Saturday evening all hallows links

by | Oct 30, 2021 | Daily Links | 267 comments

Someone get this guy a lantern.

 

Yep, tomorrow night the little shits will be out gathering bags of cavity starters. And then it will be November. How about some links?

 

Nothing says concern for public safety like making blanket policy decisions that severely hamper public safety.

 

Huh. Maybe it is a performance enhancing drug.

 

Screw that. It’s up to my kids after I’m gone.

 

Global warming caused by Dinosaur farts.

 

I’m pretty cool with wood chippers on this one.

 

Well. Yeah.

About The Author

Spudalicious

Spudalicious

Survey says I’m a Paleolibertarian bitches. That means I eat “L”ibertarians for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Soave tastes a little fruity. Wait a minute, that doesn’t sound quite right…

267 Comments

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Werewolves again,

      • R.J.

        They put a mask on the werewolf…

      • Nephilium

        Oi! R.J., have you seen Trick-R-Treat?

        Loved the selections of movies this month, even though I couldn’t join in on the comments for them. In fairness, most of them I’ve seen previously.

      • R.J.

        I have seen it, most probably will see again tonight. Also on the agenda is Killer Klowns from Outer Space. The kids will watch Nightmare Before Christmas three times, no doubt.

      • Nephilium

        Good deal. It’s one of my favorite ones for the season. I enjoyed the conversation about the final girl in the Zombeavers thread. Which of course makes me wonder about the movie.

        Unfortunately, instead of being able to enjoy the holiday (and football game) tomorrow, I have a wake I need to attend. My hope is to make it home in time for the trick or treaters (considering the shit year, we again went full sized candy bars for the first 40-so children who show up).

      • DEG

        Sorry about the wake.

      • Nephilium

        DEG:

        Appreciate it, but it’s for a friend’s father. I’m currently hoping I’ve got dress clothes that still fit after 18 months of no office and not needing to dress up.

      • DEG

        I’m currently hoping I’ve got dress clothes that still fit after 18 months of no office and not needing to dress up.

        Another lockdown victim.

      • Zwak, sensual panzer

        Sorry about your friends’ father, it sucks no matter the circumstances. But, I hear you on the trick or treaters. We are doing good but bit size candy, and normally I kinda hide, but this year I am putting on my air raid helmet and welding goggles, a lab coat, and getting into the spirit.

        Fuck this year, let the kids who are brave enjoy the night.

      • DEG

        Also on the agenda is Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

        Excellent.

      • Aloysious

        Trick-R-Treat is the bomb, and Killer Klowns is way fun.

  1. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Neighbor update: I have reason to believe that the bomb is about to go off and we are not far enough away. I won’t say any more other than the neighbor has become paranoid delusional, self-destructive, and looking to take someone with her, namely my wife.

    I’m in serious need of a drink, or ten.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      No, stay sober, you may find it helpful if/when interacting with certain groups of indivuals,
      FTP

      • R.J.

        Agreed. Stay sober and remain cautious. Document everything in case you have to call authorities.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        There’s nothing to document. We haven’t had any contact with her in a month.

        We’ve documented everything prior to that point. Now we just have to sit on our hands and wait and curse and drink and…

    • Nephilium

      Sorry to hear that man.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      I’m glad you lawyered up. That’s your best defense. Still shitty to go through.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        The lawyer I hired has experience in these cases and is not someone you would want to be in court against, but he’s going to cost me a small fortune, particularly if it goes to court.

        All I can say is this better not involve my wife or I getting cuffed in front of our kids or my wife spending a single minute in a jail cell. I will not forgive that.

        We fucked up, we trusted the neighbor and got too close to her while trying to help. She was nice to us and then she turned on us within a single day. We know she was hallucinating at the time from a UTI and that she’s on drugs now, but what she is doing is pure evil.

      • slumbrew

        I assume vulture friend is whispering in her ear, which can’t help.

    • DEG

      Sorry. Stay sober. Wait to drink until this is all over.

      • Zwak, sensual panzer

        DEG is right. Keep yourselves sparkly clean.

    • Ghostpatzer

      Just popped in for a minute and saw this. This has to end at some point, the sooner the better. Sorry you have to deal with it, hope things resolve soon.

  2. LCDR_Fish

    Well, Jonah Goldberg’s been all over the place in terms of content lately, but I’d say his last newsletter is *really* good. Just posting here because I’m not sure where you can get it now that he’s not on NRO.

    …A few times a year, someone tells me I should write a book on conservatism. I like the idea, but not enough—at least not yet—to actually do it. For starters, until fairly recently, I never really saw the need. The basic outlines of what conservatism is were largely settled on the right. Sure, there were arguments about what conservatives should prioritize—politically, philosophically, and even metaphysically. But these arguments were for the most part well within some fairly clear borders. Think about this way: I think there’s a broad and identifiable consensus about what it means to be a Christian, but that hardly means Christians of different stripes don’t argue about what Christians should do all the time.

    The free market guys largely owned the definition of economic conservatism. Everyone agreed to some version of limited government. Religion was more contested in the realms of theology and theory, but as a practical matter most folks read from the same hymnal, as it were (this is the beauty of classically liberal theories of religious freedom). Foreign policy was more contested, to be sure. But I’ve never believed that conservatism has a lot to say about foreign policy to begin with.

    Now, that consensus is over (for the time being at least). This is one of the few things I agree with the “New Right” about these days. Of course, it’s axiomatic; if a bunch of people say the consensus is over, the consensus is over. Those of us in the remnant of the old consensus can lament the breakdown, but there’s not much to be gained by denying it.

