Monday Afternoon 2023 Links

by | Jan 23, 2023 | Daily Links | 254 comments

Man, it’s the 4th Monday in January, and I’ve pretty much used up my share of witty anecdotes. Although my littlest one has learned how to surmount the two steps up/down to the playroom from the kitchen, and also how to change elevation on the Nugget futons we have there. I’m not going to link to the Nugget, but if you’ve got crawlers or toddlers, its a neat little two futon, two cushion couch/chair thingy that lets them build forts or learn to crawl/step up and down for the littlest. My 3rd (first to learn to crawl/walk around them) has way better balance and ability to change elevation than the first two. But anyways, the littlest now crawls out of the playroom and seeks out things to destroy/chew on throughout the house now.

If this thing only dispersed day after pills, you could have a one-stop “day after poor life decisions” vending machine.

I want to see 33 ~1/3 Saturn V engines fire up at once.

Imagine a high-level member of a party with “Socialist” right there on the label saying… socialist things! (h/t Warty)

That’s a really shitty thing to do, Florida Man!

I woke up today Ready to Go!

About The Author

Brett L

Brett L

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

254 Comments

  1. Brochettaward

    I can First. Nothing can stop me.

    • robc

      I can First. Nothing can stop me.

      Seemed on topic.

      • SDF-7

        IP theft! (Yes, I skimmed the River thread…. 😉 )

      • Lackadaisical

        Hey, stop that.

      • R C Dean

        – 1 buddy

    • Rebel Scum

      You can first if you want to
      But leave your friends behind
      Because your friends don’t first
      And if they don’t first, well
      They’re no friends of mine

      • Brochettaward

        My Firsts are my intellectual property. Any attempt to copy, proliferate, altar, or otherwise make use of my Firsts is protected by US copyright law. Cease and desist immediately.

      • juris imprudent

        Your firsts utterly lack originality, they are derivative and therefore beneath both contempt and protection of the law.

      • Shirley Knott

        The moral equivalent to feces on the sidewalk. [which is where this comment was supposed to go]

  2. Rebel Scum

    Socialists will continue to argue that Nazism was not “real” socialism, but the Nazi propaganda despised capitalism and spoke like Karl Marx.

    It would be fun to give a leftist an untitled copy of the Nazi platform and see how many things they agree with in it.

    • Plisade

      I was arguing these points to a lib coworker. He asked me if I also thought the Soviet Union was a Republic cuz “Republic” was right in the USSR’s name.

      • kinnath

        union of
        soviet
        SOCIALIST
        republics

      • Lackadaisical

        Well, it didn’t have a king, so yes?

      • Gustave Lytton

        Sir Humphrey Appleby:
        East Yemen, isn’t that a democracy?

        Sir Richard Wharton:
        Its full name is the Peoples’ Democratic Republic of East Yemen.

        Sir Humphrey Appleby:
        Ah I see, so it’s a communist dictatorship.

      • Rat on a train

        Republic defines who makes decisions not what they are. Republics can be authoritarian.

      • Plisade

        Exactly. And while I like Dan Bongino, he has a habit, when speaking of the illegal doings of our fedgov, says things along the line of, “you can’t do that in a constitutional republic.” Well, that depends on what the constitution of that republic says.

  3. Drake

    “…while most of the means of production had not been nationalized, they had nonetheless been politicized and collectivized under an intricate web of Nazi planning targets, price and wage regulations, production rules and quotas, and strict limits and restraints on the action and decisions of those who remained; nominally, the owners of private enterprises throughout the country. Every German businessman knew that his conduct was prescribed and positioned within the wider planning goals of the National Socialist regime.”

    So what FDR was attempting. We’re now returning to something similar but driven by liberal corporate culture’s enthusiastic cooperation with government regulators.

    • PutridMeat

      I was reading that stuff and thinking to myself: “So how is this any different than where we are right now in the US of A?”. History, doomed, repeat, etc.

  4. KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

    first time I heard that song was in Vegas Vacation

    • rhywun

      Didn’t see that but this song is giving me 90s flashbacks for sure.

  5. Rebel Scum

    Way to crack an eggsclusive story.

    People in the area said in Tijuana one carton of eggs is 50 pesos which equals nearly $3, but for those trying to smuggle those eggs into the United States, you might want to think twice before doing it.

    That $3 can quickly become a fine of up to $10,000 if you fail to declare your eggs at border crossings. Federal law prohibits Americans from bringing raw eggs or poultry across the border.

    According to Customs and Border Protection, that hasn’t stopped people from trying. It’s a trend that’s being noticed across the country.

    In a tweet the director of field operations for CBP alerted the public about an uptick in egg seizures and reminded people crossing the border of hefty fines.

    Now if we could hatch a plan to stop the fentanyl and illegal aliens.

