Saturday Morning Filter Links

by | Nov 16, 2024 | Daily Links | 186 comments

I have a systematic approach to avoiding complete madness from NPR Ladies based on stage-gate principles. If things seem like they’re going well (and indeed they have been with the latest one), I stress test it. My first filter is WebDom and l0b0t- if she can deal with them and vice versa, we can keep going. If I had used this as a filter before, Tomb Raider would not have survived. The next gate, a much tougher one, is SugarFree. Yes, he’s charming, articulate, and funny, a sincerely nice person, BUT… there’s emanations that will trigger a Prog (his current bio is lifted word for word from a Tomb Raider rant about him). But first things first, Next Ex is having dinner tonight with the kids and me, and we’ll see if we survive the experience.

Of course, to survive, you need to be born, and people who did so on this date include a pioneer of the mullet; a guy who one-upped Laplace; a guy who really should have been born in a Blue state; the mother of the infomercial; the only true penguin; the second most famous voice in cartoons (maybe third, but it’s close); a guy who fucked over Erich Segal, which would make him one of my heroes even if he hadn’t written some amazing books and made us who we are today; yet another incredibly successful head-scratching mediocrity; one of many who experienced the Cosby Cock; and the Muslim Whitman of whom no good Progressive will speak.

The Links are unfiltered.

All ears left intact.

 “…may advocate for reduced funding for international agencies…” The real reason for the screaming.

It’s Washington, so expect zero consequences.

The UN guy prosecuting Israel is apparently Harvey Weinstein.

When your voice of reason is the brain-damaged guy, you have a lot of self-examination to do.

Go east, yunger boychick.

This is how you know they’re guilty.

I always loved the irony of rockers bemoaning the onslaught of technology played with synthesizers, stacks of amps, and electronic drums. Ah well, this is still a great classic. But… what is Greg Lake chewing on?

About The Author

Old Man With Candy

Old Man With Candy

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

186 Comments

  1. SDF-7

    Morning, OMWC – Morning all. Thanks for reminding me I need to change the house water line particulate filter… (gumbles about the insanely hard water in these parts…)

    • rhywun

      Perhaps the best thing about NYC that I miss now was the wonderfully clean water there. I am not used to the spotty, messy water than I deal with now.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        My water is exceptionally hard. I totally need a softener. Never had to deal with that previous to living in KY.

      • LCDR_Fish

        In my region of Northern Neck VA (King George and Westmoreland counties), the default water was weirdly soft – pretty irritating for showering but you slowly get used to it). Not sure about proximity to the Potomac or something else – taste and everything else seemed pretty good.

  2. SDF-7

    Next Ex is having dinner tonight with the kids and me, and we’ll see if we survive the experience.

    Here’s hoping you two crazy kids can make it work.

    • juris imprudent

      Wondering now on the theoretical possibility of a Schrodinger’s NPR Lady. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow when the cat is out of the box.

      • SDF-7

        Wait — I thought when it came to ladies, the cat is the box and you just never know before the date if you’ll be inside it…..

        (apologies in advance to our female Glibs… I know that was kind of a bad way to start a Saturday — but it was teed up too beautifully to ignore).

      • Gender Traitor

        apologies in advance to our female Glibs

        That’s OK. We’re used to the fact that you Glibboys can’t think outside the box. (Of course, you can’t think INside the box, so…)

      • juris imprudent

        Well played GT, well played.

      • Tonio

        Nice zinger, GT.

    • Fourscore

      You’ve survived so far, it only makes you stronger, OM

  3. SDF-7

    The real reason for the screaming.

    That said “international agencies” were part of setting bullshit standards everyone before 2020 called bullshit, were known wrong since at least 1918 — and their response was to try to lock into treaty that WHO could take global exclusive control whenever they declared it needed just might have something to do with why folks want him to succeed, ya whiners.

    That one of the champions of the “global vaccine movement” is Gates and he’s firmly in the “you are the carbon we want to reduce” camp might be another.

    TL;DR — You blew your own credibility, idiots. And now people are questioning your health regimes across the board — pay that piper.

    • juris imprudent

      The island nation already had a lagging measles vaccination rate of only about a third of infants, plummeting from 90 percent in 2013. Health experts attributed that drop in part to a public health scandal in which two nurses improperly mixed the measles vaccine with the wrong liquid, resulting in the deaths of two infants.

      But SERIOUSLY, that had nothing to do with vaccine hesitancy at all!

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        IT WAS RFKJ, AND TOTALLY NOT THE DEAD KIDS THAT DUNNIT!

      • cavalier973

        How many children died of the measles that year?

      • Pat

        Does the Samoan government offer blanket immunity from any and all product liability to vaccine makers, instead offering a pool of public money to settle claims for damages, which goes chronically unfunded because the government rarely ever acknowledges claims for damages and doesn’t have to follow legal procedure for ordinary torts? Asking for a friend.

    • Suthenboy

      The drawback of ‘money and power always find each other’ is that each of them requires a completely different set of skills and thinking.
      Gates: Dude, get an expensive hobby, go away and shut the fuck up.

    • DrOtto

      RFK killing kids by letting parents decide is stepping on Gates’ toes of killing kids by mandate.

  4. ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

    If you don’t want a Samoa outbreak, don’t dip them in milk!

  5. SDF-7

    The UN guy prosecuting Israel is apparently Harvey Weinstein.

