Well, my beloved Texas Longhorns still haven’t figured out how to run on Georgia and it cost them the game. No thanks to the kicker. But kickers are like refs. Endeavor to keep the game from being close enough they can mess it up. I had a hernia repaired Friday, so I’ll just front-load some more Oxy and sleep off the disappointment.
I guess USA Up… All Night was good to Rhonda Shear.
I don’t know about brain preservation… eventually you get Robot Nixon.
Pootie Poo may have put a nuke in orbit. Thankfully, Russia’s space program is better than it’s Navy.
Spud took all the other links, so I’ll just leave you with a song…
whaddup doh’
Rhonda has (or had) some nice t0ts.
/NSFW nor suitable for the Sabbath
I’m sure that’s why her bra line and lingerie company kept her supported.
She looks uncomfortable there.
I am ‘forbidden’ to see the tOts. Story of my life.
50 year old picture, we all looked better 50 years ago, those of us that could be seen, that is.
If you don’t prevent Robot Nixon then your storage could use some fixin’…..
ISTR it was Nixon head-in-a-jar and robo-Agnew /futurama
Saw this on twitter yesterday…it’s just a circle.
It was the headless body of Spiro.
Good times, great band!
That’s what happens now that Teri Garr has passed. Those orbital weapons platforms successfully launch instead of scaring us through risky botched self-destructs.
It’s fairly amazing to me the amount of money that pop culture flashes in the pan manage to bring in decades after their 15 minutes are up. Although in this case, it seems she started a lingerie company. Which I suppose is the distaff equivalent of a sports start buying 50 McDonald’s franchises with the loot from their playing days.
Yeah — those are the folks you can’t begrudge though, since lots in their place just blow it all and end up in broke obscurity.
She may have gotten where she was through God-given genetic assets — but she had the acumen to parlay it into something more sustainable. You have to give her props for that.
Definitely.
100%. Vanilla Ice built himself a nice little real estate portfolio with his ’90s loot from what I understand. And then you have poor MC Hammer…
Agreed. Its why I dont share the hate that many have for the Kardashians. They turned a blowjob video with a C list rapper into a billion dollar empire.
And yet you dragged yourself from your bed of pain to fill in and bring us links! ::salutes:: Good thing you have a bunch of kids to lift things for you (don’t you?)
☕😁
“Random AI image generator — make real my mental image of Brett L’s kids lifting him from his bed on a litter to transfer him to a divan style carriage pulled, of course, by alligators….” (I don’t actually bother with AI generators, so I’m not going to really do this… but that’s the image in my head your comment evoked, GT).
There’s a big difference between what hernia recovery used to be and what it is now. I had one repaired back in 2015 and was out lifting fairly heavy stuff two days later with the doc’s blessing. No pain either.
Need to keep the body-fender work up to date. Hernias do not heal them selves.
Good for you, BL, just don’t do the same thing again.
/2 time winner
Seems like he phoned it in.
That is what all the kids do now.
Pac-12 bitches!
Arizona State and Oregon both won their divisions yesterday.
Yes, we are the best!
True, but Oregon was only up against James Franklin.
it can’t last forever, but, despite all the regrettable crossbreeding, only charter schools from 1932 have ever won the SEC football championship
it’s weird to listen while NewWife watches the game because I’ve given up on
professionalcollege football, but tradition courses through me, and I still much prefer this school to that“who believes life could be eternal”
A physical no heaven no reincarnation eternal life? No freaking thanks I don’t think. Something’s going to get you though, if you live long enough the highly improbable becomes probable (Poor guy, the young age of 10,000 years old and he walked outside and a meteorite fell on his head).
Entropy always wins in the end, barring us melding with AC.
I think after the first 1000 years you will be the one to get you.
It will be the damn doctors who bring you back.
