When Your Best Friend Wants to be a Girl

by | Nov 11, 2023 | Beer, Food & Drink, Markets, Media, Standard Libertarian Disclaimer | 122 comments

Since I have kids, I see this guy way too often.  So sorry, not sorry.

This is my review of Wayfinder Shamanic Whip English Pale Ale:

YouTuber followed mostly by children, Mr. Beast was in the news this week.  I first want to clarify that statement:  I don’t necessarily mean his viewers are children in adult bodies, I mean literal children. Mr. Beast is famous for being one of the first YouTubers to figure out how to maximize the YouTube algorithm for views.  Why do you see a bunch of exclamation points and clickbait titles?

He figured it out as a teenager, and now he has more money than he knows what to do with.

Don’t hate the player, hate the game.  This propensity to give the algorithm what it wants to distribute that lead to theories this is the reason his sidekick, Chris, now has perky little jumblies and goes by Kris.

Anyways, his problem is a shitload of money and an inability to spend it on hookers and blow so he spends it like maybe a few of you might:  colonizing Africa.

Saran Kaba Jones, founder and CEO of FACE Africa, an organization working to improve water infrastructure and sanitation in sub-Saharan Africa, told CNN: “I’ve been doing this for 15 years, but we’ve been struggling to continue the work because funding, awareness, and advocacy all take work.”

And then, she added, “overnight, this person comes along, who happens to be a white male figure with a huge platform, and all of a sudden, he gets all of the attention. It’s kind of frustrating, but it’s also understanding the nature of how the world is.”

Yes, a guy on YouTube spent his money going on a charity tour of African villages with heavy equipment and dug wells for said villages.  Kenyan government officials, whiny NGOs and reasonable people like Taylor Lorenz are now pissed he showed them up.  Here’s a link to the video, because that at least deserves a click.  He did something similar last year by sponsoring cataract surgeries in the same countries.

He may be an annoying virtue signaling presence in my house that gives me little to no benefit.  He might put out stupid clickbait videos designed to suit the average Gen Z attention span.  He may even market snacks at waist level supermarket selves in perfect view of a 40” tall child.  At least those snacks don’t contain seed oils, and actually don’t have a ton of sugar…wait…

…Maybe I got this clown all wrong?

 

What better to celebrate privatized colonization than with the definitive beverage for the poster child for colonizing the world?  Okay that was technically tea, but the English like their pale ales.  This one isn’t bad.  It really isn’t, dare I say its pretty solid but its exactly what is says it is and nothing more.  Chances are there is a huge market for traditional beer made locally without the nagging thought your vices are sponsoring European social programs.

Nope, here you are sponsoring the ones in Portland.  Whatever, all hail the algorithm! Wayfinder Shamanic Whip English Pale Ale: 3.0/5  5.6% ABV

About The Author

mexican sharpshooter

mexican sharpshooter

WARNING: Glibertarians.com contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. https://youtu.be/qiAyX9q4GIQ?t=2m22s

122 Comments

  1. The Late P Brooks

    Charity is bad absent the appropriate parasite infrastructure. Is that pretty much it?

    • Chafed

      So it seems.

    • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

      Wont somebody think of all the poor Ivy League/SLAC grads who have been promised a place to work that is emotionally fulfilling! (at 85-90K/year starting)

  2. Shpip

    And then, she added, “overnight, this person comes along, who happens to be a white male figure with a huge platform, and all of a sudden, he gets all of the attention. It’s kind of frustrating, but it’s also understanding the nature of how the world is.”

    “How can we keep sucking the government teat and being performatively virtuous when some rando (a pale penis person at that!) can come along with private money and get stuff done?”

    –Fixed it for her

    • cyto

      In an excellent example of the utility of the X community notes feature, someone quickly noted that this lady’s charity raised something like $120k and spent nearly $90k on their own salary (divided between the couple)

      Within a couple of days, his advocacy had already raised over $300k for legitimate clean water efforts.

      Interesting that the press ran to what is arguably a scam artist and held her up as the expert.

      Meanwhile, over at Reddit, the top voted comment was that it costs far more to maintain wells than to drill them. Now, having had a water well for several decades, I know this to be objectively false. Our well had a single pump replacement. This cost a tiny fraction of drilling a well. Plus, many of his wells had huge manual pumps that should work flawlessly for over 50 years. Maybe multiples of that number. I know the sulfer well near my grandparents house still had the same pump from before the civil war, and it worked fine.

      • Derpetologist

        Another part of the foreign aid angle:

        ***
        1. Well-digging in Tabora (central Tanzania, Africa)

        In the Tabora region, fetching water is done by women. As the well is several miles away from the village, the women spend most of the day fetching water and bringing it home. A foreign development agency got permission from the village elders to dig a new well closer to the village so the women wouldn’t have to walk so far to get the water. The project was completed, and the women began using the new well. After a few months, the women began complaining that the water was making their children sick, so they went back to using the distant well. A technician was sent to check the water from the new well and nothing was wrong with it. After a while, the truth got out. The women spread the rumors that the water was poisonous because fetching water from the distant well was an important part of their daily routine; it was their main time to socialize and main opportunity to get out of the house. The new well did nothing to help because they did not see fetching water over long distances as being a problem. Had the women been consulted instead the village elders (all men), a more appropriate project could have been started.
        ***

        https://platedlizard.blogspot.com/2008/07/development.html

      • cyto

        Wow, really interesting.