    • Zwak says Your Husband is a Polar Bear, Skinny.

      What we need is an egg tunnel. But, alas, far too many are such chickens that it will never by tried.

      • SDF-7

        Chicken Run 2: Huevos Rancheros!

      • Michael Malaise

        Have to worry about those damn poachers, too.

      • rhywun

        All these puns are scrambling my brains.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      It seems their priorities are totally scrambled.

      • rhywun

        *scroll down, sigh*

      • MikeS

        Ei wouldn’t let if bother you.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        It seems you have a little egg on your face.

  6. Tundra

    That vending machine is depressing.

    But that song is fabulous.

    Congrats on the new destructive force. Such a fun and frustrating age.

  7. cyto

    Step outside of your bubble and into another bubble.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/10jgaqy/former_top_fbi_official_charles_mcgonigal/

    In this bubble, FBI officials covered for Trump during the Russia investigation. Republicans in general are all associated with Russia and on the take from Russia.

    Republican voters are simps who will vote for any republican even when they know they are on the take from Russians and passing secrets to Russia.

    • cyto

      To the actual story, former top FBI guy from counterintelligence gets arrested for working for Russian oligarch via a contract as an investigator for a lawfirm. Supposedly working to get him removed from sanctions list.

      They say this is a crime.

      • cyto

        Looks identical to stuff from the Manafort and Carter Page cases. He used to work for the same group. Makes me wonder if he was talking about fight club

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      But the Blue Anon bubble is way goddamn stupider than our bubble.

      • cyto

        Reagan was making back room deals with not just Iran, but a whole organization of mass murdering child rapist psychopaths to help his election campaign.

      • cyto

        From a comment thread about Reagan rolling in his grave because Putin took over the Republican party and every politician is getting $3 million donations from russia.

      • cyto

        So your joke was not even a tiny bit exaggerated

    • cyto

      Do we know if this is indeed a full wet dress rehearsal?

      • Ownbestenemy

        Looking like it

      • MikeS

        When does the fire start coming out?

      • Ownbestenemy

        Not this one for sure, first attempt at dress rehearsal that is looking solid

      • db

        They’ve got full tanks on the booster now

      • db

        They might do a burn, but no launch. There’s a TFR up to 14,000 feet.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Rather than vent…makes sense.

    • cyto

      It is astonishing that this thing does not simply collapse under the weight when just sitting there, let alone under the full thrust of 33 raptors.

      That thing is huuuuge!

      • cyto

        Wikipedia thinks Starship weighs 5,000 tons when fueled. That sounds like a lot for 4mm thick stainless steel to support.

      • db

        The ship and booster tanks have to be pressurized with air or nitrogen when empty to give them resistance against crumpling

      • cyto

        As we saw spectacularly when they loaded the top tank and not the bottom and it liquefied the air. Oops. Squish

    • cyto

      Looks like they successfully filled it up and are now unloading the LOX and methane.

      Maybe this means a full 33 Raptor static fire soon, and then we get to watch it fly.

      Also, the new Starlink V2 are on site. I wonder of they are going to deploy them on the first test flight.

  8. Ted S.

    That’s a really shitty thing to do, Florida Man!

    +1 Najeh Davenport

  9. The Late P Brooks

    According to Customs and Border Protection, that hasn’t stopped people from trying. It’s a trend that’s being noticed across the country.

    In a tweet the director of field operations for CBP alerted the public about an uptick in egg seizures and reminded people crossing the border of hefty fines.

    Price arbitrage moves markets toward equilibrium?

    Those people don’t even have Ivy League economics degrees.

    • SDF-7

      The market balancing out would be pure poultry in motion.

      • Red Pill Matt

        Gold

    • cyto

      Why is it that we don’t allow eggs?

      • B.P.

        It’s preventing an avian disease from coming to the United States and wiping out millions of chickens, which would help drive up the price of eggs and create an international black market for them.

      • Tonio

        Probably because they aren’t inspected by the FDA, USDA, or whoever does that. God forbid people should make their own food choices.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        Eggs can be imported, but only after a lengthy process of forms and fees.

        I’m involved in a breed (landrace, actually) of chicken (Swedish Flower Hens). They’ve only been in the US for about 15 years or so, and have only had 2-3 importations of eggs. Others have wanted to import eggs for hatching, but the process is long, expensive, and arduous involving not only our shitty government, but also Sweden’s.

      • juris imprudent

        Sure, people can have chickens to get eggs, but a Glib isn’t so easily satisfied.

  10. SDF-7

    Ready to Go is a catchy tune — but for some reason for that timeframe I prefer Elastica… and one of their lesser known at that.

  11. Rebel Scum

    Got a loysance fuh dat prayer, mate?

    A UK man was reportedly hit with a fine after silently praying for his “deceased” son in what has been dubbed a “censorship zones” surrounding the nation’s abortion clinics.