    When I am in a hopeful mood—which I will, confess, isn’t as often as I would like—I fall back in my confidence in conservatism itself. You see, I’m a conservative—in the fusionist, old consensus, Anglo-American sense—first and foremost because I believe conservatism is correct.

    Saying something is “correct” is not automatically or always synonymous with saying something is “true.” Two plus two equals four is both correct and true. But saying, “It’s wrong to lie” is a correct statement, even if it’s not always true. I believe the conservative worldview is correct because, given the alternatives, I think it’s the best way to think about and arrange things.

    “The facts of life are conservative,” Margaret Thatcher liked to say. I agree with that in my bones. The more grandiose, ornate, or complicated your theory about how to organize society, the more likely you are to be proven wrong by reality. Lincoln’s definition of conservatism as “adherence on the old and tried versus the new and untried” won’t always steer you right, but it will serve you better than adherence to the new and untried.

    Life is supremely complicated at scale. What I mean by that is that in the little platoons of life, friends, family, workplace, church or synagogue, neighborhood, etc., things can be pretty complicated—people are weird—but it’s manageable, because you deal with people more or less face to face. It’s made all the more manageable if you stick to a few general, small-c conservative rules of good conduct. But once you move beyond what Friedrich Hayek called “the microcosm of family and friendship,” things become incredibly complicated; too complicated for any one person or group of people to actively manage. This is the nexus where different kinds of (my kind of) conservatism meet. The free market guys understand economic planning doesn’t work. The limited government guys understand you can’t (and shouldn’t!) successfully boss people around indefinitely. The religious conservatives understand that the state cannot do what religion does without corrupting both.

    The American revolution, Irving Kristol argued, was a successful revolution precisely because it recognized the limits on politics dictated by human nature. It didn’t seek to impose a one-size-fits-all theory of life on everybody for the simple reason that one person’s definition of happiness is another person’s definition of misery. Russell Kirk’s second canon of conservatism holds, in part, the conservative has an “affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence, as opposed to the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems.” Kirk had some views I disagreed with about how to organize society, but he was also content to find his own slice of happiness living his life the way he liked. He didn’t say everybody had to retire to their own hobbit Shire and write ghost stories. Kirk liked to quote the historian Keith Feiling. “Every Tory is a realist,” Feiling said. “He knows that there are great forces in heaven and earth that man’s philosophy cannot plumb or fathom.”

    The closer to the ground you are, the more true this will be, particularly when the risks are high. If everyone stuck to the time-tested rules on the set of Rust, Alec Baldwin wouldn’t have shot someone. If everyone stuck, as best they could, with the basic bourgeois values of honesty, industriousness, thrift, delayed gratification, marital fidelity, and self-sacrifice for the benefit of your kids, most of our societal problems would be solved—or not exist in the first place.

    Societies that try to impose some grand unified field theory of social justice or the common good eventually run into the fundamentally conservative facts of life. Take, for example, the famous story about Phil Gramm talking to some voters. It goes something like this. He was asked by a woman what his views on education are. He said (paraphrasing), “Well, I start from the assumption that nobody loves my kids as much as my wife and I do.”

    The woman replied, “That’s not true! I love your kids as much as you do!”

    To which Gramm said, “Oh really? What are their names?”

    It is a fundamentally conservative view—regardless of your partisan passions—that Gramm is right.

    Hillary Clinton once said, “As adults we have to start thinking and believing that there isn’t really any such thing as someone else’s child. … For that reason, we cannot permit discussions of children and families to be subverted by political or ideological debate.” The conservative instantly recognizes this as nonsense.

    Not only is this idea not correct, it’s not true. Anecdotes about evil or crappy parents notwithstanding, there has never been a society anywhere or anywhen—shut up, I say it’s a word—in which parents didn’t favor their own children over the children of strangers. One of the reasons Terry McAuliffe’s campaign is floundering is that he said the quiet part out loud, arguing that the state’s ideological enterprise shouldn’t be hindered by the input of mere parents.

    This is a small example of why I am hopeful. The competing theories of social justice and common good conservatism both start from a shared view that adults are like children and the state is their parent. These neo-gnostics of the left and right believe they know how you should define happiness, how you should live your life, and how your institutions should be arranged. And we’re going to make it happen. We have special knowledge about how you should live. And if given power, we will put that knowledge to work.

    Of course, I have theories about how you should live your life, but that doesn’t make me a hypocrite, because my definition of conservatism has limiting principles about how far I can go—even if I were a dictator—in imposing them or making them a reality.

    Feel free to stop reading here, if you haven’t already. But I started this “news”letter with a long discussion of Occam’s razor, then wrote myself into a ditch and started over. So let me see if I can duct-tape it to this conversation.

    I’ve always loved Occam’s razor. In fact, I’ve just noticed I’ve been writing about it for at least 20 years. (Rereading that 2001 piece, I think I learned that this is the first piece I ever wrote that used a variation of my phrase “spend money like a pimp with a week to live.” Ah, memories.) One of the things I love about it is that it’s a shorthand for a philosophical principle—“keep it simple”—that lots of people, including Occam, try too hard to make complicated. Reading the Wikipedia entry is like huffing CO2 from an upside down can of Reddi-wip in two ways: You shouldn’t do it at the 7-Eleven, and it gives me a headache. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s section on it is better, but it’s still pretty highfalutin and I want to keep things mediumfalutin.

