There’s no common sense in Australia anymore
The NFL coaching carousel is spinning, but no moves have been made yet. The Aussies are still trying to fuck with Joker, and his status will be in limbo at the leisure of the immigration minister, who can arbitrarily have him removed from the country if he wants to. Sounds like a legit form of government. And Chelsea are in the League Cup final, where they’ll face the winner of Arsenal-Liverpool, who are finally starting their two-leg semifinal today. And that’s sports.
Hey, remember this story? Serious question: why wouldn’t an armorer just make his/her own ammunition if there’s even the slightest chance something could go wrong in the supply chain? It’s not as if it’s rocket science. Wait, is it a form of rocket science?
::snicker::
This is pretty cool. ::reads story:: Oh, never mind. I thought it was so people could walk by and piss on him. Unfortunately that’s not the case.
Everything is racism! Even fire.
Aw, that’s a shame. I’ve got an idea: just shut it down.
SCIENCE MUST NOT BE QUESTIONED!!! That would be anti-science. Even though that’s the scientific method. Or something. Either way, the message is clear: silence my opponents.
All is well. Remain calm! No wait, it’s a shitshow. And only stupid people blame the government for high inflation and/or rising fuel prices. Just ask Tom Nichols and Jen Rubin. Jeez, I can only imagine which side will be using their words come election season.
Yikes!
The stupidity is astounding. First, you fire the unvaccinated workers. Then you tell vaccinated but covid+ workers they can work. Then you bring back the unvaccinated as contract laborers. Their solution is also hilariously stupid: get vaccinated.
Now why didn’t Hitchcock think of that? Or was that gonna be the sequel?
Welcome to the party, pal. You’re only about 3-4 years late.
Here’s a solid rocking song. Those guys were solid. Enjoy it.
And enjoy your Thursday, dear friends!
Why is that pussy sticking its tongue out at me?
It’s opposite day?
Starting to wonder WTH is wrong with the SC.
Aren’t they issuing some decisions today?
They delayed the decision on the fucking evil and unconstitutional mandates after the libs on the court all made themselves look like the idiot tools they were….
“Everything is racism! Even fire.
Remember when everything was global warming? Yeah…
Pretty sure they’ve said global warming is racist.
and sexist don’t forget. But sex is not real. But sexism is.
I want to bang your car’s muffler!!
That would be a pretty shitty shitty bang bang.
RESPEK MY PRONOUNS!!!!1!!eleventy!!!
“Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” was a frequent movie when I was at day camp at the YMCA.
It’s good to see the MSM finally recognizing the racism inherent in the policies pushed by Democrats for decades.
ICYMI – the building in question is one of those heavily subsidized “urban renewal” things, thus quasi-public housing, a factoid I have not seen in any of the MSM. They are going the blame the current owner while ignoring the fact that it is impossible for them to make a profit AND provide proper maintenance.
They also won’t point out that the people living there treat the place like shit because they have no stake in it.
Hey! Another five-year plan and everything will work out!
You just have to believe!
///BuildTheWall?
They’re building a concrete wall around the White House.
To keep those of us that are tired of their evil criminal inept ways out…
But a wall to make sure we have some control over who we let immigrate to our country so the people coming continue to be those looking for the American dream and not just a big government handout? Fuck you. That’s racist…
“Walls don’t work.”
Learned scholars agree.
They should contract that out to Dollar General, wall would be up in 3 days
I feel bad for the land development engineers under contract for Dollar General. It’s the most rapid churn and burn civil engineering there is. I can’t imagine making a good set of site plans in 2-3 working days without errors. At least they are always sited where they get minimal regulatory scrutiny so they can just build and build.
It’s a weird ecosystem, only works because of how few fingers are in the pot. Maybe it’s as it should be.
What are they planning that makes them think they need a wall like that?
Whatever it is, the wall says “keep the rabble out”…
That has GOT to mean they plan to do something good for the people, right?
It’s to guard against the domestic terrorists and insurrectionists.
So anyone that feels these elite sticking it to us is criminal and decides not to just grab their ankles as told anyway?
Merrick Garland agrees.
ANARCHY!
Good. Then put a dome on it and suck the air out.
“SCIENCE MUST NOT BE QUESTIONED!!! That would be anti-science. Even though that’s the scientific method. Or something. Either way, the message is clear: silence my opponents.”
The most criminal and evil political class has coopted science and now uses it just like the rest of the propaganda system to peddle their evil agendas.
There is no such thing as a scientific consensus. There is no such thing as scientific misinformation. And there is definitely no science that does anything but make totalitarianism look like a bad deal for the people.
Nearly 300 doctors and scientists…
All friends of Peter Daszak I suppose.
Worse. People that get paid by entities that want to protect these evil fuckers lying to us…
Someone is going to start looking into those names, and that’s exactly what they’ll find.
why wouldn’t an armorer just make his/her own ammunition – no one can make their own ammo. there would not be an ammo shortage otherwise
They would create a shortage of whatever materials are used to make the ammo…
Primers are still hard to come by.
There’s an ammo parts shortage.
It really isn’t difficult to distinguish between blank and live ammo. The live ammo has a bullet at the front end.
So does movie prop dummy ammo. It needs to look like a live round. I have no doubt there are still markings to confirm, though.
Why a supplier of prop ammo and blanks would ever ship live ammo, I couldn’t say.
I think they mean dummy rounds, which look like live rounds but have no propellant or primer.
What I heard is they had dummy bullets for a close up scene, where you could tell in the revolver that there was a blank. So the dummy bullets looked just like real ones, but had no powder and primer. If it was me I would damn well make those myself and probably spray the case neon green or something for double safe measure. Probably weigh it quickly on a scale before putting in the gun too. That is a high-risk endeavor.
Dummy rounds are often drilled or indented/fluted on the case to make it obvious that they are dummies. There might be different types of dummies for different types of film shots. Sometimes you might need to see the projectile. Sometimes you might need to see the case head/primer. Sometimes you might need to see the entire cartridge in profile.
In the case of Brandon Lee, for example, a dummy round (with projectile, no primer or propellant) was inserted for a shot, then removed, in a revolver. The projectile was loose in the case and stayed in the chamber, and people failed to notice that. Later, a blank cartridge was inserted into that chamber, and when fired, essentially created a “live” round, killing Lee.
Normal military style blank rounds tend to have low powder charges and are dependent on BFAs (Blank Firing Adapters) in order for any kind of action to actuate in the weapon.
Hollywood blanks use consumable wadding and big charges so that the weapon will actuate and you get big pretty flames out of the barrel.
Inherently more dangerous.
Military blanks can still drive cleaning rods out of a barrel.
/bored joes
A cleaning rod and .50 cal blank in the end of the BFA will go a long way.
Also, if a private takes the blank adapter off of his M16 and fires it against his bunk-mates ass, the hospital will report it as a gun-shot wound and you’ll get all sorts of unwanted visitors at your training site.
Or so I’ve heard.
Swede Mausers used a blank firing adapter even though they are bolt actions.
The idea being the blank uses a hollow wooden bullet. The adapter destroys the bullet and vents the debris to the side.
‘Tenants have no choice’: Racism in urban planning fuels high rate of Black fire deaths”
This is why the Jeffersons moved on up to the East Side
DE-LUX apartment in the sky, baby!
Those damn Republicans and their urban planning in cities that have been Democratically controlled for over 50 years!
Just like one rotten apple spoils the bunch, one Republican in a legislative body pollutes all of the pure DEMOCRATIC laws and regulations that are passed.
You should quit whatever you are doing Neph and go into politics with wisdom like that, bro…
You can make some serious bank
robbingworking for the American tax payer…SCIENCE MUST NOT BE QUESTIONED!!! That would be anti-science. Even though that’s the scientific method. Or something. Either way, the message is clear: silence my opponents. – Fauci is the embodiment of science so whatever he says is science
On the 8th Day Fauci created Science
He was there from the Beginning
I still think Baldwin gets the blame. No amount of obfuscation exonerates the trigger man.
There’s blame to go around, but he’s ultimately responsible for the action.
He shares it. The incompetent armorer and whoever hired her get the bigger share in my opinion.
How many western movies and tv shows have been made without anyone killed – or even live round misses flying through the sets?
Imma guess that any live round misses would get very little press.
Somebody just gets quietly fired.
What exonerates him is that the system has two different standards for the elite and connected vs. those the elite & connected don’t like….
What do you think the people defending Baldwin and blocking for him would be saying if this had happened to someone like Mel Gibson or some other right leaning white dude, huh?
My question:
If the supplier is shipping mixed lots of dummy and live rounds, why hasn’t this happened to anyone else?
Because that’s probably not what happened.
Yes. Just because the armorer says that happened doesn’t make it so. Since they were supposedly shooting live round between takes, live ammo could have easily gotten mixed in, especially if people not familiar with the difference were involved.
This is comforting.
The U.S. Army’s annual unconventional warfare exercise Robin Sage is set to kick off across rural North and South Carolina this month, pitting Special Forces candidates against simulated guerillas fighting for the fictional nation of “Pineland.” The exercise is so realistic and spans such a large area that the U.S. Army has issued notices to local law enforcement agencies warning them not to mistake the exercise for a real insurrection, an error that has cost one soldier his life during a previous Robin Sage event.
Jade Helm! Jade Helm!!!
This is so routine; this isn’t even the scale of others in the past.
