352 Comments

  1. Shpip

    Starting on May 1st, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will offer discounted mortgage rates to prospective home buyers with “riskier credit backgrounds” (meaning people with poor credit ratings) to enable them to qualify for a mortgage.

    Did we learn nothing from 2008?

    • robodruid

      We have, now those with good credit will pay for those with bad credit.
      See……Progress

      • AlexinCT

        It’s always about redistribution from those that delay instant gratification and do the right things to the ones that just want to piss the money way, with the middlemen stealing a good 20% or more of that cash they take at gunpoint.

      • waffles

        isn’t this the principle behind obamacare?

    • AlexinCT

      Yes, they lurned that they can steal more money during a crisis, and the bigger the crisis, the more money they can steal.

      These fucks socialized losses (making the tax payers bear the burden of their evil and mistakes) and privatized profits (they and their friends collect the profits), and then call anyone that opposes them evil and blame capitalism for the problems their neo-fascist policies have created. Evil.

    • WTF

      Once again if you were responsible and did the right things, you’re a chump. I’m hard pressed to imagine what they would be doing differently if they were actively trying to destroy the country.

      • Drake

        “if”?

      • hayeksplosives

        Ya get more of what you reward, less of what ya punish.

        This is not a sustainable track.

    • Rat on a train

      How to grift better?

    • DrOtto

      I know I did – I had an 8.99% “lifetime” rate card from Capital One in 2008. I relied on that card more than I should have for emergency expenses as it was. They more than doubled my rate when the crisis hit. I called and asked why and they basically said they needed the rate increase in good credit risks to cover bad debt. I told them to cancel my card and that I would never do business with them again. They warned me “everyone is doing it” rate-wise. Tough shit, I’m not paying for your mistakes after the fact. I only have a charge card (AmEx) which is paid off every month. I built up a small account in E*trade that I treat like a credit card and “borrow” against the balance. It’s also a safety net for home appliances and what not now when that shit creeps up. Fuck credit, it’s always an enemy.

      • Rat on a train

        Not everyone. My credit union didn’t raise my fixed rate card. Stay away from the big banks.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Ditto. I hold onto my fixed rate card even though it doesn’t have the best rewards program. It’s a no questions asked 11.5% personal loan if push comes to shove.

      • Rat on a train

        I’m fine with my no-frills card. Someone has to pay for reward programs.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Fuck credit, it’s always an enemy.

        QFT. Some old, probably whitish guy, like, more than 100 years ago said “the borrower is slave to the lender.”

  2. cavalier973

    Why can’t all the congress critters get depression and be off work for months at a time?

    • Shirley Knott

      The rather give a depression than take one

  3. rhywun

    Your credit score isn’t a measure of how responsible you’ve been. It’s an indicator of how much interest you’ve been willing to pay, driving the profits of banks and financial institutions.

    wut

    I carry no debt, do not pay interest, and I have an excellent credit score.

    • AlexinCT

      ^^^THIS^^^

      The person that said this dumb shit has to have some nefarious agenda to gaslight people that way…

      You pay more interest when you are unreliable or delinquent: not when you do the right things.

    • RBS

      That sounds like it came straight from some college marxist’s instagram post about the evils of consumerism.

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

        But that iPhone is just too important to leave to the market.

    • Rat on a train

      You do need credit to build a good credit score but you don’t have to carry a balance.

      • rhywun

        Yeah, that is what I figure. I have a couple credit cards that I pay off every month.

      • AlexinCT

        I do the same, Rhywn (and even pay more than my balance rounded up to the nearest $5 on purpose)…

        I was told that it costs you between 15 and 30 points if you didn’t ever pay interests. So one month every year I make sure to have a credit card with a $35 minimum payment have a $50 balance, pay the $35, then pay the few cents of interest on the $50, then go back to never carrying a balance, and presto. No longer have that “this dude doesn’t give us interest money” penalty anymore…

      • Rat on a train

        I did not know of that penalty but have been paying mortgage interest. I guess I will have to try that when I pay off the mortgage this year.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Type of credit/credit debt also (allegedly) matters. Not having a car loan or mortgage is supposedly dinging me.

        Really, if you’re not buying a house or taking out a loan or living life on a financial house of cards, a credit score doesn’t matter a lot in the details.

      • Not Adahn

        Not having a car loan or mortgage is supposedly dinging me.

        My credit score was higher when I had neither of those. It dropped dramatically when I signed my mortgage, but has since rebounded.

        Car will be paid off in June.

      • Rat on a train

        It dropped dramatically when I signed my mortgage, but has since rebounded.
        new line of credit + high balance to loan ratio

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        I was told that it costs you between 15 and 30 points if you didn’t ever pay interests

        I’m skeptical. That would mean the entire reason I’m not at 850 is because I pay my credit cards in full every month, which is wrong.

        I’ll also push back on the credit score being some sort of financial responsibility score. It’s a debt risk profile, nothing more. It takes no account of whether you have cash reserves or a healthy retirement account or whether you live beyond your means or anything that measures actual financial health and responsibility.

      • Gustave Lytton

        I agree. The most it measures beyond your means is percentage of credit used.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Yep. My credit score went up 25-30 points by getting a couple more credit cards. We’re no more responsible now than we were with one card (if anything, we’re less responsible), but our credit utilization went from 20% to 2%.

      • Bob Boberson

        I was shocked to find out that after 5 years of not carrying any debt, my credit score was in the toilet. I don’t like paying interest so I’ve always paid off every loan I’ve ever had in full as soon as possible. I got my first credit card as a result but pay the balance off in full every month. Is this also netting me nothing? If so I hate to sound like the marxist above but I’m not so sold on a credit score not being a scam if I’m being penalized for not living my life in debt….

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Do you only have one credit card and no other debt?

      • Fatty Bolger

        If you had late payments, they stay on for seven years. It doesn’t take many to really kill your score. Same with any judgements or charged off debts.

        If that’s not a problem for you, then not having enough available credit will limit your score, but it shouldn’t put it in the toilet.

      • Fatty Bolger

        There’s a persistent myth that you have to carry balances to raise your credit score or keep it high.

    • Sean

      And we get cheaper car insurance with a good credit score.

    • waffles

      a strangely high number of people believe you need debt or to carry a balance to boost your credit score.

      • R.J.

        You have to have some proof that you pay off debts. Otherwise there is very little to score.

    • DrOtto

      My credit score took a hit recently because we have no credit cards and paid the house off last year, so outside of a monthly AmEx statement that gets paid off monthly, I have no debt.

  4. Shpip

    “A speech is not a plan,” said Christie Stephenson, a spokeswoman for Jeffries’ office. “Extreme MAGA Republicans continue to treat the full faith and credit of the United States as a hostage situation while their so-called budget proposal remains in the witness protection program.”

    “Speaker McCarthy is breaking with the bipartisan norm he followed under [President Donald] Trump by engaging in dangerous economic hostage taking that threatens hard-working Americans’ jobs and retirement savings,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates chimed in. “In 2019, Donald Trump himself said, ‘I can’t imagine anybody ever even thinking of using the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge.’ This morning, Speaker McCarthy did just that.

    “Meanwhile, he again failed to clearly outline what House Republicans are proposing and will vote on, even as he referenced a vague, extreme MAGA wish list that will increase costs for hard-working families, take food assistance and health care away from millions of Americans, and yet would enlarge the deficit when combined with House Republican proposals for tax giveaways skewed to the super-rich, special interests, and profitable companies.

    “Extreme MAGA” — they’ve got their talking points down
    “Tax giveaways” — so only stealing 35% of my income instead of 38.5% is a “giveaway.”

    • AlexinCT

      It’s the state’s money. Be happy they let you keep what they do and don’t alter the deal further….

    • WTF

      Yeah, letting you keep a little more of your own money is not a “giveaway”, asshole.

    • Rat on a train

      2019: $3,463B revenue, $4,447B spending
      2022: $4,897B revenue, $6,273B spending
      The government has a spending problem. Democrats used an “emergency” to raise the baseline. Rolling back to pre-COVID spending would eliminate the deficit.

    • Ted S.

      The first year of the Trump-era tax reform, i did a rough calculation of my taxes under the old system. I would have paid about $400 more under the old system, and I’m at the bottom of the economic ladder.

      To put it another way, I made about $3K more in 2018 than 2017, and paid just about the same absolute amount in federal income tax.

      The NYS standard deduction, however, hasn’t gone up in years. Fuckers.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Not at the bottom and not at the top, I can still see where Trump saved us money. Money printer going brrr has destroyed much of that savings.

    • The Other Kevin

      “Extreme MAGA Republicans continue to treat the full faith and credit of the United States as a hostage situation while their so-called budget proposal remains in the witness protection program.”

