No sports to report one today besides that there’s some good midweek goings-on in the European soccer leagues. So I’m moving right on to the links.
You must pay for the sins of your ancestors. It’s the only way for the government to buy enough votes to remain in power since none of their other shit is working.
I’ll believe it when I see it. Especially since this should have been done two years ago.
She’ll be blaming her white mic operator soon. Or blaming white people in general. Or white AI for the deepfake. It’s what she does.
You couldn’t pay me enough to do this. No freaking way in hell.
This story is so freaking weird. Something funny happened, but I can’t figure out what it is. Not “ha-ha” funny, but sketchy funny.
Dude, go fuck yourself. You can’t just say “we’ll put a written warning in their permanent file” when your employees are literally participating in terrorism and then tell us we should keep paying for them. That’s not how it works.
I assume some words have been redefined to reach this conclusion. The two words that come to mind are “hate” and “crime.”
Intimidation was the biggest form of hate crime, according to the FBI, followed by vandalism and simple assault.
Yeah, just what I thought.
Are her publicist and agent both out of there country? Is there nobody in her life to tell her to stop doubling down?
Going a little heavier than normal today. But it’s worth it. Here’s another. Good stuff from a good band. Enjoy them.
And enjoy this lovely Tuesday, dear friends.
Intimidation was the biggest form of hate crime
I’m sure intimidation includes being in the same room with someone from the oppressor race.
Re: UNRWA,
-Hamas is the absolute government of Gaza
-Hamas has zero compunction about endeadening people that don’t do what Hamas wants them to do.
-Why would anyone even begin to assume that UNRWA wasn’t de facto controlled by Hamas?
This story has entertained me so much. Reports come out about UNRWA being involved in the attacks on Israel, UN says they’re all false, details and evidence comes out, countries start to halt funding, and the UN’s response comes across as “You can’t stop funding us, we almost got them this time!”
There was your stereotypical Brit on the radio screeching about how donor countries are “punishing” women and children.
We fired 12 guys and put out a memo. Now gives us more money.
Looked to me like it was Hamas and their UNWRA bootlickers who were “punishing” women and children.
STOP BELIEVING YOUR LYING EYES!!!
It is the UN. I’m just surprised they weren’t out there raping everyone before October 7th anyway. Defund the lot of the worthless leeches.
Is that some angry Ewok or a cat that is pissed they dressed it to look like a dork on the front page?
Yes.
It was the Ewoks that made me root for the Emperor to win…
They waz Wookiez!
I liked the Wookies. Mike is one cool cat too despite being married to that cock gobbler. But the Ewoks were an affront to existence. Any nature that produces that deserves to be destroyed by evil.
Are you familiar with the Ewok Apocalypse?
Basically, the destruction of the Death Star would have led to the death of everything on Endor. See the Ewoks maybe had a few years of horrible pain facing them.
Why? The second death star was just a construction project in space. Its size was dwarfed by the moon. And unless it knocked it out of its orbit of Tana (the planet it circled), then how would it have destroyed it?
Endor was there long before the Death Star. And it would be there long after the Death Star was blown up.
Its been a long time, but there was a website that calculated the particulates that would have entered the Endor atmosphere and the effect and whatnot. Anyway, that was the conclusion: death to all the Ewoks.
It was probably 20-25 years ago when I saw it. I guess I could google to see if it still exists.
I am not saying I agree with it, but I thought it would make Alex happy.
Look, I just don’t know about that. It was a bunch of metal that likely would have burned up entering the atmosphere. Perhaps there was some radioactive matter in the Death Star core. I’m not sure. I’d have assumed they’d use kyber crystals.
And I’m not saying the Ewoks don’t deserve extermination. I’m just saying the destruction of Death Star 2 facilitating it is highly unlikely.
+ 1 Younger Dryas
Think 1980s Baby Yoda: The Ewoks were a cutesie marketing opportunity.
For you Alex: https://youtu.be/C2OaBk89KyU
*^$(*^%()()#()$#(*$(&)$)_!!!
Doctor 0, that you?
I get the emotions that cutesy puppets added for kid-appeal engender in our generation, even if I didn’t really experience that emotion myself… but that thing on the front page is terrifying AF.
“Brother of one of the three Chiefs’ fans found dead in HIV scientist’s yard claims one ‘was found in a long chair on the back porch’ and NOT lying down – as he demands cops reveal how they died”
Daily Mail needs to go back to headline writing school
They outsourced to AI already?
Over and under that abuse of drugs/alcohol was involved?
Dude was a doctor/researcher. He no doubt had unusual drugs at the house. They already admitted to alcohol use. I say 100% some unusual drugs were involved.
Five will get you ten that a striper doped them and stole cash.
I thought it was spelled with a y.
Don’t look down on pin-stripers, it is a necessary job for the Amish buggies!
(you did see the dudes beard, no?)
Got drunk and/or high, went outside, nodded off…heroin?
At first, I didn’t follow the story too closely. You know, football and drunks and leaving for home around midnight (reportedly). But I read yesterday that the guys laid out there for two days, with their cars parked in front of the host’s house. And nobody noticed? This story has gotten funny, “Not “ha-ha” funny, but sketchy funny”. And they were found a couple of weeks ago? What is the delay in toxicology and the autopsy.
Had to wait for them to thaw out, I reckon.
Fentanyl likely involved. How else would you watch Blaine Gabbert beat the Chargers?
You must pay for the sins of your ancestors. It’s the only way for the government to buy enough votes to remain in power since none of their other shit is working.
there is a new dumb trend to use the word kidnapped for slavery. War prisoners were sold in slavery all of human history. the work kidnapped does not apply.
Indentured servants? Contract athletes being traded around? Military draft? Chain gangs?
“Kidnapped” seems fair. They weren’t always captured by warring parties. Some tribes simply went in and took people from neighboring tribes and sold them to slave traders. That sounds like kidnapping to me. At least in some instances. It was certainly not universal. But it did happen.
LIEZ!
Slavery only happened because of evil honkeys! The protectors of Wakanda would never have allowed this crap!
/today’s idiot progtards
So which modern African countries should be paying, because they were the original criminals and beneficiaries of selling them?
POCs do not have institutional power, so they can never commit any kid of moral crime. Don’t you even Social Justice, bro?
Is that how the crooks looking to fleece those with cash excuse why they only go after those with cash?
Robert Mugabe
None of them. And none of the residents of western countries should.
Paying for the sins of one’s ancestors is an evil practice and anybody who engages in it should be castrated and their kids taken away and put up for adoption so it can’t happen to them.
Yeah, that’s kind of a red line.
Not paying.
Comanches nod sagely.
I wonder if that stat is even true, so long as we’re handwaving away African and Middle Eastern slavery.
Brazil did gain independence before the Portuguese outlawed the slave trade, and they didn’t abolish slavery until 1888. Brazil did indeed import the most slaves, but most of that was most likely during the colonial era.
Yanno, I’ll actually believe this. Considering that they’re claiming <10% of badthinkcrimes occur in schools, the amount of human interaction that takes place in the Public School Industrial Complex, and the general stupidity/lack of self-control of people in said PSIC, I'm actually wondering what locations would rank higher? Bars come to mind as being full of low self-control types, but those have higher degrees of segregation and there's just fewer of them than government schools. Sporting events maybe? Government-funded transportation?
Correctional facilities would be where I figure the largest amount of “hate crime” takes place. Are they also including colleges/universities in their definition of “school”?
Yeah, I agree with you that (non PSIC) prisons are probably #1.
“Schools are the third-highest location for hate crimes in the United States, with as much as 10% of all reported hate crimes in 2022 happening at schools across the country, according to a new report the FBI released Monday”
Enough about the teachers and unions. How do the kids feel?
Dude, go fuck yourself. You can’t just say “we’ll put a written warning in their permanent file” when your employees are literally participating in terrorism and then tell us we should keep paying for them. That’s not how it works.
I find it strange that there is all this huge infrastructure around Palestinians that was never around any other group of “refugees”
I find it strange that Israel is supposed to “give back” land they conquered not to the countries they conquered it from but third party hypothetical “states.”
