Man, I’m done with baseball for a bit. The Astros seem to be sliding into a legitimate funk. Fortunately for me, the Yankees are following them there so I won’t have to hear a bunch of shit-talking about them catching us any time soon. Meanwhile, on the left coast, the Dodgers are absolutely playing out of their skin. Too bad they’ll shit the bed in the playoffs as usual.
The Cowboys practice squad beat the Cardinals practice squad in Canton. The biggest name there, Tony Romo, got in a practice game of his own when he called it with Jim Nantz in a side booth as he prepares for his second career. I wonder when he will inexplicably slip on a banana peel and land on his head, ending his season early. Y’all know its gonna happen too, so don’t call me an asshole.
The Neymar deal is finally done. And soccer kicks off for real in just a couple weeks. Hooray for getting up at 5 am on Saturday and Sunday again! Can’t wait to see Liverpool make a run at the EPL this year IF they can stay healthy.
That’s it for sports. Except to note that this was the day in 1993 that Nolan Ryan gave Robin Ventura an ass-kicking.
OK, on to…the links!
Now the enviro-nuts have gone too far. I’m sure PETA is stoked and will use this to set up more kill-van operations across the country. The rest of us will not be as pleased.
Colin Kaepernick’s (this isn’t a sports story, so don’t give me shit) girlfriend does her best to ensure he will never get a job. If he wants to play again, he might want to tell her to STFU.
Just in case you were considering using a dating site in the near future… Protip: never stick it in crazy!
Speaking of crazy: I present you one John McCain. The former reverse-ace pilot has now blamed the failure in Afghanistan on Donald Trump. I guess he forgot the 15 and a half years of failure that went on before the last 7 months of the Trump presidency. Seriously, he should respect the office and his constituents enough to step aside before the tumor completely absorbs his whole body like the dude’s asshole from the Naked Lunch story.
Top Man touts credentials of being a Top Man. Tells prospective voters that he’s so much smarter than them that he will plan on running more of their lives. Prospective leftist voters squeal with delight.
Lastly, it sure looks like one of them Duke boys has gone and gotten into a sticky situation. I’m speechless and don’t know whether to shake my head or stand up and applaud the crazy sonofabitch.
For all you Firefly fans out there.
That’s all she wrote for the links. Go do your thing in the comments. And have a hell of a great day.
50) A couple weeks ago, we got a letter from the IRS stating that we still owed more than $1000 for our 2016 taxes. After some frenzied double-checking of my returns, I had no clue what they were talking about. The next morning I got through to an IRS representative on the phone, and found out I had simply transposed two numbers in my daughter’s social security number on my tax return. We cleared it up right then—easy to take of, and I assume that’s the end of it.
But it got me thinking about how invasive the federal income tax is. What business is it of the federal government’s how many children I have? My sources of income? And if you itemize deductions, as I do, then you’re informing the federal government all sorts of details about your medical expenses, charitable causes, child care arrangements, etc. Due to Virginia’s personal property tax, which I can deduct from the federal return, the federal government even has insight into the cars, boats, or planes I might have. And if the IRS doesn’t’ believe me, they can audit me, and get even more details about my personal life.
The more I reflect on it, the more I think a national VAT to replace (not supplement!) the federal income tax is the way to go. Not because of any economic arguments about efficiency (although those may be true), but just because it doesn’t give the IRS an excuse to know intimate details about my personal finances that aren’t its business.
How many states have these disgusting taxes on movable properties in addition to the unconscionable land tax?
KY also does.
And it is disgusting. As is the property tax.
Land tax, on the other hand, I am fine with.
[and yes part 2 and 3 will get written some day]
How many times are you going to deny that a Land Tax is a form of property tax and thus as indefensible as any other?
I’m UCS on this. I think it’s tempting to look at a land tax as the least of all evils, and maybe defensible from the position that there are a number of legitimate things the state does that directly related to land, such as maintaining a military for national defense. I still think that there’s something fundamentally wrong with the idea that land you came by through voluntary interaction somehow conveys a fiscal (or any, really) responsibility to the government that could result in your losing ownership of the land if you fail to maintain your end of a deal you didn’t make to begin with.
I don’t have a good answer to the best revenue generating system for Libertopia. I think you have user fees, probably tariffs of some kind, maybe adding a little extra on to every fee. I hate to say it, but I think there’s a reasonable argument to be made that a flat percentage income tax is maybe the least horrible way to supplement fees and tariffs.
Of course, all of this is meaningless in the absence of a civic culture that values a limited government comprised of non-careerists.
I think you have user fees, probably tariffs of some kind, maybe adding a little extra on to every fee.
My argument has been for a contract tax. It would be strictly voluntary. You could enter into agreements without a contract tax. But, they wouldn’t be enforceable in a court of law.
That’s interesting, almost like contract insurance purchased through the state. What happens if two parties decide they don’t want to use the state for contract enforcement and decide to go through a private contractor instead? Would that result in a black market for adjudication?
No, contracts still have a lot of value even without enforcement. The force both parties to put down in writing their understanding of the issues and agreement. They can help solve coordination problems when people want to coordinate, but have some problem doing so.
Also, there are now contracts on the block chain that are technologically enforced by (like all block chain transactions) a quorum of the blockchain participants.
What happens if two parties decide they don’t want to use the state for contract enforcement and decide to go through a private contractor instead?
I’d say they’d be free to. Of course, only the state has the ability to enforce contracts with violence.
A land tax at least would make more sense if only landowners could still vote.
My big problem with Georgist taxation is how “improved” is defined, and who makes that decision. Consider how it would mesh with current environmental regulations. In MD and VA, if you own land that is designated as a “protected area”, i.e. if someone from DNR determines it counts as “wetlands”, you cannot develop it in any way. It’s still “yours”. The state doesn’t buy it from you. You just can’t do anything with it.
In a land-tax scenario, is that land taxed?
My big problem with Georgist taxation is how “improved” is defined, and who makes that decision. Consider how it would mesh with current environmental regulations. In MD and VA, if you own land that is designated as a “protected area”, i.e. if someone from DNR determines it counts as “wetlands”, you cannot develop it in any way. It’s still “yours”. The state doesn’t buy it from you. You just can’t do anything with it.
In a land-tax scenario, is that land taxed?
I wouldnt tax it, as it isn’t producing economic rents anymore (or greatly reduced, so the tax would be very low). In fact, I would consider it a takings and require them to purchase it from the owner. But yes, I agree that defining improvements is hard, I have a specific example involving my grandparents farm.
About 1/3 of my grandparents farm (now owned in part by my Mom) was called the “swamp field” and was unusable. My Mom and her siblings lease the other 2/3rds out to a local farmer. A land tax would obviously value the usable parts much higher per acre than the swampy part, A decade or so ago, my Dad went in and install tile under the swamp field to drain it to bordering creek. That field is now also leased out. The value of the land is greatly increased but, in theory, under a SLT, that is an improvement and it should still be taxed at the previous rate.
But that is a hard calculation and won’t always happen properly.
How many times are you going to deny that there is no justifiable natural law property rights to land?
Because I would agree with you if there was one.
To say that there is no justifiable property rights to land is to say there is no justifiable property rights,period. Simply because a given piece of property is logistically impossible to move, does not mean it is impossible to own. There is nothing magic about land that makes it unownable nor moral to tax the mere ownership thereof.
If I took an aircraft carrier and converted it to a dairy farm by growing feed crops on the flight deck and in interior compartments to keep the cows alive, the ship would be free from your tax, but take the same facilites and plop them on dirt, and suddenly you’re a-okay with penalizing me for owning the plot. How is this logically consistant?
You created (either directly or via your work in order to purchase from the creator) the aircraft carrier.
Hence you own the AC and the the stuff grown on it and etc.
Which is why I distinguish between the land tax and the property tax. The improvements to a property are the yours and shouldn’t be taxed.
Land ownership without a land tax is rent seeking. You are collecting the economic rents without having done any work.
And that is a short preview of part 3.
Land, absent improvements, has no value and creates no economic rents.
You also assume I purchased or built the carrier rather than simply stumbling onto it abandoned. While I could have found a floating hulk and improved it, versus having to acquire the land from the people currently on it if only by buying their agreement to not try to make use of it.
And what about plots like mine, where the only thing it provides is some place to live and store my stuff? Is this an economic rent without the improvement of having built the house there?
No land produces economic rents without work being performed.
Let me put it to you in a more abstract way instead of relying on examples.
Your argument is based entirely on the assertion that the mere act of ownership of a piece of land produces economic rent for the owner that the mere ownership of a different form of property does not.
It is upon this assertion that you base the claim that a property tax on one type of peroperty is nothing like a property tax on another property.
Yet at no time do you prove the assertion from which the rest of your argument springs.
No land produces economic rents without work being performed.
There are a number of definitions of economic rent, but all of them amount to the value that comes without doing work.
Henry George’s definition is “the part of the produce that accrues to the owners of land (or other natural capabilities) by virtue of ownership”.
Yet at no time do you prove the assertion from which the rest of your argument springs.
I am trying to save some stuff for my piece.
Yet at no time do you prove the assertion from which the rest of your argument springs.
I am pretty sure I covered that in the comments to part 1 of my SLT piece.
I was there. You did not. You repeated the base assertion and used it to draw conclusions, but never once did you actually show it to be true. You showed some conditions where putting labor into property could produce outputs, but never showed that the mere act of ownership produced value passively.
You showed some conditions where putting labor into property could produce outputs, but never showed that the mere act of ownership produced value passively.
The fact that people lease land shows that. Its the basic definition of economic rent.
I don’t think I need to prove things that are accepted by all economists.
I wouldnt tax it, as it isn’t producing economic rents anymore
There are a number of definitions of economic rent, but all of them amount to the value that comes without doing work.
Sounds like the return on investment, to me. Wouldn’t this mean that all returns on capital, rather than labor, are “rents”? Why restrict taxation to returns on capital investment in land, but not other capital investments? For example, say I lease out a piece of equipment.
The Georgist approach has always struck me as primarily a way to sweep away the last vestiges of feudalism – large landholdings that are held by certain families by virtue of a grant from the sovereign and/or inheritance:
Henry George’s definition is “the part of the produce that accrues to the owners of land (or other natural capabilities) by virtue of ownership”.
Its basically a pre-capitalist, pre-industrial view of the economy, which refers to the “produce” of the “land”. That covers most of the waterfront in an agrarian economy, but in an industrial economy its laughably inadequate. Once you update it to tax the value of improvements, you have substantially redefined what you are taxing, and are now taxing capital investment, but only in land.
That’s . . . also inadequate in a modern economy, as it is blind to capital investments that are not in land. Who gets taxed for mobile equipment investments? Who gets taxed for investments in intangible property. This sounds like a recipe for distorting capital investments, to me.
Even capital investments in fixtures or buildings aren’t being taxed to the owner of the investment, but to the owner of the land it incidentally winds up on. Sure, he can pass that along, but now you have created a hidden tax, and you will be taking the landowners asset when his tenant doesn’t pay. The tenant will probably get evicted, but that doesn’t give the owner his property back, which he lost when the tenant breached his contract. Its an odd system that penalized the victim of a contractual breach.
Caveat: I have not studied Georgist land taxation in detail.
A national sales tax to replace the income tax would be better. Then everybody has skin in the game.
Like the Fair Tax?
I like but black market would be bigger.
Bug, or feature? Sounds like a natural regulating mechanism for the level of taxation. Keep it to a level people are willing to tolerate day-to-day as they go about their business, and you’re fine. Get all grabby, and your tax base migrates to untaxed black markets.
The American Capitalist Party espouses an eventual move to a voluntary 1% income tax. I had a long discussion with my wife about whether most people would pay this 1% tax if they didn’t have to and the more I think about it, the more I think most people would pay it if for reasons like duty, fairness, and, of course, social shaming.
I’d take it a step further and not include the VAT either.
I think as much as possible, government services should be funded solely through user fees (e.g., submitting a patent). If the value isn’t there, it’s not necessary.
We could institute something like a small tariff for the very few functions that could not be funded through user fees. No internal taxes should exist.
Single Land Tax (split between Feds/State/Local) to replace all other taxes, to supplement user fees.
– Is even worse than the tax on the movement of money.
No it isnt.
One of my concerns with single land tax is that property will migrate into the “dead hand” of the government as the tax isn’t paid. This isn’t your current property tax “mill rate”. This would have to be orders of magnitude bigger than that to be the sole source of government funding. Some 30% or more of the total GDP would have to be collected from landowners and landowners only. The asset comes a massive liability.
Why would you own, when you can rent? As an owner, failure to pay tax means you lose your asset. As a renter, failure to pay the tax passed through to you in your rent means . . . you rent a different place. Other than the cost of moving, you don’t lose anything (or, at most, the value of any fixtures that you bought and bolted to the property).
Give that a couple generations, and I suspect the majority of land now in private hands would be owned by the government. Sounds not very libertarian to me.
Actually, it can’t be that high. One of the things I am going to cover in part 3 is how much revenue could reasonably be expected from an SLT. And it requires a dramatic reduction in the size of government at all levels.
I fail to see the problem with that.
And I would tax land owned by the government too…the state and local would get their part of the tax on Federal lands and vice versa.
If a land tax is the only/main source of funding for the government, it would have a very motivating incentive to get rid of it.
We land “owners” are just leasing it from the government.
Real world: I would be fine with no deductions and lower progressive brackets.
Dream world: fee for service only.
Real World : I want to be rid of any tax on mere existance or retaining something in your possession.
That should have popular support. I don’t know why more politicians don’t run on stuff like that. Pay a sale tax on a car when you buy it and that’s it. Honestly fee for service is the only system I see that I would consider moral.