    Did he come up through the Blue Helmets? (In other words… it is the UN — why should anyone be surprised?)

  6. Muzzled Woodchipper

    In musical (synthesizer) applications that “Band Reject” filter is called a Notch filter.

    *Useless knowledge of the day*

      • SDF-7

        Useful when they need to get their mojo rising.

      • Tres Cool

        You don’t need a filter. What you need is Mo’ Mojo.

        Fun fact- I know the accordion player/redhead/singer

      • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

        That is a concertina, Tres. Not an accordion.

      • Tres Cool

        I climb smokestacks for a living. Cut me some slack.

      • Gender Traitor

        I thought a concertina was the little octagonal thing playing La Vie En Rose over the obligatory establishing shot of the Eiffel Tower at the beginning of every film ever set in Paris. They come in other shapes, too?

      • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

        I will accept that defense.

      • Ted S.

        I don’t remember the establishing shot of the Eiffel Tower in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. :-p

      • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

        Yes, GT. Apparently, every different Euro nation had there on varietal, and while most are hexagonal, some
        (especially the German type) are square.

  7. ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

    ““So you really have to chill out, and you’re going to have to be more discerning or discriminate on what’s going to freak you out, or what’s just trolling,” he added. “Because it’s not the weather, it’s the climate now for the next four years.” ”

    Now that’s trolling!

  8. rhywun

    his current bio is lifted word for word from a Tomb Raider rant about him

    Glorious.

    • SDF-7

      It must have been a well-crofted rant.

  9. SDF-7

    Go east, yunger boychick.

    Um… yeah… No offence to Eastern Europe — but given how places like Poland were in the 1920s and 1930s and then in the 1940s, I wouldn’t be banking heavily on them not turning on a dime. Yeah, if they haven’t imported a ton from North Africa / The Middle East they might be better — but Eastern European Christians aren’t exactly known for semitic tolerance either.

    I wish I could say the US is locked in as a good destination, but look at the Washington story. If we don’t get a handle on our own radicals, we’re not going to be much better than Europe.

    • juris imprudent

      Yes, the irony that Germany was a bastion of tolerance at the time that France was embroiled in the Dreyfus affair.

    • rhywun

      The article was pay-blocked for me so hard to judge the extent of the relative “safety”. But yeah, it’s gotta be better than the western countries mentioned.

      As for Christians, I wonder how Christian they really are anymore, and how that plays.

    • Chafed

      At least we have the Second Amendment.

  10. Ted S.

    a guy who really should have been born in a Blue state

    Happy birthday Thomas Gainsborough!

    • SDF-7

      Happy birthday Chris Wink, Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton?

  11. Muzzled Woodchipper

    The short-term impact of influential anti-vaccine rhetoric is the loss of trust in public health authorities, said Helen Petousis-Harris[.]

    I’m not anti-vaccine,* (I find most anti-vaxxers to be at least a little cooky), and I have zero trust in public health “authorities.” The public health establishment did that all by themselves.

    *Real vaccines, not the bullshit covid “vaccine.”

    • juris imprudent

      I have very little trust in a corporation that has been given a 100% liability shield BY THE FUCKING GOVT.

      • Suthenboy

        Yeah, that is what I refer to as a red flag, i.e. a dead give away.

    • trshmnstr

      I’m not anti-vax in theory, but I am modern vax skeptical. I don’t see the point in giving small children shots for lifestyle diseases or for illnesses that are very low risk. I don’t like that many of the vaccines were developed with the help of the abortion industry. I don’t like that some less concerning variants of the vaccines (such as the individual measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines) are unavailable in the US and we’re forced to use the more concerning variants. I don’t like the sheer number of shots given to small infants.

      Frankly, I don’t trust these people, and so we have defaulted to no vaccines for us and our kids. We’ll do a tetanus shot if necessary. That’s about it. Maybe if I trusted the medical industry even a smidgen, I’d be more discerning and come up with a list of okay vaccines, but I adjudge that it’s more likely they’re lying to me about the safety of a particular shot than my child suffering permanent consequences from some rare third world bug.

      • Pat

        It’s worth pointing out that we’re afforded the luxury of skepticism in large part because previous generations of effective vaccines have rendered basically moot many childhood illnesses that were once ubiquitous and debilitating. The risk calculation of getting your kids the MMR vaccine is a lot different in 2024 when 90% of the population has been inoculated and isn’t spreading measles, mumps or rubella, than if 10% of the population were vaccinated and your kid had a 1 in 50 chance of becoming crippled, blind, or dead. Undermining public trust in that kind of basic risk mitigation will last for at least a generation. All because a group of technocratic jizz mops decided they didn’t like having to live with the outcome of an election that didn’t go their way. Or, in the most charitable interpretation, all because a group of technocratic jizz mops were so myopically focused on a narrow set of metrics in risk mitigation for a virus that was never anywhere near as harmful as the policies they were proposing.

      • hayeksplosives

        My current doc was planning to have me take the flu vax, shingles vax, and a pneumonia vax until we discussed my allergy to the tetanus vax.

        Then he said “Forget the vaccines then. Not worth the risk.”

        Ok, doc. 🤷‍♀️

      • LCDR_Fish

        Concur with Pat. Generational progression loses perspective. I remember hearing stories about how the oral polio vaccine was one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century – compared to those pics of kids in iron lungs, etc.

