Monday Afternoon Links

by | Jun 12, 2023 | Daily Links | 151 comments

Here we are again on Monday afternoon. I should really pick a better day to link. Monday is pretty slow. But absolutely packed with meetings. If meetings were currency, my company would be the richest company in the world. “Why don’t we go faster?” — Looks at 34 hours of meetings on calendar last week. Other than that, the baby was sick last week, but not to sick to play peek-a-boo. Bonus chuckles for when he only covers his eyes with the blanket. Smartest. Baby. Evar.

Here’s a Florida resident just trying to get a dip in the Gulf, and all these tourists keep hassling him. For those who don’t click through, he’s a black bear.

I see Elon has found his Mini-Me. h/t Mexican Sharpshooter.

I wonder how many scientists Italy will prosecute if this volcano erupts.

Damn. At least he made his last shot count and saved the taxpayers some money.

 

This is not a great song, but its been rattling around in my head with alternate lyrics since I heard Uncle Ted died.

About The Author

Brett L

Brett L

Brett set out to find America, the real America, the America of strip malls and serial killers, of butthole waxing and kelp smoothies, of cocaine and maggots. He sought it in the most American part of America—Florida: swamp gas and fever dreams, where love arrives on a rickety boat and leaves when it doesn't have the money for its fourth abortion. Oh, where has Brett gone? He’s drinking at the neck of America’s wang, chewing its foreskin and working its shaft. Brett is becoming legend. Brett can never die. Brett can never die. Brett is America, facedown in his own patriotic puke: the red his blood, the white his stomach lining, and the cold, cold blue his gas station slushie, spiked with coconut rum and tetracycline.

151 Comments

  1. Sean

    Yeah. Really not a great song. Or link.

    • SDF-7

      Google newwwws… you knew just what I was there for… you had me saying a prayer for… a link someone really could share more…

      Honestly, given the main page pic I was expecting this.

    • juris imprudent

      “I read the news today, oh boy…”

    • R.J.

      I am posting a song for Mr. Shooty – Shoot who made his last shot count.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9mJ82x_l-E

      Probably already posted though. A futile gesture! The best kind.

      • Lackadaisical

        I was not disappointed.

      • Chafed

        That’s exactly what I was expecting. Excellent.

  2. Drake

    The music link brought me to a new site. I read this story and thought about how awesome that would be – Rick Barry playing with Bird on the Celtics. I can’t imagine why this wouldn’t happen – 2 guard was that team’s weakest position in the early 80’s.

  3. Shpip

    The ground beneath the coastal town of Pozzuoli has been rising about 4 inches a year for the past decade, investigators reported Friday. They also noted a series of persistent small earthquakes, including 600 recorded in April.

    About 360,000 people live on the roof of the volcano, which resembles a gentle depression and is not an obvious mountain.

    I’m a big fan of “you do what you want,” but shouldn’t the insurance companies, at the very least, step in and price the risk accordingly?

    Honestly, this reminds me of that Harry Truman guy (not the President) who lived in the shadow of Mount St. Helens for years and refused to move until he was under 60 feet of pyroclastic flow.

    • Shpip

      Also, what are the odds that if there is a cataclysmic eruption that leaves thousands dead, the usual suspects blame it on climate change?

      • SDF-7

        “All the heat the oceans were supposedly absorbing must have gone into the mantle! argle bargle blargh!”

        And yeah — I can’t blame them too much if they didn’t know when the town was settled. But when you know you’re on an active volcano, and the ground is obviously the top of a bubble… get the hell out of there, dummies.

        Becoming the next Pompeii tourist attraction isn’t a good thing.

      • creech

        Stands to reason that if Guam tips over and the weight of Manhattan’s buildings cause the island to sink ( due, of course to the buildings erected by Trump, ) then Gaia is going to push up land somewhere else.

      • Grummun

        The earth’s crust is really like a giant waterbed.

      • Ted S.

        Kinky.

      • SDF-7

        Wait until you see the Solar System’s shag carpet and mural on the side of Jupiter’s van….

      • Penguin

        The earth’s crust is really like a giant waterbed.

        People in Naples are asking if we can plug a leak.

