It’s days like yesterday, hiking in the mountains nearby, when I say to myself, “Damn, this ain’t Chicago.” And our Euro friend says, “I need to figure out how to move here.” We tell him, “Wait until you experience July…” Nonetheless, we’re enjoying what we have while we have it. And the news just makes us even happier, it’s so fucking amusing.
But we do birthdays before news, and today’s include a guy who always gets me stoked; a delightful actor who birthed the Skipper; a guy who made me feel better about MY nose; the original Mr. Transistor; the best drummer to ever come out of Baltimore; the best harmonica player to ever come out of Baltimore; a woman who wrote the worst cookbook of all time; a guy who liked to stand next to Robert Reich so he could feel big; an absolutely awesome TV producer/director/writer; and a guy I put in the same bin as Rush Limbaugh (“I absolutely don’t see what’s entertaining here”).
OK, enough of that, let’s see some news.
It’s getting harder and harder to think of soldiers as “dying for their country.” They’re dying for the useless parasites in DC. Looking at you, Donny-Boy.
Speaking of which… let ME go after the budget instead of this symbolic pandering. More for DHS? Fuck you, Donny-Boy.
We’re really having to stretch this global warming thing.
Is there a way for them both to lose?
It’s official- Butt Edge edges Edge Butt.
Stupid political stunt collides with superstition.
Team Red, party of small government and free markets. And this guy’s name is appropriate.
Old Guy Music is designed to wake you up. And it’s in honor of my favorite trombone player, the incomparable SP.
I’m afraid I’ll be in Arizona around the end of May/start of June.
I expect to melt into a pool of liquid salt, even with an increase in water intake.
For conext, I’ll be taking my Dad to visit the Grand Canyon. I don’t expect he’d be up to meeting random people he doesn’t know from the internet.
Glibs are not random, they are chosen, hand selected one by one. UCS senior would love them, if he’s anything like his son.
Well, for one, he’s not a civil servant, he has a real job.
The Grand Canyon rim is at elevation, doesn’t get that hot. Awesome hotel, too.
We’re also visitng Meteor Crater, Hoover Dam, and some other spots that are along the route.
Which hotel are you thinking of? There were several in the vicinity.
The one on the North Rim., the El Tovar.
https://www.grandcanyonlodges.com/lodging/el-tovar-hotel/
I’m not sure we’re going to be on the north rim. It’s four more hours away from the rest of the itenery
El Tovar is on the South Rim. It is pretty spectacular.
If you like geology the Meteor Crater is fantastic. If not, it is just looking at the world’s largest sandtrap. Sunset Crater outside of Flagstaff is a fresh volcano and has an easily accessible ice cave.
Flagstaff also has several indian ruins that are fun at Wupatki and Walnut Canyon. Both are easy walks.
If you like strange statues stop by and see the man “standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona” “with a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford driving by taking a look at me.”
I blame RC Dean, he said North Rim.
My bad. Sorry. Geez.
And they’re sold out. So the side of the canyon doesn’t matter.
Recommended reading before you go. Gives one a healthy respect for the canyon’s dangers, and entertaining read in a morbid kind of way.
Is it anything like “Don’t jump in the falls” for Niagara falls?
There’s some of that. but it’s not all ‘don’t crawl out on that ledge for a selfie’. There are a surprising number of ways to get yourself in a bad way in the canyon. The temperature swings from the top to the bottom catch a lot of people unprepared and apparently it’s quite easy to get lost or just go farther in than you’re able to climb back out. It actually is an interesting read.
The route actually comes suspiciously close to known Glib haunts.
After visiting relatives it goes – Mammoth Caves – Tulsa – Roswell – Carlsbad caverns – Flagstaff – Meteor Crater – Grand Canyon – Hoover Dam – Las Vegas – Cripple Creek – Middle of Kansas – Meramec Caverns – Dayton Ohio.
Tulsa and Middle of Kansas are unfortunate overnights to break up interminably long drives. But if anyone has any recommendations for things to see in those areas, especially if it meets the theme of the “Hole in the Ground Tour”, I’d appreciate it.
While you’re in Dayton, I would highly recommend the Air Force Museum. Other then that, I’ll defer to the locals.
We did plan to stop in there. The last time my Dad was in Dayton, he arrived shortly before they closed for the evening and wants more time to see it.
I mentioned this when The Bearded Hobbit mentioned travel plans through the Dayton area: Spinoza’s in the Fairfield Commons mall has tasty gourmet pizzas, salads, etc., and wonderful ice cream made onsite. About 5 miles from AF Museum per Google.
If they have their own website, I can’t find it.
No free-standing site apparently – just Facebook. Found a menu at Trip Advisor, but I can’t link from my phone. Will try from home this evening.
Why would anyone entrust their business to Facebook?
I can’t recommend much in Kansas, but here is my list:
The Gypsum Hills are a pretty drive. http://www.kansastravel.org/gypsumhills.htm I ran out of gas halfway between Medicine Lodge and Coldwater. I had to ride pillion to Coldwater to get gas, then back, then back to Coldwater for a battery jump pack then back to my bike, then back to Coldwater to return the jump battery pack
The Flint Hills between Wichita and KC are also a pretty drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_Hills
Poblanos Mexican Grill in Wichita makes 2 lb burritos that I still dream about after 15 years https://www.poblanoks.com/#/
Hog Wild in Wichita has some pretty good BBQ http://www.hogwildpitbbq.com/
In Tulsa, you should go see this guy: https://www.svseeker.com/wp/ He is building a 74 foot steel boat in his front yard
Weber’s in Tulsa. They make their own root beer which is pretty fantastic.
Which Weber? There are a few.
These guys?
Yup. Them.
Other places HS me loved to eat at were Brownies and The Metro. The latter serves gravy with their fries. Goldie’s is a decent burger chain.
Tulsa actually has some really fascinating things as you might expect when nuveau-hyperwealthy got to indulge their curiosities.
Tour the Cessna factory in Wichita.
Compare that to the tour I gave you.
I think Beechcraft is also in the area.
Kansas stuff I have been to that I wouldn’t recommend:
The largest ball of twine http://www.kansastravel.org/balloftwine.htm
The largest hand dug well in Greenburg, KS http://www.bigwell.org/
Geographic center of the contiguous United States near Lebanon, KS
That twine mass is no longer round and doesn’t count as a ‘ball’.
It doesn’t meet your “hole in the ground” requirements, but in the Middle of Kansas you’ll find Abilene, KS, which has Eisenhower’s presidential museum (pretty interesting, if you like mid-century history or WWII) and some old west stuff. Yes, the main KS highway does go through Ike’s hometown, unsurprisingly.
Did he own a bunch of land he sold at premium rates to the DoT?
Not that I know of, it’s more likely a simple case of reward the family/hometown when one makes good. Highways bring business, which is especially good for a small town.
Cripple creek is fun
We plan to visit the gold mine. But I think I set aside a whole day there, so we might see other things too.
https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2015-03-23/the-geographic-center-of-the-us-isnt-in-kansas
Huh, I knew it was South Dakota. I didn’t realize anyone still claimed Kansas.
Well, since the weight of the connectors needed to hold alaska and Hawaii in place for the balancing would throw it off, we’ll stick with the hog farm and wedding chapel.
In 1918, without digital computers, the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey grappled with the calculations…and then gave up entirely. Instead, they cut a map of the United States out of cardboard. The spot where the cardboard balanced on the head of a pin? That was declared the official center.
Awesome. Close enough for government work, but, really, close enough for a meaningless metric/tourist trap regardless.