        Got the smallpox shot before deployment in 2005.

        Don’t forget that as much as we want to assume these things have been wiped out, we’re still seeing periodic outbreaks of all these diseases worldwide (sometimes due to bad actor actions by our government trying to track down Bin Laden in Pakistan, etc) – or anti-semitic conspiracies in Africa, etc – due to extended periods of groups not taking these vaccines. That’s how we start getting TB outbreaks in North America in certain populations, etc.

    • Drake

      I was pro vax when it was a dozen or so during childhood. Now it’s out of hand.

      Uncle Sam poisoning me with an experimental anthrax vax didn’t help my opinion of vaccines, pharma, or government “health”.

      • juris imprudent

        Immunizing children against hepatitis is malpractice, end of story.

    • DrOtto

      Both of my kids got the regular vaccinations as children, you could not pay me to vaccinate them in today’s world. You are correct, they broke that trust over their knee and burned it in fire.

      • juris imprudent

        Priests do not like having their authority challenged.

  12. PieInTheSky

    It is a nice day by the lake. I had some overpriced lamb chops – damn irish bastards – a nice feteasca neagra and now i am on some guatemalan coffee. 9C and sunny. Despite several sub zero nights and some frosts there is still a decent amount of leaves on the trees. How is the leaf situation round your parts?

    https://photos.app.goo.gl/NH4WaFLpAuUTxVUc7

      • PieInTheSky

        Black girls not fetuses

    • PieInTheSky

      Ususally there are more coots than ducks on the lake but i counted 16 ducks and 13 coots just now

      • SDF-7

        So the old coots are outnumbered by the quacks? Sounds about right.

    • SDF-7

      They’re just starting to fall — in the subdivision, the trees here just go straight to dark purple or brown, so nothing much to see. The surrounding hills have been brown scrub grass since March of last year… so again, nothing much to see.

      One benefit to replacing/upgrading some of the external security cameras on the GA house when I was there over the summer, I did get some shots across the driveway of actual fall colors. The leaves have pretty much all fallen there now, but I have my desktop wallpaper set to one from the beginning of the month that had some oranges and yellows at least. Plus one of the feral cats that runs across my driveway and porch from time to time. (I enjoy the cats — I wish the opossum that keeps doing it would find another home, but I suppose it is harmless enough…)

    • Gender Traitor

      Looks lovely where you are! Around here, the leaves are mostly down. The small successor to our dearly departed magnolia (AKA “Baby Groot”) seemed to drop its leaves all at once, just as its progenitor always did – if I’d been home and/or paying attention, I might have heard the THUMP.

      • PieInTheSky

        the magnolia here is also leafless

    • Pat

      damn irish bastards

      I resemble that remark!

      How is the leaf situation round your parts?

      Half green, half brown, dropping sporadically, with the only predictability in their fall pattern being that the timing always coincides with my finally picking the last batch of them out from the gap between the hood of my car and the windshield.

      • PieInTheSky

        irish lamb chops should be cheaper than new zeeland lamb chops.

    • Old Man With Candy

      On the ground.

      Some sparkling wine tonight to go with Szechuan hotpot.

      • PieInTheSky

        hotpot – can you even handle spice?

    • R C Dean

      What are these leafs of which you speak?

      • PieInTheSky

        leaves… whatever… language redundancy

      • Pat
      • PieInTheSky

        puck figure skating is gay

    • DEG

      How is the leaf situation round your parts?

      Almost all down. A few oaks, my linden, and one maple are holding onto some of their leaves. The rest of the trees are bare.

      I’d spend the day cleaning up leaves, but it is too windy. I’d be running the leaf blower into the wind.

  13. Pat

    the only true penguin

    Happy birthday Tux?

    • Pat

      yet another incredibly successful head-scratching mediocrity

      Happy birthday Donald Trump?

      • Pat

        the Muslim Whitman

        Walt, Slim, or Charles?

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        Say what you will about him, but his ability to survive a full-on attack from all angles by virtually every international establishment in existence, including the full might of the USG, is fucking awe inspiring.

        Staged impeachments, lawfare ramped to 11, nonstop slander, and a couple of assassination attempts, plus more, and not only did he survive to fight another day, he came through stronger for it.

      • Pat

        All true. I don’t hate Trump. I’ve just never been a fan of his shtick, even long before he got involved in politics.

      • juris imprudent

        If you don’t hate Trump, you must love him, and if you don’t love him you must hate him. These are the only acceptable stances with regard to Trump.

      • Pat

        As a political figure, I honest to god to this very day still don’t get how Trump gets both his admirers and detractors so animated. I’ve never seen such hullaballoo over such an innocuously humdrum politician in my life. The nearest comparison I can call to mind is Reagan, and even there the polarization makes more historical sense in light of the politics of the Cold War. At least the left hated Bush the Less based on their pretended opposition to his warmongering. Even if you disagreed with them, you could at least go “Yeah, well, he did start a war unnecessarily.” The reaction to Trump is like following the fry cook home from McDonald’s and beating him to death with a tire iron because he forgot to hold the pickles on your Big Mac.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        I see his appeal.

        People have been absolutely badgered by the D establishment since at least 2008. By the end of Obama’s term, and 8 straight years of telling the people how disappointed he is in us, wokeism was beginning its reign of terror, ramping up the rhetoric and drawing clear lines between good and bad people based on immutable physical characteristics like skin color and gender.

