Good morning one and all to another beautiful day!
ICE on pace for 1 million arrests in 4 years, but Congress likely to fund expansion
Trump DOJ slaps Illinois, Chicago with lawsuit over sanctuary laws
Trump’s ICE crackdown could get boost in Florida with DeSantis’ plan to deputize state patrol
Notorious Routes For Smuggling And Illegal Immigration Suddenly Grow Silent With Trump’s Return
Senate Confirms Russell Vought for Office of Management and Budget Despite Massive Democrat Pushback
Trump Launches Task Force to Root Out Anti-Christian Bias
DOGE Is Deadly To The Swamp And A Ray Of Light For The American Taxpayer
Rubio to Latin America: No more US dollars for lawfare
Check Out The Corporate Media Outlets Raking In Taxpayer Cash
Oh SNAP! Millions Of Taxpayer Dollars Blown On Free Food Fraud
Wokeness in federal agencies protects cruel, pointless animal testing, House oversight panel hears
Bipartisan Bill Would Ban DeepSeek AI on US Government Devices
That’s all I got for today. I hope you have been as thoroughly entertained as I have been. I will leave you with a song and move along with my day.
WHERE THE WHITE WOMENZ AT?
Getting her girls ready for the day before they burn down the house apparently.
Everything old is new again
I’m sure the left and the media will deny any exists and crucify him for the effort and for besmirching the honest Fed workers with the stigmata of bias.
I’m sure it will be usual:
There is no anti-Christian bias, it’s a conspiracy theory.
.
.
.
There is anti-Christian bias, and it’s awesome.
I can’t remember who coined the term “law of merited impossibility”
Even better — but every little bit counts, I suppose.
“DOGE Is Deadly To The Swamp And A Ray Of Light For The American Taxpayer”
An entity with a budget bigger than the CIA, and doing the CIA’s dirty work with that money, after Obama put in charge and then ordered Brennan – a known marxist – to weaponize that entity to help “fundamentally change America” plan in action, is finally exposed for what it is. And the left is losing its mind because all their astroturfed bullshit is being defunded. Priceless…
But everyone needs to understand we are here because of Obama.
Turns out you can’t eliminate the fungibility of money with a law. Wild.
I miss the days when the government would just give hallucinogenics to soldiers and withhold syphilis treatments from black people and left the animals alone.
I do think there’s a point to be made that a lot of animal testing isn’t really relevant to human use, but it’s a good way to pump up your grants.
I am wondering if I can get a grant to research the ancient Roman custom of publicly having high classed women that were deemed by their husbands to have been unfaithful or have violated their vows, raped by baboons..
STEVNUS SMITHUS BABOONE NO EST.
Sic semper erat, et sic semper erit.
Didn’t SCOTUS already rule you can’t do that?
I thought the Biden administration made ignoring the Supreme Court cool again?
I thought the DOJ could deputize Marshals anytime they felt like it?
SCOTUS said you couldn’t have a state law that did exactly the same thing as federal law, and by extension use state police and courts to enforce it.
But using state cops to enforce a federal law is pretty routine. The state just can’t be forced to do it.
Yes, in this case as far as I can tell, is the state governor doing the deputizing, not the president of the US.
Trump isn’t pressing state agents into federal service, DeSantis is offering them.
Something tells me smuggling and illegal immigration will continue on less notorious routes, with prices adjustment accordingly.
I don’t think there can be any doubt at all that it will continue at a much slower rate. Personally, I’ll take a 95% reduction as a win, and not call the policies that caused it failures because it’s not a 100% reduction.
Then you are not a real libertarian. The ol’ Perfect is the enemy of the good’ mentality is a real thing….somehow.
That’s not my angle, it’s just the nature of black markets. It would be worth considering if the benefit of preventing people who want to get high from getting high outweighs the costs of interdiction. Immigration is more complicated, since we’re talking about human beings and not goods.
Indeed, councilor. Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Or, if you are of the loquacious sort, what Suthen said.
Still not sure what you’re getting at, Pat.
I’m always leery of applying cost/benefit analysis to the exercise of human rights, but I’m also not really open to the argument that everybody in the world has a human rights to live in the US.
I would point out that a strict immigration policy has cost reductions/benefits in terms of reducing the human suffering of the people being trafficked here, and the profits of the traffickers. But the only real question when discussing immigration policy should be “what is in the best interest of US citizens”.
Who had libertarians for government-provided $1,000 a month Politico subscriptions for bureaucrats on their 2025 bingo card?
Sigh.
And today I also learned that Reason is now pay to comment.
Lol, seriously?
Well with the USAID money drying up — someone has to pay for the cocktail parties!
Sounds like they are trying out the CNN online model?
I like how they’re trying to imply they have a good reason for you to join there.
What SDF-7 said.
“Reason Plus” the plus is wokeness.
Good way to murder interest in the site. The comments are almost always more interesting than the articles and us libertarian cheapskates aren’t going to pay.
Does tulpa have to have a single subscription or one for each alias?
“Reason Plus” the plus is wokeness.
I thought the plus was always pedophiles.
I believe they prefer the term Minor Attracted Pedophiles now, trashy.
…have you read the comment section there lately? It’s literally worse than Popehat. Two major factions of idiots shitting on each other and that ex-Scientologist shitting on whatever gets his attention.
I’m honestly not coming up with anything worse. Like I don’t think it’s better than DU anymore.
