“A riot is an ugly thing…und, I think it is just about time that we had one!”
So, the conventional wisdom is that Chicago will turn into 1968 2.0, because TEAM BLUE is in town to Crown Queen Kackles. I am not sure – the “professional Left” will be there to shite-stir, break a few things and be photogenic in the Hamas support…but the mass unrest ’68 saw…no reason for it. Thus, I predict localized stupidity and damage (if you know the neighborhood where the convention is being held – I am not sure I’d try too darn much). Let us take a look and see what is out there…
- Here is a handy link to live updates from the local ABC affiliate.
- Teh Official Rulez from Mayor Dipshit.
- Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Be sure to click on “Or Demands”.
- For comparison’s sake.
Comments are open and all yours. (Reminder, when we have other people post things, please wait 30 minutes before you ignore their contributions and just use the place like a chatroom. Thanks.)
Wow – people were whiter and better dressed in 1968.
It is just a mask, we know who controls them!
The Pentaverate?
The Queen, the Vatican, the Gettys, the Rothschilds…and Colonel Sanders before he went tits up!
Stanley Ipkiss?
High-profile arrivals for the Democratic National Convention will trigger rolling street closures downtown during the evening rush, OEMC said Monday afternoon.
Evening rush? The Best Time!
Puhleeze…those Chicago wimps know nothing of being stuck on a shuttle bus at 4:30pm with no AC in downtown DC when it’s motorcade time. I think it I was stuck in motorcade traffic 18ish or so times in my years in DC.
Another argument for all the non-ceremonial jobs of FedGov to be distributed across the county. Let the nobility parade themselves and only inconvenience each other.
Cause of JD Vance I have to leave the tower like I am Jason Borne avoiding local police everyday nearly.
Get some rest, OBE — you look tired.
You aren’t in Kentucky, OBE, you are in Lowhio.
Like hell Zwak!
Zwak:
Everything south of Columbus is Kentucky.
Wait…now…I’m mad at…zwak? Neph? We have bourbon so we win.
OBE:
It’s all good. We’ve got bourbon up here too.
I’ll still be jealous about Jungle Jim’s though.
Lohio. By the Ass Ponys.
I was once on a train held 30 minutes leaving DC because a motorcade was scheduled to pass under the rail bridge. Throw in every time Biden shut down Union Station during the evening commute and he owes me hours.
Really doesn’t carry as much weight as:
At least you’ve got a chance to get a hard-boiled egg.
Sounds like a DC Elseworlds where Kal-El is adopted by a couple working at a Waffle House instead….
Discworld, not Elseworlds. From one of my favorite books PTerry wrote.
The ones in the 60’s became the Wall St brokers of the 80’s. LOL
The kids today are hoping to become kommissars
Maybe we’ll turn it around first.
Allen klar?
Alles, of course; auto-correct isnt set up for German.
Allen klar
Didn’t he have a talk show on the BBC?
Alles Klar, Herr Kaleu!
Every commie thinks they will be the one carrying around a clipboard after the revolution.
“Dont you know who I am? Why did you bring me here and why is this ditch full of dead people?”
Is Kamala drunk?
(Yes)
The Bee weighs in.
That one’s a 10/10.
I was both shaken and stirred by that article.
Looks like the Free Shit Army marched yesterday…have to see if they can rally for another, or it is just going to be Judenhaß full time.
They’re keeping the riff raff confined to a park and some streets. Not outside either building.
Holy sh!t, Swiss is using the ß!
Natürlich.
Here in the heart of the Midwest, Chicago stands as a beacon of progress and ingenuity, beckoning all to experience the beauty, culture and soul of what we have to offer.
Chicago’s population is now lower than it was 100 years ago. Its population has decreased by 3.8 percent since the 2020 census, which recorded a population of 2,743,000. It is now down another 105,000 people, to 2,638,000. Only San Francisco and Detroit — also poster children for bad governance — have suffered greater population decreases. More than a third of Chicagoans tell pollsters that they would leave if they had the chance.
Major companies, too, are pulling up stakes. In the past two years, Boeing, Caterpillar, Tyson Foods, and Citadel have left. With them have gone hundreds of taxpaying employees and millions in philanthropic dollars.
