Tuesday Morning Links

While so many of us were slacking off yesterday on that most immoral holiday of the year, there were a lot of people working to entertain us.  Some worked harder than others, like the Diamondbacks working 13 runs harder than the Dodgers. Or the Pirates working 12 runs harder than the Cubs.  Elsewhere, the Yankees beat the Orioles, while the Red Sox got rolled up by Team Canada. And my prediction of the Red Sox running away from the Yanks is proving to be premature.  The BIG RED MACHINE took down the Brew Crew, The Royals tamed the Tigers. The Indians topped the White Sox. The Rockies played the Giants. The Angels beat the Athletics (and were the only California team to win a game yesterday). The Twinks got rolled. The Nationals prevailed. And the Astros continues to play like they mean business as they took down the Mariners.

Team England came from behind to win and put their group all but out of reach, Germany blitzed Norway. and Montenegro did their best to keep pace with Poland by taking down Romania, much to the chagrin of a particular Glib. The mens draw at the US Open is all but a collision course of Federer and Nadal, while the women’s draw is anybody’s tournament to win.  Today should settle a few things in respect to the latter, although none will be as head-scratching as the finish of the Keys-Svitolina match yesterday.  I’ve never seen momentum swing that quickly in all my life.

Anyway, I could ramble on about sports all day, but that wouldn’t really help me accomplish my stated purpose of providing y’all with…the links!

Stay away, bitch!

Irma heads toward Florida. If you’re in the southeast part of that state, GTFO as quickly as possible.  You’re in for a bumpy ride.

Want to know when thew time is right to find another scam to run? Probably when the e-book debunking your scam outsells your second book promoting it. Dude, hunker down in your mansion, find a nice couple of honeys to release your chakras, and just enjoy life. Stop doubling down. The jig is up.

The hospital at the center of a firestorm over police abuse of power has barred cops from contact with nurses. Um, unless you start arming all your staff, I don’t see how you’re going to enforce this policy. But I do like the symbolic gesture.

“Dear Leader, in America this is what they call a ‘side dish.’
I know, I think its crazy too!”

Kim kicks the sleeping bear once more. Seriously, dude is begging someone to do something stupid but so far he’s alone in that category.

Tenants facing eviction in Harvey’s aftermath. (In before leftist calls for rent control in 3…2…1…)

I always love hearing this song.

Good luck out there getting back to work or continuing that grind.

Comments

478 responses to “Tuesday Morning Links”

  1. Irma heads toward Florida. If you’re in the southeast part of that state, GTFO as quickly as possible. You’re in for a bumpy ride.

    Dammit, I bet on North Carolina.

    1. Its a toss up where it’ll go, but Florida is getting closer and closer. I just hope it doesn’t shoot the hole between Florida and Cuba and slip into the Gulf.

      1. How slim are the odds of it turning back out to sea?

        1. At this point, it’s unlikely barring a rapidly moving front coming in to push it away.
          From what I can tell, the best Florida can hope for is a quick turn north once it gets to the BVI and then several days of rain as it pummels the Bahamas. But that’s unlikely.

        2. SugarFree

          None of the models have it doing so. The best case scenario is it going up the East Coast but out to sea, which means rain and storm surge, but no massive destruction. Two models have it entering the Gulf but making landfall in Mississippi. The other 8 or so have it entering the Keys and traveling straight up Florida.

      2. Atanarjuat

        *I just hope it doesn’t shoot the hole between Florida and Cuba and slip into the Gulf.*

        You know who else shot the hole and slipped into the Gulf?

        1. SugarFree

          Any one of the millions of homeless men who have slept with Winston’s mom?

          1. bacon-magic

            Where were you my last 3 Winston’s mom jokes? *kicks pebble*

          2. SugarFree

            Don’t get like that, bacon baby. You know we love you.

          3. bacon-magic

            *feels the love of bacon*

          4. bacon-magic

            You know we love you.

            “We” being Elder gods right?

          5. “We” being Elder gods right?

            No, Yog-Sothoth hates Bacon, which is why we hate him.

      3. stilljustcarol

        I’m on the water on the west coast abut twenty miles south of Tampa. We’re getting a little nervous around here. I’m thinking about telling my mother that she’s going to have to go inland for a few days but haven’t worked up the courage for that conversation yet. Other than that we always have supplies on hand. Mostly I’m hoping does a u turn and goes back to where she came from.

        1. l0b0t

          …miles south of Tampa

          I grew up in Boca Grande and the whole Ft. Myers to New Port Richie area is my favorite part of the state.

        2. A friend’s mom who practically raised me just moved down to Dunedin maybe three days ago. I’ve been giving her shit about her timing, but I’m actually a little concerned.

          1. stilljustcarol

            Dunedin may not be the best place to be right now. Dunedin, if you take the skyway, is about thirty-five miles north of me. If Irma comes striaght up the west coast your friend’s mom and I are both screwed. I love living on Tampa Bay but every few years I question my sanity. The thing is, we’ve been pretty lucky since 2004 and we actually got pretty lucky then as well (Charlie was supposed to make landfall somewhere between my living room and my dining room but turned at the last minute) and when you get lucky over and over again you kind of get used to it. I honestly think that it is seeing the devastation from Harvey that has people around here so shook up. But the bottom line is that I love living on the water too much to ever move. Hopefully that decision won’t be taken out of my hands.

          2. I bitch about Maryland all the time, particularly my little bit of it, but where I am I know the house will never get flooded, there won’t be any significant earthquakes, there aren’t wildfires… Hell, about an hour south of me they get tornadoes pretty regularly (for here, at least) but we get one maybe once a decade, if that. We’ll pick up the odd blizzard, but even then it’s more of an excuse to hole up in front of the fire with sweats and Irish coffee and have a Bond marathon.

            Florida’s high on my list of places to relocate provided I can get my wife on board, but that hurricane business is no joke. Maryland sucks, but we pretty much define what moderation looks like in weather terms.

          3. stilljustcarol

            I’ll never forget the first hurricane after I moved down here. I was used to tornadoes but hurricanes are completely different. The wind whips up long before the storm hits and it just doesn’t stop. I waded from my house (on the water) to my parent’s house (only a few blocks away but off the water and on higher ground) in waist deep water and was sure that a gator was going to get me. Instead I got nailed, bad, by fire ants. I had no idea the bastards could swim. But I’m still here and I’m not going anywhere.

  2. MikeS

    Has there been a similar occurrence of multiple large hurricanes making landfall in the US in such a short span of time? It seems like there has been, but my poor memory can’t recall it. (Hopefully something happens to Irma and she fizzles out quickly)

    1. Katrina-Rita, IIRC.

      Also, I lived through Luis-Marilyn and then Bertha-Hortense when I lived in Puerto Rico. Those were not much fun at all.

      1. MikeS

        Yeah good call Sloopy. Katrina is so burned into memory that I kinda forgot about Rita. From Wikipedia:

        The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the most active Atlantic hurricane season in recorded history, shattering numerous records. The impact of the season was widespread and ruinous with an estimated 3,913 deaths and record damage of about $159.2 billion. Of the storms that made landfall, five of the season’s seven major hurricanes—Dennis, Emily, Katrina, Rita, and Wilma—were responsible for most of the destruction. Stan was the most destructive storm that was not a major hurricane. The Mexican states of Quintana Roo and Yucatán and the US states of Florida and Louisiana were each struck twice by major hurricanes

        1. Brett L

          I think Ivan and another storm hit FL from both the Gulf and the Atlantic at about the same time in 2004.

        2. I was down at Belle Chase, LA, helping clean up from Katrina, when Rita rolled in. I was…not happy.

        3. Apples and Knives

          And then it was pretty much 12 years of nothing, right?

    2. l0b0t

      In mid-August 1992, my grandparent’s next door neighbors (Homestead, FL) lost their house in Andrew. They said “Fuck it! It’s all a loss, lets just take a vacation and get the Hell out of Florida while we wait for the insurance check.” They took a dream vacation to Hawaii and immediately got caught in Iniki on September 5th. Stuck in a hotel with no electricity for 14 days.

    3. stilljustcarol

      The hurricane season in 2004. Charlie, Francis, Ivan and Jeanne. A real pain in the ass.

  3. MikeS

    I’m not much of a Jackson Browne fan, but that is a damn good tune.

    1. straffinrun

      Sloopy is getting a little sentimental on us. Check his temperature.

    2. Suthenboy

      Ugh. I cant get away from that guy. My damned doppleganger.

    3. Tundra

      Oh yeah, I remember listening to this one on my purple transistor am radio. For some reason, I always think of this song, too.

    4. Atanarjuat

      Yeah, I work in production and have a soft spot for it, too.

  4. Pat

    Dude, hunker down in your mansion, find a nice couple of honeys to release your chakras, and just enjoy life. Stop doubling down. The jig is up.

    There’s an entire social network devoted to Hillary Clinton. Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

    1. Which was already shown to have horrible e-security…

    2. mexican sharpshooter

      to fight for a future where love trumps hate

      Drink!

      You would think of all people, they would find a better word than that.

      1. It’s on purpose, but Scott Adams kind of took it apart and looked at the semantics, wherein you get Love Trump out of it more than Trump hates.

        1. Or it could be seen as a directive for You to “love Trump’s hate.”

  5. leonadasiv

    “The hospital at the center of a firestorm over police abuse of power has barred cops from contact with nurses. Um, unless you start arming all your staff, I don’t see how you’re going to enforce this policy. But I do like the symbolic gesture.”

    This is just more evidence of the war on cops. If a Cop can’t manhandle someone for defending the legal rights of an unconscious person, what can they do to keep you safe from the criminals?

    1. We need a new POBOR!!!
      -PBA spokesman

    2. MikeS

      I’m dismayed by the relative lack of attention giving to the supervising officer that night, Lt. James Tracy. He is the one who told Payne to arrest Wubbles. He then came to the hospital to lecture her and the rest of the staff. He is on camera saying, “There’s a very bad habit up here, of your policy interfering with my law.”

      1. MikeS

        Oh yeah; he’s working on a master’s degree in Criminal Justice from Columbia.

        SMDH

    3. Scruffy Nerfherder

      The hospital should have called for the arresting officer and his superior to be fired. Apologies are meaningless. Accountability matters.

      1. Old Man With Candy

        Can’t. Unions, qualified immunity, the usual shit.

        1. Scruffy Nerfherder

          Yeah well, you know, that’s just like…. your opinion, man

        2. Chafed

          You are right it won’t happen OMWC. But it would look terrible for the cop’s involved and maybe get the locals to wonder why it is impossible.

          1. Old Man With Candy

            Ideally. But in reality, that hasn’t happened anywhere else. Can you think of a single department that has de-unionized (or voided the contract) or removed qualified immunity protection for its jackboots? Me neither.

      2. ^^This^^

        People need to stop asking for “a conversation” or a “change in departmental policy”. And they need to start calling for terminations and prosecutions for abuse of power.

      3. thom

        Fired is getting off easy. The hospital should call for the officer and his superior to be arrested for assaulting and kidnapping one of their employees. That’s the blatant criminal behavior that I observed on the video, at least.

      4. I’d take it a step further. “For the safety and security of our staff, we will no longer permit police officers on the grounds or within any of our buildings for any reason, including treatment, without a warrant. In the case of an emergency we will arrange for transportation to the nearest alternative hospital or clinic. We will revisit this policy upon the implementation of policies to prevent any future incidents between officers and staff and sufficient disciplinary action against the officers involved in this most recent incident.”

        Fuck ’em. You don’t fuck with the people you rely on to keep you from dying of a gunshot wound.

    4. Rufus the Monocled

      I used to go to PoliceOne to read the comments in high profile cases. Seems like it’s no longer open to the public.

      Damn. It was good reading.

  6. Pat

    Kid Rock concert after Charlottesville delivers Jim Crow message

    When the Ilitch family’s Olympia Entertainment division chose divisive performer Kid Rock to christen Little Caesars Arena with six shows and a new restaurant, it sent a message to the Detroiters who made the project possible and who have yet to see the benefits promised. It’s a message that’s not too far off those Jim Crow-era signs warning that blacks weren’t welcome.

    Negro, go home.

    That’s what it feels like, at least. And for weeks, I’ve been struggling to come up with an alternative, less wounding interpretation. But how can I?

    1. leonadasiv

      “That’s what it feels like, at least. And for weeks, I’ve been struggling to come up with an alternative, less wounding interpretation. But how can I?”

