Wednesday Afternoon Sugared Links

by | Mar 8, 2023 | Daily Links | 244 comments

Look, I can’t prose the way SugarFree does, and I can’t curate stories like him, either. So yeah, we’re cheating you out of this by substituting sugar for aspartame. But he’s tied up elsewhere today (something about Creosote Achilles), so deal with it.

Birthdays today include the Skipper (who also had a small role in the greatest baseball movie ever made); one of the biggest pieces of shit to ever serve on the Supreme Court; a shitty pitcher who wrote a funny damn book; a pretty damn good first baseman; a piece of shit politician– but I repeat myself; an actually interesting actress; the last Monkee; a guy who really got to the core of the issue and was a truly decent human being; and the dirtiest guy ever named Smiley.

And with that, we crash your blood glucose with Links.

 

Let me ‘splain this to you, JJ, since you’ve clearly taken a few extra shots to the head. He’s missed half of the last two seasons with injuries and lost all but one playoff game he’s ever been in. And wants $250MM guaranteed. Why is this a question?

 

I am shocked that TV performers play parts.

 

I am shocked that activist organizations lie.

 

I am shocked that propaganda organizations double down on propaganda when they’re caught lying.

 

I am shocked that an uber-Proggie city is racist.

 

She sobbed so hard that her husband finally got an erection.

 

Old Guy Music is an old song done by an odd grouping that somehow… works. Nickel Creek minus Chris Thile, but add Fiona Apple and Benmont Tench. It’s beautiful. Gave me goosebumps.

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.

244 Comments

  1. Brochettaward

    I came, I saw, I Firsted.

      • Rat on a train

        “Veni. Vidi. Primi.” would have been better.

      • UnCivilServant

        Being relevant would have been better.

      • Rat on a train

        If you aren’t going to post a true first at least have some style.

      • UnCivilServant

        That’s mutually exclusive with the act.

      • Brochettaward

        Some guy who doesn’t even known that Latin has been banned in Western Firsting for generations now is going to tell me how to First.

  2. Count Potato

    “When muggles read the tweet talking about “mass shootings” they think “random spree shootings.”

    READ ANOTHER BOOK.

    • Count Potato

      “There is no doubt in my mind that that’s the largest contributor for the overall rise in crime, including murder, in 2020 and 2021.”

      Also, masks.

    • Count Potato

      Anyway, I think the Northwell.edu lie that’s on TV all the time about how “unsecured guns are the leading cause of death among children” is worse. It’s supposed to make you think it’s children accidentally killing themselves with unlocked guns.

  3. Sean

    Shocking.

    • UnCivilServant

      Perhaps he needs to be more grounded.

    • The Other Kevin

      He’s putting up a lot of resistance against the deep state and the MSM, their conduit for lies.

      • Sean

        Perhaps he’s wired on coffee.

      • Tundra

        Or the circuits in town.

      • The Other Kevin

        I didn’t think he had the capacitance for that type of thing.

      • juris imprudent

        If they breaker him, he’s off the circuit.

      • Ownbestenemy

        You shunt make this a pun thread

      • Shpip

        Ohm my goodness, but Swiss is going to have sparks flying out of his gaze.

      • juris imprudent

        He has to be careful, too narrow and he could get an arc.

      • The Gunslinger

        There oughta be a Law against any Moore pun threads like this.

      • Ownbestenemy

        People will just flip-flop on the definition of the law anyway.

      • Timeloose

        He will definitely not be happy about what you have all conducted in his absence by impeding his cool with your negative waves. His feedback might be very negative and only matched by his own distorted views on puns.

      • UnCivilServant

        Careful, you’ll overload that comment.

      • Ted S.

        Nice pussy.

      • SDF-7

        Don’t get catty with Swiss now.

      • juris imprudent

        You’d prefer seeing the other end?

      • Ownbestenemy

        Well the other end isn’t as toothy

  4. Stinky Wizzleteats

    “healthfeedback.org”
    Just what I need, another fact-checking organization that’s divorced from the facts.

    • Sensei

      It’s from a .org domain it must be completely balanced and fair!

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        But if it were .edu it would be completely scientific.

