So there’s a boy in India who can “rotate his hands and legs at 360 degrees.”
“I do all my best thinking like this.”
The 18-year old young man can also rotate his hands and legs at 360 degrees, but he can only rotate his fingers and neck at 180 degrees. Slacker.
If that wasn’t enough, he can dislocate his hands and legs, y’know, just for funsies. What, that’s not your idea of a good time?
“I’m in a glass case of emotion!”
His mom considers it (obviously) a gift from God, which, hey, maybe it is. Who knows? With great power, comes great responsibility, Yash Shah. I’m sure he will use his powers only for good–or for squeezing into tennis rackets, which is neither here nor there on the morality scale.
Alright. If you really refuse to click the link, here’s an actual picture of Yash.
And a little bonus, off-topic weirdness: click here to see if the Rick-mobile will be in your area in the not-too-distant future. 3,000 flurbos to anyone who takes a picture of it in their locality. I must live vicariously through you since they’re eschewing basically every northern-border state but a handful.
My work firewall blocked that last link under the category of ‘questionable’. I loled.
Way to other glib globs, Vhyrus’s workplace!
Fuckin’ sweet. They’re rolling to a bar that is like 4 minutes from my house.
Holy shit, I had to allow SO MANY SCRIPTS to see where the hell it might be stopping.
This is a very specific fetish that you have, Riven.
Least it’s a human being, and doesn’t involve cannibalism.
This time.
Like I said, be thankful it’s not Tuesday or Thursday. 😛
I need 30 CCs of palate cleanser, STAT!
?????
I have a hard time believing this wasn’t *always* your fetish.
Also, there’s an eating pussy joke in here somewhere.
Uh
Story?
It’s zoo animals starving to death in Yemen
You’d think someone would have just opened the gates for them.
I thought it was a promotional for Kermit Gosnell but I assumed the one cat was pregnant.
“Eating bloody pussy”? Isn’t there a word for men who like it ‘messy’? (shudders)
Earning one’s red wings?
I am sitting in front of google and contemplating if typing, “Menstruation Fetish slang term” is going to have any lasting effect on my online-digital-profile.
sigh. Ok, fine.
lol
“Blood hounds”
Yep. Especially disgusting when one has a beard.
Co worker with beard: I went down on the girlfriend last night. You should have seen the sink when I washed my face this morning.
Younger westernsloper: *burp puke* (only because I had met his girlfriend) You smelled that all night in your beard?
This is a very specific fetish that you have, Riven.
All the best ones usually are. Mine involves three albino typists and a trampoline.
It’s the ‘typists’ part that gets me.
On the off chance I remember cone the 23rd, I’ll take a picture of the Rick-mobile. You want me to focus the shot on his butt or his face?
Gonna need you to take a pic wayyyyy up his butthole, Morty.
Aww jeez
I’m getting me some flurbos on July 30th!
I trust your artistic judgment. … Also, I’m interested to see which one you will choose.
I dunno why contortionists always remind me of 2002 MTV European Music Award winning (Best Dutch act) Dansplaatt by Nederhop artist, Brainpower. If you ask me Sita was robbed that year.
Dang. That was a good time. Possibly time to start a new Pandora station.
Contortionist women are a better use of gods time.
I’m not going to say the rickmobile isn’t cool–because it is.
But a giant blimp of a dead man floating overhead would be way cooler.
. . . and/or a giant blimp of a Cromulon head bellowing, “Show me what you got!”
I’m just saying.
You’re right. These events should be nothing but me and several dozen of Unity’s best hotties.
That would be a worthwhile experience. Obviously I’ll be greeting the road rolling Rick, but I shudder at how many others will be out there with blue wigs and lab-coats.
Aloha fellow miscreants. Fun fact: miscreant comes from a old French word meaning unbeliever or heretic.
I’ve been thinking about how nations promote solidarity. Historically, plain force was the most common way to force people to get along. Often there were attempts to force people to adopt a common language, religion, or ideology.
However, once the force is removed, the nation soon falls apart because in the eyes of its citizens, it never was a nation to begin with.
Even countries with a uniform language and culture like Japan can have very long civil wars.
Vonnegut coined a wonderful word: granfalloon. It means a proud, but meaningless association of people. I would argue that just about every nation in history is a granfalloon.
The US is the main outlier.
What is it that holds America together? I say that paradoxically, the fact that Americans tend to regard themselves as individuals rather than members of groups is the unifying force. In many other countries, especially poorer, unstable ones, the people are divided into a small number of factions that are constantly trying to oppress each other. This is the reason why democracy has been such a disappointment in highly sectarian or tribal places such as Africa and the Middle East.
What it boils down to is this: if there is no common identity, the only hope a pluralistic society has for peace is for its members to view themselves as individuals. Unfortunately, this is rare because it seems it is human nature to form tribes for protection against other tribes.
People find different things to rally behind as a unifying theme. Ever been to a hockey, baseball, football game? All those people should hate each other. But, hey, for the length of the game, they’re all on the same team. Then they go to church, where they’re all on the same team . . . at least until the service is over. Then they go to work, where everyone is supposed to be on the same team, to their kid’s cub scout meeting, where they’re all part of the same team, . . .
It’s sort of like serial monogamy. We aren’t unified by any one thing, but by a series of things. If there’s any one thing that unifies us, maybe it’s the media.
Even when we used to listen to music over the radio, you’d be a part of something bigger by being into disco or “hard rock” or indie or funk or country music.
Does that kind of thing make us different from everyone else? I think it might. Back when the American left was screaming about “globalization” other people–all over the world–from David Bowie to Egyptian housewives–were afraid of “Americanization”, by which they meant exactly the kind of media driven consumer culture I’m talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7APmRkatEU
Poor David Bowie–travels to Thailand and Africa and Russia and Egypt and sees McDonalds and CocaCola and blue jeans everywhere–with all its attached advertising–and it freaks him out. Will the whole world become an American suburban sprawl? Will the whole world become American? How will Egyptian, Chilean, Serbian, Korean, and Swedish moms save their children from Americanization?
Before the advent of satellite television and the internet, the Muslim world mostly left us alone. They didn’t know any more about how we lived our lives than we knew about their lives. Make no mistake, wahabi revivalism, the Taliban, and ISIS, too, these are reactions to modernity and American culture–particularly as it’s portrayed in the media. That’s our culture. That’s what unifies not just Americans but was spreading throughout the rest of the world in the wake of the Cold War, too. Our culture is a never ending series of temporary identities that can unify groups of people for as long as they wish to be unified–which may only be long enough to watch a hockey game or a tv show. . .
Maybe that’s what unifies us.
Nope. It’s grilled cheese sandwiches.
Finally! I’m glad someone said it.
It’s offensive that you’d both other the gluten and lactose intolerant among us.
*shovels baked mac-n-cheese into face*
My understand is that cheese is edible for those who are lactose intolerant, and was actually the primary use of milk for most of mankind’s history, since lactose tolerance is a very recent evolution, not shared by large swaths of the population (yet).
You’re pretty pedantic for a drunk robot.
I’m lactose intolerant and most cheese gives me a stomach ache. There are some cheeses that are pretty low in lactose as to basically be tolerable, but I’m not a cheese fan to begin with, so I’ve never tried.
HM: cheese is wonderful. I suspect that your lack of affection for cheese is similar to my lack of affection for cats, which I am allergic to.