      Go to school, take a logic class, take a class in moral philosophy, and then run in shame for every having written sometime so vile and retarded.

    2. But how can I?

      Maybe by not seeing racism everywhere you turn? I mean, it’s right there in your piece! You lament his cultural appropriation of black music and then bitch about his use of confederate symbols. If anybody is breaking down barriers to bring two cultures together, it’s Kid Rock. It’s certainly not you, asshole.

    3. straffinrun

      Less (self-inflicted) wounding interpretation.

      1. The worst wound this writer suffers is the gaping, bleeding hatchet wound between his legs.

        1. Gdragon

          I know a guy from Romeo who went to Kid Rock’s high school (I believe Mr. Ritchie was 5 years older so no overlap) and he said that he actually had a fondness for black girls that didn’t sit well with some. Which is a pretty meaningless anecdote, but there it is.

    4. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Kid Rock is a villain of the highest order, cultural appropriator.

      1. Old Man With Candy

        Whatever happened to the midget? I know the original one died, but couldn’t he find another one?

        1. Scruffy Nerfherder

          I don’t have a clue. My knowledge of Kid Rock is limited to cringing whenever his ripoffs of Lynyrd Skynyrd comes on the radio.

          1. F. Stupidity Jr.

            My knowledge of Kid Rock is limited to cringing whenever his ripoffs of Lynyrd Skynyrd comes on the radio.

            +1 And we were trying different things
            And we were smoking funny things

            I love that Kid Rock is pissing off the left, but I really don’t, and haven’t ever, liked his music.

          2. SugarFree

            C’mon, it takes real artistic courage to rhyme a word with itself.

          3. Brett L

            Yeah, he should have done like The Police and just added “-ayo” to the end of each line!

          4. His music has been culturally appropriated from black people. So if you don’t like it, you’re a racist shitlord.
            Also, if you like him, you
            Approve of his use of confederate symbols, which makes you a racist shitlord.
            -progressive

    5. Count Potato

      Would you have been happier with Ted Nugent?

    6. Rufus the Monocled

      Heh. Went straight to the comments.

      “Mike Gleason
      Fred Rinaldi Your assumption is that I support everything Obama did is unfactual and matches your love for Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh. You had your chance to distance yourself from them but a Nazi like you can’t now with any credibility.”

      This after he assumed everyone is a Nazi and supported domestic terrorists like McVeigh.

      He can make unsubstantiated claims but someone does the same, suddenly it’s ‘unfactual’.

      This is your modern progressive in the flesh. Yes, I’m making that call. Only progressives claim people to be Nazis.

      IOW, Mike Gleason is an idiot.

    7. Atanarjuat

      So Kid Rock starts threatening Democratic Party political power and the accusations of racism come out of nowhere. How predictable.

    8. all done

      They’ll never stop saying “dog whistle,” will they?

  7. The Late P Brooks

    You cannot continue to live in an uninhabitable building? I did not know that.

    1. leonadasiv

      They see the word “uninhabitable” as a challenge.

      1. Even before the waters rose, I wouldn’t regard Texas as particularly habitable.

        1. Drake

          Certainly not Houston. I was there once – felt like somebody had locked me in a steam room.

          1. Was it St. Louis bad?

          2. Old Man With Candy

            Worse. Much much worse, and it seems to never stop.

        2. Not Adahn

          +1 Rent out Texas and live in Hell

    1. Pat

      I linked it a couple days ago.

      As much as the shit they are doing is criminal and immoral, I think calling it domestic terrorist violence is giving it more credit than it’s due. Fucking Mickey Mouse club assholes who probably couldn’t figure out how to load a gun, much less shoot it, and rely on 10:1 or better mob supremacy in a handful of urban enclaves where the cops and city officials are on their side to even put up a good fight. About as much a threat to anything as the KKK is. It’s play acting.

      1. It’s violence for the purpose of influencing a political situation.

        They’re not very good at terrorism, but it is what they are attempting to enact.

        1. Count Potato

          They have been fairly effective in shutting down speech.

        2. Pat

          True enough, but TV makes them seem more effective and much, much larger than they actually are. This shit would be trivial for local cops to deal with. I don’t think it warrants DHS weighing in, honestly. It feels like the militia/sovereign citizen “terrorist threat” back in the ’90s.

      2. Stinky Wizzleteats

        There seem to be a lot more of them than the klan can manage to field right now.

        1. Pat

          That’s because, contra the media, the klan has been dead for half a century as well. The high estimates even from law enforcement and the SPLC put the number of white supremacists in the country at like 50k. Out of 320 million. If there’s 10 times as many Antifa, that’s 500k… out of 320 million. I think giving them the appearance of legitimacy and numbers is all part of the narrative-spinning game. Antifa is a joke.

          1. Stinky Wizzleteats

            I agree they’re a joke but they are out there operating in an organized fashion and fucking up people they disagree with politically. I’m not going to get too upset about them being treated as a terrorist organization even though the designation seems a bit overblown.

      3. I found this interesting: . In the Texas capital of Austin, armed antifa protesters attacked Trump supporters and white groups at several recent rallies, and then swarmed police in a successful effort to stop them from making arrests.

        Would anti-antifa groups be bold enough to try this tactic, and, if so, would it work for them? Or, would police arrest them, anyway, because politics?

        1. Pat

          Or, would police arrest them, anyway, because politics?

          Most likely that, I think. Like I said, do you see any of these assholes outside of really liberal urban areas where the city leadership and cops have implicitly or explicitly told them they are untouchable?

          1. straffinrun

            North Korea?

          2. Chipwooder

            Precisely. Somehow I don’t see them trying this in, say, Lubbock.

        2. wdalasio

          Or, would police arrest them, anyway, because politics?

          I think they’d get arrested. In some jurisdictions because of politics (the police would turn a blind eye to antifa violence) and in some jurisdictions, both antifa and anti-antifa would get arrested.

      4. Rufus the Monocled

        The other problem I don’t like is how the liberal media spins Antifa. Apparently because some guy with mental illness managed to kill someone that makes ‘right-wing’ terrorism much worse. Never mind the endless attempts on life made by the left where the victims happened to survive – i.e. Scalise and the kid who got hit in the head with a bike lock.

        Lucky them.

        1. Remember when a Bernie supporter with a checkered past drove from the midwest to DC in order specifically to shoot as many Republican congresspeople to death as he could? And remember how that got blamed on the “violent rhetoric of Trump and the right”? Oh, and gun laws?

    2. trshmnstr

      Good!

    3. TK

      Honestly, this has been a long time coming. I’ve been watching them get ignored for 4 years as they beat innocent people up for wrongthink. I think they are a lot more organized and more dangerous than a lot of the people here think they are. If they thought they could get away with it, they’d be shooting people in the street. What’s worse is that I think they have at least a bit of support from the general public simply because of their name.

    4. I signed the petition when it started going around a little while ago. It’s fun to talk shit about a bunch of vegan hipsters LARPing as Bolivarian revolutionaries but the truth is that they deliberately engage in terrorism by any meaningful definition of that word, they’re open about it, they’re getting better at it, and the media gives them a pass. That’s what makes them dangerous. I am happy as Larry that they’re starting to be recognized for what they are. They’re the ISIS of American Progressivism, and you can tell a lot about a person by how much Antifa bullshit they’re willing to excuse.

  8. Count Potato

    “China’s UN Ambassador Liu Jieyi, meanwhile, urged North Korea to “stop taking actions that are wrong” and “deteriorating the situation”.

    He also called on all parties to “seriously consider” Beijing’s proposal for a joint suspension of Pyongyang’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs and military drills by the United States and South Korea.”

    Because the Norks could be trusted to keep their word? All they have is their military puppet show. That’s it. No Samsung, no Hyundai, no K-Pop. Nada. Even Chick Corea had Stanley Clarke. North Korea has nothing. Kim Jong-un doesn’t even have a Twitter account. Sad.

    1. Kim Jong-un doesn’t even have a Twitter account. Sad.

      Yes he does, he’s just blocked the entire world!

    2. Atanarjuat

      The prevailing thought a few weeks ago was that Kim was just sabre-rattling. It seems like he’s escalated since then. He can’t possibly want a serious incident, can he? It seems like it could quickly escalate into the worst case scenario.

    3. Evan from Evansville

      People in Korea continue to not give a shit. It’s kinda funny how NO ONE talks about it.

      Maybe I’ve been here too long and I’m jaded, but it’s really hard to take any of this shit seriously. My mom is terrified and I have to calm her down with great frequency.

    4. Gustave Lytton

      suspension of […] military drills by the United States and South Korea

      Liu apparently isn’t a fan of Smells Like Team Spirit, would prefer to play Nevermind.

  9. The Elite Elite
    1. Man, the BBC editorial standards have gone downhill since they started firing competent people to make room for diversity.

      1. SugarFree

        Reads fine to me. Maybe you have Adult Onset Dyslexia.

        1. Trigger Hippie

          Every time one of you guys post a BBC pidgin article I read it in the voice of Manuel from Fawlty Towers.

          1. SugarFree

            I default to Jar Jar Binks for that edge of hysteria.

    2. Dammit, I was just about to post the Hurricane Irma: Big storm dey come piece.

      1. The Elite Elite

        I was surprised when I saw that wasn’t your hurricane link. So I figured I’d post our daily Pidgin link.

      2. Old Man With Candy

        We are eternally indebted to PieInTheSky for uncovering this. I refuse to ever do links again without including at least one Pidgin.

      3. Apples and Knives

        I’ve been away for the long weekend. I didn’t realize BBC pidgin links were everyday occurrences now, so forgive me if we’ve already taken the time to congratulate Serena.

        https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/sport-41134378

    3. Scruffy Nerfherder

      At first, I thought WTF am I reading? The princess looks as confused as me.

      Then I realized you pidgin’ed me.

      1. leonadasiv

        Maybe it’s just habit, but I always look at what the links resolve to when I click.

        1. Scruffy Nerfherder

          Chicken

          1. straffinrun

            Mine says “tori”. Yours too?

          2. Count Potato

            I pointed that out yesterday.

    4. straffinrun

      ”Since I be pickin, na di time I don know say I no go get royal title when I marry,” na wetin she talk.

      Sounds like she got a little moist just talking about the dude.

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        Would not. She’s been befouled by an inbred, lifetime welfare recipient ginger.

        1. Tundra

          Harry is my favorite Royal, though. At least he’s not pretending that he’ll ever be King. Strippers, cocaine and bad judgement actually endear him, imho.

          1. Scruffy Nerfherder

            And Carrot Top is my favorite ginger comedian. Still……

          2. ChipsnSalsa

            I was unaware Carrot Top was supposed to be a comedian.

            Lucille Ball is the funny ginger.

          3. Trigger Hippie

            Not a fan of Bill Burr?

          4. MikeS

            And he actually served in the military; flying helo’s and getting shot at.

      2. The Elite Elite

        She’s pretty cute, that’s for sure.

  10. Pat

    Aide says Trump ‘is insane’

    Those who know or watch President Donald Trump closely fear he is “coming apart” under the strain of his failed presidency and often aborted actions.

    “He’s grasping to achieve something, anything, to prove he’s up to the job,” says a longtime business associate of Trump. “He’s coming apart at the seams.”

    Our long national nightmare is finally over, kids.

    1. That ended when we knew we wouldn’t have Hillary.

      As for this article, If the reporter isn’t fabricating, then I’d wager the source is telling them what they want to hear, because they know it will make print.

    2. leonadasiv

      Thank goodness for the 25th amendment, so we can replace this insane power hungry, attention whore, with a reasonable person. What’s that? You say we have to replace him with a politician? What’s the point then?

    3. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Let me guess: unnamed aide who spoke on condition of anonymity.

      1. SugarFree

        If you thought your petty and vindictive boss was also insane, would you speak up on the record?

        1. John Titor

          A fair point, equally fair is that the continuous use of anomymous, unverifiable sources by people with a habit of pathological lying is not exactly adding legitimacy to their argument.

    4. None of the people quoted, other than lefty pundits and academics, are quoted by name. But I’m sure that’s just an oversight that will get cleared up and edited in.

      I remember the good old days, when I knew the difference in a tabloid and someone professing to be a journalist. That line is rather blurred in the age of Trump.

      1. bacon-magic

        Happened way before him, just more pronounced now.

    5. CapitolHillBlue.com?

      1. Chipwooder

        Sounds legit!

