Wednesday Afternoon SugarLinks – ecstatic explosion

by | Mar 13, 2024 | Daily Links | 139 comments


 


 

House passes TikTok ban bill, but its Senate path unclear

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Wednesday passed a bill that would lead to a nationwide ban of the popular video app TikTok if its China-based owner doesn’t sell, as lawmakers acted on concerns that the company’s current ownership structure is a national security threat.

The bill, passed by a vote of 352-65, now goes to the Senate, where its prospects are unclear.

TikTok, which has more than 150 million American users, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd.

The lawmakers contend that ByteDance is beholden to the Chinese government, which could demand access to the data of TikTok’s consumers in the U.S. any time it wants. The worry stems from a set of Chinese national security laws that compel organizations to assist with intelligence gathering.

Chyna released a terrorist app that made kids do stupid dances and cut off their sex parts!

Nancy Pelosi supports this bill, so I have a hard time riding with the devil.

“This is not an attempt to ban TikTok. It’s an attempt to make TikTok better. Tic-Tac-Toe. A winner. A winner.”

— Rep. Pelosi

(100% true accurate quote straight from the drunk’s mouth.)


 

Social media videos push baseless conspiracy theory that blue items were spared from Maui wildfires

CLAIM: Only blue items survived the Maui wildfires and lasers do not impact that color, suggesting the island was actually hit by a directed energy weapon “attack.”

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The wildfires didn’t spare only blue things, with photos and videos clearly showing buildings and objects of many colors both survived and perished. And while lasers can affect various materials differently, one powerful enough to do such damage would still burn items of any hue, according to an expert. More importantly, there is ample evidence that Maui was ravaged by fires, while the notion that a weapon or laser was involved has been repeatedly debunked.

THE FACTS: False claims that a directed energy weapon was the real cause of the devastation on Maui have been circulating online since the fires in early August, despite all evidence to the contrary.

The latest iteration of the baseless conspiracy theory uses cherry-picked images of the aftermath to falsely suggest that only blue items “survived” the blaze — and that this is somehow proof that the Hawaiian island was hit by a laser that either sparked the fire or did all the damage itself.

FAKE NEWS! PAINT EVERYTHING BLUE!


 

About The Author

SugarFree

SugarFree

Your Resident Narcissistic Misogynist Rape-Culture Apologist

139 Comments

  1. Common Tater

    “Tic-Tac-Toe. A winner.”

    WTF? I’ve never been that drunk.

      • SDF-7

        She’s optimistic about the Donkeys’ chances later this year… lush with victory.

      • pistoffnick

        Nancy Pelosi likes sex on the beach!

      • Ownbestenemy

        Sounds of velcro have traumatized me

      • Aloysious

        I’m sure it looks like a stack of old steak-ums. With cheese.

    • Common Tater

      In related news, YouTube is trying to block Invidious.

    • Sensei

      Is it a series of tubes?

  2. SDF-7

    House passes TikTok ban bill, but its Senate path unclear

    Given what Massie said on it, I hope it dies. Just the sort of thing they would use to sneak in official “disinformation” powers.

    • Common Tater

      Looks like it will pass based on the House vote.

      I also doubt that any of them besides Massie read it.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        It’ll pass unless they table it until after the election for political reasons.

  3. Shpip

    THE FACTS: False claims that a directed energy weapon was the real cause of the devastation on Maui have been circulating online since the fires in early August, despite all evidence to the contrary.

    Easier to say it was space lasers than to admit that Maui County’s fire department was woefully incompetent (just like pretty much every other government program run by Hawaiians).

    • SDF-7

      If I’m going to believe a conspiracy theory — the one that the current government doesn’t want the prior owners to move back so they can sell the land to richer developers and dramatically expand their tax base is my front runner.

  4. WTF

    CLAIM: Only blue items survived the Maui wildfires and lasers do not impact that color, suggesting the island was actually hit by a directed energy weapon “attack.”

    It’s aliens.

    • SDF-7

      I’m not saying you’re fishing for Swiss to post that meme image…..

    • creech

      You mean it wasn’t Trump’s fault?

      • SDF-7

        Or Trump is an alien. Or just controlled by the Hair one….

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        You have your mind-control chain of command mixed up, Trump is being mind-controlled by Netanyahu and Putin, its Putin that the aliens are controlling. Jeeze.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      The correct term is undocumented extraterrestrial visitors.

    • Brochettaward

      We have officially entered the territory where it’s crazier to not believe in aliens than it is to believe in them.

      • R.J.

