The snows recede, the lawn needs mowing, and I’m getting ready for another visit with an NPR Lady. All signs of Spring in Western New York (yes, we get a few flashes of warm before this, but it’s been in the thirties until yesterday), which is depths of summer in Arizona and Texas. But it’s Spring where it counts. And you know what Spring means.
This classic, of course, came to mind:
And along with the new season comes a day with an amazing plethora of birthdays, including the goddess of underwear; someone whose eyes saw the glory; a rags-to-riches story better than Henry Aldrich; an honored serial killer; a guy responsible for Bogart’s second best role; a guy who lived On Walton Pond; an incredible fraud responsible for millions of deaths, yet still honored; a guy who would have been president if he weren’t so badly tainted; the rare actor who was actually an interesting human being; the gay lover of George Costanza’s father-in-law; a guy responsible for Bogart’s best role; an actor who was an actual badass; a guy 50 years too late for the richly deserved lamppost; the shortest and most arrogant person in sci fi; the only person who could ever replace Julie Newmar; a guy who knew what he was talking about; the essence of everything that’s gone wrong in fine dining; and a guy who has upheld the stereotype about British cooking.
With that, we shall link.
Got confused and committed seppuku.
One more reason DeSantis has continued to convince me to never vote for him.
Here’s a very nice critique of the IPCC “The sky is falling!” global warming report.
Another reason Europe is fucked. Yes, the guy is a Jew-hating asshole. So what?
This is OK as long as they don’t make more shitty movies about it.
Notice how the reporter sweeps right by the “lowest level since 1997” to promote the moral panic.
I’ll take the over/under at 15 for “number of these people getting mugged.”
An NPR Lady told me about this delightful singer/songwriter. Have tickets to see her in a couple of weeks. Old Guy is impressed.
OMWC
Are you enjoying the NPR ladies or are they more of a chore?
I waver on that one. The current crop is intelligent and articulate, but have a religious commitment to the standard bumper-sticker issues.
“Write a poem about an old man and a NPR listening woman”
Once upon a time, in a small town near the bay,
Lived an old man and a woman, who listened to NPR every day.
The man was ancient, with wrinkles etched deep,
And his bones creaked as he took each step.
The woman was younger, her hair streaked with grey,
But her eyes were bright, like the dawn of a new day.
They met at the park, where they’d both come to sit,
And soon struck up a conversation, bit by bit.
The old man spoke of his youth and the days gone by,
While the woman shared stories of places she’d traveled to far and nigh.
They talked of music, literature, and politics too,
And laughed at jokes that only they knew.
As time went on, they became good friends indeed,
Sharing their love for NPR and all that it would read.
They’d sit together, listening to the news and debates,
And sometimes nodding off, lost in a peaceful state.
For though they were different in age and gender,
Their shared interests made them feel much tender.
And so they continued to meet, day after day,
At the park near the bay, where they’d while the time away.
And when the old man finally passed away,
The woman mourned deeply, for she’d lost a friend that day.
But she knew that he’d live on, in memories and in song,
And she’d listen to NPR, not a day would go wrong.
-BAI chatbot
OmgLOL
A religious commitment to The Current Thing belies actual intelligence.
an honored serial killer;
Happy birthday Harold Shipman!
IPCC link leaves something to be desired.
We just don’t have access to OMWC’s c: drive. And that’s likely a very very good thing.
Inorite?
Thanks for the catch. I changed it to the promo site- you need to leave an email addy for a download link but it’s worth it.
I was able to strip off everything but the name of the PDF, search on that and bring it up with no fuss.
That website is not FireFox-friendly. Text runs off the page edge and the horizontal scroll is not available. Shrinking the page doesn’t fix.
On Brave I at least had a scroll bar.
a guy responsible for Bogart’s best role;
Happy birthday Vincent Sherman!
a guy responsible for Bogart’s second best role
Happy birthday Lloyd Bacon!
Cagney and Bogart as cowboys, now that’s acting!
I read that in Jon Lovitz’s voice.
a guy who lived On Walton Pond
Happy birthday John-Boy!