        The Beast video highlighted the water fetching ritual several times, most notably a school where the kids had to walk down a treacherous path for a couple of miles and back up with heavy jugs of water twice per day.

        The people looked quite excited to be rid of that burden… But the fact that they just accepted the situation prior as normal and without need for resolution is interesting. A sort of local minimum had been reached, with no energy demanding that they come together to perform some great community effort to fix it.

      • Derpetologist

        In some countries, it is common to go barefoot even though that leads to infections from hookworms and other nasty critters. Jiggers are particular vile. You have to cut the bastards out of your damn feet with a pocket knife. I do not recommend looking up videos of that if you plan on eating in the near future.

        Mother earth can kiss my hairy ass.

        From “Environmentalism is a Religion” by Michael Crichton:

        ***
        Take a trek through the jungles of Borneo, and in short order you will have festering sores on your skin, you’ll have bugs all over your body, biting in your hair, crawling up your nose and into your ears, you’ll have infections and sickness and if you’re not with somebody who knows what they’re doing, you’ll quickly starve to death. But chances are that even in the jungles of Borneo you won’t experience nature so directly, because you will have covered your entire body with DEET and you will be doing everything you can to keep those bugs off you.
        ***

      • cyto

        I listen to the “this week in parasitology” podcast. I highly recommend it for the interesting presentation of papers and clinical case studies…. And for the understanding of what life is like in countries where nature isn’t corralled and held back like it is here in the west.

      • R C Dean

        “Jiggers are particular vile.”

        As a lad, we referred to them as “jigroes” so as not to be offensive.

      • Derpetologist

        Jiggers (also called sand fleas) and chiggers (also called red bugs) are different. Jiggers don’t live in the US. If they did, DDT would still be legal.

        Good lord, its scientific name has “penetrans” in it.

      • R C Dean

        You are correct, sir. They were “chigroes” now that my memory has been jogged.

      • rhywun

        “penetrans”

        That’s my drag name.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        👏 Golf 👏 Clap 👏

      • Pat

        After a while, the truth got out. The women spread the rumors that the water was poisonous because fetching water from the distant well was an important part of their daily routine; it was their main time to socialize and main opportunity to get out of the house.

        A little while back I got lightly roasted for suggesting that the “liberation” of women under capitalism hasn’t seemed to have done an especially great job of improving their lives as measured in non-economic metrics, and this is a microcosmic example of what I meant. Being reduced to an economic factor of production changes our source of meaning, and the adaptation for that doesn’t necessarily happen in one or two generations.

      • Fourscore

        In days long ago (’40s) the local neighborhood stay-at-home mothers (including mine) had their own coffee group, maybe 5-6 of them, rotated between houses, hostess provided coffee, some others may or may not bring the snacks. Gossip, house wife tales. Weekends tended to their own families. A good time was had by all.

    • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

      I need to get a “Pale Penis Person” t-shirt, STAT!

  3. The Late P Brooks

    Why isn’t that guy (whoever he is) supporting good old red-blooded American homeless advocates?

    • cyto

      Worse. He has made several videos giving support to local groups. One of his themes is a “giveaway” contest where he goes to a store and people can keep anything they fit in a circle. If anything touches the line, they lose it all.

      So they get TVs and iPads and video game consoles….

      So he gets a lady from a local food bank and tapes off half the parking lot at Costco and says they can have anything that they can fit in the taped area. He then gets the staff to basically empty the warehouse into the parking lot. Then he hands her a check to find them for the year.

      Yeah. He sucks.

  4. The Late P Brooks

    Copycat

    Following the exchange that prompted boos from the Miami audience, the Ohio businessman’s campaign started selling T-shirts and beverage coolers Friday featuring the phrase “Rebel Scum.”

    Ramaswamy unveiled the merchandise on X, platform formerly known as Twitter, by calling out both parties as “corrupt” and claiming politicians are leading the world to World War III.

    Our Rebel Scum should get a cut.

    • The Other Kevin

      If he starts selling “The Other Indian” shirts I’m suing.

  5. Derpetologist

    Some brews you might want to try:

    Robert the Bruce by 3 Floyds

    Old #38 Stout

    Coal Miner’s Daughter Oatmeal Stout

    The Poet (oatmeal stout)

    Belching Beaver Peanut Butter Stout

    Red Seal Ale

    Northwind (Russian imperial stout)

    Yeah…I like stouts. And porters. Dark beer in general, really. Hell, when it comes to booze, if it’s wet, I’ll drink it.

    • Spudalicious

      Red Seal Ale was my house beer for a number of years.

    • mexican sharpshooter

      Coal Miner’s Daughter Oatmeal Stout

      The Poet (oatmeal stout)

      Belching Beaver Peanut Butter Stout

      Red Seal Ale

      – Had it, but its been a while.
      – Had it, not reviewed
      – Had it, reviewed it
      – Had it, reviewed it

      All hipster juice

      • Chafed

        Seriously? How do you turn an Oatmeal Stout into hipster juice?