I breezed the article so I get that it is routine. I only wonder if it always premised on domestic “insurgency” considering the President Puddin’ Cup recently said that disagreement with the regime makes one a “domestic enemy”.
Not a domestic insurgency – a foreign insurgency in fictional foreign countries. If Biden spewed out something stupid, color me shocked.
Free Pineland!!!
Robin Sage (under various names) has occurred multiple times a year since the 1950’s since it is the final exercise of the Special Forces Qualification Course. The article shows it to be just under two weeks which is shorter than when I did it in 1986. We spent a week in isolation, briefback and mission prep followed by three weeks in the field. Back then most of the “G’s” were tasked from the Corps Support Command so they were Soldiers but not field Soldiers. My G’s were from a postal company, a sewing company, and a finance unit. So we had to start with how to build a hooch, provide security, and maintain a weapon. The OPFOR is usually from the 82d or 101st Airborne Divisions.
The local families have been supporting the exercise for multiple generations and take their business very seriously.
No shit war story.
In 1984, Bobarian was a Pineland guerilla for 23 days. The SF candidates had to come in and integrate and train us to conduct multiple operations, while soldiers from the 82nd rolled around conducting counter-insurgency, hunting us and trying to prevent us from completing our missions.
Most fun I ever had in the Army.
We hid in a field one night, and in the morning, one of the trainers come and woke us up and moved us out of the area, most rickey-tickey!
Apparently, the spot we picked was “compromised”.
It was part of wood mill’s forest, and all the trees had been planted and spaced and were about 8′ tall. That made it a good hiding place.
Which is why there were fresh little holes dug between each of the trees, each containing a freshly planted MJ baby. We were sleeping in someone’s roughly two acre pot patch. Which was a very dangerous place to be, since they were known to booby trap and other sorts of fuckery.
Bobarian knows the deal!
I had a blast during the exercise and the one time I was an assistant O/C when I was a Major.
That’s a good tune! I really dig their next album, too! It’s better.
Looking at my last three pay-stubs and saying what the fuck?
?
No overtime. No one is making this right. I need to speak with your manager, immediately! I took 4 days off in seven weeks. FML.
HR, then union rep.
Then cleansing?
ZARDOZ approves.
I need to be careful about that. It is a postal plant.
We even have a “quiet room” upstairs and everything.
Old IRA used?
“Don’t make me file a grievance with the union over this.”
In the US, shorting someone’s paycheck is a major legal problem. Treble damages, etc., union or no.
In the complaint filed Wednesday in the Second Judicial District Court in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, Gutierrez Reed accuses PDQ Arm and Prop, LLC. and its founder Seth Kenney of violation of trade practices, false and deceptive product labels, and false and material misrepresentations after, Gutierrez Reed alleges, Kenney sold her a cache of dummy ammunition with live rounds mixed in.
She can’t tell the difference?
As I recall she had no experience, just the name. Maybe if she had actually apprenticed under her old man.
Spike in autoimmune diseases blamed on fast food: scientists
https://nypost.com/2022/01/10/spike-in-autoimmune-diseases-blamed-on-fast-food-scientists/
Well that’s a load of horseshit.
Is it? Are people who eat a lot of fast food considered healthy?
So a Big Mac causes Rheumatoid Arthritis?
“If you don’t have a certain genetic susceptibility, you won’t necessarily get an autoimmune disease, no matter how many Big Macs you eat,” she said.
No one reads the articles.
So, the headline could have been:
“Spike in autoimmune diseases blamed on genetic defect in some people: scientists”
The headline to me is more obvious than bait-y. “Poor diets lead to poor health outcomes.”
Yeah, it couldn’t possibly be anything else, no other possible causes at all.
Congressional lawmakers on Wednesday paid tribute to former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as he was given the rare honor of lying in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.
We shouldn’t be “honoring” any of these cuntes. Congresscritters are not royalty. His funeral should be a private affair with his family.
The same Harry Reid that lost at Checkers to Mitch? King Me Reid?
The man that was the very definition of a back-bencher who somehow fell into leadership.
Wait, wait, wait. He’d already spent a lifetime lying to the American public, now he gets another opportunity?
Indeed. He has always lied in the rotunda.
Well, that cop Trump’s stormtroopers murdered last year got to lie in state. Harry Reid deserves no less.
Harry Ried deserves a shallow, unmarked grave in the nevada desert.
It should be marked so people can piss on it.
Taliban official: “Sixty percent of women over 40 in the West marry their pets.”
https://twitter.com/JanGold_/status/1480886686045384706
wrong tweet
https://twitter.com/Roh_Yakobi/status/1481371029415079942
“He’s not wrong, though”
They are busting on cat ladies?
Yeah. Say what you will about this latest incarnation of the Taliban, their PR game is on-point.
Mean tweets from the Taliban? SJWs must invade Afghanistan!
Also Taliban Official: “I’m really into beast porn.”
Sheep, goats, or camels?
Or?
ORGY!
What does the Taliban call a petting zoo?
I heard several camels died back in the day when they accidentally scheduled drivers ed and sex ed on the same day..
Racism in urban planning fuels high rate of Black fire deaths
I wonder who controls all of this urban planning.
Hush, you. It’s obviously the fault of the racist Republicans, who haven’t had any control in most major urban areas for at least half a century or more.
See – Republicans neglect our great urban areas!
I fully expect to see just such a take in the WaPo or NYT.
People that now tell us without any shame that it is racism that motivates us to point out their policies/solutions to the rampant racism they claim exists today in white America have everything in common with the old time segregationists and racist of back when?
In this case there wasn’t even a party shift.
Ref: IRS confusion
Last year I made a serious mistake on my income tax and way over paid. I realized it right away, sent in an amended return and got my overpayment back in a couple months. Then, about 3 months ago I was surprised with another envelope from the IRS but I could see through the window that it was blue inside. I thought that after checking they were sending me back a few more bucks overpaid. I was shocked! They refunded me X2 of what I had thought I actually owed. I’m happy about the confusion.
Be prepared to pay that back…with interest.
Be careful. Cause I have seen them turn around, point out they double paid, then ask you to reimburse them that money PLUS penalties, interests, and other fees for cashing the checks….
Yeah, I’m prepared for that but they’d better hurry.
Up here they are kind of peach-colored in the window. Glad that you got some back!
Hello glibs.
Dear UCS, I enjoyed your blacksmithing post. It seems like you enjoyed the outcome even if the first part of the learning curve is inevitably the hardest/least rewarding in relation to effort put in. I’d like to ask you for what is maybe the fourth time now how you’re getting on with your milling machine. How are you getting in with your milling machine?
I like crows.
I like all corvids. The smartest of all the Avians.
Sky dolphins.
Everyone knows the urban planners make the buildings and furniture in black neighborhoods more flammable.
They also make the tenants break shit and leave trash in the halls and stairwells.
They build the buildings with secret Tricknology architecture that was taught to them by Lovecraftian horrors to drive the tenants mad.
The rats in the walls.
“The geometry was all wrong!”
I worked in the Bronx for 17 years. For some reason the elevators in the buildings like the one that had that bad fire, either smell like piss or have actual puddles of piss in them. Not sure if the urban planners are causing that too.
It’s fucking MAGA people that come there to pee in those elevators… I bet they are related to the MAGA fucks that attacked that French actor Juissie Smolliet…
To be faaaaiiiir, I believe it acts as a fire retardant.
The Micturate 2000 fire suppression system.
But at least one can ‘airmail’ without even leaving the apartment. That’s what windows are for, right?
60 years ago I lived in military housing in France. I still have not-so-fond memories.
15 years ago some condemned buildings at Dänner Kaserne in Kaiserslautern were “brought into standard” and we got parked there…I lived better in war torn Sarajevo.
I wouldn’t let my dog live in some of the Army shacks I saw in Würzburg at the base near my house. They’ve since been torn down.
I was stationed in Pirmasens, about 25 miles away, in the late ’50s but I lived in the barracks. K-town had the big PX plus I had a friend at Landstuhl I could visit.
Ha! The brewery in Pirmasens had a 9.2% ABV beer (remember, this was 1997, not the barrel aged 14.2 ABV days) named “Pirminator”. If you drank too much you said you were “Pirminated” last night…
The PX was down to a smallish branch one, but we could roll down to Ramstein AFB…luxurious! Landstuhl, having the hospital, was still in good shape too.
Swiss did you see this: https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/small-island-northern-england-looking-landlord-run-300-year-old-pub-and-serve-king ?
I nominate you.
Let me brush up my resume…
I just let the girlfriend know I’ve got a backup in case the vaccine mandate is upheld and work doesn’t grant me the accommodation. 🙂
Not true. It was the Dax what done it!
Look at this anti-Daxxer over here
Why did scientists suppress the lab-leak theory?
In private, they said it was plausible. In public, they called it a conspiracy theory.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/01/12/why-did-scientists-suppress-the-lab-leak-theory/
trust the experts
They were frightened by the political class that hands out the money that keeps them doing science…
But we always get told the only time science is corrupted by money is if it is done by private entities. Never when government, that can piss away hundreds of times what private entities can, doles out cash, however. Because government cuntes are never going to only give money to people they KNOW will say what they want them to say…
/SCIENCE!
Incentives matter
Among those challenges for taxpayers and professionals: long processing times and refund delays, difficulty reaching the IRS by phone, correspondence that went unprocessed for “many months,” limited and no information available on the “Where’s My Refund?” tool for delayed returns and more, according to the report.