Wait – did they account for the curvature of the earth and the distortion from the map’s projection?
I am no longer near Mammoth Cave, so you dodged a bullet there.
What corner of the world did you flee to?
Charleston SC area.
Yeah, we won’t be in your neck of the woods this trip.
If you and your Dad are up for it, the wild cave tour at Mammoth is amazing. And brutal. Guide intro, “You just signed up to be tortured for the next 6 hours, have fun!”
I didnt know I was claustrophibic until I crawled for an hour on my belly with a ceiling 1 inch above my head. And parts where you had to turn your helmet sideways to fit thru.
Nope, we’re not up for that.
We’re both thicker at the waist than the front-back measure of a hard hat.
One guy was bringing his daughter on tour, it was for her 16th birthday (minimum age requirement). His chest size was slightly over the limit. On that tight crawl, they told him to skip it and walk to the exit point. He was fine with that.
At lunch, we walked into the cafeteria (its in a large section of the cave) covered in dirt, head to toe. The other tourists were looking at us with a mix of awe and fear.
Thanks for the warning. Hard. Pass.
There is a large hand dug well in Greensburg, KS.
Shut the fuck up libtard!
So my wife, who is not very political, upon the news of the deaths in Afghanistan asks me what we are fighting for over there, since she knows I follow these things. I had to admit I didn’t have a fucking clue.
We can’t let the Taliban win.
Truth, Justice and the American Way, of course.
So that our troops don’t die over here. Wait… I always forget the narrative.
It’s obviously working. No goat-herders have attacked the Empire State Building since we invaded Afghanistan.
Why?
Man’s shadow. Afghanistan is the equivalent of shadow boxing.
Its a Bermuda Triangle where powers inexplicably get drawn in and send soldiers to their deaths. It’s almost as if there’s a subconscious play at work to fight man’s inner demons.
Ok that’s enough of me pretending to be Jung.
“Why?
Man’s shadow. Afghanistan is….”
Here is a link to a scene in a movie that I was thinking of yesterday.
“Ok that’s enough of me pretending to be Jung.”
I, for one, would like to glean more.
Thus, Rufus, please continue if you like.
There are likely soldiers in Afghanistan now who weren’t even alive when the WTC went down. Insanity.
I would say the majority of them either weren’t alive or were in diapers.
People are starting to question things like Afghanistan, the EU, the UN, NATO, reliance on Chinese trade – all good stuff to seriously question and risk access.
I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that the war upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of agression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them and that had this been done the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.
–Siegfried Sassoon 1917
But could have been written by any officer of the Afghan Campaign a century later.
Negotiate with whom? The Haqqanis? Talib? “Yes, Crusaders, you leave, we kill your lackeys and stooges!”
Doesn’t change the leaving part – but no need to waste time “negotiating”.
We are trying to build a nation there, because surely the only reason Afghanistan is a failed State is that no one strong and disciplined
MacedonCaliphateMongolsMughalsSikhsBritishSovietsUSA, has ever tried to reform the tribes into a nation beforeWell, the Mughals butchered every single Hindu in Afghanistan (which is where “Hindu Kush” came from). Even after they repopulated with, well, themselves, it apparently turned right back into a tribalist craphole.
It was a bit rich to hear Brad Pitt whining about Bolton not being allowed to testify, given that before it was revealed that Bolton might have something to say, Hollywood progressives would have been happy to send that war criminal to the gulags.
More than that, he did not get much positive reaction from the audience. 2 years ago a crack against Trump like that would have brought down the house. This time around, more of an uncomfortable shifting in the seat.
The Democrats impeachment has even managed to lose them Hollywood. Sure, they’ll be back for the election and they’ll be out in force for the Democrats. But deep down They know everything about impeachment was wrong.
It took a while, but all of the Hideous behavior from the Democrat establishment over the last 3 years It’s finally sinking in. Yet another sign that a landslide backlash is on the way.
When Alaska is at its coldest, census workers are more likely to find village residents, some of whom migrate to hunt and fish for subsistence or work, in their home communities.
So get to them before spring.
I ain’t going out in the cold. Get the Tall Cans guy from Bullhead City or the Wisconsin Cheese guy, they are the pros(e).
i have my area, Alaska’s too cold
Notice also that the complaint here is that things are getting better for the Alaska natives, who now get to hunt and fish more often instead of being cooped up trying to survive the cold.
“US soldiers killed in Afghanistan”
Just bring them home. Have we not learned anything over the past 60 years and more? A lemon is always a lemon, it is known.
Have we not learned anything over the past 60 years and more?
Perpetual war is profitable?
Many years ago I answered some right wing guy, Asking if “he’d ever delivered a folded flag to a grieving mother/widow”? Turned out he was a colonel and tore me a new ass. A few winners and many losers. You’re right, WTF.
Both Gilligan and the Skipper have birthdays today? What are the odds?
The Skippers father was born today.
Fathers don’t give birth.
TRANSPHOBIC!!!!,,,!,!,!
Take that up with OMWC, although it’s possible he midwifed the delivery, or ‘birthed’ him in the “I don’t know nuthin’ ’bout birthin’ no babies” sense.
So, so racist.
LITERAL HATE SPEECH. LITERALLY SHAKING.
Protip: this is exactly what you don’t want to do as a highly visible self-help guru.
‘Sokay. He’s got tenure.
You’re missing all the stuff they’re not telling you or burying down in the article. Got to preserve the narrative, dontchaknow!
So what you’re saying is, we don’t need to read the article before commenting on it?
The sad part Is even reading the article is only of limited benefit.
Of course they framed the article that way. Clicks. Anyone that is out that saying that you should probably fix your own life before fucking around with others is going to be attacked.
I’m nowhere near suggesting this is the case, but wouldn’t it be ironic if it turned out that a Western government was trying to get this guy addicted so they could write him off as insane and it was the Russians who turned out to be the good guys who gave him proper treatment.
Then again, Epstein didn’t kill himself.
His room is really mess now.
He’ll clean it up I reckon.
And he’ll incorporate it into his talks; if he returns to that life.
I’m gonna give somewhat of a pass. From what I read, that drug he used is absolutely a killer addictive piece of medicine.
The guy has been going full throttle since he burst onto the scene. Add how he probably does take personally how he is mischaracterized and the fact their seems to be quite a bit of health problems in his family (daughter, wife, and now him) and you get a toxic mix that probably would impact most people in some way or form.
He’s also from remote Northern Alberta. Where I can just imagine the things he saw that must also mark his psyche.
They’re all nuts though. People in the public eye have to have some kind of gene in them that allows them to do it because I could certainly never do it.
and you get a toxic mix that probably would impact most people in some way or form
The thing is, if the story is accurate, even that is too hard a judgement. This isn’t a case (again, if the situation is being described accurately) of a guy breaking down and failing under horrible circumstances. It’s a case of a guy dealing with horrible circumstances the way he’s “supposed to” and having it go terribly wrong. He was prescribed the drugs. He was taking them as prescribed and as the drugs made things worse, the doctors were upping the dosage. Maybe you can blame him for not telling his doctors to go f**k themselves, but that’s about it.
Maybe you can blame him for not telling his doctors to go f**k themselves, but that’s about it.
And we’re talking a Canadian here. That though probably only crosses the mind of like a dozen of them, and half of those apologize for it.
Frankly, I gave up having purity tests for the speaker before I listen to good advice / content. Oh, and getting hooked on medically prescribed benzo isn’t exactly failing any purity test I know of.
^^
What is the drug treatment program for lobsters?
