New Year’s Day Morning Links – Taken over by l0b0t

by | Jan 1, 2023 | Daily Links | 185 comments

My hair hurts. And I have many stories about Meet The Family from last night, but they’ll have to wait because I’m still doing damage control. Hope all is more even keeled for you lovely people. And the Glibs.

Birthdays are also even keeled, hangovers or no, and today’s include a guy who didn’t get there in time for the first law; a Jew who went to London; a guy who certainly convinced me of constitutionalism; the author of the most over-rated trilogy in science fiction history; a guy whom everybody went to; the essential Chicago politician; well, except for maybe this guy; a guy who’s just as famous for whom he fucked as well as whom he fucked over; and the inspiration for the “schwing” neologism.

Let’s have a few Links on the house.

Wow!  Ford made an electric vehicle I would not mind taking for a spin.

Holy Mackerel!  Mentioned on last night’s Zoomy, actor David Hong (whom I know best as  David Lo Pan from Big Trouble In Little China) has 451 credits listed at IMDB, 3 being in current production.  That man works.

Jeepers!  Old Man, this might have been useful  last night.

Old Guy Music is a classic Ellington/Strayhorn tune played by an absolutely wonderful baritone. Not flashy, just… perfect.

About The Author

Old Man With Candy

Old Man With Candy

Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me. Wait, wrong book, I'll find something else.

185 Comments

  1. Shirley Knott

    First on the first.

  2. SDF-7

    and the inspiration for the “schwing” neologism.

    While no red blooded male in the 1990s would deny the appropriateness of the schwing (as long as their SO wasn’t around, of course) — I thought it predated the movie and was often done for pre-scary-plastic-surgeries Madonna in the SNL bits. Shrug. Whatevs. Here’s hoping 2023 doesn’t suck rancid donkey dick, folks…. and is that pickle and water as a cure, some bizarre “eat the pickle and do the vodka shot” drinking thing or the next “scare your cat” meme off of TikTok? Inquiring minds kinda-sorta want to know….

  3. Gender Traitor

    Old Man, this might have been useful last night.

    When I saw the title, I was afraid it might be about man-buns./sorry-but-not-a-fan

    • Gender Traitor

      Also, good morning and Happy New Year, l0! Eagerly awaiting stories whenever the coast is clear! 😉

      • Penguin

        Happy New Year, GT! Happy New Year to TT, as well!

      • Gender Traitor

        Thank you, and Happy New Year to you and yours, Pengy!

    • SDF-7

      Those are just the tip of the immense iceberg of “fashion” / style choices I don’t get these days. See also “big stupid holes in various parts of the anatomy”, “fake nails that looks like you’re cosplaying a Velociraptor” and of course “full body art that make you looks like a carny”. I don’t gripe in public about them (because it really would be “Hey Buddy…. !”), but I seriously don’t get the mutilation == art crap. Meh (and yes, that Meh is the early spoiler for ‘orning ‘ordles…. probably going to be a year of “Meh”…. but whatever… meh…).

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        I blame Lady Gaga for the resurrection of pointy 60s nails. Those fake squoval French manicures weren’t anything to look at either.

        My piano teacher told me to keep them short. Fingernails on a tablet, I nearly ran screaming recently.

  4. Penguin

    a Jew who went to London;

    Ah, Damn, I thought you were talking about the guy who wrote Catch-22 or the economist.

    • Ted S.

      I was thinking Benjamin Disraeli, or maybe the Rothschilds.

    • creech

      My first thought was Judah Benjamin.

  5. SDF-7

    Jeepers! Old Man, this might have been useful last night.

    Guess GlibFit is starting early this year…

  6. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Dost thou speak ill of Krugabe’s favorite science fiction books?

    • SDF-7

      I have to confess I enjoy the Foundation and the original Caves of Steel and Robots of Dawn. Asimov’s big problem to me (like so, so many writers that find steady paychecks… looking at you, Ringworld’s Children) is that he didn’t leave well enough alone. All the Foundation stuff after the initial trilogy just spiraled into increasing suck, the moreso as he tried to tie everything into one big timeline as if he’d had that in mind all along.

      Meh.

      • SDF-7

        “the Foundation” *trilogy* you sorry excuse for a lack of editor can’t write worth a flip in the morning idiot that is me…. 😛

        That deserves a Bleck much more than a “Meh”.