I propose an ad hoc lottery “tax”. Each government agency sets up a lottery. People interested in funding a particular agency can buy that agency’s lottery tickets. Half the take is paid out in winnings, the other half is the agency’s budget for the week/month/year.
Lotteries paid for a hell of a lot of infrastructure in the early days of this country.
In civilized countries the tax is automatically deducted from your paycheck by the government
Well, if you’re gonna steal may as well take it from the top. It is easier though. And they give you back whatever you overpay.
But then how is FedGov going to have greater leverage over your life?
Also, I don’t think you’ve quite thought through the implications of making all of those tens of thousands of louses working at IRS offices suddenly jobless.
Also, I don’t think you’ve quite thought through the implications of making all of those tens of thousands of louses working at IRS offices suddenly jobless.
I have and I’ll be in my bunk.
Wait until you get a census update in the mail.
VAT as a replacement would be fine. But it will never happen. We will get both.
I’ve thought that a sales tax might be the way to go (justified as a transaction fee for using the gubmit’s currency), but then the black market and bitcoin would undermine that quickly.
“I was the guy who brought you the plastic bag ban in San Francisco,” the former mayor told the graying Roseville audience
You can keep Pelosi.
Damnit, Jatnas. This is still a first.
“Your pet is ruining the planet, says UCLA study ”
Does my pet’s meat-heavy diet count if she vomits up every third meal on my carpet?
Cut down the feedings.
She’s a 14-year-old cat. I’ve already gone from two to three feedings to cut down the amount in each serving. I did this a couple years ago after she could no longer keep down the majority of her meals. Actually, 1/3 is a bit of an exaggeration–it’s probably closer to 1/5.
Going to four meals would require coming home from work in the middle of the day. Not possible.
Just stop feeding the cat. Problem solved.
Or bring it to a chinese restaurant….
My pukey 16-year-old cat benefitted from a switch to grain-free food. She only barfs up hairballs now.
Grain Free food also stopped my longhair from having the squirts. No more baby wipes *ugh*
I had a Doberman with severe skin issues. She itched uncontrollably and was constantly miserable with her skin inflamed and hair falling out. I saw several different vets and spent thousands on different treatments trying to help her.
Switched her to grain free food and her skin cleared up almost immediately. Not one vet suggested it.
Poor dog. She also suffered from severe incontinence because I had bought into the spay early bullshit that’s pushed without realizing the damage it can cause.
Splain that please, I just did the spay early thing with my Bella,
It’s not good for dogs to be fixed before they are finished developing, typically at least 1 year old, preferably 2 years. Incontinence is the major risk but there’s also research indicating increased risk for cancers and other health problems.
Dobermans in particular are susceptible to incontinence from being spayed too early. One of my old vets didn’t realize it either before spaying her 3 dobermans too young (and yep all 3 became incontinent). She became a huge proponent of spaying later.
The mindset is that the benefits of reducing unwanted litters are greater than the potential harm to the development of the dogs, so the vets and pro-fix campaigns never bring up the potential disadvantages.
On an individual basis, your Bella is most likely just fine unless she’s a highly susceptible breed.
On the plus side, phenylpropanolamine, (Often sold as Proin), is not that expensive and usually works to alleviate most of the incontinence/drippy slow leak. It can make them a touch hyper (not that I really noticed with a Weimaraner), so that can be annoying.
On the minus side, IME, the incontinence leads to a much higher rate of UTIs. Which can also lead to yet more incontinence. Also your vet can and probably will use the UTI to milk you for a series of tests every damn time it happens, instead of just giving you the script for, e.g, Baytril Enrofloxacin) that they’re going to end up giving you anyway.
I should have bought stock in whoever makes Proin.
It worked well mostly but stopped towards the end and we ended up using waterproof crib mattresses as dog beds. I had to put her down at a little over 8 years from renal shutdown. Way too young. She was a very sick dog but the best I ever had.
I’m sorry to read that, Spartan. Dobies are wonderful. And 8 years really isn’t enough time.
Yeah, I know more than I really wanted to about getting dog pee out of dog beds. I’d have done the rubber mat thing if I could do it again. Still not sure if Natures Miracle did anything other than add another odor to the urine.
Really sad, as you can see the wheels in their head spinning, noticing the urine, thinking they’ve done something wrong, and worrying about it. They just can’t help it.
Thanks GG. I hope your Weimaraner fared better. Those are excellent dogs too.
Cats are not supposed to eat grains. Or a lot of carbs in general.
Unfortunately a lot of grain free food still has carbs, in the form of vegetables like carrots, peas, potato, etc.
If you want to help ensure the health of your little obligate carnivore, give her something closer to pure meat. Most dry cat foods are not suitable for this, but if it’s all she’ll eat, get your vet to prescribe purina DM.
Canned food is superior when it comes to commercial foods, and a lot of people with diabetic cats (including me) use the Fancy Feast “Classic” varieties because they’re some of the lowest carb commercial foods. I wish i had known all this years ago, all my cats would be healthier.
In fact, if my diabetic cat didn’t have other issues, I’d make high quality raw food for him. But that’s *not* something most cat owners would, or maybe even should do. At least not without a lot of prior knowledge.
Same thing happened with my cat. It’s no fun but a small price to pay to have her around.
My wife and I had amazing luck with this $40 automated feeder from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/PetSafe-5-Meal-Automatic-Pet-Feeder/dp/B000GEWHNS
Stupid cat has totally stopped harassing us at 4 am to be fed.
The cat must be stupid if he hasn’t figure out how to jimmy that thing open yet ;D
Nothing like getting the 2AM headbutt from the cat … “FEED ME, HOOMAN!”
Easily solved by closing the bedroom door? With the cat on the other side, of course.
Protip: cats respond to attention, whether positive or negative. If you go the route of locking them out of the bedroom, which I do recommend, then you have to ignore them. Any response, whether it be a reward or a punishment, will teach them that they can get your attention if they try hard enough. It will be difficult for a couple of weeks as they will persist but eventually they will learn to leave you alone when you’re in the bedroom.
My longhair cat mostly leaves us alone at night – at least during the summer – but once the weather gets cold, she’s hogging as much as the bed as she can. Of course she has to announce, with a half-chirp meow, that she managed to successfully make the jump to the bed, and then backclaw my wife’s head. It’s all in good fun.
The study also examined what was coming out the other end: U.S. dog and cats produce 5.1 million tons of feces a year. That’s about the same as the total amount of garbage produced in a year by everyone in Massachusetts.
Dances with Feces hardest hit.
Last I knew animal droppings were biodegradable into plant food, and there were already natural systems in place to decomose them. So wouldn’t that much fertilizer actually green things? (But not the urine, that kills grass…)
Yes, and the plants that grow due to the fertilizer absorb carbon.
If I remember correctly, dog shit is also horrible for grass because its diet is meat heavy and that makes the poop horrible fertilizer, or something.
We still have big yellow spots on our lawn from the last time you were here. The neighbors’ kids still talk about The Pooping Guy.
it won’t be a tragedy If AGW idiots avoid having pets, but If these people were truly concerned about the environment, they’d stop having kids. Yet every family I know who has more than a passing concern about global warming also have at least 2 children.
No, You’re Not a Bad Feminist for Liking ‘Porny’ Sex Acts
“or that certain activities are portrayed in dirty videos only because men like to watch them.”
So in considering whether pornography is a bad thing, the question is whether the fan base is predominantly male.
Pornography is magical – it corrupts men while empowering women!
“Unfortunately, this puts women who genuinely do enjoy certain moves in a bit of an awkward situation.”
Why? Why would anyone even know (other than your sexual partner)? Do feminists have to register all their sex acts with the local feminist board or something?
They are expected to inject their faith into everything. Otherwise the mental prison would break down as they realized they’re not perpetual victims.
Wonder if Bianca has ever taken a facial.
“I love it,” says Bianca Spencer, chairwoman of the Lesbian Sex Mafia,
Only if her girlfriend is a squirter.
She might not be a gold-star lesbian. There aren’t many of them.
Then I demand she go as Bi and be cast out of lesbidome!
Lesbidome? I’m gonna need specific directions to there so I know how to stay *away* from there.
Lesbidome? Two girls enter, one cup leaves?
*Narrowly avoids male gaze*
Of course, you probably already know that genitals respond to all kinds of touch and pressure, so it’s not really unusual that some people respond to more concentrated forms of stimulation.
Radley Balko, smut purveyor extraordinaire?
“The name of the woman is being withheld because she had not been notified of the lawsuit against her at the time of publication. A request for comment has been made with the woman.”
What kind of new-found journalistic ethics is this?
The boss had seen posts about Lazarus on thedirty.com, a user-submitted gossip site, and couldn’t risk his company’s reputation.
thedirty.com sounds about as reputable as an anonymous source.
You know who else used thedirty.com?
Not this guy:
::narrows gaze::
Pig Pen?
Sanchez?
Hitler?
Ol’ Dirty Bastard?
Spaghetti monster church can’t advertise its ‘noodle Masses’ in Germany
I’m supportive of their religious freedom, but I can certainly see why a group with a trollish component has a harder row to hoe in getting recognized.
Still, I don’t trust the govt. to say what’s a Real Religion.
If they could get away with it, they’d say that the only real religions are the ones which endorses the government’s various initiatives in the economic and cultural sphere.
Ah, die Nudelmesse.
This is partly because recognized religions in Germany rely on the government to collect tithes for them.
Sometimes they collect the adherents, too.
*opera applause*
2edgelord4me
So Kim Kardashian is shooting for immortality?
Women With Larger Butts Could Live Longer, Science Says
Got a big booty? Tremendous tush? Heavy-duty derriere? Whatever you want to call it, we have great news. According to a recent study published in the journal Cell Metabolism, having some extra fat down there could make you way healthier.
The latest research suggests that extra weight on a woman’s hips and thighs can block fat from reaching the internal organs, which protects the heart and lungs. As a result, big-bottomed women have a lower risk of heart attacks, strokes, and diabetes.
+1 Sir Mix-A-Lot
The older the berry, the sweeter the juice.
Love prunes?
What this seems to be saying is that there is a genetic different in where fat accumulates between individuals, and that for the same amount of fat, those who have enlarged posteriors have less visceral fat.
Remove the presumption of the same amount of fat accumulation to allow for differences in diet and activity, and I’ll betcha you’re going to see small-bottomed girls that are healthier still.
You can recognize them by their skinny genes.
Obligatory
I would have gone with this.
And soccer kicks off for real in just a couple weeks.
I see you are no longer talking about sports.
Someone’s not a football fan, apparently.
I’m a huge football fan. But football is actually a sport.
I think grass hockey is a sport.
Is that the one where the girls in the plaid skirts trot around with those wooden clubs?
Yard fairies play grass hockey.
But you just said it wasn’t a sport. Which is it?
Soccer is not a sport. Football is a sport.
Unless you’re a tard.
Soccer=football. Anyway, how is football (aka soccer) not a sport? Not that I watch any of them. Outside of hockey, watching sports is about as interesting as watch paint dry to me.
Soccer != Football.
Football is that sport where you hit a ball with your foot. No hands
Soccer=football
Not really, no. Soccer is some Euro-weenie ritual involving guys in short pants unaccountably falling down, clutching their knees.
Football is a sport.
And Soccer is a game where supposedly grown men imitate trout – They flop around on the grass and avoid the nets.
Pie knows what I’m talking about. Makes zero sense to call the game that has players hold the ball with their hands and never touch it with their feet, football. Makes perfect sense to call the game that has players only ever touch the ball with their feet, football.
never touch it with their feet
-1 Justin Tucker
Football was named the way it was to distinguish itself from the riding sports.
Hence Association Football, where you primarily kick the ball.
And also Rugby Football, where you primarily carry the ball.
Both are played on foot, not on horseback.
Not really, no. Soccer is some Euro-weenie ritual involving guys in short pants unaccountably falling down, clutching their knees.
You’re very boring.
Football is a sport. Although there is little point to watching it.
Is the unholy bastard child of American football and “soccer” a sport?
I mean I don’t like football (the real kind I mean not pseudo-rugby) but how can you americans criticize it while at the same time watch baseball? Which by definition is not a sport, as even it’s professional athletes can be rather portly.
Have you ever played baseball?
Come to think of it, it’s been ages since I have. What was the point of buying a factory-direct Loiusville Slugger?
Come fly to the US, we’ll get a game going.
What was the point of buying a factory-direct Loiusville Slugger?
I’m inclined toward this
Try hitting a 70 mph fastball. Then try hitting a 95 mph fastball. Then tell me it’s not a sport.
Hitting a fastball is not a sport. Neither is hitting a golfball far, throwing a dart accurately, hitting a bank shot, playing shuffleboard on ice, throwing corn-filled bean bags, poker, trick shooting, or skipping a rock 20 times.
Quidditch is more of a sport than baseball. And it is made up. But baseball does have one thing going for it… it isn’t cricket.
It’s a sport as long as my Dodgers are still on fire.
“I’m not an athlete, I’m a baseball player.”
Baseball has winners and losers.
and Soccer just has losers 😉
It’s time to learn your cliches.
Every supposed “great athlete” thinks baseball is easy, and then they try it out, and not only can they not hit, but they’re defensive liabilities as well.
Michael Jordan – arguably the greatest basketball player of all time… terrible
Tim Tebow – remember, this guy won a heisman, two national titles, and actually started (and won) a handful of games in the NFL. And while I’m rooting for him to succeed in baseball, I know he’s not going to come close to touching the majors.
Deion Sanders – greatest player at the most athletically demanding position on the football field. Was an ok bench player in baseball.
