Friday Morning Sugarlinks – the sweetest taboo

by | Apr 5, 2024 | Daily Links | 315 comments

A Diving Crew Used Clues From Homer’s Iliad to Uncover 10 Long-Lost Shipwrecks

A quest as epic as Homer’s own tales recently unfolded beneath the blue waves of the Aegean Sea. Researchers, guided by clues in The Iliad, unearthed a trove of ancient shipwrecks, weaving a narrative of scientific innovation and maritime mystery.

The Greek National Research Foundation teamed with the Greek Ministry of Culture to conducted four research missions in the waters around the island of Kasos. Their goal was clear: identify sunken vessels cited in historical records, including those mentioned in Homer’s historic poem. In a testament to their meticulous strategy and interdisciplinary approach, they successfully located 10 shipwrecks from various historical periods, according to the ministry’s translated statement.

The 10 different finds included ships from 3,000 B.C., the Classical period of 460 B.C., the Hellenistic period of about 100 B.C. to 100 A.D., the Roman years of 200 B.C., and the Byzantine period of 800 A.D., as well as artifacts from the medieval and Ottoman periods. The researchers also discovered a shipwreck that was likely from World War II.

Among the submerged treasures, the researchers found a stunning array of artifacts that told stories of ancient trade routes: a Spanish Dressel 20 amphora, its handle stamped with a seal from around 150 A.D.; elegant drinking vessels; Roman period flasks; and even a stone anchor harkening back to the Archaic period—all painting a vivid picture of a bygone world connected across the waters from Spain to Asia Minor, from Italy to Africa.
The search teams drew valuable insights from Homer’s The Iliad to narrow their search parameters. The 24-book epic, which historians believed was composed around 750 B.C., recounts the Trojan War’s saga, detailing legends like Helen of Troy, the Trojan Horse, and the fury of Achilles, with vivid imagery from the war’s concluding sieges, thereby providing the researchers with clues to potential shipwreck locations.


 

Stunned archaeologists probe claims of giant skeletons in Nevada caves where they found a 15-inch sandal that had been worn down as well as massive handprints across the walls

Archaeologists have long been baffled about claims that a long-lost group of giant humans who stood up to 10 feet tall once lived in the southwestern US.

Supersized human skulls, 15-inch sandals, and massive handprints have been uncovered in excavations inside a cave in Lovelock, Nevada over the last century, which have continued to spark the curiosity of scientists and the public.

The claims about these ‘Giants of Lovelock’ originated from Native Americans who told stories about a brutal tribe of pale-skinned, red-haired invaders who waged war on the local groups, before finally being trapped in a cave and exterminated.

According to archaeologists, the story is likely an exaggeration of the facts or even an outright fabrication – but some of the pieces of evidence continue to encourage believers.

 

The Lore Lodge on YouTube does a very thorough series of videos on the botched excavation of Lovelock Cave.

I like him because he cites his sources and his voice annoys me less than most cryptid / weird history vloggers.


 

Three feminists and a comedian hosted an event. It went horribly wrong.

A prank featuring a member of comedy duo The Inspired Unemployed and three high-profile Australian feminists went awry on Wednesday night, with audience members furious at what they labelled a “fake event” that was “triggering” and “painfully unfunny”.

Promoted on social media under the title Love Unboxed, the free event held at The Neilson on Sydney’s Walsh Bay, promised an evening of “insightful discourse and thought-provoking discussions as renowned feminists Antoinette Lattouf, Clementine Ford and Yumi Stynes engage in a lively conversation on the intricacies of sex, love, relationships and marriage”.

Also in attendance, the promotion noted, would be “a special guest offering his perspective as a young male”.

That guest turned out to be Jack Steele, co-founder (with Matt Ford) of the comedy group The Inspired Unemployed, who boast more than 2 million followers on Instagram.

As the discussion unfolded – with seemingly serious intent on the part of the women – Steele received his orders via earpiece from the rest of the Inspired Unemployed team. And for many of the people in the audience – many of them longtime fans of the women on stage, with a deep interest in feminism – the responses were infuriating.

According to one witness, who posted about the night on Instagram, when he was asked a question about consent, Steele replied, “Yeah, chicks dig consent.”

Q; How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: THAT’S NOT FUNNY!


 

I love upbeat songs with depressing lyrics–some sort of holdover from my teen obsession with The Smiths, no doubt.

 

About The Author

SugarFree

SugarFree

Your Resident Narcissistic Misogynist Rape-Culture Apologist

315 Comments

  1. AlexinCT

    DESERT SMITH?

    IS no one nowhere safe from the rape?

    • Nephilium

      Would you rather face his brother DESSERT SMITH?

      • AlexinCT

        Noooooooooooooooo!

      • Shpip

        DESSERT SMITH LOVE CHERRY ON TOP, MAKE IT BOTTOM!

      • SDF-7

        DESSERT SMITH ALWAYS SERVE CREAM PIE — AFTER YOU EAT OUT.

        DESSERT SMITH NOT EVEN SUBTLE LIKE COUSIN STEVE.

      • Pope Jimbo

        THERE ARE NO CHERRIES WHEN DESSERT SMITH IS AROUND

    • SDF-7

      DESERT SMITH MORE POSH THAN COUSIN STEVE… ALWAYS KEEPS HIS MEAT DRY AGED….

    • ron73440

      Rapist: Rape, murder, arson and rape.

      Hedley Lamarr: You said rape twice.

      Rapist: I like rape.

  2. Tres Cool

    whaddup doh’
    yo whats goody

      • SDF-7

        Of quartz you’d recommend that….

      • juris imprudent

        Must’ve gazed into his crystal ball.

      • SDF-7

        Which one goes to Crystal and which one to Destiny? That’s the question… though honestly, we probably don’t want the answer.

      • Pope Jimbo

        My investment strategy is more multi-faceted than that.

      • Pope Jimbo

        And Alex’s stock tips are usually schist.

      • UnCivilServant

        That’s gneiss of you to warn us. I usually take internet advice for granite.

      • AlexinCT

        Et tu, your holiness?

    • The Other Kevin

      Just going by the past, a safer bet would be that Biden’s EPA will find a problem with it and shut it down. That seem like something they’d do.

      • SDF-7

        I’m assuming they’ll just sell it to the CCP.

  3. UnCivilServant

    I’m confused. I thought SF only worked Wednesdays.

    • SDF-7

      I’m assuming this is for the same reason OMWC covered — Banjos and Sloopy are off making another glibertarian and busy somewhere.

    • AlexinCT

      He is doing this to tick off his probation related work efforts…

    • Nephilium

      Does anyone work around here?

      /channeling Rufus

      • AlexinCT

        PUPPET MAN!

        Erms, sorry…

        Instinctive reaction.

  4. Shpip

    A prank featuring a member of comedy duo The Inspired Unemployed and three high-profile Australian feminists went awry on Wednesday night, with audience members furious at what they labelled a “fake event” that was “triggering” and “painfully unfunny”.

    Well, if anyone was an expert on painfully unfunny, it would be feminists.

    • rhywun

      “The idea of being on a panel with three strong, smart, opinionated women was his idea of hell.”

