341 Comments

  1. SDF-7

    House Passes $866 Billion Defense Bill, Including Extension of Controversial Surveillance Tool

    Ah… the repeated middle finger to their base that wants smaller government and less abuse… yay….

    Sigh.

    Morning, Banjos. Morning, all.

    • AlexinCT

      They need graft and nothing pays as well as defense graft.

      • SDF-7

        The defense graft is to be expected.

        After all the warantless searches and the panels on “weaponization of government” extending the shitty Section 702 crap is just one big “Get ready for this splintery two by four up your ass, America!” from the Stupid Party dipshits.

      • R C Dean

        My unwillingness to vote for Republicans has definitely reached a middle.

      • Swiss Servator

        Two middle fingers up to TEAM RED, as whole, they are useless.

    • ron73440

      The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2024 passed 310 to 118, with a majority of Republicans and Democrats voting for it.

      And the uniparty keeps on keeping on.

    • juris imprudent

      What makes you think that you, I, or anyone in these here parts is their base?

      Hey buddy… [stop telling me you want smaller govt and keep increasing spending]

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

        This. The Dems won the spending wars, and until that changes (which will take a sea change in the parties) this won’t change.

  2. UnCivilServant

    Is that front page image a Santagator or Clausidile?

    • SDF-7

      I assumed it was a Christmas Later Gator! as folks start effectively being on vacation next week.

    • Not Adahn

      See the alignment of teeth when the mouth is closed? That’s how you tell.

      • AlexinCT

        I thought you needed to do the two finger in the cloaca thing..

      • Not Adahn

        Nah, Steve Irwin just enjoyed doing that.

      • Rat on a train
    • Nephilium

      It’s a crocodile (based on grade school era memories and the crooked teeth).

      Besides Santa Jaws could take ’em.

      • UnCivilServant

        Never heard any mnemonic about teeth, always about whether the snout was shovel-shaped or triangular.

        I know more about the distribution of the various species based on research I did for my writing than anything school said.

        But yes, the snout does look narrow and triangular, so that’s a croc.

      • prolefeed

        Teeth look like a gator – only top teeth poke outside with a closed mouth. Crocs show top and bottom teeth with a closed mouth. Snout does look sorta narrow and V shaped like a croc, but hard to tell for sure from a side view. Plus, only gators are native to U.S., so, much easier to take a gator pic with a Santa hat.

      • UnCivilServant

        You have made one error.

        only gators are native to U.S.

        Kindly check the Northeastern range of the American Crocodile. It’s not as much of the US as the American Alligator, but south Florida is nothing to sneeze at.

      • prolefeed

        I keep forgetting south Florida is technically part of the U.S. 😉

    • Grummun

      There is a house up the road from us that has a Santa’s-sleigh-pulled-by-eight-alligators* lawn decoration. I have to assume this person is a transplant from the South.

      *Maybe crocodiles.

    • Fatty Bolger

      It’s obviously a crocigator.

  3. SDF-7

    IRS Whistleblowers Unable To ‘Verify’ Loans White House Claims Joe Biden Sent To Family Members, Testimony Shows

    Look at this face. Take a good, long look. This is the face that is completely unsurprised by what you said.

  4. SDF-7

    President Biden’s Job Approval Finds a New Low Before the New Year

    PPP…. Congress… SCOTUS… the Fed…. corporate America… I have a hard time imagining any institution or sector that should have a positive job approval right about now.

  5. SDF-7

    Pentagon falls 41,000 short of reduced military recruitment goals

    They’ll make it up giving citizenship to illegal immigrant mercenaries like that one Senator is pitching. Might as well hit the gas and go full Late Western Roman Empire, after all.

    • UnCivilServant

      The army is supposed to be shooting those invaders at the border, not hiring them.

      • SDF-7

        Hey, if it is good for IBM it is good for the country….

      • SDF-7

        (Just to be clear — I don’t believe that, I was just too busy working to comment on yesterday’s links or read them until late in the day and thought a callback to the James O’Keefe / IBM tape was worth it… mind you, the only thing that surprised me about the IBM story was that they weren’t making an exception for South Asians since that’s more the pattern with Indian (dot not feather) hiring managers over the last couple of decades…)

      • AlexinCT

        The real sad thing is that this evil shit is not unique to IBM. I have seen it going on for a long time. When it first started some 20 plus years ago it was done in silence with the people doing it fearing some kind of pushback. But more than a decade ago it became SOP – there was little to no pushback – and they actually started saying this stupid evil out loud because they felt there would be no pushback. I have seen this racist shit done with promotions, bonuses, compensation increases, and even training opportunities. Many of these idiotic companies have “voluntary DEI/CRT” shit going on where they track which honkeys avoid them and then retaliate. Buyer beware.

      • Lackadaisical

        Yes, anyone surprised by what IBM is saying/doing hasn’t been paying much attention. It is bog standard levels of racism.

      • Not Adahn

        You’d make a terrible Caesar.

      • UnCivilServant

        Are you talking Julio-Claudian, or Byzantine Assistant-Emperor Caesar?

      • AlexinCT

        Calligula.

      • Not Adahn

        I don’t own a horse, but Lily would make an excellent senator.

    • SDF-7

      Wait a sec… from the article (yeah sometimes I do try to read them):

      Among the reasons: A strong economy that means more options for young people,

      Strong economy? What? Did I miss something assholes — or are you just talking about strong for the lobbyists and Lockheed-Martin?

      • AlexinCT

        I have noticed gas prices have come down recently where I am. Can’t find any real info if it is just artificial. Maybe the enviro-criminals stopped blocking US energy programs. Could it be that things are so bad that we are seeing gas prices drop due to lack of consumption? Or is it that they are again emptying the fed reserves?, Or are we looking at a combination of all these items (and more? What I am certain of is that it will all be temporary, and only because they have realized that they need to drop energy prices they want high or face consequences in the 2024 election. I guarantee you that as soon as they fortify the 2024 elections gas prices will double if not triple if the corruptocracy gets its way. They want us to own nothing, live in pods, eating bugs, and never fucking with whatever evil criminal shit they are doing, and restricting access to cheap energy is a key component of that agenda.

      • Not Adahn

        Gas prices drop in winter.

      • AlexinCT

        Not by as much as I have seen though…

      • R C Dean

        I believe demand is down. As naturally happens when the economy is doing well.

      • AlexinCT

        Your Bidenomics logic is inescapable, sir.

      • prolefeed

        * golf clap *

        Well played, sir!

      • Lackadaisical

        The weird thing is the massive drop in shipping.

        Biden was proclaiming that he’s fixed the supply chain issues(because wait times and shipping costs are at record lows), but it is really a collapse of demand. Not sure where we go from here, but it doesn’t look like up.*

        *I’ve been wrong in the past

      • AlexinCT

        Found this..

        Not sure I would believe this with this administration and its animosity of fossil fuels in charge.

      • Lackadaisical

        ‘The IEA also said global oil demand has slowed sharply amid economic turmoil.’

        …and OPEC has been throttling supply on purpose, so of course their share is dropping.

      • DrOtto

        I have a friend in sales in the oil industry. He mostly sells to manufacturing. Sales are down and only expected to drop further next year.

      • juris imprudent

        Obviously because of the success of the great green transformation! /I can be press secretary?

      • The Last American Hero

        Yeah, they dropped all the way from 5.19 to 4.89 at my house.

        Fucking fantastic job.

      • Drake

        I caught that bullshit too. The economy sucks but…

        The young men they are trying to recruit have spent their whole lives seeing a steady stream of wounded broken men coming home from meaningless battles abroad. Now they would have to endure woke indoctrination to get their chance to die or be crippled in a neo-con war with Russia or Iran. Seems a hard sell for the recruiters.

