Man oh man, has the NCAA/FBI/Sports agents investigation turned into an absolute shitshow. The NBA will soon be posturing. And several players are dumping the agents involved, probably hoping to avoid some extra scrutiny of their youth “career” and the money they were given. Look for there to be bigger fish to fry than even Rick Pitino, who I just so happened to call out when the whole thing first started to unfold and who has been unceremoniously terminated, effectively anyway since the school has to formally fire him after 10 days and a meeting of the school admin.
Across the pond, they played the JV version of the European Championship. Everton continued to be unimpressive while Arsenhole have adjusted well to Thursday matches. Elsewhere, Bayern have shitcanned Ancelotti after his squad got demolished at PSG earlier in the week. I hope they don’t come calling on Klopp, because even though he forgot you have to defend the last third of the field, he’s brought some excitement to Anfield.
Texas beat Iowa State. How the hell did such once-great program get resigned to football on a Thursday? What strange times are these? Perhaps MENSA Tom will get things turned around soon.
The Brew Crew won and are now two games back of the idle Rockies with three to go. They have a series left with the Cards while the Rockies are facing the Dodgers. Unfortunately, neither of those teams have anything of substance to play for. Especially there Dodgers, who will be playing more to set their pitching staff up for the postseason rather than pad their stats. The Twinks fell to the Indians. And the Astros won to remain just one game back in the chase for home field and also one game from 100 wins, which would put three teams over the threshold in one season, which is a rather uncommon event. Yankees lost. Nationals won. Cubs won. White Sox won (for Swissy!). And thats about it. The regular season wraps up this weekend. Then its on to the sweet, sweet playoffs. Where the Dodgers will do their usual tank job and the Nationals will follow suit, leading to a Cubs-Indians World Series rematch, which I don’t necessarily want to see since I want my Astros there but which I expect because Cleveland are just toying with people now and the Cubs are relatively hot. But I’m wrong more often than not when it comes to picking sports, so we will have to wait and see.
OK, enough of that rubbish. On to…the links!
Looks like the left are pissed that Donald Trump’s DOJ have subpoena’d FB info on 6,000 anti-Trump activists. This is almost like weaponizing the IRS and then feeding donor information to interest groups in order to harm political activists that happen to be conservative and wish to remain anonymous in their giving. I was pissed at that and I’m pissed at this. Let’s see how Team Red and Team Blue react. Somehow I doubt it will be with any form of consistency.
Mel Reynolds: Tax evader, pederast, Democrat
Chicago politician Mel Reynolds found guilty for a third time on tax evasion charges. He’s also been jailed for being a pederast and for having some serious porn in Zimbabwe. His pederasty and one of the tax evasion charges were commuted by none other than Bill Clinton, which would pretty much tell you his political affiliation since the Sun-Times didn’t think it was important enough to mention.
Julian Assange understands how to use leverage. Sure, he’s become a grandstanding weirdo lately, but you’d do the same if you were stuck indoors in the same building for several years knowing you’d either get assassinated or black-bagged the minute you tried to leave.
At least 22 are dead as a stampede occurred in a Bombay train station. People were trying to stay out of the rain on a pedestrian bridge and panic set in when people feared the bridge would collapse. The Indian government said they expect the toll to rise.
I’m no super-genius. I don’t necessarily know what the world needs. But I sure as fucking shit know what the world DOESN’T need!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here’s a gift. I hope your librarian isn’t an asshole.
More social signalling bullshit. This time aimed at Melania Trump who dared to do something as crass as donating some books to a library. FTA (emphasis mine):
“Cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, and Detroit are suffering through expansion, privatization, and school ‘choice’ with no interest in outcomes of children, their families, their teachers, and their schools,” she wrote. “Are those kids any less deserving of books simply because of circumstances beyond their control? Why not go out of your way to gift books to underfunded and underprivileged communities that continue to be marginalized and maligned by policies put in place by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos?”
Lolol. Sure thing there, dipshit. Its privatization and school choice that’s causing the suffering. No way its the systematic retention of shitty teachers and union-first policies that’s driven the school systems in those Dem-controlled cities for the last several decades. It’s all Betsy DeVos and her proposals that haven’t even been implemented there. My guess is the people in those cities’ school boards and local government hope this remains under the radar. Because if Trump gets wind of it, he’ll be hammering the real cause of the problems there: teachers unions, politicians who care more for donations than primary education, and more teachers unions.
OK, I don’t know what Tundra was hoping for. I almost went with “You’re the best”, but couldn’t keep from this badass motherfucker of a song (and video!) to end the week.
Have a wonderful weekend, friends. I’m gonna build a fence and drink some beer. In no particular order.
72) Thought not Sermon? Well, maybe today is something of a parable.
Deportations slow under Trump despite increase in arrests under ICE
“The number of people attempting to sneak across the U.S. border with Mexico fell dramatically in the months following Trump’s inauguration, reducing the supply of easy-to-deport immigrants.”
We’re friends with a couple who never take the hard way with their children. This was especially a problem when their daughter first started sleeping in a bed. She would not stay in bed, getting up every few minutes until well past midnight every night. I told my friend he needed to pick a weekend night and simply station himself in a chair outside the door. Every time she got up, he should pick her up without saying a word and put her back in bed, shut the door, and sit down in the chair. Repeat until kid gets the idea.
But he was never able to do that, and the problem persisted for months. In fact, even now, years later, they still have a hard time getting her to go to bed on time.
Now what’s easier in the long run, biting the bullet for a short period of pain until everybody gets the message, or dragging it out in a never-ending process of misery?
I loves me some parables.
The kingdom of JATNAS is like a field that has been sown with seed, but then some genetically-altered seeds blow in from a neighboring field. The servant said to the master, “Should I replow the field?” And JATNAS said, “No, let the good seed grow with the bad. And when all the plants are grown, sow those that appreciate a well-numbered Thought Not Sermon, and leave those weeds that think the numbering is weird or consider his whole schtick to be copypasta.”
You stole this whole thing from your pastor, didn’t you?
My pastor would be appalled.
*roots around for Roundup canister*
In the Kingdom of Naptown, Lord Bill said, “Whatever, man, it’s green and it keeps the dirt down.”
I’ve never had a problem getting my daughter in be… Wait a second. This is a sting, isn’t it?
You’re dangerously close to muscling in on OMWC’s territory there
Bout two seconds away from Chris Hansen popping out of a back room, telling you to have a seat over there.
Everyone wants to drag that shit out these days. Have two friends with small children who ate going through the same thing. My wife and I did too but Archie put his foot down pretty quick before it turned into a thing.
It’s weird. I never had a problem saying “no” to my child. In fact, I think he respected me more for being firm on certain things.
Loose but clearly defined limits on what is allowable are what children need and want.
Bedtimes? And you call yourself libertarians.
We had our daughter sleep in bed with us pretty often, especially if she was sick, as a baby. We justified it by the fact that it meant we wouldn’t have to go far to change her diaper or feed her in the middle of the night, and then eventually it became that she would sleep longer and wake up less through the night. Well, as she got older, it became logistically problematic, so we started trying everything to get her to sleep in her crib. Every softhearted new-age method we tried was a pain in the ass and nobody, Eliza (our daughter) included, was happy with it.
Looking around the Interwebs, I came across a comment on a random blog from a father who said something to the effect of, “Get your wife to leave for the weekend, and then Friday night stick your kid in her crib and don’t open the door until Saturday morning. Repeat Saturday night. By Sunday your kid will sleep by herself.” Sure enough, it worked. When my wife came back, E, who already pegged her as the soft touch, turned up the crying and broke her. The process took about three business trips and several sleepless nights, but eventually my wife came around.
So what’s the moral? People respond well to rules that are applied fairly and consistently? Sometimes the right thing isn’t the easy thing? There are times when the best thing you can do for someone is to put them in a situation where they’re forced to solve their own problems? Probably all of the above.
There are 2 problems with this philisophy.
1) Adults are not toddlers. They do not respond to things in the same way toddlers do
2) even to the extent that they do simply deporting immigrants is not going to solve anything because the risk of deportation is not the only incentive they are responding to
Did you mean “…simply deporting Illegal immigrants….”?
It changes the equation, though. Adding “risk of deportation” to the mix of incentives is going to change some people’s decision on whether to stay, and definitely change some people’s decision on whether to come at all.
Plus, there’s the whole “rule of law” thing, FWIW.
Well, mostly I just wanted to talk about my kid. But, allow me to retort.
1. The first part of this is true, but not meaningful. The second part is not necessarily true. I say that because all living things respond to incentives. Every single one. The differences arise in the capability to correctly acquire and interpret information, the ability to make decisions which produce expected outcomes, the quality of the motivations in terms of long-term success, things like that, but the engine of incentives motivating behavior works the same way across the board. So, adults do respond to things the way toddlers do in that they avoid pain and pursue satisfaction. Most adults are unlikely to, say, stick their hands in a jar of frosting and wipe it all over themselves, but that’s just because they’ve been around longer and are better at predicting the end result. In other words, they have better information, not a different decision-making paradigm. And, really, it’s not that toddlers change so much when they become adults so much as adults aren’t really that far removed from toddlers. Case in point: Anthony Weiner.
2. Setting aside immigration reform, being unable to enforce your own immigration laws on a massive scale is a bad, bad look in terms of national sovereignty and the legitimacy of the state. Periodically granting amnesty is even worse, because it’s arbitrary. It undermines the rule of law and it makes the government look like a bunch of bureaucrats with hired thugs, which it may very well be. If you can’t deport people who have broken immigration law, repeal the law. Otherwise, you’re telling people that there’s a reasonable shot that if they come here off the books they’ll just be granted legal status once enough people have broken the law and the right people wind up winning an election. It’s a dangerous precedent. It’s essentially the same thing as Obama’s “red line” in Syria. Once the bluff is called, you’re revealed as impotent.
Sure, immigrants are responding to a multitude of incentives, but if the strongest one is a disincentive to risk breaking the law, that’s the one that’s going to drive their decision-making process. Deportation alone is not enough, of course, if you can’t keep them from just turning right around and coming back, but just letting the law be broken and enforcing it arbitrarily if at all is itself an incentive to break it.
We’re just now approaching the time when baby Trshmnstr is going to be transitioning to the crib. We planned on doing it a 3 months, but it was a PITA to deal with her being in the other room and not sleeping through the night. Now that she is starting to consistently sleep through the night, we’re anxious to get her into the crib.
She already cries for our benefit at times (mainly when she doesn’t want to nap), so I’m all for shutting her in the room and letting her figure it out. Mrs. Trshmnstr is gonna have a harder time with it, though. She wants to do some more complicated method involving sitting in the room with the baby until she falls asleep. It promises a 3 day turnaround, too.
I’m just kidding about bedtimes not being libertarian, but in all seriousness, we just let our kids nap when they need it and go to bed when they’re ready. There’s never been an issue with this or inconvenience for us. Of course, I work from home so they don’t have to be out the door for daycare at a certain time. In that case, I can see a set bedtime being a necessity.
My son tells me when he’s ready for bed, usually around 8:30-9:00 every night, and he gets up earlier with my wife who’s also an early-riser. My daughter likes to stay up late and sleeps a little later in the morning. Sometimes they take morning naps, or afternoon naps, or no naps and go to bed earlier. It’s total anarchy I tell you.
We had a video baby monitor. Totally helped mom get through it. The other dirty, dirty secret is to feed them even if they just ate. Full babies sleep.
We have just discovered the somnolent effects of rice cereal. Great stuff, that is.
The video monitor is great, but it also works against me in some situations. Mommy can’t ignore the cries when they’re amplified and right next to her. My attempts to mute the monitor are met with icy glares.
Thankfully, Mrs trshmnstr has the resolve to be able to let the baby cry, but it won’t come nearly as easy to her as it does to me.
We were “lucky” in the sense that baby Reason was sleeping through most of the night when we got her home from the hospital since she was in the NICU for a few weeks. And we never let her or the others sleep in the bed with us. It was basinette until they were sleeping through the night and then on to the nursery.
I mean, if you’ve got a 2-3 month old baby in bed with you, how the hell do you expect to make the next one?
We do struggle occasionally with them sleeping at bedtime now, but a locked door and a stern voice usually get them back in line. So does moving their wakeup time forward to get them to preschool/daycare so Banjos can beat traffic to work. They can’t wait to get to sleep at 8:30 now.
I mean, if you’ve got a 2-3 month old baby in bed with you, how the hell do you expect to make the next one?
This! Although, the sleep deprivation and fucked up hormones didn’t help in that department.
The baby has only been allowed in the bed for snuggle sessions (usually after I’m already out of the bed and getting ready for work) and the occasional nap. She was so small as a newborn (10th percentile) that I was afraid of rolling over on her. We have a little rocker sleeper thing next to the bed that she’s going to outgrow in a couple months, thus the push toward cribbing her.
Well, free advice, so take it for what it’s worth, but don’t sweat the method or the timing too hard. It’s all about whatever works. We tried that one “method”, I forget what it’s called, where you put her in her crib and basically let her cry for gradually longer increments. Didn’t work, because she’s so damn stubborn. She knew all she had to do was stick to her guns and her mom would crack from a combination of just wanting to go to damn sleep and feeling horrible because her child is wailing. She knew on an intellectual level that she was being played, but she couldn’t turn off the maternal part, that visceral drive to do whatever you need to do to stop your kid from crying. So, yeah, she left for a weekend and all of a sudden there was no good cop anymore, and it worked like a charm.
Mind you, this didn’t take all the way until about 9 months, when she started sleeping all the way through the night reliably. Until you’re getting her down for a straight six hours or so, just think of it as practice. Also, the person you’ve really got to get buy-in from is your wife. I found that making sure my wife felt all the pain of having a soon-to-be toddler sleeping in our bed was a strong motivator. It’s like the addiction shows; the best way to get someone to kick an addiction is to force them to deal with all of the consequences of having it.
We have a strict rule with our daughter. She may NOT get into bed with us, even if something scares her.
Of course, she’s 31, so there’s that.
Full disclosure, my 2 year old woke up at 1am Wednesday night (Thursday morning) ready to party. After giving him advil and a drink, then ignoring him for half an hour, I just gave him a Kindle and a sippy cup of milk and went back to bed. No idea whether or how much more he slept after that, but I got 3.5 more good hours. If it becomes a pattern, I’ll just start ignoring him, but it was a one off event.
“The librarian wrote that rather than sending books to a well-funded elementary school in Cambridge, Trump should instead be devoting resources to schools in “underfunded and underprivileged communities” that are ‘marginalized and maligned by policies put in place by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.’”
Wait, these books are too racist for her blessed school district, but they’re just fine for poor kids? I’m sorry, who’s the real racist here?
Wait those schools were not marginalized before Betsy and she did it herself? Wow so much hatred.
Unless things have changed Cambridge isn’t rich.
“In the post, the elementary school librarian also called the choice of Dr. Seuss a “tired and worn ambassador for children’s literature,” adding that the author’s illustrations are “steeped in racist propaganda, caricatures, and harmful stereotypes.”
What racist propaganda, caricatures, and harmful stereotypes? If remember, most of the characters aren’t even human.
