Astros win big to stop the slide. College football on tap today and I hope to hell NDSU beats Colorado. US Open going on and nothing surprising happened yesterday. I got nothing else, so on to the links!
Alternate headline: Court slows the roll on unconstitutional vote-buying scheme. Not that I’d have expected the AP to report on it accurately. This just prevents something clearly unconstitutional from happening before a lower court determines it’s unconstitutional.
This is curious. The people fighting him from removing his name are the same people who fought to let the Dems have the rules changed so Biden could be replaced. But expecting them to act consistently is a fool’s errand.
If I was stuck there, I’d be pissed too. Not because the people getting free money are here illegally, per se. But because the state is giving anybody at all money they took from somebody else.
I know it’s early, but God, I hope this is real. A breakthrough like this could lead to prolonging and improving the lives of so many people. It would be absolutely amazing.
“Nueva Cuidad Jack” is gonna be a hell of a reboot. No idea who is playing Nino Brown. But Chris Rock should reprise his Pookie role just to revitalize his career.
This is associated with the image I used today. These Eurotards want us to deny reality and never laugh at the ruling class.
“Gouged” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Especially since, you know, that’s not exactly an industry with zero competition.
No offense, but this sounds like commie gobbledygook to me. Oh wait…it is.
I read the headline and thought it was about Venezuelans. Imagine my disappointment reading the article.
Such an extensive catalog. It’s never easy to pick a song. But I’m gonna try to keep it fresh. Enjoy them both.
And enjoy this lovely Thursday, dear friends.
Weird how those lower court cases are still being heard as if SCOTUS hadn’t already adjudicated the issue. It must not have been a superprecedent.
Almost as if we need some disincentives structurally put in place for knowingly pursuing an unconstitutional policy or law. Because sadly the “they’ll be voted out of office” one doesn’t work anymore, especially when the unconstitutional act is for vote buying and they’ve moved to the California model (“Give government handouts to enough voters to keep you in office, soak the smaller minority who’s votes you don’t need… Profit!”)
“whose” not “who’s”, gosh darn it. Boy do I need an edit button that kicks in 0.5 seconds after I hit “Post” or the equivalent… why my proofreading never works *before that* is a mystery of the universe….
/looks over at California, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York gun control laws
New York especially with the “wait for court ruling, slightly change law / regulation and wait for the courts to get around to slapping it down AGAIN” does leap to mind, yes. That should not be a free action in our system.
why my proofreading never works *before that* is a mystery of the universe….
It’s because you touch yourself.
Ah the old days, when things were so much simpler.
Now the highest court in the state simply ignores the constitution and the will of the voters.
Sheesh… La loi, c’est moi! indeed.
Nah — they’re very consistent. “Does this help me and/or The Party amass more power?” Their actions consistently work towards that goal.
Well, and of course “using said power to feed slops to the hog troughs of my cronies” — but y’all knew that.
Morning, Sloopy! Morning, all.
This state presumably originated the “My ass is tired” meme. I’m too used to this stupidity to be that riled up about it anymore — still just looking to get out when I can, hope the housing market stays afloat (or bounces back) long enough to eventually clean out the place (downside to keeping two functional households so you can go back and forth… where the hell am I going to put all the crap and taking the time to sort through it all and everything… yes, we likely keep too much you declutterers… hush! 😉 ) and get the work done to make it marketable. That’s probably a 5 Year Plan in toto… but still hope to be out in one, wife’s health willing.
Godspeed. If you do need to speed up the timeline, a conex or two can hold a lot of stuff to which you don’t need immediate access.
Man, NPR is trying really hard to create a scandal about OMB “illegally” taking pictures at Arlington.
Oh, is this the new thing that’s going to take Trump down?
Are they going to say that the Harris/Walz ticket has more appeal to former military?
Walz does have a distinguished military career and was beloved by the troops.
Last time I progged, they were still pushing the “Trump called servicemembers suckers and losers” narrative.
That fits the profile of someone who would call Nazis fine people.
ALL the MSM is trying.
It’s fucking bullshit. Fuck those commies.
What? I guess I missed this. When did Arlington become classified information?