    Still, the phrase “ontological parsimony”—one of the standard interpretations of Occam’s razor—is so euphonious I can’t help but use it. One way to think of ontological parsimony is to think of it as a killing word that causes mice to explode under laboratory conditions like in Rock ‘n’ Roll High School. But that would be wrong. Another way to think about it is that you should give preferences to theories that make the fewest unprovable or unlikely assumptions.

    But basically, even if it’s not wholly faithful to Occam’s meaning, the colloquial or conventional understanding of Occam’s razor is the best: “The simplest explanations tend to be the most accurate.” Doctors often say—at least in TV shows about doctors—“When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.” The point being that, unless you’re on an African savannah (or in suburban Maryland), if you hear hoofbeats it’s most likely horses are responsible for the sound, since it would be really weird if there were zebras nearby.

    The reason I bring this up is that I’ve always thought of Occam’s razor as a fundamentally conservative—small-c conservative, to be sure—tool. Wildly novel or ornate theories tend to be wrong. Look at it like this: The conservative tends to be the person in the room that says some new idea won’t work or is otherwise wrong. From this fact alone, in the great intellectual Olympics of history, conservatives deserve the gold medal, because most truly new ideas are wrong. It’s just a numbers thing. If you say, “It won’t work” to every spit-balled or brainstormed idea, you’ll be right at least 80 or 90 percent of the time.

    Parents know this is a fact, because most little kids go through a phase where they spout new ideas every five minutes. And it’s a well-established fact that little kids are not very well read or knowledgeable, so they usually don’t know what they’re talking about. So just as a matter of math, most of their new ideas are going to be wrong.

    For instance, when I was still in my single digits, I learned that diamonds were made from coal being subjected to intense pressure and heat (or being squeezed by the hand of Superman). So I took a piece of coal, put it on our kitchen stovetop, and pressed down on it really hard with a fork, thinking I could make it a diamond. It didn’t work, damn it.

    Okay that’s as far as I got on Occam’s razor before I tangoed around my writer’s block. I blame it on trying to make a point about Bayesian probability and getting a nosebleed from trying to understand it again.

    But I can see why I got the idea to start the way I did. Kirk loved to quote H. Stuart Hughes’ claim that “conservatism is the negation of ideology.” I don’t think that’s quite true if you deflate the term “ideology.” I have an ideology—it’s a checklist of principles, or rules of thumb, some of which are often in conflict with others. The fusionist believes in both liberty and order, freedom and virtue, and is constantly questioning which should have the upper hand in a specific situation. This is why I have long argued that the epistemological essence of conservatism requires a certain degree of comfort with contradiction. This is a fancy way of saying we understand that life is about tradeoffs, because all resources—time, money, passion, focus—are ultimately finite and scarce.

    But on Kirk’s terms, he was right. Ideology, as he meant it, is a form of reducing the infinite variety of life to a single model or theory. Occam’s razor is a wonderful tool for dismantling such models or theories, but it has its limits. Because while you can use it to clear the brush of abstraction and theoretical assumptions about how the world works or how it should work, it’s useless for providing its own theories about how things work.

    Save in one regard.

    There’s an old saw, attributed to various people, about how to sculpt an elephant: “Take a block of marble and remove everything that isn’t an elephant.” Occam’s razor removes everything overly theoretical about why humans do what they do, leaving the elephant in the room ignored by every group of radicals and ideologues who think they know how to design society on a drawing board: human nature. But human nature cannot be reduced to a single “keep it simple” theorem because humans are complicated, particularly at scale. Which is why a complicated society should be governed by simple rules….

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      JG was really good back in the day, then something happened, it’s good to hear sme sanity from the Man,

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      I’ve never read him before. Frankly, he’s a bit scatterbrained and prone to word salad. Good points occluded by him having the attention span of a gnat.

      • rhywun

        I didn’t know he left NR.

        Agree about the scatterbrained.

        Also, Trump kind of broke his brain. He sounded a like Lincoln Project flack for a while.

      • grrizzly

        Not just Trump, covid too. The last time I saw something from JG, he was outraged that a GOP Governor (Texas I believe) announced a ban on vax mandates. Another libertarian conservative for vax mandates. Muh private businesses.

      • The Hyperbole

        Not wanting the government to outlaw something dosen’t mean you are for that thing.

      • grrizzly

        I know, I know. Government trying to fight government overreach is the real government overreach.

      • The Hyperbole

        First principles can really be a bitch.

      • grrizzly

        My first principle is individual freedom. Not a single person is prevented from getting vaccinated in TX or FL despite the vax mandate “bans.” Goldberg and his ilk are not concerned when the federal, state, municipal governments and almost all non-government institutions are depriving sane healthy people of their livelihood and enforcing “public health” apartheid.

      • Zwak, sensual panzer

        First-principles may be a bitch, but identifying first principles is equally hard. As a Libertarian, large L, it isn’t just gov’t overreach, but also business overreach, and at times personal overreach that I am also fighting against.

        All three of those can be and do infringe on my liberties, the people of Texas’ liberties, and Americans’ liberties. From where I stand, Abbot’s decision is correct.

        We are never going to win elections, but we can influence them, influence people. This is influencing people. Bodily autonomy is every bit as important as the NAP, indeed it is part of it. Here is where they meet. Here is where we show this.

      • MikeS

        Are you equating vax mandates with things like gay marriage? Or am I completely misunderstanding ( I have been drinking) tonight’s Contrarian Corner argument?