        Heh.

  5. SDF-7

    lasers do not impact that color

    I admit it has been a long time since Re-mag and Optics and all… but “That depends entirely on the laser” is my understanding there. Lots of sci-fi where laser adaptive panels to change reflectivity versus absorbance because of just such things over the years… This one was particularly good at the start.

  6. The Late P Brooks

    CLAIM: Only blue items survived the Maui wildfires and lasers do not impact that color, suggesting the island was actually hit by a directed energy weapon “attack.”

    Yeah, okay.

    • bacon-magic

      Google “Blue waffle project” and prepare to be amazed.

      • Ownbestenemy

        No no no

      • bacon-magic

        That’s Amy Winehouse lyrics. Not relevant to the conversation.

      • SDF-7

        Well, since I would have expected that to be about the Blue Man Group going to breakfast while listening to the Alan Parsons Project… I suppose I’d pretty much have to be.

      • Fourscore

        Blueberry waffles for breakfast with the parson? Have to wear pants and clean shirt

  7. The Late P Brooks

    “Tic-tac-toe.”

    Is that like, “Game, set, match.”?

    • Ownbestenemy

      More like ‘we came, we saw, TikTok (1st Amendment) died’

  8. Shpip

    At Haleakala National Park atop Maui’s tallest peak, the buildings are impregnable to fire, since they’re constructed of the native rock.

    Even the public restrooms use locally quarried igneous rocks. That’s why they’re called lavatories.

    • SDF-7

      The Park’s IT infrastructure is sorely out of date, though…. as I understand it, they’re still running Caldera.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      That was magmificent.

    • ron73440

      These puns are not putting os on solid ground.

      They are kind of igneous though.

    • creech

      Ah ah, I see what you did there.

  9. The Other Kevin

    I wasn’t aware of that conspiracy theory. Thanks for bringing my attention to it AP, and for letting millions of others know about it too.

  10. The Late P Brooks

    Who’s going to believe that?

    The top executive of the major insurance company Chubb defended underwriting former President Trump’s appeal bond in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit Wednesday.

    “When Chubb provides an appeal bond it has nothing to do with the underlying merits or with favoring any of the parties in the case,” Evan Greenberg, Chubb’s chair and CEO, wrote in a letter to customers who inquired about the decision.

    “As the surety, we don’t take sides, it would be wrong for us to do so and we are in no way supporting the defendant,” he continued. “We are supporting and are part of the justice system plumbing included in this case.”

    He’s obstructing justice.

    • The Other Kevin

      The word “justice” has a different meaning now. Just like “democracy”.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        It’s Democratic Justice.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Justice League of Democracy

    • SDF-7

      Letitia James replied that she hasn’t seen a Chubb in years and wouldn’t know what to do with it anyway…

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        Fani Willis, on the other hand, is all over it.

      • Fourscore

        Needs to look in the wide angle mirror

    • rhywun

      We are supporting and are part of the justice system plumbing included in this case.”

      “That’s what you think, LOL.”
      — Tish

    • Sensei

      That’s Evan.

      Google his father for more fun times. Or his brother Jeff.

  11. The Late P Brooks

    “I fully realize how polarizing and emotional this case and the defendant are and how easy it would be for Chubb to just say no,” Greenberg wrote. “However, we support the rule of law and our role in it. We considered this the right thing to do and we frankly left our own personal feelings aside.”

    Ten bucks is ten bucks.

  12. The Late P Brooks

    Hate speech

    Britain’s Conservative government said Wednesday that the party does not plan to give back 10 million pounds ($12.8 million) it received in the past year from a donor who made comments about a Black lawmaker that have been condemned as racist.

    The government is under pressure from some of its own lawmakers to return the donation from IT entrepreneur Frank Hester, who said during a 2019 company meeting that Diane Abbott, Britain’s longest-serving Black legislator, made him “want to hate all Black women” and that she “should be shot.”

    Hester, chief executive of healthcare software firm The Phoenix Partnership, was the Conservative Party’s biggest donor in 2023. His company has been paid more than 400 million pounds ($510 million) by the National Health Service and other government bodies since 2016, according to The Guardian, which broke the story of Hester’s comments.

    Off with his head!

    • rhywun

      said during a 2019 company meeting

      OK then.

  13. Common Tater

    “Alberta dad asks judge to block his daughter’s euthanasia, saying the 27-year-old’s autism makes her ineligible, in latest chapter of Canada’s mass lethal injection crisis

    The daughter also suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to the father, who says euthanasia is not the answer to her problems.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13192553/Alberta-dad-judge-block-daughter-euthanasia-autism-Canada-lethal-injection.html

    WTF, Canada?

