Wednesday “Sloopy Is Running Behind This Morning” Links coming your way. Brought to you by the good people at oversleeping and alcohol.
Carter Page
In that first special election I was talking about yesterday, the republican won. Don’t know if it was a moral victory forTeam Blue or not. I only know that in things like this they use a scoreboard for a reason. The Libertarian got 2%. So at least we won’t get blamed for this one.
So even the WaPo is sure that the Obama admin spied on a close Trump adviser now. The entire article, other than that fact, is full of retardation. Tread lightly.
Big squaw got much wampum. Her look at national stage. Wage culture war on Orange Man.
Stop ruining my last name, dude!
In the latest version of “too little-too late”.
Sean Spicer must have a pretty large and calloused dick. Because he keeps stepping on it without batting an eye.
Blame this if the links were later than expected this morning.
They do a brisk business with a great many people.
I was gonna say, we’ve got a rewards card with those guys at my house.
They keep pressuring me to get the credit card, but we all know that its a total scam.
You say they can’t blame us for Kansas, but they will totally find a way to blame us. After all, libertarians are super-secret nazis.
Who’s this “Us”?
libertarians, duh. We’re like the stonecutters, but actually don’t control anything.
That is false, some of us actually control everything, but we don’t want anything to do with it.
We are a secret cabal of Koch fueled, ultra-libertarians who have their fingers on all the levers of control.
Government: “What do we do about the Economy?”
Cabal: “Fuck off, Slaver! Just leave it (and us) alone! It’ll work itself out.”
It seems to me that the purpose of the Democrat party these days is to prove that money alone can’t buy elections.
You’d think that eventually their idiot donors would get tired of getting no return on their money.
You would also think that they would be a bit more careful about prognosticating that Shrill Old White Lady with Credibility Issues + Lots of Money = SURE WIN!
The progressives are like the Bourbons, they forget nothing and have learned nothing.
Particularly since Fauxcahontas isn’t overwhelmingly popular even in the People’s Democratic Republic of Massachusetts.
I can’t understand why that would be. She’s got all the policy smarts of Bernie Sanders and all the charm and charisma of Hillary Clinton.
This page has an election by election precinct map. Little islands of blue shrinking to nothing over time. The Democrats are over as a national party.
I wouldn’t say that anymore than the Republicans were done in 2008. The party in power has a way of overreaching and fucking up which results in electoral failure. Just another swing of the pendulum.
Progressivism is done. The Democrats, as a party, will survive, but the whole identity politics, rich white liberal nanny statism is over. It will retire to the trash bin of history
I would have said it that way, but the national party shows no sign of veering in a different direction. They seem hell-bent on sticking with an identity politics social agenda and a straight-up Marxist economic platform. The cliff is right in front of them and they are hitting the gas.
Don’t worry, the Democratic Party will get its Donald Trump sooner or later.
See if thought DT was the Republican Obama…
Nah. We thought that decades ago. It’s like herpes. You think it is gone but it festers under the surface, hidden. Some future generation with selective memory will bring it back.
Yup. The idea of benefitting off of others through “redistribution” or “social Justice” or “economic justice” or any of the other “free shit” bullshit is just too tempting. Who robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the vote of Paul.
This shit is appealing because taking from the productive is always easier than producing your own. The collectivist idiocy will never die, but come back into favor with people lacking either direct experience with it or bamboozled into thinking the new top men will be the ones to make it work. The saying “Hell on earth” was probably coined to express the way this stuff always plays out.
I think similar thoughts were voiced about communism…
But that’s all because of racist voter ID laws. And gerrymandering. And the Russians.
-Democrat Party spokesmodel.
Gerrymandering Racist Russians.
Is Alaska the only state where the rural part is blue?
New Mexico too. But that’s because the Indians never leave the Team Blue reservation.
I kind of assumed the same for Alaska. “Native” people getting free stuff.
Partly true, but northern NM Hispanics vote democrat in block, because tradition, or something.
I know why it’s that way. Just a curious exception
Some rural parts of the Deep South and Southern Appalachia are blue. Lots of precincts with black majorities + 200ish years of Democrat control.
Hell, my home county in Kentucky didn’t go red until 2004 and the local elections are still literally all about the Democratic primaries; as in, whoever wins in May has run unopposed for decades.
A normal local KY democrat is a lot further to the right than a normal MA republican.
If you ignore Lou-ah-vuhle and Lex/Frankfort
There are some Team Red’s in Lex, they just keep quiet. I actually know a decent amount of libertarians here too.
If you ever want to grab a beer, let me know. Goes for anyone here living in Lexington. Don’t have many opportunities to discuss politics in my work/social circles
True, but Kentucky and the rest of the South have voted for plenty of FDR democrats just because they had (D) next to their name.
I know everyone talks about Nixon and Reagan flipping the South, but for quite a few parts, they remained on the national Democrat reservation up until very recently.
That sounds good, I’m a little strapped for cash at the moment but when I’m flush again I’ll let you know.
I was in college in the early 90s and my Texas roommate told me that dyed-in-the-wool Southern conservatives voted Democrat because of Lincoln. So, yeah, pretty recent shift.
My grandpa always voted blue, even though he hated blacks and loved guns. kept a mini bust of FDR on his desk for years.
I lived in Pulaski County during jr. high and high school and it was solidly Republican back then. No idea if that is still true.
Probably is. There are definitely pockets of traditional Republican support. Oddly enough, Eastern Kentucky usually has the strongest Democrat AND Republican footholds. Democrats usually because of FDR and Kennedy and Republicans because of the strong Whig support leading up the Civil War
Just for reference, my county has 4,429 registered Democrats and 679 registered Republicans. 30 years ago (roughly the same population) I bet there were fewer than 100 Republicans
I haven’t been back to Kentucky since I graduated from college and still miss the place.
I have to believe that all these critters have figured out that there is some way you can convert the unspent campaign money into their own personal slush fund. The Kansas guy raised a ton of money. The guy in GA has raised millions.
They must have looked at Jill Stein’s recount efforts and seen how much money they could grift from the urban rubes in blue and decided to get in on the gravy train.
So we’ve joked about it. Parodying the gun-grabbers language to describe cars and trucks which seem to be this season’s favorite weapon of the exploding Mohammeds.
Well jokes over. Hit the translate button because Eva is serious – time for tougher car regulations and ban them from inner cities.
Or, they could, you know, admit that they have a problem with migrants.
And by “migrants” we don’t mean Coptic Christians.
Who compose less than 1% of all migrants admitted into the US even though they, and other religious minorities in the Middle East, face genocide. The moral clarity of the Left
I understand how traumatic emigrating must be but, man, why would any Copts stay in Egypt any longer?
It’s hard for them to emigrate. Even harder for Christians in Syria and Iraq
http://www.newsweek.com/us-bars-christian-not-muslim-refugees-syria-497494
That would be racist. So they need to bring in more rapists, then get rid of the cars because they’re sexist.
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/03/10/sweden-car-feminism-driven-mostly-men/
Scandanavia has a tradition of migration itself. Their migrants were called vikings. Increased population and strife in the homeland inspired many of them to seek the good life elsewhere.
Migrants…..*facepalm*
Immigration is totes the same as emigration.
For the person moving – it is.
Ugh, well that was just a matter of time. The question now is, which cars get banned first? Military style assault hummers? Fully automatic AWD Trucks? Will all cars be required to be nerf covered?
My little Nissan Versa has a lot of get-up-and-go, but is small enough to easily conceal in traffic or parking lot. I bet they’ll be banned first.
Good point, and mufflers obviously need to be heavily regulated as well. No one needs a silenced car
Except for electric cars. Those are even quieter. Surely you don’t want to rape Mother Earth by banning prius’?
Truly a proggish conundrum
Well except cops they will need an exemption to allow them to have silent cars because they are the king’s men after all.
Loud pipes save lives.
As a fellow Versa driver, they ARE surprisingly peppy. However, your intended victims would hear you coming a half mile away. Or maybe it’s just mine that’s noisy.
Mine gives a good soprano roar when I’m accelerating and it downshifts, but generally it’s no more noisy than any of the other little cheapos out there, like the Fit or Yaris.
Peppy?