      • Hyperion

        No, we should not mandate Tupperware parties for gay marriages.

        I just spent last weekend in a state in which no one wore a mask and I’m pretty sure I had a 3 day long orgasm from it.

        And I was in a bar in which this is the first song I heard:
        You Got that Right

        I seriously think I am still having that orgasm and I swore to my wife I was not looking at that girl.

      • Hyperion

        You’re bloody well right that is a great song too. Cheerio!

      • MikeS

        Good show, guv’na!

      • DEG

        I haven’t seen more than a handful of people wearing masks in…I suppose a year? Trying to remember.

        You’re in a normal part of the country.

        Staff at every grocery store near me wear face diapers. I grocery shopped earlier today, and I’d say about a third of customers wore face diapers.

        As for tonight’s Contrarian Corner, I’ll drop this bomb before I head to bed: Fuck vaccine mandates, where ever they come from, and fuck anyone that supports them.

      • MikeS

        Fuck vaccine mandates, where ever they come from, and fuck anyone that supports them.

        Well said, DEG. Sleep well.

      • Hyperion

        “Fuck vaccine mandates, where ever they come from, and fuck anyone that supports them.”

        Damn well said, and damn well right!

        God bless you shitlords!

      • Spudalicious

        I wore a mask for the first time in over a year flying to NY and back. I can’t think of anything more obtrusive and stupid, but at the these flight crews seemed to understand.

    • hayeksplosives

      He could benefit from a good editor.

      • Q Continuum

        Yeah, there is a major irony of him ending a long, meandering and largely pointless essay on an anecdote about Occam’s Razor.

  3. Nephilium

    It’s a Saturday, I’m home and still upright, so here is the link to the Zoom/Happy Hour/Halloween discussion. Since it’s that time of year, costumes are recommended (for everyone’s amusement), but not mandatory (it is a libertarian group of assholes, right?). I’ll kick it off at 20:00 Eastern (as is tradition).

  4. Tundra

    Howdy Spud!

    Huh. Maybe it is a performance enhancing drug.

    Not Indica. That’s for sleepy time.

    Going to meet a bunch of new neighbors tonight. Pray for me, please.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      “Not Indica. That’s for sleepy time.” Sheeeyah! I only smoke Indo, it calms me down, and then I don’t want to kill people,

      • Tundra

        In-da-couch for me.

        But I generally don’t want to kill anyone, anyway.

      • Fourscore

        So your neighbors are gonna meet some new friends? Sounds like a win situation for all

    • Sean

      Meeting a bunch of new neighbors?

      Swingers party?

      • DEG

        Not many swingers are people you want to see naked.

      • Tundra

        This.

        No, my stupid extroverted nature got us invited to a party.

        But I have to be honest, my neighbors seem pretty awesome.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I certainly hope they’re better than mine.

  5. DEG

    “We’ll be OK,” Shea said Friday morning. “The first step would be reassignment of personnel that ordinarily are not doing patrol functions can be pulled into those.”

    What could possibly go wrong?

    • hayeksplosives

      I read “patrol functions” as “partial fractions” and had to zoom in for a closer look.

      Makes more sense now but I’m slightly disappointed that there’s not a deeper mathematical scheme at work.

  6. Plinker762

    I guess I’m the latest Glib to be ravaged by the CCPV. I’ve been isolated for the last week feeling tired and lightly feverish. Took a test Thursday and it came back positive. My appetite and taste are slowly coming back and I’m feeling better than I did last week but I still occasionally develop a slight fever. Mostly I am bored.

    • Tundra

      Sorry dude. Are you treating it?

      • Plinker762

        A, C, E, D & Zinc and plenty of fluids. Everyone just seems to want me to stay home unless there is an emergency.

      • hayeksplosives

        Thanks for the resource.

        If you have a CPAP, use that too. More effective and safer than ventilator.

        Since I already have some respiratory issues, I bought an oxygen concentrator so that I can self treat at home and avoid going to hospitals (you know, where all the sick people are).

        The only thing I still need a prescription for are nebulizer ampules, and I have a bunch hoarded for now.

    • Nephilium

      I was mildly entertained a week and a half ago when the girlfriend got a cold. After a couple days, she called her doctor to try to schedule a visit to check what she had. The doctor said they weren’t seeing ill people, and sent her to Urgi-Care. The girlfriend got tested for strep and ‘vid, both negative. I managed to pick up the cold for the past week or so.

      • Plinker762

        “I don’t want that shit”

      • MikeS

        The doctor said they weren’t seeing ill people

        uhhh…

    • DEG

      I hope you continue to recover.

    • Sean

      I’ve had two fully vaxxed people in the office coughing lately. Neither one is very healthy.

      I’ve been mocking them. Telling them they have covid and occasionally teasing them that I’m gonna make them mask up.

  7. Tundra

    I think I will be really good at death cleaning. I hate clutter.

    And I’ve had to take care of too many people’s shit.

    • Fourscore

      I’m making the decisions now to give stuff away to the people I want to have it. The remnants can go in an auction or dumpster. I read a book a few years ago that said ‘if you haven’t used something in a year you don’t need it.’ Pretty much true.

      Mrs F obviously hasn’t read that book, she’s still accumulating.

      • Spudalicious

        That’s my approach to paperwork.

    • pistoffnick

      I have a hard time throwing things away. My last move, it took all my strength to throw away 2 lbs. of collected twist ties!

    • hayeksplosives

      Moving twice in the past three and half years has helped us downsize significantly.

