Technical Difficulties Substitution Morning Links

by | Jan 6, 2023 | Daily Links | 363 comments

Due to technical difficulties, you’ll be getting me throwing up some morning links this first Friday of the new year.

Let’s start with some good news, I’m somewhat surprised that I haven’t seen anyone link this yet this year.  Welcome to the works that have entered the public domain this year.  Now we can all get the horror movie remake of the Jazz Singer that someone was clamoring for.

Our long national nightmare continues, as the House of Representatives still has not elected a Speaker.  The scare articles about the “paralysis of US government” are entertaining to me.

Ex-football player saves drowning children.  At least one (ex)-Brown didn’t let someone d(r)own.

Did anyone have Altered Carbon as our next dystopian future?

Back flips are not part of the standard roadside sobriety tests.

Biden did some good by pardoning people.  Of course, most of them were already out of jail, and are just getting their records cleared.

The Bills/Bengals game that was suspended on Monday will not be continued.  The teams are supposed to be meeting today to vote on playoff arrangements.  All I want this weekend is for the Browns and the Bengals to win.

Can I request that we get rid of the word “quiet” to rename something that already existed?

In entertainment news, I will recommend both The Menu (black comedy/thriller movie), as well as Marvel’s Midnight Suns (video game) if you need some distractions this weekend.

I’ll leave you with some music to get your day going, and a song for you to save and play next week.

(UPDATED LATE LINK: McCarthy offers deal to end standoff in House speaker fight.  I call upon this community to fact check the first two paragraphs.)

About The Author

Nephilium

Nephilium

Nephilium is a geek of multiple types living in the vast suburban forests of Cleveland.

363 Comments

  1. UnCivilServant

    In unrelated news (sorry for the early OT) I formally accepted the new job that’s just a lateral but outside of my current manager’s realm.

    And I thought Metropolis was already public domain. Silly me.

    • UnCivilServant

      Ooooo… Miss Marple is public domain now?

    • slumbrew

      Congrats on the new gig

      • UnCivilServant

        Thank you.

        I know I’ll be able to do the work because all of my fretting is about things like the parking. So deep down even my subconscious knows the work isn’t an issue.

        👍

      • AlexinCT

        Congrats. Do not let them give you a red stapler, ask for it back, then send you to the basement with a can of roach spray!

      • SDF-7

        He could… um… burn the building down… he went to payroll and they told him to talk to management but management sent him to HR which sent him to payroll and he was promised to not to have to move his desk again and really, he could just burn the building down….

      • UnCivilServant

        I have three black staplers.

        Not sure what that means.

        As for the bugs, that’s out of title work, and according to contract I can refuse.

      • AlexinCT

        Milton UCS.

    • SDF-7

      Yup, congrats… since it sounds like this was something you wanted. 😉

      • UnCivilServant

        Just found out I have a couple of cowokers that I’d never heard of who report to the manager I’m leaving.

        This guy is not good at sharing information.

    • DrOtto

      You people really don’t read the links, do you? This sounds like an example of “quiet hiring”, which makes it on topic. Also, congratulations.

      • UnCivilServant

        I reject that term.

        The new role is more managerial and less technical, with a larger span of control.

    • DEG

      Congratulations on the new job!

      • UnCivilServant

        Thank you.

        When I told my current direct reports, the reaction was “Take us with you.” There are enough openings in the new team that I might be able to do that, I just have to do it within the rules and make sure it’s all above board. (It helps that they have experience with the software the new group supports, so their qualifications fit the roles)

      • juris imprudent

        qualifications fit the roles

        Sounds merit-based, we will have none of that! You need diversity!!!

    • Grosspatzer

      McCarter Theater 1967, young Grosspatzer’s first concert, my introduction to all those wonderful things my parents warned me about. And boy did they kick ass.

  2. Grosspatzer

    But, according to a report, police observed 6 clues of impairment as Watson took a horizontal gaze test.

    Swiss hardest hit?

    • Rat on a train

      Swiss could easily pass a gaze test.

      • juris imprudent

        Cop spreads hands as far apart as he can two steps away from Swiss and asks him to count fingers without moving his head.

  3. SDF-7

    Sorry — 2K lost me when they started forcing their launcher as a retro patch in Civ 6 and back to Civ 5 and put in some tracking software and whatnot. They eventually pulled some of it back when everyone told them they suck, but they’re on my permanent blacklist as a result. So no Midnight Suns.

    Morning all you happy reprobates.

    • Nephilium

      The launcher is a sore spot because it causes some massive performance issues. Thankfully, there’s ways to disable it.

      • SDF-7

        The cynical part of me thinks that they slipped some of that data scraping / tracking software back in and that’s what’s eating cpu and causing the perf drops.

        The more rational side of me thinks “Nah, they just employed the suckiest coders they can who don’t sleep the forking process until the child exec returns (success or error assuming they need/want to check the game return value) and probably do something REALLY stupid like keep a graphics loop going when the game has taken the foreground. Because it is easier, what they could steal from Internet examples, and 2K doesn’t give a shit.”

      • SDF-7

        Well, I’ll definitely stipulate that 2K doesn’t give a shit either way. 😉 Hence putting them on my personal blacklist.

      • Rat on a train

        99% of coding is copypasta from internet searches.

      • UnCivilServant

        Wait, what? You mean I’ve been doing things the hard way?

      • Nephilium

        From personal experience, the launcher is shitty and would keep reporting the game running long after the process was d-e-d. You can search for ways to disable it on other games as well.

      • SDF-7

        Yeah, I’ve got the opt-in for the pre-launcher builds on Steam for Civ, everything else I just uninstalled and won’t buy from them again. That handles it well enough for me.

      • Nephilium

        Fair enough. This was my first experience with their shitty launcher, and I was not a fan of that. The game I really enjoyed though. There’s been quite a bit of articles clamoring for a death to launchers in response to finding out that the poor performance in game was rectified by disabling the launcher. Of course, EA and Ubi both force a launcher, and Bethesda tried to use one.

      • Fourscore

        “Due to technical difficulties, you’ll be getting me throwing up”…

        C’mon, man, we’re low end friends but some are not that bad

        On a brighter note, I just got a delivery of propane, 55 cents a gallon cheaper than the last load from a year ago. Still not cheap @ 2.40 a gal.

        Yippee, Brandon !

      • Nephilium

        Oh sure… fisk my intro to make me look bad worse. 🙂

        Local news had a story about the warmer then usual January causing natural gas prices to drop. You know, since most of us weren’t using much at that time.

  4. Certified Public Asshat

    That’s not just because it might mean that humanity will simply have to exist with the glare from an immortal Jeff Bezos’ glistening scalp for eternity, but because such technology might mean that people like Bezos, whose money equals a whole lot of power, would be able to continue compounding that wealth and power for, well, forever.

    He needs to regrow his hair first.

    “Suppose, for example, we had a kind of vaccine for the pandemic of age,” Christopher Wareham, a bioethicist at Utrecht University who studies the ethics of aging, told The Financial Times. “This is going to potentially exacerbate all the kinds of existing inequalities that we have… The longer you’re around, the more your wealth compounds, and the wealthier you are, the more political influence you have.”

    An age vaccine that doesn’t stop the spread of aging.

    • SDF-7

      Organlegging and ARM here we come, I suppose.

