About The Author

Banjos

Banjos

Wife of sloopy, mother to three bright, curious, and highly active young girls. Perpetually exhausted.

363 Comments

  1. UnCivilServant

    Morning, Banjos.

    Hope ya’ll are feeling less stressed than I am this morning.

    It’s all work stress. *goes back to perusing job listings*

    • waffles

      I need to get from the perusing stage to the actively applying and professionally stalking potential employers stage. Good luck with your stress. You got this.

      • DEG

        Yes. Stalk employers.

        I have an interview later today.

    • PieInTheSky

      how very much lacking in protestant work ethic of you.

      • R.J.

        Indeed. I am torn up by mine, knowing I should GTFO. A sewer has greener pastures than my current role.

      • AlexinCT

        As I tell everybody: It is called a job and not fun because there is a difference. Some people get lucky and find jobs that are fun . Most of us work jobs we don’t like, or even hate, cause we have bills to pay. You can choose to live at a standard where income no longer matters, but then you also give up a ton of shit. Don’t lose that perspective.

      • Tres Cool

        Tres Sr. would always say “you should hate your job. Otherwise, coming home each night wouldnt be fun”

      • hayeksplosives

        Why are my panties wet??

      • Tres Cool

        My VTX pic, duh.

      • Aloysious

        I like the Jeff Beck and Billy Gibbons version.

        I ignore the propaganda attached by the video uploader/creator.

      • The coolest vaccine-free BEAM in the world™

        Huh. That guy can sing almost as low as me (three B’s below middle C, bitches!).

        TBF, his voice, particularly at the low end, is much better modulated and “shaped” than mine is. I assume he has training (I don’t).

      • waffles

        I freakin love this song.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I once had a meeting with a youngster to talk about their underperformance and he blurted out that my expectations “made it not fun to work here”.

        I told him that if his job was fun, I could charge him to do it. The reason we paid him was because it wasn’t by definition “fun”.

        The kid got fired a few months later, so my inspirational skills must be lacking.

      • AlexinCT

        Some people never get that distinction between jobs and fun time, your holiness….

        Working a job is an effort in finding the balance between tolerable discomfort in return for an commensurate income.

      • waffles

        Those talkin tos helped me, but the effect would wear off every couple of months.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Some people can handle talking to’s. Others can’t.

        In high school we had a kid who would curl up in the fetal position if the coach ever went after him (I think it was because he was an only child). So instead of yelling at him the coach would yell at me (or this other kid) for whatever transgression Only Child had made. Since me and the other kid got yelled at all the time it was like water off a duck’s back, but Only Child would hear it and could process it because it wasn’t aimed at him.

        I never even realized what was going on (because I never listened to that coach much) until years later when a brighter team mate pointed out what was happening.

      • Brawndo

        There’s something wrong with me where if someone is yelling at me, I start to laugh. I don’t mean to and I don’t find anything funny about the situation. I guess it’s good I never joined the army.

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        Oh, you hate your job? Why didn’t you say so?
        There’s a support group for that. It’s called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.
        Drew Carey

      • CPRM

        Mimi is from Wausau, WI. A city about 45 miles west of me. Willem DeFoe is from Appleton, a city about 45 SE of me. Tony Schaluub is from Green Bay, a city about 45 miles east of me. That’s all we got, except the Packers.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Huh! Don’t forget Chris Farley.

        Shalhoub?

      • CPRM

        Shalhoub?

        Whatever that guy from Wings name is.

        Farley is from Madison. As much as I would like to claim him, that ain’t my Neck-O-the-Woods.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Oh, soary.

      • DEG

        A boss at a previous job once asked me, “Are you having fun?”

        I said, “No. This is work. This is why you pay me.”

        He said something along the lines of, “Well, you spend a lot of time at work, so you should at least like it.”

        I said, “I’ve worked shitty jobs. This is better than the alternative. Sometimes there are interesting problems to solve. I like the folks on the team. But if there was any ‘fun’ to my job, that wore off many, many years ago.”

        He didn’t have a response to that.

      • waffles

        I am deeply suspicious of people who use fun to describe their job. Although I did have fun as a ski instructor I was paid accordingly.

      • DEG

        At a previous job, I worked with several people that I think would have paid admission in order to do their job.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        But if there was any ‘fun’ to my job, that wore off many, many years ago.

        The best advice my dad gave me was along those lines. He said “after a decade, a job is a job. It doesn’t matter if it was fun at first, it’s still a job. Find something that pays well and allows you to enjoy life in the off hours.”

      • ignoreLander

        Very similar to what my dad told me. I’ll always remember verbatim when he said “A job is something you do to pay for your real life”.

      • Akira

        As I tell everybody: It is called a job and not fun because there is a difference. Some people get lucky and find jobs that are fun . Most of us work jobs we don’t like, or even hate, cause we have bills to pay.

        Kids are constantly told “do what you love” and “go to college”. Personally, I think this poison combination of bad advice has greatly contributed to kids going to college for some kind of arts/crafts degree and ending up working at Starbucks with six figures of debt. They end up focusing on something that is probably best left as a hobby or side hustle, then get a degree for it (when you can do it without the degree just as easily).

        Maybe the advice should be “make a list of lucrative, in-demand occupations, then pick one that you think you could do”.

      • AlexinCT

        I had this conversation not just with my own kid, but with some of his friends back when I coached his baseball team. I had several parents come thank me for talking some sense into their kids going off to college. They had tried, but they simply couldn’t deprogram the bullshit the kids were fed in school. I actually had a kid that told me he was going to borrow upwards of $150K to go get a history degree at some Ivy League school and hated his parents (his parents told him they wouldn’t pay unless he studied something with an employment future), because he loved studying history (the kid didn’t know shit about history but felt it was an easy subject he could basically slack and cruise doing while having fun). I simply asked him to tell me what job he would do after he graduated. He said being a history teacher was not a bad deal cause he got summers off. I told him he also would have to compete with a ton of other slackers with that degree (some with better connections) and that he would be making peanuts and never own a decent car, let alone a house, while paying of that debt. He decided to study accounting after he finally did some research and he actually caused a ruckus at school cause he called his advisor a bitch for not informing him of the problems with “do what you love” nonsense…

        The sad fact is I suspect most of the class of students that graduated with my kid all fell for that bullshit though, so there was no real great moment in my endeavors to deprogram the stupid kids’ heads are filled with.

      • Fourscore

        My Wife and I got little to no counseling. In my case it made little difference but Mrs F was led down a path that was insurmountable for her. Had to go back and get a second degree that paid money and allowed her to use her skills. Fortunately there were no loans involved but the time element was expensive.

  2. Count Potato

    “The audit released Friday afternoon through painstakingly technical testimony concluded the final count of votes in the state’s largest county of Maricopa showing President Joe Biden won Arizona was accurate, but it also included tens of thousands of ballots that were suspect and require more investigation.

    The more than 50,000 ballots flagged by auditors for more investigation involved concerns ranging from people voting from addresses from which they had already moved to residents voting twice. The total in question was nearly five times the 10,400 vote margin that separated the two presidential candidates, giving Donald Trump’s troops fresh reason to call for more scrutiny.”

    So it’s going to be Recount Vs. Audit, both sides will go full retard, and nothing will happen.

    • AlexinCT

      This is all for show right now, because the people involved are playing us. Unless there will be clear changes to make our election system transparent and easily auditable – something neither party will do – we are always going to be at the mercy of the top men and how they want elections to turn out.

  3. robodruid

    Good Morning All.
    Why stop at trillions in spending.

    • UnCivilServant

      Because I want my dollars to retain more value than the bytes they’re recorded on.

      • robodruid

        you….you…you racist you.

    • waffles

      Because no one really knows what comes after a trillion.

      • AlexinCT

        You buy your own island and import a bunch of high quality comfort ladies to take care of business?

      • Mojeaux

        You mean children?

        Epstein didn’t kill himself, yanno.

      • AlexinCT

        Touché madam!

        Bien joué!

      • invisible finger

        Dennis Frederiksen went on to sing lead for Toto after leaving Trillion.

  4. waffles

    Hate crime hoaxes are the predictable outcome of hate crime laws and regulations. Vandalism is a crime. Calling it a hate crime just incentivizes vandalism to the worst sort of people.

    • Count Potato

      It’s that there isn’t enough real racism to support the grievance industry.

      • waffles

        Would the grievance industry exist without subsidies?

      • Count Potato

        Yes, there is plenty of money in private donations, speaking fees, seminars, book sales, etc.

      • kbolino

        Those are just subsidized by a more circuitous path.

      • juris imprudent

        The sad fate of the buggy whip manufacturer looms on the horizon. You too must do your part to keep hate alive!

      • Drake

        The demand for Nazis always exceeds the supply.

    • Rat on a train

      Hate crime hoaxes occur because demand has outstripped supply. How else are we going to get a conversation on hate started?

      • waffles

        Hmmm…I guess this is where free markets kind of lose me. Just because there is demand for racism is it necessary that the market provides it? Looking at Ibram X Kendi et al it clearly is possible to monetize racism. Is this a market failure or a market success?

