do something.
I remember in the first Terminator, when Arnold sees her in the club and pulls out his 1911 and RACKS IT and the hero pulls out his shotgun and RACKS IT.
I love that movie, but I roll my eyes everytime at that scene.
SASS shooters start 1911s with an empty chamber, because historically authentic holsters do not cover the trigger.
Same here, Ron. It’s not that unusual to see them rack it more than once in a row. Oddly, the chambered round doesn’t fly out.
Does modern doctrine ever call for an empty chamber on a ready-use gun? Absent antique revolvers, or perhaps the rare Gen 1 1911?
ISTR IDF doctrine was empty-chamber carry on the SAO Jerichos.
Yes it is.
In movies they think the racking is cool so they go out of their way to do it at every opportunity.
Personally, I carry either my 1911 or Jericho with one in the chamber.
The Punisher show was real good at showing them getting prepped and loaded so they racked at that time.
I noticed it because it’s so rare.
I did notice that the Amazon Prime Bosch carried his 1911 in condition one.
But we all know guns have a mind of their own and go off without human intervention. So keeping the chamber empty is one way of sabotaging rogue guns.
+1 Baldwin
Heh heh. I watched “Wrongfully Accused” with Leslie Neilson recently. One dude had a gun in a false leg. He racked his calf.
“It feels like we’re heading toward a much slower and more disorderly climate transition,” Scott said, noting that Russia’s war in Ukraine has pushed leaders to prioritize access to fossil fuels at the expense of “what’s scientifically necessary.”
The survey, which comes ahead of the World Economic Forum’s glitzy annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, next week, is based on responses from more than 1,200 experts in fields such as academia, business, government and civil society.
Experts in “civil society”? Where the blazes did that come from? Is there some sort of special multi-year program in tut-tutting at Oxford and the Kennedy School of Government, now?
Degrees in Diarrhea of the Mouth are abundant these days.
That statement is utter horseshit. Why would a reduction in the supply of fossil fuels slow the transition away from fossil fuels? People have had to shift to other sources of fossil fuels precisely because the attempt to move away from them has, and will, fail. Whatever shortages result from the war merely made it apparent that the pursuit of Net Zero is a pipe dream now and for the foreseeable future. I guess that’s what they are complaining about – it turned up the heat a little too much, and the frogs are noticing.
What she really means is that the increased cost of fossil fuels due to factors outside the control of the planners has made it more difficult politically to switch away cleanly. Right now, everyone is just desperate to get their hands on reliable energy sources no matter how dirty.
Garland just appointed a special counsel on the the Biden document fiasco.
“Here’s your shovel. Bury this.”
Yup. See above.
“See? We’re seriously investigating Biden. No need to look into any of that other stuff.”
I outlined this in the morning, but something more seems to be going on here. They would never go after him for his corruption at this point because that would validate the critics and Trump supporters.
I do think we may be seeing a soft coup. Force Biden out by embarrassing him, let him walk off silently into the night and run someone else. They can use it to undercut claims that they were specifically targeting Trump in anyway. And it’s going after him in a way that impugns no one else and which they never really have to enforce every again, but could if they decide they want to.
With a vigorous defense like this? No way they can take him out, man.
https://twitter.com/TPostMillennial/status/1613567254104518657
The media is treating this as a serious story and it isn’t out of some rediscovered sense of journalistic integrity. The talking points have been disseminated. They will continue to try and differentiate this from Trump to some extent. These hacks don’t create narratives – they repeat what they’re told to repeat. So, who is telling CNN to treat this as a real story instead of just dismissing it as nonsense? Who decided to leak this to the press, conveniently after the new congress was seated and just comfortably after the mid terms? And then the special prosecutor is appointed just days after it leaks even though they’ve had two months.
This is all calculated to achieve something.
When I see people saying “Aha we finally got Biden now!” I get the feeling we’re getting played.
Well, we didn’t get Biden. He outlived his usefulness to his handlers and the powers behind the scenes.
And we’re going to get something worse.
‘This is all calculated to achieve something.’
My guess is it’s calculated to achieve goading the House Republicans into trying to impeach Biden so the Democrats can claim the R’s are not serious about governing and are wasting everyone’s time on a vengeful, baseless witch hunt because the they went after big daddy Trump so aggressively.
