Notre Dame put a beatdown on Georgia and will face Penn State in the CFP semifinals. Ohio State will face Texas in the other one. Should be good games. I got nothing else I can think of for sports, so I’m moving right along.
What interesting timing. If they were serious about this helping them, why wait almost four years to release it?
Only the best go into government work. Stupid assholes.
The spigot has been cut off. Let’s hope more states follow suit, as does the FedGov.
I’m curious to see if this will hold up in court. Sounds kinda fascist to me.
Get out of the cities. No, seriously. Get out as soon as you can.
It’s desperation time up north. This makes no sense at all.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Here’s a tissue.
Nobody is as greedy as the government. Especially when they’re trying to “correct” their own fuckup.
They’re hellbent on a war before Jan 20. One would almost think they’re evil fucks trying to sabotage the next guy.
Well, no shit. That’s literally the purpose of the drugs.
Here’s some sweet music for you. It could hardly get better than these guys. A simply amazing band. Enjoy them.
And enjoy this lovely Friday and weekend, dear friends.
No offense to our European “allies” (if by allies you mean “mooching freeloading socialists”, of course) — but I don’t think I’m terribly alone in that my first reaction would be “That would be a signal to annex Canada.” No fucking way do I want a client state of the EU on our border. Not in the best of times — and these are not the best of times. Hell, if they went and tried to make the Commonwealth mean something again I’d look at them askance given the trends over on Airstrip One.
Meh. Brexit showed that the EU is completely unwilling to have a non-sealed border with the barbarian hordes, regardless of practicality and the citizenry.
Let them bankrupt themselves trying to prevent icky US goods going into CA.
I know their military sucks — but they are more than a little of a totalitarian socialist state (what with the unfettered power the at the EU level with no accountability I can see) — and we all know what happens when totalitarian socialist states start seeing the end of the money trough and have a neighbor with resources… hence I don’t want them over here to start getting ideas.
Ok, we may all know what happens when totalitarian states start seeing the end of the money trough and have a neighbor with resources, but in this case the neighbor’s resources include a
militarycouple of bars full of random dudes that could defeat their invasion by lunchtime and conquer them by sundown.We wouldn’t be fighting the Dutch and the Swiss, but an army of Jihadi’s that currently occupy Europe. While we’d kick their ass in a conventional war, they have a pretty good guerilla game.
It would facilitate Canada begging us to make them a territory in less than a decade. Being in a common currency with the beggar states of the EU has already pissed off the people in the strong countries there. As has their diminished ability to manage their own affairs re: migration, labor laws.
Canadians will lose their shit right out of the gate when they find out they’re gonna be the new bell cow for Greece, Hungary, etc.
Wait till what’s left of Ukraine joins, the Greeks will be complaining about welfare states.
Canada as we know it may already be gone in another generation anyway, given their open borders policy, reproduction rates, and smaller native population. I wouldn’t cry about the EU being shackled to another basket case country.
If Canada were to join the EU currently, they’d BE the beggar state. They’re every bit as bad off as Greece was a decade ago.
Obligatory.
How drunk will she be?
I’m betting about 2 Pelosis to the wind.
What words of wisdom will she provide?
What words of wisdom will she provide?
“Today you are being sworn in. It is the swearing in for each of you. The oath you take is an oath of allegiance. Allegiance to your oath of office. And the office you will hold is US Senator. In the Senate of the United States. ::cackles uncontrollably::
Once sworn in you will be senators. In this senatorial body called the US Senate.”
Allegiance and Senatorial both exceed Cackles syllable limits.
The Economist is for Serious Thinkers(tm)
And subscribers.
But not people who seriously think about subscribing… or subscribe to serious thinking.
I know my first thought… and from the article:
There it is… I suspect only part of it will be “public” (the article claims they want to make a roadway with some of it) and the rest sold to “approved” private interests per Kelo.
In re: resurrecting J6 panic,
Q Anon is more dangerous than ever!
Riiight… just nutty conspiracies, NPR. Now we must mobilize the federal bureaucrats against the elected officials and make sure no one looks too closely at the NiH and Fauci while we wave the Q-Anon shadow puppet on the wall to distract you!
How dare you not only believe the leis we want you to, but fight back and convince others they are being played, you right wing evil people!!!!
NPR – Narrative Police Radio
They need a “B” up front of that name…
We’re super cereal, you guys.
“when stabbing breaks out inside NYC subway car…”
It’s like acne or herpes, sometimes NYC has a breakout.
When knives are radicalized by the trucks that can’t drive in the subway they just go nuts, man.
They just need common sense knife and scissor control. You don’t need a knife longer than one inch.
One inch?! The planes on 9/11 were taken over by people wielding box cutters. Banning edged implements is the way to go.
The knife discharged.
It doesn’t have to break out, it gets released on its own recognizance because cash bail is racist.
LOL
I wonder if AP has updated a single one of their accusations of “conspiracy theory” that has come true over the last decade or so.
Look…we don’t report the news, we make it.
You mean make it up?
Doesn’t every pipe bomb in DC have the Secret Service lead Congressional and VP motorcades right beside it when they know it is there and have FBI agents just stroll around them?
Pure conspiracy by the right wing to make anything of this!
And don’t you DARE accuse the FBI of simply being grossly negligent/incompetent in this case either!!!
I’m not saying the FBI was grossly negligent/incompetent.
I’m saying it was complicit.
I’m not saying the FBI was grossly negligent/incompetent.
I’m saying it was complicit.
⬆️THIS!!!!!⬆️
“And don’t you DARE accuse the FBI of simply being grossly negligent/incompetent in this case either!!!”
First we will find out that they were doing some kind of training exercise and used inert bombs..
Then we will find out it was not a coincidence at all, this “training” exercise happened when it did, and after they instigated what they called the “J6 insurrection”, and no longer needed that for their op.