    Physiotherapist and Army veteran Adam Smith-Connor shared footage of his interaction with two council officers who confronted him about simply standing and praying outside of a British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) clinic in Bournemouth. …

    In the video, a female officer repeatedly asked Smith-Connor what he was praying about, to which the man responded that he was praying for his “deceased son.”

    According to the questioning officer, this seemed “pertinent” enough to the topics banned by what the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) calls “censorship zones” to warrant trouble.

    Such zones exist in several other countries, including Canada, Australia, and France. According to the ADF, a legal advocacy group, multiple censorship zones have been attempted in the US, with many being thrown out due to being unconstitutional.

    In Smith-Connor’s footage, the officers can be seen warning him about the zones, which are officially noted as areas under the Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) which sets a perimeter around abortion clinics where “engaging in any act of approval/disapproval,” including praying, is prohibited.

    • cyto

      https://youtube.com/shorts/GTn1He86oJk?feature=share

      Constantine Kisin getting brutal about free speech in Britain.

      Coming soon to a country near you.

      Just announced, dude who put his feet on Pelosi’s desk convicted on 8 counts, including having a “dangerous weapon” (a taser).

      Faces 20 years in prison.

    • Rat on a train

      “I was praying that fascists wouldn’t oppress me. Prayers often go unanswered.”

    • db

      I seem to remember that vibrations from many engines were causing issues with other engines in that arrangement

      • cyto

        The Soviets were also much poorer than reported. They canceled that massive rocket because it got too expensive after a couple of failures. They probably would have gotten it working eventually, and had the first full-flow staged combustion engine to make it to orbit.

        As it stands, SpaceX aims to take that honor soon with their Raptor and Starship.

        So cool connection.

  12. Pope Jimbo

    Uffda. I missed the discussion about Haley Davidson’s big new electric bike dreams this morning until it was too late.

    I would have told you all to tip your cap to HD! It takes a special kind of bravery to shout to the world that you are going Big and Electric. Especially since your first foray into electric bikes didn’t go that well.

    People aren’t getting much of a charge out of Harley’s first electric motorcycle, the LiveWire — literally.

    Owners — and there aren’t many — have been advised by Harley Davidson not to plug their bikes in at home or anywhere else except a Harley Davidson dealership, where “special equipment” is available.

    This means the LiveWire’s already limited radius of action — due to its being electric — is now limited to no more than about 70 miles away from a Harley dealership. The there-and-back trip amounts to the LiveWire’s maximum best-case range of about 140 miles — italics to emphasize the fact that best case assumes low-speed, “urban” use. On the highway the bike’s actual range will be considerably less.

    Once you’ve made it to there, you’ll wait for about an hour while your bike recharges on the dealership’s “special equipment.”

    Lesser businessmen would have cut their losses and kept making super expensive bikes that only old people can afford. But it takes a special kind of management to decide to double down on making a hated electric bike.

    • cyto

      Or one getting hefty subsidies

    • Michael Malaise

      If you read the article and read between the lines, it seems to me the current CEO is saying “yeah, we’ll be electric eventually, but after me and you and everyone who wants a Harley is dead.” The headline is misleading.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I worked on a big proposal for Harley several years ago. The smarter ones there are aware that their bikes cost too much and that their customers are all dentists and lawyers who want to pretend they are rebels. Kids all despise their bikes so even if they came out with a cheap bike they couldn’t get younger customers.

        The brains decided that the thing they needed to make their bikes “cool” with the kidz was ….. a module that would automatically connect their bike to social media! Your connected hawg would automatically share everything about your ride with all your other buddies.

      • Mojeaux

        So rebel. Much Easy Rider.

  13. The Other Kevin

    I feel for you Brett. Once they start climbing and getting into things your life gets a whole crazier.

    • Pope Jimbo

      There is a curve.

      Your first kid takes a bunch more of your time because you are learning too. You spaz about everything because you have no idea what is going on. By the third kid you are way more chill because you know what the real deal is.

      Also the first kid is kind of like a mine sweeper. They are the ones who get into the knife drawer. After that, you put all the knives up where the kids 2-N can’t get to them.

      We were looking at old pics of the kids and were laughing at all the baby gadgets that we had for the Altar Girl (our oldest) that had been tossed or given away by the time the Altar Boys showed up.

      • Brett L

        Hey! My third can get to the butter knives. Just not the sharp ones. Mostly. But the point stands. These last two mostly got put down on the floor to do whatever if they weren’t crying or being fed.

      • Bobarian LMD

        After a couple, you start to figure out that eating dirt doesn’t require a trip to the emergency room.

        It just keeps em busy for a few minutes.

    • Brett L

      The good news is his brother has a 17 month head start on destructively testing everything he can possibly reach, so he’s probably going to survive. The 2 year old is… being 2. Holy shit. So many strong feelings stuffed into such a tiny package.