      • UnCivilServant

        There is no incentive to be the kind of racist the grifters need for their grift, so the grifters turn hoaxers to keep their funds flowing.

      • waffles

        Damn, the iron laws strike again. Something something incentives. Something something you get more of what you reward and less of what you punish. The only people incentivized to do hate crimes are the grifters. Wild.

      • Brawndo

        I remember seeing a story about students etching swastikas into their desks at a high school. I can only imagine the pearl clutching that would occur if those journalismists went to my high school

      • Akira

        Haha, my friends and I had this game in school where we would try to draw swastikas on each other’s papers without the victim noticing and let them turn it in. The worst that ever happened was getting told, “Knock it off, you jackasses”. I almost feel guilty for being such a shitheel in class because at least my teachers knew the difference between racism with violent intent and teenage boys acting like idiots for fun.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        I saw many a swastika* carved into desks and seat backs. “Ugh, those Spicoli types,” I thought, as I did about all such graffiti.

        *iOS pretends not to know the term ?

    • Zwak, jack off, all trades

      The breakfast clown gets it.

  5. Ghostpatzer

    Mornin’ Banjos. Today’s tune brings back fond memories of days gone by. Thanks!

  6. Count Potato

    “Over the weekend, a judge forced federal prosecutors to release surveillance footage of the happenings on January 6th, and despite claiming the video would endanger national security, what was shown was far from an “insurrection.” Instead, unidentified men in black systematically entered and opened the doors for perplexed protesters to walk through, at which point they mingled and took pictures. The video did not show a violent rush as part of an organized attempt to overthrow the government.”

    Just like the dozens of banned videos.

  7. Ted S.

    FBI admits to having informants at January 6th protest.

    A licky boom boom down.

    • WTF

      They misspelled “agitators”.

    • slumbrew

      Damn you fur that earworm, Ted

      • slumbrew

        *for

    • MikeS

      Even without a link you spread your evilness.

  8. Count Potato

    Is John Durham capable of eating soup? Does he have to tilt his head back in order to eat?

    • WTF

      The beard holds leftovers for a snack later on.

  9. Count Potato

    It looks like Rose McGowan is going to commit suicide.

    “@HillaryClinton
    You are a shadow leader in service of evil. You are the enemy of what is good, right and moral. You represent no flag, no country, no soul. You eat hope, you twist minds. I’ve been in a hotel room with your husband and here comes the bomb.”

    https://twitter.com/rosemcgowan/status/1433654286160957441

    • waffles

      I’ve got to admit. “You eat hope, you twist minds” has a certain poetic simplicity to it. Rose did not kill herself.

      • Drake

        Has she been lurking here and reading Sugarfree?

      • waffles

        You know, I had that same thought. Possible.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      I’ve been in a hotel room with your husband and here comes the bomb

      “His penis is bent! For all definitions of ‘is’!”

    • Tres Cool

      Bill C.- “would you like to meet my ‘executive branch’ ” ?

      • AlexinCT

        Please comment on my presidential staff…

    • The Last American Hero

      *fistbumps Bill Clinton*

      “You sly dog, still got it.”

  10. R C Dean

    There will be few if any more indictments, for one simple reason: the statute of limitations is running out. They barely got the Sussmann indictment in under the wire.

    • WTF

      …the statute of limitations is running out.

      Aw, shucks, they just missed getting the real culprits! Oh well, nothing to be done now!

    • AlexinCT

      That’s precisely why they got Sussman. He will be the fall guy, admit the Clintons & Obamas were behind that racket, but none of them will face any charges and the republicans can then politic on exposing the crooks (all while doing it in a way that allowed both the Obama admin people and Hillary Clinton to avoid making me license plates like they should have). The machine protects itself.

  11. DEG

    Mornin’ Banjos.

    “September 30th is a date fraught with meaning,” Pelosi began. “This week, we must pass a Continuing Resolution, Build Back Better Act and the BIF.”

    Go fuck yourself.

    In a conference call Thursday with analysts, Costco Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti called freight costs “permanent inflationary items” and said those increases are combining with things that are “somewhat permanent” to drive up pressure. They include not only freight but also higher labor costs, rising demand for transportation and products, plus shortages in computer chips, oils and chemicals and higher commodity prices.

    Money machine go BRRRRR!!!!!!

    Brnovich immediately seized the opportunity, announcing his office’s election integrity unit would review the questionable ballots to determine if further action was warranted.

    I expect he won’t be able to prove a thing.

    Left unsaid: Whether or not the Legislature acts to tweak things.

    More indictments from United States Attorney John Durham are likely on the way, said Kash Patel, former top Trump administration national security official, during a recent episode of Kash’s Corner on Epoch Times TV published Friday.

    I’m still expecting nothing much to happen.

    The specific provision gives military courts the authority to prohibit gun possession via protective orders in two ways: 1. By giving the subject of the order an “opportunity to be heard on the order.” 2. By issuing the order ex parte.

    Note the Red Flag provision is for the military only; however, I expect it will be the foot in the door for a wider Red Flag law unless this provision is killed.

    • AlexinCT

      Why is everything with team blue about giving themselves more power over the serfs and collecting more tax payer lucre to steal and piss away?

      I am being facetious asking this. I know what the reasons are. As I always point out: team blue is truly a crime syndicate.

      Team red is the party of the half-assed lying snake oil salesman that makes a ton of promises to fix the problems created by government but never does anything other than complain.

    • Rat on a train

      Note the Red Flag provision is for the military only; however, I expect it will be the foot in the door for a wider Red Flag law unless this provision is killed.
      “Gun violence is a public health risk.” We’ve seen how far they can push that rationale.

    • Count Potato

      Feelings don’t care about facts.

      • Rat on a train

        Some people prefer truth over facts.

      • AlexinCT

        That’s why we will cancel & silence people providing the facts that contradict the feelings we want you to have…

        /top men.

    • waffles

      Weaponized emotions does it for me. I read somewhere that people who rely on feelings didn’t used to have much power until social media allowed them to band together and throw their weight behind emotional policy pushing. Plausible.

      • kbolino

        Social media is 10 years older than its allegedly transformative effects. It may be an accelerant, but it’s not the match.

      • The coolest vaccine-free BEAM in the world™

        Network effects. They need a certain critical mass of connected nodes to start making a real difference.

  12. Rat on a train

    A shaman is responsible for at least one California fire

    Souverneva’s LinkedIn profile, which features a photo of a forest, lists her occupation as “shaman,” a religious term for a person who believes themselves connected to the transcendent world and acts as a healer and diviner. She’s registered to vote as a member of the Green Party.

    • PieInTheSky

      Is climate change responsible for an increase in the number of shamans? Because this is what could be increasing fires.

      • AlexinCT

        What came first? The cult or its priesthood?

      • juris imprudent

        The prophet creates the cult.

      • AlexinCT

        Hegel or Marx?

    • SDF-7

      More likely than not the equivalent of the racial false flag events. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this was a “See what Climate Change has done! Blaaarrrgh!” idea.

      • AlexinCT

        It’s another false flag operation, Gaia wasn’t doing enough scary shit to frighten the unbelievers into compliance, so she was helping move both the unbelievers and the prophesized doom along….

  13. Jerms

    I dont remember Meatloaf being that fat or that ugly. Damn.

    • Tres Cool

      Why do you think Mike Aday changed his name ?

  14. Q Continuum

    “In a conference call Thursday with analysts, Costco Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti called freight costs “permanent inflationary items” and said those increases are combining with things that are “somewhat permanent” to drive up pressure. They include not only freight but also higher labor costs, rising demand for transportation and products, plus shortages in computer chips, oils and chemicals and higher commodity prices.”

    I realize that this is a culmination of decades of shitty financial and monetary decisions by FedGov, but it is remarkable how Biden was able to spark the conflagration in eight short months.

    • Sean

      Is it really because of a bumbling fool and his lackeys? Or is it a coordinated effort to erase the middle class?

      • Q Continuum

        Does it matter? The end result is the same.

      • AlexinCT

        A totalitarian world government can only have two classes/casts: top men, and the rest. The middle class is a concept that interferes with that vision/ambition by our top men, so it must be done away with. The effort to do so in the US has been the most troubling cause the middle class has refused to let the powers that be just gut it and turn its members into a mass of equally suffering serfs. That has made the powers that be very eager and has had them double down on the effort to dissolve the middle class.

      • juris imprudent

        The trouble is California only exported it’s middle class, it didn’t erase it. Otherwise, you’ve really hit the nail on the head there. Since those folks now live elsewhere, expressing their preference with their feet – I don’t think it likely they are just going to go along, peacefully.

      • AlexinCT

        That problem will solve itself as a great majority of those that moved bring the very politics that destroy the middle class with them wherever they go, and then afflict that on the people there. Kind of like a plague.

      • juris imprudent

        Some do. I certainly didn’t. I’d like to think that for once I might be in the majority.

      • The Last American Hero

        When did the middle class stand up to anybody? All I see are masks, and vax passports in my little corner of the country.

