Hey there friends. Happy Sunday. I took my oldest two to see the Dogman Movie. While I don’t generally hate these things, there were A LOT of adult movie references thrown in in a trying too hard manner. The Bad Guys short before the movie was far better. But, I took my kids to do the thing that they wanted AND skipped little kids bed-time, so… mostly a win. Other than that, I can’t believe January is gone. Shit, man, someone take their finger off the fast forward button. I need to catch my breath.
And now… the links
Usually, this is a gator being shooed. After a while, they ran off this crocodile.
shocking news from the world of science… caffeine in blood associated with lower BMI.
That he doesn’t already have this award is the real crime.
Florida Man… does a good thing?
Why can’t these motherfuckers resist arrest and get totality of the circus?
After that we’re skipping the music and doing cute puppies. Have a great Sunday.
Sowell deserves the medal, but he deserves it being awarded by a better person than Trump. Yep, even if he does a LOT of good shit, in my book he still won’t be a good person.
Tbh, I don’t like that we have those medals in the first place. It’s as close as we can get to a title of nobility without violating the constitution, and demonstrates an undue respect for the office that issues it (and the same goes for congressional medals of __), as if the the president or congress had some inherent prestige of which to share with its particularly worthy subjects.
+1 couldn’t be dumber than if you had to kneel and be dubbed with the president’s sword
it is utterly feudal, primal, and unenlightened to look to an elected office for affirmations of private conduct
it is utterly feudal, primal, and unenlightened to look to an elected office for affirmations of private conduct
Very human though.
Very human…that’s the problem. The bulk of us are herd animals.
Those of us who aren’t herd animals are pack animals.
So, only the perfect should be allowed to award people?
That is one of the stupidest things I have ever read, JI.
Not perfect – there are none who attain high office that even come close. I’d feel the same if Biden were to award it. Maybe Pat is getting at my discomfort better than I am. The prestige Sowell has earned can’t be enhanced by any government recognition.
It is almost certainly meant as a middle finger at the slew of PPP ones at the last minute combined with the OMB Administration listing him and Thomas as role models for Black History Month, I expect.
Can it be enhanced? No, but that isn’t the end result of any medal or award. It is recognition solely. A gold in Olympic swimming does not make you go any faster, nor does a Nobel perform any more research. And, similarly, PMF won’t make someone like Sowell have greater insights, but it does say to all “here is a man who is worthy of our highest accolades.”
And, naturally, we get to judge it at that point.
Also, the giver(s) of such awards are representing us. We are awarding them.
Once the politicization of awards becomes apparent awards lose all meaning. We crossed that threshold a long time back. The idea of honoring the best among us is a good one, but the worst among us end up controlling the selection.
Who is up for the Nobel Peace Prize this year? Karen Bass and Newsom for “Furthering the needed urbanization and decreasing suburban sprawl” or something?
And SDF beats me to the punch.
So should he turn it down until President Mean Tweets is replaced by someone better?
He should just start his own award — with blackjack! And hookers!
Trump will always be a pompous ass – I don’t give a shit about his trolling the idiot left. He’s actually doing much better than his first term, and I didn’t really think he was capable of learning; so I have to eat some crow and give him some credit. It doesn’t change who he is.
“Trump will always be a pompous ass”.
OK, sure. Although there are many anecdotes of him when he’s not on stage/camera where he’s apparently warm and personable (in contrast to other politicians, who are even bigger assholes when Nobody Who Matters is watching). Maybe Trump is being fake in those situations, who knows?
Other than the lulz, I wasn’t a particular fan of his first term, especially his handling of the plague, which will always be a black mark in my book. But his second term so far is a stark contrast. He can be a pompous ass and post mean tweets all he wants as long he is at war with the administrative state and the Woke-Industrial Complex.
Definitionally, you need a person from outside the mainstream with a very strong personality to take on that job. It’s been rather disheartening, but also revealing to me, watching the majority of the libertarian thinkers for whom I used to have some modicum of respect turn into gibbering crusaders for the permanent bureaucracy simply because they dislike the person who opposes it, in spite of his successes doing the things they have ostensibly been wanting to accomplish for half a century. Turns out a pretty good number of people treat their political principles like high school fashions.
Although there are many anecdotes of him when he’s not on stage/camera where he’s apparently warm and personable
Those who met him say Bill Clinton was very engaging too.
Turns out a pretty good number of people treat their political principles like high school fashions.
Junior high cafeteria is the pinnacle of social development for the common person?
I’m all for mass bureaucracy layoffs, but I asked this question on Zoom last night and @deadhead’s answer was, “Nobody knows”:
What happens to the economy and job market when all these people are let loose out into the wild to compete for jobs they’re not qualified for and/or won’t take and/or can’t get hired at?