    6. american socialist

      What aborted actions might those be?

      So far we have:

      Insane
      White supremacist
      Nazi
      Puppet of Putin
      Incompetent

      The only insane folks I see are democrats who are having daily melt downs as their totalitarian utopia slips away

    7. wdalasio

      I’d like to see a deal be offered to the 25th Amendment types pushing for a Trump psychological screening. I’d say let’s go forward with it. Give Mr. Trump a psychological screening to be anonymously evaluated (with the evaluators not knowing which evaluation is for Mr. Trump, which is for someone else and which is for a different piece of research entirely). One caveat – the people proposing Mr. Trump be removed have to tender their resignations from employment and renunciations of their U.S. citizenship as “collateral”. If Mr. Trump passes the evaluation, the resignations and renunciations are turned over to him.

      1. Count Potato

        I wonder if HRC could pass a “psychological screening”?

        1. Roger Wilco

          How do you “pass” a psychological screening? Or, how do you “fail”? What is being tested, exactly? The Constitution is not clear here, so its really open to interpreting it however you want.

      2. american socialist

        He isn’t insane. D.C. Is just butt hurt he is exposing them for being pieces of shit.

        1. wdalasio

          Oh, I have no doubt he would pass the evaluation just fine. I just would like to see how many of those pushing the “mentally unfit for office” mantra would be willing to stake their careers and citizenship on the claim. It would be funny to see how many twist in the wind saying that they weren’t saying that.

          1. Count Potato

            Like all those people who moved to Canada?

          2. You mean the Hatians?

      3. leonadasiv

        I have no doubt that the medical examiners wouldn’t bat an eye at just condemning the whole lot of cases they received, just to say that they were the ones who got Trump.

        1. J. Frank Parnell

          Make the examiners take psych screenings too and throw those into the pool. Examiners found crazy by their fellow examiners will be fired and stripped of their licenses, and obviously their opinions regarding Trump’s mental stability will be thrown out.

  11. Jefe Hayek

    Family, friends mourn slain teen who was ‘funniest, goofiest, tallest person I’ve ever met’

    Nothing funny about the article/death, but man that headline just tickles me

    1. ChipsnSalsa

      Article left me hanging, no indication of his actual height.

      1. Jefe Hayek

        It would have been a really great article/headline if he was like 5’11”

        1. straffinrun

          Almost 6 feet *ahem* under?

    2. straffinrun

      You’re right, the headline is the most unusual part of that article. Oh, and where are all those warriors that fighting for oppressed minorities. I didn’t see them mentioned in the story.

  12. The Late P Brooks

    He is on camera saying, “There’s a very bad habit up here, of your policy interfering with my law.”

    That should make for some good viewing in a courtroom.

    1. Roger Wilco

      Burning Man looks like a place to go to get covered in dust and have nothing to do. Why do people do this? I don’t know. More power to them if it makes them happy, but I really can’t understand the appeal of wearing costumes in the desert.

      1. Getting baked on shrooms, acid, and ecstasy helps I suppose.

  13. Pat

    ‘Where does it stop?’: The gay couple against same-sex marriage

    A NSW gay couple say they oppose same-sex marriage and they want to preserve “traditional” marriage.

    Ben Rogers and Mark Poidevin from Wollongong say while they have commited their lives to each other, they don’t feel they need to have a legally binding certificate to show it.

    1. I just wish more same sex couples would come out in favor of the state abolition of legal marriage and replacement of it by recognition of all civil contracts between consenting adults. More straight couples too, for that matter. But I think if it was steered by same sex couples, the left would embrace it more and we’d get some real reform in that area.

      1. commodious spittoon

        I’m confused, how does that give progressive activists recourse to shut down businesses they don’t like?

      2. John Titor

        Unless it’s an overwhelming percentage of the gay population, they’ll just be smeared as the gay equivalent of Uncle Toms.

        1. F. Stupidity Jr.

          I’ve been trying to get Uncle Bruce to catch on, with no success.

    2. The Elite Elite

      What a couple of homophobes!

      1. leonadasiv

        White supremacist homophobes

  14. robc

    Spotsball:

    I had 4 questions before last night.

    1. Do we have a QB? Yes, yes we do (we had 4 options, so one should have worked out).
    2. Do we have a B-back? Yes.
    3. Is our defensive improved? No. The first half looked good, but the 2nd half was more of the same.
    4. Do we have a Kicker? No, we have a dumpster fire. Its not even the missed FGs, that will get corrected. For the last 4 years, we have had virtually guaranteed touchbacks on kickoff. Now we dont.

  15. The Late P Brooks

    Those who know or watch President Donald Trump closely fear he is “coming apart” under the strain of his failed presidency and often aborted actions.

    Why can’t we get rid of that obstructionist do-nothing Congress?

  16. Count Potato

    “The family of a girl who died after taking ecstasy has released a heartbreaking video they want all parents to show their kids so people can learn from their daughter’s mistake.

    Amy Virgus, 20, took a drug that she believed to be MDMA before returning home where she collapsed and later died in hospital.

    Amy had left her home in Colchester on Friday, August 19, to go to London but, “in a moment of madness”, she took a party drug that she was led to believe was MDMA.”

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/shell-never-know-pain-shes-11098929

    Sorry she died. But she wouldn’t have taken an “unknown substance” if it were legal.

    1. robc

      But she wouldn’t have taken an “unknown substance” if it were legal.

      Not sure about this, young folk can be stupid.

      1. Count Potato

        If it were legal, there would be name brand MDMA. I never hear of anyone dying from fake aspirin, or immediately dying from fake cigarettes. I doubt there have been any deaths from adulterated alcohol since Prohibition.

        1. commodious spittoon

          Not without the feds spiking it, for sure.

        2. Homple

          If automobiles were legal, young people wouldn’t get killed in late night car crashes either.

          1. Count Potato

            Because of all the fake cars on the black market?

          2. Homple

            No, because of stupidity, the same stupidity that lets them think its OK to load up on “unknown substances”, known to be dangerous.

    2. Pat

      Kinda like how the Navy pilots that we load up with amphetamines don’t look like the mugshots of the meth heads you see on your local PD Facebook page? It’s a mystery alright.

    3. F. Stupidity Jr.

      But she wouldn’t have taken an “unknown substance” if it were legal.

      Well, the next step is to outlaw unknown substances.

    4. on Friday, August 19, to go to London but, “in a moment of madness”, she took a party drug that she was led to believe was MDMA.”

      Strange how people always seem to die the first time they ever take a drug, according to their family. Moment of madness? More like a typical weekend.

      1. Gustave Lytton

        “Our overdose… in the middle of the night..”

    5. Pat

      Also, remember back in the late ’90s/early aughts when local PDs were going batshit over DanceSafe providing testing booths for pills at raves? Thank god there were no enables like that at this party corrupting British school children!

      1. Count Potato

        Yes, I do. They were even against promoters hiring ambulances to post outside the venue.

        1. SugarFree

          Thank Joe Biden: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/joe-biden-raves-mdma-death/

          “What the hell, why are these places not protecting their patrons?” Goldsmith remembers thinking.

          She found the answer in a 2003 law introduced by then-Sen. Joe Biden that bars individuals and businesses from “knowingly opening, maintaining, managing, controlling, renting, leasing, making available for use, or profiting from any place” where drugs are distributed or used. Violators can be slapped with fines of up to $250,000 and prison sentences of up to 20 years.

          The goal of the legislation—initially known as the Reducing Americans’ Vulnerability to Ecstasy (RAVE) Act, but later renamed the Illicit Drugs Anti-Proliferation Act—was to give law enforcement the tools to crack down on venues that actively promote drug use. At first, it did help drive some shady operators out of business. But critics say it also made club owners and concert promoters wary of providing free water, cool-down rooms, dance floor patrols, and other services or goods that could help keep partygoers safe. Why? Because doing so might signal to law enforcement that the proprietors were aware that drugs were being used in these establishments, thereby putting them at the mercy of the RAVE Act.

          1. ChipsnSalsa

            How many “tools” does law enforcement need to enforce the laws?

            Cause I’m pretty sure someone breaking the law is all the tool they need. If there are so many people breaking the law that it makes enforcing the law beyond reasonable, perhaps the law should be changed.

          2. leonadasiv

            Aren’t there a legion of laws that have a direct effect of causing people to do the opposite of what the law Maker wanted. The endangered species act comes to mind. If you find an endangered species on your property, you are better off destroying it than letting people know. Same thing here, “oh you are going to punish me for knowing about the drug use and trying to keep people safe? Then I’ll just stop trying to keep them safe and plead ignorance.

          3. ChipsnSalsa

            If you find an endangered species on your property, you are better off destroying it than letting people know.

            Burn it in a funeral pyre to make a viking king jealous and bury the ashes on another property.

          4. But Enough About Me

            In Alberta, avoiding the reporting of species at risk was known as “the 3 S’s — shoot, shovel, and shut up.”

          5. 2003 law introduced by then-Sen. Joe Biden that bars individuals and businesses from “knowingly opening, maintaining, managing, controlling, renting, leasing, making available for use, or profiting from any place” where drugs are distributed or used

            So a rave can’t hire an ambulance but a gym can put needle drop boxes in their bathrooms? I’m confused.

          6. ChipsnSalsa

            for the “diabetics”

          7. SugarFree

            I KILL YOU!

          8. SugarFree

            Those are for “diabetics,” sloop.

          9. I’ve been to plenty of gyms where they have signage saying they are for steroid users and that the gym will not turn anyone in for using them.
            Seems like a race could put an ambulance out there and say they’re taking the same precautions of having one that the local “Friday concert series” is taking where beer tents are set up by city employees.

          10. SugarFree

            It sounds like they are in violation of the RAVE act on a plain reading. But then I’m not some fancy big city law-talking guy like some that hang around this place.

          11. Fatty Bolger

            Technically it’s the same, but they register at totally different levels on the moral outrage meter. So one gets raided, and the other is safe.

          12. Somalian Road Corporation

            Biden’s idiocy and drug warrioring got memory holed extremely well. I come across a disturbing amount of millennials and boomers who really inexplicably like the guy.

          13. MikeS

            That’s because he’s become just harmless, funny Uncle Joe

          14. leonadasiv

            Sexual predators aren’t harmless…

          15. Somalian Road Corporation

            I can think of another politician nicknamed Uncle Joe that was also beloved by Democrats that I wasn’t a big fan of, either.

            On the other hand, I guess there’s Tailgunner Joe, and while his methods were unsound, he was definitely on the ball about the commies infiltrating everything.

          16. Count Potato

            “Sexual predators aren’t harmless…”

            He was behind the VAWA though.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_Against_Women_Act

            So groping is OK, as long as you get feminists their pork.

          17. spqr2008

            Now to be sure, Tailgunner Joe wasn’t right about all of them, just at least 85%.

            /Soave!!!

          18. The Elite Elite

            Well, that’s because he’s clean cut, well spoken, and doesn’t speak in a negro dialect unless he wants to.

  17. westernsloper

    Want to know when thew time is right to find another scam to run?

    It looks like the movie still made Al a couple million dollars regardless of it being bullshit. Seems like a pretty decent return on a scam.

  18. F. Stupidity Jr.

    That hurricane projection…Aqua Fresh predicted it years ago!

    1. Aqua Fresh: the Goober Grape of toothpaste.

      **EDIT FAIRY INDUCED SHRINKAGE**

      1. Pat

        I don’t think there’s actually any peanuts or grapes or in that product, but goddamn if it doesn’t bring back fond childhood memories.

      2. Brett L

        That’s a big fucking picture.

        1. Count Potato

          Seriously.

        2. Pat

          Sloopy is the sort of bloke who sees the big fucking picture. Always.

        3. ChipsnSalsa

          I think the size is being used to illustrate the pervasiveness of the product during it’s prominence in the making of sandwiches for kids.

        4. It has to be to capture the flavor!

          I hated goober grape. By the time you got halfway through the harvut was all mixed up andvthr consistency was shit.
          But at least it wasn’t crunchy peanut butter. Because crunchy peanut butter is an affront to God.

          1. MikeS

            This ^

            The only thing worse is pineapple on pizza.

          2. Chipwooder

            You misspelled “creamy”.

          3. SugarFree

            Crunchy peanut butter is just poorly made peanut butter. It’s like wanting your wine to have twigs and leaves floating around it in.

