Wednesday Morning Links

Well the Florida Gators won the CWS. The Astros lost. John McEnroe keeps giving honest answers which keeps pissing off SJWs that can’t handle reality and the Knicks are finally done paying Phil Jackson to troll them.  That’s pretty much it for sports. Damn, that’s one thing about summer that sucks.

But there are plenty of you Glibs that hate sports anyway, so you’re probably giddy that I will be forced to jump more quickly into…the links!

The New York Transit Authority just gets worse and worse at their job.

Apparently, nineteenth century technology is still a bitch to master. Just wait till the streetcars start doing the same in all the cities where they’ve pissed away your tax dollars for them.

Gee, um, we’re really sorry we lied to you. Its a good explanation how the old kids game of “telephone” gets played in the news game and how it results in so much bullshit being printed that you could fill Yankee Stadium with it (which isn’t a bad idea).

Glenn Greenwald cuts open CNN’s belly and rips their guts out. OK, maybe he doesn’t go that far, but its a serious indictment of the press’s incessant and often completely erroneous coverage of the “Russia story”.

Once a Marine, always a Marine. Even if its a woman…and she’s 80…do not fuck with a US Marine. Well done!

You can have your Xennials. I’m still happily in Gen X…and a Goonie!

Can’t decide if you’re a Gen-Xer or a Millenial?  Well if you’re born between 1977 and 1983, you may not have to choose one of those anymore!

And finally, The ACLU tears the Orange County (CA) Sheriff a new one. And they’re asking for all kinds of outrageous things like…actual civilian oversight of their gulags jails.

A new song…from 35 years ago. Actually, it is new. And its pretty decent new wave, IMO.

Well, that’s it for today’s links. Go out there and have a great day.

Comments

567 responses to “Wednesday Morning Links”

  1. PieInTheSKy

    Good thing we Europeans don’t have weird designations based on birth year

    1. PieInTheSKy

      That being said xenials is particularly stupid

    2. Rufus the Monocled

      Wait. You’re actually Romanian?

      I THOUGHT YOU WERE JOKING!

    3. Rasilio

      Actually they do and they are basically the same as the US, the only thing that changes is the extent to which they have permeated your popular culture.

      These generational names do not come from nowhere, they are used by historians and demographers to track large scale changes in behaviors and beliefs held by the public which are largely created by shared experiences of events going on in ones formative years, they are also used by marketers and businesses to create targeted marketing and business plans respectively.

  2. Just a thought not a sermon

    38) When I was a teen-ager, I had a buddy who had a mock Guns & Ammo magazine hung up in his room, with him on the cover in camo holding a rifle. I always thought that was pretty cool, although of course I realized it was fake. It was just a fun item to decorate his space. It seems 14-year-old me was smarter than the Washington Post:

    A Time magazine with Trump on the cover hangs in his golf clubs. It’s fake.

    In today’s print edition, this story takes up an entire interior page (A7), with a teaser on the front page, as if this is a huge scoop.

    “the cover…contains several small but telling mistakes. Its red border is skinnier than that of a genuine Time cover, and, unlike the real thing, there is no thin white border next to the red. The Trump cover’s secondary headlines are stacked on the right side — on a real Time cover, they would go across the top…it has two exclamation points. Time headlines don’t yell.”

    Umm, so it’s obviously a mock cover, and nobody looking at it for three seconds would fail to realize that. Nor has anybody at the Trump organization ever claimed it was real. And Trump isn’t even trying to get away with anything here–he actually did appear on the cover of Time in January 1989, as well as numerous times in the past year (as the article gets around to admitting in its final paragraph).

    I think my favorite detail from the article is this one, discussing how many of Trump’s golf courses have the mock cover hanging up: “The rest of Trump’s courses are members-only, making it difficult to get inside to look at the decor.” Ha ha! So the Post actually sent a reporter to the various golf courses checking up on this! How many staff has the Post laid off in recent years covering local politics and news, but they still have the money to send reporters on ridiculous boondoggles at tony golf courses?

    1. PieInTheSKy

      Investigative journalism is alive and kicking

      1. Bobarian LMD

        It may be alive and kicking, but the Washington Post has it wrapped up in a burlap sack with a couple bricks.

    2. They still hadn’t posted a story on James O’Keefe’s latest work but they have a whole team of reporters ready to do 5000 words on Trump having an obviously fake Time cover in his clubs.

      Democracy dies in darkness, indeed!

  3. This “article” is a big ol’ mess…

    Beta Testing Fascism: How Online Culture Wars Created the Alt-Right

    The right-wing side grew out of forums like 4chan, where white and upper-middle-class teenagers, protected by screen names and driven by deep social alienation, could plot to ruin the lives of random strangers through harassment and the publication of personal information (known as doxxing) while cracking intentionally hyperbolic and supposedly ironic jokes on sexist, pedophiliac, anti-Semitic and racist themes. In these web communities, it’s intentionally ambiguous whether jokes like “Jews did 9/11” are supposed to be funny because they’re absurd or because they’re true. This proves a fruitful ambiguity for actual racists, as it helps them normalize and spread their beliefs.

    It was the 2014 “Gamergate” controversy, Nagle explains, that turned this largely apolitical “culture of transgression” into a far-right cultural movement. When female video-game journalists such as Anita Sarkeesian took issue with sexism in the gaming world, offended male gamers unleashed a sustained campaign of harassment, doxxing, and rape and death threats against the critics. Like-minded young men (and some women) took note. Soon a decentralized coalition of rabid anti-feminists, white nationalists, “free-market” libertarians and even self-proclaimed monarchists had declared war on political correctness. The shared culture they developed, Nagle writes, was “characterized by a particularly dark preoccupation with thwarted or failed white Western masculinity as a grand metaphor.”

    This primordial stew of proto-fascism is what came to be called the alt-right. After moving through its origins, Nagle spends the bulk of her book sketching its various component movements and their figureheads.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      Yes but why would it not be? Gamergate causes fascism sounds legit.

      1. Pan Zagloba

        Have you considered applying for a position at Reason magazine? They have opening for an Expert With Awesome Hair right now and from that snippet I conclude you’d be an excellent fit on the “expert” part.

    2. That’s right. 4-chan (and it’s screen names) spawned from gamergate.

      Lol. Did they also claim in the article that the sun rises in the west?

    3. Slammer

      And yet the sewers of 4chan consistently prove themselves more trustworthy than the dying msm. There’s golden nuggets in those rivers of shit

      1. BakedPenguin

        weaponized autism….

    4. straffinrun

      and supposedly ironic jokes on sexist, pedophiliac, anti-Semitic and racist themes.

      They really mean it!

    5. Count Potato

      Anons are way more diverse than “white and upper-middle-class teenagers”.

      Also, Anita Sarkeesian is a con-artist. She is neither a gamer nor an expert on feminism. She put up a Kickstarter, opened her YouTube comments (which were previously closed), then trolled 4Chan accusing gamers and anyone who didn’t support her of being sexist, had her friends make nasty comments on her YouTube, deleted positive comments, then used it to play the victim to raise more money.

      1. cyto

        No way… I read up on this on RationalWiki, and they assure me that she was just the victim of juvenile misogynists who were stirred up because a whimpy ex-boyfriend of some other gamer chick (Zoe Quinn) got all butt-hurt and went out and was all like mean and stuff on 4-Chan. And it has the word “Wiki” right in it, so you know it is all true and therefore totally legit. And St. Anita totally got like death threats and rape threats and everything.

        So you are totes wrong and totes sexist for even thinking that kind of thing. And the fact that she raised money is just proof that you sexists are all wrong and she is the true light. Totes.

        as an aside, if you’ve never been to RationalWiki, you must go. It is amazing.

    6. Chipwooder

      “journalist” Anita Sarkeesian. Give me a fucking break. That harpy is in no way, shape, or form anything but a propagandist.

      1. The Elite Elite

        Nice job outing yourself as a garbage human, shitlord!

      2. Count Potato

        “As if the issue couldn’t become more ironic, Sarkeesian is slated to speak at a panel called “End Cyberbullying,” where she is set to “tackle the tough subject of cyberbullying and offer tactics for combating hate speech, negative mobs, and nasty comments.”

        https://heatst.com/culture-wars/youtuber-calls-for-sarkeesians-removal-from-cyberbullying-panel-after-she-called-him-garbage-human/

    7. additional:

      Though Kill All Normies is a fine piece of journalism and cultural criticism—the first serious popular study of its subject—I found as I read it that I kept coming up against the book’s most important limitation. Nagle has a tendency to see the alt-right as essentially a pop-cultural phenomenon or social malaise to be diagnosed, not a political movement with ideas that must be refuted. As a result, the book leaves many urgent questions unanswered. Does the alt-right constitute a twenty-first century fascism? What kind of politics, ultimately, follows from their beliefs? What connection do they have to the xenophobic nationalism currently sweeping electoral politics across the industrialized world? Readers must look elsewhere for answers.

      Furthermore, Nagle’s focus on minor Twitter celebrities means she neglects the more serious intellectuals in the movement—whether it’s the post-libertarian dreams of authoritarian city-states one finds in Nick Land and Mencius Moldbug, the corporatist nationalism of Michael Anton, or the biological racism and white supremacy of Steve Sailer and Richard Spencer. These writers make complicated arguments against democracy and for racial and sexual hierarchy rooted in historical analysis, evolutionary psychology, IQ testing and political theory. Even when ordinary alt-righters can’t recognize them by name, they are often regurgitating vulgarized versions of their ideas.

      post-libertarianism? That Libertarian moment flew on by.

      1. Hey, it was a libertarian moment, not a libertarian hour or day or week!

        1. F. Stupidity Jr.

          +1 Planck time

    8. Suthenboy

      Secret. Nazi. Haircuts.

    9. hate_speech

      GamerGate was the thing that tipped me from almost being progressive / male feminist to the shitlord I am now.

    10. ArchieBunker

      Who got raped?

  4. PieInTheSKy

    Of all the silly things to complain about sexism is sports. Just let them all play together and leave it at that.

    Also from the link
    “Earlier, Williams shut down McEnroe’s comments with two simple tweets. She also debuted on the cover of Vanity Fair topless and pregnant like the fierce badass she is. Game, set and match, Williams.”

    I see no shutdown. In those tweets. Also what is fierce about being topless and pregnant on a magazine cover? It was done multiple times before. Do the people writing these things ever think, I wonder?

    1. Tundra

      Do the people writing these things ever think, I wonder?

      “Thinking is hard!”

      /journo Barbie

      1. Bobarian LMD

        Do the people writing these things ever think, I wonder?

        It’s the HuffPost. That answer should be self evident.

    2. Pope Jimbo

      What is so silly is that McEnroe is saying nice things about Serena. Lots of nice things. But that isn’t good enough for the chuckleheads out there.

      I guess the only thing to do now is have Serena come back and compete on the men’s tour. Won’t Mac feel stupid when she wins the Grand Slam and is rated #1 in the world.

      1. cyto

        Yeah, I don’t get where they are even coming from. Is it the fact that he said it out loud? Or do they actually believe that she’d be a top player on the men’s tour as well?

    3. Raven Nation

      And appearing on the cover of VF while demanding McEnroe respect her privacy.

    4. When a woman shows up on a magazine cover with no top she’s a “fierce badass”. When I walk out to get something out of my car with just my drawers and a cup of coffee I’m white trash. And yet I’m the one who supposedly is privileged between the two.

    5. mr simple

      You know it’s bad when a majority of the comments on HuffPo — and there are few — are calling the author out and saying how ridiculous this is. Or maybe it’s just early and the raving loonies aren’t up yet.

    1. Just a thought not a sermon

      I like that the picture has protestors with signs saying “Because the rent won’t wait.” Right. The rent won’t wait for you to find a job that doesn’t exist because the minimum-wage law took all the entry-level jobs out of existence.

      1. There was a fix to not being able to cover the rent on entry-level paychecks.

        What was it called? Oh, right… roommates.

        1. cyto

          ouch. You just gave me flashbacks.

          Yeah… the roommate period and all of its drawbacks was hard. “Friends” tried to capture the ethos, but in my reality there is a lot more getting stiffed on the bills, not keeping things cleaned, uncomfortable dating scenarios… Yeah, thanks for dredging that up.

      2. Nevermind the rent keeps going up because the city controls who does what with their land and won’t allow builders to put up what they choose in a timely manner.

  5. Rob Lowe: I Saw Bigfoot, And I Thought It Would Kill Me

    Lowe told Entertainment Weekly that he had an “incredible encounter” with a creature known as the wood ape, or the Ozark version of Sasquatch or Bigfoot.

    “I’m fully aware that I sound like a crazy, Hollywood kook right now,” he admitted.

    Lowe said he was terrified by the encounter.

    “I was lying on the ground thinking I was going to be killed,” he said.

    Since the wood ape encounter is in the show’s season finale, Lowe refused to reveal too many details about it. But he set the scene…

    1. Just a thought not a sermon

      Huh. My step-mother’s family live in the Ozarks. I’ve spent a lot of times wandering around the woods in Izard County. Don’t recall ever seeing a wood ape, though…

      1. STEVE SMITH SAW YOU

        1. Homple

          HE IS REALLY STEVE SMITH! HE JUST AS MUCH AS POSTED A PICTURE OF HIMSELF!

          RUN AWAY!

    2. PieInTheSKy

      no goddam ALL CAPS jokes y’all hear?

      1. MikeS

        IF YOU MAKING FUN OF HOW STEVE SMITH TALK, STEVE SMITH NOT BE HAPPY WITH YOU. WILL RAPE. A LOT.

        1. Pope Jimbo

          STEVE SMITH HAVE WAYS OF SHUTTING UP PEOPLE WHO DON’T LIKE HOW HE TALKS. HE SHOVES HIS DICK IN THEIR MOUTH. THEN HE RAPES THEM A LOT.

      2. Homple

        too late, sorry.

    3. BigGreg

      “I’m Rob Lowe.”

      “And I’m running from an angry rapesquatch Rob Lowe.”

      1. Password gl1b

        “If I had DirectTV, I wouldn’t have gotten bored and wandered off into the woods looking for ‘adventure’.”

      2. Rufus the Monocled

        Oh man would that be an OUTSTANDING one-minute video. “Robe Lowe runs away from angry rapesquatch”.

    4. Slammer

      STEVE SMITH TELL YOU ABOUT LAST NIGHT

    5. SILLY ROB LOWE – STEVE SMITH RAPESQUATCH, NOT WOOD APE!

    6. Brasidas

      Wood ape? Never heard of it. Must be some meth addled Missouri Ozark creation.

      1. Brasidas

        Arkansas’ Sasquatch is most definitely STEVE SMITH. It’s right there in the name.

        Fouke Monster

        Shaggy-haired, stinky and well over six-feet tall, the creature allegedly clawed its way through a screened window before the men of the house chased the creature back into the woods. Law enforcement officers were called and investigated the scene, taking casts of some strange footprints. Soon after the lawmen departed, the beast returned and was met with gunfire from the homeowners, according to reports.