This calls for more money to hire 80,000 new agents
to fleece the middle classmake sure the rich pay their fair share.Nearly 300 doctors and scientists sign open letter to Spotify calling for it to stop Joe Rogan from spreading ‘anti-vax misinformation’ after he hosted virologist who called vaccination program a ‘mass formation psychosis’
Scientism does not allow debate.
Every signatory to that should have their degrees revoked.
No way – I want those out there as “Truth in Advertising”.
The Relentless Reality of Anti-Fatness in Fitness
A look at how we got to this point and where we go from here.
https://www.self.com/story/anti-fatness-fitness
Even those who manage to break this vicious cycle still swim against a relentless tide of fitness fatphobia, which also shows up in less visible ways: the dearth of plus-size sportswear (and the increased price tag some brands tack onto their plus items), the limited weight capacity on many exercise machines (not to mention the frames and seats that are painfully small for some in larger bodies), and the comparatively tiny number of visible fat fitness role models—who are often called out, not for advocating an active lifestyle, but rather for “promoting obesity.”
Lol so some machines actually breaking under too much weight is fatphobia
I WANT REALITY TO CONFORM TO MY BULLSHIT!
“Most of us have been taught to believe that the only reason to exercise is for weight loss,” – that must be an American thing because I know of no people who believe that
Nah… it’s an idiot thing.
That’s Biden’s good friend from Georgia, can’t fool me.
She’s fat, I’m not gonna lie to you.
I like how it starts with some anecdote about a dumb gym coach as if that is not the majority, if that even happened
I read the article and it isn’t about “find me attractive no matter what”. It’s about exercise is good even if you don’t lose weight and there are barriers preventing fat people from exercising. Bluntly, a fat person who exercises regularly may, in fact, be fitter and healthier than a thin person who sits on the couch. So, there has been a market change, and now there are exercise clothes that actually fit fat people. That’s a good thing.
“I read the article”
*sigh* have you not read the rules for posting on Glibs?
Srsly, Tulip, how could you READ THE ARTICLE?!
The pictures scared me, oops scarred me.
I am unrepentant!
May be, but long term unlikely. Fat and fit is mostly myth. And it is not fat phobia that makes some equipment inaccessible it is the same for very tall people. I see plenty of very large individuals in gyms no one is preventing them.
No one saying it is jot good for clothes to be available for fat people. Just lay off the fat phobia bullshit
The article is far more nuanced, and very different from your one liner.
what one liner? The article is not nuanced as long as they don’t drop the bullshit woke language, to be taken seriously
Romania got pretty fat after it ate part of Austria-Hungary.
I know I really flesh out the conversation around here with such meaty topics. I like chewing the fat on this subject.
Ps – what about the anti-fitness in fatness?
HOLY FUCKING TROLLING!
*sensible chuckle*
Roast chicken for breakfast…
It’s really because I don’t have time to stand by the stove for traditional ‘breakfast’ foods while we have these troubleshooting calls.
On the other hand it turned out okay. I was too impatient and should have let it rest before eating it though.
e I don’t have time to stand by the stove for traditional ‘breakfast’ foods – how long does that take like 5 minutes?
What are you making that takes only five minutes?
Some abbreviated continental breakfast?
scrambled eggs the fast way. add some cheese and vegetables on the side.
or oats milk berries and a scoop of whey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T24lHnB7N8
Inflation has soared to its highest in four decades, with consumer prices jumping by 7 percent for the year ending in December, the feds said Wednesday.
Inflation is just a vast right-wing insurrectionist conspiracy.
Midterm voters must decide: Do they want to give the unhinged party that can’t admit their cult leader lost and still makes excuses for the domestic terrorists the reins of power?
But enough about Biden voters.
https://twitter.com/OrwellNGoode/status/1481365940524699648
I mean looks kinda cute probably would
Too far down the crazy scale.
Don’t stick it in crazy….
And that guy must either be banging a bunch of other chicks on the side or not be into sex… Cause I have never turned down sex offered by good looking womenz…
Been there, done that, the crazy part
I am sure you paid the price for that just like I did too sir…
Indeed.
“I think the wojak was based off her”
That seems most likely.
Good morning!
@UCS – thanks for the blacksmithing article, that was very cool.
You’re welcome.
The smithing was fun to do, and I said I would share.
I just got to read it, sorry I wasn’t able to comment last night. I really liked the article!
Thank you.
WH messaging: Hey dude, be happy the ice cream cone I gave ya and ignore the ass rape that comes with it…
The chocolate ration has been increased from 20 grams to 15 grams.
The sad part of it is how many ostensibly educated people will nod their heads in agreement without a moment’s consideration.
“But, workers are getting paid more!”. Maybe. But, we know real wages are declining. Those pay increases aren’t keeping up with the increase in inflation. A five minute internet would show that.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Idiocracy was right about the dumbing down of society. Judge was just wrong in assuming it was a bottom up phenomenon. It’s the educated who are growing steadily less intelligent.
Agreed. The one thing I never agreed with in the movie was that the problem was that the smart people got outbred by the dumb. I always believed it would be the stupidty of the people that thought they were smarter than everyone else that would actually create a dystopian world, and so far reality is proving me right on that.
Dumb people will do dumb things, but generally the range of impact will be minimal. The supposedly smart people however will be the ones that do the real fucking destructive shit because they will have further reach and less humility.
… They made new episodes of Dirty Jobs?
It’s clear how much Mike has aged since it was cancelled.
Don’t care, still hot.
^^^
And oh, that VOICE.
No kidding. He sounds like Elizabeth Holmes.
He was on for two episodes of Tucker Carlson Today. Fascinating to hear him talk about himself at length.
D00d’s voice could turn straight men.
He’s quite a showman, too. I know I couldn’t spit out hours’ worth of coherent truth like that.
Years of working at QVC.
Their solution is also hilariously stupid: get vaccinated.
Not stupid, dishonest.
The solution? The Mercury News reports that a city worker will flash lasers at the murders of crows to ward them off.
Why not get a clowder to murder the murder?
Plasma rifle in the 40 Watt range…
Just what you see, pal.
What we need is a good, ole fashioned book burnin’.
Following a recent publication by Americans Against Antisemitism (AAA) which slammed Amazon for hosting “horrific” Nazi propaganda films and declared its intention to implore the multinational tech company to remove the hateful content from its site, a slew of groups and individuals joined in the condemnation of the Big Tech behemoth.
Former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D), founder of the AAA advocacy group that combats hate, posted a clip on Monday stating, “We at @AmericansAA uncovered the latest of @amazon’s hate-for-profit schemes: selling more than 30 original version Nazi propaganda films!”
“I haven’t heard back from Amazon despite their recognizing having made the same error repeatedly,” he added.
There is obviously nothing to learn from historical bits of propaganda. I mean, could you imagine if ‘Mein Kompf’ was available to purchase and read?
“In the middle ages, the Catholic Church kept the people illiterate, so only their priests could tell them what the Bible said”
Textbook public school teaching of medieval European history. Probably a lie (like most “official” history), but nevertheless notable how quickly people emulate what they claim to be against.
Lolol, usually they point to the fact that the Bible was chained to the pulpit in most cathedrals. Of course, at that time, it was transcribed by hand in a painstaking manner and was highly valuable because of how much effort it took to create a copy, but y’know, it’s really easy to teach 250 people to read when there is one book to share between them all.
Transcribed by hand – on parchment, which is also a labor-intensive material to create with only a few pages from each animal hide, meaning it was an eye-wateringly expensive volume when compared to the funding most people could afford.
Maybe the “error” was an honest mistake – assuming Amazon doesn’t want to sell that stuff as is their right – but do we really need the ridiculously over-the-top rhetoric (“hate-for-profit!!1!”)?
Rent consists of 3 parts, value of the land, value of the improvements, value of labor put in by landlord.
For a slumlord, the last is approximately zero and the 2nd is as low as possible. If you have two places on the same block, the higher rent one will have either a nicer building or better service provided by the landlord.
In the world of the single land tax, there is no value to the owner from the first, so there are no slumlords.
So the black fire deaths are the “fault” of all of you opposing the Single Land Tax.
Hat-tip to Neph for the links the other week that directly led to this comment.
You are incorrect.
In the current world there is no value to the landlord from the first. In the world of an SLT, they would raise the rent to cover the tax and lower the maintenance and upgrades as much as they can get away with.
It doesn’t fix anything, as the coping strategies for property tax are already well known. Raising the property tax won’t make them behave the way you want.
IT IS NOT A PROPERTY TAX.
There is no tax on the value of improvements. And you can’t just break the laws of economics. Price is set by market equilibrium, they can’t just “raise the rent to cover the tax”. The amount of tax that can be passed on to the consumer depends on elasticities.
It is a tax on property. Trying to twist the definitions and playing semantic games does not make it not a property tax.
And 100% of the tax is paid by the end user, else the other links go out of business. Especially in a rental market. Anyone who can’t pass the tax on, goes out of business.
No, they pay the tax, and make their profit from the rent on the building and services provided. They break even on the land tax (or make a small profit, as it is generally considered that an SLT would collect about 75% of the land rent – trying to hit the perfect 100% is hard, and you don’t want to go over).
Also, it isn’t semantics. A property tax taxes all property, a land tax only taxes land. It makes a moral distinction between raw land and fruits of a person’s labor. If you want to, sure you can say a land tax is a subset of a property tax, but that hides the deontological distinction. But even then, you should call it a land tax.