    • Drake

      That information was “debunked” because we said so without evidence a long time ago.

      • Rat on a train

        Don’t bring your facts in here. It is settled science.

    • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

      I read that as “Health Feed Bag. org”

  5. Scruffyy Nerfherder

    Macaca!

    • Tonio

      There’s a blast from the past.

  6. Muzzled Woodchipper

    A lot of baseball birthdays, but still nothing about the WBC.

    Y’all are fucking heathens.

    • Nephilium

      The WBC isn’t happening until May. I mean, samples aren’t even due for another week and a half.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        I’d narrow my gaze, but that’s Swisssssss’ territory.

  7. The Late P Brooks

    We also learned that News Corp. Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch acknowledged under oath that some prominent Fox News hosts “endorsed” baseless claims the network knew to be wrong.

    Did they KNOW those claims were wrong? Consensus is not proof.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      Tell us about 2003 and Iraq war push, Rupert.

    • The Other Kevin

      They still use the term “lies” in regard to election skepticism. If you honestly believe there was funny business, you’re not lying.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      It raises the question of what Rupert knows about the Fox News daily operations anyway. I’ll bet he doesn’t know shit in reality. He just issues directives to not piss off advertisers like Pfizer.

  8. Stinky Wizzleteats

    Why is this revelatory revelation that Carlson passionately hates Trump supposedly so damning? Who gives a fuck?
    Also, out of context.

    • The Other Kevin

      Agreed. You can hate Trump and hate the Dems and call out their bullshit at the same time.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        NO! YOU MUST CHOOSE!

      • juris imprudent

        Shit sandwich or giant douche – same as it ever was.

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        How did I get here? This is not my beautiful wife?

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      The issue lies with how they perceive the world. The ends justify the means. They cannot comprehend a set of principles that exist outside that rubric.

  9. Tundra

    Bull Durham is my favorite ever baseball movie.

    • Sensei

      Major League.

      • Tundra

        That’s 2. BD reminds me of baseball’s version of Slap Shot. I’m a sucker for minor league sports.

      • Sensei

        Perhaps because of nostalgia Bade News Bears.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Eight Men Out for me

      • Tundra

        Also good. I liked League of their own, too.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Teen #1 had to watch Field of Dreams for film studies and called it the worst movie he has ever seen.

      • Old Man With Candy

        I watched that with SP who was laughing hysterically through the whole movie. “Oh my god, this is AMAZINGLY bad!”

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        It’s sappy as fuck, for sure, but it’s the good kind of sappy.

        My favorite 2 are League of their Own and Bull Durham.

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        Yep, best baseball movie hands down.

        The best baseball is seeing a game, a good movie about Baseball is looking at a different aspect, which Sayles does in spades.

    • Mojeaux

      I have to say, the only baseball movie I like is Moneyball, which really isn’t actually about baseball.

  10. The Late P Brooks

    It was around the same time that Fox executives made no effort to obscure their support and allegiance to the Republican ticket.

    NBC News always maintained a fastidious arm’s length neutrality in their coverage of Obama and the Democrats.

  11. juris imprudent

    You can’t make a good movie about baseball.

  12. The Late P Brooks

    Why is this revelatory revelation that Carlson passionately hates Trump supposedly so damning?

    It’s as plain as the nose on your face. “Hates Trump” = “Loves Biden”. What other explanation could there be?

    • R C Dean

      Yup. It’s a (failed) attempt to undercut Carlson with the J6 skeptics.

  13. Shpip

    Being a gun-adjacent writer, I talk with folks who hang out with cops and they pass the stories back to me. They said in 2020 many of the cops who didn’t quit their jobs simply quit policing in dangerous areas. The fear that they would get caught on YouTube doing their job, and then get fired from their job for doing their job, led them to the conclusion that they should just quit doing their job in areas where they might lose their job for doing it.

    “Hey, if they don’t want us around, just give ’em better weapons and training, then fence the neighborhood in. The problem will sort itself out soon enough.”

    Sucks for the law-abiding poors who live there, but them’s the breaks.

    • Tonio

      And probably a lot more traffic tickets, etc, in the less dangerous parts of their territory to keep up the appearance that they are doing something.