Insert standard “Not like it is rocket science!” joke here.
“Here’s a very nice critique of the IPCC “The sky is falling!” global warming report.”
Linky no worky.
Well I’m sure he didn’t actually expect anybody to click on it…
Link to BAI chatbot: https://theb.ai/
Free to use and no need to register.
This is OK as long as they don’t make more shitty movies about it.
How many Sharknado movies did they make, anyway?
The real problem will be great white supremacy.
“There are 6 Sharknado movies. The first movie was released in 2013, followed by Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014), Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (2015), Sharknado: The 4th Awakens (2016), Sharknado 5: Global Swarming (2017), and the final movie, Sharknado 6: The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time (2018).”
-BAI
It seems like only yesterday the sharks were on the brink of extinction. All made into soup, and suits.
And holsters: https://www.galcogunleather.com/exotic-concealable-holster-shark_8_4_1501.html
Their ray skin holster would be just the thing for black tie events.
https://www.galcogunleather.com/exotic-concealable-holster-stingray_8_4_1426.html?filters=1
I have a ray skin wallet. That stuff is very durable.
Those look neat.
$875?!?! Oh, hell no!
https://epsaddlery.com/product/exotic-crosshair-stingray-holster-belt-pouch/
Tree fiddy-ish
Nice looking stuff, thanks. The stingray’s a little flashy for me but I think my Hi-Power would look good in a sharkskin.
No. I got a western tooled leather holster for my latest for $30.
Today, in political stuntsmanship
A Colorado high school senior is taking legal action against her school district after officials denied her request to wear a sash with an image of the U.S. and Mexican flags during her upcoming graduation.
The district’s decision is a violation of Naomi Villasano’s constitutionally protected right to free speech, according to a lawsuit filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), a Latino legal civil rights organization, and the Greenberg Traurig, LLP, law firm.
According to the lawsuit involving Garfield County School District 16, Grand Valley High School Principal Kelly McCormick told Villasano, who’s 18, that she couldn’t wear the sash despite acknowledging that the school, located in the town of Parachute, didn’t have a specific written policy about regalia worn on or over the graduation gown.
Blah blah blah muh speech.
So
fucking
tedious.
<em<Garfield County School District Superintendent Jennifer Baugh followed up by emailing Villasano and writing, “The district didn’t permit flags on regalia because it didn’t want to open the door to a student wearing a Confederate flag pin or flag that would cause offense,” the lawsuit stated.
Swastikas! Eagles!
Mao knew what he was doing when he put everybody in grey pajamas.
Villasano said she’s fighting against the ban in hopes of making a change, “not just for Latinos, but for all future graduates so that nobody else has to go through what I’ve been through,” according to the statement.
Which is what? Beatings? Rape? Forced labor?
Not getting what she wants. It’s a fate worse than death.
“High-end gym chain Equinox has been ordered to pay $11.25 million to one of their former trainers after her lawyers convinced a New York jury that her firing was racially motivated and not because she showed up for work late 47 times.
In the jury trial, Robynn Europe, 39, did not contest Equinox’s allegations about her tardiness but said other trainers who were late a similar amount of times were not punished, reports the New York Times.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12129061/Former-Equinox-trainer-Robynn-Europe-wins-11-25-million-former-employer-lawsuit.html
Robynn Europe?
Don’t forget the umlaut. Pronounced like Reuben, presumably.
She can change her name to Robynn Equinox now.
Cosplay and Silicone Saturday go together like NPR Ladies and KY.
https://archive.is/pXjdm
I’m dead.
I thought that was real for a minute, because it is something Trump would say.
Hysterical shrieking
THE VAST MAJORITY of wetlands in the United States — more than 100 million acres — are no longer protected by the Clean Water Act, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday in Sackett v. EPA. Wetlands are critically important to clean drinking water and flood mitigation; they’re also effective at sequestering carbon and a boon to drought resilience, storing water during dry periods. But in a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court brushed off peer-reviewed science and plain old common sense that you can’t protect the water downstream, which even the majority agreed is covered by the law, if you’re polluting it upstream.
