This is the finale of the Prince Errant excerpt Novella, you can find the rest of it here:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
* * *
A shadow passed over my outcrop. Wondering how long it would be until rain came along, I looked up. The sky was clear blue – devoid of clouds. My brow scrunched up, but I dismissed the oddity to focus on the spear. I was spending too much time to make it pretty, but the real purpose was killing time while waiting for the trap to be tripped. The ash haft was still green wood, but I didn’t expect to find anything else. My neatest chert spearhead was attached to a notch in the end by glue and twine which I’d covered with a bark wrap. I didn’t expect it to come apart, but I now had more experience making spears than I did using them. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hermann looking at the sky in consternation. I was immediately distracted by a distant crash in the woods. It was followed by an angry roar. Snatching up my spear, I hurried in the direction of the noise. The roaring continued, bellows of rage and pain filling the air, and growing more intense as I approached the clearing where I’d set the trap.
The bear was huge, on all fours it was as tall as a horse at the shoulder, and could have been longer from front to back. Its shaggy brown fur was dribbling with red rivulets from where the chert-tipped stakes had been driven in. The shattered remnants of my trap were still lodged in its back, but the stone had fallen off. A wide, toothy maw opened with each bellow of rage. Forepaws with claws as long as my fingers dragged its front end around to bellow at me. I noticed that its hind legs were unresponsive as it pulled itself around. I’d broken the bear’s spine, but failed to get a clean kill. Taking hold of the middle and butt end of my spear, I held it high and forward, looking for a spot to strike and finish the job. As it roared and pawed the air in attempt to drive me off, I knew getting at the vitals from the front would be futile. Bears were robust creatures, and there was a lot of bone in the front quarters. No, I had to circle around and strike from the side. With the injury to the spine, that was doable, but I had to be quick.
I dashed to get around the bear before it could turn. With a booming thud, a scaly wall of muscle dropped into my path. I bounced off the charcoal black scutes and landed on my rear. A massive, taloned forelimb pinned the bear’s head and shoulders to the ground as a mouth full of blade-like teeth tore out its entrails. Rearing up to allow its tongue to draw in the dripping, ropy mass of innards, I got a clear look at the head. Squamous and angular, it had a long, narrow snout, and two prominent horns jutting out the back, almost doubling the length of the skull. The scales were a coal black, but where skin or membrane showed, it was a dark red, giving the dragon the appearance of smoldering embers. Blood still dripping from its jaws, the dragon’s attention snapped to the men on horseback just beyond the treeline.
Drawing in a sharp intake of breath, the dragon unleashed a white-hot inferno from its gullet that blossomed into orange flames as it erupted into the air. I heard the panicked whinny of horses as the flames swept along the trees, catching the wood alight. Soon the clearing was encircled in flames that crackled and spat as moisture in the trees burst into steam. Roiling black smoke blotted out the blue of the sky, and in moment I was stuck between the orange wall of the flames, and the black wall of the dragon’s hide. Some corner of my mind offered up the name of this type of dragon. It was a cinderdrake. Not the most clever form of dragon, bu a firebreathing monstrosity the size of a house had other assets to draw on.
Stupidly, I staggered to my feet.
I should have played dead, let the dragon keep overlooking me, but instead, I had to go and get its attention. As the cinderdrake’s head came about, I lashed out with my spear, aiming for the dark red circle behind the eye. I missed the tympanic membrane. I missed the eye. The chert tip of my spear lodged next to the tear duct, drawing a small drip of crimson. As the dragon flinched back at the sudden sting, the tip of my spear popped off. A trail of twisted twine still connected it to the haft, but the two had otherwise cleanly parted ways. For all the work I’d put into it, I’d still affixed it incorrectly.
I didn’t even have time to spit an expletive before a taloned forelimb knocked me flat on the ground. I rolled, and ended up face-up below the dragon. While the hide on the underside was thinner, the only thing I had resembling a weapon was the knife in my belt. A knife that was stubbornly refusing the come free of my belt. Still dripping with blood and draped in shred of singed ursine offal, the cinderdrake’s maw opened, lowering towards me.
My knife sank into dragon flesh.
The jaws snapped closed.
I screamed as the cinderdrake pulled its head back, taking all too much of me with it, dripping and scarlet.
* * *
I stood on the deck of a boat.
A barge, nestling up to the docks. The skies were dark and indistinct, swirling with things unhealthy to look upon or contemplate too long. Before me, people, all shuffling resignedly into the distance. I could see no conformity of breed, sex, or age among those ambling onto the docks and jostling for their place in line. The queue coalesced and became more defined the closer to the horizon I looked. There, at the edge of the visible, sat a foreboding structure made of nothingness. It was unmistakable, the Court of Azerion. I looked to my feet, through the gap between the barge and the dock. The barge floated not on water, but a river of wailing souls of myriad species, intertwined but never intermixed.
I was dead.
The last act expected of me was to step off the barge and join the queue to be judged.
It seemed like such a simple thing to step forward and discard all that could have been. But I didn’t want to. I could not simply give up here.
I forced my eyes open.
I was still screaming. Strong hands held my arms pinned to the ground, and my head was nestled in my father’s grip. His eyes looked down on me with a mix of sadness and… pain? My rational mind was waning as the agony overtook me again. My eyes slipped closed.
I stood on the deck of a boat, a barge, nestled up to the docks where the souls went to queue for Azerion’s judgment. Young, old, man, woman, human, dwarf, skrael, elf, they all jostled mindlessly to fall into line. I could not tell from what occupations they had come, or what had slain them. They had neither their raiment nor injuries upon them. Whatever it was, all had passed the point of defiance.
All it would take was one step off the barge.
I forced my eyes open. A stick had been wedged between my teeth to silence my screams. I tried to raise my head.
“Don’t look,” My father said, covering my eyes and tipping my head back again. Waves of agony continued to rippled through my body. They battered my consciousness, rocking me with each impact.
Like the gentle ripples on the river of souls.
The barge still sat, nestled up to the docks, disgorging its passengers. Everything told me I should just take that little step. What could possibly be done to save me from that injury? Simple hurts didn’t leave you staring at the queue of the dead and the gates to Azerion’s Court. There was another voice, a voice I hardly knew, and could barely identify as that of Antal Gentian.
“It’s working,” he said. “Hold that steady.”
I opened my eyes again. My arms and legs were still pinned to the ground, and my father still cradled my head, but within the look of pain in his eyes was a spark of something else. Hope. Something nagged at my mind. Something about Gentian, but the waves of my own agonies washed it away. Biting down on the stick, I fought the forces trying to drive me to unconsciousness. Fought the urge to submit and step off the barge and join the queue of souls. My face was awash with tears from my suffering, and my brain did not want to think.
With every iota of my strength, I forced my eyes to move, trying to get a look at what was going on. I barely got a glimpse of Peter out of the corner of my eye before my father blocked the view with his hands.
“Don’t look,” he whispered.
My rage welled up, only to crash into a wave of agony and shatter. He was being frustrating in that misguided, but well-meaning way of his. My father honestly thought it would be better if I couldn’t see what was going on. Of course I knew it was horrific, I’d been bitten by a cinderdrake.
But he wasn’t being malicious. I could see in his eyes that this pained him almost as much as it was hurting me. The pain had dulled slightly. Whether by Gentian’s doing, or simple fatigue of the brain. I felt lethargic, even as agony continued to rock me. I fought the urge to sleep. I could not risk losing my willpower and stepping into the queue of souls. After all, I had finally started to understand my father. I couldn’t lose that now.