        1. ChipsnSalsa

          HARD TO SCRUB STINK OFF AFTER RAPE. STEVE SMITH HAVE FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS LIKE NO OTHER

        2. Chipwooder

          And it was the subject of one of the finest MST episodes ever.

    7. Bobarian LMD

      STEVE SMITH SAW ROB LOWE AND THOUGHT HIM MIGHT PICK UP STD.

      PASS.

    8. Fake news.

      Everyone knows that Bigfoot lives in east Texas. Ask anyone.

    9. Gustave Lytton

      STEVE SMITH NOT LITERALLY KILL ROB LOWE. WILL LITERALLY RAPE THOUGH.

  6. Just a thought not a sermon

    “An ew song…from 35 years ago.”

    Come on, OMD isn’t that bad.

  7. The Late P Brooks

    Dallas News: “Turn off your ad blocker.”

    Me: “Bye.”

    1. Slammer

      This. I need to change my mouse cursor to “fuck off”

    2. Viking1865

      Some sites I have seen have a little pop up that shows the site with ads and a message.

      “This is our site with ads *Picture*. We think they are discreet and none of them are audio or video ads. Please consider turning off your ad blocker for our site. Click here to close this message.”

      1. hate_speech

        “And conveniently ignore all the tracking scripts / malware that we will be running in the background.”

      2. A Leap at the Wheel

        My favorite are the ones that say they won’t enable their autoplay video unless I turn off my ad blocker. Those are the best.

        1. they won’t enable their autoplay video

          “This will only hurt a little.”

          “I’ll only put the tip of it in.”

          “I swear I won’t cum in your mouth.”

    3. JW

      Dallas News: “Turn off your ad blocker.”

      Me: “Bye.”

      That was me at the movies last night. Took The Boy to see “Wonder Woman” (3 second review: Not too bad and full of Amazon eye candy.) AMC had a “premier” line for the schmucks in their privacy selling loyalty program. They took people from that line one after another, while we filthy privacy-hording prols waited patiently for our $37 in snacks.

      After about 3 minutes of this bullshit, I decided that they really didn’t want my money, after all.

      Oh, and nice touch removing the water fountains. Go fuck a bag of badgers, AMC Theaters.

  8. Can’t decide if you’re a Gen-Xer or a Millenial? Well if you’re born between 1977 and 1983, you may not have to choose one of those anymore!

    Whoever thought ‘xennial’ was not completely and utterly stupid needs to be flogged until they’ve been flayed to the bone from the lash.

  9. Pope Jimbo

    This story is not going to be featured in any Minnesoda Tourism Board commercials.

    Young couple try to make a viral YouTube video. Doesn’t end up so well.

    Ruiz said her nephew Pedro Ruiz III held up a book and then believes his girlfriend, 20-year-old Mona Lisa Perez, shot the book with a .50-caliber gun, trying to see if the bullet would go through, hopeful for views with another YouTube video as their 3-year-old daughter looked on. Instead, the bullet went into her boyfriend’s chest.

    1. Are we talking a pistol .50, a Browning .50, or a muzzle-loader .50?

      1. Suthenboy

        Unless he was holding an entire set of encyclopedia britannica I dont think it matters.

        1. I want to know.

          1. Bobarian LMD

            Hold this book.

          2. *shoots Bobarian*

            It’s self-defense, I swear.

        2. {|}===[|}:;:;:;:;:;:;:>

          Book thickness and distance depending it would matter quite a bit between the three…

    2. PieInTheSKy

      yeah … prank… sure

      1. Just a thought not a sermon

        See, the one advantage to having a really dumb boyfriend is that when you get tired of him, it’s real, real easy to make his murder look accidental.

        1. {|}===[|}:;:;:;:;:;:;:>

          15-20 is better than 25-life I suppose.

    3. Drake

      Give that man a Darwin Award.

      1. Negroni Please

        Can’t. He already procreated.

    4. Jefe Hayek

      So, they needed to “test” to see if a .50 caliber projectile would pass through a book? Unless the book is the unabridged Derpmonicon and the .50 caliber projectile is shot out of a stripper’s cooch, I could probably answer that without need for testing

      1. westernsloper

        *ponders the caliber designation of a ping pong ball

        1. Caput Lupinum

          Regulation ping pong balls are 40mm, making them 157 caliber, assuming a smooth bore.

          1. Jefe Hayek

            assuming a smooth bore

            giggity

      2. cyto

        Surprisingly, it won’t penetrate 3 feet of water. Too much speed makes the water hard as concrete and the bullet fragments. So ducking under just a few feet of water makes you bulletproof – even more so than the old Bond movies would have you believe.

        1. Number.6

          Please note that is true of most projectiles travelling at greater than ~1600fps, it is not true of (even) ‘hot’ pistol rounds such as .357 magnum.

          However – the muzzle velocity of 50AE ammo, of 1500fps out of a Desert Eagle, is coming close to that limit, but I wouldn’t want to take bets either way on whether you’d be safe under water, but my instincts say that you wouldn’t. 300gr of copper jacketed lead is an awfully large lump of metal, and it’d be dumping about 4-5x the kinetic energy of a 9mm.

          It’s astounding how many people on youtube are more than happy to bolt on some plates and have people *attempt* to shoot them in the torso with handguns. It’s my primary mechanism for reminding myself that 50% of adult Americans have an IQ of less than 100.

    5. Tundra

      Sadly, they didn’t try their little prank two children earlier.

    6. straffinrun

      If the book was a Koran, I’d convert.

    7. Sean

      The Aristocrats!

    8. That is the very definition of stupidity. And to think they reproduced. God help us all.

  10. Drake

    Sen. Claire McCaskill keeps looking dumber. After tweeting she never met the Russian Ambassador, turns out she went to a party at his house.

    1. I wouldn’t call her dumb. I think “grandstanding mendacious cunt” captures her essence better.

      1. straffinrun

        Why would you want to capture her essence. Eeew.

        1. It helps keep critters out of the garden.

      2. Chipwooder

        Nah, “dumb grandstanding mendacious cunt” works just fine.

        1. Suthenboy

          Does ‘lying sack of shit’ figure in that ?

          1. Drake

            But a smart liar doesn’t contradict her own tweets or easily provable facts – like her visits with the Russian Ambassador.

      3. wdalasio

        While it is true that she’s a grandstanding mendacious cunt, I think it’s also true that she’s a dumb grandstanding mendacious cunt. A smart grandstanding mendacious cunt wouldn’t have made so easily refutable a claim.

        1. cyto

          Or maybe smart enough to know that nobody will give a rat’s butt about the lie and simply report the original rant and move on. Which appears to be the correct assumption, so far.

    2. one true athena

      The other dumb-funny part of this are the people rushing to her defense: “She said she’d never ‘met’ him. I’ve been to parties at people’s houses, and not met the person there!” yeah, because when you’re a Senator and you go to a foreign Ambassador’s official residence, it’s all just a drunken rave, sure.

      Not to mention these are no doubt the same people who think it’s Super Sinister that Trump wanted to invite Gorbachev to dinner back in 1999! ALL THOSE RUSSIAN CONNECTIONS KEEP BUILDING UP, MAN!!

      1. DOOMco

        “Do you know Chad?”
        “might have been to a party as his place?”

      2. AlexinCT

        Double standards, because without those these idiots would have none…

  11. Drake

    Italian “migrant welcome centers” overwhelmed as 13,500 Africans arrived over past 2 days.

    Don’t they have a navy or a coast guard? Just turn Soros’ NGO boats around and send them back.

    1. Slammer

      The transgender gondoliers can pitch in

  12. Drake

    Okay, for once I’m going to have to side with the police officer.

    Off-Duty Officer Chokes Black Teen For Being On His Lawn

    1. Why would you side with a cop who, out of uniform, forcibly detained a kid by his throat that had done no more than apparently walk in his yard?

      The linked story gives more detail about that incident than HuffPo. And it still sounds like this guy was an asshole to a kid who, according to what I can see, did little more than walk on the grass. Hell, it looks like the cop was basically holding him hostage until his friends came back.

      1. The Elite Elite

        Do you even “Get Off My Lawn” bruh?

      2. A joke? “get off my lawn”?

      3. Drake

        I was (kind of) joking. And stay off my lawn.

        1. straffinrun

          A threeway on Sloop. Somebody get a camera.

        2. Oh, ok. I thought you were serious. Sorry about that.

          My stress level is spiking at 7:30 this morning. Fuck.

      4. Rasilio

        Hey, in Ancapistan it is perfectly legitimate to place a minefield on your property as anyone going on it is trespassing and therefore has committed an act of aggression against you. This kid is just lucky the homeowner showed some restraint.

    2. I definitely feel some kind of way about people being on my property–I’ve got precious little of it as it is–but I genuinely believe that my reaction were I in Officer Friendly’s position would be to ask the kid what’s going on without choke slamming anyone. I mean, if he was sitting there having a smoke on my porch I might be a little ornery, but this isn’t that, I think.

      1. Number.6

        That muscle memory is a bitch, cutting in even when you’re off duty.

  13. Wait, Are Feminists Supposed to Drool Over Women’s Butts or Nah?

    Plenty of other outlets have turned well-meaning appreciation for bodies and beauty into googly-eyed droolfests. Mic recently published a piece on “the radical power of Wonder Woman’s thigh jiggle,” pinpointing a moment in the film during which the flesh on Gal Gadot’s upper leg moves about. The Huffington Post applauds “23 Crazy-Fine Asian Dudes,” “stunning nude photos” of fat people, and men who are “Gay. Disabled. And Sexy As F**k” in headlines that could easily belong on a magazine in an opaque bag at a gas station. Marie Claire’s post on Khloe Kardashian’s exercise attire features a close-up image of her butt, noting that “Khloé’s butt also attended” the dance class, “as it’s attached to her body.” Glad to hear it!

    I’m not quite sure which wave of feminism we’re on at this point. I think we agree that people of all genders should be able to look sexy and show off—even flaunt—their bods however they want, but I’m not clear on why it’s empowering or slay-y to write about those bods like we are currently masturbating over them. That seems like something we should leave to fetishists and misogynists—otherwise, what will feminist bloggers have left to internet about, right?! Or maybe I’m just too thick—and ?living ?— to understand.

    1. Chipwooder

      Emojis are the hallmark of a serious column.

    2. TripodKat

      I just read an article the other day that the “hand-clapping” emoji is actually appropriation of black culture. Therefore, the author can now accurately be called a shitlord.

    3. What does clapping hands living clapping hands mean? Fuck’s sake, do we need a Rosetta Stone for these people?

    4. DesigNate

      That Hillary Duff picture? Soooooo wood.

  14. The Late P Brooks

    The Berkeley study also squares with the lived experiences of people across the country who overwhelmingly support making businesses provide fairer pay for a hard day’s work.

    That settles it. The mob has spoken.

    1. Just a thought not a sermon

      So in a survey, most people think their company should pay them more? Incredible.

      1. And I want to be carried about in a sedan chair by interns, free champagne brunch every day at work and a stack of Swiss banknotes high enough to fill my garage.

        *sound of whip cracking*

        “Ja! Zurück an die Arbeit, Chef!”

        1. Just a thought not a sermon

          “Und bring mir mehr Pfannkuchen!”

        2. JD

          Noch ein Bier, bitte! Gestern!

          1. Homple

            Bratwurst, Brötchen mit bautzner Senf. Macht Schnell!

    2. Password gl1b

      Ben Spielberg, a Teach For America alum and former member of the Executive Board of the San Jose Teachers Association, works on issues related to inequality, economic opportunity, and full employment with Jared Bernstein at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

      In case you’re unfamiliar with this center, it looks like the anti-Glib.

      1. TripodKat

        The article on the front page is “Middle-Class Families Would Face Higher Costs, Worse Coverage Under Senate Health Bill”… in the article it lists a bunch of scenarios where the cost of insurance would go up for certain families.

        You mean in the same way Obamacare made the middle class pay more for insurance? Holy shit, its almost like every time the government gets involved, the costs go up! Fascinating.

        1. DesigNate

          I love all these bitch pieces about the GOP bills. I want to scream at every liberal “Where was your concern when Obamacare took away my insurance? Where was your outrage when my middle class family had to decide between rent and premiums? You don’t give a fuck about the middle class!!!!”

          Sadly I just keep my mouth shut.

        2. cyto

          Yeah. Obamacare cut my healthcare bill so much I’m opting out. My max out of pocket for my family (including premiums) has gone from about $17,500 per year to over $35k this year (20k of which is premiums, if you can even wrap your head around that). So we are moving to a religious cooperative (one of the exemptions from the Obamacare mandate), with an add-on policy for catastrophic expenses.

          I’ll let you know how it works out. Can’t be much worse…. I’m estimating that our max annual expense will be more like $8-10k, even with a big operation or two. So a major cut in expenses. Of course, that’s still more than the $6,500 max I was facing back when I first opted for a high deductible plan with a medical savings account. Inflation in this sector has been grotesque…. just as regulations and mandates have grossly accelerated. Hmmm… coincidence?

    3. Slammer

      “Lived Experience”, my ass. Fuck off.

    4. Who determines what’s fair? And, unless I’m wrong (and I know I’m not) I’ll bet most of the people clamoring loudest about fair pay wouldn’t know a hard day’s work if it bit them in the ass.

      1. AlexinCT

        Not taking that bet Bill, cause it would be easy winnings for you..

  15. An ex-Tesla engineer created an FDA-compliant cure for hangovers

    It turns out the secret ingredient, according to Liang’s papers, is an herbal compound called dihydromyricetin (DHM) found in the Oriental raisin tree and rattan tea, Lee says.

    Herbal drinks from these trees have been used to cure hangovers in Asia for thousands of years, Lee discovered.

    Hangovers are caused when we drink more alcohol than our livers can handle, and a type of toxic acid builds up, he said.

    Too much of that acid causes inflammation like a headache. Too much too fast can cause vomiting. DHM helps the body remove this toxic acid, he said.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      Wait I thought no one really understands what causes hangovers

      1. Hyperion

        Combination of alcohol’s breakdown into acetaldehyde, which is toxic, and dehydration.

    2. Rufus the Monocled

      ‘They’ve been using it for thousands of years’. That’s their hook.

      Meanwhile, back in the West all medical advancements are just…quaint. Products of a faceless capitalist system.

      We may not have been using pills for thousands of years but damn are they effective!

    3. I’m sorry, but opening and drinking a liter bottle of water has already been invented.

      1. Tundra

        Pedialyte is also incredibly effective.

    4. Suthenboy

      Secret cure that has been used for thousands of years. Uh huh. When something works word gets around. That’s why aspirin is so popular. If it’s a ‘secret’ cure it’s secret for a reason.

      1. A Leap at the Wheel

        Its not a secret. And you can buy it without the woo right now.
        https://www.amazon.com/Dihydromyricetin-Scientifically-Hangovers-Naturally-Obtained/dp/B00CX60CMA

      2. cyto

        I like this adage, which I heard from Mark Crislip.

