The Hat and The Hair: Episode 110

by | Feb 20, 2019 | Hat and Hair, SugarFree | 241 comments

Read President Trump’s Speech Declaring a National Emergency

 

FRIDAY AFTERNOON, LEAVING THE ROSE GARDEN

“That was an absolute rambling mess, Donald,” the hair told him.

“It was incoherent. Just a wreck,” the hat agreed.

He was riding on Donald’s shoulder like some deranged parrot as the man stalked through the halls of the White House. Staffers kept popping out of offices and withdrawing, slamming doors, clicking locks into place. Ringing phones were silenced. Someone could be heard being violently sick into a trashcan.

With regal dignity, Donald drew himself to his full height and began to strut. “Coherent isn’t consistent with my brand,” he said.

“Sarah wrote you such a nice speech,” the hair said. “Why couldn’t you just have read it? You did such a good job at the State of the Union.”

“Focused like a laser,” the hat said. “Like a laser.”

“I engage,” Donald sniffed. “I beguile and bedazzle. Off the cuff. Maverick, but not in the McCain way. Ford F-150 has the greatest towing capacity in its class. Classy.”

“Is he stroking out?” the hat asked the hair.

“No, but something is going on,” the hair replied. “His mind is a raging storm of fast food jingles.”

“Classy,” Donald said again. “Classy, classy, classy. I contain billions of nuclears.”

Sarah stepped out of her office and directly into Donald’s path.

“Sir?” she asked.

Donald walked past her.

“Sir? Mr. President?”

Donald stopped and turned. “Yes, young lady? Can I help you?”

“That’s Sarah,” the hair hissed. “You know her.”

“Pie, Donald,” the hat said. “That’s Pie. She’s your White House Press Secretary. Sort of.”

“Ah, yes,” Donald said. “Pie, dear squishy. How have you been? Tremendous, I hope?”

“Sir, was the speech I wrote bad?” Sarah asked. “Did you not like it or something.” She nervously shifted her considerable weight from foot to foot.

“It was a tremendous speech. Just great,” Donald said. “I really enjoyed listening to you give it. It was better than Cats.”

“No, sir. I mean the speech I wrote for the National Emergency Declaration. You didn’t read it just now at the press conference.”

“Did you see Cats? Terrible, just terrible. The whole set looked like a pile of garbage. Gay guys dressed like some sort of animal came out into the audience. Ridiculous. I hate theater. The characters never come out into the audience when you go to the movies.”

Sarah bit her lip and tried to hold back her tears. “Yes, Mr. President,” she whispered.

Donald reached out and squeezed her right breast twice. “Womp, womp!” he said, smiling, wrinkles digging into the leather of his face, cheekbones struggle to rise through the tough flesh. The tears started then, rivulets of mascara running down her face. She cradled the breast he had fondled like a wounded fawn as Donald turned and wandered away.

 

Donald Trump makes secret White Power Signal during racist press conference.

About The Author

SugarFree

SugarFree

Your Resident Narcissistic Misogynist Rape-Culture Apologist

241 Comments

  1. Spudalicious

    OMWC actually made a joke?

    • UnCivilServant

      It’s possible. I believe I’ve seen it a few times.

      • Lord Humungus

        I can’t think of a single Jewish comedian /s

      • UnCivilServant

        Yeah, I think they’re all married.

      • Lord Humungus

        Or in the middle of a divorce

      • AlexinCT

        The ones I can think of would never be allowed to create the comedy gold they produced back when the world had not gone all woke & stupid.

  2. Yusef drives a Kia

    Didn’t find the joke, still laughed though,
    Nice SF

    • Bobarian LMD

      Was it one of the alt-texts?

      • Bobarian LMD

        As to the first alt-text, they’d have to be firmer than I imagine, because I imagine them being like the liposuction sacks I saw on some E! plastic surgeon show I witnessed some years ago.

      • The Hyperbole

        My money is on “Coherent isn’t consistent with my brand”, that sounds like a line OMWC would use.

      • SugarFree

        Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

      • R C Dean

        I didn’t spot it as an infringement of OMWC ‘s IP, but it was my favorite line. I’m betting I can even drop that into a work conversation.

  3. commodious spittoon

    I can’t tell if Pie is Stockholmed at this point or is hanging on for the benefits.

    • Bobarian LMD

      Or she likes the “Whomp, whomp!”

      • AlexinCT

        I was gonna ask you guys if our contributor Pieinthesky had gone all tranny, but realized you people would miss the joke.

      • Chafed

        You people! Why I never….

      • Bobarian LMD

        Whadda ya mean, ‘you people’?

  4. Tundra

    She cradled the breast he had fondled like a wounded fawn as Donald turned and wandered away.

    Perfect close. Poignant, even.

    • C. Anacreon

      I really liked “The characters never come out into the audience when you go to the movies.”

  5. Count Potato

    https://twitter.com/tariqnasheed/status/1097021206992166912

    “1. Let me do a quick thread about this Jussie Smollett hoax. Because we need to ask questions about who else was involved in this hoax. I have always been critical of the deceptive tactics of the white LGBT community. “

    • Bobarian LMD

      That guy is really a parody run by one of the 400 actual white supremacists in this country, right?

      And by actual white supremacist, I mean FBI plant.

      • UnCivilServant

        Oh come on now. If you look at the doctrines of social justice, they are clearly built around a core tenet that whites are innately superior, otherwise there wouldn’t be so much need to provide special privileges to other groups at their expense. There’s way more than 400 non plants in those crowds. Though NPCs are easy to copy and paste.

