Saturday Morning Links of Relief

by | Apr 8, 2023 | Daily Links | 186 comments

This week has been… memorable, and not necessarily in a good way. Program review from our principal granting agency, and I’m the program manager. Presentations, meetings, questions, questions, questions. And of course as always in government funded science, “More research is needed.” The bright spot was dinner hosted at our little café, where a couple of the professors got roaring drunk. One was a happy drunk, one was a nasty drunk. I confess that I was amused by both.

And I’m amused by birthdays, including America’s Sweetheart; composer of every damn song you didn’t know who wrote; someone who was very on theme today; a guy who banged Hope Lange; one of my spirit animals; a guy who was alive and well; one of the more unusual prog rock singers and here’s a bonus Old Guy Music sample; maybe the most underrated rock guitarists of all time; and a woman who reminded me of the Gilbert and Sullivan ditty “I’m Called Little Buttercup”.

Link we must.

 

Team Blue is queuing her up. Ladies and Gentlemen, like it or not, she’s your next president. Thank Trump for that.

 

Punch line: I wrote the definitive paper in this area.

 

Wait, is April Fools’ Day still going?

 

Some academics are lucky that tenure exists.

 

This might be Peak Navel Gazing.

 

Technology: making life easier.

 

Can’t remember if I’ve done this one before, but so fucking what. I played rhythm on this song as part of a duet at one of my buddies’ wedding. The marriage broke up, but likely not from our playing.

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.

186 Comments

  1. Translucent Chum

    My fraternity was very animal house-ish. It only hard rule was don’t be bad drunk.

    • PieInTheSky

      did you ever take a few liberties with your female party guests ?

      • Translucent Chum

        /wink

  2. Ted S.

    composer of every damn song you didn’t know who wrote

    Happy birthday Johnny Mercer!

    • Tonio

      And I would be named Tonio.

  3. juris imprudent

    I thought he ghosted Hope Lange.

  4. cavalier973

    Republicans who control the Tennessee House of Representatives on Thursday expelled two young Black lawmakers who last week led protesters into the well of the House floor, while a resolution to remove a white representative came up one vote short.

    Son of a racist!

    Still, I don’t see how this gets Harris the Dem nom, much less the White’s House.

    • Fourscore

      “Youth is wasted on the young”

      GBS

    • Old Man With Candy

      It’s part of their positioning strategy. The Teams are very big on “Whose turn is it?” and not only is she in the on deck circle, she checks all their demographic boxes. So she’s the clear nominee once Joe’s last brain artery cracks.

      In the general, Team Red is already self-destructing. They are absolutely hopeless, having willingly let Trump completely vandalize their brand.

      • Fourscore

        At this point it makes little difference.

      • cavalier973

        The GOP brand is a bunch of spineless losers who talk a big game during election season, but then surrender every party principle so that they can still be invited to Democrat cocktail parties.

      • Old Man With Candy

        I would disagree that they even HAVE any party principles.

      • cavalier973

        They give strong lip service to the ideal of losing honorably.

      • R C Dean

        They are hopeless, because they allowed the Dems to take control of the voting apparat in too many states. Between that and leftist control of the media, which allows the Dems to turn issues where they should have the short end, like abortion, into advantages, the Repubs have won their last national election, and their last statewide election in many states.

      • juris imprudent

        The abortion issue is that most people aren’t in on the extreme GOP position, just as they aren’t in on the extreme Dem position. It’s all about rejecting one extreme or the other (depending on which one is ascendant at the time).

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

        The issue with that is most people would rather default to the Dem position and have it available. If you don’t think it is good in the third trimester, you still don’t want to lose it for the first. And that is a cold, hard truth.

      • The Last American Hero

        So explain why the Mississippi 15 week law is the end times then.

      • Homple

        The GOP had no “brand”, before Trump or after.

        As for blaming Harris on Trump, which Republican would have been the savior that kept her and Biden out of office?

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        ^This.

        I get the Trump hate. He’s not a libertarian, although in fairness, he never claimed to be one. I don’t get the Trump blame for GOP woes.

        Who is this mythical GOP candidate that is not already part of the swamp and will somehow restore the Federal government to its proper balance?

      • Fatty Bolger

        Jeb! lmao

      • Old Man With Candy

        It’s irreversible. There is no savior, but if they hadn’t sold their souls to form a Trump cult, things would have evolved quite differently. At this point, they’re hopelessly broken and only the passage of a lot of time will allow things to heal.

        That said, a healed Team Red would still be functionally no different than Team Blue.

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

        Going on about some “cult of Trump” is just as silly as praising Bidens political acumen.

      • cavalier973

        It was never my impression that the GOP leadership and other bigwigs were supported of Trump.

        Rush Limbaugh was in the Trump camp, which astonished me, because Ted Cruz seemed more likely to follow the Constitution.