It all makes sense as groups like the UN still haven’t forgiven the Jews for the holocaust.
Yes, the “look what you made me do” school of Holocaustology.
Oh thanks, RC — now that’s playing in my head. Not one of my favorites.
https://youtu.be/XEbZ34ghVxk
As parodies go – I prefer this.
“You must pay for the sins of your ancestors. It’s the only way for the government to buy enough votes to remain in power since none of their other shit is working.”
The socialist’s desire/need to have government pick winners & losers always results in everyone but the top men losing, and losing big. Socialism is an ideology based on appeal to the envy/jealousy of the societal group that by definition are going to be comprised of the mediocre and the worse than that. It is a means to allow them to pretend their choices & actions have no impact on their life, and that it is always some external actor that has left them falling short. Socialism hates systems of merit or people that don’t settle for less.
I am not adverse to a social safety network for the productive, but I see a welfare system as the demise of any nation as it does nothing but encourage more sloth, envy, jealousy, and despair from those used by the crooks that take over government and grow it by appealing to these people motivated to blame outside forces for their own lack of success. One of the worst things my generation did to kids is the whole “participation trophy” and “self esteem without achieving shit” bull we inculcated kids with. We are now paying for these snowflakes thinking the universe revolves – or should revolve – around them.
Prior to CGL taking over from FASA, the DNI was obviously superior to the neurohelmet, even the improved clan version.
I hope it helps disabled people lead better lives. I however agree that anyone else doing this is taking a risk not worth taking based on how it is just a matter of time before things like this become a vehicle for evil people to fuck over the serfs.
Yeah, I would be (am?) supportive of neural pathway reintegration or whatnot as needed.
But I’m firmly with Sloopy on installation for people who don’t need it and just want social media streamed directly into their heads.
Just bring on Louis Wu and the wireheads already for those folks, Elon.
Considering everything can be a vehicle for evil people to fuck over the serfs,* I don’t know that it’s a very useful test for what to do or not do.
*For example, trains.
So is one donning their tinfoil hat imagining bad outcomes for people putting on these metal hats?
Yeah the trial is for people with quadriplegia. If I had quadriplegia? Yes, why not?
Without the ‘Mech to go with it, the brain chip doesn’t do much good.
I should paint the Atlas I salvaged saturday.
It actually remaps neural pathways, reconnecting the brain with various parts of the body that have been left out of current nerve systems.
But then you have all that wankery that took place with the Matrix during the FASA times as well, and don’t get me started on wondering where the Horrors are in the 3100’s.
Did they ever repair the HPGs?
I tuned out the while IlClan era nonsense.
It’s Edward Nigma on steroids.
Outside of that one movie, the tech in question was made by Jervis Tetch.
So chaise lounge? Maybe it’s a US/UK thing, but “sitting” in a chaise lounge is the same as “lying down” imo.
I can’t believe Omar said this.
https://twitter.com/still_boneless/status/1752187803897864637
I am surprised that it took this long for someone to finally expose her as an evil brother fucking cunte, considering how often she made it very clear she saw the US as the enemy and was there to rip Americans off. The asshole progs in Minnessoda that keep electing her sure as hell knew she was scum, but she was their progressive kind of America hating scum…
Uhhhh…Ok, it’s funny. The problem is that she is so crazy that that might be what she actually said. Parody? Lunacy? Who can tell these days?
I don’t speak Somali, but even I get that the translation is bullshit.
Yes, although I can get behind eliminating Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.
Get rid of the stupid obsessive TV coverage and then no one will care.
I already dislike Kelce for his vax commercials.
I blame Biden for starting another war.
The neo-cons want another war in the Persian Gulf so bad they can taste it. Never mind that their Ukraine project has failed. That doesn’t even matter since everyone got paid.
The Bee — as always — nails it.
Perfect.
It’s so crazy it just might work.
The Bee is funny maybe 10% to 20% of the time. But when they’re on their game like this link, it’s worth plowing past the clunky tries.
Even that hag Joy Reid agrees with your assertion….
Heh, one of my links is about that!
She looks like The Hair has implanted itself on her head and is trying to overtake the media, one person at a time.
That makes me think of the mind-meld Spock did and his wincing “the pain, THE PAIN”.
“Somebody get that Vulcan an aspirin!”
Those antisemitic protestors? NOT democrats! Nancy Pelosi said so! In fact, they’re Trump-supporting ROOSHUNS!
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/01/29/russians-nancy-pelosi-accuses-protesters-at-her-home-of-being-connected-to-putin/
The good thing about being an immigrant, is that when the PSIC tries to trans your kids, you can just go back to the old country.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/we-thought-she-was-a-great-teacher
Well, THAT was depressing.
The people doing this to kids deserve nothing but hell on earth and in the afterlife.
You’re the former
League of Ordinary GentlemenOrdinary Times contributor?I used to like that site, though it eventually crawled up is own asshole and died in a flurry of self-congratulation and “BSDI!!!!!” I stopped commenting there when they came out with an explicit policy that some animals were more equal than others. The Head Censor in Charge jumped down my throat for chastising Vicky D for her hate-filled abusive rant du jour saying not only was it OK for her to break the rules but she’d ban me if I ever noticed it again.
That’s me. I wrote under my first and middle names, Aaron David. I am still listed on the masthead (I think) but haven’t been there in years. I wrote a piece right after the 2020 election, when it was still in the counting and recrimination period, mostly about how if we adopted voter ID’s none of that would happen, and the TDS brigade jumped all over me, and clearly had not RTFA. It has just become ideological trench warfare at this point.
By the way, what name did you comment under?
I don’t remember. When I go to a new site, I make up a name that seems amusing at that time in an attempt to make it harder to stalk me across sites.
Damn near an iron law – if an adult is telling a kid(s) not to tell parents/other adults, something very wrong is going on. Here it is government school policy.
You know, this is the very shit that freaks me out about this whole nightmare children today are in…
When I was a kid every single one of us KNEW the moment an adult told you not to tell your parents something what followed or had come before was not just bad, but likely illegal as fuck. Now people actually think this is something we need more of… Adults telling kids to not tell their parents shit, that is… IN -FUCKING – SANE…
Literal groomer behavior
Add Diffrent Strokes to the list of couldn’t be made today.
S.F. tech exec and political donor apologizes after tweeting that local politicians should ‘die slow’
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/garry-tan-tech-exec-angry-tweet-die-slow-supes-18635493.php
That sounds like a legit apology…..
Regarding Elon’s Neuralink:
If it works, that is the first step to creating something that would allow full robotic limbs for paraplegics. It might even be used to replace damaged nerves in immobile limbs someday. That’s pretty fantastic.
Now will the government misuse it and demand we all get implants? Probably. That’s the only reason I worry about such things. Just look at the electric car debacle, credit card tattoos, etc…
Behold… THE FUTURE! (NSFW – Language)
True dat, Sco.
They are all talk like fags and their shit is all retarded…
I give you two tales of horrid power couples.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/tammy-murphy-and-the-nepo-state/ar-BB1htD2W
and
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2024/01/30/beltway_power_couple_tied_to_the_kavanaugh_furor_back_then_-_and_the_anti-trump_court_struggle_now_1007948.html
First starring beloved NJ Governor and First Lady, and the second, with a federal appellate judge and her partisan-hack husband.
In politics it is all about you fucking over others before they fuck you….
Marriage is all about getting to fuck [over] others, together!
Top Man and Globalist Walter Russel Mead at the WSJ is exasperated with the Middle East and Middle America for not understanding why we need to be there.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-middle-east-is-bidens-worst-crisis-jordan-strike-iran-red-sea-war-9b2e473b?st=99sli6edlp9xgip&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
You should not let the middle east distract you from deffending Romania
What?
We were counting on Romania to defend us.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0394041
Given what the US military is focusing on for recruitment and retention, you may soon be right.
I wouldn’t sweat it if I were you, you might want to start learning Russian though just in case.
And to think he used to write for TomDispatch about the foolishness of the neo-con project.
