252 Comments

  1. Ownbestenemy

    Don’t be so prudish. If mommy milkers wanna show their support in a way that is pleasing to the male gaze, so be it!

    • Rat on a train

      They can learn something from the French on how to protest.

    • Fourscore

      Hopefully the pro-abortionists won’t be protesting in like manner.

      • Suthenboy

        Karens for Kamala?

      • Ownbestenemy

        Suthen, they already have that group its called “White Dudes for Harris”

    • Pat

      They picked the right banner photo, although I kind of doubt Selma Hayek is going to be whipping them out for Trump.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      This is out of control. Men prefer the scoldy women of the left after all.

    • ron73440

      Dear Lord. Now, this is not yet a full-on trend.

      This guy is clutching his pearls over a few posts.

      MR. RIGHT
      DAILY CALLER MASCULINITY CONSULTANT

      • Certified Public Asshat

        I think he was in on the bit.

      • ron73440

        Maybe, it’s hard to tell sometimes.

  2. Ted S.

    DJ Vance?

    Did he play techno, house, or dubstep?

    • Nephilium

      Reggaeton.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      The link goes to when they were talking about abortion. Worst DJ ever.

    • Banjos

      I’d fix it, but it’s been up for over 3 hours.

  3. ron73440

    Sorry folks, no Stoic Friday today.

    Had something come up last night and forgot all about it until I was going to sleep.

    I’ll make up for it with another exciting truck article.

    • Sean

      Will you be jumping your truck over school buses?

      • Rat on a train

        Crushing school buses?

      • Ownbestenemy

        They were the headliner last night at the casino

    • Pat

      Chalk it up to a proof of the stoicism you’ve instilled in us that we can handle this setback without trepidation.

    • UnCivilServant

      Is it the article or the truck that is the exciting part?

      • ron73440

        I’m pretty excited about my latest project, but it was sarcasm to call my truck articles exciting.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      Panic!

  4. Ownbestenemy

    A Russian court on Wednesday slapped Google with a fine of $20 decillion dollars for refusing to run propaganda from Russian state media.

    You know Hochel is thinking “We can do that to Trump!”

    20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    • AlexinCT

      That’s how you show you really, really, mean it

  5. Drake

    Started listening to the Vance / Rogan interview yesterday and will finish this morning. Fun listen to a couple of smart normal dudes. When Rogan brings up something new to Vance, JD listens, thinks, and starts asking his own questions. Weird to see a politician at that level with an open mind.

    • Fourscore

      In high school several decades ago we had mandatory two semesters of ‘Civics’. We would have been way better off had we had Economics. Money and Politics have a strange way of finding one another.

      • Rat on a train

        High school required senior civics and senior economics to graduate.

      • juris imprudent

        Sure – with a Glibs-approved curriculum. Otherwise you’re getting People’s History of the United States and Marxism for Dummies*.

        * no different than the standard Marxist books

    • Ownbestenemy

      They talked about COVID restrictions, big pharm, trans in sports, energy, history, Hunter Biden, Big Tech, censorship, media bias, Tony Hinchcliffe, Joe Biden’s garbage comment, abortion, religion, illegal immigration, marijuana, psychedelics, and more. (A few unpredictable topics too, including the brilliance of “Boyz N the Hood” and the domestic abuse allegations against Kamala’s husband, Doug Emhoff.)

      That is a wide range of topics.

    • The Other Kevin

      I get the feeling Vance is a guy whose job is a politician, not that his identity is a politician. I expect Rogan and Vance to be spotted together at MMA fights or become a regular on the podcast in the future. They got along really well.

      • Atreides

        Yes, Kevin, you nailed it. He seems like he would be the exact same guy if he were an Executive VP at some Fortune 500 company.

    • Atreides

      I’m about an hour in, so far, and I agree that Vance is great. Just a normal guy, with a different job than the rest of us, and seems like he knows his job pretty well. He certainly comes across as being much more thoughtful of all sides of the issues, as opposed to perennial clowns like Shifty Schiff and Schumer.

      As always, I wish that Rogan didn’t interrupt his guests so much when he sees a shiny object, but for the most part, he’s letting Vance get his points across in this episode.

      It’s things like this that are obviously the impetus for that NY Times hit piece on YouTube, and any YouTuber to the right of The Young Turks. Thanks to YouTube, now we can watch with our own eyes to see that JD Vance is not “weird,” and that his ideas aren’t “fascist.“

  6. Toxteth O'Grady

    Hardly any TTers (maybe 15 in 4 waves). In ’20, nobody came at all. Though the kid who took several handfuls was amusing, and one dad accepted a beer: never again.

    • Pat

      No trick or treaters here, so I just have to eat that bag of fun size Reese’s peanut butter cups myself. Damn it all anyway…

      • Cunctator

        “No trick or treaters here, so I just have to eat that bag of fun size Reese’s peanut butter cups myself.”

        That’s why I had to stop buying Reese’s to give out. I love them, but I also had no trick-or-treaters last night. I don’t need all of that sugar.

      • AlexinCT

        I had some people come by, but nobody bought anything out of the vending machine.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Justin’s or Trader Joe’s are better, not grainy and overly sweet.

      • The Last American Hero

        Even better if you freeze them first.

    • Ownbestenemy

      We learned a few things in our new neighborhood. Since we are along the main street through the development, it gets a lot of foot traffic. However, we are flanked by houses that don’t want to participate. So a lot of families would hit the corner and cross and turn around. Next year we will put out some lights. We really enjoyed seeing some really creative costumes and in return, a reward of a larger handful of candy for that creativity and thought.

      • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

        I kinda missed seeing all the kids come up, but with our dog (who goes insane just at the mailman coming) and living in a neighborhood that doesn’t have many of it’s own kids and they seem to bus them in from other places, it is kind of a wash.

        Plus, my wife does not want candy in the house, as we are in our 50s and are getting plump.

      • Ownbestenemy

        We opened up the garage and some chairs and set out the fire pit. Kids that were cold appreciated it and adults tired and weary found a moment of respite. Otherwise our dogs would have gone nuts. We had a light drizzle too but kids powered through it.