  5. Sensei

    Technology: making life easier.

    In techie auto enthusiast circles this is rather well known. CAN injection is relatively easy to do as the network was never initially designed with much security in mind. Modern cars aren’t wired like the ones of old. Instead of wiring things with analog control everything is a “module” hanging off an ethernet network. All you need is power, ground and a control to each node on the network. Headlights are node, HVAC is a node, radio is node. Sounds great in theory in practice both the wiring and each black box node on the network degrade at precisely the end of the warranty period.

    Once again, love them or hate them, Tesla is a tech company that makes cars and understands the weaknesses of tech. OTH, traditional manufacturers are car companies that assemble technology purchased from suppliers. They aren’t noted for their tech prowess.

    https://gizmodo.com/tesla-hack-hackers-model-3-elon-musk-hackathon-1850263319

    All the Tier 1 auto manufacturers now have bug bounties, but they had to be dragged kicking and screaming implement them. They also lack the ability to fix most of them OTA unlike Tesla. OTH, your car shouldn’t need to be fully patched to drive like your PC. It’s ridiculous.

    • Sean

      I don’t want OTA capabilities. No sir.

    • R C Dean

      My PC drives like shit – terrible torque, mainly.

      “Sounds great in theory in practice both the wiring and each black box node on the network degrade at precisely the end of the warranty period.”

      Must be a new thing. I’ve never had that happen to me on any car.

      • Sensei

        Drive in the rust belt.

        I’m being facetious about the timing.

        Shops…Dealers…Parts Cannon FAIL! (Escalade CAN Ghost)

        Unlike cars of old that were analog every system is digital and the modules will not last they way old non-electronic ones did. I’m OK with that, but I also have no choice.

      • DrOtto

        While not the same as every module failing at once, I have a ’14 Cadillac CTS with “CUE” interface. It controls radio/climate/navigation and some other minor functions. I love that car, but CUE was replaced in ’17 under warranty and ’20 by me. I anticipate it shitting any day now based on that schedule and when you can’t change radio/volume/climate and/or it decides for you what those things are going to do, sure you can drive it but it’s unfomfortable and maddening. It’s one thing when something doesn’t work, it’s something else entirely when it doesn’t work right and can’t be turned off.

      • Sensei

        Better still it will partly fail, pollute the network and prevent the car from sleeping.

        You didn’t mind buying another battery did you?

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      One is left to wonder for themselves why a headlight needs a CAN bus connection.

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

        Because they can. I have a friend in the auto research biz, and it seems the manufacturers don’t think beyond New and Cool for a lot of this shit.

      • juris imprudent

        Yep, once a design idea becomes fashionable, it must be adopted by all. You don’t want to stand out as backwards do you?

      • Sean

        Mine swivel around corners.

      • Sensei

        High beam, low beam, aiming adaption and the like.

        You can also essentially just plug them into a multi device high power circuit and toggle all the geewhiz features with one teeny tiny wire gauge control circuit.

        Also these headlights seem to have repair prices from $500 to $1,500 and are noted for water ingress causing all the electronics to fail. And let’s not talk front end collision…

        But they look way cool!

      • DrOtto

        Yeah, headlight repairs on par with what a transmission repair used to cost is not unheard of anymore. Fortunately, they’re making transmissions more difficult so that those cost more to repair now.

  6. juris imprudent

    the definitive paper in this area

    So you settled the science?

    • cavalier973

      He put it on the floor with some legos and coloring books.

  7. Fourscore

    Good Morning, Old Man,

    No one will want to steal my truck, too old and pre- techie . Now if only it was a manuel.

    • Sean

      Hipster truck thieves. Retro is cool.

    • Rat on a train

      Now if only it was a manuel.
      Que?

      • Sean

        👏👏

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

        Spicy!

  8. R C Dean

    “Ladies and Gentlemen, like it or not, she’s your next president.”

    Could be. Getting the nom will be the hard part, but the Dem bench is so shallow, maybe. Of Biden, Buttigieg, Newsom, and Harris, I think Newsom is the most likely.

    Of course, whichever Dem is the candidate will win.

    “Thank Trump for that.”

    He truly is responsible for every single bad thing that happens, isn’t he?

    • Fourscore

      Newsom can run on his record, same as DeSantis

      • rhywun

        “I caused the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Californians.”

        There’s a winning message!

      • Rat on a train

        I can drive people to flee the US if you give me a chance.

    • Tonio

      I agree with Old Man’s comment above on this. The “it’s her turn” and diversity checkboxes mindset is strong in the Democrat party both at the voter level and leadership level.

      • cavalier973

        I guess Brandon could kick off prior to 2024. That would give Harris some advantage.

        If she avoids cackling.