        Trump looks at those “bad people” and tells them, “It’s not you, it’s those crazy fuckers.” You are not bad for being white. You are not stupid for not being miseducated by academia. You are not bad for knowing what a woman is. You are not bad for wanting to keep men out of women’s spaces.

        One might postulate that, in saner times Trump couldn’t have garnered mass appeal in the electorate. Obama and later on wokeism created a void, and Trump filled it.

      • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

        The left hated Bush II not because of his warism (although that certainly added fuel to the fire). No, they hated him because Gore lost. And they hated SCOTUS because they feel Bush II was “selected, not elected” never mind that in every post hoc inspection of the 2K election Gore still lost.

        As far as Trump goes, he is a boor, and not of “The Quality” as they used to say, and that matters more to the modern left than any stance he might or might not take. Add in that he lost the popular vote and that he, in theory at least, represents the great unwashed (that don’t vote D) and, again, you add fuel to the fire.

        And, in turn, that is why parts of the right LURV him.

      • Pat

        One might postulate that, in saner times Trump couldn’t have garnered mass appeal in the electorate. Obama and later on wokeism created a void, and Trump filled it.

        That’s most certainly it. Unfortunately, his first term was more bluster than action when it came to addressing those concerns, and that’s where I don’t get the fervor of his fans. “But he had the entire deep state against him, what could he do?!” Well, if he was going to just go down as a martyr, he could have at least had the fortitude of one and used it as an opportunity to push a cause. Not facing reelection again, being as old as he is, and if he ends up surviving the ensuing lawfare and any glowies who’ve actually fired a gun before, I’m hesitantly hopeful that he’ll follow through this time.

      • rhywun

        Yeah, I agree it’s mostly just elitism and the reaction thereto.

      • CPRM

        Is Justine’s brother stealing her vitality? He’s looked the same for the last 30 years and she looks like a skeleton.

  14. juris imprudent

    written some amazing books

    I wonder how many readers of Anarchy, State and Utopia have read The Examined Life?

  15. Pat

    Pro-Palestinian vandals invade home of University of Washington president, carve Hamas symbols

    Some people did some things. For Christ’s sake, it’s not like they did moped burnouts on a gay month crosswalk or something.

    • Muzzled Woodchipper

      That mf doesn’t have much room to complain.

      When you breed crazy, it’s going to turn on you at some point.

      Universities have only succeeded at training rabid attack dogs for a couple of decades. They coddled and encouraged these fuckers. Filled their brains with little more than mush, and now the trainers are the targets. You reap what you sow.

      • juris imprudent

        Whar’s muh dog-whistle when I needs it.

      • DrOtto

        Yep, this is where my sympathy ends. Dog bites trainer, film at 11:00.

    • Fourscore

      Locally they are called red flowers but in the spring we also have some dandy yellow ones, too.

    • PieInTheSky

      google suggests English does not distinguish these from chrysanthemums

  16. Suthenboy

    Still a rock, way past his prime but the guy snagged some serious coin. Good for him.

    “Experts and officials said a 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa, which came after a visit by Kennedy, exemplified the dangers of his rhetoric.”
    Never change WaPo.

    Yet there will be endless rending of garments, wailing etc if any any consequences are levied. I have lost patience with these kinds of tactics. Emotional appeals, two sets of rules etc….fuck all of that. Bring the hammer down on these people. If they are not citizens, put ’em out of the country. If they are citizens shitcan their academic plans and jail them.

    ICC should not be a thing. Stop giving US taxpayer money to the UN.

    Fetterlump is brain damaged but that is a long way from being a lunatic.

    Who thought it was a good idea to allow an invasion from the muslim world into the west? I mean, really, WTF?

    All of the left’s excuses and defenses sound like sociopaths from prison: “You weren’t supposed to know that”, “It’s the cop’s fault that I am here” and so on.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Yeh, I notice Fetterman has been cogent at times.

      • juris imprudent

        Has me wondering if he might not get primaried when he’s up for re-election.

  17. Rufus the Monocled

    La dee daw. I feel under dressed with this new layout.

    Where my monocle at?

  18. Pat

    I always loved the irony of rockers bemoaning the onslaught of technology played with synthesizers, stacks of amps, and electronic drums.

    Eh, it’s easy to pass off all criticism as Luddism, but modern production is something a lot closer to curating or construction rather than playing music, so I get it for musicians who enjoy the craft and performance aspects. Even the parts of modern rock and pop songs played on tangible instruments get grid-aligned and pitch-corrected in such a way that they’re essentially no different than looped samples. Drums in particular. Fucking Christ do I hate modern drum recording/production.

  19. juris imprudent

    The Colorado Springs NAACP president said she viewed the racist messaging as an attempt to intimidate voters. “We don’t take this as a hoax,” she told a local Fox reporter.

    It was a hoax, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which charged three local activists this week with using instruments of interstate commerce to convey false information and “to intimidate someone by means of fire,” according to charging documents.

    Doesn’t even merit a shocked face.

    • rhywun

      Last week [the hoaxer] was convicted of three counts of murder

      Yikes, way to bury the lede.

      • juris imprudent

        I suppose his defense there was “I only wanted to raise awareness”?

      • Pat

        I suppose his defense there was “I only wanted to raise awareness”?

        The hypocrisy was, of course, the worst part.