      • kbolino

        There are two conflicting definitions of middle class. One of them is mostly synonymous with working class, i.e. those who derive their income almost exclusively from wages paid for their labor, and the other is mostly synonymous with professional managerial class, i.e. those who derive their income almost exclusively from advancement up the status hierarchy of offices. While not exactly the same as the blue collar-white collar distinction, it’s not far off, either.

        The status-managerial “middle class” is far more likely to submit than the labor-working “middle class” though the latter may be cowed by the former with the threat of unemployment and thus potential bankruptcy and destitution.

      • Count Potato

        Why not both? Also, Biden wasn’t President during the lockdowns.

      • Raven Nation

        True that. People across the political spectrum embraced their inner totalitarian.

        “The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule,” Mencken.

    • The Last American Hero

      Gas is up 20% in my areas since Biden was elected. Those shipping costs were bound to increase.

    • Akira

      plus shortages in computer chips

      Just as an aside, this is why the “gadgetry for gadgetry’s sake” on every product from cars to toilets annoys me. If a chip malfunction will make the entire thing useless, what happens when there’s a global chip shortage?

  15. Q Continuum

    Mammary Monday would like to talk to you about your long-distance service.

    https://archive.li/YIHYC

    #4 is a rare combination of busty and GlibFit.

    PS: Why do they do the numbers sometimes and not others? Annoying.

    • Dr. Fronkensteen

      Don’t know don’t really care. Just sign me up for team redhead.

    • DEG

      I suspect the Chive is using some sort of script for the numbers. I went to the site, and I see the numbers come up as I move my mouse around, but inconsistently. It looks like the intent is to have them pop up when you mouse over a picture, and then go away afterwards. That doesn’t always happen.

      The gallery is good, but there are too many face diapers.

  16. SDF-7

    Yes, COVID will exist. So does the flu — we don’t have to make a big hairy deal about it.

    Part of me feels really sorry for the Australians, who I suspect didn’t see things coming to this extent. A bigger part of me worries half our bloody country is eagerly taking notes.

    • PieInTheSky

      Lockdowns forever baby

      • Sean

        Boosters and masks for everyone!!!!!

      • Raven Nation

        That is depressing. Our trip down under has been further pushed off into an unknown future.

        Also, Morrison is head of the, technically more “conservative” party.

      • juris imprudent

        I now look back fondly on my trip to NZ, knowing how unlikely it is I’ll ever see the place again.

  17. PieInTheSky

    Infections, hospitalisations, and deaths averted via a nationwide vaccination campaign using the Pfizer–BioNTech BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine in Israel: a retrospective surveillance study

    https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00566-1/fulltext

    We estimated that Israel’s vaccination campaign averted 158 665 (95% CI 144 640–172 690) SARS-CoV-2 infections, 24 597 (18 942–30 252) hospitalisations, 17 432 (12 770–22 094) severe or critical hospitalisations, and 5532 (3085–7982) deaths. 16 213 (65·9%) of 24 597 hospitalisations and 5035 (91·0%) of 5532 of deaths averted were estimated to be among those aged 65 years and older. We estimated 116 000 (73·1%) SARS-CoV-2 infections, 19 467 (79·1%) COVID-19-related hospitalisations, and 4351 (79%) deaths averted were accounted for by the fully vaccinated population.

    The vaccination programme started at the same time as a large wave of SARS-CoV-2 infections that resulted in a nationwide lockdown a week after the vaccination programme began, on Dec 27, 2020, with additional lockdown restrictions being implemented on Jan 8, 2021. Daily infections increased during this time, peaking at more than 10 000 on Jan 20, 2021. Phased easing of lockdown restrictions started on Feb 7, 2021, with the lifting of restrictions on local travel and the reopening of some workplaces, restaurants for take-away orders, and parks. On Feb 11, 2021, schools reopened for children in first through fourth grade (aged 6–9 years). Schools reopened for grades five, six, eleven, and twelve (children aged 10–11 years and 16–17 years) on Feb 21, 2021, and for grades seven through ten (children aged 12–15 years) on March 7, 2021, when the lockdown was lifted. Since the lifting of lockdown restrictions, rates of SARS-CoV-2 infections have generally remained low, with fewer than 150 new infections per day observed for the period April 23 to June 23, 2021; however, an increase in cases was observed starting on June 24, 2021, aligning with the introduction of the delta (B.1.617.2) variant of concern to the country

    Now this study stops april 10th. I wonder how it would do with the latest wave which was quite severe and when most people were vaccinated. Delta probably

    • Ted S.

      Considering that there were about 6000 coronavirus deaths (by their standards) at the time the vaccination campaign ramped up, I highly doubt it prevented anywhere near that many deaths.

  18. Tundra

    Good morning, Banjos!

    Nothing like a little Monday morning Meatloaf.

    Much easier to take than the news. I can’t decide if knowing what’s happening out there is a good or a bad thing.

    These appear to be the “interesting times” we’ve heard so much about.

  19. Brawndo

    Regarding inflation and how our currency has collapsed yet. I’ve not seen many people make this point so maybe I’m wrong… But the dollar hasn’t collapsed after this much abuse because of the threat of our military. I’ve seen speculation that the real reason Gaddafi was offed was because he wanted to move to the gold standard for Libya.

    • UnCivilServant

      There isn’t enough gold to back a currency anymore.

      There are simply too many people needing to conduct transactions.

      • Brawndo

        How so? You don’t have to be using the physical gold for a currency to be gold backed

      • UnCivilServant

        You would at least need sufficient value in gold in your reserves to cover the currency in circulation. There is not enough for even a small currency to do that.

      • robc

        False.

        Backed at what value?

        We have more atoms of gold available than dollars (or cents) of currency needed, so at some value we can back our currency with gold.

        1 mol of gold would back 6.02E21 dollars at the lowest backing level of one atom per cent. We have well more than 1 mol of gold available.

      • UnCivilServant

        Then each unit of your currency is only work the value of one atom, which is so small as to be worthless in transaction until you’ve got “We should lop off some zeroes” quantities of units of currency.

        Or are you saying “we’re only going to back 1/6.02E21th of a unit per unit”? which is just as pointless.

      • robc

        I was being absurd pointing out that backing is always possible physically. We don’t have too little gold. We can’t go back to backing a gold standard dollar at $35 per ounce, but we could back at $2000 per ounce. Yes, we don’t have that much physical gold AT THIS TIME if everyone wanted to convert, but that isnt what happens anyway as people don’t want to physically hoard gold. Over time, we could build back up a physical gold backing.

        Or, do as I said below, and do it via open banking — let the banks issue the currency and be responsible for backing as they see fit.

      • UnCivilServant

        According to the World Gold Council, we’ve mined 197,576 metric tons of gold of which almost half has been made into jewelery.

        If you managed to confiscate all of it to back the currency at 2000 units/troy ounce you could back 12 trillion units of currency. If you could confiscate the non-jewelery holdings worldwide, you could back 6 trillion units of currency.

      • AlexinCT

        I propose we go find one of those gold asteroids and pull it into earth orbit to solve the supply problem…

        Of course, if you believe the ancient astronaut theory peddlers, humanity was created by aliens mining gold to do the dirrty work, and if they had to resort to that, I am sure they already grabbed all the asteroids made of gold….

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      That and he wanted to sell oil and various petro stuff for other than US dollars (rubles maybe?). The US has an absolute fit when countries start trying to do that.

    • AlexinCT

      According to their logic, the currency will not collapse. Their intent is to devalue the currency so the trillions in debt they currently have are no longer as big of a burden on their ability to keep spending by borrowing and printing more money, so when the debt has been reduced to a much smaller percentage of GDP when the dollar is worth 20 – 30 times less and GDP magically stays the same or even grows under government 5 year plans (something that has never worked, but they believe they will get to work), then they will be able to keep printing, borrowing, & spending, cause that’s the bread & circuses needed to keep the serfs subservient and compliant with the globalist agenda.

      • Brawndo

        “if you owe the bank a million dollars, you have a problem. If you owe the bank 100 million dollars, the bank has a problem.”

    • juris imprudent

      I really hate gold fetishists. Keep your kinks in the bedroom people.

      • robc

        I am an open banking fetishist.

        I want banks to issue currency and I don’t care what they choose to back it with, Gold, Platinum, Silver, Spyders, whatever.

        I like the idea of an SPY backed currency, call them Spydie bucks. Your currency will increase in value over time, in most cases.

      • EvilSheldon

        At our last extended family dinner, my little brother posed the idea of a digital currency backed by McDonalds Big Macs.

        It’s not the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.

      • juris imprudent

        A currency doesn’t require any ‘backing’ other than the agreement to use it. Once it loses that, you can’t back it with anything.

  20. Stinky Wizzleteats

    “The FBI Admits to Having Informants at January 6th Protest”
    In other news, water is wet.

    • SDF-7

      Probably opening doors no less…

  21. PieInTheSky

    I am not sold on inflation yet it may seem to start and then collapse if the economy tanks.

    • Sensei

      When you are done with that why not Full Metal Alchemist.

      • PieInTheSky

        live action Full Metal Alchemist? Is it any good?

      • UnCivilServant

        I mean after two anime series why do live action?

      • Sensei

        For the Yen.