All chickens are dinosaurs, but calling your breakfast scrambled dino obscures more than it elucidates.
No, a property tax taxes property, be it fixed or movable chattels. Just becuase you’re taxing the ownership of the land rather than what’s plopped on the land doesn’t make it less of a property tax.
There is no moral difference between the types of property tax. You are penalizing ownership of something.
There is no penalty. It is recognizing that there is no natural law right to land ownership. Thus, there is a clear moral distinction between land and other types of property. The latter are the result of the work of man, they belong to their creator (or the person who uses their work to generate money to buy someone else’s creation – but same thing morally). The former is the creation of God (or nature or whatever) and there is no moral right to ownership (except possibly for Jews in Israel). The land tax merely extracts the economic land of the land for use of the community as a whole. Yeah, it would be better if it was just distributed equally to everyone instead of funding the state, but whachagonnado?
Immovable property is no different from movable property. There is a natural right to land ownership.
There is no moral distinction between my land, my house, my car, or the spoon I hammered out by hand. It is all proeprty that belongs to me.
There is no right of the community to any value of those things.
And land rent is $0.
Land produces nothing without work put into it.
but it can appreciate in value over time quite a bit
The market sale price, should you choose to sell, is based upon the potential of what someone can do with it. And unrealized capital gains are just that – unrealized. Not a rent you can take out and pay the tax with.
Taxing it for existing year over year is innately immoral.
Then why does anyone pay for unimproved land?
Land value increases without any work put into it. Location has value itself.
They pay for the Potential, like I just said. “I can do something to this inert plot”.
And that increase in theoretical sale value is as I said, an unrealized gain.
Late to the party. I have a several acres. Though I don’t improve the land the trees continue to grow and add value. The fact that I’m not personally involved does not detract from that. Since I use the land for recreational purposes is proof that the land has value to me.
I created other things that gave me a medium of exchange that allowed me to rent or buy, I have the exclusive right to that parcel. I didn’t create my life, my body, but I still own it.
The root problem is, the SLT was cooked up at a time when the rich were almost exclusively large agricultural landholders. It is predicated on the same principle of envy that every wealth tax is based on. It has no postive moral component. It is Eat the Rich circa 1730.
I don’t understand the differentiation between land and any other natural resource. You buy the land and improve it and somehow its not really yours. You buy mineral rights to the iron ore under the land, and there’s no moral lien placed on the improvements you do to that iron ore.
It seems that the SLT would, if held consistently, devolve into an inverse VAT.
One, more like 1870, not 1730. The rich were industrialists, not agricultural landholders. You are just flat out wrong from your basic premise. George was arguing with the claims that the capitalists were keeping labor costs down. His response was basically that both the capitalists and the laborers were being screwed over by the land owners. And Progress and Poverty is a long proof of it.
Two, it is the exact opposite of envy, it values work people do. Zero tax on income or improvements. It is literally a moral position that land belongs to everyone and the work belongs to the individual. You could argue it is partly socialist and I wouldn’t disagree with you. But as it keeps the two main means of production (capital and labor) free, it doesn’t hold up too well.
And your continuance to ignore economic rents is silly. You gain benefit from passive ownership. But part of the utilitarian (blech) idea of the SLT is that you won’t passively own unimproved land. You will put land to its highest use. So, you won’t buy an empty lot in a downtown area and put in a cheap parking lot to bring in a little bit of income while you wait for the land price to rise high enough that you can sell it to a developer a decade later. If the land has value, you will do something of value with it. In some cases, that might be a parking lot. But in the scenario I described, a parking lot for a decade would be a losing scenario.
If George came to that conclusion in 1870, I have even less respect for his line of reasoning.
Fabricating “Economic rents” as a concept and claiming that they can be taxed like liquid currency is itself disingenuous.
Trying to force a “best use” by the definition of anyone other than the owner is itself an immoral imposition.
So, you won’t buy an empty lot in a downtown area and put in a cheap parking lot to bring in a little bit of income while you wait for the land price to rise high enough that you can sell it to a developer a decade later.
You know, people do that all the time. They are unwilling to invest the amount needed to (fully) improve it, and willing to wait for the price of unimproved or underimproved land to rise enough to give them a good ROI. The subdivision where I live has had vacant lots for over 15 years, mixed in with the improved lots, because the owners are doing just this.
Hell, my organization is doing basically that right now with a medical park (a bunch of doctor’s offices). It just doesn’t pencil out to invest to improve it for sale, or to invest to improve it for higher rents. So we’re basically holding what we got until the market moves.
robc is trying to assert that his higher property tax that isn’t a property tax would make people not do that anymore when nothing about the formulation would change the behaviours already expressed in high tax jurisdictions.
You will put land to its highest use.
Which is extremely bad news for anyone with a mind toward conservation let alone wilderness.
While it is not my argument for the SLT (which is the moral one), it is an argument. Under an SLT, you wouldn’t do that. You would sell to someone willing to use it now. Or at least calculate differently…it might still be worth it to hold. I would think on totally unimproved land, that would be rare, like the example in your neighborhood. Paying a 4% land tax would make holding for a long time unprofitable.
On underimproved land, it might still make sense to wait. But a 4% tax on land value vs a 1% tax on property value would shift the calculation. But I think the 0% tax on improvements would shift the calculation towards making some improvements sooner rather than later.
All numbers are rough, I don’t know the Arizona property tax rate, and there are a lot of arguments over what an SLT rate would be.
Under an SLT, you wouldn’t do that. You would sell to someone willing to use it now.
So the SLT would force owners to take steps they would rather not? And that’s the moral argument?
I would think on totally unimproved land, that would be rare, like the example in your neighborhood.
Its not really that rare. Subdivisions that aren’t built en masse by a developer with that business model are usually patchworks of houses and vacants lands for extended periods of time, as in, decades.
On underimproved land, it might still make sense to wait.
There’s really no difference between unimproved and underimproved land. Both could be improved more. Whether it makes sense to the owner to do so at any given point in time depends on two things – the current market, and the owner’s goals (including their willingness to invest more). And those are individual, specific, and change over time.
The SLT, by artificially increasing the owner’s costs of owning the land, distorts the market, forcing owners into decisions they would not make in an undistorted market.
Rent consists of 3 parts, value of the land, value of the improvements, value of labor put in by landlord.
I disagree. Rent is a payment to the property owner to allow someone else to use the property. The amount of rent is set by supply and demand.
I can put a $10MM mansion in the middle of a vast cornfield in rural Iowa, but the rent I can actually get will not reflect the value of the improvements. It will reflect how much demand there is to live in a mansion in the middle of a cornfield in rural Iowa. The price you get for anything does not reflect the cost of that thing to you. It reflects the market – competing supply, and demand. That’s why some people lose money, and some people make large profits.
This assumes that “value” means “cost” to the owner in some way. Of course, if we take “value” to mean some kind of allocation of the overall value to the renter of the total price, then it becomes a meaningless syllogism. Because the value to the renter is the market price, set by supply and demand, not the owner’s cost. Or, even more notionally, that the value to the renter is some unknown amount in excess of what they agreed to pay.
You are correct. But within the same market, the landlord that does maintenance will have a higher market value (probably) than the slumlord.
Put two apartments on the same block. Same size. One is well maintained, one isnt. The market, in almost every case, will set a higher value on the former. And that difference is due to the labor of the landlord.
Put two apartments on the same block. One is bigger and than the other. Maintenance is the same. The market, in almost every case, will set a higher value on the former. That is the difference due to improvements/capital.
Put two identical apartments, one in a corn field in Iowa, one in Manhattan. The market, in almost every case, will set a higher value on the former (wait, what? People want to live in Manhattan? Okay, reverse it then). That is the difference due to land value.
And the sum of the 3 is total rent. The idea of the SLT is to extract (most) of the land rent value while leaving the others untouched. And in that scenario, being a slumlord doesn’t make much sense.
Raising the tax on the plots only raises the floor on the rent in the area. If this causes people to drop out of the landlord business, it won’t reduce the amount of slums any more than rent control increases the amount of available housing. In fact, I’d wager it’d increase the number of slums by driving up the cost of doing business so that to turn a profit they have to cut the maintenance.
That is the difference due to land value.
An acre of dirt is an acre of dirt regardless of where it is. Land as such has no inherent value. Nobody will pay a penny for an acre in the middle of the Sahara desert.
The market value of any given acre dirt is based entirely on its location, what is around it, and the market price to improve it and the projected return on the investment in the land and improvements. That’s how commercial real estate buyers determine what they will pay for unimproved land, so that is what drives their maximum price. They will not buy land unless they think they can get a positive ROI. The amount they actually pay is the lowest amount, based on competing demand.
Trying to construct an artificial land value that is anything other than market price is, I dunno, academic? bizarre? Regardless, it seem to start with the assumption that the price it will be bring in the market is wrong. I believe it is based on the fallacy that something has “inherent” value.
I have never, ever seen rent set on the basis of the value of land + improvements + “labor”. Not once. Nobody has ever set their rent by adding their costs and saying “that’s the (annual) rent”. The landlord will certainly resist losing money by having rent that delivers a negative ROI, but even the ROI is an artificial construction based on amortizing the price of the land and improvements and capitalized labor costs over an arbitrary time period. And if the landlord can’t get a positive ROI, he will get the smallest negative ROI he can.