I thought that the Jacket and Robbies Gel were the plus?
TOS has really messed up their subscription model. I’ve had a subscription to the mag for years.
Last year I suddenly had a free subscription to Reason Plus as a short-term trial. Then I got notification that it was about to expire and did I want to subscribe? I got confused as to whether it included the mag or not so I sent an email to the listed address. Well the Plus service subscription has been outsourced but the mag subscription is still in house. So neither one could explain the other to me.
thought the plus was always pedophiles.
At this point isn’t wokeness also always pedophiles?
Froot Sushi isn’t wrong though.
We don’t bitch about government money flowing into the pockets of the utility companies, or Hammermill Paper, or Big HVAC, or AWS.
Having any government with offices means there will be office expenses paid for with government money.
I bitched quite heartily when the CIA outsourced its cloud to Amazon, personally.
There’s also a huge difference between necessary operational expenses like utilities and office supplies and $10,000-$15,000 a year subscriptions to a ragingly biased news site when there are gratis sources of the same information, as if Politico had more access to data than the government itself.
The government must pay politico to know what the government is telling politico.
Why should the employer pay for media for the employees? What benefit is to their work? There shouldn’t be anything in the media that they don’t already know from within the govt (heeheehee), if the govt is communicating properly internally (BWAHAHAHAHA).
Subscriptions paid by the government for employees to a partisan political outlet are not the same as utility bills for office buildings.
Politico might. Especially if whatever department gathers the data is forbidden or has no mandate to share it with other branches. Or if speed is important.
I’m not saying it’s not possible to use subscriptions as a way of funneling cash, I’m just saying that it’s yet to be established that this is the case.
Nature is biased as all fuck. That doesn’t mean that it’s inappropriate for State U. to spend its taxpayer-derived funds to give its faculty subscriptions.
We don’t bitch about utilities getting gov’t cash as they aren’t trying to propagandize me.
For the most part.
I can haz USAID monneyz to take tag closing training nao?
Also, State U’s are not the Fed gov’t. If a prof wants a subscription to Politico, s/he can subscribe on their own dime, just like any books bought for research.
And we certainly do bitch if it looks like they’re paying over-market rates as kickbacks for their friends, regardless of what the contract is for.
Mind your slashes, @NA.
Fair point, but when the Feds are your largest customer it creates incentives to skew your coverage. It may not be an open bribe with explicit goals, but the ecosystem is bad.
A government agency directly transferring cash to a journalistic outlet that’s supposed to cover it impartially might still constitute a scandal; in general, the feds should not subsidize journalistic projects. But importantly, USAID was not generously donating the money to Politico—the government paid the money in exchange for subscriptions to Politico’s premium content. This is a pretty important difference; USAID is paying for the service Politico provides, in much the same way that a government agency has to pay for janitorial services, electricity, or office supplies.
Come on man, I believed you weren’t that retarded.
I believe it.
Pol writes memoirs. One million copies printed up. Leftist group buys all copies, never unboxes them, places them in a landfill.
Yes, the pol made the best seller list. Yes, the pol made a shit-ton of money. Yes, it is what it looks like…a money laundering operation. That is exactly what USAID is.
step 1: People discover they can vote themselves other people’s money.
The people murder the republic
Step 2.: The government discovers it can launder all of that money into their own pockets.
The government disposes of the body.
Let’s start with, why does a humanitarian foreign aid agency needs a subscription to a primarily domestic politics magazine? Even if the “plus” includes some enhanced coverage of doings of other US government agencies.
And if we can get past that hurdle, let’s ask ourselves why this agency needs subscriptions totaling in the seven figures per year. Especially when there are other outlets providing this information, ore comprehensively I am sure, for far less.
And finally, let’s not forget that the agency has no benefit of the doubt when it comes to spending public funds, and bears the burden of proof that it’s legit. And also, let’s not forget that this particular agency wasn’t involved in political influence ops via media overseas.
Wasn’t involved, was involved, whatever.
Best comment on that article paraphrased – Robby is a pretty man, when Reason folds, ENB through her connections can get Robby plenty of “work”.
🙂
Totally different see?
It’s just like when the government pays Elon for rockets.
…this, but unironically?
We can disagree on the benefit/necessity of the product provided, but until there’s evidence of kickbacks or pay-to-play, this doesn’t trip my scandal trigger.
Cuomo’s book deal OTOH…
Speaking of, youtube is serving me up generic anti-Cuomo ads. Is he doing something?
We can disagree on the benefit/necessity of the product – well this is the most important bit and the difference between graft/corruption and legitimate expense. You seem to waive it away …
I have to agree with the Ratgician, company or agency wide licenses for sites or apps are in the price range being denounced. Politico is certainly a highly questionable ‘need’ for government workers, and I’d love to see that tap closed and them fold, but this isn’t a crazy amount of money obviously being sent as graft.
Yeah, because the framing of the issue is ZOMG A SCANDAL! without backing it up.
And just because the journalismists are telling me a story I want to hear doesn’t mean they’re not filthy partisan grifters like the other journalismists.
Plus I’ve been the target of such bogus money trail investigations by journalismists so I may be more cynical than thou.
Plus it’s fun to be the circle-breaker on occasion.