      • Rat on a train

        We had the dark street problem before. There is a wooded gap on our street after the first couple houses. Subtle decorations make it so the street looks dark beyond the break. Some neighbors started using flood lights to highlight decorations. I hang glowing jack-o-lantern buckets in the trees that can be seen from the intersection.

    • Fourscore

      Signs of a recession

      I’m guessing Trump will say in ’20 the economy was so good kids didn’t have to go door to door begging for candy. Harris will say the economy is so good now that there is such an abundance of candy people have to give it away.

      Talking points.

    • Rat on a train

      I had a good amount. The adults appreciated the Ghirardelli squares.
      My son had no interest. My daughter probably went out for her last time.

    • Not Adahn

      I’ve never had any at the new house. This year I didn’t buy any candy, since I’m trying to be good.

      • Fourscore

        We’re too far out in the sticks, none of the neighbors have little kids. No one is going to spend the time and gas to make a dry run, unless it’s to pick up firewood.

    • Tundra

      We were way up over the last few years. It was great!

      Younger neighbors were having a driveway party and the whole thing was quite festive.

      • dbleagle

        I was up from past years as well with about 35 kids. Only a few older kids came by. Mainly it was the extremely shy younger kids with their parents or a sibling.

  7. Lachowsky

    https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2024/10/31/franklin-county-selected-as-home-of-new-3k-bed-state-prison

    I am beyond pissed. This is going to be about 3 miles from where I am currently building my house. My wife and kids and I live where we do do because it’s a beautiful and extremely rural area that is largely immune from the world around us. With no permission from us whatsoever ever, the state is going to build a super prison right next to me. They are going to hire 900 prison guards and staff that will flood into my area, and all the low life traffic that will be a mainstay of prison visitors.

    This area is all farm land with very little population, and its about to transformed into bedroom community for prison guards and their ilk. God damn it.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Not just guards but probably low-cost shitty housing for families to move near by. Sorry man.

      • Fourscore

        You may be able to make some money on the new house and move again. Sad to hear about that though.

        Obviously the PTB were aware of the project way in advance of you and did not disclose the info before you started.

    • Pat

      That’s fucked. Sadly, a constant hazard unless you can afford to buy your property by the mile. On the bright side, it’s a government project, so it will probably take about 18 years before it’s completed. Maybe in the meantime you can find an endangered somethingorother living on the build site and raise a protest.

      • Lachowsky

        Maybe, but I have no interest in moving. We are building it on land i recently bought that joins the land my current house is on. I’m trying to establish my own little compound out here. I’m about 12 years into this project and have no interest in abandoning it.

      • Lachowsky

        I have some arrowheads i have found over the years. Maybe I can go bury them out there and declare it an Indian gravesite.

    • Pine_Tree

      Sorry Lach. I hate it for y’all.

      The building of giant facilities out in the country – ESPECIALLY by state institutions – is one of my major hates about society today. And even the non-state-initiated ones, like foreign factories or apartment complexes, are almost always facilitated by state subsidies and zoning. Schools, prisons, whatever. Put them in town where the utilities and traffic infrastructure already are. This is evil.

      It’s all part of the kulturkrieg against us, with grift for somebody connected.

      • rhywun

        Not even a recent thing for prisons.

        This one was built in 1844.

        Attica, too. Seems like big pris is routinely kept away from large cities.

      • Pine_Tree

        And the Wikipedia article on that Clinton prison says it was put there to provide prison labor for mines. So yeah, state subsidies for mine owners, who you know were paying the politicians that did it.

      • juris imprudent

        Our govt really is trying emulate the CCP, isn’t it?

      • Lachowsky

        Its evil. Bringing the rot of the larger society and dropping it square on us simple folk just trying to raise our kids in peace.

      • Ted S.

        Much like putting all the illegal border crossers in Team Red areas.

        One of the reasons TPTB went berserk over Governors Abbott and DeSantis sending people north is because it revealed the gravity of the situation to normies.

        Team Blue knew this influx is causing serious disruptions, and *wanted* to inflict those issues on Team Red areas.

      • juris imprudent

        On the other hand, sending them to red areas dilutes the value of them as a census tool.

      • Ted S.

        JI, think Californication and what it’s done to places like Colorado.

      • The Last American Hero

        Prisons have a large footprint. Cities have high real estate costs. This isn’t just a NIMBY by urban dwellers.

      • UnCivilServant

        Eminent domain a few blocks and wall them in.

        Better yet, wall in the whole city and use it as a prison – I nominate NYC.

    • Sean

      Damn dude. That *really* sucks.

      Sorry.

    • Lachowsky

      https://imgur.com/a/KhHyXTg

      Spent all day yesterday putting the trusses on my new place. That in that second picture, you can see a powering right of way on top of the mountain. Just over that is where they are putting a fucking prison.

      • Fourscore

        Wow, Lach, that’s a serious looking house and a beautiful view.

  8. Pat

    D.C. Boarding Up Buildings, Preparing for Riots on Election Night

    This must be that “new normal” I keep hearing about.

    • Nephilium

      One of my coworkers is convinced that the Republicans will riot if Trump doesn’t win.

      • Grumbletarian

        And the Democrats will mostly peacefully protest if he does win.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Maybe a small idiotic subset but it will be “Damn, this is gonna suck” and right back to work and continuing to insulate their families as much as they can for another 4 years.

      • Drake

        Wouldn’t it take a few days for enough Republicans to reach DC to have a riot? What is the quorum needed for an official riot?

        Soros rent-a-mobs being bussed in, on the other hand…

      • Fourscore

        OTOH opportunities to riot don’t come every day. Good time to go looking for the supersize TV now and be ready. Hopefully there are liquor stores nearby as well, a twofer.

        Do rioters/looters have specialties? Or is it sort of just “grab what you can”?

      • Nephilium

        Fourscore:

        During the “mostly peaceful protests” downtown sports bars were prime targets since they had both big screen TV’s and liquor. The assholes even went through and smashed up thousands of dollars of specialty glassware. Shocking that those have not reopened since.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Fourscore: From my research of such creatures, it appears it depends on the events that lead up to it. Sporting event, Nike stores are hit like the lame member of a herd. Race-related event, CVS and Wendy’s become vulnerable and suspect to fire damage. Political event, tends to be more of a milling about and taking opportunities as they are revealed.