  14. The Gunslinger

    Regarding Lamar Jackson. He wouldn’t play for his team when they needed him most at the end of the season. Compare to Mahomes who was playing on 1 ankle and won a Superbowl. Which QB do you think teammates will rally around?

    I can remember when media would celebrate a player when he sacrificed his body for the team and rip a player that was “just in it for the money”. Listen to sports talk nowadays and they are telling Lamar, “don’t go out there until you get paid. You don’t want to risk an injury.”

    No way in hell I’m giving that guy any guaranteed money if I can help it.

    • Nephilium

      I’m enjoying sitting here on the sidelines being entertained by the Lamar situation.

      If he was looking for the big money last year, sitting out those last several games sure as hell didn’t help him any.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Is it as entertaining as watching Deshaun Watson?

      • Ted S.

        If you like watching other people’s happy endings, we’re not going to kink-shame you.

      • Nephilium

        It’s still early enough I can have hope for this season. Give me until October for that to get stomped out.

  15. The Late P Brooks

    Michelle Obama broke down shortly after leaving then-President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the former first lady candidly shared in a new podcast, as the emotions of leaving their family’s home after eight years and resentment over Trump taking office overwhelmed her.

    “When those doors shut, I cried for 30 minutes straight, uncontrollable sobbing, because that’s how much we were holding it together for eight years,” Obama said, referring to her final trip aboard the presidential airplane.

    “So this is what it feels like to be deposed from the throne? Does this mean we’re just regular people now?”

    • juris imprudent

      Is there video of that – I’d even pay to watch.

      • Ownbestenemy

        I would wager it would look similar to AOC at the border.

    • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

      Oh, how those would be public. Lead my people to water, and let them drink!

  16. The Late P Brooks

    We were leaving the home we had been in for eight years, the only home our kids really knew,” Obama shared. “They remembered Chicago but they had spent more time in the White House than anywhere. So we were saying goodbye to the staff and all the people who helped to raise them.”

    Cast

    out.

    Never have I been so ashamed to be an American.

    • Drake

      Exiled to a mansion on Martha’s Vineyard. Like Napoleon on Elba.

      • Not Adahn

        True story:

        This chick used to come to the dog park and would regale us with stories about how the generationally wealthy live (she was getting back into polo — her coach says she’s a natural!) There is a lot of money flowing through this town. Anyway, she was complaining about how Obama bright down the tone of The Vineyard, since he was attracting all these grubby politicos and social climbers wanting to live nearby. Her family just couldn’t take it anymore. They did get a pretty good deal when they left though — these arrivistes did bid up prices for properties.

    • slumbrew

      The American people failed her – they were supposed to make Barack President For Life so they cold stay there.

      Also, weren’t the girls in college at that point?

  17. Sensei

    Ladies and gentlemen, your electric transportation future awaits!

    GM’s EV Push Stalls Amid Slow Rollouts for GMC Hummer, Cadillac Lyriq

    More than 15 months after GM began building the electric GMC Hummer pickup truck, the company has been making roughly a dozen a day, a figure far below initial targets for this point in the rollout, people familiar with the matter said. The Hummer has a wait list of more than 80,000 people. Some Hummers have been stuck at dealerships under a sales freeze since October, as GM investigated a potential problem with water seeping into the battery pack.

    GM’s other high-profile new EV, the Cadillac Lyriq SUV, which it started selling almost a year ago, is also experiencing an unusually slow ramp-up. Through February, GM had sold roughly 1,000 Lyriqs since it began building them in March 2022. Comparatively, Tesla Inc. sold an estimated 252,000 Model Ys in the U.S. last year, according to research firm Motor Intelligence. The Lyriq is a direct competitor to the Tesla Model Y.

    • R.J.

      What a surprise. Damned expensive toys don’t sell well.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Nonesense! My president rode around in one and said we can all get one

      • Sensei

        That’s not the issue. It’s parts and production.

        They can’t produce anything in volume. The demand is there.

      • rhywun

        The demand is there.

        The children working the cobalt mines in The Congo thank them for their support.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        They need to start whipping those child slaves in Chinese lithium mines more.