      OFFS 🙄

      • UnCivilServant

        Those traits are not in of themselves an issue.

        It’s the humorless scolding harridans that have glommed onto a vile ideology as their end-all be-all for living that are an issue.

      • R C Dean

        Well, “opinionated” isn’t really a compliment, regardless of who it is hung off of. That’s kind of the “humorless, scolding” part.

      • WTF

        If you have to keep telling people that you’re strong and smart, you aren’t.

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

      Everything about that screams UnFunny. Chicks dig consent? Dude, be a better joke.

    • juris imprudent

      Yeah, all the uproar about Rowling – hell, I am as put off by the RF aspect than the TE.

      • SugarFree

        The Rowling situation is a deep wound to the Millennial psyche. Many of them have based their entire personality around Harry Potter and for J. K. to not support The Current Thing is a crippling blow, an intolerable apostasy, like a YouTube video popping up of Muhammed eating an entire pig.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Muhammed eating an entire pig.

        Get real. This is the internet. The video would be Muhammed eating out a pig.

      • AlexinCT

        After cream pieing it?

      • SDF-7

        DESSERT SMITH THOUGHT HE MADE SEQUENCE CLEAR. EAT OUT PIG, THEN CREAM PIE.

        AND THIS SOUNDS LIKE JOB FOR ANONYMOUS AI — JE SUIS CHARLIE. BEEP BOOP.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Well it definitely ends up getting glazed.

      • SugarFree

        Snout-to-tail is a real thing.

      • R C Dean

        Paging HM. HM to the courtesy phone, please.

      • Nephilium

        I saw both that episode of Black Mirror, and the movie the Gentlemen.

      • R C Dean

        Huh. Comment showed, then disappeared.

        This shows how far left the Dominant Culture Overton Window has shifted. Radical Feminists have fallen off the right edge.

      • SugarFree

        the show brings together a line-up of the world’s absolute funniest genderqueer comedians

        It’s all so tiresome.

      • J. Frank Parnell

        the show brings together a line-up of the world’s absolute funniest genderqueer comedians

        “This is the best we have to offer.”

      • Ted S.

        I’m at the point where any time I see the word “queer”, I mentally replace it with “queef”.

    • Pope Jimbo

      “This is an extraordinary violation of student privacy and is not consistent with FERPA,” said Heather Honey, an investigator with Verity Vote, in a recent interview with The College Fix

      GAY-RONE-TEE that Heather Honey is no feminist.

  5. R C Dean

    Haven’t watched the vids yet because of my aversion to spending time on vids when reading is a much more efficient way for me to take in information, but I did scan a clickbaity article on the Si-Te-Cah that left me with one overarching question:

    Where are the bodies that they supposedly found? If anybody could enact my labor on that, I will award you ten internet points.

    • AlexinCT

      The bodies were taken by the WEF because of fears of another pathogen that would cause a planned scandemic to go wrong?

      • SDF-7

        The other cannibal tribes entirely ate them. Like the buffalo — the noble Amerindians of the desert plains used all of the red-haird-giant-cannibal parts!

      • AlexinCT

        Imagine the red toupees they could make from the body hair!

    • Fatty Bolger

      I read the wiki article on it, supposedly they were lost and/or destroyed by mining shortly after being discovered. At least one of the mummies was taken and boiled down for its skeleton, to be used in rituals at a local lodge.

  6. R C Dean

    Promoted from the dedthred*:

    I commented more when I was working full-time. It was easy to pop over to Glibs for a few minutes during the endless churn of work on my computer. I basically had 10 hours a day blocked off for tippy-tapping on my computer. Now that I’m semi-retired, not so much.

    People drift off for a thousand different reasons. The trick is to figure out how to get people to drift in. I have not a single clue on that front.

    *In my defense, it was still warm, OK?

    • Cunctator

      —“The trick is to figure out how to get people to drift in.”—

      It took a while for me to be able to drift in. There were problems with registration (I understand the reason for the problems, NOT complaining). I wonder if others had problems and gave up.

      • rhywun

        Last I heard no one can register.

      • slumbrew

        I believe that was addressed a while ago. We’re open now.

      • rhywun

        👍

      • Sean

        And “discoverable”, I do believe.

      • prolefeed

        Is it fixed? Has anyone here tried to register under a different name? Because closing off new people is gonna result in a death spiral for any site.

      • Nephilium

        To my knowledge it’s fixed. There’s been a spattering of new commenters that have needed their first post approved, and several really bizarre spam accounts trying to post.

        If there’s still an issue with signing up, it’s not one I’m aware of.

      • SDF-7

        several really bizarre spam accounts trying to post.

        I’m assuming that’s not bizarre in the Agile Cyborg way or we should let them in. (Wonder how long it will take before the LLMs start generating actually vaguely interesting AI spam messages? All the asshole weasel marketing dipshits should actually consider it… even if folks know it is spam, if it leads in with something credibly interesting instead of Nigerian Prince style crap or pure nonsense they might get more people to at least read and hence more takers… but this is the advertising industry that thinks the 4000th mobile game ad featuring some non-descript woman finding out she’s pregnant and being pushed out of a plan by an uncaring boyfriend in 15 different styles in ads will make me want to play a match-3 game… so I doubt it..)

      • Nephilium

        SDF-7:

        No, not entertaining frontier gibberish. Things for European based food delivery services and the like.

      • SDF-7

        I thought they fixed that a couple of months back, actually. Hence the influx of new Tulpas at the time.

      • Cunctator

        It was open for a while. I don’t know the current status.

      • Fourscore

        Someone, with more fortitude than I, needs to raid the other site (TOS). Surely, we are not all that are available/fed up, some are good people. There will be a few rejects but they can be sorted out. OTOH, too big and the local flavor will be lost.

      • Timeloose

        I hear there are good people on both sides.

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

        Good Charlotte?

      • Rat on a train

        Tell them we don’t charge to comment like TOS.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        I don’t know about that, the comment section over there is pretty rough when I occasionally check in to see what is going on.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        I still read there regularly. The comments are a shitshow, but that shitshow is basically 5 or so commenters going back and forth incessantly in every fucking thread. It’s tiring as fuck, even with the filters.

        But there are still definitely good people with good comments there.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Meeting Swiss during the registration and seeing his tattoo doesn’t exactly help.

    • Timeloose

      I’m guilty of drifting away from commenting since the new year. My work life was very hectic and my after work life was quite busy as well as complicated. But for now i’m back baby.

      • EvilSheldon

        Pretty much exactly this. Got busy over the ’23 holidays and let the commenting slide.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      Raid TOS. Kill the men. Take the women as slaves. Like the Vikings.

      Alternatively, we can spam people on Twitter luring them to our Only Puns site.

  7. Fourscore

    One day, in the distant future, 100s/1000s of years away, archeologists will be diving in the abandoned mine pits (commonly referred to as Minnesota’s newest lakes) of Minnesota. There they will discover long lost artifacts, drinking vessels (Thermos bottles, Coke cans), hand tools (wrenches, pliers, screwdrivers) and abandoned equipment (big power shovels that were too expensive to move). They will study these for years, trying to piece together what kind of civilization used these archaic tools. There will be much taxpayer money spent, museums built and college degrees awarded .