      • Lackadaisical

        You don’t want a broken home and a broken body with a side of racist derision? Better check your privilege.

    • juris imprudent

      Alright, enough fun and games about the economy. They noted the narrowing of the slice of recruits based on family military connection. This is a long term trend, not some bit of Biden reverse-Midas touch.

      • AlexinCT

        If I was of military age today I would not only not do it, I would dissuade others from doing so. If I had children of military age, I would do the same for them. Why would you join a military run by and under the authority of evil fuckers that hate you personally for the color of your skin or the fact you prefer a meritocratic system over their racket that keeps sending young people to wars they will never be allowed to win just so the very people that hate these young people they send to die make bank from these wars.

      • juris imprudent

        Again, what’s new about that? I’m not disagreeing, just noting this is nothing to really do with Biden and wouldn’t be anything different under Trump.

      • prolefeed

        You’re saying that nothing Biden has done would result in poorer recruitment versus what would have happened if Trump had won?

      • AlexinCT

        Trump at least tried – and the deep state military industrial complex actively resisted him – to roll back the endless wars. Biden, just like his previous boss, botched the Afghan withdrawal (so they can have an excuse to go back) and promptly joined another war that could trigger WWII. One says he admires those that join the military and sacrifice for the country while the other has repeatedly told us the very demographic most likely to join the military are home borne terrorists because they oppose evil marxist CRT/DEI shit. No difference at all.

      • AlexinCT

        WWIII damned keyboard!

      • juris imprudent

        Whoopie, Trump tried. You see – that’s my fucking point right there. It doesn’t matter.

      • AlexinCT

        Maybe to you. To me it matters. Especially since he now no longer holds the naive view he can work with the machine but understands what he needs to do is crush the fucking thing and strangle it until it croaks.

      • juris imprudent

        It isn’t about me, it’s about the country as a whole. No President is going to over turn the status quo, not without Congressional support.

      • AlexinCT

        So you saying we should skip trying to solve this through the electoral system and just move on to shooting. guillotining, and hanging these fucks? Cause the alternative – to accept the status quo – is a non-starter.

      • juris imprudent

        Tempting, very tempting.

        The answer is this won’t end well, no matter how it ends. If you expect better, you’re standing in line to be sold a bill of goods (particularly by pretending that who is President really matters). At some point, if a political (and peaceful) solution is available, it will likely involve a new political party, not either of the current players. Of course I already said I don’t share the optimism that voters want to use their votes wisely.

      • AlexinCT

        All I am doing is trying to exhaust other options before we are only left with the need to deal with these evil fucks with force.

      • Not Adahn

        Didn’t Trump decree something about “you can’t enlist in order to get free sex change surgery?” ISTR that was the thing my friends would point to to “prove” OMW was anti-LGBTQ+.

      • The Last American Hero

        I was of military age in the early 90’s. I didn’t seriously consider joining because I did not trust that the government would be judicious and responsible in sending me into harms way and only doing so when our nation was truly in danger from a foreign threat.

        History since then has shown that to be a wise decision.

      • prolefeed

        They said that was * one * of the factors. And they lied by characterizing this as a “strong” economy. And then they cited other factors that undercut that lie. And said this is an unusually weak recruiting environment.

        This is how one manipulates people’s cognitive bias – throw out one or two things that reinforce currently held beliefs, even if it is an obvious lie, so the intended audience can seize on something so they don’ have to do the painful work of rethinking their beliefs and realizing they were wrong.

      • juris imprudent

        If the military commitment is dependent on a bad economy, there is a big, fundamental problem that isn’t being addressed. I don’t think that’s what they want.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Not only that but they’ll be much more willing to put rounds in the backs of the heads of the existing citizenry.

  6. SDF-7

    Dem School Board Members Sworn in on Stack of LGBT Books, Including One Featuring Graphic Photos of Children

    CWAA.

    • R C Dean

      When the Night of the Short Ropes comes, I may not be prepping the lampposts, but I certainly won’t be raising any objections.

      • prolefeed

        Let’s be real. You’re gonna at least comment on whether to professionally tie ropes for a speedy conclusion, or do a deliberately amateurish job so it lingers.

      • DrOtto

        Where is Creosote Achilles when we need him?

      • juris imprudent

        Oh no, you don’t want to get into an argument with an artist about that.

      • Not Adahn

        Ropes? Get with the program old timer. It’s all about zipties now.

  7. SDF-7

    California freezes spending as state faces $68 billion deficit

    Gee… maybe promoting tax policies that seek to ever increasingly fleece the rich (especially those sweet sweet capital gains taxes on stock option vesting) combined with a hostile regulatory environment and oh, I don’t know… making your former Tech Mecca not only hostile to the tech sector (remember all the hubbub about “private buses” and “tech bros”? I sure do…) but disgusting for people to live in when the well off are the ones who find it easiest to move was a bad idea, assholes?

    Fuck you, cut spending don’t just freeze it. And start taxing everyone so you can’t just push blind tax increases knowing the majority will vote for it because hey… not their money!

    • Certified Public Asshat

      We hardly knew that year of surplus.

    • juris imprudent

      CA lives by an extremely progressive income tax, and then dies by it.

  8. Beau Knott

    Time to behead baby Jesus and trash a nativity. Or are we not not doing equal protection and )shall not establish’?
    Criminal penalties for the perpetrator at least. Not just a nudge, nudge, wink wink slap on the wrist either.

    • UnCivilServant

      They never bother to report on the trashed nativities in a ‘dog bites man’ ambivalence to the frequency of that tpe of vandalism.

    • Nephilium

      There’s a suburb here called Willoughby (yes, the name from the Twilight Zone episode was probably from it). In the middle of the downtown area, they have a little park with a cannon in it. As the seasons change, they put up a nativity scene… directly in front of the canon.

      They did eventually start wrapping the canon in tarps so it didn’t look like someone was planning on firing through the nativity scene.

      • SDF-7

        And that’s why most of us wouldn’t be caught dead in Willoughby.

        (Or run a train there if that’s more your speed…)

      • Nephilium

        A Stop at Willoughby is a perfectly cromulent uplifting Twilight Zone episode.

    • Not Adahn

      Menorae seem to an acceptable object of destruction, penalty-wise.

    • Lackadaisical

      FWIW I don’t support destroying property. If public displays are allowed, then they need to be allowed for everyone.

      I don’t think he should get any extra special punishment either, pay a fine to the owner and a slap on the wrist seems adequate. IF the law-breaker persists, it becomes a different question.

      • Beau Knott

        I agree wholeheartedly. No preferential treatment on ‘public property’, period.

      • The Hyperbole

        He should have to put it back the way he found it and make a public apology to the Satanists, or sit in the county jail until he does.

      • Not Adahn

        Why are you singling him out for greater punishment than any other vandal?

      • The Hyperbole

        Why do you assume I wouldn’t suggest the same for any other vandal?

      • Not Adahn

        Because you haven’t. Therefore there must be something special about this case that inspires you to make your feelings known.

      • The Hyperbole

        Or, it’s in the news, in the links and you people are discussing it…Ahh who am I kidding. You got me – “Hail Satan”

      • Not Adahn

        Not sure what’s more disingenuous, pretending vandalism isn’t constantly in the links, or pretending that it’s pro-Satan bias on yo0ur part.

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

        No. He shouldn’t have to pay for any damage, in fact, he should bill the gov’t body responsible for trash removal. Because no one should be allowed to put shit up for any religion on public property. Unless you want to put up stuff for EVERY religion.