Zero to 60 mph: 9.4-9.9 sec
Standing ¼-mile: 17.2-17.7 sec
I think I could get my 20 year old four banger lifted wrangler up to 60 that fast if there wasn’t a head wind.
Trust me, the thing is a dream to drive on the interstate. It is, in fact, quite peppy. Not sure why you would expect sports car power from a little cheap hatchback. Also, I have the 2010, which has a bigger engine.
I don’t know which model/year those numbers are for, but I know mine makes 60 in less than 9 seconds,
Sure it does…
sorry that came off as dickish…
The Versa, like many small cars, feels faster than it is.
Various magazine times have it high-8s, mid to high 9s. Which isn’t bad but even my Clubman S can – in theory – get below 7. And I wouldn’t call it a fast car.
from zeroto60times which just uses various car magazines for their times:
Nissan Versa 0 to 60 MPH and Quarter Mile Times
2006 Nissan Versa 1.8SL Compare Car 0-60 mph 9.3 | Quarter mile 16.8
2009 Nissan Versa 1.8 Compare Car 0-60 mph 8.8 | Quarter mile 16.6
2010 Nissan Versa SL Hatchback Compare Car 0-60 mph 9.0 | Quarter mile 16.9
2012 Nissan Versa SV Sedan Compare Car 0-60 mph 9.0 | Quarter mile 16.8
2014 Nissan Versa Note SV Hatchback Compare Car 0-60 mph 9.6 | Quarter mile 17.1
2015 Nissan Versa Note SR Hatchback Compare Car 0-60 mph 9.9 | Quarter mile 17.6
Cars with racing stripes or conservative bumper stickers.
I’d get more out of that if it was in a language I understood. And I can’t figure out how to translate on my iPhone.
Have you asked this guy to translate?
It’s written in Derp so you probably don’t even need to read it to know what it says.
…dafuq?
Terrorists are using cars to perpetrate attacks because guns are comparatively difficult to acquire and/or conceal. Do you, a.) figure out what you can do to encourage immigrants to assimilate into your culture, b.) restrict immigration from regions where the terrorists seem to be coming from, or c.) carefully analyse the recent attacks and conclude that the most logical causal pattern is…the driving of delivery vehicles, and ban that.
And to think that these people were one of the most powerful military forces in Europe twice in a century. Now look at them.
We need common sense car control.
Terrorists are also exploiting oxygen to make things go BOOM. If we banned oxygen they would not be able to kill, maim, and destroy with their bombs. BAN OXYGEN NOW!
The answer is
D. Make guns easier to get because they are actually far less effective terrorism tools than things that blow up.
Declining civilizations, especially when they veer leftwards, always end up setting new records in derpitude….
OMWC: Didn’t get a chance to reply on your Jewday Tuesday thread last night. I broke out the Earth Justice Hagaddah during the Seder last night. Even my ultra-liberal family members were rolling their eyes. A++ would laugh again.
Further proof that SJW bullshit is just a new religion for leftists.
To paraphrase Seinfeld, “I’m not offended as a Jew, I’m offended as a scientist.”
Okay I’ve been getting errors trying to post.
I see other people posting, so I’m going to try again.
This is only a test.
Did it work?
No, clearly my comment did not appear.
I haz a sad.
/blatant lie
Looks like SP needs to get back to work on the UCS filter.
Government employees need not be heard from.
You are auditioning for a media job?
I don’t see anything
*reports as spam*
Fake nooz!
Dammit.
Example of why the oxford comma should be used.
From the NYT: “Buckley excommunicated the John Birch Society, anti-semites and supporters of the hyperindividualist Ayn Rand, and his cohort fused the diverse school..”
What is implied from this sentence that the average New York Times reader would not be able to parse through?
hyperindividualism is bad mkay? Similar to that Hitler fella
Right. The NYT and its readership would obviously just assume Ayn Rand and everyone to the right of Joseph Stalin must be anti-semites and the sort. This whole sentence, due to its lack of an oxford comma, makes it seem as if the John Birch Society was filled with anti-semites and Ayn Rand followers.
I will take my tweed jacket and retire now. Good day, sir
I’m tired, so maybe that’s why i don’t get it, but, that whole sentence doesn’t make any sense to me.
Original version:
“Buckley excommunicated the John Birch Society, anti-semites and supporters of the hyperindividualist Ayn Rand, and his cohort fused the diverse school..”
With Oxford comma
“Buckley excommunicated the John Birch Society, anti-semites, and supporters of the hyperindividualist Ayn Rand, and his cohort fused the diverse school..”
The comma delineates that ‘anti-semites’ and ‘supporters of the hyperindividualist Ayn Rand’ does not refer back to the ‘John Birch Society’
Ok, after waking up, it all makes sense now. Thanks.
To me this is more an example of why semicolons should be used at the end of lists.
How does one define Hitler’s own people? Austrians? Blond white Germans? Was he secretly a jew? Whoever they are he probably did something to some of them.
Can we just agree that Spicer is an idiot that has no business managing PR for a local dry cleaner, let alone be working as Press Secretary for the President of the United States?
Sadly no matter the barrage of idiocy and worthlessness most people don’t get the message that there should be less power in these positions who are repeatedly occupied by these people.
True dat. Went a couple of rounds with the missus regarding idiots in government, and we actually agreed that the more power invested in government the more risk that it would be misused. Sadly, her conclusion was that someone was going to take it anyway, so it’d be better if it was someone who she agreed with. That seems to be a common thread amongst people who favor a strong state.
That and an inability to think coherently and dispassionately about politics. That’s a big one.
I have had similar discussions with friends and derpbook associates, I can usually pull them to ‘too much power concentrated too much is bad” but as soon as the thought of reducing their own teams power comes up the shrivel away like Dracula from the sun.
Here is this gem again ;
“When you are trying to decide how much power government should have think of that power in the hands of the most depraved person imaginable because sooner or later that power is going to be in the hands of the most depraved person imaginable.”
– my wife
There is no ‘risk’ that it will be misused. It is a certainty.
And yet, so many people refuse to accept/understand this. When Trump issued his exec order on immigration, one of my prog-academic friends was literally depressed. I told her, well, Obama issued a whole bunch of executive orders too. Her response? “Oh, I have no problem with executive orders, just the content of this one.” *sigh*
Extrapolation: I suspect politics will be become more vicious and divisive in the coming years since there is not a significant group of Americans who want to rein in government power. The left has sought to centralize power for decades and way too many Republicans have decided they have to join in. Given the expansion of executive power, most people will decide that they only way they can protect themselves is to grab power and use it against their opponents.
It’s gonna get real late roman republic up in here.
Top Men. We gotta have the right ones.
If only ‘top men’ meant ‘hanging from the top of a pole’.
That being said, this whole “controversy” is bullshit. Everyone knows damn well Spicer was talking about Hitler never using chemical weapons against cities and other targets to prosecute the war against the Allies. But let’s all pretend he was ignorant or dismissive of the Holocaust, because TEAM!
Oh, I agree. But it was such a stupid thing to say in terms of the way he said it. There was no good that could’ve come out of saying that.
I mean, if you want to say it, you talk about how chemical weapons haven’t been used on the battlefield since World War I, and how despite their other atrocities, even Germany and Japan didn’t use chemical weapons on the battlefield during World War II. You get your message across and nobody can twist it (although I’m sure they’d try).
It is an interesting question. Hitler was a WWI vet and had been in battles where gas was used. It seems significant to me that he didn’t use gas against military targets. He only used it in the death camps against undesirables.
Is this similar to the Frogs banning the .50 caliber hollow point for use against white people because that was considered inhumane?
Battlefield attacks with gas are notoriously ineffective (unless you’re one of the unfortunate victims). Hitler’s experience with gas would have been restricted to mustard gas, phosgene and chlorine, which were all more or less problematical due to poor dispersion and in the case of chlorine, ease of detection. There are many documented cases of a combination of poor targettng and wind conditions drifting the agents back onto the wrong team, but the objective of battlefield gases was to degrade a defensive position and to deny access.
The first general to requisition shells or bombs loaded with Hydrogen Cyanide would probably have been shot by his own side after the wind or an advance took his own troops thru’ that ground.