There’s apparently some law or policy that is meant to keep it non-political about not having campaign stops to exploit the military dead.
Like the military code of “Don’t complain about your government, because that’s disrespecting your current chain of command.”, there’s logic to it — but as I understand it, OMB was an invited guest, this wasn’t a “campaign event” – there were just some photos taken.
It could be spun up into a violation — but it is really a nothingburger. Like most of the lawfare this year, unsurprisingly.
I wasn’t aware of that law or whatever, but the families and the two people injured put out at statement saying he was invited, they thanked him for coming, and they were happy his crew were there to record the moment for them.
Only matters when it matters apparently. That sure looks like Arlington used in…a campaign ad.
One felony for every picture taken seems about right.
To be fair, Trump did unfairly disparage McCain for being shot down in Vietnam, but, aside from that, has been the typical politician who fawns all over military service members.
Hmm… yet again, the government (on many levels / many governments) seems to be ceding any pretense of performing its duty of protection that underlies its monopoly of force. Almost like there’s an amendment to fall back on for a fundamental right of protection of yourself, your loved ones and your hearth with centuries of precedent on the US frontiers or something…. funny that.
(Yes, I’m saying that if the various governments don’t step up I think the citizens these thugs are trying to dominate should form an impromptu militia — and no jury in the world should blame them for reasonable consequences that ensue [if they’re lead by a psycho and go crazy or something, obviously I’m not going to condone that]).
It’s just like their culture or something, so we should respect that.
The root cause is structural racism stemming from white supremacy, so the least we could do is let them be.
Unless they were the sole, regulated distributor of eggs and milk in their area, or they colluded with their competitors to set the price, what in the absolute fuck would that have any goddamn thing at all to do with antitrust?
Milk and eggs bitch.
Right up there with the recurring “7 ex boyfriends” “Exes” recurring gag until Roxy finally makes her appearance.
“Chicken isn’t vegan?” – I have a niece that was a “practicing” vegetarian (not sure if she claimed vegan) that would routinely eat leftover chicken strips thinking no one would notice. She no longer pretends to be vegetarian in any way, shape or form.
But, they made a profit, which should be illegal.
I bet somewhere in that calculation to raise those prices was all the helicopter cash that was dropped onto the food stamp crowd during COVID free-for-some bloat.
That’s crazy talk.
Reposting from ded thred.
“My coworkers and I did a fantasy draft last night. Met up at a bar at 5. Me vs 11 dudes.
Pretty fun. Never had done the live, in- person draft. Much smack talk. Good team building for work.
I picked up the tab, which was incredibly low. Bunch of lightweights!”
The simple pleasure of sport is brain candy.
Why was this a reply?
May the sports gods have mercy upon me. I have unleashed the girlfriend into ESPN public fantasy football leagues. She doesn’t know the positions, the players, the teams, or the scoring system. In one of her leagues, post-draft she was ranked 1st (most of the others… not so much).
She was a good sport for putting up with my friends’ league fantasy draft where we converted to a dynasty league. 12 teams, 16 rounds of drafting. It took us five hours.
Neph, you do know that she is probably going to dominate completely and drive all of the guys who pour over stats and agonize over every roster decision completely insane. “I played him because I liked his haircut, lol”
OBJ FRANKELSON:
We shall see. There’s no public chat in her leagues, so they’ll just have to figure out her choices by watching what she does. She was panicking a bit because she only had one kicker and one D/ST. I’m waiting to hear her get angry about someone being Questionable right up until kickoff for a late afternoon game.
One choice quote among many.
What a garbage publication that has become.
I remember all the rows of empty shelves at local Publix stores during the pandemic. I’m sure the managers were looking at those and rubbing their hands in anticipation of all the excess profits those empty shelves would bring.
And the mewling idiot sycophants never believe people when they say this is where “hate speech” and “disinformation” censoring leads (and historically always has led) — thought crime laws and lese majeste for those wielding the government truncheon.
Infuriating.
Political correctness is just good manners.
Sadly, it is a return to the mean. All the work of the Enlightenment has succumbed to human behavior.
When everyone is assigned a cell in their Soviet style concrete apartment tower (“I usually design abattoirs!”) no one would be technically homeless, true. And you’ll never need to leave your cell except when Glorious Leader assigns you an exercise break.
