Actually, I was fairly moderate this year compared to years when Spud was around. The man is a bad influence. Nonetheless, lots of consumption the past couple of days and I really am going to be a bit more moderate. Heading up to Rochester to meet up with NPR1, take a nice cold weather walk, look at some art, then consume some dumplings and bao at a restaurant where there is no human waitstaff (you place the order using your phone and a QR code, then it’s brought to your table by a robot). Still, far less alcohol and other substances than the past couple of days, and maybe even a bit of exercise…
Birthdays today include someone you know was going down on you; a brilliant writer who coined every phrase you know that wasn’t from the Bible or Shakespeare; a guy who would happily give you a plate job; the guy who truly opened up the West; the most truly American of any writer; a drunk guy who dragged us into a war; what New York liberals used to be; a guy famous for his letters home from camp; a guy who ate a rat; a victim of Yellow Fever; a much cleverer and more entertaining version of Bernie Sanders; one of my favorite playwrights who put coffee on the map; the second-best swordsman; and a guy who could push some wood.
And me, I push Links.
The spirit of Baghdad Bob lives.
Wait, people think he’s actually capable of reading a book?
Fire every fucking one of them.
Fuck that grifting midget. The only correct answer is, “If he’s in, we’re out, and he’s all yours.”
“They’re then going to see hairless vulvas.”
I had another song by these two last week. This one is even more amazing. Gatemouth has the most unusual approach to soloing I’ve ever witnessed.
Happy birthday Dave Barry?
Happy birthday Leif Erikson?
Happy birthday Rivers Cuomo?
Well played. Their first two albums are remarkably good, two 30-min albums of perfection. Then Rivers stopped having sex, so I’ve heard. Then, the music falls of a precipitous table. No point in em.
Tired of Sex remains one of my fave songs, and oddly for its simplicity, is one of bro and (certainly my) fave drum grooves.
Also acceptable would be:
1) Woody Allen
B) John Lennon
Eric Swalwell
+ Fang
inorite
“Across the Sea” is my favorite
Naw! Happy birthday, Sam Clemens! 😃
See??? (I hadn’t even gotten that far!)
Yes, this too is where I has a confuse in the birthdays. At least I got Allen Sherman.
“We won because we prevented the enemy from destroying Hezbollah, stopped them from ending the resistance, and defeated them because the enemy was forced to justify the agreement,” Qassem said.
“Half our fighters got their peckers blown off via their pagers, but we will soon repopulate our forces, Inshallah.”
“Any war you can walk away from….!”
“‘Tis but a flesh wound!”
a guy famous for his letters home from camp
Unfunny Boomershit.
Bring me a glass of water.
Here you go.
The Teds version: “Danke Mutter, danke Vater, Here I am at Kamp Gib-Bratta…”
someone you know was going down on you;
Then this should have been the music link.
His handlers slip the funnies from 1970s newspapers into the jacket cover of real books for him to read, and this just happens to be what the nearest intern had on hand.
I saw that and immediately thought this.
That goes with The Old Mans diner choice, too.
I just assume he’s trying to woo Kamala’s daughter now or something. His own won’t shower with him anymore after all.
a victim of Yellow Fever;
Happy birthday Lena Nyman!
HBD Jesse William Lazear!
That’s commitment to the bit(e).
It went exactly as predicted. They couldn’t stop Israel from dropping bombs. Israel couldn’t stop them from launching missiles. Israel couldn’t make any progress in the ground without unacceptable losses.
A good day for octogenarian director birthdays. Add Ridley Scott and Terrence Malick to the list.
I blame Cunnilingus and psychiatry.
In all seriousness though, while there’s no putting the proverbial cat back in the bag, giving kids pretty much unfettered access to porn when their age is in the single digits is probably not the greatest social development in Western history.
Compromise and just make all the porn available on the internet be 1970s vintage?
Ewww
8-bit porn at dialup speeds
Nah, the kids will just find a VPN in Germany to reroute them to the stuff over there.
So, just shit porn.
The joys of an interlaced gif coming down from the BBS at 4800 baud
Agreed.