      • Rat on a train

        We have a few leaks around here. Fortunately its water not lava leaking.

      • Chafed

        I know it’s going to happen and it’s still going to drive me nuts.

    • Rat on a train

      shouldn’t the insurance companies, at the very least, step in and price the risk accordingly
      Maybe it’s like California where the government doesn’t allow that.

    • Bobarian LMD

      Sounds like the work of ‘Climate Change’!

      • Bobarian LMD

        Dammit, update before responding.

      • Lackadaisical

        Don’t feel bad, I almost posted that too, but forgot to.

    • Ted S.

      Wasn’t Truman in his 80s and basically making the decision to die at home instead of going to what would effectively be a nursing home?

      • Shpip

        Yeah. 83, wife had passed two years earlier. Just him and his home of many years and his sixteen cats.

    • Sensei

      You live in FL right?

      s/ Citizens Property Insurance Corporation

  4. SDF-7

    Hopefully if Elon does colonize Mars, the next generation will be better than some sequels I could name….

  5. The Other Kevin

    So which Florida bear was that… Zeke or Zeb or Ted or Fred or a bar named Tennessee?

      • Ted S.

        I always hated Mr. Target=blank.

      • SDF-7

        You prefer to get your generics from Walmart instead?

      • Bobarian LMD

        He does like his bathing suit to be tuck friendly.

  6. DEG

    The Campi Flegrei volcano in southern Italy is at risk of erupting, researchers at Italy’s National Research Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology and University College London said in a new study published in the Communications Earth and Environment journal from Nature.

    Even the Earth is upset that Berlusconi died.

  7. Bobarian LMD

    The two species in the state are the American black bear and the Florida black bear.

    FBB is identifiable by the tell-tale meth teeth and mullet.

  8. The Late P Brooks

    Smartest. Baby. Evar.

    Elon Musk on line two.

    • TARDis

      It could be worse. If the baby was a girl, it could be that Dicaprio fella.

  9. The Late P Brooks

    Narrative wander

    Manufacturers around the world are contending with weakening demand as the economic outlook for the industry darkens.

    Factories in the United States and across the eurozone reported a decline in new orders for manufactured goods in May as they worked through their backlog of orders, according to recent business surveys released by data firm S&P Global. It’s unclear for how long those backlogs, which swelled in the early days of the pandemic, will sustain the industry globally.

    S&P Global data showed that the US manufacturing sector fell into contraction territory in May. A similar survey released by the Institute for Supply Management showed the industry contracted for the seventh consecutive month in May, at a faster pace than in the prior month.

    US government data also show what could be the beginning of a consistent slowdown. The Commerce Department reported on Monday that factory orders excluding transportation, a volatile category, fell for the third consecutive month in April. Excluding defense, factory orders were down in four of the past six months through April.

    That’s odd, just a day or two ago I was reading a story about a massive boom in manufacturing, due specifically to Joe Biden’s wise stewardship of the economy.

    • The Other Kevin

      It’s almost like people don’t have as much extra money to buy stuff for some reason. Huh.

      • Ted S.

        So you’re saying we need another stimulus check?

    • R.J.

      I read that whole “factories are booming” shit too. Oy.

      • Drake

        Those making ammo and weapons for the forever war are doing great. The rest not so much.

    • Lackadaisical

      Success! /Fed reserve

  10. Lackadaisical

    “Elon Musk’s SpaceX Hires 14-Year-Old Prodigy Who Dismisses Notion Of ‘Missing Out On Childhood'”

    He’s right, nothing so great, especially about your teenage years. It’s way, way better being an adult.

    • Bobarian LMD

      Hmmm, let’s see, work for Elon and make hundreds of thousands or go back to HS to get pantsed by the ‘cool’ kids?

      Tough decision.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        He can get Elon’s castoffs.

      • SDF-7

        SpaceX is all about reusability.

      • slumbrew

        Maybe pass on Amber. Or get rubber sheets.

      • Drake

        If he’s really that smart, he won’t stick it in that kind of crazy.

      • The Last American Hero

        Everyone has a plan until Amber puts her _________ in your face.

