204 Comments

  1. WTF

    In February, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner first announced that the Houston Police Department dropped 264,000 crime reports, including violent crimes and sexual assaults, which weren’t investigated because a “lack of personnel” code was assigned to them

    Now THAT’S how you keep crime stats down!

    • Nephilium

      I know at least one call center that kept their handle times and abandoned percentage juiced by dropping all calls at the switch if there were too many in queue.

      • Sensei

        Recognizing that ticket closures are closely monitored by my IT help desk I won’t let them close the ticket unless the problem is actually solved.

        I can’t tell you how many tickets I’ve reopened while they play this game. We outsource so I’ve also had to do the copy the internal person here that supervises the outsourced team with the “I can’t get anybody on your team to the problem”. That gets results within 24 hours, but I actually hate to do that. I’ve only had to pull that trump card twice.

      • Nephilium

        My current place has been pushing for ticket closures and “guestimating” time spent on cases. There’s been the predictable glut of people spawning multiple cases for the same thing (person asks for details on 3 calls, so the agent opens a separate case for each), and people closing things before confirming they’re closed.

        Some of management has expressed shock, I’ve just quietly said (in the no management chat) “You get more of what you reward…”

      • Ted S.

        Is that quietly said like a Biden whisper?

        /ducking

      • Pope Jimbo

        I once did a project monitoring drive-thru performance at a fast food chain.

        One of the managers had been winning all sorts of bonuses for her store’s performance metrics. When we started monitoring her store, her metrics were OK, but not great.

        Everyone kept telling us that our code must be flawed if this gal wasn’t showing A+ performance so we looked into it real hard. Turns out that the manager had simply read the manual for the hardware that they had been using for metrics. There were all sorts of options where you could exclude readings when performance was sucking. (There are valid reasons for those options). So all she had done was to set up her hardware so it was excluding “outliers”, which also happened to be the super busy times when performance stinks.

        Since we were monitoring the loop sensor directly, we weren’t excluding those times. Which brought her solidly back to the pack in terms of performance.

        When we announced this, a lot of fur flew because the other managers were not happy at losing out on that bonus money.

      • Gustave Lytton

        -1 McDonalds “can I have you park so we can bring out cold food eventually?”

      • Pope Jimbo

        Exactly. Never leave the window. You lose all your leverage.

  2. WTF

    House Takes Steps to Hold Attorney General in Contempt

    And nothing else will happen.

    • Drake

      Peter Navarro will remain in prison.

    • Rat on a train

      They could impeach …

    • The Gunslinger

      The walls are closing in
      They got him this time for sure.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Yeah, why even bother?

    • ZWAK will kindle all of the dreams it took a lifetime to destroy

      What should they do? Impeach, when the D’s hold the Senate? Create a Star Chamber, and dispense justice on their own?

      This is a political crime, and has to be solved politically. Which means they need to get a super-majority of voters on their side. And that ain’t gonna happen in this divided era.

      • Gustave Lytton

        So the answer is primary their squishes and enforce party discipline. Twice, the Romneys and Collins and naive Rs who though they were playing Marquis of Queensbury political rules let the Trump impeachments go and a myriad of other things (like letting the courts rule his DHS appointee was improperly appointed so was issuing illegal orders) through, yet as soon as it was on the other foot, Schumer just shitcans it immediately with zero consequences. They need to listen to Malone talking about the Chicago way instead.

      • ZWAK will kindle all of the dreams it took a lifetime to destroy

        Yes, but as Juris will, rightfully, point out, what libertarians want is not necessarily what the majority of Repubs want. And that is the crux here.

        I don’t particularly like R’s, and probably hit on the liberal side of most of the commenters here, but I do think they are more open to libertarian arguments across the board. And that takes work! Which the large L’s and small L’s don’t really seem interested in.

  3. Not Adahn

    Houston Police chief resigns, mayor ‘shocked’ by latest investigation’s revelation

    Well, not that shocked.

  4. Sensei

    Peggy Noonan who I can’t stand, but is a good read for the RINO anybody but Trump country club set makes an interesting observation. She is invited to all the DC cocktail parties so I usually skim her stuff.