According to the Washington Post article on this, “Phipps Soeiro points to recent literature that addresses potential racism in Seuss’s work, including a book by professor of children’s literature Philip Nel that argues Seuss’s depiction of the Cat in the Hat was based on racial stereotypes and inspired by traditions of blackface entertainment.”
Holy shit, that’s asinine.
That’s the result of thousands of grievance studies majors looking for the boogeyman behind every bush. The only way they can justify their existence is to find a new racist every day.
“I was the guy who discovered Dr. Seuss was a white supremacist!” = Career defining achievement
To be fair, he was a FDR-supporting, liberal Democrat.
Seuss did some some pretty rude caricatures of Japanese in WWII cartoons, as was standard for the time. For some reason he later apologized for this.
Any art that does not serve as a propaganda tool for socialism is de facto white supremacy/fascism by their logic. Take the wrong side in the imaginary intersectional power struggle, even as trivial as expressing satisfaction with the bourgeois status quo, and you are actively harming the oppressed. And they believe they are enlightened for following this faith, and that it is YOU who is blind to the ravages of capitalism.
It takes a lot of education to become as ignorant as these people.
Pretty sure she means his anti-Jap propaganda pieces during WW2. They had a few elements that might be considered racist.
and
Hey that’s just Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Totally nothing racist there…
But that’s not in any of his children’s books.
Oops, should read before writing.
Unless things have changed Cambridge isn’t rich.
Cambridge has its run-down, poorer sections, but there are plenty of wealthy, old money folks and more recently minted rich folks in Cambridge.
Is there a FUCK YOU book that we could send next?
With apologies to ladies who find this word offensive, what a cunt.
Melania Trump is an ex-model married to a bazillionaire who is the President of the most powerful nation on Earth. She took the time and effort to donate children’s books to a school library. Whether or not she actually cares what people think of her, she certainly doesn’t need to in order to preserve her standard of living. Instead of politicizing everything and behaving like an ill-mannered, ungrateful troglodyte, be a fucking human for twenty minutes and say, “Thank you.”
We’ll that librarian’s indignation didn’t age well.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4934052/Melania-hits-librarian-rejected-donation.html
Well
His pederasty and one of the tax evasion charges were commuted by none other than Bill Clinton, which would pretty much tell you his political affiliation since the Sun-Times didn’t think it was important enough to mention.
Forget it Sloopy, its Chicagotown.
They almost have an excuse…there are no Chicago Republicans, so everyone in politics is simply a Democrat, by default.
Correction: there is one Republican Chicago alderman. He represents the area of the City that always sends a Republican alderman. I predict there will be two after the next election. It won’t matter, though.
By the way, I liked your piece yesterday Swiss.
Well, it matters because who else can the Democrats blame for the city’s sad state of affairs?
Sad, but true
Gotta have an Emmanuel Goldstein!
Chicago has no Republican alderman.
It used to (I used to live in the ward), but the police and firemen unions made sure they ran one of their own to drive him out.
The former alderman was Brian Doherty. Looks like his successor has been succeeded by an “independent”, which is probably the safer way to be a Republican in a city ward.
I live in the ward. All aldermen are listed as ‘independent’, because Chicago technically has non-partisan elections. The current alderman is a Republican. His name is Napolitano
Chicago politician Mel Reynolds found guilty for a third time on tax evasion charges.
I thought of Mal Reynolds and said well that makes sense. Although the captain would not be a pederast, there probably is a special hell for that
He aimed to misbehave.
**rousing applause**
“I would appreciate it if someone on this boat would not assume that I’m an evil lecherous hundan [bastard].”
There did seem to be a question on the episode about this young lady’s age?
Bravo!
I say “avoision”.
“The Trump administration has reportedly obtained search warrants that would allow them access the Facebook pages of thousands of anti-Trump protesters.”
Did they give a reason for the warrant? I’m no lawyer, but doesn’t obtaining a warrant require a specified suspected crime?
I though Fuck You was sufficient reason for any self respecting US president
Not anymore. Not since at least before 9/11. The government can do whatever the fuck it wants whenever the fuck it wants. Who is going to stop them? The government?
That is one poorly written article. I too was trying to figure out what alleged crime there is.
The article mentions “The ACLU is fighting the warrant, claiming it seeks information that is not relevant to the federal probe.”
But what federal probe? The article never says. If it’s a federal probe related to, say, protestors who causes violence at Trump rallies, asking for that many warrants might be a stretch but at least would be related. But the article never mentions.
They do allude to in one case a possible connection to the rioting at the inauguration, but no real details.
I think they are intentionally being vague. If they pointed out that the DOJ is seeking information in investigations concerning the violent riots that often erupt after and or during legit protests the warrants would not look so intrusive. Some, including myself have said they need to go after the violent antifa leaders, who I don’t think are as loosely organized as they would want you to believe. I think putting down violent thugs who fuck people up and destroy private property is a legit role for DOJ. I guess it depends on what happens with the info that may be collected on any innocent bystanders who are just being idiotic yet legit protestors who might get caught up in guilt by association for liking a facebook page. Although that does not apply to anyone protesting the taking down of a statue that happens to be in the same area as some KKK types. If you are there and not waving a commi flag or a BLM banner you are a Nazi.
Skimming the article, it looks like the warrants are for the pages of 3 individuals who were instigators in inauguration day protests. I recall there’s been an ongoing investigation into property damage (and violence? too early) in those, after all. The thousands of protesters are everyone who “liked” the pages of the 3 in question — so it is a Kevin Bacon separation headline — by getting the data on the 3 in question, the DOJ can look at the links/public data on the FB pages of the likers. I don’t see in the article that the DOJ would get specific information other than the public information derived via the FB account being referenced via like or posting on the 3 users in question. Honestly, doesn’t seem out of bounds assuming there’s valid reason for the warrants on the original 3 — if the idea is there’s conspiracy to commit criminal acts (i.e. gathering Antifa style thugs to “protest”), of course you’d want to subpoena any records of the gathering of the conspiracy.
Yeah, on reading the article this doesn’t seem quite so awful to me.
Those god damn Libertarians are corrupt as shit. Knew it.
Chicago has been in the iron grip of Libertarians since the 1920s…
“Taxes are theft!”
– Al Capone
John Galt Cermak, I believe was the first of the machine libertarians
I don’t necessarily know what the world needs. But I sure as fucking shit know what the world DOESN’T need!!!!!!!!!!!!
I disagree. They’re needed from around 16-18 years old, then whatever happens is to be ignored
The one in the middle’s not terrible. I mean, in an alternate universe where they have a normal, healthy family and they’re like a stay-at-home mom, a dentist, and a restaurant manager who fosters stray animals they’d be at least reasonably attractive women and probably fine dinner companions. Context is everything.
Being a US academic is just as bad as being a Venezuelan doctor: you are reduced to prostitution. I think more government spending is in orderThere is nothing she would rather do than teach. But after supplementing her career with tutoring and proofreading, the university lecturer decided to go to remarkable lengths to make her career financially viable.
She first opted for her side gig during a particularly rough patch, several years ago, when her course load was suddenly cut in half and her income plunged, putting her on the brink of eviction. “In my mind I was like, I’ve had one-night stands, how bad can it be?” she said. “And it wasn’t that bad.”
Sex work is one of the more unusual ways that adjuncts have avoided living in poverty, and perhaps even homelessness.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/28/adjunct-professors-homeless-sex-work-academia-poverty
:’-(
Cuz there’s no other way right? When I was in grad school and fresh out of school I supplemented my income by tutoring stupid rich kids for $25/hr. I also kept my student loans in the reasonable range and not in the pay them down for life range (also waaaaay under the fucking suicide range). There’s the whole bullshit test prep industry that will pay you decent money to teach more stupid rich kids how to not get into law school with their 3.1 GPA.
Nope. Hooking is the only way
Your were just to ugly to hook, weren’t you?
🙁
Exactly. “I’m really excited by the thought of being a prostitute, but it’s not socially acceptable. I hope nothing would happen to my work hours and pay that would allow me to justify trying it out.”
Hauling an encrusted mortar board around campus is much easier on the back than a mattress.
Silly adjuncts! It’s supposed to be the other way around!
I’m thinking you’ve sent that link often.
He looks a lot like Big Man Tyrone.
I tell you I’m shocked, SHOCKED, that her degree in intersectional feminist basket weaving wasn’t the ticket to the big bucks!
Stop paying administrators so much.
Would.
Wait…wouldn’t! Wouldn’t!
He’s also been jailed for being a pederast
Fuckin’ Reynolds…that creep can roll, man
Same district that gave us Gus Savage (“Savage Gus”) –
So they got Reynolds as a replacement *facepalm*
It was interesting living in that area when it was gerrymandered for the benefit of Gus Savage. A decent working-class neighborhood became a hellhole in less than five years.
Oh happy days. My 13 year old son finally seems to have quit listening to rap. I caught him listening to Soundgarden and AIC the last couple days with some NIN thrown in. I couldnt be happier if he had mafe honor roll.
Mafé, known in English as groundnut stew, is an iconic African dish, popular throughout West Africa. This rich meat stew is thickened with ground peanuts, which give it a wonderful sweet-salty flavor.
I did not know that
I have cooked this before. It is tasty.
I have an aunt who infamously made peanut soup every Thanksgiving using Jiff. When you take a southern family and relocate them to the mid-Atlantic, the kids grow up with the general idea but they get the details wrong.
I love peanut soup at Thanksgiving! An old Virginia classic.
My wife makes that, it is pretty good.
Quickly, buy him a baja hoodie, Vans, and some dumb feemo necklaces with hemp cord.
Yeah. And a glass pipe.
Do kids still wear bajas? I remember them as all the rage when I was in high school….25 years ago.
I haven’t seen a baja hoodie in person since I left Colorado in 1997. Kinda want one now, but one that doesn’t feel like sandpaper on the inside.
Better than being a Juggalo, amirite?
?
Thats a hate crime I think. Dont pick on ICP fans
Ignore the haters, Archie. You know what they were listening to in the 90’s.
Damn right i do. Fuckers were probably still listening to Prince.
:Puts on “Date Rape” by Sublime, jams out
I was listening to Soundgarden and other similar rocking stuff then too. Except for the Flaming Lips, which I hate.
I never cared for Flaming Lips either. Their fans seemed to like it just so they could be contrarians who dont listen to “mainstream” music
I would say the defining soundtrack of that age for me was The Crow soundtrack. And James “Laid”.
Wow, James….there’s a band I haven’t heard or thought of in forever.
I’ve been messing around on Amazon Music the last week or so, looking up bands I used to love but haven’t listened to in forever. Today was Face to Face.
Here’s a pretty good cover of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhhxpHtBBVM
I was listening to Second Wave black metal.
http://imgur.com/JiIaB70
Or GTFO
LOL
Well at least he’s listening to Trent, the others are suicidal copouts, must be a Seattle thing
To be fair how many of us could live in seattle more than a year without deciding to end it all with a needle or shotgun?
He’s listening to Anaïs Nin?
How else is he going to learn all the parts of the vagina?
Im affraid to find out who that is
A writer of classy erotica, like me.
If there was ever a statement that needed “air-quotes” worse, it probably involved Bill & Hillary’s “relationship”.
Not a chick then?
This entire sub-thread is some white people shit.
That might be the greatest compilation I’ve ever seen.
White people be crazy n shit!
Rap isn’t inherently bad to listen to. Get him some Mellie Mel and Whodini and Grandmaster Flash and De La Soul.
Son, EPMD, Gang Starr, Wu. And I mean, really, Biggie and Pac. Most of the new shit sucks, but the 90s and early aughts had some good shit going on.
“” EPMD, Gang Starr, Wu””
thank you
i would throw in big daddy kane just because
Suuuuuuuuuuuu!!! New Wu in two weeks! I’ll probably be disappointed but I am very excited about it.
Premier, Prince Paul, Dan the Automator, RZA, Dilla.
can’t go wrong with anything they have been a part of.
I almost forgot Pete Rock.
Yep.
Man, and Tribe, especially Low End Theory. And Mobb Deep. So much good hip hop in the day.
Illmatic might be the best album.
You touched on it a little by mentioning Gang Starr, but anything Premo touches is pretty much gold. Even to this day.
Oh my god, I went down a YouTube rabbit hole listening to old hip hop and Above the Clouds came up. Damn, damn, damn, that’s a good song. It’s surprising how good they sound even now.
Big L, RIP.
Big L is also worth listening to. he could have been bigger than Nas.
I don’t know what these studies are worth but the titles are always good
Effects of Chocolate Deprivation on Implicit and Explicit Evaluation of Chocolate in High and Low Trait Chocolate Cravers.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28955287?dopt=Abstract
My implicit evaluation revealed a bias toward white chocolate with the nuts removed. I’m a non binary transphobe with a nougat fetish.
White chocolate? You fucking heathen.
With pineapple.
I thought you Japs loved fish candy.
Dude, I’m still as white as you. Ok, maybe not that white.
Why don’t you just eat a Zero bar, you fucking weirdo.
You don’t treat me right.
White chocolate WITH nuts.
It takes all kinds I tell ya.
I was willing to stay neutral in the pizza wars.
But “white chocolate” IS NOT CHOCOLATE!
Great. A new schism. You white chocolate people have to ride in the back of the bus from now on
Let’s rally against the white (chocolate) supremacists. The chocolates of color have been oppressed for generations! *kneels during Hershey’s commercial*
Hersheys is fake chocolate
Ghiradelli or GTFO
Hershey’s cookies and cream bar
First smooth peanut butter, now anti-white chocolate???
I know, right? I might as well change my avatar to a white hood. I’m Shitlord Supreme.
What, do you hate puppies and kittens and joy, too!?
Gross
Quite the convoluted title.
READ AS: “I don’t know what these studies are worth but the titties are always good” and AGREED.
Awesome, I’ve listened to this song dozens of times and never saw this video. So good.
I wanna hop on a dirtbike with my boombox and blair this song as i ride through town.
?
Dozens of times? I know I’m showing my age here, but I remember when MTV played this video about every 15 minutes.
You lucky dog.
I member that. That was when i first got hooked on Mtv. Fun fact, i was related by marriage to the man who killed Mtv.
Hitler?
Vanilla Ice?
I know a guy who now follows a spiritual guru who looks like Vanilla Ice.
Buggles?
Oh, no he actually helped birth MTV.
Mike Judge?
Puck?
15 seems too far apart.
I seem to remember November Rain getting more play than You Could Be Mine, but maybe that’s just the years messing with me.
More Stephanie Seymour the better.
Her in that incredibly short wedding dress? Absolutely.
And that wasn’t often enough. Great song. Great video. Great choice Sloopy.
I thought it was going to be this badass motherfucker of a song.
Looks like the left are pissed that Donald Trump’s DOJ have subpoena’d FB info on 6,000 anti-Trump activists
Whaaaat??? You mean these powers can be turned on us???
It was different when Obama did it! He only meant it for good. Trump means it for evil.
But it wasn’t different when I posted it 30 minutes ago.
🙁
I quoted your link, dude
Ah fuck. My bad. I thought you were doing a new link.