        You know what they call complementary and alternative medicine that actually works? Medicine.

    5. CPRM

      Hangovers are caused when we drink more alcohol than our livers can handle, and a type of toxic acid builds up,

      I don’t get hangovers unless I get blind drunk, does that mean my liver is really good or really bad?

      1. Bobarian LMD

        Pro-tip: If you’re never sober, you never get hung-over.

    6. Scotticus Finch

      I love that the article calls it FDA-compliant while simultaneously running afoul of the FDA regulations on Dietary Supplements that stipulate they cannot purport to be a “cure” for anything.

      1. cyto

        They can comply with that rule by simply including these magic words on their packaging:

        Not intended to treat or diagnose any disease or illness

        It works like a charm. Even when they are explicitly marketing it as a cure, they rarely get prosecuted for violations.

    7. BakedPenguin

      So Tesla (the company) isn’t entirely useless? Cool.

      Also, we need to start a petition for the FDA to hurry the application process for this product. As in, get it done by the end of 2016.

      1. Hyperion

        The FDA’s job is to see if there’s anyway to let one of their cronies patent it as a prescription only medicine. If they can, you can have some of it in 15-20 years if your doctor decides it’s right for you. And failing that, ban it as harmful to the public. There is no ‘hurry’ in the FDA. Or just buy some on Amazon now.

    8. MikeS

      Herbal drinks from these trees have been used to cure hangovers in Asia for thousands of years, Lee discovered.

      Ancient Chinese secret!

    1. ChipsnSalsa

      funny

      1. BakedPenguin

        second

  16. Pope Jimbo

    This story about TRUMP’S EPA!!! giving in to the dark force is very poorly written.

    I have read it several times and I am still not entirely sure what the horrible crime is. I think it is because the head of the EPA asked a U of M scientist (who is also head of the EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors) to downplay the dismissal of a lot of the scientists on that board during her testimony to Congress.

    Since the reporter focused almost entirely on the horror of dismissing scientists at the EPA and how Trump has replaced them with big meanies, it is hard to piece together the timeline. I think, though, that when she was asked to downplay the firings only a few had been dismissed and they were not sure what would happen to the rest. After her testimony, they fired a bunch more (the board had 68 members before, by Sept it will be down to 11).

    Like I said, it is hard to figure out exactly what the sin is. It is also special that the scientist told the committee that she was going to speak as an independent scientist and not an EPA employee. I hope that the EPA made her use her vacation days for that trip then.

    Wait, here is the main sin:

    “I was stunned that he was pushing me to ‘correct’ something in my testimony,” said Swackhamer, who retired recently from the U. “I was factual, and he was not. I felt bullied.”

    They made a woman feel bullied.

    1. I think it is because the head of the EPA asked a U of M scientist (who is also head of the EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors) to downplay the dismissal of a lot of the scientists on that board during her testimony to Congress.

      Did he ask her to call the dismissals “parting of ways” or something? Or is this a more serious breach of etiquette than the (according to the MSM) nothingburger of the AG telling the head of the FBI to refer to a serious criminal
      Investigation as a “matter”?

      Just curious. I want to have my priorities straight when asked whether an EPA head downplaying ph license firings is compared to an AG telling her FBI chief to publicly downplay an investigation into her old friend and political ally.

      1. Pope Jimbo

        1) It was the EPA chief of staff (so not the head guy)
        2) The committee was supposed to be hearing about the role of states in setting environmental policy, but then this gal wanted to chat about her board being downsized.
        3) I’m not sure the chief of staff was even asking her to lie. I think that this story is using a wonky time line to make it seem like he was. Parse the statement below. At the time a few had been let go, but they make it seem like all of them had been.

        Among other requests in his May 22 e-mails, Jackson asked Swackhamer to say that “a decision had not yet been made” about dismissing her colleagues on the advisory board. However, at that time, several of the scientists had already received notices that their terms would not be renewed. And since then, the EPA has notified dozens of others that their terms will not be renewed.

    2. Password gl1b

      Will the pussy grabbing never end? They also made the 6’8″ FBI director sound like a victim of sexual assault.

      1. Bobarian LMD

        He does kinda come across as a big pussy, so…?

  17. Drake

    One year ago yesterday, Loretta and Bill had a nice chat about the grandkids on the tarmac.

    1. Count Potato

      “A citizen researcher from Florida is attempting to have the recording of the infamous Bill Clinton/Loretta Lynch tarmac tape released to the public, but apparently, the National Security Agency claims they won’t release it due to “national security.””

      While that would mean that they were talking about more than golf and grandchildren. Why can’t Trump just ask for it?

      1. The Last American Hero

        Because Loretta Lynch doesn’t have grandkids?

        1. Bobarian LMD

          Or play golf?

      2. Count Potato

        The point is that the President can classify anything anyway he wants. Which includes this, that stuff sent to the Obama library, etc.

  18. Pope Jimbo

    Now for some fun Minnesoda news.

    The Vikings are making a big push for my favorite player to make the Hall of Fame.

    I see Marshall in a bar I go to once or twice a year. He’s a great guy.

    1. KibbledKristen

      Nice!!!

      My favorite is Robert Smith.

      1. Also from The Ohio State University.

      2. I like the Cure but really?

          1. straffinrun

            BTW, Tundra, you’re a Ramones guy, right? Worth the watch.

          2. Tundra

            I am! Thanks, Straffin – that looks great!

            As an aside, I was very pleased the other day when my daughter came down to breakfast wearing a Ramones t-shirt. So proud!

          3. Number.6

            We bought my son a “Rock an’ Roll Pre-School” t-shirt for his 3rd birthday, now almost 13 years ago.

            Not sure where it went, but he wore the hell out of it for 6 months.

          4. BakedPenguin

            I saw some 18 yo girl wearing a Rocket to Russia tee walking into a quik-e-mart one day. I started laughing, and told her “that’s the first record I ever bought.” Gabba Gabba Hey.

        1. BakedPenguin

          “I like the Cure but really?”

          Glad I refreshed before making this exact joke…

      3. Tundra

        Alan Page for me. Followed closely by Chuck Foreman.

        1. Pope Jimbo

          My buddy and I were eating at J.D. Hoyt’s the night before Chuck was inducted into the Viking Ring of Honor. He was there with a bunch of other Vikings.

          The guy I was there with was a very good friend of a waitress there (that is why were in there in the first place) and she confessed that she had no idea who any of the Vikings were. So we told her to go congratulate “#44 Leroy Hoard”. So she did go up and call him that and it was like he had been kicked in the nuts and every other Viking was in tears laughing.

          1. Tundra

            That’s great! I hope you gave her a monster tip, though…

      4. Pope Jimbo

        Nope. Can’t forgive Mr. Smartypants for being dumb enough to run out of bounds in 98 against the Falcons. Stopping the clock and leaving time for the Falcons to tie it all up.

        1. KibbledKristen

          I blame Denny Green for letting it go into OT on THIRD FUCKING DOWN. What. the. fuck.

          1. Pope Jimbo

            That too. One of the best lines from the next year was some local radio guy claiming that Denny Green was at the combines to time potential QB’s in the draft on how long it took them to take a knee.

            Also Denny played his starters way into the 4th quarter blowout of the Cards in the previous game resulting in John Randall getting his leg gimped up. He played that game on one leg.

          2. KibbledKristen

            I also get pissed at people who blame Gary Anderson. Dude had a perfect record up til that point, and it was poor strategy that put them in a position to have to rely on a 3-point kick in the first place.

          3. F. Stupidity Jr.

            it was poor strategy that put them in a position to have to rely on a 3-point kick in the first place.

            True, but he failed to make a play that he made all year. People blaming him is perfectly understandable. I could see if he missed a long kick in weather, but it was a 38 yarder in the Metrodome.

          4. CPRM

            Denny Green was great at falling just short. Kind of like Marty Schottenheimer, but not as prolific.

          5. Chipwooder

            He was who you thought he was!

    2. straffinrun

      Good luck to old Wrong Way, but my favorite was Eddie Payton. When asked what it’s like to be the brother of a legend, he said, “I dunno. You should ask Walter.”

  19. The Late P Brooks

    That doesn’t mean that nobody in Seattle will ever lose a job, of course, or that the University of Washington team’s research doesn’t merit further exploration. But it does mean that the Seattle minimum wage increase, like every minimum wage increase in American history, has lifted the wages of low-wage workers and been perfectly fine for the economy. Until you start seeing low-income people in Seattle and around the country taking to the streets to demand lower minimum wages, don’t listen to anyone who tries to tell you otherwise.

    Can’t you be a little more disingenuous?

    Lifted the wages of some, eliminated the wages of others.

    1. leonadasiv

      Because lower wage individuals are very so will known for their acumen in economics to go skiing for the minimum wage to be lowered.

      1. leonadasiv

        Asking*

        damn phone.

        1. I found the original more entertaining.

          1. Michael

            Skiing for Dollars is a TV show I would likely watch if it existed.

          2. CPRM

            Skiing for two dollars

  20. Are we headed for a solar waste crisis?

    All of which begs the question: just how big of a problem is solar waste?

    Environmental Progress investigated the problem to see how the problem compared to the much more high-profile issue of nuclear waste.

    We found:

    Solar panels create 300 times more toxic waste per unit of energy than do nuclear power plants.

    If solar and nuclear produce the same amount of electricity over the next 25 years that nuclear produced in 2016, and the wastes are stacked on football fields, the nuclear waste would reach the height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa (52 meters), while the solar waste would reach the height of two Mt. Everests (16 km).

    In countries like China, India, and Ghana, communities living near e-waste dumps often burn the waste in order to salvage the valuable copper wires for resale. Since this process requires burning off the plastic, the resulting smoke contains toxic fumes that are carcinogenic and teratogenic (birth defect-causing) when inhaled.

    1. Grummun

      All of which begs the question

      All of which raises the question, why do people who get paid to write not know what “begging the question” means?

      1. Tundra

        Language is changing but that doesn’t mean you have to go with the flow.

        Good article on the misuse of the phrase. Short version: it’s a lost cause, but don’t be that guy.

        1. F. Stupidity Jr.

          George Carlin talked about the word “forte” saying that it’s actually supposed to be pronounced “fort” but popular usage went with “for-TAY”. His response: “Fuck popular usage!”

          FWIW, Google gives both pronunciations.

        2. wdalasio

          I’m a little torn on that argument. Yes, I can make some allowances for popular usage to alter standards. But, shouldn’t there be some distinction between “popular usage” and “common mistakes”? Otherwise, perhaps we should all start using twoo (to cover to, too, and two) or theiy’re (to cover their, there and they’re).

          1. Tundra

            That’s essentially what she says.

            When I was working on my latest book, 101 Troublesome Words [Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound], I tried to find examples of people using begs the question the traditionally correct way, and I went through thousands of search results without finding one.

            And she finishes:

            My advice is to avoid using begs the question to mean “raises the question.” Reestablishing the traditional meaning of begs the question is a lost cause, but even though almost nobody will realize you’ve made an error, there’s also no compelling reason to misappropriate the phrase. If you mean “raises the question,” say “raises the question.”

        3. Emmerson Biggins

          I’m fine with “ginormous” being a word. I don’t like it when popular usage makes it impossible (or much harder) to say something because dipshits ruined it. “Assuming that which is to be proven” sucks. I want “begging the question” back, and the only way to get back is do fight the dipshits for it.

      2. BakedPenguin

        “All of which raises the question…” Thanks. It’s a huge pet peeve of mine. It’s not that hard to determine if a statement avoids (and therefore, begs) a question by assuming facts not in evidence, or raises/asks a further question.

    2. leonadasiv

      Shutup! Nuclear energy already works so they is no reason for the government to subsidize it.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    Speaking of awesome Viking…

    Alan Page. That guy is who everybody should aspire to be.

    1. Pope Jimbo

      Agreed. I was at a luncheon with him and he’s a class act.

    2. Tundra

      Yes.

  22. The Late P Brooks

    An ex-Tesla engineer created an FDA-compliant cure for hangovers

    No batteries? No electrodes?

    I am disappoint.

    1. Tundra

      It’s not gonna be available for another year, or two, if that makes you feel better.

      1. Bobarian LMD

        But they’re taking deposits.

  23. David Burge‏ @iowahawkblog 23h23 hours ago

    “The Most Trusted Name In News” is sorta like “The Most Trusted Used Car Lot In Shreveport”

    1. That man is a national treasure.

      1. peachy rex

        I did love how the CNN guy said something like “those who trust CNN trust us more than ever”, leaving open the possibility that the only people who trust CNN are the inmates of the lobotomy ward.

  24. Rufus the Monocled

    Never tagged myself as anything but damn each time I watch Millennials in action the more I wear my Gen-X street cred more. I need a tattoo to flaunt it. Maybe an ‘X’ across my face?

    VOTE!

      1. BakedPenguin

        X?

    1. Chipwooder

      Yep. Can’t even lump me in with this “Xennial” crap – very glad to have been born 28 days before 1977.

    2. Juvenile Bluster

      Fuck this “Xellenials” thing (even if I was born near the beginning of that time period). Nothing’s making me associate with those… people. I’m Generation X, dammit.

      1. The Elite Elite

        Nope, face it JB. You’re one of us. There’s no escaping it. You belong to the same generation as Robby.

      2. The Zenome Project

        As an actual Millennial myself, I’m almost ready to identify as a “trans-ager” and look for a different generation to join. The progs are just too insane.

        1. Chipwooder

          Welcome to Gen X, here’s your flannel shirt.

          1. A Leap at the Wheel

            And our pants won’t restrict blood flow to you gentleman parts.

        2. Jarflax

          If this is a thing I am joining the Regency Generation!

        3. CPRM

          I would identify as the Pepsi generation, but only ironically, so a Pepsi generation hipster I guess.

    3. bacon-magic

      X

  25. Pope Jimbo

    A week or so ago, I linked to a column from our local earth wacko who said that heat deaths were going to kill a bazillion people because of AGW. Well, he’s back with more.

    He has this gem of a quote from David Sailor:

    “When you have these heat waves, the residents in the area of course are using more air-conditioning than they would otherwise,” he said. “So there’s a lot more waste heat being dumped into the environment from their attempts to keep their buildings cool. That creates a kind of positive feedback loop between local heat and global climate change.”

    I tried to comment in his last story that cold kills 20 times more people than heat, but the moderators never posted it. I tried again with this story. I doubt that they will approve it here either.

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      That creates a kind of positive feedback loop between local heat and global climate change.

      Tard alert.

      I’m sure Vegas is much hotter outside because of the casino’s air conditioning.

      1. Rufus the Monocled

        WHY NOT?

        1. Scruffy Nerfherder

          SCIENCE, BITCH

          1. AlexinCT

            Weird science? As in bullshit consensus-like sciencey?

          2. Number.6

            Hopefully more 1980’s Kelly le Brock-like sexy.

          3. thrakkorzog

            How about 90’s era Vanessa Angel instead?

