Thurdsay Afternoon Links

by | May 14, 2020 | Daily Links | 340 comments

It’s Thursday, y’all. And I been working too damn hard for being at the beach. I had forgotten, after two years, the petty crap of being on several small projects at once. For one thing, there’s like 15 status meetings a week. But that’s okay I got my latest flavor of local beer to keep me company: Oyster City Tates Helles. The name* being a play off a local state park.

I was told that no one would be without healthcare coverage after 2010.

“I’m sorry I knocked your teeth out.” But not sorry enough not to finish whipping his ass.

Another problem for Georgia.

 

* A tale that has been told for many years recounts how Tate’s Hell Swamp got its name. Local legend has it that a farmer by the name of Cebe Tate, armed with only a shotgun and accompanied by his hunting dogs, journeyed into the swamp in search of a panther that was killing his livestock. Although there are several versions of this story, the most common describes Tate as being lost in the swamp for seven days and nights, bitten by a snake, and drinking from the murky waters to curb his thirst. Finally he came to a clearing near Carrabelle, living only long enough to murmur the words, “My name is Cebe Tate, and I just came from Hell!”. Ever since, the area has been known as Tate’s Hell, the legendary and forbidden swamp.

About The Author

Brett L

Brett L

Brett set out to find America, the real America, the America of strip malls and serial killers, of butthole waxing and kelp smoothies, of cocaine and maggots. He sought it in the most American part of America—Florida: swamp gas and fever dreams, where love arrives on a rickety boat and leaves when it doesn't have the money for its fourth abortion. Oh, where has Brett gone? He’s drinking at the neck of America’s wang, chewing its foreskin and working its shaft. Brett is becoming legend. Brett can never die. Brett can never die. Brett is America, facedown in his own patriotic puke: the red his blood, the white his stomach lining, and the cold, cold blue his gas station slushie, spiked with coconut rum and tetracycline.

340 Comments

  1. leon

    Brett L has yet to acknowledge that Biden unmasked flynn. What is Brett trying to Hide?

    • The Other Kevin

      Oh no does that mean Brett L is part of the lamestream media? Say it ain’t so!

      • leon

        What Does Block Insane YoMamma Have on him?

      • J. Frank Parnell

        The “L” stands for Libtard.

  2. leon

    Officials are working to eradicate a wild population of Argentine

    RACIST!!!!

    :remembers that a large portion of the population European:

    carry on.

    • mexican sharpshooter

      No, no…hating Argentines is cool with me.

  3. Translucent Chum

    I hum the ‘Ballad of the Green Berets’ when I read Brett’s bio.

    • PBRstreetgang

      Fighting soldiers from the sky

      Fearless men who jump and die

    • Fourscore

      Wait, that’s not a sing-a-long?

      • C. Anacreon

        We always do when Bill Murray sings it while building gopher bombs in Caddyshack.

    • Bobarian LMD

      Barry Sadler.

      Writer of the Casca novels.

  4. The Late P Brooks

    It tows the lion or it gets the hose

    Law enforcement officers called hours ahead of their visit, had full access to the entire Tesla facility during the inspection, and were able to observe whether employees working there were complying with the latest health orders, Bosques said.

    Now, the police reports are going back to the county health officials for review.

    “Our goal since the beginning of the Shelter-in-Place has been to gain compliance through cooperation with all of the businesses in Fremont, and that remains unchanged,” Bosques said in an e-mail. “If compliance is not possible, the two agencies in conjunction would then decide if the information would be presented to the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office. The DA would review the findings and make a final determination as to whether charges would be sought.”

    “Who said you could do that?”

  5. leon

    As a Kid, my friend and i did our best to start several urban legends about the mountains in the area we lived. Don’t know how successful we were

    • Nephilium

      There are several in the area where I live. The most well known one is the Melonheads in Kirtland (which was starting to build some up on the Lundgren killings on top of that).

      • Suthenboy

        Good grief that is a lame legend.

      • C. Anacreon

        Played by Rodney Dangerfield in “Back to School”

      • Nephilium

        It’s a Cleveland east side suburb that was known for hosting the first Church of Latter Day Saints temple. You were expecting more? Remember also that a lot of us had just heard about the Lundgren killings happening in that area.

  6. Mojeaux

    Thurdsay Afternoon Links

    I read that as Turdsday.

    • Toxteth O’Grady

      Yeah, I was wondering if it might be intentional.

      Quite the Repo Man plain wrap there. 5.6%: I would try it.

    • WTF

      If you have an Irish accent.

      • bacon-magic

        Watch yer mouf me boyo.

  7. Winston

    Canada’s budget deficit could reach $1 Trillion this year. Canada mind you is about a tenth of the population of the US. Someone tell cytotoxic…

  8. The Other Kevin

    Got a bit angry this afternoon and *almost* waded into a FB war. My SIL, a nurse and a bit of a Karen, posted this article:

    • WTF

      That is infuriating!

      • The Other Kevin

        I was building up suspense.

      • WTF

        Dun dun DUUNNN!

      • Chafed

        Well played.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Also, hospitals are a giant Petri dish.

      • Tonio

        Something something foreseeable consequences…intent.

      • R C Dean

        Hey now!

        *checks hospital-acquired infections report*

        Carry on.

      • C. Anacreon

        Let’s keep this inside the club and just call them “nosocomial” so no one else knows what the hell we’re talking about.

      • Gustave Lytton

        I didn’t mean they actually were, but that was part of the constant stream of admonitions. “You don’t want to go to the ER right now”, etc.

      • R C Dean

        As I am fond of saying, “Hospitals are no place for sick people.”

      • Drake

        It has “Worry” and “Fears” in the same headline! Run!

  9. The Late P Brooks

    Because automotive manufacturing is complex, Alameda County said, it does not know how many people should be permitted on the premises at a time.

    Just pull a number out of your ass. That’s what Foochy would do. Preferably a number so low it would be impossible to get any cars built.

    • Hyperion

      I’m truly disappointed the Elon hasn’t just left yet.

    • Drake

      Enough to keep your largest employer and taxpayer from leaving town?

    • C. Anacreon

      They never had the fire marshal post a number for maximum occupancy? That should be easily available and at least a place to start.

  10. Animal

    Are those lizards any good to eat?

  11. Hyperion

    “Officials are working to eradicate a wild population of Argentine black and white tegus in Toombs and Tattnall counties in southeast Georgia.”

    Do they taste like chicken? You know, people got to eat, I think this problem is going to be solved. Yummy tree chicken!

  12. Tonio

    John Jensen, a biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Conservation Section, said the lizard can grow up to about 4 feet in size and can eat “just about anything they want.”

    I guess we finally learned what happened to Mr Lizard.

    • Shpip

      Obviously a situation we should monitor.

      • Grumbletarian

        I newt you were going to say that.

      • J. Frank Parnell

        If Swiss sees this, Gila give you guys a narrow gaze for sure.

      • bacon-magic

        Iguana reply but it’s bask that I don’t.

      • Lady Z

        I dino what you all are on about, but you need to scale it back.

      • Libertesian

        4 foot lizards make me nervous — I prefer my newt.

      • Fourscore

        Not a tail I want to hear.