  18. robc

    The Gun Lie article connects well with the T-hacking article Pie posted in morning links.

    They literally start at a local minima for their measuring.

    • Count Potato

      It’s the warmest since the coldest time ever.

    • Nephilium

      So… If I’m following this correctly, more gun violence == bigger gainz?

      • Count Potato

        That’s how prisons work.

  19. Sensei

    Are we not doing phrasing?

    Proponents of the engine alternative say it is needed to keep pace with a rising China and that putting a new generation of engines onto the F-35 would ultimately be more cost effective than upgrading the existing model to address concerns about thrust and efficiency.

    Military Contractors Square Off Over F-35 Jet Engine Program

    • Drake

      Can we just give them all the Ukrainians and let Russia shoot them down so we can start over?

      • Sensei

        Here’s our chance to see how the Osprey really works!

      • Ownbestenemy

        There are cheaper ‘suicide’ platforms out there

      • Drake

        Why do you hate our defense contractors?

      • juris imprudent

        Because they can buy Congress off to force shit on the military that the military didn’t want?

    • SDF-7

      GE’s campaign is a challenge to fellow defense giant Raytheon Technologies Corp., which owns Pratt. Raytheon says developing a new engine could cost a total of $6 billion, a price tag that swells to $40 billion when calculated to include maintenance. Upgrading the Pratt engine would cost about $2.5 billion, according to the company.

      And since every estimate with the F-35 program has been too low by a factor of 10x, I’d certainly take Raytheon’s price tag with a grain of salt here. Especially since it is in their financial best interest to keep it with Pratt.

      And Drake — this assumes any of them are flying to begin with. I very much think an updated F-16 / F-15 program aiming for reasonable budget and seriously mass production would be much more in the national interest than these prima donnas that make the German weapons designers look rough and ready.

      • juris imprudent

        I thought this was an old controversy, and it is. The article is dated FUCKING 2011.

      • Drake

        If contractors weren’t running military procurement, we might pay attention to the war in the Ukraine. The Russians have used close air support very sparingly because modern air defenses are too good. Many of their strikes are done with guided missiles at stand-off distances. You could put missile racks on an Embraer commuter jet and it would serve the same purpose.

  20. Rat on a train

    New cost estimate for high-speed rail puts California bullet train $100 billion in the red
    The California High Speed Rail Authority has published an update.

    The latest report from the California High-Speed Rail Authority projects costs for the initial segment at $35 billion, which exceeds secured funding by $10 billion. Other segments of the system are likely to have their projected costs increase, too. The state hopes it will get more federal aid.

    – over schedule
    – over budget
    – lacks funding
    – ridership estimates reduced
    They at least are honest now that it will require ongoing federal bailouts.

    • juris imprudent

      The only thing high speed about it is the rate at which it burns money.

      • Rat on a train

        It gets something like $200 million to the mile.

    • Tonio

      But think of the jobs, Rat. The cushy, do-nothing jobs. And using eminent domain to stick it to the little people.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Wonder if there is a Racial Equity Commission for the effects of the new rail and the eminent domain and how it will disproportionately affect persons of color….Maybe my boss can jump on that.

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        There are quite a few farmers and ranchers in the Central Valley who are pissed that they lost land, productive land mind you, to the Train in Vain project, which, lets face it will never happen. It was, is, and always will be, a huge boondoggle, and a stain on the whole concept of Big Government.

  21. B.P.

    Uh-oh, haters, Americans really dig “woke”…

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/03/08/gop-war-woke-most-americans-see-term-positive-ipsos-poll/11417394002/

    ““Most Americans understand that to be woke is to be tuned in to injustices around us,” said Cliff Young of Ipsos. “But for a key segment of Republicans who make up the Trump-DeSantis base, ‘woke’ is a clear trigger for the worst of the politically correct, emerging multicultural majority.””

    Things get a little more interesting on the particulars.

    • Compelled Speechless

      “Trump-DeSantis base”. I see the talking points have been issued to conflate these two as often as possible.

      More motte and bailey polling. People support progressive positions when you underexplain, misrepresent and color them as benign in the questions themselves. Color me shocked.