          4. Chipwooder

            But the wine isn’t made from the twigs and leaves, while the peanut butter is made from the, y’know, peanuts.

          5. SugarFree

            I see that the crunchy peanut butter shills have shown up.

          6. I don’t have a dog in this fight, I just like to argue.

            So I’ll point out that Crunchy peanut butter is made by first making creamy, then denaturing it with peanut pieces unfit for sale in any other context.

          7. spqr2008

            So I’m making use of the bits of peanut no one else wants! That means I’m a good environmentally friendly person! *Virtue Preens*

          8. trshmnstr

            Y’all are heathens. Creamy peanut butter is for dogs and people incapable of eating real peanut butter without choking on the chunks.

          9. *sigh* another food war?

            I don’t care what style of peanut butter people use, I just want a program whereby people who are allergic get exposed to increasing amounts until their body stops flaking out over the humble legume.

          10. MikeS

            And you sure couldn’t do that with chunky PB. An unexpected chunk would be enough to send them over the edge.

          11. If I wanted peanuts, I’d eat peanuts.

            I want peanut BUTTER.

          12. ^this^
            Does butter have chunks of cow in it? No, it’s smooth and creamy and of even consistency.
            “Chunky” ought to be called peanut spread, not butter. Same as that faggoty shit that doesn’t even have eggs in it being mislabeled as “Just Mayo”.

          13. Roger Wilco

            Why do you Smoothites keep coming up with ridiculous and incorrect analogies for chunky? Cows in milk? Twigs in wine? There is chunky guacamole at the store, but I don’t expect it to have chunks of Mexicans in it.

          14. Pat

            There is chunky guacamole at the store, but I don’t expect it to have chunks of Mexicans in it.

            That’s only because you’ve never seen those production facilities…

          15. You’re right, Roger, the appropriate wine analogy would be drinking exclusively the dregs.

          16. Guacamole is by definition chunky. Butter is by definition smooth.

            Don’t blame me, blame science.

          17. Roger Wilco

            UCS some wine has sediment at the bottom of the bottle. Some consider this to bring character to the wine.

            Myself, I’m Crunchitarian-leaning, but I can see the point of view of the Creamycrats.

          18. The Elite Elite

            Crunchy peanut butter is the only real peanut butter. Creamy is for fags.

          19. Troy

            Agreed.

          20. Slammer

            I don’t even buy pre-made peanut butter. My grocery store has a giant grinder, with the only ingredient salted or unsalted peanuts. Grinds it right into a paste.

          21. Pat

            I started buying Adams brand recently in my effort to cut out transfats. Same deal – 2 ingredients: peanuts, salt.

          22. WHAT!?

            I’m going to pin that on hurricane-induced stress. Crunchy peanut butter is the best of both peanuts and butter. It turns a paste made for toothless gummers into a taste experience of sweet, savory, crunchy texture. It almost obviates the need for any other part of a pbj.

            Next thing you’ll say you drink skim milk…

          23. You’re making me ill-disposed towards your position with your style of argumentation.

          24. Yeah, but you don’t like food.

            Seriously though, I did a variation on that fish stew you put up the other day and it turned out really well. No perch at the store so I went with cod. The curry really makes it.

          25. I’m glad you liked it.

            The exact type of fish isn’t all that important, because you’ll have to go out of your way to find a clashing flavor.

      3. SugarFree

        Why didn’t they sell this in a tube? Just squeeze it right onto the bread.

        1. straffinrun

          Someone might mix it up with KY Jelly.

          1. SugarFree

            I’m not going to judge.

          2. straffinrun

            Explains why you prefer creamy.

      4. It was in the pool!

    2. ChipsnSalsa

      That much toothpaste would cause me to vomit.

      1. trshmnstr

        You’re not supposed to eat the toothpaste.

        1. ChipsnSalsa

          *checks label*

          Damn! I’ve been doing it wrong this whole time!

        2. Count Potato

          It makes your butt-hole itchy.

        3. SugarFree

          But how else are you supposed to whiten your esophagus?

          1. The Elite Elite

            Bleach?

          2. Chipwooder

            paint?

          3. MikeS

            A nice, long blood-letting?

  19. Pat

    Copenhagen University in Denmark offers course on Beyonce, Gender and Race

    A university in Denmark is offering a course based on Beyonce’s life.

    According to television station TV2, around 75 students have signed up.

    There’s reportedly so much interest in the University of Copenhagen course – called Beyonce, Gender and Race – that it’s had to move to a bigger lecture theatre.

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Everybody needs a bullshit course to fill out their credit load.

    2. Atanarjuat

      Sounds like a great place for fabulous gay college students to meet one another.

    3. Stinky Wizzleteats

      That’s money well spent.

  20. american socialist

    Kind of fascinating really that the dc political is still viewing trump from their own lenses

    Take the 100 day thing…it makes no sense to focus on that. If anything you want to start off slow and get better to peak right before election time

    I think he is taking the 3 step play route

    His tweet today about congress being ready to do their job on daca is kind of brilliant.

    1. Take the 100 day thing…it makes no sense to focus on that. If anything you want to start off slow and get better to peak right before election time

      After the first 100 days your average pol is already on the campaign trail full-time for the next election, so doesn’t want their side job to be interfering with their main job of getting re-elected.

      What you propose implies they’d be doing what the voters want and have it fresh in their minds instead of the tailored, focus-groupped messages.

      1. american socialist

        That is why they hate him. He is disrupting their gravy train

        See GOP in their Obamacare repeal and planned parenthood funding promises….now nowhere to be found

  21. The Late P Brooks

    One caveat – the people proposing Mr. Trump be removed have to tender their resignations from employment and renunciations of their U.S. citizenship as “collateral”. If Mr. Trump passes the evaluation, the resignations and renunciations are turned over to him.

    I’m old fashioned, I guess. I like the idea of throwing traitors and usurpers in a smelly dungeon, prior to chopping their heads off.

  22. Pat

    ‘You Can’t Wear a Swastika to School’: GA Teacher Calls Out Student’s Trump ‘MAGA’ Shirt

    A Georgia school district apologized after a teacher compared President Trump’s slogan to a Swastika and told a student they could not wear their #MAGA shirt to school any more.

    “You cannot wear a Swastika to school – you cannot use a slogan like that,” the teacher told the student.

    1. Brett L

      You can’t wear a “Bong Hits for Jesus” shirt.

    2. robc

      While we can obviously disagree about how Trump wants to do it, the concept behind MAGA is what you want from a politician.

      These people really just hate America, dont they?

      1. Brett L

        CNN vacuously retweeted someone calling Trump’s USA hat a “campaign slogan”. If only he wasn’t such an evil genius, people like CNN would be able to show you how stupid he is.

        1. american socialist

          As they claim to be ones representing America’s morals and values

        2. Count Potato

          “The issue at play here is free advertising for Trump products, according to CREW. “

          1. Brett L

            Which is weird, because I’m pretty sure NO Trump products are made in the USA.

          2. westernsloper

            Ya, he got called on that one and I think his campaign aides made sure all his “official” campaign items were actually made in the usa.

    3. westernsloper

      I wonder how she feels about Che shirts, or a good old hammer and sickle?

  23. american socialist

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/edinburgh-law-student-robbie-travers-who-ridiculed-isis-is-accused-of-hate-crime-ch6kztnjf?CMP=Sprkr-_-Editorial-_-thetimes-_-News-_-Imageandlink-_-Statement-_-Unspecified-_-TWITTER&linkId=41821607

    In case that link didn’t work

    https://mobile.twitter.com/thetimes/status/904992512187695105

    How fucked up is this?

    “Edinburgh University is investigating a law student over claims that he mocked Islamic State on social media and put “minority students at risk and in a state of panic and fear”.

    1. Pat

      Well we all know that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, so why would they be offended?

      1. Count Potato

        This.

    2. straffinrun

      Robbie Travers, 21, acknowledged that his social media comments were highly opinionated but he denied that they were racist or in any way incited violence?

      Exactly what a racist would say.

    3. Tundra

      That whole ensemble is a hate crime.

      1. ChipsnSalsa

        Unless he plays hockey, I’m talking world class level, he needs a haircut.

    4. Stinky Wizzleteats

      “in a state of panic and fear”
      Bullfuckingshit.

    5. Chipwooder

      So….the problem is that he was mocking ISIS? Things are really going well in Merrie Olde England, I see.

    6. Jefe Hayek

      *shivering bearded fundamentalist in shock blanket slowly sipping on hot tea*

      Umm, yeah, I was just sitting there, minding my own business. Ya know, preaching about how we need to murder the infidels and take their women and children as slaves, maybe instituting a world wide oppressive caliphate in hopes of bringing about the end of the world. And then *bites lip, looks up, holding back tears* someone called me a meanine pants on the internet *sobs*

    7. So basically the UK is lost. Like, in a zombie apocalypse scenario, the UK is the house that you just burn down because it’s entirely overrun.

  24. Rufus the Monocled

    I wonder how NK has changed regarding their reasons and demands (aside from the bomb testing of course) since the last couple crises under Clinton in 1994 and Bush in the early 2000s with their HEU program. Back then, there was coordination with Japan, Russia and China.

    What’s different today?

    1. straffinrun

      My guess is that Kim Jong Un trying to one up what his father had done. Gotta impress the people. Also, that fat little f**ker has had his ass kissed his whole life and saw Kim Jong Il get away with it every time, so why not more?

      1. Yeah, I think this guy’s a little more dangerous than his dad because his dad seemed to have a fair grip on the fact that they were not, in fact, divine beings sent to lead the North Koreans to victory and that the only people who bought that particular routine were the slower members of the domestic audience. Sonny Jim, on the other hand, was raised in that environment from birth, so he may just believe it.

        1. John Titor

          Jong Il also came into power just after the North Korean economy collapsed due to the death of the Soviet Union. He had to deal with the starvation years. I think that probably grounded him in the reality of world politics and North Korea’s place in them a lot more than Un, who has come into power after a gradual recovery

  25. Brett L

    So given all of the media attention to how crazy Trump is, I can only assume that:
    1) He has been way too Presidential in his response to the Harvey disaster
    2) Republicans really have their tits in a wringer that he would throw the DACA back on them

    I’m particularly enjoying #2. Seeing those feckless cockroaches scurry for cover is delightful.

    1. Drake

      This one made me laugh. Not far from reality.

      1. Troy

        Lol. The President stole this black baby.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    MASSHOLES

    UPDATE: One of the technicians I mentioned, Phil Sansossio of Sansossio Auto Couture, told me about additional concerns regarding modifications to intakes and exhausts that I hadn’t touched on. “Cats aren’t the only concern. The law is that emission/evaporator systems can’t be modified. No EGR removal, no cold air intakes, no forced induction mods. I’m guessing that CARB exempt systems are still OK, but no actual statements about that, so as far as anyone knows this state could be tougher than California. And that applies to all vehicles ever. If your 1970 Chevy Chevelle had an EGR valve and it’s missing, you fail. It’s really scary to the antiques. Parts are no longer available, replacement parts didn’t have ports to accept EGR type stuff, engine swaps, whatever not 100% stock really.

    New policy, featuring video documentation of inspection process, featuring ultra strict enforcement of vehicle inspection laws. They start out talking about “safety” inspections and modifications like altered ride height, non-standard exhausts; do they kick you out for non stock wheels and tires?

    Then they drop that addendum, like an Acme anvil on Wile E Coiyote’s noggin. Any modification to year of manufacture emissions control systems, and you’re fucked. Back door Cash for Clunkers? There might be some bargains in the Mass papers.

    I’m guessing the sponsors of this bill are a classic Baptists-and-Bootleggers consortium.

    1. Count Potato

      “And that applies to all vehicles ever.”

      That’s just idiotic.

    2. Tundra

      Fuck them.

      Massachusetts is one of only 17 states that require safety inspections. There is a case to be made in favor of them, considering some of the neglected unsafe vehicles on the road in states that have no inspections.

      I’d like to see proof that the number of “neglected unsafe vehicles” is high enough to warrant this bullshit. What a joke.

      Say what you will about Jesse the Body, but one of his brightest accomplishments was ridding us of the bullshit inspections.

      1. Nephilium

        In Ohio, they implemented emission checks in the most fucked up way possible:

        1) Only certain counties need testing
        2) It checks vehicles 25 years and newer. Anything older is exempt.
        3) It’s required when your car is 4 years old (based on manufacturing date)
        4) The State pays for it… so most of the people who take their car in think it’s “free”

    3. Drake

      I grew up in MA and promptly left. It’s such a different place now. In the 70’s and 80’s there was a huge muscle car culture and I remember guys in high school rebuilding old motors from the block up. Sounds like any of them who kept their cars are screwed.