That makes sense. Biden resigning in disgrace on his own makes him more a Nixon character where angry voters in 1976 rejected Republicans who had nothing to do with Nixon. If Dems want to win in 2024, they have to make Biden’s leaving due to mean Republicans or Dr. Jill’s loving advice that he has nothing left to sacrifice for his beloved country.
Or use the impeachment of Biden for mishandling classified documents as proof that they need to go after Trump harder.
Personally, I’m of the opinion it’s going to be used to slide Biden out of the running or out of office.
Slow Joe signs everything they put in front of him. Just slide resignation papers in front of him and he’ll sign them – then shake his hand and say it was nice working with you – if he puts up a stink hand 2 million in cash for his money laundering think tank and an ice cream cone for his trouble. He doesn’t even remember to show up at the oval office anyway, someone has to fetch him and make sure he has pants on – just stop bringing him to the office or any events and it will be as if he never happened.
And we are past the mid-point of his term – oh those who believe we are doomed to two full terms of Kackles.
Not yet…8 more days.
::cues “Final Jeopardy” theme to play on a loop::
Which one? I say they have Kacklemala step down in favor of Her Shrillness. Then Biden steps down and Hillary, the rightful heir to the crown, finally gets what she is owed.
I’m sure SugarFree can do something with that.
My prediction is still that they off her just in time, and replace her as VP with SecDef Austin.
Then Brandon’s out and Austin’s their guy for the long haul.
I think so to. As I’ve said, these documents were all discovered by “Biden’s aides.” They could have easily just handed them over quietly to the National Archives or the FBI. But instead they made it public, after they got away with hiding it for months. And this doesn’t involve any wider corruption or take anyone down with him. Clean and easy.
Meh. The didn’t discover them. Those are the documents Fang Fang didn’t need and just returned.
They will use this to get Biden to step aside. Then it will be “See! The law applies to everyone. Biden took responsibility and did the honorable thing. Now we must prosecute Trump, because his case was so much worse. Real bad. But we can’t tell you why.” Two old birds with one stone.
That’s kinda stupid to set up two different investigations for the same issue. Should’ve just expanded the existing one… of course that is on the assumption that the existing one is legitimate.
See above.
“We do not discuss ongoing investigations. Try back in 2025.”
Maybe the King will have MI6 whack them.
Tragically, after a brief illness, blah blah blah…
The two former regals will be buried side by side in matching
lead-and-concrete containment vesselscoffins. Their children will be placed in a good home, most likely on a farm of some sort.Dear Project Manager –
… You scheduled this meeting for a half hour.
… You lied.
I’m going to leave soon and go to another meeting if you don’t wrap this crap up.
Fake a heart attack.
It will only take a half hour once we finish the off-agenda items.
Fly the bird, then fly the coop.
Sneeze a few times, and loudly mention how “Damn, I’m burning up.”
This is interesting:
On December 20, 1937, on the day of the 20th anniversary of the Cheka, many NKVD officers were awarded. 10 of them received the highest award – the Order of Lenin. Here’s their fate:
I guessed right – one. Not that he won any prizes or enjoyed a long life.
Very interesting. You are only useful if you are useful.
It wasn’t healthy to be anywhere near Uncle Joe.
I’m reading Malice’s The White Pill right now. You would think that after the first 100k executions, people would start to clue in. And what he did to his only family was impressively depraved.
Terrific book, by the way.
Yeah, his own sister defected.
Historian Paul Johnson has passed: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/remembering-paul-johnson-1928-2023/
Wow, 94!
Our new founding father.
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) sponsored legislation to display a bust of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Capitol Building.
Wilson sponsored H. Res. 10, which would direct:
Vomit!
Yes, please do.
We’d like a reminder for future generations of how you fucksticks sold your souls.
The future gens will look at it, not have any idea what it means, realize they have no use for marble can’t use it for flint tools, and go away.
You could use it as an ersatz club?
Breaking News! They’re going to investigate themselves! Justice at last!
hahahaha!!!
Shame he isn’t named Benjamin Hur.
As a relapsed[1] numismatist, I really appreciate your coin related articles, Richard. Keep them coming.
[1] Soon to be active. One of the primary goals of my impending trip to Germany will be rekindling my Notgeld collection generally and specifically my Notgeld from Düren collection. I’ve been collecting it for 15-ish years[a], and I am now only a few months away from spending a couple days in the very town the money came from.
[a] My collection and affinity for Stadt Düren started with picking up a “mystery coin” in the four-for-a-dollar tray. Years latter the collection is 15-ish coins and dozens of notes all from one town.