Forward!
Who could have guessed that poor people were the most at risk for evictions? It boggles the mind.
There might be Nobel Prize in researching that.
The easiest way to stop evictions is to pay your rent. If the author wasted as much of her time soliciting funds and distributing them to landlords to keep the people she ostensibly cares about from being evicted as she does gazing into her navel about the next big 5 year plan, she’d still be a retard, but at least she wouldn’t be a useless retard.
This is why I’ve become an anti-intellectual.
Of course, there’s no question as to why rents are so high, and why they keep going up.
Because no one listened to (much less elected) this prophet?
Price-gouging and greedflation? [ducks]
I miss Rent is Too Damn High guy.
LOL
It’s like wearing a sticker on your forehead labeled “R*TARD”.
Or the “I Voted” sticker.
(Feeling kinda black pilled this morning.)
Jesus… read a few paragraphs and it’s like a HS sophomore wrote it.
Thank goodness all the lefty shit she undoubtably supports doesn’t have any impact on the volume of new housing built or anything.
My personal favorite bit:
Because international students come from the slums of India and China, right?
Duh! They aren’t white, so clearly they would be living in abject poverty if not for her.
Out of necessity, I’m usually able to separate the music from the artist, but I don’t quite enjoy Talking Heads enough to look past what a pretentious twat David Byrne is.
I’m trying to figure out if any of my favorite music wasn’t made by pretentious twats.
There still are a couple of libertarian/anti-government punk bands out there. It’s always a refreshing shock when I find a new one.
I doubt JS Bach was a pretentious twat.
The arts being what they are, it’s pretty much inevitable. And I tend to like music made by the worst sort. On the rare occasions when I would go to shows, I’d stick out like a sore thumb.
I question the basis for your doubt.
He was definitely money conscious and religious. I don’t know but I can imagine we’d consider Baroque era German etiquette to be pretentious. Heck, I consider modern German preoccupation with titles pretentious.
You’re saying that anti-government libertarians aren’t pretentious twats? I don’t think I buy that…
Nick Sawark was definitely a twat, but I don’t know about pretentious. Froot Sushi, Aids Fonzie and Glamour Girl on the other hand are definitely pretentious but significantly less twaty than Nick.
That is simply because ALL music is made by pretentious twats.
Once you learn that, it all makes sense, and makes it easy to digest twattiness.
Oh, and anyone who wrote something titled “The Musical Offering” that you had to solve math problems to play correctly, is possibly the greatest of all twats.
An Oasis reunion is exactly what woke, bland Britain needs
Why couldn’t it have been the prayers of middle-aged men like me that were answered?
I’d much rather it be mine that were answered, but the erasure of Communism and Islam from the world might be asking a bit much. I don’t actually ask to win the lotto, but it’d be a nice consolation prize.
I mean if inoffensive dross played by self-indulgent twats is your thing, knock yourself out I guess.
I have long surrendered to the notion that most people don’t listen to music for the same reasons I do. Most people seem pretty okay with music they can tap their foot to and have some sort of nostalgia value and not much more.
So why do YOU listen to music?
I suppose that sounds a bit self-satisfied and snobby. But I am a recovering music major and I listen for interesting structures and technical skill in addition to ‘member berries and the like.
Why yes, I am a Rush fan, why do you ask? 😉
Cool! What styles/genres?
It probably sounds cliched but I am all over the map. Right now my current fascination is what I call ‘grunge-grass’ which is country in tone but with a bit more of an edge to the writing, ala Tyler Childers, I have always liked Irish Music, Flogging Molly, the Young Dubliners being seed for my Pandora Irish channels. I am also a big fan of the later part of the Big Band era Stan Kenton being my favorite. The Russian Romantics are my goto for symphonic music. If the fourth movement of Shostikovich’s 5th doesn’t get you hyped up, you might need to check into the coroner’s.