      “In 2019, Donald Trump himself said, ‘I can’t imagine anybody ever even thinking of using the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge.’ This morning, Speaker McCarthy did just that.

      Extreme MAGA Republicans who don’t follow Trump. Ok then.

      • Fatty Bolger

        “Even Trump was more reasonable than these extreme MAGA Republicans!”

  5. AlexinCT

    Senate GOP report: COVID leaked from Wuhan lab where US funded gain-of-function research

    Everyone that understood biology and virology knew this right after it happened. somehow the people that were responsible managed to not only change the narrative, but to make the people that spoke the truth pariahs for making the role of the corruptocracy apparent to others. They labeled anyone saying it was obviously man made in a lab as racist, and then floated this real racist idea that the thing came from the Chinese having wet markets that are filthy and eating all sorts of weird shit, then proceeded to cancel people that dared point out how evil and stupid their lie was.

    This shit is criminal.

    • WTF

      Hell, speculating that this might possibly be the case would get you censored and banned from social media not too long ago. But of course this isn’t the “misinformation’ the left is always going on about.

  6. AlexinCT

    John Fetterman back at work after 60 days in hospital for depression

    When is the next interview so we can all see nothing changed and the guy still has deficiencies caused by his stroke?

    • WTF

      I think by now they may have learned to keep him hidden from the public.

      • AlexinCT

        So he will be living in a basement like that old coot they front as the guy in charge of the third Obama admin?

      • Pope Jimbo

        Maybe their wives can arrange a play date for the two of them?

      • AlexinCT

        Is it safe to leave the old codger that wants to lick the world with Lurch?

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

        BIDERMAN SMASH!!!

      • Pope Jimbo

        Just leave them with a Risk board and tell them that it is actually a situation map from the DoD.

      • Rat on a train

        Ukraine is weak

    • The Other Kevin

      I think what he wore to his first day back on the job is a good indication of his deficiencies.

    • The Last American Hero

      I’m going to hell for saying this, but fuck him.
      Fuck that power hungry asshole, fuck his power hungry party, and fuck his power hungry wife.

  7. AlexinCT

    California Electric Companies Propose Higher Earners Pay Greater Fees Than Lower Earners Under New State Law

    Yeah, I already see how this effort when implemented won’t do anything like what it is saying and the whole thing will be just another high speed railway adventure?

    • Rat on a train

      Depending on enforcement mechanisms I expect people to register utilities in the names of lower income family members similar to how people register vehicles with out of state addresses to avoid Virginia’s car tax.

  8. Not Adahn

    2 Arrested for Allegedly Operating Illegal Chinese ‘Police Station’ in NYC

    别这样做 !

    • AlexinCT

      What did you say gweilo?

  9. Not Adahn

    It is fascinating to watch how events are being spun.

    NPR has done multiple stories about how those partisan Repubs are having a political stunt in NYC. In literally none of them have the heckling of D’s by the audience been mentioned. Contrast with any time a R is disrespected, all the way back to the dude that threw a shoe at Bush (or even earlier). The righty media OTOH is all about the witness’ stories.

  10. AlexinCT

    US Commercial Real Estate Predictions Getting ‘Ugly’

    Getting?

    I go into work 2 or 3 days a week depending on if I have the time to slack (you can’t get work done in the office anymore because it is all distractions), and I can tell you that the city my company is in is dying. My company, which had us spread across 8 different buildings, has cancelled all leases it had for 5 buildings they don’t own. And they have consolidated us in 2 of the properties they own with the other completely going empty (maybe they save money on utilities or something). This is happening all over that city. Parking garages that used to be chock full by 9AM every workday now are practically empty (they barely go half full mid week) as well. And nobody wants to pay those high commercial rental prices for these buildings that probably have huge outstanding loans against them either.

    Shit is about to get real? It is already there. Just not made obvious. Maybe they can repurpose these buildings for the homeless and more drag shows for kids.

    • Nephilium

      I know of several companies that have put expansion plans on hold, cancelled building new locations, and are closing offices to have everyone be remote workers to cut costs. Locally, this has been a big impact on the big cities, as they not only collect the real estate taxes on the offices, but they got to take a cut out of anyone who worked in the city (here you pay local tax to the city you work in AND the city you live in).

      • AlexinCT

        Yup, mine basically instituted this loose 3 days in thing to help the city economically, which has made no serious difference, cause people that go in bring their lunch and avoid going out so they can leave the office as soon as they clock their minimum hours, and to give the usual crowd of managers that liked doing happy hour after work every day and told their significant others it was work related, that cover again…

    • Gustave Lytton

      Same. Internally they’re saying less than a third of the staff that aren’t officially full time WFH are badging in. Exiting leases as they renew is one thing, trying to drop mid lease or sell property is going to be hell. Someone here called it where governments are about the only ones to fill, or at least takeover, that office space. I dunno about suburban office parks though.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      My company is panicking and pushing “back to office” really hard (C-suite invested a ton in real estate before and during covid). The workers aren’t having any of it. It’s all that bullshit hotelling and open office and limited conference space, so we go swipe our badges every couple weeks, have a meeting or two, get lunch, and leave. I waited a few weeks too late to ask for telework and now HR is slow walking their response.

      Anyway, almost every office, at least in the US, has downsized. We went from 3 floors to 1 here in Dallas. Our HQ substantially downsized. Our DC office went from half a floor to 8 desks. Meanwhile, our chief HR goon is talking about 3+ days per week in office. Sure, I’ll do that for a 20% raise and 20% reduction in productivity goals.

      • Nephilium

        Lots of big buildings used to be used for call centers. The 2020 lockdowns pushed them remote, and things were still able to work (for the most part). This has also driven quite a few companies to shift from hosting their own phone system to going to a service provider to host it. Those who live in areas with shitty internet hardest hit.

      • Gustave Lytton

        There’s possibly a market opportunity there to provide dayrooms with connectivity to WFH people with crappy internet. Or just want to escape from their family.

      • Nephilium

        I think that was the business model of WeWork, the issue is that the costs of those dayrooms would have to be minimal, as most call center jobs aren’t the highest paying ones (especially in areas with crappy internet). I know of some agents who have taken up going to the local library, coffee shop, or the like on a semi-regular basis.

        Of course, with any of those, if you let your security team know you’re getting on an unknown public wireless… they will not be happy.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Eh, it’s all going through the VPN anyway. People often have unsafe setups at their house, too.

      • Nephilium

        Yes. Yes they do. But there’s less of a chance of a MITM attack at someone’s house than a public wireless node.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Possibly, but that’s what the VPN is for.

      • R.J.

        Same in Dallas. Where I am, we went from 4 to 1 floor. Due to the major influx of companies we had no problem renting out the 3 floors we freed up. I wouldn’t have a desk if I wanted to come back. Which is good. Work does not happen with a conga line of people at my desk asking questions. And yes, I would want a damn raise if I was asked to go back. 2% a year doesn’t even keep up with a standard of living. If I have wear and tear on cars and loss of personal time I want recompensation.

      • R C Dean

        “Work does not happen with a conga line of people at my desk asking questions.”

        Boiled down, a large part of my job was answering people’s questions.

        To the extent we could track it, productivity went down when we sent some departments home, including IT, A/P, and A/R. Although measuring real productivity (progress, as opposed to motion) for laptop jobs is difficult, in my experience. It’s easy to come up with metrics that measure motion. A lot harder to measure actual progress, since buck-passing is the time tested way to get something off your desk (check that box) without actually accomplishing anything.

        And as Slum says “It depends”.

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

      I cannot understand why this is so difficult. If I was running a company there would be an all hands email stating, to the effect, that if you weren’t hired specifically to be remote, be here Monday and be prepared for full-time in-office, or be looking for new work. And I would be very harsh on anyone who left. The shear number of businesses that have office space contracts would ensure that this gets handled across the board, as soon as one company starts it. The collaboration effects are much greater than people want to realize, and anyone who says they have less distractions working from home, with kids, dogs, hobbies, etc. right underfoot is full of it. Also, if you are a remote employee, you are essentially a temp, no matter how you want to parse it to yourself. People should be working to shore that up, and quickly.

      I know I am an outlier here, but this isn’t that hard, and business needs are greater than employee needs. Companies are letting the tail wag the dog.

      • slumbrew

        The collaboration effects are much greater than people want to realize, and anyone who says they have less distractions working from home, with kids, dogs, hobbies, etc. right underfoot is full of it.

        That’s overly broad. My dog sleeping quietly in the corner is far less of a distraction than the network guys shouting in the phone at someone in a noisy DC (which was the original impetus for me going WFH oh so long ago).

