Saturday Morning Ping Links

by | Apr 1, 2023 | Daily Links | 264 comments

I’d love to do a fun April Fool’s joke, but I’m too tired to think of one. Besides juggling NPR Ladies, I’m midway through two weeks of work hell- tours, presentations, program reviews, all the shit I hate because it’s keeping me away from research. Nonetheless, there’s the occasional laugh. I was bringing a set of people from our funding agency touring through our analytical labs. One of the rooms contained a couple of very impressive pieces of very large equipment (for the geeks, it was x-ray diffraction and x-ray fluorescence spectrometers). I pointed to one of them and said, “…and that’s the machine that goes PING! It’s my favorite, the most expensive one we’ve got.”

Blank looks. Ah well.

Oh yes, birthdays. Today’s include a guy who circulated; a guy who was a bit cheesy; a guy whom you probably know from Loony Tunes, you peasants; a guy who could outdo Charles Laughton; perhaps the nastiest, meanest drunk in a town know for nasty and mean drunks; a guy who was not exactly Jehovah’s witness; the only guy who could legitimately rock a hipster topknot; a woman whose influence ruined sci fi for me; a guy who invented an existential diet plan; a woman who was wonderful with Carroll O’Connor on The Outer Limits; a guy who was the mentor of the last woman I dated; and that nice young man who does the news.

Let’s go to Links.

 

How can this possibly be constitutional? It’s not, of course, but the 1A was written like a hundred years ago by some dead slaveholders, so fuck it.

 

Interesting twist on The Shawshank Redemption.

 

Of all the stupid shit meant to distract us from real issues, this drag queen shit has to be the stupidest.

 

How do you say “Dindu nuffin” in Hebrew?

 

Kayfabe for fun and profit.

 

Buy popcorn futures.

 

My favorite Spinal Tap song was, “Gimmee Some Money.”

 

Old Guy Music is Molly once again doing a cover that absolutely blows away the original. Fuck, what an amazing singer and guitarist. I want to bear all her children.

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.

264 Comments

  1. Count Potato

    “Blank looks.

    I don’t get it either.

    • cavalier973

      I smiled in my heart.

    • Old Man With Candy

      So your life is meaningless?

      • Count Potato

        Because?

      • rhywun

        inorite?

      • Sensei

        If you lease the machine payment comes from the monthly budget and not the capital account, right?

      • Spartacus

        The real killer is the maintenance contracts. If you don’t have a technician on staff, the care and feeding of these beasts will ruin you.

  2. cavalier973

    The memes guy conviction will be overturned. The process of getting it overturned will be worse than if the memes guy didn’t even try to get it overturned.

  3. cavalier973

    Rachmaninov’s “Variations on a theme of Paganini, number 18” is basically playing the theme upside down.

    • cavalier973

      I can’t remember which of Rockmomitoff’s compositions made it into Looney Tunes, unless it was background music. I remember Bugs (and Tom the Cat, over at MGM) playing something by Franz Liszt. There were the waltzes by Strauss part 2. The Overture by William Tell. The rabbit barber one, and Kill the Wabbit.

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        I seem to remember there was a LT cartoon that they were being tortured by modern classical music. Very apropos.

      • cavalier973

        My wife never does that when I play Rachmaninoff

  4. Count Potato

    “Cathey, now a 13-time convicted felon, pleaded guilty to burglary, aiding or abetting the possession of a stolen motor vehicle, and two counts of identity theft before Judge Aleksandra Gillespie. She sentenced him to 2½ years for the ID theft and four years for each of the other charges.

    Illinois Department of Corrections records show he is expected to be paroled on May 14, 2024, a little more than three years after he was arrested on the charges.”

    Incentives, how do they work?

    • Count Potato

      “Cathey ran up his first $1 million in medical bills in 2015 when he was in jail awaiting trial for allegedly robbing a restaurant. He ate screws, thumbtacks, leather, needles, and a four-inch piece of metal.

      As of 2016, he had undergone 20 surgeries to remove metal objects he consumed while in custody, CBS2 reported. Cara Smith, a sheriff’s office spokesperson at the time, called Cathey’s case “a crushingly sad and very frustrating case.”

      When Cathey later returned to jail for allegedly possessing a stolen motor vehicle and escaping electronic monitoring, he started eating the facility again — and ran up another $1 million bill for treatment.”

      Damn.

    • Ted S.

      They should have arrested him for breaking into the Capitol.

  5. robodruid

    Back in the 2010’s I used an EDAXII XRF
    (I think thats what it was)

    I never remember hearing a “ding”, that was probably a bad sound.

    • Old Man With Candy

      EDX is pretty cool. I used an SEM with that capability in one of my previous jobs and was amazed at the data I could get. We have a pretty good one here, and it’s on my list of equipment I want to learn how to use. The XRF is doubly cool because it can take an array of 40 samples and has a robotic arm for moving samples in and out of the x-ray cavity.

      • Timeloose

        I used one on the SEM quite often. The real cool and useful upgrade from the older machines was the software and image processing. Being able to identify features and regions in your image by composition and using colors to contrast interfaces was real powerful.