Mike: thank you very much. Nobody has ever called me pedantic before.
*Blushes*
You can track the lactase persistence gene pretty closely with climate.
The general rule for lactose intolerance is that harder cheeses are less likely to cause problems (say Parmesan), and softer cheeses (like cheddar and brie) are going to be more of an issue. I’m also not actually lactose or gluten intolerant. I bake my own bread and yogurt (although yogurt lessens the amount of lactose in milk considerably).
Well, no. I love ice cream and frozen yogurt. I just don’t like sour milk.
I just don’t like sour milk.
said the fox
Crazy like one.
That is a terrible affliction. Cheese is like a perfect food.
So, Playa, would that track fairly well with Diamond’s “Guns, germs and steel”? Or not? Sounds interesting, you have a link handy?
I’ve been messing around with some soft/farmer’s cheeses, the BF has rennet and has made cheese curds for homemade poutine a few times. He was not a hipster food asshole when I met him.
Not sure what Diamond is.
All I know is that I’m Scandinavian, and all of my people can drink milk right out of the reindeer. 99% lactose tolerant, and the other 1% is lying or dead. Too cold to make yogurt. Drink or die.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactase_persistence
When you get closer to the tropics, you can ferment out the lactose through various methods, so the lactase persistence gene is less than 50% in some areas.
I’m now being told that I should know what Guns, germs and steel is.
I’ll read the wikipedia by the end of business.
Playa: the intersection of that book and your comment lies in how Jarrod Diamond considers the grouping of landmasses, and how both plant and animal species can easily colonize a large area from Europe through north Africa and the Levant into Eastern Asia, while south Africa and South America are climatically different, and have various natural barriers preventing the spread of some species to those areas.
You should read the book, or yeah, at least the wiki.
Part of the climate thing has to do with what’s good for cows. The things you’re looking for in cow pasture, you won’t find that in the tropics.
When I lived in the Yucatan, there is very little beef there in the local cuisine. The highest falootin’ restaurants in town are called “Argentinian”, where they’re known for beef.
They don’t use cheese much either. The Amish have flocked down there for cheap land, and part of their self-sustaining plan has them selling cheese from their cows to raise whatever little money they need.
They wall trough the streets yelling “Queso?”, but the locals have little use for it.
Also, they put limes, onions, and chili peppers on literally everything they eat–all of which have antibacterial properties.
I think that’s part of the reason they don’t get sick like Americans eating the same food. It’s not that the food is handled any differently; it’s that the bacterial concentrations floating around in the air are several orders of magnitude higher than what we’re used to–and your gut reacts to that when you eat food that’s been sitting on your plate exposed to that microbe rich air. Eating limes, raw onions, and chili peppers with everything is like swallowing an antibiotic with everything you eat.
…David Bowie?
I confess: I skimmed
Skimmed milk?
“Before the advent of satellite television and the internet, the Muslim world mostly left us alone. They didn’t know any more about how we lived our lives than we knew about their lives.”
Not quite, Ken. There were, and probably still are, films in backward shitholes, muslim and otherwise. Actual motion pictures – a series of pictures printed on a long cellophane ribbon with a soundtrack encoded. These were an actual thing and can be played on fairly primitive analog equipment to provide moving image with sound and at surprisingly high quality.
Yes. Sayyid Qutb wrote very famous and influential book in the1950s about American decadence and the danger it posed to political Islam.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-lesson-in-hate-109822568/
His writings were the main inspiration for bin Laden.
****
Before Sayyid Qutb became a leading theorist of violent jihad, he was a little-known Egyptian writer sojourning in the United States, where he attended a small teachers college on the Great Plains. Greeley, Colorado, circa 1950 was the last place one might think to look for signs of American decadence. Its wide streets were dotted with churches, and there wasn’t a bar in the whole temperate town. But the courtly Qutb (COO-tub) saw things that others did not. He seethed at the brutishness of the people around him: the way they salted their watermelon and drank their tea unsweetened and watered their lawns. He found the muscular football players appalling and despaired of finding a barber who could give a proper haircut. As for the music: “The American’s enjoyment of jazz does not fully begin until he couples it with singing like crude screaming,” Qutb wrote when he returned to Egypt. “It is this music that the savage bushmen created to satisfy their primitive desires.”
***
I was thinking of Qtub when Ken starting riffing, and i actually started reading his book/pamphlet on his trip to America just now. (“The America I Have Seen” – 1951)
in the opening paragraphs he establishes his criteria =
I think its fairly obvious that he’s stacking the deck before he gets started. but at least he does state his methodology clearly.
I’ve heard it expressed that the Islamic world- once powerful was aware of its impotence and irrekevance by the 20th century. Feeling inferiority some set to look to the west for the future, others decided to grab onto the past. The second lot won.
If nobody ever discovered oil in the Middle East this ideology would probably have run its course as it should have.
To be fair, Greeley also stinks from the stockyards, rendering plants, slaughter houses, and whatnot.
And hippies. Dirty, dirty hippies.
They fall under “whatnot”.
Film is easier to control. They used to show a lot of Bollywood films in the Middle East. Did you know that no Bollywood film showed anyone kissing until . . . I think it was just ten years ago?
That’s nothing like when they started being able to watch American television shows at home.
Suddenly, there were metal kids and rappers in the Muslim world, and that was just the beginning.
The anxiety people on the right feel about sharia coming to the U.S. is nothing compared to the anxiety moms in the Muslim world feel about American culture.
Oh, we got trouble!
Right here in River City!
With a capital “T” and that rhymes with “P” and that stands for pool!
Ha…That reminded me of my one stint in Afghanistan. (not in uniform) We were working in bumfuck of bumfuck province of Afghanistan in the North by the Uzbek border. One of the security guys (a South African fellow) had a remarkable resemblance to Kiefer Sutherland. All the local guys who had been oppressed by the Taliban, a group that outlaws movies and all western worldly things, for decades referred to him as Jack Bauer.
Cracked me up. Culture travels a bit quicker than it used to.
And you are right Tonio it wasn’t satellite TV or internet. All smuggled DVD’s.
The society of individuals will get slaughtered by a society of people who see themselves as a team if they can’t come together. This also sounds like the Beatles song “Imagine” which was the shittiest song ever made.
“The society of individuals will get slaughtered by a society of people who see themselves as a team if they can’t come together.
Just for the record, the history of the 20th century is a total refutation of this theory. The societies completely obliterated the societies who came together as a team. First we destroyed the Nazis and then the imperial Japanese, and then the Soviet Union imploded, and then China decided it better give more economic power to individuals if it didn’t want to end up on the ash heap of history with all the other societies that came together as a team.
That shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone who understood Adam Smith (or evolution).
Theory of Moral Sentiments started off with the observation about a culture becoming stronger as individuals are free to make choices for themselves. Wealth of Nations focused on economics because money made his arguments easier to quantify.
Evolution is the same way. There’s no animal government that punishes individuals who refuse to make sacrifices for the common good. There are individual animals who engage in altruistic behaviors because those behaviors are rewarded by nature in some way. Either way, you can put my money on the society of individuals every time.
No it did not. Whatever you imagine what these wars mean they were fought by people who banded together not as individuals.
The 20th century is clinic on the total failure that is collectivism and the total triumph of individuals.
In fact, the losers all lost–because they denigrated individualism–and the victors won because they featured it more prominently.
