Monday Morning Links

by | Mar 9, 2020 | Daily Links | 371 comments

Winners

Liverpool won and Man City lost, which means the league is just six points away! Now the focus shifts to UCL, as long as the Wuhan Virus (yeah, I said it) doesn’t fuck everything up in Europe.  MLB regular season is right around the corner, as long as the Kung Flu doesn’t fuck everything up. The Corona Virus has fucked everything up for tennis. And as promised, here’s a breakdown of the NHL playoffs as we close in on the end of the regular season. Poor Phoenix. Will they ever have a playoff team in any sport again? That logjam in the west for the wild card is sure gonna make the last few weeks interesting.

Steiner

Italian explorer (who never visited America) Amerigo Vespucci was born on this day. As were French revolutionary Comte de Mirabeau, railroad magnate Leland Stanford, commie shitbag Vyacheslav Molotov, loudspeaker designer Paul Klipsch, jazzman Ornette Coleman, 1st man in space Yuri Gagarin, chess genius Bobby Fischer, terrorist Bobby Sands, football coach and funny guy Mike Leach, wrestling legend Rick Steiner, steroid aficionado Brian Bosworth, and midget actor Emmanuelle Lewis.

OK, on to…the links!

If you want a real body count, you need the Bandidos on the scene. Oh, and also the cops. Since, you know, they’re the ones who killed everybody in Waco.

Accurate (we’re on the right ride, btw)

The global stock markets are shitting the bed. But boy is gas ever gonna be cheap.

Take it easy. I mean, we know you Brits have a reputation for loutishness on airplanes, but come on.

It might be time to cancel large corporate events that are likely unnecessary.

You gotta be a spacial kind of asshole to do this.

I’d pay to see this shitshow.

As if California doesn’t have enough problems.

Zodiac killer

Zodiac taking some time off. So is Paul Gosar, who is now being accused of racism because he called it the Wuhan Virus.  Unfortunately for those calling him that, many of them have plenty of pieces up where they referred to it by the same name.  But the perpetually outraged gotta be outraged.

Here’s a nice song. Enjoy.

Now have a great day, friends. Stay safe and wash your hands.

About The Author

sloopyinca

sloopyinca

371 Comments

  1. Swiss Servator

    I’d pay to see this shitshow.

    As if California doesn’t have enough problems.

    Both have the same link.

    /in before others

    *EDIT FAIRY LAUGHS*

    • Pat

      Wait, there’s links?

    • sloopyinca

      I don’t know what you’re talking about.

      • Swiss Servator

        “Own goal”

        /Swiss 0 – Sloopy 1

      • sloopyinca

        :: runs toward corner flag::
        ::slides on both knees, lacking any sense of creativity::

      • Certified Public Asshat

        That’s better than the stupid thumb sucking celebration.

      • Rhywun

        Gawd I hate that.

  2. Pat

    The global stock markets are shitting the bed.

    OMG! CHEAP OIL! WHAT WILL WE DO?!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Short small oil frackers, that’s what we’ll do.

      • straffinrun

        Fuck those fricken frackers.

    • WTF

      I got gas over the weekend, and was surprised to see it was down to $2.29/gallon.

      • banginglc1

        $1.95 in Indy

      • Count Potato

        Wow.

      • Chipwooder

        I filled up at $1.92 yesterday.

  3. straffinrun

    I’d pay to see this shitshow.

    The orange doesn’t fall far from the tree.

    • sloopyinca

      Yeah, but does the crack rock fall far from the dementia tree?

    • leon

      I’d put my money on Hunter. But the Chinese already did that.

  4. leon

    “Saudi Arabia slashed”

    You know what else Saudi Arabians slashed.

    • sloopyinca

      This comment was greedy, barbarous, and cruel.

      • sloopyinca

        Truly for some men, nothing is memed unless THEY meme it.

    • Swiss Servator

      Jimmy Carter’s electoral hopes?

  5. Pat

    Since, you know, they’re the ones who killed everybody in Waco.

    Which time?

    • leon

      Cross the Brazos at Waco!

    • Pat

      He should have told her that the club’s members all identify as black and don’t appreciate their POC spaces being arrogated by white people.

    • sloopyinca

      Why is Andy Dwyer from Parks and Rec standing there in a bathrobe?

  6. leon

    Yes Cruz is a conservative?

    • leon

      ….

      : Curses phone under breath:

  7. straffinrun

    Officers recognize that it is likely that many partygoers left the scene prior to being interview by Cleveland police, Ciaccia said.

    Safer for them to call the Bikers.

  8. Pat

    The women helping Hollywood shoot safer sex scenes

    Alicia Rodis walks onto set in New York with a mission: to oversee the shooting of a very complex – and daring – group sex scene for a TV series on a major US network. She’s there to make sure the director observes the intimacy boundaries set by each of the 30 actors taking part.

    She keeps track of the conditions of their consent on a big spreadsheet, to make sure everyone is comfortable when the camera rolls.

    In a theatre elsewhere in the city, Chelsea Pace choreographs an intimate scene performed by a couple.

    “Here you don’t ‘grope’, you make muscle-level contact with the front of your partner’s body,” she says, using non-sexual language to interpret the stage directions, as the two actors repeat a set of movements.

    Welcome to the world of intimacy coordinators.

    These women wouldn’t have been doing this job just a few years ago. Now they are part of one of the fastest-growing professions across the entertainment industry.

    • sloopyinca

      Intimacy Coordinators was my favorite band in college.

      • SugarFree

        Their shows always made me uncomfortable.

      • JD is Unemployed

        I saw this comment before it was cool.

    • WTF

      “Safer” sex scenes? Because they are dangerous and likely to cause injury?

    • JD is Unemployed

      I call dibs on the drugs that just fell out of your ass!

      Well only on a technicality – I shitlordedly posted that link near the end of the comments on one of yesterday’s many posts. What do I win?

      • Pat

        I have enough difficulty not reposting links within the same thread, let alone checking previous posts!

    • SugarFree

      I’ve read a few things about this. I assume it is just a way to make sex scenes so cumbersome to shoot that they just shoot less of them.

      • Tonio

        It’s putting a fig-leaf of respectability on it.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        “if we wrap this up in enough red tape, our colleagues will stop making fun of us for being porno directors”

      • leon

        See what you did there. Did you?

      • sloopyinca

        ::ejaculation of surprise::

      • SugarFree

        And probably some insurance/#metoo CYA.

        But anything that makes shooting sex scenes slower makes them more expensive, so it will lead to less of them. Or, at least, less ambitious scenes. The New Puritanism is always expressed as “safety.”

      • SugarFree

        Once I make a mistake, I stick to it. I don’t cut and run like you or the French.

      • Pat

        Gottem

      • sloopyinca

        Lol. I’m not even sure I’m right. This one could go either way.

      • SugarFree

        It is “fewer.” I have been grammar shamed!

      • sloopyinca

        I’ll make less comments about this now that you’ve admitted I was right.

      • leon

        It’s all on a spectrum. Really you are just non-binary grammarian.

      • Bobarian LMD

        There aut to be some rules.

      • invisible finger

        In your defense, if the scenes are this bureaucratic there will be less sex in them.

      • robc

        Language is descriptive not prescriptive

      • ruodberht

        That’s utter folly.