      I grew up in a farm town with some blue-collar neighborhoods of people who worked in the local factories. Now it’s a Boston suburb, the factory is a Panera Bread and fancy grocery store, and I hate everyone I meet there when I go back to visit.

  27. The Late P Brooks

    Speaking of those who may be so mentally imbalance as to represent a danger to themselves or others…

    Once the immediate crisis ends, the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, should resign with an apology to his state and his country. Then the Texas delegation in Congress should make a public confession. They have lied to their constituents for too long, expecting the rest of America to keep bailing them out.

    The reason is this. Texas politics aims to bring profits to the oil and gas industry, but it does this at high cost and dire threat to Texas residents and the American people.

    Hurricane Harvey was a foreseeable disaster. Indeed, a massive hurricane strike on Houston, followed by massive flooding, was widely anticipated.
    But Houston is an oil town, and the American oil industry has been enemy No. 1 of climate truth and climate preparedness. Most oil companies and Texas politicians see nothing, say nothing, do nothing. Even worse, they hide the truth, and then beg for help as needed. Gov. Abbott has played this game one disaster too many

    Time to round us up some heretics. As soon as we can find some dry timber, we’ll burn them.

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Sachs is a prime example of how someone with multiple degrees in economics can get by knowing nothing about it.

      1. Pat

        Nonsense, he did extensive research on the subject.

    2. american socialist

      Uh who are the ones actually using these fossil fuels and benefitting from them? I suspect this person is

    3. american socialist

      What other disasters are there? Is this person suggesting no fossil fuel use?

    4. Is this flaming retard trying to blame a hurricane on the use of fossil fuels?

      1. Don’t you know, when you burn fossil fuels, you release the ghosts of dead dinosaurs, who immediately want revenge for disturbing their slumber, so they whip up storms to attack their tormenters!

  28. The Late P Brooks

    Gov. Abbott, we would like to bid you a political adieu. Perhaps you can devote your time to rebuilding Houston and taking night classes in climate science. Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, you will soon be asking us for money to help Texas.
    My answer will be yes, if you stop spewing lies about climate dangers, agree to put US and Texas policy under the guidance of climate science, back measures to lower carbon emissions and stay in the Paris Climate Agreement. Then, of course, let’s help your constituents to rebuild.
    And to ExxonMobil, Chevron, Koch Industries, ConocoPhillips, Halliburton, and other oil giants doing your business in Texas: You put up the first $25 billion in Houston disaster relief. Call it compensation for your emissions. Tell the truth about growing climate threats. Then, as citizens seeking the common good, we will match your stake.

    Yeah whatever, dude. Take your meds.

    1. Pat

      Texas’ GDP is $1.7 trillion dollars this year. I’m guessing the federal tax revenue from the state can more than cover $25 billion of disaster relief if you’d like to simply refund it to them.

    2. That guy can eat shit. Those companies he listed have a better bottom line that any state in the union, probably.

      1. I live in Illinois….so if they are still in business, they are better on the bottom line than here.

        1. Number.6

          If they’re in business without substantial government subsidies, sure.

          1. R C Dean

            ExxonMobil, Chevron, Koch Industries, ConocoPhillips, Halliburton, and other oil giants

            Pretty sure they don’t get much in the way of US government subsidies (narrowishly defined).

          2. Number.6

            More a general comment, modifying what constitutes ‘bottom line’. To the extent that any of those firms are truly subsidized, it’s negligible compared to the kind of support that industry giants like Fisker and Solyndra get – oops *got*.

    3. Chipwooder

      Then, as citizens seeking the common good, we will match your stake.

      Who the fuck is “we”?

      1. ChipsnSalsa

        He has a mouse in his pocket.

    4. american socialist

      Hurricanes wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for fossil fuel use….duh

      The Paris agreement doesn’t effect the climate if even met it is negligible…it is all cronyism and graft

      Truth and reality based!

  29. The Late P Brooks

    PBS discovers the “skills gap”. Sharp as tacks, they are

    “It’s a cultural rebuild,” said Randy Emery, a welding instructor at the College of the Sequoias in California’s Central Valley.

    Standing in a cavernous teaching lab full of industrial equipment on the college’s Tulare campus, Emery said the decades-long national push for high school graduates to get bachelor’s degrees left vocational programs with an image problem, and the nation’s factories with far fewer skilled workers than needed.

    “I’m a survivor of that teardown mode of the ’70s and ’80s, that college-for-all thing,” he said.

    This has had the unintended consequence of helping flatten out or steadily erode the share of students taking vocational courses. In California’s community colleges, for instance, it’s dropped to 28 percent from 31 percent since 2000, contributing to a shortage of trained workers with more than a high school diploma but less than a bachelor’s degree.

    Research by the state’s 114-campus community college system showed that families and employers alike didn’t know of the existence or value of vocational programs and the certifications they confer, many of which can add tens of thousands of dollars per year to a graduate’s income.

    “We needed to do a better job getting the word out,” said Van Ton-Quinlivan, the system’s vice chancellor for workforce and economic development.

    “We just can’t understand it.”

    1. Maybe if Visalia ISD hadn’t have gotten rid of their vocational programs at three of their high schools, there wouldn’t be an issue, huh? And the programs they do have at the one school still carrying them, Golden West, are treated as electives/fine arts classes and a student can’t take enough of them for a company to feel comfortable hiring the person right out of high school. So that student has to go to COS after they graduate, or a trade school in Fresno, just to find a job two years later.
      Also, COS is in Visalia, not Tulare.

      1. commodious spittoon

        Is that in Essos?

    2. Lachowsky

      I benefit greatly from the lack of students in vocational schools.

      1. robc

        My nephew decided to forego college. He went to HVAC school after working various jobs for two years. He got a good job on the recommendation of his professor (or whatever they are called at HVAC school) because he was #1 in his class. Probably, in large part, due to the fact that the other students were guys who couldn’t get into college, instead of just choosing not to.

        I think he made a very smart decision.

  30. Woodworking people – I may have finally found a lumber store that actually carries raw timber. (I wasted hours yesterday checking into stores that claimed to be lumber places but were just cut-rate home improvement stores without actual timber selections – many didn’t even carry basic 2x4s).

    I was looking over their online listing and noted my options. Before I dismissed any of them I wanted to ask about the toxicity of black walnut (since this is a food prep project). I know it’s liable to price itself out of the running, but it was something they said they had in stock.

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Yukon Lumber in Norfolk, VA sells raw lumber and multiple exotics.

      1. Shipping from Virginia is liable to be cost prohibitive.

    2. Tundra

      You should be fine. The dust (like a lot of woods) can cause allergic reactions, but wearing a mask when doing any finishing is a good idea regardless.

      How about Maple, though? Should be easy enough to get and looks really nice.

      1. I haven’t seen the available timber in person yet, so I want to keep my options open.

      2. Lachowsky

        I built a cutting board a fee years ago out of black walnut and maple. It’s pretty and there have been no issues with toxicity.

    3. westernsloper

      I don’t think it is toxic but I am not expert on wood toxicity. I do know many cutting boards have black walnut in them. If you do use it, have fun cutting that stuff. It is harder than pubescent morning wood.

    4. Number.6

      There really aren’t very many woods native to America (or Europe, for that matter) that are common in your home, that are harmful. Yew, of course, *is* harmful, and Cypress and Osage Orange are well-known irritants, but I’m not sure you’d want to make anything for food prep from them. Here’s a list that looks pretty complete.

      The bigger issue, once you complete the construction, is making sure you have a food-grade finish, which conventional wisdom nowadays says ‘synthetic’ and definitely not linseed, but I have to say, linseed oil finishes, fully cured, don’t really seem to be much of a practical problem.

      Lastly, if you like your implements, avoid woods with a high concentration of silica in them, and possibly woods that are too hard (like a cutting board made with cross-grain maple slabs). Unless you like touching up the edges on your knives multiple times during a kitchen session.

      Regarding wood purchase, select cuts are not cheap, but if you do surface shipping and don’t mind waiting a little while, it’s not that awful. I bought 500 board feet of select 2 5/4 cherry a few years back that shipped from Maine to (basically) NYC that cost me $160, which ain’t nothing, but then it was only about $2.60 b/f, so the whole deal worked out OK.

      Depending on how much wood you need, you really might find that one of the boutique woodworking retailers are your best bet.

      1. pan fried wylie

        the point of drying oils, like linseed/flax, is that the unsaturated fatty acids crosslink into a polymer film. it was ‘synthetic’ before ‘synthetic’ was a thing.

        i think it takes a few weeks at room (as opposed to oven) temp though, so patience?

  31. Chipwooder

    Canada wants us to ban right-to-work laws as part of a NAFTA renegotiation. Good luck with that.

    1. We should put in a rider banning carbon taxes and socialized medicine.

    2. ChipsnSalsa

      I can only assume this is something added so it can be on the chopping block with negotiations.

    3. MikeS

      *Paging Custrel. Custrel please pick up the red courtesy phone that was made by union labor

  32. Slammer

    Metal.

    Doom Side of the Moon

    Produced by Kyle Shutt and featuring members of The Sword, Brownout, Hard Proof, and Croy and The Boys, this is a heavy metal celebration of Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon”.

    1. Brett L

      It can’t make that album worse. Most pretentious thing until The Wall.

      1. John

        You are a philistine Bret. There is nothing pretentious at all about that record. That record is about every day life and the problems of meaning and existence that everyone faces. It is brilliant both lyrically and musically from start to finish. And I say this as someone who generally loathes Prog rock. But Pink Floyd was too good to be called Prog Rock.

        1. bacon-magic

          Agreed. And it was great to trip to.

    2. Warty

      I always loved doom. I’ve been digging this silliness lately.

      1. Slammer

        For doom I like the stoner stuff best: Sleep, Conan, Electric Wizard.

        Straight up doom: Ahab, Esoteric, or Evoken.

        Esoteric is the shit

        1. Warty

          Oh man, I spent many nights in my youth stoned out of my mind and listening to Dopethrone.

  33. John

    http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/sep/4/robert-menendez-trial-puts-other-democrats-at-lega/?utm_source=RSS_Feedutm_medium=RSS

    The Menendez trial is going to be a hoot. It, of course, is being ignored by all of the major networks. The NY Times had to cover it this weekend and ran a 30 paragraph story that never once mentioned that he is a Democrat. They later were shamed into correcting that. What this story doesn’t mention is that the corrupt doctor wasn’t just some guy having problems understanding the Medicaid regulations. He has been convicted of defrauding the taxpayers of over one hundred million dollars. And then there is the bonus fun of Menendez helping the guy get Visas for his girlfriends from Brazil and the Ukraine. Yeah, I am sure those were heartfelt deep relationships and joyous family reunions. This is also the guy who flew Menendez down to some resort in the Dominican Republican known for it’s under age hookers. A few years ago a story broke where some of the under age hookers were talking. That story was killed pretty quickly by the then state run media. And there is a bonus Harry Reid appearance as well.

    1. Didn’t Dingy Harry get accused in court the other day of trying to intervene in the investigation on Menendez’s behalf? The prosecutor starts putting FBI agents in the stand talking about that, it could get interesting.
      Also, the judge seems rather unimpressed with the preening of Menendez’s attorney and him trying to give the jury the impression that his client is above the law due to his important position.

      1. John

        Harry Reid was part of the scheme. The Doctor paid off Menendez with not only gifts and travel but a $600,000 check to Reid’s pac that was earmarked for Menendez’ re-election campaign.

    2. commodious spittoon

      They later were shamed into correcting that.

      Via stealth edit, which was only caught by archivists and not disclosed in the article.

  34. Sour Kraut

    Obama team’s 2020 signals spark chatter among Dems

    Democrats are expressing concern that advisers and aides to former President Obama have already begun signaling which candidate they might support for the White House in 2020.

    […]

    A lot of people in our world see Deval as the one who will carry the Obama legacy. Kamala has labeled herself as the female Obama, but Deval was Obama before Obama was Obama

    Remember kids, Democrats aren’t racist.