        My co-workers were already in SF, Bangalore, Costa Rica, Krakow, etc. It has made no difference whether they’re in their homes or in the office. Indeed, our productively went measurably up when everyone started WFH, which is why we’re something like 93% flex-time, with the average number of days in the office ~ 1.1 last I checked (there’s an attribute in AD I can query).

        “It depends”, as ever.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Same. It’s ridiculous to listen to execs who are on the road more they’re in their assigned offices whine when workgroups are already remote from each other.

        The reason there hasn’t been a broad crackdown, imo, is because people are willing to walk or aren’t scared not to and pushing back against demands.

      • R C Dean

        I’m with you, Zwak, for a pretty big chunk of laptop jobs. The WFH thing got a lot of momentum when the employment market was tight. For a lot of laptop jobs, that is no longer the case. Much of this is a reflection of the relative bargaining power.

        It seems I could never talk with somebody who wanted to WFH for more than a few minutes before they would say a big reason they wanted to do it was so they could do non-work stuff during the workday. Now, an office isn’t a paragon of efficiency, I know, but we didn’t let people bring their kids to the office so they could look after them, so why would we have let people take their office to the kids so they could look after them.

      • slumbrew

        Now _that_ I’m with you both on – WFH isn’t a substitute for child or elder care. Emphasis is on the ‘W’.

        We’ve only had a few people abuse the privilege in that manner; company culture has a lot to do with it, I’m sure. Plus, we’re in the somewhat envious position of being able to measure work for most positions – it’s clear if you’re getting work done or not.

      • Nephilium

        Meh. Even at the new company, most of the people on my team still are the classic IT geeks who don’t understand work/life balance (or have different priorities than me) who are complaining that a new policy is forcing them to install company mandated security software on their personal phone (that allows remote data wipes) if they access work items (Office/Teams/etc.) through it. To me, it’s a simple matter of not installing items like that on my personal phone, and if it’s an issue, the company can provide a phone for me.

        I’m also in a niche industry that is still looking for people, so WFH is going strong. I think the closest office to me for the new company is ~150 miles away.

      • DEG

        Zwak, for many industries what you said is completely, totally wrong.

        Like with slumbrew, many of the people I work with are scattered around the world. You are not getting all of those people into the same office to “collaborate”, so we have to do it remotely. And we do.

        There is no need for me to be in an office.

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

        And I completely disagree with those reasons, and that hiring paradigm. I have worked with teams around the world, and found it far less than satisfactory, from both a performance and a security angles. I am also of the opinion that the collaboration effects of reaching out and mentoring junior members of a company, or being able to bring workers from outside a workgroup into a meeting on a whim to help design solutions, vastly outweighs the slight benefits that accrue from having workers sit around and work on schedules that may or may not work for the rest of the company, or not be able to weigh in on things that might only seem slightly part of their work perview.

        To me, the bottom line is that you aren’t part of a team if you are remote, and that is what gets things done. That is what separates an employee and teammate from a worker. This current paradigm is cutting companies growth off at the knees.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        It really depends on the role. For some jobs, you have to be in the office. Others it doesn’t matter. My team is scattered across the country. I’m hiring now and would be kneecapping myself and the company to limit my search to those who live nearby or would be willing to relocate. The best in my field won’t settle for anything less than remote and each one is easily worth 2-3 typical employees coming into the office. When you’re hiring at the top of the field, there is no difference in productivity between remote or in the office. That happens further down.

      • dorvinion

        I’m never going back to an office.
        I’ve worked full time from home since 2015.

        Part of that is location – we moved to a small town in 2015 and so there are basically 2 employers here in town I could conceivably work for.
        Aside from that it would be drive 45 minutes to the ‘big city’ in our state (not gonna do it)

        If you design your life with the expectation/intention of living on a single professional’s income you can be very picky about who you work for.

        My current team has been a full-time remote team since its conception. Folks all across the country so sending any of us to an office would just add costs.

      • rhywun

        I’m never going back to an office.

        Same.

        My productivity and “happiness” are way up.

        Going back to the office so I can Team chat my coworkers who are all over the world would be like taking a ~30% pay cut.

      • Michael Malaise

        We have an open plan with a few bigwig offices at our agency. We have media girls (none of them too cute unfortunately) who fucking talk non-stop about restaurants and bars and all sorts of shit and there’s no way to filter out the sound without air pods and music or podcasts.

        A contingency for full-time work for me would be a full-time office with a door, like I have at home.

    • The Last American Hero

      Same here. I walk thru a downtown that was bustling in 2019 and is a ghost town now. Restaurants you used to have to get to by 11:40 or wait until 1 are empty. Not less busy, empty.

      Those 5-7 year leases signed in 2017-2019 are coming up and will not be renewed.

      • dbleagle

        Yup.

  11. AlexinCT

    For those that were discussing why we still have not seen the demented tranny’s manifesto and keep getting told they don’t know why that deranged woman chose to shoot up catholic kids, there is nuggets of information like this to show you how fucking evil the people wanting to cover this up are….

    • WTF

      I just tried to post a link to that on Derpbook, and it was censored as “violating community standards”.
      Looks like the coverup is in full force.

      • AlexinCT

        As Elon pointed out last night on Tucker when asked about how horrible government censorship was/is, Google and Facebook are just mechanisms of the deep state’s agenda setting propagandists (and so was Twatter until he took it over and torpedoed that).

        The evil fuckers that did this shit and then covered it up are hell bent on keeping the usuals crowd of marxist sheep that they hide behind when fortifying elections from realizing they have been played like the dumb fucks they are.

    • The Other Kevin

      Last week I said I was ok with not releasing this type of thing and giving shooters any more attention. But this kind of pushback is insane. I’m guessing it’s a clear indictment of the left’s indoctrination.

  12. hayeksplosives

    Good morning, alles!

    Some do, some don’t.
    Some will, some won’t.

    I might.

    • AlexinCT

      You dropping wisdom this early in the AM?

      • hayeksplosives

        Yeah… had to lighten the mood after the Links of Enragement (California energy bill of Each According to His Needs, plus Federal XO of mortgage Each According to His Ability).

  13. AlexinCT

    The Climate Lunatics Have a New Food Target

    Think about it…

    More than 2/3 of the world uses this as a regular staple. If your dogma is to depopulate poor Gaia of the parasitic human filth, denying them rice sure as hell will help you put a large amount of them into the ground as they starve…

    • hayeksplosives

      Yeah, their agenda has been showing like a badly tailored slip for a couple of years now.

      Why bother making the coverup when you’re just going to ramrod it in anyway?

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

        Because they know, as seen in Sri Lanka, that they do not have the numbers to back this shit up, so they have to soft-shoe it into place, and hope that it hold before the masses notice and they get another DJT/Brexit.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Rice has been a target for years, particularly in the US, for high water usage.

    • Brawndo

      Wasn’t there some GMO rice that was enriched with Vitamin A that they tried to use in impoverished African countries, but the greenies threw a fit, which led to VitA deficiencies (which can cause blindness IIRC) in millions of children?

      • slumbrew

        Golden rice and of course the greenies are opposed to it.

  14. Shpip

    This has the potential to become interesting:

    Sen. Dianne Feinstein is no longer able to perform her duties as a U.S. senator. That is, at least, the reality according to her staff, who asked the Senate majority leader to temporarily replace her on the Judiciary Committee as she approaches two months of absence over health issues.

    She served on that committee until early March. Then finally, after six weeks away recovering from shingles, her California colleague, Rep. Ro Khanna, publicly called for her resignation. Democrats like Khanna had grown weary — between Feinstein and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, the party’s judicial agenda had been stalled since the top of March.

    Hours after Khanna’s tweet, she asked to be temporarily replaced in her duties on the essential committee. Democrats are eager to comply.

    But are Republicans so eager? They shouldn’t be. There’s zero reason — zero — that Republicans should cooperate with Schumer and the president on their judicial agenda, either tactically, politically, or even morally.

    I doubt much will come of it, but it might be fun to watch.

    • Rat on a train

      Committee assignments are decided at the beginning of the session, either by unanimous consent or, if contested, by the vote of at least 60 senators.

    • Sean

      but it might be fun to watch.

      Doubtful.

    • Gustave Lytton

      after six weeks away recovering from shingles

      Didn’t get the vaccine?? Where’s my shocked face at?

    • Gustave Lytton

      There’s zero reason — zero — that Republicans should cooperate with Schumer and the president on their judicial agenda, either tactically, politically, or even morally.

      Except that’s they’re largely part of the same uniparty.

      • WTF

        Yeah, expect the Republicans to roll over and give the Dems what they want so they can continue to railroad through Marxist judges onto the federal courts.