      • The Hyperbole

        as he tried to tie everything into one big timeline as if he’d had that in mind all along.

        insert GIF of F Paul Wilson quietly slinking out of the room.

      • slumbrew

        I can’t think of a series whose story arc I disliked more than Repairman Jack. I was just hate reading the last few and refused to follow the new series.

    • Penguin

      I thought his fav sci-fi book was An Inconvenient Truth.

      • SDF-7

        We all know he’s secretly closeted up in his bedroom passionately going over and over his 50 Shades of Grey meets Winston’s Mom fanfic.

  7. Penguin

    And yeah, 2023 is gonna suck multiple species of animal penis. I barely lived through 2022

    At least I have my keyboard now.

  8. cyto

    Happy New Year, Glibs.

    We got into a bartending contest mixing shots as our first activity of 2023.

    Highlights included “bazooka Joe”, a shot featuring limon vodka and grenadine and sprite that tasted like Buble gum. And Chocolate Cake, a shot with vanilla vodka and hazelnut liquor with sugared lemon wedges that tasted like German chocolate cake.

    Everyone else is still passed out at various locations around the house.

    • Gender Traitor

      ::whispers very very softly:: Happy New Year, cyto!

    • Homple

      All I know Bazooka Joe was how stupid the brand’s bubble gum wrapper comics were.

  9. The Late P Brooks

    Happy fucking new year, glibules.

    I resolve to entertain the possibility of achieving something at some point between now and 2024.

    • SDF-7

      I’m seriously tempted to put that on my next performance review / self-evaluation / whatever HR makes me fill out periodically that no one seriously gives a flip about because we’re busy trying to do our actual jobs and all….

      • Fourscore

        It’s you over achievers that make the rest of us look bad.

  10. Fourscore

    I woke up, to a brand new year. All is right in the world.

    • Gender Traitor

      Happy New Year, 4(20)! 🙂

  11. Don escaped Texas

    New Year’s Day

    I’m glad 2022 is over because it was completely rigged! People going to jail for just walking into the Capitol even though it was clearly open, Arizona and Georgia cheating great candidates, we’re talking great Americans, out of their legitimate election wins and tolerating obvious trickerations, papers publishing lie after lie about George Santos and making fun of gentle generalissimo Ron de Santis’s polo socks, abortionists allowed to run wild all over Kansas, goddam subcommittees exposing businessmen for losing hundreds of millions of dollars year after year, Trump trading cards selling out before I can get mine, and the fucking NCAA inviting two Big10 teams to the playoff just to referee them both off the field. It’s total bullshit, people, and there is no way 2023 won’t be better. Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell will fix every last little red wagon and then we’ll see who’s sorry. We will; you’ll see. If only everyone will join me in sending $100 a month to TrumpDoesntNeedYourMoney.com, we can fix this. IT’S NOT TOO LATE111!1!

    • SDF-7

      Thanks for making me throw up in my mouth a little there… Ugh.

  12. The Late P Brooks

    A bit of fresh snow on the ground, but not the 6 or 7 inches the weatherman was threatening me with.

    Yet.

    • SDF-7

      Look, I’m glad you’re getting some snow — but can you leave the sordid details of your bedroom play with the local weatherman out of it, good sir?

      • Tres Cool

        Ill fill-in for Q briefly: why not a weathergirl?

      • SDF-7

        Hey, I’m just responding to what he said he was being threatened by…

  13. PieInTheSky

    Well Happy New Year glibbies, though I don’t have my hopes up….

    • SDF-7

      You just need to start doing Quordles and improve your attitude or something. 😉

      • Ted S.

        You just need to start doing Quordles Quaaludes and improve your attitude or something. 😉

        FIFY

  14. PieInTheSky

    15 C an sunny at least I am saving some heating money

    • SDF-7

      And after the last few years… I can’t say they’re wrong. Ugh.

      On the positive side, if they get everything they want — I don’t honestly think it will last. The only good thing about their deluded fantasies, and cold comfort to the misery they’ll bring.

      • rhywun

        if they get everything they want

        But then the “struggle” would be over.

        I think they just want permanent “struggle”.

      • PieInTheSky

        I don’t honestly think it will last. – by that point it will already be not real socialism and the quest will start anew.

  15. SDF-7

    ‘Orning ‘ordles — the aforementioned “Meh” edition. A mediocre start to a year where “mediocre” would be a vast improvement overall. Here’s hoping.

