337 Comments

  1. Nephilium

    The Reign of Pelosi link appears to be D-E-D.

    • Sean

      It’s an allegory.

    • Banjos

      Fixed

      • Nephilium

        Appreciate it.

  2. PieInTheSky

    Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes Found Guilty of Fraud and Conspiracy – so the patriarchy made me do it defense failed? damn

  3. The Late P Brooks

    What’s the point of having a vast State propaganda apparatus if you’re not going to use it?

    The biggest fear for Paula Davis, a middle school special education teacher in a rural central Indiana district, is that the discussion about what happened could be used by teachers with a political agenda to indoctrinate students. She won’t discuss Jan. 6 in her classroom; her focus is math and English.

    “I think it’s extremely important that any teacher that is addressing that topic does so from an unbiased perspective,” said Davis, a regional chapter chair for Moms for Liberty, a group whose members have protested mask and vaccine mandates and critical race theory. “If it cannot be done without bias, then it should not be done.”

    No reasonable unbiased person can look at the events of that day and not see a black lily-white insurrectionist cloud descending on DEMOCRACY!

    • Rat on a train

      her focus is math and English
      The country no need that. It need soldiers for revolution.

    • Rebel Scum

      “it is fair to draw parallels between what happened on Jan. 6 and the rise of fascism.”

      Interestingly the US government is behaving fascistically regarding that particular mostly peaceful protest.

      Some students questioned Wagner last year when she referred to what happened as an insurrection. She responded by having them read the dictionary definition for the word.

      Interestingly the dictionary definition defeats her own argument.

      talking to students about what happened on Jan. 6 is increasingly fraught.

      It doesn’t need to be talked about at all.

    • Homple

      Imagine a math and English teacher focusing on math and English.

  4. PieInTheSky

    Schumer Vows Vote On Changing Senate Rules If GOP Continues To Block Efforts

    About free and fair elections as Euro press is all about republicans bad there are plenty of Europeans who say GOP wants to suppress votes by voter ID laws though in no EU country can you vote without ID

    • Nephilium

      Look, it’s too hard for minorities to get an ID. So instead, just let the Democrat party vote for them.

      • Rat on a train

        They know what is best for the proles.

      • Grumbletarian

        Blackinoids are too dumb to get IDs and there’s nothing racist about saying that.

        /Democrats

      • slumbrew

        Also, we need vaccine passports.

    • cyto

      It really is astonishing how thought-free the repetition of propaganda can be.

      Here in the US we have people who live in states in the Northeast that require ID to vote dancing boycotts of Georgia for being racist in voting to require ID to vote.

      Doublethink is not just a rhetorical device.

  5. Count Potato

    “Sixty-three percent of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in South Africa during the surge had “incidental” COVID-19 diagnoses, meaning they were admitted to the hospital for a separate reason and tested positive for the virus once there. ”

    I’m sure it’s not just Africa.

    • juris imprudent

      As was linked here recently – pediatrics “surge” is patients in hospitals testing positive for COVID, not being hospitalized because of COVID.

  6. Ghostpatzer

    Schumer Vows Vote On Changing Senate Rules If GOP Continues To Block Efforts

    Hey Chuck, you might want to ask Reid how his rules changes on judicial nominations worked out. If you’re having trouble getting in touch with ol’ Harry, I’m sure a meet-up can be arranged.

    • slumbrew

      That was a joke, Preet.

  7. PieInTheSky

    Judge suspends COVID vaccine mandate for military service members seeking religious exemption – honestly I am not that impressed by religious exemptions, it should be enough that you don’t want it, though I can understand US constitution can make it easier over religion

    • Certified Public Asshat

      It’s not against one’s religion to join the military though.

      • cyto

        The Torah is filled with examples of great warriors winning battles. It also prohibits eating a ham and cheese sandwich.

        Religion can be funny like that.

      • Surly Knott

        Ham is forbidden with or without cheese.
        Cheeseburgers are right out, but a hamburger is allowed if the beef is kosher.

      • PieInTheSky

        But can you wear clothes made of a mix of fibers?

      • Rat on a train

        Yes.

      • C. Anacreon

        There’s also a famous battle known by “Torah! Torah! Torah!”

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        LOL! good one!

      • Rat on a train

        Was it over when the Jews bombed Pearl Harbor?

    • rhywun

      it should be enough that you don’t want it

      Yup. The religious exemption should require no more than the following statement:

      “No.”

  8. The Late P Brooks

    A majority of COVID-19 hospitalizations during the South African Omicron variant wave weren’t actually for the virus, a new study has found.

    We’ll never see the terrifying hospitalization numbers we need if we restrict “elective” treatments. You’ve got to get those people admitted and tested.

  9. Certified Public Asshat

    Her wealthiest and most high profile victims include Rupert Murdoch, who lost $125m and the DeVos family – including Trump-era Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who invested $100m.

    Other notable figures who lost large amounts include former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who invested $3 million, ex-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who lost $85 million, and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who invested $1 million.

    Also duped was the Walton family, who own Walmart. They sunk a cool $150 million into Theranos.

    *Smile spreads across face*

    • Drake

      Mine too. It was such an obvious fraud. Everyone in the lab business knew it for years before it collapsed.

      • cyto

        There seems to be no end to the willingness of people to believe in magic. Perhaps a chunk of this is due to the media being a bunch of English and journalism majors…. People who traditionally not only don’t love science, they are actively hostile to the subject.

        So we get a parade of perpetrators of woo on morning news shows. Chia seeds make you healthy! No, acai berries! Homeopathic Male Enhancement!

        It makes fertile ground for an electorate who can believe anything they are told.

    • cyto

      That list really is amazing. She may be the greatest con man of all time.

      People don’t invest $100 million casually. They have teams of accountants check things out. They bring in experts.

      Having absolutely no product at all and getting hundreds of millions in single chunks like that is astonishing.

      Also…. Wow… Raising a billion in cash and nothing to show? I wonder how much was spent propping up the gift and how much was shuffled away into hiding.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        She’ll start working for the government in prison.

      • Drake

        I wonder how a “warrior-monk” Marine made $85 million? I’m glad he got conned out of it.

      • WTF

        My question exactly – where the fuck does a career military man get $85 million to invest?

      • Count Potato

        I think that $85M figure is wrong. His net worth is reportedly $5 – 7M.

        From 2013 to 2017 he was on the board of General Dynamics.

      • Endless Mike

        It was 85K “As a show of good faith” – Considering he was paid $150K a year to be the celebrity board seat, not a bad deal…

      • R C Dean

        My question exactly.

        And what does he have left?

      • Gustave Lytton

        He never took a vow of poverty!

      • Mojeaux

        +1 Templars

      • Fourscore

        Con woman

      • invisible finger

        “People don’t invest $100 million casually. ”

        Yeah, normally you have to get government subsidies for sums like that.

      • cyto

        Well played!

    • slumbrew

      For Murdoch, the Waltons, DeVos & Kraft, that’s gotta be a family office that made those investments, right?

      Time to get new money managers.

      (though that was pocket change for Kraft, who’s worth north of $6 billion)

  10. The Late P Brooks

    Tsunamicron

    The chief doctor for Congress is urging lawmakers and staff to take greater precautions in protecting themselves from the coronavirus as the Capitol grapples with an explosive spike in COVID-19 cases.

    The Capitol’s attending physician Brian Monahan said on Monday that the Capitol COVID-19 testing center’s seven-day “positivity rate went from less than 1 percent to greater than 13 percent” since the end of November.

    In a letter to congressional offices, Monahan advised members to shift towards remote work, noting that hundreds of people have been infected. For those choosing to remain on the Hill, he suggested cloth face coverings should be swapped out with more robust N95 or KN95 masks.

    ——-

    Monahan noted most of the cases on the Hill are due to the omicron and delta variants. As of Dec. 15, he wrote, a limited sampling of cases showed 61% of cases were linked to omicron and 38% were linked to delta. Recent cases also appear to be breakthrough infections in people who are vaccinated. He said that so far, no one has reported serious complications, hospitalizations, or deaths.

    Don’t let that interfere with your panicmongering.

  11. PieInTheSky

    I am amused how data reporting has changed about the covid… Here in Romania the press every day published new cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Every day they reported the comorbidity among deaths. Usually all had comorbidity. Recently when the vaxed started dying the report says 38 died unvaccinated, 14 died vaccinated and “all vaccinated people had comorbidity” with no mention on whether the unvaccinated had comorbidity.

    I also noticed that until a few months back vaccination rates per country were reported relative to eligible population, but when that crossed 90% for many they started reporting to total population counting de under as well.

    • Count Potato

      No one here cares about any this eurofag talk about comorbidity. We opened fast food restaurants and closed gyms. Because America.

    • rhywun

      “You’re fucking stupid.”

      Am I tweetering right?

    • invisible finger

      Where was she when DeVos wanted to do that 5 years ago??

    • invisible finger

      How are they going to pump kids full of ritalin and critical race theory if the schools are closed???

    • Not Adahn

      Elie Mystal was poised to be the next Magical Negro. But he was a particular mix of lazy and stupid enough to believe “blogging is teh futur!”

    • rhywun

      OMG the replies.

