Sunday Morning Paper Chasing Links

by | Jan 14, 2024 | Daily Links | 134 comments

Until preparing for my classes this week, I had forgotten or blocked out all the bullshit that went with them. As much as I need to review and write out for lecture material I haven’t seen since Gerald Ford was president, I’m having to put tons of documentation together on class rules, organization, grading, educational gibberish (charts of learning outcomes, core values, assessments for each topic), and implementation of university DEI policies. That’s leaving very little time for dumb things like partition functions, Boltzmann’s equations, kinetic theories, and other colonialist oppressive science. I’ll likely forget all this once classes start up and I take actual students with skulls full of mush and turn them into scientists.

What I will not forget are birthdays, and we have a slew of them today, including the inventor of the Orange Julius; a guy who let his Anglophilia get the best of him; the pioneer of my favorite art form; a guy who has worn out the quotation machines; the guy who basically invented American movie comedy; a guy who paved the way for Ernest Borgnine; the guy who paved the way for westernsloper; Daddy who would give you the car; a grifter who ended up being outgrifted by a true master; a lovely bonnie lass; a guy with whom I have a weird family connection; a woman who made NPR what it is today; and the best living advertisement for edibles.

Now, class, we shall turn to today’s topic, Links.

 

“Bipartisan” is Latin for handing over your wallet at gunpoint.

 

Mojeaux breaks out the sparkling grape juice while Nephilium contemplates suicide.

 

Why SP would never allow so-called “smart” appliances in the house.

 

All the lefties I know are cheering this on. I mean, you only protest for a cease fire when it’s Jews.

 

I’m sure after this, they all went home and fretted about January 6.

 

Why does every bit of this story reek of bullshit? And there’s not even a hint of questioning the plausibility.

 

There’s a double twinge of melancholy here: SP and I had front row seats to see John Mayall, and it was a memorable evening for both of us. And the lead guitarist on this song is the guy who got us together (and, by the way, pioneered the two hand tapping style of play which brought van Halen the riches). All that aside, this is terrific blues, and just the right mood for how The Old Man is feeling.

 

About The Author

Old Man With Candy

Old Man With Candy

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

134 Comments

  1. SDF-7

    Morning, OMWC — I presume you don’t have a grad student to farm out the paperwork to.

    “Bipartisan” is Latin for handing over your wallet at gunpoint.

    Narrator: “Given the ‘bipartisan’ Senate immigration package pitched Friday, we also would have accepted: ‘Both sides bending you over and parting your ass cheeks…’ ”

    Hey, Stupid Party — you’re supposedly in control of the House. The House is supposedly supposed to originate the federal budget… have you even considered doing that and stopping with all these stupid continuous resolutions? (Honestly at this point, I’m wondering if there’s some calculus that it actually stirs up the fanatical base somehow in the style of those “SEND MONEY NOW OR YOU ARE DOOOOOOMED!” idiotic emails they also love sending out. I can’t imagine it doing anything but mentally exhausting the country — but I think it is a safe bet that we don’t think like most of the country (or they’d all be here too…)).

    • Old Man With Candy

      The TAs are fine for grading, running labs, and stuff like that. Doing “educational” documentation is not in their skill set- they’re at least 5 years away from mastering the art of generating useless boilerplate.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      All we have to do is give them the Senate and the Presidency too, then they’ll really get to work. You know, just like the time they had control of everything and they cheesed it on Obamacare. With few exceptions they’re a bunch of controlled opposition full-of-shit twats.

      • juris imprudent

        Oh yes, I remember those glory days – the decimation of the bureaucracy, the closing of the Dept of Education. Ah, what fine memories.

      • slumbrew

        The scourging of the EPA administrators was my favorite bit.

      • hayeksplosives

        To be fair, Trump did issue some EOs that scaled back EPA’s excesses.

        But EOs are easy to negate with new EOs, and that’s just what Biden did.

      • juris imprudent

        Not ONCE did the Republican Congress and President agree to even just freezing spending. At their absolute best, they slowed down the increase.

      • Fourscore

        Bipartisan = Compromise= half way between 2 bad ideas

      • Don escaped Texas

        full-of-shit twats

        DJT47 will drain the swamp!
        Why didn’t DJT45 drain the swamp?
        It’s ImPoSiBLe!!!11.1?!: the swamp is too powerful!

        well okay then; throwing my vote away ’24

      • DrOtto

        He’s going to give Bill Barr a stern talking-to this time before he appoints him.