Bo Jackson – some consider him the greatest all-around athlete of his generation. He was a career .250 hitter that struck out at an alarming rate and could never get on base (career OBP of .309 is terrible for a power hitter… they’re supposed to get on base). He also sucked defensively, in spite of how strong his arm was. Adam Dunn was an objectively better baseball player than Bo Jackson, and for those of us who remember the kind of shape Dunn was in when he was fresh out of Texas, there’s no doubt in my mind he could have had a solid career as a tight end in the NFL.
I was a track and football guy. But I have a shit ton of respect for major leaguers. They’re way more athletic than people realize. I think there are more major league shortstops that could transition to defensive back or slot receiver in the NFL than their are receivers/defensive backs that could transition to shortstop in the majors.
Look at it this way: in what other athletic endeavor, besides hitting, does failing two times out of three put you into the elite category?
Hitting the major league curve is probably the most difficult feat in sports.
Brian Jordan did all right, going from DB for the Falcons (led the team in tackles one year, which is really not something your Safety should be doing…) to occasional All Star outfielder for the Cards and Braves.
And for the most part, the great all around athletes are going to gravitate towards baseball because of the higher salaries.
And potentially longer careers. Add to it the greater wear that football permanently puts on your body.
I know about Jeff Bagwell not being able to lift his arms above his shoulders. For every Bagwell, there’s 100 NFL retirees who can’t walk without two canes. Then there’s CTE…
Tim Tebow also won my a 6 pack of two hearted, due to an internet bet on that other site.
Thanks again, Baked Penguin!!!!
Don’t forget the grind of playing 162 games in 180 days.
In what other sport do you get only 1 day off every 10 days while traveling around the country to a new city every 3 days half the time.
Within the game it is certainly not the most physically demanding sport but it is absolutely arguable that through the course of the season it is. There is a reason Baseball players have some of the highest rates of steroid use in athletics, it is not to help them get bigger and stronger it is to help them stay on the field in the first place.
Huge difference between doing something that is difficult and a sport. Michael Jordan and Bo Jackson can’t eat 50 hot dogs in competition. Does that make competitive eating a sport?
I belong too a sport fucking league…
Anybody else follow Track & Field in non-Olympic years? The World Championships start today in London, with storylines including possibly Usain Bolt & Mo Farah’s last time on the track…Wayde Van Niekirk trying to duplicate Michael Johnson’s long sprint double of 22 (and 21) years ago…an American possibly winning the steeplechase?…Russians competing in plain white rather than under their country’s flag because their official delegation is still banned for doping…gender confusion in the women’s 800…and much more.
In general Track suffers from something that’s bothered boxing for decades, in that it’s rare to see the best of the best match up. But in the Olympics and World Championships nearly everybody who’s healthy is there.
Things in Afghanistan were going great until that lunatic Trump showed up. Now it’s a shitshow.
Things were just turning around…
I was hoping that Trump would pull us out of Afghanistan. Is another four years there going to be the final push that we need? Har.
Bankrupting a country takes a little more time. He’ll figure it out one way or another.
We just needed more time there, P Brooks. You can’t expect us to turn things around in only 15 years.
With a willingness to create a Roman peace, it could be solved much faster.
Of course that violates a few treaties we might have signed at some point.
We shouldn’t be bound by 2,000 yr old treaties with empires that no longer exist.
*narrows gaze*
“It elevated my critics, but it also enlivened my supporters, because I was not timid about the issue. I leaned into the issue. And it was predicated on this core belief: Shelters solve sleep. Housing solves homelessness.”
Newsome or Trudeau. Only one can die Kaddafi style. Your choice.
But I have to choose whether to marry or fuck the other one, right?
It’s your fantasy. I recommend sharing it with us.
Hey, yeah.
Here come the politicians, one, two, three.
It’s all part of my fantasy,
Fuck.
They’re politicians, JATNAS. You’ll be the one getting fucked.
James Comey to write book about ‘good, ethical leadership’
Comey hated. Comey loved. Make up your mind.
This is like SugarFree writing a book on chastity
At least SugarFree knows what chastity is, and could ape it in his prose if he so chose. Comey couldn’t ape ethics if he tried.
Asking for a friend, is reclusive avoidance of people the same thing as chastity?
inchas?
Maybe it will be one of those “thinnest books ever” joke books.
Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but shouldn’t an author actually have some familiarity with his subject?
All the pages will be blank,
He will never finish it Loretta Lynch broke my laptop is the new dogs ate my homework.
Mmmm… fresh bacon
Vegan activists tearfully protest as pigs head to slaughter – in pictures
I have no sympathy for the pigs and only pity for the vegans.
Pity for the vegans? You’re nicer than me.
5 of first 13 comments are your own links…done yet?
*squints suspiciously*
Nevah!!!
Lord H, why don’t you offer to do the links sometime? You can shoot your link load and give one of the regulars a break. That’s a win-win, brother.
But, that would reduce how many links we get to not read!
I did the links once. But I got so much hate mail I couldn’t function for the rest of the day. Ok not really.
As evidenced by #19
*narrows gaze*
Don’t worry, I blow my load early. And then spend the rest of the
timecomments napping.If I get you both to attend our next party, I’m getting out the popcorn.
I come here for the LH links, man.
We’ve offered him the position several times. The Lord of the Waste has no use for a “job”.
Disregard my suggestion then.
::raises hand with index finger up::
::lowers hand::
::walks away sobbing::
Your links are great too, they’re just riddled with a bunch of sportsball crap I have to get through first.
Protip: do a page search for “…the links!” every morning.* Then only read what’s below that.
Problem solved.
*Im pretty sure this quirk has been in all of my links posts since the beginning. If not all of them, it began to be a daily occurrence pretty early on.
True, I should have picked up on this by now… I’ve been reading these links every morning for what has to be approaching a year now.
I have very little interest in sports, but I find the sports blurbs worth reading. Otherwise, I might’ve missed 46-yo Nolan Ryan wailing on a 26-yo hothead.
I wonder if the guy in that last picture with the “I want to live” sign realizes that if we didn’t eat them we would have no choice whatsoever but to kill off 99.999% of all pigs alive and the only ones left would be kept in Zoo’s
Stupid people never realize that is how nature really works..
He talked homelessness, offering that no state has more homeless people, “and no state has been more asleep at the wheel” working to support cities and counties coping with the problem.
“This is the issue that defined my tenure as mayor,” Newsom said, nodding to a controversial effort he led to replace cash subsidies for the homeless with housing and support services. “It elevated my critics, but it also enlivened my supporters, because I was not timid about the issue. I leaned into the issue. And it was predicated on this core belief: Shelters solve sleep. Housing solves homelessness.”
Uh huh. Unintended consequences are a libertarian fantasy. California has vast numbers of homeless people because the weather is nice. Yeah, that’s it.
Newsome is the SF version of the Belgian Minister of Health.
~~~magic edit fairy~~~
SugarFree you say…
This comment makes sense now.
This should get some kind of award for something.
*hands Straff a BS medal from chest*
It’s called superiority humor. My attempt at ridiculing the Belgian Minister of Health backfired as I shit the bed myself. It was a master stoke on my part. *WhereTF is the edit fairie?*
If the study you linked up thread is legit that chick will live long enough to see the sun extinguished.
Ugh.
Holy shit. She could solve the homeless problem by housing them under her skirt.
You want people to live there?! YOU MONSTER!
I don’t know. I think she might eat them.
Ah, the Hansel & Gretel approach to problem solving.
Isn’t this the state that keep knocking down the free tiny houses that people build for the homeless because the tiny houses aren’t “up to code?” Fuck these people. They want to talk about helping homeless people, but in reality they want them as far away and out of view as possible.
Haven’t you heard? Progs are totally on board with getting tiny houses jammed into existing single family home neighborhoods now. Lowering property costs and building costs by ripping out the building codes (that aren’t applied to tiny houses), development fees & permits, property taxes, zoning restrictions, etc– not so much.
Progtopia is a land of zero tradeoffs. It is filled with abundant affordable housing, built to exacting standards, and perfectly planned by government technocrats. They simply do not understand scarcity.
That’s because there is no scarcity! The 1% are hoarding all the wealth! Once we
kill them and raid their coffersvote for sensible wealth redistribution, no one will need anything!Newsom is such a piece of shit. I lived in SF during his reign. Him sleeping with his campaign manager’s wife seems to have been forgotten.
With a willingness to create a Roman peace, it could be solved much faster.
A Pyrrhic victory is still a victory.
Wait wut?
Maybe my history is hazy but I believe the entomology of Pyrrhic is at best Greek or Cretan in nature. The Romans did Cartage, where they salted the earth after killing everyone and destroying everything. I suspect that’s what our unseen book writer was referring to…
Indeed, the term Pyrrhic victory comes from the Greek general Pyrrhus lamenting after fighting against the Romans that, while he had decisively driven them back, they could afford to replace their losses and he could not.
For all you Firefly fans out there.
Thanks. Christina Hendricks, Firefly days, would.
After too. Including today, despite what I wrote yesterday, that she’d passed curvy to fat.
The video was relevant to my interests and greatly appreciated.
Luke Duke never meant no harm.
From the Dukes of Hazzard made-for-TV movie that kicked off the series:
Luke: Damn you’re lookin’ good, Daisy. If you weren’t my cousin, I’d marry you.
Daisy: That’s never stopped anyone in this family before.
I wonder how many libertarians were created by 80’s shows like the Dukes of Hazzard or the A-Team? Good guys that were technically crooks while the government was the real baddy.
Ken Livingstone: Venezuela crisis due to Chávez’s failure to kill oligarchs
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/aug/03/ken-livingstone-venezuela-crisis-hugo-chavez-oligarchs?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard
Ken Livingstone, living testament to British inbreeding and its deleterious effects
Livingstone is currently suspended from the Labour Party for being too anti-Semitic. Given that the party as a whole is anti-Semitic, how bad do you have to be to get suspended for it?
Hes not antisemitic that’s just it’s just a jew conspiracy to discredit him.
Livingstone would swear up and down that he’s not anti-Semitic, he just hates Israel.
All limeys are pretty much inbred. Havent you watched Game of Thrones?
I bet Ken is not alone in this position. Unsurprisingly, I’ve had a handful of Bernie supporter tell me they believe America should kill all the billionaires and redistribute their money to everyone else. What is it with the radical left and killing folks?
They are all cast from the same mold my friend. The ol’ ‘worse than Hitler’ bit is a canard. He was just a run of the mill lefty who did what they always do when they get their hands on power.
As has been written here before by brighter people than me, they think they’re bringing about Utopia for everyone, and the only thing that stopping it is your selfish intransigence. Heaven on Earth is right around the corner, if only you’ll stop getting in the way. How dare you?!
We’re in the middle of a War on Poverty and Want. Your refusal to help must be sabotage, because their cause is so obviously right, charitable, and selfless. And the thing about war? You’re supposed to kill saboteurs.
Extremist political ideologies tend towards defining themselves by hating others.
It’s quite simple, really. Modern progressivism is based on hate. They don’t want happiness for themselves. They want others to suffer.
Let’s do Ken Livingstone quotes, for shits and giggles:
I’d like to see some evidence for that assertion, motherfucker.
The Holocaust killed ~11 million people. We’re not including the Russian death toll here.
According to the WHO, ~56.4 million people died worldwide in 2015, so about 150k a day.
But it wouldn’t surprise me if he was a Holocaust denier, so…
I would need to see evidence of how it was capitalism that killed people, too.
Well, yeah. Was going to add an “So even if you assume that every single modern death is due to capitalism” sentence, but didn’t think it was necessary given how large the numerical disparity is in the first place. Guess it was.
In their minds if people die at all it’s because they lack resources, and if they lack resources it’s because we didn’t vote to make everything free.
Prices to progs are just numbers rich people assign to products and services get rich. If we outlawed that practice then prices would be low. It’s so shallow it’s hard to comprehend.
150k? That’s way up from the days of Blue Oyster Cult.
Well, “World wide capitalism kills more people everyday then Hitler did” could
mean “than hitler did per day”. Assuming the holocaust killed 11 million
people in 3 years, that’s about 10000 per day. On that theory,
if “capitalism” is responsible for more than 6.7% of world wide deaths,
it would be more than 10000 per day.
I can’t think of any way offhand to objectively ascribe deaths to “capitalism”
and “not capitalism”, everyone is affected by capitalism, and as far as we know
the survival rate is zero.
Stuart Rothenberg @StuPolitics
Of course they are hard-working. They mean well. Just close-minded, provincial, angry & easily misled. My wife’s dad was a coal miner in PA.
“They mean well. Just close-minded, provincial, angry & easily misled.”
He should stop talking about black people like that.
You mean hispanics, don’t you? Or is it women?
He’s definitely not talking about Jews, because everyone knows they are the ones doing the leading. I’m thinking he means the east asians as they are both docile and angry.
Or moooslims????
If my son in law ever said something like that on the tweeter I might feel compelled to kick his ass.
best response-
Chad (チャド) (Чад) @ItnHmn 11h11 hours ago
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Replying to @StuPolitics
You mean they do things like paint a state of 1.8 mil people with a broad brush, based on prejudices formed from a very limited sample set?
These leftists still don’t get it, do they? WV was a loyal Democratic state just 15 years ago, and it is still majority Democrat and pro-union in voter registration. If they really wanted to win back the House they would try to win them back rather than turn them away, but they clearly think that their bigoted little intersectionality game is a more winning strategy. Keep digging that grave, leftists.
WV Democrats probably never really changed, their party was just racing by to get to the finish line on the far left of the political spectrum.
Not sure what Pennsylvania coal miners have to do with sweeping generalizations of West Virginia, but then I’m not a highly paid political pundit.
I just saw this headline: “Trump Can’t Stop Talking About Russia”.
