Monday Afternoon Back to Normal Links

by | Mar 18, 2024 | Daily Links | 159 comments

I was just going to give you links to these publications…

Grüezi mitenand. Sloopy and banjos are back, the Cryptids have all wandered off….and we only screwed up twice! *high-fives self* So, while I work on the leftover corned beef, you get some regular Monday Afternoon style links;

  • “I’m not dead yet!” – King Chuck the Third. Russian media – “Yes you are!”
  • Michael Moore hardest hit.
  • By committing seppuku? No? Then I don’t think this will work.
  • Slowly coming around…

Music…not sure how or why I even thought of this old song.

Comment section is open and all yours.

About The Author

Swiss Servator

Swiss Servator

Currently serving at the pleasure of a Swiss multinational. Previously a Soldier, rugby player, lawyer, bouncer, bartender, substitute teacher, risk manager, and cubicle mushroom. Will work for raclette.

159 Comments

  1. Tres Cool

    whaddup doh’

  2. Tres Cool

    I remember when that song was in the top 10

    • SDF-7

      I don’t remember exactly when that was — but yeah, I certainly remember the song. Thanks, Swiss…

      • Gender Traitor

        Fun Fact: I have a small music box, with this Degas ballerina on the lid. And that’s what the music box plays. 🩰

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Lucy Ricardo and I used to have that poster.

      • Gender Traitor

        I actually prefer the Degas ballerinas in their LESS graceful poses. I have this poster, but ‘cept for a different museum.

      • Gender Traitor

        😳

  3. SDF-7

    “I’m not dead yet!” – King Chuck the Third. Russian media – “Yes you are!”

    Again — replace them all with cats. More value for the money and just as useful.

    Afternoon, Swiss — enjoy your corny puns corned beef…

    • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

      Why do we care? About replacing them, I mean. We solved our problem with the issue, now it is GB’s turn to deal with it, or not, as the case may be. But, either or, we have washed our hands, so, again, why do any of us care?

      • SDF-7

        Fair point — I’m just tired of the media here fawning over them, and if they’re going to fawned over — I’d rather they were cats. At least then the pictures would be cute.

    • Suthenboy

      Charles is a booger eatin’ moron. Everyone in the UK knows it and have been joking about it forever.
      The greatest legacy he could leave would be checking out early.

  4. SDF-7

    Michael Moore hardest hit.

    Checks link and story… that Michigan tub of lard wasn’t put in his place….

    You tease!

  5. The Other Kevin

    That song brings back good memories. My mom made us all take piano lessons, and one of us (maybe my brother?) played that one. I quit as soon as mom let me, but I wish I’d have kept going.

    • SDF-7

      I have no rhythm and can barely read the simplest of music — so my parents spared me music lessons. And the world rejoiced.

  6. Fatty Bolger

    From the dead thread about how GoodRx works:

    Insurers rely on third party companies to do price negotiations with pharmacies, and GoodRx simply contracts with those third parties to hook into the same prices that insurers get. They also built a customer facing website to show the prices for that medication at various pharmacies, so you can find the cheapest one. There was some resistance from pharmacies at first, mostly because they also didn’t understand how it worked, but GoodRx is driving so much volume that it’s gone away.

    Also, when prescription drug sales are made using a network, the pharmacy pays a fee to the third party network company. That company splits the fee with GoodRx.

    • Raven Nation

      FWIW: my pharmacist (who’s basically an independent store), stopped using GoodRx because they embarked on a data-selling scheme.

      • Sean

        because they embarked on a data-selling scheme.

        I’m shocked. (Not really)

      • Fatty Bolger

        They got into trouble for that, settled with the FTC and paid a $1.5 million fine. Supposedly it had been fixed even before the FTC investigation.

        Pharmacies usually have no choice about accepting it, because their contract with the network typically says they will accept anybody using it. Of course, an independent pharmacist may have a different contract, or more likely just doesn’t worry that much about breaching it. That was common in the early days of GoodRx, and of course just drove that business to the pharmacies who were happy to accept it.

    • rhywun

      Missed that discussion but just the chitchat about it here breaks my brain. I did notice when one my pharmacies put up signs a couple weeks ago saying they won’t accept it anymore.

  7. Tres Cool

    “…blackouts since the start of March due to maintenance works on the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant.”

    I do love how they refer to an oil-fired boiler as “thermoelectric”. I mean, its factually accurate I suppose.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      I read that as the Antonio Banderas thermoelectric plant. Muy caliente.