      • Compelled Speechless

        I feel you. My younger one turns two this weekend. He’s suddenly become very vocal about…everything. This is also when they start getting really fun when they are in a good mood though.

      • pistoffnick

        The 2 year old is… being 2.

        He needs a job. What a leach!

      • pistoffnick

        or a leech, even

      • The Last American Hero

        Have they asked you about income inequality or why racists are gentrifying neighborhoods?

  14. Rebel Scum

    Dick move.

    Ireland (warning graphic) In Ireland an immigrant tried to take a child from her pram when caught he exposes himself and fiddles with himself saying “f**k the children”

    • Michael Malaise

      Just following in the footsteps of He Who Shall Not Be Pictured?

  15. The Late P Brooks

    “We are not a charitable institution but a Party of revolutionary socialists.”

    No Free Lunch?

  16. Rebel Scum

    That’s not what happened.

    Four members of the Oath Keepers were convicted Monday of seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack in the second major trial of far-right extremists accused of plotting to forcibly keep President Donald Trump in power.

    The verdict against Joseph Hackett of Sarasota, Florida; Roberto Minuta of Prosper, Texas; David Moerschel of Punta Gorda, Florida; and Edward Vallejo of Phoenix comes weeks after after a different jury convicted the group’s leader, Stewart Rhodes, in the mob’s attack that halted the certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

    • SDF-7

      More than anything else, these cases are making me despise the DC jury pool.

      • Rat on a train

        Stay out of DC. There is nothing worth the risk.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Yeah, if DC got nuked by terrorists I’m not sure I would think that there was any collateral damage. Everyone there deserved it.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      Roberto Minuta and Edward Vallejo sound like white supremacists.

  17. Shpip

    Our Healthbox is available to those 16 or older in Canada (18 and up in Quebec). The process to access Our Healthbox is anonymous, with clients confirming their age and then being provided with a code.

    “When they come back they use that code to sign in so that we can actually start to understand more about the need for each person,” Rourke said

    What’s the use of gathering information on a patient to “understand more about the need for each person” if you don’t know who that person is? Or is this somewhat less “anonymous” than we’re being led to believe?

  18. juris imprudent

    Holy Shit!

    On this timeline, it’s actually classified, but, again, almost all of the substance is … not classified. The document—I classified the document at the beginning of this process by telling my staff to gather up all the documents, freeze-frame everything, notes, everything and, you know, classify it. And we actually classified it at a pretty high level, and we put it on JWICS, the top secret stuff. It’s not that the substance is classified. It was[.] I wanted to make sure that this stuff was only going to go [to] people who appropriately needed to see it, like yourselves. We’ll take care of that.

    • juris imprudent

      By statute and policy he should be court-martialied.

      • juris imprudent

        Did I say he was going to be court-martialed?

    • Sensei

      And nothing else will happen.

      • Pope Jimbo

        To be fair, if you didn’t string him up for breaking the chain of command and talking directly to the CCP, this isn’t gonna be the thing that gets him in trouble.

    • Rat on a train

      It’s a network for intelligence classified as top secret—the highest standard classification level, reserved by executive order for secrets whose compromise would “cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.”
      Milley is also right in recognizing that the records he moved to JWICS could not remotely meet the requirements for storage on that system.

      JWICS can store information below TS.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Putting one piece of TS information in the phone book makes the whole phone book TS though.

        Taking the information back apart is technically illegal without classification authority approval.

      • Rat on a train

        Portion marking requirements were added to solve the problem of finding the needle in the haystack. Declassification officers can approve release after classified portions are removed.

      • Ownbestenemy

        They claim its only for the top secret classification and then claim the EO establishes that. Which…it does not. However, if we look at the EO on classification there are some prohibited applications that Milley would fall under and what they pinned to Trump and the Ukranian phone call.

    • cyto

      Further down, the point is made that this “should have been unclassified but I classified it so that we could make it available only to the committee” material may have been relevant to the defense of individuals who were tried while it was kept secret.

      • Gustave Lytton

        “Commie tested, Beria approved”

      • Ownbestenemy

        Thats the part that should court-martial him and a mistrial/retrial in any one of those cases.

      • Rat on a train

        “We hid evidence because it could clear the defendants” fits the times.

  19. Mojeaux

    I am so glad I’m done with babies. I mean, I like babies. I guess. Maybe. As long as I can give them back after 2 mins.

    • KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

      Thanks to many years of babysitting, I was over babies by the time I was 18. Like, really over it.

      • rhywun

        I baby sat two neighbor kids, like 4 and 6, once. One and done for me – never again.

        It was… not pleasant, at all. The four-year-old boy was a monster. The older sister was OK but my hands were full with the brat.