I thought, “surely this is an Onion article”… so I clicked… nope, good ol CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/04/politics/trump-russia/index.html
“INCORRECT!”
Chris Cillizza, the adult in the room.
although in fairness this is like the 15th different person on chopping block and the media hasn’t exactly been 100% accurate these days.
This guy sounds like a mixed bag.
~~~magic edit fairy~~~
Edit faerie is going to busy today.
Especially if they have to fix grammar…
I’m 5 tall boys in already. Time to call it a night. Hold down the fort.
Goodnight sweet prince.
Maybe I just like the pretty blue text wall that’s hard on the eyes.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing to have someone in the inner circle who doesn’t agree with everyone else as long as he isn’t a leak source.
I don’t know what to believe anymore. It’s probably not the best thing that the military is purging out the neophytes brought in by Trump and replacing them with the people that oversaw these messes we are currently in. Of course it may not be a terrible thing either.
The most effective voices of reason only dissent a small amount of the time, because then their dissent is taken seriously.
People who push back against the boss 100% of the time are easily dismissed.
Last I knew animal droppings were biodegradable into plant food, and there were already natural systems in place to decomose them.
And that is why it amuses me to no end to see the signs in the parks (dog- and people-) admonishing dog owners to pick up their dogs’ poop and carefully seal it in plastic, so it cannot decompose and return to the earth from whence it derived.
With the dog parks it’s likely more an issue of space and smell. It rained here yesterday, and on my walk up to the mailbox the entire route reeked of dog shit.
I buy special biodegradable poop bags for my dog. That shit is going back into the Earth whether they like it or not.
Our dog park has those biodegradable poop bags, supplied by the city.
AI is a powerful tool in the fight against anxiety and depression
I would be concerned about privacy issues surrounding this technology, only the algorithms will be about as good as the ones Amazon uses to suggest products based on purchases I made once in 2006.
Yeah humans can barely judge mental states, good luck training a machine to do what the trainer can’t
Machine learning is *much* better at this than people are. I’d rather have a quorum of personalized classifiers that have been chomping on months of data tell me I’m at risk for an emotional issue than I would a human doctor that’s been talking to me for, if I’m lucky, dozens of minutes.
Who has access to those machines’ data and conclusions? What else is this information going to be used for? How do we know? What safeguards are in place to protect this information?
I’d rather just keep the machines away.
Too late. that’s already happening.
In a perfect world, I’d tell you that it is all going into escrow and that the end user has the private keys that can be used to create a 1 time hash to allow fine grain control of the data.
As the real world stands, the data already is being captured and put to use. The downside is already here. Might as well take the upside as well.
Damn, pulse? They use the mic for that or is it just total bullshit?
They probably meant by way of those fitness trackers. They usually integrate with smart phone software. I don’t think there’s any biometric sensors in the phone itself that do that as of now.
Not passively, but Samsung Galaxy phones have pulse sensors.
So their solution in combating depression is to tell depressed people they’re depressed? Is that really the problem?
Those poor AIs having to listen to a bunch of whiners….you’ll see a lot of self-immolating devices, I bet.
I love the link description on hover – sexual assult, finger, butt, cocaine, drugs…
Re: John McCain
I know it’s fashionable, even here, to say “cancer sucks” and all that when it comes to him but this guy is still continuing to do damage in a way only he seems to be capable of doing. I’m not going to pretend, I hope the cancer calls him home, and soon.
If that makes me a terrible human being so be it.
Eh. Everybody has their own code. I’m not mad at you.
I’m with you. His kin can mourn him, I’ve got no obligation. I don’t know much about the specific type of tumor he has, but I also wonder how prudent it is to allow a person with a potentially mentally debilitating disease to continue in a decision-making role.
I think he has a glioblastoma. If so, my grandfather had it and his mentation declined rapidly and he died after just a few months.
Far from the first time in the Senate. How long was the corpse of Strom Thurmond propped up?
But yeah, I’m increasingly hoping his condition is painful.
I don’t wish the man dead, but I won’t be shedding any tears when he finally does kick the bucket.
He can live to be 100 for all I care. I just want the sonofabitch out of office because he cannot competently serve with this brain tumor. Everyone noticed it when he was in that hearing asking gibberish questions. It was talked about in the left and right and mention was made that maybe he should step down. The same people talking about it then have gone silent because he has found the energy to vote for the deep state and is now blaming the failures of their terrible policies over 15 years on the newbie in the WH that had nothing to do with them.
He’s not mentally capable of doing his job. He needs to go the fuck away and either live or die in peace, far away from the levers of power.
Don’t worry, McCain wants to work with Schumer on immigration reform.
Chuck or Amy?
“He needs to go the fuck away” which he absolutely will not do. The man won’t retire or bow out until they wheel him out feet first, hence my wish for the Big Retirement. I’d prefer he just quit or resigned for treatment as well but that just doesn’t seem to be in the cards.
If he won’t leave voluntarily, I’m cool with him dying to get him out.
You’re lucky Preet isn’t employed by the Department of Justice anymore.
I’m sure a gag order is in the mail to the Glib marble palace HQ this morning…
It shows his selfishness and his ego. If I came down with a terminal brain tumor you can bet I would have worked my last day, because I would be intent on spending every minute I could with my family. I have to believe most people would at least try to work as little as possible and spend as much time with their loved ones.
You’re a terrible human being, but that’s not why.
Actress Cynthia Erivo, who won a Tony in 2015 for The Color Purple, also took exception, tweeting, “This has been handled badly. Ticket sales shouldn’t override a person doing his job”
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/450068/great-comet-broadway-mandy-patinkin-josh-groban-okieriete-onaodowan-race-hysteria-progressives
The most ridiculous part is that they were still going to pay the replaced actor at his rate for the lead. So he misses out on some opportunities to play the lead until Patinkin gets familiar enough with the script and songs, and likely misses the opportunity to understudy a very good actor as well (which could easily lead to better roles for him in the future, given Patinkin’s connections in Theater and Hollywood).
It’s been said here before, but I’ll say it again: casting people in roles that don’t match their race is cultural appropriation, dammit!
brings a whole new meaning to “fuck bitches, get money.”
TruthOut turns to a 1944 essay by Henry Wallace to show that Trump is a fascist
Not mentioned: How in 1948 Wallace let Communists to infiltrate his Presidential campaign.
“Fascists are “easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact” (my italics), [Wallace] contended. Moreover, Wallace noted that fascists “pay lip service to democracy and the common welfare” and they “surreptitiously evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion.” Finally, Wallace identified that fascists’ primary objective was to “capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they keep the common man in eternal subjection.””
Yeah, Henry, you gotta watch out for movements like that!
I prefer George Wallace’s ramblings.
Sounds like progressivism
It’s really all projection with the proggies.
I keep hearing that word thrown around by people who have no idea what it means.
Henry Wallace was so snuggly with Communism that even FDfuckinR, the man whose advisors were riddled with Soviet spies, told him to get the hell off the ticket.
They mean well. Just close-minded, provincial, angry & easily misled.
That guy could get in trouble talking about progressives that way.
I know, right? “They mean well” indeed…
Engineering Education: Social Engineering Rather than Actual Engineering
One of the features of their growing power is the phenomenon of “engineering education” programs and schools. They have sought out the soft underbelly of engineering, where phrases such as “diversity” and “different perspectives” and “racial gaps” and “unfairness” and “unequal outcomes” make up the daily vocabulary. Instead of calculating engine horsepower or microchip power/size ratios or aerodynamic lift and drag, the engineering educationists focus on group representation, hurt feelings, and “microaggressions” in the profession.
An excellent example is the establishment at Purdue University (once informally called the “MIT of the Midwest”) of a whole School of Engineering Education. What is this school’s purpose? Its website tells us that it “envisions a more socially connected and scholarly engineering education. This implies that we radically rethink the boundaries of engineering and the purpose of engineering education.”
The recently appointed dean of Purdue’s school, Dr. Donna Riley, has an ambitious agenda.
In her words (italics mine): “I seek to revise engineering curricula to be relevant to a fuller range of student experiences and career destinations, integrating concerns related to public policy, professional ethics, and social responsibility; de-centering Western civilization; and uncovering contributions of women and other underrepresented groups…. We examine how technology influences and is influenced by globalization, capitalism, and colonialism…. Gender is a key…[theme]…[throughout] the course…. We…[examine]… racist and colonialist projects in science….”
https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2017/08/engineering-education-social-engineering-rather-actual-engineering/
Fuck them to hell and back. They’re trying to co-opt the reputation of engineering schools as relatively sane and reputable organizations for themselves because they’ve achieved a reputation for being ignorant, totem worshipping, racist, pieces of shit.
^This^
“1. Identify a respected institution.
2. kill it.
3. gut it.
4. wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect.”
-David Burge
They poison everything they touch and yet they cant figure out why.
All of that has fuck-all to do with actually learning engineering. Purdue should be embarrassed.
Sounds like they’re turning it into a liberal arts degree.
Hmm, no mention of the Dbacks taking 2/3′ frim the Cubs–at Wrigley. Its cool. It was a awesome rain soaked game that nobody outside the local market appeared to notice either.
Anyhoo, I was always told to tell people when youre leaving the country so Im telling you all. Anybody need something from Mexico? Meds, orphans, cast iron artwork, Cubanos?
If I’m not back by Monday it means that Border Patrol got confused in Lukeville and took me in for further analysis.
Get me a couple of kilos from the cartels. Just tell them I’m good for the money. That’s not dangerous, is it?
They’re businessmen. You’re a businessman. Arrangements can be made.
+1 Gus Fring
Fresh orphans all around!
Hookers that look like Salma Hayek?
How the season is probably going to go was summed up in about 10 seconds in the friendly against Bayern the other day. Sturridge scores a wonder goal and then immediately pulls up injured (though he says he’s fine).
Still need a centre back (central defender for those who need a translation to Murican) and probably another midfielder though.
Kaep’s being mentioned in the national media as someone the Dolphins should sign given that Ryan Tannehill might be out for the year. There’s zero chance. Not because of the kneeling for the national anthem thing, but because dude’s a Castro sympathizer. No way that’d fly down here.
They were laughing about that on the local radio the other day. Basically the very same people who are cheerleading for him to be signed (ESPN and Mike Florio) are going to cause teams to tell him to fuck off because of the distractions. Normally he would be a good stealth signing as a backup but that is impossible at this point.
Yeah, Kaepernick isn’t good enough to be worth all the bullshit he comes with.
I really want my Steelers to pick him up. If they could handle the bullshit from a Vick signing, they can handle this.
By the time he got to the Steelers the protesting against him was pretty much dead.
I think people overestimate the protests. When Vick signed with the Eagles in 2009 there were about 50 protesters outside the training complex the next day… and then a couple days later there like 20… and then like 5 or 10… and then it stopped.
I didn’t protest the Vick signing; they are simply dead to me. My entire family is from Pittsburgh and I’d been a life-long fan. Signing a dog-torturer and -killer?
Not just no, hell no!
Whatever his faults as a QB, I do give him a lot of credit for his 16/4 TD/INT ratio. That’s one point in his favor.
The credit goes to Dom Capers.
They’re going to go with Matt Moore if they have a brain in their head. Per Football Outsiders, Moore’s one of their top three-ranked QBs with less than 200 passes last year. Is he Dak Prescott? No, but you’re going to win more games with him than with Kaep, and with infinitely less off the field bullshit.
I am a city guy myself and would not like to live in the country, but goddamn big crowded cities are unpleasant during a massive heatwave. There concrete everywhere and cars and people and it is so goddamn hot gaah
For whatever reason, it’s going to be a high of 64F today here in Michigan.
Climate Change – duh.
Pour yourself a whiskey and get in the pool. That’s what I do.
Check your pool privilege
I never said it was MY pool.
A 50$ inflatable White trash pool does the trick
39 goddamn degrees. And the thing is it’s gonna be a week long heatwave not just a couple of days.
Oooh look at Mr. Metric here all high n mighty… measuring his girth and length in centimeters, aka the Commie Measuring system
well excuse me for using something that makes sense.
If you had used something that makes sense, mayhaps.
well excuse me for using something that makes sense.
There are two types of nations in the world, those that use the metric system, and those that have put men on the moon.
Honestly I wish we would switch. It just makes sense, except for metric time, which nobody uses.
You are free to use the metric system. I hate it, since I have no intuitive sense what the measurements in metric look like or feel like, for the most part.
Here’s a quick guide:
Milimeter – very tiny, can be used on very small things.
Centimeter – too big to be used on very small things, too small to be useful on regular-sized things.
Meter – Too big to be used on regular-sized things, too small to be of any use on big things.
Kilometer – too big to be used on big things, too small to be of use in long distances.
Liter – funny name for a quart (approximately). Not useful in most contexts.
Miligram – can be used for very tiny weights, such as medical dosing.
Gram – not terribly useful a measure
Kilogram – 2.2 pounds.
Isn’t the useful part that they’re all related? I cubic cm = 1 ml = 1 gram of water? (Not sure if I remember that correctly though)
The imperial system is all disjointed.
Being internally interrelated doesn’t make the units inherently useful.
I keep planning on writing a screed about how awful the metric system is and submitting it here.
Pour yourself two whiskeys?
I’m sorry, I can’t do it. I just can’t see 39 degrees as hot. I know you’re talking Celcius, but that just inspires “brisk day” in my mind.
It wouldn’t be so bad if the conversion math was easier to do in your head.
Just double the “French Excuse for Temperature” and add 32. Gets you close enough. Below zero Farenheit the temps are about equal.
And once you’re in below zero (Fahrenheit) temps, does the actual temperature really matter? Either way, it’s Too Damn Cold.