The case was filed by a wealthy Idaho couple, Michael and Chantell Sackett, who were annoyed that they were required to get a special permit from the Environmental Protection Agency to build on their land because of its proximity to Priest Lake. The Sacketts’ land contains wetlands, but because the wetlands are separated from the lake by a road, they argued the permit was unnecessary. It’s almost certain they would have gotten the permit had they applied, but they opted to sue instead. The court took the Sacketts’ case as an opportunity to open up a broader discussion about what exactly the Clean Water Act is meant to protect, changing the law completely and removing protections from any wetland not immediately connected to a body of water.
——-
Organizations representing industries ranging from animal and industrial agriculture to mining, timber, residential development, and fossil fuel filed briefs in support of the Sacketts. Dark-money-funded anti-regulatory organizations like the Cato Institute, Americans for Prosperity, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Atlantic Legal Foundation also weighed in on the couple’s behalf. Supporters of the case cheered the ruling as a “win for property owners.” The Sacketts were represented by the libertarian law firm Pacific Legal Foundation, which counts the Koch-funded Donors Capital Fund as well as Searle Freedom Trust, Exxon Mobil, and the Sarah Scaife Foundation among its donors.
Wealthy landowmers, how we hate them. And dark money.
And fossil fuel.
“a 5-4 vote”
The talking points have been distributed.
I’m still baffled as to how a unanimous decision that the EPA exceeded its regulatory authority is being reported as a 5-4 ruling. I’ve never seen a case where a justice filed a concurring opinion in a split decision referred to as a 4-1-4 ruling.
There are 9 justices who agree that the EPA was wrong. 5 are on an opinion giving one set of reasons, 4 are on another. There were no dissents. So you could call it 5-4-0
Sure, you could, but they’ve never reported decisions that way. Also, they aren’t reporting it that way. It’s blatant gaslighting.
You gotta think like a propagandist.
“How can I make this loss look better for my side?”
But in a 5-4 vote
Well, when you lie to me, I have no reason to believe anything you might say that could be true.
It’s almost certain they would have gotten the permit had they applied, but they opted to sue instead
How dare they assert their rights instead of just jumping through government hoops to receive permission.
I am also rather skeptical about the first part of that sentence.
“It’s almost certain they would have gotten the permit had they applied”
Is it? Is it, really? How do we know this?
Dammit. I’m under-caffeinated.
Because the people that work for the EPA are angels.
How do we know they are angels?
They work for the EPA.
I thought that’s what the A in EPA stood for.
“The case was filed by a wealthy Idaho couple, Michael and Chantell Sackett, who were annoyed that they were required to get a special permit from the Environmental Protection Agency to build on their land”
“Wealthy”, you say. How wealthy? And how wealthy were they when this thing started many years ago and they were threatened with $40K/day fines?
My recollection is that the EPA didn’t just say “Hey, y’all need a permit.” It said “Tear everything down and restore everything like you were never there or we will take everything you own.” More than an “annoyance”, I would say.
The author is clearly a shameless liar.
So… a journalist?
I make this exception even for a journalist.
bleh – exceptional
The case was filed by a wealthy Idaho couple
No prejudice there. Nope.
It’s almost certain they would have gotten the permit had they applied
Easy to say after the fact.
And totally ignores the principal of the matter.
Richard Vernon? :-p
100 million acres is over 150K square miles, or a good 5% of the US. Is there really that much wetland in the US?
I live in the desert. There is a wash behind my house that runs for a few days a year, maybe. According to the EPA, that is a navigable waterway that they have jurisdiction over.
There is also a couple of places that don’t drain all that well, and can have standing water a few days a year. According to the EPA, that is a wetland that they have jurisdiction over.
In the middle of the Sonoran Desert. So, yeah, I believe there really is that much “wetland” according to the EPA.
The only thing SCOTUS changed was the grossly unreasonable interpretations econuts and leftist politicians used to subvert the law into applying to every puddle in the country.
There were a ton of terrible cases out there, but the couple who lost their dream home because local government cut some trees that clogged a creek and flooded their front lawn is the best/worst.
