Happy Wednesday, Glibertarians. I’ve started asking my iPhone things that include the words, “bomb”, “America”, and “ISIS” a lot.
- Tinder has a new service that matches rich people to “hyper-attractive/upwardly affluent types.” Which I think means hot people looking to date big wallets. Sadly, I am married and won’t be available for the service to use as the Face.
- Cops in Michigan think it is vital to their cases in prostitution stings that they “go all the way.” They also want the same privileges when pretending to be Johns.
- The Church of Scientology will officially take the lead in urban development in downtown Clearwater, FL. So glad we found a house further down the coast.
- Wanted: South Florida Python Hunters. And yes, this story is SFW.
If we’re going to start doing music with the links, I submit Ann and Nancy Wilson with a special appearance by Luke Skywalker.
Per the WikiLeaks Vault 7 dump yesterday, a link to this document was found among them: Memetics – A Growth Industry in US Military Operations. It’s reasonably well researched and proposed (in 2005) a “Meme Warfare Center.” The idea may not have ever been implemented. Obviously, agitprop campaigns by world governments are nothing new. What is interesting here is the specific consideration given to the virulence of memetics, essentially an epidemiological model, and their potential in warfare.
Alternative title “A military thesis written twelve years ago to annoy Gilmore today.”
I find it hilarious how much of the media has all come to same conclusion at the same time that Vault 7 is a big nothingburger.
Was it really a “conclusion” though, if they were going to diminish and avoid discussing it no matter what it contained?
Well, for them, it’s concluded.
Yes, almost if there were some, say, List, of Journos, where intentional narrative control and knowingly false smears were coordinated.
Actually, I feel I need to add that there exists a culture right now that’s more than willing to do that shit on its own accord without direct marching orders. But the direct marching orders still exist.
It’s amusing that the media still thinks it has control.
I was going to go with horrifying and depressing, but yeah, neither WaPo (predictably) nor Washington Times have anything of note on what seems to me like a pretty big deal.
While I have no doubt whatsoever that the media’s reaction to the leaks is colored by ideology — and if they thought it would help the left, it would be the most important thing evar — what I have seen so far, is, yeah, pretty much nothingburger.
1. While there is no doubt that the CIA engages in false flag operations, no, UMBRAGE is not some super duper false flag program. It’s a repository of sample code and tips and tricks.
Here is the leaked description of it, which fits the contents 100%:
Notice the careful language Wikileaks’s description uses:
That is, Wikileaks never claims that the documents show that the CIA does use the the UMBRAGE info in this manner — only that it could. And if you bother to look at the UMBRAGE info, you will notice that it is not even great evidence of that very small claim.
2. Yes, intel agencies (and private security researchers) can hack into smart TVs. This is not surprising and they didn’t even do a very interesting job of it (the technique contained in the documents requires physical access to the TV, in which case they could just do what they’ve been doing since the Cold War — plant a bug).
3. They did not “break” any encrypted messaging apps. They demonstrated that yes, if you can get on somebody’s phone and escalate privileges, you can read whatever’s on it, including messages that are store on the phone.
This is fun though
“That is, Wikileaks never claims that the documents show that the CIA does use the the UMBRAGE info in this manner — only that it could. And if you bother to look at the UMBRAGE info, you will notice that it is not even great evidence of that very small claim.”
And if you see a big wet spot on my pants in the groin area and smell piss, it doesn’t mean I pissed my pants. It just means I could have.
I’m with you on this. The only reason to lift prints and make gummy fingers to trick fingerprint readers with is because you believe you’ll need to use them. These tools were not developed by happenstance. It’s deliberate design.
Did you actually look at UMBRAGE? It’s not a repository of tools, it’s descriptions of techniques and code snippets. This is the closest you’ll get to a “tool”.
Seriously, I mean, look at this example:
That’s it. It is nothing more than “explorer.exe has this trivial DLL hijack vulnerability”. No tool, no Russian/Chinese/whatever fingerprints, no whatever.
To grant unnecessary charity to the false flag angle, here’s one of the few examples where they reference an APT and/or state actor:
Explosive, I know.
Here’s the thing:
(a) There are not very many techniques documented
(b) The techniques that are there are generally documented quite sparsely
(c) Of the techniques documented, only a few of them are sourced from malware believed to come from foreign actors
Thanks for your contribution.
Well, I’d first start by criticizing your description of what Wikileaks claims this is. Because they’ve in fact made much bolder claims about it:
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/839117937042735104
“Of the techniques documented, only a few of them are sourced from malware believed to come from foreign actors.”
How many would we need, exactly? Here’s what we do know – the evidence these cunts released publicly consisted solely of malware that was, as the CIA described this program, malware available in the wild already. Stuff that the CIA undoubtedly already has. This isn’t to say that the CIA hacked the DNC/Hillary, but it sure as hell does show how mendacious their public arguments were. And it begs all kinds of questions, along with other aspects of this leak that you aren’t addressing, as to how much power these cunts should have.
You seem to be parsing bureaucratic lingo and demanding to see evidence of specific acts. Which isn’t what anyone has claimed this to be about thus far.
Wikileaks has stated that what has been released so far is only 1% of what is in the Vault 7 documents. This is just the tip of the iceberg. If they’ve said that UMBRAGE contains these things, I’m fairly convinced they’ve seen them and are working out how to disseminate them without doing too much damage.
I suspect that the source of the tools themselves is part of what was leaked to them, but they haven’t said as far as I know.
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
I’m skeptical. Wikileaks tends to shoot their wad in the first release, and then bore everybody to tears with release 2-1000. I’d love to be proven wrong, but I’m not gonna hold my breath for anything worthwhile coming out of the rest of VAULT 7.
@trshmnstr
Fair point. I’ve seen them do the same. Though the really did drag out the DNC leaks and there were also quite a few juicy tidbits along the way. Most of the rest of their releases do seem to follow the pattern you mentioned though. I’ll reserve judgment on that until we see more.
mea tulpa
*This is a test of the emergency catbutt defense system*
*brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh*
*beep beep beep*
*This has been a test of the emergency catbutt defense system*
Shit. That would’ve been much funnier in reply to the quoted remark.