  9. Pat

    As a sprawling congressional investigation into online political fundraising expands, House Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday he fears foreign adversaries such as China and Iran may be laundering money to Democrats this election, and he is vowing lawmakers will take punitive actions against overseas actors if the allegations are corroborated.

    Why do I get the feeling is one of those “and nothing else happened” stories, and Mike Johnson is just stirring shit before the election, with on intention of doing anything?

    • Ownbestenemy

      I agree, it will be in a committee, words will be spoken and then nothing. After all, we have the most securest and unbreakable election process to uphold.

    • Grummun

      Well, it is Mike Johnson, so if prior performance is any indicator…. nothing will happen.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        With the new districts in Louisiana, I had the privilege of voting against him (for another Republican, there was no Democrat on the ticket). Lousiana doesn’t do primaries for House races, it is just a free-for-all on election day, and if no one gets a majority a run-off between the top two candidates.

    • rhywun

      It’s so ridiculous. Nobody is falling for it.

    • Lachowsky

      China and Iran. Of course, the usual boogeyman. If any county is a money laundering operation for the democrats, avert you gaze far eastern Europe.

      • Suthenboy

        Ukraine….and exactly why nothing will happen.

      • juris imprudent

        New “special relationship”.

      • Suthenboy

        Special relationship. One might be tempted to think they see 1984 as an instruction manual.

      • AlexinCT

        One might be tempted to think they see 1984 as an instruction manual.

        Oh, based on the recent events, they do. They also see “Brave New World”, “Fahrenheit 451”, “Atlas Shrugged”, and every other dystopian book or movie as “How To” manuals, it seems.

    • slumbrew

      “Democrats”

      Just Democrats, you say? Why don’t I believe that?

    • R C Dean

      More failure theater.

      And why isn’t he talking about punishing the people in this country who are facilitating money laundering to the Dems?

  10. Suthenboy

    “Nearly 63 Million Voters Have Already Cast Ballots”
    87 Million of them voted for Harris?

    DC preparing for riots…see, when I read that I was expecting a story on Pelosi and FBI agents giving instructions to the rioters.

    ” ‘transparency’: ‘Just a myth’ ”
    Ya dont say! When has it not been?

    Democracy…I dont think that word means what they think it means.

    It’s too early for all this sarcasm. I need more coffee.

    • The Last American Hero

      Where is the barb wire and the 22,000 troops from January 7?

  11. Pine_Tree

    Riot strategy by the Donks:
    – Obviously they weren’t going to go for repeats of the 2020 riots, since it would look so much worse for Harris.
    – I’ve been assuming they were planning on election-night (and later) riots just ’cause that’s what they do. If Trump’s on top it’ll get gleeful support from the blue elite in the cities. If Harris is on top it’ll still get their support, with an extra helping of scorn on the victims (shopowners, etc.) for being kulaks, etc.
    – If Trump wins, I think the Dems are going to have an actual violent riot at the Capitol on Jan-6 (or the 5th or whatever the corresponding day is this time). They’ve mythologized the 1/6/21 protests so much that they’re going to surely show out with their own version. And it’ll be a fulfillment of all their violent fantasies they’ve projected on the Trump side.

    • rhywun

      You would think that Trump has some megamagas embedded in antifa in order to report back on their plans for after the election.

      You know, the reverse of how the government is embedded in anything vaguely “dissident”.

    • DrOtto

      I predict if the dems show up to protest in Jan ’25, it’ll be fiery, but mostly peaceful.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Ya know, these comments would never make it to the ears of Trump supporters if it were not for rabid haters highlighting. Also, he isn’t wrong. You wanna swing your balls Cheney, swing em and grab a rifle. I hear Ukraine is in dire need of bodies to pave the new Russian roads with.

      • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

        Streisand effect.

    • Drake

      Just finished listen to Rogan and Vance. Both, like me, are simply astounded that the Dems have embraced the Cheney’s.

      • Lachowsky

        The neocon cabal is simple returning to its natural home.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Not really a realignment, more of pulling the veil back.

        For once, South Park beat Simpsons to the punch.

      • Drake

        Yep – back to their roots with FDR and LBJ.

  12. Not Adahn

    For those of you that don’t read my Sunday column, next week election day is a conjunction of Venus and the Moon — the two most feminine planets.

    I dare say that prediction will be at least as accurate as any other poll.

    • PieInTheSky

      Trump will grab Venus by the pussy?

      • Ted S.

        This guy gets it.

  13. juris imprudent

    If this was a false flag, it was a very believable one (for a change).

    Ballot box fires in Oregon and Washington were linked to devices that had the message “Free Gaza” marked on them, The Associated Press (AP) is reporting, citing an anonymous police source.

    • Drake

      Pagers?

      • AlexinCT

        CNN: BAN THIS GUY!!!

    • R.J.

      The last free thing they will get from Bezos is a cardboard box to carry their belongings out of the building.

      • UnCivilServant

        He buys cardboard boxes in bulk…

    • PieInTheSky

      60 Minutes started trashing people with heavily edited ambush interviews intended to smear people. – the word people should not be twice so close together, this sentence is poor writing imo

    • Not Adahn

      Sellout… billionaire? Whom exactly, is the owner selling out to?

      • UnCivilServant

        The allmighty dollar!

        He’s putting profits above principles!

    • rhywun

      Stunning and brave.

      • PieInTheSky

        it’s a bold strategy Cotton

    • trshmnstr

      Employee revolts are now common, because mediocre people have been coddled and told they are unique, special flowers who deserve to be nurtured. Very few of us are, outside of our standing with our families and through the grace of God.

      God may love you no matter what; an employer wants you to produce more revenue than you cost him. Literally none of the people at the WaPo do.

      Savage.

      • AlexinCT

        It just baffles me that so many people thought coddling their and other stupid kids would actually make them better people. When you incentivize and reward bad behavior, you get more of it. We need to go back to whoopassing kids when they act up.

      • rhywun

        The truth hurts.

      • Suthenboy

        Truth is often like that.

  14. PieInTheSky

    Nearly 63 Million Voters Have Already Cast Ballots – I sent mine today, hopefully it gets in time. Or it is counted even if it does not.

    • AlexinCT

      Unless you voted (D) you will not get counted. Worse yet, the DOJ will investigate you.