They said that removing the mess the state made was an illegal destruction of a wetland. Just ludicrous stuff.
My wife has a cousin who ran into that up in the wilds of northern Wisconsin. They had some wooded property on a steep hillside. He built a motocross track on the property for his kids and people in the area. Because it was above a small river/large creek, he built in a bunch of retention ponds to catch any runoff, actually creating more wetsns in the process.
The local DNR folks inspected it and said it was way better than what they would have required.
But eventually some federal agency came around and started up a stink. Might have been the Corps. I don’t remember. The creek/river can be crossed on foot by jumping from rock to rock… So I’m not sure how the corps gets involved, but they definitely did claim some chunk of the responsibility.
He eventually shuttered the thing, because dealing with regulators plus the insurance liability proved to be way more than he could handle financially.
Mr. Hands to the white courtesy phone please.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/us-news/sick-bestiality-farm-brit-paid-30059364
yes, we get a few flashes of warm before this, but it’s been in the thirties until yesterday
Same in southern NH.
Police chief Martin Halweg told the paper his costume could be seen as glorifying the violent rule of the Nazi regime.
So Waters performing “The Wall”, which he’s probably done many times before, is all of a sudden a problem? Who did he piss off?
Something in the sidebar of that story was more interesting.
“We’re seeing an ocean that’s teeming with life like we haven’t seen since the ’40s or ’50s,” Chris Fischer, founder of the research organization Ocearch, told CBS News.
It’s climate change right?
Old Guy Music is good.
This week’s Powerline fun.
“Mikayla Demaiter”
Q-approved.
The only thing SCOTUS changed was the grossly unreasonable interpretations econuts and leftist politicians used to subvert the law into applying to every puddle in the country.
Mission creep is just another paranoid right wing myth. Bureaucrats never seek to expand their power to control the little people. They are pure of spirit, motivated solely by the urge to make the world a better, safer place.
That’s what I can’t figure out. The same outfit that brought you Jim Crow laws, targeting of left wing political figures like Eugene Debs and MLK, internment camps, MK Ultra, wars that killed millions of civilians on flimsy pretexts, and so forth is trusted implicitly when it comes to taking care of the environment or insuring the welfare of minorities and the poor.
The left thinks as long as you have the correct people in charge with the right policies in place (meaning people that agree with them and policies they agree with) nothing can go wrong. In other words, if the powers that be are putting the screws to “undesirable” people and institutions they don’t give a single damn.
That is the sad realization we all have to face. All those folks railing against “the man” back in the day, everyone wringing their hands over targeting MLK… They were never really serious about the protection of civil rights or the abuse of power or the value of free speech…. The just wanted that power to be used against *their* enemies instead of against people they agree with.
What really stuns me is the ease with which people chant nonsensical slogans – like free speech is a threat to democracy.
It is a bummer but it’s true. The main differences between the liberals and the conservatives seems to be who they want to shit on, the libs just seem worse right now because they have more institutional power.
Hostages
Scientists have discovered more than 5,000 new species living on the seabed in an untouched area of the Pacific Ocean that has been identified as a future hotspot for deep-sea mining, according to a review of the environmental surveys done in the area.
It is the first time the previously unknown biodiversity of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), a mineral-rich area of the ocean floor that spans 1.7 million square miles between Hawaii and Mexico in the Pacific, has been comprehensively documented. The research will be critical to assessing the risk of extinction of the species, given contracts for deep-sea mining in the near-pristine area appear imminent.
I wondered why they were making such a big deal about this when I originally saw the headlines about all those “new species”.
Also…. 17 million square miles.
For scale, the entire state of California is 163,695 square miles.
The entire united states’ is 3.5 million square miles. All of North America is 9-1/2 million square miles.
17 million square miles is more than north and south America together. Two whole continents.
But don’t dare build a single mine, anywhere on all fo north or south America!!!! Because we found 5,000 species that live somewhere in that region!!!