      • mexican sharpshooter

        Das label unfamilischaffen. Das est Bookmarked.

      • DEG

        I think I’ve had it. If it is the beer I’m thinking of, it’s good.

  6. DEG

    What better to celebrate privatized colonization than with the definitive beverage for the poster child for colonizing the world? Okay that was technically tea, but the English like their pale ales.

    Heh.

    • R C Dean

      I, too, like a pale ale. They aren’t as hoppy as IPAs, and a good one has a balance of malt and hops.

  7. LCDR_Fish

    Pistoffnick posted the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald yesterday – the anniversary of the sinking. Good remembrance piece here since Gordon Lightfoot recently passed away:

    https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-edmund-fitzgeralds-legend-lives-on/

    The Great Lakes are the defining geographical feature of the Midwest, and one of the most striking in the entire nation. Nigh-oceanic in expanse and replete with scenic splendor, they are great for vacations in warm months, and have a spare and imposing beauty in the long Midwestern winter. But as forces of nature, the lakes can be both beautiful and dangerous. The latter is also an essential element of their majesty. Midwesterners both admire them for their grandeur and respect them for their power.

    Today is a perennial reminder of that power. It was on this day in 1975 that the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, one of the largest ships ever to sail on the Great Lakes, was claimed by Lake Superior, the greatest of the lakes; it remains the region’s largest shipwreck. This time of year, the transition from fall to winter, can bring sudden storms on Superior. That day’s storm claimed the ship’s entire crew of 29 sailors. Today, a Lake Superior Twitter account is tweeting out their names in memory.

    That is hardly the only tribute the Edmund Fitzgerald has received over the years. The most famous one is Gordon Lightfoot’s 1976 hit song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Lightfoot, a Canadian folk singer, wrote and recorded this haunting, ethereal dirge less than a year after the wreck occurred. The lyrics are not entirely accurate. Lightfoot (reluctantly) changed some of the details for artistic license. But also some of the details were unknown to him; as I learned from a Political Beats Patreon episode on the best songs about real historical events, the wreck investigation was incomplete at the time of the song’s recording. Hence the hedging: “They might have split up or they might have capsized/They may have broke deep and took water.” Lightfoot later changed some of the lyrics when performing the song live to make it more accurate. For example: When he learned that the Mariners’ Church of Detroit (which he calls the “Maritime Sailors’ Cathedral”) was “musty,” he would describe it live as “rustic” instead. Lightfoot regularly performed at Edmund Fitzgerald memorial events and even befriended some of the “wives and the sons and the daughters” left behind.

    Gordon Lightfoot died earlier this year at age 84. I learned today that the Mariners’ Church of Detroit marked his death in a singularly appropriate way. Per the Detroit Free Press:

    Decades ago, in the final verse of his most beloved hit, Gordon Lightfoot depicted a solemn scene at Mariners’ Church of Detroit: “The church bell chimed ’til it rang 29 times / For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

    At 3 p.m. Tuesday, the bell at Mariners’ Church rang out again – now chiming 30 times to honor those perished sailors along with the artist who famously memorialized them in song.

    The legends of Lake Superior, the Edmund Fitzgerald, and Lightfoot are now intertwined, and they live on. And his song has become a kind of regional anthem for the Great Lakes, a fitting tribute to their beauty and power.

    • Fourscore

      If you are traveling north along Lake Superior stop at the Split Rock Light Tower. See a little exhibit of the Edmund Fitzgerald, listen to Lightfoot singing.
      Interesting and fun. “Betty’s Pies” shop may still be open, I haven’t been that way for a few years so I’m not sure.

    • R C Dean

      “now chiming 30 times”

      Nice.

  8. LCDR_Fish

    Didn’t see any posts on this last night, but saw a bunch of clips on it on twitter last night:

    https://www.nationalreview.com/news/you-zionist-pig-pro-palestinian-protesters-vandalize-new-york-times-building-grand-central-station/

    Pro-Palestinian protesters marched through central Manhattan on Friday, tearing down American flags on city blocks and kicking in the doors of Grand Central Station as law enforcement sheltered inside.

    Beginning at Columbus Circle, the mob burned an Israeli flag and led chants of “We don’t want a Jewish state. We want ’48!” referring to a historical period prior to the establishment of the country. Others demanded, “Settlers, settlers, go back home! Palestine is ours alone!” and “It is right to rebel. Israel, go to Hell!”

    On some of the videos you could see the cops locked inside the station “sheltering in place” – not breaking out the billy clubs to clear the streets.

    • cyto

      Prior to 2020, I felt that this behavior by police was a response to backlash from prior incidents. The Rodney King riots saw police fail to act as rioters murdered people on TV… And I thought they were just afraid of making the news for fighting with black rioters.

      Now? It is obviously a political tactic. Allow riots as a strategy for political power. Destabilize a Trump government. Constrain coverage so you can paint a response to physical assault by Antifa as attacks by “white nationalists”.

      Where does this fit? They are using the law to attack the Mayor of NYC after he complained about illegals, and now they let protests progress towards riots – over Israel and Gaza?

