Saturday Morning In The Deep End Links

by | Jul 8, 2023 | Daily Links | 178 comments

So this weekend, I’m joining NPR Lady for a camping trip which she does yearly with her Prog clan. I think she wants to see how I’ll react being immersed in it. My secret weapon: I work at a university, that’s all there is here. Throw me in the briar patch. I think she may also be curious to see how much I infuriate them, since I do a good job infuriating her. She DOES have a sense of humor, otherwise that suspicion wouldn’t occur to me.

Birthdays occur to me, and today’s include a godsend for depressed diabetics; a guy who was full of hot air; an infamous tool of the Jews; a guy who wanted you to know how smart he was; a guy who did such a shit job in the car business that he transitioned to politics (and foisted his progeny on us); a fantastic singer who should be better remembered; one of my professors who wreaked incalculable damage on the world; yet another good argument for term limits; a woman I wouldn’t be caught dead with; the guy who inspired the Guess Who’s biggest hit, “These Eyes”; the doppelganger of Doctor Phil; a girl who got all kinky with Glen Cambell; a celebrity chef who surprised me with how good he really was; cinematic hereditary royalty (and deserving it; the first in a series of hot Israeli politicians; a guy from whom I have two degrees of separation.

Let’s get on with the Links.

 

C’mon, guys, it’s just a dumb fucking cartoon.

 

Hey, here’s a crazy idea to solve this: run a decent candidate.

 

De-balling Yahweh?

 

Department of Unlikely Claims.

 

C’mon, it’s not like she was part of the January 6 Insurrection.

 

“I don’t understand why you don’t want to contribute to the grift.”

 

OK, an odd combo of players and song, but the Old Guy declares it wonderful.

About The Author

Old Man With Candy

Old Man With Candy

Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me. Wait, wrong book, I'll find something else.

178 Comments

  1. SDF-7

    a celebrity chef who surprised me with how good he really was

    He was on a couple of episodes of Food Network Star (before they got crappy and before Food Network in general got crappy). One moment that really stood out was when one of the contestants completely bungled a risotto… and he got up from the judging table, went into his kitchen with her (this was a “host a dinner party at Wolfgang Puck’s house” so it was supposedly his kitchen) and walked her through making a good risotto.

    She was (of course) mortified… but he seemed genuinely nice about it… basically “You really need to learn this, please let me show you” not “Between two slices of bread!” style. It was endearing.

    Good luck annoying all the Progs in the upstate mist, OMWC. And good morning to ya.

    • UnCivilServant

      The key to a good rice dish is to not make a rice dish.

      • SDF-7

        I’m easy, frankly. I got a bag of brown rice last week (figuring inflation is getting bad enough I should be sure I can make something tasty with bulk rice and chicken thighs) — and just boiling it with chicken broth and fried onions, then some mushrooms at the end tasted fine to me. Almost a pilaf in texture… Worked well enough.

      • dontreadonme

        While I generally agree about rice a risotto can be special. There is a little restaurant in Florence that makes a shrimp risotto that is so wonderful that I would list it over The David as the reason to travel there.

      • Old Man With Candy

        Spud and I ended up in a risotto contest in Italy.

        We won. Embarrassing that an Irishman and a Jew beat Italians, but there it was.

      • Timeloose

        My wife makes a great risotto. Wild mushrooms and saffron.

        I finally threw out the 10$ 18 year old Black and Decker rice cooker and bought a Zojirushi.

        The brown rice setting alone was worth the purchase price.

      • UnCivilServant

        Gathing the wild saffron must take forever.

      • Not Adahn

        He lives next door to a crocus farm.

      • Timeloose

        It was a PITA

      • cyto

        I was never a risotto guy..
        Then my wife took me to a restaurant she used to work at and the chef made us an off-menu morrel risotto.

        Oh. Damn.

        Yeah.. that perfunctory slop under the rubbery chicken breast at that charity event is not the same thing at all.

    • TARDis

      When Mrs. T and I used to watch cooking contest shows together we used to laugh whenever someone said they were going to make a risotto dish.
      “They’re going home.” Yup. I don’t remember anyone ever getting high praise, much less not getting the boot.

      That being said, I like my wife’s various leftovers risotto dishes. I don’t know if they are any good or not, but I like them.

      • UnCivilServant

        Risotto, Grits, Polenta, anything that takes time will more often than not just send them home. They simply can’t speed the process up.

      • Zwak , “There is infinite amount of hope in the universe… just not for us.”

        Risotto is OK, grits and polenta are proof that god hates us.

      • Gender Traitor

        I still remember having cheese grits at a lovely Bed & Breakfast (actually a historic inn) in “Indiana’s first state capital” in southern IN, right on the OH River many years ago with the Rev. GT. Those grits were delicious.

        I need to hunt for that place and see if it’s still in business.

      • Gender Traitor

        …and Zwak, don’t you say a WORD against cheese!!! 😒

      • UnCivilServant

        Don’t remind me that I have cheese in the fridge – I’m saving it for later, and still sad that I’m out of cheese curds.

      • cyto

        Ok, potential heresy here….

        Quaker instant grits, cheese flavor. They are really good.

        I don’t make grits at home… Half the family doesn’t eat before 10. But at church our class does breakfast. We are baptists, so potluck and food is a big thing.