    • creech

      Do they have these coordinators in the UK? I swear there are sex scenes in stuff like “Outlander” that go beyond “getting to third base” used to be. In fact, I can’t believe that in some of these dramas the actors aren’t actually screwing.

      • Not Adahn

        Depending on who you believe Blue is the Warmest Color was either unsimulated, or they used really good prostheses.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Whatever blows your skirt up.

    • pistoffnick

      Pretty sure Marlon Brando didn’t have an intimacy coordinator for the butter scene in “Last Tango in Paris”

  9. DOOMco

    This is the first time I’ve actually considered Trump losing in November.

    Of the market totally fucks itself over a virus were in for an interesting election.

    • WTF

      It shouldn’t matter, but with the media going 24/7 falsely blaming Trump for the virus, it could have an effect.

      • DOOMco

        It’s his fault a virus exists!
        We only mocked him for wanting to close the border and shut travel from China.
        Can you believe this racist xenophobe?

    • Pat

      The fervor is likely to have subsided to a large extend by November – the media shot their wad too quick on Swine Flu 2 Electric Boogaloo. Expect a banking crisis around September though.

      • DOOMco

        This is most likely. It’s just the first time I’ve considered this possibility in any real way.

      • Sensei

        That’s my thinking too. I’d expect markets to at least start rebounding by that point.

        Also consider what this will do to all the candidates’ rally plans.

      • sloopyinca

        This plays right into Biden’s hands. His campaign speeches are one gaffe after another. Now he can suspend most of them in the name of safety and call on Trump to do the same, leaving the latter no way to counter the media narrative.

      • DOOMco

        “welcome to the first presidential Skype debate, brought to you by raid shadow legends”

      • Sensei

        Great point. However, even scripted he frequently goes off the rails.

      • sloopyinca

        “Cut. Take it from the top, Joe. And relax, we can do as many takes as we need for you to properly identify your wife and the state we’re making this for.”

      • leon

        As if. Trump will say no and now Biden isn’t stumping and Trump is. Remember when McCain announced he was suspending his campaign and called on Obama to do the same

    • Tonio

      Thanks, Debbie Downer!

    • Drake

      Or it might go hard the other way – people blaming China for the thousands of American deaths (at least) between now and November. If that’s the case, Trump in an epic landslide.

      • sloopyinca

        Doubtful. People will care less about where it originated than they will about what steps the government is taking to mitigate its effects. Nobody blamed the Gulf Of Mexico for Katrina. They only cared about the government response.

      • Drake

        I blame China. I don’t believe in that level of coincidence – that a pandemic spontaneously started just down the street from their main virology and bio-weapon lab.

  10. JD is Unemployed

    Ah fuck. I get some live tennis free on the BezosVision, so I’ve been enjoying that of late. Last nights women’s doubles final in Monterrey was pretty good. Sharon Fichman is the Nick Kyrgios of the WTA so I was rooting for the Kato/Wang combo, who didn’t go down without a fight. The singles final (Svitolina dramaqueena vs Bouzkova) wasn’t bad either.

    Overall I’ve been rooting for Leylah Fernandez because it’s fun to see a 17yo gun down some more established players. Back in Acapulco I enjoyed watching Fernandez make it to the final but she couldn’t beat Heather Watson. Watson seems about as likeable as a urethal swab, and clearly had some discomfort about wearing the sombrero which I (perhaps incorrectly) considered might have been “ewwww! Cultural appropriation! Don’t put that on me, you Mexican shitlord!“. She gave a flat, boring speech about winning, which basically amounted to “yeah whatever, I’ve won stuff before. I’m going to eat tostadas!”, while Fernandez gave an impassioned and humbling address in Spanish and English about how happy and grateful she was to have made it so far.

    For a casual watcher like me, for good or for ill, tennis is totally a game of personalities as much as it is skills. The same is true for all sports. I’m just a fickle, judgmental douchebag of a human being after all.

    • Not Adahn

      the Kato/Wang combo

      Yanno, it’s been a while sine Peter Sellers put out a new movie.

    • Rhywun

      tennis is totally a game of personalities

      Yep, more than many popular sports. I have my favorites and villains too.

      Crazy they canceled Indian Wells. And Miami – another huge tournament – follows immediately after it. In theory.

      • sloopyinca

        This could be a year when a lot of big events are cancelled. The Olympics are coming up. In Japan, no less. You have the European Championship, the French Open is around the corner, the Six Nations is teetering and Italy have already cancelled two of their matches, making it hard to determine a winner.
        I’m curious to see how that plays out.

      • Swiss Servator

        “the Six Nations is teetering”

        #$% &*(!@

        *SHAKES FIST AT THE SKY*

      • Chipwooder

        They’re actually talking about playing March Madness in empty arenas.

    • The Last American Hero

      Something Something Restoring dignity to the office….

  11. Rebel Scum

    But boy is gas ever gonna be cheap.

    Which will come in handy since people panic-buying disinfectant.

    • DOOMco

      “I just want to be pure”

  12. Drake

    “Wuhan” Virus is racist? How about “The virus released from the Wuhan Institute of Virology”?

    I’ve been calling it the “Kung Flu” to avoid and racial insensitivity.

    • Count Potato

      Because “Yellow Fever” was already taken?

      • JD is Unemployed

        Eh. Too cartoonish for me, but now I want to listen to John Davis marvellous theme music for 90210. I was going to link to something oddball there but what I wanted isn’t on youtube.

  13. robc

    1 pt from 3. 4 from 4 wont be bad result after this weekend.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Don’t do that to yourself.

    • sloopyinca

      It’s over. And boy, was I ever wrong. They just laid down and died yesterday.

      • robc

        I told you that was a distinct possibility.

    • WTF

      Hey, they said they could build it, they didn’t say it would stay up.

    • Q Continuum

      “hospital”

    • sloopyinca

      Where’d they get their engineering from, the Brady Bunch episode where they had to figure out how to spend their green stamps?*

      *side note: you never saw that TV set they decided on in another episode. Why? A family that big, you’d expect them to occasionally want to watch two different things.

      • robc

        Was that the one settled by he driving competition or was that a different episode?

      • sloopyinca

        Wasn’t that the house of cards episode?

      • leon

        Your thinking of the one where Greg murders the girl running for class president against Marsha.

      • sloopyinca

        54-40 And Fight was the name of the episode. )Season 1 Ep 15.) A bracelet almost takes out the house of cards, but in the end Tiger fucks it all up and the girls win on a technicality.

      • robc

        Ah yes, the driving competition with the egg wasn’t something else.

      • robc

        Was, not wasnt.

      • sloopyinca

        Wasn’t that the one where Carol got into a fender bender in the grocery store parking lot. And the dude showed up to court with a neck brace on?

      • C. Anacreon

        And the dude with the neck brace was the same actor who played Uncle Fester.

      • banginglc1

        I don’t know what’s worse . . . that you know all these things or that I understand every reference you’re making.

      • Sensei

        The engineering was probably OK.

        Problem is they only likely used half the rebar the plans called for and the concrete mix was probably well below spec too.

        I seem to recall a Glib who worked in developing nations say they specified way too much rebar in their designs as they knew half of it was never going to installed.