When did you post that? I only see responses by you to others so far.
*nods in sympathy*
You didn’t build that link! Somebody else made that happen.
THIS is the part where we witness utter lack of self-awareness from progressives.
A fourth gravitational wave has been detected — and we’ve pinpointed its location better than ever before. Apparently two black-holes merging created the waves.
Black Holes Matter
They’re called women of color you racist shitlord
*narrows gaze*
You committed a mass error when you assumed that black hole’s gender.
Ewwwwww
/14 year old girl
“What’s this “we” bullshit, Kemosabe?”
–An astrophysicist somewhere
* Looks up funding sources for Penn State research *
We motherfucker.
Touché
*prolonged ovation*
That’s no way to talk about two big beautiful women of color making love
Its Meetup Day for Tampa Bay area Glibs. I will be arriving at Mr. Dunderbak’s sometime before 4:00 (aiming for 3:30) and hanging our until at least 10:00. Anyone who wants to coordinate can drop me an email at brett(underscore)bolt(at)yahoo(dot)com, and I’ll pass along my cellphone. Look for a white guy (statistically a good chance) with a red Astros hat and a beard — once a nice red-brown mix now going white.
See y’all there.
I’ll be the large bald bearded man wearing a black shirt. Between the beards and the whiteness the libertarian table should be reasonably obvious.
Only if you’ve got your D&D map laid out on the table.
Roll to see if I’m getting drunk.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/470543/1/Summoner-Geeks-the-original-by-the-Dead-Ale-Wives
If you miss out on the “PS2” version, you’ll kick yourself.
I’ll be the other large bald bearded man. Based on her grandmother, my wife’s beard is probably still 50 or so years off though…
Will this be livestreamed?
That’s up to the NSA team tasked with recording the activities of our subversive group.
I bet the guys on that team are popular in the break room. Hey did you guys see the new STEVE SMITH thread?
*rises to applaud*
Kinky.
I’m pretty sure they haze the new guy by making zer read SF slashfic until the vomit or faint.
The Gliberlution will not be televised.
In meetup news, the Minnesoda Meetup went well. No bloodshed.
Thanks to MikeS for inspiring it. He was last seen getting a ride back to his hotel from a shady character. I did get an email from him later, but that could be his killer using his phone (NoDaks are too trusting to lock their phones).
the Minnesoda Meetup went well. No bloodshed
Your second sentence contradicts the first.
Yes, it was fun as hell. I can confirm that Mike was delivered safely to his hotel. At last sighting he was following a group of girls into Lucky 13s. Our thoughts and prayers are with him.
Hayeksplosives is even cooler in real life and really is female! Mr. Hayeksplosives was there as well, kilt-clad and lamenting his Bears.
The Pope was on his best behavior. No waitresses filed complaints this time!
Thanks to Mike for making it happen. Next time we will move east to make it easier for the Minneapolis-dwelling Glibs.
Aw, shucks. Thanks, Tundra. It was great to meet you, His Holiness, and Mike S in person. We must do this again sometime!
Today the hubs and I spent all day at the Minnesoda Renaissance Festival drinking & carousing & enjoying shows. We of course dressed up in period costumes, but now that I am home I am ready to unlace and have an “out-of-bodice experience.”
Go on…
You guys had a meetup on a weekday? Rookies.
Meeting at Redwood Bar n Grill in downtown LA tonight.
https://yelp.to/qTKq/vvZWH2tVLG
I’ll be arriving around 5 or so and plan to have a few many cocktails. My cell # is in the email chain if any body wants to do more stupid stuff downtown before that.
Any Glibs I haven’t met, I’ll be the devilishly handsome guy at the bar sipping bourbon, wearing the green Nike t-shirt.
How handsome exactly are you before you begin guzzling bourbon?
Well, devilishly handsome. Up to six bourbons. Between bourbons 7 to ten , I turn into Rodney Dangerfield. After bourbon eleven, I’m pretty much Johnny Thunders.
Rookies do it on weekends. Professionals know how to cut loose on weekdays and get up the next day and go to work.
There was a Mr. Dunderbak’s down in Sarasota Square Mall back in the 1970s – ’80s. They were great; the only place in the whole mall that sold beer until the 1984 opening of a Sbarro franchise. Dunderbak’s was, along with the sushi bar on Main St., well known for never carding those of us under the (at the time) legal drinking age of 18. Glad to see they are still around.
Well they were still around until you posted this, BATF is gathering their tactical response team for a raid as I post.
Damn… now I feel shame and must sit in the box.
Meanwhile, the Bay Area Glibs meetup will be at the Garrett Station in Los Gatos, about 5PM Pacific. As far as I know I’ll be the only one there, but meh.
Elsewhere, Bayern have shitcanned Ancelotti after his squad got demolished at PSG earlier in the week. I hope they don’t come calling on Klopp, because even though he forgot you have to defend the last third of the field, he’s brought some excitement to Anfield.
I don’t think people in the prime of their careers don’t leave the EPL to go anywhere but Spain. (I was stunned when Bayern got James Rodriguez.)
And it’s really, really annoying that FS only care about the EPL teams in European competitions.
Yeh about Spain. I remember when it was the case with Serie A from c. 1980 to 1999. Liga is far and away the best league. The criticism that it’s only two teams rings a tad hollow as even their middle-table teams are very hard to beat and do win tournaments. When you look at the historic coefficients it’s rare the gap was as big as it is today.
/cuts piece of soppressata while wiping tear.
Right? I was watching AC Milan the other day and asking myself, “What happened?”
But you know what, I don’t like the big teams in general. (Except Napoli. Who are never shown in the US.)
…The CL is so boringly predictable. Serie A and Bundesliga are only fun from number 2 down. etc.
I thought they showed the Bayern-PSG match on FS1. But yes, there definitely is an EPL bias. Perhaps it’s because they show the Bundesliga on the weekends and they want to gauge audience levels for when they show EPL teams so they know how much to bid when the next contract for it is up.
Not that I want that to happen. Say whybyoy want about NBC news networks, their EPL coverage is quite good and they have a whole slew of networks to send games to when big events happen at the same time. Fox lacks that network.
They were doing it before they had the Bundesliga too.
A few years ago, Bayern, Man City, and one of the Russian teams were in a group together. Man City’s early kickoff in Russia was on FS1; Bayern’s was relegated to higher-tier Fox Sports Plus.
Fox Soccer Plus, of course.
Last year Spurs/Monaco was bumped in favor of amateur golf. So not all EPL teams 🙁
Like it or not, EPL is what brings in the numbers. Ask an American about soccer and more likely than not they will think of England.
Who the hell is a team that won’t settle for anything less than Nummer Eins going to bring in? All the top names are taken.
Nearly Half of Women Don’t Know Where the Vagina Is, Survey Shows
Vice reports that a recent survey of 1,000 British women found that 44% didn’t know where their vagina is. That’s right – almost half of the women surveyed couldn’t point out a vagina in an illustration of female reproductive parts. Even worse, 60% of women couldn’t label the vulva in the drawings, and only one-third correctly identified all six parts: the vulva, vagina, uterus, fallopian tubes, and the ovaries.
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/vagina-women-dont-know-location-female-reproductive-system-survey
Ask trump. Hell show ya.
Must be American immigrants from the South.
Southern folks might not be able to point out Iowa on a map but we know where the vagina is
The penis is the thing that goes up?
ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONE. THE PENIS IS EVIL! THE PENIS SHOOTS SEEDS, AND MAKES NEW LIFE TO POISON THE EARTH WITH A PLAGUE OF MEN, AS ONCE IT WAS. BUT THE GUN SHOOTS DEATH AND PURIFIES THE EARTH OF THE FILTH OF BRUTALS. GO FORTH AND KILL! ZARDOZ HAS SPOKEN.
But what about vaginas?
Probably about 3 inches lower than where they thought it was.
That’s just because they’re too fat to have seen any of those parts in the last two decades.
How many of them are “Asian”?
Word has it that South Asia is a region within Asia.
Why do the Euros call the ME Asia? Why do we call China,Japan etc. Asia?
Is it really that large?
Magnets, how do they work?
Well, the Greeks invented the term and used it to refer to what is now Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. So, they have a strong argument.
Why do we call the near east the middle east? We are so bad at eurocentrism these days.
only one-third correctly identified all six parts
Stay away from these woke bitches
What the hell is that thing hanging there, was there too much shit in the way to put it inside.
I’m sure if you asked men about their scrotum, vas defrense and prostate, your get similar results. This is about people not knowing anatomy. They probably couldn’t point out the heart, Lungs and stomach too.
Wait, I thought that the penis was a female reproductive organ now? and the vagina male? Are you cishetero types othering the differently anatomized?
Sounds lime a job opportunity. Hey ladies, meet Professor Pussy.
That’s nothing, 80% of men have no idea where the clitoris is
“WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has offered to provide evidence that the Russian collusion narrative is false in exchange for a pardon from President Trump.
The president, apparently, has not yet gotten the message. On Saturday, President Trump told reporters that he has “never heard” of Assange’s offer to make a deal.”
Assange doesn’t have Twitter? Anyway, he already said the DNC leak wasn’t from the Russians. And strongly implied it was Seth Rich.
If it was Seth Rich, there are going to be a lot of career intelligence shitheads that will have to walk back or explain their statements to the media over the last year.
You what’s odd? Seth Rich worked for the DNC. You would think the Democrats would be pushing to find out who murdered one of their own.
And of course this page is locked:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich
You can’t read three sentences before hitting bullshit.
um, “You know what’s odd….”
Every number not divisible by 2?
π is not divisible by 2, but it’s not odd.
prove it. That should keep you busy.
It kept me busy for the time it took the page to load.
I will limit myself to the set of non-infinite whole numbers that when divided by two do not produce a whole number result.
It may not be odd, but it’s totally irrational.
All numbers are divisible by 2
I’m getting the impression that Glenn Greenwald doesn’t like the mainstream media
This is CNN.
Speaking of not being able to find the vagina…
Poontin is often seen riding bears
Not just Frum – the mighty intellectual power that is Meathead is on the case too!
Oh, and I decided to skim the comments:
Yes, because plenty of people deny that the climate exists. That’s not at all a dishonest characterization of opposing arguments.
Yes it’s shocking how people who allow evidence and observations to alter their opinions in one area also tend to do it in other areas too.
Who the fuck are you to put evidence before experts?
It’s almost like there’s a pattern of rejecting obvious bullshit…. Nah.
The article says the states systems were “scanned” by Russians.
Not hacked, but scanned. From Russian IP addresses.
And at least Wisconsin it wasn’t even any agency involved in the election.
Since they didn’t give any real details, you are left to assume the worst. But as an IT professional, when I hear “scanned from a Russian IP address” I think port scanner. Which is nothing. It is less than nothing. Every script kiddie on the planet has been running port scanners since the internet became publicly available. Any computer put on the internet is going to get a port scan within minutes. Getting port scanned is not evidence that Hillary won the election. Sorry Rachel.
The Russians scan my Verizon router. No doubt it’s to keep tabs on the libertarian uprising I am plotting.
I like to think there’s some sysadmin in Russia in the early aughts who looked at server logs one morning and said, “What the hell? Why is someone from Maryland, USA scanning our servers?”
Around 2000 I set up a linux box as an email gateway. It didn’t do anything else, so I had it pretty locked down. Just a couple of open ports for the mail, and that’s it. It’s main job was to be a buffer to the actual internal mail server, and allow some scanning to take place before it hit the mail server. ( I wrote a little script to strip attachments over a certain size and drop them on an FTP server, replacing the file with a link, thereby saving space on the email server. Remember when space was expensive?).
Anyway, the thing started acting wonky shortly after I put it in service, and when I went to check the logs, they were all jacked up. Mostly missing.
Oh yeah…. someone hacked me.
So I started digging. I traced them to a server in Kentucky. And then that admin and I traced them back to Europe and finally to Israel. That’s where we gave up.
In addition to digging, I wiped the thing and did a clean build, adding some neglected intrusion detection and other security setups. We didn’t get penetrated again, and within 2 years we had enough cash to buy a commercial gateway/security service.
But I can guarantee that your hypothetical Russian admin existed. Good security from a vendor was pretty expensive, and rolling your own was fun, but meant you were bound to get beaten by zero day exploits, which were plentiful at the time. And the state players were definitely out there.
At least 22 are dead as a stampede occurred in a Bombay train station.
I listen to various international broadcasters, and decided to listen to All-India Radio’s news bulletin this morning. Their headline began, “22 people, including four women….”
Fuck the 18 men who died.
Remember, whenever something bad happens, it’s always the female victims that deserve the most pity.
The women are hardest hit when their husband’s are killed in a war.
Probably some dude cat-calling that started the stampede
London’s cultural enrichment is progressing nicely. Dramatic video shows ‘Islamic protesters’ shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ and playing the sound of EXPLOSIONS at full volume in east London street.
“‘People say that they do not condone the loss of life but some believe that attacks like London Bridge are somewhat justified because of our foreign policy, like the war in Iraq.'”
Nice
1. When people come to Western countries, we must always carefully listen to their demands and fastidiously accommodate the lifestyle, politics, etc they brought with them, being careful not to offend.
2. When travelling or living abroad, Westerners must always do as the locals do, being careful not to offend.
3. It is the Western countries that are cultural imperialists.
A 90-year-old’s lesson on how to “outsmart the fish”
Don’t be a retard like me
Purple rain, purple rain….
*slow clap*
Win
Or Tears of a Clown.
Stupidity is often its own punishment.
That’s a model?
Probably an “internet model”; otherwise known as a semi-attractive attention whore who likes to post pictures on Derpbook.
“Even Luna Cobra, the man credited with first making the procedure popular a little over 10 years ago, agrees that it is unsafe. In fact, he’s even working to help make it illegal.
“I’ve been trying to ban this. I think it’s super important that this becomes illegal,” Cobra told Newsweek. “To be clear, this is happening all the time, all over the world.””
That’s a lot of stupid.
I toured a prison a couple of months ago. The warden told me that some of the long-timers/lifers tattoo each others’ eyeballs with ballpoint pen ink and such. I think it’s supposed to look intimidating or crazy.
Play the sad trombone for Valarie Plame: Ex-CIA officer quits job after posting anti-Semitic tweet
Fired from a position on the board of the Ploughshares Fund.
Something tells me that was a political appointment anyway. Easy come, easy go.
Just more proof that (((they))) still control all the money, right?
*nods gravely*
OK, I don’t know what Tundra was hoping for.
I was thinking this. While not a fan of the band generally, this was a great soundtrack to an even better movie. You can’t get more ’80s than this.
+1 Wang
My alma mater strikes again!
Included in the speakers on that tour are Soave and ENB.
I was hoping Robby would get to experience what it’s like to discover that he is in fact a purveyor of far-right-wing hate speech.
“To be sure, they do make a good point regarding neo-Nazis….”
I hope they’re not expecting ENB to pitch in with the craft services table on her downtime.
And I hope they’ve got AAA for the bus.
Lastly, I hope they also have some libertarian speakers traveling with them as well.
Ouch, man. Hope they’ve got some ice for that.