    • Dr. Fronkensteen

      You know who else euthanized mentally handicapped people?

      • ron73440

        Spartans?

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

    About Maui’s wildfires. They just don’t want to admit that the Jews could do something like this, and they know the Jews have a monopoly on space lasers.

    • Sensei

      Not lasers. Lightning.

      • SDF-7

        And here I thought it was aliens who were all about Thunder….

  15. Sensei

    No wonder young men are checking out.

    Women are more likely than men to have an LGBTQ+ identification in the three youngest generations, especially in Generation Z and the millennial generation. Close to three in 10 Gen Z women, 28.5%, identify as LGBTQ+, compared with 10.6% of Gen Z men. Among millennials, 12.4% of women and 5.4% of men have an LGBTQ+ identification.

    https://news.gallup.com/poll/611864/lgbtq-identification.aspx

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      Young women are prone to doing things they perceive as popular because they are popular!?

      No. Way.

      • slumbrew

        Next you’ll be telling me female sexuality is more fluid than that of males.

        Now tell me about LUGs…

    • Certified Public Asshat

      The percentage of U.S. adults who consider themselves something other than heterosexual has more than doubled since Gallup first asked about sexual orientation and transgender identity in 2012. These changes have been led by younger Americans, with about one in 10 millennials and one in five Gen Z adults having an LGBTQ+ status. The generational differences and trends point to higher rates of LGBTQ+ identification, nationally, in the future. If current trends continue, it is likely that the proportion of LGBTQ+ identifiers will exceed 10% of U.S. adults at some point within the next three decades.

      Interesting choice of words.

      • Sensei

        Do you have two points? Can we draw a line and calculate the slope?

        We have a trend!

        /s Former Analyst.

      • slumbrew

        In the 90s, I was assured that the percentage of the population that was gay was 10%.

        So no change.

      • Fourscore

        ’70s army said the same thing

      • rhywun

        The percentage of U.S. adults who consider themselves something other than heterosexual has more than doubled since…

        …the left has been equating heterosexuality with Nazis.

      • Grumbletarian

        If current trends continue the human race will go extinct.

      • prolefeed

        Eventually, even without said trends.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Women are much more prone than men to social pressure, misplaced empathy, and social contagions. This’ll pass after a while.

      • Common Tater

        There is also way less stigma if a woman claims she’s bi.

  16. Sensei

    I’m amazed that every news outlet feel compelled to make sure we know about the long vowel in “ Shōgun”, but makes no mention that 95% of the public will pronounce “gun” like the word for a firearm instead of like “goon”.

    • Tres Cool

      “Show Goon” sounds like a hockey movie where you get to see Elizabeth Berkely’s minge.

      • Grumbletarian

        Show Goon is the sequel to both Striptease and Slap Shot.

  17. The Other Kevin

    I see on Xwitter that Dylan Mulvaney has a pop song and video out. Apparently people who make a career out of attention need to find new ways to get attention. I’m not linking because I really like all of you. I played about 5 seconds of it and I would never dream of subjecting any of you to that. So if you see the video out there, please keep the sound off.

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

      Is it worse than Fart, that SF subjected us to earlier?

      • SugarFree

        Yes and no. Mulvaney’s fart is so autotuned as to be unrecognizable as him. (Or someone else sang it entirely.) But then Ice Spice has that extra chromosome advantage in crafting a truly stupid and worthless song, while Mulvaney’s is just vapid to the point of disappearing in a puff of Axe vagina spray.

      • Compelled Speechless

        I believe the female version is called Axe Wound Spray.

      • Mojeaux

        That’s Axe GASH Spray to you, bub.

      • Tres Cool

        “Pink Sink Scrub”

      • SugarFree

        She walked into my office, the scent of dilation lube her only perfume. I looked at her Adam’s Apple and her huge hands and I knew this dame was trouble. Whiskey-voiced, she asked, “Are you Mr. Marlow?”

        “Mr. Marlow was my father’s name,” I said. “You can call me xxxRedxxx.”

        “That’s a lovely name,” she rasped. “I’m Tiffxni Gerxld. I’m sure you’ve seen my name in the papers.”

        “I don’t read the papers, ma’am. I’m functionally illiterate.”

      • Tres Cool

        Fuck you.
        Down, down, to hell- and say I sent thee thither!

        Now Im imagining a Calvin Klein commercial for CK Dilation Lube.