      • Drake

        In other words, it was built it China, by Chinese, with Chinese materials.

      • pistoffnick

        We derated Chinese A36 steel by 30% in our designs.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        and the concrete mix was probably well below spec too

        Almost certainly. Chinese concrete is god-awful in general and the on-site testing regimen is almost non-existent.

      • Swiss Servator

        Oh, you’ve seen an Afgani school built before then?

  14. Rebel Scum

    Donald Trump Jr. wants to debate Hunter Biden in a bid to prove the former vice president’s son has financially benefited more than him from their fathers’ government positions.

    ///HonkHonk

    • WTF

      It’s entirely their decision to have their appearance be whatever they prefer. They do not, however, have the right to require that others must find their choices attractive.

      • Q Continuum

        ^^^kitten killing Nazi devil-worshipper confirmed

      • Not Adahn

        Some people can’t recognize love unless you cough up a hairball. That’s why they surround themselves with cats.

      • leon

        They also find the smell of ammonia sensual

      • Rebel Scum

        unless you cough up a hairball

        If she shaved her kitty this wouldn’t be a problem.

    • Pat

      I don’t know about anybody else, but nothing gets me going like dreadlocked pit hair and rainforest floor coochie.

  15. Not Adahn

    Well, it’s official.

    There have been two cases of Trumpvirus in my county.

    It was nice knowing you all.

  16. Pat

    Google tracked his bike ride past a burglarized home. That made him a suspect.

    […] In the notice from Google was a case number. McCoy searched for it on the Gainesville Police Department’s website, and found a one-page investigation report on the burglary of an elderly woman’s home 10 months earlier. The crime had occurred less than a mile from the home that McCoy, who had recently earned an associate degree in computer programming, shared with two others.

    Now McCoy was even more panicked and confused. He knew he had nothing to do with the break-in ─ he’d never even been to the victim’s house ─ and didn’t know anyone who might have. And he didn’t have much time to prove it.

    McCoy worried that going straight to police would lead to his arrest. So he went to his parents’ home in St. Augustine, where, over dinner, he told them what was happening. They agreed to dip into their savings to pay for a lawyer.

    The lawyer, Caleb Kenyon, dug around and learned that the notice had been prompted by a “geofence warrant,” a police surveillance tool that casts a virtual dragnet over crime scenes, sweeping up Google location data — drawn from users’ GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and cellular connections — from everyone nearby.

    The warrants, which have increased dramatically in the past two years, can help police find potential suspects when they have no leads. They also scoop up data from people who have nothing to do with the crime, often without their knowing ─ which Google itself has described as “a significant incursion on privacy.”

    • leon

      Privacy? Who cares about that when there are brave blue people trying to solve crimes!!!

    • WTF

      How in the fuck does being in the vicinity of a crime constitute probable cause for a warrant? Other than FYTW, of course.

      • leon

        I’m fairly convinced that the FISA abuse scandal showed us what is common for seeking a warrant. If the cops want a warrant on you, they are going to spin everything they have or don’t have in their favor. And who is going to stop them?

    • sloopyinca

      The lawyer, Caleb Kenyon, dug around and learned that the notice had been prompted by a “geofence warrant,” a police surveillance tool that casts a virtual dragnet over crime scenes, sweeping up Google location data — drawn from users’ GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and cellular connections — from everyone nearby.

      I swear, I though general warrants were unconstitutional. I’m sure I read that somewhere. Oh yeah, I did. In the Fourth Amendment and Section 12 of the Florida Constitution.

      • WTF

        Further evidence that the fourth amendment is on its last legs.

      • Q Continuum

        +a shitload of DWI checkpoints

      • WTF

        Look, the constitution is not a suicide pact, if it was actually adhered to as it was originally understood 95% of all government actions would cease and the nation would collapse!!11!!!

      • leon

        You’re really selling me on this strict adherence to the Constitution.

    • DOOMco

      You have nothing to hide if you don’t ride a bike past any homes.

      • Bobarian LMD

        If you have something to hide, you shouldn’t be out riding your bike!

  17. Certified Public Asshat

    Once a vaccine for coronavirus is developed, it should be free.— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 8, 2020

    Work hard everyone.

    • WTF

      He means “free to the right people”, not the people who will be forced to pay the cost.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Free to people who are dumb enough to vote for Bernie.

  18. robc

    I mentioned the story I am writing at end of last week.

    I have a technical question, so I wouldn’t give a very vague preview as I flesh stuff out. I mentioned it was a combination of two ideas.

    Idea one, a pre-steam feudal society based around waterways. Centered on waterways so much that peerage level and prestige and power are determined by the size of your watershed.
    Vassalage is defined by tributaries. If your river is the tributary to another river, you are their vassal. And that goes down and down as waterways branch off. This explains the boating questions I was asking about on Friday. Anyway, got that worked out.

    Idea two, which is where the new question is coming in, it is a matrilineal society. Men hold all the positions, but it is determined by the female line. To give an example from real history, lets use the English making descendents of Sophie the heirs to throne. The first King under this rule would be George I, just like in reality. The heir-mother (term I created) would be her first daughter, Sophie Charlotte, whose son Frederick William I (or Prussia) would have been the heir to George I. So nephews inherit, in general, not sons.

    But that leads to a question, let me lay out a situation.

    We have heir-mother A, who has a son 1A. He is King.

    She has a daughter B, who has 3 sons, 1B, 2B, 3B, and a daughter C.

    C has two sons, 1C and 2C.

    1B would inherit form 1A. Be who would be next in line? Would it be 2B or 1C?

    Which goes back to George I. When he died in 1727, his youngest brother Ernest Augustus was still alive, would he have been the new King (for 1 year, he died in 1728) before Frederick William?

    As I talk it through, I think so. Otherwise you get some weird circumstance, where maybe 1C should inherit before 1B? Anyway, yeah, I am going with that.

    You can see some of the “palace intrigue” that could come into play, as the heir to the throne isn’t necessarily that closely related to the current occupant. A son or brother whacking the King is one thing, a nephew is entirely different.

    • Not Adahn

      Rules of succession are completely arbitrary.

      • robc

        Yes, but they do tend to make some sense, so I am trying to make sure mine does to. I don’t want to end up with the Quidditch of succession rules.

      • robc

        If Rowling had posted here before writing the book, we would have corrected the rules and saved her a bunch of grief.

      • leon

        But would she be a billionaire now?

      • robc

        She would have a playable sport, and that is more important.

      • sloopyinca

        Playable? They fly on enchanted brooms.

        Quidditch is simple to understand. You either go for the golden snitch or you rack up goals.

      • robc

        It is almost as bad as crickets “if you can delay long enough that the 5th day ends, its a draw” rule.

    • Pine_Tree

      It’s 2B until 1C is born. Then it’s 1C. So if in your timeline there’s already a 1C, then 2B’s off the hook.

      • robc

        Actually, I have already decided it is age 18, not birth. No baby Kings running around in my universe.

        But if 1C is 18 and 1B is 40 when 1A dies, who inherits? I want it to be 1B. But if 2B is not before 1C, what if there was 1B died as an infant?

        So, I think the entire line of Bs should be before the Cs. I am still thinking about it.

        My original thought was the order would be 1B, 1C, 2C, 2B, 3B.