    A veteran Democratic officeholder gives the bottom line: “A pro-Biden coalition does not exist, but an anti-Trump one does.” Mr. Biden must stop making the election a referendum on his record. “Instead make it a referendum on Trump’s.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/2024-election-a-certain-fatalism-sets-in-biden-political-pros-1821a34a?st=jxew5unoj9tj7j0&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

    • WTF

      Because Trump’s record as president was so awful? Do they really want to contrast Biden’s foreign policy, inflation, unemployment, etc. with Trump’s?
      I guess they think “all that peace and prosperity under Trump really sucked” is a winning argument?

      • ron73440

        It won’t be on his actual record, it will be on the fact he’s racist, “kids in cages”, “fine people on both sides”, 91 felonies, and any other BS they can add.

        I forgot “Russia, Russia, Russia!”.

      • ZWAK will kindle all of the dreams it took a lifetime to destroy

        Yep, It would be a straight feels election.

      • Tonio

        And they’re trying to pin the COVID deaths on him.

      • ron73440

        I think that whole metric is BS, but wouldn’t the COVID believers have to acknowledge that there were more under Biden?

        Who am I kidding, they never acknowledge anything.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        There were more deaths under Biden because Trump didn’t stomp out COVID when he had the chance. How he was supposed to do that is unknown, but he’s still to blame.

      • Urthona

        Well Trump did shut down the economy and cause massive inflation.

        Problem is the Democrats wanted even more of that.

    • rhywun

      LOL. Make this happen.

      But of course it won’t be a referendum on Donald’s record, it will be six months of pussy hats and more lawfare.

      • The Other Kevin

        It will be a referendum on him being a criminal with 91 charges against him. Unfortunately for them all those cases are falling apart bit by bit and most people polled see this as nothing but political persecution.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Yeah not hard to piece together a 2016 “crime” was magically tried in 2024 at the start of the election cycle.

      • hayeksplosives

        For hyper emotional women, it will be a referendum on abortion.

        The dems have got women thinking that they will lose all their rights if OMB gets in.

      • rhywun

        One of the punch-faces on The Daily Show is appearing on a constantly-airing commercial hypothesizing that maybe Republicans could “give women their rights back”.

        Obs referring to abortion.

        Which is not a national issue, in case you were wondering, Dems.

      • ZWAK will kindle all of the dreams it took a lifetime to destroy

        For the D’s it is, and it always has been.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Near perfect wedge issue. Divides political ideology, gender, religion, all of it.

      • ZWAK will kindle all of the dreams it took a lifetime to destroy

        Guns do the same thing, only from the other side. R’s need to play that up.

  5. rhywun

    Some happy too local news…

    The Coalition for Mutual Liberation [🙄, ed.] has announced that they are ending their encampment at 8 p.m. on Monday, the first day of Cornell’s final exams.
    The CML had seven demands, and Day Hall has made clear that none of their demands will be met.

    That sad little camp got so much attention? JFC, people. Ignore them.

    • Nephilium

      In local news:

      Students learned they were flagged after receiving an email with a direct subject line: “Notice of University Persona Non-Grata.”

      The university’s code of conduct allows administrators to bestow that status before a formal conduct hearing process begins “if a student poses an ongoing threat of disruption or interference with the normal operations of the university, or to ensure the safety and well-being of members of the university community or the preservation of University property,” according to the email students received.

      • Not Adahn

        Wake me up when they issue a “University Hostis Humani Generis”

    • Not Adahn

      Ultimately, six student leaders of the encampment were suspended pending a hearing. The group that allegedly misrepresented the activity on its permit to use the Arts Quad for a temporary art installation, Climate Justice Cornell, was also suspended by the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards.

      Surely Climate Justice Cornell should have been applauding the reduction of anthropogenic greenhouse gases in Gaza that’s been underway since October?

      • rhywun

        Oh, snap!

        So the “climate justice” crowd is the same people. Imagine that.

      • R C Dean

        The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution, comrade.

      • Not Adahn

        St. Greta was protesting Eurovision allowing the joos in.

    • SDF-7

      The daily bump and grind.

      • Not Adahn

        A truly excellent coffee shop.

      • ZWAK will kindle all of the dreams it took a lifetime to destroy

        Two pumps, a tickle, and a latte!

    • Fourscore

      I laughed, remembering the hookers that refused…Hey, wait a minute, that’s not funny!