Serotonin
Garlic butter?*
*Hate lobster. Giant insects of the sea.
I prefer crab, but I won’t refuse a lobster that is out in front of me.
Being kissed by a chick with a severe sideboob bikini?
And the lack of clarity is not helped that his bat-shit insane daughter blaming everything on the consumption of anything other than beef. She is not a reliable narrator.
The mockery and vitriol over this is ridiculous. Peterson does not claim to be a saint or role model, or even really a self help guru. He is an academic who has some interesting things to say about patterns of human thought and how those express themselves. Basically he is working in Jung’s framework.
His ‘self help’ message, insofar as he has one, is basically figure out what you see as the highest good, orient your self toward it, and try to move forward along that path. Maybe your life will get better that way. How the hell has a message of try to do better tomorrow than you did today and treat other people decently become so controversial?
When the counter-narrative of “Whoever wallows in the most victimhood wins” became rampant on college campuses.
Wasn’t his original sin something about trannies? Anything he has said or done since then is immaterial.
Yup. He basically said it was wrong to penalize people for not knuckling under to the pronoun police.
To be clear, I wasn’t suggesting he’s some junkie or anything. I think he’s a solid fellow whose “controversial” stances amount to basically the standard worldly coming-of-age sort of advice that a father would give his son. From a PR standpoint though, I can’t see it doing his career any good.
The headline from that Toronto Post piece on Jordan Peterson is absolute garbage. He was prescribed the drugs and taking the as prescribed. When he had a paradoxical reaction, they upped the prescribed dosage. His daughter made a point of noting his addition was physical and never psychological. The fact that he had to go to Russia for competent treatment is a damned disgrace.
Dude, facts don’t matter. Making people you hate look bad is the only thing that counts for journalists.
I was thinking this weekend about the impeachment vote in the Senate. One of the articles was that Trump used his office to hurt a political opponent to benefit himself.
If memory serves me correctly, three of the Senators who voted “guilty” are also running for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Couldn’t it also be argued that those three Senators, by voting “guilty”, were also doing the same thing?
Well they couldn’t exactly recuse themselves, he might have been acquitted.
Oh, wait.
That’s completely different because reasons.
No, when Dems do it they are acting out of patriotic selfless principle. It’s only bad when you have an “R” after your name.
At least Bernie is truly an Independent, right?
The fact that the conflict of interest and recusal was never taken up (I think one Senator, or maybe Rep, brought it up) tells you a lot about how corrupted DC is.
They took an oath to faithfully execute their duties as jurors and I’m certain they all, both D’s and R’s, based their votes on the facts of the case and not political calculations. These are principled individuals or else the people of the United States of America wouldn’t have entrusted them with the levers of power.
In this case, at least, team red’s Venn diagram has some overlap with the truth. Team blue’s Venn diagram looked like iguana eyes.
Yet people are routinely dismissed from jury duty because of family and other conflicts of interest much more tenuous than these Senators had.
The Senate is not a jury.
Not strictly, but it’s the closest analogy we have for an impeachment trial. Their oath, as near as I can tell, is pretty much the same oath administered to federal jurors.
They are for an impeachment. The House brings the case and the Senate votes.
“The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury”
The Senate is not a jury. It is a political body doing it’s political job. They can make whatever rules they want for the impeachment, except that they must convict by a 2/3rds vote.
ASPIE FIGHT!!!
Jurors are held to higher standards.
Tulsi voted present for that reason.
Bless her heart.
If she is still in, I am going to vote for her in the SC primary. If not, I wont bother to go.
You are a registered Democrat?
No registiration in SC, open primaries. When the incumbent isnt being seriously challenged, the SC party of the incumbent traditionally cancels their primary to save the state money. I think 1992 was the last time an incumbent had a primary here.
So there is no GOP primary this year.
No she didn’t. I thought that was the reason too, but she put out a statement and that wasn’t her reasoning. It was mushy mouthed “these don’t rise to the level of impeachment” platitudes.
Honestly, that is even better. Because they didnt rise to the level of impeachment.
No, the charge was involving a foreign government in the investigation. Had Trump merely had the U.S. Justice Dept. go after the Bidens, I’m certain the Dems would have had no problems with it (hah, ha).
Not only those three, literally all of them. That was the most farcical of all the articles, considering it’s S.O.P. for politicians to investigate their political rivals for political purposes and that was literally what the impeachment itself was an instance of.
Jordan Peterson is recovering from a severe addiction to benzodiazepine tranquilizers and was recently near death in an induced coma, his daughter Mikhaila said.
Is that his daughter in the video? Hawt.
But I wonder if he can even clean his room. He should think about that.
In Soviet Russia, room cleans you!
Good morning, Old Man. Thanks for pinch hitting.
Lots of bullshit in them there lynx. We live in a weird world.
So is Iowa just the latest version of ‘we can’t let the wrong guy win’? Does anyone seriously think Petey can compete or is it just Bernie-killing?
Nice music selection. The bass player looks to be playing the Steinberger, the bass of choice for New Wave bands everywhere.
Have a great day, people!
“Does anyone seriously think Petey can compete or is it just Bernie-killing?”
Two part answer. No. Yes.
Record rainfall in Sydney has dosed brush fires. No doubt also incontrovertible evidence of climate change.
I’m sure they’ll set more when it dries up.
“There has been no consultation with the nation,”
What nation?
The Nation. Who else?
Better Nation
Behold the resounding success of the Minneapolis Light Rail!!
https://www.twincities.com/2020/02/08/soucheray-light-rail-is-an-even-bigger-disaster-than-we-thought/
Naturally the Dem majority’s “solution” is to create another government agency, the Train Ambassadors, to police and clean up the joint.
Scrap the project. Literally, sell the rails, rolling stock and any cabling, then auction any land off to the general public.
I see your Minneapolis and raise you an Ottawa.
The secret to the financial side seems to be to build more light rail lines. If you lose money (a lot of money) on each of the existing lines, the secret must be VOLUME and you should spend a billion more to build a third line.
Even the school buses have a “bus ambassador”. If the Train Ambassadors are armed there’ll be a need to have 2 per train. If they are not armed they will out gunned.
Lefties and their precious choo-choos….
You would think leftists would hate trains considering how much Rand loved them.
Can they just sell more pull tabs or whatever to pay for it?
Meat Raffle!
Whatever they do, getting it from the fare box is racist.
I like Joe. Never afraid to kick the hornet nest.
Oh, and fuck LRT.
Eh, I’m rarely against un-armed police that spend more training time on deceleration and order than they do on Tactical Timmy Training and the “law and” side.
The ambassador program in Minneapolis work really well, and while they are privately funded and not cops, they serve the purpose that peace officers are supposed to.
And yeah, the only thing keeping the LRT from turning into a literal shit-fest and needle-fest is the low temperatures that make being homeless lethal in the cities.
Iowa officially gives Buttigieg the largest delegate count, followed closely by Sanders
So you are saying that he just edged out Sanders.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) in a proposal published Monday accused the country’s top consumer protection agency – the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) – of failing to intervene as the world’s most powerful tech companies amassed reams of personal information about their millions of U.S. users and gobbled up hundreds of smaller companies.
As opposed to the US government which has amassed reams of personal information about millions of U.S. citizens.
Creepy Joe has lost it.
Biden Lashes Out at Female New Hampshire Voter Asking About His Poor Performance in Iowa, ‘You’re a Lying Dog-Faced Pony Soldier’
Probably better if he had just felt her up like the old days.
Even as a joke, that’s just weird.
Well, he is literally brain-damaged.