      • Tonio

        The unspoken assumption is that Biden will die, resign due to scandal, or his cognition will deteriorate to the point they can no longer pretend he’s competent. As of Jan 21 this year, Harris became eligible to serve out the rest of Biden’s term, plus two full terms of her own.

        I thought they would have pushed him out by now, but must be waiting for a somehow-opportune moment.

      • juris imprudent

        Maybe a fire in the halls of Congress?

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

        Internecine Dem Warfare. This is why we are seeing a lot of BS like DEI and Neo-Liberalism still kicking around. The two, along with a lot of other stuff, aren’t really compatible, but until they settle on it, it will be a Kamalamadingdong vs. Puddin’ head Joe fight. Right now Joe’s handlers are winning.

      • DEG

        I thought they would have pushed him out by now, but must be waiting for a somehow-opportune moment.

        She hasn’t had enough time to suck enough cocks.

      • Fourscore

        Promises, promises. Joe is busy trying to touch all bases.

      • Gustave Lytton

        It’s not just a they backing Harris. There’s also people riding on Biden’s coattails and using him that don’t want to give up power.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        I figured the diversity check boxes would get her the nomination last time around. It worked for her in California. But apparently it has it’s limits nationally.

      • The Last American Hero

        She got zero delegates. She is just as unlikable to Team Blue as she is to everyone. She also speaks in word salads. If she wasn’t a DIE hire that put out, nobody would know her name.

      • Gustave Lytton

        She dropped out months before the very first primary.

    • creech

      Trump’s “mean tweets” and sophomoric ego bullshit (My inauguration crowd was the biggest ever) turned a number of my Trump-voting acquaintances away from him in 2020. That happened in enough instances in enough swing states that Trump lost, given new life to the Dems fortification of ballots.

  9. cavalier973

    While he cannot make a causal link between metabolism-disrupting chemicals in plastic and the obesity epidemic, “How much evidence do we need before we do something right?” Wagner asks.

    Evidence that establishes a causal link would be nice.

    • rhywun

      Look, fat, do you even science?

    • Spartacus

      I thought all you needed was a consensus.

  10. hayeksplosives

    Good morrow, fellow teenagers!

    I’m looking forward to an exciting day of laundry and housework.

    But first, a little more sleep and a decision about where to get brunch…

    • rhywun

      Now you’re going to tell me that Famous Original Ray’s is not the same as Original Famous Ray’s.

    • juris imprudent

      The truth is an absolute defense against defamation.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Sad old drunk beats power mad war mongering crooked sack of shit any day. She should be pleased.

  11. The Late P Brooks

    “Peak navel gazing”

    Those people cannot disappear up their own assholes soon enough.

    • cavalier973

      I gave up peaking at my navel for lint

  12. Stinky Wizzleteats

    OK Mr. Science Writer Guy, is the article BS or not? My money’s on people are getting fatter because they eat too damn much junk.

    • cavalier973

      Because data doesn’t support the idea that overeating and lack of exercise are squarely to blame, the scientific community is exploring other factors that may contribute – including metabolic disruption caused by eating products packaged in plastic.

    • Old Man With Candy

      It is 99% bullshit, 1% sorta-true. I corresponded a lot with Wagner when I was working in the area of xenoestrogen leaching from plastics. On the list of shit that causes obesity, this is waaaaaay down.

      Eat less, exercise more. The Physics Diet.

      • juris imprudent

        Physics is white-supremacist and cis-hetero-normative.

      • DrOtto

        And fatphobic

      • Grosspatzer

        Drink plenty of coffee, supplement with Ex-Lax. The physic diet.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        Start smoking.

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

        Hey, when I quit I gained 50 pounds.

        Worst thing I ever did for health was quit.

      • PutridMeat

        Except the human metabolism is not a physics machine, it’s a biological machine.

        Sure at a fundamental level, everything is physics, but the critical issues in human metabolism lie above the physics layer. Assume a spherical cow simply doesn’t work here. Or more apropos, assume a closed thermodynamic system doesn’t work here. As predisposed as I’ve been to “eat less, exercise more” you lazy fucks my whole life, it’s simply not true. You CANNOT win that game long term.

        You can eat less for a while, but your body didn’t evolve to let you do that; it will produce hunger hormones that will absolutely stop you from doing that. If you eat things that generate high insulin levels – e.g. sugars, easily processed carbs – you WILL NOT burn fat. Elevated insulin forces the body to store energy in the form of fat. If you eat things that produce high insulin levels and, worse, maintain them – e.g. eat a snack (of surgary and/or high simple carbs) every few hours, you will not lose weight, no matter what. That’s why a type 1 diabetic will not put on weight and will starve to death without insulin no matter whether they “eat more” – you cannot store without insulin. Conversely, you cannot burn with elevated insulin.