    • Rat on a train

      renting is better than owning

      • kinnath

        The product or the facility?

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        Both. If it flies, floats or Fu.. fornicates. Rent it. The long term costs are lower.

      • Rat on a train

        rent to own?

      • juris imprudent

        Weren’t we just talking about 99 year leases?

      • Mojeaux

        Children are on lifetime leases.

      • kinnath

        3 year contract with option to renew.

      • Mojeaux

        That’s called “babysitting” and the money flows the OTHER way.

  20. Cowboy

    The nugget is great, Cowpoke loves his. I enjoy it too, as a spot to chill while he’s getting his bedtime nursing from Momma.

    Speaking of crawling everywhere and exploring climbing up and down, I’ve been taking him to the playground a lot lately, and his favorite thing to do is grab daddy’s hand and practice going up and down up and down all the diffrrent steps. And for 18 months hes doing great!

    At first I was anxious to get him to try to hold the handrail, and do it himself. But then I looked around and saw all the other dads who would sit on the bench, and just “be there”. And it made me feel things, about how I’m so glad to enjoy being a part of his play right now, instead of just an observer, and how special these moments are. So, little Cowpoke, you take your time, I’ll be glad to hold your hand and help as long as you want me to.

  21. Scruffyy Nerfherder

    Florida man defecates on floor of Joe’s Crab Shack during break-in

    The next day’s patrons couldn’t smell any difference.

    • The Other Kevin

      Agreed. Went to a Joe’s one time, food was terrible. We had one the next town over for a while, but it unsurprisingly closed.

    • Tundra

      It’s a breathtakingly bad restaurant. I can’t recall how the fuck I ended up there, but it was quite literally the worst fish I’ve ever eaten.

      And that includes the Filet-O-Fish.

      • SDF-7

        So — a real shitshow?

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        “I can’t recall how the fuck I ended up there…”

        Was alcohol involved?

      • Gustave Lytton

        Shortly after my now wife moved to Boise, we went to the one there on the recommendations of her coworkers. They either had no taste at all or never had goodokmediocre fish/seafood before.

      • Raven Nation

        Yeah, I’ve become very wary of recommendations about “the best”: “best Mexican food” (Qdoba); “best” hot dogs and burgers in town (local chain); “best” Italian food (local shop that looks like it’s out of 1950s sitcom).

      • Michael Malaise

        “best” Italian food (local shop that looks like it’s out of 1950s sitcom).”

        Well, this one is probably the best.

      • Compelled Speechless

        I’m in the Boise area too. That is not limited to seafood. What most people think passes for good Mexican around here is unbelievable.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Strangely, the Kilted Kod had some of the best fish and chips I’ve ever had and that was a food truck in a parking lot.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I think we only had crab there and it wasn’t too bad.

        We liked the one in our town because it had a playground in front for the kids to play in while you waited to get a table. You could watch the kids from the deck with a decent drink. Not a bad way to kill time on a nice summer evening.

      • Tundra

        That’s why we went to the Lookout or Champp’s.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Uffda. Champp’s was the place I couldn’t stand.

    • Michael Malaise

      Is Joe’s Crab Shack a sanctuary restaurant?

  22. Sensei

    Shorter PM Kishida:

    Fuck!

    • Ownbestenemy

      Just in time for my teens and their trip to Japan…lucky them

    • SDF-7

      Japanese Prime minister Fumio Kishida pledged on Monday to take urgent steps to tackle the country’s declining birth rate, saying it was “now or never” for the world’s oldest society.

      China says “WTF?!?”

      • MikeS

        apanese Prime minister Fumio Kishida pledged on Monday to take urgent steps

        Is he going door-to-door with flowers and bottle of wine to get things going (IYKWIM)?

    • Rat on a train

      They need to open comfort houses for visiting Korean men.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Love Hotels to be renamed Love Fertility Clinics.

    • Gustave Lytton

      It’s a serious problem. Judging by Old Enough, critical functions of society there are carried out by young children. Who will get groceries or run errands if a family doesn’t have pre-K kids?

      • Sensei

        Hence the odd focus on humanoid robots.

        Which they haven’t exactly blasted out of the park.

    • Pope Jimbo

      My japanese nieces are doing their part!

      5 kids between the two of them.

      They are both pretty as hell. They’d probably have 10 kids if they weren’t such exaperatingly goofy and spoiled.

  23. Raven Nation

    On Nazis and socialism, a partial disagreement. The Nazis despised both capitalism & socialism (which was in keeping with their fascist brothers in Italy & Spain). And part of the motivation for the Night of the Long Knives was to destroy the more militantly socialist wing of the National Socialists to appease the military and the landed aristocracy. Now, what would Hitler have done if he’d managed to establish a stable, dominant Nazi state? I suspect the aristocracy would have quickly found out they were useful idiots.