I feel like a prude compared to where the rest of culture is headed.
/notes that the dick pill commercials are showing during the day now
Walmart has been selling guns and ammo on the other side of the store from groceries for longer than I’ve been alive.
Also, I’d be interested to see the Venn diagram of people who think ammo vending machines should be illegal, but removing cartoon drawings of prepubescent kids blowing grown men from public libraries constitutes book burning.
Some have suggested Trump’s tariff threat may be bluster, or an opening salvo in future trade negotiations. But Trudeau rejected those views when he spoke with reporters earlier in Prince Edward Island province.
“Donald Trump, when he makes statements like that, he plans on carrying them out,” Trudeau said. “There’s no question about it.”
All Trudeau needs is a Hawaiian judge in his pocket if the past is any indicator.
Trudeau learned nothing from the first Trump term, because he is incapable of learning.
He hasn’t had the incentive to learn. Everything he’s done was rubber stamped by virtually all of the important people until well after the effects of his shitty policy were self evident to everyone else and couldn’t be ignored.
Canada is pretty much lost, just like the UK.
“They’re then going to see hairless vulvas.”
Despite the pearl-clutching tone, the exposure (as it were) can hardly be called healthy. Quite a different thing from having all the knowledge in the world at your fingertips.
All the carnal knowledge maybe.
For unlimited carnal knowledge?
Modifying my joke is unlawful.
So Assad’s regime is teetering on the brink, if we just give it another shove…
What a load of horseshit and of absolutely no concern to any American.
whaddup doh’
whats goody yo
TALL FROZEN CANS!
/left my beer outside and now its something like 15º
Not entirely true. I distinctly remember there being an “Other” option with a blank to fill in, where I have written “non-indigenous native American” on every census form I have filled out since turning 18.
Also, as intrusive and unnecessary as those census questions are, comparative data isn’t entirely useless, even if the classifications are somewhat arbitrary. If you’re defining groups in the same way from one decade to the next and keeping track of certain data on their group characteristics in a consistent way, it can show patterns. It just shouldn’t be used for doling out government funds and interfering in people’s lives. Academic wank fodder, as it should be. And there’s already copious data on race collected by thousands of different private groups and activists that is likely of equal or better quality.
90% of the census short form shouldn’t even exist, let alone the abomination of the long form.
I don’t respond to the census.
I didn’t respond in 2010. They sent somebody to get the information.
You ate his liver with some fava beans and a fine chianti?
I assume you ate his liver, perhaps with some red wine. But I’m talkin’ to pros. I shouldn’t preach from my lectern.
Fuck you, bastard. I’ve been nimbly-fingered, not for the first time, and not in the Fun Way I honed with Ms. Carmichael.
I declined to answer the last census.
They didn’t send me a form, they wanted me to go to some website.
I think I got one of those as well, and ended up requesting a paper form. Filled in only the basic required demographic information and mailed it in otherwise blank. After a half a dozen or so letters asking me to submit the rest of my information online and threatening to send some schmuck they hired off Craiglist to come speak to me in person they apparently lost interest.
I don’t remember anything about the 2020 one. The 2010 one had some poor schmuck swing by my house a couple of times to bug me about not providing everything they wanted. They at least went away promptly enough when I told them to.
I’ve put Italian in the “other” section a few times.
Narrator: Race is used for doling out government funds (and political power). That is in fact its only purpose on the census.
I didn’t think my NAS writeup was that good… but thanks, OMWC!
Does that mean a happy birthday is in order today?
It does indeed.
Happy birthday, then! Extend the celebration out to Monday. We do it for our presidents, and they only work about 6 months out of the year.
Happy birthday 🎂🎉
Thank you both kindly.
Cue Witcher Clip “Fuck”
FIFA really is a black hole of corruption and greed.
See, this is what happens when you can’t tip your waiter.
Or something.
OFFS.
I wonder if the technical score factors in the slave labor they will use to construct the missing stadiums.
So… this is another attempt to force union membership and protect those in Government who are their regulatory capture. Clear enough there, union thugs.
