365 Comments

  1. Tres Cool

    whaddup doh’

    • Rat on a train

      Spring break is almost over. The kids will soon be back to school so I can have peace during the day.

  2. WTF

    Based on their actions, the only reasonable conclusion is that the Democrats want to destroy America and western civilization.

    • hayeksplosives

      Are referring to the blocking of the energy independence bill, or the “deconstruction of whiteness” in physics courses?

      (I can’t wait to drive across my first affirmative action bridge…)

      • WTF

        All of the above, it’s a pattern of actions that all point to a foreseeable and likely result. You can throw “transgenders” destroying women’s sports in there too.

      • hayeksplosives

        As I posted late last night regarding the NCAA swim results:

        Brook Forde came in fourth. She should have been on the podium getting a bronze, and possibly a scholarship renewal.

        Nope. “Team player” Lia denied her that.

      • Translucent Chum

        Forde is swimming against the current?

      • hayeksplosives

        Tis a poetic name for a swimmer.

      • Pine_Tree

        I think it’s pretty shallow.

      • Shpip

        Of course it’s shallow, it’s only a Brook.

      • whiz

        Do you know her scholarship is in jeopardy? In pretty much any sport, getting 4th in a national event would make you a shoo-in for a scholarship.

      • Rat on a train

        Maybe they can shame nature into allowing exceptions to the laws of physics.

      • juris imprudent

        They could start with gravity, from some place high above the ground.

      • Not Adahn

        HEALTHY AT ANY SIZE YOU BIGOT!

      • Ted S.

        Wasn’t the pedestrian bridge that collapsed in Florida an affirmative action bridge?

      • DrOtto

        Pretty sure the problem was the whiteness in the building materials and not the design itself. True affirmative action bridges have never been built.

    • hayeksplosives

      Are referring to the blocking of the energy independence bill, or the “deconstruction of whiteness” in physics courses?

      (I can’t wait to drive across my first affirmative action bridge…)

      • hayeksplosives

        It a squirrel bridge.

      • WTF

        But is it an affirmative action squirrel bridge?

      • Zwak,The Baddest Johnny on the Apple Cart

        Well, if Dems keep this shit up, it’s going to be a squirrel cage for the US.

      • Not Adahn

        Squirrels in SPACE!

        YT;DW: Squirrels’ muscles don’t atrophy while they hibernate, and they’re less likely to eat the researcher than bears.

      • Animal

        See, now the skwerlz are infiltrating the various human space programs. It’s not enough that they intend to dominate our planet; they plan to spread their nutty domination into space, as well.

        Greatest threat of our time, I tell you. The Vast Skwerl Conspiracy.

      • juris imprudent
      • SDF-7

        Embrace the power of “and”, Ma’am. And it does look like a good day for squirrel huntin’…

    • SDF-7

      They do seem to want a return to Confucianism, with themselves in the ranks of the leagues of petty bureaucrats kowtowing to Beijing and the rest of us toiling in the muck and the rice paddys, don’t they?

      • Gustave Lytton

        Could use a rectification of names.

    • rhywun

      This.

    • waffles

      People have been saying this, yes. And I’m inclined to agree.

    • Drake

      If you had the goal of destroying the country without being executed for it, would you do anything differently than what they are already doing?

      • juris imprudent

        I wouldn’t plan on living in a place I destroyed, but just because I don’t get it doesn’t mean someone else wouldn’t do that.

      • Drake

        The whole “rather rule in hell” thing? Or just greedy sociopaths who don’t think that far ahead?

        Maybe they want to turn the U.S. into Mexico? Certainly importing enough Mexicans to do so They think they’ll be elites ruling over a vast country of poor peasants?

      • EvilSheldon

        I can see how it would be fun to lead a team of highly competent, highly talented individuals that can do cool stuff. Being a Special Forces ODA commander, or running the skunk works program that produced the Dodge Viper, or directing a blockbuster film. That would be awesome.

        Ruling over a bunch of peasant dirt-farmers just sounds boring.

        Eh, just one of the many things that I don’t get…

      • Drake

        Heh – Ever read a Sharon Kay Penman novel? Basically bored aristocrats fighting for didn’t have TVpower as just supervising peasants is boring and they didn’t have TV – so they needed drama in their lives.

  3. R.J.

    The blue poo challenge also works with Blue Curacao rum drinks. More fun and less carbs.

    • SDF-7

      Smurfberries!

      • Sean

        heh

      • Zwak,The Baddest Johnny on the Apple Cart

        Dingle Smurfs?

    • Tres Cool

      Once I drank a bottle of this vodka called “blavod”.

      It makes your excretions an interesting panoply of black, green, and blue.

      • DrOtto

        That’s you liver crying “Uncle!”

      • Festus

        The black was blood, the green was your spleen giving out and the blue was your support for Ukraine.

  4. UnCivilServant

    Seattle-Based Researchers Publish Study On ‘Whiteness’ In Introductory To Physics Classes

    We need to find a way to burn down these grifter studies and end the incentives to spread this divisive, racist shit.

    • hayeksplosives

      Michelle Obama, 2024. Hold on to your butts.

      • Brawndo

        She managed to make school lunches even more disgusting than they already were. Impressive actually

      • Festus

        Oh please random comet, save me now! It would be like if Fredo gave the one ring to Stacy Abrahams.

      • SDF-7

        She’s too busy ruining the Federation, from what I hear.

      • Festus

        I wonder what it must be like to be such a terrible being and yet have others hold you in such high esteem? Wouldn’t you question the situation? I mean, she has done nothing to further anyone’s interests save for her own. She is just plain awful.

      • Ted S.

        She wants power and doesn’t give a shit whom she has to trample to get that power.

      • Festus

        Damn! You read my thoughts.

      • Ted S.

        I’m not the only one who remembered that?

      • SDF-7

        If they do manage to collapse the dollar and the national / world economies go to hell — I strongly suspect that will end up focusing people back on the basics a good bit. And they certainly won’t have time for that crap. “Soft men make hard times, hard times make strong men, strong men make good times, good times make soft men” and all…

      • rhywun

        I had a vision this morning of just that happening. We are on track to become a much poorer country – and poor countries don’t waste time on any of the crap the left has been pushing.

      • waffles

        it’s unfortunate though that the people pushing most of the crap are so insulated from the consequences. The people who suffer the most are for the most part innocent,

      • Homple

        “The people who suffer the most are for the most part innocent.”

        “For a while anyway.”
        …Louis XVI

      • juris imprudent

        Damn your nimble fingers!

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        ???

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        You guys are way more optimistic than I am that an economic collapse would somehow lead to newfound unity and a back to basics mentality. I’m not aware of that occurring in recent history.

        The racial and LGBTQ stuff is just terminology used by the government favored group to distinguish themselves from others. We may view it all as crap, but the ridiculousness of it is entirely beside the point. Much more likely is that this shit will be amplified tenfold as certain groups are called to account for the collapse. The government will never stop pulling strings and and causing division between citizens. The scapegoats are already to go for an economic collapse.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I don’t doubt that the vestiges of restraint are going to come off of the federal government when the dollar collapses. They will have no options other than cracking down harder or giving up. I doubt they’ll choose the latter.

        But in the end, economics always prevails over politics. And everyone will see exactly who is who and what is what. Will it be a very unpleasant experience? Yes. But I don’t see a way to avoid it now, they’ve guaranteed that we’re going to go through it.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Economics may always prevail over politics, but it can take a damn long time. It took decades for the Soviet Union to finally fall. Didn’t matter to the peasants being shipped to Gulags that they could see exactly who is who and what is what. Or the white fathers in South Africa who watched their wives raped and children executed before having their farms seized in the name of racial equity.

        The dystopia arising from an economic collapse would probably be far worse than an outright civil war.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Hence why I just ordered some more ammo.

      • juris imprudent

        While I agree that civil war is far from an optimal outcome, I think ours will be short (even if brutal). The majority of people with guns and the willingness to use them is not on the side of the lunatics currently running the asylum. The whole problem is that the people in power have become dissociated with reality – sudden, hard confrontations with reality can correct that (at least at the population level if not the individual).