Things like this are just the tip of the iceberg of how bad the CCP’s Kung Flu dilemma has affected a country already making a slew of real bad political and economic decisions to keep the criminals in charge from having to worry about their serf class. With the world’s most rapidly aging population as a percentage (as a result of decades of the one child policy and the havoc it wrought on their society) and the CCP looking at more than 2/3 of their people being elderly in a decade, things would already be bad enough.
It is also coming out that China’s economic policies make the economic policies of the crooks and idiots in D.C. look tame. As a function of their GDP their debt is even higher than ours. Most of that debt exists in government induced construction project (where most of China’s people chose to invest to grow their own little money) that now stand idle. Foreign businesses are actively and rapidly decoupling from China. That’s because the CCP’s promises since so many manufacturing companies were convinced to go there to avoid high labor costs, resulted in nothing but theft and abuses. Chinese entities ripped them off, ranging from IP to money made crookery, protected by the CCP. And after decades of false claims of insane growth that made the evil fucks on Wall Street all get chubbies, everything that is coming out is pointing to calamity.
So Xi is desperately trying to consolidate power in a country where the people are now seeing all the promises of a brighter future grind to a halt. You ask why I put this long rant here? This shit reminds me of Gualtieri in Argentina. I see Xi thinking some of the same idiot shit that dude did to distract his people and wonder how bad that will get.
Yeah, funny how it turned out for those corporate whores – lose your IP and no billion-customer untapped market.
The real shitty thing was that this was obvious more than 15 years ago, but these crooks decided to turn a blind eye to this evil shit in order to give themselves time to figure out how to take the money the CCP held hostage in China these idiots believed was theirs…
These people fucked over the American blue collar middle class and the country in general, all under the delusion they would make bank bigtime sold to them by the crooked CCP. Them getting dicked by the CCP as China implodes is the one nice thing about this whole debacle.
I played https://squaredle.com/xp 01/30:
*20/20 words (+8 bonus words)
📖 In the top 2% by bonus words
I played https://squaredle.com 01/30:
*25/25 words (+8 bonus words)
📖 In the top 1% by bonus words
🔥 Solve streak: 128
I played https://squaredle.com/xp 01/30:
*20/20 words (+2 bonus words)
🎯 Perfect accuracy
I played https://squaredle.com 01/30:
*25/25 words (+3 bonus words)
🎯 In the top 5% by accuracy
🔥 Solve streak: 219
Do you make the leader boards with perfect accuracy?
Not that I’ve ever noticed… but I don’t look at the boards often. When I have, I’m way down the list.
Heh, I made a reply in a thread about music last night on Twitter. It’s a small group of people I know and gets very little interaction. And certainly no interaction from outsiders.
Anyway, the comment was about Joy Division. The comment got one like. And that like was from Peter Hook’s official account. That generated a good chuckle from me.
Glad it brought you joy instead of division. Better than bringing about a new order.
I would be gushing if that were me. I just finished reading his New Order book and I loved it.
It was really cool. Probably my favorite celebrity “like” of all time.
https://x.com/sloopytexas/status/1752142530664071486?s=46&t=A06oloe1Jyy9EG2F8MX6aw
I applied online for the Wal-Mart job today and was immediately rejected. Oh well. I didn’t want to work there anyway. I’m still young enough for the French Foreign Legion, though I suspect federal agents would be waiting for me at the airport if I attempted to leave the country. Still, I was able to get a passport last year.
I’m still in the running for the math teacher job at the high school a mile away from my apartment. That would be a swell gig. There are four high schools in my county, and sooner or later, another math teacher will quit, retire, transfer, or get fired. I can wait.
Did Walmart tell you why you were rejected?
No. All I got was I failed the assessment, but I can retake it in a month. The really funny part is that I worked at Wal-Mart 20 years ago. It was the summer after I graduated high school.
I guess if I get really desperate, I can get the Vet Guardian people to pencil whip a 100% disability rating for me. A guy in my old battalion got that for a medical discharge after he said he was suicidal. There’s more to his story, but that’s the gist. There were two suicides in my battalion in the three years I was in it, which is probably why I got tricked into the psych ward.
I’d prefer not to be a moocher, though between the Peace Corps and the Army, I’ve spent close to half my working life on the government payroll.
At this point, I’m not even sure I’d want to be an Arabic linguist again. I’d just be feeding at the trough of the forever war.
Computer sez you’re overqualified, I’d bet.
Yeah, probably not too many loading dock guys with bachelor’s degrees. They didn’t have any full-time jobs anyway. My savings will last at least another two years, more if I start cooking again and lay off the booze. I should be doing that anyway.
There’s a veteran organization near me called AMVETS. I was thinking of joining to network and such. They’ll even take losers like me who have general discharges.
My petition to have it upgraded was rejected on November 10th last year. At least it wasn’t rejected on Veterans Day. My company commander recommended “honorable”, so I take some solace in that.
I’ve forgotten which part of the country you’re in.
Levy County, Florida. I like it. The climate, flora, and fauna remind me of Africa.
The power of the algorithm!
I can get the Vet Guardian people to pencil whip a 100% disability rating for me.
I get why you would go that route, just be careful. I have a family member who did this and it’s just constant doctor appointments, therapy sessions, etc to keep the disability rating going.
Well fuck that noise.
I am probably the one vet where I work who doesn’t have a disability rating. They all talk about all the free money they get for their ‘ringing in their ears’ as they go and work on engine generators.
“To the people leaving California: May the road rise to meet you as you seek better lives in new places. Now, can you please extend some goodwill to those of us who remain?”
Legit LOL. I know exactly what I will say to NJ when I see it in the rearview mirror.
“I remember one relative last year who, regaling me with tales of the charming small town he found several states away, said that his neighbors admonished him to not “bring those weird California ways” to his new home.”
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-01-20/leaving-california-migration-insults
“If I wanted to live in California, I’d move there. Stop trying to make this place California.”
Substitute Mexico for California, and that’s pretty much my attitude toward illegals.
Those aren’t Mexicans crossing the border.
There are still plenty of Mexicans, but there’s a lot who aren’t, true.
Think of “Mexico” as more of a state of mind, the state of mind that has mired generations in poverty and dysfunctional societies, if I need to spell it out.
In other words, pretty normal human governance; Italy with less good food.
Indeed. “Mexico” is just the variant that is most pressing, at the moment.
I dunno about that…the Mexicans get everything wrong except food. True Mexican food is some pretty good stuff.
I didn’t say they had no good food, just less than Italy.
Not all of them, for sure. My sister lives over half the year on the border (she and her husband do mission work, primarily in a colonia outside Reynosa). She commented on a Facebook post the other day about the diverse backgrounds of the migrants camped out near the international bridges.
When I retired, I stayed in California. Why? Kids and grandkids. I didn’t want to be too far away. If I were to be retiring now, I would leave and deal with the long visiting trips. But the other half of the equation, then and now, is that the states around California are going just as crazy. How far would I have to move?
I am California born (fifth generation) and raised. I have seen the destruction first hand. I grew up in San Diego in the late 50’s and the 60’s. It was paradise. All they had to do was not fuck it up.
My family was in NJ before the American Revolution and fought in the Civil War for NJ.
My options for staying close to my parents are PA and DE in that order, but neither are good ones. NJ thinks its CA, but it lacks the weather and huge varied geography CA has.
I’m done with it.
All they had to do was not fuck it up.
“… This is called ‘bad luck’.”
Worth reprinting in case somebody here has never read it:
“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”
― Robert Heinlein
“It was paradise”
Agreed.
The commies, square pegs and weirdos who dunnit.
No matter how healthy any animal will succumb if they have enough parasites.
Yeah, I am at least a fourth generation California kid, and it is really sad to see how much they fucked it up. Even my Berkeley born mother thinks it has gone too far at this point.
To illegal aliens and Californians alike: Politics and government is born of culture. You left the shithole you were in because you want a better life or to just leach off of productive people. It is a shithole because the culture is shit. If you aren’t going to fix that and you want a better life for your family and yourself, leave the shit culture behind. DONT BRING IT HERE.