And finally we will find out some system or other mishap destroyed all the evidence that existed and could have been used in court.
Finally NPR will show up to tell us we are all conspiracies for rejecting their despite the fact we all know it is nothing but lies.
Why would they? All right thinking people know that Joe won’t pardon Hunter, and the Hunter laptop was just Russian interference.
So speaking of the FBI, last night I heard they changed their story to claim that the Texan acted alone in New Orleans.
That’s not at all suspicious.
The story will change again within a week. No doubt.
FBI prodding/planning doesn’t count.
“The story will change again within a week. No doubt.”
I am going with the Las Vegas shooter treatment, and am gonna bet we will completely stop hearing about this event in New Orleans..
All lanes were closed for 4 hours on I-85 yesterday. The highway connects Greenville, Spartanburg and Charlotte – running right past the BMW plants. Turns out the trucker who said there was a bomb in his truck was lying. Hope he enjoys some hard time.
https://www.wspa.com/news/local-news/traffic-alert-all-lanes-closed-on-interstate-85-in-greenville-co/
Or some mental help — I can’t even imagine why you’d say there’s a bomb in your truck when you’re pulled over for a missing plate unless you’re just f’ing nuts.
Or the cops grossly misinterpreted him saying he needed to go because he’d had breakfast burritos and was going to drop a major bomb at the next Love’s or something.
I told the man it was a truck full of balm and the next thing I know…
I drove from Central TX to Vegas in November. I stopped at a truck stop for gas and to relieve myself. Every time I stop at a truck stop to use the bathroom, I am reminded of why I should never stop at a truck stop to use the bathroom. There’s always someone a stall over trying to be the next Elvis or John Wayne.
Or Paul Rubens.
“Every time I stop at a truck stop to use the bathroom, I am reminded of why I should never stop at a truck stop to use the bathroom. There’s always someone a stall over trying to be the next Elvis or John Wayne.”
Better than someone trying to be Rock Hudson and trying real hard to get hit by more balls on the chin than Yogi Berra?
Hmmm, I got pulled over for no plate, what to do…what to do?
I know! I’ll say there’s a bomb in the truck!
Surely the cop will let me go then.
Brilliant!
Maybe he was hoping they would be so relieved to find out there was no bomb, he would forget about the whole license plate issue.
obligatory
Remove that one from the gene pool, stat!
Tell em you work for the FBI?
So, today the House is scheduled to select a speaker. I have no real love for Speaker Johnson, but the Stupid Party really needs to get this done ASAP. If the is another viable candidate, fine, but there is too much at stake to delay. Too much a stake.
Yeah — I think he’s more than a little squishy… but I don’t see anyone else able to build any sort of coalition. Just too much division between the GOPe and MAGA sides of the caucus to agree on anyone new from what I can tell… and the election results weren’t strong enough to scare the GOPe out of blocking tactics. If the MAGA side tries anything stupid (-er) I half expect the GOPe side to link up with jackasses… that’s how much I think they either hold the voters in contempt or (at my most charitable) that’s what they sincerely think their constituents would want.
How is it even the MAGA side when Trump has already given his support to Johnson? Isn’t really “we’re the fucking loose cannons” faction?
If Sam Kinison was alive I would vote him for speaker.
Here’s the ideal solution:
Name Trump Speaker Of The House and let him get up there and propose all kinds of committees about 2020 election interference and looking into the original J6 committee and whatnot. Vote on it all, and then go into recess with him proclaiming that he will vacate the position on Jan 19.
It would at least make the subsequent news cycles interesting.
Also, have him put a bunch of popular single-item bills forward, pass them with zero pieces of pork attached, then send them to the senate and demand they pass them as soon as he’s taken office.
Rebellion is not supposed to be the goto tool in your box, its a last resort that loses its value as a threat if you do it too often, especially when you simply do not have the votes to put your chosen guy in place, or for that matter even have a chosen guy.
I get Massie’s position, but at some point even he has to know he’s nothing but a gadfly.
I think that is the problem; no one else is viable. The two halves, MAGA and Kountry Klub, hate each other and do not have enough in common to get this through easily.
Those aren’t even close to “halves”. The eGOP is more than 90%.
It’s not even 90/10 its a tiny handful of principled people, of varying beliefs, in a sea of people grifting using different masks. I’m never going to buy the idea that MTG for example is a principled person. She’s got a schtick that plays to people who are roughly on my side on some issues, but it’s all theater.
Fully agree, Jarflax — I’m thinking Morning Joe… catching the ride in the GWB years iirc… then flipping as soon as it is advantageous. There’s certainly more than a little “chameleon colors of the moment is MAGA!” and MTG has that fake feeling. She may be fully sincere and just projecting it terribly, I don’t know… but she certainly feels like it.
Of course, being politicians — actual sincerity versus projected sincerity will almost certainly be a mystery anyway.
I don’t know why I need to explain this, but saying “half” does not refer to a 50% split. It merely refers to one of two opposing sides. It’s an alliteration, dummies.
JHTFC.
ZWAK, given the handful – and not even a big handful – of dissident Republicans, it is ridiculous to term them a side. They are a nickel against a silver dollar. If it weren’t for the ridiculously tenuous majority the Republicans hold there would be no public display about this.
I think Massie is leading the charge against Johnson being Speaker. I have no love for Johnson at all and think he’s a statist squish, but I wish Massie would have the guts to step up and say that he wants the spot or at the very least recommend who he thinks will make a good Speaker.
And here you come to the nub – there is no alternative. Not with the players on the field.
I really do like Massie, but if you are going to defy the party, the party should have some disciplinary response.
Am I the only one that wants the government to just shut down? Do nothing. Go home to face their constituents, there will be a day of reckoning one day anyway. Let’s get it over with now. We talk about Milei but don’t want to face reality.