      • The Other Kevin

        “Americans overwhelmingly oppose, by 76%-21%, efforts by state governments to ban certain books from school classrooms and libraries.”

        I’d love to see the phrasing of this question. Pretty sure they didn’t specify that the books in question have graphic sex and are aimed at elementary school kids.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Straight blanket quesiton

        “How much do you support or oppose the following? (Continued)
        b. State governments passing laws that ban certain books from school classrooms and
        libraries”

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        I’ll be donating copies of Mein Kampf to the local school districts.

      • Rat on a train

        Harry Potter, but what’s the difference?

    • Rat on a train

      Two in five (40%) say they consider “woke” to be an insult, but about a third (32%) consider it a compliment.

      • R.J.

        At Stanford maybe.

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        32%. That is, what, a rough approximation of the number of Democrats?

    • Ownbestenemy

      Oh..like the tie in to Trump-Desantis base. Very clever.

    • juris imprudent

      emerging multicultural majority

      Who da fuq is dat?

    • rhywun

      Science!

      🙄🙄

  22. The Late P Brooks

    BAFFLING

    Student loan forgiveness advocates and experts are somewhat puzzled by SoFi Technology’s (SOFI) new lawsuit attempting to block the ongoing payment pause on federal student loans.

    “A multi-billion dollar lending company is asking the federal government to prioritize its profits over protecting the public interest,” Eden Iscil, a public policy manager at the National Consumers League, told Yahoo Finance. “Millions of individuals with student debt don’t even have a college degree; many of these borrowers are parents who took out loans on behalf of their kids or they’re students who couldn’t complete their degrees as the costs quickly added up. Both the Trump and Biden administrations made the correct and legal decision in putting borrowers first.”

    It’s the damnedest thing. They made those loans in good faith or some semblance thereof, and now they want to be repaid? WITH INTEREST?

    Monstrous.

  23. The Late P Brooks

    The Education Department asserts the legality of the payment pause and also questioned the motives of the lawsuit.

    “This lawsuit is an attempt by a multi-billion dollar company to make money while they force 45 million borrowers back into repayment – putting many at serious risk of financial harm,” an Education Department spokesperson told Yahoo Finance. “The payment pause is legal, as is our plan to provide one-time debt relief to tens of millions of borrowers most at risk of delinquency and default when they return to repayment.”

    Outrageous.

    About that risk of delinquency and default…

    • The Other Kevin

      I can’t believe that a loan company would want to make a profit lending money to people. Unconscionable.

    • Compelled Speechless

      If movies being funded by irredeemable shit stains is going be disqualifying…..

    • Compelled Speechless

      AOC in Dorothy outfit = would.

      Throw your stones if you must.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        I’m not here to kink shame you. Also would.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Ill allow it

      • slumbrew

        Absolutely would.

      • CPRM

        I wish I had the patience to learn deepfake. 😛

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        Reminds me of a time in college when a buddy set fire to his arm while doing a flaming shot. Instead of trying to put the fire out, my roommate tried lighting his cigarette.

  24. Count Potato

    “NEW – Scientists have revived a “zombie” virus that spent 48,500 years frozen in permafrost “to better understand the risks” it poses for animals and humans.”

    https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1633562416033193986

    What could possibly go wrong?

    • R.J.

      It could react with our DNA and regress us all to cavemen. I’d be cool with that.

      • Count Potato

        Our DNA is pretty much the same. It’s the software that’s changed. If you defrosted a caveman, he could play shortstop for the Mets.

      • Animal

        For certain values of “caveman,” which is a term that doesn’t mean much. If you managed to defrost a Neandertal and put him in the ring with a modern pro wrestler, the Neandertal could easily pick the wrestler up and chuck him into the 5th or 6th row.

      • Tundra

        I’d watch that.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Easier to find someone with retard strength

      • Homple

        Retard strength: does not rule the night, goes want cake.

      • Animal

        Right?

        I remember the late Richard Leakey expressed some annoyance at how people misunderstood his comment that if you “…took a Neandertal, gave him a shave and a haircut, dressed him in a suit and pulled a hat down low over his eyes, he probably wouldn’t draw too much attention on a New York subway.” People took that to mean that Leakey was saying that the Neandertal were, in effect, modern humans, which they were not.