      You assholes run this fucking place. I’m so sorry you have to lift a finger and get your ass into class now.

  12. The Late P Brooks

    Despite the skyrocketing case numbers at the Capitol, it is not likely the place where lawmakers and staffers are becoming infected, according to Monahan. “While many infections can be detected through workplace testing, the most common risk of acquiring infection is the individual’s activities outside the workplace, such as attendance at receptions, entertainment venues, celebrations, family gatherings, travel, and crowded indoor situations,” he said.

    You’ve got it ass backwards. Instead of sending them home, you should lock everyone in, where they will be safe from contact with the icky infectious masses.

    Also, at this point, I would like to see mandatory kn95 masks, 24 hours a day, for all elected officials. Because abundance of caution. We cannot afford to lose our most precious resource: leadership.

  13. Fourscore

    Where did all the money go that investors poured into the Theranos scam? When something seems too good to be true…Same-same Covid vaccines.

    Mrs Fourscore has urged me to get a walking cane but I keep telling her that canes are for the old and handicapped and I’m neither.

    Great music and topical,Banjos. Thanks

    • PieInTheSky

      Eating ass is so 2020

      • Fourscore

        Ass burrito?

    • Drake

      I’m still eating leftover Christmas ham.

    • cyto

      That really is astonishing.

      Even as just a random dude, I am not sure that comeback is on point

    • Ghostpatzer

      Great way to plug a shitty beer. Also, that link was the first item in my inbox this morning. Working in advertising can be entertaining at times.

      • Nephilium

        It hit my newsfeed last night, and helped to distract me from the poor bad gods awful showing from the Browns last night. Usually, I’m skeptical about claims of HAXX0RS! but with one of the exchanges being:

        Random Twitter person: PBR or ass? Whats the difference?
        PBR: Ask your mom

        I’m slightly inclined to believe in this case.

      • Ghostpatzer

        I’m slightly inclined to believe in this case.

        #metoo. Hats off to the perpetrator, haxxor or not.

    • slumbrew

      I already made that joke, followed by an actual HM appearance.

      • slumbrew

        (I rarely make even borderline-worthwhile contributions – I figure I should claim credit if I do)

  14. The Late P Brooks

    People don’t invest $100 million casually. They have teams of accountants check things out. They bring in experts.

    Having absolutely no product at all and getting hundreds of millions in single chunks like that is astonishing.

    They were buying a dream, from a hot chick.

    • Fourscore

      “Buying a dream”

      Like every newly married guy

    • rhywun

      Having absolutely no product at all and getting hundreds of millions in single chunks like that is astonishing.

      1999 called…

    • PieInTheSky

      would we call her hot? because meh…

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Crazy eyes. Also beware women who wear lots of kohl, esp. on the lower lashes.

      • PieInTheSky

        Kohl’s is an American department store retail chain, operated by Kohl’s Corporation

        hmmmm

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        The clothes are OK.

  15. PieInTheSky

    So back in the day Nassim Taleb occasionally had something interesting to say, but I somehow ended up on his twitter after a while and the man lost his damn mind. He always blocked non sycophants calling them idiots but now it is worse. And the sycophants are kissing his ass even more.

    Everyone who is not a full branch covidian is a psychopath now.

    “COVID DEBUNKING DU JOUR

    Many psychopaths are leading you to believe that Covid’s risk is self inflicted by people who don’t work out & are overweight.

    Covid’s main 2 risk factors are gender (male) and age, and as age increases body mass index becomes less & less of a factor.”

    https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1477277102764400645

    it is as well established as anything that obesity is a major factor and working out helps a lot (being fit in general helps with the immune system and many diseases). But Taleb debunked it with zero data. Off course someone links a CDC study on hospitalization which shows obesity as a major factor and the response is “I block idiots. Sorry.”. I mean the man was always a moron but it got much worse.

    • PieInTheSky

      “COVID DEBUNKING DU JOUR: VITAMIN D

      Another story of “Vitamin D as cure for Covid” bites the dust. Those who published the study never learned to look at data.

      https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1477355655036088322

      No one says vitamin D is a cure, just that it helps in covid and other respiratory ilnesses and there are literally hundreds of studies. But DEBUNKED by Taleb.

    • PieInTheSky

      Off course nothing works, the covid is ebola, and the vax is a miracle, so more vax is better. Somehow the precautionary principle melted down. And he adresses this in a video full oif bullshit

      https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1477672542072680450

      basically because many people got the vax we can fully tell long term effects by what we know now… And off course the vax helps a lot for transmission which is fucking bullshit.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        We don’t know long term how many boosters you will need, but we do know there are no long term side effects.

      • PieInTheSky

        What annoys me about these assholes is that risk of disease and vaccine are very different based on demographic and they rarely take that into account.

        And as it clearly does not fucking help transmission, let the old take the booster and let the young and fit be.

      • PieInTheSky

        The idea that vaccination wasn’t endlessly promoted as a mechanism to stop transmission is total BS — the only outstanding question is whether “experts” are going to retract their past pronouncements

        https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1478272934577909764

  16. Rat on a train

    The WINTER STORM dropped 14 inches here. Half the county and about 400,000 in the area are without power. 50 miles of I-95 are shut down.

    • rhywun

      It completely bypassed NYC, or at least my part of it.

      • Ghostpatzer

        Just missed it. Wife and kids just got back from Ocean City NJ Sunday afternoon. They got 14″ from this storm.

      • Sensei

        Reports from my family two islands up and another group mostly across the bay from OC is that it is quite icy too.

    • LCDR_Fish

      Ouch. We got about 6. Doubt I’ll be able to find salt today….maybe tomorrow. Guess I could use some excess table salt just in case? – don’t need a lawsuit from an accident during the fridge delivery.

      As long as the stuff on the local roads melts fully in the sun and doesn’t refreeze on the road overnight…

  17. Certified Public Asshat

    JUST IN – U.S. reports 1 million Covid cases today (incl. backlogs) pic.twitter.com/dMI7XuX9zh— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) January 4, 2022

    Congratulations everyone, we did it.

    • Rat on a train

      Can we get to 2?

    • rhywun

      GRIM MILESTONE!

  18. The Late P Brooks

    ICU admissions fell from 21.3% to 4.5%, and deaths fell from 4.3% to 1%. The average length of stay required for COVID-19 patients was four days, compared to 8.8 days in previous waves. The average age of patients was 10 years younger, at 39 compared to 49. At the peak of the wave, hospital bed occupancy was only 51% of previous waves, researchers found.

    And this is bad news, which must be buried.

    • invisible finger

      I think doctors and hospitals are slowly starting to incorporate SOME of the FLCCC’s protocols on patients. As long as they don’t administer the I-word or the HCQ-word they can plausibly deny they are following other parts of the protocol, they can just claim they came up with the ideas on their own. As long as the patients are FINALLY getting some treatment besides intubation.

    • C. Anacreon

      This week we’ve had several business development and consulting meetings with hospital C-Suites across the country postponed, all saying that the covid surge was requiring 100% of their attention right now. Proposed rescheduling dates offered have been in February, suggesting these folks don’t anticipate the surge ending shortly.

      • Plisade

        I just had a mid-Jan business trip canceled. The local plant manager is a covid bitch who sent out graphs and numbers and shit predicting a GA covid peak the very same week myself and others would be there and he strongly suggested we cancel the trip. So of course those who wander the corporate hallowed halls bowed under such pressure.

    • Mojeaux

      Yeah, so my son’s 4th grade teacher (31) died of covid (complications from, whatever) 2 days ago. As far as I can tell she had no comorbidities that I know of except she was a bit chunky (no, not thicc). Also, it took her quickly.

      Another friend of mine (~53) died quickly of covid back in August and no comorbidities that I know of.

      I don’t know if it’s a thing that it takes young ones quickly, but my anecdata says there might be something to it.

  19. trshmnstr the terrible

    Hey all, just popping in to say I’m not dead. I’ve been doing a social media/internet fast over the holidays and will be a bit scarce around here for the foreseeable future. I’ll come back and say hi on the regular, but I’m focusing on reducing the amount of time I’m buried in my phone each day.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Wise man (not w. guy).

    • juris imprudent

      I can see my future being a reduced presence as well, once I’m not shackled to a desk for work. For now, this is absolutely necessary to make it thru a work day.

    • Mojeaux

      Hi, Trashy! *waves*

      I only have 3-4 places online I go every day and I get my news here, so even if I were to get offline, I’d still be reading books on my phone.

  20. The Late P Brooks

    It really is astonishing how thought-free the repetition of propaganda can be.

    It’s a catechism. Repetition begets belief.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    I’ll come back and say hi on the regular, but I’m focusing on reducing the amount of time I’m buried in my phone each day.

    Good luck. We’re all counting on you.

  22. PieInTheSky

    Another year without winter… 12 C and sunny.

    • Drake

      We were having a really mild winter too – until this morning. It’s 12 F.

  23. The Late P Brooks

    Also duped was the Walton family, who own Walmart. They sunk a cool $150 million into Theranos.

    Sam was the only member of that clan with a lick of sense. If they didn’t have a fleet of accountants and advisors, the kids would be back in the trailer park by now.

    • cyto

      Which is how mega fortunes always seem to go.