Biden must be one nasty son of a bitch when he’s angry and away from public view.
He looks exactly like someone who would threaten someone’s life in front of witnesses and immediately smile and be funny about it leaving people nervous.
Yes. He is a Democrat.
Bazinga!
He used the line in 2018 (https://youtu.be/cQFtkEN6Sds), though in a speech. Said it was an indian chief’s dialog in a John Wayne movie.
I’m not sure that context helps Joe.
Creepy Joe has lost it.
That ship sailed a long time ago.
His strategists are reasoning like so:
“Trump calls people juvenile names in public and is popular. Clearly we need to get our candidate calling people juvenile names in public. Hey Joe, you up for it?”
“Not the voters, Joe, your opponants.”
+1 basket of deplorables.
The Biden school of dirty talk
Man, I thought Biden was going to present a challenge to Trump. I’m glad I don’t bet on these things, as he’s crashing and burning.
We’re so used to seeing the “Safe Establishment Pick” get the nomination.
Some local news to show some trolling action. Thankfully, it’s unlikely to pass.
Because the states can add their own requirements for presidential eligibility to override the constitution.
Heh
Is there a way for them both to lose?
These were civilian-involved shootings.
On Frances Moore Happe: ‘Diet for a small planet’ must taste as bad as it sounds.
Perhaps Governor Klansman actually has stock in S&W
The number of gun sales in Virginia nearly doubled last month as the Democrat-controlled state government advanced several new gun-control bills.
There were 67,699 gun purchase-related background checks in the state during January, an 84.6 percent increase over January 2019, according to an analysis of FBI data. The number of background checks continued a three-month upward trend, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). The surge in sales has coincided with a push from a newly empowered Democratic majority to pass new gun-control laws supported by Governor Ralph Northam (D).
“It’s clear that Virginians are purchasing the firearms they want while they can,” NSSF spokesman Mark Oliva told the Washington Free Beacon.
I wish I had the free cash to round out my collection. Oh well, I just need to wait a couple years until we can move back to TX.
“The controversial author and professor is recovering from addiction to tranquilizers and near-death in Russia, his family says”
Fuck you National Post.
There’s nothing ‘controversial’ about Peterson.
I can’t stand the sound of his voice.
Not what he’s saying, but the actual sound of it. Drives me batty.
I tried to listen to his EconTalk interview, but he bores me.
I personally think he over exposed himself. He should have just receded or slowed down regroup, rest and if anything for maximum effect.
But I guess there was enormous demand for him.
Ricky Gervais is tryna never work in Hollywood again
I assume he has “fuck you” money.
I think he’s got enough clout and a large enough fan base that’s familiar with and appreciative of his style that he can take cancel culture on directly and come out stronger every time. He walks this very fine line where he tells jokes that are likely offensive to someone, but he makes it so obvious that he’s joking and he’s so open about the fact that he jokes about everything whether it’s a sacred cow or not and that it’s not coming from a place of hostility or malice that you can’t really get upset about it. Unless you’re the kind of person who plans on getting upset about it ahead of time.
He’s got the Trumpian talent of making his enemies look foolish. He’s a tar baby, and the social justice cancel culture Progs are too stupid to stop punching him.
He does. Half his Humanity special was about that very thing.
You’re hawt, but you are very dumb.
TUR: In case you missed it, majority doesn’t always rule in this country. Forty-eight senators voted to remove the President from office. Fifty-two voted to acquit. But the 48 actually represent 12 million more voters than the senators who decided to keep Donald Trump in the White House.
1) That’s by design.
2) That is irrelevant.
Someone was not present for US government 101.
How does this factoid account for the 9 split delegations?
How does it account for the fact that you need 2/3rds to convict?
Katy Dur
You’re talking about someone who thought George Washington was a native of NY. My children knew in fucking kindergarten than he was a Virginian.
To be fair, there are two Mount Vernons in New York.
*tries to stifle laughter*
Does she think the Marquis de Lafayette was from Lafayette New Jersey?
“I thought it was spelled ‘Marky’.”
I mean, to be fair, you’re one of the chosen, blessed few to be born and educated in the Commonwealth.
4th grade history for me, probably one of the last classes before they wokified it, was basically “Here’s how Virginians created America philosophically, constitutionally, legislatively, and militarily. “
I have a friend that sprouts all these talking points not realizing they’re talking points and makes for very frustrating conversations. I really take it to him now because it’s ridiculous and inexcusable to not go one order beyond the crap they feed you in the mainstream press.
But I admit I wasn’t sure how to respond to ‘Trump narrowly escaped impeachment by four votes! Come on! How could you deny he did something?!?’
I explained the super majority part but was taken aback by that. Never under estimate the power of the mainstream narrative and talking point.
The 17th amendment is the most destructive change to the constitution by far.
16 and 18 have a good argument also.
And I will be snarky and throw 19 in the mix too.
But I would probably agree on 17, but it is close.
16.
Without the funding, it’s harder for them to do as much damage.
Article 2
IIRC, it was pointed out (perhaps by you) that a number of states had already implemented direct election of senators, as it is their right to determine how their senators are chosen. 17 was running to the front of the parade and claiming to be leading it.
It wasn’t me, but that is true.
Actually, not sure it should have been allowed under the Constitution:
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof for six Years;
From a quick look, it looked like states would do referenda for senate elections, which the legislature would then rubber stamp. 29 states were doing that.
The most destructive one after the 18th was repealed, at least.
18 would be up there had it not been repealed. Though I can’t quite figure out how we needed a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol but not to ban other drugs.
FYTW
Because drug users are a smaller voting bloc than alcohol drinkers. It was easier to chip away at them “for teh childrun” because people were ignorant and apathetic.
Add in a dose of hate Germans because WWI and hate Irish because Catholic
That must’ve been a lot of hate to convince 2/3rds Congress and 3/4ths of the states to vote for banning alcohol. I’m still surprised they managed to do it, given how hard it is to amend the constitution.
Ever notice how everything bad came around 1912?
The Progressive era.
Climate change ate my homework.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
@AOC
Wondering: How many other House Democrats have a degree in Economics like I do?
Trying to find who out here is going to be in the Gini Coefficient Appreciation Squad.
She HAS to be a Trump plant.
Trump should tweet her a copy of his BS in economics from Wharton.
She has a tweet stream that would be tough to link to, but she claimed illegal immigrants paid more “US taxes” than Amazon or Facebook. She then linked two different stories, one (vox) claiming illegals paid $20 billion in income AND payroll taxes. The second was one of those corporations pay $0 in income taxes (because they don’t pay any other taxes like illegals do), based on financial statements which would include current and deferred income tax expense.
Some economist.
Financial statements? That’s, like, accounting stuff.
2019 is the first year I paid income tax since 2015.
My 2016-18 income tax bills were zero (or negative).
This is what happens when your business loses a bunch of money. I used the last of my write-offs to lower (but not eliminate) my 2019 tax bill.
2020 I am a full paying sucker again.
The people who don’t understand how Trump or Amazon or robc ends up with a $0 tax bill need to spend more time in the real world.
Even if you accept the $20 billion number, that is actually a greater counter argument to illegal immigration.
That illegal immigrant income tax claim comes up often. Apparently it is true that some, maybe a lot, of illegals do in fact pay income tax through withholding, albeit with fake SSNs and so forth, in order to bolster their case if and when they go before an immigration judge. However, in a theme that seems to keep popping up with “undocumented immigrants”, there’s no way of telling how many do or how large that figure is, because, you know, they’re undocumented and lying about their identity.