        One lady does not cook. But she brings a giant crockpot of instant cheese grits when her turn comes around on the schedule. And they get snapped up every time.

        (Side note.. I feel a bit cheated, because we make a bunch of quiches. More work, more expense. More shopping, more dishes to clean. Same result)

      • UnCivilServant

        Mix it with instant oats to get instant groats – pure money.

      • cyto

        Hilarious.

      • Sean

        Maybe you can cut in line at the pearly gates for your efforts.

  2. SDF-7

    C’mon, guys, it’s just a dumb fucking cartoon.

    Yeah — not a great look when you’re on the moral high ground over folks who behead people for drawing their prophet and all.

  3. SDF-7

    Hey, here’s a crazy idea to solve this: run a decent candidate.

    Meh — I think DeSantis seems decent enough (about the best you could expect these days from a GOP state governor really… He isn’t perfect, but seems like he would actually try to do things and have enough political savvy he might have a chance.

    But I’m sure a good chunk of the base is still fired up for Trump — the Dem plan to indict him and be sure he wins the primary since he’s the only one they can credibly set up the Basement Dweller to defeat (“See! There’s just enough anti-OMB feeling that all those votes make sense! See!”) is apparently working.

    Sigh… and the country keeps accelerating down the sewer line.

    • Drake

      DeSantis would be a big improvement over Trump’s last VP.

      • milo

        This.
        I’m not sure it matters who runs on the GOP side. There will be 100 million votes for whoever is on the fortified side this time. In twenty years, the national election will have more votes than people living in the country.

      • R C Dean

        Ding ding. As with the last Presidential election, there will be just enough ballots in just the right places, eventually, for the Dem to win. No matter who the Repub is, or who the Dem is.

      • Sean

        Keep counting until they win. Easy peasy.

      • Grumbletarian

        This. It surprises me that they haven’t considered such an arrangement. Trump moves his residence back to NJ, picks DeSantis as running mate. Combines support from both GOP factions, and sets up DeSantis nicely in 2028.

      • cyto

        I don’t think Trump and DiSantis represent separate factions at all.

        The propaganda machine went so unbelievably hard after Trump for so long and was willing to go way past normal “negative campaigning” such that the Republican base was ready for someone else to carry the mantle. DiSantis did a great job of being that guy during COVID, a perfect mirror of Cuomo such that Republican voters saw him as a more responsible Trump style populist.

        So.. DiSantis got a lot of support. And began attracting the negative propaganda almost immediately.

        His support resisted that pressure for a long time, but it undoubtedly hurt his crossover appeal over time. Most voters do not form a rational opinion. They adopt opinions of those they trust. This is why the propaganda machine works so well, and why the pervasive unanimity of the propaganda is so important. “I hate that guy” becomes the kneejerk response for the casual, uninformed voter. Why? I don’t know. I just don’t like him.

        Meanwhile, a watershed event happened. After using the FBI. CIA, IRS. State Department and other agencies to attack Trump on a series of lies, the left just could not let it go. Even after getting caught in actual conspiracies, they just kept rolling. And they began issuing indictments that rubbed everyone’s nose in just how corrupt they are.

        And that was it. The anger came back. My brother is a perfect example… “I was ok with supporting DiSantis… But now I am all In. Fuck Them! We have to put Trump back in office!”

        And what has DiSantis done? He saw huge success pushing back against leftist reporters looking to hit him with gotcha questions and using Florida’s government to push back against woke excesses….

        So he and the Florida legislature went into overdrive… And in the process overreached. Bill after bill after bill came out pushing some form of anti-woke message. At some point it becomes overreach.

        And there you have it….

        A visceral reaction to injustice pushed the base back to Trump. And the idea of “if one teaspoon of sugar makes this taste better, a whole cup full will make it great!” By DiSantis pushed him from “the competent populist” into “a one note dork” territory.

        He can come back, but the left wing wants Trump as much as the Trump base does… Hence the CNN access. They know they can turn out the vote against Trump and suppress independent voter support… Plus, if there happen to be any fortification shenanigans, Trump cannot raise any issues there after what happened with Jan 6 and his incompetent election litigation team.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Overreach would be passing bills of attainder against leftists. Or just shooting them in ditches.

  4. Fourscore

    Some good birthdays and good links, I’m trying to play catch up but summer time and family but alas, I’m enjoying both

    Thanks, OM, enjoy your camping and cook outs with the new group. I won’t say ‘friends’ until we get the next edition of “The Travails of OMWC”

  5. Grosspatzer

    Mornin’, OMWC. Old Man Music is terrific. I did not know the Lennon spawn was doing this sort of thing. Also, great hats.

  6. Nerfherder (Non-Non-Man)

    “ a girl who got all kinky with Glen Cambell”

    It’s got raisins. You love raisins!

    • SDF-7

      Huh… didn’t realize she played Miri too.

      “FRANCH…. bread. FRANCH…. dressing. FRANCH… fries.”

      Love that movie.

    • rhywun

      “scandal” 🙄

      But a lesson to anyone considering having a cancel-free future – do not under any circumstances put anything online.

  7. UnCivilServant

    I got cheese curds to top my salad.

    So far not one has made it to the bowl.

    • UnCivilServant

      I’m out of cheese curds.

      Now I’m sad.