      • slumbrew

         Talulah Riley is a bit of alright, tho

      • Zwak , who will swing for the crime, in double time!

        That is a Grimes of passion.

  11. Penguin

    I saw Filter along with three other also-rans / one-hit wonders in St. Pete when I was living there in 2012. I’ve been to worse shows. I walked out of this one upright!

    • Zwak , who will swing for the crime, in double time!

      I saw one of the guys from ASIA/YES and the dude from Buggles play the lunch crowd at Borders Books once.

      Talk about sad. Video killed the radio star’s fame.

  12. JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

    Didn’t the black bear get the memo that Florida is unsafe for homosexuals and people of color?

    • The Other Kevin

      If you look close he was wearing a hat that said “DGAF”.

      • Zwak , who will swing for the crime, in double time!

        I thought it said “Don’t go Straight, Go Forward!”

    • Penguin

      No, Jaime! That’s TWINKLEBEAR! The bear for all shades and…predilections.

      They got him to improve holiday numbers…in some areas.

      • Penguin

        Now we just have to teach him to stop mauling people.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Then he wouldn’t be Florida Bear.

        Smokey says “You’re not here for the hunting.”

    • Ownbestenemy

      Got me…because I would have sworn that actually was real.

    • Ted S.

      Edna Krabapple and Seymour Skinner?

      • Winston

        I think they killed off Krabapple when her voice actress died. However that would require Watching new episodes of the Simpsons so I can see why you would not gave known that.

  13. Winston

    https://www.humanprogress.org/why-are-we-so-gloomy/

    In 2021, researchers at the University of Bath polled 10,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 25 in Australia, Brazil, Finland, France, Great Britain, India, Nigeria, the Philippines, Portugal, and the United States. The researchers found that, on average, 83 percent of respondents thought that “people have failed to care for the planet.” Seventy-five percent thought that the “future is frightening.” Fifty-six percent thought that “humanity is doomed.” Fifty-five percent thought that they will have “less opportunity than [their] parents.” Finally, 39 percent stated that they were “hesitant to have children.”

    Interesting how Teh Yutes are more miserable, more socialist and more authoritarian than ever before. How is it that the massive increases in living standards have resulted in this?

    Obviously the constant stream of rhetoric of Climate Crisis, Systemic Racism and Late Stage Capitalismis having an affect. This is is just one reason.

    • B.P.

      The future has always been frightening.

      • Winston

        Are you suggesting that bad change can not happen?

    • rhywun

      Propaganda works. Film at 11.

      • Winston

        No, prosperity, new tech and commercialism was supposed to defeat the propaganda. I mean okay this strategy totally failed in the Edwardian Era and plenty of prosperous societies have very willingly destroyed themselves but this time it will be different!

      • juris imprudent

        You should try hanging around people that understand humans instead of half-baked theories.

      • slumbrew

        The strawman slaughter would be more difficult were that to happen.

      • Tundra

        This.

    • R C Dean

      “Fifty-six percent thought that “humanity is doomed.”

      If they are the future of humanity . . . .

      “Fifty-five percent thought that they will have “less opportunity than [their] parents.”

      Quite possible. Due mostly to irrational fear of the weather causing the economy to be crippled.

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        39 percent stated that they were “hesitant to have children.

        And if the young people don’t have kids of their own, there will be a population collapse and the humanity is doomed belief will become a self fulling prophecy.

      • Zwak , who will swing for the crime, in double time!

        Western humanity might die of self-inflicted stupidity, but I have zero reason (drink) to fear that Asia and Africa will pick up the slack.

    • Q Continuum

      I can’t bring myself to care.

      I have a great life that I’m very happy with; I suppose I sympathize a bit with Yootz who have been brainwashed but at a certain point you just throw your hands up and say whaddyagunnado?

      Besides, I fail to see a downside to emotionally damaged socialists not breeding.

      • The Last American Hero

        Because their kids will rebel and bring about the Libertarian Moment.

      • Winston

        The problem is that those emotionally damaged socialists are very much not interested in leaving you alone.

  14. Count Potato

    Blehhhhhh

      • Zwak , who will swing for the crime, in double time!