    • rhywun

      developing countries, where fewer girls than boys are born

      That’s an interesting way of putting it.

      • R C Dean

        I thought the natural ratio was slightly skewed toward boys.

      • Nephilium

        I seem to recall that skewing was of the order of 52/48 or 51/49 percent breaks.

      • rhywun

        I have heard that, but I suspect it’s more skewed than that, is what they’re alluding to.

      • Nephilium

        You can’t prove that the Chinese One Child Policy caused less girls to be born. How would you even know what the fetuses identified as?

      • WTF

        Yeah, they can simply “assign” more infants to be boys at birth! Problem solved!

    • PieInTheSky

      as long as the babies are not white het males we need more?

    • The Other Kevin

      Elon Musk tweets about this a lot. People in the west just aren’t having many kids, and testosterone levels are falling off a cliff. This is going to be a problem.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Border is open. *reaches for the foil*

  6. Drake

    The Ukrainian army appears to be in full collapse wherever the Russians are pushing.

    The army is complaining that they don’t have fallback fortifications, probably because the funds to build them were stolen.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      It’s a good thing we gave them all of that money, eh?

      • WTF

        I can’t wait to see what the next money laundering regional war is going to be once Ukraine collapses.

      • Sean

        Taiwan?

    • creech

      Biden needs to confiscate those F-15s from right wing militias and give them to the Ukies where they will surely turn the tide.

  7. Sensei

    Please explain the relationship between the groups below and celibacy.

    “Bumble said it would remove the ads and make a donation to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, as well as to other organizations that support women, marginalized communities and victims of abuse.”

    Bumble Is Removing Anti-Celibacy Ads Following Backlash
    https://www.wsj.com/business/bumble-is-removing-anti-celibacy-ads-following-backlash-ef2001d8?st=lg7vcrmlc8ivpmy&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

    • WTF

      The dating app apologized on Monday for a series of advertisements in which it said celibacy wasn’t the answer, in response to criticism that the ads undermined daters’ freedom of choice.

      Because ads remove freedom of choice? What the actual fuck?

      • Sensei

        The whole article seems to sum up the current state of popular culture.

      • rhywun

        There is a large segment of the population which believes exactly that.

      • Nephilium

        It’s giving them FOMO, which is like literally the worst thing in the world.

    • R C Dean

      Wait, a hook-up site is removing ads promoting . . . hooking up? Because hooking up is bad for women, marginalized, communities, and victims of abuse?

      Shouldn’t they just close their doors, then?

      • PieInTheSky

        Because hooking up is bad for women, marginalized, communities, and victims of abuse? – a fairly conservative position I would say

    • EvilSheldon

      This strikes me as an outgrowth of the ‘millennials and zoomers are afraid of everything, especially sex and interpersonal relationships’ trope.

      Can we call it a trope if it’s demonstrably true?

    • Gustave Lytton

      “Abstinence is violence”

    • R C Dean

      “You think . . . “

      Nah, I’m good.

    • slumbrew

      “Definitely needing a new seat cover after that, the old one is either a biohazard or needed to be surgically removed.”

      QFT

      • Sensei

        Note the trailered Jeep is no longer attached.

        I’m hoping nobody else was hit.

      • slumbrew

        I thought so too, at first. But you can see it flopping around at the end.

        Still, total shit show.

      • slumbrew

        Actually, it looks like the Jeep may have stayed on its wheels. You can see it just as the RV enters the frame.

    • Sean

      Yikes.

    • The Other Kevin

      Those dogs (the legit ones) go through tons of training. Nice to have a ceremony.

  8. Pope Jimbo

    Is it racist of me to notice the skin color of all the brawlers in this mini-riot?

    This mall is not in the inner city. It is out in the burbs.

    In the video, a police drone shows a fight involving a group of teenage girls, surrounded by a large crowd of onlookers – many with their phones out apparently recording the fight.

    Two Blaine officers are seen trying to break up the fight. But, the assault continues, with one girl jumping on the back of an officer.

    Another officer also caught an elbow to the head, suffering a concussion from the injury.

    Do cops no longer carry batons? And even though all the fighters are girls, I think that the cops should have had batons and cracked some heads.

    • PieInTheSky

      Jay:
      I hope one rips the other one’s shirt off and we see some f***in titties floppin around, yeah!