PieInTheSKy,
Have you seen Comrade Detective (the original, undubbed version)? Amazon paid for its dubbing into English, and I just finished the 1st episode. Highly funny stuff.
I’m with you Pie. 0 and 100 are just too arbitrary for these guys.
I’m offended by the distinctly hydrocentric nature of the Celcius system.
Let’s go by when Tungsten melts.
There’s not enough difference between what is hot and what is cold, so it doesn’t feel right intuitively. I mean, 22 is comfortable and 30 is uncomfortably hot.
You figure that stuff out pretty quickly when you’re walking around wearing a parka in September.
I didn’t know Japan got snowfall that early. (Anything warmer than that is not parka weather)
First time I came here, checked the local weather forecast. 32 degrees. Got off the plane and wilted under my parka. Evan can attest, maybe, that Asian cold is colder for some odd reason.
It’s easy when you start with that frame of reference. It’s only the translation that’s difficult. It would take one generation to completely forget the imperial measurements.
Personally I prefer metric measurements and use them in a limited capacity for my work, but I’m never going to use them for day to day stuff like the weather and distance at this point. It’s too much work when you’ve been inculcated from birth on a different system.
0-100 simplified.
F=how people feel.
C=how water feels.
At least we can all agree that -40 is way too fucking cold.
Indeed -40 Kelvin is a tad frosty.
Check your Bose-Einstein privilege.
Tomorrow’s high in Kansas City 69 when the average is 86. We have only been in the 80s twice in the last two weeks. Only one heat wave this entire summer and it lasted 3 days. Looking back at the last few years we have had mild summers and mild winters. Maybe this global warming thing isn’t so bad.
This is going to be what I look forward to the most, every single pundit picking them to win the WS and them losing in the divisional round. Of course I’ll just share the laugh with myself as the Nats will do same thing.
The Dodgers are the Washington Capitals of baseball. You don’t yet know how they will blow it, but you can rest assured that they WILL blow it.
Can I use this excuse to post one of my favorite hits of all time?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSveSmBrS0M
Good god. Idi. otic.
My sister lives in New York where they do this as well. She told me she thinks they should do this everywhere. I told her I’m specifically going to not recycle just so I can make up for her amount of recycling.
She’s also the type that says we all have a “responsibility to talk to our families about racism when we go home for the holidays.” I told her that “your blinding us with your wokeness. The light your bringing is intense. Seriously, stop, its pissing everyone off.”
My garbage gets reliably collected – recycling, not so much. So I’m better off dumping it all in the garbage and not having the waste sitting around my house for weeks.
responsibility to talk to our families about racism when we go home for the holidays.”
In other words, cause trouble and ruin the holidays by haranguing people because they don’t agree with your politics and biased world view. Sounds like tons of fun. What the fuck is it with the left?
Its her girlfriend and her life in NYC, man. She used to be laid back and cool. She lives up there for 6 years and now she comes back for the holidays spitting all this nonsense.
None of my black friends seem to be nearly as obsessed with race as the white liberal chicks in my life. Its really irritating.
Is she one of those that reads those proggy talking-points to bring up at Thanksgiving dinner to educate your backwards idiot relatives articles and actually does that?
Yes. Totally buys into the whole thing. Its really annoying. We could be having a perfectly fine conversation unrelated to anything political and she’ll bring it up.
I’d stop inviting her to holidays in that case. I have my share of lefty relatives (my uncle is a college professor and my aunt a retired schoolteacher, for crissakes) but everyone agrees to leave politics at the doorstep when we get together.
Not my choice, my mother sends out the invites. But if I ever have one at my house (I wouldn’t) and she pulls this crap, I’ll tell her she can piss off with that while she’s in my home.
A lot of my relatives got mad at me when they were bringing up Obamacare failing for saying the GOP was stupid to not consider Rand Paul’s plan when I was on vacation last week. And all of those present were liberals… mad at me for criticizing the GOP in “not the right way”.
+1 Penn & Teller Bullshit Recycling Episode
Hello all.. I know I haven’t posted much, but I have lurked for several months. I’ll probably be commenting more since I’ve decided keeping all of my political rage bottled up in me isn’t healthy, and obviously I can’t talk politics at AA. So I need an outlet, and this place is pretty chill. So anyway, thanks for being here. You guys are alright.
*tips top hat in White Male’s direction*
Welcome.
I could do without the avatar. Not because of pepe (though he’s played out on both sides), but because of the use of THE Ohio State University, which all correct-thinking peoples should hate on general principle.
I don’t follow college sports and even I hate OSU.
I like Pepe not for what he was (a silly meme), but for what he stands for now: a symbol of dissent. It’s silly, but I kind fo like it. However, I knew Pepe wouldn’t trigger anyone here. So in order to get some sort of rise out of the Glibs, I had to go with the OSU Pepe. I see that it worked. Go Bucks!
Can’t believe that is the first Pepe avatar I’ve seen here.
Feels good man.
Yeah I knew it would happen eventually. I’m surprised its taken this long.
Top hat Pepe should be here any minute now.
Close enough.
Listen, just because you people don’t love TBDTITL like you should doesn’t mean this man, nay this superman of a commenter shouldn’t wear the scarlet and gray with pride.
Fuck Michigan. That is all. (3 months, 21 days, 3 hours and 30 minutes till we beat those cunts again)
Fuck Michigan… forever and ever… amen.
And then what?
A Cigarette
infinity + 1
Fuck the entire Big
1410I don’t think we’re losing to Iowa two years in a row.
FUCK OFF!
/obligatory,
Hello 🙂
your av could use a tophat.
Shadilay brother.
I’m not a buckeye nut, but I fake being a fan when I’m at buckeyes game tailgate parties drinking someone else’s beers.
Go Bucks!!
(Did I do that right? Idk, who cares!)
Debbie Wasserman Schultz defends herself and Imran Awan. “Nothing to see here folks, show’s over, move on.”
The Democrats are rotten to the core. It is almost beyond belief. Every damned one of the leadership deserve prison, crooked motherfuckers.
In some ways, the crookedness of the DNC is a silver lining that inoculates potential leftists to leftism.
Fortunately for them the vast majority of the media are just the Democratic Party’s propaganda arm.
From the comments:
When experiencing an erection lasting more than 4 hours, save the money on a doctor’s visit and stare at a picture of Wasserman Schultz, it will immediately fix the problem. It might ruin your eyes is the only side effect
Brutal honesty is a lost art.
There is so much utter bullshit in that article it hard to choose where to start.
They have recovered stolen equipment for christs sake.
The scam the family was running netted them $4 million, but we won’t talk about that will we Debbie.
As to the laptop in police possession:
Then why did you claim constitutional privilege over the laptop to stop the police from accessing it if it was not even yours?
Ya, ya, those poor people are being targeted just because of their religion and they are really totally honest.
If it was just her emails Awan was snooping, that’d be bad enough, but AIUI he was also running IT for Reps on things like Intelligence, Armed Services, and other committees. All of which mean his group saw an intelligence hoard that basically makes Snowden and Manning’s disclosures look like pamphlets by comparison.
Wells Fargo feels bad after scamming people and stealing their cars.
I got a text from wells fargoo about my credit card, which I don’t have with them. Might have been a scam… (scratches chin)
I work at a bank – seeing how absolutely crappy the systems, controls, processes, etc. are, I wouldn’t be surprised one bit if this was truly a mistake on their part. On the other hand, Wells is well known for their shenanigans. Discovery from all of the lawsuits will be interesting.
Allison Brie hacked…
I would never stoop so low as to look at this terrible invasion of privacy…never…ever
Those damn Russians!
Was it a legit hack? or did she fall victim to a phishing scam?
Or did she fall “victim” to a shrewd publicist, like 90% of the other celebrity leaks?
*too busy fapping* Huh? sure idk
meh, the pics were just ok
I’ll take some close ups of big naturals all day fwiw
“I seek to revise engineering curricula to be relevant to a fuller range of student experiences and career destinations, integrating concerns related to public policy, professional ethics, and social responsibility; de-centering Western civilization; and uncovering contributions of women and other underrepresented groups…. We examine how technology influences and is influenced by globalization, capitalism, and colonialism…. Gender is a key…[theme]…[throughout] the course…. We…[examine]… racist and colonialist projects in science….”
As I read this, I saw, in my mind’s eye, bridges collapsing and buildings falling over.
If I thought for one moment this was an attempt to inculcate in the progressive fever swamp some understanding of the immutable force of reality, I’d be all for it. But that’s not what they’re working toward.
And when the bridges do collapse, and the buildings topple over, and committees upon committees are formed in order to assign blame to someone, I’ll remind everyone that Ayn Rand wrote about these sorts of things several decades ago.
cue Randy from South Park: “We didn’t listen!!!”
It’s Time For Millennials To Rise And Claim Their Inheritance
Libertarian infighting. Yeah! Oh, and fuck Steve Horwitz and Cato.
Most people who are libertarians do not call themselves such and most of the people who call themselves libertarians are decidedly not.
See ENB.
+ 91% of libertarians reject the label.
BULLIES
She seemed delighted to be getting rid of the yokels.
As though libertarian right can’t be true libertarianism.
You gotta hand it to the culture warriors, they’re amazing at infiltrating movements and stealing labels.
1939: OK folks, we can’t call ourselves “progressives” anymore, this guy Hitler is doing the things we’ve been talking about for decades and people aren’t liking it. How about “liberal” instead, that sounds good? But sir, that means someone who is for liberty? Perfect, they definitely won’t see through that for a while!
2006: Alright, “liberal” is worn out, people no longer associate it with, you know, liberty. Can’t we just go back to “progressive”? Most people don’t remember what eugenics were .. fuck, most people can’t even spell it.
2017: OK, shit, that didn’t last as long as we would have liked. Is “libertarian” taken?
Saw the story in the side bar.. WTF.
I listened to that speech on The Tom Woods Show and it was excellent. The left libertarians are just throwing around slurs with nothing to back them up.
The Deist speech was run of the mill libertarian stuff. Loved hearing Tom lay into them. Even got a few shots in at TSTSNBN.
In a case of two varieties of libertarianism fighting against each other, I’m always inclined to take the side of the one farthest away from the Von Mises Institute.
Using “blood and soil” in a speech and getting pissy and calling people secret PC progressives or whatever just because they accurately point out that’s tied directly to Nazism is par for the course for them. Between that and the Civil War revisionism, they really turn my stomach.
And while I do like cocktails, I’m not a cosmo either
Did you listen to the speech? It was basically saying the culture matters and we should be pushing for decentralization of power. There was no Nazi reference that a reasonable person would pick up on.
Like most things from Von Mises, if you boil it down to what it “basically” says then I would agree with it almost 100%.
However, when you look at the details you see things like “blood and soil.” That is a Nazi reference a reasonable person would pick up on because it was the motto for an actual, honest to God Nazi policy/ideology.
It’s the same shit with apologizing for the Confederacy to the point of idolatry then pretending like you have no idea why people would question your motives. People associated with Von Mises love this tactic. Go right up to the line, use words and phrases that clearly have additional meanings then call anyone who points that out a leftist shill or SJW or whatever.
I have to agree with El Jefe here. I can’t stand Cato these days, but anyone who uses the phrase “blood and soil” knows exactly what they’re saying. I mean, in a vacuum “final solution” isn’t specifically a Nazi phrase, but anyone that used it would be aware of what allusion will be made.
The use of the phrase “blood and soil” was in response to a Jeffrey Tucker article that used the same phrase. It was not just thrown in there because it sounded good.
EDIT FAERIE, SAVE US
I need remedial link training, it appears.
Try this:
https://disq.us/url?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffee.org%2Farticles%2Fthe-west-blood-and-soil-or-portable-idea%2F%3AAOaVF0e-YJxKvYR_PWxc_V4dHSI&cuid=3050818
fair enough
“2Farticles”
Heh.
“and the Civil War revisionism”
lol
The best part about being accused of “Civil War revisionism” is that the progressives don’t know their history, only relying on the broadest of themes about the war, not knowing anything about the Suspension of the writ of Habeas Corpus or any of the other shitty, government expansive things the U.S. government (the good guys in the Civil War, but no other war) did (including the draft, income taxes, etc.) Personally, having relatives that grew up in Atlanta, and being able to go to museums there before they got all P.C. (when there were still pointing out inconsistencies in the Northern narrative of the war) really opens up your eyes. Now, those museums did have a bias as well, but it lead to more exploration of the actual history on my part, and to a questioning of the narrative. Those are good things, since they are how we learn and grow.
THEY HAD TO SUSPEND HC BECAUSE THE SOUTH WERE CRAZY!
That’s how they’d spin it; or something.
I agree, but just because the standard narrative about the Civil War is wrong doesn’t justify the 180 people do on it. You can move the narrative without taking the exact opposite narrative and running with it. Just because Lincoln wasn’t a valiant defender of African Americans, determined to rid the world of slavery, doesn’t change the reasons for the South seceding.
My 3rd Great Grandfather was in the 9th Kentucky Cavalry Company B, fighting with WCP Breckenridge who after the war was adamant about the necessity of equality for the freed slaves. He was also a Methodist minister (my grandfather, that is). I could reasonable argue he was good person with no interest in defending slavery, but rather defending his “blood and soil.”
He was also present at the Battle of Saltville where wounded and captured black soldiers were summarily massacred. Now this event was an outrage to everyone, but how do I know where he was when that was going on? What do I know of his actions there? Nothing. So this Tom Woods, “all the poor yeomen who took up arms were just defending their land. They had no interest in slavery, etc.” revisionism is based on assumptions and hopes.
Like I said, I just have no interest in replacing one bad narrative with another
Fuck narratives. History is about what is true or not.
It’s simply not possible to square the propaganda of “the majority of Southerners fought for slavery” with the fact that slaveholders were a tiny minority of the free population.