      • Nephilium

        First step, require permission to have children.

        Second step, ??????

        Third step, PROFIT!

      • robc

        Gil Hamilton would make a good netflix/hulu series.

      • robc

        In a long ago discussion on here of what I would do if I owned the Sci-Fi network (first step, change its name back to that), some of my ideas didn’t* age well. But the one to buy the rights to Known Space and create a show called “Tales of Known Space” still seems like a great idea. Anthology show, doing episodes from different lines of Known Space. Some would be single episodes, some would be multi-episode stories. ARM would probably cover a series of multiple episode stories.

        *Giving Whedon a 5 year guarantee to let his story arc complete.

      • SDF-7

        Yup… plus Niven’s never seemed the type to turn down some bucks, so you’d think it would have happened. Makes one wonder if someone bought the rights and has never figured out how to really do anything with them yet for their own reasons.

        Episodes showing how ARM and the UN were manipulating things for docility and stability before the Kzin showed up would be particularly apt these days.

      • Sean

        Bring back Dark Matter!

      • Nephilium

        Man… I thought I was the only one who watched that.

        I’ll push for Alphas to complete their store as well.

      • SDF-7

        One of us! One of us! (I missed it when it came out, but picked it up later… I thought they lost the thread a bit in the middle of Season 3 but were pulling it back together a bit by the end, yeah).

    • Grosspatzer

      Blood suckers live forever, it is known.

    • Rebel Scum

      This pandemic nonsense is getting old.

  5. Drake

    The Chiefs need to add swimming and basic life-guarding skills to their training schedule. Way back in the day, I was heartbroken when my favorite player in the NFL died trying to save kids from drowning.

    • Rat on a train

      Drownproofing in full uniform like the Army?

      • robc

        Or Georgia Tech pre-1987 (My freshman class was the first without a drownproofing course requirement).

      • cyto

        I didn’t know GaTech had that too. When I was at UNC it was a minor cause with the black fraternities… black folks didn’t swim as much as white folk at the time, or so the story went. I taught my roommate and my ex to swim for the test.

        The ex wife was the best… she was a cheerleader and an athlete, so she had low body fat. Part of the test was to do the dead man float. Her low body fat meant that even with her chest fully inflated, she sank. She floated about 2-3 feet underwater, lifted by the only body part with extra fat …. that boots.

        So she hung suspended like a jellyfish under her butt, arms and legs dangling down. There was no coaching out of that. She was just going to have to either gain 10 pounds or hope they didn’t care that she couldn’t float while being still.

      • The Last American Hero

        Did they play with your leg hair?

      • Rat on a train

        Interesting. Did they have other physical fitness requirements? I didn’t take any when I attended.

      • robc

        I had to take either one fitness class or a health class. I took the fitness one and chose the running option over the swimming option.

      • Pine_Tree

        I was a Freshman in ’89 so didn’t have it. But my dad was a Freshman in ’61, so it was a required part of my childhood.

  6. Shirley Knott

    Pretty funny that the picture for Eluard is Dali’s portrait. The two had a pretty acrimonious falling out.

  7. Certified Public Asshat

    KK from yesterday:

    Speaking of non-binary, my friend & hub, who are up here in CT for the funeral, tell me their daughter (whom I last saw maybe 10 years ago) is now a 17-year-old “they”. They (the couple) said they are encouraging they (the daughter) to hold off on any big decisions.

    The whole convo about their (the daughter) future college plans, etc. was confusing af.

    Interestingly, this is a couple that are generally lefty and plugged into the DNC and they’re (the couple) skeptical of the entire thing.

    next comment

    I think they (the daughter) wants to do the whole kit n kaboodle. They (the daughter) already changed their (the daughter) name, legally.

    My friend and I have known each other since college, so we discussed the pitfalls of people their (the daughter) age making those kinds of decisions.

    I still don’t know what a non-binary transitions to and why is a name change necessary?

    • SDF-7

      Possibly from hexadecimal down to octal? And you’d have to change names because you can’t use 0x8h to 0xFh digits after that.

    • R C Dean

      “I still don’t know what a non-binary transitions to”

      They don’t physically “transition” at all, as near as I can tell. Dunno if they screw up their own hormones medically, although I suppose they might if they are going for some kind of sterile drone middle ground.

      “why is a name change necessary”

      You’ve got to do something to get the attention you crave. The idiotic, illiterate pronouns only get you so far, because in my experience people quickly stop trying to use them (because they make whoever is using them sound idiotic and illiterate), and just start referring to you by your name.

      • Rat on a train

        Yep. If corporate ever forced the use of preferred pronouns I would just use last names. Change those all you want.

      • R C Dean

        I recall a conversation with one of our execs, who is totally bought in to the whole DEI nonsense (outwardly, at least, and I suspect is likely a troo bleever) about one of our managers who wanted the plural pronouns. After a couple minutes, we both gave up (I have to admit, I may have intentionally botched and corrected my verb agreement a couple of times) and started using her name. At some level, you know you are being had and your willingness to play along runs out.

      • cyto

        I think it is all in the hair. If you go with neon hair and maybe a face piecing, it makes you non-binary.

        Chubby helps too.

    • Michael Malaise

      Some of my daughter’s friends have alternate names that are just frankly stupid. It’s just fantasy.

      One is Aspen. Her given name is Olivia. Another’s is Enzo even through her name is Eliana.

  8. Stinky Wizzleteats

    Where were all of you on January 6th?
    *assumes thousand yard stare*
    I know I’ll never forget…

    • slumbrew

      I was making Rufus proud and working.

    • Drake

      Come to the reunion!

    • SDF-7

      I’m 2 years behind on the podcast for the radio show I used to listen to when I commuted… And finally got to January 6th. Been dreading their reaction since they’ve already been looking forward to getting the vax shot and heavy on the “There may have been voter fraud but not enough to turn the election, so this is all crap!” side of things… so I fully expect a month of getting on the rah-rah-threat-to-our-democracy bandwagon. They’re normally pretty small-l libertarian… but are also pretty law and order / cops are heroes…. so this is gonna suck probably. Ah well, need to get through it so I can catch up.

      • Zwak, who has his own double cross to bear.

        Dude, it’s a podcast. It is never worth catching up.

    • wdalasio

      I was working from home. I remember because the whole story gave me a chuckle over lunch.

    • R C Dean

      I was working at the office, and saw something about it all on the ‘tubes. I recall having a couple of thoughts:

      (1) So Congress is a dysfunctional shitshow? Why is this news?

      (2) Hmm. Not nearly as bad as the rioting when Trump took office.

    • DrOtto

      I remember commenting to a liberal friend in the days that followed who asked me my take on it – “Taking their redress up with the people who caused it? This isn’t going to go over well. They should have burned down and looted private businesses.”

    • Rebel Scum

      At work watching several livestreams of the events, which led me to be able to immediately determine that the government narrative was total, complete, unmitigated horseshit.

    • Nephilium

      My prediction was that if the Bills and Bengals both won on Sunday, they would have just declared it a no contest game. If the Bengals lost, a game would have been “reluctantly” scheduled and the Bills will forfeit. If the Bills lost, the same thing, just with the Bengals forfeiting. That would have required them to hold off on a decision until Sunday afternoon though.

      I was wrong, and even some of the players are unhappy about it.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        From what I can tell, the best summary of what happens now is to assume Buffalo and Cincinnati both lost Monday night.