        In one interview I read, he want on to say “…if you did the same thing with a Homo erectus, he would get a lot of cautious looks; if you did it with a H. habilis, everyone would move to the other end of the car.”

      • Tundra

        Hah! Yeah. I’d disappear if the H. habilis showed up.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        Leave Patrick Ewing alone.

      • Count Potato

        “anatomically modern human”

      • J. Frank Parnell

        Or a Senator from, say, Pennsylvania.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Don’t you dare disparage her!

      • Animal

        Hrm. Speaking of the Neandertal – I think I’m having a story idea.

      • Animal

        Ook ook.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        Regress?

    • The Other Kevin

      Nothing, as long as it’s being studied in a nice safe lab in China that has impeccable quality control.

      • Compelled Speechless

        I know a perfect place. Unfortunately there’s a wet market a couple miles away that mysteriously spawns deadly viruses because bats or something. Don’t know why I brought that up. They’re obviously completely unrelated.

    • B.P.

      To tie it in with the loan forgiveness thread, my favorite Wizard of Oz quote: “Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven’t got: a diploma.”

      • B.P.

        Thread fail.

  25. The Late P Brooks

    NPR headline:

    Credit Card Nation: How we went from record savings to record debt in just two years

    The suspense is killing me.

    • The Other Kevin

      That writer has to have a lot of skill to stretch out two sentences into an entire article.

    • Compelled Speechless

      We had record savings two years ago. I would absolutely love to see the data that makes them reach that claim.

      You can spoil it for me. Does the phrase “printing press goes buurrrrrr” appear anywhere in the article?

      • The Other Kevin

        The US government has been actively penalizing savings and encouraging borrowing for all my adult life.

      • Compelled Speechless

        Literally every time I go to check out at any online store, you’re offered the ability to open a line of credit and make payments. Even if it’s $50. Let’s play a game.

        This is the result of:
        a) The fed printing infinite amounts of money and shooting it out of cannons at well connected banks and keeping interest rates at an artificial rate near 0% for two decades incentivizing consumers to take on enormous amounts of debt easily and without much thought.
        b) Corporate greed alone. The FED is led by inscrutable angels who only want the best for us.

      • creech

        Yep, my savings are down at least 15 percent from two years ago and that’s without having spent a dime of it.

      • whiz

        I’m guessing that if their claim is true, it’s only because the savings is measured in absolute dollars, not inflation-adjusted or as a fraction of the overall economy.

  26. Tundra

    20 minutes into the Rogan/Malice podcast. Not sure I’m gonna make it through the full thing.

    • Count Potato

      Is it Malice on JRE, or Rogan on Your Welcome?

      • Tundra

        Malice on JRE. 3 and half fucking hours.

      • Count Potato

        Thanks, I’ll check it out when it gets uploaded somewhere.

      • Tundra

        It’s on Spotify.

      • Count Potato

        I know, but I’m not. They also don’t allow downloading.

      • Tundra

        Huh? Of course they do.

        Podcast Addict, too.

      • Count Potato

        Last time I checked, they didn’t.

      • Tundra

        I download Spotify every day. I promise you it works.

  27. Count Potato

    “.@HillaryClinton: “Women and children are the primary victims of conflict and of climate change and there is no place that unfortunately, tragically, shows us that more dramatically than Ukraine today.””

    “More Hillary: “Covid … had a disproportionate impact on women & girls around the world & a lot of consequences such as increases in domestic violence, increase in child marriage, increase in unemployment. And we have seen organized pushback to the advancement of women.””

    https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1633457036112568322

    Again, I’m reminded of Trump’s greatest achievement.

    • Ownbestenemy

      How did lil’rona contribute to child marriage?

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        Because shut up and don’t question.

      • Compelled Speechless

        Fiat associations. It’s related because our god-king-emperors declare it so.

      • The Last American Hero

        Couldn’t go to the bar and meet women. Who else you gonna marry?

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      Uhh, in both cases aren’t a majority of the deaths men? Especially in Ukraine?