“Make us some sandwich boards.”
At least seven tonnes of grapes have been stolen in the dead of night from vineyards in France’s prime winegrowing region of Bordeaux, following a disastrous yield blamed on poor weather, police say
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/29/crushing-blow-as-french-vineyards-robbed-of-seven-tonnes-of-grapes
Fun fact: in parts of Romania people pick grapes when other people in their area do even if nor ripe enough, because otherwise they will probably be stolen. I mean once your neighbours finish piclking their grapes they start picking your grapes.
Lots of gun control there I assume?
I would imagine that, ’round these parts, that would get you shot.
“Crushing blow” stealing grapes right before harvest? Really, Guardian? You were pressed to make that pun?
Someone’s going to have enough wine to make their en primeur orders after all. Even if three of the four areas hit are kinda meh. And who steals grapevines anyway? Transplanting a mature grapevine would probably kill it, I’d think.
The half ton of Pomerol grapes, if from a good vineyard, is gonna’ sting though. Generic Napa Merlot goes for 3300 a ton, per this blurb from Vintroux Estates and Vineyards. God only knows what a half ton of something like Clinet or Petrus grapes would go for. It’s not a one for one, but one ton of grapes makes a bit more than two barrels of wine, and each barrel is about 25 cases. So call it 30 cases of wine. A case of Clinet 2016 is going for quite a premium over the 2015, at about 865 pounds sterling per case. So about 1150 USD per case, multiplied by 30 cases. Or a hair less than 35,000 dollars in lost revenue.
Of course, the chateau doesn’t see all of that, but it’s still going to not be good.
*groans*
I always thought Europa doesn’t get enough love. Not in the early rounds because it’s a waste how teams are involved but by the time you get to the last 16 those teams are usually of Champions League caliber.
And even CL has been watered down over the years. It used to be JUST for the title holders. I didn’t mind when 2nd place started getting spots. It really doesn’t make much sense for the simple reason have you ever seen an upset in CL during the group stages? Generally, the top sides of the Big Four always go through and where they don’t it’s because they were grouped with other teams from those leagues. But it’s rare a Swedish or Danish heck even Anderlecht from Belgium sneaking past, say, a Chelsea or Sevilla or even under achieving Roma.
Second rate is second rate.
UN Human Rights Council weights in on what needs to be done in the U.S. to combat systemic racism.
Stop funding Antifa, BLM, and BAMN?
I guess the UN doesn’t like noscript or the link is wacky.
What “systemic” racism is there in the US? Don’t suppose they’re talking about the legally established preferential racial quota system euphemistically referred to as “affirmative action”?
I wanted to give the PDF so as to avoid the commentary that would’ve come with a link to a site covering it.
Start with stop funding the UN?
I liked Badnarik’s plan. Sigh, it’s pretty revolting to think about how the last time I voted LP for President was in 2004.
Judge a man by the content of his character, not the color of his skin?
Let’s go to the experts on failing human rights!
The Human Rights Council? The one with all those tin pot dictatorial loser countries sitting on it?
GTFOH.
The house of Saud takes a strong stance against U.S. institutional racsim.
Well, the Saudi’s have done more for women in a week than Trump has for his entire presidency.
Top Notch Concern Trolling
Stop pretending that it exists?
American University an ‘unsafe space’ for controversial event
The classic “you didn’t fill out the proper paperwork” shutdown.
Ochlocracy (Greek: ὀχλοκρατία, okhlokratía; Latin: ochlocratia) or mob rule is the rule of government by mob or a mass of people, or, the intimidation of legitimate authorities.
Poor Kristen. Just 6 posts down.
This is why there are no female libertarians….
Wait, did Kristen get hepeated? Well I never!
*falls on fainting couch*
Mansplained, hepeated, etc.
Sheeeeeiiit.
Liz Phipps Soeiro looks exactly like how you think she’d look.
I actually though her glasses would be red not black, and more squareish
And purple hair. But she definitely looks like a “I’m gonna bad alone forever” librarian
I would need to see a picture from the other side to determine exactly how far the stick is shoved up her ass.
That would be too sexy.
Here’s a fetish pic that is even more disgusting.
Are there still people foolish enough to click on your links?
Yes. It was even worse than I imagined; it involves the Phillies.
That’s not the Phanatic.
It’s like Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a young woman. Blehhhhuhuh.
GAH!
Wouldn’t. And I would almost anything.
Too much, how you say, Nosferatu?
Now you’re really ‘zaggeratin’.
Not like Donna Reed, I presume.
Bitch needs some vitamin D. Daaamn Gollum!
Total commie.
She looks just like the insufferable cunt she is.
“…Phipps Soeiro is also the founder of the Cambridge Book Bike, a grassroots project that distributes books at city parks during the summer, with a focus on locations that serve free lunch….”
Anyone want to take a stab at the sort of books she’s distributing?
I’ll bet they are small.
And red.
They should distribute Fear of Flying by drone.
Mao’s Little Red Book?
I’ll bet the bike is a penny farthing
Did you just assume xir pronouns?
Here’s hoping Trump goes on a teacher’s union-busting rampage as revenge for the librarian’s tardery.
Dare to dream.
That would actually be one of the most “libertarian moment” (hyuk hyuk) things that could possibly happen.
A new report from The Armstrong and Getty Radio Show has sent shockwaves throughout the sports world after it was claimed that members of the NFL’s Oakland Raiders may have purposefully allowed their star quarterback to get sacked multiple times after he refused to kneel during the National Anthem.
That’s funny, the NFL is doomed with shit like that
/Longest Yard
Is it possible that the O-line just sucks?
Nah, that O-line is one of the best in the nFL
But my Skins skullfucked the shit out of them. That was our best SNF game since the last SNF game we played.
Donald Penn looks like an extra in a bad martial arts film, credited as “Huge Criminal in Bar”
Yes we got destroyed. That’s why the story may be legit. Penn gave up ONE sack last season.
Preston Smith’s lowkey balling out though on the edge for us. He’s notched one sack on Jason Peters (plus an intentional grounding penalty), one on Andrew Whitworth, and now one on Donald Penn. He was a monster in run defense too, I think he had a couple crucial stops on 3rd and short. Just stacked, shedded, and took down Lynch, which is no small feat.
The real thing was the coverage though, the Skins flooded those underneath routes that get Carr into a rhythm, and he just played poorly down the stretch. He was clean for like 2/3s of his drop backs, but he made bad decisions. The series down on the goal line following the fumble he got panicked when his first read was taken away and didn’t wait for things to play out.
Hmm. Sounds like it could be legit. If true then fuck this team. Not the Raiders, but the O-Line.
No one will ever admit to anything, though.
It could also have nothing to do with the Anthem antics. Maybe they hate Carr for an entirely different reason?
They better cut this shit out though. I’m very much on the edge of hitting eject on the NFL. Another squandered Raiders season could be the reasonI need. Fucking raiders.
“Daily Sheeple” sounds like a name for a parody site.
I was gonna ask “Is that a reliable source”
But it could be conspiracy or parody, I’d say 50/50
Armstrong and Getty are a legitimate big time West Coast radio show. Proving or disproving the story is probably impossible.
Geez, who could have predicted that find something divisive and controversial could negatively impact team cohesion?
It’s bound to fail and peter out because it’s based on a faulty premise that has morphed into an anti-Trump tantrum.
That’s the part that gets me. It’s not about police brutality, the claim is racism. it’s not about drug laws, it’s about institutional racism.
This is the historic punishment for QBs who piss off the O-line.
If true, then they are saying it’s okay for them to physically punish someone for refusing to express the “correct” opinions.
While also believing that they should not be punished for refusing to express the correct opinion regarding the flag and the anthem.
Not exactly deep thinkers, these guys.
Don’t see why it would ruin the league it isn’t the first time an offensive line refused to block for a QB they didn’t like.
It was a pretty well known fact around New England in the 70’s that the Pats offensive line refused to block of Jim Plunkett because they thought he was an overpaid primadonna
I’d say this was fake, but who can tell these days.
There was a story some NFL retired lineman told a few years ago, concerning infidelity among the players and guys keeping locker room stuff in the locker room. Basically, one of their teammates, the punter, was a Bible-thumper, and would look down his nose at the rest of the team’s tomcatting around on road trips. No one cared because, LOL, punter.
Well, pride goeth before a fall, and the punter fell off the wagon. Nothing else happened for a month or so, and then the punter tearfully confessed to his wife. Again, not much happened, until the punter tried to cushion his own guilt by saying, “these guys did it too!” and he named names. She then spread it to the teammates WAGs, who made life unpleasant. Word trickled back to the teammates who the rat was, and his lineman promptly let him get absolutely destroyed the next time he tried to punt. Not sure how often this happened, or whether he was injured the first time, but it ruined his career.
Bit different to do it to a punter, once, than to your highly valued new QB, but hey, athletes.
Maybe Carr can start showing some solidarity by kneeling on every down. That will show them who really supports the cause.
Air Force Academy investigating racist messages left on dorm doors.
My thoughts: the service academies have way more ‘woke’ kids than racists. Money is on hoax. And this story will never come up again when it is known to be a hoax.
Yep, same thought here: false flag. Maybe to take attention away from the Commie Cadet.
Not to mention that actual racists clever enough to get into college are probably clever enough to recognize the necessity of subtlety. Using the n-word is hillbilly-level racist, bachelor-level racist generally uses different tactics. So, the hoaxers don’t even know how to hoax properly.
Calling it: hoax.
At this point, the odds say that the default position has to be hoax, until proven otherwise.
More likely it’s just a troll. Stuff like this is going to get more common until they stop reacting to it like this.
It’s a hoax, but here’s the M. Night Shyamaladingdong twist: it was a Russian hoax.
The N word in question? I am going to go out on a limb here but…..NAVIGATOR.
yeah I was gonna say “Navy”
Hey! I resemble that remark!
Peer punishment promotes enforcement of bad social norms
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5607004/
Social norms are an important element in explaining how humans achieve very high levels of cooperative activity. It is widely observed that, when norms can be enforced by peer punishment, groups are able to resolve social dilemmas in prosocial, cooperative ways. Here we show that punishment can also encourage participation in destructive behaviours that are harmful to group welfare, and that this phenomenon is mediated by a social norm. In a variation of a public goods game, in which the return to investment is negative for both group and individual, we find that the opportunity to punish led to higher levels of contribution, thereby harming collective payoffs. A second experiment confirmed that, independently of whether punishment is available, a majority of subjects regard the efficient behaviour of non-contribution as socially inappropriate. The results show that simply providing a punishment opportunity does not guarantee that punishment will be used for socially beneficial ends, because the social norms that influence punishment behaviour may themselves be destructive.
No shit Sherlock. Go waste someone else’s money.
Yeah. Spend that scarce science money on important research.
Wow. “Drinking beer can make you happy, researchers claim”. Someone was able to convince a university to fund their bar tab.
The method of peer punishment used in this study was the threat of withdrawal of cocktail party invites and lack of retweeting on Twitter.
Or, how the blue wall turns all cops into corrupt, authoritarian enforcers.
So the perfect combination for your reading pleasure: Ta-Nehisi Coates, long read, The Guardian, Trump
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/sep/29/we-should-have-seen-trump-coming
We should have seen Trump coming
Obama’s rise felt like a new chapter in American history. But the original sin of white supremacy was not so easily erased.
Disclosure: I did not read a word of that.
Coates continues to reveal more about himself than about the country he purports to understand.
Yeh, he comes out sounding like a douche and pseudo-intellect that he really is.
Saying stuff like that is lame.
The first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy?
And then Joe goes back to waxing his Trans-Am.
That Onion stuff was amusing during its time, but now it just makes me think of the astroturfed “Bidenbro” shit I see online… which recently popped up again because Biden is cheering on Julia Louis-Dreyfus using her cancer to pimp socialism.
Next week’s article. Barack, the only good black.
I, too, am shocked that Barack didn’t cast his mother into the flames of Hell.
I’m a little confused by this as well. Are we sure Coates is from the US? I knew a ton of half-black people growing up.
The One Drop Rule is alive and well on the left.
In the Army, I witnessed (what i thought to be) a shocking amount of segregation, derision and contempt for the mulatto soldiers coming from their black peers when in groups; it did not seem at all pronounced on an individual level. My unit had one fellow who was known as Bright Eyes, the son of a black NCO and a German mother, who was immune to it; quite literally, every single person who met young Franz fell in love with him. He was likely the nicest person I’ve ever met and the prettiest man who walks the Earth – deep, lucid, jade-green eyes, strikingly high Germanic cheekbones, anthracite hair worn in a 1920s wave, and intense café au lait skin were topped by an uncanny ability to deadpan whisper a raunchy joke while standing in formation that would have the bulk of the platoon struggling to maintain ranks… good times.
*swoon*
You still fantasize about him don’t you
I’m not even gay and I’m getting a chubby right now.
Talk like this just strengthens my suspicion that Coates is a hard-core racist.
I bet it doesn’t occur to hm one iota that maybe – just maybe – Obama had his own small part to play in all this, what, with all the cynical and mediocre posturing and leadership he displayed.
Obama. NOT GONE ENOUGH.
Why Italy has not yet suffered Islamist terrorism
Is it the Mafia? Skilled policing? Luck?
Or the fact that they throw the fuckers out?
On September 24th, when a Boeing 737 took off from Bologna airport bound for Tirana, the capital of Albania, it carried the 209th person to be expelled from Italy since the start of 2015 for reasons of “religious extremism”. The 22-year-old Muslim had been released from custody a day earlier, after being arrested for trying to persuade worshippers not to enter a church. He had been under constant police scrutiny since first being detained in 2016.
Maybe Italians are not worth wasting explosives on
Possibly.
Or maybe they are just crazy.
This is fargin’ war…
Youse iceholes! Youse cork sockers!
“Never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line!”
As true today as it ever was.
Shame. SHAME!
Yet even as business leaders salivate at the prospect of lower taxes, skeptics are questioning whether companies would actually invest tax savings in things like factories and jobs, and whether such cuts would meaningfully help the economy, which is already expanding.
“This is a very cynical document,” said Edward D. Kleinbard, a tax expert at the University of Southern California law school. “The extraordinary thing about the proposal is that we know that it loses trillions of dollars in revenue, yet at the same time the only people we can identify as guaranteed winners are the most affluent.”
We should be punishing those who are most successful. Because that is the American way.
We could have a 100% tax on incomes over $1 million and suspend the rules of economics to say that nobody’s habits or salary would change and all of that revenue would go to the government, and (a) People would still complain taxes are too low on the rich, and (b) it still wouldn’t be enough to pay for Team Blue (or Team Red) spending policies.
Yeah, suspend that law of supply and demand, because patriarchy.
“things like factories and jobs” – they would invest in building giant vaults to hold their gold coins and cash, and that would create jobs.
+1 Scrooge McDuck
People who build giant vaults need jobs too?
On a similar note (sort of) I am kind of sad that as a country we continue to build self storage facilities all over the place. Sign of affluence I guess, but we probably just need to get rid of shit/stop buying shit we don’t need.
I am renting one to store my pool shit because I put in a pool. Ladders, lounges, etc.