      • egould310

        He’s got a reptile dysfunction.

      • OneOut

        Winner.

        Pay the man.

  13. juris imprudent

    And everyone without health insurance will be dead in a matter of time: minutes, days, weeks, years, one of them.

    • Hyperion

      Right before the passed the ACA, millions were dropping dead in the streets from lack of health insurance. It’s good for those people now that only Commie Flu kills people.

    • R C Dean

      I recall around 33 million people were uninsured before OCare. I suspect that most if not all of the reduction in uninsured is due to Medicaid expansion. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the percentage of the non-Medicaid population that isn’t insured has actually increased.

  14. DEG

    Government programs like Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act are crucial safety nets for the newly unemployed as the economic downturn continues. Yet the Trump administration continues to challenge the health care law, arguing that the Supreme Court should overturn it.

    Crucial safety nets. How about the Gauleiter und Gauleiterin reopen their states and let people get back to work?

    Jensen said the department is asking the public to report any sightings of the reptile in order to aid their efforts to track and eradicate the lizards.

    See, contact tracing won’t be limited to finding folks with Lil Rona!

    • Mad Scientist

      My crucial safety net is having a job.

      • Jarflax

        My crucial safety net is 500 lbs. of .999 fine gold. I am willing to come to you to pick it up.

      • Libertesian

        My crucial safety net is was having a job.

        Now that it appears that my 30-year career is coming to an abrupt conclusion, my backup crucial safety net is my wife’s job / company provided medical insurance. After that, I’m screwed.

      • R C Dean

        Taking the buy-out?

      • Nephilium

        Yay?

        The issues at the company I support were people who were planning on retiring anyway who put in for the buyout (expecting to be approved), and then getting denied. They pushed up their retirement, and stopped all of the handover that’s usual in IT.

    • Hyperion

      “Crucial safety nets. How about the Gauleiter und Gauleiterin reopen their states and let people get back to work?”

      Nancy said that they are all free to be artists now.

    • R C Dean

      How can they be “crucial safety nets” if there are 27 million uninsured? Aren’t safety nets supposed to, you know, catch people?

      • DEG

        SSSSSHHHHH!!!!!

      • mexican sharpshooter

        Maybe its like those nets that let dolphins swim through?

  15. Translucent Chum

    Yay! Whitmer knows exactly how many people she saved by locking Michigan down. Science!

    She also touted Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s efforts to combat the virus, including measures like the stay-at-home order, first issued on March 23. Without the measures, Michigan would have experienced 32,000 more cases and more than 3,400 more deaths, Khaldun said.

    https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/05/14/michigan-covid-19-case-total-nears-50-000-4-780-deaths/5192517002/

    • leon

      They are following that science most faithfully. Much Wow. Such Science.

    • WTF

      post hoc ergo propter hoc anyone?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      In other news, Michigan’s CME can speak from her asshole.

    • WTF

      They forgot to add “they asserted without evidence”.

      • J. Frank Parnell

        Uh hello, that quote is from Dr. Joneigh Khaldun. Doctors are scientists and scientists don’t say things unless they have evidence.

      • Drake

        Hey – look at the mountains of dead in South Dakota!

      • Ted S.

        Four of them on Mt. Rushmore alone!

      • Fourscore

        Stop horsing around, that’s crazy

      • JaimeRoberto Delecto

        They were just dead wood.

    • Lady Z

      I see they don’t even bother citing models anymore.

    • Count Potato

      CWAA

  16. Lady Z

    Soaring unemployment numbers could translate into nearly 27 million people losing their health insurance

    Is this where we get to say I told you so? Nevermind, still Trump’s fault…

    • Juvenile Bluster

      No, THIS IS WHY WE NEED MEDICARE FOR ALL!!!!!!

      • Hyperion

        Sure for only 60% of your income and a 25% VAT tax on everything. Ask Europe, this has already been done. But I guess if you don’t have a job and no money to buy anything, it will be free.

      • Juvenile Bluster

        We can just tax rich people more and this will be solved, DUH.

        Stupid libertarians think they know more than me. I’ve been fighting for communism from the basement of my parents’ mansion ever since I left college 10 years ago.

      • Hyperion

        When they tried this in Cali, just to show those redneck states how it’s done, they eventually had to tell the peasants that it meant a 20-30% increase in state income taxes. Of course, that wouldn’t actually even cover it, and they had to admit that too. But when the sheeple learned of that, the support for it went from very positive to almost zero. So they dropped it like a hot potato and changed the subject.

        Someone else is always going to pay for it.

      • Libertesian

        It’s coming, as soon as Team Blue grabs control again. As Hyp et al note below, it will require both massive income tax increases and new VAT/wealth taxes to pay for it.

    • C. Anacreon

      I guess if everyone furloughed — who aren’t getting paid but are still getting benefits — gets laid off, this could be true. But hopefully many of those currently-insured folks will resume their jobs and thus continue their coverage once the Gestapo Governors™ ‘allow’ people to work again.

  17. The Late P Brooks

    How will we know if we don’t try?

    It’s hard to imagine being paid to borrow money or penalized for saving. But the economic shock from Covid-19 may call for drastic measures.

    ——-

    “Negative interest rates sound like fun but it’s nothing to wish for,” McBride said.

    “It hasn’t even proven to be effective,” he added. “Parts of Europe have had negative interest rates for seven years and it hasn’t done anything — their economies were reeling then, they’re reeling now.”

    ——-

    In fact, with so many people under severe financial strain, its getting harder and harder to borrow at all.

    Despite already rock-bottom interest rates, banks are tightening lending standards across the board, shrinking the availability of credit.

    It’s more likely that savers will lose any benefit to stashing cash, said Meenaz Sunderji, an executive vice president at banking software firm Zafin.

    “Banks will charge you to hold your money for safekeeping,” he said.

    In order to boost the economy, the idea is to force people to spend more, he explained.

    You don’t say.

    • Ted S.

      How will we know from that link?

    • R C Dean

      Nothing fuels an economic recovery like the Fed draining capital from the capital markets. Negative interest rates are capital destruction, kind of the opposite of capital formation.

      • invisible finger

        The Fed can just print capital!!!

      • Nephilium

        +$1 trillion coin.

    • DrOtto

      *Looks at bank statement from last quarter, notes the maintenance fee is 3 times the interest accrued… raises finger to suggest we have tried, shuts mouth, resumes holding in growing anger.

  18. B.P.

    Whistleblower: Even though everyone failed to die in the current panic stampede, people are really going to die in the second go-round…

    https://www.9news.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/rick-bright-whistleblower-coronavirus-fall-resurgence/507-45b8ab01-9b40-42da-b8be-c74c91cb5aa1

    ““Our window of opportunity is closing,” Bright said in his prepared testimony. “If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities.”” Also…

    “Eager to restart the U.S. economy, Trump has been urging states to lift restrictions, and many governors are doing so gradually, though consumers remain leery of going back to restaurants, social events and sporting competitions.”

    Is there a single sporting competition in the entire United States that is accepting fans at the moment?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      coordinated response, based in science

      How do you know when someone is full of shit?