I think that libertarians (and many other movements on the fringes of politics) get psychic gratification from being the wise outsider sneering at the poor fools toward the center. It is much the same sort of thing as the stereotype of the hipster abandoning his favorite bands, bars, or beers once the normals discover them. I came to this idea by self reflection. I too get a feeling of superiority when I think of myself as wisely sitting above the fray watching the deluded masses. It’s a very human trait, and pretty nearly universal here and in similar spaces on both the right and the left. It’s likely unavoidable, but it is something to be aware of even if indulging in it because the feeling of superiority it gives is illusory.
For example as I wrote that I got a little feeling of smugness, which I am expiating by admitting to it here. I am not superior to anyone else, at least not by virtue of noticing that I make myself feel superior with no real effort or accomplishment by criticizing others.
Same thing that happened when slavery ended, or when the industrial revolution began, or when factory production supplanted farming, or when manufacturing went overseas, or when publishing went digital. You have a disruption and economic realignment, resulting in a recession until the deadweight loss is absorbed and the clearing price of goods and labor reaches a new equilibrium, and then growth begins again, accelerated by the reallocation of capital to the most immediately productive uses. Or in modern economies, the same process takes place over a span of about 50-60 years instead of 5-10 years, because central planners won’t allow the reallocation of capital and labor to take place, and you have to wait until those affected by the labor realignment either die or become too aged to be a viable political constituency any longer. The economic mechanics of it are not terribly complicated and pretty well modeled and understood.
I don’t get pleasure from watching and judging things from On High. I want what’s best for the country as a whole, because it makes life better for me.
Trump having learned his lessons and actually doing something to halt others’ intrusions on my life is a welcome surprise,
Elon having bought Twitter is the greatest act of charity I have witnessed in my lifetime, to give a voice back to the disenfranchised, and further, making “likes” private to get a good idea of what the silent majority really thinks.
J.K. Rowling using her fuck-you fortune to stand up for women against the intrusion of dudes in our spaces is the second greatest.
I’ve had to grapple with the concept that some people (my brothers) really DO think that because they see my OPINIONS as evil, I must discipline my mind to not believe those things or, barring that, silenced. well, I pretty mich silence myself anyway. Just the stress of everything brought it all out.
Bro1 was absolutely dumbfounded when I said that about Elon. Bro1 wants people who share my viewpoint to be squelched because they are “dangerous.” I find THAT to be the most dangerous of all, but he doesn’t believe in free speech. He didn’t come out and say it that way because the convo never went that direction, but that’s the upshot.
I never bothered to ask why he thought Trump won the popular vote. All these people are just evil people, and they sit in their moral superiority and judge the icky people who should not be allowed to vote because they’re all stupid and evil.
In all fairness, that level of self awareness is likely outside the norm, so you can feel superior about that 😉
When I was younger I struggled more with that, but being a gigantic fucking loser is humbling enough that you can’t really feel too smug. Even if you’re right, and you might very well be wrong, the people who were wrong ate your lunch and lived happy lives while you stewed in your bitter cynicism, and your shitty attitude didn’t change anything, and you get to keep your regret as the booby prize.
Or in other words, we get 3 years of recession worsened by a Dem House that rolls in in 2026 and President Whitmer in 2028.
Mojeaux: “What happens to the economy and job market when all these people are let loose out into the wild to compete for jobs they’re not qualified for and/or won’t take and/or can’t get hired at?”
We will find them in positions where they can do far less to no damage to our society.
The mindset of a totalitarian in a nutshell:
“see my OPINIONS as evil, I must discipline my mind to not believe those things or, barring that, silenced”
And there is no silence more complete than the grave.
I’m going to go full pragmatic here and say that since the thing exists, why not give it to Sowell. It will put him, and his ideas, out there. This will create some nonzero number of libertarians. It would also be a another shoutout to the libertarian movement, even if not explicitly labeled as such.
Well, if we’re really going to dream, then let’s make Sowell’s intellectual corpus the entire focus of February education for the whole damn country.
I get your point but the idea of waiting until there’s a “worthy” person in the presidency means it’ll never happen (then again the awards are no longer worth Jack shit but that’s another matter). Massie or Paul are never going to be president.
When I was younger, living in the part of the country I do, a lot of people would approach me and try to evangelize me. This would often lead to debates about religious belief. If I had a dollar for every time someone said to me “I cant refute any of your arguments. I agree with every one of them. They are obviously true but I will never accept the conclusion that they lead to.”
That is how I learned that people’s beliefs were not about truth but about a deep psychological need they have and why it is a waste of time and maybe in some ways immoral to debate about such things.
There’s very little to argue about regarding moral, religious and ethical beliefs, because they necessarily exist in the realm of the unknown and the unknowable. That’s the very thing that defines them as beliefs and judgments. The facts about the physical world established by observable evidence have no utility in determining, say, whether it ought to be permissible to kill in self defense, or whether it’s ever OK to lie, or what the minimum drinking age should be, or a billion other value judgments. It’d be like trying to determine the meaning of a book by tallying the total number of words, syllables and letters, having no comprehension of the language.