        FMA number 1 was made when the manga was half done so it has a unique ending.

        FMA number 2 basically follows the manga.

        Was surprised the author is a woman.

    • CPRM

      Where is Ed?

      • waffles

        Enby erasure in 2021 smh my damn head.

      • CPRM

        “Ed — everybody wants to know about Ed!” Nemec says. “People will be… very delighted when they watch the season.”

        The people behind Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop have said previously that the hacker known as Ed (full name Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV) will be in the series. But with the main cast revealed there’s still no Ed anywhere to be seen, nor any news about casting.

        Ed is Ein? Is that gonna be their big ‘twist’? Sounds like something so stupid they’ll do it.

      • UnCivilServant

        I predict it’ll be a black dude the size of a linebacker. Bonus points if he was actually a linebacker.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I didn’t see any gayz in that trailer. Or maybe that is old hat now and the new hotness is trans.

        So doesn’t matter what race Ed is as long as he/she is trans.

        * I know nothing about this series. I just know that all series now require a good representation of gay characters.

      • CPRM

        According to reports they made a character that got man-tits from pharmaceutical side effects into a full on trans, so they got that covered.

      • Pope Jimbo

        That seems problematic. Like being trans is a bad side effect, instead of being a glorious choice.

      • Ownbestenemy

        I read somewhere…can’t remember where is that they are struggling with if they are going to identify Ed’s gender as in the start as a cat-like boy, or when redefined later as a girl or at the end where it is nebulous ..figures.

      • waffles

        Ed is a girl…

        Also Ed is a completely nonsexualized character. Ugh, I have some serious reservations about this series. I don’t want to watch it. I love the original too much, bastards.

  22. Pope Jimbo

    Well I now know why the NoDak boys weren’t at the Honey Harvest. They were too busy sabotaging Western NoDak’s star: The Flying Farmer! Those Eastern NoDaks can get real touchy when those rubes out west start putting on airs.

    The first car jumping attempt in five years by North Dakota’s version of Evel Knievel ended in disaster when the car driven by the man known as the “Flying Farmer” corkscrewed off the ramp and rolled.

    Authorities said John Smith, 57, was alert after the crash Saturday at a rural gravel pit in western North Dakota and that he even tried to pull himself out of the car while talking to rescuers.

    He was eventually cut out and taken by a medical helicopter to a hospital, according to firefighters. The extent of his injuries wasn’t known.

    What a waste of a perfectly good Chevy Caprice.

    • AlexinCT

      Someone needs to make backseat romping in old cars a spectator sport?

      • SDF-7

        There ain’t no doubt about it, they were doubly blessed.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      “For us young people I think it’s good to pass the virus because we’ll build immunity. I don’t see it as something bad.”
      Somebody lock this guy up before he gets millions killed!!!

  23. robc

    I was hoping for sloopy links this morning. I wanted some Ryder Cup commentary. Also his thoughts on the EPL. On the latter, with a win today Brighton (and Hove, don’t forget Hove) take over 1st place outright. We all had that 6 games in, right?

    • Certified Public Asshat

      What about that Justin Fields performance?

      • robc

        The NFL still exists?

      • hayeksplosives

        They seemed to have rebounded from 2020 Covid insanity.
        I thoroughly enjoyed Siciliano on red zone yesterday.

      • Ted S.

        His ears turn you on, don’t they?

      • Certified Public Asshat

        I didn’t watch anything yesterday, but when I found out Justin Tucker’s field goal was longer than the yardage the Justin Field’s Bears offense gained in total yards, I smiled.

      • Nephilium

        What about that Justin Fields Myles Garrett performance?

        Fixed that for ya.

  24. robc

    Baseball birthdays: Mike Schmidt. No one else worth mentioning in same post. Okay, okay, Whit Wyatt and Jon Garland. See?

    • creech

      Schmidty shows up to give tv color analysis at Phillies games on the weekend. His remarks about the hitting techniques of current (largely clueless) batters is priceless.

    • MikeS

      Love that guy

    • MikeS
  25. Sensei

    It’s NYC turn to deal with royal castouts.

    Japan’s Princess Mako to give up one-off payment in controversial marriage

    I just heard this last night talking to my friend. Princess Mako is generally well liked, but the general public has been entirely unenthused with her choice of husband. Their initial wedding plans were delayed by a large family debt from the fiance’s side and how on the up and up the debt was.

    • AlexinCT

      Wasn’t this the plot of that Wolverine movie when he went to Japan?

    • Urthona

      I think it’s cool that she’s named after a shark.

      • AlexinCT

        I have a thing for girls that have nicknames related to vacuum cleaners…

        Of course I make sure to verify they earned it for a skill other than hoovering up the contents of your wallet, if you know what I mean…

      • Urthona

        I know exactly what you mean. Carpet cleaning.

      • Sensei

        Your language trivia is that many Japanese female first names end in “ko” and the character 子.

        It’s the character for “child”.

      • Ted S.

        Not to be confused with 劫.

      • Sensei

        コウ, ゴウ, キョウ
        おびやかす
        threat, long ages

        That’s “ko” with a prolonged “o” sound at the end. My kanji aren’t that great so I had to look that one up.

      • Ted S.

        I’m a go player, so I know the term ok, which as I understand it, came from a Japanese word for eternity since it’s a position where players could just keep capturing back and forth in the same place forever without a special rule to prevent that.

    • Tres Cool

      “Japan’s Princess Mako to give up one-off payment in controversial marriage”

      Hold on, Im looking for at least 1 fuck to give. No disrespect, but I havent found one yet.

  26. hayeksplosives

    Listening to Eminem “Lose Yourself “

    I pick up another aspect every time I hear it. I don’t even like rap in general but that mother fukka is a genius.

    • CPRM

      He’s not my cup of tea. I find his rhyming style simplistic. To me it sounds more like a laundry list of rhyming words rather than any kind of flow to get me hooked and he usually rhymes pretty slow, I like a fast beat.

      • hayeksplosives

        Eh, to each his own.

  27. Pine_Tree

    Any of y’all taking quinine, or something quinine-ish? Either proactively or since you have The Covid? If so, what dosage are you using?

    I’ve been taking C, D3, Zn, and Quercetin daily (no ‘rona yet), and the “herbal” quinine pills that Mrs. Tree ordered came in over the weekend. It’s in 500mg capsules, and says it’s red cinchona bark, with recommended dose of 2. As you can tell from my introductory questions, I haven’t tried very hard to study up on this, and y’all are a better source than anything else out there… Thx.

    • Urthona

      Sometimes I drink beer.

      I’m vaccinated though so the covid virus will bounce harmlessly off me thanks to the power of science.

      • Pine_Tree

        Yeah but I’m unvaxxed, and since you replied to one of my posts you’re probably infected now. I think that’s the way it works.

      • Urthona

        Oh snap. Well I choose raspberry as my ventilator flavor.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Sorry, all we have is grape (the worst flavor) and burnt popcorn.

    • robc

      Google Zelenko protocol. Somewhere amongst the garbage links you should find his recommended regime based on risk level.

      • Pine_Tree

        will do. thx

    • hayeksplosives

      Does Tanqueray and tonic count?

      • Urthona

        I hope so

    • Pope Jimbo

      I’ve been taking C, D3, Zn, and Quercetin daily (no ‘rona yet)

      That is exactly what the wife and I have been taking too. And we haven’t gotten the Rona yet either. That seems like a big enough study to publish!

      • AlexinCT

        You have not convinced her yet that you should be giving her her daily dose of COVID protection by hot beef injection?

        How the mighty have fallen….

      • Pope Jimbo

        Her masking requirements are too onerous.

        And now she says booster shots are only required every six months.

      • AlexinCT

        Birthdays & anniversaries? That’s one of the reasons I am not attached by extralegal means these days…

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Watch the dosage on the quercetin. I believe the prophylactic recommendation is 250mg daily. I think it can be hard on the kidneys.

  28. Pope Jimbo

    Minnesoda is so jelly. We got the dumb Somali refugees and Wisconsin lucked out with the Afghanis. What a gyp.

    Even the Minnesoda Somalis agree

    The congresswomen, both Democrats, also rebuked criticism of refugee vetting made by Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, of Oshkosh, who said the base was a national security concern after two Afghan men were charged in federal court for separate incidents of alleged assault and sexual abuse of children.

    “I know there are a lot of people who are fearmongering for political reasons, but these are probably the safest neighbors we can have in our communities,” Omar said.

    I wonder if anyone would have tried to prevent the Congresswomen from taking pictures?

    • Pope Jimbo

      It isn’t like there are no problems on that base though. They have grievances:

      In addition to the need for trauma-based treatment, the evacuees suggested more emphasis on cultural competency when it comes to the traditions of the Afghan evacuees, such as providing food that aligns with their beliefs.

      Nothing irks me more than reading about refugees bitching about how they are being treated here. If I was HLIC (Head Libertarian In Charge), one peep of complaint and they’d be on the next plane back.

      • Urthona

        It really important we give them those shitty ass “Afghan” blankets my grandma used to have. Part of their culture.

