Monday Morning Links

by | Dec 6, 2021 | Daily Links | 392 comments

You can move around to pass him, dumbass.

How the Steelers beat the Ravens is beyond me. But it’s hilarious.  elsewhere in the NFL, the Cards looked good as new, the Bucs are getting it together. the Bungles are ass again, and the Detroit Lions won a game. Across the pond, Chelsea lost to West Ham while Liverpool and Man City won, so there was a bit of a shuffle at the top of the table. Everton play today as they try to avoid the drop zone. And in Saudi Arabia, there was a wild F1 race yesterday that resulted in the top two drivers being tied going into the season finale next week. And that’s sports.

Buckler

The father of modern magic, Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, was born on this day. He shares it with poet (and dude) Joyce Kilmer, lyricist Ira Gershwin, actress Agnes Moorehead, boxer James J Braddock, quarterback Otto Graham, infielder Larry Bowa, underrated drummer Rick Buckler, handsy governor (who also resigned a shitload of people to death) Andrew Cuomo, filmmaker Judd Apatow, pitcher Jose Contreras, Aussie softball player Natalie Titcume, tennis player CoCo Vandeweghe, and basketball player Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Right now on to…the links!

That’s one way to do it, I guess. But with remote working, it’s not too hard to track employee work rates in a job like that. So I’d be willing to bet they have it documented that the employees weren’t putting the time in.  Also, it’s not as if his management style was a secret.

Adios, dickhead.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see what’s in the report. And we need to hear his accuser. After all, that’s what he would have done were it a political opponent of his, right?

He should have just taken the L. The prosecution’s case was pretty comprehensive. I have no idea why he didn’t just pay the fine and then cry to a supportive media about bullying or something.

Does this mean “women and children hardest hit”? Or does it just mean men are out in public more because they are more likely to have a job that has them out in public more? Or does it simply mean men have larger lungs and a more powerful diaphragm than women or kids, causing them to expel more of everything they take into their lungs? Or does it mean absolutely nothing?

Look, ma. Twins!

“Move along. Nothing to see here.” -Jen Psaki. Sure thing, Jen.  Sure thing.

I’ve got a bigger question: why the fuck was the university doing the investigation rather than the police department? But since it was, is the accused not allowed to make their case? Because that’s all it sounds like this guy was doing.

I think we can all guess how this will go. You get more of what you reward, government. Have fun with the flood of people wanting more free shit.

“All your homes are belong to us.” Fuck you, Hawaii. Maybe end your idiotic zoning if you want the prices of homes to go down.

Another domino (officially) falls. I just hope they bring the jobs with them and not the idiotic politics that have ruined the state they’re fleeing.

Let’s get the week started a little funky. Hell yeah. Enjoy it.

And enjoy this Monday, dear friends!

About The Author

sloopyinca

sloopyinca

392 Comments

  1. AlexinCT

    Happy Monday Ladies and Germs!

  2. AlexinCT

    He should have just taken the L. The prosecution’s case was pretty comprehensive. I have no idea why he didn’t just pay the fine and then cry to a supportive media about bullying or something.”

    Maybe Juicy will claim that the judge wore a MAGA hat and attacked him too?

    • juris imprudent

      “And you, members of the jury, if you don’t believe me, you’re all racist homophobes too”!

    • SDF-7

      No, that’s his lawyer doing that as I recall….

      • AlexinCT

        Just look for the personal check he wrote her to do that and some camera footage of him planning this with her, cause I don’t think he is bright enough to learn from the stupid…

  3. Sean

    Among those fired were the diversity, equity and inclusion recruiting team.

    #winning

    • R C Dean

      Saw that.

      Also, what’s a “fortress balance sheet”?

      • SDF-7

        One where they want Sting to do the SEC reporting?

      • Sensei

        Low debt relative to equity,

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        ?

        In other words, that thing so many companies currently lack.

      • juris imprudent

        If he had said fortified the media would think we was cooking the books?

      • Fourscore

        They recruited so many of the right people they worked themselves out of a job. Well done, team.

    • UnCivilServant

      Well if he’s serious about improving productivity, that’s where you start cutting.

      • R.J.

        “Diversity and Inclusion team hardest hit.”

    • rhywun

      Yeah, that made my morning. ?

      The lawsuit arising out of that might be interesting.

      • Swiss Servator

        At Will Employment.

        If you whack the entire group and don’t replace… win.

      • rhywun

        Do you even civil rights, bruh? All they have to do is “prove” that the company employs too many white people and the DEI team get their jobs back.

      • Sensei

        OT – Morning Swiss.

        I’ve got an article that’s good to go. I let Tonio know, but he may not have checked his Glib email. Feel free to put it wherever you need it.

  4. AlexinCT

    Sorry to go OT this quick, but I read this dreck about a poor single mom that is $430K in student loan debt yesterday and just lost it. You have to read between the lines to find out that she racked up most of the debt, other than the extra $70K she got tacked on from interests during a long time she chose not to make payments, getting a PhD in some discipline that made her qualified to be a college HR worker. I lost any sympathy for her the moment I discovered she spent what seems to amount to $350K getting a Masters and PhD in some studies degree (that’s what leaves you working in HR) instead of something serious that would then let her earn enough to pay it back. But the article is written to make it look like the system is broken, and not the idiots that do this dumb shit.

    • Sensei

      Plus this – “a PhD, the latter of which took seven years to complete.”

    • SDF-7

      Yeah — that befuddled me. Probably different in Humanities — but as I remember grad school (at least for Masters), it was pretty easy to arrange to be a Teaching Assistant, get summer internships, etc. where you pretty much paid for yourself and had just enough to live on. And I thought the PhD students typically also were doing the Research or Teaching assistant roles as well for much the same reason. At least keep the debt down if not cover tuition and basic expenses. But technical program, 30 years ago, etc… maybe off base in my thinking there. :shrug:

      • Not Adahn

        Yup. Going for a PhD in chemistry would have not accrued any debt back when I was in school.

      • juris imprudent

        My son got his PhD in bio-chem at Texas A&M incurring no additional debt from his undergrad days.

      • sloopyinca

        Nobody should have to pay to live in CS for more than six months. In fact, they should get a stipend for enduring it.

      • Not Adahn

        There is an excellent vegetable market there, an excellent meat market, and a wonderful burger place.

        Plus if you want to see turtles swarm, you can toss some stale tortillas off the pier at the golf course lake.

      • AlexinCT

        That’s how people that get a degree worth getting usually do it. Even fucking medical students that can rack the $350K up specializing, know to try and avoid as much of that as possible, cause while they can pay it back, they want to do so in the first 5-10 years of their life (tops). As soon as someone tells me some poor sob story about some idiot that racked more than $50K getting a degree outside of STEM, medicine, economics, or law (and these days not so much this), I am done listening. The only argument I would listen and discuss is the criminality of schools charging dumb people this sort of money to get degrees in fields that are worthless when it comes to making money. Schools making people pay $70K/year to get any/all degree(s) is evil.

        The reality is that some degrees will always be worth more than others based on not just what you learn, but what you can earn. But while I feel hostility to these criminal enterprises that spend more time indoctrinating mushy brains that teaching people real and valuable things, the fact that it is common knowledge all degrees are not created equal and that the “Study what you love/like” trope is demented idiocy, I am now beyond feeling sympathy for people still racking up serious debt wasting their college years. Why is college the one expensive enterprise in life where there are so many customers paying premium dollars do their best to get the least return for their money, huh? I don’t see people spending massive amounts of money trying to buy lemons and not caring, but when it comes to college, people just shrug and go party.

      • Lackadaisical

        Schools making people pay $70K/year to get any/all degree(s) is evil.

        ‘making’ them do it, or letting them? A fool and his money…

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        law (and these days not so much this)

        Thisssss.. Median entry level lawyer salary is ~$75k. It’s really hard to pay off $200k in law school debt on that kind of salary.

      • PieInTheSky

        how are the wimminz at Texas A&M?

      • Not Adahn

        Less hot than UT. By like a lot.

      • juris imprudent

        From my old guy perspective they all looked too young, but mostly cute.

      • Not Adahn

        The worst part of my bad breakup with an aggiegal was that she gave away he Border Collie pup that I ha picked out from her dog’s litter.

        They were amazing, working independently from humans. You’d tell them to move either the cows, horses or goats, and where you wanted them moved to, and the dogs would just do it.

        I really wanted that pup. She docked the tails herself with a mallet and a chef’s knife.

      • slumbrew

        She docked the tails herself with a mallet and a chef’s knife.

        It sounds like you got off lightly.

      • Not Adahn

        However, someone of them are specially trained in insemination, so they’ve got that going for them.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I’ve seen pretty much everywhere that it’s standard advice to not do a PhD unless the school pays for it, but that’s not always in the student’s best interest. Some PhD programs are being designed for people in the workforce who don’t want to and quit their job. I paid full price for my PhD, but I also continue to work a fulltime job. The total for my Master’s and PhD (2 separate programs) came in at just under a $100k.

        Being able to continue working in my career and advancing while doing the PhD was priceless. In terms of ROI, the Master’s paid for itself in 2 years with a 50% salary increase upon receiving it. PhD will pay off in about 5 years plus will open higher-paying corporate doors that are closed to me without it. And I’d guess employer reimbursement will have covered ~30% of total tuition.

        That said, this woman foolishly did not consider the ROI at all. But it can make sense and payoff if you’re smart about it.

      • AlexinCT

        But it can make sense and payoff if you’re smart about it.

        That’s my point: some PhDs are more Phd-ey than others. I can see getting debt for one that lets me earn tons of cash. I find it criminally stupid if you rack up a shit-ton of debt getting a PhD in an idiocy field, and these days, unfortunately, most BA degrees fall into hat category because of the devaluation of that field’s ROI. But if you are doing any studies degrees and that cost isn’t born by your parents or for free, I will immediately move you into the “you are a serious idiot” category.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        No disagreement here.