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Unfortunately, I spent this year’s ammo budget on more cows. But last year’s spending may make up for it.

      • Not Adahn

        Well, now that you have the ammo, you can go rustle up some more cows.

      • rhywun

        Start at the bottom, like they did. Kindergarten, grade school, and so forth.

        It will take fifty or sixty years of sustained pressure but… oh, who am I kidding.

      • juris imprudent

        Collapse of the US dollar as world reserve currency. We won’t be able to float our funny money around the world to stave off the effects locally. Bust the dollar, and the federal SPEND-SPEND-SPEND machine can’t go on. That means cutting spending, finally.

      • UnCivilServant

        I would rather go full Pinochet than shoot ourselves in the face.

      • juris imprudent

        Just pointing out there is an upside to busting the dollar.

        It means we go back to living/governing as we did prior to the world wars, just as the world itself has gone back to that international norm (vice the Cold War).

      • Compelled Speechless

        I’d say that’s pretty optimistic. I know that you think it’s looney conspiracy territory, but it makes total sense that the economic policies of the last two years are no accident. Every basic insight of sustainable economics from both old school Keynesians and Austrians has been been maliciously ignored. The only people cheering on the unlimited printing of currency are Davos crowd and the media they control. If they intended on playing the game in earnest, in a way that would keep the current system alive for the foreseeable future, they would never endorse policies that are so reckless and foolish on their face.

        The collapse of the dollar is likely the goal, with a programable currency waiting in the wings to replace it, cementing the power of the oligarchs in charge near permanently. We’re already setup for a brave new world where we’re never out of eyeshot of a camera, earshot of a microphone and we already track and upload our every minute of sleep, calorie taken in and where each penny is spent. That’s not going to trigger a return to the old pre-war days, with the current leadership deposed by their incompetence. It’s going to trigger a level of central planning and control that would make the love child of Stalin and Mao blush.

  5. juris imprudent

    I wonder when books will start being burned because of the whiteness of paper.

    • Rat on a train

      dark mode for books

    • Gustave Lytton

      Don’t stop halfway, bury the scholars too.

    • hayeksplosives

      Seriously, that article cites “whiteboards” as part of the problem.

      When I was in college, it was still blackboards. But the chalk was white, so…

      • UnCivilServant

        We had green chalkboards.

      • R.J.

        Martian appropriator! Subjugating their beautiful greenness with your screechy white supremacist chalk!

      • UnCivilServant

        *Applies fingernails to chalkboard*

      • R.J.

        Maybe this is a martian plot. After our brains are thoroughly scrambled, the martians will arrive, hand us all potato sack dresses and put us to work sorting exotic martian coins.

      • Tres Cool
      • Gender Traitor

        We had green chalkboards and yellow chalk. Chinese infiltration even then!

      • Ted S.

        Did you have blue diamonds and purple horseshoes too?

      • R.J.

        Pepperidge Farms remembers pink chalk too.

      • Not Adahn

        My parents started letting watch TV after blue diamonds existed, but before purple horseshoes.

      • Zwak,The Baddest Johnny on the Apple Cart

        The only Blue Diamonds we had were nuts.

      • Rat on a train

        Ours were coal powered.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      “We name mechanisms that facilitate the reproduction of whiteness in this local context, including a particular representation of energy, physics values, whiteboards, gendered social norms, and the structure of schooling,” the study read. “We hope our work contributes to Critical Whiteness Studies’ goal of dismantling whiteness.”

      The paper was actually published by the American Physical Society, which should immediately disband itself for even entertaining the topic.

      I’m a glutton for punishment so I delved further. The entire thing is completely lunatic, but this stuck out to me:

      We argue that it is whiteness as social organization that makes Paris, Gail, Drake, and Iris’ behavior sensible. Within whiteness as social organization, there is a center that has been ascribed transcendent value; all else is, in effect, marginal. In this context, it makes sense that the EID, standing in for correctness and/or physics, will capture the attention of the actors, and it also makes sense that the person closest to it (by consensus or by force) would also receive the most attention. Activity that is not seen as productive toward these ends would also be seen as less valuable, highlighting ways in which whiteness and capitalism intersect. Whiteness makes “normal” this interactional unfolding, prompting questions like, “What else could have been done?” Importantly, here, whiteness masks that: there are many ways (not just Drake’s or even the prescribed, endorsed way) to construct the EID, many representations for the energy dynamics of this scenario, many ways to understand the heating of water (including those outside of traditional physics), etc. The point is not that Drake’s EID has no value; the point is that the space has been organized such that the EID and those closest to it have value at the exclusion of all else.

      • hayeksplosives

        Was that word salad autogenerated?

        A clever 10 year old makes far more sense.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        The entirety of the paper is argument by assertion and repetition. They establish a framework of understanding human interaction in the context of “whiteness” by referencing other works and then proceed to force it upon every situation.

        They are begging the question in the formal sense.

      • R.J.

        Still stuck on martians. Replace” whiteness” with “martians” and it is at least an entertaining word salad. Maybe try “hamsters” too.

      • hayeksplosives

        “We hope our work contributes to Critical Whiteness Studies’ goal of dismantling whiteness.”

        Fortunately, hope is not a strategy.

        Physics does not have opinions.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        They spend a lot of time discussing “centering” which is a construct of “whiteness.”

        As far as I can tell from the gobbledygook, the concept of a “center” roughly translates to having an authority on a topic. They are taking postmodernism to an absurdist extreme in which anyone who claims to have more knowledge or authority on a topic is representative of “whiteness.” Their version of postmodernism posits that since everything is subjective, anyone who claims they understand a topic more is creating a power structure that can be used for abuse (aka “whiteness”).

        It literally is the deconstruction of everything. They used to be content to apply it to literature and art, but now they’re going after every single area of knowledge. The insane part of it is that they are claiming to be authorities on the application of this epistemology themselves, thus making them guilty of their own accusations.

        It’s beyond nuts.

      • R.J.

        In physics, everything is labeled as a theory as a better concept of understanding may come along. Some theories are best not tested with your person, such as the concept of momentum transfer. Allow them to attempt to disprove the concept of momentum transfer (fairly well established set of equations) by throwing themselves in front of a fast moving bus while yelling “Momentum Transfer is a construct of white supremacy!” And see how that goes. If they manage to survive that experiment without a scratch, then I may listen.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        That’s funny, I use the “step in front of a bus” example quite often when postmodernism comes up in discussion.

      • R.J.

        It is popular! No doubt many non-white persons have been murdered by buses hence using that expression is white supremacy.
        Although I would pay good money to see that attempt to disprove the theory. If it is a flat faced bus, optimum transfer of energy should cause disincorporation at the weak joints like elbows, neck and knees.
        “Audience! Lower your face shields now!”

      • R C Dean

        “anyone who claims they understand a topic more is creating a power structure that can be used for abuse”

        It’s like their entire brains are wired for nothing but projection. Narcissism FTW!

      • R.J.

        “We hope our work contributes to Critical Martian Studies’ goal of dismantling Martians”

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        many ways to understand the heating of water (including those outside of traditional physics)

        A return of superstition. This is where I am not sure their target. Are they targeting the hard sciences? Or are they targeting the JudeoChristian ordered view of the universe?

        Is it that we can’t use math to predict the action of physical objects because math is an attempt at imposing (white ?) order on a chaotic, but ultimately mechanistic, system? Or is it that we can’t use math to predict the action of physical objects because math doesn’t account for Loki and Apollo?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        It’s absurdist postmodernism dressed up as racial analysis. Much like politicians like to deny the laws of economics because they get in the way of their goals, they’re attacking every claim of objective truth because it impedes their progress.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        And the sophistry is impressively dense. They constantly rewrite the language in order to control the terms of the argument. You can’t possibly win the debate with them when you can’t keep up with the shifting sands underneath the language.

        We use the language of race evasiveness, rather than color blindness, because color blindness, as a term, “conflates lack of eyesight with lack of knowing” and is thus “inherent[ly] ableis[t]”

      • MikeS

        “conflates lack of eyesight with lack of knowing”

        It’s not conflating anything. Being blind is the lack of knowing what something looks like. Fucking idiots.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        They’re contradicting the postmodernist assertion while simultaneously pushing it.