      To what end? At who’s order?

      Is this just a monster that has escaped their control?

      • Pat

        Now? It is obviously a political tactic. Allow riots as a strategy for political power.

        Alternatively, they might just be gigantic fucking pussies.

      • Urthona

        Once again I responded without noticing someone else said the same thing.

      • cyto

        That is one of the greatest things I’ve ever read. Everyone who has not read that accounting must immediately stop what they are doing and read it. Fantastic. And infuriating.

      • cyto

        I had heard the story and about the lawsuit…. but reading it in first person is a completely different experience

      • Derpetologist

        The Friday before Thanksgiving in 2021, three guys jumped me while I was walking the river trail in downtown Augusta, GA. One of them bashed me in the head with a club. It bled like crazy and I ended up with a big scar. If I hadn’t pulled out a knife, I’d probably be a dead man. Fortunately, I did not need to stab anyone that night. Once I got some distance, I called 911, and at that they began to retreat. So 911 helped me out that time. It took the cops about 10 minutes to show up though, which is odd considering they’re always on patrol downtown on weekends there. Whatever, at least they came. They even arrested a few guys and drove me past them to see if I could identify them. I didn’t see them.

        I’m glad I’ve never stabbed anyone. I’m worried I might enjoy and want to do it often.

      • Urthona

        They’re not that smart. They’re really just cowards.

      • cyto

        Also. With prosecutors running around tossing people in jail for stoping maniacs from harming others, the incentives are pretty backwards these days

    • LCDR_Fish

      Missed this one….

      https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/jihad-at-the-state-department/

      Thursday evening, pro-Palestinian protesters called for jihad on federal property. We should take it seriously.

      A couple hundred people with Palestinian flags, keffiyehs, and signs descended on the State Department, gathering outside the building’s four entrances. The signs the protesters held in the air bore messages including “End the occupation by any means necessary” and “From the river to the sea.” Posters are posters, though, and it’s hard to get a sense of what these people are like without watching a video. So, watch the video below.

      “There is only one solution, intifada revolution.”

      “Long live the intifada.”

      “Resistance is justified when people are occupied.”

      The people saying these chants — likely among those who started rallying “for Palestine” before Israel fired one shot in response to Hamas’s attack — used an American executive agency, the one responsible for representing our government and our people abroad, to call for continued terrorism against the Jewish people. “Intifada” conjures memories of the 1990s and early 2000s in Israel: suicide bombings, buses and pizza parlors exploding, Palestinian terrorists indiscriminately killing Israeli civilians. That is what these people want. That is their goal; they said it themselves. And they used government property to call for it, these valiant activists who lack the gall to show their faces and own their jihadi ideas.

      The portion of the clip in Arabic is no less unsettling. That chant, “Bab Al-Aqsa min Hadeed, ma byiftaha illa alshaheed,” translates to “The door of Al-Aqsa is made of iron, only a martyr can open it.”

      In 2022, a protest at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem turned violent after Palestinians began throwing rocks and fireworks at the Western Wall and at Israeli soldiers. When the soldiers attempted to control the situation, rioters hid inside the Al-Aqsa mosque. Hamas, which claimed that Israeli soldiers desecrated the mosque when they entered to find and detain the rioters, called its October 7 attack “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.” And we all know what these demonstrators mean when they say “martyr.”

      It wasn’t just the speakers at the rally — like the woman in the video shrieking into a white megaphone — who revealed their rabidity. I tried to talk to one man who said he wouldn’t speak with me because “Zionists control the media narrative.” Another told me he would like the United States to use military force against Israel, arguing that an invasion would stop Israel from committing “genocide” against Palestinians. He couldn’t define that word when I asked and ended the conversation, proceeding to call a black State Department employee an “Uncle Tom.”

      • Chafed

        If the federales didn’t do anything when the same protesters were climbing the White House fence, then they certainly won’t do anything about the State Department.

  9. cyto

    The execrable Taylor Lorenz goes on a multi-tweet rant about how terrible Mr. beast is (while claiming that nobody is criticizing him, really)…. And disables responses to her tweet from anyone except those she invited in. Her tiny excho chamber dutifully said he should have worked with approved NGOs and repeated the idiotic question “who is going to maintain these wells for the next 50 years?”

    Uh… How about the community that the well is for?

    Why are these people so thoroughly racist that they think Africans are invalids who cannot maintain simple machinery, pipes and tubs of water?

    • Derpetologist

      In order to feel superior, they must convince themselves that others are inferior. It’s the same mindset behind the idea that voter ID laws are racist because black people can’t figure out how to get IDs.

      There’s a great video by Ami Horowitz on that exact topic. I’d post it, but it seems the server squirrels are acting like a bunch of damn Democrats today.

    • Pat

      And disables responses to her tweet from anyone except those she invited in.

      That would be the same Taylor Lorenz who made her career doxxing non-public figures to make them targets of political violence, then used family connections at archive.org to have all of her tweets, blog posts and personal information purged from the internet.

    • mexican sharpshooter

      The execrable Taylor Lorenz

      Cmon now, use the word you really want to use.