  15. AlexinCT

    Innocent until proven guilty, but this revelation is going to be prove true (this isn’t the first time she and the people around her were doing criminal shit around campaign stuff). And she will be let off because of the “she didn’t mean to do anything bad’ defense only team blue people seem to get from our legal system…

    • Michael Malaise

      Most of the connected get that treatment. You think McConnell hasn’t pulled shit?

  16. Pope Jimbo

    Behold! A miracle!

    • hayeksplosives

      That is just…so wrong. But cannot be unseen.

      🤪😆

    • Rat on a train

      Please don’t bless me.

    • Tres Cool

      Someone needs a bath.

    • AlexinCT

      I WANT TO SHOW YOU MY JUNK!

    • waffles

      wow, ugh, just ugh.

      • Not Adahn

        See? I was thinking it should be held for a SF day.

    • Tres Cool

      “yo- you so fat other people cant see your dick!”

    • Brawndo

      Look. If you’re so fat you’re junk is hidden, they don’t need to see your dick for it to be indecent.

    • The Other Kevin

      I think I heard her band on the Octane channel.

    • slumbrew

      😀

      Adorbs.

    • R.J.

      I could tell it was going to go south. Excess verbal diarrhea is a sign of leftist contamination.

    • AlexinCT

      I am all for speech censoring and cancelling people as long as I get to decide what gets censored and who gets cancelled…

    • Shpip

      This article is not specifically about abortion rights; that story is simply my experience that led me to realize the futility of logical debate.

      “You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place.”

      The authorette needs a Swift kick in the arse.

    • Gender Traitor

      They were polite. They held their voices low and spoke slowly and calmly. They had relaxed, open smiles.
      ….Their smug civility was infuriating; their invitations for debate, inflammatory.

      Aaaaand there you have it.

      • Nephilium

        Look, just being civil and rational is violence.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Something something may as well be violent if you’re going to call me violent either way.

    • WTF

      It’s so much easier to maintain your belief system if it’s never challenged and you never have to logically defend it.

      • AlexinCT

        ^^^THIS^^^

        When you argue with libs they immediately make it personal and emotional, especially when they have no logic to rely on, and if you don’t back off they become angry and after accusing you of having evil motives, end the conversation. When you live in a bubble where everyone agrees and you never have to defend stupid shit, you are not going to want people that can tear your idiocy apart to be given equal footing.

    • R C Dean

      On a quick skim, I honestly can’t tell if that’s satire or not.

      • slumbrew

        It’s Yale in Current Year – it’s not satire.

        I’d wager they think satire (aimed at them) is violence.

    • Tres Cool

      But in a matter of days, the feds managed to identify everyone at the Jan 6 rally.

      And they still dont know who shot Tupac or Biggie.

      /pours out some MBL

    • R C Dean

      That has been known for a long time. I wonder who’s toes the ChiComs stepped on in NYC to get that shut down?

  17. Shpip

    A little something for the history buffs: the Doolittle raid and the mission that killed Yamamoto happened exactly one year apart, OTD 1942-43.

    • Not Adahn

      Re: unskilled, at least the scoop jockeys at Amy’s in Austin do a little Benihana-esque show as part of the cone preparation.

    • The Last American Hero

      Good. Burn the fucking place down. They supported this shit when other companies were being infected with the union virus.

      • Sean

        haha

      • WTF

        In response to the initial closure, members of Darwin’s United organized a rally at Cambridge City Hall on Oct. 29, calling on the owners to guarantee employment to the workers at the Mt. Auburn location, raise wages to $24 per hour, provide three weeks of paid time off, and offer zero-deductible healthcare.

        Young idiots with no concept of reality.

  18. Certified Public Asshat

    Canadian Broadcasting Corp said they’re “less than 70% government-funded”, so we corrected the label pic.twitter.com/lU1EWf76Zu— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 18, 2023

    I can’t help it, I love this man.

      • AlexinCT

        I loved their explanation of why you shouldn’t care if they are propagandists for an evil government…

    • AlexinCT

      They HATE him for showing how vapid and evil they are…

    • The Other Kevin

      Buying Twitter was a genius move. If only for the amount of entertainment it’s providing us.

      • The Last American Hero

        It will eventually force Friendface to come to heel as people abandon the platform. Wait until 2024 and when Team Red supporters are effectively banned from Facefuck, and all the interest conversation (such as social media political conversation is) moves to Twitter.

    • slumbrew

      Legit LOL.

    • Not Adahn

      Nice…

    • PieInTheSky

      ok I laughed

  19. Pope Jimbo

    Here’s your chance to get in on the ground floor of the next Big Outrage: Umlaut Misappropriation

    Be it Blue Öyster Cult, Motörhead or Mötley Crüe, the Germanic umlaut is a grammatical mechanism that has been synonymous with hard rock and heavy metal for decades. While it’s clear that the umlaut’s usage in the rock scene has always been for rather aesthetic purposes, that hasn’t stopped prog legend and Jethro Tull leader Ian Anderson pointing out that it has been spectacularly misappropriated over the years.

    Anderson then goes on to reference in umlauts famous usage by other rock artists, noting: “The umlauts are there for a legitimate reason because they are correct in the linguistic spelling, whereas the misappropriation of the umlaut at the hands of, for instance, Mötley Crüe or Motörhead, ought to make you either laugh or get angry, depending on your point of view.”

    • AlexinCT

      What does the umlaut identify as?

      • Pine_Tree

        a transverse colon

      • Not Adahn

        *applause*

      • Homple

        Ha!

      • Rat on a train

        a diacritic

    • rhywun

      OFFS.

    • Not Adahn

      Cultural Appropriation requires culture. Germans are wypipo. Wypipo have no culture. Therefore crimespeaking “umlaut appropriation” doublepluss ungood, Revise fullwise antefiling.

    • Sensei

      Spın̈al Tap

      • Nephilium

        /shakes fist

      • Michael Malaise

        Spiñal Tap would be a total no-no.

    • Nephilium

      I blame Spın̈al Tap.

      • R.J.

        There is a band named The Umlauts as well. The ultimate in appropriation.

    • Tres Cool

      No love for Bill the Cat and “Deathtöngue” ?

      • Sean

        I recently picked up a Deathtöngue t shirt.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I’m sure your mom would appreciate it if you picked up all your clothes, not just the one t-shirt (especially those smelly grundies)

    • The Last American Hero

      He can take that flute and shove it up his ass.

    • Homple

      Häagen-Dazs hasz the sadzs.

    • Shirley Knott

      I suspect this is either out of context or tongue in cheek. Possibly both.
      After all, the new Jethro Tull album is titled RökFlöte…

  20. robc

    World Chess Championship update, round 7:

    I woke up this morning in time to catch the insane finish. At the time they had about 20 moves to go to move 40 (where they get additional time) and Ding was down to just over 20 minutes on his clock. Nepo was over 40.

    But Ding put pressure on Nepo, caught up on time and had a slight lead. With 10 minutes to make 9 moves, he had the ability to make some winning moves and….. he locked up. He couldnt figure out what to do and finally moved with just 45 seconds on his clock. And it was a bad move. Nepo had 11 minutes and the lead.

    A few moves later, with 16 seconds left and a totally lost position, Ding resigned.

    Nepo is up 4-3 half way though. We will see if this crushed Ding, or if he shakes it off and comes back.

    • Not Adahn

      Wasn’t Ding one of those guys that crashed the KAL flight?

      • robc

        Ding Liren is chinese. KAL is Korean and was shot down by the Soviets.

        I am missing the joke on this one.

      • Not Adahn

        My mistake, it was Asiana

      • Swiss Servator

        Interesting SF of that link….

      • Shpip

        I am missing the joke on this one.

        When Asiana Flight 214 crashed in San Francisco ten years ago, someone from the local TV station called up the National Transportation Safety Board to find out the names of the crew. Since it was a weekend, the only staffer around was a college intern, who decided to have a bit of fun with them. Unfortunately for him, he had no idea just how credulous journalists can be — to hilarious effect.

      • robc

        Asiana != KAL

      • Not Adahn

        Eh, they all look alike.

      • robc

        He is smartly staying away from it.

        If you aren’t going to defend your title, stay out of the picture.

  21. Lazer

    OT:
    So, obvisouly smoking is bad for you. But is it really so bad that you can not get a knee replacement because nicotine will not allow your body to recover properly? (You havle to be nicotine free for 30 days) They (the medical establishment) say that it constricts the blood vessels and will not allow the healing process. For obvious reason over the last three years, my trust in the medical establishment has dwindled to .0000001%; so is nicotine really that damaging to the body healing? or is this just another of the estabishments “nudging” process?