    I would make the argument (and this is how I present things in my classes) that Nazism, fascism, socialism, and communism are all examples of collectivism. That way I can point out common problems with all of them without getting into a pissing match over terminology. It also makes it easier to show that the New Deal (& responses to the GD in Britain) were on the same (collectivist) continuum.

    Of course, I know a lot won’t agree with this.

    YMMV

    • Drake

      Sure – It was an attempt at collectivism based on race rather than class.

    • Tundra

      Of course, I know a lot won’t agree with this.

      I am not among them. Arguing the nuances is so ridiculously unproductive.

      I’m a simple man. To me collectivism is bad, mmmmk?

      • PutridMeat

        Agreed; The reason I try to argue that the Nazi’s are more appropriately classified as ‘socialists’ is the rhetorical trick that has been played in the telling of history, at least in the US. NAZI == right, the right in the US is associated with individual and economic liberty (wrongly in most cases, but broadly speaking), therefore individual and economic liberty = NAZI.

      • Raven Nation

        I totally get that. That’s one of the reasons I use the larger grouping collectivism. And, the more I developed that lecture, it was chilling just how much common ground there was between totalitarian states and New Deal/social democracy thinking. It also gives me a chance to have them read an excerpt from “The Road to Serfdom.”

        I also tell them the story of Jacob Maged: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/15/AR2010091505090.html

      • Michael Malaise

        Would you say you’re grooming these kids? ; )

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        “it was chilling just how much common ground there was between totalitarian states and New Deal/social democracy thinking”

        Before WWII, FDR and many others were looking at Herr Kanzler and Il Duce and thinking they had some good ideas about a third way to get out of the Great Depression. Truman got rid of a lot of it but not everything and we’ve been stuck with this ersatz fascist system ever since.

      • Drake

        Obviously cutting spending and taxes wasn’t the way.

      • wdalasio

        I should add, in contrast to my overall disagreement/quibble, you’re quite right about the New Deal. If memory serves, the fascists specifically modeled their thinking on the same underlying War Progressivism (WWI) that shaped the New Deal. It wasn’t just happenstance. They just saw themselves as taking it in its logical progression.

      • R.J.

        There ate assholes out there that scream to the moon that nazis weren’t socialists, because they don’t want their beloved system of government to be stained with a strong connection to nazis. You must learn to stomp on their delusions with no mercy. Give no mental quarter to such ignorant bastards. I sometimes feel it is my goal to plant that seed of doubt so that at least some of these deluded leftists can find a way out.

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        There ate assholes

        Freudian slip much?

      • R.J.

        No, broken keyboard and I can’t even replace it for a year. Fuck my life.

      • Michael Malaise

        Or a USB one, since your Mac seems to be old enough to have the ports, correct?

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        Calling HM.

      • R.J.

        Yeah. I’d try text to speech but Apple mocks my dialect.

      • Gender Traitor

        But are you a true Scotsman?

      • Raven Nation

        Fair. The classes I’m referring to is freshman world history. I figure they’ve been beat over the head with the Nazis/evil. So, I give them a little more info on Stalin and Mao. Then show the common ground among all these groups. I’m kind of pushing them a little in what I hope is a productive direction.

      • R.J.

        That is an excellent idea. I hope you make at least a fee converts.

      • R.J.

        Few. Aaaaaaah!

      • R.J.

        I am just going to retire for the night. Work pressures and broken equipment are clearly putting me on edge.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        I’m amazed you still have a job.

        It was made clear in grad school that I had no place in academia, and quit before it was too late.

        I refused to follow the suggested curriculum which was all environmental doom and gloom, racism, etc. we definitely discussed racism in my classes, but not in the ways they wanted me too.

        My TA contract was not renewed for my PhD, and within a year stated they’d no longer accept grad school applicants who weren’t also a TA.

      • Raven Nation

        Lots of factors in my favor: teach at a smaller state school so less bullshit; tenure is powerful; I try to avoid current politics (except when it’s equal-opportunity attacks); since I’m not a conservative, I have no problem railing against things like US interventionism, support for thug states, etc. I just make sure to point out that no one has clean hands. I also stress Sowell’s idea of “there are no solutions only trade offs.” OK, you want to collectivize American agriculture? Then you have to accept the slaughter of millions of livestock and the dumping of crops when people are going hungry. You want to cheer the way FDR conducted WWII? Fine, you also get to explain why he interned thousands of people based on ethnic identity; etc., etc.

      • Pope Jimbo

        scream to the moon that nazis weren’t socialists

        That must really amuse the Nazi scientists who are living in their secret moon base.

      • R.J.

        It does.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      It’s very simple.

      Left wing = good

      Right wing = bad

      Nazis = bad = right wing

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        Republicans = far right wing = badder

    • Grummun

      I read a book (forget the title) that was a collection of interviews with German soldiers that had been stationed in France on D-Day. Interviews were taken in 1955, I think.