I don’t think, quite frankly, you understand what is being taught in schools. The formulation of the Civil War in public schools, including Southern ones, is that “the North did not have slaves, and the South did, and the North wanted to free the slaves”
What you call revisionism is what others call “Actual facts.”
I mean shit, is Rothbard’s work on the Great Depression some kind of sinister revisionist plot against democracy?
I learned about the civil war in both the north and the south.
It really was boiled down to slavery in both states.
The southern state did make more of a note on the conditions of war, and i did learn about the formation of the confederacy. But nothing more than slavery came up as reasoning.
OK, but the idea of “truth” when talking about motivations and beliefs of non-public people is where you lose me.
We can know “truth” about events and actions, but the proposition that we can know most Southerns didn’t fight to uphold slavery is wishful thinking. You can bolster that assumption and hope with facts like the percentage of people who owned slaves, but that doesn’t say anything about the number of people who agreed with it.
Once again, I’m all for reversing the narrative of the North hated slavery and South loved it and that caused the Civil War. But I’m not for this bullshit fetishistic portrayal of the Confederate private, against slavery but bound and determined to fight for his family when the Yankees burn his tobacco barn and rape his sister. That’s probably even more ahistoric than the current narrative.
So replace it with something like: The South and the North had great differences from the founding of the nation, but the ratcheting up of territorial expansion and the effects that had on slavery pushed them to a boiling point. Not all in the North were anti-slavery* and not all in the South were pro-slavery, but this issue was used as a rallying point at which other political issues coalesced.
* I was, of course, taught this in Middle School, so maybe that’s why I’m out of the loop on this. I think often times, things that people say aren’t taught in school actually are, it’s just that through things like memory and level of interest most people naturally produce generalities that help remember “the important parts.”
And also, many more than a “tiny percentage” owned slaves. That’s a ridiculous assertion and helps explain the “poor PFC who never saw a slave defending his 5 acres” myth.
the proposition that we can know most Southerns didn’t fight to uphold slavery is wishful thinking
This seems a bit wide of the mark. Without a doubt, Confederacy seceded to preserve slavery. But, it’s a bit of a stretch to go from there to saying that the bulk of the soldiers fighting for the Confederacy had much if any interest in slavery. An army was sent to invade their homes.
I don’t think it’s a reach at all to say, at least, half of the soldiers were very much pro-slavery. Whether that was their main drive in fighting is something I wouldn’t venture to guess (I was making the argument that knowing their thoughts is impossible, thus Tom Woods’ arguments always fall short). However, we know over 30% of households in the South owned slaves and a much, much higher percentage were immediately dependent upon slave labor for their financial well-being. So, I think it’s a much more likely proposition that upholding slavery was one of the reasons the majority of Confederate soldiers enlisted.
I’m not saying that was the only reason or even the most pressing reason, just that if we’re going to look back and take a best guess, the context clues say at least half would’ve seen maintaining slavery as a good; either philosophically or materially.
You might be able to make the argument that more than half the Confederate soldiers were fighting for slavery in the beginning, but certainly by 1863 I think the primary motivation of most soldiers was to keep the Northern armies out of Southern territory and defend their land rather than keep slavery legal.
That’s possible, but you also have to factor that the original motivation (slavery) lead to the necessity of defending their communities.
I would still contend that based on everything from voting records to anecdotal evidence like letters, that the majority of Southern soldiers were pro-slavery.
“Now, those museums did have a bias as well, but it lead to more exploration of the actual history on my part, and to a questioning of the narrative.”
Truth as the convergence of opposing biases.
“I’m sure all of us would fight for our physical persons if we were attacked, or for our families if they were attacked. We might fight for close friends too. And perhaps even our neighbors. In fact we might like to think we would physically defend a total stranger in some circumstances, for example an old woman being attacked and robbed.
And we probably would fight for our towns and communities if they were physically invaded by an outside force, even though we don’t personally know all of the people in our towns and communities.
We might fight for property too, maybe not as fiercely. We certainly would protect our homes, but that’s because of the people inside. How about cars? Would you physically tangle with an armed robber who was driving away in your car? Or would you let him go, and not risk death or injury, just to save your car? How about your wallet? How about someone stealing 40% of your income, as many governments do? Would you take up arms to prevent this?
We probably wouldn’t fight for bitcoin, or net neutrality, or a capital gains tax hike, by the way.
How about an abstraction, like fighting for “your country” or freedom or your religion? This is where things get more tenuous. Many people have and will fight for such abstractions. But if you ask soldiers they’ll tell you that in the heat of battle they’re really fighting for their mates, to protect the men in their units–and to fulfill a personal sense of duty.
In other words, blood and soil and God and nation still matter to people. Libertarians ignore this at the risk of irrelevance.
Thank you very much.”
That’s the sole appearance of the term “blood and soil” in the speech.
This is borderline “HITLER WAS A VEGETARIAN!!!” derp.
Why does the frequency of the phrase matter?
If I ended a speech where I eloquently argue for the inherent nature of human rights with, “O yeah, fuck niggers.” it doesn’t matter that I only said it once.
Blood and soil is quite explicitly a Nazi reference and using it 1 time instead of 100 changes nothing except the degree of deniability the speaker desires.
If blood and soil is inherently Nazi, then is:
“All citizens must have equal rights and obligations.” inherently Nazi?
“We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation” an inherently Nazi position?
Personally, I think the point of the speech flew over your head. People do not fight (oh no…..you know what fight translates to in German!!?!?!?!?!) for white papers (RACIST DOG WHISTLE) or for YouTube streamed debates between wonks from opposing think tanks.
If you actually want libertarianism to succeed as an actual political movement, and not as a hipster ideology, then you need to appeal to what actually moves people. What actually moves people is their family, their community, their country. Statism makes the hardworking, law abiding, middle class taxpayer worse off, because they are the ones who are being taxed to support parasites from the Beltway Bandits to your local ghetto (OH NOES MORE RACIAL SECRET NAZI CODES!!!!)
Isn’t the ‘secret message of Buchanan’ crux of why that Duke academic Nancy Maclean attracted such scorn?
It did not go over my head. I understand those points quite well. In fact, as I mentioned above, if you boil it down to the bullet points I agree with that. Maybe not the part about lumping “nation” in with community and family, as that seems arbitrary and too intertwined with “state.”
When you throw in Nazi allusions, however, it changes the overall tenor. If you ended that same speech with, “so, to accomplish this, we must have a final solution to the internal agitators…” how could that not affect how you process it?
If you can’t differentiate between a generic political cliche and a specific call to violent action, I don’t know what to tell you.
But that’s the point! Blood and soil is NOT a generic cliche. It is very specific in origin and usage.
And in the hypothetical of Deist using “final solution” he would undoubtedly say that he meant an intellectual solution completed via persuasive argument and anyone who assumed he was making reference to the Holocaust is a SJW left libertarian hipster. Just like he’s pretending blood and soil is not related to that blood and soil.
Is a dog whistle goes off and no one hears it, is it still a dog whistle?
Blood and soil is NOT a generic cliche.
No, as others have noted above, it’s a specific response to a specific charge from Jeffrey Tucker. The context of that response has a lot more relevance to the discussion than Nazi references from 70 years ago.
Gee, I don’t know.Nazism by other means? And I don’t frequent VM enough to know if there are ‘intricacies’ in their writing or if they have gone a little further ‘alt right’ but that blurb up above didn’t strike me (in that context anyway) as an explicit reference to Nazism term notwithstanding. I guess you’re arguing you can make that final point without using it since it does have Nazi overtones.
But like I said that’s just a superficial perusing of it.
Well said. This is exactly what I was thinking, said better than I would have.
Cato just sent me a pewter coin then asked for a donation. Suckers should’ve sent the coin after the donation.
The weird thing is I’ve made the point Deist made a number of times myself. A libertarian society would probably wind up less libertine. If people don’t have the option of foisting the costs of their regrettable decisions onto others, they’ll wind up much more careful about the decisions they make.
NJR, bringing the derp as few can:
Can Prison Abolition Ever Be Pragmatic?
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/08/can-prison-abolition-ever-be-pragmatic
***
Of course, people think such a world is impossible. Prisons will always be necessary, they believe, because some people will always be warped and cruel. But I object to this way of looking at things: it accepts an erroneous chain of reasoning often held by conservatives, namely that human nature is prone to violence and viciousness and this is an ineradicable part of us. The reason I call this view “erroneous” is that I don’t think it’s a correct inference: the argument is that because humans have always been a certain way, they must always be a certain way.
***
[head desk]
Human nature is perfectable! Herp herp herpa derp!
I do think corporal punishment would be an appropriate substitute for crimes other than murder and rape.
We have never tried to create the New Soviet Man before.
*What is it with these people and their inability to learn?
Oh fuck off. Some of us don’t feel the need or desire to be miserable sons of bitches, yet can still contribute to society.
Even “Brave New World” had prisons of sorts. And they had pretty much everyone stoned out of their gourds in that book, which is the only way these utopian socialists will ever get their way.
Human nature is perfectable!
And I bet the author thinks that they are the perfect model human to copy.
The Soviets didn’t have prisons, they had reeducation camps.
Seriously, I’m not familiar with Robinson, but was he dropped on his head as a child (multiple times)?
When I read passages like this, that’s when I cock my Browning (how’s THAT for a Nazi allusion!):
Yes, by all means, I would have LOVED to hear from the sonofabitch who murdered my grandfather how he was going to undo that.
Fucking utopians, I hate them all.
They would reserve prison for profiteers. Also, isn’t cock browning one of their staunchest principles?
namely that human nature is prone to violence and viciousness and this is an ineradicable part of us. The reason I call this view “erroneous” is that I don’t think it’s a correct inference: the argument is that because humans have always been a certain way, they must always be a certain way.
So, I take it this author has never heard of a little thing called “game theory”. In the author’s utopia, only one person would need to see the tremendous advantage to being violent and vicious and the whole house of cards comes crashing down.
From the Tom Wopat story:
” In another instance a woman says he peeled sunburned skin off her arm.”
So, murder, arson, and jaywalking.
2017 and links are still being hurt.
There oughta be a law.
What’s McCain’s #?
That was the best part. Hell, almost everybody has done the sideways hug of a friend or coworker before. Many have probably groped a female we worked intimately with or felt extremely comfortable around. But few of us just randomly peeled skin off someone’s arm.
I hope he either put it in a little ziploc bag full of other peeled skin or he put it in his mouth.
I could see it happening in a “you got something on your arm” way. Some people seem to have an innate urge to pluck bits of fluff/lint/whatever off others.
Random women in my life have always done this and never once asked. I didn’t realize pressing charges was an option, so I opted to use a higher SPF.
I haven’t yet had time to read all of the comments yet but does anyone else think that the Special Council is basically a soft coup? Whars ma titties?
Look down
Dependable but not “Va-va-voom”.
Yes. And it should scare the shit out of everyone.
Whether or not you like Donald Trump, the fact that they’re trying to oust a legitimately elected leader is absolutely terrifying.
If they are successful I dont think they will like how it turns out. I think it is a case of what my grandfather called “Hell is having your dreams come true.”
‘“You elitists think you’re elite? Start proving it. Scratch that. You had your chance, and you failed.”
Plus: “Donald Trump is a warning. Trump is the best case scenario. If you somehow depose him via your smarmy shenanigans, what comes along next is really going to upset you. You need to understand something. Trump is not our last chance. He’s your last chance.”
They are acting like my Buddy’s little sister when she found his porn stash and his weed. Hmmm., which one shall I use to fuck his life over for a week or two? (True living, by the by, I caught her sneaking and tried to talk her out of it. Didn’t work).
Could be the catalyst for an actual Concord Green moment. There are 2.7 million Trump voters in VA and MD. What happens if on the day the Senate votes for impeachment, 1% of those people drive to DC with a slung rifle and surround the Capitol?
I didn’t even vote for him, and I’d probably be in that crowd. If they impeach Trump, they’re literally telling half the country that their votes only count if they vote the right way.
My kingdom for an edit function.
Amusing:
***
During the 1960s, Charles Miller asked the nephew of a Schutztruppe officer, “I understand that von Lettow told Hitler to go fuck himself.” The nephew responded, “That’s right, except that I don’t think he put it that politely.”
***
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_von_Lettow-Vorbeck
***
Lettow-Vorbeck’s fluency in the Swahili language earned the respect and admiration of his African soldiers; he appointed black officers and “said — and believed — [that] ‘we are all Africans here’.”[8] In one historian’s estimation, “It is probable that no white commander of the era had so keen an appreciation of the African’s worth not only as a fighting man but as a man.”
***
There’s a neat exhibit of him at the National Museum in Dar es Salaam. The improvised field guns are cool.
I fear the Dodgers may be peaking too early.
Mind you, it’s a pretty scary tear they’re on.
Colour me disinterested. There was Canada’s team and their name was EXPOS.
Raines finally got into the Hall. What more do you want?
Besides, I’d think the two World Series rings the Blue Jays have, make them better Canada’s (baseball) Team than that shell of a franchise in Montreal.
Yeh, losing the Expos still hurts but Montreal has shitty fake sports fans.
And yet still nowhere near the ’98 Yankees. The Dodgers are 76-32. When the Yankees got their 32nd loss, they had…..92 wins.
An effective 61% sales tax on soda in Chicago
And there’s someone in the replies blaming Republicans. That one Republican Alderman in Chicago got his way over the objection of the other 49 I guess.
The fact that Chicongo has fifty aldermen is all of the information that I need to know.
The alderman that represents my area in Chicago is a fucking idiot. He tried implement a clause where the city’s pension funds didn’t invest in oil and other shit they hated. Rahm and the rest of the city council shut that shit down with the quickness.