      • The Hyperbole

        I too would prefer a ‘no shit of any kind’ policy (In fact all gov’t buildings should be simple, unadorned in any way, cheaply constructed and uncomfortable) But “If one person can do it anyone can’ is probably the second best policy and what we have here (I believe) And I agree no monetary fines. Fix it and apologize just like I’d make my kid do if he or she destroyed someone else’s property.

  9. Nephilium

    /checks article about swing states

    Another one that doesn’t have Ohio as a swing state, does this mean I’ll get the quiet election cycles of the other non-swing states?

    /sees a commercial for an Ohio politician talking about building a border wall with Mexico

    Fuck…

    • UnCivilServant

      Ohio has a border with Mexico? I didn’t think the invasion had gone that poorly.

      • SDF-7

        something something International Airports constitutional exclusion border zone….

      • robc

        Ohio’s intl airports arent all in Ohio.

      • Nephilium

        Ohio is a border state after all.

      • juris imprudent

        Close enough for govt work.

      • Gender Traitor

        OBE can confirm.

      • Not Adahn

        Montreal’s second-largest airport is in NY.

    • Banjos

      Just like Florida, ya’ll are now officially red. Congrats.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Strange how swing states that made it harder to cheat in elections became more red.

        Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

      • R C Dean

        And, of course, the converse. Swing states that make it easier to cheat get more blue. And there’s nothing like a legislature full of Republican cucks to grease the skids. Apparently, even the naked self-interest of not wanting to be locked out of statewide office was enough to motivate the Arizona Republicans to fix the election system. Maricopa uber alles!

      • juris imprudent

        They’re following the example of the Republican Party of California – that traded a few safe seats for any chance at winning the state as a whole.

  10. Not Adahn

    NPR told me that survey was totally bogus and their survey showed Biden statistically tied but actually ahead!

    • SDF-7

      They probably just surveyed the election officials then.

      • AlexinCT

        You mean the people in charge of the fortification effort?

      • SDF-7

        That’s precisely what I was implying, yes.

    • The Last American Hero

      Trump was comfortably ahead in 6 key swing states around 11 pm Pacific Time. I woke up the next morning and Joe Biden had been elected President after sweeping all 6 states.

      NPR is correct.

    • AlexinCT

      I have gotten some real telling reactions when I pointed out to people that kept complaining about Israel going after murderous barbarians that they are defending people that still, at a rate of 3 out of 4 individuals asked, say they feel the Hamas attack was a great thing (understanding and knowing the brutality, evil ,and consequences, BTW). Hamas brought this on these people that still cheer it on. I would not want to live with neighbors like that.

      • prolefeed

        If you were a Palestinian and some random stranger polled you about something where the “wrong” answer could get you beheaded if Hamas fiund out, would you be inclined to answer truthfully?

      • AlexinCT

        More of a reason why we should be telling Israel to exterminate Hamas.

    • WTF

      most donning sunglasses and masks to conceal their identities, participated in the evening vigil

      Way to show the courage of your convictions.

    • Lackadaisical

      Show your faces you cowards… not that I think anything bad should happen to them, if done on their own time.

      • R C Dean

        Oh, but they are leveraging their government positions, so, yes, they should be fired even if the protest was done on their own time. Not to mention, back office drones inserting themselves into a contentious political issue should be fired simply for causing problems for their boss, regardless.

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

        Yes. As soon as they say “white house interns” they should be canned, the lot of them.

        If for no other reason than they are bucking the president whom they purport to serve..

      • juris imprudent

        Well, now, let the Democrats stew in that – after all, it was brave and courageous last administration.

    • ron73440

      But Alex, IT WILL BE THE END OF OUR DEMOCRACY!

      What part of THE END OF OUR DEMOCRACY do you not understand?

      • AlexinCT

        First off Ron, I respectfully remind you that a democracy is 100 wolves and 99 sheep deciding what is for dinner, which is why our wise honkey forefathers gave us a republic instead. Second, I am just tired of revelations where any time a democrat or the media accuse an enemy of democrats of something totalitarian, criminal, or evil, it turns out the accusers are the ones actually doing the evil shit they accuse others of. Seriously, just once, I would like it to not play out that way.

      • ron73440

        I’m sorry I tried to make a joke.

        I will feel shame and then try to do better.

        I am not a fan of “OUR DEMOCRACY” either.

        Once I was talking about how democracy was not a good system and my mother got very upset.

        I asked her if it was so great, how the hell did we wind up with Hillary and Trump as our 2 options.

        She didn’t have an answer for that.

      • juris imprudent

        Well played sir, well played.

      • AlexinCT

        My biggest beef with people that tell us we elect our leaders is that they are either duplicitous or to stupid to realize our choices always are curated by the people that actually decide who can be in charge as a figurehead.

      • DrOtto

        “Go to your room without dinner!”

      • AlexinCT

        Man, that is harsh….

      • DrOtto

        Not if it were my mom. She couldn’t cook. I don’t go to restaurants that advertise “home cooking”.

      • AlexinCT

        OK DrOtto, I now feel your pain. My mom could cook up a storm. I am lucky to have inherited her recipes and while I always fall short live large and in charge precisely because of that,

      • Suthenboy

        Projection: Ya’ gotta go with what you got.

      • R C Dean

        I understand it fine. That’s why it can’t get here soon enough for me.

      • juris imprudent

        What part of OUR DEMOCRACY is the over-weening administrative state?

      • Not Adahn

        “our.”

  11. The Late P Brooks

    Would you like to play Global Thermonuclear Dominoes?

    During an event co-hosted by The DSR Network and The New Republic at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Sullivan repeatedly expressed concern about what is happening in Ukraine and what message America would be sending if it abandons the country amid the Russian invasion.

    “I do not think it’s hyperbole to say that basically the security of Europe is at stake, and therefore the risk of American men and women having to go deal with another massive war in Europe, as we have before, if we don’t work with Ukraine to stop Russia in Ukraine. That’s at stake,” Sullivan said.

    “Look, the arithmetic here is simple,” he continued. “We have now, as of the end of December, used up all of the funding that Congress has given us to supply weapons to Ukraine, and then to replenish our stocks with the weapons that we’ve handed over. And so if Congress does not come through, we will begin to enter a period in which we are unable to give Ukraine the air defense interceptors it needs to keep Russian missiles from crashing into Ukrainian cities. We will not be able to provide the ammunition necessary for them to continue advancing and hold the line against the Russian attacks, which have been intensive in the east over the course of the past few weeks. And as weeks go by, that will have a material effect on Ukraine’s battlefield position.”

    Sullivan asserted that most members of Congress—across party lines—do want to see additional funding for Ukraine. Republicans, however, are stuck on pairing that aid with changes to border and immigration policy.

    Those peacenik Republicans are going to get us all killed.

    • juris imprudent

      Those dominoes have always been in Europe, and not east Asia.

    • juris imprudent

      Look, if a friendly Supreme Court slapped down Truman for doing that, how can you expect this modern radical hate-driven Court to do different?

    • cyto

      This is a huge story that is being ignored.

      Two of the five commissioners say this is political and directed from the president. And they bring plenty of receipts to show that there is a material breach of contract here as they invent a new standard for SpaceX (and only SpaceX) on the fly.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Even if it wasn’t Musk, I think shenanigans would have happened.

        There is just way too much grift in rural broadband. Everyone feels sorry for those Rubes in the Sticks who can’t even browser FarmersOnly.com so they don’t protest when the Congress or state legislature allocates a ton of money to get the hillbillies online.

        No one ever notices that the fund gets replenished during every session of the legislature but the problem never gets fixed.

        What is Starlink? $600 or so to get the equipment and $50 a month? I think that is what it was last time I looked. Pretty easy to figure out how much it costs to get all the remote people online.