        “exploring other factors that may contribute” – don’t look at the food pyramid over there, or all that sugar, high carb, low fat food we’ve been pushing on people for decades and telling them to do it 5-6 times a day; must be that piece of plastic touching your food.

        If you eat less and exercise more, your body will absolutely reduce it’s metabolism; if you take in 300 less calories, but burn 300 less metabolically (actually demonstrated in experiments measuring precisely “calories in, calories out”) you’ve gained nothing – but grhelin and other hunger hormones are driving you to unbalance the eat less part of the equation – and they will win. Millions of years evolution trump your willpower, every time. 300 calories doesn’t seem like much maybe, but it’s more than almost any persons ‘exercise more’ regime.

        More briefly, your body is a physics machine at a very basic level – everything is – but the 0th order perturbation theory of “eat less, exercise more” is completely inadequate to be applied to the human metabolism – it ignores too much of the biology that overlay the physics.

      • slumbrew

        Hear, hear.

        “Why We’re Fat (And What To Do About It)” did a good job covering that.

        Biology is complicated.

      • The Gunslinger

        Eat less, move more. I believe it was Dr. Laura S. That used to say that. And I believe she has been cancelled.

      • The Last American Hero

        Yeah, because when I think of people with great bodies, I think of physicists.

  13. The Late P Brooks

    I’m surprised there isn’t a brute force way to bombard a keyless car with codes and signals until the doors open and the engines starts. Maybe there is.

  14. The Late P Brooks

    people are getting fatter because they eat too damn much junk.

    While sitting on their asses.

    • Fourscore

      Oh-oh

    • pistoffnick

      Will I not get fat if I sit on my head?

      • Count Potato

        Have you ever seen a fat swami?

      • Fourscore

        …if I sit on my hands?…

  15. The Late P Brooks

    In the general, Team Red is already self-destructing. They are absolutely hopeless, having willingly let Trump completely vandalize their brand.

    You misspelled “George W Bush”.

    • Old Man With Candy

      Bush was exactly on-brand for them: Big Government, high taxes, increased regulation, endless wars, all overseen by a Brahmin.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Bush was just Clinton with a war mongering streak and a less active libido, an almost perfect encapsulation of what’s wrong with most Republicans.

      • The Last American Hero

        So Bush was Clinton. Clinton was just as much a warmonger, but didn’t have 911 to give him cover. Bush also fathered 2 legitimate children, while Clinton had to get Old Web to fertilize Hillary.

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

        Bush was exactly on brand for the time period. That period is rapidly hitting is sell-by date.

        Trump was a precursor, much like Carter. He will be rehabilitated in time.

  16. The Late P Brooks

    Just like the good old days

    Russia or pro-Russian elements are likely behind the leak of several classified U.S. military documents posted on social media that offer a partial, month-old snapshot of the war in Ukraine, three U.S. officials told Reuters on Friday, while the Justice Department said separately it was probing the leak.

    The documents appear to have been altered to lower the number of casualties suffered by Russian forces, the U.S. officials said, adding their assessments were informal and separate from the investigation into the leak itself.

    The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter and declined to discuss the documents in any detail.

    The Kremlin and Russia’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    More money for the CIA!

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      Behind the public leak maybe. But who leaked it to them?

    • rhywun

      We can trust them to pull the correct numbers out of their ass.

  17. Grosspatzer

    Mornin’, reprobates.

    your lawn and garden are also dooming the Earth.

    I, on the other hand, am doing my part to save Gaia by allowing nature to flourish on my little patch of dirt. I can’t understand why my neighbors, good little proggies one and all, have a problem with this.

    most underrated rock guitarist of all time

    Yup. Although that rhythm guitarist on Old Man Music rates an honorable mention. I always liked this one :

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cFD7pimdY5A&pp=ygUdeW91cnMgaXMgbm8gZGlzZ3JhY2UgeWVzc29uZ3M%3D

  18. PieInTheSky

    I have finally found a bottle of laphroaig 10 cask strength in Romania and now I don’t feel like opening it because it was expensive. i think about keeping it though it is not that collectable I assume. but it was 650 lei… and if i open it i will drink it and it will be gone.

    • The Hyperbole

      Hmm, it’s only 380 lei around here.

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

        Oddly enough, it is only one bad lei around here.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    A Ukrainian presidential official said on Friday that the leak contained a “very large amount of fictitious information” and looked like a Russian disinformation operation to sow doubts about Ukraine’s planned counter-offensive.

    “These are just standard elements of operational games by Russian intelligence. And nothing more,” Mykhailo Podolyak said in a written statement.

    Just send us more money and some F16s and we’ll have this thing wrapped up by the Fourth of July.

  20. Ownbestenemy

    Cooking in a small kitchenette to prove to Sloper you don’t need hot pockets on the daily.

  21. Fourscore

    Yesterday my bee partner and I were talking about the sad state of affairs, pondering just what would it take to produce a public reaction to the political turmoil?