        But now I am thinking 1B, 2B, 3B, 1C, 2C, to avoid the infant death problem.

      • leon

        So a matrilineal seniority succession.

      • Pine_Tree

        I think the practical effect of going from 1B to 2B to 3B would be that whole generations of C-liners get skipped. And that when you’re finally done with all the B brothers, the process for predicting who’s next would involve so much back-tracking and recalculations that there’d never be good predictability or stability. So every matrilineal changeover (e.g. Bs to Cs) would be viewed as illegitimate.

      • robc

        I played around with this with some of the european lines.

        Lack of a daughter (or a daughter who doesnt have any kids) causes all kind of crazy back tracking and calculation. It is why I like the idea so much.

        What becomes clear is if it very important for the heir-mother to have both a son and a daughter to keep the line alive.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Since you’re driving the kings based on matri-linearity, should the mother in question being alive be a determinant?

        If B is still alive when 1B passes, then 2B, else 1C.

      • robc

        Yeah, I am thinking thru it. I think first son to reach age of maturity and first daughter ditto.

        So it wou;ld go 1B, 1C, not 1B, 2B. Otherwise, daughters would need to be treated the same way and that messes with the story I have planned and still handles the infant/child death issue properly.

        So order of succession would be 1B, 1C, then if no 1D, 2C, 2B, 3B if still around.

    • Gadfly

      You can see some of the “palace intrigue” that could come into play, as the heir to the throne isn’t necessarily that closely related to the current occupant.

      This can all be solved the Ottoman way: kill all potential rivals to the throne on your ascendance.

  19. Q Continuum

    People dying of coronavirus, stock market tanking; CNN is dripping pre-cum everywhere.

    • Count Potato

      Dow is 25,864? I wouldn’t call that “tanking”. The market isn’t some perpetual motion machine that can go up forever.

      • Q Continuum

        Agree completely. However, it’ll be reported as “Trump Ruins Amerikkka’s Economy Because He’s HITLERRRRRRRR!!!”

      • Pat

        The market isn’t some perpetual motion machine that can go up forever.

        Federal Reserve: Hold my beer!

      • creech

        I’m thinking 20,000 before end of March. Then, if you have any cash, there should be buying opportunities.

      • Count Potato

        I hope not.

      • Raven Nation

        Apparently trading has just been suspended.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        This was baked in. The big boys are sticking it to the little guys right now.

        The major index growth has been manipulated for at least the last year wherein the stocks that matter (AAPL, etc…) keep getting pushed up while the broader stock indexes have been sliding or stagnant.

    • Rebel Scum

      But gas prices lower… Obviously that is the result of Obama’s infinite wisdom. And Trump is tanking Barry’s glorious economy.

  20. Count Potato

    “Plastic surgeon, 49, ‘drugged high-end escorts with tranquilizers and then filmed himself raping them,’ police say

    A plastic surgeon from Ohio drugged several women and then filmed himself raping them while they laid motionless, according to authorities.

    Manish Gupta, 49, is alleged to have solicited sex online from a woman during a 2016 trip to Los Angeles for a plastic surgery convention.

    Gupta, who was booked into Lucas County Jail on Friday afternoon, has been charged with illegally dispensing controlled substances, aggravated sexual abuse and sex trafficking. ”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8089635/Plastic-surgeon-49-drugged-escorts-tranquilizers-filmed-raping-them.html

    How is that trafficking?

    • Q Continuum

      Dood, they were hookers! They were going to fuck you no matter what!

      • Count Potato

        He’s not that bright

        “An investigation by the FBI found that in 2014, an employee who worked at Gupta’s clinic in Toledo found several SD cards that contained video clips of the doctor having sex with unresponsive women.”

        unless it was Bring Your Illegal Sex Tape to Work Day.

      • Q Continuum

        “Bring Your Illegal Sex Tape to Work Day”

        Best day of the year.

      • Not Adahn

        Um… you mean “undocumented sex tape.”

      • Not Adahn

        While he had them knocked out, the least he could do is a little nip ‘n tuck.

    • WTF

      Because the only way to have sex trafficking at any level of statistical significance is to count prostitution as trafficking.

      • Fatty Bolger

        It also gets headlines and brings in that sweet, sweet federal cash.

    • Rebel Scum

      aggravated sexual abuse

      Rape IS aggravating.

    • leon

      “declared that I was entitled ‘to a brick wall’ ”

      Socialists and their entitlements. On libertopia you build your own damn wall.

    • Chipwooder

      I swear, these little commie fucks need a Holiday in Cambodia in the worst way.

  21. Pope Jimbo

    Turns out the guy who did the Minnesoda Hockey Hair videos is dirty whore. After he got a giant donation to the Hendrickson Foundation, he came back out and made a new Minnesoda high school video.

    • Drake

      Outstanding. Need to follow-up with best lacrosse flows.

    • ChipsnSalsa

      Saved for break time. thanks!

    • A Leap at the Wheel

      My daughter went to a birthday part at the roller rink this weekend. I saw 2 dudes with Jerry curls. It was awesome.

      • A Leap at the Wheel

        Neat!

      • Enough About Palin

        This reminds me of “Hollywood Shuffle”. And that reminds me of “Pootie Tang”, which I watched last Friday. The film is rated only one star. That’s fucked up, so I gave it some thought and here’s the deal. You make a film like “Sounder” or “The Help” and your gonna get four stars because they’re films about the poor black folk oppressed by whitey. But do a send-up of black culture and you get just one fucking star. BTW, “Pootie Tang” is 81 minutes of hilarious!

      • Gadfly

        I like that the wiki article for the Jheri Curl has a picture of Ice Tea sporting one as its lead image, in a picture that certainly reflects a pre-NWA aesthetic sensibility. Since the wiki authors went with that image instead of one of someone more iconically associated with the style (like Michael Jackson), I can only assume it is a troll.

      • A Leap at the Wheel

        Sorry, Billy D will always and forever be the canonical Jheri Curl in my mind.

      • Rhywun

        I remember that crap caking up on every school bus window during that era.

    • Raston Bot

      im-fucking-pressive!

      the perm has caught on at one of my local rinks. it’s hilarious.

      quite a few get extra points for the stache.

  22. Pat

    New York power plant mines Bitcoin using excess energy

    A natural gas power plant can’t always send excess energy into the grid, frequently leading to waste as the gas is flared or vented away. However, a plant in Dresden, New York thinks it has a solution: use that surplus to generate some digital cash. Greenidge Generation has revealed that it’s using “behind-the-meter” energy at the facility to mine Bitcoin, with 7,000 mining systems producing up to 5.5BTC (about $45,000 as of this writing) per day.

    • Pat

      Mark Dice
      @MarkDice
      14h
      Replying to
      @IlhanMN
      As a self-identified black woman myself, your message really resonates with me. Thank you for having my back, Mr. Omar! And thank you for believing me!

    • Chipwooder

      I respect black women who are worthy of respect, same as I am with everyone else. Black woman are not some kind of noble, holy creatures. There are wonderful black women and awful black women, just as there are wonderful and awful white men.

      • leon

        White men invented slavery. Why would you say any white man is good?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I think it was the Egyptians, and in accordance with the Black Egyptian Hypothesis that would make black people the inventors of slavery.