This is what happens when you let republicans engage in unregulated pouncing while running the city into financial ruin with all their lazy fairy economic superstitions.
Better vote democrat. It’s the only thing left to do.
Boeing left? The moving vans must have been made by someone else.
Yep. Boeing flew the coop.
They went to DC, thankfully. Don’t want them down here.
It’s been interesting seeing shots of the events that are in places I know really well. But with it being the dems it feels icky.
All I know of Chicago are a couple of visits when I had a sister living there and Ferris Bueller. So little resonates with me.
Us locals enjoy picking out the obvious CLE landmarks in the movies where Cleveland is standing in for anywhere else (such as Germany).
My customer…who is Air Traffic, assumes any upgrade I do must be the reason it isn’t working.
Past week or so has been….trying.
You forgot to turn it off and back on?
Their actions, such as financing genocide in Palestine and war in multiple countries; continuing the mass incarceration of Black and brown people
Maybe we can move the incarcerated black and brown people to Gaza and pay the IDF to make the streets safer in both regions. Just a thought (not a sermon).
I wonder how many “Black or brown” people is too many.
So it’s no longer black and brown bodies? That’s a step forward at least.
No mention of the black and brown bodies Kamala incarcerated in CA?
They were just pot heads who cares?
Political delegates fought inside the convention arena. Protestors and police brawled on the city’s streets. Meanwhile, the news media depicted division and violence.
I notice it’s all white people engaging in the festivities. Then again, Saxon violence was the media’s bread and butter even then.
They were always looking for a fresh news anglo to distinguish themselves.
The election cycle with the Iowa caucas-ian was a good ratings boost.
I need to get this off my chest: My crush on higher math need not have remained unrequited had I ever been taught the order of operations. Like, ever. 😡
Saw Harry and Meghan referred to as the Temu Royals, and I am ded. You know they don’t have any kids, right?
Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga came out with a new song and it will not leave my head. Please don’t let that be AutoTune please don’t let that be AutoTune please don’t let
No, I am not paying attention to the world burning. It hurts and I’m emotionally unprepared for a Kamaltoe presidency and its long-term repercussions. Why can’t we have nuclear power? Why can’t we have good data on climate, the Holy Jab, and inflation numbers? Who’s going to tend the elites’ gardens when they’ve destroyed us all? They hate the icky people so much they’d just as soon destroy rather than ignore us. Which is too bad, because the weapon they’re using to destroy us will eventually turn on them when we’ve been obliterated.
So, yeah. I’m listening to “Die With a Smile” on repeat.
They hate the icky people so much they’d just as soon destroy rather than ignore us. Which is too bad, because the weapon they’re using to destroy us will eventually turn on them when we’ve been obliterated.
They don’t have the power they think they have. Far be it from me to suggest a short term white pill, but there is always a remnant, and that remnant usually outlasts the tyrant.
I struggle to remember the order after parsing parenthesis and brackets now (off the top of my head, I want to say multiply, divide, add, subtract).
Oh, it has a mnemonic and everything! Which I only learned a few years ago. PEMDAS (parenthesis, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction).
Please My Dear Aunt Sally
(Parens, Multiply, Divide, Add, Subtract)
Mojeaux with her bougie exponents
I never understood why some schools never explicitly taught order of operations. Fortunately, I did have a teacher who clearly explained them.
Also RPN calculators…
Mojeaux:
I’ve probably been exposed to those so many times over the years, but didn’t stick.
I will take a bit of pride in remembering them correctly (but I still check when troubleshooting issues where that may be the cause of the problem).
Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally. You forgot Exponents.
Say what now?
This expression of frustration brought to you by the mathematicians of Twitter.
BEDMAS (Brackets Exponents Division Multiplication Addition Subtraction)
“Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally” is how I remember it.
Does your Dear Aunt Sally have unacceptable views?
She’s a Raiders fan.
Welp. No invitation to Thanksgiving for her.
Harsh but fair, Mojeaux.
Burn the witch!
It’s all still second nature to me. I took a ton of math in college, including the highest level calculus class one summer. I aced the test but within 2 days had forgotten everything. Abstract stuff like that does not stick in your brain very long.
How am I posting under two names? One without me even knowing about it. Who is The Other Kevin?