I put in a pool.
File under “shit we don’t need”?
Stolen for my avatar. The resemblance is uncanny. Thanks, Swiss!
Glad to help.
Edward D. Kleinbard, a tax expert at the University of Southern California law school, remains puzzled as to why businesses “off shore” so much of their assets and income in lower tax countries.
I feel like the scare quotes here should be around tax expert, because this isn’t a puzzler
Exactly.
Taxes ARE NOT REVENUE!!!
You’d think a “tax expert” would understand that, no?
Done for the week! I have to head up to Seoul tonight because all the trains were sold out tomorrow due to Korean Thanksgiving insanity. Fly out to Kazakhstan tomorrow evening.
My newbie friend decided to join me…and I kinda let him down because when he was booking tickets I didn’t have him check the visa status for South Africans. I just knew that *I* didn’t need one.
He called the embassy and they told him over the phone that he didn’t need a visa. I told him to call again. He did and they said he did have to have one. (Bureaucracies are fucked…imagine how well a fucking a Kazakh embassy in Korea works?) He’s gonna go to the airport tomorrow anyway and take the chance, but it seems like he’s gonna be denied entry and lose $1500.
Question: You arrive into a new country and THEN you do immigration/visa stuff. I’m guessing he can get on the flight. What will they do when/if he arrives? Will they just…hold him in the airport? Some type of makeshift visa can be arranged there? Internet is very vague.
Anyone have any experience with visas in ex-Soviet bloc countries?
Emmett Fitzhume and Austin Milbarge?
Pretty sure your .za friend is wasting his time. I don’t see any indication that KZ has a visa-upon-arrival programme for South Africans. He should stay home and beg the airline to allow him to commute the funds toward another ticket in the future if he pays a penalty.
You should convince your friend not to jump on the plane like an idiot without securing a visa, unless he really likes paying $1.5k for the privilege of behaving like a canned sardine for two long-haul flights and waiting in airports without opportunities to bathe.
Anyone have any experience with visas in ex-Soviet bloc countries?
I’m no expert, but I’m sure cash helps.
Your friend will be denied boarding in Seoul. The airline will not fly him. All visa/entry requirements for each passenger are checked using timatic. Also, South Africans need visas for many countries that are visa-free for Americans and Europeans. They have no reason to assume that they don’t need a visa to go to a foreign country.
Whaaa? I thought they didn’t even let you on the plane unless your immigration paperwork was in order? So they wouldn’t have a “The Terminal” kind of situation.
Of course, the airline’d still probably keep the money.
I just wanted to add that in addition to being an asshole, that librarian is a cunt. Thx.
well there’s only three types of people in this world. if she’s both an asshole and a cunt, then that makes Trump a dick. and we all know what dicks do to cunts and assholes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn7gUJCB0gM
Lol
I had never seen a black man like Barack Obama. He talked to white people in a new language – as though he actually trusted them and believed in them. It was not my language. It was not even a language I was much interested in, save to understand how he had come to speak it and its effect on those who heard it.
He was like a magician on the street, distracting the rubes so their pockets could be picked. Brilliant!
The Disillusionist.
They say that he’s famous from the waist down, but the top half of his body is a corpse.
Not sure if anyone else watched Velocity last night. Had thought I’d heard that Almanian didn’t get the car before he passed, was glad to see he did. Pretty car.
What’s the story? I think I missed something about Almanian and a car.
Yes, please. I heard this discussed yesterday, what’s the story?
I jumped into the show at about the 20-minute mark, so I didn’t really have any context. I take it Almanian’s ride was the car and not the Jeep. Likewise I missed the end.
And it turns out that I get the Velocity Channel.
The car wasn’t quite done when they showed it to him on set.
Uffda. Expect Canada’s rivers to run red with blood after this ruling.
Damn Canadians! Boating on the wrong some of the river!
*side not some
some not done
What’s the Canadian equivalent of Fish and Wildlife, or as friends of mine in FL affectionately call them, “Grouper Troopers”?
Still on for 6 tonight? I may actually arrive right at the beginning
Negroni and I plan a little day drinking. We should still be lucid at 6:00.
Around here they are the Tree Police or the Rabbit Sheriffs.
Duck Sheriffs!
RABBIT SHERIFFS!
( also have heard the Wood Screws)
Serious question. During the Bears game last night, the players linked arms during the national anthem. Was that a protest? Or a counter protest? I can’t even tell anymore.
It’s okay, the players don’t know what the fuck they’re doing either.
When they realize how fucking stupid the linking arms thing is, they’ll do something even more idiotic. They might as well have strings connected to Trumps fingers.
they’ll do something even more idiotic
conga line is next
That might get me to watch.
I’m holding out for the Cossack dancing.
^THIS^
Riverdance.
They’re doing some kind of pabulum unity thing. Saw a report from an online ticket seller that Week 2 to Week 3 sales dropped 17%.
I find it very fascinating how many of these savvy businessmen think that the three woke millenials shrieking in their ear are more numerous than the tens of thousands of die hard NFL fans who are bitter, deplorable, irredeemable Trump voters.
Damn, 17% is a big hit, especially with sales already down over the past season. Along with some big fish like Budweiser finding it necessary to respond to consumer complaints regarding the protests, I wonder if the owners still think all the social signaling is worth it?
I gather sales always go down week 2 -> 3. They were down 8% YoY, though, which is still pretty brutal.
Ratings down, ticket sales down, merch sales down. The NFL is getting the shit kicked out of it by its fans, and since they are what the NFL has to sell for the real money, I expect their advertisers are also lighting up teh phone lines. Hell, DirecTV threatened to cancel the contract, they has so many cancellations for their NFL PPV product.
Killing a monopoly business with fanatical brand loyalty. That’s some good leadership.
Apparently the linking arms stuff is anti-Trump.
Sounds like the Bears’ new run blocking scheme.
Things do do not go well at the LP conference.
two fingers were broken in the melee
One man’s melee is another mans foreplay.
Tragedy of the commons? Since everyone could use the doll and none of them owned it, of course they’re going to be fairly rough with it. They aren’t the ones paying for it to be repaired.
Video from the last Glibertarians meetup.
It was fun.
Jesus
God damnit, straffin.
“Got red hair but I still worship Jesus”
What’s the equivalent of a gay beard for someone with no soul?
This may have been posted already, but it’s just so fucking funny!
The Indian guy is funny AF.
I bet he’s got lots of swastikas around though, fucking racist.
The look on his face when they called him a Nazi is priceless.
Those two crazy girls were cute though.
Not cute enough to ignore the keening noises.
That and the inevitable rape accusations of course.
“Did he say something that you don’t like?”
“I can’t, um, pick out a quote in particular…”
We know.
Back in high school I went with a friend to some social mixer at her church because I was an unrepentant atheist and she wanted me to see things from her perspective. So we stood around chatting with friends of hers, until a congregant our age took to the mic and started tearfully haranguing the crowd to open our hearts to Jesus. Her spiel was totally overwrought and seemed like thirty seconds from babbling in tongues when the pastor took back the mic and thanked her and sent her back down to the floor. My friend was red-faced and asked if we could leave. I don’t think that was the side of her church she’d wanted me to see.
Anyway, privilege girl here is pretty much church girl, but speaking the Gospel of Marx.
Pray the capitalism away.
Her spiel was totally overwrought and seemed like thirty seconds from babbling in tongues when the pastor took back the mic and thanked her and sent her back down to the floor.
I wish that BS wasn’t so damned prevalent in the church. Emotional manipulation and feelings based appeals are the standard these days. Hell, at Bible study last night, we were going though a study sheet and 1/2 the questions were “how do you feel about this?”
People act amazed when they learn that my reading habits include ancient theological works and theology textbooks. However, that’s the only place to learn about Christianity these days, the music and lay-person books are self-help and emotional manipulation disguised as spiritual education.
/rant
“According to a study published in the Journal of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery[…]the ideal breast shape having a 45:55 ratio. People said the best chests have 45 percent of the fullness above the nipple line and 55 percent of the fullness below, in a slightly teardrop shape.”
http://archive.is/6lff0
Judge the ratios for yourself.
Nice grouping.
19.
30.
19, again.
OK. Since you mentioned #19 twice, I assume you like both of those women in that pic. But you didn’t give us a way to know which one is first. Which one? Foreground or background?
BTW, choosing 3? MikeS must have given you a real case of the blue balls (sashaying around in his UND cap) on the way back to the hotel last night to make you so greedy.
It was hard to narrow it down.
I assume you like both of those women in that pic.
Granny is all yours, man!
The cap would have been better with the traditional logo, really.
w00t! I’m gonna get me back some of that sweet social security money!
At work, so can’t comment on this one, but I really liked yesterday’s Q. Some nice curvy women, instead of sticks with obvious implants.
I have to agree with this. Yesterday’s was top notch, but you do you, Q.
Stick around for the afternoon links. I think I can wrassle something up for you.
17. If those are real, holy smokes.
30 is smokin’ hot
I think 19 wins
First hit when I ran #17 through Google Image search.
IFLS!
Something must be wrong with my eyes. I only see one woman, #3.
This is the last weekend of the 184th Oktoberfest. Sad.
PROBLEMATIC, VERY PROBLEMATIC!
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/business/media/playboy-mansion-hefner.html
Yes, listening to anyone associated with Gymkata is very, very problematic.
So, the woman knew exactly what would be expected of her if she went, but did so anyway thinking she’d get a free meal out of the trip. Yeah, I’m supposed to feel sorry for her?
KK’s quote of the day: “Why the fuck would you go big when you can go home?”
Also, better’n Bok
That’s awesome, though shouldn’t it be a Chinese 12 year old giving him his iPhone?
Thats a crazy burn.
I like to go big at home. I have put an awful lot of time and effort into my home, I like to enjoy it when I have the chance.
I’ve seen first-hand how many academics end up unable to find tenure-track positions and are stuck in low-paying, temporary limbo. However, it’s hard for me to feel a lot of sympathy cause they can always do like I did and y’know, get a real job.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/28/adjunct-professors-homeless-sex-work-academia-poverty?CMP=share_btn_fb
A friend of mine went through this. For two solid years she complained (daily) about the cost of living in her chosen city, her lack of a tenure-track position and her “being forced” to work as an adjunct at a couple of schools all while refusing to “give up her right to be a tenured professor.”
Why would schools hire neophyte PhDs for tenure track? There is a glut of liberal arts grads on the market. The only tenure schools need to dole out is to well-established academics who they can use in their marketing/recruitment.
This is why I never even tried. I worked hard to get the damn credential, I wanna get paid son. I got offered a postdoc doing the same type of research at Michigan Tech (which would have been nice, UP and all) but the low pay and lack of long term career prospects led me to make a rational choice and go work in defense for roughly 150% more money.
I like the forever-recurring argument about Walmart being subsidized by food stamps and Medicaid because they don’t pay a “living salary.”
Well, sure. Entry-level positions are paid entry-level wages. But at least Walmart clerks don’t have to borrow beaucoup student loans to get their poverty-level jobs. And you know what, you can get a checkout job at the Walmart in Farmington, NM, just like you could in Denver or LA.
Just remind them that every single administrative group, no matter how useful, is telling a whole section of a department to use adjuncts instead of hiring 4 faculty. You want a department of LGBT-Left-Handed Inclusivity? Great. No open tenure tracks in the PoliSci department for 15 years. Anyone retires or the university expands enrollment, those courses will be taught by adjuncts.
Anyone up for a caption contest?
“…Ugh, what am I doing here with these two clowns?…”
“…Ugh, what am I doing here with these two clowns?…”
“…Ugh, what am I doing here with these two clowns?…”
Human Centipede: The Quickening
“Q tittay link reaccs”
Obama: “Me. Me, me, me, me. I’m great. Me.”
Bush: “I think I see a terrist over yonder, git ’em!”
Clinton: “Check out the tits on her”
Wouldn’t
Wouldn’t
Wouldn’t
lol
“Guess which one if us HASN’T put it to Michelle?”
FIFY
“Guess which one of us Michelle HASN’T put it to”
Thanks…for the visual.
/puts lunch back in fridge
People asked me for references yesterday for a couple of things, but I didn’t get around to digging these things up until later. I don’t want to rehash old threads, but I don’t want to leave people hanging either. So I’ll just leave the stats and references here–and try to resist the urge to editorialize . . . too much.
In regards to the bill Rand Paul voted against, here are the numbers.
Over ten years:
Cut $772 billion from Medicaid
Cut $408 billion from subsidies for non-group health insurance
Cut taxes collected because of ObamaCare by $541 billion (that’s a “cost” to government from the CBO’s perspective)
Net cut to federal spending over ten years equaled $321 billion (including lost “revenue” from tax cuts) .
Other select statistics:
“The largest savings would come from reductions in outlays for Medicaid—spending on the program would decline in 2026 by 26 percent in comparison with what CBO projects under current law”
“in 2018, 15 million more people would be uninsured under this legislation than under current law—primarily because the penalty for not having insurance would be eliminated.”
“In 2020, average premiums for benchmark plans for single individuals would be about 30 percent lower than under current law.”
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/52849
I’m against doing all of these things for three reasons.
1) It doesn’t solve 100% of our problems, and, obviously, if it doesn’t solve all of our problems, then it shouldn’t solve some of them or make anything better.
And let’s face it, this plan didn’t get rid of the exchanges entirely, and it didn’t soften your hands while you do the dishes.
2) The Republicans said they would do more.
Obviously, if the Republicans don’t do everything they said they were going to do, then we should stop them from doing anything.
3) It cuts Medicaid eligibility in Kentucky, which is morally unconscionable given their high dependency on Medicaid.
I get your point that the bill would be an improvement.
I think that it would be short term improvement, followed quickly by a long term detriment.
As soon at the Republicans pass anything, they then immediately own it. If they own it and it still sucks, which it will, that makes it a lot easier for the Dems to give us commiecare next time the political winds shift, which they will. If the Rs don’t do something *BIG with tangible results, we are going to be getting commiecare in about 8 years.
*by big, I mean repeal, repeal, repeal, deregulate, deregulate, deregulate, and cut spending, cut spending, cut spending.
Guess we’re fucked then. Republicans wouldn’t even know how to deregulate everything that is wrong with healthcare in this country, even if they wanted to (which they don’t).
Except the establishment Republicans weren’t the ones who refused to vote for it.
Rand Paul refused to vote for it. In fact, this is the bill Rand Paul voted against.
John McCain even voted for this one.
john McCain voted for his one?
Actually, it never came up for a vote, so McCain couldn’t have voted for it. Technically.
He was crystal clear, though, that he was opposed and would vote against it.
I think we’re talking about different bills, Mr. Dean.
John McCain actually voted in favor of the bill I linked above.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/25/us/politics/senate-votes-repeal-obamacare.html
John McCain voted against the skinny repeal–which was different–and said he would vote against the latest one that was never brought up for a vote.
Rand Paul voted against the bill I outlined above.
John McCain voted for it.
So, we can’t really blame the establishment Republicans for the failure of the bill I outlined above. The establishment Republicans–including John McCain–voted for the bill I outlined above.
Rand Paul voted against it.