  2. Grumbletarian

    I’m sure after this, they all went home and fretted about January 6.

    No, they’re probably all sitting in jail now and will be there for the next two years waiting for their show trial to begin.

  3. Stinky Wizzleteats

    “smart appliances”-Thet’s a no go for me too. I saw Maximum Overdrive, I know what’s up.

    • DrOtto

      We recently bought a dishwasher. It was marked down $500 because it wasn’t a smart appliance. Apparently, idiots want them. My wife agrees with me on not wanting smart appliances.

      • Lackadaisical

        That’s incredible.

        I would pay$500 extra for not having any dumb gadgets attached to my useful appliance.

  4. Gender Traitor

    a woman who made NPR what it is today

    Susan Stamberg bristles. Oh, wait – that wasn’t meant as a compliment was it?

    • Tres Cool

      Other than the comedic value in NPR news, Terry Gross is almost tolerable.

  5. SDF-7

    Why SP would never allow so-called “smart” appliances in the house.

    Same. The TV is “smart” (because you can’t find anything else these days), but I never gave it Wifi credentials or plugged in a cable (and yes, I check the router from time to time).

    Of course, these days they probably embed cellular modems in there or some other screwed up crap. The spying, the likelihood of it being an attack vector (because IoT never solved the security issues… manufacturers never fully secure things, and hackers are very very good at finding those “default ports” and “test logins” and whatnot) and either infecting the rest of your LAN or burning crypto or whatnot… for little or no actual benefit… I just don’t get it, honestly.

    Home automation I can see in some cases (particularly traveling) — but not most major appliances, and for that — it should be with local control / setup, verifiable logins, etc. Ah well… get off my cyber law, script kiddies!

    • rhywun

      “Smart” TV makes sense, at least.

      I can’t get Pluto without attaching the thing to Wi-Fi.

      • SDF-7

        That’s what the AppleTV box is for. Apple’s a bit better when it comes to privacy. I’d just set up some kind of stripped down Plex box or whatnot, but I’ve been in that ecosystem for some time and lethargy is a thing. They haven’t f’d up badly enough to push me away yet.

      • rhywun

        I had one back in my Mac days but it died.

      • Grummun

        We’ve got a Mac Mini connected to the “stereo” receiver via HDMI, and the dumb TV* is a video output from that receiver. Everything we watch is through a regular browser on the Mac, we don’t have any of the service specific apps. We have discovered that some streaming services like some browsers better than others (Prime, Netflix and Philo are happy with Safari, but Discovery+ really wants Chrome). Downside, if you see it that way, is that we have to keep bluetooth track pad on the coffee table to run the Mac Mini.

        *Still rocking a Panasonic plasma that we bought at the same time as the HD-DVD player. One of those purchases paid off.

      • CPRM

        I use an air mouse when I’m mousing on the tv. Works like a wii controller and has a keyboard to boot. Although the TV is too far away for me to read anything I type.

    • SDF-7

      She smelleth? PDQ Bach channeling a little Shakespeare Sonnet 130 there?

      And probably just because of my taste in musicals — was expecting this one.

  6. rhywun

    implementation of university DEI policies

    You’re going to flunk all the white males?

    • SDF-7

      He’s going to have to burn 90% of each class denoting who owned each grain of sand going into the glass mix.

  7. Tres Cool

    whaddup doh’
    yo whats goody yo

    /going back to bed since Jugsy’s puppy didnt let anyone sleep all night

    • SDF-7

      Well, there’s a euphemism I don’t think we’ve had ’round these parts before.

      I hope you gave Jugsy’s puppy a good pet, tired it out and both end up getting some sleep.

  8. Ted S.

    Why does every bit of this story reek of bullshit? And there’s not even a hint of questioning the plausibility.

    Delta-9, what’s that flower you have on?

    • Fourscore

      Well, I laughed, even as I wait for the bus.

  9. Don escaped Texas

    John Mayall

    It’s amazing where Brits took American music in the sixties. I don’t know the technical history of it all: there’s all this talk of skiffle and blues. But still with English you sometimes hear this other lutish stuff, almost court music….Mayall does in the clip provided. Page as well: in Going to California, do you hear toothless hillbillies or do you hear lutes echoing through the castle?