I also learned it as BEDMAS. It’s funny, if I see them around numbers I call them brackets but if I see them around words I call them parentheses. But they’re the same things!
( ) parentheses
[ ] brackets
{ } braces
{[( )]}
I may not know how to math but I know my typography!
I ain’t using “PEDMAS” even if it is correct! LOL
the Temu Royals
fantastisch
People from the world’s shittiest shitholes will see tending the elite’s gardens as paradise relative to what they had, at least until we advance to the point they get replaced by AI and robots.
No, they’ll destroy them and turn their would-be paradise into a shithole like the one they came from.
All of the questions about operational order are all because of bad phrasing of the question. (or a stupid “hur hur” what is the answer to this obfuscated formula).
Once you are into calc and other engineering disciplines. you use parentheses or formatting to be clear. I forget the official order of operations, because you just don’t write an equation in a way that can be misinterpreted, your formatting should make it clear.
Bloke on the Range is back to doing Mad Minute videos.
Schmidt-Rubin Gewehr 1911
Modern rifles: Tikka T3, Schmeisser SP-15, CZ 600
Does the Tikka T3 come with basmati rice and some naan?
No, but it should come with some Kyrö.
Surveillance footage of the MC5 playing in the park at the 1968 DNC. Stupid feds didn’t include an audio track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5sA6a0g31U
Let me help.
Excellent.
Hey OBE, if you’re still around:
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a77b0e&lat=42.575&lon=-71.408&zoom=10.1&showTrace=2024-08-09&leg=2&trackLabels×tamp=1723225392
This plane flew over a couple weeks back and I was mystified by this – approached Logan from the opposite direction of the pattern (landing from the northeast that day), descending the whole way, then overflew the airport at 3,000 ft before pulling up and looping around and joining the pattern.
Is that someone totally screwing up or is that perfectly reasonable?
Overflying busy airspace at that height with everyone else coming right at you to land seems wrong but what do I know…
They turned the airport around for wind. They were landing to the north.. but the wind shifted enough (and/or the landing plane waved off the tailwind landing).. therefore had to bring them back for a southbound landing.
Would have to check live ATC to be sure. That routing is entirely within the Class B airspace, they were under ATC control 100% of the time, all visual vectors.
Mossy is probably correct without pulling audio or TM actions.
Basic pattern work by ATC
Thanks much!
Just looked weird to my amateur eye, since there were already a dozen commercial airlines in the pattern coming from the north for a southbound landing.
Living in the flightpath (sometimes) and ADS-B Exchange has got me compulsively looking at whoever is buzzing overhead.
I have a newfound appreciation for just how many flights Cape Air runs – those Cessna Businessliners (and their new Tecnams) have a distinct sound.
Why can’t we have nuclear power? Why can’t we have good data on climate, the Holy Jab, and inflation numbers?
You slay me.
Those things do not conform to the laws of SCIENCE.
“the science is settled” != how science works
_we_ know that…
Top. Men.
Ugh, why does my FIL choose the times when we’re staying with him to go weapons-grade asshole?
To be fair, we fucked up, we stopped being vigilant about the boundaries we set with him. He had been a net positive for a few years, seemingly respecting healthy relational boundaries (more or less) and common expectations of propriety. For some reason, he decided to pull at every thread and cross every line in a period of 48 hours. Then he wonders why we moved 6 hours away from him.
Well, now I need the story.
Within 24 hours of us arriving he was harassing me about the choice to move away from TX, this after he had been told by my wife exactly where to stick that conversation. She told him where to stick it after he used the tornado that hit our town as a “message from God” that we belonged back in Texas.
Today he pulled the same “message from God” bullshit in regards to our miscarriage.
As you can imagine, this was not anywhere near the first time something like this has happened, but it has been a few years of relatively good interactions with him.
By the way, RJ and other DFW glibs, I’m in town through next weekend. I don’t have car access most of the time, which is why I didn’t reach out ahead of time. I can probably Uber places in the Frisco/Mckinney/Plano area, though.
Today he pulled the same “message from God” bullshit in regards to our miscarriage.
That’s enraging.
Instant turn around and walk out.
That’s enraging.
I thought my blood pressure was high when he tried the hard sell tactic on me regarding the move. I was nicer than I needed to be in order to preserve the peace.