    Daily Duotrigordle #305
    Guesses: 35/37
    Time: 05:04.07
    https://duotrigordle.com/

    Daily Quordle 342
    7️⃣8️⃣
    3️⃣5️⃣
    quordle.com

    • Grumbletarian

      Daily Quordle 342
      6️⃣8️⃣
      3️⃣7️⃣

    • rhywun

      “Meh.”

      Daily Quordle 342
      8️⃣6️⃣
      7️⃣4️⃣

      • Grosspatzer

        Meh, indeed

        Daily Quordle 342
        6️⃣7️⃣
        8️⃣4️⃣
        quordle.com

    • Cowboy

      Daily Quordle 342
      6️⃣4️⃣
      5️⃣7️⃣
      quordle.com

    • kinnath

      Daily Quordle 342
      6️⃣4️⃣
      5️⃣7️⃣

      and a boring way to start the year

  16. cyto

    Alright, I need someone to explain it to me… Because I don’t get it at all.

    By “it”. I obviously mean the reaction to the Twitter Files and the massive media and tech company command and control scheme being run out of the bowels of the federal government, to the tune of at least a hundred million dollars.

    Even among libertarians, the reaction is extremely muted. Only Glenn Greenwald and his tribe seem to care at all, and most of his tribe are dissafected leftists.

    Everyone ’round these parts knows I have been ranting about the Soviet style propaganda we are being fed for years, so it is obvious that I am a bit of an outlier on this. But I still don’t understand how this isn’t a big deal to most of the world, and particularly to the libertarian segment.

    Even here, only a handful of us are worked up about it. But elsewhere? Nobody even knows about it. I heard a guy on sports talk mention it yesterday, and I was shocked. But then he went on and it was clear that he had almost zero knowledge. He knew that there was something about COVID, but that is all. Not even anything about federal government involvement, or other outlets, or the press….

    So what gives? We are living in a world where the federal government blatantly violates our core values and our highest law in a way that suberts all of society… And nobody cares?

    Give me the ELIF and then give me the deep dive. I am flummoxed.

    • PieInTheSky

      So what gives? We are living in a world where the federal government blatantly violates our core values and our highest law in a way that suberts all of society… And nobody cares? -yes

    • Gender Traitor

      I think it’s not necessarily that nobody cares as much as it is that nobody is surprised.

    • Ted S.

      There’s also the fact that the stuff isn’t reaching low-information voters.

    • SDF-7

      Speaking for the “probably too many black pills over the last few years” side of things — I’m paying attention to it, but I can’t be too excited about it because:

      a) It is just confirmation of what we pretty much knew was happening. Yes, confirmation is good and all… but —

      b) The Rules For Thee But Not For Me which have been unbelievably clear (2020 was when they went to “rub everyone’s face in it”, imho) put it firmly in the “And Nothing Else Happened” camp.

      That’s for the “around here” side. Outside of here? Folks are too tribal and it is perceived as enti-vas or pro-Trump or something, so it can’t be brought up or the icky people might score a point or something.

      I’ve given my rant before that it is stupidly apparent that the IC is out of control, that they’re way outside their constitutional and legal limits and that at a minimum Congress should be seriously defunding their asses until they remember who works for whom (and that any incoming Executive branch member who isn’t under their thumb had better treat them as the enemy because they’ve made it clear that’s how they see anyone who isn’t 100% on board with their agendas), but as we all know — that isn’t going to happen because Congresscritters don’t care about doing their job (or they’re compromised… or they paid attention to the Kennedy thing over the last few weeks and are just scared). I could rant more and again, but I don’t see the f’ing point — y’all are the choir and I’m not preaching as much as blathering on. So I’ll spare everyone. Go hug a puppy or something, go to church — try not to think about this crap for at least one stupid day to start this year.

      • Gender Traitor

        the Kennedy thing over the last few weeks

        ‘Splain me or offer a link, pls? Thx!

      • Don escaped Texas

        Folks are too tribal

        Virus Theater Decade, like the Patriot Act, point to the Great American Shame. The sad fact is that we aren’t a nation of laws….any more than any other country; I’ll say it again, that we are exactly like every other country: our government performs in accordance to our constitution except in those cases when it doesn’t. Presidents overstep, and their team cheers and their opponents point and whine; elect opposite to White House and perform same crime in exactly opposite direction; get taxed increasing to pay for it all; rinse and repeat.