        It’s really quite impressive in its absurdity.

      • waffles

        This is why I realize pointing out the hypocrisy does nothing. The hypocrisy is the point. There is no dissonance for them. Just us, we who suffer from it.

      • Shpip

        They constantly rewrite the language in order to control the terms of the argument.

        Playing Calvinball with the language? Watterson covered this thirty years ago.

      • waffles

        This stuff would be harmless if it wasn’t so pervasive. We live in a world where postmodernists impose real-world consequences. It’s bad. I hate it.

      • hayeksplosives

        It’s “I’m too stupid to understand physics, so I will make up some shit that will baffle you physicists and try to convince society that my shit is as important and valuable as your shit.”

      • Plisade

        Word. This excuse in its many forms is what attracts the useful idiots, and the goal of the manipulators is as Scruffy says.

      • juris imprudent

        Shamanic knowledge!

      • robc

        When I read Rand 25+ years ago, I got Atlas Shrugged. Fountainhead was different, and I didn’t really get it.

        It turns out that The Fountainhead was the more prophetic book after all. Both are, but this shit is straight from the Ellsworth Toohey playbook.

      • R.J.

        Boy yes. I read Fountainhead again just a few years ago and it really resonated. She knew her stuff. Sad that she knew it so well because she had seen it over and over again. People just repeat the same mistakes, endlessly.

      • JaimeRoberto (shama/lama/ding dong)

        The brother of one of my best friends from high school is an actual physicist who apparently has a good chance of winning the Nobel Prize someday. I’ll have to ask him what he thinks of the paper. He’s Asian, so because he’s white he’ll probably think it’s ridiculous.

    • Tulip

      Stop giving them ideas

  6. The Late P Brooks

    Who’s useless?

    In a Wednesday live-streamed video address via Facebook, Greene raised concerns about the U.S. response to Ukraine. She warned against the U.S. moving toward a war with Russia, and contended that the U.S. was getting involved because prominent American leaders have “direct financial interests” there.

    In response, Cheney argued that Greene was pushing Putin’s propaganda.

    “Putin is targeting and slaughtering civilians in a brutal unprovoked war against Ukraine, a sovereign democratic nation,” Cheney tweeted on Thursday morning. “Only the Kremlin and their useful idiots would call that ‘a conflict in which peace agreements have been violated by both sides.'” The Kremlin is the fortified area in Moscow where Putin resides and governs.

    Come back and talk to us after you have shot somebody in the face, Liz.

    • juris imprudent

      Not just somebody, after all, her daddy probably taught her how to do that – but somebody shooting back.

      • hayeksplosives

        *applause*

    • Gustave Lytton

      If only Liz went hunting with her dad. And Mittens had a brain to wash like his pops.

    • Festus

      MTG is ugly, inside and out but she’s not wrong this time. The Reps need a prettier face to sell their kinder, gentler war-mongering.

    • rhywun

      In response, Cheney argued that Greene was pushing Putin’s propaganda completely ignored the point she had just made.

      FTFY

    • Compelled Speechless

      Greene should reply that Liz is pushing the Cheney agenda. Putin wishes he could be half of the blood soaked, unhinged murderous maniac that Papa Dick has been. Putin’s stack of bodies will never even come close the the mountain of them that daddy and his neo-con brethren have collected.

  7. Festus

    That tune is solid but they made better. I want to party with the Go-Go’s circa 1982! And then I will probably collapse and die.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      I bet I can guess your favourite. ?

      • Festus

        I was 17, you perve!

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Jane was probably most men’s, and even straight women’s.

    • robc

      Cocaine is a helluva drug.

      • juris imprudent

        No coke and they would’ve been the No-Go’s?

  8. The Late P Brooks

    I made the mistake of flipping through some news channels this morning. There was some investment guy on Bloomberg saying the worst thing about an inverted yield curve is that it exacerbates income inequality.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      LOL

      It does when they respond to it by flooding the markets with newly minted dollars.

  9. Gustave Lytton

    Taking PTO but ended up working most of the night. So my vacation tine will consist of makeup sleeping. It already feels wasted.

    • Festus

      They switched us to an app for time-keeping purposes. It has been a nightmare. Shift start, meal break start and end and then time out. Half of the people that work for this company are functionally illiterate. Doesn’t help that my site is an internet dead zone. They keep paying me more hours than I worked. Fuck them.

  10. The Late P Brooks

    Michelle Obama, 2024. Hold on to your butts.

    I may never sleep again.

    • Festus

      You’ll sleep with the fishes and all of your guns with the thing that goes up.

  11. Rat on a train

    Md. Senate and House give preliminary OK to different versions of paid family and medical leave

    The Time to Care Act would establish a statewide family leave insurance program, funded by contributions from workers and employers in a 75-25 split

    a worker earning $54,600 would have to contribute $5.91 a week into the fund

    “I support universal health care paid family leave. I didn’t realize I would be paying for it.”

    In discussion on the Senate floor, some lawmakers said that means, potentially, some employees could take six weeks of sick leave, four weeks of vacation leave and 24 weeks of paid family and medical leave for a total of 34 weeks of paid leave in a year.

    “If I’m a teacher, then I’d make sure I get sick first of September and I’d get paid for the whole school year,” Sen. Ronald Young (D-Frederick) quipped.

    But Senate President Pro Tem Melony Griffith (D-Prince George’s) said that she does not think people would deliberately manipulate circumstances so that they could abuse their paid leave options.

    Yeah, nobody ever abuses government programs.

    • Ted S.

      When our POS governor got this pushed through in 2019, the claim was that it wouldn’t take more than $1 a week out of the paycheck. I didn’t get a pay raise between October 2019 and the end of January 2021, so I could see that my biweekly confiscation for PFL was $1.60 at the end of 2019, about $2.80 in 2020, and $5.20 in 2021.

      I got a princely 2% raise at the end of last year, but the PFL tax went up another 7%.

      • Festus

        Yup. Minimum wage is nipping at my balls. Maybe being unemployed won’t be so bad?

      • rhywun

        I didn’t even know I was paying that. How the fuck do I get out of it, since I will never use it?

      • hayeksplosives

        I didn’t know it existed when my husband was going through his medical ordeal in California; I was just taking unpaid leave. No social worker or hospital administrator mentioned it. Some friend said “You know you’re eligible for FML, right?”

        Since I’d been paying through the nose for it, you’re damned right I claimed it. Took a lot of paperwork and delays, but I finally got a few grand and was able to pay the mortgage.

        I still think it’s a bad idea though, and clearly the state would rather have kept the money.

      • Rat on a train

        The same way you get out of all the medical insurance mandates for things like hair loss, impotence, maternity if you don’t need them. Be thankful they don’t do the same for home insurance.

      • Festus

        I’m actually pondering disability. I’ve paid into this Ponzi scheme for forty-odd years. Fuck it. I’m tired and it’s not like I’ll ever better myself. I’m done. Done like dinner.

      • JaimeRoberto (shama/lama/ding dong)

        Forget it, man. It’s in the Social Contract.

      • DEG

        In NH, if I remember the legislation creating the program correctly, you don’t. Your employer makes the decision for you. Your employer receives a business tax deduction for taking part in the program. Employer paid benefits are subsidized by the taxes your employer withholds if your employer takes part in the program. Can you take a guess as to what your employer will decide to do?

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      Washington state started a mandatory long term care insurance program. A percentage of every paycheck feeds into it, but the policy is capped at something like a $35k payout. So you’ll pay weekly for 40 years into a program that may pay for 3 months of long-term care.

      • The Last American Hero

        The tax is 0.58% on W2 income, no exceptions, no limits. It has been suspended because people even in Seattle started bristling at it when it came due. Other nefarious aspects included that you could duck the tax if you had LTC insurance that qualified in place BEFORE Nov 1. Guess what month open enrollment is kids?

    • DEG

      The NH House passed a bill repealing the Paid Family Leave program added to last year’s budget.