To whatever extent our military efforts were effective, it was not because of conscription but in spite of it.
This bring to mind the Normandy invasion. Once the Americans started moving inland, they ran into big trouble with the hedgerows. The problem was that they had to drive up and over them, exposing the bellies of the tanks to German tanks and bazookas. So, some farm-boy GI’s came up with an idea to drive through them instead of over them. They welded some long steel bars to the front of the tanks that would break up the hedgerow. It worked and the idea was quickly passed along to the other tank companies.
You can’t just assert that conscription and nationalist armies are individuals acting individually without any evidence or logic.
You’re shoehorning reality to fit your ideology in a way that’s simply absurd.
Nations are groups just as much as religions or languages or any other group metric. You’ve simply claimed one group doesn’t count as a group and the other does.
Nations survive better if they have better national identity than if they are fractured on religious or other lines generally. However that’s because they make better groups and militaries are groups. No nations survive without any group dynamics. They wouldn’t even be nations, they would just be people in proximity. Since virtually none of those places exist it surely means that set up isn’t very conducive to existence. Even if the group then decides to come together to protect the groups rights individually they are still a group and will usually act as one militarily.
Socialism being a failure is true and only tangentially related here because having a military is a group activity. If if you said a group like the Bundy’s or Branch Davidians were individuals based on voluntary association they were still easily crushed by a “socialistic” military force. The problem with such forces is they are inefficient not that they will always lose, or ever lose because efficiency just isn’t as important in killing your enemy short term as it is in creating an economy long term.
You ever read Carnage and Culture by Victor Davis Hanson?
No, but after looking it up, I want to. Hanson’s thesis makes sense, but I am aware that it also flatters my ideological preconceptions.
One scenario I’ve played around with in my head is if Hellenistic civilization continued to push east after Alexander’s demise and faced a divided China right smack-dab in the middle of the Warring States period.
Oh for sure. Flatters mine too. But I don’t think he’s wrong. The chapters on Salamis, Cannae, and Midway in particular really touch on it.
Ambrose also touches on a bit in his works on Normandy and the ETO: a society of free men adapts, improvises, overcomes the problems of every day life. They don’t stop doing this just because they have become soldiers. They just apply these principles to a new set of problems. There is also a bloody mindedness and willingness to soak up casualties marked by societies of free men which has seemed counter-intuitive to every tyrant since Xerxes. Free men want to grapple with and destroy their enemies in a decisive battle or series of decisive battles, reach a state of total victory, and go home to their families. They have no interest in flower wars or stylized raiding.
You weren’t even talking about armies originally!
Here’s what you wrote:
“The society of individuals will get slaughtered by a society of people who see themselves as a team if they can’t come together.”
You were talking about societies that see themselves as a team?
I’ve lived in a part of town where Jews, Iranian immigrants, and the gay community all live on top of each other. Few of them were part of the same team–and they all thrived.
Certainly, the most significant aspect of our winning both World War II and The Cold War had to do with our economic strength–which benefited mightily from letting entrepreneurs do as they pleased, certainly relative to Hitler’s war machine and the USSR. Our economy beat the shit out of theirs, and much of that had to do with competition–rather than being on the same team.
Meanwhile, we had an army during World War II where this guy could win the Congressional Medal of Honor–while serving as a conscientious objector.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Doss
Jews and blacks played a big part in helping us win World War II–and they weren’t treated like they were on the same team as everyone else at the time. Whatever it is you mean by us all being on the same team, it’s horseshit however you mean it. Yeah, if you’re going to volunteer for military service, then you need to take orders–like Corporal Doss did. That doesn’t mean our society needs people to be on the same team to win.
Capitalism is a system of competition where some interests sometimes obliterate others. Have you never heard of creative destruction?
The market of ideas is the same. Mormons, Catholics, atheists, and Jews, and other competing beliefs and ideologies: it doesn’t matter if we’re all on the same team–and that’s what makes us strong. That’s why we beat the shit out of the Nazis, the Japanese, and the communists. They required everyone to be on the same team–and it made them weak and vulnerable–and that’s why we destroyed them and turned them into our bitches.
Ken, go read derp’s post. You’ve made no connection to his point or mine.
He opined that individuality was an alternative to groups of old for the military. It’s simply factually untrue that militaries are based on individuality, they’re based on nationality for the most part.
Every person is a member of different “groups” family, language, religion, race, jobs, sex, nationality, etc. This is most certainly not unique to the US.
It only matters if they fight wars on one of those groupings or as individuals. Since the US fights as national groups like many others it doesn’t much matter to what extent you think individuality is a military advantage because it’s not something that exists here or pretty much any where else.
Whether those people act as individuals in the market or not is entirely irrelevant to the point.
The long winded speech about how capitalism is advantageous to the war machine is obviously true but was never the point. Even then you seem to think it’s a shield of invincibility that it isn’t.
It is hilarious that the words “imagine no possessions” was written by a millionaire who moved to the US to avoid high taxes.
http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2013/03/how-the-beatles-dealt-with-a-98-income-tax-thats-right-98/
Hey guy, how ’bout you preach what you practice?
“imagine no taxes”
Gimme a few minutes. I think I can cook up a libertarian version of Imagine.
Ancap Imagine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTvyTnUl-ss
“Imagine all the lawyers, getting productive jobs….”
Imagine weed, ass sex, and mexicans?
“Riven is filling in for SugarFree today”
I’m feeling afraid and unsafe.
Riven has not even begun to wriggle into your safe space.
Now I’m triggered. *runs to safe space*
Go ahead and run. Run all you like
That sentence makes me want to buy stock in antibiotic manufacturers.
I dunno that antibiotics will be enough.
Those people would really have benefited from listening to this first.
But would thy have been deterred if they’d seen this VERY NSFW video first? Those ladies look like they’re having a good time.
What has been seen cannot be unseen. Thanks, I think.
You are most welcome. I had a friend on the abuse team at myspace back when myspace was still a thing, so I saw a LOT of unseeable things before they were vanished from the internet (but nothing is ever truly gone from the net).
Sometimes antibiotics just ain’t enough.
Ricky Ricky tacky bitch!
*ticky (burps) whatever
If the adult swim people really wanted to get people out there to love them they should visit more hinterland states.
https://m.facebook.com/home.php?hrc=1&refsrc=http%3A%2F%2Fh.facebook.com%2Fhr%2Fr&_rdr#~!/profile.php?id=472415289632656&tsid=0.45190966258077214&source=typeahead
Might be public? Anywho, if you’re on derpbook and want to laugh at stupid Rick and Morty memes it’s a group of autistic tards that shit post a lot. I joined to laugh at the constant political bickering
Malaysian shampoo commercial shows woman washing hair with hijab on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjKod_YO1hA
[head-desk]
Can someone explain to me why only Muslim women must cover their hair?
My understanding from reading the comments is that it is a parody of this commercial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=excxIZ4wUvg&feature=youtu.be
odds and ends
Fun fact: the US dropped about 1.5 million tons of bombs on Germany during WW2. The British dropped a similar amount. A typical bomb from WW2 weighed about 500 pounds.
That means the US and the UK dropped about 12 million bombs on Germany. No wonder they are still digging them up to this day.