      I still plan to donate about half of my wardrobe once I’ve finished unpacking this time. All my specialty text books I am going to donate to our nascent specialty library at my new job.

      • Hyperion

        Hayek, I don’t want to downgrade. No matter how much it bothers my wife. I want more.

        This is me:

        Eu Quero Mais

        My God, I cannot grow old. Not ever.

      • hayeksplosives

        In my case, it’s not a downgrade. Just getting rid of stuff I don’t use anymore, or, in the case of the books, taking them somewhere where they will get more use (including by me).

        This house is bigger than the previous house, so I’m getting rid of stuff as a preference, not a necessity.

      • Hyperion

        I get it. We really need to do that because we have tons of useless clutter.

  8. ignoreLander

    I archived the “I’m pretty cool with wood chippers on this one.” link, so I can only see a handful of comments. But the ones I’m able to see, lemme just say Fox News fans are hilarious.

    “I hope the dude that was yelling is identified, and his life is equally ruined.”

    Waters will end up paying for what she said, what goes around, comes around

    Can’t wait for when Republicans will win over the house and remove her Pelosi and the Squad from all committees

    Democrats get to taste their own medicine and I feel zero sympathy for them. Maybe it will humble them.

    Guarantee these people are creating republican and independent voters wherever they go with their behavior.

    How do actual adults, in America today, seeing what they have seen, believe any of that? Does it just make them feel better to go to their echo chambers and shout empty platitudes into them?

    • Sean

      Yes?

  9. Yusef drives a Kia

    ” Does it just make them feel better to go to their echo chambers and shout empty platitudes into them?”
    Like Us?

    • Fourscore

      When a libertarian shouts fire in an empty theater does anyone hear it?

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Am I being Detained?!

      • Hyperion

        You’re not one them insurrectionists are you?

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        /Need a vaxx card kid?

      • Hyperion

        Who are you calling kid, millennial?

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        1963 ain’t Millenial Junior…

      • Hyperion

        Heh, shut up, millennial. Everyone born after 1959 is a millennial, millennial.

      • Hyperion

        63? Haha, snapper!

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        I am Gen ? like the middle kid, we got ignored,
        ’62-’69

      • Hyperion

        Dude, I hate to tell you, but according to the experts, you are indeed a Boomer.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        My Uncles were Boomers, I know ’65 is the cut off, but I can’t relate to them at all, probably Vietnam,

      • Hyperion

        Well, it’s like that. I don’t feel like a boomer either. But we both are. Now they separate generations by decades when it used to be half centuries.

      • TARDis

        Yeah Yu, not Boomer and not GenX. Fuck them both. Gen? works for me too.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Thanks T! someone gets it,

      • TARDis

        Vietnam was the first thing that popped into my mind too. The first outright “war” for profit. Korea was the seed.
        Music, art, culture? I don’t get it. My wife is only four years younger than me, but she is solid X. I can’t explain the difference.

      • Hyperion

        “The first outright “war” for profit”

        You cannot even be serious?

      • TARDis

        If it wasn’t, which one was was? All wars are going to profit someone that can see how to.

  10. Hyperion

    I love the music selection.

    It’s a murky green toad world here for 3 straight days now.

    • Hyperion

      Sure, and neither is spontaneous combustion or UFOs, or STEVE SMITH.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        it’s real, but not literal, I understood as soon as I read it, being Epileptic, I always try to find out what the hell is wrong with me.

      • Hyperion

        There’s not anything wrong with you, bro. There’s something wrong will all the current generation, only that.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Almost all the peeps I know here range from 25 to 38 or so. Hard working family men, they are people of good character, My Daughter is 33 and works her ass off, so I don’t flip that cohort any shit.

    • rhywun

      sleep paralysis is associated with sleeping in unfamiliar surroundings and sleeping in a supine position

      Yeah, this is why I sleep on my side.

      I used to get it all the time until I learned about that trick.

  11. ignoreLander

    Like Us?

    Touché. But I will say we, as a group*, being the Smartest People in the Room™, are all pretty resigned to the ways of the world. I don’t see many illusions around here about changing the world, we’re all just doing the best we can playing by someone else’s rules….

    (*Libertarians — as a group? Sounds like a “jumbo shrimp” turn-of-phrase)

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      I agree with you, notice we aren’t all echo all the time, but it’s a great place to bounce ideas and thoughts out there,
      Herding Cats!

  12. J. Frank Parnell

    Went surfing today for the first time in a few months. Holy crap, the cargo ships piling up! We went to our usual spot, north side of the Newport Beach Pier. Since maybe the beginning of the year, on a clear day we could see a few ships off in the distance to the north towards Long Beach. Today, we could clearly see at least a half dozen ships bunched up right off the northern coast of Newport, about 6-8 more close to shore from the Newport pier south to the Balboa pier, and I could see silhouettes of more ships further off the coast – not a particularly clear day, so not sure how many. Crazy. I’m thinking of heading down to the Dana Point or San Clemente beaches sometime this week to see how far the line goes.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Ahhh, the fun times, Boogie boarding at the Wedge, Big waves, no escape, bloody noses full of sand,
      Enjoy JFP!

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Oh yeah, get pics if you do go down there, I wanna see!

      • J. Frank Parnell

        Here’s one my wife got of me, my older son, and a few of the cargo ships.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Damn that’s close!

  13. Q Continuum

    “Arizona bride, mom plead with progressive anti-Sinema protesters to stop ‘ruining’ wedding”

    Something tells me that shit like this does not make her more likely to vote their way. Two reasons:

    1) The protestors look shitty to the vast majority of voters and caving to them looks pathetic.
    2) Pure spite.