    1. The Zenome Project

      Listening to the prog circles, it sounds like the Schumer/Pelosi wing wants Biden, the Clinton wing wants Kamala, the Obama wing wants Patrick, and the Bernie wing wants Bernie, age be damned. It sounds like a lot of the Bernie wing hates Kamala in particular because they think she’s a Corporate Democrat that is co-sponsoring single-payer out of cynicism rather than being a true believer. They also split with Kamala because as CA’s AG she chose not to prosecute Mnuchin’s OneWest Bank for foreclosure violations. I’m guessing that the likeliest nominee for 2020 is going to be Biden or some unknown person, since I think that Bernie will be unable to attract superdelegate support.

      1. american socialist

        Biden will be 78. And what about crazy warren?

        1. The Zenome Project

          I would think that, but I’ve heard that some people are afraid that she has some past skeletons that will not play well in the general.

    2. Gilmore

      A lot of people in our world see Deval as the one who will carry the Obama legacy

      “I pledge to finish the job that Obama started, and completely destroy the Democrat party.”

      1. The Zenome Project

        The thing about the old Obama coalition was that it was strongly dependent on both Obama’s charisma and the fact that he was the first black president. Unless the person is Oprah Winfrey (and she’s said that she doesn’t want to run), the successor will have a very hard time exciting the same coalition.

        1. Gilmore

          The thing about the old Obama coalition was that it was strongly dependent on both Obama’s charisma and the fact that he was the first black president

          Yes. But I think you’re leaving out some other huge factors, which was “Not Bush”, and Iraq War. Obama was the right person at the right time to capitalize on a variety of trends. Simply taking some similar demographic profile and making them say similar stuff wouldn’t necessarily have the same effect now, despite the sort of mass-outrage the media is trying to gin up.

          I also think Democrats are incredibly terrified of the possibility that ‘the black vote’ wont jump on command anymore. Its sort of a subtext to a lot of the trump outrage, imo – that the most terrifying thing about the 2016 election wasn’t that the ‘working class whites’ flipped to the GOP, but rather that the turnout in their urban vote-farms was so incredibly shitty.

          There was a good article a while back about a town in MI which normally produced something like 10,000-15,000 black votes for dems in presidential elections, and had done so reliably for decades. they got like 2-3 this time around. it was the sort of thing that couldn’t be simply explained by polling, because clinton still scored very high brand-awareness and positive appeal… it was just that they didn’t give a flying fuck.

          if dems suddenly have to start working *harder* to get blacks to turn out… it could fuck up their whole hi/low constituency. because they’ll keep running black candidates who mostly serve proggy/white concerns… like global warming, tranny bathrooms, ‘free college’ which is mostly welfare for middle class whites. etc…., and that will simply make black voters realize they’re being used.

  35. John

    https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2017/09/05/%C2%AF_%E3%83%84_%C2%AF-obama-lawyer-who-worked-on-daca-admits-its-probably-unconstitutional/?utm_campaign=twitchywidget

    I can remember lots of people on TOS arguing with me when I claimed DACA was illegal and unconstitutional. Now even a former Obama hack lawyer admits as much.

    1. Pat

      The same legal scholars who subsequently argued that the travel ban was an unconstitutional fascist usurpation? Color me shocked.

    1. John

      Even if it did happen, that is one example that stands against the thousands of other examples where people have used fake female and minority co-founders to get government contractors.

    2. Pat

      VC is so desperate to shovel money at anything with a vagina that they actually funded a startup marketplace for “weird art”, as if Etsy and 50,000 other clones didn’t already exist, and this is taken to be evidence of sexism. How about me and Count Potato walk into a VC office this morning and pitch an idea for an online “weird art” marketplace and see how long in milliseconds it takes before security escorts us out of the building?

      1. Count Potato

        But I put so much work into my “Embroidered Cunt Choker”!

        https://www.witchsy.com/style/jewelry/embroidered-bitch-choker-clone/

      2. SugarFree

        Outsider art.

    3. Did they commit fraud or are they making the whole thing up? I guess we’ll never know.

    4. mexican sharpshooter

      I think that was the plot of the movie, “The Associate” starring Whoopi Goldberg.

  36. bacon-magic

    I always love hearing this song

    Do the Unions still not mind?

  37. John

    http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/09/04/british-girl-finds-her-own-excalibur-in-legendary-pool.html

    British Girl finds a sword in the lake where Excalibur was supposed to have been left. Tell Elizabeth to vacate the palace.

      1. John

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ll4qS4anGo

        I like this better. I don’t care what people say. I love that movie. And it has a young naked Helen Miren in it. When did Monty Python ever have that?

        1. Slammer

          Do know who else liked Richard Wagner’s Götterdämmerung?

          1. John

            Pavorati? And for what it’s worth, I don’t care if he was a Nazi, the Ring Cycle is the most amazing piece of art I have ever seen in my life. You have to see done with all four operas in a row done over a week to fully appreciate it. But it is unbelievable. Someday I am going to go to Bayreuth and see it there. That is a bucket list thing.

        2. Roger Wilco

          Wow, another Boorman reference

        3. Fatty Bolger

          Loved it as a teenager. Looks like the HD version is on Amazon, might have to give it a rental and see how it holds up.

          1. R C Dean

            Same here.

        4. Number.6

          Better than Mirren, I think was the actress who played Guinevere, Cherie Lunghi. While 7 years younger than Mirren, she’s still pretty toothsome.

        5. That scene where they lance a guy and chunk of him falls out the back always got me.

      2. Chipwooder

        Strange women lying in ponds, distributing swords, is no basis for a system of government!

      3. Scruffy Nerfherder

        I thought you were going to post this.

    1. robc

      So if they date it, and it turns out to not be 20-30 years old, but 1200-1300, do you think she has a legit claim?

      1. John

        It is in far too good of condition to be very old. It is almost certainly on 20 or 30 years old.

      2. Tundra

        As legit as any, I guess.

        1. John

          The current family traces its claim back to Henry VII. Henry VII’s claim went back to Henry V’s French wife and her second husband. They had no direct claim to the Plantagenet line. So I think this girl finding a prop sword in the lake of Excalibur is at least as good as the House of Windsor’s.

          1. Don’t be silly, clearly she is supposed to hand it off as the lady of the lake to the rightful heir.

          2. John

            Me. I am German, reliably Protestant. know how to wear a uniform, and know how to act at an official ceremony without disgracing myself. That is how the current family got the job. Why not me?

          3. I think you have to challenge the incumbents to a head-lopping contest. You’re liable to be decapitated by the razor chakrams QEII keeps in the brims of her fancy hats.

          4. John

            The incumbents have never lopped off anyone’s head.

          5. Well my family was granted land by William the Bastard for fighting at Hastings and we didn’t leave until that damned Cromwell started running around killing royalists, so I think I should at least be able to cut cards for it.

          6. Your family let a little thing like Regicide scare them out of the Isles?

            Though I shouldn’t talk, a bit of a famine drove mine out of Ireland…

          7. Number.6

            Yeah, but that’s no foundation for a system of government, is it?

          8. Sortition is no worse than mob rule.

          9. Number.6

            mutters, sotto voce, something about moistened bints.

      3. Slammer

        That’s one hell of a fishing lure

      4. Not Adahn

        Wrong style to be that old

  38. Ken Shultz

    Kim kicks the sleeping bear once more. Seriously, dude is begging someone to do something stupid but so far he’s alone in that category.

    People online everywhere I go seem to desperately want to believe that there something we can do about this militarily. Taking out Kim Jong-un seems to be an especially popular option with commenters everywhere.

    Not sure that will accomplish what they want. Why would killing Kim Jong-un result in total capitulation? A more likely response might be them launching an ICBM at us.

    I find this especially disturbing vis a vis Iran’s nuclear program. Barack Obama letting Iran off the hook enrich their own uranium–a right the Iranians had forfeited by violating the NPT–puts us in more or less the same position as we are with North Korea. The time to do something about nuclear proliferation is before our enemies gain the technology.

    After they have the technology, the “maybe if we’re nice, they’ll leave us alone” strategy isn’t really a strategy at all. It’s just the new, absurd reality. Yes, let’s hope that the North Korean government, the vicious dictatorship that is Iran, et. al. will play by the same rules as Gorbachev. Why? Because there’s nothing else we can do anyway?

    I can buy that after they develop the technology and demonstrate the ability to use it, but what about back when Iran was driven to the negotiating table with sanctions because they had already burned through all their foreign reserves, inflation was out of control, and they desperately needed to access both the world’s oil markets and the world’s credit markets?

    Remember when we had them by the balls, but Obama unilaterally decided to give them both the right to enrich their own uranium and plane loads of cold, hard cash? Yeah, that was when we had a chance to do something about their nuclear program. Now, we’re like where we are with North Korea–it’s just a matter of time.

    Tell me, if North Korea decided to invade the South next year, how many of us would support going to war over it?

    1. John

      They don’t have very many ICBMs. In fact, they likely don’t have any that they could launch on a moments notice. The idea would be to hit them by surprise so hard that they were not able to launch any kind of counter attack beyond shelling Seoul, which would be bad but many estimate not as bad as previously thought. It is not a good option, but it might be the best one available and the only alternative to living with the real possibility of losing one or more US cities to nuclear weapons or worse.

      1. Ken Shultz

        The first thing I’d do is organize a state visit by the President of Taiwan to Washington D.C. I’d make it clear to China that diplomatic recognition of Taiwan is real possibility.

        Taiwan has been the counterweight against North Korea since before we broke off diplomatic relations in 1979. China was to play by America’s rules with North Korea so long as the United States played by China’s rules with Taiwan. If China doesn’t want to abide by that agreement anymore, so be it.

        I suspect playing footsie with Taiwan in front of China might be more effective and less risky than striking at North Korea, and that’s what I would try first. If China can’t or won’t bring North Korea to heel, then hoping that the North Korean leadership, long term, is rational like Gorbachev might not be the best thing for national security.

        Oh, and we should probably work on a free trade deal with Iran–before they develop a nuclear capability. If our relationship with Iran were more like our relationship with China–because of trade–that would serve the security interests of the United States much better than anything else.

        1. John

          Everything you say rests on the assumption China has control over North Korea. I do not think that is true anymore. If it were, North Korea wouldn’t be causing the problems it is. Understand, a Korean war would be worse for China that it would be for us. At the same time, a collapse of the North Korean regime would be a disaster for China too. China wants a stable reliable North Korean ally. They don’t want some crazy bastard threatening World War III. Yet, that is what they have. Kim isn’t doing this shit because China wants him to. He doing it because he is desperate and needs money to stay alive.

          If China could control North Korea, we wouldn’t have this problem. I don’t think they can. But at the same time, they can’t walk away from them because they don’t want a refugee crisis and they don’t want a united and hostile Korea on their border. They are really more screwed by this situation than we are.

          1. Ken Shultz

            China is also worried about the destabilizing influence of millions of North Korean refugees flooding across their border in the event of a war on the Korean peninsula. My understanding is that China recently moved hundreds of thousands of troops to their border with North Korea specifically to prevent a refugee crisis should the United States attack North Korea.

            The Russians apparently did the same thing.

            I don’t know how much sway China has over North Korea anymore, and I’m not saying that playing the Taiwan card with China will definitely work to make China quash North Korea’s nuclear and missile program–but it’s something that should be tried. And given the other options, it’s a plausible path to success without as much in the way of a downside as a military strike.

    2. Old Man With Candy

      Here’s a crazy idea: “Give up the sword-rattling and the nukes. In exchange, we’ll pledge to not interfere in your internal affairs, open up trade and free commerce, allow the use of our banks, remove travel restrictions, and buy the goods you export. If your people or China knock you over, that’s between you and them, we will neither help nor hinder.”

      Seriously, nothing else has worked at all, why not try going libertarian on them?

      1. John

        Yeah, that is a crazy idea. They have long since run out of other people’s money. They don’t give a shit about living in peace. They want to stay alive and stay in power. They want protection money. Your choices are the following,

        1. Do something about it now
        2. Pay them an ever increasing amount of protection money, remembering that no amount of free money is ever enough
        3. Not pay them protection money and face the prospect that they get desperate enough to launch an EMP attack hoping to disable the US’s ability to respond. Understand, that is what they are working for. They don’t’ want to be able to threaten a city. They want to be able to threaten the entire country.

        None of those choices are good but those are the choices. You do yourself no favors pretending everything will be okay if we just let them live in peace. That is just willful stupidity.

        1. Old Man With Candy

          You apparently missed the part about free trade.

          The “I’m a badass” approach you advocate has worked exactly zero times with them.