    The Covid didn’t. Climate change and all of the shenanigans being forced upon us haven’t. War in Ukraine with billions being scammed hasn’t. The Biden business being covered up. Inflation doesn’t matter. Riots, confrontations, revolving science.

    Is it the 2 party system and the promise of future unicorns and rainbows that we are optimistically hoping for? What will be the breaking point? We hear the big talk about defending Taiwan, what with? Who with? Mexico laughs at us.

    In my wildest dreams I could not have foreseen this .

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

      I think the breaking point will be the loss of the Petro-dollar. Few of us, Nerfherder excepted, really see what this is going to look like. I am thinking a lot like Soviet Russia, and all of the political shenanigans of the last few years are not going to play out like anyone thinks, not when real hunger and dramatic quality of life reduction is smacking us in the forehead.

      • Fourscore

        If seems like a political strongman always arises eventually. With the multi-cultural non-homogeneous population in the US that may be a serious problem. Even now urban-rural (suburban) have their own political caste system.

        I’m a pessimist living in an optimist’s body anymore. Maybe it’s the tunnel vision, I don’t know.

      • Raven Nation

        I, for one, would welcome a Glibs write-up about this.

    • Count Potato

      I’m much younger than you, and I’ve never seen things in this country change so fast. I think the combination of the covid lockdowns and internet censorship is what did it — separate people then prevent them from honest opinion.

  22. juris imprudent

    Taibbi finally gives MSNBC the same treatment he’s applied to Fox for years.

    I’m going to be interviewed on MSNBC today by Mehdi Hasan, the author of a book called Win Every Argument. I’m looking forward to it as one would a root canal or a rectal.

    I accepted the invitation because it would have been wrong to refuse, on the off chance he was planning a good-faith discussion. If you’re reading this, things have gone another way.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I saw some clips from that. Hasan was such an accusatory prick that he rattled him somewhat. Smart guy, good guy, could have done a better job on that one but no one’s perfect.

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

        Walter Kirn pointed out to Taibbi yesterday that Taibbi is a writer, not a pro-wrassler, which is what TV journalism has fallen to. Or, maybe, never rose above.

      • juris imprudent

        not a pro-wrassler

        Same with testifying before Congress.

  23. Count Potato

    “Skinny-dipping Florida man covered in grease, blood and peppermint oil arrested for burglary”

    https://nypost.com/2023/04/07/florida-man-covered-in-peppermint-oil-arrested-for-burglary/

    “Mississippi woman, 19, accused of sex with German shepherd is pictured WITH the dog after she crashed her car days before her arrest: Cops say bestiality tape was recorded outside local Baptist CHURCH”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11951457/Mississippi-woman-accused-having-sex-German-shepherd-seen-video-THREE-separate-dogs.html

    It’s important to keep busy.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Not NEARLY as bad looking as I pictured in my mind. Jeez lady, go to a bar, somebody’ll bang ya.

      • robodruid

        Who was taking the video?

      • Tres Cool

        Still kinda….[removes sunglasses]….RUFF!

    • Dr. Fronkensteen

      A college co-ed goes into her professors’ office and suggestively tells him,”I would do absolutely anything for an A”. The professor says “Anything?” The girl says, “Yes, anything.” He walks over to her leans over and whispers in her ears, “Study”

  24. The Late P Brooks

    Corrupt intent

    Hundreds of Jan. 6 obstruction cases — one of the most commonly charged felonies against those who breached the Capitol or confronted police that day — are facing new uncertainty after a divided appeals court ruling Friday.

    The three-judge panel spared the Justice Department an immediate disaster by agreeing to permit three challenged Jan. 6 obstruction cases to continue. But the judges — one liberal and two conservatives — all raised serious questions about whether other Jan. 6 obstruction cases might face legitimate challenges.

    At the heart of the conflict is how to measure whether Jan. 6 rioters acted with “corrupt intent,” a central element in the crime of obstructing an official proceeding. The judges noted that the requirement of “corrupt intent” was meant to avoid inadvertently criminalizing traditional protest or lobbying activities that have been a feature of civic engagement throughout American history. Any decision on the meaning of corrupt intent would have to separate those legitimate activities from potential criminal conduct.

    But Judge Florence Pan, who wrote the majority opinion, said it was the wrong time to decide that broad question because the three defendants whose cases were before the court were all also charged with assaulting police. There’s little question that those who assaulted police that day acted with “corrupt intent.” But in Jan. 6 obstruction cases that don’t involve assault, determining “corrupt intent” is much more complicated, she said.

    “Corrupt intent” is pretty much a job requirement for anybody who works in the Capitol.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Now all they need is a mind reader.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Walking down the street could constitute corrupt intent to these people. What an ambiguous and bullshit tactic

      • juris imprudent

        Rule of law is too forgiving, we must punish our enemies without mercy or benefit of any doubt!

