I envision Four Score rockin to this one; and then I come to my senses.
Fauci and The Mask – If one needs a simple illustration of how disingenuous people were in the Covid response fiasco, you might not need anything beyond the Fauci mask lie – yes, Jacob, I’ll call it an outright lie; “To be clear”, your virtue is secure, cocktail parties await. In emails in February, an interview on March 8th 2020, and in private emails, Fauci (correctly) advised against masks for healthy people (for an airborne respiratory virus, I’d submit there’s little use even for sick people). Of course he famously reversed course and became a universal mask NAZI. We have all kinds of “fact checks” trying to explain it away. “The science changed” – no, that’s ridiculous. But the egregious ‘explanation’ is that he was trying to preserve masks for health care workers. This is presented as a virtuous, noble lie, so not really a lie. So let me get this straight. By your (media, Fauci) very own standards and metrics, Dr. Fauci was willing to expose you and your family to disease and death (covid-19 was, after all the deadliest deadly ever to deadly) by lying about an effective preventative measure for ulterior motives. That’s your defense? The best case scenario, by your own standards, Fauci was willing to kill you for a ‘higher’ purpose. And that makes him a noble leader?
Not Adahn’s response [ed. Given the month lead time to pubs, this will probably be lost to the sands of time – May 23rd ish] to Pie on religious exemptions to the covid shot mandates got me thinking what a ‘religious’ objection means. Does one need the metaphysics of religion to ‘properly’ seek a religious exemption? From the context of the comments, I’m assuming NA saw Pie’s objection to the religious part of the exemption as a dislike of religion and saw the religious nature as integral to a valid exemption request. Paraphrasing, religion puts some things above the state, and therefore is necessary otherwise it’s just whatever the individual wants. I don’t think you need religion to put something above/outside the state though. The religious exemption legally does not require – explicitly rejects in fact – that one adhere to a specific religious doctrine or metaphysics. Just that the objection is a sincerely held belief that influences and directs the persons everyday life; it is integral to their ‘being’. To me, the minarchist view of the relation between state and individual satisfies that criteria and places the individual above the state. That perspective is how I crafted my exemption. Is that a ‘religious’ perspective? Perhaps, but not in the commonly understood meaning of the word. More briefly, adherence to religion in the commonly held notions of what that means should not (and is not) a requirement for exemption. Appropos of nothing…
I was awakened by birds chirping the other morning – well, now that it’s summer, every morning actually – and it got me thinking about evolutionary biology. Why do we (or at least most of us; I’m sure Hype is all “meh”) find the chirping of birds pleasant? What evolutionary advantage is there to that? I suppose the easy answer to that is that birds go silent when predators are near so over time we have associated the sound of birds with safety. Of course that presumes that we (birds and humans or early hominids) had a common threat predator. Presumably snakes (especially with early hominids) and cats fit the bill. But that also got me thinking, how would one test this hypothesis? It’s certainly plausible, but how would you design an experiment, whether directly or observationaly, to test that? Is it possible? How do you test, in general actually, evolutionary postulates? We can certainly observe it in action and verify that the mechanism and trajectory is correct, but it seems that most specific instances generally add up to Just So Stories.
By your (media, Fauci) very own standards and metrics, Dr. Fauci was willing to expose you and your family to disease and death (covid-19 was, after all the deadliest deadly ever to deadly) by lying about an effective preventative measure for ulterior motives.
We’re Little People. We don’t matter.
I’m not a dwarf……
You’re a hobbit?
I’m not even vertically challenged,
Unassuming
Bitch, you ain’t no hobbit, is you?
Some bird chirping is pleasant others not so much.
OT – things are just going so well they can stay even more!
Boeing’s Starliner can stay in space beyond 45-day limit, NASA says
Planet Earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do.
That occurred to me too.
Good Lord. Eat some crow and ask SpaceX for a ride home.