        This is post-Yakub, of course.

      • Chipwooder

        Tricknology!

    • R C Dean

      Here’s hoping she has a black chick for an opponent.

      Query: are Somalis black? Why do I doubt sub-Saharan no they are?

      • Pope Jimbo

        She has at least one other Somali gal running against her in the primary and an Iranian gal is running in the GOP primary.

        Somalis and African Americans have had some real problems in the local schools. The Somalis are not shy in letting the local blacks know that their ancestors were never slaves. For some reason, this doesn’t go over well.

      • Drake

        Something like “Too dumb to follow basic instructions?” would be my comeback.

      • Chipwooder

        I think the GOP candidate is Iraqi not Iranian.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Yup. You are right. Dalia al-Aqidi is her name.

      • A Leap at the Wheel

        All the buses and local governments are plastering their PSA posters with African Americans and Somalis getting along and engaging with each other with joy and respect. Are you suggesting their aren’t perfectly reflecting reality in their government propaganda?

      • Pope Jimbo

        I think the govt printing those posters up shows that there is a need for them. You don’t see posters showing Norwegian and French immigrants getting along do you? Because those groups have put aside their historical griefs and get along. It also helps that Ole and Sven have stopped taking their boats across the lake in the summer to raid Jacque’s summer cabin.

      • A Leap at the Wheel

        Exactly. When I was college shopping in the very late 1990’s, this was the running gag – diversity on the cover, self-segregation in the dorms.

        But yeah, the hostility between the two groups is pretty clear if you hang out anywhere the groups mix.

      • Swiss Servator

        No no! It is because no one will let the French in, and every good Swede knows to avoid Norgies!

      • Naptown Bill

        That’s been the case in the DC area for a while, apparently. There’s a large Ethiopian community in the DC metro and the word is they look down on black Americans, supposedly because of slavery.

      • Gadfly

        The Somalis are not shy in letting the local blacks know that their ancestors were never slaves.

        Which is kind of a dick move, considering those Somali ancestors were quite involved in the acquisition and sale of slaves.

    • Rhywun

      “International” just means “things I like” for some people. Like “diverse”.

    • Rebel Scum

      How is that “international”?

      Illegal alien votes.

    • leon

      Why are so many of the S&Ps
      worst days in October?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      You can thank the Saudis and the Russians for that.

    • straffinrun

      Crypto is getting crushed, too. Interesting.

      • straffinrun

        Gold is already up 6% the past 30 days. Dollar will come out strong and Japan’s central bank will be happy.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        When gold starts taking a hit that’s when you’ll know it’s serious because margin bets are getting called and the funds will have to raise cash to pay out.

      • straffinrun

        Good point.

      • ChipsnSalsa

        “We’ve basically lost all our anchors,” Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic advisor at Allianz, said Monday morning. “We lost the economic anchor with the coronavirus. We’ve lost the policy anchor with people losing confidence in the Fed’s ability to turn things around. And over the weekend, we lost a market anchor with OPEC,” he told CNBC.

        libertarian moment?

        In all seriousness a not even full on pandemic of killing people virus is causing this much trouble? The virus seems to be a convenient excuse.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        It’s just revealing the structural defects in the economy. They’ve been ignoring China’s very serious debt problems for years but can’t afford to do so now.

      • Pat

        In all seriousness a not even full on pandemic of killing people virus is causing this much trouble? The virus seems to be a convenient excuse.

        B-i-ng-o

  23. Pope Jimbo

    GO PACK GO!

    After spending $10M over 5 years to fight obesity, Sconnies are fatter than ever.

    Leaders of the Wisconsin Obesity Prevention Initiative, funded by the UW School of Medicine and Public Health’s Wisconsin Partnership Program, said they focused on creating systemic changes — such as encouraging bike paths and healthier snacks for kids — that could slow or reverse the uptick in coming years.

    “We need to fix the built environment and make our communities healthier for everyone,” said Dr. Vincent Cryns, a UW Health endocrinologist who led the obesity prevention initiative. Through the initiative, in Wisconsin, “we provided the infrastructure” to make such changes, he said.

    Sara Lindberg, a UW-Madison researcher, works on the Wisconsin Health Atlas, a part of the initiative that continues to compile maps and track policies about obesity, neighborhood walkability, school wellness and other measures.

    “It’s not surprising that we haven’t magically reversed the obesity trend with one initiative,” Lindberg said. “It’s going to take a lot of coordinated effort and a lot of initiatives to really try to stop the increase or to even reverse it.”

    Don’t despair though. These selfless obesity fighters have already gotten a $1M (for 5 years) to help the Menominee Nation establish a tribal food system.

    • Drake

      Did they spend it all on cheese danishes?

    • ChipsnSalsa

      Ooooh I thought it was Obesity Promotion Initiative.

    • sloopyinca

      Leaders of the Wisconsin Obesity Prevention Initiative,

      It’s called the WOP Initiative and they want to fight obesity? How you gonna fight obesity when your diet is all pasta?

    • A Leap at the Wheel

      encouraging bike paths and healthier snacks for kids

      You have to be very, very educated to be stupid enough to think believe this would do anything.

  24. The Other Kevin

    Excellent song choice. Still one of my favorite bands.

    • Rhywun

      #metoo

  25. The Other Kevin

    Corona has arrived in Indiana. I’m hoping we can shoot it or blow it up with fireworks fast enough.

    • Not Adahn

      Which means it’ll be in Chicago next.

    • The Other Kevin

      Yes and we’ll get blamed for it.

      • Swiss Servator

        “We passed common sense virus control, but those virus shops in Indiana…!”

    • Michael

      Good thing there’s no one left alive in Indiana after Pence murdered everyone during his stint as governor.

      • The Other Kevin

        There are people here, but none of us are female or gay.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Sounds lonely.

  26. Scruffy Nerfherder

    The Emperor Ming: You pitiful fool! My life is not for any earthling to give or take!

    Flash Gordon: Your power is fading, Ming.

    Max Von Sydow is dead.

    • Chipwooder

      Pour one out for my homie Brewmeister Smith.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        -1 John Elsinore

        /my mind is polluted with useless info

      • Chipwooder

        “I mean, the Colonel is dead and yet we’re still enjoying his chicken.”

        God I love that movie.

    • sloopyinca

      He was great in “Escape To Victory”. But then again, everybody was because that movie was fucking awesome.

      “Colby, after giving me ball here, I do this, this, this, this, this, this, this, goal. Easy.”

    • Below Sea Level Hell Centro

      We are all hosers.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Ken has gotten really crotchety as of late.

      • Not Adahn

        His shtick has always been “be flamboyantly hateful towards an unpopular target.”

        It’s an extremely successful tactic for building social cred.

      • leon

        Yup. I lost a lot of respect for him when he disparaged all the reason commenters during Woodchiper Gate.

      • Juvenile Bluster

        He was mostly joking there.

        I still follow him and am fine with him… but this past weekend I muted Balko on Twitter. Given that he was my most essential follow for a long time and that I’ve been following him since before Reason (on his old Agitator site), what’s happened to him since Trump’s victory is depressing to me.