    Asking here, because I don’t have unlimited time to go through a search engine to find unbiased actual data.

    Thanks

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      I don’t know the first thing about medicine, but this isn’t the first time I’ve heard of nicotine being a vasoconstrictor, so it seems plausible.

      I’ll also mention that, after watching my FIL deal with a knee replacement that went wrong, I’d do everything in my power to stack the odds in my favor were I in your shoes.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      I understand being skeptical, but also you trust the medical establishment to actually replace your knee but not their advice on quitting smoking?

      • Not Adahn

        I imagine that the guys who replace knees for a living are good at replacing knees. I also expect that the only thing they know about smoking is what they watch on the news, which swears up and down that secondhand smoke is more deadly than smoking oneself. Which, since a smoker is by definition exposed to their own secondhand smoke, means that smoking must prevent health effects.

      • Sensei

        Piling on to what SSD said below. A surgeon is ranked on outcomes. Assuming I have my pick of patients why do I want to risk the complications if this standard practice.

        It’s always been a complaint from surgeons who do the most difficult cases that they are unfairly ranked because of the higher risk of complications.

        Knee surgery is typical bread and butter orthopedic work.

      • Michael Malaise

        Knee replacements are tricky and often regretted.

        Let’s say the process (if you’ve seen it) is less surgery and more NASCAR on-the-go auto repair.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      It’s been some years, but I’ve analyzed clinical data and published several studies on bone fusion and tendon repair. Patients who smoke had significantly higher failure rates across the board for all different types of bone fusion procedures and tendon repairs. I have no bias against smokers and those findings didn’t benefit the company in any way.

      Statistically significant is different than clinically meaningful. The odds of any individual smoker having a successful outcome is still higher than not. But in aggregate, the failures add up and I can understand why insurers would put the 30 day nicotine free hold. It shouldn’t matter to the medical establishment unless if the failure rate affects their payment or other kind of quality metrics.

      • Lazer

        Thank you

    • rhywun

      /says a prayer for my knees

    • dorvinion

      If constricting of blood vessels is a concern, did they also mention coffee or caffeine in general?

      That would suggest to me the concern is realistic since caffeine is also a vasoconstrictor and one that people use regularly without much controversy.

      Could also be Doc uses nicotine as an indicator of general health and keeps his ‘stats’ high by filtering out nicotine users by requiring they do something hard.

    • The Other Kevin

      I don’t know about nicotine, but I have heard smoking is terrible for your bones, and I do see anecdotal evidence to support that.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Seems to be legit, and pretty significant. Interestingly, I saw another study showing that smokers are less likely to need the surgery in the first place. Could be due to the weight control effect of cigarettes.

    • The Last American Hero

      I’d be more worried about coming out of surgery with no dick, a bum knee and a pair of boobs.

      • Lazer

        LOL

    • Lazer

      Thank you all, knew I could count on answers and snark, not disappointed (ok, not a lot of snark, but I’ll live)

  22. Sean

    Daily Quordle 449
    7️⃣9️⃣
    6️⃣8️⃣
    m-w.com/games/quordle

    Blossom Puzzle, April 18
    Letters: H K P O R S W
    My score: 176 points
    My longest word: 9 letters
    🌸 🌺 🏵 🌻 💐 💮 🌼 🌷 🌹

    Play Blossom:
    https://www.merriam-webster.com/games/blossom-word-game

    One vowel. >.>

    • rhywun

      Daily Quordle 449
      4️⃣6️⃣
      7️⃣5️⃣

    • Tundra

      Daily Quordle 449
      5️⃣7️⃣
      8️⃣9️⃣

      Almost took the train to Chumpville. Guessed wrong on all the 50/50s

    • Michael Malaise

      184
      workshops was the longest word.

  23. Drake

    If I’m reading it correctly, the mortgage fee changes will be for new mortgages not retroactive to current loans. So people who read the fine print will be angry and maybe look for alternatives. Everyone else will just think “damn this mortgage thing is expensive.”

    As long as they don’t read the story in the NY Post, they’ll never know why.

  24. Pope Jimbo

    You silly pessimists. Commercial real estate losses are really just affordable housing opportunities!

    Can Minneapolis address city center vacancies, affordable housing need simultaneously?

    The 13-story building was erected in 1916, and by the 1960s, Dan Collison — director of business development and public affairs for Sherman Associates, the company heading up the conversion project — said it became the first mixed office and retail space in all of downtown.

    It was “at a point of important renovation and rethinking of what downtowns could be,” Collison said in an interview outside of the tower Monday.

    Sherman Associates will begin construction on the virtually vacant tower into 216 apartment units in about a month, Collison said.

    This is about the fourth story recently here that is pushing the line that empty downtown office buildings are nothing to worry about. It is similar to the campaign a year or so ago about how “everyone is coming back downtown”.

    I wonder how much of it is related to the fact that the local paper owns a lot of downtown real estate (they got a huge windfall selling a few blocks to the city to build the Metrodome)? They don’t want their holdings to plummet in value.

    • Tundra

      It’s too late. Values are shit.

      Crimewatch has been doing a great job of covering the obvious bullshit of “we’re back!”

    • The Last American Hero

      The problem is that the properties are not interchangeable cogs. Office building converted to apartments in many cases would be shoebox shaped with one window at the far end, and the cost of renovations with installing thousands of additional toilets, showers, sinks, and kitchen utilities, as well as laundry, would be astronomical.

      • PieInTheSky

        there was an article recently Guardian or BBC about people embracing windowless apartments, specifically about such conversions

      • Nephilium

        One of the older suburbs here has some closets with external windows. Finding out why lead to stories that local laws used to have items such as locking children into a closet as child abuse. Once the closet had a window, it was technically a small room, so it was no longer abuse.

  25. The Other Kevin

    China: In order to combat climate change, we will join the rest of the world in lowering rice cultivation by 25%.
    Also China: Increased rice cultivation by 25%.

  26. Sensei

    The EV Mandate’s Fine Print

    Anecdotally from what I’ve read Tesla should be able to meet this with little issue. VW also locks a good bit of excess capacity in its battery ratings so I expect no issues. However, for other manufacturers this just got more interesting.

    Under the backdoor EV mandate the EPA rolled out last week, high-voltage batteries and electric powertrain components will be required to have an eight-year or 80,000-mile warranty. Auto makers will also have to certify that EV battery performance doesn’t decline by more than 20% over five years or 62,000 miles, and 30% over eight years or 100,000 miles.

    • AlexinCT

      So will not following proper charging procedures invalidate the warrantee? Cause that is gonna piss off a ton of people… Especially when it comes to the use of fast chargers.

      And the big problem w/ EVs isn’t the battery cost IMO, but tat any fender bender can result in your vehicle being declared a total loos because insurance doesn’t want to deal with the risk batteries pose if they have any incident.

      • Sensei

        I assume you could DC fast charge it daily and it would have to meet those requirements. Most manufacturers would like just eat the warranty costs as most non commercial usage isn’t nearly so demanding.

        OTH, I don’t know if this applies to commercial applications.

        New cars have so many sensors and electronics that you can quickly mechanically totally mid priced ICE vehicles now.

      • dorvinion

        Provided the pack is designed well, fast charging is a lot less of a problem than people think it is.

        There is a car service in CA that utilized Tesla vehicles that would do two or three fast charges a day and even after 100k+ miles were above 90% original capacity – and this was on the older 18650 packs. They never got into using Model 3 with the newer chemistry and cell sizes because they were forced to shutdown because coof.

        Tesla seems to prioritize longevity and so they design their packs and their fast-charge curves with that in mind, tapering the power fairly quickly (though still pretty quick in my experience)
        Porsche seems to be prioritizing faster fast-charge curves which I suspect will have a negative impact on longevity
        Nissan is (AFAIK) still doing air cooling only and so even though they are using bigger batteries these days, they aren’t thermally regulating so to the extent you can charge a Leaf its gonna hurt it more (or they taper faster and you wait longer)

        I suspect the insurance thing is just more FUD
        If a battery pack’s tub has no dents, warps, or punctures, its in good shape.

        You can certainly get a ‘fender bender’ that will damage a pack – say you roll up on a curb or run over debris in such a way that it damages the pack.
        Seen plenty of accidents on wham-bam that to me look fairly extreme that get repaired.

    • WTF

      And then they mandated that all new vehicles must run on unicorn farts by 2030.

    • Sean

      I was in a new VW EV recently. I hated the dash/cluster. Blech.

      • Sensei

        Latest generation GTI doesn’t have many fans for its controls and instruments either.