“As I walked through the parking lot to my car, I couldn’t suppress the feeling that I had just evaded some incredibly faulty security measures, because surely it can’t be that easy to buy bullets?” But it is.
I’ve bought thousands of different perfectly legal items and didn’t even have to scan my driver’s license or face. Funny how that works.
I can get them dropped at my front door. That’s even easier.
Yep, that is how I do it now.
I doubt that I can buy ammo out of the vending machine by the case. Wake me up when that changes.
I’m conflicted on this, but my laziness and buying them with credit card points has won me over.
I used to buy bullets and fishing supplies at the Safeway grocery store by my house. That was the 1970s. It all went away as the progressives pandered harder. I take this as a good sign.
Since the bullets are inert pieces of metal without the device that accelerates them to a speed where they can cause grievous bodily injury, and since said apparatus is one of the most tightly regulated products you can purchase, requiring fingerprints and a background check to purchase from a dealer that requires special licensing and paperwork retention requirements that make the banks and IRS look slipshod, why should it be any more difficult than that to purchase bullets, other than the author being a fragile, neurotic pussy?
“Someone with a lead pipe and a rock could set them off! I learned it from Fallout 4 and all the pipe guns!”
“Or a fire could make a box of them explode! Learned that from TV!”
I’m sure it is something along those lines — or maybe just “If they have more than 10, they must plan on going on a rampage!” (Because no one practices or shoots for fun or anything).
Slight modification to my statement.
You could buy big tin bottles of black powder or modern smokeless, bullets for modern and vintage guns, shotgun shells, brass casings and fully assembled ammo.
I am a fan of getting ammo at the VFW swap meet.
*scroll, scroll, scroll*
Oh, there it is.
Nick Cannon says he has been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder
>gets diagnosed as a narcissist
>immediately goes and announces it to People magazine
Checks out, I guess.
“I am healing”
No, you are not healing. Personality disorders are not ‘treatable’. You dont heal from them.
I don’t want to buy a new 9v brick, I know I own several, but obviously they know I’m looking for them and have gone into hiding.
I found 12v bricks a plenty…
Jackpot! I found a pair of barrel plugs I’d bought for a project which only needs one. Since they’re loose wires on the other end, I can clip bench power to the wires and use whatever voltage I want!
A few years ago I was listening to Bluesville on satellite radio. Due to slightly poor eyesight at close range I misread Gatemouth as Gatermouth. At the time I thought Gatermouth Brown was a pretty cool musician name.
You’re still not wrong.
Also the Working name of the chick servicing the U of Florida’s football team.
So that’s what happened to Encyclopedia’s younger sister….
I thought it was this chick.
I am at my.mom’s and on the teevee it is the local version of the Voice show and a contestant is an American former green beter named David Marshall and i am like what the fuck is this guu doing on the voice romania
Because it wasn’t enough to inflict on you just our cultural artifacts?
My mom switches the teevee between the voice and winter sports and i have figured out a way to improve biathlon. Instead of static targets strap some targets to ski jumpers back and have the biatholnists shoot at those.
So, a new version of Ski-eet.
Spider Sabitch would say hello if he could.
The target is called a tramp-stamp.
I’m reminded of the winter chase scene in For Your Eyes Only.
dumplings and bao at a restaurant where there is no human waitstaff (you place the order using your phone and a QR code, then it’s brought to your table by a robot).
How too, too utterly.
But are those robots paid minimum wage? Do you tip them or not?
“A robot should be able to support a family of four with just one full-time job!”/Prog
Back to the Future II was off by about a decade. It’s eerily similar. Especially the Cafe 80’s ‘servers’/news.
Are you still expected to tip your robot server?
“Gratuity automatically added. “
They tend to be heavy and have pretty low centers of gravity, so if you’re gonna try to tip them, you’ll need to really put your back into it.
There’s a Hank Johnson joke in there somewhere…
It’s just the city kids version of cow tipping.
“They tend to be heavy and have pretty low centers of gravity”
Where’s Trey?
Meh, the Chess.com puzzle today was stupid. I don’t want to draw when I can mate pretty easily.