    • Suthenboy

      These events are remarkable. One lunatic slips his restraints, runs out and shits on the lawn and the media lose their collective minds.
      Amazing how easy it is to provoke and how gullible Charlie Brown is.

  20. PieInTheSky

    in i sometimes don’t get people I took part in a “vertical” wine tasting of Merlot from a local producer and when someone attending was asked how do you rate wine 3 vs wine 2 he said you cannot really compare they are different years. well that is the whole fucking point of a vertical goddamnit. also 2008 was the best followed by 2015 and 2013

  21. Rufus the Monocled

    I can only guess what the non-working around here think about RFK Jr. but all I know is he’s driving the left big mad and that’s a-otay with me.

    All this hissin’ and cussin’ defending pharma is exquisitely scrumptious.

    • Pat

      It has, indeed, been amusing seeing lefty granola heads turn into Big Pharma fluffers and the evil right wing capitalist scumfucks turn into the new alternative naturoganic homeochiropracteopathy boosters.

      • mindyourbusiness

        One for your side.

    • rhywun

      He’s a kook. And seems a bit of a nanny.

  22. Rufus the Monocled

    What’s with the neocons in Trump’s administration? I thought he was gonna be the No-Mores-Wars Guy?

    And how is a pro-pharma champion like Wiles gonna get on with RFK Jr.? Assuming he’s confirmed

    • Pat

      And how is a pro-pharma champion like Wiles gonna get on with RFK Jr.?

      If they each stay in their respective lanes it needn’t necessarily cause any friction. Trump said on Rogan that he plans to keep RFK far away from the “liquid gold” as well.

      With any luck, filling his cabinet picks with people who hate the departments they’ve been selected to head, as well as each other, will result in a game of constant one-upsmanship to see who can sabotage the other.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Forgive my slowness (I’m Canadian) but by ‘liquid gold’ I presume vaccines?

      • Pat

        Oil. RFK Jr. is an environmentalist fruitcake in addition to the rest of his nuttery. Trump basically said he’s hiring him to burn down HHS and will rein him in otherwise.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        @Pat

        I was thinking that too. We talked about it briefly in the glibchat last night. That some of his picks are people we might otherwise firmly disagree with in their politics. Tulsi, RFKJ, Elon, etc, all have their roots planted firmly in “traditional” liberal thinking. But Trump seems to be giving them certain roles that will form a kind of firewall around them. I might not agree with Tulsi on some things, but I surely agree with her stances on war, and her capacity within the administration is confined to that arena. Ditto RFKJ. Go after HHS. Burn it to the fucking ground. But his capacity beyond that in minimized by his very specific role.

        Trump is compartmentalizing them, and that’s a good thing.

      • Raven Nation

        “Tulsi, RFKJ, Elon, etc, all have their roots planted firmly in “traditional” liberal thinking.”

        TBF: so does Trump.

      • LCDR_Fish

        MW – good points, but I’m hoping that his CoS or some other folks on his team (Vance maybe) can help translate the large amount of material coming out of all those different firewalls to keep him accurately in the loop for decision-making where necessary.

    • R C Dean

      Which neocons are you looking at?

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Aren’t people like Rubio, Stefaniuk (sp.?), Hegseth….neocons? Or as some are saying “Zionists’?

      • juris imprudent

        Rubio would be most suspect, but going to State makes him relatively harmless compared to DNI and SecDef (and any other less visible but deeply inside advisors).

      • R C Dean

        I thought the neocons mainly wanted a war with Russia these days.

        I would say having a warmongering tool of the MIC as SecState is Not Good.

      • juris imprudent

        I think Rubio is most susceptible to some Lindsay Graham tongue action, but other than that he has a rather flaccid war boner.

      • Pat

        Rubio strikes me as a bit of a windsock in that regard. Same sliminess I mentioned the other day regarding Vance. When the GOP was full of Iraq war neocons, he was an Iraq war neocon. Now that the winds are shifting, the smarmy little douchebag will shift along with them. Which is another good reason why he doesn’t really need a cabinet appointment. What’s he being rewarded for? Delivering Florida?

      • juris imprudent

        What’s he being rewarded for?

        Not being a particular threat to upstaging Trump.

    • Suthenboy

      The Reichstag fire affair is so tiresome. It really is one of those stories where everyone involved is a world class asshole. It is idiots all the way down.

  23. UnCivilServant

    Yesterday I saw someone in a Ford Customline and I couldn’t help but think “Cars used to be art” and “That V8 sounds like it’s champing at the bit at these city speeds)

    • UnCivilServant

      Note – I could only tell it was a Customline because we were stopped at a red light and I could read the side of the car. I had never heard of that model before.

  24. Rufus the Monocled

    I would have PAID to watch Harris in a setting like the Rogan Experience.

    She’s like the Diana Krall of politics. But worse. And less entertaining.