      • Naptown Bill

        Fair point, and one that I’ve brought up a few times in argument. If you believe in white privilege it has to work everywhere, which would mean that white Africans have advantages that black Africans do not, or whites in Asia have advantages that Asians in Asia do not. A cursory look at, say, Nigeria or Japan proves that isn’t remotely true. So, that means it isn’t about being white so much as about being a member of a majority class. Congratulations, you’ve just made the argument that people in the majority of a society tend to mold that society based on their values, giving them an advantage over people who don’t share those values.

        In the US, most people who say “white privilege” either mean it because they think white people are inherently superior in some way or say it because it gives them political and social leverage against white people. It has zippy-doo to do with creating a more just society.

      • hate_speech

        *Raucous applause*

    • Michael

      Needs more sandwich board.

    • Naptown Bill

      I want to believe that account is an elaborate hoax of some kind, only I know that there are plenty of people who believe everything he’s saying. In the range of human sense we run the full gamut, from nigh-godlike wisdom to dumb as a bag of hammers.

    • R C Dean

      No way I’m going to dive into what is sure to be a pile of radioactive derp, but is he saying Smollett was framed by white LGBTers, or that white LGBTers were in on the hoax from the get-go?

      • Rhywun

        I only skimmed it but as near as I could tell there was some stuff about gay whitey piling on to the anti-lynching bill that was prompted by the hoax. So, yeah – insane ramblings. I still think he’s performance art anyway.

      • Chipwooder

        The latter, basically. He’s mad that teh gheys are getting victim status on a level with black people and Smollett was apparently campaigning for this antilynching bill (seriously? Because there are any lynchings anymore, plus I know there are existing antilynching laws) with Harris, thus leading crazy man to conclude that the hoax was all part of this campaign.

    • Ted S.

      “1. Let me do a quick thread

      That’s what blogs are for.

  6. Chipwooder

    Whatever happened to the Adventures of Secret Nazi President, anyway?

    • Raven Nation

      Baked Penguin had/has some family stuff going on. But, a week or so back, he did talk about starting it up again.

      • Tundra

        Then promptly slammed into the brick wall that is Photoshop. Hopefully he resolves it. I really miss RDA.

      • leon

        I liked the Homeless guy.

      • Swiss Servator

        “Mmmhm. Xenu is comin’. Lemme see ’em titties!”

      • Gustave Lytton

        ^this guy gets it

        Also, looking forward to the appearance of AOC in SNP

      • juris imprudent

        Oh what a thought. I had to pick my jaw up off the floor.

  7. Swiss Servator

    Donald reached out and squeezed her right breast twice. “Womp, womp!” he said, smiling.

    ART, I TELLS YA! ART!!!

    • Plinker762

      Sounds like a cue for Q

    • WTF

      Yeah, that one got me to laugh out loud.

  8. Old Man With Candy

    OOOOH, OOOOH! MISTAH KOTTAH, MISTAH KOTTAH!

      • Old Man With Candy

        MISSUS KOTTAH MAKES ME FEEL ALL FUNNY IN MY BATHING SUIT AREA!

      • AlexinCT

        LIES!

        She is too old!

      • Old Man With Candy

        Actually, I think she’s dead now. But back in the day… whoa.

      • AlexinCT

        Back in the day indeed…

      • Chipwooder

        Correct. Died in 2014.

  9. Tundra

    OT: Remember the kerfuffle last week when someone questioned why AOC’s boyfriend had a gov email?

    The Congresswoman Loves the Swamp

    Good stuff. It won’t matter, but it’s always a good reminder how slimy these people are.

    • UnCivilServant

      I propose a congressional reform. Congresscritters get paid a flat rate equal to the median income of the nation. If they want staff, they can pay for them out of their own pocket.

      • Don Escaped Texas

        That makes a lot of sense

        especially when the parties, industry, and interest groups do so much of the research, advertising, and work anyway; why worry the USG with that salary and paperwork. Don’t remember who said it first, but I laughed more than a little at the idea that congresscritters should wear racing togs that display all their sponsorships like so many NASCAR drivers.

      • commodious spittoon

        More on Justice Democrats.

        That is one of the recent scandals surrounding Justice Democrats: apparently endorsements are bought and paid for by candidates.

        All this came out when JD refused to endorse David Hildebrand, a progressive challenger of Dianne Feinstein. Instead they chose to endorse Alison Hartson, the National Director of WolfPac. Wolf Pac, a PAC that was created and run by…Cenk Uygur.

        Now the interesting thing about Wolf Pac is that is has been pointed out Wolf Pac is just a money making scam, where the only money that is spend is spend on staffers’ salaries. Money that is collected from small donations by progressives.

        Wolf Pac? Like Wolf Cola?

      • Lord Humungus

        You know who else used Wolf Packs…

      • Rhywun

        As the study cautions, attention should be paid to ways to maintain their status as wildlife refuges after they are taken out of military use.

        I wouldn’t hold my breath.

      • Swiss Servator

        Have you seen the Bundeswehr lately? If revenge was on their minds, I think the Poles could be to the Rhine before the Hun managed to muster up as much as a loud complaint.

      • juris imprudent

        NC State?

      • commodious spittoon

        Jack London?

      • mexican sharpshooter

        One man in Vegas?

      • Chipwooder

        Jim Valvano?

      • Swiss Servator

        Mr. Valvano. He dead.

      • egould310

        Door nail.

      • ChipsnSalsa

        Kevin Nash?

    • Swiss Servator

      I’d love to see some shite stirrer on TEAM RED file an ethics complaint.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        Where’s Congressman Eyepatch? He looks like a shit stirrer.