      The program was never popular among the House Republicans. They only voted for the budget in order to pass a budget included certain other priorities (rollback of emergency order enforcement, tax cuts, emergency law reforms). They decided to work to neuter or abolish the program in future sessions.

      I expect this repeal will go nowhere. Sununu considers this program a necessary part of his ambitions to move on to the national scene since it shows he’s not a typical Republican.

  12. Ted S.

    Another restaurant closure due to inflation

    From the article:

    “Expenses are through the roof from supplies to labor,” Boughton said. “I can’t compete with the corporate chains who offer people so much to work.”

    He said while government officials have pegged inflation at around 8%, he believes it’s actually more like 15% for the food industry. He said labor costs were rising even before the pandemic due to increased minimum wages.

    “It’s unsustainable for me to make the same kind of living I did a few years ago,” Boughton said. “And in lieu of the current business climate, people will not have enough money to continue to go out and eat.”

    He estimates he’d have to raise menu prices by 20% to keep up his bottom line.

  13. The Late P Brooks

    They baffle SCIENCE!

    However, public health experts said it’s not inevitable Americans who have not gotten COVID yet eventually will, and that there are several reasons people have been able to avoid infection so far, including certain behaviors such as being serious about masking and social distancing, vaccination rates and maybe even genetics.

    However, genetics could also be playing a role.

    —-Blah blah blah—-

    Dr. Stuart Ray, a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, said similar circumstances have been seen in people who were at high risk for HIV but did not contract the disease.

    “One of the things that was discovered was people who had mutations in [a certain] receptor … and that was associated with not getting infected with HIV and in the uncommon people who do get infected, very slow progression to AIDS,” he told ABC News.

    Although there has not yet been a clearly identified gene, Ray said it’s feasible some people are genetically less susceptible to COVID.

    Haha, just kidding. The real reason is the vaxx. If you haven’t been vaxxed, you’re as good as dead.

    • Ted S.

      Maybe some people already got covid but had no symptoms.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      It’s certainly possible, but it’s skirting around the major issue.

      Dr. Ray obviously doesn’t want to touch the third rail of public health policy.

    • hayeksplosives

      I’ve read the hypothesis that the resistance some people have to HIV infection is linked to Europeans who survived the Black Death of the 14th century. They carry a particular mutation that confers resistance both to some viruses and some bacterial illnesses.

      Natural selection is a bitch, but it works.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        The HIV resistance for Black Death survivors was taught in my undergrad genetics course. It’s really interesting.

  14. The Late P Brooks

    I was watching a youtube viddy last night, and the guy was trying to fix the malfunctioning clutch on his Lotus Elise. So much talk about master cylinders and slave cylinders, I thought I might become physically ill. Literally shaking.

    • Festus

      Clutch work on Honda. Driveway mechanic having flashbacks…

    • DrOtto

      It’s uh, primary and secondary now.

    • Rat on a train

      oppressor and victim cylinders?

  15. The Late P Brooks

    If you are a professional financial advisor, exacerbating income inequality isn’t just some airy-fairy rhetorical mumbo jumbo.

    IT’S YOUR FUCKING JOB.

    • Rat on a train

      I’m sorry Mr Smith, your portfolio did too well this year. We are taking some of your assets to give to portfolios that didn’t do as well.

  16. Festus

    Oil seal was blown. Had to do it twice before I discovered the problem. Pre- Youtube days. Just scrapped the car.

  17. UnCivilServant

    I have to remind myself to not get annoyed when some subordinates require more handholding than others.

    It’s just when they bring me something they should already have figured out while I’m deep in something else, it throws off my focus.

    I’m only griping here so I retain my calm exterior towards coworkers. Half my success is appearing even more phlegmatic than I am.

    • Tres Cool

      Robitussin can help with that phlegm.

      • UnCivilServant

        Not very Humourous are we? Too melancholic?

      • DrOtto

        +1 Robotrippn’

      • Tres Cool

        Did that once. Called ex-gf (OG-2X-OG) in the midst of it all, apologizing for the fight we had, and begging her to come back to the Palatial 2X-Wide™.

        “Tres? We never had a fight. I haven’t seen you in 2 days.”
        Alcohol + opiates + dextromethorphan is a helluva drug.

      • Rat on a train

        At least I can buy without going to the pharmacy like pseudoephedrine.

    • Rat on a train

      For one I have to deal with what appears to be every thought that comes into his head. It is tiring trying to keep him focused on his assigned tasks. If you have an idea, create a ticket in the backlog. We will go over that at the next backlog meeting. Finish your current task before asking what you should do next.
      Throw in all the meetings, and I’m surprised I get anything done.

    • hayeksplosives

      It’s a bad sign that you had to dig back to April 2020 for that…

      It is a touching story though.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I wouldn’t read too much into the date. My searches are not sophisticated enough to work timeliness into them.

        Just trying to remind myself most people are good.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Just trying to remind myself most people are good….

        This is slowly being chipped away at in my view of humanity.

      • Sean

        Just trying to remind myself most people are good….

        For you.

  18. Tres Cool

    Festus-
    Festus on March 18, 2022 at 7:27 am
    That tune is solid but they made better. I want to party with the Go-Go’s circa 1982! And then I will probably collapse and die.

    You need Bananarama according to Jennifer Saunders.
    https://youtu.be/t-NGlfFmS1A?t=147

  19. The Late P Brooks

    Will we bomb Ireland if Joe gets the plague?

  20. MikeS

    8 6
    9 3

    • Tres Cool

      Queen to Queen’s Level 2

      • MikeS

        You sunk my battleship!

      • SDF-7

        Greetings, Professor Falken!

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        NO. I WOULD NOT LIKE TO PLAY GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR.

      • UnCivilServant

        “Global Thermonuclar war would like to play you, I’m afraid.” -Civ Ghandi

      • Rat on a train

        How about a quick game of local chemical war?

    • Sean

      4 6
      7 8

    • Pope Jimbo

      It was clearly labeled “freestyle”.

      • SDF-7

        “Joey, have you ever been to a Turkish prison?”

    • PutridMeat

      Would love to see the background story on that picture; Why are the 2nd-4th place swimmers posing together on the 3rd place podium,
      and the “1st place” swimmer isolated? I hope he is getting internally ostracized and shamed at least.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Its not getting any internal shame. Think I read he/she/whatever went from lower middle of the pack swimmer in the NCAA to #1 overnight once the declaration was made. Brain is satisfied.

      • UnCivilServant

        If he were really a woman, he’d notice the social ostracism being applied to him.

        There are some interesting questions about non-sport social activities and groups. If we drew up a profile of extracurriculars, would it continue to describe a college male as per before the team switch? He doesn’t appear to have the social sensitivity demonstrated by biological women.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Psychopaths don’t suffer from shame.

      • robc

        I was hoping that the other swimmers in the final would conspire to NOT start but intentionally wait like a 3 count and start together with him half way down the first lap. Make it clear that they are racing each other and not against or with him.

        But that picture does the same thing. Not as clear a middle finger to the NCAA though.

    • PutridMeat

      I wish Ledecky was still around in college swimming. She didn’t swim to much in yards, but I think she was about a 4:25 in 500-yard free. This guy went 4:33 – he was a middle of the pack male swimmer. It’s stunning (and brave of course) to me how anyone can take any of this seriously.

      The men’s NCAA 500-y record is something like 4:06. So the best female swimmer ever – at least at distance freestyle – wouldn’t even qualify for men’s NCAA finals; or heats even. As a male swimmer, posting the phenomenal times she did at US trials and at the Olympics, you never would have heard of Ledecky. She wouldn’t have been at the US trials in any meaningful way. I have nothing but respect for Ledecky – she trains like a beast, is perhaps the best female athlete ever, mentally and physically. But even with all that talent, dedication, and drive – she’d be restricted to competing with the top high-school swimmers as a male. That’s how big the male to female physical, biological dimorphism is. To pretend otherwise – I don’t know, my brain just starts shutting down at the absurdity of it all.

      • one true athena

        There’s something like 100 high school boys that can run the 100m faster than the women’s world record.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        It’s way more than that.