Attempting to deconstruct the market price to these three components is s fool’s errand.
Anything that so fascinates academics/theoreticians can’t be realistic in the slightest.
Put two identical apartments, one in a corn field in Iowa, one in Manhattan. The market, in almost every case, will set a higher value on the former (wait, what? People want to live in Manhattan? Okay, reverse it then). That is the difference due to land value.
Let’s take half a step back here. The value is _because_ of the potential for improvements. The value of living in an apartment in Manhattan isn’t just in being in Manhattan. If NYC put a zoning law in place that said you could not improve that lot, it would be practically worthless, and the little residual value would be solely out of hope that one day the laws would change and allow the lot to be improved. People may occupy the lot, but you’ll not be deriving any revenue from the druggies and homeless that squat on your land. See, nearly 100% of the value of the Manhattan lot in comparison to the Iowa lot is due to the revenue potential of the improvements. Barring those improvements removes any significant value from the land.
Yes, this is entirely correct. And some economists have calculated that the amount of land rent will almost exactly equal what a municipality spends on creating value. Manhattan is more valuable because of what is around it. Some of the value is due to others activity, some is actually due to government activity (roads, sewers, subways, etc).
But, of course, the government can screw it up all up with their regulations. For an SLT to work, you would almost have to couple it with eliminating zoning, so that properties can find their highest use.
Manhattan is more valuable because of what is around it.
But it all seems keyed to the improvements. Even the most sought after location in the city, with all the amenities and a beautiful view of Central Park, is worthless if improvements can’t be undertaken.
I can’t find any handhold to grasp on the idea that there is some latent inherent value* embedded in that lot that is somehow unlocked by improvement.
It seems much more straightforward to root the value in the improvement, and understand any value found in unimproved lots as speculative. From that point of view, SLT is just an arbitrarily calculated property tax.
*setting aside my disbelief in the concept of inherent value
Rent consists of supply and demand. That is all.
All the other parts only determine the profit/loss of the business. The landlord can try to raise the rent if the business is losing money, but the market (and government) ultimately determines whether it will accept that price. If not, the losses continue. Most landlords in that situation will reduce capital expenses to cut the losses, but that is often not enough, especially if offset by tax increases. This is why slums and boarded up apartment buildings exist.
All housing shortages and (most) substandard housing are caused by government policy.
Wow: The New York Times does a deep dive on smoking and finds that some young people smoke cigarettes as an act of rebellion and because it looks cool
https://twitter.com/maxwelltani/status/1481294891460317188
Now do pole smoking…
About nine months ago, a little kitty adopted us (started coming around yowling until he got fed). He’s become our “porch kitty” because the wife is allergic to cat hair. So, yesterday, at dinner time, he comes hobbling up to the porch. Sure enough, he’s got a bunch of scuffs and his back leg is pretty much not working. One vet visit and $900 later we find out he might have gotten in an accident with a car. He’s got a cast on and the wife is taking her to the vet tomorrow. They think it might be nerve damage. If the leg isn’t more reactive tomorrow, the vet’s recommending an amputation. Gah, cats are annoying!
I say you should name it lucky.,
Especially after you neuter it.
See you are a more generous than me because I would not spend 900 dollars on what is basically a stray cat… Then again if I had a house pet I got deliberately, I probably would, but I don’t plan to anytime soon.
See you are a more generous than me because I would not spend 900 dollars on what is basically a stray cat…
#meneither
I’d probably pay to have the cat put down. I’ve put injured feral cats down myself, too, as an act of mercy.
Aw. You love her.
The wife or the cat? 😀
The truth is I’ve grown accustomed to having the little bastard around. He seems to like me a lot, even though the wife is the one more attached to him.
Personally, my plan is to get a dog. I’m hoping to get a Boykin Spaniel. We have a good amount of land (3 1/4 acres) and I was told that it was wired for an invisible fence. They’re supposed to be great house dogs and good for bird hunting. My first thought is to name her “Marian Frances”.
Amputation after only two days to heal? That sounds a bit rushed.
Aw, sorry. My mom had one of those. Missing back leg is easier than a front one.
Finale Concorso Nazionale Miss Intimo 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5f6SOtwghE
the main bit starts at the 3 minute mark
I’m sure it has nothing to do with an ideological purge and mandating experimental injections.
The Army for the first time is offering a maximum enlistment bonus of $50,000 to highly-skilled recruits who join for six years, the Associated Press reported. Until now, the record high was $40,000.
The head of Army’s Recruiting Command, Maj. Gen. Kevin Vereen, told the AP in an interview that the difficulties stem from schools shuttering during the pandemic and a competitive job market.
“We are still living the implications of 2020 and the onset of COVID, when the school systems basically shut down,” said he told the outlet. “We lost a full class of young men and women that we didn’t have contact with, face-to-face.”
You’d have to be crazy to sign up given the current state of the military.
^^^THIS^^^
Fuck, if I had any relative in the service these days I would be scared for them. Unless the next conflict is about what army/navy is wokest, ours is going to have some real ugly misfortune and a lot of you people will die because of the folly of old and evil political cuntes.
I think there’s a little more to it than that. VD Hanson has pointed out that the military has traditionally recruited most of its people from flyover country, the south, with many being middle-class, working class. Now, some in the military leadership are accusing those groups of people of being racists and fascists. If you’re from those demographics, why sign up to work under people who think that way? Especially if they’re just going to purge you.
Watch Army recruiting the next year or two. They already missed their goal the last year (but bumped up retention). If that plummets then the message has clearly come across.
I can’t imagine it will be good. We just lost a war. And we lost badly (Yes, we should have cut our losses in Afghanistan, but leaving people behind is not a good idea.). My wager is that that is how the military brass will try to spin poor recruiting numbers. And it isn’t totally untrue.
Whether they think they can offset lower numbers from their traditional recruiting pool with woke feminists and trannies looking to score free gender reassignment surgery is not something I have a lot of confidence in.
VD is absolutely right about the recruitment problem, but to me the most important issue is the military’s ability to fight. When you see report after report about how Navy ships/subs collided or Air Force/Navy/Marine Corps/Army aircraft readiness is off by 20-40%, and in the fine print find out that is all happening because the military’s focus is on bullshit leftist indoctrination training rather than how to man/fight ships/subs/aircraft systems, you know that when the shit hits the fan, a lot of assets will be lost with heavy loss of life. Fuck, look at how the Navy had the “Bonehomme Richard”, a 3.5 billion dollar LHD burn down, after some asshat that wanted leave started a fire, because the crew was not properly trained in fire fighting routines and the ship’s setup.
We had to scarp a 3.5 billion dollar ship after a fire that should have been stopped immediately (the personnel that fought it never pulled the fire suppressant handle in the compartment where the fire happened simply because they had not been trained about it). Now picture damage control at sea in time of war. The Navy just announced they would extend boot camp to 10 weeks. Not to teach the recruits how to be better fighting sailors, but to give them even more time to brainwash them about woke shit..
The fucking woke training shit is going to cost a lot of lives, but the people that should be punished, the political class that foisted this on the military, will not be the one paying the price.
The aircraft readiness levels are a little misleading. There is a list which shows the minimum equipment an aircraft must have to fly, which includes redundant equipment. Some of these redundant equipment are multiply redundant. In peacetime, the aircraft don’t fly. In wartime, they might.
But yeah the military is focusing on things irrelevant to fighting a war.
“Up to”
Good news: Romania has officially reduced booster eligibility from 6 months to 4 months. Yey
Did they issue you a card that says you get a free shot after getting the first 8?
it is get 6 get one free
I guess Yogi was right when he told the pizza maker to cut the pie into 6 pieces cause he was not hungry enough to eat 8 pieces…
“you bring back the unvaccinated as contract laborers”
Sure I’ll come back. However, I’ve started my own consultancy and my fee is $400/hour.
That’s how you play the game…
And you blame it on medical costs.
We love Thot Thursday for two reasons.
https://archive.md/KdvqG
Might have got it sorted, missing pay-wise. We shall see. It’s only a few grand but it means a lot to me. Festus don’t work for nothing! Oh yeah, finally got an appointment with my cunte of a Doctor to delve into my balance issues. He’ll see me at the end of next month. Two years I’ve been waiting, so that’s something.
When it is money that belongs in your pocket, not getting it is ALWAYS a travesty. And I hope that once you see your doc it won’t be another 2 years before they finally do something to try and help…
Only a few grand! / two years
It’s only a few grand but it means a lot to me.
I’d cut a bitch if they owed me $2K and didn’t pay up.
Then pimp them to help them pay it quickly.?
If they owe me, I’m not putting in any work to help them earn what they owe me.
Dude, pimp’n ain’t easy, but its necessary…
Sorry about your pay situation. I’m glad it might be getting sorted out.
It’s good you are finally seeing your doc about your balance problems.
Muh Democracy.
Harris said, “I will not absolve the 50 Republicans in the United States Senate from responsibility for upholding one of the most basic and important tenets of our democracy, which is free and fair elections and access to the ballot for all eligible voters.”
Host Craig Melvin asked, “What about Senator Manchin? What about Senator Sinema?”
Harris said, “I don’t think anyone should be absolved from the responsibility of preserving and protecting our democracy.”
Except the feds cannot run the elections. That is the responsibility of the states. All adult citizens have ballot access. Your bill is an unconstitutional power grab to create a one party totalitarian state thereby putting the last nail in the coffin of the republic.