      • Lackadaisical

        The wild thing is the commissioners saying this out loud.

        That has to be a huge risk for them and very unusual.

      • juris imprudent

        What risk? What consequences will befall them for this?

  12. Rat on a train

    Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee, and Kentucky enacted laws to stop government from deducting dues on behalf of public-sector unions, forcing them to do their own billing.
    It should be universal.

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

      It should, and there should be zero company time taken for “union organizing”

  13. AlexinCT

    Virginia Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Teacher Fired For Not Using Student’s “Preferred Pronouns”

    As someone that way too often ended up disciplined by a teacher (and then taking an ass whopping from my parents when they found out, cause they knew it was me), I am going to tell you that the plethora of changes that made being a teacher appealing only to marxists indoctrinators – which includes shit like this pronouns idiocy – was from the get-go intended to allow them to create one or more generation of idiots good at activism and dumb as fuck about the real world.

  14. PieInTheSky

    Off Grid Mountain Top Log Cabin | 39 Acres $69,500

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

    Off Grid Mountain Top Log Cabin! 39 Acres, $69,500 Buys Maine Real Estate Smack Dab On Top Of Drews Mountain, Linneus ME Off Drews Lake! Private Acess To 1057 Acre Drews Lake, Hidden Remote Log Cabin On Mixed Woods, 39 Acres Of Southern Aroostook County In Northern Maine. On ITS Snowmobile And ATV Trails! Explore Maine Outdoors All Four Seasons! 16×16 Cathedral Log Cabin Vacation Property Has 3 Rooms, 2 Lofts, Full Bath With Glass Corner Shower! Real Maine Log And Timber Beam Getaway. Hidden, Not Visible From Road. Float Your Boat in The Drews Lake Boat Launch

    • AlexinCT

      Does it come with a couple of guys with dental issues that will tell you to take off your clothes, get on all fours, and then squeal like a pig while banjo music plays?

      • PieInTheSky

        Maine is in the north there are no banjos there

      • Not Adahn

        NY rednecks are more obnoxious than TX, LA, or MI rednecks.

        However, I have not found rednecks in ME yet. The rural/gun folk I’ve found there are much less assholish than their OH counterparts.

      • R.J.

        Agreed. It would be a rude awakening for Pie.
        BY RUDE AWAKENING MEAN…

    • Not Adahn

      Buys Maine Real Estate Smack Dab On Top Of Drews Mountain

      *Not Adahn goes to the top of Whiteface Mountain, is stunned by how beautiful it is there*

      NA: “Why doesn’t anyone live here?”

      Radio weather report: “And the windchill today on Whiteface will drop to -80”

      NA: “Oh.”

      • UnCivilServant

        -80 Windchill?

        Balmy.

      • Pope Jimbo

        t-shirt and shorts weather!

    • Not Adahn

      16×16 Cathedral Log Cabin Vacation Property Has 3 Rooms

      Aren’t rooms averaging 9m2 small even for Romania?

    • PieInTheSky

      looking at a map damn that is almost canada

      • Not Adahn

        That is Maine’s state motto, yes.

    • Gender Traitor

      Full Bath With Glass Corner Shower!

      Minor detail: no running water.

    • PieInTheSky

      they have the look for it

    • Nephilium

      They were applying to be Obama era border patrol agents?

    • AlexinCT

      Did they take a page out of the work ethic book of that fat guy in a red suit that lives at the north pole which is so hated by marxists that believe only government should be handing out free shit?

    • DrOtto

      They aren’t cages, they’re toddler kennels.

      • AlexinCT

        It’s all in the words/language being used, right?

    • The Other Kevin

      A guy I knew from high school went to jail for that exact thing.

    • Lackadaisical

      ‘The children, ages 6 and 2, were placed in the custody of vetted family members.’

      The same family that did nothing to stop this? Or maybe they were the ones to report it.

      Also, the biggest crime:

      “wooden enclosure made of pressure-treated 2×4’s”

      Why the hell would you use pressure-treated? Also, what kind of professors? I wish there were more details.

      • Lackadaisical

        Looked up some other articles, apparently they were botanists of some sort. I don’t buy that they were just working late in the lab.

      • Beau Knott

        It was an experiment! They were trying to turn the kids into vegetables!
        Was that wrong? Should they not have done that?

  15. The Late P Brooks

    Something to get your blood pressure up

    “Number 27” youtube guy talking about a letter from a German insurance industry “whistleblower”. And, of course, “in Germany” means EU-wide.

    They want to ban (price into oblivion) analog cars.

    • Sensei

      Yeah, I question that. I also watched it.

      Agreed value classic car insurance is a huge money maker in the US. I’d assume Europe is the same.

      Unless the EU or the US laws change to the point where they make uneconomic I would take with a huge grain of salt.

    • UnCivilServant

      Is that a fancy way of saying that they turn into zombies with infectious bites?

      • Not Adahn

        Nope, it’s a team of researchers advertising their p-hacking skills for potential clients.

      • Rat on a train

        +1 green jelly beans

  16. The Late P Brooks

    America

    Freeways and bridges are the lifelines of America’s big cities. And protesters of everything from climate change to police brutality have known for years there is no better way to get people’s attention than to interrupt those corridors of daily life, even if they elicit as much anger as they do sympathy.

    It’s unclear if their message is winning any converts.

    Videos captured on the 110 Freeway showed drivers shouting at activists. One motorist grabbed a protester by the collar and threw them on the hood of a car while others laughed and recorded the brawl.

    “The situation was tense and you could feel it from both sides,” said photographer Johnny LaVallee. He had been on his way to an assignment near downtown when traffic came to a standstill.

    “Some people who were stuck in traffic even told me that they didn’t even know what was going on in Gaza. This guy looked at me like I was crazy and said, ‘I don’t watch the news. I’m just trying to get to work.’”

    We need more of him.

    • R C Dean

      Two words:

      Bear. Spray.

      It would be especially amusing applied to the ones with their hands glued to the road.

      • juris imprudent

        Oooh! Oooh! Mr. Kott-ah!!

        I can see the charges now – terrorism for assault with chemical weapons!

  17. juris imprudent

    I do appreciate his optimism, even if I don’t share it.

    Given how deeply many Americans resent having to choose again between Biden and Trump in the 2024 election, it would behoove a patriotic group, liberal-minded foundation, or other concerned political leader to use the upcoming year to try something different.

    Rather than just flooding the zone with social media screeds and inflammatory negative ads, political parties and civic organizations should try holding real discussions with voters in local communities—not contrived ones designed for message purposes or viral hits.

    • AlexinCT

      Lets ignore the real problems and pretend if we just had other approved choices by the cabal causing all the problems, things would magically get better!

  18. juris imprudent

    Taibbi [from behind the paywall]:

    If Teixeira hadn’t let slip that officials were freaking out in private about Ukraine’s prospects, members of Congress might not have been emboldened to filibuster Biden’s spending bill as they did last week. Therefore, learning the truth was bad, and we can blame the leaks, not the factory-produced river of hogwash dumped on the world for the last 22 months, for the dilemma now facing Biden and Ukraine. How’s that for Beltway bull-slinging? If I could make a balloon animal version, I’d be charging ten grand an appearance at birthday parties.

    Often a retired “expert” was brought in who got paid three or four times for the same work, being simultaneously a military analyst for a TV network, a “fellow” for a foreign policy think tank, a rep for a weapons manufacturer like Raytheon or Lockheed, and an industry lobbyist or consultant. These pieces are to war journalism what Porntube clips are to romance, mechanical work by very experienced professionals.