When the US first invaded Afghanistan, many efforts were made to scare the Taliban into retreating rather than kill them. There was a Taliban held town that the US dropped leaflets on. The leaflets said “look eastward tomorrow morning”. The next morning, the US dropped a daisy cutter bomb on an empty plain a few miles away from the city. The Taliban ran for their lives shortly thereafter.
I think it would have been better to kill them without warning. In the first place, it would have prevented those Taliban from returning to battle and in the second place, the best practice in war is to brutally slaughter the enemy until they come to you begging for surrender. If you warn them and thus give them a chance to run away, you will just end up having to fight them later.
Most wars last far longer than either side expects because people can endure enormous hardship especially if they are part of a group. Paraguay ended up losing about 70% of its male population in a war in the 1860s. The last battle was fought by a handful spear-wielding peasants against hundreds of riflemen. Paraguay was badly outnumbered at the outset, but their leader thought his shit didn’t stink, so they went at it anyway.
They also went to war with Bolivia over a bunch of worthless scrubland in the 1930s
I have been out there. There is no scrub.
Are you sure of those numbers? Seems fishy to me, WWII was what about 6 years?, just over 2000 days, that’s just under 6000 bombs every day for six years, and that’s not even considering that we didn’t start on day one just bombing the shit out of Germany, also our big bombers carried maybe 50 bombs each ( and I think 500 lbs was a big bomb back the not ‘typical’) I know that we (mankind) can do amazing thing and that the numbers sometimes are astonishing, but this is a bit much, I’d do some googling but I am drunk and prefer to merely be contrarian.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#US_bombing_in_Europe
wiki sez US dropped 1,463,423 tons and the UK dropped 1,307,117 tons. There were about 1.4 million sorties, so about 2 tons of bombs per sortie. A B-17 carried 8 500 lb bombs which works out to 2 tons.
I’ve got your Rickmobile
random thought:
Since govts of all types have failed over and over to keep roads in good repair, wouldn’t it be better to treat roads like a public utility? The road utility company would get a monopoly and a guarantee of a small profit. The road company would have a monopoly on all the gas stations which is where the road fee would be paid.
It wouldn’t require any new infrastructure, just organizing people differently. I saw a Stossel clip about a city that turned its water dept into a public utility with great success.
Wouldn’t we get hosed at the pump?
Not if the govt decreed the road company could only make a 3% profit or whatever. I agree that in theory, the more private, the better. I’m just wondering about expanding an idea that has worked OK elsewhere to a troublesome area.
CosaNostra Pizza #3569 is on Vista Road just down from Kings Park Mall. Vista Road used to belong to the State of California and now is called Fairlanes, Inc. Rte. CSV-5. Its main competition used to be a U.S. highway and is now called Cruiseways, Inc. Rte. Cal-12. Farther up the Valley, the two competing highways actually cross. Once there had been bitter disputes, the intersection closed by sporadic sniper fire. Finally, a big developer bought the entire intersection and turned it into a drivethrough mall. Now the roads just feed into a parking system—not a lot, not a ramp, but a system-and lose their identity. Getting through the intersection involves tracing paths through the parking system, many braided filaments of direction like the Ho Chi Minh trail. CSV-5 has better throughput, but Cal-12 has better pavement. That is typical-Fairlanes roads emphasize getting you there, for Type A drivers, and Cruiseways emphasize the enjoyment of the ride, for Type B drivers.
The Deliverator is a Type A driver with rabies.
um… er… aah… Your libertarian solution includes price controls?
I mean, I like the idea otherwise.
Well, all public utilities involve price controls. My idea is move roads from being directly run by the govt to being run indirectly by the govt. I consider that an improvement.
In all fairness it’s a profit control, not a price control. So the price would fluctuate but they could only charge 3% over the cost of the gas. Since it’s a government entity, think of it like a 3% tax on the gas you buy.
Simple solution. Collude with the distributor.
We already have similar situations on the turnpikes. The state owns the rest stops and leases out space to the gas station and restaurants and shops. Everything is rather expensive at the turnpike rest stop.
Kinda like airport restaurants and shops.
None of it is all that great for the consumer.
The guy in the glass case was done ages ago
/pol/ has an antifa database., where they’re gradually compiling their identities and doxxing them.
Be afraid antifa, be very afraid.
The local news had an “OMG, look what Spokeo knows about you!” scare story. Nothing about keeping your data safe from the state, however.
And if this guy had just cut a generic PSA about keeping your private data private and let people figure out the subtext themselves….
Why did the chan folk choose Donald’s side? Aren’t they more akin to Antifa?
I think it’s a lot more stylistic then it is ideological. He’s a troll, they’re trolls.
Not even close? /pol/ is extremely anti-social justice and doesn’t really lean towards the ‘anarcho-communist’ part of the political spectrum.
Plus you know, the left’s whiny reaction to things is more enjoyable (see the last couple seasons of HWNDU)
The Trumpist leanings/sympathies of a large number of Youtubers and /pol/ stems from the social justice warrior brigade. The PC culture and identity politics produced a pretty fierce backlash.
A shit ton of these people were anti-Bush, Obama supporting liberals 8 years ago.
Have you ever been to 4chan?
No.
They are not communissts, they are chaos. Here is a video of a few of their greatest hits.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qlXepby4Ck4
Apparently my autocorrect considers communists snakes as well. Computers keep getting smarter.
Meet history’s most prolific cannibal, Ratu Udre Udre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratu_Udre_Udre
He is said to have eaten about 900 people.
In other news, The Guinness Book of World Records has a category just for cannibals.
Ugh, are still talking about the paleo diet.
Still? I thought they retired most of the “controversial” ones. I remember my 1979 edition had an entry for fastest consumption of a bicycle – along with a note stating that they wouldn’t be accepting any more entrants for that particular category.
They retired the sword swallowing and smoking categories too.
Obviously the bicycle eating contingent needed a better spokesman.
Ba-Dum
I am so tired of that joke.
In shocking news, John Oliver, who has devoted multiple shows excoriating tax loopholes and dodges, uses a large loophole to almost entirely avoid paying taxes on his $9.5 million penthouse apartment.
Calling progs out for personal hypocrisy just typically leads to deflecting where they claim that maximizing their tax liability or, you know, just voluntarily paying more would enable the corrupt system and be unfair. Everyone must be forced to comply.
Literally.
Jesus, that article was a tedious swamp of “to be sure’s”.
To be sure, it was very Soavey.
With Secret Nazi President cozying up to the Russians today, it’s obvious to me that he’s just setting them up for another Operation Barbarossa down the road.
Hmm……
US history according to Sayyid Qutb, spiritual founder of the modern jihad movment:
****
The True Motivations for the Manumission of American Slaves
Then the North fought the South under the command of Abraham Lincoln in a
war that was called “the freeing of the slaves.” But its true motivation was
economic competition. The slaves that had been captured from central Africa to
work in the land were fragile and could not withstand the cold climate of the
North, so they were moved to the South. The result was that the builders of the
South found cheap labor that was unavailable in the North. So they achieved
economic superiority. For this reason, the Northerners declared war for the
manumission of the slaves!