        My understanding is VW is walking back some of the integration that it did corporate wide.

      • Sean

        The 7.5 gen GTI was about perfect (imo). Which is why I still have it.

      • Michael Malaise

        My new Telluride has a solid dash/instrument/screen setup.

        I had to take a rental Dodge Charger and having to always change the audio setup to bluetooth via the dash screen (every time you started the car) and to access a heated seat only via the screen was ridiculous.

    • Pope Jimbo

      You know if they are so sure that mandating things is all you need to do to overcome reality, why not mandate that pi = 3? Do you know how many more people would make it through engineering school with this one simple mandate?

  27. Brawndo

    “It definitely matters for those who paid their bills on time because their mortgage payments are about to go up.”

    Maybe I’m missing something, but this wording implies that people that already have a mortgage will have to pay more, but I think it’s more accurate to say that *new* borrowers with good credit will have a higher rate than they would otherwise. Unless you have an adjustable rate mortgage, in which case, fucking why?

    • AlexinCT

      It always baffles me how many people have adjustables. Usually that’s because they wanted to borrow more than they could afford or they thought they would dump the property before things got dicey (so they are speculators), and frankly, I feel very little sympathy for that sort of risk taking. Especially when i will be made to pay for it somehow in these days government protects the people doing dumb shit.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      *new* borrowers with good credit will have a higher rate than they would otherwise

      *grumble grumble grumble*

      This is now twice in 2 years that my responsible financial decisions come at an inopportune time, resulting in me being chumped. At least the student loan thing got tied up in court, I guess.

      • Grumbletarian

        Look, if you can afford to pay your debts, you can afford to pay higher debts.

        sin,
        Morons

  28. The Late P Brooks

    From Not Adahn’s Yale link:

    Sometimes, though, the debate can be the problem itself. Some arguments aren’t worth engaging with, and quite frankly are dangerous for even existing.

    Our best. Our brightest.

    This person, more likely than not, views Donald Trump as an authoritarian menace.

    • WTF

      Well, Trump is allowed to say things she doesn’t want to hear, so of course he is doubleplusungood.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      and quite frankly are dangerous for even existing.

      How meta.

  29. Tundra

    Good morning, Banjos!

    Also, bankers and analysts told Reuters that the most significant stress in the office sector is likely to be felt in large cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle. Cities in the southern United States have a lower share of risky loans, according to Stephen Buschbom, research director at Trepp.

    You mean where the offices are? Thanks for that insight, journalist person. Still, this doesn’t bode well for the economy unless the idiots get out of the way and let nature take its course.

    Why are you laughing?

  30. The Late P Brooks

    I’m talking about every uncomfortable conversation we have with prejudiced, ignorant people whom we believe we can convince with logic. I’m telling you, it’s not worth it. And at some point that you have to determine for yourself, you have to disengage. The burden is not on us to talk our mouths dry and educate others, and frankly it is past the point of being an intellectual challenge. It’s an insult to our personhood, experience and rights to have to hold some of these “debates.”

    Never get out of the boat bubble, man!

    • WTF

      Shorter version: Might makes right.
      Because if making a compelling case is off the table, the ability to enforce your beliefs is the only thing that matters.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        When you remove objective truth from the equation, the only thing left to settle debates is power.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    It’s a pandemic

    A 20-year-old woman was shot and killed Saturday after she and three others accidentally turned into the wrong driveway while looking for a friend’s house in rural upstate New York, authorities said.

    The young woman, identified as Kaylin Gillis, was struck by gunfire as a man fired two shots from his front porch, one of which hit the vehicle she was in, Washington County Sheriff Jeffrey Murphy said in a news conference Monday.

    ——-

    The shooting happened just days after a Black teenager in Kansas City was shot twice by a White homeowner after going to the wrong address to pick up his siblings.

    Ban private property.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Times have changed. Back in the late ’80s a deputy in my local hometown got lost and went down what he thought was a dirt road but was really a private driveway. A classmate of mine was home and went out on the front porch (and according to the police blotter write up “wearing only black bikini underwear”) and fired a shot up in the air. Even more old skool, the deputy reversed out of the yard and drove back a way. Called dispatch who called my classmate and arranged a talk between the two. Deputy just warned him that firing a gun – even up in the air – was probably a bad thing.

      Speculation between the alums was whether our classmate had a bunch of pot in his trailer or if he was just that high/drunk.

      • slumbrew

        I’m guessing it wasn’t someone you would want to see in just black bikini underwear.

      • DEG

        Note the only pronouns used.

        Maybe the gay glibs and lady glibs can weigh in.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Actually a pretty good looking guy. Just a goof. The story really didn’t surprise anyone.

    • Tres Cool

      I was told by someone from the area that there’s dirt roads outside of London, Ky that are actual driveways. And being the wrong (unrecognized) vehicle on them will likely get a similar response.

    • WTF

      I keep thinking there has to be something more to the story. I mean, who the hell just starts shooting at a car that pulls into your driveway?

      • Not Adahn

        There are some EXTREMELY unfriendly people up here.

    • Michael Malaise

      Who are these morons shooting from porches and behind doors?

      Seriously. I get it if you honestly feel threatened, but someone pulling in your driveway?

  32. Sensei

    Fun times!

    “If you have a very high BMI and you’re obese, you’re probably going to be in a place where there’s a higher probability you might have heart disease and these drugs could help you,” she says. “But they’re not just going to start giving a green light to every doctor that writes a prescription for drugs that cost $6,000 a month.”

    Demand for Obesity Drugs Has Insurers Paying Close Attention

    My understanding is that if you go off these you’ll gain the weight right back.

    • The Other Kevin

      I was wondering how those pharma companies were going to replace the money they got from vaccines.

    • PieInTheSky

      I have little confidence in such drugs. Though I need to lose some 12 kg myself. Hell maybe up to 15 to be a willowy fellow

    • slumbrew

      I have a friend who’s using those for weight loss (via her doctor) and they have indeed been very effective.

      She’s healthy, a former track runner who still runs regularly, doesn’t eat poorly at all but was just big and getting bigger. Biology is complicated.

      • Michael Malaise

        My wife is on one now as well. She was on another drug for some anxiety and it crashed her metabolism. She was never really heavy at all. Same story, eats an unhealthy? amount of salads, runs 1/2 marathons, etc. and put on 30 lbs in like 10 months. Doc is seeing if she can jumpstart the metabolism with them with a six month trial. Weight is coming off bit by bit.

  33. PieInTheSky

    Health Care Costs Overtake Inflation as Top Financial Concern, Survey Shows – Embrace the NHS model as your true lord and savior

  34. PieInTheSky

    In local news, some NGO morons are suing the Romanian government because muh climate change, which is patently retarded since we already have a bunch of hidro and nuclear and if we reduced CO2 to 0 it would have literally zero impact on global emissions. But we need to do something. The comments on online news sites are swarms of moronic NPCs. I swear to god local leftists are just parroting US buzzwords. A comment mentioning we are not a drop in the bucket compared to China is and I quote “soviet style whattaboutism” everyone who disagrees is a science denialist and at least they are doing something. Goddamnit I am surrounded by idiots. IDIOTS.

  35. DEG

    “Here’s our plan,” McCarthy said. “In the coming weeks the House will vote on a bill to lift the debt ceiling into the next year, save taxpayers trillions of dollars, make us less dependent upon China, curb our high inflation — all without touching Social Security and Medicare.”

    HAHAHAHAHA!!!

    Starting on May 1st, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will offer discounted mortgage rates to prospective home buyers with “riskier credit backgrounds” (meaning people with poor credit ratings) to enable them to qualify for a mortgage.

    What could possibly go wrong?

  36. The Late P Brooks

    It’s supposed to be simple

    Millions of Americans could face massive consequences unless Speaker Kevin McCarthy can navigate out of a debt trap he has set for President Joe Biden that is instead threatening to capture his House Republicans.

    The California Republican traveled to Wall Street on Monday to deliver a fresh warning that the House GOP majority will refuse to lift a cap on government borrowing unless Biden agrees to spending cuts that would effectively neutralize his domestic agenda and neuter his White House legacy.

    ——-

    Most countries don’t require the legislature to raise the government’s borrowing threshold. But the quirky situation in the US has made a once routine duty an opportunity for political mischief in a polarized age. Since the government spends more than it makes in revenue, it must borrow money to service its debt and pay for spending that Congress has already authorized. It has no problem getting more credit since the US pays its bills and has always had a stellar credit rating, despite one previous downgrade from the threat of default.

    At least, that’s the way it has worked until now.

    The government should be able to make infinite promises, and just borrow unlimited sums of money to make it all happen. Why make it difficult?