      • Old Man With Candy

        ^This. I think about every failure analysis I ever did hinged on that data.

      • Timeloose

        It also allowed one to convince your customer much more effectively than a written summary or interpretation of results. “ Picture is worth a thousand words”.

      • robodruid

        We were not that advanced on the EDAX. Although we had a wavelength dispersive that had robotics and all that. one of the guys was real good at writing up bid requests and the shop got lots of money. (Of course our labor costs went through the roof and no one cared).

  6. Stinky Wizzleteats

    “How can this possibly be constitutional?”

    The thing is, it isn’t and it’ll be overturned on appeal. What is more interesting to me is the fact that the entrenched powers that be have moved beyond deplatforming opponents to jailing opponents, and I don’t mean rightwingers, I mean people of all political persuasions who don’t toe the neolib/neocon line. Expect to see a lot more of these types of prosecutions until the courts get a hold on the matter which, as everyone here knows, takes fucking forever.

    • Fourscore

      There is so much bizarreness going on it’s hard to keep up. The social unrest, the made up climate business, covid lies, etc. Society lurches from one made up crisis to the next. When I think we should be at the end some new (AI) problem arises to add on to my worries. Politics and money mixed with technology makes me long for days of old.

      • rhywun

        I think it’s intentional. To draw our attention away from shenanigans that the Blob would rather we don’t notice.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        Yeah. I’m pretty sure TPTB didn’t just decide to drill down deep to the heart of trans-world. They don’t give a single fuck.

  7. Penguin

    Besides juggling NPR Ladies

    Damn, brother. You’re much stronger than I’d have given you credit for.

    • Old Man With Candy

      The one last night was maybe 4’11”. Wednesday’s was over 6′, but thin. So it’s less impressive than it seems.

      • Penguin

        The music you like may keep them in the mix….

      • Old Man With Candy

        The tall thin one has a superb D-28 sitting in her closet. That might be the thing to tip me over to that side.

      • Fourscore

        I dunno, seems like the candle has 2 ends. What’s on the schedule for the week end?

      • Old Man With Candy

        Mostly work, alas, but I’m doing a hike-with-dogs with one of them tomorrow.

      • Vida Hobo

        So what you’re saying is that they couldn’t resist your Shweddy Balls?

      • The Gunslinger

        Have you set in motion the plan for the ménage à trois yet?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Did you miss the “NPR ladies” part? That’s strictly missionary, no oral and no anal and definitely no three ways.

  8. Penguin

    a guy whom you probably know from Loony Tunes

    What are you saying, sir?

    • Ownbestenemy

      There goes 2 hours of my day. Thanks Penguin!

  9. Gender Traitor

    Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) told The Hill that Bragg going first indicates this is not the political witch hunt that Trump claims, a sign that prosecutors are independently assessing the strength of the evidence of misdeeds before proceedings.

    Oh, Eric, you wacky guy! That’s a real knee-slapper right there! 😄

    • cavalier973

      Reportedly they are going to hold Trump at Rikers Island. Also, there will be a gag order to keep him from campaigning.

      Why are they so afraid of him?

      • rhywun

        “I will end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours.”

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        If something like that happens there could be actual unrest. That’d be colossally stupid.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Swalwell is one of the biggest bags of garbage in congress which is no small feat. Maybe some red state prosecutor can come up with a twisted legal theory under which he can be charged. Seems far fetched but the Pandora’s box has been opened.

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        Well, I would bet on Pelosi being charged for the J6 BS first, being a conspiracy to deny civil rights, at this point.

      • Rebel Scum

        On account of the banging a Chinese spy it seems espionage is on the table.

      • cavalier973

        And on the counter, and on the sofa, and on the window seat…

      • slumbrew

        That’s, like, old news, man.

        *and nothing else happened*

    • Rebel Scum

      Swallowswell is not a serious person.

  10. Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

    I once had a 2-3 hour MRI, and I realized that the “modern” classics in Looney Tunes cartoons was presented that way to show how awful that crap is.

    • cavalier973

      Did you get to pick your music?

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        No, it was an emergency one, kinda, and this was long enough ago that they didn’t do that here.

    • Penguin

      I recently had a 1 ½ one. Funny enough, I chose classical as my go under music.

      • Grosspatzer

        Last time i had an MRI I requested a John Cage mix. It wasn’t available, so I told the technician I’d do without. And was treated to an hour of John Cage.

      • Gender Traitor

        I see what you did there (but I didn’t hear it.)

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        Nice

    • Count Potato

      That’s a long ass MRI.

      • cavalier973

        That’s what she said

    • cavalier973

      What do you mean by “modern classics”?

  11. Gender Traitor

    O/T – the weather news that had me a wee bit preoccupied last evening and into the wee hours of this morning. Paging Don Escaped (again – saw you last night, but it seemed as if your party just wouldn’t end!), all Chicagoland Glibs, Hoosiers TOK and Evan, and anyone else who was in the path of that…excitement.