HA HA
You’d think that it would be the media who would take the lead in uncovering this sort of thing as a threat to the very liberties that allow them to operate as anything other than court scribes. But, the guys running this don’t like someone they don’t like. And court scribes got a decent stipend.
“Kek wills it” was a Russo-Trumpian Memetic Warfare device to deny the presidency to Herself. It is known.
Mmm, bacon and waffles in my thread.
And the tools were built by the CIA and somehow got into the hands of the chans after they lost control of the arsenal.
Bacon and waffles…now that’s the real way you eat waffles. Hear that you rebels?
There’s a waffleria down the street run by a hipster coop. They serve waffles loaded with breakfast foods. Nothing like a good slurry of runny egg, bacon grease, red chile, syrup, and waffle batter.
Calling Rufus! Get your maple syrupy self over here and make ZSG’s day!
I sure hope so. If SugarFree gets here first, there’s no telling what topping I’ll get.
Metaphysical fight?! They Thomists?
Artist’s depiction of ZSG.
I’ve never played it. Is it fun?
It’s pretty consistently ‘so stupid it’s awesome.’
Also, Trump stole his slogan from it.
Lol. It was Reagan’s campaign slogan, but you probably knew that.
Reagan 1980 = Are you better off than you were four years ago?
Reagan 1984 = Morning Again in America
what are you referring to?
i’d guess it probably even pre-dates reagan.
If I understand the premise of that game, it denies agency. That’s definitely not an axiom of mine here.
But one can easily see that even simple ideas can have profound effects on behavior. If you believe the Earth is flat and that you can fall off the edges, you’ll probably avoid traveling too far out of fear. M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village is really just an exploration of that idea set in the modern era. Invent a fictitious enemy to keep people from ever leaving the village and they probably won’t, especially if you create all kinds of rituals to sell it. The younger you are, the more susceptible to even simple tricks you are.
Maybe you’re frustrated that your kid gets out of bed a lot. You might invent a monster under the bed and roar at the kid the moment he sets foot out of bed, reinforcing the fear of getting up. But there are unintended consequences of that (parents probably know this one). There are legitimate reasons to get out of bed, and you will probably turn a young child into a bed-wetter. Even trying to convince them that they were deceived may not soon undo the effects of that mistake.
The point being, if one attacks many angles with memetic influences, then culture itself can be affected. Who knows how much? Fucking with people’s psychology can have unintended consequences, as just illustrated. We all do it anyway, all the time. And if we take Breitbart’s statement “politics is downstream from culture” as axiomatic, then it seems a dictum to try.
You have somehow confused:
“Gilmore thinking your arguments about the importance of “Kids slinging memes on Reddit etc” are sort of dumb”
with
“Gilmore in denial that electronic media transmits ideas virally (aka memetics)”
Yes – memes exist. No – “pepe the frog” isn’t the thing that will provide the crucial tipping-point to ensure a future libertarian generation.
The last claim being a strawman of my argument of course. The link I provided is the essence of the whole thing.
You’ve run outta steam, sir. Repeating the same simple one-liner strawman over and over in place of my many pages of argument isn’t going to make it mine. That wasn’t my argument even from the very first time I said it, and you probably know that by now.
what’s your argument again? “Memes matter”?
How revolutionary.
•You guys love to debate
Nah, at this point he prefers to water down my statements to easily dismissible one-liners. That’s pretty much a logical fallacy, not a debate. All the debate is over.
You guys love to debate
That’s a euphemism, isn’t it?
You could just read the thesis I linked. It doesn’t really tread any new ground I didn’t already speak of, but it’s put together nicely and sourced since it’s a master’s thesis.
** forget i asked, actually.
I am fine with you declaring victory if you shut the fuck up about the topic for a day or two.
It has never, not once, been my belief that I could convince you or to “declare victory.” I have stated it repeatedly: I do not like it when people misrepresent what I say and I will fight that tooth and nail until it stops. It might be pyrrhic, but it is my way. I hate logical fallacies with a burning passion. I love spirited debate as long as it’s reasonable.
I have enjoyed some of the discussions and you’ve contributed to them nicely.
Yes, that last line was poking fun at you, but it was a joke. No need to be so sensitive.
starting now
“Daddy, what did you do in the Great Meme War?”
“Well…I shoveled shit in Louisiana.”
A day without a woman probably sounds a lot more appealing to some of its detractors right about now.
Mrs. Zoolander engages in wrongthink on International Womens’ Day
This sort of thinking is no different than new age nonsense. Who thinks this way? I know my wife and I don’t; and we certainly don’t use insipid made up jargon like ‘male ally’.
“male ally” seriously? Something wrong with the word “friend’? Well, other than someone who uses “male ally” probably doesn’t have any.
Maybe it’s the sort of thing where they don’t have enemies but are intensely disliked by friends
They have enemies, and are intensely disliked by their “friends”
Sleeping With the Frenemy?
Isn’t that pretty much every lesbian relationship?
It’s said that women who live together sync their cycles. Given that, and prior statements, I propose the following term for lesbians in that emotional state: a bicycle.
Excuse me while I go hide from Swiss for the next year.
I guess it would be inappropriate to bring up crampons.
“It’s said” alright. Probably incorrectly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstrual_synchrony#Efforts_to_replicate_McClintock.27s_results
Yep, have always considered it to be up there with other old wives’ tales, hence the liberal application of weasel words. 😉
Using the term “ally” has become another form of virtue signaling.
the one thing you can’t have too many choices on for the statists.
The whole “ally” thing is a way to establish a class system in SJW circles. A PoC, for example, has higher social status than an “ally” and if an “ally” disagrees in a discussion with the PoC, the “ally” is defacto wrong.
It’s remarkable how transparently all this shit is about social status, isn’t it?
Something wrong with the word “friend’?
I suspect there is if you look at all human relations as a war or political struggle.
Pretty pathetic way to live, though.
Don’t forget that women suffer more in war because they lose their sons and husbands.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e65tDh6ZEIw
OMG! Sophie has the same last name as her husband?
Finally, links.
I was tired of reading and using my brain.
BRAINS/Azlan
You have a brain? :-p
In other words, what Michigan officers really want is to be able to rape women (and yes, that *is* would it would be) by threatening to arrest them for prostitution if a woman won’t go along with what the cop says.