We talk about Milei but don’t want to face reality.
Truth. The trouble is we can pretend for a lot longer than Argentina could. Things are gonna have to get a LOT worse before that kind of change can occur.
^ THIS ^
think their constituents would want
If you keep getting re-elected for being one thing, why on earth would you ever try to be something else? Tell me who is really not getting the message here?
What percentage of the ‘constituents’ can name their representative, much less know anything substantive about their record? How do you judge the record anyway, when understanding even a single vote’s results requires parsing hundreds, or thousands, of pages of text reading “So much of section 438.32 as reads ‘bleh bleh bleh’ is replaced with ‘blah blah blah’ as defined in section 1974.34.” And the Bill in question is named the “Stop Childhood Cancer Act” but the only thing it has to do with childhood cancer is that 1 of the 1500 pages grants a research lab $200,000, while the other 1499 criminalize 25 utterly harmless actions, create 4 new bureaucratic fiefdoms, and shovel $1.7 trillion dollars into a thousand donors pockets. Even those of us who think we are informed are mostly relying on team ID and the opinions of people we kind of, maybe, trust somewhat to decide between choices we all know are both liars and grifters. The tiny handful of exceptions (Massie) are only useful as gadflies, because the entire system is set up to make it impossible for anyone not playing the lying grifter game to get any power in the House.
OK, now we’re back to blaming the voters for who they vote for. No issue there. Just stop pretending that WE HERE are somehow representative of the country. This bubble is a bubble.
Sounds like a bunch of goddam proggies otherwise.
I didn’t vote for my Rep, and he was re-elected easily anyway. He is pure eGOP. The only way I could really ever vote to get rid of him is to register as a Republican and vote in their retarded primary. Fuck that.
I’m not exactly blaming the voters. While I think 90% of the voters have little business voting on anything more important than where to have lunch, the system has been gamed to the point where even the best informed voters are generally forced to pick between the Blue Grifter and the Red Grifter. And we are absolutely a bubble here.
I can because my current and future reps are shit.
Sigh…. sure — all of their constituents know exactly all of their actions, had a better choice available (as opposed to TWO crappy candidates in the primary and then their incumbent versus some nutball in the general), have never been lied to or had misleading campaign information, etc. etc…..
Would it be nice if they could actually have a representative that represents them? Yeah. Is it likely in our system? No. Is at least some of that the fault of the voters? Probably. Is part of it also that Congressional districts are gerrymandered and so huge these days that it is almost impossible to know your Rep? Probably too. And has Congress spent many, many decades being really good at the one thing they care about? (Being re-elected while grafting as much as possible) Of course.
But all that said — do I think the prevailing mood of the country is “business as usual”, here in our “bubble” or not? Hell no. So yes — I do think there’s some “ignoring your constituents” going on when Congresscritters try to sneak shit like the CRomnibus through. And I don’t think it is because I’m in some delusional bubble state.
And I’m done — because I have now ranted about 6 times and deleted said rants because I don’t think it is productive. Suffice it to say, your “Y’all are just as delusional as the Proggies if you don’t list every facet and blame all the voters!” is really, really, really tiring. WE. FUCKING. KNOW. ALREADY.
Does it just not occur to you that the elected actually do represent American voters and that we’re the oddballs? Why do you insist on always assuming everyone in the country is just like us?
Sigh. If you can read that and think I’m saying all the voters are just like us I don’t know what to tell you.
I didn’t mean that, I don’t read it that way — and I am absolutely done with this discussion because the vein on my forehead doesn’t need this.
If the elected actually represent voters, then why do they lie and posture so much? I understand your point that we are oddballs and that libertarian thought is outside the norm, and I agree with it, but social and economic conservatism and Rawlsian liberalism each roughly define something like 40% of the public, and I don’t actually see most Team R representatives consistently being principled conservatives or Team D representatives being principled Rawlsians. Instead you have Team R looting the public fisc using conservative talking points like defense, family values, and crime reduction and Team D looting the public fisc using Rawlsian talking points like protection of minorities and redistribution of wealth.
Because it bleeds right through.
Would it be nice if they could actually have a representative that represents them? If that isn’t saying we don’t have this, and we won’t, because of “our system” – what is it saying?
Where we are in total agreement is that our federal system can’t function because it is an overgrown beast – a cancer that hasn’t even crippled it’s host let alone killed it. Should we be thankful for that? Is the likely alternative one we really want?
The majority of this country doesn’t see any of this as a problem. Half of that majority doesn’t think we’ve gone far enough, the other half thinks it is mostly okay. Most of us here, we’re out there with the handful of “Republicans” dissenting from all of this. How many votes is Thomas Massie against 434? That’s where we in this bubble are – a tiny fraction. I honestly don’t mind being where we are, I just don’t want to pretend that we are anything other than that.
If the elected actually represent voters, then why do they lie and posture so much?
Because that is what the electorate responds to. Do you have no idea how many people prefer being lied to – if it flatters them, to hearing the truth?
That sounds like you are making a circular or tautological argument. The representatives lie because it works; therefore that is what the voters want. I guess that is true, but I am not sure it proves that the representatives are actually representing any substantive desires of the electorate.
The voters maybe don’t have substantive desires? They vote out of tribal allegiance. Hell I can’t really believe that Massie is representing his constituents faithfully, anymore than I would believe that AOC does. Both would lose office in the next election if they shed their respective party label and stood as independents.
Some percentage have no substantive, even vague, vision for what they would like to see, but I think more have at least a vague concept and that their team loyalty is based on belief that their team represents that concept. I suppose at some level it doesn’t matter if they are fools or complicit in the deception. Serious question, if you were starting with a clean slate how would you set up the government? Who would get the franchise, assuming your system had electors? I’m not trying to play gotcha here, I know no system can endure forever. I am just interested if you think there is any better choice than broad franchise Republic.