    • R C Dean

      It’s an interesting aspect of the Dominant Culture Overton Window moving left – Radical Feminists have now fallen off the right edge of the window.

    • Pope Jimbo

      I predict that they will write doctoral thesis papers on how these pits/lakes were the subject of constant wars. How else do you explain all the lead shot and bullets at the bottom of the pit.

      They will also say that these wars were fought by warriors who were plastered (based on all the beer cans also at the bottom). The feminists will claim that some of these noble warriors were women based on a few discarded bras that were found in the back seat of the war chariots(cars) in the pit.

      • R C Dean

        Not just lead shot and bullets – think of the piles of guns lost in boating accidents.

      • slumbrew

        Damn your nimble fingers!

      • slumbrew

        Although WTF, Amazon:

        ‘#1 Best Seller in LGBTQ+ Literary Criticism’

  8. Shpip

    In a tough economy and market environment, Fortune 500 companies are streamlining and tightening their belts. Naturally, women and minorities hardest hit. (Archive link to avoid WaPo paywall)

    Women’s share of coveted executive roles dropped in 2023 for the first time in nearly two decades, according to a recently published report from researchers who see it as possibly an “alarming turning point” in the path toward gender parity in corporate America.

    Oh, no! Whyever could that be?

    Researchers behind the report didn’t name a clear reason for the drop-off in women’s representation in high-level executive roles, but other data suggests that the pipeline is narrow: S&P Global research published last month found that women hold fewer than 30 percent of revenue-generating management positions that can be a steppingstone to the C-suite.

    The optimistic take is that we’re past peak woke, and corporate C-suite jobs are being filled based on competence rather than gender and race identity. Or possibly that corporations have backed off their initial 2020 enthusiasm for chief diversity officers and the like, inward-facing functions that are often held by women, and are getting back to the outward-facing business of business, i.e. production, sales and finance.

    BTW, the comments section reads like a three bong-hit bitch session of some small college’s Wymin’s Studies department. Read for your amusement, or avoid for your sanity.

    • slumbrew

      You’re saying HR isn’t a fast-track to CEO? Straight-up misogyny

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

        Lawyers? ‘Cause that is what it sounds like they are hiring.

      • Nephilium

        Independent HR/Lawyers.

      • SDF-7

        What people don’t understand is that ultimately, HR works for the company

        Peter Cappelli, Wharton School of Management

        We call these people…. morons. Of course HR works for the people who pay them, control their promotions and the existence of their department! DUH!

        Skimming the article — 1) Caged Bird sounds like a great business model with all the whining of the current generation… “Come to us and let us sue on your behalf for ISMs!” I bet there’s lots of fodder they can spin up.

        but 2) I have to expect it will very quickly be locked in that, like arbitration in general — your employment contract will explicitly forbid going to this type of organization and the courts will uphold it.

        And as Zwak says — the lawyers will continue to make bank.

      • Grummun

        Like my wife says: HR is there to protect the company, not the employees.

      • AlexinCT

        ^^^^THIS^^^^

        They will throw anyone under the bus if there is a risk for the company.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        Even if you find a unicorn HR department that is not ideologically captured, this would be the case

      • Timeloose

        I have a friend from HS whom is a director of HR in a large company. He is certainly one of the good ones. He is ex USAF as well as someone who has worked in the trenches within the company prior to becoming HR. He certainly is not always the workers’ friend, but he does his best to be a intermediator between management and workers. He is also very honest about his role and who pays his bills.

        I would think that never working outside of HR is a lot like never being anything but a teacher. Teaching requires some sort of understanding of the differences in work ethic, personalities, and attitudes between students/people. Having only worked in a school makes it difficult to understand how the rest of the world uses and values what you are there to provide.

        For HR, If you don’t have any other frame of reference outside of your role, it makes it difficult to be good at understanding who you are supposed to represent/support.

        A Director or VP of Diversity and Inclusion is a waste of a salary. The base assumption is flawed.

      • Nephilium

        One thing I’m very grateful to have done early in my career in IT was to do several years as a consultant. So I got to see how several different wildly divergent businesses and companies did things. It really helped me to realize how ignorant I was about different business needs/goals/plans.

        On the other hand, I did get to see several of those companies try to emulate the same bad decisions that I had seen implemented in another company to poor results.

      • AlexinCT

        When I was a consultant myself I used to call this the “Monkey see, monkey do school of management”. It was pervasive as hell. The people promoted up into senior management based on their incompetence would read about some new fad and immediately assume it would be what would not become the silver bullet to solve IT problems, but catapult them into top leadership. It didn’t matter how dumb the idea was and how obvious the future problems would be.

        Outsourcing, 6 SIGMA, Managers that didn’t need to understand the tech or even industry they were working in, and so forth. All allowed people to – on paper – make it look like the decision was a massive cost savings, brilliant, or both, only to have the idiots that pushed it move elsewhere and leave the mess unraveling for others to deal with.

      • Homple

        Paging Jack Welch.

      • EvilSheldon

        Although this particular group under discussion does sound like a bunch of tedious professional whiners, I don’t think I have any problem with the overarching idea. Having an expert to consult with on employee relations and employment law matters, who is financially obligated to you rather than the company? This sounds like it could be a pretty useful thing for some people in some industries.

      • SDF-7

        Yup — which is why I expect employment contracts to bar it as soon as companies realize that.

      • R C Dean

        We used to call those “unions”.

      • UnCivilServant

        Funny, the Unions never seemed to act beholden to the interests of the members, acting more like they were cattle to be bilked and an annoyance in the way of the Union’s interests, which often did not coincide with that of the members.

      • R C Dean

        That’s because unions are their own business.

        For some reason, my snark font isn’t working today.

      • AlexinCT

        That hasn’t changed. Union membership are robbed at gun point and then the money the crooks running the unions steal from them is used to promote people and agendas anathema to the union workers and their interests.

      • Fatty Bolger

        It’s still that way. My (grown) kids have worked similar jobs for competing union and non-union companies, and they are always treated better and make more money in the non-union companies. The difference is pretty shocking, actually, especially in how they are treated. Contrary to what some people think, it’s the non-union companies that put in the most effort to make sure their employees are satisfied.

      • EvilSheldon

        The irony is not lost on me.

    • R C Dean

      My theory/partial explanation, based on our recent discussion of blue collar (in group) v. white collar (dealing with out groups) work styles:

      Women do just fine, maybe better than men, at the white collar style of discussion and consensus building. However, at leadership levels, eventually the outgroup leaves, and the leader now has an in group that will need someone to call the question and make a final decision. For whatever reason, (as a gross generalization) women don’t do as well at that. The further up the food chain you go, the more you need to be able to do that, so fewer women are going to get promoted to top-level positions.

      The “for whatever reason” is the hand-wave. I don’t know why, but it’s consistent with my observation. The “gross generalization” part takes into account my experience with two female CEOs who did just fine with that shift of gears.