Me trying to understand wtf is happening in Syria.
https://x.com/Nicksdankmemes3/status/1865613072456368475
This helped a little. Would be nice if this settled their differences and they lived peacefully ever after. I have doubts.
https://x.com/realMaalouf/status/1865508716524486723
About the only thing that makes sense at this point. Looks like a deal was struck shortly after or even before the headchoppers rolled in. The British really fucked it post WWI and we’re still dealing with it.
I’d quibble that from what I remember about Turkey and Iraq (puppet of Iran or not) — they’re never, ever, ever going to let a Kurdistan exist. Full stop.
There will never be a Kurdistan. Even more than the Jews, nothing unifies the governments there as opposition to Kurdish independence.
I know what you mean, but I prefer a world-view that says most things are fucked most of the time; there’s no perfect answer, so no one fucked up. The fuck-up is to dream or speak of things like world peace or peace in our time or peace in the middle east. Part of the American problem is that we’re culturally tied to this messianic, good-guy neocon world-cop obligation because there is some answer out there; once we give up that there is an answer, that culture and its obligations melt away.
Stock up, keep your head down, and watch the world burn….that’s the best plan.
So all the governments in the regions say, “Homeland for the Kurds? No whey!”
Seriously, though, what did the Kurds ever do to piss everybody off? Are they more or less beloved than the Jews and Palestinians?
Kurdistan is chopped up between several nations and they’d all have to agree to give them their piece of the homeland or any true independence would only make matters worse. Beyond limited independence via a federated system like they have in Iraq it’ll never happen. Being the USA’s lackey in various regional conflicts hasn’t earned them many friends either.
Meh, the British didn’t do anything worse to the region than the Turks, Ottomans, Christians, Jews, Arabs, and anyone else you can think of. The problem is that, like the Balkans, every tribe thinks they should have a country of their own, which would include their neighbors land. And they don’t have enough weapons or men to this, and each of the other groups are trying to do the same.
Of course bigger kids are going to come in and tell them where to pound their sand.
most of the old province of Syria (the Palestinian Mandate was cut off for the British) was handed over to the French after the Great War. They did the initial chopping of the rump. severing Lebanon for the Christian component of the province.
That’s perfect. But we know Lock Martin comes out ahead!
But remember — those of us who are more “get us out of international commitments” (I won’t say isolationist, because I don’t think anyone today really is… the world is too obviously interconnected for isolationism, but neither do we need the current interventionism) are the nutty ones who don’t understand global realities or something.
Son, if you ain’t stickin’ your dick in every crazy hole in the world (because you really believe doing that is going to “fix them”), you are an isolationist.
The people that think all these interventions are about fixing people and helping them out shouldn’t have a vote.
On the other hand, you could get Rich Little and George Foreman.
When I was a young man (which was quite a little while ago, showing what a perennial favorite this idea is), I remember reading about brain preservation, or “uploading” ones digital consciousness. This was fresh off The Matrix and all of the knock off sci-fi of the era that toyed with the concept. At the time, I thought if it became possible within my lifetime, I’d probably do it. Consciousness, after all, is in the mind, not the body. Now? I think I’ll pass. Disembodied consciousnesses interacting through a neural network sounds like eternal social media, which is a more fearful representation of hell and damnation than anything John of Patmos came up with in his fever dreams.
I’d love to see robot Nixon get revenge on the CIA shits who set him up, eliminated his VP, and sabotaged his Presidency.
If we had functioning consciousness transfer and recognized the individuals as still being themselves — we’d be dooming ourselves to perpetual rule by the Pelosis and McConnells of the world, I expect. Once they burrow in, only age eventually takes them out now — losing that, we’d lose any way to dislodge them from the body politic.
Culturally — either the “net conscious” would almost all increasingly lose touch with society — or (imho, more likely) once they came to outnumber the organic, society would freeze and stagnate.
But as with most things — if it can be done, someone will likely do it. So we’ll see if it ever comes about. Elon would certainly try (if he isn’t funding this to some extent, I’d be surprised). As long as no one tries going all Cybus Industries on the populace, I suppose I’m okay with it. Not like I have a real vote anyway.
There’s always downloading your brain into a succession of bodies over time.