        HS sprinters routinely run faster than the FloJo.

        It’s not even really a competition. She’s get smoked by at least 100 male HS track runners RIGHT NOW.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    Do us a favor, wouldja, and hold the corner of that rug up while i get the broom

    A lawyer for the mother of Hunter Biden’s 3-year-old daughter expects the president’s son “to be indicted” for tax fraud, a report said.

    Attorney Clint Lancaster made the stunning prediction while confirming in an interview with CNBC that his client Lunden Roberts recently testified in Delaware before a federal grand jury in the criminal investigation into the 52-year-old presidential scion.

    “I expect him to be indicted,” Lancaster told the outlet, referring to Hunter Biden. “Just based on what I saw in his financial records, I would be surprised if he’s not indicted.”

    Lancaster said Roberts, the 31-year-old mother of Hunter Biden’s young daughter, handed over “a significant amount of Hunter’s financial records” to federal prosecutors after being subpoenaed last month.

    A President’s math is not like a square’s math.

    • Tres Cool

      “…I would be surprised if he’s not indicted.”

      And there’s the money-shot.

      • juris imprudent

        Nuh-uh, no reasonable prosecutor… oh wait, he’s a Biden, not a Clinton? Oh yeah, his bitch ass is going to prison.

  22. The Late P Brooks

    NO. I WOULD NOT LIKE TO PLAY GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR.

    Awww, c’mon. It’ll be fun!

  23. The Late P Brooks

    Hunter Biden has denied all allegations of impropriety.

    What more do you want, you goddam vultures?

  24. Q Continuum

    “The NYT Now Admits the Biden Laptop is Authentic”

    Their goal was reached; they rigged Biden’s way into the WH. Now that’s patently obvious he’s incapable of running for a second term (or even possibly finishing this term), they can defenestrate him to make room for someone else and make some very weak claims to journalistic integrity that their clapping seal readers will swallow up.

  25. The Late P Brooks

    Also (FYI)- if you think your clutch problem is in the hydraulics, double-pump the pedal and see if it disengages. in college I drove my MG for months with a failing slave cylinder that way.

    Kick it out of gear at the red light, then give the pedal a quick double dab and stick it in first. Away you go.Just remember to keep an eye on the reservoir.

    • UnCivilServant

      My foot never seems to find the clutch. Darn pedal must be hiding on me.

    • R.J.

      Testing fun car issues was sadly off the plate last night due to the strong storms sweeping across ‘Bama. Damn, I wanted to head home early this morning. We postponed until noon.
      At noon I shall test the basic formula for acceleration and report back if it is contaminated with white supremacy.

  26. juris imprudent

    So, since we were discussing the Democrats and their perverse visions – there are sane ones.

    It’s the same dynamic as in the LP – the puritans want party purity even when it means the party will lose seats because of the blind devotion to their own dog chow. Democrats just do it on a larger scale, but the progressive wing is determined to reduce the party to minority status. And then wonder what was wrong with their messaging.

    • The Other Kevin

      I have a friend who is really into politics and did some work on GOP campaigns a while back. He said that it used to be that during general elections, and after they won, candidates would move toward the middle to get and keep votes. But since about 2000 (GWB), both sides cater to the extreme wings of their party, and expect the middle to choose a side. I thought that was an interesting way to look at it.

      • juris imprudent

        The problem for the left with that is ultimately, I can reason with the right and even if I can’t win them over – I can probably get a compromise I can live with.

    • R.J.

      GOP did it too, by destroying the tea party, then losing the house because of it. Why the Hell do parties always fly to the fringes when in power? Surely somebody has written a book on this recently. The Pulse of Politics was written in the 90’s (and originally in the ’50’s) I don’t think either version really hit upon this destructive trend of winning everything, and then failure of core competency.

      • Drake

        The GOP always seems to fly to the left fringe of the party. They destroyed the Tea Party by promising to do everything those folks believed in – then doing the opposite and going on wild spending sprees.

      • juris imprudent

        The bailouts started under Bush and continued under Obama. The Tea Party was a reaction to that, as was Occupy. Neither the Tea Party nor Occupy, both populist pushes [attention kbolino] were coherent except in negation (straight out of Gurri). Whereas the Tea Party descended into absurdity (Keep Your Govt Hands off my Medicare) Occupy was absurd from the get-go.

        Trump and Sanders both pitched the rigged game in a bid for populist support. Which reminds me of how the Nazis and communists both fished for support out of the same pond in Weimar Germany.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        It was a deliberate destruction on their part, much like the Democrats destroyed Occupy Wall Street.

        DC is run by grifters.

  27. The Late P Brooks

    Remind me to stay the fuck away from Philadelphia

    A man and a woman walking by stole a dying victim’s gun and other items moments after a fist fight and deadly shooting that was caught on surveillance video.

    The ordeal began around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in Philadelphia. Police obtained video showing a 38-year-old man involved in a fight with another man on 8th and Luzerne streets. While the two were fighting, a third man pulled out a gun and fired at least eight shots at the 38-year-old.

    The 38-year-old man was shot three times in the chest and torso. The gunman and the man who was initially involved in the fight then fled the scene in a dark or Black Dodge Charger.

    Less than a minute later, a man and a woman walking by found the 38-year-old victim on the sidewalk. The man stole the victim’s gun and handed it to the woman. He then stole other items from the victim’s pockets. The man and woman then fled the scene.

    Something something pennies off a dead man’s eyes.

    • creech

      Hey, they apparently “took a gun off the street” which is what the community has been harping about for umpteen years as the Philly homicide rate continues to climb.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      While the two were fighting, a third man pulled out a gun and fired at least eight shots at the 38-year-old.

      The 38-year-old man was shot three times in the chest and torso.

      Better accuracy than the NYPD.

    • waffles

      City of brotherly love.

    • Drake

      Looks like an episode of The Wire.

    • Plisade

      I blame the oppressive whiteness they all suffered in their Intro to Physics courses.

    • mock-star

      “…then fled the scene in a dark or Black Dodge Charger.”

      WTF, is Black capitalized when describing cars now? Way to other dark vehicles, NBC!

      • Sensei

        That’s awesome!

        Most new style guides mandate Black people be capitalized. I imagine the spell check now auto capitalizes “black” and nobody bothered to revert it back.

  28. Pine_Tree

    Here’s what dominates my thinking on the male-swimmer-pretending-to-be-a-girl thing – and I get that I’m an extreme outlier:

    What is he thinking in regards to his future, to his family, and to his family name?

    Seriously – what kind of life story includes lunacy like this and is still OK – with anybody? We’re just a regular cracker family, but I’m the oldest son of the oldest son, and literally for my entire life, “uphold the family name” has been THE #1 teaching that dominates all of my thoughts and actions. All of them – every second of school, friendships, college, career choices, EVERYTHING. I can’t step off the straight and narrow, not because of what people would think of me (I don’t care, I’m 50 and would sometimes like to) but because I’m IT for all the generations backward and forward. Just not possible. My brothers don’t even have the same responsibility, since they’re younger.

    So I literally can’t comprehend this guy doing things in college that dishonors his grandfathers name, and shames his grandchildren. At all.

    • Ownbestenemy

      I just akin their family to being the O’Doyles. Bullies will find other means of bullying…always.

      The parents get to be proud that their mediocre swimmer son is now a champion swimmer daughter.

    • UnCivilServant

      Filial piety is an alien concept to anyone who would pretend to be something they’re not for empty plaudits.

      • creech

        Is he pretending? Haven’t seen yet any report on whether his “transition” has progressed to having his equipment lopped off or not. Once that’s done, I guess he can pretty much present as a woman in the future and, unless you know his backstory (and some trans probably brag about it), wouldn’t have any reason to doubt her.

      • Not Adahn

        AFAIK, she’s only taken estrogen.

      • Ownbestenemy

        You know, if this 15 years ago or prior, I would have said this is a bad college dare taken too far.

      • Not Adahn

        There was that dude (a professional poker player?) that got breast implants on a bet. And them kept them past the required time.

      • robc

        I think it was a $1 million bet for one year. Don’t remember how long he had them though.