My extensive link-filled comment is currently awaiting moderation from TPTB:
Here it is sans links:
It probably sounds cliched but I am all over the map. Right now my current fascination is what I call ‘grunge-grass’ which is country in tone but with a bit more of an edge to the writing, ala Tyler Childers, I have always liked Irish Music, Flogging Molly, the Young Dubliners being the seed for my Pandora Irish channels. I am also a big fan of the later part of the Big Band era Stan Kenton being my favorite. The Russian Romantics are my go-to for symphonic music. If the fourth movement of Shostikovich’s 5th doesn’t get you hyped up, you might need to check into the coroner’s.
Correction: Shostakovich is generally considered a part of the modern not romantic movement.
I listen to a substantial bit of jazz, fusion, math rock, post-rock, and that sort of shit, although I am completely untrained in theory. Regardless, in the same way that there’s times when I want a greasy burger oozing with melted shitty American process cheese, and other times when I want a perfectly seared tenderloin, there’s times when I want to listen to a pretty melody for a few minutes, and times when I want to sit down for an hour or two and contemplate time signatures, dynamics, melodic dissonance, or even trivialities like production techniques, effects pedals, drum miking, etc. It’s like that with most media, I would say. Nobody reads Dave Barry expecting Leo Tolstoy.
Yeah, the metal channel I listen to whilst picking up heavy things and putting them down again is my more ‘fast food’ listening.
—“I got nothing else, so on to the links!”—
The Fedex Cup finals start today.
My extensive link-filled comment is currently awaiting moderation from TPTB:
Here it is sans links:
It probably sounds cliched but I am all over the map. Right now my current fascination is what I call ‘grunge-grass’ which is country in tone but with a bit more of an edge to the writing, ala Tyler Childers, I have always liked Irish Music, Flogging Molly, the Young Dubliners being the seed for my Pandora Irish channels. I am also a big fan of the later part of the Big Band era Stan Kenton being my favorite. The Russian Romantics are my go-to for symphonic music. If the fourth movement of Shostikovich’s 5th doesn’t get you hyped up, you might need to check into the coroner’s.
le sigh. Buttons are hard.
So the Democrats fight to keep RFK, Jr. off the ballot when they think it hurts Biden, then fight to keep him on the ballot when they think it hurts Trump. What was this shit about democracy?
Democracy has been replaced by Joy.
Joy was hanging from the chandelier.
Through joy you will be set free?
Why yes friend
ComputerCommissar, I am happy today!But how many divisions does Joy have?
OBE, Freude macht frei.
Thanks for the translation Rat. I’m going to use that.
True democracy won’t be achieved until national election winners are decided by a small cadre of superdelegates without the proles corrupting the process with shit like voting for their preferred candidate, the same way they conduct their primaries.
Someone posted this link the other day, I’ve been listening to it off-and-on as time permits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKBOrkk1FZE
Tucker Carlson talking with Mike Benz (who?) nominally about the arrest of the Telegram guy, but he said something apropos here, paraphrasing:
“Democracy has been redefined as preservation of ‘democratic institutions’, so when ascendant populists vote against those institutions, elections are ‘harming democracy’.”
Mike Benz has been making the rounds in the past few months on Twitter. He’s a former CIA guy and he has a lot of insight into how the intel agencies act, how NGO’s work, all that stuff. He theorizes that the CIA is running a color revolution inside the US.
Why can’t RFK just hand over everything like Joe did to Kamala with everyone cheering it on?
Or like Bernie, who got screwed over twice, and at the DNC made a speech about the evil billionaires. And the very next speaker was Pritzker, who bragged about how he was a “real” billionaire. I wonder if Bernie still considers three houses enough of a payment for his soul.
Morning all.
It is clear the Dems don’t give a shit what people think of them. Their election/campaign chicanery screams ‘We are going to cheat our asses off and win at any cost’.
Same for their domestic policies…they are out to destroy the culture, ‘fundamentally change’ the country and you are going to eat it and like it.
One f my cousins, one of the really good, likable ones, is suffering from Parkinson’s. I also hope this is real.
Gangs: Foreseeable consequences are not unintended.
Fat. Hit a nerve, did they? It is bad enough the control freakishness they impose on their own people but the hubris of trying to impose it on the rest of the world. Go fuck yourselves euroweenies.