I might take that deal.
Arthur C. Clark is such a hack, blatantly stealing that concept from the Oscar-worthy movie The 6th Day.
lol How have I not heard of that movie? Must have been a real turkey.
Poul Anderson also used that idea in a series of novels.
Before The Matrix was Neuromancer. Much, much better.
Been meaning to read it for well over a decade. Just re-downloaded it for about the 5th time.
There’s also the Thousand Culture series by John Barnes. One of the main plot points is a device implanted that backs up your brain so that if they get good enough technology, you may be brought back.
Life imitates Max Headroom.
Anybody want to guess?
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was in Damascus on Saturday, fled to an unknown destination early on Sunday local time, Syrian security officials said.
Assad had announced he would address the nation at 8 p.m. local time on Saturday, but the speech never occurred. The president’s wife and children left for Russia at the end of November, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier.
He’s either dead, alive in Russia, or “dead” in Russia. If he’s still around and an Alawiteastan can be carved out he may pop back up but I think the Ruskies are done with him. His regime, though secular, was infamously corrupt even for the Middle East.
Until observed, he’s in your dictatorial regime… maybe.
Any further info re: the reports that his plane disappeared from radar and may have gone down?
That’s what “they” want you to believe. Argentina is a big place.
I realize you’re joking but a, uh, unique looking fellow like Bashar isn’t going to be hiding out anywhere.
He needs a chin transplant from Bruce Campbell.
Federal prosecutors — who initially charged the pair with misdemeanor trespassing, but later dropped those charges — say that, while the Jordanians were in the country illegally and are in the process of being deported, they did not crash the gate or intend to do any harm at Quantico.
And yet they broke God know how many labor laws getting the the job delivering the packages and yet here they remain. I have know idea why people are pissed with DC.
Youngkin: Jordanians ‘crashed’ Quantico. Feds: It was an Amazon delivery.Virginia’s governor has used the arrest of two undocumented men who misunderstood directions to stop at a check-in station to inflame fears over illegal immigration.
“inflame fears over illegal immigration”
Oh fuck off, The Washington Post.
But Bezos wants to make nice with the orange man!
In case anybody thought woke and almost as evil Mozilla was going to act as a foil to the Google, I have have bad news.
Reclaim the internet: Mozilla’s rebrand for the next era of tech
The hemorrhaging cash is completely unimportant. What will fix the fact that people don’t trust us anymore than Alphabet is a fucking rebrand, baby!
Used to use Firefox but haven’t since they rebuked (fired? I don’t remember the details) their founder/CEO. Rebrands in the corporate world are usually little more than last ditch obfuscations anyway.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/15/mozillas-mr-robot-promo-backfires-after-it-installs-firefox-extension-without-permission/
This did it for me. Yes, they backtracked eventually, but the fact they stonewalled and only reluctantly put procedures in place against this told me they are just as evil as those they claim are evil.
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/retrospective-looking-glass/
Shorter Mozilla
Time to double the CEO’s pay again, lay off 1/3 of the devs again, and come out in favor of government censorship again.
Well holy shit, glad I no longer use them. That’s pathetic.
Oh privacy guru, thoughts on Zen browser?
am I wrong to just assume that everything is compromised, that most of the VPN servers are NSA ops, that police and cameras are in our sock drawers, and that the struggle-fest against intrusion is hopeless or at the very least a very poor use of emotional energy?
I mean, build all the ARs and write every nasty letter-to-the-editor you can, but it’s all over but the crying; I keep being shut down at Glibs dot com by “that ship has sailed,” but, I must say, pretty much all the ships have sailed: there is very little philosophy or agency left
Hadn’t heard anything about it until today, to be honest. Sounds promising, they don’t delve too deeply in the github summary as to what mitigations they’ve applied, so you’d still presumably need to do some user.js tweaking to get it fully privacy-respecting. The thing with forking a codebase as massive as Firefox though is that if it doesn’t gain a huge developer following in relatively short order it’ll probably turn into PaleMoon 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Yeah, holy shit. Please infuse your brand with one-sided politics.