      • PieInTheSky

        I did. Kamala is totally gonna get Romania int he visa waiver program. (UCS has done the mastercard joke like 3 times now, i assume it is enough )

      • UnCivilServant

        HEY!

        It was American Express.

  15. Pat

    Thom Yorke vs the anti-Israel bigots

    Radiohead’s Thom Yorke has had enough of the anti-Israel bigots. Towards the end of his solo set in Melbourne, Australia this week, Yorke was heckled by a protester. ‘How many dead children will it take for you to condemn the genocide in Gaza?’, shouted the man, for the umpteenth time that evening. ‘Okay, you do it, see you later’, said Yorke, before walking off stage. Point made, he returned a few minutes later to perform his final song of the show.
    _
    This wasn’t Yorke’s first run-in with the ‘pro-Palestine’ set. Over the past decade, as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel has taken off, bourgeois leftists have turned on Yorke and his Radiohead bandmates for refusing to stop playing in Israel and collaborating with Israelis. For having the temerity, that is, to treat Israel as a country like any other.
    _
    Matters first came to a head in the summer of 2017. Radiohead were due to conclude their ‘A Moon Shaped Pool’ tour in Tel Aviv. This prompted the BDS campaign, backed by veteran Israelophobes like film director Ken Loach and Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters, to call on Radiohead not to perform in Israel so as ‘to help pressure Israel to end its violation of basic rights and international law’.
    _
    But Yorke refused to cave in to their demands. Instead, he told Rolling Stone magazine that he didn’t agree with boycotting, isolating and damning an entire people because of the perceived crimes of their government. As he later put it: ‘We don’t endorse [Benjamin] Netanyahu any more than [Donald] Trump, but we still play in America.’ What’s more, he called out the ignorance of the BDS crowd, who just ‘throw the word “apartheid” around’ despite knowing nothing about the nature of Israel. It was a brave stand, given the intense conformism and allergy to dissent among today’s cultural elites.
    _
    Since the start of the war in Gaza last year, the Israelophobia of the ‘progressive’ left has exploded. Yet, much to the chagrin of Western leftists, Yorke and his bandmates have maintained their principled objection to the BDS movement. Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, who is married to Arab Israeli visual artist Sharona Katan, played a gig in Tel Aviv earlier this summer with Dudu Tasa, an Iraqi Jew, before attending a protest the following day calling for the release of the hostages held by Hamas. For this, the BDS campaign accused him of ‘artwashing genocide’, but Greenwood stuck to his guns, arguing that there was nothing ‘progressive’ about ‘silencing Israeli artists’ purely for ‘being born Jewish in Israel’.

    Dammit, I hate having to be on the side of Thom Yorke.

    • rhywun

      Right? He is the last person I would have expected any common sense from.

    • Evan from Evansville

      Glad to hear the principled stance from them. Yorke was/could be quite an insufferable Brit prick about politics, but so are most/all musicians. Radiohead still is my favorite band, and Jonny Greenwood does quite interesting movie scores and other projects, ‘There Will Be Blood’ and others. I want to chick out the duos new side project ‘Smile.’

      It’s great when my worlds collide in harmony.

  16. PieInTheSky

    Some people wonder why Musk has entered politics in such a sudden and vehement way.

    But the answer is fairly clear. It’s an illustration of something I have been trying, off and on, to convince @ID_AA_Carmack
    of for some time now.

    There are three essential functions of a man, three things which define masculinity.

    Men explore. Men build. And men fight.

    All the other things that are considered masculine… leadership, sports, weightlifting, eating carburetors for breakfast, knowing how to load your own damn shotgun… all of these are performed in the service of being able to explore, build, or fight.

    But the thing about being a builder is that you make cool stuff. And the thing about being an explorer is that you find cool stuff.

    And sooner or later, if you build or find enough cool stuff, people who don’t build or explore, people who are too lazy or untalented to build or explore, decide that it would be easier to just take stuff from you.

    Then you have to fight.

    This can be literal fighting, but more often, these days, it’s an abstract form of fighting… politics.

    Because politics was devised as a way to settle disputes without violence, politics ends up being a proxy for violence.

    And so, just as there is no option to not be in a fight when someone else decides to involve you in one, there is no option to exclude yourself from politics.

    You are either an active participant, doing whatever you can to affect the balance of power, or you are a passive participant, with your life determined by the struggle you have left to others.

    https://x.com/Devon_Eriksen_/status/1852028696850223147

    Well that sounds like textbook toxic masculinity to me.

    • AlexinCT

      Musk is one of the people that realized if we do not stop the batshit crazy women and what they are doing now, we are all going to hell in a handbasket, and then these women will blame us for it. That’s really where we are today.

      • PieInTheSky

        Musk managed to stick it in to crazy several times and escape somewhat unscathed. I mean he was allegedly in a 3 way relationship with Amber Heard and Cara Delevingne banged em and got away with bed unshat.

      • juris imprudent

        Musk may stick it in crazy, but he doesn’t tolerate it.

      • PutridMeat

        if we do not stop the batshit crazy women

        I often fall into that thinking – femininity doesn’t scale to governance of large groups of people and feminizing the culture will destroy individual liberty and freedom.

        But then if you look at history, very few feminine or female dominated societies descended into totalitarianism (or even existed). While I think women have had a lot more impact on the history of ‘great men’ than acknowledged, those ‘great men’ are largely responsible for the atrocities of human history.

        Maybe humans just don’t scale freedom and liberty to societies beyond a few Dunbar numbers, period. And even in those smaller groups, it just looks like freedom and liberty because of a more homogeneous population tied together by family groupings.

        Being more interested in ‘things’ in general, I’ve found men to be more open to exploring philosophical ideas and acting, in the social/political world, on ‘principle’. But that’s still at the fringes of the distribution; most people, regardless of sex, do not.

        Shorter – tyranny may well be the default position in large, heterogeneous societies. The feminine tyranny may have a different character, maybe more obvious to us, but even without ‘stopping batshit crazy women’, we’re going to end up with tyranny.

      • UnCivilServant

        @Putrid

        Matriarchies don’t scale, since the incentive structure doesn’t drive for that kind of development (the handful that survive are still in abject poverty).