    • Sean

      I got a fresh package in the fridge. 👍

  8. SDF-7

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/07/lords-prayer-our-father-opening-may-be-problematic-archbishop-of-york-stephen-cottrell

    I’m sorry, Bishop — but that one is supposed to be translated directly from words given by Jesus in the Gospels.

    And if you don’t buy the Gospels being divinely inspired by the Spirit working through the Apostles — well, you kind of lose out on the whole Christianity thing.

    So change it if you want — but it just makes your true allegiance known.

    • UnCivilServant

      what is it with the Church of England and appointing nonchristians to archbishoprics?

      • Nerfherder (Non-Non-Man)

        Pedophilia, it’s not just for Catholics

      • Drake

        King Charles is the head of the church. There’s your problem.

      • hayeksplosives

        Yup.

        But to be fair, the Archbishop of Canterbury was wishy-washy under QE2. She even had to do her head of the Church of England thing and tell him to nut up and be Christian.

    • Drake

      Episcopalians who are still Christians seem to be steadily migrating over traditional Anglican churches. Every denomination is splitting over this nonsense. I think a Catholic schism is coming soon.

    • Grumbletarian

      “Our non-birthing parental figure…”

  9. Ted S.

    a guy who was full of hot air;

    Happy birthday Robert Boyle!

  10. Ted S.

    an infamous tool of the Jews;

    Happy birthday to the Hebrew Hammer!

  11. rhywun

    “I know the word ‘father’ is problematic for those whose experience of earthly fathers has been destructive and abusive, and for all of us who have laboured rather too much from an oppressively patriarchal grip on life,” he said.

    Hey non-birthing person up there, who they is in heaven, etc etc I can’t even anymore.

    Perusing the list of “related” stories below, looks like the church lost its way a while ago.

    • Tundra

      Most churches have lost the plot. I still blame Vatican II.

      • UnCivilServant

        Vatican II: Theological Boogaloo?

  12. Ted S.

    a guy who wanted you to know how smart he was;

    Happy birthday Neil Degrasse Tyson!

    • SDF-7

      Happy Birthday internet ACK-SHUALLY! meme guy!

  13. Tundra

    Good morning, Old Man!

    Good luck on the camping trip. You are a braver man than I.

    OK, an odd combo of players and song, but the Old Guy declares it wonderful.

    I was not familiar with them. They really did that song justice. Thanks!

  14. Ted S.

    the first in a series of hot Israeli politicians

    Happy birthday Chaim Weizmann!

    • Old Man With Candy

      You have very odd tastes.

      • Ted S.

        The ladies here would be turned on by David Ben-Gurion’s hair.

  15. Q Continuum

    “Hey, here’s a crazy idea to solve this: run a decent candidate.”

    Caught an interview with Vivek Ramaswamy the other day. I gotta say, aside from having the most awesome name in the field, I actually really liked him. He seemed intelligent, articulate, reasonable and had details to his plans that he explained well.

    All of which means, of course, that he has no chance at all.

    • hayeksplosives

      My hope is that he at least influences the debate and debate topics.

      I sent him some money.

    • Not Adahn

      Did you know he wasn’t even sixth grade student council president? How could you vote for someone so manifestly unqualified?

      • Gender Traitor

        You just reminded me of a guy at my grade school, just one or two grades ahead of me, whose student council campaign slogan was “If you like sherbet, vote for Herbert.” That was, of course, bastardized in true junior high fashion to “If you’re a pervert, vote for Herbert.” I think he won.

        I wonder what ever happened to him. I may have to hunt him up and encourage him to run for president.

      • UnCivilServant

        Herbet the sherbert pervert?

        I don’t want to know what he did.

      • Gender Traitor

        He was probably hardest hit when it was eclipsed by sorbet.

    • cyto

      Funny…

      Also, has any reporter actually asked Biden directly why he hasn’t visited his with grandchild? Particularly after the official story on the Bribery scandal has pivoted to “Joe is just a dad who loves his son”, one would think this would be a logical question.

  16. cyto

    In “how the mighty have fallen” news, the right-leaning vlog community is revelling in the observation that Disney Indiana Jones got beaten at the July 4 box office by a small Christian film about child trafficking.

    The left is suitably outraged and is actually attacking a movie against pedophiles trafficking children… (Here’s looking at you. Jezebel))

    Kind of an astonishing development on both fronts.

    • Tundra

      The hit pieces are coming in fast and furious.

      Like this.

      You know, it’s almost as if the power structures across the world are stuffed with pedos.

      I’ll post this again for those who missed it:

      Anatomy of a Conspiracy Theory

      • hayeksplosives

        “Q-Anon tinged thriller”?

        They are rest grasping at straws.

        What _IS_ up with powerful scumbags and pedophilia?

      • Q Continuum

        They are obsessed with power and man’s dominion over the world absent G-d. There is no more profane act and larger affront to G-d’s creation than defiling and stealing the innocence of a child. It’s a weird combination of idolatry and Satan worship rolled into one. I wouldn’t be surprised if these elite types were into experimenting with cannibalism and human sacrifice also.

      • Tundra

        Cooper touches on that in his essay. They host dinner parties where they eat food off bloody (fake) corpses.

        I agree with your assessment. Demons are real.