        That brought us to a Screeching halt!

    • Count Potato

      Torx aren’t so bad. Try fixing something from Apple.

      • Count Potato

        I already have a couple sets of tools for it, but Apple are still assholes for using those fasteners in the first place.

      • Tundra

        True, but I’ve eked a lot of extra time out of my MacBooks because of those guys.

        Besides, specialty fasteners are everywhere. Looking at you VW/Audi.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      Torx is the tits.

      • Zwak , who will swing for the crime, in double time!

        Robertson drive kicks it’s ass.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        Not for automation in manufacturing environments.

      • Zwak , who will swing for the crime, in double time!

        Point.

  15. Winston

    https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/june-2023/what-are-your-links-to-slavery/

    But many of those dishonoured as slavers were not involved with slavery at all. Consider Alice Abadam: a suffragette born 33 years after the abolition of slavery within the British Empire. A third of the introductory paragraph of her entry is given over to the fact that she grew up in a house acquired by her grandfather, who had owned slaves in Jamaica.

    The classicist Andrew Lang, born a decade after the end of British slavery, is stigmatised because he married a woman whose father had owned slaves. The colonial administrator Sir James Robert Longden is targeted because his wife’s grandfather had owned slaves.

    This emphasis on hereditary and associative guilt is not an accident. The data on slavery association is sourced from University College London’s Legacies of British Slavery database. The project’s entire approach is predicated on the notion that slavery links are to be found more or less everywhere across British society, down to the present day. No association, no matter how indirect, escapes its notice.

    Dammit this was supposed to stop with the Confederate Battle Flag!

    • Count Potato

      It’s like North Korea.

      • Chafed

        That’s very much the right comparison.

    • Dr. Fronkensteen

      Dammit this was supposed to stop with the Confederate Battle Flag!

      Said who? This comports with the belief that current wealth was built on the backs of slaves.

      • The Hyperbole

        Forget it Doc, it’s Winstontown.

      • Mojeaux

        😆

      • Winston

        Most of the people complaining about wokeness supported the woke in going after symbols of the CSA. They did so because they hated Southerners and assumed that the Woke desire the eliminate the Legacies of slavery would not be allowed to go beyond the Confederates. Of course there were of plenty of slaveowners who were not Confederates and plenty of racists who did not own slaves…

      • Q Continuum

        “Most of the people complaining about wokeness supported the woke in going after symbols of the CSA”

        Assumes facts not in evidence.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      What are your links to slavery?

      I’m pretty sure the next question is, what’s in your wallet?

      • Winston

        https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10155783/amp/Tate-exhibition-highlights-slavery-links-William-Hogarths-paintings.html

        One of Hogarth’s famous early works, A Midnight Modern Conversation, which shows drunken men inebriated by lavish helpings of punch, is among those highlighted in Hogarth and Europe.

        According to The Telegraph, visitors are told in a label alongside the scene that, whilst the picture is meant to be funny, the ‘punch they drink and the tobacco they smoke are material links to a wider world of commerce, exploitation and slavery.’

        A catalogue accompanying the painting says the men may be ‘queasily celebrating such manly misdemeanours – what we might today called “laddishness”.’

        Meanwhile, a self-portrait showing Hogarth sitting on a wooden chair while painting at an easel should also be seen within the context of slavery, according to the commentary accompanying the picture.

        Artist Sonia Barret is said to claim in the note that Hogarth’s chair was made from ‘timbers shipped from the colonies’ and asks if it could ‘stand in for all those unnamed black and brown people enabling the society that supports his vigorous creativity?’

        Don’t have to look very far…

      • Zwak , who will swing for the crime, in double time!

        I mean, I know what my links to slavery were: as Jews, it goes with out saying. Anything else is kinda Johnny-come-lately.

      • slumbrew

        My marriage combines Jewish and Irish, so it’s slavery all around.

  16. Count Potato

    “A Florida state legislator posted video and images on her social media showing several individuals waving Nazi flags and banners with fascist symbols outside Walt Disney World in Orlando…

    Shannon Watts, an anti-gun activist, also posted an image which appeared to show the same group of protesters holding up homophobic signs.”

    https://nypost.com/2023/06/12/protesters-with-nazi-flags-seen-outside-disney-world/

    Well, if you can’t believe Shannon Watts.