I haven’t used their software in a couple decades and after reading that pile of shit there is no fucking way I ever will again.
That is my belief.
Which browser is best from a privacy/security and functionality perspective?
*grabs popcorn
Me too!
Out of the box? Probably LibreWolf, which is Firefox with most of the Arkenfox user.js pre-configured, telemetry turned off, and no Google search enabled by default. Ungoogled-chromium is OK if you’re on a Linux system, but the developer doesn’t publish official binaries for Windows, and it’s still a whack-a-mole game of trying to plug all of the backchannels to Google in the source code. The project is way too small to do anything remotely like a full code audit of chromium, so it’s highly improbable that every instance of telemetry has been fully mitigated.
FWIW, Brave and the vast majority of other mainstream “privacy-focused” chromium-based browsers don’t even make a pretense of trying to “de-google” chromium. They phone home just as often as if you went and compiled chromium yourself. At best you typically get a pre-installed adblocker; keeping in mind that the way the developer makes money is to whitelist a small number of advertisers who pay them for the privilege, and/or layering in their own data mining, crypto mining, or shitcoin scammery.
Pat, do you happen to know if LibreWolf would work with Monocle? Also there doesn’t appear to be a version of LibreWolf for Android, so what might be best to use on my phone (ideally working with Eyepiece? I’m currently using Firefox Nightly on the phone, which works with the extension while regular Firefox doesn’t – thanks for the advice, Slummy!)
Under the hood LibreWolf is vanilla Firefox, so any extensions you use on Firefox should work. On mobile I use Mull, which takes substantially the same approach as LibreWolf, just using the FF mobile codebase.
I stopped putting up with Brave when I realized they are not, in fact, privacy oriented.
OK! Now coming to you live and direct from LibreWolf!
Now a question to anyone: Does it matter which “monkey” I use for extensions (specifically, for Monocle?) Grease? Tamper? Violent? Don’t know if there are any others. I’ve been using Tampermonkey on Firefox, but I’m open to suggestions. Doesn’t even have to be one of the monkeys.
I don’t know about the “power to the people” flapdoodle but the graphics are ugly as shit.
Could be worse, at least it’s not Corporate Memphis.
*looks that up*
Yeah, I guess that is also ugly.
I’m really angry with Mozilla.
Firefox: Bloatware. It was supposed to be light and breezy. No. I was several years behind the most current version and it STILL bogged down. I switched to Chrome, which makes me mad because I don’t want to use a Google product.
Thinderbird: This is what I’m MOST mad about. I was, again, several years behind on updates because 1) when I update shit, it breaks, 2) I had plugins that didn’t work with the most recent versions. But, you know, it was working. I had its junk filter trained (it had a learning module for its junk filters so it knew which email that came from my contact form was actually junk) and everything was intuitive. Well, one day, I had to deal with a new problem, which had to do with my Roadrunner not supporting POP3 anymore. Long story, but Thunderbird had part responsibility for that. So I heaved a longsuffering sigh and went to get a new version. IT’S ON A DIFFERENT KERNEL!!! None of my plugins work. Not supported with this new kernel. Now, look. That plugin is SUPER important to meor I WOULDN’T HAVE THEM!!!
Anyway, I ditched that and got eMClient, which is … okay. Its controls aren’t intuitive, the junk filter doesn’t learn, its rule making is dreadfully primitive, and its export emails function is also primitive. It doesn’t do quoted text in any familiar manner, if at all (they say it can be done, but I haven’t found a way to do it). I mean, the MOST BASIC of all tasks. And it’s the best of all the email clients I tried. This is the only one that would do POP3 on my Roadrunner account, so I’m stuck.
I wish they would LEAVE SHIT ALONE that works! Why can’t they LET people do what they want???
I use a PC for a REASON and that is because of control. Why yes, I CAN get into the registry and tinker around. (That doesn’t mean that 6 years down the road I’ll remember what I did, because I won’t.) The longer time goes on, the less control I have. Of anything. My computer, my cars, my appliances.