But, like waves upon a shore, the pain was eroding my will, and my eyelids were awfully heavy. Slowly, they slipped closed and sleep enveloped me.
* * *
It was only sleep, because I awoke on a sea of pillows with a silken sheet over me. Diaphanous curtains over stained glass windows and a heavy velvet drapery surrounded me. The gilded wooden ceiling showed only part of a larger image, cut off by the drapery. After a little thought, I realized I was in the queen’s carriage. As I started moving to take in my surroundings, I caught the attention of the girl sitting nearby. She leaned forward to see if my eyes were open. Her pale oval face was pleasant to look at and ringed in curled mahogany locks. Her slave collar was a gold choker necklace inset with carnelian and a sardonyx cameo depicting a pair of manacles. The rest of her outfit was scarlet silk embroidered with gold. There wasn’t a whole lot of material to speak of. She disappeared from view, but I soon felt her leaning my shoulders forward to slip pillows behind me. She held a cup of water to my lips and I drank greedily.
Once I’d drained the cup, the slave girl left. Not too much later, Antal Gentian stepped past the drapery. He lifted up the sheet covering me to take a look at the state of my injuries. I was shocked at how intact I looked. All of the skin from the bottom of my rib cage to my lower abdomen was pink and raw. I could easily have convinced myself I’d merely been scalded or lost a few layers of skin at worst. Though it clung to the form of my abdominal muscles more closely than it had before.
“How do you feel?” Gentian asked, laying the sheet back down.
“Numb,” I croaked, “Thirsty.”
“Well, the somnifer will wear off in the next few hours, and the pain will return.”
“Sounds like fun.” I glanced up at the haggard face of the ivory wizard. “What happened?”
“You got bit by a cinderdrake.”
“I know that part. What happened after that?”
“King Hermann finished off the dragon, and then I had to figure out how to put you back together. It wasn’t easy.”
“How did you do it?”
“Do you remember your last conversation?”
“I asked about fish,” I said.
“You also asked about the time I put a man back together with parts from a horse.”
“Am I now part horse?”
“No, we had a perfectly good dragon which didn’t need the pieces anymore.”
“Oh?”
“Of course, I had to do a lot of trimming and stitching to get it all to fit, and wove in enchantments so you wouldn’t reject the parts.”
“I see,” I said.
“You still have your original kidneys and bladder, but I had to replace the liver, stomach, pancreas, intestine, and abdominal wall.”
“What about the skin?”
“You can coax skin to grow over rather large wounds.”
“So now what?”
“Now we slowly reintroduce you to food and keep watch for complications.”
I heard the door being treated rather aggressively before my father barged into the curtained off corner of the wagon. “You’re awake,” he said. I nodded.
“I’ll leave you two be,” Gentian said, bowing to more easily push past the drapery.
Looking around, my father found a stool and sat down. He looked at me, appearing to be at a loss for words. Finally he found his voice.
“Why did you attack the dragon?”
“I didn’t really have time to think.”
“I almost lost you,” he said softly.
Not too long ago, I probably would have responded snidely. Instead, I said, “I’m glad it didn’t come to that.”
After a moment, my father chuckled.
“I have thought a lot about the words we’ve exchanged of late,” he said. “And I can see how some of the things I have done have not been well-explained; and could appear differently from another point of view.” He drew a breath after the rambling sentence. “I think I’m trying to say we were both right, and both wrong.”
“Does this mean you’re going to let me make my own decisions?” I asked.
“The last decision you made nearly killed you.”
“Nothing I did was intended to attract a dragon.”
“I know, but…” he sighed. “I can’t help but see the boy who used to sit on my knee and read with me by the fireplace. Do you remember that week when it would stop snowing?”
“I remember,” I said, “And that was still me, but it was also fifteen years ago.”
My father sighed. “I know,” he said. “But for the near future at least, you won’t be making too many decisions.”
“Why is that?”
“We’re continuing on to Auratus, where there will be a formal entry and Hermann will induct you into the Order of Dragonslayers.”
“Doesn’t that require actually killing the dragon?”
“It requires a substantive contribution to the slaying of a dragon. The judgment of what that means is up to a Master of the order.”
“And Hermann is the Grandmaster,” I said.
“The Swan should be waiting in Farcairn, or will arrive there soon. The next stop is home.”
However much I wanted to see the hills of Sudtor again, I had a stronger urge to reassert my independence. “You made provisions for getting the horses home?”
“Of course.”
“I think I want to send my horse with you, but continue on with Peter, see the Rustshades and the Palm Coast. Our ships visit that area frequently enough. I can sail back with one of them. But a sea voyage that long wouldn’t be good for the horse.”
I could see my father wanted to refuse, but was restraining himself from simply saying ‘no.’
“You might want to talk to Peter first.”
* * *
The northern plains of Neph were dreary, and often overcast. The soil did not look that fertile from the anemic crops sprouting from the fields. My own strength returned as we passed into more and more verdant fields. We drew the undivided attention of everyone we passed. Peasants and petty lords came to see their king and the dragon carcass. Out of duty, Hermann had to hold court at every manor we passed. This slowed down our progress even more, but meant I was more or less my old self by the time we laid eyes on the city of Auratus. Perched on the shore of the Jadean sea, it shone brightly. White marble and gilt crowned the city, gleaming in any light available. Even the poor dwellings had pale tile rooves, though lacked gilt. Walls split city into a myriad of smaller districts, each further subdivided into neighborhoods on artificial hills. We bedded down in the outskirts, a suburb called Nacre, so that we could formally enter the city in triumph come morning.
I was pulled from my sleep by an annoying voice.
“I’ve laid out your armor, my lord.”
“You have the wrong room,” I grumbled.
“You are Kord FitzHelen von Zesrin, are you not?”
Grudgingly, I forced my eyes open. The owner of the voice was a youth with neat copper hair and bright blue eyes. His cream-colored jerkin had two rows of red buttons, and bore an enamel pin with the skewered dragon emblem of the Order of Dragonslayers.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Arnulf Polzin, Squire of the Order of Dragonslayers,” he said. “I’ve been assigned to you.”
“I don’t need a squire. I’m not a knight. I don’t even own any armor.”
“That last part is not true,” Arnulf said, “I was commanded to bring the suit from Auratus so that you can wear it during your entry to the city. I did not ask why your armor was in the city ahead of your arrival.”
“Commanded by whom?” I asked, though I suspected I already knew.
“King Hermann.”
“All right, let me finish waking up. Go wait outside.”
Arnulf left without complaint, and I went through the process of starting the day, and eating the breakfast Wendel brought me. I was much less cantankerous when I stepped into the next room where Arnulf had laid out the armor. The shine of starmetal caught my eye. There was not enough of it for a full suit, but there were key pieces made from the material. My examination of the suit was interrupted by the young squire holding up a dark orange arming doublet embroidered with pale blue thread.
“That’s hideous,” I said.
“It’s Magmahide and Ice Spider Silk,” Arnulf said, “I don’t think they take dyes. But together they keep the temperature stable.”
“I hope it doesn’t show,” I said, slipping my arms into the sleeves. As I was fastening the front of the doublet, the squire found a matching set of breeches. I was annoyed that the breeches buckled the material in close to the calf. By the time I’d adjusted them to be comfortable, Arnulf was already holding up a hauberk-length leather coat studded with overlapping, pearlescent scales. “All right, what are those?” I asked, poking the coat.