      • WTF

        When they invoke “science “ as a magical incantation that automatically validates their policy preferences?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        If he had said “Based on our worst case projections” I might have a little more respect for him.

      • Fourscore

        “Based on our SWAG”

        Oh-oh, this is science plus 2

      • Winston

        Remember that Marxism was supposed to be “scientific socialism”.

    • WTF

      “Based in science” – really? Because science is a process, not some set of received wisdom that provides policy prescriptions.

      • Raven Nation

        “Based in science” is one of a long list of phrases that speech-writers & PR hack insert into speeches. Hell, in the quote it’s even an added phrase.

        See also: “for the children,” “the terrorists will win,” “we can’t do X on the backs of the poor,” “strong military presence,” etc.

      • Hyperion

        Dude, like 97% of scientists agree, the science is settled.

      • C. Anacreon

        I once was chatting with a lefty friend with no science background who brought up the ‘97% of climate scientists agree so the science is settled’ (even though even that claim is BS, of course), but I played along, then pointed out that truths in hard science are not determined by a vote. The response was “why are you a climate denier?”

        You can’t ever win with such people, they know so much which just isn’t so.

    • Juvenile Bluster

      No, and I can’t imagine there will be for a while. I’d be surprised if we had fans at sporting events before next Spring.

      • Gender Traitor

        ::looks at minor league baseball quarter-season tickets and sighs::

      • Fatty Bolger

        They’ll be there, if they’re allowed to be there.

      • Viking1865

        Yeah I have no idea where this “no one will even WANT to go out with The Worst Virus Ever lurking in The New Normal” is coming from.

        It’s media gaslighting.

      • Nephilium

        Just point out Wisconsin after the lockdown was overturned.

      • Count Potato

        If you build it, they will come.

    • invisible finger

      The MSM is calling him a “whistleblower” so he can’t get fired for being an alarmist nutjob.

    • Agent Cooper

      AEW Wrestling allows a small number of fans to be in attendance.

  19. Winston

    Relevant

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_the_Major-Generals

    The Rule of the Major-Generals was set up by Cromwell by his orders to the army, and was not supported by parliamentary legislation. His goal was threefold: to identify, tax, disarm and weaken the Royalists, whom he saw as conspirators against his rule. Second, as an economical measure because the military budget had been cut. The major generals would take control of incumbent civilian administrations, and not require an expansion of local military forces. Thirdly, he sought “a reformation of manners” or moral regeneration through the suppression of vice and the encouragement of virtue, which he considered much too neglected.[citation needed] Historian Austin Woolrych, using 21st century terminology, said the Puritans did not consider it inappropriate to “employee senior military officers as vice squad chiefs”.[5]

    In March 1655 there were ineffectual but concerted Royalist uprisings in England.[6] In late July news of the defeat of the expedition to Hispaniola (commanded by William Penn and Robert Venables), reached London in 1655. Cromwell felt that this defeat was God punishing him for not trying to make England a more religious, godly place.[7][8] So in August a scheme was proposed to introduce the Rule of the Major-Generals, but prevarication and other delays put back the introduction to October of that year.[6]

    Like Cromwell, the Major Generals were committed Puritans (Congregationalist reformers with Calvinist leanings). Part of their job was to try to make England more godly. They clamped down on what they considered to be rowdy behaviour (such as heavy drinking, music, dancing and fairs). They even tried to stop Christmas celebrations. The rule of the Major Generals was not popular.[7]

    Liberal tolerance and individualism in action!

    • B.P.

      I am the very model.

  20. Juvenile Bluster

    Just in case anyone here actually thought that anybody in power was actually serious about reining in FISA warrants, they were extended by a 80-16 vote today.

    Senator Paul’s amendment to ban FISA warrants from being used to look into American citizens failed 85-11.

    • Winston

      TOP MEN will save us from the bad people on the other side.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I wouldn’t trust the intelligence services, the FBI, or the courts to feed my fucking dog and only a damn fool would but, hey, let’s give them an extension on their ridiculously abused power.

      • Viking1865

        I’d wager that the 16 “No” votes are the 16 Senators without a live boy or a dead girl in the Intelligence Community’s files.

      • DrOtto

        Name one time…never mind, I couldn’t even type it with a straight face.

  21. Tres Cool

    Heya Mojo- from the other thread:

    Toxteth O’Grady on May 14, 2020 at 12:59 pm

    Block ice is a cheap freezer filler.

    Gallon milk jugs of water do a decent job of a keeping a load on a fridge/freezer also. And if you do happen to lose power, less chance of a pond.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Yep we keep two bags of ice in our freezer at all times just in case

    • Juvenile Bluster

      Always try to freeze as many gallon jugs of water as I can when there’s a hurricane coming.

      • Count Potato

        Do they ever split?

      • R C Dean

        No, I’m pretty sure they stay in the freezer until he takes them out.

      • Mojeaux

        You don’t fill them all the way.

        Besides, that dent in the side is to provide room for expansion. They pop out.

      • Count Potato

        OK

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I prefer using 2-Liter soda bottles. They’re much stronger containers than milk jugs. It’s probably not a problem for the freezer or short-term in a basement, but I’ve heard of milk jugs failing over time for longer term storage.

        Plus, if you’re going out of town on an extended trip, you can fill a 2-liter halfway, freeze it, and then store it flipped in the freezer with ice at the top. If you come home to ice at the bottom, you know the power went off long enough for food spoil even though everything was refrozen and looks safe.

      • Nephilium

        That’s a great idea. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.

      • Gustave Lytton

        I’ve also heard about freezing a coin or something suspended in ice (freeze a layer, add the object and more water) in a container. If the coin is on the bottom, you’ll know the same thing.

      • DEG

        I’ve done that.

    • Mojeaux

      Will do, when I get some room.

      Thanks, guys! I never would have thought of it.

      • R C Dean

        Check out Mojeaux with the big meat!

      • Mojeaux

        *checks panties* Ummmm….no.

      • JaimeRoberto Delecto

        Do you mind if we double check?

    • Tulip

      Rinse and fill empty milk cartons as you use stuff to keep it full. If you freeze or can, the ice (chipped with an ice pick) comes in handy. I grew up on a farm with a huge garden and that’s what we did. No way would we have had enough ice otherwise for shocking after branching.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      If true that’s even worse than Flynn.

    • R C Dean

      If Gowdy knows they were unmasked, then he must know who unmasked them.

      So, who was it?

  22. Scruffy Nerfherder

    I’m seeing a trend of all these nitwits quoting models to support their tyrannical diktats even though the models have been unbelievably inaccurate up till now.

    • Hyperion

      That didn’t stop the fact that 97% of scientists agree with the failed climate models.

      • KSuellington

        I’m just hoping this backfires on them and after this shitstorm subsides there might be some more people a bit more critical of climate models.

      • JaimeRoberto Delecto

        How cute.

  23. The Late P Brooks

    She also touted Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s efforts to combat the virus, including measures like the stay-at-home order, first issued on March 23. Without the measures, Michigan would have experienced 32,000 more cases and more than 3,400 more deaths, Khaldun said.

    Fun with numbers. Garbage in, garbage out.