Braggart
I received the yellow fever vaccine in the Army but it didn’t take …
They tend to be heavy and have pretty low centers of gravity, so if you’re gonna try to tip them, you’ll need to really put your back into it.
*stamps feet, throws popcorn*
“The average OnlyFans creator earns about $1,300 per year, according to Business Insider, while Sophie was able to make an eye-watering $43 million between November 2023 and November 2024….
Despite her line of work, Sophie is a devout Christian and virgin who keeps her romantic life private….
‘I’m a Christian. I know it seems odd that I’m doing [OnlyFans] but I don’t do anything else with anyone on my OnlyFans. It’s just me.'”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-14141291/who-sophie-rain-onlyfans-influencer-earnings.html
$43 million to watch her do nothing? All these stories are bullshit to get girls to start an OnlyFans.
So if some chick made $43M and the average is $1,300 – do the math.
You need over 33,000 making nothing at all to average that out.
True, most make peanuts.
Mean or median?
Mode
Made up
Silicone Saturday must, must, must increase its bust.
https://archive.is/1IBbN
🎶
Dark clouds on the horizon
Having won the election and sweeping to power, Republicans are planning an ambitious 100-day agenda with President-elect Donald Trump in the White House and GOP lawmakers in a congressional majority to accomplish their policy goals.
Atop the list is the plan to renew some $4 trillion in expiring GOP tax cuts, a signature domestic achievement of Trump’s first term and an issue that may define his return to the White House.
“What we’re focused on right now is being ready, Day 1,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., after meeting recently with GOP colleagues to map out the road ahead.
The policies emerging will revive long-running debates about America’s priorities, its gaping income inequities and the proper size and scope of its government, especially in the face of mounting federal deficits now approaching $2 trillion a year.
R
Plutocracy for some, starvation for others.
I see appeals to envy are still on the menu.
Fuck off, AP.
In the time since Trump signed those cuts into law, the big benefits have accrued to higher-income households. The top 1 percent — those making nearly $1 million and above — received about a $60,000 income tax cut, while those with lower incomes got as little as a few hundred dollars, according to the Tax Policy Center and other groups.
Whycome I can’t get a $60k per year tax cut on my $35,000 income? It’s not fair!
Repeal the SALT caps, that will help those making $35k …
sweeping to power
The barest control of the House and no supermajority in the Senate. Yes, the Emperor has TOTAL control of the govt!
A pen and phone is all you need.
And a compliant obedient judiciary. Which he hasn’t got and won’t get.
National injunctions for all.
The House Democratic leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, scoffed at the Republican claim that they’ve won “some big, massive mandate” — when in fact, the House Democrats and Republicans essentially fought to a draw in the November election, with the GOP eking out a narrow majority.
“This notion about some mandate to make massive, far-right extreme policy changes, it doesn’t exist — it doesn’t exist,” Jeffries said.
America really voted for more extreme left wing policies. You just have to squint a little.
“This notion about some mandate to make massive, far-right extreme policy changes, it doesn’t exist — it doesn’t exist,”
If there is anything we should take away from the Obama-Biden presidencies, it is that margin doesn’t matter. The winner gets to jam through as many of their policies as they can, regardless of how the 50+% of the voters that didn’t vote for them likes it. And if the legislature isn’t on board, fuck them too, executive action is just fine.
In all honesty, if you can pass a bill, you have a mandate. That is all there is too it, no set number, no call line.
Probably don’t have enough of the House to pass a single bill though.
Losing everything, even by slim margins, is still losing everything.
yellow fever
Happy Birthday to a number of Glibs.
lol
Been there.
*raises hand*
Once upon a time.
Some people just don’t know how to play the game
And to be clear, Musk and Ramaswamy may find that maintaining the status quo is a very bipartisan practice. Every lawmaker has their favorite lobbyists and pet projects. But in a positive sign, some members of Congress are already signaling they will try to keep an open mind. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who represents Silicon Valley, indicated there could be bi-partisan collaboration when looking at notoriously inefficient corners of government, like the defense budget.