I wasn’t aware if the .50 cal hollow point ban. Frankly, if you’re hit with a 50 cal you’ve got pretty big problems no matter what the design of the bullet is.
I wouldn’t have any problems after being hit with a 50 BMG. Because I’d be dead.
Oh, and specifically, gas bombardments in a theater with highly dynamic, blitzkreig tactics are inevitably going to result in ‘friendly fire’.
Not to mention that agents that don’t break down relatively quick (making them less valuable IMO anyway) would require protective measures making their use an iffy battle strategy. Even the old commies of the USSR whom loved this shit knew that using the persistent agents likely meant massive deaths amongst their own personnel. Of course, the top men running that show really didn’t value human life other than their own much, just like the other entities in nature that practice collectivism do (bees, ants, and other such assorted creatures)
Spicer is an incompetent idiot. That said, the attempt to paint this as anti-Semitic and the mad rush to the front of the victimhood queue just pisses me off.
Use his first name! Otherwise all Spicers are tarred by his idiocy.
Isn’t UnCivilServant an anti-spicer by nature?
He better not be or he and I will need to step outside.
Fuck. I just circled back when the joke came by the second time and hit me in the head.
That’s a good one.
Ricochet. Hit me, too. Nice.
He may be. But, let’s not kid ourselves. Trump could put up a hybrid of Winston Churchill, Pericles and Cicero and the guy would still be written off as “an idiot”. Progressive journalists can’t bring themselves to acknowledge that anyone who doesn’t see the world completely the way they do might be intelligent. Doing so would destroy their carefully crafted self-image that their political views identify them as educated, sophisticated and enlightened.
Hitler’s father was an illegitimate child born to an older (42 I believe) domestic servant, which is what led to rumors that his grandfather was actually Jewish. There is, however, no evidence of that being true. The most plausible family history is that Alois Hitler’s father was a married farmer, Johann Hiedler. To protect his marriage, he had his bachelor brother (confusingly also named Johann Hiedler) assume parentage of the child.
Didn’t he write a lot specifically on the topic of who he defined as his own people?
Having gotten to thirty-eight thousand words, I sort of realized my “writing exercise” was likely going to end up a fully formed novel. As such, I decided I should just go ahead and get it ready for sale. Unforunately, the hardest thing for me to write is an effective sales blurb.
Rather than blather on about this or that failing, I’ll cut to the chase. I’d like to ask the advice of the Glibertariat on revising my draft blurb to make it more likely that a reader will look at it and go “I think I’ll give that a read”.
Here is what I have so far:
Yes, this is a generic fantasy setting with Imperial Germanic overtones. The role of the Byzantines will be played tonight by the remnant of the old Dwarf Empire, who fortunately have an ocean on the side opposite the Volkmund. (There is a point where Kord came close to going Varangian, but internal politics decapitated the Dwarf Emperor).
JRR Tolkien’s gonna sue somebody!
There’s a backlog.
Well, it’s not like Tolkien didn’t just revive the heroic epic format from the Odyssey.
It seems somewhat passive – and a little convoluted. The language is a little indirect too, and the tenses may be inconsistent. The idea, like a resume is to create questions in the reader’s mind and not to give them answers to questions they haven’t already got.
And personally, I can’t resist blurbs with good dangling ellipses.
Kord Grosz von Karststadt-Salzheim is the ward of the Graf of Ritterblume. He’s no Prince Charming; he is well trained in the arts of war just like his forefathers have been for centuries, but unlike them, his true expertise lie in the magical arts. Compelled by duty and necessity, he must reluctantly abandon his arcane studies, and prepare for war. With his ancestral lands overrun by brutal invaders who wish to exterminate his bloodline, he needs to gain some powerful allies, if he is to beat back his enemies and secure his bloodline.
Kord Grosz devotes his efforts to help a northern Princeling who he hopes will make a powerful ally, and yet the Prince of the North Tower seems unwilling to return the favor …
I like some of the recommendations, but I am forced to point out places where the revision contradicts story elements (because I didn’t have room to throw in a discussion of the whole novel)
Kord is the Prince of the North Tower. He is heir to the Furst of Karststadt.
And though he is interested in magic, he kinda sucks at it. He reads obsessively about the subject but struggles with the practical execution. One of the main themes of the story is coming to terms with the fact that his interests and aptitudes are wildly divergant.
OK – but the point is to create questions in the mind of a 12 year old who has just read a dozen other blurbs about a prince who doesn’t know he’s a prince who hatches a dragon egg and has to rely on his female bestest friend to continually save his ass because he’s a BOY.
I’m shitty at writing blurbs, but I used to write them for a really shitty college imprint.
Blurb basics 101 is “don’t *answer* anything”.
Blurb basics 102 is try to reduce ‘insider’ language where possible, unless the words themselves are really pivotal to the story, because to understand the blurb you have to violate blurb basic 101.
Blurb basics 103 is stolen from newspapers “Imagine your audience has the vocabulary, attention span and comprehension skills of a VERY average 12 year old”. As with all the best rules, break 103 sparingly for best effect. Use really unusual words like ‘eidolan’, ‘thalassic’, ‘hypothyroidism’, ‘tumescent’ etc. but avoid making the whole look like you just bought a new copy of Roget’s Thesaurus.
He’s Happy Gilmore?
Blurb basics 104 is given a choice between descriptive and evocative words, use evocative. “arcane” > “magical”, “perilous” > “dangerous”, “tome” > “book”, because like a certain former president, for the blurb, you want the audience to project their interpretation of the book’s contents from their own biases.
Hmm…
Kord Grosz von Karststadt-Salzheim, Prince of the North Tower, is the ward of the Graf of Ritterblume. Kord is no Prince Charming; he is well trained in the arts of war, but yearns to study the magical arts instead. However, a sudden invasion compels him to take up the sword, but it is clear he cannot save his land alone. So he sets out for distant lands to seek help in reclaiming his ancestral home. But Kord may find the political machinations needed to rally aid to his cause to be a greater challenge than he could have ever imagined…
I second Number.6’s suggestions. This is more direct and way easier to read. I found myself re-reading lines in the original version of the blurb to understand what it was saying.
Where is the SEX?
Tell me there’s an illustration of a zaftig Brunhilde in the North Tower.
No illustrations yet, I’m still drafting text.
*skims text for female roles*
Gisela Castor, foster sister, cameo, no dialog.
Magda von Salzheim, cousin, insufferable personality.
Frau Kirschbauer, morbidly obese merchant and bore.
Alyssa de Corval, ancient priestess barely able to walk under her own power.
There are only two more planned, an administrator at a University, and an oracle. Of these six, only the first two have the appearances to fill the role in the illustration, and none qualify as romantic interests for the narrator. (He does end up in a political marriage after the end of the novel, but that’s irrelevent)
*gasp* a story about the internal struggle of a male protagonist in a highly sex-segregated society fails the bechdel test!
Nice use of the cognate corval/corvus – is she like a raven?
Not as a character. I was trying to come up with a vaguely Francophone name to hint that she was not originally from the Volkmund, but she’s a secondary character whose main role is to deliver a benediction and nod off from time to time.
Her introduction:
Actually, de Corval’s arrival is the low point of the dinner scene. Part of me wants to post the whole darn scene, but it’s 2300 words.
Writing blurbs is my least favorite part of the book “finalizing” process. To take a novel (or novella) and summarize the entire thing into a single paragraph takes a lot of patience.
Usually best left to a credentialed guild member, if you know what’s good for your printing press, citizen.
Why not just make it up? Once someone bought your book why do you care that they are disappointed that it isn’t what you advertised. /Prog view of advertising and free markets
I want my readers to recommend the book to other readers. Giving them the wrong impression of the book’s contents does not make them inclined to do that.
/I know you were saying the same thing.
These things tend to be pretty formulaic. Start with a setup, then a crisis/problem, then a twist or hook, then close with a sales blurb.
So, setup:
Kord Grosz von Karststadt-Salzheim is not prince charming, nor does he want to be. Raised as the ward of the Graf of Ritterblume, he was well trained in the arts of war. His interest, however, lay in the arts of magic.
crisis:
As his land falls under attack from without, duty compels him to pick up a sword when the only thing he desires is to pick up a book. Needing allies to retake the lands already lost to the invaders, he sets out to find those who would fight alongside him. He finds himself fighting the impulse to set aside his blade and become lost in the study of the arcane as much as he must fight those who would see him dead.
twist/hook – This is the part that is missing. It needs to be something that piques the reader’s interest, and makes them want to find out more.