I like that he got it because as Tonio said, it may help disseminate his ideas further, and that it shows that OMB not only recognizes that he exists but is aware of him and his writings enough to perhaps use them to help guide future actions. The may started off as Communist, after all.
He hasn’t received – Sen. Cruz is flogging a bid for it.
Oops, my bad. But damn well should.
Wait until they find out about cocaine.
Let alone nicotine.
My mom always used to complain about how she put on 15 pounds when she quit smoking. I suppose it was an ironic twist when she lost it back and then some from the lung cancer treatment 30 years later…
Why not all 3 ?
It would make Diet Coke a lot more effective if they went back to that part of the Classic formula, yeah.
Yuck, still wouldn’t drink it…
Tastes like shit. You won’t care.
I love how the finding is buried halfway down the page so the headline makes it sound scary.
Easy to see why a SWAT team was necessary, then. (Not that it’s a bad arrest or anything, just the militarized mission creep of modern police forces).
Ugh… don’t get me started (I have never forgiven or forgotten the “flash bang grenade in the crib for no good reason” incident, nor all the “wrong house.. oops… sorry we shot you for waking up and wondering who was breaking in!” incidents… nor the “we took over a neighbors house to have a shoot out and ruined the property — but sovereign immunity, bitches!”… nor the “right house, but going for the arrest at 2am and gosh darn it… wouldn’t you know waking up a bunch of people in a no knock raid resulted in a fire fight and we killed a bunch of unrelated people!” incidents).
Hmm… looks like I’m very close to getting started… I’m not a big fan of bull mastiffs — so I think I’ll just go find some beagle puppies now or something. Or maybe see if Honest Hearts can stop crashing loading cells and get some more lone wandering in….
Animaniacs as an adult is wild.
Fingerprints
While I don’t generally hate these things, there were A LOT of adult movie references thrown in in a trying too hard manner.
I hope the Deep Throat reference went over the kids’ heads.
Oh, not *that* type of adult film reference….
Dogman does Dallas?
Animaniacs doesn’t hold up well because all the pop culture references were REALLY short-lived and niche. But that’s always the problem with writing something so in the moment.
See also old South Park, Family Guy, and really any of those shows that used that formula. The only thing that still holds up is the first ten seasons of the Simpsons.
I would add to that list Arrested Development. We tried watching it a while back and it just fell flat.
But Seinfeld (when it didn’t fall into that trap) is still eminently watchable, as it used universal themes.
Forgot about Seinfeld, still a very watchable show.
Seinfeld does still hold up for the most part, but the ubiquity of smart phones destroyed some of its funniest plot lines, like The Chinese Restaurant, and The Movie.
You can add The Office to shows that aged like milk due to rapidly-aging pop culture references.
Spongebob holds up.
Well, this is one reason I date-stamped my books. I really struggled with doing it, but I didn’t want to have someone say, “OMG THIS WRITER KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT TECH AND SOCIAL MEDIA!!!11!1! RICH PEOPLE WOULD HAVE THE LATEST!!!11!1!”
The iPhone didn’t come out till late 2006 and the book starts in 2004, soooo…
Except those guys are my age and therefore all the references are still fresh.
Some of the young dudes I play video games with watch old South Park and Family Guy episodes and will ping me to explain the references they don’t get. Or better still, sometimes I’ll be watching their stream and laugh at a punchline that they had no idea was a punchline. Abe Simpson status snuck up on me too fast.
Looney Tunes are history lessons now, with their references to (e.g.) Wendell Wilkie and A cards.
I am reading George Elliot’s Middlemarch right now, and, due to the fact that it was written in 1835 or so, on almost every page there is a footnote explaining all sorts of cultural references from the period that have almost zero meaning at this point almost 200 years later.
/Nods, fastens onion to belt.
Ya got five bees for a quarter, Shpip?
Four score does.
Good Morning, all y’all!
Considering some of the previous administration’s choices on the Medal of Freedom, not just yes but hell, yes to awarding one to Thomas Sowell. Should have been made years ago.
Though Sowell and Trump are at opposite ends of the economic spectrum.
So it is the day of the hog in the ground how the weather lookin?
6C and cloudy.
Good Morning. It was 5F when i woke up; it’s up to 11F right now. I just got a nice fire going in the woodstove, so we should be up to around 60F indoors in a bit.
woodstove – you people ate so primitive
Meanwhile in Texas…
Weren’t the Germans burning anything they could very recently there, Pie? Give NetZero EU mandates a chance to affect your country — and you may yearn for the days of a woodstove… (for your box in the road! Luxury…..)
I’m enjoying the nice heat from the wood furnace while using the savings to pay for my communications bills.
When you come to a box in the road, take it.
so primitive
What else would you expect in Glib’s Gulch? He didn’t mention that WebDom was out there chopping the wood for him to put in the woodstove.