    2. Suthenboy

      A billion people will die from global warming by 2012.

      Fact.

      1. BakedPenguin

        An inconvenient fact.

    3. fried

      The waste heat bring dumped into the atmosphere is heat that made it’s way back into buildings from outside through the walls and whatnot due to a temperature gradient. That’s a bit like trying to claim that bucketing water out of a leaking boat will cause the seas to rise.

      1. Pope Jimbo

        Well man, that is just like your opinion.

      2. cyto

        I think they are referring to the added CO2 emissions due to the energy consumed in an effort to create that temperature gradient.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Solar panels create 300 times more toxic waste per unit of energy than do nuclear power plants.

    But did that “study” properly account for the wholly beneficial generation of smug self-satisfaction on the part of preening American liberals? I think not.

    1. Smug pollution is even more toxic than the plastic burning smoke.

  27. Jefe Hayek

    Elsie beat the cat off her with the sickle

    Then she killed the poor bobcat. That’s some Kathy Bates in Misery type shit

    1. Pope Jimbo

      The cat was killed? I thought she beat him off.

      Whoa! That changes the whole story for me.

      1. Jefe Hayek

        She beat him off, then killed him! Start calling this woman the Praying Mantis

  28. Certified Public Asshat

    NBC Sports to make it more difficult to watch soccer

    The network announced the introduction of the Premier League Pass for this season, a $49.99 over the top service that would allow fans to watch 130 live Premier League matches and other on demand programming.

    That sounds all well and good, right? Well, there’s a catch, because of course there is.

    The 250 Premier League games that will be airing on NBC’s TV outlets will not be available for live streaming with the Premier League Pass, meaning that for their $50, cord-cutters are only getting just over one-third of the total games this season.

    But that’s not all!

    Those who haven’t cut the cord will now need to pony up the $50 to have access to all 380 games, as the games that were previously streamed only on NBC Extra Time will transition to the Premier League Pass service.

    NBC’s Live Extra app also will not contain an archive of prior games and shows, and will be focused on live streaming.

    In other words, if you want to follow your favorite premier league team you need to download 20 different apps and pay various services in order to do so now.

    1. Or just follow Manure, Arsenhole, Chelski, Man Shitty or the Mighty Reds from the Liverpool Football Club. All of their games are on every week it seems.

      1. BakedPenguin

        Hmm… trying hard to discern whom you’re backing. It’s a mystery, like which baseball team you support.

    2. Juvenile Bluster

      I knew this was coming.

      This is going to be worse for fans of teams like Brighton and Newcastle than it is for fans of the top 6.

    3. spqr2008

      Comcast/ NBC/ GE is one of the dumbest media companies in existence. They push people to cut the cord by overcharging for cable, then act as if the local monopoly laws won’t get overwritten when they piss people off by punishing cord cutters with data caps, then want to charge you 6 ways from Sunday for different content on different channels. My response: I’ll watch Hulu, and the stuff they put on there, since it’s a service I share with my family (I pay Netflix/ Amazon Prime, Brother pays for Hulu and movie concessions when we go to movies, and Parents pay for CBS All Access). And, on top of that, I don’t feel all that bad using my brother’s login to watch ESPN at Comcast’s expense, since they won’t give him a reasonable option for broadband only. It’s not as if paywalling content will make sure either: 1) people share subscriptions to cheat the system, or 2) Pirate livestreams as much as possible.

    4. Suthenboy

      Who pays to watch soccer?

      1. Who watches soccer?

        1. The Last American Hero

          Moms at the local park after school on Wednesday’s and Fridays?

          1. ChipsnSalsa

            Those kids fake injuries less often than the pros.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    When you have these heat waves, the residents in the area of course are using more air-conditioning

    Next, you’ll tell me shitting in a flush toilet is more popular than having an outhouse.

    1. Pope Jimbo

      One of my professors in college (Memphis State) would tell us that when he was a kid, his dad bought a car with air conditioning. It was the only air conditioner in the neighborhood and some nights in the summer they would pile in and sleep in the car because it was so much nicer.

  30. JD

    I wondered about lefty Glenn Greenwald criticizing the media over Russia nonsense. He does point out major cases of fake news. But he says the main motivation is generating traffic. He ignores the fact that a main goal is also to delegitimize Trump.

    B-

    1. Tundra

      He comes so close to getting it, but then veers off at the last second. Still light years better than his contemporaries.

      1. AlexinCT

        He wants to still make it to the cocktail parties, even if they give him a hard time there.

    2. Pan Zagloba

      What’s to wonder? Greenwald is to Putin what CNN was to Obama.

      Man is nothing but a leftist in the Chomsky mold who’ll use any club he can pick up to beat US, Israel and Western European countries (in that order). His concern for “civil rights” extends about that far. Which is fine but don’t think of him as an ally anymore than you’d call Naomi Klein an ally when she goes off about Iraq war being a mistake.

  31. Juvenile Bluster

    28 years later, finally, there are charges in the Hillsborough Disaster. The asshole officer in charge that day has been charged with 95 counts of manslaughter. A few others have been charged as well.

    Fuck the South Yorkshire Police. Fuck the governments, both local and national, that kept the truth hidden for so fucking long.

    A song for the occasion

    1. Rufus the Monocled

      This sort of stories always ignited discussion about corruption. Whenever I see those corruption indices we always see Italy generally leading with France not too far behind. Yet, these sort of cover ups we see in England rarely happen – if ever – in places like Italy. One theory I heard is corruption is out in the open and leads a strange “self-correcting’ mechanism where the corruption actually hits a ceiling. That is, no one dicks around pretending about virtue and accept It’s a part of life and manage it accordingly. Which puts stock into a comment a Lebanese businessman I knew who lived in the UK when he said, ‘Sure, there’s corruption in France and Italy. England just does it bigger because they hide it better.’

    2. Juvenile Bluster

      One interesting addendum: Because of the UK’s backwards rules on “jury tampering”, there’s a weird thing where nobody on UK-facing forums is really allowed to talk about it. /r/liverpoolfc on Reddit can’t allow certain types of comments because it might contaminate the jury, or something like that.

    3. TripodKat

      This is the first I’ve heard of the Hillsborough Disaster. I’m reading an article on it and all it says is that a bunch of Europeans crushed each other when the police opened up an exit gate to relieve a bottleneck of Liverpool fans.

      “We will allege that David Duckenfield’s failures to discharge his personal responsibility were extraordinarily bad and contributed substantially to the deaths of each of those 96 people who so tragically and unnecessarily lost their lives,” Sue Hemming, the CPS Head of Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said in a statement.

      I don’t see how the officer is at fault? What am I missing here? Is it because they chose to open an exit gate?

      1. Raven Nation

        Here’s two brief report from when the new findings came out, one from 2012 & one from 2016:

        http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-19577033

        http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-36138337

        Basically, the police were aware there were problems long before they acted. Then, after the disaster, they altered witness statements and publicly declared that large numbers of Liverpool fans were drunk and started rioting. In addition to Duckenfeld, three cops are being charged with “perverting the course of justice.”

        1. Juvenile Bluster

          Which they leaked to The Sun, which a couple of days later posted a headline saying “THE TRUTH”, which repeated all of those allegations.

          The Sun is still boycotted in Liverpool to this day. Neither Liverpool nor Everton nor Tranmere Rovers will allow Sun journalists at their stadiums.

      2. Raven Nation

        Oops, forgot about the two link rule. Here’s one explanation after the 2012 enquiry:

        http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-19577033

        1. TripodKat

          Ah, thanks for the links! Its pretty sad. Large crowds freak me out, and Europeans are absolutely insane about soccer, so those crowds are especially bad.

      3. Juvenile Bluster

        Aside from what Raven Nation said above, the timeline on Wiki does a pretty good job of explaining what happened.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disaster#Disaster

  32. Scruffy Nerfherder

    So, actual coup attempt or Erdogan-style false flag to justify more crackdowns?

    Maduro condemned the attack as an attempted coup, saying “terrorists” were behind the offensive and that an operation was underway to track the perpetrators down.
    But much remained murky about the assault: if it was an attempt to unseat Maduro’s government, it was a spectacular failure. No-one was injured and one of the grenades failed to explode, government officials said.
    It was unclear how a rogue police helicopter could have circled high-profile buildings in the Venezuelan capital without being shot down — eyewitnesses and local journalists say the assault went on for about two hours.
    None of those involved in the attack appear to have been tracked down and the whereabouts of the helicopter remains unknown.

    1. Pan Zagloba

      It was unclear how a rogue police helicopter could have circled high-profile buildings in the Venezuelan capital without being shot down —

      I can believe it took that long to find someone who could confirm that, no, we’re not bombing the court today, and yes, I know that’s a government helicopter, but no, this one is actually not doing as ordered.

  33. The Late P Brooks

    Fake news

    Sarah Palin, former vice-presidential candidate, filed a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times Company on Tuesday, saying the newspaper had published a statement about her in a recent editorial that it “knew to be false.”

    In the lawsuit, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Ms. Palin contends that The Times “violated the law and its own policies” when it linked her in an editorial to a mass shooting in January 2011.

    Meritless, no doubt.

    1. straffinrun

      Highly doubt she’s going to win that. At least sheds some light on the bs the Times has been spewing for years.

      1. commodious spittoon

        Ken White was musing about it on Twitter and a couple other lawyers chimed in. There’s a surprisingly meritorious case to be made, I gather, but that’s a far shot from a winning case.

        1. commodious spittoon

          Most of the conversation centered on whether the Times‘ previous reporting, which repudiated the connection between the Giffords shooting and Palin, constituted institutional knowledge for the purpose of an opinion piece which presented the connection as fact. Apparently that would clear a major hurdle for proving liability.

    2. Juvenile Bluster

      It’s definitely not meritless (even Popehat said so!). Whether she can win or not is another story. I *think* it survives summary judgment but she doesn’t win in an actual court case.

      1. But how long does the Times, whose readership is in decline, want to drag out court proceedings?

        1. TripodKat

          Is the readership in decline? I hear they’ve been doing better since the 2016 election and Trump winning.

        2. spqr2008

          I think they want it to drag out as long as possible, since Palin = Polarizing, and Polarizing => Clicks and subscriptions.

      2. wdalasio

        Do any of the lawyers here know what Ms. Palin might be able to get from the Times in discovery?

  34. Pope Jimbo

    Um, she’s a bit late to the party, isn’t she?

    A story about a heiress who is going to save the bees. However, I thought that bee colonies were at a 20 year high.

    1. Drake

      Why the hysteria to save a species not even native to North America?

      1. Grummun

        Because they’re really useful? I’m not aware of any native species that pollinates as effectively as honeybees, and they make a big difference in fruit and nut crops (they’ll even pollinate soybeans). Those guys hauling semi-trailers of hives between orchards all over the south ain’t doing it out of some animistic love of bees.

        1. compgrokker

          Leafcutter bees are native, and better pollinators than honeybees. However, I don’t think they work well a mobile pollinating service since they don’t build hives, per se, plus they don’t produce honey.
          Leafcutter Bee

        2. Drake

          That might matter if you have a vast farm and are growing flowering vegetables. My vegetable garden is pollinated just fine by all the weird looking native bees, moths, and humming birds.

    2. Suthenboy

      Bees are coming back. Like anything else they are adapting to the stresses that caused their decline.

      1. AlexinCT

        Wait wut? Darwin had it right, and the people that think they can force collectivist utopia on earth are missing something important?

  35. The Late P Brooks

    Boo hoo hoo, my pussy hurts!

    “We are bullied and browbeaten every day, and I pretty much have had enough of it,” he said. “We can’t take the bullying anymore. It’s undermining the fourth estate, it’s undermining the first amendment.”

    Karem also agreed with a panelist that undermining the press appears to be one of the Trump administration’s ongoing plans.

    “It’s one of the few strategies I’ve seen from this White House, and it has been ongoing,” he said.

    “He’s inflaming the very people who got him into office. He’s speaking to his base, and he’s trying to undermine the very essence of what we do,” Karem said. “And that’s not good for this republic, it’s not good for this country.”

    “Trump is a big mean BULLY. I’m only asking questions.”

    1. Chipwooder

      Hihn’s a reporter? I had no idea.

    2. ChipsnSalsa

      My 5 year old is less prone to emotional break downs than that guy(?).

    3. Mookman

      No. Publishing obvious BS and having to retract it, thus giving further credence to Trump’s “fake news” claims (a term he didn’t invent but has certainly taken ownership of) is undermining the fourth estate (assuming there ever was one) and the 4th amendment.

    4. Suthenboy

      “he’s trying to undermine the very essence of what we do,”

      Yes. He wants you to start telling the truth, asshole.

    5. wdalasio

      Do these people realize that the “fourth estate” is not an actual part of the government? Or even of our constitutional system?

      1. TripodKat

        Except for the freedom of it… freedom of the press..

        1. wdalasio

          Except “the press” as we know them today didn’t exist at time the First Amendment was written. Freedom of the press was a recognition of rights to an activity rather than a recognition of rights for a group of people.

          1. WTF

            Exactly – “the press” referred to the printing press, in other words, the means of disseminating speech.

      2. Michael

        That is hilarious. I have never heard the term “fourth estate” used in any context other than disdain. She may as well be saying, “it’s undermining the institution that grants me sanctimony above the commoners!”

      3. The Last American Hero

        Um, were you in cryo-stasis from 2008-2016?

    6. Hyperion

      “It’s one of the few strategies I’ve seen from this White House, and it has been ongoing,” he said.
      “He’s inflaming the very people who got him into office. He’s speaking to his base, and he’s trying to undermine the very essence of what we do,” Karem said. “And that’s not good for this republic, it’s not good for this country.”

      Is that meaningless gibberish, or is just me?

  36. FreeSociety

    When auto insurance becomes a social-justice question

    Car-insurance premiums vary based on many factors, from age and driving history to local traffic patterns. But consumer research has concluded that, nationwide, drivers in predominantly black neighborhoods are consistently charged more than comparable drivers in predominantly white areas. Insurance companies have long maintained that those differences can be attributed to geographic risk. But other experts and advocates disagree, and say that until states do a better job of ensuring fair pricing, millions of Americans will continue to suffer from what appears to be broad economic discrimination.
    “We’re not saying they necessarily tried to discriminate against minorities or blacks,” J. Robert Hunter, director of insurance for the nonprofit Consumer Federation of America, says of the pricing. “But that was what happened.”

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      We’re not saying they necessarily tried to discriminate against minorities or blacks

      Then what’s your point?

    2. There are certain streets – mostly poor inner city areas – that I don’t like to park my car in. That holds true if it’s the poor white or the poor black areas. Oh the racism!

    3. commodious spittoon

      Yeah, it’s because auto insurers don’t care to compete for black drivers. That makes sense.

      Hey, it’s like women getting paid less, there’s a huge potential windfall to get hold of here: just charge drivers in predominantly black neighborhoods more in line with their actuarial risk and they’ll flock to your service. It’s so simple, why aren’t insurers already doing it??