          1. John

            They don’t want free trade dumb ass. They are the most closed society in the world. And we tried to trade with them and so did China and South Korea in the 00s. It didn’t work. They set up a free trade zone and almost immediately shut it down because they couldn’t allow their people to be infected with foreign ideas. We have been trying to trade with them and get them to open up their economy since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Jesus Tap Dancing Christ how the fuck do you not know that?

            And it is not about being a bad ass. It is about reality. I don’t know. Maybe they are going to EMP our dumb asses. But whatever happens, it isn’t going to be good. There are no good options for them or for us. I just fucking had it with people who want to live in a fantasy world where life always gives them a good option.

          2. Old Man With Candy

            Fat Boy wants wealth and assurance of remaining in power. Offering that option may be less satisfying to folks with war boners, but it has the virtue of not being a demonstrably failed approach.

          3. John

            Sure, just pay him off. That is not unreasonable except that no amount of free money is ever enough. And paying protection money creates a bit of a moral hazard.

          4. Old Man With Candy

            A bit less hazardous than, oh, say, nuclear war.

            But you moved the goalposts there: allowing him free fiscal rein is NOT the same thing as “paying him off.” With the former, he’s the determinant of his fortune, not us. If he wants to throw some our way for toys, well, happy to do business with someone who pays cash.

          5. Playa Manhattan

            GIMME A LITER OF COLA!

          6. John

            The more I think about the fact that you don’t’ seem to know that North Korea at the urging of China experimented with opening their economy around the turn of the century only to close it down when it was clear it threatened the regime, the more annoyed I am. And then for you to basically call me a war monger for pointing out the truth that we are not talking or trading our way out of this problem is beyond the pale. Learn something besides religious dogma and get back to me.

          7. Well, I’m gonna jump in here. Nobody is a dumb ass and nobody says we need to go to war. We should consider the option most likely to result in a lasting peace with the least, or optimally zero, bloodshed.

            I’d think completely opening trade with NK and SK in a trilateral agreement would work best, with the caveat that he cease bomb tests or further missile development. Give the Nork people access to SK and US markets, capital, media and anything else that will expose Kim’s people to freedom and his regime either collapses from internal pressure or it morphs the way China did from Nixon to Reagan.

            And tell him it’s a one-time offer and he needs to decide quickly. I think he would take the bait and we could follow that blueprint for Iran.

          8. R C Dean

            Give the Nork people access to SK and US markets, capital, media and anything else that will expose Kim’s people to freedom

            I don’t think that’s possible while the current regime is in power. I mean, we could do our end, but the bit about the North Korean populace having access isn’t really up to us.

          9. Number.6

            I’m not so sure he would take the bait, because having been raised in the West, he really would have to be nuts to believe that Juche could survive if it had to compete with even a watered-down ‘managed’ version of a free market.

            There are far too many dead bodies for him to believe his life is worth more than a plug nickel, so hanging on to power by some means is likely to be the only rational response, from his point of view. Someone, somewhere in the DPRK will find a lamp post and some piano wire.

            Having said that, I don’t have any idea what he *would* do.

          10. And if he refuses the offer, then South Korea and the US will start airdropping food, maps to SK grocery stores with photos and videos/players that expose how fucked Kim is and the wealth that their neighbors have and how he is keeping them from experiencing it.

          11. Old Man With Candy

            the bit about the North Korean populace having access isn’t really up to us.

            Bingo.

            All we can do is offer him assurance that we won’t try to interfere and access to potentially more wealth and power, which is his desire. If the NK populace wants to do something about it or not, it’s none of our business.

          12. I’m not sure that I would’ve put it so…emotionally…but I think John has a point about the motivations of the regime. It’s almost better to think of North Korea as a criminal enterprise run by the Kims specifically to loot as much money as they can from foreign aid through extortion and blackmail. They don’t have an economy to speak of, at least not one that exists to support the country’s populace in any meaningful way, so they’re not really interested in economic growth. That’s why I too am deeply skeptical that an open trade agreement would do much good. I doubt they’d even bite, honestly.

            But I agree that a hot war with the Norks would suck. I mean, we’d “win”, sure, but what would winning give us? A smoking ruin north of South Korea? A new Afghanistan on the Korean peninsula? A massive refugee crisis? God knows how many dead in the process? I mean, when a guy whose nickname is “Mad Dog” says it’s a bad idea, it’s a bad idea.

            I don’t know what the answer is, all I know is that the situation is worsening over time. I also know that any externally-driven efforts towards regime change will ultimately fail. Basically, people within North Korea need to smoke this fool and start steering the country towards normalcy. Shit, I think a military coup resulting in a dictator who is at least willing to play ball with the rest of the world would be a huge improvement compared to the current situation.

          13. Old Man With Candy

            Bill, you assume that the benefit Fat Boy derives from freeing up trade restrictions is from trade itself- which indeed, as you say, it may not be. But there’s no question that opening up the banking systems allows his power, wealth, and access to toys to increase in a way he could not obtain otherwise.

          14. That’s a fair point. I mean, I don’t think it can hurt to pursue that as a strategy, I just don’t know that I’d put all my eggs in that basket.

          15. Old Man With Candy

            “Diplomacy is the art of saying, ‘Nice doggie!’ while looking for a rock.”

          16. Ken Shultz

            I think that free trade works great under normal circumstances and we should definitely pursue that with Iran.

            Two of the obvious problems with free trade as a policy to North Korea is:

            1) As fundamentalist Stalinists, they don’t want free trade. They’re so oblivious about the standard of living of their own people, they’ve demonstrated that they’d rather starve hundreds of thousands of their own people off rather than reform their economic system. China reformed after the starvation of the Great Leap Forward. North Korea didn’t miss a beat.

            2) They could already have free trade with China if they wanted it. Free trade with China (across their shared border) is much more of an enticement than trade with the United States. We’d effectively be offering them less than what’s already on their table for the asking with China. If we want North Korea to do something differently, we have to offer them something better than what they’ve already got.

          17. Then we bypass their government and start airdropping food and media that describes our way of life relative to theirs and the benefits of freedom and casting off the chains of their oppressors.
            So basically, if we start sending them planeloads of McDonalds, KFC, porn and Mel Gibson/Bruce Willis movies under cover of darkness, the Kim regime will collapse in short order.

          18. Old Man With Candy

            Not our business to do so. Destabilizing that regime is a game whose outcome we’ve seen in other places- and it was never pretty.

          19. Slammer

            They will claim we are “bombing” them

          20. Number.6

            Well, depends on which KFC franchise you ship.

            If it’s from the one in Emmitsburg, MD, we need to be careful not to be brought up in front of the UN for using biological weapons.

            And now you know where I visited for my Labor Day. Ugh.

          21. See, the thing is, I think the Kim’s brainwashing project has been so successful that they’re already immunized to that. I think it would feed right into this idea of the decadent West trying to corrupt North Koreans and weaken their resolve in order to enslave them.

          22. Ken Shultz

            Blue jeans, hot chicks, and rock and roll.
            .
            That’s what brought down the Berlin Wall, segregation, and disco.

            But it takes time to work, and, again, I don’t think people properly appreciate the implications of North Korea being able to starve off its excess population, periodically, with impunity.

            If people are so beaten down that you can’t even get them to revolt by starving them to death, I’m not sure how much of an impact you can reasonably expect from blue jeans, hot chicks, and rock and roll.

          23. R C Dean

            we bypass their government and start airdropping food and media violating their airspace to drop contraband

            May not be a way to prevent a war. What will we do when they shoot down some of those planes?

          24. Old Man With Candy

            Yeah, if you’re going to non-intervention, then non-intervention.

          25. At some point, though, it ceases to be interventionism. I’m not intervening when someone who says they’re gonna firebomb my house starts lobbing firebombs into my street and I can see them building a bigger catapult.

            I say we are better by “intervening” in an attempt to win over his slave population than to offer one-sided trade with the madman. I’m all for free trade. And in this case that means we get access to his people with our products and culture too. If we have to bypass him by dropping it in to them free of charge with an explanation as to why we’re doing it, then that’s a decent Plan B as far as I’m concerned.

          26. John Titor

            See, the thing is, I think the Kim’s brainwashing project has been so successful that they’re already immunized to that. I think it would feed right into this idea of the decadent West trying to corrupt North Koreans and weaken their resolve in order to enslave them.

            If North Korean defectors’ statements are any indication, the black market already makes a great deal of North Koreans aware of how good it is outside their country. They just can’t do shit about it. Since the 80s the government’s information control has been slipping, and with worker programs in Russia and China the population is becoming more informed than you think.

      2. Q Continuum

        I’ve been informed by numerous “experts” that libertarian ideas only work as an intellectual construct and can’t possibly be applied to the real world. So, naturally, the only option is war.

        1. Ken Shultz

          War isn’t necessarily unlibertarian.

          My small state libertarianism has a number of aspects to it.

          For one, I believe that the only legitimate purpose of government is to protect our rights.

          We have a military to protect our rights from foreign threats.

          That war should be declared by congress as per the Constitution.

          If and when protecting our rights from foreign threats requires us to go to war, then that war is libertarian.

          When more effective libertarian means can be brought to bear to protect our rights, like free trade policy, those strategies should be pursued, but war of and by itself is not necessarily anti-libertarian.

          Because alliances are among the most effective means of protecting people’s rights from foreign threats, I’d even argue that wars fought only in the service of an alliance (such as our war against the Nazis) can be libertarian.

          1. Q Continuum

            I agree with you that war isn’t essentially unlibertarian. I don’t see that all-out hot war with DPRK is preferable right now though (not that it ever would be, but you get my drift). John is right that sometimes there is no good option; I’d even say opening trade (if DPRK accepted it) is not a “good option” because I hate rewarding their aggression. The best bad option right now is to get China on board with actually doing something about them; not standing up at the UN and saying “North Korea are poopyheads!”, but something substantive. I realize that there are circumstances and situations in which war is the only option available, but I don’t think we’re there yet.

          2. Ken Shultz

            This goes back to Jeane Kirkpatrick’s observations about the differences between authoritarian regimes and totalitarian regimes.

            It sounded like excuse making to the opponents of the Reagan administration, but it really wasn’t.

            One of her observations was about how where authoritarian regimes seek to control people’s behavior, totalitarian regimes seek to control what people think. North Korea is obviously totalitarian in that regard.

            One of her other observations was that totalitarians are less subject to external pressure, they’re harder to influence, where authoritarians are subject to influence from the outside. Pinochet, an authoritarian, didn’t hold a referendum on his own rule and respect the results out of the warmness in his heart. He stepped down because of external pressure. Hence, making deals with authoritarians like Pinochet isn’t like making deals with North Korea.

            You might even say that’s the fundamental difference between Trump making a deal with Putin on ISIS in Syria and Trump making a deal with ISIS. Foreign pressure can be brought to bear on Putin–but not on ISIS. In those cases, enlisting the help of Putin against ISIS is the right course of action when doing so is in the best interests of the United States’s security. Whether we’re “rewarding” whomever isn’t really the issue. We should do what’s in the bests interests of protecting the rights and security of Americans even if it means people we don’t like benefit as well. McDonalds sells cheeseburgers to wife beaters and arsonists–as well they should.

            Anyway, outside of whatever influence China has on North Korea, neither the UN nor anyone else has any leverage to bring against North Korea–apart from the threat of military action. So, don’t expect anything more than a strongly worded letter from the UN because you can’t have leverage with a totalitarian regime like that. Like I said above, they starve their own people to death periodically rather than initiate free trade–without batting an eye. There’s simply no leverage the UN can bring against a totalitarian regime like that.

            We can bring diplomatic leverage against China. China cares very much about its membership in the WTO, foreign trade, its access to credit markets, its relationship with Taiwan, etc. We can bring that leverage to bear against China–and that’s about all we can do.

            That Obama effectively destroyed that leverage we had with Iran was grossly incompetent. The last chapter of that story hasn’t been written yet.

          3. commodious spittoon

            I wonder whether Israel ends up penning that chapter in the next couple years.

          4. l0b0t

            In my more muggled moments, i dream of a future Levant and Gulf area controlled by a tripartite trade confederation comprised of Eretz Israel, Persia Major, and Greater Kurdistan. Sigh…

    3. Spartan Dad

      If someone tells me they are going to kill my family and then pulls a gun, I have an indisputable right to engage and kill them before they can fire a shot. Should it be different with countries? If the leader of a country B says they are going to annihilate country A and then starts firing missiles to prove their capability, is it wrong to take the threats at face value? I think engagement in such scenarios is justified.