“woodstove…you people are so primitive”
Some of humanity’s early innovations cant really be improved on. Nothing beats the warm glow and cozy warmth of a wood stove.
6 more weeks of winter for you lot.
That’s why I’ll be in Miami next week – winter break.
Boring today — but apparently there’s a storm cell lurking just off the Pacific coast that they must expect to stall out over central California for a while — we have a forecast of a good chance of rain all this week and a flood watch (presumably because we haven’t had a lot of rain and they’re worried about debris in the drainage systems… that’s typical for the first good rains of the year. Downside to living in what was an inland sea floor at one point — if you don’t drain, it floods easily.
But looking forward to that personally, because any rain is nice in these here parts.
Cloudy and 32 degrees F here in SW Ohio (0 degrees C, IIRC?) Bodes well for early spring, but the local “official” prognosticating critter hasn’t weighed in yet – the local “Museum of Discovery” holds a Hedgehog Day, saying it’s a Roman tradition that predates Groundhog Day. That shindig doesn’t kick off until noon. Apparently Walnut the Four-Toed Hedgehog is a bit of a lie-abed.
Punxsutawney, PA Weather Conditions 21 F ( -6 C ) and sunny, slight wind chill.
24 F and faintly cloudy here on the Delaware state line. Supposed to get wet on Tuesday, which is normally a traveling day, so I’ll probably postpone my trip until Wednesday.
Going to be chilly out here. Not yet dawn and it is 70 (feels like 64) and an expected high of 79.
You misspelled “roasty”, dbleagle
Which one of you is this?
12:13 p.m. A man was convinced that “agents of the deep state” are entering his apartment through a hidden closet entrance and have re-arranged his shirts and broken his air rifle. He then threatened utilizing the “Castle Doctrine” and accused the police officer of being a “deep state prick” before hanging up.</a
“3:21 p.m. Some Flathead High kids were “terrorizing” a store.”
I am just imagining D’FENS and is son taking away the owners defense shotgun, stealing all the Ho-Ho’s, and asking “Choo got no BudWiser, man?”
Yeesh, file under (soon to be) self-fulfilling prophecy.
“totality of the circus”
Death by clowns? Cruel and unusual, but I’d let it slidewhistle in this case.
Holy shit, clown attack!
Not all clowns wear red noses, some have brass shields.
David Hogg is the vice chair of the DNC. This news makes me giggle every time I repeat it. They analyzed their loss, met and discussed options, and yelled full speed ahead.
What little I read on it this morning pretty much said “It happened because all the other candidates sucked even harder.”
Impressive.
He represents the young, white male demographic! We’ve got success lined up now!!!
Soyboss energy?
Isn’t the DNC chair the soyboss? Which makes Hogg his soy-boy.
Are we sure the Democrats have abandon their DEI strategy? Two white [sorta] males?
That’ll bring back the Hispanic and black vote, there’s nothing better than a lily white boy who gets his panties in a twist over guns/misgendering/off color jokes/offensive words being used/etc/ and another etc to bring them in. They love that stuff, especially the guys.
Yep, and it will rope the working class in as well!
Fucker will probably be president in 30 years.
Don’t immanentize the Idiocracy.
I am disapointed by the lack of excitment here at the prospect of a fat Slovene playing for the Lakers
Or is it slovenian. Same difference.
Fat Slov works best.
Since I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about — I feel quite satisfied with my lack of excitement. Or was that lack of interest? Either works.
NBA; DR
Point is Dallas could have gotten more than AD and a first for Luka.
Just another example of red state Texas wanting no part of immigrant labor.
Although maybe if they got the Lakers to throw Bronny James in the deal, LeBron would opt out from the Lakers and join the Mavs next season.
I’m excited by our Slovenian first lady.
Bikini Slutty Sunday in honor of our resident Florida Man.
https://archive.is/BqB8H
“a stark reminder that professional sport, for all its glitz, still doesn’t offer a viable financial model for many athletes”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/tennis/article-14333719/Tennis-OnlyFans-Arina-Rodionova-messages-split-athlete-husband.html
Someone I heard in a podcast recently (don’t remember which one) made an interesting observation: Onlyfans is either the apotheosis or the utter failure (or both) of feminism. After 100 years of special attention, programs and focus, resulting ultimately in what many would consider institutionally favored status across society; more education, more professional success, more money, etc., what we end up with is record numbers of women turning to prostitution.
This is not a moralization, just a gee-whiz reflection that maybe working full time and being a breadwinner isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Imo it is also a reflection of the sadness and lameness of a lot of modern men. I cannot for the life of me understand why someone would pay for onlyfans.
They pretend to like you and have a personal relationship with you and a lot of dumbasses out there apparently think they have a chance even if it’s one in a million. It is sad but they don’t get to feed their delusions in the same manner jerking off to free porn.
Yeah, and it probably costs more than a handy downtown, too!
Just get an escort.
The simp factor is another question entirely and I am also mystified who exactly the hell are these men that are paying.