      • Nerfherder (Non-Non-Man)

        Yes. That is particularly disturbing. Seems to me that they’re signaling their acts and intentions in such a way as to make it known they’re untouchable.

        But they’re not.

      • TARDis

        I wish I could get my wife to see this, but she just gets annoyed and offers me tinfoil.

      • rhywun

        + >1 pornographic book in your child’s school library

      • Gustave Lytton

        I miss when Corn Pops came in foil lining.

      • Gender Traitor

        I miss when it was Sugar Pops. 😔

      • TARDis

        Corn Pop’s slutty sister?

      • rhywun

        But its star, Jim Caviezel, has linked it to the QAnon movement.

        Never change, WaPo.

        The star explicitly denied any connection and pointed out that outfits like the WaPo were making that connection on their own.

      • cyto

        One wonders how they escape the defamation suits.

    • DrOtto

      If I were a Disney shareholder, I would be launching a suit against Kathleen Kennedy and any board member who is keeping her employed there. How much shareholder value do you allow one individual to destroy till you fire her?

      • cyto

        Yeah, way back in the Ryan Johnson / JJ Abrams Star Wars debacle I couldn’t believe she kept her job. But with an overt an loud “girl power” message that has sent the emasculation of almost every male character they could bank on and a paper-thin gender swapped replacement attempt bombing time after time, you have to wonder who has the photos and where the bodies are buried…

    • rhywun

      Seriously – for how much longer are we going to tolerate this gaslighting?

      To even ask the question is to risk pondering about how much worse everything can still get.

  17. Brochettaward

    I went on r/publicfreakout for fun after it was mentioned last night. About the 5th video in was a Doordash driver getting pissed and caught on doorbell camera calling the piece of shit customer in a rage.

    What I find funny is just how many little leftwing twits on there think it’s OK not to tip and that we should really be blaming the service. The only thing the service is responsible for is not requiring a tip to even use it and from even limiting a driver’s ability to see that info beforehand. Which are both shitty, but do not take the onus off the piece of shit ordering food and not paying the delivery driver.

    • Brochettaward

      And then the morons talking about tipping getting extreme…it isn’t a fucking tip, you tard. It’s the cost of the service. The company should let drivers see tips and pick accordingly. If some cheap fat fuck’s order doesn’t get fulfilled because they didn’t want to tip and no driver wants to take it, that’s fine.

    • cyto

      Actually, I completely disagree with this take, from start to finish.

      If you pre-tip, it ain’t a tip. A tip is a reward for good service. An incentive to perform above the basic level. I have worked for tips, so I know the mileu.

      The real problem is pushing the wages of the delivery driver into tio territory. The deliver charge should actually reflect the cost of delivery. If you are paying $12 for delivery, expecting another $10 tip on top of that is not reasonable… Particularly up front, before service is rendered.

      This came up yesterday with my teenage son. He took his girlfriend to dinner at the hip new “food court” restaurant… It is like the equivalent of a food truck event, except the cool little one-specialty restaurants are mall-style counters around a nice courtyard area where the young and hip can mingle.

      The restaurants have touch-screen checkouts where you are promoted to leave a tip when you order… 18%, 22% or 25%. The default is 22%. They take your order. That is all. No table service. No “can I get you some more of the apple-pomegranite IPA”. Just a Burger King style counter service with a basket or tray of food. And they expect you to tip before they even prepare the food. A reward for service you don’t do. Before you don’t do it.

      At least the delivery driver is performing a service. But it is a service that you already directly pay for. This model of charging half of the actual cost (or less) for delivery and expecting the customer to pay again is just F’d up. Pay your drivers at a fair rate and charge accordingly so that everyone knows the price of services up front.

      • Brochettaward

        It’s not a tip period as I stated above. It should be a bid for service which is how these aps like Uber got their start and what made them efficient in the first place. What you have is a system with four parties, including the customer. When it comes to the delivery, it’s a three way exchange. As a customer, you are contracting with both Doordash and the driver. The driver is simply the one without.

        You are not tipping for quality service, but to get any service at all with these aps. The only thing Doordash is guilty of making it easier for customers to screw the drivers who are in a weak position to begin with because they designed the ap and can guarantee their own cut from every transaction.

        This has nothing to do with ti[p begging growing in every other industry. This isn’t the same as tipping a waiter. It’s stiffing someone who you know is bearing their own operating costs because you can.

        This is especially gulling coming from people who bitch and moan about the greedy corporations. People Reddit is full of. Don’t take it out on the customer! Well, yes, I can take it out on the customer because regardless of whether Doordash is a shit company or not, they are willingly choosing to use its service and stiff the third party actually doing the labor. These are not traditional employees doing the labor, but contractors relying on YOU, the consumer, to pay them. We all know this. We all operate with this knowledge. It’s just that a certain subset of scumbags don’t care. They just want to pay less.

        A Doordash driver is not your server (and I always believe in tipping something because you are already paying less in a restaurant because tipping is the norm here). Great service gets more of a tip. There’s an incentive to be good at your job. But I don’t stiff waiters.

        There is no comparison between Doordash drivers and the people working the counter at a takeout place asking for tips. That is an attempt to expand tipping culture for people who aren’t actually bearing the weight of operating costs the way delivery drivers with these aps are.