      • invisible finger

        Shouldn’t the lender and the university be helping the borrowers understand the ROI? For the most part it’s 18-year olds who never made money decisions in their lives getting encouraged to go into huge debt. The problem is not one of the 3 parties has any skin in the game, it’s all dumped on taxpayers (mostly as inflation).

      • Fourscore

        Some college counselors are not telling the students the truth, about their capabilities or qualifications.

      • Rat on a train

        Everyone is special.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Exactly so on the problem. The university is not going to care about the ROI unless if they are held responsible for defaults. I would say the vast majority of universities and individual professors, like high 90s percentage, are actively hostile to considering a college degree as primarily an investment. That’s going to fall on the student to determine for themselves, which as you pointed out is a very high hill for an 18 year old. It was much easier for me to assess and focus on the ROI in my 30s.

      • juris imprudent

        She was 28 when she got her bachelors (doing the math in the article). If you aren’t going to get the concept then, you won’t ever.

      • AlexinCT

        I get an 18 year old not knowing this shit (although I knew I was doing AE & EE by the time I was 12, I see most people struggle to figure out what they want), but at 28, life should have thought her what worked and what wouldn’t. Unless she was a spoiled brat either because her parents gave her everything or the government never covered her so she wouldn’t need to grow up…

      • juris imprudent

        We won’t even discuss the child she had and lack of mention of a husband.

      • The Last American Hero

        No. They are adults and should be able to do basic math to gain entry into an institution of “higher education”.

      • Zwak, All dressed up in his ridiculous seersucker suit

        A semi-aside, I was talking to my wife who is in university HR at the director level, and she casually mentioned they had a problem filling student advisor positions. As I come from an academic family, this surprised me, as those roles were always filled by professors in addition to the teaching load, giving them insight into the student needs and the field that they were involved in. That they have been moved away from the people involved directly in the teaching and researching of any given field and placed in the care of an underpaid, over-educated person with zero contact with any industry that the student might go into isn’t a good idea.

        I think I spotted a huge chunk of our current problems.

    • Count Potato

      Since the Department of Education was created, college tuition has gone up 1,100%

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        And remember, in 1980 Reagan campaigned heavily on getting rid of it only to turn around and fuck over his supporters by allowing the NEA’s brainchild to continue.

      • robc

        The big turning point was 1992 when Bush signed the law allowing the guaranteed student loan program to apply to everyone instead of it being need based.

        This originally happened under Carter but got reversed under Reagan, only for Bush I to go full Carter again.

      • juris imprudent

        That is EXACTLY why I don’t get the love for Reagan. Oh, he talked a good game, but just like every other Republican, he couldn’t cut a damn dime from the budget.

      • AlexinCT

        Not trying to make any excuses, but the reality is that congress does the spending, and back then Tip held all the power of the purse (for real), so old Ronney had to compromise with those shysters to get what he wanted, which meant they got to do a ton of extra spending of their own.

        Government will NEVER cut spending, only grow it at any and all opportunity. Anyone that still thinks there is some magic way to make them cut spending is not facing the reality that congress has not only changed the game to make sure they can pass the blame for their mismanagement to government bureaucrats that can’t be voted out, but now passes OMNI bills that hide the pork so they can avoid responsibility for that as well.

        Don’t get me wrong. I wish we could reverse the spending, but that will only happen if we scrap all government and force it so start from scratch, and even that is no guarantee they will stick to what the constitution says they are responsible for..

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I’m willing to cut Reagan a little slack because it was Bush that truly fucked over the conservatives, but that’s about it. Bush had to give on abortion, but Reagan acquiesced on education. His staff was full of Rockefeller Republicans who were just progs against drugs.

      • Zwak, All dressed up in his ridiculous seersucker suit

        What constantly and continuously gets forgotten is that Republicans are not Libertarians. They may be more L than Dems at this point, what with the fascism coming from the left, but that don’t make them truly Libertarian.

        They are perfectly willing to spend, just on the BS that they like.

      • juris imprudent

        Yeah, granted that Reagan/any-president has limitations of the office. At the very least, he could have refused to nominate a Secretary of Education and made the damn thing limp if he couldn’t outright kill it.

        But the profligacy and buffoonery in DoD is still uncriticized by Republicans to this day. There is no accountability on the military for the lies about Afghanistan – and there is just as much blame for that on Republicans as Democrats.

        Even when the Repubs have controlled both houses in Congress, spending just keeps going up.

      • AlexinCT

        Reagan did a lot of things I really felt were wrong. Amongst the things that made me really worry was that amnesty bill he signed with the promise there would never be another (he HAD to know that was bullshit). He wanted to beat the USSR and made too many bad accommodations with the DOD to help make that so. In hindsight we can call him out on all the Mickey mouse shit, but the end goal – to defeat the USSR – was attained, and for that I am always grateful and feel willing to give him a pass. That the powers that be then went and sold ourselves out to the other communist agency immediately after that, so our elite could make piles of money, while telling us this would make these communists capitalists and prevent another cold/hot war, only to quickly realize they were being used and taken advantage of but never reversing course, of course, should be a lesson about how inept the credentialed elite class really is.

        The lesson is that when it comes to government there is no single individual or movement that can make it work without flaws, but that government is going to be where the worst types of people will end up because it is the quickest way to use criminality to enrich the people doing it at the expense of the others that produce. The lesson is that we need the smallest government possible and hold it accountable or else.

    • invisible finger

      The system IS broken if they are stupid enough to “lend” money to someone working on a degree that provides no significant additional earning power. Extra points for the brokenness in that they encourage this dumb avenue for a single parent.

      It’s a rather dumb avenue even for a married parent whose spouse works. I have a physician friend who works at a teaching hospital – he says almost half the students are married women; he knows the debt the students are going into and they will either never pay it back or they have a spouse making so much money they can handle the debt load.

      That’s why we have so many doctors who know the C19 protocols are stupid and counter productive but they are afraid to say anything because they are up to their neck in debt and are afraid to question their employers.

      • AlexinCT

        The system IS broken if they are stupid enough to “lend” money to someone working on a degree that provides no significant additional earning power.

        Why wouldn’t they? There is neither an incentive or cost to this racket. While I would like to see the system changed to make the cost of a degree be in line with its earning potential first and foremost, because this would immediately kill off the stupid disciplines that popped up in the last few decades that leave a huge amount of idiots in debt and only able to work as baristas, I am also amenable to a system that would make the school partially responsible for the debt incurred if the student remains unemployed. For one something like that would completely destroy the current quota systems that hurt so many minorities that end up in schools where they can’t keep up and drop out, but it also would force the school to make sure its students don’t just spend their 7 years of undergrad partying hard.

      • invisible finger

        I agree. If any activity can be labeled “predatory”, it is the university recruiting these students more than it is the lender.

      • Fourscore

        “Bad credit? We can help you get that PhD in General Studies and call yourself a Doctor”

        The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Recruiting Team is here to help you.

      • Ghostpatzer

        “The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Recruiting Team is here to help you.”

        /Checks upthread

        Not any more.

    • Rat on a train

      “I’m hoping that they completely revamp the student-loan program,” Maria said.
      I hope as well, but in a different way then you.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The system is broken, just not in the way they think.

      Federally guaranteed student loans are an abomination.

      • Rat on a train

        Remove government backing and rates and approvals will better reflect the risk of an unsecured loan.

      • SDF-7

        When you screw up the K-12 educational system to the extent that a Bachelor’s is the new effective high school diploma (sign of basic competence for hiring), you have to then figure out how to have government sponsored bachelor programs. And when the bar moves to Master’s… they’ll follow.

        But yes — stop government secured loans, encourage trade school / community college where it makes sense and teach basic finance and life skills in high schools again and maybe the colleges will be reduced to students that actually need to be there are can do the cost/benefit math. Maybe.

    • Mojeaux

      But the article is written to make it look like the system is broken

      The system IS broken.

    • UnCivilServant

      My fix for the student loan system – univerities must by back at full face value any outstanding debt incurred at their institutions plus fees and interest incurred on those debts. The fed then ceases all loan operations. The universities may opt to attempt to recover the remaining debt, or can forgive it. Any future loans must be secured by the university, regardless of lender.

      That will burn through the cruft right quick.

      • slumbrew

        Merely putting the university on the hook for a chunk of the loan – even 25% – would be sufficient.

      • UnCivilServant

        My intent is to make it unprofitable to push people into degrees without a viable RoI for most students. If they can still offload the 75% to someone else, they’ll just raise prices again.

    • JG43

      My take, and I know this isn’t going to be popular here, is that since these loans are not dischargeable there should only be nominal interest charged if any. The guarantee is to the banks not the student. They will get their money back. Interest is the cost of the money itself plus the amortized risk which in this case is near zero.

  5. invisible finger

    “Proof of citizenship is not required and the grant does not have to be repaid.”

    Do these people get 1099’s along with their grant money?

    • juris imprudent

      Step 1) Disown my useless son…

    • SDF-7

      Ok… now they’re just trolling us.

    • AlexinCT

      Crime syndicate pretends to be fixing criminal activity by passing measures to make it easier for them to be even more criminal is the correct headline..

    • Rebel Scum

      “Corruption threatens United States national security, economic equity, global antipoverty and development efforts, and democracy itself,” Biden said in a statement on June 3

      Beijing Biden would know about corruption.

  6. SDF-7

    Meh — it certainly looked to me like Max left space on the left at first — then moved over and tapped the brakes. Hamilton couldn’t know what he was thinking, especially given all the Virtual Safety Cars they kept having… he may have just been wondering for those crucial couple of seconds if he’d missed an indicator.