Heh. I am always amused by idiots that complain about Big Oil. Invariably it comes as a shock to them to learn that the vast majority of ownership in oil companies are pension funds. It is especially amusing when the complainer is a public employee.
Urban politics is always deeply amusing on that front.
Like with Baltimore and the killing of Freddy Gray. Black female mayor, black police chief, majority black city council, half the cops on trial are black, and literally all of the people in power are leftwing Democrats.
But the five white Republicans left in Baltimore is what killed that guy.
A friend of mine left Virginia a few years ago to go live in Los Angeles, CA. We used to party a lot and became really close friends for awhile. I was sad to see him go.
He left Virginia firmly convinced that the Earth is a sphere. He recently came back to visit VA for 2 weeks and we went out disc golfing and drinking. Now, after living a couple years in CA, he has come back to preach the interesting news that the Earth is, in fact, flat.
His reasoning: “Listen man… think about it… why is it that sometime, during the day, you can see the Sun AND the Moon, in the sky, at the SAME TIME?”
*flips keyboard*
Are you making that up?
What is this friend’s age?
He’s 26 now. This happened somewhat recently.
Ouch. Ya’ know that is about the age that schizophrenia starts showing up.
Cocaine is a hell of a drug.
In college my brother had a geeky computer programming roommate. A few years after school, they finally meet out in Colorado. And that’s when his friend goes on a long rant about anti gravity and how the government is hiding the technology from us. Of course this is the same guy who went all New Age-y back in the 90s. I’ll save my “Lord Humungus goes to a New Age convention” story for another day.
A few smart people in my purvue still insist that 9/11 was an inside job and that fluoridated water is evil KKKorps getting rid of industrial waste. I know a Masters in engineering guy that believes in “chem-trails”. It takes all sorts in this crazy old world.
I’ve never run into people who think that 9/11 was an inside job on behalf of the government. I have run into people who think that Mossad did it and the US government covered it up.
They removed our fluoridated water in my small city on the RHEEEEEEEEE of a few discombubulated assholes. Next time it’s Aircraft overflights and steel beam construction. I can’t wait.
Inspired by xkcd, I’ve started using “chemtrails” to refer to contrails in normal conversation. Same with “astrology” as a straight-faced substitute for “astronomy”….
Of all the conspiracy theories, flat earth is probably the most idiotic. The Greeks figured out the earth was round around the 3rd or 4th century BCE (can’t remember exactly, too lazy to look it up). So… it’s been a conspiracy since then, and NASA fakes spaceflight and satellite photos to keep up the charade?
I cant really fathom how people can believe in things like this when they are so easily falsifiable. It is a kind of insanity. The earth is flat? Go find the edge, take a photo and show it to me.
The “Hollow Earth” theory people are the bestest! My Grandpa was a conspiracist before it was cool. Jews run the world, metric tonnes of rations stored. He was a faller and had his head spanked a half dozen times by gravity and trees. What are these asshole’s excuses?
+1 Pellucidar
Newton was a stupid bitch.
I can prove that the Earth is round with a simple mental exercise. If the Earth was flat, cats would have knocked everything off the edge by now.
“who shot that?”
I pulled up the livestream on youtube from the international space station. They freaking stream the Earth’s curves 24-7!
Gaia’s hot but is she thicc? John needs to know…
Oh she’s thicc and round with a hot red center. She’s mostly blue, mixed with some green, truly gorgeous.
Pics or it never happened.
This thread is getting a little long in the tooth, but ask and you shall receive.
Eratosphenes. 240 B.C. Pretty neat how he did it. I could never figure out, trying to remember the story, how he was able to simultaneously get the angle of the sun at Point X, while the sun was shining straight down that well at point Y.
Serious question: Does anybody know how flat-earthers explain away the whole curvature-induced occlusion of the lower part of a ship? (Or other tall things against a clear horizon, but ships, especially seen from the beach, are the easiest example.)
I believe those are explained away as optical illusions due to the water being near. But I don’t want to delve into the derp to verify.
I think I’d rather be friends with people who have weird jfk or even 9/11 conspiracies.
JFK and 9/11 alternative theories are a lot easier to rationalize. To be a devout flat-earther, you have to actively deny the most plausible explaination for a fuckton of things and assume that a great deal of pointless effort is being put in to maintain a rather bizarre charade.
Do any of these flat-earthers ever say what the conspirators get out of making people think the world is round?
I had this saved from a Reddit comment but can’t find the original source (think it’s a HuffPo article)
That is so beautifully nutty that I can’t help but think it’s a big put-on by flat-earthers. In fact I’m tempted to memorize some of this shit to goof friends of mine, which I suspect is the point of the whole thing.
Some back of the envelope calculation shows that the savings from faking a space program do not cover the costs of faking EVERYTHING ELSE IN THAT THEORY.
Reminds me of the fake moon landing theories. Turns out it was just cheaper to film it on location.
My favorite crackpot theory is the Water Vapor Canopy Theory. It seems pretty unlikely but explains all kinds of cool stuff like people living 800 years, giant animals and bugs, climate changes, and Noah’s flood.
You know what is more likely than the earth being flat? The idea that the flat-earth conspiracy is a psyop pushed by the CIA to test how easily they can create and spread conspiracy theories in order to muddy the waters. I unironically believe this. I mean, who else would push such a stupid idea unless they were doing it as some sort of shit-test?
I don’t think it’d be the first time they were tasked with spreading propaganda or flase information.
They might have just started it. Once an idea catches, they can just keep going and growing. Except libertarianism.
You underestimate how dumb people are.
Somewhat related: in the 1950s, the CIA investigated UFO sightings because they were worried that UFO sightings were being ginned up by the Soviets as a way to overwhelm the civil defense network as prelude to a nuclear strike.
we went out disc golfing
Well there’s yer problem right there. Classic disc fixation.
True story – I was concussed playing Ultimate frisbee.
That’s how it starts!
I played football, hockey all the rough and tumble but when an immovable object runs into an irresistable force, I lost out. Dude was about two-fifty and we collided, star-swipe.
Disc Golfing? You really are a monster, aren’t you? Let me guess, you also have a wallet chain and wear a kilt.
No wallet chain or kilt but I did have a wallet chain in middle school. Disc golfing is really popular around here and the courses are paid for via tax dollars since every park has one.
I didn’t have a wallet in Middle school. Nothing to put in it.
“Poor Like Me”, the autobiography of a libertarian Government worker that wouldn’t piss on you while you were on fire. You’ll sell tens of copies.
A: I’m not a Libertarian
B: Strange fetish you have there for self-pyrolized water sports.
C: Middle schoolers are legally barred from employment in New York (and most of the Union) I couldn’t get a job until I was in high school.
D: I’ll have you know I’m certain I outsold the Governer’s literary efforts.
A: Gasp! B: To each their own. C: Americans are barbarians and D: I’m just twisting your tail. Now fuck off and lose another war like 1812 or Afghanistan.
The Soviets didn’t have prisons, they had reeducation camps.
And insane asylums. Because only crazy people cannot fathom the intrinsic superiority of the collectivist philosophies.
In another instance a woman says he peeled sunburned skin off her arm.
In fairness that shit is hypnotic.
My wife and I often squeeze the pimples from each others backs.
Do you eat the pus? Because that’s the only thing which would make this more gross.
She’s excreting mayonnaise!
No, that would be disgusting! We just wipe it on the cat like normal people.
Something caught my eye in that pets are killing Gaia story:
A geography professor? What the hell do pets and their supposed environmental impact have to do with geography?
Raising sea levels.
The global warming people are as bad as the flat earthers. This reminds me of the recent story claiming dramatic sea level rise by showing the encroaching gulf on the Louisiana coast. Yeah, the sea level rises in one place but not another. It really is incredible the shit that they believe.
*Louisiana’s coast has been eroding and sinking for as long as the Mississippi has been enclosed in levees.
People living in a Brooklyn loft needn’t REALLY worry about that fuss and bother, it’s the little people, the less fortunate, the Trump voters that will bear the brunt (Bless their hearts).
The whole middle east is up in flames because of global warming, so those squiggles are gonna get redrawn.
Monty Python’s Upper Class twits drew some borders and baby Jesus cried.
Oh, there are all kinds of geography:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_geography
Don’t forget “Feminist Geography”.
Re: the Neymar trade (and re-posting from last night), here’s an interesting take on his motives:
http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/40804584
Was Barca going to pay him a million Euro a week? Though his getting pissy that Messi was getting all of the love for their scoring three goals in seven minutes is a much more entertaining reason.
Yeah, he claimed this morning that money wasn’t the motive which is obviously bullshit. But I can see the ego being part of what drove his decision to ask for a trade.
Brazilian strijkers and ego? J’amais!
Hey, I just invented a word. STRIJKERS! I think I’m gonna keep using it. Very Austin Powers like.
A brazilian strijkers, no less.
Sounds like a nickname you’d give Van Basten.
That epic PSG meltdown was so gay. Barca was stoppable.
As for the transfer, motives aside, I would never pay that kind of money for Neymar.
He’s good; but not that kind of money good.
If PSG let Verratti go it’s a bit lame. You need a very strong midfield to support high quality strikers like Neymar.
I also think of the downside: what if turns out for practice next week and rips up his ACL? Out for the season and maybe reduced effectiveness for the rest of his career. I know it’s unlikely but it could happen.
But from small pieces I’ve read, PSG’s owners are pretty much obsessed with winning the UCL.
Other sports news: Robert Kubica, former F1 driver whose right arm was nearly severed 7 years ago, may be about to make a comeback:
http://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/40780771
Thats incredible.
Nice! I was amazed at Alex Zanardi’s comeback also.
Wow! That is amazing!
“Harsher penalties” at Claremont-McKenna college for seven students who participated in disrupting a speech by Heather MacDonald: the college “suspended three students for a year and two for a semester and put two others on probation.”
That is long overdue.
Good. About damn time too. I really do think the tide is starting to turn on this stuff. They overplayed their hand in thinking that everyone will agree with them if they just get violent about it.
“Free speech for all, Tiny Abortions for everyone!”
It gives me hope that perhaps the tide is turning against these assholes.
At my lovely alma mater, when the students disrupted Milo and stormed the stage, they got a huge slap on the wrist from the Administration. And not only that, the President pussied out and said that racism a huge problem on campus and tried to appease the Black Student Union and protesters, despite DePaul being in a liberal city and being really accommodating towards minorities.
MacDonald herself pointed out in an interview with Jay Nordlinger that the punishment is actually fairly serious given that only about a dozen of the hundred or so rioters (they’re not protesters, and people should stop gifting them that designation) were from that Claremont-McKenna. The rest were from sister schools, which are now revealed as shameful co-conspirators in their effort to shield their students from punishment.
Good.
i am unimpressed. it reeks of tokenism. no one actually gets their ass thrown out? its saying that the worst punishment is you get to extend your edustaycation a year. OMG the horror of drinking beer and banging teen chicks and LARPing as a revolutionary communist *one more year*
“For the moment, [Claremont McKenna President Hiram] Chodosh stands out as a president who has actually enforced some rules. In the wake of campus protests nationwide to which campus authorities repeatedly caved, power-hungry student activists have grown inebriated with the appearance of their victory over docile administrators. President Chodosh should be praised for standing against this tide.
“But we should also remember that Claremont McKenna’s attempts to keep order at Heather Mac Donald’s talk were feeble. It deployed a campus safety team supplemented with only two Claremont Police Department officers. They were overwhelmed within minutes. And the punishments fall short of strong deterrence. One suspended student, it is rumored, may have graduated this spring. Why did Claremont wait until after graduation to issue suspensions? Why did it not turn to the other punishments authorized by the official Student Conduct Process, such as fines?”
I could see it happening in a “you got something on your arm” way. Some people seem to have an innate urge to pluck bits of fluff/lint/whatever off others.
Monkey grooming behavior.
HM mistaken for ghost.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4760174/Singer-s-fear-spotting-ghost-video.html
There’s nothing there.
And I’m not being UCS here, there’s literally nothing in the frame. They may as well have painted a circle over her left tit, there’s nothing there.
Also,
mattdvx, Portland , 9 minutes ago
Oh no! A phantoms stole the vowels from her last name!
LOL
Tick-tock, Debbie
http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/04/wasserman-schultz-says-laptop-she-sought-to-keep-from-police-was-awans-not-hers/?utm_source=site-share
‘“This was not my laptop. I have never seen that laptop. I don’t know what’s on the laptop,” she said Thursday. She said it was Imran’s laptop but purchased using taxpayer funds from her office.’
‘She threatened “consequences” on May 18 for the chief of the Capitol Police unless the laptop was returned — despite police contending it was needed to help determine whether a staffer may have violated the House’s cybersecurity.’
‘After the exchange with Capitol Police Chief Matthew Verderosa, Wasserman Schultz fought to block access to the laptop so vehemently that she hired an outside law firm to argue constitutional issues, an exceedingly rare step’
Interesting thing is, it’s possible there’s nothing important on that laptop at all. But she obviously knew some shady shit was going down, otherwise why work so hard to get it back and make sure it was never searched?
She’d better watch her back because the Clinton body count keeps ticking upward.
Yeah, I am expecting another ‘suicide’. The pressure was just too much.
its generally a good rule in politics to never let the bastards* get an inch and always keep them terrified.
*”the bastards” = non-politicians
Oh. Now I get it! The freaks are going to dial down the Kampus Krazy until the Racist/Rapist in Chief is finally impeached and Hillary sits upon the Iron Throne or something. That would be cool, right?
“In a statement to ABC News, American Airlines confirmed that an investigation is taking place.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/airline-lena-dunhams-claims-employees-engaged-transphobic-talk/story?id=49011663
Both ABC and AA have too much time on their hands.