It still wasn’t even close to passing though, if those vote tallies are to be believed, so you’ve still got at least what 8 other repubs who voted no as well?
Fuck you!
You’re going to tout around a 43-57 bill as super important when you dismissed a 45-55 bill as “no chance of passing” the other day?
HERE’S YOUR DOUBLE STANDARD!
Koblino,
If you don’t understand that Rand Paul can’t be counted on to vote to cut Medicaid eligibility–not even when he’s the only vote that matters . . .
Have you been asleep for the past few days?
Are you not aware that Rand Paul just promised to vote no–even when he was apparently the only one who could make those cuts happen?
None so blind as those who refuse to see.
At this point, the only conclusion I can reach is that you have an immunity to reality. You’ve already decided Rand Paul is a traitor, now it’s just a quest to find evidence.
I meant, we’ll never get a proper reform that squashes all the stupid restrictions and crony shit in US healthcare, went a little OT and it isn’t even Obamacare crap. They need to go a lot further imo to really fix things, and they’re not even close to doing it.
This Senate won’t. The next Senate will be a very different Senate.
There’s a reason the Democrats and the RINOs are pushing for a big compromise bill: they need it so they can staunch the bleeding in the midterm elections. There are several incumbent Dem Senators who need to go back to Trump states (IN, OH, PA, WI, MT, ND, MI, FL, WV) and brag about how they voted with Rand Paul and Donald Trump to reform Obamacare. They need that political cover, desperately need it so they can save their worthless hides.
Rand Paul wants repeal, not replace, not fix, not compromise, not reform. He wants it now, but he’ll take it later, and if he takes it later that’s just the beginning.
You ever hear the joke about the old bull and the young bull?
Yes. Let’s actually keep in mind there isn’t a real Republican majority in the senate for all the sneering about them being unable to get things done. There definitely isn’t for healthcare, since several “Republicans” are virtually guaranteed to vote against any and all health care changes.
It’s tight and there are few Republicans who aren’t actual Republicans in the same of what they vote for on these issues.
“The next Senate will be a very different Senate.”
The next Senate will need 60 votes to repeal ObamaCare rather than 50 + the Vice President. You think the next Senate is going to pick up 10 seats for the Republicans?
The opportunity to cut Medicaid eligibility has never come up before–not in 50 years. It’s never even been pitched over the plate before. And it’s an accident of history that we have a president who’s willing to sign a bill that cuts Medicaid eligibility.
Real libertarians don’t pass on opportunities to cut Medicaid eligibility.
“CBO and JCT estimate that, over the 2017-2026 period, enacting this legislation would reduce direct spending by $1,022 billion and reduce revenues by $701 billion”
—CBO link above.
A real libertarian doesn’t vote againstcutting $1.03 trillion in spending and another $701 billion in taxes–because he thinks–the next congress–might give him an opportunity to cut spending and taxes.
But Rand Paul did.
He voted against doing that.
Fuck you, Rand Paul. Cut spending.
“You think the next Senate is going to pick up 10 seats for the Republicans?”
Look at the Senate map. Look at it. There are 8 Democratic Senators up for reelection in states Trump won. There’s a very good chance Rand Paul commands a super majority of Republican Senators who look to him, and not to Orrin Hatch or John McCain or Lindsey Graham as their intellectual lodestone.
I keep telling you Ken: you are missing the forest for the trees. This is the last desperate gamble of the Dem/RINO complex. This is their Battle of the Bulge. Or if you prefer the WWI flavor, their Kaiserschlacht. They are desperately trying to get Rand to bail them out, to give them the “grand bargain” that will cover their worthless asses and keep those 8 Senators in power.
A senator in the hand is worth ten in the bush.
Especially, for this last time, when the only senator Rand Paul needed was himself.
The next Senate will need 60 votes
Unless they change the rules again, which they can do just as easily as they did this time.
I hear Ken on this, and he’s got a good point, but my thinking is thus: there’s one shot here, so it better be good. Whatever gets passed is going to be *the* alternative to Obamacare. I don’t think that this is the kind of thing where you’ll see incremental change, because the political cost is so damn high. You’ve got to cut the tumor out entirely, in one go,
Otherwise, here’s what’s going to happen.
The R’s pass this bill. They tout it as an overhaul of O’care and the fulfillment of their mandate. They’ve finally solved the Obamacare problem. Now it’s done, it’s off the front burner. The Rand Pauls of the world will bring up further repeals and reforms, but the R leadership will handwave it away as old business. And we get a watered-down Obamacare rather than a full repeal.
More importantly, ten years from now when it finally collapses totally, the Left shrieks about WE TRIED A MARKET BASED SOLUTION WITH RAND PAUL AND DONALD TRUMP AND IT DIDN’T WORK, TIME FOR SINGLE PAYER.
The GOP owes its current strength to the fact that not a single one of them voted for Obamacare. The Left, the media, and the RINOs (redundancy alert) are desperately pleading for Rand Paul to join them on the sinking ship so that that he can share the blame when it sinks. Anything Rand Paul votes for is gonna be MARKET FUNDAMENTALISM, that will be the message, so Rand’s not voting for anything but straight repeal of the entire law.
Exactly. It’s on a slope towards single-payer, but there’s a wedge under the tires. If you don’t get it on the other side of the hill, as soon as there are enough Dem votes they’re pulling those wedges out and we’re getting a socialized, nationalize medical system. That’s the next step.
There is no significant difference between voting to keep the eligibility standards for Medicaid wider open and voting for single payer.
Single payer is widening the eligibility for Medicaid to include, eventually, everybody. The more widely Medicaid eligibility is opened, the harder it is for the insurance companies to remain operative.
Voting to cut the number of people eligible for Medicaid is the opposite of single payer.
There is not greater implication, no other question to be decided. Single payer is opening eligibility for Medicaid, and that’s what Rand Paul voted to do.
Assuming that might have something to do with Kentucky being among the states most heavily dependent on Medicaid as a proportion of their population is not unreasonable.
Assuming that Rand Paul must be right about this because he’s Rand Paul is unreasonable.
I’m one of those people who would love to be wrong about the idea that politicians are the solution to our problems. I teared up at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I’ve been to Fort McHenry. I’ve seen the actual flag that flying over Fort McHenry when Francis Scott Key wrote the national anthem–it’s ripped to shreds with holes from cannon balls. I’m as patriotic an American as you’re likely to find among rational people, and I’d love to think our problems can be solved by supporting the senator from Kentucky.
Politicians are not the solution to our problems. Convincing our fellow Americans is the solution to our problems. If we can’t even convince our fellow libertarians to criticize a ostensibly libertarian senator for screwing our principles over to save a profoundly socialist program for his state, then we should abandon all hope.
And if Rand Paul is to become a legitimate hope someday, it’ll only be because he experiences negative consequences for his misbehavior.
The bill you’re touting above kept the Medicaid expansion open. It just reduced funding for it.
Standards: you’ve got none
I’m not sure how you can take this position. Expanding Medicaid is not the same thing as establishing universal state-run healthcare, which is what single payer systems become if they don’t start that way right off the bat. And not supporting a bad “solution” that doesn’t solve the problem at hand is not the same thing as voting in favor of the problem. Respectfully, I think that’s a touch hyperbolic.
And, honestly, I’m not in favor of things Rand Paul supports because Rand Paul supports them. I like Rand Paul because he tends to agree with me. I’m too much of an egotist to mold my opinions to match those of other people. I can barely scrape together enough humility to admire other people.
The bill you’re touting above kept the Medicaid expansion open. It just reduced funding for it.
Standards: you’ve got none
The funding cut was because it rolled back the Medicaid expansion.
You falsely attack attack other people’s standards, kbolino, because you’re ashamed of your ignorance, and maybe down deep inside, you’re ashamed of kissing Rand Paul’s ass even after he betrayed our principles.
You shouldn’t be too ashamed, though. That’s what most people do. The average person you meet is of below average intelligence, but their characters are almost all below any “standard”. They’d rather kiss the ass of someone they supported–just because they support him–rather than admit they were wrong. Some sheep are smarter than others, but it isn’t their intelligence that makes them sheep. It’s just their nature.
“Expanding Medicaid is not the same thing as establishing universal state-run healthcare”
I’m sure an important point is getting lost in translation, here.
We should not forget that the essential reason why we have so many problems with high premiums is because of Medicaid and Medicare. The reason average premiums (and deductibles) have exploded in recent years is primarily because of the expansion of Medicaid.
The reason the CBO says that premiums will go down by 30% in 2020 from where they are now is because that’s when then Medicaid expansion disappears.
Yes, expanding Medicaid crushes the private insurance markets. That’s why Obama needed the individual mandate–to force young healthy people who won’t use insurance to buy it anyway. Why? In order to help shield the insurance companies from all the money they’d lose because of the Medicaid expansion.
Please see this chart if you don’t understand what that means.
https://glibertarians.com/2017/03/why-youre-wrong-about-healthcare/
It is a crucial piece of the puzzle.
Intuitively, you already know this. You know that forcing providers to give away healthcare below cost to people on government programs forces up the cost to privately insured customers.
Somehow, you’re translating that fact into what expanding the eligibility for Medicaid does to cost of insurance premiums. Once again, look at the chart I linked. That’s the reality. You cannot expand Medicaid without crowding out private insurance. And expanding the eligibility for Medicaid is Single Payer. It’s just a matter of time. We’re already going to start bailing out the insurance companies because of all the money they lost because of the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion. Rand Paul voted against cutting Medicaid eligibility. When he turns around and claims he had no idea that would mean bailouts, we should all laugh in his face.
When those bailouts are used to justify further Medicaid expansion, there won’t be anything funny about it.
I’m attacking your lack of standards because, well, you have a lack of standards. Accusing me of kissing Rand Paul’s ass because you ignore every fact contrary to your “Rand Paul betrayed us” narrative doesn’t make you right.
You actually claimed the bill I linked didn’t cut Medicaid eligibility.
You actually read facts different from what they are to suit your personal perspective of Rand Paul–rather than visa versa . . .
. . . and then you say I’m ignoring the facts?!
LOL
Better Care Reconciliation Act
This is the bill that McCain voted for and Paul voted against. From the summary (emphasis mine):
In other words, it doesn’t get rid of the Medicaid expansion, it just codifies NFIB V. Sibellius into statutory law. It does cut the matching rate for states enrolled in the expansion (further sections), but not below 75% and that’s by 2023. There’s a reason the bill is called repeal and replace! By contrast, S.Amdt.271 which I linked the other day and Paul voted for but McCain voted against cuts the expansion entirely and doesn’t replace it.
This is the problem with reading the New York Times and CNN’s spin rather than the bills themselves. The bill text is authoritative, not some idiot reporter’s biased summary of it.
Any analysis other than this completely misses the big picture. Standard operating procedure for the democrats is as follows.
1) get majority of Congress
2) pass horrible power grab bill partially taking over some industry
3) lose majority of congress
4) crow and holler as republicans attempt to pass a fix, resulting in the fix being a mess
5) experience the inevitable economic consequences of the original power grab
6) blame it on the republican fix
7) get elected back into power
8) pass an even stronger power grab
Single payer is inevitable, and has been ever since the SCOTUS refused to kill the individual mandate. The only sliver of hope was a skinny repeal at the very beginning of the Trump administration, but that was never going to happen.
Bored. So bored.
Dead bill is dead. Nothing changed. Let it go.
Furthermore, get ready for single payer. Mark my words, by 2030 it will happen.
Prolly right. The UK will see healthcare reform before we do.
Rand Paul, anti-capitalist. QED.
Still not sure what any of this has to do with Murkowski. Just buy her a fucking pony already and Rand’s vote is irrelevant.
Who could have seen this coming?
Republicans’ release of a sweeping plan to rewrite the tax code has set off a scramble among Washington lobbyists and trade groups to protect valuable tax breaks and other long-ingrained provisions.
The plan’s scant details make it hard to know what, exactly, is on the chopping block. But within hours of the plan’s unveiling on Wednesday, flash points emerged over measures that supporters said could hurt the housing market, raise borrowing costs and increase the tax burden on families in high-tax states.
It’s a good day to be a lobbyist.
I wish there was a way to prosecute lobbyists for being implicit in a giant bribery scheme. That’s what they do, and they shouldn’t be able to. I don’t know how to stop it though.
As much as they are distasteful, you cannot blame the subjects for appealing to the crown.
The responsibility lies with those who have the power to imprison if you don’t pay up.
NYT’s prints article that actually includes quotes calling Cuba’s treatment of its doctors for what it is, slavery. NYT’s readers, the few who have bothered to comment, completely miss the point. I won’t spoil it for you.
I lied. NYT picks:
“there are no taxes to speak of”
You can’t tax a slave.
Y-e-a-h, one might argue that deliberately holding back prosperity in the service of securing the Castros’ permanent rule might be considered an even more invidious form of taxation… you know, the sort that ensures that not only are you stripped of all your earning potential, but that you can expect no better for your children.
there are no taxes to speak of
No comment.
Cubans mostly need to worry about food
But I thought socialism took care of people’s basic needs? Hunger and poverty were never the intentions. Did they lock up the wreckers responsible for this atrocity?
You missed the part where “the embargo” is blamed for lack of food. Even though Cuba is a subtropical island with a year-round growing season and there is no trade embargo with other nations including Europe.
That was my favorite part.
The Jones Act is a more effective embargo on Puerto Rico than the actual embargo on Cuba.
“But in one of his final attempts to normalize relations with Cuba, President Barack Obama in January ended the program, which had allowed Cuban doctors stationed in other countries to get permanent residency visas for the United States.”
Dafuq?
The U.S. needs doctors. There are doctors in Cuba who desperately want to come to the U.S. and Obama denied them, helping prop up the commie government of Cuba.
Obama did something to aid a communist dictatorship, in opposition to American interests???
Knock me over with a fucking feather.
Imagine thousands of Cuban-American doctors, treating patients and sharing horror stories of socialized medicine.
Aid a communist regime, and punish semi-reliable Republican voters.
Cause and effect.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/nfl-ticket-sales-plummet-179/article/2635955
I’m still subscribed to the nfl on youtube. their view counts are down. they stay low for several days now.
Snooty Seuss-hating librarian learns the internet is forever.
That’s fucking priceless.
Also, she’s dressed as Cat in the Hat, but holding Green Eggs and Ham. Illiterate cunt.
Would.
Seconded. Motion to adjourn.
Errrr…enjoy?
You can’t fool me, that’s Hitler’s grandson.
For like the next month every time I feel down in the dumps I’m going to think of that Tweet thread thing and laugh my ass off.
SO much hypocrite gold out there.
She looks like she’s wearing blackface in that pic. (the librarian,Michelle)
That is absolutely precious.
This reference contains some statistics on Libya as a source of Jihadis. It was compiled by the United States Military Academy at West Point, and the numbers were gleaned from what amounts to captured Al Qaeda personnel files.