Just 1 piece of evidence could scuttle Trump’s hush-money conviction and force a time-sucking retrial
It might not take much to scuttle Donald Trump’s May 30 hush-money conviction. In fact, a single piece of evidence could be Trump’s handiest monkey wrench of all. Manhattan prosecutors labeled it People’s Exhibit 81.
It’s a routine federal ethics form called an “Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Report.” Manhattan prosecutors showed it to jurors back in early May, during the third week of testimony. They later spun it as solid proof that Trump knew his hush-money reimbursement checks to his then-attorney, Michael Cohen, were just that: reimbursements, not “legal fees,” as his falsified business records claimed. “Mr. Trump fully reimbursed Mr. Cohen in 2017,” claimed the form, which attested to his assets and liabilities and bore his signature. Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass went on to mention People’s 81 in closing arguments, calling it proof that Trump “knew that the payments were really reimbursements.”
Then came Monday. In a sweeping decision that fell just ten days before Trump’s original sentencing date, the US Supreme Court declared former presidents presumptively immune from criminal prosecution for “official acts.” Then the court went further, banning the use of official acts as evidence. It took less than a day for defense lawyers to use this ban on “official act” evidence to challenge Trump’s May 30 conviction. It’s a challenge that has now delayed Trump’s July 11 sentencing on the grounds that hush money prosecutors improperly used Trump’s official acts against him at trial.
So, this is why sentencing has been delayed. The immunity verdict is directly relevant.
Huh. I hadn’t read that about official acts not being admissible evidence, either.
I’m not sure filing a form detailing personal financial activity is an official act, but hey, whatever puts sand in the gears.
And after his election Trump can get revenge by assassinating everyone involved, or so I’m told.
Of course, most legal bills have both fees and reimbursements on them. So saying that he fully reimbursed Cohen proves approximately nothing about what the mix of fees and reimbursements was.
My understanding is that Cohen got outsized “fee” payments that were his to keep, but he was expected to “fix” things for Trump, including making payments for which he would not be reimbursed – the fees were for being a fixer and included the associated expenses.
Masks dont work. They dont work. We have known this for over 100 years. They make no difference whatsoever.
That alone is a dead giveaway that everything they said is a lie.
Religious exemptions? Enshrined in the 1A which I interpret not in the traditional sense of religion, association, speech etc but in the broad sense of individual freedom of conscience.
It might be easier to infer results by testing other phenomena we find pleasant and associate with basic needs.
Or….with mri brain scans we should be able to easily see distress induced by certain stimuli not directly related to threats. I am too tired to think very hard right now.
“testing other phenomena we find pleasant and associate with basic needs”
I can think of a basic need or two, the phenomena associated with fulfillment is quite pleasant indeed.
That one seems different as it is often driven by the need to reproduce in the face of grave threats to our species. See: Birth rates during war time.
Still, it is engineered by evolution, if you can use the word ‘engineered’.
Oh, wait. Were you talking about eating?
Well, come to think of it…that is the same as well. Consider dogs and their behavior. They are pure hedonists (eat it, fuck it or piss on it) but all of those are fulfillment of desires that serve the ends of survival.
I knew a lady who fed her Husky nothing but raw meat. Annie (the Husky) was a great dog! She taught my dog how to swim.
Who finds that pleasant. Repeditive sounds like that are grating when they’re discrete noises rather than just white noise.
Especially since the little feathered jerks feel free to start at three a.m.
I get why they chirp once the sun is up. What is going on at 0 dark thirty?
They pull that shit here too.
The bluejays are silent all winter, when I hear them in Spring I know that help is on the way. I can’t hear the birds chirping very well now but I’m assured by Mrs F that they are. The call of the loon on a quiet evening on the lake brings me back to my youth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MrxgzzAr2g
We find it pleasant because, upon hearing it, we know that no predators are around.
Except my cat that wakes me up because she hears birds and wants me to let her out on the deck so she can watch them.
Hearing that sound on my way from my car to the house used to mean I had a long night.
I think the religious exemption was seen as easier to get than the “leave me alone, slaver” exemption, since Congress is prohibited from prohibiting the free exercise of religion.