    • rhywun

      “Two dozen white supremacists are outside the main Disney World entrance in Orlando right now, marching with signs featuring Gov DeSantis’s face, swastikas, the n-word and homophobic slurs,” Watts tweeted.

      lolFFS

      Today’s agitprop has no use for “subtlety”.

      • one true athena

        It is funny how the right has basically decided to laugh all these off and the leftists are so very upset that the Charlottesville playbook isn’t working anymore. Nobody’s running around frantically disavowing, they’re just ‘eh bunch of fake losers’ Which seems like a fine response no matter who they really are.

      • Zwak , who will swing for the crime, in double time!

        Well, what did they think was gonna happen? Of course all the “racists” who aren’t stopped listening too you. Boy who cried wolf. Go read it.

        /not you OTA.

      • Count Potato

        23 feds and some autistic fuck

    • R.J.

      Cool. DeSantis just signed a law to prosecute the shit out of Nazis. Go get those Democrats!

  17. Don escaped Texas

    At least he made his last shot count

    shot 11 times in multiple places

    I still blame sportstalk for half of the stupid constructions and habits to recently enter American English (the other half coming to us almost entirely from the screenwriter of Valley Girls). It is as if tautology were required.

    • Chafed

      How does that matter?

      • Drake

        Probably eliminates the chance of a judge just tossing the nonsense charges. We’ll see tomorrow if it’s part of a venue shopping plan.

      • MikeS

        Trumpsters gonna Trump.

    • The Hyperbole

      And this is unusual how?

      • R C Dean

        Well, it is the first time an ex-president and a leading presidential candidate has been arraigned by a DOJ that reports to his lading rival for the presidency.

      • The Hyperbole

        Drake is talking about the fact that a magistrate is presiding over the arraignment, that’s not unusual, hell I think the clerk of courts handle it around here in some cases, It’s a formality. Read the charges, accept a plea, set a date for the trial, a semi bright border collie could handle it.

    • The Hyperbole

      I was told there would be no kink-shaming.

    • Dr. Fronkensteen

      The government mandated sexbots will be trans. If you object you’ll be branded a bigot and sent to the camps.

      • Zwak , who will swing for the crime, in double time!

        If you are fucking a robot, does it matter? It is still a bag of bolts.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        I need to know if I’m supposed to go for the intake or the exhaust.

    • Winston

      The Bulwark, of course.

      • juris imprudent

        If you’re going to force me to hang out with those kind of people, I’m going to do my best Amber Heard impersonation.

    • Mojeaux

      Husband: Whores are going to go door to door. “Hi, I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

    • R.J.

      I know what you’re thinking. Do they taste better with cocktail sauce, or sweet and sour sauce?

      • Don escaped Texas

        what kind of crickets are those in Waco?

        so thick on the ground your feet crunched everywhere outside you walked?

      • R.J.

        Mmmm… Crunchy. Just like Klaus likes them.

      • R.J.

        I don’t know. That happens in Dallas too. They flood shopping centers. So gross. I don’t think they are mormon crickets.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        Old Bay seasoning, of course.

    • Mojeaux

      My bad. Be right there with the ShopVac.

  18. The Late P Brooks

    The government mandated sexbots will be trans. If you object you’ll be branded a bigot and sent to the camps.

    The head swivels 180 degrees. You get a choice.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    Most of the people complaining about wokeness supported the woke in going after symbols of the CSA.

    They don’t make a broom big enough for a sweeping generalization like that. You need a street sweeper.

  20. Brochettaward

    Every Firster has a First that got away. Except me. I have never not nailed my Firsts.

    • Brochettaward

      I guess that’s what you have to do when you can’t just get your pal at Twitter to ban the story to keep it from spreading.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the Ukro-Nazis. They have free rein to do as they please.

    • Brochettaward

      “Where’s the money?” before adding, “I’m joking. It’s a bunch of malarkey”

      Joe’s denial of it all. How many corvettes does he own again?

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        Where’s the money? Cayman Islands probably.