Over/under on the Airline “investigation” being them saying “We will look into this” so as to shut up the loudmouth?
**As in “We’ll look into this” *looks around* “Nope didn’t find nuthin’, case closed”
Hrmm… I may have called it. Depends if there was any actual action taken before they went “We cannot substantiate the complaint.”
Why won’t anyone tell Dunham to go suck a rotten kiwi?
Because nobody’s been able to get through a sentence telling her to “suck” something without vomiting.
Progressives like Dunham are always trying to be the heroes. Years ago, this elderly white gentleman asked me if I was from Africa. Obviously, I was taken aback by this question but didn’t really care enough to lose my shit over it. I told a white left leaning friend and they got really angry and went on this tirade about how I shouldn’t accept racial comments like his. He got pretty angry when I was just like, “Meh, what are you gonna do?”
Why did he ask you that?
I think he was kind of senile.
Ah ok. Well it seems like such an odd question.
He looked like Odell Beckham Jr?
Wait, some house Asians are not on the prog plantation? Herd them back on it!
Fun fact: The Asian penalty is so large at some universities that if affirmative action went away, it wouldn’t affect white admissions at all.
Wrong colour. (sad trombone)
“Ken Forde-Mazrui, a University of Virginia law professor who specializes in race, said that the focus on university admissions is misguided — and that the Trump administration is taking up the complaint by Asians largely because their interests align with those of many whites.”
Wow. It is almost funny watching them turn everything he says and does into something something racism. Yes, asians interests align with whites interests, as do black interests, etc etc.
The man is setting out to put an end to discrimination and he is the racist. Never change progs. Never change.
He’s a FUCKING WHITE MALE, so of course everything he does is motivated by hatred for them brown folks.
Merit-based admissions is racism because you were oppressed the moment you were born because…of your skin color. The bigotry of low expectations isn’t even soft bigotry, it’s full-blown hard bigotry.
OT: Last night I got a real life cat-butt.
I delivered pizza to a guy with a cat. When the guy came out of his house, the cat hopped up onto a ledge and stood facing away from me virtually the entire time I was there. Tail up in the air and everything. I wonder what his screenname is.
Me.
The irony of cat-assholes is that they show it to you because they like you. Cats that hate you stare at you with malevolence from the farthest corner of the room while trying to wedge their body deeper behind pieces of furniture. The ones that get within touching distance and then show you their ass want you to play.
Wanna play?
i’ve assumed you were mary/amsoc from the day you showed up. prove me wrong.
High praise… high praise, indeed!
Yeah, this. My roommate’s cat adores me and I can barely turn around without its ass being in my face.
I think its some animal lingua-franca. When they show you their backside and look away, they are saying “i trust you” and expect you to reciprocate by ‘play-attacking’ and confirming that you don’t really want to harm them.
Over/Under on whether Wasserman’s deeds become public knowledge?
I put odds at 30%. Hardcore Trumpsters who read Breitbart know all about it. Older Fox News viewers, maybe a little bit. Anybody on the left or “independent”? HAHAHAHAHA no.
Those assholes are spinning the Acosta/Miller spat as a win when clearly one of them punched the other out and handed his teeth back. It’s insane.
I’ve learned that debates are not about who won the argument and how many people that you can convince, it’s about how well you were able to galvanize your side. Miller had the rare distinction of doing both: he won the argument and galvanized his side by not meekly giving in like every other establishment Republican does. It was an ass-whipping of the highest order.
Never.
Oh, not only will they be known, I think they are known. The problem is, every newsplainer that hasn’t already done so will point out why they are not really a problem, something something Watergate, something something Putin, something something TRUMP.
Journalists pay steep price for colluding with political campaign.
Ha ha ha! Just kidding. They were helping the good guys, so it’s OK.
I didn’t infect you with AIDS honey, just a tetch of herpes. Why so sad?
But it was the Trump campaign that was guilty of “collusion” somehow.
Kap “Hey baby, good news. I think I’m going to get signed! We are moving to Baltimore!!!”
Girl friend “Yeah ok sounds great. Who doesn’t want to live in Baltimore?? Just lettme tweet this one thing first.”
Welcome to Baltimore! At least we’re not Chicago!
“yet”
(fast forward to when baltimore murders exceed chicago’s)
“At least we’re not
Newark!Detroit! Somalia!Chicago already is Somalia. So far this year 1800+ people shot, 418 homicides, someone shot every 2 hours, someone murdered every 12 hours. And they have a 13% clearance rate. You want to murder someone and get off Scot free? Go to Chicago. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone was selling Most Dangerous Game tours to rich Europeans tourists. With a 13% clearance, how would anyone know?
One thing I can thank the BLM movement for is it’s critics bringing the heyjackass.com site to my attention. Chicago had 77 murders last MONTH. Portland freaks out if it gets 34 murders in a YEAR.
that thing is a treasure.
notable is that i have never seen it referenced even once in the media. “too much truth” is dangerous to narrative-mongerers.
You know who else was concerned with some nice Duke boys engaging in some misconduct with a young lady?
It sucks to be white, rich and in the right. “I’ll get you next time, Gadget!”
Bipartisan solutions, or mendacious self-promoting gibberish?
If either of us were building the American health care system from scratch, we’d probably end up in different places.
We have contrasting ideas — one of us is a Democrat, the other a Republican — about what ails the system and how to reshape it. But this is not the time for more partisan fighting. It’s time to build a better system, even if incrementally, because that’s what the American people deserve. It’s time to put aside blame and stabilize a health care marketplace where premiums are expected to rise by more than 15 percent in most states and millions of people are worried about obtaining or affording coverage.
Guess what, dummies. If you cannot comprehend the distinction between health *care* and health *insurance* I couldn’t give a fuck less what you have to say on that topic, or any other.
The Insurance companies are holding you back. Dissolve those holdings and start anew. Simple solution for a complex problem.
One of the guys writing this article is a Blue Dog guy that barely won a Freedom Caucus district. If he doesn’t show how “compromising” he is he’ll be run out of town faster than you can say carpetbagger. The other guy is something that still thinks that he needs to be a RINO squish because he’s reps a New York district. It’s all posturing all the way down.
someone*
I had the health care vs health insurance discussion with an acquaintance of mine and their logic was that since health insurance enabled people to have access to health care, health insurance should be much more affordable and expanded.
I tried to tell him the distinct differences between care and insurance along with the distortions that makes health care costs high, but he was stuck on stupid.
Your mistake is thinking anyone “builds” systems in the first place. The reason we have markets for things is because people need them. You don’t have to do anything except GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY.
It’s time to put aside blame and
stabilize a health care marketplacedouble down on the same policies that fucked the health insurance market up in the first placeMy father and I came to the conclusion that all of Colin Kaepernick’s shenanigans are due to his having white guilt.
He feels guilty for having hit the adoption jackpot and being raised by a well-to-do white family.
Are you suggesting Sandra Bullock won’t be playing his mom in a movie any time soon?
Heh. I grew up with a bi-racial kid that was pretty good at sports. Same deal. He couldn’t be left tackle, nope, quarterback. Shitty quarterback, no legs, no arm. It’s fun to lose!
“White guilt” is a phenomenon I’ve never understood. “Boo hoo, my family has been responsible people for generations”. – Up to the point their parents failed and the guilt crept in.
I heard on the radio that the Dolphins are looking at Kaepernick since their QB got hurt and might sit the season out if he gets surgery. I’m not big into sportsball but I do watch some NFL and am looking forward to having another team to hate.
I’m sure his pro-Castro sentiments would go over well in Miami.
I’ve told my wife repeatedly that if any of our future children develops a victim complex as a result of being bi-racial, I am going to tear down that complex and take them to Englewood-Chicago and force them to volunteer at a fucking soup kitchen or some other place to show them that there are people with worse lives and to also show them how blessed they are.
You go girl. No KAEPERNICK!
He had made the same allegation against Harvard in a lawsuit on behalf of his son, who had been denied admission despite near-perfect ACT and SAT scores, a 4.44 grade-point average, being named class valedictorian, and a resume that included teaching English in China and serving as captain of the varsity tennis team.
“We regret to inform you we just don’t believe you are Harvard material. Good luck in your further academic endeavours.”
I fucking hate shit like this. This kid worked his ass off and probably had to deal with a shit ton of pressure of having Asian parents, but yet he was denied admission into Harvard possibly because they wanted to give a spot to a minority.
I’d never join a club that would accept the likes of me!
I got a 32 on my ACT, and I didn’t even know there were such thing as prep classes for those exams (my parents arent college grads). I later ended up teaching SAT and ACT prep at Kaplan while I was in college. Had I known those tricks earlier, I probably would have come pretty damn close to getting a perfect score. Still, I was happy with 32, especially since I only took it once.
On top of the 32, I was third in my class at a large private school. Student body president. Two-time all-state and one time All-American in track. Secretary of NHS. President of Spanish club. Involved in theatre, and not just as an extra. I had a few lead roles. And there were countless other co-curricular activities I dabbled in because I really enjoyed being involved in my school. Everyone from the principal, to the dean of academics, to my congressman (who got to know me well since we shared a spot on a school committee… he was an alum) wrote very well thought out letters of recommendation for me.
Harvard… denied.
Columbia… denied.
Penn… denied.
Cornell… everyone’s Ivy League safety school… denied.
UVa… waitlisted.
Whatever. I had multiple academic and D1 athletic scholarship offers to other schools. Ended up at OSU and had way more fun. Now I own my own business and have zero student loan debt, which if I’d gone to any of those other schools, I’d still be drowning in.
protecting the privilege of access to society’s resources and opportunities
Fuck
off,
collectivist.
It’s long overdue but Thanks! Thank you all for your dedication and hard work to make this web-site functional. I was a Slatey until TDS took hold. Onward and upward! Huzzah!
Serious journalism, from a legitimate source
The Department of Education is taking a hard look at its policies on campus sexual assault.
The result may make colleges safer. For rapists.
Holy shit. It goes downhill from there, blithely substituting “rape” for every form of ill-defined sex-based misbehavior imagineable.
“Preponderance of evidence” is the burden of proof used in almost all civil lawsuits, even those seeking compensation after violent crimes. Indeed, it’s the standard used in civil courts when male students expelled for sexual misconduct sue their schools under Title IX, alleging reverse gender discrimination. It would violate the principle of fairness at the heart of Title IX to allow accused men to win discrimination claims using the preponderance standard but require their accusers (who are mostly female) to prove they were victimized under a more stringent standard.
Title IX treats campus sexual misconduct as a civil rights violation, which has led some to demand that campus rape allegations be handled by law enforcement agencies instead of schools. But a Title IX disciplinary proceeding doesn’t preclude victims from pursuing criminal charges. Many victims refuse to go to the police, however, because the criminal justice system is designed to favor defendants over their accusers. Not only must the prosecution prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but the defendant is presumed at trial to be innocent — which encourages scrutiny of the accuser, who is inevitably portrayed by the defense as the one who’s really to blame.
PROVE YOUR INNOCENCE! I’m surprised Soave isn’t one of the authors.
Good grief. It’s bullshit statistics and outright lies, all the way down.
“Indeed, it’s the standard used in civil courts”
Indeed. But you can just feel something is coming…
“Many victims refuse to go to the police, however, because the criminal justice system is designed to favor defendants over their accusers”
Aaaaand there it is….it wasn’t ‘designed’ to be that way you buffoon. If you can’t see the evolution of how we arrived at our legal philosophy then you’re an idiot and this guy is an idiot. An ignorant and dangerous idiot progressive.
Allowing guilty students to dodge responsibility sustains the myth that victims routinely cry rape to exact revenge, or get attention, or assuage regret the morning after. Branded liars or dismissed as crazy, victims are thus shamed, humiliated and marginalized, worsening the soul-crushing trauma that is a byproduct of sexual violence. And make no mistake: Women are raped vastly more often than men are falsely accused.
Campus sexual assault is a national scourge. A growing body of research makes this impossible to deny. Recent scandals at Baylor, Stanford, Florida State, the University of Montana and dozens of other institutions underscore the scale of the problem. Title IX has started to make schools safer, largely as a result of guidance issued by the Obama administration in 2011. If Ms. DeVos revokes these measures, the cost in human suffering is likely to be enormous.
Uh huh. Incalculable, even.
Next up, the comments.
30% lower than non-college students, and 50% lower than it was 20 years ago != “scourge”
The comments (at least the “NYT picked” ones) are actually surprisingly good. It seems that the “1-in-5” bullshit panic of 2014 has worn off.
–” myth that victims routinely cry rape to exact revenge, or get attention, or assuage regret the morning after. “–
Uh, the do.
Sure they don’t go to the COPS with such claims very often but when the evidentiary standards are lower and there is no possibility of being slapped with a perjury or making false statements to the police charge and you are dealing with a process that will tiptoe around your delicate feelings all those stories you tell your girlfriends to make them feel sorry for you all of a sudden come out in force.
Morons like to claim the FBI proved that only 2% or 8% of rape charges is fake, the problem is they are only counting the ones that get reported to the police. When you look at the entire universe of women who claim to have been raped it is easily more than 25% of them are fabricating all or parts of the story (no there are no statistics on that, how could there be none the less I stand by that assertion).
So, you’d think the feminist essay by the guy who liked his women a little chunky would have bought him some brownie points. Yeah, good one.
Why bother playing a game you can’t win, or even make a point.
And now you see why MGTOW is a thing.
Comments are surprisingly rational, for the most part.
this is how lefty victim-narratives die. they just lose their shriek-factor.
at some point climate change is going to similarly morph into some low-level moan of discontent rather than existential scream of “DO SOMETHING NOW”