And, a recent court ruling against Tyson sort of proves it.
Groovy music, PM, thanks
Good beat, I could dance to it. I gave it a 3.
We knew, the Mrs and me, from the beginning, that the Covid science was plain and unadulterated BS.
I bet Fourscore could cut a rug back in the day… those long legs…
That’s what captured my first wife’s heart. I met her on the dance floor.
Home Depot said they will not press charges:
https://x.com/LuckyMcGee/status/1807923002514067724/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1807923002514067724¤tTweetUser=LuckyMcGee
Random Euros thought: Enough with the “Turkeyay”. The name of the country in English is “Turkey”. The native word they are pushing on us – out of nowhere – contains one vowel sound not found in English and two further vowel sounds that are different from the way all the announcers are attempting to pronounce it. What is the point of forcing native spellings on the rest of the world when non-natives cannot speak them properly?
I will consider when Turkey uses English spelling and pronunciation for the US and other English speaking nations in Turkish.
I’m with you. Turnabout is fair play.
Yup.
Would never happen, of course.
“What is the point of forcing native spellings on the rest of the world when non-natives cannot speak them properly?”
A show of cultural domination on the one hand, and a weird submissive virtue signaling on the other.
This, and they are also probably jealous of China (and others I’m forgetting) who got away with this prior. We have to draw a line on this somewhere.
Agreed.
The complete abandonment of the name we used for centuries – without remark – is just so bizarre.
(I remember when Qatar became Gutter – that one is actually not sticking.)
OTOH, Czech Republic is now Czechia. That one is fine by me.
Topping from below.
That’s all up Erdogan’s Islamist alley.
Czechia is a short form name. Czech Republic is still the long form name.
I am open to changing when the English word is an exonym that is likely derogatory. Changing Turkey to Turkiye ain’t that.
Let me guess, you don’t use Keeeeeeeeeeeev either?
I’ll use Kyiv or Kiyv or whatever the hell it is if they let me say “Moskva”.
That’s different. They have beautiful women. They can ask to be called whatever they want.
So the pompous airheads on NPR can used “native” pronunciations. In a just world, Eleanor Beardsley would have been fired the first time she pulled that crap.
I wish I could find the sketch were newscasters pronounce every name with the correct native pronunciation.
Exactly. Why do Yankees insist on pronouncing “coke” as “soda pop”?
Nobody uses the phrase “soda pop”, it’s just Soda.
And Coke is Cocaine. The CocaCola company misappropriated it for their cola soda.
Just that the objection is a sincerely held belief that influences and directs the persons everyday life; it is integral to their ‘being’.
At that point, what’s accomplished by mandating anything?
Don’t get me wrong, the religious exemption framework is stupid. However, if any “sincerely held belief” gets you exempted, then there’s no mandate. I sincerely hold the belief that I shouldn’t do X. If I didn’t sincerely hold that belief, I’d probably just go do X.
I think it’s weird to assert the individual’s supremacy over the state. It seems self evident to me that the exact opposite is true. The state can put you in prison, not vice versa. The state can drone strike you, not vice versa. The state can tax you, not vice versa. It’s abundantly clear who is supreme and who isn’t. It feels nice to say that the citizens are the boss, but I think we all know that’s not really the case. Without the metaphysical framework behind it, the founding principles are mere lip service used to maintain the peace by preventing the masses from revolting against the elites.
(sorry, I didn’t mean to come out swinging. It was an interesting thought to chew on, so I wasn’t focused on editing for tact)
Swing away. It’s good food for thought.
So, you say you’re a swinger?
/state of the debate.
Freedom of conscience and a government of any kind are going to strike sparks. It’s a hard balance to strike. I mean, would anyone sign up for allowing followers of the Aztec religion to conduct human sacrifice under a “religious exemption”?
Short answer: no. Longer answer: I think the unstated assumption is the practice of religion does not involve deliberately harming other people.
That is an assumption that is often contradicted by reality.