“Steelshell scales.”
I sighed. The steelshell limpet was a resident of the Jadean sea whose shell was so tough it could only be worked with diamond-tipped tools. Polished smooth, it resembled mother of pearl. The gaudy coat of scales covered most of the ugly arming doublet and breeches. The points for fastening it were down the front, but Arnulf insisted on trying to help me with them. The reason for the scale coat was obvious as I finally got a good look at the starmetal. There was about half a suit of armor there. It covered my rib cage, shoulders, and head, with vambraces and greaves to round it out. The helmet had a visor design that after a moment I realized was meant to resemble a griffin’s beak. It was angled more down than forward. Blue lenses peered out from under either side of the beak. I set the helmet aside and donned the rest. I ended up very shiny and pale. Even the gloves and boots the greaves were buckled to were white.
“Who designed this suit?” I asked, rhetorically.
“The best armorsmiths in all of Neph,” Arnulf said, “Several of them working in concert.”
I scooped the helmet off the table before I saw the squire holding up my sword belt. The jeweled hilts matched the gleaming armor, but took some adjusting to hang comfortably. While we were adjusting it, one of the servants informed us that Hermann ‘requested my presence’. I marched out to where the servant directed me, finding my uncle surrounded by his usual gaggle of attendants. His armor was steel and blue, but otherwise of the same style as the suit I wore. After a moment, I realized the scales on his coat had come from a dragon.
“I see Squire Polzin found you in time,” Hermann said.
“I don’t need a squire,” I said. Arnulf’s expression became one not unlike that of a kicked puppy. I forced myself not to notice.
“We’ll have that discussion later,” Hermann said. “We’re in danger of falling behind schedule. We need to mount up and get moving.” He turned and I followed him outside where the grooms had our horses ready. Staring at the beasts, I couldn’t tell one white charger from the other, but mounted the one Hermann bypassed. As we rode past the oversized wagon with the cinderdrake’s remains on it, I paused.
“How is it not putrefied?”
“Well,” Hermann said, “It’s just the hide stretched over a wooden frame. There’s no way an intact carcass would have survived the trip.”
We took up our place at the fore of the procession in a garden full of bronze statues and bright flowers. Spotting a few specimens I’d only seen in book illustrations, I wanted to get off my horse to check out the rest of the garden. There would be time for that later, right now I had to keep my uncle happy. Instead, I forced my gaze forward, at the gates across Diamond Boulevard. As the route connecting the seat of government at the Old Palace to the Royal Residence in Nacre, Diamond Boulevard. was the most desirable neighborhood for the rich and powerful. Instead of whole neighborhoods, each artificial hill had a miniature manor. Shallow reliefs covered the marble-clad retaining walls. Gilt bronze figures crowned the walls, intermixed with the spectators in their finery. Though the noblewomen decorated their slaves in expensive cloth, I could still tell them apart from where I sat. No noble in Auratus would wear anything that could be misconstrued as a slave collar. As such, the women had bare necks, plunging necklines, and their hair up in jeweled coiffes. It changed their profile compared to the slaves around them.
Flower petals drifted down around us, perfuming the air with their passing. I was unsure who was throwing them, and it didn’t matter. My attention went back to the women. There were more than a few pretty things among their ranks. I would be meeting them as a Royal Nephew and newly minted Dragonslayer. I could probably find more than a few who’d be happy to have my attention.
All of a sudden, I was looking forward to the reception.
I have questioned two parts of the storytelling in this chapter – whether I had insufficiently foreshadowed the cinderdrake, and whether the fight scene was too short.
I have not reached a conclusion with regards to the foreshadowing. As for the fight scene, I keep concluding that it logically fits, even if the brevity might not be as exciting.
And I am sorry that I’ve posted two stories narrated by Kord and the most use he’s gotten out of his fancy armaments is using the dagger as a night light.
Firsting on your own article is in bad form.
Shitting on articles and crying ‘first’ is bad form.
Please stop.
Excellent story, very enjoyable. I’ll have to admit I missed the foreshadowing, but that’s more likely a me problem than a you problem. I thought the short length of the fight scene made sense, because it’s a fucking DRAGON.
So the latest uproar is over a black man high on PCP who the cops put a spit hood onto. He ended up dying 7 days later. Video.
The AP’s account.
“Asphyxia” likely from aspirating his own vomit into his lungs. But count on idiots to assume that the spit hood prevented him from breathing.
I will be late reading and commenting on the story, but I am looking forward to it.
Great story.
Thank you.
You’re welcome.
Baiting a trap that becomes bait. Clever. The foreshadowing was brief, but in such close proximity to the payoff that I retrospectively recognized it.
Does Kord have an unfair advantage in drinking contests now that he has a dragon liver?
Yes.
He discovers at the reception that he doesn’t actually get drunk because the alcohol gets metabolized too fast. In the as yet incomplete story “Zombi Man” there is the line:
Cool.
Must have some wicked kidneys too unless he is unaffected carrying around several gallons of liquid?
That’s just his natural genetics though.
Give him a third kidney… that does happen…
This new Trump ad is crazy
Comments got it – Gotham City or the Purge.
Feeling an even stronger urge to buy more guns and lots of ammo.
Thats from like may or june.
That’s still plenty current.
I know i’m just seeing it being passed around like it’s new.
So, it took getting eaten by a cinderdrake to fix his attitude?
A most enjoyable tale, UCS.
Well, it was the near-death experience making him rethink things. There might have been less drastic ways to do so, but this is what happened to him.
There have been plenty of ladies that have had a life altering experience tousling with my trouser dragon too….
Making gold star lesbians I see.
That’s what every lesbian trapped in a man’s body feels is their duty, yo!
Speaking of…
Jessica “wax my balls” Yanniv has changed their name to…
Jessica Simpson.
https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1301517664465158145
“Perspective: The election will likely spark violence — and a constitutional crisis.
In every scenario except a Biden landslide, our simulation ended catastrophically.”
JFC if they win with this shit I just think the republic is over.
They have been trying for going on 4 years now to execute a soft coup. What makes you believe the republic wasn’t in peril, if not over, the second it became clear Trump had somehow won the election they thought they had rigged for crooked Hillary?
“Our model proved the result we programmed it to achieve”
They need to stop using the framework developed for the AGW modelers. Everything they model predicts catastrophe unless the marxists get their way…
Why would they need to stop when it gives them the results they want?
I just wish people would treat predictions into the far future made by computer models the same way they treat divination of goat entrails, as the two have about the same level of empiricism involved.
You might get more accurate results with the entrails these days, I hear. If my days modeling variable trust vectoring exhaust capabilities had produced the kind of models these marxists with an agenda produce these days, military aircraft would be dropping out of the skies like rain. That is, if they could get off the ground in the first place.
It’s not a model. It’s fiction that exists only in the heads of the insane. There will be violence, but it isn’t going to be coming from Trump supporters.
It’s not an either/or proposition. A model is just a fancy hypothesis. It is a fantasy, and somebody coded that fantasy into a computer and sprinkled in some randomness and fancy mathematics to give it a veneer of legitimacy.
I prefer the new version of that spec ops game where Obama people drone strike all things civilian at random. That at least happened to some extent.