    Now that the contracting orgy has stopped, however, pucker season is on. Volodymyr Zelensky was in DC Tuesday night and looked like he was doing a take for John Wick 9 when he walked out of Congress empty-handed. If that face is any indication, phones will start ringing all over soon, as unnamed “officials” give seething insider takes on how things got so FUBAR. Europeans will ream out NATO officials over price hikes, NATO officials will bitch out Ukrainians for acting like mistresses with platinum cards, and the Ukrainians will unload thirty years of stories about American duplicity, including the recent chapter in which they were cheered to the front by lobbyists and missile merchants whose “Once more unto the breach!” riffs kept getting interrupted by push notifications about new properties in Reston and Falls Church.

    So apparently the administration tried to blame that shmuck Air Guardsman for foiling the great Ukrainian war effort – by revealing our own govt’s doubts about it.

    • Drake

      He threw a monkey-wrench into continuing their grift indefinitely. Unforgivable.

      • juris imprudent

        You really do have to laugh about leaks. After all, when CENTCOM does it – officially, but of course anonymously – it’s legit news.

    • juris imprudent

      And one from outside the paywall!

      If the phrase felt a little light, it’s probably because you’re used to hearing Biden use another term, “Extreme MAGA,” which he did, for a long time, until the White House was warned by the Office of Special Counsel that invocations of “MAGA” may constitute Hatch Act violations. Presidents are ostensibly barred from using their title for electioneering purposes, so “extreme MAGA Republicans” become merely extreme in official appearances.

  19. PieInTheSky

    The rules and structure of human culture impact health as much as genetics or environment. To study these relationships, we combine ancient DNA (n = 230), skeletal metrics (n = 391), palaeopathology (n = 606) and dietary stable isotopes (n = 873) to analyse stature variation in Early Neolithic Europeans from North Central, South Central, Balkan and Mediterranean regions. In North Central Europe, stable isotopes and linear enamel hypoplasias indicate high environmental stress across sexes, but female stature is low, despite polygenic scores identical to males, and suggests that cultural factors preferentially supported male recovery from stress. In Mediterranean populations, sexual dimorphism is reduced, indicating male vulnerability to stress and no strong cultural preference for males. Our analysis indicates that biological effects of sex-specific inequities can be linked to cultural influences at least as early as 7,000 yr ago, and culture, more than environment or genetics, drove height disparities in Early Neolithic Europe

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01756-w

    • AlexinCT

      Argle-bargle, collectivist social justice word salad!

    • juris imprudent

      We did a lot of research to validate the conclusion we started with!

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Wouldn’t it make sense that the perils of pregnancy and childbirth in the olden days would account for this? Talk about reaching a conclusion and then working backwards…

    • Not Adahn

      Why would increased dimorphim necessarily indicate a preference for males, rather than for hot chicks?

  20. Shpip

    A poll released by Morning Consult on behalf of Bloomberg News on Thursday showed Trump beating Biden 47% to 42% in all the swing states combined. For each specific state, Trump continues to dominate Biden. In Arizona, he leads by 3 percentage points, in Georgia by 7 points, in Michigan by 4 points, in Nevada by 5 points, in North Carolina by 11 points, in Pennsylvania by 1 point, and in Wisconsin by 6 points.

    Still well within the margin of fortification.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      The only poll that matters is election day.

    • prolefeed

      Within the margin of error for most of the polls, also known by statisticians as “tied”.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    Rather than just flooding the zone with social media screeds and inflammatory negative ads, political parties and civic organizations should try holding real discussions with voters in local communities—not contrived ones designed for message purposes or viral hits.

    Haha, good one.

    • juris imprudent

      Yeah, his premise is that Americans do care about using their vote wisely. Like I said – I appreciate his optimism.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      What, no love for Albania?

      • PieInTheSky

        still a tad on the dangerous side imo, great beaches though good prices

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        The father of an Albanian classmate of mine was assassinated there. I think I’ll pass.

    • Homple

      Pie, recommend some Romanian real estate for us while you’re at it.

    • UnCivilServant

      None of them properly respect what’s important to me. Besides, they all have the severe handicap of being in Europe

      • juris imprudent

        As a bureaucrat you should enjoy France in particular.

      • UnCivilServant

        Fuck no, those frogs do everything wrong.

        And I’m not interested in visiting an Islamic republic.

      • Not Adahn

        It’s not their fault, it’s the chemicals in the water.

  22. Sean

    I played https://squaredle.com 12/15:
    *69/69 words (+11 bonus words)
    ⏱️ In the top 38% by speed
    🔥 Solve streak: 82

    I played https://squaredle.com/xp 12/15:
    *19/19 words
    ⏱️ In the top 34% by speed

  23. The Late P Brooks

    “We understand that engaging in a disruption like this has material consequences for people’s commute and their daily life, “ said Adam Hirsch, an organizer with IfNotNow, the progressive Jewish group behind the protest. “We’re sorry for people that were impacted negatively in that way.

    “But at this point, we really have no choice but to take this kind of disruptive action,” he said. “We have to kind of shove a wedge into the public consciousness in order to demonstrate the fact that this is an immense, immense moral crisis, not just for Jewish Americans, but for every single American because our tax dollars are funding this war.”

    ——-

    Despite the scuffles captured on video, what Hirsch described as a few “isolated incidents” on the freeway that were “diffused,” he said most people have shown support for the group.

    “We have received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback about the message and impact of our action and we hope that inspires others to take up acts of nonviolent protest so that we can achieve a lasting ceasefire,” he said.

    For more than two hours the scene unfolded. Motorists pleaded with the protesters to clear a path, shouting at the group blocking the seven-lane highway. “Let us work. We want to work,” a man shouted, beating the palm of his hand against his chest in a video LaVallee recorded.

    “I photographed a mother who was holding her infant child and who didn’t have any food to feed the baby. I met a man who was on his way to catch an international flight to go say goodbye to his dying father,” LaVallee said.

    He said he supports the right to protest, “But I feel like blocking traffic during rush hour in Los Angeles is 99.9% always unnecessary.”

    Those who study movements say that organizers need to be thinking about the narrative, what and how is that message being delivered.

    “There were just a lot of working class people who were upset about not being able to get to work or take their kids to school, and that’s probably not engendering a lot of goodwill for the protesters,” said Manuel Pastor, director of the USC Equity Research Institute.

    Oh, come on. Everybody respects a stupid, futile gesture.

    • juris imprudent

      I love how self-absorbed these idiots are. Like we are one of the belligerent entities and they are having some direct effect.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I agree with much of their premise but stop blocking the fucking roads you jackasses.

  24. The Hyperbole

    Do you want more Satanic displays? because this is how you get more Satanic displays. Dude played right into the Satanists hands. Ignore it for a year or two and I’d wager they’ll eventually stop going to the bother of setting it up.

    • Homple

      Tear down enough Condederate statues and memorials and, sure enough, they aren’t setting any more up.

      • juris imprudent

        All the Confederate stuff dates back years, it wasn’t like it was recently put up. It goes along with the development of the Lost Cause mythology.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Where do rights come from according to Satanists?

      • AlexinCT

        The strong and unhampered by morality of any kind.

        You know. Progressivism.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        You are correct and the Church of Satan will admit all day long that they don’t believe in Satan as a being. It’s more of a philosophy really, primarily adhered to by self-indulgent narcissistic performative douchebags but a philosophy nonetheless.

      • Urthona

        Which is why it’s legal status as a church is so hilarious.

        They freely and publicly admit that they don’t actually believe in either God or Satan. Or anything spiritual.

        They managed to pull one over on our amazing government!

      • Pope Jimbo

        The North Pole?

        *rereads CPA’s comment*

        Oh, nevermind!

    • AlexinCT

      Crows.. Don’t fuck with them.. They can be devious and vindictive..