Sales blurb – This should be relatively short, even just one sentence. It’s where you close the sale with the reader and convince them this is a book they would like. So something like, “Epic in scope and at times shockingly violent, Your Book Name immerses the reader in a world of palace intrigue and deadly magic, where every choice may be the difference between life and death.” Changed to match your book, of course.
That “sales blurb” part usually causes me to put the book down and not read it.
I don’t get why it would have any other effect on other people.
(maybe that’s why I suck at marketting)
I get it, but it works, and it will also make your book come across as professionally published.
I just found a mountaineering dork’s paradise. Not pics of climbers or their badass ascents (booooring!). Data. Lots of data.
Thanks for the Link! very nice
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/11/politics/intelligence-contradicts-nunes-unmasking-claims/index.html
Good news! CNN says the whole Susan Rice story is nothing. A whole bunch of anonymous sources are telling them this. Who wouldn’t trust CNN?
Last time I saw an evening CNN show at the gym, they had this complicated chart of Trump people who know Russians, or ate borscht once. I had never heard of most of the people on the wild conspiracy chart. They have really become delusional.
My favorite thing that CNN did recently was when Eli Lake’s Bloomberg story came out identifying Susan Rice as the person in the administration ‘unmasking’ US citizens, Jim Sciutto (who use to work in the Obama administration and is now a ‘reporter’ for CNN) came out and declared that an anonymous source told him that the story was untrue. What? That doesn’t sound like the proper use of anonymous sources? He didn’t even say what proof the ‘anonymous source’ (ie. former Obama administration official) had to refute Lake’s story.
Then Rice does an interview and admits that she did ‘unmasking’. CNN is a sad joke now. It should be treated as the equivalent of Vox
And Jim Sciutto is a former coworker of Rice’s husband, Ian Cameron, when they were both at ABC. Gee, who could Sciutto’s source close to Susan Rice be?
It seems like there’s an actual place for a service something like CNN used to be: a recurring, bland newscast that repeats over and over again all day long. They should go back to doing that.
That was Headline News. Now it’s HLN, and seems to cater soccer moms with all its “missing white woman” stories.
The frustrating part of all this nonsense is that we will never know what actually happened, because the information will only be passed through people who are interested in having one view win out or the other.
Gotta love this new trend of debunking actual facts and people speaking on the record with anonymous sources.
The Guardian prints the greatest restaurant review ever written in the history of restaurant reviews
Apparently even restaurants with three Michelin stars can be shit.
I’ve always found Michelin to have rubbery taste.
I think you’re having posting problems not because of WordPress issues, but because the software is trying to save us from posts like this.
Meh. I don’t know about rubbery, but I agree that I just got tired of it.
Give it up, you two. These puns aren’t gaining any traction here.
You want us to stop retreading the same ground?
This thread is worn out and losing air.
Mr. Michelin your blow up doll?
I always confuse him with the Sta-Puft Marshmallow man.
Totally different experience IYKWIMAITTYD.
That’s when I started laughing out loud.
Gold!
For some reason I always enjoyed Guardian restaurant reviews, even though I most likely won’t ever eat in the vast majority of them. Then again the guardian can have decent culture and lifestyle articles if you ignore the abysmal politics.
I found the writing style of this review rather entertaining.
Of course I’m anti-french, so it may help that it’s playing to my biases at the same time.
That was truly awesome. I too have had the unfortunate experience of getting a sub-par meal at a high-end place that is mostly just coasting on their reputation. It really sucks when that happens.
The press pics compared to the actual meal – OMG.
And giving “the lady” the menu with no prices? Fuck that noise.
OK, which one of you is that?
This is because baked goods and desserts typically fall under a separate chef, are made in a separate station, and often made well in advance.
Well at least i’m sure everyone is an asshole now.
Best proof yet of BIGFOOT? Hunters claim video shows legendary beast
Couldn’t have been Bigfoot. None of them were raped.
Because bears have been known to do that sometimes.
ANYWAY, STEVE SMITH STAND ON THREE LEGS, SO THAT NOT STEVE SMITH.
I bet you didn’t know this is your fetish. Probably SFW.
https://youtu.be/7lVSblzukr0
*kicks Warty in the nuts*
Dear god, there goes my breakfast.
I can’t believe you guys were actually foolish enough to click on a Warty link.
I was expecting my daily dose of basement powerlifting tentacle rape. Boy, was I wrong.
‘Beauty and the Beast’ convinced me that men are terrible
So, completely made-up caricatures shape your views of reality? Sure, sounds like a plan.
Does Belle have any charter growth? Now that I’m think about it, the story really is about the Beast and Gaston…
You can’t have a female character undergo character growth in hollywood. That would imply that she was imperfect in some way.
My favorite version of Beauty and the Beast.
I don’t understand. She doesn’t like Gaston? Maybe she doesn’t understand how many eggs he eats.
No man can eat 50 eggs!
+1 Cool Hand Luke
Was Gaston natty? I’m thinking no way.
I can’t decide if this is good news or bad.
The liquor store that opened on Sunday this spring has gotten their fines and penalties greatly reduced. That is good.
The bad is that it looks like he got those by crawling to the city:
I’m going to say that I bet he mouthed a few mea culpas and they let it go.
I was going to send my councilman a note expressing my opinion that the city should do nothing to a business owner who was complying with the spirit, although not the letter, of the law and that at the end of the day, it would be the store’s workers who would suffer most. But then I didn’t bother because there’s really no point to expressing non-conformist opinions in this city.
“United CEO issues apology, calls removal ‘truly horrific'”
I’m not going to tell him to stop hitting himself.
Others are taking over for him.
United pilot on his way to flight…
The Republican won there by about 30% in November. Margin here was 8 or 9% last I saw. So it’s definitely going to be seen as a moral victory for Team Blue.
“We have the most people unemployed and able to show up on an April workday to vote”?
That’s pretty moral.
United Redeems Its Image
Italy Bans UBER In Bid To Preserve National Identity Of Never Being On Time
http://www.breakingburgh.com/italy-bans-uber-bid-preserve-national-identity-never-time/
That’s funny.
I tried to post another link from that site, but this site won’t let me.
United Airlines has gutted its customer service staff and hired all-new employees.
“Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood of New York City announced a once-in-a-lifetime Gala, 100 Years Strong: The Celebration of a Century, to be held in New York City on Tuesday, May 2. The event will honor the Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton with the Champion of the Century Award for her 40 years of service to women and girls in this country, and Shonda Rhimes with the Champion of Change Award for revolutionizing the way women and issues of reproductive health — including safe, legal abortion — are portrayed on television. ”
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/planned-parenthood-commemorates-100-years-of-care-education-and-activism-with-the-celebration-of-a-century#sthash.ZhRApvLI.dpuf
Are they going to give a tally of their body count?
Wasn’t Bill the one who was servicing the women and girls?
I bet he directed a lot of business their way.
Salesman of the Century
How was hillary a champion of women and girls?
It all boils down to Hillary supported abortion and making other people pay for it. Never mind that she did nothing else, other than smearing and attacking Bill’s victims and covering for him for half a century.
She showed girls all over the country that if you marry well enough, you can ride his coat tails straight to the halls of power.
Provided you keep covering for his mistreatment of women.
If they can afford a gala, then why do they need taxpayer funds?
ENB was not available for comment
A real cham-peen of women’s rights.\
They won’t even mention Norma McCorvey since she strayed off the plantation.
SJWednesday – Che Tshirt Edition
There is no price to high for virtue signalling
The ad on that was for Coke.
PEPSI: We made the biggest PR blunder of any major company this year.
UNITED: Hold my beer.
I LOL’d
Ditto
Pepsi’s solution to the United situation
argh
https://media.giphy.com/media/nrQ14i7MyGPYs/giphy.gif
LOL!
Is it OK to stick it in appropriators of marginalized communities?
I love the euphemism “marginalized communities”, like it’s something bad that just was inflicted on them from mysterious outside forces, and the people living there hold no responsibility for the condition of said communities.