    Since Max wanted to get Hamilton in front of him at the DRS detection point and then immediately re-pass him (so he’d have DRS to pull a bigger gap), that would fit. It also fits with Max being an overly aggressive ponce when he’s challenged — he’s no Danny Kvyat when it comes to torpedoing — but he’ll shamelessly force people off the road in corners he shouldn’t.

    CEO is a jerk. Kamala Harris is a jerk. Juicy Smollet is a jerk. Strawberry Shortcake is a jerk. University admin is probably a bunch of jerks. Hawaii taxing / zoning are a bunch of jerks. Elon is probably a jerk too — but at least he gets some crap done with Space-X so I’m more willing to overlook it.

    And those poor, poor pugs….. their owners are jerks.

    • Sean

      Now all I can think about is jerk chicken. *sigh*

      • Trigger Hippie

        Stop jerking your chicken, Sean.

      • PieInTheSky

        you have to give your meat a good old rub, yeah boy (if I could be arsed to learn the tag things this text would be a link to Ainsley Harriott but as I could not, it ain’t)

      • AlexinCT

        Wut?

      • Trigger Hippie

        *image search*

        Yeah, I’m not rubbing anything to Ainsley Harriot.

      • Zwak, All dressed up in his ridiculous seersucker suit

        I hear choking porn is more popular than jerking.

    • R C Dean

      “Let’s not argue about ‘oo wrecked ‘oo . . .

    • sloopyinca

      The two things about the race that bothered me the most were:
      1, the initial passing incident that caused Max to have to give up the place at all. He went on the outside of turn 1 and had gotten far enough alongside Hamilton that Hamilton lost the apex line into turn 2. But he chose to take it anyway so Max had to leave the track. Hamilton was in no way clear of the car, therefore he should have maintained the outer line in turn 2 and allowed Max the room to make the corner. He would have had to do it so slow, Hamilton would have probably gotten past him on the exit anyway.
      2. The race director said he’d told Merc that Max was going to let him pass and that they had their radio on the wrong channel. That’s the second time Merc got away with not relaying to their driver what’s going on during the weekend. The first was in FP3, when Hamilton was cruising along at about 60 mph on the racing line (TWO FUCKING TIMES) and almost caused a pair of collisions with Mazepin and Gasly, the latter being a lot more severe as it was in a blind turn. FIA fined the team $25k but Hamilton escaped a grid penalty.

      I’m also a bit irritated at how Bottas was allowed to slow on the first yellow enough for the team to make a double stop and force Max to stay out, which is completely against the rules of maintaining distance and pace on yellow flag laps. But I’m not as irritated about that since it all worked out with the red flag. Either way, there seems to be a different set of rules for Hamilton as there is for everybody else. I only hope they somehow take each other out in the first corner next week and Max wins the championship. I’m sick of the golden boy getting all the breaks.

      • juris imprudent

        There’s a bunch of rules and etiquette involved in “Formula Un” as opposed to good ol’ Amurican racin’.

      • SDF-7

        Yeah, if it was NASCAR one of them would have just wrecked the other intentionally then their pit crews would have gotten into a brawl.

        If it was Indy they both would have done something incredibly dumb and crashed without additional assistance.

      • Homple

        Quite European–the annoying part of European, not the good stuff.

      • SDF-7

        You mean Safety Car — not yellow flag. (Ack-shually…). I don’t know the FIA rules by heart but the commentators later in the broadcast stated that apparently the 10 car rule is different somehow. But yeah — the whole red flag made that a moot point.

        I see the corner differently — Hamilton was clearly ahead and would have stayed ahead if Max took the corner normally. He didn’t — but instead chose to risk torpedoing Hamilton by barrelling in and braking extremely late, trusting Hamilton to get enough out of the way and knowing he could go off track a bit. He’s done this kind of crap before (a lot), and I really think he’s just been lucky to not slam into a driver that doesn’t yield enough for him. Again, not as reckless as Kvyat — but he’s knowingly putting other cars at risk and relying on them to back down so he can pull his crap.

        The FIA seems to bend over backwards for both of them most of the time — not surprisingly since I think they like the drama and that it gets chatter / ratings. But that’s just how I see that. Not going to disagree that your point of view is also reasonable — just not mine.

      • sloopyinca

        Hamilton was clearly ahead and would have stayed ahead if Max took the corner normally. He didn’t

        The issue I take with this is the it all but ends passing in the corners. “Normally” is different in traffic than it is while in line. Hamilton hit the apex of turn 1, which left enough room for Max to get beside him on the outside of 1/inside line going into 2. Hamilton just assumes he’s still entitled to cut across to the apex of turn 2 even though he’s not clear of the other car.
        The alternative is to just ban passing in the corners, I suppose. Or tell drivers once they enter into a series of corners they have to get in line. But that’s no fun.

      • SDF-7

        Simplify the tracks… make them race on ovals. 😉

      • Not Adahn

        make them race on ovals figure-eights.

      • Bobarian LMD

        With a ramp for passing.

  7. I. B. McGinty

    “Aussie softball player Natalie Titcume”

    Heh heh.

    • AlexinCT

      Hi, my name is Richard Hurtz. My friends call me Big Dick. Big Dick Hurtz…

  8. Not Adahn

    why she baked brownies for her alleged rapist

    Huh. I’m familiar with “butter her biscuit,” but I’m unclear on what “baking brownies” is a euphemism for.

    • R C Dean

      To the Urban Dictionary, stat!

      • SDF-7

        As with most things from the Urban Dictionary — I’m extremely certain I don’t WANT to know.

    • PieInTheSky

      Why are you mocking victims?

      • Not Adahn

        Because it’s a mutually beneficial interaction. I get to mock people that don’t fight back, and they get in increase in their victim points. Win-win!

    • invisible finger

      “I’m unclear on what “baking brownies” is a euphemism for.”

      Anal?

  9. R C Dean

    “But if she were a man with her management style, she would have a TV show called ‘The Apprentice.’ ”

    When Harris’s DemOp defenders compare her to Trump, you know it’s time to stick a fork in.

    • juris imprudent

      That’s as bad as the DCCC tweet about the 2 cent drop in the price of gasoline.

      • Not Adahn

        ZOMG! TITLE 9! HOSTILE WORK ENVIRONMENT!

      • Sean

        It’s on a woman’s desk.

        *irony*

    • SDF-7

      Like most models — looks more like “stick”. And are you trying to swipe the Potato’s shtick? Better be quick….

      • PieInTheSky

        When I decide to troll Potato’s shtick I am always faster than him

  10. Trigger Hippie

    No work today! No work today! Huzzah!

    Good thing because I drank waaay too much last night.

    • AlexinCT

      Drinking too much every night before work is what makes work fun, dude…

      • Trigger Hippie

        Not when you have to climb up and down extension ladders all day. That shit is dangerous.

      • Festus

        Gah!

      • Festus

        I’m at the point of Barnaby the Scrivener. No fucking way. We’ve got a 30-footer. Hire someone else.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Heights don’t really bother me but I sure as shit don’t move quickly on the 32 or 40ft ladders.

    • rhywun

      Right there with you.

      Holy crap, I crawled out of bed at 8:30 instead of my usual 6:00 or so.

      • Ghostpatzer

        Huh. Must be an official glib holiday, no work for me today. Officially, for a change.

      • rhywun

        For me it’s called “use up the rest of my paid time off” day. I have several more this month.

      • Ghostpatzer

        We call them “Mental Wellness Days”. Management’s way of showing our woke workforce how much they care.

        Narrator: They are still crazy.

      • Trigger Hippie

        I thought I was looking at twelve days in a row…I’ll take it.

    • The Gunslinger

      Nope. Hourglass figure.

  11. Count Potato

    “US intelligence warns that China intends to build a warship base on the ATLANTIC Ocean in Equatorial Guinea in threat to Eastern Seaboard”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10278739/US-urges-Equatorial-Guinea-not-let-China-build-base-Beijings-warships-ATLANTIC-Ocean.html

    “Satellite images reveal new camps of Russian soldiers, tanks and artillery near Ukraine’s border as US warns Putin will be ready to invade with 175,000 troops within weeks”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10279477/Ukraine-Russia-border-Satellite-images-reveal-Putins-troop-build-continues.html

    Everything is fine.

    • SDF-7

      Well duh — did anyone think they’d build a blue water navy, get a bunch of African / third world countries indebted to them and *not* get basing rights? It isn’t like they don’t have a model from 100+ years ago to work from.

      My solution to China would be to stop feeding them all the money / IP they can use to try to take over the world with… but obviously the brilliant elites think “Nah… it’ll be fine!”, so c’est la vie.

      And feel sorry for the Ukraine — but really shouldn’t be any of our business at a military level (insert standard disband NATO already screed). I’m sure Putin is pushing because the Biden administration has proven how inept they are at foreign policy, military ops (and domestic policy… and pretty much everything), so it is unfortunate.

      • rhywun

        get a bunch of African / third world countries indebted to them

        This. It is the entire point of “Belt and Road”.

      • Homple

        And it’s working pretty well so far. I wonder if China can keep its future empire a money-making proposition. The Brits couldn’t do it.

      • Tundra

        Like this?

        China’s denials ring a little hollow these days.

    • Drake

      Are the Chinese using local labor? I look forward to more Empire of Dust / “It’s all so tiresome” videos.
      https://youtu.be/rFWLmRYQVvA

      • Lackadaisical

        You know the construction quality is bad when a Chinese guy is saying it is subpar.

      • Homple

        I worked on a project with a German employee of the TÜV (Technischer Überwachungsverein) who had just returned from inspecting Chinese power plant boiler construction. The photos he showed me of bad welding on 3200+psi boiler tubes were scary.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      “US intelligence feeds fear propaganda to bolster their budgets.”