The financial side of the illegal immigration debate is just lie after lie fired back and forth.
And by the same token, many of the unknowable cohort that actually pay withholding also collect refundable credits that exceed their tax liability for the year because they are nearly all employed in very low paying service industry jobs.
Bingo. +1 EIC.
That’s another motivation for filing. And since the IRS doesn’t share information with ICE or INS the risk of being caught engaging in identity fraud or immigration crimes is virtually nil. Besides which, the courts are so backlogged a lot of potential deportees are released pending a hearing. Shockingly, some actually return for the hearing.
since the IRS doesn’t share information with ICE or INS
*headdesk*
It’s kind of funny how the “completely open borders” people will bring this up as a rebuttal to arguments about illegals using welfare. They’re accidentally admitting that there is large-scale identity theft going on with illegals.
Just completely ignore that major corporations are effectively tax collection services for the federal government.
Can you imagine if the states had to collect their own sales or income taxes without the businesses doing it for them?
And thanks to the magic of SCOTUS, states can conscript corporations in other jurisdictions to become their tax collectors too.
*(*&#^&*^#!!Wayfair Decision(@#*^&$%
Dim bulb would fail an open-book test. Likely passed the open-legs test.
I have a “friend” who graduated with a finance degree. I’d ask Bernie Madoff for financial advice before I talked to him. Degrees don’t mean anything.
Whatever do you mean?
/BS in Political Science reporting in
You mean my Minor in Criminal Justice is Useless?!
Undergard illiberal ignoramus and boasting about it.
This chick is beyond retarded.
Android security flaw lets attackers send malware over Bluetooth
On that note, my PinePhone arrived a few days ago, for those of you who were following the saga. Of the current OS images UBPorts is the most functional. postmarketOS has a lot of broken menus in both Plasma Mobile and Phosh, and you have to manually load and reload the wifi driver or it fails to connect and drops signal. I’ve only tested SMS, which works on UBPorts after starting the modem manually from CLI. From what I understand there’s an audio bug preventing voice calls for the moment so I didn’t bother with it. All the interfaces are fairly snappy considering the low end hardware. Internet browsing is good. ssh works. After getting used to the Ubuntu Touch interface on UBPorts I have to say it’s a bit more functional than Plasma Mobile, which disappoints me as I use Plasma Desktop for my PCs and was hoping to use it on mobile as well. The Plasma Mobile menus and navigation are a little clunky to use and the text rendering on the home screen looks like garbage for some reason – it appears improperly scaled (text within apps and menus is fine).
I have a feeling it’s going to be a lot longer than March (which is the tentative shipping date for the final end-user models) before there’s a consumer-ready OS image for it though.
That’s what I would expect too. They are still working out problems with their new laptop.
But how can they turn on bluetooth remotely?
Software switches are only software, not switches.
That said, only the 3 letter agencies and Google are actually doing shit like that.
Emma Roberts, born today, too old for OMWC now.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-7968499/Emma-Roberts-slithers-snakeskin-booties-white-biker-jacket-LA.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7953183/Emma-Roberts-stars-new-fragrance-campaign-Boss-Alive.html
White motorcycle jacket? Like from the Liberaches MC ?
She Devils On Wheels
“When did they become politicians? Joaquin Phoenix lectures Oscars audience about animal rights while Brad Pitt slams impeachment trial for not calling John Bolton – and Obama documentary director quotes Karl Marx urging ‘workers of the world unite'”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7985453/Brad-Pitt-kicks-political-jokes-Oscars.html
When did I hear that one before?
Aside from LinkedIn being completely useless to a useless guy like me who basically operates out the realm of normal life, their ‘you have a new suggested connection to review’ feature aggravates me to the point I want to punch a Nazi.
The extent to which the Berniebros are now afraid of Mayor Pete is hilarious. They’re attacking him for not being gay enough. They’re attacking him for his military record not being good enough. They’re attacking him on all the same levels that they’d scream homophobia and everything else if Trump had made the same attacks.
Berniebros ? Really?
Good Morning America✔
@GMA
Julia Reichert of “American Factory”: “Working people have it harder and harder these days—and we believe that things will get better when workers of the world unite.
And the crowd cheered.
Their necks would be the first in the guillotine if that vision occurred, probably.
Nah, they’d be given new mandates by the Department of Culture, Art, and History and those who refused would lose their licenses to produce movies.
The female cohort will all be employed after the Revolution.
The Kippumjo or Gippeumjo (translated variously as Pleasure Group, Pleasure Groups, Pleasure Squad, Pleasure Brigade, or Joy Division) is an alleged collection of groups of approximately 2,000 women and girls that is maintained by the leader of North Korea for the purpose of providing pleasure, mostly of a sexual nature, and entertainment for high-ranking Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) officials and their families, as well as occasionally distinguished guests.
So the head commie behaves exactly like the old Chinese emperor, harem and all. Such equality.
Gippeumjo members typically leave at age 22 or 25. At that time they are often married to members of North Korea’s elite—and are also sometimes paired off with military officers seeking wives—and their former membership in the Gippeumjo is kept secret.
WTF? The reward for toeing the line is to get the dictator’s sloppy seconds? Kim’s basically running a prima nocta scheme on his own supporters.
“She best wife. Highly trained! She love you long time!”
Person who wouldn’t eat a meal with “worker of the world” calls for them to unite.
50 years ago, she would’ve made a list for spouting that shit. Now she gets accolades.
70* years ago
Working people have it harder and harder these days – compared to when?
workers of the world unite.- because that is something that will definitely happen
Let’s start with Hollywood production workers demanding the actors and other high rollers limit their annual incomes to no more than 10x the lowest paid stagehand.
You mixed up the decimal point there.
No more than 1x that of the lowest paid stagehand.
woah, woah, WOAH! Let’s not be hasty with our demands here.
These actors provide the opportunity for these stagehands and gaffers to have gainful employment. If Leo didn’t perform for millions of dollars what sort of chance would Greg the Gaffer have in life?
“Parasite wins despite there being no host.”
https://twitter.com/JamColley/status/1226733887855841285
Matt Margolis
@mattmargolis
DEMOCRAT STRATEGIST WARNS OF TRUMP POPULARITY WITH BLACK VOTERS: “President Trump has been going very hard at African American men.”
“I’m the best for the blacks. They love me.” – Trump
Anti-Putin blogger has throat slit in a hotel room after vocally opposing the Russian President
Anti-Putin blogger
has throat slitfalls on knife in a hotel room after vocally opposing the Russian Presidenthe tripped…
JUST LIKE TRUMP!
Yet the throats of his critics remain mysteriously unslit.
Cross Hillary, on the other hand…
Russian collusion?
FTA:
Sign me up.
I might deny the church of climate change, but at least I can tell a joke.
Animated movies are loved everywhere. In fact, Frozen 2, or as climate change deniers call it, Not Frozen 2, has been dubbed in 45 different languages, which means I know have 45 blood rivals around the world. These dubbed versions provide kids and adults everywhere their own special connection to the story and its characters which means there are so many great versions of Elsa. For instance, Canadian Elsa is basically the same, but with health care.
Stunning and brave.
Speaking of stunning and brave, Carlos Maza is back!
Nu-male smile, of course.
… but… isn’t it the climate change believers that reckon all of the surface ice on earth melted somewhere back around 2015? Or are we back to the ’70s ice age shtick again?
In Search of… The Coming Ice Age.
Non-hosts Steve Martin and Chris Rock open 2020 Oscars with jaw-dropping vagina monologue
Writer makes bad joke about bad joke. And apparently doesn’t know the meaning of “monologue.”