    • JaimeRoberto (shama/lama/ding dong)

      What a bunch of assholes.

    • Hyperion

      Who the fuck is that?

    • pistoffnick

      I like her

      • Hyperion

        She is living proof that love doesn’t have to be all about looks.

      • pistoffnick

        “Where can I find me a girl like that?”

  14. J. Frank Parnell

    Did anyone post a link yet to the 1976 Paul Lynde Halloween Special featuring Florence Henderson, Betty White, Donny & Marie, and KISS?

    If not, well, there it is. Enjoy.

    • Hyperion

      VJ day? Wut?

    • rhywun

      Good lord.

      • Hyperion

        “You’re well preserved and you’re no fun”

        LOL

    • MikeS

      Peter Criss lip syncing and air-piano playing Beth. As much Kiss as a 70’s TV audience could handle.

    • R.J.

      Thank you!

  15. rhywun

    26 FDNY firehouses out of service over vaccine mandate staff shortage

    And I love this:

    Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, the frontrunner in Tuesday’s mayoral election, said that city leaders needed to sit down with union heads and figure out how to get workers vaccinated.

    Plus ça change…

    • The Gunslinger

      Love the use of scare quotes here:

      and jab-resisting fire fighters, many reportedly saying they were already sick with the coronavirus and therefore have “natural immunity.”

      • rhywun

        It’s too bad that once again the GOP don’t have a serious candidate next week.

        The lady Congresscreature quoted in that article (who is my Congresscreature) would be a better candidate that the freaking Guardian Angels guy – not that I have anything against him, I just don’t think he is a serious candidate.

      • rhywun

        LOL… I forgot she already ran in 2017 and lost to you-know-who.

      • creech

        Maybe it’s just quoting them?

  16. LCDR_Fish

    Anyone used the “Cultivate” add-on in Firefox? The ADV China guys have recommended it for use on Amazon.com – supposed to provide a flag or indicator on each product page to tell you whether the product is manufactured in China or another country. I’ve tried running it a few times and haven’t yet gotten it to work. Not sure whether it’s a conflict with one of my other security addons or something else. Not seeing any indication of bugs.

    • rhywun

      No, but sounds interesting. I don’t use Chrome but I have installed it on Edge and will report back if it works.

      • Hyperion

        I use it at work almost exclusively.

        At home, a combo of Chrome and Brave.

        I don’t use Firefox because the damn thins updates everything you launch it for the past 20 years.

        And I NEVER use Google for a search engine. How that piece of garbage ever got popular I don’t know I use Bing and Duckduckgo.

      • Hyperion

        “thins updates”

        Thing UPDATES. Damnit.

      • LCDR_Fish

        We had this discussion before. I gave that Pale Moon one a shot but didn’t work great. Again, might be smoother when I get a new machine. I have no issues with Edge on my work machines but it runs like runny ass on my personal one. Still haven’t tried Chrome.

      • slumbrew

        I’ve been pleased with Brave.

    • MikeS

      Will try it in Vivaldi and see what happens.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        NOOOO! you will just get 254 variations of the same thing!!!

      • MikeS

        Ugh. It sucks. Experiment concluded.

    • MikeS

      All I see is when I am on a page full of item, it displays a badge number on the Cultivate icon. You click on it and see alternatives tot he product you are looking at. Very possible that I didn’t give it enough time, but it appears to be bullshit.

      • rhywun

        I just tried it on a bunch of items in my Amazon wish-list, and sometimes it shows country of origin but more often it just shows me where the “seller” is – which seems useless.

        And yeah, a link to some list of American-made alternatives which may or may not be reliable, who knows.

        I will give it some time.

      • MikeS

        I’ll cop to not giving it a fair shake. I hope those of you that are giving it some time report back. In theory it sounds great. Maybe due to Vivaldi’s focus on security it doesn’t work as intended?

      • LCDR_Fish

        Ok, I thought it displayed directly on the page. I’ll try again tomorrow.

  17. The Late P Brooks

    NO PORKBARREL, NO PEACE!

    • Hyperion

      Are you a Congress Critter?

  18. Hyperion

    Damn, these Biquinhos are good. I can’t stop eating these things. Almost one jar down, 3 more to go.

    Hopefully not before I get my garden in next Spring and start making my own.

    • Hyperion

      ‘We live in an age of technology and science.”

      Well, that was till true in 1975. So I’ll give him that.

    • rhywun

      I stole the Cosmos book from my school library or maybe it was science class.

      I was a nerd and a delinquent.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        I confess to the same crime, different book, same thing,

  19. Hyperion

    I don’t know why I keep coming back to this site no matter how hard I try not too. I must love y’all. Ewww!!!

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      You’re one of the good ones, Hang tight,

  20. The Late P Brooks

    Gasps, audible

    A Southwest Airlines flight on Saturday turned political when one of its pilots finished an announcement to passengers with “Let’s Go, Brandon,” a chant used to insult President Joe Biden.

    “On Friday morning on a Southwest flight from Houston to Albuquerque, the pilot signed off his greeting over the public address system with the phrase, to audible gasps from some passengers,” AP’s Colleen Long wrote in an article published on Saturday.

    Long was a passenger onboard the flight for a vacation, she explained in a Twitter thread, and was almost removed from the aircraft after unsuccessfully trying to get the pilot to comment for her story on the topic.