  25. Pat

    The impotent rage of the flailing woke elites

    So the Guardian has flounced off of X. With characteristic pomposity it announced this week that it will no longer post its articles on this ‘toxic media platform’. X has become a volcanic mess of noxious opinion since evil Elon Musk took over, say the crybabies of Kings Place. So they’re off, to Bluesky, whatever that is. Quite how X’s users will cope without such fine journalism as ‘My toddler is vegan. What’s the problem?’ and ‘What if the mega-rich just want rocket ships to escape the Earth they destroy?’ remains to be seen.
    _
    The Guardian charges Musk with letting X be overrun with ‘disturbing content’. This once nice joint now simmers with ‘far-right conspiracy theories and racism’, it says. Let’s leave to one side the industrial-strength gall it must require for a media group that wanged on for years about how Brexit was the handiwork of a ‘shadowy global operation’ spending oodles of ‘dark money’ to accuse anyone else of being a conspiratorial crackpot. The more striking thing is the Guardian’s fantastically haughty refusal to hang out anywhere there are people who have a different opinion.
    _
    Let’s be real: that’s what this hissy fit is about, this exodus of the entitled, this fleeing of the self-important from X. They just can’t abide being around people who like Trump and don’t like mass immigration and think lesbians don’t have cocks. Musk’s true crime, in their eyes, was to open X up to views that lie outside the fiercely policed parameters of correct think. Their ‘X-odus’ is an oik-avoidance strategy, a retreat from the madding crowd of lowly opinion-havers into the safety of the liberal echo chamber where everyone agrees Trump is Hitler, Brexit is ‘Brexshit’ and Eddie Izzard is a woman.

    If Trump survives this term, it will be interesting to see if they go full Lenin next time out.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      The faux-righteous virtue signalling is nauseating.

    • Suthenboy

      I remember when leftists first began removing the comment sections from their websites.
      They cannot tolerate any views different from their own because their positions are indefensible.

  26. Grumbletarian

    Kamala Harris’ campaign aides are joining Oprah Winfrey in shutting down rumors that began this week after a report falsely indicated that the vice president’s team had paid at least one celebrity for an endorsement and insinuated other stars who stood up for her abbreviated bid for the White House were compensated for their support.

    BFD. Celebrities are often paid to endorse products they may not personally like.

  27. The Late P Brooks

    Kennedy “will be directly responsible for killing thousands of children around the world by allowing preventable infectious diseases to run rampant.”

    Argumentum ad hysterium.

    • Pat

      You shouldn’t be allowed to withhold life saving vaccines from the children you choose not to abort. Bodily autonomy is not a suicide pact.

    • Sean

      Late term abortions! NBD.

      • Fourscore

        Abort early (and often), avoid the crowds

  28. DEG

    In the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election that saw Trump beat the Democratic nominee, Vice President Harris, in all seven battleground states, Fetterman said his party has made mistakes when it came to targeting certain voter groups.

    Fetterman is really going out on a limb there.

    • creech

      Fetterman has actually been touted as a vice presidential candidate because of his moderate views. It will be tough for him to achieve, however, as Gov. Josh Shapiro, also a Pennsylvanian, is going to be the Dem candidate for President in 2028.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    Diving for the spotlight

    Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said that former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Trump’s pick for national intelligence director, is “likely a Russian asset.”

    “There’s no question I consider her someone who is likely a Russian asset,” Wasserman Schultz said on MSNBC on Friday.

    I didn’t know she was still around.

    • Pat

      Call me racist, but Wasserman-Shultzism just doesn’t have the same ring that McCarthyism does. There’s got to be a mick or two left in the D roster, hasn’t there?

    • R.J.

      Still around. It’s like Harris County in Texas. The Progressives got ahold of it and will never let go.

  30. The Late P Brooks

    Gabbard has expressed beliefs that oppose the conclusions from U.S. intelligence, particularly when it comes to Russia and Ukraine.

    Gabbard has shared content suggesting that the U.S. was involved in Ukraine developing biological weapons. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said at the time that she was “parroting Russian propaganda” and that her “treasonous lies may well cost lives.”

    Dissent is treason.

    • Pat

      Gabbard has expressed beliefs that oppose the conclusions from U.S. intelligence, particularly when it comes to Russia and Ukraine.

      Any overlap between those conclusions and the 50 top intelligence veterans who swore that the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian disinformation operation?

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        None. Zero. These are not the droids you’re looking for!

  31. The Late P Brooks

    Why do I think our modern anti-autocrats would be perfectly happy with locking up those who contradict or impede them. Instead of Kamala Harris, they should be beating the bushes for our new Woodrow Wilson.

  32. Pat

    Canadian rock band plays world’s deepest concert in a mine

    Nov. 15 (UPI) — An Ontario band took their instruments deep into a mine to break the Guinness World Record for the deepest concert underground.
    _
    The Miners & Sons played a set 8,086 feet and 11.31 inches below sea level inside the Kidd Mine in Timmins to break the record.
    _
    “This mine has spent 68 years taking rock out of that place, and then spent one day bringing it back,” percussionist Norm Dwyer quipped to MyTimminsNow.

    They’re really digging to raise some publicity.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Womp, womp.

    • rhywun

      8,086 feet and 11.31 inches below sea level

      😮 I didn’t think that existed.

      • Chipping Pioneer

        If they keep digging they could play a double bill with Men at Work.

      • Suthenboy

        Nor did I. Why did I not know that? I have been down one mile and I thought that was about the limit.

  33. The Hyperbole

    “But… what is Greg Lake chewing on?”

    Isn’t the Keyboardist Emerson?

    • Old Man With Candy

      Yes, but Lake is chewing on something throughout the whole video. How you do that and sing is beyond me.

      • The Hyperbole

        Ah, I only watched till they showed Keith and It looked like he was the one chewing.

  34. The Late P Brooks

    Battle of good and evil

    NAACP President Derrick Johnson condemned his statements earlier this year and blamed Trump for the racist text messages circulating after his successful White House bid.