What I meant to say is that there is no computer here. There’s not even the veneer of something objective. It’s just some doofuses at the Washington Post conjuring up make-believe scenarios and calling it a “simulation.” It’s all based on some fantasy in their heads of Trump being a Saturday morning cartoon villain and his supporters being cultists. Or its a massive case of projection where it’s Trump supporters who won’t accept the election results after they’ve spent four years doing just that.
Fair enough. I wasn’t able to get far enough to look at the details thanks to either a paywall or ad-blocker-blocker in WaPo.
I don’t know if this is the same event, but NPR acted as if a “war game” (in which all the participants playing the different factions were raving progs) was an actual model. They even “reported” on how vile the “Republicans” and “Trump Campaign” acted.
Maybe not, but it will be reported as being Trump supporters and/or spun so that the initiators will be not spoken of and the Trump supporters beat the “mostly peaceful” protestors for no reason.
Their rhetorical spin will only get them so far. The battle lines are already mostly drawn, and the journos picked their side generations ago. “Woe is me, the right are bullies” isn’t nearly as effective when people are burning down city blocks in the name of leftist movements.
Posturing doesn’t do much when everybody is prepping for violence. Their appeal to victimhood will fall on deaf ears when might becomes a precious commodity.
There will be violence, but it isn’t going to be
coming frominitiated by Trump supporters.Non-leftists are already organizing and preparing to respond to leftist violence. And not with gluten-free muffins and chamomile tea.
When the actual violence from the right comes, it won’t matter what the media says anymore.
I don’t think they understand that they’re playing with fire. Political violence, once unleashed, is very hard to put back into Pandora’s Box.
Ask Germany how it went for them.
And once it happens, the government will use it as an excuse to really crack down.
Vote for us, or else.
The Republic is over, rigor mortis just hasn’t set in yet.
In every scenario except a Biden landslide, our simulation ended catastrophically.”
How is that not a confession that, according to them, the Dems and the left will react “catastrophically” if Trump wins, no matter what the margin? And this is being spun as an indictment of Republicans?
Look, if you’d just let them win, they’ll leave you alone and only punish you when you misbehave.
Well, Top Man – Farhad Manjoo is on it!
I’m Doomsday Prepping for the End of Democracy Even if Trump loses, there’s no guarantee we’ll make it to the other side.
The opening paragraph raises so many questions:
First, if you think you will need to make a run for it, would you rather have an aging car, or a new one?
Second, while I applaud your reluctance to make financial commitments In These Uncertain Times, how crappy are your finances that a new car (which only needs to be new to you, not fresh off the assembly line) is an either/or decision for you w/r/t other top priorities?
The rest of it is standard-issue TDS. Of interest, in a piece on “the end of democracy in America”, he makes zero mention of the widely publicized plans by the Dems to refuse to concede the election, regardless of its outcome.
Shockingly, his Twitter bubble totally confirmed his fears and prejudices. Amazing, I know.
People want to be the protagonists in a thriller.
That’s the corollary to “Nobody is the villain in their own life story.”
I am. Well, more evil genius.
To be fair it could be a second car he’s talking about.
It’s seems that there are lots of journalists and talking heads that don’t make particularly large money. Simply cuddling up to power seems to provide riches enough.
And given the economics they espouse I’m not surprised they don’t make sound financial decisions with the resources they actually have.
I remember way back in the old days when Manjoo wrote tech articles for Slate (I think). He was a moderately talented writer that covered emerging consumer technologies.
Then he left to step up to some bigger site. But I have no idea how he ever climbed the ladder to the NY Times. I guess that’s just another indicator of how badly the Times has fallen.
Also, he can go fuck himself.
Brilliant. My favorite lines from this episode. Touching father/son scene too.
I think the foreshadowing was just right. A shadow passing over a perfectly clear sky is Definitely Something. And it made sense for the fight with the dragon to be over quickly. Even though Kord fences, he’s an inexperienced hunter, and this is a freakin’ dragon. A longer battle might have strained credulity.
I gather there is eventually to be more of this story? (Please say yes!)
The aforementioned “Zombi Man” is the next chronological story Kord narrates, though there is room between this and that for more to happen. It’s geographically far from this area, and incomplete.
Is this SF?
“AnthonyHatesMayo • 4 hours ago • edited
Remember when the media (dishonestly, but I repeat myself) mocked Bush for “My Pet Goat”? At this stage, that would be equivalent to an Advanced Thermodynamics textbook for Biden. We are living out The Emperor’s New Mental Faculties. We are maybe weeks away from Biden striding to a podium and saying:
“Donald Trunchsss eshenomic plan…” (trails off, cocks his head to one side). “Shhh! Can you hear them? The wicked produce trucks, driving North. Under cover of darkness. My dronsh will get them — Kapow!” (Digs index finger into his ear, sniffs it, eats some wax.) “Mmm … salty. Like Mama’s toffee. Hey, guys, these pants are really itching my—“ (shepherd’s crook yanks Biden off “
More,
“I’ve fallen because a pile of systemic racism was left on these stairs! But healing reparations will help me get up.” (Jill, applying six ice packs, whispering: “Joe, you’re not black. You’re a privileged white guy.”)
“Wha? Listen, honey, if Irish Lizzy can be squaw Running Mouth for 30 years, I can be Samuel Jackson in ‘Unbreakable.’ Speaking of which, bring me some Doon, Doon, what’s the? — you know, the Doon Berry comics for the ambulance ride. I love Mr. Burns.”
Heh…
The sad thing is that I expect them to invent some excuse to avoid having the guy speak in public cause if he does the shit you just posted might fall short of the shitshow we really get.
I expect the debate producers will get Joe the questions in advance, and then they’ll let Joe have “notes” to refer to. And of course the moderator will jump in to save Joe if he starts to go off the rails. There is no length they won’t go to to protect their candidate.
OT: https://thenextweb.com/in/2020/09/02/india-bans-118-chinese-apps-including-pubg/
These guys get it.
interestingly, I saw a protest poster today from 2005 with “not my president” in relation to Bush’s second inauguration.
I dunno how conspiratorial I am about this crap, but the left is nothing if not consistent.
It is only legal and legit when one of their own is in charge. And yes, especially when that guy from their team starts shitting all over the constitution an the people & their freedoms, and they cheer it on.
It’s another ratchet. Every Republican candidate is literally the worst incarnation of Hitler, until the next one comes along.
As soon as they lose or are out of office, especially when the start pandering to team blue to get screen time, they become decent and heroic. But when they are running or in power, they are dog murdering, trapped in the politics of the 80s, fascist white supremacist monsters. I often remind people that before orange man became Racist Hitler he was not only a Darling of team blue an team blue aristocracy, but had won awards and received offers for rewards from organizations ranging from the NAACP to the Epstein guy for helping Bill Clinton.
Now the man is a murderous racist that eats babies cause he threatens all the work done by the usual dnc operatives with bylines attempts to clean up and protect Obama’s legacy from the well deserved charge of being the most corrupt and criminal administration ever. And as I mentioned, he had the temerity of winning the rigged election that should have crowned the only person that could give Obama competition for that title. Something they would cheer, cause the ends always justifies the means for people that believe bipartisanship means team blue gets its way all the time.