I’m actually kinda surprised they haven’t already split every award into “male” and “female”. And when they do, I’m gonna invest in popcorn futures because that’s when the real fun starts.
The Wachowskis could finally get their Oscar.
dropping the V-word
Valentine?
they both declared what that missing thing was to great applause: “Vaginas.”
There were plenty of women in the audience.
“A man named Bong Joon Ho wins #Oscar for best original screenplay over Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and 1917.
Acceptance speech was: “GREAT HONOR. THANK YOU.”
Then he proceeds to give the rest of his speech in Korean.
These people are the destruction of America.”
https://twitter.com/MillerStream/status/1226683232378380289
Koreans in Korea having Korean names and speaking Korean are destroying America, people.
What do ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ and ‘1917’ have to do with Korea? This is out of place and dumb, like speaking spanish in a debate while running to be president of the US.
“Parasite” is a REALLY good movie.
But it won an Oscar, which makes me doubt that.
Nothing, those are the competitors his screenplay defeated, not his work. He is a south Korean. You can question why the academy gave the award to him, but denouncing a Korean for speaking his own language is silly, and as I have seen none of the 3 movies I have no opinion which should have won.
He clarified that he wasn’t accusing the Koreans of destroying america, it’s the people who would give awards to Koreans that are destroying America. Which I’m not sure is any better.
seems like a reasonable opinion … so why didn’t he say that first?
People are stupid. Enjoy your cancellation – whoever you are.
“Foreign” remains an unnecessary modifier and hints at the author’s xenophobia and jingoism.
Yeah, where was this guy when “American Factory” got an award?
Because it was made by a Kenyan?
A movie about a Chinese company buying an American factory one of the directors of which appeared to be pumping Marxism during the acceptance speech?
I suppose. ?♂️
Ready the pitchforks!
*raises torch*
Burn The Hyperbole!
A riot is an ugly thing.
I detect a hint of racism in your comment. Why can’t you let a black man tell his truth?
I’m going to be a bit contrarian here for the hell of it, but Foreign is not an unneccesary modifier. “Foreign Film” is a common enough phrase in American cinema when referring to non Hollywood Films.
It’s unnecessary for his argument, if he didn’t like it because of it’s SJ message and thought other films were more deserving, ‘foreign’ has as much bearing as saying ‘this 152 min film’would.
Of all the people who could reasonably be considered the destruction of America, it’s the Oscar award committee?
Every time I see someone wearing one of the remote bluetooth earpieces (which is all the time), I think of Snow Crash. Am I the only one?
I think “manufacturers must make a mint off of people losing those things”
Unless you’re doing MMA, they stay in your ear and are somewhat harder to lose. My biggest problem is forgetting mine on the counter at home. Feel naked at work without it and have to give up a hand to hold the phone or pull a wired headphone out of the desk.
I didn’t say ‘fall out’ I said lose. These things are tiny and easy to misplace.
I prefer these.
They are also magnetic so you can have them around your neck and they won’t fall off. Great battery life, too.
I read Snow Crash and I don’t remember that.
The mind controlled people had antennas in their ears to receive their orders.
My boss just got one, actually. He always appears to be talking to himself.
That’s one reason I hate those things. The other is that the sound is crap, as with any earbud I’ve ever tried. Cans or GTFO.
over the ear only…..
So from this twitter thread
https://twitter.com/janeygak/status/1226632991499341830
Is it true that in some state you cannot just go to a lab and ask for blood work? If so what possible justification could there be for such a policy, as long as you pay everything pout of pocket? The only thing I can think of is clogging the labs or something, but this is solved by having plenty labs, and anyway it aint an issue in Romania.
I doubt it.
Some companies may be wed to a business model that doesn’t include direct customer service, but that’s the company.
“Due to state laws, we cannot provide services for RESIDENTS in NY, NJ, MA, MD or RI.”
Looks like it is restricted to a handful of useless states.
I need to know which state law, because a list like that which doesn’t include Commiefornia means it’s something oblique rather than a direct ban.
Some licensing requirement which shouldn’t be there?
Quite common for a variety of medical services – differs by state. We do not purchase insurance and deal with this non-sense all the time, even for basic stuff such as replacing a pair of glasses (sorry need to obtain a new prescription).
Romanians, drawing blood… you really set yourself up there, Pie.
I could literally walk into Quest Diagnostics with no appointment in half an hour when they open and slap down cash on the counter for the blood or urine test of my choice. Costs me about 200 bucks for my annual workup. All out of pocket as I’m uninsured.
“Cadillac’s new Escalade will drive itself on major highways — without the driver even having to hold the steering wheel or put their foot on the pedals”
https://twitter.com/CNNBusiness/status/1226868422375424000
What could possibly go wrong?
Will it also crank the audio system so the drivers in adjacent lanes hear your beats with your and their windows rolled up?
It becomes self aware and goes Christine on people?
Bad drivers will keep running into it?
Just because you’re stinkin’ rich enough to afford a land-boat doesn’t make all the other drivers around you worse.
This is the problem that the self-driving cars like googles have in tests. Bad drivers keep rear ending it because it stops at lights and things like that.
Does it speak to you in William Daniels’ voice?
Yes, but it only quotes 1776 and Boy Meets World.
You were better in the 80s
While introducing the awards for Best Score and Best Song, Larson, Gadot, and Weaver went on a riff centered around their famed superhero characters that they play onscreen, announcing that all women with no exceptions are superheroes.
“We want to stand here together and say that all women are superheroes,” Weaver said.
“True!” Gadot immediately shouted. “Yep!” Larson said.
Except for women that opt to stay home and raise children.
Gender traitors aren’t real women, duh.
Am so!
Not willing to submit irrefutable evidence in this setting though.
ALL women, huh? Tanya Harding? Susan Smith? Aileen Wuornos?
Oh, or how about Melania Trump? What about Tulsi Gabbard? Laura Ingraham? Just throwin’ some hero names out here.
Careful, you might throw off their programming script and then who the hell knows what’ll happen.
*superhero
I really hate the deification of women trend. Especially because people seem unwilling to call it out as bullshit.
#metoo
It’s the award culture. You’re a hero because just being alive is apparently an exceptional and remarkable act of bravery and sacrifice. Oh, but wait, it’s not really exceptional because everyone else is a hero, too. So, really, since everyone’s a hero nobody’s a hero. And the bravest thing you did was have a vagina, or be gay, or give someone a ticket for jaywalking.
It’s unhealthy. It robs people of truly heroic figures that offer inspiration, and it diminishes the nobility of the mundane. Most people are mediocre, maybe possessing one or two talents that rise to slightly better than average. That’s OK, that’s how it’s supposed to be, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t make you a hero, nor does it mean that you’ve failed to meet the baseline for a society which is allegedly composed entirely of heroes.
Betsy DeVos?
So… all women are super…
all women with no exceptions are superheroes – the meant superhoes
The defining difference between spanish New World colonies and the english or french ones, is the amount of sex the invaders had with native women. h/t
https://twitter.com/RealYeyoZa/status/1226234933426913283
But the real question is, who was more racist, the Spaniards who intermarried with the natives, or the English and Frenchies who didn’t?
Charboneau begs to differ.
North of Mexico, there were not all that many natives to have sex with.
That probably aligns with the theory I was taught back in school. The Spanish were here to exploit the area, get rich and go back. English and French were here to stay.
If you were just visiting, screwing around and leaving a lot of bastards probably isn’t a big deal. If you were building a permanent colony, screwing natives wasn’t high on your priority list.