Jeez, when you put it that way it sounds so negative!
Without a ‘world government’ technology will destroy us, says Stephen Hawking
You know who else wanted a world government…
George Soros?
Is there anything more ironic than a guy who has been kept alive for several decades by technology talking about how it will kill us all one day?
“Look what it’s done to me!”
Probably not. But the legions of people saying that crap on their shiny new iPads every day are a distressingly close second.
No way. We’ll just have a galactic government!
Mr. Lizard?
I think you mean God Emperor Mr. Lizard.
You can’t have a reptillian god emperor.
<img src="http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/img/ps570eec26.png"
That's the sort of lie a warm blooder makes…
Dammit.
Khan Noonien Singh
DAMMIT!
KHAAAAAAAAAAN!
The Brain?
Stephen Hawking needs to sit the fuck down and stop being a drooling little scaredy-pants.
I failed. Correct answer: Gaia.
Uh, are we not doing phrasing?
Sure we are. Why? Hawking can’t handle the truth? He can fucking stand up to me if he wants to.
Hawking vs. Meh
Crippled coworker sipping and puffing around like he owns the place.
The Kzinti?
Tears for Fears?
+Everybody
Karl Wallinger?
Oh, sorry that was a World Party.
Leon Trotsky?
Civ IV players?
•GENGHIS KHAN.
•ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
•TAMERLANE.
•ATILLA THE HUN.
•CHARLEMAGNE.
•PHARAOH THUTMOSE III OF EGYPT.
•ASHOKA THE GREAT.
•CYRUS THE GREAT.
•NAPOLEAN
•SARGON.
•PIZZARO.
•MAHMOUD OF GHAZNI.
•GEORGE W BUSH.
And some other guy I can’t think of right now…
What’s Muhammad, chop liver?
We should all bullet-point on tomorrow’s links. Gilmore will orgasm to death.
Meh, Theodore Judson’s version was better.
Bernie Ecclestone?
I’m just putting this here in order to add to our comment count for the pm links, and look more impressive.
The wild commenter puffs up it’s chest and makes itself look as large as possible to scare away predators.
You should see the bright red sac that inflates out of my anus to impress females.
Nobody wants to see your colostomy bag.
It’s a hemorrhoid!
Is that what those are for? Is Los Doyers aware of this?
Jesse wants to know if Grindr has a service that matches the wealthy with the hyperattractive/upwardly-mobile.
They don’t even have the “no serial killers” option.
I’d be happy with a filter for a “face is included in picture” Grindr is just a wall of nearly identical faceless torsos. I do like playing guess the ethnicity by the nipple though.
The market is implying that most gay men don’t care about their partners’ faces. :-p
On Grindr, possibly. It’s a lot of butterfaces and they want you invested before they eventually send a face pic. If they refuse to send a face pic because they are “discreet” ie married to a woman with three kids at home, it usually means that they are both that and ugly.
Grindr is also it’s own rarefied culture. Other apps like Scruff are more faces than torsos. Even when people are on both they’ll do a torso shot on one and a face shot on the other.
Butterface? Buthisface?
Are you mansplaining to Jesse?
That’s interesting. There are still a fair number of dudes married w/ kids, but “stepping out” as it were? I thought that would have been largely a relic of a bygone age when being gay was much more publicly frowned upon than now.
I’ve seen it for a variety of reasons, frequently older guys, but you’ll get a lot of bi guys too who are worried their spouses will think they’re gay if they’re into dudes and broads. Personally I think you should have that conversation before you embark on a lifetime commitment, but it’s not really my job to manage other people’s personal lives.
I also see a lot of people who identify as straight but just looking for uncomplicated/no strings fun and figure guys are the best option for that, but I have no way of knowing how legitimate an assessment that is, if it’s meant to make them seem more attractive for whatever reason or if it’s a massive amount of internalized-homophic self delusion.
People are really fucking weird.
and how
“Even when people are on both they’ll do a torso shot on one and a face shot on the other.”
These euphemisms are never going to end are they?
Easy fix, legalize prostitution, bam no problem.
I hear many on the job favor decriminalization
As long as people are not getting arrested over it, I don’t have a strong opinion with regards to which approach is taken.
It’s a dirty, thankless job, but someone’s gotta do it!
they should stop frequenting the cheap hookers then (and start paying for the complements)
That picture pisses me off. Friggin tuff gai meatheads.
Made me feel the same. Chickenshit badge bullies.
I’m pissed off that there isn’t an easy cheap cure for baldness yet. Seriously, what the fuck are they waiting for? Maybe Trump will get his priorities straight and make my skull great again.
How expensive is a toupee?
how convincing do you want it?
It’s not for my head, so I don’t give a shit.
The term you’re looking for is ‘merkin’, not toupee.
I thought you were somewhere near Jacksonville?
I’m old enough to remember when Anne was the hot one and Nancy was just there to shred.
That was only true for about a year…
Then Anne started eating band members… whole.
Speaking of bombs, I may have eaten too much White Castle an hour ago.
+1 too many sliders
I should have asked without the pickle, tho
Gotta eat your veggies and get some fiber to work things out.
WCs have no problem working their way out.
Please tell us you don’t have a Rand Paul low-flow toilet.
Somebody set you up the bomb.
Brain get signal.
It’s poo!
YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE MAKE YOUR TIME
I’m surprised that White Castle (and Krystal/other cheap slider joints) don’t exist across more of the US. There are none in AZ, and it’s not like they have some “never frozen” shipping time requirements that logistically limit their expansion like In and Out, which does exist here, thankfully. I’d think there’d be a market for it easily, with all the snowbirds and transplants from other states, who I’ve heard openly talk about missing them from time to time.
I mean, Five Guys popped up in a bunch of places around here, and while I think they’re OK, I don’t understand how they manage to get away with charging the prices they do. The closest Five Guys to me is right next to a decent steakhouse, where I can get a port mushroom black-and-bleu burger, along with a fully loaded baked potato, for like a buck more than I’d be spending there.
5 Guys is too expensive, you are right about that. It’s decent, but not at that price.
That burger sounds good.