    • Rebel Scum

      US intelligence warns that China intends to build a warship base on the ATLANTIC Ocean in Equatorial Guinea in threat to Eastern Seaboard

      Meh.

      Satellite images have revealed huge new camps of Russian troops, tanks and artillery near the Ukrainian border as Vladimir Putin continues massing his forces on Europe’s doorstep amid warnings he could invade within weeks.

      They’ll be home by Christmas.

  12. Festus

    Every link got woreserer and worserer. Good God, Man. Have you no sense of pity at all?

  13. Sean

    https://www.rt.com/news/542288-babies-vaccine-pfizer-brazil/

    Two Brazilian babies have ended up in hospital after a nurse confused the vials and mistakenly injected them with Pfizer coronavirus vaccine instead of their intended infants’ jabs.

    The shocking blunder was first reported by the media and officially confirmed on Sunday by local authorities in the Sorocaba municipality of Brazil’s Sao Paulo state.

    A two-month-old girl and a four-month-old boy had arrived at a medical facility in the area last Wednesday to get the shots of the pentavalent vaccine that protects children from Diphtheria, Pertussis, Tetanus, Hepatitis B, and Hib.

    However, shortly after returning home the babies developed a high fever, vomited and refused to drink milk. The medicine given to them by their parents failed to improve their condition.

    In for a penny, in for a pound – give them boosters in 6 months.

    • Festus

      Pod persons, Preferred pronouns are it, they, those. The whole world’s gone crazy.

    • Count Potato

      Tetanus? I don’t know what things are like in Brazil, but it sounds like they are over-doing the shots.

      Why are we giving Hep A & B shots to infants in the U.S.?

      • Tres Cool

        In case they live in a house with a junkie, or eat someone else’s p00p.

      • Lackadaisical

        ^this.

        And they will test (as in test for every venereal disease on earth) your pregnant wife like she is some street corner whore if you let them.

        Really disgusting world we live in.

    • pistoffnick

      “,,,Hepatitis B…”

      The hepatitis B virus (HBV) is passed from person to person through blood, semen or other body fluids. It does not spread by sneezing or coughing.

      So it’s sexually transmitted or transmitted via sharing needles. Are those months old kids having sex or shooting up?

    • Festus

      Racist!

    • SDF-7

      Eh, maybe – maybe not. Presumably appraisals have some sort of breakdown as to the reasoning so let the court figure it out. Not really newsworthy, imho. Possible someone is a jerk, news at 11…

      That said — the house itself looks like a permanent version of a double wide trailer on stilts. I really hate the housing markets where that’s valued over a million these days (reminds me of the San Jose houses which were built in the 1930s on postage stamp lots valued (at the time) around $600k… almost certainly over a million now. Lunacy… but apparently the market will bear it.

      • AlexinCT

        The cost of the actual land – usually because of scarcity and location – drives these crappy homes values up. We had someone spend a fortune on a lake side shack a few years back then raze the fucking thing down and build a castle that now pisses off all the lake people on the land. The value of the property was 90% the value of the land. Now he put a real mansion on the thing and it is worth 5 times what he bought it for.

      • Fourscore

        Not uncommon here, lots on lakes are getting scarce, lots on the better lakes are even scarcer. Even off lake property is getting harder and harder to find, smaller and smaller plots are becoming the norm.

      • Count Potato

        I have trouble believing people are willing to pay 50% more for a house not owned by a black person.

      • invisible finger

        I totally believe rich white people will pay 50% more for a house not owned next door to a black person.

      • Festus

        Depends on the Black person’s household. I call bullshit.

      • Count Potato

        Really? But in this case they didn’t change the neighbors.

      • invisible finger

        The absolutely changed the neighbors. At least the implied neighbors. Which is what matters.

      • Count Potato

        No, they didn’t.

      • Zwak, All dressed up in his ridiculous seersucker suit

        They absolutely changed the perception of the neighborhood.

      • Homple

        Depends on the totality of the neighborhood.

      • rhywun

        Not really newsworthy, imho.

        LOL, nice try.

        No, it becomes “not newsworthy” when it turns out there wasn’t a sYsTeMiC rAcIsM angle after all.

    • Not Adahn

      Eh, Californians are just as if not more racistyist than anyone else.

      Of course, it might also be possible that their home price actually jumped by 40% between the two valuations.

    • Drake

      Who puts their family photos into real estate listings? We took most of our down when the photographer showed up.

    • invisible finger

      It probably had nothing to do with the human excrement in the original streetside photos.

  14. PieInTheSky

    Dunno if covered but one of Reason’s finest got made fun of by evil right wingers for this tweet

    I say this as a libertarian: When people are confused & ask why I don’t like gun culture, I should just show them this photo. They’re not handbags. They’re machines used to kill people. Necessary in certain situations, yes, but I’m tired of folks acting like this stuff is cutesy.

    https://twitter.com/billybinion/status/1467284779624280064

    Including mean old Michael Malice

    Michael Malice
    @michaelmalice
    ReaCNN apparatchik opines on gun culture with exactly the impotent huffing you’d expect:

    • PieInTheSky

      Now billy made a thread

      “A few thoughts. Been pretty stunned by the number of conservatives & libertarians telling me I’ve disqualified myself from my job & that I should lose it.

      Free speech & open debate are supposed to be pillars of those ideologies. That includes hearing things you disagree with. ”

      https://twitter.com/billybinion/status/1467687871863685123

      I don’t get what this has to do with free speech and open debate? You hear things you disagree with and the mock them.

      “I do, however, think it’s possible to express that disagreement without calling me things like “a sissy bitch” and a “f*ggot.” Says way more about you than me. ”

      it is possible to express disagreement in many a way

    • Sean

      No one is stealing their steaks, though.

    • PieInTheSky

      The cringe part about this is that it’s done purely to own the libs and not even because they’re a bunch of weirdo gun fetishists. Wait, maybe that would have been weirder. I can’t decide. Point is obnoxious gun fetishism is cringe.

      https://twitter.com/neontaster/status/1467497366777483270

      In the culture war you sometimes need to do something purely to own the libs I suppose

      • rhywun

        In the culture war you sometimes need to do something purely to own the libs I suppose

        Yes.

        It’s called a “culture war” for a reason. Lying back and getting rolled over hasn’t been working out so well for non-libs.

      • Homple

        I doubt that they’re weirdo gun fetishists. They’re encouraging Second Amendment supporters, who are under increasing pressure from the Disarm Citizens and Keep All Firearms in the Hands of Government Agents movement.

    • Count Potato

      It’s the Democrats fault for the assault weapons ban.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      It’s interesting to me that if I go back into really old family photos, there’s quite a few with the men sitting on horseback (or mules) displaying their guns usually in front of a still.

      What Little Billy fails to understand is that yes, it is intended to send a message. And that much needed message is, “Back the fuck up.”

      Apparently Billy thinks we can talk our way out of totalitarianism and that it can’t happen here.

      • PieInTheSky

        I think it is standard resonista idea that if they play nice with the progs the progs will see the light. Or maybe reasonistas are not really that into liberty.

      • juris imprudent

        It’s all about the cocktail parties.

      • EvilSheldon

        They all have the same stupid idea that ‘being nice’ is a positive trait.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        ?

      • Zwak, All dressed up in his ridiculous seersucker suit

        I think it is more that when Reason started it was the R’s who weren’t civil liberties friendly (outside of firearms ownership), and they haven’t quite (if at all) made the pivot yet to the D’s being unfriendly to civil liberties.

    • Not Adahn

      Considering the major driver of Trumpenhass was style not substance, This should surprise absolutely nobody.

      *mourns the loss of the cosmoglibs*

    • EvilSheldon

      Okay Billy, time for a thought experiment. If, instead of a family showing off some (very expensive and collectable) guns, we had a picture of a bunch of elementary-school students dressing in drag and grinding on their teachers. Would you feel the same need to open your gob about it?

    • B.P.

      I saw a half-dozen stories about how Massie is being insensitive posting this picture days after a school shooting. Every day is within a week or so of some notable shooting or another.

  15. Count Potato

    Donald Trump’s new anti-censorship social-media site has attracted a further $1 billion in investments, the former president announced Saturday.

    Announcing the injection of cash into his upcoming site TRUTH Social, Trump said: ‘$1bn sends an important message to Big Tech that censorship and political discrimination must end.

    ‘As our balance sheet expands, Trump Media & Technology Group will be in a stronger position to fight back against the tyranny of Big Tech.'”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10278405/Donald-Trump-says-planned-Twitter-rival-TRUTH-Social-raised-1-BILLION-investment-cash.html

    Just build your own Federal Reserve.

    • AlexinCT

      Just build your own Federal Reserve.

      NO!

      That means we will have two of these cancers to fight then…

  16. rhywun

    Or does it mean absolutely nothing?

    I think it means men are the worst. How are the media going to cope with this awful truth?

    • Festus

      We do have a tendency to fart and scratch our balls.

  17. Festus

    What would be his definition of “Libertarian”. Leave me alone but those other guys, Brrrr. They need to stop doing that! H/T to friend Hyperbole.

  18. rhywun

    why the fuck was the university doing the investigation rather than the police department?

    Same reason Columbia is at fault when some gang-banger piece of shit stabs a student ten blocks away from campus.

    “Image”.

    • AlexinCT

      I am sure no kids, especially the boys, will click through when warned about nekked pics…

      • Fourscore

        ….boys and old men…

      • Ghostpatzer

        Anything like those warnings on Q’s links? A really useful feature here.

      • The Last American Hero

        The fact that Q linked it IS the warning.

    • rhywun

      Check out this nugget of wisdom:

      “There’s no reason we should ask an 11-year-old to keep herself safe online.”

      Yes, let someone else do it.

      • Sensei

        It takes a village.