Now why am I skeptical of this ‘executive’ spilling his guts? How much did he get from the Harris campaign? More than the sandwich shop astroturf I hope.
They want more homelessness. They want more poverty. They want more crime. All of that keeps people beaten down and dispirited. Such people are so much easier to rule.
I may have mentioned before that a couple of classes in invertebrate zoology changed my life. I will take my steaks well done please.
Ok, I will snark later. I am off to the docs. Ugh.
Don’t forget to tip for good service.
If he does your prostate check with both hands on your shoulders, you should find a new doctor.
The reason Harris and Walz are doing a bus tour – busses are slow and take a lot of time to get places. It’s a good way to hide from reporters.
“It is clear the Dems don’t give a shit what people think of them.”
It’s really jarring. And they’ve done a 180 on almost every one of their positions in the last 10 years.
“Their election/campaign chicanery screams ‘We are going to cheat our asses off and win at any cost’.”
They’re already threating anyone who doesn’t certify the election or is an “election denier”. So if 250% of registered voters turn in a ballot, you better not say anything or else.
Real twist will be if Team Stupid wins and Team Evil contests it..what will Obam…er Bid….I mean Biden-Harris DOJ do…
“There’s a new sexuality in town: ‘Symbiosexual’ people are attracted to the energy shared between couples, study claims”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13791957/new-sexuality-Symbiosexual-attracted-couples.html
Stop making up words.
Lexicographers and taxonomists need jobs too!
What, Starbucks and Wendy’s aren’t hiring anymore?
Is a Dave’s Double with extra bacon a subtype of Baconator?
So do Social Practice and Transformational Change graduates.
I see “throuple” is making a comeback!
So some people really are salivating for symbiosis, I guess.
‘Symbiosexual’ people are attracted to the energy shared between couples
Ah, they’re love leaches.
I think it is spelled The Person Your Spouse Is Going To Leave You For, but my French is rudimentary.
I thought they were called unicorns.
So cock-blockers or threesome volunteers?
Voyeurs?
“The CNN interview will be recorded in Georgia on Thursday afternoon and will be shown at 9pm Eastern time.”
So not even live. They can edit it any way they want.
I’m getting vibes of the Meghan and Harry interview with Oprah.
It will appeal to the same demographic, too.
“Cut. Your answer was incoherent rambling. Let’s try it again from the top.”
The funny part is that Kamala and Tim are terrible actors.
This is fucking excellent.
Kamalalala phones Walz parody.
https://x.com/mommyrn88/status/1822041965438943528?s=46&t=g7EG4Y-juKY6VXgHEzprrQ
Winning is way better than losing but for every winner there’s a loser that didn’t do the homework (and doesn’t have a parent with money)
Its just enough for legacy media to roll out the propaganda “See…she did an interview now sit down and shut up” and also a slew of “Republican’s pounce!” articles over the weekend.
It’s an infomercial, not an interview. It will feature a number of hard hitting questions for the dynamic duo to show they can think on their feet and give responses to their harshest criticisms.
Kommiela will come across as tough but approachable. A woman you’d admire if you knew her. A guest you’d like to watch on Oprah or Ellen or with Hoda and Savannah. With Hillary, one had years and years to grow to loathe her. Unfortunately, there’s only two months until the election, so Kommiela just might pull it off. If the Senate doesn’t swing Republican, watch out!
Given some of the candidates they are running, it likely won’t.
I played https://squaredle.com/xp 08/29:
*24/24 words (+2 bonus words)
🎯 Perfect accuracy
I played https://squaredle.com 08/29:
*43/43 words (+9 bonus words)
🎯 In the top 5% by accuracy
🔥 Solve streak: 522
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/28/conservationists-warn-unauthorised-releases-beavers-english-rivers
My knee-jerk response is to be against this but thinking about it I can’t find any actual reason to object. Free the beaver!
Some beavers aren’t worth a dam.
Let the chips fall where they may
Growing up a Narnia fan, I’ve always had a soft spot for beavers in England. Smart, helpful, nice cozy houses, etc. Seem like they’d be good to have a beer with.
Also, I found some beaver sign in the pond (gnawed-on sweetgum), so sometime when I get a chance I need to find and kill them.