      • cyto

        Yeah if that is the model, they should make that the model. But as I understand it, they charge a fee and you add a tip. The fee is already flexible based on service availability.

        The added tip should not be the bid for service. It is at best a deceptive pricing strategy.

        I really like the Uber/Lyft pricing model where fees rise and fall in real time in response to demand, and tips follow the ride. As does the reputation of the driver and the passenger.

        They attempt to replicate this with door-dash and Uber Eats… But at least for the casual user, the model is not clear.

        My door-dash experience is extremely limited, as I would usually rather just go get the stuff myself, living with a mile or two of most restaurants. But my two older kids both excitedly tried it out the second they got bank accounts. They used the free promotional offers to order a sandwich or a burrito and ended up paying about twice what I would have deemed acceptable for a lunch for myself.

        The multi-step charge for service process worked on them. $5 or $10 for a free delivery was successfully extracted. So that informs my opinion about how their pricing works. By breaking it into a delivery plus tip, you see “oh, I tipped him $15 for the delivery not “”I just paid an extra $30 to get the food delivered.

        I would much rather see the model you allude to, where an arrival time and price are posted and it floats based on the number of drivers willing to make the run at that price.

      • Q Continuum

        ^^^SO MUCH THIS!!

        Even many moons ago, before tipping got out of control, I had friends that would get pissed at me for leaving a lousy tip for shitty service at a restaurant.

        “They rely on that money! They get paid next to nothing!”

        If that’s the case, then they should try a little harder at providing good service. A tip is an optional way of showing appreciation to good service *after* it’s rendered. If you wanna make it mandatory, then build it into the price or start paying your staff more.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Don’t get me started on states where tips aren’t even counted into minimum wage calculations.

      • cyto

        Is that legal?

        Everywhere I worked, the business had to make up the difference if you pulled in less than minimum.

        The loophole was always non-tipped work… Like coming in to the restaurant on the off day to clean or do prep work. Making $2.01 an hour to scrub behind the fryer seemed like a scam,and I am not sure what the rules are about that.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        The whole west coast, IOW.

      • cyto

        Is that real? How do they do it?

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Am having trouble finding you a link or jpeg.

        I don’t get how some states still mandate only $2.13/hour base pay which was half the hourly minimum in the late ’80s, except that some indexing needs reupdating.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Minimum wage just like any other worker, or higher if the employer pays it. Tips are on top of that.

      • Brochettaward

        A Doordash driver is NOT a server. They are a third party contractor and plenty of you same people would happily argue that they are gig employees. What you are arguing for is getting free services and having someone operate at a loss.

        I have a very simple solution that I don’t think the cheap fucks would appreciate. Make the “tip” available to the driver before hand and let them all refuse the no-tippers, Problem solved. Because this isn’t really a tip at all.

      • Brochettaward

        And it’s laughable to argue that Doordash drivers are tipped for any of the same reasons as waiters. They are being paid for their time, their vehicle, their gas. They are bearing operating costs that a waiter is not beyond other employees. The money is given before hand for this very reason and 9 out of 10 things people would punish the driver for are the responsibility of the restaurant and Doordash itself. Most people don’t even have physical contact with their drivers at this point.

        The corporation is responsible for even letting people call it a “tip.” It is not. Again, they want to argue, and libertarians gladly accept the argument, that they are not traditional employees. Uber started with a great model and then when it came to food delivery, they basically abandoned it.

        I’m tired of seeing people talk out of both sides of their mouth on tipping in the first place. Reality – people who tip more are subsidizing the cheap fucks who refuse to tip.

      • Brochettaward

        What belies the notion that it is a tip – it’s done beforehand. We see it is admitted as much above. No one can deny that the driver is bearing operating costs to get the fat fucks their food.

        So what you have is a system where people are expected to do almost free labor with a nominal fee going to them and people justifying it by saying tipping is optional. No, you admit you are receiving labor, a service, and you just don’t want to pay for it.

        Sorry, that makes you a scumbag.

      • cyto

        I completely agree. if they want to do the delivery wage as a pass- through to the customer, just say so and clearly label it.

        In fact, I would be much more likely to use the service if this was the model, and would be much more sanguine about what I pay if it was clear what the money was for and who was getting it.

        Also, the fee-for-service model being intermingled with the tip model makes this whole thing even less tenable. The cost and service of bringing a chik-fil-a chicken sandwich from 5 miles away is not substantially different than bringing dinner for 5 from Ruth’s Chris from 5 miles away. Yet they expect much more to bring you a $250 food order than for a $5 food order. Beyond logistics such as package size, insulation require!emts and such, the price of the contents shouldn’t enter into it.

        FedEx doesn’t charge less for sending a pound of candy from the dollar store than a pound of beluga caviar.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Maximizing extraction. More willingness to pay a larger delivery fee on an expensive order than a higher averaged charge on low end stuff.

  18. The Late P Brooks

    run a decent candidate.

    Nobody ever ran for office so he could leave me the fuck alone.

    • TARDis

      So we have pedos and possibly child murderers running loose in the halls of the elite, but the “men” of the underclass are sexually stimulated by cuckoldry. Good times.

  19. Not Adahn

    a guy who did such a shit job in the car business that he transitioned to politics

    Please don’t mention Nick Sarwark again.