      • Not Adahn

        With the Reason commentators, probably. But not with The Oatmeal v. Funnyjunk, or any of the kulturkampf crap (Becky Watson, Atheism+, Gamergate, etc.)

      • A Leap at the Wheel

        It’s an extremely successful tactic for building social cred.

        But the cred is only good at stores full of assholes.

      • Not Adahn

        Asshole is in the brown eye of the beholder.

        Not to summon anyone, but I’m sure we do it here too.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Zing!

    • Michael

      Wuhan virus still has nothing on TDS in raw numbers of casualties.

    • Chipwooder

      Fun fact – ebola was named for the Ebola River in the Congo where it was first identified and the hantavirus was named for the Hantan River in South Korea where it was first identified. Guess we all know why those were dubbed what they are now called, eh Ken?

      Why are so many ostensibly intelligent people driven so completely mad by Trump? I’ve been trying to figure this out for several years now and I still have no idea. I get that he’s a buffoon and a braggart, a liar and a phony, but why the hysterically overwrought overreactions about literally everything having to do with this man? There are plenty of legitimate things to criticize Trump for – why make up stupid, transparent bullshit?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        “ Why are so many ostensibly intelligent people driven so completely mad by Trump?”

        He reminds them of the type of they like to dismiss and cluck their tongues at and those people like Trump. It’s actually a class thing and a status signaling thing as much as anything else.

      • Naptown Bill

        I think that’s part of it, but I think that another part is that he refuses to take them seriously. He doesn’t accept the premises of their faith, and it infuriates them. Also, I think it’s because Trump shits all over the corporate media, which in turn blasts him every chance it gets, and people like Ken either buy into it or find it easier to go along with it.

      • Rhywun

        he’s a buffoon and a braggart, a liar and a phony

        That is exactly why. He pokes holes in their smug arrogance and it’s driving them mad.

      • kbolino

        The personal is political. Not taking the same position that the social circle you are in, or aspire to be in, holds has gone from irrelevant to unacceptable. This effect is amplified tenfold on social media. Trump’s stomping ground is social media. He’s shitting in their pool, crashing their party, and just all around being a dick. He’s Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack and they are all little Judge Smails.

      • Pat

        He’s Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack and they are all little Judge Smails.

        Beautiful.

      • invisible finger

        I don’t consider him a phony at all. He is consistently himself and doesn’t chase social trends in any attempt at phony hipsterism. He’s not any more closed-minded than any liberal you’d ever meet, it’s just that liberals like to think they’re open-minded because they chase social trends even though that always involves denying or denouncing (lying) they followed the last now-out-of-fashion trend. Basically the difference between the hive-mind and making up one’s own mind.

      • kbolino

        I think phony is at least somewhat accurate. He often says things that he doesn’t follow up on, or doesn’t really mean, or doesn’t know to be true. But when he speaks he is usually being sincere. He might flub a number, or exaggerate an effect, or promise something beyond what can realistically be delivered, or even make some shit up on the spot. But the point of what he’s saying generally matches what he intends to do. That is a level of nuance that is apparently beyond the modern liberal mind to understand, at least where their opponents are concerned.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Zika and West Nile sound pretty racist, too.

    • Rhywun

      COVFEFE-19

      LOL

    • robc

      Calling it Lou Gehrig Disease is racist.

      • SugarFree

        Gehrigist.

      • invisible finger

        It’s certainly less apt that “Tommy John surgery.” At least Tommy John was the first person to have that type of surgery; Lou Gehrig wasn’t the first person to have ALS.

    • DOOMco

      Wow I just got blocked by popehat…

      • kbolino

        He’s probably blocked half of Twitter by now. Every time some controversy flares up, he blocks anybody who disagrees with him, no matter how slightly.

      • DOOMco

        I didn’t even say anything bad.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Don’t sweat it, the man’s an asshole.

      • Not Adahn

        Hopefully he will neither sic his twitter followers on you nor write a post about how the NYT needs to interview your employer, your family, and your families’ employers about what it’s like having to deal with you.

    • Raston Bot

      Ken can be a real cunt.

    • Rhywun

      “Captain Trumps”

      LOL!

    • Raston Bot

      HongKongFluey was the funniest i’ve seen so far.

    • Rebel Scum

      Everyone got upset with “Hong Kong Fluey” and “Slant-eye Sickness”.

  27. Count Potato

    “As part of a series of actions around the world, XR UK women formed a topless chain across Waterloo Bridge to highlight the vulnerability of women in the face of climate breakdown.

    The climate emergency is a women’s emergency.

    We are here to highlight the increase in hardship, violence & rape already facing women in the global south as a result of the climate & ecological emergency.

    A January 2020 report by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature found that climate breakdown and environmental degradation are driving an increase in violence against women.”

    https://twitter.com/XRLondon/status/1236611997980078081

    OFFS!

    • Chipwooder

      It’s never the women whose rack you want to see who takes off their tops in public.

      • Raven Nation

        “Some of the women were naked, some were not…Most of the women, I decided, would have looked better in clothes, preferably togas. If this was what the preachers had been worrying about all these years, then they had been barking up the wrong tree; it was nothing to arouse the happy old beast in men. The total effect was depressing. That was my first impression — but before I got to my destination even that had worn off. Ugly bodies weren’t any more noticeable than ugly taxicabs; the eye discounted them automatically.”

      • Naptown Bill

        Yes, that is true. The demographic of women you’d like to see topless is not even adjacent to the demographic of wamyn who believe standing topless with their sisters on a bridge will bring positive attention to solving the threat against wamyn and female (and presumably female-identifying) bodies due to climate change. This is why prejudice and judging people by their physical appearance are two important life strategies. I’m not being facetious, by the way.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      It’s almost as bad as for women as war!

      /Clinton

    • JD is Unemployed

      I didn’t click because I saw a clip yesterday and decided that it’s not for me. There is what might be considered a measured, proportional response to that sort of thing, but I don’t think it was deployed in this particular instance.

    • Rebel Scum

      All I know is that thunderstorms make me want to kick women right in the uterus. //jk

  28. ChipsnSalsa

    I’m thinking I should self quarantine myself from work…

    Just to be safe.

    • Juvenile Bluster

      Every March my seasonal allergies start near the beginning of the month and get progressively worse. About 50% of the time it turns into a sinus infection. Right now I’m sneezing all the time, coughing some, and have a pretty terrible sinus headache. I’m giving serious consideration to calling work, telling them I’m showing symptoms and then taking a two week vacation.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Ever try allergy shots? I started them last Oct and they’re working wonders for me so far. Beats the hell out of having to pop antihistamines every day.

      • Juvenile Bluster

        I’ve had it suggested, never actually tried that though.

        I’m avoiding doctor’s offices for now as well, unless I really really need it.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Ah yes, probably a good move to stay away from doc’s offices for the time being as long as it isn’t an emergency.

      • Swiss Servator

        I suspect the allergists are not being overrun right now…

  29. Invisible BEAM of the comment stream

    Per U.S. gallon and (of course) converting from $CDN to $USD, regular gasoline has dropped to $2.25 USD here in Edmonton (lowest price per the GasBuddy app). That’s amazing.

    • Juvenile Bluster

      I paid $2.14 this morning, down from $2.19 last week and $2.39 a few weeks ago. Some stations around here are down to $1.99. I haven’t seen sub-$2 gas in a very long time.