Today changed everything, though. Trying to assert his family planning advice under the guise of appealing to our faith to my still grieving wife? …. Yeah, she’s talking about it being years until we see them again. At the very least, tonight is gonna be frosty. I told her that we can just go grab a hotel or crash at her mom’s if we need to, but she doesn’t want to go there quite yet.
Trashy, I’m sorry.
You need to get back to being vigilant about boundaries… and maybe cut the visit short.
Trashy: No problem. I am dead broke, currently saving up to move South of the metroplex. You are welcome to text me and come by, I could fix food here. Otherwise the wife will shoot me if I spend a dime.
Sorry to hear this Trshy.
My ex MIL was sort of the same way. I wanted to be far away.
OTOH my daughter’s ex was forbidden to come visit us (while they were still married), after his offensive manners were so insulting to my wife.
Today he pulled the same “message from God” bullshit in regards to our miscarriage.
I’d be livid. “If I snap your neck, it would be a message from God that you should have kept your mouth shut.”
Money, Adultery, In-Laws = top 3 reasons for divorce
ugh
Thoughts on BITW? I like that it’s an easy way to get diversified exposure to crypto, but the 2.5% MER is steep.
There are bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs as well as crypto related companies held as ETFs.
I wish I knew enough about crypto to make an informed response. Precious metals and ammunition seem like good ways to diversify your portfolio as things stand now.
I should have bought one of these 15 years ago.
Nice car.
Darth Vader’s station wagon did not hit the reserve
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2021-audi-rs6-avant-17/
bet it was close, though. Alas, I don’t have $90k to drop on a used car.
Beautiful car; horifically unreliable.
There a good source for reliability info?
I have a recent-ish Consumer Reports – they have Audi, in general in 12th on their ‘Best Cars’ list – with BMW #1, so I dunno.
Nothing about that specific model.
I was talking about the Mazda. Some Audis, not sure about that particular one, are pretty decent until they get some age on them and they become cost-prohibitive to fix. As for a reliable source for what I just said, I have none, only anecdotal stories from enthusiast sites.
Yeah, realized you were talking about the Mazda after I hit enter – new threading throws me off…
I had an RX-8. I miss it, but not enough to ever own another rotary. Finding somebody to work on them isn’t easy.
I will say that revving the heck out of it was great fun. The old ones and the RX-8 all had a shift alarm and you needed it. It sounded wonderful and smooth all the way to redline. It never changed tone the way a piston engine does.
Still, if you gave me a last gen RX-7 turbo I don’t think I’d get rid of it.
I had a 1984 GSL-SE. It was fantastic and I really wish I had kept it. The problem with the newer ones is the fucking emission regs. What a fun setup.
Oooh, a big shark is about to close…
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1984-bmw-633csi-47/
That seems cheap…
$7200 for the apogee of BMW car design. Now, to keep my eyes open and convince the wife to get rid of the Spewbaru.
“… please wait 30 minutes before you ignore their contributions and just use the place like a chatroom.” Word. Much appreciated. (Though I need to write something new myself…)
All set up! My Rx explained my positive amphetamine test and all is predictably well. Tomorrow I go in for my “1-hour” onboarding. I’m sure it is all simple paperwork, though I’m pleased I’ll get paid for it! Oddly(?), they want my GED Certificate/ transcripts. I readily have access to my IU grad stuff, and I did discover my graduation.. something from Signature School in Evansville. (<– First public charter school in Indiana. I graduated in '05 as part of the first, full 4-year graduate class. Interesting place. Wokism at large in that school of 250, actively promulgated by all. It was awesome. Many a story.)
So I'm bringing both, but she shook off the IU stuff and said the GED was easier or something. Interesting. Regardless, this is the Official First Toes in at the job/career in the medical field. Excitement, She Wrote! (It's also fucking bizarre; I'll fucking nail it somehow, esp w donors; and leads to much more. Hrm.)
Fantastic
Coming into Sunday’s contest with perhaps the most rarified provenance already, this 1934 Bugatti Type 59 Sports just had it elevated exponentially when named Best of Show at the 2024 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. One of only six examples of the Type 59 extant, it is the first unrestored vehicle (or “preservation car” as the Pebble judges call it) to ever win the top honor at the world’s most prestigious concours.