We can disagree on the benefit/necessity of the product – well this is the most important bit and the difference between graft/corruption and legitimate expense. You seem to waive it away …
Is it graft if you pay market price for a crappy product or just waste? I think there is a difference between waste and graft. The people who decided to buy this are the sort of people who would think Politico was a reliable source, a judgment I disagree with, but that doesn’t make it graft, just waste.
Is it graft if you pay market price for a crappy product or just waste?
Depends how many other buyers make up the market.
Is it graft if you pay market price for a crappy product or just waste? – it is more often than not graft
Show me all the right-wing journals that are receiving USAID Funding.
Then we can determine if feeding money to left-wing journals is merely waste or involves political bias and influence buying.
Chicago Mayor on finding criminals in the city
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/NTtEWdDweMc
“My job is to reward friends.”
That man understands the Chicago Way.
Obama brought the Chicago Way to the big time in DC
^^^^THIS^^^^
He took that shit to a new level..
I don’t mind the periodic “we need to update our records” before a visit, but don’t make me fill out the same forms that a new patient fills out. Why can’t you provide what you have and ask to confirm if it is accurate?
OMG, yes please!
It’s especially obnoxious when it happens for each of the doctors or PA’s you see, yet they’re all part of the same mega-medi-corp with ‘fully integrated’ data systems.
The process of making doctor visits as annoying as possible is so they can then tell the world people do not like American healthcare as it exists today, and then encourage us to go for government controlled healthcare. Because that for sure will work efficiently and well.
Eh, my symptoms fluxuate quite a bit, not uncommon with MS, and it needs to be recorded. But just leave the forms blank, and see if they say anything.
I know Texas weather is notoriously volatile, but seriously, <a href="https://i.postimg.cc/cLq7Ggf8/gscreenshot-2025-02-07-073120.png"WTF?
It’s nice when you break your tags in such a way that the link still works.
Preach, brother.
It’s like that this time of year. Sometimes even worse, with massive hail accompanying the 40+ F temperature drop.
“Trump Launches Task Force to Root Out Anti-Christian Bias”
Stop arguing on their terms. Having state actors suppress a religion is a violation of state/church separation.
A sports story I care about this week – is there anything he can’t do?
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/02/trump-helps-broker-end-golfs-civil-war-as/
Cue outraged lefties claiming this isn’t the job of the President.
The problem here is the billionaire isn’t lurking in the background letting the politicos shine.
There’s a real missing link in that chain of logic, yeah.
The problem is a broken link
I think the problem here is with your link.
I was sick as a dog last night, so cut me some slack. Here, eat it raw…
https://nypost.com/2025/02/06/opinion/soros-funded-dems-suddenly-upset-by-billionaires-in-government/
“To hear the lamentations of their women…”
Oh… I’m so upset that FedGov employees might be treated as at-will employment and find out that mouthing off (or trying to sabotage) their boss is an issue. (Setting aside money laundering, etc… just taking her at face value).
No one outside of government has ever experienced this or has any idea of what that uncertainty might feel like — especially when the uncertainty is due to say…. a mandate to participate in a relatively untested medical procedure pushed by said government…. oh no… no stress or uncertainty or worry ever in our lives.
Sheer. Fucking. Hubris. indeed.
Ah yes, I larfed so hard, rent? Hahaha
Hey, welcome to life in the private sector, where employment is at will and you can be canned any time for any or no reason.
Fuck you and your sinecure for life.
Yeah, this isn’t playing to the cheap seats.
She knows she’ll be taken care of, at least for a while. May only have to wait 4 years.
Maybe she can get a job with the Libyan government.
“so many millions of people who relied on us as a country, on USAID, as an agency, but on them as individuals, that those individuals out in the world have no place to turn”
Bullshit. They have plenty of other places to turn, but they just had the US government cut them off. Plenty of other countries, plenty of private charities, etc. Surprised she didn’t pre-emptively claim this would “force them into the arms of Russia and China,” which seems to be one of the fashionable pro-USAID talking points.
Isn’t China in the midst of an economic collapse of their own right now? And aren’t there food shortages in China? Are they going to spend all of their money propping up other states while collapsing themselves?
If so… where’s the problem?
“Isn’t China in the midst of an economic collapse of their own right now?”
China’s economy is all made up, and it is struggling. It is the only country that everyone assumes contrary to what they say, has a worse GDP to debt ratio. That is coupled with the whole “One child” policy basically crippling the country’s socialist economic system as in the next 5-10 years more than 5% of the population will be over 62. Corruption remains rampant, employment is brutal, with a 25% or higher number amongst the young, and the CCP’s focus remains on “fixing their mismanagement by invading and colonizing Taiwan through military force so they can loot that economy to prop theirs up for a little bit longer.
I would say grab some popcorn and enjoy, but when this shit goes south, we are going to regret having given the CCP the money they used to ruing the world. Kind of like with the Kung flu shit the powers that be tried so hard to hide.
That woman is looking more and more like Palpatine every day.
Yes, My Name has Changed…but my focus on center-right economic policy will continue
I must briefly turn the attention to myself—if only to quickly (and just once) address the inevitable deluge of questions about my name changing from Brian Riedl to Jessica Riedl.
Alright, but you’re going to keep focus on economics?
I’ve unmistakably known I was transgender since the age of 4. Medical scans and examinations have since confirmed my predominantly female brain biology, along with other biological characteristics that have countered my outwardly male appearance.
Don’t do this.