The thing about Obama was that he was neither super corrupt nor super competent. He was run of the mill. An average politico hoisted to the Presidency by a combination of favorable factors. He was a Chicago politician, but even by that measure an unremarkable one. And that is perhaps the most damning thing that can be said of him, as far as his supporters go: he was mediocre. He didn’t bring about a post-racial era, he didn’t do his party any favors, he failed to solve any of the problems he inherited, and he carried on largely with business as usual. His signature legislative achievement, the PPACA dubbed ObamaCare, failed to live up to most of its promises (unsurprisingly and not uniquely). His lasting effect on the executive branch, which he was actually in charge of, was no more than to create a minor cult of personality. He failed to anticipate that he would have to leave some day, and he failed to set in place any lasting policy improvements, favoring instead social signals like transgender hormone treatments paid for by the military. He talked of unity but was too small minded to care about actually achieving it, and he talked of change but was too focused on perception to really change anything at all.
His lasting effect on the executive branch, which he was actually in charge of, was no more than to create a minor cult of personality.
I think you are understating his partisan weaponization of the agencies, from the IRS to the DOJ/FBI and beyond.
This
Obama’s legacy is bringing big-city machine politics to DC.
He wanted to turn the federal government into Chicago.
Presidential Election Results, District of Columbia, since the enactment of the 23rd Amendment
1964: Johnson, 85%
1968: Humphrey, 81%
1972: McGovern, 78%,
1976: Carter, 81%
1980: Carter, 75%
1984: Mondale, 85%
1988: Dukakis, 82%
1992: Clinton, 84%
1996: Clinton, 85%
2000: Gore, 85%
2004: Kerry, 89%
2008: Obama, 92%
2012: Obama, 91%
2016: Clinton, 91%
The only Republicans for President Maryland has supported since the end of WW2 have been Eisenhower and Reagan, and the latter only won Maryland in 1984 when he swept the whole country. NoVa’s leftward shift has been much more recent, but it began with Kerry and actually intensified for Clinton. The mandarin and ruling classes are overwhelmingly drawn from one party.
Obama was, for lack of a better way of putting it, too self-cocooned to have weaponized the bureaucracy. Willing left-leaning foot soldiers took up the cause on his behalf. Lois Lerner didn’t take any orders from POTUS, she did it of her own volition and nobody in her office or chain of command thought much of it.
That’s because his buddies at Diebold hacked Ohio’s voting machines. Everyone knows that.
But the USPO union backing Biden is clearly non-partisan.
Sorry, USPS
To my mind, and it has nothing to do with Biden or Trump, the APWU endorsing any candidates this year has a stronger air of impropriety than anything the Postmaster General has done so far. But the media has an agenda, so of course they pick the story that can plausibly be tied to Trump somehow even though it doesn’t make much sense (if everybody is voting by mail, then how does impeding voting by mail help one candidate and not the other? never mind that the sorting machines are for a different class of mail).
Or why it prevents votes from dropping their ballot off at the elections office or other official drop box.
Here in Ohio there’s a lawsuit to force more then one drop box per county. Because it would be too difficult to put ballots in either a mailbox, go to a polling office, early vote, or go to the election board office.
It’s like they are hoping for some type of catastrophe.
Hillary told Ryan that Trump and his allies will “cheat” and “sneak” in this election, prompting Ryan to imagine the scenario of Trump refusing to leave the White House. Inauguration Day could feature a “split-screen” showing Democrat 2020 nominee Joe Biden at the inauguration and “the military going in” to pull Trump out of the White House, Ryan imagined.
“I was just thinking he probably won’t even come to Biden’s inauguration,” Bill chimed in. “He’ll be stacking sandbags in front of the White House.”
It’s projection. They are blaming him for things they are wishing they could do, planning to do, and even doing already. Don’t take my word for it: just look at the bullshit they have been engaged in for the last 4 years.
They are preparing for when the election is conested that they can claim that he won’t leave the white house.
Throw in the nod that it is totaly ok to think about the military removing someone from office.
Assuming it were ever necessary, the Capitol Police would seem to be the right agency for the job, or the U.S. Marshals if enforcing a court order. The military just doesn’t work they way they think it does, and it really shouldn’t work that way, either.
The military just doesn’t work they way they think
Neither does the presidency. It is not like Trump can just hole up in the oval office and keep giving commands. No one would go along with that.
Pretty much. The undeclared Fourth Branch of our government, the bureaucracy, hates his guts. Even if the Republicans were to take both houses of Congress, neither the bureaucrats nor the judges are going to give Trump any credence if the Electoral College goes for Biden.
Yes. They are getting people used to the idea. They plan on contesting the election no matter the results. If they lose they will claim fraud, and if they win Trump will claim fraud. Either way it will be framed as Trump not accepting the “legitimate” results and refusing to leave the White House.
10-4-20, it begins,
The Russian health ministry mentions Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin (in combination with Hydroxychloroquine) among six drugs for treating COVID-19. Remdesivir is also on the list. Remarkable that other countries are less insane about it than the US. See page 39 here. The recommendations were updated today.
I think it is more political than insanity in the US, which to me makes it more frightening. When you are willing to kill people to get political power (increase or get it back) you have crossed a line that makes you seriously vile. Team blue has been at it since orange man won the election they rigged in favor of Crooked Hillary.
Lots of people, and I don’t mean all people who are opposed to Trump, but it is primarily a subset of those, have been throwing a 3-year-plus emotional tantrum that has been coddled by their friends, family, coworkers, and media (social, legacy, whatever). There has been no good reason for them to return to civil society, and their numbers are such that they are getting to redefine (un)civil society instead.
So…
Did Kord fail the rite? He’s got to make the kill solo, correct? Or does he get credit for the bear since the dragon isn’t a person?
I have these questions, too.
That is a topic that goes to the elders of Snaerveldi, weighing the extent of Hermann’s interference and whether Kord demonstrated the qualities the rite was meant to test.
He passes. They give him credit for the dragon because of cronyism.
It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.
Years after this incident, Kord ends up marrying Alvar’s daughter. She hasn’t been formally introduced in any of the stories yet.
Not the the first time a rite of manhood was completed with help from a bear.
OT: Something I stumbled across today
Of all the plagues that infest a nation, a civil war is the worst. Famine is severe, pestilence is dreadful; but in these, though men die, they die in peace. The father expires without the guilt of the son; and the son, if he survives, enjoys the inheritance of his father. Cities may be thinned, but they neither plundered nor burnt. But when a civil war is kindled, there is then forth no security of property nor protection from any law. Life and fortune become precarious. And all that is dear to men is at the discretion of profligate soldiery, doubly licentious on such an occasion. Cities are exhausted by heavy contributions, or sacked because they cannot answer exorbitant demand.
Countries are eaten up by the parties they favor, and ravaged by the one they oppose. Fathers and sons, sheath their swords in anothers bowels in the field, and their wives and daughters are exposed to rudeness and lust of ruffians at home. And when the sword has decided quarrel, the scene is closed with banishments, forfeitures, and barbarous executions that entail distress on children then unborn. May Heaven avert the dreadful catastrophe! In the most limited governments, what wranglings, animosities, factions, partiality, and all other evils that tend to embroil a nation and weaken a state, are constantly practised by legislators. What then may we expect if the new constitution be adopted as it now stands? The great will struggle for power, honor and wealth; the poor become a prey to avarice, insolence and oppression. And while some are studying to supplant their neighbors, and others striving to keep their stations, one villain will wink at the oppression of another, the people be fleeced, and the public business neglected. From despotism and tyranny good Lord deliver us.
