Sunday Morning NPR-Focused Links

by | Jan 8, 2023 | Daily Links | 193 comments

A couple days listening to NPR have transformed my life. I sat in the Chestnut Tree Café while CNN played on the video screen. A shrill trumpet-call had pierced the air. It was the bulletin about Ukraine! Victory! It always meant victory when a trumpet-call preceded the news. A sort of electric drill ran through the café. Even the waiters had started and pricked up their ears. The trumpet-call had let loose an enormous volume of noise. Already an excited voice was gabbling from the video screen, but even as it started it was almost drowned by a roar of cheering from outside. The news had run round the streets like magic. I could hear just enough of what was issuing from the video screen to realize that it had all happened, as I had foreseen; a vast artillery and missile regiment had secretly assembled a sudden blow in Putin’s rear, the white arrow tearing across the tail of the black. Fragments of triumphant phrases pushed themselves through the din: ‘Vast strategic maneuver — perfect co-ordination — utter rout — half a million prisoners — complete demoralization — control of the whole of Russia — bring the war within measurable distance of its end victory — greatest victory in human history — victory, victory, victory!’

Under the table my feet made convulsive movements. I had not stirred from my seat, but in my mind I was running, swiftly running, I was with the crowds outside, cheering myself deaf. I looked up again at the portrait of Joe and Kamala. The colossus that bestrode the world! The rock against which the hordes of Russia dashed themselves in vain! I thought how ten minutes ago — yes, only ten minutes — there had still been equivocation in my heart as I wondered whether the news from Ukraine would be of victory or defeat. Ah, it was more than a Russian army that had perished! Much had changed in me since that first day among the Democrats, but the final, indispensable, healing change had never happened, until this moment.

The voice from the video screen was still pouring forth its tale of prisoners and booty and slaughter, but the shouting outside had died down a little. The waiters were turning back to their work. One of them approached with the wine bottle. I, sitting in a blissful dream, paid no attention as my glass was filled up.

I gazed up at the enormous wrinkled faces. Two years it had taken me to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dementia-ridden visage. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two wine-scented tears trickled down the sides of my Hebraic nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. I had won the victory over myself. I loved Joe Biden.

And I loved birthdays, including a guy who beat Darwin;  a guy who actually didn’t kill his wife; the guy who wrote my favorite math book; a woman who added “sped redn” to the English lexicon; a guy who got Van Johnson acquitted; a funny guy who had outlived Betty White, Forrest Tucker, and Ken Berry; another career leeching piece of shit; another Very Serious TV Journalist; a guy who sold a few records; a guy who continued to get laughs post-mortem (in a famous group interview); some dude in a wheelchair not named Ironside; a talented freakshow; and a guy with a remarkable bladder.

Now let’s see what wonderful things are in the news that has thoughtfully been curated and explained to us.

 

“He’s not a real Negro.”

 

“Pay up, white boy.”

 

“People who menstruate.”

 

“We’re going to keep this going forever. Longer, if need be.”

 

“Colonialism and climate change.”

 

“Won’t anyone think about the children???”

 

“It all starts with Keeev.”

 

The Old Man admits it- he loves shit like this.

About The Author

Old Man With Candy

Old Man With Candy

Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me. Wait, wrong book, I'll find something else.

193 Comments

  1. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Now that Eastasia is defeated, when do we return to our regularly scheduled two minutes of hate against Trump?

    • Trigger Hippie

      We’ve always been at war with MAGA Country.

      • SDF-7

        Reading this I have to say you’re not wrong there. Friction between the urban elites that don’t give a crap about the needs of the rest of the country and ignored rural economies getting taxed without seeing the benefits isn’t at all new to recent times.

      • juris imprudent

        No! TRUMP is unprecedented!!! When he goes away everyone will believe in OUR program!!!!!! muwha, muwhahaha, muwhaahahahahahahahahahaha

      • cyto

        Watching all of the solemn rememberance of the sacred day of January 6 has been bizarre. They retell the tale like olaywrites retelling the tales of the Olympic gods… Reworking and reinventing on the fly. The last few days the emphasis was on the murderous crowd, killing five police officers now.