I’m not an activist and I’m more moderate on transgender policy issues. But I’m also not naïve about the intense abuse and demonization my community endures from politicians, demagogues, and bullies who defend themselves by dismissing transgenderism as some made-up mental delusion with no legitimate biological basis. Too many adults still cling to their 10th grade biology teacher’s (purposely) over-simplified summary that XX versus XY chromosomes cleanly determine all subsequent male or female biological and gender development.
Ah fuck.
It’s riotously funny to see these kinds of comments coming from the same equality fetishists that have spent half a century railing against the notion that there is any biological difference between the male and female brain, including hounding Larry Summers out of Harvard for suggesting that sexism wasn’t the primary driver of fewer women in STEM fields.
predominantly female brain biology
I though biological determinism was out – is it back in? Isn’t this really just a matter of your true lived experience – your CHOICE?
I’m going to show you a deck of 10 CT scans. Five were taken from men, five were taken from women. I’d like you to sort them into ‘men’ and ‘women’ piles.
(People who actually have a background in this – would this even be possible? Am I talking out of my ass more than usual?)
I ‘member when this would be called sexist.
Gender eliminationist feminism used to be the dominant school. Nowadays gender essentialism is ascendant.
It’s not a mental issue, I have scans showing my brain don’t work right to prove it.
Sure, Brian. 🙄
Politico: Government publishes its own list of rules/rule changes etc. I am sure they are already passing those around. The politico subscriptions are bullshit and the whole debate over it is specious.
Cancel all of the subscriptions, ignore the wailing and move on. I think chuck Schumer has suggested we close down the IRS, that would be a good next step.
This was my first thought. Either you system is so dysfunctional that you have to rely on outside sources, in which case you need to spend the money to fix this shit, or, you are sliding some under the table to put your thumb on the scales.
Or, as you are feds, both.
What’s “climate smart agriculture,” pray tell?
Peasant sharecroppers scratching in the dirt with shovels and hoes.
No no no….
Sticks and rocks, no messy metals
“Dennis! There’s some lovely filth down ‘ere!”
“Climate Smart Agriculture” is a chain of non-profits with websites about how important it is to farm in a ecologically friendly, sustainable way.
Sadly, once you pay for the salaries of all those non-profits, web hosting costs, donations back to the DNC (and lets be honest, probably some to the RNC, too), there is no money left for anyone who actually does any kind of farming.
Oh somebody is farming alright. Farming our taxes.
What’s “climate smart agriculture,” pray tell?
Peasant sharecroppers scratching in the dirt with shovels and hoes.
Wrong. It’s no agriculture at all. Scratching the dirt releases CO2, methane, etc. Better we grow no food at all. And reduce the population of invasive people to fit the Hunter-gatherer lifestyle (limited to greens, nuts, and berries to save all the endangered animals, who will still be on the menu for the Right People). The Georgia Guidestones mentioned the first step.
“There’s some lovely filth over here Dennis.”
I suspect that I have developed a reputation around here of being overly cynical and pessimistic. No one has said it explicitly but a few comments made me think that.
All of what has happened since Trump’s inauguration has taught me one thing: I have not been cynical enough.
This is the main thing that I have learned as I have become more cynical.
I think you’re right. About a year ago a lot of the things we’re seeing seemed like conspiracy theories to me. I just felt kind of wrong entertaining them. And here we are today, when everything is much worse than I ever imagined.
It’s wild how much these assholes spend our hard-earned money on their nonsense. Like I knew it was going on but not to this extent.
Considering Musk, Theil, and company are building us their version of all-seeing all-knowing state that will guide us to implement their choices, your cynicism is warranted.
But for the moment at least the #NewResistance is being crippled.
When DJT told people he was gonna take Gaza over, he expected reactions like this one…
Always remember the guy is transactional. The first ask/threat is NEVER the first ask/threat.
The interesting thing is that everyone just accepted the fact that Trump was the one who decides what happens with Gaza.
People are morons. They think Trump is going to take Gaza. That is not what he said.
He said “The madness ends now. You can end it and fix things or I will. Do it your way or I will do it my way. You wont like my way.”
I expect they are going to fix things for at least as long as Trump is in office.
TOS – We should stop bitching about our ex-wife. Also, y’all quit sneaking back over there for booty calls.
I haven’t actually been to the site in ages, but it’s still in my RSS feed because apparently I have a masochistic side.
Trump is Zorro. Feckless foppish child by day, merciless crusader for justice by night.
*falls off chair laughing*
More like the Scarlet Pimpernel.
The Orange Pimpernel
We named our new red-and-white Corgi pup Percy Blakeney.
Air traffic control at Tempelhof Central Airport in Berlin, 1987.
https://x.com/HumanoidHistory/status/1887332190645559468
Scenario 1: “I need to look at your books.” Response “Sure, they are right over there. Knock yourself out.”
“Ok, uh….*looks at watch*….I will be back later.”
Scenario 2: “I need to look at your books.” Response *Screams, runs around in circles, sets hair on fire*”No!NO!NO! You cant do that!”
“I am going to look at your books RIGHT NOW.”
I am seeing a lot of Scenario 2 on the teevee.
Samantha Power:
And then, of course, most of them have been laid off, so they’re worried about how they’re going to pay the bills and how they’re going to make rent. But maybe the part that is the most striking and for me, inspiring, if not surprising, having worked there for four years is that, you know, the people who work at USAID did not come to work at USAID for the money, the civil servants, the foreign servants, the contractors. They came to USAID because they wanted to make a difference in the world. Because they saw America’s interests as tied up with the interests of people, vulnerable people around the world.