      • UnCivilServant

        This may seem simplistic, but I think it’s one of the aspects of the “Hunting vs Gathering” division of labor that went on far enough back for long enough that it’s evident in other areas of our biology. (Differences in color vision, spacial reasoning, physicality). When foraging for plants, there wasn’t a crucal need for one person to make an executive decision at any point. When hunting as a pack, someone has to pick the plan and say go, else the prey has left while the debate goes on. Which is why women form more of the social core of a society while men perform more executive functions – when conscious meddling is not applied. Becuase the dimorphism is mild, there is overlap in abilities, which is why it shows up as trends rather than rules.

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

        For some reason*, the people who write those articles seem to think that if you wave your hands and chant “racism, sexism, classism BEGONE!”, all of a sudden the c-suite will be filled to exact proportions of women and minorities and whatever else is the flavor of the month. They don’t seem to realized that it takes a lifetime to get to those positions, and you need to start working on it long before the articles are written.

        *I am guessing ignorance, and a silly belief that anyone can fill those roles. But, just like a good editor**, it takes a lot of knowledge to get to that position, knowledge that doesn’t come from Vassar or Sarah Lawrence, hard work you cannot do from your knees, but must put in your time on your back also, charging $20 no matter where you stand.

        **all joking aside, I am guessing this is why such literary stalwarts as Buzzfeed are failing. I blame Nicole Hanna Smith.

      • UnCivilServant

        You left off the part where gaining the knowledge and skills for such roles is far from automatic, and you have to be intentionall striving to cultivate these aptitudes all that time. If you’re not interested and driven by that type of work, you settle into a different niche.

      • juris imprudent

        You know who else is excluded from those executive roles – a helluva lot of men. Particularly men who don’t have a single-minded focus on their career and climbing that ladder. I used to tell my ex- this, that if a woman wanted to do what those men do, she would succeed.

      • AlexinCT

        People tend to get mad when you point that reality out JI. When you actually tell people that more men do not get the opportunity than any other demographic combined, they tend to really get pissy you gored their golden calf.

      • slumbrew

        Exactly. Most of those men do not “have it all” – they spend way more time doing work and less time with their families, usually with a vague plan to “make it up to them later” which usually doesn’t work out as planned.

        You wanna be in the C-suite, sacrifices will have to be made.

      • R C Dean

        As I have told several people looking at joining the C-Suite: “The only problem with a high-paying job is that sooner or later you have to earn it.” What I didn’t say to them, but maybe should have, is “Look around – do these people look happy to you?”

      • dbleagle

        The same issue is in the military. The trap of trying to become a Flag officer ruins many a man. (And not a few women.)

      • juris imprudent

        Consensus building isn’t decision making – that’s what is behind your hand-wave. Kinda like gathering ain’t hunting.

      • R C Dean

        The hand-wave was more at why the two sexes seem to have different skill sets.

      • UnCivilServant

        If you really boil it down, its a result of one of them having to deal with children for an extended period of time. All of the factors of prenatal and postnatal care drove a division of responsibilities. It’s no mystery.

      • juris imprudent

        No, there are fairly clear evolutionary reasons for that. It is the silly modern theorists that don’t get it – because reality won’t conform to the theory!

      • prolefeed

        Mrs. Prole recently got a new job as a VP. She’s kinda gobsmacked at some seeming dysfunction she’s seeing.

        Her: “That thing is an Operations problem, though. I’m in charge of Strategy.”

        Me: “At your level, if there’s a problem in operations that no one is fixing, then it’s your job to fix it, job description be damned. After three months of course, since it’s best not to change stuff until you understand why it came to be — and it takes at least that long to understand specifically who and what things are actually fucked up, and how to unfuck it.”

    • Muzzled Woodchipper

      We are definitely past peak woke. Peak woke rhetoric and policy is still in place all over, but now there is real pushback.

      Ironically, both peak woke and its resistance are Trump’s fault. Peak woke was a misguided response to their perception of Trump, and him telling wokists to fuck off is what started giving people the courage to fight back.

      It will still take a goodly while to finally eradicate wokeism, especially where it’s most deeply entrenched, but even while they still fire offensive volleys, they are on the defensive, even where they are most entrenched.

  9. Drake

    There have been many claimed discoveries of giant human skeletons over the years as well as references to them in the Bible and other ancient texts. The “scientific community” says they are all fakes or ignores them. There are tons of stories like this – including other finds in Nevada.

  10. Drake

    I assumed the music was going to be one of my guilty pleasures

    • SDF-7

      Yeah — that ran through my head when I saw the main page title too.

    • slumbrew

      Nothing guilty about that. That’s a jam.

      • Drake

        Somewhere back in time I went to buy her new album “Lovers Rock”. It came with “Lovers Live” DVD for pretty much free. That concert is great – used to be my Friday night decompression music.

    • SDF-7

      The Constitution is just a piece of paper — some other jackass.

      I say "The Imperial Presidency has to go" in my head — then I catch myself wishing we could have a Milei (sp?) who comes in and takes the chainsaw to FedGof (which would require an Imperial Presidency to do… or one hell of a landslide majority in both houses).

      I suppose I contain multitudes or something. PPP is still an asshole and the Dems think most of the country are chumps. So does the GOPe, unfortunately. And a lot of the "MAGA candidates"…. dare I think it has something to do with the type of person who seeks power looking down on those of us who don't? (black pill sun… won't you come…)

      • SDF-7

        Gorram stupid non-blockquote-closing frakkin’ moron between keyboard and chair…. sigh.

      • juris imprudent

        If you want it to stick, it will take Congress to do so. Spending has to be cut and the administration can’t do that unilaterally.

    • Sean

      Related?

      https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/04/activist-warns-democrats-stop-registering-young-voters-theyre/

      Influential data scientist Aaron Strauss sparked controversy in Democrat circles when he recently urged Democrat donors to stop registering young voters and black voters in the runup of the 2024 election – because they will likely vote for Trump.

      The black vote and youth vote is trending towards Trump in 2024 as Joe Biden continues his planned destruction of America’s economy, borders, and foreign policy.

    • rhywun

      Unbelievable

    • The Other Kevin

      I like to point this out whenever Biden says he can’t do anything about the border or anything else. He’s moving heaven and earth to get around the Supreme Court in order to buy votes. But somehow he can’t do anything about the border without congress.

  11. SDF-7

    I played https://squaredle.com/xp 04/05:
    *19/19 words (+2 bonus words)
    🎯 Perfect accuracy

    I played https://squaredle.com 04/05:
    *63/63 words (+5 bonus words)
    🎯 In the top 11% by accuracy
    🔥 Solve streak: 315

    • Sean

      I played https://squaredle.com/xp 04/05:
      *19/19 words (+16 bonus words)
      📖 In the top 1% by bonus words

      I played https://squaredle.com 04/05:
      *63/63 words (+16 bonus words)
      📖 In the top 14% by bonus words
      🔥 Solve streak: 216

  12. juris imprudent

    Well, today is my birthday, and I’m going to buy a new set of golf clubs to celebrate; as is appropriate for a man of leisure.