I am so pissed at these people. And also? Fuck AI.
I guess I was madder about this than I thought.
“revitalize our intentions”
What does that even mean?
Jones Knowles Ritchie got a check?
Flashyspeak that ultimately sounds good (to dummies) but means nothing.
So perfect for a “global group of activists” — pretty sounding words signifying nothing… but funding should keep flowing!
Spot of sunshine.
I can think of nowhere more appropriate for a write-up of a defunct cruise ship than the National Review.
Legit LOL!
Slutty Sunday reminds you that squirting and female ejaculation are not the same thing.
https://archive.is/7L8Un
Jesus. #4 unironically went to a cosmetic surgeon and said “Give me the post-50 Courtney Cox.”
Are Courtney’s lips that inflated?
They’re not quite that bad, but she’s had a lot of fillers done.
‘Tis the season for yet another year-end pissing contest between a hospital (system) and a major insurer with the patients caught in the middle, pretty much stuck with the coverage their employer picked. Disconnecting medical insurance from employment would be a good start, in my only-slightly-informed opinion. (Imagine your employer saying, “We’re switching all your auto insurance from State Farm to Allstate next year.”)
Great optics a week after a health insurance CEO got plugged by a vigilante who 3/4 of the internet is celebrating as a folk hero. Are you dumb, stupid, or dumb?
It’s the usual contract renewal talks in network and likely calendar based contract.
It’s part of the whole kabuki theater.
I get that, it’s just incredibly bad timing for that sort of theatre, and considering you’ve got cunts like Taylor Lorenz doing her usual doxxing shtick trying to get other insurance industry executives killed, you’d think they might think twice about it, but I suppose these people really do live in their own wealthy bubble.
To wit
Same is happening between Anthem and a hospital that I use.
I’m not at CEO-execution stage yet – I assume it will settle the same way cable channels do.
Someone didn’t think this all the way through.
I was insufficiently current on culture to be offended
‘spose Ima up to date now
Yeah, took me a few minutes. We have apparently moved on to cancelling numbers now.
RC. 13 in the west and 4 in the east.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraphobia
#metoo, I had no idea of any 1488 references.
O.K.
I heard the term 14 / 88 long ago – white power skinhead thing – always a few of them in the scene even though they were hated.
Sort of like in Discworld when one vampire trained his kids to be able to resist religious symbols he taught them ALL of them. This meant when they started falling prey to them, they could see them in everything.
Frantically shovelling money into the furnace
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the Pentagon will send nearly $1 billion to Ukraine, bringing the total the United States has committed to Ukraine to more than $62 billion since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022.
The package dedicated an additional $988 million to Ukraine and will provide the country with more drones, rockets for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, and support for maintenance and sustainment.
Since the package was made through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, the assistance will be for contracts to deliver these systems to Ukraine after they are manufactured. This is different from the program the U.S. routinely gives Ukraine assistance through in which existing weapons from U.S. military stockpiles are provided to Ukraine quickly and the dollar amounts replenish U.S. supplies with new weapons.
Time is running out. Give generously.
That’s exclusively military aid; the total of congressionally-approved aid is $175 billion, and that’s a 6 month old statistic.
Nowhere is safe from the tyranny of Pride
I watched a Christmas movie last night. I hadn’t seen Die Hard in decades, so when it rolled up on the suggested list, I said, yippee kai yay.
Austin said that since Russia launched its offensive, it has suffered at least 700,000 casualties and lost more than $200 billion.
This aid package is part of the effort to try to get Ukraine as much military aid as possible before the Trump administration takes over on Jan. 20 and is the 22nd aid package the Biden administration has sent to Ukraine under the USAI. It is likely the Biden administration is not going to be able to use up the almost $8 billion in Ukraine military aid funding still available that it had hoped to give Ukraine before the start of the Trump administration, according to a U.S. official. That opens up the possibility that it will be up to the Trump administration to decide what to do with the remaining congressionally approved funds.