      • AlexinCT

        Did you expect Afghanis that wanted to leave that shithole to be any better than our spoiled brats here in the US after 20 years of occupation and State Department policy to export wokeness?

  29. The Late P Brooks

    That and he wanted to sell oil and various petro stuff for other than US dollars (rubles maybe?). The US has an absolute fit when countries start trying to do that.

    Yeah, my recollection is that he was trying to undermine the petrodollar standard.

    Strictly verboten.

    • juris imprudent

      Nixon’s deal with the Saudis. Aren’t we ever so grateful for that?

  30. The Late P Brooks

    y’all are a better source than anything else out there…

    That seems to happen a lot.

    So weird.

    • Urthona

      Indeed. Just let me know what shit you need. I’ll talk to my dealer.

  31. Evan from Evansville

    Such a strange comment from my mom the other day. Broken bones came up for some reason. Don’t remember why. I’ve broken at least 29 and probably closer to 40. Hard to count some of them. I mentioned my replaced hips and said that they were cut off and they also had to shave some part of my pelvis and I wasn’t sure how to count that. I didn’t mention the three screws that needed to be drilled through each hip/pelvis for the titanium to be grafted/take hold.

    Then she went really weird (I was not at all upset by this, but it just struck me and wish I had said something out loud, mostly for comedic effect) : “Oh, your hips. Well, you didn’t really *break* those.”

    Um…uh…what? That’s like telling a Civil War soldier that “He didn’t REALLY break his arm, it was just amputated!” I’m quite baffled by that. They were already crushing under my weight before the surgery and then I had to go through the recovery and learning how to walk again. And in Korea I was tied to the bed for two weeks. Such a strange thing for her to say/think.

    • hayeksplosives

      Maybe she can’t mentally accept what happened to you?

      Also I’m convinced you now have temporal lobe epilepsy (as do I) which lends itself to hypergraphia and wonderful creativity. Embrace the crazy!!

      • Evan from Evansville

        I’m guessing more that she can’t mentally ‘escape’ what happened to me, but your point is equally as likely (and overlapping).

        I was thrilled to play drums in front of a live audience last week. That was a fun jam. Glad I have the audio. Still got it, even without practice. Very rewarding.

        I’ve certainly ’embraced the crazy,’ but not in a healthy way. I predict that my life won’t end well and it’s all my doing. Hopefully I can outlive my parents. No way I’m outliving my older bro, barring a bizarre and tragic accident. I should be seeing a psych. The one’s I previously saw here weren’t very helpful. I’m probably one of the few who would actually benefit from being put into an insane asylum. I think I’m in deep and obvious trouble and I mostly just go over it again and again and have been unable/unwilling to help myself. The ex still puts a lot of effort into helping me and I just ignore it or rebel against it. I’m no good for people, and especially for myself.

        I probably shouldn’t be typing this. Not trying for a ‘call for help’ now, but it is something I should bring up to the glibs sometime in the future. For now, I need to focus on getting much-needed rest and gear up for the day tomorrow.

        Thank you and everyone so much for everything.

  32. Evan from Evansville

    Thankfully the day is over. Monday’s are always the worst and I didn’t help myself out. But it ended on a mostly solid point, though I’m angry/upset with myself. Debating if I go into that later. I am sorry that nearly all of you just started the day. Hopefully, it goes as well as it possibly can.

  33. The Late P Brooks

    We estimated that Israel’s vaccination campaign averted 158 665 (95% CI 144 640–172 690) SARS-CoV-2 infections, 24 597 (18 942–30 252) hospitalisations, 17 432 (12 770–22 094) severe or critical hospitalisations, and 5532 (3085–7982) deaths. 16 213 (65·9%) of 24 597 hospitalisations and 5035 (91·0%) of 5532 of deaths averted were estimated to be among those aged 65 years and older. We estimated 116 000 (73·1%) SARS-CoV-2 infections, 19 467 (79·1%) COVID-19-related hospitalisations, and 4351 (79%) deaths averted were accounted for by the fully vaccinated population.

    According to my model, we saved the world.

    Piss off.

    • hayeksplosives

      I estimate that they are full of self serving shit.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Our cherrypicked analysis of dubious data says we did the right thing.

    • Rat on a train

      4,351 lives saved or created?

    • creech

      When all this chicomvirus theater is over (if it ever is), there will be claims that it saved “millions and millions” of American lives. And there will be no way to prove it didn’t.
      Things that never happened are impossible to quantify.

  34. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Morning all. Hope your day is going well already.

  35. Pope Jimbo

    Good enough for govt work. After “fixing” a bridge in St. Paul accidents skyrocketed by a factor of four. The fix? A new electronic messageboard that tells motorists where to go.

    MnDOT rebuilt the bridge over the Mississippi River connecting St. Paul with the city’s West Side and the southeastern suburbs between 2012 and 2015 to replace a deteriorating structure. Before the new bridge, MnDOT records showed 73 crashes on the segment between Plato Boulevard and the I-94/7th Street interchange. That compares with 290 in 2017-2018, two years after the new bridge opened.

    “That is a big increase,” Barnes said. “The design out there needs some tweaking.”

    Bottlenecks develop at almost all hours of the day as motorists zooming along at 55 miles per hour suddenly have to slam on the brakes and cross one or two lanes to make their exit. The result has been a big jump in wrecks. Most of the crashes are fender-benders, but some result in more serious damage, Barnes said.

    Why do I suspect any private company that did something that resulted in such a bad outcome would be getting sued by users and investigated by Brother Keith the AG?

    Of course no one at the DOT has lost their job over this.

    • AlexinCT

      The benefit of government work is that you can always make the tax payers liable for any costs.

      I suspect that is why so many people are enamored with the idea of making government solve all wordily problems…

    • Rat on a train

      A traffic circle will fix the problem.

  36. The Late P Brooks

    Maybe they should try teaching them how to read, and add and subtract

    As Democrats push ahead with President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion rebuilding plan, they’re promising historic investments across the arc of an education — from early childhood to college and beyond — in what advocates describe as the most comprehensive package of its kind in decades.

    The education provisions in Biden’s “Build Back Better” proposal would serve as a bedrock for schooling opportunities for countless Americans and test the nation’s willingness to expand federal programs in far-reaching ways.

    Equity is a focus, as it seeks to remove barriers to education that for decades have resulted in wage and learning disparities based on race and income. And by expanding early education and child care programs, it aims to bring back workers, especially women, who left jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic to look after children whose schools were closed.

    Every previous “improvement” of education has worked so well.

    • hayeksplosives

      they’re promising historic investments across the arc of an education

      Du fuq?

      • JaimeRoberto (shama/lama/ding dong)

        Arcs generally trend downward, so it’s an appropriate description.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Both the Altar Boys took their first college loans out this year. Could have paid cash, but I’d hate to be chumped by Biden when he waves his executive scepter and “forgives” a bunch of college loan debt.

      • AlexinCT

        No worries that the Altar boys will be labeled white-adjacent and be denied this benefit?…

      • Pope Jimbo

        Yeah, it doesn’t help that their other half-breed is Asian. That is nearly as bad as being one of (((them))) when it comes to victimhood. You might edge out a white guy, but barely.

    • AlexinCT

      One could make the argument that the most obvious and blatant sign of any systemic racist system in the US is the public school system and its mandate students keep attending failing school systems, and be 100% accurate on that call. But for some reason the people that see systemic racism anywhere else where there is some kind of meritocratic hurdle they dislike, never, ever, bring this subject of true systemic racism up. I have often proposed that the most viable & just form of reparations would be to kill the public school monopoly, provide parents with the money spent on the pupils, and allow them to choose where their kids go to school. It wouldn’t fix things immediately, but in 5 years, the problem would be gone (barring interference from the people that profit from creating inequality). Note that this form of reparations would not be racially based, denying those that argue for or against race based system their talking points, while solving the biggest determinant in an individual’s ability to create a set of skills that would make them marketable to employers.

      That’s precisely why I suspect the people decrying systemic racism will never, ever let this happen. Their racket isn’t about fixing any problems, but fucking the rest of us over for as long as they can.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Let’s be honest. Having dollars follow the students would be much, much better for most kids, but some kids are going to get really, really fucked.

        Some parents are going to enroll their kids in schools that simply kick back a portion of that tuition to the parents and provide absolute shitty education to any kid who does show up.

        That said, it doesn’t mean that the best option should be tossed because a small amount of kids will be fucked over by their horrible parents. It just means that we should be honest about the real world results.

      • Urthona

        I don’t think that will happen all that much, but I doubt it would make much difference. It’s not like current schools are anything more than day cares.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I don’t think it would happen much at all either. BUT it would happen and the MSM would pounce on that story as proof that parents are too dumb to be trusted with such an important choice.

      • Akira

        the MSM would pounce on that story as proof that parents are too dumb to be trusted with such an important choice.

        I’ve already encountered that line when I object to total government control over any and all K-12 curricula.

        There are winners and losers to every single policy. They’re choosing to focus on the hypothetical group of losers if we changed to a school voucher or totally privatized system; they’re ignoring the generations of kids who have experienced the broken promise of a good education from government.