    • SDF-7

      Happy Birthday, JI. Have fun going clubbing!

    • Sean

      Happy birthday!

    • UnCivilServant

      Threw the last set in the water hazard?

      Anyway, have a happy birthday, even if being golfed.

      • juris imprudent

        Last set was stolen out of my car when I lived in CA. Hadn’t bothered replacing them until now. The funny thing is, I was super competitive about sports, and I took up golf to unlearn that. I knew I’d never be good enough to be competitive, so it was just a matter of playing the game for the pleasure of it.

    • pistoffnick (370HSSV)

      Happy Birthday, Old Fart!

    • Nephilium

      I’ve got under two weeks to mine. I’ve got two concerts planned (Slackers tomorrow, Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies in a couple weeks), a planned night at a local cocktail bar with friends/family on a Saturday set up, and (using work bonus moneys) a Steam Deck on the way.

      It’s strange to be in town instead of in Vegas (as we’re not doing Viva this year, which usually falls right around my birthday).

    • AlexinCT

      Happy Birthday. May you have many more.

    • bacon-magic

      Happy birthday!

    • Common Tater

      HBD 🙂

    • Beau Knott

      Happy B’day young man!

    • Tres Cool

      Happy Birthday!

    • rhywun

      🎂

      • Fourscore

        You are disgusting and repulsive. You’ll be missed at HH.

      • Pope Jimbo

        High praise indeed from the High Priest of the Bees!

        Maybe I could send a cardboard cutout of myself. You could set it up (far away from the work) next to the nice ladies from your high school class. I’ll put a burner phone or something on it so I can call and flirt with them. That would take care of 90% of the Honey Harvest activities for me. The last 10% is wheedling Kinnath for some of his mead.

    • The Other Kevin

      Happy birthday!

    • Fourscore

      Happy Birthday, Young Feller. May your day(s) be long and fruitful.

    • R.J.

      Happy birthday, you whippersnapper!

  13. prolefeed

    Re: Rhywun’s post about the percentage of trans in the population on the ded thred:

    “It’s way less than 0.1 percent, especially if you weed out the hangers-on.

    Anyway the numbers don’t matter. What matters are things like “smash the system” and “a boot stamping on your face forever.” It’s all fucking power-play and the perpetrators do not give the slightest flying fuck about facts or reason.”

    I think it’s closer to 1% of the population. Less than one in a thousand seems way low, since “weeding out the hangers-on” seems to be moving the goalposts. Mrs. Prole and I spent several days recently visiting my youngest kid, who is biologically female but identifies as male, including having their breasts removed and taking hormones. Their partner has a full beard and androgynous features and identifies as non-binary, but I’m pretty sure is also biologically female, since my youngest likes pussy.

    They are fairly militant about people not dead-naming them and all that rot, but seem sincere in their beliefs, unlike the politicals running the boot stomping thing.

    Mrs. Prole and I had a discussion about whether porn featuring a trans woman with a dick and an actual woman is lesbian porn or not, and also whether two trans women having sex is lesbian porn. Mrs. Prole has bought into the “you are whatever you say you are” thing on this and said both are lesbian porn.

    I said either you have XY or XX chromosome pairs in all of the trillion or so cells in your body, or you don’t, and thus trans woman and woman porn is straight porn, and trans/trans is gay male porn.

    We cordially agreed to disagreed, as reasonably well adjusted people who understand each other’s POV tend to do.

    • UnCivilServant

      From medical statistics, Prior to the incentives to skew the data in the recent trans trend, the numbers on gender dysphoria were well below 0.1%, Total non-hetero was under 3%. The ‘hangers on’ removal isn’t a moving of the goalposts, those are the vast majority of claimaints these days.

    • R C Dean

      Since the entire “gender identification” thing is 100% subjective, it’s impossible to sort out the ones that are “really” trans and those that are just victims of a social contagion.

      Also from the dedthred, though, don’t forget that “The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.” The social contagion is demoralization op, as is the militant activist demand for public “celebration/recognition” of transing and associated “identities”.

      • R C Dean

        Didn’t quite finish my thought – unlike many social contagions, which can be quietly left behind, transing that escalates to medical interventions causes irreversible damage.

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        Treatment for every other psychological condition involves helping the patient cope with reality as it is (e,g. treatment for depression is intended to help individuals understand that the world isn’t as bad as you perceive it to be), save for gender dysphoria which requires reality-altering treatment. This incongruity always confused me until I understood the destructive nature of post-modernism. Every norm, regardless of its import and function, must be destroyed even norms that they had previously advocated for must be torn apart. Chaos is the goal of these people.

    • Common Tater

      “Mrs. Prole and I spent several days recently visiting my youngest kid, who is biologically female but identifies as male, including having their breasts removed and taking hormones.”

      I hope that works out. FTM were always extremely rare.

      Anyway, no one knows what % of people are trans because the stats use different definitions.

      • prolefeed

        Something I was tempted to say but of course didn’t: “Y’all are lesbians who identify as gay men.”

      • B.P.

        Being gay doesn’t shock the squares anymore.

        I suspect the whole thing is stressful for y’all, and for that I’m sorry.

    • rhywun

      By hangers on I mean the sudden explosion of trans for attention esp. among teenage girls. Unless you believe they are medically trans, and is there even a widely accepted definition of that? , they don’t count.

  14. AlexinCT

    Election year bullshit. Over and under this gets drastically reduced in a few months as we find out it was over inflated and the jobs were not real?

    • juris imprudent

      Also not mentioned – labor force participation rate (still near all time low).

    • SDF-7

      Hasn’t every single jobs report been “adjusted” away from the “Good news!” side once the media cycle moves on for probably this entire PPP administration? Sure feels like it.

    • R C Dean

      A baffling labor market phenomenon I discussed with my former HR VP a few days ago:

      Younger workers (mainly) are still not willing to take full-time jobs – they like 0.6 FTE positions. How they are paying the bills with inflation running the way it is, is a complete mystery. Their parents are dealing with the same inflation, so cadging off of them has to be running out of road. The HR world expected inflation to do away with this particular trend, but so far it hasn’t.

      How Our Masters are using this phenomenon to buff up their employment/unemployment reports, I couldn’t say, but I am sure they are.

      • prolefeed

        If my youngest kid is any indication, one of their parents is subsidizing their lack of full time employment, and they are happy to do a soft Failure To Launch since they’re receiving an incentive to do so.

        That, and some are selling weed or pussy or whatever on the side to pay the bills.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        My son just graduated college. He doesn’t want a full time job. He’s working part time as a cashier at a pet store. He lives at home and needs to continue to make car payments to me. We also will start charging rent. I really don’t know what his plan is. He seems to think he will live with us until we die so he can have our house. When we push him to look for something that pays more he strikes a pose of not caring about money, but he sure likes things that money can buy. And he expects to have those things like a birthright.

  15. Pope Jimbo

    Uffda. Minnesoda is progressing to Phase 2 of Utopia.

    Minnesota Democrats are considering launching a basic income pilot program that would send $500 monthly payments to low-income families — no strings attached.