This whole thing is just Stupid, my head hurts……………
It’s Antifederalist Paper #7, written by Philanthropos. Written December 6, 1787
I believe he made that statement in reference to today’s situation but I don’t read minds…
That guy just didn’t realize that revolution is required to overthrow the capitalist patriarchy.
This country has had two miracles in the form of its revolution and civil war. Neither went the way the vast majority of either go. And these pig ignorant commies want to tear that down so the next one is a plain bloodbath for years and years.
BTW, since there had been speculation as to the actual nature of the offense in the case of the pedophile victim of the Kenosha kid, here it is: he molested five children between the ages of 9 and 11.
Antifa is not sending their best.
Maybe they are.
Citation needed.
WTF do you mean? This guy is top cadre for Antifa. Their membership is not gonna be nice/decent people. It’s going to be hardcore criminals that are attracted to the idea of using disorder and violence to destroy society.
These are exactly the sort of people Lenin recruited to be his goons. They’re working off a successful playbook.
Then, as soon as the revolution was completely over, he liquidated all of them.
Lenin and the Bolsheviks basically came to power the same way Hitler did, though of course the details differ, but for some reason this is a good thing.
No way Rittenhouse doesn’t get a hung jury at least. The defense is going to have a field day.
I imagine the prosecutors are looking for a plea deal as we speak.
Not until after the election.
Rittenhouse shouldn’t even consider a plea deal, the prosecution’s got nothing while the defense has much more than just reasonable doubt.
in political prosecutions, you fight to win, not to compromise.
But if you get crushed in court, that doesn’t do much for your agenda.
That lawyer doesn’t seem like he was interested in reduced charges. Can’t imagine what those charges would be that they’ll get a conviction on, so why plea? Not unless they go all the way down to misdemeanor or juvenile charges.
If Rittenhouse is found guilty, I think that will be the flashpoint for armed citizens taking matters into their own hands to free him. It’s a bright line for many that this will have gone too far and action is needed. The 400 strong vehicle convoy that went into Portland will be nothing in comparison.
The MSM and the Left are already desperately trying to spin the narrative and shutdown the slightest suggestion that it was self-defense
Facebook Declares Kyle Rittenhouse’s Actions ‘Mass Murder,’ Won’t Allow Posts in Support
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/09/02/facebook-declares-kyle-rittenhouses-actions-a-mass-murder-wont-allow-posts-in-support/
Censorship is in, baby.
If Rittenhouse is found guilty, I think that will be the flashpoint for armed citizens taking matters into their own hands to free him.
2019 me would’ve said that we would’ve been well into armed conflict by now. It amazes me how patient people are with everything that is going on.
Because, despite what Patrick Henery says: Life is so sweet and Peace is so dear that cooler, calmer heads are much slower to descend into violence.
Intersting. Since Facebook is finding their moral grounding, will they be banning posts supporting arson, looting and mayhem?
Magic 8-ball says “looks doubtful”.
Tell me again how Facebook is just a platform, not a published exercising editorial discretion?
Unfortunately, I don’t think that rises to the level of defamation. As a statement by Facebook, its not covered by their platform immunity.
I’m not a lawyer, but if calling that kid a mass murderer isn’t defamation, it must come awfully close. If that’s acceptable, then why do the media bother to always put “alleged” in front of every accused?
They call him the shooter (which is true) and the event a mass murder (which it probably doesn’t quite qualify for, with only two dead). They don’t actually call him a mass murderer.
There’s no question he killed them, only whether he was justified in doing so.
I’m not seeing a defamation claim
But if the event was a mass murder, and the kid was the shooter, that is definitely saying he’s a mass murderer. It’s like saying the event was a sheep-fucking, and the kid was the perpetrator. Same as calling him a sheep-fucker.
if they has said “mass killing”, no question that defamation is off the table.
“mass murder” makes it ever so blurry. Is a (non political) court going to distinguish between “she’s an adultress” and “there was an act of adultery and she was on the bottom of it”? What about when, in reality, she was shagging her husband?
I don’t think they can weasel out of the name calling by detaching the name from the person by one degree. That said, I’m guessing that they walk because it’s close enough to the truth for defamation law.
They made two assertions that I think we can call facts:
(1) The Kenosha Kid was the shooter. Undeniably true.
(2) This was a mass murder. Anytime someone is intentionally shot, it is a (colloquial) murder, regardless of whether local law terms it homicide or manslaughter. If the killing was justified as self-defense, that means you can’t be convicted of it, because self-defense is an affirmative defense to the charge. Claiming self-defense means you (functionally, and maybe technically) admit that you shot someone intentionally. IOW, you “murdered” them, but were justified in doing so.
Now, I don’t think anyone is going to lose a defamation case because they called killing two people a “mass” murder, when it generally takes three dead bodies to qualify.
Or, as trashy said, close enough for journalism.
Huh. I always thought it the other way. Anytime someone dies, it’s a homicide (human was killed), but when it is a crime, is when it becomes murder.
Anyway, i think Kyle would not get any benefit of “Not being a public person” like Sandman. Sandman was literally only made famous _by_ the defamation. Kyle was in the public eye and now people are saying things about him
I thought murder was “in cold blood”.
i think Kyle would not get any benefit of “Not being a public person” like Sandman.
How was he a “public figure” before the shooting?
The definition is “a personage of great public interest or familiarity like a government official, politician, celebrity, business leader, movie star, or sports hero”.
He wasn’t, it was the shooting that made him a public figure.
I’m saying that in Sandmans case, Sandman clearly wasn’t a public figure ever, until someone went and defamed him.
Interesting point.
I’m not sure if the public figure status has to attach before the event that you are defamed about, or whether that event can make you a public figure.
Let’s say you interfere with a fly ball that costs a team the World Series, and some reporter writes an article claiming “that guy who cost a team the World Series is a convicted pedophile” because you have the same name as a convicted pedophile. Do you have to meet the Sullivan “reckless disregard or actual malice” standard to win your case?
Ok, once again, “publisher exercising editorial discretion” is not a meaningful legal distinction.
However, they have engaged in speech of their own here, for which they may be liable.
I know, kbo. That’s a category that doesn’t exist for platforms under current law.
However, that law provides immunity from claims that publishers are otherwise exposed to, even when what they are publishing is letters to the editor.
I think the CDA needs to be revisited. It makes no sense to me that a newspaper exercising tight control over what is on its website can be sued for a defamatory video put together by a third party, but a social media company exercising tight control over its website cannot.
I think too much attention is paid to “social networks” and not enough attention is paid to infrastructure and financial services. If CloudFlare or PayPal want you gone, they have a lot more power than Facebook or Reddit to take you off the Internet.
Also, I don’t think this distinction exists for dead-tree legacy media, either. They do face stricter scrutiny than online platforms, since the CDA is specific to “interactive computer services” and thus doesn’t apply to traditional published media, but this is true regardless of whether or how they exercise editorial discretion.
I think “editorial discretion” is baked into legacy media. Nothing gets published without the approval of the legacy media company. There is no such thing as a legacy media company that doesn’t exercise editorial discretion over everything it publishes. Online comment sections blur this distinction, true.
In the olden days, much went up on these platforms with zero oversight from the platform, which meant there was a good reason for not holding them to the same standard as legacy media.
I think that is no longer true.