    • Juvenile Bluster

      Also, Bent crude is down nearly 20% today to $36.95 a barrel.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        That’s what the panic is really about. There’s a lot of junk bonds in the US oil drilling market and if it heads to $25/barrel things are going to get ugly.

      • invisible finger

        Price discovery is a bitch.

      • Juvenile Bluster

        Yep (and excuse my typo above, I know it’s Brent, not Bent).

        I don’t think that happens unless there’s very wide-scale quarantines severely limiting movement though.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        The Russians and Saudis may force it regardless.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Energy companies are the biggest issuers of junk bonds, accounting for more than 11 per cent of the US high-yield market. Such issuers have credit ratings of BB or below, indicating that they are at higher risk of default than “investment-grade” issuers, rated BBB and above.

        A Saudi-led price war could usher in the worst rout for junk-rated energy debt since the rise in US shale production and subsequent collapse in the oil price in late 2015.

        The average US high-yield energy bond closed in “distressed” territory last week, defined as a cost of borrowing of 10 percentage points or more above Treasury yields. The spread was almost 11 percentage points on Friday, according to an index run by Ice Data Services.

        They were distressed last week, this week they’re panicking.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        A specific example:

        Now the reversal is causing discomfort for some issuers. Bonds issued by triple C-rated Chesapeake Energy, maturing in 2025, tumbled as low as 80 cents on the dollar this week from a peak of 91 cents earlier in the year.

        Chesapeake is one of the largest frackers that isn’t a major (Exxon, Shell, etc…) and is 309 on the Fortune 500.

        I also happen to know for a fact that they do not have a forward-looking budget. Hard to believe for a company of that size, but true.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Anyone have an idea when the drop in crude oil will make its way to heating oil prices? I’ve asked my local company in the past, but they were unhelpful.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Give it a month or two. In other words, beyond the seasonal demand.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Thanks. I guess the fixed costs for distribution and refinement will keep the cost from dropping a comparable amount anyway.

  30. Juvenile Bluster

    I know most of us aren’t in too much danger, even if we contract coronavirus, but I think my wife and I are going to tell her parents not to come down here in a couple of weeks like they had planned to. They’re both in their 70s and my father-in-law has underlying health problems.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      That’s probably smart. The correct way to react to this “pandemic” is to do whatever one would do during a particularly bad flu year. Namely, keep the elderly and immunocompromised away from potential disease vectors.

      • Naptown Bill

        That’s what we’re trying to do. We’ve got a two month old baby and for some reason the sight of a baby drives some people absolutely nuts with the desire to get up in his face, whether it’s a relative or a complete stranger. For us, the safest bet is just to keep him home, which means keeping ourselves home. While it’s been hell on the icemaker and we’re having a shelf named for us at the liquor store, it does play into my misanthropy quite nicely and we’ve been catching up on movies.

      • leon

        GAH!!! Elderly women at the supermarket have no compunctions about reaching over and touching your newborn. We got so bad that we would just hang a blanket over the car seat so no one could see her.

      • Naptown Bill

        Babies and dogs, man. Some people have no boundaries. I’m waiting for the first corona-related violence to pop off because somebody’s nana reached into a stroller and got cold-cocked by a vigilant mom.

      • DOOMco

        It’ll be ladydoom, you can put money on it.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Pulleeeeeeeeeeze!

        Try taking your cute little kids to Korea and then get back to me. My youngest son still has nightmares about the time we were visiting some tourist site in Korea and a bus load of Jr High girls got off while we were standing there. He had to suffer through about 50 girls pinching him and ruffling his hair and telling him how cute he was (he was 4 or 5).

        Grannies are just as bad.

      • ChipsnSalsa

        NEEDZ mOaR panic!!11!!

      • leon

        AKA Elementary Schools

      • A Leap at the Wheel

        Two kids in elementary school in my house. We are fucked.

      • leon

        Same. And i’ve seen the kids on that bus. There is one who always looks like she is dying of some awful disease, with her brain running out of her nose.

      • Naptown Bill

        We’ve applied for my oldest to get into a charter for Kindergarten. At least the caliber of disease will be higher. Maybe dropsy or the vapors rather than regular ol’ gross head colds.

    • Rebel Scum

      They’re both in their 70s and my father-in-law has underlying health problems.

      Someone is fishing for an excuse not to have to visit the in-laws.

  31. Pat

    Georgia Supreme Court Refuses To Consider Whether State Legislature Should Be Exempt From Public Records Law

    Atlanta, Ga.—The Georgia Supreme Court denied an appeal in a case challenging whether the Georgia General Assembly should be exempt from the public records law. While the Georgia Open Records Act subjects “every state office” to its requirements, the Fifth Division of the Court of Appeals of Georgia ruled last year that “The General Assembly is not subject to a law unless named therein or the intent that it be included [is] clear and unmistakable.” The decision ends a lawsuit filed by the Institute for Justice (IJ) in response to Georgia officials’ refusal to turn over records related to the state’s music-therapy licensing law.

    “It is troubling that the Georgia Supreme Court will not consider whether the state legislature is allowed to keep secrets about how it governs,” said IJ Senior Vice President and Litigation Director Dana Berliner. “Open access to public records is vital in any free society. When the Georgia General Assembly passed the Open Records Act, it did not exempt itself even though it could have made that explicit. The court’s decision to take a pass will mean lawmakers can hide their decision making from the people.”

    • kbolino

      Does John Roberts have a twin on the George Supreme Court?

      • kbolino

        While George might have a Supreme Court of his own, I meant Georgia.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Govt hacks covering for govt hacks. I’m sure the legislature will pay the supremes back one day.

      • kbolino

        It’s all so unnecessary. Just pass a new law amending the old law and exempting the General Assembly. It would be, what, 5 lines long?

        I am getting tired of all these pretenses. Why is trust in government so low? Well, one only needs to look at the actions of the government itself.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        That’d look bad though. Having the SC decline the case lends it an air of legitimacy and also allows some blame displacement plus they can apply the lack of disclosure to other areas.

      • ChipsnSalsa

        This just in, Georgia legislature votes to give supreme court 25% raise.

    • AlexinCT

      Works for me.

  32. Count Potato

    “Just in: Twitter applied its new manipulated media label for the first time to a deceptively edited video of Joe Biden. It was shared by White House social media director Dan Scavino, and retweeted by the president.”

    https://twitter.com/Cat_Zakrzewski/status/1236771032746414080

    • DOOMco

      I’ve been looking, wheres this edit?
      Did Joe not stumble through your different sentences at once and come off like a senile old man?

      • Juvenile Bluster

        He did, but it was edited to make it look far worse.

        The funny thing is that it wasn’t really the Trump fans that were spreading it on Twitter. It was Bernie supporters.

      • kbolino

        To the establishment types, there’s little distinction between the two.

    • leon

      The spread of fake news is worse than the Coronavirus

    • Fatty Bolger

      If that’s “manipulated media,” they may as well just slap that label on every video on the site.

  33. straffinrun

    You’re trapped in a fortune cookie factory in Wuhan, armed guards at the door forcing you to work. What do you do?

    • SugarFree

      Smugly remind everyone fortune cookies were invented in San Francisco and get shot.