  20. Timeloose

    “ Harvard professor Avi Loeb believes he may have found fragments of alien technology from a meteor that landed in the waters off of Papua New Guinea in 2014.”

    I don’t understand the logical leap from the meteorite likely came from outside our solar system to it’s aliens. I feel like I’m talking to my dad about the pyramids.

    The composition and shape of the material they found are essentially what you would expect to find if a meteorite melted and was quickly cooled.

    • cyto

      Exactly. There isn’t even a real mystery here.

  21. Not Adahn

    a godsend for depressed diabetics

    Oh, we’ll drink a drink a drink
    To Lily the pink (Lily the pink!)
    The Savior of (the savior of!) the human race!
    He created
    Medicinal compounds
    Most efficacious
    In every case!

    • one true athena

      Lily turned pink? pics coming i hope

  22. Gender Traitor

    one of my professors who wreaked incalculable damage on the world

    Sounds as if he may indeed have been the root of all evil.

    • Gender Traitor

      (and yes, I know the quote actually starts with “The love of…”)

    • Gustave Lytton

      Why would you need to pay kids to attend a summer camp?

      Questions no one in the media or DFL will ask.

      • cyto

        Excellent point,says the dad who is forking over a grand to send 3 kids to summer camp after all 5 of us out in tens of hours fundraising to pay for kids who can’t afford it to go to summer camp.

    • UnCivilServant

      “The course now includes a lab practical.”

    • Timeloose

      Does it require overnight stays? More sex than your typical camp or religious retreat?!!? Can it be possible?

      • cyto

        That really is astonishing. Why on earth would you send your kids to a planned Parenthood sex ed based summer camp?

        Science camp, math camp, robotics camp, soccer camp, football camp, lakeside cabin camp, church camp…. But sex ed camp?

        Does Act Up! Have a competing camp?

      • Nerfherder (Non-Non-Man)

        Because it’s an article of faith among the pro-abortion set.

        There is a specific class of women (and men) for whom abortion is the Holy Grail. They vote by it, they live by it, their politics are wholly defined by it. All other issues are secondary and unimportant by comparison. They’d support nuclear war to preserve abortion, literally.

        Usually, Hillary is their Saint and Savior.

      • cyto

        Sooo…. I suppose the move is to find out what the planned Parenthood sex ed camp T-shirts look like….

    • Gender Traitor

      Friday the 13th Part XIII

      • UnCivilServant

        Triskaidekaphobia squared!

  23. The Late P Brooks

    Pander bear

    Donald Trump criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for opposing a federal program supporting the ethanol industry, but the tactic could open up the former president’s mixed record on biofuels to scrutiny.

    Trump in a campaign speech from Council Bluffs, Iowa, said Friday the state “needs to know” that DeSantis, his chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination, “totally despises” ethanol and has been fighting it “for years.”

    “Don’t forget, he was a congressman, and he was voting against it and fighting for years to kill every single job supported by this very important industry,” Trump said. “Ending the Renewable Fuel Standard was one of his top priorities as a member of Congress. He wanted to end it. And if he had his way, the entire economy of Iowa would absolutely collapse.”

    The remarks seek to tie DeSantis to his previous support of efforts to eliminate the Renewable Fuel Standard, which requires oil refiners to blend a minimum volume of renewable fuel into the nation’s transportation fuel each year.

    It’s a reoccurring political playbook in the influential corn state — one that resurfaced between Trump and President Joe Biden on the campaign trail in 2020 and emerged with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who won the Iowa caucus in 2016.

    “I fought for Iowa ethanol like no president in history and ethanol, period, like no president,” Trump said Friday.

    Corn is food.

    • Gender Traitor

      Most importantly, corn is food for other tasty, tasty food.

    • R C Dean

      “I fought for Iowa ethanol like no president in history and ethanol, period, like no president,” Trump said Friday.”

      He keeps giving me reasons not to vote for him.

      • cyto

        Haha… Yeah. And in true Trump fashion, I don’t even think that is true.

        Can anyone here make the “pro-ethanol subsidy” argument? Diverting acres of productive farmland at taxpeyer expense to produce corn to put in the gas tank so I can get worse gas mileage seems counterintuitive, octane boost notwithstanding.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Energy independence from an easily grown source? Just spitballing.

      • cyto

        Everwonder how much more meat costs because farmland is diverted to gastanks?

        On the other hand, industrial scale ethanol production means premium vodka brands like Tito’s can be had for cheap. Buy ethanol by the tanker and add on your own repeat distillation or filtering process and you get pure 70% ethanol at a fraction of the cost.

        I wonder if anyone has tried this with aged spirits like whiskey?

      • cyto

        Btw, 45% of US corn is made into fuel.

      • Nerfherder (Non-Non-Man)

        Which consumes an inordinate amount of real estate that could be put to better use.

        Ethanol is a disaster on multiple levels.

      • Nerfherder (Non-Non-Man)

        an easily grown source

        That requires extensive amounts of petroleum to plant, fertilize, and harvest.