Fuck the Republic, we want a DEMOCRATZI!
I mean it is astounding how they can keep repeating this shit and how some people take them seriously so props. I could never be a politician
The most important qualification to be an effective politician is to be a sociopathy, lying, shameless, evil fuck with deviant tendencies.
it is astounding how they can keep repeating this shit and how some people take them seriously so props.
If people want to believe a lie, that lie doesn’t really have to be that good of a lie to get them to believe it.
Yeah, why does nobody ever ask a follow up question: exactly which legally eligible voters are being denied ballot access? How are they being prevented from voting? Who is preventing them from casting a valid vote? Please provide verifiable examples.
Except the feds
cannotshould not run the elections.They can, and they mean to.
That’s the only way they can void having to blatantly steal elections in the middle of the night when the uppity voters decide they will not pick the candidate the deep state wants the voters to pick…
Hahaha – when Mitch wants your opinion Lindsay, he’ll shove his own hand up your ass to work your mouth.
Still, Graham isn’t wrong about that. Whatever anyone thinks of him, Donald Trump has the best claim on being the chosen representative of a large chunk of the GOP voter base. And he’s probably more responsible than anyone else for any recent growth in support for the GOP. People aren’t lining up to support the GOP because they’re just awestruck by the glory that is Mitch McConnell. That suggests that McConnell had best make his peace with Donald Trump or get out of the way for someone who is willing to do so.
McConnell will do what he wants as long as he leads the Republicans in the Senate (and anyone challenging him better understand they are stalking Omar). Underestimating him is as stupid as underestimating Pelosi as a political operator. Trump was in over his head with both of them.
McConnell’s power is that Trump couldn’t carry a primary challenger in KY over him, so Mitch has no reason to fear Trump. You’re sucking Trump’s dick if you believe otherwise.
Nobody thinks Donald Trump is a threat to Mitch McConnell’s Senate seat. The question is whether he can prove enough of a threat to other GOP Senators’ seats that they no longer feel much need to put their support behind McConnell as the head of the Senate GOP. And that’s nowhere near as obvious a proposition as you suggest.
I’ll concede McConnell is a clever guy. So, even he’s got to see the handwriting on the wall. The base of support for the GOP establishment is small and dwindling. They’ve been able to maintain a position of power because the GOP is the default home of the Country class (borrowing from Codevilla). And Donald Trump has become, for better of for worse, the de facto representative of the Country class.
The RSCC is far more important to Republican Senator’s than anything Trump has to say.
Flip the script for a second – consider how Manchin (who is no McConnell) has so little care about Biden or The Squad.
I think Joe Manchin is a prime example of my point.
Joe Manchin can, and kind of has to, tell Biden and the Squad to go pee up a rope because he’s a Senator from West Virginia, a state he’s the sole Democrat in the Congressional delegation, the Governor, AG and the rest of the state executives are Republican, and Donald Trump won in 2020 by 30 percentage points. His voter base is going to be, if anything, pretty hostile to the demands of Joe Biden and the Squad.
Now, imagine Chuck Schumer’s position if half of his caucus were Joe Manchins. Whose position do you think he’d have to come to terms with if he wanted to stay Majority Leader? Joe Biden’s? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s? Or Joe Manchin’s?
I’m not saying that the bulk of the GOP Senate caucus are in the position of Joe Manchin. But, there’s definitely a parallel. The bulk, or at least a large part, of GOP voters aren’t GOP establishmentarians. They’re people who vote with the GOP because the Democrats suck. But, they see the GOP establishment as basically Democrats light, just a little more “country club”. And Donald Trump has become the de facto champion of those voters (again, whether he deserves to be or not). Taking the “screw Donald Trump” line, unless you’ve got someone in the wings to replace him, is a losing strategy. And enough GOP Senators are going to defect if you stick to a losing strategy.
Up until the last few months, I’ve always had the opinion that people in general considered flu vaccines to be basically a joke, something that old people get because Medicare pays for it and they have higher risk of severe symptoms from flu. But basically something that’s pretty much a long shot to do anything of real benefit (they have to make an educated guess about what strains to include), but since someone else is paying for it, why not do it?
I’ve never personally got a flu shot, mainly since I don’t remember the last time I had a flu–maybe back when I was little. Also most people I’ve talked to about it seem to have had the same opinion.
Now, we’re headed into a regime where people are holding up the “success” of flu vaccines over the years as an example of how everyone should be concerned and eager to get vaccines for seasonal diseases.
None of this makes sense
In some years they reduce your odds of getting sick quite a bit. For the vulnerable, they are certainly a good thing.
Yeah. I think the overall data is about 55% effective (less in some years, more in others). And, in theory, they also work like the claims for covid vaccines: even if you get the flu, you supposed to be not as sick. I used to get the vaccine every year but stopped a few years back. I haven’t noticed much difference; vaccine or no, I usually get one bad cold/flu case every winter that knocks me out for 4-5 days then I’m good.
55% overall isn’t much better than a coin flip. Not worth it to me. Maybe for more vulnerable people.
Is effectiveness measured relative to the expected vulnerability of the patient population, or somehow independently of working within a human biological system?
An article someone here linked a while back, which was talking about the virological mechanisms that make vaccinating during a pandemic a really bad idea also discussed the flu vaccine. And how mass vaccination of the healthy low-risk population is also a really bad idea, and the only reason that we haven’t been bit harder is 1) because so many of the low-risk group don’t get the annual flu vaccine, and 2) the vaccine itself is largely ineffective.
I think the effectivity ranges between 35-65% depending on the year.
I used to get the shot because it was free at work. Every year I got the shot, I got the flu, or at least something that gave me flu-like symptoms. I go without the shot now. When I get older I’ll probably accept the shot into my life, but I’m not there yet.
I took 3 flu shots, in a 4 year span, some 12 or 13 years ago. In every fucking case I ended up getting a really bad case of flu within 2 weeks of the fucking shot. I then got another instance of the flu a month or two later. I stopped taking that stupid shot cause it didn’t work for me. In the years before that, and since I stopped getting the flu shot, I have had the flu exactly one time. And it was mild compared to the other cases.
It’s because Jesus hates you.
You sure it isn’t SCIENCE! that hates him? It is a vengeful god after all.
My fault. I should have let him win on occasion back in the day when we played marbles together…
“Up until the last few months, I’ve always had the opinion that people in general considered flu vaccines to be basically a joke, something that old people get because Medicare pays for it and they have higher risk of severe symptoms from flu.”
I know people that would faint from this pronouncement and really believe the flu shot was some kind of magical talisman. They also tend to be the same people that still believe the Kung Flu clot shot, but especially future boosters, are life saving essential medical treatments.
RFK Jr has been pointing out fairly recent studies that flu vaccines increase your risk of contracting other viruses.
I was unaware of the evidence, but there it is.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22423139/
Had not heard that one.
115 isn’t exactly a large total pool.
I used to never get them. I got a nasty flu in 2014 and started getting them annually that fall.
I have had one flu since then, and it was relatively minor, so I consider them a success.
I turned 45 in 2014, so while not quite elderly, I was older before I started getting them.
Did our MN contingent discuss Minneapolis and St Paul instituting vax requirements for bars and restaurants? It’s not much skin off my back, although it’ll be a bit awkward if and when my in laws want to go grab dinner in either city. I did have some hope of going to see Jordan Peterson in March – that’s now off the table. I just hope other MN counties don’t take their cues from the cities and do the same.
Perfect timing! Just after it becomes obvious the vaccine likely isn’t even a speed bump to infection!
Hey ttyrant!
How is married life?
Yes Jimbo did post something yesterday about mask mandates. Dooloot city council voted on it recently and decided NOT to institute one.
ZeroHedge, yes, but:
“We Failed”: Danish Newspaper Apologizes For Publishing Official COVID Narratives Without Questioning Them
I agree. That Danish newspaper was the worst.
Found this quote that pretty well explains the world these day.
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
“It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.” – Jonathan Swift
The most useful people are not stupid, they are simply not as smart as they think they are. The world is ruled by midwits, not halfwits.
Then you bring back the unvaccinated as contract laborers.
I missed the part about bringing in “unvaccinated” contract workers.
I am not aware of any hospital that doesn’t apply the same requirements to employees and contractors alike.
The U.S. Federal Government Deregulates French Dressing
Took only 24 years. Who says government isn’t responsive?
A Russian dressing conspiracy?
At this rate, libertopia will be achieved in the year 92,598
I saw that movie… The Moorlocks were not that nice to the Elois….
But who will protect us from fake French dressing?
I think you mean Freedom Dressing.
“Utah, Minnesota face legal threats for using race as a factor to determine COVID treatment eligibility as non-whites were at greater risk for hospitalization”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10396877/Utah-Minnesota-face-legal-threats-using-race-determine-COVID-treatment-eligibility.html
There are non-white people in Utah? Is that even legal?
If you ever needed any reason to articulate why socialized medicine in the hands of government was not just a travesty but evil as shit, things like this should provide you with all the ammunition you need to articulate why you will never want government controlled healthcare….
They have some Indian Reservations so unless they got reclassified as White when I wasn’t looking…
It’s not just Utah and Minnesota.
Yep. My kids’ schools in Belle Harbor did not get any free ChiComPox tests to take home. The school the ex teaches at in Jamaica has more free tests than they know what to do with.