*Another suggestion for voting rules – You cant vote in your new home for ten years after you arrive. Assimilate, you get the vote. You also dont get welfare for ten years after you arrive. Hit a rough spot after that period? We will help you get back on your feet for a limited period of time. The generational welfare has to stop.
leave the shit culture behind. DONT BRING IT HERE.
That used to be the deal. It could still be the deal. But we have to kill a lot of useless academics and activists first.
I’ll take SD weather over TX any day of the week,
Our Mexicans live here, great people.
Don’t recall if it caught the attention of the Glibs staff – I mean, it’s tennis – but I’m still not done celebrating Medvedev losing to Sinner the other day.
I didn’t see the match. Sadly I saw the score Sunday morning when I got up and figured there was no point in watching the replay.
This PBS video is worth watching though the title alone made me laugh.
Trump the ‘Bully’: How Childhood & Military School Shaped Him | The Choice 2020 | FRONTLINE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc5-Uw13V-w
The only thing missing is the dramatic chipmunk music.
I remember seeing an interview with George Lucas. Paraphrased, he essentially said that he and his pals wanted to make the Star Wars movie with the latest special effects of the time, which were revolutionary. The Star Wars universe was conceived on the fly in an unusually short period of time and effort. Lucas wanted to inspire kids to be interested in space exploration by wowing them with a silly space opera and special effects.
It is make believe people. It is fiction, and not very good fiction at that. The whole point was to showcase the special effects of the day with a run. of the mill ‘savior’ space opera.
Now we are fifty three terrible movies in and we have this nonsense? “Its been a long time, but there was a website that calculated the particulates that would have entered the Endor atmosphere and the effect and whatnot. Anyway, that was the conclusion: death to all the Ewoks.”
If Lucas could pull that out of his ass as he went along why cant Hollywood produce anyone to day with a single original thought? What are we doing to do with all these deluded geeks who are wishing the Star Wars universe so hard that they behave as if they actually believe it? It has taken on a life of it’s own to the point where it is starting to look a bit like mental illness.
BTW, how many of these monstrosities are there now?
Yeah, I am grouchy this morning.
There’s lots of Star Wars fan stuff that is creative and entertaining, and obviously, to my eye, done in fun. Geeks and nerds sitting around bullshitting kind of a deal. One that comes to mind is Darth Vader’s diary, telling the story from his side. I put the Ewok Apocalypse in that category.
Perhaps one thing about the various fandoms that makes me cut them a lot of slack is that they are mostly communities for their members. A bunch of people with a common interest socializing, which I think is a good thing.
Wait a second. You told me I killed Padme in my anger… I’LL KILL YOU!
Case in point, an example of green power.
To your second point, keep in mind that we’re one step up from a fandom ourselves.
http://i1.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/019/304/old.jpg
The market has spoken: audiences prefer a decent sequel or remake to something original. Here are the top 10 highest grossing movies ever. Six are sequels. Avatar is essentially of Dances With Wolves, Titanic is practically a remake of A Night to Remember, The Lion King is based on Hamlet, and The Avengers has the same plot as Seven Samurai.
1 Avatar
2 Avengers: Endgame
3 Avatar: The Way of Water
4 Titanic
5 Star Wars: The Force Awakens
6 Avengers: Infinity War
7 Spider-Man: No Way Home
8 Jurassic World
9 The Lion King
10 The Avengers
The Lion King is the best adaption of the myth of the Rightful Ruler ever done. And it’s far more Henry IVth Part 1 than Hamlet.
There are more coming, including another Ghostbusters and a sequel to Beetlejuice.
Has the market really spoken? Most independent films don’t get marketing or wide release. If they did, would we have more Oppenheimers? Remember that Oppenheimer became the 5th biggest grossing R rated movie. It was not a sequel. There is hope.
Sequels of successful movies are less risky. That’s all that producers care about.
I could make a long list of better sci-fi or historical books that would make great movies or series. None will get made because of the risk or the politics.
Works in the short run but chasing that dragon leads to boredom, then indifference, and then the death of the property, especially when done shittily.
Modern audiences want to see a certain type of movie ion the cinema.
Modern audiences are on the cusp of treading into Idiocracy territory.
FTFY…
On the other hand, my niece and her husband just said they were deciding to go out to movies to see them on the big screen more now.
We will be going out to watch Dune Part 2, which will be the first movie we’ve gone to since Dune Part 1.
My last one was Borat. Helluva flick.
Top Gun 2, here.
and not very good fiction at that
One good idea/movie and no concept of how to expand on that. The template for J.J. Abrams. In theory, as I recall reading, he wanted to do something nearly Shakespearean for the fall of the Republic. Had he just blatantly ripped off Shakespeare he might have done something much better than he did.
If Lucas could pull that out of his ass as he went along why cant Hollywood produce anyone to day with a single original thought?
He wasn’t original. He was riffing on the 50’s serial movies he grew up on and a trope (hero’s journey) out of mythology.
50s serial movies? He directly ripped off Kurosawa. (Not as much as Leone did, but a lot…)
Kurosawa ripped off Statius – The Thebaid (aka Seven Against Thebes).
And Shakespeare – Ran is literally King Lear.
Flash Gordon + WW2 dogfights + Barsoom = Star Wars
The attack run on the first Death Star is a shot-for-shot remake of a WW2 movie called 633 Squadron Mosquito.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OZq-tlJTrU
The Mosquito was a British attack plane made of wood because of a metal shortage.
J.J. Abrams needs someone to strap him down and right out a full story arc before letting him do any more pilots. Continuing to have mysteries answered by more mysteries is not satisfying!
At least we got 5 seasons of Fringe which answered the majority of the questions, survived Fox’s scheduling (they held back a first season episode and burned it off as a filler in season two… which had a story arc for a character that had some massive changes happen in the season 1 finale), and poor ratings to come up with one of the better sci-fi shows (assuming you can roll with 50’s/60’s era super science).
Great cast, half-way decent story arcs, and a slightly different twist on the X-Files in a way. I liked it and Anna Torv was easy on the eyes.
Just finished re-watching the whole series. It does hold up pretty well. The fifth season seemed to be something of an awkward fit at first.
NEver saw it first run because of the TV nonsense. What’s a good source?
It’s on Amazon’s streaming FreeTv channel. You have to put up with ads but not that many.
I have no tolerance for ads. That’s a me issue though.
I might shell out for DVDs though.
All five seasons were released on DVD, and are currently available for streaming on Max (subscription required) or Freevee (formerly IMDB.tv, free with ads).
I enjoyed the hell out of that show when it aired.
But I rarely, if every, go back and watch old shows for any series that I enjoyed in the past.
Sometimes I’ll watch a show I liked when I was younger and find the supposed protagonist to be insufferable, or my tolerance for cringe has been depleted.
The original Star Wars was great fun in 1977 because it wasn’t all that serious and didn’t try to wedge in any after-school-special messages. Just some good guys versus bad guys. Samurai sword fights with lasers and WWI dogfights in space.
The special effects were the bomb back then too and were rare. Even well done effects by today’s standards are blasé when a story leans too hard on them.
They were insanely good for the time. Like, I can’t believe what I’m seeing good.
Cause they were born of the real world. Puppeteering, practical sounds from everyday objects tweaked to produce the sounds you want…like a slinky for the laser sounds I believe. Shot in the real world without green screens. It makes a difference and is noticeable.
Some of the backgrounds were painted and absolutely beautiful. More appealing than an AI generated background.
It was the guy wires for a radio tower, I saw a doc on it once,
It was the guy wires for a radio tower,
I saw that documentary too.
I knew it was something..maybe it was me who mimicked the sounds via slinky. Still, that is art.
I still remember the standing ovation it got in the end in my small town’s only movie theater. People were just blown away.
Yup. Me and my buds were the perfect age for it – 15 years old. We had actually picked up the book before we even knew there was a movie. We probably saw it four or five times in the theater. Just great fun.
riffing on the 50’s serial movies he grew up on and a trope (hero’s journey) out of mythology
Yes. It was awesome.
By that standard, practically nothing original has been done for centuries.
By that standard, nothing original was ever done.
Ecclesiastes 1:9 said it first.