    • Oy the Billy-Bumbler

      Look fat, she is just as frustrated as the rest of us and she deals with science and data not politics.

  24. Shpip

    Remember when anyone with a wrench and twenty minutes to spare could change a car battery?

    Mercedes-Benz doesn’t remember. Hell, they never even heard of it.

    I think my girls learned a few new words today.

    • Mad Scientist

      Hidden behind 2 interlocking panels in the trunk?

      • R C Dean

        Who are you, who is so wise in the ways of German engineering?

        If memory serves, the positive connection took a metric wrench, the negative connection took a standard wrench, and I had to order a special tool to remove the retaining strap.

      • Tres Cool

        Germans…they’ll use 7 different fasteners for 1 part

      • Nephilium

        My Mini needed a new battery. When it started talking about removing parts to be able to remove the battery, I took it to the shop.

      • C. Anacreon

        Look how he uses a spanner with his bare hands!

      • Rhywun

        LOL one of my favorites

      • Shpip

        Nah, that’s the secondary battery. Main is still under the hood, just tucked all the way to the rear in the passenger side.

        All you need is a 10mm socket, a 14mm socket with a couple of extenders, and the ability to lift 23kg with your fingertips.

        Typical “lets make the common jobs complicated” that seems to be the philosophy of every carmaker these days.

    • B.P.

      I had to replace the battery on one of my MBs recently. You are correct. Pain in the ass. Took a couple of hours and a hand from a neighbor.

    • Count Potato

      Old MB were pretty easy to fix. I had a couple of them. Parts were expensive, though.

    • bacon-magic

      They suck in cold weather too.

    • DrOtto

      But it came out looking new. Not so much the Chrysler 200 battery I had to remove the front left tire and fender liner for yesterday.

    • l0b0t

      My old Ford Probe required the removal of a front wheel to access the bloody air filter. Also, the filter was upside down and the screws had no locking washers or any manner of retention, so if you weren’t careful, the screws would disappear into the æther.

      • C. Anacreon

        heh-heh. “Probe”

    • Deplorableme

      Now try and figure out how to attach jumper cables to it. My Honda pilot has the worse setup, in the the positive terminal is in a cramp location to get a clamp on it and furthermore it is really difficult to find a ground nut to clamp the ground jumper cable to. Practically, the entire engine bay is almost all plastic. These auto engineers must all figure no one jumps a car anymore.

      • Mad Scientist

        All that plastic shit under the hood it there to meet federal noise requirements. The engineers don’t want it there either.

      • invisible finger

        I test drove a Toyota hybrid the other day and you get some loud, weird sound when you put it in reverse. This noise comes from a speaker because of federal lack of noise requirements.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Yep, or the metal is painted. I had to jump my 18 year old F150 a week or so ago and ended up connecting to the negative terminal because ?‍♂️.

        The best one so far of the new cars, was a Honda or Toyota something of other that actually had an exposed ground point designated for jumping.

      • R C Dean

        I have routinely grounded for jumping on just about any exposed metal on the engine. If you get a spark from it while connecting, it will work just fine.

    • invisible finger

      Don’t DIY’ers look at these things before buying the car?

      • R C Dean

        Hey, when you’re looking at a sweet deal on an AMG coming off lease, well, its kinda like being at a college bar when some hottie spills her beer all over her t-shirt. Thinking gets . . . difficult.

    • JaimeRoberto Delecto

      German engineering is overrated. Great when it’s working. Impossible to repair.

  25. Ownbestenemy

    Yusef…i think i flubbed your email addy. can you shoot me one? glib name @ gmail

    • The Other Kevin

      So massive, heavy-handed efforts in the name of protecting the most vulnerable failed to protect the most vulnerable. But let’s stay the course because science.

    • Hyperion

      That means you maybe get one or two months before they start screaming ‘second more scarier wave!’ in September and lock everything down again until after the election, or probably until next summer or maybe for 4 more years if Trump wins the election. One thing is for sure, everyone will be under house quarantine the first 2 weeks of November until DNC operatives the mailman can pick up all the paper ballots and deliver them safely to DNC headquarters for counting.

      • Winston

        Is it an exaggeration to state that despite how bad the Republicans are the Democrats are infinitely worse in almost every area? They are much worse on economics and now we see how much love they have of civil liberties and how opposed they are to war.

      • Hyperion

        “Is it an exaggeration to state that despite how bad the Republicans are the Democrats are infinitely worse in almost every area?”

        No, not at all.

        If you go back before Obama served his first term, I would say democrats and republicans were about equally shitty. If you go back to the Clinton admin, they were both most definitely equally shitty. Then the dems started their hard left trajectory and after Trump, they just went completely insane. The republicans are just normally bad for politicians, but the dems are now full on communists and insane ones at that.

      • Viking1865

        The shrinking of the Social Con Right, and the disappearance of the Hippie Left really lengthens the gap for me. That whole “pox on both their houses” thing really rang a lot truer when Rick Santorum was popular and Obama was gonna end the wars, when gay people couldn’t get married.

        Like, does anyone think a Democrat President would end the Drug War, bring the troops home, fumigate the intelligence agencies, push for police reform. I’d put up with high taxes and their other bullshit if they did those things. But I don’t think they will.

      • Winston

        Thing is the Socon Right and Hippie Left were very recent developments of the 1960s that turned out to be short lived yet the Nolan chart acted as if these two had a long history and would be around forever. This of course leads to confusion.

      • Drake

        When I was a kid, Dems had some redeeming values. They seemed patriotic, and they seemed to genuinely care about regular blue-collar families. Back in the early 80’s, most were content to look out for the working guy without insulting their beliefs.

        Now – I can’t think of a single good quality for a typical Dem. They hate the normals with a passion and govern as destructive sociopaths. They seem to be devolving into some kind of strange suicidal cult.

      • B.P.

        Back in the 80s some of the more earnest ones even stood up for a couple of the civil liberties, particularly when the likes of Ed Meese were bigfooting around.

      • Drake

        Daniel Patrick Moynihan was guy I respected and often agreed with.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        It was a big tent back then. Sure, there were commies and fascists in the ranks, but there were also anti-war types, states rightsers, blue dogs, and myriad other single issue groups.

        As far as I can tell, they’re all gone.

    • creech

      It is hard to figure out what the stats mean in PA. My county has recorded cases of about 1/2% of the population. But of those who get a case,
      the fatality rate is a shade over 10%. I’m sure that widespread testing will show multiple times as many cases, but still seems pretty deadly.
      I know lots of scared folks who want to continue the cower in place until 100% of the pop. is tested and an accurate fatality rate can be calculated.

    • Nephilium

      I think the only thing that’s allowed us in the Midwest to be locked down so long was the shitty weather. Today is the first day this week that there wasn’t a freeze warning, and there’s thunderstorms. Patios are supposed to open tomorrow, based on current weather predictions (and alcohol consumption Friday night) I’m planning on trying to get to a patio to eat a lunch and have a couple of draft beers.

  26. Winston

    https://www.aier.org/article/a-fate-worse-than-death/

    Freedom is non-negotiable, human rights are inalienable, and human beings cannot and will not live in cages, however familiar or comfortably appointed. The emergence of a novel virus changes nothing about the principles.