    • leon

      This started out like it was going to be an episode of The Twilight Zone

      • Raston Bot

        going with the ol’ standby.

    • ChipsnSalsa

      Wipe your nose with the paper going to the western country a-holes.

    • kbolino

      Does medium have an editorial position? While it is the platform of choice for long-form liberal rants, I have seen a lot of content on there outside that mold.

      • A Leap at the Wheel

        No, I think basically any jag off can create an account and write there. Its more like Twitter than NYT. There’s no editorial oversight at all as far as I know.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Yeah, YouTube has become the Fox News, Jordan Peterson, and Hoover Institution pipeline for me and I’m fucking sick of it. The algorithm isn’t even an algorithm anymore, it’s just a means of trying to jam middle of the road shitty content down your throat.

      • A Leap at the Wheel

        Fortunately, I don’t consume anything political on Youtube. So all my recommendations are woodworking, knifemaking, people turning money into loud noises, and weight training.

      • leon

        The Recomender is very sensitive. I go through phases of what i’m interested in watching, so right now my feed is full of people turning money to loud noises, and Holster Reviews.

      • LJW

        My daughter’s occasionally watch YouTube videos on my phone so my video recommendations are all sorts of random. Guns follow by puppies and kittens.

      • Raston Bot

        larf! yeah ditto here. my recs are either violent action or sickeningly sweet.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        Guns, Blippi, woodworking, SpaceX launches, America’s funniest home videos reruns, and fighter pilots playing DCS happen to be my most recommended videos.

      • leon
      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        You gotta respect the guy for his accomplishment. Dude who was best known for shitting in another dude’s mouth on stage makes children’s show that is apparently more addictive than crack.

        I also respect the fact that not everything has to have some life lesson built in. Most of his show is “I like fucking around with heavy machinery” or “I like playing on kids’ toys”

      • leon

        Oh, both valid points. I just have that reaction.

      • JD is Unemployed

        I listen to a number of Hoover Institution podcasts because they are interesting and I like to hear the varied arguments made (I’m a big fan of Richard Epstein). The Hoover Institution channel has quite a lot of interesting stuff on it, as does *gasp* The Federalist Society (how dare I). Munger Jr et al make a good (if not obvious to the rest of us) point about the “zombie bite” model. I find it’s good to can my watch history every so often if it’s recommeding too much of the same old. It consistently recommends Fox although I consistently don’t click on Fox. I would subscribe to the Kennedy podcast but it’s behind a paywall. Anyway, the zombie bite thing isn’t just algorithmic, it’s also how a lot of (yes, mostly lefties) think about those they disagree with (“where did you read that?!”). It’s not only become taboo and wrongthink to express certain ideas, but also to even give them an audience, to listen, to consider them, so a lot of what I consume I daren’t ever share with most people I know because you never know what they might assume based on that. Interestingly enough someone like my sister, based solely on the knowledge that I consider myself libertarian, has this idea about what that means in which she assumes my worldview is “very right wing”, and shaped entirely by things like zerohedge, Fox, Breitbart, and probably various things I’ve never heard of, all of which I rarely if ever look at, and then only when linked, with the exception of Fox because I’m sometimes curious about what they lead with. It takes me back to some self-help drivel I happened upon (I think when scrolling too far on a STEVE SMITH advice link), in which I read a statement to the effect of “when you’re not around, people will imagine/invent a version of you”, which ultimately I know is certainly not limited to absence – but that’s going into some horrible shit I had to go through that taught me a lot about people, and ironically from which I built myself up as someone who’s worldview is rooted in a deep faith in the ultimate goodness, and capacity for constructive exchange etc, of PEOPLE. It’s quasi-humanist I suppose, sort of. Government fuck off. People got this. Where was I? Oh yes, big long paragraph. Byeeee.

      • Akira

        Anyway, the zombie bite thing isn’t just algorithmic, it’s also how a lot of (yes, mostly lefties) think about those they disagree with (“where did you read that?!”).

        Oh good god, I hate the “where did you read that” argument.

        Whenever I argue about gun rights with my “progressive” family members, they inevitably throw out “what was your source for that” which is shortly followed by “You’ve been reading too much of that NRA magazine”.

        We’d be having arguments about whether or not Obama is against gun rights. I would reference something that he voted for as a senator, and I’d get the “too much NRA magazine” line. I could pull up the official Senate website and show what he voted for, and they would still just accuse me of being brainwashed by that evil magazine. It’s insane. Meanwhile, everything printed in Mother Jones or “reported” by John Oliver is considered sacrosanct.

        I think a foundational belief of Leftism is that average people are just stupid lemmings who are constantly being manipulated by forces beyond their control… Hell, most of them seriously believe that Russian bots brainwashed people into voting for Trump. It’s really no surprise that the “algorithmic radicalization” myth is catching on.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      That second chart is fascinating and shows an interesting pipeline from MSM to partisan left sources.

      • leon

        Yup. basically everything flows you from far right back to mainstream “acceptable” opinion. For example look at the Libertarian Row. Everything flows towards libertarians except the “Mainstream” stuff which then flows out.

    • Rhywun

      An opinion piece for the New York Times went so far as to call YouTube, “one of the most powerful radicalizing instruments of the 21st century.”

      That’s pretty rich coming from the New York Times.

    • Q Continuum

      That NYT crap was just more gatekeeping to shame YT into only recommending goodthink channels. They can’t handle any competition to their ideas.

    • Pat

      I watch YouTube in private tabs and haven’t logged into my google account in probably 5 years. I can’t imagine using YouTube for content discovery. It’s barely passable as a content consumption platform.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Three reviewers manually collected 760+ political channels and watched hours of content to classify them as left/center/right and give them soft tags (e.g. MRA, libertarian, anti-SJW).

      One of these things is not like the other…

      • leon

        I thought the Massachusetts Rifle Association was oddly specific

    • dontreadonme

      That is some silky sweet horn there.

    • SugarFree

      They gonna touch them genitals in an inclusive and safe climate change.

      • leon

        Show us on the doll where you like to be touched.

      • SugarFree

        Doll are an exclusionary unterm. Them prefer “articulated evidence personikin.”

  34. Gadfly

    I don’t know if this has been posted, but I saw an interesting survey (for Women’s Day, of course) of opinions around the world on what is NSFW. Some interesting findings: acceptance for asking a colleague out is lowest in the US but highest in Malaysia, the US and Mexico tie for frowning on sex jokes while the Belgians are most likely to let it slide, you are least likely to get in trouble for viewing Q’s posts in India, and the Swede’s are the most confident at calling out senior colleagues for being sexist. Also, South Africa is the most chill with hugging a coworker to comfort them while Japan stays true to stereotype by being the least chill with this, by a large margin.

    • leon

      Funny that Women think touching people is totally acceptable, but asking someone out is unacceptable.

      • AlmightyJB

        It depends on who’s doing the asking.

      • Rebel Scum

        touching people is totally acceptable

        Chicks love a nice pat on the butt.

        It depends on who’s doing the asking.

        Yup. And that low-cut blouse is not for everyone to look either.

      • ChipsnSalsa

        first rule: Be attractive.

      • Annoyed Nomad

        Second rule: don’t be unattractive