It’s certainly a reflection of just how dysfunctional relations between the sexes have gotten in a post-pill, post-feminism world.
I think it’s probably closer to a spectrum, where you have really desperate, sad, lonely, “incel” types, for lack of a less beaten-to-death term, at the far end, who legitimately are substituting e-girl subscriptions for genuine relationships. And then on the opposite end, you have bog-standard perverts who just like exerting some creative control over the smut they consume, like going to a tailor for a bespoke suit instead of buying off the rack.
Jordan Peterson has said that the pill changed us in significant ways we haven’t a clue the extent of, and he was also speaking physically, as in, our bodies (soy, estrogen in the water supply).
Just get an escort.
Illegal in all but ex-urban Nevada.
You don’t understand. They’re doing it now of their own volition, so it’s empowerment, not exploitation. Don’t you remember how all of those freed slaves became strong, independent sharecroppers that didn’t need no whitey?
“what we end up with is record numbers of women turning to prostitution”
Is it more than before, or just on the internet now?
Maybe it’s now a case of women who can monetize their looks/a kink in a relatively safe environment and with privacy. No more walking the streets or touching people or getting an STD. It’s an alternative money-maker that under less faborable conditions, they wouldn’t have done it.
True.
(Although for most women on OF it isn’t much of a money maker.)
No, but most restaurants fail quickly and so do most other enterprises, especially creative ones where the signal-to-noise ratio is insane.
(Although for most women on OF it isn’t much of a money maker.)
Likewise substack, for a different version of selling one’s self.
Yes, but there are a bunch of impressionable young women without much business sense who believe the hype that they’re going to be instant millionaires.
Came here for school, graduated to the high life. Ball players, rap stars, addicted to the limelight…
Q – do you not contemplate the irony of posting this right after your link to bikini-clad women?
It’s a psyop.
wut
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/bloke-whose-wife-hacked-manhood-34197444
What couple hasn’t at one point or another taking the gardening shears to their partner’s sex organs?
Fucking wordpress.
Update:
“Captain Rebecca Lobach is identified as third Black Hawk pilot who died in collision with American Airlines flight in DC”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14350659/Black-Hawk-helicopter-Rebecca-Lobach-identified-DC-plane-crash.html
Family statement included the very unfortunate “she had an impact on a lot of peoples’ lives”.
Dammit, saw a tweet this morning that said she worked in Biden’s White House all 4 years, and her social media accounts were deleted before they release her name, but I didn’t save the tweet.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/02/female-pilot-rebecca-lobach-had-her-entire-social/
Fuck the vultures that wanted to dig into it to demonize her. We have been given here an insight into helo operation by Ozy, wherein even the very best at it have mishaps. Again, fuck the vultures (who couldn’t fly one of the things if you put a gun to their head).
Welp, that’s bananas.
Fuck the vultures that wanted to dig into it to demonize her.
Having a narrative and hammering events into shape to fit it is not exclusive to the left.
That’s the poison that is DEI.
It clouds if a person merits his or her position.
In this case I have no idea and no opinion. Everybody makes mistakes. Fortunately most of us have lower consequences with professional mistakes.
two crew members, names released ~immediately. The 3rd withheld fro 3 days and when identified, social media has been scrubbed (assuming facts as reported, always a dangerous assumption). If thinking, “huh, that’s weird, what’s being obfuscated here?” makes me ‘a vulture’, well then, squawk, squawk.
Retired naval aviator Ward Carroll gives a solid analysis of what we know so far about the incident.
Surprisingly (or maybe not), one of his sources is from Reddit.
I still get a feeling that the ghost of Kara Hultgreen is staring at the crash site wistfully from her grave at Arlington, saying “You chaps are slow learners, aren’t you?”
I have no particular expertise on this topic. But the radar track is pretty damn probative to this layman. Everything objective I’ve read is pretty explicit – on that helicopter flight path (helo-4?), pilots are restricted to hug the eastern shoreline of the river and maximum altitude is 200 ft. The radar tracks show the airline following the correct approach for runway 1 and clearly show the helicopter veering slightly out over the river and climbing through at least 300 ft at the time of the collision. For me, baring any extraordinary circumstances that are not apparent, while everything is subject to final investigation, this really looks like a minor (?) error on the part of the helicopter crew that turned into a major disaster.
David Hogg is the vice chair of the DNC. This news makes me giggle every time I repeat it. They analyzed their loss, met and discussed options, and yelled full speed ahead.
He and his Prairie Populist leader will get that ship flying on the straight and narrow.
“White males to the rescue!”
Panty peeler.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/just-jane/my-cringe-boyfriend-talks-like-32655306
Related:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvz-uWIKjxk
Like any good showman, he just needs to learn how to read the room correctly.
That said, some people take coitus a bit too seriously. Lighten up, Francis. It’s supposed to be fun.