    • Mojeaux

      “Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in 3 generations.”

    • EvilSheldon

      Aw yeah. Schematic porn…

      • Not Adahn

        Tab A into Slot B! Rawr!

    • cyto

      Excellent juxtaposition….

      There has got to be a good Torquemada joke in there… Maybe he invented shish kebob? Pulled pork?

      I dunno… There has to be a joke that isn’t too tortured.

  24. The Late P Brooks

    Goddammit, you snookered me into clicking a WaPo link.

    Fuck those guys, and Nancy, too.

    They should just take her to the same taxidermist who did Barbie Boxer. They can get another three or four terms out of her.

    • Festus

      They’ll need to work on the wiring that seems to be the only thing that keeps her jaw in place.

      • rhywun

        I hope they wire it shut.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Eddie: Darling. Darling, look at Mummy. Look at Mummy, sweetheart. Do I need surgery, darling?
        Saffie: Yes.
        Eddie: Alright.
        Saffie: Get your mouth sewn up.
        Eddie: I’m still here, darling. I heard that.

      • rhywun

        I need to put “BLOODY BUGGERING BOLLOCKS!” on a loop and point it at the television news. I think it would be cathartic.

  25. Festus

    Howdy Banjos! That was indeed a fine tune. Special thanks to whomever posted that link about the four-master rounding the Horn in the dead thread. Terrifying!

  26. Rebel Scum

    Schumer Vows Vote On Changing Senate Rules If GOP Continues To Block Efforts

    Curious since he once said something about ending the filibuster being the rubber stamp of dictatorship.

    • cyto

      Only when it isn’t him doing it….

  27. cyto

    Time for a possible meal culpa…

    The other day I took a crap all over “The Witcher” in book form. After reading “The Witcher”, I said it was a terribly written and disjointed mess.

    Then someone here told me that it was translated from Polish. So I looked it up, and indeed it was originally published in Polish. I also learned that the book “The Witcher” is not part of the Witcher series, but is one of two collections of short stories that were the first things published on the topic.

    So, needing something for reading time with my girls, and finding that I wasn’t interested in getting into the Ludlum novel on hand, I pulled up “Blood of Elves”, the first book of the Witcher Saga, and third book about the Witcher.

    I am just a couple of chapters along … And it reads like an actual book written by someone who knows how to write a book. So what is a nerd to think?

    Meanwhile, after being discouraged by the right leaning online review community, I also relented and tried out the first episode of season 2 of the Netflix series. It was a story from “the Witcher” short story collection.

    So now I am totally confused. Did the author write a bunch of stories and then go back and clean them up, expanding them into a book series? Or are the Netflix team trying to pound that mish-mash of short stories into a series?

    Somehow I am left with more questions after getting more answers.

    So… Who is ahead of me? Is it worth continuing down this path? Or should I punt and find another series?

    • LCDR_Fish

      Dunno how many similarities, but Razorfist made a vid a few years back about how the Witcher ripped off Elric of Melnibone by Michael Moorcock. (Still haven’t read any actual Elric novels, just some comic adaptations).

      • J. Frank Parnell

        the Witcher ripped off Elric of Melnibone by Michael Moorcock

        write a bunch of stories and then go back and clean them up, expanding them into a book series

        sounds about right.

  28. Rebel Scum

    After almost 19 years as House Democratic leader, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) is expected to step down at the close of this Congress, ending a historic career that included trying to end George W. Bush’s Iraq War, implementing President Barack Obama’s signature health-care law, impeaching President Donald Trump twice and squeezing President Biden’s sweeping agenda through a narrowly controlled House.

    When the fuck did that happen?

    • Festus

      They lie. They always lie.

    • WTF

      MiniLuv wants a word with you, comrade.

    • cyto

      She actually voted against the authorization to use military force. Which might sound cool and everything, but it was an entirely partisan effort.

      She also put forward resolutions whenever a Republican happened to be in power to end the authorization. Not so much when Obama was president, however.

      Principals over Principles, amirite?

  29. The Late P Brooks

    Poll sez

    As hundreds of people face charges for their alleged participation in the January 6 insurrection, the general public says punishments for those found guilty are not up to scale.

    A new poll from The Washington Post and the University of Maryland found 51 percent of Americans think the legal repercussions for those who forced their way into the U.S. Capitol last year have “not been harsh enough.”

    Fewer than 2 in 10 Americans told surveyors that the punishments are “too harsh” while 28 percent said they believed the consequences to be fair.

    ——-

    Roughly two-thirds of Americans say it’s “never justified” for citizens to take violent action, while one-third said such action is justifiable. Roughly 4 in 10 Republicans and independents surveyed said that violent action against the government is sometimes justified.

    Sure. Sounds legit.

    • cyto

      If you do not think violent action against the government can be justified under any circumstances, you do not understand American history and civics well enough to be a decision maker in the American political process. Please refrain from voting.

      This entire country was founded on a violent revolution against a government that it’s citizens viewed as unjust. You really can’t understand our constitution and our form of government without understanding this Genesis.

    • Drake

      Meanwhile a trial in the world’s biggest pedophile ring just concluded with only 2 convictions and all the evidence sealed away deeper than the Ark of the Covenant.

      • Mojeaux

        only 2 convictions and all the evidence sealed away deeper than the Ark of the Covenant.

        This is what finally black-pilled me.

        The elite gonna do what the elite gonna do and the rules are different for the rest of us. No use fighting it.

      • cyto

        The amazing twist on that is the today-show-watching mom contingent and their logical knots. Enraged at the exploitation of young girls, they were eager for a pound of flesh to be extracted.

        Watching them be easily herded into apathy about the perpetrators has been stunning. On the left there does not seem to be even a whiff of antipathy toward Clinton over this.

      • Mojeaux

        The left also wants to sexualize little girls and accept pedos as just another sexual orientation, so the left’s outrage about sex trafficking is either completely false and they really don’t give a shit OR they have totally dissociated sex trafficking from sexualizing little girls and accepting pedos as just another sexual orientation.

    • rhywun

      Mob justice, sure let’s go with that.

    • R C Dean

      That survey seems out of sync with other surveys showing a lot of people think the 01/06 events were not that big a deal, certainly not an insurrection, etc.

      I think it comes down to how much cognitive dissonance you can tolerate. If you have a high enough tolerance, you can see the leftist riots last summer as justified/nothing to worry about but the 01/06 events as a profound threat. If you think the leftist riots last summer were a Very Bad Thing, the mild vandalism and relatively restrained violence (relative to the explosives, molotovs, and firearms of the leftist riots) of 01/06 as regrettable, your tolerance of cognitive dissonance is likely less.

      Also associated with low tolerance of cognitive dissonance – skepticism of the media and the response to COVID.

      • Not Adahn

        “On January 6th, violent insurrectionists stormed the capitol in the the most violent attack since 1812, causing the deaths of nine people, and very nearly succeeded in ending Democracy in America. And yet, of the hundreds of criminal arrested, they have been sentenced to a combined total of less than five years. Do you think these racists’ sentences have been 1) too lenient, 2) about right or 3) I am a transphobe?”

    • Rebel Scum

      not been harsh enough

      Held in pre-trial solitary while being abused in several ways for charges amounting to trespassing just is not harsh enough.

  30. Rebel Scum

    New York Attorney General Letitia James has issued subpoenas for two of former President Trump’s children, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, as part of a civil investigation, according to court documents filed Monday.

    Let’s go fishing!

    • Festus

      Letitia James is nothing less than a master baiter. Of course she wants to go fishing.

    • cyto

      The chick ran for office on a promise of “getting” Trump and anyone associated with him, particularly his family members. Any court that signed off on any subpoenas is completely incompetent and corrupt. The bar association of New York is completely corrupt and incompetent for failing to disbar her based on that simple representation that she made as a candidate. There is no way in hell that is within the canon of ethics of the bar of New York.

      Why does our country seem to be rife with corrupt prosecutors on team Democrat, when the popular image of abuse of authority by a prosecutor in the
      Entertainment industry always seems to be on the right?

      From Texas Democrat prosecutors going after Tom delay to Antifa sympathizing prosecutors declaring their intention to protect their violent allies from prosecution to federal prosecutors doing the bidding of Democrat partisans in prosecuting Trump campaign officials, we have a long record in this millennium of extremely corrupt actions on behalf of Democrat partisans entrusted with prosecutorial powers.

      This seems like a really dangerous road to walk down. These people have insane amounts of power. Allowing even a tiny bit of corruption and that arena seems suicidal.

      • rhywun

        Every New York DA runs on “taking down Wall Street” and/or “taking down Trump” – this has been going on as long as I can remember, and nothing else happened.

        It really is astonishing.

  31. Mojeaux

    I’ve caught a cold. I blame you people.

    • PieInTheSky

      not my fault I keep telling you to drink more scotch

      • Mojeaux

        If I can’t get my cough medicine without having to test for the vid, I may start drinking so I can get some sleep.

      • Ownbestenemy

        My wife was hounded by the checkout person, not even a pharmacist when she went to go purchase some cough medicine. I was glad I wasn’t there because I would have torn into some little old lady trying to give medical advice to my wife.