The state may have supremacy over the individual, but sometimes a collection of individuals has supremacy over the state.
The fucking godless un-American commie traitors are cranking up their anti fireworks campaign. First it was pets, then PTSD vets, now fire danger. Off yourself, you fucking dirtbags.
I was passing by a WalMart the other day and there was a tent in the parking lot advertising fireworks. I could have sworn that wasn’t legal in this state or maybe that was just a NYC thing, where I don’t live anymore.
Safest and sanest means anything more than sparklers requires a pyrotechnics license.
Random thought:
The left-wing take on the SCOTUS immunity decision is completely backwards.
Up until now, there’s an unspoken assumption that presidents can’t be prosecuted for “crimes” they commit while in office.
Then the Bad Orange Man comes along and commits over 9000 crimes as president.
So SCOTUS rules that, hey, actually you can prosecute ex-presidents for their crimes, you just need to come up with some clever/bullshit reason why the crimes are not related to their official duties.
Which means that going forward, every Republican president is susceptible to this sort of lawfare as soon as some left-wing Soros prosecutor can come up with some clever reason why their constitutional acts are “not muh official duties”. This standard won’t apply to Democrat presidents, of course, because reasons.
Bingo. Year 3 of Biden not being impeached.
Also, the ridiculousness that now the president can kill citizens with impunity (as if that hasn’t already happened multiple times).
But now apparently the president can kill important people, rather than just some random peasants at a wedding.
Random thought 2:
Anyone else been following the controversy over The Acolyte?
If so, does it seem like the freakout by the pro-Disney-Star-Wars crowd has been particularly huge and vocal this time?
Might be just me, but it really seems like they’re completely over the top with the “This is the greatest Star Wars show evar and anyone who disagrees is just a stupid whiny manbaby mad because there’s girls and black people and homos in his Star Wars now” schtick, much more than they were with the previous Disney movies and shows.
And to be fair, I think some of the criticism about “the canon” is a bit overblown. Like, I don’t really care if Conehead Jedi is suddenly 200 years old in the prequels instead of 50 or whatever. But otoh, I don’t recall any other Star Wars actors doing a music video calling Star Wars fans racist.
I don’t recognize anything after “Return” as “Star Wars” but…
I’m guessing it’s the same phenomenon that has infected Nu (Doctor) Who:
In the aughts it got gay here and there, but it was just a fact of life, not really impacting the plots.
Now – everyone is gay and it’s a plot point.
IOW – enough already.
Well, lesbian space witches who have a force baby by . . . Magic? Is just bad.
Sounds like the whole thing is just bad, which is kinda hard to overcome, canonfucking or no.
I’m not concerned about the Star Wars canon as the Star Wars cannon. You know, the one they’re going to use to fire the shriveled husk of that franchise into the Sun because it needs to be put out of its misery.
The email I sent to every staffer on the House Intelligence Committee:
Hello
I will try to make a long story short. I was an Arabic linguist in the Army assigned to NSA in section FGX3B23 at the Whitelaw Building. On March 28th 2021, I caught NSA red-handed as they spied on me and attempted to suppress me from talking about my ordeal. In December of 2020, after I repeatedly denied being suicidal, a dozen people lied to my face to trap me in a psychiatric ward. As a result, I was discharged from the Army 6 months ahead of schedule and lost my livelihood as an Arabic linguist.
As for my character and credibility, I will note that I am an Eagle Scout, earned a degree in chemical engineering on a full scholarship, served in the Peace Corps, got a perfect score on the ASVAB, learned multiple dialects of Arabic in my 30s, and held a top secret security clearance. Proof of that is here:
https://platedlizard.blogspot.com/2023/12/smarter-than-average-bear.html
In August of 2021, I applied to be an NSA code breaker and was pleasantly surprised that they invited me to take a series of online tests. I have yet to be rejected from that job, though I was rejected from some other NSA jobs I applied to around the same time. It was also around this time that I was informed my security clearance had gone into loss of jurisdiction status after I applied to a linguist contractor job.