    It mirrors a project in the city of St. Paul during the pandemic that gave the same extra cash boost to 150 randomly selected families whose income was at or below 300% of the federal poverty line. A study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found participants in the program improved their financial stability and savings and the number of people employed increased by 14%, even after payments expired.

    “This program would serve as a demonstration project that unconditional cash payments made directly to families can work in every corner of the state,” said Rep. Athena Hollins, DFL-St. Paul, who authored the legislation.

    The bill would establish a grant program where local and tribal governments and nonprofits could administer the $500 monthly payments for at least 18 months. It’s defined as a stipend, not as income, so it doesn’t impact enrollment in other state assistance.

    Rep. Spencer Igo, R-Wabana Township, said he is concerned about a provision prohibiting administrators of the grant funding from asking for proof of residency or citizenship, or any other identifying documentation when enrolling people into the program.

    Sigh. The DFL wants $100M for this program. The GOP is going to stand tall and make sure it is only $5M. What heroes!

    • UnCivilServant

      You’re not permitted, those berries are a food source for protected local fauna!

      Unrelated, I did leave an appology or two in the overnight thread for getting out of sorts at you. Not sure if you saw any.

      • Common Tater

        No problem 🙂

        I could have explained things better.

      • Pope Jimbo

        You can’t accept an apology!!!!

        Do any of you know how comment sections on the internet work?

      • UnCivilServant

        I have a policy on appologies. I will make them if A: I truely believe I did something that warranted it, and B: I believe that there is a meaninful chance of acceptance and reconciliation.

        Some people don’t get appologies as they take it as justification to keep attacking.

        Some times I just don’t think I’ve done anything wrong.

      • R.J.

        Oh, I gotta go read this. Clearly I missed drama!

      • UnCivilServant

        Not really. It’s not as entertaining as you’d want

      • Pope Jimbo

        You can’t apologize! That isn’t how the internet works!!!!!

    • SDF-7

      Don’t care. Fuck off.

    • Nephilium

      Well, it’s a good thing that I wear my jeans more than once, isn’t it.

      • prolefeed

        I buy my jeans non-pre-worn aka dark indigo blue, and wear them until they rip somewhere that makes them non-functional. This rarely results in the stylish kind of still-functional rips that people inexplicably pay extra for.

      • UnCivilServant

        I haven’t worn jeans in decades, but when I did, a new pair had better still be a few wash cycles before it stops staining everything blue from the remaining dye.

    • Pope Jimbo

      The problem with berry picking in the nude is way too many OSHA complaints from men as “non-berries” get plucked by workers not paying attention.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Repurposed burlap potato sacks only. Sounds like bullshit and I don’t care anyway.

      • Sean

        Sounds like bullshit and I don’t care anyway.

        +1

      • slumbrew

        Is next, eeevenink wear! Very nice!

      • Fourscore

        Blue jeans, or any other color, are day/evening wear. All Season.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Hot take? Fast fashion is a terrible industry and bad for the environment.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      Picking dingleberries will be easier without those jeans.

    • R.J.

      So glad the authorities are getting such dangerous criminals off the street. Our borders must stay safe and secure.

      • AlexinCT

        AOC – a.k.a. the Big Booty Latina – didn’t want the competition…

      • prolefeed

        If this is what they were doing: “The injectable silicone oil (breaks) off into smaller particles throughout the body, possibly causing permanent damage and life-threatening complications such as stroke, embolism and even death”, then that would be malpractice and possibly depraved indifference to life.

        If they were doing something safe and this was about the medical cartel trying to tamp down competition from amateurs, then I’d GAF.

      • R.J.

        Sure, it’s unsafe. In the grand scheme of issues coming back and forth across the border it is laughable chump change. Agreed they should be stopped before people are hurt, but the fact it happened on the border is incredible irony.

    • ron73440

      surgically-enhanced

      Nothing about that is enhanced.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      You don’t need expensive injections to be a lardass.

      • The Gunslinger

        Have you checked the price on a package of Oreos lately?

      • Sean

        I don’t know the price, but they are buy two get one free this month at the grocery store.

  16. The Late P Brooks

    According to archaeologists, the story is likely an exaggeration of the facts or even an outright fabrication – but some of the pieces of evidence continue to encourage believers.

    The archaeological evidence does, however, prove they were homosexuals.

    • AlexinCT

      Is that why the Mayans, Incas, and other tribes that just “disappeared” went bust?

      • UnCivilServant

        The Maya are still around.

        Go to Yucatan and you’ll find them, still using the Mayan language alongside Spanish.

      • AlexinCT

        Are they still gaying it up?

      • Not Adahn

        The native prostitutes were completely willing to service Cortez’s troops. So they were less racist than the Japanese.

    • ron73440

      The archaeological evidence does, however, prove they were homosexuals.

      And trans!

  17. Not Adahn

    Is the claim that Homer was predicting Byzantine shipwrecks, or are they using some sort of Bible Code thingy on the Iliad?

    • Muzzled Woodchipper

      Whatever it is, it’s all just bluster.

      The Iliad was written (I’m using a very loose definition of written here) around 750AD about events that took place at least 1200 years before. The idea that it could lead them to something substantively from the Iliad is retarded. The idea that the Aegean has been used by ships for trading for thousands of years and that you could pick just about any island and find sunken ships is far more likely, while grabbing headlines claiming they used the Iliad as a guide.

      • B.P.

        Didn’t read the article, but maybe they followed the trade routes referenced in The Iliad. Which just happen to be the same shipping lanes as now, and for the millennia in between.

    • Pope Jimbo

      So if fusion does take off, how will the environmentalists handle it?

      I guess they could still whine and complain about the skyrocketing mining (need those metals) to meet demand for EV batteries.

      They would also probably demand that the electrical grid not be upgraded to allow fusion-generated electricity to be sent to the plebes.

      • SDF-7

        The Second Law says that “Heat Pollution” will always be an option for them.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Do you know how hot a fusion reactor gets? Talk about your man-made climate change!

      • Drake

        ^This

        Larry Niven talked about it before lefties heard of climate change.

  18. Not Adahn

    EARFQUAKE!!!!!!

    • UnCivilServant

      I suppose so if NA felt it.

    • Nephilium

      Man, you guys are really behind.

  19. UnCivilServant

    Huh.

    The building just shook, and not in the “Truck passing” kind of way.

    I wonder if we’ve had one of those rare east coast earthquakes.

    • UnCivilServant

      From reports the epicenter was somewhere in the PA/NJ area. Reading a 5.0.

      I know we have several people around there.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I hope any Glibsters in the area call you out for saying that we “have” them. Like they are an orphan or something.

      • Sean

        Apparently a couple field crews in Philly just reported it to us.

        I didn’t notice anything where I’m at though. And I’m not too far from there.

      • Dr Mossy Lawn

        It was fairly loud here in Northern NJ, and My friend lives about 5 miles from the epicenter.. nothing fell off shelves..

      • Not Adahn

        No damage detected here. Oddly enough one floor of one building panicked and evacuated while everyone else stayed in place.

        I will admit having completely forgotten our earthquake protocols.