I am your messiah, come to lead you out of the wilderness into the land of milk and honey.
What were we saying about narcissism yesterday?
On Tim Pool’s show yesterday he explained something he saw in DC. These USAID people might be on the board of some nonprofit, and play the martyr card because they’re only getting $50k a year. But they don’t tell you they’re either on the board of, or “consulting”, 20 nonprofits and making millions a year. If you look at the boards of the big nonprofits you will see the same names over and over.
Beware of any non profit. If people understood how their donations are spent, nobody would give to all these big name non profits everyone seems to think are doing good things..
DC is a very incestuous place. One of my old friend’s sister worked in the Biden White House and as soon as the Presidential results came in, within a couple of weeks she managed to find a job easily in the nonprofits in DC.
I know it probably won’t get done, but what I hope that DOGE does is at least damage the networks that enables people to cycle between the nonprofits/NGO’s and the federal government.
No government should be allowed to contribute to any non-profit, EVER. Any NGO that takes their dime eventually becomes a version of hamburger helper, doing the government’s bidding, and without Constitutional restraints because ‘muh private organization’.
SLD on the government building housing, but HUD building and operating housing resulted in “the Projects”. It was 10x the shitshow until Kemp and Reagan outsourced it to NFP’s.
Same goes for things like foster care and adoption, substance abuse and a whole host of social service NFP’s. The NFP’s do it more efficiently and better than the bureaucracy.
And if you think we are going to ax HUD or social services from the budget, I have a bridge to sell you.
the people who work at USAID did not come to work at USAID for the money, the civil servants, the foreign servants, the contractors.
True, they don’t come to USAID for the money, they come to USAID for the power and influence. Then they get the money.
First you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the….
Thank you for enacting my labor! I had that exact clip in mind but am lazy.
My new favorite t-shirt.
They also do it for the travel.
Question: when/if cooking with fresh chilli peppers do you taste each individual pepper? In romania there can be significant difference in heat level in identical looking chillies from the same pack so without tasting i dont see how to judge the heat.
There is never enough heat, so keep adding them.
😉
I generally will, but that’s just me. I rarely get to cook food to my heat tolerance, so it’s a rare treat. This weekend is one of the few times I get to, as my chili has become a bit infamous among the friend group. I’ll be using bell, jalapeno, poblano, serrano, habanero, ancho, chipotle, and a superhot from Sean (thanks Sean!). My favorite bit from last year was one of the kids (who’s mother happens to be from China) who tried the chili, liked it at the heat level and tried to convince the other kids to try it.
That is definitely an issue. The longer something cooks, the more the spices will even out and the less you’ll get a bite of one hot pepper.
I grew jalapeños at the top of my hill. They tasted like paper…no heat, no sugar, no peppery taste.
I grew the same jalapeños at the bottom of my hill. They have fantastic peppery flavor, some sugar and are hot like the spit from that alien thing in the movies.
Soil and weather make a huge difference.
My advice: Check each pepper by taste.
Just rub each one on your junk and judge by the intensity and duration of pain. *wanders away muttering about crazy people making dinnertime a test of manhood*
predominantly female brain biology
Sure, Mengele.
Some time back some study purported to show that the biology/genetics of homosexuals brains are different…that homosexuality is determined, not chosen.
I cant remember…did the left freak out about that or are they the ones touting it? They are so machiavellian I cant keep up. Which one are they claiming now?
“did the left freak out about that or are they the ones touting it?”
Both.
Which one are they claiming now?
This is a man that understands the left. When they say there are 5 lights, you agree – there are 5. When they then say there are 3 lights, you agree – there are 3. You don’t need to understand anything more than that.
USPSA has an arbitration process wherein if you think all the match officials got the call wrong, you can appeal to a panel of your fellow competitors.
I’m taking the training about the process and one of the examples is a stage I shot at a match I ran, but the rumor mill never told me about it (arbitrations are considered somewhat scandalous). This is fascinating training because as I read the rules, this one should not have been allowed to go to arb. But it DID go, and was accepted by a Nationals-level RM which means either I don’t understand the rules or there are “unwritten rules” which I really hope is not the case, but probably is so.
Even though it went to arb, the committee smacked it down, so really all the RM did by accepting it was waste time.
“The call” in this case must be something more than target hit location? Like in/out of bounds, some safety violation, etc?
Yes, scoring calls can’t be arbitrated, so it’s things like “this foot fault should have only been one procedural penalty instead of the six that were assessed.” In this particular case, the shooter was looking to have his run tossed out (he had a gun jam that he took a long time clearing) and be given a reshoot because the RO “interfered” with him by “saying something.”
The problem with this specific example is he didn’t specify what the RO said, and the RO is explicitly permitted to issue safety warnings (like if some yahoo is putting his finger near the trigger while clearing a jam).
Now there is no testimony given by the RO as to what was said, but there were also no witnesses called affirming that Mr. Jammypants was interfered with.
I dearly love shooting USPSA, but I admit; there are some shooters who are just whiny little bitches.
I have learned never to squad Tom Castro with Christian Sailer.
“We’ve always done it this way (but never bothered to add it to the SOP).”
I’ve heard that enough times.