      • The Other Kevin

        Yes, the deaths are men, but their wives and children are most affected by them dying.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Woman and children are the primary victims, huh? There have been about 8K civilian deaths, vs. how many military deaths, almost entirely men? And about 13K civilian wounded, vs. how many wounded men doing the fighting?

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      There’s another one I’d like to send to Bakhmut.

  28. The Late P Brooks

    Anecdotal sob story

    Roth has three children, ages 2, 4 and 6 and lives in Lebanon, Tennessee, just outside of Nashville.

    She has a full time job as an administrative medical assistant, helping adults with disabilities get services. She had never really had debt and had always been good with money. But during the pandemic, Roth went through a divorce and her finances and lifestyle changed dramatically.

    Roth took full custody of her children and became the main support for her children. That was a stretch on a salary of about $40,000 a year. Especially considering the cost of daycare. “It’s like $1,500 a month,” she says. “That’s half my paycheck right there.”

    ——-

    “We saw Americans across the income stream save a lot of money. I mean a lot of money,” says Jill Schlesinger, CBS news business analyst and author of The Great Money Reset.

    Schlesinger says stimulus checks, lockdown and pay raises had people in really strong financial shape, with the highest personal savings rate on record. “But then 2022 starts and inflation doesn’t go down,” says Schlesinger. “And then we saw many people plow through those pandemic era savings, left with nothing.”

    Schlesinger says the rising price of basics, like food, gas and clothing, have landed millions of Americans in real financial distress. “For a lot of people, this is not, ‘I’m going out and buying something fancy,'” she says. “Things are more expensive and just to keep up with where you were last year, you have to pay a lot more.”

    Suddenly, with neither warning nor explanation, everything got more expensive.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Glossed right over that divorce did they and her insistence on obtaining full custody cause fuck men.

      • juris imprudent

        Roth went through a divorce and her finances and lifestyle changed dramatically

        Who could have imagined that?

      • Compelled Speechless

        It’s a woman’s right to have the burden of her collapsed neglected relationship bore by all of society. Marriage and child rearing are things that should be engaged in frivolously and impulsively and therefore should be abandoned just as easily. It’s beyond absurd to think that she should have to suffer the easily foreseeable consequences of not bother to try to make her marriage work.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    You can spoil it for me. Does the phrase “printing press goes buurrrrrr” appear anywhere in the article?

    Sadly, no.

  30. rhywun

    Indian Wells (major tennis tournament in California) just broke to a shot of the UK flag flying next to the US flag on top of the stadium.

    Taps out – piss off with that shit.

    • Count Potato

      You mean Ukrainian flag or British flag?

      • rhywun

        Ukrainian.

        I always think ‘UK’ because a lot of times I see people pepper their text with it and it shows up as UK instead of a flag for some reason.

    • Compelled Speechless

      In a related story, I have a 3D rocket printer…..in my pants.

    • Count Potato

      That’s how Olivia Munn got started.

    • Not Adahn

      The dudes supposedly in charge of the company talk like milennial girls.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    Roth went through a divorce and her finances and lifestyle changed dramatically

    Who could have imagined that?

    What are the odds the divorce was plague-related, I wonder.

  32. CPRM

    Had Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch. It’s been a couple years since I’d gone. Last time I remember their hottest was actually mildly hot. What I had today decidedly was not.

    But, my home made hot sauce is stewing in the fridge. /Doffs Fedora to Sean

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      My condolences on your explosive diarrhea

      • CPRM

        I thought we didn’t kink shame here?!

    • Muzzled Woodchipper

      B Dubs is the cure for all stomach maladies.

      Eat there, and you’ll be sure to piss any stomach bugs right out of your ass in very short order.

      • Tundra

        +1 Famous Dave’s

    • Sean

      This year’s are sprouted. Two dragon’s breath as the top end of the heat. 😋
      Looking at probably 7 varieties and 11-12 plants total.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Well I mean, the vid wasn’t really all that deadly comparatively…

    • Rat on a train

      The real danger are the diseases we don’t know about. Give me funding and tyrannical power lest we all die.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      Nuzzo is a professional Chicken Little

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      Better fund a project to create those mutations.

    • R.J.