      • Don escaped Texas

        we’ll pull that up some time

  10. The Gunslinger

    I don’t remember how much the Fani Willis debacle has been discussed here but it keeps getting worse. Not only was Fani fucking the ambulance chasing married prosecutor she hired, and paid $653,000, and took tropical cruises with, and whose divorce proceeding she is being called to testify at. Good old Nathan billed time for meeting White House council and traveling to visit the White House.

    https://statelymcdanielmanor.wordpress.com/2024/01/13/fani-willis-is-there-an-honest-politician-in-georgia/

    There’s a link in there to the actual motion to dismiss.

    • SDF-7

      Yeah, as I recall the reporting it was something along the lines of:

      Fani’s boy toy comes to Washington, meets with the J6 Committee and the Biden WH — two days later, Fani starts her RICO case and Jack Smith is appointed special prosecutor (or whatever).

      Noooooo… no collusion and orders from the White House to prosecute a political opponent there… perish the thought!

      So yeah — kind of hoping the idiotic “Bang a defense attorney who has never run a RICO case in his life, give him a super-prominent RICO case out of nowhere so you can funnel money for your Love Boat adventures to him” ends up getting all this dragged out into the open.

      Of course — these days — “And nothing else happened” lurks ominously on the horizon.

      • juris imprudent

        Does the Georgia AG have a pair of balls [literal or metaphorical] by chance?

    • rhywun

      I mean, is anyone surprised? I’m not.

      • The Gunslinger

        I’m a firm believer in ‘and nothing else happened ‘. But she has to be disbarred at a minimum, right?

      • creech

        Or made the next Vice President.

  11. rhywun

    All the lefties I know are cheering this on. I mean, you only protest for a cease fire when it’s Jews.

    Really? In NYC the pro-Hamas crowds are doing double duty as pro-Houthi.

    • SDF-7

      Yeah — I thought the Squad was pretty adamantly “Thou Shalt No Kill Muslims” on both fronts.

    • Grumbletarian

      There’s a picture of a guy holding up a watermelon to the crowd. The caption under it says watermelons have become a symbol for Palestine.

      I don’t get the reference. Unless they think Israel = Gallagher.

      • SDF-7

        Green, Red, White — they think it evokes the flag.

        That it also is a known symbol in America for commies hiding under the veneer of eco-policies is, I strongly suspect, their thumbing their nose at us to boot.

      • rhywun

        Yeah, I doubt actual Arabs would have made that connection. It probably came from the commie contingent that dominates those protests.

    • R C Dean

      I do like the framing of the protesters as “Pro-Palestinian”. I think “Pro-Hamas” would be more accurate.

      • slumbrew

        “Anti-American” works, in general.

    • slumbrew

      I know I shouldn’t be but I am somewhat shocked by how quickly the events October 7 have been memory holed in some quarters.

      Those devilish Israelis just attacked Gaza for no reason.

      • R C Dean

        I haven’t ventured into the pro-Hamas fever swamps, but I gather that a fair number of their supporters just flat out deny that Hamas invaded Israel on October 7 to murder, rape, and kidnap Jews. How they square this with the pro-Hamas contingent that celebrates the invasion of Israel on October 7 to murder, rape, and kidnap Jews, or the extensive real-time video of events, I have no clue.

      • slumbrew

        “ it was actually the Israelis who killed and raped their own citizens” is out there, too.

        Never mind, as you say, Hamas videos showing them doing those things and celebrating it.

      • DEG

        “ it was actually the Israelis who killed and raped their own citizens”

        It’s not that far-fetched.

        There was this oopsie of IDF soldiers shooting a hero who stopped a Hamas terror attack because the IDF soldiers thought he was a Hamas terrorist.

        I saw the video of the shooting. There’s a still in the linked article. The hero that stopped the Hamas attack was on his knees with his hands in the air before the Israeli soldiers entered the video frame. They then gun him down.

        You also have this.

      • slumbrew

        Those are quite a bit different than “Hamas didn’t do anything, it was all the IDF/Mossad”, which is one the crazier things you’ll hear (e.g., at that Oakland city council meeting).

      • DEG

        Yes I know there’s crazy things out there.

        I’m saying some aren’t that far fetched.

      • Don escaped Texas

        There are two general problems.