I remember either Chayefsky or Kozinski accepting an award and declaiming that nothing original had been written since the actual 10 Commandments.
Those were original?
The Dekalog sits back and smiles.
Damnit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYio8DB-4T8
he whole point was to showcase the special effects of the day with a run. of the mill ‘savior’ space opera. – and they were wildly successful at that, which aint nothin to sneeze at
Y’all quit trying to get me out of my grouch.
More fun Star Wars trivia: Jabba originally had an Irish accent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYqV8qxHPmM
I always imagined Jabba sounding like Dom DeLuise.
Take my former neighbors Joe and Shannon. They left L.A. for New England in 2020, one more departure of a family from our block. They explained why the move was right for them and told us something I’ll never forget: This is a great neighborhood, and “you guys belong here.”
He didn’t even feel the knife go in.
That is a deft touch.
“You couldn’t pay me enough to do this.”
If I had ALS or something, I’d most definitely do that. Otherwise, no.
come on don’t you want to tweet with only your brain?
As it is now, very few people use their brain at all when they tweet.
Speaking of movies, I watched this one last night. Very good. Another young David McCallum role.
It always amazes me how much leftover damage and rubble there was in London ten or more years after the war.
Russia invaded Ukraine a week after I started working in the golf cart factory. My sister texted me out of the blue and asked if I was going to join the fight. That was weird. The screenshot is the next to last image in this post:
https://platedlizard.blogspot.com/2023/08/more-weird-glitches.html
A year working on an assembly line was about all I could stand.
Do you know the joke about the russian working in the baby carriage factory? His wife got pregnant and he kept trying to steal all the parts to build a carriage, but when assembled every time it came out as machine gun.
Another version of that joke: The Soviets build a car factory in an Eastern Bloc country, but tractors keep coming out the end of the assembly line. They call Soviet engineers for help who explain that the last step of the process is to use a hammer to beat the tractor into the shape of a car.
I read a real story about a Soviet worker in a bus factory. He was the only guy who worked honestly instead of doing the bare minimum like the others. As a result, he was constantly harassed an ostracized, for if production improved, the quota would be raised.
***
Nobody in the bus factory was in a hurry to work; the workers preferred to sit in the smoking room until the foreman appeared, when they all dashed to their places. “Why should we hurry for the money they pay us?” said the workmen. “Work’s not a wolf, it won’t run into the forest!” In the mornings they were almost all drunk or hung over, and throughout the working day people would be regularly detailed to slip over the fence for some vodka. Only one man put in a full day’s work. The rest hated him, and when pointing him out would rotate one finger meaningfully by the temple. They were always looking for chances to do him dirt, either by surreptitiously damaging his machine or by stealing his tools. “Want to be a champion and raise the targets?” they said spitefully. It turned out that if one man exceeded the target, the target would be raised for all of them the following month, and they would have to work twice as hard for exactly the same money.[6]
***
https://fee.org/articles/justice-versus-social-justice/
use a hammer to beat the tractor into the shape of a car. – the Romanian version of the joke was use a file / sand it down into shape
Sounds like a great system, it just needed the right people in charge.
I read a real story about a Soviet worker in a bus factory.
The closest any worker ever got to being a real Stakhanov.
Fun fact: men working in more toxic factory environments in Romania got, even in times of shortage, a liter of milk a day because drinking milk was supposed to help with the toxins / poisons. They all bartered it for vodka.
When I was working in warehouse management software I visited for work a copper smelter, and the workers told me I cannot imagine how much toxic the air was before without all these modern filters.
Funny enough, the commies did not much care for the workers.
Fun fact: part of Borat was filmed in Romania. Cohen lied and said they were making a documentary. The townsfolk were mad about being duped, so they made a film. The bar game shown is interesting. They set a beer bottle upside down and the goal is to slide a knife under it without knocking it over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLeaVbyCTyc
You mean that claim his sister was the best or second best whore in town was fake?
Dogs
https://youtu.be/Xzw6jke_5FM?si=XtGqTnYaSzihYzaW
This is, without exaggeration, the worst permitting reform idea I’ve ever heard.
https://twitter.com/AlecStapp/status/1751988818612236292
Wow…
“In effect, the bill would subsidize objections to the
projects that it means to accelerate.”
Means to accelerate…sure…nothing but the purest of intentions and not a poison pill.
Those environmentalist votes won’t buy themselves.
Politicization of everything, cont’d
Right-wing media is burning red at Taylor Swift.
With the Kansas City Chiefs headed to Super Bowl LVIII, influential MAGA Media personalities have started circulating conspiracy theories about the pop superstar, promoting the deranged notion that she is part of a sprawling psychological operations plot staged by the NFL and Democratic Party to deliver the 2024 presidential election to President Joe Biden.
The attacks on Swift have been steadily building for weeks (see Fox News host Jesse Watters asking on his prime time program earlier this month if Swift is a “Pentagon asset,” for example), but it reached a fever pitch on Monday. The bad blood is related to Swift’s 2020 endorsement of President Joe Biden and the fact that Travis Kelce, the Chiefs tight end whom she is dating, participated in an advertising campaign for the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. A Monday story published by The New York Times, which noted Biden would like Swift’s endorsement again this year, added fuel to the fire.
“I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month,” Vivek Ramaswamy, the unsuccessful 2024 presidential candidate who has spread conspiracy theories about the January 6 insurrection and the legitimacy of the 2020 election, posted Monday on X. “And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall. Just some wild speculation over here, let’s see how it ages over the next 8 months.”
Plots within plots.
And anyone wonders why this country is in the state it is?
That all seems a bit much. Although it wouldn’t surprise to find out that Swift dating Kelce was a publicity stunt.
I’ve said that since the first whisper of it. I don’t know to what end (Biden endorsement? Really?) but Taylor’s a little too melanin-challenged for Kelce’s usual taste in women. I don’t believe it’s real, won’t believe it’s real.
You saying Swift lacks the junk in the trunk this guy usually wants?
I am saying that, yes. It is a wild departure from his norm.
Money and stardom can sway a man from their normal path.
Right-wing media is burning red at Taylor Swift. – is it really? all of it? most of it?
Seems pointless and sad. Biden trying to woo Taylor Swift is especially stupid.
He just wants to sniff her hair.
Well, she does look like she smells good.
I liked it better when I didn’t know who TS was.
55% of Ivy League graduates believe that the U.S. “provides too much individual freedom” compared with just 16% of ordinary U.S. voters.
https://twitter.com/robkhenderson/status/1751622369662120349
I suspect Ivy League thinks ordinary US voters have too much freedom, not them.
Ivy Leaguers know they will be the ones controlling others. Why would they want less control?
This scoreboard is interesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_university_affiliation
Caltech and MIT have 44 prizes combined vs 48 for Harvard and Yale. But if you take away the economics prizes, that score changes to 37 vs 36. The score favors the non-Ivies even more if you only count physics, chemistry, and medicine prizes.
The score favors the non-Ivies even more if you only count physics, chemistry, and medicine prizes. – as you should.
I would be thoroughly amazed if the same exact opinions weren’t held by Caltech and MIT students. The University of Chicago isn’t an Ivy, but people still attend it for the same reason why people attend Harvard
They are.
Let me assure though, at least in the 90s, the politics of the engineering school were very different. I remember us rolling our eyes at all the liberal arts majors with too much time on their hands.
The last thing we need is Thurston Howell III telling us what we can and can’t do. I’d prefer the Professor over these douchebags but I’d even settle for Gilligan.
“The NFL is totally RIGGED for the Kansas City Chiefs, Taylor Swift, Mr. Pfizer (Travis Kelce),” agreed Mike Crispi, a Salem Media host. “All to spread DEMOCRAT PROPAGANDA. Calling it now: KC wins, goes to Super Bowl, Swift comes out at the halftime show and ‘endorses’ Joe Biden with Kelce at midfield.”
“It’s all been an op since day one,” Crispi concluded.
Zounds!
Mike Crispi is the equivalent to one of Pie’s twitter tankies. Who the fuck ever heard of him or gives a shit?
So dumb.