“Because that is what the electorate responds to. Do you have no idea how many people prefer being lied to – if it flatters them, to hearing the truth?”
Unfortunately this is the sad truth about people…
While most want to pretend they are logical, they are emotional cuntes, and then not even bright enough to understand they are not only willing to believe in lies, even blatant ones, as long as they can avid having to admit to themselves they are morons, but will defend those lies to keep believing they are not idiots that were played.
To quote someone that said this before:
“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled” – Mark Twain
Get out of the cities. – Damn if that cop don’t str45ike fear in the hearts of wrongdoers no one will.
A new paper attacking the idea of “purpose, agency, and goals” as important factors in the development and evolution of organisms
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2025/01/02/a-new-paper-attacking-the-idea-of-purpose-agency-and-goals-as-important-factors-in-the-development-and-evolution-of-organisms/
““purpose, agency, and goals” ”
I am more of a systems guy (because they work better), but your typical leftist would summarize all of these as as “trying to be successful”, which means you are a white supremacist….
HAhahaha – conspicuously absent, the role of the DNC pre-2008.
There is no chance the Dems don’t run on pure anti-Trump in ’26. None. Which positions them very poorly for ’28. Good.
Bonus navel gazing and despair from the co-architect of Obama’s “coalition”.
Just run Fetterman
They will tank him like they did Bernie.
Yep they have to make a clean break prior to ’26 and do what we talk about…focus on Congress and down ticket candidates.
They won’t. Establishment has placed all chips into the pile that the administrative cabal will be their bulwark against Trump.
focus on Congress and down ticket candidates.
Which was exactly what the DNC failed to do in 2008, when they pushed all their chips in on the Obamessiah. The Blesséd One who’s coalition would endure. And that’s the beauty of who’s doing the bitching now – the makers of that mistake.
As I said on a number of occasions before the election when I predicted that Trump would win, that one of the best things about another Trump term would be that eventually the Dems would have to shift away from the hard left towards the center. It took them a while to go from Clinton to Obama and the return will also take some time. I’d say probably it will happen in Vance’s first term, although if by some miracle Team Red retains control of the House after the midterms, it will be sooner.
If they take the house back in ’26, they will not have learned the needed lessons, but will double down on them.
The best thing that could happen for Dems is to not take back the House in ’26. Missing an historical standard would force them to reevaluate. Chances of them not doing that all depend on Republicans not fucking up too badly in the next 18 months.
That’s a really tough call, isn’t it?
I agree Zwak, if the Dems win back the House in 26, the proggies will declare victory in the internecine battle. That won’t help their cause in 28 with the top of the ticket. And yes JI, it would be long term helpful for them to lose in 26 as that would certainly force a reevaluation for them, and it would likely very much sideline the proggies.
Alex, I think that Obama is very much still not considered, by normie Dem voters, as truly the radical that he was. I’m loathe to admit it, but I have here before, that I voted for the clown in 2008. At the time I didn’t think he was the Messiah by any means, but I did think he was going to be much more centrist than he was, and I absolutely hated with a passion the GWB regime and the war in Iraq and in no way wanted McCain to continue that shitshow. I saw within 6 months who Obama really was and highly regretted casting a vote his way. I had wanted Ron Paul to win the Republican nomination and when it was McCain I was beyond disgusted.
“Alex, I think that Obama is very much still not considered, by normie Dem voters, as truly the radical that he was. I’m loathe to admit it, but I have here before, that I voted for the clown in 2008. At the time I didn’t think he was the Messiah by any means, but I did think he was going to be much more centrist than he was, and I absolutely hated with a passion the GWB regime and the war in Iraq and in no way wanted McCain to continue that shitshow. I saw within 6 months who Obama really was and highly regretted casting a vote his way. I had wanted Ron Paul to win the Republican nomination and when it was McCain I was beyond disgusted.”
KSuellington,
Your story is very familiar to me. I know many people that worn down by the Bush admin lies and bullshit just wanted something different that came to believe Obama was a much better choice than that asshat McCain and more of that same shit. Now, I am not accusing anyone that fell for the Obama being a centrist shit of being dumb – they ran a brilliant campaign full of hot air and little substance, targeted at people’s discontent – but I saw some tells that immediately made me wary of that guy. The real big red flag was the whole “Fundamentally change” things shit. I had never fundamentally wanted to change anything I didn’t dislike or hate/despised, and that immediately freaked me out.
That you saw within 6 months that Obama was a scourge is a credit to you. To this day there are so many idiots that for whatever reason refuse to see (or admit) that Obama was a crook and damaged the country horribly. We are here, divided and broken, because of how his 3 admins (this last Biden one was just Obama 3.0) wrecked everything. And yet, the propaganda to keep him as black Jesus, even though he was the biggest loser in the 2024 election, is staggering and the amount of people that still think he was a good president is horrifying to me.
My biggest fear is that there is no way to roll back the destruction done under him anymore.
My disagreement with you about Obama is that I see you blaming him for things that long preceded him (even if he did make them worse). Obama had no part in the Patriot Act, but he sure put those powers to evil use – as the only outcome that could ever be expected of course. Putting all the blame on him misses what needs to change and gives an out to the people that were also responsible.
Yup Alex, I agree very much that his 3 Presidencies are behind much of the current shitshow, and it moved the Dem Party far to the left. In my defense I was very much starting to become a libertarian at that point (mostly as I started to follow Ron Paul’s stuff) and I was living in the Netherlands for most of the G Dub term and only came back just before the election. I also hope we can pull out of it. I’m maybe a bit more optimistic than you, but I do mostly like what I’m hearing from the Trump corner, and I am very much grading him on a curve of what is possible. Sure I would love if Thomas Massie was Pres elect, but that ain’t nappening anytime soon, so I will take any baby steps in the direction I prefer. If DOGE can be one quarter the success that Vivek and Elon are promising I will be ecstatic. Being easily amused has served me very well so far in life.