    • The Other Kevin

      We were in Texas, far away from it all. But I checked with my neighbor and my house is ok. We’ll get back late tonight and hopefully we won’t find any downed trees.

      • Gender Traitor

        👍🏼👍🏼

      • Count Potato

        Downed trees aren’t so bad. It’s when they land on something. Several years ago, one missed my car by about six inches.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Had to check on a buddy in Little Rock. He was good and snapped some photos of some baby swirlies trying to start but failed to deliver. Thanks Tundra by the way for that timely post yesterday about that tornado.

      • Tundra

        Thank KK. She turned me on to the MyRadar app and their Twitter. Far and away the best coverage I’ve found.

        Glad your pal is OK and I hope all our peeps are good as well.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Ive in in OK during tornado season and this one seems to be starting up so hopefully the next couple of weeks are quiet. Ive been in one, they are not fun and any grown man that doesn’t have a healthy fear of em is lying to themselves.

  12. Count Potato

    “A meatball made using extinct woolly-mammoth DNA was revealed at the Nemo Science Museum in Amsterdam. In a world first, Australian company Vow Food has grown the meatball for a project looking at alternative ways to produce meat.”

    https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-65136303

    What?

    • cavalier973

      Did they say whether it tasted gamey?

      • R.J.

        They didn’t want to eat it, worries over the protein causing health problems. But they want to make us food.

  13. KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

    Me: “better get the dog out before it starts raining”

    Rain: *starts raining*

    • Gender Traitor

      Thanks again for the link to Ryan Hall’s nonstop YT storm watch. That guy was a trouper! I guess he DID finally have to stop – he had to knock off after twelve straight hours or YT wouldn’t archive it.

      • KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

        He’s really interesting to watch. All the radars he uses are cool. And his band of chasers.

        Hope all is well in your neck of the woods!

      • Gender Traitor

        Thanks – no trouble here (Chez GT/TT) There was a tornado warning in the next county to the north, and the NWS is going to survey some damage to confirm whether it was indeed caused by a tornado.

      • Grosspatzer

        Glad you’re OK, along with everyone else here. That is some scary shit.

    • slumbrew

      Like clockwork.

      I’ve come around on rain gear for dogs – not that they need it but it makes cleanup so much faster.

    • cavalier973

      And sometimes, not even then.

      • slumbrew

        *cues up Yojimbo*

        Nope, it works.

    • Sensei

      My son has long hair and occasionally wears one around the house.

      I can assure you he has no idea WTF Mifune is.

      Semi on topic, I watched Seven Samurai three times. Once 30 years ago and didn’t get it at. Once again as an older adult and it moved me to tears. And once more after learning Japanese.

      Knowing Japanese doesn’t change that much I found. I picked up some more nuance and culture, but the emotion is what sells it. Also the language is rough, masculine and archaic and tough to understand.

      • Count Potato

        From what I heard it’s difficult for modern Japanese to understand, like English reading Shakespeare today.

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        Speaking of which, if you want to watch excellent Shakespeare, I highly recommend the BBC2’s Hollow Crown from 10 years ago

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuOvKOIGC0w

      • DrOtto

        Or the constitution

  14. KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

    April 1…the day the literal- minded dread the most.

    I’ll just hide out, watch murder shows, and stay off the social medias.

    • cavalier973

      Which murder shows?

      If you are into podcasts, there is “True Crime Garage” and a variety of shows by Parcast, including “Unsolved Murders” and “Solved Murders”.

      • KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

        First 48 and The Murder Tapes are my favorites. I also like City Confidential and Cold Case Files.

      • cavalier973

        Do you try to solve them, or do you watch for cathartic reasons, or just b/c of general interest?

      • KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

        I like the technical aspects of the investigations. That’s pretty much it.

        I usually fast forward through the grieving family/gratuitous emotion parts.

        I also really, really dislike reenactments.

      • cavalier973

        You probably wouldn’t like thenParcast shows, then.

        True Crime Garage is just a couple of dudes talking about cases. Also, they showcase a different beer each episode.

    • Old Man With Candy

      You’re a female type- can you explain to me the weird obsession every woman I know has with BritBox murder mysteries? Should I worry?

      • KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

        No idea – I don’t like fiction. And I especially don’t like British drama fiction

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        As long as they don’t bring up insurance policies in conversation you’re probably OK.

      • Not Adahn

        Watch “New Tricks” with them. You’ll feel right at home.

      • Penguin

        Dude => *loves PBS = loves BBC*

  15. PieInTheSky

    Long day of cleaning ye olde apartment but I am done. Did the windows. I hate doing the windows. I also hate washing the drapes. not the washing but the putting them back up.

    • cavalier973

      I learned from Lillian Jackson Braun that one should never say “drapes” instead of “draperies”.

    • Spartacus

      Just cover all your windows with aluminum foil. It’ll become a major fashion statement and will in no way attract unwanted attention from the authorities.

    • Shirley Knott

      I learned from one of the Stately Old Homos of Great Britain that after 7 years it doesn’t get any worse.
      He’s right.