  10. J. Frank Parnell

    I … worked on advocacy and raising awareness for 15 years … and … he just … he built the wells.

    • Raven Nation

      Yeah, even if her project was legit (see comments above), this reaction suggests to me that there are some motivation problems.

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        It is a perpetual motion machine. They need to keep it going so they can always 1) pimp for more money 2) socially signal and 3)… nope, no other reason.

      • hayeksplosives

        I saw a short video on western “charity” projects in Africa and some of the unintended consequences.

        An African dude and his wife shared a bit of an entrepreneurial streak and had kludged up a device from bicycle parts and electronic odds and ends so that they could charge up cell phones with a little peddling. They charged users in cash or barter for a full cell phone charge and some neighborly gossip.

        They bought some extra chickens and soon had more eggs than they needed so they sold eggs. Other neighbors caught on and started selling/bartering their own wares and skills.

        Then a Western charity came along with free eggs and solar panels to charge cell phones. Other freebies were handed out. The locally-built economy crashed. Everyone went back to dependency. Then the charity left, and the villagers were out of hope, out of trust, out of everything.

        But by golly I bet the Western charity bringers came home with some bangin’ selfies!!

      • Derpetologist

        All the food aid that was dumped on Somalia did an excellent job of bankrupting all the farmers and herders there. For more details, I highly recommend The Road to Hell by Michael Maren. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya in the 80s and then worked with NGOs in Somalia. Reading his tale of disillusionment was sad but I’m glad he chose to share it.

        As a former Peace Corps volunteer myself, I like to say we’ve been fighting fire with marshmallows since 1961. Still glad I did it though. The internet makes it easier to stay in touch with people I met over there.

  11. Derpetologist

    Another not-so-great foreign aid outcome:

    ***
    (Business in Cameroon) – Forty years ago, to facilitate access to drinking water for its populations (in rural areas notably), Cameroon launched the project Scanwater. The project consisted of the construction of water abstraction devices in some localities, to supply drinking water.

    After years of good services, these devices went out of use due to a lack of maintenance. The government launched a vast rehabilitation programme to service them, according to official sources.

    The first rehabilitation in the framework of the programme was launched in Njoré, in the Centre region. On 26 February 2020, the Minister of Water and Energy, Gaston Eloundou Essomba, received the very first rehabilitated water abstraction device.

    This device, which is now in good working condition, will provide drinking water to more than 1,800 people who were previously exposed to waterborne diseases.
    ***

    Better late than never, I guess. In some countries, there is a belief that only sick people need to drink boiled or purified water.

    Here I will note that the same guy has been in charge of Cameroon for 40 years.

    ***
    Paul Biya (born Paul Barthélemy Biya’a bi Mvondo; 13 February 1933) is a Cameroonian politician who has served as the President of Cameroon since 6 November 1982, having previously been Prime Minister of Cameroon from 1975 to 1982.[1][2] He is the second-longest-ruling president in Africa, the longest consecutively serving current non-royal national leader in the world and the oldest head of state in the world.

    A native of Cameroon’s south, Biya rose rapidly as a bureaucrat under President Ahmadou Ahidjo in the 1960s, serving as Secretary-General of the Presidency from 1968 to 1975 and then as Prime Minister. He succeeded Ahidjo as President upon the latter’s surprise resignation in 1982 and consolidated power in a 1983–1984 staged attempted coup in which he eliminated all of his major rivals.[3]

    Biya introduced political reforms within the context of a one-party system in the 1980s, later accepting the introduction of multiparty politics in the early 1990s under serious pressure. He won the contentious 1992 presidential election with 40% of the plural, single-ballot vote and was re-elected by large margins in 1997, 2004, 2011, and 2018. Opposition politicians and Western governments have alleged voting irregularities and fraud on each of these occasions. Many independent sources have provided evidence that he did not win the elections in 1992 and that subsequent elections suffered from rampant fraud.[4]
    ***

    • LCDR_Fish

      In Indonesia our city water had to be boiled and filtered…we learned really fast not to get ice cubes in drinks when we were out eating – always ask for cold drinks. Some places would confirm whether or not they boiled water. Same issue with “salads” or raw vegetables – how were they washed/prepped…

      • Derpetologist

        The river that runs through Jakarta looks like raw sewage because it is full of raw sewage. In some places, the river is so full of garbage that you can’t see the water.

      • LCDR_Fish

        Most rivers in cities are like that – Kalimantan was an exception (floating market area, etc), but with the capital moving there, I expect that to change. Lots of streets have “open sewers” with slatted concrete blocks over it – often they break or have boards covering holes. I’ve mis-stepped a few times when I was living there.

        Manila had some really bad ones too in the 90s.

      • cyto

        Amazing how long people tolerate that. With the population density, there is easily enough wealth to build proper sewage treatment infrastructure and resolve the situation… Probably for the last 50 years.

      • LCDR_Fish

        *doubt*

        I highly doubt there’s enough taxes there to rebuild stuff. Half the issue with Jakarta specifically are the massive slums and the fact that the entire city (like DC) was [over]built in a swampier area and is literally sinking year by year. That’s why they want to start fresh in a new area with proper (hopefully) development and infrastructure.