        All of the leading Democrats repeated that lie, without a single ounce of pushback from the press.

        You think “Twitter files” changed anything?

        They all still take marching orders, and they all still keep time to the drumbeat.

        GlennGreenwals went on an epic, hour-long rant about the lies being told about January 6. He had a couple of tests about a new Church commission.

        I hate to burst his bubble, but nobody is going to do anything. If revealing that the propaganda machine and censorship regime we have been complaining about is being run out of the unelected bureaucracy of the security state, beyond the control of elected officials and outside of any legal authority at all failed to inspire even the libertarian press to be curious, you got no shot.

        We kinda already knew this with Barr and Durham looking into the crimes of russia-gate. The state protects the state. That is all.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Yes kinda like the big reveal that the NSA and other alphabet agencies were all spying on us and *poof* nothing happened.

      • cyto

        Nothing excepting outrage at those who revealed the truth. Nobody really even complained that the director of the CIA purgered himself in congressional testimony.

        Meanwhile, nobody republican gadflies rot in prison for inconsequential “misleading statements” that amounted to braggadocio and nothing more.

  2. Scruffy Nerfherder

    “ Mandi Tembo, a menstrual health PhD candidate”

    Gynecology is so last century.

  3. Scruffy Nerfherder

    TOO

    MUCH

    NPR

    PLEASE

    STOP

    • Sean

      No one reads the links.

      • SDF-7

        Not those, no — hovering gives me the gist when it comes to NPR.

      • rhywun

        Not today. Yikes!

        OK, I read the Turkey one. I think we have a contender for stupidest story 2023 already.

      • cyto

        Stupidest would definitely include making me have to spell your country with umlauts and an ending e that means people will pronounce it toork-eye.

    • juris imprudent

      If he suffered, we must suffer with him?

    • cyto

      That NPR article was an incoherent mess.

      I don’t mean just intellectually,but the narrative. The author lost the thread several times. I think they kinda intended to call the left to the carpet, but halfway through they decided that the most important thing was to prove that Republicans really don’t like black people and black people really don’t like Republicans.

  4. Grumbletarian

    A sort of electric drill ran through the café.

    Cordless?

  5. Ted S.

    a guy who actually didn’t kill his wife;

    Happy birthday Robert Wagner?

  6. Ted S.

    a funny guy who had outlived Betty White, Forrest Tucker, and Ken Berry;

    Um, it’s not my birthday today.

    • juris imprudent

      It isn’t Mel Brooks birthday either.

    • Rat on a train

      happy unbirthday

  7. Ted S.

    a guy who continued to get laughs post-mortem

    Dick Shawn?

    • Rat on a train

      Saddam Hussein?

      • Gender Traitor

        Achmed the Dead Terrorist.

      • Spartacus

        Shut up! I keel you!!

    • juris imprudent

      Francisco Franco?

    • Grosspatzer

      Lou Reed?

  8. Ted S.

    “Won’t anyone think about the children???”

    Sue the government schools for destroying children’s mental health.

    • Spartacus

      If there are any big tech companies left in Seattle, this should just about run off the rest of them.

  9. Rat on a train

    Jive Turkiye

    • Gender Traitor

      Except now it’s Jeeeeeeev Turkiye.

      • rhywun

        You messed up the ü, bigots.

  10. The Late P Brooks

    A couple days listening to NPR have transformed my life.

    I’ll continue to sleep alone, if that’s the price of “companionship”.

    • Aloysious

      Some things just aren’t worth enduring.

      NPR and CNN are two of them.

  11. Fourscore

    You had me going with the dialog, OM, until I realized there are too few people that can find Ukraine (and Iraq and Afghanistan) on a map. The important stuff will be decided on the fields of battle today and televised live (in between commercials)

    • cyto

      It was really wonderful satire. And terrifyingly on-point.