      • juris imprudent

        But not the parents of course.

      • EvilSheldon

        Absolutely not. We must never ask an 11-year-old to start developing risk awareness and coping skills. We must all work together to produce future generations of useless, parasitic, emotionally crippled pseudo-adults.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Nailed it

    • Drake

      Forgot to mention – I agree with the Crowd Psychosis / Cult Deprogramming part. I’ve seen otherwise normal stable people now programmed to “know” some demonstrably false things – and they respond with anger instead of logic when challenged.

      • AlexinCT

        If you think you are getting news from old media you are an idiot. What you get is your opinions assigned to you practically always based on bullshit and lies that advance one agenda or another.

      • Drake

        I was travelling last week and saw more cable news than I had in a while. Having been away from it for a while, it now looks like lies and propaganda with a big dose of fear mixed in.

  19. Festus

    It’s a shitty line of work but I won’t let them break me just yet. I’m stubborn and I’m cagey. Not as dumb as I appear on these boards. Bring it on, you fucks!

  20. robc

    June 4th, the start of the graph, was my last day on my previous job. It really is bad I am enjoying this. That is one ugly 6 months chart. And for those wondering, the close on Friday was between 10 and 11.

    https://imgur.com/ExzeUEU

    • AlexinCT

      What is that a graph of? No labeling…

      • robc

        Stock price of my former company since laying me off.

      • AlexinCT

        Ah, cool.

        Yeah, I have a similar story with my departure from GE. When I left them (because Immelt took over and decided to offshore most IT/Engineering work to offshore and to tell all the people they were not laying off to move to some other place) I gave up more than $130K in stock options. My ex was furious, and a bunch of friends that knew I was doing this all called me crazy for just not waiting to cash those out (even though my ex didn’t want to move). What I knew was that the stock had been issue when GE was at the top of its value and was trending downward with no end in sight of how low it was going, and I guessed I would never see the strike price to make the stock worth anything but a massive loss. GE stock floated at around $32-35 for decades before GE ended up delisted and I never regretted leaving them because the company went not just woke, but downright fucking stupid under that asshat Immelt.

      • robc

        I have a lot of GE connections (I used to take a quarterly trip out to GE Appliance Park with my job in the late 90s), so I know exactly what you mean.

        I had options with a strike price about $50 that expired worthless when I was laid off. The price was about $47 on my last day. It shot up to $52 just after I was let go, which annoyed me. It wouldn’t have been much, but some walking around money would have been nice.

        That it has totally tanked since then is a sign that I needed to bail out anyway. There is disfunction at upper management. When the CIO left, I should have clued in (although I like the new one too). My current employer is privately held (although I wouldn’t be surprised to see that change in next 3-5 years) and actually makes money.

      • AlexinCT

        Never regretted leaving that place once the writing on the wall became clear. My strike price for that batch of stock was in the $80 range so that was NEVER gonna happen. Just like my decision to leave Pratt & Whitney for GE 5 years before, I took the fact that I was able to score 7 new patents that let GE make tens of millions and paid me $400 per with a bunch of stock options – of which I cashed in on the early ones for enough money to make it feel worthwhile – to mean I left while the leaving was still in my favor. It was time for something different anyway as I had moved from AE and EE to doing software full time.

        Sometimes it will take time for you to realize that while it was annoying to have to leave an employer it is for the best.

  21. AlexinCT

    If you still don’t get that the green movement is evil fucking elites telling the serfs they must give up the common conveniences and freedoms they want for themselves so they can avoid running into the unwashed idiots when they are doing their thing, just check this out. Why are we still taking any of these fucking evil assholes that fly private jets to expensive exotic destinations to eat caviar & Kobe beef, drink Champagne, and engage in Epstein-like orgies and other debauchery, seriously on this shit?

    • Festus

      Because we are as an entity quite stupid. Why would otherwise competent men keep pissing into a backed up urinal for three days? It’s because they were stupid. I’ve had enough, I’m going to bed.

  22. PieInTheSky

    The Omicron panic is fascinating given we have no indication it is a more serious disease and some it is less serious. I hate to go down the road of conspiracy, but I am beginning to think the panic is the purpose. Especially since it is pointless as the variant is clearly everywhere. It is impossible to identify new variant of the virus instantly as it appears, so by the time it is sequenced it has, inevitably, been around for some time. Which means it spread. And the South Africans may have a point when they say there are probably other variants but not all countries do the sequencing to find out.

    In local news, the wave is winding down in old Romania… Let us see when the next one starts. Maybe if omicron is soft enough we can all get the damn thing and be done with. Although I never had the flu so I don’t see why I would get the covid. Clean living and a clear conscience.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      After the last five years, it should be painfully apparent that the media is controlled. The stories are chosen and coordinated. We can argue over who does the choosing, but the coordination is undeniable.

    • AlexinCT

      I remember reading that while nobody was sure why/how the Spanish flu finally burned itself out in the early 20th century, that one of the medical hypothesis held that a variant of the virus that was super contagious and incredibly mild in symptoms, but that caused the human body to create antibodies that stopped all other variants, finally finally made the rounds and burned the thing out. From what I have read/seen/heard from the SA doctor that keeps trying to report on the variant while the WHO does its best to silence him so the usual suspect can again use the new variant as a means to steal more of our freedoms and rig all sorts of nefarious schemes (including elections), this variant is really contagious, mild in symptoms, and seems to create antibodies that stop all other variants cold….

      Maybe that’s why the WHO and other entities are making sure to fan the flames of panic and demanding more shutdowns? Cause they have not accomplished the reset they had been working on yet, and they are worried this new variant will kill their game.

    • SDF-7

      Yeah — I don’t get why Omicron should be a panic situation either. (Of course, I don’t get that there *is* a panic, but that’s probably more to do with the news sites I read versus MSM and that no one in my area seems to care all that much overtly either way). A virtulent but mild variant that gives natural immunity without the risk of the artificial mRNA stuff? Ok — I can see why *Pfizer* should panic, but the rest of us should be rooting for this little bugger to outcompete all its cousins if true… Then it decidedly gets more into the “normal influenza” bucket….

    • Nephilium

      Imagine every cold season going forward, with specific variant names for the strains of cold bug running around.

    • Rebel Scum

      given we have no indication it is a more serious disease and some it is less serious

      Covid panic and fearmongering is not about a virus. It is about control.

  23. PieInTheSky

    A French police helicopter flew 7,000 feet up a windy mountainside, getting inches from the snowy slope, in an effort to rescue an injured skier. Unbelievable skill by the pilot.

    https://twitter.com/Brink_Thinker/status/1467275717532692481

    I say injured skiers should be left to fend for themselves. They made their choice. Why waste helicopter fuel not to mention warm the globe until no more skiing can be.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Because how else are they going to justify buying and operating a rescue helicopter.

      This is akin to the annual ditchweed eradication program in Virginia where local cops partner up with the DEA and the military to fly around and spot “marijuana” farms. They intentionally ignore the actual farms (many of which I assume the sheriffs have a stake in) and find a bunch of ditchweed to pull up and pose for photos with. They also notoriously leave a little behind so there’s some to pull next year.

      • Tres Cool

        + Sheriff Lobo

    • EvilSheldon

      Eh. The guy they pulled off the cliff probably got a bill for the flight.

      • PieInTheSky

        In France? Doubtful

  24. Tres Cool

    whaddup doh

    Just in case you need a booster shot of FUNK

    (Dr. Fauci has NO funk. He’s white, and up tight. Like a tampon)

    • SDF-7

      I’m a saltine cracker — completely square, white and entirely lacking in funk. Just a little salty sometimes.

      • Ozymandias

        Before I clicked on your Funk link, I was like, “This better be EWF.”
        You did not disappoint, Tres. That Onion article is hysterical. They sure went downhill.

  25. Rebel Scum

    I guess we’ll have to wait and see what’s in the report. And we need to hear his accuser.

    Someone doesn’t ///BelieveWomen

    • AlexinCT

      Fa me un pompino!

  26. Rebel Scum

    I have no idea why he didn’t just pay the fine and then cry to a supportive media about bullying or something.

    Arrogance?

  27. The Late P Brooks

    Why do I assume Jefe Joe’s “anti-corruption” efforts will turn out to be an all out assault on tax avoidance by working people?

    • Trigger Hippie

      All I’m saying is that I’ve stopped making deposits into my checking and savings account.

      Interpret that how you will.

      • AlexinCT

        PAY YOUR FAIR SHARE YOU EVIL MAN!

      • Ozymandias

        I think someone needs to make a meme of the kid from “Better Off Dead” with the “I want my two dollars…” but instead it labels the kid “Feds” and says, “I want my 600 dollars…” while he’s chasing John Cusack down the ski slope.

  28. juris imprudent

    Not to defend Fredo, but really?

    The accuser worked with Cuomo during his time at ABC News, the New York Post reported. Cuomo worked at ABC as an anchor until 2013. Katz’s client is not the first woman to accuse Chris Cuomo. In September, his former boss at ABC, journalist Shelley Ross, shared in a New York Times op-ed that the anchor grabbed her buttocks in the presence of her husband at a party in 2005.

    The way the reporting broke, you would’ve assumed it was a complaint from a co-worker at CNN.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The veil of protection has been lifted. It’s time for the feeding frenzy.

      • juris imprudent

        It isn’t only Congress that operates at junior high school level.

    • Lackadaisical

      Not that it makes it okay, but as his boss, you could have fired him, right?

      And if there were, say, other people protecting him, like the governor’s associates, the root problem is with them, not the isolated actions of a creep.

  29. Rebel Scum

    Study shows men spread COVID particles more than other populations

    Especially white men, the greatest of evils.

    • Lackadaisical

      They said loud people also spread more…

    • rhywun

      LOL go fuck yourself.

      I will not comply.