If anything, the dream of the CDA has been realized today more so than then. Major platforms now exercise “good faith” (ha!) discretion over content, which the CDA explicitly allows them to do. Remember, CDA means “Communications Decency Act”; there is a safe harbor for user-generated content but there is also a safe harbor for platform censorship. I doubt Tipper Gore and her like in their day realized who would be setting the standards of decency by 2020 but this is essentially what they wanted.
That is consistent with a news report here in Tucson that I watched early this week (since it all happened here). Oddly, although a number of the other stories on that broadcast were made available online, that one was not.
DC police release video of deadly encounter after protests
I’ll wait for more information before casting judgement. But I will say that holding* a gun should not be a death sentence. Idk what happened prior and I did not see the guy raise the gun.
*They say brandishing in the video.
If I have cops running at me, I would put my gun on the ground and my empty hands in the air. That’s just me, doesn’t mean the cops should have shot him – but I don’t want to be shot so I’ll go with the higher percentage play.
In the Gulf War, we dropped all these leaflets on Iraqis telling them how to surrender – unload your weapons and hold them upside down over your head while walking towards us. What they all did was toss their AKs in a ditch, put their underwear on a stick and come in with their hands up. A pain in the ass because we had to go find the AKs ourselves if we wanted to play with them.
Hehe.
Not a lot else to do in an empty desert – God’s shooting range. Can’t shoot our own ammo or throw our own grenades because we signed for them.
Can confirm.
I made the same argument yesterday I’ll make here. Regardless of what levels of force people think are appropriate when a cop orders someone to stop when they are in possession of a firearm, it’s been pretty much impossible to get convictions in these sorts of cases. Unless there’s another angle, you have the cops account. The suspect is told not to move but ignores the order and is shot (pretty quickly in this case). You aren’t going to get convictions in these sorts of cases.
If you are armed, running from the cops and/or ignoring commands is a pretty bad idea. In this instance, why was he holding his gun in the first place? The cop is going to call that brandishing.
I’d point to the shooting of Philando Castile. Ended in no convictions because the jury had no clear video of what was going on inside the car and the cop claimed he saw the weapon. That was enough for the cop to walk. These cases today and yesterday? Yea, good luck getting a conviction.
It’s hard to see exactly from the video, but I think it was more than just holding the gun, given where it was found. The guy flung the gun about 40 feet (directly over the head of the cop) as he tried to escape. I’m guessing the flinging motion looked an awful lot like raising the weapon, and it’s not entirely clear to me whether he was trying to get rid of the gun or whether he was trying to shoot the cop, but let go when he was shot.
The screenshot used is from a split second before he flung the gun toward (above) the cop who shot him.
It’s not particularly uncommon for assholes to shoot over their shoulders while running away. Sort of a low-rent break contact drill.
This guy was facing the cop, and launched the gun directly over his head.
My guess is that the cop got the drop on him, he instinctively ran and slung the gun, and it just happened that the cop had gotten so much of a drop on him that he unfortunately threw the gun right at the cop.
He did a whole windup behind the back and executed a pretty impressive 3/4 underhand throw. I wouldn’t be surprised if the barrel actually painted the cop before he let go of it, but the frame rate on the video isn’t enough to confirm that suspicion and the cop’s forearm gets in the way at the last moment.
Yeah, no conviction on that one. The situation escalated in about three seconds flat and if you/me/anybody brings a weapon around towards the direction of a cop, they’re going to get shot.
If he had put the gun in his pants and run, it would have been a different situation.
if you/me/anybody brings a weapon around towards the direction of
a copan armed citizen, they’re going to they shouldn’t complain if they get shot.See, also, the Kenosha Kid’s third target.
Of course Facebook has decided that the Kenosh kid is a mass murderer (they actually used that term) and are actively deleting any posts that not only express support for him, but that present objective facts that might put him in a favorable light.
I would put my gun on the ground and my empty hands in the air.
Me too. Even though a guy got killed for something similar recently. But he was white so fuck him.
In encounters with law enforcement for the sake of all parties it is best to acquiesce and accept you are under arrest if you are under arrest. Then you get your due process.
If you are armed, running from the cops and/or ignoring commands is a pretty bad idea. In this instance, why was he holding his gun in the first place? The cop is going to call that brandishing.
All valid.
The guy flung the gun about 40 feet (directly over the head of the cop) as he tried to escape.
I didn’t catch that. Bad move.
In encounters with law enforcement for the sake of all parties it is best to acquiesce and accept you are under arrest if you are under arrest. Then you get your due process.
“We don’t run – it’s not dignified!” – Junior Soprano
Bill Barr comes off the top rope on Wolf! Now do NJ and NY!
FBI agents raid two Pennsylvania nursing homes – including one where 400 people tested positive for COVID-19 and 73 residents died
I’d much rather he arrest Comey.
He’s got a lot of people in need of prosecution.
I suspect the nursing home will take the fall and not Wolf or Levine.
To Big to Fail is a way of life for politicians.
Vigilante justice is still justice, right?
https://twitter.com/lporiginalg/status/1301548982309511170
Brazillllll…
Buttle or Tuttle?
Mr. Buttle’s Arrest
Excellent.
I have all kinds of things saved up in my head for when I get into political debates. One of those things is, “If property destruction doesn’t count as aggression, then what exactly was wrong with the KKK burning down black churches?”
I’m quite curious to see what the response would be.
They probably had insurance, so should have.
Interesting update on the debates. One of my confident predictions (well, another one) bites the dust:
I was sure that Biden’s handlers would make demands that Trump couldn’t agree, as a way to weasel out of the debates.
Actually, that makes two of my confident predictions: I didn’t think there would be debates at all. I’m guessing Biden’s handlers concluded not debating would be fatal to their campaign, and so the least bad option was to put him on the stage and hope for the best.
I actually think that Biden is in more control of things than we like to let on. He’s still mentally decaying, but i think the reason why Hillary says “Under no circumstance should Joe Concede” is because the DNC is worried that thats what Joe will do if he looses.
I’m actually looking forward to the second debate. I’ve been a fan of Steve Scully and CSPAN for decades. Stve has always been a neutral arbiter as host of Washington Journal.
Scully always was the cooler headed more rational of the two.
I had no idea the Ginger Minge was a limey until I saw her on Top Gear. She is one of those actors who have mastered some of the American accents.
She’s only partially limey…American by birth – born here, lived in London for most of her early childhood, then the family moved back here when she was 11 but she still went back to London for her summers. She says she speaks in whichever accent depending on where she is – ie, she sounds English when in England and American when in America, and that it’s just her natural way of speaking and not something she consciously does.
Billy Barr slaps Wolf around like the bitch he is.
That was excellent.
Wolf almost let slip..at one point he started to say in rebuttal at the 2min mark “There have been a lot of us…” then corrects himself to “Several states….”
I wonder what his thought was going to be.
The one consistent thing about Barr is his concern for the reputation of the institutions.
Hence why no one important can be thrown in prison. It might show that you were really running a criminal enterprise.
Yes
He won’t do anything that would cause a loss of confidence in the DOJ/FBI by the public at large.
He’s in a real bind. There’s a lot (I hope) of people who will lose confidence if he doesn’t string up some big names.
But, he won’t.
Like with the debates, I hope this prediction is also proven wrong.
I think you’ll be right on Barr.
I’ll believe he’s serious when I see big names getting whacked.
The most surefire way for an institution to lose the public’s confidence is covering up for and not addressing issues that will cause a loss of confidence. It’s better to just bite the bullet and clean house because only fools and shills trust the DOJ as it stands now.