      • Rat on a train

        Avoid the Quentin Tarantino plant.

  8. Mojeaux

    Whoa. Song == blast from the past. I TOTALLY forgot about it.

    That said, I kinda don’t like it. I don’t know why. It’s a perfectly serviceable song.

    • The Hyperbole

      It’s a perfectly serviceable song.

      That’s a good enough reason to kinda not like something. ‘servicable’ I’m gonna remember that for backhanded complimenting.

      • Fatty Bolger

        It’s likable enough.

      • Mojeaux

        So I can look forward to that on Friday night?

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        “Serviceable villain”?

      • Raven Nation

        So, something like, “The Hyperbole is a perfectly serviceable Glibertarian”?

      • Mojeaux

        He’s competent.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Not entirely unsuitable.

      • Mojeaux

        Completely adequate.

      • Lackadaisical

        He meets expectations.

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        Allegedly.

      • Spudalicious

        Hype is okay, I guess.

      • Gender Traitor

        He is operating within normal parameters.

      • KK, Plump & Unfiltered

        Decently tolerable

  9. Fatty Bolger

    So we kept everybody stuck indoors when what they really needed was more Vitamin D. Brilliant.

    • Tonio

      “The science is settled.”

  10. UnCivilServant

    I’ve put in my hotel reservations for my Road Trip in September. The finalized route goes:

    House – Cleveland – Dayton – Cedar Rapids – Grand Island (Nebraska) – Laramie – Salt Lake City – Reno – Eureka (California) – Cape Blanco (Oregon) – Eugene (Oregon) – Bend (Oregon) – Spokane – Kellogg (Idaho) – Bozeman – Yellowstone – Deadwood – Mt Rushmore – Sioux Falls – Honey Harvest – Superior/Duluth – Cedar Rapids – Indianapolis – Cleveland – House

    It’s a really *bleep*ing long drive. And the longest contiguous vacation I’ve ever taken. I know I’ll run into a bunch of you at the Honey Harvest, but if anyone is along that route around September and wants me to stop by, I’m open to the possibility.

    • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

      When you are in Eugene, drop me a line, I am 45 minutes north.

      • UnCivilServant

        Should be arriving there Sunday Sept 8th

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        Ooh, there is a restaurant down in Eugene that does really good Greek food on Sundays.

      • UnCivilServant

        Do you happen to remember the name?

    • Fatty Bolger

      House – Cleveland – Dayton

      Good way to start, it can only get better from there.

      • UnCivilServant

        To get to most of the country I have to cross Ohio, Pennsylvania, or New Jersey. The vast majority of the country requires crossing Ohio. And there’s a bunch of Glibs in Ohio.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      See you on the road. Our paths might cross in the Black Hills or Wyoming. I’ll be the guy with a bike.

      • UnCivilServant

        If I don’t run you over, I probably won’t remember.

    • KK, Plump & Unfiltered

      Looks like you ain’t dropping too far south

      • UnCivilServant

        My Grand Canyon trip a few years ago went along the southerly route. I am aiming to visit the northwest this time.

    • pistoffnick

      I can offer a room and food and a tour of the farm just north of Duluth. I won’t even make you put on the ball gag and the latex suit.

    • Lackadaisical

      Yellowstone is amazing, I hope you budgeted enough time there.

      Happy travels.

      • Beau Knott

        Seconded on Yellowstone. Give the park all the time you possibly can. It’s worth the 90 minute or so drive to stay in Big Timber, rather than Livingston. (I have family there. BT is a small town, but decent enough. Billings is too far a slog after seeing the park. IMNSHO, of course)

      • juris imprudent

        Leave the park via the east gate to Cody. Then take WY120 south (check out the chocolatier in Meeteeste) to Thermopolis and US20 south from there. That will take you into the Wind River Canyon, and yes, it is worth what seems like a crazy roundabout. You can pick up US26 east to Casper, and then I-25 to I-90 and Deadwood.

        I think Wind River Canyon is more fascinating as a geological formation than the Grand Canyon.

    • kinnath

      Let us know when you are in Cedar Rapids.

  11. cyto

    I was reading a bit about supreme court oral arguments in the social media censorship case out of Missouri today.

    Predictably, Thomas was extremely skeptical of the government and their arguments in favor of “persuading” social media to “do the right thing” and censor harmful content. Alito was with him.