    • slumbrew

      Benadryl and prozac overdose? I didn’t even know that was possible.

      • Common Tater

        Enough of any SSRI can kill you.

    • Brochettaward

      How exactly do they determine it was suicide and not just an OD?

      • Not Adahn

        I imagine the lethal dose might be outside the plausible range of accidental.

      • Brochettaward

        People do abuse both of those things. Suicide implies intent. Given that the story is that they were going about their day as if everything was fine when they collapsed, I don’t see the intent here.

        The medical examiners may simply rule it a suicide because it was self-inflicted. I don’t know. But that’s now the public perceives it.

    • rhywun

      was a non-binary student

      Taps out in paragraph two.

      I will continue to ignore this story until the media stop injecting their biases into it (but then it wouldn’t clickworthy.)

      • Mojeaux

        My friend’s XX decided she was a “they,” and picked the name Lux. What is it with punchy syllables with X in them as names?

      • Gender Traitor

        Was she reading the results of test marketing with focus groups for prescription drug brand names?

      • Mojeaux

        There can be no other explanation. #Xarelto #Effexor #Fluoxetine #Xanax

      • Tres Cool

        “Ask your doctor if Lux is right for you…”

      • Gender Traitor

        I always thought former Dayton Dragons outfielder Beau Amaral‘s name sounded like a prescription drug. At the time, our doctor was the Dragons’ team doctor, so I asked my doctor if Beau Amaral was right for me.

        He didn’t get it.

      • Tres Cool

        Break him in easy with “it hurts when I do this”.

      • whiz

        Late to the party on this one, but…

        Lux? How mid-20th century (Lux Soap was big back then).

  18. Gustave Lytton

    On what planet does this make sense?

    https://youtu.be/aBflExNpySA

    Oh right, Planet GM. I swear their engineers are fucking retards. Every choice they make is the wrong one.

    • Sensei

      My wife’s Acura requires the intake box and muffler mess to come out. Looks like at least a half hour job for a do it yourself and at least 15 or 20 minutes of book time.

    • pistoffnick

      Se also battery replacement on the Dodge Avenger (which I have personally experienced).

    • ron73440

      I had to remove the front tire to change the headlight bulb in my wife’s friend’s Mazda.

      • Common Tater

        JFHC

      • Gustave Lytton

        Geezus. “Why is he rotating his tires? I thought this was spark plug change video. Oh…”

    • Gustave Lytton

      My truck at work has a single battery. GM has a single engine compartment layout apparently with dual battery setups so there’s an empty battery tray in front with the battery jammed under windshield cowling on the passenger side. Negative terminal is pretty much inaccesible for getting a good clamp on it for jumping another vehicle. Or getting knocked against the positive clamp. Fucking idiots.

    • Tres Cool

      BMW and Benz arent much better.
      Their engineers seem to think that using 3 different screws on 1 component is ideal.

    • creech

      I recall a buddy of mine in high school working on a 50s car (don’t remember the make, model or year) where he could actually stand within the engine compartment while maintaining whatever. I don’t think I can get my hand inside my 2020 Honda CRV engine compartment.

    • Timeloose

      1A auto does a great job with how to videos. Good new for me is that they tend to use an old Ranger for a demonstration.

      • ron73440

        They helped me with doing the steering gear on my truck.

  19. KK, Plump & Unfiltered

    I’m craving pizza and dirty water hot dogs…think I’ll book a trip to thr Port Au Prince of America

    • Dr. Fronkensteen

      Why would you go to NYC for pizza and hot dogs?

  20. Aloysious

    oh yeah, KMFDM.

    Good time to listen to Professional Killer.

  21. Tres Cool

    I had to go over to Indiana (EWW!) today, so Im just now getting caught up on the AM lynx and Wednesday lunch.
    My hives have subsided considerably since I crossed over into Ohio.

    But- the japanese hex chrome cat is likely already dead.
    While the article says hexavalent chromium is acidic, Cr+6 isnt. However it’s often in a solution of chromic acid found in electroplating.
    Which is not kind.

    RIP Kitty-san.

    • R.J.

      Indeed. Horrible. It probably tried to lick itself clean and died quickly.

      • Gender Traitor

        ::shudders:: Poor kitteh!

    • The Other Kevin

      Eew? Excuse me?

      • Tres Cool

        Well not the part YOU’RE in, obviously.