        The power moves of politicizing access and subverting infrastructure to enforce a party perception is absolutely normal: normal to a million years of kings, Mao, Stalin, Nasser, duValier, Botha, Castro, Roosevelt. NORMAL AS RAIN. The human condition.

        I learnt this on Glibs dot com: The American Experiment was (WAS) successful because we were frontier. It was never the Constitution that made us great because: We were ungovernable in the alltogether; the fucking paperwork was never in control; that’s just window dressing while Bonnie and Clyde and American Oil and Ed Hoover ran wild. Our government was too small and remote to matter (for example, Bonnie and Clyde were simply assassinated by Texas Rangers, no trial, no nothing, same as a pair of Mexican horse thieves caught out on the Llano Estacado **claps dust off hands**).

        Until it wasn’t. The Great Depression and WW2 (Roosevelt, for short) turned us into France, and now there is nowhere to run. It is over. We will soon choke to death on our own filth while Teams Red and Blue point at each other.

      • slumbrew

        Your A and B points cover me as well.

        I’ll note, too, that releasing things as tweet threads doesn’t help normies follow the story. By the time it’s organized in a proper article some of the impact is muted.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      At least you get to see what the cosmos are really made of.

    • rhywun

      Half the country is in complete agreement because OMB. Of the other half, it is some combination of being completely ignorant due to MSM blackouts, the lingering misconception that it’s “private” businesses so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, and weary resignation.

    • Rebel Scum

      I’m concerned about it. Likewise about the Soviet style propaganda that has been apparent to me for quite some time. It accelerated in the Trump years.

  17. Penguin

    That Japanese pastry demonstration was impressive. I’m sure there are patrons who don’t want to eat the end result, but then they break down.

    • Penguin

      don’t want to eat the end result,

      Because they don’t want to rid the world of such prettiness.

    • rhywun

      Andrew Tate’s kickboxing record edited on Wikipedia to show Greta Thunberg Twitter defeat

      I was hoping the world would lay off the stupid in 2023 but apparently not.

      • juris imprudent

        My reaction to lay off the stupid in 2023.

    • Q Continuum

      “sexually exploited”

      WTF does that even mean? It’s not “rape” or “sexual assault”… did he just lie to get them into bed? Cause if that’s a crime about 80% of the male hetero population should be in jail right now.

      • PieInTheSky

        he was running cam shows / only fans stuff and some girls say they were forced to do nude cam shows.

      • Michael Malaise

        Forced, as in, at gunpoint?

  18. PieInTheSky

    Today is the feast day of saint Vasile which I thing in English goes by Basil of Caesarea, also called Saint Basil the Great. Common name in Romania, no so I assume in anglosaxonlands

      • Spartacus

        That was exactly my first thought. Spartacus Jr. gave us a britbox subscription for christmas, so of course the first thing Mrs. S and I did was run through all the Fawlty Towers episodes.

    • Grosspatzer

      St. Basil was an influential theologian, noted for his wisdom. A true Sage, he was.

      • SDF-7

        I always heard he kept in touch with the common man, though… a real salt of the earth type. Built his own adobo hut for meditation and everything.

      • juris imprudent

        A man for all seasons, thymeless.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Truly a devout who was spiritually prepared for The Second Cumin.

    • Homple

      We had St. Basil’s Hymnal (so titled) in the Roman Catholic church way back in the day. I never knew what St, Basil had to do with it.

  19. PieInTheSky

    the author of the most over-rated trilogy in science fiction history; – the guy had a lot of alimony to pay

    • rhywun

      LOL and “The Case for Wearing Masks Forever” – perfect.

    • Q Continuum

      “I am a Marxist though. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

      Yes. Yes it is something to be ashamed of.

  20. The Gunslinger

    “Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius a German physicist and mathematician and is considered one of the central founding fathers of the science of thermodynamics.”

    At the company I work for, we use a little thing called Cascade Refrigeration to bring a test chamber down to -100°F. How’s that for moving heat?

    Happy New Year Glibs. Kick ass and take names in 2023.

    • Ted S.

      Note that they all seem to be January 2 birthdays.

      • The Gunslinger

        Close enough for government work.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    Everyone ’round these parts knows I have been ranting about the Soviet style propaganda we are being fed for years, so it is obvious that I am a bit of an outlier on this. But I still don’t understand how this isn’t a big deal to most of the world, and particularly to the libertarian segment.