    Scarily, but not shockingly, the liberal justices were very much so on the side of government action. Ketanji-Brown even worried that the first amendment was being used to restrict the government….. Holy crap, how do you become a lawyer and not know better than that, let alone a judge… a supreme court justice should be out of the question. But here we are. Supreme Court justices that don’t know that the entire point of the constitution is to restrict government.

    • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

      Afirmative Action Jackson, dumb as a goal post.

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        By the way, I HATE talking to people that stupid; even basic concepts that should have been explained in school when they aren’t completely intuitive are missing and you have to start from Zero with them. So, no, she probably failed upward so many times that she missed the entire point of the constitution, and I would be the asshole/martyr who askes, bluntly, “you do know what paper is, and what printing is, to start at the beginning?”

      • rhywun

        I suspect she knows and is just evil. She does not believe in limitations to government power. Lots of Americans don’t; it’s inevitable when some of them find themselves on SCOTUS.

    • The Other Kevin

      It’s just standard leftism. She sees the government’s job as provider and protector, and unfortunately the constitution sometimes gets in the way.

      • prolefeed

        This. ^^^

        You shouldn’t assume stupidity when faulty starting premises, that are ubiquitous throughout the nation among otherwise smart people, explain all her behavior.

        Give me an example of her saying something stupid that can’t be explained by immersion in an echo chamber.

      • The Other Kevin

        Just remember what happened with the vax mandate. The liberal justices where all for it because it was “important”. That was their reasoning.

    • Urthona

      I think it will come down to what that persuasion exactly was and I’m unfamiliar with the details myself, but I think the moderates are leaning towards siding with the government ….

      • Lackadaisical

        Yeah, I was afraid of that .

        Just because the government kept saying ‘nice business you got there ‘ doesn’t mean they were threatening the business. /Dolts

  12. Shpip

    Wife gets home from work…

    Me: Hey, Honey! Look at the new plant I got today!
    Wife: Huh… what is it?
    Me: It’s a tiny Hosta. Varietal name is La Vista, but I’ve been calling it “Baby.”
    Wife: Hosta La Vista?
    Me: … Baby!

  13. The Late P Brooks

    Help us, Satan!

    Cuban officials are pushing every button at their disposal to get the Biden administration’s attention, offering talks on previously off-the-table issues such as human rights amid internal protests over its worst economic crisis since the end of the Cold War.

    Havana is also lighting diplomatic fires, ratcheting up accusations of U.S. interventionism and callousness in the face of human suffering on the island.

    Cuban Vice Minister of Foreign Relations Carlos Fernández de Cossío called U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Benjamin Ziff on Monday to deliver a diplomatic note of protest rejecting “the interventionist conduct and slanderous messages of the United States government and its embassy in Cuba regarding internal affairs of the Cuban reality.”

    “the Cuban reality”

    Whatever that means.

    • Beau Knott

      Nasty, brutish, and short?

    • SDF-7

      Surely their native son The Twink of the North could help…..

    • B.P.

      Begging for help from the U.S. while shit-talking it at the same time? That’s some good diplomatting.

      Also, it’s nice to know in advance that the entire population of Cuba will soon be living in the U.S., along with the entire populations of Venezuela and Haiti.

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        Cheap beachfront property?

    • Tonio

      It means that international communism is pulling out all the stops to get Biden re-elected. They are offering him a big policy win – normalizing relations with Cuba. But any reforms they agree to will be illusory and short-lived.

      • R.J.

        This is the correct take. Now will Team Biden take the bait? Or are they too stupid? Only time will tell…
        And they are pretty stupid.

      • juris imprudent

        Bwahahahahahahaha – big policy win? For a constituency so far left and so fucking small that the Libertarian presence dwarfs it?

    • Suthenboy

      It means the too long coming inevitable outcome of communism.

  14. cyto

    GoodRX pays enough that it would probably be worth any data selling. Your credit card company is probably already selling the same info anyway.

    GoodRX saved us huge amounts when we didn’t have insurance that paid for medications. (We just had a “discount card”). My wide had several medications that were extremely expensive. Over $150 per month, each.

    GoodRX helped us find them all for under $75. One was only $15. (Worse, it was at the pharmacy we were already using… our insurance discount was like $95 down from $160… and with goodRX it was like $15.50 or so.)