      • Mojeaux

        What did your wife say/do? I can’t say what I would have done, but it probably wouldn’t have gone past a dead stare and a lifted eyebrow.

      • Count Potato

        “My wife was hounded by the checkout person”

        Why?

      • Ownbestenemy

        I am guessing because if she is buying cold medicine, it means she is sick and must be covid and therefore needed to be scolded? That is the only thing I can think of. Mojeaux, she quietly declined her advice to do an at home test or to schedule a test with CVS, after she insisted for 5 or so minutes.

      • Count Potato

        CWAA

        Your wife could have been buying it for someone else, for the future, or any number of reasons.

    • DEG

      Get well soon!

  32. Festus

    I need to conk out. Too fucking tired. Have a great one, fellow Glibs!

  33. Evan from Evansville

    Random thing came up and I shared it with my therapist at betterhelp.com (so far I am very, very impressed). Thought it could be fun here:

    “Watching something and temporal lobe epilepsy randomly came up. Looked into what they mentioned and found “Geschwind syndrome,” which some have tied to my type of epilepsy. This stuck out: “Hypergraphia is the tendency for extensive and compulsive writing or drawing, and has been observed in persons with temporal lobe epilepsy who have experienced multiple seizures.[5] Those with hypergraphia display extreme attention to detail in their writing. Some such patients keep diaries recording meticulous details about their everyday lives…These individuals also tend to have poor penmanship.”

    HA! I’ve always had terribly handwriting. Being left-handed when writing doesn’t help that. (I’m mixed-handed. I’m left-handed and right-armed. I’m goofy.) The focus on writing and details also struck out. Especially with editing mine and others’ work. I had all of these before The Incident, same as my dad, but it’s just curious how it happens to overlap with my own renewed tendencies now. I don’t think my injury at all *caused* those, but it may have increased them. I hope in a fun way. That’s the best way to look at it. Just something that came up and thought it would be fun to share.”

    Something that I’ve always thought, and Littlefinger nailed it when he says that he doesn’t see chaos as a pit, but as a LADDER. Don’t sink into shit. You’ll just sink further. Finding every bit of promise and distinction in the ways that you’re odd is the best way to elevate yourself from that chasm that may threaten beneath.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Glad to hear that therapy is working well for you.

    • Evan from Evansville

      I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I think with my talks with my psych that I may have it boiled down: I really need to get off my ass and write a book. There’s one there. People love to write about travel, and I can do that. I live it. A while ago combining that with food was something that made Bourdain and others successful in that realm. But now, everyone does that. I have chapters of my tale that I’ve submitted here and those would work very well. But seen-read-done-that?

      However, I am sitting on something distinct, The Incident and how that affected everything. I can still write about travel and also give insight into all the shit that I went/go through vis a vis The Incident. Then post-Incident life and travel. I think that’s a unique selling point. I’m not aware of others really doing that before. I plan on adding stories I’ve told here as prior-to-The-Incident travel. Those are clear chapters.

      I also have hundreds of pages of notes from my recovery. I don’t plan on editing those AT ALL. I just started rereading them and I think they are interesting. It is clearly OBVIOUS at points that a broken human being was putting down thoughts in their (my) shattered psyche in a journal. The ideas are usually there, but there are so many weird stretches of lost-thought that truly give insight into where I was at that moment in the recovery. I want the reader to see it exactly as it was, errors and all. It’s the reader talking to someone in the midst of it all. To change it in any way would take away the immediacy and clarity of the instability of the situation. And it’s still cogent enough to get (whatever) point I was trying to get across to penetrate their minds.

      I honestly think I have landed on a goal, here. I think this idea is solid, would sell, and be successful. It certainly would end up its Own Thing. Ex-pat life and travel, combined with The Incident, and the inherent stages of recovery that I have a first-person and directly time-stamped diary of. That is…I think I’m on to something.

      Have I finally figured out the Big Purpose goal I’ve been searching for? That would be ironic. This needs to be furthered. It’s the first thing in a long-while that I feel actual artistic devotion to. Been a while since I was in a band. This is…something I really should pursue. *Nods to self with intent*

  34. The Late P Brooks

    The ol’ monkey-see-monkey-do defense

    Lightfoot’s remarks came on the same day that her city will start requiring proof of Covid vaccination for most residents to enter indoor spaces, such as restaurants, bars, gyms and other areas.

    The new rules are being imposed in response to “an alarming rise” in Covid cases due primarily to the highly transmissible omicron variant, Lightfoot’s office said late last month. That statement noted that Chicago’s requirements are similar to those already in place in other cities.

    Aww, Ma. Everybody’s doing it!

  35. Q Continuum

    “Rein of Pelosi ending”

    The internal polling must be *REALLY* bad if the Queen is abdicating.

    • cyto

      Yeah, that sounds like a desperate electoral strategy. Promise that a new Democrat speaker will take over for the old guard if you only vote for team Democrat !

      I wonder who would wield the power? AOC certainly seems to have the heart and soul of the Democrat party in their popular image. And it would be hard for anyone to vote against her in the Democrat party, since people only question her if they are intimidated by her beauty and frustrated in their desperation to have sex with her.

      • Q Continuum

        “frustrated in their desperation to have sex with her”

        I know I’ve said previously that I wouldn’t have sex with her with someone else’s dick, but I may be willing to make an exception for angry, unlubricated anal.

      • Evan from Evansville

        Aight, we’re just different. I detest her just as you do. She’s despicable and useless. It would absolutely be a Hate Fuck.

        But…she’s hot. I would love to fuck her rotten and have her LOVE. EVERY. SECOND. OF. ALL. OF. IT.

        Afterwards, after an intimate, post-coital snuggle, I’d whisper in her ear with the loveliest of voices, that I was a staunch believer in the overreaching authority of Washington that she represents, and how she’s a Useful Idiot being idiotically useful for her Team Blue minions.

        “Sure seems to have paid off for you, amiright?” I’d whisper with such a “sincere” smile of warmth and hold-me-closer-dom.

        I’d put that on my resume. I’d probably be so good (not to brag TOO much, but I’ve been given some rave reviews at times (at others…uh…nope), that she’d have a mental explosion trying to keep the cognitive dissonance fuming so that she could mentally divorce herself from my raging, sexual masculinity and prowess.

        I like to think that she’d come back for more. But, meh. I know she has her real Handlers. I’d just boast about it in public and make it as uncomfortable as possible for her. This boy…can dream. I’d tap that fucking HARD. To be truly sexist in the absolutely real sense, the only thing of value you that she has, in any capacity whatsoever, is that she’s hot. Yes. Please.

      • slumbrew

        You’ve given this a lot of thought. De gustibus. Enjoy your toothy blowjob.

      • Evan from Evansville

        Psh. I only plan on fucking her…and then absorbing my own sloppy seconds a bit later. Which is, hands-down, the best fuck possible. That extra lubrication, of determinant origin, makes it all the more sublime…

        She’ll want thirds after I get my seconds….

        (I also plan on giving Ilhan Omar, that useless, felonious POS, the same treatment…)

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        AOC is certainly popular with the white college educated set, and that is what’s driving the Democrat primaries lately.

        Sucks to be them.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Behind the scenes maneuvering to keep her out of power. There’s a lot of power hungry machine politicians that would want the speaker’s chair if it were vacant. Will be interesting if supposedly naive AOC has picked up how things work inside the sausage factory.

  36. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Some days owning a business is just a pain in the ass.

    Long time employee came into work last week and was hiding a low cough. I wasn’t aware. She popped positive after two days in the office.

    Seven days later, my counter manager has a sore throat and popped positive this morning and resisted going home because she felt like she could work anyway.

    Apparently, IF YOU’RE SICK, STAY HOME is not a clear enough message. JFC, now I’m probably going to pop positive within a couple days along with my controller and we’re going to be out of office staff. What an incredibly unnecessary PITA.

    • Mojeaux

      IF YOU’RE SICK, STAY HOME is not a clear enough message.

      Hourly employees and folks without sick leave are going to come in to work, which is not to say yours are hourly or don’t have sick leave. Just saying that “if you don’t work, you don’t eat” incentivizes coming to work sick.

      That said, I’ve got a cough and a tickle in my throat and MY boss is making me work.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I’m still maintaining a COVID sick pay of two weeks in addition to their regular sick leave. There’s no excuse.

        They just don’t want to be stuck at home, or in the first one’s case, admit that she’s sick because she was frightened of the possibility.

      • Mojeaux

        I’m still maintaining a COVID sick pay of two weeks in addition to their regular sick leave.

        That’s awesome! So no, there is no excuse.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Indeed. My company expired all of its extra covid related sick leave.

      • Sensei

        Good for you!

        (The sick policy.)

      • R C Dean

        Disagree. Its a terrible incentive and a terrible message. And two weeks for asympomatic with a positive test is a panic-driven policy.

        Regular sick leave should be fine – stay home while you are symptomatic/sick. This is universally abused these days (ask me how I know) anyway, because nobody requires a doctor’s note any more. Pair it up woth the olde schoole requirement that you produce an actual diagnosis, and I don’t see a problem. Regardless of the disease you are suffering from.

      • Sensei

        Think about it from the position of small business versus large business.