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Not surprised, luring the vulnerable seems to be their MO.

  25. cavalier973

    Trump got elected on the promise that he would “drain the swamp”.

    Then he hired the Swamp to drain itself, apparently.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      That’s what I don’t get about his rabid supporters. The man was either in on it or he’s the worst at hiring billionaire out there. Instead of even admitting that he could have done a better job, an understatement IMHO, they bend over backwards to make excuses.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        He made some crappy hires and probably underestimated how easily he could fire people. He probably also underestimated how easily he could make policy changes. It’s not enough to send a tweet. There’s a whole process that needs to be followed, especially if you are on Team Red. This is an area where Desantis is a big improvement.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Yeah, RD knows the process and has mostly good political instincts. His about face on Ukraine when he was put under pressure didn’t sit too well with me though.

      • juris imprudent

        Trump wants applause from the crowd now, not praise from historians 50 years from now.

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

        Hindsight has 20/20 vision. No, he wasn’t in on it, I think he trusted people. And while that might be a crime worse than anything else in Washington, it is probably par for the course of anyone NOT of that world. He didn’t think he was going to win, nor did the R establishment, and it showed in how there was no prep for a Trump world. So he had to take what he was given, trusting that R’s like McConnell would put party over politics. And that might seem an unforced error, but it could also be a case of do what you can with what you got.

        I don’t thing the R’s are going to lose because of Trump, the number of votes in the 2020 election showed that idea is hogwash. No, he will lose due to Dem ratfuckery. And until we are at a point were a Regan type shows up coinciding with a Carter type, the R’s will not get over that hump. In other words, it will take a massive blowout to overcome the deepstate.

      • juris imprudent

        In fairness to Trump’s supporters – we have routinely looked for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington saviors now for generations. It’s a great American trope.

      • The Last American Hero

        Yep. Clinton campaigned as a young, fresh face. W campaigned as an outsider when he was as insider as it gets. Obama campaigned as an outsider and touted his relative inexperience. Trump obviously so.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    The stakes of the lingering issue are enormous. More than 300 Jan. 6 defendants have been charged with obstructing Congress’ proceedings — many of whom are not accused of assaulting police. The obstruction charge carries a 20-year maximum sentence and is a cudgel the Justice Department has used at times in plea negotiations with rioters who surged into the Capitol’s most sensitive spaces.

    Muh Temple of Democracy!

  27. Tundra

    Good morning, Old Man!

    That car theft article is hilarious. It’s getting ridiculous, really. My mechanic told me that replacement headlights for certain Mercedes have to be programmed at the dealer. Peak automotive retard is approaching,

    The weather is starting to approximate Spring, so a hike is in my immediate future.

    You People doing anything fun today?

    • Gender Traitor

      I’ll be desperately trying to think of an appropriate birthday gift for my sister, whose birthday is Wednesday. What do you get for a crazy cat lady who’s always broke? I’d been thinking of looking for some fun out of the ordinary food gift items, but I’m afraid this may not be the ideal day to visit the local farm market. 😕

      • Count Potato

        “What do you get for a crazy cat lady who’s always broke?”

        Mice?

      • robodruid

        Gift card to pet smart

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      Going for a boat ride at Xochimilco, eating, buying some last minute gifts and probably watching some Easter festivities.

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

      Taking a friend to the range, do a little trap and pistol shooting. Followed with a trip to the local brewery.

      I am trying to get him to join, as while it isn’t the cheapest place, they do still have openings and not a waiting list. I taught him to shoot, and now he is mighty hunter man, so I think this is a natural.

    • Old Man With Candy

      Yard work, a short hike, then up to Rochester to see a bar band with one of the NPR Ladies.

    • Tres Cool

      After working all night, I took Tres V 2.0 to our usual breakfast.
      Now with a gut full of omlette (only 1 piece of toast, SEAN!) I feel a nap calling me.

      Then Im gonna bang Jugsy, drink some beer, and grill a couple of ribeye.

      • slumbrew

        It’s important not to mix up that last bit.

      • Tres Cool

        If I had better concealment from the backyard foliage, I may try all at once.
        But Ill have to wait until summer.

    • Fourscore

      Putting the missus on a plane to AZ to visit friends.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Coffee, taxes, painting, mow the yard, and repack for Monday.

      Hope you have a fabulous weekend Tundra!

  28. The Late P Brooks

    You People doing anything fun today?

    I’ll be changing the the starter on the Element, probably. I don’t want to, but it won’t crank at all, now, and I have pretty much exhausted my supply of alternate diagnoses and excuses. At least I managed to get it inside.

  29. Brawndo

    It’s actually white supremacy that’s causing more home runs in baseball. Most pitchers are Dominican and it’s evil honkey batters that are taking advantage.