    Our insurance now included medications and has a max out of pocket which we blew through by February, so it is not an issue for us right now… but GoodRX demonstrates just how far we are from having a functioning market in Healthcare. There should be no way possible for there to be order of magnitude variance in pricing in a true free market.

    • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

      Your “wide?”

      Slip of the tongue?

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        asdf

      • Tres Cool

        Of course it got my attention.

    • Raven Nation

      Yeah, that’s a fair take. I don’t have a position really, just wanted to let people know. I would also hazard a guess that my pharmacist is carrying his own liability insurance and doesn’t want to take any chances.

  15. Gustave Lytton

    From the ded thred, government/non-government GDP split is further blurred from how deep the tendrils stretch. Pretty much any company of size and many smaller have government entities as customers.

  16. The Late P Brooks

    The communist government, once hopeful President Biden would reverse some of former President Trump’s most stringent restrictions on Cuba — namely the state sponsor of terror designation — is now playing formerly withheld cards, but Cuban officials say the U.S. is not picking up the phone.

    They must have Bernie’s number.

  17. The Late P Brooks

    From the ded thred, government/non-government GDP split is further blurred from how deep the tendrils stretch. Pretty much any company of size and many smaller have government entities as customers.

    That is absolutely true. I just wonder if the pure money-pounded-down-a-rathole part of government spending could be pulled out how much it would affect GDP. Hell, just take out the amount of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act and see what you get.

    • prolefeed

      Since most federal spending is transfer payments that produce no new goods or products, that dwarfs the actively counterproductive spending portion.

      I’d guess maybe a third or a quarter of federal government spending produces something that people would voluntarily pay something out of their pocket for, even if it is overpriced things.

  18. PutridMeat

    Re: No real covid pandemic in Switzerland –

    Looking at the plots, it’s interesting that while they show that covid was not all that, contra the dominant narrative, they would also indicate that there is little evidence of significant vaccine mortality. I’m inclined to believe there is significant all-cause vaccine mortality anecdotally and, to some degree, from the original trials. But this data would tend to argue against that.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    Speaking of convergence-

    Recently, on youtube “watch jr go” he had a two or three episode series about trying to fix a mystery malfunction on a friend’s sister’s car (an Envoy?). Anyway, a big part of it was that innate human tendency to convince yourself of something which might make sense. They tried a series of repairs which logically should have made the problem go away. None worked. Finally, on purpose or not, they sampled the fuel (she had filled the thing up shortly prior to it quitting on the side of the road). Lo and behold, whatever was in the tank was not gasoline. I don’t think it was even flammable. They pumped out and flushed the fuel system, and the car fired right up.

    Last night I watched another video, from “thunderhead 289” which was almost identical. He filled up his car after work, and it flamed out after a couple of miles. The substance in the tank was flammable, but oily (quite possibly contaminated with diesel fuel, I’d guess). It wouldn’t even evaporate cleanly like gasoline. Same thing; drain the fuel out, put known good gas in, and it runs.

    So what?

    Couple this with the multiple recurring stories of food contamination. Is this just emblematic of the breakdown of society? Are we, as a species, just too dumb to live? Have formerly simple straightforward tasks and instructions become too much for us?

    • R.J.

      Humans as a whole are not stupid.
      There are a lot of idiots in the world, and they are usually kept away from heavy machinery and given easy jobs that don’t imperil their fellow beings.
      This past four years that seemed to change abruptly. That’s all it took. If instead of giving people jobs because they are excellent performers of their specific task, you give people jobs based on nebulous non-job related criteria like years spent in poverty, or skin color or genitalia, you end up with a major issue.
      It will take just as long to solve this problem as it did to get into it. We will reach a breaking point and this will reverse.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Years and years ago a manager I had was mad that her son had parked his car in the driveway and it wouldn’t start and had been there for months. She offered a buddy that also worked for her, the car if he would just get it out of her driveway.

      Won’t bore you with the long version, but the problem was that it was out of gas. So my buddy got a decent minivan for putting in gas.

      He stewed a long time about whether to tell her. His innate honesty finally won out and he told her and offered her a couple hundred bucks for the car. She turned him down and said it served her kid right for being a dumbass.

    • The Gunslinger

      I watched the same video series by watchjrgo. It was a 2019 Equinox that wouldn’t start. Can’t blame them too much for not considering bad gas. It did have symptoms of known issues with that engine the way they described things. What I found appalling was how quickly they started considering an engine swap.