The Hogg thing is hilarious because it’s just another example of old fuckers picking the biggest dork social pariah to represent the yoots.
Olds: “He’s such a nice young man! He’ll get us the young people votes!”
Youngs: ” Who the fuck is this dorkass retard liser?”
“Punxsutawney Phil makes his Groundhog Day winter prediction
The world-famous prognosticating groundhog Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow when he emerged from his den in western Pennsylvania early Sunday, meaning six more weeks of winter, according to the beloved and age-old 132-year-old folklore.”
https://nypost.com/2025/02/02/us-news/punxsutawney-phils-groundhog-day-weather-report-in-pennsylvania/
Specifically general, or generally specific?
You can’t believe my wife, it’s just an old wife’s tale
Thanks, Juris. I haven’t heard that in forever.
I saw something last night about Canada sealing the border and shutting off all shipments of energy and resources. They told us Trump would start a global war. If only we had listened.
Ruthless
“Minnesota nice has two sides: Minnesota nice is a pleasant, earnest ability to engage with people publicly, and it is also a private ruthlessness and a coldness that only comes when you’ve lived in 10-degree-below weather half your life,” said John Bisognano, who worked with Martin at the ASDC and now serves as the president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “Ken will cut you if he has to, but that ruthlessness is what we need to achieve electoral success.”
Martin looked to cement that image in his first remarks to the press as chair on Saturday, after defeating Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler, who had the backing of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
“I’ve always viewed my role as a chair of the Democratic Party to take the low road, so my candidates and elected officials can take the high road, meaning, I’m going to throw a punch,” Martin said.
He suggested, implicitly, that he would be a departure from the party’s previous chair, Jaime Harrison, telling reporters, “This is a new DNC” and that “we’re taking the gloves off.”
He’s a cold blooded Mafia don. Cross him and you’ll be sleeping with the fishes. That’s what makes democracy special.
Yes, the DNC’s problem was that it was too darn nice to people with differing opinions.
So the state party that gave us Dean Phillips, Amy Klobuchar, Tim Walz, Walter Mondale, and Hubert Humphrey thinks that what the rest of America
wantsneeds is another upper Midwest progressive? Please, keep going with that.Yeah, it really has that “don’t interrupt an enemy making a mistake” vibe, doesn’t it?
a feeling of superiority when I think of myself as wisely sitting above the fray watching the deluded masses
Starting a fresh thread with this…
Generally speaking, most of humankind wants to follow, they want someone else to lead. Those who don’t want to follow generally end up in leadership (of one form or another – nothing is universal). Then there are those who want to neither lead nor follow – that be us.
I think, very generally speaking, that is accurate. What I am talking about is something I think is adjacent to that fact. We may not want to lead, and we obviously don’t want to follow, but we definitely enjoy pontificating and critiquing others. If we were purely interested in minding our own business and leaving others to mind their own the best path to follow seems to me to be that of the grey man. Do what you want, but rub the blue mud in your belly button when the culture dictates that you do so, and don’t worry about what others do, especially don’t talk about it because that can only draw attention to your heretical views, which in turn doesn’t prevent others from curtailing your scope of action, but rather encourages them to do so.
You mean we’re human after all? [Although the Rag-and-bone-Man one may have been more appropriate.]
Yes, that is a fair restatement of my point. I’m not calling us out as worse about this sort of thing, just questioning how much better we are.
Unfortunately, even for individualist curmudgeonly assholes, community is still a basic human need. So in spite of ourselves, we congregate with other individualist, curmudgeonly assholes who have at least passingly similar viewpoints as our own, and the more socially ambitious of us even deign to proselytize our ideas to the normies. And it’s a good thing for that sub-minority, because they sometimes manage to drag humanity kicking and screaming into social progress. The more meek among us, even if we might like to keep our eccentric viewpoints confined to our weirdo communities, occasionally have our beliefs violated sufficiently that we are obligated to express them, even if passively. For example, during the height of COVID hysteria when I was required to wear an utterly useless Home Depot particle mask in public, I decorated it with “FUCK SISOLAK” in black sharpie. During the same time period, in an utterly uncharacteristic outburst of public anger, I viciously berated a power tripping old harpy employed by my local grocery store after she chased me down for momentarily having my mask below my mouth while I took an urgent phone call from my cancer-stricken mother. She seemed surprised to learn that there are several words in the dictionary that rhyme with “bunt” and “duck.” It was of no benefit, of course, but certain indignities should not be suffered quietly strictly out of respect for the truth. Or stated less verbosely, a right not exercised at the proper time can easily be lost, so there are rare moments when social conditions behoove our participation, in spite of our misgivings.
Pat, I think your first point about community is absolutely a valid response to my point, although I’d point out that to some extent what we are both talking about in that regard is at least adjacent to what we mock as virtue signaling in other contexts. The Solzhenitsyn quote and your encounters with the maskstapo are something different, standing up for yourself and for positions you believe in is a different phenomenon and a meritorious one if doing so took effort and potentially had even a small impact in conveying the idea that the masks were oppressive theater.