    4. FreeSociety

      In Detroit, one 2015 CarInsurance.com analysis determined an average annual full coverage premium of more than $5,000 in several Detroit zip codes for a hypothetical 40-year-old. And a 2014 NerdWallet analysis, looking at comprehensive coverage for a hypothetical 26-year-old, found an average annual rate of $10,700.

      Both analyses ranked Detroit’s premiums as easily the highest in the country. In a city where most residents are poor and public transportation is widely considered to be abysmal, insurance is a problem that “forces residents to make decisions that they should not have to make,” says DaRell Reed, a Detroit pastor.

      File under “crime causes and prolongs poverty”. Still not the insurance industry’s fault that regardless of whether it’s education, marital status, area crime statistics, credit score, claims history et cetera, black communities tend to have a real problem with over-representation on the worse end of those metrics. One of my insurance agency offices is in the very poor city, the city is mostly white with only a tiny proportion of blacks and at least in this area, blacks tend to fall into the proportion of my clients that are considered “high risk” with lengthier motor vehicle reports showing more speeds and DUIs. Then I have other black clients who are business owners and hardworkers who want to put food on the table for their family and they know that task is made harder if they act irresponsibly. It has nothing to do with race from the insurance company’s metrics and as far as they can see on paper.

  37. commodious spittoon

    No half-naked woman leading the article? You guys are going soft.

    1. ChipsnSalsa

      commodious is, that’s for sure.

    2. It certainly is better for us at work.

      1. ChipsnSalsa

        Yes, I think we should get a pool together and see who loses their job first due to pictures on glibs.

      2. TripodKat

        Agreed. Some of the pictures are borderline NSFW..

      3. FreeSociety

        I don’t have a real boss per se and my less productive underlings get no allowance for non-work related material on their computer, let alone NSFW stuff. The productive ones can browse facebook and look at titties for all I care. NSFW pics are for closers!

    3. Mookman

      …euphemism?

  38. Hyperion

    In this age of fake news, at least we still have Elmo to give us the straight dope.

    Yes we can politicize Sesame Street!

    /CNN

    1. Pan Zagloba

      They need to get an exclusive with Hamas Rabbit next.

      1. Pan Zagloba

        Oh, wait, they can’t, (((they))) martyred him.

        (What do we need to do to get more than one link? A weekly column?)

  39. Count Potato

    ‘Getting naked on camera is like ripping off a Band-Aid. The hardest part is the transition from being in your robe to being naked on set,’ she mused. ‘Once I was naked, it kind of reminded me of my nudist days from college and that feeling of, “Oh yeah, I love my body and this is fun and silly and its fine.”‘

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-4646584/Alison-Brie-no-problem-stripping-naked-Glow.html

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      *updates Netflix queue*

    2. commodious spittoon

      *fires up mobile browser*

    3. Pan Zagloba

      I also have no problem with Alison Brie stripping naked!

      God bless Daily Mail, Online Edition…

    4. Juice

      Nudist…college?

      1. The Last American Hero

        I told you guys the answer was College Girl!

    5. Number.6

      True Fact:

      I’ve never met a woman named Alison that wasn’t crazier than a shithouse rat. Sometimes it took a little while and a few drinks to find out, but true nonetheless.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    Have some piss for your corn flakes.

    A good Samaritan was mistaken for a kidnapper — and beaten by the parents — in a Florida park after trying to help a lost toddler, police said.

    The 2-year-old had become separated from her folks during a softball game on Saturday at Southwest Sports Complex in Lakeland, and was spotted by a man at the park with his friends, according to a police incident report published Sunday.

    Believing she was lost, the man asked the child where her parents were and walked around the premises with her in hopes she could point them out.

    But when the child’s father was alerted by bystanders that his daughter was being led away by a stranger, the well-intentioned act was mistaken for a kidnapping attempt.

    “I saw this man with my daughter in his hands walking toward the parking lot. What would you do?” the father told NBC affiliate WFLA in a phone interview. “I wanted to kill him!”

    Thinking they were stopping a crime, the father and two friends approached the stranger: As his friends took the toddler away, the father punched the good Samaritan “probably five or six times,” he told WFLA.

    Guy tries to help little girl. What a dope.

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Despite the man’s innocence, several posts were published on social media defaming his character. Family and friends of the toddler posted the man’s name, photo, and place of employment online, calling him a “child predator.”

      No charges have been filed against the parents.

      That’s an ass-kickin’ right there.

    2. Yeah I hate to say it but these days I let my wife handle those situations. Like the time during a walk we ran across a 2 year old all by himself, right near a busy street. Turns out he left the nearby church without his parents knowing, My wife took him by the hand and led him back to the church to find his parents. I just hung back.

      1. spqr2008

        I hate to say it, since it would likely result in child neglect charges to the parents, but if I saw something like that happening, I’d stand nearby and try to talk to the kid, while calling the cops to deal with it. It’s just not worth the loss to me if something is not interpreted correctly.

        1. If my wife hadn’t been with me, that would have been my route.

        2. wdalasio

          Maybe I’m going to sound like a shit saying this, but if the father in that story got a child neglect charge against him, I wouldn’t lose a second’s worth of sleep. Even after the guy has been revealed to just be helping the son of a bitch is still calling the guy a child predator. Fuck him and his whole family. I really wouldn’t be terribly upset if people started putting up flyers all over town with a picture of the kid and a message saying “If you see this little girl without her parents, LET HER ROT”.

      2. Chipwooder

        Yup. I won’t go near a kid who appears lost unless my wife is with me.

      3. commodious spittoon

        When I was very young, our dog nosed open the garden gate and I followed him out onto the street. A bike courier found me toddling toward a busy intersection and took me door-to-door looking for my (clearly negligent) parents. They were nothing but gracious. Didn’t even hit him once!

        I can only imagine that he and my folks would be sharing a cell on various charges of child endangerment and predatory behavior had it happened recently.

        1. spqr2008

          My parents had me in the backyard (fenced in) at age 3, and my mom was gardening, then had to take a conference call from the kitchen where she could keep an eye on me. I wandered over to the side near the neighbor (lot next to ours was a big multi-sport park to the other side), and apparently managed to break the gate latch, since I couldn’t reach it yet, and I liked to touch snapdragon flowers (which were immediately outside said gate, and yeah, I was a weird kid). Then, I saw my neighbor cleaning off his ride on mower, so I went over there while he worked on his car and sat on the ride on mower for an hour, while my mom was freaking out since she couldn’t find me. Would have absolutely resulted in prosecution for child endangerment these days.

          1. MikeS

            I liked to touch snapdragon flowers

            Me too! No shame brother. Hold your head high. Snapdragon lover unite!

    3. Chipwooder

      People are the fucking worst.

    4. The Elite Elite

      And, the general assumption that men only have nefarious plans continues. I wonder what the reaction of people would’ve been if the Good Samaritan had been a woman? Everyone would’ve praised her for caring about a lost child, and no one would’ve posted her info on social media calling her “child predator.” I wonder how many guys have been discouraged from being a Good Samaritan for fear of reactions like this?

      1. Chipwooder

        How many? A whole lot, that’s for sure.

        1. Viking1865

          I worked with kids for a decade. When I would run into kids from camp in public, their parents would always get very suspicious and anxious until I introduced myself and explained that I was their kid’s counselor last summer. More then once I have had a tween girl hug me in public and looked up into the very angry eyes of a father wondering just why his 12 year old girl is hugging the big bearded dude in Home Depot or the grocery store or wherever.

          The media absolutely fuels this bullshit. Just like with all crime, the numbers have never been lower, and the media has never hyped it up as much.

          1. A Leap at the Wheel

            Hey, remember me, I’m the guy that wrote about being a cub scout leader.

            Yeah, so this is a pretty regular thing in scouts. There is a significant minority of the US population that think a grown man in a scout uniform is child molester with a neon sign.

          2. Viking1865

            I considered going back to my Scout troop and volunteering, since I don’t work for summer camps anymore, but I don’t think they would take a childless man as a leader, because of the pedophile hysteria.

          3. A Leap at the Wheel

            I offered to help out in a bunch of poor, inner city packs and troops when I was in grad school (so before having kids). Got the big old nope, you must be a child molester from the single moms running the units. :/

          4. Chipwooder

            That’s why my son’s Cub Scout pack requires each kid to have a parent at every single meeting and event. It’s an enormous pain the in ass.

          5. Negroni Please

            *raises hand*

            Ummmm….we’re a minority? I don’t think so.

            Sorry man.

          6. ChipsnSalsa

            only if he has a mustache.

          7. A Leap at the Wheel

            Technically yes, but its connected to may beard.

    5. TripodKat

      He could have just “done the right thing” and called the police and had the child put into foster care and had the CPS investigate the family for 15 years.

    1. The Zenome Project

      Ah, that moment when old Disney actresses try to transition to “hot” and “sexy” and fail miserably.

    2. Q Continuum

      “2 dolla make you holla!”

  41. Drake

    I wonder if this is the end for Bernie Sanders? Between the big book deal, his wife’s corruption investigation, and his extravagant lifestyle, he might not be the leader the Democrats were looking for.

    1. The Zenome Project

      If Bernie gets caught doing what Socialists tend to do, Vermont has another guy to keep “The Revolution” alive. They apparently just elected a Lt. Governor that is legitimately from the Progressive Party of VT. That’s right, The Prog Party actually exists.

    2. F. Stupidity Jr.

      These people never end. Bill Clinton rapes women, Hillary turns the Sec. of State office into a slush fund, Anthony Weiner sexts underage girls – the worst thing that happens to them is losing elections instead of being jailed or (my preference) shot.

  42. WHAT’S WRONG WITH NANCY? Pelosi appears dazed — stops speaking, stares at audience

    Speaking about her father, Pelosi said, “He was part of a group called the Berkson Group and they did rallies and pageants and parades and um, and when he stood up on the floor of Congress, ‘I stand here as a representative of the—” she said before halting and staring at the audience.

    Then she resumed, “members of the Jewish army.”

    1. Q Continuum

      Dementia.

    2. F. Stupidity Jr.

      What’s the problem, this is more coherent than usual from her.

    3. F. Stupidity Jr.

      Comment Gold from the link:

      SLIDINGINTOIT_911 Rob • 42 minutes ago
      THIS IS
      THE USA,
      THIS IS ALL OF THE USA MIND CONTROLLED, DUMBED DOWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN, POPULATION, SAVE A FEW ….THEY ARE ALL MORONS.

      ..

      MOST STILL “THINK” MUSLIMS DID 9/11,
      AND HAVE NEVER EVEN HEARD OF BUILDING 7,

      LET ALONE USED THE SEARCH BAR TO RESEARCH ANYTHING OTHER THAN PORN OR SPORTS SCORES.

      1. R C Dean

        LET ALONE USED THE SEARCH BAR TO RESEARCH ANYTHING OTHER THAN PORN OR SPORTS SCORES.

        Its a fair cop.

    4. commodious spittoon

      Republicans and Democrats should trade Pelosi for McCain. Both retire from politics and public life and both are replaced by appointment.

    5. Hyperion

      Obviously, the flu, maybe pneumonia.

  43. The Late P Brooks

    Good piece hier.

    A great deal of economic policy is marred by magical thinking. The Left has its supernatural Keynesian multiplier effect, the Right has its self-financing tax cuts, and everybody clings to the myth about Henry Ford bootstrapping his business into greater profitability by paying his factory workers enough to buy his cars, which is a complete fiction. The truth is that demand curves slope downward: If you raise the price of something, including an hour of fry-guy labor, buyers will want less of it.

    But magical thinking is much easier, and much more amenable to the political cast of mind, than undertaking the very hard, thankless, and uncertain work of doing the things necessary to turn low-skilled, low-earning workers into more productive and prosperous workers. Magical thinking is how you get a major political party and its hothouse intellectuals seriously convinced that the way to make health care more affordable is to pass a law called the Affordable Care Act. It is how you get Republican budget proposals that involve jacking up spending on the military, keeping Social Security and Medicare on their current stratospheric trajectories, cutting taxes, and . . . balancing the budget in ten years. (“But we’ll cut foreign aid!”) It’s how you decide to fix the problem of illegal immigration with a wall on the southern border when most illegal immigrants do not enter by sneaking over the border. It is how you spend 60 years thinking your prissy little moral declarations about the necessity of good public education for every child will result in a good public education for every child, how you come to believe that shouting “Health care is a human right!” will somehow summon general practitioners from the vasty deep and exnihilate hospital beds into existence.

    1. Viking1865

      “It is how you get Republican budget proposals that involve jacking up spending on the military, keeping Social Security and Medicare on their current stratospheric trajectories, cutting taxes, and . . . balancing the budget in ten years. ”

      Give me a red pen and dictatorial power, I will increase the actual combat power of the military, I won’t touch SS and Medicare, and I will have us out of deficit and paying down the debt next fiscal year. But that would take firing say 2 million of the currently 2.79 million civilian federal employees, the auctioning off of enormous amounts of federal property, and a serious regulatory and tax reform.

      Then, what I did to the military would get me shot by a cabal of fat bodied political generals.

    2. Urthona

      My favorite right-leaning columnist. Love that guy.

    3. ChipsnSalsa

      The short version is: You can pass a law saying you have to pay low-wage workers more, but you cannot pass a law that says you have to hire them in the first place, or that you cannot cut back on hours when the price of hourly labor goes up.

      Just you wait.

      1. kbolino

        You can write the laws, you can pass them, and you can pass any number of other laws to reject the “unintended” consequences, but at the end of the day, the most you can achieve is to have lots of people pretending and lots of people in jail or dead because they didn’t pretend hard enough.

        1. ChipsnSalsa

          I believe that is the plan.

          1. kbolino

            But hey, at least no one (outside the inner party) will be rich anymore, so it’ll all be worth it!

    4. kbolino

      One of the things that drives me crazy and is a fine example of magical thinking is the denial many people (left and right) seem to have about supply and demand. If you think something is too expensive (or too cheap), you have to examine the relationship between the supply of it and the demand for it. People bitching about healthcare “costs” are a prime example. First of all, what you pay is a price, not a cost. Second, what is spent in aggregate is not what you pay individually. Third, everything, even in the most dysfunctional of situations, exists in a market environment.

      It is absurd to say that the “profit motive” makes healthcare more expensive at the same time as Walmart, Aldi, and any number of other companies are well known for making a profit off lower prices, which they deliver by increasing the supply of goods. If you want to make healthcare cheaper, then you need to increase the supply of it. That is not an easy task, but it is a fundamental and undeniable reality of economics that cannot be overcome by wishful thinking. That requires an examination of the factors constraining the supply presently, including those created by governmental, quasi-governmental, and non-governmental actors.

      At the very least, you don’t make something cheaper by changing who pays for it. Not even Keynesian economics proposes such nonsense.

  44. The Late P Brooks

    I wonder how many guys have been discouraged from being a Good Samaritan for fear of reactions like this?