    I try not to torment myself (to excess) over things which I have no influence over. That part of Stoicism agrees with me.

    I have no more ability to affect the workings of the Cathedral/Mandarinate than I do of controlling the weather. Best case scenario, where do you crash the plane? Into the Capitol while the State of the Union address is in progress? The Inner Circle will fill the hole as easily as the sea swallowing a pebble.

    • PieInTheSky

      I try not to torment myself (to excess) over things which I have no influence over. – have you considered sending bombs to the FBI headquarters?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        And just like that, the Eye of Sauron NSA focuses its gaze upon glibs.

      • SDF-7

        I’m sure if they deigned to notice us we’d have someone trying to stir up a “kidnap this moronic elected official” or some other stupid plot.

        :squints suspiciously at Pie now…:

      • rhywun

        Greetings, fellow chat room participants!

    • Homple

      Me Lyke.

  22. The Late P Brooks

    I think a lot of “low information voters” get a bad rap. They’re out there living their lives, doing things, making things, enjoying life with people they care about. All of those things are more important to them than the Beltway minstrel show.

    • PieInTheSky

      All of those things are more important to them than the Beltway minstrel show. – until the minstrel show (racist much?) comes and fucks them up

    • Ted S.

      That’s not untrue, but it also means they get the steady drip of establishment/Beltway Class propaganda.

      Look, for example, at how people here are astonished by the amount of covid propaganda that only goes in one direction, when we watch a live sporting even and can’t fast forward through the ads. It runs throughout news and popular culture, and is basically all the so-called “low information voters” get exposed to.

      For a non-covid example, consider how “everybody knows” that politicians like Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor-Greene are obvious idiots deserving of constant ridicule, while any similar idiocy coming from TEAM BLUE politicians is ignored.

      • juris imprudent

        Do Boebert and MTG really balance the stupid of The Squad?

      • R C Dean

        I think of The Squad as having more of an alloy of malevolence, mendacity, and stupid.

      • juris imprudent

        You left out the sanctimonious self-righteousness – that’s a crucial component.

      • Rebel Scum

        They are smarter. And Boebert carries the hot card for both.

      • Homple

        I’ve looked at life from both sides now
        From win and lose and still somehow
        It’s life’s illusions I recall
        I really don’t know life at all

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Livin’ kick-ass lives…

  23. The Late P Brooks

    Andrew Tate is being silenced for keeping it real

    The nail that sticks up…

    • R C Dean

      Gets a picture hung from it?

  24. The Late P Brooks

    have you considered sending bombs to the FBI headquarters?

    I’ll send them a sternly worded admonishment, an a floral bouquet. That should be sufficient to enlighten them as to the error of their ways.

    • SDF-7

      No… it is probably a good plan! We’ll send them copies of The Woman King, Thor: Love and Thunder, Wakanda Forever and whatever that dumb Babylon movie is… that should distract them at least for a little bit…

  25. PieInTheSky

    Why Socialists Need to Talk About Justice

    https://jacobin.com/2022/12/capitalism-socialism-liberalism-justice-philosophy-marx

    “let me begin by clarifying the traditional socialist objections to theorizing about justice. The first worry that justice is a bourgeois ideal is well founded. Claims about justice take place on a social terrain on which there are deep social divisions that liberal ideals like liberty and equality do a great deal to obscure. It is not easy to use the same ideals that obscure social divisions to argue for society’s fundamental transformation.”

    “This isn’t to say that the individual is more important than the collective (i.e., “individualism”). But socialists need to show that individuals can flourish equally well in a different sort of social structure. The burden is on us to say that they can and should expect something richer and warmer from a conception of human freedom than the one capitalism offers.”

    “There may be varieties of socialism after all, which depend on how people transform already-existing institutional structures. It may very well be that North American socialism will look different from European socialism, which will in turn look different from South American socialism, because their state institutions and developmental needs are quite diverse. For instance, I can envision a large and illustrious project of building electric rail across the Great Plains of North America, where farmers there have a council that coordinates the price of grain with the rancher council in the Southwest that is sending livestock to Chicago.”

    I am convinced.

    • Grumbletarian

      This isn’t to say that the individual is more important than the collective (i.e., “individualism”).

      Fuck off, slaver.

    • SDF-7

      For the same reason Vegans need to talk about Veganism… they’re self-important pricks who can’t shut the hell up?