      That said, I’m not sure what the right move is with NK at this moment.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    Nothing is ever really new.

    I want to come home all covered in mud

    1. Tundra

      Nice choice. And funny as hell.

      1. Stinky Wizzleteats

        Great old song.

  40. mexican sharpshooter

    Some worked harder than others, like the Diamondbacks working 13 runs harder than the Dodgers.

    Dodgers: Cool, they’re sitting Goldschmidt today.

    JD Martinez: Hold my beer.

  41. Raven Nation

    “Team England came from behind to win and put their group all but out of reach…”

    Related: New Zealand drew 2-2 with Solomon Islands to win their playoff 8-3 on aggregate. As their reward, they get the 5th placed CONEMBOL team (currently Argentina).

    Australia once again failed to get the result they needed, scraping past Thailand 2-1 (Thailand’s prior 4 road games saw 12 goals against and one for). Saudi Arabia hosts already qualified Japan at 12:30pm CST today. If they win, they go through automatically on goal difference. Any other result and Australia goes through. Whoever doesn’t get the automatic qualifier plays-off against the other third-placed Asian team. The winner of that gets the 4th placed CONCACAF team.

    1. Q Continuum

      “The winner of that gets the 4th placed CONCACAF team.”

      Looking more and more like the US.

      1. Raven Nation

        Yeah, not happy about an Oz-US playoff.

    2. Chipwooder

      Maybe this would make more sense to me if you posted the pidgin version.

  42. Q Continuum

    Décolletage.

    http://archive.is/5tMKG

    Number 9, yes please.

    1. Jefe Hayek

      30 or 42

    2. Tundra

      64 and 65.

      1. Agreed on 64. Super cute but not abnormally-crafted like #2. Number 9 is f-a-k-e.

        1. Q Continuum

          Number 9 can put her fakeness all over me anytime.

  43. Q Continuum

    I’d say the numbers in this study are probably high as well considering that college kids have been brainwashing into thinking that “microaggressions” constitute discrimination.

    https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9699

  44. Q Continuum

    RE: Lil’ Kim and the big boom-boom.

    While all options should be “on the table” as Trump says, I’d really, really, REALLY like to avoid military incursion and starting another war. As many have said, China is the lynchpin in this scenario. Trump needs to find some way of pressuring them into bringing DPRK to heel, whether that be threats of trade tariffs, renewed relations with Taiwan or something else. OMWC’s idea of opening up trade with DPRK in exchange for not being so annoying is crazy enough to work, but I hate rewarding bad behavior.

    The existence of DPRK has always bothered me; knowing such a place exists on Earth is depressing and unsettling to me. I hope I see a unified Korea in my lifetime, though full integration of the North and South would, IMO, take generations due to the extreme disparities between the two. In spite of the media trying to paint him as simultaneously a war-monger and an incompetent retard, I’m glad Trump is going to be the one handling this and not Obama.

  45. The Late P Brooks

    I can’t remember, off the top of my heade. Who dide Pakistan give nuclear weapons technology to? Was it the Norks, or the Iranians,, or somebocy else?
    I’m pretty sure it wasn’t India.

    1. Number.6

      Anyone who would pay enough money to the head of the Pakistani nuclear program, Dr. A Q Khan.

  46. Count Potato

    http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/09/04/hillary-endorses-media-site-created-by-former-adviser-targeted-at-clinton-voters/

    “Hillary Clinton on Sunday endorsed a website targeted toward her 2016 presidential campaign supporters, created by former adviser Peter Daou.

    [Leela Daou] and I founded [Verrit] because Hillary Clinton’s voters – an inspiringly diverse coalition – are unrepresented in the media,” Daou unironically declared in a series of tweets. “[Verrit] is necessary because we need to talk about how misogyny, sexism, and racism plague our politics and impact our elections… [Verrit] is necessary because if you’re #StillWithHer, you endure constant harassment and bullying from the radical right and fringe left.”

    1. Q Continuum

      TL;DR: we’re going to quadruple-down on what didn’t work. Fine by me.

    2. commodious spittoon

      Hillary Clinton’s voters – an inspiringly diverse coalition

      Surprisingly diverse and with all the ideological variety of a North Korean Juche demonstration.

      1. Old Man With Candy

        Surprisingly diverse and with all the ideological variety of a North Korean Juche demonstration.

        I’m stealing that.

    3. american socialist

      Underrepresented lol?

      Remember when krugnuts claimed the media was unfair to her

      Talk about delusion!

    4. Chipwooder

      William Weld is a Verrit user – yes or no?

    5. Gilmore

      we need to talk about how misogyny, sexism, and racism plague our politics

      as though you weren’t talking about it before.

      call me crazy, but i don’t “victim politics” is a winning strategy. plus, it requires you pointing the figures at perpetrators.

  47. The Late P Brooks

    Feck- tupinh is hsrd.

  48. Count Potato

    “Worried that “xenophobia and nationalism are on the rise,” organizers of a recent academic conference invited presenters to “decenter English as the de facto language” of academia.
    The Society for Social Studies of Science is particularly concerned that English is the official language of both the US and the UK, whose current policies they say “send a message of insulation and parochialism to the world.”

    https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9696

    1. Q Continuum

      I vote for pidgin.

    2. kbolino

      These people get dumber by the day.

      “We’ll stamp out these reactionary attitudes by giving them more reason to be reactionary!”

    3. Sour Kraut

      It’s often said about the grievance studies types, who bitch about white males being in the English department syllabus, that they are free to read people of any diverse background they like — but they have to learn other languages to do that, which is actual work. They don’t have the work ethic for anything like that, so they stick with English and bitch about it being too white.

      Having to learn another language is much too much for these people — I hope this continues and will grab the popcorn when it backfires.

      1. Number.6

        Well, there’s always V.S. Naipaul and Rigoberta Menchu if they feel the need. Or the soon-to-be 6-Volume Barack Obama Autobiography.

        All authentically non-White according to the one-drop rule, and all written as wonderfully well-articulated English prose.

  49. kbolino

    Since yesterday’s union discussion is mostly dead…

    The only way for unions in this country to actually be what Custrel described is to repeal the NLRA. But that only applies to the private sector. Public sector unions are a conspiracy against the public regardless. If your public sector working conditions are so bad, then you make your case to the voters not some unelected bureaucrat who faces no consequences for bad-faith negotiating.

    1. Q Continuum

      Public sector unions should be illegal, full stop. It’s a massive conflict of interest to have organizations backed by the threat of force from the state negotiating the use of taxpayer dollars. It’s a mafia shakedown.

      1. american socialist

        To libs govt is god. Unions are to protect workers from employers.

        Notice the contradiction with govt unions?

      2. The fundamental problem I have with public sector unions is that they’re negotiating wages and benefits funded by a third party–taxpayers–who aren’t directly privy to the debate. Like any other spending situation, when the party responsible for making spending decisions has limited accountability and is spending other people’s money, your results aren’t going to be ideal, to say the least.

      3. mexican sharpshooter

        Public sector unions should be illegal, full stop

        As a civil servant I agree whole heartedly. There are a half dozen people that would have action taken against them where I work in the past year but have not due to issues raised by AFGE with the intended punishment. This isn’t even related to patient safety/health issues either. This is your basic run of the mill employee not doing their job and their supervisor writing up an honest performance review.

    2. commodious spittoon

      We’ve got a mandatory sick leave bill coming up for a vote next month, and it’s about as nakedly, insidiously pro-union as you’d expect: in addition to the sick leave carveout, any disciplinary enforcement within three months of taking a sick day would be presumed to be retaliatory, and would open up employers to legal action. Crucially, this rule would not apply to unionized workplaces.

      1. R C Dean

        We just had a similar referendum passed here, without the carve-out for unions, because AZ.

        Its pretty bad. The non-retataliation is probably the worst part – take a sick day once a quarter and you are semi-immunized from being fired. Somehow, being sick gets treated the same as being a whistle-blower.

        1. commodious spittoon

          Every time these lefty fucks advertise the thing, which of course makes no mention of the bill’s particulars other than FREE SHIT FOR POOR FOLKS, I want to scream at the radio: TRADEOFFS ARE WHAT BEING AN ADULT MEANS.

          The fact that this is union boosterism at employers’ expense, that it will inevitably make employers more paranoid about offering positions to applicants with spotty work history, goes entirely unmentioned. It’s nothing but bloodsucking teamsters and their lawyers soaking the poor for their own gain. Totally goddamn disgusting, but of course everyone who bothers commenting on it talks about how compassionate it is. I’m sure the people who can’t get a leg up or a foot in the door will feel the compassion good and hard.

    3. Fatty Bolger

      My kid recently got a part time job, and he’s paying the union $40 a month in dues while making minimum wage. Which means he’s actually making less than minimum wage. Fuck unions.

      1. TK

        That’s a shitty union if they can’t even negotiate getting paid above the absolute minimum required by law.

        1. Is the union getting its cut?

          It’s job is done.

          /Shop Steward.

        2. spqr2008

          Most grocery stores, or low wage retail with unions are exactly like that. I know people who literally had their entire first few paychecks taken between Union Dues and taxes at Kroger’s family of companies. It’s why I refused to work for a union shop.

    4. TK

      My orphans tried to unionize once. Needless to say there was an “accident” in the mines that day. Hahahahah *sips tea*

      1. Number.6

        Diverted the bypass on the hydroelectic plant, eh?

        Been done before (but worth watching)

  50. Enough About Palin

    I always love hearing this song.

    I saw him at the St. Paul Civic Center in 1976. It was his first time playing a large venue (I was front & center pressed up against the stage). The show was great , but you could tell he was very nervous.

  51. The Late P Brooks

    Hillary Clinton’s voters – an inspiringly diverse coalition – are unrepresented in the media

    Indeed they are.

    1. Didn’t you see how her supporters had to disavow their support and claim to be neutral and unbiased in the past election cycle, while right-wingers were unappologetically open? Their voices were suppressed!

      /Pravda on the Hudson.

  52. Q Continuum

    Perhaps people choose fields they find interesting without considering your appeal to quotas and “social justice”? Unpossible!

    https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9686

  53. Winded

    Feel-good sports stories from Hurricane Harvey…JJ Watt has raised nearly $20 million so far for the relief effort, and LPGA golfer (from Houston) Stacy Lewis announced before last weekend’s tournament that she would donate her entire winnings to relief efforts. Then she went out and won it, her first victory in over 3 years. And her title sponsor (KPMG) matched her donation ($195,000).

    Once ESPN can confirm they have correct political beliefs they will know whether to honor them with ESPYs next year.

    1. R C Dean

      JJ Watt has raised nearly $20 million so far for the relief effort

      Saw an article arguing that he has been so ridiculously successful because people trust him to actually deliver the goods to the people in need. It started as a little six-figure deal, but now that its well into the seven figures, he’s going to have add staff to manage what’s done with the money. It will be a challenge – its a lot easier to spend half a million on relief without waste than twenty million.

  54. R C Dean

    Re: the kerfuffle over DACA and Dreamers:

    I recall some commentary that you’d be a fool to sign up for the Dreamers’ program, because you would then be on a government database as someone here illegally. Same reason, really, that a lot of people don’t sign up for medpot cards.

    1. Raston Bot

      govt registration lists are totally “liberal” now.

    2. John

      I was one of those people saying that. Those cards are legally meaningless. They are nothing but a promise from Obama that he wouldn’t deport them.

  55. Raston Bot

    my south Florida friends are learning all about supply and demand right now.

    1. Number.6

      something something price gouging … mutter mutter mutter

      1. Raston Bot

        complaints mostly about bottled water. why can’t people fill up makeshift cisterns (e.g. rain barrel) from the hose, drop in some iodine, use a Lifestraw, etc?

        1. Somalian Road Corporation

          I can already hear the whinging about the taste in my head.

        2. Number.6

          “Dude, this word ‘prepare’ – it doesn’t mean what you think it means”

    2. Raston Bot

      Irma now cat5

      http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at1.shtml?cone#contents

      forecasted to wangpunch America.

      1. ChipsnSalsa

        Just the tip?

        1. Raston Bot

          glanspunch

          1. R C Dean

            *crosses legs*

          2. Number.6

            Summoned nasty imaginings of “The Ed Gein Diet”