      • UnCivilServant

        I heard office rumors that some of the towers evacuated, but it might be some people from some of the towers evacuated, because there has been zero official communication.

        I mean, who doesn’t trust fifty year old skyscrapers built by the lowest bidders and maintained by state workers?

  20. The Late P Brooks

    Headline: “Is it safe to drive during a solar eclipse?”

    We’ve gone back to the Dark Ages.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Have we learned nothing from the enlightened environmentalists?

      IT IS NEVER SAFE TO DRIVE!

      Driving kills Mother Gaia.

    • R.J.

      Amazing. Cars even have automatic headlights now. Is the risk that priests in hooded robes and sacrificial daggers will fall from the sky?

    • Nephilium

      There was a local headline that was “Do I need to get eclipse glasses for my dogs?”

      • UnCivilServant

        No, dogs are not so stupid as to look directly at the sun.

      • Nephilium

        That was the entire point of the article, just spread out over 4-5 paragraphs.

      • UnCivilServant

        I saved you skimming 4-5 Paragraphs of filler text.

    • The Other Kevin

      Most people are unfamiliar with driving in the dark.

    • Timeloose

      We felt it as well. A lot like the 2011 one.

      • Pope Jimbo

        When we visited relatives in Kobe, Japan in 1996, the damage from the big earthquake there was still massive. It was really amazing how much damage was done.

        The bridge from mainland to the manmade island my sister-in-law lives on was still down, so it was ferry traffic.

        The sister-in-law got a deal on their house because everyone was convinced that the island would sink in the next big earthquake. It passed with colors. Hardly anything on the island was damaged.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Shuddup and tell me how Trump caused this!

      Also, New Madrid fault next?

      • Sensei

        There is a lot of NYC exposure on that one!

    • slumbrew

      Apparently you could feel it here in Massholia. I probably just assumed it was a passing truck.

      • Ted S.

        I felt it, but I live close enough to railroad tracks that I thought it was a bigger train than usual.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        That was my first thought when the Loma Prieta quake hit in 1989. “Man, that’s a big train!”

    • ron73440

      Speaking of earthquakes, the one that hit Taiwan triggered a tsunami warning on my wife’s home island, Okinawa.

      They warned a 3m wave was in bound.

      In reality there was no tsunami on the main island, the furthest outlying island had a 30cm one.

      The officials then admitted they exaggerated because no one would have listened if they told the truth.

      This really pisses me off, because next time when there is a real one people will be less inclined to listen because of this.

      Apparently, they should read The Boy Who Cried Wolf

      CWABOA

      • Sensei

        “The officials then admitted they exaggerated because no one would have listened if they told the truth.”

        Sigh…

        The loss in Tohoku still makes me so sad.

    • WTF

      Odds on the usual suspects blaming it on Climate Change?

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        Fracking is to blame.

      • ron73440

        I told my boss it was Climate Change, but he didn’t get the joke.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    But… but…

    Special counsel Jack Smith could soon seek to have the judge presiding over the case of former President Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents recused, prosecutors and defense attorneys warn, pressed to “breaking point” over arguments his office said could taint a trial irrevocably.

    Smith faulted Judge Aileen Cannon in a scathing rebuke for seeming to take at face value Trump’s “fundamentally flawed” claim around a president’s official and personal records when she asked both sides to put forth two competing versions of instructions for jurors in the case and said her request would “distort” the trial. Smith indicated in that filing that if Cannon ruled against federal prosecutors, this could be a trigger for an appeal to the Eleventh Circuit that could remove her from the case.

    Everybody knows the trial judge is supposed to be an appendage of the prosecution, whose duty is to do everything possible to facilitate a conviction.

    • R.J.

      Wow.
      Jack is a douche, yet this goes beyond mere douchery.

  22. The Late P Brooks

    “He is close to pushing the nuclear button,” said Palm Beach County State Attorney David Aronberg. “It is a high burden to reach, and it is rarely done, but her proposed jury instructions may have pushed him to the breaking point.”

    “Get me somebody who knows her place! This was supposed to be a slam dunk.”

  23. The Late P Brooks

    The judge also called “unjust” Smith’s request for a prompt ruling on whether the legal premise behind her request is a “correct formulation of the law.” She then appeared to thumb her nose at the special counsel.

    “As always, any party remains free to avail itself of whatever appellate options it sees fit to invoke, as permitted by law,” Cannon added.

    How completely outrageous. She should be evenhanded and dispassionate, like that consummate pro, Engoron.

    • Pope Jimbo

      I can’t believe she has let Jack get uppity like this.

      Most judges are pretty thin-skinned when it comes to how attorneys act in their court. As in, if you don’t worship me like a god, I’m going to cite you for contempt and ruin your career.

  24. Ted S.

    I hope Sensei and Großpatzer survived the earthquake!

    • UnCivilServant

      Well, Sensei has posted since, so he’s around.

    • WTF

      Hey, I survived too! I thought it was a passing truck rumbling by to be honest. It did get the dogs barking, though.

      • UnCivilServant

        With the road just outside my window, I hear more detailed noise when trucks rumble by. The quake was mich quieter in an auditory sense and a smoother vibration – a more regular wave than the ‘noisy’ variance in a passing truck.

        Otherwise, I would have dismissed it as well.

      • Not Adahn

        This one felt considerably different than the earlier one — that had a noticeable L wave, while this one was an S. Again though, the building might have changed what got transmitted to me this time.

      • UnCivilServant

        If I recall I was on the seventh floor of an office building during the last one and it had a sine wave quality to the shake. Don’t know how much was the architecture versus the ground.

  25. KSuellington

    I know Reddit is a leftist hive mind dump, but I go there often to check out the dual sport motorcycle group. This caught my attention on the main page from the “Fluent in Finance” sub. Not only was the original post stupid, but the comments were unsurprisingly a morass of idiocy. I did think I would find at least one person who would be able to figure out the basic math problem presented (along with having a rudimentary knowledge of how taxes work) but alas I was unable to find one single comment that did. If the dividing line of 28% and 33% marginal tax rates was say 100k, then than extra dollar in income to me would be quite a substantial increase. I guess I am one of those dumb Republicans.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/FluentInFinance/comments/1bvlr7d/our_schools_failed_us/

    • UnCivilServant

      Oh noes, I went from paying $28K on $99,999 to $28k on $100,000

      • UnCivilServant

        Or, with rounding removed…

        Oh noes, I went from paying $27,999.72 on $99,999 to $28,000.05 on $100,000

    • Fatty Bolger

      Misunderstanding how marginal rates work is pretty common, on both sides of the political divide. If you go into the 33% rate, you don’t pay 33% on your entire income. You only pay it on the income above the 28% rate, which stops at 100K. So only the income above 100K is taxed at the 33% rate.

      • Fatty Bolger

        I meant to say “100K in this example.” Of course the real dividing line is whatever the government sets it to.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Biden is going to go admire the rubble of that bridge in Baltimore. I hope somebody asks him why he’s pissing billions away on Green New Deal fantasies instead of fixing roads and bridges.

    • The Other Kevin

      This is the perfect opportunity for him to point out the Republicans keep standing in the way of a $2 trillion shovel-ready infrastructure bill.