  16. Timeloose

    I have a vehicle of activity going on at casa de Time. There are two electricians pulling wire and installing conduit and three guys outside running an excavator and panker.

    I feel weirdly guilty when people are doing work for me, even when I’m paying them. I know I can do what I’m paying them to do, that they will do it better than I, and more importantly faster.

    • Timeloose

      Beehive not vehicle.

      • Timeloose

        Those guys are funny as hell, but brutal.

        To this day the hallway full of stunguns, rat traps, and cattle prods still makes me laugh.

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        God, I went to high school with one of those idiots.

      • KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

        He was probably getting laid on the regular back then. Probably still is (maybe not the dead guy).

    • robodruid

      Hey are they using wire lubricant?
      This is a serious question.

      • robodruid

        Reason i ask is that “wire lubricant” is supposedly a source of PFAS, the compound that EPA says is bad for you at 4 PPT.
        I’m not crazy, its just the world i live in right now.

      • Timeloose

        I don’t know, but I’m more concerned that they get it pulled as easily as possible. If they have to use baby seal grease I’m all for it.

        If it could hurt you at a PPT I’m sure I would be really FUcxed up by now. A lot of the vacuum oil I used to have vaporized around my face is PTFE based.

      • robodruid

        Yep, Teflon compounds are ubiquitous.
        I don’t understand what EPA is thinking.

      • R C Dean

        “Oh, look. Here’s a way to expand our power, staffing, and budget.”

      • Old Man With Candy

        You’re not crazy, the EPA is. Of all the bullshit scares about chemicals, this is the bullshittiest yet.

      • robodruid

        SO very true. The money we are spending on this problem is discouraging.

    • Homple

      I sincerely hope you meant “packer”.

      • Shirley Knott

        Nah, it’s April 1, he meant pranker.

      • Homple

        Even that is better than panker.

      • Timeloose

        Panker. It’s a joke, the panker is what we used to call a vibrating packer for gravel.

        The joke origin is in normal conversation between my friends and I, so I use it without thinking.

        Some very blue collar guy at the bar was talking about what he did for a living and said he ran the panker for the city. We still don’t know what machine he ran, but it was likely his own name for a steam roller or excavator.

    • cavalier973

      I though Soros died

    • rhywun

      “Sorry, George, it’s just that his style of political persecution and flooding the streets with violent criminals just like every other prosecutor you’ve donated to has your stamp all over it.”

      “‘Sokay. That happens.”

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      He’s parsing…did he directly? No. Did he through his various foundations and whatnot? Absolutely and he’s well aware but it’s a step removed. He’s technically correct though but he’s also full of shit.

      • R C Dean

        Just like Fauci’s lie about not funding gain of function research at Wuhan.

    • WTF

      Yeah, Bragg just received $1Million from a group funded by Soros. But technically not directly from Soros.

    • Rebel Scum

      He didn’t have to contribute directly.

    • PieInTheSky

      all’s well that ends well

    • cavalier973

      That is anxiety-inducing

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Further downthread, video from guy a couple of days later. He got skinned up but still very lucky:
      https://youtu.be/86VBT5Rwy7k

      • rhywun

        He looks exactly like I expected.

    • slumbrew

      Motorcycles are dangerous enough, even when you do everything correctly. This guy…

    • Grosspatzer

      Paging Mr. Darwin. Mr. Darwin to the courtesy desk, please.

  17. PieInTheSky

    a guy who was a bit cheesy; – fun fact savarina in Romanian is slang for pussy

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I hope she didn’t pay too much for that facial work, it looks terrible.

      • Count Potato

        She looks good for 53.

        “Plastic surgery experts reveal what work Lauren Sánchez may have had done

        Sánchez has not confirmed what work she has had done, and if the mother of three has chosen to go under the knife, the procedures surely cost a pretty penny.

        We’re told facelifts in the US range anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000, depending on the doctor who is performing the surgery. Rhinoplasties range from $15,000 to $30,000, and fillers cost anywhere from $300 to $600 every four to six months.”

        https://pagesix.com/2023/03/22/plastic-surgery-experts-on-what-lauren-sanchez-may-have-had-done/

      • R C Dean

        Neck down, she’s doing good for 53. Plasticface is a bad look on anybody at any age.

      • Count Potato

        Besides the lip filling, she doesn’t look plasticface to me. Anyway, if it was to attract a rich guy, you can’t argue with her success.

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        The only real question; did she do this before, or after, bagging the rich guy.

        ‘Cause she has had a LOT of work done.

      • KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

        Besides the lip filling, she doesn’t look plasticface to me.

        Holy shit LOL

      • Count Potato

        De gustibus yada yada

      • R C Dean

        Look at the candid street shots, not the magazine glamour shots, and to me that’s plasticface.

  18. Ted S.

    Science! (spoken in a Thomas Dolby voice)

    • robodruid

      Interesting, so a speak with plants spell can be useful.
      (D&D)

    • cavalier973

      They’re saying, “Hey apple! Hey apple!”