      • cyto

        Interesting. Just give up and move.

        Probably a better idea… But how do you do that?

      • R C Dean

        I dunno. If proper sewage could be built in the 19th century (and it was), I doubt any city “can’t afford it” now. It’s a matter of priorities and the people who matter probably don’t give a crap ( so to speak).

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        Tolerate, or find it to be the best solution? I remember reading how the US military, during WWII, came into the South Pacific and noticed that all the locals lived in grass huts that let the wind and rain in. Well, of course the US built metal huts for everyone and everything.

        And the first hurricane came through and destroyed everything, but left enough debris around to quickly make new grass huts.

        In the same way that we see and are horrified by safety standards in places such as Pakistan, I would say that they have come to the best solutions for their communities.

      • Derpetologist

        Paper and wood construction is traditional in Japan partly because it’s less likely to kill people in earthquakes.

  12. Pat

    3.0/5

    So, more like Shambolic Whip, amirite?

  13. The Late P Brooks

    Kthkxbye

    Lane Murdock sometimes finds herself preemptively looking for emergency exits even though she now lives and studies in a country where mass shootings are rare.

    More than five years after leading a national student walkout following the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the 21-year-old from Connecticut occasionally looks for open windows and other potential escape routes around her Scottish university campus.

    “Most of America is still having to deal with daily mourning,” Murdock said of her native country, where nearly 1,500 children and teens have been killed by a gunfire so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

    “It’s devastating, and I sometimes feel guilty that I’ve been able to leave, but I wake up every morning grateful that I have.”

    ——-

    “It makes me call into question the work I did,” Murdock, now 21, said in a phone interview from Edinburgh, referring to her anti-gun violence activism in high school.

    “We’ve got a cultural issue in America… This is about the very fabric of what it means to be American. And unfortunately, that identity is tied to gun violence, and it’s also tied to gun ownership.”

    You’re close. There is a cultural issue, but it’s not guns.

    Maybe if “we” stopped encouraging people to hate one another like a bunch of warring tribes and religious fanatics, people could give each other some space.

    • cyto

      The successful effort by the DNC and the Feds to reintroduce racism into American society has been remarkable. It took over a decade to get traction,but it is finally working.

      That people by and large have allowed it without comment is truly amazing.

    • Pat

      Lane Murdock sometimes finds herself preemptively looking for emergency exits even though she now lives and studies in a country where mass shootings are rare.

      You mean, another country where mass shootings are rare.

      More than five years after leading a national student walkout following the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the 21-year-old from Connecticut occasionally looks for open windows and other potential escape routes around her Scottish university campus.

      She should try to find one about 30 floors up and have a go at it.

      By the way, they frame this to make it seem like she survived a school shooting and is suffering from PTSD. She’s never attended a school where a shooting took place. Her entire exposure to “gun violence” is precisely like mine was when I watched the Columbine shooting coverage at 11 years of age. She’s a neurotic fucking retard, and we’re supposed to be shamed to silence because she’s so psychologically maladapted that she lives in fear of something with as much statistical probability of happening to any given person as a shark attack.

      I sometimes feel guilty that I’ve been able to leave, but I wake up every morning grateful that I have.

      Not half as grateful as the rest of us.

      • Chafed

        So basically female David Hogg.

  14. The Late P Brooks

    Murdock was a high school sophomore in Ridgefield, Connecticut, on Valentine’s Day in 2018 when a young man opened fire at Majory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 14 students and three teachers.

    A school shooting “survivor”, bless her heart.

    • Pat

      This is what I get for not scrolling.

    • Suthenboy

      Dont be sarcastic Brooks. You are making light of our trauma and lived experiences. We are all school shooting survivors.

  15. The Late P Brooks

    In August 2020, Murdock moved to Scotland to study public relations at Edinburgh Napier University, where she has adopted a slight Scottish accent. She works in a pub and shares an apartment with four roommates.

    “I was really burned out,” she said of life in the US. “The walkout was this amazing, difficult learning experience, and I was ready for a change after it. I was ready to leave America for a multitude of factors. Tuition is expensive. Health care is expensive. It’s a dangerous place.”

    Jayziss Mary and Joseph.

    • creech

      Yes, Edinburgh is so inexpensive she needs four roommates.

      • R C Dean

        To be fair, she can’t possibly be earning much money. A combination of narcissism, neurosis, and no discernible skills generally means low-paying jobs.

        At least she can look forward to that for the rest of her life.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Is she allowed to work while on a student visa?

      • Shpip

        To be fair, she can’t possibly be earning much money. A combination of narcissism, neurosis, and no discernible skills generally means low-paying jobs.

        She works in a pub and shares an apartment with four roommates.

        If recent history is anything to go by, if she can find a district where midwit Basic College Girls are a plurality, she can expect to find herself in Congress in a few years.

      • Derpetologist

        She’s just getting into the spirit of thriftiness that Scots are famous for.

        ***
        St John Limbo (Cleese) sitting on an inflatable armchair analyses McTeagle’s poem content and introduces McTeagle’s greatest work, Can I have 50 Pounds to Mend the Shed?. An Ian McKellen-type performer (Idle) stands in the dark and recites the poem:

        “Can I have 50 pounds to mend the shed? I’m right on my uppers. I can pay you back when this postal order comes From Australia. Honestly. Hope the bladder trouble’s getting better. Love, Ewan.”