So yesterday, the news regurgitators were trying to stir up fear and uncertainty about the OMG-icron, with some overwrought blather about how it is “most dangerous in the first five minutes” and if you’re not wearing a mask for your protection you’re as good as dead. Later, they let it slip that the research shows (whatever that means) the omicron voodoo bug has an extremely short half-life once it hits the air; after five minutes it has lost [insert random number] of its active transmissibilty, and after twenty is pretty much impotent.
It requires a specific type of talent to read a story without acquiring the slightest comprehension of it. It’s like tape playback, for humans, I guess.
There is a narrative they need to sell and the facts & truth be damned.
Lol.
Holy shit. It’s a good thing that economists like Friedman are dead because he would have an aneurysm at the shit that is being said about inflation.
And it’s not a right winged idea. It’s been proven that drastically increasing the money supply (usually as a result of fiscal spending) is a major contributor for inflation. Like for fucks sake, we already had this discussion during the 70’s and early 80’s but asshats like Kulinski are economically and historically illiterate so of course they don’t know a damn thing.
Or, like Krugman, he does know and just flat-out lies, in service to socialism.
Kulinkski is 33 years old. That means, effectively, he’s never seen an extended period of significant inflation in his life. He was still in diapers when the Berlin Wall fell.
I don’t believe that young people have a responsibility to just shut up. If a young person makes a good argument, that argument stands on its merits. But, an odd segment of today’s young people seem to be under this delusion that the rest of us should take their arguments on the basis of their authority. And the truth is they haven’t lived long enough or studied deeply enough to have actually acquired much in the way of authority. Mommy and Daddy wanted to be their friend. So they treated them as equals and wound up raising little narcissists.
But, an odd segment of today’s young people seem to be under this delusion that the rest of us should take their arguments on the basis of their authority. And the truth is they haven’t lived long enough or studied deeply enough to have actually acquired much in the way of authority. Mommy and Daddy wanted to be their friend. So they treated them as equals and wound up raising little narcissists.
If only that was the cause. IMO (as a 33 year old), the root cause is somewhat different. My cohort was the first with a truly substantial percentage being raised from the cradle in managed care. I remember overhearing my mom and her friends at mommy groups talking about all the “daycare kids” and how they were messing those kids up before they ever had a chance. It wasn’t that mommy and daddy were too strong an influence in the wrong direction. It’s that mommy and daddy were conspicuously absent, and the kiddos were raised by school teachers (be they daycare workers or public school teachers). The message was loud and clear. 1) you are a special snowflake with your own truth and limitless success; and 2) adulthood confers authority. Mommy and Daddy then reinforced this toxic worldview with the participation trophies and unhealthy relationship dynamics, often to assuage the subconscious guilt for not prioritizing their relationship with their kids over lifestyle, or as a way to curry the kids’ favor over their now-ex.
I grew up during the 90’s and while my Mom had to work all the time (single parent at the time), she still took an active role in our lives with regards to morality and establishing independence. And I was also lucky enough to go to a public school ran by an old school principal and had teachers who expected nothing but excellence. I’m not perfect of course and made some stupid decisions but I was able to take some hard looks at myself and try to learn from my mistakes and take responsibility for them.
Many “millennials” these days don’t have that kind of independence or emotional maturity important for growth because for one thing their lives are ridiculously structured down to every minute but also because parents don’t allow their kids to fail and learn from their failures. And on top of public education teaching their students that how they feel takes precedence over truth and expanding one’s mind, it’s creating a generation of individuals who aren’t able to handle the difficulties of life along with having this unearned sense of entitlement while demanding fealty towards their feelings.
It amazes me how many stories I hear like yours of single parents (moms) who were more engaged in parenting than most of the two parent households that surrounded me in the cheery suburbs. I have gobs of respect for the single moms who patented tough and set high standards in the face of everything.
My single mom got me into the right schools and expected performance but otherwise was pretty hands-off with the education.
She raised me right, too, I have to say.
What a maroon.
Corporate profits are paid out as taxes, dividends, and investment. The primary recipients of dividends are retirement funds (pensions, mutual funds, ETFs, etc.).
How paying ex-government employees to sit on their asses in the twilight of their lives (as opposed to sitting on their asses during the “prime” of their lives) is “right-wing” is beyond me. I don’t think Franco or Peron would recognize this system as their own.
“At the sentencing, Judge Adrian blamed the entire case on the adults at the party who allowed the teenagers to drink alcohol and swim in the pool in their underwear.
‘I cannot believe that adults that were involved in this case – parents and other adults who was involved in this case – took their responsibilities so lightly for these teenage kids I cannot believe the permissiveness and the lack of responsibility taken.
‘This is what happens when parents do not exercise their parental responsibilities. We have people, adults, having parties for teenagers and they allow coeds and female people to swim in their underwear in their swimming pool.
‘They allow 16-year-olds to bring liquor to a party . They provide liquor to underage people, and you wonder how these things happen.
‘The Court is totally disgusted with that whole thing. Mr. Clinton, you’re going to be released. Go home if you still have one,’ he said.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10396583/Judge-declares-rapist-INNOCENT-sentencing-says-148-days-custody-long-enough.html
Coeds and female people? Anyway, ianal, but that doesn’t sound like a good reason.
Is Drew transgender? Not trying to be an ass, but that pic sure as hell looks like a chick..
No.
Like always they took a picture from when the offender was a child. He’s a freshman in that image.
I’m pretty sure that is actually Australian hit comic Demi Lardner – https://youtu.be/vTd0crm1rt8
If this was sentencing, he was convicted.
If the judge wants to serve the four years in the rapist’s stead, go ahead, throw the robed fool behind bars.
I think you are all failing to see the judge is merely adhering to the maxim of “don’t fuck with a Clinton”.
I had totally forgotten that the clown-world olympics are schedule for next month in China of all places.
That is going to be an epic clusterfuck, if they follow the same rules every other sport is following presently.
The Team USA guys I know will be there in March. It will be interesting to hear what kind of stories they bring back. I think they all have to start with a 2 week quarantine?
Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.
Something something never try to teach a pig to sing.
Oink oink oink
Oink oink oink
Oink oink… Oink oink
Speaking of the Olympics- since they have abandoned gender tests, will they also give up on policing performance enhancing drugs?
Our school district acts like kids trying to get out of school itself. On Tuesday they sent out a ‘5-day pause’ email that reads starting Wednesday (yesterday), they are taking a pause and will return to instruction the following Wednesday due to COVID and teachers calling in sick. So we kept the teens home. Fine, whatever.
Wife today had a client down near the kids’ high school and it is popping with kids and teachers and staff. I call the school and they said “No the pause is starting Friday and going through next Tuesday”
After I got done telling her that for a high school they communicate about as good as a 5-year old and that I applaud the amount of fuck-off time they have given themselves with a 5-day weekend all in the name of ‘safety’ she was not all that happy with me.
In the complaint filed Wednesday in the Second Judicial District Court in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, Gutierrez Reed accuses PDQ Arm and Prop, LLC. and its founder Seth Kenney of violation of trade practices, false and deceptive product labels, and false and material misrepresentations after, Gutierrez Reed alleges, Kenney sold her a cache of dummy ammunition with live rounds mixed in.
This sounds more like someone is trying to weasel out of responsibility.
“There is no way to sugarcoat the year 2021 in tax administration: From the perspective of tens of millions of taxpayers, it was horrendous,” wrote National Taxpayer Advocate Erin M. Collins.
I think you can say that about every year I have my money stolen from me.
I have a solution. Abolish the income tax and the IRS.
Hundreds of doctors and scientists have signed an open letter to Spotify accusing Joe Rogan of pushing ‘anti-vax misinformation’ on his podcast – with one branding him a ‘menace to public health’.
Go fuck yourselves.
Inflation has soared to its highest in four decades, with consumer prices jumping by 7 percent for the year ending in December, the feds said Wednesday.
Who could possibly have seen this coming?
Add another to the list of vaxxed people getting sick
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice was supposed to deliver his State of the State address Wednesday but is instead feeling “extremely unwell” after testing positive for COVID-19.
Justice, 70, who said he is fully vaccinated and boosted, is experiencing moderate symptoms and is self-isolating at home.
Extremely unwell with moderate symptoms, eh? Been there.
I’m thankful to the Lord above that I’ve been vaccinated, I’ve been boosted
Thank you Jim, you will be saved.
I’m thankful to the Lord above that I’ve been vaccinated, I’ve been boosted
This kind of performative piety makes me itch. Did Jesus Himself descend from on high to personally give you injections? If not, leave Him out of it.
The Tiger-Repelling Rock is real.
For Q
Has this made the rounds?
Police used fake DNA reports during interrogations, Virginia attorney general says
The moral of the story, when getting interrogated, shut the fuck up and wait for your lawyer.
Relevant.
And nobody was strung up for it.
I’d put money down that this involves a Kellam brother in one form or another, corrupt assholes that they are.
Meanwhile in the Democratic People’s Republic of Aussieland…
Queensland, reportedly Hervey Bay. Arrested for not revealing her vaccination status. Qld Cops were arseholes during Campbell Newman’s VLAD days, and they have not changed, once a cop, always a cop.
“Qld. Cops were arseholes during Campbell Newman’s VLAD days…”
Umm, the cops in Qld have been a problem for much longer than that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitzgerald_Inquiry (1987-1989)
“The inquiry resulted in the resignation of the Premier, the calling of two by-elections, the jailing of three former ministers and the Police Commissioner (who also lost his knighthood)…”
Consequences?! How quaint.