    “The unfortunate reality of electing a President who, historically has embraced, and at times encouraged hate, is unfolding before our eyes,” Johnson released in a statement.

    “These messages represent an alarming increase in vile and abhorrent rhetoric from racist groups across the country, who now feel emboldened to spread hate and stoke the flames of fear that many of us are feeling after Tuesday’s election results.”

    He added that the organization would refuse to allow the actions to become “normalized.”

    We will fight the White Devil to out last dying gasp.

    • rhywun

      I guess the hoax hasn’t been revealed yet.

    • Suthenboy

      Proggie to English: “We have met the enemy and they are ours. “

  35. Pat

    Experts advise to stop worrying about holiday weight gain

    “Holidays come around once a year, and indulging in a few traditional foods and favorite recipes that may have a little extra sugar or fat is not going to affect your health or derail your healthy habits,” said Sara Riehm, a specialty registered dietitian at the Orlando Health Center for Health Improvement.
    _
    “In fact, I see a lot more anxiety about weight gain than actual weight gain from my patients around the holidays,” Riehm added in an Orlando Health news release.
    _
    People are more likely to do themselves a disservice by overcorrecting for a bit of holiday indulgence, the survey found.

    Man, thank Christ for modern scientific expertise. Our ancestors who established celebratory feasting traditions just gorged themselves like Christmas Eve all year long until they died from corpulence. Who could have possibly known that occasional indulgence as a reward for consistent moderation made both indulgence and moderation more pleasant?

    • R.J.

      I solved this problem by being fat all year.

      • Sean

        Crafty, you are.

      • R.J.

        #There’salwaysbiggerpants

      • R.J.

        Heh. I have stopped shy of the mumu solution.

  36. PutridMeat

    @Pat

    It’s worth pointing out that we’re afforded the luxury of skepticism in large part because previous generations of effective vaccines have rendered basically moot many childhood illnesses that were once ubiquitous and debilitating.

    I’ve always thought this is true. But looking at established knowledge (esp. wrt nutrition) and then how it became established as accepted fact, I have my doubts about any sort of what we ‘absolutely know’ actually being supported by real evidence. WRT to how life-saving and revolutionary mass vaccination was, the covid lies and Ozy on anthrax opened that ‘accepted’ area to questioning.

    To keep it specific, one thing I’ve not seen addressed are the plots of disease impact with vaccine introduction superposed – one often sees the disease on a steady decline, presumably with improved nutrition, sanitation, and medical treatment well prior to vaccine introduction. Post vaccine introduction there is no discernible change in the trajectory of the disease – e.g. vaccines touted as these great saviors had minimal impact on the disease. Granted these are 0th order sort of data analyses – I don’t have
    corner plots, complex Bayesian analysis, nor AI driven MCMC computer models – but they require some clear explanation. Have you seen those sorts of 0th order plots addressed? Honest question, I just haven’t – and until an explanation is clear to me that doesn’t rely on obfuscation through complexity, I will remain (very) open to the idea that mass vaccination was not the savior it is currently looked at in the established medical cannon.

    Not to say the target use of vaccination, especially in naive populations, can be life saving and effective, just not convinced that the received wisdom of their efficacy, to the point of jamming 1-week olds with 20 of them in a day is at all beneficial and may indeed be very detrimental.

    • R.J.

      I listened to Kennedy talk about it. His point is that a lot of the newer vaccines have not passed the extreme rigor used on other drugs. There are over 70 approved vaccines, some of which are proven to cause terrible side effects. So a good number of those should be taken off market and analyzed.

      • juris imprudent

        Hey, you know step 4) Profit? Yeah – you’re fucking with it.

      • cyto

        There is a major defect in our legal system that intersects with vaccines… thenprodict liability lawsuit.

        The problem is that the standard for “caused harm” is “what a random group of people who didn’t pass high school biology think” on a jury.

        So we have dow ccorning put out of business over breast implants that probably didn’t cause any of the alleged harms.

        When you have many millions of people using a product, you can find a bunch of people with rare conditions who used the product. And vaccines are given to *everybody*.

        So proving causation is almost impossible.

        But a jury hears that 10,000 people have a rare disease and they took a vaccine… and they make a bankrupting award.

        Hence the vaccine fund that pays out for harms.

        It is a tough situation.

        And allowing slipshod studies to suffice for approval just makes it unworkable and dangerous.

        Maybe Kennedy poking around will lead someone to come up with a fix for this situation.

    • Pat

      Admittedly I haven’t delved that deeply into the data, but I had elderly relatives with living memories of having seen contemporaries from their youth in iron lungs. I’ve never personally encountered a polio survivor in my 37 years. That’s anecdotal, of course, but I don’t think childhood nutrition and standards of living improved *that* drastically in the town I grew up between the ’30s and the ’80s ( or the ’50s and ’60s when my parents were born, for that matter).

      That having been said, I’m very open to having my perception disrupted, and even long prior to COVID, I’ve always opposed compulsory vaccinations. I remember ye olden days when Ron Bailey would actually respond to comments on his articles at Reason and getting into a lengthy back and forth with him and a few others on the topic on more than one occasion (unsurprisingly to anyone who read his articles during COVID, he was in favor). I wouldn’t be the least bit stunned if there were unaccounted for lurking variables in the data, and that vaccine efficacy has been oversold. I’m also skeptical about the necessity of some of the entries in our current, very ‘robust’ childhood vaccine schedule. At the same time, if I had a kid tomorrow, would I get them inoculated? Yes. Possibly not the full schedule. But based on the current evidence and risk I’d give them the MMR vaccine, for instance.