Not one question about why was an American outpost on the Jordan-Syria border.
WE MUST RESPOND!
It could’ve been a Lindsay Graham article – and that should embarrass the fuck out of the authors.
Do they not read what they just wrote?
followed immediately by
Plus, its only meddling when regional powers do it, not that super power that is sticking its dick in the sand around the other side of the globe.
Birth rates are falling in the Nordics. Are family-friendly policies no longer enough?
Finnish demographer Anna Rotkirch assesses how young people view having children and suggests we may need a societal rethink
https://www.ft.com/content/500c0fb7-a04a-4f87-9b93-bf65045b9401
Twenty years ago, Finland appeared to have it all. The birth rate was rising and the proportion of women in the labour force was high. Policymakers from around the world, including the UK and east Asia, came to learn about the Nordic model behind it: world class maternity care; generous parental leave; a right to pre-school childcare.
But maybe they got it wrong. Despite all the support offered to parents, Finland’s fertility rate has fallen nearly a third since 2010. It is now below the UK’s, where the social safety net is more limited, and only slightly above Italy’s, where traditional gender roles persevere.
This is a puzzle for Anna Rotkirch, research director at the Family Federation of Finland’s Population Research Institute. A sociologist and demographer, she is one of Europe’s experts on how young people view having children. In 2020 and 2021, she advised then Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin on reinvigorating the country’s birth rate.
Across the world, fertility is declining in very different societies — conservative and liberal, big and small state, growing economies and stagnating ones. Even India — known for its growing population — now has fewer births per woman than the theoretical replacement rate of 2.1. In Europe in 2023, the rate fell in “Hungary, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, all the ones who were really high or were paraded as examples . . . It seems that Finland might be a forerunner, unfortunately.”
Sanna Marin on reinvigorating the country’s birth rate
Sanna Marin should invigorate any country’s birth rate.
Beliefs that kill birth rates
https://www.ariababu.co.uk/p/beliefs-that-kill-birth-rates
We need a forced two child policy…
Not Finland, but the point is the same:
Swedish feminists protest equestrian statues by running around like horses
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BcfKde77jc
Also, hobbyhorse racing is a sport in Finland.
‘Biggest Hobby Horse event in the world’ takes place in Finland
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGnpWXtI3Q0
Damn I was hoping to see some BDSM chicks with a buttplug with a horses tail and a saddle running around and was totally disappointed..
It’s almost like The Pill is available everywhere.
Maybe they ran out of other people’s money.
I’d like to reinvigorate the birth rate of the recent prime minister
That all seems a bit much. Although it wouldn’t surprise to find out that Swift dating Kelce was a publicity stunt.
I just assumed it was a ploy to sell more tickets and t shirts. Boy, is my face red.
But maybe they got it wrong. Despite all the support offered to parents, Finland’s fertility rate has fallen nearly a third since 2010. It is now below the UK’s, where the social safety net is more limited, and only slightly above Italy’s, where traditional gender roles persevere.
This is a puzzle for Anna Rotkirch, research director at the Family Federation of Finland’s Population Research Institute. A sociologist and demographer, she is one of Europe’s experts on how young people view having children. In 2020 and 2021, she advised then Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin on reinvigorating the country’s birth rate.
First thing we do, let’s kill all the sociologist.
Soundtrack of my youth, living with older brothers.
🤘🤘
Every song on the first 4 Sabbath albums are absolute bangers. I’ve come to appreciate “War Pigs” more as I’ve gotten older
I now picture Lindsey Graham, Victoria Nuland, and John McCain’s demonic spirit gathering ” just like witches at black masses”.
Famine twitter
https://twitter.com/RomanianLiberal/status/1752292657299177509
I do enjoy it when someone who admits their ancestors had better brains than they do, immediately goes on to say they know better than their ancestors.
Suck it, plebs
Flights will be delayed Tuesday during the span of President Joe Biden’s visit to Palm Beach County.
The Federal Aviation Administration has issued a Temporary Flight Restriction in Palm Beach airspace for that day from between 11:45 a.m. and 4:05 p.m.
——-
Biden is expected to fly into PBIA and later “participate in a campaign reception” in Jupiter, according to a White House brief. Later in the evening, Biden is scheduled to attend another campaign reception in Miami, where a flight restriction is in place from 4:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Tuesday. He’ll depart from Miami International Airport that evening and return to the White House.
It’s for the greater good. You want Joe to save democracy, don’t you?
Scans article to find mention of Trump or Mar-a-Lago as the URL suggests….hmm, can’t seem to find any. Seems Trump is the driving factor of that news bit cause no one cares about Biden and they are hoping the internet crawlers will put it at the top of the search hits.
Critical Age Theory
Towards a new politics of anti-gerontocracy
https://www.richardhanania.com/p/critical-age-theory
Political movements are usually motivated by a grand narrative. The most common approach is to find an enemy and blame them for what has gone wrong in the world. Some ideologies, like libertarianism or Marxism, emphasize the importance of systems rather than individuals, but nonetheless try to provide structure to how one interprets events and thinks of solutions to problems. What successful political movements tend not to do is simply provide a series of policy recommendations without any kind of story tying them all together. Effective altruism perhaps comes closest to this model, but it has as a result been criticized for either being trite in its recommendations or hiding its more controversial philosophical assumptions.
Today, I’d argue that many of the problems of Western society are caused by the same underlying dynamic — a natural status quo bias and concentrated interests that in effect end up privileging the old over the young.
…
I’ve previously written about gerontocracy mainly as an issue of government spending. The state takes money from the young and gives it to the old, despite this going against the entire justification for having a welfare state in the sense that it is a regressive transfer, from a poorer group to a wealthier one. Yet entitlement spending, like other gerontocratic policies, should not simply be understood in isolation. We can call this way of seeing the world Critical Age Theory, a framework in which one considers choices that have been made in different policy areas as tied together in a system of generational oppression
…
An anti-gerontocracy movement would advocate the following solutions to many of the major problems society faces. The goal is to dismantle age privilege, which has in effect made young people poorer, less likely to have families, and in a state of perpetual adolescence. Concrete proposals include:
Less government spending on entitlements that go to old people
Fewer government subsidies to education
Occupational licensing reform
Giving the youth an even playing field in the labor market by abolishing seniority systems and cutting back or eliminating age discrimination laws
YIMBYism
Subsidies for families with children
…
At 22, six years of graduate school might not feel like that big of a deal. Yet eventually you’ll find yourself approaching 30 and still never having made adult money. If you ever want to own your own home, it’s going to take a while to accumulate the necessary savings. None of this would matter much if youth lasted forever, but it is fleeting, and people often don’t understand this fact until it’s too late.
One of the great sins of developed civilizations is how little value we place on young people’s time. Someone can write a book like Bryan Caplan’s The Case Against Education, and people will simply shrug and go, well that’s interesting, I guess it’s all a waste of time, lol. But learning that we warehouse young people in the prime of their lives into buildings for no good reason, to little benefit to themselves or others, should provoke seething rage.
The assumptions there are quite striking and littered throughout, and it all the same. Instant gratification, gimme gimme gimme, and laziness.
Don’t see anything wrong with the 1st three proposals.
Not that part. The assumption that you still need to go to college and grad school. And make “adult money”, whatever the fuck that is.
he is actually criticizing that young people are encouraged to spend too much time in education. and time is precious hence “we warehouse young people in the prime of their lives into buildings for no good reason”. If you read the whole article he want to reduce credentialism and educational requirements so young people can work. Nothing wrong with that. I don;t get where you get that he assumes you need to go to college. You need to work and make adult money inst4ead of college.
Someone else could easily write “why force young people into the labor force, as though work was the greatest joy that could ever be found, or that materialist consumption must begin as soon as possible”.
that someone would be a moron. No one claims work is joy, and materialistic consumption is having a home and family while you can still have kids.