        A/ Unprincipled actors have an oversized and loud presence in politics and in media: they are evil.

        B/ The voting populace enjoys drama in and of itself and are fairly ignorant of both past and present: they are children.

        I don’t see how we can save ourselves from either of these issues. I’m just going to mostly ignore it and, from time to time, talk principle when I think someone will listen. It’s not healthy to boil over these things all the times, and that’s just too easy to do: we’re surrounded by nonsense. Others with kids at home and more to lose will remain passionate, but I’m old: I will drink my hemlock when it is forced on me.

  12. SDF-7

    Been an hour — so posting these (tolerable, not great) results before I go mess with Fallout 4 again (found an interesting Enclave mod that I’m working through..)

    I played https://squaredle.com/xp 01/14:
    *23/23 words (+3 bonus words)
    🎯 Perfect accuracy

    I played https://squaredle.com 01/14:
    *69/69 words (+7 bonus words)
    🎯 In the top 8% by accuracy
    🔥 Solve streak: 184

    • rhywun

      One of the seven-letter words is not real which gave me trouble, hmph.

      I played https://squaredle.com/xp 01/14:
      23/23 words (+2 bonus words)

    • Sean

      I played https://squaredle.com/xp 01/14:
      23/23 words (+5 bonus words)
      📖 In the top 13% by bonus words

      I played https://squaredle.com 01/14:
      69/69 words (+18 bonus words)
      📖 In the top 22% by bonus words
      🔥 Solve streak: 112

  13. LCDR_Fish

    We may get some snow today or tomorrow here in coastal VA. If it sticks tomorrow night there’s a good chance they’ll cancel classes on base again Tues….

    In other local news I have slowly been socializing more locally- our church men’s group has started a monthly game night in addition to the monthly Sat AM breakfast. A nice option to meet more folks and have some fun. Learned Dominion and a couple other games last night.

    • juris imprudent

      Snow squalls in these parts – coming down heavy and fast but won’t amount to much.

  14. Brawndo

    The lefties I know are pro-Palestinian because Israel is an apartheid state, not because they hate Jews. But the lefties I know also aren’t the kind you see on TV burning shit down or throwing things at synagogues.

    • R C Dean

      How do they square the circle of being pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel, but not anti-Jew, with the professed Palestinian goal of the genocide/ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Middle East (for starters)?

      • Brawndo

        Hasn’t Palestinian leadership said they would accept 1967 borders? I don’t know if that is still supported, and I wouldn’t be surprised if support for that is deteriorating. The longer Israel continues an apartheid state, the harder it becomes to come to a peaceful solution. But like the national debt, you can’t keep it up forever, you have to bite the bullet at some point.

      • slumbrew

        Hamas’ charter calls for the elimination of the state of Israel.

        “apartheid state” is a wild overstatement. About 20% of Israeli citizens are Arabs. 10 of the 120 Knesset members are Arabs. That’s nothing like apartheid-era South Africa.

      • rhywun

        They’ve been offered the “two-state solution” several times and rejected it each time.

      • juris imprudent

        No, the Palestinian leadership has said accepting the two-state solution is suicide – for the leadership. They may be right, but it would at least be a just martyrdom.

    • Suthenboy

      No one has explained to me the details of how Israel is an apartheid state.

      “…square the circle…” <— Get a load of this guy. They hate western civilization of which Israel is a part. They are fucking savages. They dont square anything. They talk out of both sides of their mouths like you draw breath.

      • Brawndo

        A state where a group of people doesn’t have the rights of everyone else works for me as a definition. Yes I realize that would include lots of other states all over the world and through time.

      • Suthenboy

        What rights do Israelis have that Arabs dont?

        I am not being facetious, I really dont know.

      • Old Man With Candy

        None. Arab citizens have equal rights in all respects. If “apartheid” means “treating non-citizens differently,” then every single country in the world is apartheid.

        Interestingly, in Israel, a Jew can freely sell property to a Muslim. In the Palestinian territories, a Muslim selling property to a Jew is subject to the death penalty. Population of Israeli Arabs in Israel is about 20% of the total. Jews are, of course, absolutely forbidden to live in or even enter the PA-run territories (much less the Hamas-run ones).

        A true pro-Palestinian protest would call for the end of Hamas and the liberation of their people from the PLO kleptocracy. Labeling pro-Hamas protests as “pro-Palestinian” is typical journalistic dishonesty.