“My disagreement with you about Obama is that I see you blaming him for things that long preceded him (even if he did make them worse).”
JI, your disagreement with me is the problem. I have never said that we didn’t have these very same problems before Obama. In fact, what I am saying is that Obama basically strapped a couple of Saturn V rockets to the top of that ole US government crooks station wagon that had a top speed of 20 miles per hour, and drove it all over the cliff at Mach 20. The stupid and evil shit that was going on before Obama was not “End of Days” kind of nasty. After Obama, it is.
“I was living in the Netherlands for most of the G Dub term”
Waar heb je gewoond in Nederland?
And yes JI, I agree that Obama wasn’t responsible for all of it, he just took it up to 11. The Patriot Act and the War on Terror was what originally pushed me towards Ron Paul.
The fact that the war on terror was fought so our troops could never win also is why I turned away from either party. We should not allow our leaders to send people to die in wars that serve only to allow a connected few to make a ton of money while exacerbating whatever problem they claim the war is going to fix. If we are not willing to fight to win, whatever that means, don’t fucking go to war.
Alex, ik was in Amsterdam voor bijna drie jaaren. Ik van hou dit staad. Voor dat, ik gebt in Brazilë gewoond. Working and chasing foreign tail. It was the best of times, it was the best of times.
The left’s problem is that it still wants to believe the lies Obama was their “Ronald Reagan”, that as the media told them black Jesus’ election meant socialism had won and would never again be challenged because it was the bestest system, and that reality should not ever challenge their beliefs they were the champions. These fools were played by evil fucking feudalist marxist cabal that then do what that cult always does: drastically fuck shit up, then find someone else to blame. Their boogie man was Trump.
Unfortunately for them, that strategy, like the one where they silenced anyone calling the stupid shit they were doing by labeling them racists/misogynists/homophobes/transphobes/climate deniers and then canceling them, got old, and nobody believes their cries of “Wolf” anymore. But they just can’t let go of this shit, because they have no way of winning other than scaring people into staying with them despite the fact they offer nothing but misery and destruction.
Islam in the Balkans
Living Ironically in Europe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV5CmOVrXcQ
Festival of Sleep Day celebrates all types of sleep. It is a day for sleeping in, taking naps, or not even getting out of bed in the first place. After all, it is a festival, so it should be celebrated to the fullest. It likely happens when it does because the holidays have just ended, and people never seem to get enough sleep during them. This makes it an ideal time for catching up on sleep, especially because some students aren’t even back in school yet, and some workers are still on vacation.
https://www.checkiday.com/fa6c02c4c10872a12dc07f6ede7bac2c/festival-of-sleep-day
what are you people doing awake?
January 3
J.R.R. Tolkien Day on January 3 is “The Lord of the Rings” author’s birthday and you’re encouraged to toast him in celebration.
this is a day for reading Tolkien in bed!
then again …
Pessimists Archive
@PessimistsArc
🧵 New Years Resolutions of Yore
1.) Don’t read in bed
https://x.com/PessimistsArc/status/1874611309796569094
People who start wars should have to fight them because I have more respect for both these guys than the politicians and “diplomats” who started this horror. The video is taken after a Siberian Russian soldier fatally wounds a Ukrainian soldier in a knife fight. They calmly speak with respect while he dies. Lindsey Graham should be stuck in one of those trenches (where he’d like to send my son).
https://x.com/DravenNoctis/status/1875128704416022670
Damn, Drake. Powerful stuff.
That’s insane. The men who fight are always and forever fucked over.
Old funking evil dirtbags start wars, and young men die.
Marriage and society in the ante-bellum Japan
https://brankomilanovic.substack.com/p/marriage-and-society-in-the-ante
Bennett added how even prior to the act she saw shifts in some clients’ attitudes, suggesting their original interest was “performative.”
Well, knock me over with a feather! You mean there are people who didn’t go whole hog for DEI training?
—“Georgia and will face Penn State in the CFP semifinals. Ohio State will face Texas”—
What does this say about the Play-off committee? The 9 through 12 teams lost in the first round. Does that indicate they should have been replaced by other teams? In the second round, the 1 through 4 teams lost. With the top 12 teams in the play-off bracket, the other bowl games were “uninteresting” as far as good football is concerned. The Notre Dame/Georgia game was the best play-off game I’ve seen this year, but the other seven play-off games lacked any real excitement. There were quite a few good plays, but few good games.
I’m not sure what the selections should be based on, but 12 teams in the play-offs, along with a month long schedule, is a good way to kill interest in the college game.
ASU/Texas was more of a game than ND/Georgia (where the result would’ve made more sense if the seeding was reversed).
tOSU is actually making the case for the hot team – except they didn’t just fail to win their conference championship, they failed to even make that game (thank you Michigan). No way they’d ever get an invite with that loss in their last game of the season but for the 12 team field (even if they were seeded 8th).
What really takes it on the chin are the conference championship games; completely meaningless in this scheme.
Just wait until a salary cap is introduced for college football.
“the other seven play-off games lacked any real excitement”
You’re kidding, right? The 16 point comeback and double overtime in the Texas/ASU game lacked excitement?
—“The 16 point comeback and double overtime in the Texas/ASU game lacked excitement?”—
I stand corrected.
The idea that you play a season, or tournament, or both, to determine who is ‘best’ is flawed because best implies a single measurable trait independent of actually playing the game. You play to determine a champion, which you define as the winner under whatever system you decide on. It is not a flaw of the system that the ‘best’ in some theoretical sense doesn’t always win. I think it is a flaw of a system if a team can go undefeated and not have a chance to win the championship as used to happen in the pre-playoff, 2 team championship, or 4 team playoff system, but an 8 team playoff covers that possibility just fine, and the 12 team system with 1st round byes doesn’t add much good that I can see.