“When we spend money on old people, we just pay for their healthcare or directly give them cash. “Redistribution” to young people often takes the form of more money going towards education. This creates jobs for older people while depriving the youth of their best years, which could be spent beginning families or learning actual skills they can use in the job market. If the elderly had to take say classes on money management before they got their Social Security checks, nobody would stand for it. As college has over the decades become more heavily subsidized, employers are encouraged to use degrees as a way to filter out candidates thought to have lower intelligence or be less conscientious. To call education a waste of money would be too generous. It actively harms young people, because the signalling function of education means that subsidizing it requires them to jump through more hoops. “
The first three are good, then it veers into left field. Clearing the field of college subsidies and using high school as a way to actually prep for life instead of just college would make a big difference right there.
It’s an interesting concept. Needs further development. Also stop making old people the boogeyman. The article can still be written in favor of more opportunities for the young without demonizing old people.
It’s not about building yourself up, it’s about tearing others down. Gimme my end of career position, status, and wealth on my first day. I don’t want to work for it first.
Money for nothin’ and the chicks for free…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTP2RUD_cL0
I believe you are imagining things.
Well a lot of current policy favors older people. And older people want their privilege. In most countries NIMBY is driven by older people, licensing, unions, labor regulations favor older at the expense of younger. Creating more opportunities for the young will inevitably be opposed by the old.
Welfare for old people rests on the political/psychological foundation of “I deserve it, I’m just getting my own money back after paying taxes my whole life.”
And it’s hard to argue with that feeling. I feel like it too.
Well I am now paying 25% pension tax for a pension I will probably never get as the system will collapse.
well maybe they should have made sure the government had that money saved up instead of overtaxing new workers.
Haha.
No movement proceeds without an enemy that everyone can rally against. Straight out of Hoffer. It really is the narrative that humans respond to. Need I say, one more reason I am a misanthrope.
Well, to be fair, there are plenty of people who need to be opposed and rallied against.
OT for Gustave.
I found a new online language class from my old school. Weirdest demographics for my six classmates. My level is probably perfectly mid pack for the group.
1. Native Chinese speaker, fluent English and US college student. Passed JLPT 1 this December. I don’t why she is in the class. Perhaps for conversation and practice.
2, Brand new for the term. He is either high school or college freshman student. I’m assuming his parents are Japanese, but he grew up in the US. Hysterical, completely fluent, but talks like a casual teenager in exactly the wrong circumstances. I’m assuming he’s trying learn proper Japanese with proper politeness.
3. Me – oldest of the group by far
4. NYC public school teacher. Roughly my level.
5. Taiwanese national currently living in Europe. Really good grammar, but strong accent and tough for me to understand.
6. Regular younger working guy living in Texas. Knows written Japanese and grammar well, but limited conversational abilities. I’d love to know more of his backstory. He does real well on written exercises, but need significant work to get his conversational level up to the group. His comprehension is good. I know exactly the hurdle he is trying to overcome.
Dozo: https://langmedia.fivecolleges.edu/lbc-topics/48/106
My trick was listening to audio while following the transcript. Then I’d read it out loud. After that, I’d read the translation or look up the words I didn’t understand.
The above link was something they gave us at DLI. It has my seal and walrus of approval.
My brain does well with music. I listen to lots of J-Pop with Japanese subs.
You just have to realize that the grammar is likely poetic so it’s not a good resource for grammar. But for vocabulary and listening comprehension it works well.
Memorizing phrases like proverbs and quotes was the key for me. It teaches you culture, grammar, usage, and vocabulary all at once.
Transcription exercises are good since they force you to listen carefully. NSA is fan of them.
Nice.
I’d guess #6 is a manga (maybe anime) fan.
It’s sad how few people ponder why the salary of a man with just a high school education was enough to support a family of four in 1960. If anything, improvements in technology should have made it much easier for people to buy homes and start families. That was stymied by massive growth in government spending and regulation.
salary of a man with just a high school education was enough to support a family of four in 1960 – this is mostly wrong. Many were in poverty and the conditions for that family were poor by modern standards even those who were not in poverty.
Yes. The whole “things were better in the 50s and 60s” thing is so false.
Things have generally gotten better and mainly because of liberalism.
“Because of”, “Despite”, potato, potahto.
(Classical) liberalism died in the 60s, anyway. It wasn’t fully skinsuited by leftists for awhile, but after Goldwater lost, nobody who matters seriously tried to pursue a classical liberal set of policies. Not even Reagan.
Sure, but any of the countries with even marginal economic freedom have continued marching inexorably on. It’s that powerful that a hundreds of billions spend on mandarin can’t even stop it. It’s be much better without that, but nevertheless.
Things stopped getting better a couple of decades ago. Our 23-year-old son and his girlfriend with their first real jobs are so far being able to afford a house, or even live on their own without family help. 30 years ago it was nowhere near that bad once my wife and I were both working decent jobs.
I disagree with the claim, but it’s hard to argue because I do agree with the things that are lousy. Housing is a disaster solely because of government involvement and *could* be so much better.
Government involvement, AND immigration, and inflation, and the breakdown of law enforcement in some areas.
All those “refugees” have to live somewhere.
Nostalgia for the 50s (and very early 60s) is a remarkable thing. Both left and right indulge in it – for different reasons, and in doing so, blind themselves to some rather inconvenient issues of the era.
Yeah, all that hair everywhere…
There are still paths to support a family with only a high school education today. Trades or technology both are strong. Starting entry level help desk positions in my area are now up to $25/hour (and those are just the ones using bottom of the barrel recruiters who are e-mailing me looking for bodies to get on the contract).
I made $17 plus overtime at my first welding job. The 18-week course cost $9,500. It was cool to pay that with a stack of cash complete with the band that said $10,000. The evening of the day I paid, I got shoved into the insane asylum. But I did finish the course.
For comparison, I made $16/hour plus overtime at the golf cart factory, which required very little training.
Nose-picking burger flipper in California says hi!
Yeah. The burger flipping jobs are only up to $15-$16/hour here (per the signs I see). Now I’m not saying you could easily support a family of four on a $25/hour helldesk job. But it’s entry level, and there are paths to move up in the tech world.
Agreed, the ascending pathways are more numerous.
And looking at Cleveland Zillow, there are a lot of houses under 125K, which is eminently doable at 25/hr.
The last thing we need is Thurston Howell III telling us what we can and can’t do. I’d prefer the Professor over these douchebags but I’d even settle for Gilligan.
Something something first 435 names in the Boston phone book.
The first three are good, then it veers into left field. Clearing the field of college subsidies and using high school as a way to actually prep for life instead of just college would make a big difference right there.
Looking through the curriculum of my parents’ high school in podunk Ohio was quite an eye opener. Expectations were different then.
Probably a meme. Kids learned Greek and Latin in 1950s high school. Now they take remedial English in college.
I would make fun of that except for the fact that as an unjineer I could have cared less about language other than making great long running sentences…
It’s called “high school” because graduating from it used to be a mark of distinction rather than a participation trophy for showing up often enough not to get expelled.
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In 1900, only 11 percent of all children between ages fourteen and seventeen were enrolled in high school, and even fewer graduated. However, the high school graduation rate for teenagers in the United States rose from 6 percent to 80 percent from 1900 to 1970.
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The graduation rate didn’t rise because the students got smarter, or the teachers got better.
Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if a typical junior high education back then was probably as rigorous as a typical high school education today. There was the expectation that junior high would have to be/would be enough for most people. Now, it’s all placeholders until graduate school, which will inevitably lower standards.
The last local Catholic high school that still had Latin as an available language dropped it in the early 90’s.
Speaking of CA. I don’t know where to start here. Other than qualified immunity and taxpayer money.
Hit by car after being left at dump by police, Northern California woman wins huge settlement
https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article284830321.html
“BREAKING NEWS Squad member Cori Bush is under criminal investigation by the DOJ for ‘misusing funds meant for private security’ – after she married one of her bodyguards”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13024009/cori-bush-investigation-department-justice-misusing-funds.html
Shocking.
And Omar married one of her staffers, and Willis is banging her employee…
Why can’t women keep it out of their pants?
Needs to be removed from Congress under the same precedent used to remove Santos.
When did Boeing start making trains?