  30. The Late P Brooks

    Last night I watched some recent iteration of Robin Hood. Great googly moogly, what a dumb movie. From a purely technical standpoint, it was impressive in that it was a massive random mishmash of memes and themes and tropes and styles. Urban assault tactics with rapid fire bows and arrows. Car chases with horses and wagons. Fire. Explosions. Vengeance. The works. Social justice. Political intrigue. The Church.

    Everything. All at once.

    • rhywun

      The Doctor Who showrunners are branching out into movies?

    • juris imprudent

      Michael Bay at his finest?

    • KSuellington

      Excellent, thanks T!

    • robodruid

      Agreed, great essay. Glibs worthy indeed.

    • Shirley Knott

      Yes, very good, and very practical in that it presents a working example with a history. Bookmarked.

  31. I. B. McGinty

    “Harris urged young people to increase their activism on gun violence prevention, following the example of those who joined the original protest last week and returned on Thursday.

    “Every generation has its calling,” Harris said. “And so in particular, to all the young leaders here: This issue is going to require your leadership. … We need you.””

    Yes, my little pretties… go do our dirty work.

    This kinda sounds like inviting violence to me.

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

    So, I haven’t seen anything on this in the US media (ha!), but apparently Nicola Sturgeons husband has been arrested for embezzlement, and this is speculated as too why she stepped down so quickly:
    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nicola-sturgeon-peter-murrell-arrested-update-today-b2316382.html

    That is just one link, there is a ton of stuff out there on this in the UK media, speculatin’ on a hypotenuse.

  33. The Late P Brooks

    “The issue, which gets back to these three, is that we need leaders who have the courage to act at state houses and in Washington, D.C., in the United States Congress,” Harris told a gathering at Fisk University, a historically Black school. “Have the courage to act instead of the cowardice to not allow debate.”

    Just make sure you get your marching orders from the proper sources. Otherwise, we’ll clap you in irons and let you rot in jail.

    For some inexplicable reason I keep seeing “Have the courage to act instead of the cowardice to not allow debate.” as ending with “the cowardice to not allow debate.” I wonder why that is.

  34. DEG

    And of course as always in government funded science, “More research is needed.”

    Translation: WE NEED MORE MONEY!

    The Republicans ousted Justin Pearson, 28, of Memphis, and Justin Jones, 27, from the Nashville area. Fellow Representative Gloria Johnson, 60, who joined them in the protest but unlike the other two refrained from using a megaphone, was spared.

    Should have expelled all three.

    Because data doesn’t support the idea that overeating and lack of exercise are squarely to blame, the scientific community is exploring other factors that may contribute – including metabolic disruption caused by eating products packaged in plastic.

    Why do I smell bullshit?

    Instead, I’ve discovered that all the backbreaking work I’ve done in my yard over the years has produced virtually nothing of ecological value — and some things that do actual harm.

    I tapped out here. The author can go fuck himself.

    The error codes showed that communication had been lost between the RAV4’s CAN—short for Controller Area Network—and the headlight’s Electronic Control Unit. These ECUs, as they’re abbreviated, are found in virtually all modern vehicles and are used to control a myriad of functions, including wipers, brakes, individual lights, and engine. Besides controlling the components, ECUs send status messages over the CAN to keep other ECUs apprised of current conditions.

    More things to go wrong.

    Old Guy Music is good.

  35. Scruffyy Nerfherder

    The Biden admin is going for broke:

    https://news.antiwar.com/2023/04/07/us-will-threaten-europe-to-implement-sanctions-on-russia/

    The White House plans to send a clear message to its European partners in the economic war against Russia, “you are either with us or against us.” Two US Treasury officials will visit European and Central Asian partners next month to demand all sanctions on Russia be implemented.

    Treasury officials Liz Rosenberg and Brian Nelson will meet with leaders of financial institutions in Switzerland, Italy and Germany. The AP reports the officials will have a simple message, “1. Continue to provide Moscow with material support or 2. Keep doing business with countries that represent 50 percent of the global economy.”

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      Keep doing business with countries that represent 50 percent of the global economy.

      I continue to wonder how much of the West’s GDP is inflated by the laptop class as opposed to industry.

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

        This, and it is what is going to come crashing down as soon as the Petro-dollar fails.

        I was talking to some English peeps, about something innocuous, seemingly, but telling to me. They don’t have any good tools. Everything is imported now, having destroyed almost all manufacturing. And this, the loss of anything that can be traded on the open market internationally, as opposed to just handling other peoples money, will gut the backbone of the country. And you can see it happening in real time with their healthcare system. The more and more they try to spin up a service, while putting more and more people on the dole is just another recipe for disaster, and one that every person can watch.

    • rhywun

      I’m getting a sense that Europe might have had enough of our shit.