        And studies show that parental involvement is already the single biggest factor in kids’ academic success, so even if some parents will cheap out and handicap their kids with a crappy education, it’s not clear that this wouldn’t happen anyway right now.

      • AlexinCT

        You would have to have a school that really, really was a disaster to match the ineptitude and degeneracy of these public schools currently serving the minority communities. People that are into rackets will doom their kids. That’s not necessarily a good thing, but they at least chose to fuck their kid’s future up…

    • The Other Kevin

      Great, let’s throw good money after bad and keep propping up a failed system. Unless we actually try something different we’re going to get the same shitty results.

  37. hayeksplosives

    Most underrated bands:

    Fastball
    Semi sonic

    Others?

    • PieInTheSky

      never heard of either

      • PieInTheSky

        so they may very well be underrated . then again I never heard of three quarters of the bands linked here

      • Urthona

        That’s why they’re underrated and not just rated.

    • Tundra

      Trip Shakespeare
      Del Fuegos
      Gear Daddies
      Hoodoo Gurus
      Yo La Tengo
      Teenage Fanclub
      Son Volt

      • Urthona

        Quit stringing random words together. I’m on to you.

      • Tundra

        Oh, I can do this all day.

        Dramarama
        Mission of Burma
        Gang of Four
        Ned’s Atomic Dustbin
        Superchunk
        Redd Kross
        The Jesus and Mary Chain

      • EvilSheldon

        I don’t know if Son Volt was underrated, or just a little ahead of their time.

    • CPRM

      Collective Soul.

    • EvilSheldon

      A lot of the post-grunge alternative bands never got their due credit.

    • ignoreLander

      Fig Dish

      • B.P.

        Holy shit. I was in a band with one of those guys.

        For underrated bands of a similar name, I’ll go with The Figgs.

      • ignoreLander

        I’ll go with The Figgs.

        Also a very good band….

        That’s What Love Songs Often Do is somewhere in my top 10 albums of all time; never understood how they never got bigger than they were.

    • JaimeRoberto (shama/lama/ding dong)

      Afghan Whigs.

  38. Count Potato

    “For those keeping track at home, both the New Yorker and the New York Times are debating and soft endorsing terror acts against national pipelines in the name of climate.”

    https://twitter.com/redsteeze/status/1442168596122116096

    Well, they’re not sacred like government buildings.

    • PieInTheSky

      It is for a good cause that makes it right,

    • Urthona

      Nothing says green like destroying the cleanest, safest, and most efficient method of transporting fuel.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Beat me to it.

        Also, pipelines are only bad when they break.

    • Drake

      There are a bunch of pipelines going into NYC. Why not green the place up by destroying those?

      • kbolino

        You don’t wage class warfare against your own class

      • Rat on a train

        The stuff they need magically appears or comes from rooftop gardens.

    • AlexinCT

      Bitch ass cuck….

    • PieInTheSky

      I’m about 3.5 inches erect […] , since I had 13 to 15 sex partners before we were married

      a) 13 to 15? you don’t know?
      b) impressive getting to double digits with 3.5 inches

      • UnCivilServant

        Well, the uncertainty and high number would be accounted for if he let a bunch of gay dudes run a train on him and lost count.

      • AlexinCT

        In some cases the partner made him the bitch, so he is unsure if that counts…

    • juris imprudent

      OK I changed my mind, bring on the gold fetishists.

      • waffles

        LOL

    • Pope Jimbo

      Way to bury the lede!

      From a letter below:

      Dear How to Do it,

      My husband of 15-plus years told me about his cuck/hot-wife fantasy a few years ago. I was into it. Our sex life has always been great and full of experimentation. So after we talked about it a lot, I started flirting around on some apps. (I of course was always upfront about being married.) I almost went on an IRL date, but canceled just prior when my potential date revealed he’d voted for Trump and I just couldn’t deal with that.

      What has happened to our country when voting for Trump gets you kicked off Hot Wife Island?

      • Urthona

        I clearly am in the wrong type of marriage. I’m not even allowed to date other people. So restrictive.

    • Urthona

      You know what’s even more pathetic than having a 3 inch dick and letting your wife screw someone else?

      Reading Slate.

      • EvilSheldon

        Boom.

      • JaimeRoberto (shama/lama/ding dong)

        The Venn diagram for all three is probably a circle.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    All told, Americans would be entitled to two years of free preschool plus two years of free community college. Millions of families would be eligible for expanded child care subsidies. And there would be more federal financial aid for low-income college students.

    “We haven’t done anything like that in my memory,” said Jessica Thompson, associate vice president of the Institute for College Access and Success, an education nonprofit. “It’s the dream.”

    You get what you pay for. There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

    They should put that in the curriculum.

    • Spartacus

      The answer to all our problems is to make college more like high school.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    There’s also criticism that the bill fails to deliver some of Biden’s promises, particularly to Black Americans and other key voting groups that helped deliver him to the White House.

    In previous proposals, Biden called for at least $45 billion to support research at historically Black colleges and universities. The bill includes just $2 billion for that purpose, though, prompting pushback from HBCU leaders who issued a letter on Wednesday requesting “several more billions of dollars.”

    Tensions have mounted over the issue in recent weeks, with some Democrats in the Congressional Black Caucus threatening to withhold support from the bill unless more funding is added.

    What’s a few trillion between friends?

  41. The Late P Brooks

    Nothing says green like destroying the cleanest, safest, and most efficient method of transporting fuel.

    Leave it in the ground. That’s the smartest thing to do.

    • Urthona

      Indeed. This is why I support wind turbines and solar panels made with matter replicators.

  42. kinnath

    It was long ago and it was far away
    And it was so much better that it is today

    Thanks, Banjos

  43. The Other Kevin

    We had our first hockey tournament this weekend in Indianapolis. It was fun, we went 2-1 only because the St. Louis team couldn’t get B team players so they brought 3 A team players. That was still a fun game though.

    My teammates from Chicago were a little taken aback by the lack of mandates. No masks were required anywhere. Life went on as normal.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Which A Team player was missing? Please say it wasn’t BA Baracus!

      Of course, since they beat you I’m going to assume that Face(off)man Peck did make it.

  44. Pope Jimbo

    This weekend the Big Tech news feeds kept trying to tell me how much farmers love Biden, like that was supposed to make me think that the infrastructure bill was good?

    Fuck, when has any farmer ever seen a taxpayer dollar that they thought was bad?

    Former President Donald Trump sent billions in federal aid in a bid to win over America’s farmers — but now they’re all for President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure package, in hopes it will mean fixing roads and bridges critical to the delivery of food to the rest of the nation.

    Yeah, I’m sure if there were another election today the farmers would all be pulling the lever for Biden. I bet that they are so in love with Biden that they will be pulling down all those Trump signs that are still up in their farms.

    • Urthona

      That’s totally why they like it. It fixes bridges and roads critical to feeding this poor starving nation.

      Where the poor starving people — oddly — happen to also have the highest caloric intake of any people in human history.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Fuck the Poors in our country are probably the fattest cohort we have. Of course that is because they all live in food deserts where white racists prevent them from getting fresh produce.

      • PieInTheSky

        the live on dessert foods I think you mean

      • juris imprudent

        Kale dude, fresh kale.

      • Urthona

        That’s the joke!

    • AlexinCT

      There is no news from the traditional sources anymore your holiness. Today all you have is psyops trying to assign you your beliefs, and those beliefs are that the people working the hardest towards the globalist movement’s goals (which means no Trump) are the good guys…

  45. The Late P Brooks

    Today, in bait-and-switch journalisming

    The green metal roof on Mary Bradshaw’s house gleams amid scorched earth and dead, blackened trees. All of the surrounding homes burned in last year’s Beachie Creek Fire in Oregon’s Santiam Canyon, but hers was untouched.

    “We were shocked,” Bradshaw said. “Having seen what the fire did, we really didn’t expect it to be standing.”

    It’s a shining example of how home hardening measures can prevent houses from burning, even when they’re surrounded by fire. Bradshaw and her husband built their home with concrete siding, a cement porch, no gutters or air vents on the metal roof, and no vegetation near the house. Those are all key fire-proofing measures experts recommend.

    “We built it with fire in mind, although we never thought we would have a fire,” Bradshaw said.

    Oregon leaders are hoping some of these measures will help save homes from burning in future wildfires as summers in the West get hotter, drier and more fire-prone. But they have been the most controversial part of a sweeping new wildfire protection plan, facing pushback from property owners, and homebuilding and agricultural industries.

    \What kind of cretinous yahoo would object to using fire resistant materials?

    But wait. There’s more:

    Fire risk maps will have the biggest influence over which areas will see the strictest fire-safe building codes for new construction, Golden said. There will also be requirements for clearing out flammable material around homes.

    A key sticking point will come down to defining the so-called wildland-urban interface, where residential areas meet forests and rangelands. It’s the fastest-growing land use type and that, along with the warmer climate, is raising wildfire risk for communities across the country.

    “We are looking for a balance between letting people do exactly what they want on their private property and responding to this existential threat,” Golden said.

    During the legislative session, critics from real estate, construction and agricultural industries again sounded alarms. They worried broad restrictions would increase costs for property owners, home builders and farmers and infringe on private property rights.