^^^this right here is what Barr needs to say in his preamble
Oh, Kaleigh.
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany played footage of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the shuttered San Francisco salon on loop Thursday, as she said the House speaker “ought to apologize” to Americans.
“Nancy Pelosi was not in the halls of Congress when I asked where she was, she was not working in good faith to make a deal for the American people,” McEnany said during a White House briefing. “Nope, Nancy Pelosi was found in San Francisco, at a hair salon, where she was indoors, even though salons in California are only open for outdoor service.”
LOfuckingL!
Sure you don’t mean ‘excellent’?
Why hasn’t this litteral Fascist statue been taken down?! This is Trumps America
A Dictator!
One day there will be a statue of Nancy Pelosi who was given the presidency temporarily and stepped down for Joe Biden once crisis past.
Nice work UCS.
Thank you.
So I just this article from BBC, touting an upcoming episode of Star Trek: Discovery as breaking new ground by introducing the first “non-binary” character in franchise history. Didn’t ST:TNG have an episode where Riker fell in love with a non-binary character?
Huh. I thought Data was the only binary character.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Bynar
There’s a been a couple of multi-sexual characters over the years. Usually presented with more forethought than just “We need a tranny to stay current.”
ST has done a lot of weird over the years, which is kindof the point. But the characters were better than the current sjw crop. Additionally they have done strong female characters. ‘Member when Janeway was liked for being competent and not for the sex parts between her legs?
Competent? Only if you interpret her actions as those of the series’ main villain.
I guess the symbionts don’t count.
Kind of. They were a mono/nongendered race IIRC.
Well, Minuet wasn’t really a distinct living being and was a holodeck creation of them so I don’t think you can say she wasn’t a Bynar character.
If other media is anything to go by, “non-binary character” means somebody everybody else has to refer to as “they” or “them” as though it’s totally natural to speak of individual human beings that way in English, and absolutely nothing else of any consequence.
ZOMG!! I cant EVEN BELIEVE that you just claimed that ANDROGYNOUS is the same thing as NON-BINARY!!11 YOU NZAI!!!
*contacts l0b0t’s employer, demands his termination*
https://twitter.com/LVL1776/status/1301580187574980610
Huh. Twitter Big Brain clearly points out that the Draft isn’t coercive because you don’t have to register for it.
That led to a stupider thread about the Electoral College wherein somebody just repeatedly pronounces all arguments against national popular vote as weak and bad over and over again, as if repetition makes a point truer.
And, of course, the one person who points out that there is a way to fix the EC without radically altering the structure of national elections, by increasing the number of representatives in the House, is ignored.
Right below a post on how Muhammad Ali was sentenced to five years in prison for not registering.
The dipshit literally said “That was the draft, not selective service”.
That was for the Draft, totally different than what I had to do, Why did I sign for selective service again……………………
You don’t have to register but good luck getting any services from the Government.. its similar to you dont have to give your SSN to the credit card company but you won’t be their client.
Or if you don’t want a process crime hanging over your head….it is the law like responding to a census is the law
It looks like the criminal penalties for not registering are still on the books, as well.
There’s a 5-year statute of limitations, and you can register in arrears up until you’re 26, so you just have to accept that from 18-31 you’re technically a criminal and a change in administrative priorities could put you in jail, but other than that…
One of the more… peculiar… arguments i had was with a professor. IIRC she was talking about how society/government keep women down and Abortion being men trying to control womens bodies. Someone mentioned the draft only including men and she said “Yeah and only women can get pregnant”.
I guess her argument was that for society to propagate some women have to be willing to have kids. Likewise then All men need to have to be put in jepordy of being turned into a slave against their will…
Also i’m realizing that by telling this story i’m dating myself to having been out of college for _at least_ 5 years because the whole “Only Women can get pregnant” would be verboten now.
Let me know when men can have financial abortions…
She’s a real bright one.
https://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_f88840ed8c7f076c6185aad6c0061bf9
Gosh, if only CNN was allowed to run polls that do meet its standards.
I’ve never seen a good explanation for why polls routinely oversample registered Democrats by like 10 points.
IMO, Dems are 1) more likely to demsplain how righteous they are to anyone who’ll listen, 2) more likely to have nothing better to do than respond to a poll. Furthermore, Rs may be paranoid, and with reason. I don’t have time AND I’m paranoid AND I don’t want to talk to people. I also don’t want to be annoyed by shittily-worded questions.
I’ve been called twice by pollsters and had one text message. I hung up on the pollsters and deleted the text message.
Because only rich people own phones.
Wait that was Republicans and Truman/Dewey. Nevermind.
It’s curious to me how determined they are to push these polls. They tried the same thing in ’16 and it resulted in a loss. If I were in the bag for Biden, I’d want to emphasize how tight the race was and how important it was to get out to vote. But they seem to care more about just the idea of thumbing their noses at Trump every news cycle and the polls are just another way to do that.
A lot of people want comfort now that Drumpfenfurrer won’t be re-elected. I saw a whole twitter thread of people throwing a stink at Nate Silver because he used the trafalger groups polls, and that they increased the chances of Trump winning from 28 to 30%. As if 1) Nates Model is causing the effect of trump having a chance at winning, rather than the other way around, and 2) that that is a big deal.
There were many who straight up said “I use the Economists model, because it gives me more comfort”.
Now look i don’t know the values of each of these models, but i do know that choosing one over the other because you like the results better…. You know what actually that sounds like a perfect example of the “statistical” and “scientific” thinking our public schools have been churning out.
I think the magical thinking that a model actually creates real-world results is definitely in play, on a lot of fronts.
So… we’re going to need to round up quite a bit of people to kill them of the COVID to match the models, right?
I worked at a place where we helped Homeless shelters get their data/reports in order so that seperate areas would line up (i.e in one spot they had a family of 5 recorded, in another they had that same faimly recorded as 3). we would often joke about going around and setting peoples homes on fire to make reality match the numbers.
I’m thinking that if I were to build a model, it would be hard for me to come up with a scenario where an incumbent president running for re-election was a large underdog. We just don’t have any data that suggests that.
Which isn’t to say he should be _favored_, but the model has to really have a huge effect for incumbents running for re-election.
Trump that meet CNN standards.
That over-sample registered Democrats 2:1?
All these political strategists getting paid big bucks. I can tell you the secret to winning an election. Get the most Electoral votes.
Buy low, sell high.
It’s better to just bite the bullet and clean house because only fools and shills trust the DOJ as it stands now.
Now do the CDC.
https://twitter.com/ReaganBattalion/status/1301299394952736771
Huh, but i thought He already had the stunning endorsement of the lead Jew Hater Richard Spencer.
I think the magical thinking that a model actually creates real-world results is definitely in play, on a lot of fronts.
The model induces reality. Everybody knows that.
The model is the cause, reality is the effect
It’s more fun to be surprised. For instance I was surprised when Trump won the first time and laughed out loud (in my gf’s face because she was freaking out and it was hilarious…) because of the absurdity.
I couldn’t stop laguhing. I had resigned myself to Hillary winning, and was going to ignore the election. But curiosity got the better of me and i checked – and saw that he was leading in florida.
Then he was leading in Pen and Michigan. I knew it was over then. Every model already had California and such counting towards Hillary, there was no big area she could try to save.
The links are late! The links are LATE! I can’t First under these conditions!