    • Sean

      We need to send more billions to the Ukraine. It’s probably been at least a week…

    • Rat on a train

      A default on debt would be an executive decision. There is sufficient revenue to pay the interest on the debt.

    • Michael Malaise

      “Since the government spends more than it makes in revenue”

      Buried the lede again.

  37. Tres Cool

    So for all the concern about using a public charging station for your phone, and “juice jacking”….whats going to happen when everyone has to drive EV and pull-over to some shady rest area charger for the car ?

    • Sean

      Good spots for muggings?

    • dorvinion

      Doubt it

      Charge ports on an EV aren’t data ports.
      Only communication between car and charger is/should be volts and amps requested.

      • Tres Cool

        Just a thought. Im admittedly ignorant about such things, and if data is shared between vehicle and charger.

      • The Last American Hero

        Mine plugs into a wall outlet. Unless the NSA got real sneaky and started bugging my electrical outlets…

      • Not Adahn

        You can send data through AC lines.

      • Timeloose

        Lots of communication is done between the charger and the vehicle. There will also be future communication between the vehicle and the grid.

        “Smart Grid”

        See below article link

    • PieInTheSky

      the future is not charging but swapping batteries.

      • robc

        That was the promise years ago…that you would swap like with propane tanks.

      • Michael Malaise

        Tesla is trying to make cars without batteries.

      • Michael Malaise

        This is why I have a natgas line out of my house to my grill.

      • dorvinion

        I really do not want that at all.

        Right now, the only time I even remotely care about ‘charging infrastructure’ is when I do road trips, and to be honest the primary concern these days on a road trip is what the food/bathroom situation is, not can I find a charger.

        The primary reason I don’t want that is I suspect that if battery swapping became the norm then the standard size of a pack would start to shrink.
        Eventually ending up only as just enough to go about 100 miles with the rationale being “you don’t need a big battery since you can swap it so quickly”

        This would have the effect of making day trips extremely annoying. Its not unusual to do 150-220 mile round trip day trips every other weekend in summer. We can do this completely care-free because there’s no need to charge.

        From a deployment perspective, Fast charge only is something that can be deployed much more widely and at lower costs.

        A battery swap location has the problem of needing both the fast charge capabilities (got to juice up the packs you have in inventory so they are ready for a new customer), and also needing to build a structure to house all of the mechanical stuff to be able to perform swapping.
        Also presents the need to re-distribute packs should an abundance end up in one place, and a shortage exist in another.

        Swaps sound nice, but in my experience fast charging is really fast enough.

    • Timeloose

      “The way the vehicle, charger, and grid talk to each other is standardized and focused on two main communication flows—between vehicle and charger, and between charger and grid. The information that needs to be conveyed by the signal pins in the various connectors discussed above is guided by the standards IEC 61851, ISO 15118, DIN 70121, and VDV 261, which define multiple levels of functionality. Each function uses a different communication method and provides different levels of features and status support (Figure 3).”

      https://www.wolfspeed.com/knowledge-center/article/whats-under-the-hood-ev-chargers-a-tale-of-standards-and-many-connectors/

      • Sensei

        CHAdeMO

        2. Where does the name “CHAdeMO” derive from?

        “CHAdeMO” is an abbreviation of “CHArge de MOve,” equivalent to “charge for moving,” and is a pun for “O cha demo ikaga desuka.” in Japanese, meaning “Let’s have a cup of tea while charging.”

      • Count Potato

        Chad emo is an oxymoron.

      • Michael Malaise

        Wouldn’t Chad Emo be the Supreme Being?

  38. PieInTheSky

    Though they sucked away all season I did not expect the warriors to go down 2 to the kings… there goes my warriors in 5 bet…

    I also had philly in 5 but now I think they will sweep. I don;t see the nets doing anything.

    • Michael Malaise

      The Warriors need a time machine to win.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    In order to prevail in this fight, McCarthy has to somehow change the political dynamic by saddling Biden with the blame for any default and the economic tensions that could begin to unfold even before the country plunges over a fiscal cliff.

    He tried to do so on Monday by insisting that the biggest threat to the US economy wasn’t a default but rising national debt.

    “Without exaggeration American debt is a ticking time bomb that will detonate unless we take serious responsible action. Yet, how has President Biden reacted to this issue? He has done nothing. So in my view, and I think the rest of America, it’s irresponsible,” he said.

    That’s just crazy talk.

    • R.J.

      …And he shrugs and gives in on 3…2…1…

  40. The Late P Brooks

    if data is shared between vehicle and charger.

    You mean like payment data?

  41. PieInTheSky

    Incredible maps show second most popular spoken language in each London borough

    These maps paint a fascinating picture of the city

    https://www.mylondon.news/news/north-london-news/incredible-maps-show-second-most-26676957

    Second most common main language after English in each borough

    (percentage of population over age 3 speaking)

    Barking and Dagenham – Romanian 4.78%

    Barnet – Persian or Farsi 2.25%

    Bexley – Romanian 0.95%

    Brent – Gujarati 6.56%

    Bromley – Portuguese 0.59%

    Camden – French 2.22%

    Croydon – Polish 1.67%

    Ealing – Panjabi 4.88%

    Enfield – Turkish 5.91%

    Greenwich – Nepalese 2.11%
    etc

    • Drake

      Did the English intentionally turn their city into Babylon?

      • PieInTheSky

        well not the English per se but their exalted leaders

      • robc

        Is this any different than NYC 1900?

      • PieInTheSky

        I think your Romanian contingent was quite lower

      • robc

        Replace Romanian with Italian.

      • PieInTheSky

        Nonsense. Our women are much hotter

      • Drake

        Sure – the immigrants in 1900 intended to learn English and join American society.

    • Count Potato

      “Second most common main language after English in each borough”

      Bullshit. No one in London speaks English.

  42. PieInTheSky

    Westminster Council bans Greggs from selling sausage rolls past 11pm – over fears they cause “crime and disorder”

    https://twitter.com/JackElsom/status/1648288076614062080

    of all things that may cause crime in London, I did not expect sausage rolls

    • The Other Kevin

      They found a lot of people casing the neighborhood.

      • Brawndo

        I don’t see the link between crime and sausage sales

    • Not Adahn

      Sausage rolls are haram, kaffir.

  43. The Late P Brooks

    of all things that may cause crime in London, I did not expect sausage rolls

    Nobody expects the sausage roll inquisition.

  44. PieInTheSky

    The Making of a Classic: Köstritzer Schwarzbier

    https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2023/4/17/the-making-of-a-classic-kostritzer-schwarzbier

    One of the more mysterious German beer styles is not that rare in the United States. The black lagers of Thuringia, the state in the heart of Germany, are more common in the US than either dunkel lagers or bocks. Yet in their native land, schwarzbiers are incredibly obscure. In two trips to Germany (but never Thuringia), I’ve never seen one. Bocks and dunkel lagers, if you visit Bavaria, are everywhere. Schwarzbiers seem more common in Franconia, particularly around Kulmbach, though when I spent several days in Bamberg and visited breweries around the region, I never chanced upon one myself.

    ….

    Dark lagers were brewed continuously in the US and Mexico, but they weren’t really schwarzbiers—often they were just regular pale lagers stained with caramel coloring.

    The modern brewery traces its history back to 1543, when it was founded as a tavern with hereditary brewing rights (“erbschenke”) in Bad Köstritz, then and now a small town near Leipzig. The brewery picked up steam a century and a half later, when the royal house of Reuß acquired the brewery. Helmsdorf attributes the rising fortunes less to the owners than the customers, however. Students at nearby Jena University developed a taste for Köstritzer’s beer.

    Köstritzer’s modern era began in 1875, when agricultural entrepreneur Rudolf Zersch leased the company. At the time, the brewery was still located in the Köstritz Castle, the seat of the Reuß line. Zersch would later move the brewery into a new, purpose-built facility in 1907 to take advantage of modern technology and position the company for greater sales. At the same time British breweries were using doctors to promote the health benefits of their dark ales, Köstritzer promoted their own black beer as a healthy alternative (a “renowned nutritional and fortifying beer”), again, supported by doctor recommendations.

    This is the secret superpower of schwarzbier. The dark malts soothe and warm during cooler months, with drying dark cocoa and sweeter red fruit and cola flavors. It looks like a winter beer, and drinks like one. Ah, but on a hot day, you notice different attributes: the body is surprisingly lean, and those darker flavors have a quenching quality. The key is the very dry, smooth finish; with a finishing gravity of just a bit more than 2˚ Plato, it drinks like a helles. Köstritzer’s Schwarzbier is a chameleon, one of the very rare beers that can satisfy no matter the weather or your mood.