    Domestic terror in the air. Who will save us?

    • rhywun

      Love it.

    • Sean

      I’m wearing my LGB t shirt right now.

    • Not Adahn

      and was almost removed from the aircraft after unsuccessfully trying to get the pilot to comment for her story on the topic.

      I thought that after 9/11, trying to get into the cockpit was a major felony.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    I’m surprised Associated Press Karen could hear the gasps over the laughter.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      To be fair, she sucks hard enough that OSHA requires her to wear hearing protection when gasping.

  22. The Late P Brooks

    The phrase “Let’s Go, Brandon” has been a rallying cry of the right to secretly bash the president. Its origins can be traced to a NASCAR event during which NBC Sports reporter Kelli Stavast mistakenly identified chants from a crowd to be saying “Let’s Go, Brandon,” when they were actually saying “Fuck Joe Biden.”

    “Mistakenly” my ass. Give her due credit for quick thinking under pressure, you misogynist assholes.

    • MikeS

      “Secretly” is laughable, too. There’s not a thing “secret” about the meaning behind it. Never has been.

    • Q Continuum

      Only White Supremacist Deploranazi domestic terrorists would ever doubt the pure-as-newly-fallen-snow intentions of our selfless journalistic heroes you sick puppy-killing Trumpalo!

      • MikeS

        Did someone say sick puppy?

      • Hyperion

        Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight, you’ll lose.

        Well, yeah.

        If they play that commercial ‘County Roads’ on my TV one more time, I’m going to throw a beer bottle through my TV.

        Look, no one is supposed to come to WV unless it is me, stay the fuck away, there is nothing but bears, wildcats, poison snakes, and rednecks, stay.the.fuck.away from here. Got it?

      • EvilSheldon

        I happen to like bears, wildcats, and venomous snakes, and I can pass as a redneck.

  23. The Late P Brooks

    Ugh. It sucks. Experiment concluded.

    Forwarded to FDA for fast track approval.

  24. Hyperion

    Just so I make sure all of y’all hear this.

    I love the sustain on the vocals on this.

    Eu Quero Mais”>Eu Quero Mais

    • Hyperion

      Well, at least the link still works.

    • KSuellington

      O que eu quero mais?
      Se eu sei que a vida é bela e linda
      O que eu quero mais?
      Se eu sei que eu estou de bem com vida
      Todinho de branco
      Lindo
      Esperando ela chegar
      Ela chegar

      Jorge Ben – Magnólia

  25. Hyperion

    And just talking to my son-in-law. State is Pernambuco, BTW.

    Music Nordeste

    • rhywun

      Ah, Recife. I like the Brasileirão but otherwise I know next to nothing about the land.

      • Hyperion

        It is fucking gorgeous there. I mean the flora and the beaches. So are the women. Sorry, cannot help you with the guys, but they all tell me they are cute.

        Anyway, yes, Recife. Our shack is about a 5 minute walk from Boa Viagem beach.

  26. Ownbestenemy

    Sorry bout that cryptic post early in the morning. Think the stress of being fired possibly just hit me out of nowhere.

    • DEG

      Best wishes to you.

      Let us know if you need help.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      But you still have Job yes?

      • Ownbestenemy

        For now. Just a bit of reality is all.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      No worries.

      Don’t try to shoulder this all on your own. You have support here if you need it.

      • MikeS

        ^ this ^

      • Ownbestenemy

        Yep and thank you.

      • Hyperion

        Yes, just let us know what is up?

      • Ownbestenemy

        I can carry a ton of stress and when that damn breaks it is not good. Probably the booze didn’t help and staying up late didn’t help. I was just looking to talk to someone and actually was more aghast that the vet helpline just dropped the call and didn’t attempt to call back.

        After some sleep and a good breakfast and of course my loving wife giving me a kiss, I had a stress reset.

      • Hyperion

        God bless you, bro. Like I said, keep us updated. And you are right about everything you just said.

  27. Yusef drives a Kia

    I’m right on the edge of losing everything, I have some food aid, that’s fine, but after using available services, it’s still a no go.
    I have an interview at lowes on Tuesday, I should get the job, but even though I managed to pay lot rent and some critical bills, I still owe 450$ for my house payment.
    Working I can paythe bills, but right now Yikes! I hate playing the edge, too old for this Shit.

    • Hyperion

      Would you consider moving to another state??

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        actually yes, I would, nothing keeps here,

      • Hyperion

        I’m moving soon to WV or SC/TN, would love the company. Let us know. Actually we might come up there this fall/winter/spring, will let you know so maybe we can meet up.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        TPTB have my info, they will provide when you want to meet up. About moving, what did you mean?

      • Hyperion

        I was just wondering if you want to move to a solid red state. Because I sure as fuck am and I’m never looking back.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        I’m in an extremely Red county, in a very small town, 6500 people, If you want to bug out, I’m already here, come this way,^

      • Hyperion

        Yeah, I get it, bro. I’m talking about a SOLID RED STATE.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Got a job for me and relocation costs? otherwise I’ll hang with the Hillbillies where I belong,

    • Hyperion

      We’re here for you bro.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      a lot of meat, Dayum!

      • Ownbestenemy

        8 lbs. Tomorrow a rack of ribs and some leg quarters. My cathartic retreat is cooking.

  28. Yusef drives a Kia

    I’m in tears, You fucking Brother!