        Having worked in both understand both Scruffy and your concerns. Especially when you have a long relationship with a small group of employees who essentially never call out sick. OTH, Mrs. Sensei, RN has explained the multitude of ways hospital employees game the system when she worked there.

      • R C Dean

        Apparently, IF YOU’RE SICK, STAY HOME is not a clear enough message.

        It has been displaced by “If you test positive, stay home”. Whether you’re sick or not. See, if you don’t test positive, you don’t have the ‘Vid, so who cares?

    • cyto

      Some days?

      On the plus side, you have employees who would rather work than call in sick. This is a positive.

  37. The Late P Brooks

    He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        She’s behind the curve. They get knocked up in middle school around here.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        The American mum has been with her husband for six years and the couple own their own house – but this still doesn’t stop trolls from blasting Christa over having her kids so young.

        I guess she’s doing something right.

    • cyto

      Although “telling her only makes it worse” is not bad advice…. “What is your number?” was the correct response.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Put it down to a bad experience and move on.

      Advice only an expert could give.

  38. Rebel Scum

    “The Navy has not granted a religious exemption to any vaccine in recent memory. It merely rubber stamps each denial,” the judge continued. “There is no COVID-19 exception to the First Amendment. There is no military exclusion from our Constitution.”

    Get this insurrectionist judge off the bench.

    • cyto

      Seriously. He can’t be subject to the 9th circuit supervision, that is for sure.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      How she’s speaking to the kids belies how she thinks of the parents.

      She’s arrogant, patronizing, and dismissive. She can stuff it up her dusty, tight ass.

    • cyto

      Yeah. Creepy.

      Also, the White House? Really? Not HHS or CDC or something?

  39. The Other Kevin

    Good morning all you Glibs! I am preparing the firstest of firsts, the one that will lay waste to all other firsts.

    Sorry, wrong schtick.

    I haven’t been around much, having taken a lot of time off for the holidays and not being chained to a computer. It was wonderful, though a number of things had to be moved or cancelled due to “someone having Covid”. Fortunately everyone I know has recovered nicely. For myself, I had a scare last week where I suddenly got a fever, but I tested negative for the Big Three (Covid, flu, and strep), and I was fine after 2 or 3 days. Apparently normal viruses still exist.

    This Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I’ll be in St. Louis for a tournament. There are 6 games scheduled, both A and B team, and I should play… all of them? Some of them? Not sure. But there will be a lot of hockey. If anyone is around let me know and I’ll post the schedule.

    • Mojeaux

      We actually would come to see you play, but alas–St Louis is 4 hours across the state from us.

  40. wdalasio

    There seems to be no end to the willingness of people to believe in magic. Perhaps a chunk of this is due to the media being a bunch of English and journalism majors….

    That might be part of it. But, I think the bigger part of it is that the people in question, effectively, wanted to be conned. I remember back when Theranos was a high-flyer. What all the fans were fans of was The Narrative. They all loved the idea of the spunky young girl with GRRRlLL POWERRRR!! showing all those crusty fusty old white dudes in the medical establishment what’s what. And, to her credit, she played the part well. She showed up as the new-and-improved Female Steve Jobs. She showed up in all the popular media where all she was going to get was favorable questions about The Narrative. She assembled a board of world-renowned Top Men (nevermind that only one of them had anything like a background in medicine) to tell everyone that they should trust the Top Men’s judgement in her favor.

    She was a 19-year-old college student. And she was claiming she was ready to commercialize her earth-shaking discovery. That alone should have prompted lots and lots and lots of due diligence. But, the that due diligence would have spoiled The Narrative. Honestly, I’m almost inclined to say that they got their narrative so she compensated them in full.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      ?

    • Nephilium

      You can’t con an honest man.

      Well… you can, but only things like short changes and the like.

    • Urthona

      I read the book some years back, and keep in mind she also got researchers to falsify data for her. It as amazing actually. Even if a scientist looked at the data early on, it would seem legit.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      That alone should have prompted lots and lots and lots of due diligence. But, the that due diligence would have spoiled The Narrative.

      I read the fraud was extensive. She gave investors reports purportedly from Pfizer, etc that had all been fabricated. The test results showed what was claimed, but the tests were all run with different commercial kits and not the Theranos product. I don’t know what’s typical here. Do investors normally get kits to take back and run through their own processes? Seems like you’d have trust investors quite a bit to not just reverse engineer instead. Certainly the investors should have dug in more and confirmed the authenticity of the reports.

      I see she’s now laying all the blame at her male underling’s feet, saying that he sexually and emotionally abused her. Girl Power indeed.

      • Urthona

        Yeah that’s sort of my argument with people’s initial reaction to the story. They don’t realize how deeply fraudulent what the science they were looking at was. There was nothing to “detect.” The numbers were amazing and showed the product working. They just happened to be outright lies.

        Admittedly, not expecting the woman was committing multiple outright felonies might have been a sort of bias.

    • R C Dean

      I saw a post by a venture capital investor. He took one look at her and said “no way can she run a multi-billion company”. He also doesn’t spare the people who invested in Theranos for not doing their due diligence. Venture capital investors are supposed to be highly sophisticated, capable of sorting through piles of chaff to find the wheat. The thing about most frauds (including her fake research, etc.) is that they really aren’t that hard to see through. Take “it looks too good to be true” seriously, people. If the numbers are amazing, way off the charts of what other people are showing, then your antenna should be going off bigtime. I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time, but my reaction to the early glowing reports was “I bet this doesn’t prove out”.

      What is interesting to me is how easy it would have been for her to pull it off – raise the money, and then (truthfully) string out the R & D process until finally you just admit it won’t work and fold up your tent. She could have pocketed tens of millions and walked away scot-free.

      • cyto

        I think this is pretty common. Battery technology. Solar power technology. Biotechnology.

        Popular Science is full of startups that are going to change the world and never build a product.

        Moeller is flying car comes to mind as the most cartoonish example.

      • Nephilium

        I thought most VC’s operated on a high risk/high reward level, which would allow taking some fliers on out there tech. Not necessarily at the Theranos level of fraud, but high risk plays.

      • R C Dean

        Absolutely. You take flyers, but if it looks too good to be true, etc. They plan on having, say, one in ten pay off big. But that mark is easy to miss unless you do your farging due diligence and don’t get swept up in the hype.

        What this guy said (sorry, can’t dig it up again), and I think there’s a lot to it, is that the main thing he looks at is the CEO. If the CEO is solid and capable, that is a massive risk mitigation. Ms. Theranos didn’t make the cut, and I am astonished anyone ever thought she could. Her board was also a big tell – it was constructed to impress people, not provide corporate governance and guidance.

        Remember, don’t get swept up in the hype. There are two people who feed the hype – the CEOs and people in the company, and the investors who have figured it out and are trying to dump their interest.

        What I think is interesting is that even the public bond markets go off of their impression of the CEO and leadership team. The dog and pony show before an offering is a huge factor.

  41. The Late P Brooks

    We got about 6. Doubt I’ll be able to find salt today….maybe tomorrow. Guess I could use some excess table salt just in case? – don’t need a lawsuit from an accident during the fridge delivery.

    Have you got kitty litter?

  42. Rebel Scum

    As if this bitch gives a rats ass about the Constitution.

    “We can either be loyal to Donald Trump or we can be loyal to the Constitution, but we cannot be both. And right now, there are far too many Republicans who are trying to enable the former president, embrace the former president, look the other way and hope that the former president goes away, trying to obstruct the activities of this committee,” Cheney argued on CBS’s Face The Nation. “But we won’t be deterred. At the end of the day, the facts matter, and the truth matters.

    If that was true 90% of congress would be in prison.

    “We are in a situation where people have got to understand the danger of President Trump and the danger he posed that day,” she chided. “This is a man who has demonstrated that he is at war with the rule of law. He has demonstrated that he is willing to blow through every guard rail of democracy. And he can never be anywhere near the Oval Office again. He has demonstrated a complete lack of fitness for office.”

    So much so that he peacefully left office when his term was up.

    • CPRM

      So much so that he peacefully left office when his term was up.

      Only as part of his double secret Nazi plan to subvert our Democracy!

    • R C Dean

      We can either be loyal to Donald Trump [insert name here] or we can be loyal to the Constitution, but we cannot be both

      This is true. Funny, though, that it wasn’t put that way.

    • Ownbestenemy

      He only left peacefully because the Great Democracy Guard successfully ushed out the insurrectionist in a single file.

    • Rebel Scum

      Hawt.

    • slumbrew

      “I keep getting these letters from the IRS, when I’ve shown no interest in them – like, why are you so obsessed with me”

      😀

    • Gustave Lytton

      She’s a poster child for wondering how much of the “conservative” movement is just straight up phony grifting. Her late husband:
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Brewer

      Speaking of which, the other co founder of the pro amnesty zero borders advocacy group?
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Antonio_Vargas

      Zero prosecution for an openly criminal life, zero prosecution for those who knowingly hired him, and has an elementary school named after him.

      • Count Potato

        I don’t see how who she married would make her a grifter. How many people here have SO that aren’t libertarian?

      • slumbrew

        *raises hand*

        Not even close. It was just something we could ignore about each other, in the before-times. Less so right now, sadly.