    • R C Dean

      Any mob like that should get a couple of CS grenades.

      • Ted S.

        Your computer science grenades intrigue me.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        That must be code for something.

    • The Other Kevin

      I will be there in 2.5 weeks. Clean that place up, Jimbo.

    • Fourscore

      Isn’t Northtown Mall being re-imagined into an all Asian mall? Somewhere I read that it had been sold, ’cause all the shops/stores were emptying out.

      Also, the ferns are leafing out, time to dig.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Asian Village is what they are going to call it. Will be going into one of the anchor stores in the mall. Currently is Becker Furniture, used to be the Sears.

        I let Mrs. Holiness know about the ferns. Our dance card is pretty full, so it might be a few weeks before you see us.

    • B.P.

      The cops look like they’re sorting through clothing at a Gap store.

    • EvilSheldon

      No, a lot of departments don’t. Too heavy, not enough utility, too much liability if some choirboy gets cracked in the head and ends up brain dead.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I remember the shore patrol always whacking you in your shins with their billy clubs. Hurts like a mother fucker. (I’ve been told).

    • Drake

      These brawls always remind me of the western saloon fights (like the end of Blazing Saddles). People just punching other random people because it started.

  9. PieInTheSky

    U.S. spending on interest tops national defense, Medicare

    you people are too obsessed with penny pinching

    • Rat on a train

      Come on, we can get it to the top spending item.

  10. Sensei

    Donald Trump to Biden, “hold my beer err, Coke”!

    WASHINGTON—One day after news broke that President Biden was planning to raise tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles to roughly 100%, Donald Trump moved to one-up his rival for the White House.

    “I will put a 200% tax on every car that comes in from those plants,” the former president said at a rally in New Jersey on Saturday, referring to Chinese vehicles manufactured in Mexico. Biden, he suggested, was ripping off his tariff-focused trade agenda. “Biden finally listened to me,” Trump said. “He’s about four years late.”

    https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/biden-trump-tariffs-d405cbca?st=wvcr8k27vcymtxx&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

  11. ron73440

    Currently listening to Steve Harvey rant about how Trump let’s all the racists show themselves.

    He lets Quanon, Proudboys, skinheads, and evangelicals all be themselves.

    Now he’s going on about how slavers used Christianity as a justification and that’s the same thing as MAGA.

    LT going for Trump has him thrown for a loop.

    Why would a great football player be so dumb as to endorse MAGA when that’s just going back to a time when blacks were kept on the bottom.

    I liked Steve Harvey much better when I thought he was just a not so funny comedian.

    • PieInTheSky

      You any reform means going back to the 50s

    • rhywun

      I liked when he ruined Family Feud.

      blacks were kept on the bottom

      Um… Trump is not a registered Democrat anymore.

    • Ownbestenemy

      The grouping of “Quanon, Proudboys, skinheads, and evangelicals” is interesting. I thought Steve Harvey was an evangelical?

      • ron73440

        He was saying that the ones supporting trump aren’t true evangelicals.

        Then he went on a tangent about a church in Africa that had holding pens for slaves underneath it with skinny doors that the slaves would be put on ships from once they lost enough weight to fit through the doors and that ties to evangelicals supporting Trump because they were all hiding their true faces under religion.

        I feel dumber for listening to him, but i did get the radio turned down, so now I can’t hear him.

    • The Other Kevin

      The arguments against Biden are all measurable. Interest rates, inflation, gas prices, number of illegal immigrants. The arguments against Trump are all either lies about things he said, mind reading, or predictions about what he’d do in the future. In other words, nothing measurable.

      • R C Dean

        The arguments against Biden are fact-based. The arguments against Trump are emotional.

        That’s why even Biden has a shot at winning. And if/when they pull the Newsome switcheroo, Trump will be hard pressed to win. And thus will be within the margin of fraud and will very likely not be the next President.

        Emotions beat facts. It’s just the way it is.

      • The Other Kevin

        Yes and no. Maybe the arguments against Biden are becoming emotional. Families are struggling. Inflation and high interest rates are affecting people on an emotional level. The pictures you see from the border hit you at an emotional level. And the same thing about Biden’s mental decline. Maybe I’m arguing against myself? 🙂

      • J. Frank Parnell

        I wonder if the constant stream of experts gaslighting that this is the best economy ever is pushing people’s emotional buttons.