“Al-Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq”
A First Look at the Sinjar Records
—-United States Military Academy at West Point
https://ctc.usma.edu/posts/al-qaidas-foreign-fighters-in-iraq-a-first-look-at-the-sinjar-records
True, this is snapshot of Libyan jihadi numbers at one point in time, but that quote about how “Most of the Libyan recruits came from cities in North‐East Libya, an area long known for jihadi‐linked militancy.” is, I believe, a reference to the fact that this part of Libya has been a source of jihadis since Gaddafi went authoritarian and kleptocrat and the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.
I should add, it isn’t hard to understand why a vicious dictatorship that’s a leading exporter of oil and impoverishes its people might become a leading exporter of jihadis, especially given wealthy shieks in Saudi Arabia who are eager to pay for the transportation, education, and military training of jihadis in Pakistan and elsewhere to fight the Russians in Afghanistan or Chechnya . . . or the Serbs in Bosnia. . . . or the Algerians . . . or the Egyptians . . . or the Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq. Libya has been a disproportionate source of the world’s jihadis for decades.
Oppression breeds revolt, and Gaddafi’s oppression bred a special kind of revolt that had presented a significant threat to American security–for more than a decade.
Glad we got rid of him and solved that jihadi problem, then.
Yeah, I’m not sure I buy Qaddafi in a causal role there. I guess I’d need to see a stable representative democracy in the ME to see if it’s really just a matter of oppressive regimes creating terrorism, which means I’ll never know I suppose.
Yeah, why would oppression breed revolt?
Why would all these terrorist groups rise up against the vicious dictators of North Africa, and why would they be more successful recruiting in countries with more oppression?
Why would other countries in North Africa, like Morocco, experience relatively little in the way of terrorist groups coalescing and rising up against the government?
Why would Libya, a big oil exporter, have such a low standard of living–and an undeveloped coast on the Mediterranean? Why would Libya, being ranked among the most corrupt countries on earth–much worse than their neighbors in North Africa–devastate the economy and make the people resentful of the government? Why would people resent the hell out of a kleptocracy when they hear about how oil rich nations like Saudi Arabia and Dubai are lavishing benefits on their citizens?
Why would that poverty, oppression, and corruption translate into revolutionary jihadist organizations finding enthusiastic recruits–to the point that 85% of Libyan volunteers (far more than the others) were willing to be suicide bombers when called upon?
The neocons were wrong about a lot of things. They weren’t wrong about everything. Oppression and a lack of economic opportunity being an especially potent force in staffing the world’s jihadi organizations should not be discounted–certainly not just because the United States invading and occupying Iraq, Syria, or Libya is a terrible idea.
Shooting myself in the belly to cure cancer is a terrible idea, but the fact that cancer is a serious health problem is legit. We’re libertarians. Pointing out that a Marxist kleptocratic authoritarian dictator might be the cause of the problem really shouldn’t take much convincing. What to do about it is another issue.
What we did about it cost very little in terms of money and there were no American casualties during the war.
P.S. I opposed Obama’s Libya War because it was unconstitutional. This discussion is presumably within the context of whether Congress should have authorized what we did in the air to support the UK, France, and Qatar. In terms of Libya being a strategic mistake, and I see people criticizing it because so many jihadis have left Afghanistan and Iraq and gone back to Libya–as if a diminished threat to our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq were evidence of a strategic mistake?
Revolt != exporting foreign terrorists.
Besides, economic factors, which you mention, are a stronger indicator of whether or not jihadi groups will find recruits. That there were jihadis being recruited from a north African dictatorship that wasn’t terribly stable points more to Qaddafi’s inability to exert control in those regions, coupled with the crap economy you refer to resulting from corruption and ineptitude, than it does to Qaddafi’s dictatorship squeezing out jihad like toothpaste out of a tube.
But here’s the thing. If your premise is correct, then we would expect to see decreased Libyan terrorism since Qaddafi’s demise; it has increased. By extension, the removal of Saddam Hussein should have resulted in less terrorism; it increased dramatically. The overthrow of Hosni Mubarak should have resulted in less terrorism; it increased. As the Syrian regime lost its grip, ISIS formed and grew in power. For damn near fifteen years we have had this lesson pounded into us. Yes, dictatorships produce opposition groups, and in Muslim countries those groups tend to coalesce around jihadism in much the same way as revolutionary groups in Europe during the 70s and 80s tended to coalesce around Communism.
Your analogy about shooting yourself in the stomach to cure cancer was apt, but in the following paragraph you seem to be advocating for it.
I’m not talking about what might have happened. I’m talking about what did happen and why.
Gaddafi was good at creating the conditions that would create enthusiastic recruits for jihadi organizations.
Al Qaeda and others provided those recruits with funds, transportation, indoctrination, training, and a place to go fight.
Incidentally, poor kids without much of a future make excellent recruits for the cartels in places like Colombia, Mexico, and in Central America.
That vicious oppression by an impoverishing dictator would create excellent conditions for a garden of jihadis really shouldn’t be hard for any libertarian to understand–but we’re not talking about something that might have happened in the future.
I’m not theorizing, here. I’m talking about what’s happened in the past.
This is like arguing about NAFTA and GATT. Some people argue about these things as if they were just proposed today. Actually, we have some twenty years of data on those agreements. What was Krugnuts’ line?
“First of all, whatever you may say about the benefits of free trade, most of those benefits have already been realized.”
—-Paul Krugnutz
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/22/opinion/paul-krugman-trade-and-trust.html?_r=0
That’s about as nice as he could put it to the left that were questioning him on free trade.
We’re talking about things that have been going on since 1979. They kept on going. Didn’t stop! The Libyan jihadis were fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, the Serbs in Bosnia, the Soviets in Chechnya, the Egyptians, they were fighting in Algeria, and they fought the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq. Once something has been going on since 1979, it’s no longer theoretical. It’s in the past.
Oh, the idea that oppression breeds revolt isn’t a hypothesis that needs much testing either.
Were you not aware that Gaddafi was a vicious dictator?
If you want to read more about it, go look it up yourself. I thought I was cluing you into something maybe you didn’t know about.
I wasn’t looking to argue about whether the sun orbits the earth.
I didn’t say it solved the problem completely or immediately.
I said it was part of a long term solution to a long term problem.
As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, just because doing something doesn’t solve all of a problem completely and immediately doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea.
Certainly, if depriving the world jihadi movement of a significant supply of new recruits costs us little money, no casualties, and doesn’t require us to put any boots on the ground, figure out what happens for Libya next, stay there for 15 years, etc., etc., then in the cost/benefit analysis, what we did in assisting the French, British, and Qataris (the latter of which took all responsibilities on the ground) was, by far, the smartest thing we’ve done in the War on Terror.
And, anyway, just to be clear, I’m not making shit up about Libya having been an unusually large manufacturer of the world’s jihadis. If the Libyan jihadis have largely gone back to Libya, that’s a good thing–not a bad thing. They can’t kill our troops in Iraq or Afghanistan from Libya, and they aren’t much of a threat to American security in Libya either. Meanwhile, if average Libyans can manage to earn a decent standard of living without the authoritarian kleptocrat that’s been oppressing them for 40 years, there won’t be as many jihadis coming from Libya in the future. The reason terrorist groups found so many enthusiastic recruits in Libya was because the alternative to being a jihadi wasn’t always better than living under Gaddafi.
This seems pretty optimistic. Libya used to have the highest per capita GDP in Africa, civil war doesn’t usually help that much. Maybe you’re right and that long-term things will improve, but I’m not so optimistic.
Gaddafi took power in 1969. In 1975, he threw his whole lot in with the Soviets, and then he went full retard. Their standard of living took a nose dive after that.
There is no guarantee that Libya will come out the other end of this smelling like a rose, but there was no way they were going to improve so long as Gaddafi or his oppressive successors were in charge.
A mother comes into the ER with her daughter who keeps passing out and grabbing her chest. Then the little girl goes into full cardiac arrest. A nurse comes out and says, “We need to cut your daughter’s chest open, break open her rib cage, and manually pump her heart–but I need you to sign this consent form”.
If they do all those intrusive and traumatic things to your little girl, there’s no guarantee that it’ll save her life. On the other hand, if they don’t do those tough things, she’s definitely going to die.
That’s not really a tough decision to make, is it?
Also, in Libya’s situation, it’s important to remember two things.
1) The Libyan people were going to have revolution with us or without us, and a significant part of the military were siding with the people. It wasn’t an either the U.S. overthrows Gaddafi or not. If the west hadn’t participated, Libya would still have a revolution/civil war, but it might have looked more like Syria does today.
2) The British and the French were going in with us or without us–and the Qataris had already committed to going in on the ground. I think a lot of people conflate Libya with Iraq, but they were very different. We decided to topple Saddam despite what the people of Iraq may have wanted. The people of Libya decided to rise up against Gaddafi–not the U.S.
The other big difference is that in Libya, because we didn’t commit ground troops, there was no danger of quagmire. The easiest way to get out of a quagmire is to never get in in the first place.
Incidentally, I don’t think this is evidence of Obama being a tactical mastermind or anything. I think Obama made a lot of good strategic calls during the war–maybe for all the wrong reasons! He certainly did the wrong thing in setting up an embassy in the aftermath. It’s just that over the course of eight years, he was sure to do the right thing, if only by accident, at least once.
Oh, and I say, “he did the right thing”, there, but I mean strategically. What he did in Libya was also unconstitutional, and violating his oath to defend, preserve, and protect the Constitution is just plain wrong.
I wish there was some way to confirm or deny this, but I can’t find anything pre-1990 on Libya when it comes to economic data.
More like bringing your daughter to a maniac with an axe and hoping that the surgery goes well, considering at least half the country is overrun with the terrorists who, according to you, went back there from Iraq and Afghanistan. This does not seem like a winning strategy for reforming Libya into a better society.
All the more reason to let them do it. If everyone else was going to do the dirty work, why get involved at all?
Couldn’t agree more. It is funny how things can sometimes go form just bombing someone, or advising rebels into something more.
We agree on this much at least.
I need to figure out what to do so I’m not constantly restating foundation principles. I don’t know if it’s a fault of mine or if it’s just a cognitive bias, where it’s often hard for us all to remember when we learned what we know now (was it three years ago or two?), and I think we all tend to assume other people are familiar with the same things we know. Meanwhile, why would anybody necessarily be familiar with Gaddafi’s rise to power and early rule?
Anyway, here’s a rough overview of that topic from Wikipedia in two links–separated so as not to make our good hosts fish my post out of the spam folder.
Observation 1:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Civil_War_(2011)#Leadership
Of course, Wikipedia isn’t the ultimate authority on anything, but if you want to read up on any of the details, it’s a good place to start.
The part in bold is specifically in response to your observations above and the link below. If my bold tags work, anyway.
This second link is about Gaddafi’s Green Book. It’s basically modeled after Chairman Mao’s Red Book.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Book_(Muammar_Gaddafi)
Living standards predictably fell through the toilet after Gaddafi went full communist circa 1975. Over time (not very much, actually), the idea that the state should own all the means of production (especially oil production) was enhanced by the idea that Gaddafi and his cronies were the state–so logically all the means of production should be owned by Gaddafi!
That this system led to the impoverishment of his people and brutal repression is about as surprising as the sunrise–which is to say, not surprising at all. Gaddafi was the Hugo Chavez of his day–only far more so.
One of the things that doesn’t get emphasized enough, these days, is that we can’t really understand what’s happened in the Middle East since 2001 unless we understand what happened in the Middle East during the Cold War. Even Russia, Syria, and Iran all being on the same side today is about what happened during the Cold War. Our support for Egypt can’t be understood without understanding the Cold War. Even our support for Israel can’t be understood without accounting for the Cold War. Our support for Saudi Arabia, the resentment by Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood, etc. against the U.S. for supporting vicious dictators in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, etc. . . . our support was all about the Cold War.
Anyway, yeah, Gaddafi through in his lot with communism, and the negative consequences of vicious authoritarianism that followed could only start to dissipate once he was deposed. Once you go vicious authoritarian, it’s not like you can go back without your head on a pike. And let’s face it, nobody wants their head on a pike. Especially when he had the Fox Force Five as his bodyguards.
brilliant play by the Saudis and the Libyans to pay their disaffected youth to fight Western civilization in other countries. so is Saudi Arabia paying the Libyan jihadis now in Gaddafi’s vacuum?
The Saudi royal family now has more than 15,000 members.
Marrying women four at a time, factoring out the daughters, and then remarrying the sons four at time, and so on, you can get there pretty quick.
Wiki says only 2,000 of them are actually in a position to make decisions.
Still, when you’re talking about the Saudi government or the royal family, the left hand doesn’t always know what the right hand is doing.
They agree to split the oil revenue among themselves, lavish benefits on their people, and support the clerics that help guarantee their continued power.
I can’t get five family members to agree on whose house to go to for Thanksgiving.
https://twitter.com/Oprah/status/913551310628184064
Christ, she’s probably win too.
she’d
Get Tom Cruise for VP and I’m in.
Oh goodie. Another bored billionaire who needs something to do after they’ve done everything else.
She would be an unmitigated disaster, though.
Free cars for everybody!
YOU GET MORE TAXES, AND YOU GET MORE TAXES, AND YOU GET MORE TAXES!!
EVERYBODY GETS MORE TAXES!!!!
Imagine how much free shit there will be when she gets to spend other people’s money and not just her own!
Does anyone even give a shit about Oprah anymore? It’s not as if she were particularly prominent in the last decade.
Go google intersectionality and get back with me.
I think she has a lot of goodwill stored up among the segment of people who watched her show and bought her books. But I also think she could easily piss away most of that goodwill by being forced to take a stand on some of the divisive issues of the day. The left does not seem to be in a mood to tolerate mealy-mouth centrism, and the centrists have shown that they can be spooked by the far-left and flee to safety in the arms of “deplorables”, so I think Oprah’s chances in the present climate are overrated.
This thread’s mostly dead at this point, so likely no one reads this, but…..if I’m not mistaken, didn’t her cheerleading for Obama cause her ratings to drop? I think she already took her goodwill hit, which hastened the end of her flagship show. I mean, I know she still has her network, but from a superficial reading of it, it exists mainly to show old re-runs of Dateline and 20/20 and 48 Hours.
Wrenn v DC
Wrenn v. D.C. is the latest in a long series of challenges to the city’s strict gun laws. The case centers around the city’s gun-carry law, put in place after the previous ban on all gun-carry was declared unconstitutional, which allows city officials to deny a permit application based on whether they believe the applicant has a “good reason” for obtaining one. The plaintiffs complained that in practice this has resulted in very few gun-carry permits being issued in the city, with only 126 permits issued as of July 2017, and said the restriction is an unconstitutional infringement on their Second Amendment rights.
DC requested en banc but just lost.
http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Document.pdf
“We are bound to leave the District as much space to regulate as the Constitution allows—but no more. Just so, our opinion does little more than trace the boundaries laid in 1791 and flagged in Heller I,” Judge Thomas Griffith wrote for the majority. “And the resulting decision rests on a rule so narrow that good-reason laws seem almost uniquely designed to defy it: that the law-abiding citizen’s right to bear common arms must enable the typical citizen to carry a gun.”
and there it is. “may issue” is unconstitutional.
and there it is. “may issue” is unconstitutional.