Maybe for a one-nighter, but don’t hang around… Did you see what her mom looks like?
I bet that chick is a treat to hang out with.
Anyone wearing a che t shirt deserves to be punched right in the mouth, NAP be damned.
I have a Pinochet t-shirt in the same style that I wear around every once in awhile. Most people just think it’s Shia Lebouf.
Also, related.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39573744
So, Trump is a Russian puppet who i fucking up our relationship with Russia? Good to know he can play 5d chess like that.
How can he be both an ‘ignorant vulgarian’ and a ‘calculated Russian agent’?
The man couldn’t play 5D Hungry, Hungry Hippos, let alone chess
I think it’s like with Bush II, he was somehow an evil warmongering devil, and also an idiot. The left can’t decide if they want their villains apathetic and easily beaten or if they prefer to fight a great evil. I really think it depends on what the narrative needs at that moment.
One of the most smugly obnoxious traits of the left is their arrogant assumption that anyone with an “R” after their name is an idiot, while the “Ds” are all brilliant, because of course they are. Trump graduated from the world’s most prestigious business school and built a huge empire in the competitive and cutthroat NYC real estate business. He just might be a little bit shrewd. But no, “RETHUGLIKKKANZ R DUMB HURR DURR!”
Clearly he’s not bright, he spent decades in private industry instead of the government-academia complex. Duh.
Take it easy on them, they wrote themselves into a corner with all of the breathless RUSSIANS HACKED THE ELECTION coverage. They don’t know what to do now.
So i dont understand why the team blue loss by 7 pts is a moral victory and bad for gop.
1. Seeing how he wasnt an incumbent which typically do better since known
2. It was an odd time for an election
3. Low turnout about 55 pct less than november thus depending on who shows up makes a difference
4. Team blue guy ran as a gun owner who was against some of trumps policies
Trump had almost as many votes in the county wichita sits as these two combined in all the counties
Don’t need to think about it. Just copy/paste DNC press memo and call it a day.
A problem can only have the solution we like, because science:
“Yet even holding a public debate about finding a technological solution for climate change may be problematic, said Gernot Wagner, head of Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program. The idea of exploring a relatively simple technological solution to the problem could potentially end up deterring world leaders from making necessary reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, he said. “Of course, we understand that solar geoengineering is not the solution — it can’t be,” he said. “We have to reduce emissions. We have to mitigate. That is step one.” ”
https://www.seeker.com/earth/climate/harvard-researchers-are-preparing-to-geoengineer-the-atmosphere
I wonder if this guy wi reduce emissions
Of course not, he is one of the important people.
SJWednesday – Bonus Round – Camping So White
So if I’m reading this right, Tariq is saying “Brown people – what you find fun and spend your free time doing is inferior, you should be aping whitey and going out into the middle of nowhere to suffer!”
Tariq is an attention whore capitalizing on the shallow thinking of the left. From the Outside article:
Diversity is the end goal, because…. WELL IF YOU DON’T AGREE THEN YOU’RE RACIST
It’s racist to be annoyed by me using racism to bludgeon you into submission.
No good can come from all this wolf crying. If that’s “overtly racist” then there are no words left to describe a cross-burning.
no words left to describe a cross-burning.
A bad 4th of July celebration?
I actually think this organization is pretty cool. But I read an article that their membership was aging and they weren’t getting very many new, young members. Then I thought “What about all those young kids they were supposed to have been introducing to winter sports?”
They joined the National Siblinghood of Snowboarders
Mother Nature = Hitler. I always kinda suspected.
I call BS on that. Around where i live there are plenty of trails and people who hike them are fairly well representative of the the general demographics. These people will keep picking at every institution until there is nothing that is not guilty of some -ism.
Trees are racist, and everything is rape culture:
http://everydayfeminism.com/2017/04/ways-we-ignore-childrens-agency/
“He’s my husband and it’s my duty”
No, making him a sandwich is your duty. If sex with him is just a “duty”, do both of you a favor and GTFO.
Has this person ever had a fucking 3 year old? If you don’t drag them around and use “because I said so” they’ll starve to death in 3 week old clothes.
Why?
*applause*
“Theoretically, we go there to escape, and all we need are some sturdy shoes and maybe a sleeping bag.
The reality is more complicated.”
Um…No, it’s not.
“Open the pages of outdoor magazines, and you’ll find $150 trail running shoes, $500 tents and $4,000 mountain bikes.”
And? So what. I open magazines and see supermodels. That doesn’t mean I get to do them all.
That doesn’t mean I get to do them all.
You’re just not using your imagination properly.
Just some, right?
You have to go to college to get this stupid. Seriously.
Totally..
Outside Magazine has gone full retard apparently.
So what’s the problem with spending your hard-earned money on worthless spa treatments?
“Meanwhile, infrared light is shot up at said same target (the vagina, in case you forgot)”
Link to webcam?
Outside Magazine went full retard in the early 2000’s. About the time of the “hockey stick”. They shifted from being a voice for conservation, to out right environmental idiocy. They lost some good writers around then. it may have been an editorial board shift, but I never cared enough to look into it. My only response was canceling my subscription.
WTF did I just read?
EF links are always easy to spot before clicking.
So tesla is valued more than ford. Does this make sense?
Tesla sold 76k cars last year…ford well over 2 million
Tesla has been losing money every year while ford makes profit
I dont get it. Seems like a giant ponzi scheme as evs are a fad
Ford didn’t take a government bailout.
Tesla is constantly on the dole.
Clearly the “inexhaustable” taxpayer revenue stream is better than actually being profitable!
I remember when this was called the “Dot Com Bubble”.
Yup. Tesla is an overvalued unicorn.
Here is a bit of Tesla shadiness for you.
Didn’t you hear? Tesla is gonna sell 400,000 new affordable cars (which haven’t even been safety tested) this year. They’re taking $1000 deposits, so you know they’re gonna deliver.
I was kinda hoping to do a reader submitted article on this, but my editing skills are lacking and my writing is kinda shitty. Here I will post it in the a.m. links instead.
I have titled it, how to search without a warrant 101. enjoy. I certainly did not.
https://www.wevideo.com/view/893523451
Did the pricks every tell you at what point during the k9 search they said the dog alerted?
What a bunch of shit. That is a crooked sheriffs department. You are lucky they did not empty your wallet.
No they did not. What was in the video is the entirety of the time that the K9 was out of the police SUV. It didn’t look to me like the dog alerted, but I’m no expert. At the end of the K9 scenes, the fat officer waves his hand to the other officer and he immediately straps on his gloves and starts searching my car.
Look, they performed the ritual, what does it matter if the animal didn’t cooperate?
They will just claim that either the bark or the sit was the “alert”. And since SCOTUS doesn’t care how inaccurate these dog alerts are, you are just fucked.
I have done quite a bit of research on dog alerts since this. Radley Balko wrote a pretty good article at the washington post about this a few years back. The summary is:
The court has ruled that it doesn’t matter how many times a dog false alerts, the cops can still search your shit.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/08/04/federal-appeals-court-drug-dog-thats-barely-more-accurate-than-a-coin-flip-is-good-enough/
Yup. The dog will alert whenever the handler wants it to, since the dog wants to please his handler, and the handler wants an alert. But the court don’t give a fuck.
That pretty much sums it up. I blame this on the WOD. That and seat belt laws.
God damn, that’s infuriating. Anyone who thinks we don’t live in a police state is fucking delusional.
Hey, my dog gets to decide when the 4th amendment is valid or not.
What, no mention of J Geils passing?
It was mentioned the other day
At least we still have Lou Reed.
We will always have Lou Reed.
“‘Centerfold’ singer reunited with his angel.”
nope that was Pete Wolf
Geils was a very good Blues Guitarist. The band had an amazing ability to weave Geils’ guitar licks in with Magic Dick’s harp.
They were the funkiest white boys that ever lived. Fucking lethal.
So now he’s an angel with the angels in the centerfold?
He must of got lost.
Oh shit! I did not know. My absolute favorite band (I grew up in Massachusetts back when they ran the place).
New Year’s Day 1983 at the Worcester Centrum. A concert so wild I don’t even know how to describe it.
“The Libertarian got 2%. So at least we won’t get blamed for this one.”