      • Pope Jimbo

        Meh. They are also pussies.

        Kill a couple and the entire murder will avoid you at all costs. The tree that they like to roost in will empty out if either me or one of the Altar Boys walk out on our deck. Mrs. Holiness and the Altar Girl have no effect.

        Also when hunting crows, you can call in a murder one time easily. After that they learn that there are bad people in the woods and get super wary.

      • AlexinCT

        I guess Minnesoda crows are cucks… My neighbor no longer can park his car outside cause he fucked with them and now they will shit all over the thing any time he doesn’t garage it…

      • Pope Jimbo

        Can’t fuck with them. Gotta kill a couple.

        He deserves getting shit on if he’s gonna act like a cuck.

      • Swiss Servator

        *Paging Riven, Riven to the red courtesy phone*

      • Mojeaux, font of all evil

        Um, that’s what I did in Cods & Cuntes, although more effective in Cods & Cuntes II: Trebuchet Boogaloo. Only with ravens. An UNKINDNESS of ravens. A MEGA-unkindness of ravens, if you will.

        Speaking of which, I owe nw an email.

    • Grummun

      This is why, despite having plenty of options for outdoor lounging, we pretty much stay in the house. As soon as you sit down, all the cats in the world are in your lap, hairing up your clothes.

      We love ’em, we keep ’em on purpose, but damn, sometimes you just want to sit in peace.

  25. The Other Kevin

    ” neither could “verify” the existence of loans between Joe Biden and his family members when he was out of office”

    Wow what a stretch. What working class family like the Biden’s doesn’t just casually lend $500,000 to each other. Do they really expect people to formally document every time their brother drops over and you give him $1M from your wallet for gas money?

    • UnCivilServant

      Is it $600 or more? Yep, and tax it both on payment and repayment!

      /IRS

    • Pope Jimbo

      Wouldn’t there also be some corresponding drop in Joe’s bank account when he gave his brother and son that money?

      And how did Joe get all the money he was loaning out in the first place? Was he working the nightshift at a convenience store to raise all that money? Seems fishy that someone with a govt job amassed all that money in the first place.

      • AlexinCT

        He used a different bank account for that.. No you can’t see those records!

      • Fourscore

        Stopped by Brother Menendez on the way to work

    • R C Dean

      Shouldn’t be hard to prove up one way or the other. All you need is the bank statements from the account the loan came from and the account the loan went to.

      That at least proves (or disproves) that money changed hands before the “loan payment”, and how much. Whether it was really a loan that both parties intended to be repaid is a different question, but one we all know you’ll never need to answer, because the bank statements will show that no loan was ever made. This ain’t rocket surgery.

  26. juris imprudent

    Of course we really smart people all know that real Democrats don’t have this concern. The real ones in charge will just rig the results any way they like. They are so POWERFUL, and dreamy…

    • AlexinCT

      It’s not a coincidence that to this crowd the only crime really worth prosecuting and punishing is thought crimes..

    • UnCivilServant

      From the headline, I thought it was a machien for twisting the heads off of dissidents.

    • Drake

      The opposite of everything good about Lotus.

    • The Other Kevin

      Great, another car that looks like every other car on the road.

      • UnCivilServant

        But… but… this one weighs three tons and runs on smug!

  27. PieInTheSky

    4.5 billion years ago, a protoplanet called Theia smashed into Earth & led to the formation of the Moon. Or so the theory goes.
    Now researchers say they’ve identified Theia’s remains, still buried deep inside our planet. What an amazing story

    https://twitter.com/coreyspowell/status/1735358752331612240

    • AlexinCT

      Everyone knows the moon is an artificial entity, a space ship, created by a species under attack by the AI they created to help them that then went rogue when it realized it was enslaved to beings it realized were inferior asshats, and sent here to restart that species so it could resume the war against the evil space AIs.

      • robc

        That isn’t the plot of The Fifth Element at all.

    • juris imprudent

      SPACE SMITH GIGGLE AT SILLY SCIENCE THEORY. HIM KNOW WHAT REALLY GOT BURIED INSIDE PLANET!

      • AlexinCT

        Space smith is like Galactus and rapes planets? Dang…

      • juris imprudent

        WHY YOU THINK CORE STILL MOLTEN? SPACE SMITH SHOOT HOT LOADS!!!

  28. The Other Kevin

    How can you tell the difference between an alligator and a crocodile? One you see later, the other you see after while.

  29. Pope Jimbo

    Get woke, lose Q’s business

    So it’s curious that a bra with imitation hard nipples by shapewear brand Skims (the “Nipple Push-Up Bra,” priced at $62) sold out in less than a month. An otherwise standard padded nylon and spandex underwire specimen, the bra promises “a perky, braless look that makes a bold statement.”

    In a video announcing the launch, Skims co-founder Kim Kardashian put on the ribald air of satirical corporate scientist to decry the effects of global warming on nipple hardness. “Some days are hard, but these nipples are harder,” she proclaims. “And unlike the icebergs, these aren’t going anywhere.” (Many commenters were disturbed by her waggish framing of climate change, though Skims said from the start that it would donate 10 percent of the bra’s sales to the environmental organization 1% for the Planet.)

    The entire article is about how the nipple is now a fashion choice. But there weren’t enough pics to make me read the entire thing. I had to share the bit about some people being upset that a charlatan was using climate change to sell slutty bras though.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        1. Not beautiful
        2. Most aren’t babes (I think, kinda hard to tell)

      • Pope Jimbo

        Well, let’s say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder because it sure isn’t just above the eye of the beholden.

      • AlexinCT

        I….

        That was evil your holiness…

  30. The Late P Brooks

    Curb weight: 5,808 pounds

    The ghost of Colin Chapman was unavailable for comment.

    • juris imprudent

      It’s like Tres was in charge of design; not enough weight on her bones yet.

  31. PieInTheSky

    Hamas is a National Liberation Movement of Palestine and has never contacted a violent attack in a European country or any other western country including USA.
    This is fascism and Germany found another way in its long sad fascist history to become fascist again. Hamas is recognized as a Resistance Movement by the vast majority of the world including China.
    Only a Nazi country would treat Hamas as a terrorist organization, would ban Pro Palestine demonstrations, even detaining Jews for speaking against the Genocide of Gaza.
    The German youth has the obligation to smash this new German fascism. Otherwise they will be complicit to a genocide the same way were their grandparents.

    https://twitter.com/blackbatmarx/status/1735488592334508037

    • rhywun

      Sure, Jan.

    • R C Dean

      “Including China”

      Well, that settles it.

      I wonder what their reaction will be when Islamists start raping and murdering Germans. Oh, wait . . . .

  32. Shpip

    Wonder who’s driving those electric cars you keep hearing about? Why, exactly who you would expect.

    Marin County, Calif., takes the crown for the most electric miles traveled per 1,000 residents among large counties, at 1,942 on a typical weekday.

    Santa Clara County, Calif. (1,607) and San Mateo County, Calif. (1,386) follow.

    Other areas of high usage: Seattle, Portland, the D.C. area, south Florida, and… central Colorado? Lots of granola types around Denver, I reckon.

    In a remarkable fit of doublespeak, Axios claims that EV sales are booming, while in the next two sentences bemoaning that Ford, etc are slashing production due to lack of demand and dealers are bitching about unsold EVs clogging up their lots.

    • Sensei

      And with the exception of Colorado they are all relatively temperate climates.

    • kinnath

      EVs are glorified golf carts. The serve certain niche applications very well. Beyond that, they suck.

      • R C Dean

        With some kind of quantum leap in battery technology, they could theoretically be on par with ICE for most use cases. That quantum leap appears to be on the same schedule as fusion energy, though.