    Nuh huh our rights have limits and are up the discretion of TOP MEN or the cocktail party set.

    • Drake

      Keeping LA locked down all summer should be fun to watch – from a distance.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        It’s going to be a long, hot, pissed off summer.

      • Drake

        I remember driving to school (USC) and scanning the horizon for smoke (not the wildfire kind).

      • Ted S.

        Did the ocean meet the stream?

  27. LCDR_Fish

    Saw an article in the news section of NRO today – not sure if anyone already posted. That Broward county POS who hid behind his car and got fired after the school shooting just got reinstated with back pay. ….and apparently he was already making $117k before he was fired.

    • R C Dean

      As I told Mrs. Dean when I saw that “If the parent of a dead child put a bullet in his head, I would vote to acquit.” She nodded.

      • Viking1865

        Saw some copsucker comments like “Would you go in? Easy to talk tough on a keyboard”. They want to be held up as heros for waiting in line at the donut shop, but when its time to step up, he was kneeling down.

        Peter Wang’s classmates haven’t matriculated to West Point yet. But he’s already there. He’s already set the standard for the Class of 2025. He set it while that fat well paid cop hid behind his cruiser.

      • R C Dean

        Saw some copsucker comments like “Would you go in?

        While I have never faced an active shooter with a gun on my fucking hip, I think I would, since I have a gun on my fucking hip and all.

        In other, less fraught circumstances when others were in danger, I have never hesitated to do what I could. And yes, that includes going up to not one, but two, car accidents with gas leaking onto the ground, one of them with the engine actually on fire, to help the occupants of the car.

        Its interesting that in one of those accidents, there were several people keeping a safe distance, but when they saw me go in, a couple of them (both men) followed.

      • J. Frank Parnell

        Saw some copsucker comments like “Would you go in? Easy to talk tough on a keyboard”. They want to be held up as heros for waiting in line at the donut shop, but when its time to step up, he was kneeling down.

        Also: The shooter had an AR-15, which is a magical superweapon killing machine of death, so it would have been a guaranteed suicide mission for the cop to go in there with just a pistol.

      • Drake

        He’s responsible for more child-deaths than the commie cough.

    • Fatty Bolger

      What a non-surprise. I suppose we’ll hear that charges are being dropped against Peterson any day now. Will he then get back pay, too? It would not surprise me one bit.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Unfuckingbelievable, if you can’t fire a cowardly sack of shit cop for shirking his duty when a bunch of kids got killed what the fuck can you fire a cop for?

      • R C Dean

        Let’s see: Stealing from the department? Testifying against other cops?

        Can’t think of anything else. I mean, rape and murder won’t necessarily get a cop fired, so the list has got to be pretty short.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Testifying against other cops?

        Assuming one lives long enough afterwards to be fired.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Not shooting the dog? Forgetting to induce a malfunction in the body cam?

    • Juvenile Bluster

      He was making $137k, actually.

      This is the worst fucking county in the country (though the whole “cop does wrong, gets ‘fired’, then gets handed his job back a year later with back pay happens all over).

      At least they didn’t hand him back pay PLUS overtime PLUS what he would’ve made from side jobs in the interim, like other places (like Chicago) have done.

  28. grrizzly

    Should we surrender, vote Dem in November and then this pan(dem)ic will be over? This is my glib case for Dems in 2020.

    • leon

      Hmmm. And it accelerates the fall… tempting…

    • Winston

      You assume the Democrats want this to be over. And they won’t try this again when they are back in power.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Yeah, with the desire to restructure society and enough malice in combination with no effective counterweight they could parlay the situation into an absolute living hell for the rest of us.

      • Winston

        Also libertarians quite rightly believe that most politicians are unprincipled hacks who don’t believe in any ideology but they mistakenly assume this means that the politicians are secret libertarians. In other words Cuomo, Whitmer, Newsome, Wolf, etc. secretly know the shutdowns are useless and terrible but do so out of expediency. However what if the political expediency of the moment drives them to become statist fucks?

      • Gender Traitor

        Personally, in the absence of plausible evidence to the contrary, I would operate under the assumption that those named have always been statist fucks.

      • Nephilium

        I operate under the assumption that anyone running for office is a statist fuck. It usually holds up.

      • Tulip

        I have never assumed they are libertarian deep down. I always assume they have no principles and just want power.

      • Winston

        Well the idea is more that they know that their policies are terrible and once the people realize that they will be voted out and you can’t have power if you lose re-election so their desire for power will make them somewhat libertarian.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      “A perfectly healthy 41 year old man…”

      Had a series of incredibly unlucky and unlikely thing happen, resulting in a really bad outcome completely unrelated to the reason he went to the hospital in the first place.

    • The Other Kevin

      Some anecdotes are more equal than others.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      How many 41 year olds have died on the highways in the past two months?

      • JaimeRoberto Delecto

        Then we must closed down the highways.

    • B.P.

      “McEnany called the document left by President Barack Obama ‘insufficient’ and used the occasion to also take a hit at Joe Biden, the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee.”

      Shhhh…. Ease up on old Joe a bit, or you might end up with a different nominee to square off against.

    • R C Dean

      Allofasudden, Obama is taking hits.

      I like it.

    • Q Continuum

      The press secretary is definitely not in the same league as Hope but is still a solid would.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I think she looks better, more of a girl next door look.

      • hayeksplosives

        If beauty is not a factor, I have to hand it to Sarah Sanders, no contest. She owns the reporters.

        “Bad Lip Reading: White House Briefing” featuring Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

        https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8EsUNOIYyKg

      • Suthenboy

        Agreed. I like that chick.

    • R C Dean

      The window is closing to address this pandemic, because we still do not have a standard, centralized, coordinated plan to take our nation through this response,’ he explained, when questioned about his dire warning.

      Now be fair. He is correct to say the window is closing.

      Because we are already on the backside of it, true. But he is technically correct.

      The new press secretary seems to hold the White House press corp in genuine contempt. Two thumbs up.

      • Fatty Bolger

        She was well prepared for their attacks. As the kids say, they came at her neck, but she clapped back with some savage shade.

    • R C Dean

      I saw they wrapped up one trial, with the results being that it won’t bring people back from the dead. Yes, they trialed it only no-hopers in the ICU.

    • creech

      What? One of the networks was proclaiming (with glee it seems) last night that hydroxy was proved to be of no use though Trump had been ” touting” it as a possible therapeutic. I wish “science” would get its act together. I’m still not certain if “science” thinks masks work or don’t work or if six feet or two feet or twenty feet is the proper social distancing.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Just spend a couple of hours reading articles on Google Scholar pertaining to those things and you’ll better informed than ninety percent of the experts and one hundred percent of the pundits out there.

      • mrfamous

        Yeah. Though to summarize the issue on masks: no, they don’t work. Surgical masks don’t even work to prevent infections in actual surgeries which stunned the fuck out of me. It appears to continue to be done out of “tradition,” believe it or not. I seriously doubt a bandana is gonna do much on your trip to the Safeway for a box of Cocoa Puffs.