***
Oh…kayyyyyy
https://archive.org/stream/SayyidQutb/The%20America%20I%20have%20seen_djvu.txt
“The dance floor was lit with red and yellow and blue lights, and with a few white lamps. And they danced to the tunes of the gramophone, and the dance floor was replete with tapping feet, enticing legs, arms wrapped around waists, lips pressed to lips, and chests pressed to chests. The atmosphere was full of desire. When the minister descended from his office, he looked intently around the place and at the people, and encouraged those men and women still sitting who had not yet participated in this circus to rise and take part. And as he noticed that the white lamps spoiled the romantic, dreamy atmosphere, he set about, with that typical American elegance and levity, dimming them one by one, all the while being careful not to interfere with the dance, or bump into any couples dancing on the dance floor. And the place really did appear to become more romantic and passionate. Then he advanced to the gramophone to choose a song that would befit this atmosphere and encourage the males and the females who were still seated to participate.”
“The American giri is well acquainted with her body’s seductive capacity. She knows it lies in the face, and in expressive eyes, and thirsty lips. She knows seductiveness lies in the round breasts, the full buttocks, and in the shapely thighs, sleek legs and she shows all this and does not hide it. She knows it lies in clothes: in bright colors that awaken primal sensations, and in designs that reveal the temptations of the body— and in American girls these are sometimes live, screaming temptations! Then she adds to all this the fetching laugh, the naked looks, and the bold moves, and she does not ignore this for one moment or forget it!”
Just watched a small woman sucker punch a guy, breaking his glasses.
Question: who agrees with me that, once a woman assualts someone, that whole “don’t hit women” thing is nullified?
Yup.
weelllllll, it depends. if they’re drunk and they slap you, Manly Man of Stoic Virtue™ says = “They get one free one on credit”
if its not a slap, and they kick you in the nuts instead? Even if they miss, they have exceeded their credit-limit and they are owed at least one solid gut shot/shove to the floor in return.
if they actually go for your eyes or try using anything as a weapon? all bets are off, but its still generally best to avoid punching them in the face. one, because its not nearly as effective as other things, and two, because they will lie and lie and lie and lie about what happened, and if they have any facial bruises they will use them as proof of your violent misogyny.
just my 0.02 shekels.
Meh, every situation is different, and while I don’t have a problem with giving out a beat down when necessary (or taking one when I’ve asked for it), if you can subdue the person without dotting their eye or breaking their jaw that would be my preferred solution. I personally feel the NAP extends to avoiding violence when possible even if violence would be acceptable. It seems a lot of people are just looking for a reason to justifiably kick some ass, like the big guy at the bar who’s just waiting for someone to step on his toes, yeah he maybe is right but he’s still an asshole.
Short version – Just cause you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
Once upon a time, in a bar on the other side of town, some guy threatened to kick my buddy’s ass. I told him to leave my buddy alone, and he explained that I had caught the tail end of an exchange, and it was more jest than threat. Ok, everyone’s cool. Then his very small, very drunk girl asked if I thought I could kick her ass, and I said something like “I don’t hit girls.”
She said “I’ll bet I can make you hit me”, reached up and clawed my face with her nails. I grabbed her hands and walked forward, making her walk backwards, and then she fell on her butt.
Guy had to act, I understand. I knew he was coming. I turned around and he was already airborne. I reached out, grabbed his head like palming a basketball (which I can’t actually do- I have Trump hands), and guide him to land right on top of his lady.
Good times.
Never
stick it inlook in the general direction of crazy.The you looked down at his girlfriend and said, “Then I suppose a blowjob in the parking lot is out of the question?”
OK, that’s a quote (possibly paraphrased) from some 80’s movie, but I’m having a hell of a time remembering/googling which one.
One of the college ones. Maybe Belushi?
Is it odd that I’ve never really understood the whole “a real man never hits a woman” thing? If someone hits me, I think I have every right to hit back, regardless of the sex of the person who hit me first. If someone attacks me with a knife and I’m holding a gun, I’m not going to not use my gun just because they are at a disadvantage using a knife. If you are dumb enough to try and start a confrontation with someone you know has a significant advantage over you, I have no sympathy.
I mean I kind of agree, but someone at contact distance holding a knife is not at a disadvantage vs a gun. Knives at bad breath distance will fuck you up.
It wasn’t a perfect analogy, but I figured it would kinda get my point across well enough.
Too bad. We don’t do “intentions”around here: you a pemust userfect analogy.
Wow, what the heck did my phone’s auto spell do there? I think the phone is drunk.
That’s quite a mess. Several words cut up and put together in a strange order.
Right? I mean, WTF? I hated my last phone, the windows one, but the auto spell/intuitive keyboard on this one is really bizarre.
Too many women nowadays have a strange misconception about how strong they are. Some friends and I did a BJJ class once, and one of the girls was very feminist in the kind of naive way, and asked the female instructor if she could win a fight against her male colleague. Instructor said no. Girl says “But you’re more experienced then him.” Instructor says “Yeah, but hes bigger, stronger, and longer then I am. an extra 7 years or so of practice doesn’t mean anything when he can just break my grip at will.”
They’ve seen too many movies/tv shows with women beating up men. “But, Black Widow took on a bunch of thugs in Avengers!?”
Black Widow at least regularly is shown using various lethal and less than lethal weaponry, and even her hand to hand work uses a lot of kicks, full body grapples, and environmental usage. Like, she will taser a dude then slam another guys head into a car door, then kick some third dude in the face with combat boots on. Not realistic obviously, but within the suspension of disbelief.
It’s the TV cop shows where a 120 pound female detective will take a giant thugs punch in the face and reply with her own stiff jab that knocks him out, that really is doing harm IMO. I have in the past given self defense advice to female friends, and it seems like about half of them don’t think they need a gun or OC spray or anything because they keep their nails long.
More Qutb
***
Churches for Carousal and Enjoyment
If the church is a place for worship in the entire Christian world, in America it is
for everything but worship. You will find it difficult to differentiate between it
and any other place. They go to church for carousal and enjoyment, or, as they
call it in their language “fun.” Most who go there do so out of necessary social
tradition, and it is a place for meeting and friendship, and to spend a nice time.
This is not only the feeling of the people, but it is also the feeling of the men of
the church and its ministers.
***
Is this guy from Egypt or Mars?
Yeah, I don’t remember church being “fun”…. But at least I get to choose it. This guy doesn’t sound like someone who appreciates “fun” in any event.
Are you guys Catholic or something?
Maybe the only thing you remember from church is getting paddled for talking during the sermon?
P.S. The food is great!
How did you guess? But I kid – there’s a lot to enjoy even there even though I am not a “believer”.
This guy’s religion literally means “submission”. It’s not surprising that “fun” is a turn-off.
Deep Thoughts, by Ayatollah Khomeini
***
If one commits the act of sodomy with a cow, an ewe, or a camel, their urine and their excrements become impure, and even their milk may no longer be consumed. The animal must then be killed and as quickly as possible and burned.
…
Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious. Islam does not allow swimming in the sea and is opposed to radio and television serials. Islam, however, allows marksmanship, horseback riding and competition…
***
I should say, I’ve spent plenty of time at three different mosques in Los Angeles, and I was surprised how much like church it was.
The other use of Americanization is about immigrants become more like the rest of us, and I know it to be the case that the more Muslim immigrants integrate with the rest of the American society, the more like Americans they become.
I’ve listened to new immigrants get up and excoriate the mosque for being too Americanized, and I’ve seen other Muslims a) laugh it off and b) call those people FOTBs (Fresh off the boat) behind their backs.
Friday prayers are different. It’s much more formal and the separation between women and men is more defined. But it’s still a very social place–a mosque is. If people mostly go there for social reasons, that doesn’t surprise me.