      In response to your questions, things in general just don’t seem to work anymore. Internet search is near useless. Listening to Eric from South Main Auto, brand new parts from eBay and Amazon are about 50/50 for being DOA and he declined to work on cars where a customer has been swapping in aftermarket parts because it’s just garbage. He has stopped using suspension parts from NAPA because they fail after a couple of months. Half of the websites I click on from my phone are so overloaded with videos and tweets and junk that they never even finish loading.

      What the cause of all of that is, I don’t know. Watch some videos from Just Rolled In on YT some time and you will weep for humanity. People that bring their car to the shop because an option won’t work, when in fact the car doesn’t even have the option. Customers requesting diagnosing a strange noise that turns out to be a stone rolling around in the center console. On and on and on. People in general can’t do the most basic of troubleshooting anymore.

      • The Last American Hero

        The best part about Roadworthy is when he does the “Craig’s List Engine Rebuild” by hitting the engine with a can of spray paint.

      • The Gunslinger

        And lost the receipt.

  20. Mojeaux

    Why do I have to have a master’s degree in linguistics to be a basic proofreader? Hard pass.

    • Raven Nation

      *scratches proof-reader off list of potential side hustles*

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      Obviously they are looking for a cunning linguist.

      • Mojeaux

        I am not that.

    • rhywun

      I’m guessing the HR department doesn’t know what “linguistics” is. Most people don’t, as I found out when I was getting my bachelor’s.

  21. UnCivilServant

    This is so surreal. I bought an aluminum cutting rule made in Japan and it is only marked in inches. I’m getting 1980s flashbacks.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Ahhh.. I have one of theirs with a handle for cutting sheet goods. Wish it was easily/less expensive to order larger sizes.

      • Shpip

        I have one of those, too… though I probably use it less than ten times in a collander year.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        🤨

  22. The Late P Brooks

    Just what the world needs, another AWFL political activist

    Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG) announced today that Kristen Cavallo will be retiring as Global CEO of MullenLowe this spring and will remain available to the company in an advisory capacity until 2025. Cavallo announced that her next move will include applying her deep and varied communications experience to political and societal causes.

    She’ll fix the Democrats’ broken message machine.

    • B.P.

      The policies aren’t shit, they just need better messaging.

  23. cyto

    Here is the audio.

    She literally has no understanding of the structure of our government. She makes the “but it is important” argument. This is the source of all evil. The invisible “unless it is important” clause of every amendment and section of the constitution.

    https://twitter.com/SystemUpdate_/status/1769753959315427812?s=19

    • juris imprudent

      We’re not a serious country. Thus we allow clowns on the Supreme Court.

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        In your opinion, who qualifies as a serious country then?

      • juris imprudent

        Fair question, we may be no worse than any other. But we aren’t the country we once were.

  24. DEG

    Fresh data released by the Swiss Federal Office of Statistics destroys the COVID narrative that a pandemic ripped through Switzerland. In terms of mortality, other than two short-lived spikes in deaths in the over-65 segment, the vast majority likely being over 80, COVID-19 was a non-event.

    Get with the program! The narrative is never wrong! It says so right there on the label. Would they lie?

  25. The Late P Brooks

    As I think about where I’ll direct my energies next, I’ve been wondering if many of our nation’s problems are ultimately marketing and communications problems: how we connect with one another, how we unify, how we fulfill our promises. These questions have been really taking over my headspace. I want to apply what I’ve learned to the kinds of issues I care most about at this stage in my life.”

    Cavallo has remained a visible industry champion for DEI throughout her career and has transformed the leadership teams at the agencies she has led by making them more diverse. For the past 14 years, Cavallo also has sponsored children through nonprofit New Hope Homes, which provides a home for orphaned and abandoned children in Rwanda and supports their education.

    Caramba.

    • Suthenboy

      How about going home and spending quality time with your grandchildren so that your family does not produce another generation of broken, empty people? Would that be ok?

  26. Tres Cool

    2 pairs of pants from Amazon.
    I was Carhart the other their Basic brand.

    I dont know what type of measuring tape vietnamese kids use, but both waist sizes are WAY off.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Complaining about ill fitting mail order clothes seems tacky. It is inseamly of you.

      • UnCivilServant

        It beats deciding to hem and haw before purchasing.

      • The Gunslinger

        Watch it, Tres just may belt you over the head for comments like that one.

      • Gender Traitor

        And with Swissy around, this string of puns will never fly.

      • Tres Cool

        Already returned.