The French who went to the Caribbean colonies had the Spanish attitude – making places like Haiti into the paradise it is today. The Frenchies who went to Quebec and American colonies were looking to leave France permanently.
A paper from the Russian scientists who designed the lead-bismuth-cooled nuclear reactors used in the fastest submarines ever: https://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:31058476
They discuss the numerous challenges and accidents that they overcame, and how they could benefit the civilian sector as SMRs.
https://twitter.com/ToughSf/status/1225464420077314048
I suppose Joaquin Phoenix wouldn’t appreciate a shipment of veal.
“Sgt. Javier Jaguar Gutierrez of San Antonio, Texas, and Sgt. Antonio Rey Rodriguez of Las Cruces, New Mexico, both 28, were gunned down late Saturday when a man dressed in an Afghan army uniform”
Trump hates Mexicans so much he won’t withdraw from Afghanistan.
Auntie Maxine
Reacting to the dismissal of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, Waters said, “This president defined himself a long time ago. I am not surprised at anything that he would do. He has no respect for his colleagues, no respect for the Constitution, no respect for people of color, and so the firing is typical of what this president is all about. He basically told us what he’s capable of. And this is not the end of it. You think this is something? Watch what he’s going to continue to do. We have a dishonorable president not capable of being the president of the United States, representing and caring for all the people and the security of this country. And so we’re in for it. We’re in for this president and actions such as this and more that’s going to go on, and his campaign is going to help pay for him being even more ridiculous. So again, I’m not surprised. It’s almost as if I want to say I told you so.”
She added, “I’m also worried about he’s going to be even more divisive than he’s been. He said, and he warned us that if he did not get elected, that there was going to be a race riot. I mean, he basically said it in so many words. So that’s a bad, bad leadership action that he’s already taken, where he’s predicting that all that he’s doing will cause people to turn on each other and it would be a race riot if he’s not —what more do we want from this president? You know, yes, he went through the impeachment process. We impeached him in the House. The Senate didn’t have the nerve, the guts, didn’t have the responsibility as patriots to do what needed to be done and to not support this president. And now they’re talking about. They ask him not to fire Vindman and not to fire Sondland? Give me a break.”
They held a vote. Their constitutional duty was done. Bring real charges next time.
…
Um…has Maxine actually met Alex, Yevgeny, or Gordon? As in, seen them in person?
Go easy on Maxine, it isn’t her fault that she’s the stupidest person in congress.
Going after the people who keep voting for her seems a little bigoted though.
That is a tough prize claim, my friend.
This is just political posturing. Anyone who thinks that this is some travesty that has never occurred is too far gone to understand that.
Well, that’s pretty much how they describe every single thing that Trump does, no matter how many past examples there are from other administrations. And they deflect that by just shouting “whataboutism” when confronted with it.
The “whataboutism” pisses me off more than anything. “What about the action you’re referring to changed between when your tribe did it and this guy did it that has made you suddenly give a shit about it,” is a perfectly legitimate question.
So… he didn’t say it and you’re putting words in his mouth. Got it.
What if Maxine Waters is in fact from a parallel dimension where that’s true? Because in this one he never said anything even remotely like that, and yet I can picture him saying it and hear it in his voice.
I can’t imagine that, if you had dimension-travelling technology, you would give it to her, of all people.
If you could get one person completely removed from the plane of reality you inhabit, Maxine Waters has to make the short list.
I dunno. There seem to millions, if not more.
Maybe the trip fried her brain. Or maybe in some sort of Bizzaro-world type of deal Maxine’s actually a vaunted intellectual. Or some sort of Futurama type thing.
his campaign is going to help pay for him being even more ridiculous
Hard to pick a particular nugget out of the steaming pile of wordbarf, but, what?
Trombone Shorty is old guy music! Well I never!
*looks in mirror*
Uh…
“I held Moses during his bris”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oVTKkOWU3k
Mornin’ Glibbies. Today’s earworm: https://youtu.be/I_2D8Eo15wE
You’re welcome.
It’s impossible to hear that song without thinking of that scene in Blow for anybody under 35.
Here are two unrelated thoughts:
1. Wouldn’t it be nice if the Democrats, as the opposition party, stopped fucking around with this idiotic impeachment bullshit and actually went after Trump on our continued military presence abroad and our wildly excessive spending? Or if the Republicans actually developed something like a principled small-government stance and pushed for reduced spending? Even better, wouldn’t it be grand if the voters punished all of the above in upcoming elections while also calling the mainstream media to account for pushing their TDS-driven narratives rather than actually behaving as if they really did force some sort of accountability on the government?
2. Had my first Irn-Bru yesterday. I was expecting something a lot more…*more*. It just tastes sort of like a cream soda with a hint of bubblegum and citrus. I don’t get the strong feelings on either side, although I’d probably buy it if it were available in the states. It seems like it would benefit from vodka, although, if I’m being honest, what doesn’t?
Wouldn’t it be nice if
Two thoughts:
(1) Yes, yes it would.
(2) Speaking of alternate realities. . . .
Wouldn’t it be nice if the Democrats, as the opposition party, stopped fucking around with this idiotic impeachment bullshit and actually went after Trump on our continued military presence abroad and our wildly excessive spending?
Because he’s not going far enough?
Or if the Republicans actually developed something like a principled small-government stance and pushed for reduced spending?
And lose elections?
In a democracy the people never get a government worse than they deserve. They literally asked for it.
You’re not wrong, it just sucks. I guess that’s what you get with a representative government and a culture that doesn’t explicitly foreground civic engagement.
RE: #1
They (Dem and Rep) can’t do any of those things because they want those things (war and overreach and overspending) to continue. If they go after him for those things (actual policy issues) they would be condemning their own actions for decades worth of past votes and wars. They just don’t like him personally and that’s all.
The talk of Minnesoda above reminded me —- wasn’t Al Franken on the comeback trail just a few months back? Whatever happened to that?
Maybe one day we will make Gary Johnson libertarian again. Sadly, that is not today.
“I like a lot of what she has to say,” says Johnson. But “my guy is Bill Weld.”
On Sunday, Business Insider reported that Johnson had called a Gabbard staffer and left a voicemail message in which he offered her his support.
“Hey, I was asked a long time ago to endorse Tulsi, and I did, and you know, whatever I can do—I’m not active on social media—but I did endorse her, and you know, whatever quote you wanna attribute to me to say vote for her, you got it,” said Johnson, according to Business Insider.
Johnson clarified to Reason that while he appreciates Gabbard’s fierce opposition to military interventionism and regime change, he did not intend to formally endorse Gabbard. He would have explained this, he said, if the campaign had returned his call.
“If it had been returned I don’t think this article would have been written,” he says, referencing the Business Insider report.
while he appreciates Gabbard’s fierce opposition to military interventionism and regime change
Sure. Not enough to overcome her support for gun control, the Green New Deal, the expansion of DC control of the economy, and massive confiscation/”redistribution” of wealth.
Sometimes I think that if Tulsi Gabbard didn’t look so good in yoga pants she’d have less support. I appreciate that she’s something of a political outsider, that being a very relative term, and I think that’s a healthy thing. It just seems like when you get past the schtick she’s pretty much just a standard far left Democrat who just happens to not quite be an out-and-out Socialist or an evangelical Progressive.
Yup. She’s the representative from the long-thought-extinct anti-war left. She still sucks on literally everything else.
I just had a thought: Gary Johnson is the LP’s version of Mitt Romney isn’t he?
*mind blown*
They’re the Nick Gillespies of candidates.
FTA last line
Yeah, I feel misled by you. Not in the way you are apologizing for though.