        The narrator describes other McTeagle works, such as My New Chequebook Hasn’t Arrived, What’s Twenty Quid to the bloody Midland Bank?, and Can You Lend Me a Thousand Quid?

        A very good playwright (Michael Palin) describes McTeagle’s poetry as revolutionary. McTeagle is filmed stalking angrily through highlands and across a woodland, where the animals from the first sketch are standing, and a sheep explodes.
        ***

  16. The Late P Brooks

    It seems like only yesterday they were rolling out its mother

    The much-anticipated first flight of Northrop Grumman’s secretive B-21 next-generation bomber took place at Palmdale, California on Nov 10 – just under 34 years and four months after that of its stealthy predecessor – the B-2A. Landing around 1 hr 40 min. later at the nearby Edwards AFB Air Force Test Center where it will be exhaustively evaluated by the 412th Test Wing’s B-21 Combined Test Force, the aircraft’s debut provided the first glimpses of several new design features.

    And not a moment too soon.

    • cyto

      The originals were, what? A billion? Are we paying $10 billion each for these??

      • Spudalicious

        $750 million per copy.

      • Chafed

        That seems like a bargain compared to its predecessor.

    • hayeksplosives

      I need Rashida to explain the “Death to America” inspirational metaphor to me.

    • Suthenboy

      Remarkable. A culture of war and conquest is always putting up banners declaring “Death to XXX”

      Ladies and Gentlemen, I give y ou the religion of peace.

      • Derpetologist

        opening lyrics to the ISIS theme song:

        ***
        The clashing of the swords is the song of the proud and the path of fighting is the path of life
        ***

        https://www.mojevideo.sk/video/22fa2/piesen_z_isis.html

        It’s been scrubbed from most of the internet, much like RT Arabic which had some great content.

      • Suthenboy

        I remember seeing a video of four Isis guys in Iraq? scraping together enough scraps to make a fire while they excitedly talked about their upcoming meal….meaning the corpse of the 10yo boy they had just murdered.

        My doc is Jordanian. We were chatting once about local history. Here artifacts do not last any time. The soil is wet, etc.
        He noted the contrast with his home where things do not age because of the extreme dryness.
        Eventually I mentioned that when we (Europeans) got here the locals were eating each other. He responded “Yeah, and now they are eating each other over there.”

    • Chafed

      Now I want to hear it from their cheerleaders at a football game.

    • R C Dean

      What makes you think there was AI involved?

  17. creech

    Well, the PSU chokes at home once again on a higher rated team. Coach Franklin’s offense is about as exciting as watching paint dry. Perennially third best in the Big10 East isn’t going to make the alums happy, nor will participation on some also-ran bowl

  18. dbleagle

    Posted on the old thread after this went live. (damn time zones)

    Last time in 2021 Israel folds and ensures the killing will start again.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2734438/Fireworks-replace-shells-Gaza-Palestinians-celebrate-cease-fire.html
    Make sure to scroll long enough to see the kids.

    Fast forward to October 7, 2023

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/street-rallies-celebrate-hamas-onslaught-in-west-bank-and-throughout-the-middle-east/

    What the Gazans started saying on October 9th isn’t key. Their reactions on October 7th were. There are plenty of videos online if you want to watch an evil society celebrate their “victory”.

    Now go find any picture you want of Germans celebrating the fall of France in 1940. The pictures of Germany are the same jubilant crowds, though with more blondes and no AK’s. Now find pictures of Germany from May 1945. Those faces are of a society that knows an evil ideology got them to that place. Plenty still support the NSDAP, but the will to fight is gone.

    The Gazans overwhelmingly support HAMAS, just like the Germans overwhelmingly supported the National Socialists. The fact that both societies had some dissidents is unimportant. The Gazans will never break faith with HAMAS until the survivors realize their lives were destroyed by an evil ideology. The solution to that problem set in the real world is the same. The Gazans will need to be pounded without let up until their entire societal infrastructures are in ruins and uncountable numbers of their people are dead. The Gazans already know of HAMAS’s militarization of protected sites and that it is HAMAS that is shooting internally displaced persons trying to flee Gaza City. Let the lessons continue.

    The USA should never again provide even a penny of taxpayer to Gaza. That goes for indirect funding through the UN or any NGO. The arab states want to use the Pali’s as a domestic safety valve so let them pay. Israel should be able to BUY arms (and high capacity pumps to flood the tunnels), but again no US taxpayer freebies.

    Will the destruction bring long term peace? Nope. People have been fighting civilization battles over that pile of rock and sand for millennia. But if fought to a conclusion and not to a pause, it lends a situation that could lead to a few generations of reduced conflict.

    • hayeksplosives

      Thanks for bringing this post forward. I saw it in the dead thread but figured comments would be pointless.

      And indeed comments are pointless because I have not a jot or a tittle to add or subtract from what you have written.

      • R C Dean

        Concur. This won’t end until Hamas is eradicated and the Palis are mentally, emotionally, and spiritually crushed. Sorry, but that’s how it works.