All gun laws are unconstitutional.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
I’m not a constitutional scholar, but I do know how to read.
The problem with your opinion is that you are testing the constitutionality of things on a piece of paper called the US constitution, but the actual test is being performed in a place where the Constitution doesn’t mean squat.
Yes, the 3rd Circuit ruled that New Jersey’s prohibition of its citizens bearing arms does not burden the right to bear arms. And SCOTUS let it stand.
Futurama is great.
It doesn’t even matter. The cunts will simply pass the same shit with a few words changed around and force people to litigate for their rights all over.
They’ll keep doing this until they get the majority back on the Supreme Court.
^This. Because there are no consequences for doing so. Although there should be for purposefully violating civil rights.
There is for normies, but our elite betters can do whatever they want.
I really wish the constitution came with an amendment that said,
Persons that violate the constitution shall be immediately stripped of its protections and unceremoniously deported to a country with laws more in tune with their way of thinking.
SCOTUS will grant cert if current POTUS gets two more picks on there to replace Kennedy and RBG.
Yet this decision somehow doesn’t apply to New Jersey. I’ve been waiting months for my pistol purchase (not carry) permit here.
(I’m updating the resume and applying for a job in New Hampshire this weekend)
No shit, yet places like NJ are allowed to get away with it. And somehow NJ continues to avoid being slapped down for it.
If the Trump presidency results in nationwide shall-issue, all the rest of the circus will have been worth it. Bonus points for suppressors coming off of the NFA.
Pelosi has been incredibly glum about the Dems chances of blocking the SHARE Act. Last quote I read from her was that GOP has the votes to pass it.
No mention of a football game last night? Even checked the comments! You all boycotting?
Good game by the Packers. Brutal, illegal hit by Danny Trevathan right to Davantae Adams’ face.
That hit was some bullshit. I didn’t have a horse in the race, but I was hoping the Bears would make a game of it. That just looked like a guy who was frustrated as hell and wanted to take it out on someone. Absolutely unconscionable.
I can’t believe the refs didn’t eject him. That hit would have been illegal 30 years ago. I’m assuming that he laid back the rest of the game so nobody had an opportunity to blow his knees with a low block.
My wife and I both thought the remarkably easy touchdown the Packers got after Adams got carted off the field was a either a case of the Bears tacitly acknowledging that they’d kind of lost the moral high ground, or that none of them wanted to get too physical with the teammates of a guy who might not be able to walk again for fear of getting repaid in kind. You could tell the Packers were genuinely shook up. The look on Mason Foster’s face after he kicked the extra point was sobering.
I watched the play again this morning and noticed two bears players pointing ‘first down Chicago’. Right after looking at him out cold on the ground… Smh.
Well he didn’t not throw a punch. See, if they think you threw a punch, even if video shows the ref is fucking crazy, they bounce you. If you try to kill someone with a cheapshot to the head, that’s football.
How would the hit have been illegal five years ago, never mind 30? Adams is still fighting for yardage, the whistle hasn’t blown, he’s not down, he’s just wrapped up by another Bear. He breaks free from that guy, and it’s a touchdown. Trevathan isn’t spearing him. If he goes low on Adams instead, everyone would be screaming he’s trying to break Adams’s knees and be dirty.
Guys like Ronnie Lott and Steve Atwater, hell Ed Reed, made their bones (and made the League popular) with hits like those. I get it’s a penalty—you can’t hit people in the head anymore—but let’s not act like this is anywhere near as dirty as, say, the stuff Dale Carter used to pull with trying to rip guys’ knees apart away from the play.
I get what you mean. Packers / bears has some pretty bad stuff going back a ways. But launching and leading with the helmet wasn’t a thing prior to plastic helmets and face masks. That’s not tackling… Plus, guys are bigger and faster now. Best safety move they could make is removing the face mask to start.
I’m at the full ‘have-them-dress-like-rugby-players’ point. Maybe let them keep their knee braces.
We’re just rearranging chairs on the Titanic anyway until someone comes up with an in vivo CTE test and kills what’s left of the League after all of the SJW preening and a la carte pricing.
I wouldn’t doubt we’ll see players in full armor in my lifetime. Since MOAR PROTECTED.
Replace them with Boston Dynamics robots. The first decade or so will be hi-larious.
How would the hit have been illegal five years ago, never mind 30? Adams is still fighting for yardage, the whistle hasn’t blown, he’s not down, he’s just wrapped up by another Bear.
Unnecessary roughness, targeting a helpless player have long been penalties, even before the whistle blows. Helmet to helmet has been a penalty for at least ten years, and specifically called out for suspensions/ejections for that long. Leaving him in the game was a major biff by the officials – if you don’t eject for that, what do you eject for?
But… He said he didn’t mean it!
leading with crown of helmet. head shot on a WR.
he’ll sit a few games for that.
Retire already, it’s not even enjoyable making fun of her any more.
It’s getting sad. Wish Groovus was around to tell us what she is suffering from.
“Age”?
I honestly can’t imagine what motivates someone to keep doing that job until the bitter end instead of retiring to a life of leisure like a normal person.
The next season of American Horror Story should feature McCain and her, trapped in halls of Congress, and pursued by vengeful spirits. Everone should be nekkid, of course.
Barf
I can handle the most vile and grotesque horror scenes imaginable but please for the love of God no.
You want to see McCain and Pelosi naked?
Well, I wouldn’t say, “want to”. But to do horror right, there must be vomit inducing visuals. Plus, it helps with weight loss. They could sell themed spew buckets. Plus there could some comedy too. Like when they literally talk out of their asses.
You say that like you don’t.
Power. Privilege. The best seats…for everything, really. To be the straw that stirs the drink.
“Pelosi’s approval sits at 26%”
Fuck, that’s high.
Significantly lower than the 35-40% of reliable D lever pullers, which means even a chunk of her own team thinks she’s senile.
Unfortunately it’s likely around 90% with the people who matter, meaning voters in her district.
As long as she’s the face of the party in the House, her district’s voters are not the only ones that matter (as in, she can be an anchor on Dems in other races despite her popularity at home).
ouch.
I am getting slammed with emails every day from idiots saying “why don’t you do something in Puerto Rico? It would make your company look good!”
WOW! What a fucking bright idea! We hadn’t even thought about disaster relief, despite our company being one of the foremost tech providers for…disaster relief! You rubes sure are smart!
ThEy’Re AmErIcAn CiTiZeNs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well my ‘company’ already offered an instantaneous solution to the mass starvation and suffering…
Tree chicken for everybody
So, is it true that the PR Teamsters are letting their trucks idle because their compensation is too low?
It seems like total clickbait for Team Red, but on the very small chance it’s actually true, I figured I’d ask y’all and see what everyone thinks.
Nothing comes up in a Google news search. If it were true, it would be very easy to accuse them of price gouging. We know how lefties think of gouging, rite?
why don’t you do something in Puerto Rico?
“Why don’t you pay me to do something in Puerto Rico? I’ve got bills to pay, too, you know.”
“Looks like the left are pissed that Donald Trump’s DOJ have subpoena’d FB info on 6,000 anti-Trump activists. This is almost like weaponizing the IRS and then feeding donor information to interest groups in order to harm political activists that happen to be conservative and wish to remain anonymous in their giving.”
Under the new rhetorical rules established for this most important moment in history, you’re not allowed to compare anything happening now to similar events in the recent past. It’s called “whataboutism”, and Matt Welch won’t have it.
“We May Never Know Whether North Korea Tortured Otto Warmbier, Coroner Says”
time.com/4960425/otto-warmbier-coroner-north-korea/
WTF??
TW: Autoplay
he yanked his own teeth out and choked himself until he stroked out.
from twitter “22 year old’s spontaneously develop brain damage all the time”
It’s as mystifying as the motivation for Muslim men to intentionally run people over in vehicles.
Fight for 15. Cents. Why bother.
http://nbc4i.com/2017/09/29/ohios-minimum-wage-increasing-15-cents-in-2018/
$8.30 in Ohio is going to look pretty attractive once $12.20 kicks in in Western NY in 2020 and all the jobs disappear.
Most of those aren’t paying $8.30 but a market value of $10 or more in Ohio. Probably $8.30 in rural Ohio but not anywhere near Columbus or Cincinnati.
They simply haven’t been given a chance to acculturate to Western norms like abiding by traffic laws and not gang-raping random women.
I know Ohio is bad, but I didn’t know it was third-world level.
Yeah, I need to GTFO of this state. :/
The only okay thing about here is that cost of living isn’t terrible, but they’re trying hard to ruin that.
“Anti-SJW Trans Commentator Theryn Meyer Permanently Suspended from Twitter
“In the past they would just lock my account and give me a slap on the wrist for strong language. Now it’s a straight-up suspension,” she remarked. “There are people who do and say much more egregious things on Twitter. I’m generally very well-behaved on Twitter. I’m honestly puzzled…””
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/09/25/popular-anti-sjw-trans-commentator-theryn-meyer-suspended-twitter/
Twitter seems very heavy handed when it comes to people they don’t think should express certain views.
They’ve got some committee to review twitter accounts that people complain about. It’s heavily staffed with progs. And we all know that the SJWs are not hesitant to complain.
https://twitter.com/DanaPerino/status/913247134442561537
*triggered*
“Man loses 22 pounds by only eating potatoes
Taylor is documenting his experience, which he’s calling “Spud Fit,” on social media.”
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/02/02/australian-dad-embarks-on-potato-only-diet.html
Stupid.
I heard an interview with Penn Jillette, who also went on an all-potato diet. However, Penn didn’t use any flavorings, just potatoes. I think he also branched out into other flavorless items, with the rule that he would only eat one thing, sans yumminess. He lost a bunch of weight, on the order of over 100 lbs.
Yes, he started his big weight loss program by only eating potatoes for two weeks. The guy (Ray Cronise?) who put him on it said it really didn’t matter what food it was, he just picked potatoes because it was funny. The first two weeks was to reset Penn’s palate.
Penn goes into all the details in his book. Interesting read. Not nearly as crazy as most diets if you get the details.
a person’s opinion on Devos is really all I need.
*true that.
its sort of a litmus test for how batshit partisan people are. Everything Devos has done so far ranges from ‘objectively good’ to ‘harmless’. the only way you can possibly turn her into She-Hitler is if you’re drinking kool-aid 24/7
even my very progressive mother doesnt hate her. It’s probably because I’ve connected vouchers with her. My brother goes to a private school in Burlington. The middle child and myself got to go to the shit school down the street. we turned out ok, but he could probably use the good one.
Mom still has a flinch-like reaction to wanting to not like her because trump.
I don’t know if this has already been posted but there is an update to the librarian story.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/09/29/librarian-who-rejected-melania-trumps-dr-seuss-books-dressed-as-cat-in-hat.html
I love it when liberals step in their own shit
Kristen is really taking it on the chin today.
Maybe she should do some official links, since noone reads those either.
I guffawed.
Fuckin-a, man! And it’s been LJW both times!
I’ll sneak around behind LJW and and crouch down behind his knees, then you walk up to him and push his chest backwards. Then we’ll run.
Sounds like a plan!
Lol my bad it’s one of those days comments coming in too fast. At least I asked this time.
The plaintiffs complained that in practice this has resulted in very few gun-carry permits being issued in the city, with only 126 permits issued as of July 2017,
What’s the population of DC? Probably just a few hundred, right? It’s not like that number is prima facie evidence of intentional refusal to follow the law, or anything.
Haha, just kidding. That sort of analysis only applies to the private sector.
No mention of a football game last night?
The Prime live stream actually worked, for me. It was so awesome, I fell asleep.
*that’s how I know there was a rain delay
THERE ARE NO RAIN DELAYS IN FOOTBALL. pussies
“We May Never Know Whether North Korea Tortured Otto Warmbier, Coroner Says”
But that Russia thing? Totally ironclad.
https://twitter.com/neontaster/status/913775707024711680
LOL
Apologies if someone has linked this already today, but I found it interesting (in othrewords totally unsurprising) that the SF Chron had absolutely no mention of the freeway block on 101 that happened in LA yesterday by Antifa. Those asswipes blocked a major freeway down there for almost 20 minutes in the middle of the day to announce their planned Riot Day on November 4th.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ktrh9sJPGDI
how is that not arrestable?
It is Califuckingfornia. A couple years back assholes from BLM and BAMN chained themselves together on the Bay Bridge on MLK day. It took four hours to get them off the bridge. Imagine all the people that literally pissed or crapped themselves because of those criminal scumbags. Gascon, the SF DA waited until it had all died down and then charged them with nothing. No charges for completely blocking traffic on the major bridge into SF for hours.
did you get the call to cut em out? We had a few newspapers on the wall in the lock shop from the late 70’s or early 80’s when some protesters locked themselves to a bank and another where it was a planned parenthood i think? The old locksmith was in the photos with an angle grinder on the U lock someone used to attach their necks to the doors. he said it was the hardest thing he’d done.
Society evolves and technology progresses and we get more comfortable and enjoy better access to the wealth of human knowledge and ingenuity, and yet the protesters are still as dumb as ever.
Garbage in, garbage out.
Ha, ha! I can imagine. No, the CHP eventually got some bolt cutters and did it. Only took them four frickin hours because the dickheads had put their arms into pipes.
I have had some major fucked up situations to deal with. I have had three evictions in which I had to literally break down barricaded doors with multiple cops behind me. Each was an utter shitshow. Also two murder scenes after they removed bodies with blood everywhere and ransacked homes.
I’ve done some evictions. never fun. Although sometimes they open the door right when the picks go in.
My teacher was doing an entry that turned into him breaking into a house at gunpoint. He got away somehow, running down the stairs. Said the guy shot at him, but missed.
I’m always afraid of that when I’m doing an eviction. There was a locksmith killed a couple years back in Stockton I believe during one. The sheriffs here all have bulletproof vests on. Of course we are the first in line of fire.
Yeah I’d be more comfortable if I had their gear.
Only took them four frickin hours because the dickheads had put their arms into pipes.
Two words:
Cutting. Torch.
Thought you were going to link the Rorschach jail scene
As a comparison when some Bay Area radio station pulled an idiotic stunt that blocked traffic for 15 minutes so an ejit DJ could get a haircut on the bridge they were fined 1.5 million.
Plenty of time to smuggle cigarettes and ammo in from Nevada.
Bored. So bored.
Seconded.
Meeting between graphic design & CEO & EVP in my (shared) office while I’m tryna eat lunch. Can’t a gal watch Russian car crash videos in peace during her lunch break???
Someone just took hepeating to a whole ‘nother level.
So I’m sitting in my cube watching Russian car crash videos and my boss comes in and says meeting time! Can I catch a break!
I LOLed
Maybe Kristen is just two people?
Apparently today we are connected at the hip.
Wat.
Nothing like some pussy to relax you.
http://www.denverpost.com/2017/09/29/denver-international-airport-therapy-dog-program-cats-xeli/
I’ve flown through Denver several times, and I’m an extremely anxious flyer. Where were the fucking dogs when I was there?!?!?!?!
But you’re an airplane nerd. Why the anxiety about flying?
I like watching ’em from afar.
Are they going to put them in those solar powered dog houses?