  36. Sensei

    This morning’s YouTube.

    Tuning shop for Ferrari and BMW among others owned by a still enthusiastic 72 year old.

    https://youtu.be/R3fpI0LVx6s

    Love the E36 at the end and the Japanese “Bitching Betty” in the car telling “caution” all the time.

    • Gustave Lytton

      I knew exactly what voice that would be. So where there’s a company making the vocoder for everyone else. The Jane Barbe of Nippon.

  37. KSuellington

    | I’m surprised there isn’t a brute force way to bombard a keyless car with codes and signals until the doors open and the engines starts. Maybe there is.

    There are frequency reading machines that are about the size of a laptop. When you press the lock/unlock button on your car remote they can grab that signal and then use that signal to unlock the car, start it up and drive off and the go put that code on a new remote button. If you have the type of car that unlocks when you touch the door handle or get close then you don’t even need to wait for the person to lock/unlock, you can just pass within a few feet of their remote as there is a constant frequency being emitted. It makes car theft way easier than the old fashioned hot wiring. The new method is just sit in a parking lot and wait for the car of your choice to drive up. The process takes seconds.

    • The Last American Hero

      And this has been around for a long time but we don’t have a rash of vehicle thefts.

  38. The Late P Brooks

    Tuning shop for Ferrari and BMW among others owned by a still enthusiastic 72 year old.

    I’m aghast. Don’t they have zoning in Japan?

    *too long to watch all at once.

    It looks like there is a bunch of really well done stuff there. How much does it cost to have a one-off billet stroker crank for a V12 Ferrari made, I wonder.

    • Sensei

      It was farmland when he set up shop there. He is grandfathered.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    I continue to wonder how much of the West’s GDP is inflated by the laptop class as opposed to industry.

    Yeah, every time somebody spouts off about California’s alleged GDP as an independent nation, i wonder how much of that economic activity translates into the production of material goods.

    • Q Continuum

      If the greens loosened their stranglehold they *could* be an independent nation; reservoirs to collect Sierra water, agriculture, oil, manufacturing and nuclear power could all flourish if they were allowed to. But human existence is incompatible with the green agenda so we’re left with autistic coders, navel-gazers and welfare deadbeats making up the economy.

      • juris imprudent

        “We’re creative” /mewing-whiniest voice imaginable

  40. Count Potato

    “SCOOP: University of Florida has created a radical DEI bureaucracy that promotes racial preferences in faculty hiring, encourages white employees to engage with a 12-step program called Racists Anonymous, and maintains segregated scholarships that violate civil rights law. 🧵”

    https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1644292042057568261

    Good thread. All this DEI/equity/anti-racist etc. horseshit makes schools worse for black students.

    • Q Continuum

      All this DEI/equity/anti-racist etc. horseshit makes schools worse for black students everyone.

      FIFY.

      • Count Potato

        True, but their racist policies don’t even benefit the race they are supposedly favoring.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        They benefit the DEI nomenklatura.

  41. Q Continuum

    Q: Why is Santa’s sack so big?
    A: Because he only comes once per year.

    Q: What does a horny toad say?
    A: Rubbit.

    Q: How do you spot a blind guy at a swinger’s party?
    A: It’s not hard.

  42. Gustave Lytton

    This week has been… memorable, and not necessarily in a good way.

    Well, you’re still here so at least you were …🕶…passed over.

  43. Q Continuum

    RE: Beastiality chick.

    “One of the dogs is a German shepherd that Frazier referred to as a ‘service dog.’ ”

    Heh.

  44. The Late P Brooks

    Stupid games, stupid prizes

    The father of Tanner Cook, the prank YouTuber who was recently shot in Virginia, said that his family has received harassment following his son’s hospitalization.

    ——-

    Cook was playing a prank involving Google Translate at the time of the shooting. The shooter, Alan Colie, was working for DoorDash at the time and told Cook multiple times to get away from him, Detective Katie Mitchell of the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office said during a court hearing this week, according to CBS-affiliate WUSA.

    The YouTuber is known for pulling audacious practical jokes on unsuspecting strangers. Some of his videos include “Fake Target Thug Employee Prank,” “Fake Vomiting On Uber Drivers!” and “Taking Rackets From Tennis Players Prank!”

    ——-

    Jeramy Cook said many of the responses to his son’s experience have gone too far.

    “It’s just gross,” Jeramy Cook said. “How do they think that they’re on some high moral ground to cuss somebody out whose son was just shot?”

    Jeramy Cook said his son is “a good kid that doesn’t have a mean bone in his body.” He added that Tanner wants to provide entertainment to people.

    Mission accomplished. I’m amused.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      Frum’s competing for biggest asshole-licker of the century.

    • juris imprudent

      Keepin’ the faith!

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      He’s a blood drenched lying bitch. Sweet Jesus…