  19. PieInTheSky

    An Italian court has blocked the German toy company Ravensburger from producing puzzles featuring Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic Vitruvian Man drawing.

    Ravensburger was brought to court by the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, where the real Vitruvian Man lives. The museum claimed that it was owed financial compensation from the puzzle manufacturer, even though the 500-year-old artwork in question belongs to the public domain.

    At the heart of the case is Italy’s Cultural Heritage and Landscape Code, which grants public institutions in the country the ability to request concession fees for—or outright bar—commercial reproductions of important artworks, regardless of their copyright status.

    Last fall, the Court of Venice sided with the Gallerie dell’Accademia in the case, ruling that Ravensburger must cease production on its puzzle and any other pieces of merchandise featuring Vitruvian Man.

    The court rejected Ravensburger’s argument that the Cultural Heritage Code only applies in Italy, and has now ordered the toy company to pay the Gallerie dell’Accademia a fee of €1,500 ($1,626) for each day that the puzzle has been manufactured since November 17, 2022.

    https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ravensburger-da-vinci-vitruvian-man-puzzle-ruling-gallerie-dell-accademia-2276738

    • rhywun

      Absurd.

      • Sean

        Euro malarky.

    • cavalier973

      “But if there were no government, then criminals could extort people without fear of repercussion”

    • Tundra

      Bullshit. We used it on a product label, ffs.

    • robodruid

      I don’t have a single AR-15 in the ground.
      And i have more than a few trees planted. Problem is deer have killed a bunch, so i have to protect them with field fencing wire.

      And I make a decent onion burger.

    • Ownbestenemy

      “Watch me I am witty! I drop gun quips”

      However, a good onion burger is nothing to turn your nose up to.

      • Fourscore

        Okra is not funny

  20. Count Potato

    “Judge blocks Tennessee drag show ban HOURS before it was set to take effect – calls statute ‘vague and overly-broad,’ delays decision by two weeks

    The word ‘drag’ doesn’t appear in the new law, which instead changed the definition of adult cabaret in Tennessee to mean ‘adult-oriented performances that are harmful to minors.’

    Furthermore, ‘male or female impersonators’ are now classified as a form of adult cabaret, akin to strippers and topless, go-go and exotic dancers.

    The law banned adult cabaret performances from public property or anywhere minors might be present. Performers who break the law risk being charged with a misdemeanor or a felony for a repeat offense.”

    In the past, shaming the parents probably would have been enough.

    “‘The law prohibits a drag performer wearing a crop top and mini skirt from dancing where minors might see it, but does not prohibit a Tennessee Titans cheerleader wearing an identical outfit from performing the exact same dance in front of children,’ the initial complaint contends.””

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11927083/Judge-blocks-Tennessee-drag-ban-HOURS-set-effect.html

    The cheerleader argument is dishonest and stupid.

    • rhywun

      the exact same dance

      🙄

      I’ll believe that when the cheerleader walks up to the child and thrusts her crotch in his face.

    • WTF

      Okay groomer.

    • Ownbestenemy

      The ‘there aughta be a law’ is more ridiculous. Just cause there are what I see as immoral people doesn’t mean we should have government sticking their newly sewn on girl-peen into it. It begins and ends with the parents.

      • cavalier973

        That’s how I lean. I think parents who take their children to drag shows are stupid. What I am leery of is the possibility that eventually parents will be forced to take their children to drag shows. It always starts with, “if you don’t like ‘x’, then don’t do ‘x’.” It ends up with, “do the ‘x’, bigot, or pay the price!”

      • Ownbestenemy

        We actually have the ability to change culture, we do not have the ability to rid ourselves of laws once they are written it seems.

      • cavalier973

        And the reaction is wrong, as well.

        “We need to give government more power, to protect us from the practitioners of ‘x’!”

        *Later that day…*

        “Oh, no! The extra power we just gave to government is being used against us, in favor of those who practice ‘x’!”

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        They already have the power. Last I checked you can’t bring kids into a strip joint.

        So if you’re talking about getting rid of the strip joint law, I’d reluctantly agree (reluctant simply because the sexualization and grooming of kids is getting out of hand). Otherwise I have no issue with including drag in the ban. It’s overtly sexual and thus inappropriate for children, no matter how much they deny it.

      • cavalier973

        I wonder how successful “Porn Star Story hour—for kids!” at the library would be. Instead of men, it would be scantily-clad women reading “Green Eggs and Ham”. And pole-dancing, because culture.

        I know Kirk Cameron wasn’t allowed to have Christian story hour at some library or other.

      • cavalier973

        To be honest, I’m a conspiracy theorist. I don’t think “Drag Queen Story Hour” is organic, but rather is being pushed by government or gov’t-adjacent organizations. I think a lot of those parents are being paid to take their kids to DQSH, so it can be on the news, so that people will get their dander up over a fake movement. While distracted, a lot of laws will be passed to “address the issue” that actually do other things. I’m looking at the Patriot Act.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Some parents want the social points, so I don’t completely buy the government angle, but don’t discount it either.