Oh, but the food isn’t great. Muslims have this thing about everyone being treated the same, and it goes all the way down to the food. The food was always pizza. Always pizza. And it was always plain pizza–no toppings just cheese. The girlfriend told me it was because everyone needed to have the same thing. The slices are about the same size. The toppings are all the same. No one goes without. No one is showed any favoritism.
Then people sit around and gossip and the old guys talk about how kids have it so easy these days, and . . .
It’s like after church growing up in Maryland and Virginia, only the food in Maryland and Virginia was a hell of a lot better. It’s a social space. I’m not surprised at all if that’s because the mosque members have become influenced by American culture. American Catholics are different from Catholics elsewhere in the world, too. We’re Americans, and we act like Americans.
Interesting. Are the after service meetings still segregated?
After service on Fridays was.
I went to discussion groups on other days where I sat next to women I didn’t know and we’d go back and forth on various issues.
It depends on the mosque, the day of the week, and the congregation.
Some of them are like Orthodox Jews.
Some of them are like reformed Jews.
Are you saying he’s off because he’s wrong or are you saying he’s playing Captain Obvious?
He’s dead on for a lot of churches. It’s a social thing. Why wouldn’t it be?
It’s a great place to meet women, too. Always been that way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjydOI4MEIw
as with many things, Qtubs writing really says more about himself than it does the subject matter.
he writes in this sort of poetic/didactic style, like a preacher giving a sermon, using all sorts of flowery language to dress up commonplace things, and then compressing complex topics/ideas into childishly oversimplified terms which he repeats frequently
the whole subject of his piece is about how ‘elevated and spiritual’ his own perspective is, but its really just sort of petty and spiteful. He knows damn well not every american was either a “pioneer or criminal” – he completely omits the fact that Pilgrims came to the US for spiritual freedom. its clear he doesn’t want his audience to have any possible angle of sympathy at all with his subject, so he just omits the stuff that might complicate the narrative.
despite all this, it really does make entertaining reading. I’ve read chunks of it before, but never the whole thing.
Qutb’s Qonqlusion
****
Of the Virtues of America
All this does not mean that Americans are a nation devoid of virtue, or else, what
would have enabled them to live? Rather, it means that America’s virtues are the
virtues of production and organization, and not those of human and social morals.
America’s are the virtues of the brain and the hand, and not those of taste
and sensibility.
****
and this was just weird:
****
Sayyid Qutb Makes Fun of the Americans
We were at the table in one of the cafeterias of the University, when I saw some
Americans putting salt on their watermelon. And I was prepared to see these
strange fads and also to play jokes on them from time to time. And I said, faking
innocence, “I see you sprinkling salt on the watermelon.” One of them said,” Yes!
Don’t you do the same in Egypt?” I said, “No! We sprinkle pepper!” A surprised
and curious giri said,” How would that taste?” I said, “You can try for yourself!”
She tasted it and said approvingly,” It’s tasty!” and so did all the others.
On another day in which watermelon was served, and most of the same people
were at the table, I said “Some of us in Egypt use sugar at times instead of
pepper.” One of them tried it and said, “How tasty!” and so did all the others.
***
Think about all the hatred and bloodshed that stemmed from the fact that some dorky repressed-homosexual exchange student had a bad case of culture shock.
yeah, that’s pretty much what you get from reading his stuff. he’s socially inept, and angry that his people are so morally-‘sophisticated’, but so poor.
but as for blaming him for all the subsequent Salafist jihad i think is going a bit far. most of these movements would have happened anyway. Its just people like Bin Laden etc who *wanted* some source of justification had a handy example in Qtub. most of the Jihadis are in it for the scene, not the music. imo.
I didn’t mean to claim that Qutb was the origin of all Islamism, but he definitely help make, along with al-Banna, the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) was it is.
word. i was not reading you as saying that either; just that while Qtub might have been essential to islamist movements like the Brotherhood, the people doing the heavy-violence rarely need much in the way of intellectual justification for ‘why’…. so much as they simply need just the right socializing forces, peer support, collective identity, etc.
Ok, so those people will be pissed and looking for an enemy regardless, but why is the West the target? I mean, sure, it’s pretty obvious why, and if this guy hadn’t written an excuse, someone else would have.
But, historically speaking, surely this asshole, in this timeline, deserves some blame.
Because it has all the shit they don’t?
And of course US ME policy since the Islamic Revival of the 1970s has been one gigantic series of idiotic moves which basically affirmed every aspect of their worst, most cartoonish fears of American strategic intent.
see: US brokered an unwelcomed peace between Egypt+Israel, then funded a puppet regime in Egypt when Sadat was killed, moved the 5th fleet into the Gulf, funded the Iraqi war against Iran, then left an infidel army in Saudi Arabia after we had to evict Saddam from Kuwait, and on and on and on.
for being an asshole, sure.
but imo he just gave words to what was a collective sense of impotent rage at outside forces which they blamed for their own shitty conditions. and i doubt his books or ideas would ever have moved anyone to action had the US not played the sort of role it did in the aftermath of the Islamic revival
My pov is basically the “True Believer”-informed argument that its not really ‘fancy talkers with ideas’ that really make mass movements happen… its a large mass of frustrated stupid people who simply want to hear any excuse to tear everything down around them. And they would exchange one set of fancy-talkers for another at the drop of a hat if it enabled them to keep killing and smashing shit in the name of some vague story that made them the ‘heroes’.
iow, the fancy-ideas are fungible; the conditions aren’t.
i could be wrong, its just my own pov. I read books like The Looming Tower, Ghost Wars, etc. about “the birth of jihad movement” around the same time I read Hoffer … and it really did seem to me like his ideas were perfectly applied to that situation.
*as a footnote
I don’t think the West really is the only target, or even the most important one. Even Bin Laden saw the endgame being the removal of the Saudi regime, and every other arab dictator being replaced with a caliphate, etc. Basically, hitting the West is really just a sideshow to the main event. and if you looked at the #s of terror attacks in the last 10 years, you’d see that most of them have actually been in the muslim world, not the West.
I think ISIS is actually far closer to the thing that the Al Q types wanted – a broad based uprising across the entire arab world which aimed at overthrowing apostate regimes…. but, being assholes themselves, had very different ideas about how it should look, be organized, and what their ideology should be, etc. But the broad outlines are basically the same.
video game music reached perfection in 1992. it’s a scientific fact.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnLAC5AJPuM
A pizza that induces labor?
(AUTOPLAY)
“For years, women have been neglected when it comes to the sciences. They don’t receive the recognition they’ve earned, and many feel as if they shouldn’t (or can’t) dedicate their lives to the field based on their gender. This past week, that changed for women in engineering. On April 28th, the College of Engineering [at the University of Illinois in Urbana] debuted a new life-sized statue on Engineering quad. The statue, named “The Quintessential Engineer”, represents and celebrates all women who everyday better our world through engineereing.”
Why not just put a portrait of a famous female engineer in an engineering building, seems cheaper also more relevant to recognizing female engineers, than some random statue.
Every sci-engineering building should have a picture of Hedy Lamarr in her prime.
Wood
That’s Hedley
Agreed.
Go Senators.
At this point I’m rooting for an all-Canada final.
The Libertarian Party posts a quotation from a religious organization on its Facebook page, then takes it down.
The quote was from the Third Fundamental Tenet of the Satanic Temple: “One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.”