  24. The Late P Brooks

    Catastrophic

    Global shipping is responsible for about 3% of global emissions. But in the lead up to the Paris Agreement back in 2015, then-IMO Secretary-General Koji Sekimizu told world diplomats that the sector should not be subject to any overall emissions limits. “Such measures would artificially limit the ability of shipping to meet the demand created by the world economy,” he said. After pressure to address emissions intensified, the group’s member states came out with a 2018 agreement that would aim to cut emissions by half by 2050, a significant step, but still far from the complete decarbonization that scientists say will be necessary within three decades to avert catastrophic climate change.

    Now, at a follow up IMO meeting this month intended to revise shipping’s greenhouse gas strategy, international delegates have agreed to tighten the sector’s lax emissions goals, though not nearly as much as climate advocates say is needed. IMO members set a well-caveated goal to reach net-zero emissions “by or around, i.e. close to 2050, taking into account different national circumstances.”

    ——-

    But many observers in the international climate community were furious over the outcome, saying the IMO has failed to bring future emissions from the world’s oceangoing vessels in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement, particularly because their agreement lacks a firm 2050 deadline. The targets will be up for discussion again in five years, but many environmentalists say that by then it will be too late to change the sector’s emissions trajectory before 2050. Faïg Abbasov, Shipping programme director of European sustainability NGO Transport and Environment, called the deal a “wishy-washy compromise.” “Aside from FIFA, it’s hard to think of an international organization more useless than the IMO,” he said on Thursday, after a draft agreement was released.

    Bring back wooden sailboats.

    • cyto

      Is shipping the Transgender Children of the climate movement?

    • creech

      IMO useless? Not for those delegates traveling to upscale destinations, staying in suites, and consuming gourmet meals and top shelf liquor.

  25. R C Dean

    A thought on the cocaine at the WH thing:

    The reason this broke cover is that it was called in as a potential WMD/HazMat incident. That’s what caused the evacuation and the involvement of the DC Fire Department.

    For a dime bag (we are told) of cocaine.

    I’m thinking this was someone in the WH who is fed up with covering up for the Bidens, and figured this was the only way to keep this from being kept completely out of public view.

    • cyto

      Yeah. I had similar thoughts and apparently so did a bunch of people. Some are even spinning it as a deep state attempt to move Biden aside.

      I find it even more interesting that the coverup machine went into effect so swiftly and automatically. The WaPo/NYT/CNN/NBC types all reported that it was found “near the Whitehouse” after other sources had reported it was in the library. After several rounds of conflicting versions, we are settling in a closet for cell phones and there are no expectations that the mystery will be solved.

      This, of course, sounds ludicrous to anyone who sat through the Jan 6 experience where the pervasive surveillance of the Washington government offices was so well documented. There has to be video of the events leading to the discovery.

      Have they even identified who found it and who called the hazmat team in? Surely that would be revealing as to the conspiracy theories about it being about politics, someone fed up with junior. Or just a staffer who is panicky enough to think “anthrax” instead of “coke” when they see a baggie of powder.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Some observers cited the change as a win. Others were less positive about the result. “In typical IMO fashion there was delay tactics in working groups while the real inaction happened behind closed doors where many [national delegations] were excluded until the final hour and in front of a near ultimatum,” said Lucy Gilliam, senior shipping policy officer at European environmental NGO Seas at Risk. “The Pacific [states] brought it back from the brink. But let’s be clear that this was not transparent, just, or equitable and it is reflected in the result reached.”

    Okay, Chicken Little.

  27. The Late P Brooks

    Does it require overnight stays? More sex than your typical camp or religious retreat?!!? Can it be possible?

    Co-ed showers?

    • Ted S.

      Are you suggesting there are only two genders???

  28. The Late P Brooks

    The current agreement will cause shipping to overshoot its carbon budget to keep global temperatures under 1.5°C by 2032, according to the International Council on Clean Transportation. If the sector hits the 2030 and 2040 targets set in the agreement, and actually fully decarbonizes by 2050, it can still stay on track to keep global temperature rise below 2°C.

    It’s imaginary numbers, all the way down.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    I have a very simple solution that I don’t think the cheap fucks would appreciate. Make the “tip” available to the driver before hand and let them all refuse the no-tippers, Problem solved. Because this isn’t really a tip at all.

    I have an even simpler solution. I don’t pay some jackass to bring me cold food. I go get it myself and eat it while it’s hot. And I don’t tip for sliding it across a counter.

    • Sean

      I’ll tip the take out bbq folks and the Bubbakoos made to order stuff. After I get the food. In cash.

    • Ownbestenemy

      When we went out for Mrs OBE bday I tipped the kitchen and our waiter separately. If that actually went where I wanted it to, the kitchen staff got considerably less than our server. His tip was cash, the other part was on the card.

      I did that because he was making up for a couple of snafus that were not his fault.

  30. The Late P Brooks

    Still, the ambiguous language around the targets has left plenty of room for negotiators to sidestep strong emission policies. Individual nations could take matters into their own hands, implementing stricter emissions rules for shipping companies trying to use their ports. The E.U. for instance, adopted a policy last year that would force shippers to pay for emissions. Some environmentalists, however, say that it would be better if the IMO were implementing such financial schemes, as the international body would be able to direct funds generated by carbon levies toward poorer nations that need the most help in adapting to climate change.

    If only we had a global socialist dictatorship, we could save the planet.

    • cyto

      If only there was a body of literature describing what this future might look like…

    • cyto

      As proof we offer photos of these people nowhere near each other.