      • Suthenboy

        Thank you. That’s about what I thought. This ‘apartheid state’ business is a lie on par with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
        I am always puzzled by Jew-hate but I think Sowell put it straight when asked “What would Jews have to do for people not to hate them so much?”
        His answer “Fail”

      • grrizzly

        Most countries don’t control militarily big chunks of the territory where non-citizens live and prevent those non-citizens from creating their independent country. The two-state solution is a sham. Israel doesn’t want it. Palestinians don’t want it either. And as a single state, Greater Israel/Palestine can be Jewish only as an apartheid state simply because of demographics. I’m not sure why it’s difficult to grasp.

      • prolefeed

        By that definition of “apartheid state”, and the treatment of BLM or antifa protesters versus J6 protesters – guess which country is an apartheid state?

      • R C Dean

        “A state where a group of people doesn’t have the rights of everyone elsel

        Like when non-citizen immigrants don’t have the same rights as citizens? I think it needs a little more than that to be thrown in the same bucket as pre-ANC South Africa.

  15. The Gunslinger

    We’ve gotten in excess of 12″ of snow this weekend over here. Thankfully, the old John Deere made light work of it. Helped push a neighbor out of the end of a driveway this morning. I think his Suburban is having issues with the 4wd. It was clicking pretty loud and he wasn’t in much snow.

    • rhywun

      “Snow squall” here. I haven’t heard that one in a while but it’s really coming down.

  16. The Late P Brooks

    once classes start up and I take actual students with skulls full of mush and turn them into scientists.

    The so called scientific method is just racist patriarchal oppression.

    • Suthenboy

      I have heard about that. And the ‘other ways of knowing things’ about ignoramuses. They have their truth but you are not allowed to have. your own.

  17. DEG

    Johnie’s initial screenshot showed that on a chosen day, the device uploaded 3.57GB and downloaded about 100MB, and the data traffic was almost constant.

    A couple gig there, a couple gig here, and pretty soon you’re talking real data!

  18. The Late P Brooks

    I was doing something recently which called up the list of available wireless networks or access points. Somebody’s LG refrigerator was on it.

    • Fourscore

      My smart TV doesn’t even know what channel I want, ’til I push a button.

      My old girlfriend was smarter than that.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    NYT headline:

    How College Educated Republicans Learned to Love Trump Again

    It’s a dadgum mystery, it is. I guess they’re just too stupid to see how much Joe Biden has done for them.

    • rhywun

      LOL if Biden loses any of the “college educated” vote he’s done.

      • Sensei

        From a skim of the article they mean amongst registered or claimed Republicans, not population as a whole.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Not if they cheat.

      • creech

        Well Dr. Jill’s husband is now ahead in PA polls in important swing state due, according to the tea leaf readers, because even more college educated suburban women are scared of Hitler and some blue collar types are believing Joe’s wild spending is creating new middle class jobs.

  20. The Late P Brooks

    Hottest year in the history of the planet, people. Winter is no more; just a legend, told by old crones around the camp fire.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Weather isn’t climate dumbass.
      *goes back to huffing my own farts*

  21. The Late P Brooks

    Blood sucking parasites

    It was a white T-shirt bearing the likeness of Snoopy wearing shades and leaning effortlessly against the iconic American Red Cross logo that prompted a surge in blood donations in the spring of 2023.

    “Be cool. Give blood,” the shirt urged. The message — on young people, anyway — was effective. More than 70,000 people under age 35 responded to the call, rolling up their sleeves and giving blood in exchange for the coveted tees.

    The need for blood is urgent. Over the holidays, the Red Cross had 7,000 fewer units of blood available than were needed by hospitals, said Dr. Eric Gehrie, the executive medical director of the American Red Cross. The organization speculated it would need about 8,000 additional donations every week in January to ensure that hospitals are fully supplied, he added.

    Fuck the Red Cross.

    • Sensei

      I thought they were a POS before 9/11. This confirmed it for me.

      “What’s at issue here is that a special fund was established for these families. It was specially funded for this event, September 11,” said Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-Louisiana.

      “And it is being closed now because we are told enough money’s been raised in it, but we’re also being told, by the way, we’re going to give two-thirds of it away to other Red Cross needs.”

      https://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/11/06/rec.charity.hearing/index.html

  22. The Late P Brooks

    Terrible news

    US climate envoy John Kerry plans to step down from his post by this spring, a source close to Kerry confirmed to CNN.