    “If Senator Golden thinks for a minute I’m going to cut down the 200-year-old, 200-foot-tall, old growth ponderosa pine in my yard he is mistaken,” Oregon Sen. Betsy Johnson said on a radio show. “I’m just not sure I want unseen, unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats dictating the future of the state of Oregon and how we all are going to live on our own property.”

    And, of course, the stupid capitalists are only concerned with their profits. There’s no reason to dig into what those “increased costs” might actually be.

    • Rat on a train

      I hear pavement is less prone to fire than plants. Put up parking lots around all buildings!

    • CPRM

      Clear out that brush! But don’t burn it! You might start a fire! You must use a licensed removal service, run by my nephew.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Fire season restrictions went from no chainsaws between 1pm and 8pm and don’t drive off-road and no burn piles to variable restrictions involving all gas powered or spark producing tools, no tractors or atvs off road, and generally discouraging people from keeping their properties clear during the summer or recreating outside.

      • juris imprudent

        Great fucking plan – don’t clear that dead brush because you might start a fire.

      • Gustave Lytton

        The idea is clear everything before the season, but nature doesn’t stop for man. Leaves and needles fall. So do branches. Vegetation continues to grow and some of it dries out.

    • R C Dean

      along with the warmer climate, is raising wildfire risk for communities across the country.

      Of. Course.

      And the fact that wildfires are actually down is, well, not mentioned.

      • Ownbestenemy

        This one too

        as summers in the West get hotter, drier and more fire-prone

        But hey, we can write whatever we want because we found a study that said so and that means we are just reporting the news.

      • R C Dean

        Haven’t checked, but Tucson has had either the all time wettest monsoon, or the second all time wettest monsoon, after yesterday’s rain.

        Why, its almost like some years are dry, and some years are wet. Huh.

      • PutridMeat

        And not to get all OG Keynesian, but maybe in wet times, make sure you have storage capacity to save up some of that for the dry times.

      • juris imprudent

        NO! Every year must be perfectly average. Any deviation is proof of our sin.

      • R C Dean

        Unfortunately, the big reservoirs (Mead, Powell, Havasu) haven’t been getting the water.

        Ten years ago when I lived in central TX, we were having a bad drought. Not as bad as the 30s and 50s, but pretty bad. We were down to 18 months of water in our reservoirs. And if the reservoirs ran out, there wasn’t a Plan B.

        And then, bang, 7 inches of rain in two days.

    • JaimeRoberto (shama/lama/ding dong)

      Trees are the number one cause of forest fires. Cut them down. Don’t argue. It’s Science.

    • Gustave Lytton

      A lot of bullshit to unpack

      About 15 years ago, the legislature already had fire risk maps done. Except they were handled by individual counties and the requirements were mostly voluntary (the carrot was your liability was limited or eliminated if a wildfire started on your property). This now becomes the responsibility of a state agency with limited and ignorable public input and makes certain actions mandatory. Spoiler: some dipshit that doesn’t keep their property clear won’t and defensible space means shit in the face of a wind fueled wildfire. Geography, wind direction, and luck are far greater factors.

      Golden is fired up about this because wildfire tore up some not rural homes from Ashland to Medford. Again, wind fueled a lot of it but… so did the greenway that ran the entire length. Unirrigated greenway in dry summers turns into… kindling! Surprise surprise surprise.

      The ignored parts in all of this are wildfires increase during drought cycles. This unfortunately is normal. Firebreaks are discourages or eliminated. Parkland and open space/nature areas/wilderness set asides have grown enormously post WWII*. National Guard is no longer used to fight fires and all of the agencies involved are trying to grow their empires (BLM wants to turn 85% of their part time seasonal firefighters into full-time career positions with full federal benefits $$$$$).

      • Gustave Lytton

        *so the interesting (to me) digression is that land use planning was sold 50 years ago to prevent farmlands from being plowed under urbanization. That never happened, either before or after. The same acreage post WWII is still under cultivation today in the state. It’s not the same acreage (Intel’s various fabs named xxx Farm isn’t some artistic flourish) but the numbers are. The number one increase in land use categories was parkland, going from nothing to a significant amount (high single digits, huge on a statewide basis). *crickets* when it comes to talking about sprawl

  46. The Late P Brooks

    Property rights fetishists: how we hates them.

    Put it to a vote. Let DEMOCRACY! prevail.

  47. The Late P Brooks

    Serious people, making serious SCIENCE!

    Kids should be able to go trick-or-treating this Halloween with a couple of caveats, Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Sunday.

    “I certainly hope so,” Walensky said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” when asked whether it’s safe for children to go trick-or-treating this year. “If you’re able to be outdoors, absolutely,” she said.

    The head of the CDC also recommended that parents and kids “limit crowds” on Halloween.

    “I wouldn’t necessarily go to a crowded Halloween party, but I think that we should be able to let our kids go trick-or-treating in small groups,” Walensky said. “I hope that we can do that this year.”

    Let’s suck all the fun out of childhood. That will prepare them for the coming brave new world.

    • Rat on a train

      The scariest costume is an unmasked, unvaccinated child.

      • Pope Jimbo

        If my daughter were still young enough to trick or treat, I would make a costume for her where it looks like Joe Biden is grabbing her shoulders and sniffing her hair.

  48. Tres Cool

    Tres Sr. who is all-in on The Shot, doesnt realize he’s been taking hydroxychlorquinalone for the past 5 years for his arthritis. “Tres, I dont know why YOU PEOPLE, you Trump voters, refuse a vaccine. You’re selfish assholes. Im 82- what if I have a stroke tonight, and I cant get a bed in the hospital because its clogged with you anti-vaccine people?”
    Tres- “So Im selfish for not taking a vaccine. But you’re worried about how many un-vaccinated people could be occupying the bed you need in the event you have a medical crisis since you’re, ya know- 82?”
    Tres Sr.- “yeah”
    Tres: “Thats not at all selfish. After all, you’ve been taking the quinine stuff for a couple years.”
    Tres Sr. : “Mine is prescribed for my condition. Trump told people to take that fish tank cleaner, and YOU PEOPLE listened to him. And more people died.”
    Tres- “Ive not been sick yet, despite being exposed to a dozen people that were positive and/or landed in the hospital. Vaccinated people.
    Tres Sr. “Did you drink that fish tank stuff?”
    Tres- “Does it matter? Im not sick”
    *click*

    • Ownbestenemy

      Besides my brother who insists on injecting politics into everyday family talk, this is why I love my family: We avoid shit like that.

    • robc

      Didnt the fish tank story end up being a case of murder? Or was that just a supposition?

      • Ownbestenemy

        Like the ‘whip’ story, doesn’t matter – TMITE got its narrative out and they will, sometime later this year, do a stealth edit to the original story.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      “Pa, it’s not a vaccine, and it isn’t FDA-approved.”

    • Sean

      Someone’s been watching too much CNN.

    • wdalasio

      UGH! That sucks!

      I don’t know your relationship with your dad, so obviously take anything I say with more than a grain of salt. But, I’d suggest not letting this get too far between you and your dad’s relationship. At 82, you really don’t know how much longer you’re going to have him around. And you almost certainly remember the nonsense he’d been panicked by the media with when you think back on him. As to the bastards who put him in that panic, that’s another story.

      • Ghostpatzer

        As to the bastards who put him in that panic, that’s another story.

        This is where I am trying to get to, I’m at risk of losing too many longstanding family relationships otherwise. Unfortunately easier said than done, since it’s nearly impossible to have a conversation without the topic of Covid coming up. I think I need to STFU and read a Psalm or two; if others can’t hold their tongues it’s up to me, like it or not.

      • PutridMeat

        I always struggle with this, but come down on the opposite side. I will not introduce politics/religion/philosophy into a conversation, but if someone else feels comfortable bringing it up, I will no longer let it go unchallenged. There’s no need to be aggressive, confrontational, etc, but one can always provide a respectful (even if not deserved) counter argument. “Oh that’s interesting; I hadn’t thought of that. But I wonder what consequence X of your idea might be? Wouldn’t that cause more trouble?” etc. If everyone on the liberty side keeps silent, it becomes a self fulfilling narrative. If someone never hears counter arguments, then ideas that they might not even believe in any real sense, but are rather just repeating because that’s what people do, become further entrenched and even less assailable the next time the came up.

        I’m not going to judge anybody staying silent to preserve or maintain smooth familial or friend relations, but I’m not going to anymore. Not that I ever did much, being the oppositional-defiant type that I am…

      • Akira

        That’s pretty much where I am.

        And on certain issues where they’re advocating force against people with certain views (“hospitals should just stop treating unvaccinated people”) it’s valuable to make yourself a reminder of the human cost of those things. It’s easy to support terrible shit happening to “those people” when there aren’t any of them around. They need to be forced to confront the fact that if they want apartheid for “those people”, it won’t just be icky caricatures that the media dreamed up – it will be some of their loved ones too.