    • Gender Traitor

      Hey, now – it depends on where in Indiana you had to go. I’ve lived in Fort Wayne, Richmond (well, on campus at Earlham, so not really REAL Richmond,) and Muncie. They weren’t so bad. Even poor little Metamora is charming in its own faded way.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      I hope you didn’t get shot, what with all those guns in Indiana.

  22. The Late P Brooks

    But- the japanese hex chrome cat is likely already dead.

    I’m amazed he lived long enough to climb out of the tank, if he really did fall in.

    We used to joke about disappearing people at the chrome shop.

    • Tres Cool

      Foundries and steel mills have a surprisingly high rate of suicides.
      When I did work for Ford in Cleveland (open-hearth cupola furnace) guys said that people died at a rate of around 2 or 3 even 7 years. 7 years seemed to be the amount of time it required someone to become complacent. The same guys also added, “well, then you have the holidays…”
      Distraught employees will just jump into the melt.

      /totally anecdotal

      • Sensei

        It’s why the Cleveland motors are heavier than those from Windsor?

      • Tres Cool

        Nah.
        Its the metric system.

      • Sensei

        Makes sense!

  23. Mojeaux

    TFW you’re reminded your back yard faces a wheat field. #JohnDeere

  24. cavalier973

    Citizen Free Press are losing their marbles over Rand Paul opposing the Tik Tok bill, and have multiple headlines asserting that Sen. Paul took a couple of million dollars from an American who owns a large chunk of Tik Tol.

    • cavalier973

      My view is that, if Rand Paul opposes a bill, then there is probably a good reason.
      He has a pretty good track record on opposing government overreach.

      • Brochettaward

        Even if I disagreed with Rand, there’s no universe in which anything in his track record suggests he’d be for this bill.

      • cavalier973

        I know, right?

        “The only reason he opposes this is because of money” is nonsense.

    • Raven Nation

      Mark Levine was all upset today about the fake conservatives in the house who voted against the bill.

      • Brochettaward

        Real conservatives are the ones blackmailed by the intelligence community.

      • creech

        Yesterday he disparaged libertarianism re opposition to the tiktok bill.

  25. Fourscore

    Young Tom turkeys pecking on the window, I took the trash can of corn in a day or two ago, before a bear might show up and toss the can around. Now the turkeys are loudly showing their disappointment or displeasure.

    Appears the turkeys segregate by sex and age group this time of year. Old Toms are chasing the girls, the younger fellers band together, like teenagers at the Quik Stop.

    • SugarFree

      And so begins your turkey army.

  26. Mojeaux

    A couple years ago, a lady smashed my rear passenger fender. We popped it out but now the fiberglass is cracking, so I guess I’m gonna figure out how to fix it because it looks trashy.

  27. The Late P Brooks

    Trump loses!

    Donald Trump lost a significant number of votes to Nikki Haley in the Georgia Republican primary despite running essentially unopposed.

    The former president won Georgia on Tuesday with 84.5 percent of the vote, as well as winning Mississippi and Washington.

    OMG humiliation.

  28. Brochettaward

    I’m thinking about posting an ad on Craigslist.

    Firster seeking legitimate time traveler
    While I am able to traverse the Firstline in six different dimensions simultaneously, I could use an assistant experienced in both Firsting and time travel. Matter is urgent and necessary to save the Firstline and prepare the way for The First That Shall Change Everything by way of coordinated and dynamic Firsts placed strategically throughout the Firstline. Needs the ability to clearly follow instructions. Pays in experience and prestige. Can promise a rank post-First that will be in proportion to the number of Firsts you implant in time. Legitimate and sincere inquiries from Firsters only.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    Best case scenario

    Any additional delays from this disqualification motion inures only to his benefit. And the longer it takes for the twice-impeached, quadruple-indicted, disgraced one-term ex-president to face accountability, the more jaded and disenchanted Americans become with the equities (or lack thereof) in our judicial system.

    A new DA on the case could also decide not to pursue the existing RICO charges and other offenses that have been charged against Trump and his co-defendants. Prosecutorial discretion allows for a new DA’s office to review the charges and decide if it wants to continue along the path that Willis set forth at the beginning of the case.

    The hysterical anguished shrieking from the MSNBC shit flinging howler monkeys would be a giant dollop of whipped cream and cherries on top.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      “the twice-impeached, quadruple-indicted, disgraced one-term ex-president”

      The mean girls in the media are at it again.

  30. Suthenboy

    Alright….I was kinda on the fence but I concede on the Tik-Tok thingy. It would be an exercise in futility and a huge power grab by an already out of control govt.
    If the Chinese want info on every American they can just buy it from our own companies and our intelligence secret police.