I want to be clear, on the virtue signaling side of things where I think our band of curmudgeons, decidedly including me, goes wrong is not in doing it, or even in calling other people out for doing it, it’s in believing that we don’t do it. Virtue signaling is a loaded term and I think the phenomenon is more accurately described as tribal membership signaling. Virtue has little to do with it, it’s more akin to wearing an insignia identifying yourself as part of a group, and as long as one recognizes that it’s kind of a harmless social custom. The part that should be roundly mocked is the preening aspect. If you think your tribal signals make you superior; you are wrong. Doing comfortable things is not necessarily bad, but it’s very seldom virtuous. That takes sacrifice.
I’d agree. However, I do think that being a member of an “out-group,” for lack of a better term, is more self-limiting in that regard. Because our viewpoints are rarely dignified with the attention of the mainstream, let alone its acquiescence or accolades, our group identification carries little social prestige. Being the uttermost libertarian is the definition of a tallest dwarf competition. We’re probably less likely to get high on our own farts, simply because the benefit for doing so would be so minuscule, whereas holding the political and social viewpoints common to the world’s most powerful and influential governments and corporations (which may be redundant), carries with it a vanity owing to social prestige to which we, perhaps mercifully, are likely less susceptible.
“He ran the DFL with an iron fist, was very impressive,” said a Democratic strategist, also granted anonymity to discuss Martin candidly. “He’s like Stalin, and I say that as a compliment.”
He’s our man. He’ll make the gulags run on time.
JFC.
How to convince me you are an unredeemable asshole in 10 words or less.
*Irredeemable asshole in 10 words or fewer
I think that qualifies.
Pedantry is its own redemption.
Its the pedantry that always brings me back.
Night of the long knives
The accounts of Driscoll’s actions shed new light on a chaotic series of events over the last 48 hours that began with the news that the Trump administration was seeking to purge the top ranks of the FBI’s career civil servants.
“Late this afternoon, I received a memo from the acting Deputy Attorney General notifying me that eight senior FBI executives are to be terminated by specific dates, unless these employees have retired beforehand,” Driscoll wrote. “I have been personally in touch with each of these impacted employees.”
He said in the memo that he had also been directed to provide the DOJ by noon on Tuesday a list of all FBI employees involved in Capitol riot cases, and also those involved in a case against a Hamas leader.
No one contacted by NBC News had a sense of the new administration’s interest in the Hamas case, but the focus on Jan. 6 was clear. The Trump administration apparently believes that all of the Jan. 6 cases should not have been brought.
Since it was the largest criminal investigation in U.S. history, thousands of FBI personnel were involved, as Driscoll acknowledged in his memo.
In a holy war the sinners and heretics must be rooted out by any means necessary. Mercy and restraint are unaffordable luxuries.
Jan6 prosecutions: Meanwhile leaders of violent, anti-American violent communist organizations from the 1970’s are serving as elected officials and college professors.
Pelosi, Schumer, Obama…most people aren’t buying your reichstag fire bullshit. We know exactly what you are doing.
I’m only human
Re: Onlyfans discussion above
“Then we must change human nature!” – Khrushchev on being informed that Socialism fails because it is contrary to human nature.
A huge amount of human misery, disillusion, chronic unhappiness, unfulfillment, etc. is due to attempts to thwart human nature. It has never worked, it doesnt work now and it never will work.
Our primary purpose is to reproduce…to pass on our genes. This is true for all species. Some critters exist for that single purpose and that is all they do: mature to the point of mating, lay eggs and then die. Others are more complex but the mission remains the same.
Human males generally try to pass on their genes as much as possible then provide for and defend their progeny and partners in pro-generating. That is our purpose and our nature is thus suited.
Women generally try to nest, hatch and nurture children in a safe, secure home. It is in their nature.
The happiest, most fulfilled people you will ever meet are married, have children and a safe, secure home.
People can parse/unpack/ revise that until their jaws fall off. Human nature will still be what it is. Deviations from that have always and will forever result in unhappiness.
Onlyfans is a symptom of a big cultural problem. In the end it will mostly solve itself.
FAA having a banner week.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/us/notam-outage-faa-alerts.html
The Federal Aviation Administration was using a backup system to send real-time safety alerts to pilots late Saturday because its primary one was “experiencing a temporary outage,” the Transportation Department said.
“The primary NOTAM system is experiencing a temporary outage, but there is currently no impact to the National Airspace System because a backup system is in place,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on social media.
With the way front page images are presented with the new WP format, I feel a vague sense of disquiet anticipating the next appearance of volleyball-butt-slap-gif…
Legal experts said that few, if any, of the firings carried out so far by the Trump administration have been legal under civil service laws because the employees were not afforded due process.