Take the hint bro.
“Gary Johnson called.”
“Who?”
Speaking of Organ Pipe:
I seem to recall that the coyote traffic was so heavy through there (lack of wall, difficulty of patrolling) that it was actually “closed” for awhile during the Obama administration. I also seem to recall complaints about all the damage the coyote traffic was causing.
My persistent concern about our southern border is the scenario where Mexico basically does a Venezuela, and a double digit percentage of Mexicans decide to head north.
I don’t know why–well, I *do*, but as a rhetorical device I’ll act as if I don’t–it’s racist or xenophobic or whatever to be more concerned about a weak border with a country on the verge of political collapse could result in a sudden influx of refugees that could include bad actors and will certainly strain local resources than a border with a reasonably stable country and a relatively healthy economy.
I’m highly sympathetic to anybody fleeing socialism.
But not the Irish!
What did you said?
*breaks empty bottle, brandishes*
Blazing Saddles much?
Me, too. Quantity has a quality all its own, though. A few thousand refugees are a different proposition than 15,000.000 refugees (roughly what we would get if the same percentage of Mexicans flee Mexico as Venezuelans have fled Venezuela).
Was that 15 million or 15 thousand with three decimal places?
*squints*
Huh.
15,000,000.
Mr Dean likes to be precise with his migrant counts.
Indeed. Amputees are counted as a fractional migrant.
The cartel supports this counting method…
That’s why the average person has fewer than 2 legs and arms.
If its the head that’s been amputated, that goes into the spreadsheet as a 0.0 FTM equivalent.
And our Euro friend says, “I need to figure out how to move here.”
Easily done.
(1) Fly into Mexico.
(2) Walk or drive north.
I wouldn’t mind it as much if our immigration system would actually be reformed to something with some semblance of sanity in it.
Of course, the cries for a liberation of Mexico from the Mexican government that will start up ~10 years after that will get interesting.
I can’t imagine a sane immigration system that would admit 15,000,000 refugees.
I’m thinking something where refugee access would get you admittance to the country, and work with local charities to help you get on your feet. No citizenship, no vote, no dole, If you have relatives in another country that you would like to attempt to move to for permanent residence, we would help you get the documentation together to help make your case (and I would hope charities would help defray the costs of airfare).
I’d also allow for a very easy application for a 6-9 month guest worker program, again, no citizenship, no vote, no dole. You’re able to legally work here for the duration, and can switch jobs as you see fit (so no H1-B type BS). This would be specifically for low skill workers.
It would require that “No Citizenship” clause include no citizenship for children they happen to have while waiting to relocate or return.
UCS: Agreed. This was just spitballing a potential system.
Recent “refugee” migrants are notorious for giving the slip to any kind of requirements and just basically exiting the immigration system at the first opportunity.
The entire system would be completely swamped – hell, it is now, with refugees one-two orders of magnitude less than we could expect if Mexico collapsed a la Venezuela. The volume would just be way too high to manage.
As UnCiv notes, kids born here would be citizens, and we can’t split up the family, so the whole family would get to stay. As we have seen, young kids would be politically impossible to deport, so the whole family would get to stay.
No citizenship, no vote, no dole,
Would that include no EIC, no public schools, etc.?
I can pretty much guarantee that hospitals in border states would go bankrupt – a big slug of no pay patients would do it, no problem. So there would be subsidies to keep the hospitals afloat.
Housing? Where would they live? We don’t have vacancies for anywhere close to that many, and the competition for low-income housing would have huge knock-on effects. Probably need more subsidies to build and to support people priced out of the market.
Just as long as the new housing has mandated solar panels and gray water re-use capabilities.
If company B owns 100% of shares in Company A, can Company A start to buy shares in Company B and conduct a takeover of its parent organization?
Yes, it can. Not a hostile takeover, as Company B can just replace the board of Company A to bring it to a halt. A subsidiary taking over its parent is not unheard of, although its usually the last formal step of an acquisition or merger involving a third party.
In the fictional situation I’m thinking of, the companies are incorporated in two different countries.
Though the more I think about it, Company B is probably the more advantageous owner for the character in question (who actually owns all of Company B anyway), since it is incorporated in a friendlier tax jurisdiction.
I’m now left wondering if there’s any actual benefit for the character to try to get the money to himself, or if it would be better to just use an expense account and give himself company perks, being in control of both boards and the only shareholder.
He got in this circumstance through trying to figure out how to launder money already in a numbered account in the offshore jurisdiction. Funnily enough, the company he built trying to figure out how to hide the ill gotten gains may have generated more legitimate returns than the money he’s sorta fixated on.
Shifting money to a subsidiary is pretty easy: just buy more stock.
If he is the sole shareholder of both, then doing the “reverse” merger would be extremely easy. Company B’s operations and assets would simply become Company A’s operations and assets.
Whether that would actually give Company B the tax benefits of being domiciled where Company A is would depend entirely on the local tax codes.
Yeah, thinking it over, he has no gains from restructuring.
Or simply contract between entities for “management services” to relocate income. I think that’s how it is done.
Then pay a 3rd completely unrelated firm located in a banking haven for consulting services. Deposit monies there.
I don’t think you can give yourself company perks though. That counts as income and they could get you for tax evasion if you don’t declare it as such. I know loads of people do use their S corp for this purpose, but if the tax man ever got interested, he could really make trouble.
You use a C Corp for “perks” in theory, and control its revenue stream to pay for the perks but not incur substantial taxes. In practice every small business person I know who followed this highly theoretical advice ended up closing down the C corp because the accounting and other administrative hassles of complicated entity structuring generally outweigh the (usually minuscule) tax benefits.
That’s more or less how reverse takeovers and reverse mergers work, where one company is public and the other private.
For you, Hayeksplosives:
The Agony of the Tesla Bears: $8.4 Billion of Losses in Five Weeks
TW: paywalled WSJ.
ctrl-F “irrational exuberance”
I clicked on a Vox article – interested in the anti-vax title. Here’s a tip for proggie soccer Mom’s: you may want to check-out what the left says about you. The casual racism of the media shouldn’t surprise me, but the drum-beat of “white privilege” is deafening.
https://www.vox.com/2020/2/5/21079162/karen-name-insult-meme-manager
If your name is Karen, Becky, or Chad, you may have noticed a growing trend of people using your name as an insult. Increasingly, “Karen” in particular has emerged as the frontrunner for the average “basic white person name” — a pejorative catchall label for a wide range of behaviors thought to have connections to white privilege. And the recently trending Twitter hashtag #AndThenKarenSnapped has further shifted the “Karen” meme from its nebulous origins toward becoming a mainstream trope.
Where a similar insult like “OK Boomer” stereotypes a specific generation, calling someone a “Karen” draws on associations people have built around extremely common names. But the stereotype the name conjures — at least in the US — is limited mainly to white women in their mid-30s or 40s. The archetypal “Karen” is blonde, has multiple young kids, and is usually an anti-vaxxer. Karen has a “can I speak to the manager” haircut and a controlling, superior attitude to go along with it:
I blame Plankton.
Hawley’s proposal would relocate the FTC to the DOJ, replace the five-member commission with a single director, and offer the agency a new set of tools to specifically take on Big Tech.
Not tools, POWERS. Sen Douchebag wants to grant the agency a new set of POWERS to specifically take on Big Tech. Powers which will be abused before the ink is dry on the bill.
A hammer is a tool. A screwdriver is a tool. What they want are POWERS, and it is way past time people started calling legislators and prosecutors out on this hideous euphemism.