This specific Type 59 first competed in the 1934 Monaco Grand Prix and placed third overall with renowned racer René Dreyfuss behind the wheel. The first-place finishes to follow included the Algerian Grand Prix and the Grand Prix de la Marne, before it was purchased by Belgium’s King Leopold III. The monarch was the steward of the car until 1951. The owners to follow all felt that a restoration would be wrong, and so it remains race-worn and remarkable.
Maybe we’ll get a break from over-restored Faberge-egg cars.
Are they over restored, or perfectly restored? If someone went and added every possible option to a car, even when they conflict with other options for that model year, that is over restored. Bringing something back to original, blueprint specs is… something else. Not my thing, but I get it.
Personally, I love patina, entropy is a thing.
The car
Wow. How cool.
And then there’s this abomination
George Jetson wouldn’t even want to be seen in it.
I’m betting you’d be OK with what they used for the chassis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_512
Eh, it is like if someone restored the original Stratos prototype.
I’m betting you’d be OK with what they used for the chassis.
Absolutely. Save the running gear and crush the body.
Another day flew by. It’s good to be teaching again. There are a couple of bad apples who probably shouldn’t even be in school, but they are only a minor nuisance.
I think tomorrow I’ll show a few Stossel in the Classroom clips in the critical thinking class. I gave them their first assignment today, which is to write an pros vs cons essay on a controversial topic. To avoid any accusations of bias, I’ll merely grade them on spelling, punctuation, grammar, and word count. I told them they need to write at least 500 words to get an A. They have a week to do it, which ought to be more than enough time.
The geometry class went well too. I showed how the Pythagorean theorem relates to a bunch of different situations (special right triangles, unit circle, distance formula, etc).
The principal has been giving me a lot of flexibility. Yay charter schools.
Be sure to let us know what issues the kiddos think are “controversial.”
Will do. I gave them a bunch of examples like AI, taxes, homeschooling, charter schools, vaccines, flag burning, and Confederate monuments. I’ve told them explicitly that I’m not there to tell them what to think though I may inadvertently tell them what I think once in a while.
The first day I taught them, I told them that the scores they get on tests like SAT, etc matter a lot more than what grades I’ll give them, so that should be their focus.
It pleased me when a student who previously went to a private school said she liked the charter school better. Evidently I’m a better teacher, at least in her eyes.
Are they over restored, or perfectly restored?
Restored to a level of perfection far above the fit and finish from the factory. Too perfect to be driven anywhere except on the lawn at Pebble Beach.
That would be blueprint restored. Meh, not my thing, but it is Pebble Beach. The land of rich dudes hobbies.
That old race car is much more my thing.
A $30K 1980 Toyota pickup?
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1980-toyota-4×4-pickup-27/
Nice shape but nah, that’s nuts (can’t believe what they’re going for).
The market is crazy, but I know a lot of guys looking for pre-tech vehicles.
I should’ve snatched one of those up back in the early ‘90s instead of that Isuzu I bought. A fine truck but it’d be worth a couple grand at best if I still had it.
Ain’t no frigging way the Dems are gonna allow the unwashed street lefties to disrupt their precious convention. Will there be a broken window or three? Quite possible, but nothing really serious will be allowed to happen. The happy happy joy joy feelings won’t be stopped.
We’ll see but what they intend to allow and what thay can manage to actually allow might be pretty far apart. Rioting looks bad but so does cracking skulls and breaking out the firehoses.
They won’t even have to pull a 68 on them. They’ve already been sent their marching orders and will largely follow them. There’s more chance of Kammie stumbling and slurring her way through her coronation speech than any serious disruption.
They’re boarding up and warning people not to go out during the convention.
This is straight out of The Purge.
$7200 for the apogee of BMW car design.
Too bad about the transmission. Still looks like a great buy.
Someone in the comments suggested that a swap is straightforward. But yeah.
Eh, I can’t drive a stick anymore, due to a bum left leg, so a slush box is OK now.
The market is crazy, but I know a lot of guys looking for pre-tech vehicles.
More of them every day, I reckon.