In October of 2021, a series of odd events happened which included my car being stolen only to turn up a day later at a convenience store I visited almost every day.
A few weeks later, a soldier I thought was my friend committed perjury by lying about me on a sworn statement and later under oath in court. A copy of that and some other supporting documents are attached.
The strongest piece of evidence I have that NSA has been spying on me and harassing me is the following video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egj-9eO81a0
In July of 2023, FBI agents came to my apartment to ask me about an experimental computer I built.
What I experienced reminded me of what NSA whistleblower Karen Stewart experienced. I demand justice.
I should add that while at NSA, I was informed by a coworker, Paige Brown, that Flight 93 was shot down by the US military. I wasn’t surprised, yet it appalled me that the official narrative was a lie. I know what codes NSA has and hasn’t broken, which means that I also know what codes they can and can’t break. Foreign governments would pay me millions of dollars for this information, not that I need the money. I still consider myself a loyal, patriotic American, and I don’t like making ultimatums or threats. I am also not going to tolerate being spied on and harassed indefinitely.
More info about me and my case is available here:
[link omitted]
Thanks for reading this.
-Thomas Harty
***
There is an IRS building about 45 minutes away from me in Gainesville, FL. Draw your own conclusion.
I know what codes NSA has and hasn’t broken, which means that I also know what codes they can and can’t break. Foreign governments would pay me millions of dollars for this information, not that I need the money.
Dude, you’re just asking to be arrested and disappeared with that. I guess we’ll know what happened if we suddenly no longer hear from Derpy.
If they were gonna do something, they’d have done it already. They won’t, and here’s why:
link
Why do we (or at least most of us; I’m sure Hype is all “meh”) find the chirping of birds pleasant? – i will tell you what is not fucking pleasant. The fucking seagulls near the north sea screaming bloody murder all day and night while you sleep in a stupid british house which i cannot undersand how they manage to get zero sound insulation. I kept thinking maybe the window was open but it was not.
If you live that close to the Mediterranean and you choose to vacation on the North Sea you kind of deserve it.
Is there anywhere on the Med now that is safe to go to? I am asking cuz I don’t really know.
Not that I’m aware of.
Yes and ironically enough it’s in Turkey.
Turkeyay.
It’s occupied Anatolia or Asia Minor.
FREE BYZANTIUM!
Gibraltar?
Get up and get at it, Glibs!
✊😃☕
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L65NNh6vJ_Q
🎶🎶
I’m up , can’t promise any it getting at.
Morning, Glibs.
😑
Having recieved no email indicating that my order had shipped, I expected my quail to arrive sometime after the holiday. Well, guess what I find sitting on my front step when I set out to commute this morning?
Thankfully it was protected to the point that the frozen food inside was still cold enough to feel like I was burning my hands moving it, and clinked when I loaded it into the fridge and freezer.
I probably won’t get to cook it tomorrow, just because it might not have thawed.
Hey bird dog, get away from my quail
Hey bird dog, you’re on the wrong trail
Bird dog, you better leave my lovey dove alone
Hey bird dog, get away from my chick
Hey bird dog, you better get away quick
Bird dog, you better find a chicken little of your own
/Everly Brothers
Well, thank goodness you got the food before the weekend! An outfit that ships perishable food really should be a little better about notifying you of its travel progress. 🙄
Good morning, U, 4(20), Roat, Sean, and…all you others upthread!
Exactly! Just one email monday saying “Your order has shipped!” is all I was expecting. (I’d love to have gotten a tracking number, but it was overnight regardless, so knowing it was coming would be enough to tell me when)
I hope a lot of people took today and friday off, so that they’ll be quiet days at work.
A lot of vacationers/tourists around this week, squeezing a week’s vacation in and only getting charged for 3 days’ time. Local businesses are happy. Fortunately I don’t have to deal with them.
Stay away from I-95.
I would have to go several hours out of my way to reach that road, roat.
Anecdotally, traffic was crazy light for me this morning.