    • Grummun

      You wrote Steve Harvey, I thought Paul Harvey.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      all be themselves.

      So being yourself isn’t always a good thing.

  12. The Late P Brooks

    Speaking of birth rates… I watched Idiocracy last night.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Ow! My balls!

    • pistoffnick (370HSSV)

      Go away! ‘Batin’

    • PieInTheSky

      and now you talk like fag and your shit’s all retarded?

    • slumbrew

      Hey, I like money too. We should hang out.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      I guess it’s a movie that makes you think, but also not funny or creative.

  13. PieInTheSky

    EXCL: Rent rises should be capped for millions of people struggling to afford soaring rates, according to landmark report commissioned by Labour

    https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1790127186147487867

    this time it will work! I have every confidence

    • J. Frank Parnell

      Real rent control has never been tried!

  14. The Late P Brooks

    RV drifting in TX

    That should be a regular event at the Freedom Factory.

  15. Sean

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    • SDF-7

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    • rhywun

      Meh.

      I played https://squaredle.com 05/14:
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      I played https://squaredle.com/xp 05/14:
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  16. PieInTheSky

    The West’s cultural revolution is over The return of censorship, speech codes and taboos suggests society returning to normal

    https://unherd.com/2021/07/the-wests-cultural-revolution-is-over/

    The past 50 years or so have seen a cultural revolution in western society comparable in scope to the Reformation. Most of us have known only that period of transition, when morality and norms were up for debate, but perhaps it is now over. Perhaps we have returned to the sort of world we lived in when England last reached a final, in 1966 – a world of strictly enforced social mores.

    The year 2020 marked a convenient end to the cultural revolution, because of the vastly different nature of the protests that took place that summer, compared with 1968. In the late Sixties, student radicals were protesting against the system. American academia itself was politically mixed; there were around three Democrat professors for every Republican — it’s now about 15 to 1 — but the higher echelons of the Ivy League were quite conservative. The Boston Brahmin elite were still pretty traditional, as was big business (although, not coincidentally, far more egalitarian than it is now). The Army was obviously very Right-wing, and one of the causes of student protests was the prospect of being drafted into a war to defend the honour of a conservative American establishment.

    In 2020, almost all the major institutions in the US, aside from the actual President, were loudly vocal along with corporations, charities and NGOs in their support for the BLM protests. Parts of the media were sympathetic to the point of actively playing down some of the violence, the phrase “mostly peaceful protests” becoming an example of American journalism’s Pravda-like bias.

    The protesters themselves tended to come from America’s upper-middle-class, displaying a feverous zeal that felt alarming. And there was no debate to be had about race and policing, opponents simply had to educate themselves.

    • Ownbestenemy

      …were loudly vocal along with corporations, charities and NGOs in their support for the BLM protest

      Some yes, others were desperate and futile attempts to not have their businesses burnt to the ground.

      • PieInTheSky

        they were insured.

    • rhywun

      it’s perhaps more surprising how little opposition taking the knee faced, and how even most critics proclaimed to support BLM’s aims, if not methods

      I’m seeing some teams not doing it anymore. The racist ones, I suppose.

      It would be nice if more people were educated that BLM’s aim is totalitarianism and communism.

    • R C Dean

      As a survey of the Dominant Culture, sounds about right.

      I do note that the (majority) Remnant America doesn’t seem to appear at all.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Seems to be UK dominant, where I’m not sure their remnant is majority at all anymore.

  17. The Late P Brooks

    Shoulder to shoulder

    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that American military aid on its way to Ukraine would make a “real difference” on the battlefield, as the top diplomat made an unannounced visit to Kyiv to reassure an ally facing a fierce new Russian offensive.

    ——-

    Analysts have called this moment one of the most dangerous for Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 — and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked Tuesday for more air defense systems to protect civilians under Russian fire in the northeast.

    “We know this is a challenging time,” Blinken said in the Ukrainian capital where he met with Zelenskyy. But he added that American military aid is “going to make a real difference against the ongoing Russian aggression on the battlefield.”

    We’ll fight to your last man.