    • rhywun

      I shudder to think what their definition of “justice” is.

      • SDF-7

        “Mommy and Daddy are forced to say they love me and that big meanie Chuck from 7th grade has to dig ditches while I get his wife and his sportscar… because I’m more deserving!” at a guess.

    • Q Continuum

      These fucking people. How anyone can unironically subscribe to socialism is just beyond me. It’s akin to grown adults sincerely believing in Santa Claus. Dumbass fucking humans.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Nothing free but sunlight.

    • R C Dean

      “farmers there have a council that coordinates the price of grain with the rancher council in the Southwest”

      See, also, “soviets”.

      • rhywun

        *swoon*

    • juris imprudent

      “The death of one is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic” – live it with you bootlicking shitheads.

    • Rebel Scum

      The first line demonstrates that socialism is tyranny.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Look, for example, at how people here are astonished by the amount of covid propaganda that only goes in one direction, when we watch a live sporting even and can’t fast forward through the ads. It runs throughout news and popular culture, and is basically all the so-called “low information voters” get exposed to.

    Good example.

    • Q Continuum

      “What’s water?” said the fish.

  27. Q Continuum

    “Bun shapes. How to shape buns”

    Related.

    https://archive.ph/iEX51

    Happy Slutty Sunday New Year to my reprobates, scoundrels and villains.

    • SDF-7

      Pretty amazing for all of them being “50+”… the things they can do with makeup and filters these days…

      😉

  28. Grosspatzer

    Mornin’, reprobates. 2023 is off to a flying start.

    The Patzer spawn had some friends over last night, and agood time was had by all. I had to tiptoe quietly into my tobacco lair this morning because there was a passed out lad there. Just to make it more interesting, the young man’s EV was parked in front of my garage door (plugged into an outlet. Free electricity!). Not to be deterred, I grabbed the keys to the elder spawn’s vehicle and went about my morning rounds. The interior of that car needs to be fumigated.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    For instance, I can envision a large and illustrious project of building electric rail across the Great Plains of North America, where farmers there have a council that coordinates the price of grain with the rancher council in the Southwest that is sending livestock to Chicago.

    “Hey, this ditch is full of dead people. Why did you bring me here?”

      • Tres Cool

        “send over a couple of niggers”
        “Sir? He said “niggers”. Well, to tell a family secret, my grandmother is Dutch”

        Im betting that part was written by Richard Pryor.

    • juris imprudent

      Electric rail? Oh, no, the trains ain’t running today sunny – wind is hardly blowing a lick.

  30. juris imprudent

    We went to sleep secure in the knowledge that tOSU would be in the CFP final. Imagine our surprise this morning.

    2022 will truly be annus horribilus for sloopy. Better luck next year.

    • juris imprudent

      Oops, that should be, better luck this year.

  31. I. B. McGinty

    Merry New Year! Hope this one is better than the last. I usually don’t do New Year’s resolutions, but I feel the need to push myself a little but more to get a sense of accomplishment. So I came up with two –

    1) Get my workshop set up and organized so I can easily do more woodworking projects.

    2) Get better at golf.

    • PieInTheSky

      Ann Do you exercise?

      Ron Yes. Lovemaking and woodworking.

      I guess golf also works

      • I. B. McGinty

        Define exercise.

  32. Semi-Spartan Dad

    Happy New Year, Glibs. 2022 saw the awarding of my PhD. 2023 will see the working off of the 40 lbs I gained in the process.

    Renovations continue at the SSD household. The previous 10×4 mudroom, at a severe slope due to the lack of footers, is now a downright palatial 10×10 with a level floor and proper footers. I’m able to add a chest freezer large enough to hold a steer and cover the walls in workshop metal cabinets. Quite happy with how it’s turning out.

    Hope everyone had a fun New Year’s eve and a good start to 2023.

    • robodruid

      Congratulations Dr. SSD

    • Grosspatzer

      Congratulations, Herr Doktor!

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      Thank you! I’m no Dr. Jill Biden. May keep it in the back pocket though when dealing with the local school board or other bureaucrats.

      • slumbrew

        I want a Word Press plugin that will periodically mutate your handle a’la SugarFree:

        Semi Doctor Spartan Dad

  33. Cowboy

    Morning all, just popping in to wish all you folx a happy new year.