      Remember, Russia was losing 10,000 soldiers a week. Last fall headlines screamed that the US military assessed that Russia has “100,000 killed or injured”….and notably declined to offer anything to back that up or any breakdown of the details.

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/10/number-russian-troops-killed-injured-ukraine/

      10,000 a week always sounded.. not just implausible, but downright impossible.

      So I searched and found a Newsweek fact check. They include Ukrainian Government figures of 66,000 Russian soldiers killed as a part of their analysis. But then they turn to Russia.

      “The latest official Russian tally came on September 21, when Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that 5,937 Russian soldiers had been killed. This was the first official figure since March 25 when it said 1,351 had died.

      On October 7, the outlet Mediazona along with the BBC, said that there were 7,184 verified Russian military deaths, though it said the number “does not reflect the real level of losses,” only public and media reports of losses.”

      So an order of magnitude less. And note the spin from every western news agency. “But that doesn’t reflect the real losses”.

      https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-putin-troops-dead-us-wars-60-years-1753530

      It is very much of the same genre as our OM parody here, except not offered as parody.

      When your real reporting reads as if it were approved by the ministry of truth in a novel written 100 years ago by a dystopian author, perhaps you should rethink your strategy.

      In the opening weeks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, all of the reporting and commentary I saw said Russia was losing 10,000 soldiers a week. This is a number that does not pass the giggle test. I mean, it is theoretically possible, I suppose, but that is a number so great that one would expect some actual reporting to try to verify. One certainly would not expect such a fictitious sounding claim to be repeated as fact all over the press. But it was.

      So… Parody… But not really.

  12. juris imprudent

    So being with NPR lady is like being strapped to a chair with ravenous rats about to devour your face?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      It’s the Clockwork Orange treatment.

      • juris imprudent

        That would’ve been a perfect comment if he had given us some Beethoven for the morning music.

  13. Gender Traitor

    Good morning, Old Man, Scruffy, Sean, SDF-7, Grumble, Ted’S, Roat, Brooksie, 4(20), and JI!

    Seattle’s schools are suing tech giants for harming young people’s mental health

    No one’s even pretending any more that parents have any role in their children’s upbringing, are they? ::breathes yet another sigh of relief for having skipped both parenthood and a teaching career::

    • juris imprudent

      It takes all the village idiots to raise your children!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Not in Seattle

      Mom and dad are too busy putting backdoors in Windows code for the Feds.

    • Gender Traitor

      Meant to add – Old Man music is magnificent.

    • Sean

      😎

  14. Tres Cool

    whaddup doh’
    yo whats goody yo

  15. The Late P Brooks

    Though Roy began his nomination by noting how Donalds is a “dear friend” and “solid conservative,” he quickly moved to center race: “for the first time in history, there have been two Black Americans placed into nomination for speaker of the House.”

    “However, we do not seek to judge people by the color of their skin, but rather, the content of their character,” he continued, invoking the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

    Copycat! Copycat!

    That “color of their skin” line is just a red herring. Everybody knows Republicans hate black people just as much as black people hate Republicans.

  16. Rat on a train

    a guy with a remarkable bladder
    George Murdock?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      “ One woman said the mental anguish from loneliness and poverty outweighed her physical pain from chronic leukemia in her decision to want to die”

      You know, there’s other answers to loneliness and poverty than death. One might think that the oh so caring Canadians would realize that.

      • Aloysious

        Big brother loves you, Big Sister Loves You to Death

    • Q Continuum

      It’s really a natural consequence of a religion that treats abortion as a sacrament and views humanity as a cancer destroying Mother Gaia.

    • Rat on a train

      Where is the national leaderboard posted?

    • cyto

      Party foul…. That link is Daily Mail, not NPR. We need to find the NPR link that explains why she is a hero.

    • MikeS

      MAID has now grown so popular that Canada has both anti-suicide hotlines to try and stop people killing themselves, as well as pro-suicide hotlines for people wanting to end their lives.

      👿🤡🌎

  17. The Late P Brooks

    So being with NPR lady is like being strapped to a chair with ravenous rats about to devour your face?