      • The Other Kevin

        I think I would die of schadenfreude if she didn’t serve out her term and Trump did.

      • Mad Scientist

        The left would make a martyr of her for that.

    • Naptown Bill

      It’s interesting to see how quickly AOC’s precociousness has gone from charming to annoying. I wonder if she’ll even make it to the end of this term, never mind a second.

      • R C Dean

        She is doing a fine job of pissing off fellow DC Dems, because that’s who ratted her out on her boyfriend. Her chief of staff comes off as a huge douchebag who does not appear to be overburdened with functioning neurons, either.

      • Swiss Servator

        He seems pretty smart at money making…just not avoiding enemy making.

    • AlexinCT

      She is doing what every democrat does and gets away with. Go figure.

    • wdalasio

      Did anyone think for a minute that she wouldn’t proceed to squeeze the office for every bit of privilege she could squeeze? It was utterly obvious when she came out parading in the $3,000 suit and the Manolo Blahniks. And I don’t think it’s even corruption in the usual, cynical, sense. For all their crap about equality, socialists really do believe that power and wealth should be centered on the state. Rich people get to parade around in fancy clothes. Why shouldn’t an elected tribune of the people? Rich old white guys take care of their own. Why should she be forbidden as much?

      • AlexinCT

        Top men (and ladies) should have all the perks possible considering the really hard job they do of robbing Peter to pay Paul…

      • Naptown Bill

        Pol Thot turns out to be the most appropriate nickname. But yeah, she’s a, what, twenty-something basic b who loves attention and telling people what to do. She just got handed more political influence and status than she’s ever had in her life. There is zero chance she shows up in DC, rents an apartment in Laurel and shops at PayLess.

      • Tacit Rainbow

        If she *was* doing that, she’d be actually frightening.

      • Naptown Bill

        Shit, if she was walking the walk she’d have principles, at least. I might not agree with them, but at least I could respect them.

      • hate_speech

        Exactly. Jeremy Corbin rides the bus or some shit like that. That motherfucker is dangerous. Pol Thot is just some idiot who retarded her way into $175k / year.

      • C. Anacreon

        No one will shop at Payless anymore, they just announced they are going out of business and closing all the stores.

      • Tripacer

        Leona Thotsky?

      • Chipwooder

        The nomenklatura DESERVE their perks, tovarisch! They’re fighting for all of us!

  10. The Late P Brooks

    It was better than Cats.

    No higher praise.

    • Old Man With Candy

      See it again and again.

  11. leon

    “Did you see Cats? Terrible, just terrible. The whole set looked like a pile of garbage. Gay guys dressed like some sort of animal came out into the audience. Ridiculous. I hate theater. The characters never come out into the audience when you go to the movies.”

    Gold SF. Just Gold

    • leon

      we can’t be divided, so we all have to pitch in on one-side. If you disagree you are a race-traitor.

      • ruodberht

        The side with more anti-Semites is the side Jews need to pitch in on. Obvy.

    • Suthenboy

      From the replies: “And don’t get me wrong, white supremacists are as big of a threat to the Jewish community as rep. Omar, but don’t use tokens to divide the Jewish community.”

      White supremacists are as big of a threat to the jewish community. I see. All three of them?
      Dumbshits. The fucking proggies would put you all in ovens today if they could. The only people I see not cussing Jews are redneck peckerwoods that would take up rifles and lay their lives down to defend you if it comes to that.

      • C. Anacreon

        There’s a street near us called Silverwood Drive, and I always call it Peckerwood Drive. I guess I must have gotten it from you?

    • Michael

      Clicked and closed immediately. I’ve had all the NPR millennial vocal fry anyone can possibly stand in their lifetime before diving head first into the abyss.

    • Old Man With Candy

      Stolen for my twatter feed.

  12. Spudalicious

    Damn. “Light snow” is over six inches and counting. I may have to run the blower twice today.

    • UnCivilServant

      That is light snow. I thought you were in Idaho.

      • Spudalicious

        Treasure Valley is high desert. The forecast was 1-2”. Bogus basin is the local ski area about an hour from here. It’s at 15’ for the season so far.

    • Rebel Scum

      over six inches and counting.

      That’s what SHE said…

      • Bobarian LMD

        I may have to run the blower

        That’s what HE said…

    • Rhywun

      Already stopped here and it’s raining later.

      • Rhywun

        Shit – back with a vengeance.

    • juris imprudent

      Yep, plow finally came by, now I can go clear the driveway.

  13. Don Escaped Texas

    Ford F-150 has the greatest towing capacity in its class.

    Pet peeve: I hate sales weasel words like this. The statement should be (as is the case for my C1500HD): 8,200 pounds towing capacity full stop.

    I’ve always been a cynic, but, after I got into automotive, I came to realize that most ratings stood on the shoulders of caveats like non-standard transmission cooler required. Or, like above, the class thing (which is never stated or written in legible font): the class of trucks whose name begins with “F” and ends with “150” or “gasoline engines between L-1 and L liters displacement” where L is our displacement or ours is the only turbo. Eventually I learned that even J D Power ratings were bought and paid for: we would like to underwrite this test of X based on our contrived notion of class for which we already know our product is best.

    I’m not down on Ford (far from it); they’re just the handy example; everyone does it. The engineer in me just aches, though, when we take so much effort to talk around the facts when the simply stating the facts would serve so much better.

    • mexican sharpshooter

      Right. When literally every truck wins Motor Trend Truck of the Year, the award is pretty much meaningless.