    Perhaps the bigger testament to its character are all those schwarzbiers you find in the US. Almost no American brewer has been to Thuringia to sample the black lagers local breweries make there. They have a single reference point, Köstritzer, a beer that reveals what a wonderfully complex style schwarzbier is. Whether they choose to imitate its delicacy and mutability, or make it sweeter or roastier, they do it with Köstritzer as the North Star. For most of us, Köstritzer is schwarzbier.

    • PieInTheSky

      shit I copy pasted way to much

    • Not Adahn

      Köstritz, then and now a small town near Leipzig.

      Someone needed to pad their word count.

    • Nephilium

      I’m pretty sure more American brewers have been to Thuringia than the author thinks. I know of several brewers (and brewery employees) who took trips through Europe to hit up little known (or well known) beer areas to bring ideas back home.

  45. Tundra

    I’m probably the only one who stayed up and watched the whole Wild/Stars game. Holy shit was that a great game. Double OT and just a good, fast physical game.

    The season is way too long, but NHL playoffs are legit.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tUSssmndzI

    • slumbrew

      The season is way too long, but NHL playoffs are legit.

      Amen, on both counts.

    • whiz

      Yes, that reminds me of when I watched the entire 4 OT 7th game between the Islanders and Capitals in the 1987 playoffs. It was amazing.

  46. Sensei

    Because new cars aren’t claustrophobic enough.

    Polestar’s new electric car doesn’t have a rear window

    The Polestar 4 midsize SUV features a coupe-like roof that does not have a rear window.

    Instead, there is a full glass sunroof that extends over the heads of the rear passengers.

    Polestar said the design creates a “unique interior ambience” for those seated in the back.

    • Tundra

      Yuck.

      No thanks.

      • DEG

        Seconded.

    • DEG

      The driver can still see what is behind the vehicle by using a digital rearview “mirror” that gets a video feed from a roof-mounted camera.

      What could possibly go wrong?

      I’ve already had to replace back-up cameras.

      • Sensei

        I’ve been waiting over a year for a recall on my rear camera wiring harness.

        It still works, but their solution if it fails is to rely on your mirrors.

      • R C Dean

        “rely on your mirrors”

        My. God. What are we, animals?

      • Sean

        The terrorists have won.

    • R.J.

      Well, a full glass roof will boil you like a cajun crawfish even with a curtain. Ask me how I know. Also no rearview out is stupid and may actually be regulated in some states.

    • dorvinion

      And I thought the Model Y was bad with its rear visibility.

      I’m happy using a camera and side cameras when backing up but when driving, a rear-view mirror is much preferred

      • Sensei

        Before the Model 3 I drove a soft top Jeep JK,

        Rearview mirror visibility on both is so poor I tend to rely on the side mirrors much more.

        My Model 3 is the first car I’ve owned with a back up camera.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      No problem. Just stick your head up through the roof and look around.

      • Spartacus

        My mom used to have a VW Rabbit with a moon roof. It was small enough that I could put my head out while keeping a foot on the gas pedal. Great way to drive.

  47. Count Potato

    “Shocking moment group of jeering youngsters attack woman in Chicago on the same night they torched cars in rampage organized on social media – as outgoing mayor Lori Lightfoot insists carnage WASN’T ‘mayhem’

    ‘The mass majority of the young people who came downtown, came downtown because there was great weather and it was an opportunity to enjoy the city. That’s absolutely, entirely appropriate,’ said Lightfoot, defending the teens”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11985743/Shocking-moment-group-teens-attack-woman-Chicago-night-torched-cars.html

    OFFS!!

    • Sean

      Probably Trump supporters. #MAGAcountry

  48. The Late P Brooks

    The Polestar 4 midsize SUV features a coupe-like roof that does not have a rear window.

    That’s what rear view cameras are for.

  49. The Late P Brooks

    Is you is or is you ain’t?

    The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation paused its use of Twitter on Monday after the social media platform owned by Elon Musk stamped CBC’s account with a label the public broadcaster says is intended to undermine its credibility.

    Twitter labelled CBC/Radio-Canada “government-funded media” — the same label that prompted National Public Radio in the U.S. to similarly quit Twitter last Wednesday.

    “Twitter can be a powerful tool for our journalists to communicate with Canadians, but it undermines the accuracy and professionalism of the work they do to allow our independence to be falsely described in this way,” CBC spokesman Leon Mar said in a statement announcing the change Monday afternoon.

    “Consequently, we will be pausing our activity on our corporate Twitter account and all CBC and Radio-Canada news-related accounts,” the statement said.

    CBC has sent a letter to Twitter asking the company to re-examine the designation. Musk later tweeted about it and changed it to “69 percent Government-funded media.”

    Musk. What a scamp.

    • WTF

      Why would they object to the truth about their funding?
      (rhetorical question, obviously)

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        Democracy dies in darkness. And they want to be the ones turning out the lights.

  50. The Late P Brooks

    Twitter earlier responded to a request for comment about why the label was applied and whether it would be removed or changed with an auto-generated email bearing a poop emoji.

    Musk had better stay out of Canada.

    • DEG

      “Shoot, shovel, shut-up” applies here.

    • robc

      This seems easy after all of the boating accidents.

    • The Other Kevin

      This could work in my favor. I have to fly to Minnesota in June, and last time they had a fuck up they had a big “we’re sorry” sale.

      • Not Adahn

        “Just don’t do it any more you scurvy scallywag!”

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        👍 🐯 🐅

  51. The Late P Brooks

    Sikh-on-Sikh

    Authorities in Northern California on Monday said they had arrested more than a dozen men from two warring criminal syndicates whose violent rivalry they say was responsible for a mass shooting at a Sikh temple and a brutal sword attack at a parade in 2018.

    Sutter County District Attorney Jennifer Dupré said the two syndicates were responsible for multiple shootings where 11 people were shot, including five people at a Sikh temple in Stockton last year and two more victims at a temple in Sacramento last month.

    ——-

    The investigation intensified in March, when authorities learned of potential violence at a Sikh parade in Sacramento. Dupré said police stopped two cars before they reached the parade, arresting seven people and seizing four handguns and two other guns with large capacity magazines.

    A shooting still happened at the parade, injuring two people, but Dupré said a “mass casualty incident” was prevented.

    “If those weapons had gotten into the parade, it could have been a bloodbath,” Dupré said.

    Altogether, Dupré said police seized 41 guns during the investigation, including a weapon described as a “machine gun.”

    ——-

    Yuba City, a city of nearly 70,000 people along the Feather River just north of Sacramento, has a large Sikh community. Locals often refer to the area as “mini Punjab,” named after the Indian state where many Sikhs live. Each November, tens of thousands of people travel to the city for Nagar Kirtan, one of the largest Sikh gatherings in the U.S.

    Ethnic violence, in the Peoples Inclusive Republic of California?

    • The Other Kevin

      Those were MAGA Sikhs. I’m looking forward to “The Hat and the Hair and the Turban”.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Sikh and you shall find.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      More of that anti-Asian violence.

    • The Other Kevin

      He needs something to do, after he completely wiped out crime in the city.

      • R.J.

        *Golf clap

    • rhywun

      Remember, he was the “moderate” choice. 🙄

  52. The Late P Brooks

    President Fixit

    President Joe Biden will sign an executive order Tuesday to advance affordable caregiving and support workers as the White House sharpens its pitch to voters ahead of an expected re-election announcement.

    The order includes more than 50 directives to Cabinet-level agencies to take steps toward fixing the nation’s child care and long-term care system, White House officials said in a call with reporters previewing the actions.

    “Too many families are struggling to afford or access high-quality care, and too many care workers are struggling to make a living doing this critically important work,” Domestic Policy Council Director Susan Rice said. “The president’s not going to wait to take action to address our nation’s care crisis.”

    We’re going to solve these problems by paying the workers more while charging less. Why didn’t somebody think of this sooner?

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      That’s ok, they’ll make up for it in volume.

      • WTF

        Nah, they’ll just force other people to pay for it.
        Because FYTW.

  53. Not Adahn

    NY AG promises lawfare against her political enemies:

    “I want to make clear that abortion is still legal in the state of New York,” she said. “And as long as we have Gov. Hochul it will remain legal. And as long as I’m the attorney general, I will use the law both as a sword and as a shield against any individual who seeks to strip away that basic right, because abortion is healthcare.”

  54. The Late P Brooks

    Heather Boushey, a Council of Economic Advisers member and the chief economist of Biden’s Invest in America Cabinet, said on the call that the cost of child and home care is increasing, preventing greater participation in the workforce by women.

    We have to get those tax cattle to work. Why would women want to stay home with their children when they could be paying taxes?