    Kerry is leaving the position after three years at the helm of US climate diplomacy under the Biden administration. The source close to Kerry said he will still attend the World Economic Forum in January and is expected to attend the Munich Security Conference in February.

    The 80-year-old former secretary of state and Democratic nominee for president led US negotiations at three international climate summits, the most recent of which was held in Dubai.

    Kerry specifically prioritized restarting international climate talks between the US and China, and was key in negotiating the November Sunnylands agreement, a wide-ranging climate agreement between the two countries before COP28.

    Axios first reported Kerry was stepping down and intends to join the Biden campaign. CNN has reached out to the Biden campaign and the White House for comment.

    It just goes from bad to worse.

    Kerry will spearhead the drive to recruit young voters, no doubt.

    • rhywun

      climate talks between the US and China

      Pooh: “We will continue to build as many coal plants as we fucking want.”
      Kerry: “Okay.”

      • prolefeed

        More like,

        Pooh: “We will meet these climate goals. Make sure you hold up your end of the agreement.”

        Kerry: “OK!”

        Pooh, once out of earshot, on cell phone: “Build coal plants even faster. What’s that senile guy in the White House gonna do – send a strongly worded memo?”

  23. Rufus the Monocled

    Not that I paid much close attention this year, but after seeing Flacco’s first series, I thought to myself that’s some revival. And then poof.

    And the Eagles. Wutda?

  24. CPRM

    From the smart device article:

    A case in point is provided by a story from earlier this week when Bosch network-connected wrenches used in factories all around the world were found to be riddled with vulnerabilities.

    WTF? Networked wrenches? This shit is getting too fucking dumb.

    • Sensei

      You use them for quality control in manufacturing.

      The wrenches are validated and the production batches are also validated.

      • CPRM

        QC couldn’t be done before wifi?

      • Sensei

        With two or three times the labor, sure.

        The inspector’s inspectors and tool validator’s inspector.

        Naturally all three are in the machinists union too.

  25. The Bearded Hobbit

    “Room to Move” has been my earworm for the last few days. Funny to have it show up here.

  26. Brawndo

    “I’ll likely forget all this once classes start up and I take actual students with skulls full of mush and turn them into scientists.”

    Good luck, we’re all counting on you.

    • juris imprudent

      Five months later, local headline reads Another chemistry professor fired for being too hard.

      • Brawndo

        Phrasing?

  27. The Late P Brooks

    Insufficient credit

    More than six months after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s ambitious program to erase $430 billion in student loan debt, the White House has been rolling out smaller, more targeted relief programs that it says have now canceled $132 billion in debt for more than 3.6 million Americans.

    At the time of the court’s decision, it appeared that Biden wasn’t going to be make good on one of the biggest promises he made to young voters, who helped propel him into the White House. But as he’s gone about doing the same work more slowly, he seems to be getting little credit from those same voters.

    ——-

    “I won’t back down from using every tool at our disposal to get student loan borrowers the relief they need to reach their dreams,” Biden said in a written statement.

    Democrats are trying to motivate younger voters ahead of crucial months of the 2024 presidential campaign. According to an NBC News poll in November, Republican front-runner Donald Trump holds a slight advantage within the margin of error in the survey among voters ages 18 to 34 (46% to 42%) — a reversal from past election results and past NBC News polls.

    Biden initially announced his broad student debt relief forgiveness plan in 2022, ahead of the midterm elections. The Supreme Court struck it down the following summer, ruling that a president doesn’t have the authority for such a broad policy under the law.

    The man who saved us from authoritarian rule by decree. He’ll do whatever it takes to save democracy.

    • rhywun

      Those votes won’t buy themselves.

      How the hell is he not fighting seven or eight impeachments right now?

      • Suthenboy

        One word: Republicans

      • prolefeed

        A few more words: “Republicans in swing districts or states. Like that CA Rino Speaker that got booted out for saying that quiet part out loud.”

  28. hayeksplosives

    “ the guy who paved the way for westernsloper”

    Happy birthday, Unabomber!?!

  29. The Late P Brooks

    The wrenches are validated and the production batches are also validated.

    Does Boeing use those Bosch smart wrenches?