    • The Other Kevin

      The only arms that could make a difference would be the ones attached to US Marines.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      That money skimming gold mine for the pols and the MIC is about to be finished so it’s no wonder they’re panicking.

    • R C Dean

      + 1 Anathem

      • PutridMeat

        +1 Anthem

  18. The Late P Brooks

    The West’s cultural revolution is over The return of censorship, speech codes and taboos suggests society returning to normal

    The Maoists won. Individualism and freedom of thought are done for.

    • PieInTheSky

      prepare to write a proper self criticism

  19. PieInTheSky

    Woke invades the sciences
    The intrusion of irrational ideology is distorting and censoring science

    By
    Alan Sokal

    https://thecritic.co.uk/woke-invades-the-sciences/

    A quarter-century ago, the “Science Wars” — an unfortunate military metaphor applied to an intellectual debate — pitted a motley crew of postmodernist-influenced literary scholars and social scientists, often (but not always) of a leftist and feminist political bent, espousing an extreme social-constructivist view of science and scientific knowledge, against another motley crew of scientists and philosophers (plus some humanities scholars, historians and social scientists) from across the political spectrum, who defended traditional notions of rationality and objectivity, at least as ideals towards which to strive.

    Some leftist scientists, it is true, such as Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould, did advocate social-constructivist theses with regard to particular (and highly controversial) items of scientific study, notably human intelligence; and some feminist scientists, such as Ruth Hubbard and Evelyn Fox Keller, did the same with regard to other corners of biology and psychology. But no prominent scientists, as far as I know, endorsed the radical view that all purported scientific knowledge — from neutrino physics to organometallic chemistry to lepidopterology — is deeply imbued with social ideology. Nor did any notable scientists advocate social constructivism with respect to long-established and uncontroversial items of scientific knowledge, such as the atomic theory of matter or the double-helix structure of DNA.

    That, alas, has changed — at least on certain subjects. (Maybe you can guess which ones.)

  20. The Late P Brooks

    The ads, launched in late April, coincided with a redesign for the popular dating app. Images on social media showed billboards with slogans including “A vow of celibacy is not the answer” and “Thou shalt not give up on dating and become a nun.”

    The ads drew swift criticism, with some accusing the company of delegitimizing celibacy and pressuring people into sex.

    Oh for pity’s sake. “Don’t give up your desperate search for Mister Right. That’s how we make money.” is not delegitimizing celibacy.

  21. Certified Public Asshat

    Damn, Chris Cuomo has agreed to debate Dave Smith on covid on the PBD podcast.

    • PieInTheSky

      what do you think that will achieve?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Content interaction

      • Certified Public Asshat

        It’s good for Dave and PBD obviously.

        Cuomo? I don’t know, unless he is trying to be the new Destiny (“at least he’ll debate the other side!”)*.

        *Destiny sucks

      • PieInTheSky

        Destiny sucks – not as much as his ex wife amiright?

      • Certified Public Asshat

        hey-o

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I hope he goes full Guido and threatens to throw Dave down the stairs. It should be remembered: Chris Cuomo is the stupider sibling that got his job because of his more talented and intelligent sibling, AKA Fredo.

      • Drake

        Yes – I heard trying to justify his party-line antics 4 years ago while criticizing the covid.preachers now. It didn’t work, he just sounds dumb and lacking all self-awareness.

  22. Mojeaux

    Okay, I’ll say it. I like Red Lobster.

    • PieInTheSky

      isn’t all lobster kinda red after cooking?

    • slumbrew

      There are no Red Lobster restaurants in New England.

      Make of that what you will.

      • Mojeaux

        If I were in New England, I wouldn’t need Red Lobster.

      • slumbrew

        I was trying to think of some KC equivalent – i.e., some national BBQ chain that has no KC locations.

        But I can’t think of any national BBQ places; maybe going to Chili’s for ribs while in KC is the closest we’d get. I assume there’s somebody who does that.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Famous Dave’s?

      • Gustave Lytton

        *Tony Roma’s advertising director jumps off building in failure*

    • Grummun

      Cheesy biscuits are like crack.

  23. PieInTheSky

    Total American culture victory is when you have Trotskyist activists camping out on Australian university campuses demanding an end to ties with Israel despite trade with Israel representing 0.0006 per cent of Australian GDP.