I can’t help wondering how much arm-twisting there will be in the DNC’s smoke-filled back rooms this week. I don’t really expect them to throw Harris overboard, but I bet there will be a serious attempt to muzzle her, and Walz’, most flagrantly redistributive economic tendencies.
When even WaPo balks (sorta) maybe it’s time to take a hint. Seems like their go to move is the double down though.
You cant fix commies. They dont take hints.
See: Harris when she says if drug companies dont toe the lion she will ‘ just take it’. When questioned about the power of govt to do that she said with 100% certainty and obvious anticipation “Yes we can do that”.
The thought of her winning this election should scare the living shit out of every sane person.
If she has her way it is 100% certain that we will suffer severe food and medicine deficits.
Tow…for god’s sake. What is wrong with me.
Why muzzle her? The media has her back. She’s JOYFUL and TOUGH and WORKED AT MCDONALDS! (which may be the only place you’ll be able to afford to eat out…once every couple months if you are lucky.)
A Big Mac Meal not upsized costs eleven and change and that’s in my area of the South where wages are relatively low. Fast food is no longer affordable (or fast).
Judging from the prices I had way over estimated what I thought my one owner ’84 Mazda 626 would bring. Truly was driven by a little old lady. Hasn’t been out of the garage for close to 30 years.
Maybe just have a drawing with kids/grandkids if any are interested.
Barn find!
Here are some auctions.
Go back over to Tasha then.
The derp is strong with that one.
[Kif sigh]
Why muzzle her? The media has her back.
Tester and a couple of other people are refusing to have anything to do with her or the convention. The steno pool gaslight brigade can’t paper over her idiocy with the people who are paying attention. Those campaign donations might start drying up again.
Can’t be real. No way.
Whoops, Moj’s transition vid
Mo is transitioning?
I am. I’m transitioning from a hungry woman to a not-hungry woman in a matter of minutes.
🤡 world
Can’t be real. No way.
There is no such thing as peak derp.
However, she “presents” as a cute girl in the beginning of the video. If she really thinks she’s being a guy, she’s in for a rough ride.
Maybe that’s what she’s looking for
I am not convinced that is real but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is.
Stand by for a barrage of vacuous platitudes
Vice President Kamala Harris is calling for raising the corporate tax rate to 28%, her first major proposal to raise revenues and finance expensive plans she wants to pursue as president.
Harris campaign spokesman James Singer told NBC News that she would push for a 28% corporate tax rate, calling it “a fiscally responsible way to put money back in the pockets of working people and ensure billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share.”
“As President, Kamala Harris will focus on creating an opportunity economy for the middle class that advances their economic security, stability, and dignity,” Singer wrote in an email.
“Putting money back in the pockets of [insert target audience].” We’ll be hearing that a lot.
Putting money etc…
Sure, until they get laid off. What a crock.
Try to count the number of stolen bases in this PBS news video on banning books:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JieXgWjS-9Q
Comments turned off, of course. Good gravy, PBS is pathetic.
I cant watch all of that. Are they bitching about not being able to put porn in grammar schools again? Brainwash children until they cant tell reality from fairy farts?
They never, ever quit. In the end there is only one way to deal with them.
It’s not fair. Some parents are too poor or too conservative to provide porn for their children.
Hello, Indy!.. My 4 months at Woodbrook Elem in Carmel were brutal. I morally hate all of it for the glorified babysitting it was, naturally, written to ‘sound’ nice ‘n all: “Extended School Enrichment.” One girl changed her pronouns a few times, and name once; worked w a nice, though admittedly disturbed MtF trans who certainly wasn’t passing. The chants/ curriculum were bizarre, just observing in-person ‘lite’ indoctrination when it popped up, but it was just ‘Rich parents shuttle their kids away “For edu purposes!” so they don’t have to deal with them in the afternoon.
IN got rid of the ‘kids can change their pronouns/gender just by saying so’ nonsense, at least. But the shit in Ultra Blue Carmel was so… disheartening to be a part of. Well, it was 4.5hrs/day for $15.25/hr.
Talking to her now, my closest Indy friend (of any kind) is the daughter of the Lt. Gov of IN. Went to high school together. I am highly suspicious of her ‘disappearance’ during the Primary here. Certainly some political hiding/ chicanery afoot.