Science journalism is dead. Even a high school kid should have heard “17 million square miles” and said “whoah, that sounds like a really big area… Let me ask a few questions about that..”
Oops… Missed the decimal. That is what I get for reading on my phone without reading glasses. LOL. Point still stands, if not as dramatically.
All of California is 10% of that size.
OMG… They discovered gold in California!! Bears live in California!!!
Yup.. still sounds ridiculous.
And I suppose the real scale is “gold discovered west of the Mississippi” and people declaring that opening 1 or 2 mines in the western half of the US is a threat to the many species that live west of the Mississippi.
Interview with Sandy Peterson about RPGs.
Ow, my toe
“We of course wanna reach as many people as we can and bring them into this environmental climate conversation,” said Shawn Rosenmoss, a senior environmental specialist with the San Francisco Department of the Environment.
Article about how fixing things instead of throwing them away is good for the planet. Hardly objectionable, but I stubbed my toe hard on “San Fran Dept of Environment”. I can’t help thinking they need to get their priorities straight and do something about the environmental disaster which is a direct result of their homelessness problem.
So-called “Right to Repair” legislation is focused on getting manufacturers to provide consumers and independent repair companies access to their parts, tools and service information.
The Repair Association, a consumer advocacy group, has spent more than a decade pushing manufacturers to make it easier for people to fix their products. Its executive director, Gay Gordon-Byrne, said the repair offerings corporations typically provide are either inconvenient or expensive, and sometimes both.
Speaking of which… When did we get to the point of proprietary lubricants and coolants for each individual automaker? You can’t use just any old anti-freeze, or your BMW/Porsche/whatever will blow up! It’s got to be special secret formula XD-92. Same with power steering fluid, et c.
For a while. Trying to get everything flushed is fun when someone mixes in incompatible coolant because they’re topping off the radiator.
The Big 3 all run their own individual. All the Japanese usually use one type that meets a JIS standard. Not sure on the Koreans.
Germans run G48 generally now. Interestingly enough Tesla also runs G48. In their applications it is very unstressed and supposedly not needed to be replaced.
Honestly I’d say the US domestics are worse because they all think they need their own special blend.
Not just between the manufacturers
https://parts.ford.com/content/dam/ford-parts/resources/motorcraftpdf/Antifreeze_Coolant_Usage_Chart.pdf
In 1970 I was working in a gas station as a pump jockey and the older guy was showing my around. When we came to the oil filters he said, “These three shelves are for Chevy, this half-rack is for Chrysler, and this one fits Ford.”
Seems to me to be bad engineering to re-invent something when an off-the-shelf version exists.
Sometimes innovation causes a massive shelf of exclusive parts. That’s not a bad thing. GM did a ton of innovating from 1960-2000 so they did end up with a ton of maintenance parts. They also gave us the LT out of it.
Especially 1960-1970. They also had something like 60-70 percent of the domestic market at the time – keeping the divisions separate technically and managerially was seen as a way to avoid anti-trust laws, iirc.
The US domestics are all on the same page now with Dexcool.
“a teenager should not have to worry about their friends doing drugs”
Uh….
To the best of my knowledge, I was the only kid in my graduating high school class who had not tried pot at least once. I don’t know how it is now, but back in the 70s and early 80s, it was much, much easier to get pot than it was to get beer. I didn’t even smoke, and I could have pointed you to at least 3 dealers, beyond the kids in school who would sell you a few joints.
I know that the prevalence of drugs declined over the ensuing decades…. But has the equation on getting pot really changed that much? Prohibition made pot much easier to obtain than alcohol if you were under-age. Yet these people are contending that teens buy their pot at smoke shops where it is more expensive, instead of from local dealers where it is cheaper and no ID is required?
Way it was in my area too back in the 1980s as an underager-much easier to get weed than alcohol, at least until my friend’s older brother turned 18 and even then you had to give him a few beers for the trouble.
I didn’t worry in the least about my friends taking drugs. Always figured that they could mind their own damn business without me doing it for them.
Well, that is just crazy talk….
And look at how he turned out!