“Missing bolts on a subway car and a track misalignment led to the derailment of a New York City Transit subway train at Coney Island on Jan. 10…”
https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/missing-bolts-track-issue-led-to-coney-island-derailment-mta-says/
There used to be a Twitter and website called “is Metro on fire?” for the DC Metro
Totally not a predetermined outcome
Thus Trump got a second trial — but not a retrial. Judge Kaplan issued a decision declaring that the verdict in the first case would also hold for the sequel. Trump would not be allowed to argue he was innocent of sexual assault, putting him at a gigantic disadvantage. He and his attorneys couldn’t hide their disgust in court. Trump was reprimanded by the judge for muttering epithets like “con job” and “witch hunt” during Carroll’s testimony. As the defendant, he could — and did — take the witness stand, but he was not allowed to say much. Kaplan also ruled against his efforts to undermine his accuser’s credibility by “relitigating his charges of fabrication,” or introducing evidence about her past relationships and donations that helped to fund her lawsuit. (It received support from liberal tech billionaire Reid Hoffman.)
On the first day of the trial, before jury selection began, Trump’s lead attorney, Alina Habba, complained that the judge’s rulings had “gotten rid of any ability to meaningfully defend ourselves and President Trump in this case.” Kaplan was unimpressed. Throughout the trial, he curtly cut off any attempt the Trump legal team made to relitigate or grandstand. At one point, Trump’s three-piece-suited campaign adviser, Boris Epshteyn, stood up and tried to address the judge as his “in-house counsel.” Kaplan told him: “Please have a seat.” The judge repeatedly admonished Habba for making procedural mistakes in introducing evidence and for continuing to argue points that he considered settled. (On Monday, Habba wrote a letter to the judge complaining of his “overtly hostile” attitude and questioning whether he had shown “preferential treatment” to the plaintiffs, citing a New York Post article that reported he had been a “mentor” to Roberta Kaplan earlier in her career. Habba noted that one of Carroll’s other attorneys, Shawn Crowley, also had served as his clerk.) By the time of final arguments, matters between Trump’s legal team and the judge had grown so tense that Kaplan was openly threatening Habba in court. She attempted at one point to go on talking after the judge had ruled against her an evidentiary motion.
“I’m sorry, your Honor,” Habba protested. “I have to make a record.”
“Ms. Habba,” he said, “you are on the verge of spending some time in the lockup. Now sit down.”
“Shocking,” Habba said.
From New York Magazine, of all places.
Good thing Trump can’t hire a lawyer who knows how to even lay a foundation to admit evidence…but, hey, she is hot.
He brings dim bulbs like her to his criminal trials, he will do a bazillion years.
Fuck Tuesdays. Just … fuck Tuesdays.
User error problems with two discrete clients. XX decided she hated her last name so she changed it (granted her initials were LGB). Stupid-ass dreams. And I’m running late.
Don’t let them grind you down Mojeaux!
Not yourXX?
The XX I shot out of my magic hoo-ha, yes.
“E Jean Carroll had to be restrained by her lawyer as she gleefully itemized how she plans to spend her $83.3 million defamation award against Donald Trump.
The author had promised to help other victims with her multi-million dollar payout, but had a more worldly wish list as she was quizzed by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.
‘First thing Rachel, you and I are going to go shopping,’ she said. ‘We’re going to get completely new wardrobes, new shoes, what do you want? Penthouse? It’s yours Rachel!’ ‘That’s a joke,’ laughed lawyer Shawn Crowley nervously, sitting next to her.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13021797/E-Jean-Carroll-trump-shoes-wardrobe-MSNBC-maddow.html
CWAC
Also, I read Shawn Crowley clerked for Judge Kaplan, and he officiated her wedding. So that’s two lawyers who previously worked with the judge.
| [Brazil] kidnapped more Africans for forced labor than any other nation.
That sentence is categorically false as Brazil did not kidnap anyone. The “kidnapping” was done in Africa by Africans. Brazil did take more slaves than any other country in the Americas by far. 90% of the Atlantic African slave trade was to Brazil and a few Caribbean countries. Of course, the Arab slave trade far dwarfed the Atlantic and went on for a much longer time period. But then most of that happened before they were “countries”. Some of those countries kept legal slavery going well into the 20th century, many finally outlawing it in the 1950’s and 60’s under much Western pressure.
Q: we can see with our own eyes the descendants of Africans brought to the Caribbean and North America and n.e. South America. Where are the African descendants of those taken by Arab slave traders?
Somebody innocent and gullible, like me, might be forgiven for thinking the second, if not both, of those Carroll verdicts would be summarily voided in the appeal court, but the way things have gone so far, the appeal will probably be heard by Kaplan.
O/T rant: Trying to explain something to our payroll processor feels like trying to communicate with an AI programmed by monkeys. 😒
Shakespearean?
Narrator: It actual was an AI programmed by monkeys.
Trump was holed up in a court across the hall that the Secret Service was using as a holding room by the time Kaplan started to lay out her case for damages. The plaintiffs had called one expert, Northwestern University professor Ashlee Humphreys, who also testified in the Giuliani trial. Humphreys has developed a model for measuring reputational damage on social media, based on an estimate of the number of views each defamatory message received. She estimated that it would cost as much as $12 million for Carroll to hire social-media influencers to spread corrective messages with similar reach. The plaintiffs asked the jury to give Carroll that much in compensatory damages, plus an additional $12 million for emotional harm.
Sounds legit.
It’s going to cost a lot more to propagandize that Carroll isn’t a greedy lying cunte.
If you want OS/2 now is your last chance!
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/after-32-years-one-of-the-nets-oldest-software-archives-is-shutting-down/
My first Fortune 100 job I used OS/2 on my desktop PC. For no good reason other than all the big iron there was IBM. I quickly figured out that they had installed Windows 3.x within the OS/2 installation and used that for more than a few applications.
Kurt Russell on why he disagrees with gun control and no-fly lists:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7g-9C-f94A
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Kurt Russell sets a hollyweird blog writer straight on gun control and restriction of rights to defense. “What are you going to do, outlaw everything? That isn’t the answer…” “If you think gun control is going to change the terrorists’ point of view, I think you’re, like, out of your mind.”
***
Well that soda can is definitely the ideal container for an IED.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-york-brothers-130-charges-weapons-celebrity-hitlist-anarchist-rcna136316
Weapons cache
🙄
So the other “weapons” weren’t.
Also, that “Hit List” is obviously song lyrics.
If you want OS/2 now is your last chance!
I want to be able to use Mac OS6.
Not that anyone is still reading this, but I’ve got a Mac IIci around here somewhere. Maybe it still works.
To bolster my quasi nostalgia:
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From the 1930s up until 1980, the average American after-tax income adjusted for inflation tripled,[13] which translated into higher living standards for the American population.[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] Between 1949 and 1969, real median family income grew by 99.3%.[33] From 1946 to 1978, the standard of living for the average family more than doubled.[34] Average family income (in real terms) more than doubled from 1945 up until the 1970s, while unemployment steadily fell until it reached 4% in the 1960s.[35] Between 1949–50 and 1965–66, median family income (in constant 2009 dollars) rose from $25,814 to $43,614,[36] and from 1947 to 1960, consumer spending rose by a full 60%, and for the first time, as noted by Mary P. Ryan, “the majority of Americans would enjoy something called discretionary income, earnings that were secure and substantial enough to permit them to enter sectors of the marketplace that were once reserved for the affluent.”[37] In 1960, Americans were, on average, the richest people in the world by a massive margin.[38]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_of_living_in_the_United_States
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For the country as a whole, the average (median) income of families in 1960 was $5,600; but, for families headed by persons 65 years and over, the average was only $2,900, according to estimates released today by the Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce.
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Adjusting for inflation, the median income would be $56,700 today.
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Personal income is an individual’s total earnings from wages, investment interest, and other sources. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a median weekly personal income of $1,037 for full-time workers in the United States in Q1 2022.[1] For the year 2020, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the median annual earnings for all workers (aged 15 and over) was $41,535; and more specifically estimates that median annual earnings for those who worked full-time, year round, was $56,287.[2][3]
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Treading water since 1960 even with the explosion of college “educated” people.