    Strapped to the embalmer’s table for total blood replacement therapy.

    • SDF-7

      The clots are to make it easier to pull the old stuff out?

    • juris imprudent

      So did he compose this on a laptop while he was (is) still in Buffalo, or did he wait until he was safely back in Glibs Gulch? I can imagine the former, and as she strolls up behind to ask what he’s working on he slams the laptop shut like a 14 year old caught looking at porn.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      You found my house wish list.

      • Gender Traitor

        If any of the countries involved are worth a damn with respect to personal freedom, I’d nominate the respective homes for Glibs Gulch. (#9 in Scotland is especially appealing.) Any signs of improvement in Italy with their new PM?

    • SDF-7

      Nah man… just your budhole.

    • Q Continuum

      *now regrets never having anal sex with a hot Icelandic girl before getting hitched*

    • westernsloper

      #6 Is no shit my stomping grounds. It has been a few dozen years, but been there.

    • The Hyperbole

      The town in Greenland only accessible by helicopter

      there’s a boat right there in the picture of the place.

      • Ownbestenemy

        …for nine months of the year

      • The Hyperbole

        Still calling bullshit, it might be difficult, requiring multiple means of travel. snow mobile, canoe, hovercraft etc.. but I’d wager I could get there without a helicopter in any month of the year.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Weird hill to die on, but I support your war effort

      • cyto

        This is the internet. Pedantry and picking at nits is more than just a pastime, it is a civil right.. nay, a calling.

  18. SDF-7

    ‘Orning ‘ordles — Meh on the starter round, decent enough on the second.

    Daily Duotrigordle #312
    Guesses: 35/37
    Time: 06:34.52
    https://duotrigordle.com/

    Daily Quordle 349
    3️⃣5️⃣
    6️⃣4️⃣
    quordle.com

    • rhywun

      Successful mediocrity.

      Daily Quordle 349
      5️⃣4️⃣
      7️⃣6️⃣

      • Grosspatzer

        Mediocrity FTW

        Daily Quordle 349
        4️⃣6️⃣
        7️⃣5️⃣
        quordle.com

      • Penguin

        Hey! I’m even more mediocrer than you two!

        Daily Quordle 349
        5️⃣4️⃣
        8️⃣6️⃣
        quordle.com

    • Grumbletarian

      Daily Quordle 349
      4️⃣6️⃣
      5️⃣3️⃣

      Deece.

    • Tundra

      Daily Quordle 349
      4️⃣7️⃣
      6️⃣5️⃣

  19. The Late P Brooks

    “I think what has been interesting over the course of this debate is how both the Democrats and the Republicans have invoked descriptive representation,” said Professor Andra Gillespie, a political science professor and director of the James Weldon Johnson Institute for Race and Difference at Emory University. “When the Republicans have invoked it, they are touting the gains that they have made in descriptive representation which are real … But I think it’s obvious if you just look at the makeup of the room and you look at who is standing up on each side that one side certainly has more descriptive diversity than the other.”

    Emory? Shouldn’t you just stick to worrying about what makes airplanes fly?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      “Descriptive diversity”

      Oh great, another bullshit term with which to beat me over the head..

    • Count Potato

      “Institute for Race and Difference”

      Oh, fuck off.

    • Grosspatzer

      LOL, Emory. On a road trip with some frat bros in 1973 we paid a visit to the Emory chapter. It was like a re-enactment of a scene from “Gone with the Wind”. Lily white rich kids having meals served by an all-black kitchen staff. I wonder when the reparations will commence.

  20. rhywun

    In other news, Cambodia will henceforth be known as ព្រះរាជាណាចក្រកម្ពុជា.

  21. Q Continuum

    “More than 60 years since decolonization in the area, nations like Barbados still struggle, Moffett said. And yet, he said, most European nations refuse to apologize, atone or offer any kind of reparations for the past.”

    This is absolute poison and will be the end of Western Civilization. Hope you all have been brushing up on your Mandarin.