There’s a restaurant next to my block that has a blue cheese on a burger on a English muffin that kicks ass
I’ve totally gone English muffin instead of bun at home with burgers. Sourdough is pretty amazing. Those nooks and crannies!!
We have a Moo-Yah’s, which is pretty good. It’s the only place I can get a reasonable facsimile of the Hardee’s “steakhouse burger”: A1 steaksauce, blue cheese crumbles, A1 steaksauce, onion straws, and A1 steaksauce, with a side of A1 steaksauce.
If you want something similar to White Castle, the South has Krystal’s.
I eat Krystal like once every two years and regret it every time.
Phrasing!
I once tweeted “I had Five Guys for lunch and my colon isn’t too happy about it”
I then claimed that Tobias Funke hacked my account.
It’s the onions.
So it looks like the current strategy for dealing with the Vault 7 Wikileaks dump is to suppress/ignore (I’ve been paying attention to the lack of coverage across various places online and lamestream media), but if it can’t be ignored, RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA. It’s seriously hysterical how many people are apparently Putin puppets. And it’s never just a little bit of “well, maybe Russia could have something to do with it”, it’s full-bore insanity every time.
This is exactly what a Russian pawn would say.
I mean, just look at my avatar. Ayn Rand was obviously a deep-cover Russian agent. Very deep-cover.
You need to photoshop it to have Ayn wearing a Matthew Lesko jacket.
The first one was such a success…
A Lefty Legend Pleads for a Return to a New Deal Ethos
Nobody was more anti-materialist, down-to-earth, blue collar than FDR.
Come to think of it, I know I mentioned this once before in the Auld Country, but it bears repeating: I had a commie prof. in college who hated FDR because he “saved capitalism”. This guy thought the US was ripe to go red due to mass unrest during the Depression & Dust Bowl, but FDR tossed just enough bones to keep the masses mystified and in thrall to the profit system.
I actually look back on that as an interesting opinion, considering how many folks here would hate on FDR for the exact opposite reasons.
If Hoover had slipped on a banana peel the day after his inauguration and spent the next four years in a coma, then there would have been no FDR.
Commies are the banana peels of humanity.
define “capitalism”, and “save”. and imagine i asked that in a bill clinton voice.
I’m convinced that FDR’s popularity was really just from repealing prohibition. You really can’t underestimate that one.
He also cheerfully lied over and over again, and not even in the modern “throw out Third Way pabulum and leave plenty of exits and moderate sounding things but once you get in power show your true colors.”
No I mean like FDR literally ran to the economic right of Hoover. He blasted Hoover for his runaway deficit spending, his socialist programs, his assault on capitalism. No, seriously. That’s how FDR ran in 1932.
Then of course in 1940 he was going to keep us out of war, except while he was campaigning he was working as hard as he could to maneuver the US into the war. Again, literally lying directly to the American people and not in a “definition of is” way or a “certain point of view” way.
If you can find a prog that actually knows history, they are essentially forced to admit that FDR was just a straight up Machiavelli who didn’t have anything at all in the way of principles or honesty, but his goals were good so that’s totes ok.
so it makes sense that he could like stalin and mussolini.
“This guy thought the US was ripe to go red due to mass unrest during the Depression & Dust Bowl, but FDR tossed just enough bones to keep the masses mystified and in thrall to the profit system”
For a while, that has been the interpretation in US history textbooks. Once it became obvious to historians that the New Deal did not “solve” the Great Depression, the new interpretation was that by showing he cared, FDR prevented the US from going down the road to fascism or communism. While I have not read it, apparently Amity Shlaes The Forgotten Man debunks this too.
Hmm, so apparently I’m either screwing up HTML tags or they work differently here?
Let me guess: Use strong instead of b and em instead of i for italics.
Or install the monocle extension linked up above.
WP strictly adheres to the deprecation of b and i you’re using strong and em instead now.
Then there’ll be complaints about how it was easier to type b and i and this is dumb and all that, but it’s WP and not us and everyone has already made those comments, which saves you time.
OK, thanks. I should, however, point out that both of your posts, helpful as they seem to be could have been written in Mandarin. I’m not a Luddite but I’m on a learning curve (not meant to be a criticism of the new methodology, just an observation on my own ignorance).
I’ll decode Jesse a little bit.
First, the folks who set the HTML standard have marked the [b] and [i] tags as obsolete. Their reasoning for doing so isn’t really germane. WordPress (the infrastructure glibertarians.com is built on) adheres to the new standard (with the [b] and [i] tags obsoleted), but not every website needs to. Thus why those tags work on TSTSNBN, but not here. Here [strong] == [b] and [em] == [i]. Or you can download Monocle and have buttons like in Reasonable/Greasonable/fascr
Thanks. Do the other tags (blockquote, etc.) work or is there a complete new list.
Also, is Monocle an addon, plugin?
The tags that I know work are [strike] (strikethrough) [strong] (bold) [em] (italics) [blockquote] and [a] (link). You can do bulletpoint, but I’m not sure what the tag for that is off the top of my head.
Monocle is technically a “userscript.” Essentially it’s a less-sophisticated browser extension. There’s a link you can click from the right column of the main glibertarians page that has more info, install instructions, etc.
Sweet! Thanks!
Is Fascism characterizing by jinogistic nationalism, state funded propaganda, heavy handed regulation and control of the economy, foreign wars, and putting ethnic minorities in camps?
Hah! Actually, they often reference the 1933 “Business Plot.”
Which was never a real thing, it was a creation of the Left to whip up public support and silence critic. Basically the 1934 version of “ZOMG RUSSIAN HACKERS HACKED OUR ELECTION!!!”
I agree it wasn’t real. There were, of course, a decent number of fascists and fascist sympathizers in the US.
My main point was simply that historians are reduced to arguing that the New Deal blunted revolutionary efforts since the old argument that it “solved” the GD can no longer be sustained. Schlaes, apparently, debunks even that.
I only got about 75 pages into the book. One of the downsides to eBooks is that I will sometimes switch to a different book and never get back to the one I was reading before.
That seems less than optimal.
It’s strange how things like the CCC or WPA get whitewashed as jobs programs when they involved unprecedented regimentation of their participants’ private lives.