      • rhywun

        I don’t think “Drag Queen Story Hour” is organic, but rather is being pushed by government or gov’t-adjacent organizations.

        There is a long story on City Journal saying that it was started by a pair of “trained Marxists” for the usual reasons (smash the system, destroy the family, etc.) I doubt the gov’t is involved but they are certainly more than happy to take advantage of it since it matches their goals.

      • Count Potato

        “I wonder how successful “Porn Star Story hour—for kids!” at the library would be.”

        No need to wonder:

        “Porn legend Sasha Grey — winner of the 2010 AVN award for best anal sex scene — was invited to read books to 1st graders at an L.A.-area elementary school last week … but the school tried to cover it all up … after parents pitched a fit.

        TMZ has obtained photos of Sasha reading children’s books at Emerson Elementary School in Compton on November 2nd … participating in the Read Across America program. Grey, who hasn’t done porn in 2 years, may have been invited because she’s mainstream now, with credits which include “Entourage.””

        https://www.tmz.com/2011/11/11/porn-star-sasha-grey-reads-students-school-district/

        https://www.laweekly.com/sasha-grey-reads-to-compton-kids-failing-school-district-embarrasses-itself-again/

        Although, that was twelve years ago.

      • Count Potato

        “I doubt the gov’t is involved”

        Government schools are involved. Oh, and then you have the DOJ and FBI target parents who complain about it at school board meetings.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        If the government didn’t have a monopoly on legal violence I’d agree but they’re the only ones who can legally do something about it. Maybe some clarification is in order though.

      • Count Potato

        “The ‘there aughta be a law’ is more ridiculous. Just cause there are what I see as immoral people doesn’t mean we should have government sticking their newly sewn on girl-peen into it. It begins and ends with the parents.”

        Newly sewn on girl-peen??

        Anyway, while the parents are at fault. It didn’t begin with them. It began with the education journals pushing this stuff, which lead to government schools and libraries pushing these events. Immoral people, if they aren’t forcing it on others, isn’t the problem. Forcing it on children is the problem. And property taxes are paying for it.

        Parents, yes. That still doesn’t mean there aren’t laws against children going to strip clubs, buying cigarettes, driving, working, voting, using tanning beds, etc. You can take the position there are ought not be these laws. I take the the position there ought not to be lawmakers. However, “OK, you sell alcohol, but not to kids” is way better than prohibition.

    • cavalier973

      This is totally unrelated, but I wonder what the correlation is between education level and getting an mRNA shot

    • cavalier973

      It looks like you have to be actually smart to begin with; you can’t educate your way out of cognitive decline.

  21. Ted S.

    This story is a week old, but I don’t think I saw it posted before.

    • slumbrew

      That story needs a hovercraft

      • Old Man With Candy

        Oh, very nice!

  22. The Late P Brooks

    As I recall, there is also a bit of gender self-selection foreshadowing in that Monty P bit.

    • cavalier973

      That is a bit confusing. How long had the toddler’s body been in the gator’s mouth? Do alligators spend a long time eating their prey?

      • Sean

        Flossing is important.

      • cavalier973

        “Gatorfloss” is the name of my new rock’n’roll band

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Probably just a weird misspelling of stomach. This is an article in the Daily Fail after all.

      • Count Potato

        Gators prefer not to eat on dry land.

    • DrOtto

      As a Catholic who got pushed into Bapist school by a born again mother, I can assure you, as I was told many times, Catholics aren’t Christian.

    • cavalier973

      I don’t think he’s even really Brandon

  23. Rebel Scum

    “Trump Supporter Convicted in 2016 Scheme to Suppress Votes for Clinton
    The federal prosecution of Douglass Mackey turned on the question of when free speech turns into dirty tricks.”

    If you are fooled by a meme you should not be voting in the first place. In polite company I cannot say what the people involved in this persecution deserve, but let’s just say that they deserve to have something happen and be left visible as an example to the others that might try this tyrannical horseshit.

    • cavalier973

      Fooled by a politician: that’s perfectly fine.

      Fooled by a meme: Democracy is about to die!

      • Ownbestenemy

        Well I swear there was WMDs in Iraq, we didn’t put missiles in Turkey and the Maine was most absolutely sunk by foreign advisories.

    • slumbrew

      In polite company …

      I think you accidentally posted to the wrong site.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      This approach will outlaw all political satire if it’s not overturned although it will be. Basing acceptable speech on what will not fool the stupidest sumbitches in the country simply will not work.

    • rhywun

      The “dirty tricks” exception to the 1st Amendment must have been written in invisible ink.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Wonder how many on the jury and State side have a disappointing nagging feeling of “if only we can just take him out back and shoot him” rather than this prison shit.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      It will go to SCOTUS.

      The process is the punishment.

  24. Rebel Scum

    “racist Neo-Nazi organization White Lives Matter”

    Nazis are not the same as they used to be.

    • cavalier973

      “Cross won’t burn, nobody home…it ain’t like it used to be.”

  25. Tundra

    Good morning, Old Man!

    Neil Young must have actually written some good songs, because I like the vast majority of covers I’ve heard. Maybe he’s the problem, not the songs?