      • Gustave Lytton

        There’s a difference between someone who holds different political views and someone is actively working and espousing those views as their profession. That it’s apparently NBD makes me wonder, given that quite a bit of the conservative commentariat is straight up kabuki and principles are an afterthought.

  43. The Late P Brooks

    She was a 19-year-old college student. And she was claiming she was ready to commercialize her earth-shaking discovery. That alone should have prompted lots and lots and lots of due diligence. But, the that due diligence would have spoiled The Narrative. Honestly, I’m almost inclined to say that they got their narrative so she compensated them in full.

    Same thing with the plague, two years ago. “Where the hell did these numbers come from?”

    But DoomPorn had too much visceral appeal, apparently. The thrill of Death hiding under every rock and behind every tree was too titillating to ignore.

    • wdalasio

      You’re right, of course. The New Great Plague fit The Narrative. And so many decision-makers and their followers are so invested in The Narrative that they’re never really going to do due diligence that might contradict it.

    • Urthona

      They might have been way too credulous, but this entire thing was also outright fraud.

      That woman didn’t “charm” her way to this. She was an absolute sociopathic monster who managed to convince her scientists she would utterly destroy them, their career, their lives if they didn’t fall in line and fudge. At the same time, she was applying constant pressure to get them to “fix” the product.

      Ultimately one of them stopped complying and realized this could never happen w/ the technology, and this is how the entire house of cards came crumbling.

  44. Count Potato

    “Woman caught on video stripping from dress, using it as mask in ice cream shop

    A woman in Argentina stripped down to her underwear and attempted to use her dress as a face covering to get around an ice cream parlor’s mask mandate, video shows.

    “Don’t ask for my face mask, I’m putting it on,” she boldly tells the staff at the store in Godoy Cruz, a city in the western province of Mendoza, before she strips down.”

    https://nypost.com/2022/01/04/argentinian-woman-strips-in-ice-cream-shop-uses-dress-as-mask/

    • Drake

      The Dad in the shop does an excellent job of glancing past his wife to watch without reacting or drawing her attention. That’s how you do it.

      • cyto

        Dude has been around.

        Also… I support the woman’s choices. Ice cream is more important than modesty when you are young and shapely.

      • Gustave Lytton

        She doesn’t look like she spends much time in ice cream parlors.

        I’d love to be a fly on the wall when the wife watches the news stories with the footage being shown.

    • Not Adahn

      There is a reason I learned to tango.

  45. CPRM

    Just picked my car up from the shop again. This time the exhaust had rusted through and fallen down. Amazing how much difference a muffler makes…speaking of, just recently I found out that work on the car muffler had a conjunction with the suppressor for firearms.

    Hiram Percy Maxim is usually credited with inventing and selling the first commercially successful firearm silencer around 1902, receiving a patent for it on March 30, 1909.[7][8] Maxim gave his device the trademarked name Maxim Silencer,[9] and they were regularly advertised in sporting goods magazines.[10] The muffler for internal combustion engines was developed in parallel with the firearm silencer by Maxim in the early 20th century, using many of the same techniques to provide quieter-running engines, and in many English-speaking countries automobile mufflers are called silencers.[11]

    Although it seems the muffler might have been around earlier, perhaps just not as good?

    Thankfully, back in 1897, Milton O. and Marshall T. Reeves patented their “exhaust muffler for engines.”

  46. Rebel Scum

    Instant Karma.

    Christopher De La Cruz, 28, was pronounced dead following the incident at the Forest Hills-71st Avenue train station in Queens at about 6:45 a.m. Sunday, police said.

    The sickening surveillance video shows De La Cruz trying to jump over a turnstile after he entered the subway station — but he initially falls and appears to drop his phone.

    De La Cruz, who was wearing a backpack, then stumbles back briefly before repeatedly trying to hop over another turnstile.

    On the final attempt, De La Cruz can be seen hoisting himself up — but losing his balance and flipping over the barrier.

    He came crashing down onto his head and broke his neck, police said.

    • Rat on a train

      Third time’s a charm?

    • LCDR_Fish

      I wouldn’t get on I-95 to begin with but I had something similar during Snowmageddon back in Dec 09. Coming down I-81 from Newport (OCS) for Christmas. Not much snow on Friday night – think I stopped in the Poconos – then down I-81 on Saturday. Snow coming down all day, but made pretty good progress right up until I passed Winchester VA. Pulled off at Harrisonburg, but couldn’t get a motel room.

      Stopped at a standstill just North of Staunton. Overturned tractor trailer. By that time, after dark, no more snow falling. Crisp and cold. Everyone’s stopped on the interstate, getting out and chatting with each other, headlights all over the place.

      Pre-smart phones….my dad called from Indonesia to see how I was doing and with his help was able to basically book one of the last rooms in Staunton for the night. (think it was at least another hour before I got to the exit). Next day, continued down I-81 just following the trucks in the “plowed” tire tracks.

      • Rat on a train

        Received a notice that VA-3 is open with only one side cleared and used for bidirectional traffic. I would trust local drivers to get that right.

    • Rat on a train

      Northbound traffic is currently forced off I-95 about 20 miles south of me. The closure runs to about 20 miles north of me.

    • Gustave Lytton

      They see enough of it, however, to plan and prepare for such contingencies. When this is over, the Virginia legislature had better do a thorough investigation into how hundreds or thousands of drivers got left stranded for a day or longer in potentially deadly conditions.

      Unfortunately the outcome wouldn’t be “exercise some judgement and stay the fuck home, weather forecasts aren’t some hidden state secret”. Like that asshat Kaine driving to Congress. Everyone is special and no one should be inconvenienced.

      • Rat on a train

        Unfortunately my wife is exhibiting the same lack of judgement. Schools are closed. She is home with the kids. One kid doesn’t have proper snow boots. She has expressed interest in going out to buy some boots. I keep telling her to stay home. If I-95 is in such bad shape that it is closed for 50 miles, the roads from here to any store that might be open are too much for our vehicles.

      • Mojeaux

        I feel her pain. When you gotta do somethin’, you gotta do it. You got your mind set to get a thing done, by damn, you’re gonna get the thing done.

  47. Count Potato

    “Fentanyl overdoses become No. 1 cause of death among US adults, ages 18-45: ‘A national emergency’

    More adults between 18 and 45 died of fentanyl overdoses in 2020 than COVID-19, motor vehicle accidents, cancer and suicide”

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/fentanyl-overdoses-leading-cause-death-adults

    Big, if true.

    • juris imprudent

      Why big? Is it some revelation that opioid use is likely to lead to death? Fentanyl is just more efficient. Color me skeptical that it is added to other drugs – that isn’t the high people are looking for with them.

      • Not Adahn

        Meh. If it’s cheap and easy to get, it’d make a good adulterant.

        I remember watching a documentary about this meth maker that would spike his product with chili powder to distinguish it from his competitors. Later when that novelty wore off, he had a lot more success dyeing the meth blue.

      • db

        Was that the one about the guy who got taken in under Colonel Sanders’ wing but had a falling out when he killed his favorite barista?

    • db

      HOLY SHIT! Start testing everyone for fentanyl! I hope they get the fentanyl contact tracing app out soon so I can know if I’ve been exposed.

      We need a national nudity mandate to ensure people don’t have fentanyl patches on them!

      • Rat on a train

        nudity mandate + high rate of obesity = “I can’t unsee that!”

    • Ownbestenemy

      Look at the 2022 narrative switch in which they aren’t even trying to hide that they labeled all these as medical misinformation or conspiracy theories:

      Obesity is a factor
      Cloth masks are worthless
      Never going to zero COVID
      Most hospitalizations are ‘with’, not ‘for’
      and I am sure there are a lot more….

  48. JG43

    Hey peeps, I’ve been lurking for that last few weeks and I’ve seen a lot of comments about Covid in general, and Omicron in particular are no big deal or just a cold. Well, that’s not quite true.

    Anything that can send you from healthy to dead in the space of 5 days is kind of a big deal.

    Is it like that for everyone? No, but it’s on the spectrum of expected results so you need to take it seriously. I, a 57 year old male who works out regularly, was put on my ass for the last two weeks. 103+ fever, body aches that felt like something put me in a pain amplifier, headaches that were more like migraines. I have no memory at all for something like 5 days. It sucked. I’m starting to come out of it now but I have a nice case of pneumonia.

    I consider myself lucky since I’ll probably survive. A buddy of mine (same demographics) is in the ICU now and it’s not looking good for him.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Glad you made it, I know it’s deadly, however,
      I.Will.Not. Comply.

      • JG43

        I’m not vaxed either

    • Mojeaux

      Anything that can send you from healthy to dead in the space of 5 days is kind of a big deal.

      Okay, this was the most helpful thing I’ve read on COVID here. I honestly haven’t known what to really think about the virus itself, as I’ve been focused on our freedoms being taken away.

      Thank you. I’m glad you’re coming out of it and I wish you a complete recovery.

    • Drake

      Hope your friend pulls through. Had a buddy from the gym in the same situation who made it and recovered.

      The frustrating part was the hospital didn’t do a damn thing to treat him. None of the evil banned drugs like HCL / Inv, not even Monoclonal Antibodies. They just put him on a bed with fluid IVs and waited to see if he died.