Why is everybody so worried about inflation?
Debit cards are easier to take to the store than wheelbarrows
Insurrection taking place in Bulgaria.
My friend in Vienna grew up in Bulgaria. She caught the tail end of Communism.
She says she is considering going back to Bulgaria despite the restrictions there. The restrictions are widely ignored since many people remember Communism and don’t trust the government.
I’ll send her a note and see what she says about this.
You know I don’t think this is how sperm donation is supposed to work.
And wait for it…
Woman puts baby up for adoption after sperm donor lied about his ethnicity
I think the kid is actually likely better off with another family.
You can’t fool me. That’s the backstory for a manga about a silver tongued boy’s adventures.
I’m betting he went to Kinki University instead.
Kindai University
So…a Japanese woman couldn’t tell a Chinese man from a Japanese man? Even I can do that on occasion.
She was so anxious for a baby perhaps her perspective was…..slanted.
/Ill see myself out
Slight correction, “her perspective was *lowers sunglasses*…slanted
Rice dick is rice dick… According to Eddie Murphy…
I usually can but it’s not always obvious.
My beef here is with the headline.
“Ethnicity”? Really? More like “nationality”.
That’s a legitimately interesting linguistics question.
For example there are large group of ethnic Korean Japanese citizens. I’d refer to them as ethnically Korean in English. Their nationality is Japanese, however.
Not a chance.
NYT columnist floats Biden-Cheney ticket in 2024
Only Friedman could come up with something so patently stupid.
Tucker: Here comes Hillary
Hillary? Didn’t she die of whatever that awful disease was that the Trumpsters were telling us she had in 2016?
The message was loud and clear. 1) you are a special snowflake with your own truth and limitless success; and 2) adulthood confers authority. Mommy and Daddy then reinforced this toxic worldview with the participation trophies and unhealthy relationship dynamics, often to assuage the subconscious guilt for not prioritizing their relationship with their kids over lifestyle, or as a way to curry the kids’ favor over their now-ex.
This inspired a thought, which actually runs somewhat counter to 2). What if the Babysitters’ League, having no specific or intrinsic stake in an individual child’s ultimate success or failure as a person, were all too willing to concede and acquiesce to the child’s demands rather than take a principled and hence difficult stance. The Neville Chamberlain school of child-rearing, as it were. They were trained to expect others to accept whatever nonsense they spouted at face value.
Good point! I think that it’s a whiplash effect between both ends of the spectrum. It’s the disinterested authority phenomenon. So long as the noise stays below a roar, you can get away with anything. Once it gets too loud, dear babysitter whips out their authority and weilds it with malice. I had more than a few schoolteachers like that.
That same pattern could also apply when clear expectations, and the consequences, are laid out in advance. I tend to be pretty binary that way myself. I ignore stuff that is “below the line”, but cross the line and the hammer will drop.
IMO, it’s an effective tactic for managing competent adults. Horrible for raising children.
“BREAKING: Chuck Schumer* speaks on the Senate floor in defense of the filibuster.
*Senator Cotton’s speech consisted entirely of Senator Schumer’s past statements.”
https://twitter.com/SenTomCotton/status/1481358911135535104
LOL
I think Chuckles is smart enough to only speak out of one side of his mouth. He knows he is going to be minority leader in a year’s time, he won’t want to lose all influence. He’ll say all the right things to the Dem media to feed to the dumb Dem base, but he won’t do a damn thing. He is smarter than Reid (I think).
Well, I gave my notice yesterday. Six months notice, but that’s fair given how long they will need to replace me. I also offered to stick around half-time for another six months (for a decent increase in my pay), which I think they will take me up on.
After I’m done working here, I’m done working. Its weird, how actually taking this step and putting a stake in the ground is starting to change my outlook on things.
Congrats! Congrats? Are you a little early on your timeline, IIRC?
Plan A (from way back) was to retire at the end of July. I have deferred comp that vests in July.
Plan B (for a few months) was to work full-time through January, to collect one last incentive bonus.
Plan A.1 is what I put on the table – full-time through July, part-time through January. If the don’t take the part-time offer (and I’m pretty sure they will), its Plan A.
As far as my timeline, its always been entirely financially driven. If I wasn’t a crap money manager, I would have been done years ago.
So you’ve already checked out.
Congrats.
Oddly, not. I have this weird, anachronistic sense of duty. I expect the next 6 months will be more work, not less, for a variety of reasons.
Congratulations! I know you’ve been planning for this day for a long time. Now’s time for having fun!
Now you can show them the power of this fully operational RC DEAN! Good on ya, and congrats.
Woot! Woot! Congrats. [Not much over a year’s time for me.]
I’m jealous. Congrats.
Congratulations!
Good for you. You have some great adventures ahead of you. But just like others here, I’m jealous.
Congrats!
Congratulations!
Congrats!
Congratulations!
Are you leaving Tuscon, R C?
No plans to. Somebody I respect a lot gave me this advice:
“Don’t change anything major your first year after retirement. Don’t move, don’t buy a new car, none of that. After a year, you will have had time to reorient yourself and know what changes you really want to make.”
That’s good advice. Unless you have a firm idea that you want to “retire to X location” and have dreamed of it for decades, stay put til you figure out what is really right for you and your new lifestyle.
I read somewhere that there is an inordinately high number of divorces about 18 months after retirement.
“”The AP has recently told its editors and reporters to avoid emphasizing case counts in stories about the disease. That means, for example, no more stories focused solely on a particular country or state setting a one-day record for number of cases””
https://twitter.com/HotlineJosh/status/1481380564036993026
News, narrative, whatever.
Journolist-isming.
It’s not working. the news was going crazy this morning on case counts.
It’s the right thing to do, only 2 years too late.
Submit to ideological purity, comrade.
A slate of diversity plans filed by individual schools within the University of Tennessee-Knoxville will require some professors to commit to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion practices to gain tenure, create a new critical race center on campus, and embed diversity-based curricula throughout the university, according to plans obtained by The College Fix.
The College Fix obtained the plans from 20 different academic departments and administrative divisions, which together totaled 322 new pages of diversity regulations, requirements and goals to improve equity on campus.
The plan submitted by the Division of Diversity and Engagement vows to partner with the Critical Race Collective to create a center to “enhance research and scholarship capacity in this area of study and identify current racist policies and practices on campus.” …
In the wake of the death of Minneapolis man George Floyd in May 2020, UT-Knoxville convened a Diversity Action Plan Implementation Committee, which then required individual departments within the university submit their own “Diversity Action Plan” to improve equity within the school.
Because that’s relevant to anything having to do with the school.
Floyd is the cover story. These people have been in the right positions for a while and were waiting for an excuse.
“Never let a crisis go to waste” morphed into “create your own crisis to peddle your agenda”…
I still haven’t seen any proof that racism was the motive.
That is kind of an important point, if we’re, you know, going to turn our society upside down and inside out.
That doesn’t matter and it never did. The point is power, the media is powerful, the means to power is thus through the media. The story is entirely fungible.
The plan submitted by the Division of Diversity and Engagement vows to partner with the Critical Race Collective to create a center to “enhance research and scholarship capacity in this area of study and identify current racist policies and practices on campus.”
My alma mater has something somewhat similar and that’s why I won’t ever give them a dime. You overcharge kids for their education and you have 5 different departments dedicated to diversity and inclusion. It seems like the university is doing okay money wise if you’re spending money on dumb shit like this.
We think, maybe
The coronavirus quickly lost its ability to infect human cells after it was released in tiny droplets suspended in the air, a lab study found.
Researchers observed the particles drying up in the environment outside the body, hampering their ability to infect cells.
The study, published as a pre-print on Monday that has not been independently reviewed, provides clues as to how aerosols that are released when talking and sneezing contribute to infection.
The work took place before the Omicron variant spread widely, so it is unclear whether its results would also apply to the now-dominant variant of the virus.
“People have been focused on poorly ventilated spaces and thinking about airborne transmission over meters or across a room,” Prof Jonathan Reid, the study’s lead author, told The Guardian.
“I’m not saying that doesn’t happen. But I think still the greatest risk of exposure is when you’re close to someone,” he said.
The findings suggest that the risk of getting infected by particles suspended in the air depends not only on how many there are floating around, but also on their “freshness,” Denis Doorly, an expert in fluid mechanics at Imperial College London who was not involved in the research, told Insider in an email.
—–
It is not clear how reproducible these results are to real-life settings where there are other factors at play, like ventilation, size of the room, and how much virus an infected person is shedding.
It is also possible, for instance, that 10% of the original viral load is enough to cause an infection in someone across the room, which would mean the virus is dangerous even after waiting for some time.
The merest whiff…. or perhaps not.
Don’t get your hopes up. Those masks might be completely ineffectual, but we need visual proof of your devotion to the doomsday cult.
Fucking pussy ass SCOTUS didn’t drop their opinion.
I bet they’re hoping it gets mooted.
Why would they think the Biden admin will back down? When has the government ever backed down from a chosen path?
Hop springs eternal.
Err… hope springs eternal.
(I wanted to preserve the origial typo because I got a chuckle out of it.)
Interesting that the latest Quinnipiac has Biden’s highest approval rating (of any particular policy or action) being his response to COVID–at 39%…
So people like his handling of COVID better than the economy, better than foreign policy…and he’s still 11% below par.
Isn’t that also a poll wource that skews Pro-dem?