        Consider it sewn up.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Carhartt uses, or used to use, old school loose fit sizing. Go to the mall for soyboy skinny jeans.

      • Tres Cool

        Ugh, lets just say the button on my usual 34W work pants is over-torqued.
        I was trying to go a step up. THEY sent me skinny jeans.

  27. juris imprudent

    With conservatives like this, who needs an opposition party at all?

    But now here we are, a year later, and the question is: what to do? What should be the conservative approach to the IRA? Does it still make sense to advocate for full, or even partial, repeal of the energy provisions?

    For both policy and political reasons, the answer is a resounding no.

  28. Suthenboy

    Food and electricity shortages in Cuba? Say it ain’t so.
    I am sure the pol class here is giggling with delight and cant wait to replicate that here. Keep up the EV shit dumbasses and it is just around the corner.

    Airplanes…just the first wave. How long will it take to recover from the left’s successes in the war on competence? Will we ever? For that matter, how long before we take the gloves off and overcome their war on everything that we are? Rule of law? Competence? Crime? Sanding the gears of prosperity? Etc. etc. Mind you, I am being optimistic thinking such things are possible.

    We have had the equivalent of the recent cootie bug going around every year for as long as I can. remember. Pandemic my ass. Like the Jan. 6 hoax the cootie bug ‘crisis’ was business as usual blown wildly out of proportion. This is an old tactic. The watermelons do it all of the time.

    We really are in a shit situation and there is no one to blame but ourselves.

  29. Pope Jimbo

    Not Minnesoda Nice, but it made me laugh.

    U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., has proposed canceling future invitations for President Joe Biden to deliver State of the Union addresses, calling the most recent iteration a divisive campaign speech.

    Emmer’s remarks came during a Republican retreat in West Virginia in an interview with Axios.

    “That was about the most divisive State of the Union — I wouldn’t extend him an invitation next year, if that’s what we’re going to get,” Emmer told the outlet.

    Extra funny for us locals because we know that Emmer is an utter eGOP creature. He doesn’t even have the guts to be a Never Trumper. He is a craven pol who will lick the boots of whoever is in power.

    • Raven Nation

      They should go back to a written report.

      • Tres Cool

        I know there’s a system in place (that Trump side-stepped) but when I see our choices for elected officials I ask myself “350 million people in the country and this is the best we can come up with?”

      • Gustave Lytton

        When’s the last time you saw a phone book?

      • Tres Cool

        It worked in The Jerk.

      • Suthenboy

        Dude…good, competent people with a shred of honor or decency wouldn’t take the job at gunpoint.

  30. Pope Jimbo

    Also not Minnesoda Nice. Also made me laugh.

    “Prometheus III” — a gigantic steel sculpture that stood at Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer for years — was dismantled and sold for scraps to Amery Auto Salvage of Wisconsin. The artist, John Hock, said he thought it was a theft and reported it to the Chisago County Sheriff’s Office.

    “No matter what, ‘Prometheus’ was my property,” Hock told MPR News.

    Hock co-founded the sculpture park in 1996 and, from about 2005 to 2018, he was the nonprofit’s director. In 2018, as first reported by the Star Tribune, Franconia terminated Hock for “inappropriate conduct toward a young female.”

    Hock sued the nonprofit over his termination and they reached a confidential settlement in 2019. Part of the settlement included a section about the removal of “Prometheus III.”

    Hock and the nonprofit have shared part of the settlement, which states that the “plaintiff agrees to remove his art from defendant’s property at a mutually agreeable time and under the supervision of at least two board members. Plaintiff may use the Defendant’s equipment to remove the art.”

    “In the four years after that Hock did absolutely nothing to even plan or discuss the parts removal from the work pad with anybody at Franconia,” O’Reilly told MPR News. The work pad is the site of sculptures in progress and those being dismantled.

    According to Hock, the settlement did not define a timeline for removal. O’Reilly and Legeros confirm this.

    Nothing funnier than a bunch of entitled artsy-fartsy people in a slap fight.

    • Tres Cool

      Ask yourself honestly- where would we, as a species, be w/o a “sculpture park”?

    • Suthenboy

      I was about to make an impassioned defense of the artist’s position when I clicked the link and saw an image of the sculpture. Ok, scrap it.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    They should go back to a written report.

    “Dear Mister President, describe for us the state of the nation, in twenty five words or less.”

    • R.J.

      “MY CORVETTE GOES BRRRRUM BRRRUUUUMMM!”