The Satanic Temple invoked this principle in a pro-abortion lawsuit, claiming that because its members adhered (inter alia) to this principle it was a violation of their religious freedom to limit their ability to have abortions.
Thus, the Libertarian Party has invoked a pro-abortion tenet of a Satanic organization.
This makes me a bit more sympathetic to His Holiness the Pope in his critique of libertarianism.
Libertarian Party’s Social Media Team Flubs Again
“It goes without saying that libertarians are a fairly thick-skinned bunch. We have to be. Quoting the Satanic Temple on Maundy Thursday, however, is a bridge too far for many. They accept a party that is apathetic to religion. However, they do not support a party that openly mocks their faith.”
And yet Jewsday persists.
I’m not familiar enough with the LP to know if they have any position on abortion in their platform. But I think the Pope might be surprised to find out that the issue is far from settled among small-l’s.
“1.5 Abortion
“Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.”
Hmm. The Satanic Church sounds like it is based around Alistair Crowley’s thoughts. What was it? ” The law shall be only ‘do what thy will'” or some such?
Lol, I actually think those “religions” (I don’t think they really believe in Satan) are fairly libertarian.
I may be wrong, I often am, and it’s been at least 25 years since I’ve read Crowley.
Here are the causes they think important to promote
Right to abortion, abolish corporal punishment (for those kids lucky enough to be born), Black Mass at Harvard, Adopt a Highway program, some charitable work.
Oppose cruelty to animals (they don’t specify if embryonic animals are protected).
I missed the part where they oppose the federal debt, eminent-domain abuse, civil forfeiture, etc.
Careful. Crowley also wrote a book on Yoga and we know how directly that takes middle class white women to the depths of offering themselves up to pagan gods with phallic altars
Look, Jesse, without yoga there wouldn’t be hot young things showing off their camel toes in public.
Of course, there wouldn’t be middle-aged-still-think-they’re-hot-and-they-are-but-not-that-kind-of-hot women showing off their camel toes either.
Huh, I would’ve assumed yoga pant butts would be the big draw.
*takes notes*
Oh, don’t get the wrong idea: yoga pants butts are awesome; they get me through the day. Actually awesome.
Eddie, you don’t believe in Thelema? I’m shocked. Shocked, I say!
Or what Denver J said. Here’s a former critic of Crowley.
Again – the Libertarian Party is an organization of avowed libertarians trying to get libertarians elected to office.
There’s not necessarily much love lost between the LP and the glibertarian crowd, especially after the Johnson/Weld fiasco, but there are low-info voters out there who conflate the small-l and capital-L libertarians.
And this is not some one-off incident. The Party’s presidential candidate specifically campaigned against religious freedom, ceding religious freedom as an issue to Donald Trump.
Come to think of it, the Satanic Temple also professes to support religious freedom.
“There’s not necessarily much love lost between the LP and the glibertarian crowd, especially after the Johnson/Weld fiasco”
I said this previously, but I would love to vote for Harry Browne again. Those were the only votes I had (other than Ron Paul in 2008 R primary) that I haven’t regarded as “least evil candidate.”
Oh no you guys, the SPLC has finally found out about the glorious nation of Kekistan.
Of course, they scream “ALT-RIGHT” constantly over what is basically a satire of identity politics.
The Trump is falling! The Trump is falling! Room for your lives!
Both sides are dumbasses.
They know it’s trolling but they take it seriously anyway. Dorks.
The best part? The alt-right hates Kekistan because they see it as a mockery of white nationalism.
As Sargon covered in a video today, Spencer tried to tweet about ‘Freeing Kekistan’ and he got assaulted by his followers accusing him of being an idiot falling for a trick and Kekistanis who called him an ‘old man trying to be hip’ and constantly mocked him.
Fascist anarchists?
That, sadly, is a thing.
…
FUCKING HOW.
How is anarco-communism a thing?
At least, technically, the end goal of Marxism is an anarchist utopia, national anarchism just makes my head explode as to how the fuck they think that should actually operate. Anti-capitalist AND anti-Marxist? Oh do go on you crazy motherfucker.
I’m guessing they advocate some sort of third-way neo-fedual guild syndicalism or some shit.
Every time some fascist shitbag describes their logic as ‘third way’ I really have to laugh. They’re so desperate to be the guys against “that thing everybody hates”.
That link led me to here, And now I’m even more confused than Titor. Thanks, HM.
WHY THE FUCK DID YOU EVEN SHOW THIS TO ME.
…
Alright, fuck it. This species was a mistake. Oh Great Cthulhu, poison our minds and make us mad, for that would only be an improvement.
I think the madness has already taken hold, that’s the problem.
I’m getting more and more disappointed that the Sweet Meteor o’Death hasn’t visited us yet.
You’re welcome.
It’s what I’m here for.
John Lennon expresses some vaguely libertarian ideas:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDf3vcvaRw4
He senses that govt is bad, but thinks it will magically become better once “the people” are in charge.
Lennon was apparently a bit of a fan of Reagan.
“He senses that govt is bad, but thinks it will magically become better once “the people” are in charge.”
So, a run of the mill commie.
Tom Woods has Judd Weiss, McAfee’s veep choice, on his show today. If you didn’t like GayJay’s campaign before, you’ll really hate it after listening to that interview.
He apparently treated Austin Petersen like garbage, so I don’t know what will surprise me. I’ll check it out.
Payoffs to Weiss’ campaign manager to get him to quit etc. just lots of weaselery.
Oh good, nothing like taking a page from the ruling parties.
I’m still amazed at how fucking stupid the Johnson campaign was. The most anti-establishment campaign in recent history and they run the candidate that is the exact opposite of that. It constantly infuriates me that I have to deal with libertarian parties’ strategic incompetence.
That his campaign sucked is one thing, using donor money to sabotage fellow Libertarian candidates’ internal campaign teams is just scuzzy.
I took a big break from politics in 2015 and 2016, and am only now catching up on what all went down.
One of the things I have dealt with over the last ten years or so with people is explaining what libertarianism is and isn’t. One of the things that quite a few people seem to think is that “libertarian” is a synonym for “Rockefeller Republican”. Needless to say, picking Bill fucking Weld as a Libertarian candidate strikes the wrong fucking tone IMO.
What the American Libertarian Party (or at least, the Johnsonite wing of it) doesn’t understand is how you run as a third party. Johnson and his ilk attempt to frame libertarianism as a ‘moderate’ position in contrast to the major parties. Which is the dumbest way to run a third party imaginable. Third parties in the American system are not there to win, they are there to articulate ideas and ideals that should define and influence how the electorate responds to the overarching system. By promoting a sycophantic ‘moderate’ position, rather that one that challenges the existing hierarchy, they fail to actually address the issues voters are concerned about and instead become a weak, secondary choice in the grander debate.
Listening to this now, but I think the worst accusation (reading an article summarizing) is that he took money from Democrats to trash Trump. Would explain quite a bit.
And Johnson campaign apparently paid libertarian ‘journalists.’ Per FCC records.
OT:
Just a random thought here… I don’t think “progressives” could have successfully sold themselves as “pro-science” without one particular bit of deception: the conflation of science and the mainstream science establishment. There’s science: the discipline, the testing of hypotheses, the drawing of conclusions based on evidence… Then there’s the scientific establishment: the human beings who comprise the government agencies and “think tanks” that churn out most of the “studies” that we read about in the headlines. “Progressives” are acting like they are one in the same; if you disagree with what mainstream scientists say, you must be some kind of science-hater who believes in alchemy and witchcraft.