    The bombing isn’t a false flag at all, no sir. Totally nazis.

    My favorite Spinal Tap song was, “Gimmee Some Money.”

    They don’t care if a billion people die. It’s an important part of the plan. But those offshore accounts aren’t gonna fill themselves, goddamit!

    I hope y’all have a good Saturday. Doing anything groovy?

    • Gender Traitor

      Yes, Young wrote some good songs. Like some other songwriters, he should just let other people sing them. And, in his case, just keep his mouth shut in general.

      • Ownbestenemy

        His songs were the first I dabbled in on the guitar when I was a yougin. Him singing just never sat well with me.

      • Tundra

        The Church does a cover of Cortez the Killer that absolutely destroys the original. I agree with you – go away, Neil but leave your notebooks!

      • Ownbestenemy

        Its something if Dave Matthews can perform your music better than you.

  26. Brochettaward

    This is International Firster’s Day. I will have no talk of jokes and fools.

    • Shirley Knott

      Well, which is it?

  27. The Late P Brooks

    David Stockman, at Brownstone Institute

    After the obligatory spittle flecked Two Minutes of TDS, he finally gets around to this:

    That these truths were known from the earliest days was especially the case because in addition to decades of scientific knowledge about the proper management of virus based pandemics, there existed the screaming real-time evidence from the stranded Diamond Princess cruise ship. The 3,711 souls (2,666 passengers and 1,045 crew) aboard skewed heavily to the elderly, but the survival rate known in mid-March 2020 was 99.7 percent overall, and 100 percent for those under 70 years of age.

    That’s right. As of March 10, 2020, shortly before the Donald elected to impose Chicom-style lockdowns on the US, the ship had already been quarantined for more than three weeks and the passengers systematically tested and tracked.

    At that point, 3,618 passengers and crew had been tested multiple times. Among that population, 696 had tested positive for Covid, but 410 or nearly 60 percent of these were asymptomatic. Among the 8 percent (286) who were ill, the overwhelming share were only mildly asymptotic. At that point just 7 passengers—all over 70 years old —-had died, a figure which grew only slightly in the months ahead.

    In short, just 0.19 percent of an elderly skewed population had succumbed to the virus. These facts, which were known to the White House or certainly should have been, made absolutely clear that the Covid was no Black Plague-type threat. In the great scheme of history, the Trump authorized lockdowns amounted to tearing up the Constitution and ripping apart daily economic life for a public health matter that did not remotely approach the status of an existential threat to society’s survival.

    All those government scientists were too busy tweaking their models and polishing their hammers to look at actual evidence. We need to put a face on the straw man we burn in effigy, so why not Trump’s?

    • Rebel Scum

      “the Donald elected to impose Chicom-style lockdowns”

      When did the Donald become governor of all the states?

    • Bob Boberson

      I don’t disagree with a single word of that rant.

    • rhywun

      Fauci helped engineer the fucking thing and along with Birx helpfully convinced Donald to do what he did.

      The implication that any other human plausibly elected to Donald’s position would have chosen differently is laughable.

      • Bob Boberson

        At the risk of sounding like a contrarian (i really am not fishing for an argument this morning); would we be nearly so forgiving around here if Hillary had won in 2016 and enacted the exact same policies?

      • Count Potato

        She would have enacted worse. Donald was saying open everything and come roaring back on Easter.

      • Bob Boberson

        Not the argument presented, not the question asked.

    • R C Dean

      Swap out Fauci for Trump, and it sounds like something I would write. In fact, I have pointed out for years that we knew early on, based on the cruise ship and Italy, that this was basically a bad flu. Trump absolutely gets a heaping share of the blame, but the omission of all the bureaucrats urging him on is telling.

      • Vida Hobo

        Not a defense of OMB, but the two experts advising him didn’t give him all the information. Birx bragged about it in her book. And why in the name of all that is unholy did we farm out that kind of research to China? And pay for it?

      • R C Dean

        He had Atlas giving him much better advice, but elected to go with Fauci and Birx instead. I believe because he thought it would help him get re-elected.

  28. The Late P Brooks

    And, nosing around Brownstone a bit, I received this “revelation”. The playbook has been adopted in full. How else can Janet Yellin scurry out from under her rock and vow to guarantee all SVB deposits?

    “We know there are laws which exist specifically to cover situations such as this, but some things are too important to be left to the law.”

  29. Not Adahn

    XRD >> XRF.

    • PieInTheSky

      I don’t know what you just said but I don’t like they way you said it

    • Old Man With Candy

      Different information. But we have both in the same room and, god help us, they’ve turned me loose on them.

  30. The Late P Brooks

    Your twelve year old son tells you he wants to go hang out and ride bikes with his friends. You tell him he may do so as soon as he cleans his room and does his other chores. He promptly rides off to hang out with his friends.

    Do you:

    a) Impound his bicycle for two weeks and make him stay around the house and perform coolie labor

    b) Buy him a new bicycle

    Think carefully.