I didn’t turn out any better and I never did pot.
whaddup doh’
whats goody yo
“SCOOP: Far-left trans activists are building a groomer MIDDLE SCHOOL exclusively for trans and non-binary kids.
Trans Formative Schools seeks to train the next generation of radical trans activists with programs for kids ages 9-15.
You have to see this to believe it. 🧵”
https://twitter.com/DrKarlynB/status/1662128656892698625
https://karlyn.substack.com/p/scoop-theyre-building-a-groomer-middle
BURN IT DOWN
I don’t think burn it down. Take your trans kids out of public school, raise them how you wish. That school will fail and have major issues quickly and help close this sad trend in society. It will also keep tampon dispensers out of boys’ rooms.
I hate to say it but it might to come down to letting these idiots mutilate their kids. Raise your own kids, help out friends and family if needed, and let the people who want to do this stuff self destruct. It’s such a bad idea it’ll work itself out and by that I mean the results will be so psychologically disastrous that the truth will be self-evident pretty quickly.
Meanwhile…
Yeah, the meanwhile’s the problem isn’t it? Maybe look at it as short term pain for long term gain as unpalatable as that seems.
“Chevrolet partners with LGBTQ group pushing gender identity indoctrination in schools
“With this latest LGBTQ+ focused partnership, we are building on that history and reinforcing Chevy’s commitment to driving substantive cultural progress.”
General Motors’ Chevrolet brand has entered a partnership with GLSEN, an advocacy group that pushes gender ideology in K-12 education both in the US and worldwide. Chevy joins the ranks of other mega-brands like Disney and Target, incorporating lucrative social justice initiatives into national marketing campaigns.
Chevrolet and media company Q.Digital are creating a new “series of documentaries and in-depth articles around leading LGBTQ issues,” as part of a content series called “Authentic Voices of Pride.” The video series will include the topics LGBTQ Families, Drag as Activism, Inclusion in Sports, Youth Homelessness, and Justice Reform….”
https://thepostmillennial.com/chevrolet-partners-with-lgbtq-group-pushing-gender-identity-indoctrination-in-schools
Kars for Kommie Kids
Voluntary
Twitter cannot run away from its obligations even after quitting a voluntary EU code of practice to tackle disinformation, EU industry chief Thierry Breton warned the company late on Friday.
Companies which signed up to the code are required to provide regular progress reports with data on how much advertising revenue they had averted from disinformation actors.
They also have to provide information on the number or value of political advertisements accepted or rejected and instances of manipulative behaviours detected.
You are free to do exactly as we say. Or else.
I hope they call national governments and the EU disinformation actors.
“Gender theory ideologues credentialed to perform surgeries is a horror plot. Oregon’s governor is likely to sign into law a bill that allows for minors as young as 15 to get sterilizing procedures (“bottom surgery”) without parental knowledge.”
https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1662032240522543108
Harlan Ellison is my spirit animal. “Fuck you, pay me.”
Someone trying to get something for free again?
No, just in general.
“Twitter leaves EU voluntary code of practice against disinformation. But obligations remain. You can run but you can’t hide,” Breton said in a tweet.
“Beyond voluntary commitments, fighting disinformation will be legal obligation under DSA as of August 25. Our teams will be ready for enforcement.”
The Ministry of Truth is watching you.
Sent in my resignation letter Thursday night. Finished my deadline yesterday and talked to bosses. Two weeks notice in. Pretty much three front page stories and high school graduations.
Today is my first full day off in a long time. Oddly, on this day without obligations, my tremors are pretty damn bad. And my right hand too, which is when the severity has intensified. Headaches too, which is unusual. Parents are trying to get my to the fucking Mayo clinic. Dr. apt on Wednesday with GP. That should be revealing.
This is like in March, 2020 when I tried to move back to Korea six months after The Incident. Came in way too steep and burned out through the atmosphere. Then it was mostly hallucinations overpowering me. Now, tremors and just the lack of structure/stability of running a newspaper was too much for this rookie.
Sucks, cuz I’m actually pretty damn good at this shit. Well. I’m gonna lie down. Extra meds have been taken.