Eh, at least a bunch of those cabins and trails and highways are still in use today. Socialists back then were actually interested in using stolen wealth to build shit. SLD applies of course.
Yeah, now we can’t even build things even though that process would involve graft and waste, because Gaia worship has become the preeminent religion of the modern age.
One thing that a lot of proggies love to gloss over or ignore is that many of FDR’s programs failed very quickly and were allowed to do so. With the modern tactic of creeping socialism, both the left and right never roll back entitlements. Programs don’t die, they just get put on life support and become zombies and continue to shamble about and eat taxpayer dollars as well as proggy brains.
Wait without materialism and elitism what is left in the modern left?
denial?
to resist the temptations of greed, materialism and elitism
Then don’t go into government.
Wrecked.
International Women’s Day: Who was Clara Zetkin?
All these stupid *days* are rooted in socialism and usually organized by the whack jobs.
Is that what you do?
Oh I whack alright.
I was wondering why your avatar’s right arm was longer.
It’s paralyzed!
/runs off with left arm in face crying.
Former hand model?
Oh so you call it the stranger, eh?
Marxism controls political movements? Say it ain’t so!
“They also want the same privileges when pretending to be Johns.”
All they need for a conviction is an agreement to have sex for money. So how in the fuck are they justifying this?
Had to see how good she is to know for sure she’s a professional. Also cop’s wife does not do anal. What’s he supposed to do?
cop’s wife does not do anal
Monstrous
Because fuck you, that’s why.
Cate Blanchett: My Moral Compass ‘Is In My Vagina’
sounds like a terrible place to store it.
She should get it out before it gets infected
So, so many men who have used their dicks for a moral compass have ended up regretting it. Just because its pointing at her doesn’t mean its moral.
The best response I’ve seen to this article today.
I want to share that on the facebook, but I’m apolitical over there and fearful of consequences. Even in the age of Trump I am an inferior shitlord.
Yeah, when I think of kindness, and humanity, the first thing I think of is poon.
Someone in the morning links had a link to this story where one of the commenters pasted a picture of Christopher Walken with the Pulp Fiction watch.
Pssst. Just two comments up from yours. 🙂
Dammit. Why isn’t there realtime comments? I can’t keep hitting reload while I’m replying.
*cough*Monocle*cough*
You kids and your excuse destroying tools. Besides, I’m on a phone today due to travel.
Given that probably everyone is using monocle, is there a reason we couldn’t just have the script put on the site? Javascript isn’t exactly a security threat (cross site scripting attacks notwithstanding).
I’m not.
Don’t make assumptions that we all blindly install third-party software into our browsers.
I’m not talking about installing it. I’m talking about integrating it into the site as a feature.
I’m not, either.
Uncivil Servant finds a way to blandly browse the internet, news at 11. /Brian Williams
Also, I kinda take exception to the “blindly” part too.
If you know enough to worry about javascript extension attacks, you probably know enough to skim the 200 lines of code in monocle and see that there isn’t anything scary in it (and if there were, it’s easy enough to edit out).
What a crummy complaint. No wonder Uncivil doesn’t like anything.
you probably know enough to skim the 200 lines of code in monocle and see that there isn’t anything scary in it
It’s approaching 1000 lines now, but most of it is because I’m too lazy to go in and clean it up. A solid 500 lines are copypasta of some function I got working but didn’t go back and generalize so that I could call it from other contexts.
Also, people are welcome to contribute to the project if they want. The only rules are 1) don’t break stuff; and 2) give features a “switch” so that users can turn them on/off.
Most of it could be integrated, but realtime comments are just hacked together on the client side. There are much better ways to do that on the server side (AJAX).
The problem with doing stuff on the server side is that you have to set up infrastructure to store and handle viewing preferences for each user. With monocle, it’s stored locally, so SP doesn’t have to waste her time writing code to manage look and feel stuff.
Also, some of the features have been implemented.
Yeah, AJAXing this would be wonderful. I’m a long-time web dev, so none of it is news to me.
Even once wrote a site that I used hashing to create the tiniest possible JSON update responses (compressed as well). I was considering squeezing it even further by compacting flags into bitfields but was a bit lazy and decided against going to the trouble. The whole goal was to create a site that could be updated lightning-fast at the client and only sip bandwidth to keep it up to date. Worked pretty well.
I’ve run into the point with Monocle that it needs to be converted from a user script to an extension. If people want WYSIWYG commenting, I need to be able to host some files locally. I’ve been running a dev version of Monocle with WYSIWYG implemented in the userscript and it drags like a Pinto at a tractor pull.
Anyway, I’m not looking forward to that conversion, but when I work up the interest to do so, I’ll also do a cleanup of the existing functionality. 90% of monocle could be done in a stylesheet, which would probably make it 10x faster.
I’m a former telecom engineer, so I don’t have a great feel for the web dev technologies. I was more focused on making sure video packets were ending up at the right place, and other people made my command line functions into pretty buttons.
Monocle rocks, thanks again.
Glad you like it! Hopefully it’ll become more functional over time. There’s some cool stuff yet to do.
Testing something.
It’s a rusty compass.
The missus is in Germany and reports Hogan’s Heroes is on the tv, dubbed in German.
It is actually rather popular there.
Marxism and other forms of socialism are popular on American campuses, so I can see how that might work. Or the Germans all identify with Fraulein Helga and others working with Hogan.
or they just did a good job in finding substitute humor and the german version is still funny to germans
i have not figured out what the germans will laugh at.
Scheißeporn.
Dinner for One?
Apparently my wife speaking German, too.
Klink is awesome
Tinder has a new service that matches rich people to “hyper-attractive/upwardly affluent types.”
While I don’t think I fit their user profile, this reminded me that Scarlett Johanssen is getting divorced. Back on the market. I am pretty sure I have a shot.
I’m not sure sitting in a tree by her house with a tranquilizer gun counts as “having a shot”.
i recommend sending dick picks to her agent
dick picks
dick pics unless westernsloper is sending a list of his top five dicks.
/dickpicologist
a list of his top five dicks
How many dicks does westernsloper have?
I dunno. This guy has two (link NSFW). Maybe westernsloper has some kind of plenariadickitis. Am I westernsloper’s dick keeper?