    • Lackadaisical

      How could he possibly have the power to do this? Sounds like bullshit.

      Showed it to the wife and laughed. Out of this state at the end of the month.

  30. Rebel Scum

    Vice President Kamala Harris is described as a “bully” in a new report that brands her as the “common denominator” behind a recent exodus of high-level staffers.

    And to think she was so popular and likeable in the Dem primary.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Cut her some slack, in her current position she has no idea whose dick to suck in order to get ahead.

    • juris imprudent

      Particularly in HER HOME STATE.

  31. juris imprudent

    Just went to freshen up my coffee and the wife had the TV on one of the morning shows. I recognized the guy being interviewed as one of the Backstreet Boys – though now he’s sporting a beard, a very gray beard. That amused us both.

    • Not Adahn

      Gas Station Geezers?

      • juris imprudent

        She larfed.

    • AlexinCT

      DAANNNNGGG!

      MANSPALINER ALERT!

  32. Ozymandias

    Hey, TH! Saw your message from last night. I’m not tryna make a homebody go out in the world. We can stay inside, smoke herb, and shoot the shit. I’ll grab BBQ.
    Also, there’s a hand-delivered copy of The Spark in it for you. I got my author’s copies and I have to say, I dig ’em.
    Great, great cover image selection and styling by Miss Mojo. It’s got a pamphlet feel to it and they look slick on a shelf with the spines out.
    My Mom read it and said she got through it in a coupla hours and wanted to read more, so I’m calling it a success on those grounds alone.

    Tundra: 7-2 win for the good guys last night. I think I got a couple of helpers. More importantly, I dangled the other team’s best defenseman… twice! I didn’t score, but holy shit I left him standing at the blue line. Kinda surprised myself – like, “Holy shit! I just turned that kid inside out! …Now where’s the NET?” He reached and I teached.

    • Trigger Hippie

      I’ll contact Mo and get your info.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Ozy driving the bus taking the kids to school

    • Tundra

      Fantastic!

      Thats’s the way it’s done. I always like making plays I have no business making (and cannot repeat to save my life). It’s kind of like golf – one good shot keeps you going through all the bad!

      • Ozymandias

        Exactly. 18 holes of swearing to hit one drive and one sand wedge that are so good you’ll pay to come back for another 18 holes of swearing next weekend.

  33. Rebel Scum

    Ex-student sues Princeton after 2011 hearing on alleged rape turned into ‘victim blaming’ when Nobel-winning professor asked about her sexual history and why she baked brownies for alleged rapist

    I have questions.

    The student says she was raped by a classmate in December 2010. She was able to sue under a 2019 law signed by Gov. Phil Murphy that did away with the statute of limitations on rape claims for a period of two years ending on Tuesday.

    How exactly can she have a case now? Seems that there would be a lack of evidence.

    Princeton says the issue was handled ‘in accordance with the university disciplinary procedures’ of the time,

    No need to involve law enforcement in a criminal matter I guess.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The Obama administration actively encouraged turning colleges into extra-judicial courts. It was absolutely intended to germinate a secondary justice system that was politically driven.

      It was an effort worthy of Mao.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Ah memories of partially scrambled 1980’s Cinemax on Friday nights.

      • AlexinCT

        WAVY/FUZZY PRON!

  34. The Late P Brooks

    “Having to conduct layoffs is gut wrenching, especially this time of year,” CFO Kevin Ryan said in a statement to CNN Business. “However a fortress balance sheet and a reduced and focused workforce together set us up to play offense going into a radically evolving homeownership market.”

    It sounds like somebody thinks the real estate bubble is about to pop.

  35. PieInTheSky

    Aella
    @Aella_Girl
    I wish plastic surgery for men was more normalized! Most men never think at all about cosmetic procedures as an option, but you can just go *make your jawline stronger* if you want to. I feel like there’s relatively low hanging fruit for strong quality of life increases.

    https://twitter.com/Aella_Girl/status/1467532050311876616

    But then your wife will sue you when the kids come out ugly. To be fair I have vaguely considered a nose job at a point but decided against

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      I wish plastic surgery for men was more normalized!

      I wish plastic surgery for superficial ditzes was less normalized. Maybe they’d be forced to confront the fleetingness their beauty rather than chasing some impossible dream well into their 50s.

      • Animal

        Yup. There’s a lot to be said for growing old gracefully.

  36. Q Continuum

    “Study shows men spread COVID particles more than other populations”

    MUH PAYTREEARKEE

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      “than other populations”

      The plural on “populations” tells me all I need to know.

    • Sensei

      It’s not like men inhale and exhale a larger volume of air…

      • Lackadaisical

        Men need to stop hogging all the oxygen -‘feminists’

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Only DeBlasio could look at the current court cases and think “It’s time for me to do this!”

    • rhywun

      I suppose things are about to get “interesting”.

      I wonder if I will be at work on December 27, or in the middle of a giant protest marching across the Brooklyn Bridge.

      • rhywun

        Oh wait, I’m off on Monday. Let’s plan for Tuesday the 28th.

  37. Rebel Scum

    But is the Pope Catholic?

    Pope Francis was protested as he entered a meeting with His Beatitude Ieronymos II and other Greek Orthodox leaders in Athens today.

    A Greek Orthodox cleric shouted, “Pope, you are a heretic!” before being drug away by police.

    • Not Adahn

      A Greek Orthodox cleric shouted, “Pope, you are a heretic!”

      He’s not wrong.

      • The Last American Hero

        Beware of anything Scalfari is attached to. The guy has a long history of quoting people out of context.

      • SDF-7

        Wow… I understand his sentiment — but that’s what Purgatory is for. It has been argued even that Purgatory is simply Heaven without the Presence (which makes all the difference). Purgatory, reincarnation… easy to argue a theology where a forgiving God gives souls multiple chances and only those who firmly and consciously reject Him go to Hell where there is no chance of communion with Him (because that’s what they want, after all). But you can’t just ignore the whole “Only way to the Father is through Me” and call yourself Christian, much less Catholic.

      • Rat on a train

        Few Americans Blame God or Say Faith Has Been Shaken Amid Pandemic, Other Tragedies

        Four-in-ten U.S. adults (39%) say they think people who do not believe in God can enter heaven, compared with about one-third (32%) who say only believers can gain access. (Again, 27% of adults do not believe in heaven at all.) Catholics are far more likely than Protestants to say that people who do not believe in God can go to heaven (68% vs. 34%). Evangelical Protestants are especially restrictive in their view, with just 21% saying that people who do not believe in God can get to heaven.

        He’s at least inline with American Catholics.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        But you can’t just ignore the whole “Only way to the Father is through Me” and call yourself Christian, much less Catholic.

        This is one of my beefs with Catholicism. When you slip down the slippery slope of works v. faith,

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Lo siento…

        When you slip down the slippery slope of works v. faith, you get closer and closer to stating that you can work your way into eternal life irregardless of faith. Then you get ideas like the treasury of merit and indulgences popping up.

        Such slope sliding turns into “interesting” interpretations of scripture (TW: long video)

        It’s clear to me based on scripture that people are judged based on the knowledge they have. Never heard of Jesus? Not liable to God for not believing in a guy named Jesus. However, scripture is also plainly clear that the truth is painted all across creation, and ignorance to the details doesn’t impute ignorance to all aspects of the faith.

  38. The Late P Brooks

    Land of the free

    New York City is imposing a vaccine mandate for all private sector employers as a preemptive measure to fight a surge of Covid cases this winter, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Monday.

    The mandate will go into effect on Dec. 27, de Blasio said.

    “We’ve got omicron as a new factor, we’ve got the colder weather, which is really going to create additional challenges with the delta variant, we’ve got holiday gatherings,” de Blasio told MSNBC Monday morning. “We in New York City have decided to use a preemptive strike to really do something bold to stop the further growth of Covid and the dangers it’s causing to all of us.”

    The city will also require proof of vaccination for children ages 5 to 11 for indoor dining, entertainment and fitness establishments, the mayor said.

    New York has identified eight cases of the omicron variant as of the weekend, seven in the New York City area and one in Suffolk County on Long Island.

    Dictatorial power made America what it is.

    Deblasio should declare himself mayor for life.

    • Ghostpatzer

      Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals!

  39. Rebel Scum

    It must be all of the waffles.

    In Belgium the states health policy is beating you over the head with a baton and using water cannons against protesters in the winter

    • Sean

      Belgium Health Minister weighs at least 400 pounds…

      LOL

    • juris imprudent

      What other kind of foreigners are in Japan besides tourists and business people?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        straff

        Now you understand their concern.

      • Sensei

        If you look at all “freaky” be prepared to be stopped.

        White guy in suit – no problem.

        White guy in casual clothes at usual tourist hang out – no problem.

        White guy in casual clothes in a residential neighborhood – be prepared to show your gaijin card.

      • UnCivilServant

        What is the actual criminality rate among non-japanese in japan?

      • Sensei

        I honestly don’t know. Crime in general is low and violent crime even lower.

    • Gustave Lytton

      U.S. citizens should carry proof of immigration

      Someone got caught without by the cops asking for their zairyu card.

    • Gustave Lytton

      My guess is one of a few things

      1) Biden admin’s Woke State Dept plan to try to get the rest of the world to accept US sensibilities
      2) distraction from US powerlessness to stop Japan from banning entry of many US citizens who are spouses or children of Japanese nationals from the beginning of this month, including those with previously valid visas
      3) whataboutism https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2021/06/assault-on-2-japanese-nationals-allegedly-by-escaped-oregon-inmate-becomes-international-incident.html
      4) usual embassy make work

      • Sensei

        Number 3 does have a certain charm to it…

  40. Rebel Scum

    No prosecutorial discretion for you!