      • Nephilium

        Not quite, because if that was the case then if the Ravens beat the Bengals on Sunday, the Ravens would win the division. It’s being called as not played, which means that the Ravens have no chance to win the division even if they beat the Bengals, as it goes by win percentage if the teams played a different amount of games. Assuming a Ravens (spit) win, the Bengals would be 11-5, and the Ravens would be 11-6.

      • juris imprudent

        Ravens aren’t exactly on fire right now, Bengals should win.

      • Nephilium

        Yep, and it’s sounding like Jackson isn’t going to be playing for the Ravens on Sunday. I’m sure he’s going to be really happy that he held out for a Watson level contract next year.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Hmm, but then a coin-flip decides who gets home-field in the first round?

      • juris imprudent

        Silly player wants to follow the rules, and not the FEELZ!

    • Drake

      So does everyone in attendance get a refund?

      Nice product placement from a sponsor.

      • cyto

        I was wondering about that too… and not just from a consumer point of view, but also the press reaction.

        Going to an NFL game is a significant financial commitment. I don’t go to NFL games, but here is what bankrate.com says (Google default answer) “In 2012, the average ticket price for an NFL game was just $190. In 2021, however, the average ticket is a much higher $457”

        Add in travel, parking, consessions…. people are spending a lot of money. Just blowing off that kind of cash without mention seems pretty callous.

      • R C Dean

        My guess is they will say you get a refund if the game is cancelled before it starts, but once you go through the gate you have used your ticket, so no refund for you.

      • Drake

        I’d love to see a class action lawsuit against the NFL.

      • cyto

        That would be my supposition as well…. but it should be part of the story.

        “We are horrified that someone had a heart attack” is certainly a story as well… but medical emergencies happen at public events all the time. The UNC – Wake Forest basketball game was interrupted because of a medical emergency in the stands near the court. I don’t think they considered sending everyone home.

        I get that worrying about a teammate makes it different… but there is more to the discussion than “OMG, this is life and death! Football is insignificant at that point!” All of the discussion at the time was “why haven’t they already called the game?!?!”

        Around my house it was “why are they still on the field working on him there? Shouldn’t this be happening in the back of an ambulance?”

      • Rebel Scum

        I get that worrying about a teammate makes it different

        Players are removed from games because of injuries all the time. They should have completed the game.

      • Nephilium

        They’ll graciously give everyone a buy one get one concession coupon for their next event at the stadium (expires in 30 days).

      • Brawndo

        That looks photo shopped but I’m too lazy to confirm. Still funny though.

  9. Sean

    So, is Hamlin’s career over?

    • wdalasio

      Probably. But, who would have the heart to tell him.

      • Rat on a train

        How often have arrests ended NFL careers?

      • Rebel Scum

        If they did the league would collapse.

    • Grumbletarian

      Not sure, but the careers of all the players who quit the game should be over.

      • The Last American Hero

        Why? The refs, coaches and the league made the call.

  10. SDF-7

    ‘Orning ‘ordles: LL is asshoe. That is all.

    Daily Duotrigordle #310
    Guesses: 36/37
    Time: 06:06.11
    https://duotrigordle.com/

    Daily Quordle 347
    4️⃣8️⃣
    🟥5️⃣
    quordle.com

    • rhywun

      No comment.

      Daily Quordle 347
      4️⃣3️⃣
      🟥5️⃣

    • Grosspatzer

      Daily Quordle 347
      6️⃣3️⃣
      9️⃣5️⃣
      quordle.com

      Agreed on LL

    • Grumbletarian

      Daily Quordle 347
      4️⃣3️⃣
      8️⃣5️⃣

    • Cowboy

      GG EZ

      Daily Quordle 347
      4️⃣3️⃣
      6️⃣5️⃣
      quordle.com

    • Grummun

      4 3
      8 5

      LL not a proper word jerkwads

    • kinnath

      Daily Quordle 347
      5️⃣6️⃣
      🟥4️⃣

      four options, three wrong guesses.

    • Tundra

      Daily Quordle 347
      5️⃣6️⃣
      9️⃣4️⃣

      LL is asshoe.

    • Sean

      Daily Quordle 347
      4️⃣5️⃣
      6️⃣3️⃣
      quordle.com

    • Jarflax

      Daily Quordle 347
      6️⃣3️⃣
      7️⃣5️⃣
      quordle.com

    • Penguin

      Daily Quordle 347
      4️⃣5️⃣
      8️⃣6️⃣
      quordle.com
      Had to use a 4th seed word, which isn’t uncommon for me.

  11. The Late P Brooks

    because such technology might mean that people like Bezos, whose money equals a whole lot of power, would be able to continue compounding that wealth and power for, well, forever.

    He needs to regrow his hair first.

    “Immortal wealth and *power* like Henry Ford and John Rockefeller?

    I doubt Bezos would be any more successful at controlling the long term direction of hid legacy.

  12. SDF-7

    Re: UPDATED late link

    It has left Republicans in disarray and exposed anew the fragility of American democracy.

    Democracy means everyone marching in lockstep! Baaaaa!!! Four legs good, two legs BETTER! Four legs good, two legs BETTER!

    I mean, Heaven forfend we elect people that try to actually represent their constituents or the Speaker has to actually persuade / make sufficient deals to get the votes instead of just being annointed or whatnot.

    Yes, I will entirely grant a properly functioning caucus / party would have hashed this crap out behind closed doors probably… but having folks take a stand and push for what they think is needed isn’t a “failure of democracy”, dumbass AP.

    • SDF-7

      Bleah… ok, didn’t make it to the second paragraph yet:

      The deadly attack was an unimaginable scene of chaos that shook the country when a mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters tried to stop Congress from certifying the Republican’s 2020 election defeat.

      This crap again. a) Only deadly because the Capitol Police made it so (at least they didn’t trot out the “7 dead” bullshit. b) Personally, I could imagine it pretty easily.

      • cyto

        Should they go with the more accurate “deadly counterattack”… or maybe with what many suspect is the true descriptor “callously planned psyop setup orchestrated by FBI operatives in coordination with democrat leadership on the hill amd in the press”?

    • juris imprudent

      Some of the stuff they want I can understand and some of it is pure stupid. I’ve heard twice now they want a “rule” requiring a balanced budget. Well dumbshits, Congress passed a fucking LAW doing that years ago; how’s that been working?

      And this is the fundamental problem, they have the votes to veto, but not to control.

    • AlexinCT

      To me this is the elected reps finally fighting the machine. I would much rather have this than them buckling under and selling us out to the machine like they always do.

      • juris imprudent

        Psst – that’s how this is going to end. Even if they succeed in denying McCarthy the Speakership, they won’t get a hardliner – just another GOPe. They are a FRACTION of the total GOP caucus.

      • R C Dean

        True, but as a demonstration of the fringe’s power in a closely divided House, it has some value. Now, if the GOPe decides to ally with the Dems to negate the need for party-line Repub voting to pass bills without concessions to the Dems, well, there’s some value in that demonstration of Uniparty Uber Alles as well.

      • cyto

        Which should be a lesson to any minor political group. The Libertarian caucus could have enough clout to do this in the senate. The congressional black caucus could break ranks and make common cause with Republicans and basically write their own ticket.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Hah! The CBC that refused membership to Donalds would make common cause with Republicans? Right…

      • cyto

        Only because they are stupid.