Yup the big controversy currently in the rules is that you are not allowed to draw the gun while facing uprange, with uprange being defined as the “front” of the holster. When people wore their holsters on the side of their body, this is fine, because that’ll be basically where the gun will be pointing once the trigger is exposed. The issue is that now people are using appendix holsters so that part of the holster can be uprange with the shooter hips being downrange.
There are also some staff who are whiny little bitches. I see this present nontroversy as the last dying gasp of the old fucks who think that AIWB carry is dangerous and that I’ll shoot my dick off…
Hmm.
I wonder if we’ll see a new start position of “hands behind back” to fuck with the AWB carriers.
I was told that back in the day some clubs would paint red spots on poppers.
This is why I dont shoot any more.
A lifetime ago when I did things were very informal. The rules were mostly unspoken, everyone understood them and no one got a wedgy over details. It was a lot of fun.
Glancing over these comments calls to my mind the commie college meeting that spent over an hour on ‘points of order’.
I’ve shot many matches under a national sanctioning body. I’ve also shot many matches under ‘informal rules’. The sanctioned matches have always been better.
We can’t fire those government workers. It’ll play Hell with our carefully crafted economic data.
See, also: Trump’s Recession
https://x.com/WojPawelczyk/status/1887845526864806142
Hoky smokes, Drake. That’s seriously hilarious.
Well damn, this year is looking pretty damned good for concerts. Screeching Weasel is back on tour, and I just got some tickets. The Dollyrots are coming, Devo is playing, Mac Sabbath is playing, and this is just what’s been announced so far.
https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExcG53eHEzYjljYmdtNnUycm5mZXMxNWQzMDY4bG9hb2w3ZmJnbG9kZSZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/KmZjJZBvqwr0k/giphy.gif
Counterpoint.
Man KK hates your music so much it broke the tag!
I don’t know why TF giphy can’t just make a shortlink link YouTube.
Giphy hate the music also? 🙂
like this? https://giphy.com/gifs/hipster-30-rock-no-KmZjJZBvqwr0k
Who can hate Devo?
But K, the Dollyrots are awesome!
I’m talking about the URL that spits out when you hit the Share button
Going to see Dream Theater tomorrow in Raleigh with my son.
Mad jelly!
But much respect for helping to bring up the next generation of prog nerds. 😀
The reunion seems to have breathed some fresh air into those guys.
Purchase Screeching Weasel tickets at the door. They have a 50/50 chance of breaking up before every show.
Mom’s in the hospital again, but it’s nothing serious and sort of embarrassing to both of us, so I’ll leave out the details. She’s on the cardiac and clinical decision floor, tho. The internal medicine doc who’s rounding on her is a reasonable fellow and let me know he’d make sure she can get to skilled rehab. That should only take 3-4 weeks to get her back to baseline with mobility and maybe even able to get to showering herself again.
Before 911 was called, however, Mom was telling me she thought it would be wise for her to have a chat with her cunty sisters to open communication (don’t know if Susie got my letter yet). Well, hello, hospital. Neutralish territory. They had that chat yesterday. She admonished them for calling me names and told them they needed to work with me and told them to behave themselves and no name-calling. She made it clear that what she wants to happen, that’s what I’ll make happen even if I don’t like it. I didn’t have to be admonished to behave myself, because I know how to, especially if misbehavior gets in the way of my goals.
They also talked about what things in the house (as in, outside her bedroom) Mom wants me to pack, and what things in the kitchen (sorry, no PYREX, @R C Dean). The cunty sisters apparently really miss my mom, which I guess is normal, even for a bully who’s lost her favorite target, but they have finally let go of any hope she’s going to go back, and have resigned themselves to their fate. They said it would take time to find somewhere to live, which is fair.[1]
So.
We may have reached detente.
Cunty Aunt Susie called her kids in. Took a lot longer than I expected, but whatever. Susie will “allow” me in the house to start packing Mom’s stuff tomorrow since they are there and Monday for the movers. Sadly, I had canceled Monday’s movers,[3] so that’ll have to happen another day, but it will. My cousin and I have teenage history. I don’t know if Heather will remember, but I do. But again, *I* can behave myself,
I’m not going alone, though. XX is going with me. Husband and his dudebropal had brunch lined up already, and that’s more important than this. They’ll drop by after their brunch to see if we need any help.
This morning I woke up with a brilliant idea about the most efficient and cost-effective way to move her stuff out.
__________
[1] Last night I texted Aunt Millie and graciously[2] told her we would help them find a place to live if she would be so kind as to give me a wishlist. We would also help them arrange movers and storage if they wanted, so as to get the whole affair wrapped up ASAP. I did NOT say we would have done that anyway if they hadn’t been nasty out of the gate.
[2] I long ago learned how to weaponize graciousness.
[3] I had scheduled movers with the notion that I’d bring a deputy. WHELL. I canceled them when I found out Missouri recently divested its sheriffs from having to do civil standbys and leaving it to the cities—except Mom’s property is in the county’s jurisdiction,[4] so we’re shit out of luck.
[4] I am angry, horrified, and embarrassed that I threatened something I can’t deliver. I NEVER threaten what I won’t carry out, and it didn’t occur to me to ask the sheriff’s office first BEFORE threatening to show up with a deputy.
Mojeuax, keep the faith and hope it all works for the best! But also keep your guard up. Life sometimes throws us ugly curves, but I think in the end this is heading your way and the outcome might be less of a horror show that you expected.