    • Ownbestenemy

      Sup man. Did I tell you a buddy of mine is back to making boards? She does graffiti in San Fran and is making a custom board for me.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Jelly, I gave my Grandson both of my decks and guess what? we have a nice skatepark, didn’t knot existed til last week, Price me a Custom MI board, pool deck 10.5x 32
        Really

      • Ownbestenemy

        I’ll for sure ask her

  29. Hyperion

    Goddamn, Brazilian women sure don’t have a problem with being sexy and they are not apologizing for it. I love it.

    • rhywun

      But they are powerless if they’re not serving as some government functionary.

      • Hyperion

        Well, the ones who migrated (legally) to the uSA have solved that problem for themselves.

  30. slumbrew

    Nice to see that Ortiz gets a “Papi!” chant even in Atlanta.

  31. Hyperion

    There is one full figured MILF on my wife’s novela she’s watching now who I want to just take all her clothes off right now. But I suppose she’s not going to do it and I’d like sex tonight so I’m a shut up about it for now.

    • slumbrew

      Prudent.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Pics?

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      All of a sudden I remembered Wendy, Happy Wife, happy Life, Vaya Con Dios, mi Muchacho,

  32. NoDakMat

    whaddup bitchez!

    …and if California slides into the ocean
    like the mystics and statics say it will
    I predict this motel will be standing
    until I pay me bill…

    • NoDakMat

      I think the air conditioner had a valid point!

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        The A/C, like Your Brain, is broken, Call a proffesional Quickly!

      • NoDakMat

        but it said “hmmmm, hmmmmm, hmmmmm, hmmmmm, hmm, hmmm.” That’s what they’s supposed to say. No?

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Sure, 220, 221, whatever it takes Homeslice………….

      • MikeS

        uhh…you’re missing one “hmmmm”

      • NoDakMat

        Fuck… you’re right. My bad.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Get a room guys….

    • slumbrew

      You and MikeS really need to hook up.

      • MikeS
      • NoDakMat

        The bullet of death… blips toward you!

      • slumbrew

        “You and your third dimension… it’s cute.”

      • MikeS

        The deepest I got into Rap back then were the Beastie Boys and Run DMC. ATHF was the first time -to my knowledge- I ever heard Schoolly D. And I didn’t even realize how important he was to Rap until years later.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        I am proficient in 4 dimensions, 23c I am,

      • rhywun

        Yeah, what the hell? *rubs eyes, squints*

    • rhywun

      There was a rule in the Port saying you could only stack shipping containers two containers high.

      This is a joke… right?

      • Gustave Lytton

        Elsewhere he says it’s a City of Long Beach rule for the truck yards.

  33. Shpip

    There’s a general sentiment around Glibsyltucky that if some functionary asks you to put on a face diaper at a place of business, you exit and refuse to give them your money.

    Some Chinaman just turned that up to eleven.

    • MikeS

      That’s some righteous indignation, there.

      • slumbrew

        I like it

    • Sean

  34. KSuellington

    Warren Zevon could write a helluva lyric. Werewolves got overplayed on FM radio, but the album it’s on, Excitable Boy, is awesome stuff, a number of great tunes on it. I love the title track and Nightime in the Switching Yard. Every tune on the album has its charm.

      • MikeS

        My Shit’s Fucked Up is fun, yet a tish sad knowing what was to come.

      • NoDakMat

        Roland has a sad.

      • NoDakMat

        …and a thompson gun.

      • MikeS

        Tied for second.

      • KSuellington

        Lawyers, Guns and Money is also a huge fav of mine. Warren was a badass.

    • KSuellington

      One of the great modern era soundtrack tunes. Loved it as a kid and still dig it.

      Here is something from this year that I linked before, but it’s worth another link as it’s one fun tune. Most of their stuff is more classic soul, but this is some good funk.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7vTtnevlO4

      • MikeS

        Not my typical music style, but not bad.

  35. Gustave Lytton

    Pussers Gunpowder Proof is nice, but it does a number.

    • NoDakMat

      Hamburger tool, peanut butter alphabet.

  36. Tres Cool

    suh’ fam

    yo whats goody yo

    TALL SABBATH CANS!

    • Sean

      Mornin’

      • Tres Cool

        Evening in my head, but we’ll accept it.

  37. Sean

    Re: horrible movies

    Tried watching this yesterday:

    https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0089280/

    It was fucking bad. Then the sequel came on.

    https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0962728/

    Made twenty years later. Video game time kicked in, and I didn’t finish watching it. Would try again in the future.

    Surprisingly bad. Still…would recommend.

    • Tres Cool

      I remember MST3K making fun of it.

  38. Sean

    I have a pair of strip steaks and a tri tip to grill today.

    I paid too much for the tri tip. ?

    • Not Adahn

      Seriously. They know he’s not going to do anything, so they can get tuff gui points back home for standing up to the US. Like Assad and Iran v. Obama.

  39. Not Adahn

    Constant rain since yesterday morning is ongoing. KF&G match in a couple of hours. Ground conditions will make moving fast unadvisable. And the cleanup afterwards is going to suck.

    Still… BLAMBLAMBLAM!

    • Sean

      Pew pew pew.

      • Not Adahn

        The stage inside the town can be uncomfortably loud, especially if someone’s shooting .40S&W.

        I should probably look them up ahead of time, but considering the weather, I’m not really feeling like gaming this out to the last step.

        Pasting targets in the rain sucketh.

      • Tres Cool

        My (former- before that canoeing accident) SIG P226 is/was .40 SW.

      • Ozymandias

        The Renaissance Man’s round – the elegantly ideal combination of stopping power and ammo carry.