        My rep was Cythia McKinney for a while. Her staff declined to discuss issues my company needed help with on the basis of “what are you doing here, white boy?” I sent a couple of my black employees to talk with them and we were told “we are going to vote however John Lewis votes.”

        A trip to Lewis’ office confirmed that he was going with his big industry lobbyists. 500 constituents jobs were not really a consideration, nor was race. Show me the money….

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        As with big companies, the woke thing is just good political cover.

        It’s corrupt assholes all the way down.

      • R C Dean

        It’s kind of a parliamentary type coalition to create a majority. Might be interesting if it caught on, a it would be orthogonal to the current crypto-uniparty.

      • cyto

        It could change everything. It could amplify racial divisions… or it could obliterate them for urban poor versus working class divisions.

        It could create single issue blocks like abortion, or it could create regional power coalitions.

        Whatever it did, it would be better than the current “two names, one result” system we have now.

      • Sean

        Psst – that’s how this is going to end.

        *wistful sigh*

        Yeah…most likely.

      • wdalasio

        Yeah, I actually took the liberty of listening to some of these guys’ floor speeches last night. The guys holding out are mostly right wing. So, yeah, they’re no doubt going to have some boiler plate conservative demands (juris imprudent’s balanced budget rule bugaboo, for example). But, the consistent thing these guys were raising is the idea that the leadership in both parties has consolidated so much power in the House that the average member has effectively been rendered a rubber stamp going on the floor for little more than making clips for fundraising and filler for the voters back home. The leaders get together hash out their “compromise” and submit it to a nearly empty House early on a Monday morning for a vote that, surprise, surprise, surprise, passes by unanimous consent. Assuming this is the truth, I can’t blame them for wanting to break the status quo. It’s corrupt and wrong.

      • Rat on a train

        They have to pass legislation to find out what’s in it.

      • wdalasio

        Yeah, I almost wonder if Pelosi’s crime was just saying the quiet part out loud. The leadership seems to look at individual members of their caucuses as, essentially, warm bodies.

      • Compelled Speechless

        I’m not going to sit here and let you say such things about our beloved Fetterlump. He’s a visionary and a goddamn pillar of the community! A modern day Galileo. There’s no way someone like that ascends to a seat of such respect and dignity without being a strong independent-minded fighter for the people he was chosen to represent.

      • cyto

        Funny that our “free press” doesn’t report any of it this way.

      • wdalasio

        Yeah, again, if true, it shouldn’t be surprising. Do you really think the media people really want to spend their time with some nobody Congressman? Centralized leadership probably actually plays better for their agendas. I mean, if you want to paint the story as “good versus evil”, it’s probably not good for the narrative if you’ve got Congressmen on the side making side compromises, even if they might actually make things work better.

      • juris imprudent

        So instead of a few grand tyrants – we need 435 petty ones!

      • R C Dean

        Honestly, I’d take that deal.

      • wdalasio

        So, power never needs to be disbursed. We can vest unlimited power in a single authority and rely on their fundamental good will to respect our rights. Got it.

      • juris imprudent

        The problem isn’t concentration of power within Congress, it is the Congressional tendency to cede it to the Executive. I could live with a Congress operated by a powerful cabal IF it took back the power that properly belongs to it under the Constitution. Not saying that would be perfect, but it would be better than what we’ve got now.

      • Compelled Speechless

        The problem is more than ceding power to the Executive. They cede it more to think tanks and the special interest groups that fund them. What percentage of the omnibus bill that just passed was actually written by one of our elected “legislators” (text book definition: “a person who gives or makes laws.”)? Is it even 2%? They don’t write it and they don’t read it. They vote as they’re told or they’ll be replaced by someone who will.

        That cabal picks and staffs the parties that picks your “two options and one result” as cyto just put it. They seem to be pulling the strings of the executive himself, who obviously isn’t in control of or making decisions about anything. The man is a human highlight real or meandering nonsense if his eyes drift away from the teleprompter.

        What world do you live in where you think that the legislative branch that is operated by such a cabal from the shadows would pick people that would even think about voicing dissent? They didn’t spend their personal fortunes taking over the body so they could install guardrails against themselves and respect a constitution the tells them “no” to any of their whims.

        The problem is power is now almost entirely concentrated in a dark, smoke-filled backroom by a bunch of dudes with no faces petting hairless cats.

      • kinnath

        Impose The Lottery with weighting. The more terms you serve, the more likely you are to win the lottery.

      • Compelled Speechless

        Have you looked at the average congresscritter’s net worth? Clearly they already won a lottery that you’re not allowed to know about.

    • Brawndo

      One of the demands is term limits for Reps and Senators. Even if McCarthy gives in to that demand, wouldn’t a bill that passed the House have to also pass the Senate and NOT get vetoed by Biden? It’d be DoA

      • Rebel Scum

        The purpose of such votes would be to show voters (at least the ones that actually pay attention) where reps stand on the issue(s).

      • juris imprudent

        Yeah, that’s gonna really excite the Republican base.

        Yawn

      • R C Dean

        As the Dems have shown, relentlessly proposing bills after they have been voted down many times is how you move the agenda forward.

      • cyto

        Relentlessly propose them, get voted down, then shove them into an omnibus spending bill during the reconciliation process without discussion.

      • Compelled Speechless

        Nobody is going to notice in a 4,000 page document that literally not one person actually read. How’s that “representative democracy” working out for ya?

      • juris imprudent

        OK, let’s assume for shits and giggles that the House passed a term limit law, and the Senate concurred and the President signed it.

        Congratulations – it’s unconstitutional.

      • UnCivilServant

        From my understanding, what was put forward was actually an amendment.

      • juris imprudent

        The only way the amendment ever sells to the public is to make it apply to everyone else’s Representative and Senator, because I like voting mine back into office. /American voter

      • juris imprudent

        Wait – you mean this?

      • Ownbestenemy

        Like that has ever stopped them before.

      • Compelled Speechless

        Remember when forcing you to buy insurance was unconstitutional? Remember when preventing the exercise of free speech, the press or the right to peacefully assemble in places like a church was unconstitutional? They just proved that they can get away with suspending any of that if enough people get the sniffles. At what point do you stop believing that a piece of paper that grants you some “rights” will do anything more than just slow them down a little. I suppose it’s something, but it’s pretty obvious we need another long term plan.

  13. juris imprudent

    On the Speaker, didn’t Boebert come out and say she was a Never-McCarthy’er. MTG fired back and we have the makings of a first class Congressional catfight!

  14. rhywun

    I call upon this community to fact check the first two paragraphs.

    Sadly, my AP-to-reality translator seems to be on the fritz.

    • juris imprudent

      Mine broke spitting out “argle-bargle Jan 6 threat to democracy”.

      • rhywun

        Mine burst out laughing at “the fragility of American democracy”.

      • Spartacus

        Hey now, that’s a cold hard fact. It has been repeated literally hundreds of times on NPR so it HAS to be true.

  15. wdalasio

    “The longer you’re around, the more your wealth compounds.”

    Gee. Why would that be? Couldn’t be that that wealth (and I’m sorry, but Bezos’ wealth is mostly in the value of his Amazon stock; him living or dying doesn’t take that out of the picture) is put into productive endeavors that generate a return for the person for whom that wealth is compounding?