    • SDF-7

      Guess I should re-binge watch Firefly a few times to get the key phrases,

      • Trigger Hippie

        🎵 Take my love, take my land, Take me where I cannot stand. I don’t care, I’m still free, You can’t take the sky from…🎵

        “What’s that? We still don’t have the technology available for regular schlubs to fly off this 狒狒的屁眼 of a planet? Well, shit.”

    • Spartacus

      This is Haiti’s problem. It has only been 200 years since they threw off the French, they should be seeking reparations. No nation can really get its act together and overcome colonialism in that span of time.

  22. westernsloper

    Most excellent opening Old Man. Seriously though, stop listening to NPR. It is warping your mind.

  23. Q Continuum

    BTW: Thanks for cancer from the links; this is light years worse than Tonio’s nut punches. Dunno if this is driven by your new lady friend, but I’m not sure any pussy is worth putting yourself through this.

    Further:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjwPm38STvw

    • westernsloper

      No, not watching.

    • Tonio

      Awww, thanks Q.

  24. The Late P Brooks

    The public school district in Seattle has filed a novel lawsuit against the tech giants behind TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat, seeking to hold them accountable for the mental health crisis among youth.

    The government schools have been in charge of destroying children’s mental health for decades, and they won’t surrender that job without a fight.

    • Spartacus

      It certainly is tech companies’ fault. Locking children indoors at home for nearly two years cannot possibly have had any effect.

    • rhywun

      To be fair, they have a point – that shit is ruining a generation.

      I wonder where the parents are.

      • juris imprudent

        You mean the sperm donor and incubator?

      • Ownbestenemy

        Cispenis and ciswombs are so yesterday.

  25. Penguin

    According to LegiStorm, a congressionally-focused research organization, in the 118th Congress, 70.9% of members identify as white, 12.6% as Black, 10.5% as Latino, 4.1%, as Asian American /Pacific Islander, 0.9% as having ancestry from the Middle East and 0.9% as Indigenous American.

    So, basically, pretty much like America.

    I think I mentioned this here already, but for the R primary my House district (Federal, not state) race there were 3 black people (2 men, 1 woman), 2 Vietnamese (1M, 1W) and one white guy. I wanted the Vietnamese guy to win. He hardly ever talked about God. I don’t have a problem voting for a devout Christian (or most other religions), I just don’t wanna hear about it all that much. He talked about business. One of the Black guys won. I voted for him in the general, but I live in one of the few BLUE zones in Florida, so he lost. I blame D voter racism, myself. If they can do it, so can I.

    • Q Continuum

      IMMUTABLE SUPERFICIAL CHARACTERISTICS ARE THE ONLY THINGS THAT MATTER

      • Penguin

        No, they also think having their brand of brainwashing is important, too.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Locking children indoors at home for nearly two years cannot possibly have had any effect.

    Don’t forget “alone”. Depriving pack animals of the ability to learn about social structure and hierarchies can only lead to long term strife.

  27. slumbrew

    Bravo, Old Man! That was very well done.

  28. Ownbestenemy

    This working weekends is nonsense. Good Morning folks

    • Gender Traitor

      Good morning, OBE! Are you working by necessity or by choice?

      • Ownbestenemy

        Choice, but could have turned it down. Figured why not, I might actually get work done.

      • juris imprudent

        Have to sneak that real work in on the weekends so his fellow govt employees don’t give him shit.

      • Ownbestenemy

        ^^^This! Can’t make it look like I actually work

      • Ownbestenemy

        lolololol

        “…plus a supply clerk who was hanging around because she’s letting Sgt. Terrell fingerbang her”

        Stereotypes matter

  29. The Late P Brooks

    #6 Is no shit my stomping grounds. It has been a few dozen years, but been there.

    I’ve been to Marble. It’s a beautiful place.

    • westernsloper

      Yep.

  30. The Late P Brooks

    Yesterday, I had a couple of errands to do. After, I stopped in this little “Chinese” restaurant I have been wanting to try. Hot and sour soup and beef chow mein (for some unknown reason). It’s kind of a hole in the wall place, and the owners obviously knew everybody who came through the door except me, which I take as a good sign. I’ll go back there for more hot and sour soup, for sure.