        And people, as a species, find it hard to trust those you don’t know. When you get past those you actually know, you apply a template – “Are they like us? Are they foreign?” You can trust more people from the next town over who you don’t really know but look, sound, and act like those from your own town because you can apply associations to the archetypes from home. But the foreigner, with odd customs, odd manners of speech, and odd appearances, you cannot know innately. So stronger rules need be applied to make sure those strange folk don’t do anything untoward to you. The stronger rules become an iron fist as it scales.

      • Pat

        But that’s still at the fringes of the distribution

        That’s kind of the crux of it though. On many measures, the male distribution has longer tails. Intelligence, for instance. Compared with women, there’s a lot more male geniuses, but also a lot more male retards. If the 20th century taught us anything, it’s that there’s no special male inclination to liberty and freedom. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler, Tito, Amin, Mussolini, and the rest of the mass murdering trash certainly weren’t doing it for the chicks.

      • AlexinCT

        But then if you look at history, very few feminine or female dominated societies descended into totalitarianism (or even existed).

        Yeah, my problem with this is that this assertion came from the same people that tell me the natives in America were peace loving and never had conflict, colonialism, like slavery, is a white man’s thing against those of other skin colors, climate change is killing us and if we don’t tax it out of existence, we will be living on Tatooine, and that America is an evil country.

        You will pardon me for not believing that claim feminine dominated societies were mostly awesome, one fucking bit. Have you ever been part of any entity run by women? Shit, my experiences on 2 different boards I joined during my kid’s school stint required me shutting the shit down because both boards, one 13 members with me as the only man, and another with 12, of which 10 were women, were completely crippled by the high school cliques and that in fighting. I ended up being voted president on both boards (because the women even betrayed their own clique’s alpha female to vote for me) and shutting that shit down immediately by telling them I would bring charges against anyone just acting out.

        Can you imagine that? Me having to be the voice of reason. And these experiences are not unique. Women absolutely hate organizations run by other women. You should ask them in corporate America how many of them would want to work for another woman.

      • PutridMeat

        Yeah, my problem with this is that this assertion came from the same people

        Sorry, hard to be clear with complex ideas – I’m not making the assertion that matriarchal societies are all peaceful. There just aren’t that many, if any. Anyone postulating that they would be more likely to be peaceful doesn’t know women very well (and hasn’t worked as a bouncer in a bar and seen the manipulation of reluctant men into conflict).

        My only point is that we cannot lay the destabilization of society and a repudiation of the ideals of individual liberty to a feminization of the culture or an increase in the influence of women in politics – something that seems to be somewhat common on ‘the right’ at times. While I’m open to the idea that a male dominated political system maybe more *likely* to adhere to an abstract principle of individual autonomy, historically, it just doesn’t succeed for very long.

      • AlexinCT

        we cannot lay the destabilization of society and a repudiation of the ideals of individual liberty to a feminization of the culture

        The problem isn’t feminization. It is the propensity of too many women having gone batshit crazy because they conflated freedom and equal rights with being, well batshit crazy. How the fuck do you get so many people that see the power to murder your offspring at will defining your freedom, or that tell you gurl bosses are real, while at the same time immediately going into “you are picking on me because I am a girl” mode when they fail the gurl boss routine, otherwise?

        First and second wave feminism were not bad. When the marixst took it over to create third and fourth wave feminism, we ended with batshit crazy.

        What is the demographic dealing with the most mental disorder these days again? There is a reason for that. You can’t fight biology.

      • Mojeaux

        None of this speaks to the dearth of historical documentation of women’s accomplishments as a percentage of men’s documentation.

        I’m quite sure women haven’t had the same impact on the world as men, and I’m sure a great number of men’s names have been lost to history, but I’m sure a disproportionate percentage of women’s names have been lost.

        I personally would not want to live in a matriarchal society. We don’t have a mechanism where we can tussle viciously, then get up and shake hands, having determined a clear winner. On the other hand, men do the same shit women do, only it’s parsed differently.

        “gossip” = “shoot the breeze”
        “passive-aggressive hostility” = “never-ending war”
        “grudges” = “treaties”
        “poison” = “knife in the back”

      • Mojeaux

        And also! John Cleland in 1748 had this complaint about the feminization of society:

        ” … he made me full sensible of the virtues of his firm texture of limbs, his square shoulders, broad chest, compact hard muscles, in short a system of manliness, that might pass for no bad image of our antient sturdy barons, when they weilded the battle-ax, whose race is now so thoroughly refin’d and fritter’d away into the more delicate and modern-built frame of our pap-nerv’d softlings, who are as pale, as pretty, and almost as masculine as their sisters.”

    • Pat

      Meh, it needn’t necessarily be sexual dynamics. Maybe he just got pissed off that a bunch of effete retards transed his kid under his nose, and then excommunicated him from polite society for noticing.

    • trshmnstr

      Men explore. Men build. And men fight protect.

      Men don’t usually fight for the sake of fighting. They fight to protect something.

      • PieInTheSky

        or to take over something.

        And some just itch for a fight. Not the best of men but still.

      • trshmnstr

        or to take over something

        Which is a combination of all those urges. They explore, they desire to build, they fight to protect their ability to build.

        To your latter point, the urge to protect is often perverted into the urge to destroy.

      • PieInTheSky

        they want to explore the territory of the next tribe over kill the men and ehm protect the women and cattle when under their possession… This is why it is important to have a culture that properly channels certain urges in productive directions.

    • slumbrew

      Tangential, but I really enjoyed Erikson’s novel and I’m looking forward to the next one.

  17. LCDR_Fish

    Sorry I missed the movie post last night.

    This was my favorite “Nest” movie. Longer trailer has more details but no subs. Basically a French revamp of “Attack on Precinct 13”. Great action, but sadly I don’t think it’s on BR.

    Looking at the movies for this weekend….I like a lot of horror stuff, but mostly older stuff I get on disc. Almost never watch something in the theater unless it’s a rescreening (like Alamo Drafthouse or other film festivals). Might…rewatch the Godzilla minus One rerelease this weekend for the 70th anniversary of Gojira.