It’s Kansas, I’m surprised we got 2% being that the reefer zombie invasion from the west is all our fault.
Obviously a true ‘Libertarian Moment’ TM. It is actually nice though for someone from the LP get even that much.
Hubble just spotted something massive coming out of Uranus
Just gas.
No surprises there.
+ space beans
I saw Event Horizon, I know how this ends.
What no love for the wonderful dreck known as Lifeforce (aka Mathilda May as a naked alien)?
Hey now, I keep a copy of that VHS tape in my sock drawer.
Oh shit.
“Claremont McKenna College students who helped shut down a Blue Lives Matter speech on campus last week may face suspension or expulsion, a campus spokesperson told The College Fix.”
https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/32074/
Wow, it sounds like they’re actually trying to do the right thing. Some dogs don’t like their tails wagging them I guess.
I’m not sure what they were protesting. How exactly is it that they expect the great state to force everyone else to do what they want and to limit speech to only what they like, without the all the King’s thugs? They should be cheering on the fuzz.
Claremont McKenna is one of the more conservative schools, leading some people say it was outside protesters.
Leaving piles of garbage (and a dead body) for the environment:
“With the snows melting in icy North Dakota, the mounds of frozen garbage left by far-left Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protesters are finally being cleared. ”
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/04/the_pigpen_left_dead_body_found_in_dapl_protest_debris.html
These are the enviromentalists.
There is a big outdoor 3 day country music festival held annually about 30 miles from where I live. 20,000 drunk and rowdy rednecks don’t leave that much garbage.
Environmentalists are the opposite of Conservationists.
Unfortunately, that now seems true.
They aint called watermelons for no reason. They dont give a shit about the environment. Never have.
It’s always about power and more collectivism (taking shit from people they don’t like and envy).
Making them clean up after themselves is coercion.
They had to destroy the environment in order to save it.
Now I’m hearing that the “David Dao” that was so heinously doxxed by the media yesterday might not even be the same one that was on the UAL flight. What a clusterfuck, all around.
I don’t think it matters. The past character of the passenger is not at issue in the airline’s behaviour.
Obviously – that’s the whole point. A few “journalists” thought it would be cool to dredge up the guy’s past, and now it turns out it may not even be the same guy.
But it was the police behavior that ultimately caused the guy’s injuries, and police departments have made it perfectly clear that past legal issues fully justify their actions.
Fake news then
This guy keeps getting handed, ostensibly, easy litigations… Some of us just have all the luck…
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/446654/march-sciences-diversity-statement-lefts-identity-politics
The march for science! Identity politics, progressive hobby horses and bill nye
Are they just looking for attention or do they actually care about science?
Me thinks the former. Anyone who cares about science would not use bill nye as a spokesperson
What better spokesman than a mechanical engineer who pretended to be a scientist on a children’s show?
They could get an actual clown.
Wait, what? He is not a real clown? I thought that’s why he got that gig…
They gotta stop giving these guys matches.
France: Migrants Torch New Migrant Camp 34 Days After Torching Last Migrant Camp
You know, I’d expect this kinda thing would piss off the rest of the people in the camp. Seems like some Justice is in order.
They’ll wind up in Le Pen if they don’t stop that shit.
So the Kurds and Afghans can’t get along well enough to live peacefully in a refugee camp for any period of time.
Expel them all.
Doc Farmer✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ ᵈᵉᵖˡᵒʳᵃᵇˡᵉ Marc Craven The Redeemed • 21 hours ago
From your lips to Cthulhu’s listening tentacle…
Is that you, Drake?
Who is Drake?
Sargent Schultz up there.
Oh yeah, I just think “Sargent Schultz”.
File this one under What?
*shrugs*
France election: Far-left Melenchon enjoys late poll surge
Unlikely because those types usually come out of Vermont.
Interesting. I haven’t been keeping too close tabs on the polls for that contest (I think they will probably turn out to be unreliable) but if it comes down to him and Le Pen then the rending of sack-cloth by the eurocrats will be deeply entertaining.
Russian hacking?
It were capitalism what done it.
here are many reasons for the sorry state of commercial aviation in America. When it comes to your routinely terrible flight — not to mention the sort of exceptional horror that took place aboard United Airlines Flight 3411 this past weekend — regulatory failures as well as consolidation, which the authorities have allowed to occur unabated for decades, can be blamed.
But I come to you as a technology columnist to tell you that technology, too, has failed you.
People in Silicon Valley pride themselves on their capacity to upend entrenched industries. Uber defeated taxi cartels. Airbnb made getting a room cheaper and more accessible. Streaming services are undoing the cable business. Yet the airline industry has not just stubbornly resisted innovation to improve customer service — in many ways, technology has only fueled the industry’s race to the bottom.
Everything about United Flight 3411 — overselling, underpaying for seats when they are oversold, a cultish refusal to offer immediate contrition, an overall attitude that brutish capitalism is the best that nonelite customers can expect from this fallen world — is baked into the airline industry’s business model. And that business model has been accelerated by tech.
Capitalism, and Silicon Valley. And maybe insufficiently obstinate anti-trust regulators.
Jimmy Carter ruined the magic of air travel.
Cognitive dissonance, how the fuck does it work?
Now I see Aspen has just bought Mammoth. It seems like they’re trying to go to war with Vail. I hope this is a situation where the skiers win.
Everyone knows how awesome regulated air travel was in the 70’s!
I still have the scars to prove that!
Seriously, if something is not a fully nationalized industry, then it is the fault of strawman capitalism.
Deregulation also brought us innovators like Southwest, Virgin, and Allegiant.
Unsaid: All of those innovations happened because of competition, with long entrenched business upended by new ones with better service and better ideas. That doesn’t happen in the airline business not because of consolidation (like this wouldn’t have happened if United and Continental, or Delta and Northwest, or American and US Airways were still separate entities), but because of a lack of competition. It’s more or less impossible to start up a new airline, no matter who you are, no matter how much experience you have, and no matter how much money you have (see the trouble Richard Branson originally had trying to start up Virgin America).
Airline consolidation gets blamed for a lot, but you can look at 1950s ads for flights and get the same prices — in actual dollars, not inflation adjusted — for the same flights today.
Erm, that should’ve said a lack of *new* competition. Not competition that’s been around for decades and been playing follow the leader like all legacy airlines do.
We should just nationalize the airlines. If you have to wait 5 months to get a flight, then everyone will just give up air travel and there will no longer be a problem. Progress!
And when the unionized security services of the nationalized airline rough you up a little, democracy will protect you.
Uber and airbnb along with netflix took advantage with things individuals have.
The airlines are a different animal. I dont have a personal plane that can transport a couple hundred folks thousands of miles
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article144006904.html
The stupid party, continuing to be stupid.
Gonna be plastered all over the news, guaranteed.
It’s the same 4 idiots who file ridiculous shit that never even gets a hearing bc it’s so stupid. But then they can tell their base that they’re fighting for them. This is going to get them a ton of attention, so they will certainly continue the stupidity.
Of all of the Supreme Court decisions that overstep their bounds, this is where you draw the line and make a scene?
SMDH.
SoCons. Just part of everything that is wrong with the GOP.
I’m more annoyed by the fact that it’s going to get so much media coverage. There are always bills like this from both sides of the aisle- BS ideological bills that everyone knows will be ignored, but are presented for show. NBC doesn’t give hours of airtime when a Vermont state senator introduces the annual bill to secede from the US.
It’s like giving in to a toddler screaming for cereal in the grocery store. Giving it attention means it will keep doing it. Politicians any (non-sex-or-drug-scandal-related) press as good press, so now Stupid Party politicians around the country will end up doing shit like this because they see that it works.
I have been thinking after reading more different alt sources about the alleged Syrian poison gas event that Trump may have been setup, duped, naive or has changed.
First, anything that gets immediate bipartisan approval, and approval from Europe, Turkey, Saudi Arabia can’t be a good thing. Second, the social media images about the victims of the poison gas triggering Trump’s impulsive decision making strikes me as hitting his weak spot. Russia had actually tried to warn Trump months ago not to be impulsive and no one seems to be asking where’s the evidence Assad actually did it.