The flip side of that happens in the NFL now, where you can win a division (and thus a playoff birth) with a losing record.
I don’t know that the flip side is equally bad, yes it seems wrong to make the playoffs losing a majority of your games, but at least the eventual champion has to win through the playoffs, and the losing teams controlled their own destiny on the field.
I thought that the 4 team system worked well. Just my opinion.
Another factor is that the current Bowl and Play-off system ranks teams for their season records, and then many of the best players opt out for the NFL or the transfer portal. We don’t get to the players responsible for the teams records. I concede that many players stayed, but enough left to visibly affect the quality of the games.
It was better way back in the day . . . .
/old-geezer
NIL and transfer portal mania already killed college ball. I’ll be happy if my team ever wins a few games again, but they need to blow it up, take the top 32 teams, assign them to nearby NFL franchises as farm teams and have the other 90 schools go back to the old rules.
—“Georgia and will face Penn State in the CFP semifinals. Ohio State will face Texas”—
What does this say about the Play-off committee? The 9 through 12 teams lost in the first round. Does that indicate they should have been replaced by other teams? In the second round, the 1 through 4 teams lost. With the top 12 teams in the play-off bracket, the other bowl games were “uninteresting” as far as good football is concerned. The Notre Dame/Georgia game was the best play-off game I’ve seen this year, but the other seven play-off games lacked any real excitement. There were quite a few good plays, but few good games.
I’m not sure what the selections should be based on, but 12 teams in the play-offs, along with a month long schedule, is a good way to kill interest in the college game.
you can say that again
Poor Kamala. In a true democracy, Democrats would never lose.
Obviously it is in the name
How British Sikhs deal with Muslim grooming gangs – @TRobinsonNewEra
.
https://x.com/AndrewGold_ok/status/1874813008368865586
I expected more kukri knives TBH.
I had that thought as well . . . but left it unstated.
Kirpans. Gurkhas are not Sikhs.
[gods I love our brand of pedantry]
Curved Knives Matter?
Roni Bennett, the Executive Director of South Florida People of Color, told the Miami Herald on Thursday that she has seen her annual revenue of nearly $300,000 be cut in half thanks to Florida’s new policies.
“We’re in trouble,” Bennett said.
Whatever you’re selling, we don’t want any. That’s how it works.
Maybe if your business model had never been predicated on government largesse?
Without us, you’d be nothing
Research by the National Bureau of Economic Research has shown impressive individual attainment from Ivy League schools in particular. While less than half of one percent of Americans attend the eight Ivy League colleges, Chicago, Duke, MIT, and Stanford (known as Ivy Plus schools), these universities contributed more than 10% of Fortune 500 CEOs, a quarter of U.S. Senators, half of all Rhodes scholars, and three-fourths of Supreme Court justices appointed in the last half century. Roughly 22% of all Nobel Prizes winners, selected by judges from around the world, were affiliated with Ivy Leagues schools. This scholarship has contributed mightily to the advance of science and industry. The renowned corporate research labs of General Electric (Menlo Park), AT&T (Bell Labs), Xerox (Palo Alto Research Center) have largely disappeared with diminished research even at major chemical and pharmaceutical companies. Most of the great advances in material sciences, agricultural science, drug development, public health, environmental safety, and computer science and the internet originate in the university world.
Government research grants have driven out private market based research, and this is a good thing?
Also, Prof Sonnenfeld, past performance is no guarantee of future results. Rome wasn’t burned in a day. But keep simping for your precious Ivy League and its former glory.
What are these “great advances in material sciences, agricultural science, drug development, public health, environmental safety, and computer science and the internet” in recent years, exactly?
HAMR is pretty nifty. And the “approaching quantum level lithography” when it comes to printing chips is pretty advanced, I’d say.
Over the last 20 years — SSDs, smaller scale distributed networking (same principles, but applied over smaller spaces/faster rates — difference between linking blades and/or cabinets and that on-die Ryzen currently is really a NUMA / distributed system and iirc, the Intel bus / processor communication is also an async distributed bus system). There’s been some good stuff — I don’t really know (or care) whether it came from company labs or universities originally.
Those examples of “private” research pulled in a lot of government dollars back in the day.
and three-fourths of Supreme Court justices appointed in the last half century
That isn’t the endorsement you think it is you pompous twit.
Ivy League schools are about making connections in a very incestuous world of nepotism. One can get an equivalent education at nearly any school in the country or in no school at all.
Academia needs to be purged of all of the fucking commies.
In summarizing their findings, Brodhead stated, that value of higher education is not to be measured merely by income earned by colleges graduates.
“Its value is that it supplies enrichment to personal lives, equips students to be thoughtful and constructive social contributors, and prepares them to participate fully and creatively in the dynamic, ever-changing world that awaits them after college. It’s easy to see why people might get anxious about something so difficult to calculate, and might want a straighter line to the payoff. But the fruits of such education can only be reckoned over long time-horizons, as they enable people to rise to challenges and seize opportunities they could not foresee at first. The lives of successful people almost never involve continuing to do what they prepared for. As their lives unfold, they find that by drawing on their preparation in unexpected ways, they’re able to do things they hadn’t intended or imagined.”
The good we do cannot be quantified, or categorized, it must be accepted as a given, and gratefully. And whatever you do, don’t compare our current curricula to that of the hallowed past.
“it supplies enrichment to personal lives, equips students to be thoughtful and constructive social contributors, and prepares them to participate fully and creatively in the dynamic, ever-changing world that awaits them after college”
Does it really, though?
I would like to see a study of required curriculum from 1920 to present day, compared to the decline of US civilization.