        Sure, maybe they’ll just find a way to rationalize it (plenty of people narced out their relatives to the Nazis) but at the very least, they don’t deserve to live in a smug, comfortable ideological bubble. If they’re cheering on authoritarianism, they should be made to feel guilty and conflicted about it.

  49. The Late P Brooks

    When all this chicomvirus theater is over (if it ever is), there will be claims that it saved “millions and millions” of American lives. And there will be no way to prove it didn’t.

    Trump should be running around trumpeting that idiot Ferguson’s “projections” and saying he saved three and a half million lives.

  50. Pope Jimbo

    New low in Rona.

    I ride my bike to work most days (don’t take away my True Libertarian card, I only live a mile from the office). Recently there has been another bike commuter who is going the other way that I meet going to/from work.

    He rides his bike outside by himself wearing a mask. He is usually the only other person I see on the 8′ wide path on my commute. We spend 2 seconds within 6 feed of each other (at most). Why the fucking mask?

    I hate to admit it, but I sort of fantasize about breaking the non-aggression principle and sticking a tree branch in the spokes of his wheels.

    • Pope Jimbo

      I forgot to add that he looks very young. definitely under 30.

      • waffles

        So he will recover fairly quickly from getting tossed of his bike. Go for it, you have my blessing. Or just fantasize about it. The fantasy is usually better than the actual violence anyway.

      • B.P.

        Twentysomethings seem to be way over-represented in the wear-masks-when-it’s-completely-absurd-to-do-so category.

      • kbolino

        I’m only in my early 30s and already the generation gap with people in their 20s feels massive.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        ^^ this. My brothers (25 and 24) grew up in a very much different culture than I (33) did. My middle brother, who is probably the smartest of the three of us, did the very millennial thing where he got a bachelor’s degree (biology), couldn’t find a job in his field, worked a couple odd jobs, and ended up becoming a cop after his live-in girlfriend supported him for a couple years. Youngest brother is a throwback. He followed my path: get an engineering degree, move halfway across the country for a job, and do the young single adult thing. He sticks out like a sore thumb in comparison to his peers.

      • CPRM

        I already felt that when I was in my mid 20s. (now late 30s)

    • Ownbestenemy

      From the start, I haven’t given people who do this too much heartache because they are probably following the guidelines of mask-wearing, regardless of their effectiveness. Puts it in a baggie if reusable, tosses after each use if disposable and wears from home to home and only removes after washing hands, etc.

  51. creech

    The Associated Press (sub. of DNC) news report, in my local paper, said the Arizona ballot audit “did not turn up a single fraudulent ballot.” So I suppose the nearly 7,000 ballots from people who have moved out of state before the registration deadline weren’t fraudulent? Nice to know that folks on the move get two votes while the rest of us tethered folks get only one.

    • robc

      50k possible fraudulent ballots. It least 7k for sure.

    • kbolino

      Counterfeiters usually write “FRAUDULENT” in bright red ink at the top of their works.

    • R C Dean

      And thousands more duplicate ballots.

      • Urthona

        The 10,000+ duplicate ballots are what gets me most. Who can claim that those should’ve counted?

        This is from an audit of a single county.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        *does some math*

        50,000 potential fraudulent ballots divided by 2.1 million total votes equals 2.4%

    • The Other Kevin

      There is zero chance of the election getting “reversed”. But to me, this is still important work, because it calls attention to the possible areas there could be fraud or mistakes. After the last election, some states reviewed their procedures and changed them. That’s what I’d hope for now.

      • Urthona

        Yup.

        There’s still hope for some purple places.

        Let’s not forget that Florida had shifted (slightly) blue with questionable antics after every election. The state of Florida made this a huge priority and also fired tons of crooked people and it’s gone red ever since with perhaps the fewest issues of any “purple” state.

      • Ted S.

        And note how quickly they were able to count a much higher than normal number of ballots.

  52. The Late P Brooks

    “And yet, we also published a study out of Arizona that demonstrated that places that had no masks in place were three and a half times more likely to have outbreaks than places that did have masks in place,” Walensky said.

    Sounds legit.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Guaranteed to be some cherry picked bullshit on that one.

    • Sean

      They’re totally not lying to us.

      Totally.

    • Tundra

      And yet, I’ll bet most people you know have no idea it’s happening.

      And a good chunk of those would support it.

      • kbolino

        “That could never happen here” is the best way to prepare for it to happen here that money can buy.

    • Ownbestenemy

      @28 seconds…why didn’t the cops surround their own for a misworn mask? Oh ya…forgot.

      • DEG

        THAT’S DIFFERENT!!!111!!11!

    • CPRM

      I member when I thought it was unjust that that one covid positive guy got his house surrounded by police in early 2020.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Now that is a country that should defund their police.

    • B.P.

      Is 90 percent of Australia’s population in the police force? They seem to really bring the numbers.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Questions that either their media and their population don’t seem to ask:

        Why are the police allowed to be out and about but not us?

        Why are they using overwhelming displays of force?

        If they are afraid of a person that has been ordered to quarantine, why put that many police around that person when you take him down? Doesn’t that, in your world view, put all those officers in contact with that person(s) that are infected?

      • B.P.

        If it’s “for public safety,” how is kicking the shit out of people a proper remedy?

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Those aren’t actual people. They’re subhuman scum who allied with a virus against humanity.

      • kbolino

        1. The police serve us
        2. This is necessary to protect us
        3. They’re heroes taking great risks for our benefit

        It’s a cold civil war and the police are the dominant faction’s army.

      • Gustave Lytton

        They better hope they keep all of the people they lock up (actual lock up, not in homes) in jail before someone realizes that protests are rigged game with only one outcome. Those numbers will go down if they start turning those cops into pavement jelly. The large number of female officers is laughable except under circumstances where the protestors are not a real physical threat.

  53. Sensei

    Formula 1 fan arrested after being mistaken for mafia boss

    He continued: “Imagine one moment you are having a bite to eat and the next you are sat in a maximum-­security Dutch prison.”

    He said his client “had anger and disbelief and laughter because it is ludicrous”.

    “He is a normal Formula One fan. I was always convinced he was not [Denaro].

    “It would have been a genius of an Italian to have such a strong Liverpool accent.”

  54. JaimeRoberto (shama/lama/ding dong)

    At the checkout line at Safeway there’s a sticker urging customers to donate to some charity: “Feed Our Children”. Next time I’m there I’m going to bring a pen and change it to “Feed Your Children”.

    • ignoreLander

      It should say “Give us extra money so we can donate it to charity and take the credit for it”.

  55. Sean

    https://www.theintell.com/story/news/2021/09/27/pa-school-board-mask-mandate/5846407001/

    It’s a longer-ish article.

    But my favorite part:

    And, earlier this month, the Canon-McMillan board cut short a public meeting after about 30 people refused to put on masks even though there is a requirement to do so in all district buildings.

    “They just sit there and laugh at you when you tell them that, because they know there’s no consequences,” said Zupancic, who added that local police have refused to get involved in the mask skirmishes.

    Emphasis added.

    This is where the push back is happening, at local levels.

    • juris imprudent

      And that local level is what will undermine the national and media levels.

    • wdalasio

      One school board director in Bucks County resigned after saying he received a death threat

      You know what? Good!

      Ideally, if they really considered the positions of their constituents to be so awful that they couldn’t, in good faith, represent them, they’d step down out of a sense of integrity. But, at a certain point, fear starts to look not much worse. We’ve seen the silly games school boards play to treat parents as misbehaving children. I’m far from sympathetic.

  56. The Late P Brooks

    At the checkout line at Safeway there’s a sticker urging customers to donate to some charity: “Feed Our Children”. Next time I’m there I’m going to bring a pen and change it to “Feed Your Children”.

    For some reason that reminds me of something I saw long ago.

    I had breakfast at a diner in Las Vegas. At the cashier’s stand there was a little bowl of pennies, as there often is. There was also a sign taped top the register: “Need a penny, take a penny. Need two pennies, get a job.”

    • robc

      I once took 6 pennies from the need a penny tray at the college print shop. I needed a single page printed and they couldn’t break a $50. I was kind of embarrassed doing it, but the cashier laughed and showed me the 6 cent check from earlier in the day.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Years ago, my dad and I went to a restaurant in Medora, ND after a long day of hunting. We barely made it there and you could tell the workers were pissed that customers had shown up.

      The meal was very good and we had a couple manhattans and were feeling no pain. Dad left a very big tip on the table because we knew we had put them out, but they still did their jobs well.

      However, it was a joint where you paid at the register as you were leaving. So there we are and the bill ends in something like $xx.42 and the Old Guy didn’t feel like getting a ton of change so he starts fishing around in the change bowl for silver and got the entire 42 cents. While he’s doing this the waitress is GLARING at him. She assumed that he was going to stiff them on the tip and she is mad. The Old Guy is so intent on finding that 42 cents that he is oblivious to her. I’m watching and laughing my ass off. I know she will change her tune when she sees the tip on the table, but watching her at that moment was priceless.

  57. The Late P Brooks

    “They just sit there and laugh at you when you tell them that, because they know there’s no consequences,” said Zupancic, who added that local police have refused to get involved in the mask skirmishes.

    Why can’t we be more like Australia?