My whole strategy was to show most of my capacity for nastiness, then back off when they capitulated, so maybe that has been accomplished. Not quite sure yet.
Sounds like an improvement.
Weaponized graciousness, I like it.
It’s more of a rubbing-your-nose-in-your-shit type of graciousness.
That’s how I roll. I’m a pushover and don’t like to make waves but the moment you cross a boundary with me, I become the biggest asshole in the room and show whoever pissed me off that I have the capacity to be an asshole when pushed.
Walk softly and carry a big stick. I made it VERY clear I was willing and had the wherewithal to crush her if she stepped out of line, and because of her abuse of my mother, I also have a driving need to do so. HOWEVER. My mother just wants to be out of that house, off that property that she never wanted to be on in the first place, and into assisted living. So that’s what’s going to happen.
There is still, however, the matter of the Adult Protective Services call Bro2 made. Social worker visited with me yesterday before the powwow between the three sisters (double, double, toil and trouble) happened.
Maybe detente, but no weapons, strategies, or threats got withdrawn. Susie should know this by now, though. If she doesn’t, she’s stupider than I thought.
“she’s stupider than I thought.”
*Narrator: people are usually stupider than we think*
[ Imagines Mojeaux using a trebuchet to move aunts’ things efficiently ]
Susie’s horses, more like. This property was bought at Susie’s insistence because she just couldn’t BEAR to part with her pets (4 horses) (that have never been ridden) (one’s dead now) (one got sold).
Someone sent me a link to a Washington Examiner article about DEI. Pretty good tear down of the subject. I really liked this line:
It is, in short, a tyrant’s epistemology, a mutation of the libertarian, “I live my own truth” into the totalitarian, “and you must too.”
As a libertarian i dont belive in my own truth. Feelings worldview etc. not truth. Truth is objective or not truth
BBC News NI
@BBCNewsNI
An inquest has ruled the use of lethal force by SAS soldiers was unjustified when they opened fire killing four IRA men in an ambush at Clonoe in County Tyrone in 1992.
Stone Age Herbalist
@Paracelsus1092
“.. certainly a striking feature of British political culture between 1997 and 2033 was the sudden assertion of judicial power into all spheres of life – including wages & prices, industrial strategy and previous military conduct. Historians have traditionally been divided on..”
https://x.com/Paracelsus1092/status/1887788581919330736
nobody who loves these kids has made them sound cooler than wired has made them sound while trying to destroy them
https://x.com/micsolana/status/1887546458976424029
The 20 y/o DOGE geniuses finding out that our country is run by 55-70 year olds who can’t use a computer without their grandson’s help.
https://x.com/Geiger_Capital/status/1887622543382634728
Not fair. The 55yo’s fucking built computers and the internet and can still drive a stick and use a rotary phone.
War Games gave a whole generation of boys a call to arms and action.
I would think 55 or even 65 is a bit out of the range as a demographic of non-computer users.
its just right wing twitter having a troll I assume
kids these days amiright
The generalization isn’t fair, but the incompetence Doge is encountering is well worth calling them idiots.
Some of them did. Some of them need detailed instructions and personal hand-holding to save a document in Sharepoint.
I could tell you stories about the amount of technical incompetence I see, doing IT consulting f for mostly nonprofit orgs in the DC/NoVA area…
Same can be said of the kids on other things…like showing up to work
68
Former software engineer, currently a systems engineer working on safety critical computer-based systems.
I have two cars with sticks right now (both paid for of course).
But plenty of people in my age group are functionally computer illiterate.
I read that as “showering up for work”
Showing up for work on time is tough though
drive a stick and use a rotary phone.
This will never make sense to me as the flex it is intended to be.
That’s part of the flex. 🤷♀️
I can drive a stick; I can use a computer; I cannot spin cotton or wool into yarn; I cannot recite the epic poems of my people from memory; I cannot flake flint into a useful weapon. The idea that people not possessing skills that are no longer relevant to ordinary life, or not possessing skills that were not relevant when they were young and learning skills, or even not possessing all of the skills that are relevant to humans today, makes one cohort superior or inferior overall, is kind of silly. Heinlein notwithstanding, we specialized a very long time ago, and it lead to trade, increases in human understanding, and increasing prosperity and ability to shape our world.
It may be silly to some, but not to me. I think that people knowing how to do some things in analog (not all things, obviously) is important for various mental and intellectual and physical, economic and societal and community reasons. Doing things by hand is far more valuable than people credit.
I’ve seen/experimented enough that I could possibly figure out how to spin cotton and wool into yarn and weave fabric given the right tools. I can piece and quilt by hand. I can crochet. I can sew. I can garden. I can do lots of things “the old way,” and I think it’s important to be able to. I know how to read and write in cursive and tell time on an analog clock (neither of my children can, and when I’ve tried to teach them, they’ve refused to learn). Obviously, people can only do so much, given only 18 effective hours in a day, and specialization is always going to be with us.
But. Maybe there will come a day when the only car left after the apocalypse is a stick shift. Who knows. It doesn’t hurt to know these things and making it out like it’s just an aging generation’s fever dream or nostalgia boner is equally silly.