    • juris imprudent

      Productive endeavors is trickster-speak for stealing the surplus value of labor!

      • AlexinCT

        Yoda would say; “The marxism is strong with this one” if he missed out on the sarcasm…

      • juris imprudent

        Knowing your enemy was something the early Marxists actually did. It’s only the later generations (and particularly in this country) that became idiot dogmatists.

      • AlexinCT

        Da Tavarish.

        Agree totally.

    • Grumbletarian

      Nuh uh! Wealth is only generated by EXPLOITING THE POORS, bigot! For example, Elon Musk is exploiting the fuck out of all those scientists and technicians working at SpaceX. And Bezos is paying people a measly $20/hr or so to, like, work! With schedules and demands and expectations that they actually to the work and stuff!

      Literal. Slavery.

      • DrOtto

        Bezos probably paid more than $20 an hour to whomever designed his penis rocket, and that’s the real shame.

      • cyto

        The speed of the adoption of the anti-musk mythology has been amazing to me.

        The new orthodoxy is that he is a stupid rich guy who bought stuff and takes credit for other people’s work.

        He used emerald mine money from apartheid to steal Tesla from the real founders. He doesn’t know anything about rockets or cars. He is just a scam artist.

        That is astonishing.

        One signature feature of the rise of Musk post-PayPal is the very public and rather transparent nature of his companies and his moves. We all got to watch as he built an electric Lotus Elise to make electric cars cool. We all watched as he tried to get the Russians to launch a terrarium to Mars to inspire space exploration, then start a rocket company of his own in frustration. We watched him leading the development of a new engine and new rockets. He even told everyone that their last attempt to launch the original falcon was make or break… he was broke. The same happened with the Model S launch.

        But reality never happened.

        The Orwellian overtones of simply rewriting recent history and having mobs fervently believe it are inescapable.

  16. The Late P Brooks

    I’m off to a good start.

  17. The Late P Brooks

    exposed anew the fragility of American democracy.

    Oh just get it over with and burn down the Reichstag.

    • Rat on a train

      pass the enabling act!

    • Rebel Scum

      Dissent is a threat to Democracy.

  18. The Late P Brooks

    Some of the stuff they want I can understand and some of it is pure stupid. I’ve heard twice now they want a “rule” requiring a balanced budget. Well dumbshits, Congress passed a fucking LAW doing that years ago; how’s that been working?

    As long as we’re asking the impossible, how about running the fedgov’s books according to “generally accepted accounting principles”?

    • SDF-7

      Cavernous cleavage? That rings hollow to me.

      • AlexinCT

        Saline or Silicone?

    • SDF-7

      I see they got some quotes from emergency services and OLEO personnel.

    • Rat on a train

      Officials said response teams were initially unable to access the building as they “were pushed back by the heat and smoke,” as well as the runoff of melted butter.

      • cyto

        Sounds like they needed a team armed with steamed crablegs and English muffin toast…..

    • cyto

      No photos of giant butter-bergs? Shoddy journalism….

      • Gustave Lytton

        Needs more clarification.

      • DrOtto

        You butter not be punning.

      • Nephilium

        Ghee whiz, are you trying to call on Swiss?

      • Grumbletarian

        These puns have gone whey over the line.

      • Ownbestenemy

        We really are on the margarine of a full scale pun-war

      • Michael Malaise

        You’ll get Swiss whipped up!

      • Seguin

        I saw a Butterberg walking back from temple the other day.

        Seriously. Dude needed to walk more than once a week.

      • Grummun

        I honestly expected “wholesome” to be sarcasm, and to see some appalling work of bad taste.

      • Seguin

        In 10 years, the beauty queen will strip and started rolling around in it. This is the trajectory of society.

        P.S. She’ll be fat and have rainbow hair. And be a they.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    That being said, some in the field are grappling with these issues, at least in principle. Mehmood Khan, for example, chief executive of longevity nonprofit Hevolution Foundation, told the FT that his organization is only funding products that can be “democratized.”

    “If this is going to be a gazillion dollars’ worth of treatment for a handful of people,” he told the outlet, “it is of no interest.”

    </em

    Whatever the fuck that means.

    [insert Star Trek reference]

  20. The Late P Brooks

    Oh for crying out loud..

    • PieInTheSky

      Is it too cliche already to blame Indiana or does that still work?

      Or should we blame the Obama administration?

    • WTF

      Clearly they need F-15s.

    • cyto

      I will take a different angle…

      The government of our closest neighbor is using military aircraft to attack an area that is not under government control. A group that primarily makes their money via the US black market for drugs has their own army and controls territory.

      And the major news stories in the US?

      Well, aside from picking a new speaker, we have British royal intrigue, a football player got hurt, a guy got charged in the murder of 4 kids in bumblefrick idaho….

      How is this not a big news story?

      We have our intelligence agencies rigging US elections… crickets…. warplanes firing on drug dealer strongholds in Mexico…. crickets….

      What in the world is wrong with the press in the US? All the arm twisting in the world from congress and the FBI shouldn’t be able to keep them away from stories like this.

      • Count Potato

        “We have our intelligence agencies rigging US elections… crickets”

        That, by far, is the biggest one.

      • juris imprudent

        “We have people in the newspapers don’t we? I think they’d like a story like that.”

    • SDF-7

      Biden administration sending Hunter as a special envoy to address the situation…

      • Seguin

        He’ll clean up that city, one nostril at a time.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      And all we get is drowning in butter.

  21. Q Continuum

    “It has left Republicans in disarray and exposed anew the fragility of American democracy.”

    Democratic process playing out = fragility of American democracy. And I have no idea if the Pachyderms are in “disarray” (whatever the fuck that means) or not, but I do know that the Cathedral is desperate to latch on to a narrative of them being incompetent and unable to govern.

    I found it amusing for a minute, now I’m just sick of yet another pointless psychodrama.

  22. PieInTheSky

    So random question

    Back in the youth when we had a bunch of friends going on road trips, there were two types when in control of the music in the car: some who wanted more music variety, would play a song for a while and then switch to the next, and some who wanted to listen to a song to the end and were annoyed if the song was switched even if only 20-30 seconds were left.

    So where do the glibs stand, listen to a song to the very end or usually switch to the next two thirds in?

    • Rat on a train

      one song on loop?

    • SDF-7

      To the end. Sounds like the 2/3rds folks were ready for blipverts.

      • cyto

        That is amazingly prescient. 10 hours later, viewers down 2%… gotta change.

        The only thing they missed was the pivot to belief over ratings that came after the 24 hour measurement cycle. Who could have predicted giant entertainment conglomerates ignoring their viewers and continuing to make not only crap, but crap that intentionally offends their viewers (She Hulk, for example)

        Meanwhile, YouTube and twitch are filled with creators who fit the Max Headroom paradigm of instant feedback and response. Mr. Beast has more viewers than television by a wide margin. The number one TV show last week was Sunday Night Football with 17 million viewers. MrBeast routinely gets over 100 million views on his videos.

    • PieInTheSky

      Strangely the listen to the end were more often men and the change in the middle most often women, especially when it came to classic rock songs

      • juris imprudent

        Oh, you’ve met my wife?