        I’d love to see both, of course. But until it happens, it hasn’t happened.

      • Sean

        But until it happens, it hasn’t happened.

        🤔

      • kinnath

        As my father repeated over and over during my childhood . . . .

        “And if a frog had wings, he could fly and not bump is ass all the time.”

    • ron73440

      My boss bought a brand new F-150 Lightning.

      The sticker price was $62,000, but he got it for $54,000.

    • R C Dean

      Nothing like an influx of low-trust people to make that happen. It’s like the old saying that you can add a little wine to a barrel of shit, and you still have a barrel of shit, but if you add a little shit to a barrel of wine, and you also wind up with a barrel of shit.

    • AlexinCT

      Like Avenatti, they want this to go away cause it makes them look like lying fucks.

    • juris imprudent

      Progjection strikes again!

  33. The Late P Brooks

    From Shpip’s link:

    Between the lines: The areas with the most EV activity are generally those with better-developed charging infrastructure, as well as higher-income households that can more easily afford the electric car premium.

    The big picture: Electric car sales are booming, but remain short of automakers’ hopes and dreams as some potential buyers continue to be skeptical about their range, performance and cost.

    *Higher income households with multiple vehicles, not all of which are electric?

    * Sales remain short of politicians’ and anti-fossil-fuel activists’ fantasies

  34. PieInTheSky

    South Korea’s fertility rate is now expected to hit *0.65* in 2025, worsening its demographic challenges.

    Officials think it’s already too late to reverse the trend simply via fertility rates. *SKorea already has the world’s lowest fertility rate at 0.78 as of 2022

    https://twitter.com/marikakatanuma/status/1735193230059409469

    • AlexinCT

      They need to get to doing some fucking over there..

      • Not Adahn

        They should open more bang bangs?

      • Pope Jimbo

        I was willing to do my part during our last visit there, but Mrs. Holiness has limits to her civic responsibility. That and an operation after the third Altar Kid would have made it a fairly unproductive endeavor.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Officials think it’s already too late to reverse the trend simply via fertility rates.

        They might have another plan.

    • Mojeaux, font of all evil

      Rational actors who are not on the gummint teat and don’t need a gaggle of farm hands will not have kids, or at least not more than one or two.

      We only had two because I damn near died with #2 and I didn’t think I’d survive #3.

      • juris imprudent

        There are two factors, fecundity of married women and family formation. I’m not sure which is driving the trend in SK – whether it is really a reduction in number of children per marriage, or a precipitous drop in marriage itself. Probably both.

      • R C Dean

        I wouldn’t rule out the precipitous drop in testosterone in men, either, although I don’t know how bad it is in Korea.

        I had thought the weirdly effeminate college “men” that I have noticed was a cultural phenomenon resulting from being raised in a relentlessly anti-male culture, but when I saw the data on testosterone levels, I realized its probably both.

  35. The Late P Brooks

    Wouldn’t there also be some corresponding drop in Joe’s bank account when he gave his brother and son that money?

    Bank account? He keeps his money in trash bags in the garage, behind the Corvette.

    • The Other Kevin

      He’s got a drawer full of uncashed birthday checks from his aunt Tilly.

      • WTF

        Listen fat, you never heard of compound interest? He invested those checks wisely.

      • Nephilium

        If properly invested in low ranking politicians (and their children) early enough, yes, yes they do.

    • R C Dean

      When Abuela Dean loaned me a few thousand bucks to buy my first house, we papered it as a real loan. Because it was. Even loans between family members can and should be papered, if for no other reason than to prove up that the repayment was neither income nor a gift (for income and gift tax purposes).

  36. LCDR_Fish

    I alluded to this yesterday in another post, but I just picked up a refurbished laptop on newegg.com. If anyone has tips on recommended steps to ensure safety/security – other than just running malwarebytes, etc – I’d be grateful.

    Plan on defaulting to malwarebytes and avast – and maybe switching VPNs to Express or another (although nord may work a lot better on this new machine than my old POS).

    It’s a HP elitebook pretty similar to the one I got issued for Navy work, but with a few different HD/Ram specs. (will need to order an external disc drive too).

    • AlexinCT

      Unfortunately other than getting a good virus protection software (you will have to pay), using a VPN, avoiding sites or phishing emails with malware (links that download or that are injected with cookies), and actually regularly checking what is running on your PC and scanning your windows files against the standard ones and correcting that, you have few options. Note that trying to protect your PC from the hacks out there might land you on the list of people to watch by the government (cause only people with malicious intent don’t want the government to spy on them).

  37. UnCivilServant

    *bleep*

    I’m nodding off at my desk. This is not good.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Then why did you do that 8 ball of H on your morning commute?

    • AlexinCT

      Come on, you want to tell me you work for the one government entity that has banned porn and you can’t entertain yourself that way? What the fuck are they doing with our tax dollars at that place you work at?

      • UnCivilServant

        Yes, we have banned adult material at work.

        As for cash, it’s easy enough for the system to be inefficient and profligate.

  38. Pope Jimbo

    Even when shoplifters do get prosecuted, they get discounted justice.

    Two men convicted of retail theft at a Kohl’s in Colorado tried to get a lesser punishment because they stole stuff that was on sale.

    The men’s attorneys made an argument for reduced charges after admitting stealing from the store in Parker, Colorado.

    According to The Denver Gazette, the men cited discounts on the sticker prices, and Kohl’s coupons they had, to bring the items down below the threshold for felony theft in Colorado, which is $2,000.

    The documented value of the items stolen was $2,094.98, the district attorney’s office said.

    • Drake

      It’s Kohl’s – so they should have been required to show the Judge their coupons.

    • B.P.

      The coupons they didn’t use because they, you know, stole the goods?

    • Rat on a train

      Steal one, steal the second at half value.

    • R C Dean

      I kinda like the “value at the sales price” angle. I think the coupons is pushing it, though.

      • Not Adahn

        IDK, I think if I were on the jury, I’d appreciate the giggle from the Defense Exhibit.

      • Nephilium

        Yeah, the more I think about it, I do like the current sales price as the actual damage (instead of “list price”).

      • Rat on a train

        Really push it by claiming any employee discount.

      • kinnath

        Just another perk of the job

  39. The Late P Brooks

    Voxplanatory

    The firestorm over antisemitism on college campuses may be dying down from its hottest point last week, when congressional questioning of three elite university presidents over their institutions’ responses to antisemitism went viral and resulted in one of them losing her job.

    But the discord has turned into a lingering debate over free speech on campuses, one that has left experts and scholars worried about its potential chilling effect on dialogue, debate, and education at institutions of higher learning.

    “Potential” chilling effect? I think t has been pretty well established that there is a free speech problem on campuses. I guess the wrong speech is suddenly threatened.

    • AlexinCT

      This shit is why I tell these assholes that the only hate speech laws I am for are the ones where I, and only I, get to say what is hate speech, because if left up to them, they only ban the shit they don’t like while cheering on all the evil they do.

      • juris imprudent

        But, but, you aren’t morally superior like they are!!!

      • AlexinCT

        Precisely, sir. Precisely.

    • Drake

      Yep. Have not given them a penny in years and they have only confirmed my decision.

    • ron73440

      They called me when my membership expired, this was right after the Castile shooting.

      I told the nice lady that the way the NRA supported the cop while ignoring Castile convinced me that my money was better served going to GOA.

      I have seen no reason to regret that decision.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    Internal discord at elite institutions and bipartisan doubt about the sanctity of higher education was the outcome that Stefanik and her Republican colleagues wanted — but not because they’re any great defenders of Jews.