    • SDF-7

      Sometimes you wanna go where everybody orders chow mein?

      • juris imprudent

        Ahhhhhhh-woooooooooooooo

  31. The Late P Brooks

    The school district is asking the court to order the companies to stop creating the public nuisance, to award damages, and to pay for prevention education and treatment for excessive and problematic use of social media.

    Jackpot!

    • juris imprudent

      I’m sure all of the parents in that district are looking forward to the money they will receive in the settlement.

      What’s that – that’s not who is going to get the money? Hmmm.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        The parents will be sued next for not properly preparing their children for indoctrination.

  32. UnCivilServant

    Dammit “Prince of the North Tower” is longer than I remember.

    Back to editing it.

    • SDF-7

      Odd name for Minneapolis, but whatever.

  33. The Late P Brooks

    When we said sanctuary, we didn’t mean for just anybody

    New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot demanded Saturday that Colorado Gov. Jared Polis stop busing asylum seekers to their cities, saying they are “over capacity.”

    “We respectfully demand that you cease and desist sending migrants to New York City and Chicago,” Adams and Lightfoot wrote in a letter to Polis. “Since December of 2022, Chicago and New York City have received hundreds of individuals from Colorado.”

    Since Aug. 31, Chicago has seen 3,854 asylum seekers arrive from Texas and other states including Colorado, according to the letter. New York City has seen 36,400 asylum seekers arrive as of Jan. 4, the letter states.

    The two mayors wrote that they wanted to work with Polis in pressing the federal government for a national solution.

    “You must stop busing migrants to Chicago and New York City,” the mayors wrote. “In the case of family reunification, let us work together to ensure that people are reconnected with their loved ones, however sending migrants to our cities whose systems are over capacity, where they may struggle to find shelter and other services is wrong and further victimizes these most vulnerable individuals.”

    The letter comes days after Adams laced into the federal government and Polis over the number of asylum seekers arriving in the city.

    Chicago and New York should ship those people to Cuba, where they can be taken care of properly.

    • Count Potato

      By those people you mean Eric Adams and Lori Lightfoot?

    • juris imprudent

      Stop believing what we say!

    • cyto

      Didn’t New York’s governor just spend her inaugural speech begging people to move to New York… You know, since they are down hundreds of thousands of residents from the peak?

    • R C Dean

      I strongly suspect that NYC and Chicago have absorbed far less than their pro rata share of the 3 – 4MM illegals that have come over in the last couple of years.

    • rhywun

      The two mayors wrote that they wanted to work with Polis in pressing the federal government for a national solution.

      LOL sure they do.

      • Ownbestenemy

        National solution is to keep them on the border states duh or to ‘red’ states.

      • cyto

        Of course. A national solution of sending them to Texas, Florida and the deep south. Maybe a few select other red states.

      • Ownbestenemy

        So close… 🙂

      • cyto

        When it is that easy to read their intent, of course all satire will look the same.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Polis, the most libertarian governor ever.

    • The Gunslinger

      According to the yard signs I see around town, immigrants are a blessing not a burden. They should be begging for more blessings.

      • cyto

        Detroit has entire sections of town that are being bulldozed. Not sure what they would do for work, but plenty of housing is available.

    • Michael Malaise

      Blue-on-blue political shenanigans!

  34. creech

    Word of the TMITE today is “chaos.”. For most of us, that means “extreme confusion and disorder.”. If the McCarthy election had been for a Democrat speaker, it would of course been characterized as “a healthy example of our democracy in action demonstrating our party’s reverence for opposing views and constructive debate.”

    • juris imprudent

      Relevant #1

      Relevant #2

      The latter highlights that the job the media has given itself is to cheer-lead for The Narrative, thus debate and dissent are both express violations of non-belief.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I feel the same way

    • Ownbestenemy

      Heh…love the kid that grabs his chip and puts it back in the bowl.