    • Ownbestenemy

      c) Make him watch Band of Brothers to better understand that actions have consequences and leave it at that.

    • Fourscore

      Hire him to clean up his sister’s room

    • Mojeaux

      #1

      The trick is how you will enforce said dcision when he knows you’re powerless because all traditional modes of discipline are off the table because you will go to jail.

      • Gustave Lytton

        So now you have

        3) begging and pleading by the parent for a child not to act childish

    • Sean

      Slash his tires.

      • R.J.

        I was thinking arrange for it to be stolen and not replaced.

    • rhywun

      b) if it’s a girl’s bike

  31. Mojeaux

    You will pry my Rach 3 out of my cold, dead hands.

  32. Raven Nation

    Re: drag queens.

    Clever line from C.J. Ciaramella at TOS: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine Proud Boys and antifa punching each other in the face outside a drag show, forever.”

  33. The Late P Brooks

    At the risk of sounding like a contrarian (i really am not fishing for an argument this morning); would we be nearly so forgiving around here if Hillary had won in 2016 and enacted the exact same policies?

    Who would or could have done better, in the face of the massive propaganda campaign?

    Are we being “forgiving”? I suppose, to a certain extent. He was not qualified for the job, temperamentally or by experience. I absolutely think Trump’s lack of resistance disqualifies him from another shot at the Presidency.

    I think Stockman goes overboard in his demonization of Trump in that article, because overwhelming generalized TDS.

    • Bob Boberson

      Agree with your assessment of Trump. At the end of the day, Trumps not a serious person and we are all paying the price for it.

      I don’t think it’s TDS on Stockman’s part. Stockman’s not some Cato Institute retard motivated by emotions and herd mentality. I think he correctly identifies that the downstream effects of Trump COVID policy ultimately fall on his shoulders. Thats the cost of being a leader, you own the fuck-ups of your people even if your intentions were good.

    • cavalier973

      I would be more forgiving of Trump if he’d stop saying the mRNA shot is one of his great achievements.

      • Bob Boberson

        ^Also this. Mandates couldn’t have happened without warpspeed.

      • rhywun

        THIS.

    • Count Potato

      “Mulvaney received a letter from the office of Vice President Kamala Harris, celebrating her ‘365th day of living authentically'”

      • R C Dean

        Nothing says living authentically like pretending to be something you’re not.

    • slumbrew

      Who is Mulvaney think is going to be interested?

      • slumbrew

        That’s some good grammar there, Slumbrew.

      • R C Dean

        When you’re a dude, you can rule out 98% of the dudes. When you pretend to be a chick, you can rule out 98% of the chicks. Of the remaining class of gay people, you can rule out the 98% of dudes who want to have sex with dudes, because you are pretending to be a chick, and you can rule out 98% of the chicks who want to have sex with chicks, because you’re a dude.

  34. The Late P Brooks

    I think he correctly identifies that the downstream effects of Trump COVID policy ultimately fall on his shoulders. Thats the cost of being a leader, you own the fuck-ups of your people even if your intentions were good.

    The point of origin for the article was Harry Truman’s “The buck stops here” quote. Trump unquestionably bears ultimate responsibility. But Stockman lumps the worst of everything about the plague response into the entire Trump Presidency, to make the economy look as if it were an unmitigated disaster from day one. Trump did a lot of things wrong, but absent the plague, he’d more likely than not be a two term President.

    • Bob Boberson

      As he points out, Trumps economy, not Biden’s (who has since made things worse) economic policies are directly responsible for the situation we are in now. Trump kept the record low interest rates and the fake recovery from 2008 going in earnest. As Stockman points out, Trumps Covid helicopter money is what helped push us over the edge. Is he solely responsible? No,(we could go back at least 100 years laying blame) but despite some tax cuts he kept us chugging right along on the same trajectory. The “good” economy under Trump was continuing to drink heavily to stave off the inevitable hangover

      • Gustave Lytton

        Trumps Covid helicopter money is what helped push us over the edge

        The helicopter money was a small part of the unbridled covid spending spree and the entire federal budgetspending.

  35. The Late P Brooks

    Also- We had the petri dish of the Roosevelt, but it seemed as if the Navy acted as quickly as possible to eliminate any usable information which might have been collected.

  36. Count Potato

    More on Soros/Bragg:

    “You’ll note that this fact check literally moved the goal posts to get the answer they wanted. Just read the beginning and end and you’ll see that.

    @GlennKesslerWP has lost all credibility at this point.”

    https://twitter.com/Neoavatara/status/1642158728764858369

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/04/01/incendiary-claim-that-george-soros-funds-alvin-bragg/

    Apparently, stating that Soros’ PAC funded Bragg is incendiary and antisemitic.

    • Count Potato

      “Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Ron DeSantis have all claimed Alvin Bragg is “Soros-backed” or aligned since the news of the indictment dropped.

      In reality, Soros has “has never met or spoken to Alvin Bragg,” according to a CNBC story from last week.”

      https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1641595879265107968

      Ben Collins, serious person.

    • cavalier973

      I believe what that guy is saying.