    A grand jury on Thursday indicted former Brunswick District Attorney Jackie Johnson for allegedly violating her oath of office and obstructing law enforcement following the deadly shooting in February 2020.

    The indictment, which was first filed back in September, alleges that after his son, Travis, 35, fatally shot Arbery, Greg McMichael, 65, called Johnson’s cellphone – having worked in her office as an investigator until he retired in 2019 – and said: ‘Jackie this is Greg. Could you call me as soon as you possibly can.

  41. Brawndo

    OT but I wanted to ask the knowledgeable glibbies here about asbestos exposure. I need to insulate my attic with fiberglass sheets because it’s (poorly) insulated with vermiculite which is a material considered to be contain asbestos. I’ll be wearing long pants and sleeves and a surgical mask and plan to be up there less than an hour. They say it’s fine as long as you don’t disturb the vermiculite, but what I’m doing will definitely disturb it. Is this a dangerous amount of exposure? Or is mostly just a concern if I do it every day for work?

    • Sensei

      You don’t want to mess with “friable” asbestos. Full stop.

      I’m not sure with vermiculite how much asbestos it contains or how it makes the fibers become airborne.

      If the asbestos is encapsulated or contained in the product – no real issues if you are careful.

      • Ownbestenemy

        ^^ if not friable, products containing asbestos are not really a concern. It is when they are is where you need much better measures to contain.

      • Brawndo

        Not sure what friable means. Looks like small pieces of gravel, but it does get “dusty” in the air when moving around up there.

      • Mojeaux

        In asbestos terms, it means brittle and easily powdered. In human skin terms, it means thin and prone to tearing (see: very old people skin).

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Friable means it can be mechanically separated from itself. The characteristic of asbestos that makes it a hazard is that it resembles little bundles of fibers that can be split into smaller and smaller bundles until almost nanoscopic in scale. Those fibers stick to the inside of your lungs and never leave. Your body responds by encapsulating those fibers in scar tissue. Work with it long we enough and you get asbestosis (hardening of the lungs). If you’re unfortunate enough to have the gene for it, you get mesothelioma.

      • Gustave Lytton

        “Call our law offices now to see if you qualify for a huge payout and an even bigger one for ourselves!”

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Coincidentally, the number of meso payout candidates is dwindling as the population of those with institutional exposure ages out.

        So they’re replacing that pool with those exposed crystalline silica, which is just about every construction worker in the country.

      • Sensei

        Also make sure that none of the dust you kick up will make into your living space.

    • Ownbestenemy

      https://www.uline.com/PDF/MS-15280.pdf

      You sure it has asbestos? Crystalline/silica for sure and yes, wear your PPE especially eye protection and mask that can handle the particulates.

    • Count Potato

      I had to remove or install insulation a bunch of times. I wore a respirator. A surgical mask doesn’t seem enough. You want something with a rubber gasket that will seal to your face.

    • Mojeaux

      When you say “disturb,” what do you mean? Like, popcorn ceiling texture? If it’s friable and you get the powder in the air, that’s when it’s a problem. If you’re just putting something over it, it shouldn’t be a problem.

      • Mojeaux

        I suppose I should’ve refreshed before commenting.

    • invisible finger

      I friend of mine sells asbestos abatement supplies so I know a little about this.

      If you’re going to disturb the existing stuff, wear a respirator. If you’re just laying the fiberglass over the existing stuff, you aren’t upsetting it much so use your judgment – but an hour to insulate an attic seems pretty small. Change your clothes (outdoors if you can) when you are done and put them in the wash ASAP.

      I would also wear glasses/goggles and a disposable or washable hat just because of handling fiberglass.

      • Mojeaux

        I would also wear glasses/goggles and a disposable or washable hat just because of handling fiberglass.

        I never had that much foresight because I wanted to get the job done, but I personally never had a problem with fiberglass touching my skin.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Tyvek coveralls and shoe protectors are relatively cheap. I get fiberglass irritation easily and throwing away the outer layer is easier.

      • Brawndo

        Thanks for the tips. I’ve worked with fiberglass before, I grabbed some gloves from work so my hands don’t get torn up and I already wear glasses. I had an abatement company come by and give me a quote. Estimate was quite a bit higher than we could afford plus the hassle of moving out of the house is not something I’m keen to do with a 1 year old. The fiberglass on top is a cheap, medium term solution to my son’s room dropping into the mid 50s during cold winter nights.

    • Sean

      How big is your attic?

      Fiberglass batts suck.

      Your local Home Depot might rent you an insulation machine and you could blow it with cellulose insulation (which they sell too).

      If you were doing it properly, you should also air seal the attic plane…

      • Endless Mike

        If you blow in insulation, be sure not to cover up your soffit vents – they make plastic or Styrofoam baffles to attach to your roof joists to keep them from getting covered by insulation.

    • juris imprudent

      She is English, it may require considerable beer before nakedness.

      • Not Adahn

        She is English, it may require considerable beer before nakedness. spanking.

  42. The Late P Brooks

    Beat that tin drum, little wind-up monkey

    Inside the growing alliance between anti-vaccine activists and pro-Trump Republicans

    ——-

    But as America heads into midterm elections next year, the political right and the anti-vaccine movement are drawing ever closer together. It’s an alliance that promises to give both sides more power, but the cost is potentially thousands of American lives.

    ——-

    Vaccine mandates have many features that make them a good issue to motivate conservative voters. It invokes a fight about the government regulation and personal liberty. But add in the apocalyptic views of anti-vaccine activists and the political power of arguments against vaccine mandates gets punched up to a whole new level.

    For example, Bigtree falsely claims that the COVID-19 vaccines are killing people and represent an existential threat to humanity: “I believe that this vaccine approach, this vaccine itself, this brand-new technology, is so incredibly dangerous, that we are actually putting our species at risk.”

    It’s the synergy between real politics and imagined dangers that is bringing the pro-Trump movement and anti-vaccine activists together.

    Completely different from the people shrieking hysterically about the most deadliest plague ever to come down the pike.

    • rhywun

      Why do those crazy wingnuts keep injecting politics into everything?!

    • Rebel Scum

      anti-vaccine activists

      I have yet to hear from Jim Carey and that blonde actress whos name escapes me on the convid vax issue.

    • Grumbletarian

      Bigtree falsely claims that the COVID-19 vaccines are killing people

      Fact Check: ULTRA FALSE!

      Vaccines may cause some people, a very small number, really a tiny infinitesimal amount of people to develop a mild heart condition, and that heart condition, the mild one I just mentioned, can, possibly, very rarely, I pinky swear it doesn’t happen that often at all, be fatal to some, just a couple of people globally, probably. But it’s not the vaccines themselves that are fatal, you see.

      /love
      Snopes

  43. Rebel Scum

    Child abuse.

    Eyes are a dead giveaway. Every time.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Along those lines, my wife’s niece got her booster while in her third trimester….

      Out of her fucking mind.

  44. Lackadaisical

    “With Kamala you have to put up with a constant amount of soul-destroying criticism and also her own lack of confidence. So you’re constantly sort of propping up a bully, and it’s not really clear why.”

    It is clear why. She was the only ‘black’ female in the running for the job. Enjoy that diversity.

    • Drake

      Of the long list of stupid things Biden has done, promising a “woman of color” running mate – without checking out the options in that department first – may be the dumbest.

      • AlexinCT

        Since when have virtue signaling liberal idiots ever cared about the facts on the ground when trying to preen for their idiot followers, huh?

  45. DEG

    Among those fired were the diversity, equity and inclusion recruiting team.

    Nicely done.

    A study focused on tracking the spread of COVID-19 in performing arts settings has also unveiled the population of humans who spread the most COVID-19 particles. Researchers at Colorado State University learned that men more frequently spread the coronavirus particles than women or children.

    Why do I smell bullshit?

    • Swiss Servator

      BeCaUsE U DoN’t hAVe Ur MaSk ON!

    • Rat on a train

      He wants to expel illegal and unemployed aliens. What a fascist.

  46. Mojeaux

    Looking at my Etsy shop totals this morning (yes, I’m going to get a 1099). I had one small file bucket of stuff to sell from my pathetic attempt to make a business out of my hobby (#protip: don’t do that). I don’t remember what it cost me. I bought it in the late 00s and those records are shredded. I only put it on Etsy to see if I could make a little money back while also decluttering (which was my main goal). I made almost $3,000 on a small tub of fabric and thread. Took a while, but the decluttering is almost complete. The last piece of fabric is a rare specialty fabric you have to know how to search for if you want it, and most people don’t. Safe to safe I made my money back and then some. Some people are also actually buying my patterns, which is shocking.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      I wish you were local; you could be my Etsy broker.

      • Mojeaux

        I would do it, too. What do you make?

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Make? Heh. Got many vintage clothes and linens and stuff, plus a few patterns*.

        *can’t sew

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        20 years is their rule? vintage salt and plastic forks! (NFS)

      • Mojeaux

        Oh, gotcha. Yes, vintage items are hot.

      • Fourscore

        I keep telling Mrs F that but she wants proof

      • Mojeaux

        There’s more than one way to skin a cat…

      • UnCivilServant

        Wait, you stole them?!

      • Mojeaux

        Ask TO’G. I’m just the fence.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Not stolen.

        Anthropomorphized, perhaps.

  47. The Late P Brooks

    How much longer will our 21st century Roundheads wait before openly rebelling against their establishmentarian/royalist oppressors?

    • juris imprudent

      There again is a fine example of a civil war where both sides were assholes.

  48. Animal

    From the Better.com story:

    Among those fired were the diversity, equity and inclusion recruiting team.

    Well, at least there’s some dead wait turfed to the street.

    • Animal

      Argh. *Weight.

  49. Rebel Scum

    *sensitive content warning*

    Hey anyone in Massachusetts need to go shopping, there’s a new store in town!
    #LetsGoBrandon

    • rhywun

      “sensitive content”

      OFFS!