I hear nipple shots are in these days.
Tried that. No joy. I am now going to send chocolates with a Polaroid in the box. Ya know, something classy. As to having more than one dick, that sounds a bit of a hassle. I only have two hands. How would one operate the mouse?
Savage.
We talked about Odeh earlier in the day. I forget which thread though.
Breitbart is going to get a bit larger audience, I’m guessing. The way the article is written seems designed specifically to trigger the fuck out of them. I approve.
I really like that tab that speeds you directly to the top of the page. Can we get one that takes us to the bottom of the page, as well?
Can’t just hit the “end” button on your keyboard?
(I presume you’re on your smartphone.)
Shit, I thought that was threaded.
The one place threading can have a problem is if you’re responding to the last comment and it’s a top-level comment.
“top-level comment.”
Well, that leaves me out. I never have those?
“One weird trick to lightning scroll a webpage”
Ullr smiles on the Tahoe Basin.
Hey DoomCo? How’s it in your parts? Monday was utterly fresh and having spent the previous week in the midwest I suddenly remembered why I tolerate this state. The last storm came in clipper bands that dropped the driest powder I have ever skied in the Sierras. Unreal blower. If you have the means I highly recommend it.
Now I know how Sonny Bono died.
Pretty much. The secret is to be the correct amount of drunk and to focus on the spaces between the trees.
you will go where your eyes point. works in driving and skiing.
I love tree skiing. coming from Vermont, where that isn’t really a thing, we duck into tree sections here no one thinks is skiable.
Yup, ice coast tree skiing is way tighter. At Sierra the tree runs feel fairly wide open to me. Lots of zoom-room.
It’s nice. I really like the open glades here, Glade 17 at copper is fantastic. People say it’s not open enough and we laugh. I lost a sleeve to a flannel i was skiing in my first year here, dipping into some really tight trees. Gave me a decent scrape on my arm.
It is a little dangerous, and I have been slowing down when i get to trees now.
Less graceful tree moment from last year.
+1 positive ocular response
I wish I did right now, but I’m doing some odd jobs at the moment to get rent. I upped and left my real job to try to get myself programming.
“Disgusting!”- nice, that pow looks great. It’s been good here, but we had a warm bit recently. No real pow of late.
Still plenty of time.
This is the best I’ve had it since I lived in a mountain town. I’m going to be just maintaining my day job and try for a minimum of 10 more days.
well keep filming, I’m jealous and need to ski vicariously through you.
WHAT IS GOING ON IN CL?
BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHA FUCK PSG
(actually I don’t care either way. I just think this is funny)
this is like a foreign language to me.
I would laugh too if I wasn’t so stunned.
I actually like Barca because of Luis Suarez (Liverpool fan, will always love him)
Didn’t think they had the slightest chance to come back after that first leg.
Suarez the vampire?
Oh so this is a foreign language, ok, moving on.
Eh, I can definitely do without Suarez, but it is hard to hate Messi. Plus PSG is French, so fuck them.
Wow. You’d think they were playing a Ligue 2 team.
Orlando won Sunday, but they lost Kaka for a while. Next couple months will be interesting.
What else is new? Suarez dives, Barca gets a call.
But seriously. PSG…close it out.
Worse diver: Suárez, or Robben?
Busquets.
They’re the unholy trinity.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Wife on strike?
CPA just above me is thinking the same thing.
What is CL?
•Casual Libertarian?
•Caucasian Lover?
•Colored Lipstick?
Cleveland?
Craig’s List?
Nice.
Championship League.
They’re talking about lame ass fake football
The other kind is lame too.
ncaaf is great
whats up?
A preposition.
+4 Non Blondes
Writing techno music?
To translate CPA and Ted S’s posts into American:
[Sorry for anyone I’m about to spoil]
In the Champions League Round of 16, Paris St.-Germain beat Barcelona 5-1 in the first leg of a two legged match. They aggregate the scores after two games to determine the winner.
Barcelona just won the second leg 6-1, scoring 3 goals within the last 5 minutes.
If that’s not a bettor’s dive, I don’t know what is.
I doubt it. Betting scandals in soccer happen in the lower leagues where the players are making peanuts.
oh wow. another upset comeback! warriors, clinton, the falcons. now this.
Wait, the first leg was 4-0. It was Arsenal that lost 5-1 in the first leg. Then they lost 5-1 again.
And they needed the sixth goal because otherwise PSG would have gone through on the away goals rule.
Barcelona wanted to be as cool as the Patriots.
If you want something similar to White Castle
To be honest, I don’t.
Some guy opened a Steak n Shake in Billings, and it went out of business. How totally fucking incompetent do you have to be to run a Steak n Shake into the ground?
I heard of this guy who once ran a casino in Atlantic City into the ground. How can you bankrupt a casino?
I wonder what ever happened to him
I heard he had to take a major pay cut for his next job.
That’s got to be a kick in the pants
“Be honest?”
Have a trio of your top management die in a plane crash and personally lose interest.
Have you ever been to Billings…? Because I have to say, based on my experiences at that very Steak n Shake, RIP.
that bad, huh?
Well, it was just weird. Like some kind of hybrid restaurant where I’m not sure what’s going on. We walked up to a register to order, then someone showed us to a table, they brought us our food, and left a bill there that we had to take back up to the register to pay.
Like, make up your mind Steak n Shake–am I supposed to serve myself or be served?
Ohhh man. That is just old school diner style.
Our SnS is that way and Shoney’s and Denny’s used to be that way.
You would not enjoy Hopdoddy then. It’s like that, but not quite like that, and nobody knows what they’re doing ever.
It was weird and I didn’t like it! Welcome to Billings–where we fear change!
Also, neither their steaks nor shakes were that great, and I know what I’m talking about.
mmmmmmmm Hopdoddy
One of our commenters used to work there. They pour some stiff margaritas.
One down the street from us has the worst service of any restaurant I’ve ever been to.
Doesn’t White Castle sell their sliders in the grocery store, too?
*vomits in mouth*
Yeah, my midwestern-origin relatives buy those to assuage their cravings, but, uh, a frozen microwaved slider is not my idea of a good time. Things of that nature should be eaten hot, fresh, and while drunk.