    Tomorrow I go back to work after having nearly the whole month of december off. Its gonna suck, and I’m going to miss all this time I got to spend with my little cowpoke. Looking forward to this year, though. Im strangely optimistic about a lot of things in my life, working hard to make sure I dont let me dreams be memes or whatever

  34. Count Potato

    HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

  35. The Late P Brooks

    New year, new hero

    As he strives to unite a nation riven by economic woes, a bruising pandemic and Bolsonaro’s far-right populism, Lula is looking to his prison days for inspiration, allies and confidants told Reuters.

    ——-

    The more ideological Lula who emerged from jail in 2019 should not be a cause for concern, friends and allies said. He is still the same pragmatist who honed his powers of persuasion as a union leader in the Sao Paulo auto plants of the 1970s, they added.

    Lula aides have encouraged comparisons with former South African leader Nelson Mandela, who spent over a quarter of a century behind bars as an opponent of the country’s apartheid.

    But many on Faria Lima, the so-called “Brazilian Wall Street,” who fondly recall the business-friendly Lula of the early 2000s are holding their breath, worried that increased social spending and a loyalist cabinet will damage Brazil’s fiscal credibility and usher in a new era of graft-stained statism.

    What Brazil needs is more far left populism. And more people-over-profits social engineering. Soon Brazil will be a socialist paradise and the envy of the world.

    Wasn’t there some other guy who emerged from jail with a plan to remake the world?

    • Rebel Scum

      I still can’t figure out in what way Balsonaro is “far-right”. But, of course, the criminal communist is to be taken as “pragmatic”.

  36. The Late P Brooks

    2) Get better at golf.

    Be the ball, Danny.

    • I. B. McGinty

      If I hurry I could be that Cinderella story at Augusta this year. Just need to add 100 yards to my drives…

  37. hayeksplosives

    I just ordered a NOKbox (next of kin box) to put together all kinds of info and keys etc in case I drop dead without notice. I’m sure I could have made one myself after some careful research, but I can’t be arsed to do so. https://www.thenokbox.com/

    Happy New Year, ya reprobates!

    • Mojeaux

      I sorta already have one. It’s in my desk drawer. It’s also outdated, so I need to do something about that.

      What needs to happen, now that my husband and I drive long distances to places, is to make sure XX knows what to do in case something happens to both of us at the same time, i.e., call grandma and the life insurance company.

      • MikeS

        I think you’ve said before you use KeePass. Did you see they have a sheet you can fill out and print for your survivors to know how to get into your KeePass? Not that I’ve gotten around to filling mine out, but thought I’d pass that along.

      • MikeS

        File -> Print -> Print Emergency Sheet

  38. The Late P Brooks

    Lula’s new-found social awareness was ignited by reading books on race, slavery and hunger behind bars, as well as biographies of Fidel Castro and Nelson Mandela, according to his website. He also perused “Lulismo in crisis,” a critical review of his movement and its missteps by his former press secretary Andre Singer.

    ——-

    Another close aide, PT Senator Humberto Costa, said Lula matured politically in jail.

    “What drove him to run again was the need to leave his mark, not just politically but historically, by bringing lasting change to Brazil,” Costa said.

    Save us from those compelled to leave their mark on history, o ye gods and little fishies.

    • hayeksplosives

      ” compelled to leave their mark on history”

      How about just whizzing on a fire hydrant?

    • slumbrew

      “Bad luck” incoming for Brazil.

      • rhywun

        Yeah, it’s like he checked all the boxes at totalitarian-school and can’t wait to put the new lessons into practice.

        Generic Reuters writing team seems fully on board. 🙄

    • Rebel Scum

      He learned about the Portuguese slave traders? They basically founded his country.

  39. Rebel Scum

    *looks around*

    This year already sucks.

    *goes back to bed*

  40. Rebel Scum

    “Ford made an electric vehicle I would not mind taking for a spin.”

    It would be fun until it spontaneously combust.

  41. Tundra

    Happy New Year, friends!

    Would the Ford pickup. Pretty cool!

  42. The Late P Brooks

    Groomers wanted

    Republicans are urging the party to do a better job engaging with young voters after the GOP saw Generation Z voters cast ballots by large margins for Democrats in the November midterms, making the difference in key congressional and gubernatorial races.

    While the party has long struggled with attracting younger voters, the 2022 midterm elections underscored the extent to which those struggles are a liability for it. Now, Republicans are calling on the party to step up its outreach, including by finding more Gen Z surrogates, engaging with young voters on social media platforms and speaking to issues those voters care about.