    • slumbrew

      Glad to hear you’re on the mend and sorry to hear your friend is doing so poorly.

      Out of curiosity, do you know that you had the Omicron variant vs., say, Delta?

    • The Other Kevin

      Are you sure you and your friend had the Omicron variant? In Indiana, we’re still still getting a lot of Delta cases. Although I’m not sure how they know that, because I’ve never seen anyone get which variant they have in their test results.

      • Drake

        Positive lab results are sent to the CDC who supposedly figure it out. As far as I know they don’t tell the patient. No way they are testing them all these days,

      • invisible finger

        But a lab test is done on only 0.5% of the positive PCR patients. And that was a month or so ago, the rate of testing now the percentage is closer to 0.1%.

        And you are correct – that the patient is never told. Every person who tells me “I tested positive” I ask “What was thh cycle count?” and they have no idea what that means. “They just told me ‘positive’.”

        Everybody thinks doctors are know-it-alls when they are like any other walk of life – they follow the bell curve which means about 8% are on top of things and the other 92% are just punching a time card.

      • R C Dean

        The genetic analysis to determine the variant is slow and expensive. Not sure how long it takes, but I don’t think its relevant to treatment (certainly not the treatments that are allowed); its purely a public health exercise.

    • CPRM

      Sorry to hear that. I hope you are well and the best to your buddy.

      I’ve chosen to not be scared of things I can’t control, especially to the amount that I’ll avoid life because of them. People fall prey to thinking the thing that affected them is the most important thing in life. If someone they love died from a drunk driver, that would become the most dangerous thing in world. People die of mundane things all the time. My dad died from a urinary tract infection. But that doesn’t mean everyone who gets a UTI needs to be worried to death. Every death is a tragedy, but not every tragedy is a death. Sometimes the fear of death is the tragedy.

      Best wishes.

    • invisible finger

      ” I, a 57 year old male who works out regularly, was put on my ass for the last two weeks. ”

      What treatments did the doctor(s) give you?

      • JG43

        They told me to go home

      • Ownbestenemy

        The ICU or go home treatment is truly remarkable.

      • Jerms

        Would bet dollars to donuts that if you and your friend were given the FLCCC protocol when testing positive you would have shook this thing off like nobodys business. If you had been on Ivermectin as every human should be, you would have never come down with it in the first place.
        I treated myself with ivermectin from a Canadian pharmacy, zinc and quinine and was only sick for 3 days and back in the gym on the 5th day.

      • Urthona

        I mean I had that experience with covid and did not take anything but an aspirin. I’m 45. Odds are that’s what happens.

      • JG43

        You would have lost. My symptoms I described were with me following the FLCCC protocol on my own at home, including ivermectin.

      • db

        hmm, interesting. How did you dose the ivermectin?

    • robc

      That is true for just about every respiratory virus. The danger level is the probability of it happening, but for some unfortunates, it is true for the common cold.

      Omicron is less dangerous than alpha (or whatever the initial varient is). Possibly more dangerous than the flu (depending on age) and surely more dangerous than the common cold, but once again, that may be dependent on other factors.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      Anything that can send you from healthy to dead in the space of 5 days is kind of a big deal.

      Except unless if you consider the incidence rate, right? I mean a swimming pool can kill a healthy child in the space of just 5 minutes. And has killed more children each year than Covid.

      As I’ve said before, only 2 people out of 22,000 in the unvaxed group died from Covid in the Pfizer trial data released last July. It was a big deal for those 2 people and their families but hardly a population-ending event. If you want to consider those two deaths as a big deal in any way for a entire population, then consider that 4 people in the vax group died from cardiac arrest compared with 1 in the placebo group. A much greater difference than deaths from Covid. The general public is at much greater risk from the vaccines than from Covid.
      https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261159v1.full-text

      • Urthona

        I don’t know. You’re gonna have to get past the 2 to 1 cdc death rate for unjabbed vs jabbed. You’re gonna have to explain how it’s faked or the demographics are different.

    • DEG

      I’m glad you got better. I hope your friend gets better too.

      I had bacterial pneumonia on top of the ‘Vid. It was unpleasant.

      I am still not afraid of the ‘Vid and won’t live in fear of it.

      You say you are 57. Last I looked at the CDC numbers, that’s the demographic where the CDC’s numbers say the ‘Vid is deadlier than the flu. Different people have different risk factors and should make decisions appropriately.

  49. Rebel Scum

    Any attempt at having secure elections is voter suppression.

    Nancy Gbana Abudu, the deputy legal director at SPLC, was picked by Biden in December to serve on the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. The 11th Circuit covers parts of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. The vacancy came about upon the retirement of Judge Beverly B. Martin — a President Barack Obama appointee. …

    In a 2011 interview dug up by The Daily Wire, Abudu asserted that “95 percent” of her work with the ACLU at the time involved “voting rights.” She notably said “photo ID” and “proof of citizenship,” two long-established requirements to vote, are indicative of “voter suppression:”

    Obviously, we do a lot when it comes to voter suppression, which includes five priority areas: photo ID, proof of citizenship, restrictions we see when it comes to registration … early voting as well as absentee voting and the restrictions we see when it comes to criminal convictions. We also do a lot with student voting.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Judges who make up the law out of thin air, and oppose what is actually written. She’ll fit right in.

      • cyto

        The senate needs to get serious about the role of advise and consent.

        Confirming Kagan when she said that the Feds have the authority to force you to buy broccoli was a complete abdication.

        The same goes for many of these new nominations. If they cannot support and defend the constitution, you cannot vote to confirm the nomination. It is that simple.

      • R C Dean

        Allowing Kagan to participate in the ObamaCare case at all was a violation of judicial ethics. And that’s on Roberts.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      the deputy legal director at SPLC

      Not partisan at all.

      • juris imprudent

        That’s not even a matter of partisan – anyone involved with SPLC is batshit insane.

  50. Pope Jimbo

    From the Nothing Left To Cut Dept: Minnesoda loots Feds for World Special Expo

    President Joe Biden late last month signed into law a proposal greenlighting funding to help Minnesota’s bid to become host a specialized World Expo in 2027.

    U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Dean Phillips on Monday, Jan. 3, touted the expenditure in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act that designated federal funds to get the United States a pavilion at the 2025 World Expo in Osaka, Japan. Establishing such a pavilion is a requirement for getting Minnesota approved to host an expo in 2027.

    The state has proposed, and the Biden administration has approved, a plan to have Minnesota host an exhibition centered around health and a healthy planet, which is set to focus on “the best of innovation and accomplishment in health and wellness, including highlighting the Upper Midwest’s important contributions in this field.”

    I’d love to tell you exactly how much the Minnesoda delegation looted from the treasury, but the journalo who wrote the article didn’t think that was important.

    What a fucking racket. You have to “buy a pavilion” at this year’s expo to even be in the running for the next one. Why is this coming out of the Defense Dept funding?

    In a sane world Special K and Phillips (my congressman) would be mocked and voted out of office at the next election.

  51. The Late P Brooks

    Delicate balancing act

    The storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6 has been denounced by the White House, the FBI and the Justice Department as an act of domestic terrorism, but one year after the insurrection, prosecutors have yet to ask judges to impose the harsher sentences federal law recommends for defendants motivated by politics.

    Instead, even as some judges have publicly debated whether the charges against Jan. 6 defendants qualify as “crimes of terrorism,” prosecutors have repeatedly pulled back on tougher sentences, citing unspecified “facts and circumstances.”

    The so-called sentencing enhancement for terrorism crimes was created as a result of legislation Congress passed following the 1993 bombing in a parking garage at the World Trade Center. The provision initially applied only to crimes linked to international terrorism, but after the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, Congress moved to expand the enhancement to cover terrorism inspired purely by domestic causes.

    The terrorism-related language now includes federal criminal offenses “calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct.”

    In front of judges and in court filings, the Justice Department is engaged in a delicate rhetorical dance on the domestic terrorism issue. Seeking to satisfy a large swath of the public outraged by the Jan. 6 riot, prosecutors have declared that the event “certainly” qualifies as domestic terrorism. But they’ve kept their powder dry thus far on invoking the terrorism sentencing boost — potentially because its impact can be so severe.

    It’s also one of the existing provisions legal experts have pointed to in the ongoing debate over whether Congress should pass a domestic-terrorism statute.

    “It takes you from a couple of years [in prison] in the guidelines range all the way up to, like, 20,” said Doug Berman, an Ohio State law professor and one of the nation’s leading authorities on criminal sentencing.

    Why not the gas chamber? Hate crimes against the government are too egregious to countenance.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Yeah, let’s hear about those calls for terrorism enhancements for the actual no shit leftist insurrectionists in Portland and elsewhere. Still haven’t rolled up any of the support network behind it, clearly because they’re protected people and condoned by the establishment.

      • cyto

        Protected?

        Organized, authorized, commanded and controlled by. They think they are being “against the system” while being used by the system as pawns.

        The only question is… Will the establishment figure out that *they* are also useful idiots for the communists who seek to pre-order society?

      • cyto

        Re-order. Jeez. Why would you spell check that to re-order?