      Damn. I was all ready to move to Oklahoma.

    • rhywun

      Oklahoma tax collectors hardest hit.

  33. Penguin

    Nice baseball/birthday links, OM.

    I think I mentioned this previously, but one of the best (if not the best) teachers I ever had was my 9th grade English teacher. She saw how out of it I was, and then suddenly, in the shelves in the back of the room (near where I sat) appeared a copy of Ball Four by Jim Bouton. I spent most of the next semester reading it. It’s a good book on its’ own, but great if you like baseball, which I really did (still do, just not as much. She didn’t try to get me to discuss whatever, just let me read. I will always hold her in high regard.

  34. Tundra

    Will it mean anything?

    Fauci is a monster.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      I think he’s about to get thrown under the bus.

      • Tundra

        If it’s not into a chipper, I’m unhappy.

      • TARDis

        Why does it matter anymore? The POS is in his 80s and has milked the system for as much time as Biden. Then he got his time in the sun, like Biden. Morons and vermin are still carrying both of them. The woodchipper is too good for him. He deserves to to feel the pain of millions.

      • Compelled Speechless

        The walls are closing in on Fauci. I feel like I’ve been hearing that for two years.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        The tone has definitely shifted and Redfield just shanked him.

        Fauci’s out of power now. Once the ball gets rolling, I don’t see much political will to stop it.

      • juris imprudent

        Mob dynamics – as soon as they sense that he can be the scapegoat, they’ll all rally to scapegoating him.

      • R.J.

        I see Fauci as another Trump. No matter what he does, he won’t get in serious trouble. I shall now place a $5 bet on this, to be collected in two year by you if he ever gets convicted of anything other than a parking ticket.

      • Compelled Speechless

        Disagree. I don’t see much political will to get it started. Fauci may be “out of power”, but a huge part of DC operating the way it does is implication that they protect their own, even in retirement, regardless of team (unless you’re team anti-establishment). Going after him might open the door for any number of politicians/deep-state bureaucrats to suddenly be held accountable for their abuses of power and back room dealings. That cannot be allowed to happen.

        He’ll be used by the R’s as a lighting rod for their impotent moaning and wailing until no one cares anymore and nothing else will happen. Sorry to be so cynical, but I just don’t want to see you get your hopes up and then be disappointed.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        Heh, I can’t be disappointed by people I perceive as demons made flesh.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        And the reality is Fauci isn’t the problem, the system that made him is the problem.

        If we are talking about my hopes, they involve a nuke or two somewhere over Foggy Bottom

  35. KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

    Is the cover pic haamentaschen (sp?). I could eat 10 of those.

    My Active Shooter Preparedness training today did not even hint at any kind of scenario where there would be a good guy with a gun. Surprise, surprise.

    • juris imprudent

      Another of those annual trainings I’m ignoring, because I’m retiring before the end of the FY.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      Is OnlyFans down or something?

      • Tonio

        That link redirects to his OnlyFans. Don’t let him fool you.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        I knew he was a workaholic.

    • CPRM

      Straiff is on for all you Jaopophiles

      • Sensei

        Give him my regards. I’m on the train home as his day begins.

  36. Creosote Achilles

    I got name-checked in the links. I have arrived.

    • slumbrew

      A summoning!

      Hope all is well and your knots remain snug.

      • Creosote Achilles

        Both the local and the long-distance girlfriend are happy. Wife is happy. Work is a shit show playing in a dumpster fire, but I can’t complain. I’m teaching a rope class Sunday and monetizing something I designed, so that’s also a positive.

      • slumbrew

        Both the local and the long-distance girlfriend are happy. Wife is happy.

        That sounds exhausting 😀 but as long as you’re happy

        Sorry that doesn’t extend to work but it sounds like you’re winning, on balance.

    • Animal

      If we say your name out loud three times, will you appear in person?

      • Rat on a train

        Beetlejuice or Candyman?

      • Creosote Achilles

        If only, I’d be able to have some fun travelling.

  37. Tundra

    Last night it was the gayz.

    Tonight it’s the womyn.

    When is it time for just plain hockey?

    • rhywun

      I’m almost done with sports. It’s all fucking politics now.