    • DrOtto

      Let it play out. The kids and their ADD, they start a song, then 30 seconds later they move on to something else, I can’t take it. I believe the whole 30 seconds of a song trend was started by strip club DJs so the whole $20 a song lap dance got pushed to it’s limits by strippers demanding $200 for 10 minutes of work.

    • R C Dean

      Same as people who can’t stop scrolling through the channel guide. Drives me nuts. Either pick something or turn it off.

    • Cowboy

      Not only will I listen to the whole song, but I tend to want to hear the whole album. Not a big fan of playlists/mix tapes unless I’m doing something mindless like cleaning or at the gym. But, I also listen to a lot of prog and acid rock, wherw the album is meant to be enjoyed as a continuous piece.

  23. Count Potato

    “North Korean students are expelled and forced to work in a coal mine because they sounded as if they had been watching too much foreign TV

    The four students are understood to have been caught speaking on their mobile phones with a softer accent, and using terms of endearment that are associated with people in South Korea, sources inside the authoritarian country said.

    Outlawed songs, movies and television shows such as ‘Squid Game’ or ‘Crash Landing on You’ are smuggled into the country on USB flash drives. It is believed the students likely picked up the way of speaking by watching such media.

    Speaking like their free neighbours in the South has become trendy among young North Koreans, the sources told Radio Free Asia (RFA). But Pyongyang and Kim Jong-un views such styles of speech as counter-revolutionary and therefore a crime.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11602489/North-Korean-students-expelled-forced-work-coal-mine.html

    • Rat on a train

      Prog ears perk up.

      • cyto

        Somewhere AOC is thinking “hold my beer”….

    • PieInTheSky

      honest hard labor is good for the soul

      • EvilSheldon

        Try it in the original Deutsch…

      • juris imprudent

        Authoritarian/totalitarian – it’s all the same in any language.

  24. Sean

    usually switch to the next two thirds in

    o.O

    No.

    • Sean

      *sigh*

  25. AlexinCT

    Depends on the song/music genre…

    • AlexinCT

      See Sean’s thread fail comment for me as well…

  26. Drake

    I try not to think about the J6 protest too much because it’s so depressing. In hindsight it seems pretty obvious that the FBI and Capital Police arranged things to happen the way they did to put a stop to the election investigation in Congress – and it worked.

    The continued incredible over-charging of non-Feds present that day is just their way of reminding us how much they hate normals.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      A lie that has become truth. Good like dislodging it from the minds of normies.

      Normies don’t adjust their thinking all that often or very well.

      • wdalasio

        Normies don’t adjust their thinking all that often or very well.

        To be fair, “Our federal government and entire media industrial complex is hopelessly corrupt to the point that we’re now living in a semi-fascist state.” is kind of a tough nut to swallow.

      • Drake

        It is tough. I read a lot of Solzhenitsyn in my youth. I despised the corrupt court system and arbitrary gulag sentences used to intimidate a society. Now my own government – which I served and used to be proud of – is doing exactly the same thing.

      • AlexinCT

        ^^^THIS^^^

      • cyto

        And I am still stunned.

        I absolutely, without question, 100% did not believe that this was possible in the US.

        I was raised not only on “don’t tread on me” American Individualism, but also on a post-watergate idealized vision of the 4th estate, where journalists are heroes who stand up for truth and defy authority and cannot be corrupted. They get the story and protect their sources at great cost if needs be.

        The idea that the US press could become Pravda is inconceivable to me. Even moreso with the large and diverse nature of the press today. The possibility that the government could control all of those outlets seems ludicrous. Yet, here i am in an America that looks more and more like an Orwell fanfic.

      • Rebel Scum

        Semi-fascist”?

      • juris imprudent

        I guess because we don’t have true one-party rule (yeah, yeah, uni- I know) and the cult of the presidency is more about the office than the individual. We’re not quite ALL of the way there.

  27. Count Potato

    “Desperate father pleads with his pediatrician ex-wife NOT to chemically castrate their son, 9, after she suddenly moved to California from Texas: Reveals footage of her raising child as a girl

    Younger also claimed the child’s school district ‘tried to secretly transition’ James and forced the father to dress his son in girl’s clothes. 

    ‘I’d bring my son to school in boy’s clothes and they’d give him a dress and make him use the girls’ restroom,’ the father-of-two claimed on Carlson’s show. 

    Younger claims his ex-wife had been forcing the transition ever since their divorce and has accused Georgulas of starting to manipulate their child when James was just three years old accusing her of locking their son in the bedroom and telling their child that ‘monsters only eat boys.'”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11605409/Desperate-father-pleads-pediatrician-wife-NOT-chemically-castrate-son-9.html

    Looks like that “First, do no harm” thing is out the window.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Pediatrics is the worst branch of allopathic medicine.

      The most indoctrinated and dogmatic.

      • Rat on a train

        Vegan cats won’t stop meowing about it.

      • Rebel Scum

        And both are cases of abuse.

    • Seguin

      Dag Nab It, I got in trouble last time I clicked one of your links and I did it again without thinking.

  28. Rebel Scum

    The Republican leader of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, has failed in his latest bid to get elected speaker in a paralysis of US government not seen since the pre-Civil War era.

    Said like it’s a bad thing. Fuck the feds.

  29. Not Adahn

    Re: Altered Carbon, I’ve only seen the Netflix show, but looking back on it, was it really a dystopia? Yes, there were haves and have-nots, but were the have-nots in a worse place than current ones?

    • Ownbestenemy

      When your daughter gets restacked into a 50 year old man…wait…I guess not?

      • Seguin

        Yeah, they played up that scene like it was a tragedy but…otherwise she’d be dead.

  30. Rufus the Monocled

    Cool links.

    I got nothing.

  31. DEG

    Due to technical difficulties, you’ll be getting me throwing up some morning links this first Friday of the new year.

    Throwing up? Someone is hungover?

    • Not Adahn

      Preggers.

      • PieInTheSky

        you should get catbutted just for using that word

    • cyto

      That is a 10

  32. Rebel Scum

    The deadly attack

    Because the government killed protesters.

    was an unimaginable scene of chaos

    Fiery but mostly peaceful.

    that shook the country

    Meh.

    when a mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters tried to stop Congress from certifying the Republican’s 2020 election defeat.

    That wasn’t the goal.

  33. DEG

    because of its depiction of free love and explicit drug use.

    Hesse was a closet libertarian?

    Rules do not require the speaker to be a member of the House, and on Thursday, Florida Republican rebel Matt Gaetz cast a protest ballot for Mr Trump to serve in the role.

    A while back, I said Trump really wanted to fuck with the Deep State, he should get into Congress and become Speaker of the House. When I said that, I forgot you don’t have to be a US Rep to be Speaker of the House.

    When asked by police how many beers he had, Tanner initially told police 2 to 3, and then later said he had 3 to 4 beers.

    It was really 14 beers at Chili’s.

    The agreement McCarthy presented to the holdouts from the conservative Freedom Caucus and others centers around rules changes they have been seeking for months. Those changes would shrink the power of the speaker’s office and give rank-and-file lawmakers more influence in drafting and passing legislation.

    Assuming he doesn’t alter the deal.

  34. Rebel Scum

    FNC is not your friend, conservatives.

    Brian Kilmeade calls 20 McCarthy opponents “insurrectionists.” Ainsley Earhardt steps in to clarify that they are “saboteurs” instead.