What a cool specialization. I found this:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/dueren_notgeld-1.html
They’re all made of iron and zinc! As Fourscore mentioned U.S. WWII 1943 cents were zinc plated steel because copper was needed for the war effort.
I hope you find some good stuff.
Yup, that’s them. I have all the coins. I’ve never found a good list of the notes, but judging by what is for sale on e-Bay, I am getting quite close to completing the collection. I’m hoping my visit, along with the push it’s given me to learn German, will help me finally complete it. I’m thinking my visit will also give me the desire to start colleting from a different city. Or two or three.
Notgeld is fun because there is sooo much of it. And there are many sub-types to collect. And the vast majority of it is very affordable.
I was big time into it when I was a kid. Wound up selling most of mine for the silver value.
Got a new laptop at work. It weighs a ton and supposedly gets hot enough to burn you. It’s definitely more capable than my old one.
AMD or Intel….
I kid, but I assume AMD.
You aren’t cool until you use an orphan with an abacus.
Why waste a perfectly good abacus by using it to beat an orphan?
Or as I call them, a Russian computer.
Z Book: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-11850H It’s a “Device as a Service”
I haz a sad. I remember when we went from clock speeds in the kHz through MHz to GHz. Now we’ve stagnated.
Not really stagnated. More efficient use of multiple cores is more like it
And heavy resource sharing with memory/video card memory
Look, let me explain to you how clock speed works on ICs…
Mine is old as dirt and still has Windows 7 on it. Work does not want to buy us news ones because we all work remotely now.
My wife bought a new one, ASUS with a 4K OLED screen, i9 with a 3070ti in it. That thing is sweet and she’s not even a gamer.
I finally got around to listening to this dishonest, sanctimonious horseshit. It’s ok if you treat it like a comedy.
Brandon called Raskins a constitutional scholar…lmao.
You got the dishonest, sanctimonious, and horseshit parts right.
He went through the list of police that either a) died of natural causes after or b)
were suicidedcommitted suicide after as if they were killed by “insurrectionists.” I have never seen such a level of lying in my life like everything having to do with the Democratic Party narrative about J6. Outside of Brandon’s Red Speech it is the most disgusting thing I have ever witnessed in American politics.More Twitter Files – I pulled this one to illustrate a declassified document. If there are no superseding markings – there is no declassification.
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1613589040858632204
This is a weird hill to die on, JI, but you do you.
Saying they aren’t akshully declassified until some lacky puts a new stamp on them is some weak-sauce technocrat bullshit. If the president says they are declassified, they are declassified.
I’m telling you the law I am bound by if I handle anything classified. It’s not a weird hill – unless we’ve dumped the rule of law and the Constitution like Trump wanted to overturn the election. Fuck rule by decree.
Last I checked, you ain’t president.
Or are you?
*squintssuspiciously*
No, you’re right. We’ll just let the President run the show like he’s Caligula.
You should see if The Hyperbole will let you use his handle for a while.
Saying the President has supreme classification authority but only if a subordinate hits it with the proper stamp may technically be the law, but it’s still technocrat bullshit. And it’s also a far cry from ruling by decree.
And just to be clear, I didn’t vote for him either time and hope and pray he doesn’t run in 2024. I think he’s a despicable human. But going after him for this classified nonsense is beyond stupid.
He can declassify it, but until the proper declassifying steps are taken such as lining out the classification, the document remains classified. Not much different than if he doesn’t actually sign a bill or issues a pardon without paperwork.
If those documents were declassified, why do they still have markings? Is there any record to show he declassified them or is it just his say say that he did?
Yes. I understand all the bureaucratic bullshit that must be done for it to be official. What I don’t understand is any Glibs defending that bureaucratic bullshit. There are multitudes of better reasons to hate on Trump.
Dude – you have to understand, this is exactly why they went after him using the Espionage Act.
No shit. What exactly is your point? Big fan of government bureaucracy?
You know, Trump could’ve done a lot of good shit, if he understood follow-thru even just a little. And yes, that bureaucracy exists and you can’t pretend it away. I would of course be thrilled to see about 2/3rds of it shredded.
Trump SAID. Ain’t that good enough for you peasant?
The President SAID. This shouldn’t have anything to do with who was in office at the time.