  18. Sean

    I played https://squaredle.com/xp 11/01:
    *24/24 words (+4 bonus words)
    ⏱️ In the top 5% by speed

    I played https://squaredle.com 11/01:
    *62/62 words (+28 bonus words)
    📖 In the top 3% by bonus words
    🔥 Solve streak: 696

  19. PieInTheSky

    GeroDoc
    @doc_gero
    Internet Archive has not been archiving since 10/8.

    Google Cache has stopped caching.

    The Alexa service – the one that used to rank web traffic (not the Amazon virtual assistant) is gone.

    The ability of censors to memory-hole the internet is growing.

    https://x.com/doc_gero/status/1852019048617291993

  20. The Late P Brooks

    FYI-

    Night Shift is on Tubi.

    • slumbrew

      “Hold on – why don’t they just feed the tuna fish mayonnaise!”

    • Tundra

      Thanks, Brooksie!

      Neighbor and I were just laughing about that one the other night. “I’m an idea guy, Chuck”

  21. PieInTheSky

    “From the 1960s to the 1980s, the Soviet Union experienced an explosion of graduates in engineering and other technical subjects from its polytechnic postsecondary schools. Yet as the structure of the Soviet economy did not become more information and skill intensive, but remained remarkably stable in its heavy industrial structure, there were no suitable outlets for the career ambitions of these graduates. Instead of rising in income and influence, these “technical specialists” remained subordinated to Party officials and a small cadre of enterprise managers, who thwarted the efforts of specialists to rise in the system. Much of the support for Yeltsin and Democratic Russia came precisely from these specialists, who joined the more exalted Academicians and the upper intelligentsia of writers, television and radio workers, artists, and professionals in a complete rejection of the Communist Party (Hough 1997).”

    https://x.com/JonathonPSine/status/1852033333519061097

    this was true of Romania, many a good engineer was at the mercy of some party tool. Then again in some excessively bureaucratized corporations these days I assume it is the same with some middle managers…

    • Drake

      Is that still true? Russia is supposedly turning out the best electrical engineers in the world now and their economy is growing rapidly.

      • juris imprudent

        Legitimate business doesn’t stand a chance in Russia. Hell, look how hard it is here for one.

      • PieInTheSky

        Russia is supposedly turning out the best electrical engineers in the world now – I would sincerely doubt that

      • R C Dean

        Quick search didn’t turn up anything recent on Russia’s GDP. Got a link?

        While the sanctions are certainly not bringing Russias’ economy to its knees, I haven’t had the impression that it’s booming, either. The ruble has been declining, with a plateau last year, since the invasion, which doesn’t seem consistent with a rapidly growing economy.

  22. ron73440

    I hate Steve Harvey.

    He is on his daily 2 minutes of hate against Trump.

    “What kind of black man would support such a racist?”

    “He has had a privileged life, doesn’t understand your struggles”

    “Wants to make America great again, but doesn’t tell you exactly what that means. I can read between the lines and it won’t be good for us.”

    I miss the days when I thought Steve was just an average benign comedian.

    • juris imprudent

      I will say that MAGA may be the greatest empty slogan ever contrived.

      • rhywun

        “Black Lives Matter” would like a word.

      • R C Dean

        Build Back Better?

      • B.P.

        “Hope and Change” turned out to not have a lot of heft.

    • slumbrew

      “Do as you’re told”

    • rhywun

      I only know him from an unwatchable version of Family Feud. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    • Ted S.

      One who can think for himself.

  23. KSuellington

    I thought Vance hit a home run with that interview. He’s more conservative than I am, but I would much prefer to see him at the top of the ticket than Trump. I’ll be happy to vote for him in 28 if and when he has a good VP run.

    • Grummun

      Vote for Trump. After Trump is assassinated or lawfared out of commission, Vance takes over. Best outcome?

  24. ron73440

    On a related not to there being no Stoic Friday, my 2005 Saab decided its clutch pedal doesn’t need to work properly anymore.

    I have to push it all the way to the floor and manually pick it up.

    It left my son stranded because he couldn’t figure out to pick it up.

    I was able to limp it home and I am going to order a new master cylinder today.

    I think that’s what causes those symptoms. any clutch experts with a better opinion?

    With the wife in Okinawa it’s not a big deal, but since her Toyota is totaled, my truck is now my daily driver.

    • UnCivilServant

      Sounds like a Saab sob story.

      Have you tried turning it off and on again? /IT

      Did you check the thermostat? /Glib

      I got nothin.

    • LCDR_Fish

      You gotta get your toe under it to pull it back up or something else?

      Sounds nuts.

      I probably won’t be flying Monday. Not sure where the delay is (somewhere in Italy), but I don’t have signatures on paper that are required even if I’m good on a verbal….

      • ron73440

        It pops up easily with my toe.

    • PieInTheSky

      2005 Saab – you need a new car. preferably one with as many sensors and electronics as can be had.

      • Sean

        Pie gets it.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        And visit the dealership for maintenance.

      • PieInTheSky

        Pie gets it. – if we are talking about a bonus, not the way the automotive marked is going.

      • ron73440

        As soon as my wife comes back from Okinawa, we have to replace her Corolla.

        My insurance company said it’s worth $3660 and that’s with 12% car replacement assistance.

        Since the other person was at fault, would her insurance pay me also?

        Or is that not how that works?

      • PieInTheSky

        In Romania that is certainly not how it works. Dunno about your region.

    • Tundra

      Could be the slave, too. Level low?

  25. PieInTheSky

    One narrative to explain rising inequality is that the capital share of national income has increased by eating the labor share.

    But both shares are down, and capital’s is down relatively more!

    The reason for the erosion of both shares has to do with the rise of pure profits as a result of rising markups and falling interest rates.

    And also, not so much with housing!

    https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1852213724838289712

  26. The Late P Brooks

    “Trump uses violent imagery to attack Liz Cheney” seems to be the talking point of the day. They pretend he wants to put her in front of a firing squad.

    I guess they missed the part about, “If you’re so eager for a war, go fight it yourself.”

    • slumbrew

      They didn’t miss that part, they’re just dishonest.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Trump live from AZ on latest Tucker Carlson podcast.

  27. PieInTheSky

    BREAKING: DISASTROUS jobs report – only 12,000 jobs added in the US over the last month, way below expectation of over 100,000.

    And the prior two months’ job gains has been REVISED DOWN BY 112,000.