      • Lord Humungus

        STEVE SMITH WIN RAPESQUATCH OF THE YEAR, 4.543 billion years running.

      • Bobarian LMD

        ALL OTHER COMPETITORS END UP RAPED.

  14. leon

    So for news that it too local:

    It looks like the Utah Senate is about to pass a Hate Crimes bill, especially after recent footage of a Gay man being assaulted on Main Street in SLC. The only thing is that the assaulter has reached out to cops and they haven’t made any arrests. I’ll admit the evidence, if it was all that there could be, looked bad. But it’s a 11 second clip, and the cops have said they are looking to get more context of what actually happened.

    My take. Could be a douche-bag. But the context of the video is weird. If i find a link i’ll post it.

    • ruodberht

      Assault isn’t already illegal in Utah?

      • Rhywun

        Dude. Bad thoughts have to be punished harder because that’s how you get rid of bad thoughts.

      • ruodberht

        Mens rea is outdated.

        Also, we need sentence enhancers for hate crimes.

        Square that circle!

      • Gadfly

        Square that circle!

        Easy: FYTW!

        It’s the variable that balances every equation.

  15. mexican sharpshooter

    *cracks open Diet Coke*

    “Womp, womp!” he said, smiling, wrinkles digging into the leather of his face, cheekbones struggle to rise through the tough flesh

    Once again, Sugarfree pushes the bounds of Poe’s Law.

  16. The Late P Brooks

    “Light snow” is over six inches and counting.

    Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

    • Swiss Servator

      Or it is a really white porn star doing a slow reveal?

      • Rasilio

        If they were white wouldn’t it be over by now?

      • Spudalicious

        It came up short.

  17. Rebel Scum

    Donald reached out and squeezed her right breast twice. “Womp, womp!” he said

    Heh.

  18. Don Escaped Texas

    Is there a better explanation somewhere of the problems with blockchain ?

    Early last month, the security team at Coinbase noticed something strange going on in Ethereum Classic, one of the cryptocurrencies people can buy and sell using Coinbase’s popular exchange platform. Its blockchain, the history of all its transactions, was under attack. An attacker had somehow gained control of more than half of the network’s computing power and was using it to rewrite the transaction history. That made it possible to spend the same cryptocurrency more than once—known as “double spends.” The attacker was spotted pulling this off to the tune of $1.1 million.

    • Brett L

      They’ve always been predicated on being “expensive” to attack as the fundamental form of security. As long as malicious persons cannot form a tyranny of the majority with 50%+1 compute nodes, its all good. One of the feature/bugs is that every node is equally trusted. From a distributed aspect, this is great. The problem is that there is probably a sweet spot in node expansion where there is enough value to be stolen that a malicious party could buy enough computing power to pull off an attack. I think it was a good first idea, but is an incomplete protocol.

      Someone else here is an actual expert, but from what I understand the proposed fix in developmental blockchain protocols is to have each node define zones of heightened trust, where basically to change the history, you have to achieve a consensus from your trust zone. This allows you to add quality to quantity, so that simple majority tyranny of nodes computing the chain can’t rewrite the history. It’s complex, because you’re still in danger of being overwhelmed, and it isn’t clear to me why I would trust, say banks — who might be individually overwhelmed by having minimal trust in all of their clients who use the blockchain to make transactions, and more trust in several other banks and institutions. If they have to trust the edges a little bit, and the edges are big, there’s a chance of a similar dominance. And then once a megabank who is well trusted by a lot of the system is sending out bad information, what does the cascade failure scenario look like? How do you keep that contained and arbitrate who is correct?

      • Brett L

        I believe from a quick Google search the idea I’ve incredibly mangled is known as “Proof of Stake”. It is not entirely unlike what I described, but I did not summarize it well.

      • UnCivilServant

        I thought proof of stake was something you needed to collect a bounty on a vampire.

      • Naptown Bill

        No, it’s the receipt you find in your pocket the morning after a late night at Ruth’s Chris.

      • Caput Lupinum

        The big issue with blockchains, whether reliant on proof of work or on proof of stake, is that their prime feature is their prime vulnerability; the inability to change the history of transactions. There are some ways to alter the history in some protocols, but they are all essentially impossible to do through practical means. As pointed out in Don’s linked article the usual way is to girl the chain entirely, effectively starting a new history. Assuming perfect code the intransigence of transactions is a positive, but assuming perfect code hubris beyond measure in a world where professional programmers struggle with fizz buzz. But adding the malleability necessary to patch errors directly undermines the blockchain’s outlawing selling point. If you don’t want permanent transactions, then there are far less computationally expensive ways of tracking the, so why go through the trouble of using a blockchain?

      • Caput Lupinum

        Girl the chain? I’m sure SF could come up with a meaning for that, but I’m clueless. Oh well, that’s what I get for posting from my phone.

      • hate_speech

        If that’s from your phone than you’re a goddamn master.

      • Rhywun

        Must be a millennial 🙂
        I couldn’t type all that out on a phone without going insane.

      • Caput Lupinum

        Yep, and I have the requisite bun to prove it. Though my hair goes down to my ass crack when I let it down, so it’s a proper messy sexy librarian bun, not one of those stupid thimble sized hipster monstrosities, but it is still a bun nonetheless.

      • hate_speech

        |so it’s a proper messy sexy librarian bun

        Mythical Libertarian woman or disgusting hipster trying to make excuses for his disgusting hair choice? Sounds like time for a straw poll!

  19. Rebel Scum

    As if VA traffic laws were not asinine enough.

    RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — For the first time in Virginia, police officers could issue speeding tickets through the mail — without pulling over the speeding motorist — under legislation sitting on Gov. Ralph Northam’s desk.

    SB 1521, which cleared its final hurdle in the General Assembly last week, would allow state troopers to use handheld photo speed monitoring devices to catch vehicles going at least 12 mph over the speed limit in highway work zones.

    The owner or renter of the vehicle then would be mailed a summons with a fine of up to $125. The recipient of the summons could fight the ticket by filing an affidavit or testifying in court “that he was not the operator of the vehicle at the time of the alleged violation,” the bill states.

    The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Bill Carrico, R-Grayson, has prompted discussion on social media. As one user posted on Reddit, “The big difference now will be when you speed past a parked police car and think you’re lucky because they didn’t come after you, but then you get a ticket in the mail.”

    Some feared that Virginia is “turning into Maryland,” where photo speed enforcement is common. In 2017, Maryland issued more than 1.5 million speed-camera tickets, with fines totaling more than $62 million. Speed cameras also are used in Washington, D.C.

    However, Carrico’s bill is limited:

    — Speed cameras could be used only by law-enforcement officers employed by Virginia State Police.

    — They could be used only in or around highway work zones.

    — Officers using the cameras would have to be present in the work zone and have their blue lights flashing.

    — Police would have to post “conspicuous” signs within 1,000 feet of any work zone alerting drivers that speed cameras were being used.

    Payment of a speed-camera summons would not go on the motorist’s driving record, and it would not affect the person’s motor vehicle insurance coverage, according to the legislation.

    Something something State Police something something State Revenue Agents.

    • leon

      Something something, right to confront accuser…

      • Rebel Scum

        That too.

      • Bobarian LMD

        would not go on the motorist’s driving record, and it would not affect the person’s motor vehicle insurance coverage

        The work-around — You’re not being accused, you’re just being levied a penaltax.

      • kinnath

        The local city has speed cameras which issue large fines.

        The legal smokescreen is that these are administrative tickets like parking tickets. The tickets are issued to the owner of the vehicle and not the driver at the time of the incident.

        The tickets do not count against your driving record; therefore, they do not have to be issued face-to-face by an officer that verifies the identity of the driver; therefore, pay the ticket muther fucker or we’ll send a collection agency after your ass.

      • Swiss Servator

        In Germany, when I lived there, this was quite prevalent – “bewarnungsgeld”. Pay much less upfront, or contest it, lose and pay much more.

      • UnCivilServant

        Sounds like “Guilty until proven Guilty”

      • Gustave Lytton

        Oh, standard traffic court procedure then?

    • Naptown Bill

      Some feared that Virginia is “turning into Maryland,”

      *spits coffee*

      HEY!

      No, it does suck here though. Call me when you’ve got a 10-round mag cap limit and a likely ban on 80% lowers coming down the pike. Oh, and a $15 minimum wage and a ban on foam take-out containers.

      • juris imprudent

        And NB lays down why I landed just north of the Mason-Dixon.

      • Naptown Bill

        We have friends around Lancaster. They’re loaded, so of course they have a big, beautiful house in an idyllic neighborhood, but we definitely notice that even if you’re of more modest means you can find some pretty nice places in that area. It’s the opposite direction of where I’d like to be heading, but if Maryland keeps heading in the direction it’s heading that might be the easiest sell to the wife.

      • kbolino

        The minimum wage for the state is $10.10/hour which is bad enough but not $15 bad. I recently got take-out food in a styrofoam container, so I think that’s a county-level ban.

      • Naptown Bill

        Those are two bills in the General Assembly right now. Allegedly the foam container ban has a lot of support and will likely pass. I know a minimum wage hike will pass, and I’m pretty sure it’ll be $15, but they’ll probably put a bunch of exemptions in it. I read through some of the bills that are being voted on this session and some commentary on how likely they are to pass, and it’s honestly disappointing to the point of despair.

      • kbolino

        Ok, I misunderstood what you were saying. You’re probably right about both those things passing. Marylanders love them some poor people, provided that they live far away and don’t actually do anything useful.

      • Chipwooder

        The process of turning into Maryland is quickening, I’m sad to say

    • Gustave Lytton

      BS. All of those limitations will be eased away. Local cops be deputized state officers, the entire state will be a designated construction zone for these purposes, and insurance companies sure as hell want accurate driving records to base pricing on.

      • Naptown Bill

        In terrible, horrible, no-good Maryland there was a huge kerfuffle when the cameras went in, both speed and red-light. Despite having sworn up and down that this would never happen, the cameras are outsourced to private contractors, often out of state, who make commission on each ticket issued. Cameras commonly trigger in error, and the contractors have very little motivation to come out and fix them. The tickets get mailed out anywhere from two weeks to a month later, and the process to contest the ticket is a pain in the ass, so mostly people just pay the fine, making it kind of like a shitty lottery for impromptu taxation. The local governments have become addicted to the revenue stream, so they’re not going anywhere. On one street near me the city keeps trying to put up speed cameras but because of the layout they have to put them at about fireplug level. Mostly they don’t make it to the end of the week before someone spray paints the lens, puts a bag over it, or just takes a bat to the thing.

      • Lord Humungus

        >>before someone spray paints the lens, puts a bag over it, or just takes a bat to the thing.

        The peasants don’t always take kindly to the boot.

      • Naptown Bill

        “Hey, we’re gonna put a two foot by one foot box with a camera here on the side of a poorly-lit intermittently busy road just under some trees outside an apartment complex. Every time you drive past it too fast it’ll take a picture and mail you a speeding ticket. Now we’re going to go away and assume that, unlike the previous four times this year, this time everyone will ignore it.”