The Decline of Western Civilization.
“You stupid rednecks in flyover country are too dumb to understand how important we are.”
The laurels that once may have been a crown are now a seat cushion for those who have been granted them.
A double dose of Friday Funbags, just like our favorites, left and right!
https://archive.is/BGjpa
https://archive.is/KLxq3
Does it really, though?
Even if that claim were true, is there any reason to believe those things could only be attainable via an Ivy League education?
If the Ivy League education was what it used to be, pre WWII, but not in the current form/standard.
A truly elite education would educate a functioning elite, not the simpering credential bearers of the post ’70s modernized environment.
I had a friend that went to Columbia, and she even said herself that Ivy’s are a way to network and be seen as prestigious. And that once you get in, unless you are in some rigorous program like Mathematics, Engineering, or the hard sciences, you can easily do well and pass.
Last licks
The U.S. surgeon general issued a new advisory warning Friday about the link between alcohol consumption and increased cancer risk, and pushed for policy changes to help reduce the number of alcohol-related cancers.
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said there is a “well-established” link between drinking alcohol and at least seven types of cancer, including breast, colorectum, esophagus and liver. For cancers including breast, mouth and throat cancers, increased risk may start around one or fewer drinks per day, according to his office.
As part of the advisory, the surgeon general called for policy changes that could help reduce alcohol-related cancer. He pushed for alcohol labels to be more visible and include a warning about the increased risk of cancer, to reassess recommended limits for alcohol consumption based on the latest research and expand education to increase general awareness that alcohol consumption increases cancer risk.
More anti saloon league puritanism from the progressive nannytarians.
increased risk may start around one or fewer drinks per day
Even teetotalers get the big C?
Still safer than living in California. It’s amazing how many things cause cancer in the state of California.
Cool. Now do vaccines.
Somebody, please recreate that “Lips that tough liquor,” photo with a bunch of 2025-era soy boys and problem glasses…
Don’t forget the poison frog hair crowd.
Yep, all that alcohol and red meat you unsophisticated rubes are consuming. Nothing to do with the crappy food-like stuff we’ve been promoting/subsidizing for decades; cancer certainly isn’t promoted via glucose fermentation to the degree that it increases vasculature to increase oxygen and glucose delivery. Warburg effect is just a strange coincidence. And for absolute certainty, the recent uptick has nothing to do with the potential for contamination promoted oncogenicity or potential cancer promoting immune suppression from some recent forced ‘treatments’. No sireee!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlMwc1c0HRQ&ab_channel=NickKing
Man is mortal. But spirits are forever
Evan issued a new advisory warning Friday about the link between a̵l̵c̵o̵h̵o̵l̵ ̵c̵o̵n̵s̵u̵m̵p̵t̵i̵o̵n̵ living and cancer. I push for policy changes to help reduce the number of life-related cancers.
If only everyone would simply *die* like they should, we wouldn’t have *any* cancer in the elderly. There wouldn’t be any elderly, as natural causes, possibly death-related cancer, would have taken them before retirement.
There was at least one Star Trek episode about that.
OFFS I have literally never heard of such a link before.
I’m impressed that whoever that is at CNBC snuck in a couple scare-quotes around “well-established”, though.
That Vegas thing sounds more like theatrical suicide than terrorism.
The FBI has a proven track record of getting to the bottom of terrorist acts in Las Vegas.
Is every mass murder really terrorism?
Why not both?
I went to high school with the indicted Homeland Security agent David Cole. He was from a large Mormon family which was a little out of the ordinary in a rural desert town in Southern California. His dad was my Drivers Education teacher in high school. His dad, Mr. Cole, had narcolepsy and would fall asleep during drivers training, so we would drive 15 miles out of town before he’d wake up and tell us to turn around. Mr. Cole was a large dude, 6′ 6″ and around 300 lbs. Ironically, if he caught you sleeping during the endless drivers ed films we were forced to watch, he’d twist his huge gold class ring so the jewel was facing his palm and slap you on top of the head. That shit would leave a dent on your dome. Good times.
“His dad, Mr. Cole, had narcolepsy and would fall asleep during drivers training…” –> Outstanding hire, right there. Efficiency. Fell a̵s̵l̵e̵e̵p̵ right where he was needed.
“…so we would drive 15 miles out of town before he’d wake up and tell us to turn around.” –> Outstanding students. Hope you made a couple detours and picked somethin’ up. (Smacking kids in the head with a big-ringed hand? Damn. Probably shoulda been outcry over that. My dome’s already got a couple dents. That’d be Ev-in-ER territory. Thankfully, the school armed you against your drowsy driving instructor. ‘Suddenly stop’ against a telephone pole will wake any fucker up. That’ll learn ‘im.)
I see Joe saved us from the Yellow Peril. We don’t want no slanty-eyed Nips messing with our sacred industrial unions.
Jarflax gets a new thread with Serious question, if you were starting with a clean slate how would you set up the government? Hell, that could be an article – or series of articles.
So yeah, great question.
If anything, I’ve grown more sympathetic to the disappeared kbolino and that government is a bad concept no matter what. Anything to do with power is going to be hard, and our system was designed to avoid power centralization, even as it centralized power vis-a-vis the Articles of Confederation (which I remind all, once again, were seen as not functioning by the actual people who wrote them and tried to operate the government in accord with them).
First, I’d start with the fundamental limit on power and eviscerate the concept of sovereignty and general police power.
I think other things would intervene, but you asked about the franchise next. That would be limited to those who paid taxes, including a poll tax (if nothing else). I’m even okay with the poll tax being nominal – $10, but you have to have SOME skin in the game before you get a say.
Well . . . . I’ll bring back one of my old ideas. Impose The Lottery on publicly elected officials. Once per term, your name goes into the bucket. If your name is drawn, then you ‘win’. Your odds of winning should increase linearly with every term you serve.