Maxine Waters Tells Reporter ‘You’re Not Confused’ About Her Hypocrisy
So, we’re probably all aware how prodigiously stupid this woman is, and it’s hard to put up with listening to her for even a little while. This article is pretty damned funny, regardless.
Yeah what a STUPID BITCH! Often times I don’t take politician’s seriously and fine their comments funny but her lack of tact and sheer stupidity has me pretty angry.
Impeachment talk gaining steam among Democrats. Obstruction of justice by firing Comey is the closest thing I’ve heard to an actual accusation of illegal behavior. It is, of course, not actually relevant to the President firing the head of the FBI. Progressives seem to think they can just impeach a politician because they really don’t like him.
Oh please, let that be a thing. Let’s let Congress do nothing but debate impeachment and investigate Russia for the next 6 months.
How about they pass tax cuts first?
They were convinced that they could impeach Bush for the same reason. It all spins from the Clinton impeachment, where the progtards actually believed their own bullshit that he was impeached because Newt Gingrich (lol) is a huge prude, and not because he lied under oath. So they now seem to think that every Republican can be impeached for being icky.
If the FBI gets back around to investigating congressional corruption, Maxine Waters is one of the first against the wall.
Speaking of Wierd:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3526704/hunt-angler-posed-for-naked-trophy-photo-shark/
“ANIMAL rights campaigners are hunting a foolhardy angler seen squirming NAKED on the back of a shark in what appears to be a bizarre trophy photo.
They say the weird pose is ‘disrespectful’ to the ocean predator – and are demanding the man is named and shamed for his ‘humiliating’ behaviour.”
You think the shark gives a fuck? This is absolutely ridiculous!
This comment is a little to on the conservative side for my tastes but still makes a good point:
“naked man posing with
naked shark….
WTH is the problem!!!!!!!!!
i thought according to your
twisted theology we’re just
hairless monkeys.
what’s wrong with
“getting back to nature”?
you murder babies,
molest the minds and bodies of
your very own children,
promote bestiality, ect, ect….
….and your making a federal case
about a nut job posing naked with
his trophy????!!!!?!??? “
I agree. Wallace Stevens’s poems are a bit conservative in their use of form and imagery, despite his Modernist stance.
Yes, but he’s actually one of the last poets who was any fucking good at actual poetry.
^ Not meant to say your comment was derogatory towards him.
They purposely make outrageous statements to the press in order to get their message out there and repeated. It’s an old tactic that goes back to the Situationist International. You can’t control what the press says about your issue, but you can make the press talk about your issue–and that’s what’s really important.
Animal rights people are masters at this stuff. They’re basically manipulating the press and us to do their work for them.
One time, PETA sued the California Dairy Board for false advertising. They had an ad campaign that said, “Great milk comes from happy cows, and happy cows come from California”. PETA claimed that was false advertising because dairy cows aren’t actually happy in California, so they sued for false advertising.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERrjAoY3BSM
In reality, the suit had no hope of winning, but the purpose of the suit wasn’t to win any judgement. The purpose of the suit was generate coverage of an animal cruelty issue. Thousands of people went all over the internet making fun of PETA for suing the California Dairy Board of “happy cows”. Thousands of others responded on social media–spreading the word that cows actually are mistreated. It got talked about in the news!
We should learn from them. If we were half as good at presenting our message as animal rights activists, . . .
They couldn’t afford to buy that kind of advertising. The media just gave them all that coverage for free!
Maybe we should start suing government agencies for false advertising in their public service messages/scare campaigns.
You couldn’t have picked a better source than that piece of shit rag? Even Deadspin would’ve been better.
Also, that *totally* isn’t the head football coach for the Florida Gators. Even though it totally looks like him. Nope. Definitely not him.
Exclusive: Facebook Has Been Regularly Shutting Down Atheist and Ex-Muslim Groups
Facebook has also been cooperating with totalitarian governments to take down ungood content. They’ve cooperated with Pakistan in turning over “blasphemers”. With Thailand and their lese majeste laws. And a few others I’m forgetting right now.
Oh yeah, they’re also cooperating with the government of Vietnam to take down what they call “toxic” anti-government posts. https://boingboing.net/2017/04/26/vietnam-complained-of-toxic.html
Hey, guys, great news!
I get the feeling that they deliberately screened out straight, male, gun-toting and otherwise ungoodthinkful atheists.
What a pity. If only there was some alternative world view that was both tolerant of homosexuality but skeptical of govt authority…
From The Middlebury Campus student newspaper, prints an “Open Letter to President Patton” with 322 signatories from all over the country –
“We write to protest the Middlebury administration’s punitive response to students involved in the events surrounding the Charles Murray lecture on March 2, 2017. Middlebury students have reported being placed on probation and having disciplinary letters added to their files for protesting both the lecture and also the fact that the college gave its imprimatur to the event by having faculty and administration introduce and preside over it.
“Additionally, we are concerned that the administration has taken or plans to take other more serious disciplinary actions. As academics who value maintaining college campuses as spaces that encourage critical thinking and that serve as welcoming and democratic spaces for all, we write in support of these students. We exhort you to proceed with a keen sense of their well-being, and their right to participate in protests for social justice, in a long tradition that includes Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Senator Bernie Sanders….
“…the responsibility for what happened at Middlebury cannot be placed exclusively or even primarily on the shoulders of students who are now being disciplined. The administration, faculty and other members of the college community who invited, enabled, and formally welcomed so dangerous a figure as Murray in full knowledge of his history bear responsibility, as does the Middlebury administration for then overriding objections leading up to his lecture, and disrespecting students’, faculty, and alumni concerns….
“Why would Middlebury choose to enable such a man, and the specious “scholarship” and narratives he propagates, rather than nurture the spirit of students who stand against racism?”
http://middleburycampus.com/35547/opinions/open-letter-to-president-patton/
Over/Under on the number of signatories to that letter who have actually read The Bell Curve or listened to one of Murray’s speeches is 0.5, and I’d bet the under.
Take down those names and fire them all. That’s what ought to happen.
(though, lol, just scanning through, and one is in the Philippines. Like, don’t you have more serious things to protest?)
I don’t know why anyone would care about these letters or student demands.
Washington Times asks why Sessions was involved in firing Comey when he recused himself from anything related to Russia. As if that’s some serious question and recusing himself from the investigation means he can’t oversee a guy who is technically his subordinate.
The media keeps painting Trump’s demand to go after leakers as ridiculous. As if Obama didn’t wage a selective war on leakers for 8 years and Comey wasn’t his top lapdog in that.
So fun drunken story time, back, in HS one of the guys I used to hang out was Indian dude that could put his feet back over his shoulders, similar to that lady being held up by the two gentlemen in the picture above. It was a popular party trick he liked to pull off.
Anyways, so one day he’s pulling that trick off, one of our buddies says, “Get him,” then we rushed him and tied his shoelaces together in knots so he was stuck in that position. We left him that way for about 5 minutes before cutting him loose. Before anybody calls racism, or any health risks from possible strangulation by shoelaces, he was actually one of our drinking buddies, a member of our clique if you will. It really was just some HS dudes messing with each other.
I feel like I’ve seen that porno