        This is the quality of the thinking involved in my city government.

      • Plinker762

        Obviously they need cameras to monitor the cameras

    • kbolino

      Most parts of Maryland don’t have speed cameras. Some counties don’t have them as a rule, others only have a few (typically in self-governed municipal areas). It is Montgomery and Prince George’s counties that are littered with the damn things, although I guess those are the only parts of Maryland the average resident of Northern Virginia would know. Larger road construction projects get them, too, but that’s generally confined to Interstates and major state highways.

      The biggest gripe I have with the use of speed cameras* is that no accounting is made for whether or not a work zone or school zone is actually in use. If there are no people working, or no students at school, then the use of cameras is clearly about revenue not safety. It doesn’t matter how fast you were going through that inactive work zone at 3 AM, you were not endangering anyone especially more than you would be on any other stretch of road.

      * = Apart from their mere existence, which I despise on principle

      • Naptown Bill

        Anne Arundel has a very few speed cameras, but tons and tons of red-light cameras.

      • kbolino

        I’ve lived in the northern part of the county for about 7 years now, but I haven’t seen any red-light cameras. Although, the guy they killed over the “red flag” law lived not that far from me, so I can’t say it’s all good.

      • Naptown Bill

        I’m down further south, obviously, so maybe I’m projecting Annapolis on the rest of the county. I do seem to recall some on Ritchie Highway, though, around College Parkway.

      • kbolino

        Up until very recently (I’ve lived in the county for 8 years), I thought of Annapolis as where the crazy was concentrated so the rest of the county could be left alone. But there’s so much development and change taking place outside of Annapolis now that it’s hard to describe it as confined anymore. I’ve lived in Frederick and AA counties most of my live, but sadly both are undergoing rapid changes for the worse, government-wise.

  20. The Late P Brooks

    I’d love to see some shite stirrer on TEAM RED file an ethics complaint.

    Campaign finance law is complicated. It was an honest mistake. It’s not like her name is Trump.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    We’re from the government, and we’re here to help.

    Though it feels like a Cold War throwback, the socialism epithet might be effective. It could resonate with a wider swath of the public than some of Trump’s other signature lines. The border wall, for example, is unpopular with Americans overall, though very popular with the president’s core supporters. By contrast, voter antipathy toward socialism is much broader: In a February Fox News poll, 59 percent of Americans held an unfavorable view. As of 2015, half of Americans said they wouldn’t vote for a socialist (though only 38 percent of Democrats held that view).

    ————–

    Yet there are reasons to doubt that Trump can get very far by crying Bolshevik, too, even in a general election. Though Republicans are still sour on socialism, its stock continues to rise overall in polling. Among voters age 18 to 29, socialism draws more support (51 percent) than capitalism (45 percent). Meanwhile, the meaning of the word has evolved. Once associated with government control of businesses, it’s now more likely to be taken to mean equality in rights and distribution of wealth, according to Gallup—in other words, Americans now think of socialism more as Sanders- (or European-) style social welfare than Venezuelan-style nationalization of companies.

    All we have to do is rewrite the dictionary. And toss a few history books down the memory hole.

    Trump’s talk about the Red Menace in Venezuela is a bunch of nonsensical fearmongering, but our Russia Russia Russia narrative is legit. And besides, the Russians are fascists, because that’s what we need them to be.

  22. mexican sharpshooter

    Justice Department preparing for Mueller report as early as next week TW: CNN

    Attorney General Bill Barr is preparing to announce as early as next week the completion of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, with plans for Barr to submit to Congress soon after a summary of Mueller’s confidential report, according to people familiar with the plans.

    The preparations are the clearest indication yet that Mueller is nearly done with his almost two-year investigation.

    The precise timing of the announcement is subject to change.

    My money is on Friday evening.

    • UnCivilServant

      Huh. I had thought the report was already out.

    • Rasilio

      Conclusion: Trump is absolutely a Russian Intelligence asset but we can’t prove it

      • Naptown Bill

        “We failed to find direct evidence of Trump’s collusion with Russia.”

        -or-

        “Based on the investigation, we can neither confirm nor deny that Donald Trump is a Russian mole.”

      • kbolino

        What I expect: Trump is surrounded by corrupt associates but despite our best attempts to squeeze them as hard as we could, nobody would own up to any Russian connection.

        What won’t be said: if we had applied the same level of scrutiny and process to the associates of Bill and Hillary Clinton, the list of foreign influences would be too long to print.

  23. Lackadaisical

    I’m thinking of getting an induction stove. Anyone ever turned gay because of the emf?

    • Bobarian LMD

      Frogs.

      Frogs turned gay.

      • Rasilio

        Maybe he’s French?

      • commodious spittoon

        Awhile back BATF did a segment on Alex Jones after he’d been kicked off social media. At the end of the show the female guest brought up Louis Vuitton handbags, and Bill McMorris instantly derailed her: “We’ve already discussed gay frogs.”

    • R C Dean

      We looked at those. I think they are a great option if you have kids, since nothing gets hot (except what you put on the stove). They are supposed to heat up faster than electric stoves, and don’t have specific burners so you can put pots anywhere on them.

      But we went with gas. Again.

      • Lackadaisical

        The child safety is not a small factor for me, but time saving also… my wife is afraid we’ll get cancer.