    “When you ignore people’s bread-and-butter concerns and their more cultural concerns, you can’t expect to win their votes. And we’re having a series of close elections, and the Republicans are just throwing away an entire demographic, and it’s costing them elections,” said veteran GOP strategist Keith Naughton.

    So- be more like Democrats? Promise them a lot of free shit and unearned rewards? Cater to their diversitized fever dreams? Good strategizing.

    • Fourscore

      ” people’s bread-and-butter concerns”

      and circuses, don’t forget circuses

    • Rebel Scum

      Elections so close that they are “won” by the Dem candidate by just the requisite amount.

      • Ted S.

        Now you’ve gone and lit the JI signal.

      • juris imprudent

        Yawn, uni-party.

    • Ted S.

      Show how government action is screwing things up.

  43. Brawndo

    Happy New Years, glibs. I have no resolutions for myself. As for some of the assholes in my life, they will be receiving resolutions from me.

  44. The Late P Brooks

    where farmers there have a council that coordinates the price of grain with the rancher council in the Southwest that is sending livestock to Chicago

    Something something conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

  45. Count Potato

    “Social media as an incubator of personality and behavioral psychopathology: Symptom and disorder authenticity or psychosomatic social contagion?

    There has been an increasing recognition among both medical and psychological professionals, as well as the public media, of a concerning trend for child and adolescent users of audiovisual-based, algorithmic social media platforms (e.g., TikTok) to present with or claim functional psychiatric impairment that is inconsistent with or distinct from classic psychiatric nosology. In this short communication, we provide a detailed historical overview of this transdiagnostic phenomenon and suggest a conceptual model to organize thinking and research examining it. We then discuss the implications of our suggested model for accurate assessment, diagnosis, and medical-psychiatric treatment. We believe there is an urgent need for focused empirical research investigation into this concerning phenomenon that is related to the broader research and discourse examining social media influences on mental health.”

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010440X22000682

    https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1608809532976959491

    TikTok is making kids crazy.

  46. The Late P Brooks

    Circuses, you say? There will be clowns in drag from sea to shining sea.

  47. The Late P Brooks

    David Morgan, a senior at Pennsylvania State University and the political director of the Penn State College Republicans, believes the GOP is facing challenges with young voters because they’re not speaking to social policies and issues.

    “Better health care, LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights, stuff like that … climate change, those issues are huge for Gen Z. And because the party kind of is a little bit slow on the uptake initially with kind of some of these issues … I think it kind of automatically slanted our generation to go more towards Democrat,” he noted.

    As if the Republicans have made any serious efforts to stop any of that stuff.

    “Sure, let’s just bury it all in an unread omnibus spending act and vote for it, so those big meanies at the New York Times and Washington Post will stop telling their readers what a bunch of Nazi racist homophobes we are. We just want to be loved. Is that so wrong?’

    • slumbrew

      “Republicans should be more like Democrats”, say young people

      is a story I’ve heard since I was a young person.

      • Bob Boberson

        I’m getting pretty black pilled on ‘your people’. Recently I’ve had a lot of interactions with people in their 20’s and it seems like s many of them, even ones who could be considered normie, take all it as a given that all non-icky people are for all the nonsense you listed above…..

        I despised high-school for the vapid and vacuous popularity contest that it was and I was glad to be done with it. 20 years later I feel like I’m still in it on a national scale.

      • Bob Boberson

        ugh *young……..insert ‘what do you mean YOU people’ GIF

    • Rebel Scum

      A bunch of things that are bullshit, socially/economically destructive and/or are not the prerogative of the federal government.

    • MikeS

      Wow. It sounds like that lady made her kid as crazy as her, if not more. Sad.

    • Q Continuum

      …aaaaand fast forward 3 years lunatic Mommy has been arrested for incest.

  48. Bob Boberson

    Someone in my IG feed posted a Charlie Kirk style video of someone asking Pro-life protestors how many children they’ve adopted since ROE was overturned.

    Maybe its my aspie brain but I’m failing to to see how ‘I can’t kill my baby so you’re a total hypocrite for not raising it’ is a PWN!!!!11!!

    • Bob Boberson

      Tennis Grand Slam is quite the euphemism.

  49. Rufus the Monocled

    Merry New Year!