      • Drake

        The Taliban did win eventually.

      • Rat on a train

        Insulting your opponents is the surest way to win them over.

      • juris imprudent

        Democrat heads nod.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The Voice of the GOPe has spoken.

  35. The Late P Brooks

    Back in the youth when we had a bunch of friends going on road trips, there were two types when in control of the music in the car: some who wanted more music variety, would play a song for a while and then switch to the next

    That would get you left behind at the first truck stop.

    • PieInTheSky

      we were engineering students. that would have been or last female

  36. Pine_Tree

    The immortality thing reminded me of something that’s been lurking around my mind for awhile, and that y’all are familiar with: the current crop of never-let-go-of-power politicians is OLD, and I’m genuinely surprised that none of them are just keeling over dead, statistically speaking.

    Back in the campaigning for ’16, Herself seemed like she was circling the drain – barely able to walk, etc. I thought for sure she was not long for this whirl. And Brandon, Pelosi, and too many others to count, including Trump. If that crowd were the normal old folks you knew around your community, you’d be pretty regularly hearing about who’d passed away. But it keeps on not happening.

    • Nephilium

      That is not dead which can eternal lie…

    • SDF-7

      Even Hell doesn’t want ’em.

    • Hyperion

      Klaus has given them the spice he promised to give him world control. He folded time to Dune to get it.

    • R C Dean

      I’m genuinely surprised Hillary is still alive.

      • Hyperion

        Evil never rests.

      • Count Potato

        She’s only 75.

      • R C Dean

        Which ain’t young, and her health looked terrible when she was running.

  37. PieInTheSky

    Every time I post a rich dish, I get a flood of comments about heart attacks and hypertension. Our obsession with negativity and fear is truly unreal. Moderation is key. Btw, this is calorie free.

    https://twitter.com/ChefGruel/status/1610767104130838528

    • SDF-7

      Of course it is. No one can eat a JPEG.

  38. Ownbestenemy

    Well this secures it for me. The dude who killed those young adults in Idaho? Guilty.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/idaho-college-murder-suspect-bryan-kohberger-s-sister-once-starred-in-a-slasher-flick-in-which-college-students-get-murdered/ar-AA1616wV

    Evidence of guilt
    “…has taken another bizarre turn, as it surfaced on Thursday that the sister of Bryan Kohberger actually starred in a horror film over a decade ago in which a group of college students are slashed to death.”

    • Trigger Hippie

      Tipper Gore was right all along!

      • Hyperion

        Our failure to ban ‘everything’ will be our downfall.

      • Gustave Lytton

        If you watch porn, you’ll end up just like Ted Bundy!

      • Trigger Hippie

        Odd. Considering my low paying job and lack of sex drive I ended up more like Al Bundy.

      • R.J.

        Seconded.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    Blah blah blah Republican “disarray” is the collapse of democracy, unlike Nancy Pelosi ruling her side of the House of Representatives with an iron fist.

    I’d rather listen to a flock of starlings gabble and squawk; they make more sense.

  40. Rebel Scum

    I still don’t see how this could legally be canceled after they jumped through every hoop, were approved and under construction.

    The Biden administration published a congressionally mandated report highlighting the positive economic benefits the Keystone XL Pipeline would have had if President Biden didn’t revoke its federal permits.

    The report, which the Department of Energy (DOE) completed in late December without any public announcement, says the Keystone XL project would have created between 16,149 and 59,000 jobs and would have had a positive economic impact of between $3.4-9.6 billion, citing various studies. A previous report from the federal government published in 2014 determined 3,900 direct jobs and 21,050 total jobs would be created during construction which was expected to take two years.

    • Hyperion

      Somewhere, Greta sobs in silence as the planet burns.

  41. Drake

    With this level of coverage, I wonder how they’ll find a jury.

    • Rat on a train

      Ask DC for tips on how to ignore jury bias?

  42. Tundra

    Good morning, Neph!

    I call upon this community to fact check the first two paragraphs.

    That is an impressive pile of shit, right there.

    • Nephilium

      Morning Tundra!

      Once I saw that hit my newsfeed, I had to share it. It’s about the purest example that someone can provide about setting the stage for the story you want to tell that I can remember.

      • Hyperion

        If the GOP knew how to govern, they’d throw enough in to get the new IRS hires up from 80K to at least a couple of million. And of course a couple of trillion for Ukraine.

    • PutridMeat

      Fact Check: Mostly True.

  43. Hyperion

    Entertaining myself by watching the Limeys on Reddit freak the fuck out about Rishi Sunak, who is some sort of worse than Trump shitlord. Who would have thunk?

    These worshippers of all things NHS have the worse cases of cognitive dissonance I have ever witnessed. It is truly stunning. For them there is NOTHING worse than private anything, period. They could wind up slaves just like Americans! The horror! Next thing this radical far right fascist is going to do after turning all the brave and selfless healthcare workers into slaves, is start the mean tweeting, just wait for it.

    Meanwhile the NFL continues their descent into total irrelevance.

    • Rat on a train

      I don’t know why the NFL hasn’t canceled the rest of the season.

      • Hyperion

        Yeah, I know it’s like someone might get hurt.

      • Hyperion

        Also, Kermie is a black dude and it was his turn. It was ruined by some team with a bunch of white guys on it. Whatever it takes, we have to give Kermie his trun.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Meanwhile, enjoy your continued irrelevance, Raiders fans.

        🙂

      • Hyperion

        I stopped caring a long time ago. The jokes are still fun, but that’s about it.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Pretty much. Being a Chiefs fan should be great right now but I’ve grown to despise the league so much I can hardly be bothered to watch the games anymore. Even when I’m over at a buddy’s place on Sunday because they want to watch the game I’m usually busy dicking around on my phone or something.

  44. Ownbestenemy

    Got em!

    They just cannot quit him.

    • Hyperion

      That’s the weirdest Bee article ever.

    • Rebel Scum

      Former President Donald Trump was nominated for House speaker on Thursday but lost badly, failing to secure the hundreds of votes needed to take the gavel.

      And?

      • Hyperion

        And?

        And they’ve got him this time, circling the wagons…

  45. The Late P Brooks

    Sell your soul- everybody’s doing it


    It’s the easiest, most elegant and simple solution to Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s failure to bring Republicans together.

    Just find a few Democrats already. Form a freaking coalition. Edge out these hardline Republicans and get the House to work.

    But ask just about anyone in Washington and they’ll chuckle at your naivete and shake their heads. McCarthy won’t ever ask Democrats for help. And Democrats wouldn’t give it to him. So silly.

    ——-

    McCarthy is so ingrained in the GOP machine and has spent so much time trying to contrast Republicans from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrats that he might not be the right person to form a consensus and coalition government.

    The retired Republican Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump, has said he’s intrigued by the idea of being a consensus candidate for speaker and would give some concessions to Democrats to make the plan palatable. The Constitution does not require a current House member to be speaker.

    Why not Liz Cheney? Come on, you patriots and True Americans.

    • Hyperion

      “Why not Liz Cheney?”

      Obviously. It is really cute just how concerned CNN is with this. The GOP have failed to ‘Govern’ once again. How they love the word Govern. Never heard them utter the word ‘represent’, ever. But Govern, they love that.

      • juris imprudent

        Govern is as close as they can get to what they really want – RULE!