More worrying to me is the dark cloud of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. After being removed from her committee assignments in 2021 for vile, hateful comments, Greene is poised to become the chairperson for a new subcommittee that will work with DOGE. Her involvement will make any collaboration between Musk and Democrats much more difficult. And there’s the risk that she will enable Musk’s and Ramaswamy’s worst impulses. In other words, she could be the biggest obstacle for a successful, bipartisan efficiency effort.
Will Musk be able to find ways to work with a Congress that too often defaults to partisan gridlock? We shall see. Restructuring parts of the federal government requires someone who knows how to build things, not just demolish them.
You’re supposed to cluck and tut and nibble around the edges, and then declare victory. Nobody really wants anything to change.
Yes, she’s the problem, what with her hateful comments. Not Raskin or Schiff and their lies. Not that asshole who pulled a fire alarm, nor Pelosi and her BS impeachment.
Not just hateful. Vile, hateful comments.
“A recent investigation by The Columbus Dispatch has found that dozens of children have gone missing from a northeast Ohio city since 2014. Approximately 3.1 children per 1,000 residents of East Cleveland’s 13,792 population have disappeared in the past decade, a rate that surpasses that of Ohio’s largest cities, including Columbus and Cincinnati. The report attributed these alarming figures to the area’s poverty, rampant crime, and a local police force that is too corrupt and understaffed to concentrate on missing juveniles.
At least 43 children have vanished from East Cleveland since 2014, including 24 girls and 19 boys. It is often difficult to determine whether the children who were reported missing were killed, victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation organizations, or if they returned home and officials were unaware of their returns.”
https://thepostmillennial.com/43-children-have-gone-missing-from-east-cleveland-over-last-decade
Statistical anomaly?
Cannibal Cult
Who *doesn’t* want to escape Cleveland?
It has been a couple of years but I remember this coming up before. someone around here dug into the numbers and found nothing unusual at all.
They are mostly teenage runaways and parental custody issues. The numbers are derived in such a way that many of the kids get counted multiple times for multiple incidences etc.
There is no cannibal cult kidnapping and eating children.
Maybe the Haitians no longer savor cat flesh?
My favorite author is Mark Twain, I’ve read just about everything he wrote. Life on the Mississippi is my favorite work of his. He managed to capture an era almost perfectly, he made feel like I was there with him, along for the ride.
Twain wrote in Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World “Be good and you will be lonesome.”
Which brings me to this guy, who was obviously a Twain fan.
Good morning!
A more realistic HAL 9000:
https://x.com/JustineBateman/status/1862888999372865567
I’m reasonably certain they just used Cadillac CUE to make this. I use it now just to laugh at how truly bad the voice commands “work” when I’m on a road trip and getting bored.
Suckers list
But the fundraising appeals have still continued, and some Democrats fear she may be compounding the party’s problems with the tone of some of her appeals — damaging relationships with online donors who have long powered the party. In just a few months, the vice president built up a record-breaking fundraising operation. She raked in funds from millions of online donors within the first week of her candidacy, and continued to hold fundraising events well into the fall. Now those same donors who helped her raise more than $1.4 billion are among the people being asked to give more. The emails still come two or three times a day.
“I understand that the Harris campaign is in a very difficult position with the debt that they have, and so sometimes you just have to make practical decisions,” said Mike Nellis, founder of the Democratic digital firm Authentic, whose clients include top Democratic House and Senate candidates. “But yeah, I think that stuff like that erodes trust.”
A Harris campaign official emphasized that the campaign is not asking any universe of donors for more than they were giving before the election. And some fundraising was necessary, the person noted, for costs associated with shutting down the campaign, including maintaining some staff, closing offices and making sure remaining financial reports are in compliance.
You can’t expect all those expert political consultants to just take their hands out of the till and move on. They have bills to pay, too.
Not mentioned: they spent money like a drunken sailor.
Also not mentioned: They Lost. All that money wasn’t worth it.
At this point, I don’t think I’m having a heart attack because I’ve awakened 2 mornings in a row not dead. BUT I AM willing to believe I somehow cracked a rib bending over to comb my hair upside down. Left pec still sore as hell but drifting around to my side, like WTF happened?!