    • Naptown Bill

      I’m a gas man myself, but if we were to find a new house without gas I’d probably go induction. The only problem is that some stainless doesn’t work and copper doesn’t work. Apparently there are plates you can get that act as a heat proxy, though.

      • Lackadaisical

        Aluminum won’t work either.

        We happened to recently replace a lot of our shoddy Teflon coated cookware that was making the frogs gay with new stainless steel, most seem to have a more magnetic composition of steel on the bottom for use with induction stoves.

        Anyway, for reasons unknown to me, my house has gas appliances everywhere (even the dryer), but the stove is electric. It heats things unevenly and some of our pots are too big or small for the burners.

        Was going to go gas but that would involve spending a bit on plumbing, or having myself do it. For the same cost I could get an induction stove instead.

        Some people say that EMF can be harmful, but these things are always highly contested.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        1. The EMF is not harmful unless your blood iron levels are off the charts.

        2. Cast iron will work best on an induction stove. Induction stoves work by inducing (hence the name) tiny looped electrical currents in the pan. Unless the pan material has lousy conductivity, like iron, it will not heat up well.

      • Lackadaisical

        “Cast iron will work best on an induction stove … Unless the pan material has lousy conductivity, like iron, it will not heat up well.”

        The real limiting factor is being magnetic. I guess it depends what you’re comparing it to, but iron isn’t *that* bad a conductor of electricity.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Compared to aluminum and copper, it sucks.

      • Lackadaisical

        So I did way more research into this as we were talking. Seems the limiting factor is the skin depth(because that helps determines the effective resistance by limiting the cross sectional area through which current can flow), which is a function of magnetic permeability, angular frequency of the current, electrical resistivity and permittivity.

        Basically a smaller skin depth is better, which means higher magnetic permeability and lower permittivity and electrical resistivity is better. I think you’re right, that all other things equal a more electrically resistive material should heat more easily, but the difference between Cooper and iron conductivity gets dwarfed once you look at the effect of skin depth.

        Interestingly, they also make induction stoves with much higher frequencies which do work on all metals, by adjusting the skin depth and making your good conductor a bad one.

      • Lackadaisical

        Difference in conductivity between iron and copper is 1:6. The difference in relative permeability is about 5000:1.

      • Naptown Bill

        It’s odd that a house with gas wouldn’t have had a gas hookup for the stove. Personally, if you’ve already got gas coming into the house, I’d be inclined to just run a line to the kitchen, all things being equal, but I have a strong preference for gas stoves.

      • Lackadaisical

        Right?

        Maybe electric stoves were really trendy when the house was built. Though, I have heard that gas stoves can increase the combustion byproducts in the house (E.g. carbon monoxide), and that out could actually cause you harm. Maybe.

      • Democratic Hitler

        Our house was built with gas heat, a gas fireplace, and an electric stove. Go figure. We had the builder install a gas line for the stove as a condition of the purchase.

      • kbolino

        Having had both, I think I actually prefer the electric. Although, I might just have a crappy gas stove. It puts off a lot of eat but for whatever stupid reason doesn’t direct it toward the pot/pan. Three of the four burners can’t be turned down to “simmer” level heat, and one of those runs so hot you can’t use anything but the largest of pots/pans on it.

      • kbolino

        Looking at some more modern stoves, they don’t seem to be all that different in design. It’s possible the gas line into the stove isn’t being properly throttled.

      • Lackadaisical

        There is definitely more waste heat from gas stoves (balance that against the gas itself being quite cheap, at least when compared to electricity here). But I have to balance that against the fact that electric stoves heat rounded bottomed cookware quite poorly. . . Now that I think about it that is a point against the induction stoves. Also that you can’t toast anything with them. My wife will make me fresh rotis if I get her a gas stove. . .

        Gas is ahead by a mile induction fan boys.

    • Not Adahn

      Anyone ever turned gay because of the emf?

      No never. That would be unbelievable

      • Rhywun

        *slow clap*

      • SugarFree

        OH!

    • Democratic Hitler

      Those are old hat. All the cool kids are using deduction stoves now.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Just the standard model though, not the itemized one.

      • UnCivilServant

        Can you blame them? I’ve seen the instructions and there’s no reasoning your way through.

    • jesse.in.mb

      The only person I know with an induction stove is hot, very nice, gay and deaf. I would never speculate on the causal relationships between the induction stove and the personal traits, but you might want to precautionary principle that purchase.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        It made him nice?

        Fuck that.

      • Lackadaisical

        I could do the rest, but I’m not sure I’d survive becoming a nice person. Thanks for the warning.

      • Chipwooder

        What do you have against deaf people, man?

    • Timeloose

      It’s not a problem unless your name is Eddy. Than the losses you suffer would heat your very insides.

      • Plinker762

        Is that current to this discussion?

      • Timeloose

        It is, especially if you tend to get hysterical when things tend to change rapidly.,

      • Plinker762

        That is just loopy

      • hate_speech

        +1 Chipotle

  24. UnCivilServant

    How difficult is it for someone who had never worked flint before to create a servicable speartip?

    • Rasilio

      Ask Micheal Moore, rumor has it he has experience working Flint over

      • UnCivilServant

        I’ll have to save that until after work. toolmaking videos sound like the sort of rabbit hole that would distract me for hours.

    • R C Dean

      I think it would be difficult. I’ve seen it done, and it looks like very much a skilled process, with lots of failures along the way, that takes quite a bit of time.

      • UnCivilServant

        I was thinking the character would end up with something slightly slimmer with a pyramid, but with enough of a point to be better than just the stick he’s tying it to, not one of those expertly crafted neolithic points.