So it’s not the President’s statement that declassifies, it’s the subordinate who stamps it. Sounds like the President doesn’t actually have the authority, but is acting in more of an advisory role. I’m not disputing that’s the way the law works, I’m just pointing out that apparently what the President does or says doesn’t have any legal effect; that’s down to whoever stamps it.
He ordered troops out of Syria – how’d that work out without making it written instructions?
So are you actually suggesting that if Trump had a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and told them point blank “I want the US out of Syria in 3 months” that they wouldn’t have to do it unless some secretary typed it up and “sent it up the chain”?
It might work if Trump didn’t get rolled over by the next person to talk to him. And maybe that’s the real issue.
I suspect disobeying a spoken order is pretty much the same as disobeying a written order.
I can just see it:
“Men, I order you to take that hill!”
“Nah, brah. They’re shooting at us.”
“If I only had pen and paper, I’d write that order down and have you court-martialed. But since I don’t, I guess there’s nothing I can do. Carry on.”
None of us of course know what Trump actually said to any subordinate. The best we have is what he tweeted.
Then he decided not to. Several times. Oddly enough, that was one of the smartest political plays he made while in office.
All true, of course. He didn’t follow through (in writing or otherwise). And who knows what garble he actually said (although the subsequent stories of the military falsifying reports of their progress makes me think he told them something they felt they needed to lie about not doing).
I guess Lula is about to revoke the passports of Brazilians and not issue new ones, so you know, they cannot escape his new utopia.
Behaving like a complete tyrant is how you know the election was legit. Of course, Lula is a WEF stooge and the WEF does not want the proles to be able to travel.
Push harder. Keep going past the breaking point. Please.
Can’t let all the cash cows leave the country before they’ve been milked to death.
Good Lord.
Inside the REAL boot camp: US Army expands scheme to get flabby, low-grade wannabes into shape and into uniforms, after last year’s dismal 15,000 recruitment dropoff
Those pics.
Look I had some weight on me before boot camp but by day 3 lost it all…these kids…waaaay over weight
Be alllll you can be.
Hey hey hey!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r87cIxZXEME
I’M GONNA SING A SONG FOR YOU…
THEN I’LL DO A JUMPING JACK OR TWO…
“Don’t fat-shame me, bruthah.”
“Now you get your shoes half price!”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6wi6ujI8Rj4
Most of those guys look like me. It took me 57 years to get in this bad a shape.
So they’re shipping recruits who don’t meet the MEPS screen for height & weight or don’t have at least a GED? Wow.
Those numbers aren’t going to get met the old way.
Future article: US fertility rates mysteriously rise, experts baffled.
“You are a disgusting fat body Private Pyle!”
No, no connection of interests to funding at all!
And to cover their tracks, the wily Chinese gave millions more to many other schools and got their foreign puppets in other countries to give 6X as much to Penn, not to mention their Manchuriano donors in this country.
You don’t have to be wily to grease our corrupt elites.
I bet there are Chinese citizens paying taxes to the US Treasury. That proves Biden is being paid by Beijing right now though his presidential salary.
Really? What makes a bogus institute and money laundering through a university such a nothingburger?
Neither is a nothing burger. I don’t see actual proof of a connection between the two. Not even a hint of one, other than Russia levels of “China China China” knee jerk reactions.
It’s funny, the different things that different people will hit the brakes on. JI ain’t buying the election, err, manipulation story. GL ain’t buying the Chinese-fueled corruption story. There’s probably some tale of shenanigans out there that one of us, at least, ain’t buying. I’m in a mood to believe damn near anything that makes our Ruling Class look bad, which probably isn’t good either.
Oh, I think the Chinese (government agencies/CCP/individuals, which aren’t all the same) is quite interested in corrupting and influencing institutions for a variety of reasons. I’m not seeing a link between that graft and the typical post/pre office graft for high level politicians in this case.
Nobody said Penn was the only school that pushed to end the counterespionage program.
Left unanswered – why would the Chinese put so much money into American universities? And so very much into the very university that was paying Biden and his crew? I don’t usually think of the ChiComs as having an irrepressible desire to benefit the study of Western humanities in their geopolitical rival. Are they really just a misunderstood bunch of cuddly humanitarians?
I get it: we don’t a paper trail and video evidence of the Chinese buying influence, conducting espionage, etc. But at some point, you go with what you have. Like Burisma hiring Hunter, I can’t think of a good, plausible explanation for this activity. And we aren’t talking about a criminal trial where proof beyond a reasonable doubt is required – this is politics. All that in mind, I know which way I’m betting.