So are you going to DO something about it, young lady?? ::crosses arms, taps foot::
You might want to have that looked at.
Cracked bones from tasks you have done many times without injury might be a sign of an underlying problem.
See, if you shaved your head to protest Trump, this wouldn’t have happened.
It could be angina, a pulled muscle, costochondritis, referred pain, etc. Only way to find out is to go to a doctor.
One of the things my wife and I have (re)discovered about being in your 50’s is that EVERYTHING HURTS MORE. Everything brakes, bleeds, bruises, in ways you have never thought about.
‘Golden years’ they are called.
Gimme back muh echo chamber
Bluesky, initially built as part of an initiative funded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who cut ties with the company in May, launched to the public as an invitation-only platform last year. Some of its earliest users included Black, trans and politically progressive people. Journalists who belong to and cover issues affecting marginalized populations have found Bluesky to be a much more welcoming environment.
“I think that Bluesky’s demographic is literally just anybody who can’t stand the sort of toxic environment that Twitter has become, and that spans a large range of people,” said Erin Reed, an independent journalist covering trans rights issues on Substack. “Journalists don’t like toxicity and toxic comments. We want to have conversations with people, and we don’t want everything to devolve into slurs being hurled back and forth.”
Numerous studies and analyses have found that after Musk took over the platform, use of hate speech increased. Over time, the platform became a bastion of the right-wing internet.
Once upon a time, journalists had a reputation for intellectual toughness and adventurousness . Or maybe that was just a myth.
Modern news that incorporates any social media literally thrives on such discourse
Code for “We hate being called out on our bullshit by the supporters of that racist, misogynist orange worse than Hitler guy.”.
Yep. The community notes feature killed their ability to lie with impugnity. They have a big mad about that.
They just want their echo chamber where they can’t be challenged.
All the people who left for Blue Sky were literally the most “toxic” people on Twitter.
Place is much more pleasant now.
Reed also said traffic to her Substack articles has doubled since she began posting exclusively on Bluesky. She and Talia Lavin, a journalist and author who covers the far right, said X had become overrun with anti-trans speech, as well as other forms of bigotry and harassment. Lavin said she noticed an uptick of antisemitism and pro-Nazi accounts on X, as did Pittman.
I’m sure it was all explicitly violent, threatening and hateful stuff. Because that’s what fascists do.
BY UPTICK MEAN…
3 or 4 new accounts.
Fuck off, slaver. Not everyone is a Nazi and I grow weary of the whining.
I wonder how many of the bomb/death threats to Trump’s cabinet picks came from BlueSky users.
“Once they are demoralized you cannot fix them. No matter how much authentic information you give them they cannot draw a sensible conclusion.”
Why did people who think they can make reality comply by asserting their wishes as true lose an election? We may never know.
How many are bots?
According to her, bots only exist on X
We have emerged back at home and immediately crashed in bed after our whirlwind trip.
Back for a week then two weeks in OKC. Good news is I’m off work except OKC until the new year
“If I’m not able to drive any consistent views to my newsletter from Twitter, why am I here?” Lavin said about her decision to move to Bluesky. “All the replies were AI bots and Nazis, and none of the earnestly engaged readers are seeing my content. So what was the point of subjecting myself to psychic damage?
It’s not working out? Well then, good luck in your future endeavors. Why do you want it to be any harder than that?
*That’s a rhetorical question. We all know you want to have total control over what other people think and do. That’s the essence of “liberalism” these days.
A phenomenon of trying to correlate X/BS followers to her Substack click through reads.
I rarely click through from socials because of tracking and rather go directly to the mentioned article.
I hear the distant rumble of stampeding lawyers
The group had just left an event around 3 a.m. on Wednesday when the Tesla Cybertruck they were in veered off the road at Hampton Road and King Avenue and slammed into a tree, bursting into flames.
At 3 AM, it abruptly veered off course and struck a tree. I think we can safely blame the autopilot.
‘An event’
Was there any alcohol served at this event?