Yeah – I have beavers who turned an acre of my wood lot into a swamp. Might have to shoot the loveable little guys.
I would definitely want to have the pelt turned into something if I had to shoot one.
a merkin?
They would be good to have a beer with, as long as they don’t bring their bitchy wife.
merkin
golf clap
You are not wrong. They are smart, social critters and actually make good pets…they dont gnaw worse than a puppy believe it or not.
If your beavers are eating Sweetgum weeds, leave ’em alone. Ours go right past the Sweetgum and start gnawing on oaks
A disturbing preview of America’s own growingly authoritarian future.
We are sorta already there…
Public figures have no dignity, they discarded it when they became public figures. They deserve to be mocked, ridiculed and belittled for their many, many failings, then tarred, feathered, and run out of town of a rail.
I’ll respect them when the do something respectable. Which, IMHO, is damned rare. All too many of them are self-serving, party-serving twats who give less than a hoot in hell for the country and their constituents, except when it’s election time.
As much as we try to dress it up as something else, it’s still just aristocracy. These midwit fuckheads believe they deserve public admiration by birthright, with no concomitant public criticism or public accountability.
The act of seeking power forfeits any claims to dignity. Any exceptions to this rule are exceptional because they are so rare.
Huzzah UCS! Huzzah!
https://www.reuters.com/legal/marijuana-user-cannot-be-banned-gun-ownership-us-court-rules-2024-08-28/
Marijuana user cannot be banned from gun ownership, US court rules
A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday ruled that a pot-smoking gun owner in Texas cannot be prosecuted for violating a federal ban on users of illegal drugs owning firearms, saying it is unconstitutional to disarm her based on her past drug habits.
The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said, opens new tab the prosecution had violated Paola Connelly’s right to keep and bear arms under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment citing a landmark 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that expanded gun rights.
Hunter draws a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Different circuit.
Still, the Biden defense has telegraphed they will claim the drug/gun laws are unconstitutional. And now, a federal court has already ruled that way. It should help his case.
An ambitious prosecutor would say the crime of perjury (lying about the drug use) is separate from whether or not the ban itself is constitutional.
By ‘ambitious’ you mean ‘asshole’?
Hunter has more problems than just the drug/gun charges.
citing a landmark 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that expanded gun rights Or…reaffirmed the 2nd Amendment. You right it how ever it lets you sleep at night I guess.
Right…write…wight
A better ruling would be to void federal drug control laws for lack of any constitutional authority, making the ban moot.
—“A better ruling would be to void federal drug control laws for lack of any constitutional authority”—
I’ve gotten excused from jury duty multiple times with this observation. I told the judges that since alcohol prohibition required a Constitutional Amendment, in my opinion the prohibition of recreational drugs also required an amendment. When I was told that the judge decides matters of law and the jury only decides matters of fact, I asked the judges if they wanted my opinion on jury nullification.
“You are excused.”
” I asked the judges if they wanted my opinion on jury nullification.”
+1 Magna Carta
“We’ve moved away from true capitalism towards an oligarchic structure with less competition and larger players dominating the market,” Thompson told Newsweek.
“This shift, driven by a focus on shareholder interest, has diminished consumer choice and competitive dynamics.”
Oh, the horror. If Kroger was gouging the consumer mercilessly to pay their union workers fifty bucks an hour they’d be heroes.
Kroger would also be out of business!
To be fair, we have moved towards an oligarchic structure, and that’s a bad thing. But it’s driven in no small part due to the regulatory apparatus largely being captured and used as a form of restraint of trade, preventing new market entrants. There’s also certain industries that are naturally vulnerable to monopoly and oligopoly due to economies of scale.
The risk of eviction is not just limited to those in precarious financial situations, but can impact renters across the board. This reality highlights the urgent need for stronger tenant protections to safeguard individuals and families from being unhoused.
The obvious solution is for the government to seize ownership of the entire housing stock. They never had homelessness in the Soviet Union.
Also never had 30 million illegal immigrants in need of housing. If they did, they would have housed them in Siberia.
I think they had more of a problem with people wanting to get out than getting in.
The Soviets were more concerned with illegal emigrants.