  35. The Late P Brooks

    This is Haiti’s problem. It has only been 200 years since they threw off the French, they should be seeking reparations. No nation can really get its act together and overcome colonialism in that span of time.

    People who have been down there tell you can see the line of demarcation between Haiti and the Dominican Republic from the air. Haiti is that much of a shithole.

    It’s whitey’s fault.

    • cyto

      A part of their problem is that the French left… But demanded payment of a huge debt.

      The other part is that they were left with french governance and french ideas as their legacy.

      They should have told the debt collectors to pound sand.. and at any point in their many times overthrowing governments, they should have chosen “not corrupt” as a priority.

      • juris imprudent

        But as you said – French ideas (and morals).

      • Seguin

        The massacre didn’t help – that kind of thing kills the soul. Dessalines was also a horrible human being in general.

    • Fourscore

      It’s because Haiti is landlocked. If only they had control of the whole island things would have worked out. Or they could have learned Spanish

  36. The Late P Brooks

    Word of the TMITE today is “chaos.”. For most of us, that means “extreme confusion and disorder.”. If the McCarthy election had been for a Democrat speaker, it would of course been characterized as “a healthy example of our democracy in action demonstrating our party’s reverence for opposing views and constructive debate.”

    Remember when Will Rogers said, “I’m not a member of an organized political party, I’m a Democrat”?

    Switcheroo.

    • cyto

      To be fair “the parties switched sides” is cannon for the intervening years. Gotta whitewash that racist history.

  37. The Late P Brooks

    From Juris’ link 1:

    Notably, what has unnerved so many in Washington is that this speakership debate was not just largely public but also unscripted. It was an actual deliberation, conducted in front of the American people. While repellent to many, it just might be something that voters could get accustomed to.

    NO FIGHTING IN FRONT OF THE CHILDREN!

  38. Ownbestenemy

    If any of yous scour GSA for test equipment for sale…some items will be going up in a month or so…so I have heard

    8563A Spec An, 436 Peak Power Meter and some ancient microwave counter…

    • tripacer

      Sounds like someone should set up a pirate TRACON station.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Well I am the systems specialist for radar and the automation so I can over look external connections..radios are just VHF, so yeah, lets stand up a mobile TRACON!

      • tripacer

        I don’t know why we did it, but it had to be done!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I’m old enough to have bought 8563A’s new.

      *sigh*

    • cyto

      That is a-list funny.

      Also… I have been mostly ignoring this as theater that will accomplish nothing… So could someone clue me in as to what the actual fight was? You rarely see faces get grabbed like that.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Mostly about undoing the Pelosi power consolidation. She basically made it impossible to challenge the speaker and that is part of why legislation has just been rammed through over the past few years.

      • R.J.

        Yes, Goetz (sp) voted no again and McCarthy lost his cool. Remember McCarthy was born for this job and Goetz is in his way. It is God’s will that McCarthy be speaker. His fury is righteous.

      • R.J.

        Also Goetz is a better man than me. I would have head butted, for starters, then testicle stomped.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Oh, you were asking about hat particular interaction.

        Back to the coffee pot for me.

      • cyto

        Dude got his face grabbed. Usually I am saying some pretty spicy stuff when that happens.

  39. Gender Traitor

    Anyone know of a good site on which to find U.S.-made (or at least “Not China”) genuine leather mobile phone cases? Amazon is not really helping, as they seem to think “PU leather” is close enough and often conveniently forget to list the country of origin. I have a relatively obscure model of phone and prefer a wallet-style case.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    From Juris’ link 2:

    Madison believed that without the time needed for passions to dissipate and deliberation to take place, legislative bodies would make rash decisions, as opposed to employing reason when taking action.

    That may have been fine in the horse and buggy days, but not now.

    We need answers, and we need them now.

  41. The Late P Brooks

    Amazon is not really helping

    Whaaaa?

    Amazon’s “search” feature is so utterly useless it can’t possibly be accidental.

    • cyto

      Needed some resistors yesterday. Found a cheap package with free overnight deliver on my prime account.

      Went through checkout.