But, yeah, clearly there’s a market because they’re sold in all the grocery stores around here, so I don’t understand why the actual restaurants aren’t. It’s not exactly a high-overhead haute cousine endeavor.
From the NYT coverage of the “Day Without Women”
“I used to list so many things on a sign,” said Ms. Wood, a stay-at-home mother who stood with her 4-year-old daughter, Charlie, on her shoulders. “Now I have so many concerns I just have a sign that says ‘RESIST.’”
YOU GO GIRL!
You might *think* she’s a simple-minded person with a simple-minded sign, but in fact it’s all Very Complicated.
The Telegraph’s live blog of Barcelona completing the comeback
arglebargle
Cops make their case here.
Where’s Fusionist when we need him?
Body of 89-year-old Johnstown, NY man found in suitcase in Arkansas
Obviously, the guy who transported the body is under arrest.
Oh, I get it.
This response was pretty circumcised coming from you.
Circumscribed. I meant circumscribed. 😉
Cut it out.
Nip it in the bud, Eddie.
Just trying to pour mohel on troubled waters.
via GIPHY
opportunity missed.
Everyone’s getting snippy today.
Joey!
Technically, you cut it off, not out.
What’s the libertarian stance on government owned parking meters? North Dakota is poised to end it’s only-one-in-the-nation ban on parking meters.
meh? At the very least, way down the list of shit we should worry about.
I never said we should worry about it. I thought maybe it would be interesting to some people that the state bans parking meters. Obviously you don’t find it interesting. meh
Wasn’t trying to be a dick (I seldom have to try), just that as far as state infringements on liberty go, we can wait on this one until the US is 40% libertarian and 40% an-cap.
Reading further, I misread the intention and the point of the article. mea tulpa
Ha-ha. No worries.
Spoken like a man who has never had to deal with the petty tyranny of a meter maid.
Standing by a parking meter
When I caught a glimpse of Rita
Filling in a ticket in her little white book
In a cap she looked much older
And the bag across her shoulder
Made her look a little like a military man
Correction; the ban is on city owned parking meters, but of course the state can still have them.
Anyway, it contains some world class government derp:
I think it’s the 100 extra pounds and having a donut in one hand causing the injuries, really.
Dunno how much I care about the “government-owned” bit, but the idea is sound enough. Introduce a market mechanic to avoid problems with congested parking.
Towing companies, on the other hand, are operated by people with lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes. I just want to shove SCUBA tanks in their mouths and shoot the damned things.
Yeah, I can’t really decide what to think about it. Considering parking seems to be an issue in some of the downtown areas, maybe they are necessary.
“Once it’s hooked up, you pay the piper.” /Tow truck driver who has trouble paying for a winch line when his current one is so damaged it’ll kill somebody. (Sorry/not sorry for the personal rant)
Being bacon means never having to say “I’m sorry”.
And also being magic helps
🙂
+1 Lincoln Towing
Cool Hand Luke was a libertarian hero.
Speaking of Scientology, I recommend the ‘Going Clear’ documentary on it.
Here’s ex-Scientologists talking about Xenu.
Warrior Princess?
That was not the musical Luke Skywalker I am familiar with
That video isn’t banned in the USA?
This video is banned in the USA
File Under = What’s The Matter With Kansas
Kansas Will Not Pass New Legislation in Knee-Jerk Response to Single Incident of Yokel-on-Darkie Violence: proof of irredeemable racism
They really need to consider a broader law…a law against shooting people in bars without justification.
/sarc
You said “broader” on womyn’s day. How. Dare. You.
That would be funnier if I hadn’t actually encountered that sort of thing in real life.
Or maybe that makes it funnier.
The best comedy always has a kernel of truth.
I mean, that fuckhead is going to die with a needle in his arm. What do the SJWs want? Drawing and quartering? Burning at the stake? These progs seem to think that the dumb racist bigots in Kansas are gonna slap this nutjob on the back and tell him “way to kill dem Mooselimbs.”
Like, there are probably prosecutors fighting each other in the office over who gets to try this case.
Right? But no murdering someone isn’t heinous enough! We have to give em the ol razzle dazzle.
What are you crying about?
Nothing revolutionary was required. The companies can meet their targets by adopting technologies already available or well within reach, like advanced transmissions and turbocharging, or by improving vehicle aerodynamics. The standards don’t require a dramatic shift to electric vehicles but depend overwhelmingly on improvements to traditional internal combustion engines.
———
Above all, we believed that cost-effective technologies were available to improve vehicle efficiency at a reasonable cost to consumers and that the domestic auto industry, stagnant in 2009, would benefit from being prodded to innovate.
Yes, of course; a teensy tweak here, a minor adjustment there, shave a little more (plenty left, at the margin) off the ol’ coefficient of drag, maybe put some skinnier, harder tires on, and, presto! A fleet average in excess of 50mpg! All quite doable.
But no. Trump and those bastard car makers are going to destroy yet another part of the Obama legacy.
I bet it’s because Trump’s Russian puppetmasters want to sell more filthy petroleum distillates.
“petroleum distillates”
That would make a good band name.
Look if they aren’t being regulated they might just find a way to do it.
Petroleum distillates are like crack to chemists.
Don’t want to listen to reason? How about threats?
And if the Trump administration tries to significantly weaken the rules, California will withdraw its consent and enforce its own higher standards using its waiver, which is valid to 2025. Should the E.P.A. try to revoke the waiver prematurely, California will, without question, sue.
Once California has seceded, they can go into the car and truck business for themselves. I’m sure they will be at the forefront of sales in no time.
Experts debate femimism
(contains autoplay)
Someone needs to explain the concept of “Arbitrage” to NYC police
They seem to think the cause of their problem is that Virgina law is “too loose” rather than their own being “too strict”
It might be worth pointing out that NY has some of the lowest gun-crime in the nation, not because of the gun laws, but just because criminals have never been particularly shooty with one another as much as in other places. They jump to credit their gun laws, and stop-+-frisk, but the low rate of shootings was actually true even when the crime rate was higher and the police were too busy just being corrupt to bother frisking people.