RT Interview with Virginia State Senator Richard Black:
‘Major problem of US govt – President surrounded by warmongers’
I heard the same in an interview with ex-CIA agent Robert David Steele who btw, is a fan of Trump, but is afraid of Trump becoming “Hillary in drag” and believes intelligence agencies are intentionally misleading him. Moreover, think about the CIA is helping the rebels.
It wouldn’t surprise me if intelligence agencies are intentionally misleading him, as a non-intervention foreign policy is bad for their job security.
If the Pentagon cannot use those Tomahawk missiles, then defense contractors cannot sell more. Follow the cronyism.
I did like how trump said in his interview he doesnt want to get involved in syria more. I think he is taking more after his pal bill clinton than obama or bush
Or Reagan maybe.
“Russia had actually tried to warn Trump months ago not to be impulsive and no one seems to be asking where’s the evidence Assad actually did it.”
The first thing that popped in my head when I heard there was a poison gas attack – The Iranians supplied the gas, bought with money Obama gave them. It was just a ‘pulled out of my ass’ guess. So far I haven’t heard much in the way of evidence of who did it, who the victims were, what was the objective, where the gas came from etc.
I am still waiting.
Russia had actually tried to warn Trump months ago not to be impulsive and no one seems to be asking where’s the evidence Assad actually did it.
For what its worth, the case for retaliation was laid out yesterday. We’re being asked “Who do you trust – the Russians, or American intelligence”. Your call.
The responsive was not impulsive, IMO – it was actually quite measured – one airbase, not all of them, with warning given to minimize casualties (and likely damage). It was a show of willingness, not an attempt to actually change the military facts on the ground.
That’s my operating assumption until proven otherwise. We know this is a standard play out of the neocon deepstate playbook. It is definitely possible that what we are being told is really what happened. But it appears much more likely that it was a false flag.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Russians didn’t either do the attack themselves, or put Assad up to it, as a way of testing Trump.
^^^^THIS^^^^
Coupled with the message a week before that it was US policy to get out of Syria letting either of them think it was Duck season (NO! Wabbit season!)….
Give me your secrets for ridding your home of varmints. I’m pretty sure I saw a mouse scurrying last night (just before I went to bed – fun dreams!!). Although I was on Zzquil and other things that may not technically be legal where I live, so I’m not 100% sure. But you can never be too safe from disgusting hantavirus-ridden pestilence.
Maybe it’s time to adopt another cat (my old boy went to the litter box in the sky 4 years ago, but he was a useless mouser anyway)
I don’t know if there is a farmers co-op near you. I have been buying mouse poison from the one near me for years.
The poison somehow dehydrated the mice, so that they leave your home in search of water and die in a place that you don’t smell them. It works well. Also a good CO2 bb pistol makes in home hunting a hoot.
This is your solution.
I ridded my house of mice with this stuff. Works great.
I’ll check on that! The DC metro is not very ag-heavy, but I’m wondering if I can find it at a nursery or even a big box store like Lowe’s?
Tomcat brand works fine. If you can get the pellets instead of the blocks, that’s preferable.
I went the unfriendly route. “Live” traps baited with peanut butter and poison pellets. Glue traps along the routes they travelled. Things like that. Killed several, but they only stopped coming by when my neighbors moved out and the apartment complex left a cat in the apartment they vacated for several weeks. My problem was that the main population reservoir was in that other apartment.
Love these live traps! Use them in the yard to deal with squirrels, possums, and other assorted varmints.
I keep a 55 gallon drum full of water handy to then enjoy drowning these property destroying bastards.
Usually can be solved by hiring either an exterminator or a maid.
Mouse trap? These work great with a little peanut butter.
My best mouser was a little female short hair cat. She must have weighed all of six pounds but she was faaast. She loved to chase chipmunks in the backyard, and caught a field mouse in the house.
My current 12 pounds tub of fuzz can’t run more than 5 feet without taking a break, but she has some fast paws.
My dearly departed putty tat found a mouse (I was totally oblivious) and was batting it around. He dropped it in the laundry bag that was on the floor, so I took the opportunity to play a game of fetch, thinking it was one of the many rabbit fur toy mice I had bought for him. I rooted around in my laundry bag, grabbed the “toy”, and it immediately jumped out of my hand and ran behind my sofa.
I was only about 26 years old at the time, otherwise I think I would have had a heart attack.
Many years ago I had a smallish red short hair cat that was a great mouser. Also a great ratter, squirreler, chipmunker, birder, etc. etc. The little monster basically just killed anything that moved. Cleared out the mice in the house problem though.
I’ve got a 20-year old tuxedo tom who can still impress when given a challenge. Couple days ago I found three mouse butts lined up in the garage as votive offerings.
Useless mouser? Just the smell of a cat living in a house will keep mice at bay, usually.
I got rid of mine by setting my reading chair near where I saw the mice scurrying, put a dob of peanut butter on the floor and read with my bb gun across my lap. That got rid of about half of them. The rest I got with glue traps placed against the wall in the places where they run (they mostly run along the base of walls).
I am mouse free.
I ordered some D Con on Amazon (same day delivery!) Does that do anything?
I don’t want to deal with spring traps (I’m terrified of setting them and I hate being woken at 2am by a trap being sprung). In my last place in DC about 20 years ago, I used glue traps, but I found that mice take forever to die in those, and when you go to pick up the trap to throw it away, the not-dead mouse starts to squiggle & struggle, and you end up screaming, throwing the trap in the air, and running to your living room couch like a cartoon character.
The first time a glue trap caught one, I heard a godawful squeaking that I thought was a failing bearing on the ceiling fan. It wasn’t until I got over there that I realize where it was coming from and had the problem of trying to figure out the fastest way to end the now-stuck rodent. I didn’t ever have one that was still until disturbed.
I think the one I’m referring to was close to death, but no quiet there yet, when I tried to pick it up. Hence, the stillness then struggle when disturbed.
Well, if your house is lath and plaster or old sheetrock, be aware that the mice will tend to die in the walls. Unless they dry out and mummify quickly, if you have lots of dead mice, you might end up having to buy some glade for a few weeks too.
As UCS says below, glue traps are pretty good. You can pick the whole tray up and just ditch the possibly-still-alive rodent straight in the trash, because those suckers will never be able to sink their tiny incisors into you. The glue traps frisbee pretty well if you want to donate to the neighbors’ garden.
We have a packrat population that could probably elect its own Representative. I use Gladiator poison, which I think does a good job and doesn’t have the same risks to predators who might eat the corpses.
My big problem isn’t just the rats (and they are destructive little fuckers), its the rattlesnakes who eat the rats. Mo’ rats, mo’ snakes.
If you like cats in your house, or don’t mind it, cats are the ultimate mouse killing machine. Also make sure you don’t mind the part where you wake up in the morning and the cat is sitting there looking at you with a half alive mouse dangling from it’s mouth. Or when you find a gift dead mouse on the sofa.
My mom had a cat that was a great mouser, but would actually go out and catch live field mice and lizards and bring them into the house.
They were gifts to my mom’s dog, whom the cat believed was it’s mother.
The dog was an effective mouse killer, but a shitty mouse catcher. Run around the house, barking and scratching at furniture while chasing said mouse. I must have moved a literal ton of furniture before I heard little mouse bones popping and crunching under the couch.
Pest problem I’m having is squirrels on my deck. No, I can’t shoot them in the city. If I could, there would already be a bunch of dead squirrels lying around. Thinking of getting a cat just for that reason, nothing else seems to work for long. They’re worse than rats, let alone mice.
Get a large size snapping rat trap, nail it to the squirrels favorite tree about five feet from the ground and bait it with peanut butter. Squirrels love peanut butter.
Thanks for the tip!
Squirrels also love 690fps .177 pellets.
If my neighbors weren’t such monumental shitheels I’d be out in the garden with my .22 target pistol so I could get some practice at the same time.
Hey Suthen, I think I’m going to finally try the gumbo recipe tonight. I’ve been practicing making some lighter roux. I can’t find any pre-made around here, maybe it’s a regional thing? I can get it on Amazon, but it’s crazy expensive. Anyway, making the light one, really easy. I’m thinking maybe making the dark roux is just a matter of keeping the heat low and standing over the stove for a long time stirring?