    • Hyperion

      “get the House to work”

      Sorry, but you know that thing about running out of other people’s money? The cupboards are bare!

    • Hyperion

      In Romania. I mean compared to vampire bats, they are nice, they don’t drink your blood, right?

      • UnCivilServant

        Fun fact – crows hold grudges.

      • Fatty Bolger

        And they remember faces.

      • Hyperion

        But still do not drink your blood.

      • The Last American Hero

        I offer the crows near my house shiny bubblegum wrappers on occasion.

      • PieInTheSky

        that is a problematic comment 🙂

      • PieInTheSky

        I do not think any of you get why I said that but that’s OK

      • UnCivilServant

        No, I’m distracted by work things.

    • Rebel Scum

      Misinformation seems to be a matter of a pinion.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Swiss will be raven about this one.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Three pun threads? There will be a murder flocking in soon

  46. PieInTheSky

    A little contribution to the “UK wages are really quite low especially compared to the US” discourse: saw an advert today asking for “experienced professionals” to join MI5. Pay was well below 40k.

    https://twitter.com/niall_gooch/status/1610707655277912065

    • Ownbestenemy

      The hamsters on the wheels at Langley aren’t making big bucks either.

      • The Last American Hero

        They make more than the greeter at Home Depot.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Don’t know how it is now, but I know that when I looked twenty years ago, UK salaries for computer related work were laughable, especially considering the high cost of living.

  47. The Late P Brooks

    It’s also true that there’s some bipartisanship already in the air in Washington. President Joe Biden appeared with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday to announce new funding to rehab the deteriorating Brent Spence Bridge that ties McConnell’s home state of Kentucky to Kasich’s Ohio.

    This is our chance to break free of the shackles of pointless dogmatic austerity.

    • Rebel Scum

      Swamp creatures acting together to further fuck American citizens is bipartisan. It is known.

    • R C Dean

      “some bipartisanship already in the air in Washington”

      Eric Swalwell. Paging Mr. Swalwell to the courtesy phone.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Or maybe Kentucky and Ohio could pay for the fucking thing.

    • Ownbestenemy

      I am sure no one will use that to spy on their next-door neighbor’s daughter and/or son

    • cyto

      Why would you need that? Wouldn’t wireless sensors and cameras be more effective and cost efficient?

      • Ownbestenemy

        Look we were promised flying things and by damn it, we will have flying things!

      • Sean

        OBE gets it.

      • Tundra

        Yes. That makes no sense at all. Cameras are so cheap now, why overcomplicate?

      • R.J.

        Does it have a pistol mount? Or a taser? Then it would be worth it.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      I’d actually really like something like this for my woods. An autonomous drone that hovers just above the treeline and alerts any movement. I’m primarily interested in catching poachers*, but I’d enjoy seeing the wildlife.

      *And other assorted trespassers. A few months ago, I found a very large woman’s thong by my pond. Morbidly obese large. It’s an isolated area, so I’m guessing a neighbor went there to fuck who couldn’t do it at their house (either teenagers or a cheater). Now this is something I definitely don’t want to see on camera, but maybe a drone would scare em off.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Sell the video to Tres, seems like a win-win for you all around

      • juris imprudent

        I am laughing way too enthusiastically!

    • juris imprudent

      Some govt thinks they control the place.

  48. Count Potato

    “Some Democrats fear a mass shooting on House floor — by a QAnon-Republican

    WASHINGTON—Surprise quickly morphed into alarm for some at the Capitol this week as a post-Jan. 6 security measure vanished without warning just before Republicans reclaimed control of the House. Some Democrats fear there could be a mass shooting on the House floor at the trigger of one of the GOP’s newly expanded ranks of conspiracy-believing lawmakers.

    “A lot of my Republican colleagues glorify violence and proudly display the firearms they have in their offices, so it just makes me nervous that we could have a workplace violent event. They’re not the most stable people,” Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) told Raw Story after voting for Speaker this week…”

    https://www.rawstory.com/democrats-fear-republicans/

    https://twitter.com/MattLaslo/status/1611297936364781568

    • Ownbestenemy

      Battlespace was prepped with talk of insurrectionist, terrorist and Taliban 20…there is nothing more that nearly all representatives want than that to happen.

    • rhywun

      Literal burst-out laughing.

      Holy fuck these people are mentally ill.

    • Rat on a train

      Who is tracking Byrd?

    • Rat on a train

      But parties have marched in lockstep for a hundred years.

  49. The Late P Brooks

    “A lot of my Republican colleagues glorify violence and proudly display the firearms they have in their offices, so it just makes me nervous that we could have a workplace violent event. They’re not the most stable people,” Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) told Raw Story after voting for Speaker this week…”

    Wheeeee!

    • Ownbestenemy

      Says the man who would have no problem dropping nukes on gun owners. But yeah, they are the unstable ones.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Nah about the same odds as that link working.

      • Rat on a train
      • juris imprudent

        Speaker would’ve been better…

        “The member is out of order, I have directed the CIA to assassinate you in the next 24 hours”.

    • juris imprudent

      For Speaker, or President?

    • Drake

      Campaign Slogan:

      Regime Change the World!

    • Rat on a train

      Their narcs are better.

  50. juris imprudent

    On that whole subject of term limits – how well has that worked in California?

    • Ownbestenemy

      I am a firm believer that “term limits” are disastrous. I get where people are coming from, but you can’t scream and wail that people are in Congress too long while you keep checking the box next to their name. I think it was wrong to even limit the presidency to two terms.

      • Tundra

        In most places the primary turnout is somewhere between non-existent and anemic. This is a huge reason the incumbents never lose.

        Most people truly don’t give a fuck.

      • Drake

        We’d be in Obama’s 4th term right now.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Or not. People have short term outlooks and some just consign themselves to “well they will be out in x years, then things will change”

      • Rat on a train

        “Term limits are for other representatives. My representative is dreamy.”

      • Tundra

        I don’t even think that plays much of a part. Congress has an approval rating somewhere close to anal warts, but an awful lot of people don’t pay any attention until November.

        Layer in the laziness of absorbing corporate media and it’s not surprising at all.

      • Ownbestenemy

        That’s why I cannot see how term limits would change that. The same 30-40% of people will just ensure the next person behind the termed rep is the same

      • Tundra

        I agree. I couldn’t care less about term limits.

        Now, nuking K street…

    • The Last American Hero

      In Michigan they just swap spots every few years. Hose guy moves to senate, count exec moves to house, senator runs for congress. Same pool of fucksticks.

  51. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Experts Worried Elderly Billionaires Will Become Immortal, Compounding Wealth Forever

    To some extent this is already true. Their trusts are basically immortal.

    • juris imprudent

      If the money was actually in the hands of the Kennedys this generation of them would be homeless.

  52. kinnath

    Have fun. I will be offline until late Sunday.

    • UnCivilServant

      I hope it is for something fun.

      • kinnath

        road trip. so yes.

  53. The Late P Brooks

    On that whole subject of term limits – how well has that worked in California?

    I saw a clip, way back when- somebody asked Bill Clinton about term limits, and his answer was, essentially, the Deep State infrastructure won’t be affected. Figureheads may come and go, but the bureaucracy remains intact.

    It was depressing then. It’s depressing now.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      It’s not going to be corrected without a strongman or a breakup of the union. It sucks, but it’s the truth.