    At least protests in America kind of make sense theoretically considering American colleges often have huge endowments with funds invested in Israel. We don’t even have that here.

    The extent of “Zionist influence” on campus at the University of Queensland is a Boeing aero-engineering institute that helps model in-flight cabin disease transmission. That’s what they are protesting against. That’s it. Because the University of Queensland barely has ties with Israel.

    This is honestly pretty funny actually. Campus socialist activists claim to hate the US but their entire worldview is shaped by American culture wars. Colonised minds.

    https://twitter.com/DrewPavlou/status/1790169374374142086

    • rhywun

      Narrator: None of this is actually about Israel.

      • PieInTheSky

        can you guess what it is about?

      • rhywun

        Israel is just an excuse for the usual black bloc assholes to agitate for communism. It is a repeat of the 2020 Summer of Love and summer’s not even here yet.

      • PieInTheSky

        agitate for communism – that’s a bingo

    • EvilSheldon

      When the French do banditry, they do it right.

  24. The Late P Brooks

    The arguments against Biden are all measurable. Interest rates, inflation, gas prices, number of illegal immigrants. The arguments against Trump are all either lies about things he said, mind reading, or predictions about what he’d do in the future. In other words, nothing measurable.

    The high priests of the mandarinate looked into Trump’s soul, and divined his deepest intentions.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Predict the future by looking to the past. He’s going to talk a big game and not really do Jack shit. Better (for us) than Biden but only slightly and we’ll be way more disappointed.

  25. PieInTheSky

    In lcoal-ish news

    5 suspects arrested in investigation into death of trucker killed after drain cover was thrown through the windscreen of his lorry

    Five suspects have been arrested in the investigation into an incident on Friday night in which a Romanian truck driver lost his life. The trucker died after a drain cover was thrown through the windscreen of his lorry from a bridge over the E42 motorway. The Namur public prosecutor’s office says that 2 of the 5 suspects are minors.

    https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2024/05/13/5-suspects-arrested-in-investigation-into-death-of-trucker-kille/

    • PieInTheSky

      *local

    • rhywun

      I hope he had a son who can go all Repairman Jack on their asses.

      • EvilSheldon

        Excellent. *fist-bump*

      • ZWAK will kindle all of the dreams it took a lifetime to destroy

        Isn’t that F. Paul Wilson? I haven’t read those in forever.

    • Sean

      That’s fucked up.

      • Raven Nation

        “The six-person jury found the teens 10 percent responsible for Hedges’ injuries while assigning 65 percent of the fault to the mall and 25 percent to Planned Security Services.”

        I’d like to say “unbelievable” but it was what I was expecting.

      • B.P.

        Only those with sue-able amounts of money are responsible for bad things happening.

      • Gustave Lytton

        That happened here 40 years ago and why there are chain link fences on every overpass on I5.

    • Raven Nation

      Reminds me of the miner strikes in Britain back in the 80s. Although the Romanian story doesn’t suggest a motive.

  26. KSuellington

    It’s pretty funny reading articles about the present birth rate panic. Ive seen more than a few of these in the past couple years. It’s starting to move beyond Elon and the fringes into the mainstream received wisdom. It wasn’t all that long ago that Ehrlich’s Malthusian bullshit was fully being preached as Gospel. I wonder if any of the climate true believers ever read one of these articles and draw some conclusions about the infallibility of The Science.

    • PieInTheSky

      we cannot risk running out of tax serfs

      • R C Dean

        Ding ding ding.

  27. The Late P Brooks

    We need more Smart People Babies to tell the Dumb People Babies how to live.

    • EvilSheldon

      Let me know when you find these Smart People. I’m mostly seeing jumped-up idiots around lately…

  28. The Late P Brooks

    He’s going to talk a big game and not really do Jack shit.

    The best thing he could do is revoke a bunch of executive orders and then spend the rest of his term playing golf and chasing women.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I’d be fine with that, maybe liberally throw around some pardons as well to everyone who has even a half assed case to get one.

  29. PieInTheSky

    WHAT A FLOCK! That is not rain. Doppler radar is detecting massive flocks of migrating birds across Ohio and the Great Lakes region.
    There is an estimated 340,000,000 birds in migration across the United States tonight!

    https://twitter.com/ChrisWTOL/status/1790212398432846134

    • Gender Traitor

      I’ll be happy if The Hate Birds go back to Canada where they came from. 😒

      • Nephilium

        They won’t. They’re here now. And will be forever.