    If I see a lost or injured child, I plan to feign blindness.

    1. MikeS

      Be sure to feign deafness, too. Children make insufferable amounts noise.

    2. R C Dean

      Duct tape them to the nearest immovable object, then call the cops with your burner phone.

      You do have a burner, right?

  45. Q Continuum

    I was born in ’81 and consider myself Gen X. All the “formal” definitions I’ve seen say the end of Gen X was ’82 to ’84. I can definitely see a cultural schism between myself and those born just a few years later than me, whereas I have a much stronger affinity to the older peer group (my sister was born in ’77).

    1. Juice

      I think there needs to be something between X and Millennial for people born somewhere between the late 70s and 1990 or so. They certainly have a different vibe that’s in transition from us jaded, goth-kids of Gen X and the ZOMG!amazeballs! Millennials.

      1. Caput Lupinum

        I think we’re just called assholes.

        1. +1 What Pablo Picasso never got called

    2. Gustave Lytton

      Yeah, I’m about your sister’s age and work with a guy born at the early end of the GenX. I find more in common culturally with him than my younger siblings (late 80’s). My sister was making some Tommy Tutone reference the other day and I called her out for not being alive when it came out.

  46. Zenome got me thinking with something he said upthread.
    So if age, sex, race, etc are all protected classes…and if the govt recognizes the sex people “identify as”…wouldn’t they also be bound to recognize the race or age someone identifies as as it relates to the law on the basis of equal protection?
    So if a dude dressed up as a chick and calling himself a woman can force an employer to offer him benefits exclusive to women, why couldn’t an 18 year old force a store to sell him booze because he identifies as a 21 year old? Or why couldn’t an 18 year old identify as 40 and tell the Selective Service Admin to go fuck tgemselves witg draft registration? Or why can’t I apply for social security benefits because I want to identify as 70 years old?
    The same goes for race. Why should affirmative action programs not be equally applied to people that merely want to call themselves black? Or Hispanic? Or a woman, for that matter. I’d be willing to bet that M to F trannies are eligible for affirmative action credits, which means that self-identification should be the law of the land for all protected classes.

    I know that was rambling, but I think there’s a valid point there that if we are to indulge fantasies, we should do so across the board and not just with one type of protected class.

    1. Q Continuum

      Been thinking that for as long as the Left starting embracing this “you can identify however you want” BS. It’s just more hypocrisy. You can identify as black/female/whatever in situations they approve of not in situations they don’t approve of. The primary question is whether they can derive political power from allowing you to do it in a given set of circumstances.

      1. The Zenome Project

        It’s all Top. Men. all the way down.

    2. The Zenome Project

      Because age and race is SO much more important and unchangeable than gender…or something. Honestly, I wish that there will be more “transracials” in the future, because if there’s anything that has the power to take down racially discriminatory hiring practices (ahem, diverse workplaces), it would be that.

      1. MikeS

        I wish that there will be more “transracials” in the future

        In 40 years Rachel Dolezal will be viewed as the Rosa Parks of her generation.

      2. The funny thing is that sex (no mention of gender in any civil rights legislation) is one hell of a lot less ambiguous or malleable than race is. Yet a transracial person gets destroyed while someone completely refuting the biological facts about their sex are given courage awards by ESPN and get celebrated like they’re the second coming of Christ.

        It’s fucking insane.

        1. The Zenome Project

          The reason is because the Left hasn’t yet found a way to effectively make trans-racials and trans-agers “victim classes” that doesn’t threaten their pet programs like Social Security or War on Poverty.

          1. MikeS

            To accept trans-racials into the SJW fold would be a step too far for them. (likely the only topic that is a step too far for them) The BLM faction will never accept a “privileged white person” as a black person. Trans-racial may be the one thing that implodes all their intersectional alliances.

          2. Viking1865

            “The BLM faction will never accept a “privileged white person” as a black person.”

            The Obama presidency really does attack directly at the notion of privilege. Taken to it’s logical conclusion, the notion of white privilege is that Sasha and Malia Obama have fewer advantages in this world then the daughters of a WV coal miner. The notion of male privilege, taken to its logical conclusion, is that Chelsea Clinton has it harder in life than a boy who’s father left home, and who’s mom waits tables at Denny’s.

            It’s absolutely preposterous, and people are gonna keep pushing back against it.

        2. Chipwooder

          Exactly. There can be many subtle variances to race or ethnicity, but you either are or are not male or female, unless you’re one of the extremely rare that have both organs.

        3. kbolino

          Apart from the TERFs, the attitude on trans(-sex) people among SJWs is contradictory. On the one hand, a man who transitions to being a woman is rejecting the patriarchy. On the other hand, a woman who transitions to being a man is destroying the patriarchy from within. It’s a heads I win, tails you lose mentality. Their goal is subversion and thus anything considered outre serves their cause. Until it doesn’t anymore, then people suddenly start finding themselves in the path of oncoming buses.

        4. Suthenboy

          “It’s fucking insane.”

          I think that sums it up nicely.

    3. R C Dean

      The same goes for race.

      There’s a long tradition of “identifying as” a different race. Goes back to octoroons who could “pass”, and continues today with people identifying as a subsidized minority. Fauxcahontas is only the most high-profile practitioner of modern-day “passing”.

  47. The Late P Brooks

    So if age, sex, race, etc are all protected classes…and if the govt recognizes the sex people “identify as”…wouldn’t they also be bound to recognize the race or age someone identifies as as it relates to the law on the basis of equal protection?

    We’re talking about Wise Men, here; selfless devoted public servants. They can probe your soul and know whether you’re scamming them. Don’t try it.

    1. Juice

      Apparently I have two choices, except that I actually have 3.

  48. Idle Hands

    So SB Nation has always had a liberal edge to it’s humor and it’s sports reporting but I’m sorry this is peak level fucking retarded:

    https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2017/6/28/15885570/cubs-white-house-visit-joe-maddon-political-statement

    That’s an annoying but understandable trait for a manager, but when Maddon is using the same tactics for something more meaningful than adults playing sports in their pajamas, when he’s shielding the decision to visit the White House behind his privilege as a well-off white man, well, “annoying” doesn’t quite cover it.

    Maddon says he’s going “out of respect for the office and the building itself,” a line that prioritizes the figurative symbolism of the office over real people. Real people like any Cubs fans who have been targeted by the president and cabinet working inside of it, whether because they’re a minority or an immigrant or LGBT or on Medicaid. And at a time when the voicemail inboxes of senators are overflowing with messages from constituents especially concerned about that last part.

    1. Idle Hands

      I mean I loathe Joe Madden but seriously this is stupid.

    2. The Zenome Project

      Understand that SB Nation is the sports wing of Vox, then the derp all starts to make sense.

    3. Q Continuum

      Wow. I didn’t think it could get more retarded than ESPN’s “coverage” but that’s some weapons-grade stupidity.

    4. Juvenile Bluster

      The team-level blogs under SBNation are generally great.

      SBNation.com itself takes a lot of influence from its parent Vox. Not quite as bad as Deadspin, but there are definitely ridiculous articles. Like this.

      1. Idle Hands

        I mostly just go to the home page for Grant Brisbee.

      2. peachy rex

        Plenty of the team-level blogs have a left-wing inflection too – Vox probably won’t hire you otherwise – but I can handle an inflection. The main site, though… I gave that shit up years ago. Not only is it progderp central, but a couple of years ago the quality of the content started declining pretty sharply – most of the posts read like they were written by not-as-smart-as-they-think-they-are adolescents.

    5. spqr2008

      It’s really telling that the media “can’t even” think properly about Trump and LGBT. Good lord, the man was for Gay Marriage and LGBT rights before it was popular, held up a pride flag at a campaign rally spontaneously, has said he doesn’t care which bathroom Caitlyn Jenner uses in Trump Tower, and allowed Gay people access to Mar-A-Lago (along with minorities) which went against popular opinion in the area at the time. For all of the bad stuff he may have done in business, or as a politician, those are good things that he did do, and that the media constantly ignores due to its hatred of him.

      1. kbolino

        There are quite a few gay people who are catching on to the fact that Trump isn’t anti-gay while at the same time the gay advocacy groups that are allegedly speaking for them demonize him and apologize for Islam. Hmm, who am I going to choose, the guy who has no problem with me, or a religion many of whose adherents want to murder me and have demonstrated that, given the chance, they will? Choices, choices…

        1. kbolino

          Of course, this is a bit of a false dichotomy. There choice isn’t actually between “love Trump, hate Islam” and “hate Trump, love Islam”, but between “support groups that are stabbing their own causes in the back” and not.

        2. Hyperion

          It doesn’t matter at this point. The left have already decided that some snowflakes are special, but some snowflakes (muslims) are more special than others.

          1. kbolino

            It does matter if they winnow their support base down to smaller and smaller groups. Part of what made left-leaning politics successful in this country for a while was its broad-base appeal. If the only true leftist is a pro-Palestinian black trans lesbian with a degree in Afro-gender studies, then they’re not going to win many elections.

      2. The Zenome Project

        EPA Chief Pruitt continues his trajectory of being the most libertarian cabinet hire in 30 years

        President Trump’s administration will revoke a rule that gives the Environmental Protection Agency broad authority over regulating the pollution of wetlands and tributaries that run into the nation’s largest rivers, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said Tuesday.

        Testifying before Congress, Pruitt — who earlier said he would recuse himself from working on active litigation related to the rule — said that the agency would “provide clarity” by “withdrawing” the rule and reverting standards to those adopted in 2008.

        Pruitt, as Oklahoma attorney general, had sued EPA over the regulation, saying it “usurps” state authority, “unlawfully broadens” the definition of waters of the United States and imposes “numerous and costly obligations” on landowners.

        A withdrawal was expected, based on the executive order Trump signed in February targeting the rule. But this is the first clear signal of how the EPA will act on the president’s order.

        The current rule, known as Waters of the United States (WOTUS), unambiguously gives EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers authority that many think the agencies already possessed under the Clean Water Act. The 1972 law gave the agencies control over navigable rivers and interstate waterways, but a series of court rulings left the extent of that power ambiguous. The Obama administration sought to end a decade of confusion by finalizing the WOTUS rule, which took effect in August 2015, triggering protests from a variety of real estate development, agricultural and industrial interests.

        The existing regulation covers wetlands adjacent to either traditional navigable waters or interstate waters, as well as streams serving as tributaries to navigable waters. The rule says that wetlands and tributaries must be “relatively permanent,” a phrase used in previous court opinions, which means they can be intermittent. Defining it this way extends federal jurisdiction to 60 percent of the water bodies in the United States.

        1. The Zenome Project

          Oops, that was meant to be a new thread, not a reply.

        2. R C Dean

          said that the agency would “provide clarity” by “withdrawing” the rule

          I continue to be puzzled by the idea that an agency can write and impose a rule on its own authority, but apparently revoking a rule that it imposed on its own authority is just beyond its scope.

          1. Number.6

            Something about gods not being able to lift stones they themselves made?

    6. Chipwooder

      I guarantee you this guy was one of those people frothing with rage when Tim Thomas refused to visit the White House after winning the 2011 Stanley Cup.

    7. american socialist

      Ah yes wouldn’t not going be symbolic?

      Also where was this author when Obamacare is jacking up premiums and deductibles

      1. kbolino

        Also where was this author when Obamacare is jacking up premiums and deductibles

        You have to remember that, at the end of the day, they don’t actually give a flying fuck about the middle class*. There are two groups of people to them, the noble poors who are nothing but victims of the system, and the damnable rich who have abused that system for their own benefit. Don’t ask where they fit on this stultified spectrum, unless you want to hear a bunch of self-serving bullshit. So, the ACA made all the evil rich people pay more to the (supposed) benefit of the good poor people (even though the actual situation is a lot more complicated than that). Never mind that the former category is like half the population, including most people who are working.

        1. kbolino

          * = Although “middle class” is a loaded term which no two people seem to agree on the definition of. For the sake of this argument, use the imperfect definition of the middle two income quartiles, or middle three income quintiles.

    8. Suthenboy

      “…targeted by the president…because they’re…LGBT…”

      These people make it impossible not to defend Trump. In what way has Trump targeted LGBtXzI people? It’s just one fucking lie on top of another with them. It never stops. Who has time to actually criticize the guy when you are having to swim against the current in this river of lies?

  49. Q Continuum

    This is just terrible. I’d put this guy in ADX Florence (minus the 1 hour of exercise and with no visitation or phone calls) for the rest of his life. I can’t imagine how much that woman must’ve suffered for two years.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4644838/Woman-dies-nearly-two-years-set-fire-ex.html?mrn_rm=als1

    1. The Zenome Project

      Nah, I think life in genpop is good enough. Let the inmates handle the punishment, see how long he lasts.

    2. Viking1865

      How did he not get charged with attempted murder back when it happened. Seems to me dousing someone with gasoline and lighting them on fire is a clearly deadly attack.

      Like, if I shot someone in the chest, paralyzed them, but they survived I think that would be an attempted murder charge not a felonious assault charge.

      1. Number.6

        “Forget it, Viking. It’s Britain”

        1. Number.6

          Oops. WTF? Where did I get that from?

          “Forget it Viking, It’s Ohio”

  50. FreeSociety

    Venezuela: How paradise got lost

    (CNN)From its Caribbean beaches to the snow-capped Andes, Venezuela is a place of astonishing natural beauty. It also possesses the largest proven oil reserves in the world.

    Many in a thriving professional class left the country when the late Hugo Chavez took power in 1999, but the early years of his rule saw a massive reduction in poverty, more children in school, and greater access to clean drinking water.

    This being CNN, the word “socialism” is never cited as even tangentially related to Venezuela’s problems, in fact the word doesn’t appear in the article unless you count the name of Maduro’s party that has the word ‘socialist’ in it’s title. The problem you see, are oil prices. The price controls are just another problem, possibly just a symptom of oil woes.

    I guess I should be thankful that CNN didn’t cite kulaks and wreckers as the cause. Progress.

    1. Urthona

      A lot of people don’t realize Venezuela sucked before the oil crash too and was being outperformed by similar free market countries.

    2. Viking1865

      Damn all that bad luck.

      1. Suthenboy

        ^flashing light^

    3. Q Continuum

      STATE CAPITALISM!!!

  51. Count Potato

    “Former Sgt. Dan Charleston was terminated from his job on Friday, according to the sheriff’s office. Because of possible appeals or litigation, the sheriff’s office declined to comment further. But Charleston has faced a number of controversies during his time at the sheriff’s office. Most recently, he was under internal investigation by the sheriff’s office for Facebook posts made in early June regarding Islam, including one post that called the religion an “evil ideology.” One post showed a graphic that claimed to list “verses from the Quran that inspire terrorists.” Charleston added his own comments to accompany the graphic, including: “No reasoning with this evil ideology,” referring to Islam. That post had been deleted as of Thursday morning, but another post on Charleston’s Facebook was a quote claiming to warn about the “threat of Islam.” The quote was attributed to Franklin Graham, a nationally known Christian evangelist.”

    http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/local/2017/06/24/sgt-dan-charleston-fired-polk-county-sheriffs-office/425833001/

    Shooting puppies and black children is one thing, but being critical of a belief system is way over the line!