      • R.J.

        My mother went through the polio epidemic. Spent several years in the house with her brother. It was quite scary according to her.

      • Urthona

        My grandfather had polio as a kid and needed a cane throughout his life.

      • PutridMeat

        I’ve never personally encountered a polio survivor in my 37 years

        Polio may well be one of the effective ones. Anecdotally, I was acquainted with a Filipino lady years ago who was partially lame in one leg due to polio, but vaccine induced. I believe in the ‘hey-day’ so to speak, there were lots of polio survivors – I believe there are many (most?) people who got polio and were just never symptomatic. But again, without data (trustworthy), it’s hard to say and polio might very well be one of those with a net positive benefit.

        Anyway, the point is that, for me, it is *all* open to question now and I won’t dismiss RJK as a kook on vaccines – oil and guns sure, but I don’t have to take as gospel everything some says because they seem to have good insight in a specific area. In short, I am now extremely cautious with respect to any prophylactic medical interventions.

        Have a lovely day everyone; I’m off to grind and polish my concrete for a couple of hours…

  37. The Late P Brooks

    “Market” analysis

    If Trump were to also attack the commercial clean vehicle tax credit, that would do even more damage to EV sales. Through something of a loophole, that policy (45W, if you’re curious) subsidizes EV leases. And, unlike the standard credit, it doesn’t enforce any restrictions around household income, battery sourcing, North American assembly or vehicle price. Basically, if you lease any EV, the lessor can choose to pass on a $7,500 discount.

    This is why nearly 80% of EVs are leased at dealerships now. If that went away, it would hit most EV sellers hard. But Trump’s position there isn’t clear. And a transition team spokesperson did not elaborate on the topic when asked by InsideEVs.

    Maybe people have wised up to the depreciation and disposal traps, and have made a rational decision to let that be the manufacturers’ and dealers’ headache.

    • Pat

      This is why nearly 80% of EVs are leased at dealerships now.

      That and the fact that owning an EV after the factory warranty period has a cost per mile on the order of a Land Rover or Mercedes-Benz, which are notoriously difficult to finance used because they’re maintenance traps and everything on them costs a small fortune to replace. Ecowarriors may be stupid, but they’re not “Yeah, I’ll just buy the $60,000 battery replacement when this one stops working in 3 years” stupid.

  38. cyto

    A friend invited a bunch of us over to watch the fight last night.

    I hemmed and hawed about it, not really wanting to watch a guy my age get in the ring and potentially get a major brain injury.

    I also saw Paul’s lack of speed and defense, and was equally worried about Tyson killing him with one good shot.

    But I went anyway, and the undercard made it worthwhile. Just fantastic. 2 great fights, and one was the women.

    First time anyone has talked about boxing in forever.

    So props to Jake Paul, the promoter. He made a zeitgeist moment out of nothing, made boxing relevant and actually crashed Netflix. He may not me much of a boxer, but the guy is a genius promoter.

    • Evan from Evansville

      Agreed. The Taylor/ Sarrano (sp?) fight was fucking brutal. I do NOT see how the judges made their call. Uh. Uh. Am I the only one? I don’t think I can be.

      I was impressed as fuck with Tyson. He gave two rounds of intense boxing. I marveled at his ability to bend/weave his neck to avoid shots. Fucking impressive as fuck, borderline-otherworldly as a 58-year-old. The undercards were certainly the best fights. It was all worth the price of admission and time watching. It’s the first boxing event I went ‘out of my way’ to watch live.

      Uh. Way to go, Mike. That ain’t normal. I can’t fucking facing fathom him at 20. I suppose I’ll stop. Others may haven’t watched.

  39. Tres Cool

    WRT GT’s earlier comment:

    What do you call a lesbian with braces?

    A box cutter.

    /Ill see myself out

  40. cyto

    What I am noticing about trump’s picks is that he has some folks who have a personal grudge against the deep state they are charged with.

    Tulsi is targeted as a Russian asset – pretty insulting for an army officer and congresswoman – and then they put her on the terrorist watch list?

    Yeah, she should have a very personal stake in getting political operatives out of the security state as the DNI.

    Apparently the Gaetz scandal with the underage girl wasn’t just a scandal, it was some FBI dudes trying to blackmail his family. Dad wore a wire and some guy is in prison for a long while over it.

    So that guy should have a very personal stake in finding the folks who are doing things like the Whitmer kidnapping.

    He may really be serious about ripping out the deep state.

    Of course, Vivek says just fire half of the department using odd or even SSN.

    There are some folks who seem properly motivated in the group. It will be interesting to see if they can make any progress.

    It will also be interesting to see if Trump actually makes it to inauguration.

  41. The Late P Brooks

    Yeah, she should have a very personal stake in getting political operatives out of the security state as the DNI.

    The beaurocracies are completely political. Trump wants to change that.

    • cyto

      I think we are going under if he doesn’t.

      The libertarians have been right all along about government getting too big and too remote to control.

      I don’t know how long ago we lost control, but they have stopped even pretending over the last 30 years. And now they almost have complete control of the public square and free speech.

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