This will just encourage people to cash out quickly and then depart. But it would discourage people from spending a lifetime in elected office.
“Well . . . . I’ll bring back one of my old ideas. Impose The Lottery on publicly elected officials.,/em>”
100% with you on that kinnath.
Honestly, I believe we need to make being a public official a job nobody does other than because they are forced to.
Agreed that voters must be tax paying or otherwise show they are a gainful member of society. Same for any elected officials. Originally I suggested going back to the idea that you must own land, meaning you cannot rent in order to vote or gain public office. That was an attempt to make sure voters had skin in the game, and some basic understanding of work and finance.
I also think I would not include the commerce clause.
Nah, a lot of renters are net taxpayers too. Especially when you consider that they pay the owner’s property taxes.
I think we’re not all that far apart, or at least when I am in my more libertarian mode we aren’t. I have moments when I start thinking about Starship Troopers, or even Tom Kratman’s version.
Yeah, the problem with that military connection is that the nation-state arose exactly because of military need (per Nisbet, The Quest for Community). I think we need to conceive of government in a different light, and our structure of strict subordinance of the military to the civil was a crucial advance. The problem has been that the people perceive the military more positively than they do the general government. This isn’t a flaw in our design, it is a flaw that is an historical fluke. Take out the two world wars and try to imagine what our nation state would be.
It’s not love for the military that makes it seem appealing it’s that it is a limit on the franchise that seems likely to at least partially solve the apathy that we were discussing above, but I admit it only appeals to me when I am feeling especially bleak about the current state of affairs, and that a martial republic would likely go as far off the rails in a different direction than our current academic/plutocratic oligarchy.
Anyone subject to punishment under the law needs to be able to vote.
Get rid of government largesse, and then you eliminate the need to be a taxpayer to vote.
So you would give illegals the vote? Foreign tourists visiting during an election? Children?
Or is everyone one else an outlaw and there is no penalty for killing them?
Race to the finish line
The final rule issued by the Treasury Department on Friday determines which facilities can qualify for lucrative tax credits for hydrogen energy.
The tax credits are seen as an important piece of the Biden administration’s climate agenda since hydrogen power could be an important tool to lower carbon emissions from industries like aviation, steel and cement — whose emissions are particularly difficult to eliminate.
The tax credits are key for making hydrogen from low- or no-emitting sources economically viable.
Hydrogen energy can be made by either using electricity to separate the hydrogen out of water molecules in an electrolyzer or through a reaction between methane and steam.
Use of the hydrogen energy itself does not create any planet-warming emissions, but the process of making it with steam or generating the electricity to power the electrolyzer can produce emissions.
Because electrolyzers use up so much electricity, the Biden administration said in a proposed guidance earlier this year that to qualify for the credit, hydrogen produced this way needed to meet certain standards.
We must make our absurdly inefficient mandated processes appear to be slightly less inefficient. For Gaia.
Also, more Trump-proofing.
Nice essay from Nicole Shanahan:
https://im1776.com/health-of-a-nation-intro/
I think I want to see some folks living in a large Faraday cage for a while for comparison before I buy into the “EMF is short circuiting humanity!” bit… I would expect if the fields were actually causing any electrical disruption, it would be more plainly overt in the neurons / cranial matter. And it had better be falsifiable.
Otherwise — tell me to wear crystals and copper bracelets while you’re at it there, Nicole.
I’m a lot more willing to consider that shit today than I was a decade ago.
Birth control, delayed marriage, the two income family, abortion all seem much more likely causes than electronics.
There is more damage from the social media on the phone than from the RF between phone and cell tower.
^^^^THIS^^^^
I want our “representatives” to be chosen by lottery and forced into involuntary servitude. Fuck that voting scam.
Make public servants SERVANTS again!
Right under our noses
Turo said it is “shocked and saddened” Wednesday’s events and that “our hearts are with the victims and their families.”
The company added that is “outraged by the misuse of our marketplace by the two individuals who perpetrated these acts.”
While both incidents involved vehicles rented through Turo, the FBI has said that is has found “no definitive link” between the New Orleans attack and the Las Vegas explosion.
Still, the incidents have put a spotlight on the car-sharing platform. Here’s what we know about Turo.
Obviously we need to ban such things and use only government regulated rental car companies.
Diversity training: it fixes all problems!!!!
Turo has said it’s sharing any information it has with law enforcement as investigations continue. The company has also noted that the individuals involved did not have criminal backgrounds that would have identified them as security threats. It said every Turo renter is screened through a “multi-layer, data-science-based trust and safety process.”
The men involved in the incidents had valid driver’s licenses, clean background checks, and were honorably discharged from the U.S. military, Turo noted Thursday.
“They could have boarded any plane, checked into a hotel, or rented a car or truck from a traditional vehicle rental chain,” the company said. “We do not believe these two individuals would have been flagged by anyone — including Big Rental or law enforcement.”
They hate us for our freedoms.
Of course they have to exercise in ass covering – someone needs to be to BLAME!!!! We must have a scapegoat!
Is anyone else celebrating the fact Cocaine Mitch’s nameplate was removed from the wall in the senate after 30 years of subjecting us to that asshats bullshit? Sure the replacement is another asshat, but I am glad to see this asshole, completely owned by the CCP, go.
I guess you wouldn’t have minded Justice Garland.
Yep, those are our binary options: Don’t be happy to see Mitch go || you love you some Garland on the SC.
Even a broken clock can be right twice a day.
Never said that Cocaine Mitch was all bad. There are plenty of things he did that were wins. But I also hate how bought he was by the CCP.
And I wonder if Garland was not turned into an even bigger bitter fucking evil dirtbag because he was denied that post (even though I celebrate that he never got it).