    1. Juvenile Bluster

      You know, I’m fine with him getting fired for that, because it calls into question his ability to not be a fuckup if he runs into a brown-ish person on the street.

      However, it is ridiculous that he probably could’ve killed a Muslim individual for nothing, said he was scared, and kept his job.

      1. FreeSociety

        Islam still isn’t a race even when it’s a cop talking shit about it.

        1. kbolino

          A fact which is going to bite the lefties in the back if they keep pursuing it so hard. If you can’t criticize one religion (Islam), then why can you criticize another (Christianity)? And if criticizing one religion with quasi-racial associations (Islam) is racist, then why isn’t criticizing another (Judaism)?

          Of course, they want to have it both ways. They should be free to criticize whomever they want, but you should not be free to criticize whomever you want. Double standards, and all that.

          1. Q Continuum

            I dunno, they’ve been getting away with similar kinds of hypocrisy for decades. Why would it start mattering now?

          2. kbolino

            True, if you can excuse communism, you can probably excuse anything. But I think the audacity of it this time around is more jarring.

            Paradoxically, as much as they hated anti-communist policies, those policies probably bought them rhetorical cover. If you don’t see the worst parts of communism, then you can think of e.g. Joseph McCarthy as just a Quixotic nutjob (which he was, but he also wasn’t wrong that the Soviets had infiltrated the U.S. Government pretty heavily).

            In this new age of “refugees” and tolerance, the opportunity for Islamic terrorists to cause highly visible damage is not mitigated. It’s harder for the average person to brush off regular terrorist attacks in their own country than it is for them to brush off gulags and executions in a distant land.

          3. Pan Zagloba

            . If you can’t criticize one religion (Islam), then why can you criticize another (Christianity)? And if criticizing one religion with quasi-racial associations (Islam) is racist, then why isn’t criticizing another (Judaism)?

            Intersectionality. Power imbalance. Progressive stack. Arglebargle *foaming at the mouth*

          4. wdalasio

            If you can’t criticize one religion (Islam), then why can you criticize another (Christianity)? And if criticizing one religion with quasi-racial associations (Islam) is racist, then why isn’t criticizing another (Judaism)?

            Because Christians and Jews aren’t likely to blow you up or shoot your or stab you if you criticize their religions. Proglodytes are bullies. They’ll be happy to insult, demean or heap contempt on people whose most earthshattering response will be to write an angry letter to the editor. And they’ll pat themselves on the back about how they’re “bravely speaking truth to power” while doing it.

          5. R C Dean

            If you can’t criticize one religion (Islam), then why can you criticize another (Christianity)?

            Easily answered by reference to the core leftist belief: Principals, not principles. Leftism is a positive festival of double standards.

    2. kbolino

      You gotta love journo-speak. This makes no sense:

      a quote claiming to warn about the “threat of Islam.”

      They’re so busy fumbling over themselves to signal their goodthink that they can’t be bothered with grammar or semantics. The word they are looking for here is “alleged”, as in “the alleged ‘threat of Islam’”, of which the quote is warning, not “claim[ing] to warn” whatever the hell that means.

    1. Q Continuum

      Just for Commodious complaining about no half naked girls.

      1. commodious spittoon

        There’s ripe opportunity for some fruity imitation shots involving men.

    2. I noticed that when I go to a bar by myself, I get very little *attention. (Of course I’m an ugly troll so that doesn’t help) But once I have a wingman, women are more to converse with us.

      *not that I’m looking for anyone

      1. *more likely

        sheesh – my brain is in crazy land right now with stress.

      2. Q Continuum

        I think it’s some kind of evolutionary thing showing that you are less likely to be diseased, crazy, etc. because you have other people around you. It’s clearing that low hurdle of proving you’re not a complete social cripple. It works even better if you’re with platonic female friends because you’re clearing the higher bar of not just being a non-cripple, but good enough for other women to be around you. See: Chinese Restaurant Effect.

        1. commodious spittoon

          It certainly doesn’t help that as soon as I’m left alone at the bar I resort to my phone for company rather than, you know, making company.

    3. FreeSociety

      I don’t understand the retro-fad about high waist bathing suits, and pants in general really. It makes a woman’s hips look wider and her ass saggier. It’s just not a good look and it wasn’t a good look in the 70’s either.

    4. FreeSociety

      Is that Lauren Southern on #87?

      1. Q Continuum

        Looks a lot like her, but I don’t think it is.

  52. Count Potato

    I think I figured out straffinrun’s avatar:

    https://heatst.com/culture-wars/meet-the-official-fake-nipples-of-the-resistance/

    “Enter Just Nips, the “official nipples of The Resistance movement,” according to founder Molly Borman, who adopted that line as the company’s unofficial slogan after seeing it circulate online.
    Started last January in time for the Women’s March, Just Nips provides synthetic nipples that you can wear over your bra or over your nipples.
    According to Borman, “a lot of women feel unsafe” under Trump, and her product helps provide comfort and “a safe space.”

    1. ChipsnSalsa

      Is that a new business plan? Slap “Resistance movement” on it and hope a bunch of idiots with credit cards will buy it.

      forget you heard all of that, I got some work to do.

      1. The Zenome Project

        I wonder how many leftists know that “Resistance” is a blatant ripoff of the OG crazies at InfoWars.

        1. commodious spittoon

          Surprised they haven’t appropriated Relovelution from Ron Paul 2008.

          1. commodious spittoon

            Or was it 2012?

      2. Chipwooder

        Worked for the pussy hat manufacturers.

    2. Q Continuum

      Wearing fake nipples on top of your bra makes you feel safe. OK…

      These are statements that if said in a psych ward, would convince the doctor that the treatment is not working and needs to be adjusted. We need something akin to Poe’s law (call it Q’s law) in these cases in which it’s not possible to tell the difference between a “resister” or an honest-to-G-d delusional in need of Thorazine. It’s happening a lot lately.

      1. commodious spittoon

        Pretty sure you can achieve the same thing without latex prosthetics using just ice cubes, and I’d be happy to demonstrate.

        1. Count Potato

          It looks like Portman’s nips in that pic are real. And it’s something she does often. Which seems a bit odd since she’s such a prude.

          http://i.imgur.com/xKj8ZSZ.jpg

          1. commodious spittoon

            My mobile browser is getting all fired up this morning.

          2. MikeS

            Ha! The dude behind her in the black shirt looks exactly how I would if I were there.

          3. commodious spittoon

            Hah! Dude’s face.

        2. Pope Jimbo

          Behold! The greatest job ever. Nipple tweaker to the stars.

    3. Hyperion

      I think they should have stopped with the tampon earrings. But I’m not woke.

    4. Grummun

      The wife (and me, too, to be fair) have a habit of letting episodes of a show we’ve seen before just run in the background in the evenings. Recently, it’s been the entire run of Friends, and we’ve gotten to the seasons where the ladies were constantly running the high-beams. I recall there was a brief craze with fake nipples when those shows were originally airing.

      1. Hyperion

        I think they called that ‘white noise’ before it was decided that it’s racist. Not sure what it’s called now, but I do the same thing.

  53. Number.6

    OT.
    We’re on the brink of curing cancer, and my DNS TXT entries are taking FOREVER to propagate!
    Fuck.

    That is all.

    1. Hyperion

      What? Cuba finally gave us the secret formula? They cured cancer 30 years ago while they were perfecting duct taping the bumpers back on to 1950s era automobiles.

      1. commodious spittoon

        It was thousand island dressing all along.

    2. Caput Lupinum

      I take it you beat your sysadmin to a pulp? Unless you are the sysadmin, in which case other more responsible employees beat you to a pulp?

      1. Number.6

        It’s complicated.

        My company currently doesn’t want me to do any work for them, yet they insist on paying my salary. So I’m refreshing my tech skills by basically building my next career on their dollar. Part of that is going to selling a SAAS product that I have to build, and for that, I’m setting up an SSL configured droplet that needs some TXT entries in my Zone File.

        So, I am my own sysadmin. And I’m impatient.

        1. Caput Lupinum

          Ok, so self flagellation then.

          What kind of service are you trying to develop? Or is that hush hush? I’ve had an idea for one for a while, but I’m lazy and comfortable in my current career so I’ve never gotten around to it.

          1. Number.6

            Not really hush-hush. There’s a demand out there for a specialized general ledger hooked into fund accounting and CRMs. I’ve been heavily involved in building systems like this for a while, and there’s a window of opportunity at the moment to sell a product like this to mid-sized hedge funds/ alternative investments firms.

            One of my current challenges is how much of a general ledger I want/need to build as the framework for the service, so I’m starting to build out some REST interface logic.

          2. Caput Lupinum

            What are you using for the backend? I’m partial to Scala so I generally use the play framework if I can get away with it. That isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, though.

          3. Number.6

            I’m somewhat agnostic on that. The biggest issue is that I need seriously competent structured data on the backend, which is pretty much driving me inexorably towards Postgres, although if I adopt Xtuples as an out-of-the-box GL solution (which is very tempting, as it too is Postgres-based), I’m going to have to ensure I have a language and toolchain that plays well with that.

            I have been looking (with some surprise) at just what php is (still) capable of doing, and given that most of the intelligence of this product will be baked into the backend, I might adopt a framework like Phalcon or Laravel.

          4. Caput Lupinum

            PHP, python, JavaScript, ruby, any other scripting language, get shit on a lot,but they are all perfectly fine as long as you use them for scripting. Building the whole app out of PHP would be a nightmare, but since it is built into pretty much every web server, it isn’t a bad idea to use it where it makes sense.

            I’d still advocate putting any business logic that is most likely going to be static in a static programming language, but scripting languages are perfectly fine as long as you use then as intended.

          5. Number.6

            The real smarts of this product will be encapsulated in the database itself. The REST interface is the killer app. The UI for it will be a vanilla ‘80%’ solution for clients who don’t want to roll the resulting data into (for example) SalesForce.

            I’m under no illusions about what will sell the product though. The accountants, auditors and compliance people will love the engine. The marketing people will love the analytics which will probably be delivered (by default) using Power BI, and the decisionmakers will be impressed by the color scheme. The IT guys might get a look in if the client wants to host on-premise, otherwise, all they’ll have to deal with is hooking up single-sign-on.

          6. commodious spittoon

            I’ve seen ERPs kicked around as a suggestion for up-and-coming sysadmins, but what exactly is the specialization I should look into if I’m keen on going into the field?

          7. Number.6

            ERP is becoming less of a specific product issue, and more of a philosophy. Fro a long time, you had firms like Oracle, SAP and Peoplesoft coming in with a “One Ring to Rule Them” mindset, but with the growth of cloud-basedd services, ERP as a field is becoming more an issue of cloud-interoperability.

            Once, you had to settle for a mediocre or outright hostile CRM, because executive management needed some overarching technology that gave them growing graphs, so the rest of the business had to STFU and use some nasty bolt-on to Oracle Financials “because”.

            Now, everyone’s signing up to Salesforce on the basis that if 30 billion files are happy with shit, why, then we will be too! So, companies are demanding that their Salesforce deployment talk nicely to – I dunno – their legacy SAP environment.

            So, after all that, go read up on Gartner’s “Postmodern ERP” and go from there. Interop and loosely-bound systems are the new be-bop, daddy-o.

          8. Number.6

            Specifically, get a general grounding in things like XML, JSON, REST, workflow automation, ETL etc. That’ll give you the basic vocabulary to discuss the integration issues.

          9. commodious spittoon

            Thanks, friend, I’ll look into that.

            It’s tentative and something of an abrupt change of pace, but I’ve been half-serious about my education and it’s long past time I settled on something lucrative. Hanging drywall is getting tedious.

        2. Mr Lizard

          Look! Quit your whining and go reset a server somewhere. or whatever other non-sense you IT creatures get up to when you crawl back into frighteningly refrigerated work spaces.

          *slowly crawls out of server room towards hot rock*

          1. commodious spittoon

            Pretty sure 90% of it is power cycling the modem.

            At least, that’s all the sysadmin work I do.

          2. Number.6

            The other 10% is pretty much waiting for DNS entries to propagate.

          3. Dr Mossy Lawn

            Can I say that DNS doesn’t really propagate, or if you are waiting for it to do that there is some error in the DNS system. (missing notify packets). Now waiting for cached data to time-out is a different issue.

          4. Number.6

            Well, I’m suspecting that NameCheap may well have that name for a reason.

            There is a possibility that there’s something weird going on because I only see this problem with .co domains.

            .COM TLDs seem fine, and a TXT I set up (in NameCheap) for one of those came up in nslookup within 2 minutes.

          5. Dr Mossy Lawn

            I couldn’t say without the actual example zones, but looking at who hasn’t updated their data with a dig +trace will often narrow down the culprit.

  54. “Even if its a woman…and she’s 80…do not fuck with a US Marine.”

    Or with her son’s five dogs.

    “Elsie beat the cat off her with the sickle, and Gene’s five dogs chased it under a nearby porch. He lives only 300 feet away in a separate house, heard the commotion, rushed to the scene and killed the animal with two blasts of a shotgun.”

    So we can see it was the dogs who saved the day and set up the bobcat for the kill, after it had fled out of harm’s way.

    I hope everyone’s OK, or will be after their rabies shots…but this just goes to show…if your neighbors complain about all the dogs you have, show ’em this story.

    1. Pope Jimbo

      Might also be nice to share this story with all the nuts who keep protesting the wolf hunts in Minnesoda too.

      They aren’t endangered anymore and I’m tired of paying for the livestock they kill.

      1. Suthenboy

        That’s an easy problem to fix. Put food out for them. They are incredibly easy to tame. Then spay them to keep the population down.

        1. R C Dean

          They are incredibly easy to tame.

          I wouldn’t bet my life on it. And those are the stakes.

          Another easy fix: Put food out for them. Douse it with antifreeze. No more wolf problem.

          1. Pope Jimbo

            I was really hoping that Suthen was just being sarcastic.

            Everyone knows you don’t have to spay the wolves, you just beat the alpha male in a fight and then only you get to breed with all the females of the pack.

          2. The origin of Romulus and Remus?

  55. Hyperion

    All I really want for 4th of July is for SCOTUS to decree that Muslims will be forced to bake gay wedding cakes. Yeah, I know that sounds cynical. Because it is.

    1. Q Continuum

      I’m just going to open a cake shop that only makes cakes in the shape of Swastikas. I’ll bake one for anybody, but it’s gotta look like a Swastika.

      1. Negroni Please

        I would totally shop at Swastikakes

        1. MikeS

          I can’t stop laughing. My office mate is looking at me funny. There’s no damn way I can explain this to him.

          1. Tundra

            Even in context, Glib comments tend to not translate well to the normals.

        2. Pope Jimbo

          Swastikakkes.

          All the icing is white and gooey?