There may come a day when I need to learn how to flake flint into a weapon, but it is unlikely and prepping for it in advance seems to fail cost benefit analysis vs. an awful lot of other things. I am not saying it is bad to learn skills, but preening about skills you have to go to great lengths to come up with useful scenarios for is silly. It’s not having the skill I object to, that is great, or even the pride in them, that is natural, it’s the smugness with which it is presented. “Oh these lesser mortals of the younger generation cannot even [do thing they have never had any need to do, and likely will never need to ]” or “Silly Grandma who can’t use a computer, although she could go out onto the farm, milk the cow, harvest the wheat, pick the fruit and turn it into a pie” There are reasons aplenty to sneer at people, having different skills isn’t one. Now, if they have no skills at all, that is different.
With regards to many of these tasks, I know how it is done, but may not be able to actually do it.
I have all the theoretical knowledge required to make a pencil, but the time required to hunt down the materials in the wild and manually process them down with my novice abilities is absurdly inefficient compared to the degree of optimization elsewhere. And to top it off, I almost never write anything by hand.
On the other hand, I like to acquire skills for the sake of knowing them, even if they serve no practical purpose.
Yes. I preened. And?
I didn’t go to great lengths. I think about these things all the time. What if…? If it makes you feel better to think I’m silly, then, okay. I accept that. But don’t tell my husband because he accuses me of being silly all the time and I’m not admitting it to HIM.
Smug? Sure. I like being able to be smug.
I did not say you were silly, I said the idea was silly. I am disagreeing with you, and others, and expressing my thoughts on a specific behavior which you are not the only supporter of, or the initiator of the conversation about in this sub-thread. I am not personally attacking you, singling you out, or even making an overall judgment of anyone. I do plenty of silly things, and am certainly guilty of smugness from time to time. That is not a reason to keep silent when I have a disapproving thought about something though.
I seem to remember stories about congresscritters unable to gain access to border facilities, J6 jail conditions, etc and now Dems are crying foul they are being denied access to DoE, USAID HQ, etc.
Tough luck fuckers.
Dollyrots
Ben simmons is getting a buyout. Man that guy practically “stole” 150 mil
This is how you scam
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/minnesota-scheme-stole-250-million-feeding-our-future-meals-needy-children-federal-prosecutors/
Weren’t they the ones who turned around and tried to bribe a juror? Or was that another scam group?
UCS:
That would be them, $200k bribe IIRC.
Mole
A staffer connected to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency resigned on Thursday after now-deleted racist social media posts were resurfaced.
The resignation was confirmed by a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Marko Elez, a 25-year-old software engineer, was working inside the Treasury Department to cut costs and root out fraud, as part of Musk’s DOGE effort. Elez, who formerly worked at Musk companies X and SpaceX, was one of two temporary appointees at Treasury connected to DOGE who have been granted access to a highly sensitive Treasury system that processes trillions of dollars in payments every year.
——-
“You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” the account wrote in September. “Normalize Indian hate,” a separate post from that month read.
In July of last year, the account posted: “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool.”
Obviously planted to help institute Trump’s Fourth Reich agenda.
So he hates the VP’s wife, Kash, and Vivek?
There isn’t even a pic so we can get our two-minutes hate on?
Do better, NPR.
On recent, embarrassing budget revelations: I haven’t seen it mentioned, but it reminds me of the secret treaties situation during WWI. Basically, the Bolsheviks took power in 1917 and, while turning all of the Russian Empire’s stuff upside down, uncovered a bunch of treaties to reshape a significant portion of the globe (trading someone else’s land for alliances, carving up the Middle East, etc.). Trotsky published this stuff to the outrage of the rabble and embarrassment of the powerful. I hope our rabble is paying attention at the moment.
https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1917-2/treaty-of-brest-litovsk/treaty-of-brest-litovsk-texts/publication-of-the-secret-treaties/
Didn’t Starmer’s 100-year pact with Zelensky include some secret provisions?
And I believe Obama’s agreement with Iran also had some as well.
But plenty of people in my age group are functionally computer illiterate.
“What is there to know? It does everything for you!”
As critics highlight legal and ethical issues surrounding DOGE’s seemingly unchecked pursuit of government austerity, Democrats in Congress are running into obstacles. A Democratic-led attempt to subpoena Musk about possible conflicts of interest over juggling his DOGE role with the six companies he operates was blocked by Republicans on Wednesday. Democratic Senators are issuing blistering statements, and writing letters to Musk’s companies demanding answers, but such moves are unlikely to result in testimony in Washington, as long as Republicans hold a majority in both chambers.
Not government austerity! Anything but that!
They will protest strenuously, and in the sternest language.
Respectable right wing
Sweden’s right-wing government said on Friday it would seek to tighten gun laws in the wake of the country’s deadliest mass shooting at an adult education centre where the attacker appeared to have used several of his own licensed rifles.
——-
The government has agreed with its far-right backers in parliament to tighten up the vetting process for people applying for gun licences and to clamp down on some semi-automatic weapons.
It said the AR-15, an assault rifle based on a military design that has been used in many mass shootings in the United States, was the kind of gun it wanted banned.
“In light of the horrible shooting in Orebro earlier this week we believe that the right balance is to roll back the regulation and prohibit that kind of weapon,” Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer told Reuters.
He said it was not clear yet what kind of guns had been used in the attack in Orebro and banning AR-15 weapons would be a “preventative measure”.
“We know that kind of weapon, with some changes, can become very dangerous and also that it has been used in that kind of shooting in other countries,” he said.
That’ll fix it.
We’re also banning shirts and pants, as most mass shooters use those to carry out their attacks as well!