      $3 bucks for overnight. Ok, pay the three.

      Check my order. Be here in 2 days. Cancel.

      Find another with “free delivery by 11 am tomorrow.”. Decide not to hold my breath.

      Check order? “This item cannot be displayed”.

      Screw it. Roll the dice and see if it comes

      • R.J.

        Depressing. Even in big cities it is getting hard to find a good place for electrical components. Used to be Radio Shack was great for basic stuff, and there was always some hobbyist shop with cardboard bins and lots of options. Not any more.

      • Seguin

        I miss Tanner’s. Don’t know if you ever went there (you’re in DFW right?) but it was like an electronics candy store.

      • Ownbestenemy

        This was the biggest loss of Fry’s electronics (or Radio Shack for that matter) of going out of business. We still do some component level maintenance and we used to just drop into Fry’s, get what we need and fix it. Now its an adventure like you are experiencing.

    • rhywun

      See also: Google.

      *remembers fondly when query syntax for things like “must contain this word” and “must not contain that word” used to work*

      • Ownbestenemy

        About to go through?

      • KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

        Looks to be in those locks in less than an hour or so – the Marine Traffic link shows the tracking

      • KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

        Camera is pointed south toward Bridge of the Americas

      • Ownbestenemy

        Cool!

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      My sister and her husband might be on the same ship. Small world.

  42. The Late P Brooks

    GT-

    Is there a saddle shop or some kind of leather goods place locally who might be able to make you one?

  43. The Late P Brooks

    Anarchy! Chaos! DOOOOOM!

    House Republican Kevin McCarthy’s numerous concessions to the most right-wing members of his conference risk setting the House of Representatives and Congress up for a series of crises over the next two years.

    At the top of the list is the US debt ceiling, which far-right lawmakers may hold hostage to extract policy concessions and spending cuts, while endangering the full faith and credit of the US and global economy.

    ——-

    “They’re going to say that unless they have very steep spending cuts in domestic programs, they won’t, they won’t vote for it,” Democratic Representative Jerry Nadler of New York warned of a looming debt ceiling fight. “That’s the only thing. That’s the blackmail.”

    Representative-elect Maxwell Frost of Florida told The Independent that it could lead to dangerous cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

    “That’s the goal of the Freedom Caucus and that’s why they’ve been holding this hostage,” Mr Frost said.

    Grandma is a goner.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Its progress when we stuff pork into bills but terrorism to demand bills be clean and specific. Don’t you American politics?

    • MikeS

      We’re 31 Trillion in debt but demanding spending cuts is “blackmail” and a “crisis”.

    • rhywun

      I can only get so hard.

  44. Ted S.

    RIP Adam Rich

    I guess he’s no longer spending his days like bright and shiny new dimes. 🙁

    • R.J.

      Wow.

  45. The Late P Brooks

    Ancient alien technology

    Future concrete buildings could be made more durable — and environmentally friendly — using the long-lost building techniques of ancient Rome, a new study has found.

    Use of an ancient Roman concrete-mixing technique called “hot mixing” created blocks that could heal themselves when cracked, according to the paper published in Science Advances.

    Such self-healing blocks allowed the Romans to build structures like aqueducts, monuments and stadiums that have survived for millennia amid wars, earthquakes and everyday urban pollution and chaos.

    Researchers said blocks treated with the method — in which concrete was mixed with reactive quicklime under continuous heat — knit themselves back together within a few weeks after being fractured.

    Their ability to self-heal came from chemical flecks left by that hot quicklime — which combined with rainfall from natural limestone and sealed cracks in the concrete.

    Cracks in blocks that had been made without lime, by contrast — as all modern concrete is — never healed, the MIT team found.

    Eco-Naysayers in 3, 2…

    • db

      The process of producing quicklime generates a large amount of CO2…

  46. Tundra

    Good morning, Old Man.

    Spending that much time with the dark forces is dangerous. You should have an amulet of pure iron made for those forays. We can’t afford to lose any more good people to the demons.

    Old Guy Music is fantastic!