Great minds, TOK. Great minds.
Maybe this is the Donks’ secret plan to get rid of all the invaders, then. Turn the US more and more soviet and then they’ll all want to leave.
Oh wait, no. It’s the Americans they want to get rid of.
In your cemetery, stealing your political props
This pursuit of the photo op, despite rules, decorum, decency and tact is the latest illustration of Trump appearing to view fallen military and their families as props and not people. And it plays into the feelings that Americans have about a word that Trump knows how to manipulate. Sacrifice.
This isn’t the first time that Trump has run afoul of his view of military members. We all remember what he said about late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), his words to his chief of staff and Gold Star father Gen. John Kelly about “suckers and losers.” And in his latest insult, he asserted that the nation’s highest military award, the Congressional Medal of honor, is no better than the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Blah blah blah slavering idolatry of the state. I’m all in favor of a more cynical and, dare I say it, transactional view of “military service”.
Also referred to as nemertea, the visually striking yet obscure animal group is perhaps best known for the way it hunts. Waiting to pounce from a sandy burrow, a ribbon worm will go after its next meal wielding a reversible, spear-like appendage called a proboscis, which is housed in its nose cavity — separate from its mouth, stomach and digestive system, Sanford said.
“They can shoot that out with explosive force,” he said, “and they use it like a lasso to wrap around their prey, which can include other types of worms, crustaceans or mollusks.”
Coming soon to an episode of “Kamala”.
Joe Biden has quite quit the Presidency. Not even an exaggeration.
https://x.com/WesternLensman/status/1828898553827111359
And nobody seems to care.
Nobody cares because if the other team pulled a stunt like this, it would be 24/7 coverage until it stopped – whether by him going back to work, or the VP invoking the 25th amendment.
He’s a lame duck at this point. He knows no new policy will go through, doesn’t want to saddle any controversial policy onto Harris. Pretty much expected.
Good thing we didn’t just send half the navy to keep an eye on Iran.
Joe who?
Isn’t that the guy Kommiela is running against?
But on a deeper level, we also need to understand this. Trump seems to truly believe that the sacrifices that Americans have made in battle are on the same level as the ones he has made in his business and political career. And that is something that no true patriot should accept.
Sure, we all sacrifice in some sense. Parents sacrifice for their kids, immigrants sacrifice their old lives to start a new one here, people give up time with their families to start a new business, and teenagers sacrifice fun times with friends to work toward college acceptance and success. But most of us have the cognizance to realize that what we give up pales in comparison to the sacrifices that service members endure.
It is easy to hug a flag, sell an “American” Bible or stage a photo op at Arlington. But Trump has never been able to truly answer are whether he truly knows what it is like to sacrifice for his country. Does he understand that whatever he did pales in comparison to those who had died for us? And is he humble enough to admit it?
Go fuck yourself, mister I-decide-who-is-a patriot. Blindly following orders has been pretty thoroughly discredited as a test of patriotism.
Fuck the idea that you can only be a patriot (ditto a hero) if you’re serving the State.
Did Trump actually conflate the two (I don’t necessarily have a problem with the comparison) or is this yet another unfair interpretation of his words aimed at ginning up outrage? What’d he say?
I might as well be the cunt: service members don’t sacrifice shit. They know the deal they’re getting up front, it’s a voluntary force – at least for the time being. They opt-in for the same reason that anyone opts into any job: it matches whatever set of subjective values they have. And a pretty substantial portion of them are fucking asshole pieces of shit – pretty much the same percentage as the general population from which they’re pulled. Accepting a job with a known risk of death in service of largely of idiotic police actions intended to benefit politicians and their defense industry cronies doesn’t make you special. In the same way that I don’t grovel at the feet of oil rig workers, or loggers, or electrical linesmen, or miners for opting into a job with a known, higher than average risk of death or injury, I’m not going to kiss the ass of a “service member” just because of the job picked. They can be judged as individuals, just like everybody else.
Good news, everyone
This is not your standard back-to-school story, about school supplies or first-day butterflies.
It’s about how school-aged members of Gen Z — that’s 12- to 18-year-olds — are feeling about school and the future. And according to a new national survey, those feelings are a little worrying.