        “We conclude that there is no clear evidence that wearing disposable face masks affects the likelihood of wound infections developing after surgery.”

        https://www.cochrane.org/CD002929/WOUNDS_disposable-surgical-face-masks-preventing-surgical-wound-infection-clean-surgery

  29. The Late P Brooks

    I saw they wrapped up one trial, with the results being that it won’t bring people back from the dead. Yes, they trialed it only no-hopers in the ICU.

    So what you’re saying is they did their best?

  30. The Late P Brooks

    SWAT this desperado

    A Michigan barber who opened his shop in defiance of the governor’s coronavirus shutdown orders has had his licenses suspended by the state.

    But barber Karl Manke told NBC News on Thursday that he has not received any notice from officials about the suspension and has no plans to close his shop in Owosso, about 37 miles northeast of Lansing.

    “If we wait until we’re absolutely perfectly safe, we’ll never have the freedoms that we had,” he said.

    ——-

    On May 4, he opened up his barbershop — a decision that has led to some criticism. One commenter on the shop’s Facebook page slammed Manke for caring “more about your money than lives.” Others have left messages telling him to stay home.

    State Attorney General Dana Nessel said Manke’s actions put the public at risk.

    Nessel said local police cited Manke for violating the governor’s order and the state’s Department of Health and Human Services issued an order requiring Manke to close his barbershop, but he did not comply.

    “Anytime you have a barber or other professional providing services to numerous citizens in close proximity to each other and those citizens are then returning to their various residences, there is a risk of contracting and spreading the virus,” the attorney general said in a press release on Wednesday. “It is paramount that we take action to protect the public and do our part to help save lives.”

    Manke’s professional license and the license for this shop “were summarily suspended and an administrative licensing complaint was issued,” Nessel said

    Poisoning the customers is one thing, but thumbing your nose at the licensing board? That’s a declaration of war.

    • Ted S.

      Nobody is forcing people to go to that shop, but the state is trying to force people *not* to go to that shop.

      • Q Continuum

        Ted clearly just wants your grandma to die.

      • dbleagle

        Worse than that he is a southern 1950’s racist. Why under “Jim Crow” laws it was the democratic politicians who led the governments who forced companies to not do business with blacks. Wait? Whut? Never mind.

      • Nephilium

        *sigh*

        The parties switched. Haven’t you heard?

        Now we’re preventing people from engaging in commerce for their own good, not just because the owners/customers are subhuman morons.

      • Jarflax

        First they ordered businesses not to do business with black people because they believe black people are inferior. Then they got beat up for being racist authoritarians. So they dropped the not. Now they force businesses to do business with black people because they believe black people are inferior.

      • DrOtto

        Jim Crow was allegedly “science based” as well.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    Speaking of barbers

    Health officials in New York say a barber in Kingston who has been providing haircuts to customers for weeks in defiance of the state’s stay-at-home orders has since tested positive for COVID-19.

    Ulster County Department of Health Commissioner Carol Smith confirmed the news in an announcement on Thursday and urged those who may have received services at this barber’s shop to get tested for the virus.

    “We are taking extraordinary measures to try and minimize the spread of this dangerous disease and learning that a barbershop has been operating illicitly for weeks with a COVID-19 positive employee is extraordinarily disheartening,” Smith said in a statement.

    “As much as we would all like to go out and get a professional haircut, this kind of direct contact has the potential to dramatically spread this virus throughout our community and beyond,” she continued. “I urge anyone who has received a haircut at a Kingston barber in the last several weeks to immediately contact their physician or call our hotline to arrange for a diagnostic test.”

    For WEEKS. There must be a pile of bodies 10 feet tall in front of his shop.

    I’m sure they’d tell us if there were any hospitalizations or deaths which could be in any way tied to this guy.

    • R C Dean

      a barbershop has been operating illicitly for weeks with a COVID-19 positive employee

      Note that they don’t tell you when he tested positive. Unless it was weeks ago, this statement is a lie.

      • KSuellington

        Would you take an antibody test for the Lil Rona? I’ve been thinking about it as a company here is offering them, but this is the kind of story that makes me hesitant to do so?

      • R C Dean

        Check the fine print. Some companies are requiring active infection tests on anyone who has a positive antibody test. Of course, if you have an active infection you will be sent home to self-quarantine until it clears.

        Without something like that, I might, just out of curiousity.

      • KSuellington

        Thanks, good point. I’m curious as I have been working throughout this thing.

      • Tres Cool

        Ive mentioned that since Im pretty sure I had it months ago, Id like an antibody test. However, Im fearful that if it’s negative Im going to end up on a “list”.

        Not that this places hasnt already landed me on a couple.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Give a fake name and pay with cash.

      • KSuellington

        My fear is that if I got a positive one that they’d report it and I’d have the gub snooping through my history. I’m a regular here, among other things. So I got that going against me.

    • DrOtto

      This smacks of a ploy my mother once used at the dinner table. I was dating a girl, which I hadn’t explicitly told my parents, who was of ill repute. My mother stated at the dinner table in front of all my siblings “I heard Slutty McSlutterson* at your school has AIDS.” She then thusly gauged my reaction.

      *name changed to protect the not-so-innocent.

    • Q Continuum

      Worse than Clown Prince Sununu?

      • DEG

        Yes. Note the URL: The AMA is on the Bernie Sanders sub. Sanders endorsed Volinsky.

        I figure Volinsky will get the Democrat nomination. It’ll be him and Sununu on the ballot since I think the LPNH will get nowhere with their threatened lawsuit.

        NH is fucked.

      • DOOMco

        Pretty much.

        Ugh.

      • Winston

        Are you really surprised that a New Hampshire Democrat might be worse than a New Hampshire Republican?

    • Ownbestenemy

      I like freckles…2 please

    • Suthenboy

      What is wrong with JPEGs?

    • DEG

      You did an excellent job today Q.

      I can’t pick just one.

  32. robc

    Surgery 2 weeks from today, delayed from mid-March. Have to go in next Friday for a covid test.

    • robc

      I assume it is an active test, but would like an antibody test.

      • R C Dean

        Yes, it will be the active infection test.

    • hayeksplosives

      Hopefully the hospital where you’re going hasn’t laid off too many staffers. If it’s just lightly populated, it’s going to go faster.

      Good luck with the test and the procedure!

    • Nephilium

      I had to go to the doctor’s office this week (standard checkup/prescription refill). The staff was wearing masks, no gloves. The doctor wore neither.

      At least for once I didn’t have to answer if I was going through a stressful time.

      • Hyperion

        Yeah, I’m going through a successful time, doc. Now what about a lifetime refill on that Seconal and Quaalude? Throw in some Ativan as a bonus appreciation for your good customer here.

    • DEG

      Best wishes.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Razorfist did a nice vid on him earlier today, mentioned China and everything:

      https://youtu.be/9SpMi5OnVi4

  33. CPRM

    So far, success! Got the new PC hardware in the case, hooked it up to a tv and it posted! Now I have to attach a mouse and keyboard and start configuring and installing the OS.

    • Ted S.

      Which flavor of Linux are you going with?

      • CPRM

        Going with windows, none of my editing software runs on Linux.

    • Nephilium

      Mechanical keyboard? They can be cleaned in the rare case a beer is spilled into them, and still work after that.