Jessica Valenti in the Guardian: Don’t use feminism to justify racist immigration policies (like Hitler did)
Huh, Stalin used agitprop campaigns to smear groups of people he didn’t like with insinuations about their motives. And Stalin killed far more people. How ’bout your part in doing something just like that, Valenti?
What more could you want?
Some thiccnesss?
j/k. Not really a thicc aficionado, but the Thicc Thursday posts and comments are a hoot.
Can only moderators post images?
I’m not fiending to do so; i’m just curious why some people seem able to.
Yes. I’m not sure the specifics but WP (or our current settings for it) give commenters a more limited html toolbox than moderators. Trashy graciously incorporated the target tag for link creation, but it gets stripped out at posting from your comments (but is a dream for ours). SP is aware of it and prefers the target tag, but it’s a lowish priority right now.
Also the mods get chided for doing in-line images because it slows down site loading for everyone as it needs to be re-pulled from the other site with each refresh.
Trashy graciously incorporated the target tag for link creation, but it gets stripped out at posting from your comments
I just added the code to make the current version of Monocle add target=”_blank” to all comment links.
To be clear, it has added it to the [a] tag for a while. Now it adds it to everybody else’s links so that you can just click the link and open it in a new tab.
Right, but weren’t you finding that WP stripped it out when you posted or does it work for you?
I never did any chiding myself
I shall make sure to chide more in the future
You won’t believe who Trump reminds this writer of!
That’s original. This man has a job waiting for him at the New York Times.
“Are we going to do something and change the world and make it a better world, or are we going to keep on talking about the past?”
“No, no, Ashley Judd said we should admire *nasty* women.”
Like these?
The want to “change the world” is a quick and easy identifier of people whose lives are a mess. I’ve never met a happy person out to change the world. Most of the happy people are either off enjoying life or focused on providing something of worth to people.
I was working on getting all the cars titled/registered after moving to VA and noticed that it was marginally more work to get a concealed carry permit here. In TX you were required to have range time and the like. Here in VA, you can take an online hunters education course and drop the paperwork off at the local courthouse. Literally 3 hours after I had the crazy idea to look up the concealed carry requirements, I had everything ready to go.
Nice! That’s similar to the process here in Montana.
I’m surprised Texas requires range time and such.
As I’m sure you know, firearms laws come from Jim Crow. They were always on the books, they were just only enforced on blacks (sometimes poor whites too). Texas still has a few snippets of laws which were in the bad old days used to keep the undesirables from being armed, but now just get in everyone’s way.
Yup, there’s a good amount of stealthy judo spirit in the Assembly. They were not able to get constitutional carry (and most likely never will, barring a draining of the swamp of DC) but they slipped in the bit about an online class being good enough, so now getting a VA CCW is almost as easy as constitutional carry.
I’m going to get mine for colorado, but Boulder County is probably the worst for it.
I miss VT. “Oh, you have a handgun? go for it.”
When my family moved there, dad called the sheriff and asked what he should do with his guns. The man on the other end laughed. “put em in a closet?”
Just purchased Anno 1701 A.D..
It’s on sale at gog.com
104 comments on the first Links posting…and now this: 350+
Way to go, Glibs!
We’ve also hit 500, haven’t we?
I think we have. I was just being humble (for once).
We’re moving up the Google results for “glibertarians” too. We’re on the first page now, but more is needed. Probably need to start linking here from other places to get the relevance up.
Urban Dictionary
Glibertarians support endless wars?
who knew?!
Leftists can’t articulate what their enemies actually believe; projection is the hallmark of the left, etc., etc., etc.
Hear, hear!
Yep, I’ve seen that before. I find it funny to take the term back and mold it. Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.
So I’ve been thinking about Trump’s wiretapping allegations a lot but haven’t had much chance to post. The events seem to be unfolding along an increasingly familiar arc;
1.) Trump makes some loud mouthed, boisterous claim.
2.) The media declare it laughably absurd prima facie.
3.) Some high level bureaucrat related to the matter makes some bizarrely vague statement that neither reinforces or disproves Trump’s claim.
4.) The media double down, present the bureaucrat’s statement as air tight proof of the fallacy of Trump’s claim and declare victory.
5.) Congressional Republicans distance themselves from Trump.
6.) ???
What are the odds that Trump eventually proves to be correct and truthful in this case? I have a sneaking suspicion that many Beltway media types are absolutely shitting their drawers over this very possibility right now considering how they’ve so far been hand waving away the most recent Wikileaks dump. I honestly can’t speculate how this might play out, but I must admit that I’m perversely giddy about it.
Of course the NSA wiretapped Trump; they wiretap everybody. The question should be “What did Obama know and when did he know it”, but of course the Beltway Class is running interference for Obama.
Nothing like Trump being right to make the media/left’s heads explode.
You forgot the fact that frequently the “high level bureaucrat” is an anonymous insider whose claims are accepted as undeniable gospel and skeptics are decried as rubes and Nazis.
Trump has access to actual classified data now, plus has a team of people who benefit if he succeeds. He can no lo,ger be dismissed by saying, “Forget it, it’s Trumptown”.
Mostly dead thread I guess but what the hell? Hey hey, (more) ground trips in Syria.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/03/08/marines
Looks like we really aren’t ever going to learn.
Man Congress sure voted on that declaration of war quickly.
So here’s the thing: I said it before, I’ve been reading reason online for over 12 years. I am a writer and musician from Pennsylvania who lives in Minneapolis. Unfortunately I “type like a cop”- ( i think that was how P.J. O’Rourke described my affliction.) So it is frankly not easy for me to participate in the comments section in any meaningful way. When I was 10-years-old I was tested and placed in the “gifted” program. In one breath they told my parents that I was “really smart” but because issues with letter recognition also “kinda dumb.” Anyway, I’ve noticed the posting of rock songs here can be a thing. I don’t want to steal anyone’s thunder but I think we would all be better served if I didn’t try to keep up with the threads and simply posted a song a day. Call it DAY ONE. Call it LETTER A. Call it Archers of Loaf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQC_3yOumBY
You write like a co but your rock song sounds like a punk. Keep up the songs. Thanks.
*cop
“What do you make of this?”
“Oh, I don’t know…maybe a hat or a boar or a…”
Boat
very nice.