    • Derpetologist

      Another Arabic lesson

      Fatah, the political party of Yasser Arafat, means conquest in Arabic. As a verb, fatah means to open, and so the word came to mean opening up lands for Islam.

      ***
      The full name of the movement is Ḥarakat al-Taḥrīr al-Waṭanī l-Filasṭīnī, meaning the “Palestinian National Liberation Movement”. From this was crafted the inverted and reverse acronym Fatḥ (generally rendered in English as Fatah), meaning “opening”, “conquering”, or “victory”.[39] The word fatḥ is used in religious discourse to signify the Islamic expansion in the first centuries of Islamic history – as in Fatḥ al-Shām, the “conquering of the Levant”. Fatḥ also has religious significance in that it is the name of the 48th sura (chapter) of the Quran which, according to major Muslim commentators, details the story of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. During the peaceful two years after the Hudaybiyyah treaty, many converted to Islam, increasing the strength of the Muslim side. It was the breach of this treaty by the Quraysh[40] that triggered the conquest of Mecca. This Islamic precedent was cited by Yasser Arafat as justification for his signing the Oslo Accords with Israel.[41][42]
      ***

      So there’s that.

    • Ted S.

      Bullrot.
      Lection Leaguese Est.

      Nice T-shirt.

  19. hayeksplosives

    OT: Product review!!

    I adopted a problem cat (10 year old charity case who had a bad attitude at the shelter but just needed peace and quiet) in July. Within a week, she strayed from the litter box and made messes in the guest bedroom, which had wall-to-wall carpet.

    We (cat and I) overcame the litter box problem by getting a different litter type, moving the boxes to a new spot in a different room, and changing her diet. No more messes. Happy kitty.

    I spot cleaned the obvious messes in the carpet but was always bothered by the fact that there were probably invisible messes in between the spot-cleaned places, and I wasn’t really thrilled with the spot cleaned areas either.

    Enter the Hoover Turbo Scrubber. OMG. Easy to load, easy to use, easy to clean. That thing made the carpet look brand new, wall to wall. Well worth the cost–and no messing with rental. It’s $119 at HomeDepot Black Friday sale. https://www.homedepot.com/pep/HOOVER-TurboScrub-Upright-Carpet-Cleaner-Machine-FH50138V/320126911

    If you are stuck with carpet in one or more rooms in your house, you might want to look at it.

    • Chafed

      Thanks for the recommendation.

    • rhywun

      Nice. I don’t have cats anymore so I bought a smaller version of the cyclotronic (?) Bissell than the one I decided to leave at the old place. Like 60 bucks. Vacuum cleaners are cheaper than they used to be.

  20. R C Dean

    “all of a sudden, he gets all of the attention”

    Maybe, just maybe, because he actually drilled some fucking wells?

    • mexican sharpshooter

      That monster

  21. Shpip

    Turns out that for fun, Icelanders will yeet baby birds off of cliffs.

    Fun fact: this was first done in 14th century in the village of Huffjnanda, northwest of Ólafsvík. Since puffins were approximately three times the size they are today (they shrank due to climate change), the villagers who took part in the ritual were extremely tired by the end of the day. Hence, even to this day, when someone is exhausted, he is said to be “a Huffjnanda puffin.”

    • LCDR_Fish

      I think I saw that on a travel/weather channel show.

    • Suthenboy

      (they shrank due to climate change)

      *facepalm*

      • R.J.

        That’s what she said!

    • R C Dean

      “However, the artificial light of nearby towns gets them all distracted, so humans have to step in to help the little birdies out.”

      If its to offset artificial light, why were they doing it 700 years ago?

    • hayeksplosives

      Surely you people weren’t taken in by Shpip’s 2nd paragraph? The one that is just a setup for a puffinpun?

      • Spudalicious

        “H. R. Puffinstuff…”

    • hayeksplosives

      I do like the way the puffin tossers prep the little dudes by revving them up on an implied count of three.

      Seems totally intuitive to us western civilizational hoomans, but I can’t imagine it really does much to psyche up the puffins!

  22. DEG

    Democrat activist loses in Democrat city

    Long-time progressive activist and sometime Concord City Councilor Zandra Rice Hawkins has been unseated. After Tuesday’s elections, the three-term incumbent is one of only two incumbents in Concord replaced by challengers.

    She lost to Jeff Foote, 618-566 (“preliminary” citywide results can be viewed here).

    • Chafed

      Is the guy who unseated her a Libertarian?

      • DEG

        I think not. What I can find of him is that he’s better on some things than Hawkins.

        I think the NHLA’s congratulations to him is more celebrating the head of Granite State Progress’s loss. She’s been a thorn in the side of Free Staters, the NHLA, libertarians, and any liberty-minded people.

    • Grumbletarian

      And Manchester replaced Joyce Craig with a Republican in a low turnout race. Interesting.

      • DEG

        I thought that was going to happen. Ruais stuck to things people care about – the economy, crime.

        Unfortunately Donchess won in Nashua, so, not all good news.

    • R.J.

      Ooops! Month old article.

      • Chafed

        Drugs. Ass. It’s all good.