    Manufacturing jobs loss: 46,000.

    https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/1852331712820195670

  28. Ownbestenemy

    One thing Vance did during the interview is skewer Reagan on immigration. He could have done more, but was not afraid to go after the Republican God King.

    • AlexinCT

      Reagan’s biggest mistake was to take Tip O’Neal at his word that that amnesty thing would be an one-off.

  29. AlexinCT

    Remember that Great October jobs report? Here is the revision.

    It’s all lies now from the crooks running the unelected and unaccountable government bureaucracy and the political class.

    • ron73440

      Is this true?

      Yossi Gestetner
      @YossiGestetner

      This 12,000 gain is due to 40,000 added government jobs. Private Sector jobs were a net loss of 28,000.

      • AlexinCT

        From what I have seen that pattern has been repeated over and over Sloop, and yes, most of these new jobs for the last 3 or so years are government ones. And the few private sector jobs they added have all been low skill jobs that from what the government itself has admitted, went to illegal aliens.

        It’s been massive smoke and mirrors to pretend the economy is not in a freefall.

  30. PieInTheSky

    The Atlantic
    @TheAtlantic
    Jeff Bezos “has fallen victim to the campaign to convince the world that all media should be assumed to be biased politically unless proved otherwise,” @chucktodd
    writes:

    https://x.com/TheAtlantic/status/1852322647289303464

    why would anyone get the idea that the media is biased… At least The Atlantic is completely unbiased, that’s something I suppose

    • rhywun

      The only thing going on here is that Bezos and that other guy don’t want to be on the losing team.

      There is no larger meaning, no wanting to not be biased or some such bullshit.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    Ron-

    Does the clutch pedal assembly have a return spring?

    Has the hydraulic system been failing (clutch slowly self-engages with pedal held down? Does the clutch disengage if you manually pull the pedal up and push it again?

    • ron73440

      It has a return spring.

      It works fine once I lift the pedal, but it goes much further down than it used to before I can change gears.

  32. PieInTheSky

    Rob Henderson
    @robkhenderson
    “47% of Black Democratic men and 39% of Hispanic Democratic men rate themselves as highly masculine. These shares are much larger than the 22% of White Democratic men who rate themselves this way.”

    https://x.com/robkhenderson/status/1851662330909557128

    • rhywun

      lol Not at all surprising.

    • UnCivilServant

      Define “highly”.

      I’m more masculine than those swishy androgenes I see supporting Dems a lot. Though I lack the outdoorsman skills that I rate as part of the overall package.

      • PieInTheSky

        But can you hit a trump sized target with an AR15 without a scope from 150 yards?

      • UnCivilServant

        When my eyes worked, I could hit a 4″ target with iron sights at 100 yards no problem. (I know that’s not an impressive brag, but I didn’t have longer ranges to shoot at)

        With a scope, a man-sized target at 150 yards is still a joke.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      How did you find this little cubbyhole of the internet? Why are you so interested in a country you haven’t visited?

      • slumbrew

        (Pie’s the Fed)

      • PieInTheSky

        because the fuckers control the climate.

  33. The Late P Brooks

    When the clutch pedal is on the floor is it under pressure or floppy? Does the clutch remain disengaged?

    • R.J.

      The clutch pedal orphans are supposed to bring the pedal up. Clearly he is missing one.

    • Not Adahn

      Floppy like 5.25″? Or 3.5″?

    • ron73440

      It sits on the floor and it won’t let me shift until I pick it up and depress it again.

  34. The Late P Brooks

    Just the facts, Ma’am

    Harris told supporters that Trump’s “20 percent national sales tax” would “cost the average American an additional $4,000 a year,” referring to Trump’s proposal for a 20 percent tariff on all imported goods. She also attacked Trump’s policies on abortion, saying that the former president “hand-selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade.”

    “And Donald Trump’s not done. Did everyone hear what he just said yesterday?” Harris continued. “That he will do what he wants, quote, and here’s where I’m going to quote: ‘Whether the women like it or not.'”

    Tapper cut out of Harris’ rally shortly afterward and fact-checked her two claims.

    “First of all, she keeps referring to the Trump proposal on tariffs as a sales tax,” Tapper said. “It’s not a sales tax. You can dispute the tariffs and whether or not they’re a good idea, but it’s not a sales tax.”

    The anchor added that “when Trump said he was going to do something for women, whether they like it or not, whether the women like it or not, he was talking about protecting women.”

    “Certainly, you can take issue with the language,” he added. “But it wasn’t—he wasn’t saying he was just going to do whatever he wanted.”

    You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

    Maybe the boys at CNN are starting to have reservations about clinging too closely to the Party line.

    • PieInTheSky

      Would a 20 percent national sales tax on all sales raise enough money to get rid of the income tax?

      • UnCivilServant

        NEVER! All Taxes must go up!

        /The bureaucracy

      • AlexinCT

        They are busy looting the Titanic before it sinks, and feel they are running out of time. Higher taxes just helps them speed up the looting and wealth redistribution (to themselves) before the collapse.

    • SarumanTheGreat

      Yeah, it sounds like Mr. Very Concerned Furrowed Brow doesn’t want to carry THAT much water for Calamity.

    • AlexinCT

      No pr0n?

  35. The Late P Brooks

    “And my people told me, about four weeks ago, I was saying, ‘no I want to protect the people, I want to protect the women of our country,'” Trump said on stage. “‘Sir, please don’t say that.’ ‘Why?’ They said: ‘We think it’s very inappropriate for you to say.’ ‘Why? I’m president, I wanna protect the women of our country.’ They said: ‘Sir, I just think it’s inappropriate for you to say.'”

    “I pay these guys a lot of money, can you believe it?” he added. “I’m gonna do it whether the women like it or not, I’m gonna protect them. I’m gonna protect them from migrants coming in, I’m gonna protect them from foreign countries that want to hit us with missiles and lots of other things.”

    Trump previously said at a rally in Pennsylvania in September that he would “protect” women to be “happy, healthy, confident and free. You will no longer be thinking about abortion.”

    Protecting us from threats both foreign and domestic is supposed to be a significant part of the President’s job.

    Do women really think of nothing but abortion all day? I doubt it.