I’m going to finally try the gumbo recipe tonight
Speaking of squirrels?
Roux is expensive? Ok. I am sorry to hear that. It is amazingly cheap stuff.
The darker roux just means leaving it on the heat a little longer and continuous stirring. When it gets the color you want whip the skillet off of the burner and use a spatula to scrape it out of the hot pan into a cold one – stop the cooking quickly. It shouldn’t take too long. Light roux + about 3 minutes? Once it starts browning it goes quickly. Just keep a close eye on it.
Let me know how it turns out. You have some good cajun sausage?
“Roux is expensive? Ok. I am sorry to hear that. It is amazingly cheap stuff.”
To make, yes. Or maybe to buy in your area. Look at the prices on Amazon. $15 for a little jar? No thanks. I can’t find it in the stores here.
I don’t like sausage much. Ok to just use shrimp and chicken? Or is there some flavor reason the sausage needs to be in there?
The word ‘gumbo’ means ‘pizza’ and ‘chop suey’. There is a word in every language for ‘whatever is available’. Brother you can put anything you want in there. I like the chicken and sausage. The soup base is the roux, stock, and spices. You can put anything in it you want after that, whatever suits you.
Get one of these: https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Steel-Blowgun-Hunting-Weapon/dp/B000X5YONQ
Got plenty of squirrels in Milwaukee with one these. Super accurate and great for long distance shots.
Get the CIA to sponsor a false flag operation to designate your home as a target for a Syrian Chemical Attack.
This sounds more like a bad break-up.
She added: ‘He calls it a torture and it is torture really. As I got a bit braver I said no and that’s when he got bored and went elsewhere.’
http://metro.co.uk/2017/04/12/sadomasochist-sent-240-volt-electric-shock-through-womans-vagina-6569521/
A sadomasochist ‘tortured’ a woman with a home-made device that sent a 240-volt electric-shock through her vagina white she was strapped to a restraint board, a court has been told
Don’t shoot until you see the white of her vagina.
If there’s white in the vagina doesn’t that mean you’ve already shot?
Is that AC or DC?
I imagined a Tesla coil.
Likely to be AC. The UK runs 240V 60Hz as standard.
Give me your secrets for ridding your home of varmints.
Victor makes an electronic mouse zapper. It’s awesome. A black plastic box with a little rodent electric chair inside. (I assume it’s a capacitor of some sort. The inquisitive little mouse goes in, put one foot on the positive plate and one foot on the negative plate, and- ZZZZZZT! Presto, dead mouse.
Open the lid, dump mouse corpse into trash, re-charge.
I’ll look into that! Does it make loud noises at 2am when the mice get the chair?
Only if the governor’s office makes a last minute call for clemency.
I ordered some D Con on Amazon
According to my research, cats and other animals who eat mice poisoned with warfarin style decoagulents can be poisoned by the residual dose in the dead or dying mouse. Be careful.
Warfarin – in the kind of doses a mouse will eat will definitely be in the alimentary canal. Our exterminator dude specifically warned us against letting our cats into the crawl spaces in our house for ‘sport mousing’ missions after he baited the house.
I could be wrong, but I thought the Vitamin K added to cat food prevents warfarin from killing non-stray cats.
Noise? Not that I have ever heard.
Just yesterday morning, I found a partially eaten mouse on the floor when I got up.
How much had you drank the night before?
“So even the WaPo is sure that the Obama admin spied on a close Trump adviser now. The entire article, other than that fact, is full of retardation. Tread lightly.”
This was all about discrediting something Trump claimed and painting him as unhinged.
I remember reading that everything people thought they knew about the Columbine massacre was wrong, but what difference does it make at this point? The right impressions were made, and if the truth ever comes out, completely, it’ll only be a hundred news cycles after the fact. Might as well have happened during the Civil War.
I grew up in a religion, school, church, family, neighborhood, where, from the time I was born, everyone believed that invisible bipedal, homo sapiens like beings, beings that somehow evolved with feathered wings, watched over and recorded everything we do. The true explanations for everything that happened around us were supposedly supernatural. If you thought otherwise, then you were being deceived. Know the truth in your heart, and you’ll never be deceived by what you see.
Proverbs 22:6
At some point, I decided that paying attention to what people said, believed, claimed, etc. was a mistake. You just watch what they do. There are good people in the world who believe crazy things. You can’t tell them apart from bad people because of their beliefs–the bad people say they believe in the same things. You have to look at what people do. Good people sometimes say awful things, too. Awful people say good things. It’s not all meaningless, but it isn’t a good guide to what’s really happening around us.
If Trump is an awful President, it won’t be because of what he says he believes or what he tweets–and yet the media is obsessed with that. I guess they thought Obama was an excellent president because of the things he said, too–never mind that he killed hundreds of innocent children with drone strikes, hurt the economy, ruined the healthcare system, gave Iran the freedom to develop nukes in the future, etc. The important thing is that he said all the right stuff. And don’t you know that Donald Trump says all the wrong things?
The courts even stayed Trump’s travel ban–not because of what the EO did but because of what Trump said during his campaign.
When I see the media flip out over something Trump tweets or claims about what Obama did or didn’t do, it’s like being back in church as a kid again. We’re all supposed to ignore what was actually done and believe in the apparent motives of everyone involved and what they say in their speeches and tweets. How could you believe something that Trump claims after you’ve seen his awful tweets . . . especially after Obama has said so many nice things over the years?
The important question of this whole thing seems to be about who should be trusted between Trump and Obama.
I find the whole question personally insulting–and, no, that isn’t because I trust Rand Paul.
“I decided that paying attention to what people said, believed, claimed, etc. was a mistake. You just watch what they do. There are good people in the world who believe crazy things. You can’t tell them apart from bad people because of their beliefs–the bad people say they believe in the same things. You have to look at what people do. Good people sometimes say awful things, too. Awful people say good things. It’s not all meaningless, but it isn’t a good guide to what’s really happening around us.”
Words of wisdom.
Robert Rubin haz a concern
The Federal Reserve System was created by statute in 1913, but the independence of its monetary policy from congressional or presidential influence is not codified by law — and it wasn’t always inviolable. In recent years, so-called reforms have been proposed to subject Fed monetary policy to congressional review, but its independence has so far been preserved.
For good reason: An independent Federal Reserve led by governors who are committed to pursuing its dual mandate of price stability and full employment, as well as effective regulation — and who make decisions based on facts and analysis — is critically important to our economy, the well-being of the people and the market credibility of Fed policy making.
But that independence is about to be severely tested. Daniel K. Tarullo stepped down from the Federal Reserve Board last week, adding to the board’s two existing vacancies. Instead of remaining as governors, Chairwoman Janet Yellen and Stanley Fischer, the vice chairman, could step down when their terms expire next year. President Trump has already said that he will not reappoint Ms. Yellen as chairwoman because she’s not a Republican.
Mr. Trump could therefore fill as many as five of the board’s seven seats within the next year. I fear that he may appoint governors who lack a commitment to the Fed’s dual mandate and will instead seek to please the White House.
Heaven knows, the Federal Reserve has been scrupulously apolitical for the past eight years.
And, of course, the implication is that Public Enemy Number One might even appoint people to the Fed who are not academic economists, steeped in the hoary traditions and esoteric incantations of the establishmentarians’ preferred mumbo-jumbo via which the government “runs” the economy.
Good gravy. What if he appoints some crazy businessman who has spent his career separating voluntary customers from their hard-earned money? We’ll all starve in the street!
“An independent Federal Reserve led by governors who are committed to pursuing its dual mandate of price stability and full employment, as well as effective regulation — and who make decisions based on facts and analysis — is critically important to our economy, the well-being of the people and the market credibility of Fed policy making.”
I guess the left is learning to love the Federal Reserve with its expanded regulatory capabilities. That’s part of the problem with Congress and the White House, as evidenced by the last election, doncha know: They’re too subject to the will of the people through democracy to be effective central planners.
A truly effective central planning body needs to be free of petty concerns about democracy. They need independence!
I cared a lot more about the independence of the Federal Reserve board when they were more about interest rates and less about regulation and other forms of interference in the economy.
These concern trolls don’t want the Frd to get audited. Because they know that’ll cause a shitstorm.