Austin was delivering the keynote address at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute in Simi Valley, California, on Saturday as he and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell each accepted the Reagan Peace Through Strength Award.
You can’t make this shit up.
Well, Russia Russia Russia did steal the 2016 election so turnabout is fair play.
Grabbing the wheel
Donald Trump has more than a month and a half to go before he’s sworn in for a second term. But the Republican president-elect is already moving aggressively not just to fill his Cabinet and outline policy goals, but to achieve them.
——-
And this weekend, Trump returned to the global stage, joining a host of other foreign leaders for the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral five years after it was ravaged by a fire. There, he was welcomed like a sitting dignitary, with a prime seat next to French President Emmanuel Macron.
Absent in Paris: lame duck President Joe Biden, who has largely disappeared from headlines, except when he issued a pardon of his son, Hunter, who was facing sentencing for gun crimes and tax evasion. First lady Jill Biden attended in his place.
I like that bit about Joe pardoning Hunter’s gun and tax convictions. They left out the part about “any other alleged crimes he may have committed on his or my behalf.”
Good morning Glibs.
In case you have not seen it before, here is a Cryptid based calendar for the national parks system.
https://a.co/d/fWs1wBs
Steve Smith approved.
https://a.co/d/1rk7Kpe
Here is a better link with a direct sale.
I love the old school poster style illustrations.
Something a wee bit different for a lazy Sunday morning.
Jake Shimabukuro Performing Eleanor Rigby
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UM7CXjzXRA
Welp last night was a chaotic mess – EF and LH Jr went to church for EF’s dad’s memorial mass.
LH Jr had a seizure, falling – he is 6’8″ – like a tree in the pews. I wasn’t there but apparently the ushers and other parishioners got him loaded into the car.
Long story short, he also dislocated his shoulder. So a visit to the ER where they popped it back in place. Soft brace in place, future medication change and visits to an orthopedic specialist plus the neurologist. Luckily the ER wasn’t busy and they got to see him right away. Only 2.5 hours there total before he was released.
Needless to say a night of rotten sleep as I listened and waited to see if I was needed.
Holy crap. My sympathies all around. May things improve swiftly.
Oh, I am so sorry.
But … 6’8″? Good gravy.
Ouch.
Good luck with all the follow ups.
good to see you
is about as good a deal and any of us are going to get
Fuck. Deepest sympathies to all. Being a biped is great, but keeping the Important Bit aloft on a 6′ lever is the tricky bit. Sounds like a damn solid job by Mr. Shoulder, taking one for the team. You as well, LH, for being there as backup.
We should be able to tip galant bits for their above-and-beyond service. It’d be nice for such a self-correcting mechanism to keep the layabout limbs on their toes. “LET THAT BE A LESSON TO THE REST OF YOU… NUTS!” ~ Chief Wiggum.
I activated the Classic Editor plugin on WordPress and I hope it doesn’t break anything in the new template. I’m telling you this because If you want to type/paste in the old way, you have to choose “Classic Editor.”
How much is that in bananas?
A pair of Dorothy’s ruby slippers, worn by Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz,” sold Saturday at an auction for $32.5 million, making the sparkling shoes the most valuable movie memorabilia ever sold at auction.
The slippers are one of four surviving pairs from the 1939 movie and were once stolen from a museum that housed them.
Live bidding for the pair of ruby red heels started at $1.55 million, according to Heritage Auctions, and were initially estimated to go for $3 million or more.
The auction house said in a news release that the slippers passed that number “within seconds” and that no other pair of ruby slippers has gone for close to that amount.
The dollar is sound. The people are crazy.
I’ve been enjoying this Canadian comedy musician:
Thrown in the Drunk Tank Again
No Frigs Left to Give
What is Aleppo? /Gary Johnson
I’m relieved that Trump (in STEVE SMITH all caps) said about Syria:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2024/12/07/trump-syria-conflict-russia/76839061007/