      /don’t ask how I know that

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Neph obviously has a pornhub keyboard.

      • Tres Cool

        weird way to spell astroglide, but there’s a lot of poles up there

    • DEG

      Excellent!

  34. Suthenboy

    Just spoke to my son who is contracted by a local hospital. The company owns 422 hospitals. Since the coronatardation began their income has dropped 50% and their stock is down 60%.

    I find it hard to believe that this is not being done deliberately.

    • Bill Door

      One of my coworkers whose husband is in the know (I know, hearsay) told us that the major hospital group here is on the verge of bankruptcy because of all of this. There were 17 people in the hospital a week and a half ago, 9 of whom were maternity ward patients.

      I agree.

      • Hyperion

        What they are attempting to do is just make it bad enough that Trump loses the election, but not make it bad enough that there is hunger, violence, and a situation where they cannot even hope to spend enough money to recover from it in a 4 year democrat presidential term. They really believe that they will win the election and arise as the heroes ushering in a new golden age of prosperity through massive government programs and spending.

        I’ve said it before and will say it again. It is a very dangerous game they are playing, there is very, very little margin for error. The thing is, it could easily become a powder keg, because they aren’t smart enough to manage this, not even close.

      • J. Frank Parnell

        They really believe that they will win the election and arise as the heroes ushering in a new golden age of prosperity through massive government programs and spending.

        Fixed to remove the stuff they don’t really give the slightest shit about.

        … unless you meant golden age of prosperity for themselves and fuck all the peasants; in which case, carry on.

    • Hyperion

      It’s definitely being done deliberately. Now of course there are some well meaning people out there, but the people who matter, the ones driving the narrative, like the WHO, the CDC, democrat political operatives, and the media especially have one goal in mind. Get rid of badorangeman and finally get all their ponies that they couldn’t get with climate change. Global Socialism is the goal of these people. They want to be among an elite select few with all of the power through NGOs and unelected government bureaucracies. We’re in a war, you could see this coming a mile away. I knew they would pull some sort of shit because they know there’s no way they can beat Trump in a fair open election.

      I wouldn’t even be surprised (dons tin foil hat) to learn one day that the WHO and a bunch of other shady operatives, colluded with China to intentionally let this spread across the globe and then fan the panic through the media. After the entire Russian Collusion coup attempt, can you really put anything past them?

      And it’s going to get way worse this fall when they attempt to lock everyone in their house because of a ‘2nd more scary wave’ and insist on a 100% paper ballot election. By November, people will be getting hungry and desperate if an end is not put to this shit for good.

      • Sean

        I look forward to some good killdozer vids on youtube.

      • Bill Door

        I am at the point in all of this that donning the tinfoil is so unnecessary. There are so many unanswered questions that anyone with two brain cells to rub together get that things don’t line up. I think it’s likely the WHO colluded in all of this, and the media have their marching orders to spread the fear.

        In my experience there are two camps, those who are petrified because they the media narrative seriously, and the rest of us who feel like this is a big heap of BS. Here in N. Utah, I think our side is winning out. Unfortunately that’s not the case most places.

      • Winston

        Global Socialism is the goal of these people

        Unpossible. How can educated urbanites think that way?

        And I’m not straw manning here. Classical liberals and even some libertarian’s literally did not think it was possible for a urbanite, public school teacher or university professor to be a socialist or a communist.

    • J. Frank Parnell

      Wow, sounds like a terrible failure of the free market. I guess we’ll have no choice but to have the government step in and take over all the hospitals.

    • Q Continuum

      But Suthen, it’s all the fault of capitalism! If we had nationalized healthcare, none of this would have happened!!

      /sarc

    • hayeksplosives

      It is deliberate.

      I do think that some Leftists thought we the sheeple were ready to fall into line through fear.

      Clearly, we aren’t all there yet, but there’s a surprising number of people willing to cede all freedoms for the illusion of security.

      My guess is that this covid scare dies down, then the Leftists will stay dormant a while as they plot the next angle.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Next angle is only 2-3 months away with a 2nd wave and another lockdown and boom! President Humperdink.

      • Nephilium

        Not Humperdoo?

      • Ownbestenemy

        lol

      • Mojeaux

        HUMPERDOO!!!!

      • Nephilium

        A reason you’re one of my favorites Mojeaux.

      • Sean

        Don’t worry, next month they’re gonna throw another three trillion at everyone.

      • DEG

        Three trillion??!?!

        That’s penny ante shit.

        Gotta be at least ten trillion. We still have checks in the checkbook, right?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        If you have any doubt that it is deliberate, take a look at what they were willing to do to railroad and sabotage the Trump administration over the Russia hoax.

        There are so many pathological liars in DC, you can’t keep count.

      • grrizzly

        I do think that some Leftists thought we the sheeple were ready to fall into line through fear.

        I’ve just returned from a 1.5-hour walk. It’s a nice day, there were many people on the streets. I’d estimate that less than 5% of pedestrians were NOT wearing masks. Yes, I’m talking about 95% wearing face covering on city sidewalks. People here enjoy being scared.

      • dbleagle

        This evening a few of us will head out on our Thursday pirate sail It is a mere coincidence that so many people decide to go for a sail at the same DTG as the cancelled weekly race.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        At least they’re out and wearing a mask isn’t a bad thing if you do it correctly.

  35. Hyperion

    So, Fatty Hogan is getting ready to end the stay at home camp orders, but Baltimore City doubles down. Fucking retards.

    • Winston

      https://www.libertarianism.org/podcasts/free-thoughts/nationalism-problem

      that one of the more interesting changes that’s happened not just in the US, but globally over the last hundred plus years is increasing urbanization, that people are leaving the countryside for the cities. And that trend is moving quickly and does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon. And then, it feels like one way to look at the nationalism, particularly in its like, set aside kind of Bernie Sanders style leftist, progressivism and look more at the like, openness to cosmopolitanism, compared to cosmopolitanism is that cities tend to be cosmopolitan and that people who live in cities tend to be comfortable with immigrants, much more open to new experiences.

      But if that’s the realignment, it feels like just based on ongoing demographic trends, the cosmopolitans kind of win out, and the message that libertarians have of openness and dynamism is one that’s certainly much more appealing to them than it is to nationalists. So maybe that’s how we can fit in and we can we can kind of find more of a home at least closer to the cosmopolitans and just help them to check their worst economic urges.

      Nice to see the openness and dynamism of urban cosmopolitanism in action!

  36. l0b0t

    We were divesting some of son’s outgrown clothes and I discovered that I can affect a mask by employing his old t-shirts as ersatz balaclavas. I think I’m gonna steer into this skid with my new collection of dinosaur and robot masks.

    • Nephilium

      I’m getting to the point of considering ordering some masks from here (NSFW). When I saw a news article about someone from New Orleans creating masks that had a slit in them (so you could put a straw through and drink), I’ve realized it’s going to be the new fucking fashion accessory.

      • mrfamous

        I’ve actually become a fan of the woman who created the “straw masks.” If you listen to what she actually said, she appears to know what a farce it all is, but also knows public pressure to wear these things is building. So she decided to see what she could do to at least make it so you can get drunk in the things.