      • ron73440

        Didn’t he pass an “infrastructure” bill?

        I remember critics saying there was no real infrastructure in there, but that was all hand waved away because of the awesomeness of Biden.

      • The Other Kevin

        Yes that’s exactly the type of bill.

    • AlexinCT

      How much graft can you get from fixing broken things? You can really get a lot from that green cult on the other hand.

  27. Sensei

    Why must it take so long to get to the actual point of the article?

    But ruralness is not reducible to rage. And to say so is to overlook the nuanced ways in which rural Americans engage in politics. They are driven by a sense of place, community and often, a desire for recognition and respect. This, as I have recently argued in a new book, is the defining aspect of the rural-urban divide — a sense of shared fate among rural voters, what academics call a “politics of place,” that is expressed as a belief in self-reliance, rooted in local community and concerned that rural ways of living will soon be forced to disappear.

    In recent years, that rural political identity has morphed into resentment — a collective grievance against experts, bureaucrats, intellectuals and the political party that seeks to empower them, Democrats.

    Yes, such resentment is a real phenomenon in rural areas. But words matter; rage and resentment are not interchangeable terms. Rage implies irrationality, anger that is unjustified and out of proportion. You can’t talk to someone who is enraged. Resentment is rational, a reaction based on some sort of negative experience. You may not agree that someone has been treated unfairly, but there is room to empathize.

    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/05/white-rural-rage-myth-00150395

    • The Other Kevin

      It’s almost like people make shit up in order to advance their politics.

  28. Certified Public Asshat

    I know Pie will post his tweets, but what do other Glibs think about Richard Hanania? He’s on Malice’s podcast this week and he confirms my own opinion which is, he sucks.

    • UnCivilServant

      Name does not ring a bell. Sorry.

      • Not Adahn

        Midwit with delusions of intellectualism. Like so. Many. Others.

      • UnCivilServant

        I wish I could qualify for that. Right now I’m only a halfwit.

      • R.J.

        Same. No idea.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        This was a test to see who clicks on Pie’s links.

      • UnCivilServant

        Well, twitter doesn’t load properly from work, so Not on any office day. On other days… it depends.

  29. Not Adahn

    This one felt a lot stronger than the one from 2011? 2012?

    But I’m assuming that might have something to do with me being on the top floor of a modern building. They’re supposed to sway a lot, right?

    • UnCivilServant

      Modern buildings are built to sway to reduce damage from such shocks.

      Also, this one was a lot closer than the 2011 Virginia quake.

      • robc

        Was the 2011 quake the one that led to the chair falling over, never forget meme?

      • Not Adahn

        Yup.

      • Sensei

        I actually have a closet the barely stays latched that DID decide to open.

        And one very light thing fell off a shelf.

      • robc

        YOU WILL REBUILD!

      • Not Adahn

        I’m sure my ball bearing collection is in complete disarray.

      • UnCivilServant

        I’m sure you’ll get your bearings before you wander too far.

      • Gender Traitor

        And one very light thing fell off a shelf.

        I blame an opportunistic cat.

      • Nephilium

        And the “We Will Rebuild!” meme.

    • Sensei

      Yes. The idea is the bend instead of breaking.

      I’ve been on the top floors of the old WTC 1 and WTC 2 and you could see coffee sloshing around in your cup and in the toilets on heavy windy days.

      They would also shut down every other elevator in extreme cases as the cars would bump each other.

  30. robc

    4 draws in the Open section of the Candidates Tournament yesterday, day 2 is this afternoon.

    Big result was between the two Americans. Nakamura made a dubious move with black on move 5. There were 3 standard moves in the position, and he went outside the box. It led to Caruana having a slight edge in the middle game but being about 40 minutes behind on the clock. He couldnt hold the edge under time pressure and Nakamura got the draw, which is a good result with the black pieces against the world #2.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    In recent years, that rural political identity has morphed into resentment — a collective grievance against experts, bureaucrats, intellectuals and the political party that seeks to empower them, Democrats.

    And of course we must proceed based on the inevitable conclusion that those various titans of intellectualism are irrefutably correct. Shut up, you ignorant hicks, they explained.

    • Sensei

      He’s actually a bit more nuanced and constructive in trying to help Team Blue.

  32. Common Tater

    “Mark Levine, Manhattan Borough President, said after Maron speaking up at a District 2 meeting, “The MAGA movement has come to Manhattan.”

    Levine’s dismissive language completely disempowers female athletes, reinforcing the notion that speaking up will only result in being smeared as a MAGA queen — another deplorable to toss in the basket.

    “If a parent or a girl sees what happens to a parent like me, in what universe would they feel comfortable saying, ‘I have a concern’?” Maron said. “I don’t see how our girls have any path going forward.”

    Their path in the Big Apple — where pink pussy hats and “The future is female” shirts were once the feminist uniform — is, apparently, to shut up.”

    https://nypost.com/2024/04/04/opinion/parents-who-want-to-protect-girls-sports-slammed-as-maga/

    Sports were segregated by sex before Trump was born.

  33. Drake

    Why not just let the trans play boy’s sports and be done with it?

    • UnCivilServant

      Most of them left boys sports because they couldn’t hack it.

    • ron73440

      I don’t think they want to.

      While a trans woman is stronger than a real woman, wouldn’t the drugs they take make them weker than a normal guy?

      Not saying that that shouldn’t be the rule, I’ve always figured if you are trans you should be on the male team, either way you are transitioning.

      I am glad none of this insanity was around when my daughter was an above average volleyball and basketball player.

      If she had gotten hurt by some dude playing dress up, I might have lost my mind on that dude.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        The point is affirmation.

    • Common Tater

      Choices have consequences. Not everything is open to everyone. If someone decides to transition, then they are deciding to forgo other things, including sex-segregated sports.

    • UnCivilServant

      I want more detail on the “gene hacking” done.

      I’m glad it’s functioning, but that’s not the most interesting part.

  34. The Late P Brooks

    The people doing the work of protecting democracy in rural America recognized this immediately. The morning of the MSNBC interview, I woke up to a mountain of messages and threads from rural organizers, community activists and local officials from across the country. Each one was distressed over what they considered the authors’ harsh and hurtful accusations about the communities they cherish and strive to uplift.

    I don’t see much future in trying to wade through a steaming morass of egghead-speak.

    • Sensei

      Says the guy in flyover country. 😉

  35. The Late P Brooks

    What the authors are getting wrong about rural America is exactly what many Democrats have been getting wrong for decades — and appear to be doing so again in this critical presidential election year.

    Let’s not pretend they “get it wrong” by accident.

  36. Yusef drives a Kia

    So, I heard you guys had a little quake, wasn’t it fun?

    • UnCivilServant

      The worst part was trying to figure out if it was a quake.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Ground floor you can tell, up in a high building should be obvious,
        But YMMV

  37. kinnath

    Regarding white rural rage . . . . . . . self edited . . . .

    Well, hello, spooks. How ya doing today?

  38. The Late P Brooks

    Says the guy in flyover country.

    I am steadfast in my ignorance and anti-intellectualism.