School engagement is down. The middle- and high-schoolers surveyed find school less interesting than they did just last year, and only about half believe they’re being challenged “in a good way.” The problem is especially acute for teens who say they don’t want to go to college right out of high school.
Believe it or don’t; kids these days think school is a giant waste of time.
Of course it’s NPR, so they tiptoe around what some of us might consider obvious reasons, like focusing on social justice and equity instead of teaching useful skills.
“The conversations that [K-12 schools are] having with middle-schoolers and high-schoolers are predominantly about college,” says Zach Hrynowski, a senior education researcher at Gallup. “Even the kids who are like, ‘I don’t want to go to college,’ what are they hearing the most about? College. We’re not talking to them about apprenticeships, internships, starting a business, entrepreneurial aspirations or jobs that don’t require a college degree.”
This mismatch was born of good intentions. In the name of educational equity, to make sure they’re not limiting children, schools today have doubled down on the idea that college can be for everyone. That’s not inherently bad. What’s bad is that students who don’t want to go to college say their schools aren’t listening or talking with them about anything else.
Every child should aspire to go to college and become a social justice advocate making six figures working for a nonprofit. That’s the new American dream.
Unless you plan to major in some iteration of STEM no college or tech school and going into a trade is liable to be far more lucrative. The stigma against working with one’s hands has got to die.
Don’t let a good education stand in your way to success…
Why does this keep happening?
It’s not the first time suspected drugs have washed ashore on Florida beaches this year.
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To avoid getting caught by law enforcement, traffickers will often throw their drug packages into the ocean for other smugglers to collect and bring forth to the U.S.
NPR id baffled. There must be a reason these “smugglers” work so diligently to get cocaine to Florida. I wonder what it could be.
Scientists are concerned that this method of drug trafficking is severely affecting wildlife — particularly sharks.
Scientists in Brazil have come up with the first evidence that sharks are being exposed to cocaine.
Those poor sharks. Who will come to their rescue?
The remoras?
We just need to train people to shove Narcan up the sharks’ noses.
“Scientists in Brazil have come up with the first evidence that sharks are being exposed to cocaine.”
Shark discotheques?
“Cocaine Shark”
Good premise, I think I’ll hammer out a script.
Sharkaine!
Return of National Socialism
AfD secured its first mayoral and county government posts last year, but the party hasn’t yet joined a state government. In June, national co-leader Tino Chrupalla said that “the sun of government responsibility must rise for us in the east.”
That doesn’t look likely in Saxony and Thuringia, where no other party wants to join it in a coalition. The domestic intelligence agency has AfD’s branches in both states under official surveillance as “proven right-wing extremist” groups. Its leader in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, has been convicted of knowingly using a Nazi slogan at political events, but is appealing.
Depending on how badly the national governing parties perform, that could leave the CDU looking for improbable coalition partners. The party has long refused to ally with Ramelow’s Left Party, which is descended from East Germany’s communist party, but hasn’t ruled out working with Wagenknecht’s BSW.
The CDU’s national leader, Friedrich Merz, told the RND newspaper group that “we can’t work with” AfD.
“That would kill the CDU,” he said.
Chaos in Germany. It’s almost as if people don’t like what the government has been doing. The dregs of the Communist Party are acceptable, but “far right extremism” is verboten.
Weirdly, the AfD seems to be especially popular in eastern Germany, but I think we can be certain that has nothing to do with the lingering aftereffects of practical on-the-ground communism.
Merkel’s opening the floodgates was particularly not well-received in the east, where there isn’t as much money sloshing around in the trough to paper over some of the rougher impacts as in the west.
Searching as I cannot watch tonight, the imdb descrip is remarkably similar to Harry Potter Pt 1, not just for the name: “Rumor has it that the house of Prague hide secret obtain the philosopher’s stone, and complex multi-level labyrinth of underground tunnels and cellars keep many unsolved mysteries and untold treasures.”
Rowling (and most fiction writers) freely admits borrowing/using from other stories, but hrm. The pics shown are… distant. Some are odd, though 60s low-budget reality monsters, and then… two nuns in silky embrace… this film, may indeed have everything.
*Doffs cap*