    *Boy am I glad I sold my Boeing stock when I did- a long time ago

  30. The Late P Brooks

    Since then, the White House has used other tools that no president had ever used to this extent. For example, using anti-fraud and consumer protection regulations, the administration has forgiven $22.5 billion for more than 1.3 million borrowers who claim they were cheated by their schools or that their schools closed.

    Will they write off loans to Harvard students?

    • slumbrew

      I thought “unprecedented use of presidential power “ was bad? Oh, right, a ‘D’ is after Bidens name.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    “I feel like my generation, we were promised that student loans would be erased and that hasn’t happened,” said Nashonda Hunter, 41. “We see how much aid that we’re sending over to foreign countries, and there are so many Americans that are suffering.”

    That comment, while anecdotal, reveals some of the challenges that the Biden campaign is facing: ensuring that voters give the president credit for policies he has focused on.

    Those votes are supposed to be bought and paid for, goddammit.

    • slumbrew

      I feel like my generation, we were followed by a bunch of deadbeats who welch on their debts.

      (It’s ok, I’m part Welsh. I can say that. It’s our word.)

      • Brawndo

        “we were followed by a bunch of deadbeats who welch on their debts”

        A tale as old as time

    • rhywun

      we were promised that student loans would be erased

      These people vote.

      JFC.

  32. Grummun

    The wife related a conversation from work. One of her co-workers used the phrase “high-falutin'” (falootin’?) and another of her co-workers had never heard it, and had to ask for a definition. This latter co-worker is the youngest of her co-workers (32) and also has a somewhat different background. My wife thinks the difference is cultural, her boss insists the difference is generational.

    So, which is it?

    • slumbrew

      Generational, I suspect.

    • rhywun

      Probably generational.

      Recent generations don’t hear anything older than themselves – or read, apparently.

    • DEG

      I think a little of both. “High-falutin” is something I’ve heard from older generations, and never in New England.

      • rhywun

        Fair enough. I’ve never heard it spoken. Just read it in books and seen it in old movies and such many times.

      • Brawndo

        I hear “high falutin” in New England… when they’re making fun of dumb southerners

    • Suthenboy

      Yeah? I recently had some guests over. They had a small child. The kid was running around so I asked them to ask him to quit. I was afraid he would fall down. We had the whole house done in ceramic tile and I was afraid the little guy might get hurt. I warned them so and said “…this tile floor is very unforgiving, it’s harder than a preacher’s dick at a wedding.”
      They both froze, eyes wide, jaws dropped.
      I guess they had never heard that one before.
      Yeah, the difference is generational.

  33. The Late P Brooks

    Diane Stuckey Bruce, who works at South Carolina State University, said she’d been paying off student loans since 2002 and never missed a payment. But the debt was crushing — and didn’t allow her to buy a home.

    Then, in late 2021, she said she had her entire remaining student loan debt — $263,585.35 — forgiven through the program known as Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF).

    [redacted]

    • creech

      Paying off? At what, 10 cents a month for 20 years?

      • CPRM

        In my day it was just one shiny nickel!

      • rhywun

        In my day you had ten years.

        That was before The State took over the system, I guess.

  34. The Late P Brooks

    her boss insists the difference is generational.

    Well, he don’t know shit from Shinola.

    • rhywun

      Dadgum whippersnappers.

      • CPRM

        Darn tootin!

  35. The Late P Brooks

    How is a loan repayment schedule which never touches the principal, thereby guaranteeing indebtedness in perpetuity, anything but “predatory”?

    Where are the “financial literacy advocates”?

    • CPRM

      I had to point out to an employee in her early 20s that rent to own was not a good deal.

      • juris imprudent

        [Dumb puppy look]: then why are they allowed to be in business?

  36. The Late P Brooks

    Where is Elizabeth Warren? Predatory lending and financial fraud are her special hobbyhorse. Why isn’t she out there telling kids not to sell themselves into slavery for a piece of credentialist paper?

    Every time she pokes her head above the parapet somebody should ask her the really tough questions.

    *and put it on the yootubez

    • DEG

      Why isn’t she out there telling kids not to sell themselves into slavery for a piece of credentialist paper?

      How is that going to get her power?

  37. The Late P Brooks

    In my day it was just one shiny nickel!

    What this country needs is a good five cent cigar college degree.