      • cyto

        Uh…. Do you see any Republicans in that group?

        White supremacy terrorism systemic racist republican…. That is how the word salad goes.

        6 minute abs? No.. No…. Seven! Seven is the number. Seven minute abs!

      • Ownbestenemy

        Heh…step into my office. Why? Cause your fucking fired. That scene is awesome.

    • juris imprudent

      Hate crimes against the government are too egregious to countenance.

      High treason against the crown of England included even thinking about or praying for the king’s death, so ol’ Preet wasn’t so far off, was he?

  52. DEG

    I had a comment on the linked stories, but I didn’t realize I was logged out. Oh well.

    I see Yusef, on last night’s thread, passed on the news about Trashy taking a break. Thanks Yusef!

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Anytime D!

    • invisible finger

      Infection wave or testing wave?

      • robc

        Its an infection wave. Just about everyone is gonna get Omicron, IMO.

      • Urthona

        good

      • Certified Public Asshat

        yes

    • slumbrew

      Nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.

      (attn: Preet – just a joke. I lack orbital nuclear strike capability)

      • Nephilium

        Besides, it would be a waste of nuclear material. Rods from god are good enough.

      • Rebel Scum

        Swallowswell said the nukes were reserved for uppity Americans that assert there rights and disagree with the puppet regime.

      • Rebel Scum

        “Their”, even. *gets coffee*

      • R C Dean

        I lack orbital nuclear strike capability

        For now.

      • slumbrew

        I lost it in a boating accident.

    • Ownbestenemy

      She looks like she has Turners, cause that is what my 30 year old niece looks like and about the same maturity level.

  53. The Late P Brooks

    Anything that can send you from healthy to dead in the space of 5 days is kind of a big deal.

    It is unquestionably real, and *for some people* (including some with no known comorbidities) can be deadly.

    And- people die every fucking day.

    They fall off roofs, they drown in swimming pools, they slide off the road in their cars, they inadvertently electrocute themselves…

    Their hearts quit, they drink themselves to death, they get cancer, they contract the hantavirus cleaning the shed out back…

    And on and on.

    Can we really pretend government health experts are in a position to banish death, if only we allow them total control over our every activity?

    Fuck that. My life is my own.

    • Urthona

      well said.

    • Rebel Scum

      That’s just what a nazi, anti-vax insurrectionist would say.

    • Draw Me Like One of Your Tulpae, Jack

      Also, the Weather Channel is repeating Northam’s talking point that the plan to clear the roads is, like, sunlight or sumpin.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Hahahaha! When your hate seeps out

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Goldberg is an idiot.

      • Draw Me Like One of Your Tulpae, Jack

        a) political reporter
        b) lives either in or next door to NoVA
        c) reported on the VA gubernatorial election

        So, yeah. He’s intellectually disabled.

      • Not Adahn

        What I like about this place is not only do we ridicule the grifters of the Rs and Ds, but the ones desperate enough to identify themselves as Ls too.

      • Draw Me Like One of Your Tulpae, Jack

        The only decent thing about Goldberg are his dogs, but they’re not cute enough for me to put up with the rest of his Twitter hogwash.

    • Rebel Scum

      I though the I-95 situation was clearly Joe Manchin’s fault.

      • juris imprudent

        Is there a budding Chuck Norris meme here?

        That snow would’ve fallen west and north of I-81 but for Joe Manchin.

    • CPRM

      Looking at the pictures and video, I might have to slow to 72mph in those conditions.

  54. Rebel Scum

    Aussie on the barbie.

    A #Victorian man set himself on fire inside his car while screaming about #COVID19 vaccine mandates.

    Shocked bystanders pinned down the man as police and firefighters doused him with water and rushed him to the hospital with life-threatening injuries
    #auspol #Melbourne #victoria

    • CPRM

      Was he wearing a mask?

    • CPRM

      Woman asshole too. Everyone asshole. World one asshole. – Mr. Miyagi

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Maybe she couldn’t get one because that guy is wearing two.

      • slumbrew

        You think he wouldn’t be so shouty – that surely has to increase transmission.

        (disclaimer, I didn’t bother with the sound – I assuming he’s shouting)

  55. kinnath

    Personal score card: Cousin and husband died in July 2020 from Covid (not with covid). Golf buddy hospitalized for more than a month. Sister-in-Law hospitalized for more than a month. So, yeah. It’s real. By the way, wife tested positive in March 2021 and recovered within 48 hours using over the counter Quinine and Zinc supplements.

    I took publicly-available FedGov data and did a quick analysis a couple of months ago. For those over 60yo, COVID killed 10 times as many people as car accidents. For those under 40yo, car accidents killed 10 times as many people as COVID. Between 40yo and 60yo, it’s a toss up. Again, COVID kills people.

    It doesn’t matter if people die from COVID or cars. Dead is dead. It’s a tragedy for the family.

    The issue is that the government response to COVID has been a fucking disaster. It ignored the actual risk to various populations, punished anyone that sought out cheap and effective treatments using established anti-virals, destroyed the economy, and is now forcing people to get vaccinated against their will with Emergency Use Authorization drugs.

    • The Other Kevin

      It was, and is, a big government, one-size-fits-all solution pushed by a small number of bureaucrats at the top who have no accountability and the power to shut down any dissenting opinions. This is exactly what national health care would be like.

    • R C Dean

      Now kinnath, you either believe COVID is pretty harmless and the government response is a disaster, or you believe COVID is lethal to all who come in contact with it and the government response has saved millions. This is no time for nuance.

  56. Certified Public Asshat

    Fully vaccinated Liverpool cancelled training today and might need to cancel tomorrow’s Arsenal game because of…well, you know the reason.

    Jurgen Klopp’s vaccine mandate hardest hit.

    • slumbrew

      Odd that the German guy has authoritarian impulses.

    • PieInTheSky

      they do not have 4 boosters so fully vaccinated is meaningless

    • rhywun

      “League Cup”

      Nobody cares anyway.

  57. Ownbestenemy

    Well, so far our school district isn’t panicking and will resume classes tomorrow. Good, these teens need to get out of here.

  58. Not Adahn

    *ponders*

    If covid is 1% fatal, and placebos are 2% effective, couldn’t we conquer this with sugar pills?

    • R C Dean

      If covid is 1% fatal

      I believe you are missing a decimal point, unless you are talking about old people.

      • Not Adahn

        Rounding for easier mental math.

  59. PieInTheSky

    Rod Blagojevich
    @realBlagojevich
    When I came home 2 years ago, I returned to a world where people love each other less and hate each other more. We’ve got to fix this. I’m looking forward to launching my show. Please help me get the word out and retweet my video. Thanks to all of you.

    https://twitter.com/realBlagojevich/status/1478390188447522816

    who dat?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Am old-school Democrat, the kind that was taking bribes to fill an empty Senate eat.

      In other words, somebody who is at least sane.

    • Swiss Servator

      IL TEAM BLUE politician who was in federal prison (the worst thing they got him on was threating a children’s hospital if they didn’t cough up big $ for his campaign)…Trump commuted his sentence to have him get out a bit early.

      • Ed Wuncler

        Blago is a piece of shit but compared to Cullerton and Madigan, he was a damn saint.

      • Swiss Servator

        There is a seat in a deep part of Hell reserved for Madigan.

    • Ghostpatzer

      Ah, yes. Blagojevich is who every up-and-coming young politico aspires to be. A fine role model, he was. Before he got caught, that is.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Scumbag ex mayor of Chicago, pardoned by Trump.

      • Ed Wuncler

        Ex-Governor. Dude sucked at politicking because by the end the IL Democratic leadership wanted him gone.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Yep, I remember him now. He’s almost a sleazeball archetype.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Or was he the gov? I done forgot.

  60. Tundra

    Good morning, Banjos!

    And good morning to the rest of you malcontents.

    Ready for LabLeak 2.0?

    • Ghostpatzer

      Good morning! Thanks for the nut punch. OTOH, v 2.0 is generally more stable than the initial rollout, so there is reason for optimism.

  61. Ownbestenemy

    This is how you twist and propagandize.

    Headline: Omicron Variant Symptoms: Latest COVID ‘Making People Really Sick in a Different Way’

    Where that quote comes from:

    “Today it seemed like everyone had COVID. Like, so many. And yes, like before, there were some really short of breath and needing oxygen. But for most, COVID seemed to topple a delicate balance of an underlying illness. It’s making people really sick in a different way,”

    So they mash up Omicron with a doctor pointing out the obvious that underlying illness makes people sick in different ways.

    I do also love this part:

    “Every patient I’ve seen with Covid that’s had a 3rd ‘booster’ dose has had mild symptoms. By mild I mean mostly sore throat. Lots of sore throat. Also some fatigue, maybe some muscle pain. No difficulty breathing. No shortness of breath. All a little uncomfortable, but fine,” Spencer wrote.

    From there, it goes downhill, depending on your vaccination status or lack thereof.

    Downhill how? Care to explain? No? Okay. I am sufficiently scared. I am guessing that unvaccinated have experienced the above symptoms too, but if they report that, the unclean won’t rush to get jabbed.

    • rhywun

      From there, it goes downhill, depending on your vaccination status or lack thereof.

      Bullshit.