    • Nerfherder (Non-Non-Man)

      Be attractive and rich.

      Don’t be unattractive and poor.

      • KK, Non-Man

        What about middle-of-the-road and midfle class?

  31. cyto

    From yesterday’s links at TOS..
    https://t.co/ybfOjsLPs3

    6th Circuit of appeals holds that pressuring a witness to destroy exculpatory evidence is “within the scope of prosecutorial actions”, and therefore is covered by absolute immunity.

    • cyto

      More worrying? The justification given by the court is that if this sort of lawsuit is allowed, it will gum up the courts with lawsuits.

      Oof. Rough admission there.

    • Nerfherder (Non-Non-Man)

      WTF

      • Common Tater

        +1

    • creech

      What would U.S. do if Russian drones were hovering over a U.S. ally, say, Japan and Japan was incapable of doing anything about it?

      • cyto

        Which should tell you where Russia and the US are with respect to power.

        Russia would not fly drones over Japan.

        You make a good point… Syria is a weird case. We are there together, sometimes on the same side, sometimes not. Yet avoiding coming to blows during the sometimes not phase.

  32. The Late P Brooks

    More worrying? The justification given by the court is that if this sort of lawsuit is allowed, it will gum up the courts with lawsuits.

    We wouldn’t want that. Nothing should impede prosecutors’ ability to railroad those alleged perpetrators.

    • cyto

      Isn’t that horrifying? The obvious conclusion is that prosecutors are routinely doing this, such that allowing people to sue for this form of framing them for a crime would pack the courts with cases beyond their capacity to cope.

  33. Ted S.

    This has been around since April?

    • cyto

      Ok, that is a pretty epic commercial.

    • Nerfherder (Non-Non-Man)

      doctors describe the natural hair of Black people as “wild” and “unkempt.”

      How you know she’s absolutely full of shit.

      • cyto

        It is really weird how people have been bringing forth tropes from 1960s era debate as if the are the norm in 2023.

        They have been trying so terribly hard to get racism re-activated and have mostly failed…

        But I did hear something in Nick Gillespie’s interview about the affirmative action cases. He said that a Gallup poll showed that blacks overwhelmingly opposed racial preferences in college admissions a few years ago, but that number has dropped significantly today.

        Beyond that. The only effect I have seen is with mentally ill folks acting out violently in support of racist ideas that are probably only symptoms of their mental illness.

  34. KK, Non-Man

    Tonight I shall Zoom courtesy of Dr. Leo Spaceman

    https://ibb.co/vY7jftW

    • cyto

      A HUGE. UGLY portrait of his girlfriends face.

      Good lord son, you have millions. Hire a better artist.

      This makes Tyson look reasonable.

  35. The Late P Brooks

    Sign me up

    It’s no secret that Twitter has been imploding ever since being taken over by billionaire cringeposter Elon Musk. So it should be no surprise that Facebook parent company Meta is now launching its own Twitter clone, Threads, which promises to suck in slightly different ways than the blue bird site.

    The myriad problems with Twitter have been well documented, and the launch of Threads is proof that Meta smells blood in the water. The app is a direct response to the mass-exodus of advertisers under Musk, whose increasingly blatant transphobia and racist conspiracy-peddling has left many users of the dying platform pining for a social app that is not overrun with Nazis and QAnon conspiracists.

    Meta’s sales pitch for Threads seems to be simply that it’s not Twitter. It’s a text-based social network that is not actively falling apart, created by a monopolistic tech company known for privacy abuses and run by the second worst guy on earth. Even by these extremely low standards, it is not good.

    To understand Threads, just imagine all the worst parts of Instagram and Twitter. The interface looks and feels like Instagram’s comments section, and there is no way to view posts chronologically on the timeline—or even to limit your feed to posts from accounts you follow. Instead, users see text posts based on what an invisible algorithm determines is most likely to make them engage and stay on the app, so they will see more ads.

    ——-

    Using these old and unpopular choices for a new social platform speaks to a tech industry that is increasingly desperate and out of ideas. After all, this is the same company that has spent billions unsuccessfully trying to convince people to have work meetings as leg-less avatars inside a virtual “Metaverse” no one wants to use. But it’s also a cynical admission that when it comes to competing with Twitter, Meta doesn’t even need to try.

    Sounds like a winner.

    • Gender Traitor

      From Vice, a company so successful they filed for bankruptcy.

      • Nerfherder (Non-Non-Man)

        At this point, they’re nothing more than shit-flinging monkeys.

    • hayeksplosives

      …pining for a social app that is not overrun with Nazis and QAnon conspiracists.

      Da fuq? Am I using Twitter wrong?

      • Ted S.

        That’s what somebody who’s a Nazi and QAnon conspiracist would say.

      • cyto

        I joined Twitter a couple of months back in response to the takeover.

        I have yet to see a single far-right Nazi, any white racism, or really all that much in the way of shit-posting.

        I do see a lot of promoted posts for clickbait sites like the ones you see at the bottom of most news site pages.

        Meanwhile, over on YouTube where I do not subscribe or like any political content, FOX news posts clog my feed, to the exclusion of things I do subscribe to, like the lock picking lawyer and the Critical Drinker.

    • Common Tater

      “increasingly blatant transphobia and racist conspiracy-peddling ”

      Sure, Jan