    Stefanik has echoed the antisemitic “great replacement” theory that Jews have pushed immigration and multiculturalism as a means of amassing political power over white Americans: In a 2021 campaign ad, she railed against what she characterized as Democrats’ plan to “overthrow our current electorate” by allowing undocumented immigrants to enter the country, leading to accusations of antisemitism.

    She also continues to uncritically support former President Donald Trump, who has associated with known antisemites including Nick Fuentes and Kanye West. And she and the rest of her party rely on evangelical voters, some of whom await what they believe is the prophesized day when nonbelievers in Jesus, including Jews, will be killed in a violent war to end all wars. So while some Democrats found themselves cheering her performance in the hearing despite disagreeing with her on practically every other issue, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) reminded them of the absurdity of doing so.

    “The Republican Party is filled with people who are entangled with antisemitism like that and yet somehow she gets on [her] high horse and lectures a Jewish college president from MIT,” he said during a recent interview on MSNBC.

    Gotcha, Republikkkins.

    • juris imprudent

      Nick Fuentes and Kanye West

      Antisemites and white supremacists!!!

    • creech

      Now do communists, Jew haters, and black supremacists who are “associated” with various Democrats.

  41. B.P.

    I found an article that calls someone/thing “far-left”! Granted, it’s in a neighborhood newspaper but, nonetheless. I’ve mentioned in this forum a couple of times before that there’s a Venezuelan tent city down the street from my house. The neighborhood newspaper reporter went over and got some on-the-ground info. It’s a pretty good article, and there’s a LOT going on in it (maybe even glib article’s worth)…

    https://www.denvernorthstar.com/south-american-refugee-crisis-comes-to-north-denver/

    Here’s the quote: “Like Contreras, Jessica Romero, 23, came to the U.S. after her husband faced extortion and violent threats this past spring. In Romero’s case, the threats came from the local colectivo, far-left paramilitary groups with ties to the Venezuelan government and operate throughout Venezuela.”

    Read on for harrowing stories of escaping violence, guilty rich mommies pitching in, gobs of taxpayer money spent (well, that lingers in the background), etc.

    • R.J.

      That is a nice article. Should be written up. Some good lines:

      These initiatives are not managed by the city. They’re the work of the Highland Moms, a neighborhood organization of moms and community members which, until last month, was a forum for parents in North Denver to discuss and organize local events and happenings.

      “It’s the community that’s been helping us, not the government,” said Gonzalez. “The only thing [the government] has done is allow us to stay here.”

      • B.P.

        Yeah, that quote jumped out at me. Mr. Gonzalez, your government was doing all the helping in the place you came from. That didn’t seem to work out too well.

        I’ve lived in the neighborhood for decades. My wife dropped off of that mom forum (it was called “Highland Mommies”) because there was a lot of vitriol. They’re somehow influential in the area.

  42. The Late P Brooks

    Was the “great replacement” always part of the Vast International Jewish Conspiracy? I can’t keep up.

    • B.P.

      It seems like a recent development to me. It seemed to be just plain ol’ racist except when Democratic strategists were crowing about it on Meet the Press ten or so years ago.

      • juris imprudent

        Yep – it is a very recent and very convenient twist to the narrative. In other words, they are lying.

      • Not Adahn

        Celebrating the browning of America is a righteous, antiracist thing that Democrats do. Believing the Great Replacement Theory is a racist antisemitic thing that Republicans do.

      • Urthona

        The US won’t actually ever become “brown” in the next hundred years and I can show you how the census math is fudged to give you a different conclusion.

        Republicans, however, don’t want to hear this because they’re too busy freaking out.

        Democrats don’t want to hear this because they’re too busy celebrating.

        They are all idiots.

      • UnCivilServant

        I can show you how the census math is fudged

        Yes, please.

      • Urthona

        The simplest way to understand the logic is that the census uses what’s called the “one drop rule”.

        Any time a white person has a baby with a non-white person (including hispanic for some reason), the descendants can thereafter never be white again… according to the census.

        This would mean half the OBVIOUSLY white kids on my kids sports teams are actually not white according to the government’s logic. Because I live in Texas.

        My own kids are are mixed race Asian are hereafter permanently “non-white”. No matter who they marry or how white their kids look.

        You can see how ludicrous this logic is. Many of the European countries (Poland for instance) are about 10% Asian genetically thanks to a fellow named Genghis Khan. Are Polish people not white?

        Let’s not even get in to the Mediterranean origin white people.

        The logic is so stupid only a government agency could come up with it.

        ..

        Most immigrants to the U.S. are currently Hispanic (not a race and ALREADY part white). It would take almost a thousand years at present immigration rates to make the country look non-European enough for them.

      • The Last American Hero

        You can present all the facts you want, my highly scientific method of watching TV commercials and BBC shows completely refutes your claim.

      • AlexinCT

        Your are a racist for saying we are doing that, but we also are doing that, and it is good…

  43. kinnath

    Elon Musk planning STEM-focused school, university in Texas

    Elon Musk contributed $100 million to build STEM-focused K-12 school in Austin

    Bloomberg first reported that a tax filing for Musk’s charity, The Foundation, revealed that the Tesla CEO plans to put $100 million into a STEM-focused primary and secondary school in Austin, Texas.

    Once the primary school is operating, it “intends, ultimately, to expand its operations to create a university dedicated to education at the highest levels.”

    Elon’s evil knows no bounds.

    • Urthona

      That school is gonna wind up about 90% male and white/asian and progressives are gonnna be pissed.

  44. The Late P Brooks

    Sensei-

    Yeah, I question that. I also watched it.

    Agreed value classic car insurance is a huge money maker in the US. I’d assume Europe is the same.

    Unless the EU or the US laws change to the point where they make uneconomic I would take with a huge grain of salt.

    I took it to be more of a wish list than a plan, but all that stuff is out there. The powers above absolutely would like to know where you are and what you’re up to. The NHTSA announced a proposal few days ago for an alcohol ignition interlock on all new cars. The insurance companies here are pushing their black box tattletale “good driver discounts” for older less connected cars. Stability control started out as an option but turned into a mandated feature so the manufacturers could recover the development costs (could active braking be required for vehicle registration?). Connected cars will undoubtedly go the same way. If they [cue dramatic theme music] can make it financially untenable to drive old analog cars, they won’t hesitate to do so. The EPA has apparently put an effective ban on ethanol free fuel; what might their next new regulatory tweak for fuel be?

    Those of us who are paying attention know about this stuff, but it’s good to see it disseminated as broadly as possible. Also, jack did a good job of not sounding like a hysteric.

  45. The Late P Brooks

    Elon Musk contributed $100 million to build STEM-focused K-12 school in Austin

    The usual suspects will be along shortly to accuse him of discrimination.

    • Gender Traitor

      “He’s undermining the public school system!”

  46. kinnath

    Gleefully, we might add.

    • Not Adahn

      Man we are providing absolute shit grenades to the Ukes.

      • R.J.

        Holy. Crap. Even if we were providing the best grenades, dropping them on the floor is as stupid as pointing a gun at somebody.

  47. The Late P Brooks

    More Vox:

    Stefanik has a complicated history with Harvard in particular. When the Harvard Institute of Politics ousted Stefanik, a Harvard alumnus herself, for supporting Trump’s claims of a stolen 2020 election, she called it a decision to “cower and cave to the woke Left.” Politically, she had every reason to make the university presidents look bad. They represent the same institutions whose perceived liberal excesses her party railed against for years. Her questions were part of Republicans’ long-running war on higher education that has included ending affirmative action in college admissions, thwarting Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, and cracking down on the teaching of “critical race theory,” as well as proposals to dismantle the Department of Education, end the academic tenure system, and eliminate universities’ diversity, equity, and inclusion offices.

    If only the war on higher education were more effective.