          1. Caput Lupinum

            Swatikakkkes, where all of the frosting is as white a the wind driven snow, and the peaks are perfectly conical.

          2. Q Continuum

            It’s gotta come from several different pastry bags too.

        3. MikeS

          Swastikakkkes: The secret is in our ovens.

      2. Juvenile Bluster

        I’ll be suing you for not making me a Star of David cake.

        1. MikeS

          How about you two compromise. Put some (((star))) shaped candies on top.

          1. Bobarian LMD

            Just sew them on certain employee’s uniforms.

      3. Hyperion

        There was some dumb prog on a site yesterday, can’t remember which one now, claiming that a baker refusing to bake a cake with a 2 male couple is equivalent to an emergency room refusing to treat someone with a gunshot wound because they’re gay. What the fuck is wrong with these idiots? If the baker loses his case, which I suspect he will, that should mean that I can go into a Jewish cake shop and force them to bake me a swastika cake with Hitler on top. Fuck these morons.

        1. commodious spittoon

          Cake decorating is inherently expressive, or in any event should be considered so.

          I’m not sure what expressive content that idiot imagines obtains among doctors or paramedics.

        2. Count Potato

          Wait, you mean that I can’t get a ham sandwich at kosher deli?

          1. Hyperion

            Kosher delis who refuse to sell me things that aren’t kosher, are racists and must be driven out of business!

          2. Hammercorps

            I still can’t find any Ramadan pork, guys. I feel discriminated against.

          3. Hyperion

            Me too, I demand Ramadan pork!

          4. Pan Zagloba

            Fuck your cishitlord privilege, pork trade is one of the few ways for kafir to enrich themselves!

        3. wdalasio

          I could be convinced to agree with these laws. On one condition, the plaintiffs are force, at gunpoint, to eat the cakes.

          Because, that’s the thing here. It’s patently obvious that this isn’t about a damned cake. No person in their right mind hector and hounds people into giving them something that they’re going to put in their mouths. It’s about forcing “those people” to bake your cake. So, fine, if the government can force them to bake your cake, I see no principled or rational reason it can’t put a gun to your head and make you swallow every last morsel of that cake.

    2. AlmightyJB

      So it would seem to me that a bakery could provide a catalog with optional designs and decorations and say this is all we offer. If you want anything else you have to add it yourself. Not super customer freindly but not discriminatory because everyone has same options.

      1. AlmightyJB

        Can we have a Phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range on our cake?

        Hey, just what you see, pal!

  56. commodious spittoon

    Hey, what was the old saying back at H&R? “Nothing says freedom like asking permission” etc.

    Going to come up with a banner for the 4th.

    1. Hyperion

      Freedom means asking permission and obeying orders. Or something like that.

      1. commodious spittoon

        Could amend it lately to include getting shot for attempting to comply with conflicting orders.

      2. SugarFree

        That’s it. I made it up to throw in Tulpa’s face when he was being petulant.

        1. commodious spittoon

          And here I was going to attribute it to sarcasmic.

          I wonder why he never migrated over. Or did he?

          1. Hyperion

            Well, sarcasmic did act like he owned it, between posting photos of 10 year old girls.

          2. SugarFree

            He did, posting for the first month or so. He indicated he was having some personal trouble in real life, so he might just be taking a break.

          3. Tundra

            He’s good, now. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him back here some time.

          4. SugarFree

            That’s good to hear. It was getting pretty dark there for a while.

          5. Gustave Lytton

            Good news. Hard to come here and get your nuts punched when they’re getting cut off in relationship drama IRL.

          1. commodious spittoon

            Second best set of headlights posted so far today.

          2. SugarFree

            I got to get my hashtag brand out there, son.

        2. kbolino

          Wait, there was a time Tulpa wasn’t being petulant?

          It does capture the spirit of that sort of opposition, though. Sure, you can have your freedom. In nice, confined boxes that the government has graciously allowed you to have. Just be sure you’ve filed the permission form in triplicate, and don’t get too upset if your request is denied. Freedom is a delicate matter, after all, and where would be if even the pettiest of laws wasn’t enforced? Unless you’re one of the government’s chosen people, then we should all show some understanding of the difficult circumstances you’re in, and why you can be excused from complying with the laws you force other people to follow.

          1. SugarFree

            Wait, there was a time Tulpa wasn’t being petulant?

            Yes, that was a bit redundant.

          2. F. Stupidity Jr.

            You can’t spell petulant without Tulpa.

      3. R C Dean

        Freedom means asking permission and obeying orders.

        And the corollary: A permit is just a ban wrapped in a bureaucracy.

  57. The Zenome Project

    So, Susan Rice, are you privileged or not privileged? Oh, BTW, wonderful choice for a vacation spot: since you’re apparently so unprivileged and oppressed, did you go to the clothing optional Maldives or the Islamic banana republic Maldives?

  58. The Late P Brooks

    Just be sure you’ve filed the permission form in triplicate

    Form 27B/6?

  59. The Late P Brooks

    Speaking of “Ye Olde Gang” members… I kind of dread to ask questions like this, but does anybody have any info on Almanian?

  60. Hyperion

    Behold! The Democrats newest great white hope.

    Great White Hope

    Look at meh, I’m just an ordinary slob, just like you guys. And I want to force you into shitty government healthcare, because I know what’s best for you.

    1. Chipwooder

      I’d bet anything that guy hasn’t been a real ironworker in years. Probably been a union rep holding down a desk.

    2. DOOMco

      my question is how do I get handed 100k from wealthy progs. How long of a con?
      I feel like I could do it.

      1. Number.6

        Pretty easy. Lecture tour. You’ll have to let yourself get ‘bullied’ on the internet a bit, like Anita Sarkeesian, but once you get over that hump, you can charge up to 20k per appearance.

        1. DOOMco

          my only problem with a con like that is I might get too sarcastic and they’d catch on.

          1. Number.6

            Would it help if you got some practice being bullied here first?

            … now, do you want the $5 session, lasting 5 minutes, or the $10 session, which lasts 12 minutes, and includes a free doxxing?

          2. DOOMco

            I will need to be bullied by an alt right super nazi, for the cred.
            You’re libertarian, you say?
            Even better!

      2. Hyperion

        100k? I’m sure he’s looking at that $23 mil that Ossoff managed to pull in. I’m beginning to think that running as a Democrat in a mostly red district is now the latest get rich quick scheme.

      3. Hyperion

        It’s so easy I believe that anyone can do it. They believed crazy Jill Stein’s recall scam to the tune of 5-6 million dollars. Ossoff raked in $23 million. And they get more unhinged and separated from reality by the day.

        1. DOOMco

          The more I think about it, the better it seems.
          Just out prog someone local. get paid.

          1. Tundra

            You’re in Boulder. Out-progging someone there might actually be dangerous.

            Particularly to your T levels.

          2. DOOMco

            thus the fear of sarcasm coming through.

          3. CPRM

            He doesn’t have to run in Boulder, he just needs to rent a closet where ever it is he chooses to run, like Osshoff and Hillary.

          4. Fatty Bolger

            You can’t just outprog a prog. You have to run somewhere that isn’t traditionally prog at all, preferably a seat that’s so in the bag for Republicans that no serious prog would dream of running. Then you have to convince the progs that while you are a true prog at heart, you can “beat the rethuglicans at their own game.” (If you’re a white male that gets you more than halfway there.)

          5. DOOMco

            I’m pretty libertarian.
            White, in my basement, living in a wealthy town filled with progs.

          6. Fatty Bolger

            See, that’s no good for an amateur trying to cash in. The real money is in giving hope to the hopeless. If you were a libertarian black woman running as a Republican in your wealthy prog-town, well, that’s something you could work with.

  61. tarran

    RC Dean,

    I wonder if you could read this and share your thoughts as to whether this guy is talking about a real problem or merely being fucking unhinged. Justina Pelletier and Medical Kidnapping 4 Years Later – Has Anything Changed?

    Since starting the Medical Kidnap division of Health Impact News two and a half years ago in October 2014, we have exposed hundreds of stories of families whose children have been taken over medical disagreements or seeking a second doctor’s opinion.

    For every story that we publish, there are dozens more that don’t reach publication.

    The sheer volume of stories that we receive on a daily basis demonstrates that the problem is much more widespread than most people have realized.

    We have worked with families from California to North Carolina, from Michigan to Texas, and everywhere in between, and some common themes have emerged.

    There are certainly states where there seems to be more corruption than others, but there are problems with medical and governmental overreach in all 50 states.

    They state that one motivation for hospitals to call in the social workers is that wards of the state can be used for medical trials and that the government is more likely to approve of using a kid as a guinea pig than the kid’s parents.

    1. Hyperion

      Regardless of what the story or the guy, or the hospital are saying, and what’s the real truth, it’s not surprising to see things like this happening. This is what happens when the government decides that they actually own people. The WOD on it’s own, declares that the government does indeed own everyone and most people cheer that on, so there’s no chance for it to change in the foreseeable future.

      1. Viking1865

        The “State is experimenting on foster kids” thing is pretty fucking tinfoil. I don’t trust anonymous sources, whether they flatter my biases or not. He claims he’s got an anonymous veteran and an anonymous chaplain who say the MA CPS is stealing kids for medical experiments, yeah he needs to go on the record. That’s a hell of a claim to print sourced anonymously. He should have said Trump and the KGB was doing it, it would have been CNN’s top story.

        1. Hyperion

          Yeah, that sounds very suspect. I was referring to the ‘kidnapping’ part, which we know for sure is not tinfoil hat stuff, the state does it all of the time.

        2. FreeSociety

          I don’t know about that, google “Justina’s Law” and you’ll see legislators around the country calling an end to this thing that’s just so crazy to think happen. The Michelle Malkin article in National Review mentions it.

          And here is a link to some sort of academic document detailing the existence of the practice
          http://irb.utah.edu/_pdf/IGS%20-%20Wards%20of%20State%20H1116.pdf

          It’s not really tin foil hatty at all. A guardian makes most medical decisions for minors in their care. In this case that guardian is “the state” of which Justina was a ward of. The state saw fit to use experimental treatments on their ward without parental consent. Maybe it’s just me, but this seems pretty damn believable. So believable that it’s turning the frogs gay.

          1. R C Dean

            That says that it can be legal, and then goes on to instruct the IRB employees supervising the research to take extra precautions (consistent with what I would expect). It doesn’t say anything about how prevalent it is, and certainly doesn’t support the idea that more kids are being put into foster care in order to perform experiments on them.

          2. R C Dean

            google “Justina’s Law” and you’ll see legislators around the country calling an end to this thing that’s just so crazy to think happen.

            Oh, well, if legislators are concerned about it and there’s a law named after a kid, its obviously a real crisis. *insert eyeroll gif here*

    2. FreeSociety

      If ever there were grounds to go on a murderous rampage against state employees and their medical contractors, this would be it. That father certainly showed some restraint.

    3. Fatty Bolger

      The problem is real. I don’t think there is much to the conspiracy theory aspect. Some people just can’t accept the reality of FYTW, so they look for deeper motivations that aren’t necessarily there.

    4. R C Dean

      There’s definitely a trend underway. At the extremes, its always been the case that not getting necessary medical care for a child has been child abuse/neglect. But it used to be only in the most obvious cases – not taking the kid in for emergency care, for broken bones, that kind of thing.

      Health care workers are required by law to report to CPS any time they have “reason to believe” that a child has been abused or neglected. See the incentive that creates? To report absolutely everything.

      So CPS has been getting more and more reports of parents disagreeing with their doctor as potential abuse/neglect cases. And CPS has been doing what bureaucracies do – expanding its remit by gradually treating more of these cases as abuse/neglect cases. There are periodically high-profile cases about these disputes, and they keep getting more and more into the kind of decisions where the parents aren’t obviously crazy.

      That said, the article manages to mix a legit problem with a good dose of nutso, which is not helping.

      1. R C Dean

        one motivation for hospitals to call in the social workers is that wards of the state can be used for medical trials

        That’s just whack. There are very strict rules around human subject experimentation overseen by institutional review boards, that require copious amounts of informed consent. Foster parents and guardians don’t necessarily have the same authority to consent as parents do. An IRB would know who consented for the child, and would know if there was a bunch of foster kids in the trial, and would likely go apeshit. Anecdotal, but I think a kid who is foster care is less likely to get signed up for a clinical trial.

        And you can tell the writer is an idiot because they use the term “medical trial”, which isn’t a thing. They are “clinical trials”.

        1. Fatty Bolger

          Yeah, that part seems like total nonsense. It’s far easier to get consent from (often desperate) parents than it is to jump through all the hoops necessary for a ward of the state.

        2. R C Dean

          one motivation for hospitals to call in the social workers

          As I noted, hospitals are required by law to call it in. They don’t need any other motivation for doing so, and I regularly have conversations with our staff who are worried about calling in some marginal case – on the one hand, they are afraid of the legal mandate, on the other, they don’t think its really abuse/neglect or that siccing CPS on the family will really help the kid. Nobody is leaping at making marginal accusations for any reason other than fear of violating the mandatory reporting laws.

  62. Suthenboy

    Wife just now after seeing an ad for the Einstien TV show: “I think the main reason the US is so spectacularly successful is because everyone else is so spectacularly stupid. We get all of the best people.”

    I think I should stay married to that chick.

  63. DOOMco

    Hey P brooks, or BMW enthusiasts near Michigan! would you like two 1974 2002’s?

  64. The Late P Brooks

    BMWs for sale

    “Might like to have” not same as “Would like to buy (for $25000.00)”. Eep.

    For that kind of money, I expected to see a fucking twin cam M3 motor under the bonnet. Or maybe the 4 liter V8.

    1. DOOMco

      they did look far too pricey for carbed 4 bangers.

      1. Hyperion

        Wait, don’t BMWs blow up? Why have those not blown up yet? Maybe they were made before the blow up was added on the standard model.

        1. DOOMco

          did they figure out what was causing that?

          1. Hyperion

            I don’t know. I never looked into it. Lots of BMWs in my neighborhood, haven’t seen or heard of one blowing up yet.

  65. The Late P Brooks

    Why have those not blown up yet?

    Those are pre-self-immolation models. That accessory package wasn’t added to the product line until the late ’90s.

  66. Chipwooder

    You know the McEnroe thing is really stupid when even Kevin Drum is defending him.

    1. Hyperion

      He’s plotting for a big pay per view pay day by playing Serena. He’s the Conor McGregor of tennis.

  67. Chipwooder

    BTW, the book by Duke history professor Nancy MacLean, which slags James Buchanan and Tyler Cowen among others, is starting to go up in flames.

    1. Fatty Bolger

      That’s some dirty out of context quoting. I guess she aspires to be the literary Michael Moore?

  68. The Late P Brooks

    He’s plotting for a big pay per view pay day by playing Serena.

    If he’s smart, he’ll keep hitting to her backhand. That belly is going to be a serious impediment.

    1. DOOMco

      beautiful

    2. Fatty Bolger

      That’s all kinds of awesome.