  36. PieInTheSky

    I teach English. Part of my job is literally reading books and I’m barely making it through 2-3 a year.

    We’re asking the wrong question in ‘why the students don’t/can’t read.’ We should ask ‘where/when are we supposed to find time for joy in a world that only values capital.’

    https://x.com/heymrsbond/status/1851413504466604248

    I remember my school days when I told my teacher how can I read cause capital. And everyone clapped.

    • UnCivilServant

      Fire this incompetent hack.

      • R.J.

        What he said.

      • AlexinCT

        Another asshat that spend a fortune getting a useless degree that only allowed her to work as a barista or a teacher, now that she has realized the mistake blaming society instead of herself or her stupid parents. All because she was dumb enough to believe the idiot trope about pursuing her dreams instead of actually doing a basic economic analysis before making a choice on education ROI.

        Truly, marxism is for fucking stupid people.

    • PieInTheSky

      Prince George : Ah, Dr. Johnson, damn cold day!

      Dr. Samuel Johnson : Indeed it is sir – but a very fine one, for I celebrated last night the encyclopedic implementation of my pre-meditated orchestration of demotic Anglo-Saxon.

      Prince George : Nope – didn’t catch any of that.

      Dr. Samuel Johnson : Well, I simply observed, sir, that I’m felicitous since during the course of the penultimate solar sojourn, I terminated my uninterrupted categorisation of the vocabluary of our post-Norman tongue.

      Prince George : Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but it sounds damn saucy, you lucky thing! I know some fairly liberal-minded girls, but I’ve never penultimated any of them in a solar sojourn, or for that matter, been given any Norman tongue.

      Blackadder : I believe, sir, that the Doctor is trying to tell you that he is happy because he has finished his book. It has apparently taken him ten years.

      Prince George : Well, I’m a slow reader myself.

    • trshmnstr

      We should ask ‘where/when are we supposed to find time for joy in a world that only values capital.’

      Stop chasing your pleasure and start chasing Goodness. You find time for that which is Good, that which is Beautiful, and that which is True when you have the courage to admit that the universe doesn’t revolve around you.

      • Tundra

        Well said.

      • PieInTheSky

        By Goodness I understood Laphroaig cask strength and now I am drunk. I blame you really.

    • Nephilium

      The school probably made her buy her own books too!

    • Ted S.

      Gluteal ovulating….

  37. PieInTheSky

    “The ideal of the autonomous and rational individual … is invariably tied to a process of exclusion, where those deemed to lack rationality (women, people of colour, the poor) are excluded from the realm of politics. … journalistic norms of impartiality and objectivity.
    … are racially coded. They are continually invoked to lend authority to white witnesses to suffering, criminality and injustice and discount … the Black Witness, who is presented as “unreliable,” “threatening” and “violent”. Objectivity, deployed in this way, becomes a tool of settler colonialism. … liberalism … does not centre the voices or experiences of those disadvantaged by race, gender or class in Western societies.”

    Translated: You must commit to always believe our sacred oppressed, even if that seems irrational or partial. Anything less is a betrayal of the sacred cause.

    https://x.com/robinhanson/status/1852128463152648369

  38. The Late P Brooks

    The equivalent of a professional wrestling thumb-in-the-eye move

    But one of the wildest moments in the interview came when Vance told Rogan he believed he and Trump would win the “normal gay guy vote” due to the “extremist religion” of “wokeness.”

    “Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if me and Trump won just the normal gay guy vote, because again, they just want to be left the hell alone,” Vance said. “And now you have all this crazy stuff on top of it that they’re like ‘No, no … we didn’t want to give pharmaceutical products to 9-year-olds who are transitioning their genders.’”

    Rogan then went on to discuss how it’s actually the transgender movement that’s homophobic, pushing some of his most outlandish anti-trans views yet.

    Americans everywhere had the same question: What exactly is a “normal” gay man to Vance?

    Who could possibly know what that means?

    • rhywun

      it’s actually the transgender movement that’s homophobic

      He’s right.

    • AlexinCT

      The democrat crime syndicate: It’s only criminal when you do it…

  39. The Late P Brooks

    It works fine once I lift the pedal, but it goes much further down than it used to before I can change gears.

    It sounds as if the pushrod/linkage could be going over-center and not returning. How old are the clutch disc and pressure plate?

    • ron73440

      I don’t know, I’ve had the car for 7 years and 110,000 miles.

      It had 116,000 miles on it when I bought it.

  40. Mojeaux

    So the women’s volleyball coach with the dude on her team is making a Title IX Complaint against her own school.

    This shit makes me want to go swim in radfem waters to wash off the misogynistic filth, because this is nothing BUT rank misogyny.

    Saw a tweet:

    “There’s a special place in hell for transphobes…” “And that place will be co-opted by dudes in dresses almost immediately.”

    This needs to stop happening, and I’m pretty sure the only thing that’s going to do it is women’s sports.

    I do not know why women are promoting this bullshit. I mean, the mothers transing their kids obviously have societally sanctioned Munchausen by proxy syndrome, but why would women genuinely go out of their way to welcome dudes in dresses into their midst? Self-loathing? Needing a man to validate their existence?

    • PieInTheSky

      I do not know why women are promoting this bullshit – because it is fashionable. That really is 90% of political stuff these days.

    • trshmnstr

      why would women genuinely go out of their way to welcome dudes in dresses into their midst? Self-loathing? Needing a man to validate their existence?

      The weaponization of pity. They have opened their minds so far that their brains fell out, and all that is left is raw enough, curated and manipulated by anti-humanity forces.

      • trshmnstr

        Raw emotion*

  41. The Late P Brooks

    Vance’s comment, and the long-winded transphobic rant that followed, reveals the innate disdain he holds toward LGBTQ people. But Vance is likely to dismiss it as perfectly normal talk. Maybe he’ll remind us all not to get so offended again.

    “I’m sorry you’re such a thin skinned little bitch.”

  42. The Late P Brooks

    I don’t know, I’ve had the car for 7 years and 110,000 miles.

    Maybe the pushrod is adjustable. Cross your fingers.

  43. The Late P Brooks

    a world that only values capital

    Speak for yourself, you vapid nitwit.

  44. The Late P Brooks

    I would definitely start by flushing and bleeding the clutch hydraulics.