      • Tres Cool
    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Dr Pepper, the ecumenical choice.

    • The Hyperbole

      Are they going to start selling chili?

    • rhywun

      The restaurant will no longer serve Pepsi products like Mountain Dew

      Evil knows no bounds.

  32. The Late P Brooks

    Improper or incomplete cleaning and maintenance?

    A Trader Joe’s-branded cashew product sold in 16 states is being recalled over salmonella contamination concerns.

    In a notice posted on the Food and Drug Administration’s website, Wenders LLC said some of its Trader Joe’s 50% Less Sodium Roasted & Salted Whole Cashews product had tested positive for the presence of Salmonella during a routine examination.

    No illnesses have been reported to date, Wenders said.

    In the story they quote somebody who says better detection techniques may explain some of the increase in these incidents.

    I can’t help thinking a vast generalized panic over “germs” would lead to more effective food safety policies and practices, but I guess not.

  33. Evan from Evansville

    Well. Work was work and it is accomplished. I got some texts and a phone call from a gal who wants to talk. I’ll check my emails after food. I know there are many. I’m sure some are quite worth my time.

    This is a good development. See dem smiley faces.

  34. prolefeed

    Re: the discussion about whether SCOTUS Justice KJB is truly “you can’t fix stupid” stupid, or “My political beliefs require saying something that sounds absurd to Glibs, but makes perfect sense from a ‘I want this political outcome’ level of not-stupid.”

    The former would be something like “we should declare pi to be exactly equal to 3.14, cause the other choice is too hard.”

    The latter? Declaring an inability to define the term “woman”, because it would be political suicide for a leftist SCOTUS nominee to offend transgender identifying people, and thus leftists in general, when the Senate is ruled by Dems.

    So … any quotes that would indicate the former?

    • Suthenboy

      “Once they are demoralized you cannot fix them. No matter how much authentic information they are given they cannot draw a sensible conclusion. You are stuck with them.” – Yuri Bezmenov

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      To progressives the Constitution is something to be worked around or ignored if necessary.

  35. The Late P Brooks

    …and to hear the lamentations of their bureaucrats

    Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said Monday that the energy transition is failing and policymakers should abandon the “fantasy” of phasing out oil and gas, as demand for fossil fuels is expected to continue to grow in the coming years.

    “In the real world, the current transition strategy is visibly failing on most fronts as it collides with five hard realities,” Nasser said during a panel interview at the CERAWeek by S&P Global energy conference in Houston, Texas.

    “A transition strategy reset is urgently needed and my proposal is this: We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas and instead invest in them adequately reflecting realistic demand assumptions,” the CEO said to applause from the audience.

    All those precious Renewable Energy White Papers, up in smoke. If only.

    • juris imprudent

      Pulping and recycling would be more carbon friendly.

  36. The Late P Brooks

    Nasser said alternative energy sources have been unable to displace hydrocarbons at scale, despite the world investing more than $9.5 trillion over the past two decades. Wind and solar currently supply less than 4% of the world’s energy, while total electric vehicle penetration is less than 3%, he said.

    Meanwhile, the share of hydrocarbons in the global energy mix has barely fallen in the 21st century from 83% to 80%, Nasser said. Global demand has increased by 100 million barrels of oil equivalent per day during the same period and will reach an all-time high this year, the CEO said.

    That undoubtedly includes significant efficiency gains, or it would be higher.

  37. Tres Cool

    I often watch South Main Auto, and I saw the WactchJRGO episode with the equinox. I dont think their troubleshooting was too out of whack, because even though it happens how often are you going to think your gas tank was full of water. I suppose the more Columbo types would immediately tie together that her car died after getting gas- Id likely see it as more of a coincidence. And that engine (1.3T I think) is notoriously shitty, so if there was cylinder scoring, bad compression, and a bad leak-down I can see why they’d jump to just replacing it.

    After dropping off Tres Ver 2.0 Saturday, about 1/2 way home the POS Envoy™ developed a miss and lost power. Given the age (200K miles) and that shitty fuel-management system GM used I was certain Id collapsed a lifter. Ran the scan tool and had a code for cylinder 1 misfire. Collapsed lifter will still do that. Watched an hours worth of YT videos on dealing with that issue.
    This morning went to O’reilly and got a new coil pack just hoping. She’s running fine* for now.

    *still has a laundry list of other items that need corrected but runs and drives