      • Pine_Tree

        That’s easy. He’s pretending. One would have to be completely insane to think otherwise.

      • hayeksplosives

        Creech,

        It is well publicized that he still has his nuts and penis and let’s them hang out in the girls locker room, still dates women, etc. Some of the girls have asked him not to undress in the common areas of the locker room but he refuses to comply, and at least some of the girls think he’s doing it to taunt them.

        He’s is a psychopath, a sociopath or both.

        He could quit the estrogen tomorrow and be making babies within the year.

    • robc

      See my Rand comment above. The first step in Toohey’s strategy was to get his followers to give up the things they value.

      You won’t fall into the trap because you have values you wish to uphold.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      As I said above, he’s a narcissistic psychopath.

      It’s simply not in his nature to consider those things.

      • PutridMeat

        The real sickness is that too many other people indulge and celebrate him. Not saying there’s a need bully, punish, ostracize him, but don’t indulge him and pretend this is all just fine. Why there are pussy-hat marches out in the street from women over this kind of nonsense….

      • rhywun

        Women have literally been pushed down the victim stack and the “activists” among them know it.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        If I we’re trying to “erase women” in the liberal sensibility of the phrase as it’s been used against men, I couldn’t think of a better starting point than this shit.

        They’re literally putting men’s names in place of women’s names in the recorded history of women’s sports. Men are literally standing on the top of the podium, while the women who should be standing there are literally placed below him, while he is celebrated as being the Best Woman™️.

        Outside of some serial killers, this is, by far, the most misogynist thing that’s taken place in America at least since suffrage was achieved. Only it isn’t a random nut job. This has been institutionalized at the highest levels of sport.

        Our cultural elite have a fucking disease.

    • Zwak,The Baddest Johnny on the Apple Cart

      The problem is you are focusing on the things you believe are important. I would bet good money that he really believes he is a girl in a man’s body due to an ideology that has been pumped into him by certain corners of society. He has been reaffirmed constantly by those close to him that he is truly a woman in a man’s body, and consequently, this is all for the good.

      Now, I think that is balderdash, but I am not the one who has been involved in years of gender studies and its associated fallout into the rest of the academy.

      • Zwak,The Baddest Johnny on the Apple Cart

        damn tags. everything after you shouldn’t be italicized.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    So I literally can’t comprehend this guy doing things in college that dishonors his grandfathers name, and shames his grandchildren. At all.

    He’s smashing he chains of patriarchy, and making a better world.

  30. Ownbestenemy

    Woman of the year (nominated) – dude
    Most winning woman on Jeopardy – dude
    2021 Miss Nevada – dude

    How anyone can see this as healthy to a species is beyond me.

    • WTF

      So, men are even better at being women than women are?

      • The Last American Hero

        Even in the sandwich making department- it’s called Jimmy Johns not Janie Janes.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    Somebody’s feeling lonely and neglected

    Anthony Fauci, the longtime head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a Biden adviser, said U.K. officials are already warning him of an increase there driven by the BA.2 sub-variant, easing restrictions and waning protection from vaccines, and that the U.S. tends to be a few weeks behind case curves in the U.K.

    “We have all three of those factors right now in this country,” Fauci said in an interview Thursday. “I would predict that we are going to see a bit of an increase, or at least a flattening out and plateauing of the diminution of cases. And the question is how do we deal with that.”

    U.S. cases have steadily fallen since records set in January, prompting restrictions to be eased and Biden to encourage Americans to resume a more normal life. But the administration is also calling on Congress to approve new funding to head off a fresh crisis, continue certain programs and buy new vaccines and treatments.

    ——-

    Without new funding, “a lot of things are going to stop. It really will be a very serious situation,” Fauci said. “It just is almost unconscionable.”

    Lookit me lookit me lookit me!

    Die, you disgusting little homunculus.

    • Draw Me Like One of Your Tulpae, Jack

      homunculus

      I think of him more as a drosophila

  32. Rebel Scum

    The NYT Now Admits the Biden Laptop is Authentic

    You right-wingers always saying things are “admitted” that were known all along…

    • UnCivilServant

      Where is this sunrising over choppy waters? Looks like rough sailing.

      • SDF-7

        Well, given how troubled the waters look – she must have moved up from her cabin to the bridge of the boat.

    • Plisade

      Lovely.

    • DEG

      Nice picture

  33. Not Adahn

    LILY STRONK!

    The vet’s office is populated entirely by small women and the FTMs that are so common here. Lily is 78 pounds and goes to the gym dog park every day. When they tried to violate Lily’s personal space, she did not let them. She didn’t snarl or snap, she just moved whatever part of her they were trying to grab/push/poke to where they couldn’t.

    They have given me trazadone to use on her before her next visit. They were able to get a “smudge” of blood that was sufficient for the heartworm test.

    Woof means woof!

    • UnCivilServant

      the FTMs that are so common here

      ???

      • Not Adahn

        Yup.

        No idea why. There are at least three I’ve met at work. One of them did an excellent job — he looks like a tiny ’50s greaser until he says something and gives the game away. Most of them still have birthin’ hips though.

      • UnCivilServant

        How odd. I can’t say I’ve ever actually run into any in the wild. Either that or they were so convincing that they managed to pass on all traits, but given the vanishingly small number that exist, I’m going with I haven’t met any.

      • Not Adahn

        Proximity to VT + pressure for butch lesbians to transition?

    • Ted S.

      Didn’t you have her on a leash to let them get the blood sample?

      • Not Adahn

        Absolutely she was on a leash, but they took her out of the consulting room (I was left in the consulting room) to draw the blood, give the vaccines, etc.

        They also said I’m overfeeding her. I’m not sure I believe that since I don’t feel any fat on her. But I will take the advice at least for the next six months.

      • MikeS

        My vet always does everything with me in the room. I’ve always assumed he wants the owners in there to be a calming influence.

      • Not Adahn

        Hell, this is only the second time I’ve been allowed in the office. ‘Cause coof.

      • MikeS

        I take my previous statement back. For about one year during the height of COVID panic, you had to call them from the parking lot and they’d come out and get the patient. Then bring them back out and explain what they learned standing outside and at a safe distance.

  34. Rebel Scum

    DOJ investigating Hunter Biden for foreign lobbying violations

    I can’t imagine that this will be a long investigation.

    • creech

      Agreed. The only thing that would raise eyebrows is if DOJ found he stayed a night in a Trump-labelled hotel and thus contributed to some improper emolument of a sitting president.

  35. The Late P Brooks

    The U.S. will need to be flexible, including potentially returning to recommending the use of masks in certain settings, Fauci said.

    Pigeon superstition will save us.

    Fuck

    right

    off.

    • SDF-7

      Coo, Daddy-O…

  36. Rebel Scum

    Will Joe Biden Oversee The Collapse Of The U.S. Dollar?

    Considering the energy/foreign policies of his handlers, signs point to ‘yes’.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      When the dam breaks, there will be a lot of countries looking to liquidate their dollar reserves all at once.

      I suspect it will get “interesting”

      • Rebel Scum

        Interesting times are interesting, and also bad…

  37. Rebel Scum

    House Democrats on Wednesday blocked consideration of a Republican bill aiming for U.S. energy independence from Russia amid the Ukraine war. A former environmental engineer now running for Congress in New Mexico condemned the move as “unconscionable” in comments to Fox News Digital.

    “We don’t want any permanent solutions…” – Bootyjudge

    • Ownbestenemy

      His new line…public transportation will save us — quickly moving on from the ‘just go buy a Tesla’ comment from two days ago.

  38. Not Adahn

    So how did last night’s chicken survive? I would have thought it would have suffocated if it had been inserted headfirst, and the dude would have bled out if it had been inserted talons first. Did they put an oxygen canula up there? If he just stuck a wing you’d think it would have been easy to remove.

    • Ownbestenemy

      I…missed something.

      • rhywun

        Thursday night Zooms get a little interesting.

      • UnCivilServant

        Since when were there thursday night zooms?

      • rhywun

        Shhh.