      • Ted S.

        [imagines Lucy selling psychiatric help and mustache rides for 5¢]

      • DenverJ

        It’s all just Kabuki theater. I made an eye appointment to get new prescription. The lady who took the appointment asked all these questions about symptoms and who I had been around, told me that they would take my temp, and that I needed to wear a mask to the appointment. When they called to confirm, they again stressed that I would need to wear a mask.
        So, I wore a N95 mask, properly fitted. They told me that the testing machines wouldn’t work with my mask, and they gave me a worthless paper mask that let air in and out without filtering.
        This is when I decided that we are all playing make-believe, or that masks have acquired a totemic magic (that they don’t actually possess).

    • C. Anacreon

      Let me hear your balaclavas ringing out,
      Come and keep your comrade warm.

      • l0b0t

        Sensible chuckle. I’m on the fence, but leaning towards, the Beatle’s are completely overrated camp. Songs like that though, are quite hard to argue against.

    • Raven Nation

      Maybe he’s getting it from the end of “The Puppet Masters.”

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Both

  37. Scruffy Nerfherder

    I want to know what the fuck the Republicans who knew the Russia hoax was all bullshit and said nothing were doing for two years while they controlled Congress.

    Those sons of bitches were willing to stand idly by while the Democrats burnt it all down because they were either too comfortable or didn’t like Trump. The law and the (perceived) integrity of the system be damned.

    • Winston

      They hate Trump and think those cocktail parties…

    • Ownbestenemy

      As said here in the past day or so..all connected and know they have just as many skeletons in the closet.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Trump could have declassified it all himself couldn’t he? Why he didn’t years ago beats the hell out of me.

  38. Oy the Billy-Bumbler

    @Banjos. So sorry about your dad. You have my deepest sympathy.

  39. Winston

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/newrepublic.com/amp/article/157598/mutant-liberalism-threat-community

    Thomas Hobbes himself had forcefully argued that human nature required the strong hand of an authoritarian government—his famous Leviathan—to guarantee public order and safety. This was indeed a government’s foremost duty; only by fulfilling it, Hobbes maintained, could political authority create a modest space of individual freedom for its subjects. This last proviso is what gives Hobbes pride of place, in front of the more libertarian John Locke, as the first theorist of liberalism.

    Gray notes that the greatest successes in dealing with Covid-19 have been in Asia, most notably in South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. He suggests that their outstanding record is the product of cultural mores prioritizing collective well-being over personal liberty. By contrast, the uneven liberalism of the United States has produced such large populations of vulnerable people—the medically uninsured, the incarcerated, the homeless, the drug-addicted—that the nation might well have to choose between a protracted and ruinous economic shutdown and an uncontrollable spread of a lethal virus throughout the land.

    Gray shows little inclination, however, to abandon the liberal tradition wholesale; he seeks, as do I, a balance between individual liberty and—to once again invoke a prized concept of Benjamin Barber—communal liberty. “It is only by recognizing the frailties of liberal societies that their most essential values can be preserved,” he writes. “Along with fairness, they include individual liberty, which as well as being worthwhile in itself is a necessary check on government. But those who believe personal autonomy is the innermost human need betray an ignorance of psychology, not least their own. For practically everyone, security and belonging are equally important, often more so. Liberalism was, in effect, a systematic denial of this fact.” Thomas Hobbes would no doubt agree.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Hobbes et al presume man is incapable of ruling himself but perfectly capable of ruling someone else.

      • Bill Door

        I don’t know much about him, but Hobbes sounds like a giant dick.

      • Jarflax

        Hobbes saw the flaws in anarchy and argued from the evils of life as a naked savage alone in the wilderness to the necessity of an unbridled Absolute Sovereign. He recognized the evils of that sovereign, but convinced himself that it was the least bad choice among universally bad choices. Part of that probably came from the fact that he was writing in the era of Cromwell and was a royalist, so he saw the brutality of parliamentary government run amok.

      • Winston

        he saw the brutality of parliamentary government run amok.

        I posted a bit above about the Rule of the Major Generals which is generally regarded as the epitome of everything wrong with the Cromwellian regime.

      • Jarflax

        We elected a brilliant, deeply pious man to be our Protector! Now surely we will see the Jubilee!

    • Jarflax

      Autonomy is obviously not the only psychological need. The thing is that you cannot achieve the other needs except by choosing a path toward them and following that path. You do not acquire a sense of belonging when you are forced into a milieu. Witness the morale issues and discipline issues in the conscript army, or any prison or gulag. As for security? Leviathan does not provide security, because Leviathan only cares about Leviathan’s goals. Stalin killed as many Russians as Hitler, and Hitler killed as many Germans as Stalin, and between the two of them not a soul in Europe was safe.

      • Winston

        . You do not acquire a sense of belonging when you are forced into a milieu.

        Leviathan does not provide security, because Leviathan only cares about Leviathan’s goals.

        Enlightened Educated Cosmopolitan Elites who Fucking Love Science will create the Leviathan that will bring us belonging and security because Shut the Fuck Up Redneck.

  40. LCDR_Fish

    Total Wine stop yesterday – picked up a bit to start refilling stocks in my new place (garage fridges seem pretty affordable at Lowes – recommended temps for beer storage only?).

    A couple new ones I hadn’t seen before including Som Woodpecker (India), Habesha (Ethiopia) and some new variants – Belhaven Black Nitro (scotland), Hitachino Yuzu Lager (Japan).

    • Nephilium

      Local liquor store restock today. Several local breweries that don’t usually can their beers had sixers there, so I picked up some of those. I also found a local distillery that had an interesting gin I grabbed. It was a couple bucks more then the standard Tanqueray, but I support a local business (and it doesn’t have anise in it).

      • LCDR_Fish

        Oh yeah, looks like I will stop by the new local brewery tomorrow (Colonial Beach Brewing) – looks like no growler fills right now, but he says they actually have cans in stock of all their stuff. Will report when possible.

      • AlmightyJB

        Some interesting looking booze. Looks like our Kroger’s stocks them.

      • Nephilium

        The gin works quite well in a standard G&T. The girlfriend after seeing what else they offer wants the cinnamon vodka and their rum.

        I’m more interested in the smoked bourbon and the special reserve gin.

  41. DenverJ

    First! Also, my rotator cuff doesn’t like me sanding walls. Maybe I can get disability?

    • R C Dean

      First!

      – 50

      • DenverJ

        Bullshit. Look upthread- not a single person before me claimed first. I was the first to claim first, therefore I am first.

      • R C Dean

        Avatar and comment are a sublime combo.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Missed first by that much…sorry to hear about the rotator cuff thoug. I feel it

      • DenverJ

        Yeah, I looked at a thread the next morning where Tejecano said something like “was it you I told about hanging from your arms to fix that” and I haven’t seen him yet to tell him “no it wasn’t me but please share”.
        If anybody knows a good stretch or excercise to help, I’d be grateful.

      • R C Dean

        Two, maybe three Fentanyl patches should do the trick. If you roll them between your fingers first, they work even better.

        Err, I’m told.

    • DEG

      Sorry.