      • hayeksplosives

        And now whatever the content was has been taken down.

      • rhywun

        Still there for me.

        It’s shop sign reading “Let’s Go Brandon Store”.

  50. hayeksplosives

    I’m at Mercury, NV today for high voltage safety training. I was the instructor for high voltage safety at my previous two jobs so this will be interesting.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Wear loose jewelry and rings while poking about areas of HV. Also ensure you are not properly grounded and use tools that you have ‘insulated’ with electrical tape to make it Cat III/IV compliant.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Chicken

        We always struggled with moving assemblers and techs from the ESD line to the power supply line. They kept bringing their ESD straps with them.

      • R.J.

        And keep your tinfoil hat on at all times to keep out the government control signal. It strengthens ten- fold in high voltage environments.

  51. The Late P Brooks

    Empowering women is all well and good, in theory

    Pressure is growing on House Democratic leaders to make Rep. Lauren Boebert (Colo.) the third GOP lawmaker this year removed from their committees over her Islamophobic attacks against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).

    Democratic leaders discussed a possible resolution broadly condemning Islamophobia earlier this week. But that might not be enough for nearly 40 progressive allies of Omar, as well as multiple caucus leaders, who are now openly calling for a repeat of the action taken against fellow far-right Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Paul Gosar (Ariz.).

    Omar said Sunday that she thinks Boebert should be removed from House committees and expects Democratic leadership to make a decision in the coming days.

    “I have had a conversation with the Speaker, and I’m very confident that she will take decisive action next week,” Omar said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “As you know, when I first got to Congress, I was worried that I wasn’t going to be allowed to be sworn in because there was a ban on the hijab. She promised me that she would take care of it. She fulfilled that promise. She’s made another promise to me that she will take care of this.”

    “I think it’s important for us to say, this kind of language, this kind of hate cannot be condoned by the House of Representatives,” Omar added.

    Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), one of Omar’s closest progressive allies in Congress, expressed frustration that Democratic leaders still haven’t acted against Boebert.

    Just as long as they don’t make the mistake of believing all that nonsense about independent thought and freedom of speech and open and honest disagreement.

    • Gustave Lytton

      “As you know, when I first got to Congress, I was worried that I wasn’t going to be allowed to be sworn in because there was a ban on the hijab. She promised me that she would take care of it. She fulfilled that promise. She’s made another promise to me that she will take care of this.”

      So you ran for Congress knowing what the rules were? GFY.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Go away quickly.

      • The Other Kevin

        “As you know, when I first got to Congress, I was worried that I wasn’t going to be allowed to be sworn in because you had to take an oath to defend the Constitution. She promised me that she would take care of it. She fulfilled that promise. She’s made another promise to me that she will take care of this.”

  52. Scruffy Nerfherder

    OFFS

    Neighbor who had a bad reaction to the second shot went and got a booster.

    Feverish and massive headache, hopefully she doesn’t have a stroke.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Did she have to? i

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Nope

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Is she the type to get a flu shot every year?

        Adult / teen vaccines I would take a/o recommend if applicable (not that anyone asked): shingles, pneumonia, tetanus; maybe varicella.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Don’t really know. But she’s been terrified of COVID since this began.

      • juris imprudent

        The Cathedral smiles, “good, good, just as we intended”.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Pardon typo. Hope she recovers anyway.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Ahem: recovers, anyway

    • Sean

      Poison me harder!

    • Rebel Scum

      The Covid Cult is real.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Completely fear driven

        The woman is nominally conservative, so this isn’t just politics.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        ^^

        There is significant bleed over into the conservative ranks. The culture of fear is grabbing the vast majority of people who haven’t untethered from TMITE or TMITE-aligned social media.

        The biggest groups I’ve seen standing against the shots are devout evangelicals, conservatarians, and homeschool moms.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Er, yes, could probably confirm, if I asked my small cadre.

        What a gulli-bull, as Bugs Bunny would say.

  53. Rebel Scum

    Take your meds.

    #DonaldTrump should be arrested for attempted murder. He tried to infect & kill #JoeBiden at the debate; by turning up too late to be tested, knowing full well he was positive; then screeched, sputtered, spit, and foamed at the mouth, hoping to infect Joe. He IS the devil.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Bless her heart for probably sincerely believing that.

  54. The Late P Brooks

    “It’s embarrassing that there is any hesitation on this. How can we have different consequences for different kinds of bigotry or incitement? This should be treated equally and consistently. Incite against a member and you’re stripped. End of story. She refuses to even apologize,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Friday.

    “It’s a pretty simple question: does the House accept violent Islamophobia or not?” she continued. “We should feel ashamed every time @IlhanMN or anyone is forced to defend themselves against threats in their workplace alone [because] the institutions they serve in won’t protect them. It’s messed up.”

    What “threat of violence”?

    I guessed I missed that part.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Don’t lie, to? Resign. Congress is not an entitlement.

    • Rebel Scum

      Incite against a member and you’re stripped.

      Then every single prominent Democratic Party member of Congress needs to have the same consequences for their incitement against others.

    • wdalasio

      This should be treated equally and consistently. Incite against a member and you’re stripped. End of story.

      By that standard she should be stripped of her committee assignments for calling Gosar a Nazi.

  55. Rebel Scum

    Honk honk.

    Scotland, 2021. On a table 1.8 metres away from the bar.

    By law, I must don a face mask for the journey to the bar for another pint.

    However, if I leave 1 cm of beer in the glass, I am “vertical drinking” and can approach and order and return mask-free totally legally.

  56. The Late P Brooks

    The Covid Cult is real.

    “Bless me, Foochy, for I have sinned.”

  57. Tundra

    Good morning, Sloop!

    Thanks for the avalanche of lynx.

    The Harris story warms my heart. No way to spin it when your team splits in the middle of prime time. That town is brutal, but it couldn’t happen to a better person.

    Oh, and Strawberry remains breathtakingly bad at her job.

    Unlike JB, who is (was) a master at his. Great song!

    Happy Monday, peeps! Step on!

  58. Rebel Scum

    It’s the stress what done it.

    Up to 300,000 people in the UK are facing heart-related illnesses due to post-pandemic stress disorder (PPSD), two London physicians have warned.

    This could result in a 4.5 per cent rise in cardiovascular cases nationally because of the effects of PPSD, with those aged between 30 to 45 most at-risk, they claim.

    Mark Rayner, a former senior NHS psychological therapist and founder of EASE Wellbeing CIC, said that as many as three million people in Britain are already suffering from PPSD, thanks to stress and anxiety caused by the effects of Covid-19.

    He fears this could result in a dramatic rise in physical health issues, such as coronary heart failure, if cases are not detected or treated early.

    I suppose cardiovascular issues resulting from a clot shot could be pretty stressful.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      We’re truly into WTF territory here.

    • rhywun

      stress and anxiety caused by the government’s reaction to effects of Covid-19

      Corrected for accuracy.

  59. The Late P Brooks

    Looming over Democrats’ deliberations is the potential for payback if Republicans win the House majority. McCarthy has warned that Republicans might also remove some Democrats, including Omar, from committees over comments they’ve found objectionable.

    That likelihood grows with every unilateral move that Democrats take to punish a Republican, even if it’s for extreme behavior they find too hateful to ignore.

    Too hateful to ignore. Democrats are the party of love and respect.

    • rhywun

      I like the original versions of some of those songs.

      Don’t care much for the “Madchester” treatment when I’m not on drugs.

  60. The Late P Brooks

    Preposterous

    Anthony Fauci on Sunday said Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-Wis.) comments that the infectious diseases expert “overhyped” the AIDS epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic are “preposterous,” adding, “I don’t have any clue of what he’s talking about.”

    Asked about Johnson’s comments by co-host Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Fauci said he did not know how to respond to such a remark considering the high death tolls caused by both AIDS and COVID-19.

    “How do you respond to something as preposterous as that? Overhyping AIDS? It’s killed over 750,000 Americans and 36 million people worldwide. How do you overhype that? Overhyping COVID? It’s already killed 780,000 Americans and over 5 million people worldwide,” Fauci said.

    “So I don’t have any clue of what he’s talking about,” he added.

    Question me? You’re denying SCIENCE!

    No risk is too small to justify a total authoritarian power grab.

    • Ozymandias

      “Oh, what do you mean I said AIDS could be passed by just being around the infected?!? That ol’ chestnut?? Yeah, don’t worry about that. Conspiracy theories. I AM the science.”

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        He’s poetry in motion! No, wait…

      • Tundra

        Good heavens Miss Sakamoto – you’re beautiful!

  61. Rebel Scum

    She’s lost her mind.

    Joy-Ann (Pro-Democracy) Reid ?
    @JoyAnnReid

    So “Mother Nature’s vaccine” has killed nearly 5.3 million people worldwide, including more than 800,000 Americans. Yet this does indeed appear to be the Republican position. Especially in @RonDeSantisFL Florida. This is what they’re doing. Imagine trying this with ebola…

    “The real mission of Ron’s Army is to appeal to that state-before-nation sentiment, along with the individual-before-feds feelings that fill the MAGA base…” a good read for those who are concerned about DeSantistan’s new mini Army…

    This is one of the Sig Sauer models. If it looks like a Glock that’s because it IS like a Glock. It’s similar in style and function. This is not a thing you give to a kid or let a kid get access to, if you know anything at all about kids.

    Natural immunity does not exist? You know nothing about US history and the intended structure of the government? Glocks are the assault rifles of pistols?

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      “The real mission of Ron’s Army is to appeal to that state-before-nation sentiment, along with the individual-before-feds feelings that fill the MAGA base…

      And?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Yes, more please…

    • rhywun

      You know nothing

      Could have just ended at that.