      • pistoffnick the refusnik

        I mean I’ve done some crazy thing when drunk, but…

      • SDF-7

        Some news stories really, really don’t need to be shared with the world.

        Alternate response:

        Frankly, my dear — I don’t give a cluck.

      • pistoffnick the refusnik

        “Kinky is using a feather. Perverted is using the whole chicken.”

      • UnCivilServant

        No one has pointed out that the egg farmer is shaped like an egg?

  39. DEG

    There’s zero effective leadership from DC on the United States’s deficits, debt, and dollar madness. But’s it’s not too late. It’s just going to have to take a whole lot more Americans to focus on the issue to force our “leaders” to truly fix it.

    So….. nothing will change until after the collapse.

    Reopen NH’s report on the last House session, plus news that a NH Family Court dropped the case against JR Hoel.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Fixing it requires the removal of DC’s real power, the printing press. They’re not going to do it willingly, nor are their backers in the MIC or Wall Street.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    Getting things done

    Cuba’s Supreme Court sentenced more than 100 protesters in Havana to prison terms that ranged between four and 30 years for violence committed during demonstrations last year, it announced Wednesday in a statement.

    “The citizens are accused of committing and provoking serious disturbances and acts of vandalism, with the purpose of destabilizing public order, collective security and citizen tranquility,” the Supreme Court said.
    Last July, hundreds of Cubans across the country defied the government and took to the streets against chronic shortages and lack of basic freedoms.
    Despite widespread calls following the protests for amnesty, the Cuban government has come down hard on demonstrators — meting out lengthy prison sentences.
    Shortly after the protests started, police and special forces went door to door looking for those who participated.

    Why can’t we put an end to coddling traitors and insurrectionists and bring them to a swift and terrible justice?

  41. The Late P Brooks

    When the dam breaks, there will be a lot of countries looking to liquidate their dollar reserves all at once.

    They can always burn them for heat.

  42. Ownbestenemy

    The oversized photos of the dear leaders have been hung. 16×20 photos of the modest administration. It looks gaudy and more like a shrine.

  43. Rebel Scum

    Male swimmer wins women’s 500-yard NCAA title

    Feminists have themselves to blame.

    • Ownbestenemy

      I would suspect that young women are feeling the way I did when the NHL allowed their players into the Olympics. Its a gut punch to know you will never be able to play/compete at a level because you were boxed out of it not because of skill, but the cards were stacked against you.

    • Not Adahn

      Radfems have been consistent in their gender abolition. Libfems are the a DIFFERENT problem.

      • juris imprudent

        So TERFs are libfems? That’s not confusing at all.

      • Not Adahn

        …not sure if srs…

      • juris imprudent

        Serious but hardly care. TERF seems to mean ‘radical’ (since that word is part of the acronym) and I don’t think they support gender abolition.

      • Not Adahn

        TERFs do support gender abolition. That’s why the reject “transgender.” “Gender” is a fiction created by males in order to have power over females.

        Many people accused of being TERFs aren’t. “TERF” has become like “facist” and” nazi,” shorthand for “someone I don’t like. “

      • Not Adahn

        In case you are:

        Radfem – sex is real, gender is NOT real. “Woman” is a class invented by males in order to oppress females. By assigning traits such as submission, weakness, timidity and fragility to “women,” males are able to oppress females. The most extreme Radfems claim that this socialization is so complete that parents underfeed female children and discourage them from exercising to the extent that all differences in strength between males and females are because of socialization. Because “woman” is a fiction, there is no possible way to “really be ” a “woman.” Thus trans* do not exist and are a tool of the partiarchy.

        Libfem: gender is real. There is some essence of womanhood that someone can possess that makes you a “woman” regardless of sex. Transwoemn possess this gender essence and are therefore women.

      • juris imprudent

        OK, sorry I quipped. No cocktail party is worth that nonsense.

      • Not Adahn

        And THEN, you get into Blanchard-Bailey and can debate how many transmen are really autogynophilic men.

      • juris imprudent

        [dispenses the withering glare of STFU already]

      • Mojeaux

        how many transmen are really autogynophilic men.

        99.999%

    • waffles

      The final form of feminism is overt misogyny

  44. The Late P Brooks

    Here it comes

    Speed limits on highways should be cut by at least 10 kilometers per hour (6.2 mph) to help lower oil demand, the International Energy Agency said Friday.

    The recommendation is part of a wider 10-point plan published by the Paris-based organization.

    “We estimate that the full implementation of these measures in advanced economies alone can cut oil demand by 2.7 million barrels a day within the next four months, relative to current levels,” the IEA’s report said.

    ——-

    Against this backdrop, the IEA’s other suggestions to reduce oil demand include:

    Working from home for as much as three days per week, when possible.
    Car-free Sundays for cities.
    Reducing the cost of public transport and encouraging people to walk and cycle.
    Avoiding air travel for business when other options are available.
    Traveling on high speed or night trains instead of flying when it’s practicable to do so.
    And reinforcing the uptake of electric and “more efficient” vehicles. The full list can be read here.
    “Reducing oil use must not remain a temporary measure,” the IEA’s report said. “Sustained reductions are desirable in order not only to improve energy security but also to tackle climate change and reduce air pollution.”

    It added that governments had “all the necessary tools at their disposal to put oil demand into decline in the coming years, which would support efforts to both strengthen energy security and achieve vital climate goals.”

    Don’t let this crisis go to waste! Ban cars personal freedom in all its forms.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Modify the entirety of the rest of the economy in order to meet this one arbitrary demand.

    • Ted S.

      No cars for government-sector workers. That includes all the UN agencies.

    • rhywun

      Sleep in three to seven days a week, but maintain enough energy to grub in the dirt for roots to supplement your bread and water diet.

  45. Rebel Scum

    “We name mechanisms that facilitate the reproduction of whiteness in this local context, including a particular representation of energy, physics values, whiteboards, gendered social norms, and the structure of schooling,” the study read. “We hope our work contributes to Critical Whiteness Studies’ goal of dismantling whiteness.”

    White people are bad, mkay.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      “We hope our work contributes to Critical Whiteness Studies’ goal of dismantling whiteness.”

      This one statement invalidates the entirety of the field’s claim to being scientific in any way, form, or manner. It’s activism.

      • juris imprudent

        The authors who said that, are they in fact not white?

      • juris imprudent

        White woman, and this from her CV

        Dissertation: An investigation of university student and K-12 teacher reasoning about key ideas in
        the development of the particulate nature of matter

        University of Washington granted a PhD in PHYSICS for that original ‘research’?

      • juris imprudent

        The other is a black male, standard issue racial greivance hustler.

      • rhywun

        It’s activism.

        Sounds more like genocide to me. I guess time will tell.

  46. The Late P Brooks

    A number of organizations are calling for a cut in fossil fuel use, but actually achieving such an aim is a gargantuan task. The vast majority of cars on our roads, for instance, still use gasoline or diesel, while energy companies continue to discover new oil and gas fields in a variety of locations around the world.

    GODDAMMIT!

  47. Rebel Scum

    You are not Irish for a day on St. Patrick’s day. You are Irish for a day the day after when you wake up naked on the floor in the hallway and have alienated your friends, family and/or cats.

  48. Rebel Scum

    Democrats would never sow distrust in the institutions by impugning the results of an election.

    More than a dozen House Democrats are urging the Department of Justice (DOJ) to address “insider threats to election systems,” which they say are posed by candidates who are running to fill local election positions motivated by former President Trump’s false claims about the 2020 presidential election.

    In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland dated Wednesday, the Democratic lawmakers said they are worried that those candidates may attempt to influence the outcomes of future races if they are installed as election officials.

    “Unfortunately, many of the candidates seeking to fill newly vacated state and local election posts support former President Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen,” the lawmakers wrote. “We are concerned that this new cohort of election officials may be inclined to abuse their authority to directly influence the results of future elections.”

    • juris imprudent

      So all of those Dems who complained about Bush-Gore, all those on the Trump Russian collusion bullshit, and Stacey Abrams – all of them, off to the gulag!

  49. Gender Traitor

    First World problem/annoyance: Any of you know anything about Google Pay?