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        Would the character be better off trying to fire harden a point on the spear which would take less time and less skill? Not as good as a stone point but good enough for government work.

      • UnCivilServant

        I’m still working on the scene where he agrees to the challenge, but I suspect he agrees for the chance to one-up his father, who completed a similar hunt and made sharpened sticks. (The two are not on the best of terms)

    • kinnath

      I haven’t done it, but I have seen it done. The requisite skills seem to be 1) identifying actual flint, 2) knowing how flint fractures, 3) practice in getting to fracture where you want.

      With a decent selection of flint at hand, several useable points should be possible with a few hours of whacking away at multiple pieces of flint.

      • UnCivilServant

        Skill #1 I can safely give the character without people thinking it odd. Numbers 2 and 3 I’m guessing he’d be learning through experimentation.

      • kinnath

        The video link above (yes I followed that rabbit for 5 1/2 videos) show real pieces from crude things that still look mostly like rocks to fine finished pieces.

        If your character needs something/anything to be just functional, I think that could be accomplished quickly through trial and error. It won’t be a museum piece, but you could tie it to a stick and stab something effectively.

    • The Hyperbole

      I think you can pretty much just hit it with a rock until a spear-shaped chunk flakes off. I’d imagine there are tricks to learn but the basic idea is child’s play.

      • R C Dean

        I dunno. I looked at a property in Texas once that had been a camping spot for some nomadic Indians, and had flint tools on it still (seriously, there were two mason jars in the house full of them). There was lots of flint in the area, and it was apparent that the Indians made a lot of flint tools there. Anyhoo, the owner said that the majority of what he found were pretty clearly failed points. I think even experienced flint knappers, who have done it to survive their whole lives, ruin a lot of what they start because its so hard to tell how and where flint will fracture.

        Damn, but I wanted one of those mason jars. There were midden heaps on the property (the stream running through it was full of fresh water oysters, and the heaps were mostly oyster shells) that the owner said always had “arra-heads” in them, but it was supposed to be against state law to disturb them (wink wink).

  25. The Late P Brooks

    But we went with gas. Again.

    Gas, FTW!

  26. Dr. Fronkensteen

    I have a washing machine that is shaking like it’s possessed any time the spin cycle is running. When stopped it doesn’t rock so I don’t think it’s the floor that’s uneven. Any ideas?

    • UnCivilServant

      Usually that’s a weight imbalance on the drum. Either the load is improperly distributed, or it’s misaligned with the motor axle.

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        It’s every time so it’s not the load even when I try to even out the load. So more likely the latter.

      • UnCivilServant

        If you run it empty and it still dances, you’re going to need to open it up.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Heavy unbalanced load or one of the internal mounts is broken.

    • Lord Humungus

      Did you check the thermostat?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I recommend getting a high colonic.

    • Spudalicious

      The load is uneven. Check and see how much play their is in the tub, it could also be a bearing.

    • Democratic Hitler

      Check the thermostat.

    • egould310

      Did you check the thermostat?

    • mexican sharpshooter

      Does it have threaded legs? If so, make sure its level, otherwise it is alternating between two triangular planes.

    • Mojeaux

      You might have something stuck between the outer wall of the drum and the walls of the machine.

      • commodious spittoon

        So that’s where Mittens went.

      • Mojeaux

        Always in the cracks.

      • Swiss Servator

        You have a Senator from Utah in your washer?!

    • Fourscore

      Check the machine with a level. If the machine is not level adjust the legs until it is.

      • Fourscore

        That’s the easiest thing to do with tearing into the machine. New machine? Has it recently started the shakes?

      • Fourscore

        …without tearing into the machine…

    • Old Man With Candy

      Try clearing the cache.

    • Mad Scientist

      Have you rebooted it recently?

      • mexican sharpshooter

        Reboot? Just buy a Mac.

  27. mexican sharpshooter

    I broke my lunch protocol today and ate at the food truck. I ordered the Italian Sandwich, with the fried bell peppers and onions. Nice roll, peppers and onions well done…they used sausage patties rather than an actual sausage.

    This made it easy to eat, but quite frankly something about this strikes me as wrong. Very, very wrong.

    • Rhywun

      Not those breakfast things? Yuck.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        No, its definitely Italian Sausage, not Jimmy Dean. Hipsters ruin everything.

      • Swiss Servator

        You can get “Brat Patties” to, now. Easier to handle than regular brats, I suppose.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        Speaking of wrong…

      • R C Dean

        Wouldn’t experience in handling a brat-like object make it easier to handle actual brats?

        Asking for a friend.

      • The Other Kevin

        We tried those brat patties. They are gross. The texture vs flavor is completely off.

      • Swiss Servator

        Johnsonville ones were….passable, but not much more than that.

  28. Timeloose

    The people at Dominick’s food trucks that operate outside of Home Depot or Lowes in the North East US are marketing geniuses. When you are leaving the store and the Sausage and peppers/onions smell hit you it make it hard not to want one. My favorite pizza place does the same thing. You can smell the goodness from blocks away.

    • Fourscore

      Should be a law against walking by a bakery and being forced to enjoy the great smells that make a not hungry person pick up a loaf of bread or some doughnuts.

      • creech

        Exactly. And why should we be forced to choose from 27 kinds of donuts anyway?

    • Lackadaisical

      These are called externalities,and any decent regulatory scheme would heavily punish the offenders. Even in Libertopia you could sue them for making you fat against your will.

    • The Bearded Hobbit

      On the drive home from my job in collage I had to drive past a potato chip factory and a bakery. By the time I got home I was ravenous.