      One soldier said (paraphrasing) “yes we were socialists, but it was good national socialism, not bad international socialism.” Seems a subtle distinction and possibly what he really meant was “good German socialism, not bad Russian socialism.”

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        Communism seeks to replace all of the institutions with the State.

        Fascism seeks to co-opt all of the institutions to the State’s purposes.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        So yes, the soldier was correct. Fascism is just a tweaked version of communism.

      • juris imprudent

        You can bet that soldier knew the difference between the Eastern and Western fronts.

      • Grummun

        It was an interesting book. The interviews were taken ~10 years after the end of the war, so obviously the soldiers had plenty of time to rationalize and revise their behavior in the war. But it was a constant theme through the interviews that the German soldiers believed the Nazi propaganda that they were saving Europe from the commies and their allies, England and the US.

    • juris imprudent

      I would hope you reference The True Believer in that discussion. The sooner that is read by young minds the better (save for the odd sociopath that reads it as a manual).

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        Most people read it as a judgment of effective release instead of as a self-examination.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        Effective release?

        “Everyone else”

        I hate typing on phones

      • MikeS

        “Effective Release” has a nice ring to it. Album title?

    • The Last American Hero

      This is essentially the contribution that Ayn Rand made to the conversation.

    • wdalasio

      In practice, do the differences really matter? Don’t compare the Nazis to some hypothetical idealized communist state, but to the communist states that existed at the time. Functionally, aside from racism, how was life functionally different in the Nazi state and the Soviet states? Okay, you had nominally private property in Germany. But, you were essentially fulfilling the same role as the local commissar was in the Soviet states. In both cases, control of the property was vested in the centralized state with administration delegated to loyal, local elites. In both cases any dissent from the ruling orthodoxy would mean getting shot or sent to the gulag/concentration camp. Sure, the particular Gods of either state (Proletariat versus the Master Race) differed. And the particular set of gangsters who ruled were from different groups. But, really, those are mostly just semantic differences.

      • Raven Nation

        Agree. That’s why I emphasize the commonalities.

  24. The Late P Brooks

    Agreed; The reason I try to argue that the Nazi’s are more appropriately classified as ‘socialists’ is the rhetorical trick that has been played in the telling of history, at least in the US. NAZI == right, the right in the US is associated with individual and economic liberty (wrongly in most cases, but broadly speaking), therefore individual and economic liberty = NAZI.

    You can’t let them get away with the pretense that German Nazis and Soviet Communists were somehow polar opposites, rather than two competing brands of totalitarian collectivism.

    • juris imprudent

      Like academic politics – it’s the smallest differences that generate the most ferocious disputes.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        See also ancaps (a bunch of head in the clouds damn fools I tell you) vs minarchists

  25. The Late P Brooks

    There are a lot of interesting observations in War Factories about the Nazi way of doing business. They were not focused on efficiency.

    • creech

      Speer had to have been some kind of genius to have Germany churning out the piles of war material they were in 1944. Then again perhaps the Allied bombing was not nearly effective as flyboys and historians made it out to be. Last Tuesday night, I happened to be seated at dinner next to a man who said he was born in Munich in 1935 and lived next door to a Messerschmidt factory that the Allied bombers never managed to hit once.

      • Gustave Lytton

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_bombing_directive

        The day after the directive was issued (on 15 February), the Chief of the Air Staff Charles Portal sought clarification from the Deputy Chief of Air Staff Air Vice Marshal Norman Bottomley who had drafted it:[5][8][9]
        ref the new bombing directive: I suppose it is clear the aiming points will be the built up areas, and not, for instance, the dockyards or aircraft factories

        Just stay away from the cans.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        A The Jerk reference? Bravo!

    • Tundra

      Someone needs to get their soundtracks straight.

      • kinnath

        He’s got a point

  26. Brochettaward

    Apparently, you are all commies perfectly ok with Nick stealing my intellectual property. Cool, cool.

    Don’t come crying to me when Firsters stop Firsting because they are all being ripped off by cheap imitations.

    • juris imprudent

      Hmm, someone original, like Fist of Etiquette?

    • Shirley Knott

      The moral ecrying? There will be celebrations in the street.

      • Shirley Knott

        The moral equivalent to feces on the sidewalk

      • Shirley Knott

        Accursed editor, inserting previously cut text without being asked. Almost as bad as “firsting.”

      • Shirley Knott

        And posting comments in the wrong place. Bleah.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Intellectual property rights support is for cucks.

  27. Pope Jimbo

    Won’t someone think about the poor Transportation Committee budgets?

    The primary mood among Minnesota state lawmakers this session is giddy, that lighthearted feeling that comes from the spending and tax cut potential of a $17.6 billion surplus.