        Besides, the big news is usually when the mayfly swarms show up on the radar.

      • Gender Traitor

        OK, then how about as far as Cleveland?

      • Nephilium

        Here they have to fight the gulls if thye get too close to the lake (or any parking lot near the lake).

      • Grummun

        You can see Canada from Cleveland, right?

      • pistoffnick (370HSSV)

        mayfly swarms

        The mayflies used to be so bad in bluff country SE Minnesoda that people would skid off the road. The guts are slippery.

    • Urthona

      That’s actually pretty neat.

  30. The Late P Brooks

    Threat profile

    U.S. President Joe Biden issued an order on Monday forcing a Chinese-backed cryptocurrency mining company to sell land near a Wyoming nuclear missile base, citing national security concerns.

    The company, MineOne, acquired the real estate in June 2022, placing its operations within a mile of the Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, a “strategic missile base and key element of America’s nuclear triad,” according to the White House.

    The company’s site contained “specialized and foreign-sourced equipment potentially capable of facilitating surveillance and espionage activities,” the presidential order said.

    Biden said there was “credible evidence” to believe that the company, a British Virgin Islands firm that is majority-owned by Chinese nationals, “might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.”

    Impairing national security is Joe’s job.

    • Grummun

      A crypto mining installation would be a good cover for the power and compute resources that would also make a good signals intelligence installation.

  31. Sensei

    OregonLive – Restock your N95, KN95 face masks as new COVID-19 variant ‘FLiRT’ rises

    Yes, I’ll get right on that…

    • Ownbestenemy

      If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation.

      No incentive at all to not drum up the fear again.

  32. The Late P Brooks

    According to the White House order, MineOne’s property purchase was not filed to CFIUS until after the agency launched an investigation following a tip from the public.

    In a statement by U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, said the move against MineOne “highlights the critical gatekeeper role that CFIUS serves to ensure that foreign investment does not undermine our national security.”

    Good thing we got rid of that paranoid America-firster Trump.

  33. The Late P Brooks

    Heavyweight

    “I recognize the absurdity of so much wealth being concentrated in the hands of one person, and I believe the only responsible thing to do with a fortune this size is give it away— as thoughtfully and impactfully as possible,” French Gates wrote in her pledge letter.

    French Gates has a net worth of $13.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, while Bill Gates’ net worth is $153 billion. But as part of their agreement when French Gates departed, she will receive an additional $12.5 billion to give away.

    You wouldn’t want her to throw her own money away, would you?

    • slumbrew

      What do you expect her to live on? A measly $1,000,000,000?

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Referring to her as French Gates is triggering to me.

    • B.P.

      “I recognize the absurdity of so much wealth being concentrated in the hands of one person…”

      That’s why I’m giving my ex-husband’s money away to quasi-terrorist organizations bent on making life more miserable for common folk.

    • Urthona

      Why the hell is she being called French Gates?

      Here name is Melinda French now.

      It is literally on the building where my kid goes to school.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Apparently that is what she’s using post divorce. French Gates being her surname now.

      • R.J.

        Is she so rich that she no longer needs hyphens?

  34. The Late P Brooks

    Over the past decade, French Gates has increasingly added a new focus to her charitable work: gender equality. She created her own organization, Pivotal Ventures, in 2015. Pivotal is an investment company that “expands opportunity and accelerates equality in the United States through high-impact investments, partnerships and advocacy,” according to its website.

    One of Pivotal’s earliest grantees was Rutgers’ Center for American Women in Politics, which conducts scholarly research about women’s political participation in the US.

    Isn’t that precious.

    • R C Dean

      At least spending vast sums on “gender equality” is pretty much setting it on fire. Not that it isn’t a damaging front of the cultural revolution, but it could be worse.

    • Sensei

      Microsoft Bob was released in March 1995 (before Windows 95 was released), although it had been widely publicized under the codename Utopia. The project leader for Bob was Karen Fries, a Microsoft researcher. The design was based on research by professors Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves of Stanford University. Melinda Gates, wife of Bill Gates, was the marketing manager for the product.

      She never felt appreciated for Microsoft Bob.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob