Tuesday Morning Links

What happens when you donate a million bucks to the victims of a horrible mass shooting?  Apparently what happens if you’re the UFC: people give you a ration of shit in the comments.  By the way, I’m convinced LaVar Ball is the smartest man involved in basketball.  Its front-page news when he decides to homeschool his next cash register so he doesn’t have any distractions.  Dude is just printing money while people call him crazy and/or a drag on his sons.  But they’re gonna end up with max contracts anyway. And he’ll stay in the spotlight for as long as he wants, because he’s the man holding the strings and the sports media are the puppets.

Baseball playoffs start tonight at 7 when the Twins visit the Bronx. Santana (MIN) vs Severino (NYY) ought to be a good matchup. The two Dominicans, which I have nothing but respect for, both have solid records and ERAs, even if the former isn’t quite the strikeout artist the latter is.  He’s got a lot more big game experience, which should offset that.  I am picking the Twins to win 5-2.

Got enough sports in? I hope so, because there’s nothing else going on except for baseball until the hockey season officially starts…tomorrow! Soccer WC qualifiers kick back into gear this weekend too, as the final two rounds of the CONCACAF Hexagonal and European groupings take place.  I see a playoff for the Americans though. So they’ll get another chance next month to blow it.

Okey-dokey then.  Let’s take a ganders at…the links.

Tired of standing in his fellow race-baiter Ta Nehisi Coates’s shadow, Chauncey De Vega goes completely up his own asshole with this one. (It’s Salon, so consider yourself warned! Although he gets torn to shreds in a good many of the comments.) Bonus Salon derp about guns from AmanDUH Marcotte. And I’m sorry for coming right out of the box with not one, but two Salon pieces. Its my way of thanking you for reaching the 1000 comment plateau with yesterday’s morning links. The reward for 2000 is better, as it involves good edit faeries engaged in some…frolicking, shall we say.  But only one way to find out what that entails.

Seems like a reasonable request

Catalan leader takes the high road in standoff with Madrid. I swear, he must have watched Ghandi recently and seen how passive resistance in the face of violent state acts can net positive results once the world is made aware.  Its why the Soviet Union kept such a tight lid on media as the socialist nation was butchering tens of millions of her own people.  Same for China, as far as it keeping a lid on media, butchering tens of millions and being socialist. Let’s see what Brussels says. (My guess is nothing, as they are all about more nations and cultures being dragged under one umbrella for the sweet, sweet money they can extract from them. )

Tom Petty had a heart attack and died yesterday. The famous musician was 66 and didn’t appear to be in poor health. I enjoyed some of his music in moderation. I never saw him in concert and never really felt the urge to, but I’d rarely change the station if something of his came on.  He will be sadly missed by many fans of his music and lifestyle.

Congress doesn’t renew CHIP program. Hey, children hardest hit is true for once. I guess its time for the states to take care of their own people if they want to, as this was never supposed to be the responsibility of the nation’s taxpayers in the first place.

Artist’s depiction of reality

The OC Register takes off the gloves and pulls the California government’s jersey over its head. Then it wails on it until the referees step in and stop the beating. Bravo for the beatdown. Unfortunately, I don’t think that many people in your state will care until the entire state is bankrupt (in 10 years).

I’m surprised the landlord-tenant lawsuits took this long to start after Harvey. But this is actually what our court system is for, so I’m happy they’re getting some resolution.

Taking it a step farther than yesterday’s song…

Yesterday was rough, friends. I promise you today will be a better day

Comments

735 responses to “Tuesday Morning Links”

  1. Comment already, people!

    1. PieInTheSKy

      This is a libertarian site. Don’t tell us what to do you… you… government worker

      1. I can tell you to do whatever I want.

        I can’t compel you to obey.

        1. The power of UCS compels you!
          The power of UCS compels you!

          1. Rick C-137

            Recoils in horror as bland tap water is sprinkled.

          2. *opera applause*

          3. Rick C-137

            Hey, I couldn’t make the joke without sloops set up.

          4. bacon-magic

            Oh nice one!

      2. Brochettaward

        Government worker is an oxymoron.

  2. xenophon

    Amidst the tragedy of the last few days, a personal bright spot:

    My wife has just informed me that she is pregnant.

    I am absolutely overwhelmed with happiness. It’s not exactly according to plan — the plan was to wait a year or two to let the business build momentum so incomes were more stable — but it’s here and it’s real, and apparently it already has little flipper hands.

    Ain’t life just grand.

    (Also, I am slightly terrified.)

    1. So long as those hands turn into normal hands at the normal time you’ll be okay.

      And congrats.

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder

      and apparently it already has little flipper hands

      +1 thalidomide circus freak

      1. Number.6

        I’m of an age that some of my contemporaries at college were thalidomide victims.

        One particular chick had two stunted arms, but was otherwise fine. I think I was in my 2nd year and she was in a tutorial group with me. The facultymember hosting the event had us convene at a local pub and thefocus was talking about what we’d be aiming to do career-wise. Guinness had been sunk, and everyone was a bit buzzed, we all knew each other, and the question went to Sue.

        “Shorthand Typing” she said, gesticulating.

        Everyone went very, very quiet. Tutorial over, folks.

        Funny thing is that the whole thing broke the ice for the rest of the three years I spent at college.

        Followup: she got a job as a corelogger/analyst for Schlumberger.

        1. Bobarian LMD

          Don’t leave us hanging!

          How was the Handy J?

    3. Troy

      Any video?

      1. Rasilio

        of the conception or the ultrasound?

        With the freaks that live here ya gotta asl

        1. Q Continuum

          birth or gtfo

    4. Gordilocks

      Congratulations.

      Myself and Mrs Gordilocks are also in the business of becoming pregnant.

      May your wife’s pregnancy be smooth and your child arrive safe and healthy.

      1. Brett L

        Just keep practicing!

        1. Gordilocks

          The weekends have been ….. busy.

          1. MikeS

            Atta boy!

          2. Playa Manhattan

            High five!

      2. Brochettaward

        May your first child be a masculine child.

        1. Greedy, barbarous and cruel!

          (If ever two lines from different movies belonged together, this is that time.)

          1. Well, we are a little people, a silly people…and we know tings!

      3. Only she’s becoming pregnant, not you. 😉

      4. Troy

        Any video?

    5. MikeS

      Great news xenophon! Being terrified is normal. You’ll all be fine

      1. robc

        Best piece of advice I have seen (I have a 20 month old, so I am new at this too):

        If you even think “Am I a good parent?” then you are in the top half already.

        1. robc

          That was for xenophon. Or Gordilocks. Or whoever.

    6. Rick C-137

      Congratulations! I wish you all the best.

    7. PieInTheSKy

      Congrats on the future increase in carbon footprint

    8. You should be terrified. And ecstatic.

      Awesome, awesome news, man! Congratulations.

    9. Suthenboy

      Congrats Xeno. Don’t be terrified. It seems like just a couple of days ago mine was born. I blinked and now my second grandchild will be born this month.

      You will be fine. Enjoy every minute of it. Take nothing for granted. It goes by too fast.

      I haven’t been able to keep up around here lately. A number of commenters have had personal tragedies and I haven’t been able to offer timely condolences. I am offering them now. To all of you that have lost family and friends I am sorry for your troubles.

      1. Trials and Trippelations

        Lurking and traveling I’ve missed an oppurtunity to say my thoughts and prayers go out to LH and Playa and their friend’s families

        1. commodious spittoon

          Throw in a few for Holger. His wife passed Sunday night.

    10. Brett L

      Welcome to the breeding project. Don’t worry, that fear goes away once you stop sleeping.

    11. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Just remember, be there in the delivery room when baby comes out. A nice bowl of chili adds to the experience.

      1. trshmnstr

        *gags*

      2. The Last American Hero

        And if for some reason you aren’t, just rewatch the original Total Recall scene with Quatto.

    12. Mustang

      Congratulations!

      If you haven’t started already, make sure your orphans begin training to pamper the new arrival. Some to wash, some to feed, another orphan to polish young xenophon’s shoes, you know, whatever it is you do with your own kids.

      *Edit Fairy Blesses You*

      1. Mustang

        Dammit, xenophon. Apologies.

      2. WTF

        Would.

      3. Galt1138

        Hmm. Fairies.
        Oh, and congrats Xenophon!

    13. straffinrun

      Not according to plan? WTH were you doing? Congrats nonetheless!

      1. Pope Jimbo

        Don’t listen to Straffin. Our first kid was the result of us not even having enough money to go to the $1 movie theater. Simple home hobbies sometimes end up with unexpected results, but that is OK.

        Congrats and like Suthen says, enjoy every moment of it. I’m in the process of consolidating and moving all our old pics and I can’t believe the surly children that I am surrounded by used to be so cute.

        1. Private Chipperbot

          We had Irish twins. My wife called me in tears, told me to come home from office. I got home, she handed me three month old and pregnancy test stick. So we sold a house, bought a house, and found out we had another kid on way in 24 hours. It was crazy for a while, but worked out great. Out of diapers for both at same time!

    14. Slammer

      Congratulations!

      It seems Glibs are a…fertile people

    15. Tundra

      Plans are for the weak!

      Congratulations, brother! This makes my day.

      I had the exact same experience – quit my job and went out on my own, Mrs. Tundra knocked up a short time later. Terrified is a good word, but I promise you this: it will all work out and you will have a blast.

      Good luck!

      1. Chipwooder

        Could be worse – I was laid off nine years ago about three weeks before my son was born.

    16. Spartan Dad

      Congrats Xen. They’re worth it, especially once you get past the potty training stage. *remembers cleaning up a diaper shitplosion yesterday*

    17. Rufus the Monocled

      Congrats.

    18. Certified Public Asshat

      Congrats!

      We’re going to have a third in March, if that helps ease your terror (I am very terrified).

      1. Zunalter

        Congratulations on becoming a real parent (it’s not parenting until you are outnumbered).

    19. wdalasio

      Congratulations!

    20. Tonio

      Congratulations, Xeno!

      Good luck, Gordi.

    21. Trials and Trippelations

      Congrats!
      I too was informed this werk by my wife that we are taking the Tom Woods approach to expanding the number of liberty minded people by expecting our second child.

      1. Congratulations to you, too!

      2. MikeS

        Congrats! A lot of good news today!

    22. Lachowsky

      Congratulations. Don’t be afraid.

      7 years ago I had no plans on marriage or children. A calamity in the form of a tornado destroyed my house, so I moved in with my girlfriend temporarily. Fast forward to now and I am married to that girl, and have a kindergarten boy that I love more than anything in the world. Her pregnancy also motivated me to get more serious about my career. I make twice now what I made then. Kids are great. I hope you enjoy yours as much I do mine.

    23. Count Potato

      Congratulations

    24. Many congratulations!

    25. DEG

      Congratulations!

    26. trshmnstr

      Congratulations!!

      A few quick tips from a guy who was in your shoes about a year ago. 1) get your insurance figured out now. 2) don’t bother buying 50,000 baby things, just get the essentials (and the occasional cute thing) for now. 3) do everything you can to support your wife staying active. An active pregnant woman is a much happier pregnant woman. 4) don’t listen to all the kvetching about sleep. It sucks for a few months, and then that part is over. 5) that feeling of terror means that you care. Your kid already has a leg up on the competition.

      Oh, and a bonus observation. Watch how the nurses handle the baby immediately after birth. Babies aren’t nearly as fragile as you think.

    27. Rasilio

      Let me assure you, before all the horror and scare stories about your never sleeping again begin.

      In 98% of cases having a baby really isn’t that hard and except for the first couple of weeks sleep is not so hard to come by. Infants are fairly adaptable and there is no one “right” way to do things. Sure it will be a fair amount of work but you won’t really regret any of it.

      Until they learn to walk that is.

      Then all hell breaks loose

      1. Zunalter

        And speaking. Once they learn to speak, they never, ever stop again.

        1. Unreconstructed

          You spend the first two years of their lives getting them to walk and talk, and the next 16 telling them to sit down and shut up.

    28. Congrats! The best years of your life are starting right now.

    29. Congratulations! I’ll pass on advice given to me that has proven to be true. You’ll never have enough money and it’ll never be the right time, but when you have a kid you’ll find that you wind up getting by somehow. Ask for help, because family tend to want to throw money and time at you, and if you let them they’ll get in the habit, which is helpful. And as others have said, if you’re worried about being a good parent, you’re a good parent. Kids are pretty tough and parenting is hard; expect to screw up at least once a day, but take comfort in the fact that your kid will be fine.

      1. Brett L

        Old guy says to me when i tell him about our surprise: “Funny how it’s never the right time for kids, but it’s always the right time to fuck. It’s almost like the universe knows something you don’t”

    30. bacon-magic

      Congrats!

    31. Playa Manhattan

      Congrats. It’s the most important thing you will ever do.

      1. Zunalter

        “Being a dad is the most important thing I will ever fail at.” -Jim Gaffigan

  3. I swear, he must have watched Ghandi recently and seen how passive resistance in the face of violent state acts can net positive results once the world is made aware.

    I think the world no longer gives a damn. Ghandi got lucky.

    1. Rick C-137

      Very likely. I imagine the novelty of passive resistance has worn off.

    2. WTF

      Yeah, the British at the time were decent enough to find beating Ghandi and his followers appalling, and considered how it looked to the rest of civilized society. Now I don’t think anyone give a shit about how the rest of Spain treats Catalan.

      1. Rasilio

        Yeah that is the one thing that all the anti colonialists forget.

        Ghandi’s (and MLK’s for that matter) use of passive resistance only worked because the people he was resisting were not cruel or violent. Had they used those same tactics against a Nazi Germany or Soviet union those men would simply be dead and their followers would be either dead or in a camp somewhere.

        1. Number.6

          The counterargument that I’m not making is that you might want to have a word with the Boers about that cruelty and violence stuff.

          1. WTF

            Attitudes had changed a bit in the time between the second Boer War and Ghandi’s protests. And the Boers weren’t seen by the British public as peaceful people being wrongly set upon by a superior civilization.

          2. Number.6

            Well, the major catalyst for that was the destruction of British Imperial self-image after events like the loss of Singapore and Hong Kong in ’41/’42.

            That and being totally broke-assed and in hock to the US after WW2. Relinquishing India was the only rational thing to do. And then in ’56, when the US stabbed the UK in the back over Suez, the game was up, and letting places like Rhodesia, Nyasaland etc were foregone conclusions.

          3. WTF

            All true.

    3. Harry Turtledove wrote an interesting little short story where the Germans won WW2 in Europe and took over India as a consequence. The upshot: Ghandi started his passive resistance campaign, just as he did in our timeline.

      The Gestapo arrested and shot him. End of resistance.

      Peaceful protest only works against peaceful regimes.

    4. butt-head

      how is it that everyone ITT has misspelled Gandhi?

    1. straffinrun

      I don’t usually care too much when famous people die, but it feels like Tom was my roommate.

      1. Tundra

        That’s a good way of putting it.

        Another one of my favorites.

        1. straffinrun

          That’s a good one. Back in University, I delivered pizzas for some extra cash. One fine autumn day I was delivering a za to trailer park out in the sticks. Tom on the cassette player and a packed bowl as I flew down a country road with the fall leaves scattered across the road being the only traffic. A perfect memory.

          1. You were running down a dream, weren’t you?

          2. straffinrun

            Wanted to leave this world for a while.

          3. straffinrun

            I’ll just pretend that was The Travelling Wilburys.

          4. Lachowsky

            Speaking of weed smoking and driving down country roads.

            When I was 16 me and my buddy drove the mile from my house to the river bottoms and got very very stoned. We drove around for awhile listening to music until I noticed I had a flat. My stoned ass got out and changed the tire. I drove home and went to bed. The next morning, my truck still had a flat. The tire I took off was fully inflated and laying in the bed of my truck.

          5. spqr2008

            My friend managed to seriously mess up his axle doing exactly that. Hilarious though.

    1. MikeS

      That is funny stuff.

    2. one dev slipped the text in unread.

      I quit Syndicate when I ran into a mission where you had to keep that piece of shit alive instead of stabbing him in the street.

    3. Rick C-137

      Nice.

    4. Number.6

      Oh no they di’nt!

    5. Zunalter

      I don’t know, he is listed as an Ally in the game, which means the templars are obviously the filthy capitalist pigs.

  4. Gordilocks

    Two Salon pieces

    No. Just no. The URL’s clearly indicate Derp levels that are dangerous to the mind. I wouldn’t even dare call the Derpetologist for these; just kill them with fire.

    1. Just a thought not a sermon

      I’ve always enjoyed Marcotte just for the sheer level of hysteria. I think I’ll avoid her thoughts on guns, though (as if I don’t already know what her opinion is, anyway).

    2. Badolph Hilter

      You chose wisely.

  5. Rick C-137

    I had a few prog ‘friends’ on derp book give the same dame reaction as that first salon dreck. There’s no depth to these people and no depth to which they will sink. I mean, almost 550 something casualties and the first thing in your head is, ‘I hope the race of shooter is not my race?’ JFC, these fuckin people.

    1. Brawndo

      Collectivism is a hell of a drug

      1. NOT a Naked Intruder

        Collectivism is a hell of a drug

        I just had to….

  6. Just a thought not a sermon

    73) To me, as a music listener/collector, there are five categories of musicians:

    1) Greatest Hits only: Tom Petty is in this category. I actually have both his GH and his Wildflowers album, but that’s excessive. GH would’ve been sufficient.

    Also GH only: Heart, Jackson Brown, Queen, Aerosmith, Madonna, most 50s/60s soul or rock acts that existed in the singles era, most country artists from any era

    2) Best album only (this is the most common category): They had one great album, often their first, other albums may have been okay but really anything more than one is gilding the lily—AC/DC (Back in Black), Sheryl Crow (Tuesday Night Music Club), Pearl Jam (Ten), Mott the Hoople, Motorhead (Ace of Spades), Weather Report (Heavy Weather), Sarah Vaughan (With Clifford Brown)

    3) Greatest Hits + best album: Yes (GH is fine, but you need Close to the Edge as well), Bruce Springsteen (GH + Darkness on the Edge of Town, maybe throw in Nebraska), Jimi Hendrix (GH + Electric Ladyland), Al Green (GH + Let’s Stay Together), Guns ‘n’ Roses (GH + Appetite for Destruction), Jethro Tull (GH + Aqualung), Bach (Yes Bach, I promise some sort of best of collection + Goldberg Variations is all you will ever need)

    I used to put David Bowie in this category (GH + Ziggy Stardust) but I was so wrong about that. Now I know he belongs in category 3, which is—

    4) Deep dive—David Bowie, Stones, Dylan, Rush, Stevie Wonder, Miles Davis, Billy Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Beethoven, Mahler, Dvorak

    5) Don’t need anything—Boston (all songs the same, and all dumb), Nirvana (same), John Lennon, many, many others

    1. I actually have a terrible memory for musicians. So I judge everything on a song by song basis. I have probably listened to something by most if not all of the people you’ve named, but couldn’t tell you one song title from 80% of them.

    2. MikeS

      AC/DC (Back in Black)

      I …can’t even. Powerage and Highway To Hell are every bit as good as Back In Black. And they have plenty of other good stuff on their other 12 studio albums. To say you can get all you need from one album of a band like AC/DC is doing a great disservice to them.

      1. Just a thought not a sermon

        They may be every bit as good, but they also sound the exact same. Every AC/DC album sounds great, and every AC/DC album sounds great in the same way. One is fine.

        1. Brett L

          Its a fair cop. I love them, but they had a tight window.

        2. MikeS

          they also sound the exact same

          Then you aren’t listening close enough. And that’s fine, I don’t expect everyone to love AC/DC. (I think every single Rush song sounds the same) But at the very least you should have one album with Bonn Scott singing (Powerage is my fav) and one with Brian Johnson (as you said, Back In Black is a good choice)

          1. Gray Ghost

            What Mike said. I get that the songs are similar, but for cryin out loud, Scott and Johnson sing them in such different ways.

            Which leads to the question of how would Back in Black have sounded if Scott sang it?

          2. Bobarian LMD

            And Rush?

            They are, at best, a ‘Best Album’ band. ‘2112’ or ‘Moving Pictures’; players choice, because I can’t tell them apart.

        3. Tacit Rainbow

          There’s an old anecdote about a rock critic telling/complaining to Angus Young that they basically made the same album eleven times, to which Angus replied “Bullshit, we’ve made the same album twelve times!”

          Likely false, but funny nonetheless.

    3. Queen is horribly out of place. They’re in Category 4 without a doubt.

      1. Just a thought not a sermon

        Which album to start with?

        1. A Night At The Opera
          then
          Queen
          then
          Jazz
          then
          Queen II
          then
          Flash Gordon soundtrack
          then
          A Day At The Races

          1. Jesus, it goes on and on. They’re a fucking phenomenal band with a very diverse catalog. A greatest hits only designation is doing yourself a disservice.

          2. robc

            You left out Highlander soundtrack.

          3. Bobarian LMD

            There can be only one!

          4. *Sneak attack decapitates Bobarian*

    4. Badolph Hilter

      If you like AC/DC enough to like Back in Black, then they have a couple dozen greats songs that aren’t on that album. Highway to Hell, Girls Got Rhythm, Shot Down in Flames, Whole Lotta Rosie, just to name a few. I rarely listen to anything from Back in Black just because it was so overplayed in my high school years compared to the rest of their catalog.

      I think my categorization system is different than yours:

      1) Bands where you like one or two songs.
      1) Bands where you pick the best 2-3 songs from each of their albums.
      2) Bands where you listen to pretty much their entire catalog.

      The “album” is an obsolete construct perpetuated by The Man.

      1. MikeS

        ^ This guy gets it. All of it

        1. Just a thought not a sermon

          I never would have expected that AC/DC would be the band that brought the most opposition to my little schema.

          1. I didn’t read the band listings too closely, I just wrote you off as off your rocker.

          2. MikeS

            That’s why it’s so fun/terrifying here. Always expect the unexpected!

          3. mexican sharpshooter

            Its obvious you’ve never seen them live. AC/DC fans are like Slipknot fans, only older.

          4. trshmnstr

            Yes! AC/DC was my favorite concert I’ve ever been to.

      2. Troy

        Big balls

    5. Troy

      You are right about Boston. Mtus have all Pink Floyd

    6. robc

      GH is fine, but you need Close to the Edge as well

      You misspelled “Relayer”.

      And there is a lot of really good stuff in their deep tracks. Yes is deep dive for me. Most of my favorites aren’t on Classic. But everything on Classic is a greatest hit.

      1. Bobarian LMD

        Owner of a Lonely Heart?

        /He asked sarcastically.

        1. Number.6

          Don’t kill the Whale?

          /He added superfluously

    7. spqr2008

      What, no Tchaikovsky or Sibelius in category 5? Although I happen to be a low brow classical music guy, I happen to like the popular pieces the composers themselves detested.

    8. Gilmore

      To me, as a music listener/collector, there are five categories of musicians:

      This is sort of roundabout way of saying you aren’t really much of either.

    9. Rasilio

      As someone who listens to but does not get all up in his own asshole about music I have the following categorization

      1) Songs I like
      2) Songs I sometimes like
      3) Songs I used to like and still technically do but can’t really listen to anymore because I’ve listened to them too much and grown bored with them
      4) Songs I don’t particularly like but acknowledge are actually good songs, just not my style
      5) Songs I don’t really like but occasionally still find myself singing along to either because they have a catchy tune or match my current mood so well
      6) Songs I don’t like
      7) Songs that make me want to drive an icepick through my ears so I never have to hear them again

      Things like artists, albums, genre’s and such are useless noise around the subject of music

    10. KSuellington

      Dude, nothing from the Bon Scott era of AC/DC? Highway to Hell and Powerage are a couple of the best rock albums ever made.

    11. butt-head

      Jethro Tull (GH + Aqualung)

      Is the entirety of Thick as a Brick on the GH comp?

  7. Rick C-137

    Hoo boy.

    This is deepderp, deep deep derp, ladies and gents, tread carefully.

    https://everydayfeminism.com/2017/09/proof-that-health-is-constructed/

    1. *stops reading at ‘everydayfeminism’*

      Yep, that’s deep derp.

      1. Rick C-137

        You say you want more!

        https://everydayfeminism.com/

      2. Bobarian LMD

        I got as far as “5 Social Theories That Prove…” and knew that the stupid would be exceptionally strong.

    2. Just a thought not a sermon

      Boy, I made a mistake in going to that. I was hoping because of the word “constructed” it would actually take the view that your health is largely a matter of your own behavior and attitudes, with maybe some good luck thrown in.

      But no, by “constructed,” the author means “socially constructed,” as in where you are socioeconomically determines your health, as if many of the greatest athletes in history didn’t come from poor backgrounds.

      1. Rick C-137

        Yeah, it’s bad. But I share because I love, or hate, or for the lulz.

      2. PieInTheSKy

        Well ehm athletes coming for poor backgrounds does not change the fact that sanitation affects health of people in an area, even if not all get sick.

        This is more along the lines of having money is better than not having money. Which is a truism really.

        Anyway point is that socialism is needed.

        1. Tulip

          “This is more along the lines of having money is better than not having money. Which is a truism really. ”
          And yet they get upset when GDP is used as a proxy for general well being.

    3. Troy

      Like going to the gym constructed? Well fuck yeah. And I earned it.

    4. Zunalter

      Derpetologist better watch out, Rick is gunning for his job.

  8. Badolph Hilter

    God what a fucking cesspool Salon is. I don’t know why I clicked those links. The authors and the commentors are the complete embodiment of every liberal SJW stereotype.

    The fact that literally half of the comments are [deleted] is amusing, but not amusing enough to make up for the brain damage and loss of hope for humanity as a species.

    1. Rick C-137

      It’s a well of jollification and madness, like a Great Old One wearing a light up bow tie

      1. How about a libertarian Old One instead?

        Or

        1. Rick C-137

          Nice

        2. mexican sharpshooter

          Definitely the first one. The second one looks depressed, like an orphan forgot to put whiskey in his tea..

          1. Bobarian LMD

            Whiskey in tea? *recoils in horror*

            Are you some kind of monster? Whiskey can go into coffee, if you are looking to warm up, but TEA? the thought of it makes me want hurl.

            One should only put white liquors into tea. Rum and/or vodka.

            However, pretending to drink tea, while drinking whiskey is acceptable.

          2. mexican sharpshooter

            Yeah about that…

            DO I LOOK LIKE A MOTHERFUCKING TEA DRINKER!?

            I vote for the first one.

  9. PieInTheSKy

    Will next governor end California government corruption?

    No.

    1. Will next any governor end California government corruption ever?

    2. Number.6

      It’s as likely as Connecticut becoming solvent again without a miracle, or a federal bailout.

      i.e No way.

    3. Lachowsky

      It’s government. It’s natural state is corruption. Find me a government, and I’ll find you some corruption. That’s how it is and always has bee. There is no such thing as a government that is free of corruption.

  10. PieInTheSKy

    Recovering from a concussion typically takes female athletes more than twice as long as males, according to a new study that tracked hundreds of teenagers active in sports. The finding adds to a growing body of evidence that vulnerability to this injury—and aspects of the healing process—may vary by sex.

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/concussion-recovery-is-slower-in-girls-mounting-evidence-suggests/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sa-editorial-social&utm_content=&utm_term=mind_news_text_free&sf118336757=1

    I blame Patriarchy. Girls are socialized to heal slower.

    1. WTF

      Well no shit. Males are physically stronger, more robust and resistant to injury and heal better from physical injuries. This is not shocking.

    2. Certified Public Asshat

      The senior manager above me has been out since June with a concussion she received in a car accident (car not totaled? could be important). Based on her track record of being very unreliable at work, I assumed she has been full of shit this entire time. I guess this gives her some credibility.

      1. Zunalter

        They might heal slower, but 1/3rd of a year off for a concussion seems excessive, regardless of gender. I had a friend who broke his neck in 4 places that was up and at ’em again faster than that.

        1. Number.6

          Yeah, but he was a WHITE MAN. With WHITE MALE privilege.

    3. JaimeRoberto

      But I thought women just powered through.

      1. butt-head

        Persisted. The word is persisted.

  11. Gordilocks

    From the Reuters link on the situation in Catalonia –

    Spain’s two biggest trade union federations, the General Union of Workers (UGT) and Workers’ Committees (Comisiones Obreras), distanced themselves from calls by pro-independence groups and trade unions in Catalonia on Sunday for a general strike in the region on Tuesday.

    Surprise surprise, Unionistas are on the side of the centralized state.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      “You’ve just been skin-shamed.” oh yes perish the though that skin tone has aesthetic considerations.

    2. Gordilocks

      Are you trying to compete with The Derpetologist today, or are you on a suicide mission?

      1. Rick C-137

        I was on vacation this weekend and Monday, I’ve got to make it up for missing my usual Sunday -lazy work day- link blast

    3. JaimeRoberto

      I’m no expert on tattoos, but I imagine that the color of the canvas can have a big effect on the outcome of the tattoo. Some tattoo artists might not have the experience to work with different skin colors and are concerned about botching a job that is so permanent. Do you really want a tattoo artist to experiment on you? Maybe he thinks he’s doing you a favor, but no, it must be shaming and racism.

      1. R C Dean

        I gather its not just the skin color. As I understand it, different skin types take the ink, or don’t, differently.

      2. Rick C-137

        Being married to a wonderfully inked lady and having spent time in shops I can confirm the first theory, artists live and die on rep alone, if an artist fucks up, especially at a reputable shop then it’s game over, change your name and move to alaska time, cause it’s a tight-nit community and reputation will follow

  12. xenophon

    My wife just said, “Share the thing I made with your Internet friends.”

    So, Internet friends, this is the thing my wife made:

    https://imgur.com/a/QW3h5

    The top hat was an intentional addition.

      1. robc

        Good job, I wanted to say that.

    1. Rick C-137

      Awww.

    2. Just a thought not a sermon

      Nice. I count six arms–a hexapus?

      1. Way to shame the double-amputee.

        1. Just a thought not a sermon

          I still don’t see where my description is inaccurate, though.

          1. There’s a pile-up at the back which may indicate it’s sitting on two limbs.

          2. xenophon

            Trick of the camera — he’s sitting on his back two tentacles. After all, when you’re making a smiling octopus in a top hat for a baby, accuracy is paramount.

            Also, Hexapus sounds like a metal band name.

          3. egould310

            I am totally calling my band (a 3 piece) Hexapus.

          4. bacon-magic

            2 pus per member.

    3. MikeS

      Well, there is your new avatar!

      1. WTF

        xenophon already took it!

    4. straffinrun

      That’s what you get when knitting while watching tentacle porn.

      1. The Elite Elite

        He was just proving to his wife that it existed. He wasn’t actually wanting to watch tentacle porn.

        1. Number.6

          Xenophon=Kurt Eichenwald?

    5. Mustang

      Your wife and my wife would get along. She crochets nonstop.

      1. Private Chipperbot

        This sounds like an AA meeting, My wife also crochets. She’s making little sloths right now and posing them around the house. Stupid Pinterest. She also makes a decent amount of money making hats and scarves for the local sports and high school teams.

    6. Tundra

      You should get her pregnant.

      1. Pope Jimbo

        Wait, I’m willing to enact your labor for you!

    7. WTF

      Nice! Is it possible to add a monocle?

      1. ^THIS^ would make it perfect!

    8. westernsloper

      Sweater for the baby? Congrats on that.

    9. Number.6

      That is awesome, but I half expected a sonogram and then I’d have said that I am pretty sure she didn’t make that alone.

    10. Badolph Hilter

      Awesome.

    11. bacon-magic

      She’s a keeper.

  13. Rick C-137

    Guess, just guess how much the author knows about the topic…

    http://www.theroot.com/on-the-heels-of-the-las-vegas-mass-shooting-house-may-1819079265

    1. Judging by the track record of the publication – between jack and shit.

    2. Jefe Hayek

      So true. Coates is one of the few writers whose style says to you, in no uncertain terms, “I will not dumb myself down for you. If you want to read me, elevate yourself.”

      This is the leftist brain laid bare. They claim to fucking love science and FACTS!! and whatnot, but it is nothing more than hero worship and inflation of their ego by proxy. They really believe that by reading certain authors, elevating them to Godhood, and agreeing with them unfailingly they get to be considered intelligent as well. Regardless of their actual merits.

      I need to write a piece for glibs about this. I have a torrential sea of thoughts in my head about post-modernism, comic books, wrestling, IFLS, the destruction of cultural institutions with no replacement and the impact that has had on society. Maybe in 10 years when we’re all dead from global warming and lack of gun control I’ll finally get started on it.

      1. Jefe Hayek

        Sorry, that comment I blockquoted is actually from this piece about Ta-Nehisi Coates’ latest bile

      2. Coates would have to actually work to reach intellectual honesty, let alone rigor. I would need the resilience of Derpetologist to force myself to sit through his drivel. I don’t have that degree of tolerance.

        1. The Elite Elite

          So, you just don’t want to elevate yourself to get his genius writing! He isn’t going to dumb himself down so people with limited understanding like yourself can understand him. Get woke!

          1. Anyone whose argument would be substituted in for that of the tailors from “The Emperor’s New Clothes” knows at some level that they’re wrong and self-delusional.

      3. Mad Scientist

        Is your mind a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives?

  14. PieInTheSKy

    A Tale of 2 Cheeses: How Cheddar Beat Lancashire in the Industrial Age

    http://www.seriouseats.com/2017/09/english-cheese-kirkhams-lancashire-cheddar-moisture-acidity.html

    As far as I can tell it is about cheese-makers doing acid. Blessed be they

    1. “Serious Eats”? I can’t take them seriously.

      1. Gray Ghost

        Kenji Lopez-Alt there is great. I’ve found their recipes to be very repeatable, with an almost Alton Brown level of explanation for why the food cooks as it does.

        1. Tundra

          I bought his book The Food Lab. Highly recommended.

          1. Zunalter

            ^ I concur.

        2. Alton Brown – a pompous twat who needs to have his face caved in with a monotasker.

          1. Gray Ghost

            What the fuck is wrong with you?

            Let’s try that again. I’ve met and corresponded with Mr. Brown, and that was not my impression of him. I’ve found him to be generous with his time and fairly decent, as authors go. Great info in his books and shows, IMHO. I’m disappointed that your experience with him was that poor.

            Maybe he was having a good day when I talked with him? I’ve met other celebs who are nearly universally acknowledged as gigantic PITA, like Billy Bob Thornton, yet when I had to deal with him, I found the guy pleasant and a gentleman. I dunno.

          2. Does he smug it up for his television appearances or something? I had to stop watching productions he was involed in because I found him insufferable.

          3. egould310

            ??? I think you’re misreading the guy. “Good Eats ” is a great show. Sometimes corny, but good info with science and history of cooking.

            I can see not liking him asa host of kitchen competitions. But my overall impression is he’s a decent dude with a good knowledge of cooking

          4. It was the condescention on “Good Eats” that ruined the other appearances. It got worse over time, because I started out liking the show, but ended up unable to stand it after a few years.

          5. He does have a certain level of Nye.

          6. Emmerson Biggins

            His two part series on “How to boil water” was awesome. Could have been edited down a little. But still, boiling water is a complicated process, so I can see how we wanted to cover all the ins and outs.

          7. Count Potato

            WTF??

          8. Los Doyers

            Alton Brown salts his food. That broke UCS.

          9. His insistance on Kosher salt is easily ignored. It’s the smarmy “you’re wrong” attitude towards any other approach to food or flavor than the one he prefers.

          10. Los Doyers

            Well, if you’re not using kosher salt, you are in fact doing it wrong.

          11. Iodized or GTFO.

          12. bacon-magic

            UCS is a salt nazi confirmation.

          13. jesse.in.mb

            Is he insisting on it or specifying it. If you’ve got a delicate salt balance in a recipe you *should* specify kosher or table salt because you’ll get different amounts of saltiness based on the flake size of the salt if you measure by volume.

          14. Number.6

            Can we all agree, that anyone who insists on that pink Himalayan salt is just gay as fuck?

          15. Pink salt is instacure #1!!!

            Those Himalayan con artists can kiss my ass.

          16. jesse.in.mb

            I don’t know what dark magic these guys put into their salt, but it’s legitimately more delicious than other salt I’ve had. Totally unwilling to buy it, but my healthnut dad always kept it around and it salts better than salt. I don’t know how else to describe it.

          17. Number.6

            That pink sea salt? My money is on magnesium and calcium, although the pinkness itself won’t be due to the magnesium or calcium

            The Med is a closed system, really, and lots of the northern margins are contained by dolomite and calcitic limestones.

            The hawaiian component, I dunno. Clays are pretty much insoluble, so won’t dissolve and liberate any ions, so it’s hard to imagine they’d affect much of the taste.

            Could be worse. Could be Himalayan.

          18. Tulip

            Wow – is that website ever full of scientific sounding woo!

          19. jesse.in.mb

            Oh yeah, I’ve been exposed to a lot of psuedoscientific bullshit thanks to my upbringing, but the salt is legitimately tasty and I don’t know why. When everyone’s over for family gatherings if an uncle or cousin or whatever asks for salt and you bring table salt they’ll look at you like you have two heads and send you back to get the pink stuff.

          20. When everyone’s over for family gatherings if an uncle or cousin or whatever asks for salt and you bring table salt they’ll look at you like you have two heads and send you back to get the pink stuff.

            If you’re picky about the type, and don’t specify beforehand, don’t complain if you get something that still fits the category reuqested.

          21. mexican sharpshooter

            You’re surprised this is UCS take on Alton Brown–or anything?

    2. Number.6

      If you want a more stark comparison, you’d compare Cheshire with Cheddar.

      Cheshire is particularly good in a cheese and onion (yes, raw onion) sandwich. The acidity of the cheese works really well with the onion, and if you can tolerate yellow rather vidalia onions, so much the better.

      The problem with Lancashire (and some other varieties, known only via a recounting of the Monty Python “Cheeseshop” sketch) is that its not sufficiently differentiated in taste from many other cheeses. It’s sad to think that as recently as 30 years ago, I ate Lancashire regularly, but creative destruction and all that. “Cheddar” whether from Cheddar itself, or one of the hundreds of factories around the world, is what people have got used to.

      From the great-nephew of an honest-to-goodness cheesemonger.

      1. “Cheddar” whether from Cheddar itself, or one of the hundreds of factories around the world

        Don’t you start on that geographic designation restriction stuff the EU’s been peddling. If there’s a difference in flavor between what comes out of Cheddar and what the wold calls Cheddar, that would be something to talk about, especially in context of the overall cheese discussion.

      2. PieInTheSKy

        Actually in Romania cheese and raw onion is incredibly common, almost staple in some regions, so you don’t need to explain the raw part

        1. They don’t want to, because Romania skimped on its tech tree and never developed fire.

          1. Psycho Effer

            Skipping fire in the tech tree is the hardest way to win the space race.

      3. Number.6

        The up-side with ‘real’ cheddar is that they do have published standards, if you want the ‘real thing’ – that alone differentiates it.

        But just to head off the mob with burning torches and pitchforks, I can’t be bothered with that shit. I’ll go buy a largish slab of something like Cabot, take it out of the plastic and wrap it in cheesecloth and stand it in the fridge for 3 or 4 days which improves the texture sufficiently that it’s a pleasure to eat.

        Lots of places other than Cheddar make very good cheddar, but there’s also a huge supply of shitty cheese out there that doesn’t deserve any kind of respectable name.

      4. Charlie Suet

        “While in 1939 there were still over 200 producers of raw-milk, farmhouse Lancashire cheese, today there is only one—Kirkham’s Lancashire, a cheese coelacanth, a living fossil.”

        Our old friend socialism really did a number on the British cheese industry. First there was rationing, and the loathsome sounding “Government Cheddar”, then the Milk Marketing Board fixing milk prices until the mid 90s created the sort of perverse incentives that statism always does.

      5. spqr2008

        Did he ever produce Emmentaler?

        1. Number.6

          Cheesewrights (apparantly, that was the proper name for them in Northern England), and Cheesemakers make the cheese.

          Cheesemongers were the retail sales people

          Allegedly, according to my uncle, his son, the trade used to have Cheese Factors, who were the wholesalers and in some cases, the representative of co-operatives of cheesewrights.

      6. wdalasio

        Personally, cheese and pickled onion is more to my taste.

        1. Number.6

          Hard to get good, crunchy pickled onions nowadays unless you make ’em yourself.

          As a kid, I remember my father had a smallholding and used to grow shallots, which we used to pickle in good Sarson’s malt vinegar with a pack of dried peppercorns, chillis and ginger. We’d finish up the evening with about 10 or 12 1-gallon jars of awesome pickled onions after about 6 weeks, and the mighty harvest would last us about 3 months, eating ’em like candy.

          We would have made more, but we couldn’t stand the running eyes etc. That, and it’s not a good idea to be monstrously flatulent all year around.

          1. wdalasio

            That sounds awesome! I’ve been making due with Hayward’s. They’re…okay.

          2. Number.6

            Even very fresh, they’re still soggy.

            The trick is to use warm/hot (160F) vinegar. Commercially, I think they must par-boil the onions in vinegar to age them faster, but with the warm vinegar gets the pickle spices out into the vinegar, but doesn’t soften the onions.

            Then it’s just a matter of topping off the jars so there’s no air. It’s not rocket science, but here in the US, whenever I’ve been interested in making some, I couldn’t find suitable onions. American “shallots” don’t look the same.

            And don’t get me started on silverskins.

  15. PieInTheSKy

    I don’t know if is been linked already, but the the opinion of Lena Dunham on the Vegas shooting is esential in these times

    https://twitter.com/lenadunham/status/914984591215038464

    1. Rick C-137

      God damn it. That’s just fucking sad.

    2. straffinrun

      Go molest your sister you POS.

    3. Just a thought not a sermon

      No. Just no.

    4. leonadasiv

      No. No it isn’t. Dunham and essential should never appear on the same sentence.

    5. WTF

      This is priceless:

      Nick Miller‏ @rellimkcin 13h13 hours ago

      It’s not an unfounded observation that males are overrepresented among mass murderers. Question is, why?
      3 replies 0 retweets 1 like

      Misty Mountains‏ @Misty_Mountains 11h11 hours ago

      My guess is it’s because they’re far more marginalized and have less to live for. See also how male suicide is 6-8 times higher.

      1. Brochettaward

        It’s also not an “unfounded observation” that men are over represented among inventors and geniuses. But if I point this out, I’m a misogynistic alt-right racist Nazi.

      2. The Elite Elite

        THAT’S NOT TRUE! WOMEN ARE THE MOST MARGINALIZED AND OPPRESSED! THEY GET CHASED OUT OF STEM FIELDS, AND 69 CENTS ON THE DOLLAR, AND RAPE CULTURE!

        1. There’s a STEVE SMITH joke in there somewhere.

          1. WTF

            THERE’S A STEVE SMITH JOKE IN THERE EVERYWHERE! AND BY “JOKE” MEAN RAPE!!

    6. Microaggressor

      It’s like they are utterly incapable of forming thoughts that don’t revolve around critical theory. A fascinating religious devotion to an alternate reality. Perhaps she once experienced a purity shaming and lives in perpetual fear of being perceived as insufficiently woke. A social phenomenon begging to be studied, if only to provide us with the means of dissuading our loved ones from joining abusive cults in the future.

      1. one true athena

        Yes, that’s it exactly. When GIRLS first premiered, she was derided in the woke -set for having only white people/characters in the show.

        So I find her actually a kind of interesting case study for how a media person is able by merely whining a hell of a lot about Hillary’s loss (remember, Dunham was the one who had to go wander the desert, her grief was so great, or whatever), she was basically able to work her way back into good graces. She didn’t actually change the show AFAIK, but it didn’t matter, because she said all the right things publicly and abased herself to the mob and apparently was granted forgiveness.

  16. Brett L

    Wow, Tesla missed their model 3 production targets by only 80%, making 260 Model 3s instead of 1500. Totally a going concern!

    1. What was the capacity of that plant when real automakers ran it?

    2. LJW

      Should be renamed to Snake Oil Inc.

      1. Snake Oil was at least more environmentally friendly than Tesla Batteries.

    3. Scruffy Nerfherder

      If you want a laugh, take a look at the market cap for Tesla and compare it to Honda or Ford.

      http://finance.google.com/finance?q=tesla&ei=Yn7TWdnfHIq2jAHStoDYBQ

      1. Gray Ghost

        I…did not expect to find the numbers I did when comparing the three. Basically equivalent market caps, for the tl;dr crowd.

        Holy fuck, the market can stay irrational for a long time.

        1. Psycho Effer

          This is why I don’t own a single share of stock in a company I don’t run. I’d rather invest in rocks than shit that makes no rational sense whatsoever, while being dependent on the perceptions of total dip-shits for its value.

    4. Just a thought not a sermon

      Musk: “C’mon, how hard can it be if those morons out in Michigan can do it?”

      1. Lachowsky

        I don’t think there are very many morons in Michigan still making automobiles.

    5. Charlie Suet

      Well Elon Musk is busy making sure that there’ll be condos for sale on Mars by 2020, according to Reddit.

      1. Brett L

        Oh you can buy them in 2020, but you won’t be able to get there safely in his lifetime.

    6. Tundra

      And yet his twitter is loaded with SpaceX stuff.

      Go figure.

      He made a comment that manufacturing the 3 is ‘exponential’. It better be. His guidance from July.

      It’s astonishing that he gets away with this.

      1. leonadasiv

        Some Investors just like hearing a good tale from a good salesman. I know a particular app company that has raised over 8 million, with only 100 registered users and very few active ones.

        1. Number.6

          “Angry Angel Investors”

          1. You play that too? I got to level 37 (Fleecemeister) before I was lynched by the mob of investors! Next time I play, I think I will hire a better PR firm.

          2. Number.6

            I was thinking of taking the “Mob Affiliate” Specialty Class, to see if that helped when I got to that pre-IPO “Boss” level.

  17. Rick C-137

    I might go blind in my quest for derp but damn it, it’s worth it.

    https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/n-r-a-defends-right-to-own-politicians

    1. Look, a bought and paid for politician is in a state of voluntary servitude. Only Involuntary servitude is banned.

    2. WTF

      The unions are glad the NRA defends their right to own politicians.

      1. Akira

        Oh yeah, the left is all about keeping “big money” out of politics… Until the AFSCME, SEIU, and teacher’s Union checks arrive.

  18. straffinrun

    Erdogan says Turkey no longer needs EU membership, his son calls Europeans “Indifels” (gavur)!

    His son Bilal Erdogan lashed out against against the European -the West- way of life in general and and called “gavur” (infidels) those Turks who “wear clothes, watch films, listen to music and eat Western food.”

    “In this country, nothing was allowed to be done nationally. Now, we produce our own aircraft, our tank, our rifle. […]. Why are we looking for these infidel attitudes? […] We are the grandsons of an ancestor with swords, rides, arrows, ” Erdogan’s son stirred told a crowd of western-suits wearing men.

    1. In other news the, Attaturk memorial power station is reporting record power output from the corpse dynamo.

    2. PieInTheSKy

      They will make their own Europe, only better with blackjack and hookers.

    3. tarran

      Reason #4,321 that fascism sucks. You’re only one new fuehrer away from an aggressive expansionist foreign policy that will bankrupt your nation, and kill or maim your citizenry.

    4. EvilSheldon

      And we’re going to back this fuck against the Kurds. Wonderful.

  19. PieInTheSKy

    In a rare act of collective defiance, scores of Cuban doctors working overseas to make money for their families and their country are suing to break ranks with the Cuban government, demanding to be released from what one judge called a “form of slave labor.”
    Thousands of Cuban doctors work abroad under contracts with the Cuban authorities. Countries like Brazil pay the island’s Communist government millions of dollars every month to provide the medical services, effectively making the doctors Cuba’s most valuable export.
    But the doctors get a small cut of that money, and a growing number of them in Brazil have begun to rebel. In the last year, at least 150 Cuban doctors have filed lawsuits in Brazilian courts to challenge the arrangement, demanding to be treated as independent contractors who earn full salaries, not agents of the Cuban state.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/americas/brazil-cuban-doctors-revolt.html

    1. Just a thought not a sermon

      Cuba never should’ve sent doctors to Brazil, a real country with a functioning justice system. Should’ve stuck to Venezuela, Russia, etc.

      1. PieInTheSKy

        I thinks there needs to be a bit of leeway in the use of the word functional in Brazil, though

        1. Hyperion

          At the rate they’re going with purging and imprisoning government officials on money laundering charges, there will soon be no government left. Libertarian moment?

    2. leonadasiv

      Damn selfish bastards! These capitalists are ruining communism!

      1. WTF

        It’s not surprising he wanted to make slaves of American doctors.

        1. invisible finger

          It’s amazing how many doctors support single-payer which will inevitably mean the government sets their pay.

          There is no stupider set of people about economics than doctors. Even the most retarded school teacher knows more about economics.

          1. Number.6

            Not only sets their pay, but has the ability to make those suckas work, and work it good, if the doctor is a specialist in an area where demand outstrips supply.

          2. WTF

            And of course the courts will find the 13th amendment doesn’t apply to doctors, because compelling interest, or something.

      2. Brochettaward

        If I were naive, I’d be baffled at how quick people are to take the statistics produced by a tinpot communist dictatorship as gospel.

        1. Michael

          One of their favorites is Cuba’s impossibly low infant mortality rate. I’ve left a few prog friends in a state of bewilderment by explaining to them that Cuba doesn’t count babies born prematurely as live births so they’re not factored into the final tally.

          1. To be fair to Cuba, that is Europe’s method of counting as well.

            It leads to less effort being expended on premies. As a result, it’s safer to be born premature in the US, with our higher official infant mortality rate, becuase the Doctors will actually try harder to keep you alive.

          2. invisible finger

            The typical government won’t even count a live birth until the baby has survived a week.

  20. LJW

    They’re making a big deal on how the LV shooter had 20 plus guns in the room. I suspect the next push will be to limit how many guns one can own. Or limit how many guns one can purchase within a time frame. Even though in this situation the number of guns was completely irrelevant to the outcome.

    1. LJW

      They being the media*

    2. Gray Ghost

      Reading your post, and the Daily Mail’s headline on the same, makes me think that Ken Schultz’s theory from last night—that shithead did this because he was a compulsive gambler, and he wanted to get back at the casino—has a few holes in it.

      The guns recovered from this guy’s room cost some serious money. Multiple Daniel Defense rifles, and an evidently legit registered fully automatic weapon (which hasn’t been ID’d yet, AFAIK). Those aren’t cheap. And I thought that your typical slot/video poker degen burned through just about every source of money possible before they hit bottom. WAG, but he had at least 20 thousand dollars of guns and ammo in that room, and probably a good deal more.

      Just doesn’t seem like the kind of thing a compulsive gambler would keep around if he could have liquidated them for cash.

      Though we’re going to keep hearing all sorts of outlandish theories until the cops/TPTB give us a clue from the guy’s writings/friends as to why he did this fucking thing.

      1. WTF

        I heard on the radio this morning that he was using a bump-fire slide stock, not a full-auto weapon. This makes sense from the sound of the fire I heard, it didn’t seem like typical full-auto. Of course now they will outlaw bump-fire mechanisms.

        1. Gray Ghost

          Per the Mail, he had a few of those too. But they explicitly said he had a legal, registered fully automatic weapon.

          Now, they’re Brits, so what do they know about firearms and US firearms’ laws? Still, that’s awfully rare if true.

          The rate of fire sounded weird. It varied but in a rhythmic manner. Not randomly like I’d think bump-fire can, judging from youtube videos of things like bump-SAWs and the like.

          1. WTF

            Yeah, given the astonishing ignorance of the media, it’s hard to know exactly what he really had and what they just think he had, absent a definitive statement directly from the police.

          2. Number.6

            I just couldn’t watch the footage, but are we sure the rate of fire change isn’t an artifact of the phone’s recording/streaming? A lot of hard surfaces around that arena, so I wonder if echo effects might not be an issue too.

      2. Q Continuum

        He had a helluva lot more than 20K in that room. The machine gun by itself costs more than that.

      3. invisible finger

        “Though we’re going to keep hearing all sorts of outlandish theories until the cops/TPTB give us a clue from the guy’s writings/friends as to why he did this fucking thing.”

        Unless he left a legitimate note, nobody will ever know. But thousands of hours will be spent speculating about it and coming to ridiculous conclusions.

  21. westernsloper

    The mass shooting in Las Vegas on Sunday night is the 273rd such event in America so far this year. It will not be the last.

    It is shit like this why sane people roll their eyes when the gun grabbers say “we need to have an honest discussion…” If you follow that link, what they claim is a mass shooting, is four gang bangers hurting each other where nobody dies, but a gun was involved. A most likely illegally acquired gun.

    Honest discussion you want? You go first by losing the bullshit data points. Until then, you will get nothing but an eye roll, a sneer, and a loud STFU.

    1. leonadasiv

      It’s interesting that the go for such obvious bull shit. You hear that and know that something is wonky with the way they are aggregating the data.

    2. Spartan Dad

      My new response to gun grabbers when they say that is to reply with “We need to have an honest discussion about your racism.” Then launch into the legitimate racist foundations and continuing legacy of gun control.

      1. Spartan Dad

        by legitimate, I just mean actually racist since that word has been twisted into meaning any thing nowadays.

        1. spqr2008

          I am certain that Progressives HATE “Gone With the Wind” as unwoke partly because of the fact that it accurately depicts said racism, and how it motivates gun control.

          1. Akira

            It’s amazing to me how many people don’t seem to understand the difference between depicting something and endorsing it. You’d think the lefties would get it; don’t they have a lot of unemployed literary criticism majors in their ranks?

            Note: I haven’t actually read or seen Gone With the Wind, so it could actually be racist for all I know… But it doesn’t sound like it.

    3. Gray Ghost

      I read this elsewhere, but Chicago kills and injures in a bad weekend as many people as were harmed by this tragedy in Vegas, and few people say anything.

      “…all part of the plan,” so no one cares.

      1. Not to get all Malcolm X, but when a bunch of dumb, lower-class, high school dropouts of a given complexion kill each other in the ghetto, that’s par for the course. It’s only when they leave, or when middle-class white people kill or get killed, that the left gets deeply concerned. Same reason that nobody gives a shit about opiate addiction in the white working class; it’s just a bunch of GED rednecks who probably got laid off from the mill or something, it’s not like they’re important people or anything.

    4. CZmacure

      This is a classic tactic, FWIW.

      The problem is that the typical “mass shooting” in America has these characteristics :

      1) perp is black
      2) target is crowd of black people at a party
      3) motive is unknown but essentially tribal
      4) between 1-4 people are killed
      5) between 1-10 people are injured

      Obviously, there are many reasons the mainstream press does not wish to discuss “mass shootings” through this lens. So we get appeals to the “200”+ number and we are supposed to assume that they are similar to the “mass shootings” they actually do report, which have the following attributes :

      1) perp is not black
      2) target is not a crowd of black people at a party
      3) motive is murder-suicide or ideology
      4) between 4-10 people are killed
      5) between 10-20 people are injured

      It’s really quite something, because you get “woke” people telling you how all “mass shootings” are perpetrated by white people (uh, and Cho, I guess) because they actually have no idea how a “mass shooting” is defined and how incredibly under-reported black-on-black “mass shootings” are.

      1. Badolph Hilter

        Spot on.

      2. CZmacure

        Oh, and I should mention :

        6) perp gets away in typical mass shooting, because he’s shooting from a distance into a crowd, because he wants to get away with it

        vs.

        6) perp dies at his own hand, or hand of the police, or is captured, because he is hanging around the crime scene, because he wants to be caught or killed

  22. Slammer

    Hillsdale had some lectures about the Russian Revolution.
    Beevor is a good one.

    Hope the link works:

    https://www.youtube.com/user/hillsdalecollege

    1. Slammer

      Under the Videos tab

    1. leonadasiv

      People disagreed with my actions, and didn’t see the value in my eyes, so I’m going to pout about how it’s because they are racists!

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        In her defense, it does look like everyone overreacted to her twittering. But there’s a valuable lesson there, if you live as a focal point of media attention and unearned praise for just being, then don’t be surprised when they turn on you for disappointing them in the slightest.

        1. PieInTheSKy

          If you say provocative shit some people will react to it… That’s why these people say things, to play the victim later. Because that is what she is doing.

        2. leonadasiv

          Oh I agree completely. Sure they overreacted, but just because people overreact in the slightest difference of opinion does not make them racist. That is the kind of thinking that gets you: everyone who disagrees with me is evil.

    2. straffinrun

      I thought my achievements could change people’s expectations of Muslims, and of Muslim women in particular.

      That’s quite a cross to bear for a young muslim woman.

      1. Rick C-137

        Yeah, it’s almost as though people should be judged individually and assuming the responsibility for the perception of your race is both arrogant and pointless.

      2. WTF

        Aaand…then you said Islam is the most feminist of religions, and crapped all over ANZACs Remembrance Day for your own political purposes, thereby confirming such people’s opinions of Muslims.
        Good job, dipshit.

        1. leonadasiv

          “confirming such people’s opinions of Muslims.
          Good job, dipshit.”

          Meh, I actually see most Muslims as keeping to themselves. No this is the kind of behavior I expect from an SJW. She just showed where her priorities are.

          1. WTF

            That’s why I qualified it with “such people’s ” opinions, not people’s opinions in general.

    3. PieInTheSKy

      “Islam, to me, is the most feminist religion” – thats is all one needs to read, really

      1. leonadasiv

        Apostate!! / Ayatollah

        Reminds me. Yesterday the guy driving in front of me had one of those equality bumper stickers next to a sticker on the t read Iranian flag. Some people just want to signal their virtue, not their intelligence

        1. kbolino

          It would be a plausible combination if it was the pre-Revolutionary Iranian flag. But I’m guessing not, since that flag is less recognizable.

      2. Q Continuum

        HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! (inhales) HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

    4. WTF

      I also then continued to say that “Islam, to me, is the most feminist religion” — a statement that ended up causing a furor, which went on for weeks.
      But it all really escalated after a seven-word Facebook post I wrote on Anzac Day, a national day of remembrance that was originally introduced to honor the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli in World War I. The phrase Australians use for remembrance is “Lest We Forget.” I wanted to make my sentiment more inclusive than just those who fought in that war. Who else should we not forget, I thought? So I posted the following:

      So people get upset when you peddle obvious falsehoods and post obnoxiously offensive things. It ain’t about you being Muslim or “brown”.

      *EDIT FAERIE HAZ UR BACK*

      1. WTF

        Fucking HTML tags, how do they work?

      2. Scruffy Nerfherder

        Barfly edit fairy, nice.

      3. WTF

        LOL – thank you Barfly Edit Faerie!

        1. Q Continuum

          We all know both you and Scruffy would.

          1. Scruffy Nerfherder

            I can’t help it if she’s age appropriate.

          2. WTF

            Well, depending on the strength of the beer goggles that night….

      4. Chipwooder

        I want thick edit faerie back 🙁

        1. We never know which one is going to show up.

    5. Brochettaward

      Would.

  23. Tulip

    GAH! Is HM trying to give me a seizure with that GIF on the front page?

    1. Rick C-137

      The answer is yes, always yes.

    2. I turned off image animation in my browser because of this site.

  24. westernsloper

    if the program is not renewed by then many children will not be able to see their doctor or get their immunizations.

    That’s right folks. Those children will be forcefully blocked from entering a doctors office. Maybe even pepper sprayed in the parking lot for even thinking about going in and getting immunizations because the taxpayer is not paying for it. It is known a kids parent is in no way capable of paying for their own kid.

    1. leonadasiv

      This is what I think when people talk about thousands not being able to get healthcare without Obamacare.

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        The millions will lose insurance without Obamacare is mendacious at best. The simple fact is that millions will choose not to have insurance.

    2. The Last American Hero

      A lot of coastal lefties are anti-vax. So this is a feature, not a bug. Until their kid gets a bug.

    3. mexican sharpshooter

      Pepper spray? My pediatrician is from TX, he posts two snipers on the roof.

  25. LJW

    I don’t normally post on Facebook but I’m very tempted to post this https://youtu.be/NM8xvE5B4yk. Just so people actually have an understanding of what a suppressor sounds like. Of course hearing it in person would be much more informative.

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Don’t bother, maybe in a week.

    2. Gray Ghost

      The Hillary Clinton argument is especially retarded since the loudest part of the shooting at 400 meters from the gun, (besides the screams) were the fucking bullets and their Mach 2 sonic booms. “Hey, are those firecrackers?”

      The actual muzzle blast—the only thing a suppressor would even slightly attenuate—sounded like low pops in comparison.

      1. Chipwooder

        You can’t fool me – I’ve watched a lot of movies, and silencers make almost no noise whatsoever!

        1. Gray Ghost

          -1 feather pillow held in front of the revolver to silence the report.

          There are some ridiculously quiet firearms though, as you know. Things like the Welrod, or DeLisle. Or heck, your average Ruger Mark 2 with a can on youtube, is pretty darn quiet with the right ammo.

          Wild Bill Donovan shooting the sandbag during one of FDR’s speeches, with no one the wiser, is a pretty interesting story.

          1. EvilSheldon

            .22s shooting subsonic ammo really are the best candidates for silencing. The cans are comparably cheap, and they’re amazingly effective. And you can usually swap between your rifle and pistol. Fun stuff.

          2. Number.6

            300 Blackout’s not bad either.

      2. WTF

        Hey, Hillary should know, she dodged sniper fire in Bosnia after all!

        1. JaimeRoberto

          The snipers were using silencers, which is why we didn’t hear them in the footage.

    3. CZmacure

      These people should watch PUBG streaming, and then they’ll understand the difference in sound between a suppressed and unsuppressed gun

    1. westernsloper

      lol

    2. Q Continuum

      Don’t doxx me bro.

  26. wdalasio

    OT, but I felt a need to share with an intelligent audience:

    The left’s contention is that thoughts and prayers are useless in response to mass murder, that only action, specifically support for their favored policies, constitutes a moral response to the killings. While I can easily enough mock the notion that support for a political agenda defines anything even bordering on defining one’s morality in the face of tragedy, I’ll focus instead on the nature of their proposed response. Action in response to something, be it thoughts and prayers or a proposed policy change, is only meaningful if it can be reasonably expected to change the nature of the world. An action could equally be standing on one foot screaming “Ishkabibble”. It would be an absurd response. Similarly, a shoe company demanding people wear, say, Nikes in response would be equally absurd. What’s more it would be seen through as a ghoulish attempt to profit off of the murder of innocents. Thoughts and prayers aren’t an attempt to change the factual nature of the world, but to address people’s emotional state. It’s an attempt to tell those suffering that, as bad as their situation is, others have sympathy and compassion for them. But, what about the left’s policy agenda? All of the available research suggests it will do nothing more to reduce killings than standing one one foot screaming “Ishkabibble” or buying Nikes. And given the left’s defined preference, even before the shootings, was to reduce the availability of firearms, the latter looks like a more apt comparison

    1. leonadasiv

      We’ll put.

    2. Scruffy Nerfherder

      You will note that the proposed actions cost most of them nothing as they do not have guns nor wish to have them. It’s easier to give up someone else’s rights for them.

    3. Lachowsky

      It’s the, “we have to do something” that is prevalent in leftists. Even if that something is to shit on other people’s rights and that something does nothing to solve the problem or makes the problem worse.

      1. invisible finger

        Again, they scream “morality” to deflect the fact that they cannot be trusted.

      2. Badolph Hilter

        Even Especially if that something is to shit on other people’s rights

    4. Badolph Hilter

      But remember, they’re also the party of empathy and compassion. I know because they tell me so.

    5. If they make guns illegal, they’ll be harder to get, you see, and things like this will be less common.

      Mind you, they’ll still be available via the black market, as they are in most of the rest of the world, but it will be more difficult to get them.

      Except, of course, for the kind of people who routinely commit murder or other violent crimes, people who typically have connections or can make connections with other people who have access to black market weapons.

      So there will be fewer mass shootings. Well, fewer mass shootings committed by people who aren’t typically the kind of people who would shoot people. Gangsters and drug dealer and hitpeople and so forth will still shoot people, sure. Oh, and terrorists. But people like you and me, we won’t. Because of the law preventing us from legally obtaining guns.

      1. one true athena

        And of course Paddock with his gun collection worth tens of thousands, and a professional gambler in Las Vegas could never have found any one willing to sell him a black market weapon! Threat of jail time? gosh, he was planning to murder dozens of people and kill himself, do we really think he gave a shit about the jail time?

  27. Gray Ghost

    Re, the sports part of the links. Sloopy, you should get a bet down then on the Twins if you’re that confident. +225 action doesn’t happen everyday.

    I don’t think the US will end up in the play off with the Asian Federation, though God knows they deserve it, instead of qualifying outright. Man, was Klinsmann the wrong choice. And I actually liked the guy coming here.

    Anyway, they should beat Panama at home, since they tied them on the road, and they should beat the hapless T&T squad, even in Port of Spain. Two wins’ll give them 15 points, which would vault them ahead of Panama for the third spot. They aren’t catching Mexico or Costa Rica, but who cares? I doubt Honduras can pick up two wins to hold position with the US, and besides, the US has a monster goal differential lead.

    1. Chipwooder

      Over the last 15 years, the Twins are 31-78 against the Yankees. That does not include their 2-12 playoff record against them, which comprises 4 ALDS, including two sweeps.

      Severino has been dominant this year, and in a one game playoff Girardi will go to Chad Green if he runs into the slightest trouble, regardless of the inning.

      1. Gray Ghost

        2-4 this year, with 0-3 at Yankee Stadium, getting outscored 6-18 in those three games. One of those being a game where Santana pitched, going 5 2/3, giving up 2 ER, 7 H, 1 BB, with 3 K and 1 HR on 96 pitches. I’ve seen worse, but yeah.

        Severino did get shelled in one of those three games at Yankee Stadium, giving up 3 ER on 5 H and 1 BB in only 3 innings of work.

        I don’t claim to know who’s going to win, but I do know that +225/-240 seems pretty high for a playoff game.

        1. Rufus the Monocled

          The Twins have a sorry record against the Yanks since, like, forever. I wouldn’t touch them.

          1. Pope Jimbo

            What about the MInnesoda Triplets?

            Would you touch them?

          2. Chipwooder

            Yes. I’d like it even more if they were touching me.

          3. MikeS

            In the words of every financial disclaimer I’ve ever seen:

            Past Performance is No Guarantee of Future Results

          4. Chipwooder

            Well, sure, it’s one game – anything could happen. Yanks are still the much safer bet.

        2. Chipwooder

          True. They didn’t hit him hard or anything, though – I watched that game and there was one line drive in that 3 run inning. A swinging bunt and a couple of routine grounders with eyes.

          And, again, if he does struggle, they’ll go to the pen quickly. Green will do his fireman thing, then you’ve got Kahnle (who’s been lights-out for the past month) and Robertson for a couple of innings each, then Chapman. If Sano were healthy, I’d be more concerned – apparently he’ll only be there as a pinch-hitter. He was a huge loss for them, by far the scariest guy in their lineup.

        3. Those odds are based on where the action is. Just because people are dumb enough to bet on the Yankees in greater numbers just means more scratch for me.
          I’m headed to my golf course at lunch today to lay down a little action with the clubhouse attendant/man who gets shit done. I’ll be gloating tomorrow.

          1. WTF

            We shall see, sloopy, we shall see…..

        4. Jerms

          I agree-im a huge Yankee fan, and i might put 100 on the Twinks–that line is insane.

    2. MikeS

      Sloopy, you should get a bet down then on the Twins if you’re that confident. +225 action doesn’t happen everyday.

      I was thinking of doing just that. How would one go about doing something like that? Honest question…never done it.

      1. Chipwooder

        Morrie at Morrie’s Wigs takes some action, and his wigs are guaranteed even in hurricane winds!

        1. Chokes Chip with telephone cord as his toupee comes off.

      2. Gray Ghost

        I have not done it either. I have placed bets at books in Vegas and Reno, but that’s not very helpful if you aren’t there.

        Know people who know people—and expect to pay worse than the usual 10 percent vig—or, I guess, try and see if you can VPN into something like Bovada or William Hill. You’d need a foreign bank account to fund it, I would think, and I’m not sure if something like netteller (what I used when I used to play cards for money online) is still around.

        1. MikeS

          A buddy says he’s been using Bovada for years and just uses his credit card to make deposits. He said it’s super easy.

          I did a little reading online in between fits of work. A couple articles I found claim the laws are muddy and vary from state to state and besides, no-one has ever been charged for making online bets. I wish I knew more about this shit…would love to put a bet on the long shot tonight.

          1. Gray Ghost

            I guess you could just try it. The fear, at least when I played poker, wasn’t going to jail, it was companies confiscating your loot.

            I had thought that online betting sites looked cursorily at your IP address to ban you. Pokerstars does, and they are supposedly monomaniacal about stomping on VPNs. If you can just login, use your CC to bet and use it to cash out, then have at it. Sounds easy.

            I toy with the thought of online betting, then I remembered the time I tracked my NFL bets for a year, and didn’t come close to winning enough to beat the vig.

          2. MikeS

            I went ahead and did it. I’m not a big bettor (only planned on betting about $20 on them) so I figured I didn’t have much to loose. $25 is the min deposit, and I got a 50% bonus for signing up. Go Twins!

            FYI: Bovada currently has Twins +220 Yanks -260

    3. Chipwooder

      The rosters have been announced, and Sano isn’t playing at all. Yanks get a stroke of good luck.

  28. Rufus the Monocled

    People ganging up on the gun control thing are retarded beyond belief.

    From not grasping stats, to knowing the actual gun laws and data about guns used in a crime, to permitting outlier events drive their screams for policy change against an amendment.

    If not a gun, it would have been something else. For example these days, we notice, automobiles have become a killing machine of choice for terrorists.

    And yes, you’re an absolute piece of shit for politicizing it after the event.

    Full stop.

    Over to you, you fucken stupid evil cunt Hillary.

    1. Tonio

      “But guns are specifically designed to kill people.”. -Actual prog talking point

      1. EvilSheldon

        My response is usually something along the lines of, “Yup, mine sure are.”

    2. Lachowsky

      As far as people not knowing the laws-

      I read a couple gun blogs at work last night. In the comments I read several gun people claiming that machine guns were already illegal in the U.S. Even gun people don’t know the laws.

      1. Suthenboy

        I am pretty sure murder is illegal.

    3. Badolph Hilter

      As ever, it’s the insufferable smugness layered on top of the stupidity and ignorance that really get to me. I’ll never understand how people can be so sure that they’re the only smart ones in the room, when their arguments and proposals collapse under even the tiniest bit of prodding.

  29. robc

    What results are you seeing that ends up with the US finishing fourth?

    With the games to be played, not finishing third seems really difficult.

    1. Certified Public Asshat

      US draw Panama again, Panama beats Costa Rica because CR have already clinched second after beating Honduras?

    2. Gray Ghost

      They could lose to Panama at home, and be proper fucked. But then, they’d utterly deserve to be.

    3. We haven’t exactly lived up to our supposed potential. I’m predicting our run of shitty form to continue.

  30. MikeS

    A good post from The Art of Manliness. I’m biased because L’Amour is my favorite author. But it really is a good write up for two reasons:
    1. The beginning of the article is a quick biography. L’Amour lived a very interesting early life.
    2. He does a good job conveying L’Amour’s strong love for books (one reason L’Amour is my favorite author)

    The Libraries of Famous Men: Louis L’Amour

    1. Tundra

      Terrific article!

      Given the traveling and working L’Amour did in the West, that’s the direction he followed, not out of passion necessarily, but because that’s where the market was leading him and where he ultimately found success.

      The market is aways right!

    2. A Leap at the Wheel

      Can you recommend a first book to get introduced to him with?

      1. MikeS

        Wow, that’s tough. Very short answer; The Daybreakers A good read, and it will introduce you to the Sackett family. He wrote many books (17 if memory serves) about this fictional family. And there was a TV movie based on them.

        Another option would be one of his short story collections. Hills of Homicide is one of my favorites, and it is a fun change of pace because it is detective stories instead of westerns. IMO he was very good at noir-type detective stories. I wish he would have wrote more of them.

        The people in this building with me are making me do work for a while. Give me a bit and I will post a better, longer answer asap.

      2. MikeS

        FYI: Most of L’Amour’s books are true pulp fiction books. They generally come in around 200 or so pages so you don’t need a big time investment to read more than one of his books and decide if he’s to your tastes or not.

        One other note: L’Amour meticulously researched all his books and had visited nearly all the locations he wrote about. While the stories are fiction, the background events and the locations -and even some characters in some stories- were very real.

        Some more suggestions:

        Hondo – Great story and the basis for the John Wayne movie of the same name

        Last Stand at Papago Wells, The Broken Gun, The High Graders, The Quick and the Dead; all good action-packed western novellas.

        As for novels;

        Last of the Breed – A great “modern” adventure tale about an USAF pilot escaping from a Soviet Siberian prison.

        Comstock Lode – A great western set in the boom days of the Comstock Lode

        Haunted Mesa – My absolute favorite L’Amour novel. It’s set in the Four Corners area of the US Southwest. It’s set in the 1950’s or 60’s. It is a great combination of adventure/mystery with a dose of supernatural to boot. The first time I read it I got chills more than once. A very fun read.

        Sorry for the wall of text. If it helps make another L’Amour fan or two, it’s worth it. 🙂

        1. Tundra

          I’m sold. haven’t read him in years.

          Will load the Kindle and report back!

        2. A Leap at the Wheel

          Wall of text appreciated. I picked up the first Sackett book because I *cant* start in the middle of a series. Haunted Mesa sounds cool, but I can’t find an audiobook. May be time for me to finally figure out if I can get a good text-to-speech-to-mp3 pipeline set up for myself.

          1. MikeS

            If you find you like him and keep reading, be aware that the order he wrote the Sackett series in is not the same as the chronological order of the books. It’s probably not an issue now that he has passed long ago and the series is set (especially with digital books), but while he was still alive they were numbered in order of release.

            The Louis L’Amour website has good info on the various series he wrote, short synopsis of all the books, etc., etc.

          2. A Leap at the Wheel

            Good to know. Looks like Daybreakers was published first. I prefer to read in publication order (or writing order, if that’s not the same).

        3. Apples and Knives

          Last of the Breed is the only one of his I’ve read. I liked it a lot, thought it would have made a great movie.

          1. MikeS

            thought it would have made a great movie.

            I couldn’t agree more.

  31. Q Continuum

    Because hopefully today will be better than yesterday… titties!

    http://archive.is/cU63d

    15, 20, 26

    1. Jefe Hayek

      2, 15, and 26. And 36, but she was 1 from yesterday

    2. Chipwooder

      I’m partial to 3 and 35

    3. Tundra

      I like 5 today.

    4. DEG

      I’m running late for the office, so no time for an orgy. #2 and #38.

    5. Troy

      19

    6. Gray Ghost

      It’s funny how many of these gals—per Google image search—are pros.

      The nice thing is, if you don’t like this picture of them, they generally have another gazillion to choose from.

    7. Gordilocks

      Another great collection, sir.

      I’ve seen a few of these girls in previous posts ….. but hey, the regulars are good.

      I’ll be in my bunk ….. literally.

  32. Rufus the Monocled

    Great article on Seeking Alpha about taxes in the USA:

    https://seekingalpha.com/article/4111134-trumps-tax-reform-matter-growth?ifp=0

    “..The rise in the total taxes collected seems to be accelerating, but as I pointed out in the first chart, the total taxes collected as a percentage of the size of the economy have remained flat, so the rise in taxes collected is proportional to the growth in the economy.

    Government spending on the other hand has not risen in proportion to the economy. It has been outpacing the proportional growth of the economy, and thus we have had larger federal deficits each year, which causes the national debt to increase at an accelerating pace.

    The “federal deficit” published by the government and cited across all media outlets is a misleading figure because of the way the government classifies certain expenditures. The accounting the government uses is very favorable to make it seem like it is spending less than it actually is by classifying some spending as “investment” and not including that into the annual deficit calculation. (Although that spending does count towards the national debt).”

    Three things we’ve figured out:

    1) Fuck you, cut spending.
    2) And even if you tax the shit out of the rich, it’s not enough.
    3) Fuck you, cut spending.

    1. PieInTheSKy

      I disagree with claims like this

      “Furthermore, the Trump tax plan is claiming that taxes will be reduced for both corporations (which do not need it) and individuals. ”
      To the fact that corporations dfo not need tax cuts. The fact of the matter that the status quo in many countries is bad. Corporate taxes are big, but not payed due to all sorts of deductions. This imo is cronyism as it helps politically favored corporations over others. A company that has little access to deductions or cannot afford the army of lawyers and accountants is unfairly disadvantaged. It is not the case that all corporations pay low tax, just that some pay low to non, others pay loads. This is bad.

      Second the distinction between corporations and individuals is iffy. In the end individuals pay.

      “The bottom line is that tax reform has never been successful in creating economic growth because there has never been true structural change in the tax policy. The tax rate on the entire economy has been remarkably flat through time with various tax policies, and the spending side of the equation has never been reformed in conjunction with tax cuts. That is why I can say that this tax plan does not matter. ”

      Also even if total tax remains the same, it may matter how that tax is structured. Even a simplification of tax codes can help by people and companies wasting less time and resources for compliance. I wold rather have one clear tax instead of 10 shady ones even if revenue neutral. Off course, overall spending cuts and tax reductions would be even better.

      1. kbolino

        it may matter how that tax is structured

        It absolutely does. How the tax is structured plays a role in how people allocate scarce capital. Hell, that is the entire underpinning of supply-side economics, and also punitive excise taxes for moralistic reasons (cigarettes, soda, etc.).

        Whether or not tax changes contribute to overall economic growth is a much fuzzier question to answer because tax-driven decisions are only a small part of the total picture. But, there’s never been a tax cut that didn’t lead to a Federal revenue gain, so at the very least tax cuts stimulate tax compliance.

        1. invisible finger

          Punitive excise taxes are the government flat-out telling everyone that war is the health of the state.

        2. Psycho Effer

          The tax structure determines what activities are penalized and what activities are incentivized. That, to me, is the most important part of any “reform”.

    2. PieInTheSKy

      The corporate tax issue is just because people don’t understand economics and want those evil rich corporations and companies to be taxed. Even if few countries get most of their revenue like that. A low, simple, corporate tax rate would reward companies that spend their time providing goods and services rather than minimizing their tax burden and lobbying government

      1. Lachowsky

        People don’t understand that corporations pay taxes by raising prices. Consumers bear the burden of higher taxes on corporations.

        It’s really simple. Idiots think that taxing corporations will punish the “1%”. Stupid people don’t realize that they will be the ones financing the tax hike.

        1. invisible finger

          The best way to increase business taxation is to encourage the creation of more businesses.

          I’m just not sure the tax rates are what is really discouraging business creation – seems like the trillions of regulations are what’s doing that.

        2. robc

          If you want to tax the 1% more, get rid of the corporate tax and require corporations to pay out a certain percentage of retained earnings as dividends*, so that the money goes thru the tax system faster.

          Healthy dividends are a good thing. Prevents fraud, for one.

        3. Rasilio

          Technically not true.

          This assumes that companies have an unlimited ability to control prices and they do not.

          What is true however us that the corporate entity never pays the tax, some combination of individuals always do.

          It could be the consumers via higher prices
          It could be vendors via the company being willing to spend less for inputs
          It could be employees via lower wages
          It could be owners(or stockholders depending on the corporate structure) via reduced profits

          Among the 4 a company has the least ability to demand lower vendor prices or higher consumer prices but they would be the companies preferred way to raie the revenue to pay the tax. Lower profits are an unlikely source as they are almost always already taking the minimum profit margins that make the venture worth investing in. That leaves employee salaries to bear the brunt of the cost.

          And when economists look into it what they find is that 80% of the cost of corporate taxes is “paid” for via lower employee wages.

          1. invisible finger

            The French solved that by outlawing layoffs.

      2. invisible finger

        True, but the lobbying will not stop and won’t even decrease. If anything, the Democrats should see a lobbying windfall if tax reform/simplification passes.

    3. Badolph Hilter

      taxes will be reduced for both corporations (which do not need it)

      Jeez I hate this entire framing of the discussion. The idea that government spending is “needed” is just taken for granted, and the only question is how to make the other guy pay for it. That at least half of the country takes this for granted is so damn discouraging. It’s fucking un-American.

  33. Nephilium

    For those interested, we’ve got a couple of people here who are planning to do a BIF (beer it forward), to share some of our local favorites. If you’re interested, feel free to post below, or hit up my handle at the mail of Google. Looking at a 72 oz minimum, expect it to cost $15-20 to ship it, and do not ship alcohol via USPS. Everyone will need to provide their address (obviously), which will be included in the package. As I’m organizing this (as much as it will be organized), I’ll send out the first package to someone on the list, and note that they’ve received a shipment. That person selects someone else on the list, and the last person sends a package to me.

    1. egould310

      Also, package it yourself at home. The packaging costs at FedEx Office and UPS Store are insane. Also, ship it Fed Ex. Find an independent shipping store that is authorized to ship alcohol via FedEx. And compare prices, independent shops can set their own FedEx rates, and there can be vast differences between shops. You can call shops with box dimensions and weight. It’s cheaper to ship to a business address vs a residential address. FedEx ground/home should take 4 business days coast to coast.

    2. mexican sharpshooter

      So we are talking local beer only? I just might play along.

      1. Nephilium

        That’s generally the point. There’s little reason for me to ship you a six pack of something from Sierra Nevada, New Belgium, or Oskar Blues (all good breweries, just very widely distributed) when it would be easier for me to just send you $20 to pick up your own.

        And to brag about Ohio for a bit, we did get 4 out of the top 50 spaces in Paste’s latest blind taste test (IIPA). But don’t worry, we’ve got several makers of world class stouts and porters as well.

        1. mexican sharpshooter

          sent

  34. Stinky Wizzleteats

    Man, those UFC donation comments are something else. A company donates a million bucks to a worthy cause and gets shit for it? I’m not really a fan of the UFC and their uberviolence but people really need to get a fucking grip.

  35. Tonio

    Headline from The Intercept, via Derpbook: “The White Privilege of the Lone Wolf Shooter.”

    Resisting urge to smash….

    1. Brochettaward

      As a white man, I’m entitled to one mass murder in my lifetime. It’s right there in the social contract.

    2. WTF

      It’s almost as if they don’t know there have been plenty on non-white mass murderers.

      Of the last 20 mass killings of that period, 9 were perpetrated by non-whites.

      That would be 45 percent, which exceeds non-whites’ 37 percent share of the population.

      1. Brochettaward

        Someone needs to do a collage of those mass shooters and caption it praising the diversity of America’s mass shooters.

        1. Badolph Hilter

          Ha.

    3. kbolino

      I wonder if there’s any overlap between people who’d agree with that perspective and people who’d agree that there have been “273 mass shootings” this year. The latter statistic can only come about if you include violence in the inner cities. I don’t think anybody’s going to pen “The White Privilege of Black Gangbangers” any time soon, but the doublethink is already there.

      1. SugarFree

        Black gang members are the white people of mass murderers.

        1. WTF

          I know I probably shouldn’t ask, but what are the Latino gang members?

  36. Slammer

    Lynx!

    Alaskan photographer got a visit and grabbed a camera

    1. Cat pictures. Must be the Internet.

  37. Troy

    fWIW, I consider Waco, Texas to be the biggest mass murder in the US, where the government killed 70+ men, women, and children.

    1. Tonio

      A good point, but one that will be lost on progs.

      1. Stinky Wizzleteats

        It doesn’t count as murder when the govt does it.

    2. That’s not even the biggest government-inflicted mass murder in the US.

      1. Troy

        Then I stand corrected.

      2. Gray Ghost

        Wounded Knee. The Trail of Tears. Antietam or Gettysburg, depending on your point of view.

        1. Roger Wilco

          Yeah, but who have we killed lately?

    3. Number.6

      That was righteous fire, and the weapons were sanctified by the nobility of the state.

      Incidentally, I got in a discussion years ago about Waco, and the idiot I was arguing with said the raid was because the Branch Davidians were targetted because they were “abusing children”. Now, I know that’s not actually true, but for those who remember, was that a media claim at the time, or was this bitch I was arguing just making up the story from her own whole cloth?

      1. Gray Ghost

        NYT article interviewing children after the massacre. Among the claims were that Koresh would have sex with 11 year olds.

        Not one of the counts in the indictment against Koresh, AIUI.

        1. Number.6

          Ah, that would have been where she got the idea. Bitch was a Carter-fellator too, of all things.

      2. Stinky Wizzleteats

        It was an after the fact justification if I remember correctly. Koresh was a bit of a predator but that’s not why they went in in the first place.

        1. westernsloper

          It is also a widely held belief by many progs that the way many religious fundamentalists raise their children is abuse on principle. They don’t even need to be wack jobs like Koresh. That has changed in recent times to hand wave away actual child abuse by certain Muslim sorts, but that is totes different. It is their culture dontcha see.

        2. kbolino

          The claims had been made before the siege, there was a series of stories in the local papers about it. The ATF and FBI actually used the allegations of child abuse as justification to deploy tear gas. The really galling part is that the courts upheld and defended it all after the fact.

      3. kbolino

        The whole situation was an absolute clusterfuck from the law enforcement side. Allegations of sexual abuse were definitely made, by the media and law enforcement, but no charges came of those allegations, probably in no small part because the primary culprit (Koresh) and other principals of the organization were killed in the siege. The ATF also claimed the Branch Davidians were running a meth lab, but no evidence of that was ever found.

    4. Lachowsky

      The largest mass shooting was Antietam. Nothing else comes close.

    5. Hammercorps

      I heard Paramount is doing a TV miniseries on that next year, actually. You think that they’ll go full-blown prog on it?

  38. Jefe Hayek

    I can’t decide of the gun grabbing left doesn’t remember that no one in the media referred to most of the islamic terrorists acts as terror until there was verified evidence (even when it was blatantly obvious well before that point), or if they are such shit heels that they know it and just pretend not to for their own sake.

    San Bernardino shooting, Orlando, Fort Hood, Dallas police officer shooting, etc. Those don’t fit the white privilege narrative, I guess.

  39. Rick C-137

    So another reminder for bluegrass glibs:

    I’m going to be at West Sixth brewing Friday evening probably around 530 if y’all are interested in meeting up, comment here or on the glib discord to let me know.

    1. Jefe Hayek

      I might be a little pressed for time, but I will definitely stop in for at least one beer. Will you have a rally location marked with balloons and flags? Will you be wearing a monocle? When I walk in I’ll just start yelling “taxation is theft” and you respond with “fuck off, slaver”

      1. Rick C-137

        All of the above?

        But for real, I’ll be the ginger bearded gent with a Rick and Morty t shirt hanging out on the side porch and probably smoking a cig with a fancy wooden stem.

        1. Rick C-137

          Like this gent but less old timey

        2. Jefe Hayek

          smoking a cig with a fancy wooden stem

          O, umm, look at the time. Sorry my dog just died Friday, looks like I can’t make it *runs away*

          1. Rick C-137

            Meh, I yam what I yam, moar beir for me.

          2. Rick C-137

            Besides I have to glib somehow and a false monocle just seems pretentious.

    2. Gilmore

      bluegrass

      False advertising. It is in fact just a different shade of green.

      1. Rick C-137

        But muh rods and cones!

    3. robc

      I would be there if Lexington and Bowling Green were even remotely in the same state. With all of the parkways in the state, you would think one would connect BG and Lexington.

      Back when I lived in Louisville, it would have been no problem.

      1. Rick C-137

        I’ll get you next time rob. No worries.

        1. robc

          Plus, have I mentioned I hate Lexington? The road system drives me insane.

          1. any thoughts on Concord?

          2. robc

            Concord, KY has less than 10 roads, looks pretty well laid out to me.

          3. robc

            The 2010 population was 35. Hard to screw that up.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    “But guns are specifically designed to kill people.”. -Actual prog talking point

    I heard that one yesterday, in response to something Hannity(?) allegedly said about still being able to buy diesel fuel and fertilizer in bulk.

    1. Brochettaward

      Guns are great at killing lots of things besides people.

      1. Brochettaward

        Like, have you ever seen what a gun can do to a Mexican?

        1. WTF

          But what about the ass sex and pot?

          1. Brochettaward

            It’s not like Mexicans are an endangered species here. They’re running around practically everywhere procreating like rabbits. They’re one of God’s more resourceful creations. There will always be plenty of them to enjoy with your ass sex and pot.

          2. WTF

            Ah *relaxes and lights up a blunt*

        2. mexican sharpshooter

          *buys more ammo*

  41. Count Potato

    “Former FBI agent Manny Gomez claimed on MSNBC on Monday that hunters use suppressors so that deer cannot hear the gunshots.”

    dailycaller.com/2017/10/02/msnbc-guest-hunters-use-suppressors-so-deer-cant-hear-them-video/

    1. Number.6

      Sounds like he’s pitching for a bit-part in the movie adaptation of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

    2. Chipwooder

      Um……what?

    3. Brochettaward

      Mr. Gomez is a former Principal Relief Supervisor and Special Agent with the FBI. He investigated terrorism and espionage cases as an agent in the National Security Division. He was a certified undercover agent and successfully completed Agent Survival School. He is a recipient of the prestigious FBI Investigator of the Year award for identifying and neutralizing clandestine activities by hostile intelligence services against the U.S. As a result of his investigations, members of the U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) received significant and substantial intelligence that was extensively used by the Executive Branch of the Government in formulating effective and productive foreign policy. Mr. Gomez worked closely in these investigations with the USIC, including the CIA, NSA and DOD.

      Mr. Gomez is also a former Sergeant in the NYPD where he supervised patrol and investigative activities of numerous police officers, detectives and civilian personnel. Mr. Gomez worked as a uniformed and plainclothes officer in combating narcotics trafficking, violent crimes, and quality of life concerns. He has executed over 100 arrests and received Departmental recognition on eight separate occasions.

      Mr. Gomez has a Bachelors Degree and Masters Degree and is a graduate of Fordham University School of Law where he was on the Dean’s list. He is admitted to the New York and New Jersey Bar. He served honorably in the United States Marine Corps infantry.

      Manny is also the Chairman of the Board of the National Law Enforcement Association (NLEA). He is also a member serving on the Board of Governors for the American Academy of Professional Law Enforcement (AAPLE). Manny is a member of the ASIS International Security Council as well as a member of the National Security Alliance (NSA).

      Good for a laugh. Tough to tell if he’s a lying cunt or just that dumb.

      1. kbolino

        As a result of his investigations, members of the U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) received significant and substantial intelligence that was extensively used by the Executive Branch of the Government in formulating effective and productive foreign policy.

        This bit stands out to me. It sounds like he’s a political hack.

      2. Lachowsky

        Mr. gomez is also either a mendacious cunt or a partisan hack.

        I live in an area that is rife woth deer hunters. I have been deer hunting since I was 8 years old. Nobody uses silencers to deer hunt. Nobody. We don’t use them for two reasons.

        1. They are a pain in the ass to obtain.
        2. A deer could hear a suppressed gun shot clear as day, making them useless.

        1. Psycho Effer

          “Mr. gomez is also either a mendacious cunt or a partisan hack.”

          Or? Those 2 things go together like chocolate and peanut butter.

      3. invisible finger

        Former NYPD tilts it toward “lying cunt”.

      4. invisible finger

        Also, what person over the age of 30 thinks “Dean’s List” is anything someone gives a shit about?

        1. I’d forgotten such a thing exists (and I was even on it)

    4. kbolino

      Former FBI agent Manny Gomez

      What part of the FBI did he work for? I’m sure the FBI has people who work on firearms cases, even though that’s technically the ATF’s beat, but I’ll bet this guy was nowhere near them.

      1. kbolino

        I had not see Brochettaward’s post when I was writing this.

      2. invisible finger

        Manny Gomez probably worked for the FBI in the accounting department.

  42. Pope Jimbo

    My favorite quote from the Marcotte story:

    The link between the legal and illegal gun market is nakedly obvious when you look at the situation in Mexico. Mexico has strict gun laws, but because of the legal gun industry in the United States, criminals in Mexico have a well-stocked black market to buy from. According to a 2009 report from the Government Accountability Office, “87 percent of firearms seized by Mexican authorities and traced in the last five years originated in the United States.”

    I wonder if the media could do some investigation and figure out if the US govt had ever contributed to the number of guns illegally sent to Mexico?

    I know Fast & Furious was a blip in the total number of guns, but does she really want to bring that shit up?

    1. Chipwooder

      Because cartels that smuggle shitloads of drugs across borders would really struggle to arm themselves if not for the Second Amendment. Makes perfect sense.

    2. Number.6

      Well, given that the Mexicans aren’t very well known for their gun manufacturing industry, almost every gun owned legally or illegally in Mexico is going to have originated in some country other than Mexico, and, given its proximity, it would not be surprising that even if Mexico had far fewer firearms, that most of them would have been sourced from a neighboring country that DOES have a gun manufacturing industry,

      Do these people even … nah.

    3. Brochettaward

      So, this is the global version of the argument used to rationalize away the failure of gun laws in blue states/cities? If only we could ban guns in every territory on the planet, our gun laws would be effective!

      1. kbolino

        Well, the North American version anyway. There was some European country thrown under the bus when Charlie Hebdo‘s offices and Bataclan Theater were shot up in France.

      2. Lachowsky

        If only guns were banned worldwide-

        We could have multi-billion dollar black market for guns and all the violence that is associated with black markets.

        Prohibition works so well that we should try it on another highly valuable amd sought after products.

      3. Q Continuum

        That’s not good enough. We need one of those MIB mind erasing machines to erase the very concept of guns from every single person on the planet; but only after melting down every gun in existence and destroying all CNC machines and blueprints for guns too. Then -> Utopia.

      4. invisible finger

        “If only we could ban guns in every territory on the planet, our gun laws would be effective!”

        Well it’s worked so well for banning drugs.

    4. tarran

      Amanduh Marcotte is as usual so full of shit that it’s running out of her ears.

      Most of the illegally owned guns do come from the United States, but not from private owners.

      The Mexican government gets permission to buy weapons for its army or police from a U.S. firearm manufacturer. The weapons are exported to Mexico legally and are transferred to the Mexican government. Then the guns are issued to armories or to individuals who then sell them on the black market.

      About 15 minutes of cursory research would provide a person with moderate reading ability with this information. Sadly, this seems beyond Amanduh’s capabilities.

    5. kbolino

      87 percent of firearms seized by Mexican authorities and traced in the last five years originated in the United States

      The United States is one of the world’s leading gun manufacturers, and Mexico borders the U.S., so why should this be even remotely surprising? Is the illegal drug trade in the U.S. the fault of Colombia just because a bunch of drugs come from there?

      Supply and demand, how does it fucking work?

    6. Count Potato

      “87 percent of firearms seized by Mexican authorities and traced”

      That’s a deliberately misleading statistic. As most of the guns smuggled in from other countries are not traceable. It probably also includes weapons purchased from the U.S. by the Mexican government.

    7. Suthenboy

      They are making that shit up. It’s a lie.

      Most of the guns in Mexico come from the south. Why would you pay 500 bucks for an AK from the US when you can get one for 20 bucks in Guatamala?

    8. JaimeRoberto

      My understanding of that statistic is that 87% of the weapons that the Mexican government submits to the US to verify the origins are confirmed to have come from the US, but that’s a small subset of the weapons seized. In other words, they are only submitting the guns that they already believe came from the US and leave out the ones believed to have other origins. Nothing underhanded about what the Mexicans are doing, it’s just that the statistic is being used in an underhanded way.

  43. Pope Jimbo

    OK, this is a bit deep in the comments, but I’ve been seeing this story pop up everywhere for the last couple days. Some PR flack is earning his keep this week.

    Minnesota jobs related to clean energy have grown more than 5 percent

    Go get your shocked faces, because the story doesn’t even touch the question about subsidies. If you didn’t know better, you would think that these jobs were completely created due to demand.

    The comments are a shitshow. A few people bring up subsidies but are shouted down by the True Believers.

  44. See Double You

    SNOWPOCALYPSE here…no power or heat for the last 13 hours…downed powerlines and trees across the city…and I DON’T HAVE TO WORK, RUFUS!

    1. Shivering is work, right?

    2. Lachowsky

      It’s 75 degrees here woth a high of 89.

      *southern privilege

  45. The Late P Brooks

    Mexico has strict gun laws, but because of the legal gun industry in the United States, criminals in Mexico have a well-stocked black market to buy from.

    This has always been a fantastically stupid line of argument, in my opinion, even back in the Fast and Furious days. The “cartels” have plenty of money, and the Mexican police and army are almost universally corrupt. There is no reason to think the Mexican crime lords are not importing shipping containers of arms (or just setting up factories to make weapons in Mexico). Why the fuck would we pretend they are coming to Texas to buy ARs one or two at a time, at gun shows?

    1. Q Continuum

      They get most of their weapons from the Mexican military itself. The line between the government and the cartels is so blurry that it’s tempting to just call Mexico a straight narco-state.

      1. Chipwooder

        Hell, Los Zetas was founded by a bunch of former Mexican special forces operators.

      2. invisible finger

        And a narco-state created by the US at that.

        That’s why I love when people try to play the morality game with me. Either you start with the immorality of the War On Drugs or you aren’t really serious about morality.

        1. Q Continuum

          Preach. The WOD (IMO) is in the top 5 most destructive things the US has ever done worldwide.

  46. Q Continuum

    They told me if Trump were elected, misogyny would run rampant and they were right!

    https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9885

  47. The Late P Brooks

    Most of the illegally owned guns do come from the United States, but not from private owners.

    The Mexican government gets permission to buy weapons for its army or police from a U.S. firearm manufacturer. The weapons are exported to Mexico legally and are transferred to the Mexican government. Then the guns are issued to armories or to individuals who then sell them on the black market.

    Excellent point.

  48. Troy

    So apparently it took 72 minutes for the pigs to take out the sniper in Vegas. What kind of cluster fuck? When seconds count, give pigs hours.

    1. Brochettaward

      Beats the 3 hours it took in Orlando while people bled out.

    2. Number.6

      Identifying the location of the shooter might have been very difficult, and here’s what isn’t clear to me. Once the arena attendees knew they were under fire, anyone who could have left the arena would have been able to leave the arena within 10 minutes or so.

      Let’s say 15 minutes.

      What was the nutjob doing for the other hour? Picking off the incapacitated?

      Anyway, my point is – the nutjob was smart enough to establish an excellent field of view, and sufficient cover to make countermeasures difficult.

      1. Q Continuum

        I don’t buy it. He had two windows shot out, it should take 5 minutes at most to match those broken windows to the room he was in.

        1. Number.6

          At night, under fire?

          I doubt the local cops themselves were doing much other than (to be generous) helping people get out of the field of fire. They probably have local protocols that demand that SWAT be used when an active shooter call goes out.

          So maybe there’s a 15-20 minute wait until the guys in spandex and kevlar turn up. Maybe then, they get NV set up and identify the room in the hotel within a minute or so.

          This is all speculation on my part, but I’m not sure a street-stomping, donut-eating LEO would even be allowed to start a counter-sniper hunt.

          1. westernsloper

            I don’t know. Anyone on that floor is going to know where the gunfire is coming from. There would have been numerous calls to the front desk. “Hey some mutherfucker is shooting an automatic weapon next door/down the hall!!” I am sure they knew where he was within minutes if not moments after the first burst. I saw someone comment (here I think) that uniformed cops engaged him and then retreated and waited for the spandex and kevlar brigade. I do not know if that is true, but I would not be surprised.

          2. Well, in the cops’ defense, if he’s shooting 7.62 or that’s going straight through the door or the wall, so trying to kick the door in is definitely going to result in getting shot. There’s a conversation to be had about whether you just do it and take the risk or wait for SWAT, but I think that’s a separate issue from whether or not the risk was there.

          3. Psycho Effer

            In those circs, I would be willing to tolerate them perforating the room from outside with a fucking mini-gun.

          4. westernsloper

            I would also think security would be aware if any one of those windows was broken. I think they would investigate that immediately.

          5. Number.6

            Too many variables to know for sure, but I’d doubt security personnel in those places are picked for their go-get-’em credentials.

            And frankly, I’d be a bit cautious playing “citizen hero” if I knew I was taking on someone with a warm, loaded long gun. What are the LV laws concerning carry for the citizenry?

          6. R C Dean

            And frankly, I’d be a bit cautious playing “citizen hero” if I knew I was taking on someone with a warm, loaded long gun.

            That’s the hard part. Stand by and listen to people getting murdered? Or step in and try to stop it and risk catching a bullet yourself? Its understandable if you decide to stand by, but I would have a very hard time living with myself. We ran through our active shooter plan for my office recently. It was the standard (run hide fight). I have a rather large fire extinguisher outside my office. I told the security officer that was Plan A, and I meant it. But you never know until the moment.

            Famously, the UT sniper was taken down by two cops with a revolver and a shotgun.

          7. Number.6

            That’s a bit different though, isn’t it?

            if you’re in imminent danger from an active shooter, on the move, ‘clearing’ your workplace, it’s a threat you can’t ignore.

            This is a situation where I suspect the shooter was barricaded into his hotel room, where you have no expectation of surprising him, and frankly, while you;re beating on the door, he could cut you down from the other side.

          8. Number.6

            (cont)
            … the calculus changes somewhat. Of course, that might be why it took so long to neutralize the threat.

          9. R C Dean

            Much depends on the situation, of course. A shooting down the street is one thing, I don’t know that I would go after the shooter in that situation.

            If I was on the same floor of a hotel, or in the hotel, and could get my hands on something that had a decent chance of breaking down or opening the door, though? Would I go looking for a maid with a master keycard? Maybe? Probably? I dunno. I just believe that if there was anything I could do that had a decent chance of ending the shooting, I’d have a hard time living with myself if I didn’t at least try, very hard.

          10. Suthenboy

            Security did investigate. Paddock killed him for his trouble.

    3. Badolph Hilter

      That’s one of those data points that I’ve been purposefully giving time before I take as fact.

      If that number stands, it’s pretty bad.

    4. Lachowsky

      The number one concern of police is to make sure they get home safely. That explains the delay. They were cautious. That’s why it took so long, because blue lives matter more than people being shot to death at a concert.

      1. Well, to be fair, this is a guy shooting from a suite way up in a hotel at night. He’d be difficult to spot from the ground while under fire, and you don’t dare return fire because you run the risk of hitting innocents in the crossfire.

        1. Lachowsky

          There were plenty of police in the area who were not under fire. Muzzle flashes from a window at night aren’t hard to identify.

          1. Number.6

            Well-lit building, in a well-lit city, shooter standing back from the window?

            I’m not saying that’s the reason, but I just think it’s way too early to be playing “Tuesday Morning Quaterback”

          2. Plus, as my wife pointed out, first you’ve got to recognize that the shots are coming from the hotel, and not from anywhere else. And you don’t know you’re not under fire until you’ve established where the shots are coming from and that there’s only one shooter. I’m playing devil’s advocate a little bit here, but there are feasible explanations why the response time wasn’t faster. It’s not necessarily that they were a bunch of Barney Fifes, is all.

          3. Number.6

            They could be Barney Fifes AND have a(nother) good reason.

            As SCOTUS would remind us, they’re not even obligated to put themselves in harm’s way. If something happened to them, who would file the reports?

          4. Add in the fact that it’s the Vegas strip – there are a lot of flashing lights there to disguise muzzle flashes even before we take into account reflective buildings.

          5. B.P.

            I heard an on-the-ground witness on the radio yesterday talking about how a bunch of the crowd stampeded over to the Tropicana (I think it was), and then a counter-stampede occurred when a rumor circulated that there was a second gunner in the Tropicana.

          6. Gray Ghost

            Go hunt around on the Internet for police scanner discussions and Las Vegas. You’ll find the police were looking for disturbances all over the place, not just in Mandalay Bay.

            Per Suthen above, hotel security did try to intercede, along with a regular LV cop, IIRC. They got shot. I think the security guy died, with the cop in crit condition. Add their calls to help to the bunch above.

            This guy was shooting 300 to 450 meters away from people. In an elevated position, with an automatic rifle. Even at night, where you might have a chance of catching muzzle flash, he’s going to be tough to see. Assuming you even think to look at that giant ass tower way the hell over there, and not at ground level, like every other mass shooting not in Austin, TX.

            How many people, once they realized they were being shot at, would know to use the difference between bullet cracks and muzzle pops to range and azimuth the shooter, and thereby know they needed to be worried about a guy a second or so sound travel away, somewhere over that a way? I only know how from playing FPS like Arma and watching youtube war videos. And I’m in my underwear thinking calmly, not in the dark, buzzed, freaked out after watching people get mown down like a combine taking down wheat.

            All that into account, 72 minutes isn’t great, but it isn’t half bad.

          7. I begrudgingly listened to the audio from video taken at the concert because my wife is a ghoul and we were both watching me win my hedge bets the Redskins-Chiefs game, and at first it doesn’t necessarily sound like gunfire. And it seems like most people didn’t realize it until several seconds into the shooting.

    1. Q Continuum

      I’ve actually made that argument to a Lefty friend and his rejoinder was (not literally, but in so many words) “Those countries with higher rates are third world shitholes filled with barbaric brown people so they don’t count.”

      1. WTF

        Of course, if you take away the few worst cities in America, like Chicago, DC, Detroit and Baltimore (that coincidentally have been ruled exclusively by Democrats for at least half a century), the rate in America matches the rate in most European countries. So what does that say, exactly?

      2. Gilmore

        filled with barbaric brown people

        …who we should embrace with open arms when they come here en masse

        Its one of those things that occasionally exposes the internal contradictions of prog-logic. their pretense is that “bad countries” are bad because of some failure of ‘systems’…

        …..as though what separates Americans from murderous hondurans is nothing to do with anything related to culture or our relative degree of learned-civility, but because we’ve got *better bureaucrats with better laws* which somehow magically restrain us from forming cartels and shooting each other in the street.

        the progressive mind is obsessed with the idea that people are controlled, top-down, by “good systems”, which is why they’re always pursuing more/better top-down controls. any flaws are the failure of bureaucracy – and when bureaucracy fails, its rarely the fault of the system itself, but rather just ‘bad apples/wrong people’ running the machine.

        1. Scruffy Nerfherder

          All cultures are not created equal.

    2. Jefe Hayek

      That graphic also includes suicides and accidents, which inflates the US’s numbers quite a bit

    3. Urthona

      Doesn’t 10 seem a little high? Isn’t it closer to 3?

    4. Jefe Hayek

      Look at this shitty Vox graph showing Australian suicides after the gun ban. It completely ignores an even greater decline before the ban went into place. And they didn’t even edit it out. They just know people who think guns are bad are too stupid/myopic to stop and say, “hmm, that’s weird, those numbers were already declining at roughly the same rate.”

      1. Brochettaward

        I need to see that graphic imposed over a chart of wildlife attacks on Australians. Just because.

        1. Number.6

          Australian Fauna – doing the killing Australian depressives won’t do.

  49. Q Continuum

    RE: Marcotte and other Lefty gun controllers.

    I know it’s not really anything new and I’m not saying anything that people here don’t already know… but whatever happened to “journalists” actually attempting to learn something about the subject about which they’re writing? These people so obviously know absolutely NOTHING about guns, gun owners, gun politics or court precedent relating to guns. They just have a fever dream informed primarily by a perception fed to them by Hollywood and by their own hatred and bias, then write an article that is completely divorced from reality.

    Again, I know this is not news to this crowd; but whatever pathetic standards of “journalism” that still exist get completely defenestrated whenever the topic of firearms comes up. It reminds me of a little kid deciding to write an essay about Brussels Sprouts. “Brussels Sprouts are icky. Why are they icky? Because they’re gross and I don’t like them. No one should eat Brussels Sprouts because they’re yucky. The end.”

    1. You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.

      -William Randolph Hearst

    2. Chipwooder

      +1 shoulder thing that goes up

      Yeah, I know, it was a politician and not a writer that used that bit of nonsense, but it’s still appropriate here.

    3. Nephilium

      Why do you think their ignorance is just limited to guns?

      1. WTF

        The Gell-Mann effect?

    4. invisible finger

      If you already think you are super-intelligent and enlightened, you simply have no need to “learn” anything.

      Learning is for inferior people.

    5. John Titor

      but whatever happened to “journalists” actually attempting to learn something about the subject about which they’re writing?

      The internet happened and the legacy media started collapsing. Now it’s all about who can corral an ideological group into their camp and publish constant clickbait for them.

  50. Chipping Pioneer

    Second time I’ve said this on here, but fuck Jimmy Kimmel. What a grandstanding motherfucker.

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Adam Carrolla was always better anyway.

    2. Ed Wuncler

      And I bet dollar to donuts that he would never ever invite a knowledgeable gun owner on his show because it would fuck with the narrative. The left always say that they want to start an honest conversation about guns but then start off by using bullshit statistics and appeals to emotion. How can you have a honest dialogue with someone who continues to lies?

      1. Juvenile Bluster

        He would, and then he’d talk over him repeatedly, mock his points, his crowd would cheer wildly, and he’d get even more positive press.

      2. An “honest conversation” about guns begins with them asking you if your right to own a firearm trumps a child’s right to not be killed, followed by you stammering, and finally breaking down in tears as you admit that you’ve been an ignorant, selfish monster.

        1. invisible finger

          The answer is “Children have no rights.”

          1. Number.6

            Those children there are just clumps of cells. Pretty much like a tumor.

      3. wdalasio

        The left always say that they want to start an honest conversation about guns but then start off by using bullshit statistics and appeals to emotion.

        Ah. I see you don’t speak Leftese. In Leftese, “honest conversation” translates to the English expression “Shut the hell up while I lecture you.”.

    3. Hammercorps

      In all fairness, pretty much every one of the late night talk show hosts are grandstanding motherfuckers.

  51. Brochettaward

    So, I know there’s no such thing as peak derp, but what about a derpiest timeline? Do we have a theoretical framework to assess this yet?

  52. Slammer

    TRUMP IS RUNNING AN AUTHORITARIAN FASCIST REGIME, AND WE MUST RESIST BY ALLOWING ONLY THE GOVERNMENT TO HAVE GUNS!

    1. kbolino

      We’ll thwart those evil Nazis by out Nazi-ing them!

      1. Brochettaward

        It worked well enough against the Muhammadans.

    2. Chipwooder

      That’s the purest form of resistance – by working to consolidate power under that authority of the state.

  53. Ed Wuncler

    As my friend said perfectly yesterday, gun laws are written by people that hate guns, know nothing about guns, are proud they know nothing about guns, and have no desire to learn about guns. Ignorance is a virtue to these people despite always claiming to be intellectual.

    1. Hyperion

      shockingly enough, they’re also the same people who trust government to take care of 100% of their needs.

    2. Psycho Effer

      More than that, they are also AFRAID to own guns themselves. This is because they know that they can’t be trusted with them. They can’t control their emotions so they would off themselves, or someone else at the slightest provocation. They assume that everyone else is as damaged as they are and also not to be trusted.

  54. The Late P Brooks

    As Fearless Leader said, “Laws are for honest people.”

    *Boris Badenov’s boss

    1. Count Potato

      Holy crap, 145 million.

    2. MikeS

      JW3‏ @mitjw3 17h17 hours ago
      Replying to @AP

      Would it be easier to identify who wasn’t impacted?

    3. westernsloper

      When are they going to be honest and just tell us, “If you have ever had a loan or a credit card your data has been stolen. Sorry about that. Have a nice day 🙂 “

    4. Rasilio

      this can’t be said enough…

      Ahem. None of those whose data Equifax negligently allowed to he hacked is a "customer."— J (@LibertyBelleJ) October 2, 2017

      1. Number.6

        Just as all of us who had our identities stolen from the IRS – TWICE is a “customer”.

        1. Scruffy Nerfherder

          Dude, the social contract you signed exempts them from liability for that.

    5. Badolph Hilter

      Pettywise‏ @Perspective08 19h19 hours ago
      Replying to @AP
      The only way to make this right is to wipe out student loans

      LOL

  55. The Other Kevin

    Whenever there is a mass shooting, the debate always seems to go straight to banning guns. But I have been doing some reading about copycat crimes, and I think that idea deserves attention. Here is a good article (yes, I know it’s from a LEO web site, but it makes good points)

    These murderers are both learning from each other and trying to one-up each other. It’s almost guaranteed there will be more shootings in the next two weeks due to copycats. The body count is at 59 now, and in the not too distant future someone will attempt to top that. I know there are 1A issues as far as reporting, but people seeking attention in the form of wall to wall press and they are getting it.

    1. invisible finger

      If you kill yourself at the end, you’ll never get to enjoy the wall-to-wall press.

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        I don’t think it matters much to them.

      2. one true athena

        Nah, they imagine the wall-to-wall press and that’s enough. Dude was probably fantasizing of Jimmy Fucking Kimmel doing a monologue about gun control when he shot himself.

        1. Psycho Effer

          ^ This. There is no apparent ideological motivation for this particular shooting. Fame-seeking seems a good fallback motivation based on our current culture.

    2. The Other Kevin

      Tell that to the Columbine killers.

      1. Chipwooder

        Or the countless turds who have cited them as an inspiration for their own mass killing, like Cho Seung-Hui.

        1. Number.6

          Maybe we need common-sense reporting controls, so that we can deny other fame-seekers the opportunity and need to kill.

          Quick, let’s get Wayne LaPierre to tell us what journalists think about this – a total blackout on all reporting of the event, backed by government force. Confiscating macbooks and cameras if necessary.

          If it saves one kid, it’d be worth it right?

  56. The Late P Brooks

    As for this-

    Lynx!

    Alaskan photographer got a visit and grabbed a camera

    Seven kittens? Times must be good for those Alaskan lynxes.

  57. Lachowsky

    Just because it hasn’t been said here yet-

    Molan Labe.

    And I mean it.

    1. Q Continuum

      Preach it son.

    2. Hammercorps

      +1 this

    3. True. As someone said here yesterday (Vhyrus?) if the left wants to use this tragedy as an excuse to take guns away from law-abiding citizens, they’d better damn remember that, you know, we’ve got a fuck-ton of guns and know how to use them. That’s why you never rob a gun store.

      1. Number.6

        That’s why if you’re sane, you don’t rob a gun store.

        Youtube is instrumental in demonstrating that some people really are that stupid.

  58. Q Continuum

    TW: TOS. However, credit where credit is due, and they’ve typically been pretty good on 2A.

    http://reason.com/blog/2017/10/03/this-is-the-time-to-defend-the-second-am

  59. Chipwooder

    Point:

    Ben Rhodes
    ‎@brhodes

    There are always different motives and shooters from different backgrounds; the tragic thing in common is that they all had powerful guns.

    7:44 AM – Oct 2, 2017

    Counterpoint:

    Anthony Bialy ‎@AnthonyBialy

    As powerful as the ones your White House gave to Mexican drug lords? https://twitter.com/brhodes/status/914818408377700352

    3:27 PM – Oct 2, 2017

    hahahaha

    1. Brochettaward

      For all the shit Twitter gets, and rightfully so, it has been a great equalizer. Where else can you harass and verbally abuse pompous pricks like Ben Rhodes (and/or athletes)? People who you just know never venture out of their little bubbles where everyone blows smoke up their asses?

      1. Rufus the Monocled

        Yeh but then they just say, ‘see what we betters have to deal with? People are ignorant deplorables!’

  60. F. Stupidity Jr.

    That insufferable bitch Jimmy Kimmel needs to be roundly mocked at every turn. He turned on the water works when Don Rickles died, then when he talked about how he needed universal health care for his son, now about the shooting in Vegas. Someone should run split screen videos on Twitter, YouTube, etc of Kimmel blubbering on the left side of the screen, and Glenn Beck on the right side doing his crocodile tears routine. At the very least, it should be good to see progs explain why Kimmel’s crying is reasonable and merited.

    1. Hammercorps

      Mocking doesn’t seem to work. How about ignoring?

    2. invisible finger

      The Girly Man Show.

      Maybe he’s stumping to co-host The View.

    3. Brochettaward

      I’m just more disappointed that this is a guy who once co-hosted The Man Show.

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        Actors hired for a role

        1. invisible finger

          Just like newsreaders.

    4. Chipwooder

      The friendship between him and Carolla gets more incomprehensible every day.

      1. Number.6

        Then the Maher/Coulter friendship must leave you flabbergasted.

      2. I have an old friend who, when the revolution comes, will probably put me against the wall first. It happens.

      3. Rufus the Monocled

        It must leave Carolla nodding his head but I think we all have those friends in our groups.

    5. Rufus the Monocled

      Yeh, Kimmel has lost his mind.

  61. Lachowsky

    WRT the Vegas shooting media coverage-

    I keep hearing about the shooter’s arsenal.
    Words have meaning.
    An arsenal is place that weapons are stored.
    The shooter had a cache, or a collection, not an arsenal.
    This irks me.

    1. Scruffy Nerfherder

      Are you terribly irked?

    2. Number.6

      How dare you harsh the media while they’re forming their narrative and preparing the (trigger warning) battlespace?

    3. mexican sharpshooter

      What irks me is that everyone mispronounces the word cache.

      1. Scruffy Nerfherder

        Mispronunciation is their forte.

        1. F. Stupidity Jr.

          If I had a coupon for every time that happened…

    4. Rasilio

      Technically would his home not qualify as an arsenal?

      He had a fairly large supply of weapons and they were stored there ergo it is an arsenal

      1. Number.6

        That would depend on whether he had a purpose-built storage facility ‘THE Arsenal’, vs just having them all lying a round the house, which would probably be a lower-case ‘a’.

    5. It’s funny, when they mention the number of guns the guy had, everyone I know who doesn’t own guns is like, “Holy crap, so many guns!” and everyone I know who does is like, “…and?” If you hate guns, one is too many. If you like them, 42 isn’t unusual.

      1. I spend too much on plastic crack, I can’t buy 42 guns.

        But I do not see a small collection like that as anything strange.

        1. I hear you. That’s part of the reason I do 80% builds. It’s like buying a rifle in stages.

          But yeah, my dad had a walk-in closet with a padlock that was “the gun closet”, and there were easily 60 guns in rotation. Long guns, not talking about pistols, of which he had probably 20 that I knew about. Mind you, that included everything from an old Smith and Wesson .22 derringer to a .357 magnum. There were guns he wouldn’t part with, but mostly he’d pick up a rifle or a pistol because he thought it was neat, then sell it or trade it for another.

          1. I’m hampered by being a ‘hoarder’ style of collector. Once I own something, I am loathe to part with it.

    6. Q Continuum

      +Arsene Wenger

    7. That fuckhead Morrissey ruined the definition of Arsenal a long time ago.

      1. Gray Ghost

        Oh, you just hate it when your friends become successful.

        1. CZmacure

          *slow clap*

  62. The Late P Brooks

    I don’t know, and I wasn’t there, but I have been in Vegas. Those hotels have reflective coating on the windows to reduce the solar oven effect in the daytime. There is a lot of ambient light on the strip at night, making those hotels look like giant glass monoliths. I suspect it would have been extremely difficult to pick out a muzzle flash from across the street, on the ground, even under ideal conditions.

    As for reports of gunfire coming from inside the hotel… An hour seems like a long, long time to isolate the source.

    1. invisible finger

      I’m sure procedures were followed and more training is needed.

  63. KibbledKristen

    My office mates are talking about GUNZ!

    FML.

    (10 hours of cosmic background radiation – engaged)

    1. Number.6

      Where they can get some, or how they can eliminate all of them?

      Inquiring minds need to know.

      1. KibbledKristen

        The latter

        1. I should probably bite the proverbial bullet and buy an AR reciever before New York goes crazier.

          1. Number.6

            Get 2.
            The second one for a sweet 18″ barrel 300 blackout. For when silencers come off the NFA.

          2. New York has a separate law illegalizing suppressors.

          3. Number.6

            300 blackout subsonic, unsuppressed is still pretty cool.

          4. Gilmore

            18″ barrel 300 blackout

            from what i’ve read there’s no benefit beyond ~12″ or so (tho i guess you skip the SBR tax)

          5. Number.6

            When subsonic, probably not, but I find it hard to imagine a normal round of 300 blackout wouldn’t benefit from a bit more barrel length.

            After all, who can complain about a bit more barrel length? Winston’s mom didn’t.

          6. For when silencers come off the NFA pigs fly.

            I’m planning on building one of those myself, but I think SHARE just got deep-sixed. Hopefully I’m overly pessimistic, but I suspect you’re gonna need that $200 stamp to get a suppressor for the near future.

          7. EvilSheldon

            I’m hoping that the SHARE bill will be back after the Ryan wing gets a train run on them in the GOP primaries.

            Plastering Ryan’s dewy-eyed mug all over the news probably isn’t helping.

          8. I’m tellin’ ya, bump stock. If you want one, get one now. That’s going to be the “common sense gun regulation” that the RINOs meet the Dems on, I’ll bet.

        2. Number.6

          Sprinkle the whole world with unicorn dust and venonat dandruff, of course.

        3. Brochettaward

          Times like that are when I subject my coworkers to my male gaze. But I guess that’s not possible here.

  64. Gilmore

    Not much commented on: the Obama-détente with Cuba was short-lived

    I’d actually be quick to blame trump for this if it weren’t for the bizarre “sonic weapon used against diplomats” thing, which is apparently not a joke

  65. The Late P Brooks

    I’m a pretty laissez faire kind of guy, but even I would probably call the front desk and ask them to go tell whoever was shooting off fireworks in the room above me to knock it the fuck off.

    1. B.P.

      “Thank you for the call, sir. The police are responding to your noise complaint, so give it about 70 minutes or so.”

  66. The Late P Brooks

    It’s funny, when they mention the number of guns the guy had, everyone I know who doesn’t own guns is like, “Holy crap, so many guns!” and everyone I know who does is like, “…and?” If you hate guns, one is too many. If you like them, 42 isn’t unusual.

    Guns are kind of like mice, that way. You hardly ever only have one.

    1. A buddy of mine says AR’s are like potato chips; you can’t own just one.

  67. KSuellington

    I haven’t heard anything about how this asshole barricaded his room at the Mandalay except that the SWAT team used explosives to open it. That must have been a factor in the delay. If he took that much preparation then I am sure he could have made that door very hard to open even with a battering ram. I have had three situations where I have had to take down barricaded doors and 1 of them the methhead occupants made it essentially impossible to get the front door open with two guys swinging forty pound sledges full bore (seven feet thick of material lag bolted down behind it can do that).

    1. Gray Ghost

      If the hotel cops did take fire through the front door, SWAT may have made entry through the wall in an adjacent room. Which takes longer to set up—albeit with getting a lot fewer of your guys smoked.

      1. Number.6

        Well, the SWAT guys do have protocols for that.

        The guy probably realized the game was up when the wall(s) came down and capped himself before anyone even drew a bead on him.

        1. Gray Ghost

          And/or LV SWAT made sure he was down and out. Which I totally understand in an age of suicide bombers.

          16 or so guns in the room is a lot. Too many for him to realistically think he was going to be able to use. (Yeah, I know, “realistically thought” in the mind of a madman.)

          I wonder if he thought he was going to have help, and they backed out?

          Anyone nail down yet the provenance of the woman who told the crowd (or security) that they were all going to die in the next 45 minutes?

    1. KSuellington

      There is a reason I am not on Twitter. I get more than my daily ration of deep derp from the lynx here and living in Progressatopia.

    2. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Letterman said something similar. The braindead Hollywood scrunts have their narrative down, I’ll give them that.

  68. Q Continuum

    To be fair, this is what they’ve wanted for nearly a century, at least now they’re being honest about it.

    https://newrepublic.com/article/125498/its-time-ban-guns-yes-them?utm_content=buffer41236&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      Do it say we’ll at least get to have muskets as the constitution intended?

    2. Hyperion

      I strongly suggest that the progs start taking volunteers to just go door to door and start collecting all the guns. It’s the only way, Congress won’t do nothing. Get on with it already.

      1. Q Continuum

        From the twitter replies to the original article.

        “OK, fine. Win enough elections to get 3/5ths of the states to repeal 2A. Then you volunteer to go door to door confiscating all those guns. Yes, you.”

        1. Hyperion

          No time to wait for that, they have to do it now.

    3. mexican sharpshooter

      At least they’re honest enough with themselves they no longer attempt to first state they are all for the right to _______.

      1. Q Continuum

        I agree. This is actually a good thing. The masks are off. The battle lines are drawn. Choose a side.

    4. B.P.

      Article dated December 2015. I assume this can be paired with a later New Republic article from last campaign season with the theme: “No one is coming to take your guns you paranoid idiot”.

      1. Gray Ghost

        I assume this can be paired with a later New Republic article from last campaign season with the theme: “No one is coming to take your guns you paranoid idiot”.

        LOL this.

        Don’t doubt they’ll get the cops to go along with whatever scheme their judges and legislatures can come up with. Molon Dental is a powerful rallying cry, and it’s not like they’ll go door to door looking for guns. They’ll just take a look when you come across the bow of law enforcement for some other reason. Just like Euros, with all of their apocryphal MG-42s in the attic.

  69. Q Continuum

    RE: Proggy gun ban boners

    The Left is the definition of insane; they keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Did they not realize that 2A was a key issue in the presidential election? True, Trump is an unknown X-factor who has said some gun unfriendly things in the past. However, Hillary is a known anti-gunner who specifically ran on that as part of her platform and Trump did get the NRA endorsement and eventually started saying the right things on guns. He also nominated a staunch pro-2A guy to the Supreme Court. Does the Left not get that the presidential election (which happened less than a year ago) was a referendum on this issue? They can’t help themselves, they keep dying on this hill and never learn.

    1. KSuellington

      We really need to do the sameness thing for guns as we did for drugs, make them illegal and charge people who possess them with felonies. In short order we got rid of drug sales in this country. When was the last time you heard of anyone getting ahold of cocaine or heroin? It simply doesn’t happen. We did this in short order for almost no money and gained the world’s lowest incarceration rate at the same time. Bring on the War on Guns!!

      1. Stinky Wizzleteats

        The intent is all that matters, not the outcome.

    2. Hyperion

      They don’t deal in reality. They deal in feelz. They believe that if they can make all guns illegal, that guns will just disappear. They laughingly use Europe as proof that gun control works. They do not understand things like demographics and culture. The reality is more like Brazil, where your average citizen will find it next to impossible to legally own a gun, but gun violence is still higher than in the USA. Look for a dramatic increase in the following when legal ownership is gone.’

      1. Car jackings.

      2. Home invasions.

      3. Robbery of businesses.

      4. 10 year olds pulling a gun on you and robbing you in broad daylight.

      You’ll still be able to buy any gun you want on the black market. Then we can have a war on guns, because we badly need another war on something. Guys like Paddock will still get weapons and will still go on a homicidal rampage. 23 guns in his room, how many of those did he buy legally? Any?

      1. Badolph Hilter

        Look for a dramatic increase in the following when legal ownership is gone.

        This is one of the (admittedly many) things that really pisses me off when they trot out their stupid statistics about how “gun deaths” are lower in countries with tougher gun control laws.

        That’s nice — how about you show me the stats on home invasions, robberies, and rapes?

        1. Hyperion

          They cherry pick the countries they use. They don’t use countries in the Americas. Those are the same countries that would have lower rates of gun violence if guns laws were the same as here.

          1. KSuellington

            Yup, I lived in Brazil for a couple years and the place is awash in firearms even though you essentially can’t legally own them. A proggies wet dream where criminals have them and the regulars don’t. We would be closer to that than we would be to Holland if they ever got their ban dream to happen here.

          2. Suthenboy

            That is exactly what the gun grabbers want: a citizenry cowering in fear, beaten into submission. Totalitarians love them some criminal element as long as the criminal activity is directed at the citizens and not the regime.

          3. Number.6

            Or just being guilty of some minor, normally unenforced crimes, that become very convenient when the state decides it has to exert a little influence.

            Rand wasn’t wrong about that.

          4. Gray Ghost

            That is exactly what the gun grabbers want: a citizenry cowering in fear, beaten into submission.

            Neo-feudalism. With ultra-luxurious high-rise condo buildings, that you commute to by helicopter or armored car service, replacing the castles of yore. Filled with technocrat lords, covered in finery and dripping with the combined luxury of six continents: all of whom have more in common with each other, and feel greater affinity towards each other—no matter if in Sao Paulo, Santa Monica, or Samarkand—than they do with the people outside their doors.

          5. KibbledKristen

            Neo-feudalism….

            This whole paragraph is is an excellent turn of phrase!

          6. Gray Ghost

            Thank you, you’re very kind to say so, KK.

            Neo-feudalism is not mine, but the rest of it—though heavily inspired by Codevilla’s Ruling Class essay—is, so far as I know.

            The Sao Paulo (screw tildas) commuting by helicopter idea, is a real thing, according to family who’ve done business there. The crime rate must be something to behold.

      2. Q Continuum

        As stated above, to Lefties Brazil is just a third world shithole filled with barbaric brown people so it doesn’t count.

    3. They think they can use this as another Sandy Hook to get popular support for more restrictive gun laws. The funny (not ha-ha) thing is that they’re using this because it’s a crazy white guy with a bunch of guns killing middle-class white people in a vacation spot, so the optics should be good from the perspective of scaring people into making bad decisions. But because the victims are from a demographic strongly associated with conservativism and gun culture, they’re having a really hard time keeping their own prejudices in check. They’re basically looking at the victim demographic and saying, “NOW can we talk about how you’re too selfish, violent, and irresponsible to be trusted with firearms???”

      Yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna get a hell of a lot of traction.

      1. Even Sandy Hook didn’t produce Popular support. New York had to cram it through in the middle of the night with procedural shenanigans. Then when it produced the largest protest I’ve ever seen at the capital, did everything they could to downplay the crowd.

        Full story – At the time I worked in an office overlooking what we called “Protest Park”, which is the lawn of the state capital building where the protestors gather. A big protest will get at most 50% coverage of the grass. There were a few perrenial protests, and you could tell which ones had good finanical backing from astroturfers by the styles of signage and shirts.

        The SAFE Act protest had no uniformity of signage, got 100% coverage in the park and spilled over across the streets on three sides and up the stairs of the public buildings facing the park. I have pictures to prove it.

  70. Badolph Hilter

    A rare disappointment from Mr. Burge

    David Burge‏ @iowahawkblog 3h3 hours ago

    I’m eager to hear an explanation why bump stocks should continue to be legal.

    1. How about this – we ban bump stocks in exchange for legalizing natively automatic and select-fire, which is far safer to operate.

      1. ^This. From a certain perspective, he has a point. If full-auto is illegal, then any mechanism that produces the effect of full-auto should, by extension, also be illegal. But the reason bump stocks and cranks and all the other nutty shit people use to turn a semi-auto into a full-auto exists is because people want the capability and are not able to easily, cheaply acquire it due to regulations. And I suppose more to the point is that if your problem with bump stocks is that they produce a full-auto effect without requiring the background check for a real full-auto weapon, I submit to you that anyone able to control a weapon with a bump stock is going to be just as dangerous with semi-auto. If you ban bump stocks, and I think they may, someone will just find another way to achieve the same effect.

        1. Number.6

          That’s why I think binary triggers are also in the crosshairs.

          The responsible gun-owner in me says that really, they’re not a wise enhancement to a firearm, while the “bomb-thrower” in me says “FYTW” to the government.

          1. Today in “Things I Learned on the Internet”: apparently, binary triggers were originally made for shotguns, specifically for competitive clay shooting. Besides for whacky funtimes, they see use in stuff like 3-gun, and as a stand-in for 2-round burst fire. Although I agree, I wouldn’t be comfortable with a binary trigger for fear I or someone else accidentally forgets about round #2. Same with a bump stock; if I want full auto, I’ll get the stamp. I don’t want some whacky mod kit just so I can make a lot of noise and waste rounds.

          2. Psycho Effer

            I think all of these tricks to enable higher rates of fire are for amateurs. Regardless of that, none of it should be illegal.

        2. Tacit Rainbow

          You can do it with a rubber band, or with nothing at all if you practice. The stocks and other gimmicks just make it easier.

        3. Number.6

          The sad thing is that even if he’d stayed ‘pure semi auto’ he could have been nearly as deadly, given the amount of time and the crowd density.

    2. Hyperion

      The guy did not buy all of those weapons legally, so it’s a moot point.

      1. EvilSheldon

        To the contrary, I expect we’ll find that all of this turd’s firearms were purchased legally.

    3. Number.6

      It’s odd, because I wondered why Amanda Marcotte should be permitted to own anything more dangerous than a Hayes 2400 modem.

    4. R C Dean

      I’m eager to hear an explanation why bump stocks should continue to be legal.

      Sorry, burden of persuasion is on the proponent of a new law. You get to tell us why something should be made illegal. You might start with a straight cost-benefit analysis, identifying the quantifiable benefits of the new law, and whether they justify jailing and or killing those who don’t comply.

    1. Badolph Hilter

      I already clicked on two salon links this morning. You may be right, but I just can’t afford to take the chance.

    2. Urthona

      I believe that but I’m not a mass murderer.

      Yet.

  71. Hyperion

    Maybe it’s nothing and he just wanted to give his GF a parting gift. But.

    LV shooter wires 100k to Phillipines last week

  72. B.P.

    Can someone give a quick explanation on where this whole thing of calling people “bodies” came from? And why lefties all mimic each other like tropical birds?

    1. SugarFree

      It came originally from an essay by James Baldwin and it made sense in that context. Now it’s just a fad started by Ta-Neshi Coates because he’s a terrible writer and much admired by other terrible writers.

      1. John Titor

        Not to mention a virulent racist, which cannot be pointed out enough (and his stereotyping of white people is hilarious, he’s clearly only ever been around upper-middle class douchebag BosWash types).

      2. B.P.

        Interesting. Thanks.

      1. A Leap at the Wheel

        Oh shit, that ones not it. Haven’t read Baldwin in like a decade.

  73. Raston Bot

    some former NYPD stop-and-frisk cunt is running his shithole about giving up our liberties so others can observe some “right” that he just made up.

    “Let me preface what I’m about to say, so the civil libertarians understand what I’m saying, I believe the No. 1 civil right is to be free from harm. And in order to do that in a civilized society … we maybe have to give up a little bit of our privacy,”

    “We need to make people responsible for the guns they own. I’m not saying that we should do away with Second Amendment rights,” he said. “What I’m saying is, for instance, we should have a required safety check every year of somebody who purchases a gun. Bring in your weapon.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/02/howard-safir-on-las-vegas-shooting-americans-may-need-to-give-up-privacy.html

    1. Number.6

      Fuck you, pig.

      The last 17 years have seen far too much freedom and privacy given up by far too many people.

      1. leonadasiv

        That’s just it. This is the same shit that guy the Patriot Act passed.

    2. Number.6

      Now explain how that would have stopped the LV Shoot.

      1. Bobarian LMD

        It has nothing to do with stopping the next LV shooter.

        Just using the LV shooter to tighten the ratchet.

  74. The Late P Brooks

    the No. 1 civil right is to be free from harm.

    WRONG.

    *pulls lever operating trap door*

  75. DOOMco

    I just wanted a silencer for my ppq…