    When the local minor league baseball team came back last year after the cancelled 2020 season, they switched from paper tickets to e-tickets, which brought Ticketmaster into the mix. They “recommended” you download your tickets into a Google Pay “wallet” instead of relying on Internet access as you entered, but I chose to take screenshots instead. This year, when you bring up a ticket, blue lines pan back and forth across the QR code, and the ticket taunts you, saying “screen shots will not get you in.” (Grrrr!!!)

    So… Should I cross my fingers and count on being able to get online as I approach the ballpark gate, suck it up and succumb to Google, or go full Karen and demand they print out all my tickets and parking passes?

    • UnCivilServant

      Demand printed passes and pretend to not own any internet capable devices.

      • Gender Traitor

        ::considers showing up at the ticket window in Amish garb::

    • juris imprudent

      My only question is why would you trust Google with anything of yours financial?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        My only question is why would you trust Google with anything of yours financial?

        FIFY

      • juris imprudent

        Financial is just a little more pointed I think.

      • Not Adahn

        Depends on how you fold the bills.

      • Gender Traitor

        I don’t, which is why I resent being pushed to do so.

        The paper tickets and parking passes used to be mailed in nice collectible containers like a tin or a wooden box. I understand the team owners trying to save money after taking a bath in 2020, but I dislike the increasingly onerous tech requirements just to attend a minor league baseball game.

      • juris imprudent

        Businesses that don’t cater to their customers deserve what comes to them in response.

      • Compelled Speechless

        My only question is why you think Google doesn’t already have access to all your financial information whether you gave it to them or not.

    • Mojeaux

      Okay, this will sound sarcastic, but I swear it’s not.

      It depends on how badly you want to go.

      When presented with choices like this, I ask myself, “How badly do I want this?” and then go from there.

  50. Sensei

    Unsigned NYT editorial. Suddenly free speech is an issue. No mention of Trump’s removal on Twitter or COVID “misinformation”.

    America Has a Free Speech Problem

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Paywalled.

      Too much or too little?

      • Sensei

        Too little.

        Now that the right is using the same tools the left cheerfully used they’ve suddenly realized that stifling speech is problematic.

      • MikeS

        For me it works to hit “stop” after the page loads but before the paywall pops up.

        This editorial board plans to identify a wide range of threats to freedom of speech in the coming months, and to offer possible solutions. Freedom of speech requires not just a commitment to openness and tolerance in the abstract. It demands conscientiousness about both the power of speech and its potential harms. We believe it isn’t enough for Americans to just believe in the rights of others to speak freely; they should also find ways to actively support and protect those rights.

      • rhywun

        Gotta be an op-ed. The NYT and their ilk have been cheering on censorship for years.

      • Sensei

        Yes, editorial as I mentioned above. Unsigned. Suddenly this is the new position for the NYT editorial board.

        And I agree it’s a 180 and made me suddenly wonder what’s changed.

      • rhywun

        the new position for the NYT editorial board

        Yeah, I didn’t catch that upon first skim.

        Madness.

        OTOH we’re seeing a lot of 180s from that crowd lately.

    • Ted S.

      They think there’s too much free speech?

      • Compelled Speechless

        I wonder if they’ll still feel that way when the party they totally don’t root for no longer controls everything???

  51. Rebel Scum

    Do you know who else held rallies?

    Vladimir Putin has today given a tub-thumping speech to tens of thousands of banner-waving Russians in an attempt to drum up support for his stalled invasion of Ukraine, as he peddled debunked claims about why the war started and shilled a false narrative of Russia’s battlefield ‘success’.

    The despot took to the stage at Moscow’s Luzhniki World Cup stadium dressed in a £10,000 Loro Piana jacket – despite his country’s economy crumbling under the weight of Western sanctions – to address a crowd waving Russian national flags and banners marked with the letter ‘Z’, which has become a potent symbol of the invasion.

    Putin, who called the rally to mark the anniversary of the last time he attacked Ukraine to annex the Crimea region, spoke of sharing a ‘common destiny’ with Crimeans, of ‘de-Nazifying’ the region in 2014, and of the ‘bravery’ of soldiers currently fighting in Ukraine. He was met with chants of ‘Russia, Russia, Russia.’

    • SDF-7

      He drinks a whiskey drink, he drinks a vodka drink…

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      “debunked”, “false narrative”, and “asserted without evidence”

      I’m so tired of seeing these in news articles. I’m starting to think these modifiers are actually signs of truth being spoken.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        I’m starting to think these modifiers are actually signs of truth being spoken.

        At bare minimum, it’s a good indicator there’s more to the story.

      • Compelled Speechless

        Remember when journalists earned the right to refer to something as “debunked” or “false narrative” by providing verifiable evidence in support of their argument instead of just flashing a badge that says the work for legacy media so they’re obvi right. That memory is getting pretty fuzzy.

    • rhywun

      Make Russia Great Again

      • Ownbestenemy

        That has already been floated to tie Trump in

    • juris imprudent

      dressed in a £10,000 Loro Piana jacket

      Is this a woman’s article? A former writer for the fashion section?

  52. Sensei

    Wow…

    USAA is fined $140 million for bad money laundering controls.

    The comptroller of the currency fined USAA $60 million and ordered it to immediately take steps to improve its monitoring of customers for suspicious activities. FinCEN imposed an $80 million fine, saying the bank had an ineffective anti-money-laundering program for at least five years, from 2016 to 2021, and failed to heed regulators’ warnings about the problem…

    USAA said on Thursday that it had not sufficiently strengthened its anti-money-laundering abilities and expertise to meet federal requirements but was cooperating with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

    This is a squeaky clean mutual insurer with about as “American” as possible target demographic. Putting my analyst hat on USAA either didn’t give a crap, or more likely, decided to fight and lost. When you fight your regulators like this they want to make as big an example as possible out of you to discourage anyone else they regulate from ever disagreeing with them. I’ve dealt with this both on the inside and the outside.

    • Ownbestenemy

      You aren’t spying on your customers enough. /shorter article.

    • rhywun

      I still don’t know how they’re allowed to discriminate against those who didn’t “serve” – is it because “service” is not a protected class or something? I can see having fun with the principle if I ran a business.

      • Not Adahn

        I thought “veteran status” WAS a protected class.

      • Sensei

        Part of being a mutual – similar to credit unions – you can have affiliated people banding together for mutual benefit.

        Honestly – USAA wants this as broad as possible at this point. So if you have a family member that qualifies you will also qualify. And your kids would qualify at that point since you were a member, and so on.

        They can’t open it up to the general public, because their original charter is constructed for armed services and veterans. They’d have to dissolve and remutualize.

      • Gender Traitor

        I suspect there’s something in their charter (if that’s the correct term) limiting membership – similar to what credit unions have in their charters.

      • Sensei

        +1 😉

      • Gender Traitor

        I was this close!!!

      • Ownbestenemy

        Back in the 20s thru 40s I believe it was only for officers and widowers that didn’t remarry. Its a membership, not a bank in the traditional sense nor a credit union and more an insurance association.

        Really started as ‘build your own if no one will provide you the services’ company.

        USAA was founded in 1922 in San Antonio by a group of 25 U.S. Army officers as a mechanism for mutual self-insurance when they were unable to secure auto insurance because of the perception that they, as military officers, were a high-risk group

    • Gender Traitor

      Financial institutions are supposed to allocate more resources to carrying out “law enforcement” for the FedGov… but don’t raise lending interest rates or charge fees to cover the cost of those resources.

      • juris imprudent

        Outsourcing means it isn’t a violation of the Bill of Rights.

  53. juris imprudent

    Wherefore art Bro’ bemoaning the untimely regard to the noonday post?

    • UnCivilServant

      Wasn’t the noonday post supposed to be his “The Art of Firsting”?

      • Not Adahn

        Did we run out of content?

      • UnCivilServant

        Well, there’s nothing on the calendar.

      • UnCivilServant

        Aaaand now the stoic arrived and made a liar out of me.

    • Swiss Servator

      IT IS THERE – ALL IS WELL!

      • Sean

        My tits were calm.