    That mood stops at the doors of the two transportation committees. While general state income and sales taxes continue to exceed even optimistic projections, the taxes that provide for road construction and maintenance and transit systems are going in the other direction.

    Gas taxes, motor vehicle excise taxes and tab fees are all coming in lower than was projected a year ago, leaving holes in the funding streams for highways and transit. While other committee chairs are talking about spending increases and tax cuts, the transportation committee chairs are looking at cuts and proposing tax increases.

    Uh-huh. The article doesn’t mention any examples of cuts that they want to make. But the mention a 5 cent gas tax hike and a surcharge on deliveries.

  28. MikeS

    First!

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      And a beautiful one at that. Kudos.

      • MikeS

        /deep bow

  29. Raven Nation

    Off the beaten track football upset: West of Scotland Darvel FC knocked Aberdeen out the Scottish Cup.

    • juris imprudent

      Straight up pub team?

      • Raven Nation

        Not quite, but probably all part-timers. Think a National League South or National League North team beating someone like Aston Villa.

      • juris imprudent

        Marine in ’21? Except Marine would’ve had to win.

  30. Raven Nation

    Somebody yesterday (?) noted here that the world is being run by unserious people with a serious amount of power.

    One sign of an unserious person: anyone who writes we live in a society of “unregulated capitalism.”

    • R.J.

      Can we blame public education?

      Another note: I went back and read the kind of comic books kids got into in the 1950s and 60s. Man, a lot of stories pushed the whole anti-commie, “do it yourself” attitude. Stories of True Grit, so to speak. By the 1980s, it was mostly superhero comics. Somebody else saved the plebes. The plebes didn’t save the plebes. I found that interesting.

  31. kinnath
    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      It is my understanding that Greece has many more, but I doubt they will be forthcoming with them. The Ukrainian clusterfuck is very unpopular there.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      Doocy smells the blood in the water. I wonder how long he was holding on to that question.

  32. Tundra

    I know it’s not the WAWR thread, but does anyone have any funny books? I couldn’t sleep last night and I can’t keep reading war, crime, intense violence and current events shit.

    I already have all of Adams and Moore.

    Thank you for your service.

    • MikeS

      Some Twain, perhaps?

      • Tundra

        Excellent. I’ve only read TS and HF. Any suggestions?

      • MikeS

        A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

      • Tundra

        Thanks!

    • juris imprudent

      Hitchens’ Arguably – a collection of his essays most of which are full of his wit and mercifully little of his politics.

      • Tundra

        Thanks! Is there a specific collection?

      • juris imprudent

        The book Arguably.

      • Tundra

        Hah! Library had it. Thanks!

    • Gender Traitor

      If you don’t mind potentially getting sucked into a series, I’ve long been raving about one that starts here. Time traveling historians, AKA “disaster magnets.” Hysterically funny and heartbreakingly sad by turns, but hang in there just when all seems lost. Trust me.

      • Tundra

        That looks great!

      • Gender Traitor

        Warning: TT has been known to stay up until wee hours reading one of the series because he couldn’t put it down…then he’d finally come to bed grumbling, “Damn book!” 😉

      • Tundra

        I just got the first one. I’ll yell at you later.

      • Gender Traitor

        😁

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      Feynman comes to mind

      • Tundra

        Richard?

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        Yes

    • Timeloose

      I found a relatively funny show called “Sprung”.

      It’s about three criminals who get sprung during the COViD lockdown. They get picked up by a trashy mom of one of the cons driving a bicentennial PacerX. The mom is played by Matha Plimpton.

      Written by the creator of My name is Earl.

    • Shirley Knott

      Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series.

      • Tundra

        Perfect, but after 30 years, I know them all by heart. I still read Hogfather every Christmas!

    • Ted S.

      I believe Scruffy’s sister had some funny books.

      /ducking

      • Tundra

        Ouch.

        But LOL.

      • MikeS

        Too soon!

      • MikeS

        Also, Scruffyy has two y’s you bigot.

    • Tundra

      Thanks!

      You People are alright!

      • MikeS

        You take that back!

      • Tundra

        Fuck you!

        *drops gloves, gets distracted by book suggestions, disappears*

    • The Hyperbole

      Dave Barry has written a few novels, ‘Big Trouble’ was good. Also Eoin Colfer’s “Plugged” it’s crime/noir but pretty tongue-in-check more humorous than gritty. And ‘The Stranger Times’ series by C.K. McDonnel, he wrote “The Man With One Of Those Faces” which I believe you read.

    • Homple

      Give P.G. Wodehouse a try. You might like his stuff, you might not. Some good examples:
      Summer Lightning
      Heavy Weather
      Uncle Fred in the Springtime

  33. Scruffyy Nerfherder

    Holy shit, Safari sucks balls.