The Trump White House argues, though, that the president has the absolute right to fire anyone he wishes in the executive branch. The Supreme Court has ruled that federal employees have a right to a hearing before they are disciplined or terminated.
Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney and NBC News legal contributor, called the firings illegal.
“Career federal employees can be fired for conduct or performance issues, not because they failed to demonstrate political loyalty to the current incumbent of the White House,” said Vance. “Trump ignored controlling law and regulations to do this, and unless the Supreme Court changes their interpretation, any firing of permanent members of the civil service should not stand.”
Even if some of the employees sue and win, they said their public service careers have been irreparably damaged, if not ended.
What? Your sacred reputation has been besmirched? The process is the punishment? The same thing you have been doping to people your entire careers? Guess what- what goes around comes around.
Oh no! Anyway…
One of the Jan. 6 prosecutors fired on Friday told NBC News that they “did nothing wrong” and had no regrets about their work. The person, who asked not to named due to fear of retaliation, said it was discouraging to be fired after seeing Trump pardon violent rioters who attacked police officers.
I was merely following my orders. Just because I agreed with them enthusiastically shouldn’t make me some kind of monster.
Even if 100 actually assaulted LEOs, you treated the other 1400 that did not just like them. Maybe, just maybe, you should have shown a little more sense of discrimination.
At the end of Meet The Press there was an editorial about what Trump meant by his DEI comment after the plane crash…they stated that according to Trump diversity means bad things happen when people of color are put in charge.
That’s utterly false! He meant that bad things happen when women are put in charge.
That air controller DEI program from Obama era on should be hung around every Dem and proggie neck. It is probably not the proximate cause of the recent crash but is certainly a tertiary factor.
RE the dead CPT. Why would she be the pilot in charge after a reported four years in the biden White House? That makes no sense. Her skills would be rusty, at best. To be PIC in that airspace and condition is madness.
Perhaps she was the one being refreshed, and the CWO was the actual senior pilot? Knowing Army of course, rank prevails over MOS capability.
Just cover it all with concrete and turn it into a giant skate park
Not far from where Ceci Carroll lives, a rock-mining company has polluted the air with dust across the San Gabriel Valley, she said.
Now, as crews clean charred remains from the Los Angeles wildfires, she worries about a new potential source of contamination: a site to process hazardous debris from the Eaton Fire.
“I’m concerned about the community and also the school districts here, where we have children,” said Carroll, a Duarte resident of 23 years and former local school board member.
“We’re dealing with the site with the chemicals and hazardous materials,” she said. “Parents are absolutely concerned.”
Carroll is among residents from Duarte, Azusa and nearby cities opposing the Environmental Protection Agency’s use of Lario Park in Irwindale as a temporary site to separate, package and transport potentially hazardous materials from the Eaton Fire.
It’ll be five years before anything even starts to happen.
That’s the poison that is DEI.
It clouds if a person merits his or her position.
This is the most pernicious aspect. One would expect the truly talented and qualified “minority” individuals who have worked their way into positions of skill, trust and authority to be the most vocal opponents.
Well, we’re assuming merit was all that mattered in the first place. Once again – meritocracy was coined as a pejorative.
The blazes that began on Jan. 7 charred thousands of buildings, cars and electronics across the Los Angeles area. The EPA has begun the enormous task of removing potentially hundreds of tons of hazardous materials from the Eaton and Palisades fires. That includes paints, pesticides, solvents, compressed gas cylinders, ammunition and lithium-ion batteries from electric cars that could turn toxic when burned.
“The removal of these materials should not come at the cost of creating a toxic environment for communities already disproportionately impacted by pollution,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis said in a statement.
The EPA is going to
lootinspect those neighborhoods before the property owners will be allowed in?They haven’t even nailed two boards together in Lahaina and it was a smaller fire. The Cali Coastal Commission must be needing fluids after their repeated orgasms from the fires. They won’t permit a damn thing to be rebuilt to the prior standards and have not been shy about ignoring Cali Guv’s calls for rapid action.
But isn’t there a concert tonight that supposed to make everything alright?
Even if 100 actually assaulted LEOs, you treated the other 1400 that did not just like them. Maybe, just maybe, you should have shown a little more sense of discrimination.
They desecrated the sacred temple of democracy! They should all have been burned at the stake.
“It is not just that Rebecca Lobach is gone from social media, both her sisters and parents were scrubbed as well. This sister had a LinkedIn and an X which you can see clearly on Google, but the pages are gone. Another sister has a Pinterest account that’s been scrubbed as well.… ”
Well, that does seem a bit sus.
RE the dead CPT. Why would she be the pilot in charge after a reported four years in the biden White House? That makes no sense. Her skills would be rusty, at best. To be PIC in that airspace and condition is madness.
I saw something last night by accident (I have not the slightest idea if it is true) claiming that flight was a training/refresher for the “continuity of government” program in which vital members of the government are picked up and whisked away to secure havens. If that is true, might not a trusted political officer be just the sort of person used?